Oh, he worked. A man had to work to eat, but Garrett didn’t put his heart into it anymore. He worked so he wouldn’t starve or freeze, but a proud man would never find enjoyment in mucking out stalls, swamping saloons, sweeping out stores, or being polite to dudes.
Staring at the broken watch, he sat on an overturned bucket inside the barn, trying to figure out how he had gotten so old, so worthless, so forgotten. Nothing to his name but a silver Aurora watch that had stopped keeping time ages ago. Years earlier, people had called him sir, spoken to him with respect, sometimes admiration, other times fearfully. Now, they hardly spoke to him at all.
Those dudes had, though.
They had driven up in a pair of Ford Model Ns, mud-splattered two-seaters about as basic as a body could find in a big city, but mighty fancy for a ranch in southern Wyoming. When one of those horseless carriages backfired, the noise and the odd sight of the automobiles sent his horse pitching, and Garrett found himself tasting gravel. Which, years ago, wouldn’t have embarrassed him. By grab, he had been dusted so many times he had lost count, had broken both arms, a leg, his collarbone and wrists at least once, and his nose was about as crooked as the road leading to the Aurora Cattle Company & Guest Ranch. Yet the dudes had braked their Fords hard, jumped to the ground, and raced to the corral. They pulled him to his feet, fetched his hat, dusted off his shirt, anxiously asking if he were all right. Even the Aurora foreman had ambled over from the bunkhouse and told Garrett he should call it a day.
The dudes hailed from New York, had come to Wyoming to live the West. They’d called him names like old-timer, hoss, and pard.
“The name’s Garrett,” he told them with irritation.
“I’m Seth Thomas,” said the tallest of the four. “Like the watch company.”
Garrett started to tell Seth-Thomas-Like-The-Watch-Company to go to hell, but he caught the foreman’s hard frown, realized that these dudes were paying customers, and, more important, he needed this job. So he shook each dude’s hand.
“That what brought you to this ranch?” he asked the tall one.
Seth-Thomas-Like-The-Watch-Company stared at him blankly.
“Aurora,” Garrett said lamely. “Like the watch company.”
The kid, maybe in his early twenties, shrugged. “Never heard of it.”
“Before your time,” Garrett said, and had headed for the barn.
The watch had been new when the mayor presented it to him in 1884, among the first solid silver watches produced by the Aurora Watch Company. Back then, Garrett had been a lawman, and the watch was a token of appreciation for valuable service to Flagstaff, Coconino County, and Arizona Territory. Or something like that. He had been written up in territorial newspapers, even in the National Police Gazette. Street & Smith had published a couple of dime novels that were supposedly based on his life. Or something like that. Garrett had never read the damned things. The Aurora Watch Company had failed in 1892, though, and around that time Garrett had pretty much become a failure himself. He couldn’t understand what had happened to him, other than he had just gotten old.
The barn door’s hinges squeaked, and Garrett slid the watch into his vest pocket. He pushed himself off the bucket, joints popping, hip and shoulder stiffening, as lanky foreman Sam Cahill, about twenty years younger than Garrett, approached him.
The foreman spit out a mouthful of tobacco juice, then hooked his thumb toward the door.
“You made an impression on ’em dudes,” he said.
“I been bucked off before. Ain’t the first time. Won’t be the last. Didn’t hurt me none.” He relaxed, forcing a smile. “Just my pride.”
“Uh-huh. Leader of the group’s Jason C. Hughes, nephew of Charles Evans Hughes. That’s the Charles Evans Hughes.”
Garrett said nothing. Charles Evans Hughes meant as much to him as the Aurora Watch Company meant to young Seth Thomas.
“Charles Hughes, the governor of New York, the gent William Taft offered the vice presidential nomination to, only Hughes turned him down. Those kids all just graduated from Brown University. Plan on enterin’ Columbia Law School, but first, they want to see the elephant.” He spit again. “They been readin’ Wister’s book.”
“Seems like everybody has.”
“Uh-huh. ‘When you call me that, smile.’ All that nonsense. One of those dudes asked me if I had knowed Trampas. Guess I’ll never understand book-readers.”
Garrett waited.
“Well, Wister spent some time on a ranch like this one. So did Teddy Roosevelt, or so I hear tell. So Jason C. Hughes has come here to shoot an elk, work cattle, chase mustangs, play cowpuncher with his friends. They’ve come to see the West, least the West they read about thanks to Mr. Wister.” Sam Cahill sighed. “Never thought I’d be nurse-maidin’ dudes, but it’s a new century, Garrett, and beef prices ain’t what they used to be.”
Garrett nodded just to do something. There wasn’t anything to say.
“They want you to take ’em.”
He had something to say to that. “What for? You got two hands to ride herd on your guests. You hired me—”
“I hired you so you’d have something to eat, Garrett. I put those boots on you ’cause what you had when I found you at the depot had more holes than leather. I put that jacket on you, and I hired you to take orders. Those dudes think you’re a bona fide Western man, a by-God Owen Wister hero, and I allow you look the part, or once did. They want you to show ’em the West.”
The foreman shifted his chaw to the other cheek, then shook his head. “Look, Garrett, I didn’t mean to speak sharp to you, but you see the fix I’m in. The kid asked for you, and he’s a top-payin’ customer from a mighty important family back east. At least three of our board of directors live in New York, so these are important guests.”
Board of directors! When Garrett had ridden for various brands back in his prime, before he had become a lawman, ranches were run by ranchers, not boards.
“Way I figure it,” the foreman kept saying, “you could take ’em down by Muddy Creek, show ’em some country, maybe find a bull elk or some muley, and check the herd down that way—my line rider quit two weeks back—let ’em push a few dogies, then bring ’em back here and we’ll send ’em back to the U.P. depot with their ear-splittin’, putrefyin’ horseless carriages. Give you some time in the open country. Got to beat muckin’ stalls. Do a good job, maybe I’ll let you be my line rider down yonder.”
With a final spit, the foreman held out his hand.
Sighing, Garrett clasped the extended hand, knowing he should have quit, knowing he was making a mistake.
He just didn’t know how big.
Jason C. Hughes, Seth-Thomas-Like-The-Watch-Company, and the two other dudes—one named Todd and the other Abraham, although Garrett couldn’t remember which was which—were advertising a leather shop in their chaps, brand-spanking-new boots, dressed like they had stepped off the cover of one of those dime novels. Sam and the wrangler had put the boys on the gentlest horses the Aurora had, and then sent Garrett, pulling a pack mule, toward Muddy Creek.
“Bring ’em back in a week,” Sam Cahill had instructed him, and with a wink added, “and try to bring ’em back alive.”
He kept the pace easy, pointing out a golden eagle, some curious coyotes, and letting the dudes chase after a handful of mustangs. At dusk, he watered and grained the livestock, boiled the coffee and fried the bacon, and even scrubbed the dishes while Abraham, or maybe it was Todd, fetched a flask from his saddlebags, and the dudes started drinking.
“Ever seen anything like this?” Jason C. Hughes asked.
“I’d be obliged,”