Chapter Six
Johnny dangled both arms over the corral rail watching as Jaime, Eduardo and Toledano brought out the first of the horses and hustled it to the snubbing post to get it saddled. Frank and one of the new hands were already mounted and waiting in the corral, ready to crowd the mustang if they needed to. Jaime knew what he was doing. He'd hobbled the stirrups to give himself a better hold on the horse, and he talked to it all the time as he saddled and bridled it, running his hands over its head and neck to calm it.
But Scott wasn't listening too good to what Johnny was telling him about horse breaking. They hadn't seen hide nor hair of Murdoch since he'd barked out their orders at breakfast, and Scott was more interested in where the old man had got to. "I suppose he has this all worked out, if it gets this hectic every year. He probably has some really good hiding places."
Guess the old man had years of practice hiding away when the women went on the rampage like that. "If Teresa often goes off half-cocked like she did today, you can see why the old man's learned to keep his head down below the skyline."
"She's only about sixteen! If that."
What in hell did that have to do with it? "She was brought up by Maria, mostly." At Scott's stare, Johnny shrugged. "Mexican women are real fiery, Scott. Teresa ain't stupid. She'll have learned the tricks."
Scott grinned, but his eyes were still greyish and angry. "Fiery, huh? You'd know all about that."
"Some." Johnny ducked his head to hide whatever might show on his face. Mama could have given Teresa points and a three minute lead, and still won by a country mile.
He watched Jaime gather up the reins and ease himself into the saddle. The buckskin stood stock still for a minute, probably surprised and half-remembering the feel of a saddle and rider, before it went into a frenzy of crow-hopping, bucking and jumping. It got its head down between its front legs, arching its back and bucking for all it was worth.
Jaime was good at this. He wasn't harsh with the mustang, which arched its back again then twisted to kick out with its hind legs, but he wasn't letting that horse think it was going to win. He rode well, setting the reins so that when the buckskin moved, its head was forced over to one side. That was a damn good way to stop the horse bucking too hard; showed that Jaime knew what he was doing. The hands lined the corral fences, whooping and cheering him on. Toledano was in the centre of a small group of vaqueros, and yeah, money was changing hands. Looks like there were fools born every minute.
"Cipriano told me that they broke Barranca for the first time at last year's round up. Wonder if it was Jaime did it. He's real good at this."
"You mean that Barranca wasn't completely wild when you broke him?" Scott stopped brooding enough to look interested.
"Green broke and gelded last year. He'd been running free since then, though and he'd got a bit... " Johnny paused, thought, and said, with a grin, "… unruly. Think that's what the nuns used to say about me in a school I went to once, right before they'd switch me to teach me some manners. Anyhow, Eduardo brought him in with a batch of horses the day before we got here. If I'd just broken him from wild, I wouldn't have let you take him over a fence that day, Boston."
Scott sniffed. "You didn't let me. I just took him." He brought his hands up on the corral fence and rested his forehead on them. His voice was muffled. "I should have known that we'd need more horses. It isn't like the Cavalry didn't have remounts."
Johnny scowled at the crow-hopping mustang. It was tiring now, and the jumps and twists didn't have as much zip in them. It stumbled, and when Jaime brought it back up again, it responded to the rein for a minute or two, remembering its training from the last time, before making another couple of half-hearted hops. Jaime was winning.
"It's like you said the other day. They'd all be the greenhorns in Boston."
Scott pushed away from the corral, turning and leaning his back against the fence so he faced away from where Jaime had the mustang tuckered out and starting to behave itself. "There's at time when you first start something, when you're learning…" He broke off. His mouth tightened right down. Scott didn't really look any more like Murdoch than Johnny did, but sometimes Johnny could really see he was Murdoch's son. "At least you know this stuff."
"Some of it. I know more about horses. I don't know that much about cows, 'cept that they're the dumbest animals on God's earth. They're too damn dumb to stay out of mud holes, or stay behind fences, or get not caught in the brush and mesquite."
Scott frowned at him. "Mesquite?"
