Pinto Lowery (12 page)

“No, you stay inside,” Pinto urged. “Ain't work fer a shotgun.”

The rising flames illuminated the first of the visitors slinking beside the barn door. A second and third followed, and Brax was right about the one by the woodpile. Pinto drew out his pistol and watched them turn toward the fire.

“Wolves!” Brax shouted from the doorway. “Pinto, come on.”

“Not wolves,” Pinto declared as he read the starvation in the poor beasts' eyes. They'd been drawn by the carcasses and had surely picked them clean. Now half-satisfied hunger drove them to try for more.

“It's jus' some poor ole farm dogs,” Pinto announced. “Maybe run off a place like dem pigs. Gone wild.”

“Pinto, come along inside!” Elsie shouted. “Wolf or dog, they'll chew you down to the bone if given half a chance.”

“We'll throw 'em some meat!” Ben suggested.

“You do, and they'll be here every night,” Pinto explained. “Get!” he shouted, firing off the first two chambers of his pistol. The dogs drew back, uttering low growls. Then one of them made a charge at Pinto. The Colt turned to meet the threat. A yellow flash exploded from the pistol, and the dog whimpered and fell.

“More?” Pinto asked.

The dogs seemed to understand. One and then another slipped away.

“They gone?” Ben finally asked.

“Seems so,” Pinto answered. “Get me a spade, Ben. Bes' I bury that dog 'fore dey come back to eat it.”

It was mid-July when Truett Oakes appeared between the waist-high stalks of com plants in the fields beyond the house. Pinto couldn't help grinning as he watched Ben and Brax rush over to their brother and pull him from the saddle. The three boys rolled into a ball, crushing plants and raising dust for a quarter hour. Then Truett kicked his way free.

“Ben, figure you can tend my horse?” the elder Oakes asked.

“Sure,” Ben agreed. “But we got plants left to thin.”

“Seems to me we thinned enough of 'em,” Truett said, pointing to the trampled stalks. “Brax, maybe you can collect the tools and come along later.”

“I can,” Brax replied with a grin.

Truett glanced but a moment at Pinto. There was something unspoken on the fourteen-year-old 's face.

“Comin', Pinto?” Ben asked as he took Truett's horse and started for the barn.

“No need him quittin' early,” Truett said sharply. “We got some family business to tend.”

They walked perhaps ten feet when Pinto overheard Brax ask, “Where's Pa?”

*  *  *

Pinto had a nose for knowing when and where he was wanted, and he judged right that at the moment he was neither one where Truett Oakes was concerned. It didn't take any great notion of sense to tell something had happened to Tully. A man wouldn't send his boy riding home alone across that stretch of country without a good reason. Pinto counted a hundred ways you could snap a leg or take fever between Wise County and Kansas, and there were just as many lurking on the way home.

“Bes' to stay here and leave 'em to have their talk,” Pinto told himself. “Dey'll fetch me if I'm needed.”

The summons wasn't long in coming. Little Winnie ran out and clasped Pinto's hand.

“Ma said to bring you to the house, Pinto,” the little girl explained. “Somethin's happened to Pa.”

Pinto nodded somberly and hurried to keep pace with Wtnifred's flying feet. In no time they were sitting on the porch on one side of Elsie. The three boys were on the other.

“I don't see why he's here,” Truett growled. “This is for family to decide.”

“Pinto's mostly family,” Ben argued.

“He's kept us safe while you were away, Truett,” Elsie said. “And what's happened effects him, too. You haven't forgotten we owe him money.”

“Here!” Truett shouted, tearing a money belt from his ribs and flinging it at Elsie's feet. “Here's money. Plenty of it. Mr. Richardson gave me full wages for the both of us. Steer money's there, too. Ain't much by way of replacement, though.”

“No, it's not,” Elsie admitted. “Still, it's no call to shout at your mother or to act uncivil toward friends. Whether you believe it or not, I number Mr. Lowery among the very best friends we've known.”

“Excuse me, ma'am,” Pinto said, rising. “I wouldn't bring a family trouble, not when it seems to have a fair slice already. I'll be over to de barn.”

“Stay,” Elsie insisted. “We need your counsel.”

“We do not!” Truett objected. “It's for me to decide things.”

