COW-COUNTRY



CHAPTER ONE: AN AMBITIOUS MAN-CHILD WAS BUDDY

In hot mid afternoon when the acrid, gray dust cloud kicked
up by the listless plodding of eight thousand cloven hoofs
formed the only blot on the hard blue above the Staked
Plains, an ox stumbled and fell awkwardly under his yoke, and
refused to scramble up when his negro driver shouted and
prodded him with the end of a willow gad.

"Call your master, Ezra," directed a quiet woman voice gone
weary and toneless with the heat and two restless children.
"Don't beat the poor brute. He can't go any farther and carry
the yoke, much less pull the wagon."

Ezra dropped the gad and stepped upon the wagon tongue where
he might squint into the dust cloud and decide which gray,
plodding horseman alongside the herd was Robert Birnie. Far
across the sluggish river of grimy backs, a horse threw up
its head with a peculiar sidelong motion, and Ezra's eyes
lightened with recognition. That was the colt, Rattler,
chafing against the slow pace he must keep. Hands cupped
around big, chocolate-colored lips and big, yellow-white