Duster (9781310020889) (11 page)

"Sure," I said. "Jesus knows more'n me about
all this. I just come along to help drive the horses. That is, if
you're willing to swap."

He cocked an eyebrow at that. Couldn't
understand what "swap" meant, I guessed. I could see his point
about wanting to talk to Jesus about it in Spanish.

Jesus grinned and cut loose with a bunch of
Mex words, and after a while, Senor Valdez said something, but
slower and softer. They kept on and pretty soon Jesus was waving
his hands around and Senor Valdez was talking louder and louder.
This went on quite awhile.

After a great big lunch of the best Mex food
I ever put a tooth to, Jesus handed over Mister Sam Silas's bills
of sale for the fifty head of horses we was swapping, and Senor
Valdez had a couple of his vaqueros ride up the river to fetch back
the forty head we was to take in trade.

"It'll work out good for everybody," Jesus
told me. I guess he had seen me shake my head some when I heard
we'd only be taking forty horses down river. "Senor Valdez, he will
get more money when he sells horses this year, and Senor Sam will
have the fresh horses for us to bring in cows so he can make more
money this year too."

It made some sense, I guess, but I wasn't
used to the idea of having stock enough not to worry about losing
some, even if horses were real cheap right then. There wasn't so
many of them that cash buyers couldn't be found, like it was with
cattle, but even up to San Antonio where the rich eastern buyers
came for horses a mustang would go for maybe fifteen dollars and an
American horse for about twenty-five—more if it was a special good
one.

Anyway, whether Mister Sam Silas liked it or
not, we'd done what we came to Fort Ewell to do. The horses were
brought up into the big holding pen—nice stuff most of them and not
but four or five years old. Senor Valdez loaned us a couple of
saddles to get back to Ramon's place with, said we could leave them
at Mr. Stuart's store to be picked up later, so we didn't wait
around. We each of us picked out a likely looking animal to ride
back on, and as soon as they'd pitched enough to work the kinks out
of their bones we moved the bunch out of the pen and on down the
river.

"It sure feels fine to be up on a horse
again," I hollered over to Jesus when we had them strung out.

He grinned back at me and wheeled his horse
around in a little circle, playful-like. "Seems like it's been a
month," he said and pulled the horse around in another circle going
the other way.

Him cutting up like that
made some of the other horses nervous, and for a few minutes,
there, we had to pay attention to
what we
was doing, for if those young broncs took a notion to run, the two
of us'd have us a time getting them stopped and quiet. And worse,
if a bunch of horses takes off on a run one time they're spoiled
and will do it again and again.

The way we was handling them was for Jesus
to ride on one side of them to keep them strung out with the river
on the left and him there on the right. I came along behind to keep
them moving and not let them string out so far apart that one might
slip off past Jesus.

Once we got to minding what we was doing, we
had no troubles taking them on down to Ramon's place. We got there
late in the afternoon and put about half the horses into his
corral, but since it wasn't big enough to hold any forty head, me
and Jesus and Ramon strung up a rope corral to pen the rest of them
overnight.

When we was done, it was getting sort of
late, so we slung Senor Valdez's saddles over a rail at Ramon's
place instead of carrying them on down to the store right away.

"Fine cousin of mine, you are so close to my
heart I could feel no more for you if you were my own mother's
son," Jesus told Ramon with a big smile and a slap of an arm across
the shoulders. "You have done much for us, eh?"

Ramon thought on that for a minute while
Jesus stood there grinning at him. That Jesus, he wasn't fooling
anybody. Ramon got real serious looking and said, "Si. I 'ave done
much for you already. Maybe too much, eh? Maybe I don't do this one
more thing you are going to ask of me."

Jesus's face started to drop. It kept on
falling, lower and lower, until Ramon caught it up short with a
smile. "Jus' one more, eh?" Ramon said.

"One more only, my cousin," Jesus said. "You
see these saddles we have borrowed of Senor Valdez. He say for us
to leave them with Senor Stuart, but if we go there in the morning,
it will slow our start an' we do not know how far we got to go to
find the boys."

