Monte Walsh Read online

  Monte Walsh

  Jack Schaefer

  1970

  For Archie

  Contents

  A Beginning

  Monte

  Two of a Kind

  Slash Y

  In Harmony

  XYZ

  Antelope Junction

  Christmas Eve at the Slash Y

  Trail Herd

  Payment in Full

  Dobe Chavez

  Hattie

  Harmonizing

  Powder Kent

  Hellfire

  All in One Place

  Drifters

  A Middle-Aged Man

  An Ending

  A Beginning

  1872

  A Boy and a horse.

  A thin knobby boy, coming sixteen, all long bone and stringy muscle, not yet grown up to knuckly hands and seeming oversize feet, and a big gaunt old draft horse, rough­coated, heavy-fetlocked.

  They stood by the rickety fence of a half-acre enclosure, the boy leaning against a big shoulder, looking over the broad back, the horse waiting, at the tag end of a day of waiting, patient, big haltered head sagging against the short lead rope tied to a fence rail. Off near the center of the enclosure the slanted frame shack that served for a schoolhouse quivered on flimsy foundation as the last of some fifteen children of assorted ages and sizes scattered from the doorway, released, racing in dedicated directions away.

  The boy leaned against the old horse and watched a stout soft-stomached red-faced man appear in the doorway, shrugging into a jacket, and walk with spraddle-legged rocking gait toward the road past the enclosure gate and take a small bottle from a pocket of the jacket and raise this to his lips as he walked.

  Activity died away and the boy watched the stout man dwindling toward the cluster of haphazard ugly one-story false-fronted buildings a quarter mile down the road.

  "Shucks," said the boy. "Didn't even close the door." He left the old horse and went to the shack and closed the plank door and pulled at it, testing the latch. He turned and looked out over the distance merging into distance of Colorado plain, muted and brown under afternoon sun of early spring.

  "Shucks," he said, moving toward the old horse. "I've had about all I can take of that. He don't know no more'n me which sure ain't much." He untied the lead rope and the old horse raised its head and pushed with graying muzzle at him. He stepped back along the gaunt side, holding the rope, and in one easy up-tilting movement was astride the bare back and at the touch as if energy flowed from the thin knobby body into the big old frame the horse perked, raising its head higher and turning to start toward the gate with heavy old hoofs lifting in clumsy rhythm.

  Through the gate and around a corner of the enclosure and the boy and the horse moved into the muted brown of distance. "You ain't much either," said the boy, "but let's see what you can do." The old horse leaned forward into a clumsy trot.

  "Trying to wear out my backbone?" said the boy.

  The old horse swiveled an ear, feeling the current along the rope, the tingle in the thin legs down its sides, and leaned forward more into a lumbering caricature of a lope. The big old back swayed and bounced and the boy sat flat to it, body moving in unthinking effortless rhythm with it, a part of the horse beneath him.

  * * *

  Another horse.

  Solid, compact, power plain in muscles bulging under the sleek hide, pride in lift of the tail and arch of the thick neck, it stood by the end rails of a small corral beside a small half­plank half-dugout barn.

  Fifteen feet away the boy leaned against side rails, chin up to rest on the top rail, looking over.

  Late afternoon sunlight lingered over the big land, brushing with soft golden brilliance the crest of the slow slope rising behind barn and corral, and the boy leaned against rails and watched the horse and the horse, aware, refusing any indication, stood motionless, head high, looking past him, into the dimness of distance.

  "Montelius! You, Monteeeelius!"

  The boy turned on too big old work shoes toward the two­room frame house fifty yards away. Flat-roofed, tar-papered, stripped on the outside to close off the worst of the cracks, it thrust its angular ugliness like an affront into the immensity of plain and the last golden sweep of sunlight. The woman in the open doorway had been tall once, well-figured; stooped and beginning to be shapeless now in a dragging overall tiredness. Only faint traces of onetime prettiness remained along the lines of sallow cheeks and in the faded blue of eyes.

