Duster (9781310020889) (29 page)

That whole while we was riding, I hadn't a
chance to talk to Jesus, and I spent considerable time wondering
what he was thinking about it all. Later, when we had ate, we had a
chance to talk without Josiah or Ben hearing everything we might
say.

"Duster, I don't know about you, but I ain't
real happy about all this."

"That's just great...but what do we do about
it?"

Jesus shrugged his shoulders. "Wait, I
guess."

"I'd sure like to cut loose from these
two."

"You wanta get beat on by that Ben? I
don't."

"Me neither. I wish now I'd kept my mouth
shut last night. Maybe they wouldn't of been so edgy, watching us
all the time like they do."

"It's too late to think about that now." He
shook his head. "I try to set you a good example for how you oughta
act aroun' strange gringos, but you don't pay me no mind. Anyhow,
if I was going to go to wishing for something, it'd be for
something worth having—like fifty mile between them an' us, or for
that pistol you tried to talk me out of. If old man Hogan'd had
some cheap pistols, we wouldn't be in such a bad fix now, I
bet."

"There's something I ought to own up to.
Hogan did have some old guns stashed under the counter. We just
figured you was too young an' innocent to be trusted with one of
them."

"Sometimes I think there's hope for you,
Duster, but then I come back to my senses an' I realize just how
dumb you really are. You a real gringo, boy."

"I cain't deny it. Tomorrow maybe, but not
right now."

"What happens tomorrow?"

"That's when we wake up and find we was
having a bad dream."

"Hokay. I'll keep that in mind. If it don't
work out, though, I'll blame you."

Well, it didn't happen. We turned in early,
sharing my soogan, but Josiah and Ben was so close we didn't dare
to whisper or we'd be heard, and neither one of us wanted to get
them riled by our talking. Besides, we had nothing at all to say to
them and not much to say between the two of us right then. We was
both having a little trouble getting used to the idea.

I guess Jesus and me both had the thought of
staying awake until Josiah and Ben went to sleep, and then the two
of us slipping off with the horses. That didn't happen either. For
one thing, they took turns sitting up awake with the horses. For
another, we both went to sleep after a spell, having been up riding
most of the night before.

One minute I was laying there wrapped up in
my soogan, listening to Ben scratch himself and spit from the
tobacco he chewed. The next thing I knew, I was waking up with a
boot toe thumping my side.

"Get up, kid. We got a ways to go
today."

When I opened my eyes all I could see was
Ben standing over me swinging his right foot back and forth with a
slow, lazy motion. At the front of every swing, I got another thump
from his boot.

"I'm awake," I said real quick and proceeded
to shake Jesus out too. Ben muttered something and walked off.

Josiah was by the fire
drinking steaming hot coffee out of a cup that had seen better
days. He nodded toward a second
cup lying
on the ground. It was plain that it was Ben's cup and it was plenty
dirty with old stains and fresh dirt where he'd thrown it down.
There wasn't anything else to use and with no food in sight I
correctly figured we weren't going to get any breakfast, so I wiped
the cup out as best I could and filled it from the skillet they'd
used to boil the coffee in.

"Terrible, ain't it?" Josiah said. He seemed
in a good mood anyway.

He was right about the coffee, too. They
hadn't dumped in any cold water to get the grounds to settle out,
and there was a layer of oil globs floating on the surface from
grease that lifted out of the skillet. It don't pay to use the same
pan for cooking bacon and coffee. I took a swallow of it just to
get something hot inside of me and handed the cup to Jesus.

"Gracias, senor. You are mos' kind," Jesus
told Josiah.

"Sure, kid. And we don't aim to put you boys
out, just have you talk with our boss like we told your friend
here."

"Of course, senor. We do no mind, eh? Ees no
trouble. Bot we gots to hurry. I gots to meet my fren Senor Estrada
soon."

Josiah looked real serious. "Then you got no
problem, kid. If you're a friend of Juan you got nothing to fret
about."

"Oh, si," Jesus said with a smile. "Him an
me ees good fren. Soon I be beeg enuf to stay weeth him for a
visit, yes?" He bore down hard on that word "visit" and got a big
smile from Josiah.

