Chapter 42

They were all sitting around the kitchen table and each of them had a name picked out. Mr. Clyde ‘n Miss Berty had a name and Tag ‘n Bobbi had one together, she’d thought of it though.

“Willa, you write down the names as we call them out,” Mr. Clyde said.

Willa got her school tablet from last year and sat down with her pencil and waited, she smiled at Ray and he smiled back.

“Who wants to go first?” Mr. Clyde said.

No one said a thing.

Cole stood up and said, “Hanks Brothers Cattle Co.”

“Me ‘n Berty’s got one, so we’ll go next. We thought that ‘TRC Cattle Co.’ sounded good. For Tag, Ray, ‘n Cole.”

“I’ll go next.” Ray said. “Will helped me with this one. ‘Triple H Cattle Co’,” He said.

“Cal you ‘n Tom got one picked out?” Miss Berty asked.

“Well, me ‘n Tom thought we’d let all of you pick the name, you’re gonna have to live with it,” he said and they all laughed.

“Tag, you’re next,” Mr. Clyde said.

“Well, Bob here’s really the one that thought of this name, but I like it real good too. ‘Sky Ranch and Cattle Co, ‘ he said and looked around.

“OH,” Miss Berty said.

Tom ‘n Cal both looked at Tag then at Bobbi Yancey, and smiled.

“Well, is that all the names we got?” Willa asked. “If so, lets take a vote. We’ll start with the last one first.”

Who all wants to name it ‘Sky Ranch and Cattle Co.’?”

They all raised their hands.

“What’cha think about that one Tom?” Tag asked.

“Well, I reckon it’s good to have a ranch named after me, especially by some of my best friends,” Tom said.

“We’ll go into town tomorrow while we’re at church and leave a message for Mr. Creighton, that’ll save us a trip,” Mr. Clyde said.

Tom stood up and looked at Cal. He stood up beside him and Tag was the first to realize that they were about to leave. He started crying and ran around the table to where his best friends in the whole world stood. He was sobbing so hard, he couldn’t speak, but he was trying to tell them that he loved them, something he’d never been able to tell his Pa.

“Tom, I love you,” He sobbed as he hugged Tom around his waist tight, then turned to Cal and hugged him around his waist too.

“Cal, I love you,” He sobbed.

Cole and Ray came over, they were crying too and they both hugged the best friends they ever had and cried as they both told Tom and Cal they loved them.

Bobbi Yancey ran to Tom and hugged him, then she hugged Cal too.

“I love you both for all you’ve done for these brothers, and for bringing them into my life. If Tag will have me when we grow up, I’m gonna marry that boy,” she said, sobbing and then turned to hug Tag.

Willa Yancey got up from the table then and walked up to Tom. She had it all planned out what she was gonna say, but when she looked up at him, she started crying too as she hugged him.

She was sobbing out of control, but she managed to get it out.

“Tom thank you for being a good friend to these brothers. Me and Bobbi prayed when we first saw them, that they’d be stayin around here, we knew when we saw them that day in Bonner’s Store they were special, and we were right. Because of you ‘n Cal, they got a chance. My Pa brought them here as hired hands, but I reckon I’ll be like Bobbi and marry one of them one day if he’ll have me,” she said as she took Rays hand and pulled him to her.

Mr. Clyde walked over to Tom and shook his hand, “I’ll never be able to thank you enough Tom.”

He turned to Cal.

“Cal, I know you have to be proud to ride with this man, and I can tell that he’s proud to ride with you. You both take care out there on the trail and come back to see us soon.” The big man was crying tears just like the others now.

Miss Berty followed the rest, as she hugged Cal.

“Cal thank you both for bein friends with my family and for bringing me these three boys, they’re the sons I never had.”

She turned to Tom, she hugged him to her and held him.

“We’ll watch over them and raise them like our own. If they do happen to marry my daughters, I hope they’ll both have a house full of boys, then I reckon I’ll be even more happy.”

“We both know that these brothers will be well cared for now, and that’s the only thing Cal and I could think of when we saw what was happening to them. Thank all of you for accepting them into your home and into your life,” Tom said.

“I reckon I’ll let what Tom just said go for me, I can’t say what’s in my heart right now,” Cal said as he cried openly.

Tom turned and walked through the door and Cal followed him. Rope ran from around back and met them at the doorsteps. He barked at them and sat on the ground.

Tom picked him up and looked at him.

