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“Who does?” Benteen murmured, and started his horse forward

The brindle steer was not given to spooking,a steady and reliable leader for the herd When Benteen saw the steer, it was testing the air, not liking as out there any more than Benteen did He tried to soothe the rest of the herd with “The Texas Lullaby,” a tunenotes Another steer stood up, motionless and expectant Then it was by twos and threes they were getting up, until the whole herd was on its feet

The sky became black as hell, split with bolts of fire The air was so thick it seeht appeared on the top of every horn It was an eerie sight that Benteen had seen once before in his life—this phosphorescent light folklore called by many names He knew it as St Elmo’s fire

Into be seen but the strange, awesome illu louder fro to reassure the beasts that the ghostly lights were nothing to fear There was a stirring in their nuan to mill uneasily

A great blue ball of lightning ripped fro Benteen There wasn’t even tihty clap of thunder But the reverberations that folloereherd, at a mad run in one leap

The grulla nearly jumped out from under Benteen as it bounded in pursuit of the cattle The sky burst open, du it in sheets There was no way of knohere Spanish and Dollarhide were Benteen couldn’t see where he was going and had no choice but to trust his horse and stay with the panicked mob of cattle

Half-blinded by the darkness and the driving rain, he could catch only glilow seemed to dance from horn tip to horn tip, while the heat from their maddened crush of bodies burned the side of his face There was no tier, of a misstep by the horse; it was spur and ride hell for leather to get to

the leaders One man could turn a herd if he kne

Druether; and the thunder of the storrulla was stretched out until its belly see with the leaders of the sta under him knew its business and pressed into the leaders to force the turn

Once they had started, the rest of the herd followed Other riders were skylighted, racing with the herd What began as a wide circle tightened concentrically into a s mill

The thunder and lightning rolled on across the prairie, but the rain stayed, pouring down steadily There was no way of telling how much of the herd had scattered in theThe drovers’ job became one of containment to hold the main section of the herd intact

The Longhorns had run eight wild long —Spanish, Dollarhide, and Woolie Willis Any nus could have separated the out after another bunch Nobody speculated on the fate of thethree

The rain stopped before dawn, the clouds peeling away to show the stars Before first light, Rusty was hitching the tea a hand to Mary and Lorna with their wagons When the soft color ofthe land, they set out in search of the stampeded herd

The Longhorns had left a wide trail of tra the route, Lorna saw several of the drovers—looking for stray cattle, she presumed A couple of them stopped, had a ith Rusty, and rode on

Jessie and Ely were holding the main body of the herd when they arrived Rusty picked the most likely spot to set up a caon, he left their harnesses on and tied them up