the bottom. Be careful, but separate the bottom of the bag enough so some beans are inside the saddle swell and some are on the outside.”
He did as she instructed. “I’ll be. That works pretty well.” He stepped back then. “But it’s a long ride to where I got that calf.”
It couldn’t be that far. He never traveled too far. “We’ll make it,” she told the calf, not Cecil, and then nudged the horse forward.
“Don’t you want directions?” Cecil asked.
If he’d found it, she’d find it. “No,” she answered. “I’ll just head toward the dust in the air.”
“That’s what I did,” Cecil said, walking beside the horse.
“You don’t say.” She nudged the horse again, desperate to pick up enough speed to leave Cecil behind.
“If’n you don’t come back, I ain’t coming to look for you,” Cecil shouted as the horse gained ground on him.
“Thank you,” she shouted in return. He most likely wouldn’t grasp the insult, but she did, and that made her smile.
“You best be back in time for supper!”
She opened her mouth to tell him there was food on the stove, but chose against it. The shout could startle the horse or the calf, and neither deserved that. The calf was newly born, and the horse had to be as uncomfortable as her. The saddle was made for a riding horse, so the tree was too narrow for the plow horse’s wide back, making it ride high on the horse’s sides, and knowing Cecil, she couldn’t imagine he’d had much concern for the animal in tightening the cinch.
Letting the horse amble along, she petted the soft fur of the calf. “Don’t worry, little one. We’ll find your momma. That we’ll do.” The notion the trail boss might not be interested in making a trade for eggs and beans crossed her mind, but she sent it packing. There was no sense in worrying about something until it happened.
By the time Garth rode into camp, one of his eyes was swollen shut and the other wasn’t far behind. Despite the mud he’d caked on, the side of his face was on fire. JoJo had found the marker he’d left and already had a fire going, thankfully. Unable to see much, he’d relied on his nose to lead him to the campsite. There was no doubt the men had settled the herd in for the night a mile or so away, as usual, and today he appreciated their competency more than ever.
“What happened to you, Boss?”
“My horse stepped on a hornet nest,” he told Bat while swinging out of the saddle. “Unsaddle her and put her up for me.”
“That looks sore,” Bat said.
“It is.” Garth tried harder to see out the eye that hadn’t been stung, but it was watering profusely, and that forced him to leave the things he’d picked up in town for Bat to collect as well. “Both packs are full of supplies.”
“Got it,” Bat said. “You need help?”
“No.” Garth spun about to make his way to the camp, but paused. “Who’s that?” Things were too blurry to make out much other than the chuck wagon and a large plow horse. Strangers of any kind visiting the camp singed his nerves almost as sharply as the hornets had stung his face. Cattle drives held no room for social gatherings. Most folks respected that.
“She brought us some eggs,” Bat said.
“This here gal needs to talk to you, Boss,” JoJo shouted the same time as Bat had spoken. “I done said it’s a fair deal, but that ain’t my call. No siree, it ain’t my call. Even if’n I’m thinking it’s a fair deal. A mighty fair deal.”
Dang near blind, one foot snagged on a rock or lump on the ground of some sort. Garth caught his balance before going down, but his frustration tripled.
“What the hell happened to you?” JoJo asked.
“Hornet nest.”
“You fall on it?”
“No, I didn’t fall on it,” Garth answered. “I put the mud on to cool down the sting.”
“You gotta tug out the stinger, not force it in further,” JoJo supplied.
Garth’s nerves had snapped awhile ago. “I couldn’t see the damn stinger,” he growled.
“Well, I’ll get it out for ya,” JoJo said.
Having arrived near the wagon, Garth gestured toward the woman standing on the other side of the fire. “In a minute,” he said to JoJo. “What deal?” It probably was a good thing he couldn’t see. This country had a way of making even the finest gal look beyond her years in no time. The brim of this one’s gray bonnet arched from one side of her chin to the other and hid most of her face. He didn’t need to see it in order to imagine her skin had been wrinkled and aged by the wind and sun.
She pointed toward two crates sitting on the ground. He squinted, but it didn’t help him make out much. The eggs Bat referred to most likely. The other crate had some kind of greens it. As water dripped out the corner of one eye, he turned his other eye back to the crate holding the eggs. His mouth practically watered. He’d considered buying eggs while in town, but there had only been half a dozen in the basket on the counter of the mercantile. Not nearly enough for eighteen hungry men. The cowboys had to be as hungry for something besides beans, biscuits and bacon as he was.
“Those for the calf and its mother,” the woman said.
Disappointment that neither he nor anyone else would be eating eggs filtered in amongst his frustration at not being able to see. “We don’t have any calves, ma’am.” Another heifer had better not have let loose. That was about the last thing he needed this close to Dodge.
“Yes, you do,” she said. “The one you ordered to have shot this morning.”
The loss of that calf had hung in the back of his mind all day. Not only for the critter. He’d counted on getting the entire herd to the stockyards. The money every cow would bring in. Before leaving Texas, he’d calculated on giving a few head to the Indians; they expected it, and he’d gladly given them the beeves for allowing safe passage, but loosing another one, even a calf, was not in his plan. Furthermore, her snooty attitude settled about as well as the hornet sting had. “How do you know about that?”
Her entire frame, though it was no taller than JoJo when his rheumatism didn’t have him stooped over, stiffened. “There’s no need for cursing,” she snapped. “Just as there is no need to kill an innocent calf. Such actions border on despicable.”
“Border on—”
“Despicable,” she repeated. “It means appalling. Disgraceful.”
“I know what it means.” Holding back a few choice words that she probably didn’t know the meanings of, he glared at JoJo with one eye. “Where’s the calf?”
“Brad is...” JoJo gestured with his chin. “Was looking for its momma. Looks like he found her.”
Garth
