Last of the Breed

by Les Savage, Jr.

  “He going to roundup?” Robles asked.

  “I can’t stop him,” Brian said.

  Robles glanced at the corrals. The adobe pen holding the unbroken horses blocked off the farther corrals and neither Tiger nor the horse handlers were visible. Without a word Robles put the pail down and went inside to rope out one of his pintos. They rode together back to the breaking corral. Tiger was not there, but Kaibab and Stubs were standing by the fence.

  “Looked like he was takin’ the Apache Trail,” Stubs said.

  “You better ketch up with him, Brian,” Kaibab said. “One ride ain’t going to bust that outlaw.”

  Brian and Robles put heels to their horses and left the ranch at a gallop. They followed a wagon road half a mile to the trail that had been cut through the matted growth by raiding Apaches who had followed the same course for a century. That was history now and the trail had become a thoroughfare for cattlemen between the Rim and Apache Wells. Brian and the Indian pushed their horses for half an hour, but failed to come up with Tiger. Then they saw dust ahead and in a moment Latigo appeared on the trail.

  He had always ridden a horse hard and his big Choppo was dripping lather and wheezing like a windsucker. He pulled it to a halt with a hard jerk on the reins and Brian went up to him.

  “Did you pass Tiger?” Brian asked.

  The foreman’s jaw was blue with beard stubble and sweat lay like grease in the deep grooves about his mouth. “Didn’t see him. I was coming in to find out about them fresh horses. Our remuda’s down to the nub.”

  “You must have passed him,” Brian said.

  “I didn’t see him, dammit.”

  Robles dropped off his pinto and crossed the trail, eyes squinted at the ground. Then he pointed at fresh tracks, unshod. “He come this way.”

  Latigo shoved back his greasy, flat-topped Stetson, scratching his black hair and scowling at Brian. Then he said, “We better have a look.”

  He wheeled the Choppo and all three of them headed down the trail, with Robles following sign all the way. In half a mile they came to a stretch where the hard ground had been cut up.

  “Looks like his horse started pitching,” Latigo said.

  A pair of branches had been torn off on one side of the trail and farther on more matted growth had been damaged. They followed the signs northward from the trail. It was like a swathe cut through the low, dense junipers. The horse had been pitching and fighting all the way, tearing a path through the undergrowth like a runaway locomotive. Then they came to a deep bank where an ancient, long-dry river had cut a channel through the rugged land thirty feet deep.

  There was no sign of Snakebite. The horse had pitched his rider and run on. Tiger was doubled over, lying on his side at the bottom of the thirty foot drop. He looked like a man who had sat down to rest and fallen asleep.

  CHAPTER 4

  They buried him the next day. They buried the king where he had always wanted to be buried, up on the Rim at the extreme western tip of his range, where the land dropped off sheer a thousand feet into the desert below and his dead eyes could look for an eternity on the vast expanse of the land he loved.

  It was a long pull from Apache Wells. But they all came, the big and the little, the famous and the unknown, the banker and the storekeeper, the blacksmith and the stage clerk, the cattleman and the puncher—paying homage to the man they had revered. They packed densely around the grave while the minister read over the biggest of them all, and few of the men showed any shame for the tears in their eyes.

  Robles stood apart. His face might have been carved from stone, so little sign did it give of the grief inside him. He had not spoken since they had found Tiger the day before.

  The same grief was in Brian while he stood with George Wolffe and Arleen, listening to the minister.

  And yet, moving turgidly beneath that grief, was the shadowy current of past resentments. He couldn’t forget how bitterly they’d clashed the very day of Tiger’s death. Like the taste of ashes in his mouth, it struck him that Tiger had never given him a chance while he lived—now he never could.

  Now, he supposed, all the others would be expecting him to step right up and fill the old man’s boots. But how could he, the way Tiger had insisted on ruling the roost his own way? Ah, the hell with it....

  Brian shook the thoughts off. That was a sleazy way to be thinking now. He had loved the old man, in his way, he tried to assure himself. He wished he could have gotten together with Tiger before his death. Well, it was too late now.

