Sour Creek Valley

by Max Brand

There was good sense in that, of course. They say that clothes don’t make the man, but I’ve noticed that from your best girl up to the gent that you touch for a loan, the clothes you wear make the difference between getting inside the door and being left out in the cold.

  Randal’s idea was that I should lay hold of a suitcase, buy some stuff to put in it, and then drive out with him in the buckboard. I agreed that that was a pretty good idea. He had some business to attend to, and so I said that I would go out and do the buying, and I asked him what money he wanted to let me have.

  He fair staggered me, at that. He pulled out a wad of money and told me to go as far as that would take me. When I counted the wad, there was five hundred in it! I could see that Randal didn’t figure me for any piker that would be apt to take my money and my clothes and board the first train out of the town. He expected that I would try for the big game. I decided that I would show him that he wasn’t wrong in trusting me to play for the main graft.

  I went down to the Mexican quarter of Sour City—on the northern side of the creek. I wanted to try the Mexicans for the stuff that I needed, because I knew that in that part of the town I was more apt to find stuff such as I wanted. Also, what happens among them doesn’t float back to the whites. It’s dead and buried right where it happened, and I didn’t want to have any curious eyes watching me and reporting me so’s the boys out on the ranch might hear about it.

  The white side of Sour City was as slick as you please, all dressed up with shiny pavements and such. Across the creek there was a difference. Twelve inches of dust lay in the streets, with the wind stirring up drifts and pools in it all the time. When a horse galloped in that part of the town, he left a regular fog behind him, as high as the tops of the houses. Everything was dirty and broken-down and lazy and comfortable. In the doorways, you would see the old señoras sitting, patting out their supply of tortillas for that evening. Here and there a couple of pigs would be squealing at each other while they tried to root at the same spot in the dirt. There were kids around that weren’t bothered much with clothes—mostly a shirt or a pair of trousers, but not the two together at the same time. Everybody looked happy and sort of in tune with things.

  I saw a great big store where there was new stuff and secondhand—everything that a body could want or even think of. All along the front of the veranda, on pegs and nails, there was old saddles, bridles, quirts, spurs, chaps, and stirrup leathers, stirrups, saddle flaps, saddlebags, and pack saddles, black whips, blacksnakes, and four-horse lashes, with bits in a thousand fancy Mexican styles for the torturing of a good horse, and all the spurs different, too. That was the sort of a store that a kid could stand in front of and wish for a whole year together—and make a new wish every ten seconds.

  There was a kid there, too. He was a slim-built brat, about thirteen or fourteen. His voice hadn’t changed yet. It was high and thin, but it hadn’t begun to crack yet. It was more like a woman’s. He was pretty ragged, but, anyway, he had enough clothes of one sort or another to cover him down to the calves of the legs. He had a battered old felt hat jammed down on a head that was covered with an extra-thick thatching of black hair.

  He held out his hand before me and asked me, with his head onto one side and his voice whining, to please help a poor orphan what had no father nor no mamma so he could get a little to buy a loaf of bread, which he would eat with cold water and bless me.

  “Ain’t you got a cent on you, kid?” I asked.

  “Ah, señor. Alas, señor, there has been no kindness here today.”

  I reached down and grabbed him by the ankles and heaved him up into the air. Out from his pockets came a rain of silver and coppers that rattled on the floor of the veranda of the store. Some of the coins rolled into the deep dust of the street and a few of them slipped down through the cracks in the boards.

  Then I give him a toss to one side, and he spun through the air, looking as though he was going to land on his head. He didn’t, because he was as active as a cat. He righted himself while he was still sailing through the air and hit the ground on hands and feet.

  He was a surprise, that little scalawag. Instead of busting out into bawling because he’d lost all that money, he ripped a couple of man-size Spanish cuss words at me.

  Then a voice behind me cried, “Jump, señor!”

  I didn’t wait to ask why I ought to jump. I did it, and got back through the door of the store just as a wink of light came jumping through the air where I had been standing. There was a knife sticking into the doorjamb and humming like an overgrown hornet.

