“Wasn’t anything else do do,” Pinto argued. “Boys’ll do such things, rushin’ into early graves. By his rules, he was bein’ manly, walkin’ de warrior path. Dyin’ young’s part o’ it.”
“Like your friend that fell at Gettysburg?”
“I tell you ’bout him?” Pinto asked.
“Ben overheard you callin’ out last night. And before, too. Is that why you won’t let anyone get close?”
“What?”
“Why you won’t drop your guard and let anybody care. Pinto, I’ve lost a husband, and I know what grief is like. I look at the boys and see Tully in their eyes, in their manners, in the way Truett stretches himself to appear taller. I cried myself to sleep last night. But I’m not stupid enough to think I can keep the pain to myself. I’ve got sons and a daughter to cry with, to console, to hang onto. Who have you got to share your sadness?”
“What sadness?” Pinto asked. “I get by jus’ fine.”
“You make a poor liar, Pinto Lowery. And you need no falsehoods here. We all know you too well. You can pretend, try to fool yourself, but it hasn’t worked with us.”
“I got ridin’ to get done,” he grumbled.
“Lord Almighty, Pinto!” she exclaimed. “I don’t see why you’re so determined to leave! I’m not blind, you know. It hasn’t been altogether unpleasant for you here. The children are fond of you, as I think you are of them. Winnie dotes on your every glance. Brax and Ben, well, they’d follow you off a cliff. What’s more, with Tully gone we need you. Stay. Help get the corn harvest in. We’ll never manage it on our own.”
“Sure, you will,” Pinto argued. “Yer boy Truett—”
“—is full of hurt. You’re needed, Pinto! Stay.”
“You got to,” Ben added, stepping out from behind the well. “Comanches could come back. Or even them bandits!”
“I’ll ride by now and again,” Pinto promised. “To see you come to no harm.”
“And who’s goin’ to teach me things?”
“Truett will,” Pinto answered. “Or you’ll pick ’em up by and by like I did.”
“I figured we was friends, Pinto!” Ben hollered. “You can’t let Tru run you off. He don’t know you. Shoot, way he figures things, a trip to Kansas makes you full grown and smart besides. Doesn’t either. He’d’ve lost us the barn and worse, too.”
“At least till we get the corn in?” Elsie pleaded.
“Couple o’ months,” Ben added. “Still be horses to catch.”
“Pinto?” Elsie called hopefully.
“Guess you can help me strip these horses, Ben,” Pinto muttered. “Only till the corn cribs’re full, though. I head west thereafter.”
“Sure,” Ben said, rushing toward the corral, climbing the rails, and hopping down to start on the packhorse. “’Less you change your mind.”
And so Pinto passed the dog days of late summer in Wise County. Mostly he devoted the time to helping the boys fill barrels with water for the near-parched cornstalks. Then, too, he sawed planks and patched the hole in the barn wall. Around midday he accompanied Ben and Brax to the river and washed away a great weariness. Truett came once or twice, but he rarely joined in the laughter and pranking unless Pinto rode off on some errand.
There were some fine times toward the end of August as harvest time neared. At least once a week Elsie packed up a food basket and brought Winnie to the fields. The whole family, which those days meant Pinto as well, had themselves a picnic under the bright summer sun. Often Elsie related some story of her ancestors, or the boys recollected a time they passed with their father.
“I miss Pa,” little Winnie whimpered, and the whole gathering would sour for a minute. Ben and Brax quickly recovered, and their pranking would lift the mood. Only Truett remained downcast.
“He’s slipped away,” Elsie explained one evening when Pinto walked with her beside the corral. “I don’t understand him anymore. He won’t tell me what’s botherin’ him. Nor will he talk to Ben or Braxton. I worry one day he’ll simply ride away as my brother Jubal did when the war started.”
“He’s doin’ his bes’ to find his own way,” Pinto explained. “Won’t all de words in heaven salve his wounds. Only time’ll help, and it ain’t been that long, you know.”
“Seems an eternity.”
“Sure, but it’s been even longer for him. He had all those weeks on de trail wonderin’ how he’d tell you. Heavy load to tote, that was.”
“I know, Pinto. I just wish he’d let me lighten it some.”
