six-shooter in young Gray’s face. All the heelers to the play now
jumped their horses forward, holding their six-shooters over their
heads, ratcheting the cylinders of their revolvers by cocking and
lowering the hammers, as if nothing but a fight would satisfy their
demand for gore.
“If you want these horses that bad,” said young Gray, “I reckon you can
get them for the present. But I want to tell you one thing—there are
sixty head of horses here under herd with ours, outside the ’96’ brand.
They belong to men in town. If you take them out of this pasture
to-night, they might consider you a horse-thief and deal with you
accordingly. You know you are doing this by force of arms. You have no
more authority here than any other man, except what men and guns give
you. Good-night, sir, I may see you by daylight.”
Calling off his men, they let little grass grow under their feet as
they rode to town. The young man roused his father and uncle, who in
turn went out and asked their friends to come to their assistance.
Together with the owners of the sixty head, by daybreak they had
eighteen mounted and armed men.
The sheriff paid no attention to the advice of young Gray, but when day
broke he saw that he had more horses than he wanted, as there was a
brand or two there he had no claim on, just or unjust, and they must be
cut out or trouble would follow. One of the men with Ninde knew of a
corral where this work could be done, and to this corral, which was at
least fifteen miles from the town where the rescue party of Gray had
departed at daybreak, they started. The pursuing posse soon took the
trail of the horses from where they left the pasture, and as they
headed back toward Texas, it was feared it might take a long, hard ride
to overtake them. The gait was now increased to the gallop, not fast,
probably covering ten miles an hour, which was considered better time
than the herd could make under any circumstances.
After an hour’s hard riding, it was evident, from the trail left, that
they were not far ahead. The fact that they were carrying off with them
horses that were the private property of men in the rescue party did
not tend to fortify the sheriff in the good opinion of any of the
rescuers. It was now noticed that the herd had left the trail in the
direction of a place where there had formerly been a ranch house, the
corrals of which were in good repair, as they were frequently used for
branding purposes. On coming in sight of these corrals, Gray’s party
noticed that some kind of work was being carried on, so they approached
it cautiously. The word came back that it was the horses.
Gray said to his party, “Keep a short distance behind me. I’ll open the
ball, if there is any.” To the others of his party, it seemed that the
supreme moment in the old man’s life had come. Over his determined
features there spread a smile of the deepest satisfaction, as though
some great object in life was about to be accomplished. Yet in that
determined look it was evident that he would rather be shot down like a
dog than yield to what he felt was tyranny and the denial of his
rights. When his party came within a quarter of a mile of the corrals,
it was noticed that Ninde and his deputies ceased their work, mounted
their horses, and rode out into the open, the sheriff in the lead, and
halted to await the meeting.
Gray rode up to within a hundred feet of Ninde’s posse, and dismounting
handed the reins of his bridle to his son. He advanced with a steady,
even stride, a double-barreled shotgun held as though he expected to
flush a partridge. At this critical juncture, his party following him
up, it seemed that reputations as bad men were due to get action, or
suffer a discount at the hands of heretofore peaceable men. Every man
in either party had his arms where they would be instantly available
should the occasion demand it. When Gray came within easy hailing
distance, his challenge was clear and audible to every one. “What in
hell are you doing with my horses?”
“I’ve got to have these horses, sir,” answered Ninde.
“Do you realize what it will take to get them?” asked Gray, as he
brought his gun, both barrels at full cock, to his shoulder. “Bat an
eye, or crook your little finger if you dare, and I’ll send your soul
glimmering into eternity, if my own goes to hell for it.” There was
something in the old man’s voice that conveyed the impression that
these were not idle words. To heed them was the better way, if human
life had any value.
“Well, Mr. Gray,” said the sheriff, “put down your gun and take your
horses. This has been a bad piece of business for us—take your horses
and go, sir. My bondsmen can pay that judgment, if they have to.”
Gray’s son rode around during the conversation, opened the gate, and
turned out the horses. One or two men helped him, and the herd was soon
on its way to the pasture.
