by Elmer Kelton
Charlie had long observed the Mexican people’s stoic acceptance of fate, but he had never quite approved of it. He had no patience with anything that put an arbitrary limit on a man, that held him back from doing the best he was capable of and being rewarded for it to whatever extent the market would bear.
“Feeling better, Jose?”
“Much better. I could ride a horse now. I could work if you would let me.”
Charlie leaned against a saddle rack, sticking the crutch out in front of him as a prop. His eyes narrowed. “As I told you before, I do not need any extra help.”
José pointed his chin at the crutch. “With that, there are many things you cannot do. I can do them for you.”
“I know, boy, but ...”
Candelario piped up, “Let’s keep him, Mister Charlie. I’ll help you pay him.”
Charlie glanced quizzically at the boy. “With what?”
“I get a nickel every schoolday to buy a bar of candy to go with my lunch. I don’t need any candy.”
“Every boy needs candy, son; the sugar helps make you run fast.”
José pushed to his feet. “Look, patrón, I can ride any horse. I have always been a good bronc rider.”
“We have no broncs here. I buy my horses already broken.”
“What about that horse that threw you?”
“He is not a bronc. He is just a jughead.”
“Then I will ride your jugheads for you.”
Charlie shook his head. This majado must have been something to listen to when he was trying to sell someone a saddle.
“Look, señor, see how I can rope.” José took a rope down from Charlie’s racked saddle. He stepped into the sunshine and shook out a loop. “Candelario, run away from me.”
Candelario ran. The black pup ran with him, barking in foolish excitement. José swung the loop, threw it, and jerked up the slack around Candelario’s belly.
Candelario laughed as he loosened the loop and dropped it to the ground, stepping out of it. “Just like Tom, Mister Charlie.”
Tom. That only served to remind Charlie that he hadn’t heard from his son in two or three weeks; he was off chasing the rodeo circuit from Cape Cod to Hickory Bend. We already got one roper too many around here, he thought. But this Mexican knows what he’s doing, and that’s the truth.
The young man’s eyes pleaded. “Please, patrón, there are many other things I can do, things I have not shown you. I will work hard, and I will never complain.”
Charlie had it on his tongue to say no again, but he couldn’t get it said. If Tom were here, pulling his weight, it might be different. Charlie looked at José, then at Candelario. The little boy’s eyes pleaded even more than José’s. Charlie reached down and picked up the headstall from the floor.
“That brown horse rubbed my bridle off somewhere the other day. It’s lost out in the pasture. Could you make me one like that?”
He found Mary seated at the kitchen table, dry pinto beans spread out in front of her. She was carefully picking out the scattered few rocks, raking the clean beans noisily into an aluminum pan. Pushing down the reading glasses she used any more for close work, she looked up at Charlie. “Well, did you tell him?”
Charlie shrugged and went poking through a stack of newspapers for the latest issue of the West Texas Livestock Weekly. “What are you so all-fired anxious to have him leave here for?”
Chapter Seven
THOUGH IT WAS APRIL, MANUEL FLORES’S BAY COLT was still shaggy; he had not shed off his winter coat and slicked down for the spring. He was getting more nourishment out of a feed trough than he was finding in the pasture.
Manuel hung his milk bucket on a fence post and went through the corral gate to pet the horse a little; the milk cow could wait. The colt walked up and nuzzled him, looking for the sugar or the carrot or the piece of apple Manuel usually brought him every afternoon as soon as the Flores youngsters came home from school.
The north wind scooped up dust from the pen and flung it into Manuel’s eyes. He ran his tongue over his teeth to remove the grit. At the barn he watched his father and José Rivera swing sacks of cottonseed cake onto the two ranch pickups for the next day’s feeding. Charlie Flagg stood by a fender, silently supervising. It was a job that did not require much instruction. Manuel knew the feeding should have ended much earlier than this. He knew it was like no spring he had known on Brushy Top.
He had been born in the white frame house, and he had slept few nights away from it in his life. As a small boy his senses had come fully alive only when he was outdoors, and this feeling for the open remained unchanged. He responded instinctively to the sun and the wind and to the animals which fed on this land. He sensed the seasonal ebb and flow of life in the ground beneath his feet. He sensed birth and death and rebirth, as generations of his forebears had sensed it living tied to the earth.
