Medicine Wheel Chapter One

Medicine Wheel

Chapter One.

Andrew Blocker’s chair creaked as he eased back in it to savor his first swallow of almost cool beer. He frowned at the still nearly full mug in his hand. The beer was just as bad as he remembered it being. For the life of him, he couldn‘t figure out why the other boys hurried into town every chance they got to get all likkered up. He thought about giving whiskey another try, then thought better of it. He didn‘t even like whiskey as well as he liked beer. It tasted worse, burned so bad going down and took a lot less of it to make him feel even worse the next day. “Scuse me sir,” he said to the bartender, who was the only other occupant of the saloon. “Whatcha got to offer in the way of food here today?”

The saloon keeper, who had been pretending to be busy wiping the bar and arranging the items on the bar, but mostly studying the stranger replied brightly, “Got a fresh side of beef. I could lop you off a big steak. Taters, red beans.”

“Sounds pretty much like what I been eatin’ out on the ranch, but I would like to see how it goes down without any dirt or stray bugs on it. Make that steak well-done if you would please, sir.”

“You just come in from the ranch, eh? That’s where I know you from. You work out on the Matador, don‘t you?” The bartender eyed the man with a tinge of suspicion. The Matador Ranch was by far the biggest industry in the town. For that matter, not only was it the biggest industry in the town, it was the biggest industry in that part of Texas. It was the reason for the town’s existence. A few years before, in order to meet the terms for township, one of the owners of the ranch got the bright idea of having a bunch of cowhands gather up a few wagon-loads of junk from the ranch, drag it all into town and set themselves up with little shops for one day. Law required that in order to be classified as a town, a place had to have a certain number of businesses and, for at least a day, they had the required number. The shenanigans of the ranch owners hadn’t stopped there, though.

“Not anymore, I don’t. I worked out there for about five years, but I think it is time for me to move on,” Andrew said.

“What do you think of the election? Why ain’t you mayor or something? Seems like every cowhand out there got elected for some office last year.”

“Mr. Campbell sent me out of the country on business during the time when that whole deal come up.”

Since the man was no longer working at the ranch and didn’t seem to be completely happy about things, the bartender ventured to push further into that topic. “What do you think about the way the ranch put up people to run for every office then had them all voted in?”

“I think about the same thing about that as I think about a bunch of other things that been happening lately; I think it is a while wagon load of bullshit!”

The bartender chuckled nervously. “I guess that puts you and me on the same page, then. I better get to fixing that steak you wanted. It’ll be ready in half an hour or so. Want another beer to hold you over in the meantime?”

“No, what I’d really like is some cold, clean water. Got a good well around here somewhere?”

“Over on the back porch of the boarding house across the street. Here, take this pitcher and go see the lady inside. Whatever you do, don’t just go straight around back to help yourself without letting you know you’re there. She‘s a nice lady, but she don‘t hold with no strangers stomping around on her back porch without bothering to ask permission. She’s big on good manners and does her best to make sure everyone else is, too. I don’t think she’d actually shoot you, but she’s been known to wave her old squirrel gun around and make quite a fuss about people just stomping around back there, helping theirself.”

Andrew eased himself up from the rickety chair and chuckled as he strolled toward the door, pitcher in hand. “I’m not generally the sort to just go stomping around on other people‘s private property without their permission, anyway, and I do try to be polite as best I know how, ‘specially with the ladies, so I think we‘ll get along just fine. I’ll right back.”

“And be real careful of that pitcher. It’s the only one we got and if you get it busted, I’d have a helluva time getting a new one sent out here. And while my wife might not be as refined as Mizz Redwine acrost the street, she‘d sure give you and me both quite a piece of her mind if we fooled around broke her good water pitcher.”

The street was nearly deserted in the hot mid-day sun. Horses were tethered in the shade of some of the buildings on the street. A lone man squatted in the strip of shade at the side of a building across the street and two men sat in rocking chairs on the front porch of the boarding house. “Hello,” Andrew said as he stepped up on the porch.

“Howdy,” one man answered.

“ Hey,” the other said.

They both nodded with looks of curious interest at the stranger.

“I come for a pitcher of water,” Andrew said, holding up the pitcher. “Is the lady that owns this place inside?”

“Yep, I believe she is,” one of the men replied.

Andrew opened the screen door and knocked firmly on the front door. From inside the house, he could hear the quick clack, clack, clack of a woman‘s hard-heeled shoes purposefully approaching the door. An attractive middle-aged woman opened the door and gave her best welcoming smile. “How can I help you, sir?”

Andrew snatched the hat off his head and returned her smile with his most polite solicitous and friendly smile. “Howdy, ma’am. Sorry to bother you, but the man acrost the street at the saloon said you might be kind enough to let me fetch some fresh water from your well.”

“That would be no problem at all. No problem at all. The well is around on the back porch. Just go right on around and help your self.”

