The Busted Thumb Horse Ranch Page 3

  “How about new shoes all the way around on both of our horses an’ a trim on the packer? Maybe put some crimped oats in front of them and kinda look them over—make sure they’re in good shape. We’ve covered some ground lately.”

  Tiny glanced at our horses. “They don’t look the worse for it,” he said. “I’ll take care of them, get some oats into them.”

  “Ees good,” Arm said. “I’m wonderin’—are you a man who’d maybe drink some beer?”

  The blacksmith’s grin flashed again. “You can bet your eyes on that, Arm,” he said. “You boys stayin’ the night?”

  “I figured we would—get a decent meal an’ some rest,” I said.

  “Good,” Tiny said. “I’ll finish up your horses an’ be along directly to suck some beer. Go on over to Donovan’s”—he pointed at a saloon— “their beer is cold ’nuff to freeze yer nuts off.”

  “The food at the hotel any good?” I asked.

  “Decent. Beats jerky, anyway, an’ the plates ’re big. Fair to middlin’ steaks.”

  “We’ll give it a try later. Right now we’re gonna walk on over to Donovan’s an’ drink beer while we wait on you.”

  Cold beer is a real luxury and cost another nickel a mug over the warm because the saloon had to cut ice in the winter an’ warehouse it under sawdust ’til it’s needed. Best nickels I ever spent, to my way of thinking.

  Arm strode directly to the bar, tugging a fistful of ones and fives out of his pocket as he did so. I gave him a few steps and moved off to the side a bit, hands at my sides. They’re still lots of places in Texas where a man’d rather shoot a Mex than a rattlesnake.

  Arm dropped the cash on the bar. “We weel be at a table an’ Tiny is joinin’ us in a bit. See, we wan’ to drink all the cold beer you got. Tell me when we run outta money. We got more.”

  The bartender laughed. “Hell, with Tiny sittin’ in, you might could do that.”

  We walked to a back table and sat down. There were a dozen or so other men in the bar and a couple of poker games going on. Nobody paid us any attention after a quick, cursory look. In a couple of minutes the bartender came over with six mugs on a tray, set the mugs on the table, said, “Have at it, boys,” and went back to the bar with his tray.

  We had at it.

  The beer was teeth-shattering cold and had the strong, yeasty taste to it that real beer drinkers seek out but don’t find too often.

  We’d been sitting there drinking for ten minutes or so, yapping about the ranch. For a quick moment, conversation in the saloon stopped— not ours, but everyone else’s. I looked up at the man who’d just pushed through the bat wings and was walking over toward us. He was tall, gaunt-looking, and his shirt and pants sagged on him. His Colt was tied to his leg. He was clean shaven although his hair reached his shoulders. He stood at our table.

  “My name’s Turner,” he said. “I work for Mr. Dansworth—he runs this town. I don’t suppose you boys would care to give me one of those fine mugs of beer?”

  “Help yourself,” I said. “Plenty more where that came from.”

  He did so and took a long, appreciative drink.

  “Funny thing,” he said. “Somebody blew our sign in half earlier. I stopped over to say hello to Tiny and I saw the stock of a Sharps sticking out of a saddle sheath in his shop. Strange coincidence, no?”

  “We buy nice new sign,” Arm said. “Any price. Don’ matter.”

  “Oh? That’s purely kind of you. By the way, you boys have names?”

  “I’m Jake—this is Armando. You need last names?”

  “No. But you can tell me what you’re doing in Hulberton.”

  “I just inherited a ranch from a fella named Hiram Ven Gelpwell,” I said. “I got a document in my shirt pocket. I’ll reach in and get it if you want—or you can go after it to make sure I’m not pulling a Derringer on you.”

  “You get it,” Turner said. “If you shot me you’d never get outta here alive.”

  I retrieved the document and handed it to Turner. He pulled out a chair and sat down to read it. “One beer makes a man thirsty,” he commented.

  “Like my partner said, there’s plenty more where that came from. Help yourself.”

  Turner drained his first mug and picked up a second and returned to his reading. “Damn,” he said, “you got six thousand dollars in this deal, too? Was ol’ man Ven Gelpwell in love with you or something?”

  “I never met him. He was a friend of my mother’s a long time ago.”

