Panhandle Read Free Page B

but he’d have shot me had I said so. On the worst morning, I never saw him go unshaved, and that morning was no exception. Billy was always an early riser, and while I sat rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and studying Andy, Billy was already done with his morning pruning.
    Striding over to me, Billy sat down on a deadfall log, pulled out his ivory-handled Colt, and began wiping it down with a rag and a little can of oil. He always kept his shooter clean. Me, I never took much care of mine, like a lot of other boys I knew. Hell, my old Colt would have probably jumped up and ran off in shock if I ever showed it a single drop of oil.
    A friend of mine, on a drive to Kansas, once stopped to shoot a cottonmouth on the banks of Red River. He found his pistol was so rusty he couldn’t even cock it. It was locked plumb up. He chucked it in the water, waved good-bye to the snake, and rode off.
    A lot of the boys were like that. Most of them just carried them for show, or because they thought a man was supposed to. The trouble was, when the majority of the boys on the range carried guns, and were apt to settle their differences in the most violent and informal ways, there was bound to be a number of gents who didn’t carry a gun for show. Nobody ever said that Billy carried his for show.
    Billy wasn’t a big man. He might have been five nine, or so, and didn’t weigh more than one-fifty crossing a river with his boots on. But when Billy was on the prod, or happy for that matter, he seemed as big as life. He was always smiling and flashing those pearly-white teeth. One look at him and you knew it was all fun, and damned the consequences.
    Andy had pretty white teeth, except for the two front ones that were missing. He said a calf had kicked them out. I rose and started to hang my blankets to dry on the log.
    â€œNo time for that,” Billy said. “That’s Commission Creek, and she heads up not too far from here. We should be able to cross, as she’s falling fast, and pretty narrow and shallow on up there.”
    â€œMy horse might not carry this wet bedroll.” Sleeping in a hurricane never made me what you could call chipper in the morning.
    â€œThat sore-footed driblet might not carry you out of camp.” Billy pointed to my new horse.
    â€œWhat the hell is a driblet?”
    â€œYou know, a driblet.” There was the faint trace of a smirk at the corner of Billy’s mouth. He was enjoying my ignorance of his newfound vocabulary.
    â€œNo, I don’t know what a driblet is. I think you’re making it up.” I wasn’t about to be buffaloed.
    Billy walked a wide semicircle around my horse, making a big show of judging its quality. “Yep, that’s what I thought. He fits the bill.”
    I waited for him to continue, and wasn’t about to bite the bait he was laying out for me. Billy hacked up a little wad in his throat, and let the ball hang for a minute from his lip until it fell slowly to the ground.
    â€œThat’s a driblet. It ain’t quite spit, and it ain’t quite drool. It’s a driblet.” Billy jabbed a thumb at my little horse, who stood three-legged under the cottonwoods, with his nose practically on the ground, and his bottom lip sagging. He might have weighed seven hundred pounds saddled. “That’s a driblet.”
    Andy snorted, and whistled through the hole in his teeth. “You beat all, Billy.”
    â€œMaybe the sun will pop out later and we can stop and dry our gear.” I was annoyed at Andy for no reason. But then again, I was annoyed at Andy most of the time.
    â€œI’ll go bring up the horses if I can, and catch ‘Horsekiller’ here a mount.” I was perfectly willing to leave, so as not to give Billy the chance to gloat.
    I was just about out of earshot when I heard Andy whine, “Catch me a good’un, Nate!”
    Like there was a good one in the bunch. It was a pretty sorry-looking