This time, when they came to the fence line, they jumped where Davey had laid the wire down, and broke into a slow lope toward the inviting water. Davey let them go, watched with pleasure as they stepped gingerly to the pool’s edge, stuck their heads deeply in the water, and drank quickly, raising their heads to check for possible danger.
He let them finish their drink before he got back to work. As soon as he raised the first strand of wire, the band spooked and went into the narrow canon. They were headed into the fenced ten sections, and the company of Edinburgh Supreme.
He could truthfully report that he had checked the fence, seen to the bull, and that all was well. And he’d find the right time to tell English about the mares. It was English’s business; let Meiklejon think what he would about his imported stock, these mustangs deserved their chance.
He stayed till his beans were gone. The bull had figured out how to court his ladies, for he was puffing and wheezing and eyeing Davey and his bronco. The bull made Davey laugh. Might be a slow learner, but the son-of-a- gun was ready to mount almost anything now. Davey headed south, in no hurry to return to the L Slash.
He got in at dusk, and the men nodded to him as they put up their day horses and cleaned off some of the dirt before they went for the night meal. Davey was slow stripping off the dusty bay, uneasy about speaking the first words he’d said to more than wind and animals in several days.
Gayle Souter found him as the rest went to eat. Souter made a lot of noise coming up to Davey; the old man understood about being in the brush too long. “We’ll get some fancy calves next spring from that big old boy, if he knows what to do.” There was an unasked question waiting.
Davey obliged. “He got it sorted out.”
Souter grinned, nodded to Davey. “You have to teach him much?” Closest the old man ever got to a joke. “Davey, you see them horses of English’s? I saw he’d branded a few mares, and Bit says he saw a dark colt carryin’ a fresh Bench D. Now we got more trouble. Mister Donald says he got a band of mares started and wants the boss to unfence the springs. Figured you might have seen these mares up to where they’ve been runnin’. Fact is you might be the only one knows where they’re grazin’ right now.”
“I seen the mares.” That was the truth.
“How they lookin’?” Souter was playing along.
“Thin…kind of poor. Felt sorry for them.” Then Davey paused, felt a grin half start on his face, one he couldn’t keep in. They each held quiet a moment. Davey thought of Edward Donald, refusing to consider the man’s interest legitimate.
Then Souter set the deal. “Let’s go get us a meal. If those rannies’ve left us more than a bean or a half slice of meat.”
Chapter Fourteen
Davey worked easy chores the next day, mending two halters, plaiting repairs in a long rope, tacking shoes on a new horse, and lacing rails back into a rarely used corral. Simple things that left him with time in mid-afternoon to go back to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, and a visit with Miss Katherine.
Burn English sat at the table. The man looked up, had to see Davey, but nothing showed in the spare face, no pleasure or pain. He remained intent on the difficulties of bringing a loaded spoon from the plate to his mouth. Davey watched—only half the food made the trip.
“It’s right good to see you up,
The eyes stared, blinked once, and then nothing. Like talking to a pint-sized wooden doll. Miss Katherine moved across the kitchen to stand by her patient and translate. “Davey, sometimes it’s still bad…but he’s bound to try. You understand.”
Davey wasn’t taken with the intimacy. “Yes’m. Just wanted to tell him the mares are all right. Saw them yesterday in fact.”
English grunted, and laid one hand on the table.
Davey stared. The fingers were long and badly scarred, the wrist thick, the nails a dirty grey.
English had only one thought. “The colt?”
“Saw him, too. He looks good.”
English closed his eyes. Davey touched the man on his back, shaming himself with the gesture. Miss Katherine said nothing; they were trapped in an unnatural quiet.
Mid-morning the next day, Miss Katherine came looking for Davey. Her hair was plaited under a brown bandanna and she held a wicked-looking wire wisp in one hand. Davey flinched. Sometimes she came after one of the hands with that thing, asking him to take swipes at the heavy rugs Meiklejon favored. As much as Davey idolized Miss Katherine, he didn’t want any part of that particular chore.
But she smiled and said that there were spools of wire waiting in Socorro, and Meiklejon wanted Davey to go get them. According to her, Meiklejon felt Davey was the least likely of his men to get into mischief that far from the ranch and on his lonesome. She handed Davey an envelope with cash, for the wire she said. She didn’t ask him to wallop those rugs, and he realized he would almost have enjoyed the task, being near her, instead of having to leave on his own.
At the corrals he looked over the stock. A pair of flashy bays chewed on their hay and pretended to spook when Davey leaned on the railings. They were all style and speed and not much for strength. Barbed wire weighed a lot, Davey mused, chewing on his own bit of stemmy hay. So he checked the big sorrel, paired now with a smaller mealy bay. The other sorrel had pulled up lame on an infected hoof, was stalled in the barn, the hoof poulticed and wrapped in burlap. Souter was against the effort but Davey thought he could rescue the old son.
The untried bay snorted. It was no more than sixty miles to Socorro; the mealy bay would do just fine. The team was harnessed and ready by noon, and Davey spent the first few miles keeping the unbalanced team to a steady trot, trying to get a handle on the different horses, a horseman’s exercise to occupy his wandering mind.
The sorrel gelding was stubborn but willing. The mealy bay had Davey stumped. At times the good-looking bronco would step up to the collar and pull hard and fast enough so that the sorrel almost loped to keep up. Then just as suddenly the bay would slack off and leave the winded sorrel to pull the whole shebang.
Davey drove into the night, finally reining in to make cold camp. The team got a bait of grain; Davey got the usual tortilla and cold beans. By early morning they’d reached the plains and Davey had decided the mealy bay w asn’t harness broke at all, and that, by God, Mr. Meiklejon would have a well-broke bronco by the return trip. Must have come from Donald or Quitano. Around horses, Meiklejon would never learn.
He held in the team and rubbed his eyes against the glare of the white sand and grass. He was thinking it was too bad he hadn’t put up more supplies when leaving the ranch, like another canteen of water and some decent food. The bay kept jerking the sorrel, and Davey’s hands and temper were raw from guiding the miserable team. When they came up to water in the Gallinas Mountains, Davey let the team drink their fill,then walked them by hand, slipped their bits, and let them graze for an hour. It wasn’t going to be a turn-around trip.
While the horses grazed, Davey napped. It was the squeal of the mealy bay that woke him from a sound sleep. He came up with his hand to his rifle, laid close by just in case. An old man sat a bony white mule. The bay and the sorrel squirreled around, threatening the mule and wasting energy. The old man watched as Davey came full awake.
“Son, I got me a broke leg…be riding to the doc in Socorro. Be a sight easier on me iffen I can catch a ride with you in that wagon.” Here the old-timer briefly ran out of breath, before he began again. “
The man was over sixty, and the mule he rode looked close to that. But taking in the calm eyes and seamed face, Davey had no doubt the old man could make the trip, broken leg and all. He had some doubts about the mule.
“Sure enough, old-timer. Let me harness up and I’ll get you settled. These bronc’s’ve had enough
