We passed the stand of willows and then the pecans, and I commenced to pay attention to what was around me. Those little girls couldn't of come from too far off, I figured, and where was folks it was just possible there might be some medicine or something that could be used to make Crazy Longo's pain ease up.
Past the pecan trees things, thinned out to a few blackjack oaks, and after a quarter mile or so I was about to decide the whole world had gone and turned into a blackjack thicket. It mightn't have been so bad in daytime, when you could see those whippy branches rear back to slap at you, but by night it was purely impossible to see when one of them was coming. Get through flinching from one slashing you in the neck and there'd be another one cutting for your eyes. I was plenty uncomfortable, and for a while I was spending most of my time twisting around in the saddle trying to keep from being hit any worse than I had to be.
While I was occupied with all those branches, I hadn't paid much mind to where my horse was going, but after a time the branches was coming fewer and the horse seemed to be moving a bit quicker though we were still in the thicket.
There wasn't light enough to see anything ahead for certain sure, but the horse seemed to be following a footpath even if I couldn't see it myself. I strained my eyes hard trying to see something ahead, but while I thought the black night might of been just a little grayer and a little less dense straight ahead, still it was such a little difference it could of been only my imagination or a trick of the night. It's awful easy to imagine seeing things that you really don't when it is night and you are in strange country and need real hard to see whatever it is you're looking for. And I did need awful hard to find a path or something that would lead me to where those little girls had come from.
My horse was on its own now. I'd given it its head and it was walking straight away from the creek bank. I didn't dare try to guide it anywhere since it seemed to have found a direction to go in, and I hadn't any idea where we ought to look.
When we did come up on the place, it was all of a sudden. One second we were wading through blackjack oaks, and the next, there was nothing but empty ground ahead, blacker than the black of the sky although both thickened out so dark in the distance that there wasn't any horizon at all out there. The flat ground might have gone on for a couple hundred chain or a couple hundred miles. I couldn't tell either way.
Up close, there was a difference to be seen between the solid black of ground and tree and the slightly lighter sky, and just to the left of where we came out I could see a flat-topped black mass against gray-black sky. Being a regular shape like that it pretty much had to be a building, for there are few straight lines in nature and almost none that lay out flat.
My horse had stopped where he was and wouldn't go forward anymore so I swung off him and found there was a low, pole fence there. It seemed solid enough so I tied him to it and felt my way along to the left toward the building. The fence was low, and it didn't go very far so I figured it was probably around a house garden.
I groped on past the garden, tripped over a little woodpile, and made enough noise to set some hens to cackling. I realized then that there should have been an old hound or two barking long since. You can find a dog at most every ranch I'd ever heard of.
Without a dog's yap it seemed these folks was making out with their hens, for pretty soon I could hear some thumping and movement up ahead as if somebody was getting up to see what the noise was all about. That turned out to be so, for very soon I could see a thin light near the ground up ahead. Someone had lit a lamp inside.
"Hallo the house," I called out quick. I didn't want some sleepy rancher coming out with a rifle. "Hallo. Can you help me? "
The bit of light near the ground leapt up as a blanket or hide was pulled away from the doorway and it became a rectangle of yellow light that flowed out past the bulk of a short, beefy man. I couldn't make out the man's features because the light was at his back, but he didn't have a gun in his hands so I figured he was friendly enough. Even with the light behind him I could see that he was wearing coveralls and was barefoot, probably hadn't had time to get into his boots yet. Making allowance for the sag of the coveralls he was still mighty broad through the chest and belly, and he gave the impression of being in his middle years from the way he carried his weight.
He stood with his feet planted wide apart and solid, and somehow that didn't look natural. It wasn't until much later that I recalled that, but when I thought on it I realized then that a cowman or trooper or anyone who spends a lot of time in the saddle won't often stand so sturdy on the ground. They tend to keep their feet underneath them and balance from the waist instead.