  "You, Monteeelius! Can't you hear me?"

  The boy moved toward the house and stopped by the stone doorstep. She held out to him an earthen crock half full of potato peelings.

  The boy took the crock and turned away.

  "You finished plowing that garden patch? You know what your father said."

  The boy swung back, sudden, sharp. "Yeah. And you know how it is, I'll plant it too and I'll take care of it and he never does a thing around here. Except holler at me."

  "He pays for the food you eat," said the woman.

  "Yeah," said the boy. "And I earn every snitch doing everything ever gets done around here. What's he do but hang around town and talk big?" The boy turned away again.

  "Please, Monte. I saw you. Don't you go near that stud. You know how your father feels about-"

  "He ain't my father!" The boy swung back. He stood, scuffing at dust. "My father's dead.

  Didn't take you long to start giving me other fathers mighty fast." He looked up. "What'd you ever have to go take up with this one for?"

  She stared down at him. "We been fed," she said softly. She brushed a hand across her face. "A woman's got to do something."

  He saw the warning flush creeping up her cheeks, the mistiness forming in her eyes. "Aw, shucks, quit it, Ma." He turned away again, moving fast toward the little lean-to chicken house by the barn.

  He stood by the netted wire chicken yard watching bedragled hens and one scraggly rooster scratch and peck in frenzied busyness at the peelings, seeing but not seeing, ears attuned to the soft thuddings as the stallion moved in the corral on the other side of the barn. He became aware of the empty crock in his hands and set this, upside down, on top of a post of the chicken yard. Slowly, almost reluctantly, he moved past the front of the barn to the corral and leaned aeainst rails.

  The stallion and the boy looked at each other and the stallion raised its head high and swung away, indifferent, looking into the distance of Colorado plain.

  "Shucks," said the boy. "It's a horse, ain't it."

  Quietly he moved into the barn and came out with a battered flattened pan partly filled with coarse grain. He crouched by the near side of the corral and slid the pan under the bottom rail and shook it to make the grain swish on the metal.

  The stallion's ears twitched and it turned its head, watching, waiting. The boy set the pan down and pushed it farther in and withdrew his hand and the horse moved, deliberate, majestic, accepting tribute, and dropped its head to the pan.

  The boy picked up a small stick. Carefully he reached in and nudged the pan farther along by the rails. The horse's head followed and the solid compact body turned following until it was roughly parallel to the rails.

  Slowly, cautiously, the boy stood up and began to climb the rails. The horse, intent on the grain, ignored him. Slowly, cautiously, he eased one leg over the top rail, then the other, and was sitting there, feet inside on the next rail down. The horse raised and swung its head a bit, rolling an eye, fixing him there. It dropped the head back, ignoring him again.

  Suddenly the boy was out from the rails, thin legs straddling the powerful back, hands fastening into the mane. The horse reared, breath whistling through nostrils, body wrenching sideways out into the corral. It plunged and bucked in furious action and the
boy clung, eyes alight, hair flying, thin legs locked to the twisting wrenching body. Blind with rage, the horse reared again, pawing the air, tottering on hind legs close to far-side rails, and dropped down crashing into them. The shock shook the boy loose and he pushed out and away and fell scrambling fast to regain his feet and ran for the near side of the corral and threw himself flat and squirmed under the bottom rail as forehoofs pounded into the ground behind him. He lay still for a moment, chest heaving. He stood up and a small wry grin showed on his lips and he looked through at the horse snorting in baffled fury along inside the rails and he saw the smudged bruising on the one shoulder and the tiny drops of blood oozing.

  He turned toward the woman running, white-faced, from the house. "I'm all right, Ma," he said. "And that thing's just scraped some is all."

  She stared at him, frightened. "What will your--what will he say?"

  "Shucks," said the boy. "He maybe won't even notice. He don't need to know."

