Boswell's Luck (10 page)

“Can't take all that to heart, Rat,” Mitch argued. “Cathcart won't let me near her, either, and look at me? Have you ever seen such a prosperous fool in all your life?”

“You do look fair, Mitch,” Rat admitted with a hint of a grin. Mitch was decked out in a brown suit with vest, and a gold watch chain bobbed in his pocket. Prosperity seemed obvious.

“I'm on my way to Weatherford for a bit o' business,” Mitch explained. “Maybe you'd care to join me for some supper at the Station Hotel? I'm buyin'.”

“Be late when we finish, Mitch. Maybe another time?”

“I'd come,” Billy volunteered. “If yer buyin'.”

The other boys added their voices, and Mitch grinned.

“Got to find you civilized company, Rat Hadley. Elsewise you're certain to sprout a tail and stay out here in the rocks forever.”

'Least they don't chase me elsewhere,
Rat thought as he waved Mitch along down the road. It was hard watching the dust swirls diminish. Harder knowing Mitch was headed somewhere, and Rat Hadley was no better off than one of those juniper poles. He swallowed hard. Would the trail ever tum? Was there nothing better ahead?

Rat Hadley devoted himself heart and soul to completing the Thayerville-Weatherford telegraph line. As the last of the poles took its place alongside Station Street, and Sully Dawes spliced two wires to link the two Texas towns, Rat wiped sweat from his forehead. Billy Bedford shouted, and the other youngsters joined in the cheer.

It was later that afternoon, in the telegraph office, when Rat listened to the staccato tapping that Dawes translated into words.

“Test message's come through,” the operator told Rat. “Looks like we've built ourselves a telegraph line!”

“Yessir,” Rat said, grinning.

“You've done a real fine job for me, son.”

“So what's next?” Rat asked. “We goin' out to Albany or maybe over to Jacksboro?”

“Neither,” Dawes answered. “I can get a message through to Albany already. I just send through Weatherford, you see. The Ft. Worth line has a spur line up to Jacksboro. All we really needed to communicate with most of the state was to tie into the line at Weatherford.”

“Well, must be somethin' for me, Sully,” Rat declared. “I done some carpentry. You could use some cabinets in this place, maybe a porch outside.”

“That would be for the line manager to decide, Rat. Truth is, I don't have a thing for anybody.”

“The boys'll take it hard,” Rat said, leaning against the wall.

“Most of them just hired on for pocket money,” Dawes responded, “I told Billy I might could use him to run messages.”

“I got nothin' lined up myself, Sully.”

“Worried that might be, Rat. I can pay you a bonus of ten dollars. Else-wise, well, all I can say is check around.”

“I been 'round,” Rat explained.

“It's the only advice I know to give,” Dawes said, drawing the promised bonus money from an adjacent drawer. “And to wish you luck. Feel free to refer any prospective employer to me. I'll have some good words for them.”

“I appreciate that,” Rat replied. “Thanks, Sully.”

The telegrapher grinned as he passed Rat a pair of five-dollar bank notes. Rat nodded, unsuccessfully trying to hide the disappointment flooding his face.

For a week Rat made his way from one Thayerville enterprise to the next, greeting saloon keeper or blacksmith with equal humility.

“I give Sully Dawes a good day's labor for a fair wage,” he assured each one. “I'd give the same to you.”

There was always a nephew or a town boy hired to sweep floors or exercise horses, though. And other work simply wasn't to be had.

He next rode among the farms and ranches that occupied the hills and range past town. Rat was startled to discover so many abandoned houses and empty barns. When he did find someone at home, he often had to sidestep idle youngsters and stumble to the door, only to hear the same sad refrain.

“I ain't got work for my own self,” tall, gaunt Cyrus Keller explained. “Ain't sold a hog in six months, you know.”

“Times is hard,” Rat had replied, nodding sadly. And as the days passed, his shoulders sagged and his face grew long. He found himself standing on porches, hat in hand, pleading to speak with ranch foremen or cattlemen.

“Was a time when I'd at least been welcome to sit at table,” Rat grumbled to Mitch. “Folks see me comin' and treat me like I got some sickness to give 'em.”

'Things'll get better,” Mitch assured his haggard friend. “Been out to see Mr. Hanks yet? He's got a high opinion o' you, Rat, from the old days. He's the richest man in the county, after all.”

