Duster (9781310020889) Read online

  The preacher stomped his foot on MacReedy's stoop and bobbed his head so that his beard flew. "That I will, sister," he said. "Where is the boy?"

  Ma pointed me out, and he hollered at me, "Stand up, boy, stand up so the Lord can spot you." So I did, and he proceeded to pray just as loud and hard as he could for the next ten minutes or maybe more. It was sort of obvious from the praying that he didn't know much about cows or the working of them, but I reckoned the Lord did, even if His servant didn't, and He could make out the meaning all right.

  As for me, I felt awfully funny standing there with all those folks looking at me and that preacher talking about me, most especially when he got to asking the Lord to forgive me for all of my sins and named some of them that I didn't know I'd done but couldn't argue over since I wasn't positive what they meant.

  I was mighty relieved when it was all over and we could head back for home. I felt sort of good about it later, though. I hadn't guessed Ma would ever do such a thing to embarrass me. But once it was over and I could reflect on it, it made me feel sort of warm inside.

  2

  ONE MINUTE, THERE was nothing but that airless heat, shoving down with all the force of a straight fall from the sun, plus the sting of sweat in my eyes and the worry about thorns in case Mister Sam Silas's hammerheaded dun decided to pitch again and loosen up his muscles at my expense. Then, there was this awful crashing noise coming at me through the brush like a mile-wide drag being hauled over every stump and dry twig between the Frio and the Nueces.

  I couldn't see it coming yet, but what sounded like the world's biggest longhorn was headed my way.

  I found out right away that that stubborn, lowbred, mean dun horse might resist being ridden, but once he heard a beef coming through the brush he was ready to go to work right now. He busted into a run toward that noise with one big jump that almost left me behind, even though I thought I could ride pretty good. By the time I caught up with him and got to sitting in a pointed-up direction again, he had tore through a couple of clumps of thorn and had the cow—it was really a big brindle steer—in sight.

  The dun was moving for all he was worth, and so was that steer. Both of them were scrambling over the small brush, through the middling-size stuff and under the tallest growth— which, of course, had the biggest, strongest, sharpest, longest thorns. That tall stuff was what the hammerhead was dragging me underneath. If it was high enough for him to get under, he just naturally figured I could squeeze under too—and away we went.

  For the first few jumps, I was too busy hanging on to think about the rawhide rope in my hand. For the next few, I was too busy getting my seat back again, having learned a valuable lesson in brush popping.

  The thing is, I'd been practicing roping since I was big enough to dangle a string in my hand, but I'd never done it quite like this before. By the time I learned that a mesquite will reach out and try to snatch a meal of braided rawhide reata, I was turned sideways in my saddle with one leg back on that dun's rump and a right arm that felt like it was near jerked out of my coat. It was just lucky for me that my big, corral-style loop slipped off the branch when it did, or I'd have been walking back to camp on my first morning out.

  Anyway, I caught up with the dun again, and this time I remembered to build a small loop and leaned down over the dun's neck to make my pitch low and straight. Rawhide is heavy enough to carry through a little brush, and the short ropes used out here aren't long enough to let you throw from a distance that would hang you up on something—that is, as long as you remember about holding that loop in small and close.

  My first throw was a good one, everything considered. I don't know whether you'd call it a mangana at the wrong end of the animal or a peal that didn't turn over. Anyway, it caught that steer's hind feet and drew them up tight together, even if it didn't have a peal's neat figure-eight shape with a little bitty loop for each foot.

  The steer's front feet kept running, of course, and he was stretched out flat on his belly with that crazy dun horse hauling back on him quicker than it takes to tell. I could hear the air rush out of him when he hit, and I figured he was down real good for the next minute or two.

  The dun was walking back a little to keep some strain on the rope, so I let him do it his way and sat up real straight, sort of proud of myself and not even minding the chunks of skin I had lost on the way from there to here chasing that steer.

