Black Hills (9781101559116) (21 page)

The trip to Montana was pleasurable and uneventful other than a horse race when Cormac learned that Lop Ear and Horse knew something about running. He had always thought they probably did, but never had the need to call on it. Their high-arched necks and tails, and long-legged fancy stepping were somethin' to see, but he had never run them. He'd just never had the need.

Crossing Laramie Plains in eastern Wyoming, the weather was warm and Horse's gait smooth and easy riding. The spring grasses were making everything green and there were plenty of wildflowers blooming. It was a soft and lazy day, and a pleasant ride. He had told Mr. Haplander he wanted to take his time and see the sights on the way and was doing just that.

Around mid-day, he was plodding along on Horse, dozing off and on in the warm sun, when a dream of Lainey smiling at him was rudely interrupted by a group of what he had been told to watch out for but hadn't: Cheyenne Indians. About five or six suddenly swooped down off a grassy hill on his right, whooping and hollering at the tops of their lungs.

He turned Horse left, and there came another bunch of about the same size.

“Okay guys!” he hollered, and bounced his spurless boots off Horse's flanks. “Get us outta here!” That was very nearly his undoing. Horse's acceleration darn near left him sitting in mid-air. He barely managed to grab the saddle horn to pull hisself back on top. Lop Ear was right beside them, runnin' free and easy, and Cormac learned right quick an important fact of life: he had himself a couple of horses that took their runnin' seriously.

By the time he got his balance back and his bottom side back in the saddle, he was wide-awake and leaning teary-eyed into the wind with his hat following behind and the wind filling his mouth; he yelled with excitement. Those Indians liked to yell—let them hear what a real yell sounded like. A Johnny Reb stopping at the farm for supper and an overnight rest had taught him the Rebel yell that had put the fear of God into many hearts. He reared back and let one rip. Horse liked it: Cormac felt her muscles surge as she briefly pulled ahead of Lop Ear.

Cormac hollered at Lop Ear, “You gonna let her get ahead of you like this? Come on, get up here!” Lop Ear was up for it, and get up there he did. Inch by inch, until they were again neck and neck, matching stride for stride and muscle for muscle; they were running low to the ground with grass-muffled hoof beats pounding, steel-like muscles straining, and loud breaths of exertion exhaling huge amounts of air with every stride to make room for the enormous amounts of oxygen their great bodies were consuming as they reached for every possible inch of ground. The three of them fairly flew over the fresh and new prairie grass. The excitement refused to be contained, and he yelled again just for the pure hell of it! He almost forgot the Indians were even back there.

Cormac looked back to find his pursuers dropping farther and farther behind. He caught up his hat from where it was flopping in the wind behind his head and waved it at the Indians with another Rebel yell. This horse race wasn't even close, and they damn well knew it. They knew it, and were pulling up, giving it up as a bad job.

He had heard that Indians had a healthy respect for good horseflesh, and one of them waved back at him. Cormac returned the wave and let the horses run; they were having a good time and enjoying themselves. So was he. “Good job, guys!” he yelled into the wind. “I guess we showed them a thing or three.”

Cormac Lynch was having a very, very good time. The sky was wide open, clear, and blue without a cloud in it, and there was an equal amount of rich green grass beneath it; the sun was bright and warm, new spring flowers and grasses were pushing their way into the world, and the occasional bird and a couple of flocks were flushing up in front of them. He was eighteen years old with money in the bank and not a care in the world, no responsibilities, and—as long as he kept some things pushed out of his mind—no cares or concerns. He didn't know how far they had run, but it was far and the horses were still running easily, just beginning to sweat; it was time to start slowing them down. A covey of partridges flushed from the grass around them, and he was right in the middle of the bunch. The fast little birds were all around and under them with their wings fluttering in his ears, so close he coulda reached out and grabbed one. Again the excitement was too much to contain, and he turned loose another Rebel yell.

