Tortuga (14 page)

“Yeah,” Mike nodded, “we know you're a mean-ass stud, but what happened?”

“I hated losing my hoss more than my woman—” Buck's lips trembled.

Mike shook his head. “Just wait till you've been here awhile, you'll change your mind.”

“I hurt all over,” he groaned.

“You want me to get the Nurse?” Mike asked.

“I'm okay,” Buck mumbled. “Is this the bunkhouse?”

“Yeah, I reckon it is,” Mike nodded.

“Well, I guess I'm in the raght place—”

“Yup. It ain't exactly home on the range, but it'll do for awhile,” Mike winked at us.

“Hotdoggie, they got me tied down like a crazy bronc, don't they?” He smiled for the first time.

“They have all of us tied down like crazy horses,” Mike agreed. “Every once in awhile one breaks loose, but they bring another one in its place—one after another to this crazy corral …”

I knew he was thinking about Jerry, we all were. There had been no word since he left.

“How did they happen to lasso you?” Ronco asked.

“Well,” he drawled, “I was over to an FFA meeting in Gila Bend, jus' havin' me a grand ole opery good time, when a no account drugstore cowboy decides to throw his lariat on my little dogie—”

“Hey hold on!” Sadsack interrupted. “Would you mind translating what all that means so we can all know what you're saying? Damn, you sound like one of those cowboys on the radio! Har, har, har …”

Buck glanced at us, swallowed, then relaxed. I guess he realized we were all in the same boat and he didn't have to act the part of a big, mean cowboy.

“I lost my girl,” he said meekly. “She double-crossed me for one of those city jocks that don't know the difference between a bull and a heifer … so I got drunk. I bought me a case of beer and I headed home. It had snowed the night before and the pass was as slick as a whistle with ice. There wasn't any traffic on it, the roads were closed, but I didn't know that. I was drunker than a skunk by the time I started over Flechado Pass. Anyways, to make a long story short, I fell asleep somewhere in the middle of a Hank Snow and went over the cliff … shoot, I'da made it if I hadn't fallen asleep. I spent all day at the bottom of that canyon, and it was cold as hell! I nearly froze to death. Lucky for me a search party found me—” He paused and looked at us. “Funny, one of them said something about looking for an Indian kid … and there was a doctor with them. They found me by accident. Any of you know anything about that?”

Nobody answered. We would tell him later.

“Anyway, it was lucky for me … I'da froze to death … oh, it was colder than hell … But Champ is dead.”

“Champ? Who's Champ?”

“My horse,” Buck explained, “my horse is dead and that's what hurts the most … I'd give anything to have him alive again, anything. I don't mind me gettin' busted up, I deserved it, actin' like a damn fool over that big-assed FFA gal … but oh damn, Champ is dead … I had to kill him …”

“What happened?” Sadsack asked.

“He was thrown from the trailer … broke his legs, and probably a lot of other bones. I passed out for awhile, and when I came to the first thing I could hear were his cries as he struggled to get up … course he couldn't. He'd rear up and just tumble back down. Then he'd rest awhile, look over at me, and I couldn't move out of the cab, I was just as busted up … I knew right away, the minute I woke up and saw him all busted up, that he wouldn't make it … that I had to kill him.”

“How?”

“I had a 30-30 in the gunrack. I managed to get it out … then I said goodbye to Champ … aimed … fired. Oh damn I can still hear that shot echoing down the canyon … like a bell. Some crows called, flew overhead, then it was quiet again. Only the wind moaned down that canyon … and I had to sit there all morning, feeling the blood freeze where it oozed from some of my wounds … watching the crows circling overhead … It wasn't the cold I minded … it was that I had to kill my horse … I don't mind telling you, I cried …” Even now his voice grew hoarse as he told us his story. His eyes filled with tears.

“You had to do it,” Ronco said, “that's the only thing you can do when an animal's busted up that bad …”

“Yeah,” Buck agreed, “but it sure as hell ain't like the movies … I found that out.”

