Duster (9781310020889) (25 page)

We'd met Mister Sam Silas and B.J. Hollis at
the hotel where they was having breakfast, them having stayed in
town close to the buyers overnight, and Mister Sam had paid over
our wages to us. It come to $11.40 apiece for the days we'd put
in.

"First thing I want to do is go buy me a
hat. I'm tired of having a rag on my head." Not that I was wearing
it right then. I'd come to town bareheaded rather than show myself
on the city streets looking like something that belonged out on one
of those piles of rotten meat.

"Hokay, an' mebe I will buy me a pistole,
eh?"

"Aw, what would you do with one? You got no
more use for a pistol than I do, an' that ain't none at all."

"But mebbe I need one some time, si? Ef I do
ever need one it a good theeng to have it. Si?"

"Yeah, sure, and maybe you better buy a pan
too 'cause you never know when you'll come up on a stream that's
just lousy with gold dust an' you'll have to stay poor if you don't
have a pan tied to your saddle."

"You jus' don't know, Duster."

"I know that'd take 'most all the money
you've earned for a whole month of riding, and I know in that time
I ain't heard but two shots fired. Once when Bill shot that wild
hog for meat and once when Split's gun went off accidental an' he
near shot hisself."

Most of the boys owned a gun of one kind or
another but left them in their bedrolls and only pulled them out
once in a while to make sure they was rusting nicely. I mean, when
you get right down to it a pistol on a cow drive ain't all that
useful unless you're awful scared of snakes or are one of those who
figures it is better to shoot an uppity steer through the horn
instead of tailing him down to take the wind out of him. Some folks
preferred to do that, but Ike said it was a powerful expensive way
to work cattle even if it did get the job done. And a rifle was so
big and heavy to carry it wasn't much account on a cow drive
either.

"Well, you do whatever you're of a mind to,
Jesus, but if you buy you a gun don't go looking for me to be
around you. You'll probably go an' shoot your own head off inside
of a week, and I don't want to have to dig no hole big enough to
bury you."

We walked in a store with a sign over the
door reading EMPOREUM: ALTON P. HOGAN, PROP. The place was a lot
like Hardy's back home except bigger. It had just about everything
a body could want to buy, from plows to pins and back again.
Factory-woven cloth or cottonseed or cotton meal, depending on how
you wanted your cotton. Shirts and pants and dresses and even
ready-made diapers. Face powder and gunpowder. Hats and hams. And
the prettiest pair of shiny black boots a body ever laid eyes on.
The boots was set up special on a little table that hadn't another
thing on it.

"What can I do for you
boys?" the storekeep asked. I took him to be Alton Hogan, Prop. He
was about as ugly a man as I'd ever laid eyes on, with half a head
of hair on top, the missing part starting right in front and
shoving back from there, and a heavy beard that might of last been
scraped off a week before. What made him so odd looking was that he
was skinny
but had a fat, flat face with
the features all squinched together in the middle. He smiled,
though, and when he did he looked so friendly and nice that I
forgot all about his being ugly and never paid it more
mind.

"Well, sir, Mister Hogan, we come in to do a
little shopping. I need a new hat if you got one that ain't too
dear."

"Sure, boys, I got whatever you need or
think you might want. If you got the cash, I got the goods." He led
us over to a shelf that was stacked high with all manner of hats
nested one in another. There was regular hats with wide brims and
some great big ones that took after the Mex sombrero and little
bitty bowlers for the dudes and off to one side was a stack of
genuine John B. Stetson hats.

Hogan pointed toward the pile of John B.
hats and raised his eyebrows, then he shook his head good-natured
like. I knew they'd go for fifteen or even twenty dollars each—and
some of them more. Then he made a big show of offering me one of
them round little bowlers and putting it back. Next he jumped to
the other end of the scale. He dipped down into a box and come up
with a couple old army Kossuth hats that looked like they'd been
seasoned by running a herd of cattle over them.

Finally he got around to some serious
business. He gave my head a good looking over and selected a dark
brown hat with a flat crown and about a four-inch brim. I was right
taken with it, especially after he set it on my head and it fit
just perfect.

