It was Andy, and he was riding the bear down the middle of the street at a dead run. He was wearing some poor girl’s underclothes just to make it interesting.
Andy brought the drunken dead from the night before to life. Hungover cowboys came out of the woodwork, lining the street as he tore by with that bear bawling his torment, and Andy laughing like a crazy man. Everyone cheered him on.
The ride was short. The bear turned sharply off the street, hit another gear, and dumped Andy headfirst. He made an effort to grab at the section of chain dragging behind the bear, succeeding only in getting drug for several yards.
He leapt to his feet, pulled his skirt off of his head, and yelled, “Help me, boys, I’m afoot.”
It was cowboys to their horses, while others pursued the bear on foot. Andy led them on like John Brown going to war. The bear was rapidly putting country between himself and the pursuit. Several horsemen blew by Andy, and one finally slowed just enough for him to swing up behind.
Billy and I raced for the horse corral, but by the time we had saddled, the crowd was long gone. We hit the street running, hoping to catch a little more of the show.
We caught up to the crowd at the edge of town. People were running every direction, but nobody seemed to know where the bear was. Billy and I pulled up to survey around us. No sooner than we had stopped than the bear barreled around the corner of a group of houses. We’d just thought he was running before.
One of the boys pulled in behind him swinging a loop, causing the bear to swerve and run right through a little yard and tear down ten feet of cedar picket fence. Women screamed, and clutched their children. Some folks were praying for deliverance and others cursing.
Every time somebody got close that bear would swerve. No one could get a rope on him, and we all tried.
Bears must be long-winded, because it lined back out, heading north with all of us riding for the lead.
“He’s headed for Ring Town,” someone yelled.
Billy and I were jumbled back in the pack, fighting frantically to get to the front. Just about the time we got to the saloon a gunshot sounded, and everyone before us pulled up hard. The crowd was quieted for some reason. I followed as Billy pushed his paint through the crowd to the front.
At the edge of the crowd was Andy. He had dismounted and was standing solemnly before his bear. It was dead, and there was a man on the other side holding a pistol alongside his leg.
“That will be enough, boys,” he said.
He was a tough-looking cuss with a big mustache. He eyed the crowd like a mad bull.
Andy jabbed an accusing finger at his bear lying there in the road. “Why’d you shoot my bear?”
“For the general assurance of the peace.” That fellow didn’t smile when he said it.
“That’s Cap Arrington,” someone in the crowd said.
“Get that bear out of the road. The stage is coming,” Arrington ordered.
Nobody moved. Arrington pointed at Billy, singling him out of the edge of the group with a hawk’s gaze.
“Do I know you?”
“Hell if I know,” Billy drawled.
“That’s Billy Champion,” somebody behind us blurted out.
Arrington eyed Billy for a long moment. “I took you for someone else. I was obviously mistaken.”
“I reckon,” said Billy.
With that, Arrington stepped off, leaving us to mourn over the bear, and the end of a grand chase. Andy sat down on the bear, slumped and looking dejected. I watched Arrington as he left.
Cap Arrington had made a name for himself with the Frontier Battalion of the Texas Rangers. I had heard Cap was down with a company of rangers to look into the theft of cattle, but had put it off as rumor. Rumor be damned, there he had been in the flesh. And if that wasn’t enough, he had shot our bear.
“What was that all about?” I asked Billy.
Billy just shrugged his shoulders and mumbled something as he made for Andy. I don’t know if anywhere else but Mobeetie—maybe Tascosa, but certainly nowhere else—could you have seen such an eccentric sight as a gangly boy wearing women’s underclothes sitting on top of a dead bear in the middle of the road.
“They said you were riding that bear, General.” Long Tom stepped forward from the crowd. His deep voice was filled with something akin to awe. He stood well back from Andy and the bear, obviously unsettled by what had happened, and the odd sight before him.
Andy brightened at the mention of his accomplishment. “I reckon I did.”