Anyway, he stood in the doorway there for what seemed quite a spell, looking out into the yard where I was. I guess his eyes needed to adjust to the dark. He'd been inside in the light, and coming out it would of been hard to see, especially since it was so dark I couldn't hardly see anything and my eyes had had all kinds of time to adjust themselves to the night.
"Can you help me please, mister?"
"Vasist?"
"Sir?"
"Kommen sie hier, bitte."
"Sir?"
"Kommen sie hier."
"He want you to come in, mister." One of them little girls, the older of the two, had come to the door too. "He do not speak the very good English."
"Okay, but can you folks please help me?" I said as I came up close. "We got a terrible sick man back at camp."
The girl and her pa set to talking, sort of excited like, in a language I didn't understand. I guessed that he was trying to figure out who I was and what I wanted from them in the middle of the night. The girl, she must of been talking off in another direction, for I sure hadn't said enough for her to talk so much about just trying to explain what I wanted.
I seemed to have come in and started up a family spat to judge from the waving of arms and the way they talked real deep in the throat and kind of growling at each other. I stood by, quiet as I could, hoping they'd get around to me again soon so's I could try and get some medicine.
While I waited I admired the inside of their place, which I could see now that I was close up to it. It was a one-room soddy, built by cutting pieces of river bottom sod and laying them up in a wall like bricks. But they'd done well building it. It was bigger than most, and on the inside they had taken and plastered mud over the walls to make them smooth and then white-washed the dried mud just like city folks put paint on real plaster. It looked nice. The furniture was homemade, but it seemed solid. The man talked funny and didn't dress or build the same as any other rancher I'd ever seen, but what he did do looked to have been done good.
When I turned back to the girl and her pa, they was still going at it, first one growling and then the other. Finally a thin, red-faced woman come out from behind a blanket hung in one corner of the soddy, and she cut them both off.
"Nein," she hollered. "Nein-nein-nein-nein-nein! Dis I vill not haf." She looked mad as all get-out, long braids flying and the bottom of her nightdress snapping around her feet as she stomped across the room and butted in between the two of them.
She threw the girl's pa a hard look and said something to him in that funny language. Then she reached out an arm and dragged me inside, pulled me in between the two of them and on into the soddy. I didn't know what she wanted but I went along with her. None of these folks had the look of being mean.
"Gerda..." the man started out in a low-pitched voice, but she cut him off with some more growling and arm waving like the girl had been doing. This time, though, instead of arguing, the man threw one hand up in the air, shook his head so hard I was afraid his front teeth would come loose, and stalked off behind the curtain. I heard a rope bed creak and he snorted a time or two but not real loud, just loud enough to be heard in the room and let everyone know he didn't like what his womenfolk insisted on doing.
In the meantime, the girl let the blanket back down over the doorway and went to some trouble to see that the edges wer
e tucked tight at the bottom. I couldn't figure why, since it wasn't cold out and there weren't bugs enough to worry with. About the only thing she was accomplishing was to keep light from getting out.
Her ma went over to the rock fireplace and stirred some coals to get a fire going, then she hurried back to the table in the middle of the room and blew the lamp out. The only light left was coming from the fireplace and it wasn't much. Next she came and took hold of my arm again and pulled me over to the table.
"You vait here," she said. "I get food ready. You eat. Den ve hide you. Those bad mens do not find you here. You are safe here."
"Ma'am, I surely don't know what you mean, an' while I do most surely 'predate your offer of food I ain't hungry none. I just need to find out do you have any medicine I could borrow of you."
"Ach, med'cin, you are feel ill too?" She shook her head and looked about as sorrowful as a human person can manage.
"So much troubles for one so small boy." She went right on shaking her head and pulling cold meat and other food out of a stout box that was so cunning made that you couldn't see the joints and I'd have bet you couldn't hardly see them in good light.
She piled the table full of food and then came over in front of me and felt of my forehead the same way Ma used to do when I was feeling poorly.
