Longarm 244: Longarm and the Devil's Sister (17 page)

“
Right
swing,” Longarm soberly insisted, adding, “any fair rider can handle the left swing of a longhorn drive. You want someone better out on right swing.”

Chongo asked why. Longarm knew from the way Slim and his boss lady looked at one another that they'd both seen some stampeding on the trail. You had to know about such details if you aimed to sell your brags to real cow folk.

Consuela Deveruex y Lopez spit on her hand and held it out to her new rider. Longarm did the the same and they shook messy but for certain on their deal. Then she declared she meant to stay the night in town with her old momma, but she wanted the three of them to be out at the D Bar L, ready to ride, come sunrise.

So the three men left. Slim Gonzales waited until they were driving off in the buckboard, with Chongo holding the ribbons, before he told Longarm in an earnest tone, “We're going to have to get a few things straight, here, cowboy. I am
El Segundo
of the D Bar L. So while you're working for Miss Connie you'll be taking your orders from me! Do you aim to give me any argument about that?”

Longarm said, “Nope. You give me any orders you care to and as long as they're fit orders for a top hand I'll be proud to carry them out. If you hand me a shovel or ask me to fetch your pony for you, I won't. Do you have any argument about
that?”

“I'm studying on it,” Slim decided, adding, “How much gear do you have to load in the back and where's it at?”

Longarm said, “I've some baggage at the stage inn and I left my own pony, bridle, and saddle at the livery. Drop me off there and I'll be proud to get myself and all my shit out to the D Bar L on my own.”

Slim said, “No you won't. Miss Connie's ordered our fence riders to treat any strange faces on her land as trespassers, and she's posted signs saying survivors will be prosecuted. So you'd best stay close to us until the others get to know you better.”

Longarm shrugged and said, “I don't mind riding this buckboard in circles if you don't. But how come everyone's acting so proddy? They say Victorio's been driving off stock, but you've a big outfit a fair piece north of the border so ...”

“We're not going to get along if you keep shitting me,” Gonzales cut in, adding, “You know damn well who Miss Connie's worried about. You've been in these parts over an hour and it was you who shot one of Devil Dave's Mission Apache sidekicks last night!”

Longarm whistled softly and asked, “Are you saying she's scared of her own kid brother?”

It was Chongo who growled, “Wouldn't you be scared if you had a devil for a brother?”

It was pushing midnight by the time Longarm reined in his buckskin by their buckboard at the D Bar L on the far side of the Pecos. Off in the darkness the occasional low of a cow and a mournful male voice crooning
La Paloma
off-key gave away the position of the bedded herd. Slim Gonzales had told him along the way they'd be driving around six hundred prime beef steers cut out of the main herd for slaughter. Thus the drive would be smaller but way friskier than “Dunk Crawford” might be used to. Longarm managed not to brag on driving that many cavalry mounts from behind enemy lines, after dark, in his day. But it wasn't easy.

The surly Chongo had insulted his range savvy along the trail by a tedious lecture on how he'd have to take the fresh pony they issued him from the remuda every morning. Longarm had told Chongo in passing that he didn't look down on boss wranglers. Any foreman had to know a heap about his job. Longarm had allowed he was sure the boss of the black gang on a steamboat knew more than he did about cordwood and boiler-water. But Chongo had still seemed pissed and anxious to show off his authority over the remuda.

Despite that sentimental yarn about Black Beauty, any rider who'd ever made a living on horseback knew nobody outside a novel or a half-ass history book rode one faithful mount, day after day. For a working beast of burden was really working, under a burden Mother Nature had never designed it for.

A horse living wild and free got to graze and gallop as the moment called for with no bit in its mouth and no saddle loaded with a full-grown man and his possibles on its back. So, like an athlete carrying on under more strain than a bare-foot boy at play, any mount, and any cowpony in particular, had been through an equine version of a track meet or a day on a chain gang by the time it got to rest up and, like a human who'd been pushed about as hard as he could go, the critter tended to be tired the next day and stiff for three or four days more. So a serious cow hand rode a string of five to seven ponies with the bookkeeping easier when you made it seven. The boss wrangler, knowing more than the kids he had helping him care for the remuda, was the one who told you which pony you'd be riding if the boss had the bill of sale on the same. Riders naturally tended to like some ponies better. That was why the boss wrangler had the final say, lest hands wind up at odds over who got to ride what.