  “That Pepillo ees wan devil, no?” said the storekeeper.

  “Say it in Spanish,” I said. “I know the lingo.”

  “He will hang soon.”

  He didn’t seem to take the kid serious, in spite of the knife. He just stood up there and grinned out at the street, where Pepillo was ferreting the coins out of the dust.

  The boy kept one eye on his work and the other eye on me all the time. He talked, too—with hand and tongue. He was sure ambidextrous.

  I give you some idea of the language that that kid was capable of, leaving out all the high spots that might hurt your ears if they’re sensitive to such stuff.

  “Gringo dog,” said this Pepillo, “one night I shall come where you sleep and put a knife between your ribs. Perhaps I shall rip you up, son of a thief! Come out, coward, to fight with me. I have still another knife! I not fear you! Come, pig face!”

  I pulled the knife out of the wood where he had stuck it, and I threw it back into the dust.

  “You little snake.” I said. “Does your mamma know what you’re about?”

  “My mamma watches me from the blue heaven and puts a curse on all gringo dogs,” said this kid.

  I heard the storekeeper chuckling behind me. Matter of fact, I couldn’t help laughing, too; there was so much venom in that kid and so little fear.

  He reached for the knife that I had thrown down into the dust in front of him, and I waved my arm so that the shadow swung over him. Well, sir, the way that kid sidestepped out of the way of any chance of danger was a caution. He threw his knife almost with his back turned to me, I thought. The blade skinned along a quarter of an inch from my temple. A little nearer, and it would’ve slipped through my eye into my brain, and that would’ve been the end of Blondy Kitchin.

  I dunno why I wasn’t madder or more scared. That kid just tickled me, really. For one thing, he was so doggone handsome. Again, as he stood there ripping out cusses and telling me where I was bound to go when I went West, his voice had a sort of sweetness to it—like a bird, only a bird that was singing very mad. He tickled me more’n any kid that I ever saw before. First thing that I knew, I’d grabbed a dollar out of my pocket and heaved it at his head.

  He put up his hand and snatched the flash of that coin out of the air, and he stood there looking down at it in his palm. I dunno that ever he had seen a whole dollar before, by the look on his face. You would’ve thought that I had handed him a ticket to heaven.

  Chapter Five

  “What is your name?” I asked the storekeeper.

  “Gregorio,” he said. “I am Grego-rio, son of Pedro Oñate …”

  “Hold on, Gregorio,” I said. “I just want a name to call you by, not a song to sing to you!”

  “Ah, well, señor.”

  He was good-natured. It was plain that he was sort of tickled by me giving the dollar to the kid after the knife heaving.

  “Have you got any saddles here?” I asked.

  “Señor!” he cried, waving to the front of the store, where there was a whole mob of them saddles.

  “Sure,” I said, “they’re leather to sit in. But have you got any saddles?”

  He gave me a look. You see, a fancy saddle is about one half of a Mexican’s life. Then he said, “Señor, as one gentleman to another, I shall show you a saddle that any ca
ballero would be proud to sit in.”

  He goes back in the store and he brings out a humdinger, all set over with silver whatnots. I gave it a look, and it sounded to me. What I wanted to do was to go out to the bunkhouse on that ranch, not like a fancy tramp, but with a gun and a saddle on me, like I really belonged on the range, and like I had done something that was worthwhile on the range. A good saddle would be a pretty fair proof of it. This saddle was a corker, all worked with fine carvings and covered with polished silver.

  “How much?”

  Gregorio closed his eyes. “Ah, when I think how much I gave for it! But, no … I can never hope to get that much out of it. Besides, I like you, señor, and for my friends I have no thought. Money does not exist. To you, then, señor, I give this saddle away … for four hundred dollars!”

  It gave me a start, the naming of a price like that for just a saddle. When I looked at the thing closer, and fingered it, I felt like I had to have it. I was pretty sure that a saddle like that would show those hard eggs on the Randal Ranch that I was no freeze-out.

  Just then a little voice piped up at my shoulder: “Más sabe el loco en su casa, que el cuerdo en la ajena.”

