When he returned to the store, Sam was just saying good-bye to his customer.
“How did it look?” Sam said.
Hank shrugged. “A little dusty. A few scorpions here and there. Better than many a Ranger camp I’ve slept in on the hard ground with a blizzard freezin’ me nigh to death.”
“Let’s hope you don’t have to actually spend any time in there. Surely, if they do arrest you, it’ll will be under your own recognizance.”
“I wouldn’t count on it, Sam. Kenyon seems hell-bent on making a show of this whole thing. It doesn’t hurt to be prepared, if you know what I mean.”
“I think I do,” Sam said.
Hank nodded at his friend, grabbed the brass knob, and opened the door, stepping outside. Just before he slammed the door behind him, that confounded Western Union machine started tapping away like a redheaded woodpecker.
Sam listened to it with his head cocked aside for a few seconds. “It’s fixed!”
“I gathered that,” Hank replied, still standing in the open doorway.
Sam tapped something in reply and grabbed a pencil he kept near the ticker. “There’s a logjam of replies to copy. Most of ’em for you, Hank. This is gonna take some time to get down on paper.”
Hank smiled. “Meet me in my office.” He pointed down the street toward Flora’s place.
Leaving Sam to his scribblings, he angled across the dirt thoroughfare. Liable to be hock-deep in mud by this time tomorrow, he thought. That blue norther looked like a bad one, and his knee joints were aching. He thought about Jay Blue and Skeeter again, and hoped they’d find shelter, wherever they were. He was almost across the street, and was already tasting some of the good stuff Flora kept hidden behind the bar just for him, when he caught sight of motion to his left, way down the street. In the twilight glow he saw four riders coming in at a trot.
Within seconds, he recognized Jay Blue. After that it was a simple enough task to pick out Skeeter. He didn’t know the other two riders, but guessed whom they might be. He took in a breath of sweet, pure relief, and exhaled a world of worry. He could handle whatever might happen to himself with this Black Cloud mess, but if any tragedy ever befell that boy—those boys—he’d go crazy as a rabid wolf.
He stepped into the livery barn. “Gotch! You got business comin’!”
Gotch Dunnsworth stepped out to greet the late arrivals. “I’ll be damned,” he said, recognizing the boys.
The party trotted up, grins painted on their faces. Jay Blue told of their successes with Steel Dust before they even stepped down from their saddles. They introduced Jubal Hayes and Luz, and Hank thanked the mustanger for helping the boys recover the Kentucky mare.
“This is Gotch Dunnsworth. He’ll take care of your stock and your tack.” Hank turned to the one-eyed war veteran. “Oats all around, Gotch, and put it on my tab.”
“Sure thing, Captain.” Gotch began gathering reins.
“I reckon it’s time to celebrate now,” Hank announced.
“Yes, sir,” Jay Blue sang. “We’re gonna get something to eat, and then Mr. Hayes wants to show everybody in Luck how to saw on a fiddle, if we can find one.”
“He can use mine!” Gotch said.
Hank turned and studied the livery owner. “You own a fiddle, Gotch?”
Gotch started laughing. “Don’t you remember? You give it to me back before the war. I never learned to play it much.”
“I gave you a fiddle?” Hank had absolutely no recollection of the event.
“There was whiskey involved,” Gotch admitted. “It was back in those days . . . You know . . . Well, you’ve cut back, even if I haven’t.”
“I’ll borrow Mr. Collins’s banjo,” Jay Blue said. “You’ve got a guitar in the saloon, don’t you, Daddy?”
“Huh?” Hank said, still dumbfounded and embarrassed that he had given away a fiddle in a drunken stupor years ago and forgotten about it. “Oh, yes, son, I’ll get my old guitar down from the wall.”
“Mr. Hayes can dang near make a fiddle shoot sparks!”
“I’ll warn the fainthearted,” Hank said with a smile.
“Don’t get nobody’s hopes up,” Jubal said modestly.
“Skeeter, help me with these horses,” Gotch said, handing two pairs of reins to Skeeter.
Pride swelled up in Hank as he began to appreciate what his son had accomplished. He extended a hand for Jay Blue, but then just went ahead and gave him an abrazo. “I’m proud of you, son.”
