Читать книгу Rattler - Barry Andrew Chambers - Страница 10

Taking a woman to the opera didn’t sound too dangerous, but not finding the right horse can be. I suppose I’d better explain.

As a school teacher, I owned a nag named Shelley. When I went to work for The Service, I gave Shelley to Spider Lee Templeton, a fourteen-year-old who won our annual spelling bee. Spider looked at the old girl with the battered saddle and asked me if she was the prize for winning the spelling bee. I said yes. His eyes glistened.

“I’ve always wanted a horse like her,” said Spider. “Maybe arithmetic should be my next subject to conquer.” I was perplexed by his statement. He saw that I was confused and added, “I expect to get a rickety, old wagon to go with Shelley when I win the arithmetic contest.”

In The Service, I rode buckboards, stage coaches, trains, and boats. I even rented a horse now and then. On the job where I jumped off the cliff and broke my leg, I decided I needed a horse of my own.

A week before leaving for Clearview, I stopped off at the Dodge City Livery. I was already in my character as a school teacher. Mr. Cavez, who ran the stable, showed me some handsome mounts.

“I don’t have a lot to spend, being a teacher and all.” This was true. I played my role to the hilt.

Mr. Cavez scratched his chin. “I believe I have what you’re looking for young fella. Follow me.”

He took me in back where there was a horse tethered to a hitching post. It was not a large horse…sort of overweight. Short and stumpy. She was red with a black mane and black tail.

“There she is. Her name is Pandora.”

“Pandora,” I muttered.

The horse looked up as if she’d heard me. Then, the strangest thing happened. She grinned at me. At least it looked like she grinned.

“She was with the circus,” said Cavez. “Trick horse or something.”

“Why is she here?”

“The circus gave her to me when they came through town.”

“Gave her to you? What’s wrong with her?”

“They told me she wouldn’t jump off a diving board into a tank of water.”

Smart horse, I thought.

Mr. Cavez unhitched her as he spoke. “They gave another horse the job—told me Pandora was worthless when it came to diving off high places. I tried her as a plow horse, but that didn’t work. She wouldn’t pull a plow or haul rocks.”

He gave me a sly look as he patted her flank. “She’s a gentle ride though. You can have her for twenty dollars.”

The deal was too good. “Why should I pay you twenty dollars if you got her for free?”

“The saddle that comes with her is worth twenty dollars.”

Pandora spied a carton of empty milk bottles. She put her mouth on one and pulled it out of the box. Then she tossed her head back, sending the milk bottle flying through the air. It shattered on a discarded anvil about twenty feet away. There were more broken bottles lying at the base of the anvil, previous victims of Pandora. She sure had good aim.

“Is that one of her tricks?” I asked.

“No,” Cavez said darkly. “I’ll let you have her for ten dollars.”

Pandora looked back over her shoulder at me and gave that smile. Cavez was sweating. “Okay, I’ll let her go for five dollars. Five dollars! You can’t turn that down.”

I could turn it down, but something told me that Pandora was the horse for me. Besides, five dollars for a twenty dollar saddle wasn’t something to sniff at. I stuck my hand out. “Deal.”

Cavez pumped my hand enthusiastically. I think I saw a tear of gratitude form at the corner of his right eye. “Gracias. Mucho gracias sir.”

I took Pandora out for our first ride. There was a grassy area outside of Dodge City that was relatively flat. I gave her a light slap on the rump and she cantered along a wooden fence that outlined the meadow.

“Okay Pandora, let’s go.”

At my command, I was genuinely surprised when she went into a gentle, steady lope. We passed the fence and were in the open field. I reached back and popped her on the rump once more. “Come on girl, show me your stuff!”

She stayed at the gentle lope.

I slapped her rump harder. “Let’s go Pandora!”

The gentle lope turned into a faster lope.

This was it? I hit her as hard as I could. “Come on Pandora! Pour it on! Yeeha!”

She looked back at me with annoyance, but attempted to pick up her speed. Her pace quickened, her head bobbed and I noticed she had churned up pieces of turf in her wake.

As I told you, I wasn’t a quick draw, but I could pull a gun a lot faster than this horse could run. I began to think she was doing it on purpose.

“Okay, whoa, whoa girl.” Since she wasn’t going that fast, she went from clippity-clop to clip-clop in two strides.

I turned her around and we went back to town. I bought my first pair of spurs. This horse thing was becoming expensive, but I was determined.

We headed back to the meadow area. Pandora was prancing in a small circle like she was in the center ring. I leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Okay Pandora. Show me what you’ve got.”

I whipped those spurs into her with a brisk kick. At once, we were at that familiar, easy gallop. That wouldn’t do. With all of my leg strength, I dug those spurs in hard. “Go! Go! Go!”

She sped up a little, then abruptly stopped. I went flying, head over heels and landed on my back.

“Oof!” I lay there, stunned. Then, I felt a wet, slippery tongue in my ear. “Hey!” I rolled away from Pandora, feeling a soreness in my ribs.

She followed, and gently nudged me on the back of the neck.

“Okay, okay, I’m all right.” I got up. Pandora put her nose lightly on my chest.

