Blind Tiger by Sandra Brown

“All right. Stay there and think it over. I can wait. Sooner or later, your curiosity is going to get the better of you.” Thatcher stayed as he was, acting nonchalant. “Those mares you’ve got stirred up. Are they pretty?” The stallion’s ears flicked forward. Thatcher made the nicking sound again.

Slowly the stallion walked toward him and came to a stop, head down. “Good boy. We’re making strides. Ulysses, huh? Guess you’re stuck with it.”

The stallion snuffled and jerked his head when Thatcher reached up to stroke his forehead, but after one more rejected attempt, the horse allowed his touch. “Thata boy.” Moving slowly, speaking softly, he praised the stallion’s cooperation. As Thatcher rubbed the horse’s neck, he looked over at Barker. “A dollar and a half a day?”

Barker spat. Thatcher took that as a yes.

* * *



After spending another few minutes smoothing his hands over the stallion, building trust, he left the corral and reclaimed his coat. Barker led him into the stable, introduced him to the horses in the stalls, and showed him where tack and supplies were kept.

“I’ll have to borrow one of your saddles,” Thatcher told him. “Mine’s at the ranch.”

“Help yourself. What they’re there for.”

As Thatcher was leaving, Barker told him there was a secondhand clothing store in town. “You might find yourself a pair of boots, at least.”

Thatcher got directions to the shop, but it was closed for the day. He had planned on sending Mr. Hobson a letter tomorrow telling him that he could start looking for him in about a month. In the letter, maybe he’d ask Mr. Hobson if he would send him his gear by train and take the expense out of his salary once he was back.

He made it to the boardinghouse before the cold supper was cleared off the sideboard. After finishing his meal, he wandered out onto the porch where several other boarders were chewing the fat.

Laconically, they all introduced themselves and shook hands, but he didn’t get the impression that fast friendships were formed among them, probably because of their transiency.

One thumbed through a magazine. One was quietly playing a harmonica. Some puffed smokes. Thatcher noticed that one of the younger among them slid a flask out of his pants pocket, uncapped it, and took a sip.

Another, an older man who had laid claim to a rocking chair, said, “That’s against house rules and against the law.”

“Now that’s a fact,” the young man said. “It is.” Then, leaning toward the man in the rocker, he whispered, “And teetotaling is against the laws of nature.” He took another drink then taunted the older man by smacking his lips and saying a long, drawn-out ahhhh.

Sensing the growing tension, the man with the harmonica stopped playing.

The older man didn’t let it drop. He said to the young man, “I doubt you respect any rules.”

“That’s not so,” the young man retorted. “I set rules for myself.”

“Such as?”

He seemed to ponder it, then snapped his fingers and said, “I only get half as drunk on Sundays.”

The others on the porch were equally divided as to who thought that was funny and who didn’t. The one in the rocking chair took umbrage. He excused himself, left the rocker, and stamped into the house, letting the screen door slap closed behind him.

The younger man chortled, “He’s a barrel of laughs.”

Another man, who Thatcher had noticed earlier because of his sporty attire, left the corner of the porch where he’d been smoking in solitude and sidled up to the younger man. “What’s your name?”

“Randy Wells. Who’s asking?”

“Chester Landry.” He motioned to the flask. “Where’d you get the booze?”

Randy cast a wary look around. When his gaze lighted on Thatcher, he squinted suspiciously. “I feel like a stroll.” He indicated for Landry to follow him. They went down the porch steps and set off across the yard, talking softly together.

No one said anything for a moment, then the harmonica player picked up his tune where he’d left off, and another commenced to talk about baseball. Thatcher stayed only a few minutes longer before going inside.

He took a turn in the third floor bathroom, then went into his room, undressed, and took the piece of shortbread to bed with him. As he stretched out on the lumpy mattress, he released a sigh of relative contentment.

It had been a damned long day, but he’d accomplished a lot, too. For a start, he’d survived the fight in the freight car and the jump from it without serious injury.

The miles he’d walked had fatigued him, but hadn’t completely exhausted him like the long marches he’d made through the French countryside, fully armed, cold, hungry, and hoping an enemy bullet didn’t have his name on it.

His landlady, Arleta May, was scary, but he had a roof. The mattress was bad, but still better than wet ground or the floor of the boxcar.

He had a headstrong horse to train, and if he did that successfully, word would get around, and more work could come from it until he’d earned enough to get him the last few hundred miles to home.

All things considered, he had it pretty good.

He polished off the shortbread and licked the crumbs from his fingers before reaching up for the string attached to the bare-bulb light fixture mounted to the wall above the headboard.