"Ma'am, I truly ain't sick. It ain't me that is. It's Crazy Longo. He's back in camp and he's sick awful bad and I need the medicine to take back to him. Laudanum, if you got it. That'd be best."
The woman looked puzzled. Then she brightened. "Yah. Yah, I understand now. There is more than one of you hiding from the bad mens and you need the med'cin for the other one, yass?"
"Not quite, ma'am. There's no bad men that I know of. Just a bunch of us in a cow camp and one of us awful sick. His name's Crazy Longo, like I told you, and he needs the medicine bad. But there ain't nobody chasing after us that I know of, ma'am."
"Nein? Not ill? Not...sick...as you say it? But I think…Ach, now I do so understand you. You say a terrible sick man, yah?" She shook her head. "I am so stupid in the English words sometime. We think you say six terrible man, yah?"
"Oh, no, ma'am. My friends are all mighty fine folks every one of them. They wouldn't harm nobody for anything, not even in fun they wouldn't. The only thing is, we're all kind of short on cash money until we get our cows sold and we haven't any medicine for Crazy Longo."
"And you come here to look for med'cin, yah?"
"Yes, ma'am, that's it. I come here hoping you folks might have some medicine to ease my friend."
"And how is he ill?"
"He has a misery in his belly, ma'am. I think some laudanum would ease him like it did for my baby brother once."
"Then mayhap ve can help your friend. What it is dis loud-a-nam?"
"I don't rightly know of it by any other name, ma'am. That's all I've ever heard it called is laudanum."
"I do not know what dis may be, but ve haf something to help, yah?" She turned and hurried off behind the curtain where her husband had gone. I could hear her rustling about in there, and her and her husband said something to each other in that language. Finally they both came out in the main room, him looking a bit sheepish, with a few little glass bottles of stuff in their hands.
The man clumped over to the table near where I was and whacked a couple bottles down on the tabletop and then he turned away and sat on the bench facing away from me, looking into the fire like maybe he had to share the room with me but like he wasn't about to have to look at me too. I believe he was ashamed of himself for not wanting to put me up when they thought I was hiding from somebody, and I really couldn't fault him for getting mad to cover it up. It wouldn't be easy for a growed-up man to feel he'd been shamed in front of his womenfolk.
His wife Gerda, now, she looked just as pleased as punch over it all. She set the rest of the little bottles on the table and lit the lamp. Then her and the biggest girl got in a huddle, peering at the labels and chattering to one another in that language.
In the end the two of them decided on a pair of bottles on the order of candy jars except a lot smaller, and the girl held them out to me. "Mister, Ma figures one of these do some good for your friend maybe."
The bottles each had bits of paper pasted on them, and there was writing on the papers. The ink had faded some but you could make out what they said. One said it was Flagler's Bitters. The other was Spirits of Opium.
I didn't know what Flagler's Bitters might be, but whatever it was it didn't sound like something we ought to give to Crazy Longo. I figured his belly was probably bitter enough already without adding something more along that line. The Spirits of Opium sounded better, so I decided on that. I set the Bitters aside.
"Ma'am, I surely figure this could help my friend, but there's one problem I guess I got to make plain in case I didn't before. I haven't any money to pay you for the use of your medicine."
"Pay? Money? Oh, nein, nein. Ve don't take money for the med'cin. You use." She seemed real put out that I had mentioned money. "You go now. Take the med'cin and go, yess?"
She and the bigger girl got up and shooshed me out the door and I went willing enough but trying to thank them too, the best I could anyway. The man, if he ever looked around or said a word I never knew it.
Outside it was black dark and I felt kind of chilly after being inside a house again. I stuffed the medicine bottle down in my pants pocket and groped around until I found my horse, then I made it back to camp as quick as I could.
19
I WAS SETTING on the creek bank for a minute, catching my breath after hauling wood for the breakfast fire, when Mister Sam Silas came over and set down beside me. He had two cups of coffee and he handed me one of them. I didn't know what to say at first, him fetching me a cup of coffee and all, but I mumbled something and he just nodded like he never thought a thing of it.
