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Benteen had figured the tremendous loss of cattle would create a shortage of beef at the market and drive the price up. He took what cash reserve they had and partially restocked the herd. Then he’d sent Shorty Niles to Canada to purchase some draft horses and turned fertile bottomlands into hay. Shorty had come back with the horses and the farmer’s daughter as his wife.
The gamble had paid off, and there was hay to feed the cattle if there was another such severe winter. Ranching became combined with part-time farming.
“Mr. Calder!” Jessie Trumbo’s fifteen-year-old son came riding up, one of a handful of second-generation Triple C riders.
Ely and Mary Stanton’s firstborn was a girl named Ruth Ann. Woolie Willis had married a little red-haired schoolmarm, and Bob Vernon had eventually married his dance-hall girl and had a seventeen-year-old son working the roundup. Barnie Moore, Vince Garvey, and Zeke Taylor were all married with growing children. There was a sense of continuity and belonging, an established order that lent a feeling of permanence to things.
Benteen turned his horse toward the approaching rider and waited until Dick Trumbo had pulled his cantering horse down to a plunging walk. “What is it?”
“Pa wants you to come. It’s Captain. He’s dead.” The boy was already wheeling his horse in a circle to lead the way.
A murmured sound of regret came from Lorna as she reined her horse to follow after Benteen. The old Longhorn had led the trail drives up from Texas until the influx of settlers had finally closed it off. They had retired the brindle steer to pasture some years ago.
About a half-mile from the pens, they saw Jessie. He had dismounted and was standing at the rim of a coulee. His hat was in his hand, a gesture of respect for the loss of a comrade. Little remained of the steer. Scavengers had picked the carcass clean, leaving a partial skeleton, a few pieces of loose hide, and a set of long twisted horns.
It was a sober-faced Jessie who looked up at Benteen. “It’s Captain. I’d know those mossy horns anywhere.”
The announcement was followed by a long silence that Benteen finally broke. “We’ll take the horns back to the ranch.” His glance went to Lorna. “They belong above the mantel.”
She nodded a mute agreement. The steer had played a vital role in the building of the ranch. It was fitting that his memory be honored—and that of his breed.
“Dick, climb down there and get those horns,” Jessie gave the order to his son. “Take them to the chuck wagon.”
The young rider swung off his horse, dropping the reins. He went down the embankment at a sliding walk to reach the carcass and its horned skull.
“These horns must be five feet across or more,” he declared as he hefted a tip and realized they were nearly as long as he was tall.
Jessie walked to the side of his horse and mounted. “There aren’t many of his kind left on the range,” the cowboy observed. “I sure do miss seein’ them. They sure weren’t slick and pretty like those Herefords.”
His comment didn’t need any explaining to Benteen. The Longhorn was essentially a wild breed of cattle that had been domesticated—or as tamed as they’d ever get. But it was the wildness that made them special, a kind of freedom that was part of their nature, like the horns. They could fend for themselves; they didn’t need anybody looking after them.
“I don’t think any cowman is happy to see their herds disappearing,” Benteen agreed. “It’s a case of circumstances. With land costs and taxes being what they are, you can’t hold a Longhorn on the range until he matures. You need a breed that ages fast, so you can get him to market. A rancher can’t afford to have a Longhorn grazing a range for six years when a Hereford is ready in less.”
“Yeah, I know all the arguments.” Jessie nodded. “The range is too valuable, so the breed’s gettin’ phased out. I guess there comes a time when we all get phased out. I reckon he had his time of glory, though.”
He touched his hat to Lorna, then reined his horse away to resume his roundup activities. It was a moment before they turned their horses from the coulee and started back to the gathering pens, walking their horses. Lorna watched Benteen scan the range, its vastness pulling his gaze and stretching it out until it hurt.
“It still bothers you to see fences, doesn’t it?” she murmured.
“It isn’t something any range man would choose, but it was forced on us,” he said. “Just like getting paper title and lease rights to all this land to keep all the little ranchers from taking it away. It isn’t just fencing others out. Cattle have become too valuable to be allowed to stray. A cowman can’t afford to buy a prime bull and have him servicing somebody else’s cows instead of his own. It’s a combination of economics and circumstances that killed the open range.”
“And the cowboy,” Lorna murmured. It had been hard for so many of them to make the transition. They’d made their living off the back of a horse with a rope in their hand. Then it had changed, and they were expected to cut hay, dig holes for fenceposts, and string wire.
As they neared the pens, a pair of riders was leaving. Lorna recognized her son with a mother’s ease. Webb Calder had grown into a tall, rawboned young man with brown, nearly black hair and dark eyes. Since birth the cowboys on the ranch had treated him like one of their own, never doing his work for him, but always showing him how to do it right. He was young yet, but he already showed signs of independent thinking.
“Webb has been hinting that he wants to move into the bunkhouse,” Lorna remarked. “I think he’s trying to break it to me gently that he’s grown up.”
“You can tell him to stop hinting,” Benteen replied. “The governor and his family are coming for a visit the first of the month. I want Webb there.”
“I had forgotten.” She grimaced slightly. “Elaine would be busy organizing everything if she were here.”
It was still difficult to accept that she had died three years before, taken swiftly by a heart attack. Lady Crawford had been such a woman for making entrances and exits that it always seemed to Lorna that she had left too abruptly. It hadn’t been her style at all. They had received a telegram from Bull Giles in Washington, where Lady Crawford had journeyed on one of her many political missions.
“She was an extraordinary woman,” Benteen murmured. To this day, everyone believed her association with Benteen had been purely a financial one. He was content to leave it at that. It had eventually become a close relationship, based on deep respect rather than affection, something that few people would have understood.
“It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Bull. I wonder how he’s doing?” Lorna thought aloud.
“From what I’ve heard from other ranchers, his hotel in Denver is making quite a name for itself. He’s catering to the upper crust, I understand,” Benteen said. “He had a lot of practice over the years as Elaine’s male secretary, bodyguard, and … friend.”
