Getting Acquainted, Part III: The Texan and the Lady

by Sevenstars

What starts out as a teaching opportunity becomes an occasion for confidences.

Getting Acquainted, Part III: The Texan and the Lady

by Sevenstars

SUMMARY: Two very different people begin the slow process of "getting to know you." Be sure you read Parts I and II first!

This one is for Angelique, who wanted "another story with a conversation between Daisy and Jess." Thanks again to Katy for beta'ing.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Take it slow, Miss Daisy… mind where you set your feet, now… this slope's kinda tricky, and she can get loose after it's been dry weather a spell…" Jess instinctively adjusted his own balance, as a gunfighter learns to do out of necessity, and gave the woman both his hands to brace on. She snatched a moment at her small black bonnet, with its trim of gold and garnet feathers which the creekside growth seemed bent on having for its own, and cautiously eased her weight a little farther along the pitch. "Ain't like you'll be needin' to come down here for water—Mike or Slim or me 'll pump you all you need—but there's plenty of good fruit in season, wild plum, currant and chokecherry bush, wild gooseberry, wild cherry. And—whoa!" He put up one black-gloved hand to halt her progress, turned carefully, and pointed toward a twenty-foot Gambel oak some four or five yards to their left. "There. That's what I fetched you down to see. That's what you got to keep your eye out for, any time you're lookin' for brambles or such. You see it? That vine on the treetrunk? That's her. That's poison oak. Take a good look at her, ma'am, you don't want to mess with her. She's about the worst thing there is for rashes."

Daisy peered through the leaf-dappled light at the plant he indicated. "Yes… I think I see why you call it that. The leaves do look a bit like an oak's."

"Some, yeah," Jess agreed. "Glossier mostly, though, and times they got more leaflets on 'em—five or seven or even sometimes nine. Mostly only three, like that'n. Them particular ones is scalloped on th'edges, but they can be toothed or lobed too. They run maybe an inch and a half to four inches long, and they change color with the season—kinda bronze when they start unfoldin' in February and March, bright green in the spring, yellow-green to reddish come the summer, and then bright red or pink from late July to October. You find it nearabout anywheres less'n five thousand foot up—along streams, like here, dense thickets where it's shady, as a bush in open sun—it can grow taller'n two men if it gets the right conditions—and plumb near every form and place in between. Chaparral and woodlands, grasslands, oak forest, even up higher amongst the Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir. That's how come you got to watch for it, 'cause it's so plumb frequent. Them vines run ten to thirty foot long, and they can hit a hundred if everything favors 'em. They can climb all the way to the top of the tree and sometimes even smother it or break it so's it dies."

"Heavens," said Daisy, "that's like the strangler figs I've read of in Alfred Wallace. They grow in the jungles of the Amazon River." She studied the innocuous-looking plant again, trying to commit its appearance to memory. "Is it really so terribly poisonous?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said gravely. "Ain't but maybe one out of five it don't bother. When I was back East in the war, I saw what happened to some of our boys who got into that poison ivy and poison sumac you got back yonder. This here's way worse. You get in it, first off you start to itch, then you get bumps that turn kinda pink, then the itch gets plumb severe and you blister. Ain't much you can do to get rid of it, neither. Pull it out with a hook and bury it and hope it don't grow back, 's about all. You don't dare set it on fire. The smoke of it's 'most worse'n the dad-gum plant—'scuse my language, ma'am—it can fetch on a reaction in folks that thought they was immune. Even the branches and twigs after the leaves is off in the fall 'll fetch the rash if you touch 'em." He shook his head. "Most wild things'll run from you, or give you warnin', like the rattler—the Mexicans call 'im el caballero pequeño, means 'the little gentleman'—but plants, all you can do is watch you don't blunder into 'em."

"Speaking of rattlers… that is what you call rattlesnakes, isn't it?" Daisy glanced uneasily around in the cool shadows of the thick tree growth that edged Home Creek down behind the ranchhouse—hackberry, chinaberry, dogwood, valley cedar, redhaw, thickets of sandbar willow, and cottonwood most of all rising above them, besides the oaks, and little thickets of wild rose for variety. Anything could be hiding in such heavy foliage.

"No need to worry, ma'am," Jess assured her. "We been makin' noise enough to warn 'em, the way you close to skidded back a ways. Whatever you've heard of 'em, most snakes won't attack unless you provoke 'em—a moccasin's always lookin' for a fight, but we ain't got them in these parts; they don't range no further north'n the tip end of Illinois, nor further west than central Texas. And th'only rattler that strikes without givin' warnin' is the sidewinder, which likely accounts for his name bein' used as an insult—but he's a desert critter."

"Aren't they dangerous at all, then?" Daisy asked, as he stepped lightly up to her level and began urging her back the way they'd come.

