The hostler spun his tale while eyeing Burn but Señor addressing Katherine. “Your blessed father sold this gray to Señor Meiklejon as a fine ranch horse. Señor Meiklejon, he was thrown over the fence on the first jump. He had worn a pair of vaquero spurs and did not think about the horse’s tender hide. Your father swore the gray was well trained until the spurs tickled him. He has not been ridden since…not by any man.” Quitano turned to Burn. “Señor, if you wish to advertise your skills, here is your chance. You can offer your colt against a ride on the gray. And you will win a new horse, or run up a bill with a curandero. Either way, señor, you will rescue the town of Quemado from a dull day.”
The gray stood close to sixteen hands, and the story was on his hide—scars along the great rib cage, healed tears at the mouth, several brands on shoulder and hip. The gray would do nothing but fight.
The fat man was introduced as Eager Briggs. It was his burro who hauled the gray; it was in his pockets that the betting money was put for safekeeping. When Briggs held out a plump hand, Burn shook it and noted the old man’s eyes hard on him. Briggs was old, sloppy, belly hanging over his pants. He led the gray into one of the empty pens while Burn led the colt into another, taking time to put out wispy hay.
A second man joined Briggs, introducing himself as Katherine’s father, Edward Donald. He held out his hand and said he’d heard about Burn from a mutual friend, was right glad to meet up with him. Would Burn be interested in wagering a bet on the gray? he asked. Donald was short and tidy, and his delicate hands moved about quickly, touching and patting a man on the shoulder or seizing his arm to make a particular point. He said he’d take the dark colt as payment on the bet.
Burn agreed to the wager with stipulations. “It’s the gray against my colt and hard coin…’cause that bronc’ won’t be nothing as a working horse.” He faltered for a moment before he said he’d ride the bronco. He hoped no one had heard that break. He wanted no outsider’s pity.
As the news went out, the town began showing up in force, with the crowd staying back from the gray’s restless movements. No one wanted to get too close to the bronco, yet they were anxious to watch the show.
The hostler opened a round pen where they’d once bucked out a lot of broncos. Now grass grew under the rails and weeds clogged the center where the snubbing post tilted, rotted almost clear through.
Burn stood in the pen, alone but for the gray bronco. He watched the eye show its white edge. He snubbed the gray to the post, threw a saddle blanket over the long head. The gray quivered but stood still. Burn slapped on the saddle, drew up the latigo tightly, testing the gray’s tolerance. One front hoof stamped on the weed-packed ground. Burn slipped the rawhide hackamore over the hard ridge across the gray’s nose, settled its thick knot under the sensitive chin. When he removed the blanket and touched the gray’s neck, the horse barely rolled its eye. He climbed aboard quickly. The gray trembled as Burn caught the stirrups with both feet, drew in the rein to snug the gray’s head. He remembered the story about the spurs and touched his own pair to the quivering hide.
Miss Katherine’s father had the final word. Even as the gray bronco exploded, Burn could hear the man’s voice above the labor of his own breathing.
“That little fellow looks like he might be able to ride.”
Chapter Ten
Burn cleaned a lump of muck from his mouth and asked for his $10. His lips bled when he spoke, but he didn’t care—by God, he’d earned the money. Fear had ridden with him; no one else knew that.
Edward Donald looked right through him. “I don’t have the money with me, Mister English. Perhaps I can pay you another time.” Burn shook his head, and Donald sighed as if he’d known. “Come to the house, we’ll settle there.”
The woman’s voice was sharp. “Mister English, you have proven your boast. No one in Quemado, or any town around here, will doubt your skills again. But is that horse going to be worth anything?”
Burn wanted to ask what good the horse had been before he bucked it out, but his mouth was too thick. He settled on a grim smile and walked away, taking the gray gelding with him.
He rode the stumbling gray in the wake of Edward Donald’s wagon, sorry that the daughter hadn’t come with her father. It occurred to him that she’d arrived in Quemado by herself, and had shown little interest in her father’s doings. He grunted to himself—business between a man and his family was personal.
The spread was a soddy with a dogtrot to the back, set in a shallow bowl rested against a ridge—a shirttail outfit with a sagging barn and fallen fence. Burn saw no cattle, but a sign was carved into a slanted fence post, the Bench D. Could be Donald’s brand but, from the look of the post, it could have been lifted from another man’s fence line.
“Set, boy, grab a chair, have a drink. You look like you need oiling. That gray took some hide off you.” Donald at least knew his range manners. A drink would set right with Burn.
The whiskey scoured its way down and tasted better once it landed. The fat man, Eager Briggs, came up quiet-like, and sat down, took his turn at the bottle, and kept his stare on Burn, until Burn stared back.
Donald had a lot of talk in him, and the whiskey let it roll. “Here, son, take another drink. That Englishman my child works for, now he thinks he can come in and do whatever the hell he pleases and cut us off from water and graze. Hell, son, I’ve used that land, that water, to fatten my stock. He got no right putting up wire like he is.”
The wire talk blinded Burn, and the whiskey made it easier to listen.
“I hope my child didn’t put notions in your head about Meiklejon. She’s thinking he’s better’n her own pa. But I know, and you know, a manuses wire, he’s a curse to the free range and us who ride it.”
Briggs found a second bottle. Burn thought Donald kept talking after that, but he couldn’t figure the words. They sat in the dark, three men on patched chairs, pulled close to an uneven keg serving as a table, sucking on the bottle till it ran dry. Briggs kept his stare on Burn the whole evening’s drunk like he was considering a fight. The watchful eyes were almost familiar, but Burn had ridden a wide chunk of earth, seen a lot of faces, and mostly he’d tried not to remember.
At the finish of the second bottle, Burn thought Donald said they might be partners, go up against Meiklejon and his L Slash, show the damned foreigner what ranching was about. Donald gave his solemn word—his share in the partnership would be headquarters, the sod hut, and horses and cattle marked with the Bench D. Burn would catch and ride the broncos, brand, and sell for profit. Then they could expand, drive Meiklejon and his like from the range.
Burn was drunk, even he had to admit to the fact. It was nighttime, and through the door he saw that shiny horse harnessed to that lady’s wagon. Horse was branded L Slash, had to belong to the Englishman. He looked at the woman come in the house. She was tired and dusty, but how could he have thought her plain? She was beautiful, and he best tell her so.
“Mister English, I don’t appreciate drunken compliments,” Katherine said. “Whatever promises Papa has made to you, do not believe them. Take the hard cash he has given you and ride on before he draws you into one of his schemes.”
He stood on legs that wanted to fold up. “Ma’am.” The sound was inside his mouth. He wanted to spit, but that wouldn’t be polite. “Ma’am,” he began again, “I got the money and the gray bronc’. More’n I started out with this afternoon.” He removed his hat in what was meant as a gallant gesture and fell down. No hand reached to help him; no female voice asked if he was all right. He climbed up on his own and reset the hat.