The Busted Thumb Horse Ranch (8 page)

“Maybe we’d best let him be for a couple of
days,” I said, “until he settles a little.”

He rushed us again, flailing hell out of the
fence just below us with his front hooves, doing
his best to get his teeth into us.

“
Sí.
He will tire of this running an’ biting shit
before long.”

We each took another swig of tequila.

“You notice how the horse, he tracks? Back hoof
striking where front one was?”

“Yeah, I did notice. An’ did you see how he
carried his head at the gallop? He’s one proud
sumbitch.”

“
Sí.
Is true. But, my pardner…” Arm stopped
midthought and lifted the bottle to his mouth.

“What? What’s the problem?”

Arm thought for a long moment. “Look,” he
said,
and his words were quick and tumbled over
one another. “Theese goddamn horse, he weel
kill you, Jake. You think you can ride or break
any animal an’ you’re way wrong.”

“Horseshit. I know when to let go, Arm. Like
that hellfire bitch I rode down in—where? Yuma?
She wanted to kill me an’ I rode her ’til she couldn’t
stand.”

“I made money on that ride, Jake.”

“For or against?”

“For.”

“You took a chance, Armando.”

“Ever’thing we do is a chance, no? Hell, tha’s
the way we live. But it don’ mean you gotta get
killed by a crazy horse.”

“I’ll take it slow an’ easy,” I said. “You worry
too much.”

“Boolshit.” We each had a taste of the tequila.
“What say we ride into town, see Tiny, hire on
Teresa an’ Blanca?”

“An’ a cold beer?”

“You bet.”

I coiled the rope and we walked to the barn to
saddle our horses. I hung the rope from a hook
near the big front doors. A man can’t tell when he’s
going to need a throwing rope in a big hurry—
particularly cattlemen, but the same thing applies
to horse traders and breeders.

We took it easy on the way to Hulberton. The
temperature was more fall-like than we’d been
experiencing, and it felt good—the air was cool
and fresh.

We heard the ringing of Tiny’s hammer against
his anvil from way far out. It sounded a bit like a
bell.

“That sound,” Arm said, “mus’ carry on forever,
no? To the moon an’ past it.”

“Maybe so. You know how a gunshot sounds a
little fuzzy from far off? An anvil doesn’t do
that—the sound stays clear.”

“Es verdad.”

Tiny was just finishing shoeing a nice-looking
carriage mare. He nodded but didn’t speak because
he had a half dozen horseshoe nails in his
mouth, head pointing out. The horse stood well
as Tiny tapped the nails home. The six points protruded
a half inch above the top of the hoof and
Tiny snipped those off with a sharpened plierlike
tool. His final step was to flatten the metal
studs left behind on the hoof surface to snug the
shoe. He eased the mare’s foot to the floor and
straightened.

“I hear-tell you boys got yourself a stud horse,”
Tiny said.

“How the hell did you know that? We haven’t
told…”

“Ain’t no secrets ’round here, boys. Fella by
the name of Les Auborn—a patent medicine
drummer—seen you with the horse between you
on ropes. Les, he said the horse was a good
looker.”

“He’s that, okay,” I said. “What else he is we
don’t know yet.”

“A man might get thirsty shoein’ a horse, no?”
Arm said.

Tiny took off his muleskin apron and set it
aside. He led the mare to a stall and closed her in.
He rubbed her snout before walking to us.
“What’s keepin’ us?” he said, grinning.

On the way to the saloon I explained our plan
to hire Teresa and Blanca.

“You want them to live in or come back an’
forth each day?”

“I never thought about it. We’ve got enough
bedrooms, so they might just as well live at the
ranch, if they want to do that. We’ll pay ’em good,
an’ the work ain’t half bad—cleanin’, cooking, an’
such like.”

“They live above the dry goods store,” Tiny
said. “You more’n likely can catch them there
now.”

“I’ll go,” Arm said. “I have Spanish. You boys
go ahead, but make sure you save some beer for
me.” He turned to me. “What will we pay?”

I looked at Tiny. “Twenty a week, each?”

“Damn,” he said, “that’s more than a good
cowhand draws. Them ladies’ll jump on it.”

We separated, Arm walking toward the dry
goods store and Tiny and I to the saloon. There
were a bunch of horses tied outside, and lots of
noise from inside, considering it was barely noon.

“The KG boys just dropped a thousand head at
the railroad yards,” Tiny said. “They’ve got money
in their pockets an’ they’re thirsty an’ horny.”

As we approached the bat wings a lanky fellow
with a nose gushing blood came out as if he were
flying—a good couple of feet above the ground.
He hit about eight feet out, moaned, turned over,
and went to sleep.

