A Lone Star Christmas Read online

  “Then I won’t be calling you Mr. Whitman. What’s your first name?”

  “Dalton!” Rebecca said.

  “I don’t mean nothin’ by it,” Dalton said. “I’m just friends with all the cowboys, that’s all.”

  “My name is Tom. And I would be happy to be your friend.”

  “Yes, well, don’t the two of you get to be best friends too fast,” Big Ben said. “First I have to know if you can ride well enough to be a cowboy. Clay!” Big Ben called.

  A man stepped out of the machine shed. “Yes, sir, Mr. Conyers?”

  “Get over here, Clay, I’ve someone I want you to meet.” Then to Tom, Big Ben added, “Clay is the ranch foreman. And I’ll leave the final word as to whether or not I hire you up to him.”

  “Good enough,” Tom said.

  Clay was Clay Ramsey, who Big Ben introduced as the ranch foreman. Clay was thirty-three years old, with brown hair, a well-trimmed moustache, and blue eyes. About five feet ten, he was wiry and, according to one of the cowboys who worked for him, as tough as a piece of rawhide.

  “Saddle Thunder for him,” Big Ben said, after he explained what he wanted to do.

  “Papa, no!” Rebecca protested vehemently.

  “Honey, I’m not just being a horse’s rear end. If he can ride Thunder, he can ride any horse on the ranch. There wouldn’t be any question about my hiring him.”

  “I can ride a horse, Mr. Conyers,” Tom said. “But I confess that I have never tried to ride a bucking horse. If that is what is required, then I thank you for your time, and I’ll be going on.”

  “He’s not a bucking horse,” Clay said. “But he is a very strong horse who loves to run and jump. If you ride him, you can’t be timid about it; you have to let him know, right away, that you are in control.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Ramsey. In that case, I will ride him.”

  “Ha!” Dusty McNally, one of the other cowboys said. “I like it that you said you will ride him, rather than you will try to ride him. That’s the right attitude to have.”

  Thunder was a big, muscular, black horse who stood eighteen hands at the withers. Although he allowed himself to be saddled, he kept moving his head and lifting first one hoof and then another. He looked like a ball of potential energy.

  “Here you are, Mr. Whitman,” Clay said, handing the reins to Tom.

  “Thank you,” Tom said, mounting. He pointed toward an open area on the other side of a fence. “Would it be all right to ride in that field there?”

  “Sure, there’s nothing there but rangeland,” Clay said. “The gate is down there,” he pointed.

  “Thank you, I won’t need a gate,” Tom said. He slapped his legs against the side of the horse and it started forward at a gallop. As he approached the fence, he lifted himself slightly from the saddle and leaned forward.

  “Come on, Thunder,” he said encouragingly. “Let’s go see if we can find us a fox.”

  Thunder galloped toward the fence, then sailed over it as gracefully as a leaping deer. Coming down on the other side Tom saw a ditch about twenty yards beyond the fence, and Thunder took that as well. Horse and rider went through their paces, jumping, making sudden turns, running at a full gallop, then stopping on a dime. After a few minutes he brought Thunder back, returning the same way he left, over the ditch, then over the fence. He slowed him down to a trot once he was back inside the compound, and the horse was at a walk by the time he rode up to dismount in front of a shocked Big Ben, Clay, and Dusty. Rebecca was smiling broadly.

  Tom patted Thunder on his neck, then dismounted and handed the reins back to Clay. “He is a very fine horse,” Tom said. “Whoever rides him is quite lucky.”

  “He’s yours to ride any time you want him,” Big Ben said. “That is, provided you are willing to come work for me.”

  “I would be very proud to work for you, Mr. Conyers.”

  “Come with me, Tom, is it?” Clay invited. “I’ll get you set up in the bunkhouse and introduce you to the others.”

  “Tom?” Rebecca called out to him.

  Tom looked back toward her.

  “I’m glad you are here.”

  “Thank you, Miss Conyers. I’m glad to be here.”

  Tom ate his first supper in the cookhouse that evening. Mo introduced him to all the others.