"You, kid," Josiah said pointing at me, "go
see if Ben needs help with them critters."

I did what I was told, even though Ben
didn't need any help. Behind me I could see Josiah and Jesus
talking together for quite a while.

We rode hard again that
day. All day. Josiah rode first, setting the pace. Then came me and
Jesus with Ben close behind us. We was back in spiny thorn country
now but not so thick as at home. We aimed further north than the
way we had come out with the herd, and I began to suspect they were
going to stay clear of McMullen County and the brush country
even
though it would of been quicker to go
straight west if we was going toward Piedras Negras or any part of
Mexico.

We went quite a ways, near to Jourdanton,
the county seat of Atascosa County. We knew about where we was at
because Josiah mentioned it when we splashed through the shallow
run that was the Atascosa River not far below its start. Straight
south from there was where we had put the herd together at Three
Rivers and where I had first seen Josiah and Ben. That seemed an
awful long time ago, back when I could say and do as I pleased and
didn't have to go along with a couple of fellows I really didn't
want to be with.

Once we crossed that river, I felt so I
could hardly stand having to go with them anymore. It wasn't any
distance down to the Frio, and home was on the Frio, thirty or
maybe forty miles away at the most. If I rode at night I could be
home for breakfast with Ma and the small fry. I could set down to
table with them and have corn dodgers and buttermilk cool from the
night air and maybe even some jowls sliced thin and fried up like
bacon to celebrate my coming home.

The more I thought on it, the more I wanted
to go home so I could show off my new hat and tell them how it was
working cattle on the trail and how much cash money Mister Sam
Silas would be bringing along with the horses. And then most
specially to take out the presents I had bought for them and to
watch their faces when they saw what all was there.

Those presents were in their sack, tied
behind my saddle. And the steeldust was still pretty fresh under me
thanks to Josiah's leading our pace and to my light weight.

I wanted to go home...but I was afraid of
Ben. He had hit me hard and didn't care a bit if he did it again. I
knew that.

In a way, I was even more afraid of Josiah
because he was a lot smarter than Ben and was awful mean too. I
thought about those things and I was scared, but I reminded myself
that neither of them had really hurt us. They had talked a lot
louder than they had acted. My thoughts spun faster and faster,
about Ma and Ben and the ranch and the ride at night away from
Rockport and Little Bo and Molly and Josiah and the sack of
presents and the steeldust.

The heck with it, I thought.

I hauled hard left on the reins, kicked the
steeldust good and hard, and let out a yell that picked him up from
a slow walk to a dead run right now. Tired as he must of been after
near a full day walking, that horse took just the littlest piece of
a second to bunch its muscles and then it exploded, taking off like
a whitetail being flushed out of some chaparral.

I caught a glimpse of Ben's face as we
flashed past. By the time me and the steeldust had turned all the
way around and were moving good, Ben had started to be surprised. I
practically could have touched Ben as we went by. His jaw had
started to drop and he was beginning to straighten up in the
saddle. Me, I was low in my saddle and stretching out with that
steeldust every thrust of his legs.

"Stop that kid." It was Josiah's voice but
it seemed to float to me from way far away. The wind was already
roaring in my ears from the speed of the horse. From that way far
place I heard another shout, this one a high, sharp yell that I'd
heard plenty of times in the month past, one I'd heard plenty from
Jesus's side of the herd.

The brush and rocks flew past me faster than
I could see them. Right then, the whole of the world was thudding
hooves and blurred earth flowing underneath my eyes as that
wonderful horse went flat out and belly down.

I yelled again. I couldn't help it. And I
held my hat in my hand or it would of been blown off sure.

My lungs filled with air
that was clean and sweet and was forced down deeper than I thought
breath could ever go. Between my knees, even through the leather of
the saddle, I could
feel the smooth
working of the horse. There was an easy rhythm to his running,
softer than I would have believed at such speed. It was almost a
gentle motion, rocking from front to back. The rhythm changed from
time to time. The rocking stopped when we sailed over stone or
cactus clump. It slurred from one side to the next when we darted
around an obstruction. With my head low on the steeldust's neck, I
could feel his motion in the saddle horn pressing into my belly,
but even that was gentle.

