Biscuit hadn’t worked much since they had been at the Lawdermilk place, a fact which helped offset the indignities to which the menagerie-like atmosphere subjected him. He had established a rapport of sorts with Spring Renfro’s paint, though he clearly considered himself the superior. It took some attention on Hewey’s part to ride along side by side with the teacher. Biscuit wanted to pull ahead to the position that befitted his rank.
Spring said, “I hope you’re making this trip because you want to, and not simply for me. It occurs to me that you may not be feeling well after that dragging you took.”
Hewey knew he felt better now than he would feel tomorrow, after the soreness had time to work to the bone. “I been wantin’ to see the boys.”
“I can understand why. They idolize you.”
He shrugged. “I suppose one of them does.”
“Tommy has always talked about you in school. He thinks you’re without doubt the greatest cowboy who ever lived.”
As long as he believed his uncle’s stories he would probably continue to think that way. But give him a couple more years and he might turn out like Cotton. “How about Cotton … does he ever say much?”
“Cotton’s mind is on other things a long way from home. He’s looking to far horizons.”
“I thought I’d ridden to all there was, but he’s lookin’ past any I’ve ever been to. I suppose I’m too old to understand him.”
“You should understand him better than anyone. People say you’ve always had a way of looking at the distant hills.”
“But when I got there I always felt like I knew where I was.”
“When Cotton reaches his, he’ll know where he is, too. He’s of another generation, Mr. Calloway. More than that, he’s of another century. You can’t hold him back any more than his parents can. Of all people, you should know that and understand.”
“I understand him lookin’ away. I wisht I understood what he’s lookin’ at.”
“You don’t have to. The main thing is that you understand him, and help him. He needs help.”
“He don’t act like it.”
“He has gone as far as this school can take him. I’ve taught him all I have to give. He has to be set free now, or he’ll be tied to this place or another like it all his life.”
“Ain’t no use talkin’ about it. Eve ain’t goin’ to let him go.”
“She should. Perhaps you can help her see that, if you will. Tommy could stay here all his life and be happy, I think. But Cotton has places to go. I hope you’ll find a way to help him.”
Hewey stared at her until she looked away self-consciously. “You’re somethin’ different yourself, Miss Renfro. Not many women around here—or menfolks either—understand how it is with a boy like Cotton, or with an old fiddlefoot like me. Most people are always tryin’ to change us into what they are instead of lettin’ us be what we are.”
Her eyes softened with a memory. “I knew a man once. He was very much like you. He was always looking to the distant hills. When he heard of gold in the Klondike he made the big run. He didn’t find any gold, but it might have ruined things for him if he had. It was the search that always interested him, not the finding. He came back without a dollar to his name. But he was rich with experience, I suppose.”
She fell silent. Hewey gave her some time, then asked, “This feller … were you-all kin?”
“We were going to be. But he hadn’t been home long before the war started in Cuba. He had to go, and I had to let him.”
Hewey sensed the rest of it. “He didn’t come back.”
She shook her head. “A friend sent me a picture of his grave, with a little white cross on it. I carried the picture with me for a long time. I finally decided that was bad for me, so I put it away.”
Hewey pondered. “Did he look anything like me?”
She looked at him a moment. “No.”
He felt relieved. For a minute he had had an uncomfortable feeling she looked upon him as a substitute for someone else. Never in his life had he wanted to be anyone other than Hewey Calloway.
She said, “I guess you know now why I was interested in your having been in Cuba. Tommy has told me about you at San Juan Hill.”
“The boy gets a little enthusiastic, me bein’ his uncle and all. He gets his facts mixed up.”
“I’d like you to tell me the facts sometime.”
“It’s not a thing I enjoy talkin’ about.”
She nodded gravely. “I can understand. But if you ever do feel like telling me, I’ll always feel like listening.”
The first thing he noticed was the black horse standing where the wire gate was supposed to be, providing an opening in the barbed-wire fence that separated Alvin Lawdermilk’s land from Walter Calloway’s. He could see that it was an old horse, standing with head down. It was saddled.
“That’s Boy Rasmussen’s. But where’s the old man at?”
Spring’s lips were tight. She pointed. “There, on the ground.” Her eyes were fearful.
