For the Brand

by Ralph Compton

  “Now, now,” Charlie said, “I’m on your side. Elfie and Abe should show this Texas gal around. It’s their ranch, not ours. But we’re on the payroll and we have to do as the boss wants, like it or not.”

  “We can always ride,” Willis said.

  “You’re not about to quit over somethin’ as silly as this, are you?” Charlie asked. “You didn’t quit over your leg, and that’s a hell of a lot worse.” He caught himself. “Sorry, pard. That was plumb thoughtless.”

  “I’d best get up to the ranch house.” Willis limped on past the corral. The last thing he needed was to be reminded of his condition. He only hoped Laurella Hendershot wasn’t one of those who wore her pity on her sleeve. There was nothing worse, when a man was crippled, to be treated as a cripple.

  Elfie and Abe were on the porch, in their rocking chairs. Little Sparrow had just brought a silver tray with a pitcher of lemonade.

  “Would you care for a glass, Mr. Lander? We’ve had it special made for the occasion.”

  Part of Willis wanted to say no but it had been a coon’s age and then some since he had tasted lemonade. “I’ll have a glass if you can spare it.”

  Abe was looking pleased with himself. “How do you think the men took to my little speech?”

  “They’re rarin’ to go,” Willis said.

  “Good.” Abe smiled at Elfie. “We’ve done all we can. Now the sale is in the hands of Providence.”

  “True,” Elfie said, “but my grandmother always said it never hurts to lend Providence a helping hand. That’s why the floors are clean enough to eat off of. That’s why the stable looks as clean as the house. That’s why we have the lemonade and the pies and the rest of it.”

  “We’ve done all we can,” Abe agreed.

  “Not quite.” Elfie looked at Willis. “Please don’t mind my asking, Mr. Lander, but is that the best you can do with yourself?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Have you availed yourself of a mirror of late? You need a shave. You need your hair trimmed. That shirt needs a washing. The pants, well, the less said about them, the better.” Elfie’s face reminded Willis of a hawk about to swoop on prey. “We want to put on our best face for Miss Hendershot.”

  “There’s plenty of time for me to shave and whatnot.”

  “That there is, but why leave anything to chance? What if Miss Hendershot shows up early?” Elfie gazed across the valley but the ribbon of a road that led out of it and eventually to Cottonwood was empty save for a few cowboys on horseback. “No, if you will indulge me, I’d rather we tend to your deficiencies here and now.”

  “Sure. I’ll go shave,” Willis said, and shifted his good leg.

  “You’ve misunderstood. By here and now I mean right here and right now. Little Sparrow will take you out back and see to your stubble and your hair, among other things. I’ve already talked it over with her.”

  “You have?” Willis glanced at the Shoshone girl, who might as well have been carved from stone for all the emotion she showed.

  “Yes. Furthermore, I won’t take no for an answer. This is too important to me, Mr. Lander, as you well know. So off you go, please, and do try not to scuff the floor. We had it polished yesterday.”

  “Dearest,” Abe said softly.

  At a nod from Elfie, Little Sparrow opened the door and held it for Willis to go in. His ears burning, Willis limped past her and on down the long hall to the kitchen. He had taken Elfie literally and had his hand on the back door when Little Sparrow said in her clipped English, “Here will do.”

  Willis sank into the chair she indicated and folded his hands in his lap and then unfolded them again.

  “There is no reason to be nervous,” Little Sparrow said. “I have shaved Mr. Tyler many times, and cut his hair. Reuben’s, too.”

  “You do?” This was incredible news to Willis, who had always assumed that was something a man did on his own except for an occasional visit to a barbershop.

  “Mrs. Tyler has me do many things,” Little Sparrow said, but whether she was stating a fact, bragging, or complaining, Willis couldn’t say. “She says I am the next best thing to having her own maid.”

  “You speak the white tongue really good.”

  “Thank you.” Little Sparrow took a shallow pan from under the counter and placed it on the table. A larger pan was on the stove, filled with steaming water, half of which she poured into the first pan. Then she went out of the kitchen and returned shortly with a razor, a pair of scissors, and a folded towel.

  “Ever cut anyone’s ear off by mistake?” Willis joked.

