The Baron Range

by Jory Sherman

  “She is not well. She will not see anyone.”

  “Well, I must see her. Please tell her that I am here.”

  “She will be very angry if I go in there again.”

  “Juanito, is that you?” Caroline called.

  “Yes, Caroline. I am here.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  A moment later she stepped into the living room. Luisa stood at the door, inside. Juanito stood on the porch, his way barred by the diminutive Mexicana.

  “Abre la puerta, Caroline ordered. Luisa opened the door.

  “Vete,” Caroline snapped and the girl quickly left the room, headed for the kitchen.

  “Please come in, Juanito. Where’s Martin?”

  “Perhaps we had better sit down, Caroline. There is much to tell you.” He took off his hat and held it in front of him with both hands.

  She looked at him closely. He was still dusty from the ride, so he had not gone to his house and cleaned up. She wondered inanely what he was doing here in her house. He should have been away with Martin.

  “Is something wrong, Juanito?”

  “Please,” he said, “will you not take a seat?” Juanito stepped up to her and took her arm. He led her to the divan and helped her get settled on the seat. Then, he sat in a chair nearby and set his hat on the floor.

  “What’s happened, Juanito?” Caroline asked, her voice rising in the early stages of hysteria.

  “There is nothing to worry about. Martin and Anson are delayed, that is all. I will tell you what happened.”

  “Oh, God,” she said.

  “It is not what you think,” Juanito said and proceeded to tell her about selling the boat, the murder of Jerry Winfield and when he had last seen her husband and son.

  Caroline sat there, trying to control her emotions, but there was a tightness in her face and her lips were compressed until Juanito finished.

  “So, they will be here soon and we will find out the rest of the story,” Juanito concluded. “Already, Ken Richman is on his way to the Matagorda to lend assistance.”

  “I told him not to go, Juanito. I begged him. But, no, he wouldn’t listen. And now he and my son are chasing after cutthroats. Murderers. I knew it. I just knew something terrible would happen.”

  “Calm yourself, Caroline. Calm yourself. Everything will be all right, I assure you. Martin sent me back to look after you. He cares about you.”

  “No, he doesn’t,” she said and started to sniffle.

  Juanito searched in his pockets for a clean handkerchief. Caroline unfurled the kerchief she drew out of her sleeve, dabbed at her eyes.

  “You know that is not true, Caroline.”

  “Well, he doesn’t act like it. He knows I’m with child and still he leaves me here to run the ranch. I’ve had to deal with so many problems since you left, Juanito. I’m worried about the baby. It’s kicking all the time now like it wants to jump out.”

  “The baby will come when it is ready.”

  “That’s what the doctor said.”

  “He has been to see you?”

  “He comes out every week. Carla knows more than he does about babies.”

  “Most of the Mexican women on the ranch will be able to help you. They are very wise about babies and childbirth.”

  “How is Anson?”

  “He is well,” Juanito said.

  “His father does not treat him very nice.”

  “That is the way with a father and a son. The son is a rival.”

  “What?”

  “There will be some competition and then one day Martin will see a man where his son once stood.”

  “I hope so. I don’t like to see them fight.”

  “Anson does not like to see you and Martin fight.”

  “Oh? How would he know?”

  “Children see everything,” Juanito said. “They hear everything.”

  Caroline closed her eyes for a moment, trying to remember what Anson might have seen and heard. Then, the fear she harbored rose up in her and she wondered whether or not Juanito could read her mind. He was so wise about people, so intuitive.

  “Well, I’m sure Anson hasn’t seen much. Martin and I quarrel, but it’s nothing serious.”

  “It passes,” Juanito said.

  “Passes?” Caroline took a deep breath. “I hope so.”

  “What doesn’t pass is what you keep in your mind, Caroline.”

  “Memories, you mean.”

  “Resentments. Hurts. Little things that are of the past.”

  “Why, everyone does that,” she said quickly.

