Rhizomania, Part 3

Dropping the hammer into the dirt, Doran walked across the yard and into the stone house. He picked up the cavalry gun from the plank table. He had no holster, so he tucked the gun at the small of his back, where the long cold barrel against his warm skin bothered him until he shifted the gun up a little and got the grip hooked over the top of his leather belt.

“What’s going on, Shorty?” Doran called as he came out in the late-morning sun, pulling the door shut behind him.

“Frank told me that Cesario Lujan called from Sayre’s place down to the Spanish Store on that telephone system they put in,” said Shorty. He turned and began to stride toward the barn. “Cesario spoke for Sayre, and told his ma we’ve been cutting the fence and taking his livestock. Cesario’s doing all the speaking for Sayre now, Frank says.”

“Sayre’s crazy,” said Doran, following Shorty into the barn.

At the low wall where Ben had his long narrow face poked out into the straw-littered aisle, Shorty leaned his Winchester next to the stall gate.

“You take Redboy,” said Shorty, grabbing an armful of saddle blanket.

Doran moved to the second stall, where Redboy, a chestnut gelding, moved restlessly.  Doran rubbed Redboy’s nose.  The big horse bumped Doran’s shoulder with his handsome head. Doran patted the chestnut’s neck as he let himself into the stall. “How you doin’, Redboy?” he said, soothing the big animal with a calm, even tone. He lifted the soft, worn Mexican blanket from over the stall wall and placed it high on the horse’s withers. Doran slid the blanket back smoothly in line with Redboy’s mane and hair. “You and Ben are going to see a little bit of the world now,” he told the horse.  “Me and Shorty are going to take a little ride. That all right with you?”

At the rusty saddle rack, Doran took a moment to hook the right stirrup over the horn before lifting the heavy saddle from the wrought-iron rack. He centered the saddle on the blanket draped over Redboy’s warm chestnut hide. Redboy shifted his feet uneasily and Doran moved toward up toward the animal’s head. “Here now, Redboy,” he said. “Here now, we’re all right.” He rubbed the side of the muscular neck, and Redboy gently pressed into Doran’s hand. Doran gave the horse a good scratch alone the line of his mane, and Redboy settled down, his eyes closing slightly with the pleasure of the scratching.

Doran let his hand slow down, and Redboy, relaxed, let out the air he’d used to swell his chest and belly.  Doran quickly took the opportunity to pull the cinch strap up and slip the latigo through the cinch and rigging rings, then tied the strap off.

When Redboy saw Doran holding the bridle, the chestnut horse lifted his head, shaking his mane and giving Doran an irritated look. Doran reached toward Redboy’s feed bucket, found a few oat grains in the bottom, and offered these on the flat on his hand.  Redboy ate the oats quickly, and while his mouth was still slightly open, Doran slipped in the bit and then pulled the headstall up over Redboy’s head and ears, then buckled it.

Doran opened the stall door and walked Redboy out of the barn. Shorty, mounted on Ben, already had his rifle tucked into the scabbard, and held the reins in his hand.  

“About time,” he said, as Doran jammed his mulehide boot into the stirrup and swung into the saddle.

“Redboy gets spooked easy,” said Doran, but Shorty didn’t answer. The older man just touched his heels to Ben’s sides clucked and, and the paint horse trotted past the weathered barn and headed northwest, toward the grazing field.

Once they’d reached pasture land, Shorty slowed his horse, cleared his throat, and spat. He called back to Doran. “Cesario’s ma told Frank that seven head got through the fence. Sayre’s claiming he lost two Brown Swiss, two Angus and three of them little Dexters.”

Shorty allowed Ben to amble around a little clump of willow seedlings, and then stop for a nibble at scattered clumps of nutsedge and lovegrass. Then Shorty led the way again, and Doran clucked to Redboy. As he sat in the saddle, he worked to relax his back and legs  so that the big chestnut would settle down and follow the smaller horse peacefully. 