"Didn't say that," Jess replied. "Just said they'll always try to get out of the way of a man, or an animal too big for 'em to eat. And you can hear 'em ten, twenty yards off if it's quiet. Thing is, a snake don't hear the way we do; he senses vibrations in the ground. A buffalo, say, that weighs a thousand pound or more, or a horse or a cow, makes a lot more of 'em than a human that weighs maybe one-seventy, two hundred, or a kid seventy-five pounds or so. And sometimes they're asleep, and don't realize you're comin'. Plus ain't a snake ever been hatched don't love rock overhangs and rocky flats; up there they don't feel your steps, and sometimes they misjudge how much space they got and fall off overhangin' rocks or out of brush onto folks' shoulders, and if they bite you in the neck…" He trailed off and shook his head. "And they like to hide under trees and rocks, scrub oak, old log piles—woodpiles are great for 'em—'cause they love t'ambush what they eat, and a lot of it likes places like that too. Mice, rats, squirrels and such. If the sun ain't too strong—'cause if it is, like out in the desert at midday, it'll kill 'em dead in ten minutes—they like to get out in it and sleep, and if you don't know what to watch for, they can look like a cowpie or a pile of mud." He was helping her up the slope as he spoke, his vivid midnight-blue eyes darting from place to place, alert every moment for danger. "Diamondbacks—they live down in Texas and on west—they're the biggest ones; they can get to eight, ten foot, they're thick as a man's arm and all muscle, their bite's plumb dangerous even to human folks, and they don't need to coil to strike; they can flash out from a loop. But they're like sidewinders, nothin' you got to worry about in these parts. Timber rattlers is what you're likest to see here; they go five foot or so, with brown hashmarks on 'em. Out on the prairie there's prairie rattlers, yellowish green with dark spots on their backs, but they don't come up this way."

"You said the diamondback is dangerous to people," Daisy recalled, ducking under a leggy rose. "Does that mean it's more poisonous, somehow?"

"Ain't the strength of the poison so much," Jess replied, "it's how much of it the snake's got. Worst time to get bit by one's in the spring, when he's just comin' out've his winter sleep; he ain't had nothin' to eat since the fall, so he's got plenty of poison in him. If he's just bit somethin' else, he'll have less of it to give you. Likeliest time he'll bite you, though, is in August, when he sheds his skin—his eyesight ain't so good then, we even say he's 'in the blind.' Don't rattle then, neither, just strikes at anythin' that moves. The bigger the snake, the more poison's in him to begin with—like diamondbacks—and that's the decider; the more venom you get in you, the worse off you'll be. But then, a growed-up snake understands he's got to save it. It takes time to make, and if he empties what he's got into an attacker, he don't have any to kill his dinner with. A poisonous snake without poison don't eat. That's why, like I said before, a rattler'll make every effort he can to get away from people. His rattle's meant to warn big animals like us that he's there, so we'll leave him be. If you stomp, or thump on the ground with a stick, he'll know you're comin', and since the critters he eats don't do that, he'll know you ain't dinner, and he'll back off. Plus most rattlers can't strike more'n half their own length, so if you keep outside that distance they can't hit you. I been two years in these parts, and I ain't heard of but a dozen young'uns got bit in the whole of eastern Wyomin' in all that time, all the way back to the South Pass and on up to the Montana line; it even gets in the Gazette when it happens, 'cause of bein' out of ordinary, which makes it news. Only two was older'n six, and half was younger'n three. Older kids—and grown folks—and snakes seem to give each other room."

"How would I know a rattlesnake's warning if I heard it?" she asked.

Jess pondered that as they broke past the upper fringe of the streamside growth and turned right, toward the ranch buildings. "I don't rightly know as I could describe it to you," he admitted. "But Joe McCaskey on the next place west collects rattles. I could ride over and ask to borrow some, and shake 'em for you so you'll hear."

"Does Mike know?"

He grinned. "Mike's growed up on the trail, ma'am. They got rattlers all across back there, timber rattlers—you just ain't never met one. He ain't town-bred like you. He's more like me or Slim that way. We all lived our lives knowin' about snakes, what to watch for, what to listen for. One other thing, too: snakes can't bear the cold. Comes the fall, the nights start gettin' chilly, they hole up. So it's only maybe half the year you got to worry about 'em."

"But it's summer now," she said.

"Yes, ma'am," Jess agreed gravely. "That's why Slim wanted me to tell you all this." He eyed her curiously. "Don't seem like it scares you much."

"I think older people don't get frightened as easily as younger ones," Daisy mused. "When you get older, you've seen so much, there doesn't seem to be as much to be frightened about."

His features darkened a moment. "I ain't so sure of that," he murmured. "Ain't so much how long you live. It's what you live through." And then his lips compressed, and she remembered what Slim had said. There are—shadows on him that have nothing to do with the way he used to earn his living, or even with the war… Jess's family… was lost to him, in a very bad way, when he was barely fifteen…

"Would you like a glass of lemonade?" she inquired brightly, changing the subject. "It's gotten rather warm."

Immediately his mood lightened again. "I'd like that fine, ma'am."

"Sit down on the porch, then, and I'll get us some."

He watched her go, marveling at the brisk, light, quick way she had of moving. Not what he'd have expected from a woman who was… how old was she, anyhow? It hadn't come up, till now, though of course it was obvious she wasn't anywhere close to, say, Sally's age…

He paused long enough to look in on the couple in the spare room. He'd checked with them after the last stage, to let them know he and Daisy would be out for a spell; Sally had been reading aloud then, from Slim's latest issue of Frank Leslie's. Deever was dozing now, and Sally was working on some kind of embroidery. She smiled quickly at Jess and held a finger to her lips, and he nodded and retreated. The four of them were alone on the place for now. Slim had ridden over to the McCaskey place and taken Mike along, so he'd have a chance to be with other youngsters for a couple of hours while his guardian transacted business; Reed's next-to-last boy, Jim, was only a year or so older than Mike was, and David, the baby, was three years younger.