  “No. But I did cut a man’s upper lip off once when he talked when he should not have.” Little Sparrow’s dark eyes glowed with amusement.

  Willis laughed and said, “So Indians do have a sense of humor. Some folks say they don’t.”

  “Yes, we have a sense of humor,” Little Sparrow said. “We also sweat when it is hot and shiver when it is cold and cough when we breathe in too much dust.”

  Willis grinned. “I reckon I had that comin’. But you’re the only Indian I’ve ever talked to, and you’re female, besides.”

  Little Sparrow had opened the razor and was testing the edge by lightly running a finger along it. “Which is worse—the Indian part or the female part?”

  “Neither. Don’t put words in my head.” Willis squirmed in his chair. “I’ve always liked you. I’m just not much when it comes to small talk.”

  “They say you are a good man,” Little Sparrow said, “but a man whose spirit was broken the day his leg was broken.”

  “Who says that?” Willis bristled. “My spirit is just fine, thank you very much. Even if it weren’t, what do they know? I was a cowboy. A bronc buster. One of the best. Now I’ll never bust another horse as long as I live.”

  Little Sparrow stepped back and looked him up and down. “You wear a hat like a cowboy. You wear cowboy clothes. You wear the boots cowboys wear.”

  Willis’s anger climbed. “You don’t savvy. I can’t hardly walk. What good does it do me to rope a cow if I can’t climb down and get to the cow as fast as I’d need to? If a steer acted up, I couldn’t get out of the way. I can’t brand. I can’t do any of the things a cowboy does. Not any of the things that count, anyway.”

  “You have much sadness inside you,” Little Sparrow said.

  “Just shave me.” Willis refused to say another word to her until she was done. When she held up an oval mirror for him to examine his chin, he merely grunted.

  “Please take off your hat.”

  The amount of hair she snipped appalled him. Willis had worn his hair long for so long that he felt uncomfortable with it short. When she held up the mirror again, he begrudgingly said, “Nice job.” He reached for his hat.

  “First your bath.”

  “My what?” Willis did not recollect any mention of a bath out on the front porch. “Who says?”

  “Mrs. Tyler. She had Gus bring the tub from the bath shed and put it out back.” Little Sparrow walked to the door and opened it. “After you.”

  “What gall,” Willis said. But he got up and went out, and there, over under the overhang to the wood shed, was the tub, brimming with water. “She had you fill it before I got here?”

  “Mrs. Tyler says that sometimes the men go into the bath shed and come out drier than when they went in.”

  Willis had half a mind to limp out front and tell Elfie what she could do with her tub. “I’m not takin’ a bath out here in front of everybody.”

  Little Sparrow indicated the short fence that hemmed the wood shed on three sides to keep out the snow in the winter. “No one will see you. I will be inside.” Her hand rose and in it was a towel and a bar of lye soap.

  Willis glared and Little Sparrow waited, and after half a minute, Willis took the bar of soap and slung the towel over a shoulder. “This is a fine how do you do.”

  “It is just a bath.”

  “And jumpin’ off a cliff is just jumpin’ off a cliff.”
Willis went to the tub and tested it with a finger. The water was close to hot. He turned to tell the Shoshone girl that he did not blame her for the indignity but she had gone back inside. “Fine,” he muttered. Walking around the tub, he sat on the ground and hurriedly undressed. He set the brace aside with extra care, then wrapped the towel around his midriff and stood to climb in.

  Little Sparrow was a few yards away, holding a shirt and a pair of pants.

  “What in blazes!” Willis exclaimed, hunkering down. “You promised you wouldn’t peek.”

  “Mrs. Tyler wants you to wear these after your bath,” Little Sparrow informed him. “She says they are yours to keep.”

  Both the shirt and pants were store-bought. Willis needed new duds, but not like this. It was humiliating. “I can make do with my own.”

  “Mrs. Tyler says your own clothes are not fit for being in public,” Little Sparrow said. “She says an escort must look his best or he is not much of an escort.”

  “She sure says a lot,” Willis groused. “All right. You’ve had her say. Now scat and let a man wash in peace.”

  “I can wash you if you like. I often wash Mr. and Mrs. Tyler.”

