When we were done I brought the chestnut into the corral and took my lead rope off him and turned him loose. He walked kind of tenderly over to the other two horses, sort of seeing if they were going to be the neighborly type or have to learn a lesson.
The chestnut had got the best of the deal. At least he was getting off the trail and he’d be fed and watered regularly. Besides, he’d be in the hands of a man who had no idea how hard he could work. He was probably going to think he was on vacation.
I hooked the lead rope to the racehorse and led him out of the corral and over to where I’d laid the pack when I’d unloaded from the chestnut. Even though he was standing right beside the packsaddle and the pack, he showed not the slightest interest in the items. His whole attitude seemed to be saying, “I don’t know what that trash is but it ain’t got nothing to do with me.”
Well, he was going to get a surprise. Gamp had gone into the house to get paper and pencil so we could write each other out a bill of sale. While I waited I put the packsaddle blanket on the black and then the packsaddle itself. I had him snubbed pretty tight to the corral fence, but he still wanted to look back and see what was happening. He stamped a hind foot a time or two, but then got quiet when nothing else happened.
Gamp came out of the house and then went into the barn. He was a few minutes, and then he came back with a half tow sack of shelled corn. He let himself out of the corral, and I opened the tow sack when he gave it to me and set it down in front of the black. I loosened the lead rope just enough for the him to get his nose into the corn. I was rewarding him for taking the packsaddle. I was also feeding him up and taking his mind off the weight of the pack when it landed on him.
Gamp and I wrote out a simple bill of sale to each other alleging we were each the owner of the animal we were conveying, and that now the other man was the owner of that same animal. After that Gamp helped me get the tow sacks off the roan’s neck and pack them back into my rig. I took the corn away from the black and packed that in. Then Mister Gamp and I heaved the pack between the X’s of the pack saddle. For a second nothing happened, and then the racehorse began to tremble. Gamp said, “Look out! That’s what he done when I tried to ride him.”
I jerked down hard on the lead rope so that the black’s head almost went between his front legs. I held him like that until he gradually quit trembling and twitching. When I let up on the rope he looked around curiously at the pack, but he didn’t make any move to cut up. It wasn’t the weight of the pack so much as it was the awkwardness. The pack couldn’t have weighed more than sixty pounds.
Gamp said, “What’d you jerk that rope down for?”
“Give him something else to think about. These kind of horses are high-strung and temperamental. They get something in their mind and they’re worse than a woman. I just made him try and figure out how come his head was down between his legs. He forgot all about what was on his back.”
“Oh,” Gamp said. “I never would have thought of that.”
“One other thing,” I said. “We’ve traded, but I don’t reckon you know as much about horseflesh as I do. But then I don’t know as much about farming as you do.” I jerked my head toward the inside of the corral where the chestnut was getting acquainted with the two plow horses and probably letting them know who the new boss was. “That’s a good horse. He’ll give you a lot of work, but you’ve got to let him get well. Give him ten days and then ride him. If he works smooth and easy he’s all right. If not you’ve got to give him some more time.”
“I ain’t gonna rush him,” Gamp said.
I untied the black’s lead rope from the corral post and led him around, letting him get used to the ungainly load. After about four rounds I tightened the girth and announced myself ready to give it a try. I gave Mister Gamp his ten-dollar boot and he helped me hang the canteens he’d kindly filled out of his well on the packsaddle. I swung aboard the roan and he handed me the lead rope. The black was not going to come along quite as easy as the chestnut. Fortunately, the roan had done a lot of settling down in his near two weeks on the trail, and he only gave the black one curious look and then didn’t pay him any more mind. I leaned down and shook hands with Mister Gamp. I said, “Well, I hope it was a good trade for both of us.”
Gamp said, “Ought to be. Wa’l, now I know what a racehorse is. Kin even say I owned one.” He was looking over my horse’s rump as he talked. “Say, ain’t none of my business but I noticed three fellers over yonder. Been here since you come. They be pals of yor’n?”
