"Mister Drifter" Part 2 by Susan Pearl

As I see the Drifter Man ride closer I see great concern on his face.  He dismounts his horse to share a quick embrace all the while saying he knows he is becoming a wanted man and the law will be coming after him --so he has to keep movin' as fast as he can.

Oh, Drifter Man, of course, how could you have known with a two year break from the cattle drive trail how many barb wire fences had been put into place.  Landowners not wanting the cattle drive to cross their land--but to reroute such extremely thirsty cattle would prove to be deadly to the herd--a decision you could not allow--so you cut the barbed wires for the cattle to have a drink at the pond.

But it had been a cruel and mean trick they had played on you for they knew what you would do and they had poisoned the pond.  After the first cattle drank from the pond and fell down to the ground bawling in pain and misery--you realized their plot.  So you cut more wires to direct the other cattle to be corralled and not let them get to the pond.  Once the cattle had been coralled then the landowner and his eighteen newly hired hands appeared with guns blazing.  You shouted to the nine not to shoot because that is exactly what they wanted you to do.  To kill a landowner worker would put a bounty on your head and with the cattle all corralled on the landowners land he would have won with a clean sweep.

But you and the nine others would not  shoot.  That's when the landowner shot and killed his own trail boss.  The landowner and some his men left to get the law accusing you of trespassing and murder. His other men followed you to "Shoot and Kill on the Spot".  The landowner has already promised them a big bounty on you.  The drifter said, "I think I lost them back a mile or two".

"Let me ride with you.  I have family in Arkansas! We can outrun the hired hands and we can out run the law.  I know the way.  I know the eight markers and their order to find". So we rode off together leaving it all behind.  We rode as hard as we could and the first marker came into view.