It was, thought Dan Lewis, the worst thing ever to befall him in all his seventeen years. Nothing crueller or more unjust was ever likely to happen to him in the future, either. Every spring, most of the young men from in and around the little Texan town of Indian Falls signed up to ride as cowboys; herding cattle north along the Chisholm Trail to the railheads at Abilene, Elsworth and Dodge City. Even if they only went on that arduous journey once, before settling down to work on their fathers’ farms or in their stores, it was pretty well accepted that riding as a cowboy was something every red-blooded boy in those parts had to do, if only on a single occasion.
Dan had waited eagerly for the time when he would be old enough to sign up with the big cattle company so that he too could experience the rigours and excitement of life on the trail. Only then could any youngster from thereabouts claim to be a real man. And now, he was to be cheated of this longed for ambition – the one thing in his whole life that he had most wanted.
The blow had fallen from a blue sky, without any warning at all, when his mother had announced casually over breakfast, ‘I reckon you’re a goin’ to have to forget about riding the trail this year, Danny boy’.
‘What d’you mean, Ma?’ he had answered, a sick feeling welling up in the pit of his stomach, like he’d been kicked or punched.
‘That hired man of ours was detained last night by Sheriff Rider. Seems as he’s wanted for some foolishness, away over in New Mexico. Lord knows what it might be, but I surely can’t run this place without either him or you.’
‘But Ma,’ said Dan, despite his age, his eyes almost filling with tears, ‘I got to go this year. Everybody I know’s goin’ to be riding out in the next few weeks. I can’t be the only one left behind.’
‘Well, I can tell you for now,’ said his mother firmly, ‘There’s no question of it and you might as well settle yourself to the fact.’
It has to be said that Mrs Maud Lewis was not a hardhearted woman, nor was she unaware of the disappointment which her only child was suffering. Still and all, their smallholding wouldn’t run itself and the only way that she had managed to keep food on the table since her husband had died seven years earlier, was by engaging a series of hired men. This was expensive though, and in the last three or four years she had relied increasingly upon her son doing a man’s work around the farm. She could just about cope with the place without him, always providing she had somebody to help out every day, but not now the latest fellow had upped and got himself arrested.
Seeing that her son was about to launch into a long and passionate justification, Mrs Lewis decided that the kindest thing would be to let him know right now that there was no chance of his riding off. It wasn’t to be thought of, particularly at that time of year, with so much to do in the fields. She said, ‘I ain’t about to debate further with you, Daniel. I’m tellin’ you how it is and that’s the way of it. I won’t hear another word on the subject.’
‘It ain’t fair,’ cried Dan, ‘It just ain’t fair!’
‘What’s fair got to do with the case?’ asked his mother.
Before the week was out, Dan Lewis’s friends began signing up with the South Texas Livestock Company and leaving town. Danny watched despairingly as the boys he had attended school with went off on their adventures, while he was left to weed fields and tend to the hogs. A phrase that the preacher had used in church the week before, struck Dan most powerfully and just about summed up how he felt: ”The iron entered his soul”. He felt bereft and abandoned, left out of the fun and excitement that most every other fellow of his age for fifty miles was taking part in.
The only other young man of his age in town who had not left within a fortnight was Albert McCormack; a mean and sneaking youth, whose chief claim to fame at the school which he had attended with Dan was his tendency to bear tales to the teacher. Nobody much liked McCormack or wanted to ride alongside him and so he and Danny were pretty much the only young men of sixteen or seventeen to be seen on the streets of Indian Falls that spring.
Now, although the South Texan Livestock Company was the outfit for which most boys in town worked, there was another company, based some twenty miles from Indian Falls. This was generally known for convenience as ”The Three Cs” or the ”Triple C”, on account of its official title being the Carmichael Cattle Company which was obviously something of a mouthful. Two days after the last of his friends had decamped to join the South Texas Livestock Company on their round–up and drive north, two things happened, which together changed the course of Dan Lewis’s life forever. The first of these was that a hobo fetched up on the farm, looking for food and shelter; in return for which he was prepared to undertake any work which might be needful about the Lewis’ smallholding.
‘It surely is a pity,’ remarked Maud Lewis to her son, ‘That this fellow didn’t happen by a week or two back.’
‘You might say so, Ma!’ replied Dan ruefully. At that moment, he caught sight of a rider heading towards them from the little track leading to town. This proved to be the second important circumstance to chance that day, because the rider was none other than Albert McCormack, for whom, like so many others in the district, Dan had little time. He and his mother greeted the boy politely, but without any great cordiality.
‘Good morning, Mrs Lewis,’ said Albert, ‘Hey, Dan.’
‘How might we help you, Albert?’ asked Dan’s mother.
‘Well, it ain’t so much you helping me,’ said the youth, ‘I’d say the boot’s all on the other foot, so to speak.’
