Pinto Lowery (15 page)

“I'll take 'em out a ways,” Pinto said. “Cain't dig deeper in dis rock than a coyote'll sniff. Never knew a critter to dig at things like he will.”

Pinto accepted the leavings and did as promised. On the way back he heard the boys arguing. It didn't take any great notion of intelligence to know Pinto Lowery was likely at the root of it.

“He's not Pa!” Truett exclaimed as Pinto announced his return.

“Pa's dead,” Ben replied, pulling his blanket tightly against his chest.

“Warm enough?” Pinto asked. “I could toss you my saddle blanket.”

“No, I'm fine,” Ben assured him. “Was just the wind soundin' strange.”

“Like a ghost,” Brax whispered. “I heard it, too.”

“Figure Cannonball's about?” Ben asked.

“Not many phantoms hereabouts,” Pinto told them. “Not as I heard anyhow.”

“What's that then?” Brax asked as an owl fluttered through the branches of a nearby live oak.

“Ole horned owl huntin' up a field mouse for his supper,” Pinto explained.

“Ain't easy gettin' yourself growed up, is it?” Ben asked. “There's so much to learn, and no one's around to teach it.”

“'Less you stay awhile,” Brax added as if on cue.

The younger boys eyes turned on Pinto. Their unspoken plea bore into his heart like a rocket.

Guess there'll be no winter under the stars this year
, he thought as he gazed overhead. The boys seemed to sense it, too, for they grinned and collapsed in their blankets. Only Truett stirred much that night.

Never figured him to be the one to have nightmares
, Pinto thought as he roused the youngster.

“Huh?” Truett moaned.

“Havin' a bad dream,” Pinto explained. “Near rolled yerself indo de fire.”

Truett glanced down at the smoking tip of his blanket and sighed.

“Happened on the trail,” Truett confessed. “You won't tell Ma, will you?”

“That'd be yer business,” Pinto answered. “She'd be a fair one to lissen, though.”

“You don't understand,” Truett muttered. “I'm supposed to be the man now, and I can't even tend myself.”

“I'd judge you to be doin' passable,” Pinto argued. “Don't try so blamed hard. Ain't easy growin' up at all, much less doin' it overnight.”

“Guess not,” Truett said, softening for an instant. “Thanks for rousin' me.”

“Wasn't anything, Truett. You res' easy now, hear?”

“Try my best.”

By morning Truett had regained his composure, and the young man was as standoffish and hostile as ever toward Pinto. As for Ben and Brax, they'd grown weary of their elder brother's cross words and ill humor.

“Don't see what you've got to grumble about,” Ben said, sizing things up. “You ride off with Jared Richardson while Brax and I chop wood and slop the hogs. Never did see anyone to complain more and do less.”

“Sure didn't,” Brax agreed. “And here you go railin' against Pinto when he's never done you a wrong.”

Pinto rode on ahead a few hundred yards and let the three of them holler a bit. It resolved nothing, but sometimes it did some good, just blowing off steam.

As they journeyed northward, Pinto read the onrush of winter in the bronze oak and willow leaves that cascaded from bare branches. There was a bite to the wind, too. Why not? he asked himself. It was nearly November now. He'd seen snow many a time before Christmas. Of course there'd been Decembers when he and Jamie had skinned out of school and swum away the afternoon.

It was a little shy of noon when the two wagons rolled up to the Double R Ranch. Jared Richardson met them at the barn.

“So, you sold off every bushel, did you?” he asked Truett.

“Good market for corn down Fort Worth way. They got a fair number o' cattle down there waitin' fodder, too.”

“Pa says the cattle market's gone south,” Jared replied. “Hope it's better by the time next summer rolls around. Elsewise we'll be trailin' steers for naught.”

“Well, Kansas is the place to sell beef,” Truett declared. “Too many maverick longhorns in Texas. Man wants cows, he just finds himself a stretch o' open range and rounds up a few hundred of 'em.”

“Ain't so many mavericks as once,” Jared argued. “Good chunks o' the Llano got outfits spread across 'em now, too. Pa says more competition means a lower price. Pinto there's got the right idea. Sell horses. Always a need for 'em.”

“Figure to turn de Double R to mustangs?” Pinto called.

“Pa's spoke of it,” Jared confessed.

