LITMIR.BIZ

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hand, she ducked under Brownie’s head, and came up facing him, close. Natural as if they’d practiced for a springtime, she relaxed against his shoulder, most of her weight on the stall door.

      “Bob and me kept them moving so that Mulemouth would have to stay in front, picking the way, finding feed and water. There was pretty good graze back where I’d left my mare, and anyway, a wild stud’ll almost always stop and try and add a good mare . . . All of a sudden, he heard her whinnying, and the last six miles it was me and Bob right after him, and the mares scattering to hell and gone. When I pulled my trap, they all come up against it from outside, whinnying to papa. But he was in there with our Betsy, seventeen hands tall and prettiest horse I ever did see, golden buck with black mane and tail and four black legs. And in good shape, even then. A horse that could stand all that and still look good—”

      “Money couldn’t buy him,” Vera Mae said.

      “Naw. And you could always sell his colts. He was plenty mad, but not bronco-mad, not mad enough to kill himself, like some little ole wild studs’ve done . . . I went and got everybody I knew, and we got enough ropes on him to make him say uncle, and trucked him up the mountain and into a breaking corral I’d built, ten feet high and solid logs.”

      He stopped. Her cheek moved up against his for a second, and then away. She said, “I never heard anything like that. I never knew a cowboy didn’t have something like that, a lost gold mine, or a wild horse that was really worth money, or a place in the desert where there is all the water you want two feet down or—you know.”

      He said, “Sure. When I was traveling around, we’d talk about them. Mine was where holdup men in the old days had buried a lot of silver . . . I’m still going to find it.” He laughed. “It’s up the head of Bear Creek Canyon, sure as hell. Wore out the knees of three pairs of levis when I was a kid, climbin’ around there.”

      She said, “Yes. But you went out and got the stallion that was worth the fortune.”

      He thought. “You might say I had to. But you’d be smarter if you said I was lucky.”

      “How much jerky did you have left when you finally corralled Mulemouth?”

      He laughed again. “Oh, it had been gone since a couple of days after I cut his trail.”

      The girl moved away from him, and he could see her face dimly in what light the single watch bulb at the other end of the stable gave. “You got more guts than anybody I ever knew.”

      In the night wind, his shoulder was cold where she’d moved away. “Maybe so,” he said. “But they’re a damn poor substitute for brains.”

      Her laughter startled Brownie, and the horse threw his head up, shoving the girl forward. Lon pulled her back to his shoulder . . . Three years ago Joan hadn’t wanted to go to a party Tommy and Dot gave down at the ranger station for two girl cousins of Dot’s who were seeing the West. He had driven one of the girls down the road for more beer and kissed her on the way back, but outside of that it had been a long time, with anybody except Joan. “This is the first time since—it happened—I’ve been happy,” he said.

      Again she was gone. “Take a look at Brownie’s leg for me,” she said. “He banged it in the trailer.”

      Lonnie opened the stall door and slipped in. She shut the door after him, and he was in the dark stall, the air warm and heavily loaded with horse and manure and oat hay. He patted Brownie’s nose, slid a hand up and over the gelding’s neck to hold him; Brownie wasn’t wearing a bridle. The other hand slid down one front leg and then the other. “Cool and smooth,” he said. “And he’s got a good deep bed.”

      He slipped outside again and fished in his pockets for cigarettes while Vera Mae latched the door. As soon as he struck the match, a figure moved down the line. Vera Mae called, “It’s all right, Slim,” and the watchman didn’t come near them. She said, “You’re an awful damn fool, Lonnie. Mentioning your wife to me—just then.”

      He said, “I had it to do. You’d maybe forgotten I have two kids.”

      “And a lot of memories,” she added.

      “I don’t know about that.” Lonnie sucked on his cigarette, and then threw it down. “Maybe I’m not smart enough for that. I’m sure’n hell bullheaded, though . . . ”

      Vera Mae’s voice had lost its life. “What happened to her?”

      He sensed that it wasn’t a question, that she didn’t really want to know. But he said, “I worked Mulemouth a couple of hours a day, got him so I could saddle him, ride him around the breaking corral a little. Said I was going to take him out next morning . . . Joan slipped out early, and did it for me . . . A couple of weeks later, I was riding, and I found her saddle, with the cinch broke, up in the pine woods . . . ”

      “Threw her?”

      “She got dragged a hundred yards before her foot came out of the stirrup. I was down in the meadow, where we night pasture the rest of the horses . . . ”

      “Good God,” Vera Mae said. Her hand found his arm and slid down to his hand.

      “Yeah,” Lonnie said. “Yeah . . . well, for a while, I did what riding I had to while the kids were in school. But school’s out soon. I had to see if horses scared ’em. Mike saw it, saw the end of it, and threw Junie down on the bed so she couldn’t look out the window.”

      “Oh, good God,” Vera Mae said again. “You poor kid . . . What would you have done if they’d cried at the rodeo?”

      “Tommy Burns—he’s district ranger up at Salal Flats-would give me a letter some place. I could work in a sawmill, I reckon. Or on one of the dairy farms down in the flat country. I can milk and plough and all . . . ”

      The other hand found him, and she was in his arms again. “I thought you were a rube when I first saw you.” The words were a little muffled by his coat.

      “I traveled rodeo for a year. I been around . . . Vera Mae, the kids are crazy about you, they never took to anyone so good, and—well—I’d been saving money in case I did have to move. Got enough to put in a bathroom now; there’s a place off the back hall where I can knock a door through, and then I’ll build a wooden floor, and Sears have got the complete outfits, toilet, water heater, tub and washstand—Unless you’d rather have a shower?”

      She was shaking, and he thought she was crying. But when she raised her face, it was dry under his kiss and twisted up with laughing. She said, “Cowboy, is this a proposal or a plumbing catalog?”

      “I told you I was dumb.

      Her horse snorted and went to the other end of the stall at her voice. “Don’t ever say that again. You hear me? Not ever again.”

      “All right,” he said. “We’ll make out fine, Vera Mae.”

      CHAPTER V

      IT WASN’T EXACTLY a pickup, but they always called it that. Lon was glad Vera Mae hadn’t laughed when she’d seen it. He went over all the things in his mind that he’d told her about the homestead, and decided she couldn’t have expected him to have a real Ford or Chevvie pickup. Those trucks cost a couple of thousand dollars . . . A thirty-six Ford does fine, and if you saw down the rear end and build a good, hardwood body, you got as good a pickup as Henry ever made.

      Sure, she knew he was poor, knew the ranch and the allotment together only ran a truckload of beef, knew the house—well, the cabin—had running water but no bathroom. Just a faucet in the kitchen . . . She’d understand about the grease stain in front of the porch where he’d drained the car last time, in order to get in the shade, and how the oil’d disappear in a little while.

      Thank goodness, the kids were along and would insist on hopping out to open the gate. There wasn’t any reason in the world he hadn’t put the new catch on, except he never remembered to throw it in the car until he was almost to the gate, and it never seemed worthwhile to make a

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