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saddlebag dispatches
tracks of his shod horse. The soil was disturbed over a wide area. Drops of blood darkened the dirt and scattered rocks showed crimson patches. A blood stain under the low limbs of a cedar tree showed where the rancher found refuge from the striking hooves and snapping teeth of the mad stallion. Andy followed the trail of the stampeded cattle for a few rods, then veered off and started a semi-circle back around the site of the skirmish. He stopped when he found the track of Black Joe’s leaving. “That stud came this way,” he said. After studying the landscape in the direction of the trail for a few minutes, he completed his round and rejoined Kirkwood and Brenn. “Can’t see no trace of his mares out there anywhere, nor no tracks. Did you see them, Mister Kirkwood?” “Nary a trace. Had I seen the mustangs, I would have kept watch for Black Joe. But I tell you, he came out of nowhere. He was on me before I knew it.” Kirkwood took another sip of whiskey and pushed the bottle back into his vest pocket. “You say he went that way, do you?” he said with a nod of his head in the direction of the trail. “We’d best be after him.” They rode for miles through rolling, brush-covered country strewn with outcrops of black lava rock and rugged, protruding hills that forced their path to meander some. At sunset, they stopped, lit a fire fed by sagebrush and dead cedar limbs, and settled in for the night. Kirkwood needed help dismounting, and then Brenn’s support as he hopped to a seat on the ground. His saddle served as a backrest and, later, as a pillow—the same accommodations available to Andy and Brenn. From greasy sacks in his saddlebags, Andy shared now-stale biscuits and cold, sliced roast beef he’d gathered at the bunkhouse kitchen on the way out the door earlier that day. The men had no blankets against the cold of the night and the chill crept up through the hip holes they wallowed in the stony ground seeking comfort. There was little talk that night, but when Kirkwood rousted his cowboys in the pale light of early dawn, he shared with them a plan devised between brief bouts of fitful sleep. “That horse can’t be far from here, and he doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to get anywhere.”
