Chapter 64

Over the next three years, things seemed to settle down some on Crow Ridge as work went on as usual. There were no more confrontations with the Young Bucks or Marshal Crow from outsiders who wanted to make a name for themselves.

They were drilling oil wells at an ever increasing rate, with crews quickly moving from one site to the next. They had enough hired hands to start a separate construction crew which would dismantle and move a derrick from a producing well as soon as it was in operation and pumping. They would then take the derrick to the next planned drill site, erect and outfit the rig to be ready when the drilling crew arrived. Eli met with his oil men regularly and during their last two meetings at the office, they discussed ways to contain the oil around the wells and keep the spills and runoffs to a minimum. They each had ideas, but it was Smitty who suggested they use the big plow they’d used to lay their pipelines, and throw up a good size embankment around each new well before they started drilling. Smitty even suggested they go back to the other wells as soon as they could and get those cleaned up too.

The Young Bucks and the Crow girls were maturing at a rapid rate. The boys were now young men and the girls had already budded into womanhood in a most explosive way. They were all eager to help with whatever was happening and took part in making the coal and ice production and sales a huge success.

The Bucks still patrolled the river and the northern perimeters of Crow Ridge Cattle Lands regularly. At times, they were itching for trouble to come their way. The others were ready to prove their manhood, just as Little Eli had up in Boones Crossing, Kansas a few months before his tenth birthday.

Little Eli still rode the mare that Joe’s stud sired Cheyenne out of. Though he put a saddle and hackamore on the young Paint stud to let him run with them each and every time they rode across Crow Ridge Cattle Lands, he had yet to ride him.

Boy did Cheyenne love to run!

Crow Ridge
Tulsa, Indian Territory
May 1, 1888

Early in the spring of 1888, a well dressed, lone rider crossed the river from the west side when he spotted the huge, lush fields of alfalfa growing in the bottom lands on the east side of the Arkansas. The man was riding his big gaited horse around the edges of the large, well drained hay fields when Ben Barkley spotted him from atop the ridge overlooking the fields below.

Ben rode down the slope at a gallop, right up to where the man had stopped his horse to wait when he saw the rider coming toward him.

“What can I do for you, Mister? I reckon you know you’re on U. S. Marshal Eli Crow’s private land?” Ben said, eyeing the man carefully.

“Son, my name is Thurell Dirksen out of Dodge City, Kansas. I was admiring this big hay crop. You say there is a marshal who owns this land?”

“Yes, Sir. But I got to tell you now, that if you’re lookin’ to buy hay, we ain’t got none to sell off this year, dry as it’s been.”

“That just happened to be my next question. I am in need of hay. I mean I am desperate for hay!”

“Well, Mr. Dirksen, no need in you wastin’ time talking to me about it. You just ride up to the top of that big ridge over there and turn south ‘n east. You’ll come upon a big spread before you get to the river, where it bends back to your left some. Just ask anybody you see and they can tell you where Marshal Crow was last time they saw him. He ain’t a easy man to keep up with and you may not even find him in one day’s ridin’.”

“I sure appreciate the help. What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t say, but it’s Ben. Ben Barkley.”

“Do you work for Marshal Crow?”

“Sort of, I reckon. We’re partners with him really, my brothers and me,” Ben said with pride.

“Well, Ben. I hope we get to visit more about your hay fields before I leave here. Good day to you and thank you again for your help.”

“Yes Sir, and a good day to you too.”

“Mr. Dirksen, I’m not interested in any kind of deal where you get ten percent of my hay. We’ll just barely have enough to feed our own reduced herds of cattle if this drought lays over another year. Why don’t you sell me your hay baling press and I’ll pay you good money to stay and run it for us the rest of this spring and summer during hay season?”

“Marshal Crow, I’m in dire need of hay for my cattle operations in Kansas. Selling my hay press would defeat the purpose of purchasing it in the first place.”

“How many head do you run up there, Mr. Dirksen?”

“We have about six thousand at present, and we’re looking at carrying over half of them and sell off the rest. How many head do you run, Marshal?”

“We have close to fifteen thousand head here on Crow Ridge and maybe another twenty six thousand head down at our other ranch at Pecan Ridge. We got plenty of good pastures down there and we’ve already got one cuttin’ of alfalfa hay down there this year. We may even need to bring some of that hay up here if we carry over too many head.”

“Marshal, you mean to tell me you have forty one thousand head of beef cattle? My God, Man, you could glut the market if you sold all of them at once with prices down below fourteen dollars a hundred the way they are and the drought still hanging over us.”

“I’ve got a market for all of mine, except for first time momma cows with young calves, Mr. Dirksen. I could get you a pretty good deal on yours too, if you’d sell me that hay machine so we could bundle our hay and store all of it in the barns after each cuttin’.”

“What’s a pretty good deal, Marshal? No offense, but the buyers in Kansas City and Chicago are more skittish than field mice. They’re even more scared to buy than we are to hold them over.”

