Tommy hung his hat on a peg and stretched out on his bunk, hands behind his head. He watched Red drink water from a tin cup, and he started when the bunkhouse door opened. Tommy settled down when he saw that it was Walt McKinney.
“Hello, boys,” Walt said. “Did you just get in?”
Red shook the drops out of the tin cup and said, “A few minutes ago. We just put our horses away. Anything new?”
“Nah.” Walt took off his hat and hung it next to Tommy’s. As he turned around, the imperfect light in the bunkhouse gave him a gaunt appearance. He was lean and of average height, with curly blond hair and a narrow chin. He gave a tight smile as he turned a chair away from the table and sat down. He took a breath with his mouth open, and his small teeth showed. “Another day, another dollar.” He reached into his vest pocket and drew out a small white sack of tobacco and a pack of papers.
He shook tobacco into a leaf of paper he held troughed with his thumb and fingers, then pulled the yellow drawstring with his teeth. He tossed the bag to Red, who caught it with one hand as he pulled a chair around for himself. McKinney rolled the cigarette he had begun and licked the seam. Pausing before he put the cigarette in his mouth, he asked, “See anything?” Then he flipped the cigarette to his lips and popped a match.
“Jackrabbit,” Red answered. Sitting relaxed in the chair, he pushed back his hat and began to roll a cigarette.
Walt blew out a stream of smoke and said, “That’s about the way it is.”
Red finished rolling his cigarette and motioned to Walt for a match.
The bunkhouse door opened again, and Tommy’s pulse jumped with good reason. Lew Greer, the foreman, filled the doorway, and Vinch Cushman followed right behind.
Red blew smoke toward the ceiling, turned his head, and said, “Howdy.”
“Don’t howdy me,” said Greer. He was a bulky man, and his broad-brimmed hat cast his face in shadow.
Red sat up straight and kept his composure. “What’s wrong?”
Greer gave an expression of disgust. “As if you didn’t know.”
“I’ll have to say I don’t.”
“No need to act dumb,” Greer said. “You were over at the Mexican camp, the two of you.”
Red blinked his eyes. “Never said we weren’t.”
“Don’t get smart. You asked what’s wrong, and I’m tellin’ you. There’s no reason to go over there and mingle with those people.”
“We just went to water our horses.”
“Oh, go on. It’s well over a mile out of your way.” Greer held up a thick hand and wagged his finger. “We don’t need any of that.”
“I didn’t know there was anything wrong with it.”
“You don’t know much.” Greer spit tobacco juice into the spittoon.
Red shrugged, as if he didn’t have anything more to say. He raised his cigarette to his lips, and Greer batted it away.
“Pay attention when I’m talkin’.”
Red settled his hat on his head and spoke in an apologetic tone. “I was listening. I just didn’t know what to say. I didn’t expect anyone to be mad.”
Vinch Cushman’s deep voice filled the room. “You kids are young and don’t know any better. But we’re tellin’ you. Stay away from those people. They’re no good. They breed like rats.” Cushman turned to glare at Tommy. The boss had one eye wider than the other, and his complexion was flushed. “Are you listening?”
Tommy sat up on his bunk and made himself look straight at the boss. “Yes, I am,” he said.
Cushman loomed over him from ten feet away. The man had hunched and rounded shoulders, a head that leaned forward, and a beak nose. He reminded Tommy of a bird of prey. His voice took command again. “You need to understand. These people aren’t the same as us. They’re a lower class. Bad enough that they run sheep, but they’ve got a poor way of doin’ things. Just look at the way they manage. Bang any kinds of boards together to make a shed. Tie their corrals together with old broken pieces of rope. You won’t find any cattleman worth his salt who does things that way. Like a rat’s nest. But that’s the way they are.” Vinch flared his nostrils as he took a big sniff. “The cattlemen were here first, by God. We opened this country up, did all the hard work, and now these rag-tails come in and squat on our range.”