  “Those bad things you keep in memory, the hurts, the resentments, they can make you unhappy. They can eat at you like a poison.”

  “I’m not like that, Juanito.”

  “I hope not. You can do nothing about the past. It has already gone. And you cannot do anything about the future, either. It is not here yet. The happy person is the one who lives in the present, like a child. That is the one moment of life and it is eternal.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand you, Juanito. So much that you say is beyond my learning.”

  “See life as a child sees it. Just the single moment. You can take care of that much, no? Only a single moment. Be happy. Do not look down the dark corridor of the past, nor try to see into the future. Just look at this one moment and see how happy you are. Nothing has ever happened to you, nothing ever will. You are alive, you have life inside you. That is enough. Just that one single eternal moment. God’s moment.”

  “You make it sound so simple. Just forget the past and don’t worry about the future. Just be glad that I’m alive now.”

  “And safe,” Juanito said. “That is the secret. Now. Only now.”

  “I will try and remember that,” she said, and they both laughed.

  “Well, you are fine, I see,” Juanito said. “I have not yet unsaddled my horse nor opened the door to my casita. I will do these things and if you need me, send Luisa or Carla and I will come.”

  Juanito stood up. Caroline started to rise, but he waved a hand at her.

  “I—I’m glad you came back,” she said. “I wish Martin were with you. And Anson.”

  “They will be here soon. The future, remember?”

  Caroline laughed.

  “You’re right. I can’t bring them back, can I?”

  “Not in the way you think,” he said and was gone from the room before she could ask him what he meant. Juanito was such a strange men, but Martin trusted him and he knew a lot about cattle and horses. And life, she thought, and sighed.

  She had never seen such a strong friendship that existed between the two men. Sometimes she envied Juanito, for he was privy to things about Martin that she would never know. Men things. The things that men did that women were not allowed to do. Fighting, using their muscles to conquer man and beast, racing their horses just for the sport of it, competing in rough games and speaking the private scatology that women were not supposed to hear, swearing in a language forbidden among women of breeding, doing things that were theirs alone to do, things that made them bond with each other as no woman could bond with a man.

  Caroline did not resent that bonding, but she envied it. At times, she had tried to enter Martin’s world, and Juanito’s, but she had been quickly shut out, made to feel an outsider. Men, she decided, did not like tomboys if they had a romantic interest in the woman. But a real tomboy was accepted as long as she didn’t ever grow up and become a woman. She had been such a girl when she was still at home with her parents. Until she had met Martin, in fact. Then, it seemed important to show him her feminine side, but there were times that she wanted to sit with him in the bunkhouse and talk with the hands, the vaqueros, and be accepted as one of them. But, that was a forbidden world to her, she knew.

  And only once in her marriage had she crossed that line and suddenly knew that she had gone too far into a man’s world. It was a dangerous place for a woman, for a woman as vulnerable as she. She had go
ne into that dark cave where men were still savages under the veneer of civilization and she had come out less a woman than when she had entered, and even more shut out than she had been before.

  Caroline arose from the divan and walked to the kitchen where Luisa was banging pots and pans, setting out dishes for the evening meal. Caroline ignored her and walked to the back door and looked out through the glass. She looked at the trampled garden and recoiled inwardly at the sight. The small fence, to keep the rabbits out, was torn down, even the scarecrow she had put up to frighten the birds was in tattered rags, and the bent cornstalks drooped disconsolately, rattling as they brushed together in the slight breeze.

  She looked at Juanito’s casita and saw the front door open. His horse was gone. She saw him emerge from the stables a few moments later, pause at the corral where she and Carla had penned up the rebellious Tonto. He stood looking at the huge longhorn bull for several moments, then continued walking back toward his casita.

  Caroline turned away from the door and walked back into the kitchen.

  “When will Carla return?” she asked Luisa in Spanish.

