The English Horses

by William A. Luckey

  The L Slash crew rode home in the dark, Meiklejon comfortable on his pacing grullo. Once they were gone, Davey made short camp in a pocket of trees near the water hole. In the morning he made a fire, using the rotting poles as fuel, finding them easy to break. He put coffee to boil, opened up a can of beans Souter had left him. He liked the morning silence; he liked knowing he was the only man in the wide valley.

  Finally he walked to the rock ledge, to the natural gaps and wire fence. He touched the burrs that raised hell with flesh. Their pricks were a harsh reminder. He looked along the wire’s endless stretch, saw it disappear far ahead of him, and the new day’s glory was spoiled.

  Davey wondered what Miss Katherine was doing right then—getting up and boiling coffee, tending to her patient before she got to the morning chores. His throat closed and it got hard to breathe. Davey knew he was jealous of a no-account horse chaser who saw Miss Katherine each morning, while Davey was stuck in a high meadow with a bunch of female bovines and a bull too dumb to know what to do with their willing flesh. He wasn’t pleased with himself, thinking so of Miss Katherine. She was a good woman and he had no right to his thoughts, except he wanted Miss Katherine all to himself, to love her and be loved by her in return.

  Midday he got restless, bored with watching the bull follow one or two cows, and he saddled up. He headed his bay out of the fence and up toward the far end of the valley, where it turned to desert, where the old fence marked a line.

  The bay climbed the rimrock and stood next to the wood fence. Below, a small band of wild horses saw Davey and turned to run from him. They’d been close to the wire fence, heads hanging, tails moving slowly to distract the flies.

  Davey counted as the band moved out—three mares with long-legged foals, three mares carrying Edward Donald’s brand. They showed the effect of the dry spring and early summer—their ribs stood out, their coats dulled. The idea came to Davey.

  He put the bay into a lope across the sandy ground to the edge of the wire fence. There he climbed down and pulled out the staples holding the wire and laid down three sections, covering the dammed barbs with rotting pine and rocks, some juniper boughs.

  The mares slowed, turned around, judging him with tired eyes. He wondered about the dark bay stallion, how these mares had gotten loose. Back on his bay, he let the horse walk toward the mares. They watched him warily. He watched them in return. Then they bolted from Davey, away from the fenced-in water. Davey kept the bay at a distance. They settled into a loose trot until it was dark, and then the mares walked on, north, into the desert. There was enough light by the low moon and stars to keep Davey on t heir trail. They were mustangs, and a few hours, even a day or so, wouldn’t wear them down. This was the heart that couldn’t be bred into a horse; it was born natural, kept alive by active enemies, the weak culled out before their first full year.

  The mares wouldn’t let Davey get around them, but he kept walking, trotting sometimes, enough to keep himself from dozing in the saddle. As the sun rose, Davey saw the distant spire of Escondido Mountain. He reined in the bay, enjoyed the view, thought of the day’s coming heat. The mares stopped willingly, the foals dropped to the dirt and stretched out to sleep. Davey let them rest. His conscience fretted at what he was doing, but he still felt it was right.

  He left the bay drift around the mares, to be ahead of them. After a half hour or so, he clucked to the mares. The foals clambered up at a signal from their mamas. The small band went in an orderly procession, Davey bringing up the rear. He herded them back to the wide end of the valley, where they barely stopped to snort and blow at the fallen wood fence rails. Heads high, tails flagging, the mares had scented water.

  This time, when they came to the fence line, they jumped where Davey had laid the wire down, and broke into a slow lope toward the inviting water. Davey let them go, watched with pleasure as they stepped gingerly to the pool’s edge, stuck their heads deeply in the water, and drank quickly, raising their heads to check for possible danger.

  He let them finish their drink before he got back to work. As soon as he raised the first strand of wire, the band spooked and went into the narrow cañon. They were headed into the fenced ten sections, and the company of Edinburgh Supreme.

  He could truthfully report that he had checked the fence, seen to the bull, and that all was well. And he’d find the right time to tell English about the mares. It was English’s business; let Meiklejon think what he would about his imported stock, these mustangs deserved their chance.

