Buffalo Summer Page 10

  Pony pulled the trigger, and the report ripped apart the high silence.

  The cow stopped abruptly, shook her head and snorted. Another string of saliva fell from her mouth and nostrils. She made a loud grunt deep in her throat, and an answering sound came from the thicket.

  “What’ll we do?” Jimmy asked, and hearing his young strident voice, Pony slowly and smoothly reached one arm toward Caleb and the boys, palm out, a silent command for them to keep quiet and stay where they were. The other hand kept the pistol pointed steadily at the cow’s head.

  “Badger,” Pony said, never taking her eyes from the cow. “Get on my horse. Move slowly.” Badger did as he was told, and as soon as he had eased himself into the saddle, she said, “Back him up, and I’ll back up beside you. If the cow charges again, I’ll shoot one more time and then you pull me up behind you.”

  Caleb watched while Badger backed Dobey up, step by quiet step, while the buffalo cow stood in an attitude of rigid aggression, tail still raised, and each breath an angry snort of defiance. Pony held the pistol in one hand and kept the other on Dobey’s shoulder as she stepped back with the horse. Moving slowly so as not to alarm the cow, they made their way back to Caleb and the boys.

  “I don’t think she’ll chase us any farther,” Pony said, reaching behind her to tuck the pistol back in the waistband of her jeans. “She has a calf hidden in that thicket. Martin, are you all right? Where are your glasses?”

  “I’m fine,” Martin replied, having managed to sit up in the saddle and stick his feet into the stirrups. “But my glasses fell off back there. I can’t see anything without them.

  Pony watched the cow push into the thicket while making deep guttural noises in her throat, and she heard answering plaintive sounds from the hidden calf. “I’ll get them,” she said. “Give Badger your horse and ride behind Jimmy until we can catch his.”

  “I’ll get Martin’s glasses,” Caleb said.

  “No. You stay with the boys,” Pony said. As soon as Badger was on Martin’s horse, Pony mounted Dobey and nudged the gray gelding with her heels. She kept Dobey at a slow walk and when she reached the place where Badger had thrown the boy onto the horse, she reined him in, stepped down, plucked something out of the grass, immediately climbed back onto the horse and walked the gelding away. When she reached the group, she pulled Martin’s glasses out of her pocket and examined them, polishing the thick lenses on the tail of her plaid flannel shirt. “They look okay,” she said, handing them to the boy.

  Caleb watched her, unable to speak. Behind them the cow’s anxious grunts and snorts had diminished somewhat, but the bushes still crackled and trembled as she moved about. He glanced at the boys and at Badger. They were all in a similar state of shock, but Badger leaned over the shoulder of his horse and spat.

  “Well, boss, we may not have found the herd, but the boys got to see a buff, up close and personal,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve.

  “That calf is hurt or sick,” Pony said, adjusting her hat and behaving as if the incident hadn’t been anything to get excited about. “We should check it out.”

  Caleb stared. “And just how do you propose we do that?”

  “The cow’s not in very good humor right now,” Pony said. “But after a while, she will settle down and move out again to graze. While I drive her away from the calf, you and Roon can take a look, and if the calf is hurt or sick, we’ll bring it back with us. Do you think you could carry it in front of you all the way to the ranch?”

  “How big is it?”

  “Thirty, forty pounds, maybe. Maybe less.”

  “Sure,” Caleb said. “The calf isn’t a problem, but what about that cow? She’ll be running us off the side of the mountain.”

  “We’ll confuse her. Scare her. Hopefully she’ll run to where the rest of the herd is and stay with them. She’s coming out now. Look.”

  Caleb looked. The big cow crashed out of the bush. She looked mad and mean to him. She swung her big head and glared in their direction. “Maybe her calf is okay, and she’s just wanting us to leave so she can feed it.”

  “Something’s wrong,” Pony stated. “For some reason that calf is too weak to nurse or she would not be standing there, looking at us. And the noises the calf is making are not that of a healthy animal. Roon, do you think you can do this?”

  Roon didn’t hesitate. He nodded and stared at Caleb, his expression a silent challenge. Caleb felt himself bristling. He glanced at Pony. “That pistol of yours sounds pretty powerful, but the bullet just bounced off her head.”