I looked to the east. My escort was off their horses, waiting. They were just sitting out in the middle of the prairie. “No, they’re not pals of mine.”
He looked alarmed. “Say! You don’t reckon they be robbers, do you?”
I shook my head. “No, they won’t be robbing you. In fact they’ll leave when I do.”
“But they ain’t pals?”
I shook my head.
He furrowed his brow. “Do they mean you trouble?”
“I don’t know, Mister Gamp. I been wondering that same thing myself for about a week.”
“Blazes!” he said. “What do you figure to do?”
I smiled. “Go to Rocksprings. And I reckon I’d better get going. You take it easy, Mister Gamp.”
I put spurs to the roan and we started off. The black immediately balked but I give his lead rope a good, hard jerk and he found his feet and came along—somewhat reluctantly, but he was coming.
I glanced to the right. My escort was mounting up. Well, if the black didn’t hold us up too much we ought to be in Rocksprings by dark.
But then a thought hit me. Knowing what I knew there didn’t seem to be that much reason for me to keep on the road. The Texas Pacific and Rio Grande came through Uvalde. I could get a train from there to San Antonio, and from San Antonio to Houston and then on into Blessing.
I looked back. Mister Gamp was standing in front of his house, watching me. He hadn’t been at all what I’d expected. He wasn’t even a very good liar, letting it out that he had no use for the black. It made me smile. Well, he’d come off very well in the trade. He’d asked me, when I’d first got talking, if I’d seen any sign of rain up the road. I’d had to say no, not unless rocks would do him any good. He’d just shook his head. He’d said if somebody was to give him ten thousand dollars he reckoned he’d just go on farming that valley until it was all gone.
CHAPTER 7
But it was forty miles to Uvalde from where I was, and that through rough country. It was no greater distance from Rocksprings. And I was anxious to hear from Norris. Also, I was out with an untried packhorse. It would be better to go on into Rocksprings, get rested up, and then turn back for Uvalde over easier country.
We hit rough country again as soon as we left the valley. But this time I chose the road, which appeared to be in much better condition than it had before. I saw no reason not to be out in the open. Mister Flood’s men had shown not the slightest inclination to kill me at long range or even to approach me. What their game was I hadn’t the faintest idea. I had thought they wanted to lay hands on me and transport me someplace, perhaps to a meeting with Flood. I’d based that on the incident in Pleasanton. And maybe they still did; maybe they were just waiting for the next opportunity. Maybe they figured that trying to slip up on me in the open country was a risky business, even at night when I was supposedly asleep.
I just couldn’t figure any part of it. If I’d confused Old Man Gamp with my explanation of their presence, it was because I was no less confused myself. They had taken up their normal position to my right and at a distance of the same old half mile. But the country was so rough that now they would appear and now they would disappear. Perhaps they figured I’d have to make a long stop in Rocksprings and they’d find an opportunity there. Perhaps they’d meant to make a play in Hondo, but the two drunks and the deputy sheriff had messed that up.
All I knew to do was to be as careful in Rocksprings as I could and try and get w
ord from Norris. But one way or the other, I was going to force Flood’s hand. I’d had about all the trail I wanted, and it obviously wasn’t doing any good except making me angry. I’d turn back at Rocksprings, head for Uvalde, and treat the horses to a train ride home. Nora would just about be returning from her vacation and, with any luck, I’d be there to meet her.
Meanwhile I was being bothered more by the Thoroughbred than I was by my escort. I’d been holding the lead rope in my hand and tugging him along, but it was about to wear out my right arm. Finally I tied the rope to the saddle horn and let the roan pull him for a spell.