"A bush. Grows all over the place further south alongside blackbrush and brasil, thick patches of the stuff you can't get through. Blackbrush is the worst. Thorns like this—" Johnny held finger and thumb far apart. "We're lucky we don't have it this far north. The damn stuff tears you right up. Stupid beeves get into it and get all tangled in the thorns if you don't chase them out. I used to do that. Worked the brush country when I was a kid, helping the hands move the herd and keeping the cows out of the blackbrush. I did it for a year or two in Texas, working some of the ranches in the Big Bend country. But they weren't cows like ours. Those spreads ran Texas longhorns, the biggest, meanest cows there is."
"So you've done ranch work before?"
"When I was a kid, yeah." Johnny grinned. "I wasn't very big then. I was a skinny little runt and the men would take bets on me against the cows. They said it was good as the preacher with the Bible, watching me chasing longhorns; like David and that Goliath feller."
"How old were you?" There was something funny in Scott's voice, like he was mad or something.
"I dunno. Twelve, thirteen, maybe."
Scott's mouth opened and closed with a snap. And now he looked real mad, too. "Ranches hire children? To do a dangerous job like herd cows six times their size? And then bet on the cows winning the confrontation?"
Johnny shrugged. What the hell did that matter? "It was a job. I got fed and I had somewhere to sleep and I got half a man's pay for it, so I had a few pesos to spend and some money put away." He grinned. "I was free as an alley cat, Boston. I could pay my own way, buy my own stuff. I wanted a gun that was all my own and not some old piece I'd picked up somewhere."
"Of course you did." Scott rolled his eyes.
"I learned to throw a rope there, too, but the lariats they use here in California are rawhide and longer, and I'll have to learn it all over. I guess that will set me back a mite, whenever Doc Jenkins lets me to do something other than sit on my backside watching you work." Johnny poked Scott in the ribs. ""You're getting ahead of me, Boston. You've roped cows."
"I have. I roped a calf all by myself." Scott used that dry tone of voice that made Johnny grin. "One calf. Once. And it was a calf of the dragging a man across the landscape variety."
"That's one calf ahead of me."
Scott laughed. He turned back to the corral, shaking his head and grinning.
The mustang was behaving itself now, just the tossing head showing how nervy it was. It jibbed when the breeze stirred up a dust devil at its feet but it was doin' what Jaime wanted it to. It'd do. By the end of the round up it might even be a decent cow pony. Jaime dismounted and let Eduardo take the buckskin out of the corral. Toledano and Felipe were already bringing the next in the string to the snubbing post.
"They respect Murdoch a lot, the vaqueros." Scott drummed his fingers on the top rail.
"He's the Patrón. From being kids, they're brought up to respect the Patrón."
"They respect you, too."
Was that what put the burr under Boston's saddle? "Naw. They're scared of me."
Scott laughed. "Well, I'll have to concede that point."
Jaime had come to their end of the corral, where there was a bucket of water with a tin dipper. He blew out a breath and grinned at them while he took some.
Johnny reached out and slapped his shoulder. "¡Bien hecho! That's a nice looking buckskin."
"Gracias, Johnny. Todo va bien." He glanced at Scott and grimaced. "Sorry, Señor Scott. I said that everything's going well."
"Is it?"
Johnny swallowed down a sigh. From the start, the thing that had impressed him about Boston was that he was a real quiet man, but sure of himself; he carried himself real well. The man had dealt with Pardee and his gang only a couple of days after arriving at the estancia from the East and he was worrying about not knowing about the caballada?
He waited until Jaime had gone back to work, taking on a big mean-eyed paint, before speaking again. "You reckon Murdoch worked with cattle before he came here? Back in that place he came from?"
"Scotland, you mean? I don't know. The past is dead and gone, remember? He doesn't seem to want to talk about it."
"Maybe we should set the Pinks on him."
Scott huffed out a laugh. "That seems only fair. It's probably the only way we'll ever find out anything about him. He's close-mouthed, is our father."
Yeah. Damned closed-mouthed.
Mind you, the past wasn't all it was cracked up to be. There was something to be said for not thinking about Mama and her We weren't good enough, miel, for the high and mighty Murdoch Lancer and we had to leave. Or even not thinking about Papa and his You are my son now, Juanito, and that is all that matters. Between us, we'll make your mama happy. Because nowadays he wasn't so sure about Mama's story, not if what Teresa had said that day down at the waterside was true. If Murdoch hadn't really tossed them the keys of the road, if Mama hadn't left for whatever reason was in her head, then maybe they would have been here on Lancer all that time, and things would have been better… been different, anyway, because there never would have been a Papa to help Johnny make her happy. Murdoch would have been there instead and he sure hadn't been up to the job.
