Duster (9781310020889) (17 page)

Going easy, as we were, the horses never got
overworked either. Every hand, except Bill of course, used three
mounts a day. One for morning, one for afternoon, and one for
night.

Right at first I didn't realize how much a
man can favor his night horse, and that led to something of a fuss
between me and B.J. Hollis.

The second afternoon out I
was helping some of the
boys rope their
afternoon mounts. Split Emmons came in from the herd and commenced
to offsaddle. While he was doing that, just to be helpful-like, I
dabbed a loop onto an ugly brown, black, and white paint that
looked terrible but had good feet and moved real easy in spite of
its awkward appearance.

I led the horse to Split and was about to
turn it over to him when I heard this awful commotion behind me.
When I looked, here come B.J. at a flat-out run, kicking his horse
through the scrub for all they was both worth. When he got close I
could see that he was awful mad.

"Git yore dud-blasted rope off'n that horse,
you no-'count dumb kid. Git it off'n him right now 'fore I lay you
out."

He came boiling up beside me and slid to a
stop, and before his horse was even stopped B.J. had piled off and
had jumped alongside that ugly paint. "Git. Git. Git." He looked
like he was so mad he couldn't say anything else while he peeled my
rope off the horse. Then he turned toward me and flung the rope
back at me.

"Don't you never, boy, don't you never put a
rope on my night horse again ... not unless I come and tell you
myself. Do you understand what I'm sayin'?" He was all red in the
face and puffing, standing with his hands on his hips and breathing
in and out hard. For a second I was scared he was going to come at
me. "D' you understand me, boy?"

"Ye...yessir. I do."

"You
better."
B.J. squared his shoulders
like he was trying to get himself calmed down, then he turned
around and started jerking the gear off his morning horse and
throwing it down on the ground.

Split looked sort of embarrassed for me, but
he didn't say anything. I didn't either. I wanted to tell B.J. that
I hadn't meant no harm. I didn't know whose horse it was or that
he'd have anything against anybody else riding it. But it sure
didn't seem the right time for me to try talking to B.J. Hollis, so
I turned and got out of there and went over to the other side of
the remuda.

I watched from there while Split caught up a
horse and rode off toward the noon fire and while B.J. roped his
fresh horse. He was still some upset for it took him three throws
to put a loop on an animal standing stone still at the edge of the
remuda. I was glad when he got remounted and left.

A little while later, after most of the
others had already come and gone, Ike Partley came over to pick out
a horse. I was on the far side of the remuda from him, too, but I
worked my way around to him. I'd intended to just say something
sort of casual and ask him a thing or two, but when I got over by
Ike I started pouring words out awful fast. I told him all about
it, and though I never meant to, I heard my voice begin to take on
a little bit of a whine. I didn't like that at all so I shut up
before I started bawling.

By then, Ike had pretty near all of the
story, though. He finished stripping the tack off his morning horse
and then sat down on the saddle with a wave of his hand for me to
get down and join him.

I hunkered down next to him while he shaved
some tobacco into his pipe and got it lighted up.

"I guess maybe I should of told you about
that, Duster, but I never thought to. You're lucky old B.J. ain't
much of a violent man...an' that he got there afore Split had rode
off with his night horse. They's some people will pull a gun over a
night horse.

"You see, it takes something out of a man if
a herd of long-horned cow brutes takes off on a tear at nighttime.
It's so dark and there's horns and rocks and steep washes all
around, and all a drover can do is let his horse out and trust him
to keep them both alive while they try to stop the cows. You
understand? "

I nodded.

"Now, that don't happen
all the time...maybe once on a long drive, maybe twice. If you're
lucky, maybe never in your lifetime. But it
could
happen. Them animals could
take off tonight or tomorrow or right now—for no reason at
all.

"Anyway, the thing is, a
man's awful careful about a horse that he may be trusting himself
to in a nighttime run over strange ground. A stumblefooted horse
can kill him just as
dead just as sure as
a Yankee ball might of done, or the pox, or anything else. So, it
ain't unusual for a man to be particular about his night horse.
It's for sure he don't want anybody tiring it out during the
day.