  Which is one of them neat Spanish proverbs, meaning that a fool in his own house knows a lot more than a wise man does away from home.

  I looked around, and there was that Pepillo. He had snuck into the store without making a noise, his feet being bare.

  Gregorio had seemed to like the kid well enough when he saw him in the street. Inside of the store it was a different story.

  “Little thief and son of a thief,” yelled Gregorio, “have I not told you that if I found you in my store again …” He laid a hand on the counter, like he would jump over and squash that kid flat.

  Pepillo just stood where he was, and lifted up one foot to scratch the heel of it on his other shin. His feet, they were so small and so soft, pretty near like a baby’s. It made me see how young he was. He stuck out his chin and made a face at Gregorio.

  “Old fat fool!” he cried. “Do you think that I fear you, when I have found a friend such as this señor?”

  He put his arm through mine, as free as you please. Well, I was plumb tickled. It gave me a sort of a nice, warm feeling all over, though I knew that the little devil was just throwing a bluff to work me and keep a high hand over Gregorio.

  Gregorio got madder than ever. He looked from the kid to me, saying, “Do not be deceived, señor. This little rat, for a whole fortnight he has been in this city, making friends and using them and losing them again when he is through with them. The little thief has a charm in his hands. He steals a watch while you smile at him!”

  I looked down at the kid and asked, “Look here, Pepillo, do you steal?”

  He cocked his head up at me and looked at me trustingly out of them big brown eyes of his. Or were they black? I never can make out. And he answered, “Sí, señor.”

  “What!” I yelled at him. “Are you a thief?”

  “Sí, señor,” he said as cool as a water lily, “and what I steal I sell to this Gregorio.”

  Gregorio ripped out a couple of cusses and reached for a blacksnake. His face was red, and I guessed that there must be something in what the kid had said.

  “Leave Pepillo be,” I said, “and let’s get on with the saddle. What do you know about this here saddle, Pepillo?”

  “I know the gentleman who sold it to Gregorio,” said Pepillo.

  “It is a lie!” cried Gregorio, but he looked pretty sick.

  “He was very ill, that gentleman,” says Pepillo. “He had sold everything except this one saddle. He asked five hundred dollars for it and said that it cost him a thousand. Gregorio said … ‘Who will buy a used saddle that another man has sat in?’ And he bought the saddle for eighty dollars!”

  “When I come to die …” Gregorio began, very solemn.

  “Here, Gregorio,” I busted in, “you and me want to do some business. But we ain’t got any extra time on our hands. I’ll give you a hundred and fifty dollars for that saddle. That’s pretty near a hundred percent on your investment.”

  “When a rat squeaks, do you believe it?” asked Gregorio. “This boy is the son of the devil. And all the city knows it. I should be bankrupt if I …”

  “Put the saddle away then,” I said. “There’s a thirty-dollar saddle at the door that would suit me good enough.”

  He picked up the saddle, but his motions were pretty slow. Finally, he said, “Amigo mio, though I lose money dreadfully, still I should like to see a true caballero sitting in this saddle. Is there any man as worthy as you, my dear friend? No, you shall have it … for two hundred dollars!”

  Well, it was worth that money and a lot more. Just the silver work would’ve cost a lot more, so I paid the cash, though Pepillo groaned and wiggled, saying that it was robbery.

  Next, I got me a big leather carry-all—one of them expansive things that you can crowd everything into up to a whole horse. I bought me enough junk to pretty well fill it out, and everything was amazing cheap. Then it came to guns, and I had Gregorio show me a whole rack filled with Colts. I looked them all over. Matter of fact, they were all new-looking and very fine, but new looks wasn’t what I wanted. I pretended to try them all and not to like the balance of them.

  “Gregorio,” I said, “I asked for a gun, but I mean that I wish to have a friend that can be relied upon. Do you understand?”

  He understood nearly everything, that Gregorio, and now he squinted at me. He hesitated for a long time.

