Duster (9781310020889) (15 page)

"I'm going along on the drive myself,"
Mister Sam went on, "and I'll take Ike Partley and Jesus with me.
And of course old Bill. I couldn't eat without him to do the
cooking." Mister Sam looked over his shoulder into the shadows near
Digger Bill's scattered-out cook packs. "But you didn't hear me say
that, did you? Darn your lazy ears!"

"Naw-sir, I ain't heerd a thing."

"Right." Mister Sam looked at Charlie Emmons
for him to say something.

"I reckon I'll get back home and see to
things there. Johnny can go along for us." Charlie Emmons was about
the only man around Dog Town who called his brother by his right
name instead of Split.

I wasn't much surprised that Charlie would
go home and turn the trail work over to Split. Everyone knew
Charlie was getting sweet on Mister Hardy's daughter Sara, and with
Sara coming on nineteen and not married, Charlie knew he should do
his courting now while she'd be getting worried about what folks
would say if she didn't marry soon.

"I'll ride along," B.J. Hollis said.

"Eben?"

"Me and Tommy'll come for Mister Thorn."

"And you'll be coming too, won't you,
Duster?"

"Yes, sir," I said, tickled to get the
chance, and surprised too.

"All right then," Mister Sam said. "Crazy
Longo will be riding for MacReedy, and if it makes any difference
Jesus Menendez will be on his payroll for the drive instead of on
mine. Okay?" Everybody nodded, me included. "Then if anyone wants
to send some cattle back, cut them out of the herd tomorrow and bed
them down separate."

We all got up and drifted
off toward our bedrolls or a monte game. Mister Sam Silas, though,
walked along with me. When we was out of earshot from the others,
he said, "I hired you to come the full drive. That hasn't changed."
I got to feeling a lot better right then. I'd been worried,
selfish-like, about my thirty cents a day. "But there's one thing.
I'd like you to handle
the remuda." That
kicked me down a peg again. Still, I was going along. And Mister
Sam Silas hadn't forgot our talk. Things were really mighty fine,
everything considered.

And not only that, but I got a real special
treat after that night. Most folks only get the chance to wake up
to a fine morning once a day at the most. Me, I got to wake up out
of my warm soogan and greet the next day twice. Once was about
midnight when Fidelio rousted me out for the middle watch over the
herd. The next time was about dawn.

It don't get any easier, that getting out of
bed, just because you do it more often. The only improvement was
that the second time I woke up to the smell of Bill's cooking—bacon
and johnnycakes and that dark, rich coffee that neither Ike nor
Jesus could copy very good. That almost made it worth getting
up.

That day was about as easy as we was going
to have for a while, and we made the most of it. We weren't
supposed to move the herd yet for another day, and it turned out
nobody wanted to send any cows back, so all we had to do was to
keep the critters together and let them get to the river to drink
occasionally. Knowing that, we took our time over breakfast and
stuffed ourselves good until Bill got tired of cooking and chased
us away from his fire. We knew whenever Bill picked up a skillet
and told us to scat, we better do it quick, or the closest heads
were likely to get cracked.

After we'd been chased away from breakfast
we settled our gear again, though there wasn't really any need.
Everything was already in shape after the cow hunt, but there was
always some fixing up to be done.

Later on most of the Mexican boys sat down
to play some more monte. It seemed they never could get enough of
gambling, and what money and trappings they owned changed hands
pretty regular. Not having much of anything to wager— and, truth to
tell, not knowing much of anything about the game—I never got bit
by that bug and stayed away from the blankets except to watch
sometimes when there was a big wager going on.

Right then, I didn't feel
like watching someone else pike
monte, and
the boys who were going back to Dog Town had drawn the work for the
day, so there wasn't a single thing I had to do.

There was a young steeldust gelding in the
remuda, though, that I'd had my eye on lately and hadn't had a
chance to try out yet. Since I had the time, I fetched my saddle
and rope, tied the rag around my head, and went to cut the
steeldust out of the cavvayard.

"Hey, there, Jesus, you wanta ride out and
look at some country?"

"I don' think so. I think today maybe I
gonna get rich from these estupido cow hunters."

"Last time I looked you was near as broke as
me and didn't have much to gamble with."

