Waltzing With Tumbleweeds (7 page)

“I can go to town,” she said.

“We settled that. You are staying here.” He did not look at her as he began to eat.

When he heard her sniff, he glanced up. Her lashes were wet.

“Eat,” he said pointing at her plate with his fork.

“If I can,” she mumbled.

Thurman frowned at her words. He leaned back and considered her.

“Were you starving?” he asked.

Her nod was enough to sicken him. She was not only homeless, but hungry. He was shocked by the truth of her situation. They’d had no food. The picture dulled his appetite. If she hadn’t come, she might have died and he would never have known of her plight. This new knowledge depressed him.

“Coffee?” she asked with the graniteware poised over his mug.

Thurman nodded. He watched the brown liquid splash in the cup. Even the rich tasting coffee did not seem much of a treat for him at the moment.

As he lifted his mug to blow the steam away, he studied her bobbed straw colored hair. She must have brushed it a hundred times for it shown in the lamplight. He realized how she must have feared he would reject her while she had waited all day for him to return.

When their meal was finished, she busied herself gathering the dishes. Deliberate, Dunkia paused when she reached for his plate.

“I forgot the plums,” she said.

“They’ll be good for breakfast,” he said.

“You do not have to be kind to me,” she said.

Thurman blinked at her. “Huh?”

“I will do your bidding under your roof. If I do things wrong or forget, I expect you to punish me.”

“We’ll see,” he said. Feeling his face heat up, he was relieved that she had taken his plate and turned her back. He noticed she was washing the dishes in steaming water from the stove. Then he remembered the can of petroleum jelly that might soothe her raw hands.

On his knees, Thurman dug through the chest. Finally he found the small tin, with its label nearly worn off down to the metal. He pushed himself up to his feet

“Here...” he said, realizing she was pouring more water in the dishpan atop the dry sink.

“The dishes are done,” she said softly. “If you will turn your head, I’ll clean up.”

“Sure,” he said as he turned. Her words made him feel as if he had violated her privacy.

“I won’t be long,” she assured him.

Take all the time you want, he mused to himself. His attention centered on the frost patterns that etched the window glass. After a few minutes, he heard her say that she was finished and Thurman remembered the greasy can in his hand.

“This may help your hands,” he said and crossed the room to hand it to her.

“Mister Lake?” she said.

“Yes?”

“You are being very kind to me.”

He shrugged her gratitude away. She snapped off the lid and took a small dab on the end of her fingertip. Impatient with her timidness, Thurman stepped closer, took the can and dipped three of his fingers in the ointment. Then he took her hand and rubbed the grease in the back of it. Lord, he shuddered, she’d be all day doing any good.

“As dry as your hands are,” he said. “A little isn’t going to do it.”

Busy working it in, he barely heard her soft, “Yes.”

Then realizing he was touching her for the first time, he became self-conscious. But determined to ease her condition, he kept massaging the jell in.

When he finished, they were standing very close. Her slick hands were still in his light grasp as he looked into her sky blue eyes. He leaned closer to her face, expecting her to twist her head. But to his surprise, Dunkia held her place for him to kiss her on the lips. The moment was brief and when he opened his eyes, he felt shaken by his own forwardness.

If he ever wanted to make a sincere sounding statement, the time seemed at hand. The moment passed and he stepped back instead, releasing her hands. Words never came. Instead he blew out the lamp and plunged the room into darkness.

“You take this side of the bed,” he announced. “I’ll take the other side.”

As he sat down in the chair to take off his boots, she moved past him. In the silver starlight, he could barely see Dunkia unbuttoning her dress.

What in hell’s name would she sleep in? It just wasn’t any worry of his. He strained to pull off his left boot. When he looked up again, her silhouette was gone, but the protest of the bed told him enough. His second one came off even harder. Maybe this sleeping in the same bed wasn’t such a good idea?

