Chapter 6

I stood looking at my seven new horses, already well satisfied with the trade that Miguelito and Danny, my top hand, had approved. The black stallion stood proudly off to one side as he watched over his harem of sleek mares. Somewhere, down in Old Mexico, there was somebody who was sorely missing all of these fine animals. I looked over at Danny, pretty certain that my own grin was every bit a match for the one he was wearing.

"I was thinking of putting the grey with these six mares, and then having the black cover all of the other ones up in the main corral. Should make for a good crop next year."

How are you planning on making the move with them?" I didn't want the black to meet up with the grey, figuring that having those two meet could only lead to trouble.

"I figured I'd saddle up the black and take him for a ride down to the reservation. I'll get Luis to ride the grey down the hill a ways beforehand, so that we don't have to cross the two. Luis will bring the grey down here, and I'll turn the black loose at the main corral after I get back." It was a plan that should work, so I just nodded my approval. I would have liked to ride the black myself, but I didn't want to look like some eager child in front of my ranch hands.

"You did good on that trade Danny. You make sure that none of these horses get seen by any outsiders though. I wouldn't want to have to explain just how we came by having them here. Come by in the morning, early, I need to discuss some changes I'm planning on making." Now that I'd seen how quickly things could all turn against me, I wanted to try to set things up so that I could leave for a time, and still not have to worry about whether I'd still have a ranch and a herd when I returned.

Even though I'd had a couple of problems early on with my top hand, I'd grown to respect his judgment about horses, and his loyalty to the herd. I was fixing to make him the foreman of the ranch, something I'd have never done with Humberto. There's a world of difference between a foreman and a top hand. A foreman could speak in place of, and enter into binding contracts for, the owner; while a top hand was only just another employee. I was prepared to cede that additional authority to Danny Gomez. In part, because he had backed off some on the situation with his sister. In his situation, I'm not sure that I'd have been able to be so sanguine. To me, that spoke to his maturity. The other thing was that I didn't want to keep having him needing to check with me over decisions that he was already capable of making on his own.

I went back up to the ranch house and saw that Miguelito and Juana had cleared their stuff out and had taken off. I thought some about Juana. She hadn't said much when her grandfather was trying to pawn her off on me. She hadn't denied wanting to come to my bed either. Most girls would have made some sort of protest. She would bear watching, that was for sure. I hadn't ever wanted or needed the kind of entanglement that having a woman involved. Did I want to go through all of that trouble just to satisfy my animal urges? Being with Drucilla that one time had changed the way I now felt about using my own hand. It was a damn poor substitute, I'd found out. I wondered how Juana's tiny little body would compare with the lush fullness of Drucilla's. I knew that Juana came up short in the titty category, and as short as she was, I doubted that her butt could hold a candle to Dru's. On the other hand, Dru was dead, and no longer in the running for my attentions or affections.

There was also the blood factor to consider. While Miguelito had made it a point to mention that Juana wasn't blood kin to me, she was still an Indian. I was a Gardner. I was a half breed, but I was legally considered a white man because of my Daddy's name and the presence of Uncle Charlie. I hadn't had any trouble inheriting my father's property. If I got tied up with Juana, what would that make our children? I'd have to go see Uncle Charlie about that.

To my head, it seemed like it was too much of a bother. It was my dick that was pressing for a quick decision. My daddy had told me several times that it was good to strike when the iron was hot. He wasn't just talking about branding either. He and my Uncle Charlie were both of the opinion that a girl ripens like a vegetable or a fruit. When she's ready, that's it. Somebody is going to get to enjoy her soon after. I was sure that Juana was ripe. I wasn't sure how long she'd been ripe, or whether she'd already been plucked and tasted. I didn't want to make a life with a woman who'd been passed around too much. I didn't see how I could bring up the topic with her in any kind of normal conversation. I didn't want to even discuss Juana with Danny Gomez. Miguelito might know, but I doubted that he'd be very candid with me about a subject like that.

I was eating some eggs and fat back out on my porch about the time the sun was high enough to start giving off significant light. I'd turned in early the night before, trying to wrestle with all of the conflicting thoughts that I was having. It was past time that I start planning for how I wanted to live my life.

"You wanted to see me Mr. Gardner?" Danny Gomez was fifty feet away when he spoke out. I guessed that he was done trying to sneak up on me or to surprise me in any way.

"Come up here Danny. I don't like having to shout out my private business to anybody that's passing by." I was just saying that because it was so seldom that I even talked to anybody at all. It sounded funny in my head saying that. "I've been giving it some thought and I've decided to get off the ranch more often, and to take a more active role in trading the herd. I thought that things went well here while I was gone before, but I worry about if something had come up where a real decision needed to be made. I've been thinking about it some, and I want to try you out as foreman of this ranch." I expected him to smile, or to at least thank me for handing him such a big responsibility at such a young age.