"What I'd tell you to do, was you asking,
'ud be for you to take notice of the horses everybody catches out
at night an' then don't you rope them horses for the day nor don't
you let nobody else do it neither. All right?"

"Yessir," I said. "Uh, Ike...Mister Partley,
there's something I wondered if you'd do for me. I never meant to
do nothing wrong. Maybe, maybe if you'd tell B.J. that..."

"No." He said it quick and firm. "You may be
new on the trail, but you're growed enough. You want something
done, you do it your own self. I can show you the rope but you got
to throw it yourself. You got to stand on your own hind legs,
boy."

That was straight enough, and there wasn't
no way I could argue with it. I nodded my thanks and went back to
work.

I didn't see B.J. Hollis again until
evening, him having eat and gone before I got over to eat my noon
meal and help Bill start off again, but that night I got B.J. off
to one side alone and said my piece apologizing to him. I told him
I was sorry, I hadn't known. And he said he wasn't mad any more and
for me to forget it. I knew I wasn't going to forget about it... no
more than I was likely to rope out that painted night horse of his
again. But I thanked him, and we parted with no permanent hard
feelings, though he never after seemed to have much use for me.

Another thing I done that night was go
around and mark down in my mind each and every horse that had been
saddled for a night animal, and by who. I didn't want to make that
same mistake a second time.

After the evening meal was done, I made sure
the horses were settled comfortable and fetched up enough wood for
the breakfast fire. Then I hunted around for a soft-looking spot
big enough for my soogan.

It didn't take any time at
all to get my stuff unrolled and wrapped around me. I stretched out
on the ground with the
soogan pulled close
around my ears and listened to the sounds going on around the camp.
It was comfortable there. The thick soogan felt good, for it was
coming on chill and a little damp, and the heavy wrapper made me
feel warm all over. I wiggled my toes and stretched, and the
stretching started a lazy yawn tickling its way up out of my
throat. There was a stick or a bit of rock or something poking in
the small of my back on the right side, but it was padded enough by
the soogan that it wasn't worth bothering with. I scooted over to
the left a bit and that made it feel better, so I just laid back
and relaxed and let the hum of the campfire conversation slip in
past the folds of cloth that were bunched up near my ears. The talk
sort of melted together into a soft buzz that had a drowsy kind of
sound. I couldn't pick out any particular words or any one
conversation though every so often a word or two would come through
so I could understand them. It sounded funny.

"...raise you one...price down
again...screwworms bad...sure...yeah, she's a real looker.. piked
some monte once...good beef but short legged...sure miss that
garden truck...Annie's place is better than...north next
year...good grass but no...bluffed you again...dollar a head
if..."

The voices droned and while they did it
seemed I was sinking down deeper and deeper into my soogan. I'd
been watching the stars up overhead but it occurred to me just then
that I wasn't looking at them any more—just remembering them sort
of. Not that it made any difference. I was too comfortable to care
about much of anything.

I worked down deeper and warmer.

Next thing I knew, I was still warm, but my
nose tickled and I kept wanting to blink. I couldn't figure out why
at first until I tried to turn my head and rub my face into the
folds of my soogan. When I did, I didn't nuzzle into a nice, warm
fold of cloth but into a doggone wet, cold mess. I came awake then,
wide awake, to discover it was drizzling rain. Water running all
over my face was what had woke me up and set my nose to
tickling.

I glanced up and instead
of bright stars the whole sky
was clouded
over. It seemed like it was only seconds since I had laid down, but
I must of slept. When I sat up and looked around, I could see it
was coming nigh onto morning. Tommy Lucas's gear was already rolled
and tied, and he had the predawn trick on nightherd.

While I watched, it started to rain harder,
and several of the fellows stirred in their bedrolls and pulled
covers over their heads to keep the wet off. I don't know that they
ever got awake enough to even know they was doing it.

