by Jory Sherman
Pepito wrapped his arms around both hind legs, pinning the steer’s rump to the ground. The steer twisted in its death throes, kicked both hind legs in a quivering last spasm.
Carlos let out a breath as the steer’s craggy head relaxed with a final quiver, the mouth open, the tongue lolling to one side.
Carlos sat up, slumped over, panting. Pepito loosened his grip on the legs, rolled to his side, and lay there, gasping.
“This is a hell of a way to put meat on the table,” John said.
Neither man answered as both struggled for breath.
John wiped the blade of his knife on his trousers and slipped it back in its sheath.
He sat there, watching the two men, listening to their labored breathing. The steer lay still; blood pooled up under its neck and head, a black mass in the darkness. Starlight sprinkled its silvery dust on the three men, their faces in shadow, smelling of sweat and cow, of churned-up earth and the reek of death.
“The snake,” Carlos panted. “The snake, he bite the steer. In the leg.”
“Might have saved him,” John said.
Carlos shook his head.
“No, the poison, she go in deep. The snake bite three, four times, I think.”
“That is so,” Pepito said. “Five times, I think. In the legs, in the stomach. The cow was dying.”
“Well, let’s get it butchered and hung up to cure,” John said. “Dobbins will be happy.”
“I killed the snake,” Carlos said. “It had many rattles. I smashed its head with a rock.”
“Well, we can throw the snake in the stew, too.”
Pepito made a sound of disgust in his throat.
“I have eaten snake,” Carlos said. “It tastes like the legs of a frog.”
“I thought it tasted like chicken,” John said.
Pepito made another sound.
“It tastes like pig,” he said in Spanish, then gurgled again as if he were going to vomit.
There were a few moments when the men did not talk, but only listened to the lyrical flow of the meandering creek and breathed deeply of the night air. In the distance, they heard fluttering scraps of laughter floating down to them from the cabin, and the whisper of wings as an owl flapped its wings to climb to a higher altitude as it hunted along the stream.
“Carlos, I want us to stand guard tonight. After supper. Two shifts, two men.”
“Do you expect trouble, jefe?”
“No. But I want to make sure. I want your men to walk, not ride, and listen.”
“Listen for what?”
“Anything that doesn’t sound right. Horses, men.”
“Why do we walk? There is much land here.”
“If your men were on horses, they would be easy targets. So, they walk.”
“Two men only?”
“Sound carries far at night in this thin air. Two men would not make much noise and they could hear if men on horseback came into this wide valley.”
“You tell me more, John. There is nothing to hear up here except the wolves, the owls, and the coyotes. Do you have fear that men will come here in the night?”
“Down on that creek where Ben and I have our claim are some men I don’t trust. One of them was up here today. I just want to make sure the others don’t pay us a visit during the night.”
“How many men?”
“I do not know. Four, at least.”
“These are bad men?”
“These are very bad men, Carlos.”
“And, if we see them, do we shoot them?”
“You ask a good question. I don’t want you to fight my fight. But I would like to know if these men come up here.”
“And you will shoot them?”
“If it comes to that.”
“Ahh, and you think that it will, John.”
“They tried to kill us last night.”
“Oh, I see.”
“I just want to make sure nobody gets hurt.”
“The women,” Carlos said.
Pepito scooted closer so he could hear every word Carlos and John were saying.
“The women, the boy, you, and your men,” said John.
“Are they rustlers of the cattle, these men?”
“I don’t think they know one end of a cow from the other, Carlos. They are claim jumpers. They have gold fever. Only they want my gold.”
“Ah, then, we kill them,” Pepito said.
“I’m not asking you to do that, Pepito.”
“You do not like killing, then,” Pepito said.
“No, I do not like to kill a man.”
“But you have killed many. That is what they say.”
“Pepito,” Carlos said, “be silent. You talk too much.”
“It is hard to kill a man,” John said, rising to his feet. “And I would not ask you to do this. Just let me know if any of those men show up, and I’ll take care of them.”
“You will kill them,” Pepito insisted. He was like a child sitting in class. He wanted to learn. He was very eager to learn.
“I hope not,” John said.
“I will have the men watch and listen,” Carlos said.
“Butcher this steer and bring it up to the chuck wagon. Get yourselves some grub. Is Dobbins a good cook?”
“Oh, he is a very good cook,” Carlos said. “If he likes you.”
Pepito and Carlos laughed.
“And if he does not?”
“You may find a scorpion in your soup,” Pepito said.
“A living scorpion,” Carlos added.
“I will see you two at supper,” John said. “Load the meat in one of the wagons and bring it up.”
Ben walked out to meet John when he rode up to the cabin. The cook fire blazed high and gilded his silhouette while leaving his face and features in shadow.
“Smells good,” John said.
“Beef stew, John.”
“My stomach’s brushing up against my backbone.”
“Got a question for you. Do we unsaddle and stay up here or go back to the mine?”
“Good question,” John said as he swung down out of the saddle. “What do you think we should do?”
