six dollars a head, selling them in Kansas at anywhere from eighteen to thirty
dollars each. A trail drive was a money-making operation, if a man got through.
“Tinker,” I said, “if we want to get rich in these western lands we should round
up a few head and start for Kansas.”
He grunted at me, that was all. Treasure was on his mind—bright, yellow gold
with jewels and ivory and suchlike. I’ll not claim it didn’t set me to dreaming
myself, but I am a practical man and there’s nothing more practical than beef on
the hoof when folks are begging for it on the fire.
We rode down into a little draw and there was a jacal, a Mexican hut. Around it
was fenced garden space and a corral. As we rode up, I sighted a rifle barrel
looking at us over a window sill, and the man who appeared in the doorway wore a
belt gun. He was a tall, wiry Mexican, handsome but for a scar on his jaw. The
instant his eyes touched Locklear he broke into a smile. “Senora Juana, the
senor is back!”
The gun muzzle disappeared and a very pretty girl came to the door, shading her
eyes at us.
“Tinker, Sackett … this is Miguel,” Locklear said. “We are old friends.”
They shook hands, and when Miguel offered his to me I took it and looked into
the eyes of a man. I knew it would be good to have Miguel with us. There was
pride and courage there, and something that told me that when trouble came, this
man would stand.
This I respected, for of myself I was not sure. Every man wishes to believe that
when trouble appears he will stand up to it, yet no man knows it indeed before
it happens. When trouble came at the river’s crossing, I had faced up to it with
the Tinker beside me, but it had happened too quickly for me to be frightened.
And what if I had been alone?
Jonas and the Tinker were impressed by the bluff I worked on the man at the sod
house, but I was not. To talk is easy, but what would I have done if he had
fired? Would I indeed have been able to draw and return the fire?
My uncertainty was growing as I looked upon the fierce men about me, tough,
experienced men who must many times have faced trouble. They knew themselves and
what they would do, and I did not.
Would I stand when trouble came? Would I fight, or would I freeze and do
nothing? I had heard tales of men who did just that, men spoken of with
contempt, and these very tales helped to temper me against the time of danger.
Another thing was in my mind when I was lying ready for sleep, or was otherwise
alone. After the meeting with the man at the sod house I had known, deep down
within me, that I would never be fast with a gun—at least, not fast enough.
Despite all my practice, I had come to a point beyond which I could not seem to
go.
This was something I could not and dared not speak of. But at night, or after we
started the ride south for Matamoras, I tried to think it out. Practice must
continue, but now I must think always of just getting my gun level and getting
off that first shot. That first shot must score, and I must shape my mind to
accept the fact that I must fire looking into a blazing gun. I must return that
fire even though I was hit.
South we rode, morning, noon, and night. South down the Shawnee Trail in
moonlight and in sun, and all along the trail were herds of cattle—a few
hundred, a few thousand, moving north for Kansas with their dust clouds to mark
the way. We heard the prairie wind and the cowboy yells, and at night the
prairie wolves that sang the moon out of the sky.
We smelled the smoke of the fires, endured the heat of the crowded bodies of the
herd, and often of a night we stopped and yarned with the cowboys, sharing their
fires and their food and exchanging fragments of news, or of stories heard.
There were freight teams, too. These were jerk-line outfits with their oxen or
horses stretched out ahead of them hauling freight from Mexico or taking it
back. And there were free riders, plenty of them. Tough, hard-bitten men, armed
and ready for trouble. Cow outfits returning home from Kansas, bands of
unreconstructed renegades left over from the war, occasional cow thieves and
robbers.
Believe me, riding in Texas had taught me there was more to the West than just
wagon trams and cattle drives. Folks were up to all sorts of things, legal and
otherwise, and some of them forking the principle. That is, they sat astraddle
of it, one foot on the legal side, the other on the illegal, and taking in money
with both hands from both sides. Such business led to shooting sooner or later.
South we rode, toward the borderlands.
Our second day we overtook a fine coach and six elegant horses, with six
outriders, tough men in sombreros, with Winchesters ready to use. “Only one man
would have such a carriage,” Jonas said. “It will be Captain Richard King, owner
of the ranch on Santa Gertrudis.”
An outrider recognized Jonas and called out to him, and when King saw Jonas he
had the carriage draw up. It was a hot, still morning and the trailing dust
cloud slowly dosed in and sifted fine red dust over us all.
“Jonas,” King said, “my wife, Henrietta. Henrietta, this is Jonas Locklear.”
Richard King was a square-shouldered, strongly built man with a determined face.
It was a good face, the face of a man who had no doubts. I envied him.
“King was a steamboat captain on the Rio Grande,” the Tinker explained to me in
a low voice, “and after the Mexican War he bought land from Mexicans who now
lived south of the border and could no longer ranch north of the line.”
Later the Tinker told me more: how King had bought land from others who saw no
value in grassland where Indians and outlaws roamed. One piece he bought was
fifteen thousand acres, at two cents an acre.
Instead of squatting on land like most of them were doing, King had cleared
title to every piece he bought. There was a lot of land to be had for cash, but
you had to be ready to fight for anything you claimed, and not many wanted to
chance it.
Brownsville was the place where we were to separate. At that time it was a town
of maybe three thousand people, but busy as all get out. From here Miguel and I
would go on alone.
Looking across toward Mexico, I asked myself what sort of fool thing I was
getting into. Everybody who had anything to do with that gold had come to grief.
Nevertheless, I was going. Pa had a better claim to that gold than any man, and
I aimed to have a try at it. And while I was going primed for trouble, I wasn’t
hunting it.
First off, I’d bought a new black suit and hat, as well as rougher clothes for
riding. I picked out a pair of fringed shotgun chaps and a dark blue shirt. Then
I bought shells for a new Henry rifle. The rifle itself cost me $43, and I
bought a thousand rounds of .44’s for $21. That same place I picked up a box of
.36-caliber bullets for my pistol at $1.20 per hundred.
That Henry was a proud rifle. I mean it could really shoot. Men I’d swear by
said it was accurate at one thousand yards, and I believed them. It carried
eighteen bullets fully loaded. My mare I’d left back at Miguel’s place. Her time
was close and she would need care. Miguel’s woman was knowing thataway, so the
mare was in good hands.
About noontime Miguel and me shook hands with the Tinker and Jonas, and then we
crossed over the river and went into Matamoras.
My horse was a line-back dun, tough and trail wise. Miguel was riding a sorrel,
and we led one pack horse, a bald-faced bay. We put up at a livery stable and I
started on the street after arranging to meet Miguel at a cantina near the
stable.
One thing I hadn’t found to suit me was a good belt knife, and the Tinker wasn’t
about to part with one of his. I went into a store and started looking over some
Bowie knives, and finally found one to please me—not that it was up to what the
Tinker could do.
I paid for the knife, and then ran my belt through the loop on the scabbard and