Jess had just slacked into one of the homemade porch chairs when the door opened and he quickly popped up again in recognition of Daisy's advent. She'd shed her bonnet and fixed her hair, and was carrying a plain rectangular tin tray—it had been Slim's mother's—with a shaped "hand hole" at each end, a painted floral motif spreading out from its center in natural colors on a dark ground. On it was a glass pitcher studded with colored knobs, full of lemonade with little chunks of ice floating in it—he somehow had the notion that she'd been surprised to find out they had an icebox in the kitchen, the one he'd given Jonesy for Christmas his first year here—and a plate holding two or three thick meat sandwiches. She set the tray on the upended crate that served them for a porch table and sat down in the other chair. Not sure exactly who was host, he reached for the pitcher at the same time she did and they almost succeeded in knocking it over—avoided it only because his trained reactions allowed him to snatch his hand back in time. "Sorry," he said.

"No harm done," she replied, and began pouring out. "I thought you might like a sandwich or two."

"Always got room for food," he said with a grin, and remembered something Slim had said to that, once, long ago: Room? You've got a whole house.

"What's your very favorite thing to eat, Jess?" she asked, passing his glass over.

He pondered. "Ain't thought much on it," he admitted, "but… I reckon it'd have to be chicken. Skillet-fried slow in butter, like it's done in Texas, with hot creamed gravy, and baked potato, and maybe Spanish onions boiled in cream and glazed in butter. Maybe succotash, too, and cold bean salad. Or hominy, done in a casserole dish, with cream and buttered crumbs and shredded almonds. Roastin' ears cooked in the hot embers, if it's the season for 'em. And cornbread, baked with onion tops and sweet clabber—that's Texas-style too—or maybe bakin'-powder biscuits. Wild-plum jelly or fig preserves to go along, maybe peach pickles."

"And for dessert?" she prompted, when he seemed to hesitate.

"Don't rightly know," he said slowly. "There was things we had for special, when I was comin' up… mustang-grape pie when our grapevines was bearin'… buttermilk cake, pecan cake, yellow pound cake… cobbler, sometimes berry, sometimes hot peach, covered over with cream and melted butter… and once or twice a year Ma'd make this rich chocolate pie…" He trailed off into silence, and the shadow passed over his face again.

"Slim said you were from Texas," she recalled. "What is it like there? Anything like here?"

"Here?" He looked around with a faintly startled expression. "You mean this here spread? No, ma'am. Nothin' like here. This here's what's called a little mountain ranch. If you head on west along the stage road, toward Medicine Bow, that's a little like some parts of Texas, but—no, we ain't got no mountains down there like that." He nodded toward the long ridge that thrust out beyond the barn and the tall peak looming far above it.

"Tell me about it," she requested. I want to know what shaped you.

