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the first time I’ve heard you mention it with this Charlie Stevens.”
    â€œWell we did, him and me.” He said it kind of defiantly. “Was good friends, damn good friends. That’s how come it was us come West together looking for a new range, new opportunities. We’d heard all the stories about Texas and about the Oklahoma Territory and we figured that was the place to head for. I reckon that was in about 1851, ’52. We was both just young bucks, barely reached our majority. Couldn’t been more than twenty-one. I think Charlie might have been a year older’n me though not quite. Big good-lookin’ fella. Good in a fight, good with horses. Good man to partner up with. Had an even temper, laughed a lot. I remember him bein’ mighty popular with the young ladies back in Georgia. Easygoing feller. Didn’t care much for arguing, though he’d back his partner in a fight.”
    He spit tobacco juice again and this time cleared the rail. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Anyways, we set out and ended up in the Indian Territory to start with. That’s what they called Oklahoma then. Set out to catch on with some cattle outfit and learn the business and then set up on our own. Was plenty of land, though it wasn’t shucks to what we got around here. There was plenty of water, but the dirt was poor, wouldn’t grow grass like it did here. But anyways, we got in with some small outfit, can’t remember the brand. Mostly what they was doin’ was mavericking, and it didn’t take no scholar to see wasn’t much point on puttin’ another man’s brand on an ownerless calf when you could just as easy put your own on it. But we was drawin’ wages and the outfit was providing the horses, so we played it straight. Was a good bit of Injuns around. Cherokees. Hell, they’d been moved from Georgia their own self. Army moved ’em an’ put ’em on a reservation. They didn’t much care for it, but they was a good people, nothin’ like them murderin’ goddam Comanches we had down here. And they was a handsome people. Some of the women . . .”
    He stopped and didn’t say anything for a moment.
    I said, “What was you saying?”
    He cleared his throat. “This talkin’ is mighty hard work.”
    â€œAnd you figure a little drink would make it go easier?”
    â€œWell, it is going on for noon.”
    I got up. “Hell, Howard, it ain’t even eleven o’clock. But if it’ll speed you up I’ll bring you a short one. But it’ll be watered.”
    â€œNow, Justa,” he said, but I was already going in the house.
    I brought him back his drink. I’d been a little more generous with the whiskey than I’d meant to be, forgetting for a second who it was for, and he smiled his appreciation as he took a sip. I said, “You was talking about the Cherokee women.”
    I thought I saw a little flinch come over his face. But he said, “Just in passin’. They was a handsome people, and as civilized as some white folks and more so than others. But that ain’t got nothin’ to do with what I was talkin’ about. Where was I?”
    â€œYou and Charlie Stevens was branding mavericks for some small outfit.”
    â€œYeah. Well, we done that about a year and right quick seen we wasn’t getting nowhere. And I could see the country wasn’t going to amount to much neither. Like I said, there was plenty of free land, but it was poor. You couldn’t run one cow over at least twenty acres. ‘Bout that time we’d commenced to hear about this country in the Gulf Coast. This here country we’re settin’ in right now. We heard it was belly-deep to a tall cow in grass, and plenty of water and mustangs and wild Longhorns and land for the asking. So we drawed what wages we had coming, throwed in together, and bought us an outfit, then headed