“What things?” Elsie cried. “Who your brothers will live with? What charitable aunt or cousin will take Winnie in? Without this farm we won't be able to feed them.”

“Cousin Ryan's made a fair offer,” Truett argued. “With that money we could buy ...“

“What?” his mother asked. “A shop where I could take in washin'? We're a long way from givin' up this land. Before any of you boys could walk, Tully and I were makin' a go of it here. I see no reason to sell our home!”

“But Pa was the one saw to the plowin',” Truett declared. “Was him did the heavy work. I promised him I'd take care of things. I'm the man here now.”

“You're little more than a boy, even if your heart's as big as Texas. You don't know town life. I do,” Elsie said, lifting 'Ii:uett's chin. “We've made do half the summer with you and your father both gone. It's an extra hand we've added, don't you see?”

For a moment a world of silence rained down on them. Grief and confusion muted the children. Elsie had begun to tremble, and Truett was red-faced angry.

“What's happened?” Pinto finally asked, hoping to break the spell.

“It's Pa,” Ben whimpered.

“Happened the second week out,” 'Truett explained. “In the Nations. Pa's horse found a gopher hole and pitched him off. Landed funny. A rib broke off and went through both lungs. Died spittin' blood and callin' out how I should take care of everybody.

“We dug him a hole 'neath a cottonwood, and I carved his name in the side so folks'd know he come that way.”

“Hard trail, that 'un,” Pinto muttered.

“Next day raiders hit us. Shot Brent Lee all to pieces. Left him to be trampled by the cattle so there was hardly anything left to bury. Cousin Ryan hauled him back to the cottonwood so Pa'd have the company.”

“Pa favored Brent,” Elsie said, swallowing hard.

“There's worse news I ain't told you,” Truett added. “Half the stolen steers were ours. And we didn't get top price for the ones we sold in Wichita. Still, if we pooled that with what's been offered on the farm, we could buy a mercantile store, or maybe open up a roomin' house in Decatur. You said yourself, Ma, it's shameful how shy that town is of places to put up.”

“It takes work to make a go of anything,” Elsie said, sighing. “What sounds to you like an answer's only the worst kind of gamble. I don't know anything about shopkeeping, and a rooming house wants boarders. If it hasn't any, what do you do? Here we have com to grind, vegetables in the garden, and fresh meat for winter.”

“There's huntin' and fishin', too,” Ben pointed out. “Maybe Pinto'll show us how to rope mustangs.”

“He ain't stayin' !” Truett barked. “Wouldn't be proper with Pa just dead to have a man around.”

“He's owed wages,” Elsie said, trembling as she tried to grasp the money belt.

“I'll count it out,” Truett offered. “Plus ten dollars extra for your trouble.”

“Didn't ask fer that,” Pinto said, accepting only the promised wages. “One thing's bes' learned early, too. Dollars ain't de bes' way to repay a man fer troublin' himself. Dip o' de hat and a handshake's more fittin' wage.”

Winnie crawled over and hugged Pinto's side, and he lifted her onto one shoulder and smiled.

“Squared us, I figure,” the grizzled mustanger declared as he smiled at the girl. He then returned Winnie to her mother and turned to leave.

“You can't go,” Elsie objected. “We've got harvest to get in, and there's ... “

“Boy's jus' worried after what folks'd whisper,” Pinto replied. “I'm no farmhand. Be plenty o' young hands'll want work now they come back from Kansas. I never figured to stay all summer anyhow.”

“You can't just leave!” Elsie argued.

“Never was one fer long good-byes,” Pinto told her. Ben and Brax raced over and blocked his departure, but Pinto easily lifted one and then the other out of the way and continued.

“No,” Brax said, wrapping himself around one arm and pulling with all his might. “Not 'fore supper. Ain't it enough Pa's not come back?”

Pinto lifted the ten-year-old into the air and tried to shake him free. That was when the tears began. A man that roamed the Llano, who'd fought with Bob Lee and outfoxed Comanches, grew a hardness. But Pinto Lowery's resolve melted at the touch of those tears.

“Stay to supper,” Ben pleaded. “Maybe the night. I expect we'll all of us need a story.”

“Please,” Elsie called from the porch.

Pinto turned and looked Truett Oakes in the eye. It was up to Thu.

