Friends

by Charles Hackenberry

  I turned my horse. "I guess I didn't understand you square a while ago,"I told Professor Marsh. "You really did want to tell me that I done wrong by quittin' the Pinks, only I wasn't quick enough to see it. I don't know enough about religion to say nothing about what a lot of Spaniards done a long time since. But if Yale College can't get along with just the folks who think it's doing the right thing, then it should either lock its doors or find some new hands. Maybe your uncle could help sign some on, since he seems responsible for nearly everything else around the place. Probably be willing, too, if they'd name some more furniture after him." I spurred my mount and we went down the other side.

  Marsh come up after a few yards. "You must excuse me, Mr. Goodwin," he said. "The scholiast and casuist in me want to win a debate at any cost, sometimes. But you can see my point, can't you?"

  "Yes, I suppose I can. And I guess I must excuse you, if you say I must, for this is your territory, not mine. All I did was to quit the Pinks because they got things turned around to my way of thinking, important things. They valued a good name in the papers and their pride above folks' lives. And that just ain't right. I'm not saying somebody should step in and shut the Pinks down, that's for others to decide. But if I'd a killed a young boy, I'd a swung for it. All I'm saying is that I don't have to be a part of no outfit that acts like the Pinkerton boys do, future or no future, big payday or no payday. That's what a free country's all about, ain't it? Hell, they can get along just fine without me, and I sure as the devil get along better without them, 'specially when it comes to sleeping good at night."

  I think maybe the professor was a little ashamed of himself for corning at me about quitting the Pinkertons like he did, for he nodded his head and just kept his mouth shut riding the rest of the way down that little clay mountain, but you could tell it pained him to do it.

  Close to the bottom you could see across to where the young fellows was working, though it was still more than a mile off from us, over in some country that was broken up pretty bad. By the time we got to where they was, they'd put their shovels down and lined up for their noontime eats. They was pleased to see Marsh, you could tell by the way they spoke to him. Maybe if I'd a went to a school where I could've rode around in some wild country on a horse, slept in a tent, and camped with a dozen or so of my friends, I would of liked my schoolman pretty good too, a lot better than I did, at any rate.

  The man doing the cooking got plates for Marsh and me and we ate too, the young fellows telling their teacher what skeletons they found that morning and what they hadn't-only the names they used for the animals was all strange to me. The stew we ate was good, and it had either buffalo or beef in it, I couldn't tell which. Wasn't as good as Mandy's, though. I got a second plate of it after I seen some others getting theirs.

  "Anyone find any horse bones?" I asked, sitting back down. They all stopped pushing food into their faces and looked at me like I had just farted.

  "That's what the students were talking about, Willie," the professor explained. "The scientific name for the kind of horse found here is Mesohippus, very different from the Equus species that we ride." The boys snickered a little at him saying that.

  I didn't mind their having some fun at my expense, but it was hard for me to see how horses could a been much different than they are now, and I wanted to know more about it, even if it did make me the jackass of the herd. Sure, I'd seen horses of all sizes and colors, even heard of some with black and white stripes running wild over in England. But this had to be something more than that, I figured, or they'd of found live ones for their remuda. It'd be silly to have just a few old horse bones when you could have breathing ones that could carry you somewheres. "How was they different?" I ask.

  "Let us have a short recitation for Mr. Goodwin's edification, shall we, gentlemen?" You could tell from the way they grumbled that wasn't the kind of fun they had in mind.

  All through the meal, the scrawny man's eyes crawled over Ellie Turnbull's body, especially her full breasts. What disturbed Halter even more was that the stranger didn't even try to hide what he was staring at, which was only proper.

  "I don't believe I heard your name, sir," Mrs. Turnbull said. Perhaps if she engaged the man in conversation, she reasoned, he would stop looking at her so hungrily. And maybe Walt wouldn't lose his temper this time.

  "It's Smith, Mam."

  "Smith what?" Walter asked, chewing a mouthful of biscuit.

  "Just Smith, "the thin man said flatly. 'This here's your boy, ain't it?" he asked Ellie.

