A Tale Out of Luck Read online

“Music is just an avocation, Mr. Hayes. Cowboyin’ is what I do for a livin’! I can swing a rope a whole lot better than I can play a banjo.”

  “Now, Jay Blue,” Skeeter said, “don’t sell yourself short on that banjo. I’ve seen you rope.”

  “I’m serious, Skeeter.”

  “I am, too. He’s a damn fine banjo picker, Mr. Hayes, but he can barely hit the ground with a loop.”

  “Shut up, Skeeter. Mr. Hayes, I can rope that mare out of that herd, and you’ll be shed of us.”

  Jubal nodded his agreement. “Skeeter and I will ride further to the west, and come up the canyon. That’s the way Steel Dust will try to escape.” He looked at Skeeter. “We’ll need to get two ropes on that killer. You ain’t scared, are you?”

  Skeeter grinned and shook his head. “No, sir. I live for this shit.”

  “Let’s go,” Jay Blue said. He turned his mount toward the draw. He could already feel the tug of the mare on the business end of his rope. He picked his way quickly, but as quietly as possible, across the slope, to the head of the draw he had spotted from the overlook. The wind, the angle of the draw, and the timber all covered his approach toward the herd of wild horses. He built a loop as he eased through the woods.

  Coming out of the draw, the trees became more widely spaced. His mount began to get excited, and Jay Blue knew the cow pony could smell the mustangs. He heard the grunts, the snorts, and the nickers of the animals interacting. Then, coming around a cedar bush, Jay Blue caught sight of the Thoroughbred, not sixty yards away.

  He did not hesitate. He raked his spurs across a rib or two and his mount shot forward. The mare threw her head up and ran away at half speed, trying to gain an understanding of this new arrival. She seemed to gather the fact that a rider was coming for her, and she appeared to desire capture.

  Jay Blue gained on her quickly, but now he sensed the panic that had electrified the entire herd of mustangs. He heard limbs snapping, rocks clattering, and hooves drumming. From the corners of his eyes, he detected all shades of horseflesh scattering every which way, but he kept his gaze focused on his target. The commotion spooked the mare to three-quarter speed, but she continued to run across an open stretch on the creek basin, and the roper closed in, his loop still in waiting at his right side.

  Jay Blue squeaked a smooching sound out between his recently busted lips, and his roping pony responded with a burst that pressed his hip pockets hard against the high cantle. He could feel the space closing between him and the mare, who now angled to her right, giving him a sure shot at her head. There had been no need to whirl the loop above his head until now. Instinctively, he could feel that he would circle it twice to build momentum, and release it on the third revolution forward. Gracefully, the way a chef might grasp a serving ladle, his right hand swung forward over his mount’s ear, sending the large loop he had built swinging far out in front of his pony’s muzzle.

  Two revolutions overhead, and he was there. He released the loop the third time around and saw it hit behind the mare’s right ear and flip perfectly over her regal nose. He yanked the slack, and had her, just shy of some brush that might have spoiled his throw.

  Then the flash of silver appeared. It swooped past with the speed of a diving hawk, glinting briefly in the sun like a huge bass being hauled up from a clear pool. With it came a shriek of equine rage—a shrill whistle, a guttural roar, and a shuddering scream all rolled into one.

  Now flashes of steel dust gray seemed to come from everywhere. Feathered fetlocks cut between Jay Blue’s black eye and his cow pony’s mane. Hard hooves hissed through the air. Teeth ripped at the roping pony’s mane, tearing hair and flesh. The muscled chest of the stallion slammed against Jay Blue’s mount, staggering him sideways. Only the tightening of the rope attached to the Thoroughbred prevented the cow pony from falling.

  There was a whirlwind of mane and tail swapping ends, and the sharp edges of two hind hooves shot toward Jay Blue and his mount as if fired from a cannon. The cow pony was still stumbling to the right from the recent collision, and the Steel Dust Gray just barely connected, missing the saddle pony altogether, but tapping Jay Blue on the left thigh, about as hard as a sledgehammer would hit a railroad spike.

  Reeling from the pain of the kick, Jay Blue saw a hell of a wreck coming on, considering that he was still tied to the powerful Thoroughbred, his cow pony was terrified, and the Steel Dust Gray wanted him dead.

