Fifteen

 

They found Mr. Jones next morning sprawled on his back in the grassy front yard that had been nibbled short by hungry horses and bold rabbits, sleeping his drunkenness off. A purplish welt rose from his hairline, so they left him alone and went out back to break a bale of alfalfa for the Bar Cross’s horses in the larger pen. Gillom had even more respect this morning for his host, who had wrestled down a drunken gunslinger quite a bit larger than himself.

Walking to the smaller holding pen, Gene tied nosebags onto the two best horses they’d ridden up on the day before, making sure these new arrivals got good helpings from the sack of oats they’d carried up with them. Gillom’s bay mare, the slowest walker in the string, had ankles swollen from the tree stumps she’d bumped into on the two-track trail up their mountain. The kid watched as Gene doctored the lame animal by pouring coal oil from the oil can he used for their lamps down the mare’s front legs. The wrangler rubbed the soothing alcohol gently into the swollen skin with his work-scarred hands.

“Like rubbing alcohol on a lame child. Cheap medicine,” he explained.

“Mister Rhodes, last night, what you said about Jones’s brother, being hung.”

“Let that slip, huh? Emotional fo’ him. You’ll read it in the papers. Laws just hung his younge’ brothe’ ove’ in Clayton.”

“Who?”

The wrangler eyed his young companion speculatively.

“I guess we’ll test you’ discretion.… Tom Graham.”

The kid was surprised. “Blackjack?”

Gene Rhodes nodded. “Murdere’. Train robbe’. Horse thief. And just about everything else il-legal.”

“And this is his older brother?”

“Sam Graham. One of five kids born in San Saba County, between Abilene and Austin, over four decades ago. Sam’s the othe’ bad apple in the bunch.”

“San Saba, Texas, is where J. B. Books grew up.” Gillom turned to watch the bad man lurch about the corner of the rock house and walk unsteadily past them to one of the five springs outside the horse corrals. Red-eyed and reeling, Sam Graham paid them no never mind, but waded right into the small pond and bent to splash water over his face and hair, soaking his smelly shirt. Then, shaking off water like a dog, Graham stalked back toward the house.

“Ready for dinne’, Miste’ Jones?”

“The hell with you and your horses.” The grieving brother didn’t even look back at them, but disappeared dripping around the house corner. Gene turned back to his protégé.

“You ready to fork a bronc? Little ridin’ will work up an appetite.”

The horse Gene roped out of the big corral was a grullo, the color of a Maltese cat, a sleek, velvet slate-blue with a dark mane, tail, and socks, clean-legged as a deer. Handing the lead rope to Gillom, Rhodes threw another lasso around the grullo’s neck and between the two of them on either side, they walked and pulled the half-wild, dainty-nosed mare into the smaller corral, from which they’d moved the five new horses they’d ridden in on into the bigger corral with the others from the Bar Cross string. Tying both ropes to two fence posts, Gene had Gillom hanging from the small horse’s neck. He explained that this mare was further along in her training and had been saddled, but never ridden.

“They forget a few things between my trips to town, so I usually have to bust ’em twice. I’ve rarely seen a bronc who believed it was saddled the first time ah eve’ doubted it the second.”

Gene was able after a couple tries to saddle the anxious, stomping animal and cinch it tight. Fitting the snaffle bit in and the headstall on took more effort and earned him at least one good nip of his fingers.

“Ouch! Damn!” Rhodes poked the horse in its sensitive nose and tried again to bridle, successfully. “At least this one accepts the bit. Some of ’em you gotta use a hackamore on and then work you’ way up to a snaffle. Don’t have time for all that nonsense today.”

Finally the feisty mare was ready, but Gillom turned down the boss’s second offer to be first on her.

“Rather learn bronc riding from a master.”

Gene smiled at the compliment, a good rookie ploy, as he approached the nervous horse from the left to get one tentative foot in the stirrup. But the grullo kept backing away.

