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Authors: Frank Roderus

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Duster (9781310020889) (5 page)

BOOK: Duster (9781310020889)
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"Jesus...Douglas...I just had a thought." It
was Mr. Hardy. "Last week sometime old man Trembel said something
about selling some stock off to someone down to Fort Ewell. He
mentioned he didn't know how he was going to get them down there
'cause he couldn't take any time away from his work."

We were off in a flash with hardly time
enough to throw some thanks over our shoulders.

Old man Trembel drove the water cart,
selling barrels of water from the Frio to the stores and a couple
of houses and things close in to Dog Town. We walked out to his
place on the bend in the river as quick as we could.

"Shoot fire, yes," he said when we asked
him. "I made a good swap for some new animals and sold the old ones
off to Ramon Nunez down to Fort Ewell. He's kin of yours, ain't he,
Jesus?"

"Si. A cousin, I think. We would be most
happy to take his horses to him." Jesus looked over at me and said,
"We can get some good food from him too if his wife has not left
him yet."

Old man Trembel scratched at some black and
white stubble on his chin and wiped off some tobacco juice that had
dribbled there. "You can take 'em then, but don't look for an easy
ride. I ain't owned a horse in twenty year. These is my old wagon
mules. They're old an' they ain't been rid in prob'ly ten year, but
they'll likely remember how. Anyway, if you want, you're welcome to
take them down to Nunez."

Jesus looked at me and made a face, but what
could we do? We hiked back into town to get our saddles and only
cussed a little bit on the way and a bit more often on the way
back.

"Your daddy builds his hulls too heavy," I
told Jesus when we was just about back to Trembel's cabin, because
Pico Menendez had made Pa's saddle too.

"Now that we're just about there," he said,
"it just come to me that we could of rode them mules in to town
bareback and saved ourselves all this walking and hauling."

"I got to confess something to you," I said.
"I thought of that before, but to tell you true I just didn't want
anyone to see me up on a mule that's older than me. It didn't seem
dignified somehow."

"I've known times when you didn't set so
much store on lookin' dignified," Jesus said with a flash of white
teeth.

I didn't say anything, but that was another
reason I wasn't wanting to ride anything without some good leather
between me and that animal. I could get along real well without
having mule sweat rubbed into my left-over ant bites where I had
scratched some of them raw.

Anyway, we made it back all right even if we
were getting a little pinched in the feet by then.

Old man Trembel had a tight-built cabin made
out of logs, like most folks did around Dog Town then, as there
wasn't much lumber to be found. The only thing different about his
place was that it sort of leaned toward the river like it was
trying to fall over but wasn't quite ready yet.

He had a sod shed out back where he kept his
wagon and barrels for carrying water into town, and there was a
flimsy sort of pole corral attached to it that looked like it
wouldn't hold in anything bigger than a month-old colt. A
good-sized calf could have butted the thing down, but I guessed
Trembel's mules was too dumb to know that.

We went straight on back to the corral, past
his rubbish heap of old bottles and bits of broken harness and
stuff, and we put our saddles up on the top cross poles. We did it
real gentlelike so the whole thing wouldn't fall down.

There was a pair of real likely looking gray
mules in the corral along with a pair of the scrubbiest animals I
ever saw.

"Guess which ones we get to take to my
cousin Ramon," Jesus said. It wasn't any question and really didn't
need an answer.

Right then, Jesus looked about as low-down
as either of those old mules Trembel had palmed off on Ramon
Nunez.

"I'll take the brown," I
said before Jesus could say it first. Of the pair of them neither
was worth shooting, but the brown looked the more likely and seemed
to have the most of its original hide left. The other one might of
been black once upon a
time, but now it
was so grizzled and grayed and scarred up it would be hard to put a
name to its color—other than dirty old mule, which pretty well
covered the subject.

Jesus's black had about the spindliest
looking shanks I'd ever seen on a live animal too. It looked like
it might take a notion to go down to its knees any time.