“No, it ain't the movies,” Mike nodded, “nothing is. The movies paint it too easy … Tom Mix shoots his horse with a broken leg, says goodbye Ole Paint, jumps on another horse and rides to catch the desperados who have kidnapped his woman … it all comes out right in the end. Here it's different. But at least you came out of it alive, let's be thankful for that …”

“Yeah, they can't keep a good man down,” Buck tried to smile.

“That's the spirit!” Mike nodded and we smiled and tried to let him know we were pulling for him, even Sadsack who cut loose an explosive bomb cried out joyfully, “Yeah Buck, catch that and paint it red! Har-har-har!”

“My ole man always said I was full of piss and vinegar,” Buck winked, “I'll be throwing a lasso on one of those chairs before long—”

“We got a whole corral of them,” Mike said, “just waiting to be rode.”

“Yeah,” Buck groaned. “But it sure do hurt in the meantime—” He closed his eyes. He fell into a painful, troubled sleep, feverishly mumbling that he could rope anything that moved, including wild snakes, cyclones and hurricanes. He swore over and over that the horse hadn't been born that could throw him, and there wasn't a steer he couldn't toss on its back. He hated fancy drug-store cowboys who'd never rid' a hoss or roped a dogie and who'd never dirtied their boots in cow shit. Later he shouted that this sure as hell wasn't his last round-up and that he wasn't ready for Hill Billy heaven, and that ole JC, the toughest trailmaster of them all, could just trail boss a little longer without him. He sang parts of “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” yodeled like a sick calf, then finally quieted down as his fever broke and he could rest.

The room was quiet while we watched over him. Someone whispered that it was a strange coincidence that the searchers had gone out looking for Jerry and found Buck, and that Buck had come to sleep in Jerry's bed.

The following morning they found Jerry's body. We had spent our time glued to the radio, waiting for news, but all we could get were the frequent sermons of a hill billy preacher who piped in from KRST, Del Rio, Texas. After that there was only garbled static and occasional snatches of music. We felt cut off from the outside world. There was a radio in the reception room, and that's how the news first came to us. It spread quickly throughout the ward, so by the time Danny and Mudo and Tuerto came running in with a newspaper they had swiped we already knew. The ward was very quiet.

“It says he froze to death,” Danny said.

“He didn't have a chance crossing that mountain,” Ronco said, “but it happens every year. Sooner or later one of us gets homesick, and when the call comes you don't plan on anything, you just go. There's nothing stronger than the call to be home. The time came for Jerry and he went. Home was his life … it was everything. He couldn't live in a hospital like this, damn, can't they realize that!”

“Yeah, home was grandfather … home was a place where he could have his religion without having to hide it,” Mike nodded. He had taken Jerry's death harder than anyone, because he had tried so hard to talk with Jerry and understand what was going on in his mind.

“There was no way he could get over Flechado Pass,” Buck said, “I know that. It was frozen solid. And all the other trails over the mountain are covered over too, either that or they're fenced in. I've been up in that mountain in the summer, and there's barbed wire everywhere. If the Forest Service isn't closing off trails then it's the big ranchers … Maybe Jerry didn't know that. He didn't know the old trails are wiped out …”

“In a way I'm glad he went,” Mike whispered to himself, “at least he had the guts to make a break for it.” Then he slammed his fist against the nightstand and cursed. “But he never had a chance! Damnit, he never had a chance!”

We all shared his anger and frustration, because we felt like he did, but there was nothing we could do.

“We should take this case to the Committee,” somebody suggested.

“You're damn right we will!” Mike exclaimed. “The whole world should know what's happening here, and that creep of a director won't tell them!”

“Swanson? Shit, he doesn't know a damned thing!” Danny said angrily. “He never leaves his office. He's afraid of us, thinks we're freaks. Steel's the one that does all the work!”

“Did you hear what Swanson told the reporters? It was on the radio, somebody said. He told them Jerry was the Little Beaver of the hospital … and we were going to miss him, but we all knew he had gone to his happy hunting ground!”

