Virgin Spring: A Southwest Story of Romance and Adventure

Copyright © 2001, 2007 by G. N. Buffington

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Originally published by Pony-Up Press Artwork by Pamela C. S. Buffington

Cover image: Hand-tooled leatherwork by King Saddlery of Sheridan, Wyoming, courtesy of Caballo, Santa Fe, New Mexico

ISBN: 978-0-595-47604-6

ISBN: 978-1-4697-4365-3 (ebook)

Contents

1 Going West

2 Belt Cartwright

3 The Legend

4 Bronc Busting

5 Rustler Roundup

6 Roping Romance

7 The First Rodeo

8 Cowboy Dance

9 Coming to Terms

10 Riding Dynamite

11 Frontier Justice

12 Fiesta del Sol

13 Apache Ambush

14 The Remuda

15 Virgin Spring

To my parents,

who introduced me to the West

I would like to acknowledge the patient, meticulous editing of my wife, Pamela, throughout the long gestation period of this book; the enthusiasm and support of my wife’s mother, Emmy Schaeffer; and the encouragement of Ellen Kleiner, as well as so many others along the way.

—G.N. B.

1

Going West 

I took the gun—an old Army Colt .38-caliber revolver—out of its tooled leather holster and examined it carefully. The blue steel frame, heavy and cold in my hand, glistened with a light coating of oil I felt guilty about having taken it from my father s gun collection, but I was excited to have it with me. As my father had said when he first showed it to me, it was Colt who made the guns that won the West. I unwrapped a package containing about a dozen blank cartridges that my father had set aside for Fourth of July celebrations. Pulling back the safety catch, I rolled out the chamber and loaded it. Then I held the gun out in front of me and, with a gentle flip of my hand to one side, rolled the chamber back in place—a neat move. I liked the feel of a gun in my hand. Fantasies reeled through my mind as I gazed out at the passing scenery. It was easy to imagine riding one of the old steam trains to the Western frontier.

As the Santa Fe Railroad Chief rolled through the flat farmlands of eastern Kansas, I became restless and decided to walk through the train. Although I had a roomette accommodation, I still did not feel secure about leaving the gun behind, so I stuck it in the back of my belt, like I’d seen them do in the movies, and put on my coat. The next car up was the dining car, where crisp white tablecloths, silverware, and shiny glasses were all set for dinner, still several hours away. The car was flooded with sunlight and on the warm side, though it felt good after the underheated Pullman car. I paused and took in the broad view of snow-patched fields. I had forgotten how flat the land was in this region. You could almost see the earth curve to meet the sky, I wanted to sit down but decided not to because I didn’t want to attract a waiter, and because sitting would have been awkward with the gun in my belt. Instead, I continued walking and soon came to a series of day coaches. The passengers seemed settled in for a long ride, with pillows and blankets scattered everywhere, even though it was mid-afternoon. Half the people were either asleep or curled up reading.

Walking to the front of one of these cars, I tried the door handle to the mens room and, finding it unoccupied, stepped inside. The gun was beginning to cut into my back, so I locked the door and removed the weapon from my belt. I repeated the loading maneuver—a move I was getting quite good at. Cocking the hammer with my thumb, I was about to let it back down real gently when my finger slipped off and the hammer slammed down on the loaded cartridge, causing a terrible roar. The tiny room filled with gunsmoke. My heart jumped, and I began to sweat. Not knowing what to do, I flushed the toilet, which also made a good bit of noise. There was a sharp rapping on the door—someone calling. I answered that everything was all right and then flushed again as if to prove it.

I stayed in the bathroom for about a half hour in the hope that I would be forgotten. Then, after adjusting the gun in my belt, I took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped out into the narrow hall. Trying not to look at the sea of faces peering over the seat tops, I walked quickly to the rear of the car, aware that every pair of eyes was on me. When I got back to my roomette, I returned the gun to the holster and stuffed it under the clothes in my duffel, vowing not to take it out again.