  “Well,” Turner said, “all this legal horseshit is in order, far’s I can tell. What’re you gonna do with the place?”

  I launched into my dissertation on how we were going to breed, raise, and train the best working horses in the West.

  “You been out to look things over yet?”

  “Nope. We figured we’d have a decent meal and a decent sleep ’fore we rode out to it.”

  “You won’t get a whole lot of hay or grain out of it—it’s awfully rocky and the good soil is shallow. You might better sharecrop it out an’ take your cut in hay an’ oats. I know a couple families who’d be right interested.”

  “Fine. I’d like to talk with them.”

  Turner nodded. “I’ll send them on out in a day or so.” He took a long drink. “You got a good number of free-range beef out there—you ain’t gonna starve. But you watch yourself and your horse around them. Those goddamn longhorns would just as soon rip a horse’s gut as he would graze sweet grass. I was you, I’d pick one off from a good distance off with that Sharps an’ then drag him in to butcher.”

  “We’ll keep that in mind,” I said.

  Turner set down his empty mug and stood. “One more thing. Like I said, Mr. Dansworth runs Hulberton. He’s got me an’ a good number of others to help him out. He’s a horseman—you might both be lookin’ for the same thing.”

  “Lotsa horses aroun’,” I said. “Enough for everybody.”

  “Sure,” Turner said. “Long as Mr. Dansworth gets the best there won’t be no trouble. But don’t ever mess with him. Hear? You’ll end up dead, you do.”

  “Thass a threat?” Arm asked.

  “You bet it is. An’ it’s a bet you boys can’t win.”

  “Boolshit,” Arm commented.

  “We don’t take to threats real well,” I said.

  Turner’s entire demeanor changed from friendly cowhand to dangerous enemy. “Doesn’t seem to me either of you is real smart, then. You cause us any grief an’ you’ll regret it real quick.”

  Chapter Two

  Tiny walked in a few moments after Turner left. The blacksmith nodded at and greeted most of the men in the bar and pulled up a chair at our table. “Damn,” he said, “after a day wrestling with horses, a man gets a strong thirst.”

  Arm waved his arm over the just-replenished mugs on the table like a magician drawing attention to a feat he’s just performed.

  Tiny drank mugs of beer like other men down shots of whiskey: he picked up the mug, brought it to his mouth, tilted his head back, and swallowed the beverage all in one smooth, well-practiced move. He performed this four times and then waved to the tender for more beer. “Ahhhhh,” he sighed happily. “If that don’t go down nice, I sure don’t know what does.”

  “Our horses check out good?” I asked.

  “Oh, yeah. There were some minor quarter cracks on the Appy, but I took care of them. The packer’s okay, ’cept for his age. He’s probably older than God. It looks like he still has some years left in him, though.”

  Tiny told us what he knew about the place I’d inherited. “Ol’ Ven Gelpwell ’cropped out most of the land, which ain’t a bad idea. You’ll need to do some fencing. But hell, the barn an’ house are good. I’d say you boys lucked into a real sweet spread.”

  He downed another beer. “Say—a ranch gotta have a name. Wadda ya gonna call yours?”

  I scratched my head. “I haven’t given it any thought,” I said. “But you’re right.” I was quiet for a moment.
“How about ‘Hulberton Fine Working Horses’?”

  Armando laughed. “Ees stupid. Me, I like, ‘SantaMaria Best Horses.’ ”

  “That’s awful, Arm. Why do we need to advertise your family name? An’ the ‘Best’ isn’t right, either.”

  “Bullshit. I theenk…”

  I waved Arm’s next idea away and spoke directly to Tiny. “Did Ven Gelpwell have a root cellar or a place to hang beef? I’m gonna fetch in a head of those free-rangers soon’s I can—I favor beef almost as well as I do beer.”

  “Yeah—he had a little dugout where he stored apples an’ potatoes an’ salted-down ham. I ain’t seen it in a while, but I’d guess it’s still there. But lemme ask you this: why not take one of them wild pigs ’stead of a beef? You’re gonna lose lots of good meat no matter how careful you are with cattle, but a pig, why hell—you can use everything but the squeal. Beef’s cheaper’n penny candy in town. I’d get me a pig, I was you.”