Over the sounds of the wind in my ears
and the rattling thud of iron shoes striking sand and stone I could
hear an occasional hollow plop of noise behind me. At first I
didn't know what it was, but then I realized. Back there
somewheres, Ben or Josiah or both of them was shooting at
me.

It was odd when I realized
what the noises were. I knew I should be more scared than I'd ever
been before, but I wasn't. Not at first. At first I was just
surprised. I had never really thought about somebody shooting at me
and it was hard to believe. Then I was curious. I knew they were
shooting at me but I
didn't know where the
bullets was going. That bothered me. I wanted to be able to see the
bullets come past or at least hear them so I'd know where they
were.

Once I thought about those bullets and knew
they were somewhere close by without me being able to see or hear
them, I begun to get scared. If I couldn't see them, they could hit
me and I couldn't duck out of their way. I couldn't know when one
might hit or where, and my stomach began to freeze up. My back felt
naked and I wished I could hide behind a rock, any place to get out
of the way. If I did that, though, I'd have to stop and then they
would catch me and shoot me.

I heard one of the bullets then, and I hoped
I'd never hear another. It was a terrible sound. It was like the
awfulest hornet in the world, but fast. It went by with a buzzing
hiss of sound that was gone almost before it came, but the memory
of it wouldn't leave my ears.

I hunched closer against the steeldust's
neck and wished I could be younger again than I was so I'd be
smaller and harder to hit with one of those bullets.

The race wasn't so gentle and easy now. The
rhythm of the horse's running was no longer so smooth. His
breathing was labored and his strides awkward. I could feel him
starting to falter. He stumbled, caught himself and ran on. He
stumbled again and tossed his head in an effort to stay up. The
back of his neck hit me in the side of my face and I could feel the
roughness of his mane scraping across my eyes. I remember thinking
how silly it was to pay attention to something like that. Then we
were falling and I was thrown clear as the horse tumbled forward
and down. I clearly remember the sound of that beautiful
steeldust's neck snapping as it struck the earth.

I guess I blacked out for a few minutes. The
next thing I knew, I was laying on the ground with Josiah kneeling
beside me.

"How d'ya feel, kid?"
Josiah was smiling, but it was not a pleasant smile at all. "You're
prob’ly wondering where ole Ben is, ain't you, kid? He's bringing
your buddy back here. You been a naughty boy. You gave your buddy
some bad ideas about
running away from us,
kid. Now, ole Ben's gonna be real mad with you."

Josiah's eyes were bright, and I didn't like
the look he was giving me. He seemed happy that Ben was coming back
with Jesus. He seemed to be looking forward to what Ben would
do.

I turned cold all over. I'd heard of it
happening, and now I knew what it meant. I thought I'd been scared
before. A few minutes ago riding the steeldust in front of those
bullets. Weeks ago, when the Mexican bandits caught us. But I
hadn't been, really. Now, I popped out in little beads of sweat
that felt like melting snow on my skin. I was afraid to try to move
because I knew that if I tried I wouldn't be able to make my body
work, and feeling it not work would be even worse than laying there
knowing that it wouldn't.

I think I cried some while Josiah knelt
there beside me. That smile stayed on his face and he talked to me,
soft and crooning like a mother talks to a baby.

"It's all right, kid." He was almost
whispering in a low, singsong voice. "You won't mind it once Ben
starts. Really you won't, kid. You'll like it. Just wait and
see."

Josiah wiped the sweat off my forehead. I
couldn't take my eyes off him while he unknotted the red kerchief
at his throat and folded it carefully and dabbed at my forehead
with gentle, quick pats like Ma used to do when I was little and
got sick or hurt.

"Ben just wants to teach you a lesson, kid.
That's all. An' it won't hurt near as much as you think it will.
Ben's strong, he is. His punches land hard and push in down deep
where you'll remember them good. They land good an' heavy so they
don't hardly hurt at all on the outside."