The Busted Thumb Horse Ranch (9 page)

Well, hell, I’m probably not going to get a better shot
than this. ’Course if I miss, it’s a long haul to the
fence,
an’ then I gotta climb the sumbitch. But I’m not
goin’
to miss.

I didn’t need to shake out my loop; it was already
formed and ready. I faced the bay and took
my throw. It was a perfect toss, I don’t mind sayin’.
It slapped against his head and settled
around his neck. I started haulin’ ass as soon as
the loop left my hand, what was left of the coil in
my hand. The horse stood there as if in shock for
a moment—which gave me time to wind a half
dozen turns of rope around the snubbing post.
He backed up quickly, was stopped by the rope,
and lit out toward me, ready to chew and stomp
me into paste.

I’m not much at running and Western boots
with high riding heels, didn’t add to my speed.
But, I’ll tell you what. I burned up the dirt getting
to the fence, grabbed hold, flung myself up, and
sat on the rail to see what would happen.

The bay hit the end of the rope when I was
about
halfway to the fence—and the momentum—
the force behind his charge—flipped him up into
the air, all four feet going out from under him. He
slammed to the ground on his back and was up
immediately, rearing, squealing, bucking, carrying
on as if ol’ Satan was nibbling on his ass. He
tried a run in a different direction and it ended,
’course, in the same way the first had. He was already
sweating and trembling with anger. He
tried bucking and lunging again but the rope
stopped him each time. He battled that rope for a
good half hour until sweat dripped from his
flanks, belly, and chest and he stood blowing,
sucking air. I stayed where I was on the fence
and rolled a smoke. Maybe forty-five minutes
later, the stallion walked to the bucket and
dropped his nose into it. I jumped down on the
outside of the fence as did Arm. We grinned at
each other.

“Step one,” I said.

For the next few days I did nothing with him
except carry out a flake of hay, retrieve the empty
bucket, replace it with a new one—crimped oats
and molasses, thanks to our delivery from
town—and walk back to the fence. He’d stopped
booting the buckets after the first one for whatever
reasons he had. That kinda surprised me.

I talked all the while I did my chores with him.
Arm’s and mine were probably the first human
voices the bay horse had ever heard, and I wanted
him to get used to the sounds men make. Sometimes
I sang:
Buffalo Gals
,
When Johnny Comes
Marchin’ Home
,
Oh, Susanna
, and such like.
Mostly, though, I talked. Arm spent some time in
nonsense
talk with our horse in both Spanish and
English.

Every so often the stud would try the rope, but
without the frenzied attack he’d shown the first
time. I guess he grew weary of being jacked off
his feet and bashed down to the ground.

Meanwhile, we had to find some mares good
enough to match our stallion. We went into town
to see if Tiny had heard anything and we put
up some posters seeking good, solid, young but
broke-to-handling mares. We had time and a
bundle of money. We weren’t worrying about it.

Teresa and Blanca were working out beautifully.
Breakfast, for instance consisted of a dozen
or so eggs for us to split up, a pile of fried potatoes,
and slabs of hog side meat. Lunch was just
as good, but wider in scope. We even had soup
one day. Supper they went all out for: steaks as
big as saddle blankets, fluffy mashed spuds, fresh
baked bread, and all the coffee we could drink.
At supper they always put our bottle of tequila on
the table, too. They kept the place spotless. The
house always had that clean, fresh aroma of wood
polish floating through it. Blanca drifted through
the kitchen one morning to ask when we were
next going to town.

“We were thinking ’bout goin’ in today,” I said.
“Why?”

“There are tings we need. I make a leest, okay?”

“Sure—that’ll be fine.”

Teresa looked around the corner. “You take the
peckhorse, too, no?”

Arm sighed. “How much things do you need?”
he
asked. “We both have saddlebags that’ll carry
plenty.”

“Too small,” Blanca said.

“You need peckhorse,” Teresa added.

We saddled up and then put the rig on the
packhorse. He was frisky and getting fat—he
hadn’t been used for a while. He got a little too
cute with Arm’s black and lost a mouthful of hair
and hide. That calmed him down.

There was a wind that had a bite to it, and the
temperature was low and dropping.

“Ain’t summer no more,” Arm said. He had the
collar up on his heavy jacket, as did I.

We let our horses run a bit, holding them in so
the pack animal could keep up. When we reined
in after a mile or so, Arm said, “The stallion, he is
coming good.”

