Read A Colt for the Kid Online
Authors: John Saunders
A Colt for the Kid
JOHN SAUNDERS
Josh Manders was the sheepherder’s name; a dried up, stringy, brutish man with his unshaven chin and dirt-grimed face. He worked his flocks on the banks of the San Juan river, keeping, for the most part, to the mountainous country where he was unlikely to run into cattlemen. For help he had an eighteen-year-old youth, Johnnie Callum. Johnnie was tall, his blond hair bleached near white and was angular of frame. He was almost permanently hungry, and had for Manders the hatred of a slave for his master. Yet in a way, he clung to Manders as being his only source of life. It was Manders who decided when they should eat, where they should sleep and when they should move on.
They were on the move now, had been since dawn, herding the hundreds of complaining woollies higher into the hills. Johnnie, astride a horse whose every bone could be counted, was saddle-sore almost beyond endurance. He kept glancing at the red rim of the sun now just on the point of dipping, and wondered if the old man would ever call a halt. He considered Manders, who was just forty, to be very ancient, and for that reason did not resent the fact that he had done all the chasing after stray bunches of sheep while Manders had ridden at an easy walk behind the flock.
Nevertheless, Johnnie’s consideration for Manders’ age in no way whittled down his hatred for the man. That hatred was of too long a standing. Six years, in fact, although Johnnie could not have stated the day precisely. He had vague and frightening memories of the day Manders had found him wandering in the vast triangle made by the Colorado and San Juan rivers. Johnnie had spent most of the previous night wailing for his father and mother, both of whom he believed to be dead. He would have continued wailing on the following morning, but Manders was a man of little patience and no feeling, and had belted Johnnie into silence. There had been frequent use of the belt ever since and a continual dinning into the boy that he ought to be grateful for being found and kept safely from the murderous hands of Mark Donovan.
Johnnie knew, or thought he knew, about Donovan. He was the biggest rancher for hundreds of miles around and drove homesteaders and sheepmen from his range without a hint of mercy in the process.
Seth and Louise Callum, Johnnie’s parents, had been homesteaders on what Donovan considered to be his land, and on a dark night Donovan’s men had swooped on the homestead in a yelling, gunfiring mob. The Callums had been dragged from their beds, the soddy demolished and the growing crops stamped flat. In the stark terror that had swamped Johnnie, he had fled into the night, running aimlessly, falling often, going anywhere so long as he got away from the horror that drove him nearly frantic. When Manders found him, he was twenty or more miles from the wreck of his home and the sheepherder who was driving his flock away from the district, took him further and further each succeeding day. In the following weeks and months, Johnnie’s memories of home and parents dimmed, beaten from him by Manders’ cruel usage of him. Fear and hatred
of the man grew but now the fear was diminishing and the hatred growing. Growing because Johnnie was beginning to realize his youthful strength and still thought of Manders as a very old man.
Manders reached his objective with the very last of the daylight, a blind canyon, narrow of entrance and rimmed with almost sheer cliffs. He bawled to Johnnie:
‘Get ’em in the canyon, darn your lazy hide. Come on, swing after that bunch of strays. We ain’t got all night.’
Without answering back, Johnnie kicked his mount to a faster pace, turned the strays towards the entrance then rounded up another bunch that broke free from the main flock.
In all, it was near to half an hour before he had sent the last sheep bleating its way into the canyon then he rode to where Manders was seated on the ground.
‘You’ve been a hell of a time,’ Manders said. ‘Get the fire going.’
Obediently, Johnnie climbed from the saddle and went to gather brushwood. It was in his mind that Manders could have lit the fire instead of sitting idly, but he knew that a protest would only have brought abuse and perhaps blows. He got back with the kindling and started to pile it in a neat pyramid. Manders was still sprawled on the ground but he had taken a whiskey bottle from his pack and had it to his mouth. When he lowered it he glared at Johnnie’s back and an ugly sneer twisted his mouth. He was beginning to despise the kid with a passion that turned his stomach. Beginning to wish that he had left him where he had found him. He took another swig at the bottle and the hot liquor filled him with a killing anger, blotting from his mind the fact that, for six years Johnnie had worked for him without payment, remembering only that there had been two mouths to fill. As the whiskey fumes eddied his brain he magnified the cost of
the boy’s keep until it became a vast amount of money. Then suddenly he could contain his rage no longer. He lashed out with the toe of his boot at Johnnie’s bent back and sent him floundering over the newly kindled blaze.
