Chapter 7

The routine of running a working cattle ranch hit Otto like a ton of bricks. He'd had no idea of the number of piddling details that seemed to require his attention. Otto felt like he was being smothered, and looked around for some relief. In desperation, he asked some of the other ranchers what they did to escape the pressure, and the universal answer was "hire a good foreman."

Otto discussed the situation with Martha and Jane, and neither one had a better idea, so Otto let it be known that the Bar S Bar was looking for a foreman. He interviewed a few prospects, but didn't find a man to fit his needs. Then Otto's luck finally changed—John Leslie showed up and turned out to be just the man Otto needed. John's wife, Mary, was hired to be the cook and housekeeper, and it looked like most of the problems were solved. The situation was further simplified by having the Leslies move into the main house; there was a wing which was ideally suited to be their apartment.

Otto and John undertook to survey the ranch to see if there might be ways to improve the operation, which was a euphemism for running more cattle. They found that Jake had been somewhat haphazard about how many cattle he put on a range and how long he left them there before moving them. Otto and John worked out a simple rescheduling of this that would let them run about 12% more cattle without needing more land or more hands to work the ranch.

The next problem was finding a better market for the cattle. Jake had been moving his cattle south to Mexico and selling them for their hides, which meant that he was getting one or two dollars per head. This was good enough to live on, but it certainly was not going to make anybody rich. Otto looked around for a better market and found one in the Army forts. The Indians were becoming more restive, so the Army was moving more troops into the Territory. Their normal practice had been to buy local beef at whatever price they had to pay. Otto used some of his contacts from his Army days and managed to get a beef contract for all of the nearby forts (nearby defined as within 100 miles). This was going to get him $10 per head, and that was enough to get rich if he could keep the contract for a few years. All he had to do was make 4 deliveries per year to each fort. Somebody else would be responsible for tending the cattle after delivery and handling the butchering.

Delivery to the forts within about 20 miles would be no problem, but he had to hire some more hands to drive the cattle to the more distant forts. Maybe that $10 per head would have to be renegotiated, but Otto would know for sure after he made a few deliveries. Otto and John had to get busy hiring and arranging, because the first deliveries were due in two months. They decided that, for safety's sake, they would send no less than two men with every delivery, even if only a few cattle were involved—it just was not safe for one man to be riding through the wilds of the Territory in this day and age.

Otto decided to make one of the long drives to be sure that he was not overlooking some detail that needed to be covered. John could easily manage the ranch while he was gone. They started out with 150 head on a trip expected to last 3 weeks. Otto had his dogs and four cowboys with him. Actually, Otto expected the dogs to do most of the cattle control, since they appeared to dearly love the job. In fact, the men were there to support the dogs, not the other way around. By the time this drive was over, Otto expected to have 4 men he could trust to lead the future drives.

Not much out of the ordinary happened during the first few days, but they ran into one of those God-awful sandstorms on the fourth day. They were out in the open with no shelter to be found, except for a large arroyo. Queen found the place where they could drive the cattle down to the relative safety of the arroyo's bottom, and they were all grateful when they finally got everybody down. This proved to Otto just how valuable dogs were to a cattle drive and he could hardly wait for Queen to have her first litter, so that the ranch could have the benefit of more dogs.

The sandstorm lasted for 20 hours, and they were stuck without water. Fortunately, adequate water was not too far away, so they were able to reach it before any serious problems showed up. The cattle wanted to run when they first smelled water, but the men and dogs were able to keep them under control, so there were no accidents when they finally reached the water. Otto decided to give the cattle a little rest, so they stayed at the watering place for an extra day, a respite the men and dogs also appreciated.

Two days later, they were spotted by a scout for a band of Mexican bandits on the lookout for an easy mark, and they thought that they had one with the cattle being minded by only a few gringos. The scout never noticed the two dogs because he never associated dogs with guarding cattle. Picking up $150-$300 worth of cattle hides on the hoof was well worth the effort to the 11 bandits, so they made plans to hit the gringo camp that night.

The humans had their guarding plan which was of the conventional sort where one man would ride around the herd keeping an eye on things while the rest of the men slept. The Mexicans noted this and had planned their attack based on this type of watch. However, they had not taken into account the private plans of King and Queen. One slept in that half-alert manner that dogs have while the other prowled around the camp and the herd, keeping a watchful eye on the neighborhood.

The dogs detected the bandits long before they were in position to start their raid. King had been the one on patrol and he had cut through the camp to alert Queen as soon as he had detected the intruders. There were only 11 bandits, so King did not think that this was sufficient threat to call the humans—they would just get in the way, anyway, and spoil the fun.

The bandits were still approaching as a group when the dogs made their first strike. They chose to attack the rearmost of the gang in hope of not alerting the rest of the men that they were under attack. Queen took the last man in line, and King took the next one. These dogs were strong enough that they were able to leap 10-12 feet in the air if they had a running start, which they both did on this occasion. Like avenging angels, each dog leaped and caught a rider in the neck with those massively strong jaws and crushed the windpipe, the spinal cord, and the blood vessels as they flew into their victim. Each man was thrown to the ground, functionally dead, and unable to cry out in pain or warning. However, the noise of their falling did prompt the leader to issue an angry warning for them to be quiet; he never turned around to see why the noise had been made.

Unfortunately for him, one of the lesser bandits did turn to mock the chastised men and was amazed to see two empty saddles. His startled cry, "Aii, caramba!" was enough to call him to King's attention, and the dog reacted without hesitation, treating him the same way that he had his previous victim. This was enough to stir Queen into action, and she, too, struck at one of the nearby bandits with the same result.

Now that the rest of the bandits were alerted to the danger, they pulled their guns and tried to locate the attackers. Their mistake was that they never looked close enough to the ground. King and Queen had eliminated two more bandits before the remaining, living ones even caught their first glimpse of the two dogs. This produced cries of wolf, and even werewolf, as the bandits began to shoot wildly in random directions.

Once the shooting started, the cowboys woke up and reacted to the bandits. Their bullets, combined with the random shooting of the bandits, resulted in 2 dead and wounded Mexicans before they could gather their wits and ride off. The shooting had been the signal to the dogs to cover their asses and get under cover; thus, they disappeared and further amplified the stories of supernatural beings among the few Mexicans who managed to escape.