Hewey was not ready to quit his blankets when Bias clanged his pothook against an iron rod and hollered the hands up for breakfast. He had been half asleep, half awake, his nose assaulted by sharp smoke from the cook’s fire and his ears by Blas’s reckless banging of lids against the pots and Dutch ovens. Hewey did not know why his head hurt so badly and his stomach was so sour. He remembered eating a couple of boiled eggs from a bowl on top of the bar last night. One of them must have been bad.
He had not bothered to remove his clothes before going to bed. He put on his hat, then his boots with their pair of sporty gal-leg spurs that had a shank shaped like a woman’s leg, complete with garter and high-heeled shoe. Loud talk told him Snort Yarnell and the other Slash R cowboys were coming into camp. As a neighborly gesture Bige Saunders had invited them to share breakfast because they had brought no chuck wagon to town.
Hewey hurried to his feet, not wanting Snort to catch him in his blankets this late in the morning. The sun was almost ready to come up. Snort was always looking for something to hooraw a man about. The better he liked someone, the louder the hoorawing.
Snort shouted, “Hey, Hewey, you up?”
“Been up for an hour. Already had my coffee.”
Snort seemed in much too good a humor for the night to have been so short. He could drain a barrel of whiskey and still wake up
at daylight, ready to go. Hewey wondered sometimes if Snort was all human.
Snort recognized Tommy and made a big fuss over him. “I heard you say you’re lookin’ for a cowpunchin’ job. If old Bige don’t hire you, come over to the Slash R. I’ll take you under my wing and show you things you never heard of.”
Hewey said dryly, “His mama’d be tickled to hear that.” He felt a bit guilty, realizing that as an old family friend Snort had visited the Calloway homestead periodically and had seen Tommy since Hewey had.
Cold sober now, Hewey felt the weight of responsibility even heavier than last night as he introduced Tommy to Bige Saunders. Because Bige was foreman, it was his place to hire and fire, though Old Man Jenkins was likely to whisper in his ear on occasion. Bige was a man of fifty years and a solid hundred and seventy-five pounds, his shoulders broader than Hewey’s, broad enough to carry the weight of a boss’s responsibilities.
“So you’re Hewey’s nephew,” he said, contemplating Tommy in the first light of dawn. “Can’t say you favor him, though I’d mark that as an asset. Had any experience workin’ stock?”
Tommy explained that the Calloways raised cattle in a modest way as well as crops. He did not mention the sheep.
Hewey hoped Bige would decide Tommy was too young and inexperienced. There was a lot of difference between growing up on a stock farm and being an honest-to-God cowboy. He put in, “Up against a big outfit like the J Bar, that little old place of my brother’s ain’t big enough to make a decent horse trap.”
Hopefully Tommy described his experience in breaking horses and mules for Alvin Lawdermilk.
Bige said, “I knew Alvin way back yonder. He still favor the whiskey like he used to?”
“Not anymore. He’s taken the pledge.”
That didn’t sound like Alvin, Hewey thought. He had probably just said so to satisfy the preacher, Brother Averill.
Bige favored a little toddy himself once in a while, but Hewey had never seen him take one when there was a job to see after. Old Man Jenkins could not have found a more responsible foreman and wagon boss if he had hunted all over hell and half of Texas. Hewey thought it ought to be clear to Bige that Tommy was not ready for a job like this, but the favorable gleam in Bige’s eyes indicated that Hewey was going to be saddled with the worry of looking after Tommy whether he liked it or not.
Bige said, “Goin’ wage around here for a green hand is twenty-five a month, chuck and all the ground you need to roll out your beddin’.”
Tommy had never earned twenty-five dollars a month. Alvin Lawdermilk would likely have paid him thirty or thirty-five had he been able to work full-time, but Tommy’s responsibilities on the family stock farm had prevented that. His father probably needed him at home a lot more than Bige or Old Man Jenkins needed him here. Still, Hewey could understand the boy’s need for independence. He had been a lot younger than Tommy when he had set out on his own.
