Hold of the Bone by Baxter Clare Trautman

Author:Baxter Clare Trautman [Trautman, Baxter Clare]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781612940588
Publisher: Bywater Books

Chapter 21

Farther down the road she passes the store, then brakes, and turns around. The store is empty but for a new clerk, a grizzled man in a John Deere cap with a wad of chew in his cheek. She pays for a bottle of water, asking if he’s ever at the store when Sal does her thing.

“Sure, all the time. Let her work on my arthritis if she’s not too busy. She’s a peach. Does it for free.”

“Does it help?”

He chuckles. “Better ’an what the doctors gimme. You that cop they been talkin’ about?”

“Reckon I am,” she answers, adopting the geezer’s drawl.

“Yeah, I heard you found old Dom Saladino, that right?”

“Yep. Did you know him?”

“Why sure I knew him, and his daddy, too. Worked with him plenty of times. Branding, gathering. He was a good hand, Dom was.”

“That’s what I heard. When he was sober.”

“Well, now, nothin’ wrong with a man takin’ a drink now and then.”

“No, I reckon not. You go to school with his girls?”

“Aw, I didn’t get much schooling. Been working all my life.”

He slaps the counter. “This here was my great-great-granddaddy’s store. Built in 1868. Wasn’t nothing but a tent and barrels to start with.”

“You don’t say?”

“I do,” he defends proudly, and as he talks Frank sees a sagging, soot-stained canvas, tied at the corners with frayed manila ropes. Barrels stocked beneath on one side. Dry goods, boots, pants, implements arranged on long planks. A cool wind puffs the roof high. Just outside burns a fire. A woman clutching a blanket squats beside it. Black, stringy hair hides her face. Beside her on the ground a baby chews its fists.

Frank is leaning against the counter. She interrupts the man. “Your grandmother. She was from here.”

“Full-blood Esselen,” he agrees. “How’d you know that?”

“Lucky guess,” she lies. “You worked with Dom and John Mazetti?”

“Sure did. Brandin’, castratin’, roundups. Worked for the Mazettis every chance I got. They always paid good and on time. And put out a good spread to boot.”

“How’d those two get along?”

He pulls at the bill of his cap. “Well, you know Dom’s people used to own the Mazetti ranch, and I don’t think that ever settled too well on him, taking orders from a man on what he felt was his land.”

“Did they fight?”

“Oh, you know how it is when a man gets a few under his belt. Starts talking, don’t you know, and one thing leads to another.” He scratches under his cap. “You know how that is.”

“They come to blows?”

“Couple times that I heard of. Never actually saw it, though. Heard old John had enough one time. Almost ran Dom off the ranch.”

“Why didn’t he? Seems like more trouble to keep him on.”

“Well, you know,” the man becomes evasive. “People have their reasons.”

“Do you know what they were?”

He spits a brown jet into a Styrofoam cup on the counter. “Let’s just say there’s a lot of things happen up in them mountains that should stay up in them mountains.”

“Like what?” She gives her most charming aw-shucks grin.

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