"Not bad for guessing the size, huh?"

"Nossir, that's real fine. What's it
cost?"

"I'll tell you straight, boy. I can sell
that hat to anybody for seven dollars but I can see you young'uns
ain't rich. You can have that hat for four dollars even on
condition you do the rest of your buying from me too."

It was a fair price and I told him so.

"Then it's a deal, boy. Now, let me fix you
up with some new britches. You need 'em bad."

I hadn't really give much
thought to the state of my britches, but when I took an open-minded
look at myself I had to admit he was right about me needing new
togs between my
belt and my shoes. I'd
been wearing these pants steady for over a month and while I'd
tried to keep them clean they'd been rough homespun to start with
and were wearing mighty thin in spots. And while I'd managed to
come from the Frio to Rock-port without a hat I didn't know that I
wanted to go back all that way without pants.

"I dunno. I ain't got much money."

"I know that, boy, but if you'll let me I
will set you straight." He moved over to another shelf and pulled
down a flat, stiff bundle of blue cloth. "These here pants will
gall your backside 'til you think you can't stand it but, boy, they
wear like they's made of iron pulled into string and wove into
cloth. Do you come back with another herd next year you'll still be
wearin' these, and if you ain't, if they've wore out in that time,
I'll give you a new pair free for nothing," he said.

Jesus poked me with his elbow. He seemed to
be admiring them too. "Sounds fair, but how much are they?" I
asked.

"They're regular three dollars but you can
have 'em for two. But I'll tell you, out in Californy where they
make these Levi britches they go for five dollars now an' was worth
upward of twenty during the gold fever days."

"They come clear from Californy?"

"Sure thing. They're so tough they'll be
sellin' everywhere there's men with horses to ride an' work to be
done. They come all the way 'round the Horn by boat, down to Corpus
Christi. Sometimes they ship in here, too, on boats that'll go back
with hides and tallow in 'em. It works out."

"All right, I'll take them. If they're half
as good as you say they'll be good enough for me."

"They will be, but don't say I didn't warn
you if they scratch and gall you somethin' fierce until you get 'em
broke in. They're like a horse that way. You gotta ride them awhile
before you can enjoy them."

"Mister, are you really a shopkeeper or are
you funning me?"

"Whatdya mean, boy?"

"I mean I was told to
watch out for city-slickin' store-
keeps
because they'd try to skin me outta all I had. Now you come along,
the first city storekeep I ever seen, and treat me right an' even
tell me what to expect wrong with what you're sellin' me. I don't
figure it, that's all."

"It's simple, boy. I figure to be here next
year and the year after that and for a long time more. I figure
you'll buy from me again sometime, and I wouldn't be at all
su'prised if you told your friends to stop in here when they wanta
do some store buying in Rockport."

"Now, that's the truth, sir. I'll tell 'em
sure."

"Fine, boy, fine. I ’ppreciate that. An' now
what else you need?" He looked me over again and I could see his
eyes ticking off my bandanna and shirt as being usable for a while
yet. Then he got down to my feet. "Boots. That's next. Boots."

"I don't reckon so, Mister Hogan. I ain't
got money enough for boots." I had worked it out in my head that
I'd soon be broke again. As soon as I paid for my hat and pants—and
I just had to have them—I'd be left with just $5.40 and that
wouldn't buy a pair of boots.

"Come on over here an' let me see what we
can do." This time he went behind a cluttered-up counter and dipped
underneath. I could hear him rummaging through stuff down there.
"These here should fit an' they're the cheapest pair I got, boy. I
can let you have them for seven dollars. Any lower and I'd be
losin' money."

"I know you're telling me the truth, Mister
Hogan, but I ain't got that much left. I just cain't buy no boots.
I guess you'd best tend to my friend here. I'm done."

"You know best about what you can spend,
boy. I won't push you none." He turned from me and began eyeing
Jesus. "Now what'll it be for you?"

"I theenk I need a pistole," Jesus told
him.