He’d expected her to sleep fully dressed. Surely, he told himself, she has under clothes on. When he stood up, he considered shedding his britches, but decided against it and went around to his side.

Thurman drew a deep breath, then raised the quilts and edged in. When his hip touched hers, he moved an inch away, pulled up the covers, and settled on his left side. Good enough, he decided.

“Mister Lake?” she asked softly.

“Yes?”

“Do you always sleep in your clothes?”

Thurman sat straight up and slapped the covers with his palms. “Quit calling me mister! My name’s Thurman and I usually sleep in my long johns.”

“Yes, Thurman.”

“And quit...” He wasn’t sure what he wanted to tell her next. In disgust, he rose and took off his shirt and pants in haste.

“Now I’m like I usually sleep,” he announced and climbed back in the bed with his back to her. When he was close to falling asleep, his hand dropped off his side and brushed her silky bare skin. He drew it back as if he had burned himself.

Damn, he swore silently. She was naked as a baby. He squeezed his eyelids shut. Then he scolded himself for having acted like a foolish schoolboy and kissing her. He considered getting up.

“Dunkia?” he asked softly, hoping that she was asleep and wouldn’t answer him.

“Yes, Thurman.” She sounded wide-awake to him.

He laid firmly on his left side without any intention of turning over until all this was settled.

“There isn’t a preacher in town and I can’t leave this place for more than two days because of feeding my cows. So going to the county seat is out until spring. Do you understand?”

“No.”

What did he have to do, draw her a picture?

“What I’m getting at—well if you want, I’ll marry you then.”

“You don’t have to do that mister... Thurman,” she corrected herself.

He bolted to a sitting position again and stared across the dark room. “Well, I will if you’ll let me!”

“Let you what?”

“Marry you, silly. Hell, I ain’t even sure of what I mean.”

“I will marry you,” she said and pulled on his arm for him to be with her.

He half fell on top of her and braced himself so he did not crush her. A cold shiver ran up Thurman’s spine. When he lowered his face to find her lips, he couldn’t recall ever kissing anyone sweeter in all of his thirty-seven years.

“One of old man Shurer’s horses foundered, so he can’t pull the hearse,” Ratch said and booted his cowpony up closer to the picket gate. “They’d sure appreciate it if you’d hitch up a team and haul old Shorty’s remains out to the cemetery this afternoon.”

“Man, Ratch,” Jeff said, his mind full of doubts about the task. “All I’ve got around here is an unbroken team of gray broncs. Sold my good team last week.”

Ratch was not to be deterred. “Why I’ll come by and we can snub them to old Brad. He’s powerful enough and they can’t run off with him
and
a wagon.”

Shorty’s widow Cora had been through enough. Old Shorty went off to Crosses to trade some horses. Word came back
Shorty had
died in his sleep. Must have been a heart attack, Jeff decided. Anyway the family needed him planted and the funeral was that afternoon. He better help them.

He told Ratch he would harness the grays while he went after his big bay and be ready in thirty minutes. His friend agreed to go by and tell the undertaker they could handle it, then return to help him manage the
_.
Unbroken pair. On his stiff right leg, Jeff hobbled around the house to the pens out back. The whole matter of using the untrained ponies niggled him, but he tried to shrug away his gut wrenching concerns.

In the corral, he lassoed the one called Goose, and she flew backwards. Her butt crashed into the pole corral and set her down on her haunches. Then she put on a head slinging fit until he managed to fashion a halter over her ears and lead her out. With her tied at the rack, still eaten up with anxiety, he went back for the second one. Tyrone proved no easier and after another struggle, at last, the gelding stood snubbed to the hitching rack beside Goose. Jeff knew he’d used up the thirty minutes he’d promised and still did not have the broncs harnessed.