As the men of his party turned to follow Gray, who had remounted, he
presented a pitiful sight. His still determined features, relaxed from
the high tension to which he had been nerved, were blanched to the
color of his hair and beard. It was like a drowning man—with the
strength of two—when rescued and brought safely to land, fainting
through sheer weakness. A reprieve from death itself or the blood of
his fellow man upon his hands had been met and passed. It was some
little time before he spoke, then he said: “I reckon it was best, the
way things turned out, for I would hate to kill any man, but I would
gladly die rather than suffer an injustice or quietly submit to what I
felt was a wrong against me.”
It was some moments before the party became communicative, as they all
had a respect for the old man’s feelings. Ninde was on the uneasy seat,
for he would not return to the State, though his posse returned
somewhat crestfallen. It may be added that the sheriff’s bondsmen, upon
an examination into the facts in the case, concluded to stand a suit on
the developments of some facts which their examination had uncovered in
the original proceedings, and the matter was dropped, rather than fight
it through in open court.
XIV
THE STORY OF A POKER STEER
He was born in a chaparral thicket, south of the Nueces River in Texas.
It was a warm night in April, with a waning moon hanging like a
hunter’s horn high overhead, when the subject of this sketch drew his
first breath. Ushered into a strange world in the fulfillment of
natural laws, he lay trembling on a bed of young grass, listening to
the low mooings of his mother as she stood over him in the joy and
pride of the first born. But other voices of the night reached his
ears; a whippoorwill and his mate were making much ado over the
selection of their nesting-place on the border of the thicket. The
tantalizing cry of a coyote on the nearest hill caused his mother to
turn from him, lifting her head in alarm, and uneasily scenting the
night air.
On thus being deserted, and complying with an inborn instinct of fear,
he made his first attempt to rise and follow, and although unsuccessful
it caused his mother to return and by her gentle nosings and lickings
to calm him. Then in an effort to rise he struggled to his knees, only
to collapse like a limp rag. But after several such attempts he finally
stood on his feet, unsteady on his legs, and tottering like one
drunken. Then his mother nursed him, and as the new milk warmed his
stomach he gained sufficient assurance of his footing to wiggle his
tail and to butt the feverish caked udder with his velvety muzzle.
After satisfying his appetite he was loath to lie down and rest, but
must try his legs in toddling around to investigate this strange world
into which he had been ushered. He smelled of the rich green leaves of
the mesquite, which hung in festoons about his birth chamber, and
trampled underfoot the grass which carpeted the bower.
After several hours’ sleep he was awakened by a strange twittering
above him. The moon and stars, which were shining so brightly at the
moment of his birth, had grown pale. His mother was the first to rise,
but heedless of her entreaties he lay still, bewildered by the
increasing light. Animals, however, have their own ways of teaching
their little ones, and on the dam’s first pretense of deserting him he
found his voice, and uttering a plaintive cry, struggled to his feet,
which caused his mother to return and comfort him.
Later she enticed him out of the thicket to enjoy his first sun bath.
The warmth seemed to relieve the stiffness in his joints, and after
each nursing during the day he attempted several awkward capers in his
fright at a shadow or the rustle of a leaf. Near the middle of the
afternoon, his mother being feverish, it was necessary that she should
go to the river and slake her thirst. So she enticed him to a place
where the grass in former years had grown rank, and as soon as he lay
down she cautioned him to be quiet during her enforced absence, and
though he was a very young calf he remembered and trusted in her. It
was several miles to the river, and she was gone two whole hours, but
not once did he disobey. A passing ranchero reined in and rode within
three feet of him, but he did not open an eye or even twitch an ear to
scare away a fly.
The horseman halted only long enough to notice the flesh-marks. The
calf was a dark red except for a white stripe which covered the right
side of his face, including his ear and lower jaw, and continued in a
narrow band beginning on his withers and broadening as it extended
backward until it covered his hips. Aside from his good color the
ranchman was pleased with his sex, for a steer those days was better
than gold. So the cowman rode away with a pleased expression on his
face, but there is a profit and loss account in all things.