As we walked in, a ’hand drew his Colt and
put
a couple of slugs into the ceiling. That kind of
gave his pals an idea and within seconds the
place sounded like a shooting gallery at a county
fair. There were thirty or so men crowding the
bar. Some showed signs of a very recent bath, a
haircut and new clothes; the rest looked about
like you’d expect a man to look after over a month
on the range, driving a thousand head of beef.

There were three bartenders and all of them
were running their asses off, trying to keep up
with shouted orders from the cowboys. They were
also pocketing money the cowhands didn’t
owe—snagging a five-dollar note for a single
beer, clearing off the change in front of other men
who were too drunk to see what was happening.

Tiny and I stood just inside the bat wings. My
hand dropped to the grips of my Colt on its
own—I didn’t tell it to do so.

Tiny leaned in close to me and shouted into my
ear, “They’re harmless, Jake. Drunk an’ stupid,
but they wouldn’t draw on a man. Shit, if I followed
cows’ asses for a month or better, I’d be
raisin’ hell, too.”

We shoved our way to the bar. One tender recognized
Tiny and came right over.

“Six beers,” Tiny shouted. “We got a friend
coming.”

“Lookit, Tiny,” the bartender said, “the owner
has jacked the prices of beer an’ booze and…”

I placed a twenty-dollar gold piece on the bar.
“Keep ’em coming,” I said.

The whores were doing lots of business; no
sooner would a soiled dove come down the
stairs than she’d be escorted back up by another
cowboy.
A couple of minor fistfights broke out
about who was next, but nothing serious.

The beer tasted real good.

Armando came in, a big smile on his face, and
pushed his way to me an’ Tiny.

“The ladies, they’ll be out tomorrow,” he said.
“They’ll be ready to move in—a friend will bring
them and their things on a farm wagon.”

I shouted into Arm’s ear, “There’s no supplies
for them—nothing for them to cook. How can…”

“I give them one hundred dollar,
mi hermano.
They’ll buy what they want at the mercantile.
That’s why they needed the wagon—to haul
all that stuff to the ranch.”

“I hope you told them to stock up on beefsteaks,”
I said.

“For sure, no? I tol’ them we like to eat steak for
every meal, an’ we like them rare an’—”

“Now, lookit this,” a cowboy yelled. “We’re
drinkin’ with a goddamn beaner.”

“Ahh, shit,” Tiny said.

Armando wasn’t a man to do much talking before
a fight. He buried his fist in the cowhand’s
gut, and caught the guy’s face with his knee as
he crumpled forward. Those who were standing
close enough heard the snap of cartilage. Of
course, a dozen ’hands moved in to get their
hands on Arm. Tiny stepped forward and so did
I. Tiny grabbed the cowboy closest to him,
slammed the man’s face into the bar, lifted him
and threw him back into the crowd.

Two cowboys came after me. I kicked one in
the balls and got a good haymaker into the second
fellow’s jaw, and he went down.

Tiny was throwing cowhands around and enjoying
every second of it. Someone would take a
swing at him and his grin would broaden and
he’d pick up his opponent by the neck and belt
and hurl him back into the crowd.

Arm was doing a hell of a job, too. His face was
cut up a bit and his nose was bleeding, but he was
taking on all comers and dropping them like
stones down a well.

When the first shot was fired, the fistfighting
stopped. Men with fists drawn back and ready
to deliver halted in midmotion. The crowd
spread out, leaving an open tunnel between
Armando and the boy who fancied himself a
gunfighter.

“You don’ need to do this,” Arm said in the
eerie silence that had come about.

“I don’,” the kid mocked. “Maybe I want to.
See, I don’t like you goddamn beaners.”

Arm let his hand drop to his side, inches from
his holster.

I tried to step between them, trying to reason
with the kid, but Tiny pulled me back. “Ain’t no
stoppin’ it now,” he said. “Is Arm handy with his
Colt?”

“He’ll do,” I said.

The kid may have been twenty years old—or
maybe not. He’d been on the drive, but he didn’t
seem to be drunk. He wore his holster at his
waist, like a farmer or a cowhand, and he was facing
Armando full-on. He was no gunfighter—he
was a kid, is all.

Arm turned to his side and crouched down a
bit.

“You goddamn beaners are scum,” the kid
said, “and so are your whore mothers.”

“Ahhh, shit,” Tiny said again.

“Theese is wrong,” Arm said. “You can no talk
about my mother. It is not allowed. You see?”

“Theese? Can no?”

“You mus’ not do this. You’ll die, boy. I know
how to fight with guns—an’ you don’t. Turn
away, kid. Please.”