  After the simple ceremony was finished the people crowded around Brian with their condolences. He went through the motions in a numb misery, talking, nodding, shaking hands. Finally Arleen extricated him and took him to the buckboard. George Wolffe followed. He was in his cheap black town suit, his square and massive face pale and drawn above the stiff white collar.

  “We’ll drive you home,” he said.

  “Maybe he’d rather be alone,” Arleen said softly.

  “Nonsense,” Wolffe said. “What good are friends if they can’t try to help somehow at a time like this? Best thing is to take your mind off it, Brian. You’ll never do it alone.”

  Brian stared at the ground. “Maybe you’re right,” he said at last. While Wolffe went to get his horse Brian listlessly helped Arleen into the rig and followed her up. He wished he were a woman. He wished he could cry like a woman. There must be some way to give vent to the pain in him. He slumped over in the seat, gazing blankly ahead, the lines drawn deep about his mouth. Arleen’s hand crept into his.

  Latigo threaded his way through the crowd, riding his Choppo horse. His hat was in his hand and for once the insolence did not show in his eyes. He stopped by the buckboard, moistened his lips.

  “This is a bad time to ask, Brian. But I better know about the roundup.”

  Brian continued looking blankly ahead. A strange lethargy seemed to have settled over him, an apathy, an overwhelming sense of the futility of words. Arleen squeezed his hand.

  “Brian.”

  “What?” He straightened, glanced at her, then at Latigo. He passed a hand over his eyes and shook his head. “I’m sorry.” What had Latigo said? “The roundup.” He squinted his eyes shut, trying to think clearly. “I know what a blow this is to the whole crew, Latigo. Try to keep it going. Tell them it’s what Tiger would want. I’ll be down to see about things as soon as possible.”

  Latigo lifted his reins and pulled the Choppo horse around and walked it away. Wolffe had hitched Brian’s Steeldust to the tail-gate and he climbed aboard and picked up the reins. They rattled across the stony flat onto the trail. The desert looked like another world, so far below, running out to mesas that cut the horizon into a broken mauve pattern, fifty miles away. A strange hush hung over the Rim, as it had that evening they found Nacho with the Double Bit cattle.

  It made Brian turn to look at Robles. The old Indian had not wanted Tiger to follow those cattle. He had asked Brian to stop Tiger from going out to roundup the day he had died.

  “George,” Brian said, “do you really think those Indians know things we don’t?”

  “Haven’t you seen enough of it to know?” Wolffe said. He glanced aside at Brian. “Why?”

  “Nothing.”

  Brian looked again at Robles, standing alone now by the grave. The old Indian’s head was raised and he was staring off at the majestic cloud masses forming above the ghostly ramparts of the Superstitions far to the south.

  * * * *

  The ride back to the Double Bit was interminable. Only Wolffe tried to make conversation, but Brian was in no mood to sustain it. Finally Wolffe gave up and drove in sober silence, while a rising wind carried the parched scent of early fall from the desert below. The other wagon appeared behind them, carrying Juanita, the Mexican housekeeper, and Pinto, the old cow-camp cook Tiger had taken into the household when a stamped
e had crippled him fifteen years before. They reached the house by sundown and Wolffe offered to stay with Brian if it would do any good. Thinking of those forty empty rooms and of the terrible loneliness he had known the night before, Brian welcomed the offer and invited them to dinner.

  Juanita served them, dabbing constantly at tears that welled into her eyes. None of them had any appetite, and they left most of the food on the table. Afterward Brian built a fire in the living-room and they tried to talk, but it was no good. Finally he told them he was going to bed and excused himself.

  He couldn’t sleep. He didn’t even undress. He sat in his big rawhide-seated chair and smoked and paced the floor for hours. He remembered his father pacing the same way, fifteen years ago, when his mother had died. He had been too young then for the full depth of the old man’s grief to reach him. He understood it better now. He understood the look Tiger had given the door of her room whenever he passed it in the hall. Why did such understanding have to wait till now? Why couldn’t he have known the old man better ten years ago? A month ago? He ground an unsmoked cigarette under his heel and sat down on the bed.