  “Where is Mr. Ramsey?” Tom asked. “Does he eat somewhere else?”

  “Mr. Ramsey?” Mo asked. Then he smiled. “Oh, you mean Clay. Clay is the foreman of the ranch, but there don’t any of us call him Mr. Ramsey. We just call him Clay ’cause that’s what he wants us to call him.”

  “Clay is married,” one of the other cowboys said. “He lives in that first cabin you see over there, the only one with a front porch.”

  “He married a Mexican girl,” another said.

  “Don’t talk about her like that,” Mo said. “Maria is as American as you are. Emanuel Bustamante fought with Sam Houston at San Jacinto.”

  “I didn’t mean nothin’ by it,” the cowboy said. “I think Senor Bustamante is as fine a man as I’ve ever met, and Mrs. Ramsey is a very good woman. I was just sayin’ that she is Mexican is all.”

  “I assume that none of you are married,” Tom said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be eating here in the dining hall.”

  “Ha! The dining hall. That’s sure a fancy name for the cookhouse.”

  “I don’t mean any disrespect for Clay,” Mo said. “But it don’t make a whole lot of sense for a cowboy to be married. First of all, there don’t none of us make enough money to support a family. And second, when we make the long cattle drives, we’re gone for near three months at a time.”

  “And Dodge City is too fun of a town to be in if you are married, if you get my meanin’,” one of the other cowboys said, and the others shared a ribald laugh.

  A couple of cowboys decided to razz the tenderfoot that first night. Tom had been given a chest for his belongings, and while Tom and the rest of the cowboys were having supper, Dalton and one of the cowboys slipped back into the bunkhouse and nailed the lid shut on his chest.

  When Tom and the others returned, Tom tried to open the lid to his footlocker, but he was unable to get it open.

  “What’s the matter there, Tom? Can’t get your chest open?” Dalton asked.

  By now Dalton had told the others what he did, and all gathered around to see how Tom was going to react. Would he get angry, and start cursing every-one? Or would he be meek about it?

  Tom looked more closely at the lid then, and saw that it had been nailed shut by six nails, two in front and two on either side.

  “That’s odd,” he said. “It seems to have been nailed shut.”

  The others laughed out loud.

  “Nailed shut, is it? Well, I wonder who did that?” Dalton asked.

  “Oh, I expect it was a mistake of some sort,” Tom said. “I don’t really think that anyone would nail the lid shut on my chest as a matter of intent.”

  “Whoo, do you think that?” Dalton asked, and again, everyone laughed at the joke they were playing on the tenderfoot.

  “All right, fellas, you’ve had your fun,” Mo said. “Wait a minute, Tom, I’ll get a claw hammer and pull the nails for you so you can get the lid open.”

  “Thank you, Mo,” Tom said. “I don’t need the claw hammer to get the lid open.”

  “What are you talking about? Of course you do. How else are you going to open the lid if you don’t pull the nails out first?”

  “Oh, it won’t be difficult. I’ll just open it like this,” Tom said. Reaching down with both hands, he used one hand to steady the bottom of the chest and the other to grab the front of the lid. He pulled up on the lid then and, with a terrible screeching noise as the nails lost their purchase, the lid came up. Reaching into the footlocker, Tom removed a pair of socks.

  “Ahh,” he said. “That’s what I was looking for.”

  “Good God in heaven,” someone said, reverently. “Did you see that?”

 
“Dalton, I don’t think you ought to be messin’ any more with this one. He’s as strong as an ox.”

  Sugarloaf Ranch, Big Rock, Colorado, May 1

  “Did you get a count?” Smoke asked Pearlie.

  Pearlie held up the string and counted the knots. There were fourteen knots.

  “I make it fourteen hundred in the south pasture,” he said.

  “I’ve got another eleven hundred,” Cal added.

  “And I’ve got just over fifteen hundred,” Smoke said.

  “Wow, that’s better than four thousand head,” Pearlie said. “We’ve got almost as many back as we had before the big freeze and die-out.”