  Pony nodded. “Yes. My bullets were hand loaded by Pete Two Shirts with about one thimbleful of BB’s in each. They are intended to warn buffalo off, not kill them. That shot did nothing more than sting her, and make her reconsider.”

  One thimbleful of BB’s had been between her and death, and yet she had stood so calmly, so bravely. Caleb smoothed Billy’s mane and studied Pony’s face. She was a marvelous creation of untamed beauty and undaunted courage. The words came unbidden to him and they described her perfectly. He shook his head and looked at the cow who watched them with great suspicion. “All right,” he said. “But I want you all to know that this isn’t required of you. If that buffalo calf is sick or hurt, maybe that’s just natural selection at work. Maybe we shouldn’t be risking our own safety to save it. I don’t want anyone getting hurt, and that cow could easily kill.”

  “Maybe,” Badger said. “But hell, boss, we kilt enough of them, didn’t we? We nearly wiped every last buff off the face of the earth. Wouldn’t it be a good thing if we could save this little one?”

  Roon looked at Badger, but the boy’s dark eyes were unreadable. Pony looked at Caleb and her eyes were pleading. Caleb drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “They can run as fast as racehorses and outmaneuver just about anything on this planet,” he said to her.

  “I know,” she replied. “I’ll ride alone against her. Dobey, in case you may not realize, is a true buffalo horse. Not many would stand the way he did in the face of a charging buffalo. I’ll chase that cow off, then you and Roon ride in and get the calf. The rest of you boys start back down the trail right now. We’ll catch up.”

  “No!” Jimmy protested. “We want to help.”

  “Badger, you get those boys moving,” she said, reaching for her pistol.

  Badger spat over the shoulder of his horse and glared. “Nope,” he said. “I may be an old man, and these might be a bunch of greenhorn kids still wet behind the ears, but we can do what needs to be done. Boys,” he said, addressing Jimmy, Martin, Dan and Joe. “You think you can ride like hell across this meadow, shoutin’ and hollerin’ and makin’ a helluva racket, to that tall pine at the far side?”

  The boys all nodded enthusiastically.

  “Now, wouldn’t all that noise and commotion create a lot of chaos and confuse that mother cow just a little bit?” Badger said to Pony.

  “Yes,” she admitted.

  “And wouldn’t that give Boss and Roon more time to save that little feller?”

  She nodded. “But the boys, except for Roon, don’t ride very well.”

  “Hell, they’ve ridden this far without fallin’ off,” Badger said. “I bet they can ride to that big pine. I’d stake my reputation on it. You boys game?”

  “We can do it,” Jimmy said, and the other boys voiced their agreement.

  “Badger,” Caleb said. “Did you bring a real gun?”

  “I ain’t never rode up into these mountains without one, boss,” Badger said. He reached into his right saddlebag and drew forth a big .45-caliber pistol. “An inch behind and an inch below the ear, and she’ll be one dead buffalo cow, but I’ll only do it if we get in over our heads and there ain’t no other way out. That little buff needs its mother, and I guess we all remember what that’s like.”

  Caleb nodded. “All right. You call the shots,” he said to Pony. “No pun intended. And if this all goes to hell—”

  “It won’
t,” Pony said.

  “You say when.” They stared at each other, and he felt himself slipping into a dangerous place in that moment before she shifted her eyes and cocked her pistol.

  She dug her heels into Dobey’s flanks and let out a scream that would have curdled the blood of the staunchest Indian fighters of old. The grey gelding pinned its ears back and flattened into a dead gallop toward the glaring cow. Pony fired off a round when she came up to the cow’s side, and the great beast began to run away, snorting and shaking its head.

  “Let’s ride!” Badger said to the boys, and let out a cowboy holler as old as the trails that traced up from Texas, swinging his rope down against his horse’s rump as he did.

  Caleb looked at Roon and the boy glared back at him as mad and full of resentment as the cow buffalo. “Ready?” he asked, urging Billy forward. The bay gelding readily obliged, leaving Roon scrambling to catch up. In seconds Billy had reached the thicket, and Caleb was leaping out of the saddle and plunging into the bush. He spied the ball of golden fur in the shade, heard the frightened bleat, felt the painful thump of the calf’s hoof thrashing against him as he bent and scooped up the little creature. The calf was pitifully light in his arms. Roon was just reining in his horse when Caleb stepped out of the thicket. “Here. You take it!” he snapped, placing the calf into the boy’s outstretched arms.

