by A. J. Arnold
They moved around the barn to the pasture and enclosure behind. Dobbins gestured at the sorry gelding.
“That’s him, along with some other possibilities right here in the corral.”
Diamond saw two connected corrals, the smaller being made of two-inch planks with a snubbing post in the center.
“Looks like not all the horses you handle were broke,” he observed.
Tom Dobbins shrugged and spread his hands out. “If you trade regular, you’re bound to get some unruly ones. Tell you what. We’ll run the whole bunch into the smaller corral. Then just shake out your rope and dab it onto whatever takes your eye. Look ’em all over good, and if you find one you like, we’ll see if we can work out an agreement.”
Diamond led the mouse-brown. He wrapped her reins around the corner post and took down the leather lariat he’d gotten so long ago in San Antonio.
The horse trader studied over the braided lasso and said, “I’ve heard about them Mexican riatas, but I’ve never seen one before. You like it better than hemp?”
Diamond let go of a lengthy sigh. He recalled all the hard hours along the trail from San Antonio. The bone-biting winter months of trying, alone, to take care of Henry Blough’s stock. The sore muscles from making throw after throw.
He looked at Tom Dobbins and answered quietly, “Yeah, I like it. It’s all I’ll ever use.”
Then, sliding through the bars, Diamond made a short underhand motion and dropped the loop over the head of a short-legged paint. The stocky little mare followed the pull on the rope and came right up to him without hesitation.
He took a good look. She was well-mannered, all right, he reckoned. But she lacked the depth of chest necessary for staying power. Too bad for him, but she’d make a good ladies’ horse.
Next his loop settled over a large, well-proportioned Appaloosa. Diamond knew this animal was used to men. As he inspected it, he thought it was almost too good to be true. Dobbins called it his top cutting horse, and Diamond believed him. Then the trader stated his price. Speechless, Diamond put the Appaloosa back in the big corral without even trying his saddle on it.
On the far side was a buckskin that had always managed to keep another horse between himself and the strange man with the rope. Diamond decided he wanted a closer look at that one. After several tries, he got the animal away from the rest. Just as he let the loop go, the powerful stud ducked his head and shifted off to the side.
Diamond already knew this wasn’t the horse he wanted. But on the other hand, he’d be damned if that buckskin was going to best him. Luck went against him the first three times, but on the fourth, the stud veered into the loop and Diamond hauled him in. He stood quietly enough to be saddled, but his would-be rider wasn’t fooled. As Diamond pulled the saddle cinch up, the black mane danced.
The buckskin swung his head, teeth bared, reaching for the stranger’s middle. Without letting go of the cinch strap, Diamond drove his fist into its muzzle, then gave the strap a sharp tug and fastened it. The mount was calm again. Quiet before the storm, Diamond figured. A storm like that would mostlike burst as soon as he hit the saddle.
He wasn’t wrong, he barely had time to find the right stirrup. With the first jump he nearly lost his seat. Before the next leap Diamond managed to ram both spurs into the cinch and ride out the whirlwind. Once the horse sunfished two or three times, he got the kinks out of his system. His back straightened out and he proved to be well trained, after all. Easy to ride.
Diamond had enjoyed the struggle. But then, he reasoned, he might not always have time every morning to prove who was master. He turned the stud loose, dropping his loop over the head of a hammer-headed dun.
Immediately, he wished he hadn’t. The broomtail hit the end of Diamond’s rope going away. The only thing that saved him the embarrassment of losing his end of the riata was the smallness of the corral and the snubbing post in the center.
When he got in close, the dun rolled its eyes and quivered with fright. Diamond pulled the loop over its ugly head, relieved to be free of that one.
He leaned on the fence and said to the trader, “That only leaves the sorrel, and he must be older than I am.”
Diamond felt almost sure that the young breed, O’Malley, had been trying to help Tom Dobbins get rid of a ringer.
He added, “And the chestnut has plain got too much of his bones showing through his skin.”
