Read Matagorda (1967) for Free Online Page B

I'm going to drive cattle. I've got money tied up in this drive, and I can't work up any interest in somebody else's fight."
    "It may get to be your fight, too."
    "Not if it interferes with this cattle drive. Get one thing through your head. These cattle go to Kansas. If anybody gets in the way, and that means you or the Munsons, I'll drive right over them."
    Breck gave him a hard look, but Duvarney paid no attention to it. He rolled up in his bed, and slept.
    At daybreak the Cajun had a fire going and coffee on. Duvarney joined him. "Don't you ever sleep?" he asked.
    The Cajun grinned; it was th e first time Tap had seen any expression on his face.
    "Time to time," he said. He reached for the pot and filled Tap's cup. "Where do you think we should start?"
    Duvarney drew a rough line in the sand. "Ride southeast, start sweeping the cattle north, then turn them into the peninsula."
    Joe Breck came up to the fire wearing his chaps and spurs. Thirty minutes later they all rode south to begin working the brush.
    It was a wide stretch of country. They rode back and forth, making enough noise to start the cattle moving out of the brush to get away from them, then pushing them toward the cattle trails that led to the peninsula. Some of them would move along those familiar trails easily enough, but a few would be balky. It was little enough the three men could do; but working in that way, there was the chance they could move quite a few head.
    It was hot and sticky in the brush. Not a breath of air stirred. From time to time Duvarney found himself pulling up to give his horse a breather, and each time he did so he turned in the saddle to study the sky. It was clear and blue, with only a few scattered clouds.
    They came together on the banks of a small creek flowing into St. Charles Bay, where they made coffee, ate, and napped a little. Through the afternoon they worked steadily, and drifted back into camp at sundown, dead tired.
    "We covered some country," Breck commented, "and we moved a lot of beef-more'n I expected."
    Tap nodded. He was no longer thinking of cattle. His thoughts had turned back to Virginia, and to the quiet night when he had said good-bye to Jessica Trescott.
    Old Judge Trescott, who had known his father-had in fact been his father's attorney-had offered him a job. There were half a dozen others, too, who came up with offers, partly because of his father, and partly because he was to marry Judge Trescott's daughter. He would have none of it. He would take what cash he had, make it his own way.
    Was it a desire for independence that brought him west? Or a love of the country itself? Everything he had grown up with was back there in the coast country of Virginia and the Carolinas, His father and his grandfather had operated ships there since before Revolutionary times. There had been Duvarneys trading to the Indies when George III denied them the right. In those days they had smuggled their goods. Duvarneys had been privateers during the Revolution and the War of 1812.
    His was an old family on that coast. His service in the War between the States had been distinguished; on the Indian frontier it had been exceptional in many respects.
    His position in Virginia was a respected one, and many doors were open to him. Yet he had left. He pulled his stakes and headed west again, to the country he had come to know.
    Now here he was, struggling to get a herd together, and so deeply involved that he could not get out of it.
    Jessica had rested her hands on his arms that night. "Tappan, if you don't come back soon I'll come after you. No Trescott ever lost a man to a sandy country, and I'm not going to be the first."
    "It's no country for a woman," he had objected. "You wait. After I've made the drive and have some cash money, we'll talk."
    "You mind what I say, Tappan Duvarney. If you don't come back, I'll come after you!"
    He had laughed, kissed her lightly, and left. Perhaps he had been a fool. A man would never find a girl