  “At four hours,” Luisa replied. “In a little moment. It is almost four hours now.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Carla asked me to set the pots out for the supper she will prepare.”

  “Set another place at the table for Juanito, please.”

  “Por cierto.”

  “And see that there is a good wine on the table.”

  “Yes, Señora, I will do that”

  “I want to dine at sundown.”

  “Yes, at sundown, most certainly.”

  Caroline walked back to the back door, opened it, hesitated a moment, then stepped outside. She let the door shut behind her, then walked down the porch steps toward Juanito’s casita. She walked slowly, her weight shifting from side to side, so that she appeared duck-like in her housecoat and sandals.

  Juanito stepped outside his door, apparently having seen Caroline approaching. When she drew near, he spoke to her.

  “You have come to see me, Caroline?”

  “I just wanted some fresh air. And, I want to invite you to supper. At sundown.”

  “Ah, sundown. A fine time to eat a meal.”

  “You are settled in then?”

  “I have not much to do. I do not dust.”

  Caroline laughed.

  “You bachelors,” she said. “Don’t you want a wife, Juanito?”

  “Ah, a wife,” he said. “Some men think a woman is a necessity. I would think it a luxury.”

  “And?”

  “And, I have no time for luxury. My work is my life.”

  “But if you found a woman to share your life, wouldn’t that be nice?”

  “She would have to be a very special woman. Like you, Caroline.”

  Caroline blushed.

  “I am not so special.” She looked away from him, toward the corral where Tonto ranged like a caged lion, cracking each post with the tip of his long horns. The sound of those horn-tips striking the posts and the fence rails rattled Caroline’s tautened nerves.

  “Yes, you are,” Juanito said. “Martin is a very lucky man.”

  “I wonder if he knows that.”

  “He does.”

  “Does he say so?”

  “Not in those words, perhaps, but he says them.”

  “You are a very considerate man, Juanito.”

  “And truthful.”

  “Of course,” she said, laughing as well. She started walking toward the corral. “Come with me a moment, will you?”

  “Gladly,” Juanito said.

  “Didn’t you wonder why Tonto was in that corral?” she asked.

  “I saw the garden and the patched fence when I rode in. Tonto is a very strong-willed bull. He has sired some very good stock. He will sire many more. Martin and I caught him in the brasada two years ago. He was very smart and he crippled two of the vaqueros’ horses before we caught him.”

  “He is wild,” Caroline said. “And mean.”

  They stopped at the corral. Tonto stopped pacing and glared at them, his head lowered as if to charge them if they came any closer. He pawed the ground with a cloven hoof and snorted.

  “He was very wild, yes, but he has domesticated well.”

  “He destroyed my garden,” Caroline said.

  “That was an unfortunate accident, yes.”

  “I think he did it deliberately. He didn’t eat any of the vegetables.”

  “Some say the intelligence of a longhorn is that of a deer or a horse. I would think that Tonto was going somewhere that he remembered, perhaps to the brasada where we caught him and that your garden was just in his path.”

  “I don’t believe that. Not for a moment.”

  “Who is to say?” Juanito said, shrugging. “You can replant the garden.”

  She turned and looked at Juanito. The look was flat and iron and seething with an undercurrent of anger that seemed to flash in her eyes.

  “I want you to castrate Tonto,” she said coldly. “Tomorrow.”

  “That would be a shame,” Juanito said.

  “I was going to do it myself when Carlos returned.”

  “Tonto is a very fine bull. Very fine for breeding.”

  “Juanito, I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. I want Tonto’s nuts cut off. Now, will you do that for me, or must I wait until Carlos returns?”

  “I will do it,” Juanito said, “but with sadness. He is a perfect sire for my Argentine cows. He will give us a strong breed of cattle for market.”

  “Oh, pshaw! What market? You are a dreamer like Martin is.”

  “Caroline, are you sure it is the bull you want castrated?”

  “What do you mean by that?” she snapped.

