Chapter 2
And no it definitely was not New York. Jack had arrived in Sante Fe and found it to be what Shasta had said. Bleak and uninviting. What happened to the Sante Fe of his dreams? Was that just an illusion? He scratched at his unshaven face, and kicked the dust from under his feet. Even his clothes and hat were bleak; dusty and unlifelike. Once again, like many of the other days since he had arrived, he spent his afternoon wandering the streets of Sante Fe. The shops seemed inviting, but not to his taste, a wagon pulled by dusty horses would eventually pull past him with a family of dirty children with blank faces and rough hands.
Seeing a trade store, he wandered in, hoping that he would run into a rancher looking for hands. Once inside he saw a group of young men, all about his own age, only they looked much older. Their skin was rough and dark, their eyes hard, and their hands calloused. They looked over Jack as if he were prized meat for sale at a butchers block. He nervously looked around at the goods on the shelves, but he could still feel their eyes on him. Finally on of the boys stepped up to him.
"Ey." He
grumbled out, his dark eyes pierced Jack as though he knew more than Jack did.
"What you doin heah?"
"Umm…looking for a job." Jack
answered, afraid to look in his eyes.
"Well we'se lookin' for jobs too and you don't look like you have any xperience so scabbah off." The voice sounded distinctly familiar, something right out of his younger years, when he first started out as a newsie. Jack didn't want to argue with the guy so he shrugged his shoulders and left the store, looking behind him at the tall lanky kid who had just spoke with him. He shook his head, it was all in his imagination that he knew that guy. He just had a New York accent was all.
The day was turning out to be one of the hotter ones. The sun beat down on Jack's already red face and bleached hair, his hat providing little solace. He couldn't wait for the sun to set, so he could sleep and not worry about how he was running out of money very quickly and wouldn't have enough to eat anything or afford to sleep anywhere in the next day or two. He saw another bar and ducked in. No friendly greetings here. The bartender was as typical as the next, only there for the money. He ordered his usual beer, and sat back watching the locals gamble on poker, argue with one another or flirt with the prostitutes which seemed to be in abundance here. This was the daily routine he'd noticed and didn't want to become accustomed to it.
After a half an hour of sipping his drink, the kid from the shop wandered into the bar and took a seat down next to Jack. "Sorry bout before, kid. Didn't mean anythin'." He said eying Jack again. "Say, where you from kid?"
Jack was getting sick of these nicknames, first Yank, then kid. "New York." He muttered, staring into his glass.
"Oh." He seemed to contemplate something then shook his head. "Aye, I used to come from there too, but when ye're here, ye ferget stuff like that I guess."
"So what are you doin' here then?"
"It was my dream evah since I was little, I wanted to go out west and become one of the hero's of the west-a cowboy! Some heroic life this is…I sit on a stupid horse all day looking at the backs of filthy cows. You'se just rolled into town I can tell by yer look, I'd get out if I were you…" There was a tone of warning in his husky voice, and Jack thought of Shasta's offer.
"Back in El Paso this bartender has a broddah who works on a big ranch out there in Texas, says it makes good profits—" Before Jack could continue a man wearing a thick hide jacket, chaps, and a dusty brown hat stomped into the room, his spurs chipping the floor. He was chewing on a blade of brown grass and his scrunched up face resembled that of Warren Snyder. A shudder of remembrance went through Jack's body. His gray eyes swept the room and landed on Jack and the other kid. Both stiffened their pose and glanced at each other. The old man chuckled and edged up to them.
"Well well well, fresh meat!" He laughed banging Jack on the back. "You 2 need work eh? You're hired." Before they could say anything else, they were being hauled back out onto the streets to a wagon where they were shoved inside. Both were confused, and didn't know what to think, except that here was a job that was going to give them money finally