Bige shook Tommy’s hand. “Well, son, with your uncle Hewey’s help I expect you’ll be makin’ us a top hand in no time. Two men went to Kansas with the cattle, so I’ll pick you a string of horses out of theirs.”
Tommy pumped Bige’s hand and grinned with delight.
Hewey’s stomach went a little more sour. Damn those boiled eggs!
Before they left town, Hewey insisted that Tommy write his parents a letter and let them know where he was. He watched Tommy to be sure the job was done and the letter posted.
Hewey said, “Any time you get to feelin’ homesick, just let me know.”
Tommy did not take the hint. He inhaled a long breath of fresh mountain air, his blue eyes shining with pleasure. “I think I’m really goin’ to like it here.”
Hewey could see that he would have the boy on his hands for a while if Walter and Eve didn’t come and take him home.
Snort and the Slash R cowboys drifted away, back to the ranch they worked for. Hewey had half expected Snort to draw his time and set off for someplace new. He had already stayed at the Slash R longer than anywhere Hewey could remember. Perhaps Snort was getting old and looking for a place to light. For that matter, Hewey’s tenure at the J Bar had stretched well beyond his usual limit. But in his case he was not getting old; he was just getting easier to suit.
Tommy watched Bias lift up and latch the chuck box lid, preparing the wagon to move. The boy asked eagerly, “Where do you reckon we’re goin’?”
“Back to the ranch. We’ve got calves to brand and a new bunch of broncs to break.”
“Broncs? That sounds like fun.”
Hewey glanced toward Skip Harkness. That was what Skip would say, too. I’ll have to watch this boy pretty close, he thought.
Hewey was still riding Biscuit so Mr. Jenkins would not worry about him forking broncs. The first gate they reached, he would turn Biscuit into the remuda and catch out one of the broncs he had been breaking.
As was typical of ranches so near the Rio Grande, the J Bar crew had more Mexican vaqueros than Anglo cowboys. Border conflicts were not altogether a thing of the past—they still happened on occasion—so the tendency was for members of the two groups to
draw toward their own kind when the work did not push them all together. Last night’s celebration in the saloon had let the fences down for a little while.
Part of the problem was a language barrier. Hewey had worked along the border and picked up just enough Spanish to get by on, though Mexican children who heard him often covered their mouths to hide their amusement. Most of the vaqueros spoke little English and frequently called upon Bias or Aparicio to interpret. Hewey doubted that Tommy knew much Spanish, if any at all. He would probably starve in Mexico; he would not know how to ask for food or water.
Before the outfit was two miles from Alpine and the remuda strung out toward the broken country, Tommy and Skip Harkness had struck up a friendship. They rode side by side. Hewey was too far back to hear more than fragments of their conversation, but he could see that they laughed a lot and gestured with their hands, exchanging shady jokes they probably thought were new. Hewey had heard them years ago.
He understood why the two would hit it off. They were within a year or so of the same age, and they had in common that both had been brought up to be farmers but had left home to taste the cowboy life. Hewey wished Tommy would pair up with someone who exhibited more judgment—like him, for instance. Hanging around with Skip, Tommy might be exposed to all kinds of foolish notions. It was not Hewey’s business to tell Tommy who his friends ought to be, though he might give the boy a subtle hint, like telling him that Skip had the brains God gave a ground squirrel.
He thought of his own long friendship with Snort Yarnell. Snort had never appeared to worry about consequences; he simply did what he wanted when he wanted and to whomever he wanted. He had gotten Hewey into many a ticklish jackpot, but so far none had
been fatal. Most had seemed funny later, looked back on from the safe vantage point of time, funny and totally foolish.
