The Smartest Horse in Texas (The Traherns #2) (7 page)

The man he’d called Brandy had Cummings’ horse saddled ahead of
me, ready to go and at the doorway of the house. I led Hero to the water trough
and gave him his head.

Hero, that military campaigner, knew urgency when he felt it. He
drank and he drank deeply. I had grabbed two extra canteens and I filled them
so I could give him water as we went.

Cummings’ horse was dancing all over the ground, like water on a
hot fry pan, using up energy, while Hero stood there like an elderly statesman.
Cummings came outside with the books in his hand, followed by Dawn. She handed
me two filled canteens and a packet of food, which I put in my saddlebags. She
ran back and picked up a second group of supplies which she handed to her father.
He had already mounted and shouted impatiently at her. “Hurry up! Don’t take
all day. Go get me a blanket for sleeping in.”

I thought she was moving right fast.

“What does this Elmer look like?” I asked, to take his mind off
her speed or lack of it. “I need to know to describe him to the Rangers.”

“He’s short, bald, with a beard that never amounted to much of
anything. And fat. He weren’t that way when he come here, but he’s that way
now.”

“And he always wears a black cap and a dark blue vest,” added one
of the hands.

“And he can’t ride worth beans,” added another, as Cummings
handed me the paper to the Rangers telling what had happened.

“All right,” I said, folding that paper and putting it carefully
in my pocket. I mounted and put Hero into his mile-eating trot. He must have
had some Morgan in him, because most horses had to gallop to keep up to his
trot. He could keep at it all day and into the night.

After a bit, Cummings galloped up. He pulled to a slow canter.
“Git going.”

“Sir, Hero can travel all day at this speed. I could run him,
but no horse alive can run from here to Ft. Worth.”

He swore and took off and I passed him about six miles on down
the road, his horse lathered and steaming and in a bad way. I stopped long
enough to tell him to take his time, I’d get the Rangers to hold Elmer until he
got there.

Near the end of the second day, the trail dipped into a deep
gully that had a tiny trickle of a stream running down the bottom of it.

I rode Hero into it and dismounted, letting him drink while I
filled my canteens upstream from him. It was good water, not red or brackish,
and sure tasted great. I hunkered down and watched the fish that flashed in the
deeper holes. It was a tiny stream, but the presence of the fish told me that
it was a stream to count on, not intermittent like so many streams I’d come to
that were waterless at the time.

Not quite sunset, but if I made camp here, we could get fresh
water before we started in the morning.

I threw up the stirrup to loosen the cinch, stepping back when
Hero’s head came up and he spun around to look upstream, his ears pricked
forward.

He trembled and stamped his feet, so instead of taking that
saddle off, I flipped the stirrup back down and mounted.

As soon as I put one foot in the stirrup he was off, scrambling
up the side of that gulch like he had hornets under his tail. I grabbed the
horn and hung on while I got my foot over and into the off side stirrup.

Indians?

Hero wasn’t the only animal high-tailing it out of that gulch. A
lynx ran right underneath his hooves, headed for the ridge. Several jacks ran
with it, and the quail were flying out of the gulch like they’d been flushed.

When we reached higher ground, I pulled Hero to a stop to look
around. He didn’t like it much, just kept moving sideways and up the slope away
from the gulch.

Then I could hear it. A boom, like a cannon being shot. Then
another one. Then another. Louder and louder as it got closer.

Hero was used to cannons. He didn’t tremble when they went off.
It had me right puzzled.

“What? Hold on, Hero. What is it?”

Then I saw it. A wall of water crashing down that gulch. Too
much water for the gulch to hold, so it was flowing out over the sides. The top
was traveling faster than the bottom, and it had reared itself up higher than
the huge ocean waves I’d seen off the coast of the Carolinas.

It swept through that gulch like a woman cleaning a dish,
booming each time it hit a slight curve because it was trying to go straight.
Some water splashed up around Hero’s feet as I let him bound up to the ridge
top.

I made a little note to myself not to sleep in any dry gulches
along the way. These Texas streambeds didn’t stay dry, although there hadn’t
been a drop of rain where I was. It was something Dawn had forgotten to mention
when she was talking about the land. Probably thought it was something everyone
knew.

“You’d think I was a pilgrim, to almost get caught by that,” I
told Hero. “And I guess I still am when it comes to desert country. Thanks,
pal.”

I continued on my way, running almost immediately into another
stream running a banker.

“Well, I’d planned to camp near that other stream, so we’ll just
settle down here for the night. I’m not trying to cross that torrent with you,
Hero, money or no money.” It might give Elmer more time, but I wasn’t killing
me or my horse with foolishness.

I picked a level area, took off my saddle and started a small
fire near to a pile of dried out driftwood. I looked that wood over and
realized it had been brought downstream by an even larger flood. There was a
line of it, marking the edge of the highest water.

Luckily I had picked a spot uphill of the wood. Otherwise I
would’ve moved camp.

I gave Hero some grain and ate some of the tucker that Dawn had
put together for me. Right tasty, it was.

I checked for snake holes, beating the area where I wanted to
put my blanket. Satisfied that I wasn’t sharing my site, I rolled up in my
blanket and looked at the stars. It was just after eight o’clock, the dipper
having swung around its handle like an enormous hand on a clock running
counterclockwise.

I lay there on the hard ground, nothing new for me. What was new
was the way my thoughts kept returning to Dawn.

She had been so alive, so interesting, until Cummings returned.
Then she’d become a completely different person. She reined in her enthusiasm
and became plain dull. If I’d have met her while she was with her pa, I’d have
thought nothing of her.

