Gather My Horses (15 page)

The man gave a slow nod and seemed to be looking at nothing in particular.

“You know how to work around horses?” asked Fielding.

“Been around 'em.” The man raised his head and turned it side to side. “Where are they?”

“The one you'll ride is in here, along with mine. We've got to pick up the rest where I left 'em in the mountains.” Thinking that he might as well level with the man from the beginning, Fielding added, “I had to leave 'em there because my other man got hurt. Killed, actually. But it wasn't the horses. Some-thin' personal between him and another fella. But they've got nothin' against you.”

The man took on his vacant look again. “Lemme have a cirrette and I'll think about it.”

Fielding thought he was asking for a cigarette, but the man reached into the pocket of his loose trousers and took out a sack of tobacco. He shuffled over to the bench, sat down, hooked one leg over the other, leaned forward, and rolled a cigarette. He lit it and smoked it down halfway, resting his
elbow on his elevated knee. Then he turned, and with his pale eyelids open a little more than before, he asked, “How many days we be out?”

“I'd say six, altogether.”

He took another drag and said, “I guess I can do it. I'll go tell my ma.” He stood up.

Fielding looked him over again. “If there's anything you don't have, we'd better get it before we leave town. You'll need a hat, a coat, a change of clothes, boots, a bedroll, a slicker if you've got it.”

“I've got all that. I'll be back in a li'l bit.”

“I'll wait here. By the way, did I hear this man correct, that your name's Baker?”

“Yeah. I just don't like to be called Slim.”

Baker came back in about half an hour, wearing a dust-colored hat with a narrow brim. He was carrying a cotton sack by the neck, and it didn't look as if it held much more than a shirt, a pair of trousers, and maybe a pair of socks.

Fielding eyed the sack. “Is there anything you need to get?”

“It's all in here,” said Baker.

Fielding settled with the stable keeper and brought out the horses. He showed Baker which one he was to ride, and after getting the duffel bag tied on and the man up into the saddle, he adjusted the stirrups by letting them out a couple of inches.

The first night out, the lanky blond man slept under horse blankets with his nose straight up and his mouth open. The second night, after Fielding and his new wrangler had picked up the packhorses and gotten them on the trail again, Fielding gave Baker the bedroll he had made up for the kid. Baker took it without question or comment.

By the second morning, Fielding caught himself getting impatient with the man. Baker seemed to do everything with the least amount of effort possible, as his arms hung at his sides most of the time and his feet did not come very high off the ground. At one point when they were breaking camp, Fielding was rolling up a canvas top pack when Baker appeared at his side and mumbled, “You better come n' see 'bout this horse.”

Fielding had heard some thrashing, but the sound had subsided, so he had not quit in the middle of his task. Now he got up and went with Baker to see what the problem was.

The roan horse lay on its side in the midst of foot-high pine and aspen trees. It was wild-eyed and heaving slow, with its chin tucked to its chest as the lead rope held taut between its headstall and a four-inch-thick aspen. Fielding could see at a glance that Baker had given the horse too much slack and it had straddled the rope, tripped itself, and pulled back by nature. After each loud breath, the horse kicked in the air. It rocked to one side, pushed partway up, and fell again.

Fielding shook his head. The knots were pulled tight, and it was hard to get any slack on a horse in this position. Losing no time, he took out his knife and opened it, decided not to risk getting cut or kicked, and cut the rope where it was tied at the tree.

The roan's head jerked back, its legs flailed, and it clambered to its feet in a cloud of dust.

“Why didn't you do something sooner?” asked Fielding.

“I din't wanna get kicked.”

Fielding took a short, heavy breath. “Well, go get that horse—no, I'll get him. You untie that rope from the tree. I'll have to splice it later.”

Fielding went after the roan and caught him without much trouble. On his way back, he realized he had not told Baker how to tie up a horse. The man didn't show much interest when Fielding did tell him something, and Fielding felt a futility in trying to teach what someone didn't care to learn. Nevertheless, if he was going to get any use out of the man, he was going to have to go through the same things he went through with the kid. He led the roan back to the aspen tree, where Baker was pushing the heel of his hand against the tight knots.