Greer picked up on the topic. “Rag-tail is right. Like their horses—what horses they got. Broomtail, skinny-ribbed, miserable things with their heads hangin’ low and their hip bones stickin’ out. Granger horses. Any self-respectin’ cow outfit would cull out that kind of horse, take ’em to the boneyard, and put a bullet in their head.”
Tommy flinched.
Cushman spoke again in his deep voice. “You kids don’t know any better, and that’s why we’re explainin’ it to you. I can tell by the way both of you look at me that you don’t believe me. Maybe you don’t think I know what I’m talkin’ about.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Red answered.
“Don’t even think it,” said Greer. “Listen to men who know better. I’ll tell you, I been around Mexicans plenty, and I know. Fact is, I know them better than they know themselves.” Greer seemed to have reached a point at which he was satisfied with himself and could afford to be tolerant of his inferiors. “Go pick up your cigarette,” he said.
As Red moved out of the way, Tommy saw that Fred Berwick, the fourth puncher at the White Wings Ranch, had come in behind the boss and the foreman. Fred was looking on in an uneasy way, as if he didn’t want to be siding with the boss but didn’t have the power to differ with him.
Cushman’s voice broke the silence. “I’ll just say one thing. I know what I’m talkin’ about.” He must have followed Tommy’s eyes, for he turned and made a small hand gesture. “And Fred knows I do. Isn’t that right, Fred?”
Greer laughed. “Fred don’t want to say. But, of course, he knows it. Don’t you, Fred?”
Fred stood with his thumbs in his belt and nodded.
Red picked up his cigarette and took a puff on it. He motioned with his head, raising his hat brim, and said, “Have you got another match, Walt?”
McKinney reached into his vest and came out with a match. He struck it on the side of his chair, and it sputtered into a flame. As Red leaned toward it, Cushman’s voice rose again.
“You two kids need to bring in some stove wood. Walt, you help Fred with whatever he needs. Fred, you’re in charge of the kitchen, of course. Just go easy on the salt.”
Fred nodded and said, “Sure.”
Tommy stayed out of the way as he rose from his bunk and put on his hat. He slipped outside and waited for Red.
A moment later, Red stepped out of the bunkhouse. He paused to take one last pull on his cigarette, drop the snipe, and grind it out with the sole of his boot.
The boys walked to the woodpile without speaking. Once there, when they could see no one was within hearing distance, Red said, “I wonder who told on us.”
Tommy said, “It could have been any of them, or Vinch could have seen us himself.”
“Old Eagle Eye.” Red made a small puffing sound. “Probably doesn’t matter.” He bent over and began picking up lengths of split firewood.
Tommy did the same. When he had an armload, he straightened up and waited for Red. “That was quite a blow-up,” he said.
Red shrugged a shoulder. “I’ve had worse.”
“I was wondering about one thing. It seems—I don’t know if I should mention it.”
“Go ahead.”
“Do you think Vinch hates those people because they’re not white?”
“Oh, I imagine so. Why do you ask?”
“It’s the one thing he didn’t mention.”
“Probably goes without sayin’.”
“And then Lew callin’ ’em grangers. Not that it matters, I suppose, but grangers are dirt farmers. These small outfits that come in and cut the range into smaller pieces, they’re called nesters. Not that it’s any better of a term. But that’s what I was told. Once
you get straightened out on your language, you know, you don’t like to hear the words used wrong.”
“I know what you mean. Someone from the East, wearin’ a derby hat, steps off the train and calls your gelding a stallion.” Red shook his head. “Pity him.”
CHAPTER TWO
Tommy sat in the shade of his horse, picking at the dry grass and watching the low hill where he expected Red to ride over. The air did not stir, and here at ground level, the temperature seemed hotter. Tommy guessed it had something to do with the sun’s rays hitting the dry earth. He reached out beyond the shadow and touched the dirt between the clumps of buffalo grass. The soil was warm and dry, collecting the sun’s heat. And yet the ants worked on through an afternoon like this, obedient to whatever laws they followed.
Tommy looked up to scan the countryside. He would have to be much closer to the crest of the hill in order to hear the hoofbeats before he saw the rider, especially on a hot day like this. Sound traveled better in cold weather, and even more so when there was snow on the ground. He was pretty sure of it. He had noticed it himself. No one had told him.
