The Omaha Trail Page 3

  “Three dollars a head for the K.C. herd,” Dane said.

  “Ouch,” Himmel said. “I’ve already paid for that small herd, plus I’ve got the feedlot bill for maybe two months. If I add three dollars, those cattle will cost me dearly.”

  “Your choice, Otto,” Dane said. “And I’ll need more than a thousand dollars in advance. With that many cattle I’ve got to hire drovers at thirty a month and found, plus buy or build a bigger chuck wagon. The men I pick not only have to be good drovers, but be able to shoot both pistol and rifle. The pickin’s around here are mighty slim.”

  “I can advance you another five hundred, Dane,” Himmel said.

  “Make that bank draft for another five hundred that I can cash in K.C., and we have a deal.”

  “Why so much?”

  “You might as well know what I’m facing here,” Dane said. “It’s ugly as hell and if I don’t make a bank payment, Throckmorton is ready to grab my ranch and all the cattle on it. And that’s not the end of it. When I finish the drive, I have to pay off the mortgage by the first of September or I lose everything.”

  “I see,” Himmel said. “I hate to lay out so much money after what happened to the cattle now sitting in Kansas City, eating up my meager profits.”

  “You must have a market for good beef in Omaha,” Dane said.

  “I do, but I’ll lose all my workers if you don’t bring me all those cattle by mid-July at the latest.”

  “’Pears to me, Otto, you and me got similar hitches at stake. You might lose your Polish workers and I could lose my ranch.”

  “Haw,” Thor exclaimed. He slapped his knee with a whack of his hand. “You done hit the nail square on the head, Dane boy. Otto’s twixt a rock and a hard place. You’re twixt a hard place and a harder place, by golly.”

  “So,” Himmel said, “we might just as well throw in together and solve both problems. I have a contract here that you can look over after I fill it out. We can both sign it, your daddy can witness it, and I’ll take it to a notary public this afternoon and it will all be legal and binding.”

  “If you agree to my terms,” Dane said, “I’ll go along with your’n.”

  “Fine. Now, if I can sit at a table or desk, I’ll fill in all the blanks.”

  “I figure we can make ten miles a day, fifteen on good days, and bring you the herd about as fat and sassy as when we leave here.”

  “Say fifty days,” Himmel said, “but allowing for some slow days and some faster, we’ll say sixty to eighty days. That sound about right?”

  “Barrin’ storms, floods, Injuns, and cattle rustlers, I’d say that’s about right,” Dane said.

  “Good,” Himmel said, and stood up, the papers rattling like blowing leaves in his hand.

  “There’s a desk yonder, ahind you, Otto. Where I do all my tallyin’ and figgerin’,” Dane said. “Make yourself to home.”

  Himmel turned around and saw the small rolltop desk with a cane chair shoved beneath it. There was a small throw pillow on the seat. He walked to the desk, pulled out the chair, and sat down. He rolled up the accordion cover and laid the papers flat on the desk’s surface.

  “You’ll find ink and a quill pen or two in one of them cubbyholes,” Dane said.

  As Himmel started to write on the paper after he dipped a pen in an inkwell, Ora Lee entered the room, a look of consternation and exasperation on her face.

  “That boy,” she said. “He’s been listenin’ outside that front winder yonder. Ain’t the first time I’ve caught him at it neither.”

  “What the hell?” Dane said as he rose to his feet. “He still there?”

  “No, I was emptyin’ the dishwater out and spotted him. I run him off. He went back to the stables, I reckon.”

  “Thanks, Ora Lee,” Dane said. He walked to the window next to the fireplace and looked out at the barn. He saw Joe Eagle talking to Randy but could not hear what he was saying.

  “The little sneak,” Ora Lee huffed, and waddled back down the hall, rubbing her hands on a dish towel.

  “That young whippersnapper ain’t got no business listenin’ at that winder,” Thor said.

  “No, he doesn’t,” Dane said. “I’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  “You take in strays, that’s what you get,” Thor said.

  Dane walked back to his chair but did not sit down. He looked at the large man at the small desk and could hear the pen scratching across the paper. He set the papers in his hand down on the seat of his chair and walked to the door just in time to open it for Joe Eagle.