“Well, of course, it’s your decision,” the horse trader said. “But you’ll make a mistake if you don’t look harder at that gelding. He’s the most hoss for the money I’ve had in some time.”
Diamond stood in silence a long space. “All right, Mr. Dobbins,” he agreed. “Guess a look-see couldn’t hurt me none.”
As he crossed toward the geld, the horse stood still. The rest of the animals shied away to both sides of the corral. Diamond stopped, slowly reaching out a hand, and the chestnut thrust his nose forward to smell it. Despite the sharp boniness of the gelding’s head, Diamond noticed its broad black nostrils close together, a blaze up the nose, large lively eyes set wide apart.
The forehead was broad, with short ears now angled forward to give a questioning look to the whole face. Damn’ fool cayuse almost looked intelligent, Diamond thought, begrudgingly. Its neck was long, the shoulders strong. The depth of its chest spoke of stamina, yet Diamond could count every rib.
The animal stood close to sixteen hands high on straight legs. Diamond had to admit, this time not so begrudgingly, that the geld was built well in all the important places—all but its overlean flanks, which nearly hurt Diamond as he watched the horse breathe.
Diamond returned to the chestnut’s head and looked it in the eye. The friendly gelding rubbed its head first against Diamond’s chest, then in his beard, snorting. Diamond turned and started across to the gate where Dobbins waited, looking back over his shoulder.
The animal watched, flicking its ears, waiting to be called.
“Oh, OK, hoss, you win,” Diamond laughed. “Come on.”
When he reached Tom Dobbins, the geld was right at his shoulder—two chestnut heads, near the selfsame color, moving together.
“I’m ready to talk trade,” Diamond declared. “But I got to warn you, I don’t have much money.”
The horse trader’s smile looked genuine. “For a mount in that shape, you won’t need much.”
Diamond still thought to use care in the bargain. “I couldn’t take him out on the range ’til he had a new set of shoes.”
“Tell you what,” Dobbins said. “I’ll lay my cards on the table. I need a well-mannered mount for a lady. That’s why I got the paint, only the lady in question turned her down. So I’ll let my wife keep the paint mare, but your grulla might do for the other lady. Let me saddle her, ride her back to the store. You ride the chestnut, and we’ll talk trade along the way.”
Chapter Fourteen
It was ten o’clock at night. Well past closing time for Dobbins’s Hardware, when Diamond finally walked out the front door with a bill of sale for the chestnut folded in his pocket. He walked up to the hitchrail and rubbed his new horse behind the ears.
“Well, fella, you sure look like an old bag of bones. But I’ll wager in three or four months with me, you’ll fill out and be a damned good hoss.”
Diamond backed up a step and made a quick, critical survey.
“Come to look at you again, I’ll bet you always will be raw-boned. Guess I got to name you Bonaparte, and call you Bones for short.”
The geld nickered, pushing the soft velvet of its nose into Diamond’s beard.
“OK, Bones. Let me stop for a quick beer or two. Then we’ll go out to my camp and I’ll clean you up.”
He pulled the strap from the tierail and started down toward the saloon at the end of the street. Noticing that Bones didn’t follow, but instead walked right beside him, he knew this horse was a partner. Not a servant like the little grulla had always been, but a real partner.
Minutes later, D
iamond was leaning against the mahogany with a mug of half-warm beer in his hand. As he looked at his own reflection in the mirror behind the bar, it was clear how much he’d changed. He felt that if he had some kind of mirror at his camp, he’d try trimming his beard into some kind of decent order. But he knew he couldn’t shave it off for years and years.
A few words of somebody’s conversation drifted over to Diamond, piquing his curiosity. His eyes squinted into the glass as he looked for the speaker. He saw two men dressed in range clothes sitting at a table. What was there about that pair? he wondered.
Diamond turned to face their table just as the one on the right said, “Yes, but that was back in Santone.”
