by Jake Logan
Fowler looked Teddy up and down. “You have any experience in the retail field?”
“Yessir. When I was sixteen, I worked at our mercantile, and when I was eighteen, I worked at our gunsmith’s shop. I can make change and handle customers and fix guns, too.”
Slocum just shook his head. The kid was perfect. Perfect!
Fowler scratched at his chin. “Can you work for a dollar a day and a cot in the back room?”
All smiles, Teddy answered in the affirmative.
And Fowler said, “Hired.”
Before Teddy got down to clerking, Slocum pulled him aside. “I’m goin’ back to the hotel,” he said. “Gimme your key and I’ll pack you up and drop it off before I leave town, okay?”
Teddy handed over the key without a word except to answer Fowler’s call. “Coming, sir!” he said with a sideways snarl to Slocum, and then he was gone.
17
The ride out to the Double A spread was easy and peaceful. Slocum enjoyed the ride. He was satisfied that Teddy was tucked away safely at the hardware—and his mare at the stable, with her board paid a month in advance—and he was actually looking forward to his new “job.” Busting broncs wasn’t exactly his forte, but if they let him do it his own way, he could break more horses than any of them.
Well, he used to be able to anyhow.
He hadn’t had to break any horses—outside of his own, personal mounts—for years, so this was going to be a challenge. The best kind of challenge, though. He loved horses, and he loved seeing them trained without breaking their spirit. He just hoped Heber, the sonofabitch, would let him try.
He turned a long, looping corner in the tall weeds, and came out on a place where the grasses were short, and where the original owners had built up the first cabin on the site.
It had been expanded over the years, of course. Big additions, small additions, all combined to make a rather wandering but impressive Spanish-style hacienda. He saw a big holding barn at the far edge of the clearing, and a smaller barn—with a paddock and a round bullpen—for horses a little closer, and a bunkhouse. If there were more buildings, they were hidden behind these, because he sure couldn’t see them.
There were a cluster of hands down by the corral—which was filled with horses, just off the range—and so he rode straight for it.
“Howdy!” he said at his most chipper. “Hawk around?”
One of the fellows shouted, “Hey, Hawk!” and sure enough, he came walking up.
“Howdy, John,” he said. Then, “Fellers, this here is John Quincy. He’s hirin’ on to help us get through the horse breakin’ time.”
Slocum swung down, while several of the men came over to have a look at Ace, admiring his depth and legs and head. Slocum was proud of Ace, so he took the compliments well.
“What first, Hawk?” he asked.
“Well, let’s get you settled first and get your horse put up, and then let’s start you breakin’ horses. C’mon.” Hawk led him down to the bunkhouse, which was just, as Slocum discovered, a long, narrow building with cots running down each side. He followed Hawk to a bunk. Hawk said, “This one’s free. Tex up and quit about a month back, so ain’t nobody gonna fight you for it.”
Slocum set down his saddlebags and bedroll and rifle, which Hawk greatly admired, hefting it this way and that. “She shoot straight?”
Slocum nodded. “Straight as I need anyhow.”
“Might’s well leave them guns in here, too. Don’t like it when fellers are armed when there’s horse breakin’ to do. We had a man killed last year, shot himself in the chest from gettin’ tangled up with a wild mare.”
Slocum nodded, and stripped off his gun belt and his cross-draw rig.
Hawk said, “Good. Now let’s get your horse put up.”
The horse barn had tie-in stalls, period. Usually, Slocum rented a box stall for his horse, but he’d just have to put up with it, he guessed. As he pulled the tack off Ace, he said softly, “Sorry, pal. You’ll just have to wait for me to be done to get better lodgings.”
Hawk showed him where they stored the tack, and then they walked back up to the men and horses.
“Best to take ’er easy at first,” Hawk said, his sandy hair glinting in the sun when he took his hat off to wipe his brow.
“Got it,” Slocum replied. He wasn’t too wild about sitting on a bucking bronc first thing either. “Been a while for me. Best to ease back into it.”