“You take care of these people, they’re worth what ever you got to give them.” Then he put him on the ground.

Rope ran to Tag as soon as his feet hit the ground and Tag picked him up and held him close as Tom and Cal rode out the main gate and turned back east.

Cole, Ray and Tag all walked out where they could see, watching as they turned south at the first crossroads and rode out of sight. The three brothers hugged each other and walked back to their new family.

The two friends never said a word as they rode, when they got to the crossroads, their horses turned without even being turned that way. They rode until dark without speaking. They stayed in a cold camp on a high knoll under a tree and went to sleep, lost in their own thoughts.

Jerl and Winona had made it down to Indian Territory, they knew they’d have to be careful with all this gold they had or they’d get robbed or even worse.

They were camped on the bank of Buffalo Creek, near the military trail between Fort Madison in Kansas and Fort Supply in Indian Territory. With the rain from the day before, the creek was high inside its bank. The water was a reddish brown color from all the topsoil that was washed into the flow.

Winona had a thing about loving her man in the water, the first time he entered her body they were in the water. Winona wanted to love her man now, in the swollen creek that was running wild and ugly down through the northern countryside of Indian Territory.

“We’re not gonna get in that dirty water, we could drown in there the way that creek’s runnin wild right now, we’ll find us a better place tomorrow. If our luck holds out, we’ll be down in the Texas Panhandle tomorrow. From this old piece of map I got, looks like we’re about fifteen to twenty miles from The Strip.” Jerl told her.

“What in the hell is The Strip?”

“It’s a strip of land that no body wanted, I reckon, cause it ain’t a part of any state or territory.

“Least ways that’s what them drovers told me when I was headed out to Colorado. I got turned around in a dust storm one day and drifted off down here a ways and come across a cattle herd headed up to Dodge City. Them old boys sure were some scroungy lookin fellers too. I mean rough, they was.

“You still got that saw?” Jerl asked.

“I sure do, what’re we gonna saw now?”

“We’re gonna saw them gold bars in half so I can pick one up and put it in the saddle bag. We’re about to kill that horse with all that weight and not ever takin the saddle off.”

Jerl took one of the heavy gold bars and laid it on a log. He sawed and sawed until he had it in two pieces.

“That sure don’t look like halves to me,” Winona snickered.

“Well I reckon you’d do better?”

“I did the other day and I was in a hurry too.”

“Just hop your ass up here on this log and get to sawing then.”

Winona took the fine tooth saw and sawed nearly a perfect line right down the middle as she sat straddle the log.

“I reckon you can be the saw woman from now on.”

When they had sawed the four bars of gold that had been in Bill Slaughter’s two saddle bags, they now had twelve halves all told. Jerl would put two halves in each of the saddlebags except Winona’s, he’d put one in each of hers, to make it lighter on her horse. He took the saddles off the horses and threw them over the log. He led them to water and out to tie them off so they could graze a while.

The next morning before good light, Jerl and Winona saddled their horses and saddled Billy’s horse too. Then they loaded the gold in the saddle bags like Jerl had planned the day before.

Billy’s horse still had the weight of four of the gold bars and had a hard time pulling out of the soft dirt near the log where they’d cut the gold bars and laid the saddles for the night.

They headed south and west to where Jerl knew they’d come to the panhandle of Texas. Somehow he felt if they got that far, they’d be safe from anybody that ever knew about the gold robbery. He wasn’t sure but he had it figured that all three of the Slaughter’s had either been killed or arrested. There was a lot of shooting and Billy’s horse had walked out to where he and Winona had been hiding.

Jerl remembered seeing the guard in the gold car as he slipped the cuffs off his hands and grabbed a gold bar and threw it out just as Jerl jumped. When he hit the ground, he looked and the guard was rolling on the ground too, then he ran to the heavy gold bar and picked it up.

He didn’t have a shirt on, he musta tore his shirt off when he jumped. He wasn’t a big man, not any bigger than Joon Slaughter, he was all stooped over from his load, but he made it to the brush thicket as Jerl and Winona jumped their horses and rode into the brush too.

That was just before the shooting started and he lost sight of the others then, he was too worried about their own getaway.

It sure was strange that the guard would steal a gold bar and jump from the train too. Wonder what happened to him, did he get shot, did he get caught or did he get away. He sure wished he knew more about what had happened after they all hit the ground. He was gettin jumpy, thinking that there may be one of the Slaughters or that guard out there somewhere, someone that knew them and could point a finger.

