by R. Kent
At the side of the livery, the first pen held scrub cattle. Five rangy branded steers, two Longhorn cross heifers, and seven unmarked bulls. These would make for a fine beef stew, but a milk cow was different.
I jumped the rails into the next holding pen. All but two animals scurried away.
“How about that brown cow?” I asked as Justice rounded the corner.
Shed of his leather blacksmith’s apron, he tucked his fingers into the waistband of his woolen trousers, causing the suspenders to strain. A smile twinkled in his eyes. “The young man knows his cattle.” He clasped my shoulder in his meaty hand. “She has that calf at her side. Too young to be weaned. And she is bred back, pure. Are you selling the sorrel?”
No. I wasn’t. I crawled from the pens. I didn’t want to.
The two colts stood together at the hitch rail. I stroked the sorrel’s forehead, then leaned my head to his. I didn’t want to. My sorrel pressed into me and reached for my hide shirt, nuzzling it with his upper lip. “Winter’s coming,” I whispered. “You would have better feed. Probably oats.” Was I trying to convince him or myself?
I hadn’t wanted to let the sorrel go. I was sure we had a future together. And that’s the sound of a little White girl whining.
I stood up like a man and plucked the leads from the rail.
Both colts. I led both into the barn, to a box stall. A twinge of regret tugged at my heart as I pulled the halter over the sorrel’s delicate ears after sliding the neck rope from the sturdy bay.
That cow and heifer calf were worth more than just the bay, for a fact. I had no choice but to trade my sorrel too.
“I’m prepared to give you the difference in coin,” Justice unstrung a purse of coins from a thong around his neck. The supple hide pouch jingled with weight.
“Son, stay out of the Watering Hole,” he said, handing over several shiny coins. “That’s no place for homesteaders. Getting prone to drunkenness will cost you everything and more. Might cost you your life.” Justice leaned in with seriousness, thumping at my chest with his first knuckle. “Listen to me. Jack McKade wants to be king. He is filled with the blackest of evil. He is bent on taking everything from everyone. Don’t get tangled in debt to him. Nothing short of death will stop him from taking away all that you love and live for.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.” I pushed my hat off of my forehead. “King McKade. It does have a ring.”
“King McKade,” he chuckled. “It does have a ring at that.”
Justice seemed familiar. Maybe not in looks, but in the way he moved, his intensity and his expressive eyebrows. He walked on the balls of his feet with his arms swinging loose, not befitting his massive muscling. I jounced the fistful of coins before stuffing them in my pocket. My eyes drifted to the sorrel. The bay was happily munching at hay, but my sorrel watched me intently.
“One more thing. Something you can use if you have a mind to bring me more horses in the spring.” He jerked a tarpaulin from a clean, oiled saddle. The seat was smaller than usual. The craftsmanship was exquisite. Each hand stitch was perfect to the next. It had basket weave tooling over the doubled skirting. The seat and stirrup leathers were made with rough out for horse-breakin’. And a four-inch post horn was meaty enough to safely dally skittish youngsters. In a nutshell, it was a dream.
“I can’t,” I said, running my fingertips over the leather. I really couldn’t. That calf had cost me dearly. I hadn’t counted on her expense. The saddle was worth more than what I had left. And I didn’t fancy owing anybody anything.
I tapped at the coins in my pocket.
“I can’t,” I replied. I drew the canvas back over the top of the buckaroo saddle.
“It’s a gift. You’re slight, like my boy was.” He tossed the tarpaulin to the floor. “It was my son’s. He was still too young when he took off adventuring after his uncle. He never came back.”
The calf followed loose at her dam’s heels as I led the cow down the middle of Main Street. The prized saddle was hefted over my shoulder. I think I strutted a little. I know I got to Percival’s Merchantile before my feet wanted to stop parading.
Sahara stood on the boardwalk looking like a serious homesteader. She was engulfed in a boy’s blanket-lined coat. Wellington pull-on boots peeked from beneath her skirts. “What is that?” she asked, swaying onto the balls of her feet and bouncing.
“It’s a Jersey milk cow.” I bowed, sweeping my arm in presentation of the bovine. “And her calf.” I tied the cow to the hitching post and swung my new saddle onto Charlie Horse, who didn’t look pleased—but with what now? Me? The saddle? Or the cow?
