A B Guthrie Jr Read online

  Grandpa had made things easier. He had heard the sounds of breakfast and got out of bed, dotty from age and lack of sleep but excited by the goings-on, and sung out of tune but word for word an Oregon song remembered from old times.

  Then hip-hurrah for the prairie life!

  HIP-hurrah for the mountain strife!

  And if rifles must crack, if swords we must draw,

  Our country forever, hurrah! hurrah!

  He had beamed, and they had smiled at him, relieved to have this little thing to smile about.

  It was time to go then, and they went out to the horse and mule, and Pa, who couldn't afford a gun as a gift but had bought one just the same, extended his hand. "God bless you, boy!" With his lower teeth he worked for an instant at his upper lip. "You'll do all right. You'll make a name for yourself one day." One corner of his mouth smiled. "We know that, naturally."

  "God bless you, Pa!" Lat said and shook fast with Grandpa and gave a quick, blind kiss to Ma and climbed aboard. Not till they couldn't see his face did he turn around to wave.

  Climbing to the Blues with Mr. Butler now, he couldn't bring Ma into focus. She was just mist and gentleness and a kind mouth begging him to take along more truck­clothes and blankets, medicines, a pillow for his head.

  The day got up slowly, as if it didn't like to face itself. First there was the dull flush and then a band of red in the east and then the eye of the sun half open above a bank of clouds. Mr. Butler had gone along humming to himself or whistling low while Lat rode by his side, the road being more than wide enough for two. By and by he quit his humming. His gaze swung over, to the beat-up saddle and to the runty hat. He nodded slowly. "Fancy tackle makes tomfools," he said.

  "How's that?"

  "Give a boy a new hat and pretty leatheh an' he spends his time alookin' at his shadow on the grass. Can't spot a down cow on account he's struttin' in his head with the girls in Dodge or Abilene." He looked off into distance as if he might be seeing them himself. "Girls like Roundup Rose or Oklahoma Annie -or anyone of a passel that's obligin'." As his gaze came back he gave one of his rare smiles. "You wouldn't know as yet, I reckon."

  "This saddle isn't much, but I'm used to it."

  Mr. Butler nodded. "It's your tail on it, boy. Us Texans ain't strong for a single cinch, likin' double rigs, but tastes got a right to diffeh." He was silent for a while and might have been turning the thought over in his head, but when he spoke it was to say, "That hoss you got, now?"

  "Chief's old all right, but steady."

  "Not faultin' him, but mostly it ain't good when a trail hand has his own. Means he can quit because of any piddlin' reason and high-tail it to town wheneveh he's a mind to. Means he might be easy with the hoss he owns himself and fag the string that ain't his."

  "You ne'en to worry about that."

  "I reckon not." Mr. Butler let the words out quietly, as if here was a subject met and settled.

  They camped that night on the east slope of the Blues, near where the Grande Ronde River slowed for its journey through the hole, and ate a chunk of meat from Mr. Butler's pack and bread baked in a frying pan tilted up to face the fire. Before they went to bed Mr. Butler said to call him Ram like everybody else. "Ram for Ramrod," he said while he looked into the fire. The fire picked up his forehead, nose and thrust of chin, leaving in shadow the twin nooks of his eyes and the twin lines that edged his mouth. "You know ramrod means trail boss." He flicked a twig into the little blaze. "In standin', it's a little up from sheep dog." He paused again. "One of these days I'll buy some cows my own self and settle down to ranchin', God and all the little godalmighties willin'."

  Never before had he spoken of himself, never opened up at all, and Lat kept silent, shy to answer, for it was as if the distance that divided them was shortening. It was as if this knowing, older man found something in a greenhorn.

  Ram climbed to his feet. "Mawnin'll be on time, barrin' a miracle," he said.

  Lying in bed, hearing the steady crop and crop and now and then a sneeze of the stock they'd tethered in the mountain grass, Lat jumped the years. Like Ramrod, he'd own cattle, and by the thousands, and have range for them in the new land of Montana, and men would come to him to ask advice, all brands and breeds of men, including some who wouldn't go to Pa; and Pa would smile a proud, small smile, since he hadn't done as well, and say, "We knew it from the first, son," and Ma would bake an apple pie, remembering how he had loved it before he fared so high, and Grandpa would break into a song.