  "yes, he is," she said uncomfortably. "Walt's and mine. Do you have children, Mr. Smith?"

  The scrawny man spit a piece of gristle into his hand, examined it, and then flung it toward the river. "Had one, once. A boy."

  Jimmy Turnbull knew something was wrong, but he didn't know what. "Did something happen to him?" he asked.

  "Jimmy!" Ellie cried. "I declare!"

  "I'm sorry, "the boy mumbled, though he wasn't sure what sin he had committed this time.

  The scrawny man seemed to pay no attention to the boy and his mother. For several minutes he simply chewed his food and looked into the distance. "Sheriff east of here killed him. "He turned quickly to Walter, as though the broad-shouldered man had asked the question that forced him to return to something he did not want to remember. "Shot him down in the street like a goddamned dog."

  "We don't curse in front of the boy," Ellie Turnbull said, her cheeks reddening.

  But the stranger appeared not to have heard her. He stood up quickly, though there was still food on his plate, Jimmy noticed. "I'm goin'now."

  Walter Turnbull stood too. "I thank you for your help, Smith," he said.

  The thin man smiled and extended his hand. When the muleskinner took it, DuShane squeezed hard, drew the gun that was strapped to his left hip, and shot Walter Turnbull low in the belly.

  The echo of the shot died along the river before the boy realized what had happened. He lunged at the thin man. "You shot my pal You—"

  DuShane smacked him above the ear with the barrel of his revolver and watched the boy slump to the grass like a sack of old shoes.

  Ellie Turnbull sat frozen. A dollop of gooseberry jam still clung to her knife blade, and the biscuit-half she had been going to spread it on still lay in her loose hand.

  Her eyes glazed over and her jaw dropped. The scrawny man looked at her pretty white teeth and the soft pink tongue that looked to him like a pink frog in a pink pond. And then he thought about how it would feel to shove his cock in there.

  "Now, then, gentlemen," Professor Marsh said, clearing his throat. "A short recitation, please. Contrast Mesohippus with the contemporary species Equus. Would you begin, Mr. Sargeant? And remember, just contrasts. No comparisons, please."

  "Shall I stand, sir?" a young fellow wearing a white cap ask.

  "Please do," Marsh said. "And clear away your plates, gentlemen."

  The young man in the white cap also wore a funny-looking pair of pants that flared out at the thighs and was laced tight to his shins, which I noticed after he got to his feet. "The most obvious difference is in the foot, of course. Mesohippus walked on three toes, while Equus walks on only one, the other two toes, those of his predecessor, remaining in vestigial form. If one accepts the monophyletic theory, that is."

  He sat down, and all the boys laughed, though I didn't know why. "Mr. Sargeant and I have an intellectual dispute, Willie, and he took this opportunity to poke fun at what he considers to be a folly of mine. Any questions for Mr. Sargeant?"

  I looked from the young man to Marsh and back and forth again, not knowing exactly who to talk to. "A horse with three toes? Are you sure it's a horse?" I ask.

  "Oh, yes," the young man said. "Most early paleolithic horses have three toes, except Eohippus, which has four. I'll show you a whole skeleton when we're done here, and you'll see it's a horse all right."

  "Very good, Mr. Sargeant, very good. You next, Mr. Ballard. Any inaccuracies in Mr. S
argeant's recitation?" It was clear the professor was enjoying himself.

  The next young fellow, who was big in the belly and wore specs, stood up. "Basically, what he said was correct, I think, though I'm not so sure that the foot would be the most obvious difference we would notice if a specimen of Mesohippus had walked up to us while we were eating Billy's delicious stew."

  The boys all clapped their hands and whistled, but the cook looked more embarrassed than pleased.

  "No," the chubby fellow said, drawing out the sound of it, "I think we'd notice the difference in size first, and that's the contrast I wanted to talk about. Mesohippus stood about sixteen or eighteen inches at the shoulder, about as tall as the coyotes that keep us awake at night. A little higher at the rear, probably." After that he sat down.

  "Finish the contrast, Mr. Ballard," the professor said.

