“Mister Donald, you haul in those horses!”
The voice was an unwanted intrusion into Donald’s world consisting only of sky and trees, sandy red hills and tufts of high, swaying grass.
Gayle Souter wanted his say. “Where you figuring to go, Donald? There’s no way that team can drag you much into those trees.”
Donald looked at the team’s broad backs littered with old harness. He could see two ridged backbones and count the ribs on the near horse. His thoughts must have wandered, for a look passed between Souter and the boy, and it was not a particularly kind look. Donald rubbed the back of his neck that had been burned by the sun.
“Mister Souter, why are you so concerned about me? I’m not up to any mischief,” Donald said as he tried to turn the wagon, but a wheel stuck on a rock, and no matter how hard he whipped the tired horses, they could not get free.
Souter stepped down from his saddle horse, moved to the wagon seat, and took the lines. He sat a moment, the lines resting in his enormous hands, and then began to cajole and croon to the team as his fingers sent their message. Two equine heads came up in unison, long ears swiveling to listen, and, with a few light tugs and twists, the animals bent to their collars, surged forward, and began a series of half steps that brought them around and pointed downhill.
“Donald, why don’t you tell it around,” Souter stated, “that you’ve given up title to those horses belonging to English. Save all us of a lot of trouble…but mostly you.” He gave the lines over to Donald and stepped from the wagon seat onto his waiting bronco.
Donald thanked the old man, and included the silent Red Pierson with a polite nod. Then he alternated clucking and slapping the lines to guide the team back along their own tracks. He would end the long day with a drink. Then he would begin his campaign to decline ownership of the English horses.
Red watched the wagon’s bumpy, jolting departure. Donald had a big mouth and a wealth of words, but nothing to say. He didn’t need to empty the bottle to get to the truth.
When it came to a choice between horses and men, the lines got blurred. One man’s life could be worthless compared to a good horse. Burn English kept pushing the dark bay colt, thinking about Davey Hildahl and the woman. She was part of this—the tension and debt owed between him and Hildahl.
He found signs of a cold camp outside the wire fence. Reading the tracks, it was obvious Hildahl had slept there. Burn loped the colt some, cameup to the old fence he’d built, and saw where the wire beyond it had been cut and repaired. He led the colt through, made his own hurried repairs, and remounted. The tracks of Davey’s bay were fresh.
Fresher tracks cut the bay’s prints. Burn put the colt to running, past the bones, past more of the damned wire. The colt shied but kept on. Burn leaned forward to stroke the colt’s neck. He didn’t slow down, or draw out his old Walker, or even put a hand to the Spencer under his leg. The colt wasn’t broke to gunfire.
The colt skidded to a halt, blew loudly, snorted, and pranced under Burn’s hand, too excited to obey, too keyed up by the running to stand still.
It was Jack Holden who brought his horse around, staring at Burn with widened eyes. Hildahl was kneeling, crude pliers in hand. The earth around him was ground up and bloody, plowed in wide, useless furrows. A cow had been caught in the wire, Burn guessed. Now it was Davey Hildahl who had gotten caught.
“Holden.” Burn nodded to the man, paying no attention to the pistol in his right hand. Then: “Hildahl, you look like a nester down there in the dirt. Best stand up, if your guardian will allow it.”
Hildahl stood up, unrolled was more like it, and Burn was again conscious of the man’s lean height and awkward bones. He had that baby look to him still. Maybe they could play Holden between them and get Davey free.
The colt took a dislike to Holden’s fancy black. The bay snorted, flattened his ears, and snapped at the bronco. The black arched its neck and swung its muzzle in defiance at the colt, and Holdenabsently smacked the bronco hard on its crested neck. The pistol never left its target. The crack of the blow was startling.
Burn took a gamble. “Holden, you best not keep a cocked pistol, riding that bronc’. He’s ringy as hell. It could be you’ll shoot yourself…never mind Davey or me. I ain’t much of a gun hand, but I can pull the Walker loose real fast, and Davey’s got a Colt to his side. You can’t get to both of us, not from the back of that god-awful lamed son-of-a-bronc’.”
Then a different tactic leaped to mind. Burn shook his head in apology even as he spoke, but the words were what he had been thinking. “It ain’t like you to kill, Holden. Not like you to shoot that Mex on the mesa like you did, or that boy you buried. Killing ain’t what you do.” He read the startled look in Holden’s eyes and kept banging away. “You must ’a’ put a bullet in that man’s brain ’cause he asked you. You two were good friends. What happened to the boy you put under in the cañon? How’d he come to die?”
Holden turned red, then dead white, and Burn saw the fingers tighten on the pistol trigger. He slammed his spurs into the edgy bay colt. As Holden’s pistol fired, the colt jumped and hit the black at the shoulder, knocking the horse down, and then leaped over it. Burn stopped the colt, reined in hard, and spun the horse around to find Holden climbing on the black as it staggered to its feet.
Hildahl stood, his pistol pointed at Holden. Davey was pale, but he spoke calmly. “Now, cattle thief, see how it feels having a man ready to kill you over nothing.” The tremor in Hildahl’s voice gave him away. He could kill right now, but Burn knew that murder wasn’t Davey’s specialty.
The mesteñero put his own six bits in. “Holden, there’s two of us to check fence, gather them cows. It’s bad odds for the likes of you. So I guess you better turn that fancy horse downwind and ride. If Davey’ll let you go that is, and from the look to him, he’s ready to pull that trigger.”
Holden rubbed his mouth, spoke as if he hadn’t heard Burn’s warning. “That boy I buried, he was kin. My sister’s kid.” He hesitated, looked away. “Horse bolted, kid broke his neck. Ugly, damned ugly.” Then the old Holden resurfaced briefly—a grin and shining eyes and no care in the world. “It was bad luck, boys. I didn’t come up here to steal…just bad luck runnin’ into Davey. I didn’t even know who it was, and then this thunderbolt rides into the middle of us, and we all shoved out pistols and started bluffin’.”
Burn ended the standoff. “Holden, fancy words don’t change what needs doin’. You shuck the bullets out of that pistol, then ride out. We don’t want you nearby.” Burn could feel Davey bristle at his words, so he addressed the tall rider. “Hildahl, he may be wanted, but I ain’t going to be the one to take him in. Whole territory’s after his hide, he’s got enough running him.”
When Holden raised the pistol and spun the empty cylinder to show Burn and Davey, the black raised its head and its eyes rolled white. Lather showed thickly on the shiny neck. Burn patted the now quiet bay colt and watched as Davey let Holden pass. He kept the spooky black to a slow prance until they disappeared into the tight pines.
Burn let out a hard breath, coughed, and wiped his face. He was shamed by his fear until he saw Davey doing the same thing, adding a tug to his pants in the actions. It wasn’t funny, but there was no stopping them. Burn slid off the colt, leaned against the shoulder, unable to stand on his own two legs, and started laughing along with Davey.
When Burn cleared his eyes of the tears of laughter, he saw Hildahl was tensed up, pistol in hand. Then Burn listened. Two horses approaching on the same trail that Burn had followed. He slid the Spencer out of its boot, kept the bay’s reins close to him, using the colt as a shield. Sweat dripped inside his shirt. He smelled the fear, felt its tight pull at his belly.