  The big die-out Pearlie was talking about happened three years earlier when there had been a huge 72-hour blizzard. After the blizzard, the sun melted the top few inches of snow into slush, which the following day was frozen into solid ice by minus thirty-degree temperatures. Throughout the West, tens of thousands of cattle were found huddled against fences, many frozen to death, partly through and hanging on the wires. The legs of many of the cows that survived were so badly frozen that, when they moved, the skin cracked open and their hoofs dropped off. Hundreds of young steers were wandering aimlessly around on bloody stumps, while their tails froze as if they were icicles to be easily broken off.

  Humans died that year too, men who froze to death while searching for cattle, women and children in houses where there was no wood to burn and not enough blankets to hold back the sub-zero temperatures. The only creatures to survive, and not only survive but thrive that winter, were the wolves who feasted upon the carcasses of tens of thousands of dead cattle.

  Sugarloaf Ranch had survived, but nearly all the cattle on the ranch had died. Then Smoke heard from his friend, Falcon MacCallister. Falcon’s cousin, Duff MacCallister, recently arrived from Scotland, was running a new breed of cattle.

  Duff MacCallister had been spared the great die-out disaster because his ranch was located in the Chugwater Valley of Wyoming, shielded against the worst of winter’s blast by mesas and mountain ranges. Also his ranch, Sky Meadow, had no fences to prevent the cattle from moving to the shelter of these natural barriers, and the breed of cattle Duff MacCallister was raising, Black Angus, were better equipped to withstand the cold weather than were the Longhorns.

  Smoke went to Sky Meadow to meet with Duff, and after his visit, agreed to buy one thousand head of Black Angus cattle. That one thousand head had grown into a herd of nearly four thousand in the last four years, and it had been a very good move for Smoke. Whereas the market price for Longhorn had fallen so low that Smoke’s neighbors, who were still raising that breed, were doing well to break even on their investment, the market price for Black Angus, which produced a most superior grade of beef, was very high.

  “You men take care of things here,” Smoke said. “Sally is coming back today, and I’m going to meet her at the train station.”

  “I’ll go get her,” Cal volunteered.

  Pearlie chuckled. “I’m sure you would, Cal. We’ve got calves to brand and you’ll do anything to get out of a little work.”

  “It’s not that,” Cal said. “I was just volunteering, is all.”

  “Thanks anyway,” Smoke said. “But she’s been back East for almost a month and I’m sort of anxious to see her again.”

  When Smoke reached the train depot in Big Rock, he checked the arrival and departure blackboard to see if the train was on time. There was no arrival time listed, so he went inside to talk to the ticket agent. The ticket agent was huddled in a nervous conversation with Sheriff Monte Carson.

  “Hello, Monte, good evening, Hodge,” Smoke said, greeting the two men. “How are you doing?”

  “Smoke, I’m glad you are here,” Sheriff Carson said. “We’ve got a problem with the train.”

  “What kind of problem?” Smoke asked. “Sally is on that train.”

  “Yes, I know she is. We think the train is being robbed.”

  “Being robbed, or has been robbed?” Smoke replied, confused by the remark.

  “Being robbed,” Sheriff Carson said. “At least, we think that it what it is. The train is stopped about five miles west of here. There is an obstruction on the track so that it can’t go forward, and another on the track to keep it from going back.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Ollie Cook is the switch operator just this side where the train is. When the train didn’t come through his switch on time, he walked down the track to find out why, and that’s when he saw the train barricaded like that. He hurried back to his switch shack and called the depot.”

  “And I called Sheriff Carson,” Hodge said.

  “I’m about to get a posse together to ride out there and see what it’s all about,” Sheriff Carson said.

  “No need for a posse. Deputize me,” Smoke suggested. “Like I said, Sally is on that train.”

  “You are already a deputy, Smoke, you know that,” Sheriff Carson said.

  “Yes, I know,” Smoke said. “But I don’t want people thinking I’ve gone off on my own just because Sally is on the train. I need you to authorize this, in front of a witness.”

  “All right,” Sheriff Carson said. “Hodge you are witness to this. Smoke, you are deputized to find out what is happening with that train, and to deal with it as you see best.”

  “Thanks,” Smoke said.

