Chapter 17

Tom asked Bones if he knew where he could get a cleaning rod for his handgun and his rifle.

“I will fetch y’all one Mr. Tom.”

“Bones call me Tom, that’s what I go by, I’m not a mister to you.”

“Yass’suh Mr. Tom,” Bones said and left the barn.

Tom shook his head and walked back to the porch of the bunkhouse. He was sitting there looking his two guns over when Sally Mae came around the corner carrying a gun cleaning rod and some oiled patches.

“Here is your cleaning tools Injun Tom. Mind if I set a spell with you?”

“I’d like the company, you can tell me more about you and your life. Were you and your papa born here or did you come here from the south?”

Sally Mae sat down on the porch, leaning back against one of the posts and propped her knee up as they sat and talked.

“Bones was a slave when the war broke out and the north soldiers were about to take the land from the landowners, his master let him and my mammy leave and gave them some money. They went north to Missouri then they paid a man to bring them west. They got up to St. Joe and met a black man that had a job working for Mr. Hollister. Papa and mammy came here with him and we been here ever since.”

“So you were born here then?”

“Yes I was born not long after mammy and papa got here.”

“How long has Mr. Hollister let you prepare the mares for breeding?”

“Since I was twelve. I was helping papa all the time anyway and one day Mr. Hollister wanted papa to do something for him and asked me if I could finish cleaning the mares and prepare them for breeding. I been doing it ever since.”

Tom was busy with cleaning his handgun and shining it good before he put it back in the holster. He reached over to pick up his Henry and looked up as Sally Mae was talking. Her dress was raised up on her knee where she sat facing Tom as he worked and they talked. Tom could see her woman parts. Tom looked away, then couldn’t help it when his eyes swung back to the girls’ legs where her dress was up and she was swinging her knee back and forth as she talked and watched him work.

This was the third time Tom had looked at a girl’s woman parts and he couldn’t look away.

“Sally Mae?”

“Yes Injun Tom.”

“Will you put your dress down, you’re bothering me some with your dress hiked up like that,” Tom said and smiled at her.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner, shit I’m so ashamed of me, you sat there all this time looking up under my dress and didn’t say nothing to me,” she said as she dropped her knee to the floor and slapped her hand between her legs.

“I was embarrassed also, and at first I didn’t want you to cover up.”

“Well I will say this for you, you’re a honest injun. How long you say you gonna be here Injun Tom?”

“I’ll be here for a while yet, then I’ll travel with my horse to Kansas and Missouri by railroad Mr. Hollister said.”

“You’ll get to ride on the railroad train? That is a dream of mine to ride the railroad train one day, and you get to take your hoss with you.”

“Maybe one day Mr. Hollister will let you ride the train if you ask him. Someone will have to prepare the mares and he trusts you to do his.”

“Injun Tom, you think he would? I would be afraid to ask him, he may make me work in the fields if he gets mad at me.”

“I’ll ask him if you can go, you can keep me and my horse company.”

“You would do that for me Injun Tom?”

“Sure won’t hurt to ask will it?”

Sally Mae jumped and started off around the bunkhouse.

“Where you goin’ Sally Mae?”

“You got me so ‘cited I’m about to pee on myself,” she said as she rounded the corner.

Tom was looking as she darted around the corner, hiking her dress tail as she went.

‘That girl is like all other girls I’ve met, they sure do have strange ways at times’ Tom thought.

Sally Mae was gone just a short time and came back grinning.

“I still can’t get over you just sittin’ there gawking up my dress tail and not lettin’ on to me that I was shinin’ like that injun Tom, shame on you, as much as shame on me.”

Bones called Sally Mae to come help with some cleaning in the barn and Tom walked around the stables again. He walked out to where the mares were stabled and saw some really fine horse flesh. Not all of them were the long legged racin’ horses. He walked on around most of the stables and cut up between two long ones to come back out in front of the big barn once more.

“There you are Tom, I was just coming out to find you. I’ve come up with a schedule that will you get your traveling done long before winter sets in,” Mr. Hollister told him.

