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The heat is rising from the ground, in waves that wrap themselves around yuccas, cacti, rocks and brush. Jed stops, wipes his forehead and has a quick look at his map. Not that he really needs one, he left Sonora and is drifting eastwards – he may as well be here as elsewhere. Any place is like any other place – he doesn’t particularly want to die, but he doesn’t have a great deal to live for either.
He takes a long sip of water from his canteen.The next town is Kerrville, a little dot where he can stop, have a drink, wryly lift his glass to himself. 45 years old today; maybe he should wish himself año nuevo vida nueva, new year, new life, the Spanish greeting for the First of January. He won’t buy himself a present, there’s nothing he really wants, all he needs is in his saddlebags and bedroll. Except for a couple of dumb dreams that he uses instead of counting sheep when he can’t sleep at night.
In the saloon, he sits at a corner table, his back to the wall, enjoying his cold beer, and allows himself a peek at his dumb dreams. One is a stallion, broken to the saddle but still spirited, strong muscles flowing under Jed’s thighs, tearing up towards the top of a hill, heading for the bottom at full tilt, wind whipping Jed’s face, total solitude, total joy. The other one he has read about, heard about, seen in pictures. Long beaches, sunny and warm even in winter, some sandy, others rocky. Waves that rise up, ten feet, twenty feet, before they crash on the shore. Will he ever get to see California?
Near the bar there’s a group of five drovers, easily recognisable by their longish hair, unshaven chins, leather chaps, and smell. Four of them seem to be pals and are on good terms with the bartender, the other one – tall, rangy, long-limbed – stands a little apart from them, glaring at all of them. Then one of the four, a middle-aged man with a grizzled beard, mutters something and all his pals start sniggering. The tall loner shouts “You damn liars” and lets fly with a roundhouse right at the bearded man’s jaw. The man lurches backwards, stumbling against one of his friends, a thickset, balding man in a black shirt. Another friend, a dark-skinned man with a mop of black curls, attacks the loner with jabbing blows aimed at his head and torso. The loner ducks the first blow, blocks the second, steps backward, dodges the next blow and delivers a swift kick to the most vulnerable part of his opponent’s anatomy. The dark-skinned man doubles over, sinks to the floor and lies there, out of action for good.
Jed looks on, mildly curious, hoping that the tall loner won’t get beaten up too badly by the remaining three men, and determined to mind his own business. Until he glances sideways and glimpses a jack-knife appearing in the hand of the man in the black shirt. With a sigh, he gets up, swiftly and silently moves behind the black-shirted man, locks an arm around his neck and pulls him back just as he’s getting ready to strike. The knife slashes air an inch away from the loner’s side; he turns, blinks, nods thanks, and starts trading blows with the fourth man, a Mexican with a mustache. The black-shirted man turns to Jed with a growl, and lunges; Jed sidesteps, grips the wrist of the knife hand and twists it with all his strength. The man howls, drops the knife and runs out.
Now they’re two against two, standing shoulder to shoulder, their backs to the bar. Jed’s new acquaintance moves fast and packs a solid punch, but doesn’t seem to realise that threats may come from behind as well as from the front: the bartender has decided to get involved and is reaching under the bar. Jed doesn’t wait to see what he’s reaching for, grabs a stool and breaks it on the bartender’s head. The tall man nods thanks again, puts everything he’s got behind a right to the belly of the Mexican and sends him crashing to the ground just as Jed does likewise with the bearded man, stomach first, jaw next.
The other man grins at Jed, it’s an open, boyish grin even though he must be in his late twenties, early thirties. “Thanks,” he says, in a Texas drawl. “Buy you a drink in another saloon?”
“Buy me a drink in another town,” Jed replies, pushing him out of the batwing doors and towards the horse rail: he has glanced out of the window and spotted someone stepping purposefully out of a door marked Sheriff and striding towards the saloon.
After riding hard for a few miles, they decide that they aren’t being followed, and stop in the shadow of a boulder. Jed takes a look at the Texan’s face, takes his canteen, moistens his bandana and cleans up a couple of nasty-looking bruises around the other’s cheekbones. The Texan thanks him, takes his own canteen and swipes at some dried blood over Jed’s eyebrow. With a little chuckle, Jed decides to extend his right hand. “Jed Colby.”