Where in other years he had enjoyed the cool freshness of April rain, the smell of green grass and the splash of wild flowers spread like an Indian blanket across the valleys, he found now the parched smell of dust. Spring weeds made a try, then seemed to draw back into the ground like some wild animal too early out of hibernation. Old grass left from last year showed a touch of green at its base, but the color could climb no higher and would shortly retreat again. Only the brush—the mesquites and live oaks and cedars—produced any solid green. Their roots went deep, where water still hid from the sun. He heard grizzled viejos say there had been a drouth far back in the past when even these had died.
He noted that when men met, whether Anglo or Mexican, the first subject to come up was usually rain. The parting words were almost invariably something like, “Maybe we’ll get a rain pretty soon,” stated hopefully but with little conviction, as if fishing for some supporting comment from the other party, a leaning together for strength. Manuel found it an empty and tiresome ritual, but he understood it. Drouth had become the overriding concern not only of the Anglo ranchers but for the Anglo and Mexican hands who worked for them, as his own father worked for Charlie Flagg. Their survival was tied to that of the ranchers, inseparable and increasingly precarious.
Candelario had tagged along half a dozen paces behind Manuel, near enough to watch everything but far enough that he could turn back if he saw unpleasant work ahead. “Manuel,” he said from outside the corral, “Mister Charlie is coming.”
Charlie Flagg limped up to the fence, catching a tuft of Candelario’s coarse black hair and giving it a playful tug. “You learnin’ anything in school, Candy?”
“I’m learnin’ to get tired of it.”
“You got a long ways to go, boy, if you don’t want to grow up ignorant like me and your old daddy.”
“That’s better than bein’ smart like some of those teachers.”
“Those teachers ain’t feedin’ cattle and snotty-nosed sheep halfway into the summer.” Charlie looked through the fence at Manuel, who had his arm around the colt’s neck. “Manuel, you got anything to do besides milk your cow?”
Manuel shook his head. “Not till tonight.” He straightened with interest, hoping Charlie had a horseback job for him. If so, Candelario might be given the pleasure of milking that brindle cow.
Charlie said, “It’s gettin’ time we cut that colt of yours; that’s why I shut the gate on him. Thought since he’s yours, you ought to be here to see how it’s done.”
Manuel tightened his arm around the young horse’s neck. Regret colored his voice. “Do we have to, Mister Charlie?”
“We have to. If we leave him as a stud he won’t be much ‘count for you to ride. If we geld him you can make a good usin’-horse out of him.”
Manuel had been brought up not to doubt Charlie Flagg’s word; Lupe always said Charlie was one guero who never lied to him. “Couldn’t we wait awhile, Mister Charlie?” Maybe if they waited awhile, everybody would forget it.
“He’s already a yearlin’-past; it’s time. I like to do this job in April, after it’s through bein’ cold
and before it gets hot, or in October. By October he’ll have growed more. Almanac says the signs are right. Best we get it over with, muchacho.”
Tears burned Manuel’s eyes; he thought of the pain for his pony, and the humiliation. Through the fence he saw that his father had walked up and that Lupe agreed with Charlie Flagg. José Rivera only looked on, not knowing except in a general way what they were talking about. He hadn’t learned much English.
Charlie came through the gate and left it for Lupe or José to close. He put his hand gently on the horse’s withers. “It’s got to be done one time in his life. The longer we put it off the worse it’ll hurt him.”
Manuel hugged his pony’s neck, keeping his face turned away so nobody could see the tears he was trying to rub off onto the shoulder of his shirt. “All right. But he may not ever like me any more.”
Charlie moved his big hand from the horse’s withers up to Manuel’s shoulder. “A horse don’t hold a grudge, son. He’s not like people.”