When the calf’s mother returned she rewarded her offspring for his
obedience, and after grazing until dark, she led him into the chaparral
thicket and lay down for the night. Thus the first day of his life and
a few succeeding ones passed with unvarying monotony. But when he was
about a week old his mother allowed him to accompany her to the river,
where he met other calves and their dams. She was but a three-year-old,
and he was her first baby; so, as they threaded their way through the
cattle on the river-bank the little line-back calf was the object of
much attention. The other cows were jealous of him, but one old
grandmother came up and smelled of him benignantly, as if to say,
“Suky, this is a nice baby boy you have here.”
Then the young cow, embarrassed by so much attention, crossed the
shallow river and went up among some hills where she had once ranged
and where the vining mesquite grass grew luxuriantly. There they spent
several months, and the calf grew like a weed, and life was one long
summer day. He could have lived there always and been content, for he
had many pleasures. Other cows, also, brought their calves up to the
same place, and he had numerous playmates in his gambols on the
hillsides. Among the other calves was a speckled heifer, whose dam was
a great crony of his own mother. These two cows were almost inseparable
during the entire summer, and it was as natural as the falling of a
mesquite bean that he should form a warm attachment for his speckled
playmate.
But this June-time of his life had an ending when late in the fall a
number of horsemen scoured the hills and drove all the cattle down to
the river. It was the first round-up he had ever been in, so he kept
very close to his mother’s side, and allowed nothing to separate him
from her. When the outriders had thrown in all the cattle from the
hills and had drifted all those in the river valley together, they
moved them back on an open plain and began cutting out. There were many
men at the work, and after all the cows and calves had been cut into a
separate herd, the other cattle were turned loose. Then with great
shoutings the cows were started up the river to a branding-pen several
miles distant. Never during his life did the line-back calf forget that
day. There was such a rush and hurrah among these horsemen that long
before they reached the corrals the line-back’s tongue lolled out, for
he was now a very fat calf. Only once did he even catch sight of his
speckled playmate, who was likewise trembling like a fawn.
Inside the corral he rested for a short time in the shade of the
palisades. His mother, however, scented with alarm a fire which was
being built in the middle of the branding-pen. Several men, who seemed
to be the owners, rode through the corralled cows while the cruel irons
were being heated. Then the man who directed the work ordered into
their saddles a number of swarthy fellows who spoke Spanish, and the
work of branding commenced.
The line-back calf kept close to his mother’s side, and as long as
possible avoided the ropers. But in an unguarded moment the noose of a
rope encircled one of his hind feet, and he was thrown upon his side,
and in this position the mounted man dragged him up to the fire. His
mother followed him closely, but she was afraid of the men, and could
only stand at a distance and listen to his piteous crying. The roper,
when asked for the brand, replied, “Bar-circle-bar,” for that was the
brand his mother bore. A tall quiet man who did the branding called to
a boy who attended the fire to bring him two irons; with one he stamped
the circle, and with the other he made a short horizontal bar on either
side of it. Then he took a bloody knife from between his teeth and cut
an under-bit from the calf’s right ear, inquiring of the owner as he
did so, “Do you want this calf left for a bull?”
“No; yearlings will be worth fourteen dollars next spring. He’s a first
calf—his mother’s only a three-year-old.”
As he was released he edged away from the fire, forlorn looking. His
mother coaxed him over into a corner of the corral, where he dropped
exhausted, for with his bleeding ear, his seared side, and a hundred
shooting pains in his loins, he felt as if he must surely die. His dam,
however, stood over him until the day’s work was ended, and kept the
other cows from trampling him. When the gates were thrown open and they
were given their freedom, he cared nothing for it; he wanted to die. He
did not attempt to leave the corral until after darkness had settled
over the scene. Then with much persuasion he arose and limped along
after his mother. But before he could reach the river, which was at
least half a mile away, he sank down exhausted. If he could only slake
his terrible thirst he felt he might possibly survive, for the pain had
eased somewhat. With every passing breeze of the night he could scent
the water, and several times in his feverish fancy he imagined he could
hear it as it gurgled over its pebbly bed.