He realized he hadn’t spoken to Skeeter yet, and looked up to congratulate him, too. But Skeeter had already disappeared into the livery barn with Gotch.
31
SKEETER HELPED GOTCH unsaddle the horses and rack the saddles. He rubbed down two of the mounts and stabled them.
“Skeeter, be a hand and throw them hosses some oats,” Gotch ordered. “Fork ’em some hay, too. I’ve got to find that fiddle the captain give me.”
Where the hell was Jay Blue while he was taking care of all this?
By the time he got to Ma Hatchet’s Café, Jay Blue, Jubal, and Luz were already half-finished with their meals.
“’Bout time you got here,” Jay Blue said. “I ordered you a steak.” He pointed to a bleeding slab of beef on a plate.
Skeeter didn’t care much for steak that rare. “I told you I wanted fried chicken.”
“You said not unless it was Beto’s fried chicken. You heard him, didn’t you, Mr. Hayes?”
Jubal shot a glance at both boys, but just kept chewing.
“I said that so Beto wouldn’t get his feelin’s hurt. Some folks are like that, you know. They don’t want to hurt nobody’s feelin’s.”
Jay Blue threw his knife and fork on his plate and dragged a cloth napkin over his mouth. “Just eat it, Skeeter. I’m goin’ across the street to borrow Mr. Collins’s banjo.” He scooted his chair back and shot upright. He was on one of those tears where everything revolved around Jay Blue Tomlinson.
“Hold on!” Jubal said, taking one last bite. “You gonna leave a couple lookin’ like us to walk into that saloon alone?” He made gestures toward Luz and himself.
“It’s a nice town,” Jay Blue insisted.
“I’ve been run out of nice towns and shot at with live ammunition. I don’t want to go nowhere in this town without somebody named Tomlinson holdin’ my hand.” He stood, then grabbed the back of Luz’s chair with gentlemanly grandiloquence. “Come, my darlin’, we’re late for the ball.”
“Alright,” Jay Blue said, his impatience clearly shining through his attempts at being a gracious host.
The three of them left, and Skeeter was alone again. He cut a sliver off of the edge of the steak where it was actually cooked a little, but it didn’t appeal to him much. He satisfied what was left of his appetite with some biscuits and butter, some mashed potatoes, and some green beans.
Trying to catch up to the party, he stormed out of the café and saw a light on in the general store. Stepping in, he found Sam Collins furiously scrawling as the telegraph ticker tapped away like an annoying rattle on a buckboard wagon. Skeeter was always amazed that Sam could make sense of that racket.
Sam glanced up over the lenses of his glasses. “Howdy, Skeeter.” His pencil point had worn itself dull, but he didn’t seem to have time to whittle it sharp. “You just missed ’em.”
“Thanks, Mr. Collins.” He started to go, but the ticker paused.
Sam looked up and smiled. “Jay Blue told me about saddle-breaking the Steel Dust Gray.”
Skeeter threw his chest out a little. “It was sure somethin’, Mr. Collins.”
“Sounded like it. Were you there?”
The ticker took off again like a branch against a window pane on a stormy night.
Skeeter’s mouth was hanging open and his breath seemed stuck in his throat in a way that made him feel that he was going to vomit up that piece of raw steak. Was I there? I did half the riding! “You might say I helped,” he answered. He wasn’t sure if Sam even hea
rd him, for the blunt pencil stub was back to scratching marks on paper.
He stepped out of the doorway and quietly shut the latch. He trudged across the street, and happened to see lightning in the northwest. A cold night was coming. There’d be rain, maybe sleet.
As he stepped up on the boardwalk, he heard banjo and guitar strings plucking random notes, and a bow testing the tuning of a fiddle. Then Captain Hank Tomlinson’s voice rose above the others:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the man who rode the Steel Dust Gray! Jason Blumenthal Tomlinson!”
