Panhandle

by Brett Cogburn

  As we walked up to the largest fire a big, burly, greasy buffalo-hunter type shoved a bottle at us. Billy eyed the amber contents swirling around in the bottle, and the filthy hand that offered it. It would have taken a box full of forty-five shells to knock the lice off that fellow.

  Billy wasn’t about to drink after the likes of him, but before he could offend him H.B. took the bottle and turned it up. He snorted and wheezed and smacked his lips and brayed like a jackass before handing the bottle back.

  “You other fellows ain’t drinking?” One of the whores, who was sitting on the lap of a man in a bowler hat, snickered. You could have planted a crop of potatoes on her, and braided the hair under her arms to drag a wagon with.

  Before any of us could answer a deep voice interrupted. “I believe they are here on other matters.”

  We all turned to place the voice. Back at the edge of the firelight a man sat propped on the tailgate of a wagon. One elbow rested on a crate containing a fighting rooster, and the other arm was hooked by a thumb in one armhole of his vest. The firelight shone on the gold of his watch chain and the elk tooth hanging there.

  And when he spoke again his voice was silky smooth and decidedly Deep South. “I think these are our racehorse men.”

  “We’ve got one,” Billy answered.

  “Good. It so happens that I do too—several of them in fact.”

  Quick as a whistle he barked out something in Spanish, and before long a little Mexican boy came leading a horse into the firelight. The crowd made room and the horse stepped nervously up to us, turning on its forequarters and bobbing its head against the lead. The boy held him there for a moment and then paraded him back and forth in front of us a few times before standing him again.

  The gelding was huge, and he obviously was a thoroughbred. The long, flat muscles ran smooth and sleek over his large frame. He must have stood sixteen hands and was as long as a freight train. He was fine-boned for his size and his hocks and cannons were high, flowing down into pasterns that were long and springy. His long ears twitched alternately above his slender head, and his big, soft eyes were dark pools. Reflected tendrils of intertwining flame and shadow floated upon their depths.

  “Hell of a horse, but he ain’t a sprinter,” Gruber whispered beside me.

  At some unseen gesture or signal the boy led the horse away. He soon returned leading another animal. The same scene played itself out, but with an altogether different horse.

  The second horse was a chestnut filly with a flaxen mane and tail. They had rubbed her until she shone in the firelight like fire itself. Her pale mane and tail almost sparkled. She stood just short of fifteen hands, and where the thoroughbred spoke of distance and fast endurance, she bulged with muscle. Her chest tied down low into her forearm, running down into good short cannons, and sturdy flat bone. She was short coupled and her long underline flowed up into where hip, stifle, and hock articulated the power of her hindquarters.

  We watched with more than a little envy as she pranced with quick, dainty steps about the fire. Everything about her spoke of a sprinter’s quick power. She was quite the lady.

  “You’ve got some awful good-looking horses there,” Billy said to the man on the wagon as the filly was led away.

  “And runners too,” the owner quickly replied.

  “Who might you be?”

  The man quickly stood to his feet and approached Billy, offering his hand. He was tall and he towered over Billy.

  “Colonel Andrews, at your service.” They shook hands, and I could tell by the length of time they held the shake, and the look on Billy’s face, that the colonel was putting the clamp on the smaller man.

  “If we stand here any longer we’re going to have to dance,” Billy said flatly.

  The colonel gave Billy a long look as he let go of his hand. The little Mexican boy came back up dragging some chairs. We were all soon flopped down in them while the colonel returned to the courtly position of his elevated perch atop the tailgate.

  “I haven’t seen your horse, but I have heard that he is a runner,” the colonel said.

  “You might have heard that.” Billy spat in the fire.

  “Would you be interested in a little match race?”

  “Depends on what you’ve got in mind.”

  Colonel Andrews seemed to consider things for a moment before he spoke again. “I’ll race you for five hundred dollars, and let our associates take up what betting they will between themselves.”

  Billy rocked his chair back on its hind legs and began to build a smoke. Only after he had the cigarette lit and going did he reply.

