Chapter One

You’ve all sung “The Ballad of Rainey Downes”, about a man who dominated the west, whose story grew in the telling. Each verse has a core of truth, of course. But the real truth, the truth not sung about, was even more fantastic than any song could ever be.

Appearances aren’t always what they seem, and this was truer of Rainey than anyone else you’ll ever meet.

The rumors come closer to the truth than not. Some said Rainey was a changeling, left by strange Indian spirits. Some said Rainey was really a woman. Some said Rainey was never real, just a spirit on the wind. Some said Rainey was immortal. Some said Rainey was an Indian God who came to the Earth and took mortal form for love. Like the ballad, the rumors have a core of truth, but not the truth.

Appearances aren’t always what they seem. I should know. I was a partner with Rainey Downes for nigh on to 50 years.

My name is Gillespie Ogilthorpe Biscoe III, but most folks out west know me as Gil Biscoe. I was a trail boss, marking time until I died, when I met Rainey. All that mattered to me then was getting the herd through. Men, women, horses – they were tools or distractions, sometimes obstacles.

Until Rainey rode into camp.

I want to say Rainey rode into camp on a lightning bolt in a clap of thunder, that something significant and special marked the occasion. It wasn’t so, though. Nothing unusual happened. It was morning and we were still eating breakfast. The sun was rising into a leached sky that said it would be another scorching muggy day. Already the heat dragged at us. Half the men wore their shirts open. Those of us who could avoided the cookfire. Old Doughboy wore two aprons, one just for mopping up his sweat.

We were entering rocky foothills, lots of dry gulches and rocky stream beds, shallow rivers, and deep copses to hide strays and devour unwary cattle and men. I was thinking of hiring on a few extra men at the next town. They’d be drifters and drunks, but if I rode ‘em hard, we’d scrape through.

In rode Rainey, all quiet-like. It was the horse we noticed first, finest piece of horseflesh I’d ever beheld. The creature was built for speed. Not a sprinter, though. Not with that deep chest. He was a black with chestnut stockings, white spots on his head and white stripes on his flanks. He was solid. Durable. A cowboy’s heartthrob.

It took an effort to look away from that horse, to see the boy when he spoke. He was a wisp of a boy clad in worn chaps over equally worn pants, a thick plaid shirt buttoned all the way up– in this heat, and a red neckerchief tied about his throat. He sat the horse with the ease of one who lived and worked from the saddle, and his well-worn gear was compactly stowed. His voice cracked just a bit when he asked, "Is this Mr. Biscoe's drive?"

"It is. I'm Mr. Biscoe."

"Rainey Downes, Sir. Heard you was short-handed. I take orders well, and I know cattle. You can try me a few days. If I don't suit, I'll ride on, no hard feelings."

"That's a big offer, Mr. Downes. Ain't you a mite young to be riding on your own?"

"Maybe. Paw said a man's knowed by what he does, and I been doing a man's work for three years. Reckon I still got some growin' to do, but I'm growed enough to do what I say I can do."

"Fair enough. I am short, could use a good hand. Had breakfast yet?"

"Yes, Sir. Ain't fittin' to start work empty."

"Light and set a spell, then. I'll team you with Pete today, and he ain't done with his grub yet."

"That's mighty kind of you, Mr. Biscoe." Rainey dismounted smoothly, his baby face politely courteous. On the ground, he was shorter, skinnier, darker of eye. He looked even younger. I considered sending him back home to his Maw to finish growing. Rainey tilted his head up, looked me straight in the eye, his hand extended, and said, "Thank you." His hand was a mite small, but it was calloused in all the right places, and his grip was firm and confident.

"Pete." Ketchum slapped his hat against his chaps and settled it on his head as he walked up to us. I told Pete to show Rainey the ropes and keep an eye on him for the day.

At the end, I clapped Rainey on the back and ordered the men to "Mount up!" My hand came away damp. It ws hot, but not hot enough for that kind of sweat. I glanced at my palm, then turned to call after Rainey. They were already too far away to call back. Rainey’s dark plaid shirt hid the source of the blood that smeared my hand. I wiped my hand on my kerchief. Raw or not, the boy would stay with the herd, at least until we reached a safe place to leave him.

At supper, Pete gave a good report of the boy's day. He'd done a man's worth of work without a complaint and only a few minor mistakes. "It's like he can read the minds of the beeves, he knows what they're gonna do next."

I nodded when Pete was done, not really needing his report. Fretting over that blood – what caused that blood? – I’d kept an eye on him, too. I liked what I saw. The boy was confident without being cocky, although I was thinking maybe he was hurting too much to show off any. Solid in his seat, most of his mistakes were matters of timing or required movement his bleeding back wouldn’t allow easily. He did them anyway, just slower. If all my men started out like Rainey, I’d have a crack trail crew. Give the boy a couple of years, and he’d be ramrodding a herd himself. I began thinking of grooming him to take Trigger’s place when Trigger cut off on his own.