“Yeah. He is. He’s still as wild as a hawk, but
I can get next to him without him charging me or
even laying his ears back.”

“Would you breed him now?”

“Might be a little dicey, but yeah, I would—if
it’s the right mare an’ she’s in season. I’m sure our
ol’ boy would climb right on, but whether or not
he’d do any biting that’d hurt the mare, I dunno.”

“What means ‘in season’?”

“Same thing as ‘horsing’—or ‘horny’ for that
matter. All ready for a stud.”

“I know ‘horny.’ This ‘season’ thing is silly.”
He
paused for a moment. “Maybe we need to tease
him with a mare, see how he takes the scent, no?”

“Good idea.” I didn’t bother to tell my partner
that was precisely what I intended to do.

We dropped off our packhorse at the mercantile,
along with the list the ladies had prepared. I
hadn’t bothered to look at it—what they needed
was what they need. I asked the clerk to wrap
four quarts of good whiskey real careful-like and
include those with the supplies, too. As I was
leaving, I stopped at the door. “Put one of those
quarts at the top of a load,” I said. “We might give
it a trial on the way home.”

The wind was whipping bits of ice that stung
our faces like bees as we rode down to Tiny’s
shop. He was hammering a fracture in a steel
wheel rim as we tied our horses. His sale corral
was full—he’d obviously made a sizable purchase
lately. Arm and I stood at the fence, looking over
the stock. Our eyes came to rest on the same
horse: a buckskin mare that was the prettiest
damned thing a man could ever see. Buckskins
are eye-catchers anyway, but this gal was perfect.
She stood square, looking about—curious, not
frightened. Her coat was the color of homemade
taffy and the dorsal line of black down her spine
was straight and true. She had a good chest for a
mare and her black mane and tail were long,
without tangles. Her withers were prominent but
not overly so, and her legs were picture-perfect,
with gently sloping pasterns.

“Madre de Dios,”
Arm said.

“Yeah—she’s somethin’.”

Tiny set aside his wheel rim and greeted us.
“You saw the buckskin, I see. I was gonna send a
kid out to fetch you to eyeball that pretty li’l
girl.”

“Is she as good as she looks?” I asked.

“Better. Got the temperament of a new bride,
reins great, backs away from fighting with the
other mares. She’s a good ’un, boys.”

A one-horse carriage pulled up at the hitching
rail. The driver—dressed like a banker or an
undertaker—jumped down. He smacked Armando’s
horse on the ass to make room for his
horse and rig. Arm started forward, but I held
him back. “Let it go,” I said. “The guy’s a dude.
Lookit the shine on them boots. He’s never
stepped in horseshit in his life.”

The man approached us. “You are the owner of
the horses out there?” he asked Tiny.

“Yeah. I am. Folks call me Tiny.” The gent didn’t
offer his hand, nor did Tiny. “These two boys are
Jake…”

The dude waved away that introduction with
a choppy hand motion. “I’ve come to talk to you,
not your stablehands. I’m interested in that buckskin.
I saw her when you brought her in last
night—and I saw one of your boys run her down
the street this morning. She covers ground.”

“You got a name?” Tiny asked.

“I’m Morgan Dansworth,” he said. “You’ve no
doubt heard of me. I have the biggest cattle and
running horse operation in West Texas. That
mare would make a good addition. If she’s as fast
as she looks, I’ll race her. If not, she looks like a
real good brood mare.”

“I ain’t heard of you,” Tiny said.

“Me neither,” Arm said.

“Nor me,” I said.

Dansworth flushed slightly and his eyes
squinted a bit. Like I said, he was dressed like a
banker—
fine suit, polished boots, fawn-colored
gloves, a fur hat.

He cleared his throat, needlessly, I thought. “Be
that as it may, I’ll purchase that mare.”

Tiny looked at Armando and me. I shook my
head. “She ain’t for sale,” he said. “You’re a
little
too late.”

“The horse hasn’t been here a full day yet! Who
bought…”

“These two stablehands,” Tiny said.

Dansworth forced a smile at us. “What’d you
pay for the animal? I’ll double the amount—right
now, in cash. Certainly there are other horses
here that’re good enough for your purposes—
whatever they may be.”

“Like Tiny said,” I said, “she ain’t for sale.”

“What we pay for her is no your business,”
Arm added.

Dansworth’s face grew more red, and it wasn’t
from the wind. “I’ll have that horse,” he said.
“I’ll
pay you three times what you—”

“She isn’t for sale,” I said, louder than I usually
talk.

