Episode 76

Making the Rounds

Another Texas-hot day. Another half-assed mine.

This one was being dug legal into a slope at the foot of the Glass Range with the claim posted on a pole and border spikes driven at the corners.

Bob Little dumped a barrow full of tailings before walking down to greet the pair of riders approaching the camp. The Swede was speaking to them as best he could for a squarehead Swede. The two men dismounted to fill their canteens from a water barrel. Bob fixed a smile on his face as he marched down the slope to the camp. A smile big enough to be seen through six months of beard.

“You never get tired nosin’ in other people’s behinds, Spade?” He addressed the men with a cheeriness he didn’t feel any deeper than his hide.

“Just makin’ the rounds,” Cal said, dipping a ladle to top off his canteen.

“New fella?” Bob nodded toward Nestor.

“That’s Nestor. I took him on to ride the line with me.”

“What happened to Jake?”

“His horse stepped in a chuckhole and threw him head-first onto a rock.”

Bob shrugged at that. His facileness ended at pretending to care about the passing of a no-good son of a bitch like Jake Ford.

“You ridin’ back to Eagle Flat after this?”

“Naw,” Cal said, capping his canteen and slinging it back in place on his saddle horn. “Me and Nestor still have to swing around west to see that there’s no fresh wagon trails in the passes.”

“Ain’t nobody digging down that way lately,” Bob said. “Me and Johnny woulda heard of it.”

Johnny was the name given to the big Swede as no one could pronounce the Swede name his mama and papa gave him. The Swede grinned at mention of his name, big tombstone teeth flashing in a thick beard bleached near-white by the sun.

“Still got to ride it. That’s the job,” Cal said, dipping a hat into the open barrel to offer his horse a drink. The gelding drank noisily, big tongue lapping.

“Would twenny buck silver change your mind?” Bob said. “We have a load to bring down to the assayers. Sure would appreciate the company.”

“You and Johnny?”

“And Hal.” Bob nodded toward the narrow mine opening. The sound of a chisel tapping came from within. It’d be Hal Branch, partner to Bob and the Swede.

“You figure two more guns will discourage bandidos?”

“Three more guns for you. Can’t hurt to travel in company in hard times like this.”

“Times is always hard. And we don’t need more guns. We’re not carrying a poke.”

“Twenny silver for two days ridin’ out of your way,” Bob flashed his brown teeth again.

Cal looked over to where Nestor was squatting by the fire lighting a cheroot with an ember from the cook fire. Nestor raised a shoulder and nodded once.

“Each?” Cal said, turning back to Bob.

“Sure. Sure. Twenny silver for you each,” Bob strained his smile broader until his cheeks hurt.

“Okay then. Me and Nestor will be up there out of the sun until you’re packed up.” The regulators led their mounts to where some brush grew along the base of an escarpment.

* * *

“That coffee smelled good, amigo,” Nestor said to Cal who sat near him in the shade of the rock wall flipping pebbles at a horn toad sunning itself on a rock a dozen feet away. Their horses munched sage where they stood ground reined nearby.

“Coffee always smells good,” Cal said, voice growing sleepy. “If coffee tasted as good as it smelled it’d be all anyone ever drank. But mine camp coffee’ll burn a hole in your gut faster than them chilis you’re so fond of.”

“Maybe I start a fire and make a pot for us.”

“No time. Those boys is almost packed up.” Cal pitched a pebble in a long arc down to where Bob was strapping sacks to a pack mule while the other two saddled their horses.

“These men have a right to dig here,” Nestor said, taking great care to re-set his broad steeple sombrero atop his head at just the right angle.

“They do.”

“And they take the silver.”

“Whatever they can scratch out of their claim is theirs. They got a legal claim registered in Austin.”

“These others that we run off, they have no claims?”

“No. And they can’t make one. That’s why they wildcat and that’s why we chase ’em off.”

“Who says this, amigo? Who is it says that they cannot have a claim?”

“The railroad, I guess. It’s them paying us to make it so.”

“And what does the railroad care for silver? We ride and we ride over all this land so far from the tracks. Why is this so?”

“You like your fifty dollars a month?” Cal rose from where he sat, adjusting his gunbelt.

“Si. Is easy money.” Nestor stood as well to follow Cal to the horses.

“Nobody’s paying you to ask questions.”

They saddled up and rode down to where the miners were leading their mounts and pack animals out toward where the canyon opened up onto the sands of the Chihuahua.

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