“I guess you’re not a speed demon.”

She shook her head.

“I guess you didn’t like the spurs.

She shook her head once more. “I guess you have other talents.”

Pandora whinnied softly and used her head to push me to her side. I took off the spurs and tossed them on the ground. I mounted Pandora and stroked her mane. “Let’s go home, girl.”

During that week, I got to know Pandora and she got to know me. We had an uneasy relationship, but I liked her and she liked me. I hoped.

I stopped in Andre’s Hats For Men to accumulate my “teacher disguise”.

“I should get a straw hat,” I told Pandora as I looped her reins around a hitching post. “What do you think about a straw hat?”

She looked at me with no emotion. I shrugged. “I’ll get a real dandy with a red band.”

In the hat shop, there was a large assortment of western wear. As a school teacher, I’d worn black pants with a white or grey shirt. Most of the time I wore a bow tie with a black coat. Margie Furman, who was a whiz at geography and science, had told me that I looked like a funeral director.

For my undercover look, I wanted to appear light, non-threatening. That meant light grey or tan pants, a pale pink or blue pastel shirt, and a bleached white straw hat. A red stringed bolero tie would complete the outfit.

I plucked a little number with a red band off the straw hat rack. I put it on my head at a cocky angle and checked it in the mirror. I looked like a carnival barker or worse, a dealer in a casino.

“Hey! Get out of here you!”

I turned and saw the shopkeeper. He was a bald, slightly built man with a sunken-in chest. His voice squeaked when he yelled. “That’s right, I mean you!”

Then I saw who he was yelling at. Pandora’s head was sticking inside the doorway. The clerk took a brown Stetson off the hat tree and waved it at her. “Shoo! Shoo!”

I ran over and grabbed the reins. “I’m sorry sir, she’s…she’s uh…” I looked into Pandora’s eyes. They were sparkling. “She likes hats.” I led her out and lashed her back to the hitching post. “How did you get loose?” I looked down the street to see if any truant schoolboys were lurking behind a rain barrel trying to hold in their mirth. It was obviously some schoolboy trick.

After returning to the shop and purchasing my outfit, I rode over to the house where I rented a room. I put on the teacher clothes and looked in the mirror. “Now that’s what a real school teacher looks like,” I told my reflection. I tilted the straw hat to the side. Yep, that was the look I was going for.

Not far from the center of town was a German beer garden. Mr. Stienhaus from Chicago ran a successful establishment. He’d started others in Indiana and southern Illinois, but this was the first one in Kansas. People liked to sit outside at long tables and feast on thick bratwurst sandwiches and cold beer.

I wound Pandora’s rein an extra time around the hitching post and walked into the front of the beer garden to place my order. After a few minutes, I took my food on a tray to the back where a man pumped a hand organ to entertain the open air-diners. Near the hedge was a long table where two cowboys and a banker sat, exchanging dirty stories. I took the end spot and tried to look like a school teacher. It never occurred to me to just be myself. After all, I had actually been a teacher. I took out a copy of Les Miserables and read as I ate.

As I took a big bite of bratwurst, my straw hat blew off—but the air was as still as pond water. The cowboys and banker laughed. A little girl eating with her parents laughed and pointed at me.

I turned and saw Pandora on the other side of the hedge. She had my straw hat in her mouth and backed away.

“Hey! Come back! How did you get loose?!”

She started to canter off. There was an opening in the hedge and I shot through it. I caught the slow loping Pandora by the reins. “Give me that hat!”

She nickered and turned away.

I grabbed the brim, but she held it tight in her teeth. “Let go! Give it to me Pandora!” I pulled. The straw stretched and the hat went from round to oblong. I let go and it sprang back into shape. “Okay! Fine! Keep it!” I yelled.

I started to walk away. As I did so, a shadow followed. I felt the hat drop onto my head. “Well that’s more like it.”

Rather than return to the beer garden, I decided to go to a saloon. I lashed Pandora to the hitching post and went inside. I ordered a beer, sat at a table, and watched her. For a full two minutes, she didn’t move. Then she drew her face close to the reins around the post. Her head bobbed. She moved away from the post with the leather in her mouth. She flipped the reins in a reverse order from how they were wound.

“Impossible,” I whispered.

She moved back to the post, ducking under it and catching the reins with her teeth. It looked like she was blowing with her mouth as the reins flipped back up over the post, toward her. After repeating these actions three more times, she was loose.

“Impossible,” I said once more. Then, I laughed. I laughed so hard, people began staring at me. “Impossible!” I yelled, laughing and slapping the table.

After that, I was asked to leave.

I took a circuitous route to Clearview. My plan was to approach the area as if I were coming from Colorado. It would be on the edge of Comanche territory, but I wanted no witness seeing me approach the town from the east. My story was that I was from Tenbone, Colorado and it had to look true.

About thirty miles out, I camped in a clearing amid gently rolling hills. I shared some beef jerky with Pandora who proved to have a taste that ranged from old leather to sweet potato pie. She was acting a little edgy that night as I lay by the fire. She neighed quietly.

“What?”

She neighed and nodded.

“No. I don’t feel like singing. I sang for you last night.”

