He rose. “Well, I gotta go an’ get some goods for the ranch, Mr. Haines,” he said.
“I reckon you’d like to s-slide back easy an’ have folks forget,” Blister said. “Natural enough. But it won’t be thataway. You’ll have to f-fight like a bulldog to travel back along that trail to a good name. You ain’t really begun yet.”
“See you again next time I get to town,” Bob said.
He was sorry he had raised the point with Haines of a message to June. That the justice should reject the idea so promptly and vigorously hurt his pride and self-esteem.
At Platt & Fortner’s he invested in a pair of spurs, a cheap saddle, and a bridle. The cowboy is vain of his equipment. He would spend in those days forty dollars for a saddle, ten for boots, twenty-five for a bridle and silver plated bit, fifteen for spurs, and ten or twelve for a hat. He owned his own horse and blankets, sometimes also a pack-animal. These were used to carry him from one job to another. He usually rode the ranch broncos on the range.
But even if he had been able to afford it Bob would not have bought expensive articles. He did not make any claim about his ability to punch cattle, and he knew instinctively that real riders would resent any attempt on his part to swagger as they did. A remark dropped by Blister came to mind.
“The b-bigger the hat the smaller the herd, son. Do all yore b-braggin’ with yore actions.”
It is often a characteristic of weakness that it clings to strength. Bob would have given much for the respect and friendship of these clear-eyed, weather-beaten men. To know that he had forfeited these cut deep into his soul. The clerk that waited on him at the store joked gayly with two cowboys lounging on the counter, but he was very distantly polite to Dillon. The citizens he met on the street looked at him with chill eyes. A group of schoolboys whispered and pointed toward him.
Bob had walked out from Haines’s office in a huff, but as he rode back to the ranch he recognized the justice of his fat friend’s decision. He had forfeited the right to take any interest in June Tolliver. His nature was to look always for the easiest way. He never wanted trouble with anybody. Essentially he was peace-loving even to the point of being spiritless. To try to slip back into people’s good will by means of the less robust virtues would be just like him.
Probably Blister was right when he had told him to be a wolf. For him, anything was better than to be a sheep.