“Why did you want to ride a bear?” Long Tom shook his head.
“To say I did it, that’s why.” Andy was perturbed at having to repeat what he considered an obvious conclusion.
“But why are you wearing womenfolk’s clothes?”
Andy scratched his head for a moment. The question seemed to have stumped him. “I don’t know, Long Tom. It must have seemed like the thing to do at the time.”
Billy snorted, and then the paint snorted, not liking the proximity of any kind of bear, dead or not. Andy jumped to his feet and began dancing a little jig of some sort. Long Tom slapped his leg in time, soon joined by the crowd around us in some odd accompaniment.
Andy began to sing a little bawdy tune about riding a bear through the streets of Mobeetie, making up for a lack of voice and awful verse with sheer enthusiasm.
I looked up to see that a stagecoach was right on top of us, already pulled to a stop. I wasn’t even sure how long it had been sitting there. The crowd was large, and a gully on one side of the road had blocked the stage’s progress. Andy’s song had just gotten to the part about the bear’s butt having hair but his was bare.
I sat my horse right alongside the stage, and when I turned my head I looked right into one of its windows and found the most beautiful pair of eyes a man ever saw.
All I could see were those eyes, and a pert little face beneath one of those girly hats. I sat there like I had been struck by lightning. I gawked and I gawked some more just for good measure. Apparently she found me rude, because she turned away, making no attempt to hide her displeasure and offense at the whole situation.
I came out of my stupor and realized that I had just seen the girl of my dreams. And there I was, not only consorting with, but enjoying, the company of a boy in girly clothes, still singing and dancing his heart out atop a dead bear to the continued pleasure of a giant black man and at least thirty equally ribald fans.
Everyone else must have finally noticed her too. The crowd hushed. Even Andy and Long Tom finally ceased their merriment. She hesitated for the longest of moments, and then gave me the briefest of glances.
“Get out of the way, you hairy-legged saddle monkeys!” the stage driver shouted, and cracked his whip.
Horses and men scattered—all but our crew. The girl’s look froze me again. I could feel the heat of my embarrassment rushing up my neck as the stage lurched forward. My moment was almost gone, and I could say nothing. I couldn’t even swallow. And then the merest hint of a smile played at the corners of her lips.
What had I done to deserve that? It came to me in an instant. It came to me out of the corner of my eye. Billy had reined up beside me, and he was smiling and tipping his hat.
And then she was gone. The stage rolled away toward town, and Billy wasn’t at all embarrassed enough not to follow. He kicked up his paint and loped right alongside. He left me sitting there too knotted up to cuss.
“Hey, Tennessee! They want to eat my bear!” Andy’s high-pitched voice brought me back to earth.
“Dammit! I ain’t from Tennessee!”
CHAPTER SIX
I only saw her once more that day. It was just a brief glimpse, and at a distance. She was getting back on the stage as it prepared to leave for Clarendon.
Long, Andy, and I stood in front of the Lady Gay, passing the time by watching the stage leave. Billy had disappeared, saying he had business to attend to.
While everyone else laughed and joked, I stood there wit
h a sick feeling settling over me. I felt like I’d had my guts ripped out of me when the stage rolled off. What reason did I have to get so upset? I didn’t even know her name, but I would have liked to ask. I would have given anything to have known.
Not long after the stage left, Billy sauntered up with a cocksure grin on his face. He looked like the hound that had just gotten into the smokehouse.
“What are you looking so smug about?” I asked.
“That’s why you can’t play poker, Nate. You just can’t read faces,” Billy teased.
“What do you know that’s so funny?”
“I know you better get ready to ride. We’ve got to be on the Lazy F by day after tomorrow if we want to work.”
I looked at Long a moment. “What about him?”
“They were silly enough to hire Andy, so who knows? Maybe if Long there would pass some of that liquor around they would take him on,” Billy said.