It was 1942, and the newspapers were full of war stories. The bombing of Pearl Harbor the previous December had shocked everyone. I had just turned seventeen. Friends a little older who had enlisted, most of them in the Marine Corps, had already gone off to boot camp and then to the Pacific. Although I was excited about the war, at seventeen I was too young to enlist without my parents’ consent. I had discussed the Marine Corps with my father, but he didn’t like the idea. It was one of the few times my father really seemed to care about me. What he wanted was to put me in the Navy, which he seemed to think was the best branch of the service, though he didn’t say so directly. He had been in the Army during World War I and had slept in tents in the mud and snow. He said it was tough, very unpleasant. In the Navy, he explained, I would always have a dry bunk on the ship and get three squares every day. I didn’t tell him, but Navy life sounded cooped up to me. Besides, I get seasick. What excited me was the Marine Corps. Later, I would read about marines landing on islands, then getting out, always on the move. Photographs in Life magazine showed tough marines, gritty and unshaven, sitting around under palm trees with machine guns cradled in their arms. Other pictures showed marines in fancy dress uniforms kissing movie stars for war bonds. I had made a solemn pact with a good friend to join the Marine Corps as soon as we turned eighteen, when we could enlist without our parents’ consent.

But for now I was heading West. I had always dreamed of the real cowboy life. It sounds silly, I know, but it was a very serious dream, and here it was becoming a reality. The opportunity grew out of one of those long, agonizing family conferences, the subject of which was, What motivates you, Nic? Over the course of three and a half years, I had been bounced out of three boarding schools. I was becoming accustomed to the little rituals of being fired from school—that peculiar adult term for being expelled. The school’s disciplinary officer would visit your room late at night, or summon you to an office when you were sleepy and vulnerable, and confront you with evidence of an infraction. Then you would be informed of the ultimate disciplinary action and advised, warned, admonished—the urgency varied according to the gravity of the offense—to leave the school premises the next day without talking to anyone. The fear was that the culprit might corrupt others by swaggering around a bit and sharing his illicit adventure with anyone who would listen. In my own experience, guys would approach me out of curiosity, wanting to know just what had happened. Many of my infractions had involved trips to nearby towns to explore the nightlife. I was fascinated by the opposite sex, although unsuccessful in doing much about it, and some of my stories got exaggerated out of a desire to please my eager audience. This is undoubtedly why I was often asked to leave school quickly.

It may seem strange, but I enjoyed these episodes. They provided some relief from the isolation and petty restrictions of boarding school life. However, the excitement quickly dissolved with the recriminations of my disappointed mother and my angry father, who was often out an entire year’s tuition. We’d talk about it a lot. I’d try to figure out what made me do these things, but I wasn’t very introspective, so I’d just come up with easy answers, hoping to satisfy them. What I couldn’t tell them was that I had an insatiable need to taste everything on the plate—girls, bars, fights, guys who weren’t like me, and new worlds away from mine. School was like a prison I had to escape. If my parents pushed me to name what I wanted most, I came back to my desire to go West. But it was something they saw as a dead end for me. My father’s response was that the cowboy is a creature of the past, a pipe dream.

I understood my father’s anger about the wasted money, but I also thought the schools were greedy to charge for time after a student was expelled—especially when they filled the vacancy with another kid and collected double the tuition. Boarding schools were not high on my popularity list, but I kept going to them because it pleased my parents and because I didn’t know what else to do—that is, until I found a way to wangle a trip West and realize some of my cowboy dreams.

The West had always had a strong pull on me. At school, I tended to befriend guys who came from out West, pumping them for information about their lives back home. Before that, when- ever I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, my answer was that I wanted to be a cowboy. Little by little my parents gave in. They let me have a dappled-gray cow pony named Smokey, a stock saddle, and a lariat. Later, I bought my own hat, boots, and other cowboy stuff during family trips West, as well as from mail-order catalogs.

