Before you knew it old Jesus was fitted out in a pair of them blue britches too, and he had a bright red shirt to go with them. We settled our bills and Hogan let us go back in his storeroom to change. When we come out into the sunshine again we both was walking stiff-legged inside the new pants, but we felt about as spiffy and spry as could be in our new duds.
It was still pretty early in the morning and the sun was just warm enough to feel good, not so hot that it seemed to be setting on your shoulders like it would be later on in the day. The wind was coming off the water so that the air smelled fresh and didn't carry any stink with it, and from where we stood in front of Hogan's Emporeum you couldn't see any of the hide factories. All in all it seemed like a nice day to be alive.
A couple of fellows walked by and it seemed they was admiring the way me and Jesus was turned out. For my part, I was just sure they paid special notice of my new, brown hat, and after they passed I took it off and rubbed my sleeve over the crown and along the underside of the brim to make sure there was no dust smudges on it.
Jesus puffed his chest a little inside the new shirt so I could tell he felt as much of a peacock as me.
"I'll buy you a cup of real coffee," he offered, his money still threatening to burn through the bottom of his pocket.
"I'm game," I said. We headed back toward the hotel where we'd met Mister Sam Silas and B.J. Hollis earlier. It was a real nice place, two stories tall and built all of sawn lumber. The whole front half of the downstairs was a big, open room with tables and a short bar made out of wood that had been rubbed smooth and polished with oil, and off to the right near the stairs there was a little counter with a bunch of boxes behind it where a fellow kept keys for the rooms upstairs.
Jesus and me sat ourselves at a table near the front door where we could look out and see the people going past. We wasn't hardly settled in our chairs before a fellow came over to ask what our pleasure would be.
"Cawfee for me," Jesus said with an air.
"And for you, sir?" the waiter asked.
I was about to say coffee when I got an even better idea. Since we was in a mood to put on the dog a little, I told him, "Tea, please."
"Of course," he said and backed away from the table with a bob of his head.
"You ever drunk tea before?" Jesus asked when the waiter was gone.
"Nope, but I'm fixing to."
"Wisht I'd thought o' that."
"You can get a cup after your coffee if you want."
The waiter brought our coffee and tea to us in just a minute or two and spread cups and dishes and spoons and all manner of truck like that over the table. It seemed an awful lot of stuff to go with two little cups, but I figured he knew what he was doing.
Jesus laced his coffee stiff with sugar like we always did, and I poured a bunch of it in my tea. There was a little tin pitcher of milk on the table too, and since I knew it wouldn't of been for the coffee I filled my cup all the way up to the brim with some of the cream-heavy milk. It didn't taste bad when it was all stirred together.
Near where he had set down the cup of tea, there was a tiny little plate with thin slices of fruit on it. I took that to be a side dish that went with the tea, something like serving a scone when you had folks in for a cup of coffee or putting out a bowl of nuts with cider. Anyhow I reached for one and took a bite.
I must of made a face for Jesus asked, "What's the matter? It ees spoilt mebe?"
"It sure must be. That's the awfulest tasting stuff I ever had. It's sour, not a bit sweet like fruit should be."
"It looks sweet." Jesus reached across and tried one of the fruit slices, and his face puckered up into a knot. "Aieee, thas terrible." He looked like he wanted to spit, but the floor was clean so he swallowed quick and drank the rest of his coffee off in a hurry to get rid of the taste.
"You should tell the man about his fruits bein' no good."
"Urn ... naw, I don't think so. He's treated us nice and his boss might get mad at him if we put up a fuss. Besides, they'll find out quick enough about the fruit. Bad as it is it'll start to smell soon an' then they'll know."
"Hokay." Jesus laid two half-dimes on the table and we left to look over the rest of the town.