The cow was quiet enough to milk. I wouldn’t find any better bred either. A purebred Jersey. She had belonged to a gold digger and his family. The wife traded for passage on a stage out of Molasses Pond. Jack McKade had set the miner off his claim by calling in a hefty whiskey debt. There was nothing left except for returning back East, empty-handed.
I hopped onto the board walkway then carried the waiting baled pelts inside the mercantile to stack them on the counter. Sahara disappeared.
The store was stuffed to the ceiling with trade goods. I had to squeeze sideways at the counter to allow the clerk by. As he climbed behind his center of business, I discreetly poked at my crotch to adjust the load. It had shifted, threatening to fall down one leg.
“She’s been out back with my boys,” the clerk said. “Your wife. She’s good with children. They took right to her.” The clerk riffled through the beaver skins. “Always a pleasure to buy your pelts, Mr. Austin. They bring a high price back East.” He was a small, twitchy guy with round, wire-rimmed glasses and a bow tie.
“I’d like to get Sahara that coat and the boots.” I only hoped there would still be enough money for salt and bullets.
The clerk giggled in his throat. “She’s bought herself the coat and boots. In fact, all of these packages are hers. I sent a boy to fetch a buggy to deliver them out to your homestead.”
Fortunately, he was scratching tallies on a sheet of paper and didn’t see me grab the edge of the counter to steady myself.
I pulled at the silk neckerchief that felt as if it was intent on choking me. I patted at the coins in my pocket. There were too few.
“Anything I can get for you?”
I waved my hand over Sahara’s packages. “Maybe you ought to get me the bill.” If there was a bench, I would have sunk onto it.
“No. You don’t understand. It’s already paid for.” He giggled again.
I wasn’t finding the happy yet.
Outside, gray bloated clouds were moving overhead to darken the afternoon.
“Storm’s coming,” the clerk said, noticing my gaze.
Sahara must have traded the necklace I gave her. That hurt somehow. I rubbed at a tightness in my chest. The necklace was hers. She could do with it what she wanted to.
“The usual then? Salt, beans, and bullets?”
“That’ll do.” I waved him off. Deep in thought, I wandered out the door.
“Now that you brought the bride to town, she can stay with Rose.” Seth settled against the wooden facade, blocking me from retreating back inside.
At his threatening tone, my hand automatically moved to the antler grips of my gun.
“Give him a reason, breed,” Seth taunted me.
I heard a revolver’s hammer ratchet behind me. Jeb was there, fully cocking his gun.
“We want the bride. She’s ours. Bought and paid for.” He inspected his fingernails. Against his nature, the nails were clean and manicured.
“I’d been wondering when we’d have this conversation,” I said. “You’re not having her. She’s not yours to have.”
“You had your little fun.” His eyes slithered to my crotch. “She’s not yours to keep.” Yellowed teeth, with tobacco rooted between them, menaced from his carnivorous grin. “We want our turn. We want our property.”
“She’s mine. I’ve got a paper to prove it.” I folded my arms across my chest,
staying far away from any misgiving that I’d stray a hand to my gun. “My advice? Get your own.”
“We can’t,” Jeb said from behind me. “The Agency done some checking. Besides, McKade said you’d make good on her. McKade has it all worked out.” He prodded my ribs with the snout of his hogleg.
Sahara flew through the door, passing Seth as he continued to loiter against the wall. Her arms were crossed low in front, holding a hidden bundle. She looked to be in a family way.
I saw the bulk she cradled move.
One click. The gun that was pointed at my back disarmed. Its fat cylinder chafed a dry leather holster as it was dropped in.
Seth stood from shouldering the mercantile’s wall. “Ma’am,” he said, pulling at the brim of his hat with two fingers. Indecision raced across his face. His bluster faltered. Seth jerked his head in signaling to Jeb.
Booted feet behind me shuffled over the walk. The boards creaked and complained from Jeb’s slovenly weight. With a splash of mud, I knew he had gone.
Seth hopped into the muck, skipping quickly toward the Watering Hole as if he were a high society city girl with juicy gossip to spread.
