San Domingo: The Medicine Hat Stallion Page 7

  Peter had to ask, “How much, Pa?”

  “A hank of homespun. Your ma can wash it after.”

  For most of the morning Peter was more errand boy than worker. He was glad to run here, there; to be able to talk to himself and to Dice if he felt like it. The only time his father spoke was to bark commands.

  “Fetch me the spade.”

  “Fetch the ax.”

  “The grub hoe.”

  “Peel that small pile of saplings to make a skid.”

  “Hook Gabriel to the plow.”

  Curiously, it seemed to Peter that each time he began to hate his father, right afterward he found something in him to admire. Now it was the resolute, knowing way his father worked, the one-two-three absolute sureness of his movements. Here in the slough, his big boots were stepping off the remembered length of the roof; strong hands stringing out the wool for a guideline.

  Even giddy Gabriel showed respect for Pa as together they turned over the furrows—each ribbon of earth the same width, each the same thickness. No frisking today. No balking. Today mule feet were pistons. Mule mind and mule muscle strained forward, answering human mind and muscle.

  Yet more than he admired his father’s skills, Peter stood in awe of his strength. Atlas, propping up the world with two bare arms, couldn’t have been more muscle-powered than Pa. Who else could have rolled the huge strips of sod into bundles and heaved them single-handed onto the skid? And when the bundles were hauled to the house, any other man would have asked Peter to take the spade or ax and help chop them to size.

  But Pa gloried in his strength—swinging the ax, chopping, swinging, chopping—slicing the sod into three-foot bricks. Peter was almost blinded by the sun glinting along the flashing blade. Yet he could not take his eyes away. His mother must be watching, too, for in the doorway behind him he heard her singing in rhythm to the ax strokes. It was like music! And Ma singing to it:

  “Ship ahoy! Ship ahoy! Ship ahoy!

  We’re whalers and sailors

  And none of us tailors.

  Ship ahoy! Ship ahoy! Ship ahoy!”

  Sundown. And the new sod all in place, dirt side up, and Mr. Lundy and Peter working atop the new roof, filling the chinks with a plaster of mud. As they tamped it down, Peter felt a kind of harmony with his father. It was the first time they had ever worked side by side. Peter thought, “It must be like this to play in a band, sawing on a fiddle or blowing into a piccolo, the players each coming in at the right time to make the music swell.” It was the same way now. His father sifting the dirt just when needed, and Peter tamping, tamping in time. In tune. Together. Even working around the chimney pipe they never lost a beat.

  Pa had refused to come down at nooning and Peter had not wanted to either, even though he knew his mother would feel hurt. He’d make it up to her at suppertime. He’d lick his plate so clean she’d laugh and say, “Dice’s tongue couldn’t have done better.” But now he had to hold on to this moment with his father, to make it last, and then maybe it would happen again—tomorrow, and all the tomorrows after.

  It was Mr. Lundy who finally broke the rhythm. Straightening up, eyes shielded by the hand with the missing finger, he stood staring intently at a distant spot.

  Peter turned to look. At first he saw nothing but a low smoke of dust curling slowly along the shadowy horizon. Then he too shielded his eyes, and now he imagined he could see a train of animals, like small paper cutouts against the big sky. But there was no white-topped settlers’ wagon. Not a wagon of any kind—either up front or in the middle or trailing behind. There seemed to be no outrider or drover, either. Only this long parade of creatures spaced as orderly as the teeth in a rake.

  Was it a mirage? Or were they real animals, traveling alone? Migrating? And what were they? Too small for humping buffalo! Too big for antelope! Making spyglasses of his fists, Peter sighted long ears nodding against the sky. “Of course,” he thought, “they’d belong to mules.” And he was sure he saw long legs forking; they had to belong to horses or mules. But one strange animal towered above the others; he was tall as some giant. Peter was puzzled.

  Could this odd creature be a monster from long ago? Or a giraffe from Africa? He seemed to be leading the caravan. Yet with no human hand to guide him or his followers, how could they all be traveling in such an orderly procession?

  Without comment Mr. Lundy returned to his work, dumping the last of the dirt on the last row of sod.