“Good,” said Hawk. “Afraid you were gonna fight me.”
Slocum smiled and shook his head.
They reached the men.
Hawk said, “Marv, cut out that bay mare. The one with the white star. Slocum’s gonna give ’er a ride.”
Marv stepped forward. He was a short hand with dark hair and darker eyes, and he looked scared.
“Go ahead, Marv, bring ’er out!” cried one of the others. A chuckle rippled through the crowd.
“You playin’ with me?” Slocum asked Hawk. “She the toughest one in the bunch or somethin’?”
“Nope. It’s just that Marv’s afraid to go into the ketch pen.” He turned toward the group. “Harry, give Marv a hand, okay?”
The one called Harry darted to the fence, near where the mare in question was standing, and threw a loop over her head. He worked her over to the fence deftly, then shouted, “Marv, get your ass over here!”
Marv still didn’t move, so Slocum took off. “Where you want me?” he asked Harry.
“Over by the gate. Dang that Marv anyhow!”
Slocum went around to the gate, unlatched it, but held it closed. When Harry came close and the mare was on the other side of the gate, Slocum eased it open just far enough so that she could slide through. Which she did.
And then she began to buck, going for first one man, then the other. One of the other hands came running and finally got a second rope around her neck. Slocum took the rope, and they began to move her, slowly but surely, as she bucked and spun and hopped, toward the other corral.
They got her inside and roped to the snubbing post, then backed off. “You forget to halter break ’er, Hawk?” Slocum called.
The men laughed.
Slocum pulled the breaking saddle and blanket and bridle off the fence, then said, “Anybody got a halter on him?”
“What you got planned?” Hawk asked him. “We don’t usually mess with halters on new stock.”
“And you had a man killed last year,” Slocum said. “Just gimme a little leeway on this one. I got a way that’ll gentle her down without quite so much bumpin’ and bruisin’.”
Hawk held his hands wide. “I’m open to suggestions. Go on ahead. Marv, go get him a halter.”
For once, Marv left the crowd and ran toward the barn. He came right back with a halter that looked like it would fit the mare, and handed it to Slocum, saying, “Here.” Then he walked back into the crowd.
“Chatty sort, ain’t he?” Slocum said softly as he tested the halter for strength, turning it over in his hands.
“Yeah,” said Hawk, and Slocum left him to walk back to the mare’s pen. She was still snubbed tight to the post. He entered slowly.
When she saw him, she started striking out with her front hooves, then kicking out with her hind ones. “Tut tut, now, girl,” he said in a soft singsong. “That ain’t gonna do you a bit’a good, an’ we both know it. Now, why don’t you settle yourself down a bit, and you’ll see what kind’a fun this can be, okay?”
She stopped lashing out and stood there, eyeing him and sweating to beat the band.
“Now see what you’ve gone and done?” he said in the same singsong. “You got yourself all hot and lathered up like there’s been a cougar after you. I ain’t no big cat, girl, no such thing. No, I’m the feller what’s gonna get you all nice and tame, so you’ll have good vittles all year round, and serve a purpose for one’a these fine fellers back there.”
He was at her side now. She didn’t move a muscle.
“That’s a good girl, isn�
�t it?” he soothed. “Good and quiet. Good and halter broke. I hope.”
He checked the ropes. Nobody had thought to get a loop over her nose, but the ones around her neck were sure tight. He cupped her muzzle carefully, letting her get his scent—and letting her get a little more striking out of her system. And then he brought up the halter to let her smell it.
She didn’t like it much—especially when he slipped it over her nose—but in the end, she accepted it. He began working at the ropes, talking: all the time, talking softly, mesmerizing her with his voice.
Most of the hands were up on the fence now, watching curiously, but with quiet admiration. Slocum was glad they appreciated it. Maybe that’d lead to more humane horse breakings in the future.
He tied the end of the long rope he freed up first to the lead ring on her halter, and then he moved back. She was free now, connected to him only by the rope on her halter. She made no attempt to kick or show him her teeth, although she appeared relieved to be free of the ropes.
