by Paul Bagdon
Lee placed her hand on the man’s arm. “I know that,” she said. “I’m sure I made the right decision, and I’m comfortable with it.”
“Good, good.” Jonas paused. “You know, your uncle Noah would be awful proud of you. It would have been a whole lot easier for you to take over his farm after he died an’ keep right on raisin’ an’ sellin’ Morgans, instead of chasin’ your ranch horse idea. It took some grit.”
Together they crossed the porch and walked to the rail where Jonas’s horse waited. Jonas mounted. “By the by,” he said, grinning, “how does Slick feel about chewin’ on another pony’s dust for ten miles?”
Lee returned the grin. “I don’t know,” she said. “And I’m real sure he’s not going to find out at Harvest Days.”
* * *
3
* * *
“Can he make it?”
“I dunno, Lee. Ees steep. I thin’ maybe I call Wade off. The climbs in the race are no like thees one.”
Lee and Carlos stood twenty yards from a sharply angled, rock-littered, sandy face that leveled to a plateau at its top. Their horses, picking up on the tension, danced in place, creating tiny explosions of fine dust with their hooves.
Lee watched as Slick dug into the sharp slope, his rear hooves scrambling in the parched soil and churning a thick cloud of grit into the still air, all but obscuring himself and his rider from her sight. Slick’s coal-black hide was drenched in sweat, and the sandy dirt adhered to it in blotches and streaks.
Wade leaned far forward at the waist, his head almost touching Slick’s neck, distributing his weight to give the horse every possible advantage in the climb. Slick’s hooves chewed into the steeply angled ground. Throwing his body forward, he rapidly sucked in air, breathing so heavily that the sound could be heard above the clatter of his steel shoes against rocks and pebbles.
Carlos took a step forward and bellowed, “Stop! He can no do it!”
Lee cupped her friend’s shoulder with her hand. “No—it’s too late to back away. Let’s see ...” She stopped midsentence, stunned at what she saw. She heard Carlos gasp.
Wade must’ve felt Slick coming apart, must’ve felt the panic running through the animal’s muscles like an electric current. He sawed the reins, fighting to regain control of the horse’s head. Then, in a jagged, awkward motion, Wade jammed the reins into his mouth, clenched his teeth on them, and tore off his shirt, sending buttons airborne away from him. Swinging the sweat-darkened shirt up and forward, he settled it over Slick’s eyes. Slick squealed and shook his head, but then stopped his crazed headlong rush.
Slick stood, trembling, at an impossible angle on the slope. Wade, still leaning forward, spoke to the horse—or perhaps sang or whispered to him. Lee couldn’t be sure. All she heard were soft sounds, some a bit like words, others more like the steady sibilance of a breeze through a field of wheat.
The horse and rider’s position was precarious. About two-thirds of the way up the climb, they had another fifteen yards to cover. Pebbles and an occasional rock tumbled and bounced downward, raising puffs of dust as they fell.
Wade eased the shirt to one side and dropped it, still crooning to Slick. The horse snorted wetly as his vision returned. After a moment, Wade straightened a bit and thumped his heels hard against the animal’s sides. Slick reacted as nature and the slope demanded—with a surge powered by the awesome strength of his hindquarters. Larger rubble was being dislodged now, banging downward like a miniature landslide. But again Wade used his heels, and again Slick threw himself upward. Wade’s back, a pale, almost bluish-white against the bronze of his arms and face, ran with sweat as he urged Slick forward, upward.
Carlos broke the silence. “He weel make it,” he said, the words barely louder than a whisper.
On the top of the vicious slope, Slick shook himself, sending off a shower of sweat droplets that glittered in the sun as they fell to the ground. Then Wade was out of the saddle, standing at Slick’s head, rubbing his dripping muzzle and again speaking whatever language it was he used with horses.
Lee and Carlos exhaled loudly at the same time. “I’ve been around horses all my life,” Lee said, “and I’ve never seen anything that even comes near that.”
“Me too,” Carlos said. Then he spoke through an awed smile. “Slick an’ Wade can no be beat.”