  Relief came in the form of Skeeter Rodriguez, who appeared out of nowhere to get a loop on the stallion. Steel Dust turned on Skeeter for committing such an outrage, but Jubal was in position with a second lasso just in time to secure the famous wild stud between two stout roping horses.

  “The pen’s up the canyon!” Jubal cried. “Lead that mare. He’ll follow.”

  Jay Blue understood that logic, and the Thoroughbred was well trained to lead, so he trotted her upstream and soon spotted the high cedar rails of the mustang trap Jubal had built. He led the mare inside through the open gate.

  Keeping the lunging mustang stud between them, trying their best not to choke him senseless, the ropers managed to coax Steel Dust to the opening of the pen. Jubal rode in first and, with a final exhaustive effort, dragged the crazed wild thing inside with him.

  Skeeter knew to stay outside of the pen and throw his loop over the top of a rail so he could pull Steel Dust to one side of the pen, allowing Jubal to slack his lariat and ride back out through the gate. By the time this was accomplished, Jay Blue had led the mare out of the pen and closed the gate on the Steel Dust Gray.

  The stud still had two ropes around his neck, which ran over the top rails to the saddle horns around which they were tied fast.

  “Pull him up next to the fence!” Jubal ordered. He and Skeeter muscled the stallion hard against the rails. “Jay Blue! There’s a hook hangin’ on that tree limb!”

  Jay Blue looked and saw a tool that looked like a long fireplace poker. He jumped down from his saddle, trusting his mount and the Kentucky mare to behave themselves at the opposite ends of the same rope. He ran for the hook and grabbed it.

  “You gotta snag both nooses at once!” Jubal ordered.

  While Jubal and Skeeter kept the wild stud pulled up next to the inside of the fence rails, Jay Blue used the hook to reach between the rails of the pen and snag both nooses around the gray’s neck, though it took some fishing to hook both loops with the stallion lunging and screaming and dancing around just on the other side of the rails. At last he pulled both nooses open.

  “Slack!” he shouted.

  The ropers stepped the ponies forward and the Steel Dust Gray shook his head out of the choking loops, taking some comfort in the freedom from the hemp.

  “Back off!” Jubal shouted. “Give him some room in there.”

  They all withdrew from the corrals with their mounts, the Thoroughbred following calmly at the end of her lasso. They went to a nearby patch of shade under a live oak. The three of them stood panting, wide-eyed, amazed at their own accomplishment. Jubal yanked his protective scarf down. A huge smile enveloped his face. Jay Blue had tears in his eyes, and felt his grin stretching from one ear to the other. Skeeter just seemed dazed.

  Jubal clasped both young men by the shoulders. “I told you boys last night that good luck comes in mighty peculiar packages sometimes. You messed up bad when you let that mare run off. But you got her back, and that ain’t the half of it. The three of us just cinched the braggin’ rights of a lifetime!”

  Jay Blue nodded. “We corralled a myth,” he said.

  “We roped the Steel Dust Gray!” Skeeter blurted. “We caught El Grullo!”

  19

  THE MUSTANGERS gloated and lunched in the shade of the live oak and made their plans for El Grullo’s future.

  “After you boys get that mare home, I need you to make a supply run. I ain’t lettin’ that stallion out of that pen until I’ve tamed him some, so you’ll have to fetch some things for me.” He reached into a shirt pocket and pulled
out a piece of paper. “Luz and I made a list last night. There’s some things on there she needs at the cave, so you can stop off there on your way back here.”

  Jay Blue took the list. “You sure you’ll be okay here alone?”

  “Like I told you, the Indians are scared to death of me. I’m a ghost to them. I’ll be okay if I don’t starve to death, so I need you to get to town and bring me some supplies as soon as you can.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Skeeter said. “We won’t let you down, Mr. Hayes.”

  The cowboys left Jubal in the canyon with the Steel Dust Gray, and led their recovered Thoroughbred back toward the east, and the Broken Arrow Ranch. Once out of the canyon, Jay Blue took the list out of his pocket to look it over.

  “Good Lord,” he said. “We’re gonna need a pack mule to haul all these supplies to the cave. Sugar, flour, coffee, lard, beans, fatback, yards of cloth, five pounds of nails . . . It goes on and on. And look here at the bottom. Licorice sticks and saltwater taffy!”