Ratch soon returned and eared them down while he slung on the harness and strapped it on them. The two were finally hitched to the weather beaten farm wagon; both men paused to catch their breaths and to consider their effort. Sweat ran down Jeff’s face and he wiped it off on his sleeve. He wanted to ask Ratch to forget the whole thing, for the dancing gray ponies looked mighty like a hornet’s nest of trouble to him. Too late for that, He climbed on the seat while his partner snubbed them up to his big stout horse.

“Ready?” Ratch asked, looking back over his shoulder.

On the seat, the lines in his hand, Jeff nodded and clucked to the team. They sashayed a little left and then right, but Ratch had them snubbed to his big bay horse which confined them to minor tricks. Down Main Street they went, dancing on their toes and acting ready to do a jig and a reel the entire two blocks to the funeral home.

When they arrived at the front door of Shurers, Jeff dared to breathe a little easier. The brake locked, lines tied off and the team snubbed close to the hitch rack, he jumped down. Still wary of them, he looked at the gray’s shoulders already wet with sweat. A good day’s work would kill them two. They needed several such days, he decided going inside after Ratch.

In due time, the coffin was loaded and old man Shurer talked their
ears off about how much he appreciated them doing this for him and of course, for poor Mrs. Holt. Jeff agreed, anxious to have the whole thing over with, when he climbed onto the seat and undid the lines.

A few blocks away, a ball bearing mousetrap with one good eye, both ears eaten off in fights, called His Majesty, finished his dinner of a short tailed rat. His belly full and feeling nutritionally satisfied, his spring steel mind turned to thoughts of reproduction. So the gray striped male set out from the security of the area underneath the feed store floor and went west across the alley beside the adobe wall. Then using his whiskers to keep him safe from the spiny pads, he used the prickly pear fence to advance upon Montoya Street.

This wide stretch of open ground with the dirt ruts held the greatest risk for him. A mean yellow cur called Alphonso guarded the entire block against any feline invasions. The blazing sun high, His Majesty began a nimble trot over the dusty tracks. Half way across
the street and feeling secure, his mind was fixed on having some amorous adventure with a gray female who was sorely needing his attention.

Then the worse sound he could ever imagine shattered the neighborhood quiet. A yellow rocket tore out of nowhere at him. His Majesty sped through Raphael Torres’ yard, over a noisy pile of tin cans,
leaped on his treasured tea rose bush, went over the head-high adobe wall into Sancho Blanco’s yard. He raced under the brush arbor, passing beneath Sancho’s wife sleeping in a hammock and around the many flats of sliced tomatoes drying in the sun.

Alphanso, not to be outdone by the cat’s tactics, charged into the Blanco’s yard. His sudden loud approach caused the rather plump lady to be unceremoniously dumped from the hammock to the ground. She looked up in time to see the moment the yellow invader collided with her stands. Dried tomatoes and racks flew everywhere. She scrambled to her feet with the intention
of killing him. Armed with a broom, she reached the street seconds after the pair.

His Majesty decided on another diversion, though the smell proved offensive. He scrambled over the mesquite-ironwood railings and leaped in
to land
on top of a hundred pound shoat. Max Ickel’s prize pig. The barrow’s back was matted with baked on mud and at the new rider’s arrival, the hog turned into a bucking horse. His squeals awoke the rest of the herd and threw them into a panic. A skinny sow breached a hole in the west wall, the rest of the herd followed. His Majesty’s claws were dug in. Considering Alphonso’s rapid approach, he decided to stay on his porker steed despite the bad smell and the ear shattering screams.

Down the street, ran the frightened pigs that could have outrun a
racehorse. An angry yellow cur with a fat Mexican woman on his heels bound on revenge after them all. A spotted dog joined the chase. Soon others added their barking and eagerness to join in on the fun. Riding the lead hog, His Majesty looked back and wished his mount would run faster for foaming mouthed Alphonso looked to be closing in on them.

Meanwhile back at the funeral parlor, Jeff nodded to Shurer and they drove off. He felt better with the wagon underway. Ratch snubbed the dancing horses up close. They made good controlled progress for the first block.

