Chapter 2

Something was wrong. We could read the sign and feel it. There were no horse and cattle tracks around the springs and creeks we crossed newer than last week or longer. Dan and Jose might be a lot of things, but slackers weren’t among them. They were excellent stockmen, the main reason Pa had sent them out. If the tracks were off there had to be a reason and it wouldn’t be good.

We came up on the line cabin and sat back a ways, sizing it up. We could see through the field glasses Zeke carried that the door was wide open. Without discussing it I angled one way and Zeke went the other, approaching under as much cover as possible. We may as well have ridden right on in. I stepped through the door first going to the right, Zeke going left.

We found Jose on the cabin floor. He’d been dead two weeks or better and the critturs had been at him something fierce. We rolled him in a blanket as best we could and carried him outside. It took us a few hours to find Dan, hunkered down in a buffalo wallow a couple miles out. His weapons were gone, but judging by the spent shells we found he’d put up a pretty good scrap. There wasn’t much to move so we brought out the shovels, carried Jose with us, and buried them both in the wallow. We put up two crosses we knew would be gone by next spring, read from the Book, and said our farewells.

Neither of us were inclined to sleep in the shack so we rolled up in our blankets under the moon. The next morning we hit the trail. It had been a while but there hadn’t been that much rain and 500 cows left a lot of tracks. They went straight to the river and Zeke didn’t hesitate in following.

We rode in Mexico about as often as we did at home and both spoke pretty good Mexican. In fact, our stepmother was Mexican from one of the better families in the region. I was a little better with the language because I had a weak spot for the exotic looking, raven haired senoritas. A hankering that led to a couple of scraps over the locals objecting to a Gringo sparkin’ their women. It never got out of hand because the family on our mothers’ side made it plain they wouldn’t interfere if it was one on one. Gang up on us, though, and they’d lend a hand.

It only happened once. I thought I was a goner, holed up in a cantina, down to three shells in my pistol when Zeke showed up with Uncle Miguel and cousin Santos and a few of their riders. The got behind the boys, disarmed them, and called me outside.

Uncle Miguel asked who I had the trouble with, cut him out of the herd and gave him his pistol back. “Face him like a man, puta, or we kill you. You wanted him, there he is.”

He had sand but I hadn’t had a meal in two days or slept for 36 hours, so I had a little anger built up. I gave him all three shells as he tried to bring his pistol to bear. After that I was pretty much left alone.

We followed the tracks for three days until they ended in a pretty good sized town. Most of our cattle were in the pens, bound no doubt to the slaughterhouse as food for the military. We barely glanced at the cattle as we rode in. We didn’t stand out being as close as they were to the border so people pretty much ignored us.

Two riders in a hurry can travel a lot faster than a herd so we weren’t much more than two hours behind them when we hit town. We knew they probably hadn’t finished the sale of the cattle and were still in town somewhere. As near as we could figure from the tracks they were no more than five or six riders. That few vaqueros pushing that many cattle that fast would leave them pretty wore out.

We stopped in front of the best looking cantina, beat as much dust as we could off us, and stepped inside. It was afternoon so there wasn’t a large crowd. We bellied up to the bar and ordered the dark Mexican beer we were partial to, thanking the bartender in his language. We let the first two slide down to give them time to get used to us, then started talking to the bartender and one of the patrons at the bar.

We introduced ourselves by first names only, bought a round, and started talking about range conditions and general business. “Our Pa sent us down to see about maybe selling some beef to the Army. We heard they were having a hard time fulfilling their quotas,” said Zeke. “He’d sure like to get in, business is a little slow in the States right now.”

What he was talking about was common knowledge. Central and Western Mexico had been in a hard drought for a couple of years and the cows responded, losing weight and not dropping calves as often. Good beef was hard to find right now. Mexico bought from border ranches when they could, as did the U.S. when opportunity came up.

They were full of information and directed us to the local Quartermaster, who happened to be in town to purchase a small herd. We bought them another round, chatted for a few more minutes, and left.

Chapter 3 »