  The fellow wearing specs looked puzzled for a minute before he spoke. "Oh yes, and Equus is, well, as big as a horse!"

  We all laughed at that one, even the professor. "Questions, Willie?"

  "You mean to say this horse was no bigger than a good-size dog?"

  The chubby young man nodded his head.

  "Then how could anyone ride him?" I ask.

  Everbody chuckled at that, too.

  The professor answered that one himself. "That was not a problem, Mr. Goodwin, for there were no men around at that time!"

  I never saw folks enjoy themselves any more than those fellows did that afternoon, talking and arguing and joking about a critter that'd been dead for thousands of years-so they said-though I couldn't see how the bones would last that long in the ground. I had dug up a few dead things too in my day. They went around 'til everyone had his tum to say what he knowed, and they knowed a lot. I admit I didn't understand very much of what was said toward the end. Besides not knowing some of the words they used, I kept picturing that little horse with three toes on each foot scampering around and around with no cowboys to rope it, and that kept me from listening to some of it.

  He stuck his head out the front of the covered mule wagon and looked both ways before jumping down. Buttoning up his pants, he walked to where the boy lay and poked at him several times with the toe of his boot. Then he rolled Walter Turnbull over on his back.

  He mounted the paint, spurred her hard, and noticed how tired she was. The tall man reined her in and turned her around. There stood the muleskinners horse at the back of the wagon, and he laughed at how forgetful he was getting as he rode back for it.

  "Very good, gentlemen, very good," the professor told them. "I'm quite pleased at the progress you're making, and we have about eight tons of fossils to send back to the Museum, which is excellent. But now we have another matter to attend to before you return to you shovels and trowels for the remainder to the day's dig. Mr. Goodwin is an officer of the law in this Territory, and he has come here in search of information concerning a murderer who may be in the vicinity. Just another reminder, gentlemen, that you are no longer in Connecticut. I'll let Mr. Goodwin tell you the rest."

  I stood up, like they done before, and told them about the man Clete and me was after, told them what he did, what he looked like and what kind of horse he was mounted on. They thought on it a while, but none of them'd seen him. The fellow with the specs'd seen a muleskinner's wagon to the south a little after dawn, before the rain stopped, he guessed, but none of the rest seen no one else. I thought to ask them about Mandy then, and I told them what she looked like and the horse she was on, but none of them'd seen her either. From the looks on their faces, though, it was plain they'd of rather run into her than him.

  "I want to thank you young men," I said. "I enjoyed your speeches here about them tiny horses you're digging up. And I appreciate you trying to help me find those people I spoke about. Let me give you some advice, now. If you see the man I told you of, stay the hell away from him. Don't try to capture him or nothing like that, 'cause he'll kill you–he's had practice at it. One last piece of advice and then I'll stop. When you're diggin' up the bones of them little horses, be on the lookout for golden crowns. You just might find one or two. Might be worth some money."

  They looked at me so queer for a minute, and then they talked quiet among themselves, and finally started to laugh some. I guess they believed I was telling them some kind of a Western joke, but I wasn't.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Marsh and me started back toward his camp not long after I ask the students about our man and Mandy. The professor give me a lecture all the way along about something he called geology, but it wasn't 'til we'd went a ways that I figured he was talking about why the clay hills and the gullies washed into them was the way they was. Something about an ocean being here once, he said, but I didn't see how that could be. I guessed he could make mistakes like anyone else, Yale College or no. Then he ask me what I was getting to about them golden crowns I had told his students to look out for, but I just winked and said he'd have to wait 'til he got to the end of the Book to figger it out.

  We were on top of that high place when I told him that, and when we got near the bottom, his face looked like he still had some chewing left to do on it. In a brushy draw between two buttes, I saw a rider making his way toward us slow. I thought for a minute it was the man Clete and me was chasing-only he wasn't on a paint. But he was tall and thin, and I warned the professor to be on his guard. After he looked good, Marsh said he knowed the man and gave him a big wave and a haloo.

