Chapter 29

The cattle came in on the third day after the election, and we were all down in the streets at the first call that they were coming. I think it was the first time the newcomers gathered with those of us who had settled the town to celebrate something that brought good to us all.  At the very least it meant an assured supply of meat for the winter. At best it meant the beginning of several herds and of a new industry.  Bob Harvey, who had brought the Holsteins to the town, was there to watch. “I’m starting a distribution of milk,” he said to me. “Would Cain’s family be interested?”

“Sure. Have you talked to John Sampson? They’ll want milk, too.”

“How many head have you got?” Harvey asked.

“I’ll have to check. We may have added some calves, but it will number close to one hundred and seventy head. We’ll graze them higher up in the mountains in the summer to get the best of that grass.”

“What about Indians?”

“We’ll run that risk, and keep a sharp lookout. We will have to use that mountain grass while we can.”

The herd came quietly, up the one street of our town, and we bunched the cattle on a rough flat below Ruth Macken’s place and behind the town. Only a few of them, ten or twelve head of those Stacy Follett had led us to, were longhorns.  Everybody came down to look them over, and I introduced everybody to the Indians as well. Follett grinned at Drake Morrell. “I ain’t huntin’ you no more. Those youngsters convinced me I had to be wrong.”

“Glad they were there,” Drake agreed. “We might have killed each other.” The cattle were in good shape. During the last part of the drive the grass had been good, and they had come along at a moderate pace. Now they settled down nicely, seeming to realize the long trek was ended.  For several days, all was quiet The Indians took the cattle to the high meadows.  Stacy Follett and Ethan went off into the Wind Rivers, setting traps for far and hunting game.

On Sunday Finnerly showed up for meeting, but only a handful attended. Neely and the Crofts were up the hill at John Sampson’s service, and oddly enough, Webb showed up.

Cain went to him at once. “Webb, I’m sorry about the boy.” Webb shrugged. “He had it comin’. Damn’ fool, listening to that crowd. Well, you cured him of wantin’ to be a gunman. It’ll be months before his hand’s any good, if it ever is.”

“I guess I shut my hand too hard,” Cain said. “I forget my strength sometimes.” They stood and talked, then went into meeting together. I was the last to enter, standing for a while and looking down the street of our town. Either it or I was changing, for once again it seemed familiar and was no longer a town but had become strange.

Three Oregon-bound wagon trains came duough that week, and we did a brisk business. I traded two head of strong steer for three used-up oxen and a saddle with fifty .44 cartridges thown in.

Bob Harvey started sinking a well, and Cain picked up a contract to supply ties to the railroad. The season was late, but our town prospered, and we had put away food against the coming cold. We had jerked venison, stored potatoes, carrots, and onions, as well as canned berries from our gathering along the creeks.

As town marshal I drew fifty dollars a month, but I augmented my income from time to time by repairing wagons for passersby, and trading. I swapped a bridle woven from rawhide for a colt, newborn and too weak to stand the trek to Oregon.  Follett insisted I add the cattle he had located in the box canyon to my herd.  “See here,” he argued, “you made the drive, without you there’d have been no cattle here. Them cattle are mine to give or leave. You take ’em. I live on wild meat, shot with my own rifle, and I don’t take to cow meat, nohow.” So, with two oxen for which I’d traded, I now had fifty head of cattle, four horses, and a colt. Then I swapped a bearhide for a day-old calf.  On the third week after election nobody showed up for Finnerly’s service. His sermons had grown increasingly filled with bigotry and hatred, and people preferred John’s reading and our singing.

Several times I encountered Finnerly. He passed me by without speaking. Pappin spoke always; Ollie was surly, avoiding me.

With the first snow in the high country we brought the cattle down. Cain, John, Bud, and I had cut hay from several meadows and stacked it against the winter.  Alongside the hay stacks we built a pole corral, made into a wall against the wind on the north side, and a shed to shelter some of the stock.  When I went up the hill for supper I was thinking of the newspapers Stratton had given me. For the first time it would give me a chance to see what was taking place away from our town, and I began to wonder about what had been happening in the world far from our valley.

Those newspapers, of which I read every item, showed me how things were in other communities, in places where life was less simple than our town. A lot of lawing in those days was settled by the local justice of the peace and never went beyond him.

Back east business was picking up, and there was much talk of what the Union Pacific would do for the business of the country when it was complete, which would be soon.

I began to realize how little I knew of our country and what made it work. The more I’d read and observed the more I realized that the best intentions in the world will get a man just nowhere unless he knows how to get results and can enlist the cooperation of others. And cooperation means compromise.  Used to be that I’d get impatient that evils were allowed to be. I figured there ought to be some way of just shutting them off. The trouble was, there was no way short of dictatorship, and that meant worse evils. What was needed was to take one step at a time, not to be too drastic, and to bring about the changes with the least amount of friction. No changes could be forced upon people. They had to want it, to be ready for it. And public life demanded folks who would do a little more than they were paid to do.

Being marshal of a small town was not a full-time job, and most marshals worked at something else, too. However, this was the town where I lived, so I looked around. There was a mudhole shaping up where the watering trough stood, and in front of Dad Jenn’s where the hitching rail got the most use there would be a dust pit come summer. Without saying anything to anybody I hitched up a team and hauled gravel from a pit a few miles south. Between times I dumped gravel by the trough and the hitch rail, filled the mudhole, and gravelled a good part of the street. It was only two blocks long. With rain and snow it should pack down solid during the winter months.

I asked no help, used my own team, did the work with my own shovel, my own sweat.

Every night I studied the papers. Red Cloud’s Sioux were raiding in the eastern parts of the Territory. There was talk of splitting us off from the rest of Dakota and forming a new territory, called Wyoming. I mentioned it, and Cain smiled. “You’ve been gone, boy. That’s already done.  “Grant’s been nominated for president against Seymour, they’re about to try Jeff Davis for treason. They tried to impeach President Johnson, but lacked the votes. There’s been a lot going on.”

Due to Indian troubles the stage did not run regularly, and only a rare passenger stopped off in our town. News was scarce, unreliable, and usually devoted to the sensational aspects.

We checked out the number of men able to defend the town and warned each to keep a rifle close by. Follett and Ethan were usually off in the hills. I took to riding up on the ridge as I had in the first days, so we would have ample warning if the approach of Indians was not first observed by Follett or Sackett.  We had snow from time to time but the grazing was still good, and we held the cattle on the open plain a couple of miles from town.  Handling the herd was simple. We held them on the grass, moved them occasionally to a new area, and kept our eyes open for Indians or cow thieves.