Some little distance away, I could see
Digger Bill coming awake. He always slept on a thick pile of empty
sacks and tarps that covered his packs during the day and a blanket
or two, always close to his pile of cook tools and chuck. I figured
he wouldn't be in too good a mood after waking up to rain, so I
jumped up on my own without him having to come wake me.

I slipped into my shoes, only flinching a
little when my warm feet hit cold, wet leather, and rolled my
soogan up as fast as I could so I could maybe keep it dry inside
even if it was soppy wet on the outside layers. By the time that
was done, I was pretty well soaked myself, and I didn't have a
slicker to keep the rain off.

It was plenty cold what with the morning
chill and being wet and having just got out of a warm bed, but
there was work to be done and standing there feeling miserable
wouldn't help. I could just as well feel miserable while I got
something done.

"Mornin', Bill," I whispered when I got over
to him.

He growled something back at me that I
couldn't figure out. Then he muttered for me to "get the dang fahr
going."

I started to do that, knowing the coals from
last night's fire would be drowned out by now so I'd have to start
from scratch. But when I went over to get some wood from where I'd
piled it the night before, the tarp cover was flat on the ground. I
looked under it but like I'd suspected there wasn't so much as a
nubbin of fuel there.

Now, I got to admit it,
right then and there I got about as mad as I'd ever been in my
life. I mean, I had gone and dragged in three good loads of dry
wood the night before, and I'd been
as
tired as anyone else when I did it. When I seen that every little
stick of my wood was gone, I purely saw red. The first thing I
wanted to do was to go around and give a good, hard kick to the
backside of every hand and every owner in the crowd from Mister Sam
Silas right on down. Next thing, I felt like going around and
smashing everything in sight. Instead, I stomped over to where Bill
was sawing slabs off of a big chunk of bacon.

"Some
lousy...no...good...sorry cow-chasing
thief
went and stole all the wood I
had piled up. An' I hope whoever it was went an' lost every cent he
has or ever will have play in' monte by the light of my wood. An'
don't you go an' try an' defend 'em neither. I know that's what
happened, an' I know there's not the least bit of dry wood anywhere
around here now."

Bill didn't say anything at first, though he
set his long old butcher knife aside. Finally he looked up and
asked, "What you gonna do about it, boy?"

"I'd go find me a chunk o' wood and lay it
up against his head if I knowed who it was...but I don't. So, I
ain't going to do nothing about it. Nothing, an' that includes
getting more wood. Whoever went an' used up all the dry wood can go
fetch back some more if he wants a hot breakfast, far as I'm
concerned." I was still mighty hot tempered and breathing hard.
Right then I'd of been willing to light into Bill or anybody
else.

He didn't say a word, though. He thought for
a minute on what I'd said, then he nodded and started putting his
stuff back into the sacks. Even the coffee was stowed back away.
When everything was put away Bill looked over at me. "Wake 'em and
tell 'em boy."

"Now?"

"If they'se gonna ride hungry they jus'
might's well do 'er now."

So, I went around from bedroll to bedroll
shaking people awake. They all came awake quick enough. I never
even had trouble getting Eben Dyer up, just peeled back his
covering and let the rain get to him and he come right up off the
ground spitting and snorting and wiping his face.

Right at first everybody was too sleepy to
notice anything different around Digger Bill's little pile of
stuff. They hurried up to get into boots and hats and slickers, in
that order, and then rolled their stuff together.

Then one by one they came trooping over to
where last night's fire had been to stand there with sleep still on
their faces while it kind of come over them slow that there wasn't
neither fire nor breakfast waiting for them there. It was sort of
funny to watch, really. I sneaked a look at Bill and I do believe
he was enjoying himself.

Mister Sam Silas was the last to come over
to the group and about the first to figure out what was wrong.
"What in the blue billy blazes is going on here?" he wanted to know
in a voice that liked to’ve knocked us all down. I had never knowed
he could turn loose a sound like that, especially so early in the
day when the rest of us was groggy and half asleep.