first, then a boot swinging endlessly in the stirrup. He finally lifted himself high enough to see the rest of the apparition. Johnny Thackery. The boy grinned. Jack winced at the realization.
“Hell, Uncle Jack. Guess we got to ride double now.”
The mare was poorly built for a passenger. Her quarters sloped badly, giving Jack nothing to sit on but a raised spine and a tail held to one side in a delicate, almost feminine gesture. The mare plodded—the only gait she could manage with the double burden. Jack clung to the saddle, cursing under his breath.
The boy knew enough to keep his mouth shut, which was a rare blessing. They managed to quarter back to Son Liddell’s horse pasture. He cursed, thinking about his omission. His saddle was tied to the dead horse. It would get eaten by critters drawn to the fried meat. He had removed the bridle. The bit had been melted, but the crown and cheeks were intact, and one rein only lightly scorched. He could twist a hard nosepiece into acrude bosal. Liddell had good, broken stock; one of them was likely to be a bosal horse. Hell, he thought, he’d come out alive. What more could a man ask of such a storm.
The odd trio drifted over the edge of one more red hill. The mare slipped to her knees twice in the greasy mud, and then quit and no spur or whip would move her. Jack reached for his pistol on instinct and found it gone.
Now it was a matter of getting into Liddell’s pasture, and catching up a horse, a good one this time. Not flash and color, but some heart and ability. Liddell had to own at least one horse matching that description.
Jack roped out a blocky paint. The animal’s back was wellrounded. It was a long ride to his saddle and gear, so the smoothed back was important. He fashioned a bosal on the paint’s nose. The patient animal showed it wasn’t keen on being ridden bareback, but would accept the humiliation if Jack insisted. After a brief discussion, the paint stood quietly and let Jack make a fool of himself climbing aboard.
Once up, it still was an uncomfortable trip back to the red hills and the dead bay. Jack and the boy rode mostly at a slow jog, a gait the paint kept to easily. They cut through the smooth wire fence again, taking too short a time to repair the strands. Jack didn’t want the horses out, didn’t want to lose his free stock to the land’s endless miles of grass.
The boy obviously struggled to keep from asking the question, but finally broke down and spoke bitterly to his kin. “Why you botherin’ with all this work?” The boy’s thin, colorless hand waved over the twisted strands of wire. “They ain’t your bronc’s.”
“Liddell and I, we play our game. If I step too far, then the old man’ll have the law on me. But we kind of agree…I steal and return, he complains and don’t do nothin’. It’s a matter of pride, boy. Simple matter of pride.”
He could tell by the eyes, restless and unfocused, that the boy didn’t get the point, maybe couldn’t understand. Jack found a cut tree and used the stump to get back on the paint. Hell, maybe he hadn’t explained right. He wiggled on the paint’s back to find that one comfortable spot. He’d vowed not to climb down again, but he also hadn’t trusted the boy to fix that fence properly.
Single file they proceeded through the dusk, keeping to the slow jog, never stopping. And he would have missed it if the paint hadn’t shied, stumbled, swerved hard to the left, and lifted its head, snorting and blowing like a racehorse. Something hung from a dead pine near the trail’s edge. It turned out to be Jack’s saddle and blanket. It was enough to spook anyone, Jack thought. He sat on the paint, eyed the gift of his own gear, and tried to figure out the why. He snorted when the answer came. He rubbed the soreness of his burned arm lightly and swung down from the quieted paint, pulled the ends of the rope, and slowly let the gear down, until it sat waiting for him on the nest of needles and cones under the high, dead tree.
Sure enough there was a message pinned to the blanket, only a few words: Senor,
“This place ain’t bad, Uncle Jack. Kinda pretty.”
Jack nodded, surprised the boy even noticed the canon they rode through.
“It’s a nice place to bury a man.” The boy couldn’t keep shut and leave a good feeling, he had to go and say the wrong thing.
It was a pretty place, and too well traveled now for Jack’s comfort.
They rode the left side of a forked canon, where wildflowers were scattered through the high Canon grass. That was its name—Wildflower Canon—but he didn’t tell the boy.
Wildflower opened up with lots of pine spread under with grass, a few clusters of high fir, even a waterfall came through broken rock. It sounded nice and calming. Both horses pricked up their ears and turned toward the noise, eager as their riders for water and time to rest. Jack eased up in his saddle and thanked Refugio again.
He dismounted from the paint and let the horse drink its fill. He found himself rubbing his sore arm, and knew it was infected. He cursed as he knelt down to drink, then rested the arm in the cold water. The chill hurt for a moment, and then soothed. After a few minutes the arm was numb, and Jack could relax.
“I’m ready to go w henever you are, Uncle.”
The boy still had a way of rolling “Uncle” off his tongue that goaded Jack. He caught up the paint, retightened the saddle, and mounted, silently blessing the simple use of a stirrup, the easy way a man’s backside settled in the saddle’s seat.
They rode quietly for several hours, Johnny making no more attempts at talk. They had to ride in the day’s heat, with their hats pulled low to mask the sun, shirts quickly darkening with sweat rings. They rode with their horses’ gaits—the paint jogging easily, the yellow mare stumbling sometimes, the boy cursing ugly words and threats that did not make the mare any easier to set.
A flash of distant lightning, a crackle of thunder. Jack’s arm hurt more, the walls of his throat tightened, and he felt edgy. The paint threw its head, slipped into a short-strided lope. Jack could not stop himself from searching for the darkening clouds, nor could he keep from turning his head to listen for the thunder, to find its direction. He rubbed his arm unconsciously, and the boy laughed at his Uncle Jack.
Refugio was sitting on a rotted pine, smoking a foul cigar. “So,
Jack pushed himself from the paint’s back, stood on the uneven ground, rubbing his arm again. The sore was becoming more than a nuisance.
Refugio took out a second cigar, lit it, and offered it to Jack, grinning through the smoke. “It is a man’s cigar,
Jack puffed on the smoke and felt rather than saw Refugio leave his perch. A moment later he returned, in his hand bits of dried grass. “
Refugio resettled himself. “There is a village not many days’ ride from here. A small place called Jewett. There a man has started his roundup early, hoping to confuse men such as us. The man is cheap and thinks only of himself. Those cattle he brings together, those handsome and fat calves, they will become ours, to sell so we may eat through the long winter. It is a fine idea, no?”
“It’s a stupid idea if you ask me.” Johnny Thackery throwing in his unwanted opinion. The boy was ragged and sullen, had grown dirty in the days he’d ridden with his uncle.
“You are not asked,
Jack shrugged; nothing would change between these two. The boy had forgotten about his dragging lesson, forgotten the power behind Refugio’s polite requests. Jack wanted to save the uneasy peace. “Johnny, you ride with me and do what I say. Refugio and me, we’re talkin’. You tend to the horses, boy. See they don’t drink too much water. And watch out for the paint, he’ll kick you, boy, you mess with him.”
“Sure, Uncle Jack.”
There it was again, but the boy went for the stock and left t he two men to t hemselves.
Refugio stared at Jack, as Jack watched the boy. “It is the posturing of a child,
