Between Hell and Texas (8 page)

Dawson nodded quietly as he ate.

Broken Nose Simms said in a nasal tone, “I knew you were pretty handy with a gun, but danged if I ever could see you riding side by side with the likes of Lawrence Shaw.”

“Why don’t you boys shut up and let Crayton eat. He’s so skinny now if he lifted his feet his boots wouldn’t follow.”

“Sorry,” said Broken Nose, going back to his plate of beans and pork.

“I always thought Shaw was a might bit overrated myself,” said Cleveland Ellis. He stared at Cray Dawson.

The circle of eating men fell silent. Dawson knew that remark was meant to be a slight toward him. “We’re all entitled to our own opinions, I reckon,” he said.

“Yeah, I reckon we are,” said Ellis, cold-staring Dawson with a look of thinly veiled contempt.

Dawson ignored the man, not wanting to ride into the Double D and have a disagreement with one of the cowhands. But Sandy Edelman saw the atmosphere starting to tense because of Cleveland Ellis,
so he said, “Ellis, Braden, as soon as you two finish eating, go check on those new broncs that the Centrales Spread sent over today.”

Realizing he had been singled out by the foreman, Cleveland Ellis stood up, slung the remains of his coffee from his tin cup and dusted his trouser seat. “Come on, Moon, looks like a man can’t speak his mind around here without getting more work dumped on him.”

“Yeah, let’s go,” said Moon Braden, standing up as well. “I’d just as soon be checking on broncs as sitting here. For two cents I’d take pay and ride.”

Sandy Edelman started to speak, but before he could say a word, a voice resounded from the darkness on the rear porch of the house, saying, “That’s the only thing you’ve said lately that I agree with.” Gains Bouchard walked slowly down the wooden porch steps and over to where the cowboys sat in the glowing firelight. A scent of pipe smoke wafted on the air around his broad shoulders.

“Now, wait a minute, Mister Bouchard,” said Cleveland Ellis. “I didn’t know you was listening.”

“I bet you didn’t,” said Bouchard. He turned a glance and a nod toward Cray Dawson and said through his walruslike gray mustache, “Howdy, Crayton.”

“Howdy, Mister Bouchard,” said Dawson.

Then Bouchard said to Ellis and Braden, “Roll your bunks and be out of here first thing in the morning. See me for your pay. Nobody treats a guest with rudeness around my fire.”

Cleveland Ellis jutted his chin. “I don’t have to wait till morning. I’ll roll my bunk and take my pay tonight.”

“That goes for me too,” said Moon Braden.

“Shaney,” said Bouchard, “go to the box…get both of them paid up through today.”

“Yes, Mister Bouchard,” said the old cook, hurrying away to the house.

While they stood waiting for Shaney to return, Cleveland Ellis said to Cray Dawson, “I’ll run into you along the trail. Then I’ll tell you what I think of you and your friend Shaw.”

Dawson set his plate and coffee cup aside, and stood up facing Cleveland Ellis and Moon Braden with no more than ten feet between them in the flickering glow of firelight. “I ignored your mouth out of respect to Mister Bouchard and his spread. Now that you’re not a part of the spread, say what you think you’re able to back up.” His hand poised near his Colt.

Cleveland Ellis thought about it. Dawson could see it in his eyes. He could also see in Moon Braden’s eyes that he was ready to follow Ellis’s lead. On the ground, cowboys scooted out of the line of fire, but most of them kept eating, their eyes riveted on Dawson and the other two men.

But then, instead of making a move, Cleveland Ellis eased down, raising his hand purposefully away from his tied-down pistol. “That’s all right, Moon, let’s let it go,” he said over his shoulder to his companion. “We’ve got bigger fish to fry.” He let himself offer a flat smile to Cray Dawson. “You and me will cross trail again. This can keep.”

“Suit yourself,” said Dawson. But he didn’t sit down, nor did he turn his back on the pair. Instead he stood facing them until the old cook came trotting back from the house carrying money in both fists.

“Pay them,” said Bouchard, keeping a steady gaze on Cleveland Ellis.

The cook handed each man a fistful of money. “Count it if you need to,” he said.