Hewey saw a form stretched out in the green grass. His nerves tingled with alarm. “You better stay back.” He touched spurs lightly to Biscuit’s sides and moved ahead in a long trot. The breeze tugged at the old man’s ragged clothing, fluttering it as if he were a rag doll casually dropped by some careless child’s hand. Biscuit made an uneasy rolling sound in his nose.
Even as Hewey stepped down, before he touched the old man, he sensed that Boy Rasmussen was dead.
The drifter lay on his face. Hewey hesitated a moment, then gently turned the body over. Rasmussen had not been dead long.
Against Hewey’s advice, Spring rode up close. She looked down with eyes wide and anxious. “Did somebody…?”
Hewey shook his head. “No.” His throat was tight. Speaking was painful. “Nobody killed him. He just wore himself out.” The wire gate lay twisted on the ground where Rasmussen had dropped it. “Heart seizure, I reckon. He probably got down to open the gate but never lived to go through it.”
“It’s an awful thing to die all alone.”
Hewey swallowed. “He’d lived alone, most of his life. I expect he’d of wanted to die travelin’.”
“Where do you think he was going?”
Hewey shrugged. “Dodge City. Cheyenne. Laredo. Who knows? He probably didn’t know either.” Unbidden, unexpected, a tear rolled down his cheek.
Sympathetically Spring said, “He must have been an old friend of yours.”
Hewey stared down at the peaceful face. “I never seen him more than two or three times. But I feel like I knew him all my life.”
He knelt awhile, staring. Finally he pushed to his feet, rubbed a hand over his face as if it itched, surreptitiously running a finger across his eyes to wipe them dry, hoping Spring Renfro hadn’t seen.
“Miss Renfro, you’d best go on up to Walter’s house and tell him. He’ll need to fetch a wagon. I’ll stay here and watch that nothin’ bothers the old man.”
“That’s the proper thing,” she agreed. She rode carefully around the body, the paint horse shying a little, then she went through the gate and struck a long trot down the dim wagon road.
The old black horse stood patiently a dozen steps away, the patched old leather reins dragging on the ground. Hewey walked carefully toward the animal, talking softly to avoid boogering him. Sometimes a horse used to just one man was shy and distrustful of strangers. But the old black seemed to welcome him as a friend. Hewey put his arms around the shaggy neck and patted him and told him of his sympathy for the loss of an old companion. It wasn’t the words that counted; it was the tone. The horse nuzzled him a little and thus spoke its own feelings.
Hewey uncinched the saddle and let it slip to the ground, relieving the black of its weight and the binding of the girth. He noted the Meanea, Cheyenne, signature stamped into the leather. The saddle was at least thirty years old, its cantle of the once-popular Cheyenne roll style already old-fashioned when Hewey had been a boy.
“I’d turn you loose over in Walter’s pasture, old feller, but you might not find water. You better stay here awhile with me and Boy.” He had no fear that the old horse would run away, so he didn’t tie him. He went back and sat down cross-legged by the still figure. He studied the sleeping face, wondering where the old man was now. He wondered if he was still an old man, or if in that unseen, mysterious new life to which he had gone he was a young man again. Was he riding the range once more, perhaps taking a herd to Dodge or to the Nations?
Hewey had never spent enough time in churches to know much about conventional preachment. Though he had no doubt whatever of an afterlife—his father and other good people had assured him there was one—he had only the vaguest notion what kind of life it would be. He liked to think heaven was what each person wanted it to be. He could see no future in lying around on a fluffy white cloud and listening to somebody playing on a harp, a picture of heaven he had seen numerous times in one form or another. Even if it was that way, his personal preference would have run more to the fiddle.
To him, heaven ideally should have something of the familiar for each person. He would like to think there would be work to do, but only pleasant work, and no more of it at one time than a man felt like doing. There would be sunshine, but only pleasantly warm, never oppressively hot. There would be rain, but only when a man could sit in the comfort of the bunkhouse and watch it through the open door while he sipped his black coffee and smoked his Bull Durham cigarettes. He would never have to be out in it on horseback, miles from house or chuck wagon, soaked to the skin and chilled to the marrow of his bones. All would be familiar in heaven, and all would be friendly, if he could have it made up to order.
“I reckon you know by now what it’s like,” he said to Boy Rasmussen. “I wisht there was some way you could tell me.”
He stared into the quiet, composed old face. It occurred to him that he saw none of the haunted look, none of the anxiety he had seen that night at Walter’s. He saw only peace.
