When the Legends Die (16 page)

He began to feel queasy again and wished Red would shut up. He was light-headed and sweating. Red sensed something wrong. He turned and looked at Tom and asked, “What’s the matter with you?”

Tom shook his head and said, “Nothing,” and knew he was going to be sick. He stopped his horse, got off, and fell to his knees and began to retch.

Red grinned. “You’re kind of shook up, I guess. Feel better now?”

Tom got to his feet and stood, holding to the saddle, till his head began to clear. Finally he mounted again. They rode on, and Red said, “I’ll stop in Blanco and get a bottle of tonic. That’ll settle your guts.” He laughed.

Blanco was only a couple of miles ahead. They rode up to the store and Tom waited while Red went in. He came back with three bottles, undid his bedroll and stowed two of them inside. Then he opened the third bottle and took a long drink from it. He wiped the neck on his sleeve and handed it to Tom. “Take a good swig. Clean the dust out of your throat.”

Tom took a mouthful, swallowed twice and felt the burn of the liquor all the way to his stomach before he even tasted it. He took another mouthful, handed the bottle back to Red and shivered as he swallowed again. It burned all the way down, then seemed to fume back and fill his head. Red took another long drink, corked the bottle and got on his horse. They started on home.

Tom’s head began to reel. He swayed in the saddle, had to hold on to the pommel. Red laughed at him. “Hold tight, Tom! Don’t start flapping your wings or you’ll fly right out of the saddle! Ain’t used to wings, I guess, are you? Feel better now?

“No.”

Red uncorked the bottle and took another drink. “You will.” He offered the bottle to Tom again.

Tom shook his head, and wondered why it didn’t seem to be fastened to his neck. His body was down there somewhere, and it didn’t ache any more, but his head was floating all by itself. Then he felt his body swaying and ordered his hands to grab the saddle and hold on. They got the order and obeyed. Then he ordered his eyes to look at his horse’s ears and stop his head from spinning. His eyes looked, but the horse had four ears. Why? It didn’t matter. He closed his eyes and let his head spin, and his hands gripped the saddle.

Darkness came and the horses plodded homeward. Tom slept, his hands still gripping the saddle, his chin on his chest. Red talked to himself, laughed from time to time. He began to sing. Tom woke up, almost fell out of the saddle, recovered and felt the queasiness again. Red’s toneless singing rasped at his ears.

“Shut up,” Tom shouted, and his own voice echoed in his ears. “Shut your damn big mouth!”

Red laughed and went on singing, and Tom was asleep again.

It was almost midnight when the horses picked their way down the trail along the bluff and crossed to the barn. Tom wakened and wondered where he was. The horses stopped. Red bellowed, “Meo! Meo, come here, you damn old chili-eater!”

A light appeared in the house. The door opened and Meo appeared, lantern in hand. He came to the barn and Red said, “Meo, you old chili-eater, I took ’em!” His words were slurred, thick. He laughed. “Put the horses away. We got to celebrate.” He waved the bottle, now empty, and dismounted. Meo steadied him or he would have fallen. Red tilted up the bottle, said, “All gone. Dead soldier,” and tossed it aside. He tried to untie his bedroll. Meo undid it for him, got it over his shoulder and Red started to the cabin, weaving as he went.

Tom dismounted carefully, each motion deliberate. His head still swam and he wasn’t sure of his feet. He held to the saddle until he had his equilibrium, then took off his bedroll, put it on the ground and loosened the latigos. He almost fell as he pulled the saddle off, but carried it into the barn and got it onto the pole where it belonged.

“I’ll finish,” Meo said. “Go get some coffee.”

Tom almost fell as he leaned over to pick up his bedroll, but he got it into his arms and carried it to the cabin. Red was sprawled in his bunk, already asleep. Tom put the bedroll at the foot of his own bunk, went to the hearth and poured a cupful of hot, black coffee. He sat down at the table, the cup in both hands, and tried to drink. He burned his lips but couldn’t feel the scald inside his mouth. His mouth, his whole gullet, was numb. He set the cup down and was sitting there, staring at it, when Meo came in.

Meo glanced at Red, then came to the table. He filled a bowl with beans and chili, set it in front of Tom and put half a dozen cold tortillas beside it. “Eat,” he ordered. “Put something in the belly.”

Tom had no hunger, but he rolled a tortilla and scooped at the beans, took a mouthful. It felt good, though he could hardly taste it. He scooped another mouthful from the bowl.

