The H&R Cattle Company Page 12

  Zack stared at him for a few moments. “Dammit, Bret, you know I can’t stand suspense. What the hell have you been doing?”

  Rollins pushed his hat to the back of his head, then turned to face Hunter. “I bought the property joining your place on the north,” he said, pointing in that direction.

  Zack was on his feet. “You did? Hey, that’s nice, Bret. Did you get a whole section?”

  “Nope,” Rollins said, shaking his head slowly. “Bought fifteen sections.”

  Hunter backtracked to the log and reseated himself. “Fifteen sections,” he repeated softly, then spoke louder. “Fifteen sections! Hell, Bret, that’s nearly ten thousand acres.”

  “Right, Zack. The fifteen sections belong to you and me as equal partners. I had the deed drawn up that way. We’re fifty-fifty, old buddy, and together we own eleven thousand, five hundred and twenty acres of prime ranch land, all clear and paid for. Now, don’t that beat the hell out of busting our asses in Shelby County, Tennessee?”

  Zack sat shaking his head. “It sure does, Bret.” He stared at the ground for a few moments, then kicked at a small stone. “It damn sure does.”

  Rollins reseated himself on the log. “I bought the property from an old man named Hoyt Wilkerson. He’s paralyzed from the waist down and can’t do anything nowadays.”

  “I already knew about Wilkerson,” Zack said, then pointed across the river. “Peabody told me.”

  Bret nodded. “Well, at any rate, the banker put me on to Wilkerson, and the old man wanted to sell right away. The holdup was his offspring: a son and a daughter living in Austin, who have been at each other’s throat for years. They finally agreed to sell after I spent three days explaining to them that since they were neither ranchers nor farmers, selling would be in the best interest of all concerned.

  “McGrath set the price, or at least wrote a letter telling them how much the land was worth, and none of them argued with it. I had no more than a small problem convincing him to set the price artificially low.”

  “What was the price, Bret?”

  “Dollar and a nickel an acre.”

  Zack rounded up his tools and dropped them into the wagon box, then tethered Bret’s roan to the tailgate. He spoke to Ross: “We’ll quit for the day, Jolly. Take the animals and the wagon on to the barn. Bret and I will walk to the house. We’ve got some talking to do.”

  They sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee for a while, then walked to the porch, where they took seats in cane-bottom chairs. The weather had been mild of late, and neither man wore a coat. They sat looking down the slope without speaking, watching Jolly Ross busy himself about the shed and barn. After a time, Zack broke the silence: “I’ve been wondering what got you interested in ranching all of a sudden, Bret.”

  “Money,” Rollins said quickly. “I spent two days on Will Dempsey’s ranch up near Waco, looking over his operation. He was one of the men I beat in the poker game, but he seemed to hold no hard feelings. In fact, he was real friendly to me and invited me to spend a couple of days on his ranch.

  “Dempsey’s a big talker, but all I had to do was look around me. The man is making a lot of money, Zack, and he’s doing it with longhorns. He sent two big herds up the trail to Kansas this year, and he’s talking about doubling that next year. Says he’s gonna sell every longhorn he’s got next year and switch to Herefords.

  “He believes all Texas ranchers’ll quit raising longhorns in the not-too-distant future. He says Herefords produce better meat and that they’ll do it in half the time.” Rollins pounded a fist into his palm to emphasize his point. “Half the time, Zack! Hell, that sounds to me like the difference between going broke and getting rich.”

  “Might be,” Zack said. “But Jolly says Herefords are a lot more expensive to come by and a hell of a lot harder to raise. He says that if there is any way in the world to get in trouble or get killed in an accident, a Hereford will find it. He says longhorns are smart and that Herefords are some of the dumbest creatures on earth. Finicky eaters, too, Bret. Droughts and hard winters play hell with ’em. Jolly says he’s seen blooded cattle starve to death on the same terrain that fattened longhorns. He says a longhorn’ll eat anything—brush, bark or briers.”

  “I’ve heard the same thing,” Rollins said, getting to his feet and leaning against a post. “I didn’t mean that I think we ought to rush out and get some Herefords. I just believe it’s something that we should look into. Maybe we should even consider hiring some farmers and growing some hay and grain.”

