Newt had meant to go back to the wagon, but the storm gave him no time. While Soupy was fixing his bandana, they looked around and saw streams of sand like small, low clouds blowing in the dim light through the mesquite just to the south. The little clouds of sand seemed like live things, slipping around the mesquite and by the chaparral as a running wolf might, sliding under the bellies of the cattle and then rising a little, to blow over their backs. But behind the little sand streams came a river, composed not of water but of sand. Newt only glanced once, to get his directions, and the sand filled his eyes so that he was immediately blind.
It was in his first moment of blindness that the cattle began to run, as if pushed into motion by the river of sand. Newt heard Soupy's horse break into a run, and Mouse instantly was running too, but running where, Newt had no idea. He dug a finger into his eyes, hoping to get the sand out, but it was like grinding them with sandpaper. Tears flowed, but the sand turned them to mud on his lashes. Now and then he could get a blurred glimpse out of one eye, and at the first glimpse was horrified to discover that he was in among the cattle. A horn nudged his leg, but Mouse swerved and nothing more happened. Newt stopped worrying about seeing and concentrated on keeping his seat. He knew Mouse could leap any bush not higher than his head. He felt a horrible sense of failure, for surely he had not done his job. The Captain had not meant for him to stay near the head of the herd; he was there because he had not moved quick enough, and it was his fault if he was doomed, as he assumed he was. Once he thought he heard a whoop and was encouraged, but the sound was instantly sucked away by the wind — the wind keened like a cry, its tone rising over the lower tone of the pounding hooves. When Newt began to be able to see again, it did him little good, for it was then almost pitch-dark.
Over the roar of the wind and the running herd he suddenly heard the popping of tree limbs. A second later a mesquite limb hit him in the face and brush tore at him from all sides. He knew they had hit a thicket and assumed it was his end — Mouse faltered and almost went to his knees, but managed to right himself. All Newt could do was duck as low over the horn as possible and hold his arms in front of his face.
To his great relief the running cattle soon slowed. The brush was so thick it checked them as a herd, though the same thicket soon divided them into several groups. The bunch Newt was with soon slowed to a trot and then a walk. Mouse's sides were slick with sweat. Newt felt it was a miracle that he was still alive. Then he heard pistol shots ahead and to his right — a string of cracks, the sound instantly taken by the wind. The wind seemed to be increasing. When he tried to straighten up in the saddle it was like pushing with his back against a heavy door. He tried to turn Mouse, because he still hoped to get back to the rear, where he belonged, but Mouse wouldn't turn. It angered Newt — he was supposed to be making the decisions, not Mouse. The horse would circle, but he wouldn't go into the wind, and Newt finally gave up, aware that he probably couldn't find the wagon or the main herd anyway.
In the short lulls in the wind he could hear the clicking of long horns, as the cattle bumped into one another in the darkness. They were walking slowly, and Newt let Mouse walk along beside them. He had worried as much as he could, and he simply rode, his mind blank. It seemed like he had been riding long enough for the night to be over, but it wasn't, and the sand still stung his skin. He was surprised suddenly by a flicker of light to the west — so quick and so soon lost that he didn't at first recognize it as lightning. But it flickered again and soon was almost constant, though still far away. At first Newt welcomed it — it enabled him to see that he was still with the several hundred cattle, and also helped him avoid thickets.
But as the lightning came closer thunder came with it — the sound seemed to roll over them like giant boulders. Mouse flinched, and Newt began to flinch too. Then, instead of running across the horizon like snakes' tongues, the lightning began to drive into the earth, with streaks thick as poles, and with terrible cracks.
In one of the flashes Newt saw Dish Boggett, not thirty yards away. Dish saw him, too, and came toward him. In the next flash Newt saw Dish pulling on a yellow slicker.
"Where's Soupy?" Dish asked. Newt had no idea.
"He must have got turned wrong," Dish said. "We've got most of the cattle. You should have brought a slicker. We're going to get some rain."