  “Come on in, Joe,” Dane said. “You see Randy listenin’ at the window a while ago?”

  “Me see Ora Lee come out and shoo him away.”

  “What did you say to him?”

  “Me tell him to finish shoeing the mare. He say he lost something and him look for it by window.”

  “He was spying on us, I think. I wonder why. What did he say he lost?”

  Joe Eagle stepped inside and closed the door behind him. “Him say quarter. Two bits.”

  Thor slapped his knee again and leaned forward in his chair. “That kid ain’t seen two bits since he drew his pay last month. He’s a damned liar.”

  “Take it easy, Pa,” Dane said. Then he looked at Joe Eagle. “Go fetch Paddy, will you, Joe? I need to talk to him right away. I think he’s finishing up the branding on the West Forty.”

  Paddy O’Riley was Dane’s ranch foreman. Spring roundup was over and he and two other men, Jim Recknor and Donny Peterson, were still branding calves that had dropped a few weeks before. Good men, he knew, but he would need more men for the drive north.

  “Me go,” Joe Eagle said, and glanced at both Thor and Himmel. “I help Paddy when he come.”

  “No, you come back with him. We’ve got work to do. We’re going to round up three thousand head and drive ’em north. Way north.”

  “Me go north?”

  “You bet, Joe. You’ll work your Cherokee ass off, but there’ll be some sugar in your pay when we settle up in Omaha.”

  “Where Omaha?”

  “Far to the north, Joe. Five hunnert mile, near as I can figger.”

  Joe grinned. “Long ride,” he said, and then went out the door.

  “A damned long ride,” Thor said. “Wisht I was goin’ with you, son.”

  “I’ll need you to look after Ora Lee and the hands I leave behind, Pa.”

  “Haw. Me look after Ora Lee? It’s the other way around, you ask me.”

  “Keep her busy, Pa, and see that she has plenty of starch to chaw on.”

  Thor laughed.

  Ora Lee was addicted to starch and Dane always saw to it that she had several boxes to dip into. She made a mouthful last most of a morning, but was a harridan on wheels when she ran out. It was, he thought, a strange addiction, but harmless enough.

  Dane started for the door.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes, Otto,” he said. “I’ve got to get that boy to work on making me some trail brands. We’ll have to brand three thousand head before we start out.”

  Himmel turned around and looked at Dane.

  “That boy who was eavesdropping at the window?” he said.

  “Yeah, that boy.”

  “Can you trust him?” Himmel asked.

  “No, but I can keep the little bastard busy until I fire him.”

  Dane walked out the door and Himmel returned to his pen and ink and legal papers.

  Thor’s eyes clouded up and he slumped in his chair. He was tired. It had been a busy morning and a worrying one. And now his son was going on a long trail drive in a few days and he would be left all alone with Ora Lee. He looked over at the picture of his mother on the wall, and tears welled up in his eyes.

  All alone, he thought.

  And Earl Throckmorton breathing down their necks like a fire-spewing dragon.

  Chapter 4

  Randy Bowman was just finished with shoeing the bay mare when Dane walked up on him.

  “F
ind your quarter, Randy?” Dane asked.

  “Huh?”

  “The two bits you told Joe Eagle you lost.”

  “Uh, oh no, I didn’t find it.”

  “Lost it under the window of my house, did you?”

  “Uh, I don’t know where I lost it.”

  “What did you hear when you were listening at my window?”

  Randy looked sheepish. He poked the fire he had used to heat the shoes to make them fit. “Nothin’. Honest.”

  “Bullshit, Randy. You heard every damned word. I’m just wondering why you were listenin’ in on us.”

  “I didn’t hear nothin’, honest, Dane. I was lookin’ for that two-bit piece I lost.”

  “You’re not a very good liar, Randy.”

  Randy said nothing. He hung his head when Dane gave him a withering look of contempt.

  “Well, I’ll get to the bottom of it, I reckon. Meantime, I’ve got a job for you.”

  “Yes, sir. I finished shoeing the mare. I was goin’ out to fix the corral. One of the poles got knocked down in last night’s storm.”

  “I need four brandin’ irons, Randy.”

  “Circle K?”