Just at sunrise, ere the heat of the day fell upon him, he struggled to
his feet, for he felt it was a matter of life and death with him to
reach the river. At last he dragged his pain-racked body down to the
rippling water and lowered his head to drink, but it seemed as if every
exertion tended to reopen those seared scars, and with the one thing
before him that he most desired, he moaned in misery. A little farther
away was a deep pool. This he managed to crawl to, and there he
remained for a long time, for the water laved his wounds, and he drank
and drank. The sun now beat down on him fiercely, and he must seek some
shady place for the day, but he started reluctantly to leave, and when
he reached the shallows, he turned back to the comfort of the pool and
drank again.
A thickety motte of chaparral which grew back from the scattering
timber on the river afforded him the shelter and seclusion he wanted,
for he dared not trust himself where the grown cattle congregated for
the day’s siesta. During all his troubles his mother had never forsaken
him, and frequently offered him the scanty nourishment of her udder,
but he had no appetite and could scarcely raise his eyes to look at
her. But time heals all wounds, and within a week he followed his dam
back into the hills where grew the succulent grama grass which he
loved. There they remained for more than a month, and he met his
speckled playmate again.
One day a great flight of birds flew southward, and amidst the cawing
of crows and the croaking of ravens the cattle which ranged beyond came
down out of the hills in long columns, heading southward. The line-back
calf felt a change himself in the pleasant day’s atmosphere. His mother
and the dam of the speckled calf laid their heads together, and after
scenting the air for several minutes, they curved their tails—a thing
he had never seen sedate cows do before—and stampeded off to the south.
Of course the line-back calf and his playmate went along, outrunning
their mothers. They traveled far into the night until they reached a
chaparral thicket, south of the river, much larger than the one in
which he was born. It was well they sought its shelter, for two hours
before daybreak a norther swept across the range, which chilled them to
the bone. When day dawned a mist was falling which incrusted every twig
and leaf in crystal armor.
There were many such northers during the first winter. The one
mysterious thing which bothered him was, how it was that his mother
could always foretell when one was coming. But he was glad she could,
for she always sought out some cosy place; and now he noticed that his
coat had thickened until it was as heavy as the fur on a bear, and he
began to feel a contempt for the cold. But springtime came very early
in that southern clime, and as he nibbled the first tender blades of
grass, he felt an itching in his wintry coat and rubbed off great tufts
of hair against the chaparral bushes. Then one night his mother,
without a word of farewell, forsook him, and it was several months
before he saw her again. But he had the speckled heifer yet for a
companion, when suddenly her dam disappeared in the same inexplicable
manner as had his own.
He was a yearling now, and with his playmate he ranged up and down the
valley of the Nueces for miles. But in June came a heavy rain, almost a
deluge, and nearly all the cattle left the valley for the hills, for
now there was water everywhere. The two yearlings were the last to go,
but one morning while feeding the line-back got a ripe grass burr in
his mouth. Then he took warning, for he despised grass burrs, and that
evening the two cronies crossed the river and went up into the hills
where they had ranged as calves the summer before Within a week, at a
lake which both well remembered, they met their mothers face to face.
The steer was on the point of upbraiding his maternal relative for
deserting him, when a cream-colored heifer calf came up and nourished
itself at the cow’s udder. That was too much for him. He understood now
why she had left him, and he felt that he was no longer her baby.
Piqued with mortification he went to a near-by knoll where the ground
was broken, and with his feet pawed up great clouds of dust which
settled on his back until the white spot was almost obscured. The next
morning he and the speckled heifer went up higher into the hills where
the bigger steer cattle ranged. He had not been there the year before,
and he had a great curiosity to see what the upper country was like.