Chongo said that “Dunk Crawford” could ride his own buckskin any time he wanted, but suggested a fresh start on a fresh pony that knew the range, come morning. Longarm allowed he'd trailed cows all the way up the Midnight Loving Trail to Wyoming on a different pony every damned fool day. So Chongo growled, “Just so we understand one another.”

Keeping Tejano hours, the boys in the bunkhouse were just fixing to turn in when Slim introduced Longarm to the bunkhouse crew and asked them to fix him up for a few hours of flop.

As soon as Slim left the strawboss, an Anglo of around forty, who they called Alamo, told Longarm he could spread his roll on a top bunk by the cold stove and said he'd wake him a tad early so's he could start out right.

When Longarm asked Alamo to clarify that, he was told all new hands got to swamp the bunkhouse floor whilst the others had breakfast. Old Alamo soothed, “You get to eat first, of course. Cooky will have you some fresh coffee, tortillas, and beans to get you going before I wake up the rest of the boys.”

Longarm smiled right back at the bunkhouse boss and said, “I don't know who you bet what, but you lose. I've signed on as a top hand, not a fucking swamper. Do you want to take it up at the big house or would you rather join me in a visit to fist city?”

Since few natural bullies made it to Alamo's age without knowing a mite about crawfishing, old Alamo laughed too loud and asked, “Can't you take a joke, Dunk? I never meant to have a top hand swamp a fool floor. I just wanted to see if you had a sense of humor.”

Longarm knew others were listening, so he quietly declared, “I fear I don't. I don't laugh when some asshole short-sheets my bedroll and the last one who handed me a plate he'd heated over the campfire coals had to be driven in to the nearest town in a buckboard because he was in no shape to walk or ride, but he lived, and only walked with a slight limp when he got out of the hospital. I wouldn't want anyone to think I was a real sorehead.”

So nobody else tested him that night. He unrolled his own bedding on the rope-sprung bunk they'd offered and didn't answer when the kid in the bunk below asked where he'd ridden before. So after a while he managed to catch a few winks, and then some silly son of a bitch was banging on a steel triangle and yelling, “Drop your cocks! Grab your socks! We got us some beef to carry to San Antone!”

So Longarm was just as glad he'd turned in fully dressed, save for his jacket, gunbelt, and boots. It was still dark out when he'd washed the gum out of his eyes at a latrine sink and ambled over to the cook house, where they were already lining up for breakfast.

Longarm was handed a confederate army mess kit and canteen cup to be served those promised tortillas and beans with fair black coffee. It had more chickory in it than they made coffee with as far north as the Texas Panhandle. But it had been brewed strong, so what the hell. When in Rome, or, in this case, close to the Gulf of Mexico, where they all seemed to think Creole tastes were so refined.

Longarm found a place to hunker and eat alone with his back braced against the cook house wall. He was minding his own business when a trio of Tejano
vaqueros
were looming over him, and the one with a shit-eating smile said, “Hey, gringo, for why you got on no
chaparreras?
Did not your mother tell you we have some chaparral to ride through between here and San Antonio?”

Longarm smiled up at them to gently but firmly reply, “My chaps are rolled up with my slicker. When and if I feel the need for either I'll just put them on with no advice from the drag riders, and if you ever mention my mother again I'll kill you. Are there any questions?”

The mouth of the testing trio tried, “I have one. Who do you think you just called a chingado drag rider? I am called El Moro and I ride right swing! You think I look like a drag rider, just because I am no gringo with big blue eyes and a little
piton?
”

“
No mejodas,
and you can ride any infernal position you want.” Longarm sighed, hoping that would be the end of it.

It wasn't. El Moro suggested he stand up and repeat that remark about him being a lousy greaser riding drag.

