John H. Culp - The Restless Land
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The Restless Land: summary, description and annotation
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This is the follow-up novel to John H. Culps highly successful Born of the Sun, containing many of the central characters of the earlier novelparticularly the Kid, and the rough-and-ready crew of the Tail End, Ranch of North-west Texas. Readers will be taken on more wild-and-woolly adventures and are in for an even more exciting, dramatic spree in the thundering, danger-filled pages of The Restless Land.
Piles dramatic scene upon dramatic scene until the reader is left breathlessChicago Sunday Tribune
THE RESTLESS LAND should be a pleasure to readers of.Kirkus Service
Like its predecessor, THE RESTLESS LAND is agreeable to read...an entertaining story of cowhands, Indians, and other members of a frontier community with its abundance of roughhousing, murder and legitimate killing in range and Indian conflicts.Library Journal
Crowded with stirring conflict and colorful characters, THE RESTLESS LAND finishes with a spectacular climax that will bring readers to their cheering feet.Dallas Morning News
THE RESTLESS LAND IS A GRIPPING TALE.Nashville Banner
Piles dramatic scene upon dramatic scene until the reader is left breathlessChicago Sunday Tribune
THE RESTLESS LAND should be a pleasure to readers of.Kirkus Service
Like its predecessor, THE RESTLESS LAND is agreeable to read...an entertaining story of cowhands, Indians, and other members of a frontier community with its abundance of roughhousing, murder and legitimate killing in range and Indian conflicts.Library Journal
Crowded with stirring conflict and colorful characters, THE RESTLESS LAND finishes with a spectacular climax that will bring readers to their cheering feet.Dallas Morning News
THE RESTLESS LAND IS A GRIPPING TALE.Nashville Banner
John H. Culp: author's other books
Who wrote The Restless Land? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.
John H. Culp
Alma Gottlieb (editor)
Anna Keay
S. Charles Bolton
Melody Thomas Scott
John Hanson Mitchell
V. R. Sampath
Louis de Wohl
Bellany Helen
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This edition is published by PICKLE PARTNERS PUBLISHINGwww.pp-publishing.com
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Text originally published in 1962 under the same title.
Pickle Partners Publishing 2016, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.
Publishers Note
Although in most cases we have retained the Authors original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern readers benefit.
We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.
THE RESTLESS LAND
BY
JOHN H. CULP
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION
For SCHENLEY
who put in the periods and commas
I
YOU MIGHT wonder why an old Texas cowhand, one pretty well beaten down by all the vicissitudes of the Kansas cow trails, sits on a log in a valley of frontier Concho County to ponder his future.
You might, and so do Ifor all the good it does.
I was fifteen years of age on that log, but I felt like an old man of eighty, his teeth out and a frazzled rope beside him. A spunky pinto browsed nearby, content in the warm sun which shot through the yellow leaves of the pecan and cottonwood trees, but that meant nothing to me. It didnt matter for all the problems of my life had begun to stack up again.
But first, maybe you should know who I am. Thats the real joke. My name is Martin Cameron.
Im an orphana double orphanthat isone who took two licks and came out with nothingnothing but the Tail End ranch, you understand. Im under the iron thumb of my stump-legged guardian, Pegleg Murphymeanwhile being brought up by him and a passel of cowhands. The best cure for anything on a cold frosty morning is to be dunked in a horse trough, whether you want it or not.
After the war, when my parents died in Lavaca County, I was put on a stage for this country to live with my Uncle Martin and Aunt Maybie. They were fine peopleIll never forget them.
But it was frontier land, so after a few years when Uncle Martin was scalped by Indians while beginning a cow drive to Abilene, and when later Aunt Maybie died of sickness, I found I had been willed forever to that iron thumb, James Aloysius Murphy, Not that Pegleg ever harmed me with maliceit was just with pleasure.
