Quietly, Bo said, “Sorry I lost this job for us, partner. I just couldn’t keep the rein tight enough on my temper.”
“Shoot, don’t worry about it, Bo. Peeler’s a jackass, and Archibald ain’t any better. They don’t appreciate us here. We’ll be better off somewheres else.”
“Yeah, but at least here we could eat.”
“Well, that could be a problem, seein’ as we’re broke. But we’ll think of something.”
When they trudged into the barn to get their horses, the skinny old hostler called Jonas met them. “What was all the commotion over to the big house?” he asked. “I heard a lot of yellin’.”
Scratch grinned and jerked a thumb at his old friend. “Bo here got in a tussle with Big John.”
Jonas’s eyes widened. “You tangled with the boss? Good Lord, Bo, even if he wasn’t the boss, I’ve seen Big John bust fellas plumb in half with his bare hands. He could’a killed you!”
“Yeah, well, Bo was gettin’ the best of the fight when I pulled him off,” Scratch said.
“What’d Big John do?”
“Nothin’. He was still too groggy from Bo handin’ him his needin’s. But Archibald threw us off the place. Said we weren’t even gonna get the wages we got comin’.”
Jonas shook his head. “Now ain’t that a damned shame. Don’t tell him I said it, but Joe Archibald is a plumb mean-spirited hombre. He’s all the time sayin’ things about me being old and broke-down and worthless, and he don’t ever seem to notice that I work like a sumbitch takin’ care of all the saddle stock around here.”
Bo put a hand on the hostler’s shoulder. “You do a good job, Jonas. I’ve noticed how you care for our horses, and I appreciate it.”
“So do I,” Scratch added. “Guess you better bring ’em out now, come to think of it. Bo and me got our marchin’ orders.”
It didn’t take long to get Bo’s rangy lineback dun and Scratch’s big bay saddled and ready to ride. “Where will you go?” asked Jonas.
“Socorro’s not far,” Bo said. “I guess we’ll ride in there and start looking for work again.”
He didn’t mention how they had had trouble finding work in Socorro before. That was how they’d wound up on the Circle JP. But maybe the situation had improved since then and something better would turn up.
“You got any money at all?”
Scratch shrugged. “Not to speak of. Big John hadn’t gotten around to payin’ us.”
Jonas hesitated. “Listen here. I don’t like to see any man tryin’ to make his way in the world when he’s flat-broke busted.” He delved in a pocket of his overalls and brought out a coin. “Here, take this. It’s only five dollars, but it’ll buy you some grub and a place to sleep, maybe.”
Bo shook his head. “We can’t take that, Jonas. Five dollars is a lot of money.”
“Yeah, but I got plenty. I don’t do nothin’ with my wages but save ’em, anyway. I’m too old for women, and I never developed a taste for whiskey.”
Scratch reached out and took the coin from the hostler’s fingers. “We’re much obliged, Jonas. This is mighty kind of you.”
“Consider it a loan,” Bo said. “When we get on our feet again, we’ll send it back to you.”
“You do that,” Jonas said with a nod. “I’ll be here, I reckon. Ain’t nowheres else for me to go.”
Bo and Scratch shook hands with the old-timer, then swung up into their saddles. As they rode out of the barn, they saw Archibald and some of the other Circle JP hands arrayed in front of the house, watching them with hostile glares. Other cowboys were in front of the bunkhouse, looking equally unfriendly.
“Looks like a gauntlet,” Bo said under his breath.
“Yeah,” Scratch agreed. “I hope we don’t have to shoot our way outta here.”
None of the men reached for a gun as the Texans rode between them. Bo and Scratch kept their pace deliberate. They might be leaving, but they weren’t going to run. That wasn’t in their nature. They didn’t nudge their horses into a trot until they cleared the ranch yard.
“You know,” Scratch mused as they rode off into the gathering dusk, “maybe we ought to mosey over to the Snake Track. We could tell Ridley that Big John knows good and well he’s claimin’ land that don’t belong to him.”
Bo shook his head. “I don’t like Ridley any more than I do Peeler. He can look out for his own interests. I don’t want to be in the middle of those two anymore.”
“Yeah, I understand that. Tell you the truth, Bo, I’d just as soon head for some other part of the country as soon as we can put a stake together. Got that damn ugly Jornada del Muerto off to the east and nothin’ but mountains and hardscrabble range to the west. We can find some place better to spend our time.”
Bo nodded and said, “Yeah. All it’ll take is money.”
“We got five dollars,” Scratch pointed out. “That’ll buy your way into a poker game.”
Bo rubbed his jaw. “Yeah. With that and a little luck…”
Biting back a groan of despair, Bo stumbled toward the outhouse behind the livery stable in Socorro early the next morning. His muscles were stiff because he and Scratch had slept in the stable’s hayloft. The owner had agreed to that in return for them mucking out the stalls. Even though they had left the Circle JP, they’d wound up having to shovel horse shit after all.
The five-dollar stake had lasted less than half an hour in the game at Socorro’s Desert Queen Saloon before Bo was cleaned out. When a man’s luck turned, it turned hard, he supposed. The bartender had taken pity on them and let them scrounge some hard-boiled eggs from the jar on the bar, and that was all they’d had to eat. Then they had made the deal with the liveryman so they wouldn’t have to sleep on the ground.
“I’ll buy both those horses from you,” the man had offered. “They look like fine animals.”
“Our horses ain’t for sale,” Scratch had responded indignantly.
“Well, I just thought that from the looks of you, you’ll be selling your saddles any day now, anyway, so you might as well sell the horses, too.”
Scratch would have gotten mad at that comment—no self-respecting Texan would ever sell his saddle—but Bo had intervened. His bout of melancholia and resentment had gone away—unfortunately not in time to save their jobs on the Circle JP—and he was once again the voice of reason in the duo.
Now, stiff muscles protesting, Bo headed for the outhouse on this frosty morning. Around here, the nights were chilly, even during the summer. He had left Scratch curled up in the hay, snoring, and headed out into the dawn to tend to his personal needs.
He tried not to think about what the rest of the day might bring. He and Scratch were just about at the ends of their ropes.
The privy wasn’t occupied. Bo tried to tell himself that that was a bit of good luck. Maybe their fortunes were turning. He pulled the door with its half-moon cutout closed behind him. The outhouse was just a one-holer. He lowered his trousers and long underwear, then sat down and sighed, trying not to shiver from the cold.
Before leaving the stable to come out here, he had grabbed a few sheets of newspaper from a stack of them, folded them, and tucked them under his arm to warm them a little. He took them out now and unfolded them, idly scanning the stories in the dim light that came in through the half-moon.
Suddenly, Bo felt his heart start to pound faster.