Duster (9781310020889)

by Roderus, Frank

  "I couldn't afford anywhere near that," I told him while I looked over all three pair.

  When I got right down to it I could have afforded any of the three of them, but I wouldn't of felt right about buying that fancy pair for $14.25. Yet thinking about it some more that $11 for the vaquero kind didn't seem much next to $14.25, and—it took me a minute to work it out—if I took the odd $7.50 from my poke I'd have a total of $12.90 to spend so I could afford the vaquero boots easy enough. I'd even have $1.90 left over after I bought the real sharp looking boots.

  I picked them up one at a time and turned them over in my hands, looking at them close to see if I could find any flaws in them so I could make a try at getting Hogan to knock the price down some. I couldn't find a single one, but I wasn't real unhappy about that for it meant they was a well-made pair of boots. I could just imagine how they'd feel and, more, how they'd look on my feet.

  When I had put them down again Hogan set them back in their box and winked at me. "Should I set them aside for you or do you want to wear them back to camp?"

  "Oh, I haven't that much money. Not right in my pocket, I mean. But I can get it later."

  "All right then, I'll set them back on the shelf. Don't worry ... I won't sell them to nobody else."

  "That's mighty fine of you."

  "It's all right, boy. You and your saddle partner are good customers. Glad to oblige you any way I can."

  "Thanks."

  Hogan set the box on a shelf behind him and I started to drift toward the door. On the way out, though, my eye hit something that stopped me short. There near the door I saw another counter against the wall. And on it was spread out a lot of woman's truck. Little baubles made of glass and fancy combs and looking glasses with handles on them.

  They caught my eye and stopped me cold. What I mean is that they set me to thinking all over again. But this time I wasn't thinking about how nice them boots would look on my feet. This time I was thinking about how little Ma and the small fry had ever had in the way of pretties.

  Here I already had me a spanking new hat and a new pair of store-bought britches and I hadn't yet bought them a thing. And if I bought a pair of eleven-dollar boots I wouldn't have but $1.90 left over and that wouldn't be enough to take presents home for the rest of the family. Seeing those geegaws seemed to point out that I'd been planning some awful selfish spending with money that rightfully belonged to the whole family.

  I did some quick refiguring in my head and realized I could get those seven-dollar boots and have even more money left over than I already had in my pocket right then and could use that to buy some stuff for the family.

  But then, to do that, I'd really be taking money away from the family and not even so much as spending it for them. The more I thought on it the less fair it looked.

  I looked down at my feet and saw the toes of my shoes sticking out in front of those new jeans. Those shoes weren't so pretty but they was still in good enough shape to wear for a good while. I could still recall how proud and happy I'd felt when I first got them and knew they were brand-new and made for me and had never been wore by anyone else. My shoes weren't really bad at all.

  "Mister Hogan, I guess I won't be buying them boots after all. Nor the seven-dollar ones neither. I'm sorry to of bothered you so."

  "Sure thing, boy, and it wasn't any bother. Any time. I'm always happy to show my goods."

  "Well. If...uh...if you wouldn't mind then could I look at some other stuff. Maybe something to carry home as presents."

  Hogan grinned. "Heavens, yes, boy. That's the nicest kind of merchandise to show."

  Hogan and me flat dug into his stock of goods then. Between the pair of us we must of laid hands on one of everything he had, and I know we came back to some things two and three times.

  In the end we had quite a pile assembled. There was a tortoise shell comb for Ma's hair, a grass rope for Tom who'd soon be big enough to work cattle and so would need a rope of his own, a folding pocketknife for Johnny, a tin whistle for Little Bo, and a baby doll, a real one with a china head and china hands, for Molly since she'd never had one except what could be fashioned from dried corn shucks and scraps left over from the sewing.

  "Whatdya think now, boy? Will these do it?"

  "Yessir, they surely should. Just what I needed."

  "Good." Hogan seemed as pleased as me about the selections. In fact he had argued with me plenty over a couple of things I'd wanted to get, and I'd argued right back at him on some others he'd wanted me to take. What we ended up with was a pile that satisfied the both of us.

