Bo put a hand on the hostler’s shoulder. “You do a good job, Jonas. I’ve noticed how you care for our horses, and I appreciate it.”
“So do I,” Scratch added. “Guess you better bring ’em out now, come to think of it. Bo and me got our marchin’ orders.”
It didn’t take long to get Bo’s rangy lineback dun and Scratch’s big bay saddled and ready to ride. “Where will you go?” asked Jonas.
“Socorro’s not far,” Bo said. “I guess we’ll ride in there and start looking for work again.”
He didn’t mention how they had had trouble finding work in Socorro before. That was how they’d wound up on the Circle JP. But maybe the situation had improved since then and something better would turn up.
“You got any money at all?”
Scratch shrugged. “Not to speak of. Big John hadn’t gotten around to payin’ us.”
Jonas hesitated. “Listen here. I don’t like to see any man tryin’ to make his way in the world when he’s flat-broke busted.” He delved in a pocket of his overalls and brought out a coin. “Here, take this. It’s only five dollars, but it’ll buy you some grub and a place to sleep, maybe.”
Bo shook his head. “We can’t take that, Jonas. Five dollars is a lot of money.”
“Yeah, but I got plenty. I don’t do nothin’ with my wages but save ’em, anyway. I’m too old for women, and I never developed a taste for whiskey.”
Scratch reached out and took the coin from the hostler’s fingers. “We’re much obliged, Jonas. This is mighty kind of you.”
“Consider it a loan,” Bo said. “When we get on our feet again, we’ll send it back to you.”
“You do that,” Jonas said with a nod. “I’ll be here, I reckon. Ain’t nowheres else for me to go.”
Bo and Scratch shook hands with the old-timer, then swung up into their saddles. As they rode out of the barn, they saw Archibald and some of the other Circle JP hands arrayed in front of the house, watching them with hostile glares. Other cowboys were in front of the bunkhouse, looking equally unfriendly.
“Looks like a gauntlet,” Bo said under his breath.
“Yeah,” Scratch agreed. “I hope we don’t have to shoot our way outta here.”
None of the men reached for a gun as the Texans rode between them. Bo and Scratch kept their pace deliberate. They might be leaving, but they weren’t going to run. That wasn’t in their nature. They didn’t nudge their horses into a trot until they cleared the ranch yard.
“You know,” Scratch mused as they rode off into the gathering dusk, “maybe we ought to mosey over to the Snake Track. We could tell Ridley that Big John knows good and well he’s claimin’ land that don’t belong to him.”
Bo shook his head. “I don’t like Ridley any more than I do Peeler. He can look out for his own interests. I don’t want to be in the middle of those two anymore.”
“Yeah, I understand that. Tell you the truth, Bo, I’d just as soon head for some other part of the country as soon as we can put a stake together. Got that damn ugly Jornada del Muerto off to the east and nothin’ but mountains and hardscrabble range to the west. We can find some place better to spend our time.”
Bo nodded and said, “Yeah. All it’ll take is money.”
“We got five dollars,” Scratch pointed out. “That’ll buy your way into a poker game.”
Bo rubbed his jaw. “Yeah. With that and a little luck…”
Biting back a groan of despair, Bo stumbled toward the outhouse behind the livery stable in Socorro early the next morning. His muscles were stiff because he and Scratch had slept in the stable’s hayloft. The owner had agreed to that in return for them mucking out the stalls. Even though they had left the Circle JP, they’d wound up having to shovel horse shit after all.
The five-dollar stake had lasted less than half an hour in the game at Socorro’s Desert Queen Saloon before Bo was cleaned out. When a man’s luck turned, it turned hard, he supposed. The bartender had taken pity on them and let them scrounge some hard-boiled eggs from the jar on the bar, and that was all they’d had to eat. Then they had made the deal with the liveryman so they wouldn’t have to sleep on the ground.
“I’ll buy both those horses from you,” the man had offered. “They look like fine animals.”
“Our horses ain’t for sale,” Scratch had responded indignantly.
“Well, I just thought that from the looks of you, you’ll be selling your saddles any day now, anyway, so you might as well sell the horses, too.”
Scratch would have gotten mad at that comment—no self-respecting Texan would ever sell his saddle—but Bo had intervened. His bout of melancholia and resentment had gone away—unfortunately not in time to save their jobs on the Circle JP—and he was once again the voice of reason in the duo.
Now, stiff muscles protesting, Bo headed for the outhouse on this frosty morning. Around here, the nights were chilly, even during the summer. He had left Scratch curled up in the hay, snoring, and headed out into the dawn to tend to his personal needs.
He tried not to think about what the rest of the day might bring. He and Scratch were just about at the ends of their ropes.
The privy wasn’t occupied. Bo tried to tell himself that that was a bit of good luck. Maybe their fortunes were turning. He pulled the door with its half-moon cutout closed behind him. The outhouse was just a one-holer. He lowered his trousers and long underwear, then sat down and sighed, trying not to shiver from the cold.
Before leaving the stable to come out here, he had grabbed a few sheets of newspaper from a stack of them, folded them, and tucked them under his arm to warm them a little. He took them out now and unfolded them, idly scanning the stories in the dim light that came in through the half-moon.
Suddenly, Bo felt his heart start to pound faster. He checked the date on the piece of newspaper he was holding. It had been published in Albuquerque three weeks earlier, so the news in it was fairly recent. His eyes fastened on one particular headline, and even though he wasn’t a superstitious man by nature, he had to wonder at that moment if there really was such a thing as an omen.
The headline read BIG GOLD STRIKE! TOWN BOOMS! BONANZA FOUND NEAR MANKILLER, COLORADO!
CHAPTER 4
Bo thrust the ragged piece of newspaper in front of Scratch’s face. He had torn out the story about the gold strike in Colorado and used the rest of the newspaper for the purpose for which God had intended it.
“Wake up, Scratch,” he said as he shook his old friend’s shoulder. “Take a look at this.”
Scratch cracked one eye open a little. “Bo? What the hell are you doin’ up in the middle of the night?”
“It’s not the middle of the night. It’s morning. And I have an idea what we need to do.”
Scratch closed his eye, groaned, and snuggled deeper in the hay. “I was havin’ me the nicest dream. I was surrounded by a bunch of pretty little señoritas…”
“The only things surrounding you in that hay are bugs and rats,” Bo said. “Come on, wake up.”
“You’re gonna keep on pesterin’ me until I do, ain’t you?”
“More than likely.”
Scratch heaved a sigh. He forced both eyes open, rolled onto his side, and pushed himself up into a sitting position. “All right, all right. What’n blazes are you goin’ on about? It ain’t like you to be that worked up about anything, Bo.”
Bo shoved the newspaper story in front of Scratch’s face again. “Read that.”
Scratch grimaced. “My eyes are a mite blurry this mornin’. Why don’t you just tell me what it says?”
“It says there’s a big gold strike up in Colorado, at a town called Mankiller.”
“Never heard of it,” Scratch muttered as he rubbed his hands wearily over his face.
“It’s not far from Durango, according to this story.”
“Well, I still never—Wait a minute.” Scratch looked up with a frown. “Did you say gold strike?”