to get close enough to the man, so any change in mounts wouldn’t lose them the trail.
Souter reined in his red dun, let the boy catch up.
“Red, we’re cutting this trail, knowing Holden’s going for Liddell’s bronc’s. You see anything to make you think different?”
Red shook his head, and the pair lined out their traveling horses toward Liddell’s pasture. Red found fresh prints through the broken fence. The bronco tracked up short on the near hind, a flaw Holden wouldn’t have seen when he roped out the gelding.
Eager Briggs liked the ancient palomino he’d picked up in Magdalena. The Mex who sold him the bronco wasn’t clear on ownership, but Eager himself didn’t bother with such niceties. Not many ranchers would care about one useless gelding tired enough so that a broken-legged old man could ride it. He called the horse Gold—he’ddone some prospecting in his time and the deep yellow horse was the closest he’d come to a rich vein of color.
Now that his leg was healed, Eager’d taken to riding north and east every two, three weeks, staying out maybe two days. He told himself there was no reason to his wanderings. Most times he’d not go back home but, instead, would make camp and wrap up in Gold’s saddle blanket and watch the fire he’d set, thinking about all the things that would fit in his curious mind. On these trips he made sure to take extra bacon, beans, coffee, and the makings for a smoke or two. Not his particular habit, but there were some who got struck by the need for that putrid stuff in their lungs. Now Eager, he liked a good cigar, one of those soaked ones that come out of Mexico. Hell, then a man knew he was smoking something with courage. Mornings he rolled up and got out of the blanket, folded it and put it on the palomino’s back. It was too much effort for an old man to pack up the extra food, so he would leave it hanging by a rope from a nearby tree. Keep it safe from varmints until the next time he rode up the same way. Of course it was never there when he would come back, so he always packed more, not wanting to go hungry.
Eager might be old to some folk, but he still did love his victuals. Not like that young one he caught sight of now and then. Riding that big dark colt. The boy had got some manners to the colt now, not like the first time Eager had seen them in Quemado.
And Eager remembered the boy as clear as day—tough, moody just like his pa, old John English. English used to laugh when he told it, the family joke. The family was Welsh, named English, living in Wales, Texas. The boy was the spitting image of his pa, excepting for size.
What food Eager left for English in the trees wasn’t enough to feed a man full up, but the mountains had their own food on the hoof—elk and deer, bear if you were hungry enough. The bits Eager put out were more for variety, the makings of civilization. Although Eager much doubted the English boy had a strong hankering for anything civilized.
This time when Eager got to his camp, he hobbled the palomino and dug a pit for the fire. He found himself talking out loud to himself; there was a lot an old man didn’t know, even coming to the end of his life. A lot he’d forgotten, about being young and going after the whole world.
He sat and chewed on a Mexican cigar and talked about the outlaw, Jack Holden. The word was Holden had taken another Liddell bronco, and that Gayle Souter and the kid, Red Pierson, were tracking him.
If those three met, there would be killing, for Souter wasn’t a forgiving man. Eager stated his feelings about killing, his old voice getting louder, and the palomino looked up from its graze, wiggled its long lip after a choice bit of grass. Holden against the two L Slash men wouldn’t be pretty.
It was a shame to think of Gayle Souter shot down by the likes of Jack Holden. Or Red Pierson dead; the boy was growing up right. “A lot of might-be in the world,” Eager told his horse. His next topic was Davey Hildahl, riding fence on those wire sections. “Looks can deceive,” he said to Gold. “Can’t judge a man by the form he takes, got to see inside a man to know his soul.”
As he guessed on it, a shadow drifted into his fire light. A thinned bay colt led by a man lamed on the offside and leaner than the horse. But the voice came out always the same.
“Thanks, old man. I’ve been out of coffee and beans a while…they’ll taste good with elk.”
