Pinto Lowery (16 page)

It wasn't a hunt in the fashion Pinto was accustomed. Deer were thick as fleas along that stretch of the river, and sign was everywhere.

“Bet there's not a berry bush or sapling for ten miles that's not gnawed to a stub,” Jared said as he pointed to several clear tracks in the sandy soil. “Look, there's one now.”

Pinto followed the fifteen-year-old's long arm toward the river. A whitetail bounded along the bank and vanished into a nearby thicket.

“Leave the horses here,” Richardson instructed. “We'll go ahead on foot. Tie 'em off with a double loop, boys. I don't plan to carry my weight in venison back to the ranch nor to feed every wolf pack for twenty miles, either.”

“Best you and me follow Pa and Job,” Jared told Thuett. “Jim's sure to tag along last. Your brothers can stick to Pinto like your ma said.”

“They should be with me,” Truett argued.

“Can't but two of us shoot this one rifle,” Jared said, shaking his head. “Bring Brax along if you want. He ain't shootin'. If Ben wants a try, he'd best share the Henry.”

“Ben?” Truett asked.

“Go ahead on,” Ben answered.

“Brax?” Truett said, turning to his younger brother.

“Ma said stick with Pinto,” Brax said, sliding an inch nearer the mustanger. “'Sides, I'd only be in your way.”

“I'll look after 'em,” Pinto vowed.

“You ain't our pa, you know,” Thuett remarked bitterly. “Ain't your place to—”

“Figure it's yers, Truett?” Pinto asked. “I'll turn de Henry over to you and let you take charge.”

“Tru?” Jared asked.

“I never shot a Henry rifle once in my whole life,” Truett confessed. “How'm I to show 'em to do somethin' I don't know myself?”

“Now there's wisdom speakin',” Pinto declared. “It's all I been tryin' do tell you all along. Never said I'd walk in anybody's boots but my own. Not yer pa's nor yers. But give yerself some time, Tru.”

“We huntin' or gabbin'?” Richardson called from the river.

“Huntin', Pa,” Jared said, waving Tru to his side.

They walked a quarter of a mile or so before reaching a muddy stretch of bank. Deer tracks led from dense underbrush to the river, and Ryan Richardson spaced out his companions along a knoll overlooking the deer run. The wind blew sharply out of the north and stung their eyes, but it would carry no alarming scent to the deer approaching the river. Theirs was the perfect blind.

The first buck appeared half an hour after Pinto nestled himself among the scrub oaks and buffalo grass. Richardson motioned to leave the animal be, and soon three does joined the big buck. Others followed until there were close to a dozen animals enjoying their afternoon drink.

Richardson silently pointed to himself and raised one finger. In like fashion he bid Jared take the second shot and Pinto the third. Afterward it wouldn't matter as the alerted deer would scatter in every direction.

Pinto readied his rifle, but he didn't elect to take the first shot. Instead he motioned Ben over. The boy lay at Pinto's side, eagerly reaching for the rifle. Pinto cradled it in Ben's long, thin arms and helped him to sight down the barrel.

“Hold her steady, and aim fer de ches',” Pinto whispered. Ben took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. He took another and fired a split second after Ryan Richardson dropped a big buck on the left. Ben's bullet struck a second buck in the neck, dropping the animal to the ground. Jared's shot hit a smallish doe.

“Your turn, Pinto,” an excited Ben said as he gave up the Henry. Pinto calmly advanced a second cartridge into the firing chamber and drew down on the fleeing deer. He picked out a doe and fired, dropping the animal a foot shy of the river.

“Can I?” Brax pleaded.

“Second shot?” Ben asked.

“We got food enough,” Pinto asserted. “And work enough skinnin' and butcherin'.”

“Yes, sir,” Ben muttered. He then perked up and started down the hillside.

“Not yet!” Pinto shouted as he yanked Ben back into cover. “Jus' 'cause we done our shootin' don't mean everybody has.”

Sure enough two shots rang out from the left a moment later, and Ben shuddered. Neither bullet found a deer.

“All clear here!” Pinto called.

“Clear here!” Job countered. The eight hunters then emerged from their cover and began collecting their kills. Jared's doe required a second shot, and his father's buck had somehow dragged itself fifty feet or so into the woods.

“Look here, Tru!” Ben exclaimed as he dashed down beside his buck. “Where's yours?”