  He stayed till his beans were gone. The bull had figured out how to court his ladies, for he was puffing and wheezing and eyeing Davey and his bronco. The bull made Davey laugh. Might be a slow learner, but the son-of-a-gun was ready to mount almost anything now. Davey headed south, in no hurry to return to the L Slash.

  He got in at dusk, and the men nodded to him as they put up their day horses and cleaned off some of the dirt before they went for the night meal. Davey was slow stripping off the dusty bay, uneasy about speaking the first words he’d said to more than wind and animals in several days.

  Gayle Souter found him as the rest went to eat. Souter made a lot of noise coming up to Davey; the old man understood about being in the brush too long. “We’ll get some fancy calves next spring from that big old boy, if he knows what to do.” There was an unasked question waiting.

  Davey obliged. “He got it sorted out.”

  Souter grinned, nodded to Davey. “You have to teach him much?” Closest the old man ever got to a joke. “Davey, you see them horses of English’s? I saw he’d branded a few mares, and Bit says he saw a dark colt carryin’ a fresh Bench D. Now we got more trouble. Mister Donald says he got a band of mares started and wants the boss to unfence the springs. Figured you might have seen these mares up to where they’ve been runnin’. Fact is you might be the only one knows where they’re grazin’ right now.”

  “I seen the mares.” That was the truth.

  “How they lookin’?” Souter was playing along.

  “Thin…kind of poor. Felt sorry for them.” Then Davey paused, felt a grin half start on his face, one he couldn’t keep in. They each held quiet a moment. Davey thought of Edward Donald, refusing to consider the man’s interest legitimate.

  Then Souter set the deal. “Let’s go get us a meal. If those rannies’ve left us more than a bean or a half slice of meat.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Davey worked easy chores the next day, mending two halters, plaiting repairs in a long rope, tacking shoes on a new horse, and lacing rails back into a rarely used corral. Simple things that left him with time in mid-afternoon to go back to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, and a visit with Miss Katherine.

  Burn English sat at the table. The man looked up, had to see Davey, but nothing showed in the spare face, no pleasure or pain. He remained intent on the difficulties of bringing a loaded spoon from the plate to his mouth. Davey watched—only half the food made the trip.

  “It’s right good to see you up, amigo.”

  The eyes stared, blinked once, and then nothing. Like talking to a pint-sized wooden doll. Miss Katherine moved across the kitchen to stand by her patient and translate. “Davey, sometimes it’s still bad…but he’s bound to try. You understand.”

  Davey wasn’t taken with the intimacy. “Yes’m. Just wanted to tell him the mares are all right. Saw them yesterday in fact.”

  English grunted, and laid one hand on the table.

  Davey stared. The fingers were long and badly scarred, the wrist thick, the nails a dirty grey.

  English had only one thought. “The colt?”

  “Saw him, too. He looks good.”

  English closed his eyes. Davey touched the man on his back, shaming himself with the gesture. Miss Katherine said nothing; they were trapped in an unnatural quiet.

  Mid-morning the next day, Miss Katherine came looking for Davey. Her hair was plaited under a brown bandanna and she held a wicked-looking wire wisp in one hand. Davey flinc
hed. Sometimes she came after one of the hands with that thing, asking him to take swipes at the heavy rugs Meiklejon favored. As much as Davey idolized Miss Katherine, he didn’t want any part of that particular chore.

  But she smiled and said that there were spools of wire waiting in Socorro, and Meiklejon wanted Davey to go get them. According to her, Meiklejon felt Davey was the least likely of his men to get into mischief that far from the ranch and on his lonesome. She handed Davey an envelope with cash, for the wire she said. She didn’t ask him to wallop those rugs, and he realized he would almost have enjoyed the task, being near her, instead of having to leave on his own.

  At the corrals he looked over the stock. A pair of flashy bays chewed on their hay and pretended to spook when Davey leaned on the railings. They were all style and speed and not much for strength. Barbed wire weighed a lot, Davey mused, chewing on his own bit of stemmy hay. So he checked the big sorrel, paired now with a smaller mealy bay. The other sorrel had pulled up lame on an infected hoof, was stalled in the barn, the hoof poulticed and wrapped in burlap. Souter was against the effort but Davey thought he could rescue the old son.