The English boy handed over a rump portion of the elk, and Eager got to slicing thin steaks. Hadn’t had elk in a long time, didn’t know if he could gum his way through any more, but, by God, he would try.
The colt was unsaddled and rubbed down, hobbled, and left next to Gold. The ancient bronco was pleased with company, and the horses nuzzled and nickered some, then went back to eating. Only then did English come in to the fire’s warmth, where Eager could get a look at him.
“It’s good to see you still alive, boy. A sight this old man don’t get to enjoy often. I know where you been, ’cause I been there before you.”
The boy had come a far piece since his tangle with the bob wire. Eager pushed the wrinkles up on his forehead, wished he had his store-bought teeth. That elk was beginning to smell better than good.
English watched him, then spoke. “I know you now, old man. Eager Briggs is what they call you here. That’s a summer name. You come up from Texas.”
He’d known the boy was studying him the lasttwo times or more, but the cut about his name still hurt. It wasn’t the name he was born under, but he’d owned it a long time. He waited. This wasn’t done yet. Then the English boy caught Eager by surprise.
“You think Hildahl’s in trouble, old man?”
It took a moment, then Eager nodded. “Yep, boy. He’s right plumb in the middle.” Then the old man did his own jumping. “The name was Leutwyler when I rode with your pa. Bert, it was. My name. That’s why I called that ugly, no-count mule Bert, so not to forget my mama’s naming me. Your folks was good to me.”
It was downright foolish, two men sitting across from each other, a fire burning between them, charring up good elk rump. The boy’s eyes widened; Eager grinned and wiped his wet mouth.
English spoke quickly. “You rode a big dun. I wanted to ride that bronc’, and I asked you one day. You said the dun was a man’s horse and to come back when I was growed big enough.” That hung quietly. “What’d you think now, old man? I growed big enough for you?”
The gall of those misspoken words rose in Eager’s belly. “A man can say things he don’t mean. I ’pologize now…for what I said then. Old Bert Leutwyler, he died in that Texas country, and a new man rode on up here. A better man, I’m hoping.”
English nodded and parceled out the charred elk steak, took some beans. Eager sliced himself a cut of meat, shoved it between his gums, and worked hard swallowing, all the time grinning and watching John English’s boy.
Burn wiped his fingers around the tin plate,and wished the old man had made biscuits. God, he was hungry, could never get quite full. Where he rode was determined by the mares and foals, and often that meant running off game, forcing him to live on cold water and chewed hide. But he wasn’t going to quit the mares, not after all this time.
“Boy, what you planning to do with winter’s coming? And how come that stallion’s letting you run his band?”
Burn didn’t want to think on it. He’d found the mares, and the stallion, and they remained on his conscience. He shivered, rubbed the healing cut on his arm. He’d found the stallion ribby and infected, cut to pieces amid wire, but still standing, unable to escape the coil circling his front leg. He’d cut the stallion’s throat and had taken on more horses than he could handle. With a lot of hard work he’d caught five of the bachelor colts—broke to ride, he’d sold them only last week over in Springerville. The sale had given him enough cash to buy a bit of land. The dream still could be taken from him. So he sat while the old man looked at him.
Burn ran his tongue over the inside of his mouth, tasting sweet elk, spiced beans, the fouled coffee. “Briggs, you say you think Jack Holden’s going to end up where Davey is?”
The old man answered quickly, as if he, too, was glad to get away from the more personal talk. “Yeah, I read Holden’s tracks pointing this way, ’stead of to Springerville. He’s got two men coming fast behind him…Gayle Souter and that kid, Red. Only Davey’s in his way. It’d be a shame to lose a man like Davey Hildahl to such as Jack Holden.”
“Hildahl saved my life,” Burn said, “much as any man ever done. Guess I owe him the same.”
It could have been surprise on Brigg’s face that got his jowls to quivering. Burn was set to ride after he slept some. It would be a luxury, knowing nothing would sneak up in his sleep. He trusted the old man that much. Old