The road was climbing all the while. It wasn’t a big grade, but with the black having to be hauled along it was putting too much strain on the roan. I finally decided it was time for the black to learn his new trade. I took down my lariat rope, put the loop over the saddle horn, dismounted, and ran the rope around the tail of the black and back up to the saddle. He didn’t like having a rope up under his tail, but he didn’t know what to do about it except look walleyed and tremble a little. I got back in the saddle and we set off again. Only this time the black had to move smartly as he was pulled by his come-along. Pretty soon he was marching almost up even with the roan, the lead rope slack and no extra strain on my colt. I untied the lead rope, took the slack out of it, and retied it. I didn’t want it dangling down and tripping up a valuable horse like the black. He might have been worth a couple of thousand dollars as a racehorse, but he’d have a hell of a time finding work as a packhorse.
About mid-afternoon we topped out on the plateau and the going got easier. I figured we’d make it into Rocksprings by evening, but we’d be cutting it close. The town was going to be kind of hard to hide in from the three pursuers if they had in mind laying their hands on me. It wasn’t a very big town. The last time I’d seen it I’d reckoned it accommodated about five hundred souls. I was going to have a little trouble getting lost in such a place. But I did know they had a hotel and a boardinghouse and three or four saloons. It was a rough town, an impermanent town. The only reason for its being was water, springwater, which it had in abundance. They ran a good many cows in its environs, mainly because of that water. It was like one of them places I’d seen in a book, an oasis. Five or so miles in every direction outside of the town there was water and there was plenty of grass. But when the water stopped, the grass stopped. Word was they were building a railroad up from Uvalde that would go on and connect with Sonora and San Angelo, but I didn’t think it had got very far.
About four of the afternoon I found a little stream and I stopped to cool off and water the horses. I even gave them a little corn while I ate some cold ham and saltines. I was getting plenty tired of trail food and was looking forward to a good steak and some pie in town. A man can eat just so much canned food and cold beef and cheese and stale bread.
We hit the grass with about three hours of daylight left. The horses wanted to graze, but I was in a hurry to get on into town. I wanted to get that telegram off to Norris and get a reply as quick as possible. Over to my right my escort was still moving even with me. There was nothing but high, flat prairie between us. If they’d wanted to have a go at me we were in excellent terrain for a charge. Of course they probably knew I’d kill all three of them, them or their horses, before they got within a hundred yards of me.
And then they disappeared. We were, I calculated, about a mile out of Rocksprings. I’d been looking ahead, not paying the watchdogs much mind. Then, the next time I looked, they were nowhere to be seen. It made me a little uneasy, but I figured they’d cut off to their right to keep me from seeing where they were headed. Still, I kept a sharp lookout.
A quarter of an hour later I rode into Rocksprings. It was a line of buildings down a main street, weathered and sagging with a lot of out-of-business stores. I headed straight for the Herd Hotel, a place I’d stayed at before. It was the town’s main attraction and was a surprisingly good hotel for such a rundown, off-the-map place as Rocksprings. It had a good dining room and a bar and a barbershop. And since there was no railroad, the telegraph office was right there in the hotel. I didn’t figure to be spending much time on the street since just about everything I wanted was right there in the hotel.
When I got to the hotel I wheeled in beside it and rode to the back to the livery stable. There was a big, strapping boy of about eighteen on duty there, and I gave him an extra dollar to rub my horses down, and unload them, and just generally see to their welfare. A dollar was a lot of money to him, probably a day’s wages, and he was eager to please. I asked him casually if they had a night man on watch to catch any latecomers as was the custom in most hotel livery stables. He said they did and that he was that man, that he was just coming on duty.
I nodded and told him to watch my gear carefully; then I took my saddlebags and walked into the hotel and got a room on the second floor.
The Herd was a fine old solid hotel with a big lobby and plenty of chairs for folks to sit around and swap stories. The only reason I could ever figure for its popularity and existence was that it made a nice way station for folks who had just robbed a bank in San Antonio or Austin or Dallas and wanted a nice place to stop off at before fleeing on across the border. They say it had been built on expectations of the railroad coming through, but they’d been waiting a lot of years for that.
