Part 10 (1/2)

”If you're that trigger-happy, no wonder you're on the run,” Augustus said. ”If you want to stop the noise, go hit him in the head with a brick.”

”Why walk when you can shoot?” Jake asked with another grin.

Call said nothing. He had noticed that Jake actually raised his barrel enough to eliminate any danger to their cook. It was typical-Jake always liked to act meaner than he was.

”If you men want grub, you better go get it,” he said. ”Sundown would be the time to leave.”

After supper Jake and Augustus went outside to smoke and spit. Dish sat on the Dutch oven, sipping black coffee and squeezing his temples with one hand-each temple felt like someone had given it a sharp rap with a small ax. Deets and Newt started for the lots to catch the horses, Newt very conscious of the fact that he was the only one in the group without a sidearm. Deets had an old Walker Colt the size of a ham, which he only wore when he went on trips, since even he wouldn't have been stout enough to carry it all day without wearing down.

The Captain had gone to the lots ahead of them, since it took a little time to get the h.e.l.l b.i.t.c.h saddled. He had her snubbed to the post when Deets and Newt arrived. When Newt walked in the barn to get a rope, the Captain turned and handed him a holstered pistol and a gun belt.

”Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it,” he added, a little solemnly.

Newt took the gun and slipped it out of its holster. It smelted faintly of oil-the Captain must have oiled it that day. It was not the first time he had held a pistol, of course. Mr. Gus had given him thorough training in pistol shooting and had even complimented him on his skill. But holding one and actually having one of your own were two different things. He turned the cylinder of the Colt and listened to the small, clear clicks it made. The grip was wood, the barrel cool and blue; the holster had kept a faint smell of saddle soap. He slipped the gun back in its holster, put the gun belt around his waist and felt the gun's solid weight against his hip. When he walked out into the lots to catch his horse, he felt grown and complete for the first time in his life. The sun was just easing down toward the Western horizon, the bullbats were dipping toward the stone stock tank that Deets and the Captain had built long ago. Deets had already caught Mr. Gus's horse, a big solid sorrel they called Mud Pie, and was catching his own mount. Newt shook out a loop, and on the first throw caught his own favorite, a dun gelding he called Mouse. He felt he could even rope better with the gun on his hip.

”Oh, my, they done put a gun on you, ain't they,” Deets said with a big grin. ”I guess next thing you'll be boss of us all.”

No thought that ambitious had ever crossed Newt's mind. The summit of his hopes had been to be one of the crew-to be allowed to go along and do whatever there was to do. But Deets had said it as a joke, and Newt was in the perfect mood to take a joke.

”That's right,” he said. ”I 'spect they'll make me boss any day. And the first thing I'll do is raise your wages.”

Deets slapped his leg and laughed, the thought was so funny. When the rest of the outfit finally wandered down from the house they found the two of them grinning back and forth at one another.

”Look at 'em,” Augustus said. ”You'd think they just discovered teeth.”

As the day died and the afterglow stretched upward in the soft, empty sky, the Hat Creek outfit, seven strong, crossed the river and rode southeast, toward the Hacienda Flores.

10.

THE FIRST DIFFERENCE Newt noticed about being grown up was that time didn't pa.s.s as slow. The minute they crossed the river the Captain struck southeast in a long trot, and in no time the land darkened and they were riding by moonlight, still in a long trot. Since he had never been allowed in Mexico, except once in a while in one of the small villages down the river when they were buying stock legitimately, he didn't really know what to expect, but he hadn't expected it to be quite so dark and empty. Pea Eye and Mr. Gus were always talking about how thick the bandits were, and yet the seven of them rode for two hours into country that seemed to contain nothing except itself. They saw no lights, heard no sounds-they just rode, across shallow gullies, through thinning chaparral, farther and farther from the river. Once in a while the Captain stepped up the pace and they traveled in a short lope, but mostly he stuck with the trot. Since Mouse had an easy trot and a hard lope, Newt was happy with the gait.

He was in the middle of the company. It was Pea Eye's traditional job to watch the rear. Newt rode beside Dish Boggett, who had not said one word since leaving and whose state Newt couldn't judge, though at least he hadn't fallen off his horse. The thin moon lit the sky but not the ground. The only landmarks were shadows, low shadows, mostly made by chaparral and mesquite. Of course, it was not Newt's place to worry about the route, but it occurred to him that he had better try to keep some sense of where he was in case he got separated from the outfit and had to find his own way back. But the farther they rode, the more lost he felt; about all he knew for sure was that the river was on his left. He tried to watch the Captain and Mr. Gus and to recognize the landmarks they were guiding the outfit by. But he could detect nothing. They did not seem to be paying much attention to the terrain. It was only when they loped over a ridge and surprised a sizable herd of longhorns that the Captain drew rein. The cattle, spooked by the seven riders, were already running away.

By this time the stars were bright, and the Milky Way like a long speckled cloud. Without a word the Captain got off. Stepping to the end of his rein, he began to relieve himself. One by one the other men dismounted and did the same, turning slightly so as not to be pointed at one another. Newt thought he had better do what the others were doing, but to his embarra.s.sment could not make water. All he could do was b.u.t.ton up again and hope n.o.body had noticed.

