San Domingo: The Medicine Hat Stallion Page 3

  “Of course Peter’s your boy!” His mother sent a thank-you smile to Peter. She lifted Aileen onto her lap and nursed her, resting her blond head against the dark ringlets and wrapping the baby’s shawl about her own body as well. She seemed to shudder with cold, but Peter knew it for what it was. Worry. He felt the tremble in her voice.

  “Peter,” she said. “You will try to trade wisely? And keep a careful accounting of everything?”

  “Yes, Ma.”

  “Perhaps then your father will find words of praise.”

  “I would like that.”

  “Adam, you know, cannot help you. He’s a good and loyal helper, but his mind is that of a six-year-old.”

  “I know, Ma. He is like a big little brother, but strong as anything.”

  His mother’s face softened. “Go now,” she said. “Your animals will be pawing the earth.”

  • • •

  The morning star was still alive in a gray wool sky, but already, off in the distance, wagon trains like white sailboats were parting the grass. Peter would have to work fast—watering, feeding, doctoring—to be ready for the emigrants. Dice flew on ahead to begin the business of morning, bringing in Kate to be bridled. He ran searching for her, dashing into the sheds, then back to the corral, in and out between the legs of the other animals, sniffing for her. At last he caught her trail going away from the spring, not toward it. He dashed back to tell Peter, his forehead wrinkled in concern.

  “No need to look anymore,” Peter said. “I know where she is.” In his mind’s eye he saw her pacing along high-headed, and Pa in the saddle, his rifle carried crosswise. They would be half way to the salt lick by now, unless there had been good hunting. He turned the picture off. It was always like this. No sooner would a lame critter be made well and come running to his whistle and nip his shirt in fun and poke her muzzle into his neck than his father swept her out of Peter’s life, never to belong to him again.

  Dice had no patience for thoughts unless they were his own. He nudged Peter to get busy. And the mule Gabriel butted him from behind, then opened wide his jaws, wheezing out a “Yeeeeaw! Yee-a-a-aw!” heavy with urgency.

  Peter tousled the shaggy foretop. “So it’s you wants to be leader, eh, Gabriel?” He went into the shed and came out with an Indian rug and a rope. “I’ll cushion your back with this soft rug and sit high up on your withers, so I can’t hurt your saddle sore.” He touched his finger to it lightly. “It’s beginning to scab over nice.”

  And so the parade of the halt and the lame clomped out of the corral and hobbled down to the spring.

  It was this side of midmorning when Peter, finished with feeding and doctoring, tucked a pencil behind his ear and headed for the smithy. The perfume of it floated out to meet him. There were tar smells and the smells of hoof parings and sweat and leather and pickles and apples, all blended into fragrance.

  Inside the cavernous shed, Adam was nailing shoes on a travel-wise horse who accepted the annoyances of trimming and pounding as part of his lot in life. He stood still as a painting of a horse. Dice, seeing that he was not needed, found himself a pool of sunlight and wallowed in its warmth.

  Without stopping the rhythm of his work, Adam welcomed Peter with a pleased grin. He was bald as a possum’s tail, yet to Peter’s constant surprise his arms and chest were hairy. Adam thumbed a sooty finger in the direction of a wagon tire.

  Peter examined it. “Ends need welding,” he said.

  The bald head nodded and the grin widened.

  The owner of the wheel came over to Peter. “You can weld her?” he asked.

  “Little Brother can do ’er!” Adam assured the man.

  “Hmm, I guess it’s like the books say, ‘Skill, not brawn, makes the man.’ ”

  For Peter the day flew. Instead of child’s tasks—like sweeping up or filling water kegs—he welded and riveted, helped repair axles and splintered wagon tongues, and stretched wagon tires. And each time that Adam set a shoe and clenched the nails, he presented the rasp to Peter with something akin to pride. “Now, Little Brother, you dast round the toe for me.”

  At trading, however, Adam threw up his hands. He nodded to Peter to take over as the first customers of the morning trooped in, sunk in despair. Peter whisked off his leather apron, replacing it with one of blue homespun, and hurried over to the counter, placing both hands, palms down, in an attitude of eager readiness.

