Trail Hand

Colts complete with a tooled leather holster obviously made to fit my rather substantial frame.

The present caught me totally off guard.

“I figure you really tied with me in that contest, what with havin’ to use that old hand-me-down rifle of yours,” Pa explained, “so I kep’ the pistol you ought to have won. Swapped the other Colt, plus a good pocket watch and some grain, for the Morgans.”

I knew that watch was a favorite of his, but when I started to protest, he just shook his head.

“It was a fair trade and at the same time it saved me from havin’ to fret over your birthday. Besides, your ma figures, if worse comes to worst and need be, you can always sell it to he’p git yourself out of trouble.” Pa smiled and continued on. “Your Uncle Zeke is the best leather worker I know, and he made this holster for your birthday, so don’t ever let me catch you spoilin’ it with studs an’ the like. Remember, a fancy-lookin’ rig with a pistol like this can get anyone in trouble.” He stared at me a while as if thinking that meant especially someone like me. “A handgun is a serious tool, and a holster is only something for carryin’ and protectin’ it. Neither one is for showin’ off.”

I could tell he was dead serious, but there was also a hint of family pride in his eyes. It was the same pride that showed in my uncle’s work. The leather belt had been carefully etched and sewn with elegant patterns to highlight the open top Slim Jim holster, designed to do justice to the pistol without being obvious.

Pa was wearing a Remington.44 Army in a worn belted holster that day, one I’d never seen before. We were standing opposite a large tree out back, when Pa reached into his pocket and brought out a silver dollar which he subsequently placed on the top of his right hand. He stood there holding his gun hand, palm down, at waist level with the dollar on top. Before I knew what happened, he’d drawn and fired, all before the coin hit the ground! I was left speechless.

“Don’t be fooled by this, Son…a lot of shootists can beat the coin. Some use a poker chip for effect and others can do it timed in less than a second. But I’m not gonna teach you circus tricks. A person has a given right to carry a gun for protection, but when you carry, you hold a grave responsibility, to yourself and others. Remember, speed is only a small part of using a gun and won’t impress those what count. They know it also takes a level head, accuracy, and no small amount of courage to face someone in a draw.”

For the rest of the afternoon, and for many thereafter, Pa taught me the basics of handgunning. From what I now know about things, what was basic for Pa was downright sophisticated for most folks, and over the years I’d have more than one occasion to be grateful for all his teachings.

That’s why I didn’t overreact to the hard stares the men gave me that day in the cantina.

The vaqueros looked me over for a while before the taller one finally answered.

“Si, senor, we speak your language. What can we do for you?”

Don’t know why I was surprised that they spoke English so much better than I did Spanish, but it did make things easier, so I just pulled up a chair and relaxed into conversation as if we already knew each other a good while.

I let on right off that if there was work to be had around cattle or horses, and involved leaving town for distant parts, I was available.

The taller of the two vaqueros, Miguel, explained that they both worked for Don Enrique Hernandez de Allende, on a hacienda some distance to the south. They were planning to drive their horses north and then west to California, where apparently the don’s brother-in-law had another ranch. The other fellow, Francisco, told me they’d been sent to town for supplies and that they were preparing to return to the hacienda first thing in the morning.

“If you’re interested in work, you will have to convince our caporal, the…ah…how you say it…ramrod? But, he realizes it will be a hard drive and we will have need of a scout who knows the country north of our border,” he added encouragingly.

A few years back, not long after my seventeenth birthday, a flu epidemic took my ma, and shortly thereafter Pa died. There was no keeping me home after that, so I left the ranch to my sister Rebecca and her husband, and headed West on my own. Whatever the reason I gave at the time for leaving, the truth is I was aiming to duplicate what I imagined to be Pa’s mysterious and exciting past. I rode West that spring with his rifle, an old broke-in saddle, and the pick of the Morgans, a large sable bay stallion.

That old saddle never did fit me well and was soon traded for a bigger one. Later that year, I also replaced the old rifle for a newer model Henry repeater at Freund’s gun smithery in Laramie. While there I picked up a spare cylinder for my Navy .36-caliber and had their gunsmiths, two brothers named Pruitt, modify its front. The job they did building up the sight almost tripled the pistol’s distance accuracy, and, by filing its sear and lightening the trigger pull, they made that Colt’s action work smooth as silk.

Since that time I’d traveled a fair share, mined some, ate a lot of cattle dust, and tried to keep the trouble that always seemed to follow me around down to a minimum. I could ride most Western trails with my eyes closed, and many of the areas that I didn’t explore personally had been explained to me by scouts, hunters, and trappers I’d met along the way.

I was smart enough to realize that most folks I’d meet would have something or other to offer, so I always tried to avoid a natural tendency to run on at the mouth. Even as a youngster I’d listened carefully to my elders. Some of the older men I’d met could describe places in ways not found in picture books and for the most part you could follow their words better than lines on a map. I remembered their words well.

So, with my experience, I had no trouble convincing the two mejicanos that they wouldn’t find a better scout, and they agreed to introduce me to Senor Hernandez. Of course, the extra round of drinks I sprung for helped some, and early the next morning we left town together, heading south. I still rode the Morgan bay. After all we’d been through I wasn’t about to trade him.

Chapter Two

During the ride out to the hacienda I had a chance to get to know the other two a little better. Miguel and Francisco like most vaqueros were of Mexican-Indian extraction. Francisco was from Jalisco, which was somewhere farther west, while Miguel was local. They’d been riding for Senor Hernandez for over five years, and seemed to be better off than most cowpokes I’d known.

Although I’d found vaqueros to be just as good on horseback as any northern wrangler, their horses always seem smaller, thinner, and more loose-coupled than the Texas cutting horse tends to be. These two mejicanos, however, rode a dapple gray with a white star and stripe and a well-muscled strawberry roan that would look good anywhere. We were also leading four strong pack mules that had no problem carrying a rather heavy load of supplies. Senor Hernandez apparently took very good care of his men, and obviously appreciated quality livestock.

Once we got out on the trail Miguel’s mood began to change; he wasn’t as talkative as he had been in town for one thing. I knew he was hung over a mite, but it was more than that. He seemed to be sulking about something. For a man just leaving town that usually meant girl trouble, but Francisco didn’t know who, and I wasn’t about to ask.

We decided to leave Miguel alone until he was in a better mood, and meanwhile Francisco and I began to swap war stories. Francisco had grown up an orphan in a monastery whose monks were grooming him for the religious life, and it was there he learned both English and Latin. In fact, were it not for his having been sent to town on his thirteenth birthday, he’d probably be Father Francisco by now. It seems that he had been helping to load the mission’s wagon out in front of a general store, when a vaquero rode up and asked Francisco to tend his horse while he went inside to buy some supplies.

“I always liked animals,” he told me, “but at the mission we had only a few old cows and a burro or two. Then this man come with his own horse that was, I thought, very big and…uh…beautiful. The