Dashing Druid (Texas Druids) (13 page)

“As far away as Crawford could arrange,” he muttered. “But good fortune abides with a fool, Mum always said.” He laughed bitterly. A fool he surely was for imagining Lil could ever be his.

CHAPTER EIGHT

By
noon, Tye was glad to know Lil was riding up front, far away from his miserable position. Together with Kirby Daniels, a rail-thin young cowboy with wheat-colored hair, he had the unpleasant job of shagging along the slowest animals – the drags – and making sure none turned back.

Tye had ridden drag before, on the drive from the
Nueces
, but that small herd didn’t compare to this river of cattle. Grinding the grassy turf to bits with thousands of iron-hard hooves, they kicked up a choking, foul smelling shroud of dust. Tye wore his bandanna up most of the time in order to breathe, but his mouth still grew gritty and his eyes turned raw from the nasty stuff. It furred him like a second skin by nightfall, when they finally stopped.

Neil MacClure, serving as Crawford’s
segundo,
or second in command, told Tye he was to ride bobtail guard, the first night-herd shift. He was partnered with Dewey Sherman, the same man he’d shared a cramped line shack with over the previous winter. Tye had spotted Dewey riding at left flank earlier, with his coffee colored face half hidden behind a bandanna. Flank wasn’t a whole lot better than drag, dust wise.

As the two of them circled the herd slowly in opposite directions, singing softly to the tired cattle, Tye recognized this assignment as another way to keep Lil and him apart. He’d barely had time to eat before taking up his night herd post. There’d never be a chance for him to socialize with Lil in the evenings if this continued. Exactly what Del Crawford intended, damn him!

By the time he and Dewey returned to camp after their two hour shift, Lil was rolled in her blankets asleep. Tye quietly spread his own bedroll, removed his boots, and lay down with a sigh. One big ache from head to toe, he fell into a dreamless sleep.

A banging noise jarred him awake. The sky was still pitch dark.

“Roll out, you lazy son-of-a-guns!” Chic Johnson hollered, hammering an iron pot with his spoon.
“Breakfast on the boards.”

“Stop that racket!” one of the men complained.

Tye groaned and sat up, feeling as if he’d just gone to sleep. The scent of coffee and frying meat helped revive him. It also made him wonder what time the cook had crawled out. Running a hand through his matted hair, he crammed his hat on, stamped into his boots and rolled up his bedding. As he carried it over to the hoodlum wagon, he saw Lil.

Having just stowed her belongings, she turned as he drew near. She froze and stared at him. Even dressed in a baggy checked shirt, pants and leather chaps, with her sable hair hidden beneath her hat, she provided a feast for his starved eyes.
He smiled, suddenly wide awake.

“Good morning, colleen.”

“Morning,” she replied, trying to circle around him.

Tye stepped into her path, unwilling to let their encounter end so soon. “Are ye riding point again today?”

She stopped short and gave him a wary look. “Pa assigned me there. That’s where I’ll be every day.”

“Mmm, and that means I won’t be seeing much of ye. And I won’t have a chance to tell
ye
how much I’ve missed ye.”

Catching her breath, she whispered, “Don’t say that. I told you
before,
don’t talk to me at all. It’s not safe.” Her eyes darted back and forth, obviously searching for her father.

Tye followed her gaze and spotted Del Crawford over beyond the chuck wagon. He was speaking to Neil MacClure. If Crawford’s back wasn’t turned right now, he’d be charging over here like a mad bull, Tye supposed. He curled his fists, angry at the man for making Lil afraid to even speak to him. However, when he considered that the fear radiating from her was for
him
, his emotions softened, gentling his response.

“Don’t worry, colleen. We’ll find a way, you and I.”

She looked at him as if he’d gone daft, shook her head and slipped past him, hurrying to join her father and the
segundo
. All three had their horses saddled and waiting. Evidently, they’d risen early and had already eaten.

After a trip into the nearby bushes, Tye sauntered over to the grub line.

“Enjoy the hen fruit,” Chic Johnson remarked, dishing up eggs, side pork, gravy and sourdough biscuits. “Gonna be a while ’fore we have ’em again.”

Realizing Johnson meant the
eggs,
Tye grunted in reply and watched Lil mount her horse. Accompanied by the tall, sandy-haired MacClure, she rode out to guide the cattle northward as they began to meander off the bed ground.

Tye squatted by the fire to eat with the other men. He took no part in their sporadic conversation and kept his mental shield firmly in place, not caring to know what any of them were feeling. He’d almost finished eating when he heard the jingle of spurs approach. He swallowed and looked up, encountering Crawford’s flinty scowl.

“Well, greenhorn, how’d you like your first day of eating dust? You ready to call it quits yet?”

All talk ceased as Tye rose to face him. “’Twill take more than a wee bit of dust to make me quit . . . sir.”

“That so?
Well, I’m betting you won’t last a week.”

“You’ll lose that bet, Mr. Crawford.”

The trail boss smirked. “We’ll see about that, Irish.”

Tye clenched his jaw, not trusting himself to say anything more.

For a moment they stared at one another, neither giving ground. Then Crawford issued a mocking snort, strode over to his horse and stepped into the saddle. His figure blended into the gray of dawn as he rode away.

“
Whooee
!
The boss sure was ready to paw sod, young fella,” one of the men remarked. “What’d yuh do, put a burr under his saddle?”

“
Naw
, he’s jus’ a tenderfoot who cain’t tell a cow from a coyote,” Dewey said, dark eyes glittering with humor. “Boss man
prob’ly
figures he’s trouble. Could be right,” he added, grinning at Tye.