The telegraph office was in the lobby. They had a wire that ran to the railroad telegrapher in Uvalde, and from there your message got forwarded wherever you wanted. I marked my message urgent, which would tell the telegrapher in Blessing to get it straight out to the ranch the minute he received it. We paid extra for that service but it was worth it. In the wire I told Norris that I was all right but that I wanted to know if anything had happened at the ranch. I requested he get word right back to me without delay. I added that I had discovered that my adversary was the man who was not fond of dynamite. I knew he would figure out who I meant from that. I didn’t use Flood’s name because I had the uneasy feeling that he was, somehow, somewhere right there in Rocksprings watching me.
I paid a premium for the telegram, it being a private wire company, but I didn’t mind. I was no longer as worried about myself as I was about the ranch. I told the telegrapher that I would be checking back from time to time for an answer.
After that I went on up to my room. I dumped my saddlebags on the floor by the washbasin table and sat down in the cane-bottom chair that was there. I was tired, tireder than I’d thought. I was going to change revolvers, exchanging the one I was carrying with the six-inch barrel for the one in my saddlebags that had a four-and-a-half-inch barrel. Clearing leather with that extra inch and a half could sometimes mean the difference between whether you were around to answer the breakfast bell or not. I’d killed Whiskey Jack with the six-inch barrel, but I’d made myself an advantage by shoving the table into him. I shouldn’t have gone into town with that longer-barreled gun in the first place. Its use was on the trail, outdoors, where you could get greater accuracy at longer distances.
I was also going to change my holster. When I was on horseback or doing work where I’d be joggling around, I wore a holster that went well up on the gun to keep it from falling out. When I was in a place or a situation where I thought I might need to have my revolver in my hand in a hurry, I wore a cut-down holster. It was the kind preferred by gun hands, and wearing one was sometimes advertising yourself and maybe inviting trouble, but if you needed it you’d need it awful bad. I figured the necessity outweighed the trouble it might bring.
But before I went to making all those changes I was going to have a drink. I got a bottle of whiskey out of my saddlebags and pulled the cork. The bottle was hot to the touch, having been baked in the oven of my saddlebags all day, so a great cloud of fumes came rushing out. The smell almost took away my desire for the drink, but I got one of the glasses off the table, poured in some whiskey, and then added enough water to cool it off from the pitcher they had there.
After that I lit
a cigarillo and sat there smoking and drinking and wondering where my companions had got to. I looked around the room. It looked like a thousand other hotel rooms I’d been in in small towns. There was a bed that would be lumpy with springs that creaked, a couple of chairs, the washbasin, the pitcher, a table by the bed, and two windows facing on the main street. The bath would be down the hall, and if you wanted anything like fresh towels you’d have to go down to the lobby to get them yourself. There were two lamps. At least they appeared to be full of coal oil. I knew, without trying, that the door would be loose in its jamb, having been kicked in too many times, and that the key wouldn’t really lock it. But it was clean and cool, at least cool after the afternoon sun, and I was well content to sit there and relax for a time.
Besides, I wasn’t going to use the room. Not to sleep in anyway.
I sat there thinking. Of course I had no real evidence to believe that Flood was in town. It was just the patient way my watchdogs had followed me. They’d seemed content just to follow along on the path I’d chosen. Either I was going where they wanted me to go or else they were looking for a likely place to take me in hand. But I was getting tired of speculating on their intentions. I didn’t care about the gun hands anymore. I was going to go home and then put out feelers to find out where J.C. Flood was, and then I was going to give him a taste of his own medicine, cripple or not.
It was starting to come dark. I got up and changed out revolvers and holsters, and then poured some water in the basin and washed my hands and face. I was hungry, I wanted a good dinner, and I knew I could get it in the dining room downstairs, and it would be a la carte and not boardinghouse style.
I went on down to the lobby. There was no point in checking with the telegraph operator. It would take at least four or five hours for me to get an answer back, assuming there was no delay when my wire got into Uvalde. I knew there wouldn’t be any once it hit Blessing, but it was still a good ride out to the ranch and a good ride back.
Gunpoint Page 14
