alone. The men here, each man in each house, had a buffalo gun and he could shoot. Each man in this town had fought Indians, renegades, and whoever wanted a fight. If a man started trouble in one of these little western towns he was setting himself up at the end of a shooting gallery.
Moreover, it was an even-money bet that Pio knew about the shooting down country. News like that travels fast.
After I'd eaten and had drunk a quart of coffee, I went outside and led my horse into the trees and beyond them to the meadow. Then, stripping off the saddle, I gave him a careful rubdown while he fed on a bait of corn I'd gotten from Pio.
Western horses got mighty little corn, but that dun had it coming; and thinking of him made me think kindly of that old man back there who had given him to me.
Before this, I hadn't dared to strip the saddle from him for fear I might have to light out again, to light a shuck, as the saying was.
It was a quiet night. I could hear the rustle of the cottonwood leaves, and sometimes heard subdued sounds from the plaza. There was a coyote out on the knoll making music at the stars. Rolled up in my blankets, two of them, atop my poncho, I slept like a baby ... a baby who'd never known a night in his life when there mightn't be trouble.
Sunup was a rare fine thing. Washing my face in the water that poured into the horse trough, I glanced over at the buckboard standing in front of the cantina.
A Mexican was hitching a fresh team to the buckboard, and the rattle of the trace chains was the only sound in the little street, shaded by the huge old cottonwoods.
My fingers had to do for a comb, something I'd not owned in more than a year, but I saddled up before I went into my saddlebags for my razor, which I stropped on my belt. Then I shaved, using the still end of the horse trough for a mirror.
It made me look some better, although I'd never win no prizes for looks, not with that broken nose of mine.
When I'd finished shaving, I dabbed whiskey on my jaws for a shaving lotion and then led my dun across to the hitch rail. A man living my land of life never would let himself get caught without a gun or a saddle horse.
I went inside, where Pio was standing over a table at which three people were sitting, but the first one I saw was the girl.
She was young ... maybe seventeen. Most girls were married at her age, or soon after. She had kind of dark red hair and brown eyes. ... She was beautiful ... taller than most girls ... and shaped like music.
The old man with her was rail-thin and waspish, with hard gray eyes and a gray mustache mixed with red. You could see at a glance that he was a man with no give to him, and a man that no man in his right mind would try to cross. The third man was a breed ... I'd say half Indian, anyway. A slight-built man, he was, and past middle age.
When I sat down at a table Pio's wife came in with a plate of food, a heaping plate, for she had noticed the night before that I was a good feeder. She was one of those women who like nothing better than to see a man sit up to table and put away the food.
A couple of times the old man glanced my way, and once the girl did. I heard Pio say something about 'Romero ...' but his voice trailed off.
Pretty soon he came over to my table and dropped into a chair. He motioned to his wife for a fresh pot of coffee and we started in on it, Pio being as good a hand at putting it away as I was myself.
'Those people,' Pio said, 'they go north.'
'Yeah?'
'I fear for them. She is young, the senorita. And the men ... good men, but not plainsmen.'
'What are they doin' out here then? No man in his right mind brings a woman like that into this country.'
Pio shrugged. 'I brought mine. What must be done must be done. Perhaps there was no other place.'
There were questions I could have asked, but it was none of my business. I was lighting out of here right soon, and more than likely I wouldn't be back this way again.
Only that pack train of Nathan Hume's kept sticking in my mind. If all that gold was up there in those mountains, maybe I should just look around. I wanted no part of that outfit I'd left behind, but it was likely I'd be there before them.
'It is said you are an outlaw, senor?'
I looked up at him, but I did not speak. It was said, but I didn't much like it.
'I think, myself, you are an honest man, and a caballero. I think you are one to be trusted.'
'You think whatever you like.'
'Those three ... they need help.'
My hand was reaching for the bean pot, but it stopped halfway.
'No, you don't,' I said. 'Not me. I'm not being saddled with no pilgrims. Not crossing that country.'
'It was a thought.'
'You better give it another think. I'm a fast-travelin' man in Injun country. I want it so's I can run or hide, and you'd play hell hidin' a buckboard or its tracks. It's a far stretch from here to wherever they're headed, and I've got business up country.'
'She is a pretty girl. The Comanches ...'
'Too bad.'
Pio was silent. Maybe he knew more about me than I wanted to admit to myself, but he just sat there and waited, and like a damned fool I looked over at that girl setting there with her pa, if that was what he was, and that breed.
She was so fresh and young and pretty that I had to look away fast or soon I'd be doing just what Pio wanted, and making a fool of myself. Yet a body couldn't see her setting there looking so young and lovely without thinking what would happen to her if the Comanches got her.
Now, back east where the Indians are tame and mighty few, a lot of folks have started talking about the poor red man, but believe me, when you saw an Indian out on the plains settin' up on a pony with a Winchester in his hand or a lance, there was nothing poor about him. He was a fighting man from way back, and he was a savage ... a stranger was an enemy, and an enemy was to be killed or, if captured, tortured to see how brave he was.
In my time I'd had my share of troubles with Comanches, Kiowas, Arapahos, Utes, Cheyennes, Sioux, and about every land of redskin there was. With some I got alone fine; but when he's fighting no Indian needs take a back seat for any man.
They'd been called, by one of Europe's greatest generals, 'the finest light cavalry under the sun.'
When a man traveled in Indian country he sort of sifted through, gentle-like and taking up no more room than need be. He kept out of sight, and slept without a fire at night unless he could hide it well. And on top of that he prayed, if he was a praying man, and the deeper you got into Indian country the more of a praying man you got to be. You just couldn't afford to miss any bets.
Pio talked about the sheep. He talked about cattle. It would be no time at all, he was saying, until the Texas cattlemen started bringing their herds into the Panhandle. The buffalo was going, the Indian would be driven out, and the cattle would come.
'And then the farmers,' I said, with disgust. My own folks had farmed, if you could call it that, on the thin soil of the Clinch Mountain slopes, but I wanted no farmers cutting up this country.
'No, this country is no good for farm,' Pio said. 'We try it. The wind blows too much. Only the grass ties it down.'
'I know,' I agreed, finishing off the last of the food on my plate 'That last dust storm we had, I could taste some Kansas dust in it. I knew a man one time in the Brazos country who could tell what county he was in by the taste of the dust.'
Well, right then I made a big mistake. I looked over at that girl again. Of course, you've got to realize that I hadn't seen a white woman for a good long time, and this one was kind of special.
'All right, Pio,' I said, 'pick up the chips. You go tell them I'll try to get them through to Romero, anyway.'
'Bueno!' Pio smiled at me. 'I knew this was what you would do. I tell them so. I tell them just to wait, that you're a good man.'