Longarm didn't bite. The way the kid game of
Tu Madre
went involved an endless round of you-saids and no-I-didn't-say-exactly-thats as both sides felt one another out. Longarm had seldom seen a Border Mex of El Moro's ilk start anything before he'd felt his target out a lot.

So when El Moro asked for why he didn't get up, Longarm just told him he'd signed on to herd cows, not to swat flies.

“You call me a fly? You dare?” gasped El Moro.

Longarm shrugged and suggested, “If you ain't a fly, how come you're buzzing in my face for no damned reason? I ain't looking for trouble and I ain't afraid of you. If that ain't good enough for you, why don't we wait until we're off work in town and see who lives or dies? I wasn't hired to fight nobody this morning. Were you?”

El Moro grasped the straw and muttered “later” in a sullen tone as he led his two young pals away, still muttering.

The eastern sky was flamingo pink by then, and Captain Goodnight would have had his cows drifting out by the time you could see colors. But this outfit seemed in less of a hurry to saddle up. Longarm figured they might be worried about the beef stock being of the same age and mind. Cows moved more peaceable when you mixed their ages and genders as a herd in the wild might tally out. Young steers, like young boys, tended to be rowdy in large bunches.

Longarm let some of the others drift over to the corrals with their saddles and bridles to see what fate and Chongo had to offer. It was too late in the season for a West Texas dawn to be crisp. But it was cool enough for some of the rested up broncs to be feeling their oats, or, seeing it was West Texas, cracked corn.

Fueled by any fodder and well rested after their last hard day's work, some of the ponies expressed how they felt about another such day by bucking. El Moro rode his sun-fishing roan pretty good, Longarm had to allow. Then Chongo issued him a wall-eyed paint that didn't even want the bit in her mouth and a fine time was had by all before they had her bridled and saddled for Longarm to try out.

Since he was a new rider, the others took interest in the way he rode. Chongo's wranglers led all the riding stock out of the corrals and into the same ten-acre pasture before anybody mounted up to see how their rides for the coming day felt about them. So Longarm and the wall-eyed paint were having a heap of fun with one another when Connie Deveruex and Slim Gonzales reined in by the corral to watch.

The frisky paint mare had just settled down to a merry-go-round buck he found more tedious than challenging, so Longarm turned his toes out to dig those big Mex spurs in and hang on with them, making her hurt herself every time she shifted his weight, and, seeing they called it horse sense, she quit bucking.

Connie called out, “Not bad. That'll teach you to mean-mouth my wranglers, Dunk. Are you ready to ride?”

He rode the paint over to them and reined in to declare he felt as ready as he expected to get. Slim said, “The boys are forming up the herd, just past those blackjacks. We'll do better if the three of us swing wide and ride around instead of through them.”

Longarm said he'd ridden point before. So Slim took the lead and Longarm fell in to the left of his boss lady, riding sidesaddle in her fashionable habit and that flat Spanish hat.

He'd known gals who worked cows more manly, seated astride in a stock saddle with a throw rope and all. On the other hand, many a male boss never bothered learning to rope, for the same reasons planters named Jefferson or Lee seldom knew shit about chopping cotton. So it seemed moot whether Consuela Deveruex y Lopez knew how to rope and throw or not. Being the owner, she didn't have to. She could have been mounted on an elephant or sitting at home in a rocking chair and her beef would still be driven to market.

As they broke through the windbreak of oak trees Longarm saw there was indeed a long column of longhorns with calico hides headed into the sunrise and bitching about it some.

When you saw six hundred of anything spread out in a column four or five heads across it looked like more than you'd pictured. The three of them loped wide the length of the slowly moving column, and the drovers riding their own ponies at a walk, to fall in with the two
vaqueros
already out on point.

Whether you wanted to say you were leading or driving cows in large numbers the best ways to do so had been worked out by trial and error to fairly standard procedure.

You had point riders out just ahead of the lead critter, usually an older cow, called a bellwether by Anglo riders or a
madrastra
if you asked a Mex. Either way, such critters were never sold at the end of a drive and tended to get better at leading their fellow critters for their human drivers as time went on. Captain Goodnight kept a famous blue longhorn bellwether that would come when he called it.