Chapter 7

We had trouble getting so many cattle watered at one time, until Danny came up with the notion to bring the water troughs that Mr. Lyons had built over close to our watering basins. With pipes, we were able to fill all of the small troughs from the larger ones in a very short time. At first, Mr. Lyons wanted me to pay for the troughs, but after I explained to him that I was willing to deliver the water he needed but he was responsible for getting his cows watered, he changed his tune. The new watering procedure worked well. One thing was certain, and that was that my foreman's thinking had saved me a lot of money on the improvements to the delivery system that I had planned on having to make in order to get all of the watering done.

I went down to see Miguelito after the new cattle had been down in the draw for a week. I brought four horses with me, all of them saddle broken and trained for cattle herding. I told him that I didn't ever want to see one of my horses being ridden Indian style, without a proper bridle and saddle. He showed me seven or eight young boys that he claimed knew how to work cattle. I think the oldest might have been fourteen years old. I would have said something, but I remembered that I had been pretty good with horses myself at that age. I told Miguelito to pick four boys and I'd take them out and see what they could do.

"Boy, you asked me to get you some hands that could take care of the herd. That's what I did. Give them the damn horses and go on back to your ranch. These boys know what they're doing." He was acting like I had insulted him or something. I was going to give him a small lesson in how a pecking order worked, when two boys broke from the pack and jumped up on two of the horses and lit out like scalded dogs. I was watching them heading off when I saw two more Indians jump on the last two horses and take off after the first two. The three remaining boys all looked at the four horses that had been taken, and you could see that they wished that they had been one of the ones who had taken them.

"You three come up to the ranch and get your own horses and tack. I'm damned if I'm going to keep ferrying them down to you. Miguelito, you're responsible for all them cows, my horses and all the equipment. Any losses or damages will come out of the reservation's share of the herd. Toby Janzen will be here later with hay and oats for the horses. Tell him where to leave it, and you make sure my horses get plenty of good water to drink, and get washed and brushed once in a while too." Miguelito had already turned away and was walking back to his shack before I was even half done with telling him what he needed to know. That's another thing about Indians, you can't tell them anything, because they all think they already know everything there is to know. I turned back to the three boys to finish giving them their instructions, but they were already walking fast towards the trail that leads up to my ranch. I wondered if I was making a big mistake trusting my horses to a bunch of boys that were still wet behind their ears.

I made it back to the ranch house about fifteen minutes before the three Indian boys. They must have run a good part of the way. There were three horses all saddled and outfitted for them by the time that they arrived. Danny Gomez was holding the reins and he said something to each of the boys before handing them over to them. They got on their mounts and started back the way they had just come from, and never stopped to say thanks to me, or even bothered to tell me their names. Well, it was all Miguelito's problem now, and I'd let him sort everything out down there. I went searching for my foreman.

"Danny, I'm heading down to the County seat on some business. You'll be in charge while I'm gone. There's two hundred dollars in gold and silver in the top dresser drawer if you need it for a trade or to pay out a hand or something. Is there anything you need from town?"

"You going down there to sniff around my sister?"

"You listen to me boy, I don't answer questions like that from my ranch hands. It happens that I've got family down there and that I'm in need of legal advice on a few things. If you had asked me nice to look Juana up to give her a message from you, I might have done it. Now, you can just wait for somebody else to take your damn messages for you."

"You stay away from her Mr. Gardner." I've always been somewhat shy of taking orders from others. Maybe it's because daddy used to always tell me what to do, instead of just asking me nice like. I bristled up some and then let go.

"I'll kick your dumb Indian ass if you ever speak to me in that tone of voice again, boy. You'll keep a respectful tone with me if you know what's good for you."

"You're more of an Indian than I am. And a big horse's ass too." I'm standing outside my main corral, on my own ranch, listening to someone that I'm paying, talking to me that way. No sir. I wasn't going to have any of that. I hit him as hard as I could and knocked him back against the building. He was a tough Indian though, and didn't lose his feet from that punch. Instead, he charged at me and the two of us wound up wrestling on the ground and rolling all around in horse piss and rocks and mud. It was undignified, and it was embarrassing.

The longer it took for me to whip him, the worse it was going to look to my other hands. I managed to throw him off of me and get back up on my feet. For the next ten minutes we managed to mix it up pretty good, but I was stronger, and he was a sucker for a sneak left hand. I finally managed to win it with a quick left and then a perfect right hand that managed to connect flush on his jaw. I left him laying there on the ground and climbed up on my horse and rode out. I figured that we'd find out soon enough whether he had the stomach to make a good foreman or not. If he was still at the ranch when I got back, then I'd know that he was a good one. I smelled of horse piss, and my face was cut some and sore, and my hands both hurt. If it hadn't been for the respect I'd lose from my hands, I'd have turned back and delayed my trip.

I got over to Uncle Charlie's before sun down, and had to let Aunt Persis fuss all over me about the damages that Danny had done. Uncle Charlie and I went out for a few drinks after dinner, but only after Aunt Persis had made sure that I was bathed and had changed into decent clothes. We went to the hotel bar and there was some question there about whether or not I was an Indian. After Uncle Charlie explained that I was his nephew, his late brother's son, any objection to serving me was dropped. There was some muttering at the bar though, and a few people left rather than stand at the bar and drink with an Indian. Uncle Charlie told me to pay it no mind, but I still simmered some from the way I was being treated.

