Up there at the bar was this white-headed youngster they were calling Kid Newton, feeling his oats and wanting to stack up against somebody. Cap could see it just as I could; and Ben Hobes, who stood up there beside him, was made nervous by it.
Ben Hobes was a hard man. Nobody needed to point that out, but a man should be wary of the company he keeps, because a trouble-hunter can get you into a bind you’d never get into by yourself. And that Kid Newton was hunting a handle for trouble. He wanted it, and wanted it bad, feeling if he could kill somebody folks would look up to him. And we were strangers.
The thing wrong with strangers, you never know who they are. Cap now, he was a thin old man, and to Newton he might look like somebody to ride over, instead of an old buffalo hunter and Indian fighter who’d seen a hundred youngsters like Kid Newton get taken down.
Me, I’m so tall and thin for my height (Ma says I should put on thirty pounds) that he might figure me as nothing to worry about.
Trouble was the last thing I wanted. Back in Uvalde I’d killed Bigelow in a showdown I couldn’t get out of any other way—unless I wanted to die. That was likely to give me all the difficulty I’d want.
Newton was looking at Cap. He grinned, and I heard Hobes say again, “Forget it.”
“Aw, what’s the matter?” I heard the Kid say, “I’m just gonna have some fun.” Ben whispered to him, but the Kid paid him no mind.
“Hey, old man! Ain’t you kind of old to be traipsin’ over the country?”
Cap didn’t even look up, although the lines in his face deepened a little. I reached down real slow and taken my pistol out and laid it on the table. I mean I taken one pistol out. I was wearing another in my waist-band.
When I put that pistol on the table beside my plate, the Kid looked over at me, and so did Ben Hobes. He threw me a sharp look, and kind of half squared around toward us. Me, I didn’t say anything or look around. I just kept eating.
The Kid looked at the gun and he looked at me. “What’s that for?”
Surprised-like, I looked up. “What’s what for?”
“The gun.”
“Oh? That? That’s for killing varmints, snakes, coyotes, and such-like. Sometimes frogs:”
“You aimin’ that at me?” He was really asking for it
“Why, now. Why would I do a thing like that? A nice boy like you.” He was young enough to get mad at being called a boy, but he couldn’t make up his mind whether I was makin’ fun, or what.
“Ill bet you got a home somewheres, and a mother.” I looked at him thoughtfully. “Why, sure! I see no reason . . . exactly, why you shouldn’t have a mother like anybody else.”
Taking a big bite of bread, I chewed it for a minute while he was thinking of something to say. I waited until he was ready to say it and then said, “You had your supper, son? Why don’t you set down here with us and have a bite? And when you go out of a night you should bundle up more. A body could catch his death of cold.”
He was mad now, but ashamed, too. Everybody was starting to smile a little. He dearly wanted a fight, but it’s pretty hard to draw a gun on a man who’s worried about your welfare.
“Here …” I pushed back a chair. “Come and set down. No doubt you’ve been long from home, and your mama is worried about you. Maybe you feel troubled in your mind, so you just set up and tell us about it. After you’ve had something to eat, you’ll feel better.”
Whatever he had fixed to say didn’t fit any more, and he groped for words and finally said, I’m not hungry.”
“Don’t be bashful, son. We’ve got a-plenty. Cap here … he has youngsters like you … he must have, he’s been gallopin’ around over the country so much. He must have left some like you somewhere.”
Somebody laughed out loud, and the Kid stiffened up. “What do you mean by that?” His voice shrilled a little, and that made him still madder. “Damn you—”
“Bartender,” I said, “why don’t you fix this boy a little warm broth? Something that will rest easy on his stomach?”
Pushing back my chair, I got up and holstered my gun. Cap got up, too, and I handed the bartender the money, then added an extra quarter. “This is for the broth. Make it hot, now.”
Turning around, I looked at the Kid mildly and held out my hand. “Good-bye, son. Walk in the ways of righteousness, and don’t forget your mother’s teaching.”
Almost automatically he took my hand, then jerked his back like it was bee-stung.
Cap had started toward the door, and I followed him. At the door I turned and looked back at the Kid again. I’ve got big eyes and they are serious most times. This time I tried to make them especially serious. “But really, son, you should bundle up more.”
Then I stepped outside and we walked back to our outfit. I said to Cap. “You tired?”
“No,” he said, “and a few miles will do us no harm.”
We rode out. Couple of times I caught Cap sizing me up, like, but he said nothing at all. Not for several miles, anyway, then he asked, “You realize you called that boy a bastard?”
“Well, now. That’s strong language, Cap, and I never use strong language.”
“You talked him out of it. You made him look the fool.”
“A soft answer turneth away wrath,” I said. “Or that’s what the Good Book says.”
We rode on for a couple of long hours and then camped in the woods on Comanche Creek, bedding down for a good rest.
We slept past daylight and took our time when we did get up, so we could watch our trail and see if anybody was behind us.
About an hour past daylight we saw a half-dozen riders going north. If they were following us, they did not see our tracks. We had made our turn in the creek bottom, and by this time any tracks left there had washed away.
It was on to midday before we started out, and we held close to the east side of the valley where we could lose our shape against the background of trees, rocks, and brush. We were over nine thousand feet up, and here the air was cool by day and right cold by night.
We cut across the sign of those riders and took the trail along Costilla Creek, and up through the canyon. At Costilla Creek the riders had turned right on the most obvious trail, but Cap said there was an old Indian trail up Costilla, and we took it. We rode into San Luis late in the afternoon. It was a pleasant little town where the folks were all of Spanish descent. We corralled our stock, hiring a man to watch over our gear again. Then we walked over to Salazar’s store. Folks all over this part of the country came there for supplies and news. A family named Gallegos had founded that store many years back, and later this Salazar took it over.
These were friendly, peaceful folks. They had settled in here years before, and were making a good thing of it. We were buying a few things when ,. all of a sudden a woman’s voice said, “Senor?”
We turned around; she was speaking to Cap. Soon as he saw her, he said, “Buenos dias, Tina. It has been a long time.”
He turned to me. “Tina, this is Tell Sackett, Tyrel’s brother.”
She was a pretty little woman with great big eyes. “How do you do, Senor? I owe your brother much thanks. He helped me when I had need.”
“He’s a good man.”
“Si… he is,”
We talked a mite, and then a slender whip of a Mexican with high cheek bones and very black eyes came in. He was not tall, and he wouldn’t have weighed any more than Cap, but it took only a glance to see he was mucho hombre.
“It is my hoosband, Esteban Mendoza.” She spoke quickly to him in Spanish, explaining who we were.
His eyes warmed and he held out his hand.
We had dinner that night with Tina and Esteban, a quiet dinner, in a little adobe house with a string of red peppers hanging on the porch. Inside there was a black-eyed baby with round cheeks and a quick smile.
Esteban was a vaquero, or had been. He had also driven a freight team over the road to Del Norte.