Hosea let out a kind of choked-up scream and flung his gun at Wes’s head and just missed—and Wes threw his pistol and hit Hosea on the arm—and next thing you know they’re locked up and rolling around on the ground, and us and the Mexicans are in a big circle around them on our horses and cheering our lungs out. And all the while the Mexican cattle’s still moving, going right around the group of us like we were a sandbar in a river.
Wes broke free of Hosea’s grip and got to his feet and tried to box him. He knew the manly art real well and had put on demonstrations for us in camp, hitting with open hands and making one or another of us look like staggering drunks, he was so quick and smooth. He hit Hosea square in the nose with a jab, but the Mexican looked more stunned by the way Wes was dancing up and down in front of him with his dukes up. Wes hopped forward and jabbed him again and Hosea let out a shriek and rushed him. Wes tried to sidestep but the Mex was pretty quick himself and caught hold of his shirt and down they went in a snarling knot.
They must of fought for ten solid minutes without letting up for a second. I’ve seen dogfights that didn’t have as much fury. They was punching and biting and clawing, kicking, butting heads, cussing and spitting, just flat tearing each other up. Finally the both of them were breathing like bellows and having trouble getting to their feet. Their clothes was all ripped, their faces all lumped up and smeared with blood and dirt. One of Wes’s eyes looked like a purple egg with a red slit, he had bad scratches on both cheeks, and his lips were blowed up. Hosea’s eyes were swole nearly shut and his nose was puffed big as a potato and he had an ear tore half off.
A couple of the Mex hands tried to help Hosea on his horse, but he shook them off. Wes waved off any help from Jim and Big Ben. It was a wonder either one was able to mount up by himself, but they did. Wes looked at Hosea and said, “This ain’t … over,” said it like that, hardly able to talk for breathing so hard. Hosea spit blood at him and said, “Kill you … son of … the whore mother.”
Wes rode back to our wagon and it was a good bet Hosea had gone off to his—and there wasn’t no question they were going for guns. Keep in mind, both herds were still moving. With nobody keeping them in columns, they’d started spreading out, and some steers had headed off on their own. The swing riders for both outfits had to work fast to cut the strays back and tighten the herds up again. At the same time, every rider on both sides was straining to keep up with what was going on twixt Wes and Hosea. Jim passed the word for us to stick to our positions on the herd and stay out of the fight unless we saw the rest of the Mexicans get into it. He told me to get up on point, intending to keep me as far out of harm’s way as he could. Wes buckled on his two-gun holster and borrowed a pistol from Nameless to replace the one of his that didn’t work, then him and Jim giddapped on back toward the Mexicans. They headed off on the east side of the herd, so I snuck back on the west. I was damned if I was going to stay out of it.
The dust was swirling thick, and I heard shots before I could see what was happening. Then I spotted Wes riding straight for a bunch of Mexicans at the rear of the herd. He had his reins in his teeth and a pistol in each hand and looked like Judgment Day on horseback. Behind him a Mexican was already spread-eagled on the ground. Jim came riding out of the dust to join him. The Mexican horses were spooked and their riders were having to shoot wild. There were five of them. Wes and Jim closed in and opened fire. I drew my gun, put the spurs to Who Me, and took off behind them, letting out a rebel yell like Uncle Ike had taught me to do.
There was a clatter of gunfire and three Mexes dropped as Wes and Jim rode through the bunch of them like a couple of Mosby’s Rangers. Then they reined around and started back at the two still in the fight. One threw up his hands, but not quick enough to keep from getting shot off his horse. The other one tried to hightail it—and came riding straight at me. We headed for each other at full gallop, both of us shooting and yelling to beat all hell. Next thing I knew I was in the air, flying ass over teakettle—and then I didn’t know a damn thing until I opened my eyes and found myself flat on my back, looking up at my brother Jim, who was kneeling over me with a great big grin and checking me for broken bones. He told everybody the first words out of my mouth were, “Am I kilt?”—which I don’t recollect saying, but which gets a good laugh every time Jim tells the tale. The Mex had shot my pony from under me is what happened. “Wes evened the score for you, Maverick,” Jim said. Jim had caught the Mex’s horse for me, a fine blaze stallion I named Pancho, and he proved a fit replacement for Who Me.
The herds had been stopped and pretty quick we were joined by riders from outfits up and down the line who’d heard the shooting. Everybody was laughing and jabbering all excited about the fight. Wes himself, beat-up as he was, was grinning wide. He’d took a round through his hat brim and another through his sleeve but didn’t get a scratch. He came over and shook my hand and said, “I’m obliged to you, Huck, for coming to our aid.” Jim says I blushed a little and maybe I did, since I hadn’t done a thing but get my horse killed and my back nearly broke. But hell, I couldn’t help feeling proud just the same.
It was six dead Mexicans all told, including Hosea, who’d been the first to fall. Jim had put down two and Wes had dropped the other four. The rest of the Mexes, including the two who’d come over that time after Wes killed the Indian, had stayed out of it. They told Wes they were glad the rankling was done with. Must of been true, because for the rest of the drive they kept their cows well back of ours.
For the rest of the drive we didn’t have any troubles worth mentioning. What we mostly talked about around the supper camp-fires—besides telling and retelling about the fight with the Mexicans—was the good times we aimed to have ourselves in Abilene. For those of us who’d never been there before, the tales told about it by Nameless and Ollie and Big Ben were so exciting we couldn’t hardly keep from twitching. The things they said about the women! The closer we got to the end of the drive, the later I’d lay awake every night, agitated with thoughts of those painted cats, as some called them—soiled doves, fallen angels, they had lots of different names. Ollie said they had skin as smooth and tasty as warm milk and would pleasure me in ways I couldn’t even imagine. Big Ben said they put cherry-flavored rouge on their nipples and dusted their pussies with French bath powder. They said Abilene had hundreds of such women, hundreds! And everything they said turned out to be true. Before I got to Abilene that first time, I’d never yet seen a grown woman fully naked, and trying to picture all that bare and willing female flesh made me feel sort of drunk. It’s one more thing about that first drive I’ve never forgot—the excitement of closing in on Abilene and all its wickedness just waiting for me with a wide red smile. About the only one not itching to whoop it up in Abilene was my brother Jim, who was only thinking about getting back to Annie Tenelle as quick as he could. The rest of us talked about nothing but the high times ahead. And about Wild Bill, of course, who damn well knew Wes Hardin was coming his way.
We had the Texas reward poster for weeks before he showed up. Besides Bill, who I mean by “we” is me and Tyler McBride and Mike Williams, his main deputies. Every cattle outfit arrived with more news on him than we’d got from the one before. It was that way all spring. We never had to ask about him, all we had to do was listen. We heard about the Indian and we knew all about the fight with the Mexicans on the Newton Prairie. When he was told Hardin had dropped four of the six Mexes that went down in the fight, Bill’s blond mustache spread in a smile over his glass of whiskey—he was in his favorite chair at the Alamo at the time—and he said, “Four, was it? That’s a smart of killing. The boy must be all they say.”