“It would make a lot of sense,” Ryan Richardson insisted as he emerged from the barn with a pair of hands. The men immediately took charge of the mules and began stripping harness.

“We borrowed de critters,” Pinto told the rancher. “Our job to tend 'em.”

“No, I've got men to do that,” Richardson argued. “I wouldn't mind a moment or two's help with something else, though.”

“I figure to owe you fer de loan o' de mules and wagons,” Pinto said. “You got all de time you need so far's I got it.”

“Fine. Come have a look at this sorrel mare of mine. She's gone lame and I'm hanged if I can figure out why.”

Pinto and Richardson marched off toward a nearby corral to examine the sorrel, leaving Jared to entertain his three young visitors. Jim and Job appeared as if by magic, and the six boys wasted no time hurrying off to look over Jared's new Winchester. When Pinto had finished working the sorrel's tendons, he turned in time to see Jared and Truett shooting tin cans off a fence rail.

“Good gun, as I hear it,” Pinto said as he observed a can fly a foot in the air.

“Put a dent in a band o' rustlers easy enough,” Richardson noted. “What's wrong with the mare?”

“Leg's hot,” Pinto announced. “I'd judge she's pulled a tendon. I'd try some liniment. Rub it in good. Give her a res' and see, but I guess she'll recover easy enough.”

“Good news. I thought it likely the trouble, but I had a horse last year with a sliver of bone split off. Thought that was only a bad tendon, too, and it wound up lamin' her. Had to put her down. This sorrel's a particular favorite o' Arabella, and I'd pay a high price to have her not disappointed.”

“I'll give it a rub. Have one o' yer men work it regular. I'll come out and check on her in a day or so.”

“Obliged, Lowery.”

“Nothing to it.”

Pinto then located a bottle of liniment in the barn and trotted over to the sorrel. As he worked on the injured tendon, he could hear the boys hooting and hollering in the distance. It was a good thing the Richardsons were wealthy. Bullets weren't cheap, and the Winchester was spitting them out quicker than lightning. It was only after he finished with the mare that he joined Richardson. The two men then walked over to where the youngsters were shooting.

”This is quite a gun, Cousin Ryan!” Truett announced. “Shoots straight and true. A repeater, too. Fifteen shots without reloadin' ! A dozen men armed with these are a regular army.”

“Only if they hit their target,” Jared added. “You hit what, two of ten shots?”

“But I got fifteen to fire,” Truett pointed out. “Even a bad shot will hit something in that many tries.”

“Not if you're after deer,” Jared argued. “They'd be off at the first shot. And you'd've stalked the fool buck a whole day for naught.”

”The boys and I've planned a hunt,” Richardson said, turning toward Truett in particular. “Last few years your pa and I fell out,nu, but before that we scoured the Trinity bottoms for game a half-dozen times a year. Of course back then we'd likely starve if we didn't put meat on the table. Especially come winter.”

“I already spoke to Tru on it, Pa,” Jared explained. “Says he's of a mind to go. Wondered if maybe Ben was of an age to join us.”

“And me,” Brax chimed in.

“Sure, it's time you boys had a try at it,” Richardson agreed. “Job and Jim've been along, carryin' gear. Brax, I'd say this year you might do the same. Rifle might be a bit much.”

Braxton dropped his chin and scowled.

“There's another thing,” Richardson went on to say. “Six youngsters is a trial I'm too old to face alone. We'll be needin' another man with us. I suppose Pinto might be of a mind to be persuaded to come along.”

“Sure,” Job said enthusiastically.

“Well, Pinto?” Ben asked.

“I thought he was off to chase range ponies,” Truett said, shaking his head. “Got to be a hand or two on the Double R with a shooter's eye.”

“Takes more'n an eye,” Richardson declared. “Best sort of hunter's one with a nose for game and a feel for the land. I'd guess Pinto here has both.”

“He ain't comin',” Truett objected. “This is a family hunt.”

“Whose family?” Richardson asked. “Jared, does it trouble you to have this fellow along?”

“Not hardly,” young Richardson answered. “I owe him for my chestnut mare, you know, and for more besides. He's welcome as rain in August.”

“Jim? Job?”

“He tells good stories, Pa,” Job said. Jim nodded his agreement.

“Ben, Brax?” the rancher asked in turn. Both encouraged Pinto to join the hunt.