“That’s a good girl, good girl, good girl.” He was running out of things to say, but he kept talking anyhow.
Slowly, he moved her away from the post and began to lunge her around the pen.
In town, Teddy was on his best behavior. He had just finished with his third customer—a farmer who bought several reels of barbed wire to keep the Double A’s cattle out of his crops—and was happily entering the man’s purchase in the faded brown leather book in which his boss recorded every single transaction when, lo and behold, his boss came over into the hardware side of the store.
“Teddy?”
“Yes, Mr. Fowler?”
“Been watchin’ you.”
“Yessir?”
“You’re doin’ a good job. Just thought you ought’a know that.”
Teddy let out an unintentional grin. “Thanks, Mr. Fowler!”
“Think a man ought’a know when he’s doing a good job, that’s all. Now, you can take lunch right on the stroke of noon, but be back by twelve-thirty. If’n you’d like, my wife brings a lunch basket. You’re welcome to it. Today, I think she’s got meatloaf sandwiches.”
“That’s mighty kind’a you, Mr. Fowler. I’d like to do that.” He knew lunch would cost him almost half a day’s wage, and he also knew that Fowler was no more a fool than he was. He’d go along and do what was right and keep all his ducks in a row, like his mama used to say, until they found out whatever was needed to free Jonas.
He reckoned he’d know when it was time.
That was funny. He hadn’t thought about his mama for a coon’s age. Was she even still alive? That was something he ought to know. What kind of a son doesn’t even know if his mama’s alive or not? he thought, shaking his head.
Someone else came in, asking for paint for a young girl’s bedroom. So they went on over to the paint shelves and began to look at the paint chips. Teddy forgot all about himself until a nice lavender was picked and paid for, along with a couple of brushes and some turpentine. He had to admit, he was surprised that a town this small even had lavender paint right there, and didn’t have to order out to Kansas City or Chicago or somewhere.
Surprised and impressed.
And he told Mr. Fowler as much as they sat that noon, eating meatloaf sandwiches with pickles, and washing them down with the bucket of beer that Fowler had Teddy pick up at the saloon.
Teddy had to admit that he’d never enjoyed a meal more, even with Slocum. Mr. Fowler was a right soul, funny or serious, and several times Teddy felt the truth about himself and Slocum creeping onto his tongue, but stopped it in the nick of time. Mr. Fowler was somebody you just naturally wanted to tell the truth to.
It dawned on Teddy that this was probably the worst combination in the whole wide world—him and Fowler, that was—but Slocum had put him here, Slocum knew best, and he didn’t guess he wanted to fight fate.
18
Out on the Double A spread, the men were still packed at the rail, watching Slocum. In several hours, he’d taken the mare from a bucking, screeching wildcat to what looked like a horse that had been in training forever. She backed when told, came up to have her neck patted, and wore a saddle.
He hadn’t been on her yet, but he figured he might get up there today—pretty damn fast for a range horse, if he did say so himself. He knew there were those among the onlookers who disagreed with him. They had made themselves known through the day with catcalls or whispers that sent a shiver of suppressed laughter through the throng.
But Slocum ignored them. He was happy with the mare’s progress, and apparently, so was Hawk. He’d spent most of the day leaning against the fence, hat in his hands, grinning in approval.
It was time. Slocum had already saddled the mare, and lunged her in it. She didn’t buck anymore. She was becoming resigned to it, as she had become resigned to the halter, and then the bridle that Slocum had introduced a few hours back. She was a fast learner. Just being worked from the ground, she’d already learned to move off, stop, and back up on voice commands. Now he hoped that she didn’t buck like a bull once he was in the saddle.
He brought her to the center of the paddock again and sacked her out for the third time since noon. She didn’t flinch, didn’t move a muscle, though he flapped the blanket every possible place around and on her. Good. He picked up her hooves and held them, one by one, as a farrier would do one day, and looked in her mouth. She was only three, he concluded from the teeth.