He thought on that awhile, and he decided the old man probably had told him.
After a long time he heard the rattle of trace chains. He pushed to his feet and turned to meet the wagon. Walter and Eve sat on the seat. Spring and the two boys followed on horseback. All were solemn as they pulled up. Walter stepped stiffly to the ground, took off his hat and looked at Boy Rasmussen in silence. Following his example, the boys self-consciously did likewise.
Walter looked then at Hewey. “You sure there wasn’t no accident? He wasn’t dragged or anything?”
“Nothin’ like that. The Lord just called him, and he went home.”
Eve shuddered. “Knowin’ the life he led, I hate to think of the reception he’s gettin’.”
Hewey lifted the old hat he had used to cover the features. “Eve, just look at that face. They’re treatin’ him gentle.”
Eve said, “He’s a merciful Lord.” She turned and pointed with her chin at the wagon bed. “I brought a quilt to wrap him with.”
Hewey stepped up to fetch it. It was a new quilt, never used. She had spent many a quiet winter’s night piecing it together on a quilting frame. Hewey took a quick glance at his sister-in-law, then looked away so she wouldn’t see the tears come back into his eyes. She might have spoken harshly about Boy Rasmussen when he was living, but at his death she gave him the best she had.
“This is good of you, Eve.”
“He was one of God’s children,” she responded tightly. “It’s for heaven to judge him, not me.”
He spread the blanket in the wagon. Carefully he and Walter lifted Boy into the wagon bed, then folded the blanket over him.
Walter said, “We’d best take him into town. You’ll need to go with me, Hewey, since you’re the one who found him.”
Hewey nodded. The sheriff would want to know the circumstances.
Walter turned to Cotton and Tommy. Both boys had watched with solemn eyes and had not intruded upon the occasion with talk. “You buttons see Miss Renfro back to the Lawdermilks’, then go on home and take care of the chores. Your mama and me, we’ll spend the night in town. We’ll probably put up at the wagonyard. We’ll see to everything that needs to be done for the old man, and we’ll be home by at least tomorrow evenin’.”
Tommy had seen little of death. He gave his uncle a cautious glance. “You reckon it hurt him much to die, Uncle Hewey? Do you reckon it scared him?”
Hewey saw that Cotton was waiting to hear the answer, though he had too much reserve to have asked the question. Hewey gave his response a long and careful study. “For a minute, maybe. We’re all a little scared at somethin’ new. But then, judgin’ by his face, the pain was gone, and the scare too. Death comes to all of us sometime. Old Boy done a lot of ridin’ the last few years, tryin’ to find a place that was really home to him. Well, he’s home now.”
That satisfied Tommy. Cotton looked once more at the quilt-covered form in the wagon, then turned his horse away. Walter spoke to the team, and the wagon started to move. Hewey was about to fall in behind it when Spring Renfro rode up beside him. Her eyes glistened. She reached out and took his hand, holding it for a moment.
She said, “You’re a good man, Hewey Calloway. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.”
* * *
Because Upton City and its surrounding trade territory were sparsely populated, the nearest thing the town had to an undertaker was barber Orville Mulkey. In his small back room, the shades rolled down, fie looked over the body by lamplight with Sheriff Wes Wheeler to certify that there were no marks of violence, bearing friendly witness to Hewey’s testimony.
“I’ll touch up his hair and his beard,” he said, “but it’d be a shame to shave him clean. St. Peter wouldn’t recognize him.”
“Just make him look as good as you can,” Wheeler said. He turned to Hewey and Walter. “You’re real sure you don’t know the names of his kin?”
Walter said with a sense of guilt, “I don’t remember that I ever taken the trouble to ask him. I just know that he’s got a brother somewhere down on the Rio Grande and a sister up on the plains. I ought to’ve taken more interest in him than that. I just never thought about him dyin’ at my gate.”
The sheriff grimaced. “Nothin’ to do, then, but to bury him here. I’ll write a letter to officers in that part of the country to see if they can notify any of his relations.”
“Seems a shame,” Walter said, “for a man to be buried so far away from all kin.”
Hewey put in, “It don’t matter where they’re buried. They’ll all find each other by and by.”
The barber frowned. “I’m afraid I’ve got a practical question for the here and now. Who pays for this?”
The sheriff said, “The county will. There’s nobody else to do it.”
