The English Horses

by William A. Luckey

  Davey thought of English. What Briggs was saying, it all made sense.

  “Yes, sir, heard tell of the boy after that. Shot two men for stealing his bronc’. Got shot his self, but went after the bastards. He were only a kid, but that pistol made him full-sized. Killed one man in a cantina, other died later. Boy disappeared. Guess he thought the law wanted him.”

  Maybe that was what Davey felt—a kinship, from looking over his shoulder. Kept a man lonesome and even downright unfriendly.

  Eager Briggs rubbed the leg that was broke, above the knee, squeezing the swollen flesh. The wattles along his sagging jaw flipped sideways and made Davey think of an old rooster. He clucked to the team, found his mouth dried out. His eyes burned and were sore.

  He stopped at the doc’s office. It was dusk and Davey was tired. Briggs came partway around to Davey’s side to deliver a final opinion. “You watch…Mister Donald’s going to make a try for those mares. There’ll be hell to breakfast when that boy finds out. Donald ain’t got the heart to keep his word. He don’t know the English boy like I do. Them Englishes fight for what’s theirs.” The old man rubbed his damp, toothless mouth before spitting out the rest of his thinking. “You pay attention, Davey. That boy killed two men when he was sixteen, for taking one horse. You think much of him, you’ll keep watch, keep him outta the same trouble here. Go ’long now, I got me a doc to see.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Davey put the team up at the livery, careful of Billy McPhee’s temper and the mealy bay’s heels. He made a deal with Billy to bed down in the hay; in exchange he gave up his matches and would feed out come morning. Finally he checked in at Miller’s General Mercantile, telling Miller he’d be back early the next morning.

  That left getting a meal, for his belly was snapping his backbone. On that errand he passed Dr. Lockhart’s office and saw a light, and, without thinking, he knocked hard. The doctor brought him into a bright room stinking of spoiled meat and disinfectant and Eager Briggs, who had his leg propped in a chair and was chewing a chicken leg big enough to feed three men. Briggs sucked on the skin, smacked his lips, and made a great show of enjoyment. Davey was pleased enough to see the old man wrapped in clean bandages. He said “Good Night” to the two men, but Briggs wouldn’t let him go.

  “Son, you set and eat. I already told doc how you brung me in when that blessed mule was making my life a pure misery. Doc’s willing to share out more o’ this chicken while you tell him how our friend English fares.”

  Lockhart nodded. “Good of you to help, Davey. Heard you boys been busy this summer. How’s our patient doing? Wouldn’t have given him a chance, two months past. A tough one for all there’s so little to him. Cured buffalo hide and nails. Men like him, they’re hard to kill.”

  Davey winced at the word “kill”, thinking too clearly on Briggs’s earlier comments. That chicken was beginning to smell awful good as he answered Lockhart. “Doc, he’s walking, but not talking much. He’s wasted down to ’most nothing. If iron nails hold him together, they’s sure as hell gone rusty.”

  Lockhart nodded absently and passed Davey a chicken wing, a plate with two slices of stale bread, a mess of refritos, and green chile. Davey ate under the doc’s watchful eye, feeling bribed for more talk about English with a second helping of the chicken. But he had nothing more to say, at least not about the mustanger.

  At the livery stable, Billy wasn’t around to bother a man with all his unsaid words. Davey burrowed into soft hay. The horses stamped and snorted, so he wasn’t alone. He could forget all he’d left behind at the L Slash, and he slept hard, woke in exactly the same place where he’d lay down.

  Past sunrise he had the team harnessed and standing in front of Miller’s. It was a waste of a good new day. Miller arrived at 7:30 to unlock the doors. With the sun already past the false fronts and shining into the street, Davey was fretting, anxious for the wire to get loaded, so he could get out of Socorro.

  Before he settled in the wagon, he bent down and picked up a handful of rocks, some no more than the size of beans. He put them in a pile by his boot, then sucked on bitter coffee while Miller and his boy loaded the wagon. When they were done, Davey, lines in his hands, picked up the whip and nodded to Miller and his boy. The kid was growing; Davey remarked on that fact. Miller nodded, the kid turned red, and Davey started up the team.