“Halfway to tomorrow, little brother,” Tru said, shaking his head. “Moved a hair before I fired. A clean miss.”

“We got four,” Brax announced. “That's enough.”

“Not if we're all to have a new coat,” Truett muttered.

“Tru, you can have my deer's hide,” Jared offered. “Only fair. Was my shot scattered 'em. Pa and I come for the meat and the adventure. I'm no hand at tannin' hides.”

“Pinto is,” Brax boasted. “Look at his new mocs.”

“Was yer little sister mos'ly sewed 'em up,” Pinto told the Oakes youngsters. “As fer tannin' buckskin, ain't any secrets to it.”

“You'll teach us then?” Ben asked.

“Us, too?” Job added.

“Anybody cares to learn,” Pinto promised.

For a week the Oakes family feasted on venison steaks. What wasn't eaten fresh was salted away against later need. As Pinto stripped the tough deerhides of dried flesh and soaked them in oak bark to toughen the texture, he felt winter's approach. Nightly the north wind shrieked across the land, and frost now greeted each dawn. By now birds had set off southward, and all but the live oaks down by the river had shed their leaves.

“It's grown cold,” Elsie noted as she built up the fire one night after supper. “That barn must be an ice house.”

“I'm pretty far off de ground, and dere's plenty o' hay,” Pinto explained. “Could be warmer, I'd warrant, but it'll get colder 'fore it brightens much. I got blankets, you know.”

“I know you're killin' yourself to work those deerhides into jackets and trousers for the boys. And you don't have anything resembling a proper winter coat for yourself.”

“Intended de pick up a buff hide and shape it fer a coat. Forgot. Been occupied with things.”

“Well, you'll do no one any good frozen,” she complained. “I've got one of Tully's old coats put back. I cut down the other so Tru could wear it.”

“He won't favor me wearin' his pa's coat,” Pinto argued.

“I'll speak with him first,” Elsie promised. “You know, it's a puzzlement how Truett's actin'. He told me yesterday he's the only one misses his pa. Me, I think of Tully every wakin' minute. Shouldn't I? We'd known each other since we were walkin'. But Tru never got on with Tully.”

“Jared Richardson said that.”

“And now, to take on so, you'd judge they were twin branches off the same tree.”

“Could be they come to terms on de trail north.”

“Maybe, but Ryan told me different. Tully gave Tru a whippin' the mornin' his horse threw him.”

“Well, that's not so hard to unnerstand then. Boy didn't measure up. Who can say? Maybe Tru hoped somethin'd happen. Now he's gone and gotten guilty. Makes sense of a kind.”

“I suppose it does,” Elsie agreed. “Never looked at it from that direction. I need to do some talkin' to him.”

“Be careful you don't give him to feel he ain't needed,” Pinto warned. “Promised Tully he'd see to things. Been hard doin' that, but he's tried. Give him to know you lean on him.”

“How is it, Pinto Lowery, you know so much? I thought you spent your life around horses.”

“Boy critter's not so different from a spry colt,” Pinto said, grinning. “Jus' use a different liniment fer mendin' 'em, and you can pass up de bit mos' times.”

She laughed at the remark, and he did, too. Then she threw a fresh log on the fire, and Pinto set off for the barn to resume his work on the hides.

That night the wind whined eerily, and the barn itself seemed to shudder under its force. Pinto was twice awakened by the nervous stomping of the horses out in the corral, and he finally wrapped himself in a blanket and pulled on his trousers. Half asleep, he didn't think to step into his boots, so his nigh frozen feet managed to collect a dozen or so splinters from the loft ladder and then numb themselves on the walk over to the corral.

“Easy, critters,” Pinto called as he opened the gate and guided the horses toward the barn. In short order he nudged them into stalls and returned, shivering, to the loft.

The sound of the horses down below was comforting. Before, with just the shrill wind to torment him, Pinto had been particularly downcast. Now he had company of the best kind.

He dreamed that night of sleek horses and yellow-haired girls. There were no musket balls or cannonades, nor even fierce winds to haunt him. The dream took him far away and left him oddly warm and renewed when dawn showered the barn with golden light next morning.

“That's a dream I could've had a hair longer,” he mumbled as he struggled into his clothes. The air hung heavy, and the draft creeping through the gaps between the planks tinged it with an icy touch. The horses felt it, too, and they stomped fitfully.

