Good Water Read online

  GOOD WATER

  GOOD WATER

  JOHN D. NESBITT

  FIVE STAR

  A part of Gale, Cengage Learning

  Copyright © 2016 by John D. Nesbitt

  Five Star™ Publishing, a part of Cengage Learning, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, except as permitted U.S. copyright law, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  The publisher bears no responsibility for the quality of information provided through author or third-party Web sites and does not have any control over, nor assume any responsibility for, information contained in these sites. Providing these sites should not be construed as an endorsement or approval by the publisher of these organizations or of the positions they may take on various issues.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Nesbitt, John D., author.

  Title: Good water / John D. Nesbitt.

  Description: First edition. | Waterville, Maine : Five Star, a part of Gale Cengage Learning, [2016]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016003819 (print) | LCCN 2016009182 (ebook) | ISBN 9781432832759 (hardcover) | ISBN 1432832751 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781432832698 (ebook) | ISBN 1432832697 (ebook) | ISBN 9781432833374 (ebook) | ISBN 1432833375 (ebook)

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4328-3269-8 eISBN-10: 1-43283269-7

  Subjects: | GSAFD: Western stories.

  Classification: LCC PS3564.E76 G66 2016 (print) | LCC PS3564.E76 (ebook) | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016003819

  First Edition. First Printing: September 2016

  This title is available as an e-book.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4328-3269-8 ISBN-10: 1-43283269-7

  Find us on Facebook– https://www.facebook.com/FiveStarCengage

  Visit our website– http://www.gale.cengage.com/fivestar/

  Contact Five Star™ Publishing at [email protected]

  Printed in the United States of America

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 20 19 18 17 16

  For Muñeco, in our hearts forever.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Tommy sat relaxed in the saddle as he scanned the landscape. The rangeland stretched away dry and faded in the heat of midsummer, with shimmering waves in a level area to the north. Nothing moved, not even a jackrabbit on the ground or a bird in the sky. Tommy gazed at the low hills to his left, where he expected Red to show up at any minute.

  A thin hawk sailed into view above his hat brim. Tommy turned in the saddle and searched the country behind him. As far as he could see, no one was following or keeping an eye on him.

  The horse shifted beneath him and made a low snuffling sound. Tommy settled back into his normal position and reached forward to pat the brown neck. The animal, warm and solid to the touch, let out a sigh.

  The horse’s head went up, and Tommy’s eyes followed. Here came Red, raising a small trail of dust as the sorrel ranch horse moved at an easy lope. Tommy waited with his hands on the saddle horn. The horse’s hooves drummed on the dry earth, and closer, the sound of the animal’s breathing carried on the still air.

  Red slowed the horse and brought him to a stop, with a jingling of bits and the rustle of leather. Red pushed back his hat, and his wavy red hair framed his face. His blue eyes settled on Tommy. “Hey, kid. Been waitin’ long?”

  “Just a few minutes.” Tommy relaxed his shoulders, as if he had tensed them to toss off the word “kid” one more time. Red was only a couple of years older, and the men at the ranch called both of them kids, but when the two of them were off on their own like this, Red liked to set himself a notch above his pal.

  The sorrel lowered its head to rub against a foreleg, and Red pulled the reins. Glancing at the sky and rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand, he said, “It’s early yet. What do you say we take a little ride over east? I’d like to get a closer look at those girls.”

  “Do you think we should?”

  “Don’t you like girls?”

  “Of course I do. But it’s not part of our work.”

  “We’ve got our work done for the day. You checked your pasture, I checked mine, and we’ve got time to spare. Just enough to drop into Little Mexico, water our horses, and be good neighbors.” Red lifted his chin and tipped his head back and forth. “Don’t worry. Nobody’s got to know about it except you and me.”

  “I don’t think Vinch will like it.”

  “I just said, he doesn’t need to know. To hell with him.”

