Dave Carson was in a pretty confident state of mind. All Carmichael’s men were a good distance away and he was that close to the old man that not one of them could have risked loosing off a shot at him without the very real risk of killing their boss instead. As long as Ezekiel Carmichael believed that he was going to live, then he would almost certainly make his men swear not to launch any pursuit and just to set tight here until he returned. Not that Dave Carson had any intention of letting the man go free, of course. This old devil had wrecked one of the sweetest little rackets that Carson had ever heard tell of and it wasn’t in reason that he should be allowed to get away with that. Still, the important thing was that Carmichael believed that he was going to live. Old men are exceedingly tenacious of life and worry about death a sight more than youngsters.
Where the man came from who sprang upon him, knocking the gun from his hand, Carson could not have said. He would have taken an oath that there was nobody closer to him and Carmichael than fifty or sixty feet. He clubbed the old man in the neck, as hard as he could, with his clenched fist and had the satisfaction of seeing Carmichael keel over, temporarily out of action. Then he turned to face his assailant.
Carson knew the boy at once – it was that young fellow whom Fats had brought back after the lynching, the one who had probably killed Garcia. These thoughts flashed through his mind, even as he was moving, diving to the ground for the gun which had been dashed from his grasp.
Whatever had been in the young man’s mind when he jumped the owner of the ‘Barred Os’, whether just to rescue the old man or knock out Dave Carson and surrender him up to justice, once Carson went scrabbling around for his pistol, it was inevitable that there would be an exchange of fire.
As soon as Dan saw the man dive down for his gun, he drew his own pistol, cocking the hammer with his thumb as he did so. His sole immediate aim in leaping into action had been to rescue the kind-looking old man from the person he knew to be the head of a gang of ruthless criminals, but having done so, he could see that it was now life and death and that if he did nothing; why, this fellow would surely gun him down. Even so, he waited, hoping that it wouldn’t come to that.
His reluctance to kill a man might have been commendable enough in its own way, but it was very nearly the death of Dan Lewis. While he stood there like a fool, a cocked pistol in his hand, Carson had snatched up his own piece and was turning to face the boy. There was only a split second in it, but Dan’s shot hit the other man in the chest. Carson had already begun to squeeze the trigger and when the ball took him through the heart, he clenched his hand reflexively, causing him to fire. His aim was spoiled by being hit, but his ball wasn’t completely wasted. It flew straight at Dan Lewis’s head, catching him a glancing blow on his right temple which felt like somebody had whacked him hard with a hickory stick.
As Dan sank to his knees, the sickening pain almost depriving him of his senses, he was aware of men rushing up to the old man, who drove them off with angry cries of, ‘Never mind fussing round me, you bunch of old women! Look to that young fellow and see what’s needful.’ Then, for the first time in his life, Dan Lewis fainted.
When he came round, Dan found that somebody was examining his forehead critically. This man said, ‘I never saw a closer thing! A quarter inch to one side and it would have broken his skull to pieces.’
A querulous voice that he recognized as belonging to the old man whose aid he had gone to, said, ‘You mean he’ll live?’
‘Live? He’s fine as you like. Might have a headache, but nothing worse. You can see for yourself, the ball grazed his skin, but nothing worse. Luckiest escape I ever seed in the whole course of my life.’
‘Thank God!’ said the old man piously, ‘Thank God!’
At this point, Dan opened his eyes and said, ‘I’m right sorry to be a nuisance to you folk.’
‘Hush your mouth, you damned fool,’ said the old man, who was bending over him solicitously, ‘You saved my life.’
‘You sure he weren’t one o’ them?’ said another man, standing nearby, ‘Lord knows what he was doing, hidin’ behind that there tree.’
‘I don’t much care if he’s one of Satan’s imps,’ said Ezekiel Carmichael irritably, ‘He saved my life and nearly paid for the privilege with his own. You all hush up now!’
Dan tried to sit up. The movement made his head feel as though it was exploding and he almost vomited, but now or never was his opportunity to set things straight. ‘Steady now, son,’ said the old man at his side, putting a hand on Dan’s shoulder, ‘You shouldn’t ought to be moving’.
‘I’m all right, sir. Just a mite groggy, is all. I want to explain to you and the others what I was doing, hiding behind that tree.’
‘There’s no need….’