We walked around and looked at the sights for a while. There was all manner of stores that we poked into and a good number of saloons that we stayed out of. Down at one end of town there was a saddler's shop that we spent a while in, me admiring the things he had for sale and Jesus explaining how his daddy's stuff was so much better. One thing Jesus had to agree about, though. This man sure had his pick of hides to work with. He tanned them himself out back of his store and we looked that over too. Considering the way the rest of the town smelled, the tannery didn't stink much at all, and that's right unusual for a tannery to not smell bad even if it is only in comparison with something else.
From the saddler's we headed back uptown, browsing our way along slow and easy. As we was going past Hogan's place we waved inside to him. A few steps further on we heard someone calling out.
"Hey, boys. Hold it a minute." We turned around and it was Mister Hogan.
"Yessir?"
"Are you boys called Duster and Jesus? 'Cause if you are I got a message for you."
"That's us. Duster Dorword and Jesus Menendez."
"Well, Sam Silas stopped by here. I've been knowing Sam a long time, and he stopped in for a talk. Anyways, Sam asked if I seen you for me to tell you they'll be needing you boys to ride watch on the herd again tonight an' then to help move them into the factory pens tomorra."
"That means he got a buyer an' we can git home soon. That's good."
"Uh-huh. Word gets around, you know, and I heard he got a average price for your animals. Not real good, but not bad neither."
"We bes' get back, eh, Duster?"
"Yeah, we better."
"Okay, boys. I'll see you again." Hogan turned away but then he snapped his fingers and turned back toward us. "I near forgot. They was a couple of fellas asking for a pair that must have been you two. Described you boys just as pretty as you please, but it was the way you looked afore you got your new clothes. Even knowed you didn't have a hat, Duster.
"But they gave me some cock-and-bull story about you two runnin' off with some cooking gear and a slab of bacon and they wanted paid for it. Shee-oot, I already knowed you worked for Sam but I wouldn'ta told them fellers nothing even if I hadn't. You boys ain't the thieving kind, and anyway it ain't stealing to take food if you're hungry. Anyhow I thought you boys oughta know about these birds, whatever it is they're up to."
Hogan described the two men to us, and they commenced to sound an awful lot like that pair I'd talked to away back on the Atascosa, the pair with guns and a hard look to them who'd mistook me for a dirt farmer.
If it was the same pair I might recognize them when I saw them again, but I sure didn't know who they were or what they wanted. And the more I thought on it the less I wanted to know—anybody who'd lie about us like that, calling us thieves and maybe worse!
"Duster, old amigo, I been thinkin'," Jesus said while we was riding back toward the herd. "I bet them lyin' gringos has been looking for us for a long ways now, eh?"
"You figure?"
"Si. I been thinking back, eh? You 'member at Fort Ewell while we are up the river to visit with Senor Alfredo Valdez there was somebody asking for somebody like us at Senor Stuart's store? Then Tomas Lucas, he say someone look for us down the river, eh? And now these mens look for us here een this town an' even they know you have lost your hat. I don't like this."
"I been thinking just the same as you, Jesus, and I don't like it neither."
I told Jesus about them fellows I'd seen back on the Atascosa, but neither him nor me could make sense of any of it. We sure agreed we wanted to stay away from whoever those fellows was.
22
I GAVE A tug to the brim of my hat to get it set right on my head and pulled my jeans in place. They still felt like I'd have to bend a who
le lot sooner than them. Then I propped a foot on the lowest bar of the rail fence and watched the longhorns move down the chute and into the hide factory's big holding pen.
Mostly, I was feeling pretty cocky in my new rig and some cash money in my pocket, but I was a little bit sad too. It's funny, but after a while you get so you can recognize near about every animal in your trail herd, and it's almost like you know them personal.
You would think that a herd of nearly nine hundred wild cattle would be just that many sets of horns and hooves moving along in a bunch, but it isn't so. When you've lived with them awhile you come to know this one and that, and pretty soon you know most of the herd.
Watching them go past on the other side of the fence I could see by the upthrust noses and rolling eyes which ones was nervous, and I could tell by the dull gait and level horns which was the quiet followers that would go wherever the one in front led. But it come to me that I would of knowed before they ever got into that chute how this one would act or that some other one would get mad and toss his horns until they jammed cross-ways in the chute and had to be pulled loose before the rest could go in.