 When Shorty pulled back sharply on the reins and slowed Ben’s pace again, Doran followed suit with his own reins.  But Redboy didn’t want to slow down.  The horse resisted for a moment, stomping his front feet. Doran stayed calm, breathed out, and pulled on the reins gently. On the second tug, Redboy lifted his head and when Doran tapped his sides with his boot heels, the chestnut gelding began to move along the uphill path again.

From his vantage point, Doran could see only familiar cattle. There were about nineteen or twenty Brown Swiss, and another dozen Angus, two of them yearlings. All had markings that Doran recognized, and the animals grazed companionably together, with none of the uneasiness an unfamiliar animal would bring.

“These are all ours,” said Shorty.  “We ain’t got but thirty-four head.”

“That's your herd,” said Doran.  “Definitely yours and Frank’s.  I know then all.”

As the riders moved along the pasture’s edge, a partridge, flushed from a brushy stand of hackberry and green ash, half-ran, half-flew across the worn path between Shorty’s horse and Doran’s. The chestnut horse started, then began to dance, turning to the left and then swinging back across the path toward the still-trembling shrubbery where the game bird had disappeared.

“Steady, good horse,” said Doran, keeping his voice friendly but commanding. “It’s all right, all right now.” For a moment Doran felt Redboy trembling violently and he was sure he’d be hurled to the sandy ground. Luckily, the big horse caught sight of Ben standing quietly, and he settled down. Doran let his breath out, and tried not to let his legs tremble. 

Shorty was leaning over Ben’s neck, looking in one direction and then the other. Next, he examined the ground thoroughly.

“It was a partridge,” Doran said. “Ran into those willows.”

“Yep, I knew that," said Shorty. "I’m looking for hoof marks." After another minute or two, he gave up, sat back, and pulled a tobacco pouch out of his shirt pocket.  Looosening the top, he pulled out a bit of white cigarette paper and sifted some crumbled tobacco into it.  Ben shifted his feet a little, and Shorty said, “Settle down, horse, I’m losin’ tobacco.”  Ben quieted. Shorty licked the long edge of the paper and quickly twisted together a narrow cigarette.  “Heads up,” he said, and Doran reached out just in time to grab the freshly-rolled smoke.

“You don’t have a match, do you, Doran?” said Shorty, but Doran said he did not. Shorty produced a sulfur-tip, which he quickly scraped along the side seam of his pant leg, producing a blue flame. He lit his own cigarette, snuffed out the match with his thumb and forefinger, and put the matchstick into his shirt pocket. He held out his glowing cigarette and Doran stood in the stirrups long enough to take the lit cigarette and apply the red ember to the end of his own just-rolled smoke. Doran took a good pull, and gave Shorty back his cigarette. The horses stood together companionably, nosing through lovegrass and little sprigs of wild alfalfa, as the men smoked and talked.

“I don’t see how seven cows could have come through anyplace around here –“ Shorty swept his arm across the horizon “– and not leave a mark.”

“Did Sayre say somebody saw the cows over here?” called Doran from the saddle. They had begun riding uphill, and Redboy’s tail switched irritably as the soil became softer and sandier.

Shorty touched Ben’s sides with his boot heels, said “Hup,” and flicked the reins. “He said he had a couple men riding the fence line, and they seen a place where the bob wire was cut, And the fence wasn’t cut nowhere else except between his place and ours, and they’ve got seven head gone.” Shorty frowned. “But everything I heard came from my brother, and everything he heard came from Cesario Lujan, or from Cesario’s ma, anyway.”

.Redboy shifted to a new grazing spot and Doran. trying to sound confident like Shorty, said, “Easy, horse.” It worked. He took a meditative drag on his cigarette.  “I don’t believe Sayre’s men seen the fence was cut,” he said. “I think they did the cutting.”

“Those two men that jumped you, you mean?” said Shorty. He finished his cigarette and pinched off the ember, letting it fall to the sandy ground where it glowed red for a moment and then faded.

“I’ve been wondering how the one that ran off got through the fence so quick. We were down by the raspberry bushes and he just come up to the fence and went on through.” Doran took a quick puff on his shortened cigarette and accidentally touched the hot ash. He let go and the cigarette end fell from between his burned fingers and hit the ground.  Redboy stepped forward a moment later and crushed the butt into the sand with a heavy hoof.