  The mealy bay hadn’t improved with feed and a stall for the night. The horse plain refused to pull, so Davey tickled it along the ribs with the whip, then threw one of the small rocks at the bay quarters, to convince the horse that pulling was easier than Davey’s temper. The bay leaped forward, and for two miles or more the sorrel was in agreement on Davey’s choice of speed. Full-outbolt, heads high, tails slapping in Davey’s face. He kept the lines soft and let the pair run. When the heat and sun got to them, and they wanted to slow, Davey wouldn’t let them and the bay went to sulling. Davey used more of his rock supply to keep the bay moving, and once he hit the sorrel by mistake. The gelding looked back at Davey, clearly annoyed. Davey tipped his hat, and the sorrel nodded like it understood. Then the big horse bit the mealy bay on the underside of its neck, and the horse squealed, tried to bite back. Davey’s whip got between them and caught the bay hard on the lip. The bay surged forward, then settled into working. The rest of the trip was easy.

  Davey saw the white shine of the San Agustin plains in the distance as they started down the slow hill past the Gallinas Mountains, but then the team snorted and shied from a carcass. The hide was white, the flesh half eaten, sinew and bone stretched out, only the thin mane and tail remaining. So the old man lost his mule like he wanted.

  He pushed the team till the sorrel up and quit on him. Davey calmed down when he saw the thick white lather between the heavy draft legs, the ribs bellowing up and down to get in more air, and knew he’d been too bent on hurrying. He got out of the wagon, but not before looking around, and walked a mile or two himself, in penance. No self-respecting cowpoke would be seen walking alongside two respectable broncos.

  The team dragged him in just before dawn. Every light was on in the house and the men were spread out in the yard. Bare feet, naked chests wrapped in blankets, and not one hat on a head in sight. Their attention was on Burn English in the center—half naked, in loose-fitting drawers, and a thick bandage wrapped across his belly. The men stood watching quietly.

  Davey hauled in the team and wrapped their lines around the whip and climbed down very carefully. The team felt his weight move and pulled forward to stop at the corral, waiting expectantly for nothing.

  Red Pierson tried to mouth something, but English raised his arms. Red dropped his head, and then Davey saw why. English carried a fancy rifle that Davey recognized from Meiklejon’s collection. A real monster weapon that would put a hole the size of a city hotel through any man trying to get within arm distance of a mighty riled mustanger.

  Then Miss Katherine came out, her hair loose and flowing, with a dark wool shawl around her shoulders. Her face turned as white as her gown. English moved at the sound of her voice, but that god-awful weapon stayed steady in his hands. Davey, like the rest of the gathered men, didn’t twitch or chance a sigh. Her voice held concern. English’s hands shuddered and he moved closer to the light. Ugly, blooded eyes a pale fire. Davey raised his hands, took a half step, drawing English’s attention from the woman.

  “Hell, I like being noticed, same as any fellow, but this reception’s kind of much, don’t you boys think?”

  No one spoke, but English frowned and the big rifle moved a bit, a few inches to the left of Davey’s gut.

  Davey addressed English, saying: “Howdy. Weren’t it cold? How ’bout giving me that rifle? Looks heavy…more’n one man can hold.”

  Nothing seemed to go through those eyes; they held to Davey, but did not see him.

  Then there was a slow change, a shift, as Miss Katherine came in next to Davey. English staggered. Davey saw Red begin to reach out. He shook his head, hoping the
kid would get the message. English seemed finally to see Davey, so he asked for the rifle again and it was given up with no effort. Davey took the rifle as well as a deep breath. God, what a monster, it could kill a buffalo from a half-mile stand.

  English’s eyes locked on the woman’s mouth, as if by seeing those lips he could understand the words that had been spoken. For it was obvious, the man was out on his feet. Davey wondered what had gotten English riled.

  He saw the beginning of English’s collapse before any of them. The frail body shivered, then the wild face drifted from watching Miss Katherine to seeking out Davey. The strangest eyes Davey had ever seen—a pale green shimmer, even in the dawn light, the black rim struck off sparks, the white threaded with bloody lines as the black lashes laid a shadow on close bone.

  Red Pierson remained. The others were gone. English’s hands reached Davey and their heat had the feel of dying. Davey’s belly turned over on him and he choked down, swallowed. A hand touched his face, a feather’s touch. Two fingers swept his jaw and English tried to grin.