For now, though, I was watching Rainey without being too obvious about it. The boy sat apart, but not too far. He spoke when he was spoken to. Otherwise, he seemed content to eat and watch the men. I noted that he sat so his back was sheltered from casual contact. Wounds that fresh would stiffen up overnight.

On my last round of camp before bedding down, a flash of white caught my eye. As I walked closer, I recognized Rainey's short curls over the white that proved to be bandaging. The shrubs hid most of him, but the setting sun glinted brightly off thin lines of fresh blood crossng his back. I started forward to help when a critter rustled the shrubs off to the left. When I looked back at Rainey, his shirt was on and he was walking away.

So. It seemed Rainey didn't want anyone knowing he was hurt. As long as it didn't effect his work, I would respect that.

He bedded down near Trigger and Pete, so I tossed my gear down near them. I’m not really sure why I was so taken with the boy. I could say I had some foreshadowing of what Rainey would grow to be and wanted to get close early on, but that’s giving me a power I plain don’t have. Best I can recall is that I felt angry that anyone would hurt a hard working, good boy like Rainey. I felt paternal. My daughters were back east. Maybe I just needed a young’un like Rainey to father.

Even the owls were sleeping when a muffled sound woke me. Any sound that smacked of sneaking about meant trouble. Alerted, I listened without moving, hoping to catch whoever it was in the act. The sound came again, from Rainey. A stifled sob, a sniffle, and then silence again.

I waited a while but he seemed to settle back to sleep. Reckon I did, too, because next I knew, the sun was rising and the camp stirring. Rainey’s gear was stowed away, and he was drinking coffee when I rolled out. He still sat with his back protected, and he moved a bit stiffer than the day before. Those scabs were probably pulling on him. While he ate breakfast, I slipped some healing ointment into his saddlebags. No sense in letting him go it entirely alone.

With a herd to shift over rough terrain, I couldn’t spend all my time thinking about Rainey. I left the young Mr. Downes under Pete’s eye again while I rode back to town to find a few men to hire. Better men then me have come to grief over the land ahead, and I was aiming to get these beeves through as best I could. Even if I had to hire drifters and drunks.

The town was even smaller than it looked from a distance, there being a general store and a saloon, and not much else. It barely had a name: South Crossing. Reckon it couldn’t really be called a town. But there were men in the saloon. Three sat at a table, not doing anything. Another two were at the bar. A woman sat at a table by the three men, flipping cards over in a desultory way, and in the corner, an older man was nursing a bottle slowly.

The chairs and tables showed multiple signs of repair. The dirt floor soaked up spills. I was sure beer wasn’t the only liquid spilled in there. I sighed. This was the bottom of the barrel, under the lees. And it looked to be the best I was going to find.

The woman perked up when I walked in, rising to show far more flesh than was seemly, even for a saloon girl. I wasn’t averse to the occassional saloon girl, but I liked them a bit more – honest. That was a legacy from my dear departed wife. Sarah was as respectable and beautiful as a man could want – in public. But it was all lies, just like the charming smile on the woman before me. Like Sarah, it wasn’t me she wanted, it was my money.

Still, a man offered respect to even the most despicable woman, here in the west. “Ma’am,” I touched the brim of my hat. This attracted the attention of most of the men in the room.

“Hey, Polly! He called you “ma’am”!” One of the three men at the table shouted out. The other two burst into laughter.

She glared at them, then turned her fake painted smile my way. “What can I do for you, Stranger?”

I gave her a tight little smile, no encouragement, just polite. “Don’t reckon there’s much, Miss Polly, since I’m looking to hire three men to help drive my herd thirty miles.” I looked past her and around the room. “Five dollars for each of them, however long it takes. If we move ‘em under five days, there’s a dollar bonus. Any of you men interested?”

Two of the men at the table looked away, but the third, the one who’d teased Polly, looked as if he might speak. He didn’t. Nor did the drunk in the corner. The two men at the bar did. Well, I’d take what I could get, and make do. Two were better than none, and these two looked healthy enough to make it. I bought a round of drinks, then took them off with me.

Briggs, they were. Zedediah and Zebulon Briggs. Small time drunks, from the look of them, doing time as drifters, and long out of work. Well, they were sober now. They’d stay sober, too, until I paid them off.

I made sure the Briggs brothers understood what I expected of them, then signed them on.

Doughboy took one look at the Briggs boys and rattled his pans in disapproval. It was slim pickings around here. He’d have to make do just like me. It’s not as if I was asking him to like the men, just feed ‘em.

Soon as he could, Doughboy took me aside. “I don’t like them,” he stated. “Them drunks ain’t gonna do nothing but eat my good food an’ whine. Then they’ll run off to the next saloon.”

I smiled. They had no money until I paid them, and the next saloon was on the other side of the rough terrain. That’s all the long I needed them. They could drink themselves into a stupor on that pay for all I cared.

It was the beeves that mattered. Men could be replaced. Cows couldn’t.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you!” Doughboy muttered at my smile.