Shorty, watching, said “Waste of good tobacco."

“I can’t pinch ’em out like you can,” said Doran. “I ain’t made of dried-out leather.”

“Let’s go down and take a look at that hole in the fence, ” said Shorty, “so we know what we’re talking about before we ride over to Sayre’s place.”

Doran hesitated for a minute, then figured out that Shorty wanted him to lead the way. He pulled the right rein back, not sure whether Redboy was going to cooperate, but the big chestnut turned neatly and began to move down the trail. Doran felt the unfamiliar press of the non-working cavalry gun at the small of his back. He hoped he had the grip hooked over well enough. It would be embarrassing to have the gun fall out of his trouser band right in front of Shorty. 

The two men rode to the eastern boundary of the homestead, where a triple-strand wire fence separated Shorty's land from John Sayre’s ranch. When they reached the spot in the path where Doran had struggled the night before with the two burly intruders, Shorty said, “Well, you all tore the ground up pretty good."

Many overlapping boot marks scuffled in the dried mud, under broken branches at the edge of the raspberry patch. The smaller dents were punctuated by deep dents, impressions left behind by the axe handle as Doran's assailant had swung and missed.  These deep gouges in the ground were lined with sandy soil spotted here and there with rusty blood droplets.

Doran swung down from Redboy’s saddle. Holding the reins, he plunged into the middle of the raspberry canes.  He came out holding the oiled-canvas cover for the Colt.  Dropping the rein ends to the ground, he held them down with the sole of one mulehide boot, and pulled the weapon from the back of his waistband. Doran slid the gun into its case, then shoved the damp, heavy pistol case back in the space between his back and his belt. As Doran stooped to pick up the ends of Redboy’s reins, His injured shoulder gave a painful twinge

Shorty also dismounted and his boot soles hit the ground heavily. He grimaced and rubbed the small of his back.

“Back bothering you again?” said Doran.

“That’s what a war injury does,” said Shorty.  “The enemy don’t get you just the one time, he gets you for life." He gritted his teeth and his eyes were full of anger for a moment. "I’ll be all right presently, just got to walk it off.” Shorty looped Ben’s rein around a willow sapling and tied it off, then moved away from the horse, walking stiffly in a circle, reaching under his shirt tail to scrub at his back with the knuckles of both hands. As Shorty got closer to one of the ponderosa pine posts supporting the barbed-wire fence, he stopped and said, “Now, Doran, look here.”

Doran, leading Redboy, came closer. With the toe of his boot, Shorty lifted the bottom strand of the barbed wire . “Just wound around the post a little,” he said. “Same with them other wires. And this ain’t our wire.  We used S-bend and this is four-point.”

Doran scanned the length of the fence, shading his eyes against the glare of the early-afternoon sun.  “The new wire’s just from this post to that one, then the rest is ours?” He moved to the next post. It, like the others along the fence line, had been painstakingly chipped from the heart of a ponderosa pine by Shorty wielding an adze.  Redboy clopped slowly behind Doran and nosed through the thick mat of prairie grass.  “This one’s got the staples still in it,” he reported, then led Redboy back toward Ben, who stood patiently at the little stand of willow saplings.  The two horses shook their manes in turn, and adjusted their positions so that they stood parallel.

“This wire’s been cut to make a gate,” said Shorty.  He took out his tobacco pouch and rolled two cigarettes, handing the first to Doran and keeping the second for himself.  They shared a match, and Shorty pocketed the burned stick. “No cattle come trompin' through here. Look at the grass, and look at the willows. You know if cows come through here, they would have rubbed on that bark and loosened it.  They wasn’t going to miss a chance to scratch. You ever see a cow or a steer pass by good rough bark like that?” He pulled in cigarette smoke and released it in a blue cloud. “It wasn’t livestock that come through here, it was men.”

“But what for?” said Doran. “What have we got that anybody wants?”

“Water,” said Shorty.