‘Sorry to be contrary-wise sir, but there’s every need!’
So it was that sitting there in the darkness, with a ring of interested listeners hanging upon his every word, Dan Lewis let spill the whole story of his adventures since signing up as a wrangler for the ‘Three Cs’. It took a little while to tell the entire tale, but nobody interrupted him. After he’d finished speaking, Ezekiel Carmichael stretched himself, shot the boy a keen glance and said, ‘That sounds to me like the God’s honest truth.’ There were nods and grunts of agreement.
‘I just wanted to make sure everybody knows as I ain’t any sort o’ thief,’ said Dan, ‘So if that’s all plain, I guess I can go back to Indian Falls.’
‘Not so hasty,’ said Carmichael, ‘You may not know it, but the ‘Triple C’ belongs to me. ’Fore this all blew up, I was running five hundred head o’ cattle north along the Chisholm Trail. We’re going clear up to Elsworth. Can’t recompense you none for all you been through, but if you want to earn a dollar a day as a wrangler when we set off again tomorrow, well the job’s yours.’
So it was that after what might be called a false start, Dan Lewis set off the next day with Ezekiel Carmichael and his men; driving half a thousand steers up to the railhead at Elsworth.
The work was hard and in those eight weeks, Dan laboured a good deal harder than he ever had on the farm back home. He surely earned that sixty dollars by the time they finally reached Elsworth. Now it wasn’t old Ezekiel Carmichael’s way to show emotion or give any indication of favouring one man over another and he yelled and cursed at Dan when they were on the trail every whit as much as he did the others. Nevertheless, the old man had taken a liking to the boy: something over and above the gratitude a man might properly feel towards somebody who has saved his life.
In some ways, Dan was a little sad when they finally hit Elsworth. Being in a cow town was certainly a novel and exciting experience, but he knew that pretty soon now, he would have to be making tracks back to Indian Falls. It had all been a great adventure, but it wasn’t real life. That consisted of feeding hogs and picking stones out of the fields. He’d enjoyed the last eight weeks, but now it was time to return to his normal life. Still and all, the memory of those weeks, especially the first few days, would stay with him all his life.
The day after they reached Elsworth and had herded the steers into the holding pens in the yard by the railroad depot, Mr Carmichael sought out Dan, ostensibly in order to thank him one final time for saving his life. In fact, there was more to it than that. After some preliminary remarks about the satisfactory way in which the boy had conducted himself on the trail and various such things, the old man said, ‘So you’ll be heading back to Indian Falls now, is that about the strength of it?’
‘Yes, sir. What else would I do?’
Generally, once the younger men were paid off at the end of the drive, they went on the spree and then returned to their homes and took up their ordinary lives again. A few went off to work at various ranches, but these were the exceptions.
They were standing by the pens, the lowing of the cattle making it hard to sustain a conversation at normal levels. Carmichael said, ‘You’re a good worker. I could find a use for somebody like you back at the ‘Triple C’. Not just for a few months here and there. I mean a good, steady job. Pay you well.’
Dan was touched by this and could see that the old man did not want to part from him. Whether Dan reminded him of his son, killed in the war, or perhaps for some other reason, Ezekiel Carmichael was definitely reluctant to end their association. It was a delicate situation and Dan thought carefully for a space before answering.
‘It’s right nice of you, sir. If I was going to work any place, then I guess that the ‘Three Cs’ would be the one I’d choose, for a bet. But it won’t answer.’
‘Oh? How’s that?’
‘I almost didn’t come up here this year. My pa’s dead and there’s only me and my ma most o’ the time. I mean, we have hired men to help and all, but half of them is hardly worth the money we pay ‘em.’
Carmichael nodded, understandingly, ‘Isn’t that the truth,’ he said, ‘I’m a man who speaks from bitter experience. Number o’ useless types I’ve hired in my time.’
‘Anyways,’ continued the boy, ‘I don’t like to leave Ma by herself, just relyin’ on those fellows. It ain’t manly, if you take my meaning. It’s my place now to be there, looking after her interests and tending to what needs doin’. Not but that I wouldn’t like to work for you, Mr Carmichael. Truth to tell, there’s nothing I’d like better. But it would kind o’ seem like running out on my own kin and that’s not a thing to be done, not no-how.’
