Duster (9781310020889) (32 page)

They put me on a scrubby little mustang that
didn't look like much to start with and was limping from a bad
joint in its near foreleg. It was for sure I wasn't going to make
any mad dash for freedom on that nag.

"What we're gonna do is ride back the way we
come for a piece so you won't be found around here," Josiah said,
"an' it don't make no never-mind to us do we carry you there in
your saddles or tied over them. Make your own minds up about that.
Me 'n Ben don't care."

Josiah was sitting his horse next to Jesus,
staring Jesus in his good eye when he said it. Jesus, he screwed up
his face like he was trying to smile again but instead he spit at
Josiah. He missed the face and landed a glob of bloody spit on
Josiah's throat where it half slid and half dripped out of sight
under his shirt.

Josiah patted the front of his shirt and
left a wet mark there on his chest. Then he reached over, casual as
could be, and backhanded Jesus in the mouth. Weak as he was Jesus
lost his seat and fell off the horse, so I had to crawl down and
help him up.

We rode back south and east, not talking
since there wasn't much that could of been said among us. Jesus
hung in there somehow. He swayed from side to side until at times I
thought he'd fall again, but he never did.

As for me, I sat quiet and watched the
country roll by. The first time I'd been by this way, I hadn't
noticed much that was around me.

I also had a lot of time
to think about things. Knowing somebody was about to shoot him
down, I suppose a person
would be expected
to think a lot about home and dying and what he'd done as a little
kid and things like that. I did think some about a few things like
that, about Ma and the small fry mostly, and worrying about whether
they'd ever find out what happened to me. That part seemed normal
enough. What surprised me, though, was that I really wasn't much
worried about it.

What it came down to was that I just
couldn't believe it was happening. Oh, I could believe easy enough
that we was in trouble and might be beat on some more. After all,
I'd seen that happen to both of us already. But I couldn't make
myself believe Josiah and Ben would really shoot us.

Somehow, I felt deep down inside that when
we got wherever we was going Josiah and Ben would rough us up and
scare us and then finally they'd ride off away from us and leave us
be. I guess I just had to believe that.

We was long since out of the hills near San
Antonio and moved steady across land that rolled and dipped some
but that hadn't much to be said for it. It didn't have the mean
thorn brush of home though it had a scattering of spiny stuff here
and there, and it didn't have the flat, sandy emptiness of the
coast nor even the wide stretches of grass prairie that I had heard
were further north.

The time passed quick—too quick. Before long
it was late afternoon and off in the distance was a motte of big
oaks that I would of sworn looked familiar. Sure enough, we turned
aside and in a few minutes we came to the dead steeldust.

My saddle was still on it and the carcass
had started to bloat. It hurt to look at it. I had really liked
that horse.

What hurt most was seeing the sack with my
presents for the family. It was still tied in place behind the
saddle, but now it was laying half under the dead horse. I couldn't
help but think of the doll for Molly that was in that sack. The
china face and little china hands was sure to be broke having been
treated so.

I turned my head to say something to Jesus,
and there was Ben with a revolver in his hand.

The gun went off with a
sharp roar and a gush of white smoke, and Jesus's grulla dropped
straight down with a bullet
behind the
ear. It dropped down straight and rolled over slow, but Jesus was
still too weak to get out of the way and it rolled over his
leg.

Jesus laid there pinned under the grulla,
watching Ben crawl down off his horse and walk over to him with the
gun still in his hand. Jesus's face was white. I guess he was
hurting pretty bad as well as being scared. And I could see his
lips moving so I guessed he was praying like Mexicans will do
sometimes. Still, he had enough gumption left to grab hold of a
rock from the ground and hold it up like he was ready to fling it
in Ben's face.

Ben just laughed. "That's right, kid, this
here's the place."

Jesus said a few words in Mexican that I
recognized were pretty serious cuss words. Ben must of understood
them too, but he just laughed again.

"Get on down an' get over by your horse,
kid," Josiah said to me. He had got his pistol out of his coat
pocket and was pointing it in my direction.

