Home Ranch (27 page)

As I spoke, I nodded my head to show Mr. Bendt I was ready, but I didn't take my stand or raise my arm until he was nearly abreast of me. Then I shot it out, and kicked high with my right foot. Hi Beckman and I had practiced that way, but without the rider's having a target to aim for, it was pretty hard to get a wrist hold. Mr. Bendt and I were lucky that time. Our wrists slapped together squarely, our hands grabbed their hold, and old Pinch didn't even slow down until well after I was sitting behind Mr. Bendt.

I was kind of proud of the way our trick had worked, and thought Hazel would be proud of us both, but when her father pulled Pinch around, she was beating her fists on her saddle horn. “You cheat! You cheat! You cheat!” she shouted. “You're both cheaters! You're too busy to go to Sunday School, but I have to go, don't I? Then, while I'm gone, you ain't too busy to learn Paw the tricks you promised to learn me. You're cheaters! You're cheaters!”

“This wasn't any trick I was going to teach you,” I told her. “I'm not big enough to do this one with you. I showed it to your father so you and he could do it together.”

Hazel could change quicker than any girl I ever saw. She'd been madder than a cat with a clothespin on its tail when I began explaining to her, and by the time I'd finished she was off Pinto and hopping around like an Indian in a war dance. “Can we do it now, Paw? Can we do it now?” she almost shrieked. “I seen everything he done, and I can do every bit of it! Can we do it, Paw?”

“You just keep your garters tight!” he told her. “This trick ain't one you can learn in no half hour.”

Hazel buttoned up her lips so tight they turned white, and looked from one of us to the other. “Then you're even worse cheaters than I thought you was!” she told us. “You've been practicin' behind my back ever since . . . ever since . . .”

“No we haven't either!” I told her. “We only tried it a few times this morning, but I've been practicing it for three years. In this one, the rider doesn't need to have very much practice.”

When I said that, I didn't think about its sounding as if Mr. Bendt wasn't very important in the trick, but I guess that's the way it sounded to him. “That's right as rain, gal,” he said, “but we got another one where most of the job's the old man's. Want we should show it to you?”

The swing-over trick looked to be the hardest of all, but if the horses ran shoulder to shoulder there wasn't much to it. With Lady trained to keep pace, I wasn't much worried about our having trouble, but I had Mr. Bendt put his saddle on her, and I rode Pinto. He'd be the horse Hazel would ride when she did the trick, and he needed to get used to my leaving the saddle and coming back to it.

We only tried the trick once with the horses running, and it didn't work too well. Pinto shied off when he saw me coming back toward him through the air, and I almost missed the saddle. It scared Mr. Bendt a lot more than it did me, and after that he wouldn't even let Hazel try it with the horses standing. But he promised her that he'd come out and practice with us after supper on evenings when we got through with our work early.

Maybe we all worked harder and faster after that Sunday, but, when the trading teams were away, there was always time for an hour's trick practicing after supper. At first, Hazel had to practice the swing-over trick with a standing horse. But she learned so fast that she'd done both the new tricks at a hard run by the end of the first week.

26

Bunkhouse Fight

T
HAT
week-end was sort of a bad one—one I'll remember for a long time. Saturday noon the creamery driver brought a letter from Mr. Batchlett. Mr. Bendt read it at the dinner table, then told Ned, “Batch has took the train from The Springs to Littleton to see his missus. You hightail on out and help Tom in with the herd!”

He looked up at Mrs. Bendt, who was listening anxiously in the kitchen doorway. “She ain't bad off,” he said; “just poorly. Batch, he'll be back Sunday night. Wants I should meet the nine o'clock train at Castle Rock. Wants a lot bigger trail herd than what I've got ready. Aims to keep three teams out, plumb up to Labor Day.”

I could see that we'd be plenty busy that afternoon, and with Ned away, I thought we'd be awfully short-handed, but we weren't. I was just finishing my second piece of pie when Jenny came into the kitchen doorway. She was wearing a blue shirt, overalls, chaps, the belt Sid had made her, boots, and a five-gallon Stetson. “Forgot I had these, didn't you, Watt?” she laughed. “If you'll let me have Juno, I'll bet I can still hustle a steer as well as I could three years ago.”

I was so surprised that I sat there with a mouth full of pie and forgot to swallow it. I'd never thought of Jenny as anything but a pretty schoolteacher, who could nurse, cook, sew, and wait on the chuckhouse table. But, when we got out into the brush, I found that she could ride and handle cattle almost as well as Hazel—better than some cowhands.

With Jenny and Mr. Bendt working as one team, and Hazel and I as another, we made a clean sweep of all the stock within three miles of the buildings. By sunset, we had the big cutting corral the fullest I ever saw it.

Tom and Ned came into sight with their trail herd just after we'd closed the gate on our last sweeping. I don't think Jenny wanted the men to see her in her working clothes. She stepped down from her saddle, passed the lines to Mr. Bendt, and said, “It's time Hazel and I went to help Helen with the supper.” Then, as they started toward the house, she looked back at me and laid one finger across her lips.

