Gather My Horses (11 page)

“Oh, no. Like I said, I understand. And if some of this isn't in your blood—” He was about to say, “So much the better,” but he left the sentence unfinished.

“He always says I take after Mama. You never met her, but she was a lovely lady.”

“Oh, then I agree with your father.”

A blush came to Isabel's tan complexion. “Well, I take after her in other ways. She liked music,
painting. She was adventurous, coming up here with Papa. She wanted to see new places. He was young then, too, of course.”

“Did they homestead this place?”

“No. Papa bought it from someone else who started here. Papa worked in a creamery in Cheyenne, and he met the man that way. He and Mama sold everything they had—except me—and came here. It wasn't good for Mama, though.” She stopped, then forced a smile. “Let's not be sad. We were talking about the party tonight. You like music, don't you?”

“Oh, sure.”

“Maybe there'll be music there. Sometimes Mr. Lodge plays a song or two.”

“Really? I didn't know he did.”

“Otherwise, it might be rather dull. Just Papa, Bill Selby, Mr. Mullins, Ray Foote—”

“And myself, of course, not to mention you. I think the kid who works for me will come along as well.”

“Oh, yes. You had better be there. If I get trapped into a long conversation with Ray Foote, I'll have you to blame.”

“Fear not,” he said. “I'll be there, if only for that reason.”

Fielding and Bracken rode to Selby's together as the sun was slipping behind the hills to the west. The kid had bought a used Colt .45 with holster and gun belt, and he was fiddling with the outfit to see how it rode best when he was in the saddle. Fielding, who had thought the kid was going to buy a jacket for the trip into the mountains, found himself getting impatient with the fuss.

“I wouldn't be too worried about that thing right now,” he said. “As soon as we get to Selby's, you're going to have to put it in your saddlebag anyway.”

“I know. I'm just tryin' it out, to see how it fits.”

They got to Selby's right at dusk and turned their horses into a corral. Two of Roe's horses, which Fielding knew well enough by now, were in the next corral, and one of Lodge's sorrels had a pen to itself.

Inside the house, Isabel and her father were sitting in wooden chairs in the sitting room, while Lodge was in the kitchen tuning a mandolin. Fielding said good evening to all present, took off his hat, and turned to where father and daughter sat.

As he gave his hand to Isabel in fuller greeting, he was struck by her beauty. Although she looked fine to him in her everyday clothes, she was enchanting now. Her dark hair, clean and shiny, was held in place with a hair band that crossed her head a few inches back of her brow, and she wore a pair of garnet earrings. Her clean white blouse was set off by a black velvet vest and matching ankle-length skirt, with a pair of narrow black boots barely showing. As he met her eyes a second time, he caught a trace of perfume that made him forget where he was.

Her voice brought him back. “I'm glad you could make it.”

“Oh, uh-huh.” He widened his eyes and collected himself. “Say, I don't think you've met my wrangler, Ed Bracken. Ed, this is Miss Roe.”

The kid had gone easy on his new clothes, wearing mostly his old ones during roundup, so his better set was clean but no longer stiff. He had followed Fielding's example and had taken off his hat, which he held in front of him as he nodded.

“Pleasure,” he said.

“And a pleasure to meet you,” she answered.

Roe sniffed and said, “Ed worked with us.”

“Yes, I thought so.” Isabel gave the young man a kind smile.

The expression on her face changed as more voices sounded at the open door. Fielding turned to see who else had come.

Selby was throwing his head back and giving his manufactured laugh. “Come on in, come on in,” he said.

Across the threshold came a tall, husky young man with Mullins behind him.

Fielding nodded to Mullins and stood back so that the new arrivals could make a round of greetings. As he did, he made a quick study of the young man who made a beeline for Isabel.

Leaning forward at the waist and sporting a broad smile, the fellow took off his hat with a sweep. When he stood up, Fielding saw that he had a square-topped head, heavy cheekbones, and a long jawline tapering to a broad chin. He had a filmy complexion and light brown eyes that went with the tone of his dull, light-colored, coarse hair. As he put his hat back on, Fielding was impressed with how clean it was, and he imagined the man had taken it out of the box for this occasion.