The Southern drawl flashed an idea into his head. When the other man answered in a short, clipped, Bostonian voice, he was sure. He ordered another beer, took it, and walked over to them.
“Pardon me,” he said with a slight smile. “I see there’s an extra chair at this table. Like to join you, if I may. You gentlemen once got me out of a tight spot, and now I’d like to thank you.”
Diamond stood waiting while the two he’d often thought of as South and New England John looked him over at length.
Finally the taller and tanned one said, “Well, now, I can’t place you. And that’s odd, seeing as how you claim I did you a favor.”
But a friendly-looking crinkle formed at the corners of his brown eyes. “Still, I reckon you’re welcome to that there chair, at any rate.”
Diamond sat. “My name’s not what’s important. It was in San Antonio, the Mexican bar where I tried to down an outlaw named Red Pierce. You two got me out of there and away from town before Pierce got around to me.”
A look he couldn’t decode passed from South to John. Diamond paused, frowning his confusion. When he got no kind of answer, he continued.
“At the time, I was hot for Pierce to come to, so’s I could have another go at him. But now I’m sure he’d have gunned me down, just like he did my pa. These days, if I was to meet him, I’d for sure handle him a lot better.”
South answered, his manner and tone strangely apologetic. “Well, it’s odd we should see you. One or the other of us has talked about you a goodly lot.”
He seemed to want to change the subject, fast.
“You know, you ain’t the wet-behind-the-ears kid I recall. Don’t rightly think I would have known you.”
New England John took up where his friend left off. It seemed like they were trying to avoid something, to Diamond’s thinking.
“Yes, quite different,” John agreed. “I believe it’s more than just the beard. Your eyes have a different look. They show a maturity that wasn’t evident in Santone.”
His speech pattern served to make Diamond all the more alert. What could it be they didn’t want to talk about? Something to do with Red Pierce? If so, he sure as hell wanted to find out.
He tried a humble tack. “I’d still like to thank the both of you. I was all set for revenge, for sure. Like you said, wet behind the ears. I’m sure now I’d never have stood a chance against Pierce that day.”
“Yes,” South agreed. “That’s why we acted like we did. Let’s see, it couldn’t have been that long ago, could it? Not even a full year, if memory serves me. John’s right. For the short time, the change in you is remarkable. Still, it ain’t so uncommon. Boys become men fast, if they survive at all, in this lawless country.”
Diamond sighed, exasperated. “Look, just tell me what happened when Pierce woke up. Did he spend time lookin’ for me?”
New England John shrugged, that mask of annoying, cold indifference settling over his face.
Watching his partner, South said with resignation, “I guess the dirty work’s left to me, like always.”
He turned to Diamond with a weak, placating smile.
“You see, friend, it’s this way. You don’t owe us any thanks. In fact, it might be just the opposite.”
Diamond stared a burning question as South hastily continued.
“We were wrong that day in Santone. You didn’t need to run. Your friend Pierce was so well-loved that nobody was in a hurry to help him. His wound bled more than anybody realized, because it kept soaking into the sawdust under him where you couldn’t see it. Then, well, he just died from the blood loss.”
Diamond’s jaw dropped as the meaning of South’s words dawned on him. He exploded, jumping to his feet as his chair fell backwards with a crash. His hand moved to the butt of his sixgun.
“Calm down,” John’s precise voice urged.
“He deserved to die. You set out to do the job, so why be upset now? And as to who really did him in—I believe that those of us who refused to help him were more guilty than you.”
The pinched lines on Diamond’s face were drawn in distress and defeat. He leaned on the table for balance, letting his half-drawn gun slide back into leather. His voice was guttural from lack of breath.
“No, no, it’s not the same at all. Because I never avenged Pa’s death clean, and now I can’t. And, oh, God, if you could know all I’ve been through over a damned stupid mistake!”
Suddenly intense with cold fury, Diamond straightened his shoulders and walked out into the night.
