High Rider

by Bill Gallaher

  John mumbled his thanks and left on legs turned as soft as overcooked greens.

  Regrets nagged at him. Maybe he shouldn’t have strengthened the sisters’ resolve to stay by re-stacking the firewood; maybe he shouldn’t have let them talk him into leaving. Maybe he should have kept after them until they left. Maybe. And maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. They were two determined women who knew what they wanted and that they might face even more torment to get it. But his heart felt heavy with the injustice of it all, an injustice that hung over the South like a poisonous swamp gas. That night he thought about Liza and Em deep into the darkness before falling asleep, and they were still on his mind as the sun peeked over the eastern rim of the world the following morning and he set out down the road to Fort Worth. That was all he could do with his life: move forward, walk away from the past and into the future.

  THREE

  Amos Cole might be looking for a hand.

  A week or two past Marshall, the surrounding countryside became more open and the road more exposed to the wind. The days were often dusty and the nights near freezing. But John had finally left the cotton belt and the last plantation behind, and he was glad of that. Dallas offered another Freedmen’s Bureau with food and shelter, but he did not stay. Someone said that the Klan had been making their presence known in town.

  Thirty miles farther on, Fort Worth sat on a low bluff above a loop in the Trinity River, flying a Union flag. Federal sentries stopped John at the edge of town. They were friendly enough, asking only what brought him this far west. He outlined his quest and asked the soldiers if they knew of anybody looking for a hardworking hand, someone who was not fussy about the colour of a man’s skin, or the depth of his experience.

  One of the soldiers said, “Well, there’s always some outfit wanting a good cowpuncher, but I’m guessing that you don’t fill the bill. Could be that Amos Cole might be looking for a hand. He owns the Flint Springs Cattle Company, a small spread a little southeast of here. Can’t hurt to talk to him, anyway.”

  John got directions from the soldier, thanked him for the tip, and headed for Amos Cole’s. He munched on the last of his food, a piece of cornbread from a small package given to him the day before outside of Dallas by the last farmer he’d worked for. It took an hour of easy walking to reach the ranch. An overhead sign nailed to two vertical posts straddled the entranceway. He presumed it read FLINT SPRINGS CATTLE COMPANY. A log house with a porch across the front sat a couple of hundred yards back from the road among a stand of scrub oaks. Nearby was a good-sized barn complete with a corral made from mesquite staves, and there were a couple of sheds and a privy. A few pigs and several chickens roamed at will near two large stacks of hay. John opened a squeaky rectangular wooden gate and entered the yard, closing the gate behind him. He’d taken only two or three steps when a man came out of the barn carrying a pitchfork. He slung the implement over his shoulder like a rifle and walked toward John, who figured that the best thing to do was smile. It worked, because the man smiled back and nodded hello. His height matched John’s, but he was half the width and nowhere near the same weight. A pure white goatee covered the pointed chin of a weathered triangular face that looked as tough as Texas dirt. The man’s eyes were a dark chestnut colour. Not a real old-timer, John thought, but around sixty, anyway. He wore a ten-gallon hat, well beyond its prime, and a grey flannel shirt tucked into faded blue Levi pants, which were crammed into worn and scraped boots. A blue neckerchief with polka dots that may have once been white encircled his neck.

  “How do,” he said. “Do something for you?”

  John kept smiling. “I heard from some Federals up the road that you might be lookin’ for a good hand.”

  The man’s eyes scanned John from head to toe. “I suppose that’s you, is it?”

  John nodded. “Yes, sir, I’d sure like it to be. I’ll give you some hard work for a meal and if you like what you see, maybe I can stay for a time.”

  “You ride?” the man asked.

  “Been known to sit an ornery mule or two, but never a horse. But I’m willin’ to learn.”

  The man pulled at his goatee. “Hmm. Well I reckon a mule can be as ornery, if not ornerier, than a horse. Got one in the stable over yonder, in fact. You interested in throwing a leg over her? Could be the ride of your life.”