The thought of sounds in cold weather brought to mind the tall tales of Paul Bunyan. In the snowy forest, the camp cook would have five men holler all at once to shout a message to the next camp. At the other camp, the cook would have five men listening, with the logic that if five men could shout farther than one, five men could hear farther as well. Tommy wondered if anyone was ever expected to believe those tales.
When he thought of the Paul Bunyan stories, another one came to mind. The camp cook had a skillet so big that he made a boy like Tommy strap on two slabs of bacon, like skates, and skim all around the surface to grease it for flapjacks. When Tommy thought of that tale, he wondered what would happen if the boy fell down. He would get a bad burn. That was never part of the story, though. The boy just skated on a lake of hot grease.
Here came Red now, on the dark horse he had saddled that morning. Tommy did not hear the hoofbeats yet. Sound traveled slower than sight. He knew that, too. Once when he was working at the Muleshoe, he watched from about four hundred yards as one of the other riders shot a deer. The rifle kicked, the deer fell over, and the sound carried a couple of seconds later.
Now Tommy heard the hooves striking the earth, and he saw bits of dust rising. He stood up, brushed off the seat of his pants, and waited.
The horse slowed and came to a stop, its breath heaving and its warmth spreading out. Red took off his hat and wiped his brow with his shirtsleeve. His copper-colored hair glared in the sun. He put his hat back on and said, “Ready, kid?”
Tommy squinted. “I don’t know if we should.”
Red let out an impatient breath. “Oh, come on now. This is the time to do it. Every three days, we finish up over here. This is the closest we get.”
“I don’t know if we should today.”
“Well, if we’re going to do it, we might as well do it now. We can wait three days and decide again, but that’ll just be three days wasted. What do you want, anyway?”
“I want to get to know one of those girls. You know that.” Tommy looked around on both sides. “I’m just worried about what might happen.”
“You mean Vinch? All he can do is get mad. He’s already done that, and it looked to me like he cooled down. Besides, there’s no guarantee that he’ll find out, and if he does, he can get over it.”
“I don’t know.”
“Look. Sooner or later, we’re gonna go back. If you don’t want to, I’ll go by myself. I know he doesn’t like it. But I’m not gonna sit over here all my life, with girls over there, and not even get a chance to meet ’em, just because someone else doesn’t like it.”
An image of the girl with dark hair passed through Tommy’s mind, as it had done a hundred times in the last three days. “I know,” he said. “But—”
“But what? You want to be like Fred Berwick all your life? Faint heart never won a fair maid. You know that.”
Tommy smiled. “Yeah, I know.” He moved the horse around, set his reins in place, and grabbed the saddle horn. The horse stepped forward, and Tommy snugged the near rein. When the horse moved backward, Tommy put his foot in the stirrup and swung aboard.
“That’s a sport.” Red made a clucking sound and touched his spur to the dark horse. The two riders moved out together.
The board village caught the sun just as it had done a few days earlier. The weathered lumber gave off a dull shine. Laundry hung on the clothesline, chickens pecked at the earth, and a brown-and-white goat wandered across the bare ground. Two dogs came out to bark, and a girl appeared at the doorway that Tommy kept an eye on. His pulse quickened.
The girl called to the dogs, but they kept barking. The girl went inside. A minute later, Raimundo appeared. He spoke to the dogs, and they trotted back to him, wagging their tails.
The chickens and the goat drifted away as the boys rode into the yard. They stopped within ten yards of Raimundo and dismounted. All three exchanged greetings as they shook hands.
“We eat dinner a little bit late today,” Raimundo said. “Come and eat.”
“Oh, no,” said Red. “We don’t want to interrupt anything.”
Tommy felt his hopes sinking.
“Oh, no, you eat,” said Raimundo. “My son will water your horses, and we will eat. And talk.” The man gave a nod of encouragement and an inviting gesture with his hand.
Raimundo’s son came out of the house, and the father spoke to him in Spanish. The boy smiled and took the reins of the two horses. Red and Tommy followed Raimundo into the house.