  “I’ll be more than glad to help you consider that, old buddy. Feeding cattle through the winter so they don’t have to regain all that weight in the spring makes sense to me.” Zack pointed north with his thumb. “Do you know where the corners are on that land you bought?”

  “Nope. But the county surveyor’ll be here tomorrow to point them out. I won’t be here because I’m gonna be riding around the country talking to ranchers, putting together a little book of statistics on Herefords and longhorns. The surveyor will show you the boundaries, and you can show me when I get back. By the way, the surveyor’s name is Carl Odom; he’s an older brother to Jiggs.”

  “Older brother, huh? I wonder if he’s as damn crazy as Jiggs.”

  “I don’t think so,” Rollins said, laughing. “I’ve talked with him a couple times and he seems pretty sane.”

  Rollins rode out early next morning and the surveyor arrived two hours later, saying he had met Bret on the road to town. Odom said he was ready to show Zack the boundaries of the property and that Rollins had already paid him for the job. Zack loaded the packhorse with a tent, bedrolls and food, for Odom said the business at hand would take at least two days, maybe three. The two men rode north two hours before noon, leaving Jolly Ross to his own devices.

  * * *

  Rollins was gone for more than three weeks. He returned to the ranch during the last week of November, riding through a cold, steady drizzle. Though the place seemed deserted, he relaxed after he saw that the team and wagon were not there. Zack and his hired hand were somewhere in the wagon, probably gone to town for supplies. Rollins would not have met them on the road anyway. He had ridden in from the north, and only took up County Line Road half a mile east of the ranch house.

  He stabled and fed his horse, then made his way to the house. He soon had a fire burning in both the fireplace and the kitchen stove, and set about heating up leftover food for his dinner. Then he put on a fresh pot of coffee and got a change of dry clothing from his bedroom. A short while later, he was washing down beans and biscuits with hot coffee and feeling better by the minute. He had been cold and hungry all day, for he had hit the trail this morning without breakfast and ridden twenty-five miles in the rain.

  After eating, he sat in front of the fireplace, his hands reaching out to its warmth. Comfortable now, he began to reminisce about his recent travels. He had talked with several ranchers, one of whom owned three hundred Herefords. Then he had traveled north to the Fort Worth stockyards, where he gleaned information from growers, buyers, shippers and meat packers, none of whom made a secret of the fact that they believed longhorns would soon pass into history.

  “Whoever told you that Herefords would starve to death on longhorn terrain didn’t know what the hell he was talkin’ about, young feller,” a grizzled old rancher had said. “Now, I ain’t a-sayin’ that they’re as tough as longhorns, but they’re purty damn close, and that shit about them bein’ finicky eaters is jist that: bullshit. They’ll eat whatever in the hell it takes to survive, jist like a damn longhorn.”

  Rollins had listened to similar opinions from at least a dozen men, all of them in the cattle business. “Easterners are already beginning to demand better beef for their tables,” a cattle buyer informed him, “and that means purebred cattle. Texas ranchers are not gonna buck the tide. They’re gonna give the buyer what the buyer wants, and that means good-bye to the longhorn. The heavier breeds can be brought to market in half the time, and
produce better beef on the same amount of feed. Now, any rancher who knows all this and still makes no effort to upgrade his herd would have to be a damn fool.”

  Rollins thanked the man and moved on. He was soon talking with another rancher. “All of the heavier breeds coming into Texas lately are better than longhorns,” the man said, “but I think most of the stock growers will go with the Herefords. They ain’t as tough as longhorns, but they’re as tough as they need to be, and they’ll eat whatever’s handy.”

  Rollins spent several days in Fort Worth and left town convinced that Hereford cattle was the way to go. A dealer named Rafe Baskin had assured him that he could obtain some Hereford bulls if Rollins should ever decide to buy. Rollins wrote the man’s name and address in his book, for he felt that the day would come when he would surely do some business with Mister Rafe Baskin.

