“Sheriff Plummer is going to be real pleased to see you boys,” the man holding the gun said. “I’m his deputy.”
“George, is that you? George Ives?” Angus asked, studying the man who was holding the gun.
The deputy blinked in surprise. “Do you know me, mister?”
“If you’re the George Ives from Missouri, I know you. You used to be good friends with our brother, Mingus Butrum. I’m Angus, these here are my two brothers, Chance and Percy.”
“I’ll be damned,” Ives said. He laughed. “Yes, Mingus and I drank from the same bottle many times before I left Missouri. How’s that old mule doing?”
The smile left Angus’s face. “He was killed by a no ’count polecat by the name of Duke Faglier.”
Ives shook his head. “Faglier? I don’t think I know him.”
“Didn’t none of us know him. He was a farm boy from Clay County. The son of a bitch killed two of my brothers, not only Mingus, but Frank, too.”
“I hope you took care of him,” Ives said.
“We ain’t yet, but we aim to,” Angus said. “That’s why we come out here.”
“He’s out here?”
“He’s comin’ here,” Percy said.
“Yeah, bringin’ a herd of cows,” Chance added. “You ever heard of anything so dumb?”
“I don’t know,” Ives said. “Maybe it’s not so dumb. There could be a lot of money in something like that.”
“Are you really a deputy sheriff?” Angus asked.
Ives laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “Well, sort of. Oh, where are my manners?” He put his gun away, then stuck his hand out to shake hands with Angus.
“What do you mean, sort of?” Angus asked. “Either you are a deputy or you ain’t.”
“Well, I’m deputing for a man named Henry Plummer, who ain’t really a sheriff yet but intends to be one sometime soon.* In the meantime, he’s formed something he calls the Bannack Mining District Vigilance Committee. And he’s appointed himself sheriff. Say, maybe you’d like to join us. I’ll put in a good word with Sheriff Plummer, if you’d like.”
Angus shook his head. “No thanks. I wasn’t cut out to be no deputy sheriff.”
“Don’t be so quick to turn it down. It ain’t like you think,” Ives said. “For example, this pouch of gold you boys just took? Well, now, half of it will go to Henry Plummer, him bein’ the sheriff and all. He’ll call it a fine against that *Henry Plummer wasn’t elected sheriff of the Bannack Mining District Vigilance Committee until May of 1863 fella for bein’ drunk. But I get to keep the other half as a reward for findin’ it. Only, if you’d like to join up with us, why, I’ll let you boys have it. Believe me, there’s plenty more where this came from.”
“Wait a minute,” Percy said. “What do you mean, you will let us keep half of it? It ain’t up to you to give us nothin’. Hell, we the ones that took it in the first place. It’s all ours.”
“Do you think so?” Ives asked.
“Don’t pay no attention to Percy, George,” Angus said quickly. He glared at his brother. “I’ll take care of him. We’ll be glad to join up with you.”
“You’ll join up with us iff’n I can talk Sheriff Plummer into agreein’ to take you,” Ives said, glaring at Percy. “And with that kind of attitude, I don’t know as he will.”
“You take care of the sheriff, I’ll take care of my brother,” Angus promised.
Chapter Thirteen
With the Golden Calf Cattle Company, mile 752
Friday, August 8, 1862:
From the moment they left Long Shadow, the possibility of a stampede was always in the back of everyone’s mind. The problem was, nobody could predict when a stampede might occur. Sometimes they would be so stable that not even a close-strike lightning bolt could set them off. At other times they could be startled by the snap of a twig.
The most effective way to stop a stampede was to have the flank rider on each side gradually turn the cows in front until they were moving in a wide circle. If a rider on one side saw the herd turning his way, then he would fall back and let the man on the other side tighten the turn of the leaders until he, too, was in position to help. Once the cows were running in a circle, they would run themselves down.
On this day, there had been no water since early in the morning, and they had pushed the herd hard to get them through a long dry passage. The cows were hot, tired, and thirsty. They began to get a little restless, and James and the others who were working around the perimeters were kept busy keeping them moving.
Then, at about three o’clock in the afternoon, Matthew Scattergood saw a rattlesnake.
“Rattler!” he shouted, as he pulled his pistol.
“No, Matthew, don’t!” Bob called to him.
Despite James’s warning, Matthew fired at the rattlesnake and, missing it, fired again and again, until the pistol was empty. Frightened, the cows jumped, then began to run. The terror spread throughout the herd and, like a wild prairie fire before the wind, the herd ran out of control.
“Stampede! Stampede!”
The warning was first issued by Bob, then picked up by the others, though as the herd was now in full gallop, there was no longer any need to issue the call.
“Stampede!”
Although there was terror in the cry, there was grim determination, too, for every man who issued the cry moved quickly to do what he could do to stop it.
James was riding in the right flank position when the herd started. Fortunately for him, the herd started to the left, a living tidal wave of thundering hoofbeats, millions of pounds of muscle and bone, horn and hair, red eyes and running noses. Over three thousand animals welded together as one, gigantic, raging beast.
A cloud of dust rose up from the herd and billowed high into the air. The air was so thick with it that within moments James could see nothing. It was as if he were caught in the thickest fog one could imagine, but this fog was brown and it burned the eyes and clogged the nostrils and stung the face with its fury.
James managed to overtake the herd, then seeing that the front had veered to the left, proceeded to tighten the turn, attempting to force them into a great churning circle. The cowboys were shouting and whistling and waving their hats and ropes at the herd, trying to get them to respond. That was when James caught, just out of the corner of his eye, Mark Scattergood falling from his horse. The stampeding cows altered their rush just enough to come toward the hapless cowboy and he stood up and tried to outrun them, though it was clear that he was going to lose the race.
James tried to get to him but it was too late. The herd rolled over him and Mark went down. If Mark screamed, his cry was drowned out by clacking horns and thundering hooves that shook the ground. James had time for only a passing thought as to Mark’s fate, before he turned back to the business at hand.
Finally, under the relentless pressure of the cowboys, the herd was twisted into a giant circle. They continued to run in the circle until, finally, they tired and slowed from a mad dash to a brisk trot, then from a trot to a walk. The stampede had at last run itself out, brought under control by the courage and will of a few determined men. An aggregate total of less than fifteen hundred pounds of men were once more in control of nearly two million pounds of cattle.
They buried Mark Scattergood’s mangled body under a small scrub tree, not too far from where he fell. Even as they were walking away from his grave, Luke and John were in an argument over his clothes.
“That there red-and-blue shirt of his’n is mine,” Luke insisted.