  I tipped back my wide-brimmed straw hat and used the tail end of my bandanna to wipe my face off, sort of casual like.

  About then, the steer began to try to get his hind legs under him so he could get up and do it all over again. And I began to wonder for the first time just what I was going to do with him now that I had him.

  I mean, it hadn't really occurred to me before, but here I was in the middle of the brush with a strange horse tied to one end of my rope and a full-growed longhorn steer at the other end of it. I had him down on the ground where I could get to him if I wanted him, but he was already wearing a brand I could see now—it hadn't really got through to me before, but there's no such thing as a maverick steer because bulls don't get to be steers by themselves—and I couldn't see any reason to walk over and pat him hello. And I sure wasn't going to drag him out by the hind legs.

  I sat there for a minute and let the hammerhead do his work a while longer, but the more I thought about it, the less I knew what I wanted to do with that animal. The steer was lying sort of half on its side with its legs stretched out in my direction, and it turned its head once and rolled its eyes at me like it was asking me, "Well, fella, where do we go from here?" I just stared back at it like I had sense enough to know what to do, and it flopped its head back around. I noticed its left horn pointed straight out to the front instead of sweeping out and up like the right horn. I guess we were both a pretty sorry pair right then. About then I heard a good, loud horselaugh right behind. I looked back real sudden, caught there like I was with that steer on the ground, and saw Ike Partley sitting his horse just a few yards away and laughing 'til I thought he was going to fall off it. I wished he would fall off into the patch of cactus his gray was straddling. He must of come up while I was so busy thinking about that steer that I didn't pay any mind to the noise of him riding up.

  I started to say something to Ike, but I didn't know what to say, so I clamped my mouth shut again and turned back toward my steer.

  "Kid, you sure busted him down flat," Ike said. "Now, if you want to drag him out just give me the nod an' I'll break trail for you. I figure if you got enough rope for the job you oughta have him out on the holding ground by tomorra noon." He went off into another laughing fit, and I could tell right then what I'd be listening to when we bedded down that night.

  "Yes sir, you really dusted him down," Ike said, and right then he hung the name on me that I carry to this day. "You're a real cow duster, you are, Duster Dorword."

  I just sat there and got redder in the face while he yukked it up for a while longer. When he got tired of that, he kicked his horse up beside me and talked at me between giggle fits.

  "Kid, pretty soon you'll know all about these critters you an' me are chasin', but for right now, you just try to remember a couple of things. One is that they're bigger an' meaner than you, an' got more pure fight in them than you and your horse put together. So, what you got to do is let them do the work, an' you just sort of point them in a direction to go.

  "You can't muscle them out of this brush, an' you got no dogs trained to push 'em out for you, so you keep 'em headed the way you want with your horse. Unless you want to throw an' brand a critter, you use your rope for a flail to whack them with when need be and forget about roping them down.

  "Most of 'em, you'll find, won't take kindly to being pushed in one direction, so you tail 'em down to give them some manners. Mind, though, if you tail a critter maybe four, five times and it still turns back on you an' wants to fight, you leave it be. It'll take the dogs to move one like that out into the open."

&n
bsp; Ike was talking for my own good, so I sat still in my saddle and looked him in the eye while he set me straight on the business I was getting paid to be in.

  This was a country where men ran more to tough than to meat; but even so, Ike was remarkable for being so straight up and down and narrow-like. He had sun wrinkles set deep around his eyes, and the skin at his throat where his bandanna hadn't covered it was all brown and cracked like leather. Every time he grinned at me or took one of those laughing fits I could see where he was missing some ivory right in the middle of the yellow nubs of teeth he carried. It must of been convenient for spitting, judging from what I could see of him in action that way.

  "Now, you shake loose from this fellow an' I'll show you what to do with him," Ike finished up.