  Peter tried to work, too, but the tail of his eye never left the cavalcade as it slowly wound down out of the sky and headed directly for Jethro Lundy’s Trading Post & Smithy. As it drew closer, Peter could make out three dogs frisking along; or maybe, he figured, the smallest could be a cat. And there were large birds flapping, sometimes above the procession, or alighting on the backs of the bigger animals.

  “Peter!” Mr. Lundy’s tone caught Peter unawares, nearly knocking him off the roof.

  For minutes then Peter tamped with feet and hands both, not stealing so much as a glance, but listening with intense excitement to a man’s voice, a rollicking, throbbing voice that carried across the prairie. The song came clear and clearer as the distance shortened:

  “Oh, the Kings of Ireland

  They gave me birth,

  And I be royal too,

  Oh, I be royal too.”

  Now big and little hoofbeats drumming. Why, they were heading not for the trading post but for the soddy! Peter could concentrate on his work no longer. He looked down and laughed at what he saw, and then he couldn’t control his laughter. That tall creature he’d seen was three-in-one: a baby burro riding piggyback on a small man, who was sitting on a big mule! Oh, and the flapping birds he’d seen were banty hens and roosters! And there were cats—a tiger Tom and a calico; and a black dog and a white one; and horses and mules and a Jenny-burro and goats and a milk cow. They all seemed to be laughing with Peter—braying and cackling, barking and miaowing and mooing. Peter laughed so hard he rolled end over end and pitched headlong off the roof, at the man’s feet!

  Royal Son of Ireland

  THE THUD of Peter’s body brought a cry from the house. Mrs. Lundy came running, arms outstretched to help Peter. But Dice and the stranger were already at work—Dice licking the boy’s face, the man opening Peter’s shirt, listening to his heartbeat while all the animals looked on.

  Up on the roof Mr. Lundy gave a final tamping here and there, making certain the work was completed to his satisfaction. Then he jumped down onto the wash bench by the door. From there he regarded Peter and pronounced judgment.

  “Nothing wrong with him,” he said, sure and confident. “Just winded, is all. The boy’s chicken-livered.” He stepped off the bench, slapping the dirt from his breeches, and completely ignoring the stranger, strode off to the trading post.

  Peter lay gasping for breath. He felt as if a giant hand had thwacked him in the chest, shutting off his lungs. He tried to call after his father, to cry out, “Pa, wait! In just a minute I’ll be better. Give me just a minute, Pa!” He had to explain. “I can do my chores like always. I’m not chicken-livered, Pa!”

  But it was no use. He couldn’t utter a sound. He could only lie still, like a bird he’d watched die, its yellow beak agape. Would he die, too? The stranger seemed trying to breathe for him, gulping a great draught of air, crouching low over him. Suddenly the man’s cheeks ballooned. His lips were touching Peter’s. With steady force he pumped his own breath down Peter’s gullet. Warm, moist breath, smelling strong of chewing tobacco. Peter coughed a thin, shallow cough. And then his gasps came closer and closer together. The man leaped back in triumph. The boy could suck his own air. He was breathing!

  “Oh, merciful heavens be praised!” Mrs. Lundy drew in her own breath sharply. “And praise be to you, dear stranger.”

  “No more a stranger, ma’am. Name’s Brislawn, or Breaslain, if’n you choose the Irish way to spell it.” He took off his hat, made a kneeling bow, and with the brim rolled up in his hand, he
turned and began fanning the boy’s face.

  “Either way,” Mrs. Lundy said, “your name spells Friend for my son and me.” Kneeling, too, she brushed the yellow hair, all damp with perspiration, from the boy’s forehead.

  “Ma!” Peter fought off tears. “I got to run after Pa. I got to explain I’m not chicken-liv . . .” He tried to sit up, but his hand grabbed his side in a spasm of pain.

  “Ribs!” the little man exclaimed, as if he’d made a startling discovery. For an instant he looked toward his animals to check that none was missing, and saw each busy in its own way—grazing, nursing, picking and pecking, licking, or dozing. Satisfied, he squatted on the earth beside Peter. “Ah, here’s the culprit,” he said, spying a piece of petrified wood. “You must’ve landed on this.”

  He sat down carefully. “Now, son, you tell me when this hurts,” he said, feeling the boy’s ribs with slow, steady hands. Gradually the fingers worked toward the aching spot, testing, seeming to know what they would find. As they touched the two ribs over Peter’s heart, the boy flinched.

