“Yes, sir, I can ride a horse,” he said.
“You don’t mind if I give you a little test just to see how well you can ride, do you?” Big Ben asked.
“Pa, that’s not fair,” Rebecca said. “You know our horses aren’t like the ones he is used to riding. At least give him a few days to get used to them.”
“I don’t have a few days, Rebecca. I have two hundred square miles of ranch to run, and a herd of cattle to manage. I need someone who can go to work immediately. Now, maybe you’re right, everyone has to get experience somewhere, so I’m willing to give him time to learn his way around the ranch. But if he can’t even ride a horse, I mean a Western horse, then it’s going to take more time than I can spare.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Whitman,” Rebecca said. “If you don’t want to take Pa’s test, you don’t have to. We’ll all understand.”
“I’d like to take the test,” Tom said.
“Good for you,” Big Ben said. “Come on outside, let me see what you can do.”
A tall, gangly young man with ash-blond hair and a spray of freckles came up to them. “Hello, Sis. I heard you were back.”
“Did you stay stay out of trouble while I was gone?” Rebecca asked. Then she introduced the boy. “Mr. Whitman, this is my brother, Dalton.”
“Are you going to work for Pa?” Dalton asked.
“I hope to.”
“Then I won’t be calling you Mr. Whitman. What’s your first name?”
“Dalton!” Rebecca said.
“I don’t mean nothin’ by it,” Dalton said. “I’m just friends with all the cowboys, that’s all.”
“My name is Tom. And I would be happy to be your friend.”
“Yes, well, don’t the two of you get to be best friends too fast,” Big Ben said. “First I have to know if Tom can ride well enough to be a cowboy. Clay!” Big Ben called.
A man stepped out of the machine shed. “Yes, sir, Mr. Conyers?”
“Get over here, Clay, I’ve someone I want you to meet.” To Tom, Big Ben added, “Clay is the ranch foreman. I’ll leave the final word as to whether or not I hire you up to him.”
“Good enough,” Tom said.
Clay Ramsey was thirty-three-years-old with brown hair, a well-trimmed mustache, and blue eyes. About five feet ten, he was wiry and, according to one of the cowboys who worked for him, as tough as a piece of rawhide.
“Saddle Thunder for him,” Big Ben said, after he explained what he wanted to do.
“Pa, no!” Rebecca protested vehemently.
“Honey, I’m not just being a horse’s rear end. If he can ride Thunder, he can ride any horse on the ranch, and there wouldn’t be any question about my hiring him.”
“I can ride a horse, Mr. Conyers,” Tom said. “But I confess I have never tried to ride a bucking horse. If that is what is required, then I thank you for your time, and I’ll be moving on.”
“He’s not a bucking horse,” Clay said. “But he is a very strong horse who loves to run and jump. If you ride him, you can’t be timid about it. You have to let him know, right away, that you are in control.”
“Thank you, Mr. Ramsey. In that case, I will ride him.”
“Ha!” Dusty McNally, one of the other cowboys, said. “I like it that you said you will ride him, rather than you will try to ride him. That’s the right attitude to have.”
Thunder was a big, muscular, black horse who stood eighteen hands at the withers. Although he allowed himself to be saddled, he kept moving his head and lifting first one hoof, then another. He looked like a ball of potential energy.
“Here you are, Mr. Whitman.” Clay handed the reins to Tom.
“Thank you.” Tom pointed toward an open area on the other side of a fence. “Would it be all right to ride in that field there?”
“Sure, there’s nothing there but rangeland.” Clay pointed. “The gate is down there.”
“Thank you, I won’t need a gate.” Tom slapped his legs against the side of the horse and it started forward at a gallop. As he approached the fence, he lifted himself slightly from the saddle and leaned forward.
“Come on, Thunder,” he said encouragingly. “Let’s go see if we can find us a fox.”
Thunder galloped toward the fence, then sailed over it as gracefully as a leaping deer. Coming down on the other side Tom saw a ditch about twenty yards beyond the fence, and Thunder took that as well. Horse and rider went through their paces, jumping, making sudden turns, running at a full gallop, then stopping on a dime. After a few minutes he brought Thunder back, returning the same way he left, over the ditch, then over the fence. He slowed him down to a trot once he was back inside the compound, and the horse was at a walk by the time he rode up to dismount in front of a shocked Big Ben, Clay, and Dusty. Rebecca was smiling broadly.
Tom patted Thunder on his neck, then dismounted and handed the reins back to Clay. “He is a very fine horse,” Tom said. “Whoever rides him is quite lucky.”
“He’s yours to ride any time you want him,” Big Ben said. “That is, provided you are willing to come work for me.”
“I would be very proud to work for you, Mr. Conyers.”
“Come with me. Tom, is it?” Clay invited. “I’ll get you set up in the bunkhouse and introduce you to the others.”
“Tom?” Rebecca called out to him.
He looked back toward her.
“I’m glad you are here.”
“Thank you, Miss Conyers. I’m glad to be here.”
Tom ate his first supper in the cookhouse that evening. Mo introduced him to all the others.
“Where is Mr. Ramsey?” Tom asked. “Does he eat somewhere else?”
“Mr. Ramsey?” Mo asked. Then he smiled. “Oh, you mean Clay. Clay is the foreman of the ranch, but there don’t any of us call him Mr. Ramsey. We just call him Clay ’cause that’s what he wants us to call him.”
“Clay is married,” one of the other cowboys said. “He lives in that first cabin you see over there, the only one with a front porch.”
“He married a Mexican girl,” another said.
“Don’t talk about her like that,” Mo said. “Maria is as American as you are. Emanuel Bustamante fought with Sam Houston at San Jacinto.”
“I didn’t mean nothin’ by it,” the cowboy said. “I think Señor Bustamante is as fine a man as I’ve ever met, and Mrs. Ramsey is a very good woman. I was just sayin’ that she is Mexican is all.”
“I assume that none of you are married,” Tom said. “Other wise you wouldn’t be eating here in the dining hall.”
“Ha! The dining hall. That’s sure a fancy name for the cookhouse.”
“I don’t mean any disrespect for Clay,” Mo said. “But it don’t make a whole lot of sense for a cowboy to be married. First of all, there don’t none of us make enough money to support a family. And second, when we make the long cattle drives, we’re gone for near three months at a time.”
“And Dodge City is too fun a town to be in if you are married, if you get my meanin’,” one of the other cowboys said, and the others shared a ribald laugh.
A couple cowboys decided to razz the tenderfoot that first night. Tom had been given a chest for his belongings, and while Tom and the rest of the cowboys were having supper, Dalton and one of the cowboys slipped into the bunkhouse and nailed the lid shut.
When Tom and the others returned, Tom tried to open the lid to his footlocker, but he was unable to get it open.
“What’s the matter there, Tom? Can’t get your chest open?” Dalton asked.
He had told the others what he did, and all gathered around to see how Tom was going to react. Would he get angry, and start cursing everyone? Or would he be meek about it?
Tom looked more closely at the lid, and saw that it had been nailed shut by six nails, two in front and two on either side. “That’s odd. It seems to have been nailed shut.”
The others laughed out loud.