Johnny blew out a silent breath, letting it all go for now. She wasn't around to ask and Papa was gone, too. She would never be able to tell him why she'd left. He'd never know if there had been a gambler he couldn't remember or if Murdoch really did throw them out then changed his mind when he needed a fast gun, because Murdoch was so damned closed-mouthed and probably wouldn't ever say. It was stupid worrying over it, like a dog with a dried up old bone. It was in the past. It was dead and gone. It didn't matter anymore.
Johnny pushed it all away. "He sure knows cattle. And this is one helluva place he's built up."
"Yes. He's not the sort of man to be patient with stupid mistakes."
"I dunno. I guess even if he did work cattle in Scotland, it might be different to here. He maybe had to learn it all too when he got here, make the same sort of mistakes." Johnny held his hands apart, just as Scott had done in the saloon. "The only boots that fit a man well are his own, Boston."
He waited for the wry grin and the nod as Scott got what he was saying, then Scott laughed and pushed Johnny's hands further apart, just as Johnny had done in the saloon.
"That's Scott to you!"
"Sure, Boston. Sure."
They grinned at each other and Johnny nodded before turning back to the corral and the work Jaime was doing in there. Scott was smart. He'd work this all out in his own way and in his own time. And in the meantime the paint was trying really hard to buck Jaime right over the corral fence and Toledano taking bets and shouting odds, his arms waving and his sombrero flapping about on his back hard enough to scare the horses. Johnny slid a hand into his pants pocket and fingered the few dollars he had on him. Maybe he should have taken Toledano's wager. Beside him, Scott sighed and relaxed, letting the stiffness go out of him. Johnny glanced at him, sidelong.
Cada cosa en su momento, brother. Cada cosa en su momento.
Everything in its own good time.
.
.
By the time Johnny had had enough it was the middle of the afternoon. The sun was slanting down and starting its slide behind the mountains west of the ranch. He and Scott had watched while Jaime worked his way through a string of six horses and Toledano had worked his way through the hands' wages. Scott said he was impressed with Jaime's skill; Johnny had been real impressed with Toledano's. He patted the coins in his pocket and grinned. Just as well he hadn't joined the betting. Toledano was a man to watch.
In between laughing over the hands' complaints at losin' their wages and cheering Jaime on, Johnny spent the time eyeing up the ponies to decide which one he'd look for when giving Barranca a rest. The paint, probably. It was strong and feisty and looked like it would be worth training as his second stringer. He'd had a paint once, years ago. Damn good horse that had been, too.
Eduardo had taken over then. Another string of mustangs were brought in and broken and by the time Jaime had rested enough to take on a third batch, Johnny didn't want to watch anymore. Standing around doing nothing but watch someone else work was tiring him out. When Jaime swung himself up into the saddle of a neat-looking roan, Johnny touched Scott's arm and nodded towards the house.
"I'll come with you." Scott straightened up and stretched. "The other members of the Association will start to arrive soon. We'd better find out what Murdoch wants us to do."
Johnny snorted. "If he's come outa hiding."
Either he had, or Teresa had found him anyway. Johnny could hear his father's deep rumble trying to be heard over Teresa talkin' at him like there was no tomorrow. She sounded excited. They were in the salón when Johnny and Scott ambled in. Dios, but Murdoch looked glad to see them. Teresa must have been bending his ear about something he didn't want to listen to.
Murdoch looked a mite less glad when he saw that Johnny still wore his gun. He really didn't like Johnny wearing it in the house or sleeping with it hanging on the bed post near his hand. He kept trying to get Johnny into the habit of taking off his gun belt as he came through the door and hanging it on the gun tree just inside the salón door.
So Johnny tucked both hands into his gun belt and smiled. "Hey Murdoch, Teresa."
Murdoch humphed, but let it go. He looked them over from head to foot. "Boys." He took out his pocket watch and studied it. "You'll need to wash up and change. Our guests will start arriving soon."