"If that's it then, I guess I'll get back to moving those stallions." He just turned himself around and walked back over to the corral. I think that that might be another difference between Indians and regular people, even Mexicans. I don't remember how many times that Humberto hinted around that he should be made the foreman. I practically hand it to Danny, after less than a month of him working for me, and he acts like it doesn't mean anything to him. I was disappointed that he took it so calmly because I thought that it meant that he didn't understand what a difference there was in this new job instead of just being the top hand.

I was cleaning up things when I noticed one of the hands riding the grey out of the main corral and taking him off and down the trail towards the Southern valley floor. The grey was a sleek animal, and he looked impressive as he stepped with his head held high and with a sure footed gait down that hillside. Fifteen minutes later, Danny came tearing through, riding the black fast enough that Danny's long hair trailed as if blown by a big wind. He wasn't nearly at full gallop, but it was a pleasure to watch as the horse breezed right past me. The horse seemed to reek of power and majesty. I knew that this horse had known few equals wherever he had traveled. I was proud just knowing that he was mine. Danny didn't even bother to wave as he rode by me, but I could see he was fully engaged in trying to keep the horse from having too much head.

I had walked the whole water pipeline that I'd been working on before all of the trouble that Uncle Charlie had come to fetch me for had happened. The hands had done a reasonable job connecting ends together, but I saw three or four leaky joints that would need re-doing. The question was whether it mattered enough to bother with or not. I finally decided to fix two of the joints and leave the other two alone. I worked by myself, and it took the rest of the morning before I was satisfied with things, and went to turn the drain at the spring back on. From the springs I could see the lower corral just fine, and I saw the grey stallion down there prancing around among the new mares. From a distance, he looked to be settling in just fine. I put my tools away and went over to the side of the house to pump some water for a quick clean off. I had sweat and dirt all over me from the work that I'd been doing.

When I was washed up some, I turned to walk inside to get a towel to dry off with and saw my black stallion striding powerfully up the reservation trail. It was a second or two before I noticed that it was Juana up in the saddle. She pulled the horse up within five feet of both me and my porch. She lifted a leg and turned and jumped down off of the horse, never letting go of his reins. Smiling, she handed me the reins and walked past me into my house. I guess she thought I was the new stable hand or something, and she was the mistress of the manor. I took a few minutes to check my new horse over, but he didn't look any the worse for his recent exercise. I walked him over to the new corral and got a couple of my hands to sponge him down before turning him loose in the main corral.

"Where's your brother, and why did he let you ride my new stallion?" I had just walked into the house and my eyes hadn't adjusted to the change in light yet. Juana was over at the stove heating up water, and she was already pumping water from the holding tank into my bath tub. She still had all her clothes on, but she was obviously preparing that bath for somebody. I hadn't asked her to fix the tub for me, so I assumed that she intended it for her. "I hope you aren't planning to use my tub without first getting my permission?" When she was up here before, she had never tried to use it.

"I would imagine that Danny is halfway back here by now, if he's running all the way, he is. He didn't let me ride the horse, I took it while he was in talking to Grandpa. I'm going to get a bath in this tub just as soon as the water's finished heating up, so you better just turn around and leave me before you see something that you shouldn't." She started getting out of her shirt as soon as she was done speaking. I stood still and watched her do it. Her titties were small, but she had little brown buttons that stood out half an inch and more. I wasn't disappointed in the view. When she had dropped her pants to her knees and lifted one leg to get herself clear of the leg hole, I rushed for her real quick, and wrapped her up in a bear hug with both of her arms trapped beneath mine. I lifted her up and took her out on my porch and threw her off as far as I could before beating a hasty retreat back inside and slamming the door and dropping the bar across it. I had left her with only her pants on, and they were dropped down by her ankles.

She was yelling and cussing, and saying things about me that no proper woman would ever say out loud. I heard bastard and son of a bitch several times. Some of the other things she called me were in Mexican or Indian and I didn't recognize their meaning. I knew from the tone that she was using that none of it was meant to be complimentary. After ten minutes she left off with her invective and started pleading for me to at least throw out her shirt and boots before Danny got back up to get her. I paid her words no heed though, and went to lay on my bed, waiting until I heard her brother chasing her around and shouting out his dire threats. I jumped up then and threw open my door to watch all of the fun.