The boy gave a scream of pain as the flames seared his chest and neck. He got to his feet half blinded, and made a stumbling rush at the sheepherder. From his seated position Manders met the rush with a further thrust of his foot right at the pit of Johnnie’s stomach. Again the boy went down, this time rolling in agony. Manders got to his feet, moved to Johnnie’s side and drove his boot deliberately at the boy’s ribs. He got in three kicks then something in Johnnie snapped. He grappled Manders by the ankles and threw him to the ground then rolled on top of him. He pounded at Manders’ face with his unskilled but strong fists. Manders, astonished at the sudden change in the boy and hurt by the thudding blows, kicked, rolled and squirmed until he was free. He got to his feet and backed away, clawing at the heavy belt he wore.
‘Yer young snake,’ he howled. ‘I’ll cut yer to ribbons for that.’
He fully expected Johnnie to turn and run but instead he had to cope with the boy’s head down charge and flailing arms. He dodged to one side, got his belt free and swung the buckle end at Johnnie’s head. The blow opened an inch or so of the boy’s scalp and Manders, determined to teach him a lesson, swung the leather again. This time a gash appeared in the boy’s cheek but instead of retreating he bored unskilfully at the man and wrapped him with his arms. For a minute or two the pair wrestled then Manders fell to the ground. Awkwardly, Johnnie got astride of him and grabbed both hands into Manders’ unkempt hair. In spite of the blood streaming into his eyes and Manders’ savage efforts to break free he raised Manders’ head from the ground and
smashed it remorsely down again.
Manders knew real fear when his head struck the unyielding ground for a second time. He let out a screaming: ‘No, Johnnie, don’t.’ Then as his head hit again, a fainter: ‘Johnnie, oh my God, no.’
Johnnie smashed Manders to the ground several times more before his mind reacted to the fact that the man was no longer struggling. He released his fingers from the dirty mat of hair and climbed slowly to his feet. With a hand that shook a good deal he wiped the blood from his eyes then went to Manders’ horse and took the canteen from the saddle. He drank thirstily then tilting his head back allowed some of the water to flow over his face and head. He used the sleeve of his shirt to mop away the excess water then went and stood over Manders. As far as he could see, the man had not moved. He stood watching for a long time then slowly turned away and climbed on to the sorry beast that had borne him all day.
He supposed he was a murderer and one day sooner or later he would hang. Taking the horse was a hanging matter too, but he felt too utterly weary to bother about it. In any case, he could only hang once.
He went three or four miles in the fast deepening darkness before it occurred to him that he was intolerably hungry and might just as well have brought some food along with him. Manders would have no need of it now. Johnny would have turned back but he was doubtful of finding his way. Or was it that he was afraid to go where there lay a dead man? The thought was of such importance to him that he reined in the horse to sort the matter out. After a few seconds he felt a peculiar sense of elation.
He wasn’t afraid of the dead man. He was certain of that. Neither did he fear being hanged. In fact he didn’t know anything that he was really afraid of. He spent quite a few minutes savouring the totally new feeling, then a deadly
tiredness crept over him. He eased himself from the saddle, unbuckled the cinch, and careless of whether the horse wandered or not, threw himself on the ground using the saddle for a pillow.
Three days later, having followed the course of the San Juan river he came to Cartersville. He had heard of the place but knew little of it except that it was near to where his parents’ home had once been. The town took its name from Luke Carter, owner of the Silver Dollar saloon, and reckoned itself to be a law-abiding, but free and easy place, depending for its existence on the neighbouring cattle ranches, of which Mark Donovan’s hundred thousand acre spread
overshadowed
all others.
Johnnie let his horse bring itself to a halt and gazed around in some wonder. In the years he had worked for Manders, the sheepherder had not once allowed him to come near a town. The place awed him. Twenty or thirty people, a few of them women, moved about in the street and just ahead of where he had halted, half a dozen men lounged on a veranda. Johnnie had just finished spelling out the name over the veranda,
Carter’s Silver Dollar Saloon
, when a tall angular looking man heaved himself from a chair and walked towards him. Johnnie caught the glint of the star on the man’s shirt and muttered to himself.
