give his approval in any way Meiklejon would understand yet, but if the fancy red bull did its job and the calves carried that bulk of meat and bone, then Gayle Souter wouldn’t mind playing nursemaid to a slow-moving, mean- tempered son-of-a-bitch like Edinburgh Supreme.
He sighed, spat, and watched dust rise and settle.
Constant work kept Davey tired, almost let him sleep. Redhazed anger followed him while he worked. He and two hands restrung the broken wire in the valley. Davey started calling it Skull Valley for the piles of bones. Remains of meat and hide still clung to the skulls, but the wire had been restretched and the rest of the ten sections had gotten fenced. It had taken more than a month of hard work and a lot of knuckle hide and cursing to get the job done.
Right now Red, Davey, and Souter were trailing after the bull—had a name to go along with his fancy pedigree, Edinburgh Supreme. Davey thought naming a bull was dumb. They got born, serviced their cows, and died from old age or a deep wound, and a new bull took over the job. It was the nature of animals, and naming them didn’t make them into anything more than what they were.
He was content to ride drag. The selected cows moved too quickly sometimes, kept the boys busy. But old Supreme, he walked like each step declared his majesty. Watching that heavy rump spring up and down could make a man think on all those future steaks. Ahead, Meiklejon rode his easy-gaited grullo. Souter hung to the left, out of the dust but ready for trouble.
Riding in the wake of those massive hindquarters, Davey let his thoughts wander. Summer would fill out early spring’s promise—hot, dry, dusty. About usual for these mountains. Davey watched the great motion of the bull, and wondered where English’s horses watered now. The ten sections they’d fenced off included that watering hole. But Davey didn’t think the band would go back to their old prison.
English was still to the ranch—weak, pale, even thinner if possible, but alive. Didn’t talk much, walked half bent. At least Miss Katherine no longer had a grim set to her. She even teased Davey about small things, and he’d enjoyed her laugh. She trusted him, looked to him for help. Maybe English’s accident held something of value after all.
He thought about the mares. Maybe they had figured out the wire. Maybe they were all right. But with the dry winds, little rain, no storms to fill up the streams and gullies, the water hole would look awful good. Maybe they’d moved on. The dark stallion now leery of these mountains…maybe they’d gone where no wire crossed their tracks.
Davey knew he was thinking wishes and not facts. Horses were just that, horses, and the stallion would see water across a fence and hang around, wanting a drink. The foals would weaken as their mammy’s milk dried up. The mares would turn ribby and poor.
He’d heard Meiklejon’s talk about the “necessity of preserving the bloodlines” and he hated the man for his callous misunderstanding. An animal that couldn’t survive the range without help had no business eating and shitting and sleeping and growing. It made no sense to breed hot-house stock. Not in southwest New Mexico.
They guided the bull and its harem up the west side of the valley, not wanting to risk Supreme’s tender hoofs on the hard rock and flinty ground of the eastern trail. So they had to ride past the depression where the scattered bones and the new wire blended together, leaving Davey to keep score. He choused the bull into a labored trot, saw the huge sac swinging between the distended hind legs.
Souter’s pale eyes said everything, and Davey reined in his bay, letting the bull come back to a walk. Souter knew. Souter counted the bones, hated the wire, but they both took the man’s wages, they owed him their loyalty.
They entered the valley between high wooden posts once laced with thin railings that had now tumbled down the steep slopes. The cows scattered easily in the valley. The bull took its great ponderous time making the downhill trail, and finally stood, raising its head and bellowing an announcement of its evident intent.
Davey laughed, and Souter joined in. Meiklejon looked on disapprovingly.
After the cattle were scattered, Souter asked, too politely, if Davey would stay on a few days, keep track of the bull, and an eye out for rustlers. Jack Holden, in particular. Someone had been getting greedy. Holden had to be part of it. Davey said he didn’t much care. So Souter pulled out his good Winchester, handed it over to Davey with a pouch full of bullets. Guarding Edinburgh Supreme was serious business.
The L Slash crew rode home in the dark, Meiklejon comfortable on his pacing grullo. Once they were gone, Davey made short camp in a pocket of trees near the water hole. In the morning he made a fire, using the rotting poles as fuel, finding them easy to break. He put coffee to boil, opened up a can of beans Souter had left him. He liked the morning silence; he liked knowing he was the only man in the wide valley.
Finally he walked to the rock ledge, to the natural gaps and wire fence. He touched the burrs that raised hell with flesh. Their pricks were a harsh reminder. He looked along the wire’s endless stretch, saw it disappear far ahead of him, and the new day’s glory was spoiled.
Davey wondered what Miss Katherine was doing right then—getting up and boiling coffee, tending to her patient before she got to the morning chores. His throat closed and it got hard to breathe. Davey knew he was jealous of a no-account horse chaser who saw Miss Katherine each morning, while Davey was stuck in a high meadow with a bunch of female bovines and a bull too dumb to know what to do with their willing flesh. He wasn’t pleased with himself, thinking so of Miss Katherine. She was a good woman and he had no right to his thoughts, except he wanted Miss Katherine all to himself, to love her and be loved by her in return.
Midday he got restless, bored with watching the bull follow one or two cows, and he saddled up. He headed his bay out of the fence and up toward the far end of the valley, where it turned to desert, where the old fence marked a line.
The bay climbed the rimrock and stood next to the wood fence. Below, a small band of wild horses saw Davey and turned to run from him. They’d been close to the wire fence, heads hanging, tails moving slowly to distract the flies.
Davey counted as the band moved out—three mares with long-legged foals, three mares carrying Edward Donald’s brand. They showed the effect of the dry spring and early summer—their ribs stood out, their coats dulled. The idea came to Davey.
He put the bay into a lope across the sandy ground to the edge of the wire fence. There he climbed down and pulled out the staples holding the wire and laid down three sections, covering the dammed barbs with rotting pine and rocks, some juniper boughs.
The mares slowed, turned around, judging him with tired eyes. He wondered about the dark bay stallion, how these mares had gotten loose. Back on his bay, he let the horse walk toward the mares. They watched him warily. He watched them in return. Then they bolted from Davey, away from the fenced-in water. Davey kept the bay at a distance. They settled into a loose trot until it was dark, and then the mares walked on, north, into the desert. There was enough light by the low moon and stars to keep Davey on t heir trail. They were mustangs, and a few hours, even a day or so, wouldn’t wear them down. This was the heart that couldn’t be bred into a horse; it was born natural, kept alive by active enemies, the weak culled out before their first full year.
The mares wouldn’t let Davey get around them, but he kept walking, trotting sometimes, enough to keep himself from dozing in the saddle. As the sun rose, Davey saw the distant spire of Escondido Mountain. He reined in the bay, enjoyed the view, thought of the day’s coming heat. The mares stopped willingly, the foals dropped to the dirt and stretched out to sleep. Davey let them rest. His conscience fretted at what he was doing, but he still felt it was right.
He left the bay drift around the mares, to be ahead of them. After a half hour or so, he clucked to the mares. The foals clambered up at a signal from their mamas. The small band went in an orderly procession, Davey bringing up the rear. He herded them back to the wide end of the valley, where they barely stopped to snort and blow at the fallen wood fence rails. Heads high, tails flagging, the mares had scented water.