“Sayre’s got water on his place, don’t he?” said Doran. “Winters Creek comes through part of his land, and he’s got that land down in Scotts Bluff County. The Platte’s got streams all over down there.”

“It’s water he wants, I’m telling you,” said Shorty.  “His men have been through here, probably every night, and they’re sniffing around, looking to see do we have artesian wells, or spring water, or any kind of water that Sayre don’t know about. Sayre has big plans, Frank says, and needs plenty of irrigation.”

“So that’s why they come after me last night,” said Doran. “They must have just come through the fence and here I was, coming down the fence line because the other path was too slick with my new boots on.”

“Listen,” said Shorty. He locked his gaze on Doran’s, and though the younger man was taller, it was crystal clear that Shorty was lead man. Shorty pressed his palm against the leather scabbard which held his rifle. "If you got to come out of the house at night, you bring this rifle out with you.” Shorty pinched off the burning ember of his cigarette, and a tiny firework display of red and yellow sparks fell into the dust. “If somebody's there and you ask if it’s me, and I don’t speak up, you pull the trigger.”

“Can’t we get the law on Sayre’s men?” said Doran.

“What law?” said Shorty, who went to the willow stand and freed Ben’s reins from the tie-up.  “Money’s law around here and Sayre’s got the biggest pile. I reckon what he does is what’s allowed.”  Shorty put his foot into the stirrup and swung up into Ben’s saddle. “Let’s go see the money man about his cows.”


********

The entrance to Sayre’s northern ranch was impressive. Each of the ornate iron gates had the letter S worked into the design, and two large outbuildings flanked the road into the ranch. The huge doorless shed on the right housed a remarkable array of vehicles, including a a phaeton with spring-back seats and twin side-mount lamps, a cabriolet with an enameled leather full-extension top, and a 1906 Ford Model N runabout with the canopy folded down and its engine cover folded back. A sweating man in a grease-stained shirt was wielding a wrench with copious energy and cursing as Doran and Shorty rode by on their way to the big house.

John Sayre’s home was tall, broad, and very impressive, blending slabs of red granite with creamy limestone. The stone edifice was supported by oak beams that, by themselves, must have filled more than one Union Pacific railroad car. It was surrounded by many other structures, but John Sayre’s home dominated its setting completely.

“He sure spent a lot of money having oak lumber sent out here," said Doran.

“Needed that oak to hold up all that granite," said Shorty. A look of self-satisfaction came over his face. "See, he knows to build with stone." He surveyed  the massive home with its three-sided porch and sparkling picture windows. “When he come out here and bought this house, he seen I was doing it the smart way.”

Doran doubted this, but said nothing. 

Behind the expanse of the mansion, the huge tank of a water tower was semi-silhouetted against the backdrop of the sandy Nebraska landscape. “J. M. SAYRE” was painted in red letters across the white expanse of the rounded surface. To the left of the water tower, a bunkhouse and horse barn were tucked in against the low, rocky hillside. The west side of the homestead was free of buildings, but every inch of ground was filled with winding corrals built from limestone pillars, each with four metal rails inserted through bored-out openings.

As Doran and Shorty approached, a large man in a wrinkled blue work shirt, wet under the arms, stood to the left of the big house, directing two workmen. The workers drove a flat-bed farm wagon pulled by big-shouldered oxen. The wagon bed was piled high with pole diggers, posts, and rolled wire fencing.  Doran looked at Shorty, but Shorty didn’t return his glance. Instead, Shorty seemed to be studying the rolled fencing, which from a distance might well have been four-point barbed wire. The farm wagon lumbered off down the double ruts of the ranch road, undercarriage creaking as one big spoked wheel, then another, rolled through depressions in the hard-packed sand.  

The foreman turned to watch Doran and Shorty’s approach, and he signaled to two other workers, idle young men leaning against the side of an A-frame shed. They ambled forward, trying to look tough in front of Doran and Shorty, but at the same time, obviously afraid of irritating the foreman.  

As Shorty, then Doran, brought their horses up and halted in front of the wide stone house, one of the young men stepped forward to hold Ben’s reins, and the other took Redboy. Shorty dismounted quickly, but Doran hesitated for a moment, unsure if either of these young men might have swung an axe-handle at his head the night before.