For a minute or so, Mr Carmichael said nothing and Dan wondered if the old man were going deaf and hadn’t heard all he had said because of the noise in the stock-yards. Then Carmichael said, ‘You’re in the right, son. Family’s the most important thing in the world and a man who neglects his duties in that direction ain’t a real man at all. Still, I’m sorry that we got to part. I watched you on the trail. You got the makings of a good man. Let me tell you, any time you want a job, just let me know, ‘fore you start hiring yourself out elsewhere.’
‘There ain’t nobody I’d sooner work for, sir.’ said Dan sincerely.
Two days later, Dan Lewis saddled up and rode south out of Elsworth. It wouldn’t take him any two months to get back to Indian Falls, but it was still a thousand miles ‘tween him and home. He had begun to worry about whether that new fellow was up to the job. When all was said and done, he’d looked to Dan like some worn out saddle-bum and he was feeling a mite guilty for coming off on this jaunt, for all that his Ma had represented it as the thing to do.
One thing that exercised Dan greatly as he was travelling back to Texas was how much of what had befallen him, he should tell his mother. On the one hand, he didn’t take to the notion of concealing anything from his Ma, but on the other; she would just about have a blue fit if he told her the half of what had happened to him since last he had seen her. In the end, he thought that he would kind of take his cue from her and answer questions in a straightforward way, while not volunteering overmuch information.
In the event, Dan needn’t have fretted about hiding anything from his mother. She had grown up with five brothers and in her experience, as soon as a young man of seventeen years of age is out of sight of his home all manner of hell is likely to break loose. The second she set eyes upon her son, she could see at once that he had changed. The precise details didn’t worry her, the fact was that he had left a boy and come back a man. Well, that was very right and proper.
‘Well boy,’ she greeted him, ‘You sure took your time about coming home. What you been doin’, picking flowers along the wayside or something?’
‘I came straight back Ma, just as soon as we settled those beasts in the pens at Elsworth.’
‘Well, I won’t deny as I’m glad to see you back again. That fellow I engaged is about as much use as… Well, I don’t know what use he is, to speak plainly. Now that you’ve condescended to rejoin us, happen you’d like to give him his marching orders?’
This was a development which Dan could not have foreseen. His mother had always been very ready to send any of the hired hands packing, if they failed to meet her very exacting standards. That she should delegate such a task to her son indicated some shift in their relationship and the way in which she viewed him. He said nothing, but inwardly rejoiced.
Later that day, after he had intimated to the help that it was about time he thought of moving on, as his services at the Lewis farm were no longer needed; Dan walked round the fields and examined the outbuildings. It struck him that there was plenty of work needed to be done around the place. He hadn’t realized before just how much he had been taking on himself in the last year and what a difference it had made, his not being there for eight weeks. That sort of trip was a luxury that he would not be able to afford in future. There was a heap of work needed to be done and if he didn’t do it, who would?
That evening, Dan talked over with his mother some of the little jobs he had noticed that needed to be tackled. She said, ‘Well, don’t come a troublin’ me with ’em all. Strikes me that if you know what’s to be done, you might as well just get on and do it. You ain’t a child any more, you know. There’s no call to tell me every little thing you purpose to do.’
It seemed to the young man that his mother was passing over a good chunk of the management of this little farm to him. Why, she had all but told him that he was in charge now! Dan felt a little guilty that he had not yet told his mother of the scrapes he’d been in on the trail. He said, ‘Ma, you ain’t asked me aught of what happened over the last two months. You want I should tell you?’
‘A heap of foolishness, I’ll be bound,’ said his mother, ‘Men fighting and being killed and you in and out o’ trouble. That about cover it?’
Dan laughed. ‘Pretty much.’ He felt a sudden rush of love for his mother and he went over to her and kissed the top of her head.
‘Lord, child,’ she exclaimed, ‘What are you about? You ain’t going silly, I hope?’
‘No Ma, not a bit of it.’
‘Well that’s a mercy, at any rate. ‘Stead o’ sitting here jawin’, there’s them hogs to feed. Or are you too grand for that now?’
‘No, I ain’t too grand for to feed the hogs,’ he said and went out with a good natured smile on his face to find the swill bucket. It surely was good to be home.
Thank you Simon I thoroughly enjoyed that.
Also enjoyed Simon, thank you. Reckon you like a happy ending 🤗🤗