  The Wolffes stayed for several days, but George had his own business to take care of and finally they had to leave, making Brian promise he would come in to see them soon.

  In all that time, Robles had not returned. Brian knew that the old Indian was probably back on the reservation somewhere, alone with the earth and the sky, communicating his grief to his own ancient gods.

  Brian woke early the morning after the Wolffes left, and dressed and went to breakfast. Walking down the hall, he saw that the door to Tiger’s room was open. Just inside, gazing blankly at the empty brass bed, was Robles. The greasy dust-chalked chivarras sheathing his skinny legs emanated the pungent scent of sage and pine and tallow. Over a cotton shirt he wore a blue velvet vest, faded and tawdry, and the huge silver bosses on his belt gave off a tarnished shimmer. Grief and fasting had made almost a skull of his gaunt old head; the hollows were sunk deep beneath his cheekbones and the muscles in his neck stood against the sallow skin like pale strings. Brian felt awkward before him, inarticulate. Yet he wanted to talk with Robles.

  He walked restlessly past the Indian, staring at the bed. He was remembering how he had laughed at the Apache’s forebodings and superstitions through the last months. Was this what Robles had feared? Could he have had the prescience to foresee Tiger’s death?

  “You didn’t want him to go out to roundup that day, did you?” he murmured. Robles did not answer, and Brian continued. “You spoke of signs, Robles. What signs? Did they tell of this?”

  Robles was silent so long Brian thought he would not speak. Finally his voice came, dry and rustling as the whisper of dying leaves in the wind. “Bad sign. In the sky. On the earth—”

  His voice trailed off. Brian knew he would get no more out of the man. He had been as vague before, unable or unwilling to communicate the nebulous prophesies conjured out of his primitive attunement to the earth and the sky. Brian circled the room, feeling the gap between them, the weight of the patriarch’s disapproval. But it held none of Latigo’s scorn; it was more a thing of pity, of doubt. Despite the man’s censure, Brian admired Robles, and had always wanted his respect.

  “Pinto says you’ll return to your people,” Brian said. A flicker touched Robles’ filmed, sunken eyes, but he did not answer. Brian fought with his pride and then looked squarely at Robles. “I want you to stay. I’ll need your help.” Again Robles did not answer. But his attention swung briefly to the bed, and Brian understood the implications. “I know you think I can’t ever fill his boots, Robles. Maybe nobody could. Do I have to be as big as Tiger to be a man? I’ll try to measure up. I’ll have to, if I mean to hold the Double Bit together.”

  Robles turned and stared unwinkingly at him. It was like having his soul stripped bare. Finally his dry lips moved.

  “I will stay.”

  Brian felt a surge of triumph. This was more acceptance than he had ever gotten from Robles before. But he knew he was merely on probation. If he failed to measure up, the last feeble bond between them would be severed.

  “Can you eat now?” he asked. Robles nodded. “Let’s have breakfast,” Brian said. “Afterward we can go out to roundup. It’ll help us keep our minds off him.”

  * * * *

  The roundup grounds were on the high, rolling land north of the Double Bit. Between two low ridges lay a mile-long, juniper-covered flat. At its lower end was a pole corral for the remuda, jam-packed with fresh mounts; beyond it were two dozen saddled animals picketed to a rope line, waiting to replace used-up cutters and ropers. Three wranglers, no more than tow-headed kids, squatted on their heels against the pole fence, smoking and talking horses. A hundred yards on, camp began, a welter of spare saddles, warbags, blankets, and heaped gear. At its farther edge stood the wagons—freight, chuck, and calf—tongues dropped and tail-gates down. A pair of swampers were heaving hundred-pound sacks of flour from the bed of the freight outfit. The roustabout was raising a hellish clatter as he cleaned breakfast dishes and the cook was busy butchering a calf for son-of-a-gun stew.