Going past me just then was the dusty roan lineback that had liked to cut for the brush every chance he got. I'd had to turn him back myself I don't know how many times, and I had tailed him down twice and remembered seeing Ike bust him down once too. It was kind of sad to think that he'd lost his last chance for a run at the thorn thickets. He'd never again hoist his muzzle up in the air and then all of a sudden drop it down low and make a dash away from the herd. Nor would he again go flying down onto his side in a swirl of dust when a horse and rider lifted his hind legs and tumbled him over.
There behind him came a skinny little cow with pinched-in flanks and ribs showing plain under a scruffy hide. She plodded along as meek as you please with her head down and her eyes moving just the least little bit. She looked as though she hadn't gumption enough to bawl for water, nor strength enough to walk three miles, but all of us had come to know her real well. She'd hang back at the tail end of the herd and plod along, just about the most miserable and forlorn creature you ever seen and plain impossible to hurry. She'd hang back like that until you'd near forgot she was supposed to be up in the herd and then when a rider would come close she'd give a playful little toss of her head and try to punch a horn tip into a horse's belly or maybe into the rider's leg. She'd hooked one of B. J.'s horses in the shoulder once, a bad gouge, and screw worms got into the wound so B.J. borrowed a long knife from Digger Bill and cut the horse's throat. He said it was a poor horse to start with or it wouldn't of got itself hooked, and it wasn't worth the trouble of doctoring. I don't know as I agreed with him, coal oil being cheaper than horseflesh and not a bad medicine for screw worms, but it was his horse and his business.
Pretty soon I seen a steer come past with a jinglebobbed left ear and a cropped right one and I knew it was one of mine and that there was a still fresh DD marked on the shoulder that I couldn't see. Not that I needed to see the marks to know it was one of mine. It was the prettiest DD animal in the herd with a rich, liver-colored hide that was speckled all over with dots of pure white, and I'd been admiring it the whole way along. I would of sent it back home to wait another year except it was maybe five years old already and couldn't do anything except run the risk of getting lost or mired or having a leg broke if I left it loose.
"I always feel just the same way when I sell off some animals, Duster."
"I didn't know it showed, Mister Silas, sir." I hadn't heard him come up beside, but he was standing there with his linen coat open and his hands stuck down in his pants pockets.
"Not so much that I would have noticed it if I hadn't been feeling low myself."
"Do you think...next year, I mean..."
"North? Yes, I think maybe so. This fall I'll have some business to tend to in San Antonio and maybe in Uvalde. I intend to ask around and see if we should try going north next year. Maybe we'll bring a small bunch back here so we know we have something in our pockets and then we can take a good herd north even if it is a gamble."
"Yessir," I said. I knew he didn't want my say-so about it and was just thinking out loud like folks will do sometimes. I hadn't thought of it before, but things weren't all that easy on Mister Silas. Him being rich and everything, you'd think he wouldn't have any cares, but here he was saddled with the decisions about what to do with his own cattle and everyone else's too. That's a big load for anyone to carry. "I know whatever you say will be the right thing," I told him.
He gave me a funny little look and said, "Thanks, Duster." Then he brightened considerable. "You won't feel so low when you hear what we got for these cows. We got six dollars and a quarter a head. It's twenty-five cents more than we figured so it isn't bad even if some did go for six and a half last month."
"No, sir. That's fine." I tried to figure out in my head what that would mean for us, but he already had it worked out.
"If you haven't lost any along the way your share will be $487.50, Duster. I'll leave your poke in with mine until we get home unless you want some of it now. If you don't mind, that is."
"Nossir, I'd 'ppreciate it. I wouldn't feel right carrying all that money. I never seen so much, not half so much at one time, and I wouldn't know how to act with it."
"All right then, I'll put it in a sack and give it to Bill to hold with mine."