“Guess one night wouldn't hurt,” Truett grumbled. “Long's you head off early tomorrow.”

“Can leave right now if it's what you want.”

“Ain't,” Ben announced, gazing hard at his elder brother. “Is it, Thu?”

“You're welcome to stay as long as you choose, Pinto,” Elsie declared. “Isn't he, Truett?”

“Don't see how a day or so'd hurt,” the boy mumbled. “Sure.” But any fool could see the young man didn't mean it.

There was very little cheer in the Oakes house that night. Elsie did her best to bolster spirits by baking a pair of chickens and adding generous portions of fresh greens, together with mounds of potatoes. No one had much appetite, though. As it dawned on the little ones that their father wouldn't be coming back, more than a few tears crossed cheeks. Elsie herself wasn't much better. She pulled an old rocker out onto the porch and drew Winnie up on one knee. For a time the two of them hummed an old lullaby. Later they only rocked.

Pinto left them to their grief. He hadn't even eaten at the table. Instead he'd filled a plate and taken it out past the well. The corral was nearby, and presently he found his white-faced stallion better company than the family he'd taken too much to heart.

“Wish I knew somethin' to say or do,” he whispered to the horse. “But I don't suppose de words ever got put down that'd give a boy much peace when his pa dies. Nor fer Elsie.”

Later Ben came out and took the empty plate.

“Maybe a walk to de creek'd help,” Pinto suggested.

“Thanks, Pinto, but I ain't got much interest. Ma said to stick close tonight, and Tru said we're sure to have nightmares. He did himself. Brax just lies on his bed and cries.”

“Could be it's bes'. Cryin' can loosen up de hurt, let it work its way out o' you.”

“You don't understand,” Ben said, shuddering. “It's not like cryin' over a stillborn colt or a broken leg. It's Pa's gone and died. Pa! He was bigger'n stronger'n anybody I ever knew. How's it possible?”

“Hard times,” Pinto muttered. “Things go and happen. Who can tell how come? You got some memories o' yer pa. Hold 'em close. Share 'em with Brax 'cause he won't remember so good as you do.”

“You don't forget your pa,” Ben insisted.

“Don't if you ever knew him,” Pinto said, sighing. “Me, I recall some uncles and my ma o' course, but as to a pa, I jus' have what I got told. And I do remember a yellow tintype. Not much to help you get yer growin' done.”

“You didn't have a pa, Pinto?”

“Oh, I guess I had one, sure enough. But he died when I was jus' a sprout, accordin' to what Ma told me.”

“Who taught you to rope and ride? Who showed you how to hold a razor? Or shoot a gun?”

“Cousins mos'ly. Friends. Shoot, was a preacher fellow up in Virginia give me my first shavin' lesson. Me and Jamie Haskell, the both o' us. Near carved my chin off!”

Pinto laughed at the recollection, and for a moment Ben forgot his pain. The boy's frown returned directly, though, and Pinto couldn't come by a single word to erase it.

“Best I get back to the house now,” Ben finally said. “Maybe you'd give us a story later on.”

“Give her a try,” Pinto promised.

“You'll be up in the loft?” Ben asked. Pinto nodded, and the boy scratched his chin. “Maybe I can even talk Tru into comin'. He might share a tale or two he picked up ridin' to Kansas.”

“That'd be fine,” Pinto declared.

“Brax'll come anyway,” Ben said as he headed toward the house. “And me!”

But later when Pinto sat in the piled hay in the barn loft, staring through the open window at the moon glowing above, he didn't really expect company. Then when he heard footsteps on the ladder, he knew they belonged to Ben and Brax. Death and turmoil had aged Truett past stories.

“Settle in close,” Pinto urged as he made room for a youngster on each side of him. “I ain't told dis tale in a bit, and las' time it near scared my pants off. As fer de boys that was there, was one soiled his trousers.”

“Did not,” Brax said, shaking his head. “Men're always sayin' that when they want to scare somebody.”

“Well, I'll leave de story to do de scarin',” Pinto answered. And so he launched into the tale of Cannonball Elton, the Confederate corporal beheaded by a federal cannoneer. Poor Elton was floating over the Petersburg trench line, howling and screaming as he looked for his head, and the Oakes boys were attaching themselves to Pinto's side, when a different sort of shriek had the three of them jumping into the air.