At twilight, we heard Zeb's herd bellowing, far to the east, and rode out about three miles to meet it. The trail-weary cattle were trying to scatter, and I had the bad luck to head off a cow that had slipped past Trinidad. Before I knew he was anywhere around, his knotted rope-end bit me on the leg. I thought it was a rattlesnake, and jerked Pinch away quick enough that the second snap of the rope missed me. The knot whizzed past my shoulder with the same kind of a hiss a bullet makes. There was the same hiss in Trinidad's voice as he said, “Keep out o' my business, Smart-aleck!”

I wished I could have been as brave as Sid, and told Trinidad he was a four-flushing coward, but I found that I was a coward, too, and got away from there as fast as I could. I kept an eye on Trinidad until it was too dark to see him, but he really didn't need much help with the cattle. Whatever he wasn't, he was the best man I ever saw with a knotted rope-end, and he was a real rider—not the kind that works as a partner with his horse, but one who rides rough and keeps his horse scared into trigger action.

It was full dark before we had Zeb's herd in the corral, and Mr. Bendt called out, “Reckon we'd best hightail back to find Sid! Wouldn't doubt me he's run into trouble!”

My leg still stung where Trinidad's rope-end had bitten it, and when I put my finger on the spot, my overalls were sticky with blood. The first thing that came into my head was that, out there in the dark, Trinidad could sneak up on Sid and kill him with one snap of that knotted rope. He could snap it hard and straight enough to hit a man's head or neck at ten yards, and the only sound would be the cracking of bone. Nothing could ever be proved, and, in the dark, Sid wouldn't be missed until we got back to the home ranch.

I wasn't going to tattle on Trinidad for clipping me, but I wasn't going to let him get out there in the dark with Sid if I could help it. I pulled Pinch around and headed for Mr. Bendt, but I was only half way when he called out, “Reckon you'd best to stay here, Trinidad! Cut the horses out of the trail herds and run 'em to the creek for water!”

It was nearly nine o'clock when we met Sid, and he was still more than five miles east of the home ranch. He was having plenty of trouble, too, but I think most of it was with Hank. I heard Hank shouting and yelling from a mile away, and he was raving mad when we reached the herd. When Mr. Bendt rode over to quiet him down, he shouted, loud enough to have been heard in Castle Rock, “This here red-headed kid don't know no more 'bout bossin' a trail herd than . . . by dogies, if he'd a-listened to me . . . why, I knowed more . . .”

It didn't take Mr. Bendt long to quiet Hank down, but it took us till nearly midnight to get the scattered herd rounded up and into the corral at the home ranch.

Trinidad was nowhere in sight when we brought in the herd, but when we went to eat, he was sitting on the chuckhouse steps—playing his guitar and sort of crooning. I don't know if Jenny and Mrs. Bendt had been listening to him, but they had a good hot supper ready for us. And when Jenny passed Sid the meat and potatoes, I noticed that she brushed against his shoulder. Everybody was too tired to do much talking, and we turned in as soon as we'd eaten.

That Sunday there was no time to practice trick-riding, and we had to work as hard as we could go until nearly seven o'clock. While the other riders swept in more cattle, Mr. Bendt, Sid, and I did the cutting and sorting. Hazel even stayed home from Sunday School to keep the herd book.

Ned and Tom changed their clothes and rode off to The Springs as soon as they'd brought in the last sweeping. Then, after supper, I helped Mr. Bendt harness a team to the buck-board. As he drove away, Jenny came out of the kitchen, took Sid's arm, and they walked toward the beaver pond.

I was afraid Trinidad might follow them, but he didn't. He went to the bunkhouse with Zeb and Hank. When I got there he was shining the silver studding on his saddle.

I tried to write a letter to Mother, but didn't have any better luck than I'd had the week before. Zeb was darning socks and Hank was stretched out on his bunk—talking his head off about a cloudburst being due any day, and telling how much better he was at trading and trail-herding than Sid, but nobody was listening to him.

After I'd started my letter over for the fourth time, I heard Sid's meadow-lark whistle, coming nearer from the direction of the house. If anybody else heard it, he didn't make a move, and Hank kept right on talking.

As Sid came in, Trinidad got up with his fists cocked. He started across the floor slowly, and said, just as slowly, “I warned you, Redhead!”

Hank stopped talking, my hand shook so much that I drew zigzags on the paper, and Zeb rose in that half-crouch of his, but Sid didn't seem a bit afraid. He jumped to one side, and lit balanced on his toes, with his fists up and his chin tucked in behind his shoulder.

Trinidad took a quick step and swung a punch at Sid's head that would have knocked a mule down, but Sid bobbed under it. Trinidad's back was toward me, so I couldn't see Sid's punch, but it must have been a sharp one to the stomach with his left fist. Trinidad grunted, doubled over a little, and lunged forward from the force of his missed swing. As Sid danced out from in front of him, his right fist shot up and caught Trinidad square on the nose.

Trinidad whirled and rushed at Sid with both fists flailing, but all he hit was air. That time I saw Sid's punch. As he ducked and sidestepped, he shot his left into the soft spot under Trinidad's wishbone. Then, without raising his head, whipped his right up to the face, and danced away.

