all the way up to Dakota? Just the three of us?”
“What are you getting at?”
Angus smiled. “I say, let them do all the work, drive the cows to Dakota, find the buyer, then sell them. That’s when we’ll hit them. It’s going to be a lot easier to steal the money than it would be to steal the cows.”
Percy laughed out loud. “Damn, that’s right,” he said. “So, what’s the plan?”
“It’s going to take them three or four months to push a herd all the way to Dakota,” Percy said. “But if we ride back to Kansas City and catch a riverboat going up the Missouri, we can be there less than three weeks from now.”
“So, we’re going to wait on them?”
“Yes.”
“Hey, Angus, while we’re waiting, you think we could look for some of that gold?” Chance asked.
“Why bother to look?” Angus asked. “Why not just take our gold off the people who have already found it?”
Although no one had driven a herd as far as they intended to take this herd, everyone in the outfit had previous experience except Duke. Ironically, the Scattergoods had the most experience in longer drives, since they had brought most of their stock up from Mexico.
Duke’s normally taciturn habit proved to be an asset to him. He talked little, listened a lot, observed, and learned. He was prepared for work, so the fact that the drive required the cowboys to be in the saddle for fifteen hours each day didn’t bother him.
He found the makeup of the drive interesting. The wagon Revelation drove was the chuck wagon, which carried the food, bedding, and tents. Revelation prepared the breakfast and supper meals, and served them from the tail-board of the wagon. The food was cooked over an open fire. Lunch was generally taken in the saddle, often consisting of a cold biscuit and bacon left over from breakfast, or perhaps a piece of jerky.
The herd moved across the country, not in one large mass, but in a long plodding column, generally no more than four or five abreast. An average day was twelve to fifteen miles, and while on the move, one of the cowboys would be riding as point man, ahead of the herd scouting for water and graze. Flankers rode on either side of the herd, keeping them moving, while one man rode drag, meaning the rear. This was the least desirable position because the cowboy who rode drag had to swallow all the dust. In many outfits, Duke, being the least experienced, would have been selected to ride drag every day. But James, who had been elected trail boss, was fair about it, and he rotated the position, even taking drag himself, when it was his turn.
Billy Swan was about five miles ahead of the herd, looking for water, when he crested a small hill and saw the military encampment. It wasn’t a large group as army units were measured back East, but there were at least one hundred men there on the banks of a swiftly flowing stream. A puff of red, white, and blue hung from the top of a makeshift flagpole. However, because it was a windless day, the flag hung straight down so it was impossible to determine whether it was the Stars and Stripes of the Union, or the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy. Turning his horse around, he rode quickly back to the herd.
“Is there any way to avoid them?” James asked, when Billy reported on his find.
Billy shook his head. “I don’t see how,” he answered. “Not if we want to water the herd.”
“We’ve got to water the herd,” Bob said.
“And you don’t know if them soldier-boys be theirs or our’n?” Mark Scattergood asked.
“Like us, you chose not to go to war,” James said. “Therefore, for us, there is no theirs or ours,” James said.
“What do you mean there ain’t no theirs or our’n?” Mark asked. “They got to be either Yankees or Southerners.”
“Listen to what I am saying. There is no theirs or ours,” James repeated, saying the words slowly and distinctly. “Not if we are going to make it through over a thousand miles. All of us chose to avoid this war. That means we are neutral.”
“Well, yeah, I guess we are neutral in a way,” Mark said. “But we are Southerners. I mean, we do come from the South.”
“We come from the West,” James insisted.
“You can’t just tell a fella to deny who he is,” Mark insisted.
“James is right, Mark,” Bob said. “That kind of thinking has no place now. We made a conscious decision to avoid the war. That means we are neutral.”
“We may be neutral,” Duke said. “But the men Bob saw aren’t. We’re going to have to come up with some way of handling them.”
“I guess the best thing to do is go see them,” James said. “Bob, you and Billy stay here with the herd. Duke, you come with me. You don’t sound quite as Southern as the rest of us do. Maybe the two of us can convince them, whoever they are, that we aren’t a threat.”
As James and Bob approached the encampment, they were challenged by a sentry who suddenly popped up in front of them. He was wearing gray.
“Halt! Who goes there!” the sentry shouted, holding his rifle leveled toward them.
“The name is Cason, James Cason,” James said. “We’ve got a herd of cows near here, that we’re driving north.” He nodded toward the water. “We need to bring ’em to water. If I could just talk to your commanding officer?”
Half a steer hung on a spit over an open fire, the smell of its roasting permeating the air. The soldiers were in good spirits as they contemplated the feast that lay before them. James and Major Waldron, the commanding officer of the little army unit they had encountered, were sitting on a log near the fire.
“It was very generous of you to offer up a steer like that,” Major Waldron said. “My men haven’t eaten anything but beans, bacon, and hardtack since we left Arkansas.”
“Glad to do it,” James replied. “We were having a hunger for beef ourselves, but it made no sense to kill a steer for just nine of us. It would be too much of a waste.”
“How is it that you fellas aren’t in the war?” Major Waldron asked.
“I’ve got kin on both sides,” James answered.
Major Waldron got up from the log, walked over to the fire, and picked up a burning brand. Then, pulling the stub of a cigar from his pocket, he lit it, taking several long puffs. What he did next surprised James, because he pinched off the glowing end of the cigar, then returned the stub to his pocket.
“I have to ration them,” he explained when he saw the surprised look on James’s face. “I don’t know when I’ll get another one.”
“I imagine that might be difficult,” James said.
Major Waldron returned to the log and sat down again.
“Now, about you not wanting to fight against your kin. Well, I reckon most of us are in that same fix,” the major said. “But when you get right down to it, a fella has to go with his conscience, and fight for what he believes in.”
“That’s the way I look at it too,” James said. “And my conscience tells me—”
The loud shout interrupted the conversation between James and the army commander. When they looked toward the commotion, they saw two men in angry confrontation.
“Well, hell, Dobbins, iff’en you ain’t man enough to keep her, you got no right to her,” Butler replied.
“I’ll show you who is man enough,” Dobbins said, launching a roundhouse right at his adversary. His unexpected blow landed on Butler’s chin, and though it didn’t knock him down, it did drive him back a few feet.
Butler rubbed his chin, then worked his jaw back and forth a few times. When he was certain nothing had been broken, he smiled at Dobbins, an evil and mirthless smile.
“Fight, fight!” someone shouted, and the camp came alive as soldiers hurried to the scene.
