Pinto Lowery (9 page)

“A lot can happen on a cattle trail,” Pinto declared. “Bes' we put it in writin'.”

“Richardson's put you up to this, ain't he?”

“Spoke some on it,” Pinto confessed. “Said dere'd been a disagreement o' sorts 'tween you. Better it's spelled out.”

“Truett!” Tully shouted. The boy appeared, and his father ordered pen and paper. “The boy'll draw it up,” Tully explained to Pinto. “I never had a talent for writin'.”

“Pinto nodded his agreement, and when Truett returned, the boy set about neatly copying out the agreed-upon terms. Pinto wasn't much for reading himself, but he could understand figures well enough. And he knew the difference between five and six weeks. Errors were corrected, and after Tully Oakes made his mark, George Lowery signed the paper.

“That'll be mine to keep,” Pinto announced when Tully attempted to pocket the paper. “You'll see it again when I ask fer my pay.”

Tully reluctantly nodded. Then, with things settled, Tully set off walking with his wife. Truett introduced Pinto to the younger Oakes children. Afterward the three boys conducted Pinto to the barn and helped him make up a bed of straw in the loft.

“Sometimes we sleep up here, too,” little Braxton explained. “It's cooler'n the house, what with the big loft door open and the wind blowin' through.”

“We come up here when Pa takes to snorin' bad, too,” Ben added, laughing. “Or when Jared Richardson's come fer a visit.”

“Or if Tru's picked up a story from some cowboy,” Brax added with a grin. “It's a good enough place.”

“Better'n mos' I known,” Pinto declared.

“You was in the army,” Brax said. “I was named after a soldier myself. General Braxton Bragg.”

“Those what served under Bragg didn't make much o' him,” Pinto said sourly. “Long on punishment and short on sense, as I heard. I was with Hood mostly.”

“So was our Uncle Pat,” Truett explained. “The one kilt at Gettysburg. Fourth Texas.”

“Was a fair portion fell at that place,” Pinto told them. “Yup, more'n a few. Lucky cusses like me only picked up a scar.”

Pinto showed the bent fingers of his left hand and the pale scars left by the ravishes of war. He then unbuckled his trousers and showed them the long jagged mark left by the army surgeon who had worked on his leg.

“Noticed you limpin' some,” Ben whispered.

Pinto threw a nightshirt over his bony shoulders and frowned.

“Can't much tell when I'm on a horse,” the ex-soldier said grimly. “But I got no speed afoot like I once did.”

“Don't see where you'd need it,” Truett said. “Unless it was to chase nosy boys to their beds.”

“Does 'pear to be late,” Pinto remarked.

Truett pointed the way to the loft ladder, and Ben began making his way to the ground. Braxton followed, and Truett brought up the rear.

“They wouldn't turn down a story after we leave,” Truett said as he, too, prepared to descend the ladder. “Pa and I tell 'em tales to halt the wildness. Might be a comfort.”

“Do my bes',” Pinto promised.

“Watch over Ma. She's strong-willed about things. You may have a battle if it comes to leavin' the house to escape Comanches.”

“I fought Comanches lots o' times,” Pinto argued. “Dey know me well enough. I don't expec' dey'll bother us. No, de varmints that plague Texas these days don't have red skins.”

“Well, see they leave her be, too, if you will. She deserves better'n Pa, you know. Better'n me, too, I suppose.”

“Most mamas do,” Pinto said, recalling the angelic face of his own.

“I got a hard ride ahead o' me, so I'll say good night, too.”

“Would seem bes',” Pinto agreed.

It was well past sunrise that next morning when the stirring of horses in the barn below roused Pinto from a sound sleep. He hadn't stayed abed past dawn since he could remember, and the realization startled him into motion. In half a shake he shed his nightshirt and scrambled into the rags that passed for clothes. By the time he was climbing down the loft ladder, Tully and Thuett Oakes were already spirals of dust on the southern horizon.

“The horse man's up, Ma,” Ben announced.

“Is he now?” Elsie Oakes asked, turning toward Pinto with a bemused expression. “Well, Benjamin, perhaps you'd tell the horse man that on this farm a man who wants breakfast is up with the chickens.”

“De horse man knows, ma'am,” Pinto said as he rubbed the mist from his eyes. “Never would've expected otherwise. Don't make a habit o' sleepin' away de mornin', you know.”