I've never seen a man look so much like a bull as Trinidad did when he whirled back from that punch in the face. He was nearly twice as heavy as Sid, a full foot taller, with arms as big and long as Sid's legs. For a moment he stood with his head and shoulders hunched down—then he charged. It was almost exactly the way the ugly White Face bull had charged Clay when we'd had our fight in the cutting corral. And Sid handled Trinidad just as Clay had handled that bull.

He stood teetering back and forth on the balls of his feet, ducking and dodging his head, but never moving his eyes from Trinidad's face. Each time the big man rushed he ducked and slipped around him, but each time his fists flashed out like the heads of striking rattlesnakes—one to the soft spot under the wishbone and the other to the face.

The only sounds in the bunkhouse were the scuffling of feet and the grunts that Trinidad made when Sid's fist knifed into his stomach. The whipping rights to the face were so quick I couldn't see where they landed, but after the third one, blood smeared across Trinidad's nose and mouth.

Trinidad charged seven or eight times, swinging punches that would have broken Sid's neck or mashed his face to a pulp, but not a single one of them landed. Around and around they went in the middle of the bunkhouse floor, Sid waiting for the charge, ducking under the blows, and ripping in a shot with each fist as he danced away.

With each charge Trinidad looked madder and swung harder, but he might as well have been trying to hit a fly in mid-air, and the harder he swung the farther he missed. His last swing was so wild and hard that it threw him off balance and he nearly fell. He staggered as he turned to face Sid, stood a few seconds with his feet spread wide, his shoulders heaving, and his head stuck forward. Then he charged again, roaring like a range bull, but he didn't swing.

As Sid ducked low, Trinidad threw his arms out wide and drove a knee up. Sid saw it coming and tried to jump back, but he wasn't quite quick enough. The knee caught him square in the stomach and threw him higher than my head. He came down in a crumpled heap, and Trinidad swung a foot back to kick him as he landed.

I'd been so excited as I watched Sid rip his punches in and dance away that I hadn't moved from my chair or noticed Zeb. Then, when Trinidad kneed him, I caught my breath and froze, but Zeb didn't. A split second before Trinidad's boot would have smashed Sid's ribs, Zeb's shoulder slammed into him and nearly knocked him out the doorway.

Trinidad caught himself against the door jamb and didn't go down. He whirled and charged at Zeb, with his fists held wide apart and high. Zeb neither fisted his hands nor put them up, but just stood there in front of his bunk—crouched a little and with his long arms hanging as his sides, as if he were bewildered.

The punch Trinidad threw at Zeb's face would have killed a man—but Zeb's face disappeared. He dropped, almost as if he'd been shot. Then he came up like a wild bull. His head rammed into the pit of Trinidad's stomach so hard that it threw him flying back onto the table in front of me. There was a ripping, tearing sound as the table legs buckled, then a crash as Trinidad hit the floor, and the ringing of broken glass from the lamp.

When the table went down I got knocked over, and scrambled for the corner where Sid lay holding his stomach and gasping for breath. I pulled him farther back into the corner, then realized that the bunkhouse had become so quiet it almost hurt. I looked around and saw Zeb and Trinidad facing each other across the broken table. Zeb was motionless, in that half-crouch, with his arms hanging loose at his sides. Trinidad was on his feet, edging around the table toward him. Blood trickled from his nose and a small cut high on his cheek.

Zeb didn't move a muscle or blink an eye as Trinidad edged around the broken table, creeping toward him like a mountain lion ready to spring. I was behind Trinidad then, and could have knocked his knees out from under him, or thrown something at his head, but neither my body nor my head was working. I just knelt there, holding my breath and feeling my heart pound against my ribs. I couldn't even yell for Zeb to watch out when I saw Trinidad pull his foot back to kick.

How Zeb did it I'll never know, but he caught that flying foot in mid-air, flung it high, and sent Trinidad crashing back over the broken table.

I'd been scared plenty of times before, and I'd seen men plenty scared, too. But I'd never been so frightened as I was then, or seen a man show fear the way Trinidad did when he crawled to his feet. Zeb had moved around the table and was standing motionless in front of him. Trinidad backed away until he was against a bunk post—with his eyes darting this way and that, hunting for any sort of weapon he could get his hands on.

Sid gasped, only half-conscious, but I hardly noticed him. Zeb was closing in on Trinidad, inch by inch. I could no more have stopped watching him then a cow can stop watching a rattlesnake that is coiled in front of her. Trinidad was watching, too. His lips were white, and, even under the blood and tan, his face was a muddy gray. Once he pulled his foot back to kick again, but changed his mind and crowded tighter against the bunk post.

Zeb crouched lower and lower, then drove up and forward. His shoulder caught Trinidad square in the chest—crushing him against the post. He crumpled, but before he could fall Zeb's arms were around him in a grizzly bear hug. I've heard horses scream in a burning barn, and it's a sound that no one can ever forget, but there isn't the fear in it that was in Trinidad's shriek. I was afraid Zeb was killing him, and my voice squeaked when I yelled, “Don't kill him, Zeb!”