“That’s all right, boys. I don’t . . .” Long was cut off in midsentence.
“The only reason they hired Andy was to run all the bears out of the country. He sure as hell ain’t good for anything else besides killing horses,” Billy said.
Andy grunted and whistled through his missing teeth. “By gosh, I’m the genuine article!”
“You couldn’t find your ass with both hands,” Billy said.
Before we could pester Andy any more, Long stopped us. “I’ve already gotten work.”
There we were patting ourselves on the back for being concerned about the plight of poor Long, and he already had work.
“What’re you going to do?” Andy asked.
“Freight supplies.”
“For who?” Andy rattled right back.
“Myself,” Long said with more than a touch of pride.
“Where’s your outfit?” Andy was unconvinced.
“I’ve gotten me a good wagon and three yoke of oxen.”
“Like hell . . .”
“Shut up, Andy.” Billy’s interest was obviously aroused.
“Where’d you get the team?”
“I bought it off a sick man up at the fort. I traded for part of it, and bought the rest on credit.”
“Well, forgive us for being nosy, Long, but that man must have been awful sick. You don’t look like any businessman I ever saw before.” Billy offered his hand to Long.
Long wrapped Billy’s hand in one huge paw and grinned. “He was just about to die, but it was the whiskey that sealed the deal.”
Billy laughed. “You beat all, Long. Tennessee here is a good man, but he’s often short of entertaining qualities.”
“Don’t you go to calling me that,” I said.
Billy just grinned at me. Long motioned to the three of us. “You boys ought to throw in with me. I know where there’s a double wagon rig that could be bought right. With all the ranches starting up in this country, there is going to be a lot of business for teamsters.”
“What the hell is wrong with you? We ain’t freighters,” Andy burst out.
“Thanks, but that goes for me too,” I added.
Billy looked down at the ground and kicked at the dirt with one boot as if in deep thought. “Maybe when these two are full grown, and I can quit wet-nursing them we’ll settle down to business, Long.”
“What’s the matter with you? We’re cowboys!” Andy said.
Billy stared at the ground a moment, and then slowly raised his head until we could see the devilish smile on his face. “That’d be when I’m too old to sit a horse, and freighting won’t be the business I’m talking about. It’ll be whiskey making.”
We told Long to look us up sometime, and saddled our horses and headed south to go to work for the Lazy F. Billy and Andy were in high spirits, but I was still thinking of that girl.
I trotted along behind as they visited between themselves. That stage turned around at Clarendon and headed back to Dodge via Mobeetie and Fort Supply. She was obviously going to Clarendon, or somewhere in the vicinity. The boys had taken to referring to Clarendon as Saint’s Roost because it had been started by a bunch of Methodists and they kept it a dry town.
What was she doing there? I cursed myself for getting so wrapped up. Who was I to be thinking of a girl? I didn’t have ten dollars to my name. I had my saddle and gear, the good horse that Billy gave me, and that was all. Besides, cowboys didn’t get married. If you got married your cowboying was done, and I wasn’t ready to give that up. Right then I wouldn’t have traded my life for any man’s, but I still kept wondering what her name was. She’d probably known me for what I was at first glance.
Billy broke me from my reverie when he pulled back and rode alongside of me. He always knew when something was bothering me. “What’s the matter, Tennessee?”
“Why are you still calling me that? You know I ain’t from Tennessee.”
“I don’t know. It’s just got a ring to it.”
“Well, Nate has always been good enough up until now,” I said sourly.
“I’ll call you by your given name from now on if you will quit pouting about that girl.” Billy studied my face trying to read me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“To hell you don’t. She didn’t say a word to you, but one look and you acted like you were lightning struck.”
“I was just looking.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Leave it be.” I tried to put an end to the conversation by loping ahead.
Billy caught right up. He looked really pleased to have gotten under my skin.
“If I thought Dunny could outrun that Injun pony of yours I’d leave you behind.” I tried to sound indignant.