“You won?” Meo said.

Tom shook his head. “I lost.”

“Then you rode again?”

“Yes.” Tom wondered how Meo knew. “I rode again. I rode a horse to death.”

“Ah-h-h.” Meo nodded. He glanced toward Red, snoring in his bunk, pointed with his chin.
“He won.”

Tom nodded.

Meo went over to Red and went through his pockets. He took all the money he could find, counted it, then put back a few bills. He folded the rest of it carefully and thrust it into his own pocket. Then he came back to the fireplace and filled Tom’s chili bowl again.

Tom’s head was beginning to clear. He could taste the bite of the coffee, the flavor of the chili. Meo sat down opposite him with a cup of coffee. “Tell me about it,” he urged.

Tom told him. Meo listened, nodding, sipping coffee, making no comment. At last he jerked his chin toward Red and said, “Some day they will kill that one. Or he will kill himself.” It was an unemotional statement, his only comment. He finished his coffee. “Tomorrow,” he said, “we will harvest the frijoles, you and I. Go to bed now.”

T
HEY HARVESTED THE BEANS
in the old way, pulling the vines, piling them on a tarp, flailing them with a stick. Then they took away the broken vines and winnowed the beans, scooping them into a flat basket, holding the basket high and slowly pouring the beans onto a fresh tarp. The wind blew away the broken pods and chaff.

It was slow work and Meo never hurried. “The frijole,” he said, “takes its own time. It waits for the sun and the rain, then grows one day at a time. Why should I tell it to hurry now? If I do not eat this frijole, it will wait and grow again. It does not need me to tell it what to do.” He scooped another basketful and poured the beans slowly, watching the broken pods drift away and the dry, hard beans flow in a pattering stream onto the tarp. “We know these things, you and I. Our people were not born last year. We are of the old people.”

They threshed the beans and winnowed them. Then they sat on the ground and sorted them, handful by handful, picking out the bits of stem and the small brown pebbles before they put the beans into storage bags. The sun was warm, the air was mild, and even the magpies in the cottonwoods had ceased their noisy scolding. Life seemed as unhurried as the day, or as the beans.

Tom asked, “Why did you come here, Meo?”

“One must live somewhere.” For a minute Meo was silent as he sorted another handful of beans, then he asked, “Why did you come?”

Tom answered in Meo’s own words: “One must live somewhere.”

“Where did you live before?”

“On the reservation. I herded sheep.”

“Before that?”

“I lived in the mountains, in the old way.”

“Why did you leave the mountains?”

“They came and took me away.”

“Your father and mother?”

“They are dead.”

They sorted beans in silence for a time. Then Meo said, “The mountains are still there.”

“The old way is finished.” Unconsciously Tom made the cut-off sign. “I have no one,” he added.

Meo poured a handful of beans into the bag, picked up another handful and began to sort them. “So you came here, with him.” He pointed with his chin toward the cabin. “Why?”

“To be a rider.”

Meo grunted. “Why?” he asked again.

Tom wondered how to tell him what he had felt when he was riding the big bay at Aztec. But the words wouldn’t come. It was something deeper than words. At last he said, knowing it was not the whole truth, but still a part of it, “To be the boss.”

Meo slowly shook his head, then glanced toward the cabin again. “He is the boss.”

“I am the boss, on the horse.”

“Sometimes. When he tells you to be.”

Tom shrugged. “That is the way it is. I ride, I eat. What else is there?”

Meo poured another handful of beans into the bag. It was almost full. He got to his knees, grunting at the stiffness in his joints, and tied the bag with a string. He got to his feet, motioned to Tom, who took one end of the bag. They carried it to the cabin, stowed it in a corner by the fireplace.

Red lay on his bunk, two empty bottles on the floor beside him. He heard them, half opened his eyes, and muttered, “Get out. Leave me alone.”

They went back to sorting beans. After a few minutes Meo picked up a single bean and held it in his gnarled fingers. “Frijole,” he said to it, “our young friend thinks he is the boss. He will eat you, Frijole. But you have a rumble to make, so you will make that rumble in his belly.” He shook his head. “Our young friend will be eaten, too. We are all eaten. If he has a rumble to make, where will he make it? In the belly of the one who eats him.” He dropped the bean into the bag and picked up another handful, began to sort them.