  Mr. Brislawn stopped at once. He fixed his eyes on Mrs. Lundy. “ ’Pears to me,” he said, looking professional yet sorrowful at the same time, “ ’pears certain that his third and fourth ribs on the left side be cracked.”

  Mrs. Lundy’s hand rose to her heart as if the pain were hers.

  “There, there, little lady,” Mr. Brislawn said. “You’ve a stout lad here. Nothing chicken-livered ’bout him. Besides,” he said in a kind of quiet pride, “Friend Breaslain knows a thing or two about ribs—both man ribs and horse ribs. We’ll talk more later as to that. But now,” he said cheerily, “you run on into the house. Ready his bed and find me some wide elastic if’n you have it, or sheeting if’n you don’t, and thread me a big needle.”

  “Yes, Doctor Brislawn. Oh, how lucky you came along just when you did.”

  “Sorry to disagree, ma’am, but likely the boy would never of fell off the roof if I hadn’t of come along with my crazy caravan.”

  The little whiskery man neither denied nor accepted the title of doctor. “Now then,” he said, “with yers and yer son’s approval, I’ll put my travelin’ companions into yer corral. Then we’ll see to the doctorin’. Son, you’ll be all right mean-whiles?”

  Peter managed a smile. Dice was lying beside him, and the doctor’s coat over him. The pain had quieted, and the blood rushed warm all through him. He heard the doctor bunching his animals, calling each by name.

  “Blacken! Penny! You round up Choctaw and Sweet Sioux. Nanny, quit buttin’ me. Clarabelle, I’ll be milkin’ you soon and relievin’ that big bag o’ yourn. Tiger, stop clawing her. Jenny, yer little piggyback youngster looks all rested, don’t he? That’s a good mother ye are.”

  Above the tramping of feet and the snortings, brayings, and neighings, Peter heard Domingo’s loud peal of greeting as the corral gate creaked open. He’d know that trumpety call anywhere . . . even in Timbuctoo, if there was such a place.

  In the little while he was alone, Peter had time to think how a couple of broken ribs would shame him in the eyes of his father. He was sorry about that, for only a few moments ago they had been working together like a matched team. Now the rift between them would widen again. He wondered if this man Brislawn had a son, and if he’d like the boy less when hurt.

  The man was singing in a grand tenor:

  “Oh, the Kings of Ireland

  They gave me birth,

  And I be royal too,

  Oh, I be royal too.”

  “I wish I had a father like . . .” Peter didn’t finish the sentence, not even in his mind. God might punish him. Might smite his father dead. He did not like to think about death. He tried not to think at all as strong arms carried him into the house, set him on his bed, and skinned off his shirt.

  “Let out all your breath, son. When I get through with you, ye’re going to look like a horse wearing a cinch.” Mr. Brislawn proceeded to wrap Peter round and round with strips of sheeting. “By the way,” he asked, “I suppose you got another name aside ‘son’?”

  Peter laughed, then winced when it hurt. “Name’s Peter,” he sighed.

  “And yer ma’s name?” asked Mr. Brislawn, winding the bandage tighter and reaching for the needle.

  “She’s Mrs. Lundy.”

  “And yer grandma?”

  A shrill voice broke in. “Don’t need no one to interduce me, young man. I’m Gran’ma Lundy.”

  “Pleased to meet you, ma’am. Yer callin’ me ‘young man’ makes us best friends a’ready.”

  “And the baby?” he asked, sewing Peter’s bandage securely in place.

  Aileen toddled over to the stranger, putting up her hands to be lifted. “No baybee! No baybee! I’leen!”

  “Well, I never . . .!” Mr. Brislawn took the child onto his knee and began dandling her to the tune of:

  “This is the way the ladies ride,

  Prim, prim, prim.

  This is the way the gentlemen ride,

  Trim, trim, trim.

  And this is the way the farmers ride,

  A-hobbledehoy, a-hobbledehoy,

  And down ye go.”

  Aileen squealed for more, while Mrs. Lundy, skillet in hand, sang along with the stranger until the little soddy was all laughter and song.

  The gaiety ended abruptly as the door opened, letting in a gust of cold and Mr. Lundy. Wordlessly he hung his hat on the near buffalo horn, his coat and vest on the far one. In a single look he noted the extra place at table. His eyes demanded, “Why?” more plainly than if a dozen words had been spoken.