“Damn you, fiddlefoot, stop dancing!” He looked up at Gillom riding the railing. “Snub the lassos tighter! Let’s get hobbles on these front hooves, too.”

Gillom snubbed the neck ropes and retied them to the fence posts a few yards apart and soon they had the cold shouldered mare’s head tied right against the top wooden rail. Gene fastened leather hobbles onto the horse’s two front hooves, tying them together like prison irons. Then he could lift himself up in the left stirrup several times, rising up and then back down before finally swinging his right leg up over the mare’s hindquarters and easing himself into the saddle so the skittish horse could get used to his weight. Gene mounted okay but kept his right leg hooked around the saddle horn so as not to get his leg banged into the hard railing when the horse shied. At his command, Gillom unbuckled the front hobbles and removed one lasso from its neck, causing the horse to shy sideways on its remaining tether. Gene gathered the reins in his left hand and slid his right leg down into the wooden stirrup. The bronc master was ready.

“All I want to do is walk a circle, but I can feel he’ gettin’ ready to ignite.”

At a nod from him, the teenager unsnubbed the second lasso and suddenly the rodeo was on, with Gene grabbing the saddle horn as the unbroken horse reared up and pawed for the sky, cloud-hunting. Rhodes maintained his seat, leaning back in the saddle, so the grullo tried another tactic, cat jumping and spinning to its right in a fast, tight spin as Gene hung on for dear life.

Then it was a bucking contest for a long minute around the smaller corral, with Gene uttering several yelps of pain as the snorting, angry animal banged hard into the wood railings trying to knock off its unwanted jockey.

The commotion drew Jones back out of the house. The infamous train robber walked shakily up to hang onto the top railing beside Gillom just as the bucking session was concluding. Panting heavily, the pretty blue horse now paced about the pen, one rope still trailing from her lowered neck. Atop her, Gene Rhodes breathed hard, too.

“Ready for you’ morning ride, Miste’ Jones?”

“Fuck you, Eugene.” The big cowboy spat, causing him to groan. “Still tryin’ to get the snakes outta my boots.”

The horsebreaker reined the tired, skittish animal closer to the two men and slid off to the ground.

“You’ turn then, young man. Horse is tuckered, so you shouldn’t have much difficulty stayin’ on.”

Now he was trapped. No excuses in front of these hard men, for Sam Graham was giving him a bloodshot eye. So, against his good sense and health, Gillom Rogers climbed over the railing and jumped into the horse pen. Gene Rhodes waited, holding the reins tight under the grullo’s slobbering mouth. He removed the last lariat from around the horse’s neck, to reduce the chance of the mare stepping on the rope and injuring herself.

The youngster got one foot in the stirrup and both hands on the saddle horn, but the shadow jumper kept edging away, bouncing the expectant rider on one foot until Gene shouldered the rank horse into the railing so she could be mounted.

“Got a temper like Satan’s,” Gillom offered. Swinging himself slowly up into the small saddle, his spurs jingling, he leaned forward to grab the reins from his host’s grasp.

And then they were off to the rodeo again! Gritting his teeth, rocking back, his bones jarring, Gillom clung onto the saddle horn and almost dropped the reins after one two-legged kick.

“Lean back! Ride that wringtail, cowboy!” shouted Gene from a top railing.

The wild bronc reared one more time, pawing the air with its front hooves. Gillom blew his stirrups and his death grip on the horn, slid rapidly off the back of the saddle and off the horse’s hind quarters. He let go the reins or the frantic horse might have fallen backward atop him. With a last buck and a snort the sweaty mare capered away, free of half its problem.

Gillom staggered to his feet and jumped aside as the riderless horse brushed past him.

“Get back on he’. Show he’ who’s trail boss!”

Gillom brushed his jeans and clambered back up on the rail where he sat bent over, sucking air.

“Not today.”

“First thing tomorrow then. You fall off a horse, you gotta get back on. Don’t let this bronc beat you, boy, or you’ll be scared a horses the rest of you’ natural life.”

The teenager nodded.