  John shrugged. “Don’t think I’ve had that ride yet.”

  “C’mon with me then.”

  John walked over to the barn with the man, who then asked him to wait outside. He shed his bedroll and leaned it against the wall. He heard the whimper of a mule, and a couple of minutes later the man came out leading a jittery sorrel jenny by a hackamore. She was as big as any horse John had ever seen.

  “This is Connie,” the man said. “She’s short on manners and pretty much contrary to everything you want her to do, but she’ll worm her way into your heart in time if she don’t stomp you to death first. You can take her for a ride over that way.” Motioning his head toward a gate at the rear of the fenced-off property, he added, “I’ll open it for you and away you go.”

  He passed the reins to John as Connie reached around and tried to nip him. John leaped back. “Whoa, girl,” he said. “No cause to be doin’ that!”

  The man grinned. “She’s trying to set the rules. Unless she’s hitched to a wagon, she only goes where she wants to and she hates anything on her back. She don’t like water much either, unless it’s to drink, so I reckon she won’t run any farther than the Brazos.”

  “The Brazos?”

  “Yep. The Brazos River.”

  “How far’s that?”

  “Oh, maybe thirty, forty miles southwest of here, depending on the route she takes. It’s never the same.”

  John thought he detected something of a jokester in those dark eyes. “Hmm. Never heard of a mule runnin’ that far before.”

  The man lifted his hat and scratched his head. “Well, maybe she don’t. But I guess we’ll never know because she ain’t never come back with the rider.”

  “Well, sir, not this time,” John said.

  The man laughed. “I like your grit, but we’ll see.”

  When the gate opened, John grasped Connie’s mane and launched himself onto her bare back in one swift motion. The mule let out a whinny, followed by a loud hee-haw, threw her hind end high in the air twice, and took off across the yard and through the gate, presumably in the direction of the Brazos. John flopped around until he was able to get a better grip on the animal’s flanks with his long legs, which were as strong as a thousand miles of walking could make them. Connie flew down one side of a shallow arroyo and up the other, through scattered thickets of black, gnarled mesquite trees and intermittent copses of stunted oak and pine, and into more open, bushy country. John hung on, the reins and mane bunched together in both hands. The man had been right: it was the ride of a lifetime. Yet he knew that he could stay on Connie, so he let her have her head, let her run as hard as she wanted, so that she would tire herself out, hoping he could handle the fall if she tripped in a prairie dog hole. Once he sensed her tiring, he would start using the reins.

  John had no idea how far they had gone and had no sense of the passage of time, but he could not remember when he had enjoyed himself so much. He began to feel Connie weakening; her stride had shortened and she was breathing harder. He hauled back on the reins, but she fought him. Using his considerable strength, he hauled back even harder. Connie pulled up in a partial skid and started to buck. John was surprised at the fight left in her but was determined that there could be only one victor, and it was not going to have four legs. She must have swapped ends a half-dozen times before she slowed and came to a standstill.

  She stood there, defeated, head down, heaving for a good breath. John stroked her sweaty neck and talked to her in a soothing voice, telling her what a good girl she was and that what had happened was not such a bad thing. “You been too long without a friend who understands you and now you got one.” After letting
her catch her breath, he coaxed her into motion and rode her around in broad circles, first left, then right, then he took her through tight circles. He pulled her to a halt and urged her forward a half-dozen times. Satisfied that she knew who was boss, he turned her toward the ranch.

  He walked the mule for a while, talking gently to her. He could tell by her flickering ears that she was listening. When he saw the ranch buildings in the distance, he nudged her flanks and rode into the yard at a canter.

  The man was at the barn, saddling a horse. His face broke into a wide grin when he saw John and Connie. John pulled up in a cloud of dust and swung to the ground. He handed the reins to the man and said, “I don’t think she’ll be wantin’ to head for the Brazos no more.”

