A Lone Star Christmas

find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

The children sang “Away in the Manger.”

After the song, Robert read again: “When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about. ’ So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.”

The three “shepherds” hurried to the creche where Joseph, Mary, and the Baby Jesus, who was actually an infant girl, the youngest child of the orphanage lay.

“Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.”

As Robert read the Christmas story, three of the children, dressed as “wise men,” walked solemnly across the cafeteria, each of them bearing gifts. As they did so, the other children sang We Three Kings. With great pomp and ceremony they presented their gifts.

The program concluded with everyone singing Silent Night.

After the program, Sister Mary Katherine stood to address the visitors.

“We want to thank you very much for attending our Christmas pageant,” she said. “And we invite you to join us for cookies and apple cider.”

“Ho, ho, ho!”

“It’s Santa Claus!” one of the children shouted, and all yelled and cheered with excitement as they hurried toward the man dressed in red, and carrying a huge sack, filled with toys.

“What is this?” Sister Mary Katherine asked in surprise.

“Well, it’s like this, Mother Superior,” Big Ben said. “Santa Claus stopped by to see me at the ranch and I suggested that since he had gifts for the children there, he may as well stop by the orphanage as well.”

As the children all gathered around Santa Claus, who was actually one of the cowboys from Live Oaks, the adults sat to one side of the room, drinking coffee and watching.

“Mr. Conyers,” Sister Mary Katherine said. “I have been at this orphanage for thirty years, and this is the most wonderful Christmas ever. I can’t thank you enough.”

“I’m just sorry that I never thought about doing something like this earlier,” Big Ben said. “But I intend to see to it that every Christmas from here on out will be a happy one for the children here.”

“Bless you,” Sister Mary Katherine said, wiping tears from her eyes. “God bless you, Benjamin Conyers.”

Texas Panhandle, December 23

Red Coleman had gathered ten men for the job. He didn’t personally know all ten, but he knew several of them, and the ones he didn’t know were known by those that he did know. He was fully confident that the ten of them, choosing the time to make their move, would be able to overcome the seven cowboys who were driving the herd. He had been offered eight dollars a head for every cow he delivered to Prewitt. He had promised five hundred dollars apiece to the men who came with him. That would leave him fifteen thousand dollars’ profit from this job.

And, as a bonus, he would take care of Smoke Jensen.

There were also three women with the cattle drive, and Red had thrown them in “as a bonus” for his men. “After we kill the men, you can have your way with the women,” he said.

“Where are we going to hit them?”

“At the Canadian.”

“Have you seen the Canadian?” Sid Baker asked. “It’s higher than I’ve ever seen it.”

“Yes. We will let them cross the Canadian River first, then we will hit them,” Red said. “That way we won’t have to fool with taking them across ourselves.”

“Ha! Good idea!”

“Then, after they cross, while they are still concentrating on that, we’ll take their herd.”

When he was certain that everyone understood their roles in the operation, he stood in his stirrups, then waved them on.

It was a gray and overcast day, with threatening clouds hanging low. Storms upstream had made the Canadian River particularly treacherous, for it had flooded over its banks and was filled with uprooted brush and trees. The river, normally no more than one hundred yards wide, was nearly a quarter of a mile across.

“Whoa,” Dusty said. “It sure wasn’t like this when we came up.”

“Yeah, if were going to cross the river like this, it would have been better doing it on the way up,” Clay agreed.

“How deep is it?” Smoke asked.

“This is the ford,” Clay replied. “Normally, it’s no more than ten to fifteen inches deep here. I have no idea how deep it is now.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” Matt said. He rode down to the river, stopped at the edge for a moment to look at the swiftly flowing water, then urged Spirit ahead.

The water was cold, and Spirit reacted to that, but he went ahead. At no point during the crossing did the water rise higher than about three feet, and that was in the very middle. Once he reached the other side, he turned around and came back, purposely coming back on a different track just to make certain that the bottom was relatively the same.

“I don’t think we’ll have any problem with the depth of the river,” Matt said when he came back. “If we have any problem, it will be with what is floating downstream. A big log piling into the side of the herd as it is midway across could create all kinds of problems for us.”

“Suppose we stretched a rope across?” Tom suggested. “That way we could arrest anything big enough to be of danger.”

“That would be a good idea if we had a rope a quarter of a mile long,” Dusty said.

“It doesn’t have to be that long,” Tom insisted. “Bernoulli’s principle means that the flow will be more rapid in the middle, creating a suction around it which will draw everything toward the middle.”

“What principle?” Clay asked. “What are you talking about?”

“Look at the river,” Tom said. “Where do you see most of the trash?”

“He’s right,” Smoke said. “Most of it is in the middle. At least, the bigger pieces.”

“All we need to do is stretch a rope across the exact middle of the stream,” Tom said. “I’ll be on one end of the rope, and we’ll need someone on the other end. We’ll hold off anything big while the rest of you get the herd across.”

“What do you think, Smoke? Does it make sense to you?” Clay asked.

“I don’t know who this Bernoulli fella is,” Smoke said. “But if he will keep everything in the middle for us, then I say let’s try it.”

“Tom, if it’s all right with you, I’ll take the other end of the rope,” Dalton said.

“Fine with me,” Tom said.

The two men mounted, then rode out into the river, Dalton taking a position on the far side.

“Dalton!” Tom called. “There’s a really big log coming! Let this one go.”

“All right,” Dalton agreed.

“Clay!” Tom shouted as loudly as he could. When he got Clay’s attention, he pointed to the big log coming swiftly downstream.

“We are going to let this one go by! Let it pass before you come into the water!”

“Gotcha!” Clay called back.

Tom waved back at him, and they watched as the object Tom had pointed out floated by them. More than a log, it was a complete tree.

“Damn,” Dusty said. “If anything that big comes floating down the river, they aren’t going to be able to hold it back with just a rope.”

“True,” Clay said. “That’s why it is smart to let this one go on by.”

“What if another one comes by just as big?”