“I think you can be through here in a week, ten days at most, then we can get you on a train over to St. Joe and down to Kansas City within a week after you leave here. From there you’ll ride back up to Atchison, Kansas to catch a train to Topeka. A week at Topeka and on to Wichita for a week. From there you can ride over to Dodge City for a visit you said you wanted. From there you will ride south to meet up with the ATSF again near the Indian Territory. You can catch a train to Raton Pass, New Mexico and from there ride up to Denver, Colorado. Of course you know that you’ll only be a short ways from Cheyenne, Wyoming then. How does that sound.”

“Thank you for helping me work out my travel and the best routes for me to take,” Tom said as he looked at the map Mr. Hollister showed him.

“I’m sure there’ll be delays here and there, but then there’ll be stops that won’t take as long either. We’ll send Mr. Holliday a telegram and he can get you authority to board any train in this part of the country without fare. Tom there’s one more thing we need to consider on your trip to these stables and that’s the preparation of the mares and your stud.

“If you wouldn’t object I’d like to send my girl Sally Mae along to make sure the breeding is clean and no problems will come up. She’s Bones daughter and she won’t be a problem to you. I’ll have him talk with her before you leave. You’d have to see to her meals and lodging though.”

“I’m glad you said that, I was wondering how we could be sure it was done right. I wouldn’t mind seeing that she’s fed and housed,” Tom said. He took the map Mr. Hollister had folded and placed in a big wax coated heavy envelope.

“When are you ready to start Tom, Bones said we had three mares horsing now and two more due this week.”

“Then let’s get them girls out and to the open pens and plant some seed.”

Mr. Hollister walked to the barn and called Bones out to get the mares cleaned up and ready. Tom walked back over to the bunkhouse and put the map and schedule in his saddlebags.

“Injun Tom, Bones said we gonna start right now letting your big hoss breed them little mares, I’m on the way to get them cleaned up now, I’ll meet you with the first one in that corral there on this side of the white stable in just a short while,” Sally Mae told him as she came out of the barn.

“We’ll be there.”

Tom walked with his horse over to the corral and had him inside waiting for Sally Mae. She brought the first mare out and she was sure horsin, ‘ she was jumpin’ and twitchin’ all over the place. Tom’s horse got excited and started sniffin’ the air and making noises in his throat.

Sally Mae had a pail of clean water in one hand and told Tom to hold his stud while she cleaned him up.

Tom watched as she leaned under the horse and patted his sheath until the long horse cock came out far enough for her to wash it. When she had cleaned him, she stepped back and Tom let him go.

The mare had pissed a stream and was still spread legged when the big horse sniffed her, then mounted her.

Less than five minutes later the mare and stud were walking around the corral, getting itchy again.

The other two were brood mares that Mr. Hollister had gotten many fine foals from in the past. He was hoping to get a good copy of Tom’s stud out of both these mares this season, both had dropped colts less than a month ago.

The first one of the brood mares was big and chocolate colored with light colored mane and tail. Sally Mae had her clean and ready when she got to the corral, then Tom held his stud as Sally Mae gave him another washing to make sure he didn’t spread anything from one to the other.

Though this was an older mare, she was horsin’ big time with the big stud standing so close. She backed to him and as Tom let him go, he reared up and mounted her.

Sally Mae waited for a good while to bring the other mare out. Bones had the halter on a short lead this time. The mare was wild and finicky, and she was nervous as all get out.

Bones told Tom that this was the first time she had been bred, and she was six years old. He told Tom that Mr. Hollister always rode her and held her back from breeding until now. She was one of the best gaited saddle horses in the county. She stood tall and broad in the back and withers, she had a long neck and her mane and tail were bight red.

Tom released his stud and the two started prancin’ and circlin’ each other. The mare then stopped and the stud mounted her. She squealed like a pig when he stuck her. With the three mares being bred Sally Mae and Bones led them back to the stalls, Tom left his stud in the corral for a while to calm down.