“Here,” he said. “Let me show you how to tie a horse so he doesn't get in trouble like this one did. Tie him at this height and give him only a couple of feet of slack.” He glanced at Baker, who looked on with indifference. “All right,” he went on. “Go ahead and get that piece untied, and we'll get back to work. We'll load this fella later, give him a while to cool down. But he'll be all right.” He patted the roan on the neck and moved away.

As they were getting the horses lined out, Fielding made another effort at explaining the work to his new wrangler.

“Notice how none of these horses is very tall. Fifteen hands at the most.” He started with this point because he imagined it was something Baker could recognize in his own terms, as the man did not have to lift his foot very high to step into the stirrup. “That's good in a packin' horse, not only so you can get the load on easier but so it doesn't
scrape on as many branches. And as you can see, we try to keep the top packs low.”

Baker nodded but did not look at the horses.

“Let's get going, then. We'll do the same as yesterday. I'll go first with my four, and—”

“Lemme roll a cirrette first.”

Fielding took a quick inward breath. “Go ahead. I'll take a last look around.” As he did, he found where Baker had left the tent rope, uncoiled, lying in the thin grass. Words ran through Fielding's mind.
Slow, lazy son of a bitch. Drops everything at his ass.
He picked up the rope and coiled it as he walked back to the pack string. He waited for Baker to finish lighting his cigarette, and then he held up the rope and said, “We need to be more careful, not leave things lying around.”

Baker gazed at the rope with an incurious expression.

Fielding stuck the rope into the pannier of Baker's first packhorse and said, “Let's get going, then.”

They rode through typical canyon country, where wildflowers and single blades of grass grew in the sparse soil. They went past a spreading pine tree that grew out of a hillside of gray rocks laid out like a row of fallen columns. At midday they rested in a bottom where a clear, sparkling stream flowed through a grassy little valley, crossing the trail and winding into a rock-wall canyon to the northeast.

After watering the horses there, they started to climb. They passed through a country of high, rocky formations—smooth, yellowish bronze rock that rose in heaps and domes made of huge slabs. Toward late afternoon, the canyon opened into broader country again, with grassland rising away
on each side and flanked by hills with dark cedar and pine on the ridges. At a place where a small trickle of a stream came down from the left, Fielding decided to make camp.

Baker held the horses as Fielding untied the pack animals from one another. As Fielding made his way to the horse nearest Baker, he said, “It's good to know your own knots and hitches. You don't always get to undo 'em in daylight and warm weather. By the way, what did you do with that length of rope that got cut this morning?”

“I never could get that sumbitch untied.”

“You just left it there?”

Baker shrugged. “What good is it anyway? It was on'y 'bout three feet long.”

“By God,” said Fielding. “You never know when you need every last piece of rope you've got. I was goin' to splice it onto the length it came off of, but even if I didn't, you use it for something. Untwist it and use the strands, if nothing else.”

“It's not goin' anywhere. We can get it on the way back.”

The man's careless tone set Fielding off. “Don't make me mad, Baker. I'm just tryin' to get this job done.”

For once, Baker's voice rose to something like defiance. “Well, so am I,” he said.

Fielding calmed down as he realized that Baker, in his own way, was doing what he thought was a full day's work. “That's all right,” said Fielding. “Let's tie these up, and we'll separate the others.”

Aggravation came back the next morning when they got ready to mount up. With the loads lighter
after the first delivery of supplies, Fielding decided to use the dark horse and the roan for saddle horses for a day. He got the dark horse ready and left it tied as he went to see what was taking the hired hand so long.

Baker stood three feet back from the horse, holding the saddle blankets at waist level.

“What's wrong?” asked Fielding.

“He doan like me.”

