“Whether it’s good whiskey or bad, it has no business here,” James said, pointing to the wagon.
“We thought maybe we would take some along to use for snakebite,” Matthew suggested.
“Snakebite my ass,” Bob said. “You were plannin’ on sellin’ it.”
“So what if we are?” Mark responded. “There’s no law against an honest man making a living, is there?”
Bob laughed. “Honest? That’s not a word you often hear in the same sentence as the name Scattergood.”
Mark glared at Bob.
“How many jugs of whiskey do you have in there?” James asked.
“They’re gallon jugs, we have forty-eight.”
“Get it off, now.”
“What will we do with it?”
“James, we don’t have to get rid of all of it,” Duke said. “There will be room for some. Say, eight gallons or so.”
“All right,” James said. “You can take eight gallons. The rest of it stays.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” Matthew said. “What do we do with the whiskey that stays?”
“Drink it, burn it, pour it out on the ground,” James said impatiently. “I don’t care what you do with it. Just get it off that wagon.”
There was a hollow sound as Duke pulled the cork on another jug, then a gurgling sound as he began to pour the whiskey out.
“Wait, no sense in pourin’ it all out,” Matthew said, climbing up onto the wagon. He picked up another jug and pulled the cork. “We may as well drink what we can.”
Chapter Ten
First day of trail drive
Thursday, June 19, 1862:
When dawn broke the next morning, Matthew and Mark Scattergood were passed out drunk. Angrily, James ordered Luke and John to get their brothers on their horses, even if they had to be tied bellydown across their saddles. They weren’t tied down, but they were tied to their saddles, their hands crossed in front of them and secured to the saddle horn.
Everyone but Revelation had drunk a little the night before, but no one drank as much as Matthew and Mark. In fact, James didn’t think he had ever seen anyone drink as much as they did.
“Herd’s on the move,” Bob said, coming up to him then. “Luke is riding drag, Billy and Duke are flank and swing on the other side, I’ve got John riding swing on this side and I’ll ride up front as flank.”
“Thanks,” James said. “I’ll take point.”
“Say, James, have you thought of a name for our outfit yet?”
“A name?”
“Yes. We have to call it something. What shall we call it?”
“How about the Ferguson, Faglier, Swan, Scattergood, Cason Cattle Company?” James suggested.
“No, that’s no good. Too long. How about the Cason Cattle Company?”
James shook his head. “No, that wouldn’t be fair to everyone else. We all have a stake in the drive.”
“Well, we have to call it something.”
At that moment, James Cason saw a calf, hurrying quickly to catch up with its mother. The early morning sun cast a golden halo around the calf. He laughed, and pointed. “There’s our name,” he said.
“What?”
“Golden Calf. The Golden Calf Cattle Company.”
“Yes!” Bob replied. “Yes, that’s a great name.”
“Think we ought to check with the others?”
“Why? I’m the one who decided we should have a name, and you are the one who came up with it. Far as I’m concerned, that’s good enough.”
“Then the Golden Calf Cattle Company it is,” James said. He twisted around in his saddle. “By the way, have you seen Matthew and Mark this morning? Are they able to sit their saddle?”
“Barely. They’re riding alongside the wagon.”
“Will they be any use to us anytime soon? What do they look like?”
Bob chuckled. “Their eyes look like two pee holes in a snowbank,” he said. “I guess they’ll come around by noon. But right now the poor bastards don’t have an idea of what’s going on around them, except they’re feeling pretty sick.”
“I’ve never seen anyone drink that much,” James said. “I thought they were taking all that whiskey to sell. I’m beginning to think now that if we had kept it, they would’ve drunk it all.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Bob said.
“How are you doing?” James asked.
“What do you mean, how am I doing?”
James laughed. “I admit you didn’t drink much last night, but for you, it doesn’t take much. As long as I’ve known you, you haven’t been able to hold your liquor. The smell of a cork could make you drunk. To tell the truth, I wasn’t sure you’d answer the call this morning.”
“Hey, you don’t need to be worryin’ any about me, James Cason,” Bob replied. “When the tocsin sounds, I will respond.”
James laughed. “You are full of it,” he said. He pointed to the head of the herd. “All right, the tocsin is sounding now. Go.”
Bob slapped his legs against the side of his horse and urged it into a gallop, dashing alongside the slowly moving herd until he was in the flank position, which was near the front, on the right-hand side. James rode up the side of a small hill, then looked back down on the Golden Calf Cattle Company. It made an impressive sight, over three thousand head of longhorns, five abreast and over a mile long, moving slowly but inexorably across the South Texas plain. From his position he could see the entire herd. Billy Swan was the flank rider on the left side, near the front, and Duke Faglier was on the same side, riding in the swing position, or near the rear. John was riding swing on the right and Luke was riding drag, bringing up the rear. The wagon was already a mile ahead of the herd, with Revelation sitting straight in the driver’s seat. Alongside the wagon, with their horses tethered to the vehicle, the two older Scattergoods, Matthew and Mark, sat weaving in their saddles.
James had read once that any journey of a thousand miles must start with a single step. This was that step.
San Antonio, Texas Tuesday, July 1, 1862:
It was two weeks after James and the others left San Antonio when the Butrum brothers arrived. They didn’t even have to ask around to find Duke Faglier. They overheard his name when they were unsaddling their horses at the livery.
“Pardon me,” Angus said to the two men who were talking. “Did I just hear you say the name Faglier?”
“My name is Thornton,” the liveryman said. “I own this place.”
“The name I’m interested in is Faglier. Duke Faglier,” Angus said. “Didn’t I just hear one of you just say that name?”
“What’s it to you, mister?” Thornton asked.
“We’re the Goodsons, from Missouri,” Angus lied. “Duke Faglier is our cousin and we been alookin’ for ’im.”
Thornton smiled broadly. “Cousins, eh? Well, why didn’t you say you was kin? I knew Duke was from Missouri, but that’s about all I knew. Duke never talked much ’bout his past. Truth is, don’t nobody around here know too much about him. But he was a good worker while he was here, and never give anybody any trouble.”
“While he was here? You mean he ain’t here no more?”
“Afraid not.”
“What happened to him? Did he go off to fight in the war?”
“No, he didn’t go off with the regiment. Him and some other fellas who didn’t go are takin’ a herd of cows up to Dakota.”
By now, both Chance and Percy had joined their older brother, and when they heard Thornton say that Faglier was taking a herd to Dakota they looked at each other is surprise.