  Being warm and dry for the first time today, Bret dozed off in his chair after a while. He was sound asleep when Zack walked into the room. “Wake up, partner,” Zack said loudly, “and I’ll cook you a good supper.”

  “You’ve got a deal,” Rollins said. He walked to the kitchen, where Zack was busy unloading various cans and packages of foodstuffs from a large basket. “Most of that looks mighty good,” Bret said, shaking Zack’s hand and patting his shoulder. “The last good meal I had was in Fort Worth.”

  Zack returned Bret’s firm grip, then began to unwrap red meat, dumping it on a platter. “Lewis’s Meat Market had sirloin steak on special for nine cents a pound today. I bought six pounds. If we don’t eat it all for supper and breakfast, I’ll cut the rest up for the stewpot.”

  “You’re a good man,” Bret said, lifting one of the stoves’ eyes. “Let me stoke up this fire, ’cause I sure hate to see a good man working under a handicap.”

  Throughout the late afternoon and early evening, the partners discussed the things Bret had learned on his trip. “I wrote most of the facts and figures in this,” he said, handing the notebook to Zack. “If you’ll read it all, I believe you’ll come to the same conclusion I did. While you’re thinking on it, remember that I’ve already got the money to put a thousand head of longhorns on this ranch, along with as many Hereford bulls as we need.

  “We’ll breed the longhorn strain right out of ’em, Zack. After we get a calf or two out of ’em, we’ll send the longhorn cows up the trail to market. I believe we can recoup our entire investment from the sale of the longhorn cows.”

  Zack chuckled. “Are you saying you believe that we can end up stocking the ranch with Herefords for nothing?”

  “Absolutely. Well, it won’t exactly be for nothing. We’ll have a few years’ work invested, and we’ll have to hire some ranch hands and farmers, but we can do it, Zack. I know damn well we can.”

  Zack nodded and sat quietly for a long time. “I guess we should build a new house and barn closer to the center of the ranch,” he said finally. “Or maybe you’d rather tear down these buildings and move them up there.”

  “It’ll be cheaper and quicker to move these buildings, Zack. Of course we’ll have to build a bunkhouse that’ll sleep at least a dozen men, and we’ll also need line shacks. We’ve got a lot of things to do, old buddy, and I think we should hire the help we need and get on with it.

  “I opened an account at the bank for the H and R Cattle Company, so you can write a check for whatever you need. We have a balance of twenty-five thousand, and I believe that’ll hold things together till the ranch begins to pay its own way.”

  “Twenty-five thousand,” Zack repeated. “That sounds to me like as much as we’re gonna need, Bret. We can sell the longhorn cows in the summer of seventy-eight and still have at least a thousand head of crossbreeds left on the ranch.”

  “Exactly,” Rollins said. “Then we’ll start making money.”

  Hunter sat staring into the fire for a while. “After we buy the cattle, our biggest expense is gonna be wages,” he said. “The payroll for half a dozen men’ll add up in a hurry.”

  “I think we’ll need more than six men when we first bring the cattle home,” Rollins said. “Jolly’ll know more about that than either of us.” He pointed to the notebook, still in Zack’s hand. “Over in the back of that book you’ll see Manuel Gonzalez’ name and address. Will Dempsey says Gonzalez and his vaqueros will drag the longhorns out of the brakes and the Big Thicket and road-brand them for five dollars a head. The man lives just north of Beaumont, right close to the Big Thicket, and he knows where the cattle hide.

  “Could be that we could get the Mexicans to rope nothing but cows. Seems like they’d be anxious to pass up the bulls anyway, ’cause bulls fight so much harder. And Dempsey says that it’s wise to buy a couple head of tame oxen to lead the cows away from the only home they’ve ever known.”

  “Well, we’ll worry about that problem when we come to it,” Zack said, stretching his arms over his head and yawning. “What I need most right now is a good night’s sleep. I believe Jolly had the right idea when he went to bed more than an hour ago.” Zack was on his feet now. “I think we should choose a homesite, then build the bunkhouse first so we’ll have somewhere to live while we’re building the house and the barn. We’ll need a corral up there right away, too.” He headed for his bedroom, adding over his shoulder, “I’ll go into town tomorrow and pick up some of the things we need.”

