OverTime 03: Slipping (First 70 Chapters)

Chapter 12: Mud (Garrison)

Some folks figured Texas cattle drives only started after the War of Northern Aggression.

They figured it wrong.

The War created a glut of wild longhorns beyond imagination. But Jacob Garrison had worked cattle long before that, both with his father's small herd and then for neighboring ranchers who recognized his skill.

At Clayton's age, Garrison had helped move stock to New Orleans out of Galveston by the barge full. At Tomas' age, he'd herded cattle across piney East Texas and through swamps and bayous to the same destination. In his late teens, he'd ridden with a herd all the way to California and seen the Pacific Ocean. Barely twenty, he'd faced vigilante committees, Indians, thieves, and jayhawkers on the dangerous Sedalia Trail to Missouri.

Even during the War, he helped drive Texas cattle past Union lines to feed the troops. That had been Benj Cooper's first taste of it. While college-boy Cooper did not have the feel for the animals that Garrison did, he had a sure-enough taste for the adventure that, too often, accompanied tens of thousands of dollars' worth of beef on the hoof.

After the war, with no home left to return to, Cooper joined Garrison's stockman's life. The two of them had helped open the Goodnight-Loving trail to Denver in '66, but Garrison disliked both the scarcity of water and Goodnight's and Loving's partner, John Chisum of Fort Sumner. So they'd ridden for Joseph McCoy in '67, on the Abilene Trail drive that finally opened up Kansas for Texas stock. They had known the old half-breed Jesse Chisholm, who'd built vital trading posts along that trail but hadn't lived to see it flourish and bear his name.

Soon enough, Garrison was bossing his own drives to Abilene, with Cooper as his segundo. Abilene closed to Texas cattle in '71, so they drove stock to Newton, then to Ellsworth, then to Wichita, then to Hays City and finally to Dodge. Every year, Kansas farmers pushed the cattle deadline further west. Soon the state would close to them completely. In the meantime, train tracks kept advancing throughout the country.

Garrison and Cooper agreed -- the days of driving cattle hundreds of miles were ending.

And yet, Garrison had never seen so crowded a trail as this summer's. Blame the end of the Sioux Wars, safer land, and all those reservations needing beef. Blame the gold strike in the Black Hills. But paths he'd once forged had become roads, and that complicated his drive. Too many herds left too much scat, too fresh to be collected as fuel and a breeding ground for biting flies, no matter how many birds it attracted. Their easiest route to travel, along the Oregon Trail, was overgrazed, while the best grass ran along coulees and over dangerous bluffs that could crumble out from under cattle and horses alike. And now the company in front of his—the Bar N, to judge by the drift his boys collected into their ranks every day--was making such poor time, they were slowing his herd as well.

Because of all this, Garrison had sent Cooper ahead that morning, after the burial, to meet with the foreman of the Bar N and suss out the trouble. Of course, Cooper had complained that, had he not been solely in charge of the Trail G cattle since Ogallala, while Garrison was off getting married, he would already be on a first-name basis with the other outfits both up and down the trail. Cooper liked to complain. But he also liked to visit, so he'd ridden happily off, which had bought Garrison a day's quiet.

Most of a day.

He kept catching himself watching for his wife.

From a distance, he'd seen her leave the chuck wagon and head for the calf cart with that distinct, long-stepping stride of hers, her skirts blowing in the Nebraska breeze. He'd seen her drop her face into her hands, too—seen Amos hop down and take her into his old arms. Garrison's pulse sped, and his chest constricted, at that sight.