"That was before las' night."

"Okay." I waved to him and went on. It was
an awful nice day—real warm, and the brush wasn't so thick here as
it had been, so I left my coat and leggings and just took out
riding.

The steeldust wanted to act up at first and
he set to crow-hopping and bucking just a little bit. Being more
interested in staying on top of him than in so-called form—like we
all was then since we was working at it instead of showing off—I
dug in with both heels and both hands and clung tight as a tick. In
not more than a minute or two, we'd come to a understanding, that
steeldust and me, and we set off. It turned out I'd been right
about him, and he had a real easygoing traveling gait.

Since we'd be heading south to the Nueces
again and then east toward Rockport, I figured to go north to look
at someplace I hadn't seen and wasn't likely to for a while.
Besides, I'd never yet seen the Atascosa.

That steeldust ate up the couple of miles to
where the Frio and the Atascosa come together in no time, and off
to my left, then, I could see the outlet where water off the Frio
came into the channel after passing real close to our homeplace. I
thought about how some of that water had been only a few miles from
Ma and the little kids—more recent than me it had been close to
them.

I'd never been away from home much before.
As a matter of fact, I couldn't recollect spending a night away
from home in all the time since Pa left, though once or twice he
had took me with him overnight when he went out hunting for hogs in
the mottes up along the Frio.

Up until I saw the Frio again, I hadn't
thought too much nor too often about missing anybody, but now all
of a sudden, I got to thinking on them—how Ma always used to make a
game out of the work that needed done and how when she'd pick up a
tool to be used or even a dishrag, she'd call out the word for it
and the one that spoke up first with the right spelling would get a
treat after supper or would maybe get to turn over a chore to
someone else that missed a spelling question or used bad grammar or
was messy at table. Ways like that somehow seemed to lighten the
load when there was work to be done.

She had sort of graduated me from the
spelling questions a time back, saying I was too much older to make
it fair on the little kids, but in place of spelling, she'd every
once in a while throw a ciphering question at me. I might be out at
the milking pen trying to wrestle a little milk out of a half-wild
range cow or back behind the house whaling away with the ax and all
of a sudden she'd stick her head out the door and holler at me.
"Douglas. How many pecks of pecans are you going to sell to Mister
James at seven cents if you need to bring home a dollar fifteen?
Quick now." And she'd stand there and glare at me until I worked it
out and told her. Then she'd pop back inside to her work without
another word. Unless I was wrong—then I'd hear plenty.

Sitting there on the steeldust, all by
myself and watching the Frio come tumbling into the Atascosa, I got
to thinking on that and sat for a long time grinning to myself like
a fool who thought he had good sense. Just for the fun of it, I
said my times tables out loud to myself and got all the way up to
"eight times nine equals..." before I missed a lick.

It's a funny thing, but
when I got done talking to myself and grinning, I got the strangest
sort of tickle down in my throat and in behind my eyes and before I
caught on to what I was
going to do, I
like to bust out crying for just no reason at all. I got mad at
myself for that. It's not proper for a growed boy to bawl. And
though I shouldn't of done it, I took it out on the steel-dust,
snatching his head around and digging at him as hard as I could
without spurs, and he took off at a run upriver along the
Atascosa.

After a time, I took a note of how foolish I
was being and slowed the horse down to a walk lest I run him until
he got sol-laoed. When he was cooled off some, I stopped and
crawled down off him so he could stand and blow.

I was mad at myself for treating the
steeldust so, and at the same time I was feeling kind of foolish
about being such a baby and yet feeling lonesome too. The mad and
the foolish and the lonely was all mixed up inside my belly, and I
laid down in a patch of shade to get myself put back together.

I hadn't meant to, but I must of fell
asleep, for the next thing I knew the sun had shifted until it was
shining right on my face and I had laid there and sweat until my
shirt was plastered right to my ribs, and when I opened my eyes
there was a couple of fellows on horseback looking practically
straight down at me, they were so close. It came to me then that it
was somebody talking that woke me. I blinked the sweat out of my
eyes and looked up at them and they looked almighty high from where
I was laying.

"Wake up, kid, we're talkin' to you."