Raised on a farm northwest of Chicago, I had ridden horses since I was four years old. At six, I was accustomed to riding in fairly big horse shows using a flat Eastern-style saddle and a bridle with a handful of double reins. Going over jumps was exciting, but I much preferred my Western rig and felt more comfortable in Levi’s and cowboy boots. My interest in cowboy life seemed to irritate my father. In fact, most things I did irritated him. I was never sure whether he even liked me. I guess deep down I was intent on making myself unwelcome at the Eastern boarding schools. In any case, I was mighty pleased when my parents came up with the idea of a school in Arizona.

The romance of the West washed over me the moment they mentioned it. Sure, I was headed to yet another school, but at least this time it would be in cowboy country. I was warned that this would be my last chance for an education before going into the service. Failure would spell the end of the road, meaning a job. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I needed an education, and this new place sounded better than the others since its athletic program offered a rodeo school. That’s what sounded appealing.

Through the windows of the train I watched the scenery gradually change from Midwest farm country to the more rugged Great Plains of western Kansas. As we rounded turns, I could see the red, yellow, and silver diesel engine pulling us through the land of the Santa Fe Trail. This was the beginning of the real West. That night I slept well to the rhythmic click of the rails, and I awoke early in eager anticipation of arriving in Phoenix sometime after breakfast. Looking out the windows, I imagined myself riding horseback through this high desert landscape studded with juniper and piñón. The distant mountain ranges cutting the horizon in almost every direction reminded me of New Mexico, which I had visited a number of times with my family. As we approached Phoenix, the train slowed, passing through small villages. Finally, it jerked to a stop. The open platform was sunlit and seemed small in contrast to Chicago’s dark, cavernous Union Station, where I had boarded the train. As I climbed down the steep steps to disembark, I was hit with a sudden burst of sunlight so blinding I had to adjust my eyes to the shadows once inside the station. There I saw a youngish man holding a sign with big black lettering, saying: The Desert School.

He introduced himself as Judd Casey and said he taught English and History. As we drove north out of town, he filled me in about life at the school. There were forty boarding students and more than twenty horses. My class had only a handful of boys, whereas the others were larger, filled with younger kids, some of them day students. Classes began at eight in the morning and continued until three in the afternoon, with an hour for lunch. At three o’clock, almost all the guys would gather at the corral, to either ride or do chores. The older, more experienced riders helped teach horsemanship to the younger kids, and twice a week there was a calf-roping session presided over by an ex-rodeo cowboy. Mr. Casey had one warning for me: the headmaster had a terrible temper and occasionally hauled off and hit kids who angered him—not with his fist, but rather with his open hand, which was apparently rather large. It was the one sour note to a new beginning.

The school was about twelve miles out of town, nestled in a little valley between rugged hills. These hills formed a series of ridges to the west, leading to a much higher range of mountains that loomed in the distance. To the east the valley opened into the desert, with a splendici view of other distant mountains. Most of the school buildings faced this vista. The dining hall, class- rooms, and main meeting hall were set in a square surrounding a large courtyard with a flagpole at its center. The living quarters consisted of cabins strung out from each side of the square. All the buildings were made of adobe, and the general impression they created was more of a nineteenth-century military post than a modern school. In fact according to Mr. Casey, some of the older structures had once been part of a Spanish rancho. I thought the place looked a lot like Hollywood sets I had seen in movies about the Apache wars. It was clear that my imagination had already sprung to life.

My arrival came two days short of the beginning of the winter term, so only a few people were there. I was offered some lunch in the kitchen, and then poked around the library, thumbing through big picture books of the early Southwest. Later in the afternoon, a young kid was assigned to show me around. First he took me to my room, located in one of the small cabins. There we dropped my bags, and I unpacked a few essentials, carefully avoiding the duffel in which I had hidden the gun. While I was busy with this, the kid introduced himself as Jeffrey Carter and told me he was from Los Angeles. I asked him what grade he was in.

The last year of the junior school—that’s eighth grade, he answered, his voice dropping to a lower pitch, as was characteristic of boys his age.

I hear you were kicked out of school back East. That true? He looked out the window as he ventured the question. I was surprised that a story had preceded me and thought it a little cheeky of him to ask about it.

