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    Tyle Driscoll and Red River Sam Bonnet decided that they were tired of working for wages and set out for the Mesquite Canyon country with six of their best dogs to catch some cimarrones. Old Dil Townsen was never much to work for anyhow so Tyle and Sam figured if they were going to risk life and limb chasing wild cattle through the mesquite and thorns for two bits a head they might as well be doing it on their own for two dollars.

There were plenty of Longhorns still prowling the brush country south of San Antonio free for the taking and the markets in New Orleans were high. Some said a man could get six dollars Yankee gold for good cattle and the boys figured they could have a couple of hundred head there in three months. That was more money than them old boys had seen since they came to Texas during the war, certainly more than they would ever even smell working for that scrawny swindler, Townsen. Any man who begrudged good maverickers extra flour and coffee after they branded a hundred head from only two weeks work was nothing more than a skinflint and potential horse cutter. They were the best there was at catching cimarrones - bar none. Let Old Dil just try to replace them. He'd learn the value of an extra pound of coffee and three-pound sack of flour for hard working wranglers with the best catch dogs in Texas. Nothing more need be said on the matter.

Tyle was a tall, lanky drink of water with about half his teeth gone, a hawk nose and eyes so hollow they looked like they belonged on a strangled cat. His night horse was a knock-kneed grulla mustang gelding with all four legs black from the fetlocks down. He called that bronc, Fester, but nobody could figure where he came up with such a handle. Old Fester was a good one and could see in the dark better than any ten other broomtails a man could assemble. Tyle had a new Mother Hubbard saddle that he paid fifteen dollars for in Austin. He was partial to wearing red and brown plaid wool pants with the legs stuffed down stove pipe black army boots and always sported a pair of ten pointed Mexican spurs.

He wore an old broad brimmed brown felt hat so loose and floppy that he had to sew up the front of the brim to the crown with rawhide thongs to keep it from blowing down and blinding him in a hard cow chase. He carried a '51 Navy Colt in a cross-draw holster and packed a Zouave carbine in his saddle boot that he liberated off a dead Yankee just after Yellow Tavern. His shirt was so thread bare and ragged that most gents wondered why he wore it at all. His elbows were plum tan from exposure as he had worn clear through both his long johns and linsey woolsey shirt long before the spring green up. But he was a goer, could like to paint the sky yellow with a lasso, and the best damned night header in Texas.

Red River Sam Bonnet was the more sedate and showy of the partners. He was every bit as skinny as Tyle but didn't ride like a sack of bones rolling down a railroad grade. He also took more pride in his appearance. Although his mustache hadn't been trimmed in months and draped over his bottom lip like an old horse blanket on a fence rail, he did own a whale bone hair comb and used it every morning that he could.

He liked to part his hair down the middle like a town dandy and herd the excess locks over and behind his ears. If he kept his hat on tight his hair tended to stay in place so he usually had his tie-down string drawn tight against his chin. He was fond of wearing a fancy fireman's red wool bib shirt and gold silk scarf that he claimed was given him by a sporting lady named Naomi, more famously called Sugar Lil around Houston. He packed a finely tuned Confederate dragoon .44 six shooter and Rio Grande camp knife. They were carried in matching star concho decorated loop holster and sheath. Sam was the brains of the outfit, but that didn't say much. Generally, he had a broad plan for the day devised before Tyle finished his breakfast coffee and Tyle wasn't much to challenge authority or argue trivialities as long as whatever they were doing was from the back of a horse or rail of a bar.

The boys had been saddle pards for over two years and rode for Townsen most of that time. They had their own string of six ponies and some fine mongrel catch dogs bred mainly from a blue tick bitch and whatever came along when she was in heat. They raised them from pups and sold the bitches when they had some cow sense trained into them. Now that the old bitch had passed on, they ran four roan brothers, and a couple of brindle hounds of no relation. They called them Tobe, Rye, Musket, Flowers, Stinky and No-Good with No-Good being the best of the pack. He was a lop-eared scarred-muzzle blue like his momma with a put-out left eye and a disposition reasonably akin to a rabid wolf. But he was hell in the thickets and unafraid of any beast on two, four or six legs. If a man could quirt him bad enough he minded most of the time but nobody, man nor dog, turned his back on him if he was on the prod. He may have looked like sin but his teeth were good and he knew how to use them. Both men usually quirted him with a revolver in the other hand just in case he took it upon himself to go for the nose or throat like he did a fighting bull. Musket was probably the second best dog because he was easier to handle, a good brawler, and regularly brought in game. The boys couldn't remember how many snakes, armadillos and rabbits Musket had shared for the campfire. He had     developed a taste for rats of late and the boys weren't up to sharing even though they appreciated the gesture.

