• • • • • TUESDAY, APRIL 26 • • • • •
Chapter 14: DECISIONS IN A FOALING SHED
Lancer Ranch... The day started before dawn, with some one hundred fifty new hires waiting for their turns in the latrines, bathhouse (for those few who felt a need to wash up and shave) and breakfast shifts. The previous afternoon had been consumed with crew assignments and ensuring everyone was fed and had a place to spread his bedroll. Scott was in his element... organizing his cowhands into details, dispensing orders and creating seniority rosters with input from Cipriano.
Johnny, on the other hand, wasn't having such any easy time of it. Five of his ten teenagers had gone missing, chickened out... either failed to show up or stolen away during the night. Mathematics wasn't his strong suit and he had only twenty-five bodies to fill thirty slots. In desperation he appealed to Scott, who wasn't about to second any of his troops. Vicente appealed to Cipriano who grudgingly consented to let them have five ranch hands... if they could find any willing to volunteer. Horse wrangling, it turned out, was everyone's least favorite job because it meant staying in camp all day every day with very little riding around involved...
In the end Vicente came up with four retirees who normally spent their days tending goats, grandchildren and vegetable patches. The aging vaqueros agreed to serve in advisory capacities and only if they wouldn't be required to actually board fractious horses—that was for the jóvenes. A bucking bronc was no country for an old man!
Intending to head up the fifth contingent himself, Vicente cut out the four youngest teenage hirees and parceled out the other twenty men among the four other camps with one experienced if elderly wrangler—knowledgeable of the terrain, the camp layout, and the equine stock—at the helm of each. Johnny agreed.
Right after breakfast Scott and Cipriano went to the stores building, where gear was signed out according to who needed what. Johnny and Vicente went to the corrals where horses were to be matched up with riders. Murdoch believed that familiarity made better working partnerships between riders and horses, and that a rider would take greater care with the horses he considered his 'own'. Any rider could take any horse out of a remuda if necessary, but Murdoch preferred that each man stick with the ones assigned to him.
Men who'd already received their camp assignments and gear were allowed, in order of seniority, to choose their primaries—if they didn't have one of their own—and remounts from the herd of seasoned horses. When those were pretty well picked over, batches of half-broke horses were run into a series of pens to be looked over by hands lower on the totem pole. The new wranglers were sent in to rope each selection and drag the resistant captive to the snubbing post in a waiting corral, where the selector had to saddle and ride the cranky out of it himself during the 'getting acquainted' phase.
Before they got started Johnny took Jody aside and explained that while he personally favored the 'Indian' way of gentling a horse they didn't have time for that today. Jody merely shrugged his acknowledgment and saddled his little red mare.
The waiting men had been at first derisive and then respectful as the crippled young wrangler and his diminutive horse accomplished their task quietly and efficiently without getting the animals all stirred up, while in other corrals ropers dashed back and forth with excessive amounts of whooping and hollering. Jody's corral was cycling horses through much faster than the others and the ones he delivered not nearly as enervated, easier to saddle. That didn't mean they didn't buck just as wickedly when their future riders got on them.
Johnny'd been busy as well but his attention kept returning to this one particular new hire although he couldn't have explained why. The boy rarely spoke and then only when asked a direct question. Johnny had the uneasy feeling the kid was watching him as well. But why? Who and what was he and where had he come from?
Among the last to get supper, Jody repaired to the almost deserted communal bathhouse, an innovative facility for that time and place. Raised off the ground on posts with a sump underneath, the structure was solidly built and sealed to keep in the warmth in winter. With door and windows shut not a whisper of steam could escape. In the summertime they were left open to induce air flow. Well water was pumped directly into a huge iron cistern over a brick firebox squatting near the building. At certain times of the day the firebox was stoked up until the cistern was bubbling with hot water ready to be piped into the building at the turn of a valve. Another hand pump brought cold well water directly inside to fill four large wooden tubs, to which hot water was added by bucket until bath water reached optimum temperature. Each tub drained to conduits under the floor into a holding tank from which gray water was recycled through viaducts to the community vegetable garden. No wastage of water resources here!