The kid stood stock-still for a long moment and
then his right hand reached down and grabbed
the grips of his pistol. He drew and had his
weapon out and was raising it toward Arm.

My partner drew and fired twice, one shot hitting
the kid in the throat, the second next to his
nose. He went down immediately and he was no
doubt dead before he hit the floor.

Arm stood there with his pistol hanging at his
side. He was pale and I saw the hand holding his
Colt was trembling a bit.

“I din’ want to keel him,” he said quietly,
maybe so quietly that only Tiny and I could hear.

I took his gun from his hand and dropped it
into his holster.

“Come on, Arm, we gotta go back to the ranch.”

“I tried to let him stop the fight,” Arm said. “I
tried, you know?”

“Yeah. I know. Come on, pardner.”

We picked up our horses at Tiny’s place and
rode home. Neither of us spoke. There was really
nothing to say.

As we were unsaddling in the barn, Armando
turned to me. “Ees the same thing,” he said, as if
he were continuing a conversation.

“What’s the same thing?”

“That kid you killed an’ this boy I killed today.
They poosh an’ poosh an’ end up dead. We are
not big guns,
mi hermano.
Why come we to these
gunfight?”

“I suppose anybody who can draw and not
shoot themselves in the foot is a big gun in Hulberton,
Arm. But today—that was a thing about
your race, your family. And you’re right—the kid
pushed and pushed. You did nothing wrong.”

“Doesn’t make the boy less dead.”

“No, it don’t. But I’ve been thinkin’ on something.
Maybe when we get the Busted Thumb up
an’ running, we can put our guns away for good.”
Arm thought for a long time before turning
away from me. “It won’ ever happen,” he said
quietly. “We will live an’ die with our guns on.”

Tiny showed up the next day driving a farm
wagon loaded with Teresa and Blanca and their
belongings and things for the home. It looked
like they’d spent the whole hundred Arm gave
them.
There were fifty-pound sacks of coffee,
salt, sugar, flour, a couple of canned hams, lots
of canned peaches and pears, as well as some
restaurant-type dishes and knives, forks, and
spoons. Other boxes and bags held stuff we didn’t
bother to look into. The women scurried about,
from the wagon up the stairs to their room and
then from the wagon to the big walk-in pantry in
the kitchen.

Tiny, Arm, and I sat on the porch and rolled
smokes. When all our cigarettes were lit and
drawing nicely, Tiny said, “You boys are gonna
need grain. I got a pal at the mill who can get
what you want within a few days.”

“Might just as well stock up with winter comin’,”
I said. “How about a thousand pounds of
crimped oats with a molasses cut, a thousand of
corn, and a thousand of crimped oats without the
molasses. The days we gotta keep them in, they’ll
go nuts not bein’ able to run off the energy that
molasses generates.” I handed four twenties to
Tiny.

“You ain’t sayin’ much, Arm,” Tiny said.

“No. I ain’t.”

“He’s still chewin’ on that kid he dropped yesterday,”
I said.

“Well, hell,” Tiny said. “He didn’t have no
choice. The kid was bound an’ determined to
shoot himself a Mex—don’ matter if it was Armando
or Santana. An’ that stuff about Arm’s
people—I woulda did the same thing. Somebody
woulda put a few rounds into the little bastard
sooner or later.”

Armando nodded but didn’t speak.

An uncomfortable silence followed. Then Tiny
said, “I got a fella bringin’ in a half dozen mares
in the next couple of days. I ain’t sure what they
are, but this fella, he’s never done me wrong. It’d
be worth a ride for you boys to town to check
them out. Like I said, I don’t know what they are,
but my pal don’t try to unload coyote feed on me.”

“We’ll do that, Tiny.”

“When you gonna start workin’ that stud
horse?”

“I kinda thought I’d play a bit with him today,
get his rope around the snubbin’ post, see if I
can’t handle him a little bit.”

Before long, Tiny went on his way and the
women banged and clattered about in the house.
I went in for some coffee and saw they had a
metal bathing tub—it looked like a stock trough,
only smaller. There was a cauldron of water boiling
on the stove and a long-handled brush and a
lump of soap on the floor next to the tub.

“What’s…” I began.

“You an’ Armando, you steenk,” Blanca said,
using more English than I thought she had. I
guess lots of Mexicans ran that ploy to avoid arguments
or controversy with Anglos. “You will
have bath.”

“The hell I will,” I said. “I been rained on plenty
in the last few weeks. An’ this bath stuff is
unhealthy—it makes a man’s skin soft and sets
him up for cholera.”