“Rowdy Yates.” An unaffectedly strong handshake. He’s easy on the eyes, broad-shouldered, with a tousled mop of tawny hair and friendly blue-green eyes. Worn chaps, worn boots, not much left of his shirt. “As my trail boss used to say, a man shouldn’t go dippin his bread in another man’s bacon grease, but I’m glad you did.”
“You a drover?”
A second’s pause, then a small headshake and a firm answer. “Trail boss.” A recent promotion, Jed guesses, but he looks like an experienced drover. Experienced, and with a short fuse.
“Mind telling me why you took on those guys back there?”
His eyes narrow, and now he’s looking almost dangerous. Then he sighs, shrugs, and relaxes. “They said somethin about my trail boss.” A small lopsided grimace. “My former trail boss. Gil Favor.” He tilts his chin at Jed; Jed knows he’s being sized up. “You ever work cattle?”
“I’ve driven cattle, yeah.” And found other people’s cattle before it got lost, when I rode with the Cross X bunch. And dealt faro, and driven shotgun for Wells Fargo, and hired out my gun a few times. “Why?”
“I got a contract to drive twenty-five hundred head from San Antone to Abilene. I’m on my way to San Antone, to put an outfit together. I got a couple of men from my old outfit, a few new ones, a good ramrod.” A beat. “You ever do any trail scoutin?”
“Some. Long ago, in the war.” He mentally kicks himself. Fifteen years have gone by, but people still remember, and some of them haven’t learned to forgive. He takes a breath. “Union. You?”
Yates shrugs. “Confederate. Like you said, long ago.” He closes his eyes for a moment, remembering god knows what, and then reopens them. “Colby. Jed. I need a scout. I figure you’ll do.”
Three months of eating dust from sunup to sundown, little money, orders to be taken, not one moment to call his own. Jed starts putting together a polite refusal, but before he can open his mouth something inside him bushwhacks his answer and turns it around. “You got one, Mr Yates.”
Yates stands up and moves towards his horse. “Rowdy,” he says without turning.
* * * *
It’s their fourth night on the trail.The steers, not yet used to the drive, are restless, and the men on night guard are circling around them, trying to sing to them. A few notes of “Skip to My Lou”, plaintively sung by Jim Quince, reach Jed, who is sitting on one of the upturned crates by the fire, hands on his knees, thinking about the Pacific Ocean. He blinks at a tap on his shoulder, and gratefully takes the cup Rowdy is holding out to him.
“You don’t sleep a lot, do you.” Rowdy sits down opposite him, studying him.
“Never seen a trail boss who serves coffee to his men,” Jed says mildly. “And who takes notice of each drover, whether he sleeps or not.”
A curious expression, half wistful and half relieved, flashes over Rowdy’s face. “Learned it from Favor.” And then he changes the subject. “You’re good with cattle. And horses.”
Jed knows how to gentle horses that get skittish. “You’re not bad either,” he smiles. “Usually a trail boss doesn’t bother hearing what his men got to say, he lays down the law and that’s it. One drive I did, a drover got drunk, and the trail boss had him tied to a wagon wheel and horsewhipped him.”
“Favor never did that,” Rowdy snaps. “He’d use his fists, man to man. He was tough. But he cared for his men. Once, on my first drive, he and I . . .”
He doesn’t get to tell what happened, because young Ian rides in, yawning and rubbing his eyes. “Nothing to report from the first night watch, Mr Yates,” he announces in his funny British accent.
“All right,” Rowdy says, stretching and trying to suppress a yawn of his own. “Thanks. I’ll take over now.”
Jed claps him lightly on the shoulder and gives him a gentle push. “Get some sleep, boss,” he says, with a little smiling emphasis on the last word. “I’ll take over. I never need much sleep.” He moves towards his gelding, wondering about Gil Favor, where he is now, why he left.
* * * *
A few days later, Jed comes face to face with his dream: a black stallion, with a long blaze, a gleaming coat and, moving under it, muscles that are a joy to behold. Beauty, strength and speed. It belongs to Danny Hawkes, and Jed talks Rowdy into letting Danny, and the horse, join the drive.
He and Rowdy exchange banter that is light, but underneath it there’s something else, something serious, and both of them know it.