  * * *

  In the slow dusk of the plains a sturdy buckboard rested in front of the small barn. The bony half-starved mustang that had drawn it was with the old draft horse in the skimpy pasture beyond the chicken yard. Inside the barn, in the darkening dimness, the boy hung the harness on a high peg, the bridle on another. The long driving reins trailed on the floor and he lifted these to loop them neatly over.

  He moved out of the barn and toward the house, shivering a little in the dropping night chill. Lamplight shone in the dusk through the one front window and he stepped into the patch of light to peer in. The woman was busy by the old cookstove. The man relaxed in a chair by the table, legs sprawled out, was big and bulky and florid-faced. He wore dark oiled boots and striped trousers tucked in and a white shirt with black string tie and checkered vest unbuttoned now over plump middle. His soft dark hat and frock coat hung on the wall behind the chair. His voice, hearty and complacent, reached through the flimsy wall of the house.

  "Tilman's bringing a mare out here tomorrow. Ten dollars stud fee. He squawked on that but I got the only horse with Morgan blood anywheres around. A gold mine, that's what that horse'll be."

  "Morgan blood," muttered the boy. "In a pig's eye." He Moved on, up on the doorstep, opened the door and eased in, closing the door behind him. He stepped forward and slid onto another chair well around the table from the man.

  "You take care of that pony?" said the man.

  "Yeah," said the boy. "Whyn't you let me give him a good Meal sometime?"

  "He gets enough," said the man. "For what he's worth. You finish that plowing?"

  "Yeah," said the boy.

  "You feed that stud?"

  "Yeah."

  "Water in his trough?"

  "Yeah."

  "Is he all right?"

  Over by the stove the woman drew in breath sharply.

  "Sure he's all right," said the boy quickly.

  The man looked at the woman then back at the boy. A slow tightness spread over his face.

  "Aw, shucks," said the boy. "He got jumpy some and scraped himself on the fence but that won't slow him none."

  The man stared steadily at the boy. Moving deliberately, without looking away, he pulled in his booted feet and rose from the chair, reached back to take the frock coat from its hook and shrug it on. Moving deliberately, he strode to the door, took a lantern from a nail in the wall beside it, lit this with a match from a vest pocket, opened the door and went out.

  Silence in the dingy front room of the flimsy frame house. The woman had turned and was looking at the boy, eyes wide and worried.

  "You ain't a-going to tell him," said the boy.

  The man came in through the doorway and closed the door behind him. Slowly, deliberately, he blew out the lantern and hung it on its nail, stepped across the room and took off the coat and hung it on its hook.

  "Limping," he said softly, facing the wall. He turned to face the boy. "You been monkeying with that horse?"

  The boy sat on the edge of his chair. "What would I be doing that for?"

  "Because-" Anger broke across the man's face and was caught and controlled again in the cold deliberation that was worse than anger. "Because you are a goddamned sneaking fool about anything on four legs."

  The man stared steadily at the boy and the boy stared back, face rigid, body tense. The man turned his head slightly toward the woman. "Has he?"

  She stood, back against the wall by the stove, looking from one to the other of them, from one to the other, the boy and the man looking at her. She turned again to the stove, away from them, away from the long strain of the years, and she nodded slightly as she turned.

  Silence in the dingy room except for the small sobbing catch of breath in the boy's throat. Suddenly the man moved, leaping to get around the table, but the boy was quicker, whirling up and around his chair and heaving it into the man's path, diving headlong for the door. He yanked the door open and was out as the man kicked the chair aside and plunged after him.

  He ran toward the outbuildings, the man pounding after. He started along the corral rails and reversed, dodging back, along the front of the barn. The buckboard was in the way, pocketing him in the angle it made out from the barn. He swerved and dashed through the open doorway into the dark interior.

  The man stood in the wide doorway, panting, peering into the blackness. He waited while his heavy breathing subsided. "All right," he said, cold, deliberate. "Come on out of there."

  "I ain't coming!" The boy's voice snapped out of the blackness. "You ain't a-going to lick me ever again."

