The Busted Thumb Horse Ranch Read online

We wandered into the kitchen. There was an inside pump, a sink, and a bunch of cupboards. I pulled one open. It was filled with precisely aligned bottles of tequila. There must have been a dozen of them. The rest of the cupboards were empty except for mouse shit and spiderwebs.

  Arm grabbed a bottle, pulled the cork with his teeth, and drank. “Mediceen,” he said after a moment. “Good for thumbs.”

  There were two bedrooms upstairs and a small room that could have been an office or even a kid’s room, although nobody had mentioned if Ven Gelpwell had been married or had a child with him. The ladies must have gotten out here in the dark: the upstairs was clean and smelled of furniture polish. There were mattresses on the beds, both of which were piss stained. We’d slept in worse places.

  We meandered out to the barn. I’ve always respected a tight, well-built barn, and this one was as good as they came. The big front doors swung easily, although they needed a bit of oil on their hinges. The stalls—eight of them—were 12’ × 12’, which is a good size. There was a birthing stall, too. The ladder to the hay storage above was stout and sturdy and the floor up there was plenty strong enough to support all the hay we could cram into it.

  When we came back down a five-foot rattler was sliding out of one of the stalls. Arm drew and killed the snake. “We can’t have no rattlers ’round,” he said, “but I weel bet we got no mice or rats. We leave blacksnakes alone, no?”

  I could see that Armando’s thumb still hurt pretty bad, in spite of the tequila. His face was pale, too. “If you tell the ladies to get to the pig, we can cook up a batch of pork chops, Arm. ’Til they’re ready, you can get some rest.”

  “I don’ need no res’,” he said, but it was a matter of form for him. Revealing any weakness of any kind would make him, in his mind, less of a man. He went to the porch and spoke with Blanca, and then waved me over.

  “The ladies weel do the pig now an’ then continue with the cleaning of the house. I weel try a bed to see does it make for sleep.”

  I dragged the pig over to a tall tree between the house and barn that I’d noticed had butchering arms screwed into a large branch. I removed the throwing rope from the pig as the women approached with a pair of medium-weight chains from the barn. They cut into the pig’s hocks, inserted a pair of hooks, and hefted the animal up as if it were a kitten. There was a cauldron off to the side with a pit under it for a fire. There was a good stock of wood already in it. Blanco struck a match to some kindling and got the fire going at several points. When Teresa stuck a fourteen-inch blade into the pig’s anus and cut upward, I turned away and went back into the barn. I’d seen butchering before, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed watchin’ it. I heard the guts dump out of the animal and strike the ground, and it made me shudder.

  I stood in the barn, listening to the minor creaks and groans that are always present in such a massive wooden structure. I looked around again, and shook my head in disbelief.

  We’ve got everything we need now—land, house, barn, and money. There’s stock around. Tiny will know who owns what we might need and we’d crossed mustang herd tracks several times as we rode from Hulberton. It wasn’t going to be easy to find the right horses, because temperament was just as important as physical traits. A horse that’s lazy, or fights his owner, or fights too often with the other horses would be no good to us. Both my horse and Arm’s were geldings— and they didn’t quite make the grade of what we wanted as breeding stock, even if they’d been stallions.

  Mustangs tend to be a bit nutsy because they’ve been free for so many generations, and they were all rope-shy and distrustful. Sometimes a mustang can be brought down and made into a useful horse, but there was always the chance he’d revert to type and pull some kind of a stunt like rolling on his rider. Still, generalizations never apply to all of anything, be it horses, dogs, or people. All I knew was that it was going to take some looking to find what we were after, but both Armando and I were dead-on convinced that the horses we needed existed.

  That evening Arm wasn’t at all interested in a plate of pork chops—one of his favorite feeds. His thumb looked bad—hugely swollen and skintight with that shiny red of illness. His only interest was another jug of tequila and his bed. Blanca and Teresa checked him out and both shook their heads in dismay. Teresa rattled off some Spanish to Arm. He answered in English: “I don’t have no goddamn infection.”

  The ladies were back before full light the next morning. Arm was both listless and surly, if those two attributes can both function at the same time, which they apparently can. I sat with him as the sun rose.

