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Cowgirl Trail

By Susan Page Davis

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Chapter One
Rocking P Ranch near Brady, Texas, May 1884

Cattle herded easier than cowboys any day. Alex Bright often wondered why he’d agreed to be foreman on the Rocking P, when riding fence and busting broncs was so much easier.
“It ain’t right,” Leo Eagleton insisted. “You gotta tell the boss, Alex.”
“Tell him what?” Alex asked. “You know he’s not changing his mind on this.”
“Well, we don’t have to take it.” Nevada Hatch, Alex’s right hand man on the ranch, looked as angry as Leo. “Mr. Porter used to let us run our own herds on the range. If he’s going to take that away from us, he’s got to raise our wages. That’s all.”
“He won’t,” Leo said.
“I’m thinking of looking for work at another ranch,” Joe Moore, the wrangler, said as he untied the cinch on his saddle. “We hardly get enough pay here as it is, but if we can’t run our own brands—”
“We oughta strike,” Nevada said.
Alex stared at him. “Strike?”
“Sure. They did it last year, in the panhandle.”
“Yeah, but. . .” Alex shook his head. “That’d be shooting your horse out from under you. This ranch is a good place to work.”
“Was,” Nevada conceded. “Lately it’s not so great.”
“That’s right,” Leo said. “Mr. Porter won’t give me time to fix the roof on the cabin. Sela complains about it all the time. Drip, drip, drip—she nags just like the leaky roof when it rains.”
The other men laughed, and Joe said, “At least it ain’t rained for a while.”
“Yeah, be thankful for that,” Alex told him. But he knew Leo spoke the truth, and it bothered him. In the last year, the ranch’s owner had paid out less and less for maintenance on the buildings. He hadn’t given the men who stayed on over the winter the Christmas “extra” he’d always handed out in the past—a few dollars and some new clothes, usually. The lack of a celebration and gifts hadn’t sat well with the men.
One of the older men, Harry Jensen, had been on the Rocking P a lot longer than Alex had. “You know, our wages haven’t been raised in ten years,” he said.
“Prices have gone up, though,” Joe said.
Alex let out a deep breath. He was going to have to talk to Mr. Porter, no getting around it. This new edict about the men’s herds was the last straw. Being able to brand a few mavericks and sell off a few beeves of their own each year meant a lot to the men, especially married men like Leo.
A couple of the other hands ambled over. Usually when they rode in for the night, the boys couldn’t wait to get inside for supper, but this time they lingered as if waiting for him to say more.
“You know Porter’s got enough land for every one of us to run a dozen head or so,” Nevada said.
“Yeah, but he claims all the mavericks on his range belong to him, and he might have a point,” Alex said.
“Then he should up our wages.” Harry looked around at the others, and a murmur of agreement supported him.
“But we’re starting spring roundup tomorrow,” Alex said.
“Exactly.” Nevada’s bushy eyebrows drew together. “We hit him when it will hurt the most.”
Joe spat tobacco juice in the grass. “If we refuse to round up his stock, Porter won’t have a herd to sell this spring.”
Harry nodded. “I say we strike.”
“Hold on,” Alex said. “What makes you think Mr. Porter wouldn’t go and hire a new crew?”
“We’d have to get the men on the other ranches in on it,” Nevada said. “Tell them what we’re doing.”
“I bet they’d want to strike too,” Joe said.
“If not, at least we could tell them not to let any of their men hire on with Porter. I bet they’d do that to back us up.” Nevada looked around at the others.
“That didn’t work so well in the panhandle,” Alex reminded them, hefting his saddle against his hip to carry it into the barn. “They had five ranches striking, but the owners still found more workers and refused to hire back the men who struck. We’d probably do ourselves out of our jobs if we tried it.”
“You know we can’t live on thirty dollars a month without our maverick herds,” Nevada said.
“Yeah, some ranches are paying forty now,” Leo put in.
Harry nodded. “That’s right, and now Porter’s claiming our herds for himself. We own those cattle, even if he doesn’t let us keep any from now on.”
“Yeah, we should be able to sell them and keep the money,” Harry said. “We’ve been doing it for years.”
Alex looked around at them. Mr. Porter had treated him fairly—some might say more than fairly. Alex had been on the Rocking P for seven years now, and Porter had bypassed older men when he promoted Alex to foreman last year. That called for a certain amount of loyalty.
He’d always admired Porter for the way he ran his vast spread. Letting the men keep a few mavericks was standard procedure and allowed the boss to keep wages low. He’d also provided cabins for three of the married men and allowed them to bring their families to live on the ranch.
But lately, the boss was slipping. Alex could see it, and the men could see it. He’d tried to talk to Mr. Porter a couple of times, when it seemed like maintenance was being neglected, and when the supplies for the men’s cook had lacked several items the men enjoyed. Mr. Porter had answered him more gruffly than usual—even a bit angrily. Alex had let it go, thinking they’d talk again later, when he caught the boss in a better mood. Surely they could work this out.
And another thing—he’d heard Porter’s daughter was coming home soon. If Maggie Porter weren’t in the mix, Alex might not hesitated. The men were right—the boss no longer treated them fairly. But if he sided with them, would he lose his job—and his only chance to make a good impression on Maggie Porter?
He turned to face the men again. “All right, listen to me. I have to go in tonight and settle the details of the roundup with the boss. I’ll mention your complaints.”
“Grievances,” Nevada said quickly. “We’re not complainers, Alex. We’re hard-working men with grievances.”
Alex gritted his teeth. “All right. I’ll bring it up.”

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