Well, I said, I suppose if you’ve heard that, it has to be true. But I wouldn’t believe everything I hear if I were you. Stories like that have a way of getting blown out of proportion. Carter turned red, embarrassed by his indiscretion. I put my hand on his shoulder and in a friendly way said, Why don’t you show me around. Before it gets dark, I’d like to have a good look at the corral and the horses.

Turning to get out from under my hand, he smiled. OK, let’s go there right now. It’s my favorite place in the whole school. I watched him walk ahead on the path down a slight hill behind the row of cabins. His blond hair was shiny in the afternoon sun. Quite a bit shorter than me, he probably wasn’t yet full grown. But he was wiry and seemed pretty coordinated. He walked with a slight swagger, as young kids do when they try to impress older guys.

I bet you are a good rider, I called after him.

I like it a lot, he answered over his shoulder. I’m kind of new at it. A lot of the guys here are experienced riders, but I hold my own.

He waited for me to catch up and fall into step as we continued down the path. How about you? he asked. Are you a hotshot rider?

I’ve ridden just about as long as I’ve walked. So I wouldn’t sound like I was bragging, I added, I don’t know much about stuff like roping. Although I had fooled around with ropes back home, I had a feeling that some of the kids out here might be pretty good with them.

We sat on the corral fence until dark, gossiping about teachers and some of the students. Jeffrey—he preferred to be called JC— seemed to have many friends and was a good source of information about the faculty as well. After we parted company, I decided that JC could be a good pal to start with. I was lucky to have met him.

My room had white walls of cracked plaster decorated with a few cheap prints of Arizona’s red-rock landscapes. The only furniture, other than the lumpy bed, was a small desk and a chair. Round beams crossed the ceiling and seemed to swallow the lamplight. The bathroom adjoining the shadowy room was small with a narrow tin shower stall. Retrieving my old hat from one of the duffels, I tried to straighten it out, then stood at the sink running water over it until it was saturated. After putting it on my head to reshape it, I looked in the mirror. The drooping black Stetson dripping water on my shoulders made me look like a hobo. Strands of my brown hair, now on the long side, fell over my forehead beneath the brim. I didn’t look much like a cowboy, I thought, smiling ruefully. Actually, the sodden hat, together with the patches of freckles across my nose and under my eyes, reminded me of a grown-up Huckleberry Finn. I had long envied Huck for his freedom and his life of adventure on the river. I once overheard my mother telling a friend that the only way to under- stand men was to read Huckleberry Finn—a comment that both surprised and pleased me.

As I continued to peer into the mirror, I coaxed some hair back under the dripping hat brim. Then striking various poses, I examined the image. My skin was usually clear, rarely affected by the blemishes that plagued most guys my age. I was vaguely aware of my good looks, despite the broken front tooth that dominated my smile. A friend had tossed a full bottle of Coke at me when I wasn’t looking and half my tooth had broken off, but since the nerve was not affected, no repair work had been done. When I got into trouble, I always worried that the tooth gave me a sly, guilty expression. I wondered if that was why I was often targeted as a troublemaker.

That night it took me a while to fall asleep. I could hear yapping and howling in the distance, which I took for coyotes. After the noise died down, I was finally lulled to sleep by the desert silence and woke late feeling refreshed. When I got to the dining hall, I was late for breakfast, but a friendly cook served me anyway. While I was eating, JC poked his head around the door. Seeing that I was hard at work on a plate of scrambled eggs and sausage, he joined me at the big table.

How did you sleep? he asked. I told him about the howling, and he explained, Those coyotes find dead things like a calf or a sheep, and they go crazy yapping for others to meet them for dinner. Last night, some of the guys sneaked out on horseback and chased coyotes, hoping to get close enough to rope them. They do that sometimes, but they haven’t caught one yet. He laughed. Around school there are some paintings by Charlie Russell showing cowboys actually roping coyotes, so the guys call it ‘Russelling.’