  Arm and I looked at each other. “Makes sense,” I said. Arm nodded. “I put a loop over one of these porgos soon as I can. There are many ’round?”

  “Yeah. They’re tricky little bastards, so watch yourself. A big stud or even a sow will charge a horse, knock him right off his feet. Sonsabitches are wild but they make pretty good eatin’. Leave the big tuskers alone. They’re godawful crazy. Shoot any I see, is what I’d do.”

  “There ees a stream, no?”

  “A damn fine one—a year-’rounder. Rarer than teats on a boot ’round here. Gets awful low this time of year, but she keeps on runnin’.”

  We drank for another hour or so. Arm and I had the staggers a tad, but Tiny didn’t show any effects of the beer.

  “I think it’s time me an’ Arm got us a meal an’ a bed,” I said.

  “Might not be a bad idea for me to head home, too. The ol’ lady will start in on me if I stay out too long.”

  The three of us stood and started toward the bat wings.

  “Boys,” the tender called. “You got change comin’—a good bit of it.”

  “Call it a tip an’ put it in your pocket,” I said. “We’ll be seein’ you again.”

  Tiny headed back to the stables and Arm and I weaved our way to the hotel, took a couple of rooms, and went into the six-table restaurant. We both ordered steaks from a cadaverous waiter who probably hadn’t smiled during this century. We also ordered more beer.

  Tiny had said the plates were big, and he wasn’t exaggerating. They looked the size of wagon wheels and still the steaks were too big for the plates and hung off the edges. The meat was a tad tough, but the flavor was great. Neither of us left a scrap of meat on our plates, and had scraped clean the big bowl of mashed potatoes the waiter had brought without being asked.

  Arm leaned back in his chair and belched. “I’m ready to meet my bed,” he said, and yawned.

  “Me, too. Let’s do it.”

  The rooms weren’t a whole lot bigger than closets, but the beds had real mattresses rather than shucks and sawdust. I fell onto mine bed fully dressed except for my hat, and I assume Arm did the same with his. I was asleep immediately.

  Well before dawn a goddamn rooster right below my window started his racket. I heard a gunshot from the adjacent room. Blessed silence returned and I went back to sleep.

  It must have been near seven thirty or eight o’clock when we met up down in the restaurant. I don’t think I’d slept that long since I was in a cradle. Both our hangovers were mild and we were both hungry as bears coming out of hibernation. The cadaver hustled over and I ordered six eggs, steaks like we had the night before, and hash-brown potatoes. At first, the ol’ fellow thought we were going to split that plate. I made certain he realized we individually wanted what I’d ordered.

  We chowed down and drank a pot of coffee.

  When the waiter brought the bill, I noticed he’d added on fifty-five cents for the rooster Armando gunned. We paid up for the grub, the rooms, and left a good tip.

  The day promised to be another that’d almost raise blisters on a man’s skin. We walked down to the stable. Tiny’s anvil was ringing like a bell in spite of the heat. We gave Tiny a fifty to open an account for us, saddled up our horses, and packed our old fellow. I asked Tiny where our ranch was. “Straight east, maybe four or five miles,” he said.

  The first sign that told us we were on our land was some broken-down fencing that’d once been a couple-acre corral. “We’re home,” I said.

  “Sí,” Arm said, “feels right, no?”

  “Yeah. It feels right, pard.”

  We could barely see the top of the barn because of the lay of the land—fairly gentle rises and slopes. We plodded along, sweltering.

  “Peeg,” Arm whispered. “Over there—in the scrub.” He loosened his throwing rope from the latigo strip on his saddle. His black horse, dripping sweat, perked up immediately, Arm transmitting his excitement to the animal. I took a tighter grip on the packer’s lead line. Arm shook out a good loop and nudged his horse with his spurless heels. The black took off as if he were fired from a cannon, his hooves flinging clumps of dried buffalo grass and dirt behind him.

  The pig—a young one, maybe a hundred, a hundred and fifty pounds—burst out of the scrub and began covering ground in that clumsy-looking but actually quite fast way they have of running.