I blinked some more and sat up so they
wouldn't seem so tall. They was both hard looking fellows with a
good week's whiskers and dirty, store-bought shirts without any
collars attached. When I got upright I could see one of them had a
pistol stuffed into the top of his pants and the other's coat hung
heavy on one side like maybe he had a gun too.

"Speak up, kid, afore I get down off this
horse an' larrup your backside for yuh."

"Yessir," I said, though I didn't remember
it if they had asked me a question.

"That's better," the closer one said. "D'you
see a herd come through here headin' nawth?"

I thought on that for a second, but the only
trail herd I'd seen so far this year was ours. And it was going
east, not north. "No, sir. I can't say as I have."

The one that had been doing the talking got
a mean look on his face and raised up in his stirrups, but the
other one reached out and touched him on the arm before he got
around to saying anything.

"Leave 'im be, Ben. He's just some local
kid. Looks like some dirt farmer's young'un. He don't know
nothing."

Ben jerked his arm away but he sat back down
in his saddle and didn't say nor do anything more except to scowl a
little. Then he yanked his horse around and dug his spurs in deep.
He was so close I almost got kicked when the horse lit out. The
other one took off behind him, but at least he looked to see he was
clear of me before he threw his spurs.

I was just as glad they was gone, for
I'd been getting a mite scared there. It had rankled that they took
me for a dirt farmer, but I hadn't felt like correcting either of
them—most especially that Ben. He looked to be as mean as any snake
and about as quick-tempered too. And to tell the truth, I could
understand their mistake, what with me wearing my rag instead of a
hat and with shoes instead of boots, and when I got to my feet I
saw that the steeldust had wandered off while I slept so it
probably looked like I'd walked to there.

I set off to collect the steeldust and
get back to the herd. It was a shame I didn't know more about them
fellows at the time.

WE GOT A fair start that next morning— or I
should say, the rest of the bunch did. We had another big
breakfast, and at first light the drovers was out there getting the
herd stirred along. The steers was already on their feet and
beginning to drift, so all that was necessary was to point them in
the right direction.

I sat with both hands wrapped around a tin
cup of hot coffee and watched them go to work. I was stuck at the
breakfast fire with Digger Bill for a while yet, since the horses
would travel so much quicker than the cows. "Come on dere, Dustah
boy. Ain't no sense in castin' cow eyes over yander. Maybe nex'
year you can go with 'em as a drover, but raht now you'se back here
playin' mama to th' ponies same as I'se bidin' with the mules."

"Okay," I said and started to pitch my
coffee into the fire.

"Naw, naw, naw, now don't you do sech a rash
thing as that. Ole Bill's cawfee is jus' too good to go wastin'.
You set still an' finish that up. Then me'n you'll get ouah work
done an' get on the road."

I had really ought to be
working and I knew it, so I started
to get
up, but Bill waved me back down again. "Set," he sort of growled at
me.

"Bill," I said with a grin, "you ain't half
as mean as you make out to be."

"Boy, do you git me riled I'll show you jus'
how mean I can make out t' be, an' I'll be provin' it with lumps
smack on top o' yore haid."

"All right...you're the boss around this
fire. I won't buck your say-so."

"An' don't you never forgit it neither."
Bill grumbled and fussed under his breath for a minute while he
puttered with his sacks and pots and stuff. Then he fished a sure
enough crockery cup out of one of the sacks. He filled it up with
coffee and sat down next to me with a contented rumble that was
somewhere between being a sigh and a grunt.

"Now young'un, you an' me, we'll get along
right fine we will, long as you recollect a thing or two. T' start
off with, you stay out o' my cookin' sacks. I got fixins in there,
sho, but sometimes I tote my val'ables in them sacks too. So do you
want somethin' to gnaw on you jus' ast me. I ain't never too much
in a hustle to roust out a bite fo' me an' my helper—not so long as
you'se bein' a good helper. 'Nother thing is, don't you nevah get
in a rush aroun' me, boy, I'se the he-coon o' this cookfire an' I
don't like to push meself. Me an' Mistah Sam been together a whole
lot of years, an' we got us a understandin'. I don' tell him how to
handle his cows an' he don' tell me how to run my cookin' fahr." He
nodded sharp and quick once. "It work out fine fo' the both of
us."