“He sent us packin' after Pa died,” Rat recounted. “And didn't take me in after the drive to Kansas.”

“Even so, he's out there, Rat. Ain't much o' anybody else.”

Rat had to admit the truth of his friend's words. And so that next morning he saddled his horse and rode out to the Circle H to speak with Orville Hanks.

Rat was unusually solemn as he passed the old line cabin that had once been home. He paused a moment, remembering the thunder of boyish laughter, the sound advice offered with fatherly patience, his mother's somber announcement that he must go to live with the Planks.

“Don't suppose it was yer doin', Pa,” Rat whispered as he knelt beside his father's grave. The young man stared intently at the simple white cross. Hope and promise, it seemed, were buried along with J. C. Hadley.

Rat's humor wasn't improved by the sight of boys splashing away the morning down at the Brazos. That was
his
river, after all. It would always belong to Rat and Mitch and Alex. These brown-shouldered youngsters were intruders!

Rat splashed across the river, then turned his horse north and west. He didn't answer the waves of the swimmers. Nor did he visit the white oak or Tom Boswell's grave. Rat Hadley needed no reminder that poor fortunes got a man buried.

The sight of a stranger prowling the range on a half-wild mustang wasn't generally welcomed by most outfits, and Rat drew company as he approached the ranch house. First a shaggy-haired young cowboy riding the fence line latched onto Rat's trail. For close to a mile the boy shadowed Rat. Then, as the horse corrals came into view, two older hands confronted Rat. Aside from a tobacco-chewing stranger, a more familiar face challenged the Circle H's visitor.

“Hold up there,” Payne Oakley called. “Got business here?”

“Thought to have a word with Mr. Hanks,” Rat explained.

“And what makes you think he'd have any interest in seein' you?” Oakley asked.

“Call it old time's sake,” Rat answered. “I see you got yer hand healed up, Payne. Bet you never thought I'd get this big, eh?”

“You know him?” the young cowboy asked.

Oakley studied the strange face in front of him. Rat doffed his hat and grinned.

“Can't be,” Oakley cried. “Not Rat Hadley!”

“Well, I never knowed anybody else to lay claim to such a name,” Rat countered.

“Coley, you run along to the house and fetch Mr. Hanks,” Oakley instructed the boy behind them. “Tell him the worst excuse for a wrangler to come out o' Texas's come to see him.”

“Sir?” Coley asked.

“Tell him J. C.'s boy is here,” Oakley added. “And be quick 'bout it. This particular fellow is apt as not to slip through our fingers. Was forever rid in' off to swim a creek or run some horses when I set him to some other task.”

“Sounds familiar,” Coley said, grinning at Rat. “I'll be tellin' him, Payne.”

Oakley waved his other companion back to work, then escorted Rat to a water tank. They left their horses to have a drink. Then Rat passed ten minutes filling in the ranch foreman on two years of growing and wandering.

“Road's made you hard, Rat,” Oakley observed.

“Road's
been
hard, Payne.”

“That's a blessin', son. Later on you'll see it so yourself. Easy path leaves a man soft. And this country ain't one to forgive a man's shortcomin's. No, sir. It buries 'em.”

“Buried Pa.”

“And he was never short o' the mark, Rat. Best kind o' man.”

“So I guess bein' hard's not enough. You got to be lucky.”

“Well, that helps,” Oakley confessed. “But in the final accountin', that ain't enough, neither. Man's got to stand tall when the winds blow.”

Rat grinned and shook his head. J. C. Hadley had been a man to talk that way. But hard and tall didn't land a man a job. It was Orville Hanks that would decide that.

Hanks appeared on the broad veranda of his house with two of his sons. Rat hadn't known any of the Hanks boys very well, what with their being older, and he merely shook their hands politely and agreed to taking after J. C., especially in the face.

“Bandy-legged, too,” the elder Hanks observed. “Likely from all them cactus spines you put in your seat mustang huntin'.”

“Figured that'd be a long time forgotten,” Rat said, laughing. “ 'Cept by me, o' course.”

“Was the day we lost J. C.,” Hanks muttered. “Ain't likely to be forgotten ever. They still call you Rat?”

“With this nose?” Rat asked. “Cursed permanent, you could say.”

