The Diary of Jerrod Bently, J.W. Osborn [the false prince series TXT] 📗

can get rough, and some of them drink and....” She cut me off “Your wanting to protect me is comforting, Jerrod,” she said “But I think I can take care of myself and you have never seen my Grandfather lose his temper with anyone. ”
“Oh yes I have,” I replied “Did you forget that I was there when he shot that outlaw with the rock salt and then threatened to scalp him.”
“That was not his worst,” Sam said nonchalantly “That was pretty mild considering his past and how he lived his life before he married my grandmother.”
“Mild?”, I exclaimed “He was going to scalp the man and I don’t know why he stopped.”
Sam untied the mare and let her walk away to graze with Wakeeze. “A man of God does not commit violence,” she said.
“A man of God?”, I said “That was no man of God I saw with a knife in his hand, that was a Blackfoot war chief.”
“That is exactly what he was,” Sam said quietly “Since those bloody days on the planes, my grandfather has been many things. He is a horse whisperer, and trainer. He has many honors from his days with the cavalry and after my grandmother died he went into the seminary and was ordained as a Methodist minister.”
I stood there staring at her. She had just opened the door into her history. I had always suspected there was far more to the old man than he let on. “Well, I’ll be,” I said “I would never have guessed that he was a minister.”
“He is,” Sam replied “and the best grandfather a girl could have. Now, I am going to tell the men tonight about who I really am and we will have to take what comes.”
“What ever you do Sam,” I said as I approached her and reached out to take her hand. “I will stand with you. She didn’t draw away as I expected her to as my hand closed around hers.
Something in her smile was warming and sweet. “Jerrod,” she said “We have many more miles to push this herd and at then end of it, when the work is done, I think you and I have much to talk about.”
I wanted to run away, I wanted to stay. I did not know what to say or do, but I knew all the way down to my boot heels that she felt the same way I did. She smiled back at me. “Do I have a ram rod for the rest of the drive?” she asked.
“Yes Ma’am,” I replied “You can count on it.”
“Tonight we tell the boys the truth, and in the morning we take the prisoner to Portersville.”she said. Then she walked away. Stunned in a happy sort of way I went back to where I’d left Mud. Who could possibly have known that it would be on a cattle drive that I would meet a girl who dressed like a boy, rode a horse like a Blackfoot warrior and gave the orders even when we had a trail boss and at the end of this adventure, she would become my wife. But that time had not come yet, and I was willing to wait. Like Sam had said, we had a lot to talk about.

++++++++++++++++++

“Hey! Indian!” Ned Travis complained from his place tied to the wagon wheel “Can’t you do nothing for this pain I am in? This is inhumane treatment.”
“So is trying to shoot my Granddaughter and stealing her horse,” Scrub Pot growled at him.
“Come on, “ Ned whined “Can’t you fix some remedy for my rear end. It is killing me.”
“No remedy,” Scrub Pot replied “The pain will stop in a day or so.”
“A day or so!” Ned cried “I am going to die from poisoning.”
“No,” Scrub Pot answered “Most likely from a rope. ” Scrub Pot gave him a look that told him he had better keep his pie hole shut. So Ned decided he best behave himself or he might not make it to his new accommodations at the Portersville jail.
I’d heard it said often that when it rains it pours and on August the twenty fifth of eighteen seventy five, I learned there were no truer words spoken. I was back at work moving the herd onward toward our destination. Since my talk with Sam, I’d gone from being a half experienced drover to ram rod, and Sam was trail boss. She had decided to tell the men the truth about who she really was and I hoped and prayed it would not turn out to be a mistake. She was a stickler for honesty and I admired her for that. Maybe part of me was afraid for her, but the other part was down right jealous, but I had to keep that between me and Mud. In the tenements of New York City, the best pet a kid could hope to own was maybe a cat. We’d never had pets , it was just my parents, me and my older brother, so I’d never realized how close a man can get to a critter, especially a horse. On our watches at night, I’d talk to Mud, man to man and he would twitch his ears as though he were listening to me. I told him everything, even about Sam, as it was much easier to tell my horse how I felt then it would have been to tell her. Yes, Mud was my confidant and he never uttered a single word of betrayal to anyone. I thought about staying in Texas when the drive was over. I had become a pretty accomplished rider and I was pretty good with a rope. I’d come to know far more than I ever did about horses and cattle. I had little time now for reading my J. W Titus novels. In the beginning I had been kind of envious of my favorite adventure writer. I figured J.W.Titus was a real cowboy, a rancher, handy with a gun and a taste for heroism and adoration. I had no idea that in the not too distant future when I’d reach Portersville , I would discover that my favorite cowboy adventure writer would be nothing like I imagined he’d be.

At the end of the day, Sam called a meeting. I sat by the chuck wagon wishing that the next horse in would be Doc incase there was trouble. I had a gun, but usually it was unloaded. I was no crack shot like Doc or Ely Jax and quite likely I’d have shot myself in the foot more than once due to my lack of experience. However, this time I thought I should be prepared in case Sam’s announcement to the drovers got ugly. I am not a bible scholar by any means, but my Ma did make us go to church and read the good book and somewhere in there, I recalled a passage that said that “the man is head of the household and loves his wife and family so much that he would be willing to die for them.. Well I was not up for dying that night, but the thought of taking a bullet to save Sam’s life felt like it might be the right thing to do. WOAH THERE!! I was getting a little ahead of myself as I sat there with my tin cup of now cold coffee between my hands. “Head of household?” I hadn’t even talked to Sam about how I felt about her, let alone asked her to marry me.
She appeared from the other side of the wagon, dressed as she usually was in men’s trail clothes , boots and her hat pulled down in front to shade her face. Her long hair was successfully hidden under that hat she’d worn since the day I met her. As soon as the boys noticed her standing there, they stopped talking among themselves and turned their attention to her. “What’s going on, Dodge?,” Caleb Tyler asked in his usual rough way. “We’ve got to get the boys back out to keep the coyotes and rustlers away.”
From the look Sam gave him, I knew she was not about to be ordered around by this man. If there was going to be trouble in camp tonight, it would come from Tyler.
“We’ll be sending the watch soon,” Sam said firmly “There is something I have to tell you boys before hand.” Behind me I heard Scrub Pot load and close his shot gun. I guess he had the same worries as I did.
“Our trail boss has left the drive.” Sam went on, “He’d been gone for several days and gave no notice so I can only assume that he has left for good.” The men chewed on her news for a few minutes speculating about what had happened with Watson. “I knew that Scotsman was no good,” Caleb Tyler stated. “Well,” he added “With Watson gone, that makes you trail boss, Dodge. Who’s going to take your place as ram rod?”
I could see by the expression on Tyler’s face that he expected to have th job that Sam had all ready designated to me. I had come to know Tyler pretty well since we left Grant’s Creek and I didn’t trust him. He drank and had a mean streak in him that was about a mile wide. Even that Gruela he rode was meaner than a snake. As I suspected there was going to be trouble and would all happen when Sam told the men that I was the new ram rod and that she was Samantha and