Duster (9781310020889) Page 3

  I was some surprised when Ike rode up to me in the middle of the thing.

  "What's your brand, Duster?" he asked.

  I couldn't figure out why he wanted to know, but I told him. "It's a DD on the near shoulder with a jinglebob left and cropped right ear. Did you see one in that bunch?"

  "Nope," he said. He spit through the gap in his teeth and nodded toward a rangy old spotted critter that Tommy Lucas was hauling out of the bunch on the other side. "That's your animal over there, but B.J. said he couldn't recollect for sure just what markings your daddy used."

  "Mine?"

  "You're an owner, ain't you," he said and rode back into the dust that was carrying up pretty thick now that the short brush and curly mesquite grass was all trampled and gone.

  I just kept looking over to where that old spotted beef was being thrown and cut and marked out for the Dorword ranch. I couldn't quit watching while he was marked like that. First the pair of D's was burned onto his left shoulder, then the left ear was split longways below the gristle so a flap of skin hung down while the rest of the ear stood out straight, and finally the right ear was cropped by lopping off the tip to leave it squared off straight up and down. It must of been quite awhile since a longhorn was so marked, and it made me feel real funny inside while it was being done.

  I'd sure never expected to get a share of the mavericks, what with drawing wages and all. I didn't have dogs or horses to throw in for the hunt, and I'd brought little enough cornmeal and salt with me for the chuck packs. I sure had never thought of being counted in with Mister Sam Silas or Charlie Emmons or the rest of the owners.

  There was six ranchers taking part in this cow hunt, counting me as one of them, so with the first two being branded for Mister Sam Silas, I'd get every seventh maverick brought out whether it was beef or cow. It was a nice thing to think on since the steers would bring maybe six dollars in Rockport and the cows would bring calves for later years. It made me think maybe Ma and us had a good future coming for us thanks to neighbors like Mister Sam Silas and the rest.

  I watched them finish with that spotted steer of mine and turn him over to Crazy Longo and a couple of Mexican vaqueros who were holding the beeves we'd take to Rockport later.

  I was watching so hard, in fact, I let two cows break clean past me out of the main bunch and had an awful time getting them back where they belonged.

  After that I paid more attention to my job.

  Ike and the rest finished cutting out the slicks, enough of them that I guessed I had four critters branded and either turned loose or put in the market bunch. Then they went through a lot quicker and ran off all the she-stuff back into the brush.

  What was left was about sixty branded steers. We pushed them out of the clearing and moved them along in a bunch to a big pen that had been built out of logs. We put them inside after a little bit of a ruckus when they didn't want to go in the gate even though there was two stockade wings built out to each side to funnel them down and shove them in easy.

  It was coming onto dark by the time that was done, but Digger Bill, Mister Sam Silas's cook—he was called that because when Mister Sam had bought him he'd been as scrawny as a grasshopper-eating Digger Indian, but he'd been freed now since before I was big enough to know anything and since long before the war—had a bait of roasted meat and pan bread ready for us, and we fell to it right smart.

  Since I was the youngest along on this cow hunt, I was given the midnight watch, but I didn't mind. I figured that would give me a chance to get to bed right off and avoid hearing Ike tell everyone about my first steer.

  I sure was wrong about that. I even set it off my own self. Being it was my first cow hunt, I didn't know enough to rope up some dead wood and drag it in when I came up to the fire, so the crew got together to give me a lesson in manners.

  "Well, now, I shorely am glad you could join us fer dinner, Mistah Dorword, suh," Digger Bill said when I got through pulling stickers and cat's-claw thorns out of the hammerhead and came over to the fire. He hustled over and took me by the arm. "You just set right over heah," he said, pushing me over to a log someone had drug up, "an' I'll bring yore supper." He cocked his head and grinned a real big, real yellow smile. "It's sort of a thing we does fer folks out on theah first cow hunt, suh."

  Digger Bill hurried back to his fire and pulled a tin plate out of one of his mule packs he had put on the ground where it was handy. I could see him loading the plate with meat and corn bread and a big dipper of frijoles.

