Rhizomania, Part 6
Doran jerked his head toward the approaching rider, and looked at Shorty. “Ain’t he going to be trouble?” At the same time, Doran also found that he rode a bit more easily now — probably because Redboy had settled down with Ben next to him, and the horses mostly blocked his view of the moving cloud of dust. He didn't know what to think.
“Jorge’s not a bed fella,” said Shorty. “He’s had a hard time getting along in life, that’s all.”
Now, squinting, Doran could really see the middle Lujan brother, mounted on the bay mare and cutting across the rock-strewn, pitted field to meet them — or maybe to cut them off from the roadway?
Shorty began to slow Ben down, and then he brought the sorrel horse to a standstill. Ben was glad to graze, nosing through the tough tufts of prairie grass in search of new stalks of wild alfalfa. Doran brought Redboy around to graze near the same spot. Ben stopped eating for a moment and relieved himself in large splashes, which bent the strands of prairie grass low and left them glistening. Redboy picked up the odor of Ben’s urine, and the big red horse danced uneasily, working the bit in his mouth. “Whoa, settle,” said Doran. But before he needed to pull back on the reins, Redboy quieted himself and stopped fighting the bit. As the big chestnut calmed, Doran could now hear the heavy hoofbeats of the approaching bay horse, racing across the Nebraska sod.
The bay horse’s speed had increased, and the mare now thundered directly toward Doran and Shorty. Doran wondered if its rider intended to run them down. By now, he and Shorty had swiftly dismounted and they stood together silently as their horses pushed their soft muzzles around in the tight wiry strands of the grass. Shorty could keep Ben under control, but Doran knew that if Redboy was badly spooked, the big red horse would be gone, trailing reins and bridle, till the creature dropped to the Nebraskan sod and became food for coyotes or bobcats.
To his horror, Doran realized that the unshaven, semi-conscious Jorge was not contolling his horse. Rather than sitting upright in the saddle, he slumped forward over the bay horse’s muscular neck, incapable of slowing the galloping pace. Jorge's misshapen shoulder jutted up, giving the young man the look of a large broken doll. Doran froze and just looked at the oncoming threat.
Shorty put his foot into the near-side stirrup, uncharacteristically dropped his half-smoked cigarette, and swung into Ben’s saddle. In a moment he was ready to confront the oncoming rider. He brought Ben around so the sorrel’s flank blocked the path of the oncoming animal. The bay, uncontrolled by the drunk man in the saddle, wasn’t slowing down. Rather, she seemed to speed up as the figure of Jorge, slack-faced with loose arm flopping, became ever clearer. Surely he would soon slide off, thought Doran, and then heavy hooves would crush out his life.
But Jorge, seeming to sense Doran’s thought, sat up taller in the saddle, stirred and looked around. He looked at the looped reins in his fist, then pulled the leather straps up close to his chest, and Doran saw him wrap the leather tightly around his hand. Then Jorge pulled it around the saddle horn, and again around his hand. The bay, feeling the pull, slowed a bit.
Doran looked at Shorty, who held Ben on an equally tight rein. Ben stood stock still, as ready as his rider to face a thousand pounds of hoof and muscle coming in.
Now Doran could see the sweat glistening on the bay’s smooth brown hide. The runaway horse’s black mane was separated into clumps, some of it blown back, some wet and plastered in trailing strands to the horse’s heavy neck. The narrow, black-stockinged legs tore at the turf as the confused horse pounded on.
Redboy, trailing his reins as Doran stood next to him, grew more anxious. His grazing had become quick and nervous and now the chestnut turned his handsome head from side to side, looking at the rush of horse and rider out of one wide-set eye. Doran saw that he needed to lead Redboy away immediately. The big animal, in the last minute or two, had drifted away from Doran’s body so that Doran barely had his fingertips around the bridle strap. Redboy wandered/walked to the end of the reins and now the big red horse worked his mouth, trying to free himself of the bit. Doran felt that he should bring Redboy in close and help Shorty, but the chestnut was so nervous that instead of help, Doran might be bringing disaster. He stayed where he was, gently gaining control of the reins, clucking softly and leading the anxious horse away from the collision point.
Jorge, legs pressed into the heaving sides of the panting, wild-eyed bay, seemed to be frozen with fear, and the alcohol in his blood wouldn’t let him gain and hold control of the galloping bay. Jorge was carried closer and closer. The mare was tiring and stumbled more than once as a front hoof hit a narrow crooked ditch or the entrance to an animal's burrow. Doran expected to see Jorge’s mount roll to the right, smashing the screaming Jorge between the saddle and the sod.
