Blood and Gold

I fetched up on one elbow and this time Reeves didn’t stop me. “I were just a younker when the cholera took my folks,” I said. “I was taken in by my pa’s brother, Ben, who has him a tumbleweed ranch down on the Neuces River country.

“Uncle Ben was all right I guess, but he had a son four years older than me by the name of Wiley, and me and him used to go at it with our fists, buck, tooth and hangnail.

“Over the years, Wiley beat me 173 times and I beat him once—the last time.”

“You mean you kept count?”

“Uh-huh. Scratched each time we fought on the inside of the barn wall with a nail, and when I’d make ten, I’d put a line through them lines and start all over again.”

My hand strayed to my shirt pocket for the makings, but Reeves threw me his own, an act that made him rise considerably in my esteem.

I rolled a smoke, lit it, then said: “Maybe it was my last fight with Wiley that helped Uncle Ben make up his mind. That night he drew me aside and said real thoughtful that he couldn’t afford to feed me no more on account of how I could eat my weight in groceries. And besides, he said, the ranch would go to Wiley one day and there would be no place for me.

“Then he said: ‘Dusty, I got two daughters and I’ll have to find dowries for them both, so you see how things are with me.’

“Well, I said I did and then I said on account of how I’d finally pummeled Wiley, there sure didn’t seem much point of me staying around anymore.

“As it turned out, Uncle Ben did all right by me. He gave me five dollars, his third best pony, a .44.40 Winchester and a new Colt. And even Wiley came through. He said I’d given him a black eye and his nose was broke but he had no hard feelings and he gave me his lucky rabbit’s foot and fifty cents he’d saved.”

Reeves nodded. “Rabbit’s foot can bring a man luck, if he’s real careful and steps light around trouble.”

“Maybe so, but up until now, that’s sure not been the case with me.”

“So how old were you when you signed on with Prather down to the Red River country?”

“Fourteen,” I replied. “And since then, I’ve been up the trail three times.”

Reeves let that pass without comment and asked, “How do you feel?”

“How do you think I feel? My head’s busted and I think my ribs are busted. I feel like hell.”

The lawman smiled. “You were lucky, boy. If ol’ Lafe’s bullet had hit another inch to the left, you’d have been a goner for sure.”

He hesitated a few moments and asked: “How come Prather didn’t carry the money back to Texas his ownself?”

I was rapidly getting too tired to talk, but I lay back and made the effort. “In Dodge, after he sold the herd, something broke inside Simon’s chest. He woke up one morning with his left side paralyzed and his face all twisted. Later that day he called me into his hotel room, where a doctor was attending him, and asked me to take the thirty thousand back to Ma. He said I was like a son to him and Ma and I was the only one of his riders he could trust. That’s what he said, and I figured he meant it too.”

“Hell, he should have just stuck his money in the bank,” Reeves said.

I shook my head, very slightly. “Simon don’t trust banks. He said all banks do is try to cheat a man. That is, when they ain’t being robbed or getting caught on fire. He don’t trust the boxcars either. He told me there’s no place to run when you’re riding the cars and I’d lose the money to train robbers for sure.”

I shrugged. “Mr. Prather made it plain to me that he set store by his money and that’s how it happened I was heading back the way I come, down the Western Trail. And I already told you,” I added, a bitter taste in my mouth, “how I let Simon’s money be took from me.”

Bass Reeves pondered this doleful intelligence for a few moments, then said: “Judging by the tracks I saw, Lafe and the Owens boys are trailing south, back into Texas, where they can spend the money on women and whiskey at their leisure.”

“And I’m going after them,” I said.

The lawman shook his head. “You ain’t fit, boy. You’re all broke to pieces and the bullet that creased your head has addled your brain”—Reeves shrugged—“unless, of course, you wasn’t too smart to begin with.”

“I’m riding at first light,” I said, stepping around that last remark as I tried to sound a lot braver and more determined than I felt right at that moment.

“Well,” Reeves said, taking his makings back from me, “there’s another complication that’s muddying up the water.”

“What’s that?” I asked, knowing the news I was about to hear would be bad.

The lawman lit his smoke. “The Warm Springs Apaches are out and they’re playing hob. The warriors are led by a young war chief by the name of Victorio and he’s mean as a curly wolf. Since you’ve been gone he’s been killing, burning and looting all over west Texas.”

Reeves shook his head and smiled. “That Indian sure hates the white man.”