Tommy’s eyes took a minute to adjust to the dim interior. At the far end of the front room, a table sat next to a doorway that led into the kitchen. A matronly woman in a dark dress and a pale apron stood at a cookstove, and the aroma of cooked food wafted through the doorway.
“Sit down,” said Raimundo.
Of the four chairs around the table, Tommy took the one that faced the kitchen doorway. He took off his hat and kept it in his lap as he sat down. Red did the same. Tommy saw that only one empty chair remained. He met Raimundo’s eyes and said, “I don’t think there’s going to be enough room.”
“Don’t worry,” said the host. “The others will eat later. It’s the way we do things.”
The table had not been set. Something like a jar or vase, made of clay, sat in the middle of the table with forks and spoons sticking out of it. A small wooden burro with panniers of woven grass held a supply of toothpicks, and next to it sat a low, round dish made of glazed clay and half-full of a reddish sauce.
Motion caught Tommy’s eye, and a current ran through him. A girl with long, dark hair and a reddish-brown dress came out of the kitchen with a tan crockery plate of cooked food and set it in front of Raimundo. She said something in Spanish, and Tommy caught the word “papá.” As she returned to the kitchen, passing again behind Red’s chair, Tommy admired her dark hair, straight and neat and clean as it lay on her shoulders and upper back.
She reappeared in another minute with a plate for Red. She made a quick return to the kitchen, and Tommy sat up straight and held his breath until she came back out with a plate for him. He exhaled slow and silent, waiting to see if her eyes would meet his. They did. She had dark eyes, deep and shiny, that settled on him for a second and moved away.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You’re welcome.”
He was so dazed that he missed seeing her walk away. He came back to himself and the table and the meal. Red was lifting a fork out of the clay jar, and Raimundo was watching the kitchen doorway. The middle-aged woman Tommy had noticed earlier came out of the kitchen with a small bundle wrapped in a towel. She set it in the middle of the table.
“Tortillas,” she said.
Tommy looked at his plate. He had a full meal of scrambled eggs, mashed beans, and fried pork. He waited for Raimundo to take a tortilla. He took one for himself, warm and white with brown toasted spots. As he reached
for a fork, he saw that Raimundo had torn off a piece of tortilla and was using it in place of a utensil. Tommy went ahead and took a fork from the vase.
“Here’s chile,” said the host. He lifted a spoon from the vase and stuck it in the bowl of sauce.
Red shook his head.
Tommy shrugged and decided to give it a try. He served a spoonful of the red sauce onto the beans. He put the spoon back in the bowl, got set with the tortilla in one hand and the fork in the other, and dug in.
The meal was sensational. After weeks of the same bunkhouse fare of fried potatoes, fried salt pork, boiled beans with bacon rind, and rock-hard biscuits, the Mexican food had spark and variety. Tommy could not remember the last time he had eaten eggs, and even the fried pork had some other spice that perked things up.
“This food is wonderful,” he said. “Incredible.”
Red chimed in. “You bet.”
“This is the good life,” said Raimundo. “Maybe we don’t have much money, or a very fancy house, but the Mexican people, we always have the good food.” He smiled. “We are happy people. Even when we have only beans and chile, we enjoy our food and we are thankful to God.”
“Amen,” said Red.
Tommy paused. He couldn’t help thinking that Red’s sincerity was at least equaled by his interest in the girl who had served the plates of food.
Raimundo went on. “And this is the good thing, that we sit down in friendship.”
“It’s very good,” said Tommy. He searched for the words and found them. “We didn’t expect it. But we appreciate it.”
“It’s my pleasure.” Raimundo reached for another tortilla. “And yet, maybe we will not be friends for very long.”
“Why’s that?” asked Red.
“Your boss, Mr. Cooshmon, he does not like us.”
“I know,” Red answered. “You told us that last time.”
“Oh, no. There is more now.”
“Really?” said Tommy. “What is it?”
“He tells us we should leave.”
“Leave?” Tommy frowned. “You’ve filed claims, haven’t you?”
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