#he had a whole ghost bustin life ahead of 'em

[turtleteegleturteetortle]

Asked a fiendish friend of mine for a word to make a character... ended up with Ghoss! *They call for help*

[jackcowboyhero]

Colonel at the Palace

I started writin’ this story way back when Pop was on trial, but tryin’ to help save your old man from Old Sparky makes a fella a little distracted.  It wasn’t ’til comin’ across an old picture o’ the Palace o’ the Governors that I remembered I’d started it--an’ then it took a couple days for me and Sarah to hunt it down, and a couple more to finish it up.

What I’m sayin’ is, things ain’t bad like they were when I started it.

So, you know how I told you I don’t dream about Santa Fe anymore? That don’t mean I don’t think about it. When stuff’s bustin’ loose in the city, I guess it’s only natural a guy’d start to look somewhere else, and for me it’s the desert with Charlie and Lim and a blindin’-blue sky and a big herd o’ cattle.

Now, if you want the truth, for every hour o’ lazin’ around havin’ fun, we spent ten or more breathin’ dust, getting’ hurt, bustin’ our backs diggin’ postholes or wells or stickin’ rogue horses. But it takes work to remember that. Lookin’ back, it seems golden. The four best months o’ my life. And I forget that I missed Sarah and Nell and the boys sometimes.

But what counts is I think o’ it when things get rough—which means lately I’ve been thinkin’ a lot. And ‘cause a fella can only tell so many stories ‘bout murder and trials before he starts soundin’ like Skitts, here’s a Santa Fe story. It’s about Cowboy and Charlie and a horse he called Colonel and a race in front o’ the Palace o’ the Governors on a hot July afternoon.

‘Cause right now racin’ sounds better than stayin’ in New York.

I don’t think I’ve told ya ‘bout Colonel yet. He was Charlie’s own horse, a herring-gutted red dun with a bulged-out forehead and angry expression. He was near twenty, which is old for a cowhorse, but you couldn’t tell with the saddle on—his back’d started swayin’ a little, but that was all. And boy, you couldn’t tell by watchin’ him move. ‘Cause the minute Charlie’d sit down on him, he was gone.

I don’t mean he took off. Lots o’ cowponies do that. Like a sorrel bronc colt I had, Mugger—if I didn’t remember to cheek him he’d head for the border the second you stepped in the stirrup. But not Colonel. Colonel just wanted to move out, to work, and he’d go and go and go and he’d never quit.

The story was he’d been owned by an officer down in the Indian Territories, and o’ course he would’ve done great at that, ‘cept for prob’ly outwalkin’ any horse in the regiment. But the guy’d bet him away in a poker game, and the fella who won couldn’t deal with him, and Charlie was lookin’ for cheap horses to work on, and there ya go. Charlie’s rougher on horses than I’d be sometimes, but he’s real good with Colonel. ‘Cause Colonel ain’t a horse you can roughhouse without stuff blowin’ six ways from sideways. Charlie got that, and figured him out, and was the same kind o’ patient-but-stubborn you’ve gotta be if you’re gonna ride Nell.

So, anyway: Colonel was fast. He was fast when he took after cattle, and fast when he walked to the trough for a drink. And Cowboy ain’t fast at all.

That don’t mean he’s worthless. There’s a lot more to a horse than speed, and Cowboy’s a great hand. He’ll work and rope and swim and climb anythin’, straight up or straight down, and one time he got his foot stuck between two rocks comin’ downhill and if he’d gone loco woulda got us both killed. But he didn’t. I owe a lot to that horse.

But the one thing he wasn’t was fast, and we sure got that handed to us that day at the Palace.

We’d all gone to town on a Saturday night, hangin’ around in a dancehall and drinkin’ and playin’ cards, just like you’d read in a dime novel except for the gunfights, and we’d spent the night in a corral to save money, and Lim and Skip and the rest were hung over the next mornin’. But not me and Charlie.

I ain’t sayin’ we were dead-sober, either, but we felt good enough to be up and around instead o’ layin’ there grousin’ like the other guys, so eight o’ clock saw us finishin’ breakfast at one of the restaurants (there ain’t a place in New York that makes Mexican food) and then moseyin’ outside to look around town.