  In the meantime Crazy Longo and Tommy Lucas and Jesus Menendez—Pico Menendez's boy—come over to where I was.

  "Go ahead and sit down," Tommy said. "Bill likes to do this for all the new boys their first night out. Makes people feel right to home, Bill sez."

  "You'll hurt his feelings if you don't set an' let him wait on you just this once," Crazy Longo added.

  It was awful nice of them, I thought, so I sat down on the log like he wanted.

  "I'll have to do something to pay him back for being so nice," I said to the other three fellows.

  "Yes, you try to remember old Digger Bill after this," Jesus agreed.

  Pretty soon Digger Bill came over with my plate all heaped with what looked to be the best chunk of meat he could cut and a huge bait of bread and beans.

  "It sure looks fine," I said, and thanked him as well as I knew how. Then I dug out my pocket knife and opened it up to eat with. I sawed off a piece of beef and it had to be about as good as anything I'd ever eat before, and I told him so.

  Digger Bill glanced down toward where I had set my plate in my lap, and he smiled like no one had ever paid him a compliment before. I'd never seen anyone look so purely happy before over such a little bit of praise, and I made a remark of that to myself so I'd remember to speak well of his cooking from time to time so as to please him. While I was thinking about that his smile just got bigger and bigger.

  I speared another piece of meat and smiled back at him. And right about then it seemed like somebody had came up and speared my back with about a hundred horseshoe nails right off the fire.

  I mean my whole tail end and legs and feet and everything just all of a sudden turned into one big pincushion with a fresh jolt of fire hitting me ten to a second.

  I jerked and jumped something awful so that my plate of food flew up on me, and I came up off that log quicker than a jackass rabbit. The fire in my britches didn't quit and to make it worse when I jumped up it must of startled Digger Bill, because he sort of stumbled and bumped into me. That log was right behind my feet, and I tripped over it and went down backward over the log, and just missed a patch of prickly pear that I hadn't seen there before.

  I still didn't have time to examine it for I kept getting stabbed by them flocks of red hot nails.

  I come up off the ground dancing and thrashing and beating on my britches for all I was worth then. I couldn't see and didn't care what anyone else was doing all this time. I just kept jumping and slapping.

  That didn't seem to be doing any good, so I took a-shedding clothes as quick as I could. Pa's old leggins was fastened up with metal buckles at the waist and down at each foot, and I never knew of such contrary bits of dumb metal before. They wouldn't break and they wouldn't turn loose and I thought I'd go plumb out of my mind before they came popping free.

  I didn't take time to unbutton my pants—just slipped off my galluses and shucked them off still buttoned up. I've tried it since and just couldn't do it, but I did it then. All my kicking already had my shoes worked loose and I thought I was home free, but by then I was getting stabbed up higher too and real quick my coat and shirt went flying over my head.

  I rubbed and scraped and slapped like a madman, and I could see then that I'd sat in a mess of big red ants when I settled on that log, and they could really bite. I swear some of them had got tired of the chewed-up skin on the outside of me and was trying to burrow their way inside for some fresher territory to gnaw on.

  All the hopping and
jigging must of had me off balance again, for I remember tripping over someone's boot and flopping down on the ground again. The dust felt good when I hit the ground so I just stayed there and wallowed in it while I finished scraping off the last of them big ants.

  When I got so I could think again I was sitting there in a dry pool of thick dust, all covered over with it and naked as a body could be.

  All the rest of the crowd was gathered around peering at me and laughing and hooting until I thought they'd be sick.

  "I told you boys he's a real duster. Now, that just proves it," Ike Partley called out. At least, that's what I think he said. I couldn't hardly make out the words, he was laughing so.

  I'd have got mad and lit into somebody there and then if I'd of known who to start on. Those bites hurt.

  "I'd say Bill's done pretty well by you, Duster. Next time you ride in you might remember his kindness and drag in some wood for his fire." I looked and it was Mister Sam Silas himself who was talking in a real dry, easy voice from where he stood at the edge of the crowd. He was the only one of them that wasn't having a good belly laugh at the whole thing, but even he had a touch of smile that kept twitching at the corners of his mouth.

