"Yep. 'Course I got the wagon, but they ain't no style to that. I was
wantin' a rig with style to it--like the buckboard." Sundown fidgeted
nervously with the buttons of his shirt. He coughed, took off his hat,
and mopped his face with a red bandanna. Despite his efforts he grew
warmer and warmer. He was about to approach a delicate subject.
Finally he seized the bull by the horns, so to speak, and his tanned
face grew red. "I was wantin' to borrow that buckboard, mebby,
Saturday."
"Sure! Going to Antelope?"
"Nope--not first. I got business over to Chico Miguel's place. I'm
goin' to call on a lady."
"Oh, I see! Anita?"
"Well, I sure ain't goin' to call on her ma--she's married a'ready."
Despite himself, Corliss smiled. "So that's what you wanted that new
bed and table and the chairs for. Did they get marked up much coming
in?"
"The legs some. I rubbed 'em with that hoss-liniment you give me. You
can hardly tell. It kind of smelled like turpentine, and I didn't have
nothin' else."
"Well, anything you want--"
"I know, boss. But this is goin' to be a quiet weddin'. No
brass-bands or ice-cream or pop-corn or style. Just me and her
and--and I reckon a priest, seein' she was brung up that way. I ain't
asked her yet."
"What? About getting married, or the priest?"
"Nothin'. We got kind of a eye-understandin' and her ma and me is good
friends. It's like this. Bein' no hand to do love-makin' stylish, I
just passes her a couple of bouquets onct or twict and said a few
words. Now, you see, if I get that buckboard and a couple of hosses--I
sure would like the white ones--and drive over lookin' like business
and slip the ole man a box of cigars I bought, and Mrs. Miguel that
there red-and-yella serape I paid ten dollars for in Antelope, and show
Anita me new contract with the Concho for pumpin' water for
seventy-five bones a month, I reckon the rest of it'll come easy. I'm
figurin' strong on them white hosses, likewise. Bein' white'll kind of
look like gettin' married, without me sayin' it. You see, boss, I'm
short on the Spanish talk and so I have to do some figurin'."
"Well, Sun, you have come along a lot since you first hit the Concho!
Go ahead, and good luck to you! If you need any money--"
"I was comin' to that. Seein' as you kind of know me--and seein' I'm
goin' to git hitched--I was thinkin' you might lend me mebby a hundred
on the contrac'."
"I guess I can. Will that be enough?"
"Plenty. You see I was figurin' on buyin' a few head of stock to run
with yourn on the water-hole range."
"Why, I can let you have the stock. You can pay me when you get ready."
"That's just it. You'd kind of give 'em to me and I ain't askin'
favors, except the buckboard and the white hosses."
"But what do you want to monkey with cattle for? You're doing pretty
well with the water."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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