“You bent, kid?” asked Graham.

“Jus’ my pride.”

“You did okay. Everybody gets unhorsed sometimes,” added the ranch owner. “By the time we get all these bangtails finished off, you’ll be a broncbuste’.”

Gillom’s smile was tight. “If I’m still walkin’.”

Gene Rhodes slapped him on the back as they stepped gingerly down to walk back to the ranch house. “Let’s get some grub. Unsaddle that switchtail for me, Sam!”

This brought Sam Graham up short. “You told ’im?”

“He asked about you’ loud grievin’.” Mr. Rhodes pointed at his mysterious guest. “Gillom’s not going anywhere for a while. An’ by then, Graham, you’ll be headed another direction.”

Sam Graham glared at his host. “I frown on loose discussion.”

*   *   *

After a noon dinner of burnt beef and beans, respecting Sam Graham’s delicate stomach from its prior night’s sousing, the three enjoyed long afternoon naps under the shady cedars out back of the corrals, lulled by sweet breezes eddying down off the nearby mountaintop. Gene read one of his dime novels he’d gotten with his Bull Durham coupons, The Woman in White by a British writer, Wilkie Collins, which he said was a mystery tinged with sadness. He offered to lend it to Gillom when finished.

Sore from two hard riding days in a row, the three men took turns bathing with one bar of soap in the biggest cold spring which burbled up away from the horse pens, where the red soapstone of the mountain behind them met the white limestone of the mountain to the front of their stone house. They rested in the altogether in the early summer sunshine, contemplating life on their mountain.

“I ain’t gonna tell anyone I metcha, Mister Graham, I promise.”

The big cowboy slanted his pale blue eyes toward the naked teenager sunning on the sandstone nearby. “Easy to say, kid. Up here.” The outlaw pointed into the distance eastward. “Different story down there, when you’re looking at reward money headlined on a poster featuring a rough sketch of yours truly.”

“Naw, I don’t need that kind of money.” The young tough looked at his patron. “Gene doesn’t, either. I’m sorry to hear about your brother. Lots of stories kickin’ round El Paso about Blackjack. All bad.”

Sam’s blue eyes flashed as he sat up suddenly. “That was his problem. Tom did pure-dee crazy things without thinking them through. That was my little brother’s real name, Tom. Blackjack is just an alias lots of brush bandidos use to confuse people. My oldest brother, Greenbriar, and I kept cautioning him to slow down, but…” The middle brother warmed to his memories, soaking up heat from the smooth rock.

Gene Rhodes smiled ruefully. “Told me when they hung Blackjack over in Clayton a few days ago, he dashed up that gallows’ thirteen steps, his one good arm lashed to his back and yelled, ‘I’ll be in hell before you start breakfast, boys!’”

“God damn.” Sam Graham fingered the knot on his forehead. “Sounds like Tom. Crazy bastard. He knew fate was coming for him after he got his arm shotgunned in his one-man train robbery near Folsom. A doc took the arm off in the penitentiary, but nobody could get in there to help him get out, too heavily guarded. They wouldn’t even release him back to Arizona for the big reward for his crimes over there. They were hot to hang him here in New Mexico as a warning to other train robbers.” Tom Graham’s older brother shook his head sadly. “Tom was a tiger, though, insane temper. Absolutely fearless. Everybody said so. Hope he had a long rope and a short drop.”

“My witness said that when they put the black sack ove’ his head, he yelled, ‘Let e’ rip!’ They pulled the trap and ripped his head clean off.”

“Oh no!” Sam Graham jerked straight to his feet. “His head came off? Jesus Christmas!” Upset and buck-naked, the older brother stalked off.

Gillom stared at Gene Rhodes. “Why would you tell him something like that?”

The rancher watched the agitated bandit disappear around the house’s corner.

“Ohh, Sam’s a big boy. Maybe his brother’s awful demise will keep him on the straight and narrow. Or at least, a little less crooked for a while.” He turned upon Gillom a thoughtful eye.