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23

Diamond Crosses

I
T WAS
pitch black in our little tent when Mr. Batchlett woke me. “Wind's let down a bit,” he said. “It's time we was up and at it. Reckon you could water the horses while I pull camp and rastle up some grub?”

When I crawled outside, the air was thick with dust, and the wind was still blowing from the southwest, but it wasn't roaring as loud in the trees as it had the night before. In the dim gray-brown light I could make out a blurred mound that looked like a small haystack. As I walked toward it, I could make out a huddle of horses, standing with their tails to the wind. Pinch stood with his head hanging nearly to the ground, and the others were crowded close around him.

I retied the ropes so the horses could string out. bridled Pinch, mounted, and turned him toward the creek. Except for Blueboy, no horse moved until its lead rope pulled tight, and old Pinch walked as though he were still half asleep.

The water hole had seeped only half full, and digging it deeper didn't help, so I could let the horses have only a few swallows apiece. Blueboy was the only one that fought for it. The rest let me lead them away easily, and stood with heads drooped and tails to the wind.

When I got back to camp, Mr. Batchlett had the packs made up, coffee boiling, and beans and bacon fried. There had been no dawn, but the light had grown strong enough that we could see nearly a hundred yards through the dust. As we ate, Mr. Batchlett watched the horses, and said, “Beat-out lookin' bunch of horseflesh, ain't it? Old Pinch won't last out another day and night like this. Drink good?”

“No, sir,” I told him. “There wasn't much water, so I could only let them have a few swallows. Blueboy was the only one that fought for it.”

“Wild horse in him! He'd stand up to a month of this. Reckon you'd best to try usin' him today. You'll need to save your mare—case old Pinch don't make it. I'll take the sorrel; hobble the rest and turn 'em loose!”

When I came back from hobbling the horses, Mr. Batchlett was tramping out the breakfast fire. The first thing I noticed was that he was wearing his six-shooter. He saw me looking at it, and said, “Reckon we'll have need of it. Want I should help you saddle up?”

I told him I thought he'd better, and as we carried our saddles to the horses, he said, “Blue devil might turn out worth his salt on this trip! Never looked to see the day he would! Glad you fetched him along!”

Then, when I was ready to mount, he told me, “You'll have to fight him if need be this time! Don't dast let you get out o' sight in this dust! Like as not the wind'll veer, and there's no landmarks to go by.”

Blueboy reared when I went into the saddle, and came down in a driving run, but I brought him around in a fairly close circle. After that he bobbed his head and sidestepped, but let me hold him to a walk.

When I brought Blueboy back, Mr. Batchlett called out, “Wind shifted a couple o' points to westward about midnight! Reckon we'll find the stoutest drifters well north of downwind —eighteen to twenty miles out. But we'd best to do our dirty work first—'tain't right to let 'em suffer! We'll spread out to hunt 'em, but don't get out of sight!”

I didn't need to be told what to hunt for, and was the first to find one. It was a tender-footed steer I'd had trouble with the day before. He was stretched out with his legs stiff, his eyes closed, and half buried in sandy dust—but there was a light breathing in his flank. A shudder ran through him when Mr. Batchlett pulled the trigger, then he lay still, for the blowing dust to finish its burying. We found eleven more, but six were past the need of bullets.

I'd never have been able to find any of the drifting cattle in that storm, but Mr. Batchlett led off across the prairie as if he were following a road. He spurred his sorrel into a canter, and Blueboy swung along beside it. After a mile or two, Mr. Batchlett had to ease his blowing horse to a jog, but Blueboy fretted, bobbed his head, and side-danced. Two nights and a day without grazing hadn't sapped his strength, and the driving need to run was still in him.

We'd cantered and jogged a dozen more times before Mr. Batchlett drew his horse close to me, and called, “Keep a sharp lookout to the right! Ought to be seein' some of our stock most any time now!”

The way he said “our stock” made me forget that my mouth was dry and my lungs burning with dust. “Had I better pull away a little?” I shouted back.

