Two Spuds had grown up working for small ranchers in Oklahoma. After the Great War, he made his way north and turned up in Wyoming with three saddle horses and one packhorse. He worked a few years in Riverton, then rode east and persuaded Eli to hire him on for the fall roundup in 1928. Eli had watched the man ride and rope for a single day and told him that he was welcome to stay as long as he pleased. A year later, he gave Spuds permission to build his own cabin on 8T8 land, the only hired hand granted such a privilege. That was after Two Spuds married Jenny Hoot Owl and Eli said it wasn’t right for a married man to have to share the bunkhouse with the likes of Willie Thaw and Zeke Ketcham. Eli figured it was the smartest thing he had ever done, because if Spuds hadn’t been in his cabin the night he wrecked the Cadillac, he would have frozen to death.

When he was first hired, Two Spuds gave his name as Hanchitubbe, which in his own free translation into English meant “Kill the sun.” Hanchitubbe was a mouthful of dry oatmeal to Willie Thaw, who nicknamed him Two Spuds instead, after his habit of demanding two potatoes every time the cook scooped dinner onto his plate at roundup time. When Eli asked how he felt about it, Spuds said it was better than being called a fuckin redskin.

Eli heard Juanita stirring around in the kitchen and stepped in to ask if she would bring biscuits and more coffee out to the porch. She said something in Spanish which he didn’t understand, but Juanita could be cranky in the morning. When she came out with the coffee, she had fixed her hair and splashed some water on her face and she had a big smile for Two Spuds, but she wrinkled her nose a little when she saw the gunnysack on the porch and the blood that had run down between the boards. They finished the coffee and biscuits. Juanita stepped back into the house to start on breakfast. Two Spuds nodded in the direction of the pinto.

“I don’t know how them sonofabitch Indians did it.”

“Did what?”

“Ridin all over hell’s half acre without a saddle. I’m stove up like a old banty rooster.”

“You don’t say.”

“These buckskin britches are okay. They’re real comfortable, hurt less than pants. But that pinto has a spine on him would grind your nuts into dust if you run him long enough.”

“I imagine. Where’d you find them buckskins, anyhow?”

“Jenny Hoot Owl made them. They fit so good, I thought I’d try ridin bareback. I aint rode a horse bareback since I was a kid, not any distance. It’s not bad for about five miles. After that, you want a good saddle.”

“I’ll remember that.”