  Mrs. Lundy answered. “Meet Doctor Brislawn, Jethro. He took care of Peter, bandaged his chest to ease the pain. He’s staying on a while.”

  Jethro Lundy’s eyebrows climbed upward, almost into his thatch of hair. “A . . . while?” he repeated, stretching out the word until it chilled into years.

  The man Brislawn gulped as though something were stuck in his throat. “Your boy,” he said, “like to of killed himself. He landed on one of those rocks he’d been collecting.”

  No answer. No comment.

  Peter opened his shirt to show the bandaging. Aileen hid behind her mother’s skirts as quiet settled over the room.

  Gently impatient, Mr. Brislawn filled in the silence. “The boy’s got bruises, contusions, and fractures of the ribs.”

  “You a horse doctor or a people doctor?”

  “Neither, sir.”

  The hush grew deeper, thicker, as Mr. Lundy glanced sidelong at the bandaging. “Neither, you say?”

  Peter heard the rasp in his father’s voice.

  “Nope, neither! But I pride myself on a knack for doctorin’, the way some folks got a green thumb for growin’ things.” His eyes twinkled and his rusty moustache went up, showing a row of small, tobacco-stained teeth. “Or,” he added, “the way an uncommon man knows how to trade, benefitin’ both himself and the pore soul on t’other side of the counter.”

  Mr. Lundy accepted the indirect compliment.

  Peter sighed until his third and fourth ribs objected. But even with the pain he was relieved. There was no doubt about it. For a little while the man could stay.

  Map of the Wild Lands

  JETHRO LUNDY prided himself on two counts—his canniness at trading and his physical stamina. He never quite trusted anyone wholly, but when Mr. Brislawn touched on his ability to trade, the man became almost trustworthy in the eyes of Mr. Lundy.

  Seldom had anyone stayed overnight with the Lundy household. Indians came to the door for handouts, and were sometimes invited to a sit-down-on-the-floor meal; and wayfarers occasionally joined the family at noon. But no one stayed on—not because the soddy was small and cramped, but because Jethro Lundy lived by rigid routine, with no time for joshing and chit-chat. He was king of his big world of the trading post and his small world of the soddy. Yet here was this whiskery stranger, with his goats and all, breaking into the pattern, threatening to dethrone him.

&nb
sp; Mr. Brislawn, or Breaslain, communed mostly with animals. Nevertheless, he understood the nature of the human soul and mind as well, and was pleasantly unaware of his double gift. Having fathered three sons of his own, his heart went out to Peter, who had no brothers to fend for him, and a father who held him up to ridicule. It pained the man that he had been the cause of Peter’s broken ribs. Aloud, to his horses, he said, “It’d be a good lick if I could help the boy step up a rung or two in the sight of his father. Is it,” he asked of the pricked ears, “intended cruelty on the man’s part, or does he gibe at the boy to ready him for life’s harsher gibes? Or mebbe his bein’ mean as a buzzard is a quirk he can’t control—like a cowlick in the hair, or a nose too big for the face it prows?”

  He longed to prove to the father that Peter was spunky for his size, manly for his age, and anything but chicken-livered. “I got to do it!” he told his animals. “Else those hurt and hungry eyes going to haunt me all my days.”

  After supper that evening, when the split-slab table was wiped clean and the oil lamp turned up, Mr. Lundy let his dark eyes slide to the stranger’s. He would put the newcomer on the block for a bit of what? why? and where? It was a good way to poke holes in a stranger’s story and send him flying on his way.

  “Brisl’n!” He clipped the name short. “What brings you to this outpost of civilization?”

  The little man let his mind ruminate back to the day when one of the top men in the United States Department of the Interior had tapped him on the shoulder, saying, “Bob, we hear you’re able to draw contours or shoe a mule; you’re just the man we need in the map department.”

  Jethro Lundy drummed the table, impatiently waiting his answer.

  “The government!” Mr. Brislawn replied at last. It tickled him that he could be as chary of words as his examiner.

  “Is that why you pack a surveyor’s transit?”

  “That’s why.”

  Peter’s eyes rounded in curiosity. His face asked, “What’s a transit? How does it work?”