  “That gelding looks to be quick, and you can’t hide his breeding.” Billy paused to draw on the weed and then continued. “I’d have to have some odds.”

  The colonel chuckled softly. “No odds.”

  “Even money?”

  “Even money and you race the filly.”

  “You don’t think we’re good enough to run against that Bluegrass Special?”

  “No, as a matter of fact I think you know he isn’t a sprint horse. I went to New York and purchased him. I shipped him by boat to Galveston and then trailed him overland to here. I did all this at quite some expense and trouble.”

  “And after all that money and trouble you won’t run him?” H.B. threw in.

  “Yes, I’ll run him. I’ve run him at Houston, San Antonio, and I plan to run him at Denver,” the colonel said flatly.

  “Why not here?” Billy asked before H.B. could butt in again.

  “If you wish to race him at eight and a half furlongs or more, I would seriously consider it.”

  “What the hell is a furlong?” H.B. squawked.

  “It’s an eighth of a mile,” I told him.

  H.B. did some tabulating on his finger digits and blew a quick gust of air out his cheeks when he came to a conclusion. “Why, that’s over a mile.”

  “Exactly,” the colonel said.

  Billy had remained quiet during the exchange. He waited for a long count of three before he set the front of his chair back down on the ground and flicked his cigarette butt into the fire. “A quarter mile against the mare?”

  “Even money?” The colonel was quick.

  “You give me two to one.”

  “On what grounds, may I ask?”

  “Why, you probably imported her here from China in a balloon or something.”

  “I can’t hide her quality, and wouldn’t attempt to, Mister . . . ?”

  “Champion.”

  The colonel faintly smirked and continued, “Mr. Champion, I am not going to attempt to doctor up some horse to look slow when it isn’t, or trick you into believing I don’t have an honest-to-goodness racehorse when I do. On the contrary, that filly is out of the Denton Mare.”

  We didn’t know whether to take him serious or not. The Denton Mare was the outlaw Sam Bass’s good horse. Legend had it that it was she who led him to gambling, and thence to shadier things like robbing trains and such. She was supposed to be one of the swiftest horses ever to hit Texas sod.

  The last anyone had heard of her Bass had taken her to San Antonio. Then he lit out up north to go rob the U.P., and she disappeared to certain history. Some said he sold her in San Antonio, and others claimed he took her north and she died of colic in Deadwood. Sam wasn’t around anymore to tell the straight of it, because the Rangers shot him to death at Round Rock in the Summer of ’78.

  “Wasn’t the Denton Mare by Steeldust?” I asked.

  “Steeldust died along about the end of the war. The Denton Mare wasn’t old enough to have been out of him,” H.B. corrected me.

  Steeldust was the horse that broke half of Collin County Texas in ’52 by outrunning the good horse Monmouth, or at least the half that bet against him. That race happened before I was even born, and folks were still talking about it. Most conversations about Texas running horses started and ended with Steeldust and his progeny—those big-jawed, heavy muscled sprinters that gave the wor
d “bulldog” to the early quarter horses.

  The colonel swirled a glass of clear liquid around in a jar before his face, and then took a pull. He waited until his whiskey hit bottom before he answered. “No, she was in fact sired by Cold Deck, who was a son of Steeldust.”

  “They say he was a hell of a horse,” I said.

  “I would venture to say that he was the best sprinter of our time.”

  “They always claimed that nothing ever outran him.” I’d heard about that horse all my life.

  “They say that about all of them.” Billy didn’t appear overly impressed.

  “It is his propensity to pass on that speed to his offspring which interests me,” said the colonel.

  “Who’s your filly’s sire?” Billy asked.

  “She is by Old Billy, who was a son of Shiloh. Old Billy’s dam was a daughter of Steeldust called Ram Cat.”

  “Two times back to Steeldust,” I whispered.

  “Her second dam was a daughter of Printer that raced with some success.”

  H.B. whistled through his teeth and slapped his leg. “With blood like that she ought to eat her feed off of a silver platter.”