At the second cross street Alveron, Jeff only had a moment to look up and see the wild melee coming down it. He would have sworn he saw a big gray cat riding the lead hog. Already committed to that intersection, coming out of the east were four frightened hogs, a pig riding cat, twenty barking dogs and one very out of breath Mexican woman with a broom.

It was more than the big horse Brad could stand. Ratch was forced to toss aside the lead rope. The big bay bogged his head and went off bucking down Alveron ahead of the whole pack, cat, hogs, dogs and the senora.

The grays leaped over the pigs, real and imagined. They set out in a wild run with Jeff’s boot heels jammed on the footboard and him muttering short prayers. When they flew across the little used irrigation ditch, he looked back in time to see the coffin lift up and fly out the back of the wagon. Somehow, he managed to turn them in time to avoid smashing into Juan Margues’ adobe hovel. In another block, he sawed them down to a trot and Ratch caught up to help him.

“You see that cat riding that hog?” Ratch asked.

Jeff shook his head. Out of strength and disgusted with his crazy unbroken horses, he had no intention of admitting he’d seen such an unbelievable sight.

“We lost Shorty,” he managed.

Ratch agreed with a wary look back, then he helped him circle the team and wagon around.

From a half a block away, Jeff could see the splintered coffin. Right there in Frisco Street lay the stiff body of Shorty among the splintered boards which at one time had been his casket.

“Oh, Lord,” Ratch whined as he dismounted. “What will we do now?”

Jeff set the brakes and tied off the reins. He stalked to the front to join him. His mind full of self-criticism for even offering to do this job. Stopped dead in his track, he blinked in disbelief. Whoever the corpse was, it sure wasn’t Shorty Holt. He knew him.

“Ain’t him,” Ratch said.

“Nope.”

“What will we do? His widow and the family are all waiting at the cemetery.”

“Wrap whoever this is in a wagon sheet, tie it tight and let them bury the poor soul.”

“But it ain’t him. What do you figure happened?”

“I don’t know. He died down at Hot Springs and no one knew him down there so it was probably a mix-up of the bodies.”

“An honest one?” Ratch asked.

“On our part, yes.”

“We better hurry or they’ll think we’ve stolen him.”

They buried “Shorty Holt” without a hitch and later placed a stone over his head. Six months later, Cora Holt married Sam Kane. They hard scrabble farmed on Shorty’s old place.

Three years passed and Jeff had forgotten about the mixed up identity fracas. He and Ratch drove a cavy of horse over to southeastern Arizona. Between the Apache raids and rustlers, the price of broke horses around Tombstone was double that in West Texas. A livery man bought half of them, and two ranchers split the rest. So with their pockets full of money, they wandered down Tough Nut Street to join the Sunday crowd
gathering for the cock fights.

Being strangers, they held back from the ring setup. Several handlers held their multicolored birds to await their turn in the ring. Betters frequented through the crowd waving money.

Jeff turned at the sound of a familiar voice shouting, “You Boys—”

His hand shot out and he restrained the shocked looking Ratch in time. No one in the world ever said those words exactly like that, except Shorty Holt. Turning his friend around, he pressed his fingers to his lips to quiet his partner.

“But it’s him!” Ratch protested in a stage whisper.

Jeff shook his head. They must be mistaken. The red-faced man with the good-looking young Mexican girl on his arm was a dead ringer for the deceased. But Shorty was dead. They knew it, because they had hauled him to his funeral.

“That his daughter?” Ratch gasped.

“I don’t think
so. Maybe
his niece?”

“Where’re you going now?”

“Back to the saloon and have me a big drink of whiskey. I sure don’t want this afternoon to turn out like the last time we had any dealings with Shorty.
I don’t want to se
e another cat come riding a runway hog down some side street leading a parade of dogs and one fat Mexican woman.”

Ratch fell in beside him and laughed. “I don’t either. Let’s get that drink.”