Roe looked up from where he sat, and as he held out his hand he said, “Evenin', Ray.”

The other man dwarfed Roe's hand with his own. “Same to you. Good to see you.” Then he turned toward Fielding and said, “Ray Foote.” With his elbow lifted, he brought around his large, thick hand.

Fielding met the impact and said, “Tom Fielding.”

The light brown eyes carried a look of self-assurance as Foote released his grasp. “You're the horseman,” he said, his voice a little louder than before. “I have a few myself.”

“That's good.”

Selby's voice came up from behind. “You shoulda been with us on roundup.”

The smile came back. “Maybe next time I will.” Then with a nod, Foote said, “Pleased to meet you,” and moved on to introduce himself to Bracken.

“Likewise,” said Fielding. He took measure of the man, who was more large-boned than broad-shouldered, though he filled out the starched, wheat-colored shirt that he wore. He was thick at the hips as well, and his tan corduroy pants covered the tops of a pair of heavy boots.

After Foote had made the rounds, he went outside and came back in with a narrow package wrapped in newspaper.

Roe sat up in his chair as Foote walked toward him.

“Thought you might like to open this,” said the big man.

Roe took the item and peeled off the newspaper to reveal a quart of whiskey. “That's the good stuff,” he said. Then he handed the bottle to Foote and said, “You can open it if you want.” As Foote took out his pocketknife to trim the seal, the older man reached under his chair and brought up a tin cup.

Lodge, who had come out from the kitchen, said, “That's a handy cup you've got there. It's the same kind Cedric uses.”

Roe cocked his eyebrow, and without taking his eye off the bottle he said, “You won't find me puttin' any water in this.”

Foote poured a generous amount into the tin cup, then lifted the bottle as he turned to Lodge. “Care for a snort?”

“I'll have a little.”

Fielding took advantage of the distraction to meet eyes with Isabel. She pointed to a chair nearby, so he crossed the room, drew the chair near her, and took a seat.

He looked up in time to see Bracken shaking his head at the offer of a drink as Foote held the bottle in front of the kid. Foote went on to pour a drink for Selby, and when he came around to Fielding, a look of displeasure crossed his face. He made a quick recovery of his smile, however, and said, “Have a drink?”

“I'll wait, thanks.”

“Pour one for yourself,” said Roe.

“I think I will.”

Mullins, who had taken a chair by himself near the kitchen, sat with his arms folded and did not seem in the least as if he felt left out.

Selby, Foote, and Lodge remained standing. Selby kept the conversation going with the usual topics of the weather, how the grass was drying out, and how the crops were doing. He recalled years when the rain had never come, and years when the grasshoppers had been a plague.

“If it's not one thing it's another,” he said. “You get good rain and no hoppers, and then you get hailed on.”

“Isn't that the truth?” said Roe. He held out his
cup toward Foote, who picked up the bottle from the floor where he had set it out of the way.

“I'm just glad that the roundup went so well,” Selby continued.

“You got a good count on your cattle?” asked Foote, who seemed to adopt the knowing way of a cattleman as he squeaked the cork out of the bottle.

Roe held his cup forward. “Good as you could expect.”

The talk subsided, and after a minute of silence, Selby spoke again. “Say, Richard, were you going to give us a song or two?”

Lodge swirled his glass, which he had not yet emptied. “I guess I could.” He carried the glass to the kitchen and came back with his mandolin. “Any requests?” he asked.

“Do ‘Lorena,' ” said Selby. “I never get tired of it.”

Lodge plucked at the strings, got set, and delivered the song with smiling melancholy. When he had finished and the applause died away, he asked, “Something else?”

Selby spoke again. “Oh, do ‘Cowboy Jack' to go along with it.”

Lodge's face lit up. “That's nice and sad and mournful. Let's give it a try.” The mandolin made a thin, weepy sound as Lodge began to sing.

“He was just a lonely cowboy,
But his heart was kind and true;
He won the heart of a maiden
With eyes of heaven's own blue.”