That was the first time I really and truly
believed they was going to shoot us. I was scared then, and I felt
like I'd been drawn tight all over. My skin and every muscle in me
was stretched taut.

I glanced down toward the little mustang I
was sitting, wondering if I could get one good jump out of him, but
when I looked up again Josiah was looking straight at me and
shaking his head. "He wouldn't make it, an' neither would you."

So I got off the mustang and walked over to
the steeldust—slow.

"You know, we ain't really high on this,
kid, but it's got to be did," Josiah said.

"I don't s'pose it would make any difference
if we promised not to say anything to anybody."

"No, it wouldn't."

"Can I say good-bye to my friend?"

"Trying to put it off for a minute?"

"It won't hurt you none."

Josiah shrugged. "Go ahead."

"They's no sense putting it off," Ben said,
and Jesus cussed him some more, this time in English.

"Kid, if you don't quit that, I'll..."

"You'll what, gringo?" Jesus asked. "There
ain't a thing in this world you can threaten me with."

"Shut up, Ben," Josiah told him. "Let the
little boys cry an' say bye-bye." He grinned. "Besides, the
greaser's right— there ain't a thing you can threaten him
with."

I went over to Jesus and knelt down beside
him, but I didn't know what to say to him and I guess he didn't
know any better than me. We neither of us spoke.

Finally I looked up at Josiah. "Can I at
least help him get his leg loose? It ain't right that a person die
while he's trapped on the ground like some animal."

Josiah didn't say anything so I bent and dug
away as much dirt as I could from under Jesus's leg and lifted on
his saddle horn until he could work his leg free.

"Come on, Jesus, I'll help you stand up.
They might can shoot us, but I'll be dogged if we have to bow down
to them while they do it."

I was feeling all brave and righteous just
then, and I couldn't understand why Jesus got a great big grin on
his face.

"Lie down beside me, Duster," he said in a
low, quick voice. "Hurry."

"Huh?"

"Get down on the ground!" He pulled at me
hard so I got down beside him, not knowing what he had in mind but
going along with it anyway.

From behind me I heard shots. A lot of them.
And I couldn't understand why I didn't feel anything unusual. When
I turned to look, though, I understood.

Ben was down on the ground, sprawled out in
an ugly, awkward way and bloody all over. Josiah was standing with
his right hand up in the air. His left arm was hanging loose at his
side with blood dripping off his fingertips.

Off past them was Mister Sam Silas and Ike
Partley and Crazy Longo and Eben and Tommy and Split and even
Digger Bill with a shotgun in his hands.

I'm not ashamed to say that I cried
then.

MISTER SAM SILAS explained to us that night
after we'd filled up on some of Bill's cooking and were still
working on the coffeepot.

"Those fellows might have been pretty fair
hands at stealing, but they were not real smart," he told us.

"We knew neither one of you boys are the
kind to leave horses untended and just take off without so much as
a by-your-leave. Besides which, Hogan was getting worried about
you, and he told us about the pair of tough-looking hands that had
been hunting for you.

"When we found four sets of tracks leading
away from where you had camped we went on back to Rockport right
off." Mister Sam chuckled. "Hogan loaned us some guns, said we
could return them when we got around to it. Didn't even charge for
their use.

"Anyway, we left B.J. Hollis and a young
fellow who needed some work to take the remuda home, and we set out
after you. We had already decided to stay the night on the
river-bank back there when we heard a shot and Crazy Longo rode
over to look. When he saw what was happening he got the rest of us
and we wandered on over."

"I guess we owe you a power of thanks," I
told him. "You especially," I said to Crazy Longo.

"No more'n I owe you. Call it even."

"It ain't even, but I don't feel like
arguing."

From the other side of the fire Josiah
stared at us. Bill had bound up the hole in his arm, jerking the
rag good and hard when he did it, and now Josiah was tied up so
tight his hands looked blue. He hadn't said a word, though. I think
he was scared to complain, and looking around I could understand
that. These men was my friends, but if I'd been seeing them for the
first time, I might of been scared too.