  “I think you ought to think very long and deeply about doing this thing to Tonto. It is a punishment he does not deserve. But, perhaps he is only a substitute for someone who does need castration.”

  “Do it,” she said. “I won’t have you talking to me like that, do you hear?” She glared one last time at Juanito then turned on her heel and duck-waddled back toward the house. Before she got there, she turned and called out quite pleasantly: “Don’t forget. Supper at sundown.”

  “I will be there,” Juanito called back. To himself, he said, “Women. There is no understanding them.” Then he looked at Tonto. The bull stood there, no longer pawing the ground, but looking sadly at Juanito. He spoke to the bull in Spanish.

  “I wonder who you really are in Caroline’s mind,” he said. “I wonder who she wants to castrate, eh? Do you know, big bull? Do you know the answer?”

  The bull shook its head, raking the air with its massive horns.

  Juanito laughed. “They call you Tonto, which means ‘stupid’ in Spanish. But, perhaps you really are intelligent,” he said. “Now if you could only speak.”

  Tonto snorted and rammed his boss into the corral pole where Juanito stood. Juanito did not move, but listened to the wood shudder and tremble as if it had been set in motion by an earthquake of terrible proportions.

  33

  PEEBO ELVES STRADDLED the tracks on the ground, slicing them in two symbolically with a guillotine downslash from his arm. When his hand stopped in midair, perpendicular to his body, it pointed northwest through a maze of low hills and rolling land.

  “That’s where Cullers headed and he’s a-whoopin’ his horse,” Peebo said.

  “He’s going into hiding,” Martin said.

  “No, he’s going to kick up some dust puttin’ distance ’tween us, but he’s a-goin’ to cut him some trails through them hills and find hard rock when he can. He’s a wily one, all right.”

  Anson watched the two men from several yards back. They had tracked Cullers on foot for the past five minutes after Peebo made a big circle to pick up his trail. Whatever else he was, Anson decided, Peebo was a good tracker. He could read tracks like other men read books. He could almost tell what a man was thi
nking by the trail he cut. Or maybe Peebo could tell what Cullers was thinking, for all Anson knew. His father was equally mesmerized by the diminutive man’s tracking ability.

  “Can you figure where Cullers is headed?” Martin asked.

  Peebo turned around, took off his large-brimmed hat and scratched the back of his head. Anson wondered if that was an act. Peebo didn’t seem to him to have to stop and think very much. He had called all the shots right so far, tracking three men, figuring out where Swenson would be and Hoxie, too. Anson wondered whether Peebo would scratch his head if he was by himself. He seemed to be as good an actor as he was a tracker.

  “Well, sir,” Peebo said, putting his hat back on, “he don’t have no money, no friends, no food and just one stolen horse and no papers for it and no running brand with him, so I guess he’ll just run it on out like a mountain cat until he’s treed.”

  “You think he’ll fight or give up?” Martin asked.

  “I think he’ll do one or the other, dependin’ on how much breath he feels hot on his neck.”

  “So?”

  “So we press him. Keep him awake. Run him down like we was hounds. ’Course that means we don’t get no rest neither, and the horses will pay a price.”

  “How far ahead of us is he?”

  “Less than an hour, I’d say.”

  “Then let’s get to it, Peebo. You lead the way.”

  “One good thing,” Peebo said as he mounted his horse.

  “What’s that?” Martin asked.

  “He don’t have no more men to lay down false trails. I reckon we’ll see just how wily Mr. Cullers is.” Peebo clucked to his horse and touched spurs to its flanks. The horse had to be seventeen hands high, Anson figured. Peebo looked like a child in the big Santa Fe saddle. A child wearing an oversized ten-gallon hat.

  The hoofprints of the horse Cullers was riding revealed that he was eating up ground, following a more or less straight line. However, once into the low hills, Cullers apparently had to slow down, rest his horse. The tracks began to look fresher and the three trackers knew that they were closing the distance between them and their quarry.