  I booted the hammerhead a bit so he'd move forward and give me some slack in my rope. That steer hiked his tail up in the air and scrambled on his feet right away. He took out trying to run even before I could shake the loop loose, so I had to follow after him trying to let him free and him steady moving on, tripping and snorting for maybe fifteen, twenty yards before he finally kicked my loop off.

  Soon as he done that, he lit out hard as he could, and Ike right on him. My hammerhead wasn't to be left behind, either. He knew lots more about the cow business than me and he wanted in on it all, so I had a good spot real close to watch Ike work.

  As far as I could tell, Ike hadn't any idea there was a thorn bush closer than the Indian Nations. He just kept his head down and rode.

  One of those old longhorn cattle could give a racehorse a mighty fine go of it for a short stretch, but Ike was close to start with, and inside a hundred yards he was right up on that old steer. He got behind it, shoulder to rump, and when he was where he wanted to be, he just leaned down and grabbed hold of the steer's tail streaming out behind him.

  Ike straightened up with a holler, pulled up on that steer's tail, and wrapped it around his saddle horn real quick. His horse cut hard to the left.

  The steer went down again, except harder. His hind legs just got lifted out from under him. Or, maybe it was more his hind end being lifted up off his legs. Anyway, he was busted down good and proper.

  Ike looked back at me and grinned real big, then he stood up in his stirrups and half bowed, waving a hand toward the steer to tell me it was all mine again.

  The steer got up, but slower this time, and it took time out to look around and snort a little, rolling its eyes, before it lit out for another run.

  When it took off this time I was ready for it. I booted the hammerhead in the ribs—I didn't have any spurs, but the horse got the idea all right anyway—and we jumped after that steer.

  This time, the longhorn cut away from us every time we got close, so it wasn't much of a trick to point it in the direction of the clearing where a couple fellows was waiting to hold all the caught animals in a bunch.

  Of course, it wasn't any easier riding now that the steer was headed the right way. Those long whips of droopy mesquite still hung their thorns out all ready for someone to come busting through and get stuck full of them. I was beginning to be awful glad Ma had dug out Pa's old leggins to cut down for me and for the coat she'd made up for me out of some leather she had got somewhere. The stuff was awful hot and stiff until it made me think of a picture I'd seen once of some old-time cavalry trooper in iron pants and vest, but it kept the thorns from gouging in too deep when they hit.

  It didn't take long for us to get where we were going. One second we was going up, down, and sideways behind that brindle steer, and the next we was out of the heavy stuff and running down hard on a bunch of maybe a couple dozen cattle and a couple of riders.

  Those old longhorns are wide awake when they run, and when this one saw what was up ahead he must of figured it was a crowd he didn't want to hang around with. He piled on the brakes and stopped real quick, and of course that fool hammerhead did the same thing. Me—I tried to keep on going and got the saddle horn shoved into my belly for not being quick enough.

  The dust was flying pretty thick by then, but there wasn't anything wrong with that hammerhead's eyesight. He got things sorted out real quick, and before I had time to worry about the way that horn had belted me, he was off and going again to cut the steer off and keep him from diving back into the brush.

  The steer didn't like that, so he hooked a horn at the hammerhead's near shoulder before he turned back.

  I was all experienced by then, of course, and I knew just what to do with that steer. When he turned away I kicked the horse right up behind him.

  I leaned down and grabbed up the end of his tail real quick like Ike had done.

  Now, that old horse was mean sometimes. And he was ugly. But some cowhand had trained him real good. He knew just what he was supposed to do when he felt me bend down and then straighten up quick. He cut off to the left with a jump, and at just the right angle too—not so sharp it would pull the horse over, and not so shallow it would dump the steer forward on his neck and maybe break the neck bones and kill him.

  That steer had been tailed before, and he jumped too.

  They was both a bit quicker than me. What with all the chasing and bending and grabbing and straightening I had forgot to wrap the steer's tail around my saddle horn. I got to say, though, that I did have a good hold of that tail.