  He went to sleep thinking of Grandpa and Pa and Ma and Ram and cattle branded LAT and men filing to his door to find out how he thought, and when he met them he was Ram himself, with all the green rubbed off.

  Fair weather favored them, favored them and the emigrants they passed who were wheeling on to Oregon or Washington from Kansas or Nebraska or other eastern states. Some of the emigrants drove oxen and others mules or horses, and some trailed cattle that showed milk and Durham strains. One outfit had hitched a saddle horse and steer to a cranky wagon that a hatch of young ones chirped around. How far? the drivers asked. How far to towns they could call home? How far? How far? As if getting there was all that mattered. As if these final miles brought tears at night when all the camp was sleeping and nothing lived to take the mind off reaches lying ahead.

  But still these people had it easy compared to older times. A road so wide and plain a man could follow it at night. Soldiers here and there. No Indians much to guard against except for petty thievings. The Sioux were scattered, those that hadn't given up. The Shoshones liked the whites, or anyhow put up with them. So far he and Ram had seen just some Umatillas, who were fairly tame these days and didn't range too far from their reservation there by Pendleton. Eighteen-eighty wasn't eighteen forty-five.

  They had it easy sure enough, these later travelers, had it easy until the very last when they would find not milk and honey the land they strained for now. It never had been, for that matter, else Pa would have some money, wouldn't he? Else Ma could fix and prettify the house like she'd always wanted to and like she would in time, for he was back home now, after stirring years away, and his hand was in his pocket, and he was saving to Ma, "Do everything you want, Ma, and in the way you want it. Money is no object." And, standing by, Pa seemed shaken in his belief that it was hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

  These westbound men need have no worry on that score. They'd find the good soil taken up, the ranges worked, cabins here and there and yonder, the cows and sheep they drove at so much pains not worth the trailing, and no grass to feed them on to boot. So the last would be the worst, the measly answer to the toilsome hope.

  "You got it wrong, a little anyway," Ram said after they had passed a train of four ramshackle wagons. "It's new land to 'em and so won't be a come-down for a spell. Most folks gon't like to stick. What's yondeh beats what's nigh."

  "But still?"

  "It's only by and by that what they left looks good, and then because it's wheah they ain't."

  "But what's in Oregon?"

  "It's Lat's eyes lookin', boy. They'll see things different."

  How, then, as they rode along, did things appear to Ram, the things they both could see, the Powder and Burnt rivers, the dusted sage, the roll of hills, the camping place at Farewell Bend where the Snake bulged out to touch the trail? Stretch the idea far enough, and what was one thing to one set of eyes might be opposite to others, like hills and valleys.

  And if no eyes saw it? But common sense could tell when land was crowded and unpromising, or green and open, waiting to make cattle fat.

  Ram pulled leftward from the trail and took it slow along the river side, his gaze measuring the stream which here ran almost level with its banks. It looked wide and green and full of purpose.

  "Some folks would hunt a ferry, but me, I love to spend my money on impo'tant things," Ram said. He checked his horse. "This, now, looks good enough. See that landin' place downstream? And it ain't all swimmin' wateh.
"

  He sat quiet for a minute while he gauged the crossing, then slowly began to unbuckle his cartridge belt. "You a swimmah?"

  "Fair."

  "How about the hoss?"

  "Never swam him that far."

  "All right, likely. It's them thin-backed, steppy hosses can't swim for drowndin'."

  With his cartridge belt Ram took a wrap around his saddle horn, then made sure his revolver was cased safely. Lat did the same. As he finished, Ram said, "If the hosses swim too low, we can grab fo' the artillery an' hold it up."

  They swung off then and took off boots and chaps and stuck them under the lashings of the packs. "Good thing to loosen up the cinches, too." Ram began on his. "Swimmin', any animal needs breath to keep him floatin'."