In the extreme range of the hills back from the river, the two spent
the entire summer, or until the first norther drove them down to the
valley. The second winter was much milder than the first one, snow and
ice being unknown. So when spring came again they were both very fat,
and together they planned—as soon as the June rains came—to go on a
little pasear over north on the Frio River. They had met others of
their kind from the Frio when out on those hills the summer before, and
had found them decently behaved cattle.
But though the outing was feasible and well planned, it was not to be.
For after both had shed their winter coats, the speckled heifer was as
pretty a two-year-old as ever roamed the Nueces valley or drank out of
its river, and the line-back steer had many rivals. Almost daily he
fought other steers of his own age and weight, who were paying
altogether too marked attention to his crony. Although he never
outwardly upbraided her for it, her coquetry was a matter of no small
concern with him. At last one day in April she forced matters to an
open rupture between them. A dark red, arch-necked, curly-headed animal
came bellowing defiance across their feeding-grounds. Without a
moment’s hesitation the line-back had accepted the challenge and had
locked horns with this Adonis. Though he fought valiantly the battle is
ever with the strong, and inch by inch he was forced backward. When he
realized that he must yield, he turned to flee, and his rival with one
horn caught him behind the fore shoulder, cutting a cruel gash nearly a
foot in length. Reaching a point of safety he halted, and as he
witnessed his adversary basking in the coquettish, amorous advances of
her who had been his constant companion since babyhood, his wrath was
uncontrollable. Kneeling, he cut the ground with his horns, throwing up
clouds of dust, and then and there he renounced kith and kin, the
speckled heifer and the Nueces valley forever. He firmly resolved to
start at once for the Frio country. He was a proud two-year-old and had
always held his head high. Could his spirit suffer the humiliation of
meeting his old companions after such defeat? No! Hurling his bitterest
curses on the amorous pair, he turned his face to the northward.
On reaching the Nueces, feverish in anger, he drank sparingly, kneeling
against the soft river’s bank, cutting it with his horns, and matting
his forehead with red mud. It was a momentous day in his life. He
distinctly remembered the physical pain he had suffered once in a
branding-pen, but that was nothing compared to this. Surely his years
had been few and full of trouble. He hardly knew which way to turn.
Finally he concluded to lie down on a knoll and rest until nightfall,
when he would start on his journey to the Frio. Just how he was to
reach that country troubled him. He was a cautious fellow; he knew he
must have water on the way, and the rains had not yet fallen.
Near the middle of the afternoon an incident occurred which changed the
whole course of his after-life. From his position on the knoll he
witnessed the approach of four horsemen who apparently were bent on
driving all the cattle in that vicinity out of their way. To get a
better view he arose, for it was evident they had no intention of
disturbing him. When they had drifted away all the cattle for a mile on
both sides of the river, one of the horsemen rode back and signaled to
some one in the distance. Then the line-back steer saw something new,
for coming over the brow of the hill was a great column of cattle. He
had never witnessed such a procession of his kind before. When the
leaders had reached the river, the rear was just coming over the brow
of the hill, for the column was fully a mile in length. The line-back
steer classed them as strangers, probably bound for the Frio, for that
was the remotest country in his knowledge. As he slowly approached the
herd, which was then crowding into the river, he noticed that they were
nearly all two-year-olds like himself. Why not accompany them? His
resolution to leave the Nueces valley was still uppermost in his mind.
But when he attempted to join in, a dark-skinned man on a horse chased
him away, cursing him in Spanish as he ran. Then he thought they must
be exclusive, and wondered where they came from.
But when the line-back steer once resolved to do anything, the
determination became a consuming desire. He threw the very intensity of
his existence into his resolution of the morning. He would leave the
Nueces valley with those cattle—or alone, it mattered not. So after
they had watered and grazed out from the river, he followed at a
respectful distance. Once again he tried to enter the herd, but an
outrider cut him off. The man was well mounted, and running his horse
up to him he took up his tail, wrapped the brush around the pommel of
his saddle, and by a dexterous turn of his horse threw him until he
spun like a top. The horseman laughed. The ground was sandy, and while
the throwing frightened him, never for an instant did it shake his
determination.