BUCKSKIN CLASSICS - FREE SHORTSTORY

"I'm on the right-a-way, Suller. Besides, you're a lowdown, snake-eatin' horse thief and you couldn't lick a sick pack rat." Rufe spanged another bullet into the air and took off toward Stockton at a nonchalant trot, whooping and looking around every now and then to yell a name.

Jeff leaped on the dun and took out after him, but Rufe's black was fast when he drove it and he kept a safe distance away. He rode right into Stockton, dismounted, and stood in the middle of the main street.

"Here comes a long-nosed son of a mangy coyote!" Rufe yelled, for the edification of a knot of passersby. "Lookit him come!"

Jeff dismounted and started for him, but hadn't got two steps before someone grabbed him around the waist and pulled him toward the boardwalk. He saw enough through the haze of anger to know it was Susie.

"Don't do it," she hissed. "Can't you see he's just baiting you to get you back in jail?"

Jeff relaxed, and with considerable effort, managed a benign smile at Rufe. "Well, if it ain't ol' Rufe jokin' again! Howdy, Rufe!"

Rufe's face fell. Plainly, he had not expected this and was uncertain what to do. Jeff allowed Susie to lead him to the boardwalk.

"You came in right handy," Jeff allowed. "Now let go of me. I aim to call on Oba."

Susie got red again, but this time she hung on. "You've demonstrated you're unable to take care of yourself," she said coldly. "It looks like I'll have to stick with you. I consider it an act of charity."

"Suits me," Jeff said, figuring as soon as he started talking sweet to Oba that Susie'd get mad and leave. He went down the street toward the hotel, where Oba usually sat on the porch of an evening when she didn't have a date.

Sure enough, Susie tagged along, and sure enough Oba was on the hotel porch. In fact, she was talking to Mr. Johnson, the cattle buyer. Oba looked in annoyance at Susie, but Mr. Johnson smiled.

Johnson nodded. "Fine. Those Wimmles are persistent chaps, aren't they? They say they can deliver the whole herd at a lower price, but I'll stick with my bargain as long as you're on time."

Oba looked past him at Susie. "Your technique must be improving, dearie," she said to Susie. "I see he lets you follow him around now.' Oba tilted her pretty, powdered face and fluttered her eyelashes disdainfully.

Jeff felt somewhat hurt and scowled at Oba, though he didn't know why, but when she smiled at him he immediately forgot everything else.

"No rides," said Susie flatly. "You have' to be in bed by nine o'clock anyway. When Jeff's mouth came open, Susie added, "Or would you rather go back to jail for breaking parole?"

Jeff shut his mouth, but Oba looked" furious. "Well, I’m certainly not going to sit here and he dictated to by that woman," said Oba. "Perhaps, if you're not doing anything, Mr. Johnson?"

Jeff swallowed hard as Oba and MT. Johnson marched off the porch. "Now you went and done it," he said angrily.

"Never mind," Susie said calmly. "Ifs time you started home, big boy. Come along."

JEFF didn't see anything else to do. Susie escorted him to his horse and then followed away in the buggy. Passing the saloon, Jeff saw the remaining Winmile brothers, Rufe and Jake, peering at him over the batwing doors. He did not like the way they looked at him, particularly Jake, who was the oldest and meanest and had an iron hand over the other two.

Jeff grumbled to himself all the way home. He didn't see any sense in making a lot of money if he couldn't be with Oba. If Susie would only mind her own business.

But when she wheeled her buggy back to town, he didn't bawl her out. "It still won't do any good," he repeated.

Susie looked very pretty in the soft early moonlight. It shone on her clean brown hair and made bright stars in her dark eyes.

"All the same," she said, "I'm going to keep an eye on you till you get the stock in the loading pens." She paused and then said simply and softly, "Take care of yourself, you big dummy."

Susie kept her word. He hadn't got himself washed up in the morning before she came riding into the yard, this time on a rope horse and wearing levis and a gingham shirt.

"You might need a little help," she said. "I can root out a cow good as the next one."

Jeff had decided that the best way to deal with her was silence. He only nodded, then finished washing and drank a cup of hot coffee and ate a biscuit, Susie watching everything with round eyes. They rode out together, and began to beat the brush.

It was the hardest day he bad ever put in. Around noon a strand of the wire corral broke and he had to halt the roundup to repair it with a length of rusty stuff which had an irritating tendency to snap back to coiled shape. By seven o'clock he and Susie toted a hundred and fifty heads. Which meant he had to find fifty more tomorrow in order to have them ready for an early drive to town Friday.

Susie looked terribly tired, and she must have been, for she rode for home without even telling him to go to bed.

Jeff hastily ate and washed and made for town himself. He rode through back alleys to avoid the Wimmle brothers and reined up at the boarding house where Oba stayed.

He pounded upon the door and it was opened by Oba herself, and she was very smartly dressed up, as for going out. She looked at him somewhat coldly, but Jeff figured he'd soon fix that.

"Never mind her," said Jeff, again irritated, though it was none of his business what she called Susie. "I reckon you know I'm comin' in for a wad of dinero on Friday. I'm askin' you to marry me on Friday."

AS A MATTER of fact, she hesitated for a vexatious length of time and then said, "You're not my only suitor, Jeff Suller. But no one can say I'm not loyal.

Jeff grabbed her and gave her a kiss, which he had to admit was rather cold, or maybe he was just too tired. Releasing her, he said, "I reckon I better get back now. I got a hard day comin' up."

Susie was out again in the morning. She asked about the Wimmles and he said he hadn't seen hide nor hair of them. "They better stay away, too," he declared.

In the afternoon they came upon a bonanza of twenty head in a brush grown arroyo. This made things easier, and by four in the afternoon Jeff rooted out number two hundred, which was a huge, tough mean steer, and it reminded him of Jake Wimmle.

The steer was reluctant to leave his grazing, and Jeff had to throw him twice before he sullenly entered the corral and pawed the ground there, glaring out with red eyes full of orneriness.

"Well," said Jeff, "I reckon that does it. We'll drive 'em in first thing in the mornin'. Susie, you done a good job. He felt, so expansive that he leaned over and gave Susie a peck on the cheek.

She turned to him and she looked at him with such a brightness in her eyes that he felt almost as mean as the steer. Then he coughed and said, "Reckon I didn't tell you I'm marryin' Oba tomorrow, It's all fixed up."

The way her eyes changed was like turning down a lamp. But she turned away quickly and her voice was calm. "Congratulations. I suppose you can take care of yourself the rest of the night. I'll see you in the morning, Jeff."

Jeff loitered around the corral awhile. Surprisingly, he did not feel near as good as he had thought he would. Why, it looked like Susie was going to leave him alone, which was what he had wanted, while he was going to marry Oba and get rich....

He rode back to the cabin and slouched in the kitchen till night, feeling so queer he did not even think it strange that the Wimmles had left him alone for two days now.