A great roar of cheering voices and applause seemed apt to blast the swinging doors outward as it burst from the saloon. Skeeter stepped up to the doors and peered in over them. Jay Blue was sitting on a table with a banjo in his lap. His father stood to one side, Jubal Hayes to the other. As the cheer died down, Jay Blue lit into a rollicking breakdown on the banjo, and the other pickers quickly piled in with him. What was left of the applause organized itself into a steady beat as listeners clapped along and stomped their feet.
As Jay Blue played full-tilt on the banjo, he kept his eye on that pretty girl, Jane. She finally looked up at him and smiled, though she also rolled her eyes as if that would discourage him.
Well, danged if it didn’t look like a load of fun being a Tomlinson right now! Jay Blue hadn’t been in such an all-fired hurry to get to town to meet with his daddy. He wanted to spark with that girl. That was the one thing on his mind. And, in the process, he had stabbed his old buddy, Skeeter, right between the shoulder blades and taken all the credit for breaking El Grullo.
“Where the hell were you?”
The gruff voice startled Skeeter so that he whirled, wild-eyed, and found Jack Brennan looming behind him.
“What do you mean?” His heart was pounding at the start the voice had given him. Brennan must have been standing at the hitching rail all along, watching.
“When your amigo broke that stallion.”
“I did half the ridin’. It just so happens Jay Blue was on him when he finally quit buckin’. Hell, I was the one who put the first rope on him a couple of weeks ago.”
Brennan grunted. “You don’t get a whole lot of credit around here unless your name is Tomlinson, do you?”
Skeeter shrugged.
“Well, let’s go in anyway. I’ll buy you a beer.”
All the men in the band looked up when he walked in with Jack Brennan, but the rest of the eyes in the saloon remained trained on the musicians. The Tomlinsons seemed a little puzzled to see him in company with Brennan, but Skeeter just ignored them and angled to the bar.
“A couple of beers,” Brennan said to Harry, the bartender.
Skeeter waited for his mug and took it, nodding his thanks at Brennan. He gulped about a third of it—that was the only way he could stand to drink the stuff. When he turned back around, he saw that the Tomlinsons had already forgotten about him. They were watching Gotch Dunnsworth clog furiously on the pine flooring. Jay Blue was only watching with one eye, because the other one stayed glued to Jane Catlett’s ass like a fly on a big, round horse’s butt.
Good God, he looks ridiculous. He can play the snot out of the banjo, but that ain’t enough, is it?
“To hell with them,” Jack Brennan said.
“Huh?”
“All high and mighty. You ought to come work for me, kid.”
Skeeter took another gulp of beer. “I’ve got a good job.”
“That’s all you’ll ever have there is a job. You’re a hired hand. You think they’ll cut you in on their pie?”
“I ain’t worried about it.” He downed the rest of the beer and handed the mug to Harry.
“You might be straw boss some day, but that’s the best you can hope for. You’ll never move out of that bunkhouse.”
“I ain’t got much choice.”
“You ain’t listenin’. I’m givin’ you a choice. I don’t offer a job to just anybody, and it’s a one-time offer, so you better think about it. You come work for me, and I’ll guarantee you more than a wage. All my hands have a stake in the operation.”
Skeeter felt bloated with all sorts of pressure. He belched, and that helped a little. He took the refilled mug Harry had slid to him on the bar. “I never worked anywhere else.”
“And you never will if you don’t take my offer.”
“I don’t know, Mr. Brennan.”
“Listen. Tomorrow, while these Tomlinsons are doing whatever they do—struttin’ around pattin’ each other on the back most likely—you ride out to my place. I want to talk to you about it. It ain’t just the job, either. There’s somethin’ else.”
“What else?”
“Come out mañana and I’ll tell you.”
Skeeter shook his head. “That’s a long way to ride.”
“Listen, kid. I know somethin’ I should have told you a long time ago.”
Now Skeeter looked up at the big man’s face. “About what?”
“I know who your daddy is.”
“Who?” Skeeter demanded.
“Goddamn it, I can’t tell you here. I hate music. I can’t stand to listen to these sons of bitches make that racket. Only came for a game of poker. Think I’ll ride out to the Mexican whorehouse instead. You want to go?”
Skeeter shook his head. “This is supposed to be my celebration.”
