North of Austin Chapter 23

 

Chapter twenty three

Daniel came to me and wanted to go out to the ranch to help with the branding of the new calves. He would have to skip school to do it and I knew Abby wouldn’t allow it. That was the reason he came to me, thinking I might over rule her.

I told him, “No but let me talk to your ma and see what she says.”

I knew what she was going to say but thought I might get her to relent a little. After some back and forth and there being a lot of tenseness in the air I got her to agree to let him miss Friday’s school which gave him the weekend to play cowboy.  I was proud of him for he was already a good hand with both horses and cattle.

His mother said; “He may become a cowboy but he will be an educated one,” to which I agreed.

I knew there was a driving force in him to become a rancher. There was one thing about Daniel and that was he was real. He was what he pretended to be. This was what the cow hands recognized about him and he had won their respect.

He had learned what Abner had taught about handling horses and cattle to the point he was as good as any of the other hands on the ranch. He could break a horse to ride without being mean to him and have him working cattle in a short time.

Daniel had found a large, lean and mean stud he wanted for himself. The horse threw him a dozen times or more but he finally had him working like he wanted him to do. He also made friends with the horse to where the horse wanted to follow him around like a dog.

Daniel talked straight to the cow hands and though still a boy he always talked sense and not foolishness. The hands would tease him about taking him to town to where the ladies were and get him a woman.

This was the one thing that always embarrassed him and he didn’t have a good retort back at them.

On one such occasion he decided to try to turn the tables on them and he said; “Take me to them.”

They didn’t know how to handle this turn of events for some of them knew his mother and they knew she would run them out of the country if they pulled off such a stunt.

After a hard day’s work the men had this Saturday night off. Several times Daniel had rode night herd if they had some cattle rounded up but this Saturday there were none except for a few that hung around the compound all the time.

This time he was ready when the teasing started and he said he was going with them and “Get him a woman.”

Some of them started to back out and not go to town but figure they better go and watch over him. Daniel had told me about the teasing he had been getting from the hands so I decided to help him get even with them.

Unbeknownst to his mother I went down to the house of pleasure and talked to the madam whom I had legal dealings with on several occasions and set it up where Daniel would get his woman so to speak. He rode in with the hands and the madam immediately made over him and called one of the younger women over and whispered in her ear with all of the hands watching with their mouths open.

The young woman said; “C’mon big boy” and they went upstairs. All the cowhands waited downstairs for two hours till the woman and Daniel came down stairs laughing. She was making over him and whispering to the other women. They all crowded around him and said; “Me next big boy.” Daniel told the hands he was going to stay at home the rest of the night and would see them later.

I saw him come in and asked him how it went; “Were the men fooled?”

He said: “What do you mean fooled?” I could see he was going to try to give me the same treatment the cowboys got so I said, “All right for you cowboy.”

His mother came in and hugged him and said; “Phew, where have you been?”

Abby looked at me and said; “All right what is going on?”

I told her ask Daniel cause he is the one who smells. She decided to drop it but said; “You take a bath and get that stink off of you.”

 

TO BE CONTINUED