Mr. Batchlett nodded, and called, “But keep an eye on me! Give a high-sign if you see anything!”

We'd jogged and cantered twice more when I thought I saw a blurry shape off to my right. My eyes were burning and watering, so I couldn't be sure I'd really seen anything, but I waved my hat to Mr. Batchlett and drew Blueboy around. He'd hardly taken a dozen strides when two of our smaller steers loomed out of the dust in front of us. Their backs were humped, their heads low, and they were barely creeping along—as if they were walking in their sleep.

“About done for,” Mr. Batchlett shouted, as he rode up. “But they might make out yet if this wind lets down. It's shifted another point to the west. Did you take note?”

I shook my head. With the dust blowing and no landmarks in sight, the wind could have veered all the way around without my knowing it.

Mr. Batchlett pulled his sorrel around to the up-wind side of Blueboy, so he wouldn't have to shout, and told me, “Leave 'em drift; we'll know where to find 'em on the way back. The stout stuff'll be ten or twelve miles further on—off more to the north. Wouldn't doubt me some of it's drifted as far as South Rush Creek.”

We left the steers to drift sleepily on, and went back to jogging and cantering. We rode about a hundred yards apart—just so I could keep Mr. Batchlett in sight. I waved each time I saw cattle, but he only waved back and rode straight on. After what I thought was about an hour and a half, trees stood like dark shadows against the curtain of dust in front of me. When I looked for Mr. Batchlett he was motioning me to him. “South Rush Creek, I reckon!” he shouted as I rode up. “Ought to hold the drifters if it ain't dry! They wouldn't move on and leave water!”

South Rush Creek was as dry as Big Horse had been, but we found twelve of our better steers huddled in the lee of a little cottonwood thicket. Mr. Batchlett looked them over carefully, and shouted, “Ain't bad off, but they got to have water before another day's out! Reckon the rest has drifted on to the Middle Rush. If I ain't mixed up, it branches off a few miles south of here. Ought to be two, three miles to eastward! Better creek; might have water in it!”

Mr. Batchlett was right about the distance to Middle Rush Creek, but there wasn't a drop of water in it. He rode it four or five miles to the north, and I rode south to its joining with the South Rush, but we found only ten of our cattle. We herded them into what shelter the few cottonwoods offered, and Mr. Batchlett sat looking off glumly toward the east. “If my recollection's good,” he told me, “there ain't another creek in twenty miles. After crossin' two dry ones, cattle would scatter like blowed leaves. Reckon you could hold a course to ride diamond crosses?”

“I could try,” I shouted, “but I don't know what they are.”

“Light down!” he told me, then took a stick and drew a long straight line in the sand. “That's the wind.” Then he drew three or four diamonds straddling it, with their points meeting along the line. “Them's diamonds. You ride this zigzag; I'll ride this one! Keep the wind blowin' your horses' mane acrost his right ear till you think you've gone a quarter mile, then turn him so's to bring it acrost his left! Go a quarter mile and stand still till I meet you!”

Mr. Batchlett took off his gun belt, buckled it around my waist, and told me, “If I don't meet you at a point by the time you've waited ten minutes, fire once! Count a hundred slow and fire again till I do meet you! Keep a sharp lookout; the best cattle are the ones that goes the farthest!”

When we were back in our saddles and ready to quarter away from the wind in opposite directions, he shouted, “Take a slow lope; you can see best at that gait!”

To ride those diamond crosses in the dust, I needed to know when I'd gone a quarter mile, or Mr. Batchlett and I wouldn't meet at the points. I used to go a mile and a half to school when we lived on the ranch, and usually rode Lady at an easy lope. Just for something to do, I often counted her strides, and they always came to few over 1,300. Blueboy took a little longer stride, so I figured that 200 of his strides would be a quarter mile, counted them off, and made a right-angle turn. I'd counted up to 190 after making the turn, then Mr. Batchlett rode in from an angle to meet me.

“See anything?” he shouted.

I waved a hand back and forth, and yelled, “No!”