“What are you up to?” Rowdy queries.
“If you don’t trust me . . .”
“ ‘Bout as far as I can throw you.”
“If you knew how that cuts.” They leave it at that, and Jed is glad. He hasn’t felt this alive in a long time; he knows that if he could feel those strong flanks moving under him, if he could be one with the horse as they gallop down a hill, the years would slide off his back, he’d have a new lease of life, a real vida nueva. He’d sell his soul for it.
No black-clad gentleman turns up to asks for a signature in blood, but there’s Danny, dangling the dream in front of Jed, the dream with its price, letting him – a liar, a cheat, a murderer – go free. By any other name, the price is Jed’s soul.
Trust and mistrust become a tangled mess. Rowdy goes off on his own, to risk his life trying to sort out Jed’s mistakes; Danny, captured by Rowdy, tries to entice Jed on his side; Jed hesitates before siding against Danny, and finds himself with Danny’s knife buried in his shoulder. Rowdy shoots Danny, twice, eyes cold and unflinching, and then gives Jed his choice. He’s free to take the horse and leave. Or he can release the horse and rejoin the herd, with all that it entails.
Jed pats the horse’s shining black flank and sends him on his way, eyes moistening a little as his dream gallops out of sight. He catches up with Rowdy, this younger man who has earned his trust, whose authority he freely chooses, although it’s softly spoken, because it’s softly spoken. His reward is Rowdy’s response to the question of whom he trusted: mock (is it?) anger, and a mock (is it?) threat to Jed’s injured shoulder.
And the knowledge that, for a few moments, he had his dream. For a man of forty-five, that’s enough.
At night, he doesn’t often think about California. He thinks about blurry abstract things – respect, loyalty, friendship. Things a man can earn. Things a man can live for. This doesn’t help him sleep.
* * * *
The drive goes on. A mine caves in, and they almost lose Jim and Simon. For a while a group of Apaches work with them, and their leader is an honourable man, who dies honourably. Jed occasionally worries about Rowdy: Rowdy often takes off on his own, as he must, but more often than not finds himself in trouble, because he trusts people he shouldn’t. Like the time he walks straight into a trap laid by a family of dim-witted sodbusters, led by an evil matriarch, who will hang Rowdy if they don’t get the herd. Jed frets a while, then rides to the rescue with Wishbone and Simon, and they disable or dispatch the sodbusters. Except that at the end of the shootout the last sodbuster draws a bead on Jed, and Rowdy makes a daring grab for a gun and saves Jed’s life. “Thought it was me came here to save you,” Jed says straight-faced, and Rowdy understands what Jed says and what he doesn’t say, and smiles. There’s a dimple in Rowdy’s left cheek, it makes him look young, carefree.
* * * *
Rowdy cares about each one of his men, but most of them don’t get into much trouble – Simon is the reliable sort, Quince is very mindful of his responsibilities as a ramrod, and Ian is too upper-class British. Jed is the man who has first-hand knowledge of hired guns, the man who was tried for (and cleared of) murder. As the drive progresses, Rowdy and Jed find that each has got used to knowing where the other one is, each teasing the other when he turns up late. And Jed just stands beside Rowdy when he discusses decisions with the drovers or mentions some danger that lies ahead. Quince is the ramrod, but Jed is Rowdy’s right hand.
Until the day Jed gets shot at and stalked by a crazy ex-marshal who’s been after him for two years, for a murder Jed never committed. Jed decides to run, although the thought of not riding with Rowdy again is a hard stone in his guts; then hears that the marshal has taken Rowdy in his stead, and doesn’t hesitate one moment before turning back. Eventually the marshal is shot dead by the local sheriff, and dies unrepentant, unredeemed, and unlamented.
* * * *
As the herd slowly moves towards Abilene, the drovers come across a ranch owner with a murky past, who employs a hired gun as a foreman. Then they tangle with two ranchers who can’t forget that the Civil War has been over for a long time. Three quarters of the way to Abilene, they meet a cavalry detachment that wants to get a hundred head of beef without paying for it. Without knowing that they are actually rustlers masquerading as soldiers, Rowdy loses his temper and shoots their lieutenant, then – refusing to listen to any of his men’s objections – takes off to confront the army on his own, and pays the price by falling into the rustlers' hands. Jed promises that at the end of the drive he’ll quit, but races off after Rowdy, to sort things out or, if necessary, to shoot things out; inevitably, he also gets captured. The rustlers eventually are unmasked and defeated by the combined efforts of Rowdy, Jed and the drovers, and nobody says another word about quitting.