  Mounted again, the horses took to the river without too much urging, stepping out and holding up to drink and then going on with little snorts while the water rose and swelled against them. Ahead, Ram bent forward in the saddle and brought his feet up high behind. His horse lined neck and head out and changed gaits, from a shambling walk among the boulders to the gentle single-foot of swimming. Ram's pack horse pulled against the lead rope, and Lat used his rein ends on his rump, and he cast off, the light pack riding high. Then Lat's Chief was swimming, and after him the mule, pointing upstream like Ram's two and, like them, being carried down. Ram kept glancing back, his face serene but watchful, too.

  There was nothing to it, no need to slide off in the water and hang to tail or saddle leather. Just hunch ahead and keep as dry as possible and watch the Colt and hold the horse on course and let him do the work.

  The horses found bottom and climbed for shore and pulled out streaming at the spot that Ram had sighted from the other side.

  Ram vaulted off, to keep from getting wetter than he was, and knocked his unprotected toe against a rock. He hopped around, holding the toe with both hands and cutting loose with curse words that would have stiffened Pa. "Somethin' in nature got it in for a man," he said as the pain eased. "Damned ambusher, that's what she is."

  "She's a goddam son-of-a-bitch, all right," Lat answered. The words came out unnatural, but Ram didn't seem to notice.

  "It ain't half a ride to wheah the cows is at, but s'posin' we find a tidy place and take the night." Ram began getting back into his rigging. "Be late by the time we get to camp, and the cook asleep and red-assed if we woke him up to get a bite. Them two wild chickens we shot should be just right for us."

  They hadn't far to look. Upstream a hundred yards they found firewood and handy water and good grass and a bald spot by some trees to roll their beds on.

  It seemed to Lat he'd hardly put his head down, hardly filled himself and stretched out and sunk deep in sleep before Ram was cracking branches for the breakfast fire. He swam awake and floated on the surface. The sky had darkened and the stars dimmed out, as if they knew they couldn't hold a candle to the coming sun. The campfire played its little licks of light against a tree trunk. Overhead, leaves he didn't see whispered to a touch of air he didn't feel.

  "Mawnin', boy," Ram said. It was as though he knew exactly when Lat came awake. He put more wood on the blaze he'd started. "Best eat a bait and get to movin'."

  It was full daylight but cool yet with the night's dew drying on the grass when they spied the cattle grazing outward from the river and, farther off but closer to the bank, two wagons and a tent shining in the long rays of the sun. All around was good feed, untouched by the gaunted livestock of the pilgrims whose road passed to the north. Two riders watched the grazing herd range out. Close by the wagons, blurred in the distance, was a swirl of movement and of color. "They still got the hosses up," Ram said and dallied the pack-horse rope around his saddle horn and heeled into a trot.

  The swirl grew into horses, fenced in by lariats strung from front and back wheels of the coupled wagons and held by men on foot who kept them twitching so's to discourage any breakthrough. The open side was closed by other men who swung rope ends to keep the bunch inside. A couple of horses, saddled but riderless, had been turned loose and were nipping at the graze. Beyond the bulge of the forward wagon, half out of sight, a man was tying up another.

  Ram raised a hand to the men who weren't too busy to watch him. "Hold 'em," he said to one and rode on to the rear and the cook fire around which three others stood.

  "How? Any coffee left? And how's the troops of the Potomac?"

  A small, lean man with crinkles around his eyes spoke up. "Takin' things in order -How? Ask Sally. And war is hell." He spat and grinned. "Knew you'd be ahead of yourself, but you ain't caught us settin'. We got the cows all trail­branded and shoes on some of the cayuses."

  "Good." Ram slid down from his horse. Lat got off, too. Ram wagged a thumb at him. "It's Lat Evans here. From Pendleton. He's goin' along."

  The men nodded shortly, while Lat waited for Ram to name their names. The middle one, standing back behind the fire, he guessed was cook, for he carried a paunch and wore suspenders and had a dab of dried dough above a scraggly mustache. The third, off a little to the right, looked like an ordinary hand, but extraordinary because his eyes and mouth were extra small and smaller yet by contrast with his length of face. It passed through Lat's mind that nature could have staked more ground for them and had a better layout.

  The little man stepped forward, smiling, and held out his hand. "Ram don't know my name. It's Carmichael, Mike Carmichael."