Hewey looked up quickly. “And declare him a pauper? No sir! His friends’ll bury him.”
Wheeler was dubious. “He didn’t have any friends to speak of.”
Hewey said firmly, “I’ll get up a collection. We’ll see how many friends an old cowboy has got.”
Wes Wheeler was not the kind of man who smiled much. He came close to smiling with his eyes.
Hewey turned to the barber. “Orville, you just go ahead and fix him up. Put some good clothes on him, too. I’ll see to the pay.” He glanced at his brother. “You comin’ with me, Walter?”
Walter nodded.
Hewey said, “I’m liable to take you to a place that Eve won’t approve of.”
Walter grunted. “You think I’d let you go into such a place all by yourself?”
They stepped out into the street. Hewey could see a dozen or so horses tied in the vicinity of the Dutchman’s saloon. “That’ll likely be as far as we need to go. I’ll do the talkin’. You just back me up.” They walked along the dirt street, found an opening between the tied horses and strode up onto the narrow porch. Hewey paused in the open doorway. Walter had been a step behind him, looking back as if wondering whether Eve would see. She wouldn’t. She was visiting with church friends who weren’t going to let her sleep in the wagonyard tonight.
Hewey rough-counted a dozen cowboys, most of them Two Cs hands who had delivered a string of Tarpley steers to a trail outfit earlier in the day. Even C. C. Tarpley wasn’t insensitive enough to send them home without giving them a chance to partake in a drop or two of kindness. Anyway, the broker they were, the harder they worked. The faces were mostly young, in their low to mid-twenties. Many a young fellow gloried in the cowboy profession a few years but eventually gave it up for something which paid better and involved less physical stress and risk. The man who stayed in it past the age of thirty was likely to remain in the cattle business one way or another the rest of his life, on its fringes if not in the middle.
Hewey stepped up to the bar where the bartender Schneider waited. He ordered a drink for himself and Walter and plunked a silver dollar on the walnut bar. He downed the drink in one long swallow, then turned to survey the cluster of cowboys playing cards and shooting billiards.
“Fellers,” he spoke loudly, “I wisht you’d all stop and listen to me for a minute.”
The conversations trailed down and finally stopped as the men turned to look at him. Some who knew him spoke to him. Those who didn’t know him recognized that the others held him in some regard.
“Fellers,” Hewey spoke gravely, “me and Walter here, we just brought an old-timey cowboy to town. He was old Boy Rasmussen. Now, some of you knowed him and some of you didn’t. Whether you knowed him or not, you all know the breed. He was followin’ the mossyhorns up the trail when most of us was still followin’ our mothers around the kitchen. It was him and his kind that beat out the trails and shot at the Yankees and fought off the Indians. It was them old fellers that taken the whippin’ so me and you could have the easy life we’re livin’ today.
“Now, I figure we owe an old man like that somethin’ better than a pauper’s grave. I think I know most of you fellers, and I think you’ll agree with me. I got ten dollars in my pocket. It all goes in my hat to help bury old Boy in the style he’s rightfully got comin’ to him. Walter, how much you got?”
Caught by surprise, Walter said, “Five dollars.”
“That’s fifteen. We got to start someplace.” He took off his hat and put his ten dollars into it. Walter put in his five. Now he couldn’t afford to sleep in the wagonyard tonight, even if he wanted to. Hewey held the hat out at arm’s length. “Now, how about you fellers?”
The cowboys began drifting up, dropping in whispering money if they were that flush, clinking money if they weren’t. Hewey kept shaking the hat so the silver would work to the bottom and only the paper would show on top.
C. C. Tarpley and son-in-law Fat Gervin chose an inopportune time to enter the saloon. Hewey trapped them before they could reach the bar. Hewey ignored the hostility in Fat’s eyes and concentrated his first attentions on C. C. He explained the reason for the collection. “Look in that hat, C. C. You don’t see nothin’ in there but foldin’ money. As an old-time trail driver yourself, I know you’d want to contribute as good as your own cowboys have gone and done.”
The gaunt old man’s gray mustache wiggled as he seemed to say something, though no sound came out. He tried to cover up the fact that he was touched. Reluctantly he extracted ten dollars from a leather wallet that had long been protected from too much sunshine. He said, “Philanthropy will be my undoin’.”
“A pleasant giver is a joy to the angels, C. C. When your time comes you can hire a hundred people to cry at your funeral. But old Boy needs our help.”