  The untried bay snorted. It was no more than sixty miles to Socorro; the mealy bay would do just fine. The team was harnessed and ready by noon, and Davey spent the first few miles keeping the unbalanced team to a steady trot, trying to get a handle on the different horses, a horseman’s exercise to occupy his wandering mind.

  The sorrel gelding was stubborn but willing. The mealy bay had Davey stumped. At times the good-looking bronco would step up to the collar and pull hard and fast enough so that the sorrel almost loped to keep up. Then just as suddenly the bay would slack off and leave the winded sorrel to pull the whole shebang.

  Davey drove into the night, finally reining in to make cold camp. The team got a bait of grain; Davey got the usual tortilla and cold beans. By early morning they’d reached the plains and Davey had decided the mealy bay w asn’t harness broke at all, and that, by God, Mr. Meiklejon would have a well-broke bronco by the return trip. Must have come from Donald or Quitano. Around horses, Meiklejon would never learn.

  He held in the team and rubbed his eyes against the glare of the white sand and grass. He was thinking it was too bad he hadn’t put up more supplies when leaving the ranch, like another canteen of water and some decent food. The bay kept jerking the sorrel, and Davey’s hands and temper were raw from guiding the miserable team. When they came up to water in the Gallinas Mountains, Davey let the team drink their fill,then walked them by hand, slipped their bits, and let them graze for an hour. It wasn’t going to be a turn-around trip.

  While the horses grazed, Davey napped. It was the squeal of the mealy bay that woke him from a sound sleep. He came up with his hand to his rifle, laid close by just in case. An old man sat a bony white mule. The bay and the sorrel squirreled around, threatening the mule and wasting energy. The old man watched as Davey came full awake.

  “Son, I got me a broke leg…be riding to the doc in Socorro. Be a sight easier on me iffen I can catch a ride with you in that wagon.” Here the old-timer briefly ran out of breath, before he began again. “Curandero up to Quemado, he says the leg’s gone rotten and he can’t do nothing more with it.”

  The man was over sixty, and the mule he rode looked close to that. But taking in the calm eyes and seamed face, Davey had no doubt the old man could make the trip, broken leg and all. He had some doubts about the mule.

  “Sure enough, old-timer. Let me harness up and I’ll get you settled. These bronc’s’ve had enough grass.”

  The old man stayed put on the mule while Davey worked with the team. The sorrel and the mealy bay showed temper when he tried backing them into the traces and Davey cursed both animals as t hey kicked and stepped over the lines.

  The old man allowed it could be the mule. “Horses don’t take to Bert, he’s some contrary and they know it. Get me in the wagon, and turn the old son loose. Bert won’t follow and he won’t worry ’bout being left alone. And no honest, respecting thief would try to steal him. By the time this leg gets set and wrapped, old Bert’ll be filled with this here good grass, and ready to carry me home.”

  The white mule wandered out of sight. The team backed up right smart and stood while Davey finished his work. Only the team breathing in unison and the fat old man’s wheezing broke up the daytime sounds. Davey climbed in, pushed a place for himself against the old man’s bulk, and picked up the lines, talking to the bay and the sorrel as they moved as a team, eager to be gone from the white mule’s miserable being.

  The old man spoke up finally. “The name’s Eager Briggs. I seen you…working for that Englishman to the L Slash. He ain’t so bad, for a foreigner. I knew old Littlefield. Your Englishman, he’s right ’bout the wire. I don’t much like it myself, too old for that. Dangerous, spiteful stuff. But it’s the only way now. Open range’s gone, too many folks crowding in.”

  Davey listened to the old man and was reluctant to think him right. But now that Briggs had got his mouth open, he didn’t stop. “You be Davey Hildahl…come over from Arizona. With a reputation behind you that you swung a wide loop, hired out your gun. Got ridden out of good country ’cause folks didn’t trust your name.”