  We sat and waited for him, and he was in no hurry at all to get to where we was. He was dressed all in buckskin, only it was fringed down the legs and all along the sleeves and at the bottom of his open coat. And everywhere there wasn't fringes there was strips of fur sewed on, over the shoulders, mostly. His light gray hat had a wide floppy brim and eagle feathers hanging off the back of it, tied with rawhide strips to a hatband of mttlesnake skin, so I thought for a minute he might be a halfbreed. But when he got up close, you could see he wasn't, for his skin was pale as a woman's and his eyes blue as a lake.

  Though he wore no shirt, he had a red silk scarf, or something fancy like that, tied around his neck. A sash of the same color stuff was wrapped around his middle, and stuck underneath it was a big old Colt. Looked like an uncomfortable way to carry a revolver, pokin' into your side the least little bit you turned around. His hair, which was dark and wavy with just a few streaks of gray, hung down below his shoulders. He had a narrow little chin beard, long as your thumb, and his mustachios was full and waxed and they stuck way out, straight as anything, to beyond the sides of his face. More than anything else, he resembled a drawing of Bill Cody on a handbill I seen once, only younger and more rakish.

  "Good day, Mr. Crawford!" Marsh called. "What have you found for us?"

  The tall man reached around behind himself and held up a string of nearly a dozen grouse, prairie chickens and some other kind I didn't know, tied together at the foot. His saddle, if that was what you could call it, was a strange affair, unlike any I ever saw before. A buffalo robe formed the base of it, and the hide, decorated with wolf tails and porkypine quills where the fur was scraped off, hung over the horse's rump and draped halfway to the ground. It was double cinched, I saw, but I couldn't tell just what was underneath him, or under the hide. Firm enough, I guessed, for he had a piece of the buffalo skin folded over and sewn to form a sheath for his rifle. "Should feed you and the young gentlemen, sub," he said real soft. He was a Son of Dixie, you could tell by his talk. He let the birds dangle back to where they hung behind him and then looked at me square.

  Marsh noticed and glanced at me and then back to the man. "This is Mr. Goodwin, Jack. He's an officer of the law."

  Jack Crawford stuck his nose a little up in the air. "Is he, indeed? How do you do, suh?" he said, nodding his head low then, but keeping his eyes on me the whole time.

  "How do," I said.

  "Meet Captain Jack Crawford, Willie," Marsh boomed in that big friendly voice of his. "Jack is our guide, and when he
's not leading us, he fills our larder with game. And when he's doing neither, he writes poetry." Marsh turned back to the tall fellow. "Is it three volumes you've published so far, Jack?"

  The mention of his poem books seemed to smooth Crawford's hackles some. He smiled real bashful and patted the neck of his horse, which hadn't calmed yet. "Only two thus far, Professor Marsh. As you well know."

  "Well, I'm sure the third will be coming off the presses any day now." He waited for Crawford to speak his mind, but the hunter seemed to have nothing to say-to that or to anything else. "If you are going back to camp, we would be happy to have you escort us, Jack."

  Crawford gave another dip of his head and we started off, three abreast, the professor in the middle.

  "Mr. Goodwin is searching for a man who killed some people in his jurisdiction," Marsh said after we'd went some distance. "Have you seen anyone?"

  "Why, I don't believe I have, Professor Marsh," Crawford drawled, looking at the clouds.

  "One of the students saw some folks in a mule wagon. Surprised you didn't see 'em," I said. "That's where we was, up talking to Professor Marsh's gang. Not a bad bunch of fellows–for Yankees."

  Crawford leaned forward and looked me over good. "Are you from the South, sub, or do you jest with me?"

  The look on 0. C. Marsh's face was pretty dark, like he wisht I hadn't stirred up this particlar hornets' nest.

  "Yes, I am from the South, though I didn't grow up in the same parts you did, judging from the way you say your words, Captain Crawford. But I guess you will recall that one of the stars in the Stars and Bars was for Texas." I let him look me good in the eye after I said that, for I wanted him to know that I told the truth.

  After a time he decided I had. "I apologize, sub, and pray you will accept it. Indeed, the Texans fought bravely in the recent conflict. Were you in their ranks?"