  “I’ll be damned!” The man removed his hat and ran his fingers through his thinning hair. “I was just saddling up to go look for you.” He stuck out his hand. “The name’s Amos Cole. Where you from?”

  The extended hand reaffirmed John’s impression that Amos did not share the same aversion to physical contact with a black man that most whites had. He grasped it. “I’m John Ware, and I’m six months out of South Carolina.”

  “Don’t expect you took a coach.”

  “No, sir. Got a ride in a wagon here and there, but mostly I walked it.”

  “You must be tired. Why don’t you stick around for a while and we’ll see what else you got to offer an old rancher. I can start you off at three squares a day for a couple of days and if you prove your worth, the wage is five dollars a week. You can throw your bedroll up in the barn loft ’cause that’s where you’ll be sleeping. The privy is a two-holer, and men use the one on the right. The one on the left is for the missus. She ain’t never been happy with a man’s aim. You’ll be chowing down with us in the house. Meanwhile, since we now got ourselves a mule good for something other than pulling a buckboard, you’re entitled to one full belly. Come and meet the missus.”

  John followed Amos to the house and was introduced to Ellen Cole, short, compact, and sturdy, with grey hair and a round, kind face.

  “People call me Ellie,” she said. “No reason why you oughtn’t.”

  He noticed that her hands were rough and red, the only parts of her that looked as if they might not be aging well. She laughed easily and giggled at things that Amos did not seem to think were funny. John liked that about her, because, regardless of his past, he laughed easily too.

  At supper, over a plate of biscuits and beans accompanied by a glass of fresh milk from the Coles’ milk cow, John had a chance to look around the house. A big wood-burning stove dominated the centre of a large open space that included a kitchen and living room. At each end was a bedroom with a low loft above it. John could not help but notice the thickness of the front door and the equally thick shutters on the insides of the windows. The shutters each had loopholes in them, and to John, they made the place appear like a small fortress. He asked Amos about them.

  “Comanches, first off,” Amos said, “but they’re not so much of a problem anymore, as a lot of ’em were wiped out by the pox. Even so, there’s still outlaws to worry about. Bad hands who think Texas is a playground and that they can get away with murder. They sometimes do. Used to be we had the Texas Rangers looking out for us, but they up and called it quits during the war. The Federals do a fair job now but only in the towns, and they’ll be pulling out soon. Anyway, as far as the shutters go, maybe we don’t need them, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Besides, when it gets real cold, we close them and it helps keep the heat in.”

  Ellie made tea after supper, and John learned more about the Coles. It turned out that Amos was actually seventy-two years old and Ellie sixty-eight. They had come to Texas from Franklin, Tennessee, a few years before the war, because they wanted some breathing room, and they wanted a ranch. They got their ranch, but the war came along and took their twin sons, Emmett and Thomas, away.

  “Joined the Second Texas US Cavalry,” Amos said. “Never did think that one man ought to own another. Don’t seem right. Anyway, Thomas was one of the last men to die in that crazy war.”

  John saw in the Coles’ eyes the sorrow that only a parent who has lost a child knows. Amos shook his head. “Weren’t supposed to happen that way, him gone and us still here, but there’s no accounting for human folly. Been a damned hard road to ride. The war dragged off most of the men capable of working and spending what they earned, and the markets for just about everything dropped faster than rocks down a well. Times are getting better, though. There’s still a long row to hoe to real prosperity, but the town’s building up again and there’s a bit more cash money around to put in a merchant’s pocket.”

  Amos explained that he had one hundred and sixty acres, but only five, around the house and outbuildings, were fenced. Beyond his property, most of the land was unclaimed and therefore considered open range. He kept three hundred head of cattle. There were also a dozen horses running wild there. In fact, Emmett would round them up on his way back from a Cattlemen’s Association meeting in Waco. They would have to be broken, but Amos was certain that some of the animals would be good enough to merit training as trotters for harness racing in Fort Worth. Meanwhile, there was plenty to do, with building extra stalls, a corral, and an adjacent holding pen, and installing a snubbing post in the middle of the corral, as well as a host of other jobs. John would earn his keep and more.