Now, the difference between a cowboy and a newsboy is when a cowboy moseys, he doesn’t do it on his own two feet—I ain’t sure I walked more’n a hundred feet at a stretch that whole summer. Cowboys are always on horseback. So Charlie had Colonel and I was on Cowboy, and there we were, ridin’ through town like some kind o’ Western heroes, while singin’ and churchbells rang out from the cathedral at one end o’ the plaza.

Boy, it was peaceful. You never get that kind o’ quiet in Manhattan—there’s always too many people bustlin’ around and a million things goin’ on. But in Santa Fe, Sunday mornin’s are quiet.

…Well, until Charlie and I showed up.

‘Cause ya know how when a kid sees a long stretch o’ space, like at Sheep Meadow in Central Park, there’s nothin’ he can do but run? That’s kinda what cowboys are like. If they ain’t got a job to do (or sometimes even if they do), given a good place to run, they’ll take off.

And, well, the empty, peaceful plaza was a real good place.

So when Charlie said “Race ya,” it weren’t nothin’ I wasn’t about to ask him.

When Race ain’t around to make bets ya just take off, no startin’-or-finish lines or rules or nothin’, and I leaned forward an’ gave Cowboy a nudge and yelled at him to go, and he went.

But all Charlie had to do was let up on the reins.

There was maybe one second where Cowboy and Colonel were side-by-side, hooves poundin’ and both o’ us hollerin’ like Comanches, but then me and Cowboy might as well have been standin’ still.

Colonel got so far ahead he disappeared in the dust he raised, Charlie’s dark shirt and hat barely showin’ above it like some kind o’ ghost, and Cowboy was tryin’ his best to catch up, but there was no chance in the world we would.

But you know somethin’?

Sometimes losin’ a race makes ya mad as all get-out—but this time, it was worth it just to see Colonel stretched out goin’ faster than I’ve ever seen, like it weren’t an effort for him at all, and like he was runnin’ just ‘cause he wanted to.

When Charlie pulled him up, prancy and snortin’, at the edge of the plaza, and about ten years later me and Cowboy finally caught up to ‘em, Charlie didn’t rub it in, either. ‘Cause he knew as well as I did that there wasn’t a horse in the ranch’s remuda who could ever beat Colonel.

I mean, maybe one o’ Race’s Sheepshead Bay favorites might have a chance. But seein’ them, an’ seein’ him, I still ain’t real convinced they could.

So, that’s the kind o’ story I think about. Racin’ Colonel and when me and Coyote ran along that ridge (I swear I didn’t spend the whole summer gallopin’ around doin’ nothin’) and when my only worry in the world was that we’d sent a dumb letter to Billy the Kid’s girl.

I mean, it wasn’t all perfect. And there’s nothin’ worth givin’ up Sarah and Nell—I just miss it out there sometimes.

…Kinda like the people in Santa Fe prob’ly miss their peace and quiet when two Four-Diamond-Rail hooligans come to town.

1904 – Colonel’s still doin’ well. I saw him myself when Sarah and I took our honeymoon last spring—he’s twenty-four years old and still looks barely half that. Heck, he’s older than Charlie is! And he’s still faster than any horse on the ranch. Last time I heard from Charlie he said he’d slowed down just a bit—but for Colonel that means there was once or twice Charlie’s been able to ride next to Lim’s Whitefoot, who’s a pretty fast walker himself, and not have to hold Colonel back every step o’ the way—only most steps.

You know who else is a fast walker, even though her legs ain’t much longer than Race’s? Nell. So while I know better than to think she could beat Colonel runnin’, if Charlie ever decided to come visit the Brace farm, or me and Sarah and Nell and the kid go to Santa Fe, we might be able to ride next to each other without my horse havin’ to trot, or without laggin’ behind—which is good, ‘cause if all that happens, me and Charlie are gonna have to make some more plans.

I mean, you never know when the good, peaceful people o’ some little town might want a little dime-novel excitement.