Chapter 5 A ride into his eyes
As he moved closer, I could see that there was only one crystal in his thin-rimmed glasses. A funny thing though—he had one eye gone and the crystal was on that side, leaving a single blue eye beaming from the empty gold rim.
He swung the heavy canvas bag from his back to the ground and stuck out a hand saying, “Reckon you’re my pardner Dan. Well, it’s shore good to meet you. I’m Boggs.”
“Howdy, Boggs,” I said.
“Why hell’s fire, boy, you’re purty near a grown man. Your pa didn’t tell me that. How old are you, boy?”
“Twelve goin’ on thirteen.”
“Hell’s fire, I was punchin’ cows with the top hands when I was your age. By the time I was fifteen I was out in Arizona mining gold.”
Suddenly I felt real small. Course I didn’t weigh but ninety some-odd pounds. But I’d felt pretty big a while ago when Papa had handed me the map and the three dollars and said, “It’s up to you, son. I’m dependin’ on you and Boggs gettin’ those horses to Guyman, Oklahoma, by ten o’clock July nineteenth.” He had gone on to explain that we’d be out on the trail nearly sixty days because every other day he wanted the horses to rest and feed so’s they’d get in looking good and ready for the big sale. That was the key thing to remember: balance the moving and the stopping so the horses would pick up weight.
I looked over at the corral and counted five mules and sixteen starved, ragged-looking horses of every color. Well, Papa had more confidence than I did, but I couldn’t help swelling up a little when he shook hands and said, “I ain’t worried a peck.” But then Papa had lots of guts. Here we were on the edge of Humble City, New Mexico, living in a shack that was held up by hope, on land that the drought had singled out to make an example of. Half farm, half grassland, and only half enough of either one.
At heart Papa was more of a trader than a land man. He’d traded for a hotel once in Hobbs, but when the drought came a few years back, everybody left Hobbs except the pensioners, the postmaster, and a few others too broke to go. Then he traded the hotel for a herd of goats, and the goats for some dried-up milk cows, and the cows for a truck, and the truck for a car. Somehow or other I liked the old Ford better than the hotel. Anyway, in between he kept something to eat on the table and Ma made it taste good.
Well, lately Papa had done some more figgering. The drought of the thirties had broken and people were putting a lot more virgin land into wheat and cotton. They’d need lots of horses to plow with. Most folks still hadn’t gotten used to the idea that it could be done cheaper and better with a tractor. The way Papa looked at it was this: by July nineteenth all the wheat farmers would have their wheat in and by then the grass would be ready for the stock to finish fattening on. People would feel like buying horses for the next plowing. That is if it rained in early July. The spring rains had already been good. So, Papa had started trading for livestock, and finally come up with this ugly bunch. He and Uncle Jock would head up north about a week before we were due and get the sale handbills out and so on. Uncle Jock was an auctioneer, so it wouldn’t take much money to pull it off. If everything worked right, we might be able to pay the mortgage, buy some seed, and put in a crop of our own the next spring.
Boggs said, “Let’s git goin,’ boy.”
My horse was already saddled and I’d thrown the rotten old pack on the gentlest of the mules. I had two blankets, a jacket, a stakerope, and a sack of dried apricots tied on it. That was all. Papa had said we could find plenty to eat along the way. He hadn’t explained exactly how.