Murdoch was in a fine white shirt, a going-to-church shirt, and wearing a string tie and a frown. Teresa was in a pink lace dress, a new one that Johnny hadn't seen before, and she had pink ribbons in her hair. There was no way that Johnny was going to get gussied up like that. It was only a bunch of ranchers coming.
Scott beat at the side of his pants with that queer hat of his. Best thing a man could do with a hat like that, use it to get rid of the dust. Looked stupid on his head, the way the brim turned up at the side. "We are a little dusty for a party. It'll be good to clean up."
"That reminds me." Teresa turned to Johnny. She looked like a kitten with its fur rubbed the wrong way. "Johnny Lancer, were you brought up in a barn?"
Johnny blinked. Well, Johnny Lancer maybe hadn't been, since he hadn't been around for a helluva long time, but Johnny Madrid and Juan Martínez sure knew that barns were good places to sleep: they were warm and dry, and the hay was softer than a blanket on the ground. He'd slept in loads of barns when he was a kid, or when he was on the trail. He didn't get the chance to say so.
"Because when I went to sort out your things for tonight, I found your white shirt. I had to hunt for it on the floor, mind you, in all that mess. Did you roll it around the hog pen?"
Mierda. He'd forgotten how women got about things like that. Mama had too, but that was a long time ago. And the nuns at the orphanage, they were the worst. He smiled at Teresa, but she wasn't having any of it. She looked just like a chicken fluffing out its feathers to make itself look bigger. Pecking like one, too.
"It looked like you cleaned your boots with it."
Which was right smart of her, because he had. Still, wasn't worth his hide to say so. "Well—"
Murdoch looked at him like he was sorry, but glad that it wasn't him in the firing line. Boston looked like he was trying not to laugh.
"Why can't you clean your boots downstairs without tracking dirt all through the house?" Peck. Peck. "Maria and I have enough to do without everyone making extra work. We can't keep running around after you all. It's not fair." Peck. "We have more than enough to do, keeping this house going…"
Peck. Peck.
Murdoch cut in when Johnny narrowed his eyes at him in a warning to call her off. "All right, honey, we get the message. We know how hard you work to keep us comfortable and we'll all be more considerate. Johnny won't use his shirt to clean his boots again. Right, Johnny?"
"I guess." Johnny didn't put up a fight. Dios alone knew what had got into Teresa. She wasn't usually snippy. Dammit, she was downright cheerful, mostly. "I'll wear a different shirt."
Teresa sniffed. "Señora Isabella sent up another white shirt for you. It's on your bed."
Another shirt? How many damned shirts did a man need? Johnny already had four, more than he'd ever owned in his life before. He looked hard at Murdoch. They'd already had words about the old man talking to Cipriano's wife to get him clothes. He didn't need charity.
Murdoch went red at the tips of his ears. "You'll need plenty of shirts for when Sam clears you for working full time. I just thought you'd prefer charro style and the Señora likes to do fancy work."
Johnny looked at him harder. ¡Mierda! He didn't have much. He knew he didn't have much. He couldn't carry a lot in his saddlebags and most of what he'd had, the rurales had taken. Dammit, even his calzoneras and his favourite pink shirt had come from the priest down in Sonora who'd helped him get away from the rurales. Padre Gervasio had meant it with kindness, though, without expecting return for it. It hadn't been charity so much as the only pay he'd ended up getting for that job. He didn't know what Murdoch meant by it. He didn't want Murdoch buying him stuff. He'd thought the old man had got that.
"I'll pay for them." Johnny Madrid paid his own way and he paid his debts. He pulled his right hand free of the gun belt and tapped it against his holster. His back tensed up until his shoulder ached at him, as naggy as Teresa.
Murdoch grimaced. "I'll take the cost of them out of your wages, if that's what you want."
Johnny just nodded, and walked upstairs with Scott at his heels. Dios, but why in hell had the old man bought him more stuff? Hadn't he learned from the last time?
"Well, that was quieter than the last time Murdoch had the Señora embroider some shirts for you." Scott followed as far as the door to Johnny's room, leaning against the door post. "We're making progress."
"He doesn't learn." Johnny looked around the room. Teresa or Maria had been through it and put his things away again, hanging his jacket and shirts in the large press and putting his bedroll and saddlebags away in the big drawer underneath. Now he'd have to go hunting for his stuff every time he wanted something. "What was Teresa complaining about? It wasn't so bad in here. Most everything was in my saddlebags."