Tom shrugged, then picked up a bean, held it between his fingers as Meo had done. “Frijole,” he said, “maybe Meo will eat you, not me. Then where will you make your rumble? Is Meo the boss, to tell you what to do?”

Meo went on sorting beans. Finally he said, “Life is the boss. We do what we can. Then we are old. We creep off in a corner and sit, and the tongue makes the rumble. But it is only noise, talk, talk, talk.” He sighed and was silent.

They harvested the beans. Then they picked the chilies and made long strings of them and hung them from the roof beams to finish drying. But after that one afternoon of talk, Meo was his taciturn self again, saying little, keeping his thoughts to himself.

The fourth afternoon Red came out of the cabin, pale, weak-kneed and weaving. He made his way to the horse trough, doused his head in the icy water, then sat in the sun for an hour. At last he shouted, “Hey, Meo, make me some fresh coffee.”

When Meo told him the coffee was ready, Red went back to the cabin. He was there at the table, silent and disheveled, holding his cup of strong, black coffee in both hands, when Tom and Meo went in to eat supper. Red made a nauseated face at the sight of their food. He left the table, threw the empty bottles out the door, and went back to bed.

He still had a hangover, but he was sober, the next morning. After breakfast he told Meo to bring the horses in, and when Meo had left he said to Tom, “You’re going to ride, get the kinks out of you. Next week—what day is this, anyway?”

“Friday,” Tom told him.

“Week after next we’re going to hit the road. But before we go you’re going to learn how to lose a go-round without getting thrown. Let a horse throw you, you may break an arm or something. Then we’re out of business for a month.”

Tom was staring at him, his mouth set angrily.

“What’s the matter with you?” Red flared. “You got ideas? If you have, get rid of them. We’re not in the hero business. You’re going to lose a lot of go-rounds. Understand?”

Tom didn’t answer.

“I said, do you
understand?”

Tom nodded reluctantly.

“Heroes,” Red said, “are a dime a dozen. Little two-bit heroes everywhere you go. And they all wind up broke. Especially if they are Indians or Mexes. Meo was a hero once.” He laughed. “Now take a look at him. Just another broken-down old chili-eater.”

Tom made no comment.

After a moment Red said, “There’s a dozen ways to lose a go-round. You’re going to learn them all. And you’re going to learn how to look good doing it, look like you’re doing your damnedest
not to
lose. Understand?”

Tom nodded.

“We’re going down south,” Red said. “They hold a lot of little rodeos down there, and they’re awful proud of their heroes.” He grinned. “Proud enough to back them with betting money. It’d be a shame to let that money burn holes in their pockets, wouldn’t it? When we can take it away from them so easy.” Then he saw the look in Tom’s eyes, and he said, “And if you ever get any ideas about double-crossing me, get rid of them, too. Just remember who’s the boss around here.”

“ I’ll remember,” Tom said.

“You forget it, I’ll break your goddam neck… . Better put new latigos on the saddle. I’ll be out as soon as I finish eating.”

S
O
T
OM ENTERED THE
world of small-time rodeo, a world of hot, dusty little cow-country towns, makeshift arenas, vicious, unpredictable horses, ambitious country riders and jealous third-rate professionals. And, with Red Dillon, a world of noisy saloons, smoky pool halls, ratty little hotels, fly-specked chili parlors, conniving bettors.

They went all the way to Bernalillo for their first stop. It was a four-day ride, but Red wanted to be sure they were out of range of anyone who might have been at Aztec. They traveled light, with only their bedrolls, and didn’t even take the bronc saddle. “ It’s a dead giveaway,” Red said. “They see that saddle and they know one of us has done a lot of rodeoing. If the competition’s fast and the horses specially bad, we can always borrow a bronc saddle. Sometimes,” he added with a grin, “it’s healthier not to wait around and get your own saddle after a ride.”

They rode into Bernalillo two days before the rodeo and went to the livery stable. Red, looking like just another trail-worn saddle bum, asked what all the excitement was about. The liveryman was eager to talk about the rodeo. Finally Red said, “Hear that, Tom? The man says they’re having a rodeo. Want to stay and have a go at it?”

“You ride, or rope?” the liveryman asked.

“A stove-up puncher like me?” Red laughed. “No, sirree! I’m an old man. I like my women wild but my horses gentle. But the boy, here, thinks he can ride. Maybe this is his chance to find out.”