The sun finally got a good hold on the horizon and pulled itself up to where it could brighten and warm the camp. Diamond drained his coffee tin and went to bring in his new gelding.
As his hands worked with a curry comb and brush, his mind worked to try to make some sense of his life. He thought over what he’d learned last night as well as everything that had happened to him. Every decision he’d made since he left Gerald Hamm’s house.
He knew it would be easy to blame it all on circumstance. That way he could absolve himself of any fault. But if he looked at it square, really tried to be a good man, he could see that each thing was a direct result of one or more of his own actions.
Most of the time a fellow had very little idea where his decisions would take him, Diamond thought. Still, he could see where a little firmness at a few points along the way could have changed the course of his life. He wasn’t not acting so much as he was allowing circumstances to decide what action he’d take.
Mid-morning came, and with it, Diamond’s sense of peace. Time to deliver Bones to the blacksmith as part of last night’s deal with the trader, Tom Dobbins. After that, he started out to see if he could find an eatery that would serve him a full meal at an in-between hour.
He was walking along the street when he suddenly froze. Nancy Blough, coming out of Dobbins’s hardware! A vague, cloudy memory floated before his eyes—a stagecoach in a swirl of dust, a familiar dark and vivacious profile alighting. Swearing under his breath, Diamond shook free of the image. Best to turn back the way he’d just been. Maybe she’d go into another store or something, she couldn’t possibly have recognized him.
“Buck, Buck!” she called.
Oh, God, now what? He didn’t want to respond, or have to answer to that name ever again. Maybe if he just kept walking—
“Buck, wait. Please. Buck?”
Her voice had the power to turn him around against his will.
Diamond steeled himself as he said, “Mrs. Blough, I thought nobody’d know me here in Garden City. A strange town, you know? I thought I’d be safe.”
Nancy stopped within arms’ reach, studying his face. “I’m hardly sure I do know you, Buck. So much hair on your chin. The look in your eyes isn’t the same, either.”
He used a harsh, bitter tone designed to shock and hurt her.
“Just what in hell did you expect? That an innocent ranch hand your husband ordered hanged wouldn’t try and change as much as he could?”
“Buck, please don’t blame me for what Henry did.” Her voice was a quivering bowstring and her brown eyes were molten lava.
“I had nothing to do with that. I’m your friend, and only a friend could have known you. I recognized the slope of your shoulders, the way you move. Nobody else would know you that well.
”
Diamond stared at her, then at his own dirty boots. Damn it, she was just like the first time he’d ever met her. A little less than formal, a little more than some other man’s dutiful, proper wife. Still—
“Do you think we could get off this street?” he heard his gruff voice asking her.
“I mean, if we got to talk, maybe we can go someplace where we won’t be overheard, at least.”
Nancy cleared her throat, but still sounded damnably husky. “We could get some coffee. The hotel restaurant should be empty this time of morning.”
Diamond hesitated, then fell in step beside her. “I guess I could use some chow,” he admitted. “Haven’t eaten as of yet today.”
They went into the Cattlemen’s Rest and sat at a table against the wall of a deserted room. Diamond and the serving man had a brief row about the availability of a full breakfast. The hungry diner prevailed. The man poured the coffee and stomped into the kitchen while Diamond stared Nancy into saying what was on her mind.
She fiddled with the coffee, met his startling blue eyes. She parted her lips, waited, and finally spoke.
“Buck, I never believed you to be guilty of anything at all, much less something that warranted hanging. You must accept my word that I never listened to what they said about you. If you stay out of sight for a while longer, it will all be forgotten.”
Her searching gaze went up and down his face.
“You need a barber to cut your hair and trim your beard. That’s not a criticism. It will aid your mature appearance, and anyone who sees you now will not later describe you as a wild-looking stranger.”
He grunted his agreement, not meeting the concern on her small, round features.
“What will you do now?” Nancy’s tone was gentle. “I remember your telling me about your family, how disappointed you were in them. And about your goal to become independent and successful.”