“You first,” Blanca said, “then Armando.”

Teresa poured the last cauldron of water into
the already half-filled tub while Blanca fetched a
coarse towel for me.

“I ain’t…”

“You don’t take no bath, you don’ eat,” Blanca
said, stone-faced. The two women left the room.
“Shit,” I said. Then I shucked down. Actually, the
hot water felt pretty good, and the grayish brown
soil and dried sweat that rose from my body indicated
that perhaps the ladies were right. I set to
with that brush an’ soap until my skin tingled,
an’ I washed an’ rinsed my hair, too. The damned
towel felt like a feed sack, but at least it dried me
off. I dressed an’ called the women. “All done.”

They came into the kitchen, looked me over,
an’ nodded.
“Es bueno,”
Teresa said. “We will
buy
new clothes next time in town. Yours are but
rags.”

I couldn’t argue with her on that point.

“You send Armando in now,” Blanca instructed.
“He, too, is a peeg.”

I went out to the barn to pick up my throwing
rope. Arm was rubbing saddle soap into the fenders
of his saddle.

“The women need you inside right now,” I said.

“For what?”

“Ask them. I got a horse to play with.”

“I’ll see what it is they want an’ then come to
the corral to watch, maybe help, no?”

“Fine with me.”

I put my arm through my coiled rope and
rather than using the gate, climbed over the fence
into the corral. The bay stud was chewing away
at a flake of hay I’d tossed over to him early that
morning. His head snapped up and he glared at
me, huffing through his nose—challenging me.
He’d worked off the rope that’d been around his
neck,
which I hadn’t expected. He must have
rubbed his head an’ neck against the side of his
water trough or somehow hung up the rope on a
rough board of the fence. I let my rope slide
down into my hands, coils in the left, loop in the
right.

The horse watched my every move, his eyes
embers, his muscles tight, ready to fight. Rather
than approach him, I walked the circuit of the
corral—slowly, taking short steps and making no
fast motions. His hay and where he stood was
maybe fifteen feet from the fence. He moved his
body to watch me walking, but didn’t offer to
charge me, although I could tell he was considering
doing so. I knew he’d do it eventually. There
was no doubt about that.

I kept on walking ’round and ’round that corral
for a good long time at the same slow pace. The
bay’s eyes and mine remained locked, even as he
lowered his head to grab hay. He seemed to quiet
a bit—his muscles didn’t seem quite as rigid, but
he never stopped looking at me.

I’d been very slowly—a quarter inch at a time—
letting my loop grow until I had it about as wide
around as a half keg, which should be all I needed
if I made a good throw.

The stallion’s eyes flicked to Arm as he climbed
up an’ sat on the top rail, watching. Obviously, he
knew enough not to say anything or make any
quick moves—he was damned near as good a
horseman as I was.

I stepped out a yard or so from the fence and
kept walking at the same pace. The bay’s ears
lay back immediately. He’d noticed the change.
When I saw his chest swell, I braced myself and
lifted my loop. The stallion charged, nostrils
flared, teeth bared, a long string of saliva hanging
from his mouth. I raised my loop and whirled
it once—but the horse didn’t give me a chance to
use it. He veered very sharply to his right and hit
the fence where Arm’s legs had been, bashing the
boards the way a runaway locomotive would hit
a solid wall. I heard Arm from the other side
grumble, “Crazy goddamn horse.”

I scrambled for the fence and was up and over
it before I looked back. The stallion was staring
hotly, piercingly, at the spot where Arm had been.
If I hadn’t run, I could have put a rope on him
and snugged it to the post right then.
Shit!

Armando’s hair was still wet from his bath, I
noticed, and I grinned. “I wasn’t sure I recognized
you with all the dirt gone,” I said.

“Me? You look like a banker, Jake.”

We walked to the barn. “He’s one sneaky
sumbitch,” Arm said. “His eyes were on you ’til
the very last second.”

“I coulda gotten a rope on him if I hadn’t skedaddled.”

“
Sí.
An’ the
perro
—the dog—he woulda
caught
the rabbit if he no stop to take a sheet, no?”

I laughed. “I guess. But I’ll get him to the post.

I’m goin’ to go out an’ just walk again later,
carryin’
my rope.”

“You sure this boy is the stud we’re after?”
Arm asked.

“Well, name a confirmation fault other than
that twisted-up foot.”

There was a long silence. “Ain’t none.”

“There ya go, Arm.”

Arm changed the subject. “You was lookin’
him straight in the eye, no? You know this is the
challenge, ’specially to the wild one—an’ this
mustang, he’s as wild as a box of rattlesnakes.”