Lee couldn’t disagree. She’d been watching Wade work with Slick for a few weeks now and had to admit that she’d learned a few things about conditioning a horse that even Uncle Noah hadn’t known. Even more than that, she was impressed with Wade’s temperament—the unhurried, gentle manner in which he handled Slick, and how he seemed to guide the big stallion rather than make demands on him.
Inevitably, during the sessions that ran four hours a day, six days a week, Wade and Slick had run-ins. Slick, with the natural arrogance of a young, strong, healthy horse, sulked at times when Wade asked for a bit more speed or endurance from him. And when Wade reined in Slick when the horse wanted to run his hardest, to cover ground for the pure joy of doing so, there was often a battle of wills. But Wade knew how to handle the stubborn horse. When Slick reared, Wade used the reins to haul the horse’s head back to his side so that his nose almost touched Wade’s knee—and then held Slick in that contorted position while he worked off his anger in small, clumsy circles.
Lee hadn’t anticipated that her stallion would—could—look better than he had before his work with Wade. But now Slick’s muscles were as defined and hard as those sculpted in marble by a master craftsman. His coat seemed to glow with a light that somehow emanated from the obsidian black. And the mixture of crimped oats, shell corn, molasses, and a bit of white apple vinegar that Wade fed Slick seemed to be a catalyst that increased his speed and endurance.
And, Lee realized, Slick had come not only to respect Wade Stuart, but to love him. The bond between the horse and the man was as obvious as a thunderstorm, and at times this worried her. She wasn’t at all sure how long Wade would stay with the Busted Thumb, and she’d seen good horses become listless, refusing to eat, when a beloved owner or trainer was no longer there. Lee didn’t think she could bear seeing that sort of desolate flatness in Slick’s eyes.
Less than a week later, at the casual evening prayer group held at the ranch, Lee noticed that the men seemed unusually subdued. The seven men who’d shown up didn’t display much—if any—of the spirit that made the meetings such joyous occasions. Even Carlos had little to say. And Rafe, who rarely missed a gathering unless he was riding fence or moving a group of horses to fresh pasture, wasn’t there. When Lee asked after him, the responses from the men were mumbled and evasive. Not one of them met her eyes.
Lee glanced at Carlos, who quickly looked away. She knew he was in a difficult position. He needed the trust of the workers and cowboys, and he’d lose that if they believed he snitched to the boss lady about everything that happened out of her sight. On the other hand, Carlos’s job as ranch manager and his loyalty to Lee made it impossible for him to keep from her anything she needed to know. But Lee didn’t press Carlos in front of the men. She knew he would come talk to her in his own time.
After the meeting had ended, Lee hoped Carlos would remain in the kitchen for another cup of coffee, as he did frequently, but instead he left with the others. She sat at the table alone, listening to the night sounds. Rafe’s absence, she felt, had something to do with whatever was going on—and there was most definitely something going on. After twenty minutes or so of forced inactivity and increasing concern, Lee shoved back her chair, stood, and left the house, heading for the grain room in the main barn. She thought she might find Rafe there. One of his responsibilities was to keep the barrels and bins full of feed and to do a check for rodents and snakes at the end of the day.
There were only two lanterns lighting the main aisle of the big barn, but the grain room, situated at the far end of the structure, cast a cheerful splash of illumination into the semidarkness. Lee’s boots made almost no soun
d against the tightly packed dirt floor. When she opened the door to the grain room, Rafe gasped and turned away, fumbling with the sack of crimped oats he was about to heft onto a stack of other sacks.
“Rafe? I didn’t mean to startle you.”
The man didn’t answer. Instead, he grunted as he lifted the sack of grain from the floor, his back still facing Lee.
“Rafe, what’s going on? Turn around and tell me.”
“Ain’t nothin’ much, ma’am. I ... uh ... I jist ...”
“Turn around and look at me. That’s an order.”
The man slowly shifted himself around to face his employer. He was tall and very thin, almost to the point of emaciation. His hands, large and big knuckled, hung awkwardly at his sides, as if they somehow didn’t belong at the end of his arms. His left eye was swollen shut, and the bruise around it was a purplish yellow that looked painful under the bright lights of the two lanterns. His nose had grown to a bulbous, off-center knot of red flesh, stretched taut and shiny by the swelling. His lips, once thin, were swollen and cut, and Lee saw a pair of empty spaces in the man’s upper front teeth that hadn’t been there the day before.