  The leader, a wiry man with beaver teeth and a voice like the baying of a hound, told his troubles as if Peter could wipe them away like spilled milk. “We got to lighten our load,” he bayed. “Three yoke of oxen—good pullers all—taken sick and just up and died.”

  “We figure they overdrank on the alkali water,” the oldest man in the group said.

  “Did everything we could for ’em,” the leader explained. “Physicked ’em on soap and lard mixed with buttermilk. Oh, Lord, they was sick.” He remembered back, running a fingernail between his front teeth as he thought.

  “Y’know,” the old man added, “dosing seemed to do ’em good at first. Then all to once they fell in their traces, dead, like they’d all been hit by the same bullet.”

  “Yeh! ’Twas just like that,” the others agreed.

  “No wonder they worsened,” Peter thought, “on soap and lard and buttermilk.” He felt sorry about them, sorry for the owners, too. What could he say to show he cared? He leaned forward on the counter, the way he’d seen his father do, and in sudden inspiration spoke his father’s words: “The past is a bucket of ashes. Let us improve upon the present. What be your needs now?”

  Their needs proved simple indeed. “We’re heavy on flour,” the leader said. “Iffen you could see your way clear to buy some o’ our good wheaten flour, that’d give us ferriage money along the way.”

  Peter pulled out his father’s tabulated list from under the counter and studied it:

  Items in low supply

  Buy at

  Sell at

  Dried corn

  20¢ per peck

  50¢ per peck

  Flour

  12½¢ per lb.

  50¢ per lb.

  Items in over supply

  Buy at

  Sell at

  Dried apples

  10¢ per lb.

  $1.00 per lb.

  Coffee

  50¢ per lb.

  $1.00 per lb.

  Vinegar

  50¢ per pt.

  $1.00 per pt.

  Peter reasoned the proposition. “There’ll be plenty of time later to make money,” he thought, “and since Pa is low on flour and these folks have had such bad luck, why don’t I buy all they have at fifty cents and then we’ll both come out even?”

  With tears of gratefulness the emigrants agreed to his offer. They filed in, bearing the sacks on their shoulders. Peter noted their honesty as they helped him in the weighing and in counting out his money. He felt warm and good when they left, even as he drew a circle around the word “Flour” and arrowed it to the column marked “Over supply.”

  From then on trading was brisk, and all in Pa’s favor. He sold vinegar and molasses, butter and coffee, dried apples and peaches, all at a dollar a pint or a pound, and carefully listed each transaction. He was beginning to see why Pa enjoyed trading. It was a game where both players got what they wanted.

  The Buscadero Belt

  FROM THE slant of the sun across the doorway Peter knew that wagon trains would soon be circling up for the night and all trading put off until tomorrow. He took off his apron and hung it on the peg alongside his father’s. Adam did the same and then shook Peter’s hand, clasping it tight in his big, moist grip. “Good night, Little Brother.” He was about to climb the ladder into the loft where he lived, and Peter was just thinking how nice it would be if he could run home and bring back a hot supper for Adam, when a clatter outside and a billow of dust inside announced the arrival of a horse and rider.

  As the dust settled, Peter saw framed in the doorway a
colt standing wet and trembling beside an Indian pony mare, who was blowing as if her lungs were on fire. The man astride the mare let his pin eyes travel quickly about the shop—to the aprons hung up for the night, the fire banked until morning, the food barrels covered. Then he focused on Adam. “You Jethro Lundy?” he asked in a husky voice with urgency in its tone.

  Adam clucked in embarrassment and rubbed his bald head. “Aw . . . shucks, sir. I’m just Adam.”

  “Hey!” the stranger said, jerking up the mare’s head and acting suddenly in command. “You’re not the first Adam, be ye; the one that Eve got into trouble?” He howled at his own joke.

  Peter slow-footed around to the foal, who sidled up to his mother. He needed drying off.

  The stranger’s laughter cut off in the middle. “Boy! Watch that mare! Ye wanna get kilt? Who be you, anyway?”

  “I’m Peter Lundy, minding my father’s shop.”

  “Well, ain’t I in luck to find me the owner’s son! My name’s Lefty Slade from Loup Fork. Fact is, I’m Doctor Slade.” He dismounted and switched reins to his right hand, which was withered to half the size of his left.

