Duster (9781310020889) (18 page)

Mister Sam had hollered more at Bill than at
anyone else, so everybody turned to stare at Bill. Bill, he stared
back, then he turned and nodded at me.

And me...right then I felt about as foolish
as a body can be. I could tell I was getting red faced from
everybody staring at me, and for just a little while I reckon I'd
have given near about anything to take back the last few minutes
and start all over again. I was tongue-tied for sure, though I knew
I had to say something.

"Well," Mister Sam demanded.

I waved one hand around in the air a little,
but it didn't start my tongue to working again. If I could of said
something I believe I would of apologized for waking them up early
or something like that.

Then I happened to think. Here we all were,
standing around with rain dripping down the backs of our necks and
our feet wet and a long day ahead of us and there wasn't even a
fire to take the chill off or to fix up some coffee to get the day
going. And it was the fault of whoever had taken and used up my
wood. I got mad all over again.

"Mister Sam, sir, there
ain't no fire here nor bacon nor
coffee
nor nothing else. An' as far as I'm concerned there ain't going to
be neither, not if you all are countin' on me for more wood. Last
night I brung wood aplenty an' stacked it an' pulled a tarp over
it, an' then some sneakin' thief went an' stole it. Used it all up.
Well, I ain't fetching any more. Whoever used it can go find us
some dry wood if he wants a hot breakfast, an' if he don't, well, I
still ain't gonna get more wood." I stopped for a second and then
plunged on. "Not now nor later until whoever done it brings in
three good armloads to make up for what he took. An' I reckon I can
go as long without hot chuck as he kin." I didn't know but what I'd
gone too far with that last, but I'd said it and was willing to
stick to it.

Mister Sam Silas stood and listened to what
I had to say. He never let on what he thought of it. B.J. Hollis
looked sort of mad. Ike Partley and Eben Dyer seemed to think it
was funny. Jesus looked a little scared. The others I couldn't tell
about. It was starting to lighten up some, but not so good I could
see very far.

Mister Sam pulled on his chin while he
thought on it. Finally he looked around at the others. "He's right,
boys. We've done him wrong. Everybody in the game last night better
go fetch back some wood."

Mister Sam started off himself and pretty
soon he came back with some damp sticks, enough to get a fire
started anyway. And before long, it was built up into a pretty
fair, if spitting and sputtery, blaze by Ike and Crazy Longo and
Eben and even B.J. Hollis, each of them adding something until Bill
had enough flame to work with. With the rain coming down and us
getting a late start at the cooking, there was no sense trying to
get coals to cook over, so he made do.

Once it was finally ready, that meal tasted
pretty good to me.

JESUS WAS WAITING under the little bit of
shelter given by a thick, squatty mesquite. He looked pretty sorry
sitting on his horse there. The brushy tree gave no shelter at all
from overhead, and didn't even make much of a windbreak to keep
water from blowing in under the brim of his wide hat.

The rain had been coming down steady for two
days, and we was all soaked through to the skin—those who had
slickers just the same as me without one.

The horses was doing all right...I made sure
of that. But the wet and the drag of mud every time they took a
step was beginning to show on them. They walked a little slower
than before with not as easy a motion when they jumped over
something, and they held their heads a little lower than at the
start of the drive, or even before the rain began.

When I had the horses up abreast of himJesus
left the little protection he had and came riding over to me.

"Am I gettin' the day off?" I asked.

"Jus' about, amigo. Today you 'ave got one
ver' fine cowhand to help you with these horses, eh? Tha's the nex'
thing to having the day free of work."

"Glad to have the company I'm sure, but
what's up?" It was still early in the day and I hadn't passed the
herd yet, but I hadn't expected to see anybody from the crew for at
least another hour or maybe more.