For a few minutes we neither of us spoke, just sat there sipping at our coffee and admiring the morning. The sun wasn't quite up yet and some night devils, little pockets of mist, drifted over the creek water. It was cool enough that my coat felt good, even though I knew it would be hot during the day. The coffee was hot and fresh and the warmth of it cut through the chill and made me feel good all over.
"I just checked Crazy Longo," Mister Sam Silas said finally. "His belly's eased and he says he's hungry. He's mighty weak but he seems better now. I thought you would want to know. It appears to have been that medicine of yours that did it."
"Well, I'm awful glad to hear that, sir. I surely am."
"I knew you would be. I told Bill to let you relax today. We'll be staying here until Crazy Longo gets back on his feet. Jesus will collect the rest of the firewood and help Bill today, and the rest of the boys can keep the cattle and the horses in line. I believe you've earned a day off for finding that laudanum."
"Thanks, sir. Thank you very much. And if you don't mind, I'll use the time to take the rest of that medicine back to the folks I got it from. I didn't have any money to pay for it, and I'd guess they wouldn't have money to buy more if they need."
Mister Sam Silas gave his chin a good rubbing with his hand while he seemed to think on that, then he nodded and said, "I'll ride along with you while you go. Come get me when you're ready."
He started to stand up to go, but something he'd said occurred to me then, and I stopped him. "You said that the laudanum helped. That's what I set out after, but what I got from them folks was some kind of spirits."
"That's right, Duster—spirits of opium. That's just a fancy name for plain old laudanum." He laughed. "The only difference is whether you buy it from a general store or from a professor of druggistry. The easiest way to figure it is to look at the man you're buying from. If he is in shirtsleeves with garters, he will sell you laudanum. In a frock coat he'll sell you spirits of opium or perhaps tincture of opium. And if he's wearing a linen duster and smoking a seegar," he brushed a hand over his own linen coat, "don't buy. That fellow would sell you a mixture
of honey and vinegar and pepper and call it by whatever name you asked for."
"Yessir," I said. I had been luckier than I'd knowed the night before.
We both of us got up and headed back toward the camp. I was right interested in a good, big breakfast and some more of Digger Bill's coffee, so what I did was to follow my nose upwind to the fire where there was steaks and johnnycakes cooking, and since it was a special sort of day Bill had even broke out some prunes to pass around. That was one fine breakfast.
I believe everybody else enjoyed it as much as me, for they all pitched in good and hearty and cleaned up everything Bill cooked. Crazy Longo, he was laid out in his blankets near the fire. He was still feeling pretty low and Bill wouldn't let him set up yet, but he was well enough to eat a johnnycake and near a whole cup of prunes by himself.
We was all in pretty high spirits, having thought we might be burying Crazy Longo instead of feeding him, and Split Emmons was cutting the fool. He kept pretending he was going to spill coffee down Tommy Lucas's back, standing behind where Tommy couldn't see him. He swayed around and teetered and made such faces though that the rest of us got to laughing and Tommy looked around. He reached back and gave Split a little shove and him being off balance to start with Split fell over sideways into Jesus's lap and slopped hot coffee all down Jesus's front. Jesus didn't think much of that right off, but the rest of us thought it a pretty fair joke on all three of them, and in a minute or two, Jesus decided it was funny, too, and he flung a clod at Split Emmons to show that he wasn't mad about it.
After breakfast, I told Mister Sam that I was ready to go, and we switched our saddles to day horses.
"We'll ride by and check the herd on our way," Mister Sam said, so we rode on downriver a little way.
B.J. and Ike were there already. They had ate breakfast early and then came out to relieve the night herders.
Ike came over to us and sat easy on his horse, one leg draped over the horn of his saddle. He spit at a little rock and hit it near dead center. Ike grinned at Mister Sam and said, "Come to check up on us, have you? Man oughta trust his own riders anyway."
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