“Hoof testers, Corporal.”
The testers were actually large round pincers used to apply pressure around the edges and bottom of the hoof. The roan flinched a time or two before the veterinarian finished his exam.
“You’re lucky,” Dr. Chapman said, washing his hands off in a nearby water bucket. “Seems to be just a stone bruise. No sign of problems with the navicular bone and no sign of rot.”
“Any recommendations?” I asked, somewhat relieved.
“Take him next door to Sergeant Emerson. I’ll write you up some instructions to give him,” he said, taking the notebook from the corporal. “Not that he’ll follow them,” I overheard his mumble. “I want him to build up the shoe a little and cut a sole pad to go under the shoe. It ought to protect the sole long enough to heal while still allowing you to ride him.” The captain shook his head. “That is if the good sergeant doesn’t lame him in the process.”
“A little heavy-handed, is he?” I asked, wishing Chango were around to do the job.
“I’ve seen apes in a zoo with a softer touch. ’Course, you understand that if this were to get back to the sergeant, I’d deny ever having said the like.”
Considering the size of most farriers I’d met, I could fully appreciate his position.
“Don’t leave that pad on longer than a month,” he added. “Tends to soften things up, and, if you aren’t careful, the sole will get a little mucky.”
I thanked the captain and, remembering his earlier comments, offered to pay something for his extra effort. He just waved it away.
The corporal untied the roan, and then Sonora and I headed next door to look for the troop’s farrier.
“Orders from the captain, eh? As if I didn’t have enough to do already.” Sergeant Emerson apparently wasn’t in the best of moods.
“Yes, sir,” I answered.
“Don’t sir me. I ain’t no officer, I work for a living,” he snapped.
“Right.”
“And I suppose you’re in a hurry.”
This time it was Sonora who answered. “That’s right. The colonel needs us to do some scoutin’ for him. And he said the sooner the better.”
I shot him a quick look, but Sonora’s expression was dead pan.
“Christ, that’s all I need.” The sergeant had been working on a large gray jenny. He dropped the hoof and tossed the shoe he had pulled into a wooden box in the corner.
Sergeant Emerson was a dark-haired, husky sort, about thirty years of age, which I roughly estimated to be the amount of time passed since he last changed his uniform. It was hard to believe, but he actually smelled worse than the barn he worked in. The remnants of a fat cigar whose flame had long gone out clung to his lips, even when he spoke.
We tied up the roan and the sergeant bent over to examine his feet. “The shoes in back look all right. I’ll just replace the ones up front the good doctor saw fit to pull.”
“You know, the vet suggested we fill in the front hoofs and have a pad put on,” I added.
“I can read,” he growled. “Christ, it turns out everythin’ that quack looks at either needs corrective shoes or some special damn’ pad.” He selected a rasp out of another box, and spit on it. As he began to trim the hoof, the sergeant shook his head at us.
“File and shape the hoof. Build the shoe up. Huh! Probably just a damned nail abscess. You drive one in too deep or screw up the angle and you lame the horse sure as I’m standing here. Probably the last smith’s fault.”
Knowing the type of work Chango Lopez did, I doubted that was the case, but I wasn’t about to argue the point. Like Pa always said, when you wrestle with pigs, you both get dirty, but only the pig enjoys it.
“Well, just the same, I wouldn’t want to piss off the captain, not to mention the colonel,” I added, remembering the sergeant’s reaction when Mason first mentioned him.
“By the way, you know a master sergeant by the name of Freeman?” I asked. “Nathaniel.”
Emerson began pounding out a shoe on his anvil. He paused to look up at me before answering.
“Nigger sergeant from that unit what came in with the inspector? What about him?” he asked, returning to his work.
It was as if he was totally ignoring Sonora’s presence. I saw Mason’s face begin to tense as he started past me angrily; I shot my arm out sideways, palm against his chest.
“He ain’t worth it, hombre,” I whispered. “No sense causing problems before you’ve found your friend. We’re almost done. Just let him finish and we’re outta here.”
Sonora just stared at me. His eyes were empty and his jaw locked, but reluctantly he nodded back.
I turned to the sergeant. “Yeah, that’s the one. Know where we can find him?”
“Probably with the rest o’ his kind. They got a few tents staked out back of the fort.” He pointed his hammer to indicate the direction. “No sense letting them stay inside with the decent folk,” he added snidely.
Mason, I’d noticed, had quietly walked to the far side of the barn and was now leaning against a wooden stall post while we waited.
Sergeant Emerson hammered the last of the horseshoe nails, prying back the exposed ends till they broke off. He then smoothed the whole affair with another rasp, repeating his spitting routine.
“That oughter do ’er,” he said. “Leastwise the shoes are on and the damn’ hoof ’s padded. Oh, and don’t forget to mention that to the colonel. Don’t want him on my case for not finishing B Troop on time.”
“Oh, I’m sure the colonel will hear of it, all right,” I said. “Come on, Sonora, we’re through here.”
The sergeant was standing just behind the roan when I began to untie the harness. Mason had come up on the horse’s left side while I was replacing the bridle.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” he said unexpectedly. “We do ’preciate it. This’n here’s mah pahtnahs best friend. Ain’t that right?” Sonora’s accent had suddenly grown unusually thick. Surprised, I looked back at him dumbly. “Yes-siree, he’s a great hoss. A mite feisty, though.” With that he gave the roan a firm slap on the rump. The gelding let out a loud whinny and jumped off its rear legs, mule-kicking straight back. Those big rear legs caught the blacksmith just above the belt, knocking him at least four feet backward. Emerson was out for the count.
“Christ!” I exclaimed, trying to calm the horse down.
“Hmmm. Hoss must not like white-assed sergeants very much,” Sonora said, shrugging his shoulders. As he turned around, I noticed something fall from his hand. “Nigger sergeant, my ass,” Sonora remarked, cussing back at the now unconscious blacksmith. “Nate Freeman craps better than the likes of him,” he added, walking out the door.
The roan’s sudden reaction had come as quite a surprise until I stopped near the object Sonora had dropped, bent over, and picked it up. What I found turned out to be a sharpened two inch long wooden splinter!
Chapter Seventeen
Although the entrance to Yuma had a manned wall around its gate, the rest of the fort was actually more like a series of several connecting buildings than a closed-in four-walled structure.
In order to get to the tented area where Sergeant Freeman’s unit was bivouacked we had to cross part of the drill field and then pass between the enlisted men’s barracks and the quartermaster’s office.
After leaving the stable, I tethered the roan to the nearest hitching post and accompanied Sonora Mason as he started out across the field in search of his friend. Off to the right a firearms instructor was drilling a platoon of new recruits.
“The standard U.S. Army cavalry issue shoulder arm is the Springfield Armory modified breechloading Trapdoor model carbine,” we overheard him lecture the men. I was already familiar with the rifle version. Although the .50–70 caliber was a strong cartridge, and even though the rifle had fairly good long-range accuracy, I was disappointed when the Army adopted it as their standard for infantry issue. The rifle was heavy, and its long bayonet worthless for Western fighting. The carbine version was an even worse choice for the cavalry.