  “Saltwater taffy!” Skeeter blurted. “I love that stuff! Makes me hungry just to think about it. ¡Dios! I wish I had some fried chicken!”

  Jay Blue folded the list and slipped it back into a pocket while scanning the skyline for trouble. “You’re not the only hungry one around. Look.” He pointed up at the flock of buzzards that had come into view around a bluff.

  “I ain’t hungry for whatever they’re after,” Skeeter replied. “Can’t be more than a couple of miles away, though. You want to ride over there and see what’s dead?”

  “Alright, but let’s be careful. Daddy says buzzards and crows follow the Indians.”

  “If there’s Indians over there, I’d just as soon sneak up and find them before they find us.”

  “Let’s keep our voices down now, until we find out what those buzzards are circling.”

  Skeeter nodded, and they angled into the wind.

  The trail from Fort Jennings had been difficult to follow, but Hank and his old Indian scout, Tonkawa Jones, had made relatively quick work of pursuing the boys. A track here, a broken twig there, a pile of horse dung, even a ripped spider web between two bushes—the most minuscule disturbances kept them on the right path.

  As the trackers studied sign, Policarpo Losoya kept an eye on the horizons for trouble. A subtle mourning dove whistle was the signal agreed upon for the day, so when Hank heard Poli’s dove imitation, he looked up from the trail and saw his foreman pointing at the sky. A whirlwind of black wings circled a few miles away to the northwest.

  “Funny how vultures lure the living to the dead,” he said to Tonk. “Let’s go check it out.”

  He leaned ever so slightly forward, squeezed with his knees, and the good ranch horse under him took off at a canter.

  Jay Blue and Skeeter took their time riding up under the sky full of vultures, keeping a constant lookout for Indians. Then they began to spook the big ugly birds out of tree branches, and knew whatever had drawn them earthward was near.

  After searching the terrain for some time, Jay Blue finally saw a foot wearing a moccasin, sticking out from some bushes, toes upward. “Skeeter!” he hissed. He pointed. Together they approached, their hands on the grips of their revolvers.

  Coming around the bushes, they saw the body of a young warrior lying on the ground. His wound oozed a glistening red. Black blood stains caked the soil all around the body where the warrior had dragged himself, or rolled over.

  “It could be a trap,” Jay Blue said. “You keep your eyes and ears open. I’ll get down and see if he’s alive.”

  Jay Blue dismounted, drew his revolver, cocked it, and approached the body. He eased around until he could see the face of the warrior. The eyes were closed.

  “He doesn’t look any older than you or me,” he said.

  “Is he dead?” Skeeter got down from his mount, tying his reins to the same mesquite sprig Jay Blue had used as a hitching post.

  “I can’t tell.”

  Skeeter shuffled up beside Jay Blue, both of them covering the Indian with their revolvers. “I think he’s breathin’!”

  The Indian groaned—a weak, sorrowful lament. The boys scooted a foot back, as if they had heard a rattlesnake.

  “Careful,” Jay Blue ordered. “He might just be playin’ possum.”

  “Well, if he is, it’s a damn fine act. There’s possum blood everywhere.”

  “What should we do?” Jay Blue said, expecting any second to find himself filled with arrows from an ambush.

  “I don’t know!”

  “Well, let’s look at the choices. We can put him out of his misery, and he’d never know what hit him. We could just ride off and leave him to the buzzards. Or we could try to help him.”

  “What would the captain say to do?”

  Jay Blue thought about that for a moment. “He’d say to do the honorable thing. Doesn’t seem to be much honor in killing a man who’s already half dead.”

  Skeeter nodded.

  Jay Blue put his pistol away. “No honor in abandoning a man to die, either.”

  “So how do we help him?”

  “Water,” Jay Blue said. He turned to his mount and fetched his canteen from his saddle. “Put your gun away, Skeeter. Prop him up a little, and I’ll pour some water in his mouth.” He pulled the cork stopper.

  The warrior groaned when Skeeter lifted his shoulders, but offered no resistance.

  “Tilt his head back a little.” Jay Blue poured a few drops of water on the warrior’s cracked lips. The Indian’s tongue came out to lick up the moisture, so he poured more. Clumsily, the wounded man swallowed the water. His eyelids began to flutter.

  “Maybe he ain’t so dead after all,” Skeeter suggested.

