My Foot's in the Stirrup . . . My Pony Won't Stand (Code of the West) (14 page)

“That was me.”

“Then I should never have pulled you out,” Odessa growled.

“You had to. You owed me.”

Odessa stared out at the middle of the room. “For savin’ me from drownin’?”

“No. You wanted me to introduce you to Junie Ann.”

“Junie Ann . . . the Yellow Rose of Arizona? You introduced me to her?”

“You know I did.” The rifle barrel still lay at Odessa’s neck.

“She tried to kill me three times.”

“I regret her incompetence,” Tap prodded.

A three-hundred-pound man wearing a bright pink shirt lunged out of the back room hoisting a double-barreled black-powder shotgun. “Would you two hurry up and kill each other so we can drag your bodies out and get that Faro game goin’.”

“Is that Pinky?” Tap asked.

“Yeah.” Odessa winked at Tap and then shouted, "Boy, this is some low-class dive when a man can’t greet an old pard without ever’one complainin’. Tapadera, you are a treat to look at, my friend. I heard you died in a prison cell in Yuma.”

Tap lowered his rifle and slapped his arm around Odessa’s shou
lder. “And I heard a Sonoran señorita stuck you with a twelve-inch dagger.”

“She broke my heart, Tap.” Odessa grinned. “But she didn’t stab me.”

“If you two are through, I’d like to get my game goin’,” the dealer interjected.

“Through,” Odessa shouted, pulling his huge revolver and poin
ting it at the dealer’s now quivering head. “Through? When we get through, there won’t be one man left alive in this building. I’ll take twelve, and you take twelve, Tap.”

“Who gets the big man with the old shotgun?”

“I’ll take him. You get this Faro cheat.” Odessa pointed the revolver at the man in the pink shirt while Tap jammed the rifle barrel into the dealer’s belly. His face turned almost snow-white.

Lorenzo Odessa broke into a deep, uncontrolled laugh.

“Forget it.” Tap grinned at those at the bar. “We were only jokin’. Relax. Odessa’s buyin’ ever’one a drink.”

“I’m what?” Odessa wheezed.

Tap pointed to the flat rectangular chips. “Those blue markers are your winnin’s, aren’t they?”

“But—”

“Come on, you tightwad.”

“But you don’t even drink.”

“These men do. Right, boys?”

With a shout and a roar, everyone in the building except Tap and Odessa headed to the bar.

“It’s good to see you, Tap. I really did think you were dead.”

“Pay your tab. Then let’s go out on the porch and talk.”

Tap was sitting on a flat bench behind the sleeping man when Lorenzo Odessa finally sauntered out, sporting worn batwing chaps and his spurs jingling.

“You cost me six dollars,” Odessa complained.

“That’s what you get for leavin’ your back to the door. You didn’t used to be so careless.”

“Shoot, nobody knows me up here.”

“They do now.”

The clean-shaven cowboy plopped down next to Tap on the worn wooden bench. “That old boy has been sleepin’ there all day.” He pointed to the big man in the coveralls. “With all that lipstick on his neck, I’ve been wonderin’ just how good a time he had last night.”

“What are you doin’ here, Lorenzo? I thought you went back to west Texas for good.”

“I came up the trail with the IXL herd in the spring and then hired on to work in Johnson County. But it’s goin’ crazy over there. They’re shootin’ each other for grazin’ rights.”

“I don’t remember you backin’ down from many a fight,” Tap observed.

“I ain’t that young anymore. I just don’t feel like dyin’ for som
eone else’s bovines. If they was mine, it might be different. How about you? Did you get run out of Arizona?”

“More or less. But that’s all cleared up now. I’m workin’ as brand inspector down around Pine Bluffs.”

“Brand inspector?” Odessa roared. “Sounds like you’ve taken up the rockin’ chair.”

“With the amount of rustlin’ goin’ on, it’s never boring. B
esides, there’s a lot of things different in my life now.”

“Oh, sure.” Lorenzo laughed. “Let me guess .
 . . Tap Andrews, gunfighter and every gal’s favorite, took himself a wife, has three kids, and teaches Sunday school.”