  Hurrying back outside, Smoke jumped into the buckboard he had come to town in, and slapping the reins against the back of the team, took the road that ran parallel with the railroad. He left town doing a brisk trot, but once he was out of town, he urged the team into a gallop. Less than fifteen minutes later, he saw the train standing on the railroad. Not wanting to get any closer with the team and buckboard, he stopped, tied the team off to a juniper tree, then, bending to keep a low profile, ran alongside the berm until he reached the front of the train. Hiding in some bushes he looked into the engine cab and saw three men, the fireman and engineer, who he could identify by the pin-stripe coveralls they were wearing, and a third man. The third man had a gun in his hand, and he waved it around every now and then, as if demonstrating his authority over the train crew.

  Smoke moved up onto the track, but since he was in the very front of the locomotive, he knew that he couldn’t be seen. He climbed up the cow catcher, then up onto the boiler itself, still unseen. He walked along the top of the boiler, then onto the roof of the cab. Lying down on his stomach, he peeked in from the window on the left side of the locomotive.

  The man holding the gun had his back to that window so he couldn’t see Smoke, but the engineer and the fireman could, and Smoke saw their eyes widen in surprise. He hoped that the gunman didn’t notice it.

  “You two fellas are doin’ just fine,” the gunman said. “As soon as we collect our money from all your passengers, why we’ll move the stuff off the track and let you go on.”

  Smoke leaned down far enough to make certain that the cab crew could see him, then he put his finger across his lips as a signal to be quiet.

  “You got no right to be collecting money from our passengers,” one of the two cab crew said.

  “Well, the Denver and Rio Grande collects its fees, and we collect ours,” the man said with a cackling laugh.

  In mid-cackle, Smoke reached down into the engine cab, grabbed the man by his shirt, pulled him through the window, then let him fall, headfirst, to the ground.

  “Hey, what ...” was as far as the man got, before contact with the ground interrupted his protest. Looking down at him, Smoke could tell by the way the man’s head was twisted that his neck was broken, and he was dead.

  Smoke swung himself into the engine cab.

  “Who are you?” one of the men asked.

  “Smoke Jensen, I’m a deputy sheriff,” Smoke said. “How many more are there?”

  “Four more,” one of the men said.

  “Five,” the other corrected. “I saw five.”

  “Where are they now?”
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br />   “Well, sir, after they found out we wasn’t carryin’ any money in the express car, they decided to see what they could get from the passengers, and that’s what they are doing now.”

  “How about the two of you going down to move the body of the one who was in here with you? I don’t want any of the others to happen to look up this way and see him lying there.”

  “Yeah, good idea. Come on, Cephus, let’s get him moved.”

  As the two train crewmen climbed down to take care of their job, Smoke crawled across the coal pile on the tender, then up onto the top of the express car. He ran the length of that car, then leaped across to the baggage car and ran its length as well. Climbing down from the back of the baggage car, he let himself into the first passenger car.

  “One of your men has already been here,” an irate passenger said. “We gave you everything we have.”

  “Shhh,” Smoke said. “I’m on your side. I’m a deputy sheriff. Where are they?”

  “There was only one in here, and he went into the next car.”

  “Thanks,” Smoke said. Holding his pistol down by his side, he hurried through the first car and into the second one. He saw a gunman at the other end of the car, holding a pistol in his right hand and an open sack in the other. The passengers were dropping their valuables into the open sack.

  “What are you doing in here? You get back in the other car and stay there like you were told!” The gunman said, belligerently.

  “I don’t think so,” Smoke said. He raised his pistol. “Drop your gun.”

  “The hell I will!”

  Instead of dropping his gun, the train robber swung the pistol around and fired at Smoke. His shot went wide and the bullet smashed through the window of the door behind him. Smoke returned fire, and the gunman dropped his pistol and staggered back, his hands to his throat. Blood spilled through his fingers as he hit the front wall of the car, then slid down to the floor in a seated position. His head fell to one side as he died.

  During the gunfire women screamed and men shouted. As the car filled with the gun smoke of two discharges, Smoke ran through the car, across the vestibule, and into the next car.