The Cadence of Grass Read Online Free PDF Page B

were her extremely attentive eyes. She was afraid that if she moved she would make some sound and lose a word or two and that was just out of the question. She had long wished to know about all the disappeared horses of the surrounding hills.
    “Robert’s horses were quick, and the only safe place around them was on their backs. They was quiet in a herd of cattle and had the lightest noses in the West. It always looked like he’d put high-volt lights in their eyes. Robert showed them all the little connections between what he asked them to do and their jobs, and it was so pretty the way they’d look for a cow. O. C. Drury hauled cattle as a sideline, and he hated to haul Robert’s calves. Invariably, he’d arrive in the ranch yard mid-October and Robert would start whining, ‘O. C., anyone can see I’m so shorthanded just now. You want to catch up old bay and help me bring these cattle in? We’ll sort ’em off right here and now and call this year done.’ O. C. didn’t want to do it, in fact his blood ran cold. But he
had
to. So, he’d climb up on old bay or old sorrelly who’d know right then and there this wasn’t Robert Wood: one false move and the wreck was on.
    “Back to Mother’s Day, I let Robert sleep through the night and by the time I woke, just before sunup, I could smell his fire and coffee. Then in a bit I heard Leo’s voice and knew the two of them throwed in and was layin’ a plan. I made something decent for the three of us, mostly just to buy some time in the hopes Robert would quit this idea to bring his broncs off the bench with just me, him and Leo, a small fellow out of Sonora who listened to this kinda like polka music when he was homesick. Hair fell in his face in bangs, hard, square hands, and no sense of humor. Couldn’t read nor write but he had a perfect memory. If you lost something, could be a week ago, he’d walk straight to where you put it down.
    “Robert Wood was just an old puncher who’d outlived his day. Thought the Old West could be brought back if they’d just quit dammin’ up water to make alfalfa. He hated alfalfa and would go a long way out of his way to keep from seein’ it. I suppose he was seventy-five years old ’cause I seen in the papers when he died about ten years ago he’d made ninety or better. Wore a Stetson right out of the box, no crease, no nothin’. He wouldn’t wear a straw hat in the summer, said it was a farmer’s hat.
    “Robert said, ‘Here is the deal. We’ll go up the switchback together to the bench and when we get there I’ll ride around and see if I can’t stop them.’ The right place to get their attention was that big earthquake fault, you know, where we seen that lynx last summer, which no man could cross with a horse. That slope beyond it could’ve been a good escape route for those mares. ‘And
hide
in the brush and don’t show even the end of your nose else they’ll see it. Then you two get around them mares and start ’em home. I’ll make sure they come back down the trail. When they get down to the flat
somebody
will have to get outside these horses and thataway turn ’em into your corrals. I hope you don’t mind me borrowin’ your corrals.’
    “Ev, you’ve seen that crack in the ground. It’s a long way to the bottom. I really doubted Robert would turn those horses there. Wild horses and canners like these just as soon jump it and break their necks, whereas a horse and rider would never do such a thing. I guessed it would end there and we’d turn ’em down off the bench and lock ’em up at the neighbors.
Then
we’d have time to get a proper crew together.”
    Evelyn started to speak, but thought better of it.
    “When the horses got out on the flat, somebody’d have to ride out around that wild band, outrun them on broken ground, turn them into the corrals. And I wondered how all of this might look to Robert, who kind of despised our horsemanship. I mean Robert Wood worked for the Hash Knife, the N