  He started to shake hands, then changed his mind. He was a long, lanky, ratty-haired man wearing fringed buckskins and a fancy buscadero belt that supported two pistols. His legs bowed out like a basset hound’s, and a bowie knife was tucked into his right bootleg. Peter noticed that he carried a third gun in a holster stitched onto his vest. It hung in a slanting position, the barrel of the gun pointing to the rear and the butt tipped forward so the man’s good hand could reach for a quick cross-draw. But it was the buscadero belt that the man must prize, decorated with carvings, and with silver rich enough to belong to the long-ago Indians.

  Peter noticed, too, that the man acted fidgety and took care not to turn his back to the door. He must have ridden hard, from the looks of the mare and the colt, who now buckled to his knees and fell flat as a doormat near the warmth of the forge.

  Suddenly Peter felt uneasy. What did the man want? If it was shoes for the mare, why didn’t he say so? Her hoofs were ragged and needed trimming. She looked to be no more than a three-year-old and probably had gone barefoot all her life. She’d be spooky to shoe. If this man Slade was a doctor, why didn’t he take better care of her? He didn’t act like a doctor. The few Peter had met were kinder, talked softer, wore greatcoats, and didn’t scratch under their hats for lice.

  The sunlight across the doorway smalled down to a sliver. The stillness grew heavy, made more still by the man’s scratching. Peter wished a late wagon train would show up and ask to camp nearby. He almost wished his father would come stomping in.

  To make talk he said, “Your mare, sir, she’s right young to have a colt, isn’t she? Looks to be a real Indian pony.”

  Slade’s eyes made a sweeping search through the open door. “Injuns give her to me,” he said, with emphasis on the word give. “I saved a chief’s life. He had cholera and measles.”

  “At the same time?” Peter asked.

  “Yuh! Sick as a pizened dog.” The man patted the mare awkwardly, as if the gesture were strange to him. And as he dropped the reins, an ember in the forge flamed and shined up a blue-black scalplock hanging from the mare’s bit. Looking at the length of the hair, Peter thought, “Sioux!” and his voice said it without thinking.

  Quick as a snake’s tongue, Slade’s good hand made a cross-draw. He pointed the pistol just above Peter’s head, then let it waggle at the glass chimneys, the lanterns. “Yeh, kid. She’s Sioux. Like I said,” he went on quickly, “they give her to me for—for curin’ their chief of the smallpox.”

  “I thought ’twas cholera and measles,” Adam broke in.

  “ ’Twas!” Slade snapped. “And smallpox too. Hadn’t been for me, he’d went under. See now why they give me the mare?”

  He returned the pistol to its holster.

  “And her young ’un?” Peter asked.

  “Looka here, kid! Didn’t no one tell me she’s ready to drop a younker. And I got to meet a rich party that needs doctorin’ in a hurry, and I can’t be slowed down by a sucklin’ that’s botherin’ his ma all the time.”

  “He ain’t now,” Adam offered.

  “He’s too wore out,” Peter explained.

  “Mare needs shoes,” Slade said in a wheedling tone. He put his withered hand on Peter’s shoulder. All this while Dice had been sifting the man’s smells and now let out a growl, deep in his throat.

  “He bite?” Slade asked, removing his hand in a hurry.

  “Never bit . . .” Adam said. “Not yet.”

  The man rolled a cigarette, letting his left hand do all the work. “Can’t pay ye, o’ course, until I cure this rich man of whatever ails him. So I figger on leavin’ this strappin’ younker as a pay-down.”

  Peter looked at the slab-sided foal. He saw him grow to be a colt, then a stallion. Saw him answering to a bare heel, and the two of them traveling free—any road under the sun, under the stars, and over the mountains.

  “And when I come back, after curin’ this rich man,” Slade was saying, “I’ll pay ye double for the shoes and collect the colt.”

  “Supposin’ you get kilt?” Adam grinned at the idea.

  “If I get kilt, who’s to claim the colt? Why, he’d belong forever to Peter Lundy.”

  “To me?” Peter blinked in astonishment and disbelief. How he had misjudged the man! Anyone who’d trade a newborn Indian pony for four shoes at a dollar apiece was a fair man.

  He picked up some gunnysacking and went around to the foal, approaching from the side away from the mare. If it was going to be his, then high time he rubbed the little fellow dry.

