Brian saw one of the watching men smirk. Resentfully he lowered himself into the chair. His moment of affinity with the old man was gone. He sucked in a shaking breath, watching Tiger get another chair and sprawl into it, boots thrust out in front of him.
“Jigger,” he bawled.
The barefoot bartender picked his way through the overturned tables with a bottle and some glasses. “I’d like such a fight every day if somebody’d pay for the damage,” he said.
Tiger waved his hand magnanimously. “Put it on the bill.” Wirt Peters and Cameron Gillette were recovering now. Cameron got up and leaned against the wall, staring around blankly. “Wirt,” Tiger said, “you’re a prime brawler, but you can’t use your feet. Wash your face off with this coffin varnish and then put some inside you.”
Peters found a chair and hauled it to the table. There was no malice left in these men after one of Tiger’s brawls. They had fought with him a dozen times before and rarely did one of them come out of it an enemy to the old man. Peters poured whisky in his hands, washed the blood off his face. Tiger poured drinks all around. Brian closed his eyes and downed it. Still weak and shaking from the violence, he was unprepared for the raw jolt of whisky. He choked and coughed and had to spew up half the drink.
“Take it easy, boy,” Tiger said. “You don’t have to keep provin’ you’re a man.
The patronizing tone in his voice deepened Brian’s resentment. Why had he even bothered defending the old man? Brian saw that Nacho was beginning to revive and he looked defiantly at Tiger.
“Tell me just one thing,” Brian said. “Were you really going to hang them?”
Tiger gaped at Brian. Then he threw his head back and let out a deafening bray of laughter. “Son,” he roared, “when in hell are you gonna grow up? If I thought it would dry you out behind the ears, I’d take ‘em back there right now and string ‘em up for you.”
Brian flushed and hauled himself out of the chair. “If I stick in your craw that much you can finish your next brawl by yourself.”
Then he turned and walked out.
CHAPTER 3
Forty years ago Tiger Sheridan had driven his first herd of cattle to the edge of the Rim country and had started the Double Bit. His house had been an adobe jacal, growing a room a year, according to Tiger’s proud boast, until it comprised forty rooms, sprawled out through the sage and the matted juniper in baronial splendor. There was a living-room forty feet long with a flagstone fireplace at each end, a pine-floored dining-room that would seat a hundred guests, countless patios cupped within the walls of surrounding bedrooms and sitting-rooms.
Tiger’s bedroom was famous throughout the land. Second only to the living-room in size, it was a chamber reflecting the crude, barbaric tastes of a man whose life had been devoted to founding a wilderness empire. The savage color of Navajo blankets covered the adobe floor; the furniture was a hopeless welter of colonial Spain and New England. Spool-turned settees stood beside leather-covered chests brought up the Turquoise Trail two hundred years ago. And in the very center of the great room was the incredible brass bed Tiger claimed he had gotten from Manuel Armijo, the infamous governor of Santa Fe during its Mexican period.
At seven o’clock in the morning, two days after the fight in town, Brian tried to get past the door of that garish chamber and reach his own room beyond. He had taken his boots off so tinkling spurs would not betray him. But the door was ajar, and as he cat-footed past it a roar seemed to shake the whole house.
“Brian!”
He halted, grimacing to himself. Then he moved to the door and pushed it all the way open. Morning sunlight made a blinding shimmer against the brass bed and Brian squinted his eyes shut painfully. Within the travesty of velvet canopies and glittering posts and brazen whorls lay the old man. He was propped up on pillows and naked to the waist, grimacing and grumbling as Robles rubbed a mixture of hot arnica, neat’s-foot oil, and gunpowder into the cuts and bruises he had garnered in the fight. Tiger scowled at the blue circles under Brian’s eyes and the fuzz of red beard on his jaw.
“Stud?” he asked.
“Draw,” Brian said.
“And a woman.”
“Celia.”
“That little tramp.”
“You asked her mother to marry you.”