"About Texas?" He sat back in his chair, turning the sweat-beaded glass of lemonade thoughtfully in his hand; his face softened, the angular planes of it relaxing and showing, for almost the first time since she'd met him, how young he really was. "Texas… it's like… five, six countries all wrapped up in one piece. There's the piney-woods country in the east, where my ma and pa came from… that's where the first Americans settled, back fifty years or so. It's mostly forest even yet, pines and oaks and hick'ry, tall grass where they ain't, rollin' hills—some's 'most as big as small mountains—and steep river valleys, bayous and sloughs. Then there's the brush country, south of Santone—San Antonio," he consciously corrected himself, as if realizing that the slurred Texas version of the name might baffle her— "runnin' down to the Nueces and past; there ain't hardly nothin' growin' in it ain't got a sticker stickin' out of it somewhere, but that didn't stop it from bein' the place the first Mexican settlers made their missions and ranches when they come into the province, hundred-twenty years ago. They plumb liked it 'cause the Comanches didn't—it's too hot for the buffalo, and the buffalo's what Comanches mostly hunt. The thickets there run to millions of acres each, some of 'em named like towns, with lots of wild game in 'em, and some of the meanest, most vicious wild cattle you'd ever care not to run into. A few hundred miles either side of the Rio, from about Del Rio on up, there's desert—not real desert, but desert plain, dry, dusty, near waterless—but along the lower valley it's close to bein' tropical, with live-oak groves that's draped with Spanish moss, and thickets of mesquite and chaparral. On the lower Trinity there's canebrakes and even alligators now and then. There's the post-oak country in the north and west, near the Colorado—sandy soil and scrubby timber—and the waxy prairie, rich blackland that's good for farmin'. Out west more prairie, endless miles of it, covered in flowers in the spring, with live-oak and cottonwood and water-elm along the streams, and dusty blue-mountained desert beyond that. Along the Brazos the country's well grown up to trees—chinaberry, willow, redbud, ash, elm—and to wild grapevines and plum-bush, and the upper valley's a regular tunnel of 'em, mostly pecan and elm and hackberry. Around Columbus it's rich cotton-and-cattle country that's split between big ranchers and German and Bohemian farmers. More like that between Santone and Houston; a lot of proud old Southron families settled there. Or Richmond—sort of a crossroads kind of country, with well-off planters livin' in the rich red lands of the Brazos to the east, and cattlemen on the flat shaggy prairies to the west." His eyes were distant and dreamy, full of the sights he'd seen. "Some of it's plumb pretty, like Limestone County—grassy, dotted with oaks—or the rollin' grass country with mesquite scattered over it. Or San Saba County—cowman's country, hilly pastures, mostly held by big owners, but in the creek and river bottoms, amongst the giant pecans and cottonwoods, there's fertile land that's drawn many a farmer, and the cattlemen deal with 'em, the way Slim does; even a workin' cowhand gets cream for his coffee when he's at the ranch, fresh butter for his bread, vegetables and fruit, chicken and good country ham. Or the Blue Mountains, with the Edwards Plateau beyond, and the Hill Country, west of Santone, woods and hills where the streams and rivers've carved deep canyons through the limestone, covered with high grass in the north and brush and cedar brakes in the south; mesquite and buffalo grass, pecan and redbud and peach trees, caliche and cactus—back in the '40's a lot of German folks settled there. Mason County's some of the best of it, grassy hills cut by the upper Llano and the streams that feed into it; it's fine cattle country, even the Germans got into that line. Kimble too, just southwest—rugged, brush-choked canyons slashin' through limestone ridges peppered with oak and cedar. The North and South Llano water it, the grass is lush and the soil's fertile, though Comanche and Apache war parties was a big bother before the Rangers broke the southern bands startin' around '38—my uncle was part of that. On the edge of it, around Lampasas, there's high, rollin' pastures, limestone-bottomed creeks windin' through post-oak and mesquite, and belts of hills, half of 'em rollin', half rugged and covered with oak and hick'ry forests. And way up in the north, rubbin' up on the Indian Nations, there's the Panhandle, where I was born. Llano Estacado, they call it—the Staked Plains: the way I heard the story, when the Spanish, Coronado and them, come through the first time, they had to drive stakes into the ground so's they could find their way back again, like folks in the forests used to blaze trees—it's that much the same, high and flat, just a few rivers breakin' the plain. Playa lakes and sand dunes and not much else but grass; in the spring it blazes with flowers, the waterholes're full and the buffalo herds cover the country as far as you can see, but by late summer it's gone arid, almost desert. The winds blow strong and steady and the blizzards in winter come roarin' down from the top of the world with nothin' to stop 'em. In summer the sky's bright and blue and clear under a blazin' hot sun. There's crashin' thunderstorms, with great bolts of lightnin'. And sometimes heat lightnin' tears the sky at night, even when there ain't no storm." He spoke softly, a rambling, yarning kind of voice, full of memories.

"What do people do there?" she asked.

"In the Panhandle? They ranch, they hunt buffalo, they fight Indians, they chase mustangs. West of Dallas, south of the Palo Duro and down to the Salt Fork of the Brazos, is maybe the greatest wild-horse range anywheres; Slim says he thinks the Yellowstone country's better, he's been there, but I dunno about that. There's more Spanish-blood mustangs runnin' free than a man could count if he tried all winter, thousands of 'em, all colors."

"But are there no—no cowboys anywhere else?" Daisy wanted to know. "You said the Mexicans had had ranches south of San Antonio…"

"Oh, yeah, they done that, and they wasn't th'only ones. Was a man, name of Richard King, he started out pilotin' steamboats when he wasn't but about sixteen, got into runnin' men and supplies along the Rio for the American army durin' the war with Mexico, him and a friend of his, Miflin Kenedy. After the war, he started speculatin' in land in Brownsville and Cameron County, and then he took a trip across the Nueces Strip—that's the country between the Rio and the Nueces River—and liked the looks of the grasslands along Santa Gertrudis Creek. In '53 he begun buyin' up Mexican land titles around there, near 70,000 acres. One time, they say, he went down to Tamaulipas—that's a state in Mexico—and found a village that'd been hit by a bad drought. The folks there'd lost a passel of their stock and knew they'd lose the rest if somebody didn't take it off their hands, and King did that, bought up all their cattle for around $12,000. That give 'em money to survive till the rains'd come again, but then it come to him that they didn't have nothin' left to live off of when it did. So he went back and said, you come north and work for me, and they did. Been there ever since, them and their kids now. They call themselves kineños—King's men. By about '69 he reckoned he oughtta have around 84,000 head of cattle, but there was so much rustlin' over the Rio, he couldn't round up even 50,000 of 'em."

"Fifty thousand!" she repeated in astonishment.

He looked across at her and grinned. "That ain't nothin'. Why, 'way back in '53, when I wasn't much more'n a colt, there was 40,000 driven over the Nueces on the way to N'Orleans, I heard tell, and that didn't count them that went other places, like California, or Cuba, or the tallow works at Brazoria, or the whole stretch from Illinois to Ohio—ask Slim about that sometime. Y'see, when Texas was a republic, she didn't have a lot of money, so she paid off her soldiers and Rangers in land, and made more of it available cheap. The shootin' at San Jacinto hadn't hardly quit before she made the first headright law, grantin' all heads of families livin' in Texas as of the fourth of that March 'first class' rights of a league and a labor—that's just over 4600 acres—and single men seventeen years or older a third of a league, which is a tad under 1500. Nine months later, wantin' to lure settlers in, she give 'second class' rights of 1280 acres to all newcomers with families that come in between March of '36 and October of '37, and 640 to single men, with the right to pre-empt additional lands at fifty cents to the acre. 'Third-class' rights for half that was given to them that come in before 1840, and 'fourth class' to any that followed before '42. Well, you can't farm that much land with just family to work it, so a lot of folks either took to raisin' livestock or they sold some of what they had to somebody that wanted to."

