The Hammerhead Roan wanted to give Barnabas some trouble, but for some reason sensed that his rider was not about to put up with it, so he allowed the man to do what he needed to do to saddle him. Pike was happy about that. He needed to get out with his herd at least for a while. Breathe the clean crisp air and tolerate the dusting of snow Mother Nature had provided, To say that it was freezing outside was an understatement. He had managed to procure a brass and mercury thermometer which had told him that at the moment it was just above twelve degrees Fahrenheit.
Not the first cold morning in the saddle for him, far from it. However, this particular morning it was his herd he was riding out to look over, not someone else's. As he worked saddling his horse he reflected on the journey since he had arrived in Kalispell. How things and his life had changed. The idea of him washing dishes in the Lickskillet for Emeline made him smile. She had enchanted him early on and she had him before he even knew it. Now there was Wheeler, a ranch, a herd, and over a dozen hands working with him on this thing that had sprung from that dishpan!
Saddled and ready, Barnabas walked him outside the barn where he ran into Zane who was getting ready to feed the horse in the corral, which would include the Morgans of Em's. "Mrnin' boss!" He chirped, "How's that little wrangler?"
"Wheeler's doin' just fine, thanks for askin'. An' you hows things, other'n this danged weather?" Pike asked as he stepped into leather, cold leather that creaked in protest.
"Lorado's down with the herd, about to get off. I'll be down, soon's the feedin's done." Came the reply as Zane forked another load of hay into the corral. "Horses gotta eat!"
"Likely I'll see you down there, then." Pike said as he touched a spur to the roan and trotted off. The cold morning air feeling just fine in the newness of the day. Life was good!
The spring thaw was anything but. Sleet, rain, snow separate or all at once, the ground was still frozen with patches of snow everywhere, especially wherever there was any shade to speak off. And mud! Lots of mud where there was no grass. It wouldn't be long before it would warm up and the weather would turn. That could not come fast enough.
As he pulled up and looked down into the valley, there sat Lorado, his horse walking, he was twirling the end of his rope. Cold lonely work night herd, as was, except maybe in the summer when the nights were warm. Drawing nighthawk was never his favorite, but most times when he was cowboying it was for a spread that was at odds with some big outfit, which could mean trouble at almost any hour.
The herd below was bunched up probably for warmth, but then they were cows, and cows just did things, some made no sense, but keeping warm made sense, if sense was to be made of anything cattle did. so he clicked and the roan responded stepping forward and moving slowly down the hill.
Barnabas Pike loved to be in the saddle, loved the crisp clean air that a spring morning provided. The child's birth seemed to slow the pace of things considerably, but then too, so did the weather, which no man had control over. Wheeler was his pride and joy, no doubt about that, but even with Mike Wentworth on board as foreman, he had Pythias up to the house minding things and helping out Em for the time being.
Wheeler, it just sort of flowed out of his mouth. He knew that because he said it aloud and to himself many times a day. He had no idea that a man, any man, could be this happy, especially him. As he walked the roan down the hill he considered what had happened since his arrival in Kalispell. Oh, there had been a steady stream of money flowing in from the mines in Nevada, but for him, that meant little to him. Of course, meeting Em was the high point of it all. And Speed, the deputy job, and those things that happened. Sometimes all that was a blur.
What wasn't a blur was the honeymoon that lasted far longer than he had planned, and then the herd and the adventure of getting them north to his ranch, their ranch. The surprise on Em's face when they reached the main house. The wealth that came from Nevada from the simple turn of a card. But perhaps his fondest memories were those of him elbow deep in dishwater working for Em. Life had been good to him, better than he thought he deserved.
He cut through the herd and pulled up next to Lorado. "Mornin." He greeted. "How'd go?"
"Cold 'n quiet. Then cows give me no trouble. Saw what looked to be a cougar on the prowl but he never come at the herd. Not sure why that'd be, but it was surley fine by me." The puncher replied.
"Figger him to be scoutin' the herd, sizin' it up for later maybe?" Pike asked.
"Could be. Never knowed a cat ta pass up a meal." Was the response, "But I had my Winchester ready, might oughtta have Wentworth put on at least one more man, I mean, just in case."