“We ride back down to the creek in the dark and we risk a horse breaking a leg. And we’d also be sleepin’ in a cold black cave when we’ve got a fire here and millions of stars for a ceiling.”
The two men walked to where the other horses were hobbled. Conversation flowed around the cook fire. Eva waved to John and smiled. He waved back and smiled, too. Emma was stirring the large cook pot under Ornery’s supervision. Both were wearing aprons smeared with grease and vegetable juices. Their faces were daubed with orange light and flickering shadows.
“My hunch is that we’re better off staying up here for the night,” John said. “Thatcher might wreck our camp, but I doubt it. If we’re not there, he won’t have anything to shoot at.”
Ben chuckled.
“I wonder if he knows how we fooled him by now,” Ben said.
“Maybe. If he thought we were all dead, he might have jumped our claim. If he sent a man or two to bury us, he’s going to be wondering what kind of fool he is.”
“And he’ll be madder’n a hornet by now.”
“That’s to our benefit,” John said.
“Oh? You want him mad?”
“A man who’s blind mad can’t think too straight, Ben.”
John ground-tied Gent and patted his withers.
“You going to leave him saddled?”
“Might need him during the night. Carlos will have men on guard.”
“You think Thatcher will come up here tonight?”
“No, but with him, it’s like having a rattlesnake in the picnic basket. The cover looks all right, a little checkered cloth, maybe, but there’s still that snake inside, all coiled up, ready to strike.”
“I see what you mean, John. I’ll keep Rusher under saddle tonight.”
The two men walked over to the cook fire. Eva walked out to meet them.
“I could eat the south end of a northbound horse.”
She laughed.
“Lucky you. It’s beef in the pot. Did you ever go to a pie social?”
John cocked his head, puzzled.
“No, I don’t believe so.”
“Our church used to have them. The women baked pies and the men bid money on them. If a man bought a pie from a girl or a woman, he got to sit down and eat the pie with her.”
“Are you suggesting . . .”
“I’d like to bring you your plate and have supper with you, John. That’s what I’m suggesting.”
“Do I have to buy my supper?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then, I’d like to have supper with you.”
“I guess I’ll eat by myself,” Ben said.
“Or with my mother,” Eva said.
Ben grinned.
“You know, gal, that’s the best offer I’ve had all day. I been to some pie socials. Mighty nice. I’ll ask Emma if she’ll sup with me.”
Ben walked off as Eva and John laughed.
She took his arm in hers and walked, not toward the firelight, but off into the dark shadows of the trees. He felt her warmth and smelled her perfume. She smelled of flowers and earth, as well, and when she covered his hand with hers, he felt his legs go weak.
Neither of them noticed Whit watching them, a curious expression on his face. His eyes narrowed to black slits, and his mouth was bent in a harsh frown.
Ben saw the look on Whit’s face, but did not say anything. It was something he would mull over, though, and something he would remember.
He knew jealousy when he saw it, and it was a condition that was ugly and a thing to be feared.
22
EVA PULLED JOHN UNDER THE BRANCHES OF A TALL PINE, PLACED both hands on his chest. He felt wet and sticky, and she jerked her hands away in surprise.
“Ooooh,” she said, turning one of her hands over to catch the light on her palm.
Her hand was smeared with blood.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
“No, Eva.” He took her hands and rubbed the palms on his dry sleeve. “We butchered a steer a while ago.”
“You scared me,” she said.
“I didn’t mean to.”
He released her hands and she stepped in close again. She looked up at him. He took a bandanna out of his back pocket, wiped his shirtfront, offered it to Eva. She wiped her hands and handed the kerchief back to John.
“I hope you don’t think I’m too bold,” she purred, her voice soft and silky.
“How bold do you think you are?”
“Too bold for Ma, maybe.”
“Do you have to get her permission to be with a man?”
“No. But I think Ma has eyes for you, same as me.”
“Same as I,” he said, a smile crinkling on his mouth.
“What?”
“Grammar, Eva.”
“Oh, that. Yes, I studied grammar in school. Are you going to keep correcting me?”
“I’m not your teacher, Eva.”
He leaned down and kissed her with a gentleness that sent her blood racing. His kiss felt like velvet. It was not as she had expected, but then she had never kissed a man before. She would have thought men would be rougher with their kisses. This was like a mother’s soft kiss, but more thrilling, more electrifying.
“I wish you would be,” she said when he raised his head.
“What?”
“Be my teacher.” There was a wickedness in her voice that would have shocked her mother, and that surprised her.
“How old are you, Eva?”
“I’m almost twenty. Why?”
“I’m a little older than you. Not much. But wouldn’t you rather be with someone close to your own age?”
“I’d rather be with you, John. You can’t be much older than me.”
He wasn’t, he thought. Not in years, perhaps, counting birthdays. But in experience. The things he had done and the things that had been done to him had hardened something inside him, had aged him in other ways. He felt very much older than she. Except now. She made him feel young. As young as she. It was a good feeling, and he didn’t want to lose it or have it taken away. And he didn’t want to take her young age away from her, either.