Like a lot of folks, Mister Sam Silas left his poke of hard money with his cook so's it could be carted around with the rest of the heavy stuff. Coin comes heavy when there's much money involved and you can't just slip it into your pocket. And not many would trust paper money, especially in the cow business where there was so many thieves and grafters trying to think up legal or near-legal ways to steal cows or to give false counts on a tally.
It was an odd thing, though, that you could leave a sack of gold coins by the cook fire for a week at a time and it would be safer than in a bank. Some places, specially down along the coast I'd been told, a man riding out alone might be shot for a five-dollar half-eagle, but a poke of coins laid next to a fire or hung up in a tree near a cow camp wouldn't be bothered even if all the hands was ten miles away working cattle.
When Mister Sam Silas had left I set down to some serious thinking. He'd said if I needed some cash money I could get it, and I sure could use it. I still had $5.40 left over from my pay, and that meant I was short of enough to buy a pair of boots by less than two dollars.
The cows sold for more than we was expecting. And I hadn't thought to have any DD cows in the herd to start with. Ma wasn't counting on me to bring home more than ten or maybe twelve dollars, and here I would be fetching back a poke big enough to meet taxes two years easy and pay off what we owed besides.
I could round that poke down to an even $480 if I just took seven and a half from it, and that would give me enough money to buy them boots from Mister Hogan and still have money left over to take some presents home for Ma and the small fry. I'd tell them what I done, of course. It wouldn't be fair not to. But they wouldn't mind. After all, I was the one that done the work to bring that money home, and a man needed to be rigged out proper if he was to run his own spread and care for a whole family and all. I knew they'd figure it to be fair as fair could be.
I left the chute fence and climbed up on the steeldust. "Mister Silas, sir, would it be all right if I go over to the Emporeum for a bit?" I called to him.
He waved me on. The cattle were most all in the pen and we weren't needed for anything, and Hogan's store was just in town about a quarter mile away.
Hogan was swamping out his store when I got there, which was an almighty surprising thing being as there was few women around so smelly a town and most menfolk don't much mind standing in a little filth when they shop.
"Hey, Duster," he said, setting his mop aside like he was ready for an excuse to quit. "Don't tell me now. Sam went an' fired you and you come here looking for a job cleaning up the place."
"Nossir, no
t exactly, but I'd be willing to do it ... in swap for them boots you showed me yesterday."
"Um. That job'd come a mite dear if I agreed to that. I don't think I can do 'er, but I can't blame you for trying."
I got off the steeldust and went inside, careful not to track across the wet spots where he'd been mopping. "Could I take another look at them boots anyway?"
"You sure can, boy." He put the mop and bucket out of sight and rummaged under the counter again to find the boots.
"They're good boots, boy," he said and handed them over.
He was right that they looked to be a sound, sturdy pair of boots. The leather was rough, not smooth polished and pretty like some, but there wasn't any gouges or scars showing, and they looked to be sewed good and tight with real linen thread instead of the twine Mister Soames had used to make my shoes.
They was of the old style too, loose fitting and round-toed instead of the tight, pointy vaquero kind that was so snappy looking and was getting to be so popular among cowhands. Not that I could hold the style too much against them, they being so cheap and all.
"If you've come into a little more cash, boy, and I figger you have else you wouldn't be here admiring these boots, you just might take a look at this pair." Hogan fetched a box from behind him and pulled out a pair of rough leather boots made in the new way and a whole lot prettier to me. "I could let you have these for a good buy too, though not so good as them others."
I didn't really want to, but they were neater looking, more modern like, and I just had to ask. "How much?"
"Eleven dollars even," he said. "Just four dollars more than those mud waders."
I guess I twitched a little for I couldn't help thinking about it, and Hogan must of known for sure then that I could find some more money did I need it.
"It's just good business practice so I know you won't mind if I show you another pair that'd go nice on your feet." He hauled out yet another box and set a pair of dark brown, polished vaquero boots on the counter. "These'd go good with your hat and I could let you have these for, oh, fourteen dollars and twenny-five cent."
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