Brennan threw a coin on the bar. “They didn’t ask you into the middle of it, did they? Suckin’ hind tit, as usual, aren’t you?” He stepped away from the bar.
“But, Mr. Brennan, I got a right to know.”
“Ride out to my ranch tomorrow. We can talk there.”
“But . . .”
The big man stomped off toward the swinging doors, leaving Skeeter’s head swimming with all sorts of thoughts, good and terrible. Nobody had ever told him anything about who his father was. And Mr. Brennan had said, “I know who your daddy is,” not was,as if his father might still be alive. Nobody had ever offered him a job, either. Not just a job, but a stake in the outfit.
He took another gulp of beer. This second mug didn’t taste as bad as the first one. The trio had finished playing whatever that first song was, and Jubal Hayes had lit into a lively rendition of something else—one of those fiddle standards, maybe “Whiskey for Breakfast” or “Hell Among the Yearlings.” They all sounded alike to Skeeter.
He stood there, an outcast at his own celebration. Over the rim of the beer mug, Skeeter saw Sam Collins step into the saloon with a handful of Western Union telegram slips in his right hand. The hat and wool coat he wore glistened with raindrops and sleet. The norther had struck. Skeeter thanked God that he wasn’t still out there sleeping on the ground tonight. Sam waited at the door until Captain Tomlinson looked his way, then he waved the telegrams. Skeeter saw the captain return the wave with a jut of his bearded chin, but he had never known Hank Tomlinson to quit playing right in the middle of a song. Sam tilted his head toward the bar.
“Beer, Harry,” Sam said, stepping up next to Skeeter and giving him a familiar jab with his elbow.
“What have you got there, Mr. Collins?” Skeeter asked.
“Telegrams for the captain.”
“What do they say?”
“You know I can’t tell you that, Skeeter.”
“Oh, yeah.”
Sam got his beer about the time the song ended, so he started across the room with his mug in one hand and Hank’s telegrams in the other. Skeeter chugged his brew and found Harry already had another waiting for him. He grabbed it and followed Sam, intent on insinuating himself into the middle of the celebration whether they wanted him there or not. Captain Tomlinson was leaning his guitar against the wall.
After two songs, the crowd inside the saloon had deigned to forgive the weird appearance of the fiddler, Jubal Hayes, and someone shouted out, “Bear Creek Hop!” Jubal knew that one, so he began sawing away, with Jay Blue accompanying on the banjo while he cast his lustful eyes on Jane. Sam handed the telegrams to the captai
n.
“What have we got to work with?” Captain Tomlinson asked, feeling his vest pocket for spectacles that weren’t there.
Sam shrugged. “I was writing too fast to take it all in, but I think there are a couple of leads in there.”
Skeeter sensed that the captain was torn between looking through the telegrams and picking his guitar back up. He gathered that the telegrams were about the murder of Wes James. In all the excitement about Steel Dust, he had almost forgotten about all that. The recollection of it shook him. He started thinking about the dead man, and the probability that the Wolf was going to lead a revenge raid back to these parts. It looked like recovering that Thoroughbred and breaking Steel Dust had not solved all his problems, and in fact had quite possibly led to new ones. He took a deep pull from his third mug of beer. He guessed life would just always be this way.
“Well,” Hank finally said, “it’s time to celebrate right now. I don’t have my glasses with me anyway. I’ll look these over in the morning.” He picked up his guitar and somehow, with the magical know-how of musicians, jumped into the exact right part of the song.
Gotch Dunnsworth had caught his breath from his previous jig-dancing episode. He threw a shot of whiskey back and offered his hand to Luz, who had been sitting near Jubal the whole time, clapping her hands, watching her man fiddle. She looked at Jubal for approval, and he nodded. Gotch grabbed her by both hands and started circling, then switched to a hook-in-wing and some other square dance moves he invented on the spot. The whiskey seemed to be kicking in, and Gotch’s antics began to whirl out of control as the crowd egged him on. He grabbed Luz’s hand and spun her like a pirouetting ballerina, but in the process he lost his own balance and stumbled hard onto a table holding the open fiddle case.
A Tale Out of Luck Page 17