But while Uncle Martin lived, he started me in life the hard wayhe put me in my own hog and cow business in this very valley. Id been known as Kid back in those days, but so long as it wasnt Button, it hadnt mattered. Whenever I lost the argument, I got dunked in the trough by one of those cowhand charactersPoco, Hash, or Clendenning, who had served with my daddy during the hostilities.
Well, why should a young man in the prime of life, with all my advantages of land and cows and a good education from Cowbell Schoolhouse, sit downhearted in a bright morning of early autumn?
One reason is that the Tail End is land-rich and tax-poor. I cant make headway in or out of the matter. Pegleg says not to worryto let him do it. Weve still got the old ranch down in Lavaca County, the land here, and more land and improvements Uncle Martin bought in Coleman County, across the Colorado along the old cow trail.
The state house in Austin wants money every time we turn around. In spite of my argument, Pegleg says, No, were in good shape. Were making money on cows. Taxes are a necessary evil.
But what does it go for? With all the carpetbag graft and military government weve got around our necks, it just feeds the man with a hand held out behind his back.
Well, Pegleg says, if we dont pay, they take the land. Its that simple.
So, as I sat there and thought, I knew that this was one problem I couldnt whip. And there was the frontier country itselfthe thousands of miles of land which spread from the cap rock of the wild Indian plains and south from the reservations in the Wichitas. There wasnt anything I could do about this, either, or the raiding Indians. What could you have done? Or done about the immigrants in covered wagons who pushed their way down the Texas Road through the Territory to seek new homes after the war?
All of those things were bad enough, but in a personal way there was something elsegirl trouble. It was that sultry-headed Mattie Mae Watkins at Cowbell. She was a mess, but maybe something would happen to stop her short. Maybe Id meet another girl. This was the only thing I could halfway see through, because a long time ago I concluded that there wasnt just one side to a manhe had two sides, or maybe half a dozen. Thats why so many women were put in the world. But the truth was, I didnt know what I could do about anythingtaxes, girls, or Indians.
But I had to do something. Through no fault of mine, I owned this ranch. Id made two trail drives. I couldnt sit idle and let someone else bear the burden. And even though I was a fair cowhand, Pegleg still thought I wasnt dry behind the ears.
I heard a noise among the trees, and the pinto raised its head. Black Colt and Mexican Joe walked their horses beneath the branches. They were about my own age, and when they saw me sitting on the log they began to laugh. Colt wore a pulled-down straw hat and Joe a high-peaked sombrero. Colt had been on the ranch before I came. Joe had come the year after Charles Goodnights first drive to Horsehead.
They stopped in the open and looked down.
Howdy, I said. Pull up a log and sit. This ones taken.
Sho. Colt climbed off his horse and hunkered, an old butcher knife sticking up from his boot. I wouldnt want to disturb a man as deep in thought as you are. He looked around. This is the most silent spot under these trees. I always liked Little Valley. I like it so well Im going to sleep here awhile. He stretched out and pulled his hat over his face.
When Uncle Martin had been scalped on the Colorado, we three had run off from the Tail End to help get the herd through to Abilene. That was our first cow drive. This spring wed gone again on one which had beaten and maimed the outfit but had made history in Texas cow businessthe Old Red River Herd, it had been called.
Joe still sat his horse. Im riding up to the rim rock, he said. Ill be back after a bit. Ive seen panther tracks up there.
I watched Joe ride off, and listened to Colt begin to snore. Then I got down to thinking about the real thing which had brought me heresomething I still couldnt admit even to myself. No one else on the ranch would admit it, eithernot yet. It was cowhand troubletrouble we all dreaded to think about. It concerned Tex Blatt. And Tex was tied in with another cow drive.
No sooner had the Tail End boys come back from Abilene after the Red River Herd made history fighting floods and tornadoes and Indians up in the Territory than, as quick as you could draw a bead on a jack rabbit, Pegleg sent Tex into New Mexicoover Charles Goodnights old Horsehead trail to the Pecoswith a fall herd to fill a government contract.
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