  “Need to shave, Hildahl. Look like a damned mesteñero.”

  Davey grabbed for him as the man let go. Red caught an arm as Davey slid his hands beneath the man’s shoulders and kept him from falling. It was tough on Red to carry English back to the house, to see how bad off a man could be and still live. Pierson had to leave once they got English laid out on his narrow bed like a new corpse. Davey didn’t blame the kid.

  Davey found Miss Katherine in the kitchen, holding a white cup to her mouth, sipping noisily, watching Davey over the cup’s rim. She said: “My father came here late this evening…to argue with everyone. Father took it to M ister Meiklejon, laid it out…all about the wire and the brand being registered to Edward Donald and not Burn English, not Gordon Meiklejon, and that no man had the right to take anything from him.” She took more of the coffee, motioned to Davey to do the same. He raised the cup to his lips, found there was brandy in the coffee, and took a large swallow, gulping down the heat and letting it calm him. “My father is despicable. When he was gone…after Mister Meiklejon had Mister Souter and Stan Brewitt remove him forcibly…I talked with Burn. I thought he understood. Then, after we all had gone to bed, I heard this terrible noise, and when I got outside.…Thank you, Davey, for helping. I don’t know how else this would have been resolved. My father has made Burn sick again, just when he was beginning to heal.” Her eyes clouded, and she pulled the wool shawl closer to her chin. “There are times when I actually hate my father, Davey. Do you think I will be forgiven for that?”

  There wasn’t much Davey could say. He tipped his hat, backed out of the kitchen, and walked to where Red was busy unharnessing the team and trying to dodge the mealy bay’s hind hoofs. Davey helped, absently thanking the kid for knowing what needed to be done.

  “Davey…Mister Hildahl? What’s wrong with him? He looks like he’s crazy, like he’s got to kill someone.” The boy wasn’t dumb.

  “Red, he’s crazy from the pain. Bad fever runs a mind in circles, keeps a man from knowing right from wrong or enemy from friend.” Davey hoped that was enough for the boy, hoped he’d leave now and let Davey get some sleep. Red finished with the harness, then he was gone. Davey looked at the bank of hay. This time he’d sleep in the bunkhouse, in an honest-to-god bed, or at least something shaped like one.

  It was time for the fall chores and chasing rustlers. Davey and old Souter suspected it was Jack Holden gone sour, and so did the law at Silver City, one Ben Stradley. Daily Holden was seen running off some man’s best steers. He was in a bar drinking way over by Mangas, then at Red Hill chasing a dozen cows, and down to Old Horse Springs stealing broncos out of a rancher’s corral while the man was eating supper. And to Gutierrezville, which no one gave much account to. Gutierrezville was mostly sheepherder families and some day riders.

  Souter grinned and said outright that no one man could be all the places Jack Holden had been seen, and his orders were to chase rustlers, not ghosts. Davey headed up Stan Brewitt and a new man named Spot, and they went tracking and trailing, following so many split tracks they were seeing double in their sleep. They came on a few camps that were left suddenly—fire smoking, ground warm where the grass was flattened. Even so, they didn’t catch an outlaw and they lost maybe twenty cows and calves, and a few broncos. Word was Son Liddell’s horse pasture had got like a bank—Holden taking out so many of the horses, leaving a worn down bronco in return.

  Davey didn’t care. He was willing to take his small crew back to the L Slash headquarters, glad to get off the grullo he rode, stretch his legs, and maybe get a glimpse of Miss Katherine. He hadn’t seen her, literally, in a month of Sundays. Hadn’t seen Burn English, either. Maybe that didn’t matter, but he was curious about the man.

  So he put up his weary horse and crossed to the main house, to get himself a cup of coffee. He’d been out a month and was thinking about a day in town, maybe a night, too. Socorro, or Magdalena, where there were girls to spin and kiss, and hold onto in the back room, in the dark.

  The door came open under his knock and he stepped back unwillingly. Of course, it was Burn English, black hair too long and wearing a collarless shirt much too big for him, highlighting the pallor of his indoor skin. The man was unsteady, but the thin mouth grinned.