  “Look,” I said, “you do what Blanca and Teresa tell you without handing them a ton of shit. I’m going out with the glasses to take a peek at whatever mustangs I cross. If your thumb isn’t better by the time I get back, we’ll have to find a doctor somehow.”

  “Doctors, they are boolshit,” he said. “Busted thumbs don’ need no doctors.” His eyes were closing. I let him drift back to sleep and then left.

  We’d won a pair of U.S. military binoculars in a poker game in Yuma a couple of years back. We were careful of them and rarely used them. I took them tucked in their case along with me.

  The temperature wasn’t real bad and my horse was frisky. I let him sunfish a bit when I settled in the saddle and ran him for a mile or so until he clamed down. It gave me a strange feeling to realize that I was riding on land my partner and me owned.

  I crossed a herd’s tracks within a couple of hours and followed them easily. It was beyond midday when I topped a little ridge and saw the herd— maybe forty head—clustered around a small water hole. Most were mares. The honcho stallion was a roan, and he stood off from the rest, muzzle high, testing the breeze. The breeze was coming from them to me, which stopped the stud from catching my scent. I looked him over through the glasses. He wasn’t much of a horse. His front end had no chest to speak of; it looked like his forelegs came out of the same hole. His legs were almost ruler straight with no angle to the pasterns. His spine sagged, and his ass, although large and powerful-looking, wouldn’t do anything for him because I doubted that he had any wind, given the scrawniness of his chest. I figured it wouldn’t be too long before some young stud kicked holes in him and took over the herd.

  There were a couple decent-looking mares at the water, but nothing the Busted Thumb would have any interest in.

  I rode back to the ranch, a bit disappointed. I’m not real sure of what I was expecting from the mustangs, but whatever it was, I didn’t get it.

  I put my horse in his stall with fresh water and walked into the house and up to Armando’s room. The ladies had taken the wrapping off his thumb and had his arm extended out to the side. The thumb was huge, grotesque-looking, and little trails of red were running from it down his forearm. “Infection?” I asked.

  “Sí,” Teresa answered. “Mal infección.”

  The room reeked of tequila and Arm was passed out. Blanca was sharpening a short knife on a stone, dipping it into a glass of tequila every so often. Teresa told me—through hand motions and by grasping my arm—what she and Blanca wanted me to do: hold Armando’s arm extended out while Blanca drained the infection and poured in a brownish liquid from a large vial she had wrapped in a thick wool cloth.

  I did as I was told. I held my partner’s arm out— keeping my hands as far away from his thumb as I could.

  Blanca stood over Arm. His thumb was up and pointing at her, and the little red trails seemed to have gotten larger. I noticed, too, that there was a musty scent of sweetish rot around Arm’s hand.

  Blanca was handy with her knife. She cut a slash the length of Arm’s thumb. I gagged as greenish pus spurted several inches into the air, following her blade. She let the wound bleed for several minutes and then carefully uncorked her vial. Her eyes met mine and the message was clear: hold on. She poured the brownish liquid into the cut. Armando was instantly awake and screaming in pain. Teresa, sitting on his right arm, was bounced about like a bronc man on a rank
horse.

  Blanca waited for a few moments and poured a second time. Armando began another scream— and then passed out. I thought he was dead.

  Teresa climbed off his arm and helped Blanca resplint and rewrap the thumb. Then both women stood back from the bed. “Muy bueno,” Blanca said. Teresa smiled.

  It took me a moment to see that Arm’s chest was moving normally as he breathed, and that he seemed in no discomfort. I damned near ran down the stairs to the kitchen and the cupboard with the tequila in it. Then, I got drunk. But before I did I handed each woman a fifty-dollar bill when they came downstairs. Their eyes widened: fifty bucks was a ton of money to them. The surprise on their faces faded, to be replaced with wide, happy smiles.

  They left in their farm wagon shortly afterward.

  Not having Arm to talk to and drink with felt strange. I sat out on the porch until dark and then went inside, lit a lantern, and sat in one of the big chairs and stared at the wall.

  Rain is as rare as an honest riverboat gambler in West Texas. Sometime during the night after Blanca and Teresa treated Arm, however, a light rain began—and kept on falling for the next three days.

  In a sense, it was a gift to Armando: during that time he alternated between sleeping, watching rain snakes course down the windowpanes, and drinking tequila. He seemed content enough during his rain-enforced recuperation.