I don’t suppose you were one of those guys out there last night? I asked.

Yeah, I was. But none of us even got close. He smiled broadly. It’s kind of risky riding fast over the desert at night. Your horse can’t see well enough to dodge prairie-dog holes. Then his smile disappeared. If old man Cartwright ever caught us, there would be big trouble. He’s got an awful temper.

I’ve heard, I said. I understand he hits kids, too.

That’s right, but who told you?

The guy who drove me here from the station.

After a reflective pause, he said gravely, I think The Belt is a little crazy, just between you and me.

The Belt? I asked.

That’s Cartwright. We call him The Belt’ because sometimes he belts you if you step too far out of line. JC’s impish smile returned. He pretty much leaves the bigger kids alone, though. He seems to know when he’s outmatched. He studied me a moment. I think you’re too big for him.

JC’s remarks sounded ominous, but right now I was more interested in the student escapades.

So what other crazy things do you and your friends do?

Well, 111 tell you one thing we do fairly often, but you’ve got to promise not to let anyone know I told you, JC stressed. On some of our rides we take along a bucking cinch, and when we get out in the desert alone where no one can see, we strap it on one of the nags and take turns riding. The horse will usually buck pretty well for two or three rides before wising up. It’s really the only way you can practice bronc riding. We went on talking about horses, which seemed to play a central role in school life. Eventually, the conversation turned to some of the kids in my class.

One of the students JC mentioned was Johnny Golden, a nice guy from Chicago with a weakness for poker. His father ran a company that made slot machines. Johnny had brought one of the slot machines to school—a little table model that took nickels. Everyone got to play it, and because the odds were set generously, payoffs were frequent. Although I did not know Johnny back in Chicago, I had a weakness for slots and looked forward to meeting him.

JC thought I would like Cliff Barnes, who had school difficulties similar to my own. Cliff’s parents were divorced; when he wasn’t at school, he lived with his mother in Silver City, New Mexico, and visited his father in New York City.

Cliff’s a real good calf roper. He has his own horse at school and has ridden in a number of rodeos around here, JC said, obviously impressed with Barnes. He’s a little crazy. Cheats at poker a lot—he’s open about it, though, and challenges the guys to catch him. If they do catch him, he gives the winnings back. He actually practices second-card and bottom-deck dealing in front of the mirror. JC used these terms with a cocky air of familiarity.

Why do guys play with him then? I asked.

I guess they think it’s big-time to play with a real card shark—you know, like in the movies.

More expensive though.

Yeah, that worries me. He could get into trouble if anyone complains. Golden has been a big loser recently. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t complain, but someone might do it for him.

The next day, school opened for the new term. Although I was eager to meet my new classmates, the experience of beginning yet another school was becoming all too familiar. My first trip East from Chicago in my freshman year had been to St. Andrew’s, a small boarding school in Connecticut. During the spring term, another guy and I got a couple of town girls to meet us in the basement bathroom of our dorm. We sat in separate shower stalls and groped around in the dark, smooching and touching. It didn’t amount to much, but we were caught and I was kicked out. My father, thinking I had done a lot more than smooch, was disgusted with me—as he put it. I came home to finish that semester and just squeaked by. The next year, my family got me into Dal ton Academy, a larger school in New Hampshire. I liked that one better, but got into trouble again. Without permission, I went off to Boston with two older guys, and got drunk and tattooed. We had a hotel room, and the guys got some girls to come up. I pre- tended to be asleep in one bed while the guys rolled around with the girls in another. From all the grunting and groaning, I assumed they went all the way, but didn’t dare watch. Back at school, the students admired my tattoo of cavalry crossed swords and stars. However, I didn’t have much time to show it off; the next day I got bounced. Instead of going directly home, I visited a cousin in Boston whose father was a writer and very easygoing. He called my parents and paved the way for my return to Chicago. My mother cried and my father fumed. I felt guilty. The third school, Mansfield Academy, was a disaster. Because of my previous record, I was on probation and thought the teachers were all gunning for me. After getting into a tussle with one of them for manhandling me in class in front of the other guys, I took a swing at him, connected, and knocked him out. That was the end. Surprisingly, my father was not so angry this time, probably since no girls were involved. It was after this that my mother found The Desert School.