‘I’d even feel better if we were all together, than out here not knowing. We got to be extra careful that we don’t leave nothin behind that could lead some body to us down the trail.’ He thought.

“You sure got something heavy on your mind, you ain’t spoke a word since we broke camp,” Winona said after they’d rode about five miles.

“Just find us a good place to make camp tonight and I’ll get your mind on something else other than what’s botherin you now,” She told him and laughed.

“Yeah, you’re right, I been runnin all that happened through my head, tryin to figure out what could have happened to the rest of’em.”

“Well, we know that one or two of em probably ended up shot, there was about five shots as near as I remember. That sure was strange about that guard getting a gold bar too wasn’t it?

“Did you see that sumbitch pick up my good buckskin shirt and throw over his shoulder?”

“I didn’t see that, well he was skinny enough to wear it I reckon. You better be glad we got you two shirts or you’d be ridin and showin off them brown titties you got.”

“I’ll pull it off right now if you want a good look at’em.”

“I’ll look’em over real good tonight when we stop, we need to make a lot of tracks today, the farther we get away from Hays the better I’ll feel.”

“Well, we didn’t do anything last night and ridin in this saddle makes me want to lay with you for a while, you think you could throw me off?”

“I won’t be wanting to through you off, but I hope you can hang on.”

“Jerl, you’ll never see the day when you can out do me and you know it, just gimme the best you got, when you get it.”

They stopped about mid day, both of them had to relieve themselves bad and they needed to water the horses too. They were right back in the saddle again in a matter of minutes, chewin on jerky and talkin about the day when they could whittle off a little bit of gold and melt it down some so they could get some pocket money.

They rode all afternoon at a slow but steady pace to save the horses, Jerl was feeling a lot better with every step they took away from Hays City.

They crossed a small creek and watered the horses, then rode on until sundown before they made camp again. Jerl was sure they were getting close to Texas, but just wasn’t sure exactly where it started. He wanted to ride another day to the southwest, just to be able to breathe a little easier.

They came to a rise in the ground and rode on to the highest point before he was satisfied with the camp site for the night.

Jerl took care of the horses and made sure the saddle bags were near where they were gonna sleep.

Though they didn’t have any water nearby, they both stripped off all their clothes and lay down on their bedrolls. They went at each other like Jackrabbits in mating season. The sky was clear and the moonlight so bright their shadows were mocking them as they rutted into the night.

They were laying on their back looking up at the full moon that looked so close they could touch it, coyote’s were serenading from every hilltop within hearing, and Winona felt like she could spend the rest of her life right here.

“Jerl, what do you think will become of us?”

“Well, I reckon we’ll get off down here in Texas and find us a place to live. Maybe buy a saloon or even a small ranch back up against a hill like your Ma ‘n Pa’s. Why, what do you want to happen to us?”

“I’d like to get that ranch and have a passel of kids and just grow old sitting on the porch watchin them grow up.”

They next day about mid afternoon, they walked their horses over a rise in the land and looked down on the Canadian River Valley.

Jerl knew by his piece of a map where they were now.

They stripped the saddles off their horses and lay the saddles over the saddlebags. He hobbled the horses nearby on a grassy slope and they ran naked to the water and jumped in.

Winona had her lye soap and they washed each other good, then she jumped him.

Tom and Cal made it down to Indian Territory the second night after they had left Hays. They made camp near a swollen creek where they had followed a train of military supply wagons through a low water crossing.

They got their horses watered, rubbed down and turned them loose to eat from the grass that grew along the banks, then they gathered some wood from along the creek bank and built a fire near a driftwood log.

Cal sat down on the log and took off his new boots so he could rub his sore feet.

“I’ll be glad when I get these boots broke in a bit, they’re still a might tight yet.”

He took off his socks and lay them on the log beside him, when he picked them up to put them back on, he saw something really strange.

“Tom, come over here and take a look at this.”

“What’ve you got there, some blisters on your feet?”

Tom looked down at where Cal was pointing to his socks, it looked like flakes of gold.

They looked closer and saw where something had filed some gold off. The old dry bark was mashed down and worn where something heavy had been laid.

Tom looked all around and noticed the tracks, horses had been walking here, but he saw where one was a lot heavier than his and the others that had been here.

Cal got up and looked along the other side of the log and found a small, fine toothed saw, he held it up and looked close, there was gold flakes on the saw teeth too.