As the flashes continued, Newt strained his eyes to keep Dish in sight, but soon lost him. To his amazement he saw that the cattle seemed to have caught the lightning — little blue balls of it rolled along their horns. While he was watching the strange sight, a horse bumped his. It was Deets.
"Ride off the cattle," he said. "Don't get close to them when they got the lightning on their horns. Get away from em.
Newt needed no urging, for the sight was scary and he remembered Dish describing how lightning had hit a cowboy he knew and turned him black. He wanted to ask Deets some questions, but between one flash and another Deets vanished.
The wind had become fitful, gusting and then dying, and instead of beating steadily at his back, the sand was fitful too, swirling around him one moment and gone the next. In the flashes of lightning he could see that the sky was clearing high to the east, but a wall of clouds loomed to the west, the lightning darting underneath them.
Almost before the last of the sand had stung his eyes, it seemed, the rain began, pelting down in big scattered drops that felt good after all the grit. But the drops got thicker and less scattered and soon the rain fell in sheets, blown this way and that at first by the fitful wind. Then the world simply turned to water. In a bright flash of lightning Newt saw a wet, frightened coyote run across a few feet in front of Mouse. After that he saw nothing. The water beat down more heavily even than the wind and the sand: it pounded him and ran in streams off his hat brim. Once again he gave up and simply sat and let Mouse do what he wanted. As far as he knew, he was completely lost, for he had moved away from the cattle in order to escape the lightning and had no sense that he was anywhere near the herd. The rain was so heavy that at moments he felt it might drown him right on his horse. It blew in his face and poured into his lip from his hat brim. He had always heard that cowboying involved considerable weather, but had never expected so many different kinds to happen in one night. An hour before, he had been so hot he thought he would never be cool again, but the drenching water had already made him cold.
Mouse was just as dejected and confused as he was. The ground was covered with water — there was nothing to do but splash along. To make matters worse they hit another thicket and had to back out, for the wet mesquite had become quite impenetrable. When they finally got around it the rain had increased in force. Mouse stopped and Newt let him — there was no use proceeding when they didn't know where they needed to proceed. The water pouring off his hat brim was an awkward thing — one stream in front, one stream behind. A stream of water poured right in front of his nose while another sluiced down his back.
Then Mouse began to move again and Newt heard the splashing of a horse ahead. He didn't know if it carried a friendly rider, but Mouse seemed to think so, for he was trotting through the hock-high water, trying to locate the other horse. In one of the weakening flashes of lightning Newt saw cattle trotting along, fifty yards to his right. Suddenly, with no warning, Mouse began to slide. His back feet almost went out from under him — they had struck a gully, and Newt felt water rising up his legs. Fortunately it wasn't a deep gully; Mouse regained his balance and struggled through it, as scared as Newt.
There was nothing to do but plod on. Newt remembered how happy he had been when dawn finally came after the night they had gone to Mexico. If he could just see such a dawn again he would know how to appreciate it. He was so wet it didn't seem as if he could ever be dry, or that he could do such a simple thing as sit in the bright sun again feeling hot, or stretch out on the grass and sleep. As it was, he couldn't even yawn without water blowing in his mouth.
Soon he got too tired to think and could only h
ope that it would finally be morning. But the night went on and on. The lightning died and the hard rain stopped, but a drizzle continued; they hit intermittent patches of thick brush and had to back and turn and go on as best they could. When he had crossed the gully, one boot had filled with water. Newt wanted to stop and empty it — but what if he dropped it and couldn't find it in the dark? Or got it off and couldn't get it back on? A fine sight he would make, if he ever saw camp again, riding in with one boot in his hand. Thinking about the ridicule that would involve, he decided just to let the boot squish.
All the same, he felt proud of Mouse, for many horses would have fallen, sliding into a gully.
"Good horse," he said. "If we just keep going maybe it'll get light."