  And so the following morning they went to work, and Amos liked what John was about so much that he put him on wages at the end of the day. Toiling side by side, each man got to know a little of the stuff from which the other was made. John saw a man who judged him by his work and how he handled himself, rather than by the colour of his skin. Amos learned from John something of what it was like to be a slave, and he understood even better why he had been an abolitionist. He saw in John an intelligent man, unable to read or write, but eager and quick to learn, so he talked of more than just ranch work. He spoke of the stars and the planets and how they all worked together, and about the plant life and wildlife around them, and he began teaching John some rudimentary reading and writing and basic arithmetic.

  “You need to know how to sign your name, John. One X looks pretty much like another, and you don’t want to be paying for something that ain’t your responsibility. It don’t hurt to know your numbers in that regard either.”

  At night, when John wrapped himself up in his bedroll in the barn hayloft, he felt a new kind of power—that which comes with knowledge and contentment. Granted, his friends were few, but he was happy in his mind and was not opposed to spending time there. He reckoned that he had arrived at a special place in his life.

  As for the cattle, they were longhorns and pretty much looked after themselves. They took longer to develop than their northeastern cousins and were not sent off to market until they were at least four years old. “We check on the calves in the spring,” Amos told him, “brand ’em and remove the fries from the bull calves—you ain’t tasted good food until you’ve had a mess of Ellie’s fried bulls’ balls—then round up the payers in the fall. The chickens require more tending to than those beeves.”

  Emmett returned several days later with eleven horses, having lost one to a broken ankle. He drove them into the holding pen. John was in the barn pitching hay down from the loft for the milk cow’s manger when father and son entered. He climbed down to meet them. There was no mistaking the younger man’s heritage, for he was the spitting image of his father, minus the wrinkles and goatee. In his early forties, he sported a full brown beard and eyes that had seen more in a lifetime than most men care to. He extended his hand to John when Amos introduced them. “Pa tells me you’re a good man to have around.”

  John deflected the compliment. “Well, your pa’s a good man to be around.”

  Emmett threw his head back and laughed in a way that reminded John of Ellie, and clapped his grinning father on the shoulder. “The man could charm a rattler into thinking it should have its fangs r
emoved.”

  It was from Emmett that John began to learn about horses: how to sit a Western-style saddle and how to use it working with cattle. He told John, “You’re gonna need a new pair of boots with higher heels before we begin to break the horses. You slip through those stirrups on a bucking horse that throws you, it’ll drag you until you’re skinned raw or dead. Maybe both.” So he and John hitched up Connie to the buckboard and went into Fort Worth. They ignored the malevolent stares that too often came their way.

  “We’re going to Van Zandt’s dry goods store,” Emmett said. “You won’t have any trouble there. He’s not the kind of man to let skin colour get in the way of a business transaction.” Indeed, John found the proprietor respectful and courteous, and came away the proud owner of a new pair of high-heeled leather boots.

  Emmett taught him some drover skills, even how to throw a rope, which John practised whenever there was spare time, until he could duplicate or do better than anything his mentor did. Emmett also introduced him to tobacco. He rolled John a smoke and handed it to him. “Try this. It’s good for what ails you and helps you relax.”

  John choked and coughed on the first one but persevered because he was keen to fit in. He was soon rolling his own with one hand, as Emmett did. Seeing John show off his skills one day prompted his friend to say, “You know, John, you always seem to need to prove yourself better than me. Let me tell you that you’ve more than proven yourself here, and this ain’t no contest we’re in. You’re no less a man than I am and I consider myself a good one.”

  “Part of me knows that, Emmett, but the other part says that I’ll always have to prove myself. The colour of my skin makes that the plain truth for me. Maybe not with you and your folks, but it won’t hurt none to practise some here so that I got it right when I need it.”

  Emmett gathered in the comment and nodded.