  "I know the name all right," Ram said. "It's the face I couldn't place." His eyes showed he was funning. "Mostly, you can't tell wheah you'll meet it at." He glanced at Lat, then pointed to the paunchy man behind the fire. "The cook goes by the name of Sally when he don't get ringy and demandin'. Then it's Jacob Schmidt."

  Sally didn't come around to shake. He said without smiling, "Just don't kick your goddam dust into my makin's, Evans, like some I could spit on, and don't bellyache about the grub, and we'll team up all right."

  Lat nodded. "All right."

  Ram turned to the man with the squinched eyes and squinched mouth. "And you, suh?"

  Before the man could answer, Carmichael spoke up. "I was gettin' around to that. Meet Mooman, Harvey Mooman."

  They shook hands. Carmichael went on. "He's lookin' for a place, and I asked him to hang around just on the chance."

  His gaze swung over to Lat.

  "I thought, with Evans, we'd make out, Mike."

  "Full crew then?" Mooman asked. Ram spent a minute thinking.

  "You a rider?"

  "I ain't walkin'."

  "I mean a man can stick the real rough ones? We got fo'ty broncs or so to gentle."

  Mooman looked at the ground. "In my time I guess I got my guts shook up enough, not meanin' I won't take my string as it comes."

  "Well?" Ram said and fingered his chin. "Nobody's quit, Mike?"

  "Nope."

  Mooman said, "I'll mosey on then."

  "No need to bust away," Ram told him. "Let's have some coffee, and me'n Evans got to pick a string for him."

  Each poured his coffee from the giant, blackened pot. Seeing Ram let himself down and sit cross-legged on the ground, Lat did so, too.

  From yon side of the forward wagon had come a tapping and now and then a "Whoa, there!" and now there stepped around the rear a man about of Lat's age, a dark-skinned man with blue-black roots of beard on jaw and chin and a fore-lock like a crow's wing fallen from underneath his pushed­back hat. "For shoein' horses," he said to all, "a man should get a medal."

  "It'll be a horseshoe, and we'll tack it on youah face to keep that nose from bruisin'," Ram answered. "The trails you take, you need protection. Howya, Tom? 'Bout through?"

  "Howya, Ramrod? One to go, and I bet he'll be a double­distilled son-of-a-bitch net."

  "Meet Lat Evans here. Lat, Tom Ping."

  Ping came over and put his hand out as Lat scrambled up. He took a long look. Then his heavy mouth spread in a smile that showed large, even teeth.

  "A hossman, so I'm told," Ram went o
n. "He's j'ined us."

  "Well, Jesus Christ and glory!" Ping said. "'Bout time we had some young blood here to keep me company." His hand waved toward the other men as he spoke to Lat. "These old bastards are so dried up they don't know tit from tether or give a good goddam, what's worse. Most you can say for 'em is they've learnt their ass from a hole in the ground."

  "Tom's ma never had to spank him to keep him from holdin' his breath," Carmichael said.

  "The wind you blow! And it meant for the other end!"

  "It ain't always this windy, Lat," Ram said and gulped his coffee and got up. "We'll unpack and then pick you a string."

  He led the way around. They unloaded the pack horses and dumped the packs inside the bed wagon. Afterwards Ram said, "You might as well unsaddle and try one of the string." His eyes turned with a question in them. "Huh?"

  "Sure."

  "We'll just turn these hosses loose to graze, except I'll keep my own up. I'll be needin' him directly."

  Lat unsaddled and put the rigging down and untied his lariat. His six-gun would be a nuisance on board a bucking horse. He unbuckled it and stuck it in his bedroll.

  The men at the rope corral had caught their horses up and were just idling while they kept the rest inside. The rest were solid colors mostly, and some looked good and some just middling and a few of them plain bad. Together, they added up to maybe seventy. The best of them, Lat figured, had come from Oregon. They were the largest and had better heads and feet and showed less of mustang blood. Good and bad bunched up, heads raised, eyes watchful for a chance to break around, as he and Ram stepped toward them.

  "You bein' the last to join, youah string might be a little rough," Ram said. It was as much a question as a statement.