Lee hurried to him. When she touched his arm, Rafe cringed involuntarily and took a half step back.
“Kinda sore is all, Miss Lee. Ain’t nothin’.” He attempted a smile, but the effort stretched the swollen flesh of his lower lip. A thin stream of blood began its way down his chin.
“What happened, Rafe? Was there an accident? Are you all right?”
Rafe focused on the floor. “Wasn’t no accident, ma’am,” he mumbled.
“Then what ... ?”
The man shook his head without looking up.
Lee took a deep breath to calm herself. She struggled to keep her voice even as she said, “Is your nose broken? Are there injuries I can’t see?”
“Carlos said it ain’t broken. He said I got a couple of cracked ribs. It don’t amount to nothin’, ma’am. I’m jist fine.”
“You’re not fine, and it does amount to something, Rafe. I’ll get Carlos to take you to town in the wagon and have Doc take a look at—”
“No, ma’am. I ain’t goin’.” Even backed with pain and forced through battered and swollen lips, the words were harsher than Lee had ever heard from him. Then he added placatingly, “Carlos is doctorin’ me. Miss Lee ... I don’t wanna talk about it no more. Maybe you’d best ask Carlos any questions you have. It’s kinda hard for me to talk about it, an’ not only ’cause of my bustedup mouth. Please, ma’am?”
Lee raised her hand to touch Rafe’s shoulder and then stopped. She didn’t want to see him cringe in pain again. “Sure, Rafe,” she said. “I’ll talk to Carlos. My only concern is that you’re OK. You take a couple days off. I’ll tell Carlos. I want you to get some rest—heal up.”
Rafe’s “thank you” was a strained whisper.
Carlos must’ve been expecting Lee. He opened the door of his and Maria’s small house before she stepped onto the porch.
“I just talked to Rafe,” she said. “He sent me to talk to you.”
“Come,” Carlos said, stepping aside and holding the door. He led her into the parlor, where Maria sat on a wooden chair, sewing a tear in one of Carlos’s shirts. She smiled at Lee. “Thees men, they are all loco, Lee.”
“I won’t argue with you on that,” Lee said, sitting on the overstuffed Montgomery Ward couch. She looked at her ranch manager. “What happened? Who beat Rafe like that?”
Carlos sat in the chair by the sole window of the room. “I wasn’t there, ’course. But I talk to some of the boys who were. It was Wade Stuart who fought with Rafe.”
“Fought!” Lee exploded. “There was no fight—there was a slaughter! Wade’s much younger than Rafe, and a whole lot stronger!”
“Ees true.”
Lee sank back on the couch. “What started it?”
“Rafe, he gave a full bucket of feed to Slick in hees stall—but it was the molasses feed. Wade come in an’ see the feed in Slick’s bin, an’ he throw it out, cursin’ an’ shoutin.’ An’ then he went lookin’ for Rafe.”
“Why in the world would Rafe feed Slick? Wade takes care of all that—not that it excuses anything about what happened, of course.”
“Rafe said he forgot. He use to feed Slick every morning and night before Wade come here. He jus’ forgot.”
Lee sighed. “Where was Rafe when Wade found him?”
“Jus’ then he come back into the barn, an’ Wade go at heem. The men say Rafe go down, but Wade keep pullin’ him up an’ hittin’ him again. Then he drop Rafe and keek him.” Carlos waited a moment. “The men say Rafe din’t even fight back.”
Lee suddenly felt tired. “I can believe that. Rafe’s a gentle man—and a good man too. For Wade to beat him like that . . .”
“I will go find Wade an’ fire him, Lee.”
“No. I’ll talk to him, and if he needs firing, I’ll do it.”
Carlos stood. “I won’ let you go to him alone. Look what he did to Rafe! Suppose he turn on you? No—we go together.”
A voice from outside the window stopped all sound and motion in the living room. Maria’s right hand halted midstitch, the light of the lantern making her silver needle a shimmering spear of light. Carlos stood as if stunned, swallowing hard.
“No reason for either of you to come looking for me,” Wade said from the window. “I’m right here. I figured I’d find you here, Miss Morgan. Carlos, can I come in? I got some things I need to tell you both.”