“Storm's brewin',” Pinto announced when he joined the others for breakfast. “Bes' get ourselves ready for it.”

“There's hardly a cloud in the sky,” Truett objected. “A little cold, maybe, but it's nearly winter, after all.”

“May not be clouds yet, but dey'll come along by and by. Mark that fer a fac'.”

“I feel it, too,” Elsie declared. “We'll get the shutters up and put by an extra stock of wood. Water, too.”

“Northers hit quick, too,” Pinto said, turning to the children. “Winnie, no runnin' down to de creek, hear? You boys keep close by, too. Powerful mean these storms. Freeze a full-grown man solid. Boys, well, hate to think on it.”

“You heard him, Braxton, Benjamin, Truett? Stay within hollerin' distance of the house today.”

“Yes, Ma,” the three of them agreed.

“Now let's get my eggs eaten 'fore they're cold as that wind out there,” Elsie said, grinning.

“Maybe we can build a snow critter if we get enough powder,” Brax suggested.

“I don't expect we'll have a blizzard,” Elsie replied. But the look in Pinto's eyes betrayed his fears, and she lost her smile. Thereafter Pinto gobbled down his food only a hair faster than the others did. While Winnie helped her mother clear away the plates, Pinto and Brax started in on the shutters.

“You chop stove wood,” Pinto told Ben. “Truett, maybe you'd have a try at fillin' that spare water barrel.”

“Done in no time,” Truett replied. Ben grabbed an ax and started for the two cottonwoods Pinto had dragged in from the river bottoms the day before. Cottonwoods weren't much of a staying tree, but they did grow big. There was plenty of wood on them, even if they had a bad habit of burning quick and not so hot as oak.

Amid the cracking of the ax and the hammering of shutters, the wind was but a distant whine. Even so, it drove icy daggers into Pinto's exposed hands and face. Little Brax shivered, and his mouth blew fog puffs everytime he breathed.

“Bes' get along inside,” Pinto finally ordered when he spied the blue tint of Brax 's fingers. “Get yerself alongside that fire and warm up.”

“Shutters aren't all up,” Brax argued.

“Ben'll be along to help,” Pinto replied, pulling the freezing ten-year-old close and rubbing warmth back into his frail body. Pinto then ushered Brax inside the house. Elsie took one look at her youngest boy's wan face and took charge.

“Need a hand?” Ben called from the woodpile. He had a good wool coat and sheepskin gloves, so the cold had less of a bite. Pinto nodded, and Ben drove the bit of his ax into the chopping stump and headed over. The two of them hurriedly affixed the remaining shutters and then dashed inside to warm themselves.

“Brrrr,” Ben said as he kicked off his ice-coated boots.

Brax helped Pinto over to the hearth and pried a frozen blanket from his shoulders.

“That settles one matter,” Elsie said, rummaging around in a trunk until she produced a worn woolen coat. “You'll have this on next time you step outside this house.”

“Pa's coat,” Ben mumbled. “You saved it.”

“When did Ma ever let loose of somethin' what could be used?” Brax asked, laughing as he started rubbing Pinto's feet.

“Be too big,” Winnie judged. “Pinto's littler'n Pa, except for in the hands.”

“Feet, too,” Brax added. “Pa ran to small in the foot. Me too.”

“You run to small in everything, Brax,” Ben noted. “I've seen chickens with more skin over their bones.”

“You ain't plannin' to eat me, are you?” Brax asked. “If I was lazy and did no more work'n you did, I'd be plump as Mary Johnson.”

“Who?” Elsie asked.

“Girl that tends the mercantile counter in Defiance now,” Ben explained. “Must weigh three hundred pounds. I heard she come from a circus.”

“That's unkind, Benjamin,” Elsie scolded. “Winnie, pour off some hot water in a basin so your brothers can wash up for dinner. Braxton, come help set table. Where's Tru gotten to anyway?”

“Went off to look over the stock,” Ben explained.

“He what?” Pinto gasped. “Not out in that?”

Even though the windows were shuttered and the door bolted, they all knew what was outside. For several minutes delicate flakes of snow had blown under the door. The norther had arrived. Wise County was becoming a world of ice and snow.

“When did he go, Ben?” Elsie asked, trying to remain calm.