"You may as well stop running Juana. Sooner or later I'm going to catch up with you and paddle your ass." I noticed that three of the hands were standing around getting an eyeful of Juana's little titties bouncing prettily around. She somehow always managed to avoid being snared by Danny's desperate lunges at her. She was smiling at him as she avoided his clutches, not quite taunting him, but not looking scared of him either. Her pants were back up covering her butt like they should be, and she was outfoxing her brother, even though she was forced to go hopping around on the rocks and mud clumps in her bare feet.

I stood up there on the porch watching the whole thing, at first rooting for Danny to catch her and give her the paddling that I thought she deserved. After a little while though, a person just had to admire both her spirit and her determination. I walked back inside and picked up her boots and her shirt. I waited until they were running around behind the ranch house before I stepped down off of my porch and placed her boots on the ground and laid her shirt on top of them. I went back up on the porch and waited for the two of them to head back around to the front again.

As soon as Juana came tearing around the side of the building she spotted her shirt laying in the dirt. She ran to it and grabbed the shirt and the boots and kept heading straight down the trail to the reservation. Danny was about thirty feet behind her as the two of them ran out of my sight. I figured that her lead wasn't so big that she'd ever be able to stop and put her boots back on, not unless Danny gave up the chase. He looked determined to get her, so I figured she'd have some pretty sore feet by the time she got back to the reservation. I went back inside and drained out the tub and took the water that was at full boil off of the stove top. That damn girl had used up the whole store of wood that I'd laid by for cooking my next meal.

Danny got back up the hill well after the sun had set. I heard him cussing out some of the hands that had been giving him the business about not being able to catch his little bug of a sister. A few minutes after it all had gotten quiet again, a big ruckus started up, and there was the sounds of some fists landing, and the buzz of excitement from people gathered around cheering and watching a fight. I stood on my porch for several minutes, curious, but not wanting to seem to interfere with my new foreman's domain. After a bit, things got quiet again and I went back inside for the night.

The next morning, my new foreman came looking for me. He had some bruises on his face, and was swollen up under his right eye. "Do I get to hire and fire?"

"Sure do." He turned back to the corral and went inside. Ten minutes later, two of my hands came walking out with their bedrolls in their hands. They looked all sulky as they passed me, but neither one said anything to me. Both of them looked like they might have been in a tussle, and neither appeared like they had been the victor. After they had disappeared from sight, I went and found my foreman. "Did you ever catch up with that sister of yours yesterday?"

"Nope. That girl's a hell of a runner. She needs to take two strides to my one, but I still can't catch her. I will catch her though, and she'll pay for what she done."

"When you do catch her, you give her ass a couple of paddles for me. She used up my wood that I needed for cooking my supper, and had the nerve to try to take a bath without asking my leave. I don't even want to get into how mad I am that she stole one of my best horses and galloped him up here all the way from the reservation."

"I checked him last night. He isn't no worse for what she did."

"I know that, I checked him as soon as she got down off of him. That doesn't mean that she couldn't have done him damage though."

"When I'm done with her, she'll think twice before doing that again." I was enjoying watching him fume. She had brought him down by embarrassing him in front of the other hands. He'd wound up running off two of the boys that had been up here with him on that first day too.

"How did the black horse seem when you rode him?"

"He's a good horse. I think he's got plenty of stamina too. I didn't let him have his head, but I could feel that he's got some kind of wicked speed in him. He wanted me to let him loose, but I wanted to keep him from doing too much. No telling how hard he was ridden on the trip coming North. Maybe you'd care to take him for a gallop soon?"

"Let's let him settle in with the mares first, and then we'll see if he wants to go blow off any steam. He might need all his energy just to take care of those mares."

Things settled back down and nobody brought up anything about bringing in two more hands to replace the two that had been run off. I rode down to a small rancher I knew and bought two fat steers for a fair price. I drove them over to the reservation and penned them up with the last four long horns from the Denby herd that were still there. I finished up and made my way over to Miguelito's shack. He came out after only a minute. I saw Juana come to the door and she stood there looking at me but not saying anything.

"I brought you your monthly steer and another that's for you as a thank you for watching my place before. Are you one of those Indians that goes crazy with whiskey?"

"I haven't had enough to be able to tell you. I use some when I've got tooth pains, or if my back hurts too bad. Why are you asking me that?" I reached in my saddle bag and pulled out a quart bottle of rot gut that I'd gotten from the rancher when I bought those two steers from him. I had always let him come up and get some barrels of my sweet water for his still, and he usually gave me a few bottles of whiskey just to say thank you. He has this daughter that is real slow in the head, and I think that he's hoping that I'll get so drunk from the whiskey, that one day I'll drop by and start thinking that she would make a fine wife. I think he's wrong, but I do like to get myself all liquored up a few times a year just because it feels good.