Lee nodded toward Carlos.
“Come,” Carlos said, his voice carrying all the welcome of a sudden buzz of a rattler’s buttons.
Lee listened to Wade’s boots thump across the porch, the door open and close, and the polished floorboards squeak as he entered the small parlor.
“There are some things you don’t know about,” Wade said. “I wanted to tell them to you before you fired me for beatin’ on Rafe.”
Lee regained her composure. “Have your say. But I’ll tell you this—there’s no way you can justify what you did to that man.”
“No, ma’am. I don’t guess there is.”
The bronc man suddenly looked like a youngster facing a very angry teacher. His hands first moved to his pockets, then clasped at his waist, and then separated and awkwardly hung at the ends of his arms. He cleared his throat before he spoke.
“You probably wondered why I keep to myself so much,” he began. “Maybe I should have told you this earlier. I got a real bad temper, and it’s gotten me in trouble before. I’m working hard on curbing it, and I was doing good until today.”
“A bad temper doesn’t excuse an assault, Mr. Stuart. Whatever mistake Rafe made with Slick’s feed was—”
“Ma’am, Rafe was dead drunk, and he’d been after me all afternoon!” Wade interrupted. “I told him to back off and let me be, but he kept at it, cussin’ me and threatenin’ me about Slick.”
Lee was able to stop Carlos from an outburst by standing quickly and moving to his chair. “I don’t believe you,” she said to Wade, keeping her eyes locked with those of her ranch manager. “Rafe isn’t a drinking man. And I’ve never known him to curse or threaten anyone.”
“He got himself a bottle somewhere today, Miss Morgan,” Wade said. “I know that for a fact, and so do the other men who were working around the main barn today. Why none of them went to Carlos I don’t know, but what I’m saying is the straight truth. He was drunker than a hoot owl and goading me all afternoon—and when he brought all that rich feed to Slick, I kind of snapped. All that sweet molasses could have foundered Slick—could have wrecked him for the race or for anything else useful.”
Lee turned to face Wade. “I want your word on what you’re telling me,” she said. “I’m going to ask Carlos to go to Rafe right now and ask him about this. If Carlos comes back and says you’re lying, I want you off Busted Thumb land tonight—and if you ever come back, I’ll have you arrested and jailed. Is that understood?�
�
Wade looked at the floor in front of him. “You got my word on what I said, Miss Morgan. And I’m clear on leavin’ if I’m lying.”
Lee motioned Carlos to follow her to the door, leaving Wade staring at the floor and Maria staring at Wade.
“Carlos,” she said as they faced one another on the porch, “we need to get to the bottom of this. Talk to Rafe and then talk to a couple of the men. And do it fast, please. What you find out determines whether our bronc man rides out tonight or not.”
Carlos nodded soberly. Lee knew he was well aware of the importance of the issue. Good hands on a ranch form an allegiance with one another that demands they protect each other. But on the Busted Thumb, that protection didn’t extend to lying to Carlos, Lee, or anyone else.
After Carlos walked off toward the bunkhouse, Lee stood on the porch for a moment, her eyes closed and her hands grasped together at her waist. “Maria,” she said as she reentered the living room, “I need to talk to Mr. Stuart privately for a bit. Could you give us a moment, please?”
Maria’s glare at Wade indicated quite clearly what she thought of him and of leaving her friend in a room alone with him. “I’ll be nearby, Lee,” she said.
Lee nodded. “Sit down, Mr. Stuart,” she said. “We’re not finished here yet.”
Wade settled on the edge of the chair Carlos had vacated, his boots planted on the floor in front of him, his hands clasped in his lap. He looked uncomfortable, but he didn’t look away from Lee’s searching eyes.
“Tell me about the trouble you’ve been in before,” Lee said, lowering herself into Maria’s chair.
Wade’s voice was quieter than it usually was, and he hesitated slightly after each few words. “Fighting, Miss Morgan. Something would rub me the wrong way, and the next thing I knew, I’d be swinging. It was nothin’ real big, but it lost me a couple of jobs a few years back.”
“Gunfighting or fistfighting?”
Wade looked as if he’d been slapped. “Never nothin’ but my hands, Miss Morgan,” he said. “Never.”