“Keep goin' another quarter, and turn left!” he called out as he crossed my line and rode on.

We made three diamonds and met almost perfectly on each of them before I saw any cattle, but they weren't ours. They were long-horned, slab-sided range cattle. When I met Mr. Batchlett at the point, I held up my hand for him to stop. “There are other cattle around here!” I hollered. “I saw four steers, but they weren't ours.”

“Seen some, too!” he called back. “Keep a sharp lookout, but don't stop or turn off course if you see cattle you know! We'd miss one another at the point.”

Before we met at the next point I'd seen two of our White Face bulls, drifting along slowly, but not looking too bad. On the next diamond I saw three more. I reached the next meeting point well ahead of Mr. Batchlett, and when he rode up he seemed nearer excited than I'd ever seen him. “We're right in amongst 'em!” he shouted. “And if I ain't forgot all I learnt in the panhandle, we're due for a change o' weather. Didn't take note how the wind's haulin' 'round, did you? You're near onto a quarter mile off point. Next leg, keep your horse's mane straight right till you turn, then straight for'ards!”

I did as Mr. Batchlett told me, and saw four more of our steers and bulls, but that wasn't what excited me—I could have sworn I heard thunder.

“Hear that?” Mr. Batchlett shouted, as we passed at the next point. Then, before I'd counted two hundred more strides, big drops of muddy rain hit me. In less than two minutes, the thunder claps were almost overlapping, and sounded like dynamite blasts all around me. With each crack, lightning turned the dust in the air bright yellow. Then the rain came down as if some great lake in Heaven had overflowed.

There was no need to count strides any more, and no sense in trying to ride in the downpour. There was only one thing I really wanted to do—and I did it. I jumped out of the saddle, pulled off my muddy clothes as fast as I could, and danced around, and shouted and yelled in the rain. Blueboy stood with his legs braced, snorting and watching me. Then he seemed to get the same feeling I had. He buck-jumped half a dozen times, shook himself as if he were trying to tear off the saddle, then faced into the whipping rain and let it beat against his upturned head.

The shower didn't last more than ten minutes, but an awful lot of water fell, and when it was over the sun came out clear and bright. It seemed as if I could see almost to the ends of the earth, and all around me the prairie sparkled with drops of water on the buffalo grass. I was on top of a low hill, and, as I pulled my dripping clothes back on, I could see nearly a hundred cattle in the shallow valleys. They were no longer humped up, but stood with straight backs and heads to the ground, sucking up the moisture on the grass. Before I climbed back onto Blueboy, I stood for a few minutes, stretching, looking off across the prairies, and wondering why I'd never before noticed how beautiful they were.

I'd been having so much fun in the rain that I didn't think about Mr. Batchlett till he rode out from behind a little knoll, half a mile to the north. I guess he'd taken a bath the same way I did. When we met, his face was shining, his hair was wet, and he was smiling. “That done it!” he sang out. “Doubt me we'll lose another head—if Rush Creek ain't rose too fast and caught a few of 'em. ‘Bout ready for some grub?”

While I unsaddled and hobbled the horses, Mr. Batchlett laid out the grub he'd brought in his saddle bags. It looked as good to me as a Thanksgiving dinner. There were hardtack crackers, two cans of sardines, a can of beans, and a can of tomatoes. For some reason the tomatoes tasted better to me than anything I'd eaten in months.

The horses hadn't had a bite to eat in two days, so we didn't hurry, but gave them a full hour to graze. While we were lying on a blanket, letting our clothes dry and soaking in sunshine, I asked Mr. Batchlett, “With nothing to go by, how do you know when the wind veers a point? I wouldn't know if it turned all the way around the compass.”

“Never's a time when there's nothin' to go by,” he said, “exceptin' it's plumb dark with no stars out. Always keep three points in your eye—same as if you was aimin' a rifle: back sight, front sight, and the spot you're shootin' at. Don't need to see more'n twenty feet, so long as you pick a new front sight before you ride up on the back one.”