Part 2 (1/2)

I wasn't sure I'd heard John Henry right, he'd spoken so soft, and usually you never had to ask John Henry Kenton what he had just said. I wasn't about to ask him to repeat himself, though, and he let out this long sigh, then pulled off those gloves he was wearing and tossed them on the dead steer.

”No, sir,” he said, louder now. ”It ain't right.” He swore, and turned to me and Tommy, mud and grime and blood caked on his beard stubble, brown eyes almost as black now as his boots.

”Ain't right. Ain't suitable. Ain't befitting us. I don't know what we were thinking. Tommy, you ought to have known better.” He looked at me. ”You lame?”

”No, sir,” I said right back to him, and I was picking up my knife, thinking John Henry was pestering me to get back to work, but Tommy, he was smart, and he stopped me from making a bigger fool out of myself. He just reached out and grabbed my arm, pulled me back, and gave this slight gesture with his jaw to pay attention to John Henry Kenton.

Which is what both of us done.

”You think this is a job for a cowhand?” John Henry asked, but he wasn't really talking to us boys, he was talking to himself. Practicing, I think, for what he'd tell Jenks Foster, who did the hiring and the firing at the Ladder 3E.

”I ain't drawing time for something I can't do on the back of a horse,” he said. ”Men pay me to nurse cattle, not skin them. I must have gone plumb out of my head to hire on for a job like this. Let's go.”

We saddled our horses, and rode away from the drift fence. John Henry left his gloves where he had dropped them. No matter. They was ruined from all that blood and guts.

I don't think we said a word on the whole long ride back to the Ladder 3E headquarters. Jenks Foster was sitting on his rocking chair on the porch of the bunkhouse when we rode up late that afternoon, like he was expecting us.

A good man, Jenks Foster. He had a chaw of tobacco inside his mouth that stretched his cheek out like he was eating a whole apple, and sat in that rocking chair, working his tobacco, and braiding something with horsehair. He wore a big hat, shapeless, covered with dirt from years on the ranges, plaid pants stuck in stovepipe boots, plaid s.h.i.+rt, and calico bandanna. And spurs with the biggest set of rowels that I'd ever seen.

I liked old Jenks Foster. At the Ladder 3E, folks said Jenks had gone on drives to Abilene back when it was wild and cantankerous. They said he had worked with men like Shanghai Pierce and Ike Pryor. They said he had ridden on that first drive on what we later called the Goodnight-Loving Trail. He was a cowman all the way through, and I hated to quit him like we was about to do.

He spit onto the ground, and set aside his horsehair, and just rocked, waiting, like he was expecting us to come.

”If I wanted to be a skinner,” John Henry told him without getting down from his horse, ”I'd have hired on with some buffalo-running outfit.”

”No buffalo outfits any more, Kenton,” Jenks Foster said easily. ”Not in a long, long time. No buffalo, either.”

”I draw time as a cowpuncher,” John Henry said. ”I work on the back of a horse. Skinning rotting cattle ain't a job for me.”

Foster's bronzed head nodded. ”Don't blame you. You'll be drawing your time, I reckon.”

”Figure I got two weeks coming.”

”And you?” Now, Jenks Foster was looking right at me.

”We's pards.” It was all I could think of to say.

Old Jenks, he smiled at that, which made me feel a whole lot better, especially when he looked away from me and at Tommy. ”You feel the same, Tommy?”

”Yes, sir.”

”You want your books?” Jenks asked. ”Along with the pay you got coming?”

”The books?” Tommy blinked. ”Those books are yours, Jenks.”

”Not mine. They come with the bunkhouse. Don't know who first brought them to the Ladder 3E, but the only time they ever got read was by you. Pack them in your war bag, Tommy.”

Jenks stood, spit again. ”I'll get what money I owe you.”

One of the books was by Balzac. I don't remember the t.i.tle, but I do recall that Jenks Foster said he'd sure miss ”that potbellied son-of-a-gun” and how Tommy used to read after supper. We'd packed up our possibles, which didn't amount to much, other than the three books Tommy was getting as a bonus. I'd hoped to eat supper at the ranch, but the place was deserted that evening. It was going to be a long walk to Tascosa.