"How many cattle are there in Texas?" Daisy wondered.

"I don't reckon as how anybody really knows," he admitted. "Durin' the war so many men went off to fight that there wasn't no way to work 'em, so they just done what cows do best, which is eat and have baby calves. Time the fightin' ended there was maybe three million head, maybe six. There's been more'n a million of 'em driven north since, and it don't seem to make much of a dent in 'em by what I've seen. I worked one time for a man, King Bartlett they called him, in San Saba County… he owned likely 50,000 head, and he wasn't the biggest neither. I told you what Richard King reckoned he'd'a' had if the rustlers'd left him be."

Yes, Daisy thought, I do see, now, very much of what would make a man what you are. Thinking in terms of such great tracts of land, great numbers of cattle… living in a land so vast and variable…and you've spoken of cattle thieves, and Comanches…

" 'Course," Jess went on as an afterthought, "it ain't all like that. I don't know as you know it, but in most of the South folks started up small and worked their way to big. In Texas it went opposites around. The folks that first come into the Austin colony in '22 was mostly planters; the middlin' kind of frontier yeomen didn't begin followin' 'em till twenty years later—not big numbers of 'em anyhow. They settled the piney woods country, 'cause of it bein' closest to N'Orleans where they had to sell what they raised, corn and wheat and cotton. One of my ma's sisters…" He trailed off then, thinking about how it had been when he came back from chasing Frank Bannister down to New Mexico as Trim Stuart's tracker-deputy. About how Andy, whose brother had necessarily had to tell him what had taken Jess off this time, had asked, Will you... would you tell me about... about your home? About your folks? And what he'd thought of that, how he'd known that the way he responded would be, in some way, the final test of whether he'd finally found the peace he'd been seeking all those years. If he could think about them, talk about them, even think about talking about them, without feeling that open wound in his heart—

In the end, he had. He and Andy had gone up to the lake the very next Sunday with their fishing gear and a picnic lunch, and he'd told the boy about Wind Vane Ranch, his ma and pa, his brothers and sisters, the Mexican vaqueros whose children had been his chief playmates, and Avonia Maylock who'd been the daughter of his pa's segundo; about the way they'd lived, the things they'd done as kids, the schooling he'd had—such as it was—around the family kitchen table; about Jack Henry Milburn, the half-Comanche boss wrangler, who'd taught him to track and use a knife and break a horse the slow Indian way. It hadn't hurt near as much as he'd feared it would. It had been good. He'd realized then that it was wrong to think about people you'd lost only in terms of the pain that came with being alone. If they were yours, if you'd loved them, there had been so much more to it than just that.

"—One of my ma's sisters," he went on, with barely an audible break, "married into one of them families. Had herself a passel of young'uns, too, my uncle told us when he come visitin'. Nine, there was. Five boys, four girls." He eyed her speculatively. Cooper. She couldn't be kin, could she? Well, an in-law; Cooper'd been her husband's name. No, Ma and Pa and Uncle Cam had always said that the Coopers, and the Harpers too, had come up from the Virginia Tidewater to the Shenandoah Valley, and from there over Boone's Gap into North Carolina, and then to Tennessee and on to Texas after the Smith Colony was founded. They'd never spoken of any from either family who'd gone any further north than the Kentucky line.

You mustn't ever ask him about them, Miss Daisy, or about his boyhood. He can't bear it. Slim had said that. But she wasn't asking; at least, not entirely—he seemed to have come to the subject by his own volition. She tilted her head, looking at him in a measuring way. "And in your family? How many Harpers were there?"

"Well, Ma and Pa, of course," he said. "Ben and Jake was the oldest, ten and eight years older'n me; they left home when I wasn't but six, Ben said a man shouldn't spend his whole life lookin' after another man's land and stock, he should try and be his own master. Then after them come Sophie, she was a little less'n two years and a half younger'n Jake; she got married to a boy from one of the other ranches in them parts—Lambright, his name was, Jim Lambright—the year I turned thirteen, and moved to Mesilla, which is down in the southeast part of New Mexico, near the Border. Three years after her come Francie, and then me twenty-one months after her. Then there was Johnny, I was three and a quarter when he was born; and Billy just more'n four years after him, and Davy around two years and a half after Billy, and then Julie, the baby, I was just before bein' twelve when she showed up."

Daisy seemed to be figuring mentally. "Then your oldest brothers never even met the four youngest children, did they? Unless they came home to visit…"

"No, ma'am, they never done. Didn't even write after the first three-four years. Don't rightly know what become of 'em." He hesitated. "Come a time, wouldn't'a' been no home for 'em to come visitin' to, not any more…" And he told her about the Bannisters.