  “If it ain’t Hildahl. Come back to see what you done? I been waiting on you.”

  “Well, I been waiting to see you, too, English. Standing, that is. Don’t look to me like you’re going to die the next minute or two.” He could have been more choosy about his words, but the angle to English’s mouth, the gleam in thosedamned fire eyes, they told Davey this wasn’t a friendly meet.

  “You set me up, Hildahl. I ain’t going to forgive that.”

  Davey rubbed his face, stalling for time. He was tired and angry, and now this. It took some remembering to know that English’s mind was back two months or more, when all that hooraw about the wild horses and the wire happened. A lot of time had passed, but English had had no part in it.

  “Friend, I had no doing with the stampede. You heard us coming and ran. We wanted to talk, is all. Meiklejon’s a reasonable man…he come up to talk.” Being sensible was rough. Davey tried again. “I tried to warn you about the wire. Tried to turn that gray before…before you got killed.”

  Hate remained in the green eyes.

  Davey sighed, wiped his face, and found his fingers damp with sweat, his mouth turning salty. Then he heard a small sound, raised his head, and saw Miss Katherine staring at him. He had nothing to say to her, either, so he left.

  Two days later, Davey came in early, leading his bronco. A pulled shoe, a bad stone bruise, and he had had to walk. He pared away the bruise and swabbed tar on the infection, reset the shoe. Then he put the bronco in a pen, vowing to poultice the hoof later when the tar had worked into the bruised sole.

  He was tuckered out, hungry, and still mad. A cup of coffee, maybe a warmed-over biscuit or a slice of fresh bread, and some of that blackberry jam would ease him. So he pounded on the kitchendoor, and, when no one answered, he limped inside, headed for the cook stove. There the enameled pot was shoved to the back of t he stove.

  No one showed. Meiklejon was out, at least the pacing grullo he favored was gone, and Souter had the men chasing a bunch of cows off of Blind Mesa. But Miss Katherine should have been here. Then it struck him. She was here, alone with Burn English. What he imagined then was against his upbringing and inclinations, so he made himself pour a cup of the thick coffee, laced it with canned milk.

  What he was thinking was wrong. But he went through the house to the back room, sipping his coffee, not calling out Miss Katherine’s name or asking for Burn English. Not saying anything out loud at all.

  Burn’s stomach injury bled occasionally so it was necessary to change the bandaging twice a day. He never exhibited any physical discomfort or, indeed, showed any reaction at all as Katherine pulled back the soiled cloths, removed the herbs that Señora Or
tega insisted still be used. Katherine did not mind doing the simple chore.

  Barren of children, she had not known the flesh of any human the way she knew that of Burn English. Now her fingertips, so lightly, delicately out of concern for any pain, traced the skin and muscle and bone of a most singular human being.

  Burn English was not handsome, nor was he a gentleman, but he carried a quality that struck Katherine. He opened a need. She could not equate the terrible urgency when around him with any common rationale. He beckoned her, and she responded. He lay supine on the bed, eyes closed, hands flat, palms turned up, waiting. She knelt beside him, close to his dry skin, and she knew the fluttering lids of his eyes watched her through their transparency. She needed to remove the old bandage from his midsection. The scent stopped her—a smell of herbs mingled with one she believed was purely male.

  Her mouth was moist and she wiped her lips. In raising her hand, she brushed over his ribs where his heart would be. His hand grabbed her, held her wrist. Katherine counted in Latin to keep calm. His eyes opened, and he must have known, for he smiled as she bent down and kissed his forehead.

  “Burn.” The name fluttered through her lips.

  Davey watched them from the doorway. Fury took hold, for the woman and the mustanger, for himself and his indecency. He forced weight onto his foot, dug the boot heel into the wood floor, turned, and went back down the hall. The hot kitchen, empty of all kindness, mocked him as he searched for the bottle of brandy. Its fire choked him. He slammed down the bottle, stalked outside to inhale the thick summer air.

  Burn sucked in a breath; he could not do this. Even as his body drew him to her, he could not. He willed himself flat and dull. She must finish her task, change his bandage like changing a baby’s diaper, and then leave him for her other chores. Burn bit his mouth. His body quivered where he could not stop his heart.