  “I went to some trouble to find that filly and buy her.”

  “What’s her race record?” Billy asked.

  “I always let the handicappers do their own work.”

  “That matters a lot.”

  “My filly is open to world, given terms of the race can be agreed upon. If I suspected you lacked a competitive animal I would have showed you some of my other horses.”

  “You’ve got more?” H.B. exclaimed, and he was looking around in the trees incredulously as if he expected them to come charging out and trample us.

  The colonel tamped the ash off the end of a cigar and smiled as he spoke. “I have others with me, but not so fast as Baby.”

  I thought that a fitting name. “Is that what you call her?”

  “Yes.”

  Nobody spoke for a while, and I could almost hear the wheels turning in our heads. That Colonel Andrews thought he had himself a horse and made no bones about it. And it could have been that our little Cheyenne pony was stepping out in some pretty fancy company. But, damned, that paint could run.

  “Two to one on four hundred dollars and we run at a quarter of a mile,” Billy offered.

  The colonel thought he knew his business and was quick to counter offer. “Five to three on your horse, and we run at three hundred fifty yards.”

  “What’s five to three figure out at, Tennessee?”

  “We put up four hundred and he puts up roughly six-sixty.” I glared at him for calling me that, but he was too caught up to notice.

  “Call it six-fifty.” The colonel’s white teeth shone in an oily smile, and he looked like the devil himself by the firelight.

  Billy was counting money in his head. “Call it five hundred your end, and we run at four hundred yards.”

  “Six hundred my end and we run at three-seventy-five, catch weights, ‘ask and answer’ start.”

  “Who steps off the distance and picks the course?”

  “You and I will step off the distance in a matter equally agreeable to each of us, and the course will be laid out here along the creek to both of our satisfaction.”

  Billy rose to his feet, and we followed suit. The colonel once more stood and offered his hand to Billy.

  “When?” Billy asked.

  “Day after tomorrow at noon.”

  Billy nodded his head.

  The colonel lifted an exaggerated eyebrow. “We have a deal?”

  Billy took his hand and shook. The colonel seemed pleased, and turned to his bottle on the tailgate.

  “Shall we have a drink to seal our agreement?”

  “You already shook on it,” H.B. said.

  “Ah yes, but a drink is a much more enjoyable format. Don’t you agree?”

  That Mexican boy was there lickety-split with some cups, and once he had poured us all a round, the colonel lifted his glass high in a toast. “Here’s to honorable men and fast horses.”

  Just like honorable men, we all showed our agreement by tossing them down our funnels. That liquor was smooth, but it burned like fire once it got where it was going. Looking at that slick dude again through teary eyes I was sure we had just taken a drink with old Lucifer himself, and made a pact with him to boot.

  H.B. must have been worried that we hadn’t gone far enough to consummate the deal, because he held out his cup for more. The boy poured him another, and he hardly had time to pull the bottle back before H.B. was holding out another empty glass.

  “That’s damned good whiskey.”

  The colonel nodded in agreement. “I bought that off a man I met down the trail.”

  “Well, they sure know how to make it where he comes from.” H.B. downed the third one.

  Three glassfuls were enough, and Billy finally shepherded him off. We waved good-bye to our hosts. There was some grumbling and attempts by their crowd to get us to stay and let loose of a little of our money, but we wisely let on that it was a long ride back to camp.

  H.B. was already feeling his liquor, and I had to pull him out of the clutches of some old snaggle-toothed, swaybacked hag that was hanging on him. It was all I could do to keep him from squealing and rearing up on her right then. For an old codger—he must have been at least fifty—he sure was a randy demon when he got to drinking.

  We tightened our cinches and mounted up. Billy turned his horse to face us. We parked nose to nose to talk.

  “How do you think we made out?” he asked.

  “The distance is too short. That mare looks like she could jerk a stump out of the ground,” H.B. slurred.

  “I agree she looks like she ought to have early speed, but we got some odds.” Leave it to Billy to paint a pretty picture.