As for my brown, it looked all right except
for being probably twenty-five years old and having a barreled-out
belly. Then the thing turned its head—it had been standing sideways
to me—and I could see where it had run into some heavy thorns or
maybe got clawed by a cat when it was little. The thing was ugly
enough before I saw where the right side of its head was one big
scar and there wasn't any eye in its head on the offside.

"You sure can pick 'em, Duster," Jesus said
with a heehaw. "Thanks for giving me the good one."

"There ain't no good one between them," I
told him, "but they're better than what we had when we come here.
Let's catch them and get on our way before someone comes by and
sees us with these tallow factory rejects."

"Darn it," Jesus said. "A prairie wolf would
think twice about eating either of them if you shot it and staked
it down by a water hole for him." He shook his head sadly and
looked very wise, like he was contemplating on the fates of mules
and men. Maybe he was, too. I never could tell about him.

We crawled through the poles, though, and
took our bridles in to catch up our transportation to Fort Ewell
and to some proper horses befitting a cowhand.

The mules were no trouble to catch. They
stood there real quiet and let us put the bridles on and then they
led real easy to the fence so we could get the saddles in
place.

"This ain't so bad," Jesus said when we was
finished.

I wasn't so sure yet, but I took the poles
down from the gate and Jesus led the mules out.

I was ready for anything
when I crawled up on the brown, but it didn't twitch. I'd been sort
of expecting a good workout from that old mule because I've been
told that a mule can pitch
higher and
harder than any horse that ever lived. They say a mule that don't
want to get rode won't toss or crow-hop like a horse. Instead it
just sort of explodes in all directions at once, and it takes a
better rider than me to hang onto one any way short of being tied
in the saddle.

I didn't find out about it that day. That
one-eyed old mule just sat there and didn't budge.

I could see Jesus was ready, too, so I
kicked the mule up to a walk—or at least I tried to. First, I
thumped him a little with my heels, then I tried really laying into
him with the shoes Ma had had made up for me. It didn't work at
all. The mule just stood there.

Jesus was having the same trouble with the
black, the only difference being he was wearing spurs and could
gouge harder. His mule finally showed some life. It reached its
head around and clamped down real hard with sturdy, yellow teeth.
Lucky for Jesus he had some good heavy tapaderos over his stirrups
or he'd of been walking with a limp for a few days, boots or no
boots.

When I looked around, I could see old man
Trembel sitting on his back stoop, chewing some tobacco and
watching the fun we was having.

"Can these things walk or would it be easier
to butcher them here and cart the meat down to Ramon Nunez?" I
called over to him.

Old man Trembel grinned some and spat, but
he got up and wandered over our way real slow. "These mules been
pulling a wagon fer fifteen year or more," he said around a big
lump of tobacco. "They mought work better if you quit kickin'
'em—which they don't understand since it ain't never been done to
'em before—and make like they was pullin' a wagon again."

He waved his arm in my direction and said,
"That brown now, old Gert, she always was hitched on the right so
she could see if Stardust turned to nip at her." He took hold of
Gert's bridle and led her up beside Jesus's black.

"And Stardust here—he's
the one did the leadin'. When you want to go, Douglas, take a
switch and reach over and tap
Stardust on
the rump. Jesus, you do the drivin' for both of 'em. It won't do no
good to try an' neck rein them so, Jesus, you just saw away at the
lines to turn Stardust anywhere you want him. And don't worry about
Gert. Wherever you put Stardust, she'll be right alongside of
him."

Trembel cut me a good, long switch of
mesquite but took his time to dig a heavy clasp knife out of his
pocket and trim every thorn off smooth before he handed it up to
me.

"Here you go," he said. "Just a touch is all
you need. No reason to lay it onto him heavy without you get mad at
him. And don't expect to get there in a hurry."

Jesus looked as doubtful as I felt, but I
reached over and gave Stardust's rump a light tap with the switch.
That old mule picked up into a walk without waiting for a word or a
holler, and Gert went right along with him easy as you please.
Jesus pulled and pushed at the reins until we was out on the
road.