Should point out that we didn't own our horses, just our saddles and tack. The Ladder 3E had a company rule that cowboys couldn't own their own mounts. Bunch of ranches done things the same way. So we'd laid out our war bags with our saddles and bridles on the porch, got our envelopes from Jenks Foster-didn't bother opening them up to count the cash because we trusted Jenks. And we just stood there, waiting, knots on a log.

”Where's Fussy?” John Henry asked. Fussy was the cook. His name was Fussell, but everyone called him Fussy. Big fat guy, chewed on long-nine cigars all the time till they was soggy and torn up. Never smoked them. Just chewed on them.

”Let him go,” Jenks Foster said.

”Let him go?” John Henry turned, facing our ex-boss like he was about to go for his six-shooter. My mouth dropped open, too. Fussy wasn't much of a cook, and I got tired of finding shreds of cigars in my beans, but he was a good man, quick with a joke, and I'd worked for worse belly-cheaters.

After spitting out a mouthful of tobacco juice, Jenks Foster said: ”You count how many cattle you skinned?”

”No,” John Henry fired back.

”I have. You and all the other outfits I had out there. The way things have averaged out, it comes to one hundred and seventy-nine per mile. Over twenty-six miles.” He looked over at Tommy. ”Son, you're mighty good with words. How are you at ciphering? Can you figure that out?”

”Well. . . .” Tommy sort of grinned. Oh, he could figure out a problem like that, but he'd need a pencil and paper, and some time.

”Four thousand, six hundred, fifty-four,” Jenks Foster said. ”That's just along the drift fence.” He was looking back at John Henry. ”John Hollicot come over yesterday from the LX. He's lost twice as many.”

”Wire.” John Henry's fists were clenched tight again. He cursed the wire.

”It's bad. Bad as I've ever seen. So I let Fussy go. n.o.body to cook for here, anyhow, except me.” He let out a list of names of other riders for the Ladder 3E who had come in and quit. I think that disappointed John Henry. He'd hoped he had been the first one to show his pride, but, turns out, we was among the last.

”Clu Marshall, Lavender Mills, and Chet Muller are still out there,” Jenks Foster said. ”Lavender ain't got the sense G.o.d gave a horned toad. He'll skin cattle all the way to Kansas if he ain't careful. They are the only ones left riding for the Ladder 3E.”

”You'll fire them, too?” John Henry asked.

”Didn't fire you, did I? You boys quit. Like the rest of them, except Fussy, and he'll find a job somewhere else, or give up this crazy way of life, go to work in some restaurant. No, the Ladder 3E ain't finished. Lavendar'll stay on. Same as Chet. Clu? Probably not. Not when he finds out that he'll have to eat my cooking till things recover down here. There's work to be done. Hides to be picked up. Watering holes to be cleaned. Wire to be fixed. You boys could stay on, if you had a mind.”

”I reckon not,” John Henry said. ”We'll drift.”

Me and Tommy nodded our agreement.

”Figured as much. Don't blame you. There'll be some tramps and drunks, bottom of the barrel, and greenhorns in the saloons. I'll hire some of those boys to do the jobs needed to be done around here.”

Silence filled the night. Coyotes started yipping. Jenks Junior, which is the name we'd saddled on the cur dog on the ranch, started yipping right back till those coyotes stopped making all that noise.

”You boys need me to put in a word for you, I'd be right proud to do so.” Jenks spit again. ”The only thing is this . . . jobs might be hard to come by in these parts. This year. For work befitting cowhands like you.”

”Is it that bad?” Tommy asked.

”Bad enough,” Jenks answered. ”You saw it yourself. Skinning cattle. I'm thinking forty percent here. I hear the XIT is saying only fifteen percent. And I've heard some bookkeepers say that a bunch of us ranchers are exaggerating our losses, killing off what they call the book count, and not the actual count.”