Usage was dictated by gender: women and children from lunch until sundown, men thereafter. Not everyone was accustomed to bathing every day, of course. Jody, however, was immensely grateful for the amenity and intended to enjoy it to the max before moving out to the line camp where, he suspected, consideration for personal hygiene would be negligible. The night before he'd been the only user but tonight two of the tubs were occupied by Cipriano and Vicente and their fragrant San Andrés Te-Amos cigars.
Jody hesitated, unsure of his reception and wary of any indication the two Mexicans might be unhappy at sharing the facility with a halfbreed native. He'd started to back away but the two older men waved him in, Cipriano assuring him that in the bathhouse all were equal... even offering him a cigar, which Jody politely declined.
The other two tubs had already been drained and refilled with fresh water for the morrow, so all Jody had to do was add hot water until steamy tendrils drifting off the surface indicated it was hot enough. Having long ago gotten over any shyness about modesty, he stripped down and sluiced most of the day's grubbiness off with dippers of cold water from a barrel before climbing gratefully into the deep tub.
Jody hoped the other two weren't of a mind to ask personal questions. Fortunately, they confined the conversation to the day's events and queries that could be safely answered mostly in monosyllables. Eventually the older men got out, dried off and dressed, leaving Jody on his own to contemplate his immediate future which, for the moment, felt relatively secure.
Vicente had advised his wranglers that today they'd dealt with approximately half of the horses destined for the line camp remudas, but that he expected they would get through the rest by end of day tomorrow. The remudas going to Falcon, Osprey and Eagle would be moving out tomorrow morning—Wednesday. The largest herds—Hawk's and Condor's (to which Jody'd been assigned)—were heading out on Thursday or Friday.
Having never participated in a cattle roundup before, Jody was looking forward to the experience even though he wouldn't personally be working any cattle. His only concern was that he might not have access to the Lancers themselves, padre e hijos. No one had yet mentioned whether or not any of them would actually be present in the camps. Mentally rehearsing what he would say when the time came, he drowsed as the hot water soothed away the stresses and strains of the past few days and loosened the tightness in his bad hip...
Jody was awakened by Cipriano's huge hand gently shaking his shoulder. The segundo was a big man for a Mexican... and tall.
"José, ven conmigo, por favor."
For a moment Jody thought the man had made a mistake and was looking for someone else named José... then he recalled what Johnny had not too carefully printed on the signup sheet: 'Joey'. Which is why Cipriano had misunderstood his name as 'Joseph'.
Jody had no way of knowing how long he'd been soaking but the water was lukewarm. Time to get out anyway. He stood and stepped out, accepting the towel the big man was holding out to him. He didn't bother to ask what Cipriano wanted with him—he already knew. The Mexican pulled the bung on the tub to let it drain while Jody dried off and slipped on his pants and moccasins. Pulling on his shirt but not bothering to button it, he exited a few paces behind the segundo and followed him out to the foaling shed.
Gathered outside the laboring mare's box were Señors Scott and Johnny, Vicente, the grumpy old man called Jelly, and an unhappy white girl dressed like a boy whom Jody'd noted going in and out of the big house earlier. All except Señor Scott and Jelly were chattering in rapid Spanish. A lantern depending from a ceiling hook illuminated the mare lying on her near side. Jody hung back, partially hidden by Cipriano's bulk, until he understood the gist of the conversation.
The mare was old... twenty-four... and wasn't supposed to have been bred. She was, or had been, the girl Teresa's personal mount since she'd been old enough to ride, which was why she was so upset... chances weren't good that the animal would survive. The mare had been in labor too long, was weakening and nothing was happening. The men were discussing whether to give up and put her down. The girl was begging for more time. Scott was on her side.
Cipriano grasped Jody and propelled him forward. Six pairs of eyes fixed on him... clearly expecting something from him. Evidently word had got around about his prognostication the prior evening. This wasn't the sort of attention Jody was prepared for and he had only two choices: let the mare go on as she was and she'd die, her foal along with her... or risk compromising his mission by doing something he knew how to do and had done before, successfully... thus drawing unwanted attention to himself.