“I have something for you,” Sahara said. Her face was split by the largest grin I had ever seen on a person. Pearly, straight teeth gleamed, exposing an adorable gap between the front two.
“I couldn’t wait any longer,” she said, dancing in place on her toes. Delight sparkled in her eyes. “Open it. Open my coat.” Sahara jiggled and jumped.
It was difficult for me to get a firm grasp on the wiggling target. When I did, a squirmy, warm ball of fuzz popped out.
I held the pup in the air. Its pudgy body dangled. Legs paddled.
“She’s going to be blue. I know she doesn’t look it yet. Still too much white. But she’ll be blue. With those black patches on either side of her head. And red legs. Isn’t she beautiful?” Sahara clapped her hands together. Her face had softened with a wistful, dreamy look. “Quick, keep her warm. Stuff her in your coat.”
“I…I can’t,” I said, trying to hand the wiggling puppy over. I couldn’t afford a pup. Besides, a cattle dog could eat as much as a small person. Winter was coming.
“Yes, you can.” Sahara stepped forward, ripped at the buttons on my heavy short coat, and shoved the young pup inside.
The animal’s head poked out at the top. She licked my chin.
Sahara gave me a quick peck on the cheek.
My face flushed.
“Uh, Mrs. Sahara. Your change.”
She turned to the clerk accepting several coins from his hand and squirreling them into her pouch purse.
The necklace. The money had to have come from the necklace. And there were so many reasons I wished she had not traded it away. Wasn’t it good enough? Did it lack the refinement of White ways? I was sore at Sahara Miller.
“The buggy will be right around. Perhaps you’ll be more comfortable riding in it with your supplies?”
“Why yes, thank you,” Sahara said.
The clerk turned to me. “Austin, I have a total for you. Would you like the remainder on account or may we get you something else today?” He oozed too much cheer from his ear-to-ear smile.
“Just the bullets, beans, and salt. The rest on account.”
Sahara was chauffeured home in a fringe-topped buggy. The puppy slept curled in a ball on her lap. The calf was securely hog-tied behind the seat. And string tied, wrapped packages mounded in the boot, on the seat, and around the calf.
Rain fell from the sky. It was shaping up to be the wettest fall Arizona had ever seen. I tucked my coat collar up and pulled my hat down as I rode Charlie Horse under my new saddle. He was content with the slow pace of leading the gentle cow as she followed her carted calf.
Not used to the saddle, but quite taken with it, I shifted my buttocks around, attempting to find a comfortable position. I’d been wondering on a lot of things on the ride home.
I’d been wondering on Sahara Miller, mail ordered bride.
Chapter Six
“What did Seth mean by calling you ‘breed’?” Sahara asked. “You aren’t half—”
Without another word, I walked Charlie Horse and the cattle to the overhang. I didn’t need to explain myself to the likes of Sahara Miller, mail ordered bride.
We settled into avoidance. She kept the pup and the hogan. I kept the livestock company beneath the overhang. So yup, nothing changed.
Hunting took me farther and farther away. Game got smaller and smaller. I set snares for rabbits and shot quail. They both tasted like chicken.
The sun was going down. The wind was picking up. It was time to be heading home, when there, descending through scraggly pinion and juniper, was a lone elk. He was thin and scurfy. Not more than three hundred and fifty pounds. With the looks of him, he was a pretentious spike, having overreached and gotten knocked around by a big bull elk.
Patches of dark brown hair were missing from his hide. His right foreleg gimped ever so slightly. I wished I’d seen the cows he’d sniffed after. Or the bull that ran him off. Either would have been a tasty prize. But I was plenty thrilled that the little scraggly buck came along.
Charlie Horse stood stock-still while I quietly teased my gun out of its holster. A .45-caliber bullet from a handgun was an iffy kill shot at this distance.
There was no way to get closer. If the spike spooked, I’d have trouble running him down over the rough country, even with his limp.
I didn’t take aim. I fired from my hip. My gun was a part of me, as much as my arm and my hand were. I always hit what I pointed at.
The bullet deflected off his thick skull. The spike bobbed his head like a bug had taunted him. He quietly turned to leave.
Then, he dropped.
Dead.