  These were words for fighting, but Davey didn’t bother. An old man earned some few privileges, and talk was one of them.

  Briggs shook his head, a sour smell coming from him. “Ain’t easy to understand, you being the peaceful one to the L Slash.”

  These words were a steel trap, closing in on Davey. He’d thought that time in Arizona long gone. It had been close to three years since he’d left. He’d never killed a man, never even let off a shot. Just rode with the wrong bunch. Now an old man with a broken leg was recalling all the supposed truths. He grinned, and shook the lines to the slowing team.

  Briggs rambled on. “Son, I come up from Texas. Too many years ago to make a difference. And I come up the same way you did, from over west. Had a sheriff after me, asking questions ’bout what I knowed and seen. What I did. No one else to blame but my youth, son, and my greed. Now I got over that, like you done…it seems to me.”

  Davey said the first thing that came to mind. “How’d you break that leg? It don’t look pretty, and it sure don’t smell recent.”

  Eager Briggs smiled, and that wasn’t a pretty sight, either. Few teeth, and the wrinkled face folded up in layers of fat and grease. “Mule kicked me, ’course. Kicked me before, but this’s the first time it took. Broke the leg bone clear through and I set it, then the durned mule went and kicked me again. More’n I could set this time. Curandero said I waited too long…herbs ain’t strong enough. Need a doc, he said. So I’s headed to Socorro.”

  Two miles of silence, with Davey hoping the worst of the revelations were done. Then the old man began talking about things too close to Davey’s mind.

  “I seen that mesteñero you got to the L Slash. I seen him before.” Then he changed direction. “You know, I rode out of places years back ’cause they was stringing that wire. Rode out o’ Kansas in ’Seventy-Seven. They was putting up wire faster’n my buckskin could pace a mile. Had a talk once with a man, setting on his land and guarding it with a musket. Black powder it was, big enough to stop a whole family o’ grizzlies.”

  Davey was only half listening, so tired he could barely see through swollen eyes, but, at least, the team was pulling half decently now, the mealy bay doing his share. Eager Briggs’s words became a lullaby. Until Briggs got back to a bitter name. Then Davey came up awake.

  “Yes, sir, I seen that mesteñero before. Thought so the night he and Donald, they got to drinking, and ole Donald he got to talking. Mesteñero did some bragging of his own ’bout where he’d been, where he’d come from. Yes, sir, I knowed that boy when he was a young ’un.”

  Davey’s head snapped up, but Briggs talked on like he never knew Davey had almost been asleep. “Down in Texas, when he was a button. He was working ’longside his pa, fighting with his tw
o sisters. Had him a pretty ma, real pretty.” Here the old man sighed, the explosion of hot breath stunning Davey. “It was right sad.”

  Davey looked over. His passenger was wiping tears from his eyes, then pulling at his long, reddened nose and mumbling something from the folds of his mouth. “Yes, sir, he looked just like his pa back then. Eyes and such, that black hair. Now men used to say John English was part Indian. I never believed it, so I asked John, plain as could be. And he said his family was Welsh, come from a long line o’ these Welsh…a thick-headed lot he called them. He laughed, said his boy waslike him at that age. He was a tough one, John English. Big son, more’n six feet, and only got one arm, lost it in that damned war.”

  “Burn English is a runt, Mister Briggs. You’re thinking about someone else you knew…said it was a long time ago.”

  Briggs shook, like maybe he was laughing, instead of crying. “There’s more to it, son. Sorry, I was there when it happened.” He choked off, wiped his eyes, and then the corners of his mouth, and Davey was glad he didn’t have to be staring at Eager Briggs all this time.

  “It took the whole family. The boy got terrible sick with the fever. He lived, but never grew much after. Couldn’t have been more’n thirteen when he got sick. Big as he is now…never got much bigger. He was a tough one, that boy. After his folks. …He worked horses and kept to himself. Local ranchers hired him. Not like his pa, friendly and such. Took me in one time I was poorly. His ma…she was a pretty thing. He ain’t much like neither of them…they was good people, though, and they taught their boy well.”