‘Oh?’ said Mrs Lewis, raising a quizzical eyebrow, ‘How’s that?’
‘I hear where the “Triple C” are plumb desperate to find a couple of likely lads to act as wranglers when they set off tomorrow. My ma wondered if there was any chance of Dan being free now to go on the trail? She don’t like the notion o’ my ridin’ twenty miles over to the “Three Cs” by myself.’
Dan looked across to his mother; a sudden, wild hope erupting in his heart. Maud Lewis smiled at the eager young man and said slowly, ‘Well, seeing as how we have a body now who says he will stay for a month or more and seems a good worker into the bargain, I suppose you might as well go off. It’s tolerable clear to me, I’ll not be left in peace else.’
Dan rushed up to his mother and enfolded her in a crushing bear-hug. He said, ‘Thank you. I’ll work twice as hard when I get back.’
‘See that you do,’ she said gruffly, ‘Now get along with you and pack. If you’re aiming to get to the “Three Cs” by nightfall, you’d best move yourself.’
So it came about that on a bright, sunny morning in May 1870, two young men left Indian Falls on their horses heading north towards the headquarters of the Carmichael Cattle Company. They were an ill-matched pair, with neither having much liking or regard for the other and having been thrown together only by chance.
Dan Lewis and Albert McCormack were greeted warmly when they showed up at the “Three Cs”. It would be stretching the case to claim that the trail boss threw his arms around them and embraced them as he would some long-lost relatives, but there was not the slightest doubt that he was mightily relieved to see two capable-looking youngsters ride in and announce their readiness to start work that very minute if need be. Without a couple of wranglers, it was hard to see how they would have been able to set out with the seven thousand head of cattle that they hoped to despatch to Elsworth.
Texas had, for some years, been heaving to bursting point with steers. They were a positive drug on the market in that state and the price they fetched for their owners was accordingly so low as to make profit margins very tight indeed. All this changed when the railroads began running from Kansas to the East. It then became possible to drive the herds up to railheads in Kansas and transport them by railroad trains to Chicago and other cities. Overnight, the Texas cattle business boomed and this led to the creation of the so-called cow towns of Abilene, Elsworth and Dodge: the ultimate destinations of the steers being driven a thousand miles north from Texas.
Life on the trail was rough and hard. Naturally, the least pleasant tasks ended up being allotted to the youngest and least experienced of the men working the herds. The dirtiest jobs, and the loneliest, were allocated to sixteen and seventeen year-olds like Dan Lewis. The post that many of these young men ended up in was that of wrangler.
A lot of nonsense was later written about the strong bond formed between cowboys and their horses. This overlooked the fact that the average cowboy on the trail did not have just one horse which was his own and to which he became attached. It was essential that the horses had adequate periods of rest, even if the riders themselves were sometimes in the saddle for twelve or eighteen hours at a stretch. This apparent paradox was resolved by ensuring that every cowboy had at least three horses during a cattle drive. This in turn meant that there might be as many as a hundred and fifty horses at any one time which were not being ridden. These had to be cared for and looked after carefully, so that there were always fresh mounts ready and waiting for those who needed them. The man in charge of these spare horses was called the wrangler and he was invariably the youngest and greenest man of them all. On a big cattle drive, such as that being undertaken by the “Three Cs”, more than one wrangler might be needed; which was what had given Dan Lewis his great opportunity that spring.
‘You boys best show me your stuff,’ said Jethro Carmichael, when they had introduced themselves and stated their purpose in having made their way to his uncle’s ranch, ‘Nobody’ll thank me for sending off a couple o’ greenhorns who can’t handle theyselves on the trail.’
‘What would you have us do, sir?’ asked Dan.
‘There’s a half dozen lively ponies over in the field yonder. Why don’t you and your partner round ‘em up and bring ‘em into that there corral?’
Surprisingly, Dan found that he and Albert McCormack worked pretty well together as a team. He had never really cared for the fellow, but had to admit that he knew how to handle animals. The horses that Carmichael had told them to fetch into the corral were barely domesticated animals from the Lord knew where. At a guess, Dan thought that they might have been acquired from the Indians. They were as skittish as you liked and not at all used to being chivvied about like this. He hoped devoutly that these critters weren’t typical of the horses that he would be expected to tend to for the thousand–mile drive up into Kansas. The six of them were trouble enough in themselves; how he would manage a hundred such animals was something of a mystery to him. This was not going to be the case though, as he later learned. The “Triple C” bought half–wild creatures like this from time to time and they always got new men to show what they could do with such unpromising material.
After he and Albert had got the ponies penned up in the corral, Jethro Carmichael said, ‘Well, you could o’ done that a mite quicker, I reckon, but seein’ as we’re desperate, I suppose you boys will have to do. A dollar a day ’til we reach Elsworth suit you?’