All that first day, guys streamed into school. They came from California, Colorado, New York, Chicago, Florida, and a lot of other places. One friendly kid about eleven years old came from Spain and was eager to learn all the current American slang, especially racy monosyllabics. In exchange, he offered to help us with Spanish, which was required at school because it was a second language in this part of the country. The unusual thing about Nito, short for Juanito, was that he had blond hair and blue eyes. As I settled into the school routine, I became attached to him and took on a role as his protector.

My senior class had only seven other guys in it, including the Golden kid and the calf roper, Cliff Barnes. Everyone in the class was older than me, but the subject never came up since I was pretty big and mature looking for my age.

Late in the afternoon, we registered and met with the faculty. Before the day ended, Cartwright hosted an orientation party. Once there, each of us shook hands and made small talk with Cartwright, members of his family, and a teacher or two. Then we had a quick soda and left. Cartwright, who was well over six feet tall and beefy, lived up to his reputation as big and intimidating.

After dinner, the older guys gathered in Johnny Golden s room. I tried his nickel slot machine and won; then we looked through a series of female nudes Johnny had brought with him from Chicago. Some of the figures were reclining provocatively. Others were cavorting around showing off what they had. I had seen more explicit nudity in sex instruction books, but those pictures had been so clinical they paled in comparison to Johnny’s.

When the excitement of Johnny’s pictures wore off, I became the center of attention. The guys wanted to know all about my escapades, since they had already heard rumors about me. In telling stories, my style was to avoid too many details until I knew the guys better, so I gave them only a general picture of what school officials had called my checkered career. When Johnny wanted to know how I dealt with my parents, I just told him it had been difficult being at home with all the tension and pressure. Actually, my father, who had no more than a high school education, had wanted me to go to work, while my mother had insisted that I continue my education. Their disagreement about my fate made me feel even worse. As a concession, my mother agreed that the next time I got into trouble, school would be over for me and I would go to work until being drafted into the military.

To stop the group from focusing on my problems, I told them about my plan to join the Marines. The conversation then turned to wartime options for service. Everyone agreed that the Marine Corps seemed to offer the most prestige and excitement. One of the guys knew someone who had enlisted and lied about his age. Cliff Barnes, who I guessed was a bit older than everyone else, told of a friend who had joined the Royal Canadian Air Force. Cliff lamented that he himself would be classified 4-F because of his asthma. I believed him when I later heard him wheeze with an attack.

Tall, thin, and dressed in black lizard boots and a black Stetson hat, Cliff looked like a classic cowboy figure. He acted the part, too, having roped calves with the best of them and ranked with a top time of eleven seconds in small rodeo competition. On the front of his hat he proudly displayed the Cowboys’ Turtle Association pin, signifying his membership in the top rodeo cowboys’ group. He told me that Everett Bowman, a Texan, had started the association six years before. On the pin, there was an embossed image of a turtle, which came from the name of Bowman’s ranch and resembled a cattle brand.

I liked Cliff right off since he had a well-developed sense of humor and didn’t take himself too seriously. His flamboyant personality, however, attracted a coterie of ass-kissing friends. I suspected it would be difficult to befriend him on equal terms, but I wanted to try, because I admired his cowboy accomplishments and hoped to learn from him.

As the evening wore on, the group moved to the common room, where smoking was permitted. Since there was no curfew this first night, they took advantage of the additional time to trade stories about the school. They gave me the lowdown on Cartwright, different teachers, and San Luis, the girls’ school nearby. By the end of the evening, I felt much more comfortable in my new setting.