  “You do? Mrs. Tyler, too?” Willis didn’t know what to think of that. To him, the notion that a human being would let another human being be that intimate was unthinkable. “Abe never mentioned it.”

  “Where should I place the clothes?” Little Sparrow asked.

  “Anywhere. I don’t care. Just so you let me be until I’m finished and dressed. And no peekin’ out the windows, neither.”

  “I have four brothers. You do not have anything I have not seen before, Mr. Lander.”

  “Maybe not, but it’s mine and I’m particular about who I show it to. Now off you go,” Willis shooed her. He stayed behind the tub until the door closed, then quickly slipped over the side, holding the towel in front of him so even if she did peek out she would not see anything. He placed his good leg in first, then had to help his left leg by lifting it. Sinking down, he dropped the towel to the ground. The water felt nice. He had almost forgotten what a bath was like.

  Willis couldn’t get over how much trouble Elfie had gone to. The shave, the haircut, the bath, the clothes. She was determined he be as presentable as possible for Laurella Hendershot. The more he thought about it, though, the more it stoked his anger. He resented being treated as if he were ten years old and had to be not only told what to do but led around as if he had a ring in his nose.

  Still, Willis enjoyed the sensation of soaking in the water. Bending his left leg at the knee by hand, he leaned back and closed his eyes and felt the tension drain from him like water from a punctured water skin. Damn, it felt good. He thought of the line shack. Strange, but he did not miss it near as much as he did for the two or three days right after he left it. He thought of Jim Palmer and Timmy Easton and Marshal Keever and Deputy Ivers, and how a person never knew when the sands in the hourglass of their life would run out. He thought of the Flour Sack Kid and felt his body tense up again, so he stopped thinking about the Kid and emptied his head of all thoughts whatsoever.

  Willis seemed to be drifting. He was warm and then he was cold, and the next thing he knew, he heard someone cough and he opened his eyes to find Little Sparrow staring at him. He figured maybe he was dreaming until she spoke.

  “Mr. Lander? You have been in there forty minutes. Mrs. Tyler sent me to fetch you. She says you were to bathe yourself, not turn into a fish.”

  “She said that?” Willis said, then yelped and reached for the towel. But to get it he had to rise out of the water and he was not about to do that with the maiden present. “Scoot, dang it! Tell her I’ll be out in five minutes.”

  Little Sparrow bent and picked up the bar of lye soap from the grass. “Maybe I should tell her ten minutes. This is not wet. You have not washed yourself yet.”

  “I had no idea Shoshones were so blamed pushy,” Willis griped, accepting the bar with as much dignity as he could muster.

  The second the door closed behind her, Willis commenced rubbing the bar over his skin fit to rub himself raw. He made a special point to rub it over his feet, which on hot days, when his boots were off, were enough to gag a mule. He also rubbed it over his hair and lathered vigorously to remove any lice he might have. His skin acquired a pink hue. Soon his whole body tingled.

  Smiling at how invigorated he felt, Willis gripped the edge of the tub with one hand and started to rise. He was halfway out when pain spiked his left thigh and his left leg buckled out from under him. He tried to catch himself but fell back into the water. More pain lanced up his spine. His right elbow struck the side of the tub so hard, it nearly went numb. Furious for forgetting about his knee, Willis bit off a string of fiery curses. It was stupid of him. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Gritting his teeth, he hooked his left elbow over the edge and then his throbbing right elbow and managed to slide his right leg up and out. Only when he was braced did he rise the rest of the way.

  Acutely aware of his nakedness, Willis quickly toweled himself dry and sat on the ground to put on his brace. Once the straps were tight, he sighed in relief and hastily dressed in the new clothes Little Sparrow had left. He switched his belt from his old pants to the news ones, tugged into his boots, strapped on his revolver, and looked up. “What is it now?”

  “Mrs. Tyler wishes you would go a little faster,” Little Sparrow relayed. “The Hendershot woman can come at any time.”

  “I’m ready,” Willis announced, and bent to pick up his old shirt and his old britches.

  “Leave those for me to dispose of,” Little Flower said.