C. C. said, “I’ll get my ten dollars back in just a little while on the grub that old chuckline rider won’t be eatin’ anymore at my line camps.” He sounded harsh, but Hewey knew even tight-twisted C. C. Tarpley had never turned a rider away unfed. There was a practical as well as a humanitarian reason for it. These drifters were occasionally a source of cheap short-term labor. Sometimes, moving casually across a country, they would come upon something amiss and report it if they were friendly. On the other side of the coin, a drifter who had been accepted and fed wouldn’t set a range afire out of spite.
Hewey swung the hat over to Fat Gervin, challenging him with his eyes. With all the men watching, Fat could do no less than equal the contribution his father-in-law had made. Hewey saw how much it pained him. “You can make that up in a few days, Fat. Just raise the interest.”
He carried the hat to the bar and dumped the money carefully, grabbing at a couple of coins that tried to roll away.
C. C.’s eyes narrowed. “All foldin’ money, you said.”
“Foldin’ money is all you saw.”
The collection lacked only seven dollars and some cents of being an even hundred. The Dutchman dug into his cash drawer and made up the difference.
The gesture brought thanks from Hewey. “A hundred dollars ought to send Boy off in style.”
Schneider nodded. “You did well, Hewey. I think it is due you another drink.”
“I’m broke.”
“I am not. For you and Walter, one on the house.” To Hewey’s surprise, Schneider poured one for himself. It was a thing he rarely did. He raised his glass. “To Boy Rasmussen.”
Hewey looked around the room. Some of these were men he had never seen before, men he probably would never see again. But not one of them was a stranger. He lifted his glass. His voice almost cracked. “To him, and to all other good old boys!”
* * *
The bank stayed open, but most of the few other business houses closed for a couple of hours out of respect for Boy Rasmussen’s funeral. Though nobody in town had known him well, a goodly crowd followed the casket out to the burying grounds. Brother Averill, the preacher, didn’t say a word about Boy’s shortcomings, his failings in the sight of the Lord. He spoke only of his contributions to the civilizing of the West, of the hardships he had endured, of the new home he had found where the grass was always green and the water everlastingly sweet. When he was done, everybody filed by the open box for a last look at a link to another time that was rapidly becoming a faded memory, only occasionally revived in pale colors through meandering tales told by old men awaiting their time to go.
Finally Eve’s quilt was folded over the old man’s face. The lid was nailed down, and Boy Rasmussen was lowered into his final resting place, a long way from Doan’s Crossing on the Red.
Eve wept.
Hewey tied Biscuit behind the wagon and rode away from the cemetery on the wagon seat beside Eve and Walter. They held their silence a long time, Eve clutching her old family Bible. At length Hewey told her, “I’m glad you was here. I’m glad there was a woman or two here to weep for him.”
“I wasn’t weepin’ just for him. I wept a little for you, too.”
“For me?”
“You’ll end up just like him someday, buried by strangers in some strange place. I only hope there’s somebody around who will do for you what you did for Boy Rasmussen.”
“And maybe some good lady who will donate me a new quilt.”
“I’m serious, Hewey. I’ve never told you before, but I’ve prayed for you sometimes. The answer to those prayers is at hand, if you’ll just open your eyes and see.”
“See what?”
“There’s a certain fine lady who thinks a lot of you, Hewey. She sees possibilities in you, the same way I saw possibilities in Walter.”
Hewey was suddenly appalled. “You tryin’ to marry me off?”
“For your own good. I’ve been tryin’ to marry you off for fifteen years. I don’t want you to be lowered into your grave by strangers. I want to see family and loved ones mourn over you. That is the Christian way.”
* * *
A one-eyed mule could have seen that some type of conspiracy was afoot between Eve Calloway and Cora Lawdermilk.
Hewey had two eyes.
Though the two women had been friends for years, they had done most of their visiting in church. Only occasionally had they spent time in each other’s homes. Now Eve was over to the Lawdermilk place every few days. The two women were everlastingly using a hot curling iron on Spring Renfro’s long hair, putting more waves in it than Hewey had seen on the troopship bound for Cuba. Afraid Hewey wouldn’t notice for himself, Eve or Cora were always pointing out to him how pretty Spring looked. It was embarrassing to agree out loud, but it would have been more so to have denied it. The two women were continually whipping up something new in the way of clothes for Spring to wear. Hewey wondered where the material came from, for Eve had been making her own housedresses from the same bolt of plain cloth for years. There was a great deal of talk about filling Spring’s “hope chest.” Hewey had a strong notion the hope was higher on the other women’s part than on Spring’s or on his. He sensed an uneasiness, even an embarrassment, in Spring. It was much like his own.
