Monte Walsh Page 2

  He watched it go, a shapeless dark blur moving slowly through the scanty sagebrush. He turned and walked into the darkness of the long road away.

  * * *

  The sun was well up, aiming at noontime. The welcome warmth lay over the big land, over the four mules plodding along the stage road, pulling a medium-sized freight wagon loaded with two layers of well-filled grain bags. The man on the driving seat was short-legged, short and round of body, with huge shoulders and thick arms. Under his flat-crowned wide-brimmed hat his face was broad and sun- and wind­tanned. His jacket was off, tucked under the seat, and his thick arms, bared to rolled shirtsleeves above the elbows, showed freckles through their tan. Behind him, sprawled on the grain bags, lay the boy, eyes closed, mouth open, limp body rolling some with the motion of the wagon.

  The road dropped to cross a dry arroyo and the wheels jolted on stones and the boy stirred and sat up. He swiveled around on the bags to face forward.

  "Come on up here," said the man. "You ain't much company back there."

  The boy scrambled forward and sat on the seat beside him. The man turned his head and a slow smile creased his broad face. "A mite better," he said. "Yes. A mite better. When you stumbled into my camp about sun-up, you was plenty beat."

  "Shucks," said the boy. "Just tired was all."

  The man gave his attention to the mules. "Where'd you come from?" he said.

  The boy edged farther away from the man on the seat. He reached back and took his rolled blanket and set this on his knees. "Nowhere much," he said. "Just back down the road a piece."

  The man looked straight ahead, watching the mules. "Got any folks?"

  The boy edged farther away, against the low side rail of the seat. "No," he said. "Not now."

  "Dead?" said the man.

  The boy hesitated. "No," he said. His muscles tightened toward the leap out and away and the man's right hand jumped across him and grasped the side rail, the thick freckled arm pinning him to the seat. The man looked straight ahead, holding the reins in his left hand, watching the mules plod on. "Running away," he said.

  The boy struggled against the arm, felt the strength in it, sat still. "I ain't a-going back!" he said.

  "Of course you ain't," said the man. "And you ain't doing any jumping. I know a man broke a leg that way. Tangled in a wheel."

  The mules plodded on. A jackrabbit started up from a clump of brush by the roadside and spurted ahead and swerved off to the left in long effortless leaps and the mules plodded on. "Maybe you've shook that notion," said the man.

  "Maybe I have," said the boy.

  "Maybe won't do," said the man.

  The boy looked at the solid chunk of sun- and wind-tanned face sideways to him watching the road ahead. "All right," he said. "I ain't a-going to."

  "Of course not," said the man. He let go of the side rail and his right hand rested on his right knee. "Running away's the thing sometimes. I did it myself once." He slapped the reins down on the mules' rumps and they paid no attention and plodded on and he sat back more on the seat. "It was a cow. A crazy old milk cow. My folks had a farm and that silly damn cow had to keep breaking into my maw's garden. Fence didn't mean a thing to her. I chased her out and I fixed that fence so many times I got me more'n a mite mad. Took my paw's shotgun and pried the buckshot out of a cartridge with my knife and put some beans in. Figured to pepper her good. Sure enough, next day she was back in and I crabbed that gun and blazed away. Plenty surprised to see her drop like somebody'd poleaxed her with blood showing plenty places. How was I to know when I was off somewhere my paw'd seen a hawk after the chickens and used that gun and maybe cussed like he could when nothing much happened and put a new cartridge in? I grabbed me a few things and took out fast."

  The boy looked at the man beside him watching the road ahead and a small grin showed on the boy's lips. "I ain't been hack since," said the man.

  The mules plodded on, slow, steady, in a loose shambling walk. The wagon was something that followed, apart from them, separated by their plain pretense that it had nothing to do with them.

  "Ever drive a four-mule team?" said the man.

  "No," said the boy.

  "Think you could?"

  "Sure," said the boy. "Sure thing."