Loose horses tended to move faster than the wagons, so Hewey had to ride out in front and slow them down after a while to prevent them from overtaking Bias. The driver of the hoodlum wagon laid back the first wire gate they came to because Blas’s crippled leg made it inconvenient for him to climb up and down. The gate was left open for the horses to follow. Hewey signaled for Tommy to close it after the remuda had passed. Skip and Tommy both held back, giving chase to a jackrabbit and trying unsuccessfully to rope it. Hewey could hear their laughter a hundred yards away.
They returned in a long trot. Hewey demanded, “Did it take both of you?”
“Tight gate.” Tommy grinned.
“I don’t know what you’d’ve done with that rabbit if you’d caught it. Try a badger sometime.”
He had done that himself once and had found the badger coming up the rope to meet him and in no mood for compromise. Catching a badger was not terribly difficult. Getting the rope back could be hazardous.
Next time he saw a badger he would point it out to the boys. The experience would broaden their education.
No one had bothered to put up signposts along the way, for the wagon road to the J Bar was not a public thoroughfare. Anyone who did not know his way had no business following it anyhow. Bias needed no signposts, or even a road. There was probably not a wagon rut or cow trail in these mountains which the old vaquero had not traveled at some time or other, and few ranches on which he had not worked.
Folks claimed he had helped the army track holdout Apaches thirty or forty years ago, though he never made claims or even answered questions about those times beyond a nod or a negative
shaking of his gray head. Perhaps he was ashamed of something there, for both sides had done terrible things to one another. Or perhaps it was simply so far in the past that it no longer held interest for him.
Hewey had a keen eye for horses. In a short while he had surveyed the penful of new broncs, deciding which would be likely to make dependable working horses and which would never be even decent bait for the Mexican panthers that prowled their way up from the Big Bend of the Rio Grande. Horses were much like men in that most found a level at which they functioned comfortably, a few like Biscuit would prove outstanding, and a few never would be worth the price of the cartridge needed to put them out of everybody’s misery.
It was customary that the foreman assign a “mount” of broncs as each hand’s individual responsibility. Bige Saunders preferred that each man take turns, picking one at a time to avoid any appearance of favoritism. He did not make the Mexican hands take second best after the Anglos; he treated everyone the same.
Aparicio was roping out the broncs one by one. Hewey had his eye on a likely-looking sorrel. He pointed to it and said, “Catch me that one, por favor.”
Saunders waved Aparicio off. “Hewey, seems like you neglected to tell me that Mr. Jenkins said you wasn’t to ride any more broncs.”
Hewey tried to look innocent. “He said that? I must’ve forgot.”
“Forgetfulness overtakes us all when we get older. You’ve celebrated too many birthdays, Hewey. You’ve got to quit ridin’ these broncs before one of them cleans your plow for once and for all.”
“I’m just now comin’ into my prime.”
It occurred to Hewey that he would probably have to quit the J Bar one day soon and find a job on some ranch where they didn’t discriminate against a man simply because he had had more experience
than most. But he couldn’t leave just yet because Tommy would want to go with him, and he hadn’t been on the payroll long enough to earn his first paycheck.
Saunders looked at Tommy. “Which one do you want?”
Tommy said, “That sorrel.”
Hewey said, “You’ve got good judgment. Alvin Lawdermilk must’ve taught you a right smart.”
“I picked him because you did.”
“Then you do have good judgment.”
Skip Harkness made his first choice on the basis of the wildest-looking, the most likely to offer him a rousing fight. By that measure, he selected well. He picked a long-tailed bay whose conformation indicated a strain of mustang and whose rolling eyes suggested war.
Skip said, “I believe he’ll give me plenty of fun.”
Hewey responded, “I believe he’ll kill you.”
Most of the broncs bore rope bums across their noses, indicating they had already fought through a session or two with the hackamore, being staked to a heavy log or wagon wheel until they learned the hard way that the rope was boss. The marks would heal, but the lesson would remain with all except a few unreachables. Supposedly the broncs had been saddled and ridden—or ridden at—a time or two by the outfit that raised them, but horse dealers could be notoriously cavalier with the facts. Hewey contended that most had missed a calling in politics.