“Injun Tom, we’ll bring them back out tomorrow morning and get them another round from yo’ stud just to make sure he stuck ‘em good,” Sally Mae said.

There were times when Sally Mae reverted back to the broken English that Bones spoke, then other times she spoke with better English than Mr. Hollister did. Tom was sure that she was around so much of it that it just came natural for her to revert back. Tom knew he was the same way at times and never tried to talk above those he was with. His mom taught him to speak with strict word pronunciation but he felt out of place with such proper speech at times.

There were times when a man just had to talk the way his peers were talking or get frowned upon.

Tom let his horse out of the corral and patted him on the rump as the big horse walked back to the barn. When Tom looked over to the bunkhouse, he saw Sally Mae sitting on the porch with both feet on the ground this time. Tom walked over and sat down.

“You do a very good job with getting the mares and the stud cleaned for breeding, I can see why Mr. Hollister has you in charge of this,” Tom told her.

“I try to do it best I can, he told me way back that they needed to be clean and it was my job to make sure they was.”

“That must be the reason he told me today that you’d be travelin’ with me to make sure that the new association would get the best out of their breeding program.”

“Injun Tom, you mean you asked him and he said I could travel with you as you took your stud to breed all them mares?” Sally Mae asked.

“I didn’t get a chance to ask, he told me that he wanted you to be there cause I’d be going from one place to another and they couldn’t take the chance of a mare not being stuck good when I left.”

“My goodness gracious, I’m gonna get to ride one of them big railroad trains. I am about to pee all over myself,” She said as she jumped up and ran around the building, gathering up her skirts as she ran.

That night as Tom sat on the porch in the cool breeze, he took his flute out, and played the sounds of the winds across the plains. His music had no meaning and no words just the sounds that were in his mind that wanted to come out and play in the night air. As the sounds carried through the ranch headquarters and the stables, the horses perked up their ears and stood listening to the soft, easy sounds.

Bones and his woman sat on the porch of their small hut and swayed back and forth with the sounds that took them back to the lands of their ancestors, and back to the south where they were born and raised.

Sally Mae sat out under a tree in the yard on a swing tied to a limb, she swung slowly back and forth and closed her eyes as the music came to her. She felt as if the sounds were brushing against her face, caressing her skin, whispering up under her thin, worn dress to settle between her legs and tickle her in ways that made her belly knot up. She smiled at the thought of Injun Tom playin’ that music, wondering what he was thinking.

Was he thinking of his homeland as he played. Was he missing his family and the places he had roamed as a child. Injun Tom was a man that could make her young body shiver, when it wasn’t even cold. He made her have thoughts about being held in his long arms and thoughts about his hands touching her body the way she had seen her pappy touch her mammy.

On Friday morning Tom and Sally Mae were all packed and ready to head out back over to Omaha. From there they were to catch a train over to St. Joe, Missouri and meet up with Mr. Lydell Truman. They would be there for two days then on down to Kansas City.

Sally Mae had her belongings in a rough, burlap sack tied at the top and slung over her shoulder. Bones helped her up behind Tom on the big horse as they were about to set out. Tom had been thinking of how they were gonna be seen traveling together and he decided that Sally Mae needed to put on clothes to hide more of her girl’s body. When they arrived in Omaha, he looked for a clothing store.

Tom told Sally Mae to find her some breeches like boys her size wore and some shirts, he gave her some money and stood at the front of the store as she shopped with the help of the woman clerk. After what seemed like hours, Tom looked up from where he sat on a bench to see a young boy standing in front of him. He looked again and it was Sally Mae with her hair braided like his, a hat on and boy breeches and shirt. With the shirt hanging loose and not tucked in her breeches, a person couldn’t even tell she had teats.

Tom smiled and told her that she looked more like an Indian squaw now than a yellow skinned black girl. Sally Mae looked at him kinda funny, then went back in the store to look one more time in the big looking glass. She came back with a big smile and told Tom he was right. Next stop was the train depot where Tom introduced himself and asked the man at the window if he knew of a telegram in his name.