“You got it, partner.”

Odessa spun around and stared at Tap. “I was only joshin’.”

“I wasn’t. I’ve got a beautiful wife who’s expectin’ our first in a few months. We’re raisin’ a friend’s ten-year-old daug
hter, and, no, I don’t teach Sunday school, but you’ll find me there most ever’ week.”

“Well, I’ll be. I never figured either of us would live this long, let alone settle down.”

“Yeah.” Tap leaned back against the side of the building. “I keep thankin’ the Lord for my blessin’s.”

“Tapadera, that’s truly inspirin’.”

“Inspirin’?”

“I’ve been here a couple days just picking up some wi
nnin’s and ponderin’ where I should go next. I keep thinkin’ I should go home. Then I remember I got no home to go to.”

“You lookin’ for work?”

“You hirin’?”

“Maybe.”

“You hirin’ me to use my gun or my rope?” Odessa asked.

“Your rope. I think I’m goin’ to need a top hand to put t
ogether a ranchin’ operation.”

“You ain’t goin’ over to Johnson County, are you?”

“Nope. About fifty miles south of here on the top edge of Black Thunder Basin.”

“What kind of operation?”

“This old boy from Texas is bringin’ 1,700 head up to a 30,000-acre spread he’s goin’ to buy. It’s a brand-new outfit in the middle of nowhere. He’s asked me to foreman the place on shares. I’ll have to have half a dozen men full time and the rest hired as needed.”

“You reckon I could buy in and start buildin’ a little herd for m
yself?” Odessa asked.

“Yep.”

Odessa pushed his hat back, uncovering his curly blond hair and blue eyes. “I’m your man, partner.” He shook Tap’s callused hand. “Who is this Texas man?”

“Goes by the name of Jacob Tracker.”

“Tracker. Jake Tracker? That no-good back-shootin’ son of a buffalo chip.”

“Whoa, what do you know about Tracker? Is this the same man?”

“Is he in his early fifties, dark hair with gray streaks, about five-foot-ten, narrow dark eyes, and kind of bushy sideburns?”

“Sounds like him. What’s the deal about Tracker, Odessa?”

“The Tobbler place was burned out on the Pecos. The whole family and hired hands were shot. Ever’one blamed the Mexicans. In fact, the troops crossed the border into Sonora lookin’ for the culprits, but no trace was found.

“The family that was left, two sisters in San Angelo, hired some of us boys to go and round up the Tobbler stock and kind of settle a
ccounts. We only brushed out 600 head.”

“How many were they supposed to have?”

“The bank had made a loan on 2,100 head.”

“So there were 1,500 missing?”

“Yep . . . maybe more because the loan was before calvin’ started.”

“What does Tracker have to do with this?”

“Rumor has it that he was run out of New Mexico by old John Chisum personally. Tracker gathered a gang of hangers-on and gamblers—not exactly cowhands, but he knew cattle. And about three weeks after the Tobbler massacre, Tracker showed up outside Amarillo pushin’ a big herd of Lazy T beef.”

“Tobbler’s?”

“Yep. But he had a bill of sale and claimed he paid cash for the herd. Now no one had any idea where he got the cash to buy them. But no one could prove that he didn’t, so while the lawyers debated the law, Tracker pushed them out of state, paid off the gunslingin’ crew that proceeded to roar their way across Texas . . . and that ended the matter.”

“Is that the gospel truth, Lorenzo?”

“I buried some of the Tobblers myself, Tap. It’s the gospel truth.”

“How in the world did a character like that get enough money to buy a big ranch?”

“Maybe he ain’t buyin’ it,” Lorenzo suggested.

“But he wanted me to run the place and—”

“To hold ’em over the winter while he peddled them off in the Black Hills. You do the work, take the risks. He ain’t drover enough to hold them over the winter.”

Tap stood up and paced the boardwalk. His spurs and ji
nglebobs sang tenor while his boot heels thundered the bass.

