Rio (26 page)

The greedy old man’s eyes lit up, and he reached for his bag in a hurry. “I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t promise anything. My God, what happened to his face? He looks like a monster!”

Trace shrugged. “We don’t know for sure; maybe someone took a brandin’ iron to it.”

The doctor opened up his bag, took out some carbonic acid, and wiped the area around the swollen wounds. “Some back East got this new theory about something called germs, say you can kill ’em by disinfecting the area.”

“We’ve been spoonin’willow bark water down his throat to bring his fever down,” Cookie offered.

“Old Injun hogwash,” the doctor snorted. “Don’t think it’s worth a damn.”

“It works.” Trace frowned.

The crew gathered around to watch silently as the old man cleaned the wound. “It’s swollen up some, and he’ll always be as ugly as hell. Too bad; looks like he was once handsome.” He pulled down the blanket and looked the boy over, then turned him on his side. “This kid is almost starved to death, and he’s got old scars on his back.”

“Oh?” Trace stared at the boy’s back, nodded. “He’s been treated bad, maybe over a number of years. Take a look at his feet.”

The doc squinted and frowned. “Good God, how far has he walked?”

Trace shook his head. “We don’t know. We found him trying to eat a steer raw. He don’t speak Spanish, Cheyenne, or Comanche, so he has to be from farther north, I reckon, or maybe west.”

The doc shuddered as he cleaned and put medicine on the boy’s soles, then leaned back and sighed. “Reckon I’ve done all I can for him. He needs food and rest, and even then he may not make it.”

Trace stood up. “If I can get him home to my wife, she’ll take care of him; she’s the one who doctors all our cowboys and critters. Stay for supper, doc—we’re having steak and biscuits.”

“Sounds good,” the old man grinned for the first time.

Later, Trace sent the man on his way with a very generous fee. Then he watched Cookie spooning broth into the boy’s mouth. The Indian kid was barely conscious.

“Well, Maverick,” he said with a sigh, “If I head back to the ranch with the kid, can you take over here?”

“You know I will, Trace. We’ll move these steers farther south before the weather turns frosty.”

The next morning, Trace fashioned a travois behind his black horse, which shied nervously as the men put the semiconscious boy in the blankets. “It’ll take me a few days to get home, but I know where the water holes are along the way, and I can kill enough game to keep us fed.”

“You watch out for that kid,” Cookie warned, rubbing his chin with a flour-dusted hand, “I think he’d try to kill you if he got a chance.”

“He’s in no shape to kill anybody,” Trace said as he mounted up, “but he’s game enough to try. I’ll see you boys back at the ranch in a few days. Adios.”

Cimarron glanced out the window of the big white hacienda and saw her husband dismounting in front of the courtyard fountain. “Trace!” She flew out the door and into his arms. “Honey, what are you doing home early?”

“Hi, darlin’, he kissed the tip of her nose. “Nothing wrong. I just brought in a half-breed kid we found up in the Panhandle.”

She stared at the boy on the travois. “Oh, the poor thing!”

Trace watched her hurry to the half-conscious boy. She might be older than the first time he saw her in 1864, but to
him, this yellow-haired wife had only grown more beautiful. “Oh, Trace, double damnation, what happened to him?”

Trace shook his head. “It’s a long story, and we may never know all of it. I figure if anyone can help him, you can.”

Cimarron turned and ran toward the house, shouting for vaqueros and the house servants. “Come quickly!
Muy pronto!
We have a very sick boy to help!”

Cimarron planned to put the boy in a bedroom of the big hacienda, but Trace wanted him put in the bunkhouse. “Darlin’, I know you aren’t thinking about this, but this kid could be dangerous. We don’t know a thing about him.”

“He’s hurt—that’s all I need to know. All right, we’ll put him in the servant’s quarters at the back of the house.”

“Okay, I give up. See if Maria can cook up something he can eat. He may try to get away, but he won’t get far with those feet. He’s too weak to stand anyway.”