Times he walked in unexpectedly and caught fragments of their conversations. Once he heard Eve assuring Spring that Hewey was not lazy, that he did not shrink from honest labor when there was a need for it to be done and that all he really needed was the gentle but firm hand of a good woman to set him on the path of righteousness and industry.
“A good woman’s love will make a man out of him,” she said.
The old Mrs. Faversham was the only one who kept faith with the truth, as she saw that truth. “He’s just another cowboy with the itch in both feet. A woman would be a lot better off with a good dog and a hot-water bottle, Spring. You’ve already got the dog.” When Cora and Eve protested that she was wrong, she declared, “I have never understood why we women always seem to settle for less than we should have.”
* * *
One Sunday afternoon, pursuant to custom, Hewey and Spring rode over to Eve’s and Walter’s. After the amenities had been met at the front door, Eve looked around for Tommy. She said, “Spring, the sorrel mare had a colt a couple of nights ago. I’m sure you’d like to see it. Tommy, take Miss Renfro out and show her the colt.”
Spring Renfro had seen a lot of colts and wasn’t all that curious, but Eve made it plain that she intended for her to see this one, too. As soon as the teacher was halfway to the barn, Eve turned to her husband. “Walter, tell him.”
Walter gave his wife a sidelong glance of impatience. “Don’t rush things, Eve. Hewey’ll think we’re puttin’ pressure on him.”
“We are puttin’ pressure on him. When the iron is hot, strike it.”
Walter gave her that glance again.
Hewey said, “I don’t see no hot iron.”
Eve demanded, “How much money have you got?”
It wasn’t a subject he ever let concern him much; he hadn’t added it up lately. “If it cost a hundred dollars to go to heaven, I might make it to Fort Worth.”
She said, “House Barcroft has proved up his place. He’ll sell it to you real cheap.”
Hewey immediately began looking for boogers that he could point out. “How come he wants to get rid of it?”
“It’s a good place,” she said. “A person could make a good livin’ there.”
“House never did. He’s been haulin’ freight for Blue Hannigan. If the place would make him a livin’, he wouldn’t be skinnin’ mules.”
“But he’s a bachelor.”
“If a man can’t make a livin’ as a bachelor, he sure can’t make one yoked in double harness.”
“A man with a woman to help and encourage him could do a lot with a place like Barcroft’s. He could make a garden out of the desert.”
“If he was like me he’d probably make a desert out of a garden. Anyway, I don’t have a woman, Eve. I was born a bachelor, and I’ve stayed one for these thirty-odd years.”
She angered. “Sometimes I think you’re stone deaf to what people are tryin’ to tell you.”
“Sometimes I wish I could be. But it’s hard when I’ve got two women like you and Cora, both tryin’ to make me jump over the broomstick.”
“You like her, don’t you?”
“Cora? Sure, she’s all right.”
“I’m talkin’ about Spring Renfro, and you damn well know it!” When she let herself use a word of that intensity she was at the point that a man had better agree with everything she said or find some other place to pass his time.
He said, “I like lots of people. That don’t mean I want to get married. Anyway, how do you know she does?”
“That’s for you to find out. All you have to do is ask her.”
“If she wanted to get married to me, she’d of let me know.”
“A woman can’t do that.”
“Why not? She speaks English, and a damn sight better than I do.”
“It just isn’t done that way, at least not by decent, God-fearin’ women. They let the man do all the askin’.”
Hewey remembered that Eve had made it clear enough to Walter when she wanted to get married. If she hadn’t exactly asked the question, she had hazed him into a corner and shut all the getaway gates. But he wouldn’t point that out to her in her present state of agitation.
“Even if I was inclined to ask her, it’d be embarrassin’ to ask and have her say no.”
“I bet you she won’t.”
“She should. I sure ain’t no prize catch.”
“Why not? You’re Walter’s brother, and look what I managed to make out of him.”
Walter turned and walked off toward the barn, saying he was going to help Spring and Tommy look at the colt.