“Well, he can’t, but wait till you ride him on roundup. He’s the best cutting horse in Texas.” Billy wasn’t one to brag, and if he said Dunny could cut a cow I believed him.
“I didn’t figure to work him in my string. I was going to keep him for my high-life horse.”
Back in those days, if a man had a really nice horse that he was extra proud of, he often saved him back and called him his “high-life” horse. I’d also heard them called “ ’riginals,” or “originals.”
“Do what you please, but try him once.”
Like it or not, Billy had lightened my mood, and he knew it. That’s what I appreciated the most about Billy. He always had a way of picking me up when I was feeling down. I could, and had, come riding in off the range with fifteen hours in the saddle behind me, bone-tired with a gyp water bellyache, and he could still make me laugh. A cowboy’s life was hard, but it was the laughing that always made it bearable.
Just when I was feeling better Billy added, “I found out her name.”
“What . . . ?” I stammered.
He gave me a grin, a wicked sparkle in his eyes. And then he was off, with me in pursuit. He was going to talk, one way or the other.
Two days later, I still wasn’t able to get a confession from him. I was beginning to think a village of Kiowa squaws wouldn’t be able to torture it out of him. That was all I had to think about for the long ride south. I fretted and worried for over a hundred miles. We rode tantalizingly close to Clarendon, skirting it to the east in our rush to reach the Lazy F before they started roundup.
Late at night, when we finally were in camp at the Lazy F, I had all but given up. We had thrown our horses in the headquarters corral and bedded down beside a fire with the Lazy F hands.
Just as I was about to fall off to sleep, Billy whispered, “Her name’s Barbara Allen. Her daddy’s got a dry goods store in Clarendon.”
Barbara Allen, what a sweet name to dream on. If I never saw her again I would still have that lovely name to carry around with me for a while. The trouble was, I had a strong suspicion Billy would be doing the same thing.
They woke us up just before daylight. The headquarters wasn’t much of a setup. The jumbled frame and pile of lumber representing a half-completed manager’s house was the only thing about the place that looked even
half civilized. There were a couple of dugouts in the face of a bluff facing a flat in the bend of a clear, sandy little strip of water they called Quitaque Creek. It was a pretty name for a creek, but somebody later told me that Quitaque was the Comanche word for horse turds, or something like that. I don’t think there ever was a white man who could interpret anything an Indian had to say.
One of the dugouts served as a bunkhouse, and the other had a pole shed built off its front with a wagon tarp stretched over the top. We lined up under the shed with the rest of the crew and had breakfast on a big piece of sheet iron propped up at one end by a stack of crates, and a nail keg at the other.
After we ate, we followed the wrangler down to a corral in a shady grove of trees alongside the creek. We studied the horses he’d penned there in the twilight. He helped us pick a string of six horses for each.
Most of the time, you were at the mercy of your own judgment when it came to picking a string. Sometimes you would just get one assigned to you, but when you were allowed to pick one you went about it with a careful eye. Many a time a crew got a kick out of someone picking a bad horse. If, on a morning where you were riding a horse for the first time, you noticed the crew gathering around in a suspicious manner, you could bet that you had your work cut out for you riding that SOB! And then again the outlaw might not do a thing when you got on him. He might have some hidden quirk that the crew knew about, and they were just chomping at the bit to see you encounter it for the first time. The horse might be scared of water, or go crazy at some certain little, seemingly harmless thing. He might be as gentle as a kid pony until you tried to rope on him.
In short, the boys on the range got a big kick out of watching someone else get in a wreck. But it was all in good fun. You didn’t mind someone laughing at you who had been there themselves.
This horse wrangler was uncommonly helpful, and we warily gave him our trust, at least in part. I say we, but I only meant Billy and I. Andy, as usual, had to go his own way, and he didn’t listen worth a darn. It seemed like he chose every horse in the pen that the wrangler studiously avoided pointing out.
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