"I got sent back to help get these horses
acrost the stream up ahead. It must o' been rainin' right good up
north of us— water's runnin' pretty high. Had some trouble getting
the cows acrost one place an' Mist' Sam thought it might be too
much for you to handle the remuda alone. Said we'll probably need
one of us on the downstream side in the water with 'em an' someone
else to push 'em from behind."

"Okay. How far?"

" 'Nuther half mile or so."

"All right. You go on back and get behind.
I'll go in the water. I can't get much wetter than I already
am."

Jesus nodded and waited where he was while
me and the horses went on toward the stream, then he cut in behind
us to push up the rear. One thing sure—he wasn't going to be choked
up by any dust back there in all that rain.

I worked my way forward on the right side of
the bunch. The Nueces was off to our right as usual, so the stream
would have to be flowing down that way.

When we got over the little rise that had
been beyond Jesus's mesquite I could see why he'd ridden back
toward me. The ground sloped off to the stream he had been talking
about, and there wasn't a thing on that piece of land taller than
four feet at the outside. The rain kept coming down and there was a
pretty fair breeze whipping across the open ground. Down by the
stream there wasn't anything growing of any size either, so I
figured this creek usually would of been just a dry depression. If
it carried water for very much of the year there would of been a
strip of green there with some low trees at the least and maybe
some pecans or an oak motte.

Just then, the dry creek bed was hidden some
place under a pretty healthy run of fast flowing water near the
color of sand. It was awful muddy, and that seemed to make it look
even faster and deeper than it probably was.

"Watch out for the drop-off," Jesus called
out from behind, and I pushed the lead horses into the water.

The water wasn't spread more'n seventy-five
yards, but it looked bad and I was glad to have Jesus handy. There
was a pretty easy slope going in, and for the first little while
the horses splashed along, the stream getting deeper a bit at a
time. About twenty yards out, though, we hit the original creek
bed. One minute we were going through water hock high and a second
later, the front legs of my steeldust dropped off into nothing. He
fell forward until he dipped under, then came up swimming.

I got flung forward when he pitched down
like that, and when he got righted and kicked up to swim I was
still going forward. I smacked my nose against the back of his head
but I never lost my seat, and I was still on him when he hit the
far wall of the old creek bed.

The horses upstream of me had a time
scrambling out at first. I guess they was swimming in water six or
seven feet deep for a few yards and then they had to climb up onto
a shelf they couldn't see but that took them back into water not
more than a couple feet deep. It wasn't easy on them, and they was
scared to start with.

I held the steeldust in the deep water and
let him swim there for a while. He was strong yet and a good
swimmer. The rest of the horses swum past. They had a time getting
up on the shelf, but they made it once they gave it a good try. A
few tried to turn downstream instead of climbing out, but with me
staying there to cut them off and keep them pointed across we
didn't lose any.

Jesus pushed until they
were all in the water; then he slipped over to the downstream side
too. As quick as I saw him in the water I let the steeldust go up
on the shelf too and got
him on solid
ground again. He was too good an animal for me to let him get
overtired.

"That was not so bad, eh?"

"Naw, not too bad. What now?"

"I am supposed to stay with you for now,
hokay?"

"Okay. Lead on."

We took the horses ahead, splashing through
narrow rivulets in places where there'd normally be only sand and
through fair-sized streams nearly everywhere there was a low place
in the ground.

We passed Bill, and then the herd, inside of
an hour and slowed to keep pace with Bill's pack mules once he was
past the beeves. The cattle weren't gaunted or anything like that,
but they was having a hard time of it through the mud. Bill must of
noticed it too for he pulled up early, making it a short drive.

"I can't speak much for your good sense, but
I got to admit you got your share of gumption," I told Bill.
"Mister Sam Silas might not like you stoppin' short and throwing
his drive off by a good couple miles."

"You just leave that to me an' scout me up
somethin' to burn. I know what Mista Sam wants—sometime better'n he
do his own self."

Jesus had heard what Bill told me, so real
quick he took off for the remuda, back where we'd settled them, and
hollered, "I'll help the boys catch their fresh horses. You help
Bill."