“Forty years ago, after a six-day drunk, blind in one eye,” Tiger said. He pushed Robles peevishly aside, threw back the covers, swung his feet onto the floor. He sat scowling at his crooked, horny toes, a big, surly grizzly of a man, with tufts of hair sprouting like gray weeds from his beefy shoulders. “You’ll eat breakfast with me this morning,” he said. “Then we’ll go down to the corrals. They brought in some fresh broncs for the saddle strings. After that we’ll go out to roundup—”
“Tiger,” Brian groaned.
“Git your workin’ clothes on,” Tiger said. “If you’re gonna play you gotta pay.”
Robles stood behind Tiger like a dark statue. But Brian thought he caught a gleam of secret amusement in the old Indian’s eyes. Brian was bristling with anger as he went out into the hall. When would Tiger stop riding him? The old man caroused as much as he did, put in hardly any more work than he did. What right did he have to this constant nagging? The ranch practically ran itself. Whenever Brian did try to help he always ended up feeling futile, as useless as a fifth wheel.
He stripped to the waist and got out his shaving things, unable to put it out of his mind. It made him think of Arleen’s strange mood the other day. Was she going to begin too? He didn’t think he could stand that. And he didn’t think he could put up with Tiger much longer either.
“Oh, hell!”
He had cut himself and he dabbed futilely at the blood. He shouldn’t let it get under his skin like this. He tried to drive it from his mind as he finished shaving. He changed to jeans and Justins and left the room still dabbing at the cut. He was startled by Robles, standing outside the door. The old Indian’s white mane shone like a halo in the gloomy hall.
“No let Tiger go to roundup,” he said.
Brian frowned at him. “You been reading smoke signals again?”
“Bad sign,” Robles said. He moved his hand northward. “Bad sign up there.” He made a half circle with his hand. “All over.”
Brian was too tired to humor the old man. “You know he’s dead set on going out there today,” Brian said. “I can’t stop him.”
He went down the hall and joined Tiger in the dining-room. The old man would have nothing but steak and apple pie for breakfast. Brian had half a pot of black coffee and listened with closed eyes while Tiger lectured him on his wayward life. After that, belching gustily, Tiger led him down to the corrals.
They covered the rolling land behind the house, some made of adobe walls, others of pine poles brought from heavy timber farther north. It had been a hard roundup and the saddle strings were suffering. In the unaccustomed heat so many horses had become wind broken and used up that Tiger had been forced to bring some fresh stock from his herds on the high range. Brian and his father strolled past a sprawling adobe pen filled with two dozen skittish broncs that hadn’t yet been broken to the saddle. Beyond that was a pole pen where three men were sacking out a snaky roan. It had a gunny sack tied on its back and was bucking crazily around the corral. It was a mean-looking animal, big-chested, with heavy mountain muscle that bulged like fists in its rump at every leap.
Tiger leaned against the poles, squinting at the horse. “That an old brand on it, Kaibab?” he shouted.
One of the men turned, a lean and hungry-looking bronc stomper with a battered face and scarred hands. “You remember Snakebite, Mr. Sheridan. We caught him two years ago. We couldn’t break him then and I don’t think we can do it now.”
“How can you tell?” Tiger said.
“We sacked him out all yesterday and it ain’t taken him down a single notch.”
�
��Then it’s time to put a man on him,” Tiger said. “I don’t pay you to wear out my gunny sacks.”
“He looks pretty mean,” Brian said. “Better let ‘em wear him down a little more.”
“He’s no meaner’n a hundred others broke in these pens,” Tiger said. He raised his voice. “If you don’t want to top him, Kaibab, I’ll get the Barker kid.”
Pride made a dark stain against Kaibab’s battered face. Brian saw the twinkle in Tiger’s eyes and realized he had used the threat deliberately. The stomper waved an arm at the horse and the two handlers shook their ropes out, worked him into a corner, and put their lines on him. Then they started him toward the chutes. He fought every inch of the way, lather furled on him in dirty yellow ropes. There was a look of unalloyed viciousness about the horse that curled Brian’s guts. Its eyes were wild and bloodshot and its whinnies and squeals came in shrill, savage gusts.
They finally got it into the chute and dropped the saddle on. Kaibab glanced at Tiger, hitched his pants up, and climbed up the fence. With a foot on each fence, straddling the chute beneath, he looked down on the thousand pounds of battering, screaming fury penned in the narrow space beneath him. Then he spat, pulled his hat down tight, and nodded.