“Well, it's fittin' not everything's changed. Come walk a way with me, Rat, and tell me what's brought you all the way out here. We don't get many visitors, and most o' them's bill collectors or salesmen.”

“I'm neither.”

“Nor's it likely after bein' back in these parts weeks and just now comin' here that you come to swap old stories.”

“No, sir,” Rat admitted. “If you know I've been here, I guess you also know I've been cuttin' telegraph poles and helpin' Sully Dawes string wire.”

“Ain't got so old I don't know what's happenin' in this county, Rat.”

“Line's finished.”

“Know that, too. Know you've been doin' some ridin' hereabouts as well.”

“Lookin' for work,” Rat explained. “Got some money put by, but not enough to keep me fed through winter. And a man needs somethin' to put his hands to.”

“I can't help you, son.”

“You know, Mr. Hanks, ain't anybody I'd give leave to call me that. Not with Pain his grave. But you, and Payne, and maybe Sheriff Cathcart all done a share o' puttin' me on my feet once. You give me a chance to get past hard circumstances and prove myself.”

“It's no small pride I take in it, Rat,” Hanks confessed. “I've signed on boys aplenty, but few o' them ever measure up. You never give me call to regret takin' you north, nor invitin' you to roundup when you was a grub.”

“I thank you for it, too, Mr. Hanks, and I swear you'll have no reason to regret takin' me on again.”

“Know that,” the cattleman said, frowning. “Rat, you been on the range this last week. What do you see? I sent half my outfit ridin'. Cattle market's gone south, with nary a promise o' return in' anytime soon.”

“I saw boys at the river, and this Coley … “

“My grandsons,” Hanks explained. “Got my oldest boy Fitz at the line camp now, and near everybody left on the payroll's family. Payroll! We haven't handed out wages in eight months.”

“Maybe I could round up some mustangs,” Rat offered. “You still need mounts.”

“Boy, you ain't listenin',” Hanks complained. “I sell horses nowadays to make my taxes. Even then it's tough to make a price at it. Better you try a town job. Range's dead.”

“Have,” Rat said, staring at his feet.

“Yeah, not much money to be made anywhere. Funny thing is I thought once the Indians were rounded up and staked out on reservations, cow people'd make their fortunes. Didn't count on all the new land openin' up north and west. Then the railroads come in and take the profit out o' trailin' range beeves. Got to breed 'em now, it 'pears. Takes money, buyin' bulls.”

“Mr. Hanks, I've done near everything one time or another. I'd scrub plates or fry eggs.”

“Got a cook, Rat. No, your chance'd have to be somewhere else.”

“Where?” Rat asked, throwing his arms in the air. “I never in my life begged for help, but I got no other forks in my road. I tried all I know to do, and there's nothin'. Paused to read me Job, and I always thought it cruel mean for the Lord to send so many torments to one man. Now I don't think ole Job had it so bad after all.”

“I read Job some myself,” Hanks said, softening his hard-jaw stance. “Lord did relent some where ole Job was concerned. Maybe he's got a heart for wayfarers, too, Rat, 'cause I just thought o' somebody you might try.”

“Who?”

“Friend o' mine,” Hanks said, pulling a scrap of paper from his shirt pocket and scrawling a note. “Ned Wyler. Operates the Western Stage Company out o' Ft. Worth. Used to run a route to El Paso, but with the Texas and Pacific runnin', they mostly move people up to Jacksboro, then across to Thayerville and along to Albany. He might could use horses, and he might hire you to fetch him some. I done my best by you,” he added, passing Rat the note. “You tell him I said you was iron-rumped like yer pa. He finds out you be Corporal J. C. Hadley's kid, he'll do what he can.”

“Was this Wyler fellow in yer company, sir?” Rat asked.

“No, he was a Yank colonel,” Hanks explained. “Near got his hide peppered when we hit his camp. Yer pa grabbed him by the seat o' the pants and drug him atop a horse. Captured him, ole J. C. did.”

“I don't see how that would put me in much favor,” Rat argued.

“Wasn't just that,” Hanks explained. “We had a stiff-necked major come down and say we got to shoot Colonel Wyler in answer for the Yanks shootin' one o' our officers. Well, yer pa went and liberated Wyler 'fore the major could do it. Next day word come the war was over. General Forrest give up his sword, and we turned for home. Wyler saw we got to the railroad personal. There's a debt owed there.”