That night, Jed is on night watch, which he likes, because it’s preferable to lying in his bedroll waiting for sleep that hardly ever comes. He rides slowly, a small distance away from the still shapes of the sleeping steers, whistling softly to them and occasionally looking up, trying to spot the few stars he knows, wondering about how many stars he could see if he went to California.
He hears soft hoofbeats coming up behind him and wheels round, a hand snaking down to the butt of his handgun.
“Easy,” Rowdy says, and draws up level with Jed. They ride in silence for a few minutes.
“Mistakes,” Rowdy says eventually. “Every trail boss makes some, but mine was a doozy. This time I was lucky, they weren’t real soldiers. Oh, and – I forgot. Thank you.”
Jed nods. “Yeah, every trail boss makes mistakes. Good trail bosses admit to them and learn.” He ponders for a moment. “Did Favor?”
Rowdy is a little startled. “He did, most times. Especially at first. I did seven drives with him, as his ramrod. But in the last drives things got tough – he grew bitter, hard, wouldn’t admit it when he used poor judgement. Once I quit before we even started, and for that drive I was trail boss of another herd, and raced it against Favor’s.”
Jed bursts out laughing. “You did? Who won?”
Rowdy scratches his left cheek. “I did,” he says, embarrassed as all get out. “By another fluke. And Favor was the man who got me that other herd in the first place.”
Jed shakes his head fondly. “Sounds like there’s a lot you learned from him. And there’s a lot you learned on your own. Like talking with your men, not to them. Listening to them. Well, some of the time.”
Two small vertical lines form between Rowdy’s eyebrows. “Yeah. Learned what to do, and what not to do. But I respected him when he was alive, and I’ll respect him until my dyin day.”
“How’d he die?” Jed takes a quick breath. “You don’t have to tell me if it’s too hard.”
Rowdy shakes his head. “Last year, on the last day of the drive, he said he was quittin for good. We all thought he’d go to Philadelphia, he had two daughters there. And then suddenly we’d heard that he’d gone to Mexico with some other cattlemen, and he’d drowned in a river.” He swallows hard, his voice breaking. “They never found his body. Only a will he’d left with some lawyers.” He sighs deeply, and starts turning his horse around. “Sorry I bent your ear. I’d better go check on the other nighthawks.”
“Rowdy.” Rowdy stops, half-turns. “Don’t ever think . . .” Jed runs a hand over his face. “Forget it. Just listen to this: I’ve worked for a lot of men. Some were bad, some were rotten to the core. You’re not the worst boss a man could have. In spite of your temper.” He nudges his horse and moves away, glancing at the sleeping cattle, and trying not to think about the past or the future.
* * * *
The drive is over. Men and steers have made camp outside Abilene, and tomorrow the steers will be counted, inspected and loaded on trains, and the men will celebrate and go their separate ways. Right now, they’re all sitting around the fire, sipping coffee, looking at one another.
Jim Quince is the first one to break the silence. He stubs out his half-smoked cigarette between calloused fingers, and says, “I’m takin a train to Wyoming Territory tomorrow. Goin to meet Joe in a town called Medicine Bow.” He waits until the shouting and questioning is over (“Joe Scarlet?” “He ain’t dead?” “How’d you keep in touch?” “What a weird name for a town”), then explains, “He’s workin as a ranch hand. A spread called the Shiloh Ranch, owned by a judge. He got me a job there.”
More shouting, back-slapping, promises of drinks to come. Wishbone sniffs a couple of times, then holds his metal spoon up and takes the floor.
“Rowdy, I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” he starts, and sniffs again. “But I ain’t the young man I used to be.” Rowdy tries to speak, but Wishbone lifts his hand to silence him. “Please, don’t make this harder than it is. I’m going back west, and I’m going to work in that widow lady’s hash-house back near Jubilee Creek. With any luck, I’ll turn it into a quality restaurant.”