  The inevitable curtain of dust hung over the farther flats; half visible in this buttery haze was the saffron flicker of branding fires, the shadowy forms of riders passing back and forth, the countless white faces of the cattle like flakes of snow tossing on the black sea of their bodies.

  Brian found Latigo at one of the fires, dust-caked, sweating, riding his men with a constant volley of orders. He turned in the saddle as Brian approached.

  “I’m going to finish roundup with you,” Brian said.

  Latigo’s eyes swung to Robles. The Indian said nothing. Latigo looked at Brian again. A sardonic grin touched his mouth.

  “Tiger wanted to teach you the business a long time ago.”

  “I know it. I guess I wasn’t ready then. I am now.”

  For a moment Latigo seemed to be taking a new measure of Brian. Then he tilted his head to one side. “I’ll show you the cutting.”

  At the cutting grounds two thousand cattle were being held by the crooning circle riders. New bunches were constantly being added by the combers as they came in from remote sections of the range. One pair of cutters was working the late calves that had been missed that spring, freeing them from the main herd with their mothers and driving them to the fire. Here the branding teams threw the calves, burned the Double Bit into their hides, and earmarked them.

  “They’ll go into the cutbacks over in that coulee,” Latigo said. “When roundup’s over we’ll turn ‘em back to open range. The beef cut is what you’ll be interested in.”

  Another man was cutting a big bay steer free of the same main herd and driving him in the other direction from the branding fires. Latigo and Brian followed through a pall of dust to the roundup pens, sprawled out for half a mile across the north end of the flat. These pens were filled with the steers destined for market. Brian knew enough about beef on the hoof to see what good condition they were in.

  “Fat’n sassy,” he said.

  “Tiger made us work ‘em slow,” Latigo told him. “He said every drop of sweat was a pound of beef lost.”

  A rider on a lathered black came through the fog of dust toward them. Brian saw it was Wirt Peters. He was big in the saddle, heat giving his flesh a ruddy glow through the scrubby blond beard. His blue shirt was plastered to his beefy muscles with sweat, and brush-scars made illegible etchings in the film of dust graying his batwing chaps. A mottled bruise still remained on his face from the fight with Tiger at the Black Jack. He reined up before them, nodding a greeting.

  “I been trailing a big drift of my three-year-olds up from the Rim,” he said. “Figure your combers gathered them in about ten miles south.”

  “We didn’t spot none of your earmarks,” Latigo said.

  “I’d like a look.”

  “You cal
ling me a liar?”

  “Hell, no. Isn’t it possible you overlooked ‘em?”

  The cutter had pushed his beef into the pen and was sitting his horse by the pole fence, watching intently. Two other punchers handling the gate stood near by, their attention on the scene. Latigo put raw-knuckled hands on the saddle horn and settled forward, his face bleak.

  “If they’re in our herd, we’d of seen ‘em, Peters. Now you better turn around and go home.”

  “Hold it,” Brian said. He couldn’t understand Latigo’s anger. “As long as he’s here you might as well let him have a look.”

  Latigo’s slope-shouldered body stiffened and his head turned sharply to Brian. The shimmering ridge of his cheeks stood out white as bone against the angry red of his face. Before he could speak a puncher came in at a lope, calling to the ramrod.

  “Daggett just came in with some stuff that looks blotted. You better have a look.”

  Latigo frowned, hesitated, then swung his sullen gaze back to Peters. “If you’re not out of here when I get back I’m goin’ to tie a can to your tail.”

  He raked a glance across Brian, then spurred his horse viciously after the puncher.

  “What’s the matter with him?” Brian asked.

  Peters grinned ruefully. “Reckon he’s still mad about how I clobbered him at the Black Jack.”

  He continued to look questioningly at Brian. The cutter and the two punchers by the gate were still watching, and Brian realized he had put himself in a bad spot. He had already questioned Latigo’s decision; if he backed down now it would be taken as a sign of weakness. What would Tiger do? He remembered the incident with Snakebite.

  “How about it, Brian?” Peters asked.

  Brian tried not to look at the watching punchers. Peters had come half a day’s ride after those strays. It would be ridiculous to turn him back without a look.