He nodded at Burn as if expecting to find him there. Of course, she thought, he saw the tracks of Burn’s horse.
“You been riding that colt rough, English. Be too damned…darned bad to ruin another good ’un.”
Burn’s reply was filled with anger. “So you got a bronc’ to lend me, huh? A nice big steady bay gelding…or maybe a fine-legged grullo that’ll do the work of that gray.” Davey’s head jerked as Burn kept talking. “Two bronc’s killed under me. Remember?”
“Ah, hell…heck. You can’t lay the death of that roan on me.”
Burn flinched as if the words had drawn more than blood. “Hildahl, I ain’t blaming you for neither bronc’. You’re the one placing blame. I’m doing what has to be done. That colt’s a tough one and he’s all I got.”
Davey Hildahl sneezed, a loud and blustering intrusion that startled Katherine. Burn’s body twitched, then resettled, but Davey grinned like a little boy. “English, it ain’t bad seeing you setting quiet. I’ve been hearing summer tales about you. About some ranny put his mares on other folk’s pasture. That’s close to stealing.”
Burn turned his head, focused his gaze steady on Davey’s form. “How can a bite be stealing grass left to grow?”
It sounded like a Chinese riddle to Katherine, but Davey’s round face puffed out in a laugh.
Katherine began to ask questions. “Mister Hildahl, how far behind you are the rest of the men? Have they found the outlaws they sought? Are any wounded…what do I need to know?” By calling him “mister” she had withdrawn their tentative friendship, and it was obvious from the tightening in his face that he understood.
Burn stood, and by that act drew both onlookers into his world of suffering and deprivation. It took time and a tightening of his body to rise from the chair. His torso swayed as if a wind blew through the kitchen walls.
“Davey, I’ve got to ride,” the mesteñero announced. “Ma’am, thanks for the cleaning up.”
Both waited for his next move, fearing a harsh breath or a quick turn and he would collapse.
“I never rode with Holden. You know that. Ah, hell…Davey.” Burn turned slightly. “Ma’am, you tell your pa my debt to you is the reason that I don’t go after him.”
Burn held up his arm, nodded again to Katherine, and made his way to the door. He hesitated, then looked back at the two silent people who watched him.
“If I ain’t careful,” he said, “I’ll get used to having friends.”
Davey’s head jerked back as if yanked. Katherine felt her pulse quicken within her breast and throat.
Burn opened the door, paused again. “You take care, Hildahl. We’ll cross trails again. Ma’am, it’s been mostly a pleasure. Thanks.” Then he was gone.
The silence held as they watched Burn disappear. Then Davey coughed and Katherine wiped her forehead.
“Mister Hildahl, you must be hungry. May I fix you some dinner?”
“Ma’am, I came off Slaughter Mesa when I found Holden’s tracks heading this way. I followed them till they mixed with other prints, tracks I know well.” He stared at her knowingly, and she dropped her eyes.
“It is a fine animal, and, yes, I met up with Mister Holden, who suggested I return to the L Slash where I would be protected. There were outlaws and killers on the loose, he said, and I would be much safer here.”
“Ma’am, that’s what worried Burn and me…the change in Holden. Still we know he ain’t a killer.”
Katherine would not look at him. “Mister Hildahl, how about some reheated stew and fresh biscuits?”
While they ate a good meal in the Meiklejon kitchen, Jack Holden stole the flashiest bronco out of Son Liddell’s pasture—a sixteen hand black gelding with high stockings and a star, a small eye hidden under a thick forelock. He left the worn-out paint in trade.
Chapter Twenty-three
They were one day off the mesa, and, when Gayle Souter got up from breakfast and walked out to the corrals, the men followed. He parceled out the chores quickly. Despite the useless siege, the fall work had still to be done. In ten minutes each man knew what the day held. The young stuff needed to be choused out of the upper range. Souter ticked off the landmarks, reminding Bit Haven it was a tall, burned cottonwood, not the puny aspen hit last summer, he was to sight on and turn before. And if any man didn’t know the difference between a cottonwood and aspen, he ought to quit his riding job and work for a shopkeeper.
Souter sent Davey Hildahl riding north to the fenced sections where the red he-devil patrolled his wire kingdom. Davey’s orders were to ease into the herd, cut out those meant for market, and leave the breeding stuff alone. Souter might send help later, but, for now, Davey and his snip-nosed bay would do.
Souter and Red Pierson would trail Jack Holden. Souter hated setting out to ride a man down, but the hole-up on Slaughter Mesa hadn’t caught the outlaw, and Holden knew the unwritten laws. He’d stolen from neighbors; now he would be hunted and killed, like any animal that turned on its own.
Davey had said that Holden rode a paint that toed out in front, so in the beginning the tracks were easily spotted. Soon enough Holden would need a new horse, for the paint’s stride was labored and uneven. The trick was to get close enough to the man, so any change in mounts wouldn’t lose them the trail.
Souter reined in his red dun, let the boy catch up.
“Red, we’re cutting this trail, knowing Holden’s going for Liddell’s bronc’s. You see anything to make you think different?”
Red shook his head, and the pair lined out their traveling horses toward Liddell’s pasture. Red found fresh prints through the broken fence. The bronco tracked up short on the near hind, a flaw Holden wouldn’t have seen when he roped out the gelding.
Eager Briggs liked the ancient palomino he’d picked up in Magdalena. The Mex who sold him the bronco wasn’t clear on ownership, but Eager himself didn’t bother with such niceties. Not many ranchers would care about one useless gelding tired enough so that a broken-legged old man could ride it. He called the horse Gold—he’ddone some prospecting in his time and the deep yellow horse was the closest he’d come to a rich vein of color.
Now that his leg was healed, Eager’d taken to riding north and east every two, three weeks, staying out maybe two days. He told himself there was no reason to his wanderings. Most times he’d not go back home but, instead, would make camp and wrap up in Gold’s saddle blanket and watch the fire he’d set, thinking about all the things that would fit in his curious mind. On these trips he made sure to take extra bacon, beans, coffee, and the makings for a smoke or two. Not his particular habit, but there were some who got struck by the need for that putrid stuff in their lungs. Now Eager, he liked a good cigar, one of those soaked ones that come out of Mexico. Hell, then a man knew he was smoking something with courage. Mornings he rolled up and got out of the blanket, folded it and put it on the palomino’s back. It was too much effort for an old man to pack up the extra food, so he would leave it hanging by a rope from a nearby tree. Keep it safe from varmints until the next time he rode up the same way. Of course it was never there when he would come back, so he always packed more, not wanting to go hungry.
Eager might be old to some folk, but he still did love his victuals. Not like that young one he caught sight of now and then. Riding that big dark colt. The boy had got some manners to the colt now, not like the first time Eager had seen them in Quemado.
And Eager remembered the boy as clear as day—tough, moody just like his pa, old John English. English used to laugh when he told it, the family joke. The family was Welsh, named English, living in Wales, Texas. The boy was the spitting image of his pa, excepting for size.