First he found Virginia City, and then he found the Flying H. The sign over the front gate said he was in the right place. In large, handwriting style letters, it read FLYING H, with a wing on each side of the
H.
The Flying H was a big spread, cleanly maintained and busy. The ranch house was a large and sprawling two story with windows on all sides of the first as well as second stories, and a porch all the way across the front sporting a porch rail.

A little behind and to the left sat the largest barn Cormac had ever seen. It had been easily visible for the last two miles. Also two stories, strangely enough with two small windows on all four sides at the second-story level, large double doors in the front and back with a third double door on the side opening into an oversize corral. The corral was partitioned in half with a cowboy in one of the halves doing his best to stay in the middle of a horse with other ideas, while another cowboy was roping a second horse out of a small herd in the remaining half.

It was later explained by Mr. Haplander that the windows in the loft of the barn were for fighting off Indians, if needed. Although it hadn't happened a second time, the Indians had attacked when he and his wife and oldest son, Lucas, had first started the spread. Mr. Haplander reckoned it was never tried a second time due to the high losses suffered by the Indians, what with Lucas shooting from the upper windows in the barn, and he and Mrs. Haplander from the second-story windows of the house.

A bunkhouse was located between the barn and the house with its own outhouse behind. Everything was painted white, and a cowboy was just putting the finishing touches on a fresh coat of new paint on a shed behind the main living quarters.

Over a slight rise on a trail coming into the ranch appeared a frustrated cowboy yelling at his dapple-gray horse to run faster in an attempt to catch a girl flying in on a black-and-white Paint staying easily in front of him. His dapple-gray was making a good effort, but in the end, just didn't have what it took. Laughing, the girl slid her Paint to a stop at the corral and dismounted, as did the cowboy, but he wasn't laughing.

“I tried to tell you, Mark, but you wouldn't listen,” called the cowboy with the rope. “What'd she get you for this time?”

“None of your business,” snapped the loser, picking up the reins to the Paint and leading both horses into the barn. Cormac walked Horse up to the corral and stepped off as Lop Ear joined them.

The girl was a year or two younger than Cormac, cute, with a pert nose in the middle of a round face framed by thick yellow hair. With a full, well-rounded body clothed in close-fitting jeans and a close-fitting checked shirt, she was an eyeful.
Dressed like that on a ranch full of men
, thought Cormac.
I'll bet she gives her pa fits
.

She had a pleasant smile and used it easily. “Hi. Can I help you?”

Cormac snatched off his hat. “Yes, ma'am. I'm looking for Mr. Haplander. He hired me down Colorado way.” She was eyeing Horse and Lop Ear.

She walked around them, running her hands over their skin and legs. “Nice horses. Can they run?”

Cormac resisted the urge to tell her they had just outrun a gang of scalp-happy Indians. “They're okay. I haven't run them much.”

“They both look like a lot of horse. Maybe we'll have to try them out. Are you Mack Lynch?”

“Yes, ma'am. May I know who you are?”

“You're the most polite cowboy I've ever met.” She smiled. “I'm Laurie Haplander. My daddy and mother built this spread from the ground up. Daddy told us that you would be coming soon. You seem to have impressed him in some way. What did you do?”

If her daddy hadn't told her, maybe he shouldn't. “I don't rightly know, ma'am. We met and talked a bit, we got along, and he knew I was needin' a job and told me to come on up.” The cowboy who took the horses to the barn was returning, his face as grouchy as a tree full of owls. “Is Mr. Haplander here?” Cormac asked.

“Sure,” she answered, “but let me introduce you to my kid brother first. Marcus, this is the Mack Lynch Daddy told us about. Mack, this is my brother Marcus. I'm the nice one; he's the pain in the . . . Well, you know how teenage boys are.”

Marcus shot her a dirty look as Cormac held out his hand, but it was refused. “Just what we need, another hotshot cowboy of some kind. What did you do to impress our father?”

