Pinto Lowery (20 page)

“Seems to me time'd be better spent on de cattle,” Pinto finally said. “If Tru goes north, you won't have much help with de corn.”

“We'd have you,” Ben objected.

“Oh, I wouldn't plan so much on that,” Pinto told them. “I'll be out chasin' down ponies by April.”

He looked back into three faces lined with knowing grins.

“Thought you'd be out doin' that in August,” Ben said, laughing. “Ain't left yet.”

No, Pinto thought, and it ain't gettin' any easier to go.

The town of Defiance was astir with excitement that second day of March. Banners draped the front of the mercantile and both saloons proclaiming Texas independent. Oldtimers donned the trim blue coats and hats of the Republican Army. A few veterans of that other, later, war appeared in tattered gray as well.

“You should've worn yer old uniform, Pinto,” Truett declared.

“Never had much of a uniform,” Pinto explained. “Jus' an old coat dyed butternut brown and some wool trousers homespun by some lady down Houston way. Wasn't but rags by firs' winter, and I picked up odds and ends thereafter. Had some pants taken off a Yank toward de end and a shirt passed down from one friend to another and so on till my turn come. No shoes at all!”

“Sounds like us come summer,” Brax remarked. “'Course you don't need a lot of clothes in Texas when the sun's blazin' down.”

“That heat can be a downright vexation,” Pinto observed. “Missed it up Virginia way, though. Colder'n sin up there!”

“That's about enough remembering for now!” Elsie scolded when Pinto drew the wagon to a halt. “Ben, Truett, help me carry these baked goods over to those tables there. Pinto, why don't you take Braxton along to help pick out the mules. Winnie, you come with me, too. I'll bet we can find you something special for your birthday. What say?”

“Yes, Ma,” the little girl replied. Tru and Ben tended the goods. Pinto set the wagon brake and led Braxton down the street toward the auction corral. In short order they were inspecting mules and ponies.

As it happened, Pinto found only one team up to the work, and it took nearly two hours of haggling before the owner agreed to part with them for the offered amount. Of course the news that mules were going for twelve dollars at auction made Pinto's offer more palatable.

Ben and Truett, meanwhile, tracked down Abel Miller and purchased the wagon. They also managed to join in a prank or two, for half the children in Wise County had been set loose in Defiance that day.

After tying the mules to the borrowed Richardson wagon, Pinto waved Brax into the crowd of youngsters. He himself was soon dragged over to a large tent by Elsie.

“I'd almost given up on you,” she scolded. “Grandpa Jones was beginnin' to feel lucky.”

“Jus' finished de hagglin',” Pinto explained. “Now find us a square to join.”

As it turned out, a couple out from Weatherford had worn down, and they gladly yielded their spot to Elsie and Pinto. Square dancing wasn't his favorite thing on earth, but Pinto nevertheless held his own, bowing and promenading and swinging. Elsie, on the other hand, was a true wonder. Light on her feet and quick enough to make up for a partner's mistakes, she pranced gracefully at his side as if born there.

“Now I know why you wanted to dance,” he told her when they finally left the arena breathless and exhausted. “Got some mean feet, Elsie Oakes.”

“Feet hungry for dancin',” she explained. “Tully didn't look it, but he could stomp up a storm. He got heavy those last years, and he didn't find much time for amusement. More's the pity, for he might as well have enjoyed himself some more. Didn't die rich.”

“Look there,” Pinto said, pointing to a new square forming.

“Guess it's in the blood,” Elsie remarked as she spied Truett leading Emily Blasingame. More surprising was the sight of half-pint Ben beside a willowy girl at least a foot taller.

“Now that's a sight,” Pinto said, slapping his knee.

“Miranda Phipps,” Elsie explained. “She's only four months older, but she got her growin' early. Pa's the blacksmith in Decatur.”

“Poor Ben,” Pinto said, fighting to hold back the laughter. “Hope she won't swing him too hard. Be a time gettin' him off the handle o' yon Big Dipper.”

“Hush,” she said.

In truth, Pinto need not add his own jests. Brax and Winnie were doing a fine job of taunting and tormenting their brothers. First Tru and later Ben hollered warnings, but it wasn't until Miranda waved a fist that the younger Oakeses retreated.