  Tommy thought those were big words, even this far from the ranch headquarters. But he had seen the Mexican girls from a distance, too, when he and Red had ridden this way a few days earlier, and he hadn’t forgotten. “Well, all right,” he said. “But we’d better not stay long.”

  Red smiled with his clever expression. “Of course not.”

  They headed east with the horses at a fast walk. Red seemed to be making an effort to appear casual and confident. With his chin high, he was whistling “My Darling Clementine” and tipping his upper body back and forth with the shifting hooves of the ranch horse.

  Tommy’s eyes focused on an object up ahead. “Looks like company,” he said.

  Red quit whistling and snugged his hat brim as he stared ahead. “Sure is.” He adjusted his reins and settled into a serious posture.

  Tommy said, “I wonder if he wants something.”

  Red lifted the corner of his mouth in a half-smile. “Everyone wants something.”

  The boys rode forward as the stranger waited on the trail. Tommy’s heartbeat picked up, and he felt a nervousness in his stomach. He wondered if the stranger was a lawman. He couldn’t see much of the man, as he wore a long, brown drover’s coat and had his horse facing the two oncoming riders.

  Closer, Tommy noticed that the man’s horse was a flecked grey with dark ears. The man himself wore a dusty black hat. He had a bushy dark mustache, and the greying hair at his temples reached to his ears. He was not a large man, even with the dustcoat.

  The boys rode on, horse hooves thudding, and drew rein at about five yards from the man. Red’s voice sounded loud as he said, “Howdy.”

  “Afternoon, boys. How’s everything?” The stranger was relaxed, not stern at all as Tommy had expected. His coffee-colored eyes roved over the two young men and their horses.

  Red’s voice was still a little louder than it needed to be. “Everything’s swell. How ’bout yourself?”

  “Just fine.” The stranger was wearing lightweight riding gloves, and he rested his hands on the saddle horn as he held his reins. “Name’s Bill Lockwood,” he said. “Just passin’ through. Thought I’d stop and be cordial.”

  Tommy noticed the man’s bedroll and duffel bag tied onto the back of his saddle. The man looked like a traveler, all right. Tommy waited for Red to speak.

  “You bet. I’m Red Armstrong, and this is my pal, Tommy Reeves. We work for Vinch Cushman and the White Wings Ranch.”

  Lockwood nodded. “Pleased to meet you. Your outfit is over that way, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right. We’ve got a few minutes, so we thought we’d drop over to the Mexican camp. Water our horses and say hello.”

  “No harm in that.”

  “You know them?”

  “Not yet.” Lockwood glanced to his left and beyond Tommy. “How far is it to Fenton?”

  Red tipped his head up and to the right. “About ten miles. Mostly south.”

  “About what I thought.” Lockwood touched the brim of his hat. “Well, I’
ll move along. Good meetin’ you boys. Maybe we’ll see you again sometime.” He backed his horse away to the side, and a rifle and scabbard came into view.

  “Same to you,” Red answered. “Good luck.”

  “Same here,” said Tommy. “Nice to meet you, and good luck.”

  The boys rode on for a quarter of a mile without speaking. A jackrabbit sprang up from behind a clump of sagebrush and bolted away, zigzagging twice before it disappeared over a low rise.

  Red spoke. “Is he gone?” After a couple of seconds he added, “I mean this fellow Lockwood.”

  “Oh.” Tommy turned in his seat and looked back. The grey horse and dark rider made a small figure heading southward. “Yeah, he’s gone.”

  Red let out a breath. “Huh.” He moistened his lips. “What do you think he is?”

  “I don’t know. Like he said. Someone passin’ through.”

  “I wonder if he’s a stock detective. You know, some of them wear a dark coat or a dark slicker. Better for night work.”

  “Did you think he looked like one?”

  Red laughed. “I don’t know what they’re supposed to look like. If I ever met one, I didn’t know it. Just like right now.”

  “Maybe he is one.”

  Red gave another laugh. “Then we’d better watch our p’s and q’s.”