“Don’t know that’s possible, Elsie. Once a boy takes himself to be a man, ain’t no turnin’ back again.”
“I suppose you’re right. You should know if anyone.”
“Yup, sure should,” Pinto agreed. “You keep tryin’, though. He’ll come ’round. Wait and see if he don’t.”
Soon, though, there wasn’t time to worry after Truett Oakes. The first ears of corn were maturing, and it was time to begin the harvest.
Once, back in ’68, Pinto had lingered in Kansas a bit following a trail drive. He’d ridden east toward Omaha to catch a train, thus quickening the southbound journey, and he’d been surprised to see the high, straight stalks of Kansas corn. Whole yellow-green fields of the stuff, higher than a man was tall. Wise County corn, in a good year, seemed stunted. Some ears were near burnt black. But the water that had been so much effort to bring to the fields in August had brought good results to the Oakes crops.
Truett borrowed two wagons from the Double R, together with the pairs of strong-backed mules that would haul them. Elsie drove the first while young Brax guided the second. The others—Pinto, Ben, Truett, and even tiny Winnie—snapped ears off cornstalks and tossed them in the wagon beds. Clearly bushels aplenty would be taken in that year. So much, in fact, that Pinto wound up erecting three extra cribs.
“We’ll sell off enough to put foldin’ money by against winter need,” Elsie declared jubilantly. “The rest I’ll hand grind.”
“You could talce it to the mill up in Decatur,” Truett suggested.
“They’ll ask a third of the meal to do it, though,” Elsie argued. “Don’t have much else to keep me busy this winter. We may need more’n before. You boys are growin’ like sunflowers!”
“Won’t be Pa here, though,” Truett muttered. “And that Lowery fellow’ll be off now harvest’s done.”
“If he chooses to leave, he’s due a share,” Elsie explained.
“We didn’t promise him a kernel!” Truett exploded.
“You don’t have to promise friends,” Elsie countered. “And you don’t cheat ’em out of their due.”
“Anyway, who says Pinto’s leavin’?” Ben cried. “If he stayed to slave away in the fields, he’s sure to want to rest up this winter. Don’t you figure, Tru?”
“Who am I to know?” Truett grumbled. “Pa asked me to see to things, but nobody’ll let me do it.”
It took close to two weeks to get the corn in. Pinto and the boys spent half of a third week cutting stocks and hauling them to the barn for use as winter fodder. Other bundles were spread out on the range for the cattle to nibble.
“Only need feed when winter’s at its worst,” Ben explained to Pinto. “Mostly the cows just go on grazin’ like always.”
It was October when Truett again borrowed the RR wagons. It was time to talce the corn to market, Elsie had decided, so the boys set to emptying the cribs into the wagon beds. Pinto couldn’t help admiring Elsie’s talent for turning a profit. They hauled two loads to Defiance, another two to Decatur, and then made a trip south to the thriving cowtown of Fort Worth.
Truett and Ben drove the wagons on those journeys while Pinto rode along as a guard of sorts. When Brax wasn’t needed for chores, he sat alongside Ben. Mostly they drove to town, sold off the crop at the price Elsie deemed appropriate, and returned home. Only the Fort Worth trip required making camp overnight.
“If it was up to me, we’d go along home,” Truett grumbled when Pinto announce
d it was time to halt. “Got better’n two hours o’ daylight left.”
“Sure, and you could get back fine,” Pinto admitted. “Dose mules’d be a while recoverin’, though, and when you borrow another man’s stock, it’s jus’ proper you show some care.”
“Richardson mules are used to rough use,” Truett argued. “Ain’t some dandified mustang you pamper half to death.”
“A horse gets fed regular and looked after some’ll carry a man where he aims do go,” Pinto lectured. “You use one up, you could wind up afoot when you don’t much favor de prospec’.”
Truett grumbled some more, but he didn’t fight Pinto on the matter. Later, as dusk settled in, and the yellow-orange oak leaves on the distant hills underwent violent scarlet and amber transformation, Pinto built up a fire and began slicing a ham Elsie had sent against the need.
“I can do that,” Ben offered, and Pinto turned over the chore to the yellow-haired boy.
“Rest up a bit, why don’t you?” Brax added as he filled a water flask from a nearby stream. “You rode all the day, seems like. We just bounced along in the wagon.”