“You two seem particular pleased tonight,” Ryan Richardson said as he stepped over. “Lowery, do you suppose I might have a word with you alone?”

“Anything I can't hear?” Elsie asked.

“No, I suppose not,” Richardson replied. “It's just, well, I don't see how you can get a crop put in out there. Not with Tully gone and all. Be powerful hard on you.”

“When's life out here ever been easy?” Elsie asked.

“She's got her heart set on it,” Pinto added.

“You know, J. B. and I were talkin' about how short we are of ponies,” Richardson told them. “Need twenty before headin' north. Maybe more. I was wonderin' if you might care to supply 'em?”

“Buy for you?” Pinto asked.

“Or run 'em down on the Llano. Either way, we'd be generous employers.”

“Why?” Pinto asked. “You know, I counted three, four, good ponies you passed on at de auction. 'Sides, I got a job.”

“What is it you want to say, Ryan?” Elsie asked.

“You know people've been talkin',” Richardson confessed. “A lot. Elsie, you're family. I've been doin' a lot of thinkin' on things of late. Arabella's got it in her head she wants to go to finishing school down in Austin. I'd need somebody to run my house. Our boys are near brothers anyhow. Why not sell me your place and move over to the house?”

“As what?” Elsie asked. “Housekeeper? I seem that hard up?”

“Might be more in time,” Richardson suggested, gazing nervously at Pinto.

“Ryan, you've been a good friend,” Elsie told the rancher, “but I've grown used to bein' independent.”

“Then give up the place and set up shop in town. You know the mercantile's up for sale. It's not turned a profit since the Johnson girl ran off. You could move Winnie and the boys to town, give them a chance at a proper education.”

“How's that?” she asked. “You see a schoolhouse hereabouts?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I'm afraid I don't,” Elsie barked. “I'm no town girl, Ryan. I know cornstalks and chickens. I'll stay it out with my boys. They learn what's important as is. In town there'd be temptations I couldn't battle.”

“And the plantin'? Tendin' the crop? Who's to do that?” Richardson asked.

“We'll manage,” she declared.

“With his help?” Richardson exclaimed. “You know he'll ride off to chase ponies any day. Men like that don't last anywhere.”

“I'd judge that'd be my lookout,” Pinto growled. “You made yer offer, and I thank you fer what kindness you showed us in de pas'. Maybe you'd bes' leave now 'fore I go to losin' my temper.”

“Elsie?” Richardson called.

“You heard Pinto,” she answered. “He's better at holding his temper than I am. Go before I let loose a right hand guaranteed to cost you a pair of teeth!”

Richardson started to reply, but the color in Elsie's face had risen, and the rancher threw his arms in the air and stomped away.

She then rested her head on Pinto's shoulder, and he held her a moment. Two women nearby whispered, and one pointed blatantly. Several others quickly collected, and Pinto stepped away.

“It's my doin',” he said, gazing at the ground. “I took too many liberties.”

“Nonsense,” Elsie argued. “You never did a thing I didn't welcome.”

“You don't unnerstand, Elsie. It's not you findin' a man. It's me! If you took to Richardson dere, folks'd be happy fer you. But me? I ain't but a patchwork quilt, a bunch o' cow leavin's somebody's romped on too much. Bes' excuse me now. I done 'nough harm fer one day.”

He didn't see Elsie again until it was time to head home. Mostly he'd hung around the wagon, looking after the mules. He hadn't been so far away to miss the gossip mumbled nearby.

“There he is there,” a woman might say. “The hired man, Lowery. I heard ...”

The last part might be about Elsie, or it might be about consorting with Indians. It was startling how many rumors could grow from a simple thing. Each one of them hurt worse than a Comanche lance would have.

Pinto spoke of it neither on the way home nor in the days that followed. He was out in the fields from dawn to dusk, breaking sod or clearing rock. He returned at day's end bent over with weariness. He didn't complain, though. Truett and Ben worked the other mule those same long hours. Brax and Winnie were out with their mother, alternately tossing seed and spreading manure.

The only relief came on those rare occasions when they splashed into the creek and washed away their fatigue in the chill water.

“Never knew I had so many places to get sore,” Truett remarked.

“Nor me,” Pinto said, collapsing in the shallows. “Give me a range pony to break anytime.”