He wouldn't look at the new clothes lying on the bed. There was more than just one new shirt. He'd be paying for them for months, even at top-hand rates. If it wouldn't have offended Señora Isabella, he'd go and dump them on Murdoch's desk and tell him where to hang them.
There was a funny look on Scott's face that Johnny couldn't quite get. There was no call for Scott to look sorry that he could see. "Johnny-my-boy, we are never tidy enough for the ladies. They really believe cleanliness is next to godliness, I think. We get in the way of good housekeeping."
"Well, it's her job to keep house, ain't it?"
"Of course it is. But it's only right we don't make more work for her than necessary. Everything they do is for us. They clean up after us, feed us, care for us when we're sick. It's not like it's a hotel, where nobody will much care what we do, because they're paid to clean the rooms. Here… well, life is a lot smoother if we find ways of making it easier for everyone. It's just about living with people, you know?"
Johnny just grunted.
"They're our angels in the house, Johnny."
Johnny stared. Dios, he knew angels had wings but the priests had never said anything about pecky little beaks. "Angels."
"It's from a poem I read at Harvard, about the perfect wife. I'll find you a copy."
"Wife?" Maybe Boston was going loco. Or wanted to give Murdoch those grandkids the old man had put into the partnership deed. "Not for me, brother. Gracias."
"What? Oh Good Lord, no! I don't rob cradles. All I meant was that Teresa's practising on us until we can marry her off. If we're perfect, her husband will have a lot to live up to and it will give her something to hold over his head. She'll thank us for that, one day. In the meantime, she'll look after us better if we don't give her too much trouble and remember to compliment her on it now and again." Scott laughed. "Besides, it never pays to antagonise the cook, Johnny."
Johnny sighed. Poems. Boston read too many books. Still, Teresa and Maria had looked after him when he was sick. Teresa had been there whenever he woke up, with beef tea or water or willow-bark tea laced with honey to sweeten it. She'd made the bed, changed the sheets and plumped up pillows, had added quilts when he was cold or taken them away again when he was dripping with the fever sweat. Murdoch or Scott had usually been there too, but had left most of that to Teresa to do. Almost the first thing he could remember in this room was the knifing pain in his back, and the big shape of Murdoch at the window watching while Teresa bathed Johnny's hands and face with lavender water against the fever. She was only a kid, too, but she was cheerful and smiling. Maybe not today for some reason, but usually.
It had never happened to him before, that someone had bothered to do that for him. Most times he shivered through his fevers on his own in one of those barns she'd talked about. Scott maybe had a point about not making it harder for her. He owed her, and Johnny Madrid paid his debts.
He'd try to remember to clean his boots downstairs, then.
He sighed again, rubbed at his temples and sat down on his bed, glowering at the two new shirts and the black broadcloth bolero jacket. "Sam said I should rest up whenever I'm tired, sleep whenever I want. I think he's maybe right."
Scott's mouth twitched, like he was trying not to laugh. "It's probably very cynical of me, but somehow I feel that this sudden and unexpected willingness to defer to medical advice is deeply suspicious. And?"
Johnny shrugged. "And maybe I should give this fandango a miss."
Scott couldn't keep the laugh back this time. "Nice try, Johnny. But Murdoch really wants to introduce us to the neighbours. It's important to him and we can't let him down. We owe him that much. I'm sure you can manage without needing a nap."
"More of this living with people stuff, brother?"
"Afraid so." Scott grinned and turned to leave. "See you downstairs."
The door closed behind him, the lock clicking real soft and gentle.
Johnny punched the pillows into shape, lay back and scowled at the ceiling. The bed was soft beneath him, the pillows plump with goose feathers and the sheets smelled nice. Lavender or dried rose petals or something, like Mama used to use. Smelled like spring. This place was clean and warm, comfortable. It was like nothing he'd ever known before.
It might even be safe.
It felt like it was closing him in, corralling him, breaking him to bridle like the horses that Jaime was taming.
He squirmed about a bit, punched the pillows again and transferred the scowl to the new clothes. When all was said and done, there wasn't that much wrong with barns.
tbc