Laughter erupted around the camp. Grateful to Dewey for saving him from snarling an angry reply and making an enemy, Tye laughed too. Then he tossed his plate and utensils in the wreck pan – Chic’s name for a washtub – and went to collect his mount.

Luis and the nighthawk, a teenaged boy named Jubal Evans, had driven the
remuda
into a corral made up of several lariats strung between the two wagons and a handy pair of cottonwood trees. It was a flimsy enclosure, but the horses didn’t challenge it.

Patch needed a rest after yesterday. Working with practiced ease, Luis cut out another horse from Tye’s string, a leggy blue roan mare. The mustang put on a brief bucking show, but Tye worked the fight out of her and was soon on his way. Come hell or high water
or
a sea of dust, he swore he’d prove himself to both Lil and her accursed father.

The wide, wagon-rutted trail led north that day and the next, east of
Clifton
and
Meridian
, across Childress,
Cedron
and Steele Creeks. Covered by bluestem and grama grass, and daubed by colorful spring flowers, the prairie rolled gently amid low-slung hills decked with oak and dark green cedar.

Those first few days, the crew pushed the cattle hard to get them used to the trail. Later, Tye learned from Dewey, the animals would be allowed to set their own pace for the most part. The aim was to fatten them on grass along the way so they’d bring a better price in
Kansas
.

Eating dust every step of the way, Tye saw little of Lil as he worked to keep stubborn longhorns from turning back to their home range. Most were older, half-wild animals like the one that had attacked David.
Mossy horns
, the men called them.

The fourth morning out, Tye awoke to find a snake curled on his belly. Uttering a startled Gaelic oath, he hurled the thing away – a stupid reaction. If it were a rattler, he surely would have been bitten. As it was, the harmless reptile slithered off into the darkness while every drover in camp doubled over laughing. Even the stoic scout, Choctaw Jack, chuckled.

One of them had planted the snake on top of him.
Alabama
! The stocky, moon-faced southerner rode either flank or swing, like Dewey, to whom he showed poorly concealed contempt. That alone made Tye dislike him, but on top of that, the unreconstructed Reb was the ringleader in every prank the men pulled. Tye had good reason to know.

Like the two lads, Kirby and Jubal, he was open to hazing from the others because he’d never been up the trail before. Herding mustangs to
Fort
Concho
and brush cattle up from the
Nueces
didn’t count. The Big Trail was a horse of a different color.

Tye had so far taken the men’s pranks with good humor, but snakes were too much. “Very funny,” he growled, climbing to his feet, ready to stuff
Alabama
’s laughter down his throat.

Lil’s half-smothered giggle drew his gaze. She clamped her lips together, but they twitched mutinously as she studied the ground. Seeing himself through her eyes, he suddenly laughed too. She looked up and actually smiled at him for a moment. For that, he could have thanked
Alabama
.

After breakfast, they forded the
Brazos
River
at Kimball’s
Bend
. They might have used the
Waco
Suspension Bridge
, but the old crossing lay closer, and the water was down right now. Also, they paid no toll this way.

As the cattle became trail broken, they settled into a routine, walking twelve to fifteen miles per day. During the cool, crisp mornings, the longhorns grazed and walked slowly. Then they were moved off the trail to rest while the crew ate lunch in two shifts, riding to wherever Chic Johnson had stopped. As left drag rider, Kirby Daniels ate with the first shift, along with the right flanker, left swing man and right pointer. Tye didn’t mind waiting; Lil ate with the second shift. While he seldom had a chance to say more than hello due to her father’s presence, he at least got to see her.

Once everyone had eaten and saddled fresh horses, they moved on, the cattle stretching into a long, mile-covering stride through the warm afternoons. Chic drove ahead to set up night camp at Del Crawford’s chosen location, with Jubal Evans driving the hoodlum wagon.
Dark-haired and sturdy, the young nighthawk squeezed in a few hours’ sleep when the wagons stopped.
At night he guarded the horses while Luis slept.

Supper was eaten in shifts the same as lunch. Then Tye threw down his bedroll, saddled his night horse, a calm mouse colored grulla, and turned the rest of his string out to graze in Jubal’s care. While he and Dewey rode early guard, the rest of the crew relaxed a while,
then
settled down to sleep until each one’s turn came up. Lil rode third shift with Neil MacClure, Tye had learned.

At dark, Chic Johnson always pointed the wagon tongue toward the North Star. It served as a compass at sunrise when the whole process started over again.

David had sent along four extra River T hands to help get the herd trail broke. At dawn on the seventh day, Del Crawford told them to eat and head for home. Tye was cinching his saddle when they left.

“So long,” he called out to the four.

“See you when you get back,” one replied.

“Don’t let
Wichita
get yuh by the tail, Irish,” another hollered as they rode out.

Tye laughed and waved. Then he caught Del Crawford’s sour glare and crowed to himself. He’d proven the crusty devil wrong, doing his job without complaint, swallowing Crawford’s ridicule and the men’s practical jokes.

Mounting up, he recalled that snake the other morning. It was a good thing Lil had been there to make him laugh. Otherwise, he likely would have lost his temper and handed her father a perfect excuse to send him home. Since then, the men had let up, thank the saints. He was beginning to feel like one of them. But he longed desperately for time alone with Lil,
an impossibility
as things stood.

That afternoon, he came close to spoiling his chances entirely when Del Crawford and Neil MacClure rode back to see how far the herd extended. Tye reined in his horse as they approached.

“You’re letting them get too strung out,” Crawford barked.