"Tell me Jay, why did you come to town? It isn't like you to come down here so soon after the last time. Are you in some kind of trouble?" Uncle Charlie was a good man, and he worried about me all of the time.

"Uncle Charlie I have started up a small cattle business in a kind of partnership with the reservation Indians. I provide the cows and the horses to work them, and the reservation supplies the hands and the grazing. I have a pipe that supplies all of their water. Do I need to do anything special to protect myself?"

"How many head, and where did you get them?"

"Nineteen right now, and I'll be adding four more each week for the next year. Franklin Lyons and I came to an agreement over watering his herd."

"You entered into an agreement with the husband of the murdered woman?"

"He's having financial problems right now, and he didn't like his other choices at all. As for his late wife, I think he and I got all of that sorted out."

Did you sign a contract with him?"

"No, but it doesn't really matter because I can shut his water down if I need to."

"You should always get your agreements in writing Jay. If there is a later problem, or differing interpretations, you need something to refer back to, or you go to court to have the document interpreted for you."

"It takes time and money for all of that. Right now, his cattle have water and I've been paid. I'm more worried about my deal with the reservation. The horses I've lent them, they are still mine legally, right?"

"I'll draw up a contract for both agreements and I won't charge you anything. Whether the reservation Indians can sign legal contracts, that might be brought into question. We'll assume that they can for now. The horse ownership question is easier to answer. Unless you transferred ownership, they remain your property."

"You make up the contracts Uncle Charlie, and then tell me how much you'd charge anyone else, and I'll pay that amount too. I'm also looking to buy more good horses because I'm going to grow the herd and do more trading too. You'll see more of me too, because I've hired myself a foreman. He might be there now or he might not. It was him that I got into the fight with."

"I see a lot of my brother in you Jay. He was a visionary when he was younger, but he let all of his appetites get the best of him. Don't you make that same mistake." We finished off three or four beers each and then we drifted back over to his house and I slept in the floor pallet that Aunt Persis had made up for me.

The next day, I walked around town some, and even rode out to a ranch and looked over some horses. Mr. Thomkins, the ranch owner had known my daddy some, but I got the distinct impression that they hadn't been friends. My daddy wasn't that friendly of a man. The man did know of our ranch though, and I looked over his horses pretty good. There were only three that held my interest, and he wasn't willing to part with any of them for the price that I'd be willing to pay. I thanked him for showing me his horses though, and we parted on good terms. I got back to town and spent another hour hanging around the general store looking for anything I might need up at the ranch. I didn't see Juana during my time there, but I hadn't really been expecting to that much. I went over to Uncle Charlie's office to see if he had those contracts done yet.

"Jay, look these over and tell me if they accurately depict your understanding of the verbal agreements." He handed me two separate pages that were handwritten in small script. He once told me that a good lawyer could always write very small. It saved on paper, and kept the curious from prying into business that didn't concern them. It took me about an hour to get through them and, at the end, I wasn't that sure that I'd understood everything that he'd written. There were a lot of legal words and Latin words in the two pages, but it seemed to say everything I'd told him and quite a few other things as well.

"I guess you know what you're doing Uncle Charlie, but I'd need a lawyer to explain it all to me before I would sign it normally."

"Then I've done my job well Jay. I'm your lawyer, and I can assure you that there is nothing in either document that you need fear. I've written in a few obscure sentences that might help your case in the event that you wanted out from under the constraints of your agreements. I'm counting on your good sense to not make their use necessary."

"I'll see about getting these signed, and then I'll put them somewhere that's safe after. How much do I owe you?"

"Five dollars for my time, and sixty cents for my out of pocket expenses acting as your attorney." I handed him the money, even though I wondered about that sixty cents. I figured that thirty cents might be for the beers that we had the night before. I was just leaving when Uncle Charlie's door was opened and Juana walked through it. I almost didn't recognize her because she was in a town lady dress and her hair was done up so that it sat on top of her head and was held there somehow. She hadn't grown any taller, but that hair made it look like she had. I'd never seen her in a dress before, but she looked good in hers.

"Here's those copies you had me make Mr. Gardner. That comes to sixty cents please." She didn't say anything to me, so I returned the favor.

"Thank you Miss Gomez. This is my nephew, Jay Gardner. Jay, this is Juana Gomez, she does legal document preparation for me, and that was her fine hand that wrote out your contracts. She writes small and legibly doesn't she?"

"As small as she is, that's probably normal sized writing to her." I grinned over at her, proud of my quick wit. My Uncle passed over the sixty cents that I'd just handed over to him and put the other pages in my hand, keeping only the pages that he'd written out that she'd copied from.

"Thank you Mr. Gardner. Let me know if you need any more copying done. I'm sorry about your nephew, but I had a cousin once who was slow like him. I'm sure that he wasn't being rude to me on purpose." Juana turned around and left the office, never once having spoken directly to me. Uncle Charlie almost choked because he was laughing so hard.

"It sure is funny boy, you spending half your day looking all over town trying to catch a glimpse of that sweet little thing, and when you finally do get to see her, you don't even get her to say hello to you. You do remind me of your daddy boy, and it's a wonder that he ever got the chance to produce any offspring." I remembered then that my Uncle Charlie used to talk to my daddy like that too. He was the only one that my daddy let talk to him that way too. I was still a little flustered about seeing Juana and having her walk away so suddenly, so I didn't have a quick quip to fire back at my Uncle at the time. I was working on it though.