I could of cussed him for that. He didn't
even put on a show of trying to be helpful. Staying with the horses
was nothing, but finding something to get a fire going with—that
was going to be no fun at all.

Mumblin' and grumblin' I headed out through
the brush. I went on foot so I could poke around under things
trying to find dry stuff—but I needn't have bothered. There just
wasn't anything dry. As hard as I looked, peering under slabs of
rocks and reaching deep in under bushes, that two-day-old rain had
got everything soaked.

It was getting so I paid
no mind any more to the steady drip-plunk-splat of raindrops on my
head and all over me, and
I was sort of
used to the idea of being wet too. I had to admit there were other
discomforts, though, and they didn't get any better just because I
was used to being wet now. What with having been wet day and night
for more than two days my skin was getting wrinkled, and I was
starting to get powerful sore where I kept rubbing against a wet
saddle all day long. I couldn't see to find out for sure, but I
thought I was busting out in some sort of boils back there. That's
what it felt like anyhow. In a way it was a relief to be on my feet
while I went looking for dry wood, and I hadn't thought I'd ever
admit to that. It's something a riding hand won't often
do.

I searched around and around camp, up a
little swale that was running a foot and a half of water in the low
spots, across every little rise, and around every big rock I could
see. Right there, the land didn't have much up-and-down to it, nor
much greenery, either. All the growing things was pretty
little.

I'd been hoping I could find a downed log
with the bark still on. Then I could of just stripped off the wet
bark on top, used the dry from underneath to get some flame going,
and then feed on some real wood. After that, it wouldn't of made
any difference how hard it wanted to rain. We'd of still had a fire
to cook and to steam out our clothes until we got warm again even
if we couldn't expect to get dry.

Once I gave up on finding a log, I figured
to settle for some small bits of dry wood caught in the middle of a
bushy, green shrub. I went around reaching into the middle of every
fair-sized plant I could find. All of it was wet. That water had
purely got everywhere.

I gave up on that kind of looking real
sudden-like when I reached into the middle of a thick, low thing
that I believe was a juniper. I thought I had found me something
good about as big around as an ax handle. It was cold, but it
didn't feel too wet— and it seemed to have the bark still on it
too. But when I went to pull it out, it wriggled and squirmed and
pulled away from me. Then it rattled.

For a second I couldn't
move or do anything else. I sat there, hunkered down close to the
ground while that cold thing
slid through
my hand. I was froze up so tight I couldn't breathe or swallow or
move.

It seemed an awful amount of time I stayed
there like that, just listening to my heart beating. I could hear
it plain, though I couldn't feel it beat. The only thing I could
feel was that slimy snake and the cold shivers up and down my back—
colder than the rain had ever been.

The rattler quit rattling and I quit holding
at about the same second. I jerked my hand back like I'd grabbed
hold of a branding iron, and I got myself back away from the bush
as far and as hard as my legs could move. It was a considerable
distance, I found, and I landed with a thud—but I never felt
it.

I got my feet back under me and crouched
there, gulping in air and shaking something fierce, but ready to
run for all I was worth if I had to.

Over at the other side of that little bush I
saw the rattler crawl out from where it had been laid up. It was
maybe four-five feet long, and vicious-looking with that flat, ugly
head. It glistened in the rain like it had been oiled, and the
shininess made the markings on its back stand out bold and plain in
the scaly patterns. It must of been laying up out of the rain there
and had got stupid and slow from the cold like snakes and lizards
and some other things will do. It wasn't moving fast even now that
it was awake, and it hadn't rattled very much nor even very fast as
I could judge now that I didn't have it in my hand any more.

The thing slithered off in another direction
and pretty soon was out of sight. I straightened up slow and found
that my legs was all shaky and my heart still beating fast. I was
breathing like I'd just run all the way from Dog Town out to our
homeplace.