  “Señor,” he said, “you have been a good customer. And here is a little treasure that I have been keeping for myself. But what can a man keep from a good friend? Here is a gun that has been proved … but I dare not say by who.” Then he pulled out from his own clothes an old-fashioned Colt. He handed it to me, and I gave it a look.

  It had a wooden handle that was black with time and polished by a lot of fingering. I looked it all over. On the underside of the barrel I saw seven little notches that had been filed into the good steel. I knew what that meant. This here gun had killed seven men. It had just that sort of a mean look, I can tell you. It couldn’t’ve been more to my taste. I wanted to tote a gun along with me that would look pretty bad and dangerous to the boys out there on the ranch, if they were to see it.

  Gregorio wanted forty dollars, which was highway robbery for an old gun like that. I had to pay twenty-five before I could get it—and the luck that went along with it.

  “Because,” whispered Gregorio, “the señor who owned this gun, after all, died in a peaceful sickbed. Is it not strange?”

  It suited me. I stowed the gun away and carried my saddle and carry-all out to the veranda, while Gregorio went to get me a buckboard that would take my stuff around to the hotel. Pepillo waited with me on the veranda. I handed him a five-dollar bill—which was small pay for all the money that he had saved me in the store. He looked at the bill without a lot of interest, I thought, seeing how one dollar had seemed to mean so much to him before.

  “Ah, well, señor,” he said, “you are to go away, then?”

  “And you, Pepillo?”

  “Heaven knows, señor,” he said, “it will be a long time before I meet another like you of whom I am afraid.”

  “Hey! You mean that you’re afraid of me?”

  “My ankles still burn like fire where you caught them. The devil is in those big hands of yours. Why should I not fear you? If I cursed you and threw knives … that was only a greater token that I feared you the more.”

  He was a puzzler, that kid. I took to him a lot, I can tell you. By the sick sort of a way that he opened his eyes and looked up to me, you would’ve thought that he was feeling pretty bad, too. Gregorio come around the corner with the buckboard.

  “Gregorio,” I hollered all at once, “give this boy some clothes and shoes and such and fi
x him up! He is my mozo … he goes with me!”

  Chapter Six

  That speech came busting out of me, as you might say, out of the largeness of the heart. I felt as though I was offering somebody the world. I guess that I expected this here young Pepillo to fall on his knees or something and give thanks for what I intended to do for him. Instead he hauled off and gave me an ugly eye, saying: “What mozo?”

  “You, of course.”

  “Me?” cried Pepillo, raising his eyebrows up to the top of his forehead and jabbing his thumb into his breast. “Did you say Pepillo?”

  “Sure. I’ve sort of took a fancy to you. I’m gonna make you, kid. I’m gonna dress you up like you was a millionaire. I’m gonna make you look like a gentleman.”

  You should’ve seen his face. It went sort of black. “Ha, ha!” Pepillo was trying to laugh but only choking. “It is a good joke. I laugh … I laugh. You are to make a gentleman of me. You are to make me a … it is too much. And I am the son of …” He stopped himself with such an effort that his teeth barely clicked in time to shut back the word, and his lips remained grinning back, so that he looked like a young wolf.

  “You are the son of who?”

  “Your master, gringo swine!” said this young brat, and he poured out a stream of Spanish cussing that fair made my hair rise. You could say this for Pepillo’s system of cussing—he didn’t leave nothing out. He started right in at the beginning, and he traced all my family tree.

  If any other kid had tried to hand such a line of talk to me, I would have tied him up and skinned him alive as a starter. After that, I would have taught him manners. But Pepillo was different. His cussing and his raging and his raving, it was sort of entertaining, if you know what I mean. If you had been there to watch him, you would’ve said that the graceful way he had was like a bird putting its head from side to side while it sung lustily. Pepillo was that way—like a singing bird. That voice of his was never anything but musical. It was sort of a pleasure to be cussed by Pepillo. It wasn’t any ordinary cussing, either. He used his wits and made it interesting. I wish that I could remember exactly how he would light in and dress anybody down, but his tongue moved just a shade faster than my thoughts could travel. He was always a jump around the corner from my memory.