Pandora turned her head to the right. I followed her gaze to a thick, dark, pine tree.

“What is it you want?”

She pranced over to the tree and gave a hop. Both her front hooves landed on the trunk. She was standing on her hind legs. It was such a strange sight, I almost rolled into the fire, laughing. Then she took one hind leg and shook it. She put it down and shook the other hind leg.

“What in blazes are you doing?”

She pushed away from the tree and landed on all fours, then reared up on her hind legs. That smile was on her face again. So I clapped for her.

“Good girl! Good trick, Pandora.” On the word “trick”, she stood still, looking at me soberly. Then she keeled over.

“Pandora!” I crept up to her and patted her shoulder. “Pandora? Are you okay?”

She jumped up and pranced around the campfire, neighing. No, not neighing. She was laughing.

I clapped some more.

Before I knew it, she trotted over to my stuff, grabbed the saddle by the horn and flipped it over her head. It landed square on her back.

I stood there in the glow of the fire, my mouth agape. “You want to go for a ride?”

She nodded.

I secured the saddle and mounted her. “Let’s go girl.”

She pranced around the fire at a leisurely pace. Then, with one front leg forward and the other bending, she bowed to some unseen monarch.

“Good girl.” I dismounted and stood there looking at her with awe. Just how many tricks did she have? “Can you count?” I asked. “How many is four?”

I was really expecting her to toe the ground and give it four strokes. Instead, she just stared at me.

“Four. How many is four, Pandora?”

She shook her head.

“What, you don’t know how to add?”

She pranced back over to the pine tree with a jaunty gait. She picked up a pine cone with her teeth and faced me. Then she jutted her head up, letting go of the pine cone. It flew right at me. I lost it in the dark and the pine cone struck me in the chest. She nodded, smiling.

“You want me to throw it back?”

She whinnied. I lobbed the pine cone underhanded. It flew to her right. She stepped into the throw and caught the pine cone in her mouth.

“Incredible,” I whispered.

We played catch for a few moments, then she lowered her head.

“Are you tired girl?”

She slowly waddled over to the fire and peered into the flames.

For some crazy reason, I thought that maybe she had psychic powers. Maybe staring into the fire, she could tell the future. She stood there for a long time.

“What is it girl? Do you see the future? Do you see happy days and fields of grass?” I was babbling, but at least I was babbling out in the middle of nowhere with just a horse as a witness. “Do you see the future girl?”

She turned her head, looking at me. Did I see wet in her eyes? Do horses have tear ducts? Then she did a strange thing. That is, if you could say the other things she had done were normal. She walked over to me and put her head next to mine. And she stood there, touching me. And for a brief moment, I felt touched.

The next day, Pandora, the wonder horse, and I broke camp and headed toward Clearview. With luck, we’d be there in the early morning hours of the next day. I was singing a bawdy sailor’s song to entertain Pandora when I caught a glimpse of white on a hill top. The lyrics, “She sailed the ocean blue with sailors two by two” stuck in my throat when I recognized the white as war feathers of the Comanche.

There were seven of them. All braves. Without making a big move, I bucked my legs, spurring Pandora into a solemn canter. The Comanche’s were to my left, about a quarter mile away, and moving toward me. A flat prairie lay ahead, dotted with sagebrush.

“Come on girl. You’re going to have to run like you never ran before! Eeyaa!”

I kicked her and Pandora went into that slow, familiar gallop.

“Come on! Come on girl! Go!”

I kicked her again. She didn’t speed up. I looked back and saw The Comanche’s headed my way.

“Pandora! Eeyaa!”

With mounting hope, the wind picked up. She was running a tad bit faster. The Comanche’s were whooping. It was a chilling sound, mixed with anger, triumph, and blood lust.

“Pandora! Please!”

She looked back. Her eyes were wide with fear. Good! Maybe she would speed up.

“Yow! Yow! Yow!” came the cries behind me.

Pandora did not speed up. I think she was running as fast as her fat little legs would carry her. I didn’t look back. I kept looking at the wide, endless expanse in front of me. No cover. I was a dead man.

“Yow! Yow! Yow!”

They were probably fifty feet behind me. I tensed, waiting for the deadly arrow or spear to pierce my back. Pandora whinnied in panic. Without my command, she started to zigzag in a defensive strategy.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a Comanche brave. The whooping sounded horrendous as they pulled up beside me. There were two on each side of me. Gathering my courage, I looked into the face of a young brave.

Then the whooping turned to laughter. They were laughing! They were laughing at Pandora, slowest horse in the west.

One of the braves beside me pointed and continued laughing. He shouted something in Comanche to the others and another laughed so hard, he fell off his horse. I glanced back and saw him rolling in the dust, still laughing.

After about half a mile, the Comanches broke off and let me gallop slowly away from them. Pandora, not realizing they had stopped their pursuit, was still zigzagging through the sage. I looked back and saw all of them sitting on their horses, coughing and laughing uncontrollably.

“Okay Pandora, it’s okay. It’s okay girl.”

I stroked her mane and she stopped her zigzagging. After two more miles, I checked to see if the Comanche’s had followed us. I saw no telltale dust. We were apparently out of danger.