“His real name was Geronimo,” Mike said, “and he was Navajo—

We said no more, but later that afternoon someone asked how Dr. Steel had found Jerry and someone, I don't know who, said that when Steel came running to our room he looked out the window and he cursed. Seems like right then and there he knew Jerry would be heading west, into the Gila … and he also knew the mountain was packed with snow and ice and every friggin' pass was closed. Jerry would have to go over the top … even Flechado Pass was closed that day. By then the sheriff had already been called, he and the state cop were here, asking questions … and Steel just grabbed a jacket and told them to get going because they had to find Jerry before nightfall. He knew it had to be that way, because he knew that night it was going to be freezing cold as hell on the top of that mountain. So they went out in the jeeps, and first they found Buck … that's something ain't it? If they hadn't gone looking for Jerry they would never have found Buck, cause like I said, the road over the pass was already closed to traffic. Anyway, Steel climbed all day … and next morning he brought Jerry down. But what happened up there on the mountain is what's interesting. It took him all day to bring Jerry down, but he did it, and he did it alone because his own horse was frozen to death. He brought him down all the way, dragging him, carrying him over his back, anyway he could, down to the camp, down to the surprised men, never saying anything to anyone, just watched him loaded on the ambulance … then he came back to the hospital, and they say the first thing he did was to go over to Salomón's room … nobody knows why, but they say he talked with Salomón for a long time. Nobody knows why, but I got an idea. Know what it is? I think he knows Salomón makes stories, and it was important for him to tell him because one of these days Salomón is going to make a story of it. Yeah, just wait, one of these days you'll hear his story, maybe not right away, and maybe he'll change it a little, cause he's a good storyteller, but you'll hear it. He'll tell about the way Steel ran down to the river through the wet, frozen snow, how he was gasping for breath and how his eyes were burning with tears. And most important, he'll tell what Steel was thinking all that time, which I don't know because I wasn't even there. And he'll tell what he felt when he saw those tracks turn towards the mountains to the west … He will tell you exactly how Steel looked when he got back to the hospital, how wet and tired he was, how he didn't say anything as he put on the shoes and heavy clothes and finally the sheep-skin jacket. He'll tell you details like I couldn't, so you'll feel you're right there, with the searchers getting on the jeep and trucks, quietly kidding each other, checking their equipment, passing the whiskey bottle so the sheriff and Steel won't see, looking up at Solazo peak and somehow wishing they weren't going on the search, wishing they were back home sleeping late under warm blankets, getting a screw from their women, feeling the warmth of their homes. You'll see them drive up to where the tracks turned into the mountains, how they looked over the side and spotted Buck's tangled wreck and saw him waving and shouting where he was pinned in the cab, hear the murmurs of dissension when Steel wanted them to climb, listen to the hassling of the sheriff and the rancher over the price for the horses, hear the stamping feet of the packed horses, smell their sweet smell and hear the creaking of saddles and halters as the sheriff and Steel and the deputy mount up and head into the tall drifts, barely moving forward in the thick snow. The men at the camp rejoice inside that it's not them going, and they can settle down and play cards and drink all day, and joke with Orlando, the state cop, about the raid he made over in Santa Rita, and how he took one of the prostitutes home with him and she's been there ever since. He'll show you plumes of frozen breath marking the still, quiet air. Dots against the mountainside, dots which are the three riders making slow progress. You'll feel the cold wind coming down off the mountain, covering everything with the snow it's blowing around. Then you'll see two of the dots turn back as the sun dips over the mountain and it begins to get winter-dark very fast, and you'll hear them making up excuses to tell the others down at camp, excuses for turning back, the cold, the darkness, Steel's insanity … You'll see Steel get down and have to break the trail for his horse and pull him past the really thick drifts … and then he'll tell you about Steel's night on the mountain and how the moon grew so big and blue it looked like a giant balloon just within reach … and the silence and the peace of that frozen mountain top. And you'll realize that right in the middle of that cold beauty, right in that entire Gila wilderness on the back of a mountain that stretches a hundred miles, Jerry and Steel are sitting very close to each other, that's what really gets you, how Steel was right about the tracks that weren't there. You'll see the blue snow clinging to everything … and Jerry, sitting against the pine tree, looking down at us, waiting for the sun to rise, smiling … Maybe that's what Steel wanted Salomón to know, that in the midst of all that silence, with the ice cracking and groaning as the trees swayed in the wind, and with the moon so full and mysterious, Jerry was sitting so still and peaceful.…