The other problem with Musket was that he might take it upon himself to go hunting right in the middle of a wild cow catch if something scared up. But since No-Good liked fighting better than eating the other dogs usually hung it out with him. Generally it worked out for the best if a man could beat No-Good badly enough to settle him down after the cattle were lassoed.

They located a thick stand of cedars along a creek and set up a maverick camp. They built themselves a crude lacco to keep their flea bags dry and a rambling cedar wood holding corral set through the creek channel. The first night out they managed to flush thirty head of moss backs, yearling calves and young bulls. They decided on a left hip running iron brand they labeled the Rafter-I. It was easy to slap on and they hadn't seen anything similar in the country. They also dew lapped the left ear.
Neither man was unhappy with the look of the cattle they brought in. For a bunch of wild linebacks they weren't so thin that the sun shinned through them in the dawn light and only one old cow was foot sore.

The pickings were better than the Williamson county country where Townsen had settled and after working four miles or so of canyon ambushes, they had seventy-five head corralled and branded in the first seven days with only four head shot to keep their ponies from being gutted. They kept huge mill fires burning each night around the corrals to fence break the new stock. They guessed that some of the three-year-olds would probably weigh out at six hundred pounds. Both agreed that there were several bunches they had missed and if their luck and the corral held, they could put together at least a herd of a hundred or so before breaking camp.

That was about the situation when they had their first bad break and lost No-Good. They were making a late evening sweep when Musket flushed a varmint leading No-Good and Stinky into some rocky hills above a dry slough. The boys didn't see the flush but could tell they had something up when Musket went to baying on the scent. They didn't think too much of it until the bays turned to cries and yelps. It was so bad that Tyle figured they had a mountain cat or bad boar cornered and were getting cut to ribbons. He lit out after them to shoot whatever it was before one of them was ruined.

The rocks were so steep that he had to tie up his pony and climb the face on foot. Just to be safe he checked the loads in his Colt and hobbled his gelding. He had to climb several hundred yards into the hills before he came upon the awful site. He found No-Good rolling in the dirt and wiping his muzzle with his forepaws yelping like he had turpentine painted on his crap hole. He was riddled with porcupine quills from the top of this head to the bottom of his neck. Being No-Good he had waded right in for first blood and took the brunt of the quills. Musket and Stinky were perforated with quills as well but nowhere near as seriously as No-Good. They were baying at the base of a black oak with a boar porcupine perched quietly in the first fork.

Without thinking, and being angry that his dogs could have been ruined, Tyle pulled his Navy and blew that porcupine right out of his perch where upon the dogs set to him again only to take on more quills. Tyle had to quirt them both back from the corpse before they were blinded as well. Old No-Good only had one good eye to spare and that porcupine did his work on it. It was already turning gray with poison. He was a miserable beast and Tyle knew there was no hope of saving his sight. He pulled his Navy again and sent No-Good to hell where he was sure the devil would find good use for him gnawing on some Yankee carpetbagger's ass. The boys spent the rest of the night by the campfire jerking quills from the other dogs. By morning, both dogs were sick but they managed to shake the poison and were as good as new within the week.

Sam figured it was a bad sign and said they needed to get their seventy-five head started for New Orleans. He was tired of taking chances with the scrawny beasts they were finding when he had good cattle already branded and ready to break trail. He figured they could pick up a few more along the way. Besides with No-Good dead and two other dogs sick, that was all the cattle two wranglers could probably handle through the hardwoods and swamps. So, they saddled up and started the herd for the coast, hoping to trail break the herd in the open before the trees closed in.

They pushed the cattle hard for twenty-four hours to keep them worn down until they settled in. Right off they realized they had a bad bunch of runners. A mosshorned line-backed blue cow settled in at the lead but she was skittish and had that wild-eyed look common to a lobo that had never known anything but thicket and brush, choya and cactus. She had a raggedy-ass, bloat-bellied, red roan bull calf on the teat that was just as crazy as she was. They set off at a near lope and never backed off the lead for two days. It was all the boys could do to keep the drag brought up tight. Sam tried to maintain the point but wore out a pony every four hours just keeping her and her homely whelp held back. Tyle and the dogs were kept busy on the drag and wing keeping the rest within sight.