Fielding saw Bracken shift and look at his feet. The kid coughed, and Lodge sang on.

“They learned to love each other,
And named their wedding day;
But a quarrel came between them,
And Jack he rode away.”

After another verse, Lodge came to the chorus:

“Your sweetheart waits for you, Jack,
Your sweetheart waits for you,
Out on the lonely prairie,
Where the skies are always blue.”

Lodge sang the rest of the song, in which the cowboy comes back and learns that his girl has died, and the song ended with the chorus again. Bracken did not look up the whole time, but everyone else seemed to enjoy the morose ballad. When the applause was done, Foote spoke in his loud way.

“Does anyone want a drink? How about you, kid?”

Bracken held his head up, as if he was trying to keep from sniffling. “Yeah,” he said. “I'll have one.”

Selby fetched a glass, and Foote poured about three fingers. Lifting the bottle in Fielding's direction, he said, “Are you about ready?”

“Not yet,” said Fielding, shaking his head. “I'll wait a little longer.”

“Suit yourself.”

Fielding did not care for the man's tone, but he let the comment go.

Selby must have sensed an undercurrent as well. In his cheerful voice he said, “Give us another one, Richard. How about one of your own?”

Lodge held the shiny, blackish brown mandolin
against his charcoal-colored vest. He had taken off his hat, and his dark, graying hair lay ridged and glossy. His brown eyes moved around the room to take in his audience, and he said, “Over half of you haven't heard me like this before, so I'm kinda shy, but I'll do one that Tom and Ed might like. I call it ‘Old Rope Corral,' and it goes like this.” He tucked the mandolin against him, sounded a few preliminary notes, and delivered the song with his full voice.

“As I sit on a log at the edge of the fire
And another day comes to a close,
Far away from the laughter and gloom of the city,
Far away from the laurel and rose,

“With the song of a stream as it chuckles in moonlight
Over secrets it never will tell,
I relax in the company of two faithful horses
Munching oats in the old rope corral.

“It's a mighty fine camp in the heart of the mountains
Where I come when my time is my own,
Where the shuffle of hooves and the wind in the treetops
Knock the edge off of being alone.

“As the fire burns down and the coals fall asunder,
There's a sight that I've come to know well—
A gash in the embers as bright as a blossom
Puts a glow on the old rope corral.

“Though I'm far from the plains and the tents of the wicked
And the company of my fellow man,
Just the warmth of the fire on the brim of my Stetson
Lets me think of the times in Cheyenne

“Where the love of a woman in cool dusky twilight
Gave me hopes that I cannot retell
Of a place and a time far away from my refuge
In a camp by an old rope corral.

“For we opened our hearts and discovered each other
And made plans for the future as well;
But the rules of life changed as she pledged to another,
And the curtain of solitude fell.

“So I come to these mountains to stay with my horses
Where the water sings clear as a bell,
Where my tent stands in shadow in pale mountain moonlight
In my camp by the old rope corral.

“Well, the hope never dies that we'll find love again
Though the future we cannot foretell,
So we gather our strength as we take in the fire
Like the one by my old rope corral.”

The room broke into applause, and Lodge gave a bow of the head as he lowered the mandolin.

“Thank you,” he said. “It always makes me a little nervous to do one of my own, so I think I'll take a couple of minutes and find my drink. We might have some more later.” He smiled and nodded to
a chorus of thank-yous, then made his way to the kitchen. In another minute he was back with his drink.

The talk returned to the same topics as before—the weather, the flies, cattle and horses, and what the range was coming to. Foote, with no apparent sense of wordplay, declared that the homesteaders were getting more and more of a foothold. He said it as if he represented them as their leader and had a phalanx of foot soldiers behind him.

Lodge countered by saying that although that might be the case, the big cattlemen had an interest in keeping things the way they were. Then as a barb he added, “You know that, bein' a horseman yourself.”

Foote gave a shrug. “Well, yeah, but there's plenty of land to go around.”

“Say that when they come and cut your fence or club your sheep.” Lodge took a sip of his whiskey.