A short time later, Tige and his crew walked along the riverbank toward the crossing. Abel and Nick held onto ropes attached to a crude raft they were pulling downriver. When they reached the crossing, they dragged the creation through mud to prop it up against the east embankment.
“What do you think, Jack?” Tige said. “Ain’t pretty, but she floats.”
“I’m watching,” Jack said noncommittally.
The raft consisted of two half-rotted beams with planks lashed between them about every two feet. It appeared that only the wagon would sit on the raft. Sierra wondered how they would get it across the channel which was a bit more than one hundred feet wide at this point and far from running full. The distance was not an issue, but Sierra was skeptical about dragging the chuckwagon laden raft through the mud and then keeping it afloat.
The mule team was unhitched from the wagon and anchored by ropes to the raft. Rudy and Bram crossed the river on borrowed horses, and Jack and Sierra followed to await arrival of the chuckwagon on the opposite bank. Sierra noticed that Jordy and Eagle Eyes had joined Tige and his crew in pushing the chuckwagon onto the raft, where it was anchored by multiple ropes to the beams. Irish and Jordy removed boots, shirts, and britches, tossing their clothes in the back of the wagon, and waded into the mud to lead the mules across the river.
“Why is Jordy helping with the mules?” Sierra asked Jack, as they watched from the high bank above the crossing. She could not keep her eyes off Jordy’s lean, nearly naked body, scrutinizing the muscled shoulders and torso as he moved about, noticing with a lingering look that Irish, while not a big man, was also a fine specimen of manhood. In West Texas, she decided, especially on the ranches, there were not all that many men gone to fat.
Jack said, “Jordy and Irish are the strongest swimmers. Currents can be tricky. Channel’s probably not more than four feet deep, but water’s high enough a man can’t keep his feet planted on the bottom, at least not for long without getting swept off balance and washed away downstream. And there can be tricky, deep whirlpools in any river.” He was looking at her, smiling impishly, and she realized her grandfather was guessing that she had been staring at Jordy.
She tried to deflect his suspicions. “I’m fascinated by how your men go about their business so casually, undaunted by any challenge in front of them.”
“Competence, persistence. Those are the kind of men I look for. You will notice that nobody sits on his fanny waiting to be told how to do something. They just figure it out and do it.”
The ropes connecting the raft to the mules tightened as Jack and Irish led the mules into the murky water. With the mud sucking at the raft bottom, it resisted, and Tige and his former buffalo soldiers got behind it and pushed while holding fast to the raft with two long ropes that were to stabilize the rear as it made its crossing. When the mud released its hold, the raft leaped forward, and the mules pulled it into the water. They were moving steadily to the other side until the rear of the raft dovetailed, yanking Abel Burke into the water and launching him downriver.
Roper and Tige held fast to the other rope and kept the raft’s rear from swinging into the center of the river while Abel frantically tried to hang onto the other rope that was dangling in the water. Tige yelled, “Abel can’t swim.”
Jordy handed his mule’s rope to Irish and started swimming toward Abel, riding the current and propelling his body with strong, steady strokes. Sierra’s heart raced when she saw Abel disappear underwater as Jordy approached. Then she saw the rope floating loosely, writhing like a snake in the water. Abel had lost his grip. Jordy plunged beneath the river’s service where one of the countless twists in the river’s course would send him out of sight, apparently around one of the steep banks.
“Mount up,” Jack said. “God knows how far the river’s going to take them.”
“But Jordy can swim to the bank.”
“He can swim with the best, but he won’t quit till he finds Abel. And there’s nothing stronger than a drowning man caught up in panic.”
As they rode away, Sierra tossed a glance over her shoulder and saw that Roper had waded into the water behind the raft and was pulling in Abel’s rope. Eagle Eyes was in the water taking over Jordy’s abandoned mule, and every man’s attention was on getting the raft and cargo across the river. Tige would see that the mission was carried out. That came first.
They skirted two more bends in the river before they found Jordy, still in the water but his arm wrapped about the former soldier’s chest, pulling the man to a portion of dry channel just below one of the banks. When he reached dry ground, he dragged Abel from the river, dropped the man on the ground, knelt and began pumping his back, pushing him sharply between the shoulder blades intermittently. Finally, Abel began to cough, and water spewed from his mouth.
Jack and Sierra dismounted and went to the edge of the bank and looked down some seven or eight feet below. “Jordy,” Jack called. “Will he be all right?”
“I think so. We need to give him some time. I didn’t see you coming. Do you have horses?”
“Yep. Pokey and Dancer.”
“Abel won’t be walking far. He will need a ride.”
Jack said, “Done.”
Soon, Jordy had Abel sitting up, leaning against the rock-laced, sand and dirt bank. Abel was a short, wiry man a year or two
