Chapter 22
On the way to Bosler Wyoming
Riding out of Fort Laramie with Tom Corlett and Isom Olive, Major Walcott was thinking he had about enough of Isom. He signed on to be his foreman and work his cattle not be his traveling companion. The more he got to know Olive the more he despised the man. As pathetic as I.P. was, he signed on with him because he was one of the few large cattle interests that were actually American owned. Walcott worked for the VR up on Deer Creek for a while. An ornery ol’ cuss out of Scotland owned that outfit. He then signed on with the Bar C up north, outside of Natrona, which was owned by a British outfit. They got below market value leases on thousands of acres of government land to graze their cattle. They would then fence it off just like Mr. Olive did, blocking the small ranchers from access to the water. With the invention of barbed wire in 1874 many of the large outfits started fencing in their spreads and putting an end to the free range as Walcott had known and loved. The long cattle drives from Texas to Montana were pretty much coming to an end. Pretty soon foreigners would own the whole Wyoming Territory as they paid off elected officials along the way. He got tired of doing the dirty work for them. These folks not only bought local politicians, but judges and sheriff’s to bend the rules or look the other way while they forced the small rancher’s out of business. He didn’t see he had much choice who to work for if he wanted to continue punching cows. He wished he could get himself some land and a few head of cattle and work his own place.
Tom is real smooth with his horses around cattle. When he’s roping at brandings, he can side-pass his horse past the calves and skin one off the edge and not disturb the bunch as good as anyone he knew. He could probably count on Tom to work for him, as he didn’t care much for Isom either.
The Major let out a grunt. He figured he would never get his own place. He’d probably be forced out of business just like all the rest of the small outfits.
It wasn’t long before Walcott found himself dozing off as they were heading north along the Laramie River toward Bosler when Olive pulled up.
“Look up ahead there”, Olive said pointing to his left.
Tom and the Major kicked their horses up next to him and saw a large group of riders approaching. Close to fifty, Walcott reckoned.
“Who do you think it is? Do you think they might be Brules?” Olive asked.
Walcott knew Olive was worried that the Indians were going to find him and get their revenge. Olive figured by now they knew he was responsible for the death of those six Indians on the Snake River.
“I doubt it,” Walcott replied. “If it was Indians, we wouldn’t be seein’ ‘em.”
“It’s probably General Cook and his men coming back from Elk Mountain. It looks like they have a prisoner with them. Probably Spotted Owl,” Tom said.
Olive looked nervous, “Well, let’s keep movin’. No point in just waiting to eat their dust.”