Read Online From Hide and Horn (A Floating Outfit Book Number 5) by J.T. Edson - Free Book Online

moving
around,
    My hoss is leg-weary,
    My butt-end aches like
hell,
    So I could feel the
bumps ,
    If I sat on a smell,
    Lay down,
you _____bastards, lay down,
    Lay down;
you _____sons-of-bitches, lay down.’ xiv
    Looming from the blackness, riding at a
leisurely walking pace, Swede Ahlen brought his song to a stop and
grinned a greeting as he saw Dusty coming his way.
    ‘ That
sure was a beautiful tune, Swede,’ complimented Dusty. ‘And the
chorus would make a deacon proud.’
    ‘ You should’ve heard the
words Dawn was singing when we come out to relieve her,’
Ahl en
answered, still grinning. ‘It like to start ole Billy Jack and me
to blushing.’
    ‘ I’ll have to come out and
listen next time she’s on,’ Dusty decided. ‘Everything all
right?’
    ‘ We’ve been quiet enough
so far. Knowed we would be . Billy Jack was saying how he figured
we’d have a stompede come half an hour.’
    Turning in their saddles, the two men looked
across the night-darkened range. Before them, the cattle were
assembled in a loosely-formed square with a rider patrolling each
side. Experience and good luck had allowed the trail boss to pick a
nearly perfect location, clear of ravines or draws into which a
restless steer might blunder, or where wild animals could hide. Nor
was there any wooded land, always a source of trouble and danger,
close by. Some of the steers lay quietly chewing their cud, others
slept on their feet. Here and there, a restless animal stirred a
flurry of complaint as it moved from place to place in search of
choicer grass on which to chew. However, having been pushed hard
all day, allowed to feed on the way and carefully watered, the
majority of the herd showed no inclination to travel.
    Yet Dusty and Ahlen were aware of how easily
the peaceful state could be changed. A sudden, loud, unexpected
noise, the wind-carried scent of a passing predatory animal—be it
cougar, wolf, black or grizzly bear—the appearance of a rattlesnake
from a hole down which it had slipped during the day, any of them
might send the cattle racing off in wild stampede. That was more
likely to happen, however, when the steers were hungry, thirsty,
riled up or disturbed for some reason; but the men knew better than
to take unnecessary risks.
    ‘ Let’s hope it stays that way,’ Dusty
said after a moment’s study of the herd. ‘Unless you feel like
taking a gallop after them, that is.’
    ‘ Happen I get to feel that
way, I’ll find me a tall tree and bang my head again’ it to knock
my brains back in,’ Ahlen grinned. Then he became sober and continued,
‘Say, Dusty. Burle Willock’s got a big mouth, but he’s a good
hand.’
    ‘ If he wasn’t, I don’t figure you’d’ve
brought him along,’ Dusty replied.
    ‘ Yeah. Waal, I had me a
li ’l
talk with him afore I come out here and I don’t reckon, what he
said back, he’ll give you any more lip or fuss.’
    ‘ That’s all I ask. I don’t
like billing in on things like that tonight, but it had to be
stopped. Young Vera Sutherland’s aiming to prove how he’s a
man-grown on the drive and I’d hate like hell to see him get pushed so
that he acted loco trying to do it.’
    ‘ Burle was more’n a mite rough on him,
and hadn’t any call to talk about having to carry him. Vern did all
right today. Damn it though, I’ve just now remembered—’
    ‘ What’s up?’ Dusty asked.
    ‘ Burle figures to be a
real ladies’ man,’ Ahlen answered. ‘He got into some fuss with Darby
Sutherland over making up to Dawn the wrong way. Darby licked him
good and he’s a bad forgetter.’
    ‘ He’d better forget until this drive’s
over,’ Dusty warned. ‘How d’you stand if I have to pick up his
toes, Swede?’
    Ahlen knew what Dusty meant. Generally the
term was used to describe the punishment handed out to a remuda
horse which continually broke out of the wranglers’ rope corral, or
a fractious steer making trouble in a herd. Rather than have the
difficult one