‘Well, it’s bound to be sooner or later. Might as well be now. I sure hope I get a chance to see over the place first, though.’
Then the marshal was standing in front of him, taking in everything from the shock of corn coloured hair above the thin, sun-scorched face to the ragged shirt and jeans and the split and scuffed up boots.
‘Where’re you from, sonny, and what do they call you?’
‘Johnnie, Johnnie Callum – I worked with a sheepie, back there,’ he gestured vaguely over his shoulder. ‘I quit him
three days since. I—’
It was in Johnnie’s mind to say, ‘I killed him,’ but he decided to keep his newly found freedom as long as he could.
‘Worked with a sheepie, eh? What was his name?’
‘Josh Manders.’ Johnnie blurted out the name defiantly and waited for the marshal’s hand to move towards his gun, but he only said in a disinterested tone:
‘Manders? Yeah – I reckon I’ve heard of him some place. What are you going to do next, sonny? We don’t have any sheep around this place. In fact we wouldn’t tolerate the stinking beasts.’
A smile lit Johnnie’s face. So the marshal didn’t know Manders was dead. He could hang on to his freedom for a while yet.
‘I’ll get other work,’ he said confidently.
‘Yeah? What at? There’s only range work in these parts and you’re no range hand, by the looks of you. I reckon you’d best move on, young feller.’
Johnnie nodded, unabashed by the order to leave town: ‘If I could just water the horse, Marshal, and fill my canteen.’
‘There’s a pump and a trough just a little ways up the street.’
Marshal Hennesey turned away and walked back to the saloon veranda. He hadn’t particularly liked doing what he had just done. On the other hand he was not over worried about it. Carter, who paid his salary, expected him to keep the town clear of loafers and no-goods and to his mind, Johnnie fitted into one of the categories. As he stepped on to the veranda again, Judge Bohun took his cigar from his fat lips and said idly:
‘What’s the score, Ed?’
Hennesey flopped down in his chair: ‘Young feller, calls himself Johnnie Callum, reckons he’s quit working with a
sheepie name Manders. I told him to move on. Feller looks like he’s about half starved. My gosh, it’s hot this afternoon.’
Bohun shifted his bulk, brushed cigar ash from his brocade waistcoat and agreed that it was hot.
Carlen, who ran the drygoods store in between bouts of sitting on the veranda of the Silver Dollar, got to his feet, yawned and stretched his stringy frame: ‘I reckon I’d best be going, gents. It don’t do to let an assistant be too long by hisself in the store business. Some of them gets funny ideas about what belongs to them.’
The others grunted assent and watched him walk the length of the dusty street then stop within a few feet of Johnnie.
‘Ed says he’s chased you out of town,’ Carlen began conversationally, at the same time running a professional eye over Johnnie’s ragged clothing.
‘Ed?’
‘Yeah, Ed Hennesey, the marshal.’
‘He told me I’d best move on.’
‘Amounts to the same thing.’ Carlen squirted tobacco juice then ranged his eyes over Johnnie’s shoulder to a rig that was entering the far end of the street. ‘If you had some new clothes you might find yourself a job and be able to stay.’
Johnnie smiled ingenuously: ‘I’d need money for new clothes and if I had that I reckon I’d spend it on a meal.’
Carlen continued to stare at the rig until he was certain it was that belonging to Sam Stevens and his sister Lucy, then he came to a decision.
‘I could mebbe fix you with a job and clothes and a meal. The job won’t pay much, mind you, an’ you’ll have to work almighty hard. I guess you’d owe me most of your first month’s pay. Would you do a deal like that?’
Johnnie hesitated. Not at the idea of handing over a month’s pay but with the thought in his mind that if he was
arrested and hanged he would not be able to pay back the loan. Finally, he decided that since he had committed murder and stolen a horse, paying back a loan would hardly matter.
‘I’d be real glad to make the deal,’ he smiled.
‘Then come on down to my store. That’s Sam Stevens just pulling up with that rig. Sam’s a great friend of mine and he’ll give you a job if I ask him. You let me do the talking, though. Sam ain’t the kind that listens to just anyone.’
Johnnie nodded and, as Carlen hurried towards the store, trailed after him leading the horse. He stopped a few yards from the rig, saw Carlen engage Sam Stevens in conversation, then fixed wondering eyes on the girl.