“He won't give you any trouble. Here, give that to me.” Fielding took the pair of folded blankets, gave them a shake, and looked them over for stickers. Then he laid them smooth as a mat on the roan's back. “Now give me your saddle.” He swung it up and over, then settled it onto the blankets. Next he reached under the horse, drew up the cinch, and held the ring as he ran the latigo through it. After buckling the back cinch, he held his hand out for the bridle. He tied the halter loose around the horse's neck and drew the bridle up to the horse's nose and mouth. The roan took the bit just fine, and Fielding settled the headstall around its ears. After setting the halter aside, he led the horse out for twenty yards, brought it back, and tightened the cinch until it was snug on three fingers.

“Here,” he said, handing the reins to Baker.

The lean man draped the reins around the horse's neck and onto the saddle horn, pulled some of the slack, and then stuck his foot in the stirrup and stepped over.

As soon as he had his seat, the roan went into a rocking-horse buck. The pale-faced rider let go of the reins and grabbed the saddle horn with both hands. After half a dozen bucks, the horse settled
down to a stutter step. Baker's right leg came up over the cantle, and he bailed off.

“I'm not gonna ride that sumbitch,” he said, pulling off his hat.

“Ah, hell. He's all done buckin'. And he's not that much of a bucker anyway.”

“I don't care. I don't wanna sit on him all day long and wonder when he's gonna try it again.”

“He didn't even throw you. Just get back on him.”

“Not that sumbitch. Not me. Lemme have the one I've been ridin'.”

Fielding gave in, figuring he didn't need any more complications. If Baker was afraid, he would communicate it to the horse, and if he chanced to get thrown off, he could get hurt. “All right,” said Fielding. “We'll swap him for the brown one.”

That evening they pulled into the Harbison camp, which consisted of a shack and a set of corrals. The two line riders were a couple of older punchers whose job consisted in going out and checking on cattle each day. They looked over the horses as the string came in, and Fielding could tell they were inspecting his diamond hitches as well. They helped unpack and hauled their own supplies into the shack.

“Do we get to put the horses in the krell?” asked Baker when both men were in the shack.

“If they tell us to. Same thing with whether we sleep inside or out.”

One of the men came out a few minutes later and told them they could put their horses in the last corral. “Looks like you've got oats,” he said.

“Oh, yeah, plenty,” said Fielding.

“Well, when you've got 'em watered and grained,
come on in. Charley's got a pot of beans, and there's not so many mosquitoes inside. Bring your bedrolls in if you want.”

Daylight was not yet showing when Fielding woke to the clanking of firewood in the stove. From the man's labored breathing, Fielding could tell it was Charley getting a start on the day.

After breakfast, Fielding walked out into the chilly morning. He had the light, relieved feeling of having delivered the goods he was responsible for and of getting ready for the trip back.

With only their own gear to pack, he and Baker had the horses ready in about an hour. They waved good-bye to the line riders, and the horses picked up their feet as Fielding started on what he hoped was a quick trip home.

They made good time, but the day warmed up in the afternoon, so Fielding called a rest stop before they went into the narrower, rocky part of the canyon. Following a line of trees up a dry creek bed, he found a water hole that hadn't gone dry. As the horses drank, Baker squatted on one knee and rolled a cigarette.

When the rest was over and Fielding was tying the horses together, he noticed that the canvas bundle of the gear tent had slipped to one side. He pushed it back even and told Baker to tighten it up a little as he tied the other horses. A couple of minutes later, he looked over to see how his wrangler was doing.

Baker stood on his left foot while he had his right against the dark horse's hip. He must have just given a pull, as he sagged for a couple of seconds.
Then he straightened up and pulled for all he was worth, his lean frame and thin arms fighting the task. He sagged again and gave it another pull, and the horse broke wind, short and explosive. Fielding almost laughed out loud, and he could imagine someone like Lodge quoting the old saying, “Pull baker, pull devil.”

Fielding had told Baker more than once to give the lash rope a steady pull instead of yanks and releases, but he knew by now that his hired hand was no kid and was not likely to change for the better.