Charlie sent Candelario running to his house to fetch some warm water in a bucket. Then he told José in Spanish to rope both the colt’s forefeet. José swung the loop and laid it easily around the feet as Manuel stepped back and the colt moved forward. The young bay plunged and kicked, frightened by the unaccustomed bite around its ankles. José jerked, and the colt went to its knees. Charlie Flagg gave its shoulder a hard push; it went down heavily on its side. José pulled the forefeet back and took a wrap around the left hind leg, pulling it and the forefeet tightly together. He took a couple more wraps, these around all three legs, and made a tie.
“Bueno,” Charlie said, “we’ll tie that right leg up.” José did not know Charlie’s method, so Charlie did it himself. He tied a second rope around the heavy part of the colt’s neck, then looped part of the rope over the right hind leg, pulling it as far forward as he could with José and Lupe both helping him. This left the scrotum exposed.
The colt thrashed, lifting its head and slamming it to the ground in fright. Charlie said, “Pet him, Manuel. Talk to him so he won’t hurt himself.”
Manuel patted the colt’s neck and gently rubbed its nose, speaking softly in Spanish, the language he always used with animals. The colt still kicked a little, struggling vainly against the unaccustomed ropes. “He’s goin’ to be mad at me,” he worried aloud.
Charlie Flagg limped off to the barn. He came back with a syringe and serum and a brown bottle of Lysol. By this time Candelario came running, swinging the bucket and spilling water with every step. Lupe reached across the weathered plank fence and took the bail as Candelario lifted the bucket with both hands. Charlie poured some of the Lysol into the warm water, mixing it with both of his hands. He opened his big pocketknife to the fleshing blade and dropped it into the bucket. He sloshed the syringe around in the water a moment, wiped the needle dry with his fingers and jabbed it through the rubber top of the serum bottle. “We’ll give him about 10 c.c. of penicillin. That’s more than most of my horses ever got.”
Manuel patted the pony’s neck faster as Charlie made the injection. The skin rippled a little where the needle went in, but the colt made little other sign that it felt anything.
Charlie carried the bucket of water behind the colt, knelt, and splashed some around the region that was to feel the knife, washing it with his hands and rinsing with more Lysol water. He fished his knife out and motioned for Lupe to take the bucket away. “Watch his hoofs now, Manuel. Even tied, he’ll kick a little.”
Manuel lifted the pony’s head and cradled it in his arms as he watched Charlie split the scrotum. The horse flinched as the seed popped out. Charlie used an emasculator to pinch it off and crimp the cord to minimize the bleeding. The colt groaned, partly from pain, partly from fright. Charlie talked to it as he worked. “Easy now, son. Be gentle now, potro.”
Charlie was talking English to him, Manuel was speaking Spanish. Manuel told himself it was no wonder the pony was confused.
When the second seed was out, lying in the sand, Charlie wiped his sweating face on his sleeve. Manuel realized how much strain this had been on the ranchman, and how much Charlie disliked this job.
Charlie dropped his knife in the bucket and said, “Where’s that salted bacon grease, Lupe?”
Manuel’s father handed Charlie a coffee can. Charlie dipped in and brought out a handful, which he smeared liberally over the fresh wound. “Ain’t bleedin’ much. That’s a good sign.”
That might be true, but it was enough to make Manuel’s stomach queasy. He patted the pony’s neck faster and realized he had quit talking. He began speaking softly again, telling lies. “That didn’t hurt much; you won’t even know it when you get up.” The tears had quit flowing, but inside he was still crying a little.
Charlie said, “Let’s untie him easy and let him up slow. We don’t want him to strain himself and come up with a rupture.”
The ropes came off. Manuel eyed the hoofs warily, knowing one could knock him senseless if it hit him right, but he kept a careful hold on the pony’s neck. As the colt became aware that it was free, it struggled to get its feet on the ground. It got up front-end first, the hind legs shaky and weak from shock and the ropes’ cut-off of blood circulation.
Lupe knelt and looked between the hind legs, from far enough that he would not get kicked. “Don’t look like he’ll bleed much.”
Charlie nodded in satisfaction. “I been watchin’ the almanac. The signs are in the legs. Cut a colt when the signs are in the legs, he don’t generally have much trouble.”
Manuel still had his arms around the pony’s neck. Charlie washed the blood from his hands in the Lysol water, dried them on the legs of his khaki pants, then came up and patted Manuel on the shoulder. “I didn’t check signs on you, boy. You all right?”