Dan was surprised to hear that they would be receiving the same pay as the other, more experienced men. Thirty dollars a month was the standard rate for cowboys on the trail and he rejoiced to discover that he, too, would be earning this sum. Why, after two months, he would have sixty dollars or thereabouts!
Now that the “Three Cs” had a full complement of hands, there was no reason to delay the departure any further. It was accordingly agreed that they would set off at dawn the next day. Before he and Albert settled down to sleep in one of the bunkhouses, Dan Lewis took a turn round the ranch. It was in a way, a solemn kind of moment. He was, as he very well knew, little more than a boy. Once he had ridden a thousand miles in the saddle and helped shift some thousands of longhorns across the country for a couple of months or so, he would return changed; if not yet a man, then certainly nearer to it than was currently the case.
The two boys were woken the next day at dawn by the clanging of a length of rail being beaten vigorously with a metal bar. Dan, Albert and the other ten fellows in the bunkhouse were roused to consciousness by the sharp, metallic clash of iron on iron and the roaring of the foreman, who yelled irritably, ‘Come on, you lazy cows’ sons, get your arses out o’ them bunks. There’s work as needs doin’!’
The sun was not yet peeping above the horizon and outside it was chilly and the darkness was inky black. There wasn’t much by way of breakfast, other than black coffee which was almost as thick as soup. The two boys soon realized that they would have to figure out for themselves what they were expected to do; all the others were too busy with their own tasks to spend time explaining what was required. Fortunately, it was fairly easy to tell when they got things wrong, because there was yelling and cursing. Somehow, the two of them managed to find the horses and get them ready to move.
There was nothing in the slightest degree romantic about any of the chores being undertaken that first day; it was just damned hard work. By the end of the day, the expedition was under way though, with better than seven thousand longhorn steers having been rounded up and by and large persuaded to move in the same direction. Dan had always thought of himself as a pretty tough and wiry individual, capable of putting in a good day’s work when the need arose. By nightfall though, he was utterly spent and looking forward to collapsing on the ground, huddling up in his blanket and falling asleep. That was when he learned that he and Albert were in a different category from the other men and would, in a sense, be working through the night as well.
‘Here’s the way of it, you boys,’ explained the trail boss, a man called Geoff Lennox, ‘Some of they steers’ll be after wandering off in the night. You got the horses secured, I’ll allow, but your work ain’t ended yet. After you got some vittles in you, you two got to go off, different ways and set yourselves down about a mile or more out from here. You can doze all you like, but you keep half an eye open for any cattle which are thinking of taking off in the night. It’ll be your job to send ‘em back in again.’
And so, while the other forty men were settling down to chat and play cards around the campfires, Dan Lewis rode off alone to set watch over the steers on the edge of the herd. He had no idea how much sleep he was expected to snatch while watching the herd. In the event, Dan found that any sort of unrest among the steers caused lowing and restlessness that was communicated among the herd by stamping hooves. Even when he was sound asleep, the vibrations of this activity roused him.
Sometimes, when the steers were especially restless and nervous, Dan found he could calm those nearest to him by singing the songs that his mother had used to soothe him when he was a little child. Anybody who had happened to be where Dan Lewis was trying to snatch a few hours sleep, would have been entertained by the sight and sound of a young man crooning a series of lullabies to a bunch of longhorn cattle.
The days and nights wore away in this fashion, until they had been on the trail for nearly a week; the herd could not be induced to travel more than fifteen or twenty miles at most in the course of a day. And after five days of this backbreaking work, which left Dan Lewis with more aches than he had ever had in his life, they was still fewer than a hundred miles from home.
Now a natural consequence of the way of life that Dan and Albert were living on the trail was that they had little chance to get to know the men with whom they were working. They caught glimpses of them during the day, but there was little enough time to socialize when they were all working. It was in the evenings that the men chatted together and this was the part of the day that the boys missed out on. Dan found this annoying, but he could not in a million years have guessed that it would put his very life in hazard.
On the sixth night, everything seemed as quiet as could be and Dan was allowing himself to hope that he might be able to hunker down to an uninterrupted night’s sleep. The steers were settled down nicely and so Dan Lewis wrapped himself up in his blanket and lay down on a patch of ground which he had cleared of stones. He was just about to drift off to sleep when he felt the vibration of hoof beats and was jerked back to consciousness.
Once he was sitting up, Dan found that he could hear the hooves and they didn’t sound like the random and irregular pattern of cattle shifting to and fro. It was rather the regular, rhythmic drumming of horses’ hooves and unless he was very much mistaken, they were heading his way. He shrugged off the blanket and got to his feet – peering out into the darkness to see who was coming. It seemed to him that there were at least two horses coming towards him and he wondered who could be looking for him at that time of night.
Hi Simon - think this is a first, days gone by and not a dead body in sight 😀 looking forward to the boys experiences. Ivan