The foreman eyed Doran, then Shorty, and found Doran easier to approach. “You Shuttleworth?”

But it was Shorty who took a step forward and answered in a firm, clear voice. “I’m Cecil Shuttleworth,” he said. “This is Doran Strassel. We heard that Cesario Lujan called down at the Spanish Store on behalf of Mr. Sayre and Miz Lujan told my brother that your boss is looking for some lost cows.”

“You’d best take it up with him,” said the foreman.  “He’ll be out directly, I guess.” The big man adjusted his Stetson and then turned to look for the young men who’d led away the horses. He spotted them at the hand-pump near the side porch of the big house.  “Ames Junior! Carter! Step it up! They need you down at the south field! They’re cutting alfalfa and they’re short-handed!”

The taller of the two indicated a pair of buckets, one full and one receiving steady gushes of water from the pump spout. “You want us to finish takin’ water over to their horses?” He pointed to Doran and Shorty.

“Soon as you’re done, go down to south field!” the foreman called. He moved off quickly down the ranch road, leaving Doran and Shorty to stand in the front yard of the big house, looking at the closed front door.

Shorty was disgusted. “Not evem a drink of water, just leaves us standing in the yard like dogs,” said Shorty. “I don’t have no business with him, he’s got business with me, but here I stand. Wouldn’t even be here but for Frank and Maybelle. They like to stay on Sayre’s good side but he don’t mean nothing to me.”

Doran watched Ames Junior and Carter carry, with awkward gait, two sloshing buckets to the red barn where Ben and Redboy had been led. Carter’s broad rounded shoulders had a familiar look — he hadn’t been the man who’d slipped through the fence — too young — but could he have an older brother who also worked for Sayre?  Could one of the attackers been Carter's father? Uncle?

Shorty followed Doran’s line of sight to Carter's broad back as he carried the water bucket. “Look familiar?” he said quietly.

“He wasn’t one of them but he sure looks like him,” said Doran. “The one that run off last night was square and heavy-set like that. Same kind of shoulders, that slope off.”

“Maybe somebody in his family,” said Shorty. “And you got to wonder if whoever it was could have been with Cesario Lujan last night. Cesario is Sayre’s right hand man. Well, Frank knows we come over here, and these fellas don’t dare jump us. They know we ain’t alone in the world,” said Shorty. “But I won’t turn my back on any of them if I can help it. Look here, since we haven’t been offered no hospitality, let’s help ourselves to a drink of water.” He started for the pump, but stopped when he heard noise from the front of the big house, just before the solid oak door flew open with an echoing boom.

The porch floor resonated with the heavy steps of a tall, bulky red-haired man, holding a cigar, who moved to the front railing. He leaned on his folded arms and gazed down at them. “I hear my foreman didn’t know which one was Cecil Shuttleworth, but I don’t know why he didn’t!” he called down. The last echoes of his hearty voice bounced around the cool shadows of the porch. “Cecil, they call you Shorty, I hear, and I see why,”

Shorty, squinting up at John Sayre, just stood in the dusty yard and said nothing.

“Somebody told me that you and your brother were fighters with Teddy’s Rough Riders, but you don’t look tall enough for them to have taken you to Cuba,” boomed Sayre.

“They had all they needed to take San Juan Hill,” said Shorty, adjusting the brim of his hat down to make it easier to look at Sayre in the afternoon sun. “The government sent us to see if we could get the Filipinos settled down some.”

“Did you?” asked Sayre, who shifted his gaze to the outbuilding near the front gate, where two men pushed the Ford motorcar, its bonnet still folded back, out to the dusty roadway.

“We got our homestead out of it, so I guess the government thought we did all right,” said Shorty.

“What I heard is that your brother got the homestead because he was a real soldier, and that all you did over there was cook up the beans and bread and such like,” said Sayre.

“I done what they asked me to do,” said Shorty, widening his stance and folding his arms over his wiry chest.


Click here to Part 4