THE ENGLISH HORSES
WILLIAM A. LUCKEY
DEATH OF THE OPEN RANGE
The first rifle shot came as the stallion leaped the poles. The colts milled in confusion at the break, distracted by the stallion’s charge, terrified by the rifle fire. Burn reined the gray around, looked across the valley. Two men were working together on the rails. A third sat on his horse, holding the others’ mounts. A fourth man held the rifle. He raised it again, and fired.
Author’s Note
Barbed wire was introduced in the mid-1870s. By trial and perseverance, the sharp wire traveled into the cattle regions of the West and Southwest, and its use forever changed the lives of the numerous men who babied, doctored, and branded the free-roaming herds.
Open range was effectively ended by the wire’s introduction, and the blizzards of 1886–87 were terrible examples of the need for ranchers to monitor their stock more closely. Thousands of cattle in Montana and Wyoming drifted before the winter storms, only to be caught up against long miles of wire fence and frozen in their tracks.
During the period after the American Civil War, stories of the vast fortunes to be made from cattle on the endless Western plains induced a number of European gentlemen, most notably the English and Irish second sons of titled families, to venture into the American wilderness.
In the southwestern part of the New Mexico Territory, several English and Irish sons came to ranching. These men were articulate and well schooled, and wrote of their experiences with great excitement. Their stories have been told and retold, and the accounts are still highly entertaining.
Prologue
He wished he had kept a journal. The facts were simple and easily remembered. It was in trying to commit them to paper that he began to see how little he knew for certain about the important matters.
He’d come to this country a scarred veteran of an ugly war. As a young man he’d entered into military life vigorously. That he’d been successful surprised both his elder brother and their parent. His career had been assured until a Sudanese marksman shot off the tips of two fingers on his right hand and placed a bullet in the long muscle of his left thigh in such a manner that the leg healed without full mobility. Thus his service in Her Majesty’s forces had ended.
In the summer of 1889, Gordon Arthur Charles Meiklejon sailed from England aboard the
This year, 1912, the Territory of New Mexico would become a state, a public declaration of civilization despite the irascible nature of its inhabitants. Gordon Meiklejon had played a minor part in the land’s taming, but he wished to keep that part clearly delineated. He was in neither form nor content a coward. He had medals and scars to prove his valor, yet he’d been shaken by the complete separation from the laws and regulations of other worlds that most clearly defined the New Mexico frontier. The men and women, whose faces appeared upon reflection, had known their own law, bowed to their own rules, and thus lived lives worthy of the greatest philosophers and scoundrels.
Meiklejon had time now. His English wife had returned to her homeland on her annual pilgrimage, since New Mexico winters were too severe for her constitution. He would sit and write, perhaps only to scratch out the raw story that still puzzled him. In writing down long-ago occurrences, he might finally reach an understanding of the events that at the time had completely eluded him.
Meiklejon sat at the desk. The kerosene lamp flickered mute encouragement. There was wood beside the library stove, more wood stacked outside within reach. He had endless time facing him, enough time to outline the bones of an intriguing, basically unsolved mystery.
October 1889
Chapter One
Normally time meant little to Gayle Souter. His cattle herds told him what was needed, so he worked from their bovine calendar. But he knew this day’s date, October 16th, and even the day of the week, Tuesday. It said so in the barber’s window right next to where it said the doc would pull teeth after three.
Souter was waiting out his misery at Billy McPhee’s stable, trying to interest himself in watching the street fill with too damned many folks. The inbound train was whistling its business. Souter paid attention; he wasn’t used to empty time.
“Next stop Socorro!”
Gordon Meiklejon woke up disoriented but only for a moment. “Socorro…next stop!” The conductor’s loud words were what he’d traveled a long way to hear. Meiklejon stared out the window and found he did not care for what greeted his burning eyes. It was a land thinly soiled, mostly sand, with a covering of dark green brush. Yet he’d been told Socorro was good ranching country.
He was the last person off the train, and a small boy grabbed for his bag. “Mister, I can take you to the good hotel. It ain’t far…I can carry thembags. Good food and not many fleas. Best place in town I promise you, mister.”
It was simple enough to accept the urgent recommendation. “Fine, child, you take the bags. But go slowly, please, I wish to study your town.”
Such a request should not be confusing, but the boy stared openly at Gordon and cocked his head when Gordon continued to speak.
“I gather this town exists for the ranches which surround it. I cannot help but notice the pens, constructed
