The Cimarron Kid sat on the topmost corral rail and watched Cusie Ben working out one of the wild ones. It was a little bay and showed signs that it wouldn’t be wild much longer. Cusie Ben had a way with horses. He and the Kid had them a nice little thriving business up here in the hills. While the mustangs lasted, they made enough money for their needs. Though the Kid missed to some extent the excitement of his former lawless life, this new life had its compensations. Now he could sleep at night without fearing every faint sound he heard. He need no longer fear that every approaching horseman could be the law to arrest him or shoot him on sight. Some of the terror had gone out of life. Along with Sam Spur and Cusie Ben, the governor had pardoned him.
One of the greatest assets of this new life was that he could eat regularly and Cusie Ben was a supreme cook. Ben’s stew was the work of angels. The Kid had never lived so well in his life.
To look at the Kid was an undersized shrimp of about twenty who tried in vain to make himself look tall. He prided himself on his looking dangerous. And his pride was well-founded. He looked dangerous all right - as dangerous as a rattler. His face was vicious and he had the eyes of a killer. His eyes didn’t lie either. He was a killer and legend said that he had slain a man for every year of his life. Legend often lies but Cusie Ben reckoned it didn’t in the Kid’s case. Even a useless little punk like the Kid could shoot any number of men in the back without getting himself killed.
Cusie Ben was of a different stamp.
He was a Negro, he was bow-legged as are all perpetual horsemen and even his mother would be forced to admit that his face was plain ugly. He was a badman of many years standing, ever since years before some race-proud Texas man had carelessly called him ‘nigger’ and failed to notice that the butt of his gun was well-worn from frequent use. Ben had braced him and killed him before his gun could clear leather.
From then on he didn’t look back. From then on he never took an insult from any man. As the years passed and his reputation grew, the men who would dare insult him grew less. He had in those days of killing and running shunned the company of men, particularly that of white men. Then he had run into Sam Spur on the Cimarron Strip. He had saved Spur’s life and that had forged an unbreakable bond between the two men.
That he didn’t have much time for the Kid he made plain from the start, ever since Spur had saved the boy wounded from the hands and possibly the rope of a sheriff’s posse. He suffered the Kid for the simple reason that Sam Spur somehow thought the Kid worth looking out for. To Cusie Ben, the Kid was a treacherous snake who would be better stamped on. He was forced to admit however that, under pressure, there had been times when the Kid had been of invaluable service to Spur and that on more than one occasion Spur had owed him his life.
But that didn’t mean he had to like the Kid.
The Kid gazed past Cusie Ben and looked down into the valley. His sharp little eyes caught the faint whisp of dust.
‘Rider comin’,’ he called.
Ben paid no heed, rode the little bay to a standstill and stepped down from the saddle. The horse tried to bite him. Ben laughed and cuffed the animal. He stripped off the saddle and blanket and placed them on the top pole of the corral. He left the hackamore on the animal and hitched to the rail. Then he strolled to the far side of the corral and gazed out over the valley.
‘That man sure is tryin’ to kill that pony,’ he said.
He crossed the corral, went into the house and came out with his Spencer carbine. He checked the loads. Sure, he was pardoned and this probably wasn’t the law coming, but care became a habit with a man in his boots.
When the horseman rode slowly up the rise to the cabin, man and horse looked as if they had come a long way, fast. The Kid turned himself to face the stranger and kept his hand near the butt of his gun. Ben stayed in the doorway with the rifle held ready.
The rider halted his horse and looked from one to the other of them. He was a small dark man, much burned by sun and wind. Cusie Ben didn’t think he was a Mexican.
The man spoke and neither the Kid nor Ben understood the words. The Kid climbed down from the fence and tried him in Spanish, slowly. The Kid’s Spanish wasn’t too bad. He’d always been befriended by the Mexican’s in his owl-hoot days.
The man replied in a language which the Kid at first could not understand, but after a while he discovered that it was bad Spanish. He found that the man wanted Cusie Ben. He had ridden from Sunset and, indirectly, was from Sam Spur. The Kidd told him to step down and the man obeyed. Ben’s Spanish wasn’t too good, but he now joined in the conversation. It turned out that the stranger carried a letter from a man named Doolittle. He produced it and handed it to Ben. The Negro looked at it right way up and upside down.
‘You know you never learned to read,’ the Kid said.
‘Hush up in front of a stranger,’ Cusie Ben said, strangely embarrassed. He handed the paper to the Kid and said: ‘Read it.’
Reading wasn’t the Kid’s strong point, but he could make out if he took it slowly and mouthed the words. Cusie Ben listened in silence, concentrating hard, his lips moving a fraction of a second behind the Kid’s as they struggled through the letter. When the Kid finished, Cusie Ben pushed his hat to the back of his head and scratched.
‘A hell of a note,’ he murmured. ‘Sam in jail an’ like to be hung. It don’t seem possible.’