“Don’t worry, I
will
count it,” said Cleveland Ellis. “It better all be there.”

“Well, you insulting son of a—”

“That’s enough, Shaney!” said Bouchard, cutting the cook off before his words sparked a gun battle. “If that money ain’t right, you come see me,” said Gains Bouchard. “I’ll teach you how to count it.”

“Come on, Moon,” said Ellis. “I’ve been wanting to get shed of this bunch. This is a good time to do it.” They both backed off a couple of steps, then turned and walked away toward the bunkhouse.

As soon as they were out of sight in the darkness, Bouchard turned to Cray Dawson and said in a gruff tone, “They’re lucky this ain’t the old days. We used to horsewhip a man for acting that way to somebody in off the trail at mealtime.”

“I didn’t mean to cause trouble,” said Dawson.

“You didn’t cause it. I’ve known you since you was too short to reach the stirrups. You always was too hard on yourself.” Before Dawson could say another word, Bouchard said, “Come on, bring your grub up on the porch. I want to talk to you.”

Picking up his plate and coffee, Dawson followed the broad-shouldered rancher and the smell of his pipe smoke across the dark yard to the house. Once they settled into two wooden porch chairs and Dawson set his coffee and food on a wicker table, Gains Bouchard said in a lowered tone of voice, “It’s mighty good to see you, Crayton.”

“Same here,” said Dawson, “and I
do
apologize for
awhile ago. It seems like everywhere I go these days, trouble flares up.”

Gains Bouchard’s expression turned clouded. “Didn’t you know it would before you strapped that gun on and went manhunting?”

“I never gave it any thought,” said Dawson. “It had to be done. If I had to do it over, I’d do it the same way, whatever it cost me.”

“I understand,” said Bouchard. He took a long draw of smoke from his pipe and blew it out slowly. “I brought you up here on the porch so I wouldn’t have to say this in front of the men.” He hesitated for a moment, then said, “If you came here looking for work, I can’t hire you right now, Crayton.”

Dawson just looked at him.

“I can see what you’re thinking,” said Bouchard, “but it ain’t because you’ve gone and got yourself a reputation.” He pointed at Dawson with his pipe stem. “Although you don’t make it easy on a fellow, coming back to Somos Santos with a string of shootings following you. You know how crazy these drovers get over something like that. Pretty soon they’re all thinking they can do the same.”

“Then what is it?” Dawson asked, sipping his coffee.

“I’m short of work and long on hands.” Bouchard shrugged. “We just pushed a herd to Missouri for the army. Right now there’s nothing else in sight. I can make a spot for you, but I know you don’t want that.”

“No,” said Dawson, “I’ve never been hand-fed. I wouldn’t know how to act.”

“I knew that was how you’d feel,” said Bouchard, settling back in his chair.

“Sonny Wells told me there’s been more rustling going on than usual,” said Dawson. “What’s causing it?”

“More
people
, is what’s causing it,” said Bouchard. “It’s no great surprise that where there’s more people there’s more stealing, is it?”

“I reckon not,” said Dawson. “I was just curious, is all.”

Realizing that Sonny Wells had said more on the matter, Bouchard gave Dawson a narrowed look and said, “But missing cattle ain’t what’s been bothering me. What’s bothering me is seeing a good town like Somos Santos go to hell, and nobody there lifting a hand to stop it.”

“Sonny never mentioned Somos Santos,” said Dawson.

“He would have, if you’d gave him time,” Bouchard replied. “Right after you left here, the town had an election and voted Sheriff Bratcher out of office.” He sucked on the pipe, blew out a stream and said, “They voted in a fellow by the name of Martin Lematte. Since he took office the town has been turning into one big cesspool of crooked gambling, whoring, drinking, and opium smoking. Lematte is slicker than a bucket of eels. You watch your back if you spend any time in town. I figure he’ll have to pin you down right away. He’ll have to know right off whether you’re with him or against him now that you’re tied down at the hip.”

“More gun trouble,” said Dawson, shaking his head slowly. “That’s exactly what I came back here to get away from.”

“Good luck getting away from it.” Bouchard smiled knowingly. “I just thought I better warn you
before you ride in there and find you’re not welcome anymore.”