  An image of a lone, reddish-brown animal passed through Tommy’s mind. “No need to do any more of that stuff.”

  Red stuck the tip of his tongue out of the corner of his mouth. “Nah. Especially with girls to look out for.”

  They rode at an easy lope until they came to the crest of a hill in the rolling country. A light breeze met them as they stopped the horses for a breather. Ahead of them where the ground sloped away, close to a stream that wound its way through the grassland, sat a group of low wooden buildings.

  Red rubbed the back of his hand across his nose. “There it is,” he said. “Little Mexico. Just remember, be on your best behavior. All we want to do is water our horses—and take a look around. I don’t think anyone will start a fight, but if they do, try not to go along with it.”

  Tommy’s stomach was feeling nervous again. “I won’t. I haven’t been in a fight since I left home, and I don’t want to start now. Especially here.”

  As they rode down the slope at a walk, Tommy had time to take in various details. The little settlement consisted of a huddle of wooden houses with a lane running through the middle. Goats wandered about. A grey burro came into view. Clothes hung on a clothesline with chickens pecking at the ground nearby. A group of five children sent out a laughing sound as they ran around and played. Two dogs, one light-colored and one dark, came to the edge of the village and began barking.

  An older boy came out of one of the houses and quieted the dogs. He stood waiting, and a man with dark hair and no hat appeared in the doorway that the boy had come out of. The man stood in the shadow until Red and Tommy rode to the edge of the village, and then he came forward in the sunlight.

  “Good afternoon,” he said.

  “Afternoon,” Red called back. He and Tommy stopped their horses.

  Tommy nodded at the boy, who leaned forward, smiling, as he held the collars of the two dogs.

  “How can I help you?” asked the man.

  Red answered. “We’d like to water our horses if we could.”

  The man nodded. He pointed toward a wooden trough where a dull brown horse with thin hindquarters stood motionless. “Over there.”

  Red swung his right leg over the saddle horn and the horse’s neck, and he slid off to the ground. “Appreciate it,” he said. “My name’s Red.”

  The man gave a nod of the head. “Raimundo Villarreal, at your service.”

  Tommy swung down in normal fashion, nodded at the man, and followed Red to the water trough.

  The dull brown horse moved away. Red loosened the cinch on his saddle, and Tommy did likewise. As the two ranch horses drank, Raimundo joined the group and stood a couple of yards away.

  “Do you work for Cooshmon?” he asked.

  “That’s right,” Red answered.

  “Well, we don’t want any trouble.”

  Red put on a wide smile. “You won’t get any from us. We like to be friends.”

  “I don’t think your boss does. He doesn’t like us.” Raimundo’s eyes settled on Tommy. “And you? You’re just a young boy.”

  Beyond the man, Tommy saw a girl appear in the doorway. He felt as if he was standing next to himself and hearing himself speak. “I like to be friends, too. Or we wouldn’t have come here.”

  “Well, you look like good boys. But you gotta watch out for your boss. He doesn’t like us, and if he catches you comin’ here, he might give you hell, too.”

  Red cut in. “We can take care of that.”

  Raimundo addressed Tommy again. “What’s your name?”

  “Tommy.”

  “That’s good.” Raimundo put his hand on Tommy’s shoulder. “Be careful. You look like a good boy, and I don’t want you to get into any trouble. But for friends, you are welcome here.” The man’s eyes had a kindly expression as he nodded affirmation.

  “Thanks.” Tommy offered his hand, and they shook. Then as Raimundo shook hands with Red, Tommy caught another glance at the girl standing in the doorway.

  Red broke the silence. “You’ve got somethin’ like a little town here.”

  “A village,” said Raimundo. “We are eight families here, or eight houses. You say homes?”

  “Households.”

  “Oh, yeah. Well, each one has a claim of a hundred sixty acres, but we come together here. We look out for each other.”