One guy I got to know was Pappas, better known as Tonto. Oddly, he looked the part and didn’t talk or smile much. When he did speak, it was almost always about bronc riding. As it turned out, he was one of the leaders of the midnight bronc-riders group that sneaked out in the dark with horses and a bucking cinch. After cornering me, he explained that the secret bronc riding had to be done when there was no moon, because otherwise the desert lit up as though the sun were out. Since there would be no moon for several nights, he urged me to come out with him and ride my first real bucking horse. The more insistent he became, the more I knew he was testing me. Before we all went to bed, I tentatively agreed to join him the next night.

2

Belt Cartwright 

A strident bugle call ripped into my dreams, abruptly ending my early morning sleep. No one had warned me of this unpleasant ritual, and I dreaded the thought of starting every day with a blast through a loudspeaker. Later I learned that the bugler was a new student, too, but he’d been a Boy Scout who had unfortunately brought his horn to school with him. Apparently, Belt Cartwright was delighted with his new bugle boy, and intended to make him play both morning and evening. The Boy Scout movement was a favorite of Cartwright’s, and he encouraged all younger students to join.

Breakfast was a quiet meal. It was obvious that some of the guys had just rolled out of bed and hastily thrown on some clothes. From the head table Cartwright presided over the meal, inspecting each new arrival. He wore steel-rimmed glasses low on his nose and rarely smiled. When he did, it was more a grimace, as if in response to gas pain. He talked in a quiet rumble to those around him, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Always watchful of things going on in the room, he scrutinized me once or twice. When I arrived at breakfast, he had greeted me using my last name, as was customary in private schools. Often a teacher will precede it with Mr. to create a grown-up, formal atmosphere. Most kids will cue off of a last name to come up with a nickname for a friend. My name, Nichols, was always shortened to Nic, which I actually liked better than my given name of Taylor.

Classes started at eight o’clock, and all of mine were presided over by congenial teachers. The time passed quickly. Lunch was pretty good for school fare and was followed by a study period that lasted until riding time. On the way down to the corral, I met JC, who was decked out in boots, hat, and racy sunglasses.

You should get sunglasses, he advised. The sun is strong out here, even in the winter. It was a bright, warm afternoon, probably in the low 70s.

I guess I’ll have to buy some, I said. JC had explained that we got to take a trip to Phoenix every other Saturday. I later learned that trips to town were pretty loose for the older guys— you just had to find someone with a car.

Maybe you could use a new hat, too. He shot a quick glance at my battered Stetson. I’ll take you to Porter’s and get you out- fitted. He slipped off his hat and showed me the label. It was also a Stetson, a brown triple-X beaver of very fine quality, and JC had creased what he called a jaunty rodeo block into the crown, which made a sloping peak in the front—much the same as Cliff’s. Cliff seemed to set the style for the others. I liked the look and made a mental note of it.

As we approached the corral, we noticed a commotion near the tack house where all the saddles, bridles, ropes, and other riding equipment were kept. At the center towered the figure of Cartwright, who was gesturing angrily with his long arms. The group around him seemed to be instinctively widening into a large circle beyond his reach. We picked up our pace so we could get close enough to hear what was going on. Cartwright was questioning a hired hand about the condition of one of the saddles, which apparently had been damaged during the younger kids’ early afternoon ride. Nito, the boy from Spain, was also standing inside the ragged circle with tears rolling down his dark, flushed cheeks.

So now you admit that you ran the horse. Cartwright’s face was bright red. Is that what you are saying?

Yes, replied Nito in an almost inaudible voice that contrasted with The Belt’s booming bass.

You just took it into your head to show off by running away from the group. It was a statement, not a question. And you disregarded Slim’s command to return to the group. I guessed that Slim was the hired hand who was looking pretty nervous. I suspected that he had pointed the kid out to avoid attracting blame himself.

Just look at that saddle. Look at it, damn it! Cartwright was working himself up. The saddle was hanging on the rail in front of the tack house. The leather was badly scarred on one side, and the horn had been broken off.

Do you know what saddles cost, you little prick? Cartwright was out of control. You expected to look up to a headmaster like a… parent. But this guy was crude.

Then without warning, Cartwright took a half-step toward Nito and swung one of his big arms so quickly that