  He snatched up Billy’s trailing rein, dug his foot into the stirrup and craned his neck desperately as he pulled himself into the saddle, trying to catch some glimpse of Pony and the buffalo cow. They were already small in the distance, dwarfed by the sheer magnitude of the mountain wilderness. The boys and Badger were making a huge ruckus and running pell-mell toward the big pine. He glanced at Roon. “You okay? You want me to carry the calf?”

  Roon’s dark eyes flickered briefly to Caleb’s. “I can do it.”

  “I know you can,” Caleb replied. “I hope I didn’t hurt her when I picked her up.”

  Roon dropped his eyes back to the calf. “No, you did okay,” he said.

  Together they reined their horses around and returned to the trailhead, where they watched and waited until Pony stopped chasing after the cow. Soon she, the boys and Badger were heading safely back toward him while the cow continued her run along the shoulder of Montana Mountain, heading in the direction of the cut that led to Piney Creek.

  Caleb hoped she would find the rest of the herd there, and in their company find some solace. He looked at the small creature that Roon cradled in his arms. It was so weak it couldn’t hold its head up and he felt a surge of pity and a premonition of doom. “Poor little thing,” he murmured. “Sometimes life just isn’t fair.”

  IT WAS SUNSET, and Pete Two Shirts paced the porch the way Guthrie would have if his hip wasn’t so painful. He leaned against the rail, Blue at his feet, and silently cursed himself. He should’ve told McCutcheon not to take the boys up on the mountain. Chaperoning a bunch of green kids into country that rough and wild was too much. McCutcheon could barely manage the ride himself, and yet he’d almost welcomed the challenge as if it was his own proving ground; as if by doing this, he could show these kids that he was a man to be reckoned with.

  Foolishness, dammit. Pure foolishness! Guthrie dropped a hand to Blue’s head and let his fingers slide over the silky crown and play with one of her ears. Blue was pregnant. Doc Cooper worked a cow dog that was half Border collie with some Australian shepherd and blue heeler tossed in, and Jessie had taken a shine to that dog the moment she’d first seen it some six years back. So when she’d come home for her brief visit at spring break, she said, “Guthrie, the next time Blue comes into heat—and it should be sometime this month—take her over to Cooper’s place and introduce her to Zorro. Blue’s getting old. It’s time we got some pups out of her and started training them up.”

  And so Blue was going to be a first-time mother at close to nine years of age. According to all the charts, that made her over fifty years old in human years. He glanced down at her and in spite of his mounting anxiety about McCutcheon and the others, he felt a twinge of pure and genuine delight that Blue was going to have herself a litter of pups. Somehow that fact gave a brightness to his life that made bearable the long lonesome stretch of days until Jessie came home for good.

  Ramalda had been cooking since breakfast. This was a sign that she was out of sorts, anxious and fully expecting some sort of huge disaster. She had waddled onto the porch an hour ago holding a wooden spoon and had scowled out at the mountains, heaved a tumultuous sigh and fixed him with a baleful stare. “Too long,” she said, shaking her head. “They gone way too long!”

  Yes, dammit, way too long. He glanced to where Pete stood, staring at the woods. “Maybe we should start out after ’em before it gets dark,” he said. “Bring a bunch of flashlights and such.”

  Pete shook his head. “No need. They’ll be back inside half an hour.”

  Guthrie didn’t ask how Pete could know such a thing. He must have seen something—a flash of movement, a bird flushing out of the brush and flying off. He waited and watched, and sure enough, twenty minutes later the first rider emerged, followed by seven others. They rode into the corral, all except for McCutcheon, who headed Billy up to the ranch house and drew rein at the foot of the steps. He nodded to Pete and Guthrie, his expression weary, but his smile wide with relief.

  “Well, we made it,” he said.

  “Did you see the buffalo?”