Ideally, breaking broncs was a task best done in winter when cowboys had more free time on their hands, but Jenkins believed the best training for a cow horse was working with cattle, and Hewey could not argue the point. When the broncs were well broken and had learned something about following a cow, Jenkins would resell them at a profit and bring in a new batch of raw ponies. A believer in the adage that idle hands are the devil’s workshop, he
had a strong commitment to protecting his employees’ moral fiber.
Hewey advised Skip, “If I was you, I’d work up to that bay sort of gradual. I’d ride them other two first and get myself in shape.”
“I’d rather start with the roughest one while I’m fresh. After him, the others’ll be like pets.”
Warmed-over advice was as stale as warmed-over coffee, so Hewey seldom made the same suggestion twice. “If I was you, then, I’d take time to write a letter home. It might be the last one your poor old mother ever gets.”
Tommy eyed the boy with misgivings. “I think Uncle Hewey’s right, Skip. That pony looks like a bad one.”
“That’s the way I like them.”
From the moment the loop circled its neck, the bay bronc went into a stomping, squealing fury. It plunged against the rope, dragging Skip and Tommy halfway across the corral, their boot heels firmly dug into the dirt, raising dust like a dry fog behind them. When it reached the fence, it whirled and quartered back the other way. The impact when it hit the end of the line sent Skip sprawling on his face, but Tommy braced the rope around his hip and hung on. The bronc reared and pawed.
Hewey hollered, “Watch him, Tommy. He’ll stomp you.” He started out to help, then decided to hold back. The boys had to learn.
Skip pushed to his feet, picking up his fallen hat and dusting himself with it. A hint of fear insinuated itself into his eyes, or perhaps it was an awakening wisdom. “He may be a little tougher than I figured.”
Tommy said, “It’d do him a world of good to drag a log around for two or three days before you try to get on him.”
“If you say so. I guess he’ll keep.”
You’re getting smarter all the time, Hewey thought. Perhaps Tommy was a good influence on Skip instead of Skip being a bad influence on Tommy.
They had to put a loop around the bay’s forefeet and throw him down to put a hackamore on him. Hewey tried to leave it to the boys but finally could hold back no longer and pitched in to help. He tied a length of heavy rope to the hackamore as a rein, dallied it to his saddle horn and led the bronc out onto the flat, where several long logs lay scattered over a beaten-out stretch of ground covered only by a thin stand of short burro grass. Tommy started to tie the rope to a log that had once been part of a cottonwood trunk.
Hewey said, “It’s Skip’s horse. Let him tie the rope.”
The log was heavy enough that the bay would have difficulty in dragging it, yet it would yield enough to minimize the risk of injury. The colt made a running start and was jerked up short at the end of the rope. It fell backward onto its rump, kicking, then scrambling to its feet The log had moved six inches.
Tommy said, “Time he’s drug that thing around for a few days he’ll be a heap better educated.”
Hewey said, “Time Skip’s tried to ride that knothead a couple of times, he’ll be a heap better educated, too.”
Skip said, “I’ll have him eatin’ out of my hand.”
Hewey grunted. “Or maybe just eatin’ your hand.”
Tommy’s sorrel fought the rope, but he put up less fight than Skip’s long-tailed bay. Tommy handled him with quiet ease. Hewey warmed with pride.
The hands rode their new broncs in the evenings after they finished the day’s rounding up and branding. The location was central enough to a large part of the ranch that camp did not have to be moved for several days while the nearby pastures were being worked. The fresh colts were left staked through the day while the cowboys rode out on their regular business. By the time the wagon had to shift to another camp, most of the broncs would be more tractable. They might progress far enough to be ridden on roundup, earning their keep.
Though Tommy’s sorrel and most of the others quickly adapted to their new situation, Skip’s bay seemed no gentler after spending two days tied to the log, led away only for feed and water. When approached, it rolled its eyes and challenged the end of the rope. The impact jerked it around unceremoniously but did not alter its behavior.
