Gabriel's Story by David Anthony Durham Page A

the newly tilled fields, as yet devoid of crops. A thought passed over his face, troubled his brow for a second, then vanished. “I guess I’ll be getting back at it. I wish you folks the best of luck.”
    Solomon accepted the wish with a nod but shrugged to question its power. “Thank you much, only it’s not luck. We find the Lord provides.”
    The cowboy found this amusing. “Yeah, that’s what they keep telling me. But I’ve not seen any sign of it yet.” Solomon looked up at him with a stony countenance Gabriel had not seen before. The cowboy, whether avoiding his gaze or for some other reason, looked at Gabriel and smiled. With that, he spun his horse and spurred him into a gallop.
    They watched him go. As he reached the herd, the man picked up his work where he’d left it, his whip once more snapping like gunfire. The cattle seemed endless in number, pouring over the hill from which they’d appeared and by now topping a distant rise and moving off toward Crownsville.
    â€œCan’t say I care for cowboys,” Solomon said. “They a rough bunch usually, no courtesy for decent folk. If we’d planted that field instead the othern, they’d have just trampled our crops to naught.” He paused, thought it over, and concluded, “Naw, I wouldn’t trade places with em for nothing.” He turned and walked back toward the house.
    Gabriel wasn’t so sure. He spoke quietly, so that Solomon wouldn’t hear him: “Don’t look so bad to me.” He watched the cowboy’s progress for as long as he could, something in the motion of it drawing him in, the freedom, the control and power of it all, man and horse and beast in a struggle of wills and muscle and horns and gun. Solomon called him to hitch the mule, and the boy turned reluctantly to the work.
    IT WENT JUST AS SMOOTHLY AS THEY’D PLANNED. The night
before, the five men had camped beside a shallow river. They kept
a small fire and ate quietly before it. A light rain fell, barely a
mist, but enough to keep the men hidden beneath the brims of
their hats, collars pulled up and heads cradled between shoulderblades.
    The next morning was clear, and the men broke camp and rode
out before first light. The horses were just where they’d been told
they would be. They spent the morning hours rounding them up,
pulling them in from the great basin they occupied, unguarded.
They worked fast, as men will whose actions can be viewed by an
eye ten miles in the distance. The Scot went at it particularly well,
ranging out in a wide periphery of the herd and bringing in the
stragglers, sparring with them, taunting them, and then tricking
them each time into his chosen direction.
    By mid-morning they’d grouped a handsome herd, some thirty
head of every description: paints and bays, sorrels and roans. Few
of them were branded, and those that were bore brands as varied
as their number. By early afternoon, the five men were driving the
horses before them at a trot, dead north. The vanguard ate up the
miles of grassland as if they were hungry for the motion, in love
with it, as if they felt this forced march to be their own dash for
freedom and cared little about the ridden beasts that followed
them.
    The Scot rode up close to the black man and offered a joke
about the ease of this venture. If the black man found it amusing,
he didn’t show. He kicked his horse up and pressed the herd
harder.
    They were three weeks on the drive north. They passed within
sight of Fort Concho, made good time across the flats to Doan’s
Store, crossed the Red River, and moved on up the Western Trail.
They passed more than one herd of cattle along the way, were once
blamed for a stampede and nearly shot at, twice lost portions of
the herd in the night and had to hunt them, and through the
Indian territory they lost five head to ambitious thieves.
    But through it all they kept to schedule. They met up with