“Sure, Mister Charlie. I’m glad it’s over.”
“It ain’t all over; he’ll bear a little watchin’.”
Manuel said, “I’ll come out and sleep in the barn tonight; I’ll watch him.” Then he raised his head and blinked. “But I forgot. I’m supposed to take Anita in for the dance at school tonight. If I don’t go with her, Mama won’t let her go.”
Charlie said, “The colt don’t have to be watched that close. José’ll take a look at him once in a while.” He began to smile. “Thought you didn’t have any use for dances.”
“Tonight’s is for Buddy Thompson. The Thompsons are leavin’, you know.”
Charlie nodded, for through him had come Manuel’s first knowledge of the fact that the Thompson ranch had gone under. Batch Thompson operated leased land which touched against part of Charlie Flagg’s netwire perimeter fence. The story as Manuel heard it was that Thompson was paying a lease price pegged too high for the realities of this hard time, and the distant landowners refused any adjustment to compensate. He had been forced to throw in the cards.
Manuel had been over to Batch Thompson’s ranch several times as neighbor help with his father. He had found Thompson fussy for his taste, and prone to the use of sorry horses. Manuel had picked up his father’s and Charlie Flagg’s tendency to judge a ranch by its horses. But whatever his feelings about the ranchman, Manuel had always liked Thompson’s son Buddy, a year or so ahead of him in school. Moreover, as the Thompsons moved away the Rodriguez family who worked for them were left at loose ends and had to leave too. The school would be a duller place without dumb old Paco Rodriguez jamming his foot into a wastebasket or spilling books out of his messy locker every time he opened the door.
The drouth’s unpleasant changes were crowding into Manuel’s world; he could no longer ignore them.
It had always been a mystery to Manuel why there was a rule against any footwear except tennis shoes on the gymnasium floor during school time, while all shoes were acceptable at a dance. For these occasions an old jukebox was rolled out from a storeroom. It was rigged to operate without coins, though half the time it played different number than had been punched for. Most of the records were out of date beca
use nobody in authority took the time, trouble, or expense to change them. But the music was free, and that made up for a lot of shortcomings.
The dance was not officially dedicated to Buddy Thompson and the Rodriguez youngsters, but informally it worked out that way. It was a time for saying goodbye, for building a good memory to last after friends had gone.
Manuel had not yet learned to dance. He spent most of his time in the concession stand helping sell Cokes and 7-Ups, peanuts and chewing gum for the class treasury. If they ever saved up enough money, the class hoped to make a trip to the Yellowstone. Covertly Manuel watched the swirling skirts. He felt his evening justified when he caught a quick glimpse of a well-shaped thigh; they were all well-shaped that far up. The last few times he had brought Anita here he had begun building his nerve to lead some giggling girl out onto the floor. He had considered asking his sister to teach him a few basic steps, but once she got to one of these affairs there never was time. The boys clustered around her like flies after sugar. He had heard it said she was the best-looking girl in Rio Seco, but being a brother he could not take an objective view. There were several he would place higher, some he had never seen barefoot and in an old blue shirt and Levi’s.
He tried always to keep track of Anita. Rosa had admonished him to be watchful that she was never persuaded to go outside with a boy. “Your sister is a good girl,” Rosa told him, “but even a good girl likes to hear a boy make pretty talk. You will do it yourself one of these days; there is no boy that remains a saint.”
Manuel was worried about only one: Danny Ortiz. He always frowned when he saw Danny on the dancefloor with Anita, and it seemed he was out there more than any other boy. None of the others liked to arouse Danny’s anger by pressing too hard for Anita’s notice when Danny made it plain he wanted her for himself. Danny was the son of a well-to-do businessman and money lender, a man of high finance and low repute. Hated and even feared, Old Man Ortiz was a power among his people though most privately condemned him as a coyote, a flesh-peddling profiteer and mordeleon. They waited with patience and a serene confidence for that day of retribution when God would strike him down. God, the people said, always found a way to make a man’s sins become their own punishment. Old Man Ortiz had much retribution ahead of him.