Hewey warned, “That horse is plumb mean, and maybe half idiot to boot.”
He saw dread in Skip’s eyes. Sooner or later the boy had to either climb into the saddle or back down in front of everybody. He would not back down. Hewey doubted that any man in the crew would. None of the Mexican hands would want to retreat in front of the gringos, and none of the gringos would want to look diminished in the eyes of the Mexicans. The rivalry was friendly enough, but it was real. The battle of the Alamo had not been laid entirely to rest.
The third evening Skip could no longer put off the confrontation. He looked out across the flat where some of the young broncs were still tied. All had been ridden except his. He said, “I reckon it’s time he learns who’s boss.”
Hewey thought Skip’s voice sounded hollow. “I don’t know that he’s ready to get religion yet.”
“I can handle him.”
What Skip couldn’t handle, Hewey thought, was the feeling that the rest of the crew might consider him afraid. “If you’re bound and determined … Come on, Tommy, let’s give him a hand.”
Hewey wrapped the end of the hackamore rein around his saddle horn and led the bronc into the corral. It resisted all the way, setting its legs, hopping, twisting, tugging back on the rope as Biscuit stubbornly dragged it forward.
Hewey secured the bronc to a snubbing post in the center of the pen and backed Biscuit away to avoid being kicked by the flailing
hooves. Bige Saunders stood near the fence, frowning. Hewey rode back to him.
“Bige, I don’t believe that boy can handle this one.”
“He seems to think so.” Skip was carrying his blanket toward the thrashing bronc. Tommy followed with the saddle.
“He’s too game to quit on his own, but you could tell him to. You could say that pony needs to be staked out some more.”
“He’s already had three days. I don’t think three weeks would make much difference.”
“Then tell Skip you’ve decided to let somebody with more experience ride him first. Me maybe, or Aparicio. That’d give the kid a respectable way out.”
“It’d shame him. Skip picked that pony. He’ll have to ride him, or try to.”
The bay fought so frantically that Skip was unable to keep the blanket on long enough for Tommy to follow it with the saddle. Hewey got a rope on one foot and tied it up so the bronc could not paw or kick without falling. After several tries, he and Skip and Tommy, all working together, got the saddle on and cinched down. The pony humped its back so much that it reminded Hewey of a camel.
Hewey threw his right arm around the bronc’s neck and grabbed both ears. “All right, get on him.” He would bite down on an ear if necessary, but he had rather not get all that hair in his teeth. It always left a gritty taste that kept him spitting until he could wash it down with coffee.
Skip swung into the saddle. The pony tried to jump but went down on its rump. Tommy untied the rope that bound a foot.
Skip’s voice was shaky. “All right, turn him loose.”
Hewey relinquished his hold on the ears and jumped back. The bronc lashed a hind foot at him as it went by. The hoof just missed
Hewey’s ear. Out by the fence, Aparicio Rodriguez laughed. Cowboys almost always laughed at a near thing, especially when it happened to someone else. The trait was common to Anglo and Mexican alike.
Hewey had not seen many range broncs pitch harder than this one. He thought it could hold its own against professional buckers in the 101 Ranch Wild West Show. Skip’s hat sailed off and was pounded into a shapeless lump beneath the hooves. He grunted each time the pony hit the ground. Every jump lifted Skip a little higher from his seat. He gave up trying to make a show of it and gripped the saddle horn. Pride gave way to the instinct for survival.
Though Skip was making a good fight, he was wearing down while the bronc seemed only to gain strength and determination. Daylight between the kid and the saddle grew broader with every jump. One stirrup flopped free, then the other. As Skip left the saddle, Hewey rushed forward, waving his hat and shouting, trying to spook the horse out of kicking range. But the bay managed to strike the kid with one hind foot while Skip was still in the air. Free of the rider, it pitched on across the corral, squealing its rage, the stirrups bouncing. The back of the kid’s head hit the ground.