The handler swung open the door and Kaibab dropped into leather as the horse plunged out. It was the wildest show Brian had ever seen. The horse made noise all the time, screaming, wheezing, grunting, whinnying, squealing.
The dust boiled up so thick that Brian finally lost sight of them and didn’t even see Kaibab go off. When the horse appeared again, still bucking, the saddle was empty.
The handlers ran for the animal with their ropes, blocking him off in a corner so he wouldn’t trample Kaibab. In a moment Kaibab appeared, crawling from the clouds of dust on hands and knees. He was bleeding from the ears and nose and was so dazed that he didn’t hear them call to him. Brian and Tiger ducked through the bars and ran to him, trying to help.
But the man wouldn’t come off his hands and knees. All Brian could do was guide him to the bars. Here he sagged, retching feebly. Tiger got a dipper of water from the trough near by and brought it to him. The old man wet his bandanna and washed Kaibab’s face off; then he tilted the dipper to his lips. The stomper drank a little, spewed out the rest. The glazed look was gone from his eyes. He looked up at Tiger, voice weak.
“I’ve seen a lot of ugly ones,” he said. “You won’t break that horse, Mr. Sheridan.”
Tiger’s face grew channeled with disgust. “You gettin’ old, Kaibab? In my day we topped a horse till he was busted, or we turned in our time.”
Kaibab got to his feet. “You giving me my choice?” he asked.
“I sure as hell am,” Tiger said. “I don’t want a man around that’s lost his guts.”
“That isn’t fair, Dad,” Brian said. “You know this animal’s history. You haven’t got any right to make a man ride an outlaw.”
Tiger turned slowly to Brian. A bright little flame of anger began to glow in his sun-faded eyes. “I guess you really need to learn this business,” he said. “Ain’t you found out by now that I never ask a man to do somethin’ I wouldn’t do?”
Without waiting for an answer he stooped through the fence, shouting at the handlers. “Git him back in the chute. This one’s goin’ to be topped.”
Brian went after him. “Dad, don’t be crazy. You can’t take a pounding like that—”
Tiger’s answer was to get a rope and stamp to the other side of the corral, helping the handlers to snare Snakebite. It was a titanic battle to get him to the chute. Tiger strained and swore and fought with the other two men, until the animal was in the narrow slot. Brian knew how useless it was to argue with the old man, but he grabbed Tiger’s arm and tried to talk him out of it. His father shook him off and turned to climb the fence.
“Tiger, don’t be a fool,” Brian yelled. “Everybody knows there isn’t a one in the rough string you can’t top. You don’t have to keep proving it till they break you up.”
“Sure, Mr. Sheridan,” Kaibab called. “Come on down. I’ll top him again.”
“Open that door,” bawled Tiger.
Stubs, the handler at the door, hesitated, glancing at Brian as if for help. But Tiger towered above them like some bow-legged, big-bellied god, and the fierce look on his face told them he would tolerate no opposition to his will. Stubs had been obeying this man unquestioningly for twenty years and one glance up at that scowling face made him grab the rope that raised the door.
The horse came out like a jackrabbit. Tiger Sheridan’s great weight dropping into the saddle drove a wheezing grunt from deep within the roan. Then the animal screamed and started fence worming. He shot into the air headed toward one corner of the pen and came back down faced toward another. The four legs drove into the earth like ramrods and the ground shook beneath Brian. He thought it would drive Tiger’s spine through his hat every time they came down.
But Tiger was sticking. He lost his hat and his white mane flapped around his head like a banner. His ribald shouts mingled with the horse’s wild squeals till it was hard to tell them apart.
“Come on, you shad-bellied crowbait, let’s see some real steam. I rode ornerier snakes than you when I was in diapers. Come on, you slab-sided buzzard grub, let’s see you pinwheel—”
And pinwheel he did. Spinning like a top, cutting the ground to ribbons, kicking up great furls of dust that billowed around them like red smoke. Half the time Brian could not see them. Half the time he could only hear Tiger’s wild yelling and the roan’s frustrated screams.