“I’m not tired,” Pinto insisted. “Shoot, sometimes I think I was born on de back of a horse. Who’s to say I wasn’t? I don’t remember de moment any too well.”
Brax laughed at the notion and began piling fresh logs onto the fire. Truett dragged the limb of a dead oak over and began cutting lengths with his ax. Those were warming sounds, the crackling of the fire and the whacking of the ax. Later, Ben whistled a tune on his mouth organ, and the three brothers took up singing.
“We used to ride out into the hills with Pa come October,” Ben explained as he set a skillet atop the fire and tossed slices of ham in. “Hunted deer sometimes. Plenty o’ whitetails in the Trinity bottoms.”
“Jared and his pa asked if we wanted to join ’em this year,” Truett said, gazing intently at the yellow flame. “I told ’em I’d happily come along. Figured you might come, too, Ben. Maybe Brax as well. Jim and Job’re comin’.”
“Is Pinto comin’?” Braxton asked.
“Wasn’t his invite,” Truett answered.
“I ain’t got no rifle,” Ben explained. “That ole Springfield ain’t much use for huntin’ deer.”
“Shoots straight enough!” Truett argued. “Cousin Ryan’s got a pair o’ them new Winchesters, too. Said he’d bring ’em. Jared and I figured to take turns. You could have a try, too.”
“Heard o’ them guns, Pinto?” Brax asked.
“Fine piece,” Pinto answered. “Saw one in a gunsmith shop when we sold off de crop in Decatur. Smith claimed it won’t jam like my ole Henry.”
“Be murder on Comanches then,” Brax said, grinning as he recounted the tale Pinto had shared of the riverside fight last spring.
“Look there,” Ben urged then, pointing at the darkened horizon. “Evenin’ star.”
“Wishin’ star,” Brax said adding, “Pa said so anyhow.”
“Wish he was here,” Truett said, creeping a hair closer to the fire.
“You know Pa knew all the names o’ the stars,” Ben told Pinto. “Could tell you stories ’bout ’em, too.”
“Knew a man could do that,” Pinto said. “Herb Granger. Used to tell us de stars was our own map. Take that big W over yonder.”
“It’s called Cassiopeia,” Truett said.
“The evil queen, remember?” Ben added. “That was one o’ the best stories.”
“It’s a good ’unto know,” Pinto said, “’cause you can follow de point o’ that W to de North Star. Follow her right up into de Chickasaw Nation, and on to Kansas.”
“Canada’s up there if you was to ride long enough,” Ben said. “Turn ’round and you’d be in Mexico.”
“Or splash into the Gulf,” Truett said, grinning at the notion. “Star’s not so good as a compass, but then you don’t have to tote it with you.”
“Have a hard time on a cloudy night, though,” Ben remarked as he turned the ham slices. “Ever been to Mexico, Pinto?”
“South as far as de Nueces,” Pinto replied. “Wes’ to El Paso a few years back on de stagecoach. Up de trail to Kansas, o’ course. Mos’ly I been eas’, up Virginia way and into Pennsylvania. Durin’ de war.”
“Sure, we know that,” Truett mumbled. “It was a long time back now. I guess you’d find Kansas pretty much changed, too.”
“Hope so,” Pinto responded. “Was a mean stretch o’ railroad towns and angry farmers before. But den you’d know that, havin’ jus’ got home from de place.”
“Yeah, I would,” Truett agreed, straightening his posture. He then went on to describe booming Wichita for his brothers. He might have talked the whole night through had not Ben finished cooking the ham. Brax brought over a loaf of bread and some boiled eggs, and the four of them had their supper.
It was later, when they spread their blankets alongside the embers of the fire, that Pinto took charge.
“You don’t want to lay yer blankets there, Brax,” Pinto said as he pointed out a bed of ants. “On de upslope there aside Ben’d be better.”
“I’d say,” Brax agreed, laughing to himself as he stomped his boot on the ants.
“What’ll we do with the ham leavin’s?” Ben then asked. “I recollect them wild dogs. Wouldn’t want coyotes or wolves visitin’.”
“Bury those scraps,” Truett suggested.
“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.”
Chapter 13
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.”
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