  "How much do I owe you, Mister Hogan?"

  "Let's figure it up and see." He got out a pen and ink and some paper and began to tote it up. "There's the comb, for $2.35. The doll for $2.00. The knife for $1.15. The rope with leather hondo for fifty cents. And the whistle is fifteen cents. All that comes to, uh, $6.15, right?"

  "Uh-oh."

  "Too much?"

  "Yessir, it is."

  "Urn. That presents a problem, boy. And after we worked so hard to pick out just the right things."

  "I guess we'll just have to cut back on the things that come dear. Find something cheaper than the doll for Molly, for instance."

  "I'd hate to do that. You said she's never had a real doll before. A little girl had ought to have a proper doll while she's still little enough for it to be special."

  "There ain't much else to cut, sir. I'm set on that comb for Ma."

  "Um, yes." He thought for a second. "How much money you got, boy?"

  "Five dollars an' forty cents, sir."

  ”Um." He snorted and pinched his nose and looked down at the floor instead of me. "Um. Give me five dollar, boy," he said in a rough voice like he was getting mad at me.

  "I'm not trying to run your price down, sir. Honest I'm not."

  "I never said you was, and if I thought it for one second I'd never have brought it down. Now, give me the five dollars and go on about your business before I do get mad at you."

  I started to speak but he cut me short. "Not another word, boy. And if you go all blathery with a lot of silly thank-yous I'll change my mind."

  "Yessir," I said and dug out my half-eagle.

  Hogan put the stuff in a cloth sack and gave it over to me. On the way out the door with it I stuck my head back in and shouted back to him. "Thanks, Mister Hogan. Thanks a lot." He grinned and waved at me to get lost.

  23

  "JESUS. DUSTER. THE rest of the boys are going into town for one last party before we head for home. I'd like you two to take the remuda on south a mile or so to fresh grass and hold them there. We'll join you in the morning and all start home together."

  He smiled at us when he said it so we'd know it wasn't because he was mad at us about anything. "You won't mind will you, Jesus?"

  "No, Senor Sam. I lost 'most everything I had playing on the blanket las' night."

  "So I heard," Mister Sam said with a grin. "What about you, Duster?"

  "Nossir. You know I'm about broke too," I told him. I'd showed off my sack full of presents to him the night before, and he had seemed to approve. "Do you want us to take the mules and Bill's cooking gear with us?"

  "No. He'd never let any of his things out of sight. And anyway he will want to stock up on supplies for the trip home. You boys just hold the horses together until we get back. That shouldn't be a hard job for two good riders."

  "Hokay, Senor Sam. You can count on us."

  "All right then, get to it. We'll see you tomorrow."

  Jesus and me got our things together, this time remembering to take my soogan and some food and a water bag, and we watched Mister Sam and Ike and Bill and the rest of the boys ride off to town. Then we collected the horses and started them drifting south toward the way home.

  "Jesus?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Something just come to me. Up until last night you had a heap of cash money left in your jeans, right?"

  "Sure. Why?"

  "We
ll, here we are—the two of us settin' off together overnight, carryin' my soogan with us to share."

  "Uh-huh. So?"

  "So the way you kick and snort and carry on—and I oughta know after sharin' with you most of the time—why in this world didn't you buy a blanket from Hogan when you had the chancet?"

  He let out a great big sigh and shook his head. "These gringos just ain't got no sense of fun. Now tell me, Duster my fren', why should I buy for three dollars a blanket from Senor Hogan when I can get my aunt or mebe a cousin to make one for free as soon as my cousin Ramon has some sheep of his own to grow the wool. An' anyway, it is more fun to try the gamblin' an' hope for a whole lot of money than to spend it all and not have anything left for the gamblin', eh?"

  "No, I guess I don't understand you no better than you understand me about stuff like that." We rode on for a little while and then I asked another question. "They's something else has got me curious."

  "Hokay, what is it?"

  "I've noticed here lately that you speak American real good—except sometimes. There's times you sound like you just waded the river."