In the silence that followed the p.i.s.sing they could still hear the sound of running cattle, the only sound to be heard other than the breath of the horses or the occasional jingling spur. The Captain seemed to feel the horses deserved a short rest; he stayed on the ground, looking in the direction of the fleeing cattle.

”Them cattle could be had for the taking,” he said. ”Anybody get a count?”

”No, I never,” Augustus said, as if he would be the only one who could possibly have made a count.

”Oh, was them cattle?” Jake said. ”I thought they was dern antelope. They went over the ridge so fast I never got a look.”

”It's lucky they run west,” Call said.

”Lucky for who?” Augustus asked.

”For us,” Call said. ”We can come back and pick them up tomorrow night. I bet it was four hundred or more.”

”Them of us that wants to can, I guess,” Augustus said. ”I ain't worked two nights running since I can remember.”

”You never never worked two nights running,” Jake said as he swung back up on his horse. ”Not unless you was working at a lady, anyhow.” worked two nights running,” Jake said as he swung back up on his horse. ”Not unless you was working at a lady, anyhow.”

”How far have we come, Deets?” Call asked. Deets had one amazing skill-he could judge distances traveled better than any man Call had ever known. And he could do it in the daytime, at night, in all weathers, and in brush.

”It's five miles yet to the out camp,” Deets said. ”It's a little ways north, too.”

”Let's bear around it,” Call said.

Augustus considered that an absurd precaution. ”'I G.o.d,” he said. ”The dern camp's five miles away. We can likely slip past it without going clear around by Mexico City.”

”It don't hurt to give it room,” Call said. ”We might scare some more cattle. I've known men who could hear the sound of running cattle a long way off.”

”I couldn't hear Jehovah's trumpet from no five miles off,” Augustus said. ”Anyway, we ain't the only thing in this country that can spook cattle. A lobo wolf can spook them, or a lion.”

”I didn't ask for a speech,” Call said. ”It's foolish to take chances.”

”Some might think it foolish to try and steal horses from the best-armed ranch in northern Mexico,” Augustus said. ”Pedro must work about a hundred vaqueros vaqueros.”

”Yes, but they're spread around, and most of them can't shoot,” Call said.

”Most of us can't, either,” Augustus said. ”Dish and Newt ain't never spilt blood, and one of 'em's drunk anyway.”

”Gus, you'd talk to a possum,” Jake said.

”I wisht we had one along,” Augustus said. ”I've seen possums that could outthink this crowd.”

After that, the talk died and they all slipped back into the rhythm of the ride. Newt tried hard to stay alert, but their pace was so steady that after a while he stopped thinking and just rode, Deets in front of him, Dish beside him, Pea behind. If he had been sleepy he could almost have gone to sleep at a high trot, it was all so regular.

Dish Boggett had ridden off the worst of his drunk, though there were moments when he still felt queasy. Dish had spent most of his life on a horse and could ride in any condition short of paralysis; he had no trouble keeping his place in the group. In time his head quit throbbing and he felt well enough to take an interest in the proceedings at hand. He was not troubled by any sense of being lost, or any apprehension about Mexican bandits. He was confident of his mount and prepared to outrun any trouble that couldn't be otherwise handled. His main trouble was that he was riding just behind Jake Spoon and thus was reminded of what had happened in the saloon every time he looked up. He knew he had become a poor second in Lorena's affections to the man just in front of him, and the knowledge rankled. The one consoling thought was that there might be gunplay before the night was over-Dish had never been in a gun battle but he reasoned that if bullets flew thick and fast Jake might stop one of them, which could change the whole situation. It wasn't exactly that Dish hoped he'd be killed outright-maybe just wounded enough that they'd have to leave him someplace downriver where there might be a doctor.

More than once they spotted bunches of longhorn cattle, all of whom ran like deer at the approach of the hors.e.m.e.n.

”Why, h.e.l.l, if we was to start to Montana with cattle like these, we'd be there in a week,” Augustus said. ”A horse couldn't keep up with them, nor a steam locomotive neither.”

”The big camp, Captain,” Deets said, ”it's over the ridge.”

”We don't want the camp, we want the horse herd,” Augustus said in his full voice.

”Talk up, Gus,” Jake said. ”If you talk a little louder they'll probably bring the horse herd to us, only they'll be riding it.”

”Well, they're just a bunch of bean eaters,” Augustus said. ”As long as they don't fart in my direction I ain't worried.”

Call turned south. The closer they were to action, the more jocularity bothered him. It seemed to him that men who had been in bad fights and seen death and injury ought to develop a little respect for the dangers of their trade. The last thing he wanted to do at such times was talk-a man who was talking couldn't listen to the country, and might miss hearing something that would make the crucial difference.

Gus's disregard of common sense in such matters was legendary. Jake appeared to have the same disregard, but Call knew his was mostly bluff. Gus started the joking, and Jake felt like he had to keep up his end of it, because he wanted to be thought a cool customer.