"An' you want me to take these heavy saddles
all the way in to the store for you?"

Jesus spread his hands and said, "Si."

"Hokay," Ramon said. "I do this for you
since you are my own blood cousin." He looked at me then. "But you
... why I should do this for you?"

"Well…" I said, "about the only real good
reason I can think of is that I'm not your own blood cousin and you
don't have to do things for me. You can do just this one more thing
an' be done with it."

"Ha. You see there, Jesus? He got the better
reason than you, eh? Maybe I do it for him an' not for you."

We started back toward the 'dobe where we
could tell from the good smells that Teresa had some supper fixing,
but Ramon stopped short and hit himself up side the head with his
open palm.

"Aiee, I almos' forget what Senor Stuart
tells me today. Is about the two of you. I stop in there to see if
maybe he will buy some smoked meat from the pigs I kill out in the
Brasada an' Senor Stuart say there is a man there today very early.
This man, he say, comes in an' buys some little things in the store
an' then asks have Senor Stuart see anything of two boys with
mules. One a Texian an' the other a 'greaser.' Senor Stuart, he say
this rico asks of him like it is a thing of no importance but his
eyes is all tight an' little when he asks it. Senor Stuart, he
don't talk much anyway an' he don't like this rico much, so he
don't say anything about you. He says he thinks you will want to
know of this so he tells it to me to tell it to you." Ramon made a
face. "An I almos' forget to tell you. Is important, this?"

Jesus shrugged, and I was as puzzled as
him.

"It might of been one of the cow bunch," I
said. "What's a rico anyway?"

"It sure ain't one of the cow bunch," Jesus
said. "There ain't none of them rich, an' that's what a rico is—a
rich, fancy gringo. Besides, any of them'd of asked for us outright
with no beatin' around the bush. And they wouldn't of knowed
anything about them mules."

"I guess not," I admitted. "How about
somebody down from Dog Town?"

"Naw," Jesus said. "Anyone who'd had our way
pointed out by old man Trembel would've asked for Ramon's place.
That's no good either." He thought hard for a minute. "About the
onliest one I could think of would be that big horse buyer from San
Antone—that Jonathon Louis Hutch. Now, he's what I'd call a rico
for sure. It must of been him, though I sure can't figure why he'd
be asking for us."

I really was confused then. "Who in
thunderation is Jonathon Louis Hutch, and how would he be looking
for us two here in Fort Ewell when he's up in San Antone an' never
heard of me, nor prob’ly of you, neither?"

"He ain't in San Antone. I
said he's
from
San Antone— and he seen us on the road down here just
yestiddy mornin'."

I started to ask Jesus just what he thought
he was talking about when I remembered who it was he meant. "You
mean that dude that rode on past us without a howdy? What would he
want with us?"

"I don't know," Jesus said. "Maybe he
dropped something an' figured we might of found it." He shrugged
again. "Who can tell about ricos?"

"Oh, well," I said, "it must not of been
anything much."

We went on into the house, then, to where
Teresa had fixed up some beans and fried peppers and tortillas. I
was hungry and they tasted good. And I was in a good mood anyway—
Jesus had told me that dude's name without being asked.

WE GOT AN early start that next morning and
didn't have any trouble moving the horses along once we got them
over the bridge and onto the proper side of the river— though we
did have a bit of fun getting that done.

Once they got across, we got them strung out
and headed east along the Nueces, working them the same as we had
before with Jesus keeping them close to the river and me pushing
from behind—back where the dust was. I had a suspicion that I might
just as well learn to like the taste of dust for as the junior
member of a drive I was sure to get real well acquainted with it
before I got home again.

We moved them horses right along and in
about twenty miles or so we caught up with the rest of our cow
crowd at a curve in the river where the Nueces turns up toward the
north. Jesus said we was back home in McMullen County by then, but
I couldn't tell it from looking. The grass and mesquite and agarita
seemed the same as always.

Before we reached the others we didn't
exactly see any of them, but we found a burnt-out fire and a bunch
of sacks hanging up in some cottonwoods where they'd left their
supplies and bedrolls and stuff.