This is what Slim tried to warn me about, she thought, watching the painful old memories race across his face. This poor boy… what a terrible thing to have happen! And he couldn't do anything to save them…

He fell silent at last, only a slight raggedness in his breathing hinting at how difficult the revelation had been for him. She waited for a minute or two, and then asked, gently, "What became of you afterward, dear? You and your sister and brother?"

"Johnny… he died of the cholera in '63, in Brownsville while I was at the war. Francie got married to a feller name of Gil Brady—the Bradys was friends of our ma and pa, took us in after the raid, Gil was their second boy—and, well, I've heard two stories about what happened; one feller said she killed herself 'cause of the way Gil done her, but there's some say maybe she died of sickness, diphtheria, in Galveston. Me—soon as I'd earned enough money for a horse and an outfit, I went huntin' Bannister. Lucky maybe I didn't find him right off, I wouldn't'a' been no match for him, let alone his gang. Met up with a feller name of Dixie Howard—"

She gasped. "I know that name. Wasn't he called 'the gentleman gunfighter-gambler'?"

"Yes, ma'am." Jess sounded surprised. "But how'd you know of him?"

"My son…" she began; trailed off a moment, then: "I married Lloyd forty-five years ago, when I was twenty. We had two babies who didn't live… and then Troy. He'd have been thirty-six now… but he was killed at the Battle of Chickamauga, serving with Thomas's brigade. He was only a year or so older than you are… when he was a boy, twelve and fourteen and sixteen, he used to love to read yellowbacks—what they call dime novels now. I remember once he brought home one about Mr. Howard…"

"Yeah," Jess breathed, "Dixie was wrote up in books… Ben and Jake read 'em too. Well, he took me on, taught me…"

The man who trained him, Slim had said. "And that was how you became… a gunfighter?"

"Yes, ma'am. Didn't set out meanin' to do it, but I reckon there ain't many that does. It was just… Dixie said I had the reflexes, just not the science, and he could give me that, if I wanted it. Long time later, he said why. He'd had a sister he couldn't settle for, couldn't save. He wanted to give me the skills that could save me, and let me settle for my kin like he couldn't for his."

"He must have been a good man," she said.

"He was, then," said Jess, and quickly changed the subject. "You ain't asked me if I was at Chickamauga. And you gotta figure I was on th'other side, bein' Texan."

"What good would it do to ask?" she replied. "We still wouldn't know if you were the one who killed Troy—and even if you were, I'm sure there was no personal malice in it. And Slim told me you were drafted. You didn't want to go."

"No, ma'am," he agreed. "I didn't. Had an obligation—Bannister to find. Reckon I might'a' done it, too, if I hadn't had to take them two years out. But just so you know—I was in Virginia when that happened, with the Texas Brigade, under Hood. We'd just gone into winter camp when we got the word of it."

She said nothing for a minute. "You didn't have to tell me that. But I'm glad you did." Then it was her turn to change the subject. "I couldn't help noticing there's a small piano near my bedroom door. Is it Slim's?"

He chuckled. "No, ma'am. Old hard-rock likes music, and he's got a good voice for singin', but he can't play a note. I can pick out a tune with one finger if I take my time, but that's as far as I go." She wondered how he'd learned even that much, but decided to wait to ask. "That piano belongs to Jonesy. He used to take care of us, like you're doin', but he went East with Slim's brother Andy, to ride herd on him while he's in school. You play, ma'am?" he added, with an eager note.

"I'm afraid not," she admitted, "though it isn't for want of trying. Even when I was very small, almost every household between the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers had its piano or harpsichord; it was the mark of a family with cultural pretensions. My father was determined that each of us should learn to play something, but he was especially fixed on the piano for my sisters and me. He bought a cottage piano, very much like that one, when I was only six and it had just barely been invented. We all took lessons from a young age. My oldest brother is quite proficient on the violin, the second on the flute, and the youngest one learned the piccolo—and the French horn after he was a grown man; it's a tricky instrument to play, and we were all very proud of him for mastering it. My sister Violet plays the piano and the dulcimer; Lily isn't quite as good on the keyboard, but she does very well at the harp. I studied all of them, and the violin and cello. Or at least I tried. It was hopeless. It's not that I'm tone-deaf; I can sing, I just can't seem to grasp anything that requires fingering."

"Too bad," he said. "Seems like a piano'd ought to get its exercise just like a good horse." And then: "What's them two rivers you spoke of?"

"The Delaware and the Schuylkill? They're in the southeast part of Pennsylvania. The Delaware's the boundary between it and New Jersey, and the Schuylkill divides Philadelphia in two."

He nodded thoughtfully. "That's why I didn't know 'em. Joined th'army too late for Gettysburg—I've heard tell that's in Pennsylvania too?"

"Yes, it is, but well to the west—about a hundred and twenty-five miles by the shortest road. Although from what I've seen up to now, I don't think you Westerners would consider that far at all."

He grinned. "No, ma'am. Why, folks come to Laramie for Fourth of July and dances and such from a hundred miles off. Cowboys'll ride twice that for a good party." Then: "So… you growed up between them two rivers, then?"

"Yes, in a place called Willow Grove, fifteen miles or so from Philadelphia itself. It started out as a farmstead on a land grant made by William Penn, around 1719. Now it's become a summer vacation retreat for people who live in the city. Father told us that Washington's troops marched through in 1777 on their way to the Battle of Brandywine—he was five then, and saw them—and the Battle of Crooked Billet took place near Hatboro, which is two or three miles north." She decided not to mention that the Willow Grove area had also been a major player in the efforts of the Underground Railroad to lead slaves to freedom in Canada; she still didn't know how he felt about slavery, or black people.