  He nodded again. “Matter of fact, we brought one home with us, a little she-calf that’s too weak to nurse. Looks like she has a broken leg. Pete, I don’t know what act of Providence brought you here today, but we could sure use your expertise. I’m going to give Doc Cooper a call, too, and see if there’s anything we can do to save her.”

  Pete shoved his hat back on his head. “Where’s the mother cow?”

  “She was upset about us taking her little one, but we had no choice. The calf would’ve died if we’d left it there. Pony chased her over toward Piney Creek, and I’m hoping she finds the rest of the herd.”

  The change in Pete’s demeanor was so subtle that Guthrie almost didn’t catch it, but there was no mistaking his tone of voice. “You let Pony chase a buffalo cow away from her calf?”

  McCutcheon met Pete’s dark stare with his own calm blue gaze. “You tell me how to keep Pony from doing what Pony wants to do, and I’ll listen,” he said.

  Ramalda broke the tension of the moment when she came out onto the porch, the screen door banging behind her. She held a big carving knife in her hand and she waved it in the air as she blasted McCutcheon in nonstop Spanish for at least one full minute, ending the tirade with a jab of the knife in his general direction and a handful of English words. “Supper ready long ago, but you late again!” She turned and stomped back inside.

  “Well, I’ll call Doc Cooper,” Guthrie said. He glanced at Pete. “I’d appreciate it if you could take a look at that calf, and tell the boys that supper’s waitin’.”

  Pete made no reply. He descended the porch steps, walked past McCutcheon without a glance and headed for the pole barn. McCutcheon sighed and caught Guthrie’s eye. “I couldn’t have stopped her,” he said.

  Guthrie nodded. “Jessie’s the same way. Once her mind’s set, there’s no changing it.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like what I saw today. First, Pony and Badger saved Martin’s life when that buffalo cow was about to run the boy down, and then she risked her own life again to protect Badger.” McCutcheon shook his head, still marveling. “I’ve never seen that kind of courage before. On top of all that, she wouldn’t leave the little calf there to die. She chased that mother buffalo away so Roon and I could get the calf, and Roon carried it all the way back. He won’t let anyone else near it.” McCutcheon paused and shook his head. “I sure hope the little critter lives, because I think taking care of that calf might help Roon a lot.”

  Guthrie drew a deep breath. “Boss, Roon’s little brother was killed last week in a ca
r wreck. That’s why Pete came out here today.”

  McCutcheon sat absolutely still for a long moment, and then he looked back down toward the barn.

  “I told Pete that I thought Pony should be the one to tell him,” Guthrie said.

  McCutcheon nodded and rubbed the back of his neck. “Damn!” His shoulders slumped, and the look he gave Guthrie was one of despair. “Tell Dr. Cooper to hurry.”

  PONY SAT with the small of her back pressed against a stack of hay bales. She heard a truck door slam as Dr. Cooper departed. It was late. Dark and quiet. The glow of the oil lamp cast a small circle of light upon the deep bed of straw and the boy who sat in it cradling the little calf in his arms. They were alone in the stall, she and Roon and the calf. Caleb had herded the rest of the boys up to the house. Pete and Badger had left with Guthrie to spend the night at his cabin, but Roon had refused leave the pole barn, even to eat supper. Pony had brought him a plate of food but he’d only picked at it.

  The boy had held the calf’s head while the veterinarian guided the stomach tube down its throat and pumped the mix of electrolytes and nutrients into the listless creature. He’d steadied the calf’s broken leg while the vet had applied the plaster cast. During all of this, he had said nothing. Even now, he was silent, his eyes watching the rise and fall of the calf’s sunken rib cage.

  During supper Pete had explained that sometimes after a cow gives birth, an inexperienced bull can’t tell the difference between her calving smell or the scent of her being in heat. He said that sometimes a bull will try to mount the cow, and the calf gets injured in the fracas. Pete thought that was probably what had happened.

  “So how do we keep it from happening again?” McCutcheon had asked.

  “Get more bulls. Older bulls who know the correct social behavior.”

  Shortly after, Pete had stood up from the table and given Pony a long, significant look that had hollowed her stomach. She’d followed him onto the porch and he asked her to walk with him along the creek just before the vet had arrived. “I have some bad news about Roon’s youngest brother,” he’d said as they stood beside the rushing water.