It was a battle between giants. None of the men could remain still and watch it. Brian ran up and down the fence, a coiled rope in one hand, so excited that he was shouting advice to Tiger now.
“Don’t let ‘im sunfish, Tiger, don’t let him sunfish, keep him out of that corner, he’ll wipe you off on the fence—”
The roan came charging out of the dust at the men and they had to scatter. He headed straight for-the fence, show bucking and jackknifing, apparently so enraged that he meant to charge into the poles. Another rider, with that fence coming at him, might have taken a dive. Tiger stuck to the saddle, bawling at the horse and even spurring him on.
At the last moment, with a frustrated scream, the roan swapped ends. Tiger lost a stirrup and for a moment Brian thought he was gone. But he shifted his weight with a desperate heave and was still in the saddle as the horse started bucking in the other direction.
In a frenzy, the roan pulled the plug. Crawfish, double-shuffle, pump handle, they were all there, coming in such dizzying succession that it was impossible to see how any human could stay on. At last came the pile driver, with the roan hunting the clouds and then coming down with all four legs stiff.
Brian shouted aloud in sympathetic reaction to the grinding shock. But Tiger had gone limp in the last moment and Snakebite might as well have tried to break a wet rag in two. The roan came out of the pile-driver wind-milling insanely. But Tiger was still in leather.
They disappeared in the pall of dust again. The fence was lined with the horse runners who had come from other corrals to watch. Their excited shouting died as they stared at the cloud of dust, trying to tell from the sounds what was happening. The ground trembled to the pound of hoofs and a wild equine scream split the air. Then Tiger’s roguish yell came out to them.
“Come on, you damn navvy, don’t start crowhoppin’ on me now, you ain’t even showed me a sunfish yet—”
In another moment the horse came out of the dust again. He was no cyclone now. He was cat-backing and crow-hopping, pitching halfheartedly in a final gesture of defiance, a horse defeated yet still unwilling to give up. Tiger raked him with the spurs, trying to get another burst of violence from him. But the horse only squealed, cat-backed again, and then stopped completely.
He stood with four legs braced and head down, his ribs heaving l
ike a bellows, the lather dripping from him dirty and yellow. The men gathered around, looking up at Tiger with the old awe in their faces, the old love. It wiped all the sophistication from Brian for that moment. It took him back to his childhood, when this man had been a towering god to him, a roaring, violent god, and Brian had never approached him without that awe, without that tremulous feeling of excitement and fear and worship all rolled into one.
Tiger had taken a terrific beating too. His cheeks were sunken and gray-looking, his eyes squinted as if in pain, and he was bleeding at the nose. But none of the men would give him the offense of offering help. The old man wiped blood from under his nose with the back of his hand, took a deep and shaken breath; and straightened up.
“Kaibab,” he said, “next time will you accept my judgment on a horse?”
The bronc stomper shook his head, grimacing sheepishly at the ground. “I sure will, Mr. Sheridan, if you give me the chance.”
“You got the chance,” Tiger said. “Now git back to work—all you scalawags!”
The men scattered like a bunch of quail, leaving only Kaibab and the two hazers that had worked Snakebite. Stubs tucked his thumbs into sagging jeans.
“You want we should take him now, Mr. Sheridan?”
“Hell, no,” Tiger said. “He’s fit to work now and he needs some cooling down. I’ll ride him out to roundup.”
Brian started to protest again, then checked himself. He knew how useless it would be. Tiger’s fierce old pride was working overtime. He had put on a show for his men and he was going to finish it.
“Wait for me to saddle up,” Brian said. “I’ll go with you.”
Tiger turned an irascible scowl on him. He was still peeved with Brian for interfering with his treatment of Kaibab. “I don’t need a nursemaid,” he said. “Fetch me my hat, Stubs. Man can’t go to work naked.”
Stubs hobbled across the corral and picked up the battered hat. Brian took a last look at his father, then turned to walk down the line of corrals. In the last small pen nearest the house was a handful of the Sheridans’ saddle horses. Brian’s Steeldust was among them; he roped it out. As he was saddling up, Robles came from the kitchen door with an empty pail, heading toward the well. He saw Brian and changed his direction, coming over.
Last of the Breed Page 3