  “No. These are for trail brands. As you probably heard, I’m takin’ a herd of cattle up the Missouri.”

  “No, sir. I—I didn’t know.”

  “Never mind. I need those trail irons right away. Four of ’em.”

  “What’s the brand?” Randy asked.

  “Make it a Box D. Can you do that real quick?”

  Randy looked down toward the back end of the eight-stall livery stable at the tack room. There were a number of straight irons hanging on the wall there. “If you want ’em real quick, I’ll have to make two brands, one with a square, and then you can burn the D inside it. That be okay?”

  “Whatever it takes.”

  “I’ll stoke up the fire and add more wood so’s I can weld the brands on the end of those irons. It’ll take me a while.”

  “I want them first thing in the morning, Randy.”

  “I’ll do ’er, even if it takes all night.”

  Dane started to leave. He stopped at the pen doors and looked back.

  “I hope you find that two-bit piece,” he said.

  Chapter 5

  When Dane got back inside his house, Himmel was waiting for him at the desk.

  “Papers are ready for you to look over and sign, Dane,” Himmel said.

  “Just leave ’em on the desk and take a chair, Otto. I’ll get right to it.”

  “What did the kid have to say?” Thor asked, thumping his cane on the floor, softer than usual.

  “He lost a quarter.”

  Thor snorted.

  “Let me look through these papers, Pa,” Dane said. Himmel sat down and folded his hands on his lap.

  “I’m putting the trail brand on these papers, Otto,” Dane said. “Box D.”

  “Good,” Himmel said. “That will cinch it.”

  A few minutes later, Dane signed the two documents.

  “All done,” he said.

  “Thor, if I bring the papers to you, will you sign them as a witness?” Himmel asked.

  “I can walk to the desk,” Thor said.

  He ejected himself from the chair and stood on shaky legs. He balanced himself with the cane and thumped over to the desk. Himmel got up and stood beside him. He pointed to the blank line where he wanted Thor to sign.

  “Put your John Henry right there,” Himmel said.

  “I’ll put Thorvald Kramer there,” Thor said with a grin. He hunched over, which was not much of a stretch for him, and affixed his signature to one paper, then the other.

  “When does Dane get some money on this?” Thor asked.

  “First advance right now,” Himmel said. He walked to his chair, lifted his satchel, and pulled out a stack of one-hundred dollar bills. He counted out ten of them and handed them to Dane.

  “Thank you, Otto.”

  “I’ll go into town right away and find a notary,” Himmel said. “I’ll bring the papers back and give you two bank drafts for Kansas City. One for the feedlot, the other for you.”

  “That will be fine,” Dane said. He escorted Himmel out the door after Otto had put the papers back in his satchel. Dane watched him ride off as Thor hobbled back to his easy chair.

  “Now you can stave off Throckmorton,” Thor said as he settled into his chair.

  “I’d like to stuff these bills down his greedy throat,” Dane said.

  “He ain’t gonna like it none. Earl wants this ranch bad and all the cattle on it.”

  “Well, he’s not going to get it.”

  “I wouldn’t put nothin’ past that schemin’ bastard,” Thor said.

  “Neither would I,” Dane said. He walked to the front window and looked out at the prairie beyond the yard. In the distance, he saw two riders break the empty horizon.

  “Paddy and Joe Eagle will be here in a few minutes,” he said to his father, and walked back to the chair Himmel had sat in.

  “Well, the big man didn’t break it,” he said as he sat down to wait for his foreman.

  “He probably bent a few springs, Dane. He must weigh close to three hundred pounds.”

  Dane laughed. “Easy,” he said.

  A few minutes later, they heard hoofbeats, and then Paddy and Joe Eagle knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” Dane called.

  Paddy O’Riley entered first. He was a small barrel keg of a man with flowing rusty locks that strung to his shoulders. He was silted over with dust and his face bore a thin sheen of sweat. He wore striped serge trousers and a chambray shirt. His boots were caked with mud and cow shit, and the pistol he wore hung low, to a point just above his right knee.

  “What you got, Dane?” Paddy asked as Joe Eagle sidled around him and sat in a straight-backed chair.

  “Set down, Paddy,” Dane said, pointing to a cane chair nearby.