A second later, a boom like thunder tore through the air. It was the sound of a Hawken.
“Os-ten.” TwoFeathers emerged from a stand of prickly pear cactus more than a hundred yards to my right.
He was painted for war.
“This is Apache land. You must leave.” TwoFeathers punched the air with his fist wrapped around the Hawken buffalo rifle. A feather fluttered at the end of the barrel. The stock garnered streaks of red paint.
I swung my leg over the saddle and stepped from Charlie Horse. “I have always been brother to the Apache.”
TwoFeathers’s face was half colored as usual. Bright yellow smeared over his bronze skin. Two thin black lines were added through the middle of his forehead, down his nose, and splitting his chin. Two matching lines slashed high across his bare cheek. There was a dot at the edge of each eye.
TwoFeathers eviscerated the young elk before I wandered Charlie Horse toward him.
“Os-ten must fight. Or Os-ten will be killed. You could come. Would make an Apache warrior. Better than getting killed. Come.”
“I can’t.” There was a time I would have joined the Apaches. I would have fought at TwoFeathers’s side against Whites. But I shook my head.
He stood. “You could come. Fight the White enemy.” His voice held a mixture of resignation and anger.
There was something he wasn’t saying. I knew him too well not to notice his rigid stance and flickering glances. There was something TwoFeathers knew that he wasn’t telling me.
“White man is the same. Our enemy is the same.”
Maybe he was telling me. I shrugged in frustration. “I cannot be an Apache warrior.”
“Mm. Woman.” He waved the air like shooing flies on a hot, lazy day.
I’m no woman. I fished a hand ax from my old pair of worn saddlebags. Leaving Charlie Horse with TwoFeathers, I stomped off to cut a pair of poles for a drag. My strikes were harder than they had to be. The ax stuck so I had trouble prying it loose each stroke. Woman? Chips flew. Several struck me in the face, nipping at my cheeks. Their bites fueled my anger. Woman? I slapped at the saplings with a steel edge. I’m no woman. My job was done yet I still wanted to whale into the wood.
; I panted, letting the ax fall from my hand. Or did he know about Sahara?
When I returned with two saplings, TwoFeathers was gone.
I rode to the hogan. There, I dropped the shafts of the travois from Charlie Horse and dismounted. I stroked his neck and scratched his chest, thanking him for his work. Without the horse, we’d starve.
I shucked his bridle and loosened the saddle’s cinch a notch before tying him with a neck rope. A slit burlap sack of scrub feed, hung in front of him, would keep him quiet. We were both bone tired.
There was still much work to be done. I hauled the eviscerated elk to thunk in a heap at the hogan’s door, then kicked a moccasin covered foot at the wooden blockade.
When the door opened, I pushed through to dump the carcass in front of the fire. The flames were burning hot, and the stew I had smelled earlier this morning was bubbling with mouthwatering chunks of meat and potatoes. It would have to wait.
I shook from my coat like a dog shaking off water, then pounced on the carcass, liberating its hide. The meat needed to be cut and smoked or salted. Just like under the overhang, bigger chunks would dangle over the fire to smoke throughout the night. Strips could be cooked dry for jerky. And the remaining bulk would get salted and packed in tight bundles.
In rendering the carcass at the hogan, I was hoping for a second pair of helping hands.
Gelled blood oozed over the sod floor. The pup nosed in it. I cut a sinewy tendon from the rear leg and tempted her with that instead.
“Navajo,” I said, surprised at hearing my brusque voice echo off the walls. I thought of TwoFeathers. I thought of The People…of all of the Nations. They were making their last stand. TwoFeathers stood as an Apache. A man had to stand for something.
Trouble was, I stayed out of everything. I was afraid. Who I was—what I was. My guns couldn’t protect me.
Sahara looked at me with overly wide eyes. She wrung her hands until they glowed red.
“I am Navajo. Of The Dineh. Of The People. I was born White. But I was raised Navajo.” I drove the tip of my knife deep into a haunch, working to sever the hip joint.
“The White soldiers came. They killed the sheep, the horses, the dogs, and burned our hogans.” They killed old men, women, and many of us children. There were no warriors. No one fought against them. There weren’t any weapons to fight with.