by one of his wives, at the time.
'Worm thinks you should have let us eat the Buffalo Horse,' Buffalo Hump said.
'If Worm had stolen it he could have eaten it, but I stole it and I wanted to take it to Mexico,' Kicking Wolf said. 'Anyway, Apaches are liars. The Buffalo Horse may still be alive.' Buffalo Hump saw that Kicking Wolf was in a quarrelsome mood. He had been about to tease Kicking Wolf a little--af all, the man had missed the great raid--but he decided to let it be, mainly because he was anxious to see Lark and his other wives. Fat Knee had ridden ahead to let them know he was coming, so they would probably have cooked him something good. He wanted to eat.
Kicking Wolf he could tease anytime.
'How about Three Birds?' he asked, before going on to his tent. 'Do you think he is still alive too?' At that Kicking Wolf merely shook his head.
He didn't think Three Birds was alive, and it was a sorrow to him.
'I didn't want him to go to Mexico,' he told Buffalo Hump. 'I was going to take the horse myself. I wanted Three Birds to go home, but he came to Mexico anyway. He wanted to be brave.' Though Buffalo Hump had always considered Three Birds a fool, there was no doubt that what he had done had been very brave.
'He got his wish,' Buffalo Hump said. 'He was brave. When your eyes are better we will sing for him, some time.'
When the wild black cow came popping out of a thicket of mesquite and chaparral, she was on them and had gored Deets's horse badly in the flank before the rangers even knew what kind of beast they were dealing with. The horse squealed and fell over, throwing Deets almost under the cow, whose horn tips were red with the horse's blood. The cow lowered her head when Call and Gus shot her, firing almost at the same time. The bullets knocked the cow to her knees but didn't kill her. Even on her knees she tried to go for Deets--it took a bullet to the head to kill her.
Deets was shaking, as much from surprise as from fright. His horse gushed blood from its torn flank.
'My horse dying,' Deets said, stunned.
'Well, where'd she come from?' Pea Eye asked. All he could remember was that a black streak with short shiny horns came popping out of the brush--he had had no time to make precise observations.
'She came out of that!' Augustus said, pointing to what seemed to be an impenetrable thorny brush. The mesquite and chaparral grew out above a solid floor of green prickly pear.
'Maybe she had hydrophobie,' Stove Jones volunteered. 'I've lived with cows and such all my life, but I've never seen a cow charge a bunch of men like that.' 'Just be glad it wasn't one of them tough little black bulls,' Lee Hitch said. 'One of them little black bulls would have done for about half of us.' 'You can't kill a bull with no pistol bullet,' he added. 'Not even with ten pistol bullets.' A mile or two farther--Deets was now riding double with Jake Spoon, who had the stoutest horse--they came upon three of the small black bulls Lee Hitch had described. Everyone in the troop drew their rifles, expecting to have to defend themselves, but the bulls were content to paw the earth and snort.
Then, just as they were about to stop for coffee and a bit of bacon, a second cow came shooting out of the brush behind them. This time the rangers were primed, but even so it took three rifle shots to bring the cow down.
In midafn it happened a third time. A red cow came charging directly at them, breathing froth and bellowing. All the rangers shot this time and the cow went down.
Call, though profoundly startled by the violent behaviour of the wild south Texas cows, held his counsel, meaning to talk the development over with Augustus privately, when they camped.
Gus McCrae couldn't wait for a private parley. They were scarcely south of San Antonio and had just been attacked three times, with the loss of one horse. They had seen no ranches or ranchmen who might advise them on the bovine behaviour they were encountering. The rangers were jumpier now than they would have been if they had been crossing the comancher@ia--in the space of an afternoon they had come to fear cattle more than they feared Indians. And it was the cattle of the country, hundreds of them, that they were supposed to round up and deliver to Mexico.
'This is pointless travelling,' Gus said.
'How are we going to deliver a thousand cattle to that old bandit if we have to shoot ever damn cow we see?' Call accepted the point. It was obvious they had been presented with a difficult mission.
'There must be tamer cattle down here somewhere,' he said. 'There's ranches down this way--big ranches. They ship cattle to New Orleans regular, I hear. The boats come to Matagorda Bay. They don't shoot ever cow. There's got to be cowboys down here who know how to handle this stock.' The rangers listened in silence, but his ^ws made little impression compared to their fresh memories of the mad, frothing cows.
'Livestock ain't supposed to be this hostile,' Stove Jones commented.
'We're Indian fighters, Woodrow,' Augustus pointed out. 'Indian fighters and bandit chasers. We ain't vaqueros. If I tried to go into one of them thickets after a cow I'd be lucky not to get scratched to death. We'd just as well try to deliver a thousand deer. At least deer don't come charging at you.
'That damn governor's betrayed us again,' he added in disgust.
Call couldn't really disagree. Governor Pease had given them a flowery letter to show to the ranchers in south Texas. The letter bound the state of Texas to compensate the ranchers for cattle sufficient to make a herd of one thousand head.
There was no mention, however, of a price per head.
When Call pointed this out to Governor Pease, the Governor had merely shrugged.
'Our south Texans are patriotic men,' he said. 'They'll be glad to let you take a few head of stock if it will get our hero back.
'Speak to Captain King,' he added--two harried clerks were following him around at the time, hoping to get his attention. 'Captain Richard King. He'll help you. I expect that goddamn old black bandit has stolen at least that many cattle from him already.' 'Where do we find Captain King?' Augustus asked. 'I've never met the man.' 'Why, just ask, Captain McCrae--j ask,' Governor Pease said. 'Captain King is well known along the coast.' The Governor's
