Jones—what you doin’ way out here?”
Dewey Jones said, “Howdy, Raymond,” and watched the tall man prod a last cow and then come around from the alley fence.
Raymond Holly was a comical cuss who was once kicked in the jaw by a horse. The jaw healed crooked and the teeth laid down so Raymond chewed on their sides. When Raymond talked he jabbed a finger into a man’s chest and slobbered all over him, talking through those flat teeth. Raymond shook hands and started jabbing and talking as if they had parted only yesterday. It was all of four years, Dewey Jones recalled, since he last saw Raymond at the Las Vegas show.
“How far to Flying A headquarters?” Dewey Jones finally asked.
“Twelve miles,” Raymond said. “These here are Flying A cattle, Dewey. That’s the general manager right over there.”
Dewey Jones turned and saw a wiry man of about fifty coming down the chute platform from the last car. He said, “Reckon he still needs that cook and horse breaker?”
“He sure does,” Raymond said. “His name’s Hank Cochrane. Go over and jump him.”
Dewey Jones said, “Thanks, Raymond,” and went over to the chute and introduced himself, showed the letter Mike Cunico had received in Raton, and popped the big question; and right off, studying Cochrane, did not find any particular admiration for the man. Cochrane rubbed the letter between his thumb and forefinger before he said cautiously, “I need both. Can you handle it?”
“I don’t know how different it is here,” Dewey Jones said honestly.
“You savvy a pack outfit,” Cochrane said. “You know a diamond hitch?”
“Yes,” Dewey Jones said.
“The ranch is all pack,” Cochrane said. “Ain’t been a wagon on it in fifteen years. Pay is eighty-five.”
“That’s okay,” Dewey Jones said quickly.
He decided that Cochrane was more man than he’d figured on first size-up. Cochrane had judged him and figured he’d do, at least on the surface, and besides Cochrane was in a tearing hurry to ship his cattle out. Cochrane said, “We got a horse you can ride back. Tomorrow morning you pick up the chuck-wagon teams and come back to town and get your bill of groceries for ninety days.” Then Cochrane gave him another, sharper stare and added, “You want anything else, smoking tobacco, clothes, you get it with the groceries and charge it to the ranch.”
“Thanks,” Dewey Jones said.
“All right, go meet the boys.”
Raymond Holly was waiting down the fence. Dewey Jones followed him to the back pen and shook out his hair blanket while Raymond brought up the extra horse, an old cutting sorrel about fifteen years old who grazed along with the herd coming in. Dewey Jones slapped the old sorrel and spoke a few words, saddled up, and rode out with Raymond to join the crew.
He met Jim Thornhill and Driver Gobet and George Spradley. They didn’t say much, just smoked and sized Dewey Jones up and reserved judgment. They stood in the depot shade while Cochrane made out the papers for shipping the thirty-one cars of cattle to the Flying A grazing land in California. Then Cochrane came around the depot and said, “Let’s pull stakes,” and led them out of Holbrook on a dirt road that ran south across the level plateau country.
The road wound through arroyos and over level flats toward Snowflake and Show Low. They rode a bare land sprinkled with sage and chamiso, with a few stunted cedars growing in the shade of arroyo banks and along the slopes where topsoil was thicker. Cochrane took the lead, the others strung out, and Raymond Holly brought up the rear with Dewey Jones.
Raymond hadn’t changed a bit. He was always eager for talk, he fairly begged Dewey Jones to start asking questions like any new hand was bound to. Dewey Jones let him slobber a reasonable time before he said, “Raymond, what kind of an outfit is this?”
Raymond sighed with relief, coming unstoppered like a bottle of home brew. “Greasy sack, Dewey.”
“They got a pretty good string of horses?”
“Fair,” Raymond said. “But they ain’t broke out no young stuff the last two years. The horses is gettin’ run down. Boss bought thirty head from the Bar R, that’s what you’ll be aworkin’ when you get time off from cookin’.”
Dewey Jones wondered how much time he’d have off from cooking on a pack outfit. He said, “How’s the watering places on the ranch, Raymond?”
“Pretty good in some spots, not so good in others.”
“They got decent corrals?” Dewey asked. “Good bronc pen?”
“Yup.”
“These bronc pens,” Dewey said. “They round corrals with a snubbin’ post in the middle?”
Raymond squinted a moment in thought. “Well, they’s a good one at Cherry Creek made outa aspen poles with wire wove in between. That’s our headquarters for the long stay, and our first move.”
“Where’s the next move?” Dewey asked.
“Hole-In-The-Ground.”
“Where’s that?”
“Way to hell and gone from headquarters,” Raymond said. “We go to workin’ from there on back.”
Dewey Jones frowned. He had to build camp on water and when he had to shoe a bronc or work around, away from the cooking, he’d have little time to haul water up from any far place. He said, “How far these corrals from water?”
“On Cherry Creek,” Raymond said, “you’re right on water, just out of dust range. But that Hole-In-The-Ground country, well, you got to pack it about a hundred yards up the hill. Use the burros, put a ten-gallon keg on one burro, two keg’ll last the day. The wrangler’ll handle that and the wood.”
“I know,” Dewey Jones said shortly. “What about this string of broncs. They pretty big stuff, any well-bred, or just common mountain ponies?”
“Just common,” Raymond said. “They won’t give you much trouble, Dewey, not the way you can ride.”
Dewey Jones accepted Raymond’s compliment and rode in silence, thinking he wasn’t much shucks as a bronc rider considering his present condition. A dollar-ten in his pockets and the clothes on his back. Then he straightened and glanced at the country and drummed up a dust-caked grin for Raymond.
If he could stick for three months, he’d come back to town with a decent grubstake and, this time, he’d get on the train and head for Las Vegas and the big Fourth of July show. No drunk this time, he promised himself, no throwing it away. Then he remembered all the times in the past, all the drunks and the bad mornings and the washed-out feeling, and hunched over in his saddle and rode in silence through the rising dust.
A man made himself big promises and, like the wind, they kept on blowing ever hopeful until life was gone. But there had to come a time; there must be a time in every man’s life when he corked the last bottle and took the train.
Cochrane led them down a long grassy slope into ranch headquarters at suppertime. Dewey Jones
