“What principle?” Clay asked. “What are you talking about?”
“Look at the river,” Tom said. “Where do you see most of the trash?”
“He’s right,” Smoke said. “Most of it is in the middle. At least, the bigger pieces.”
“All we need to do is stretch a rope across the exact middle of the stream,” Tom said. “I’ll be on one end of the rope, and we’ll need someone on the other end. We’ll hold off anything big while the rest of you get the herd across.”
“What do you think, Smoke? Does it make sense to you?” Clay asked.
“I don’t know who this Bernoulli fella is,” Smoke said. “But if he will keep everything in the middle for us, then I say let’s try it.”
“Tom, if it’s all right with you, I’ll take the other end of the rope,” Dalton said.
“Fine with me,” Tom said.
The two men mounted, then rode out into the river, Dalton taking a position on the far side.
“Dalton!” Tom called. “There’s a really big log coming! Let this one go.”
“All right,” Dalton agreed.
“Clay!” Tom shouted as loudly as he could. When he got Clay’s attention, he pointed to the big log coming swiftly downstream.
“We are going to let this one go by! Let it pass before you come into the water!”
“Gotcha!” Clay called back.
Tom waved back at him, and they watched as the object Tom had pointed out floated by them. More than a log, it was a complete tree.
“Damn,” Dusty said. “If anything that big comes floating down the river, they aren’t going to be able to hold it back with just a rope.”
“True,” Clay said. “That’s why it is smart to let this one go on by.”
“What if another one comes by just as big?”
“We’ll just have to hope that it doesn’t,” Clay said. He looked at the others. “All right,” he said. “Let’s get these critters across.”
There was good grass here, and water, so the cows had been content to stay. Now they were somewhat less content to proceed on, but with Clay and Dusty on one side, Duff and Falcon on the other side, and Matt bringing up the rear, they pushed cattle down into the water. The lead steers formed a rank of eight across, and the rest of the herd, almost as if in military precision, lined up behind them. That stretched the herd out for nearly half a mile, and when the lead steers went into the water, the others followed docilely behind.
The herd was halfway across when another big log came floating swiftly downstream. It wasn’t as big as the tree, but it was big.
“Tom!” Dalton shouted. “Look!”
Tom feared that the log might be big enough to jerk Dalton out of the saddle if he tried to hold on to the rope.
“Dalton, wrap your rope around your saddlehorn!” Tom shouted.
“If I do that, I won’t be able to maneuver my end!”
“Don’t worry about that! Just do as I say!”
Nodding, Dalton wrapped his end of the rope around the saddlehorn, then waited.
Tom was holding onto his end of the rope, and he was able to snag the log as it came by. The log was huge, and when it hit the rope it jerked the line taut, and for a moment, Dalton was afraid his horse might be pulled down. But the horse, after being jerked downriver a few steps, dug his feet in, locked his legs, and stayed up, holding his position.
Tom worked his end of the rope and managed to keep the log captured, and even with the additional items of trash floating downriver, was able to keep all the major pieces away from the herd. Finally, when the last cow had crossed and was climbing out of the water to the bank on the other side, Tom freed the trapped river debris and let it proceed on downstream, now as one great island.
With the herd safely on the other side of the river, it was now time to bring the wagons across. Once again, Tom and Dalton stretched the rope across to catch the debris. Everything was going well until Sally and Maria in the chuck wagon were three quarters of the way across, and Rebecca, following in the hoodlum wagon, was about one quarter of the way across. It was then that another huge tree, at least as big as the first tree to come down the river, came toward them.
The tree was moving downriver faster than a horse could gallop, and looking at it, Tom knew that he and Dalton weren’t going to be able to stop it. Glancing back toward Rebecca, he saw that she was directly in the path of the tree. It was too late for her to go back, her only hope was to go forward as fast as she could.
“Rebecca! Hurry!” Tom shouted. “Hurry, get out of the way!”
By now all of the others, including Rebecca, could see the tree coming, and she slapped the reins against the back of the team of mules she was driving, trying to hurry them across. But the mules, whether they perceived the danger and were frightened by it, or just decided to take that time to balk, halted in mid-stream.
“Tom, we aren’t going to be able to stop this thing!” Dalton shouted.
Realizing that Dalton was right, Tom dropped his end of the rope and urged Thunder into a gallop.
At first, the others thought Tom might be trying to escape with his own life, but they saw quickly that he was heading toward the wagon. Rebecca saw him coming toward her, and she stood up on the seat.
“Jump toward me!” Tom yelled, and Rebecca did so. Tom caught her, and managed to barely clear the tree as it slammed into the side of the hoodlum wagon, smashing it into two pieces, and spilling all the contents into the water, to be carried downstream along with the wreckage of the wagon, and the two mules, now braying in terror. Within seconds the mules were quiet, having been swept under the water.
Tom rode up the bank on the other side then turned to look back. Both mules were floating, legs up and silent, until they, what was left of the wagon, and its contents were quickly carried on downstream and out of sight.
“What are we going to do at night, now?” Dalton asked. “Our bedrolls and blankets were in that wagon.”
The seven men and three women looked at the raging river with an expression of apprehension on their faces. Dalton had merely vocalized what everyone in the company was thinking. What would they do?
“All right, folks,” Clay said. “Looking at the water isn’t going to get anything back for us. Let’s head ’em up and get ’em out. We need to keep moving, now more than ever before.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
On the Canadian River, Texas Panhandle, December 24
It was a cold camp, and because they had lost the hoodlum wagon there were no bedrolls or blankets. In addition, just before sundown, it began to snow. Fortunately it had been cold enough during the day that everyone was wearing their heavy coats, so they didn’t lose them when they lost the wagon, and they made use of them by pairing off to put one coat on the ground to sleep on and the other over the top as a blanket. Sleeping in such a way provided both the warmth of the two coats and the body heat, to keep them from freezing. Clay was with Maria, Smoke with Sally, Matt with Dalton, and Falcon with Duff. That left Tom and Rebecca sleeping together. As odd man out, Dusty would be with whoever was left behind when the night guard was posted.
“You know what I think?” Rebecca asked that night as she and Tom bundled up together.
“What do you think?” Tom asked.
“I think you let that tree hit the wagon on purpose, just so we could do this.”
There was the suggestion of a laugh in her voice.
“Damn,” Tom said. “And here I thought I was being so clever.”
The snow continued to fall as Rebecca pushed her body up against his so that they were touching everywhere, from top to bottom.