This time the chorus is more subdued: “Good luck”, “We’ll miss you”, “Don’t forget to put a horseshoe in every coffeepot”, said in rough, ragged voices, while calloused hands slap and pat whatever part of Wishbone they can reach.
“Back to England for me,” Ian says, smiling and fiddling with his silk bandana. “No fame and fortune to be found here, I’m afraid. So I’ll return home and try to sell a few stories to the Strand Magazine – ‘My Year as a Drover in the Wild West’, or something to that effect.”
Simon is his usual calm self, standing straight and confident, hands in his gunbelt. “Maybe I’ll find another cattle drive. Provided the men are as color blind as this outfit has been.”
Rowdy turns to Jed, the dimple in his left cheek appears briefly. “Let’s hear it from the last spud in the kettle. You got any plans?”
Jed shrugs. “I’ll go west. Or south. Don’t know yet.” The men leave it at that, wish him luck, hope that he won’t meet the likes of Emilio Vasquez or Marshal Dickson again. Then they look at Rowdy, and start shouting together: “Jed ain’t the last spud, Boss. You are.” “Your turn now.” “Come on, Rowdy, spill the beans.” “Do let the cat out of the bag, Mr Yates.”
Rowdy frowns a little and takes a small step backwards. He swallows. “It’s the end of the trail for me too. In the past couple of years I’ve saved a little, and with my share of the profits from this drive I’ve got enough to buy a shack I’ve had my eyes on for a while, in Brewster County.” He stands up a little straighter and goes on, in spite of the gasps of shock and the exclamations of disbelief. “And . . . Mr Favor mentioned me in his will.” Wishbone and Jim Quince nod silently: they too were remembered by Favor. “He left me enough to buy a few steers of my own, and to live through the first year, if I’m careful. The way he put it in the will was provided you don’t draw on any inside straights.” He grins at that, and so do Wishbone and Jim; the other drovers look a little puzzled, but smile anyway.
Rowdy lifts his empty coffee cup a fraction, then turns away from the men for a long moment. “Right, let’s hit those bedrolls,” he orders when he turns around. “Long day tomorrow.”
There’s a nearly full moon somewhere behind the clouds. For the last time, the nighthawks are circling the herd, and whoever is not on guard is asleep. Jed is standing on a little rise by the remuda, looking down at the beeves, keeping his mind empty of thoughts, especially maudlin ones.
“Mr Colby.” Jed jumps a little. For once it’s him, and not Rowdy, who forgot to watch his back.
“Mr Yates.”
“When you said you might be goin south, or maybe west, did you by any chance mean southwest?” His face is serious, but his eyes are wide open, with just the hint of a teasing flicker.
Jed gives him a level look. “What I meant was, I haven’t given it any thought.”
Rowdy crosses his arms. “Give it some thought now. Supposin a man was startin up on his own, and he needed . . .” He stops, takes his hat off, hangs it on his gunbelt. “You could invest your share of the profits . . .” He stops again, runs his hand through his hair and lets out an impatient breath. “It would be hard work, especially at first, but … Aw, hell. Look. Want to work for . . . with me or not?”
Jed doesn’t need to think about it. “Yeah,” he says firmly. A beat. “Mind you, we may not always see eye to eye, with that temper of yours.”
“Ha,” Rowdy scoffs. “So we may have a fight or two. So what?”
“So nothing. Just one thing.” He pauses for a moment. “Before all that hard work you mentioned, I want to go to California. I’ve never seen the ocean. I’ve always wanted to swim in it, or sit on the shore, shut up and just look at it.” His eyes crinkle a little. “Want to come along?”
The dimple flashes in Rowdy’s left cheek. “You need someone to keep an eye on you, rescue you from drownin.” He easily dodges Jed’s mock punch at his jaw. “Right, that’s settled.” He’s the authoritative trail boss again; Jed doesn’t mind. “Like I said earlier, let’s hit the sack. Yeah, you too. Come on.”
From where he’s lying, his back turned against the soft snores coming from Rowdy’s bedroll, Jed can see some clouds that move like ocean waves. He goes to sleep thinking of vida nueva , and of sandy coves and rocky shores, salty air filling their lungs, sun warm on their backs.