Mouse swung his head to get his wet forelock out of his eyes, and kept on plodding through the mud.
32
JAKE HAD FORGOTTEN to hobble the horses — he remembered it when the first lightning struck and Lorena's young mare suddenly snapped her rein and ran off. It was dark and the sand was still blowing. He managed to get the hobbles on his own horse and the pack mule, but had to let the mare go.
"She won't go far," he said, when he got back to Lorie. She was huddled under a blanket, her back against a big mesquite tree and her legs half buried in the sand.
"No better than she likes to swim. I expect we'll find her on this side of the river," Jake said.
Lorena didn't answer. The lightning filled her with such tension that she didn't think she could endure it. If it went on much longer she felt it would twist her like a wire.
She held the blanket around her as tightly as she could, and her teeth were clenched as they had been when she crossed the river. She kept trying to think about something besides the lightning, but she couldn't. She kept thinking of how it would feel if it hit her — it was said to be like a burn, but how could a burn travel through your body in an instant?
Then the lightning began to strike in the trees nearby, with cracks so loud that it made her head ring. She didn't mind the wet. Jake had tried to rig a tarp, but it wasn't big enough.
A bolt hit just behind them, with a sound so loud that it took her breath. I want to go back, she thought. When she got her breath back she was crying, the tears mingling with the rain on her face.
"We got to get out from under this dern tree," Jake yelled.
Lorena didn't move. He was crazy. The tree was all that was keeping them from death. Out in the open the lightning would immediately strike them.
But Jake began to pull at her. "Come on," he said. "We'll get under the bank. It might strike the tree."
The lightning had become constant — she could see every whisker on Jake's face in the glare. He looked old. But he wouldn't leave her under the tree. In the flashes she could see the river. The river had almost got her and now he wanted her to go back to it. When he pulled, she fought. The tree was the only protection she had and she didn't want to leave it.
"Dern it, come on!" Jake said. "This ain't no place to sit out a lightning storm."
Every time he pulled, the tightness inside her broke out a little and she struck at him. The first blow hit him in the eye and he slipped and sat down in the mud. Then it was dark. When the lightning flashed again, she saw Jake trying to get up, a look of surprise on his face. But he grabbed her in the darkness and began to drag her away from the tree. She kicked at him and they both went down, but a bolt struck so loud and so near that she forgot to fight. She let him pull her toward the river, dragging the tarp. Another bolt hit so near it shook the ground, almost causing Jake to fall in the water. There was not much overhang to the bank, and the tarp was so muddy he could barely drag it, but he pulled it over them and sat close to her, shivering. In the flashes the light was so bright that she could see every wavelet on the river. She wondered where the turtle was, but before she could look it was pitch-dark again. In the next flash she saw the horses jumping and trying to shake off their hobbles. She shut her eyes but when the bolts hit she felt the light on her eyelids. There was nothing to do but wait to die. Jake was shivering against her. She felt her muscles coiling up, getting tighter and tighter.
"Well, I wish we'd brought our feather bed," Jake said, trying to make light of it.
She opened her eyes to blackness and a second later saw the lightning come to earth just across the river, cracking into the tree where they had made their first camp. The tree split at the top, then darkness fell, and when the next flash came the split part had fallen to the ground.
"We got ol' Deets to thank that we're still alive," Jake said. "That one would have got us if we'd stayed put."
You didn't thank him, Lorena thought. She put her head against her knees and waited.
33
BY DAWN the rain had stopped completely and the sky was cloudless. The first sunlight sparkled on the wet thickets and the hundreds of puddles scattered among them, on the wet hides of the cattle and the dripping horses.
At the head of the main bunch of cattle, Call surveyed the situation without too much apprehension. Unless there was a lightning victim somewhere, they had come through the storm well. The cattle had walked themselves out and were docile for the time being. Deets had been to look, and Soupy, Jasper and Needle had the rest of the herd a mile or two east. The wagon was stuck in a gully, but when the hands gathered they soon had enough ropes on it to pull it out. Bol refused to budge from the wagon seat while the pullout took place. Lippy had got out to help push and consequently was covered in mud practically up to his lip.