‘Possible,’ said the Kid, ‘it’s natural. If ever I seen a man born to be hung, it’s that Spur. All this goin’ around pertendin’ he’s a goddam lawman. Jesus, he wasn’t no great shakes at bein’ a badman.’
‘You be still,’ Cusie Ben warned.
The stranger looked from one to the other, puzzled, not understanding a word.
Cusie Ben said: ‘You’n’me best ride and ride hard. They could have a rope around Sam’s neck any day now.’
The Kid snorted.
‘I ain’t movin’ from here for no Spur,’ he said. ‘What did he ever do for me I should stir my butt? Hell, I don’t owe him a damn thing.’
‘Only your worthless life,’ Ben said.
The Kid snarled.
‘I paid him for that. A dozen times over,’ he shouted.
‘Speak soft, boy,’ Ben said, ‘or I put you-all acrost my knee.’
The Kid took up the stance of a gunfighter about to draw.
‘I don’t take that kinda talk from no man,’ he said through his teeth in the traditional manner.
‘You take it from me,’ Ben said offhandedly. ‘Quit standin’ that way, you look like you messed your pants.’
The Kid was beside himself. The stranger looked worried.
‘This is it,’ the Kid screamed. ‘The moment of truth.’
Ben laughed.
‘You wouldn’t know the truth if it hit you plumb in your ugly face,’ he said. He beckoned to the stranger and said: ‘Come on in, friend, we’ll feed you.’
The stranger followed him in. The Kid stayed where he was for a moment holding his pose. Then he straightened up and said: ‘Yaller, That goddam nigger’s yaller,’
Then he trembled a little. Maybe Ben had heard that. If he heard the Kid call him ‘nigger’, he just might take up the challenge and the Kid knew in his heart he couldn’t clear leather before the Negro had put two shots through him. He walked into the cabin, bristling, hating Ben.
The Negro sat the stranger down at the table and served one of his wonderful meals. He was the only man the Kid had ever known who could work horses all day and yet somehow produce first-class chow in the evening. The smell of the stew was so delicious that he postponed his show-down with Ben and ate his fill. When the meal was finished and the stranger was belching appreciatively, Ben said: ‘We ride tonight. We don’t have no time to waste.’
The Kid said: ‘Count me out.’
To his surprise, Ben said: ‘All right. I don’t fancy you along nohow any road. This is man’s work.’
The Kid was suspicious.
‘What you aim to do?’ he demanded.
‘Not that you’d be interested,’ Ben said, ‘but I aim to bust Sam outa there.’
The Kid’s eyes opened wide. Spur and Ben between them had insisted since they had all three of them been pardoned, in his keeping to the straight and narrow.
‘You mean you ain’t goin’ to get him outa there legal?’ he demanded.
‘You read that there letter,’ Ben said. ‘This sheriff’s goin’ to hang him. For a murder he didn’t do.’
‘How do you know he didn’t do it?’
‘I know Sam. This Rube Daley was a friend of his. Any road, Sam ain’t no murderer. Sure, he’s fast with a gun. Fastest man I ever did see. But he ain’t no killer an’ we both know that. No, son, he didn’t do it. There’s some dirty work goin’ on down in Sunset an’ I ain’t foolin’ around with no due legal process. I’m gettin’ Sam outa there, then we can argufy about the rights an’ wrongs of it.’
‘Christ,’ the Kid said, ‘you know what you’re sayin’, man? We do that an’ it could be the owl-hoot for us again.’
‘Sure, I know that. But who said any thin’ about “we”? I’m in this on my lonesome. You jest chickened out.’
‘You didn’t say nothin’ about goin’ up against the law. That makes it different. That’s my line of country.’
Ben sneered.
‘I ain’t too sure I wants juveniles along.’
‘You can’t stop me. This is a free country.’
Ben picked his teeth.
‘All right,’ he said, ‘go make yourself useful while I wash the dishes. Two horses each. I’ll take the dun and the bay. Food for a week on the mule. Ammunition for a war.’
The Kid stood up. Suddenly, he was excited. This was the kind of work he was cut out for. When he had gone out to the corral, the stranger said: ‘You will come?’
Ben grinned.
‘Sure,’ he said, ‘we’ll come. Right this minute.’
An hour later, three men rode down into the valley with a big ugly Kentucky mule following behind them. Ben had found a fresh horse for the Basque and a spare so that he could keep pace with them. He would guide them on the shortest way to Sunset. They would stop only when the weakness of men and beasts demanded.
As he turned in the saddle and looked back at the cabin that had been his home for the past year, Ben couldn’t help wondering if he would ever be able to return to that kind of life again. It had been good while it lasted. Maybe for the rest of their lives he and Spur would be riding the ridges as outlaws. It was a daunting thought, but it didn’t change him from his course. His mind was made up. Spur would not hang. Not while he had breath in his body.