“Thank you ma’am, thank you very much Sorry to bother you, but I ain‘t that big a beer drinker and I got a lot of trail dust to rinse out of my gullet.” Did he say gullet, he thought? Was gullet a word you could say to a respectable woman? “Uh, I mean I just wanted to drink water instead of beer.”

“Very admirable of you. The world would be a better place if more trail hands shared your preference.”

“Uh, Thank you.” He bobbed his head twice as a sort of quick bow as he backed away from the door. He took a wipe at his brow with the back of his hand before replacing his hat on his head. Women always had this effect on him, especially pretty, cultured women like Miz Redwine.

He found the well on the back porch, lowered the bucket, drew it back up out of the well and carefully filled the pitcher. Rounding the corner of the house, on his return to the saloon, he glanced again at the man squatting in the shade, figuring him to be an Indian by his dress and the way he held himself, then gave a start when he realized he recognized the man.

“Hey, is that you, Charlie,” he called across the street.

The Indian‘s real name was Chiwaten, but he had grown accustomed to white men calling him something they could relate to better. “Yep, last I checked it was still me. I kinda thought to myself that looked like ol‘ Andrew Blocker when you rode into town.”

Andrew ambled across the street toward the Indian. “What the heck are you doing here in Matador? For that matter, what are you doing in Texas? Last time I run across you, we were way over around Durango, weren’t we?”

“I reckon it was closer to Flagstaff. I come here lookin’ for someone, but I reckon the man who told me he was ‘round here somewhere was mistaken cuz I don’t find no sign of him ‘round here anywhere and I think I done a fair-to-middlin job of a’searchin’. He thought the fellow who told him the story was a Comanche, but I talked to people of the Wanderer and Liver-Eater bands and they never heard of such a man.”

Andrew pushed his hat back and rubbed the top of his bald head for a minute while he pondered the situation, then let his hat drop back into place and shrugged it off. “Hmm. I dunno. If those people don’t know anything about him, I don’t know of any other Indians around here you could ask. Care for a swallow of this fresh well water I just got?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Charlie said as he fished around in a well worn leather bag which lay on the ground beside him. He pulled out a battered tin cup and banged it on his thigh then blew into it to clear an assortment of debris out of it.

Andrew poured the cup full to the brim and squatted on the ground beside the Indian as Charlie savored his first mouthful of water. “So, tell me more about this fellow you came all the way over here looking for?”

“It’s a fellow my father’s cousin run into a while back. This cousin of my father gets awful confused sometimes, in fact he stays awful confused most of the time, but he tried to repeat a story this fellow told him. He made such a mess of it, I couldn’t tell for sure, but I taken an interest such that I had to get myself way over here to hear the real story from that man’s own mouth.”

“Must have been quite a story to cause you to walk five, six hundred miles across the Rockies.”

“Well, best I could tell it was, but I won’t know for sure if it was worth the walk until I hear that man tell it all himself. I didn’t have nuthin’ important going on anyway, so I might as well be out wandering around Kansas, as keeping my backside parked on a particular piece of dirt in Colorado. Seen some real interesting country along the way.”

“It don’t believe it’s too interesting once you get out of sight of the mountains.”

“Oh, I think it’s all plenty interesting. You just gotta look at it a little different, or look at it a little harder in some places.”

“I don’t guess I’ve been in any mood to be admiring the country lately, but now I have some time on my hands again, so maybe I can come around to seeing it your way.”

“So whatcha been doin’ that kept you too busy to notice the land you been mashing flat with those big ol’ boots of yours?”

“Aww, Ol’ Man Campbell had me take a trip acrost the ocean to Scotland to fetch a new bull for him last year. He had some kind of big idea about improving the bloodline of those jingle cows her got from Chisum. After crossing that water and babysitting that ignorant old beast all the way back, I did gain a whole new appreciation of this prairie. I ain’t never setting foot on any kind of boat again. That Scotland is some mighty pretty country and I’m mighty glad I got to see it, but if it means taking my two feet off of good solid ground, I don’t reckon I’ll ever be going back there. By the time I got back, a new ranch manager had taken over from Campbell. A man by the name of McKenzie. He and I wasn‘t goanna see eye-to-eye and besides, I already worked for that outfit long enough, so I was thinking about moving on, anyway.”

Charlie chuckled. “You never were one for holding still in one place too long, were you?”

Andrew frowned. “I don’t reckon I am. If I was, I’da settled down, got married and bought a little spread of my own. I just get mighty fidgety and maybe a little cranky when I can’t get out and breathe some free air now and then. So you’re gonna spend some more time looking for that feller you came all the way out here to find?”

“Yeah, I guess I am. The more time I’ve spent looking for him, the more I feel a need to find him. You know, there’s power in stories. Sometimes it hits you right off and sometimes you gotta listen hard and ponder it for a while, but if someone thinks something is worth remembering and telling all over again, there’s gotta be something’ to it. If you listen right and give each story the respect it deserves, after a while, I think you just might find something important there.”

“You always were quite a story teller yourself, Charlie.”