“My market isn’t in Kansas City or Chicago. We’re not selling for slaughter, we have a contract with some ranchers who need live, grown cattle to breed and build herds.”

“How much Marshal?”

“Fifteen fifty a hundred, delivered to the railhead.”

“Marshal, will you shake on that? If I can get that for half my herd, I can possibly feed the other half with what hay I’ve already stored,” Thurell Dirksen said as he stuck out his hand.

“Then you’re willing to sell me that hay machine for cash money and stay here to run my hay through it this spring and summer, right?”

“You can have it for what I paid for it. It has only processed the last cutting of my hay crop last summer.”

“Do you have the wire it takes to bind the hay?”

“That comes in the deal, all you’ll have to do is furnish the horses to run the incline walking belt that turns the shafts, and the men to bind the bales.”

“I’ve seen the pictures of how they work. We’ve even talked about buying us one before this beef market went to hell.

“What I’ll do is have my machinist partner take that big incline belt off and rig up a shaft with a belt pulley for a steam tractor.”

“Marshal, if you can make that work, we can press and bundle that hay faster than they can cut it, rake it and haul it to us!”

“When can you have that hay machine brought in here, Mr. Dirksen?”

“I’ll go back home and have it shipped here by rail immediately. You do have access to rail facilities, don’t you?”

“I do. Just ship that thing to Crow Ridge Cattle Company in Tulsa, Indian Territory. They’ll deliver it.”

“What about my cattle? When do we ship them; how and where?”

“I’ll have my other partner, who’s still in the cattle brokerage business, come up there with a few men to get the average weights, get a hard count, load ‘em and pay you on the spot when the last train leaves.”

“Marshal, you got yourself a herd of cattle and a hay baling press. I’ll have the machine here in less than two weeks and I’ll be here when it arrives to help set it up right in the middle of your hay fields. From the looks of your alfalfa, you’ll be cutting and windrowing hay to dry by then.”

“You’re a good man to deal with Mr. Dirksen. You’ll be glad you let part of your herd go too. The markets are about to bust. If you think they’re bad now, just wait.”

“Thank you, Marshal. Do you think I need to ship more and not keep so many? What are your plans for the next few years?”

“If you have six thousand and hoping to feed three, you better take that herd on down to about one or two thousand. From what my partner speculates about the beef markets anyway. We’re going to take ours down from just over forty one thousand to less than five thousand total on both ranches.

“If we’re not grazing the land the next two or three years, we can plant a lot more land to alfalfa to sell for hay, then we can plant better pasture grasses for grazing while we wait for better markets, before building our herds back again.”

“Marshal, you sure know how to deal in the cattle business when everything looks bleak. I wanted to take my herd on down, but all my neighbors say they think the prices will come back in another year or so. They always have in the past, they’ve argued.”

“I reckon every rancher has to believe in what he’s doing or he’d never make it. This time, they’re about to get hurt bad. My partner that’s in this business, tells us that speculation has the markets here in the states not even hitting bottom for two more years. Then it’ll take a lot of years after that for the ranchers to rebuild herds back to supply the demand. There’s speculation too, while all that’s going on, that the South American countries will have beef to ship over here and take our markets for a while. It sure don’t look good for us cattle ranchers over the next five to ten years.”

“If I tell my neighbors about all that, can you handle some more, smaller herds with the same deal if they want in on it?”

“I have contacts, through my partner I spoke of, who are willing to buy as many as sixty thousand head, maybe more. We could stand another twenty thousand above yours, on the same deal. We have a deadline though, we have to ship them in sixty days.”

“Get your money ready, Marshal. I’ll get you enough good Kansas beef to meet that number, plus some.”

“You best keep me posted on the numbers you get up there. I’m not going to buy more cattle than I can sell!”

“I’ll send you a telegraph message within in a week of when I get home and another one before I board the train with the hay binding machine.”

“Mr. Dirksen, if you’ll let me buy you a train ticket, I’ll ride to the depot with you and bring your horse back to keep here for you. You’ll be home in two days and it would take you five just to get to the Kansas border on that horse.”

“Marshal Crow, if you ever need another business partner, please look me up. You have just saved my life, my ranch and all my investments.”

“Since you’ll have money to pay your debts, with some left over, we’ll talk about ways to invest your money in something other than beef for the next few years when you return.”

Crow Ridge
Tulsa, Indian Territory
May 5, 1888

“Eli, Isaac told Ruby you were thinking about riding Cheyenne for real today. Are you really gonna do it?” Kit asked as she ran to the barn to meet him when he and the other Bucks rode up.

“Yep, I asked Dad the other day if he thought Cheyenne was ready. He looked him over good, checked his knees, his hocks and felt of his shoulders. Then he felt of each one of his vertebrae from his withers to his rump. He told me that Cheyenne would be as solid as a work horse in less than six months. He turns four today and he’s been right beside his momma every day we ride here on Crow Ridge.”

“We want to be here to see you ride him the first time. Aunt Clarissa said she didn’t want to see you though. She said he may buck you off and hurt you really bad,” Kit told him and laughed.