the Daybreakers (1960) by Louis - Sackett's 06 L'amour Page A
Authors: Louis - Sackett's 06 L'amour
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that money belonged to a man, maybe I'd never have thought of returning it, but with a girl as young as that, no telling what she'll come to, turned loose on the world at that age. This money could make a lot of difference."
Tom was a prideful and stubborn man, ready to take on the two of us. Then Rountree settled matters.
"Tom," he said mildly, "you're wrong, an' what's more, you know it. This here outfit is four-sided and I vote with the Sackett boys. You ain't agin democracy, are you, Tom?"
"You know darned well I'm not, and as long as you put it that way, I'll sit down! Only I think we're damned fools."
"Tom, you're probably right, but that's the kind of a damned fool I am," said Orrin. "When the cows are rounded up if you don't feel different about it you can have my share of the cows."
Tom Sunday just looked at Orrin. "You damned fool. Next thing we know you'll be singing hymns in a church."
"I know a couple," Orrin said. "You all set down and while Tyrel gets supper, I'll sing you a couple."
And that was the end of it ... or we thought it was. Sometimes I wonder if anything is ever ended. The words a man speaks today live on in his thoughts or the memories of others, and the shot fired, the blow struck, the thing done today is like a stone tossed into a pool and the ripples keep widening out until they touch lives far from ours.
So Orrin sang his hymans, and followed them with Black, Black, Black, Lord Randall, Barbara Allan and Sweet Betsy. When Orrin finished the last one Tom reached over and held out his hand and Orrin grinned at him and shook it.
No more was said about the gold money and it was put away in the bottom of a pack and to all intents it was forgotten. If that amount of gold is ever forgotten.
We were getting into the country of the wild cattle now. Cap Rountree as well as others had noticed these wild cattle, some of them escaped from Spanish settlements to the south, and some escaped or stampeded by Indians from wagon trains bound for California.
No doubt Indians had killed a few, but Indians preferred buffalo, and many of these cattle had come south with buffalo herds. There was no shortage of buffalo in 1867, and the Indians only killed the wild cattle when there was nothing else.
The country we were going to work lay south of the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail, between the Purgatoire and Two Buttes Creek, and south to the Mal Pais. It was big country and it was rough country. We rode south through sage plains with some mesquite, with juniper and pinon on the hills.
Cap had in his mind a hidden place, a canyon near the base of a mountain where a cold spring of sweet water came out of the rocks. There was maybe two hundred acres of good grass in the bottom, grass belly-high to a horse, and from the look of it nobody had seen it since Cap Rountree stumbled on it twenty years back.
First off, we forted up. Behind us the cliffs lifted sheer with an overhang that provided shelter from above. Right out in front there was four or five acres of meadow with good grass, edged on the far side by trees and rocks. Beyond that was the bowl with the big pasture as we called it, and in an adjoining canyon was a still larger area where we figured to trap the wild cattle and hold them.
We spent that first day gathering fuel, adding a few rocks to our fort, and generally scouting the country close around our hideout. Also, I killed a deer and Cap got a buffalo. We brought the meat into camp and started jerking it.
Next morning at daybreak we started out to scout the country. Within an hour's riding we'd seen sixty or seventy head. A man never saw such cattle. There was a longhorn bull in that crowd that must have stood seven feet and would have weighed sixteen hundred pounds. And horns? Needle-sharp.
By nightfall we had a good bunch of cattle in the bowl or drifted toward it. By the third day we had more than a hundred head in that bowl and we were beginning to count our money.
It was slow,
Tom was a prideful and stubborn man, ready to take on the two of us. Then Rountree settled matters.
"Tom," he said mildly, "you're wrong, an' what's more, you know it. This here outfit is four-sided and I vote with the Sackett boys. You ain't agin democracy, are you, Tom?"
"You know darned well I'm not, and as long as you put it that way, I'll sit down! Only I think we're damned fools."
"Tom, you're probably right, but that's the kind of a damned fool I am," said Orrin. "When the cows are rounded up if you don't feel different about it you can have my share of the cows."
Tom Sunday just looked at Orrin. "You damned fool. Next thing we know you'll be singing hymns in a church."
"I know a couple," Orrin said. "You all set down and while Tyrel gets supper, I'll sing you a couple."
And that was the end of it ... or we thought it was. Sometimes I wonder if anything is ever ended. The words a man speaks today live on in his thoughts or the memories of others, and the shot fired, the blow struck, the thing done today is like a stone tossed into a pool and the ripples keep widening out until they touch lives far from ours.
So Orrin sang his hymans, and followed them with Black, Black, Black, Lord Randall, Barbara Allan and Sweet Betsy. When Orrin finished the last one Tom reached over and held out his hand and Orrin grinned at him and shook it.
No more was said about the gold money and it was put away in the bottom of a pack and to all intents it was forgotten. If that amount of gold is ever forgotten.
We were getting into the country of the wild cattle now. Cap Rountree as well as others had noticed these wild cattle, some of them escaped from Spanish settlements to the south, and some escaped or stampeded by Indians from wagon trains bound for California.
No doubt Indians had killed a few, but Indians preferred buffalo, and many of these cattle had come south with buffalo herds. There was no shortage of buffalo in 1867, and the Indians only killed the wild cattle when there was nothing else.
The country we were going to work lay south of the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail, between the Purgatoire and Two Buttes Creek, and south to the Mal Pais. It was big country and it was rough country. We rode south through sage plains with some mesquite, with juniper and pinon on the hills.
Cap had in his mind a hidden place, a canyon near the base of a mountain where a cold spring of sweet water came out of the rocks. There was maybe two hundred acres of good grass in the bottom, grass belly-high to a horse, and from the look of it nobody had seen it since Cap Rountree stumbled on it twenty years back.
First off, we forted up. Behind us the cliffs lifted sheer with an overhang that provided shelter from above. Right out in front there was four or five acres of meadow with good grass, edged on the far side by trees and rocks. Beyond that was the bowl with the big pasture as we called it, and in an adjoining canyon was a still larger area where we figured to trap the wild cattle and hold them.
We spent that first day gathering fuel, adding a few rocks to our fort, and generally scouting the country close around our hideout. Also, I killed a deer and Cap got a buffalo. We brought the meat into camp and started jerking it.
Next morning at daybreak we started out to scout the country. Within an hour's riding we'd seen sixty or seventy head. A man never saw such cattle. There was a longhorn bull in that crowd that must have stood seven feet and would have weighed sixteen hundred pounds. And horns? Needle-sharp.
By nightfall we had a good bunch of cattle in the bowl or drifted toward it. By the third day we had more than a hundred head in that bowl and we were beginning to count our money.
It was slow,
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