  “I don’t mind settin’ down for a bit,” Paddy said.

  He scraped the chair as he moved it closer to where Dane sat and plumped his bottom down on it. He wiped his forehead and took off his hat.

  “Paddy,” Dane said, “we’re going to drive three thousand head of beeves right on up the Missouri River, clear to Omaha.”

  Paddy let out a low whistle of surprise. “Boy oh boyo, that’s some drive, Dane. We ain’t got hands enough for that many cattle.”

  “I know. Can you find me some hands that can take care of themselves if we run up against Injuns or rustlers?”

  Paddy crossed his legs and put his hat back on his rusty head. He scratched his chin. “Well, there’s some we had to let go last fall, what might like to ride with us. One of ’em’s a swamper in the Mission Saloon. The other’n was haulin’ freight from Tulsa last I heard.”

  “We’ll need more than two extra men,” Dane said.

  “Me know three Mexicans in town,” Joe Eagle said. “They ride and shoot good.”

  A wavelet of recognition passed across the blue moons of O’Riley’s eyes, and his face brightened with a sudden flush of rose-hued color. “Joe’s right. We had them Mexes on our drive two years ago when we ran them five hunnert head to Abilene. Good boyos, they were, and they can pop the head off a prairie dog at seventy-five yards, or stand off a bunch of Comanche rustlers without soilin’ their pants.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Dane said. “I remember them. Can’t recollect their names right off. Where can you find them?”

  “Carlos, him got horse ranch. Me know where.”

  “Fine, Joe. Tell ’em I want to see them. How’s the horse ranch faring?”

  Joe shook his head. “No good. No one buy. But good horses.”

  “We can use the horses too, in our remuda,” Dane said. “Things are starting to shape up right nice.”

  “I ’spect we can get some good hands from hereabouts,” Paddy said. “There’s plenty of boyos out of work right now this early in the spring.”

  Something outside the side win
dow of the house caught Joe Eagle’s eye. He got up and walked to the window while Paddy and Dane put their heads closer together and conversed in low tones. Thor strained to hear, and cupped a hand to his right ear. Ora Lee made a clatter in the kitchen as she dried dishes and slammed cabinet doors.

  Joe stood at the window, then saw the quick flash of a horse and rider. They were visible only for a split second, but he knew that Randy was going somewhere in a hurry. He turned from the window and walked over to where Dane and Paddy were bent over in a small huddle.

  “Him go,” Joe said. “You send Randy to town?”

  Dane sat up straight and looked up at Joe. “No, he’s supposed to be smithin’ out in the stable, makin’ trail brands.”

  “Him go. Him gone. Mighty fast,” Joe said.

  Paddy looked at Joe. Then back at Dane.

  “The kid lit a shuck, did he? Not surprisin’,” Paddy said.

  “What do you mean, Paddy?”

  “He’s a sneaky sort. I caught him countin’ cows once or twice, keepin’ a tally on a little tablet he carried in his hip pocket.”

  “What?” Dane exclaimed.

  “I ast him what he was a-doin’,” Paddy said, “and he told me you wanted a tally on all the herds in pasture.”

  “I’ll be damned if I did,” Dane said.

  “I took the boy at his word,” Paddy said.

  “So he’s been tallyin’ my cattle and sneakin’ up to hear what we say in here,” Dane said. “Seems I misjudged the little rascal.”

  “Haw,” Thor exclaimed as he poked the air with his cane, “I warned you about takin’ in strays, Dane. Never did trust that boy, no, sirree.”

  “Well, the damage is done. I have a hunch Randy is headin’ for town to report our doin’s to Throckmorton.”

  “What can Throckmorton do?” Paddy asked.

  There was a silence among the men in the room.

  “I don’t know,” Dane said, finally, “but I don’t like it none.”

  “Throckmorton’s a damned snake,” Thor spat, emphasizing his words with a thump of his cane on the floor.

  “Seems we got more’n one snake in the woodpile,” Dane said.

  Then he looked at Paddy. “Let’s get back to business, Paddy. I’ll get us a map tomorrow when I go in to see Throckmorton. You start separating our best cattle from the rest of the herd.”