“ ’Less you got other business here, I’ll ask you
to be on your way,” Tiny said.

“An’ you hit my horse again, you be swallowing
your teeth,
pendejo.
”

“Like I said, I’ll have that horse—one way or
another. I have better than a hundred men working
for me. Many are very tough. Better you sell
now and avoid trouble.”

“Trouble? Sheeee—it! You bring it right on!” Arm
said. “We own the Busted Thumb Horse Ranch—
even a fancy prancer like you could find us.”

Dansforth glared at Tiny for a long moment.
“You’ll regret this,” he said.

“I don’ think so.”

The dude untied his horse, climbed onto his
carriage, swung it around, and took off at a run.
“You see the bit in that carriage horse’s mouth?
One of them spade Mex things—sorry, Arm—
that’ll rip hell outta a horse’s mouth,” Tiny said.

“Because I am Mexican does not mean I ruin
animals,” Arm said.

“I know that.”

“Bueno.”

“What do you need for the mare?” I asked.

“Hundred and a half.”

Arm whistled.

“Sold,” I said. “Will you hold her for a day or
so?” I dug into my pants and started counting out
money. “I don’t have but eighty with me,” I said.
“Arm, you got…”

“Cut the horseshit, boys. The mare is yours.
Bring me the money in a day or so—I know you’re
good for it.”

“Sí,”
Arm said. “We are also good for some of
them cold beers an’ maybe a taste of whiskey to
warm the blood, no?”

“Fine idea,” Tiny said. “Let’s do it.”

We sat at a table in the saloon. Most of the
cowhands had cleared out—either lost all their
money to the professional gamblers, spent it on
whores and booze, or simply moved on.

“I know Dansworth—or I know of him, anyway,”
Tiny said. “He’s got some fine racehorses,
I’ll give him that. Not just hotbloods, either—all
kinds.” He paused. “I heard that fancy Colt he
carries
was made by a gunsmith in Chicago—
starting from scratch. Then, Danworth spent a
few months with a ’ol boy named Jackson—a
gunfighter—an’ learned to use the pistol. Word
says he’s fast an’ deadly, dude or not.”

The bartender was familiar with our needs. He
brought over a tray with six schooners of beer
and three double-shots of whiskey.

“What else do you know?” I asked.

Tiny downed his whiskey.

“Well, his papa built up a hell of a operation
durin’ the war, sellin’ beef to both the Yanks an’
the rebs. Made him real rich. He was a horseman—
knew horses and always had prime stock
around—and always lookin’ for more to buy. He
up an’ croaked three, four years ago an’ his kid
took over. That cowflop we just saw was the kid.
Thing is, he’s got those hundred men an’ more,
an’ he uses them like a army.”

My whiskey was raw, but the warmth of it
going down felt good. “You think we got anything
to worry about from him?”

“We step on that
cucaracha,
no?”

“Sure. But he ain’t the one you gotta worry
about. It’s his men. From what I heard, he’s got a
pack of deserters, crazies, an’ gunslingers ridin’
for him. He pays them good an’ they ain’t afraid
to trade gunfire.”

“Neither are we,” I said.

“I know that. All I’m sayin’ is to keep your eyes
open an’ watch that mare real close. By the way—
how’s the stud comin’?”

“He’s doin good, considerin’ he was as wild as
a damned mountain cat when we brought him in.
I’ve got him snubbed an’ I can touch his muzzle.”

“I’d say don’t push him, Jake. Take your time.”

Arm laughed. “Jake, he’s as patient as a kid at
Navidad.
”

Tiny changed the subject. “How’re Blanca an’
Teresa doin’?”

“They’re great. God, the way they feed us. I
swear to you, Tiny, it won’t be long before I’m as
fat as Armando.”

“Ees muscle, no fat.”

We all hefted our beers, laughing. Arm held up
his whiskey glass and the tender brought over
another trio of doubles. After we’d all finished
our drinks we went back to Tiny’s shop. We
stopped at the corral to gawk at the buckskin
mare for a bit, and then Arm an’ me rode over to
the mercantile. Our packhorse was tied to the
hitching rail in front. The poor critter was as
loaded as he could be, but there didn’t seem to be
much weight to what he carried in his bags—just
size and bulk. I went in to even up. The price was
$47.34, which is a pretty stiff amount of money,
but what the hell.