  Just then the warrior’s eyes flew open wide.

  “Oh, shit,” Skeeter said.

  The warrior glanced at the faces of Jay Blue and Skeeter, then down at the grip of the Colt in Jay Blue’s holster. His hand grabbed the revolver, but Jay Blue was quick to drop the canteen and take hold of the warrior’s wrist.

  “Watch out, Jay Blue!” Skeeter had sprung to his feet and now drew his own pistol.

  “Don’t shoot him! He’s weak. I can handle him.”

  With these words, the Indian eased his struggle and grimaced in pain, shutting his eyes tight.

  “Somos amigos,” Jay Blue said, knowing the Comanches had learned to speak Spanish long before English-speaking white men moved onto their ranges.

  The warrior’s eyes opened again. He let his hand fall away from the pistol grip. His voice came out in a gravelly groan: “Water.” He looked at the canteen, half its contents having spilled on the ground in the scuffle.

  Jay Blue motioned to Skeeter, who put his gun away and lifted the wounded man as before. The Indian drank, paused to catch a few short breaths, then drank some more.

  “What’s your name?” Jay Blue asked.

  “The Wolf.”

  “Where’d you learn English?” Skeeter asked him.

  “Missionaries. School.”

  “Who shot you?” Jay Blue said.

  “Cowboys. Buffalo soldiers. Many people dead. Warriors. Mothers. Dead. Chief dead.”

  “They say your people killed a white man. I saw him. Lots of arrows stuck in him. Scalped.”

  The Wolf shook his head. “Not my people. We come to hunt. The arrows Comanche, but not alive Comanche. The chief tell me.”

  “He told you what?”

  “Ghost arrows,” the Wolf whispered.

  “Looked like real arrows to me,” Skeeter said.

  The Wolf angled his eyes toward Skeeter. “Real arrows. Made by ghost.”

  “He’s delirious,” Jay Blue said. “He needs medicine.”

  The Wolf seemed to be fighting to keep his eyes open. Then his hand reached out and grabbed Jay Blue’s wrist with more strength than expected. “Ghost arrows,” he insisted. “My people not kill white man.” The grip loosened around Jay Blue’s wrist, the eyes closed, and the Wolf slipped
back into unconsciousness.

  “What the hell was that all about?” Skeeter said.

  “I don’t know. But, whatever it was, he sure as hell meant it.” Jay Blue sighed. “One of us has to stay with him. If he lives, he’ll need more water. He might even get hungry. I’ll stay if you don’t want to, Skeeter.”

  Skeeter shook his head. “I’ll stay.”

  Jay Blue nodded. There was nothing to argue about. It was just as dangerous to ride alone as it was to stay alone. “I’ll be back in twenty-four hours. I promise. If he dies, just head home.”

  They took Jay Blue’s bedroll from his saddle and spread his blanket on the ground next to the Wolf. They lifted him onto one side of the blanket and folded the other side over him to keep him warm. Jay Blue rode to the nearest water hole and filled his canteen with clear spring water. He would leave both canteens with Skeeter and the Wolf. They started a fire, just large enough to boil some beans, flavored with bacon, should the patient gain enough strength to eat.

  They devised an escape plan. Skeeter’s mount was tied securely down in the timber, whence Skeeter could run through the brush should he get attacked while waiting for the wounded Indian to die.

  “Don’t worry, Skeeter. By the sound of things, the army has run the Indians clean out of the country. Or killed ’em all.”

  “Right. Nothing to worry about now but that ghost warrior.”

  “Don’t put any stock into that crazy talk. Comanches are superstitious to begin with, and he was probably hallucinating because of all the blood he lost.”

  Skeeter sniffed aside his concerns and forced a smile. “You better get going.”

  Jay Blue nodded and gave Skeeter an encouraging slap on the shoulder. He mounted, smiled at his friend, and reined his pony to the east.

  But, in spite of his words of encouragement to Skeeter, Jay Blue couldn’t help putting some stock into what the Wolf had said. Not that he believed in ghosts. But, someone had killed that man he saw shot full of arrows at the fort, and Jay Blue’s instincts told him to believe the Wolf when he said his people had had nothing to do with it. The resolve in the Wolf’s voice had made him think that the warrior actually believed a ghost was responsible.