“So was you. I’m not sure I can believe every story you ever told me, but some of them were good enough to keep me repeating them.”

“Hey, every word I’ve told you was the damn truth. Well, maybe not every word but most of them, or some of them anyway. Aw hell, sometimes you gotta embellish a story a little to make it hold peoples interest. I start telling a story and begin to get bored with it myself and gotta pretty it up a little sometimes.”

Charlie chuckled again. “I meant no offense. I know what you are saying. Even if you do pretty it up or even if the whole thing might be a lie, and I’m not saying I think it was, the power of the story is still there.”

Andrew suddenly remembered the meal he had ordered earlier. “Hey, I got the guy over in the salon cooking me up a steak. Most of these yahoos don’t look kindly on Indians coming into the saloon, but I could get him to fry up another one and bring it back to you if you want it.”

“Don’t mind if you do. I could use a good steak ‘bout now. If I killed anything bigger than a rabbit to eat, most of it would go to waste before I had time to eat it and I’m getting kinda tired of rabbit and prairie dog.”

“Wait right here. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He offered the pitcher and topped off Charlie’s cup. “See you in a bit.”

Andrew headed back to the saloon with a new sense of purpose in his step. Before he even got halfway back to the saloon, he could smell onions and steak frying and realized how hungry he really was.

“Boy, that sure smells good,” he said to the bartender. “You reckon you could cook up another one of them? I run into an old Indian friend of mine acrost the street and he said he was worn out on eating rabbits and such, so I want to buy him a good steak.”

“You go tell that friend of yours to come on over and pull up a chair at the table if he wants to. I ain’t got a thing against Indians and they’re sure welcome to eat in here like the rest of us.”

“You’re alright. I’ll go get him.” With that, Andrew went back to the door and yelled across the street, “Hey Charlie, come on over here.”

Charlie rose from the ground, grabbed his pack and crossed the street
“This guy says for you to come on in here and sit at the table with me to eat that steak.”

“I don’t know if I remember how to eat sitting at a table, but I’ll give it a go.”

Charlie and Andrew didn’t waste much time talking while they ate. In the middle of mopping the last of the meat’s juices up with a piece of bread, Charlie suddenly stopped, gave Andrew a hard look and after a long moment, said, “If you aren’t doing anything important, why don’t you come along with me for a while and help me find this story man?’

Andrew was puzzled by the strange look Charlie had given him as much as by the question but couldn’t figure out how to ask him what he was getting at. “Well, I reckon I could. I really don’t have any plans about where I was heading next anyhow.”

Charlie kept looking at him and then gave a slight nod and then a knowing but mysterious smile. “Good.”

“What’s the plan? I’m gonna need to get some food and supplies together if we are gonna be out of the trail for a while.”

Charlie thought for a moment, then quietly cocked his head and turned his head from side to side as if listening to a faint far-away sound or sniffing the wind. “I think we go northwest from here. Bring along enough stuff to last us two weeks.”

“Alright, it’ll take me an hour or two to get what I need. What say I meet you back over there by that building where I run into you when I am ready.”

“Okay, that sounds good. That will give us time to put a few miles on before dark and find a good place to camp for the night.”

“Well, see you in a bit, then. Anything else you need me to get for you while I am at it?”

“Now that you mention it, I could use a pouch of tobacco and some papers. And get plenty of coffee if you don’t mind. I have developed a powerful hankering for coffee lately. I have been mostly living off the land and traveling light but if you don‘t like the taste of roasted rattlesnake, you should buy whatever you think you will want There is plenty of game out in those hills besides snakes and rabbits, but I wasn’t killing anything bigger when I was alone because most of it would go to waste.”

“I think the two of us could make use of an antelope or smallish deer. If I buy too much grub, I’ll have to buy an extra pack mule to haul it all.”

“No need for that. Just get what that one mule you have can haul. It has been a wet spring, so we won’t need to carry much water. Most of the creeks out there are running good.”

Andrew considered, both what they would need and what they might want to have with them for trade. He didn’t smoke or chew tobacco, but it occurred to him that it might be a good idea to take more tobacco and coffee than Charlie asked for. Flour, salt, sugar, coffee and tobacco were always in big demand and it was always a good thing to have plenty of all out on the trail and it was always the thing other people you run across out there had run out of and couldn’t make of buy in a lot of places. Meat was generally more easily come by, but he would need to make sure to have enough ammunition for his pistol and rifle and some fishing line and hooks could come in handy. He browsed through the mercantile and made a big pile on the counter. By the time he finished, he had all his horses could carry and almost all he could afford. He had planned to buy himself a new pair of boots, a new hat and some new clothes, but found himself happy to skip these things and instead spend it all on goods for his new adventure.

Charlie was waiting patiently, sitting in exactly the same place and looking exactly the same as when Andrew first ran into him earlier that day when he got back with his fully laden horse and pack mule. “Ready to move on out?” Andrew called.

“I guess so,” Charlie said, rising from the ground and dusting off the seat of his pants.