Bleeding Texas by William W. Johnstone Page B

thing?”
    Hank nodded.
    â€œPa and I have been going over the books, seeing just how much money we can come up with—”
    â€œIt won’t be enough,” Riley said flatly. “We all know that, Hank. You don’t have to go into the details.”
    â€œActually, he does,” Bo said. “How much money would it take to pay off the note, Hank?”
    â€œWell . . .” The youngest Creel brother scratched at his beard. “I figure twelve thousand dollars would do it.”
    â€œTwelve thousand—” Riley seemed to choke on the amount. When he could speak again, he went on, “Might as well be a million. We’d have just as much chance of comin’ up with it.”
    Bo leaned forward in his chair and said, “That’s not strictly true. How many head of cattle are out there on Star C range?”
    â€œSomewhere between fifteen hundred and two thousand, I’d say,” Riley replied. “And I know what you’re thinking, Bo. It’s the wrong time of year to start a drive. Anyway, it’d take months to get a herd to the railhead and get back with the money to pay off that note.”
    â€œI wasn’t talking about going to the railhead,” Bo said. “They still ship cattle out of Rockport, don’t they?”
    John Creel leaned forward and brought a fist crashing down on the desk.
    â€œI’ll be damned if I sell my cows to a bunch of hide-and-tallow men!” he declared.
    Bo shook his head and said, “It’s not like that anymore, Pa. I’m not talking about selling the herd to a rendering plant. They ship beef down there on the coast now.”
    â€œAnd they pay half what the buyers at the railhead pay for animals they can take back to Chicago,” Cooper pointed out.
    â€œThat’s true,” Bo admitted. “But they pay enough that if we took a good-sized herd to Rockport, that would pay off the note.”
    John Creel’s frown deepened. He said, “When you consider what we got sunk in those animals, we’d be takin’ a loss.”
    â€œSo you’d lose a little now to do away with the threat of that note at the bank,” Bo said. “It’s a poor trade, sure, but I don’t know what else we can do.”
    With a look of growing hope, Hank said, “Bo’s right. We’re cash poor, but we’ve got the stock. We have to make use of it however we can.”
    â€œYou’re sayin’ we’ll strip the range,” Riley argued. “That’ll ruin the ranch, too, won’t it? What the hell good is a cattle spread without cattle?”
    â€œYou’ll still have the land. And you won’t have to strip the range. We’ll leave a few hundred head to start building the herd again.” Bo shrugged. “It’s risky, I won’t deny that. But it’s also the only way I know of to come up with that twelve thousand dollars.”
    Cooper rubbed his chin and frowned in thought before saying, “Might work, Pa. Rockport’s a little less’n a hundred miles away, and it’d be a fairly easy drive. We’d have to cross the Guadalupe River, Coleto Creek, and the San Antonio River, but those are the only streams of any size. We ought to be able to put a pretty good herd together in a couple of weeks, then it’ll take two more weeks to get ’em to the coast and get back here with the money. That gives us some leeway on when the note’s due.”
    Riley shook his head stubbornly.
    â€œI don’t like it,” he declared. “We’ll be throwin’ away money in the long run. If we can take ’em to the railhead next year—”
    â€œWe won’t have them to take to the railhead next year,” Hank interrupted. “The bank will take the herd and everything else. We’ll be busted if we don’t do this.” He paused, then added, “You just don’t like the idea because Bo came up