I was fascinated with her, first with her stillness, which was
anything but dull. It was the stillness of one who looks out over vast plains
and sees a wondrous country. The stillness of a person complete in herself.

That stillness was shattered by Cummings. Did he know it for
what it was? Or did he figure it was one of her strange Indian ways that he
didn’t accept?

It wasn’t Indian. I’d seen it in some of the older hill people
I’d known, comfortable in their own skin. They were the ones that the dogs came
to and put their muzzles into their hands. And the cats just curled up on their
laps and stayed, comfortable and content.

It was the stillness of a person who has been alone a lot and
emptiness doesn’t bother them.

Except for the trip we’d taken to the store, Dawn didn’t talk
much—to me, John or Lewis.

She talked to the horses though, and the cattle. She also talked
with her body, the movement of her hands and the tilt of her head. She could
probably get any animal on the place to do her bidding, including me. But not
the rest of the men, and certainly not her pa. They were not in tune with her,
thinking her strange.

She was a fine looking woman, pretty, but her face had more
character to it that any other pretty girl I’d seen. She wore no makeup, just
what the sun had strongly touched, so in the cities where a white face was
supposed to be a sign of beauty, she would have been thought of as lacking.

She had no tricks to snare
a man, excepting for her stillness and I expect many men would be uncomfortable
with that. I think she used it somewhat to hold herself away from her pa and
the men at the ranch. She dropped it when we were alone and I was teaching her
to read, then slipped it on again when she was with other people.

I put Hero back into his trot, which was smooth and easy to sit.
When we’d hit a long, steep stretch, I’d get off, grab the latigo straps and
run beside him, letting him half pull me along.  It gave both of us a
break. We must have done that trip in record time.

It was busy near Ft. Worth, lots of people around, some who fit
Elmer’s description. I went straight to the Ranger’s office, spoke to the head
gent there and he accompanied me to the bank.

Seems Elmer was there at the bank in Ft. Worth, ready to leave,
with his money already in a case along with a ticket to New Orleans. The Ranger
grabbed Elmer, who looked exactly as they had described. He started blubbering,
and if there was any question in the Ranger’s mind it was gone immediately,
seeing Elmer’s reaction. He marched Elmer to jail, money and all, to hold until
James Cummings rode in.

The Ranger invited me to have supper with him.

“I’d like that very much, but I have to take care of Hero first.
Where’s a livery stable?”

“Don’t take him there. They buy spoiled grain cheap and mix it
in with the good.”

“I still have some of my own grain.”

“They’ll feed that to their horses. Put him in with mine. The Rangers
have their own barn.” He took a good look at Hero as I untied him. “Would you
sell him?”

“Never.”

“Would you consider joining the Rangers?”

I thought about the fact that I was riding a stolen horse. A
thief to become a lawman? Besides I was never comfortable long in a town. The
people were too close together. “No, thanks.”

He led the way to a nice clean barn and I was able to give Hero
a good reward for his hard work. The Ranger pointed out what served as the
hotel and left. I joined him later and we ate while he told me about the
Rangers and how a few men were trying to keep peace in a land bigger than most
countries.

Next day I started back. The day after that, I passed James
Cummings on his way to Ft. Worth and gave him the news. I was walking Hero slow,
letting him graze now and then as we traveled, so it was almost a week before I
got back to the ranch.

The men were out working, but Dawn was there, happy to see me.
Now riding gives a man a whole heap of time to cogitate on things. I noticed
that on this ride, my thoughts kept dwelling on Dawn.

She was the loveliest thing this side of the Mississippi River.
Quiet, but those eyes of hers would sparkle and shine when she was happy. Like
right now.

“Come see what I did,” she said.

I followed her to where she had hid my Bible and her new
notebook.

She had copied out the whole of John, first, second and third,
the short books. She had underlined some of the words and circled others.

“What’s this?” she pointed to the first word circled.

“Propitiation.”

She repeated it several times to get it set in her mind. “I’ve
never heard it. What does it mean?”

“It means to make things right, by a sacrifice, or payment.
Usually to remove a penalty. See, it says, ‘He is the propitiation for our
sins...’”

She finished reading the sentence out loud.

“You’re getting good,” I said. She had figured out many words I
hadn’t taught her.

“What’s this one?”

“Abideth.”

She kept me standing there until she had all the underlined and
circled words clear. The underlined ones were just repeats of the circled ones.
I was amazed at how far she had come.

Now if I could get someone
to be the propitiation for me, and pay off Trey so he wouldn’t come beatin’ the
bushes for me, I’d be right happy.

Dawn cooked a wonderful meal when her father came back home. She
topped it off with a pie made of some black currants she had picked.

The crust was flakey and the smell out of this world, so when I
bit in, I wasn’t expecting it to be so sour and salty. I put my hand over my
mouth and spit it into my hand. I glanced around the table. Cummings had a
shocked expression on his face as he spit his onto his plate.

“Ugh. What did you put in this, you stupid woman? It’s pure
salt.”

Dawn shrunk and pointed, wordlessly, toward where the salt and
sugar sacks sat side by side on the wooden shelf used as a pantry.

“That one says ‘salt,” he yelled, pointing to the right bag.
“Not ‘sugar!’”

She stared down at the ruined pie. “They both begin with an
‘s.’”

“You never made that mistake before. Why now?”

“I tasted them before. This time I read...”

“You can’t read.”

“Yes, she can,” I interrupted. “I’ve been teaching her.”

“Forget it. I don’t want you trying to teach her while you’re
working for me. It’s a waste of time, teaching a woman to read. Especially her.
She’s too dumb. I have more important things for you to do.”