"Huh," he said softly. "That's somethin'." Diffidently: "I ain't schooled, ma'am. Andy give me some of his books, the first Christmas I was here, and I look through 'em now and again, when I get the time, but… Slim's way smarter than me."

"That isn't true," she retorted at once. "Being schooled and being smart are two very different things. I appreciate that you didn't go to school, which is probably because there weren't any where you grew up…?" She waited for his slow nod of agreement, and continued: "But you have a good mind, Jess. I can tell. Why, all those things you told me about snakes, and Texas, and its history—I never knew any of that. And you know that news consists of what's out of the ordinary, which is more than some editors seem to, and you can tell a story as well as anyone I've ever known." Cannily: "Didn't you say your uncle was in the Texas Rangers? Some of Troy's books were about them."

"Yes, ma'am. That was my Uncle Cam—Cam for Cameron; he was Ma's oldest brother. Their pa sent him to military school when he was a kid, reckoned maybe he'd go on to West Point, but he decided he druther use what he'd learned to make Texas safe…"

**SR**

Slim held Alamo to an easy jog so as not to jolt the small boy sitting astride the pommel in front of him, head resting against the front of his shirt. We need to get him a proper hat, he thought. He'll get sunstroke if he keeps goin' everywhere with his head bare, most of all ridin' the buckboard to town. And a pair of good cowman's boots, for when I can find a pony that's more his size than Ember…

"Did you have a good time with Jim and Davy, Mike?" he asked aloud.

"Uh-huh," said Mike. "But Jim was sure surprised that I could tell what made the tracks he showed me, out behind the barn. Jess taught me."

"He taught Andy too," Slim remembered. "What did make the tracks?"

"A stripey skunk," Mike replied. "It had five toes, but its claws showed better than a raccoon's would, and its hind feet weren't long and thin and pointed at the heel. And a dog, not a coyote; its toes spread out more, and the mark of its heel pad was kind of three-cornered and equal along the sides. A coyote's is narrow and humps in the middle."

"I hope that dog wasn't there when the skunk was," Slim murmured. "You'll have to tell Jess about that. He'll be proud that you remembered what he's taught you."

"You reckon so?" Slim noticed that the boy used Jess's word, just as Andy often had.

"I know so. He may not say it, but he will be."

Mike was silent for a few minutes, as if pondering that concept. Then, out of nowhere, he said, "Slim? Do you think Jess and Miss Daisy will get to be friends?"

"Don't you think they are?" Slim responded, wondering what had brought that on. "He sure seems to be fond of her cooking."

"That's not the same thing," Mike declared with the perceptiveness of the very young. "He's shy with her. He don't seem to be able to think what to say when she's around, except to say 'yes, ma'am' when she asks him to do somethin', or to tell her how much he likes her food, or thank her for darnin' his socks. Sometimes he turns kinda red, too."

"Well, Mike," Slim explained slowly, "you have to understand that where Jess grew up, there were hardly any ladies at all, just his ma. You never talked the same way to your ma that you would to a lady you'd just met, did you?" He waited till the boy's head moved side to side in a slow, thoughtful shake. "After all, Miss Daisy hasn't been with us very long, less than a week. And then, after Jess—left home, he was mostly in places where there were a lot of men but not many women. He's never really learned how to relate to them. It doesn't help that Miss Daisy's from back East, either. Jess can understand Western women, a little, even if he can't always figure out what to say to them. But somebody who's so new to this part of the country…"

"She's a tenderfoot," said Mike, in a decisive and just-barely-scornful tone. After all, even he had spent almost half his short life west of the Mississippi.

Slim chuckled. "Yeah, she is that." We have to talk about teachin' her to shoot, again, he told himself. I'm willing to do it if he's not, but like he said, that old Paterson of mine might be handier for her than the shotgun, and he's just so much better with a short gun than I am… and a good teacher, too. "They don't have an awful lot in common. And Jess—you know, he doesn't talk like an educated man, because he isn't one, and he doesn't read too well. It embarrasses him to be around people he can tell have been well schooled. Sometimes he says he's not smart."

"But that's not true," Mike protested.

"That's what I've told him," Slim agreed, "but how do you know?"

" 'Cause…" The boy hesitated, framing his words. "Smart means you know lots of things and can learn. Jess has learned plenty, or he wouldn't be able to teach me all the things he does—like when he brought Ember home and said about why Western horses buck, 'member?"

"I remember."

"I reckon there's different kind of learnin'," Mike went on. "My pa thought so too. He talked sometimes about book learnin' and life learnin'. He said life learnin' was things like how to run a farm or shoe a horse or shoot a gun—practical, he called it. Things that can help you earn a living or stay alive—like trackin'. That's what Jess's got—life learnin'."