  I held on tight; the hammerhead went off to one side; the steer went off to another, and I ended up losing my grip, which was just as well, since by then I wasn't riding a horse any more. Instead, I was stretched out sideways with nothing but maybe five feet of sweet Texas air between me and that firm Texas ground. It didn't take me long at all to make my journey through the one to meet the other.

  The next thing I felt was a thump and a thud and then the air swooshed out of me until I could perfectly understand why that steer didn't want to be tailed down but once. I first thought I'd lay there and loaf a little bit while I sniffed some fresh-raised dust—which was easy, since my nose seemed to be full of it—until I remembered all of a sudden that that steer had no cause to feel kindly toward me and might be coming back any old time.

  I got up real quick, then, and looked around. I could see the brindle steer standing quiet at the edge of the bunch of cattle that had already been caught. Charlie Emmons and B.J. Hollis was riding around them cows looking real serious like, not looking my way even one bit although every once in a while one of them would sort of go limp like he was about to fall off his horse.

  Ike was riding up on me from the other direction, leading the hammerhead and grinning. He didn't say a word while I crawled back up on my horse, not even when I jumped some and had to reach back to pull a thorn out of myself before I could sit right in the saddle.

  3

  THE MORNING WENT pretty good after that. Ike and me teamed up, and between us we got a dozen more old mossy horns out of the jungle where they could be held still.

  I sure didn't forget a second time to take a turn on the saddle horn when I grabbed hold of a cow's tail. It really was pretty easy once I got the hang of it, though city folks have told me since that they'd be scared to try it. I might of been scared too if I'd thought about it much, but at the time, it was just another way to handle cattle, and I figured I'd best learn to do whatever the grown hands did.

  Anyway, Ike sort of stayed with me, and we done all right. Since we was working range cattle and not just gathering up for a herd, we quit along about noon and came out of the brush to take care of the stuff we had caught up during the morning.

  Mister Sam Silas put me to holding the cattle in a bunch since I was still pretty green on the job. We had maybe a hundred-fifty head of mixed stuff all told, and of them maybe thirty was cows with calves. The calves didn't count, of course.

  While me and about three others held them in a bunch, Ike and Crazy Longo and a couple more worked the cows and calves out of the bunch and roped the calves down by one of the fires that they had got going by then. There the mama cow'd be held off by the rid
er while a couple fellows on the ground would brand and earmark the calf with whatever sign the mama was wearing.

  Once the calf was branded—and cut, if it was a male—it and the mother was turned back into the brush. This was hot work, but in a year or two that work would mean cash money in someone's pocket if a drought or a freeze-up or unchoicy maverickers didn't take the calf off first.

  As for me, I had it pretty easy just riding around the bunch and chasing back any of them that tried to break for the jungle. Some of them mossy horns looked like they'd never seen a man before, and they didn't take much to being handled. Every once in a while, one of them would throw his head up and snort. As soon as I saw those nostrils flare, I knew he was coming out at a run, and sure enough there would be a chase to turn him back or tail him. There wasn't but a few got past us, so I guess we did all right, and most of them only got loose because when we left the bunch to chase one down there'd be another whole mess of them breaking out behind him through the hole we'd left chasing that first one.

  It got pretty exciting at times, but it was sort of fun too and I didn't mind when we got busy.

  After all the calves was taken care of and chased out of the way, we started cutting out the grown mavericks for branding. That was really fun to watch since them full grown beeves that was about to become steers didn't like being told what to do.

  It took two riders to handle one of them. One would go into the bunch and find a maverick and ease it out to the edge, then the second rider would slip a rope over its horns and haul it out in the open where the first man could put a loop on its hind legs and stretch it out flat so the branders could get to it.

  The way they worked the branding was that the boss of the cow hunt, Mister Sam Silas, got the first two and then they went branding and marking in turns, one for each owner along on the hunt. They started all over again when everybody'd had his brand put on a beef.