“I don't know,” Elsie said, frowning. “I didn't ask for anyone to stay and protect me from imagined harm, Mr. Lowery, and I won't countenance sloth. If you're here to work, then I expect no less than a full day's labor. If not, I suggest you leave immediately.”

“Through?” Pinto asked.

“I said what I intended to say,” she answered.

“Den you tell me what exatly you want done, and I'll set about doin' it.”

“Hogs need feedin',” Ben suggested.

“That's your chore, Ben,” Braxton objected.

“I suppose you could work on the corral,” Elsie grumbled. “The rails aren't any too sturdy.”

“You know what Pa said,” Ben interrupted. “We only got ole Sugarcane in there 'sides this fellow's horses. Pa said he'd fix it by and by.”

“You'll be six feet tall, by and by, Benjamin,” Elsie pointed out. “I'm not sure the corral will wait that long.”

“Roof needs shinglin', too,” Brax said.

“It does indeed,” Elsie said, grinning. “What else merits a man's attention, children?”

They provided a fair list, and Pinto leaned against a woodpile and laughed.

“Good thing a man come along,” he told the Oakeses. “I'd judge you couldn't've waited much longer.”

“Pa would've fixed things,” Ben objected.

“Sure, I guess we all know that,” Pinto said, smiling with approval at the boy's loyalty. “But dere's jus' so much work a man can milk out o' every day.”

Pinto soon had cause to wonder at the truth of that statement. That first day he reset the corral posts as they should have been placed, and by nightfall he had the rails pegged in place. Aside from a brief pause for food, he'd labored straight through.

It got no better after that. From dawn to dusk Elsie Oakes had him hammering or sawing or patching. First he cut cedars and then he made shingles. With Ben alongside to pass the slivers of cedar along, Pinto nailed one after another into place. Just when he had the end of the job in sight, the sky darkened, and lightning rattled the windows.

“Just in time!” Braxton shouted as rain began pelting the roof.

“It ain't leakin',” little Winifred cried through the doorway. “They got it fixed!”

A tremendous blast of lightning then split the heavens, and Pinto flattened himself against the roof and hung on with all his might.

“Mister, help!” Ben cried.

Pinto blinked the moisture out of his eye and searched for the boy. Ben was clinging to the chimney and shaking like a leaf. Then another flash lit the sky, and the earth shuddered. Ben's fingers slipped on the wet stone of the chimney, and he started a long slide down the sloping roof. Pinto released his own grip and made a quick stab with his right hand. He managed to grab Ben's belt and hold on, but the rain and the wind were coming in all their fury now, and there was no halting their skid.

“Grab 'hold, boy!” Pinto shouted as he felt his legs dangle off the roof.

“Lord, help us,” Ben muttered as he threw his arms around the man's back and held on.

An hour earlier Pinto supposed the fall would have killed the both of them. The thundershower had converted the hard clay soil to a swimming morass of mud, though, and Pinto found himself hurled down into a wallow. Even so, it drove sharp pain up his spine. And he wasn't helped a particle by the instantaneous arrival of Ben Oakes, who had lost his grip only to land squarely atop Pinto Lowery.

For three or four minutes the two of them lay there in the mud—stunned and fighting for breath. Then Ben rolled over and sank into the mud long enough for Pinto to drink in air and recover his senses.

“Mister?” Ben whispered as he sat beside a wheezing Pinto Lowery. “Mister, you alive?”

“Yup,” Pinto managed to say as he spit out a mouthful of mud. “Ben, you don't look to be much, but I'm here to tell you, you pack a fair wallop when you land on a man.”

“Sorry,” Ben said, digging Pinto's legs out of the bog. “I lost my grip, and I ... ”

“Nothin' to worry after,” Pinto said, smiling through the mess. “Didn't break a bone, did you? Well, me neither. I'd say it come out fine all in all. We're in one piece.”

“Don't speak too soon,” Ben said as he pointed to Elsie Oakes, storming at them with fire in her eyes.

“Just look at you two!” she shouted. “Here, I've been worried you might be struck by lightnin', and you're floppin' in the mud like a pair o' piglets!”

“Ma, you don't understand,” Ben argued.

“I understand just fine, thank you. I've near ruined my only shoes lookin' for you, Benjamin, and I find this fool mustanger's got you splashin' around in the mud.”