Hewey rushed to Skip’s side, Tommy and Saunders and Aparicio close behind. The young cowboy lay limp and unresponsive. No one was laughing now.
Saunders said, “He’s knocked out cold.” He motioned for a couple of the young hands to lift Skip and carry him out of the corral so the still-excited bronc could not run over him.
Hewey and Aparicio trapped the horse in a corner, and Tommy grabbed the hackamore rein.
Hewey yelled, “Boy, what you fixin’ to do?”
Tommy said, “Ride him. Worst thing we can do is let him get away with it. He needs to be rode, and right now.”
Hewey argued, “If your mother could see you she’d kill both of us.”
Aparicio offered to take over the ride, but Tommy said, “You take ahold of his ears.” The boy gripped the horn with his right hand, the rein and a handful of dark mane in his left. He swung into the saddle and pulled his hat down tight. “Ready,” he said.
The first long jump lifted him several inches from the saddle. He regained his balance and gripped firmly with his knees. Watching, Hewey could almost feel the jarring impact of each landing. But Tommy rode the bronc until it quit pitching and began circling the corral in a run, its hide dripping sweat. It drew its breath in great sobbing drafts.
At length the pony quit running and stood still, trembling in confusion and fatigue. Tommy swung down quickly and stepped away so it could not kick him if it took a notion to. It was too weary to try.
Hewey felt weary too from witnessing his nephew’s performance.
Bige Saunders walked up to Tommy. “Good ride, but you look kind of gray around the gills.”
“Just winded, is all. Is Skip still out?”
“He’s tryin’ to rally, but he doesn’t know whether he’s in Cape Cod or Hickory Bend.”
“He made a game try. Let’s don’t tell him I finished his ride.”
Saunders grunted. “I don’t imagine that bay’ll buck as hard the next time Skip tries. You took the starch out of him.”
Hewey said, “It took the starch out of me, watchin’ him. I told you, Bige, us Calloways know how to ride.”
Bige frowned. “I hope you know how to quit, and when.”
As Bige walked away, Hewey put his arm around Tommy’s shoulder. “Young’un, I never taught you to ride like that.”
“I learned by ridin’ broncs for Alvin Lawdermilk. I wanted to be just like you, Uncle Hewey.”
“Like me?” He thought of Eve and what she would say. “God help us all!”
When the branding was finished, Tommy asked Hewey what they were likely to do next. Hewey said, “First thing you need to learn is that you don’t ask questions. You watch the boss. If he saddles his best drive horse, you catch your best drive horse. If he saddles his best cuttin’ horse, you’re fixin’ to work the herd, so you catch up the one that’s quickest and quietest around the cattle.”
“But Bige didn’t saddle a horse at all. He left a while ago on the chuck wagon, headin’ for town.”
“In a case like that, you just keep workin’ on your broncs and wait for them to tell you what to do.”
Bige returned with a big load of flour, coffee and other camp necessities, which caused Hewey to wonder some, but pride still would not let him ask questions. With the branding finished, he saw no need to restock the chuck wagon. When Bige was ready, he would tell them what he wanted them to know.
That happened in the bunkhouse dining room at supper. Bige said, “Mr. Jenkins’ll be here after a while in his automobile. First thing in the mornin’, him and me are goin’ down under the rimrock to the Circle W outfit that he just bought. Hewey, I’d appreciate it if you and the boys would bring the horses and follow the wagons. We’ll be countin’ the Circle W cattle.”
Bige was the kind of boss who issued orders as if he were asking a favor, not giving a command.
Hewey replied as if he were consenting to the favor out of the goodness of his heart and not as a condition of employment. “We’ll be tickled to do that. You reckon Bias knows the way?”
“Bias knows every cow trail from the Guadalupes to the Rio Grande. All you need to do is follow him. I’d be obliged if you’d keep an eye on everything, Hewey.”
There they were again, giving him a sort of straw-boss responsibility he had not asked for. But how could he refuse a favor so politely requested? “Why, sure.”
