Duster (9781310020889) (33 page)

"All right then, start walking, Hutch."

The dude didn't look so
good just then. He looked shrunk up and not near so well fed and
fancy. "You can't be serious, Sam. It's nearly ten miles to town.
For God's sake, show a little
mercy. We
can straighten this out later. Now, you come along while I get my
horse, and we'll ride in together and clear this up,
Sam."

"The night marshal will still be up when we
get there," Mister Sam said. "Ike, if he doesn't want to walk,
shoot him, rope him, and drag him to town."

Mister Sam turned his horse without another
look at Hutch and started the animal at a slow walk for San
Antonio. He was right, too. The night marshal still was awake when
we got there.

They called a special meeting of the Bexar
County grand jury that very next day and took no time at all to
return high sounding indictments charging Hutch and Josiah with all
sorts of things.

Two months later, Jesus and me came back to
give testimony for the trial, and this time Benjie Zakkut gave us
tickets for the stagecoach, compliments of the State of Texas and
Bexar County.

Even better, when we was done and Hutch and
Josiah had been sent off for a prison term, the Stockman's
Association invited us to supper at the Grande Hotel. Mister Sam
Silas was there, though we hadn't even knowed he was coming, and
him and several others got up and talked about how we'd saved them
from losing so many cattle.

When they was done talking, a gentleman
named Pierce gave us each a box which they said would show us how
much they appreciated us figuring out that it was Hutch doing the
thieving.

They gave Jesus a brand new Remington
revolver with fancy scrolls carved on the cylinder. And they gave
me the prettiest pair of boots I ever saw, with a big 3D stitched
on the outside of each boot and curly loops stitched across the
toes.

I wished Ma could of been there then. I
think she would of been proud, and I think she would have thanked
the Lord all over again for hearing that preacher's praying and
bringing me back home safe. Since she wasn't there, I remembered to
thank Him my own self.

Agarita
—a wild currant bush, very thorny, with spiked
leaves

Cantle
—the rise at the back of a saddle's seat, quite high at that
time

Cavvayard
—or
cavvy
, another term for remuda
Chain
(as unit of
measure)—four surveyors' rods, sixty-six feet

Choused
—chased; herding hard and fast from horseback

Chuckwalla
—a large, slow and
particularly ugly lizard

Coma
—more thorny brush, evergreen and bearing a blue berry
favored by doves

Conchoed
—decorated with engraved
silver-plate disks; fancy

Cotched
—caught

Dougherty
wagon
—a four-wheeled light wagon with a
roof and canvas side curtains, normally set up with the seats
running the length of both sides and facing inward

Grulla
—mouse colored, close to dun or buckskin

Huajillo
—a sweet smelling and
lightly thorned bush, excellent browse for livestock

Jacal
—a small, crudely built house, usually of mud and wattle
construction

Jinglebob
—an earmark; a horizontal
split below the gristle so the bottom of the ear dangles
free

Manadas
—a group of mares controlled by one stallion; may also be
used to indicate any group of horses ranging together

Mangana
—a rope throw to catch the forefeet of an animal

Maverickers
—men who gather unbranded
stray stock and

mark them with brands and earmarks for
themselves or

their employers

Metate
—the stone base against which corn or other grains are ground
by hand

Mottes
—groves, as of trees or tall brush

Pastores
—sheep tenders;
shepherds

Peal
—or pial
, a rope thrown in a
figure-8, with one hind foot caught in each loop section

Pike some
monte
—to play the card game monte, a
pasteboard equivalent of the shell game played with three cards and
fast hands

Puncheon
floor
—a floor made of smoothed
timbers

Reata
—riata; lariat; rope
—particularly
those made of braided rawhide or leather

Remuda
—the herd of spare saddlehorses or remounts taken on the
trail

Retama
—more thorny stuff, slender and upright, with green bark and
leaves, bears yellow flowers

Sollaoed
—wind broken; overworked to
the point that endurance is destroyed beyond usefulness

Soogan
—or sougan
, a heavy quilt, often
with a canvas outer covering—forerunner of the modern sleeping
bag

Swale
—a shallow depression in the ground; gully

Tapaderos
—or taps; a covering over
the front of the stirrup to protect the foot and prevent brush from
entering the stirrup or snagging it—often ornamental

Three-cent
shinplaster
—paper money issued to replace
coins when metals were scarce, often small in size as well as value
and at the time generally regarded as worthless

Viznaga
—a particularly detested variety of cactus, low growing, with
thorns barbed so that they would work deeper into a wound and with
a hard surface resistant to decay; viznaga thorns in a joint or
foot can permanently cripple a horse.

FRANK RODERUS wrote his first story, a
western, at age five, and says he quite literally has never wanted
to do anything else. He has been writing fiction full-time since
1980, and was a newspaper reporter before that. As a journalist, he
won the Colorado Press Association's highest honor, the Sweepstakes
Award, for the Best News Story of 1980. His novel
Leaving Kansas
(Doubleday, 1983) won
the Western Writers of America's Spur Award for Best Western Novel
as did
Potter's Fields
. A
life member of the American Quarter Horse Association, he is
married and currently resides in Florida.