  “Dispose my foot. They have a few years of wear left,” Willis set her straight. “I’ll get them after this silly escort business is over.”

  “You do not want to show the woman from Texas around the ranch?”

  “I’d rather walk on hot coals,” Willis said. He adjusted his hat. “How do I look, missy?”

  “Afraid.”

  “Who wouldn’t be? It isn’t natural for a man to stick his head in a bear’s mouth. I’d as soon someone else did it but Mrs. Tyler elected me and her vote is all that counts around these parts.”

  “Mr. Tyler gave her the idea,” Little Sparrow revealed. “I heard him say you were the perfect choice.”

  “Abe stabbed me in the back like that?” Willis was stricken. “You think you know some folks.”

  The Tylers were in their rocking chairs. Elfie raked Willis from hat to boots and nodded approvingly. “I do declare, Mr. Lander, that it’s like night and day. You look positively respectable.”

  “How was I before?” Willis asked but was not treated to an answer.

  “Doesn’t he, Abe?” Elfie addressed her husband instead. “He’ll make a fine impression on Miss Hendershot.”

  “That’s what we’re counting on,” Abe said. “Now all that’s left is the waiting. It could be today, like she wrote us, or it could be any day this week if she was delayed.”

  “She’s a Texan,” Elfie said. “She’ll be here when she said she would.”

  Willis had met a Texican or two whose idea of being punctual was to show up, but he bit off the comment. “What do I do until then, ma’am?”

  “Try not to get yourself or your new clothes dirty. And for goodness’ sake, no drinking or traipsing off into Cottonwood. We want you handy when the time comes.” Elfie gazed down the valley and her eyes narrowed. “Say, is that what I think it is?”

  In the far distance a buckboard had appeared and was winding along the dirt road.

  “What perfect timing!” Elfie crowed, delighted.

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” Abe said. “It could be someone from town. Or maybe the doc was out this way and decided to see you. I’ve never seen a doctor so fond of a patient.”

  “Don’t start. An ingrown toenail is nothing to take lightly. There was this woman in Saint Louis whose foot became infected and they had to cut it off, or so a friend claimed.”

&nbs
p; Willis limped to a porch post and leaned against it. His butterflies were back. More than ever. He needed a drink, needed it as much as he needed a new knee. Licking his dry lips, he rubbed his damp palms on his new pants.

  The buckboard took forever to reach the ranch house. Word had spread, and hands came from the bunkhouse and the stable to watch it approach. Two people were perched on the seat. One a tall, dark man in dark clothes and a dark sombrero. The other, a woman in a calico dress and wearing, of all things, a wide-brimmed hat with a veil.

  Willis had only ever seen a woman wear a veil once, and that was at a funeral. He straightened and fiddled with his bandanna and belt. Sweat broke out on his brow.

  Now they could hear the clatter of the wheels. Soon the driver brought the team past the stable to the house. Swinging lithely down, he came around and held out his arms. He had a sweeping mustache and, if Willis had to guess, must have been in his forties or perhaps even his fifties. “Senorita.” High on his right hip was a pearl-handled Colt. His gun belt was studded with silver conchas.

  “Since when am I helpless, Armando?” the woman said, and climbed down without his help. For a woman, she had a deep voice laced with a Texas drawl.

  Willis stayed where he was while the Tylers warmly greeted Laurella Hendershot. Elfie pumped the Texas woman’s hand, asking if the trip had been tiring and if there had been any incidents and if Miss Hendershot needed to clean up. The woman from Texas said yes, a few, and no, but she could use something to drink.

  Elfie motioned for Little Sparrow to bring a lemonade. Then Elfie said, “Allow me to introduce the man we’ve chosen to show you around the Bar T.”

  The butterflies had turned into scorpions. Willis limped down the steps and smiled his best smile and held out his hand. “How do you do, ma’am?”

  Chapter 10

  Laurella Hendershot had been on the Bar T before, so it was only natural that Willis had asked the hands at the bunkhouse what she looked like. They all said the same thing—they never got a good look at her face but she was well-dressed and from the neck down was “all female,” as Charlie Weaver phrased it. No one mentioned a veil and it never occurred to Willis to ask if she wore one since so few women of his acquaintance ever had.