“I can’t believe he hooked me like that. I can’t believe it. I bailed that man out three or four times,” Tap fumed.

A voice boomed from the porch, “You goin’ to stomp around like that all day? I might as well git up and eat my breakfast.”

Tap and Lorenzo looked over at the big man in coveralls as he groaned, sat up, and rubbed the stubble of a two-week beard. Stru
ggling to his feet, he staggered toward the front door of Pinky’s.

“Do you know a man named Cabe—Wesley Cabe?”

“Is he runnin’ with Tracker?”

“They were together.”

“I wouldn’t turn my back on that Cabe. Some say he was the one that shot them two girls at Big Sarah’s in the back.”

“I can’t believe this, Lorenzo. I just spent a week baby-sittin’ those two.”

“Did you get your pay?”

“Yep.”

“And you didn’t take any lead? I’d say you got by just fine.”

Tap plopped back on the bench next to Odessa and stretched out his legs.

“You limpin’, Tap?”

“Oh, I got a horse that busted up my leg. It’s gettin’ be
tter.”

“I got myself a mean horse, too. I’d trade him in a minute, but nobody would take him.”

Tap stared out into the street.

Lord, I don’t know how I could have been suckered along like that. Used to be I didn’t trust anyone. Figured ever’one was out to cheat me. But lately I cut ’em a break .
 . . believe their line and get taken in. I’ve got to quit this business before I get shot in the back.

“Odessa, you got a few days you can spare me?”

“I ain’t holdin’ down wages if that’s what you mean.”

“How about ridin’ down to the Black Thunder Basin and facin’ down this Tracker with me? I don’t much care for ge
ttin’ sucked in like that.”

“It beats stayin’ around here buyin’ drinks for the house.”

“Is there a decent meal served in this town?”

“Nope.”

“Is there one that a man with a strong stomach can keep down?” Tap probed.

“Louisa’s will stick with you.”

“I’m going to grab some supper. I’ll meet you at daybreak at the livery, and we’ll ride south.”

Evening shadows began to fall on Sundance. Lorenzo Odessa poked Tap. “The country’s different, but you and me ridin’ out t
ogether . . . sort of feels like the old days in Tucson, don’t it?”

“Only this time no one’s chasin’ us, and we didn’t get run out of town.”

“At least, not yet,” Odessa whooped.

With daylight just breaking in the east, Tap could barely see his way down Sundance’s one street as he hobbled to the livery to r
etrieve Roundhouse. His left knee was stiff, and he limped along, toting his saddlebags over his right shoulder and cradling his Winchester in his left arm.

He had the big gray saddled and ready to ride by the time Odessa showed up. The liveryman insisted that Lorenzo saddle his own horse.

“Tap,” Lorenzo hollered as he walked the horse out in front of the corrals, “you better give me some room. This old boy still has some kinks in him.”

Tap mounted Roundhouse from the off side and then spun him three times to the right, then three times to the left. The gray horse settled right down, so Tap rode him over next to the corral gate and waited.

“Okay, Odessa, let’s see your show.”

The muscular cowboy jammed his left foot in the stirrup and swung up into the Texas saddle. He had not found his seat when the horse began to buck wildly.

After the blue roan’s first jump, Odessa grabbed the saddle horn, and Roundhouse got inspired to join in. The jolt of the first unexpected leap caused Tap to drop the reins. Because he couldn’t turn the horse, Roundhouse plunged and bucked straight ahead—toward Lorenzo and his horse.

It was on Roundhouse’s fourth jump, with Tap clutching the horn and the retrieved reins, that the horse made a su
dden lunge almost straight left. Tap didn’t even see it coming, but Odessa’s horse jumped right at that moment. The two horses met in an explosive head-on crash.

The blow tossed Tap to the left side of the saddle, ja
mming his left foot in the stirrup and causing a searing pain to shoot up his leg. Roundhouse staggered backwards shaking his head. Lorenzo Odessa’s horse went down and in fright started kicking wildly. But Odessa’s leg was pinned under the horse, and he couldn’t yank it free. He could only try to duck the flying hooves.