Smoke laughed. “I see. So, what you are saying is, you would rather it be me who breaks his neck?”
“No,” Sally said. “You know I didn’t mean that. It’s just that—well, Pearlie normally did this.”
“Pearlie isn’t here now,” Smoke said. “Cal is going to have to start taking over some of Pearlie’s responsibilities.”
“I know,” Sally said. “But Pearlie is older and a little more experienced. It just frightens me to think of Cal trying to ride that horse.”
“Sally, I don’t think Cal would stop now even if I ordered him to,” Smoke said. “And I wouldn’t embarrass him by giving that order. Surely you know now that it is a matter of pride with him. You know how Cal is.”
“I know,” Sally agreed. “I just hope and pray that he doesn’t get hurt.”
Cal approached the horse, then stepped up to the horse’s head. He grabbed the horse by the ear and pulled its head down, even with his own.
“I’m going to ride you, horse,” he said. “You ain’t goin’ to like it all that much, but to tell you the truth, you ain’t got no say-so in it ’cause I’m goin’ to do it whether you like it or not. And if you think you can buck me off ’cause I ain’t Pearlie, it ain’t goin’ to gain you nothin’, ’cause I’ll just climb back on and ride you again. You got that?”
“Cal, wait,” one of the other hands called. He walked out into the corral carrying a blanket. “Let me put this over his head till you get on. Maybe it’ll calm him down a bit—at least until you are mounted.”
“All right, Jake,” Cal replied.
Jake put the blanket over the horse’s head, then looked at Cal. Cal climbed into the saddle and grabbed the hack rein.
The horse made no effort to prevent him from mounting, and Cal smiled.
“All right,” he said. “Maybe my little talk with him did some good. Untie him and let us go.”
Jake removed the blanket from the horse’s head and freed him from the hitching post at the same time. Then he moved quickly to get out of the way.
For another long moment, the horse stood absolutely still, and Cal looked over toward Smoke and Sally.
“Ha!” he shouted. “Look here! I reckon this horse knows who is boss! I had a little talk with him and—ohhhh!”
The horse exploded into energy, lifting all four hooves from the ground at the same time. When he came back down, his legs were held straight, providing no spring, so that the shock was transferred up to Cal. Then the horse started running and bucking at the same time. Cal held onto the hack rein with one hand and the night latch, which was a rope tied through the gullet of the saddle, with the other.
“Hang on, Cal!” Jake shouted.
“Ride ’im into the ground, don’t let up!” one of the other cowboys yelled.
The horse began spinning around. Then he reared up on his back legs, came back down, and kicked his back legs high into the air so that Cal was looking straight down at the ground. The horse ran toward the fence, again brushing everyone off, stopped suddenly, then kicked his back legs high into the air again. This time Cal came out of the saddle and slipped forward, managing to stop his fall only by wrapping his legs around the horse’s neck.
Finally, the horse gave up bucking and began galloping around the corral, running at full speed.
Cal took his hat off and began waving it. “Yahoo!” he shouted at the top of his lungs.
Cal stayed with him for the entire time until the horse stopped running, started trotting, then slowed to a walk. Finally, the horse came to a complete stop and just stood there, in the middle of the corral.
Cal swung down from the horse, took off the breaking saddle and harness, then resaddled and bridled him. The animal remained as docile as a plow horse. Remounting, Cal rode around the corral, acknowledging the applause of all the ranch hands. He stopped in front of Smoke and Sally, then doffed his hat and bowed.
“Bravo, Cal, bravo,” Sally said. “That was wonderful.”
“I wish Pearlie had been here to see it,” Cal said.
Los Brazos, New Mexico Territory
It had been over a month since Pearlie left Sugarloaf. In that time, he had maintained a southern drift with no particular destination in mind—only a need to continue to put distance and time between himself and the events that had led to Lucy being killed.
During his six-week-long sojourn, he had stayed no longer in any one town than he needed to—sometimes taking a part-time job for a couple of days or so just to earn enough money to keep going. Over the last month he had worked in a livery, had loaded and unloaded freight wagons, and had even stood in for a week as a bartender. At one ranch, he had spent a day breaking horses, getting five dollars for each horse he broke. Then, in the little town of Jasper, Colorado, he built on an extra room for a widow who earned her keep by making pies. The widow, whose name was Diane, suggested, both by word and action, that if Pearlie wanted to stay on, she would more than welcome his company. But Pearlie declined the offer as tactfully as he could.
“That’s all right, cowboy,” Diane, who was no more than a year or two older than Pearlie, replied. “If you ever get tired of seeing what’s just over the next hill, you can always come back.”
As Pearlie rode off, he wondered if he made a mistake in not taking up the widow’s offer. It wasn’t as if he would have been cheating on Lucy, and the diversion might have helped in the healing process. But even as he considered that, he knew that it would not have been the right thing to do—not for him, and not for Diane.
After another week of riding, he happened across the little town of Los Brazos, which lay flyblown and dying as it baked in the hot New Mexico sun. The first building he passed was a railroad depot, though there was no railroad serving the town. The age and condition of the depot indicated that it was the past expression of a misplaced optimism—rather than the sign of something to come.
Feeling the need of a beer to cut the trail dust, Pearlie dismounted in front of the Casa de la Suerte Cantina, which was the only saloon in the small town. Instead of the batwing doors with which Pearlie was more familiar, long strips of rawhide, upon which several wooden beads had been strung, hung down to cover the entrance. The beads clacked as he pushed his way through to the inside.
The inside was more pleasant than the outside had promised, with a chandelier and a long, polished bar. The bartender was Mexican, and he stood at the far end of the bar, leaning back against the wall with his arms folded across his chest and a small piece of rawhide dangling from his lips. Seeing Pearlie come in, he reached up, took the rawhide from his mouth, then walked down to stand in front of Pearlie.
“Tequila, Señor?” he asked.
“Beer.”
“Beer, sí.” The bartender drew a mug, then set it in front of Pearlie. Pearlie blew the foam off, then took a deep drink for thirst. The next swallow was to enjoy the taste.
“Hey!” a loud angry voice yelled. “How come you serve that stranger and you don’t serve me?”
“Because, Señor Dempster, already, you are drunk I think,” the bartender replied. “And the more borracho—the drunker you get, the meaner you get. Besides, you lied to me when you said you didn’t have to work today. Señor Ben had to make the run to Chama without you.”
“Since when is it any of your business whether or not I go to work?” the belligerent customer replied.
“It is none of my business if you do not go to work. But it is my business if I make Señor Montgomery enfadado. This is his place, and he could fire me.”
“Ha! He ain’t goin’ to fire you for sellin’ me another drink. Hell, that’s what saloons do, ain’t it? Sell drinks to their customers?”
“Dempster, why don’t you settle down?” one of the other saloon patrons said. “You been a burr under ever’body’s saddle ever since you come in here.”