Then the terror ended. Shorty, mounted on Ben, had stripped off his worn blue work shirt, and he now held this out. There was no wind, and the blue fabric hung in front of Shorty’s shirtless, wiry torso like a curtain. The bay, impressed by Ben’s superior size, did not focus on the blue shirt hanging in the air, nor on the man holding the shirt, but on the sorrel. She slowed, angled herself away from Ben’s flank, and trotted to a point about ten yards from Ben’s muzzle, where she stopped. Redboy, though he danced and whinnied, did not draw the bay’s attention. She looked around as though wondering how she’d arrived at this nondescript patch of prairie grass.
Jorge had slipped his boots free of the stirrups, but he was held upright by the reins wrapped around his hand and the saddle horn. He looked unsure of his whereabouts, and Doran guessed that Jorge might believe himself seated on a stool down at the tar-paper shack the Mexican ranch hands called their saloon.
Shorty lowered the still-buttoned blue shirt and put it on over his head. The shirt was so large that it flowed around his body like a monk’s tunic. Shorty stuffed the extra fabric under his belt, then rolled the patched sleeves up on his muscular forearms. Now fully dressed once more, he confronted Jorge, who swayed in the saddle on the bay horse. “What are you about?” Shorty shouted. “You about run us down! Don’t you care if you get killed?”
“Ain’t gonna kill nobody,” said Jorge, thickly, reaching forward to clamp the pommel with one work-hardened hand. “Come to tell you Sayre’s tricking you.”
“Sayre?" said Shorty, confused. "John Sayre's a. . ." He collected himself. "Oh, I know he’s pulling some kind of a stunt,” Shorty said. “You ought to have stayed at the store with your mama and Teo till you sobered up some! Whyn’t you climb down off that horse before you fall off?”
“Ain’t gonna fall off,” said Jorge, leaning back as far as the tightly-wound reins would let him. “Been ridin’ since before I could talk.” He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a bent box of Admiral cigarettes, and shakily extracted a smoke. He straightened it, then stuck it between his lips. Jorge brought out a box of matches and propped it between his thighs, then slid it open. His hand shook as he tried to strike a match. His first, second, and third attempts were all useless. After Jorge broke the shaft of his fourth unlit match, he fumbled the box and dropped it, scattering wooden matches across the prairie grass, where the bay horse crushed them into the turf.
Doran wished Shorty would ask about Sayre’s plan, but he knew better than to rush Shorty. The tough little man had all the determination in the world and would not move at a pace too fast to suit him.
Jorge, Doran knew, would do well to take Shorty's advice and climb down off the bay mare, and not just for his own safety. Shorty hated other men tower over him. The Lujans all knew that At this moment Jorge, in the saddle, loomed large over both Doran and Shorty as the two stood their ground.
Doran, looking at Jorge’s face, finally realized that the man in the saddle was afraid to dismount for fear of falling. Doran needed to get hold of the bay mare’s reins and steady the horse. Doran casually led Redboy closer, watching the skittish chestnut closely. But Redboy seemed to settle down in the presence of the mare. Doran was able to bring Redboy near enough to Jorge’s horse to keep holding Redboy’s reins in his right hand while using his left to rub down the white blaze which marked the center of the bay’s graceful forehead. She was a pretty horse, with black mane and stockings.
Doran slid his hand under the sidepiece of the bay’s bridle, and in this way, he could both comfort and restrain the brown mare.
Jorge twitched the reins irritably, and Doran stepped away but held fast to the bridle. The bay horse remained calm, and behind Doran, Redboy nibbled grass, then stopped long enough to let heavy brown droppings thud onto the prairie soil.
Jorge, his unlit cigarette clamped between his narrow lips, swung his left leg up and behind, preparing to dismount, but lost his balance and slid down the bay’s side, banging his chin, then his nose against the saddle’s smooth leather fender. Once on the ground, Jorge regained his composure, stooping to locate an unbroken match among the broken ruins. But he only stared at the match, as though he expected the tip to burst into flame on its own.
Silently, Shorty held out the stub of his own burning cigarette, and Jorge took it, then shakily held the glowing embers against the brown curls of tobacco poking out from the machine-rolled Admiral. He drew in a lungful of smoke with evident satisfaction.