The door to the stall was open and Jody had a straight line of sight to the suffering animal in the straw. He'd lived with horses his entire life excluding four years at boarding school—during which he'd absorbed every textbook on veterinary medicine he could find in both the school and public libraries. When he was forced to go home for extended periods he spent every waking moment in the stables, putting into practice what he'd read or viewed under the guidance of the seasoned horsemen in charge of Crown Montero's and later Vista Montero's prized horses.
Jody believed he could sense what horses felt and thought, and that they had a psychic connection to him which only his sisters understood as they shared it. Poor girls! They were even worse off than himself. Being girls, they had absolutely no control over their lives. He'd heard through the grapevine that they were currently cloistered in a convent with nary a horse in sight, shut away from the rest of the world. Poor Martha! Only fifteen and already promised to someone she'd met once and hated. Assuming their guardian was Campbell Cameron—an educated modern-thinking man who would have expressed shock and dismay when advised of the betrothal—Jody was confident that if she put up enough resistance when she turned sixteen and marriage was imminent, Uncle Trey would find some way to abrogate the contract.
Beyond the psychic links with his sisters—they could just about read one another's minds and anticipate actions, Jody occasionally—very rarely—experienced one of those flashes linking him to another human being, though even more rarely did he allow his subconscious to reach out and touch that other person. In the foaling shed on Monday, the invisible flash that'd arced between himself and Johnny had been so vivid it was almost painful. He couldn't imagine how the other hadn't sensed it... and it had knocked him off balance. And now it was happening again... someone stepped between him and the mare. Jody was startled into looking up, encountering a pair of eyes blazing like blue fire. This time he was sure Johnny felt it, too.
"You're the one called it..." Johnny said softly. "Can you help her?" Or maybe he didn't actually ask the question... but Jody heard it clearly enough, realizing his errant thoughts were jumping around like beans on a skillet. He resolutely tamped them back into their respective compartments so he could focus on the problem at hand... which was helping that mare. The fact that he was physically tired was a drawback... but...
Johnny moved out of the way and Jody slipped into the box before the astonished group could even react. Kneeling at the mare's side, he ran his hands over her flanks and gently prodded her distended belly in several places, all the while murmuring to her. She seemed to calm down some.
"What's he doing in there?" Scott demanded angrily. "Who the hell is he?" One Mexican still looked pretty much like another to him and he didn't recognize this one as one of Johnny's hires. And aside from his own brother he couldn't distinguish a halfbreed from a full-blooded Mexican. He'd taken a step forward but Johnny grabbed his arm and pushed him back. "Wait a minute, brother... Joey here's one a mine and he knows horses... we seen him work." Vicente nodded in agreement.
Johnny turned his head to Jody. "So whaddya think?"
The reserved monosyllabic teenager had disappeared—replaced by an entirely different personality... that of a composed and confident adult...
"Could be breeched... could be something else. Won't know until I go in."
"Go in... where...?" Following Jody's meaningful glance toward the mare's rear, Johnny gulped. "Are you serious?"
"How else do you expect to reposition the foal."
"You can do that?"
"Yeah... without making any promises. I'll need some things... and I'll need help."
Johnny addressed Teresa. "Your decision, chiquita. We either put her outta her misery now or let Joey do whatever it is he thinks he can do."
Teresa in turn looked to Cipriano. "You know how much I love this horse, but I want to do what's right... I don't want her to suffer. Whatever you decide, I'll go along with it..."
The big man looked at the mare, shaking his head dolefully, saying that if it was a breech birth, he'd never seen one that didn't end in disaster... but there was a first time for everything. His vote was yes, let the boy try.
Teresa hugged him in gratitude. Beside her, Scott—quivering with pent-up fury—was attempting and failing to wrench free from his brother's grasp. "I vote no!" His concern was more for his surrogate sister and how badly she'd take losing this particular horse, especially after being given false hope.
Johnny told him to shut up and merely tightened his hold on the arm while he considered the dichotomy of what he was seeing versus what he was hearing. On the one hand, a raggedy halfbreed kid—much like himself a few years ago. On the other hand, a seemingly educated, well-spoken young man with the knowledge and ability to salvage a dire situation. "Tell us what you need."