Authors: G. Clifton Wisler
“Won't hold it against me, my stayin' on?”
“Couldn't ever do that,” Rat said, shaking his head at Mitch's easy smile. “You ain't no cowboy, Mitch. Never'll make a livin' ropin' steers or roundin' up strays. Me, I'm out o' place in a town. Guess I belong with the horses.”
“Don't sell yourself short.”
“That's for other folks to do,” Rat replied. “Me, I don't fool myself either way. Ain't much to look on, and a runt to boot, but I'll work hard for the man that pays me. And I remember my friends.”
“Am I one o' them?”
“Top o' the list, Mitch. You saved my life. Be a hard thing to forget.”
“Good thing to know, that,” Mitch said, sighing. “A body has needs o' friends.”
On his way back to Texas Rat Hadley learned the truth of those words. Crossing the wild Cimarron country he was shot at two times and chased a third. It was a fine game, separating Texas cowboys from their earnings, and many a desperado tried his hand at it. Rat quickly regretted hanging around Dodge City so long. How much better it would have been to return with Payne Oakley and Orville Hanks!
As it turned out Rat felt safest riding among the Indian camps and reservations farther south. Once, among the Caddos, he was treated to fresh trout and corn bread. The Choctaws fed him, too, but for a price. They, after all, were Americanized.
Once across the Red River, nothing short of a full-blown cyclone could keep him from Thayerville. He rode forty miles some days, and he forded rivers with less concern than a man stepped across a mud puddle. When he got to the Brazos, he paused beside the white oak and washed the dust and weariness from himself and his clothes. He walked past old Boswell's grave, but wind or vandals had carried off the board, and time had evened out the ground so you couldn't tell anybody had ever been buried there.
“Well, time passes,” Rat whispered to the wind. “Nobody lasts for long alive, so I guess you cain't expect to do better dead.”
He rode into Thayerville early the next morning. All the way from Kansas he'd been rehearsing the words he'd share with Mary Morris. But when he stepped inside the mercantile, he was unprepared for what he found. Sitting behind the counter was a pleasant-faced boy of fifteen or so, and a second youngster maybe a year younger restocked shelves.
“Mornin',” the stock boy called as Rat stared at the
counter-his
counter. “What can I get you, mister?”
“I'm Rat Hadley,” the newcomer explained.
“Josh Morris,” the youngest boy answered, offering his hand. “Yonder's my brother Jeremiah. We just come out from Tyler to help our aunt.”
“Miz Morris handy?” Rat asked.
“I'll fetch her,” Josh said, hurrying toward the storeroom. Moments later he reappeared with Mary Morris.
“Mornin', ma'am,” Rat said.
“Lord be praised,” Mrs. Morris cried, rushing over and wrapping Rat up in her arms. She kissed and hugged and close to squeezed him silly. Finally she let go and asked about Mitch.
“He stayed in Dodge City,” Rat explained, handing her Mitch's letter.
“Doing what?” Mrs. Morris asked.
“Well, he found himself a job o' sorts,” Rat said, praying he wouldn't give out too much of the truth. Mary Morris deemed cards the devil's own tools, and she condemned them mightily.
“Well, he's of an age to find distractions,” she muttered. “Knew it when you left. If a boy sees too much of the country, he's never content around home. I wrote my sister-in-law, and she sent her two eldest up to help with the store.”
“For the summer?” Rat asked.
“No, they'll stay on till they finish their schooling. Unless they run off on some fool cattle drive.”
“Angry with me 'bout that, ma'am?”
“No, I couldn't get very angry at you, Rat,” she confessed. “And the range has done you good. You've grown, and your color's better. Knowing your father, I don't suppose settled life ever would take with you.”
“Probably not,” he agreed. “Still, I thought maybe you might could use me at the store a bit.”
“Lord, Rat, I've brought the boys down to tend counter. Gave them the upstairs room, too. I thought now you were working for Mr. Hanks you wouldn't want to come back.”
“Well, I can't blame you for it ma'am. Guess I should've spoken with you. Mr. Hanks, he's got his regular crew, you see. He might could put me on just the same.”
“I'm certain he will. Mitch says you outride any other man in the county. If tending cows is what you want to do with your life, it's best you got along with it.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
And so, after sharing a bite of lunch with the Morrises and spinning tales of the cattle drive, Rat remounted his horse and headed out to visit the county's ranches. He met with poor results.
“Glad you made it home, son,” Mr. Hanks said, “but you know I've got a full crew.”
“I thought maybe since Payne's arm ⦠“
“It's healed just fine, Rat. I might need a man this winter, but for now I've nothin'. I didn't get my price in Dodge, you know. 'ftuth is I'm lettin' men go, not takin' any on.”
“Yessir,” Rat said, nodding sadly as he turned to go.
It was much the same up and down the Brazos. Falling prices meant tightening belts. People would feed him in return for a bit of wood chopping, and a woman paid him to mend a fence and repair her pump. Down on the Colorado he helped raise a barn, and in Wood City the town doctor kept Rat busy painting a house.
Rat was at it day and night for two weeks, slapping whitewash on the bare planks as the fiery August sun blazed down on his bare shoulders. The doctor's daughter often watched from the porch and sometimes brought Rat a ladle of spring water.
“Thanks, miss,” Rat always replied.
“You're quite welcome, Rat,” she answered, smiling shyly. “Do you mind my asking how a pleasant boy like yourself could come across such a name?”
“Well, it ain't my name really,” Rat confessed. “Comes o' my given name, Erastus. I never took to it really, but people went on callin' me that, and I couldn't fight all o' them. So I give up and took it on.”
“I like Erastus better. It's interesting. Sounds a bit like a banker, or maybe a preacher.”
“Wouldn't do for me then,” Rat said, laughing. “That'd be one shot fell wide o' the mark.”
“I'm called Amanda,” she explained. “What do you think of that for a name?”
“Suits you well enough, miss. It's a pretty name, kind o' like a flower. Yeah, it suits you.”
She blushed as he returned the ladle. Then he resumed his work, leaving her to watch from afar.
She brought water quite often thereafter, and twice they watched the sunset as he cleaned his brushes.
“Erastus, do you mind me asking a question?” she asked as twilight settled in around them.
“No, Miss Amanda,” he told her. “May not be able to answer you, but I'll give her a try.”
“It's about those marks on your back,” she explained. “Thin scars. I've only seen their kind once in my life. We had a Negro working for us. He'd been horsewhipped while a slave down in Louisiana.”
“I don't much like to talk 'bout 'em,” Rat mumbled.
“You were whipped, weren't you? As a child.”
“Was no child,” Rat argued. “Fourteen. Just after my pa passed on, I went to work for a fellow. He was rough with his own boys, and he beat the all o' us regular. Nigh kilt me. Lord was lookin' out for me, I guess. Sheriff rode down and took me away.”
“You've had some hard days, haven't you?” she asked, placing her hands on his sweat-streaked shoulders. “It's all written on your face. I wince at the sight of you slaving away in the bright sun, melting away before my eyes. It hurts to see you suffer.”
“Oh, I'm used to the heat, miss,” Rat said, grinning. “Don't you worry over that.”
“I do worry,” she insisted, slipping her hands behind his head and pressing herself against him. Bewildered, Rat gazed into her eyes. They were filling up with tears.
“Ma'am, I best go,” he said, wriggling free. “I don't think yerpa'd ⦠“
“Little late to be thinking of that!” the doctor shouted, rushing to his daughter's side and jerking her away from Rat. “Are you crazed or just plain stupid, boy?”
“Don't know I'm either,” Rat barked in reply. “Miss Amanda asked if she could watch the sun go down with me, and I didn't see as how I could say no. I don't own the sun, nor the land under my feet, neither one.”
“Don't you fence words with me, young man. Look at you! Standing there half naked, making indecent advances on my daughter!”
“Sir, I done nothin' o' the kind,” Rat objected. “I only been pain tin' yer house.”
“Well, you'll do no more painting here, nor elsewhere in Wood City after I pass word of your attack on my daughter. It may well be you'll feel the bite of a rope before morning.”
“Sir, I never ⦠“
“We'll settle with him, Pa,” a fresh voice called. Before Rat quite knew what was happening, a slender man in his early twenties appeared, accompanied by two boys in their late teens. One tossed a loop over Rat's shoulders, and the others quickly saw to it the painter was bound securely. Then they started on him.
“Papa, no!” Amanda pleaded. “He didn't do anything. I just spoke with him a few times. That's all.”
The doctor urged his sons on. Boots followed fists, and Rat dropped to his knees, a shuddering bundle of bruises and pain.
“Lowlife!” they called him. “Gutter trash!”
“Now listen to me!” the doctor said, grabbing Rat by his forelock and lifting his head. “What do you have to say for yourself now?”
“Nothin',” Rat said through a mouthful of blood. “I done nothin'.”
“Shall I give you back to the boys?”
“Do what you want,” Rat growled. “I done you no harm. If you want to beat me, go ahead. I been beat worse'n you could manage.”
“Don't be so sure about that,” one of the brothers cried.
Rat only laughed and waited for another blow. He was tired, his ribs ached, and he didn't care anymore. He thought back to that outlaw boy shot on the Cimarron and wondered who'd been the lucky one that day.
“I don't ever want to see your face in Wood City again,” the doctor declared, glaring at Rat's swollen face. “Understand?”
“Understand?” Rat asked. “Not a bit o' it. You hire me to do a job o' work, and 'cause yer daughter brings me a dipper o' water or looks at the sun go down, you figure you got the right to beat me silly. Nobody's got that right!”
“Listen to me, trash,” the doctor roared. “I might hire a Negro or a Mexican to paint my house, but I wouldn't have either one of them to Sunday supper. Nor tolerate them touching my daughter!”
“Git!” the oldest brother yelled as he pried the ropes from Rat's battered chest. “Don't ever come back, either.”
“I'm due wages,” Rat complained as he struggled to his feet. One side was turning deep purple, and he thought it likely a rib or two was busted.
“You're due a hangman's noose if I see you here in one hour,” the doctor vowed. “Get his horse, Benjamin. Tie him on if you have to, but get him from my sight.”
“Sure, Pa,” the youngest boy agreed.
“I'll get my own horse,” Rat muttered, grabbing a tin of paint and hurling it at the doctor. “The Lord knows yer work this night. I hope to hell he calls you to 'counts.”
With that spoken, Rat stumbled to where his horse was tied. He slipped a shirt onto his back and pulled himself into the saddle. He was half of a mind to dig the old Colt Bob Tripp had given him at the Cimarron from the saddlebag and avenge himself on that doctor. But that would only get him hung, and Rat Hadley wasn't ready to die just yet. No, there were things he hadn't done.
He slapped the horse into motion, and the mustang carried him from Wood City and along the Colorado two or three miles. He didn't recall how exactly because his eyes were closed most of that time, and pain enveloped memory. He came to in a narrow barred cell in the jail house of a town called Rosstown. A frowning sheriff met his awakening gaze.
“Just who exactly would you be?” the lawman asked. “You must've done somethin' fine to take such a beatin'. Well?”
Rat stared at his bandaged ribs and tried to manage a reply. Finally he related his tale of the Wood City doctor and of the hard times since leaving Kansas.
“Yeah, the cattle market's gone south for certain,” the sheriff agreed. “Didn't figure you was any desperado. No poster with your likeness, and who goes look in' for trouble with an empty pistol in his saddlebag.”
“Never did get me any bullets,” Rat said, chuckling.
“Ain't too bright, are you, boy?”
“Don't seem so,” Rat confessed. “I been to a school to learn readin' and writin', and I know how to ride and tend cows. But I got no knack with people at all. Far as human critters go, I'm dumber'n spit.”
“Well, many a man could say that,” the sheriff declared as he unlocked the cell. “Don't know a man can get himself locked up on account o' it, though. Best take it easy on them ribs awhile. One's cracked, I'm guessin'.”
“I free to go?” Rat asked.
“Long as you stay out o' trouble. Got a home, boy?”
“Not to speak of,” Rat confessed.
“Where you come from?”
“All over. Nowhere. Guess you'd say Thayerville. I lived there a time.”
“Then my advice'd be to go back. Folks what know you'll give you a better chance. A boy like you rangin' about's certain to find bad fortune.”
“It's 'bout all the fortune I ever come by.”
“Well, things can change, youngster. Seen it before. Your horse is over to the livery. Tell Hi Garner I told him the oats and water's on the county.”