“I was just explaining to your sister that I don't know. We met and got along. I needed a job, and he hired me, but I'm no hotshot cowboy. Fact a the matter is, I'm no kinda cowboy. I was raised on a farm and don't know a thing about cattle ranchin'. Mr. Haplander said y'all would teach me.”

“Oh that's wonderful. A greenhorn.” Marcus Haplander spun on the ball of one foot and strode toward the house.

“Don't forget,” Laurie called after him, “you're doing dinner dishes next week.”

“Don't mind him,” Laurie told Cormac. “He's a numbskull sometimes. Like I said, he's a teenage boy; he doesn't accomplish much. In fact, he's been known to spend an hour trying to figure out how to do a twenty-minute job in ten. Come on. Let's go find Daddy and let him know you're here.”

The inside of the house was equally clean and fresh painted, with pieces of large cowhide-covered furniture nicely arranged. Having never seen luxury, Cormac was duly impressed.

Mrs. Haplander was an older version of Laurie, grown past cuteness and pretty and into handsome, worn gracefully. Mr. and Mrs. Haplander were cordial and polite before telling him to pick out a bunk in the bunkhouse and look around until their son, Josh, returned. Josh was the ranch foreman and their son, Lucas, was the foreman at the silver mine they owned in the Rockies, on the northwest corner of their property. Although their other hands worked for one or the other, Cormac was told he would be splitting his time between the two, depending on where he was needed at the time.

To say that Cormac was impressed was an understatement; he was awed. Mr. Haplander had said they had fifty thousand acres, and his idea of running a little beef was five thousand head. The Lynch farm had been thirty acres with two cows, five pigs, a few pullet chickens, and a couple of Rhode Island Reds.

Josh had been out with the other men starting the spring roundup for counting and branding. He was nothing like Marcus. He held out his hand with a big smile. “My dad said he had hired a farmer, but warned me not to sell you short. He said you would probably be running the place in a couple weeks. I told him good. I'm tired of doing all the work around here.” Josh introduced him to the cook, an old Irishman that answered to the name of Duffy. Cormac would find out that the men affectionately called him King Duffy. His kingdom was the kitchen between the two dining rooms, and he ruled it with an iron hand. He put up with no cowboy nonsense, such as food stealing, or sneaking into the kitchen for snacks.

There was a dining room for the Haplanders in the main house, and one that had been added onto the side of the house for the hands at some later date with the kitchen located between the two. Duffy served the Haplanders; the men served themselves from large bowls and plates of food placed on a wide shelf separating the kitchen from their dining room, and they were expected to keep their dining room clean. Duffy wasn't gonna be their mother. From time to time, men were assigned to help him for the day or a week.

It was decided that Cormac would start out working for Josh until the roundup was over, and he was warned that they started early. It was still dark when the ringing of the breakfast bell found Cormac taking care of Lop Ear and Horse. Breakfast was plenty of beans, beef, gravy, and all the bread they wanted. Duffy had started as their trail cook with his own chuck wagon. After his first trail drive, the house cook had been given a generous severance pay, and Duffy took over the kitchens, sleeping in the bunkhouse with the men.

“The fastest way to learn,” Josh told Cormac as they were riding out to the branding corrals, “was just to start doing it. I'll show you how.” Lop Ear wanted to be ridden that morning and Cormac obliged. Josh was amazed that Horse trotted freely alongside. “Your horses are beautiful and a lot of horse, but for the roundup, you need a cowpony. One that is small and fast and can turn on the spot for herding cattle.

“They'll be spinning and balking and doing everything they can to get away from you. I'll loan you a pair of chaps until you can get into town and get your own. Otherwise the brush down in the washes and ravines will cut you to pieces, and you better take a last look at how pretty those new boots of yours are. By tonight, they'll look ten years old. The most important thing to remember is this, when the dinner bell sounds, hightail it in here right quick, or you're liable to find yourself suckin' hind tit.”