"That's a good name for it," Slim agreed. I never thought about it in those terms, but he's right. I'll have to point that out, the next time Jess starts saying he 'ain't smart'…

As they talked, Alamo had been picking his way across the Stone Creek ford and climbing the low divide that fenced off the little valley where the ranch buildings lay. Slim checked him at the crest for a quick look around, a habit he'd gotten into that very first year, because of the way Jess's past kept popping up unexpectedly and sometimes with guns in its hands. The stage horses for the next change had wandered down into the lower pasture and were gathered near the gate, nibbling grass in the desultory way that said they'd already eaten their fill and were ready to go whenever somebody thought to come get them; they seemed relaxed and easy. The chickens were foraging in loose formation about the yard, and there was a cat sunning itself at the foot of the barn wall. Everything looked peaceful enough. Not wanting to disturb Mike by reaching down to loosen his Colt in the holster, Slim held the horse in place for a few minutes, watching for any hint of surreptitious movement such as might suggest a sentry. When he saw none, he gave Alamo a tickle with the spurs, and the chestnut moved slowly down the slope, his head high, watching as he went, ears pricked and alert and nostrils working to catch the slightest hint of scent. Slim could feel no hint of tension in the horse's muscles through his stirrup leathers, and the bit made a little metallic music as Alamo chewed on it.

A distinctive deep laugh burst from the cool shadows under the porch roof, joined by a lighter, more musical one. Slim checked an instant in surprise, and Alamo snorted as if to ask what the trouble was. Mike tightened his knees and tried to sit higher on the pommel. "Look, Slim, it's Jess and Miss Daisy!"

"I see that," Slim agreed, having at last made out details in the shade. Jess was stretched out at full lounging length, his spurs hooked over the rail, every line of him telling of ease and comfort; there was a tumbler in one gloved hand, and the other moved lazily as he gestured as if to magnify some point he was making. In the other chair sat Daisy, erect but convulsed with delight, the lemon-yellow batiste of her gown a patch of visible light under the roof. Slim flicked the reins, and Alamo broke into a quick jog. He saw Jess's hat move as the Texan turned his head to see who was there, but the easy posture didn't change, which was something that almost never happened when Jess was aware that someone was approaching his vicinity.

Slim checked in front of the tie rail and swung down carefully, wrapped the reins and reached up to lift Mike to the ground. Daisy's cheeks were pink, he noticed, as if she'd been laughing for some time. There was a pitcher half full of lemonade—he recognized it, a glass one studded with colored knobs that they usually used only for special occasions—on the upended packing crate between the two chairs, along with a plate that held only a few crumbs. "You two sound as if you're havin' a good time," he noted.

"We are," Daisy agreed, rather breathlessly. "Has Jess ever told you the story about the man who shot a buffalo out of a tree?"

"Out of a tree?!" Slim repeated incredulously. "Jess, you shouldn't string her along like that. You know buffalo can't climb trees."

"Well, now," Jess drawled, "they ain't ordinarily much on it, that's true. But this particular buffalo, like I was sayin', he was up in that tree eatin' grapes. You never can tell what a buffalo will do, to get grapes." Then he grinned at Slim's expression. "Aw, shoot, hardcase, even Miss Daisy knew I was yarnin'. Now, about this horse I had one time—"

"What about him?" Slim demanded, not at all sure he wanted to know.

"Well, when I bought him, the feller that sold him to me was sayin' how smart he was. Seems this boy had too much to drink one night in town and passed out. Horse picked him up, slung him on its back, and carried him twenty miles to the ranch he was workin' at. When it got the man there, it pulled off his boots with its teeth and nosed him into his bunk. Then it went into the kitchen, fixed up a pot of coffee, and fetched it in. Next day when the man had a hangover, the horse went out all by itself and rode line all day so the boss'd let him sleep."

"If the horse was that smart," said Mike, "why did the man want to sell him, Jess?"

"Tell you why, Tiger. You know I've told you how a man's bedroll ain't to be messed with? That's 'cause sometimes he keeps things in it that he values, Miss Daisy," he added to the woman. "Well, this horse, he put the man in the wrong bunk, on somebody else's roll, and when the feller it belonged to found him there, he dragged him on outta there and whipped him six ways from Sunday. Busted his nose and blacked his eye and might'a' killed him 'cept the boss caught him at it and explained what'd happened. So this cowboy figured he didn't wanta take no more chances like that, and he sold me the horse."

Slim hesitated a minute, not quite sure how to react, and then he realized. Jess was yarning. He didn't yarn unless he was completely at his ease and comfortable with his audience. "And I suppose," he said, "that you were always very careful not to get drunk as long as you had that horse."

"You better believe it," Jess agreed, his face perfectly straight. Then he laughed again, and so did Daisy. And so did Slim.

The rancher looked down at Mike, who seemed puzzled, and lifted him up onto his shoulder. "Remember what we were just talkin' about, Mike?" he asked.

"You mean about—oh!" the boy stopped himself.

"Yeah, about that," Slim agreed. "I don't think you have to worry about it. Not any more."

Mike looked from Jess to Daisy, watching as the two of them traded questioning glances, and then grinned. "No," he said, "I reckon I don't. Everything's gonna be just fine now."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Note: The story about the buffalo in the tree is loosely adapted from one that was published in the Saturday Evening Post issue of October 1, 1910 (which you can find online at HathiTrust), and the one about the cowboy and his too-smart horse from one in the Reader's Digest collection, American Folklore and Legend, which, along with the Life Treasury of American Folklore, is one of the two books on the subject that should be in every collection.