  “That’s good.” Red’s glance was wandering around. He came back to the group and said, “Are you all kin? Like family to one another?”

  “Some by blood, some by marriage. Alejo and I are married to sisters. And he has two nephews. That’s four houses. And so on. Just one incomplete one. My wife’s cousin, José Acevedo, he died young. So his wife and kids, they’re a house.”

  “I see. Who has the sheep? Or do you all have?”

  “We run the animals together. Well, you know, the goats, they go where they want.”

  “Looks like the donkeys do, too.”

  “The burros? Oh, they’re all right. They’re good when we need ’em.”

  “You outfit your sheep camps with ’em, huh?”

  “Yeah. That’s right.”

  Red’s gaze wandered again.

  Raimundo said, “We don’t have much, but we hope to grow.”

  Red’s voice sounded vacant as he said, “Sure.”

  Raimundo turned to Tommy. “You don’t talk much.”

  “Not at first. I’m just listenin’, learnin’ things.”

  “That’s a good way.”

  “I was wondering about one thing, though. Aren’t you supposed to live on your claim?”

  “Oh, yeah. And do improvements. Build a house, dig a well. But you can’t do it all at once. We’re just gettin’ started. But we got a shack on every claim, and someone stays there when they got the sheep there. That’s the sheep camps.”

  “And you stay together here because this is where you got water?”

  “That’s right.”

  Tommy looked around and saw where the land sloped down to the creek. “You’ve got good water here.”

  “We just barely touch it in this one place, maybe a hundred yards. But it’s good.”

  Red came back into the conversation. “Are you people Spanish or are you Mexican?”

  “We call ourselves la gente. The people. We all born here. My family goes back to Spain. We’re not Indian. But we’re Mexican because where we come from, over there in New Mexico Territory, it used to be Mexico.”

  Tommy’s eyes traveled back to the doorway where the girl had been standing. A second girl had joined her, and the two of them were talking. Tommy was trying to think of a way to ask about the girls when the scene was interrupted. A well-dressed
man with a full head of shiny hair and a trimmed mustache walked past the girls and said something. The girls went into the house, and the man walked forward in Raimundo’s direction. Tommy figured him to be about thirty or a little less. He wouldn’t be a father to the girls, but he might be a bossy older brother. He had an air of importance about him as he held his head high and did not speak to Red or Tommy. Rather, he swept them with a dark glance and gave them the shoulder as he said something in Spanish to Raimundo.

  The older man answered with a tone and an expression suggesting that he already knew whatever the well-groomed man was saying. At this point the boy, who had been making himself inconspicuous all the while, took off in the direction of the house. The well-dressed man turned and walked away in the opposite direction.

  Raimundo said, “My son has to go for a burro. He steps over the fence and eats the green of the onions.”

  Red found his opening. “I thought that was your son. He looks like you. Good-looking boy. Were those your daughters?”

  “One is my daughter, the other my niece. Alejo’s daughter.”

  “Oh, so they’re cousins.”

  “Sure.” Raimundo gave the impression that he had spoken as much as he cared to about the girls. He looked over the two ranch horses and said, “You boys ride a long ways in a day?”

  “Sometimes,” said Tommy.

  “Well, you wanna visit again sometime, you welcome here.”

  “Thanks.” Tommy led his horse out a couple of steps, pulled the cinch, and tightened it.

  Red did the same. He looked over his shoulder to smile at Raimundo, then swung himself up into the saddle without sticking his foot in the stirrup. He gigged his horse and tipped his hat. As he moved away, Tommy poked his toe in the stirrup and swung aboard in the usual way. He waved his hand at Raimundo and touched his heel to the horse.

  The girls were nowhere in sight. Tommy waited until he and Red were well beyond the edge of the village, and then he looked back to see if the girls had come out the back door. All he saw was clothes on a clothesline, moving in the light breeze. So much for wishful thinking. But Raimundo had invited them to drop by again some time. It seemed like a good idea.