Newt had been extremely surprised, when dawn came, to discover that he was in his natural position in relation to the herd: behind it. He was too tired even to feel very relieved. All he wanted was to stretch out and sleep. Several times he dozed off, sitting straight up in the saddle. Mouse was just as tired, and kept to a slow walk.
Deets reported that all the hands were well and accounted for with one exception: Mr. Gus. He had been with the main herd for a while but now he was nowhere to be seen.
"He probably rode off to the cafe to get his breakfast," Dish Boggett said. "Or else went in to San Antone to get himself a shave."
"He might have went to see Mr. Jake," Deets said. "Want me to go look?"
"Yes, have a look," Call said. "I want to cross the river as soon as possible and it would be convenient to have Gus along."
"It ain't much of a river," Dish said. "I could near jump across it if I had a long-legged horse."
When asked how many cattle he thought might be lost Dish estimated no more than twenty-five head, if that many.
"Well, you nearly lost me," Jasper Fant said, when they were all standing around the wagon. Bol had some dry wood that he had kept under a tarp, but the preparation of victuals was going too slowly to suit most of the hands.
"I'm so tired I won't be worth nothing for a week," Jasper added.
"When was you ever worth anything?" Dish inquired. He himself was in rather good fettle. It always improved his mood to have his skill recognized, as it clearly was by all hands. He had managed to turn the main part of the herd out of the worst of the brush and keep it together. Even Captain Call had seemed impressed.
The only cowboy who had not performed up to caliber in the emergency was Sean O'Brien, who had been walking out to catch his night horse when the storm hit. He was such a poor roper that Newt usually roped his horses for him, if he happened to be around. This time, of course, he hadn't been. The Spettles, responsible for the remuda, were afraid Sean's awkward roping would cause the whole herd to bolt; Bill Spettle had roped a horse for him, but it wasn't one he could ride. Sean had promptly been bucked off, and when the remuda did bolt, Sean's horse ran with it. Sean had been forced to ride in the wagon all night, more worried for his life than his reputation. Bolivar had made it clear that he didn't like passengers.
While breakfast was cooking most of the cowboys pulled off their shirts and spread them on bushes to dry. A few took off their pants, too, but only the few who pos
sessed long underwear. Dish Boggett was one of the few who had carefully wrapped his extra clothes in an oilcloth, so he soon had on dry pants and a shirt, which somewhat increased his sense of superiority to the rest of the crew.
"You boys look like a dern bunch of wet chickens," he said.
It was true that the crew presented an odd appearance, though Newt wouldn't have compared them to chickens. Most of them were burned a deep brown on the face, neck and hands, but the rest of their bodies, which the sun never touched, were stark white. Bert Borum was the funniest-looking without a shirt, for he had a round fat belly with curly black on it that ran right down into his pants.
Pea Eye walked around in a pair of all-enveloping long johns which he had worn continuously for the last several years. He had his knife and gun belt on over his underwear, in case of sudden attack.
"There ain't no point in gettin' too dry," he pointed out. "We got to cross the river after a while."
"I'd just as soon go around it," Needle said. "I've crossed it many times but I've been lucky."
"I'll be glad to cross it — maybe I'll get a wash," Lippy said. "I can't do much under all this mud."
"Why, that ain't a river, it's just a creek," Dish said. "The last time I crossed it I didn't even notice it."
"I guess you'll notice it if five or six of them heifers get on top of you," Jasper said.
"It's just the first of many," Bert said. "How many rivers is it between here and the Yellowstone?"
The question set everyone to counting and arguing, for as soon as they decided they had an accurate count, someone would think of another stream, and there would be a discussion as to whether it should count as a river.