Chapter 2

It was early the following morning when I stood outside the main corral having myself a little conversation with Humberto. I had already discussed some of my worries about Franklin Lyons with my main Mexican hand, telling him that it appeared to me that there might be trouble heading our way. To my way of thinking, it wasn't a question about whether Lyons would make an attempt to get water for his herd. The only question I had was whether he'd decide to pay for that watering, or he'd try to just take the water from me, by force of arms, and without making any payment.

"Senor Yay, eef eet comes to the fight, we will wish you muchas buena suerte, and go to our rancho until you send word for us to regressa, how do you say eet, come back?"

"How many of those longhorns of Denby's are you and your brothers hiding over in that mesquite draw down past my second corral Humberto?"

"Senor Yay, you say that we rustle?"

"Humberto, last time I checked there were seven of those Denby strays that maybe just happened to wander up and walk into that little holding pen in the draw that you boys made that first day when you noticed those cattle watering themselves up by the spring. Rustling is not a term that I'd go throwing around carelessly. Certainly not to my own hands. Thing is though, they're on Gardner land, eating Gardner grass and drinking Gardner water, none of which, anybody has ever offered to pay me for. So, how many strays did you boys rescue for me?"

Humberto tried to think of what his options might be. He didn't see any way out of his predicament, none at least that allowed him to keep his job, his honor and his cattle. He wondered why he was always surprised that the Patron knew everything that happened on this barren and rocky hilltop. This wasn't the first time that he and his family had been caught trying to pull a fast one on Senor Yay. Seven steers though, that would be a lot for them to simply walk away from. He looked down and noticed for the first time that the rawhide hammer guard on the Patron's pistola had been slipped off. He finally made his decision.

"I will ride there immediamente Patron, to look weeth my own ojos for some strays. Eef I find them, I weel breeng them back to thees corral."

"Well don't take all day about it, because I'm gonna send em over to the reservation today. I need to have myself a little jawboning session with Miguelito and his band. If what I heard is true, he'll sure appreciate some meat that isn't already dead and spoiled before it gets to his encampment. I need Lupe and Gerardo to help me lead them there. You might not have the stomach for a fight Humberto, but I sure don't plan on allowing anybody to water their cattle for free, not with my water at least. I don't have too much use for any man that won't stand by his employer when the chips are already down and the hand's been dealt. If you hightail it on me now, don't expect me to take you back on after it's all settled."

It took them another two hours, probably because they were wondering if it would be worth it to try to pick me off and then drive the cattle down to Old Mexico. Finally I heard them coming back up through the trail that led out to the back corral. Those longhorns didn't look very meaty, but there wasn't that much natural feed growing between the rocks and the cactus. They'd certainly do nicely for what I had planned. Lupe and Gerardo drove the small herd ahead of me and I let them get a little ways ahead while I maintained close eye contact with Humberto. If any of them had the nerve to try something, it was Humberto. He was their natural leader. One of the first things I'd noticed about all the women that I called the visitors, was that they somehow always wound up sleeping in the stall where Humberto kept his bedroll, at least for part of their stay anyway. Humberto must have decided to just let it go though, because he watched until his brothers were a couple hundred feet down the pass before he turned aside and made his way back to the corral. He was a top hand, and I knew that he'd make sure that all of the chores with the horses got taken care of, even though he was going to be short by two of his workers for half the day or more.

I rode drag all the way down the pass, watching carefully because there were two other Martinez brothers that I hadn't seen yet. Jesus and Domingo were not the type to try anything with me, but it never hurt to be careful. If they did try to do anything, I'd be giving them a real bad fever for their troubles. We had always gotten along really well in the past, mainly because they knew that I wasn't someone who would consider turning the other cheek. They had tried me with their little thieving things, several times in fact, just hoping to figure out what they could and couldn't get away with, but I kept them in line when it came to anything that was important to me.

We got over to the reservation without any problems, but I could plainly see that the Indians were in pretty desperate straits. The Indian agent in these parts was a political appointee, and he stayed back at the County seat with his own family, living in a nice house and eating fine food. As I rode through the reservation, I was really glad that my mother had made her decision to leave this place to take her chances with my daddy. It hadn't worked out that good for her, but I was sure a damn sight better off than I'd have been if I'd been born a reservation Indian. Some people figured I was a half breed, but I didn't think of myself that way. I was a Gardner. I pulled Gerardo and Lupe up in front of Miguelito's shack. He was the head man on the reservation, and his little tar paper shack was nicer than most, but it still wasn't fit to house chickens in.

Miguelito came outside after he had heard the commotion going on around him. His people were hungry, and yet he was still a proud man. He stayed in his shack most of the time so that he wouldn't have to see their desperation and pain. I saw him eyeing the longhorns, and being part Indian myself, I could tell he was wondering how he could somehow steal one of them without anybody being the wiser. That's what I'd have been thinking if I was in his place anyways.

He was at least sixty years old, but not at all stooped with age or with the burden of watching over a defeated people. In his youth he had made numerous raids over into old Mexico, and had known his share of running and fighting. He just stood there, right outside his door, waiting for one of us to tell him what was going on.

"Miguelito, I am Jay Gardner. I heard that your people were feeling the pinch a little, so I rounded up a few strays for you to add to your stew pots. I wish that it could be more because it pains me to learn that my mother's people are in distress."

"Bullshit! What do you want from us?" That's another thing. Miguelito didn't have the political savvy to refrain from speaking his mind on things. If he had been willing to go along more with things, he and his people would have done better. Here I was making a generous, and wholly unexpected, contribution to his people's welfare, and he couldn't even pretend to be grateful or that he even thought for one minute that I was acting out of my honest concern. I could tell by the way old Miguelito was watching Gerardo and Lupe that he was afraid that they might try to do him harm.

"I'm hurt by your mistrust. I admit that I haven't been as careful about taking an interest in the welfare of my reservation family as I might have been, but there's no call for you to doubt my good intentions. I came by with these cattle only because I had heard that you had been given the short end of the stick by the Indian agent once again. If I heard wrong, I can just drive this little herd back up to my ranch, and we'll just consider that all of this was a misunderstanding on my part, with no real harm done or meant by it." I gave Lupe the hand signal to turn the cattle back towards where we'd come from. There were perhaps fifteen Indians standing around watching and listening to what was happening. They were looking at a whole lot of satisfying meals being turned around and taken away from them. Not a sound of protest was made, and no one was going to question Miguelito's authority on the reservation. They'd all rather starve to death than show any type of division or turmoil to an outsider.

"Your mother was my brother's daughter." That was all he said to me. He turned around and went back inside his shack. I gave Lupe the hold up signal and sat there on my horse, wondering what I should do.