  I, on the other hand, was going crazy. I had nothing to do, no one to talk to, and was sick of eating pork chops. Midday of the second day I saddled my horse, pulled on my slicker, and rode to Hulberton, tense all the way because I could feel my horse’s hooves sliding when they should have purchasing traction. I made it there, though.

  I found Tiny sitting on a bale of straw. There was no fire in his forge. Only two of his stalls had horses in them, and his for-sale horses were clustered under an A-frame shelter he’d built in his corral.

  His face lit up when I rode in—as mine did when I saw him. “Pull up a bale,” he said, “an’ we can both be bored to death together,” he said. “How’s Arm’s paw?”

  “Real good. Blanca and Teresa fixed him up jus’ fine. Those are great ladies, Tiny.”

  “Sure ’nuff. But I gotta show you somethin’ they done for you boys. Damn, Jake, them fifties were more’n their families had saw in their best year.”

  We went to the rear of his barn. Leaning against his baled hay was a fourteen-foot, twelve-inch board of wood painted a pure white. On it were the precisely painted words, the busted thumb horse ranch.

  “We had to go to the sherrif,” Tiny said, “to do the spelling right. I ain’t much at it. Pretty sign, ain’t it? All you boys gotta do is get uprights an’ nail her up.”

  I ran my hand along the sign. “Damn,” I said, “they sanded this plank. It’s as smooth as a baby’s ass.”

  “Yep. They spent some time an’ some muscle on it, Jake.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “I don’t know no Spanish, but I’ll make sure Arm thanks the ladies proper. That sign’s beautiful.”

  We went back up to the front of the barn. “You ain’t got much hay,” Tiny said. “And what I seen there was cactus spines an’ prairie dog shit. I just got a load of green trefoil mix in. I can let it go for twelve cents a tight bale.”

  “I’ll tell you what, Tiny—you haul the shit outta our barn an’ sell us a thousand bales at your price. Can you do it?”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay. Now, we got some crimped oats but it’s all piss-poor. You want to empty our bins an’ refill ’em with your feed?”

  “Well, sure.”

  “How about a heavy mix of molasses in the grain? Can you do that?”

  Tiny chuckled. “Can I make my ol’ lady scratch my back an’ call, ‘Oh God, oh God?’ I can mix grain an’ molasses, Jake—don’t you worry none about that.”

  “Good.”

  Tiny looked embarrassed. “ ’Course, we’re talking about some money here. The hay—an’ that fancied-up grain, an’ the delivery—will run maybe…”

  I held up my hand. “I don’t give a damn. Tell me what you need an’ I’ll give it to you right now.”

  “On delivery is good,” Tiny said. “Includin’, ’course, a taste of ol’ man Ven Gelpwell’s tequila.”

  We sat on our bales for another minute or so.

  One of the horses in a stall whinnied for whatever reason.

  “That fella’s catchin’ the scent of mare out there who’s lookin’ for a stud,” Tiny said. “I ain’t gonna breed him. He’s a nice enough horse, but he’s as clumsy as a drunk an’ got no speed, either. Good temperament, but hell—that ain’t gonna take him too far.”

  “No. I s’pose not. Me an’ Arm are lookin’ for fine brood mares an’ a stud horse that’s… well…he’s gotta be the best.”

  Tiny nodded. “Look,” he said. “I don’t know if this is any good, but I had an Apache in here yestiddy for me to fix up a bad hoof crack on his pony. He said he seen a big mustang herd— maybe a hundred head or so—with a stud runnin’ the show. He said the stallion was the fantasmo horse.”

  “Fantasmo?”

  “Yeah—as good as they get: faster, stronger, all that. Can’t be killed or captured.”

  “Where was this herd?”

  “Up near the foothills—maybe thirty miles, kinda south-southeast.”

  “You know this Apache fella?”

  “No—I never seen him before.”

  “You get his name?”

  “He Who Walks Far. Thing is, he’s a hostile.

  Busted the reservation, shot up some soldiers, took a few scalps, wrecked a couple white girls.”

  “Well,” I said, “me an Arm want to see this stud horse—if he’s real. We don’t give a damn ’bout the hostile. This Apache who done the little girls don’t deserve life, and we’d just as soon put a bullet in him, an’ maybe we will some day. But, what we’re lookin’ for is horses.”