“I wanted to challenge him. I need his respect.
I’m never going to break him to saddle, so I gotta
get him to respect me.”

Later that afternoon I climbed the fence, my
rope in my right hand, coiled without a loop, and
a thick flake of hay under my arm. I tossed the
hay so that it landed about ten feet from the snubbing
post. I knew the horse was hungry; there
wasn’t a scrap of his morning hay left. I began my
walking. The bay alternately eyed me and eyed
the hay. At that point, my right hand gripping my
rope was sweating—I didn’t know if he was going
to eat or attack. The only weapon I had was
my rope, but a well-placed blow with a coiled
rope on a horse’s muzzle could change his mind
in a hurry about what he wanted to do.

After what seemed like a century, he walked,
stiff-legged, ears back, to the hay. I made three
more circuits of the corral and then climbed up
on the fence to sit next to Arm and watched the
bay go after the fresh hay.

It was then we saw the two riders heading our
way. Arm and I jumped down. These two fellows
were scruffy and dirty—they looked like saddle
tramps. They were both lean, with many days of
unshaved beard. They drew rein in front of us
but didn’t dismount.

“Quite a ’stang you got there,” one said to
me. “We seen him real good from up on the hill
beyond
the corral. He’s pretty ’nough for a dozen
mustangs, ’cept for that tanglefoot.”

“Something we can do for you boys?” I said.

“Well, truth is, we’re lookin’ for some ranch
work. We can do most anything. We been workin’
cattle an’ horses lately.”

I looked more closely at them. Their horses
were ribby and showed spur marks. “Horses an’
cattle, huh? Seems strange neither one of you has
a rope on your saddle.”

The talker forced a laugh. “Damndest thing,”
he said, “we tied up at a gin mill in the last town
we passed an’ some fool stole our ropes.”

“But lef’ your rifles and bedrolls, eh?” Arm
said, derision dripping from his voice.

“You listen here, Pancho—we…”

“Get off our property or we’ll blow holes in you,”
I said. “We don’t need scum like you around.”

They looked at each other for a moment. Arm
was off to my left. I’d dropped my rope at my feet
when the two men rode up, leaving my right
hand free. I didn’t need to look at my partner to
know he was ready for whatever happened.

“Well, shit,” the talker said, turning his horse,
“you sure ain’t civil here. Didn’t even offer a cup
of coffee. I think what we’ll do is ride on.”

“That’s a fine idea,” I said.

“One can tell the quality of a man by the way
he treats his horse,” Arm said, probably loud
enough for the men to hear. Neither responded.

Later on that afternoon I half filled a bucket
with crimped oats and humped over the fence to
walk my circuit. The bay hustled to the far side of
the fence, leaving his hay. I set the bucket down
about
five feet from the post and then walked
around the periphery of the corral again. This
time the stud was much faster in getting over to
see what had been left for him. His ears were still
back, but he didn’t offer to charge me again. I
climbed over the fence, sat for a bit, watching him
bury his muzzle in the bucket. If there’s one thing
all horses love, it’s oats—particularly when the
shell is broken—crimped—for them.

Armando was sitting at the kitchen table with
two glasses and a bottle of tequila. I sat across
from him and he poured two hefty shots into
each glass. “He like the oats, no?” Arm said.

“Sure. An’ he didn’t pay as much attention to
me when I was walkin’ around the corral.”

“Ees good.”

“Damn right it is. Tomorrow morning I’m going
to rope him, snub him down, leave him
maybe eight, ten feet, an’ get the hell outta there.
Then I’ll continue feeding him for a few days.”

“He ain’ stupid,” Arm said. “He’ll soon learn
who brings the groceries.”

“That’s what I’m countin’ on,” I said.

The sky was gray the next morning and there
was the smell of snow in the air. From atop the
fence I could see a farm wagon loaded with sacks
of grain headed toward us, the two draft horses
pulling it sweating into their harnesses because
of the weight. I waved to the driver and he waved
back. I formed a loop, made sure I had a good
hold on the bucket of grain I carried, and jumped
down to the inside of the corral. The bay was
standing out from the far fence a few yards,
which I thought was a good sign.

I set the bucket down maybe five feet from the
snubbin’ post. I noticed the bucket from the day
before had been kicked across the corral to where
it lay, one side caved in. I began my walk. The
horse watched me for a bit but was more interested
in looking at the bucket. I glanced up. Arm
sat on the top rail, a rope in hand.

After I’d made a couple of circuits the horse
eased on over to the new bucket. I was maybe
twenty feet away from him, on his left. I knew he
was watching me—and I knew he wanted those
oats.