After some negotiation, the Indians agreed to accept ten cows as payment for the fine.
“Bob, Billy, cut ten Scattergood cows out of the herd,” James ordered.
“Wait a minute,” Matthew protested. “You can’t do that! If you’re goin’ to pay these heathen ten cows, it’s got to come out of everyone’s herd equal.”
“Everyone didn’t try and sell whiskey to the Indians,” James said.
“All right, even so, it was Luke and John that done it, not me ’n Mark. You got no right makin’ us pay for what they done.”
“You are all in this together,” James insisted.
“Well, I don’t intend to just stand by an’ let you take ten of our cows.”
“Oh, I think you will,” Duke said easily.
“What have you got to do with this conversation?” Matthew challenged.
“Like James said, we’re all in this together. Now, I didn’t try and sell any whiskey to the Indians, so if we’re goin’ to have to pay them off, we aren’t paying them with any of my cows. I’m pretty sure Billy and Bob feel the same way. That leaves your cows.”
Though Duke was speaking quietly, his challenge was open and direct. And in some strange way, the fact that it was soft-spoken, made it all the more frightening.
“Yeah, well, it don’t seem in no way right to me,” Matthew said, but his tone of voice indicated that he wouldn’t carry his protest any further.
To the surprise of James and his friends, the Scattergoods generally held up their end of the bargain, each of them working as hard as any of those in James’s original party. What wasn’t a surprise to them was the fact that Revelation was working the hardest of all.
When the drovers were finished with their supper, they would sit around the campfire, smoking their pipes, telling stories, and stretching weary muscles. While they were relaxing in such a way, Revelation, who had already put in a full day’s work, would be cleaning up from supper. Later, when the men would crawl wearily into bedrolls, reeking with their own musk, Revelation would still be up, making preparations for the next day’s meals.
Then, when the drovers awakened the next morning, the air would be permeated with the rich smell of coffee brewing, bacon frying, and biscuits baking. That was because Revelation, who didn’t go to bed until about an hour after the last drover had drifted off to sleep, also rose an hour before anyone else. And finally, even before the herd began to move, Revelation would have the wagon loaded, the team harnessed and the wheels rolling as she forged on ahead, looking for the next campsite.
The hardest part of the drive was to get the cows moving each morning. The campsites were picked where there was plenty of grass and water. In addition, there would be an occasional tree or an overhanging bluff to provide some respite from the sun, so the cows were reluctant to leave. Every morning they showed all intentions of staying right where they were.
Sometimes the drovers would have to shout, probe the animals with sticks, and swing their ropes to get the herd underway. Eventually their efforts would pay off, and the herd would begin to move. Then, once the herd was underway, it would change from three thousand-plus individual creatures into a single entity with a single purpose. The inertia they needed to overcome to get the herd moving in the first place, now worked in their favor as the cows would plod along all day long at a steady clip, showing no inclination to stop.
There was a distinctive smell to a herd this size. The smells came from sun on the hides, dust in the air, and especially from the animals’ droppings and urine. The odor was pungent and perhaps, to many, unpleasant. To James, however, it was an aroma as familiar and agreeable as the smell of flour and cinnamon on his mother’s apron.
It had been a long, hard journey so far, and they had even farther to go. But as far as James was concerned, there was no place in the world he would rather be than right here, right now.
Revelation Scattergood’s cooking skills had been a pleasant surprise. Though she dressed, rode, and worked as hard as any man, she showed a woman’s touch in the kitchen. Often she would surprise the men, who were used to trail grub, with something a little special.
Tonight it was apple pie, and as she served everyone supper, James noticed that she had given him an extra-large piece of pie.
“No, this is too large,” he said, holding his tin plate back toward her. “I don’t want to cheat the other men.”
“You aren’t cheating them,” Revelation said. “I’m giving you my piece.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Maybe it’s because I like the way you stood up to my brothers,” Revelation said. She smiled. “Or, maybe it’s because I like you,” she added.
“Well, I, uh, I appreciate it,” James said, not knowing what else to say.
Over the next several days, it became obvious, even to the others, that Revelation had her sights set on making James Cason her man. James tried to ignore it as much as he could, but Bob, Billy, and Duke wouldn’t allow it. They found every opportunity to tease him.
“Bob, you got a suit and tie?” Billy Swan asked one day, when the four of them were together.
“Yes, I have a suit and tie.”
“What about you, Duke? You got one?”
Duke shook his head. “I’ve never owned one,” he said. “What would I need one for?”
“Why, for the wedding,” Billy answered.
“What wedding?”
“The wedding between James and Revelation,” Billy said. “Way things are looking, they’ll be getting married soon as we get back to Texas, and I reckon we’ll be wanting to go.”
“Ha!” Bob said. “The way things are going, they’ll be getting married before we get back to Texas. Probably in the next little town we come to.”
“Well, in that case, I won’t be needing a suit after all, will I?” Duke asked. “All I’ll need is a pair of clean denim trousers and maybe a new shirt.”
Everyone but James laughed.
“That’s about enough of all that,” James said.
“You may as well face it, James. That girl is in love with you.”
“All I can say is, you boys have a very active imagination,” James said. “She’s just being nice, that’s all.”
“Uh-huh. You just keep telling yourself that,” Billy said. “That’s how it works, you know. Women are a lot smarter than men when it comes to things like that. A woman will set her cap for a man and the next thing you know, she’s got him throwed, hog-tied, and branded before he knows what hit him.”
Snorting in disgust, James rode away from the others as their laughter followed him.
They reached the Arkansas River after seven weeks on the trail. The lead animals bawled and refused the ford at first, but the drovers forced them in. Then, once the herd was started across the water it again became one entity, with all the trailing cows following without protest.
With his leg hooked across the pommel of his saddle, James sat astride his horse on the south bank and watched as the stream of animals moved down into the water. Their hooves made clacking sounds on the rocky bank of the river, and their longhorns rattled as they came in contact with each other.
He could see the ribs on each cow as it plunged into the water, and he was struck with how lean they were. It wasn’t so much that they weren’t getting enough to eat, as it was that they were trail-lean. They had literally walked all the pounds off of them. At this rate they would reach Dakota with nothing but tough and stringy animals. He wasn’t sure how much they would be able to charge for such animals, or even if anyone would be interested in buying them.
Once the entire herd was across, he called everyone together.
“We’ve probably walked off half the tallow over the last seven weeks. Because of that, I think we should stay here for a few days to recruit our animals,” James said. “We’ve plenty of water and grass, and I have a feeling the hardest part of the drive is before us.”