Over the next several weeks, the boy improved. At first, Cimarron knew he was terrified, but he seemed to gradually realize no one would hurt him. The roundup crew was back at the ranchero by the time the boy was hobbling around the floor. His face was healing, but the right side would always be so scarred and twisted that little children backed away when they saw him and ran to their mothers who crossed themselves and muttered prayers. Cimarron had all the mirrors removed from the house so that he would not see his disfigured reflection.

The weather was spitting snow the day that he limped across the room toward a chair and the man who had saved him came in and shut the door. He Not Worthy of a Name backed away. He had no weapon to defend himself now if the white cowboys were going to torture him.

Trace smiled and gestured him into the chair. “Are you
feeling well?” he asked in English, feeling foolish because he did not know what tongue the boy spoke.

The boy nodded.

“What is your name?” Trace asked.

The boy had not spoken for a long time and it was hard to mouth the words. “I am called He Not Worthy of a Name. I have not earned one.”

“Do you want me to give you a name?” Trace leaned back in a chair and reached into his shirt for a cigarillo. “You can be a Durango.”

The boy shook his head, watching Trace’s hands. “I must earn my own.”

“All right then.” Trace searched his pocket for a match, and when he struck it, he saw the fright in the boy’s dark eyes as he shied away.

Trace noted the terror and, remembering the boy’s burned face, shook out the match. “We will not hurt you,” he whispered.

The boy did not look as if he believed him.

“What tribe are you?” Trace leaned back in his chair.

“Santee Dakota.”

Trace snorted in disbelief. “That tribe is hundreds of miles north of here.”

The boy only looked at him.

“All right then.” Trace decided not to pursue that. “The servants say you scream at night in your sleep.”

The boy flushed and looked away.

“It is all right,” Trace assured him. “We all have nightmares now and then. Are you afraid?”

The boy hesitated. Evidently, he was ashamed to admit his fear.

“If you are afraid, I can teach you to handle a pistol; then no one will hurt you.”

The boy smiled for the first time. “You—you would do that?”

“
Si
.” Trace nodded. “How old are you? Do you know?”

The boy’s face furrowed. “I—I think fourteen winter counts.”

“Would you like to stay here at my ranch?”

“Is this Texas?” The boy looked out the window.

“Yes, this is Texas,” Trace assured him, wondering why it was so important to him.

“Texas.” The boy smiled. “Yes. I got here. I did not think I would.”

Trace waited, but the boy did not elaborate. “Are you good with horses?”

The boy nodded.

“Fine.” Trace leaned back in his chair. “You can move into the bunkhouse and be part of my crew. I will pay you to help with chores and care for horses.”

“Pay?” The boy looked puzzled.

“
Si
.” Trace nodded. “You know, you work and I give you money for it.”

“I have never been paid to work. I was a slave to an old Santee woman.”

Dios!
What all had happened to this boy in his short life?

“Well, now you will be paid. When you feel like it, you can come eat with the other cowboys.”

The boy evidently did not believe him. “You—you are not going to torture me for killing your cow?”

Trace shook his head. “Is that what happened to you before?”

Terror crossed the boy’s face as he seemed to remember something, but he did not answer. There was something very dark and terrible in his past, Trace thought, something the boy might never tell—maybe something more terrible than the branding.

“All right then,” Trace stood up. “When you feel like it, we will begin lessons with the pistol, and I will show you around the ranch. This is a good place. Ask Maverick when he comes to visit. I found him as I found you.You can have
a good future here in Texas.” Trace went out and closed the door.

He Not Worthy of a Name stared after him. He could not believe everything the man had said, but then this was Texas. Hadn’t his friends told him how wonderful it was before they died?

Over the winter, Trace taught the boy to handle a gun and allowed him to take care of the ranch’s prize quarter horses.

One day in the early spring, he watched the boy through the window. “Cimarron,” he mused, “this kid has an amazing talent for horses and pistols. I think he’s better than I am.”

“That’s saying a lot, honey.” She leaned over to kiss him. Trace Durango might be getting a little gray in his hair, but he still had a reputation as the best gun in Texas. “Don’t you think we should give him a name?”

“I tried,” Trace shrugged and sipped his coffee, “but he says he must earn his own name. Until then, we all just call him ‘kid.’”

They watched their young children, Ace and Raven, run across the yard toward the boy. “Hey, kid,” Ace yelled, “you want to saddle up and ride today?”