“I’m finding that most places I go,” said Dawson. He sipped his coffee, ignoring the remaining food on his plate.

Dawson rode out early the next morning, after scraping half of his breakfast off into the dirt for a couple of yard dogs to growl over. Shaney the cook looked at the dogs eating the discarded food and scratched his head. Then he watched the big bay trot out of sight onto the main trail toward Somos Santos as he said to his helper, “I reckon once a man gets himself a reputation he ain’t required to eat the way the rest of us do, eh, Frenchy?”

Frenchy gave his boss a look and said, “I was giving it some thought this morning, and you know what? I believe I’ve known Crayton Dawson longer than
you
have.”

“Like hell you have!” said Shaney, taken aback by such a claim. “Now get the rest of these drovers fed. We ain’t letting them sit around all day doing nothing!”

Cray Dawson rode the main trail until mid-morning, then turned off onto a weed-grown path and followed it to a clearing between two upthrusts of rock. In front of a sun-bleached plank line shack, he stepped down from his saddle at the hitch rail and shouldered his saddlebags and the poke bag Shaney had prepared for him. He drew his rifle from
its boot and said under his breath, “Welcome home, Cray Dawson,” as if his voice belonged to someone speaking to him from the rickety front porch. Then he walked up onto the porch and nudged the door open as it swung back and forth slowly on a hot breeze.

Inside, he saw the tail of a lizard disappear down off the top of an oaken table, then shoot down through a crack in the floor a second later. In the dust on the plank floor he saw where a snake had recently wound its way out the open back door. Leaning his rifle against a wall and dropping his saddlebags onto the table, he walked to a dust-covered broom standing in a rear corner and picked it up.

An hour later, he had swept the floor, dusted the few battered pieces of furniture, and gathered a pile of mesquite brush and oak kindling for a fire in the small hearth. He went outside and rolled a heavy rock off of the wooden well cover and pulled the cover off. He shook dust off of a small metal pail tied to the end of a coiled rope and let fifteen feet of the rope slide through his hands into the blackness, until he heard the pail splash quietly in the water. With the pail filled, he covered the well and walked back into the shack. He took a small bag of coffee beans from the poke sack Shaney had given him before he’d left the Double D Spread. He crushed enough beans with his pistol butt to boil a pot of coffee.

While the coffee heated, he took out a small bag of dried beans, considered cooking a pot, but then changed his mind and set the bag aside. He had no appetite. It wasn’t food he needed, he told himself. He couldn’t name what it
was
he needed, but he was
certain it wasn’t food. Waiting on the coffee, he walked out and led Stony out of the sun to a lean-to inside a small rail corral filled with clumps of wild grass that had grown all summer long.

“Graze it down,” he told the bay. Lifting the saddle and bridle from the horse, he dropped them over a fence rail out of the sun. He picked up an oaken bucket, carried it to the well, and returned with it full of cool water. He set the bucket at the horse’s hoofs, then walked back to the house.

When the coffee had boiled and he’d taken it off the fire and let it settle, he poured a cup and took it out on the front porch. He righted an overturned rocking chair with a busted cane bottom and sat on it sipping his coffee for a moment. Then, restless, he set the cup down, walked inside, and took out an old drawstring cloth pouch of smoking tobacco that had been in his saddlebags too long to remember. He carried the tobacco and some wrinkled rolling papers onto the porch and sat rolling and smoking cigarettes as the sun moved over into the western sky. He didn’t realize he’d spent the afternoon thinking about Rosa Shaw until all of a sudden it was gone and there was nothing he could do about it. Looking down at the empty coffee pot and the stained cup sitting near his feet, he cursed silently and stood up.

“I can’t stand this, Rosa,” he said, not knowing if he’d said it aloud or only in his mind. Kicking his boot through a pile of crushed cigarette butts and the empty tobacco pouch, he stepped down off the porch, walked around the house, and came back moments later leading the bay by its reins, saddled and ready for the trail.

He rode into Somos Santos as evening stretched
long across the land and the sun set low and simmering in a sea of red fire. Stony cantered quarterwise the last few yards, as if knowing that cool shade awaited in the black slices of shadow reaching out from the rooftops of buildings to the wide street below.