They had spent three or four tough days—it
seemed a lot longer since I had seen them last—following a trail,
and they was a rough-looking lot. Lean and unshaved and bristling
with guns, they looked about as tough as any crew that ever was. To
me and Jesus, though, they were the finest friends there could ever
be. We was just a pair of kids, but they'd had faith in us.

I heard a footstep crunch on the ground
behind me, and when I turned Tommy Lucas was there. He didn't say
anything, but he held something out in his hand. It was my sack
with the presents in it. I took it with thanks, but Tommy didn't
say anything. He just went off away from the fire. Later, I found
out that Tommy and Eben Dyer had worked my saddle off that dead
steeldust and carried it all the way back to the river and washed
it off, and they did the same for Jesus.

I dug into the sack and everything was
there. I just knew when I pulled Molly's doll out that it would be
smashed to pieces, but it wasn't. Somehow, even after the treatment
it had got, the only thing that was busted was one of the hands.
When Bill saw that he took the doll from me and darned if he didn't
sit down by the fire and make a cunning little bandage out of
strips that he cut from one of his factory-wove drying cloths. He
did that even though he had only used a piece of old sacking to
bandage Josiah, and when he got done you couldn't tell the baby
doll's hand was missing. It looked just like a child's hurt that
had been bound and soon would get well again.

When I laid down to go to
sleep that night I felt awful
good. For a
long time, I laid there and watched the stars wheel above my head
and thought about how lucky I was—not just for getting loose from
Josiah and Ben, but mostly for having such friends as we had. That
was really something.

In the morning, there wasn't even mention of
starting back. Everyone broke camp and got saddled—me on the
mustang again and Jesus riding Ben's horse—and started on.

"Do you boys think you can find your way
back there now?"

"Yessir," I said.

"You might even know where it is, Senor
Sam," Jesus told him. "It is the rancho of Mister Hutch near San
Antonio."

"You're sure of that?"

"Si... I am sure."

Mister Sam shook his head. "I've bought
stock from him myself. Got a fancy breeding mare from him not two
years ago." He shook his head again. "No wonder he'll sell for a
good price if you dicker long enough. Every cent of it is clear
profit. And our stolen beef has been making it possible for him."
Mister Sam gave Josiah a mighty hard look. "And, yes, I know where
Jon Hutch's place is."

We pressed straight on, stopping for not
more than a few minutes at midmorning—not even long enough to boil
coffee.

Along about noon we rode into Hutch's ranch
yard. Mister Sam didn't so much as stop to talk things over or lay
any plans before we went in, and nobody suggested that Jesus and me
stay back out of the way even though Jesus was all black and blue
and aching, and I wasn't feeling tops. We just rode up to the front
door of Hutch's house and sat waiting.

He came out with a big smile on his face,
but it faded dead away when he looked past Mister Sam and saw Jesus
and me and Josiah with his hands lashed to his saddle horn.

"You'll be coming with us to San Antone,
Jon," Mister Sam told him.

"Why, Sam, I don't know what you're..."

"Shut up." I had never
heard Mister Sam use a tone of voice like that. It was as cold as a
handful of packed snow, and I
think if he
had spoke like that in a stampede the cattle would of stopped dead
in their tracks and started bawling.

"Ike," he said, "if this pile of carrion
speaks again or moves without being told, you shoot him. Don't
argue, don't warn him—and don't miss. Just shoot him, and when he
goes down, shoot him a couple more times to make sure." He meant it
too.

Ike didn't say anything back. He just reined
his horse sideways to Hutch and laid his rifle across his saddle
with the muzzle pointed square on Hutch's chest and with his right
hand resting easy at the grip. He rolled the hammer back to full
cock and spat between the toes of Hutch's fancy stitched boots.

"Are there any more of them, Duster?" Mister
Sam asked.

"Not now, there ain't," Eben cut in. "Three
of 'em just took out from the back of the barn makin' fast tracks
toward Mexico."