He had never been to the Circle W and had only a general notion how far it was from J Bar headquarters. It made no real difference whether the trip was short or long; making it was simply part of the job he was being paid for, and trailing horses was always pleasurable. He relied on Blas to set the pace and the route.
As they went along, the going became rougher, the trail steeper and rockier, so the chuck wagon and hoodlum wagon could not make good time. It was a challenge to keep the remuda from overtaking and passing them. Bias camped the first night beside a clear-running narrow creek where an old set of brush corrals would hold the horses. The grass was green, so Hewey suggested that the hands loose-herd them and let them graze awhile, though the traveling had been slow enough to allow considerable grazing through the day.
He was glad for the stop. He wondered why he felt tired. The shipping, then the branding, had kept him going at a steady clip for weeks, but that had never seemed to bother him much in the past. He speculated that it was the responsibility of watching out for Tommy, seeing to it that he did not let Skip Harkness lead him off into some kind of foolishness that might get him hurt or fired. In some ways, Skip reminded him of a young Snort Yarnell.
Hard work had never bothered Hewey, but responsibility had always been a smothering burden.
While the horses were grazing, he found a pair of markings on a boulder twice the size of Blas’s wagon. One was a name and a date and the words “10th CAV” scratched into the rock, like a tombstone without a grave. The other was a faded black painting of a strange oblong figure with a square head and stick arms, a spear in one hand.
Tommy and Skip rode up to look at the markings with him. Tommy pointed to the painted one. “What you reckon that’s supposed to represent, Uncle Hewey?”
“Some kind of medicine man maybe, or some kind of a god. There used to be Apaches here, and before them I expect there was others.”
“There’s probably a story behind it, and behind that other one, too. Tenth Cavalry. Those were buffalo soldiers, weren’t they?”
“I think so. That was before my time. There was all kinds of people passed through here in the years gone by—Indians, Mexicans, white men … all of them gone.”
Many stories went untold in these mountains, secrets hidden beyond the haze of uncountable years, old victories now forgotten, old crimes long buried. Sometimes Hewey’s skin prickled as he imagined he could hear ancient spirits whispering to him in languages he could not understand, trying to tell him something no one but God knew anymore.
It was a grand country, on its face at least, but through those stories he had heard, he was aware that it had known darkness, too. Some of the people who had passed this way had been victors, some of them victims, some seeking peace and some on their way to war. They had left little trace of themselves beyond random markings on the stones. Men probably lay buried where he now rode, but he had no way of knowing. Whoever they had been, however long or short their stay, whatever triumphs and tragedies they had experienced here, the stones were silent and the wind had long since taken their tracks away.
One day Hewey would also be gone, and he had not even carved his name on a mountainside so that someone in the future would know he had once been here. It was a disturbing thought, one he did not allow to burden him for long. Tomorrow could take care of
itself. This was today. Today had always been more important to Hewey than either yesterday, which could not be changed, or tomorrow, which he could only guess at.
Skip said, “I’m goin’ to scratch my name on there, too.”
Hewey said, “You oughtn’t to. It’d be like markin’ up somebody’s tombstone.”
“A hundred years from now that may be the only trace left of me.”
Tommy shook his head. “I’m figurin’ on still bein’ around a hundred years from now.”
Hewey said, “And me with you.”
Skip argued, “A hundred years from now you’d be a hundred and fifty years old … maybe a hundred and seventy-five.”
“That,” said Hewey, “is when I may decide to give up ridin’.”
He was gratified when Skip rode away without adding his name to the inscriptions on the rock.
Hewey inspected the old corrals and shored up a couple of weak places where horses might slip through and escape in the night. After the remuda was safely penned, he staked Biscuit outside on grass at the end of a long rope so the brown could graze freely. He patted the horse’s neck and talked as if the animal could understand whatever he said. Working alone much of his life, he had picked up the habit of talking to his horse when he had no fellow humans to talk to.