  “Whoa!” The voice turned sharp and cold as a knife blade. “Blow the bellows, boy! Adam! You got shoein’ to do! And no monkey shines.”

  Acting poky and cool, Adam put on his apron and handed the bellows to Peter. “Git the fire goin’, Little Brother.”

  Dice’s tail began to wag. He danced around the mare, making little grunts in his eagerness.

  Slade kicked him aside.

  “Sir!” Peter cried out. “Don’t touch my dog!”

  Adam picked up a piece of iron. His grin was gone. “Just leave that dog be.”

  Slade laughed uneasily. “Meanin’ no harm to the cur, I weren’t. Only time’s short. And ain’t nobody—man nor cur—goin’ to stop me.”

  Peter, working the bellows, listened to Slade above the wheezing it made.

  “This Injun pony’s goin’ to be spooky to shoe. Ye can’t lift a foot without her rarin’ and bitin’.” His tone was bossy. “Adam! Soon as I throw this she-devil, you tie her, left front leg to rear right and vicey-versy. Boy! Drop them bellows. I’ll get a good head holt and toss her.” Laying his rope over her neck, he made his move.

  Peter was suddenly unafraid. He shouted with all the voice he had in him. “Wait, Doc! Dice . . .”

  The dog needed no command. It was as if he had been waiting all day for this moment. He leaped onto his stool.

  Slade’s pistol came up menacingly. Was he letting a young pipsqueak tell him what to do? And just when he was ready to shoot overhead to scare the boy, he stopped in bafflement. That dog had mystic powers. Else why was the mare straining toward him? Why were they looking eye to eye? The snorting in her nostrils quieted. There was no sound at all until the foal scrabbled to his feet and went to his mother. She hardly seemed conscious when he began to nurse.

  Adam’s big hands went to work. As gentle as a woman, he rubbed the mare’s leg from knee to fetlock, caressing it, crooning softly. She let him pick up a foot, let him hold it between his knees, let him pare away the ragged and worn wall.

  Seconds going by . . . and minutes . . . and Dice holding the mare steady with his gaze. The iron now being fitted to size, now hammered into place; now nails being pounded and clenched. And Peter rounding the toe, rasping it to smoothness, finishing it off. Minutes and more minutes. The left front done. The right front. Left hind. Rig
ht hind. And at last Adam straightening up, perspiration dripping from his bald head and down his nose.

  “She got bee-utiful feet now,” he said.

  • • •

  It was almost dark when Peter pulled the latch and entered the soddy, leaving an orphaned colt snugged up to Gabriel for comfort. He could still hear the mare neighing to her colt as she was ridden away. He knew he would never forget the sound.

  “Vengeance Is Mine”

  THAT NIGHT Peter was busy with naming his colt and at the same time braiding a hackamore for him when he heard the sound of hoof beats. He and his mother exchanged surprised glances: “Pa home a day early? Pray that all’s well!”

  Soon Peter’s name would be shouted to the heavens and he’d have to run out and take off Kate’s saddle and bridle, and hang up the underblanket to dry. But his name was not called. Instead, there was a ruckus of animal noises—Gabriel braying a steam-whistle welcome to Kate; and between the “Yeee-a-a-aws” came the whinnery squeal of the colt. Peter could picture him gawky-legged, bounding to Kate as his stepmamma, and acting happy as if his small world was almost whole again. Peter felt an enormous pride in the intelligence of his colt.

  He wished Pa would call him to explain about the newcomer, and afterward he’d say: “Son! You made a smart trade, taking in this fine colt for four shoes. I’m mighty proud; fact is, I couldn’t of done better.” But sometimes Pa insisted on unsaddling his horse himself, “so’s it’d be done right.”

  While Peter waited, he went on braiding and thinking protective thoughts for his foal, and how to put them all in a name. Always before, his animals had come ready-named, like Dice. He thought some of asking his mother to help, but she hadn’t seen how delicate and gangly he was. In a way he was glad. It was good to be doing the naming alone. He’d think of something special and grand, something for the colt to grow into. A Spanish name maybe, because all Indian ponies had Spanish blood. What was it he’d read in Ma’s treasure chest? His mind drifted back, saw his mother’s little-girl printing: