Pinto Lowery Read Online Free PDF Page B

yet before he could get back to sleep.
    â€œHard life, ridin’ de Llano alone,” Pinto remarked as a rare May chill bit into his back. He recalled the bantering of the Tubbs boys, Alice’s good-natured nagging, Muley’s fool stunts and addled thinking. There was comfort to hearing them climbing the loft on winter mornings. He missed Faye’s cooking, too.
    He didn’t miss the violent morning that had taken Muley Bryant’s young life. Nor did he yen for one of Elmer’s tongue-lashings.
    â€œOh, well,” Pinto muttered. “Life’s a trade. It’s jus’ a matter o’ swappin’ one thing fer another. Sometimes you do jus’ fine. Others you wind up with de short stick.”
    It was a philosophy of sorts. Pinto Lowery believed it with all his being.
    Come morning, Pinto set to work assembling a sample herd. He lined up ten of the fittest mares, together with one young stallion. As for himself, he planned to ride the big black. He felt a sort of kinship for the beast, and he hoped to give the animal a real test on the twenty-five-mile ride to the Lazy T. If the horses didn’t sell to Bob Toney, then Pinto would take them into the market town of Defiance.
    Actually, he wasn’t too worried. Soon the northern Texas herds would start north toward Kansas. Cowboys were always in woeful need of saddle mounts, and a Lowery pony brought top price.
    â€œYou others stay put,” Pinto said as he led his string of eleven through the gate and slid the rails back into place. Some men might have taken the lot. Pinto took what he could control. Then, too, why flood the market? The others would sell easily enough, but maybe not at top dollar. This way men hard up for a horse would bid an animal’s worth.
    He led his four-hoof procession out of the ravine and up to the banks of the river. Soon they were snaking their way eastward toward the Lazy T. Since most of the region’s ranches spread out north and south of the river, Pinto soon swung north to avoid crossing the land of men he didn’t know. It had been two years since he last rode that country, and a lot could happen in two days on the Texas frontier. Then, too, the river wound through the Palo Pinto Mountains in twists and turns that would vex a man in a hurry. Pinto didn’t much bother about timepieces or seasons, but it was a matter of some importance to visit buyers before they were all heading north to Kansas.
    He judged to have crossed into Wise County late that afternoon. The country didn’t much change, but the character of the dwellings did. Out Palo Pinto way the Indians had held back settlement considerably, and more than one town or ranch got itself depopulated when raiding season came around. But just as Pinto began to breathe a hair easier, he spotted a sea of eerie white bones just ahead.
    â€œBuffs,” he said, steadying his hold on the black. “Hunters done it, boy. Murdered a whole world of ’em here. Comanche kids gone hungry ’cause of it, I’d bet.”
    As if the mention of their name conjured them magically into being, three bare-chested youngsters with painted faces suddenly appeared on the far hillside.
    â€œNow dere’s luck!” Pinto muttered as he turned to the right toward a distant oak-studded hillside. “Isn’t that jus’ like it is, boy? Soon’s you got somethin’, ’nother comes along to take it away!”
    The young Indians noticed at once. They didn’t shout or charge, though. Instead they rode parallel, halting only when it appeared Pinto might make a stand on the hillside.
    â€œGet clear o’ here!” a rifle-toting farmer shouted when Pinto tried to find some shelter. “You’ll bring dem injuns down on us, sure’s day.”
    Pinto gazed at a wagon half-hidden in the trees. Seven youngsters peered out from behind furniture stacked in the wagon’s bed or from around wheels or horses.