Shorty looked piercingly at Jorge. “Why’d Sayre have your brother cut the fence between his place and mine?” he asked. “Cesario and his buddy about beat Doran to death, you know that?”
“Cesario don’t beat people,” said Jorge, anger at the charge against his brother clearing the fog from his dark eyes. “He ain’t bad like Sayre is.” He clamped his lips around the Admiral, pulling in smoke without touching it. As he spoke, wisps of smoke curled from his nostrils, clouding his heavy black mustache. “You know how it is, you work for a man, you got to do what he says.”
“If you don’t know how to fight the boss, you do,” said Shorty. “When I was in the First Infantry, they tried to make me drill up and down that fool fairground all day and all night. Ground all sloped down and muddy as hell. Nothing will tear up a man’s back like that. And I told them I’d ruther go to the brig any old day. So they locked me up in the Dairy Building ’cause they didn’t have no jail. That’s the way to do — a man tells you wrong, you don’t do the wrong.”
“What you think my father makes on his freight wagon, taking parcels around to the white people?” said Jorge. “I tell you what he makes, he don’t make nothing. The ladies give him pie and cake, maybe they give him a nickel or a dime.” Jorge squinted and drew smoke into his mouth, then released blue tendrils from his nostrils. “He don’t make the cost of feeding the mules. Mama pulls in a dollar here and there, from the Mexicans and the Negroes.”
“And us,” said Shorty. “You know me and Frank don’t never go over to Morrison’s.”
“That’s two white families,” said Jorge. “And poor ones." He smiled crookedly. "The ones that’s got money to spend, they don’t come down to get nothing from Mama.”
“You chase ’em off,” said Shorty. “That’s right, ain’t it? You chase off the good ones with the bad.”
Jorge drew in a last mouthful of smoke, and leaned over to let the stub of the Admiral fall from his lips. The cigarette end lay in a clump of buffalograss, smoldering faintly, surrounded by broken matchsticks.
As Jorge straigtened, Doran noticed for the first time that Jorge held his left hand curled against his side, his thumb hooked over his belt. Then Doran realized that Jorge wasn’t holding his hand in a curve — the hand was small, wrinkled, and missing the last two fingers on the little finger side.
Jorge saw Doran’s eyes lock for a moment on his deformity, and he bristled. “Horse stepped on it first time I got up and rode. He jounced me off and ran right over me. Broke my shoulder too.”
Doran couldn't stop himself from glancing at Jorge’s right shoulder, which did stick up higher than the left, with an odd bony projection that his heavy cotton shirt didn’t disguise.
Shorty moved forward a little bit, edging out Doran, and he looked into Jorge’s eyes. “I understand how it is,” he told the drunk, angry young man. “You got to run the brickyard and the lime pit by yourself, and your daddy’s not drawing in much on his route, and Teo can’t hear or speak. If Cesario don’t work for Sayre, you all can’t get by.”
The combination of the alcohol in his system, and the misery of the Lujans’ situation was now affecting Jorge strongly. He wobbled on his feet, and clenched his teeth rhythmically, so that his temples pulsed. Doran stepped back a couple of paces, in case the fierce, stocky man vomited.
Doran found himself blurting out a question. “Why does your father take Cesario out on the delivery route when it’s not a profitable business?”
Jorge Lujan compressed his thin mouth, biting his lips. He set his feet wider apart for better balance, and looked straight at Doran. "My father’s mind is always in the past,” he said. “He brought home good money when he was a real freighter. He paid for the store and the land in two years, that’s how much he made. Everyone coming to Nebraska, and all the crates piling up along the Missouri River. The ferries would bring everything, and then, down on the riverbank. There it could sit till it rotted or someone came with mules to get it. A man with a good wagon and two young mules could make a good living.” Jorge turned to Shorty. “Your brother Frank, he worked with my father.”
“Sure did,” said Shorty. “The first wagon your father had, he bought that from Frank. Once Frank had his piece of land, he didn’t haul freight no more. Maybelle thought she was going to keep him home, but then him and me joined the infantry and reported to Camp Alvin Sanders. All the time while Frank and me were down in the Philippines, wondering if we was going to get the yellow jack or not, we thought about Hector riding along easy, looking at the Platte and smelling the good clean American air. We wished we was up here haulin’ freight too, I’ll tell you. But the railroad finally took all the freight business over.”
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