When they made camp on the second night, they had to mill the herd for an hour before it settled. It was then that the boys decided to turn for Rockport and see if they could find a buyer assembling a herd for New Orleans. There wasn't a prayer of holding this bunch together once they hit the swamps and boggy bayous without hiring some more cowboys risking wage money they didn't have.

They fought that mob of Longhorns for the next two days wondering what that old moss horn cow would pull next. She'd jump two feet to clear a stick no bigger than a garter snake, shy at the song of a meadowlark and balk at a foot-wide spring. She hooked anything that came between her and that calf. When they did reach a fair sized river she jumped in and began swimming for the far shore before the others could even drink. The only reason the boys didn't shoot her was for the hope that if she would eventually settle, they'd have a fine leader and could loaf the rest of the way into Rockport.   

About mid-morning they spied three old boys waiting for them as they came out of stand of locus. The leader was a rough looking lout riding a glass-eyed, scrawny bay. He had a Burnside carbine resting across his lap and a Colt Navy perched high in a cross draw holster. The other two were just common raggedy ass hands packing rusty Colts and looking more like grub line riders than anything a good outfit would hire on. The leader held up his hand, like he was the law or something, for the boys to hold up their cattle. The problem was that once the moss back cow had set her mind to make for the next line of underbrush, she was the deuces to stop.

While Sam tried to work them into a mill those three just sat there on their ponies like they were of independent means. Sam decided right then and there that if they weren't the sort to lend a hand when they were the ones calling the halt that they were probably scalawags or outcast Missouri Redlegs. When Tyle and the dogs finally brought up the dregs and the remuda, Sam turned his pony to face them.

"Where you boys going with them cattle?" the lout asked.

Sam was in no mood to palaver and decided to be abrupt. "Going to shit after the hogs eat em," he said.

The lout didn't particularly like the comment. "You know who's range you're on?" he said with the grim look of a guy with a new grown hemorrhoid.

"Since when is this closed range?" Sam asked before spitting a wad of tobacco at the glass eye's forefeet.

"You're on Dunham range," the lout said.

"Who's Dunham? You?" Sam shot back.

"We ride for him."

Sam gave out the expression of a gent who had just blundered on a well-used outhouse. "You some kind of a gun outfit?" 
  
"We protect our cattle and our range."

"If you can manage to move that crowbait more than six feet and take a look at them cattle you'll notice right quick that they have a Rafter-I road brand. They sure don't have any other brands."

"Where'd you get them?" the lout asked.

"Ain't none of your affair. They was mavericks and now they're carrying a road brand. That's the end of it." Sam figured these three for herd cutters and looked over his shoulder to see what Tyle was up to in case he needed him.   

Tyle was just leaning on his saddle horn, smiling, scratching, and watching like a freshly paid hooker looking through a sweet shop window. The pack gathered round his pony like old saddle pards and waited for their orders. Sam knew that whenever Tyle smiled like that he was ready to fracas when given the word.

"We're a gonna need a toll for crossing our range," the lout pronounced.

He acted pious enough to be some Baptist sky pilot on a soul-saving visit to a Methodist divorcee.

Sam shook his head. "We ain't a gonna do it."

The lout puffed up like a horny toad. "The hell you won't. Me and the boys will see to that."

Sam grinned coldly. "You got help? You're gonna need help."

The lout frowned and spoke quietly& kind of growly-like. "You're about to find out."

"Sic em!" Tyle spit under his breath.

Old Musket must have been feeling guilty about leading No-Good to his grave because he lit into that scrawny bay with everything he could muster. Stinky and Flowers waded in just as hard as soon as they figured out what "sic em" meant. Not to be outdone Tobe and Rye made for the other two.

That old glass eye jumped about four feet to starboard and went to bucking. The lout only stayed with him for the first foot then gave everyone a demonstration on how to break a fall with your face. The whole area turned into a dusty haze of bucking horses, cursing cowboys, swirling dogs and flying saddle rigging. It wasn't a minute before all three of them herd cutters were ground bound with their ponies headed for the high lonesome, snorting, farting and kicking at the pursuing pack. The old moss back took it as her cue to charge through and she led the herd and remuda for the far thickets at a dead run.