Hogan looked Jesus up and down like he was
looking for a spot to stick a pin into, and he rubbed at his
whiskers on his chin while he studied. "Cheap?"

"Si."

"All right," he said. He
searched under the counter some
more. When
he came back up he had a pretty, new Colt's revolving pistol. Dark
and shiny it was, and not so big that Jesus's hand or mine wouldn't
fit around the grip.

"Is beautiful," Jesus said. "How much?"

Hogan thought on that some. "Seventeen."

"Senor?"

"I said it's seventeen for the pistol. Comes
with a bullet mold. Another dollar fifty for a powder flask, and a
dollar for a pound of powder, two of lead and a box of caps. Or you
can buy paper ca'tridges already made up with powder and bullets
for two cent each. Caps is extra."

Jesus looked like he'd been hit in the face.
"So much? There is nothing for less?"

"Nope. Not a thing. There ain't a used gun
for sale anywheres right now, and this here's the cheapest we got
that's new. Got plenty that cost more."

In the meantime I'd wandered over to the
little table that held those fancy boots. The table was off to one
side and toward the wall a bit from the counter, and I could see
some of the stuff piled up on the shelves under the counter
top.

In a corner of one shelf I could see a
jumble of old pistols laying there. Hogan looked over my way. He
didn't say anything but he seemed to be waiting for me to do
something. I just smiled at him and went back over beside Jesus.
"Anything else you could use?" I asked him. You could see he was
just itching to spend some of his pay even if he couldn't afford a
revolver at the prices Mister Hogan was asking.

I guess Hogan could see it too, for he came
out from behind the counter and took Jesus by the arm. "Let's see
what else you might could use, boy."

Before you knew it old Jesus was fitted out
in a pair of them blue britches too, and he had a bright red shirt
to go with them. We settled our bills and Hogan let us go back in
his storeroom to change. When we come out into the sunshine again
we both was walking stiff-legged inside the new pants, but we felt
about as spiffy and spry as could be in our new duds.

It was still pretty early
in the morning and the sun was
just warm
enough to feel good, not so hot that it seemed to be setting on
your shoulders like it would be later on in the day. The wind was
coming off the water so that the air smelled fresh and didn't carry
any stink with it, and from where we stood in front of Hogan's
Emporeum you couldn't see any of the hide factories. All in all it
seemed like a nice day to be alive.

A couple of fellows walked by and it seemed
they was admiring the way me and Jesus was turned out. For my part,
I was just sure they paid special notice of my new, brown hat, and
after they passed I took it off and rubbed my sleeve over the crown
and along the underside of the brim to make sure there was no dust
smudges on it.

Jesus puffed his chest a little inside the
new shirt so I could tell he felt as much of a peacock as me.

"I'll buy you a cup of real coffee," he
offered, his money still threatening to burn through the bottom of
his pocket.

"I'm game," I said. We headed back toward
the hotel where we'd met Mister Sam Silas and B.J. Hollis earlier.
It was a real nice place, two stories tall and built all of sawn
lumber. The whole front half of the downstairs was a big, open room
with tables and a short bar made out of wood that had been rubbed
smooth and polished with oil, and off to the right near the stairs
there was a little counter with a bunch of boxes behind it where a
fellow kept keys for the rooms upstairs.

Jesus and me sat ourselves at a table near
the front door where we could look out and see the people going
past. We wasn't hardly settled in our chairs before a fellow came
over to ask what our pleasure would be.

"Cawfee for me," Jesus said with an air.

"And for you, sir?" the waiter asked.

I was about to say coffee when I got an even
better idea. Since we was in a mood to put on the dog a little, I
told him, "Tea, please."

"Of course," he said and backed away from
the table with a bob of his head.

"You ever drunk tea before?" Jesus asked
when the waiter was gone.

"Nope, but I'm fixing to."

"Wisht I'd thought o' that."

"You can get a cup after your coffee if you
want."

The waiter brought our coffee and tea to us
in just a minute or two and spread cups and dishes and spoons and
all manner of truck like that over the table. It seemed an awful
lot of stuff to go with two little cups, but I figured he knew what
he was doing.