CHAPTER 18
They spent their honeymoon in downtown San Antonio, seeing the Alamo ruins across from the hotel every day. They went to fiestas and Mexican markets, art shows and fandangos. He found her two nice dresses to grow into. They looked at furniture for the house to be built. She said God knew where that would be, and he was keeping it a secret.
Harp met two interesting men. One was a northern investor who wanted to promote the O’Malley brothers’ next cattle drive when he learned about their Missouri sojourn the past year. James McVeigh didn’t know anything about bovines except the front end had horns and the back end possessed a tail. Harp decided he must have had lots of money, since he threw two lavish parties in the five days they were in town. McVeigh could not believe that Harper did not drink and he rather openly flirted with Kate.
She wasn’t, in any way, moved by him, and she told Harper she would bet he never ate peaches with a girl on a creek bank and then seduced her. They both laughed about it.
The second man he met was Arthur Shea, a land agent. He had a drink or two with him. Actually Harp had tea and the agent had hard Kentucky whiskey. Collins had some large tracts of land in west Texas listed that Harp would’ve loved to have, but they were way too pricey to even consider.
In their last meeting, Collins asked if he found a buyer, what would be considered a fair price to pay for a big ranch manager job.
“More than anyone would ever pay me. Fifty thousand a year.”
“Oh, you would be way too high.”
“My dad said there were two kinds of oats in the world. Ones before the horse ate, and the ones after he ate them. Those after he ate them are cheaper.”
“Oh, I never heard that one before, but you struck the nail on the head, me boy, and can I use it?”
“Of course. I have no claim on it.”
“You are nearly nineteen years old, and in the coming year you say you will earn that much money in this pathetic economy?”
“Maybe more.”
“My heavens. How much do you charge to show people what you do?”
“Arthur. You need to be born in a Texas saddle, understand longhorn thinking, and be able to swim across an ice-cold river a half-mile wide. Also stop stampedes of two thousand cattle running wide open in the dark and shoot any sum bitch that gets in your way.”
“I decline the offer. I am not that tough.”
They shook hands and parted friends.
Later his bride laughed at his stories. “You tell full-grown men these stories don’t you?”
“They couldn’t do those things like drive cattle to market if their life depended on it. That is very unique.”
“Unique?”
“Different or a strange way. Also means specialized to someone how they make it work.”
“You will face the test when we go home. Will people trust you?”
“Long and I have a track record.”
“But now the road is to Kansas.”
“It can’t be that bad. I am talking about holding them together.”
“You had eight hundred. Now two thousand in each herd?”
“We will deliver them. Oh, why are we talking anyway?” He wrestled her down on the bed. “We can’t hurt the baby can we?”
“No, not unless we get violent. Your mom told me to have fun. She did to the last day. She even said you were conceived in less than twenty-four hours of Long’s birth.”
“And she never had another.”
“No one can explain that, either. She wanted a daughter.”
He laughed. “You want a boy.”
“That is what he is.” She patted her belly.
How did he get so lucky to find her on the last day she aimed to be around there—him showing up and accepting the peach challenge?
They drove back in a drizzle. It fell on his oats in good measure.