  Jesus managed to look both smug and sly. "It comes an' goes."

  "Depending on what?"

  "Well…mostly on who's around an' what they expect to hear. Course, I forget sometimes which is supposed to be which, depending on what kind of mood I'm in."

  "Hmmff. You sure must not have much of an opinion of me then if you don't even bother to lie about it, much less to speak bad English when I'm around."

  "What makes you think I'd wanta have any opinion about you, anyway?" he asked with a big grin.

  There wasn't much I could say to that, not without leaving myself open to be cut down, but it made me feel good. When I thought about it a bit it come to me that I'd made a friend on this trip. In fact I guessed there was several other fellows I could think of as being friends of mine, fellows like Ike Partley and Digger Bill and Crazy Longo, and that is something pretty nice for someone who'd never really had a friend before. I smiled back at him and kept my mouth shut lest I go overboard about it and say something that'd sound sissy.

  "This's about far enough, ain't it?" Jesus said after a time. We had come a ways further than Mister Sam had said but they'd be able to find us easy enough.

  "Sure, this looks all right," I said peering around us. "Not much grass. No water. Probably snakes and spiders to sleep with. Yeah, it's the best thing we seen or are likely to see until we get back down toward Nueces Bay."

  Jesus lifted his pony up to a lope and moved around in front of the bunch to turn them in a circle and get the horses settled.

  We was both feeling lazy so we staked the bell mare out on a picket rope. That way we knew she wouldn't wander off, and as long as she stayed put the rest of them would too. The work had been pretty light once the cattle had been caught so all the horses was in good shape.

  Since there wasn't any shade to stretch out in, we just dumped our stuff on the ground right where we stood and fashioned a halfhearted camp so we'd have a place to sit and talk while we waited. We sat on the ground and leaned back against our piled-up gear and pulled our hats down low over our eyes to keep the sun off. Being able to do that felt awful good to me. I was enjoying my hat.

  "D'you bring any matches along?" Jesus asked after a minute or two.

  "Sure. I ain't so stupid I'm gonna come off with a slab of bacon and no way to cook it."

  "Well, fetch 'em out and let me have one then."

  I looked over toward Jesus. There he was with a bit of flimsy paper in one hand and a cloth pouch of tobacco in the other. "When did you take up smoking them things?"

  "Oh, I been smoking a long while."

  "Sure, a pipe same as 'most everyone else around here. I mean them cigarette things."

  "Um, just recent like."

  "Uh-huh. Just recent. Like after you got to Hogan's store, which was after you seen that Estrada fellow. Don't tell me you took a shine to him an' his bandit ways."

  "Course not."

  "Naw. Of course not. But then why'd you want to go an' buy a pistol all of a sudden? Answer me that if you can."

  "I just taken a notion to, that's all."

  "Don't give me that. Next thing you know you'll be prowlin' around at night lookin' for trouble to get into."

  "Would you just give me them matches like I asked?"

  "All right. It's your never-mind, I guess." I dug the block of matches out of the sack and handed them to him.

  Jesus fumbled and fussed and spilled tobacco all over himself for quite a time before he got a cigarette put together. When he finished with it, it wasn't much to look at, but he fired it up and got some smoke out of it.

  I watched him without offering any advice, not being familiar with the manufacture of them myself. I mean, they weren't real popular. Some of the Mex vaqueros smoked them, and the Texas cowhands was beginning to pick up on the habit from them. Probably because they looked to be more convenient than a pipe. Anyway, I wasn't much familiar with it all, though I'd smoked some dried weeds once, so I just watched while Jesus worked on the twisted-up thing he had fashioned. When it was smoked down to a nub he ground it out in the dirt and went to building another.

  "Good?"

  "Not bad. Some drier than a pipe, but not bad." He had the second one built in less time. Then he offered the fixings to me. "Try one?"

  "Sure. Why not?"

  I tore a square of paper from the sheet of it he had and sprinkled some of the tobacco onto the middle of my piece of paper. A lot of it spilled when I went to roll and twist it into shape but there was enough inside to try smoking, so I held a match to the end and sucked some of the smoke into my mouth. "Bleah ... that tastes awful!"