Hewey made an excuse about going into the house and getting himself a cup of coffee. Cotton sat there reading. He only half hid a grin which showed he had been listening to all of it.
Hewey asked, “You readin’ about automobiles again?”
“I think you could make good use of one yourself, Uncle Hewey. It could take you a long way from here between now and dark.”
* * *
Riding home after an early supper, Hewey noticed that Spring Renfro was having nothing to say. Whatever thoughts were working behind those studious eyes, she was keeping them to herself.
He said, “I hope Eve hasn’t embarrassed you as much as she’s embarrassed me.”
She gave him a faint smile. “She and Cora both. They’re about as subtle as a sledgehammer.”
He didn’t know what subtle meant, but if it had been bad she wouldn’t have said it. He observed, “Looks like we’ve got a problem, me and you.”
“I suppose we have.”
“You’re a nice lady, Miss Renfro. It’s pleasured me considerable, bein’ around you, ridin’ over here with you and all. But I don’t reckon you’d want to get married, would you?”
She was suddenly flustered, caught unprepared. “Well, I don’t know…”
“I didn’t think you would. That’s what I kept tellin’ Eve, but she don’t listen to anything she don’t want to hear.”
Spring turned her head away. He decided she was embarrassed by the whole uncomfortable situation; he knew he was. “If I was a marryin’ kind of feller, you’re sure the one I’d ask, Miss Renfro. If I was thataway inclined…” He let it go.
She was looking straight ahead, not at him. In a minute she said in a strained voice, “Thank you, Mr. Calloway. There’s not anyone I’d rather have ask me, if I were so inclined.”
His face warmed. “The last thing I’d want to do on this earth would be to cause you any more embarrassment. I figure the only way to put a stop to it is for me to leave. Alvin’s got a string of horses ready to deliver over into the Concho country. I’ll take them, and after I get to San Angelo—for the good of both of us—I’ll just keep on ridin’.”
She looked at him then. Tears glistened. “You’d leave?”
“Seems to me like it’s the only way out for either one of us.”
She did not reply. He took that as an indication she agreed. He stole a long look at her, riding along with her head turned away a little. He felt a sudden strong desire to put his arms around her. He knew that as a decent woman she was sure to resent it. He was glad he had self-control. A man who would give in to such a base impulse with a good woman would deserve the horsewhipping some strong and righteous citizen was likely to give him.
He said wistfully, “I almost wisht we was thataway inclined. We’d make a handsome-lookin’ couple, me and you.”
* * *
For the next two days Cora Lawdermilk saw to it that Hewey received biscuits with the bottoms thoroughly burned, and steaks with plenty of fat and gristle. Her eyes were cold as a witch’s breath. She had little to say, and that little was in clipped words, punctuated by a look that would kill cotton at twenty paces.
Old Lady Faversham, on the contrary, managed a civil word for Hewey now and again. Her behavior had shown a definite improvement.
Hewey saw little of Spring except at mealtime. She always seemed to have things to do elsewhere when he was around. It was just as well, he thought. It had been a narrow escape for both of them.
He couldn’t drive the horses to San Angelo by himself, and Alvin needed Julio too much to spare him for six or seven days. Hewey remembered a promise he had made to Cotton and Tommy. He asked Alvin, “If Walter can spare the boys a few days, would you pay them cowboy wages?”
Alvin didn’t wheedle. “A dollar a day.” Some ranchers would hire a kid for fifty to seventy-five cents and expect as much work out of him as out of a man.
Alvin had always been inclined to smile a lot, but he was smiling even more than usual the last couple of days. He put his big hand on Hewey’s shoulder, then went to his secret cache beneath the saddle rack. He held up the bottle in toast. “To wise decisions. May that be the only kind we ever make!”
Hewey accepted the bottle in the spirit in which it was offered. “I hope I made the right one, Alvin. She is a good woman. Sometimes when I’m with her I get feelin’s…” He could hardly bring himself to the admission. “I get feelin’s I’m downright ashamed of. I get to thinkin’ things a man don’t think about with her kind of woman.”
“You’ve always lived a free man, Hewey. For the sake of us who got ourselves caged, don’t let anybody ever shut the gate on you.”
Eve hadn’t been to Cora’s, nor Cora to Eve’s house, so Eve hadn’t found out yet that her wedding plans had gone for nought. He rode up to the Calloway house late in the evening and said he needed the two boys for a few days’ wrangler service.