"Yep, be the thing to do. You hightail it, I'll finish for ya." Pike offered. He needed to be with the herd, needed to feel the herd around him. He watched Lorado ride off. There was a good man among good men that had stayed on. He figured Mike Wentworth would do as Foreman, he was experienced, and he liked the Wentworths that he knew. So it would all work out before the ground dried out and the summer turned hot. It was a good start and just seemed to be headed in the right direction.
The sound of Lorado's horses hoofbeats in the crunchy snow faded as he topped out on the hill, heading for the barn. Meanwhile, Pike walked the roan around the bunch of cattle not counmting them, just apprasing how they looked after the winter, and they appeared to be in good shape. They were range cattle and even Texas winters could be bitter cold, so this was no different for them.
They had only needed to sue the hay wagon a few times to get feet out to them. He turned the roan, walking out a ways, following track of other cattle, there were be a few bunches gathere together mostly in whatever trees they could find. Which brought to mind the fact that there had been good times, and there had been bad times, and more than one time that everything was in doubt, but here he was as someone had once said, 'with more money than creases.' And did he? All of this was due to good luck, the turn of a card, the suggestion of a friend, the smile of a girl.
Luck. Maybe that was unfair to the way things had worked out so far, but to Pronto, it had to be factered in to all of it, or maybe, somehow, despite him, that God the sky pilots speak up, took a liking to him. He looked up to the cloudy sky when there was a crack in dark gray masses and for a brief moment, sunlight streamed through, and then was gone.
Barnabas smiled.
A man alone with a herd was something not all men knew or had the chance to know. Be it night or day, there was something special about sitting on a horse and watching over a herd. This was what Barnabas was experiencing, but far from the first time. far from it, he'd worked cattle since he was a boy on the family ranch outside Crockett Texas.
Though growing up handling guns to fight Indians and desperados from south of the border, he did not use those skills in anger until he went to war. After that, his life had changed. Gone was the family ranch, his parents were killed, and his sister and two brothers were gone. He took a job with the Rangers as a minute man, as well as a job as a shotgun guard with Waddle and Mitchell Freight Company but the trail called and he rode out to find out what life was about in other places.
In 1866 he drifted west into New Mexico and Arizona working the grubline as he went. He hired on as a wrangler for a small ranch embattled against a much larger spread which lasted some three months before he rode out, after shooting three men for rustling cattle. He signed on in Colorado, then Montana, and finally, Utah as a wrangler with a gun, and all of these riding jobs were concerned with range wars. He worked in Utah for grub, ammunition, and a saddle. Then he rode the grub line south into Nevada.
These were his cows, not someone else's, grazing on his land. The brand on them was his brand and one that was going to grow. Those bulls would see to that, as well as buying up smaller herds when they came up for sale as they did from time to time.
He wondered, perhaps unfairly, but he wondered just the same, what Julia Dey, his one time fiancé might have thought of his success, and of his family that he was building. When all of this might have been with her, though probably not here in Montana.
He shook his head. The question was not fair to him, or to Em. He loved that woman more than anything he could have ever imagined, other than Wheeler, of course. Julia had been there then, the Good Lord saw fit to take her, opening the way for Emeline Harris Blakesley to come into his life. Or, did he come into hers? When he thought of it, it was like some sort of magic that transformed everything in his life.
Three duces. Those were the real magic that parlayed a poker hand into owning a third interest in a mine, into a town in Montana that needed a Deputy, and into a café that needed a dishwasher. A man who needed a woman, and a woman who needed a man.
Funny how them things tend to work out.
The morning riders were on their way, and as much as he wanted to stay, there was little for him to do, after all, he had some fifteen men on the ranch to handle the day to day work that had to be done. He had the time, so, he rode to the top of the rise to the east for a look-see beyond, probably a good chunk of the fourteen hundred acres he had bought through the Kalispell Land Office. It was where the cut was that the stream flowed down from the falls up by the house. That water probably fed a couple of ranches and farms on down the way. he had no plans to dam it up.
Looking out on a good piece of his property to the south, he began to think about the land to the north of his spread, a lot of good range with trees and water. Since he was thinking again of adding to his holdings. This would mean more cattle that he was already thinking of adding to his small herd, not that his bulls wouldn't help increase the size of his herd, but not fast enough to build a solid bloodline with the mix already on hand.
Satisfied with the plan, he turned the Roan and started back as men were coming down the opposite rise to take on the morning. He needed to talk to Em about this plan and then head into town and see what was needed if anything. There were days he just rode back home.