  Hunter spent a large part of the next day shopping, with Jolly Ross close at his heels. Rollins said that he himself had traveled enough lately, and chose to remain at the ranch. Zack suspected that he would spend most of the day practicing his fast draw.

  Zack bought two wagons and two teams of large horses. The seller swore that although the big beasts were primarily wagon teams, they had also been trained to work in the fields and were equally resigned to pulling plows and harvesting machines. Zack was well pleased with the price and thought that the only bad part of the bargain was his having to feed the oversize animals all winter. Jolly was also impressed with the size of the horses, saying they could pull anything that could be stacked onto a wagon. “They’ll go close to fourteen hundred pounds apiece, Zack,” he said. “Maybe fifteen hundred.”

  Zack bought a keg of nails and a variety of tools at the hardware store, along with a stove and several joints of pipe that would be needed for the new bunkhouse. And two large tarpaulins. The tarps would be attached to the tops of tall posts, with the stove, tents, table and chairs set up underneath. That would be home to all of the men until better accommodations could be constructed.

  On the way out of town, they stopped at the feed store, where they finished loading both wagons with sacks of grain and bales of hay. “These horses won’t even know that the wagons are loaded,” Ross said, seemingly awed by the size of the animals. “As big as both these teams are, though, they’re small compared to their Belgian ancestors. Their great-granddaddies probably weighed twenty-five hundred pounds apiece.”

  “I believe you’re right, Jolly. I’m sure it took years of careful breeding to even get ’em down to this size. I can’t imagine a man wanting anything bigger.”

  “Nope. Especially at feeding time.”

  With a saddle horse trailing each of the wagons, the men turned west on County Line Road, knowing that the last half of their journey home would be traveled by lantern light.

  At home, they stabled and fed the horses, then set about preparing their supper as quietly as possible. The blanket covered the doorway to Rollins’ bedroom, and Zack assumed that Bret had gone to bed when the sun went down. Probably all tuckered out from a hard day of practicing his fast draw. Zack and Jolly ate cold beef and biscuits without speaking, then Zack went to his own bedroom, leaving Ross to blow out the lamp.

  Shortly after daybreak, all three men were dining on ham, eggs, warmed-over biscuits and strong coffee. “I’m gonna be riding north this morning,” Zack said, sopping up the last of his egg yolk with a biscuit. He nodded toward Rollins. “I think you ought to go too, Bret. We’ve got to stake out a homesite
somewhere near the center of the ranch. I already spotted one place I want you to look at, saw it the day Carl Odom showed me the boundaries.”

  Rollins nodded. “Guess you intend to build the bunkhouse first, huh?”

  “Right.” Zack stepped to the stove to refill his coffee cup, then reseated himself. “I’d like to build it a little closer to the main house than most folks do. If the day ever comes when the men in the bunkhouse have to defend the ranch house, I don’t want ’em to have to run a hundred yards before they can do it.”

  Jolly Ross put a sack of ham and biscuits in his saddlebag, and each man put a canteen on his saddle. “The place I want you to see is about eight miles north,” Zack said to Bret, stepping into the saddle. “It’s about three hundred yards east of the river. If we decide to use it as a homesite, I want to dig a well before we even drive a stake. If we don’t like the water, we can go someplace else.”

  Rollins mounted, then sat for a moment looking between his horse’s ears. “How deep a well do you think we’ll need, Zack?” he asked, emitting an audible sigh.

  Zack looked at Bret out of the corner of his eye. “No way of knowing till we hit a vein of water.” He chuckled to himself, then motioned to Ross. “Jolly and I will dig the well—wouldn’t want you to mess up your gun hand.” He laughed aloud, then added, “Seriously, Bret, only two men can work on a well at a time. One digging and shoveling, the other hauling up dirt with a windlass.”

  “Hell, I know that, Zack, but I’ll certainly let you dig the well. As soon as we settle on a homesite, I’ll go to town and hire some men: carpenters, if I can find them. We need to get this ranch in shape in a hurry. Three months from now, I want to order some longhorn cows and Hereford bulls.”