And then he returned to her left side and pulled himself up, laying across her, halfway into the saddle.
She shifted beneath him, but that was all. He tried it again. Same result. “Well, young lady, they say that the third time’s the charm. What you think, huh?”
He gave her neck a pat, then slowly swung up into the saddle, all the time talking to her. When he was in the saddle with feet firmly in the stirrups and his reins slack, he said softly, “Git up, girl.”
She didn’t move. “Go on, girl, git up,” he repeated, and applied pressure with his knees.
And then she was off. She crow-hopped once, thought it over, and that was the end of it. She never bucked again, so far as Slocum knew. He rode her around the paddock at a walk, then a trot, then a canter, then a walk again, all on a loose rein. When he dismounted, a cheer rose up from the boys and he had to grin. He stroked the mare’s neck again, then pulled off her saddle. Once it was off, she shook herself like a wet dog and whinnied. Slocum’s already present grin turned into a laugh. Then he stripped her of the bridle, put her halter back on, and led her to the gate.
Where he met up with all the hands who’d been watching. “Good goin’, Quincy!” “I never seed the like!” “Some show!” The congratulations came in rapid fire, and he had no idea who said what to him, but at least he remembered he was supposed to be Quincy.
Someone opened the gate, and he led the mare back to the other pen with several of the men still crowded around. The mare made no attempt to bite or kick anybody, and when the gate was opened for her, she went back in with the other broncs off the range.
He closed the gate behind her, rigged the latch, and turned around to find himself facing the last stragglers. “I ain’t never seen nothin like that, not ever, Quincy!” said Shorty, who had materialized sometime during the day.
“Why, thanks, Shorty,” Slocum said.
Hawk was next. “Tellin’ you true, Quincy, I was preparin’ to laugh my ass off, but you surely did prove me wrong! What do you call what you did today?”
“You serious?”
“Yeah, I’m serious!”
Slocum took off his hat and gave it a good whack against his leg to knock the dust off. “Just called gentlin’, Hawk. Jus’ gentlin’.”
They began to walk toward the bunkhouse.
Hawk said, “Well, it’s still quite a trick.”
Hawk’s tone was congratulatory, but on this subject, Slocum was like a dog with a bone. “Oh, no trick to it. No trick at all. Any man jack on the place with half a grain�
��a horse sense could do the same. Do it tomorrow.”
Hawk stopped in his tracks. “You joshin’ me?”
Slocum shook his head.
They came to the bunkhouse door, where Slocum could smell something good cooking. And see the knot of gabbing hands inside.
Hawk whistled for attention, and pretty soon the men were quiet. “Quincy, here, tells me that any man could do what he did today. I got any takers?”
“Hell, I’ll try anythin’,” said a medium-sized, towheaded man in a red plaid shirt. “That was sure somethin’, Quincy.”
“All right,” Hawk said, “there’s one. Who’s next?”
In the end, he had five volunteers, and Slocum was delighted to have that many. He figured that, if they worked hard, they could have those horses rough-broke by the end of the week, and clean-broke by the next weekend. He was content.
On that level anyway. But he still hadn’t forgotten his primary reason for being out here.
Somebody hollered, “Supper’s ready!” and that made Slocum forget damn near everything else. He’d been working all day and he hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and he was hungry enough to eat a skinned skunk.
He took a seat at the table and within seconds had a big plate of beef stew in front of him, with sourdough biscuits and butter and jam on the side.
“This is more like it,” he muttered, and focused all his attention on the stew.
By nightfall, Teddy had finished up at the store and was making his way to the café, where he intended to take his supper. While he entered the restaurant, was seen to a table, and ordered, he thought over his day. It hadn’t been bad, not bad at all. And he’d done well. Mr. Fowler had said so several times.
Teddy had done well, and he was proud of himself. And he had remembered, off and on throughout the day. He remembered going to school, to Miss Birdsong. He remembered Mr. Fuels at the dairy, and how he used to pay a nickel to any boy who brought in one of his stray cows.
