Will ordered a couple eggs and some bacon and coffee. Austin ordered a dozen eggs, fried; the biggest steak the joint had, cooked bloody rare; a pair of helpings of hashbrown potatoes; a soup bowl of grits and hot sauce; a pot of coffee; and a quart of liquor. “We ain’t goin’ nowhere today,” Austin said defensively about the booze. “A li’l taste won’t make no difference.” He poured a pair of inches into Will’s coffee cup. Will didn’t refuse it.
Austin ate like one of those newfangled threshing machines chopped wheat: there was a constant input of food into his mouth until his plate was as empty and barren as a harvested field. He sat back, belched loud enough to scare a good dog that had been sleeping near the door, and filled his coffee cup with booze. “I once heard,” he said, “breakfast is a important meal. That’s why a ramrod will always make sure his men are fed good of a morning on a drive.”
“I never been on a drive where the grub—any meal—was decent,” Will commented. “Beans an’ salt pork three meals a day ain’t what you’d call fine eatin’. What me an’ the other hands would do was to put a bullet into a beef every so often, bust one of its legs, an’ tell the trail boss the poor critter stuck a hoof in a prairie-dog hole. ’Course there was no reason to waste that meat, so the cook’d grill up a slew of steaks an’ chops an’ so forth.”
Austin nodded, smiling. “Them trail bosses was awful careful about their herds, but a accident sure can happen. A cow is ’bout as bright as a wore-out boot. A drive is jus’ bound to lose a few.”
The wind and rain stopped sometime during the night, and the following sunrise showed a clear sky and promised a return to the scalding heat that is a West Texas summer. Will and Austin were saddling up when they still needed a lantern to cut the dark in the barn. Will overpaid the stableman for the care of both horses and tossed a five-dollar bill to the boy who cleaned stalls and ran errands.
“You must have a ton of money, Will,” Austin said as they rode out of the end of Lord’s Rest.
“I got money. What I don’t have is a brother or his wife an’ children.”
“Yeah. That’s why we’re here, no?”
“Yeah. That’s why we’re here.”
They stopped about midday when the heat was making both the men and the horses drip sweat. Austin sighted in the rifle he’d taken from the mercantile and found it to be a fine weapon.
“We should come to some water ’fore too long, if this map is right,” Will said. “We’d best have a sip an’ give what we have to our horses.”
“Yeah—they’re both sweatin’ buckets an’ the fastest we gone is a slow lope. That kinda worries me, Will. One Dog an’ his men will run their horses ’til they drop. We could be losin’ ground.”
“Maybe so. But even if them killers are good enough to ride the unbroken horses they stole, they’ll ride them to death, too. An’ I figure most of them deserters never rode nothin’ but a plow horse ’fore the war. They don’t know how to treat a animal, an’ the Indians don’t care. We’re doin’ the right thing, Austin. We’ll catch them.”
Austin took a quick sip from one of his canteens and poured the rest into his hat for his horse. Will did the same. When the animals sucked the hats dry, both men emptied their second canteens into their hats, and again the horses sucked them dry in moments. Austin put his hat on and walked to his saddlebag. He removed a quart of whiskey, yanked the cork with his teeth, and poured a good three inches into his gullet. “Damn,” he said. “Don’t taste real good, but least it’s wet.”
He handed the bottle to Will. Will looked at it longer than Austin thought he would and then tipped it to his mouth. He lowered the level a couple of inches, coughed, and handed the bottle back. He was a little unsteady swinging into his saddle. “I ain’t used to rattler venom like that,” he said.
“Better’n nothin’, no?”
“Maybe.”
The oasis, such as it was, was a muddy puddle maybe ten yards wide, most of which was covered with stringy pond scum. There was an apron of decent grass around the water, and after drinking, the horses began mowing the grass.
“Ya know,” Austin said, “I ain’t never seen so many nice, fat jackrabbits in my life.”
“I know. We can’t risk a shot, though. We’re too close to One Dog. I figure their camp ain’t but a mile or two, an’ I’m goin’ in tonight to look it over.”
“They’ll have guards out, Will.”
“I’m sure they will. They’ll give me a chance to test out this hog’s tooth.” Will slid the knife from his boot and turned it back and forth in his hand.
“We’ll both go on foot an’ then split . . .”
“No, you stay here with the horses. I been thinkin’ ’bout this for a long time. First time, I go alone. If I don’t come back, you ride off with the horses an’ supplies an’ my money. If I’m not back near dawn, you haul ass.”
“That don’t make no good sense, Will. We—”
“This ain’t somethin’ I’ll argue about. We’ll talk a bit later, but that’s how it’s gonna be. Hear?”
“I hear,” Austin said. He shucked off his gun belt, folded it neatly, and set it on the ground. “You ever et raw rabbit?” he asked. “I’m kinda partial to it.”
“I’ve had it. Ain’t bad.”
“Good. Then we’ll eat right fine ’fore you go out, an’ we won’t burn our supplies. See, I fed my ma for some time by heavin’ rocks at rabbits. I got good at it. I could tear a jack’s ass off from a long ways away. I still can.” He sat down and grunted his boots off and set them next to his gun belt. Any boots were bound to make more noise than a barefoot man, and even though rabbits weren’t overly bright, they were intelligent enough to run from noise. “I should be maybe a hour. Don’t shoot me when I come back in.”
“Lookit,” Will protested, “that was a bit of time ago when you was bringin’ in jacks by tossing rocks at them. We got plenty of jerky an’ some hardtack. All we gotta—”
“You set still an’ listen to the horse tear grass. Like I said, I’ll be back in a hour, give or take.”
Austin walked out into the prairie, snapping a foot up when he stepped on a rock or a baby saguaro. He meandered back and forth, selecting stones that would carry well and that he could pop an unsuspecting jack with.
The sun was dropping rapidly now and the temperature came down a few—a very few—degrees. Still, the difference felt good. The absence of the glaring, merciless sun made all the difference. Will rolled a smoke and leaned back against his saddle. The pastels at the western horizon made the prairie seem inviting, benign. He remembered what an old scratch miner leading a ribby mule told him years ago.
“This prairie is like one a them real pretty hoors that look so good, an’ then hand a man a dose of clap or the syph. Shit, if the rattlers an’ scorpions don’t kill you the goddamn sun will.”
“You’re out here,” Will said.
“Sure. But I’m crazier’n a hoot owl. What’s a man like me gonna do but what I’m doin’? Be a ribbon clerk in a fancy mercantile? Maybe go to a city an’ start up a big bidness an’ be rich?” He spat to the side, ending the conversation.
Will had to admit the ol’ boy had a point.
Austin came in not twenty minutes after he went out, swinging a fat jack by its ears in either hand. He dropped them in front of Will, smirking, proud. “I fetched ’em in,” he said. “You gut ’em. An’ watch you don’t nick that sack in there. I hear tell whatever’s in it can kill a man, or make him awful sick. It ain’t no bigger’n your thumb, so you gotta be careful.”
“I guess I never cleaned a rabbit before,” Will growled. “Thanks for learnin’ me how. I think maybe I’ll start me a goddamn rabbit ranch.”