When none of the soldiers answered his call, Matthew took one final drink himself, then corked the jug.
“Well, that was twenty dollars, just as slick as a whistle,” Mark said.
“Wisht we could run into some more soldier-boys,” Luke said.
“We keep on goin’ north, the next soldier-boys we run in to is liable to be Yankees,” John suggested.
“Don’t make no never mind to us,” Matthew said. “They all drink whiskey.”
The others laughed.
James shook his head in disgust. They were driving thousands of dollars’ worth of cows to market, and the Scattergoods were concerned about twenty dollars’ worth of whiskey.
“If Revelation hadn’t got them two boys to fightin’ over her, we could’a made us a lot more,” Mark said.
Mark’s comment about his sister reminded James that he wanted to speak to her, to caution her against any future incidents of the kind she caused with her careless flirtation with the soldiers. He walked back to her wagon.
“Revelation, just what did you mean by causing all that commotion before?” James asked, even before he peeked into the wagon. “Don’t you know that—?” James’s question died on his lips when he looked in, because he caught her changing clothes. The dress she had been wearing was now lying across a sack of flour. She was wearing nothing but a camisole and underdrawers. Her long shapely legs were bare.
“Oh, excuse me!” James said, turning away from the wagon in embarrassment.
“I’ll be with you in a moment,” Revelation said, obviously unperturbed by the interruption.
“I’m sorry, Miss Scattergood,” James said. “I didn’t men to intrude like that.”
“Miss Scattergood, is it?” Revelation asked, a moment later. “When did you start calling me Miss Scattergood? You’ve been calling me Revelation for the entire drive.”
“I guess I just never thought of you as a woman before,” James said.
“And now?” Revelation asked, obviously flirting with him. “How do you think of me now?”
James cleared his throat. “I think you could be a troublemaker,” he said. “I would appreciate it if, in the future you, uh . . .” He turned back toward her.
“Yes, Mr. Cason?” Revelation asked. Bending over to pick up her trousers, she presented a generous spill of breasts above her camisole. “If I would what?”
Closing his eyes, James turned away again. “If you would make a less obvious display of your, uh, gender.”
Revelation chuckled, amused by James’s discomfort. “I will do what I can, Mr. Cason,” she said.
Chapter Eleven
With the Golden Calf Cattle Company, mile 450,
Saturday, July 19, 1862:
The herd crossed into Indian Territory going as far as the Canadian River without encountering any difficulty with the Indians. They saw them often enough, but they were never in groups of more than three or four and they gave no sign of hostility.
But when they made camp on the Canadian, Luke and John sneaked out after everyone else was in bed. The next morning the two Scattergood brothers were brought into camp, in irons, escorted by Indian Police who had arrested them for attempting to sell whiskey.
After some negotiation, the Indians agreed to accept ten cows as payment for the fine.
“Bob, Billy, cut ten Scattergood cows out of the herd,” James ordered.
“Wait a minute,” Matthew protested. “You can’t do that! If you’re goin’ to pay these heathen ten cows, it’s got to come out of everyone’s herd equal.”
“Everyone didn’t try and sell whiskey to the Indians,” James said.
“All right, even so, it was Luke and John that done it, not me ’n Mark. You got no right makin’ us pay for what they done.”
“You are all in this together,” James insisted.
“Well, I don’t intend to just stand by an’ let you take ten of our cows.”
“Oh, I think you will,” Duke said easily.
“What have you got to do with this conversation?” Matthew challenged.
“Like James said, we’re all in this together. Now, I didn’t try and sell any whiskey to the Indians, so if we’re goin’ to have to pay them off, we aren’t paying them with any of my cows. I’m pretty sure Billy and Bob feel the same way. That leaves your cows.”
Though Duke was speaking quietly, his challenge was open and direct. And in some strange way, the fact that it was soft-spoken, made it all the more frightening.
“Yeah, well, it don’t seem in no way right to me,” Matthew said, but his tone of voice indicated that he wouldn’t carry his protest any further.
To the surprise of James and his friends, the Scattergoods generally held up their end of the bargain, each of them working as hard as any of those in James’s original party. What wasn’t a surprise to them was the fact that Revelation was working the hardest of all.
When the drovers were finished with their supper, they would sit around the campfire, smoking their pipes, telling stories, and stretching weary muscles. While they were relaxing in such a way, Revelation, who had already put in a full day’s work, would be cleaning up from supper. Later, when the men would crawl wearily into bedrolls, reeking with their own musk, Revelation would still be up, making preparations for the next day’s meals.
Then, when the drovers awakened the next morning, the air would be permeated with the rich smell of coffee brewing, bacon frying, and biscuits baking. That was because Revelation, who didn’t go to bed until about an hour after the last drover had drifted off to sleep, also rose an hour before anyone else. And finally, even before the herd began to move, Revelation would have the wagon loaded, the team harnessed and the wheels rolling as she forged on ahead, looking for the next campsite.
The hardest part of the drive was to get the cows moving each morning. The campsites were picked where there was plenty of grass and water. In addition, there would be an occasional tree or an overhanging bluff to provide some respite from the sun, so the cows were reluctant to leave. Every morning they showed all intentions of staying right where they were.
Sometimes the drovers would have to shout, probe the animals with sticks, and swing their ropes to get the herd underway. Eventually their efforts would pay off, and the herd would begin to move. Then, once the herd was underway, it would change from three thousand-plus individual creatures into a single entity with a single purpose. The inertia they needed to overcome to get the herd moving in the first place, now worked in their favor as the cows would plod along all day long at a steady clip, showing no inclination to stop.
There was a distinctive smell to a herd this size. The smells came from sun on the hides, dust in the air, and especially from the animals’ droppings and urine. The odor was pungent and perhaps, to many, unpleasant. To James, however, it was an aroma as familiar and agreeable as the smell of flour and cinnamon on his mother’s apron.
It had been a long, hard journey so far, and they had even farther to go. But as far as James was concerned, there was no place in the world he would rather be than right here, right now.
Revelation Scattergood’s cooking skills had been a pleasant surprise. Though she dressed, rode, and worked as hard as any man, she showed a woman’s touch in the kitchen. Often she would surprise the men, who were used to trail grub, with something a little special.
Tonight it was apple pie, and as she served everyone supper, James noticed that she had given him an extra-large piece of pie.