"Let's go!" Sam yelled as he dug his spurs into his roan and pointed him toward Longhorn tails and pony leavings.

"What about these fellers?" Tyle called in confusion.

"To hell with those fellers!" Sam's voice faded as he charged away.

One of the other two, a feisty, bandy-legged little drip with an Irish goatee, drew his Colt and tried to cock it with both thumbs. The damn thing was so rusty that the flat spring snapped with a pop. All he could do was curse and throw it at Tyle as he trotted by. He couldn't have missed him worse if old Aunt Suzy had been throwing an anvil at a road runner.

Tyle just shook his head with disdain and dug in his spurs. He left them there choking on his pony's dust cloud.

That old moss back had finally risen to her potential for she had all seventy-five of them linebacks in a full-blown stampede. They hit those thickets with a crash, a shutter and a bang, scattering like quail along a dry wash. The wash was thirty feet wide and eight feet deep at the banks. When the moss back hit the bank she gave a wild-eyed leap like she actually believed she could fly to the far side in a single bound. She must have taken landing lessons from the lout because she came down square in the middle head first, dug those long horns into the sandy bottom, and snapped her miserable old neck like a twig.

The others must a thought she was giving lessons because about half of them tried the same stunt with varying degrees of success. Suffice it to say, none of them made the far bank, first try. Those that hadn't broke something or busted a gut came to their feet and scrambled up the far bank like they had someplace to go. The other half took to fighting brambles and dodging tree limbs until they figured where the leaders were going and followed forthwith. After they crawled up the other bank they ran for Canada and a high rocky slope in between.

By this time the dog pack had given up on pony chasing and was scrambling in pursuit. Only Rye stopped long enough to sniff the moss back and decide she was dead before lighting out after the herd.

Sam drew up his pony and gazed down on the death and destruction of the wash. He counted three with broken legs, one busted gut cow kicking in the dust and the strange display of a blue roan moss back in the middle, tail in the air, dead. Worst of all, old Fester wasn't far from the others nursing a broken fore leg, just a standing there in the sand and his distress.

Sam eased his broomtail down the bank and drew his dragoon. He shot Fester first then worked his way through the others putting them out of their misery. When he got to the moss back he studied her for a moment, sorry he had an empty gun. He would have liked to have put one into her just for being like she was and leading Fester to his ruin.

Tyle watched silently from the bank. "Thanks for putting Fester out of his misery," he said softly.

Sam nodded without looking up. "I know he was your horse and I didn't have the right but I just couldn't stand to watch it."

"That's the way of it. I'd a thought old Fester could a seen better than that. He'd a never crossed that wash in the dark. We're gonna be a pony short now, and a good 'un," Tyle said.

Sam shook his head and sighed. "Naw, I saw two of them herd cutters' nags running with the stock. We'll trade them even up, saddles and all, for Fester."

Tyle nodded and started his pony down the bank. "Sounds good. We need to ride afore them Longhorns scatter in the breeze."

Sam drew up his pony's head and gently spurred. "Good enough."

Both pronounced it a near miracle that the herd had stayed together as well as it had. By the time they had them rounded up, they were only ten head short including the four littering the dry wash and a net gain of one pony. Rather than waste time and possible reprisals from the herd cutters they pushed on. By the next day the strays had caught up and rejoined the herd. Longhorns are like that.

It went to raining the next day and continued solid for a week. The boys got so waterlogged that their ears started leaking. They spent several shivering nights in the saddle just keeping the herd milling and dry firewood became so scarce that they ran cold camps three nights running. They came to a wash almost identical to the massacre site but this time it was running bank full. Longhorns that the week before would have balked crossing a piss trace, bailed right in and tried to swim for
the far bank. The current swept and scattered them for close to a mile.

When they crawled up the other bank ten more head were gone, probably food for the catfish. It all happened so fast that the boys didn't have time to consider their options. It was a major loss, however, and they could see their profits dwindling.

They came to a gentle lowland meadow running along the Nueces River in Live Oak County. They stopped there and dried themselves out for a spell letting them Longhorns belly down on the lush flood plain grass. Sam observed that it would be a fine place for a couple of fellows to run a two loop outfit. They weren't getting any younger and it was time to think about settling down. They could build a little cabin on the rise, get out the running iron and maverick up a fine herd in no time. If they played their cards right they could find themselves a couple of lonely senoritas and have a fine life. Tyle didn't say much but it was plain to see that he wasn't opposed to the idea, especially the part about the senoritas. Of course, he was tired and easily swayed.