The mules started to turn toward the river
without being told—it was where they had gone every day for years
to fetch water into the barrels—but Jesus hauled them back into
line all right.

"Watch your driving," I told him and pulled
the brim of my hat down over my eyes. "I'm going to take a
nap."

 

 

5

 

WE MUST OF been some sight going down that
road, but there wasn't anybody much around to see us. These was
big, long-legged old Arkansas mules we was delivering, and while
they didn't seem to be in any hurry, they kept a fair pace.

Since it was well after noon before we got a
start, we knew it wouldn't be at least until the next day that we
reached Fort Ewell.

We neither one of us had so much as a
blanket with us for the night. I had left my soogan and chunk of
canvas groundcloth on the packhorse that was going on down to the
Nueces with Ike Partley, and Jesus didn't own one. He'd been
crawling in with one of the other Mexican hands when the night was
cold enough for blankets.

"Duster?" Jesus said after a time.

"Hmmm?"

"I just thought of something."

"I'm glad for you," I
said. "You'll be the
caporal
of the outfit in no time at all if you can think
up things to worry about." I opened my eyes and shoved my hat back
up so I could see where Jesus was taking us.

"You're awful feisty for a young'un, ain't
you?"

"I got taught a lesson today about what
happens when I listen to my elders. I leave things to the old folk
like you and where do I wind up? On the back of a one-eyed mule
somewhere in the middle of South Texas with no family to comfort me
an' no pillow for my sweet haid."

"That ain't all you're doing without," Jesus
said.

"What do you mean?"

"That's what I was gonna bring up before you
got so smart-britches on me. We got no blanket roll with us,
right?"

"Sure, but it oughtn't to get too cold
tonight," I said.

"And we got no chuck with us either,
right?"

"That's so too, but we can hitch our belts
in a notch to make do until we get where we're going. Either that
or eat some mule steaks if these beasts do what they look like they
ought to and die of old age before morning."

"Si. All this is so." Jesus eyed the back of
my saddle. "But unless you got a hidey-hole on your saddle
someplace, neither one of us was smart enough to carry along a
gourd of water."

Now, that did present a
problem. I looked over at Jesus perched up on Stardust and said,
"You're the
caporal
of this outfit already, being as you're practically growed. I
guess it's up to you to wrestle up a water hole or
something."

"If I thought it would do any good I'd
detail you to do that, but you're about as dumb as me," he said
good-natured like.

"Well, the mules can make out all right with
prickly pear if we singe the thorns off," I said. "You got any
matches?"

He pulled his hat off and ran a finger
around the inside band. When he was about halfway around he got a
grin on his face and fished out a couple broken stubs of
matches.

"Maybe you're not so dumb," I said.

We rode on until it got full dark since we
weren't worried about needing any light to fix a camp and a supper
by. I guess we were about halfway there when Jesus pulled us up for
the night.

The place he had picked out wasn't much more
than a break in the tall stuff, but at least the thorns couldn't
get at us more than about boot high. It was good enough for us, and
there seemed to be plenty of prickly pear around.

We took our saddles down and hobbled those
old mules good and tight so they wouldn't go too far during the
night. Then we made up some torches out of dry sticks and burnt the
spines off some prickly pear so we knew the mules would have enough
to eat. They'd get plenty of water out of those juicy pear hands
too, so we wouldn't have to worry about that.

Right about then, I was wishing we could say
something of the like for our own selves. I didn't know about
Jesus, but I'd been thinking about little else but water ever since
he had pointed out we didn't have any—though I hadn't remembered
being much thirsty before.

Wishing wasn't having, though, and we sure
didn't have. Once I picked up as smooth a pebble as I could find
and popped that in my mouth since they say it will help. And it may
help some folks, but the only thing it did for me was to get the
insides of my mouth all gritty so that I crunched whenever I moved
my teeth. I lost more water spitting out bits of sand than I ever
could have worked up with that piece of rock.

BOOK: Duster (9781310020889)
3.21Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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