“Thu, I've always known you for a generous heart,” Richardson said, resting a large hand on the slim boy's shoulder. “It's up to you to come or not, but I value Pinto Lowery for a good man and I'm askin' him to come along.”

“Maybe I'd best stay,” Truett replied.

“You do and you'll have no buckskin britches to stave off the cold come winter,” Jared grumbled. “Nor'll I abide your boasts o' fightin' rustlers up in Kansas.”

“Come go with us,” Ben urged. “Huh, Tru?”

“And him?” Truett asked, gazing at Pinto.

“Be a need for a steady man with a Henry,” Jared answered. “Wait and see if there won't be.”

“Lowery?” Richardson asked. Pinto nodded. Truett scowled, shrugged his shoulders, and surrendered.

“I figure that's eight of us,” Jared told his father. “Better them deer have a lookout. Won't a one of 'em skin out on me!”

Pinto had to smile. He hadn't been any different at fifteen. As for Ben and Brax, the notion of hunting deer had those boys buzzing like a pair of addled bees. They talked of little else on the walk homeward. Only Truett was mute. The storm behind his dark eyes was another matter.

“You can't stay mad at the whole world, Truett,” Elsie had scolded a few days before. “You're not the first boy to ever lose a father.”

“Figure that makes it any easier?” Truett had cried.

In the two days before the Richardsons arrived to begin the hunt, it rained nearly every minute. Pinto passed most of that time in the loft, cleaning his rifle and piecing together a pair of moccasins from a cowhide. Sometimes Ben or Brax would sit and watch the work, and Winnie even sewed one side of the left moc.

“Maybe yer jus' a little gal,” Pinto observed, “but you know yer business where needle and thread's concerned.”

Winnie beamed and rested her head against his side. It warmed Pinto through and through.

Truett devoted those two days to breaking down the old Springfield and oiling it proper.

“You've got a gunsmith's knack with that musket,” Pinto told the young man.

“Wish I had a new barrel to put on her, though,” Truett grumbled. “Jared offered to share his Winchester, but ...”

“Seems a fair offer,” Pinto declared. “Favor's sometimes hard to accep', but you shouldn't mind sharin' a cousin's gun.”

“Hard to think of Jared as a cousin. It's our mas were related.”

“Then he's a friend. Good a one as yer likely to find. Leave dis here relic fer shootin' at raiders.”

“Ben'll need it,” Truett pointed out.

“Ben couldn't balance that musket with a week's practice. I'll help him use my Henry.”

“We ought to have a good gun in the family.”

“You got money from de cattle drive,” Pinto reminded Truett. “Bet it's enough fer a Winchester.”

“I turned all the money over to Ma,” Truett said. “We'll need it.”

“Bound to spare some dollars fer a rifle,” Pinto argued. “We'll have us a ride to Decatur and see in a bit.”

“You don't have to go. Jared'll go along.”

“Sure. You call de tune, Truett. Bud I'm here if you need.”

Truett started to bark a reply, but he stopped himself short. For just an instant his lip trembled, and his eyes lost their anger. That didn't last.

Ryan and Jared Richardson appeared at the Oakes farm early that next morning. It was barely light, but the skies were clear, and it promised to be a fine November day.

“We brought along a spare saddle pony for Brax,” Richardson explained as he pointed out a trim gray mare. “And a pack mule for the meat. You, Ben, and Tru have mounts.”

“We do,” Pinto said, motioning to the animals nibbling fodder in the corral. “Bes' we saddle 'em.”

Elsie escorted her sons onto the porch. As Truett rushed to his horse, Elsie warned the younger boys to mind their elders and be careful.

“Stay close to Pinto,” she urged. “He'll allow you to come to no harm.”

“He said he'd let me fire off his rifle,” Ben explained. “Bet I'll drop a buck big as a horse!”

“Sure, you will,” Elsie said, hugging first Ben and then Braxton. She hurried over to the barn next and embraced Truett in like manner. Finally she turned to Pinto.

“No need to say it,” he told her. “I'll keep 'em from harm, ma'am.”

Elsie returned to the house, and Pinto climbed atop the white-faced stallion. Ben rode over on old Sugarcane and led the way to the others. Then the eight of them trotted off toward the Trinity bottoms.