A week later they drove a thoroughly trail broke herd of sixty Longhorns into Rockport and headed straight for the pens. They were out of flour and beans and hadn't even had a hot cup of coffee in four days. They were so bad off that Tyle was talking of buying a new shirt with his share of the profits.

A heavy set fellow with a peg leg stepped from the pen office to greet them. "Your late," he said with a smile.

"Late for what?" Sam asked without dismounting.

"The packets have already sailed. I don't look for another cow market for four months."

"Well, we still got cattle for sale. What's the market?"

"I suppose we could buy them for the hides and tallow and make out. I'd go fifty cents a head."

"Fifty cents! What kind of a price is that? I heard they was selling for six dollars in New Orleans."

"They was bringing four dollars here six weeks ago. But the market is played out for now. In six months it'll be up again. If I was you boys I'd grass them up and come back in April."

Sam turned to his disgusted partner. "What do you think?"

"I ain't gonna sell for fifty cents. We could a done almost that well working for that skinflint, Townsen."

Sam spit and thought for a while. "What about that meadow we stopped at back in Live Oak County? We could winter them there and build the herd. We been talking about starting our own herd. Some of these old girls are with calf. What do you think of that?"

"I want some coffee and flour. I ain't about to winter it out without some coffee and flour."

"We could sell one of them cutter's nags. It ought to bring ten dollars or so. We could do that?"

Tyle was sullen. "I need another shirt."

Sam nodded. "We both do. We'll get ourselves a couple of shirts to boot. What do you say, partner?"

Tyle thought for a moment. He thought so hard he almost forgot what it was he was considering. He nodded acceptance rather than have to hear Sam explain it again. They sold a horse, bought the supplies and turned the herd back for the Nueces.

They found that meadow again and built themselves a dugout along the flood plain. They even took time enough to build a wood shingled roof, a couple of rope cots and a horse pen. They allowed those Longhorns to scatter along the river and went to mavericking up some more. They grew so fond of the place that they decided to head to Live Oak and register their brand.

The County Clerk's face turned a bright red when the boys told him their brand. "Are you boys trying to make some kind of joke?"

Sam shook his head. "Ain't no kind of joke. We want to register the Rafter-I as our brand. We built us a place and we got some cattle scattered all along that river."

"I hate to tell you boys this but the Rafter-I is Hopper and Wade's brand. They run the largest outfit in this county. I figure you just     scattered your cattle in with about four thousand others with the same    brand."

Sam's mouth dropped and he felt sick to his stomach.

"I guess we could go back and rebrand them," Tyle said.

The county clerk shook his head. "I wouldn't advise that, boys. Hooper and Wade are running some of the best gun hands in this part of Texas.    Hell, they hung four Mexicans just last week for stealing branded cattle. The way I figure it& if you like your skins& I'd just write those cattle off and decide on another brand."

Sam shook his head. "Forget it. We'll mosey." He led Tyle out of the building into the square.

The boys sat on a low stone fence surrounding the courthouse square and waited to get up the gumption to ride home. It was a plum discouraging turn of fate and they were having difficulty dealing.

A buggy came down the street and stopped in front of them. Neither looked up. Old Dil Towsen leaned out of the buggy. "Hey, what you boys doing in Live Oak? I've been looking for you all over creation."

Sam looked up and smiled. At that point he was glad to see any familiar face, even if it did belong to an old horse cutter. "Howdy, Dil. What are you doing here?"

"Going to Rockport to line up some spring buyers. I've got a good-sized herd to bring in. I sure could use you boys if you're willing."

"We're sorta running an outfit of our own," Sam said without looking up.

"If you'll excuse me for saying so, Sam. You boys don't look too prosperous. You could trail in my cattle and mix in your own cows for nothing. I'd pay you wages and let yours go for the same lot price. Now, what could be fairer than that?"

Tyle looked up and frowned. "I'd expect plenty of coffee and flour."

Dil nodded ashamedly. "I'm real sorry about that, Tyle. I've felt real bad about that incident ever since it happened. I shouldn't have treated you boys that way. I'll never short grub you boys again. You have my word. What do ya' say?"

They went to work for Dil that winter and nothing more was said on the matter. Tyle took along an extra stash of coffee and flour just in case.

*~*~*~*~*

Copyright © 2001 Randy Smith. All rights reserved.