"How? We have no money. We have no way to go. We have only our goats and a few chickens."
"You have horses?"
"No, se@nor. The horses belong to Se@nor Deckrow."
"Ride them, anyway, and you two come away to San Antonio." I paused. "If Deckrow hears you have talked to me, there may be trouble. Besides, I want a boy who can ride the mule ... I mean who can race him. Could you do that, Manuel?"
His eyes sparkled, but he said seriously, "Si, I could do it. He runs very fast, se@nor."
"He's bred for it," I said. "Can you go tonight?"
"What of the goats?"
"Goats," I said, "can get along. Leave them."
We didn't waste time. They'd little enough to take, and Manuel taken my horse and went out and caught up a couple of ponies in no time.
He was a hand with a rope, which I wasn't.
Lately I'd begun to think I wasn't a hand with anything, although all the way from Brownsville to the ranch I practiced with that Walch Navy, which I fancied beyond other guns.
The trail we chose was made by Kansas-bound cattle. Seemed to me I owed Miguel something, and I did not trust that Deckrow. So I'd be killing two birds with one stone by escorting Manuel and his mother to San Antone and getting Manuel to ride my mule for me.
"You think that mule can beat this horse?" I asked Manuel.
"Of a certainty," he replied coolly.
"He can run, this mule."
So we laid it out between us to race to a big old cottonwood we could see away up ahead, maybe three-quarters of a mile off. On signal, we taken off.
Now that Mexican horse was a good cutting horse and trained to start fast. Moreover, it was an outlaw's horse, and an outlaw can't afford not to have the best horse under him that he can lay hands on. That roan took off with a bound and within fifty yards he was leading by two lengths, and widening the distance fast. We were halfway to that cottonwood before that mule got the idea into his head that he was in a race.
By the time we'd covered two-thirds of the distance we were running neck-and-neck, and then that mule just took off and left us.
Oakville was the town where I decided to make my play, and by the size of my bankroll it was going to be a small one.
When you came to sizing it up, Oakville wasn't a lot of town, there being less than a hundred people in it, but it had the name of being a contentious sort of place. Forty men were killed there in the ten years following the War Between the States. It lay right on the trail up from the border and a lot of Kansas cattle went through there, time to time.
When we came riding into town I told Manuel and his ma to find a place to put up, and I gave them a dollar.
It was a quiet day in town. A couple of buckboards stood on the street, and four or five horses stood three-legged at the hitch-rails. When I pushed through the bat-wing doors and went up to the bar, there was only one man in the place aside from the bartender. He was a long, thin man with a reddish mustache and a droll, quizzical expression to his eyes.
"Buy you a drink?" I suggested.
He looked at me thoughtfully. "Don't mind if I do." And then he said, "Passin' through?"
"Mostly," I said, "but what I'd like to rustle up is a horse race. I've got a Mex woman and her boy to care for."
He glanced at me, and I said, "Her husband stood by me in a fight below the border."
"Killed?"
"Uh-huh. They've kinfolk in San Antone."
He tasted his whiskey and said nothing. When he finished his drink he bought me one. "Lend you twenty dollars," he suggested. "I'll meet up with you again sometime."
"What I want is a horse race." I lowered my voice. "I've got me a fast mule. If I can get a bet, I could double the ten dollars I've got. Might even get odds, betting on a mule."
He walked to the door and looked over the bat-wings at the mule, which was tethered alongside my roan. Then he came back and leaned on the bar and tossed off his whiskey.
"Man east of town has him a fast horse.
Come sundown he'll ride in. You mind if I bet a little?"
"Welcome it. You from here?"
"Beeville. Only I come over this way, time to time, on business. I'm buying cattle."
That man had him a horse, all right, and that horse had plenty of speed, but my mule just naturally left him behind, although Manuel was holding him up a mite, like I suggested.
That ten dollars made up to twenty, and the cattle buyer handed me twenty more. "Don't worry," he said, "I made a-plenty."
He looked at me thoughtfully. "You ever been over to Beeville? There's a lot of money floating around over there and they're fixing to have some horse races come Saturday. If you're of a mind to, we might just traipse over that way.
It's somewhat out of your way, but not to speak of."
"I'm a man needs money," I said. "I don't mind if I do."
"They're fixing to have a prize fight, too.
Mostly Irish folks over there--Beeville was settled by Irish immigrants back about 1830 or so." Then he went on, "Powerful pair of shoulders you got there. You ever do any fighting?"
"Don't figure on it," I said, "not unless I come up to a couple of men I'm looking for."
"Gambler over there," he said, "brought in a fighter. He nearly killed the local pride, so they're drumming up another fight to get some of their own back."
"I'm no fighter," I said, "not unless I'm pushed."
"Too bad. A horse race is all right, but if you could whip this Dun Caffrey, you could--"
"I'm pushed," I said. "I'm really feeling pushed. Did you say Dun Caffrey?"
"That was the name. He's good, make no mistake, and the Bishop is his backer."
Right then I recalled those scarred and broken knuckles I'd seen on Caffrey that time down on the border. But who would ever think Dun Caffrey would turn into a prize fighter? Still, he was strong, and he handled himself well. And maybe I'd been just lucky that day down in the field when I broke him up.
Those days a saloon was not only a place for drinking. It was a meeting place, a club, a place where business deals were made, a betting parlor, and an exchange for information. If you wanted to know about a trail, or whether the Indians were out, or who had cattle for sale, you went to a saloon.
"You make your bets on the fight," I said, "but you don't need to mention any name--j tell him I'm from Oakville, or just up from Mexico."
This cattle buyer's name was Doc Halloran, and he sized up to me like a canny one. "Dun Caffrey has won six fights in Texas, and more than that in Louisiana and Mississippi. He's a bruiser, but no fool. He's a gambler, and a companion of gamblers."
"That's as may be, but if you'll back me, I'll have at him."
"Are you in shape?"
"Six years at hard labor in a Mexican prison," I said. "Yes, I'm in shape."
We went into Beeville by the back streets and Doc Halloran took me to his own house.
When I got there I stretched out for a rest.
Juana and Manuel, they were there, too. Doc went out to rustle some bets on a horse race and to enter my mule. And he went to talk up this fight, too.
About sundown Manuel came back from rousting around. He was a mighty serious Mexican boy.
"There is great trouble, se@nor," he said. "I think we have been followed to this place, for Se@nor Deckrow is here. He rides in his carriage with the se@norita, but there are many men with him."
So I sat up on the edge of the bed and looked down at my thick, work-hardened hands, thinking. It was scarcely possible they had found us so quickly, nor would Deckrow be likely to bring the se@norita, Manuel had said. That would be Marsha, the little one.
Only she would be close to twenty now, and almost an old maid, for a time when girls married at sixteen or seventeen.