"This here's it," I told Jesus. "That's my
soogan and stuff over there."

"Hokay, Duster. We'll move the horses on
down a ways, then you hold 'em there while I come back and see if
they've left anything to eat."

Now, it was way past noon already, and a
long time back to the breakfast we'd had at Ramon's place, so that
sounded good.

We took the horses on a little further until
we found an open flat along the river where I could keep them in a
bunch by myself. Our regular remuda was broke to a bell mare and
would stay close to her, so it was no trouble keeping them handy. I
could just turn the bell mare loose with hobbles on her to keep her
from running off and the rest would stay where they could be got.
We didn't know yet if these new horses would stay with a mare and
we didn't have any idea of trying them out ourselves. We probably
could have hunted up the rest of the remuda and turned the new
stuff loose with them, but it would of been somewhat embarrassing
if they turned tail and walked back to the Valdez place...so I held
them there in a bunch.

Jesus went back to the camp to see if he
could find some food. The horses seemed happy enough just to stand
there and maybe pull at some grass from time to time after the
drive down the river.

They was quiet and Jesus was gone and I sat
there all by myself with some time to think. It was the first time
that had happened since I'd joined up with the cow hunt, and it
felt good for a change.

I stretched and leaned back in the saddle
until I could hear the leather creak, then I sat back up again and
closed my eyes so's I could just sit and listen to the quiet.

There wasn't hardly a sound except for that
of grass tearing when a horse would pull up a mouthful and every
once in a while the wet flutter of a horse blowing out air. It was
kind of pleasant really, having it so peaceful and with the sun
coming down hot against my shoulders.

With my eyes closed, too,
things felt different to the touch. I mean I could really feel the
reins, for instance. I don't know how many times I'd had those
reins run through my fingers or for how many miles or how many
days, and I'd never
before noticed them
one way or another. Now, they felt sort of thick and rougher than
I'd ever noticed before. I dragged the tips of my fingers over
them, and even without looking, I could tell which was the inside
of the hide and which had been the outside when those strips of
leather was cut.

It was nice being all peaceful like
that for a minute or two, but then I heard a little flurry of
sounds, and when I looked, there was a young gelding the mottled
color of oak bark trying to slip out of the bunch on the far side
of the herd so I had to go to work again.

I picked my horse up into an easy lope
and got the gelding turned back where he belonged. After that, I
just sat easy and waited until Jesus came back.

"I found us some cold pone an' some cooked
beef that ain't too old," he said.

"It'll do," I agreed.

"No sign of the rest of them nor of the cows
they've cotched. Can't be too far away, though. They'll be along
directly, I s'pose."

I took a sight on the sun and figured it to
be just shy of mid-afternoon. "Directly," I agreed.

Jesus handed over a chunk of beef half
again as big as my fist and a good-sized piece of corn pone, and
for a time, the two of us sat easy on our horses with that food
tasting good and the sun warm and a job done that we could look
back on. He must of felt pretty much the same as me about it all
for every once in a while he'd look over my way and grin around a
mouthful of beef.

When we'd finished eating we switched our
saddles to fresh horses and turned loose the ones we'd been riding
so they could roll in the dust and get the sweat off their backs.
They seemed to enjoy it, too, laying on their backs and kicking
their legs around and grunting like a couple of happy hogs.

Those horses looked so comfortable once
they'd got back up and shook themselves off that I left the horse
herding to Jesus and walked on over to the river.

I shucked out of my shoes
and leggins and coat and sat
down in that
water at the edge, clothes and all. It felt most too good to be
true. It felt so cool and nice I began to wish I could swim so I
could take off my clothes and get all the way under instead of
sitting at the edge dipping water over the top half of
me.

Still, I managed to get myself plenty wet,
and in truth, I must of looked a sight sitting there in the water
with my clothes sopping wet. I didn't mind, for it felt good, and
couldn't help but make my things cleaner. They hadn't been washed
in some time and was beginning to get a bit rank.