The boy nodded.

Cimarron smiled. “And you warned me he was dangerous. Our children love him.”

“We still don’t know a damned thing about him,” Trace said. “But he does seem to have a special way with children and animals.”

“Well, I don’t care. If he wants to stay on the Triple D the rest of his life, we can always use a good hand.”

Trace nodded. “I told him that. I also told him I have a few thousand acres over in the Big Bend country I’d sell him cheap if he ever wants to go out on his own. There’re lots of wild horses there. He could make a good livin’
catchin’ and breakin’ them, and he wouldn’t have people staring at him all the time.”

Cimarron’s eyes misted. “It would be lonely for him without a woman.”

“
Si
, but look at him, darlin’. He looks like a monster. Can you imagine any woman lovin’ him?”

“A special woman,” Cimarron whispered, “a woman who loves him for his heart, not his looks.”

Trace shook his head as they watched the boy saddle up three horses. “It would take a special woman all right, but I’m afraid he won’t find her.”

“I’m going to teach him to read and write,” Cimarron said. “If he’s lonely, he can always lose himself in a book.”

Trace grinned at her, loving her more than ever. “Darlin’, whatever you want to do.”

And so she taught the mysterious boy along with her own children and the children of the vaqueros. There was something very sad and angry about him that she was unable to fathom. It had to be worse than just mistreatment, she thought, but he would never let anyone get close to him. He was a loner—an angry loner.

One warm spring day, she happened to be looking out the front windows toward the big fountain with its pool of water. The kid, passing by, stopped to stare at the fountain, then looked into the pool.

Cimarron wanted to run out and stop him, but he was already staring at his reflection, first in disbelief, then in horror as he backed away. Since she had taken down all the mirrors, he must not have realized how he looked, and now the terrible reality had sunk in and there was nothing she or anyone could do to protect him from that. She ran out the French doors onto the veranda.

“It’s all right,” she reassured him and tried to put her arm around him, but he shook his head and backed away, tears gathering in his eyes. Then he turned and ran into the barn, where he hid.

She told Trace what had happened.

“Leave him alone,” he said. “The kid will have to learn to live with it, painful as that might be. I don’t think there’s anything we can do except be kind to him.”

One day she was reading her little class a book of fairy tales when the kid interrupted suddenly, evidently disturbed. “Why is it the beautiful yellow-haired princess always kisses the beast or the frog and he becomes a handsome prince? Couldn’t she love him if he were not handsome?”

Cimarron winced. Why had she not remembered the boy’s disfigurement? “Of course she could,” she answered softly, “if she were the right kind of girl—a kind, caring one.”

“I don’t want to hear any more of those.” He turned over his chair as he ran out, slamming the door behind him. It was weeks before he came quietly into her class again, but she read the class no more fairy tales.

Events at the ranch went along quietly for the next few months as the half-breed boy grew tall and lithe. Then one late summer morning, Trace found a note on the veranda table as he sat down for breakfast.

Cimarron came outside, saw Trace’s ashen face. “What’s the matter?”

He offered her the note. “The kid has left.”

“What?” She took the note from his hand. She had taught the boy to read and write, and here in his simple handwriting, he was thanking them and moving on. “But why? He’s still just a boy, and we gave him a good home.” She began to cry.

“I think I’ve always known he wouldn’t stay,” Trace sighed. “He’s as restless as a wild mustang, and we never really knew much about him. I think he has unfinished business somewhere in his past, something terrible, more terrible than brandin’, and maybe he can’t rest until he takes care of it.”

“How could anything be more horrible than that?”

Trace shook his head. “I don’t know; I reckon no one does but him.”

“But how will he live?” she whispered and crumpled the note. “And what will I tell the children?”

“I’ve taught him well, maybe too well,” Trace sighed. “In a year or so, he’ll probably be the best gun in Texas, better than me or even Maverick. There’re plenty who would pay a top gunfighter to do their dirty work. I hear they’re looking for hired guns in Lincoln County, New Mexico. There’s talk of a range war there.”

“A gunfighter.” Cimarron sank back in her chair. “They never live very long; there’s always a better, faster gun.”