The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains by Owen Wister (beach read book txt) 📗

“Give you thirty dollars,” repeated Balaam, picking a stone up and slinging it into the river.

“How far do yu' call it to Drybone?” Shorty remarked, stooping to investigate the bucking-strap on his saddle—a superfluous performance, for Pedro never bucked.

“You won't have to walk,” said Balaam. “Stay all night, and I'll send you over comfortably in the morning, when the wagon goes for the mail.”

“Walk?” Shorty retorted. “Drybone's twenty-five miles. Pedro'll put me there in three hours and not know he done it.” He lifted the saddle on the horse's back. “Come, Pedro,” said he.

“Come, Pedro!” mocked Balaam.

There followed a little silence.

“No, sir,” mumbled Shorty, with his head under Pedro's belly, busily cinching. “A hundred dollars is bottom figures.”

Balaam, in his turn, now duly performed some professional laughing, which was noted by Shorty under the horse's belly. He stood up and squared round on Balaam. “Well, then,” he said, “what'll yu give for him?”

“Thirty dollars,” said Balaam, looking far off into the sky, as Shorty had looked.

“Oh, come, now,” expostulated Shorty.

It was he who now did the feeling for an offer and this was what Balaam liked to see. “Why yes,” he said, “thirty,” and looked surprised that he should have to mention the sum so often.

“I thought yu'd quit them first figures,” said the cow-puncher, “for yu' can see I ain't goin' to look at em.”

Balaam climbed on the fence and sat there “I'm not crying for your Pedro,” he observed dispassionately. “Only it struck me you were dead broke, and wanted to raise cash and keep yourself going till you hunted up a job and could buy him back.” He hooked his right thumb inside his waistcoat pocket. “But I'm not cryin' for him,” he repeated. “He'd stay right here, of course. I wouldn't part with him. Why does he stand that way? Hello!” Balaam suddenly straightened himself, like a man who has made a discovery.

“Hello, what?” said Shorty, on the defensive.

Balaam was staring at Pedro with a judicial frown. Then he stuck out a finger at the horse, keeping the thumb hooked in his pocket. So meagre a gesture was felt by the ruffled Shorty to be no just way to point at Pedro. “What's the matter with that foreleg there?” said Balaam.

“Which? Nothin's the matter with it!” snapped Shorty.

Balaam climbed down from his fence and came over with elaborate deliberation. He passed his hand up and down the off foreleg. Then he spit slenderly. “Mm!” he said thoughtfully; and added, with a shade of sadness, “that's always to be expected when they're worked too young.”

Shorty slid his hand slowly over the disputed leg. “What's to be expected?” he inquired—“that they'll eat hearty? Well, he does.”

At this retort the Virginian permitted himself to laugh in audible sympathy.

“Sprung,” continued Balaam, with a sigh. “Whirling round short when his bones were soft did that. Yes.”

“Sprung!” Shorty said, with a bark of indignation. “Come on, Pede; you and me'll spring for town.”

He caught the horn of the saddle, and as he swung into place the horse rushed away with him. “O-ee! yoi-yup, yup, yup!” sang Shorty, in the shrill cow dialect. He made Pedro play an exhibition game of speed, bringing him round close to Balaam in a wide circle, and then he vanished in dust down the left-bank trail.

Balaam looked after him and laughed harshly. He had seen trout dash about like that when the hook in their jaw first surprised them. He knew Shorty would show the pony off, and he knew Shorty's love for Pedro was not equal to his need of money. He called to one of his men, asked something about the dam at the mouth of the canyon, where the main irrigation ditch began, made a remark about the prolonged drought, and then walked to his dining-room door, where, as he expected, Shorty met him.

“Say,” said the youth, “do you consider that's any way to talk about a good horse?”

“Any dude could see the leg's sprung,” said Balaam. But he looked at Pedro's shoulder, which was well laid back; and he admired his points, dark in contrast with the buckskin, and also the width between the eyes.

“Now you know,” whined Shorty, “that it ain't sprung any more than your leg's cork. If you mean the right leg ain't plumb straight, I can tell you he was born so. That don't make no difference, for it ain't weak. Try him onced. Just as sound and strong as iron. Never stumbles. And he don't never go to jumpin' with yu'. He's kind and he's smart.” And the master petted his pony, who lifted a hoof for another handshake.

Of course Balaam had never thought the leg was sprung, and he now took on an unprejudiced air of wanting to believe Shorty's statements if he only could.

“Maybe there's two years' work left in that leg,” he now observed.

“Better give your hawss away, Shorty,” said the Virginian.

“Is this your deal, my friend?” inquired Balaam. And he slanted his bullet head at the Virginian.

“Give him away, Shorty,” drawled the Southerner. “His laig is busted. Mr. Balaam says so.”

Balaam's face grew evil with baffled fury. But the Virginian was gravely considering Pedro. He, too, was not pleased. But he could not interfere. Already he had overstepped the code in these matters. He would have dearly liked—for reasons good and bad, spite and mercy mingled—to have spoiled Balaam's market, to have offered a reasonable or even an unreasonable price for Pedro, and taken possession of the horse himself. But this might not be. In bets, in card games, in all horse transactions and other matters of similar business, a man must take care of himself, and wiser onlookers must suppress their wisdom and hold their peace.

That evening Shorty again had a cigar. He had parted with Pedro for forty dollars, a striped Mexican blanket, and a pair of spurs. Undressing over in the bunk house, he said to the Virginian, “I'll sure buy Pedro back off him just as soon as ever I rustle some cash.” The Virginian grunted. He was thinking he should have to travel hard to get the horses to the Judge by the 30th; and below that thought lay his aching disappointment and his longing for Bear Creek.

In the early dawn Shorty sat up among his blankets on the floor of the bunk house and saw the various sleepers coiled or sprawled in their beds; their breathing had not yet grown restless at the nearing of day. He stepped to the door carefully, and saw the crowding blackbirds begin their walk and chatter in the mud of the littered and trodden corrals. From beyond among the cottonwoods, came continually the smooth unemphatic sound of the doves answering each other invisibly; and against the empty ridge of the river-bluff lay the moon, no longer shining, for there was established