  "No?" said the man. He turned sideways in the doorway and took hold of the old sliding door and pulled at it to narrow the opening. He staggered, caught off balance, and went down as the lean weight of the boy hurtled into him out of the blackness. Reaching up, he caught one foot in its heavy worn work shoe as the boy jumped over his fallen body in the doorway. He grunted, letting go, as the other heavy shoe stomped down hard on his arm. He pushed to his feet and stood rubbing the bruised arm with the other hand, hearing the clomping footsteps fade away along by the pasture beyond the chicken yard.

  He moved slowly toward the house, brushing dust from his clothes. The woman in the doorway backed on in as he approached. "He'll come in and take what's coming," he said. "When he gets hungry enough. And cold enough."

  * * *

  The house and the barn were dark hunched shapes on the fence of the big land in the dim suggestion of light of the new moon dropping down the western sky. Close by the barn, leaning back against a wheel of the buckboard, the boy sat on the ground on several burlap bags folded over, a ragged saddle blanket up around his shoulders over his patched shirt. He sat still, patient, and watched the house, the two patches of light that were the one front and the one side window of the front room.

  "He won't wait up too long," he muttered. "There's other things he likes better'n beating me."

  Time passed and the moon dropped further down the sky and a new patch of light appeared on the house, the window of the back room.

  Time passed and the front room patches of light faded and were gone and there was only the patch of light of the back room.

  Time passed and this too faded and was gone and far off a coyote howled and another answered and the boy shifted restlessly and was quiet again.

  Time passed and there were small rustlings as chickens shifted on perches in the little lean-to chicken house and there was silence again and the boy rose and laid the blanket on the seat of the buckboard. Shivering in the night chill, he moved toward the house. He stood on the doorstep, listening. Faintly he could hear the slow rhythm of heavy breathing. Gently he turned the doorknob and pushed the door open, holding back, waiting. After a moment he eased in, standing silent by the near wall.

  In the dim tracery of the light of the moon through the front window he could see on the table a plate heaped with a congealed mass of beef stew and boiled potatoes and beside this a thick slice of bread. Quietly he moved past the table to the
inner doorway. On inside, on the brass bedstead, he could make out dimly the woman asleep under an old quilt and beside her the bulk of the man, lying on his side, one arm laid across her.

  Quietly he backed away and moved to the far corner of the front room where a straw mattress lay on the floor with an old blanket over it. He picked up the blanket and took a ragged denim jacket from a hook on the wall above. With these under one arm, he moved to the table, put the slice of bread on top of the congealed mass and picked up the plate. He eased through the outer doorway and set the plate on the doorstep and gently closed the door behind him. He picked up the plate and moved toward the barn.

  Fourteen minutes later, the jacket on, the blanket rolled into a neat bundle and tied with a piece of cord and under one arm, leaving the scraped plate on the seat of the buckboard, he moved along the rickety fence of the pasture and in through the gate: The thin mustang shied away as he approached but the old draft horse stood firm, lifting its head to nuzzle against him. He took hold of the halter and led it out through the gate and fastened this again behind him. In the one easy movement, despite the blanket under one arm, he was astride the broad old back. Obedient to the pressure of the thin legs down its sides, the old horse swung away, old hoofs lifting in clumsy rhythm.

  Fifty minutes and four miles later they stopped by the wagon ruts of the stage road. The boy slid to the ground. He stood by the big head, scratching with the one free hand around the old ears, rubbing a cheek along the rough coat of the big old neck. He stepped back.

  "Get going," he said. "You know the way." He reached and slapped the old horse on the rump.

  The horse jerked, startled, and moved a short distance and stopped, looking at him. "Get going!" said the boy, shouting, voice shaking. "You hear me! He ain't a-going to put no stealing charge on me!"

  The horse stood, motionless in the thin last of moonlight, and whiffled softly at him. The boy rubbed a hand across his face, over his eyes. He stooped and picked up a stone and threw it, hard, and it thudded against the gaunt old ribs. The horse jerked around and started back the way it had come.