  “All in all, I’d say you done well,” I threw in.

  “That fellow back there doesn’t race for a hobby,” said H.B.

  “Do you believe that filly is really out of the Denton Mare?” I asked.

  “No. He’s full of shit.” Billy was adamant.

  “Might be true, you never can tell.” H.B. was getting so drunk, he was merely a singsong in the background.

  “I know one thing. That filly of his may not be out of the Denton Mare, but I bet that we’re going to find out if Little Paint can run.” Billy only reiterated what we all knew. We were worried and excited at the same time.

  We let it go at that, and for sheer orneriness Billy took off at a lope. H.B.’s horse was too coldbacked to be jumped right up to a lope like that after a long rest, and he set in to bucking again. H.B. was too tipsy to have thought to shorten his hold on the horse, and the bronc-riding exhibition was on right there.

  It was pitch black and all I could make out was a vague shadow twisting before me. I could hear that horse bawling and thumping the earth with all fours. Soon I heard a different thump, a string of cussing, and the sound of a horse running off.

  “I’ll go get his horse,” Billy called out of the night.

  I eased up to where I thought H.B. had gone down. He was moaning something awful, and I thought I could make out the shadow of a man down on all fours. He sounded like he was dying. He sounded worse than that—like he was dying slow and terrible.

  I dug around in my vest pocket until I found my matches, and struck a couple of them to see by. Sure enough, H.B. was down on the ground. He had gotten up on hands and knees and was still moaning. There was a string of slobber hanging out of his mouth danged near to the ground, and he was covered in grass and dirt. He set in to cursing and wheezing, and I was worried that he was hurt bad.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Hell, yes, I’m all right,” he growled.

  “Well, why are you bawling so? What’s the matter?”

  He cussed a bit more before answering me. “What’s the matter with me? Hell’s bells! Can’t you see I’ve lost my damned pipe?”

  CHAPTER E
LEVEN

  Early in the morning on the Fourth we hitched up the wagon and headed out to meet our destiny and write our names in the immortal granite of racing history. Little Paint traveled jauntily behind the wagon, and we could hear money jingling every time his feet hit the ground.

  There were at least ten of us traveling together, and about three times that many were still back on the roundup grounds awaiting the opportunity to come and see the show. A rotation had been worked out whereby all of the hands could get a little time in Mobeetie for the holiday. Those left on guard with the herd would be relieved by others who had already spent their allotted time enjoying the sights. The only problem was that, no matter what, somebody was going to have to miss the race, and nobody wanted to. They say a good cowboy never left the herd, but I had a feeling that there were going to be some cattle in a certain neighborhood left unattended for at least the duration of an afternoon.

  A hundred yards from the gamblers’ camp we were hailed by a chorus of drunken yells and pistol shots. From the looks of things their camp had quadrupled in size. Half of Mobeetie and Ft. Elliott must have turned out to see the show, and we could see more folks coming down the river from the northwest.

  As we neared the camp we passed a wagonload of Bill Thompson’s dance hall girls trying to string up a tarp between two trees. A few of the boys naturally stopped to help, but the rest of us rode on.

  Not all of the people were Mobeetie’s night crowd. A couple of Army officers and their wives were spreading blankets on the ground and breaking out a basket of goodies in preparation for a picnic. Down around the gamblers’ tents a pack of wild kids ran screaming and laughing in and out of the melee’.

  Colonel Andrews’s Mexican boy met us and guided us under the trees to where they’d roped off a little area for us. H.B. tied Little Paint up, using the rope strung around the trees as a picket line. About twenty yards separated us from the colonel’s big tent, and we could see his racing string tied side by side in the shade, eating from the feedbags tied to their heads.

  The little Mexican untied the Baby filly and led her over to a helper to hold. He wove his way through the crowd of men gathered ’round her and dug out a brush and a rag from a large wooden tack box. He returned and began to work over the horse’s coat. The filly seemed to take notice of our horses and raised her head and nickered long and loud. Little Paint twisted and faunched around on his lead and answered her as if it was a challenge.