“Might be better if we rode out and roped us some,” Truett said, grinning. “Good ponies are fetchin' a high price, what with cattle roundup time nearin'. And who knows what corn'll bring?”

“Better come dear this year,” Pinto said, rubbing his shoulders. “Now we got mos' of it in de ground, too late to think o' mustangin'.”

“Maybe so,” Truett confessed.

“Now lookee there,” Pinto said, smiling as he waved Truett closer. “What do you know?”

“Somethin' wrong?” the young man asked anxiously. “Don't got leeches on me, do I?”

“No, somethin' else,” Pinto said, touching a finger to the corners of Truett's lip. “Gone and grown a moustache.”

“Yeah, been expectin' somebody to notice,” Truett said, standing stiff and straight. “Chin hairs, too.”

“Oh, that ain't so much,” Ben muttered.

“Be shavin' 'fore long,” Pinto declared. “Mighty big thing if you ask me.”

“I'll be shavin', too,” Ben boasted.

“Yeah?” Truett asked. “Shavin' what? The fuzz on your legs?”

“That'll cost you,” Ben screamed, charging his brother with fury in his eyes. Truett fended off the raining blows until one finally landed on the whiskered chin. Then the two elder Oakes boys erupted in a short exchange of fists that left Ben's nose and eye puffed up and Truett's chin dented. Meanwhile Brax managed to run off with his battling brothers' clothes.

“Now that's a fool thing to fight over,” the eleven-year-old shouted from the cover of a tall willow. “Be a time explainin' to Ma how you come to bloody each other. Not to mention walkin' all the way to the house bone naked.”

It was a mistake. Battered and weary, Brax 's taunts ignited fresh fire in his bothers. It was all Pinto could do to keep Truett from skinning Braxton with a knife. And Ben was for hanging the fool.

“You'd figure de work'd leave you three too tired fer such tomfoolery,” Pinto scolded them.

“Got to admit one thing, Pinto,” Truett said. “Nothin' like a romp or a fight to bring on a laugh.”

And it was, Pinto decided, laughter which was the one salve for the worst misery.

It took most of March, but the plowing finally did get done. Of course, that was but the first step in the long process of bringing corn to harvest. Even so, Pinto felt no small amount of satisfaction when he gazed out on the neat rows of cornfield. Even a mustanger had enough imagination to envision the tall amber stalks that would yield ear after ear come early autumn.

“For a man who says he's no farmer, you did a fair job of it,” Elsie told him. “I've been doin' some thinkin'.”

“Have you?” Pinto asked.

“Winnie could move in with me permanent. She's hardly been in her little room off the kitchen since Tully passed on. Wouldn't take much to add a few feet to the back of that room. There'd be less room than you've got in the loft, but it'd have you back in the house with us.”

“I don't see how that would do, Elsie.”

“You could stay there, or else maybe Ben and Brax would take it. You could share the big room with Tru. You two get along fine nowadays. Either way you choose. Or else if you'd like, Winnie and the boys could stay put, and you could—”

“Elsie, bes' hold up right dere,” Pinto interrupted. “That'd mean a weddin', you know.”

“Find that thought so hard to stomach, do you, Pinto Lowery?”

“Never been much for settlin' in one place too long,” he reminded her. “You got boys and little Winnie to grow.”

“Takes a steady hand on the reins to get youngsters to the end of the right trail,” she told him.

“Yer steady 'nough,” he argued. “I jus' been hangin' on here days now, tryin' to figure a way to pull out. Time I was chasin' ponies up de Brazos. Been a while gettin' goin', you know.”

“Thought on it hard, have you?” she asked. “Have you considered maybe that's not what you want to do?”

“I'd be lyin' to tell you I ain't found somethin' fine here this winter. Firs' time since I can remember that I knew a place to call home. But I'm nobody to sink roots. And nobody to go countin' on, Elsie. Sooner or later I'll get to feelin' roofed in, and I'll have to ride.”

“Seems to me it would have happened already if that was true.”

“Wish I could half believe different. Really do. But I know myself better'n you do. It's a better man I'd see you take as a husband dis time 'round. I'd prove a disappointment, jus' like ole Tully. Ain't sure I could abide that.”