He kissed her again, harder this time, and she went limp in his arms. She felt as if all the blood had gone out of her brain and into her pounding heart.
“Mmmm,” she murmured. “So nice. So sweet.”
“You don’t need lessons in kissing, Eva.”
“Oh, I think I do. I never kissed a man before. Or a boy, even.”
“Never?”
“Never,” she said. “But when I first saw you, John, I wanted to spoon.”
“Spoon?”
“You know, hold your hands. Have you cuddle me. Didn’t you? When you saw me, I mean.”
“Well, I don’t think I thought that far.”
“Huh?”
“Your eyes said something to me, Eva. I admit that. Stirred something inside me.”
“What? Do you know?”
He lowered his head and smelled her hair. He reached behind her and grabbed her pigtails, rubbed their soft strands.
“A kind of longing, I guess. When my folks were killed, and my little sister, I grew up fast, but I was still a boy. Only I never had a boyhood. I went from boy to man real quick.”
“That’s awful,” she said.
“You don’t miss what you never had,” he said.
“I guess I know what you mean. I don’t think I had much of a girlhood myself. And Pa scared me. He was awful mean and he-he—well, I can’t talk about that. I won’t talk about him no more.”
“Eva,” he said, and his voice trailed off. He was full of tangled feelings and he wasn’t sure that he could express himself without sticking his foot in his mouth.
“What?” she said, her voice a whisper full of promise.
“I don’t know. I-I guess you’ve got me sort of tongue-tied.”
She laughed, low in her throat, and it was like music to his ears.
“You don’t really have to say anything, John. I’m happy just being with you. I wish we . . .”
“Wish we could what?”
“It’s not my place,” she said, and dipped her head in a display of sudden shyness. “I mean, I hope I’ll see more of you than I have.”
He drew in a deep breath, let it out slow through his nostrils.
Eva made him feel lightheaded and light-footed, as if he were standing on air and not on the ground. He had never met anyone like her. She was so beautiful and she stirred deep feelings within him, feelings that were new and strange to him.
“I hope we can see more of each other, Eva. I want to know all I can about you. And I want you to know all about me.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Let’s meet and spoon, walk in the moonlight, wade in the creek, sit and talk, and . . .”
He knew what she meant. She was opening up a world to him, a world he had never known. He wanted to do all those things with her, and more. Much more.
They kissed again, and this time, he did not take his lips away, but held her tight against him, feeling the softness of her yielding breasts and the heat of her thighs pressing against his. His eyes were closed and he never wanted to open them again, never wanted to let the world they had just then go away.
There was another world, he knew, and he did not want to return to it. Not now, not for a long time. He wished they could just ride off together and find some peaceful valley where they could live and love and lock themselves away from all the cares and troubles of civilization.
“Come and get it,” Ornery yelled, and clanged an iron triangle that pealed through the valley and up into the mountains.
John broke the kiss and breathed.
“Oh, do we have to?” she said.
He laughed.
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“There is another world,” he said. “And we have to eat.”
“I don’t. I don’t ever have to eat when I’m with you, John Savage.”
He took her hand, and they walked out of the shadows and headed for the firelight. The sparks were like golden fireflies rising in the smoke and vanishing like tiny suns in the darkness.
“Come on, John,” Ben called when Eva and John walked into the circle of golden light. “Time for our pie social.”
“Ben must have talked your ma into something,” John said.
“Love is in the air,” Eva said, and danced away like a graceful ballerina skipping rope. She got two bowls and stood in line behind Whit, glancing at John, giving him a coy smile.
The wagon with Pepito and Carlos rumbled up, and they parked it alongside the chuck wagon. Emma and Ben headed for a log and sat down together, wooden spoons in hand. The firelight revealed the blush on Emma’s face.
Whit sat off by himself and ate his stew. John and Eva sat on the ground with Gasparo, Manolo, Carlos, and Ornery. Pepito and Juanito sat near the chuck wagon, putting their bowls atop their guitar cases. Corny sat down last, next to John, his bowl steaming with savory aromas. He dipped his spoon in the broth and burned his tongue when he put the stew in his mouth.
Everyone laughed.
“You might want to blow on that, Corny,” Dobbins said. “I ain’t ’sponsible for burnt tongues.”
“It’s better tastin’ than my granny ever made,” Corny said.
The laughter and the banter continued until the meal was over. Then Pepito and Juanito tuned up their guitars and started strumming a lively Mexican tune. They moved to the wagon sheets, which were bucked up together in front of the cabin.
“Vamos a bailar,” Pepito announced. “Everybody dance.”
“Shall we?” Eva said to John as she took his bowl and set it inside hers.
The two musicians were playing a furiously fast tune.
“The only way I could dance to that would be to drop a hot coal down my britches,” he said.
“Oh, come on,” she said, standing up and pulling on his hand. “I’ll teach you.”
“Oh, so you’re going to be my teacher,” he said, and allowed himself to be jerked onto the makeshift dance floor. Eva’s feet flew on the wagon sheets and she guided John through intricate steps, hiking her skirts when she whirled away from him, dropping them only when she returned to take his hands.