  I was still awful hot about it and was sitting there glaring at them.

  Off to my left a couple of yards, Crazy Longo was doubled up from laughing and you could see he had laughed so hard his belly hurt, but he couldn't quit. He was dabbing at his eyes with the tail end of his bandanna and was staggering weak, so he sat down to get his strength back, maybe so he could laugh some more.

  As it turned out, though, the handiest thing near him was that same log, and he sat down on it, all bent over and giggling and patting at his eyes.

  He gave out a big sigh and about two more full-sized chuckles and then his eyes got big and his mouth dropped open and he hollered louder than a scared panther. Then, he jumped up off that log like a pebble out of a sling, and the dance started over again with a new center of attraction.

  I guess I must of stirred those ants up pretty good.

  4

  WE HAD STARTED the hunt up along the Frio River and worked our way down it for the better part of a week, gathering beef for the market slow-like while we came.

  Things were pretty well under control, and the brush wasn't so thick further down the river, so Mister Sam Silas decided to send a bunch of us down along the Nueces to gather up anything that had drifted down to the river and stopped there for the winter.

  He put Ike Partley in charge of this crowd and sent along Tommy Lucas and Eben Dyer and Charlie Emmons's brother Johnny who we called Split—short for Lickety-Split—and Jesus Menendez who was just a year or two older than me and whose name doesn't sound anything like the way it is spelled but instead sounds like Hay-soose. And I went along too.

  We was running sort of shy on horses since they got used up pretty quick working in the heat and the thorns like we did, so Ike and the others started on down with what we had. Jesus and me were to go the long way around and try to pick up some more at Fort Ewell where he said he knew of some Mexicans who should have some horses to swap for our wore-out stuff.

  Mister Sam Silas and a couple of the other owners wrote out bills of sale for fifty head of horses, mostly good stuff, that he said he'd leave penned up at his home place to be picked up later by the Mexicans. To save time, me and Jesus was to go to Fort Ewell by the stagecoach that ran between San Antonio and Laredo. It sounded pretty good since neither of us had ever been on a stage before.

  Digger Bill loaded us and our saddles into the dougherty wagon from the Silas ranch and drove us into town, rocking and bouncing and having a good old time. We had got along right well after the ant fight, and I'd never forgot even once to take wood to his fire when we was out in the brush.

  He dropped us off at the post office and went on back to join up with the rest of the outfit working out in the brush closer to home.

  Once Digger Bill was out of sight Jesus turned to me, hitched up his pants and leggins, and said, "Well, amigo, we better catch us a stagecoach to Fort Ewell, eh?" Just like he did that 'most every day.

  I gave him a nod and we swaggered inside as handsome as you please, not even stopping to chat with the dogs that were laying in a puddle of cool shade in front of the building.

  "We need two tickets on the stage to Fort Ewell," Jesus announced to Benjie Zakkut behind his post office window. "We got business there."

  Benjie didn't say a word. He reached down and got a schedule of some sort to study on, though there was only the one stage that came through Dog Town and he dealt with that one stage twice a week, once going each way on the only road through town, every week of the year. "Four dollars for the two of you, and you got to ride up top with your saddles if there's a full coach," he said at last.

  Jesus's bustle sort of drained out of him, and I guess mine did too. We hadn't thought about paying the fare, seeing as how the trip was for Mister Sam Silas. And we guessed he hadn't thought of it either.

  Jesus punched me with his elbow and we went back outside.

  "How much money you got on you, Duster?" he asked.

  "I can tell you that without even looking. I got my pocket knife and a lucky arrowhead, and that's all. I don't like to jingle when I walk."

  "I am not much better, I think," Jesus said. He dug a hand under his leggins and came up with a two-bit piece, a half-dime and a three-cent shinplaster that you couldn't do anything with but buy a stamp since only the government would take paper scrip. They had to. "It ain't much, is it?"