“Ma, no,” Ben said, stumbling over to prevent her from booting Pinto Lowery in the rump. “That's not how it was at all. I was slip-pin' down the roof. Mr. Lowery come flyin' over and grabbed me. He fell off the roof 'cause of it, and then I went and landed right atop him. Might've kilt him, Ma!”

“You fell off the roof?” Elsie cried, pulling her son to her.

“No, I had de boy all de while,” Pinto objected. “If I hadn't hit so hard, I might've got us to rollin'. Weren't no danger to it.”

“Not for Ben, you mean,” she said, collecting her wits. “You, on the other hand ...”

“Ma'am, dis ole fool's been Yankee shot, mustang throwed, and stomped by jus' about every hailstone and thunderclap in tarnation, and he's not dead yet. I do tell you, though, dis boy's farm hard and Texas solid. Be a man to know one o' dese days. 'Fore long, I'd wager you.”

“I'm beginning to think you may be a man worth knowing yourself, Mr. Lowery,” Elsie observed. “Now let's get the two of you inside the house and out of this rain.”

“Barn'd be better,” Pinto suggested.

“Nonsense,” she argued. “I'll heat a tub and you can scrub yourself new. The both of you.”

“Figure Ma to work a bath into a fall off a roof,” Ben said, sighing. “can't we just stand in the rain.”

“Get along, Benjamin!” she hollered, dragging him at her side. “I'm near frozen myself, and I hesitate to wonder how Mr. Lowery feels.”

“Likely sorry he's lived,” Ben said, laughing. “Worse fate'n drownin' in mud. Fallin' into the hands o' womenfolk!”

Actually Pinto rather welcomed the hot tub. Even as he and Ben were following Elsie inside the house, a fierce norther exploded across northern Texas, rattling windows with pellets of hail and driving temperatures lower by the minute. Rain and mud had already chilled Pinto Lowery to the bone, and now he could hardly keep his teeth from shaking his jaw off.

“Winifred, help me set another kettle to boil,” Elsie called as she stumbled over beside the stove.

Pinto took one look at the inside of the small picket cabin and sighed. Lace curtains graced the windows, and there wasn't a particle of dust to be found anywhere. Now along came Pinto with his muddy boots and sodden clothes to undo all that effort.

“Ma'am, I'll muddy yer rug sure,” Pinto objected.

“Well, why should you be different?” Elsie replied. “I've already done it myself, and Ben is sure to spatter his way over every inch of the place. Brax, find Mr. Lowery a blanket. He can skin himself of those wet rags in your room, can't he?”

“Sure, Ma,” Braxton said, waving Pinto along as he left the comfort of a crackling fire. The ten-year-old soon guided Pinto to a small corner room holding two tiered bunks and a single hammock.

“Tru's,” Brax explained when Pinto examined the hammock. “Jared Richardson's got one. Tru had Ma sew up a blanket and then hung the thing on ropes. He falls out of it nine nights out o' ten, but there's no tellin' him to pack it away. Tru's headstrong to a fault.”

“Got a hair o' that bug my own self,” Pinto said as he shed his muddy clothes.

“That's where the Yankees got you, huh?” Brax asked when Pinto peeled off his britches, revealing the scar on his left leg.

“Yup, that's de place,” Pinto said, allowing the boy to trace the scar with a small finger. “Doc did a fine job o' stitchery, didn't he? Lots o' boys'd come up short a leg, but I went and found myself some luck that day.”

Braxton nodded somberly as he rummaged through a trunk. He finally located a blanket and offered it to the shivering mustanger. With it wrapped securely around his waist, Pinto crept back toward the kitchen. A wooden tub stood in the center of the small room, and little Winifred helped her mother empty the contents of a boiling kettle into the bath.

“Ma'am, seems to me you got a chill yerself,” Pinto observed as he took note of Elsie's trembling fingers. “You let me occupy myself elsewhere a few minutes and take de firs' soak.”

“That's for company to take,” Elsie answered.

“I'm not company,” Pinto argued. “Jus' hired help. What's more I've known rough life aplenty. I'll go swing in yon hammock. Send Brax to fetch me when de time comes. And get Ben scrubbed, too.”

“Mr. Lowery ...” Elsie began.

“Now dere's another thing,” Pinto interrupted. “All dis mister business's fine in its own way, but I ain't got a bone in my body to merit anybody dippin' a hat nor callin' me mister. My friends call me Pinto, dem that's not got 'emselves killed. Suits me well 'nough.”