  "It does, don't it?"

  "So how come you're smoking a second one?"

  "They tell me it tastes good when you get onto it. Besides, I got seven cents worth of tobacco and paper that'd go to waste if I didn't use it up."

  "You don't mind if I let you get rid of that stuff by your lonesome, I hope."

  "Naw, you don't gotta smoke 'em."

  "That's good, 'cause I wasn't going to anyhow." I crumpled the cigarette out on the ground and wished I could get rid of the taste as easy. It left a dry, nasty sort of taste in my mouth that I wasn't at all partial to.

  We frittered the rest of the day away doing important things. Jesus smoking ... me flipping pebbles at a prickly pear about twenty feet away. I got so I could hit it pretty regular too.

  In between times Jesus taught me cuss words in Spanish.

  They didn't sound like much when he told me what they meant in American, but he said they were potent in Mexican. I'd asked him to teach me, thinking I had got around now to trying some of the other sins and should give this one a whirl, too, even if I hadn't much cared for any of them so far.

  Come night, we built up a good fire and cooked us some chunks of bacon. For something a little special afterward, we opened two bags of dried peaches with our knives and ate until our bellies was about to bust. It was a right good meal considering that Bill wasn't around to do the fixing.

  After supper, Jesus tried to talk me into throwing the dice with him, but I figured it would of been my forty cents against his credit. And anyway, I had really sinned enough for the time being so I passed up the instruction and we turned in early, both of us rolled up in my soogan. The next thing I knew, old Jesus was shaking me awake in the middle of the night. With his hand over my mouth again.

  "Aw, c'mon," I mumbled. "Take yer Mexican bandits an' go 'way."

  He just kept shaking me. "Wake up, amigo. Thees time they ess gringo bandidos."

  "Huh?"

  "I say thees time they ess gringo bandidos, eh?"

  I pried my face out of the soogan and looked up. Sure enough there was a couple of strangers setting beside the remains of our fire. They were the same pair I'd seen back on the Atascosa that day—the ones who'd mistaken me for a dirt farmer.

  "Evenin', boy," t
he one wearing a coat said.

  "Aw shut up with bein' so perlite to the kid. We'd o' had 'em way back there if you hadn't been so perlite then." The other one was the mean one as I recalled. I couldn't recollect his name, but I sure could remember that I didn't like him the least bit.

  "Will you settle yourself down, Ben? There ain't no call to get upset now. We caught up with 'em now, an' we can carry 'em back an' let the boss have his talk with 'em like he's been wanting to."

  "A few welts on their backs won't keep 'em from talking, and I've got a mind to give 'em a few. Specially that one," Ben said, pointing at me. "That there one lied to us or we wouldn't of had all this ride just to find them."

  "I never," I told him. I might have tried some sinning here lately but I wasn't no liar and wouldn't be called one. "You asked me had I seen a herd going north and I hadn't. The only one I knew of was ours, and we was going east."

  "Don't back-talk me, kid. If I say you was lyin' then that's what you was doin'." Ben reached over and hit me alongside my head—hard!

  "Mister, you're crazy. What difference does it make anyhow? What d'ya want us for?"

  "Never mind what we want you for, kid. You do what you're told and keep yer tongue shut or I'll whale you 'til you have to walk all the way back."

  "Now settle, Ben, I done told you that oncet," the other one said. "It ain't nothing for you boys to get upset about. The gentleman we work for wants to have a talk with the both of you, an' he sent us to fetch you to him. That's all."

  "We don't specially want to go nowhere but home right now. Who is it wants to see us?"

  "That's sort of a secret about who it is—business, you understand. And, boys, it ain't really left up to you if you want to come along. We was told to fetch you, and fetch you we will ... one way or another." His voice was low and steady when he said that, and I could tell he meant it. I began to suspect that this one might be just as mean as Ben when it came down to it.

  "You check with Mister Sam Silas in the morning and see if he thinks we ought to go with you to see this man."