  "It sure won't get even one of us to Fort Ewell. Now what do we do?"

  He shook his head. "I don't know, but I ain't exactly high on the idea of hoofing it no forty miles with a saddle on my back." He grinned. "Makes you wonder what a horse thinks of it, don't it?"

  "Maybe, but if I had one I wouldn't stop to ask. I'd just ride an' be happy it was him and not me walking."

  We hunkered down next to the building to think on it awhile, and Jesus drew some designs in the dust with a stick. Every once in a while he'd look up like he was about to say something, then he'd mutter a little in Spanish and go back to his drawing. Me, I was thinking, would we be fired for not doing what we was supposed to be doing? At thirty cents a day I hadn't been much help to the family so far.

  "Aieee," Jesus said finally and thumped his knee. He rattled something at me in Spanish that I couldn't follow, then backed up and said it over again so I could understand. "The store. The gringo store in Fort Ewell. He must have things to sell and so there must be a wagon that comes to bring him these things of small value and great profit. We can get a ride with the wagon."

  "Sure," I said, "and someone up here has got to know the teamster. We'll check with Mr. James and Mr. Hardy and the others."

  We left our saddles beside the post office door and commenced our search.

  Hardy's General Store, Grocery, and Saloon was the closest so we went there first, and Mr. Hardy was glad to oblige.

  "Sure, boys," he said. "Chuck-a-luck Williams freights through here to Fort Ewell and beyond. Comes through regular as can be, and if you like I'll ask him to give you a ride on down there."

  We lit up all smiles then. Until Mr. Hardy went on.

  "He'll be through here next week. Makes the trip twice a month, and he'll be due then."

  The next thing we knew we were hunkered down beside a building again, the only difference being it was Hardy's store we were setting beside and the dogs was different ones. Jesus went back to drawing in the dust.

  We sat like that for a while longer until we heard someone come out of the store, though we was feeling too down to look and see who it was.

  "Jesus...Douglas...I just had a thought." It was Mr. Hardy. "Last week sometime old man Trembel said something about selling some stock off to someone down to Fort Ewell. He mentioned he didn't know how he was going to get them down there 'cause he couldn't take any time away from his work."

  We were off
in a flash with hardly time enough to throw some thanks over our shoulders.

  Old man Trembel drove the water cart, selling barrels of water from the Frio to the stores and a couple of houses and things close in to Dog Town. We walked out to his place on the bend in the river as quick as we could.

  "Shoot fire, yes," he said when we asked him. "I made a good swap for some new animals and sold the old ones off to Ramon Nunez down to Fort Ewell. He's kin of yours, ain't he, Jesus?"

  "Si. A cousin, I think. We would be most happy to take his horses to him." Jesus looked over at me and said, "We can get some good food from him too if his wife has not left him yet."

  Old man Trembel scratched at some black and white stubble on his chin and wiped off some tobacco juice that had dribbled there. "You can take 'em then, but don't look for an easy ride. I ain't owned a horse in twenty year. These is my old wagon mules. They're old an' they ain't been rid in prob'ly ten year, but they'll likely remember how. Anyway, if you want, you're welcome to take them down to Nunez."

  Jesus looked at me and made a face, but what could we do? We hiked back into town to get our saddles and only cussed a little bit on the way and a bit more often on the way back.

  "Your daddy builds his hulls too heavy," I told Jesus when we was just about back to Trembel's cabin, because Pico Menendez had made Pa's saddle too.

  "Now that we're just about there," he said, "it just come to me that we could of rode them mules in to town bareback and saved ourselves all this walking and hauling."

  "I got to confess something to you," I said. "I thought of that before, but to tell you true I just didn't want anyone to see me up on a mule that's older than me. It didn't seem dignified somehow."

  "I've known times when you didn't set so much store on lookin' dignified," Jesus said with a flash of white teeth.

  I didn't say anything, but that was another reason I wasn't wanting to ride anything without some good leather between me and that animal. I could get along real well without having mule sweat rubbed into my left-over ant bites where I had scratched some of them raw.