He heard Skip Harkness’s voice behind him. “I’d like to be around the day he answers you back. I’ll bet you jump two feet high.”
Hewey felt a twinge of embarrassment along with faint resentment. This had been a private conversation. He sensed that Skip was trying to impress Tommy with his wit, for he still could not resist showing off a little. Reformation came slowly to some. “At least he doesn’t talk a lot of nonsense, like some cowpuncher kids I’ve known.”
“Too bad he can’t talk. I’ll bet he could tell some funny stories on you.”
“He’d have the good sense to keep his mouth shut. Some people could learn a lot from a horse.”
Bias clanged a pothook against a steel rod, calling the hands to supper. That gave Hewey a welcome excuse to end the conversation, which was not going anywhere. Walking ahead of the others, he heard Tommy talking quietly to Skip. “You oughtn’t to tease Uncle Hewey. He’s just gettin’ sort of old, is all.”
Must think I’m losing my hearing, too, Hewey thought. The words stung a bit, but he supposed from Tommy’s viewpoint he was a little long in the tooth. He was more than twice his nephew’s age.
He lifted his bedroll down from the hoodlum wagon so he could sit on it while he ate. Tommy joined him, his own bedroll too small to provide much of a seat. Under pressure of time, Hewey had forgotten his intention of buying Tommy a protective tarp before they left Alpine. It probably wasn’t going to rain anyway. It didn’t often. There was not room enough left for Skip on the bedroll, so he sat on the ground and leaned back against the end of the roll for support.
The new adventure was good for Tommy’s appetite. He had heaped his plate high with beef and beans and two tall sourdough biscuits. He said, “I don’t know when I ever tasted better.”
Skip commented, “Blas cooks good, but it gets monotonous after a while: biscuits and beef and beans, beans and beef and biscuits.”
Hewey said, “It’s hard to have variety when the kitchen keeps movin’. Anyway, try batchin’ for a while and you’ll appreciate a good cook.”
A high canyon wall just west of camp blocked the setting sun so that dusk came early and stretched out awhile. With darkness and the first bright stars came a light chill, though not enough to cause
Hewey to dig into his war bag for a denim jacket. He heard a horse squeal, and hooves shuffled in the corral as one of the more dominant animals bullied a timid one. Night birds called to one another from the trees. Wood crackled as it burned down into glowing coals in Blas’s fire pit.
On the other side of camp, one of the Mexicans plucked at a guitar, and Aparicio Rodriguez’s voice rose in a plaintive song of unrequited love and welcome death. It seemed to Hewey that most Mexican songs were melancholy at heart. Many cowboy songs as well told sad stories of dying on the range far from home, or of long-ago loves who had been left behind.
The music carried Hewey back to another time, to a summer’s courtship of Spring Renfro. He asked Tommy, “Since you finished your schoolin’, do you ever see Miss Renfro anymore?”
“Every time I’ve been over to the Lawdermilks’. She’s always there.”
“Has she changed any?”
“Got a little older, I guess.” From the vantage point of a boy in his teens she had been old to start with, having been in her thirties when she became his teacher.
“I mean, is she still pretty?”
“I never thought of her that way. Old maids ain’t supposed to be pretty, are they?”
“She’s not an old maid yet. From where I sit, she’s still young.”
“From where you sit, I guess just about everybody looks young.”
Skip Harkness was a bad influence on the boy, Hewey thought.
Tommy looked up at the stars. His voice was tinged with awe. “Ain’t it beautiful out here, Uncle Hewey? I never saw the like of these mountains.”
Hewey nodded. “It is a smilin’ country.”
“I can see why you never could be happy with anything but a ridin’ job. It never was this pretty on the farm.”
“Your mama and daddy would argue with you about that. It’s not just what you see that makes somethin’ pretty; it’s findin’ what you want to see.”
“This is what I wanted to see, all right.”
Hewey suspected it would take a while to talk Tommy into going home … if he even could.