  Arm was up and next to the pig in a few seconds, swinging a loop over his head. The pig wasn’t stupid; he cut sharply to his left, putting Arm both behind and way the hell out of position to throw. He caught the pig and the same thing happened. Arm’s horse was sucking air but still working hard. This time, when they got close enough to throw at, the pig cut to the right—a move Arm and his horse were expecting. Arm’s loop struck out like a striking snake and dropped over the pig’s head. At that very moment, Arm’s horse stumbled, banging a front hoof against a rock. Arm screamed, shaking his right hand as he snubbed the rope over his saddle horn. Somehow, he’d gotten his thumb in a small coil of the close end of the rope as he did so. I could hear the thumb snap from twenty yards away.

  The pig hit the end of the rope and flipped up, crashing down on his back, squealing. “Sonommabeetch!” Armando shouted, and made a cross-draw with his left hand to the pistol on his right leg and put six rounds into the pig. “Jesús Cristo, that hurts,” he said.

  “Why the hell didn’t you just take the pig out with the Sharps?” I asked.

  “Ees bad luck. A man captures his first food on his land. Thass the way it’s always been.” He held his left hand out in front of him. The thumb was already twice its normal size and the nail was mostly gone.

  “And this is good luck?” I asked.

  He glared at me for a long moment, his eyes burning like embers. “The name of theese ranch is now an’ forever ‘The Busted Thumb Horse Ranch.’ Sí?”

  Arguing at that point would have been stupid and maybe dangerous. Anyway, I figured it was a name folks wouldn’t forget. “Agreed, Armando,” I said. “Now, let’s get a splint on that thumb an’ wrap it good. I’ll drag the pig on to the house.”

  “I need the liquor first to dull the pain.”

  “ ’Course you do.” I fetched an unopened quart from the packhorse and brought it to Arm, who’d swung down from his horse. While he sucked at the booze I looked around for a good, straight stick in the brush. I went back to the packhorse, dug out my winter long johns, and tore off a sleeve, which I then cut in strips with my boot knife.

  Arm was pale faced but ready for me.

  “No other way to do this, partner,” I said.

  “Do eet. The longer you talk the bigger the goddamn thumb gets.”

  Armando clamped his teeth together as I set the splint and took a dozen or more wraps around it with the long john fabric. Only occasionally did a moan escape him. When I was finished he further anesthetized himself with booze. “You done it good, Jake,” he said. “Still hurt some, though.”

  Arm climbed onto his horse. I walked out to the end of the rope and took a wrap
around my saddle horn. We rode toward the barn and house, the pig bouncing on and over the uneven, rocky land. The packhorse, scared but not scared enough to bolt, came along docilely, although his ears were back and his eyes wide.

  The house was a pretty old thing and looked to be in decent repair. What surprised me was the hugely fat lady on the porch, sweeping furiously, almost enveloping herself in a cloud of grit. From inside we could hear an off-key song bellowed out in Spanish. There was a small two-horse farm wagon tied to the hitching rail in the shade of the barn.

  I know a few words of Spanish: puta, pendejo, and the like, but that’s about it. Arm obviously had no such problem and lit into a conversation with the sweeper. They went back and forth quickly, Arm grinning in spite of his thumb, the lady answering two-or three-word questions with long and dramatic-sounding paragraphs.

  “Tiny,” Arm said to me, “sent these two fine ladies out to clean the house for us. This mamacita is Blanca and the one singing inside is Teresa. We’re supposed to pay them a buck or two.”

  Blanca hefted herself down the two stairs from the porch to the ground and followed the rope to where it was around the pig’s neck. She said something to Arm.

  “Blanca and her pard weel butcher an’ salt the pig for a dollar.”

  “I ain’t much of a butcher,” I said. “Tell them to do it. Let’s go inside an’ give the house a look-see.”

  Teresa was the exact opposite of Blanca; she was as thin as a stalk of green wheat. She was flailing a feather duster around. She smiled at us but kept her singing going.

  There wasn’t a whole lot of furniture in the living room: a horsehair-covered couch, a pair of big, soft chairs, a small table, and three lanterns hanging from the walls. The floor was hardwood and it gleamed—the ladies must have scrubbed hell out of it. There was a good-size fireplace; a Confederate officer’s hat and a saber were mounted above the mantelpiece.