Free The Unforgiven by Alan LeMay Page B

sometimes the spice of trampled sage; while every-where, and above all, the fragrance of young grass responding to the rains made a magic like nothing else ever known. It rose upon a new warmth, gentle, moist, and living, from the unlocked vitality of the earth itself—the smell of hope, of promise, of a world reborn. Under the ground and upon it and in the air, every winter-deadened thing awoke, turned young and eager; and human hearts rose singing in answer.
    And partly it was the sounds. From the increasing herds came a continuous bawling that is like no other music on earth, to cow-folks’ ears. Underneath it ran a perpetual soft, deep tone that was the voice of the sod itself under the beating of innumerable hoofs.
    Before long she was sleeping out with the wagons half the time. Matthilda had never been so easygoing with her before. The truth was that Matthilda had been unable to shake off the forebodings she had been made to feel by Kelsey’s appearance on the Dancing Bird. Often when she looked at Rachel she seemed to see a shadow hanging over her, menacing the child’s place in the world, and her will to live—perhaps threatening her life itself; and she was moved to a loving pity, in which she wanted nothing in the world so much as for Rachel to enjoy a free and happy time, in her innocence, while yet she could.
    Out in the overnight camps, Rachel was the only one ever allowed to sleep in a wagon, sheltered by its bowed canvas. Even Ben and Cash, even the cook, slept on the ground, and would if it were under water. At night the herd was quieter, though never entirely still. When a critter lay down it made a big, contented-sounding “whoof,” as it settled, knees first, into the trampled grass. If there were thunderstorms they would shuffle themselves all night, tense and ready to run, and all hands might have to stay in the saddle. Even on quiet nights the cattle might get restless, for no apparent reason, snuffy and always listening. What did they listen for, spooks? Wolves? They could get themselves strung up until the crash of a falling cigarette ash was enough to explode them, and they would jump and go, all at once. One night when they broke they like to ran down the wagon, rocking it as they blundered past, until it almost turned turtle.
    Singing to the cows seemed to quiet them, and help to keep them from going snuffy, nobody knew just why. Maybe it covered up small sounds that the cattle might think were suspicious, and gave them something meaningless to listen to. Or maybe it kept them assured that the two or three men who rode spur-jingling and saddle-creaking round them all night weren’t up to anything. So all night long some of the hands would be singing out there, while they slowly circled the bedded herd.
    The long rides between the wagons and the house, yellow-slickered in the bursts of rain, were almost the best. It was only when she was alone in the vast-ness of the night that the prairie ever made Rachel afraid. They were getting a lot of rainbows; once she counted eleven in a day. Between showers, all over the prairie, the meadow larks were singing. When she was learning to talk, way back in the first year she could remember, she had known the meadow larks were saying “Happy—new year—to you!” And they were saying it yet.
    But the day came when Rachel realized, with a hard shock of disappointment, that the spring work was almost over. She could not understand how so big a herd as they were going to drive could have been made up so soon. But now the long-winged chutes went up, for a quick road-branding of the herd; and that was always the last thing they did. As the hands began bunching the cattle for the push through the squeezers, Rachel knew the lovely green-up time was done.

Chapter Eleven
    Jude had forged eight stamp-irons for each of the two squeezes they built, so that plenty of irons were always cherry red, no matter how fast the critters came through. Using plenty of