  “Well, according to this Apache, he’s supposed to be a big, tall bay. He said this fantasmo’s eyes glow like fire in the night an’ his hooves strike sparks when he runs.” Tiny sighed. “I wouldn’t get too excited, though—the Indian mighta been eatin’ them mushroom buds that make them see things, or maybe he jus’ dreamed all that stuff. Every so often there’s a rumor ’bout a fantasmo horse, but it never amounts to nothin’. Still, I hear talk every now an’ again.”

  “What about the herd, though? You think that’s real?”

  “Yeah. Fact is, I know it is, ’cause I seen them maybe a year ago. Me an’ my brother-in-law was out hunting and we seen tracks, first. Then, later, we seen the herd. They were far off an’ there was lots of dust ’round them an’ we couldn’t see no tall bay, but I’ll tell you this, Jake: we seen a hundred or more mustangs. They was out south an’ east, maybe twenty or twenty-five miles from town. That don’t mean nothin’, though. You know how them mustangs range.”

  We sat there for a while, watching the rain. “What about our packer, Tiny?” I asked. “If me an’ Arm set out, can that boy take it?”

  Tiny plucked a length of straw out of the bale he was sitting on and stuck it in the corner of his mouth. He chewed a bit before he spoke. “That ol’ packer looks like he was put together outta clay twigs. But—an’ here’s the thing—have you ever took a good look at the way he’s put together?”

  “Well, we were in a hurry an’ Arm—”

  “Hush now an’ listen, okay?”

  I nodded.

  “As a ridin’ horse, you might better buy a goat or some such. But as a pack animal, that boy is damned near perfect. He’s put together jus’ right to carry weight. He ain’t got a clumsy bone in his body—the sumbitch could probably walk a tightrope in a hurricane an’ not miss a step. He’s good—an’ you ain’t gonna do no better. Hear?”

  “Yeah—I hear. Like I said, I didn’t pick him out—Arm did. So I can’t take no credit. But when Arm’s busted thumb is healed enough to travel, we’re gonna go an’ see if we can’t find that her
d—an’ maybe that fantasmo.”

  “Don’t count on no fantasmo. But you’ll find the herd, do you look hard enough. There could might be a mare or two that you want.”

  I’d put $500 together to give to Tiny. “Me an’ Arm, we gotta ask a favor of you. Here’s five hundred dollars. If you come across or see a stud you think is worth the money, you hand it on over. If the horse ain’t what me an’ Arm need, you keep the horse an’ you don’t owe us nothin’—an if there’s money left over, it’s yours. ’Course if you wanted to set the three of us up for a night of cold beer, why hell, that’d work.”

  Tiny laughed. “I can do that. I can’t promise I’ll find the horse you boys are looking for, but I’ll do my best.”

  “Good. That’s all we want.”

  Tiny stood from his bale. “I think we oughta try that beer right now—make sure it’s jus’ right.”

  It sounded good, but I turned down Tiny’s offer. “I gotta get back, see if Arm is lookin’ good. I don’t like ridin’ in rain, but a man can’t always get what he wants.”

  On the ride back I saw that the rain was tapering off. The day was bleak and the sky was a thick blanket of gray, but the air smelled fresher and less like the reek of constant rain.

  Armando was downstairs, stretched out on the couch. “You know,” he said in lieu of a greeting, “we got no food ’cept pork. I’m damned near starved to death.”

  “Yeah. I know. I should have loaded up while I was in town, but didn’t think of it. The rain’s about stopped, though.”

  Armando grumbled something I didn’t quite catch.

  “I spent some time with Tiny,” I said. “You ever hear of a fantasmo horse?”

  “Boolshit. Is kid’s talk. But sure, I’ve heard.”

  “Probably. But Tiny told me there’s a herd of about a hundred’s tangs out there, an’ that he’ll keep his eyes an’ ears open for the both brood mares an’ studs for us.”

  “Ees. Good. Ya know, it might take us a long time to get the Busted Thumb up an’ running, no?”

  “Maybe.”

  Arm straightened on the couch and got to his feet. He attempted a step and then fell back on his ass on the couch. “Dizzy,” he said. “I need maybe una mas day an’ then we go out after that herd, no?”