When I Die

Sam Williams sat his saddle in the early morning light, jacked forward like he was saying a quiet prayer. He was faced towards the Double B with a strange feeling, almost as if he was seeing the place’s old weathered barns and dull white house for the first time in his life. It wouldn’t be an easy day.  Hilda and Jose were in Seth’s wagon, in the distance pulling under the hanging shingle and headed straight at him. As they rolled up he tipped his hat and forced a grin.

Hilda said, “Top of the mornin’, Sam. Did you forget somethin’?”

“That ain’t the best question you could ask me,” Sam replied. “Course I have. Half my sorry life to be exact.”

Hilda smiled lightly and grabbed her dark bonnet as a slight puff of morning wind spewed the dust. “You act as if we’re all headed out to die,” she said. “I ain’t lookin’ back and neither should you. Kansas is thataway; not behind us.”

“I know that,” Sam said, a little irritated she had interferred with his final rites. “I was just settlin’ my mind. See Charlie and Jim Coats over yonder on the right, and Ray parked up ahead there pretending to check a wheel? Well, what they’re really doin’ is sayin’ their good-bys.”

Hilda pushed a big lump back in her throat because she knew what the old crowd needed now was courage and hope. “Well, turn Needles around and shove everybody on up this river road,” she said firmly. “We got a bunch of cows to wake up.”

When the others saw Jose lurch forward again, and Sam spur Needles on ahead of the wagon, they all began moving like some long invisible rope had taken up slack to pull them forward together.

“I swear,” Hilda said to Jose as they bounced up the river road, “I never seen such a pile of old movin’ bones since the time me and John Howard journeyed back to the high plains and loaded up a wagonful of buffalo carcasses.”

“Si,” Jose said, working the reins like an overland stage. “You have proud vequeros, full of strong wine vinegar.”

Hilda gave a loud laugh. “I can find things they’re full of, but wine vinegar ain’t one of ‘em. But they sure are fine old cowboys, ain’t they all?”

“Si,” 

Jose agreed. “I too am alive more now than before. Perhaps I have some wine vinegar also.”

“You sure got the hands of a craftsman,” Hilda said. “You’ve made fine saddles and shod fine horses. Life’s a God-sent. I’ve survived bad Indians, built me a successful man, and lived a trustin’ life in a place where dust gets to be a relative and water your best friend. What else is there left except to drive cows to Kansas?”