Trail Hand

“About twenty or so, Ah reckon.”

“Seems they’re madder than I thought, to have brought that many.”

“Son, mad don’t touch it. Just ask the fellers at the Golden Goose, or what’s left of it,” he said.

“Any place left in town to get a drink now?” I asked.

“Yeah, but Ah’d have to show you,” he answered, licking his lips in anticipation.

“All right, you do that, and I’ll spring for the drinks.” I laughed. “And then we can talk to your brother-in-law about those supplies.”

When we walked past what remained of the Golden Goose, I could see that Elijah hadn’t exaggerated. After that I was more determined than ever not to let those vaqueros catch up with me until I had a chance to find the herd and square things.

Chapter Fifteen

I left Gila City at first light, aiming for Fort Yuma.

I rode hard and fast, trying to put as much distance between myself and the vaqueros as possible. This time I made no effort to cover my trail, since after a day or two it would be obvious to everyone where I was going.

A week later I arrived at the Butterfield stage way station. It was the logical place to stop and rest, the food was good, and they didn’t water their drinks. I had hoped finally to clean up some before moving into California, but as usual it was not meant to be.

After tending to the roan, I went into the station house. Since I’d run out of bacon three days earlier, visions of a hot steak, mashed potatoes, and biscuits flashed briefly through my mind. It was only briefly, though, for, as soon as I opened the door, the commotion inside wiped away any hope of a nice quiet meal.

Inside eight heavily built drovers had a lone black cowboy trapped in a corner and were preparing to beat him up. One of the men had a bottle in his hand and was raising it to strike just as I entered. For some reason it didn’t surprise me one bit to find Sonora Mason on the receiving end, staring back at me from the corner. For the time being lunch would have to wait.

“ ’Afternoon, gents,” I said as loudly and forcefully as I could. “Just goin’ over to the bar here. Don’t mind me. I’m not lookin’ to interfere with your fun.”

Caught off guard by my unexpected entrance, they all turned toward me and hesitated.

“By the way, just what is going on here anyway?” I asked.

“We’re about to brain us a smart-mouthed nigger,” replied the one brandishing the bottle. He was a fat, bearded lout missing all his front teeth. He wore an old buffalo-hide vest and a ten-gallon black hat with the brim turned up. “Any problem with that, stranger?” he asked threateningly.

“Why would anyone have a problem with that?” I asked innocently. “Besides, anyone can see he’s the type that’s probably getting what he deserves,” I added. “Just look at those shifty eyes of his.”

Sonora caught my wink after they turned back to him.

“What’s that you say? Hey, you want to buy into this, too, asshole, or you just some big-mouth pansy with no stones to back it up?” Mason yelled across at me.

“Well, now…. Boy!” I shouted angrily. “Just who the hell do you think you are, talking to me that way?” I spoke loudly, hoping further to distract the others. Stepping quickly away from the bar, I shoved my way through the crowd until I faced Mason, directly alongside the drover with the bottle.

“You know,” I said turning to Buffalo Vest. “There’s only one thing I hate worse than an uppity nigger.”

“Yeah?” he asked anticipating the joke. “What’s that?”

“Having to fight a bunch of ignorant cowpunchers, instead of eating lunch!” My right elbow crashed into the side of his head. It wasn’t exactly the answer he’d expected.

The next ten minutes still remain something of a blur. I vaguely remember Mason kicking the nearest drover in the knee, and then backhanding him as he doubled over in pain. I ducked low under a chair that was swung at my head by a bald type in an old soldier shirt. He was wearing tied down bat chaps that flared out widely at the bottom, so I grabbed for the chaps near his ankles, and then pulled as hard as I could while straightening back up. He was thrown backward off his feet, slammed through a table, and hit the floor flat on his back.

Someone cuffed me behind the left ear hard enough to knock me forward into Mason. He stopped my fall, but, as I began to recover, he suddenly shoved me hard on the shoulders, causing me to drop back down again. Another drover coming up behind me ran smack into Sonora’s fist as Mason slugged right over my head directly into his oncoming face. The drover fell over backward like someone who’d just run into a wall.

I turned around and side-by-side the two of us rushed into the remaining four. When it was all over, my knuckles were swollen, my lower lip split, and my left ear was bleeding. Sonora was holding his left shoulder where a broken bottle had slashed him and had another gash over his right elbow. The others looked a hell of a lot worse.

We supported ourselves on what was left of the bar as I reached over, searching for a bottle.

“Didn’t expect to bump into you,” Sonora said somewhat matter-of-factly.

“Oh, don’t mention it. You’re welcome. Nice to see you again, too,” I said, gasping for breath. He just nodded back at me. “Care for some o’ this tarantula juice?” I asked. My head hurt like hell.

“Don’t mind if I do,” he replied.

I poured him a long one, and then took a swig from the bottle. The effect of the alcohol on my split lip sent sparks flying through my body and right down to my boots.

“Best be gettin’ outta here afore they wake up,” he suggested.

I wasn’t about to disagree.

We decided to make a quick exit after first grabbing some supplies from the station’s storeroom. Mason caught me tossing some money on one of the shelves and laughed at me.

“Momma brought her boy up real proper, I see.”

“Hey, get off my back, would ya. I got enough people after me as is without getting the stage line detectives involved.”

“You being chased? That’s a new one.”

“Long story, I’ll tell you about it later.”

As we were leaving the station, Buffalo Vest groaned and started to sit up. Mason simply kicked him in the face as he stepped over him. The last thing I remember as we walked out the door was the sound of his head hitting the floor with a loud thud.

That night we camped about twenty miles west. The cut on Sonora’s shoulder looked pretty bad so I offered to fix it.

“Got anything to work with?” I asked.

“Check my mochila, back of the saddle. Should be a sewing kit in there.” I looked in his saddlebag and found some old buttons and a couple of needles, but no thread.

“Looks like I’m going to have to improvise a might,” I said, walking back to his horse. I began pulling tail hair. Then I poured a little of the whiskey into a cup, dropping in both the needle and horse hair. I tossed Sonora the bottle. “Here, wash that wound with this.”

He looked at me apprehensively while removing his shirt. “You sure you know how to do this?” He grimaced as the alcohol ran over the cut on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry, I learned how from my uncle Zeke. He’s a leathersmith back home, and, judging from the look of this hide of yours, it shouldn’t be much different from the leather we worked on.” I removed the needle and hair from the whiskey cup.

“Just you remember this hide is my skin. It ain’t no saddle, you know.”

“ ’Course not,” I replied, threading the needle. “A good saddle’s worth a whole lot more.”

“Very funny.” He flinched as I began to sew, but I had to hand it to him again. It took a long time to get that wound stitched up, and it had to hurt, but he didn’t complain once; he just sat there and took it in stride.

When I finished, I poured some more whiskey over the wound and bandaged it with an extra shirt I’d found in