“I don’t know,” Eve said dubiously. “Walter put his plow on Blue Hannigan’s freight wagon day before yesterday and went into Midland to get some smithin’ done. He won’t be back till at least tomorrow.”
“I came by the field. I didn’t see no weeds in there that’d take over the cane patch in the week or so these boys’d be gone.”
“I don’t know that I can spare them. There’s so many chores…”
“Alvin’ll pay both of them full wages, a dollar a day apiece. Six days, six dollars. Two boys, twelve dollars. You could buy a whole wagonload of groceries with that kind of money.”
He had found Eve’s weak spot, if she had one. There were never enough dollars around here to stretch over everything that needed covering. It had always been Eve’s job to do the stretching, for Walter had never been a much greater money manager than Hewey. Hewey could see her counting the money in her mind. But she was still hesitant. He didn’t give her a chance to turn him down. He stepped outside and hollered for the boys. He had seen both of them working by the barn.
“Cotton, Tommy,” he half shouted as they approached the house, “you-all hurry up and get your chores done so your mama won’t have to worry about them. Me and you are drivin’ Alvin’s horses to San Angelo.”
Tommy gave a whoop and turned back toward the barn in a dead run. Cotton moved up a little closer to Hewey, his hands in his pockets. He stared at his uncle with a measure of lingering doubt. “You really mean to take us this time? You ain’t just loadin’ us again?”
“You’ll see pretty quick if I’m loadin’ you or not. We go back to Alvin’s tonight and leave with the horses at daylight. Now, you go do up your chores like I told you. I’ll pitch in and chop some wood to be sure your mama has enough to last till your daddy gets home.”
Eve stood on the front step, her right hand shading her eyes. “Hewey Calloway, I never told you those boys could go.”
Hewey was not a very good poker player, but he knew when he had a royal flush. “Then I reckon it’s up to you to tell them they can’t.”
She could see Cotton working feverishly to feed the stock while Tommy was milking the cow. “If a horse doesn’t kill you someday, Hewey, I may just do it myself. I’d best get a little supper started so those boys don’t ride on an empty stomach.” She turned back into the house. Hewey flexed his reluctant hands as he walked to the woodpile, looking for the ax.
At the supper table Cotton queried cautiously, trying not to show too much interest, “You reckon we’re liable to see an automobile in San Angelo?”
“Things are mighty up to date in San Angelo. I’ll bet you they’ve got half a dozen automobiles around there by now.”
Eve frowned. “San Angelo’s a big place. I’ve heard it’s even wickeder than Midland. That’s a long way for two little boys to go away from home.”
Hewey argued, “They’re not little boys. Anyway, I went up the trail when I was younger than either one of them.”
“And look at you now.”
It was something akin to rites of manhood for a boy to go off away from home on his first paying job. Cotton had done so before, but Tommy hadn’t. His mother hugged him. “You take care now, son, and come home safe.”
The boys didn’t need long to get their horses saddled, tie their small bedrolls behind the cantles and wave at their mother as they started up the wagon road. Tears on her cheeks, she yelled after them to turn their eyes away from the evils they might encounter in a godless city like San Angelo, Texas.
They had ridden perhaps fifty yards at Hewey’s side when he drew rein. “You boys just keep on ridin’. There’s one thing I neglected to tell your mother.” He turned around and rode back.
Eve was watching from the front steps. She moved out into the yard. Hewey rode up just close enough for her to hear him as he hollered. “They’re good boys, Eve, so don’t you worry none. They’re plenty big enough to find their way back by theirselves.”
“By theirselves?”
“After I deliver the horses, I’m ridin’ on.”
“But what about the Barcroft claim? What about Spring Renfro?”
“Me and her, we talked it over. We decided neither one of us has got a marryin’ urge. So long, Eve. See you one of these days.”
He turned and spurred Biscuit into a stiff trot to catch up with the boys.
Eve cried, “Hewey Calloway, you come back here!”
She tried to run after him, but she was no match for Biscuit. Hewey didn’t look back, and in a little bit the wind whipped her words away. It was just as well, because she was saying some things she would regret Sunday when she went to church.
Cotton looked around as Hewey came up to him and Tommy. “What was she hollerin’ back there?”
“Just tellin’ you boys to behave yourselves and earn your dollar!”