  "Try it," said the man, handing him the reins. The boy took them and pulled them taut, testing the feel of them in his hands. The mules plodded on, separate, indifferent. The man reached under the seat and pulled out a brown paper bag, and extracted from this a fat jerked-beef sandwich. He leaned back on the seat, chewing methodically.

  The sandwich disappeared. The man reached and took the rains from the boy. "There's bags and there's bags," he said. "Maybe that particular bag ain't empty."

  The boy chewed on the second sandwich and the mules plodded on.

  "Where you going?" said the man.

  "Anywheres," said the boy. "Anywheres there's a job."

  "A job's nothing," said the man. "Only something to do. It's the kind of a job that counts."

  "A cow outfit," said the boy. "That's what I want. A cow outfit."

  "Not milk cows?" said the man.

  "No," said the boy. "Not milk cows."

  "Of course not," said the man. He raised his head to watch a buzzard high above tilt wings and glide in long slow slant toward the horizon. "Only there ain't many of that kind around here," he said. "Not yet anyways." He sat up straighter on the seat. "Station's not far now. We ought to come in looking good." He slapped with the reins and the mules paid no attention and plodded on. "Forgot my whip," he said, "or I'd make them hop."

  The boy funneled the mouth of the brown paper bag and blew into it and clamped the opening tight and smacked the bag with a fist. It burst with a sharp pop. The mules plodded on.

  "Noise don't bother 'em any," said the man.

  "Let me get on that lead mule," said the boy, "and I'll make 'em move."

  The man turned his head to look at the boy. "Think you can?"

  "Sure. Sure thing."

  "Try it," said the man, beginning to pull in on the reins.

  "Shucks," said the boy. "You don't need to stop." He climbed over the front of the wagon and stood on the long swaying tongue. He moved out along it, past the wheelers, to the lead team. He dodged a nip from one of the wheelers and hopped astride the left leader. It grunted indignantly and hunched its back and tried to buck, bumping heels against the front whiffletree. The boy sat tight to it and drummed heels against its sides. It plodded on with the others, accepting him, ignoring him.

  He reached forward and took hold of a long ear and twisted, hard. "Yowee!" he yelled. "Get a-moving!" The mule snorted indignation again and as the twist tightened more lunged into a trot, yanking the others into this with it. The wagon moved forward at a fair clip.

  Ahead the road swung around jutting rock to the two log buildings and spring-fed water tank of the stage relay station. The mules, trotting smartly, swung with it and came to a stop by the first building. The agent, limp and lackadaisical, appeared in the doorway of the other building and leaned against a jamb, watching. The boy jumped off the left lead mule, dodging its sidewise kick, and the man climbed down from the wagon.

  "Lucky those things know where to go and where to stop," he said. "I couldn't do much, not with you sitting on the reins. Tell you what. You help me unload these bags which the agent here won't do and I'll speak to the driver when the stage comes along. Could be he'll take you on into the first town."

  Easily, with the ease of long practice, the man took hold of a grain bag and swung it up on one huge shoulder. The boy took hold of another and struggled with it, getting it to one thin shoulder, staggering under it.

  "Name," said the man.

  "Monte," said the boy.

  "Rest of it," said the man.

  The boy hesitated. He looked at the man, at the broad solid face. He straightened some under his load. "Walsh," he said. "Monte Walsh."

  "Walsh?" said the man. "I knew a man called that.
In the Army with me."

  "My father was a reb," said the boy.

  "I was Union," said the man. "Ain't that something? But it's a good name." He led into the first building.

  They were back by the wagon, last two bags on shoulders. "Tell you what, Monte," said the man. "I got a cousin over in the Indian Nation's got a road ranch. Red Fork Ranch he calls it. North of Darlington on the Chisholm trail, aiming for Wichita. Trail herds stopping there. Cow outfits going through. Red-headed he is. Name's Martin. You manage to get there and hang around maybe he'd feed you and maybe somebody'd take you on. That's a far piece from here. Think you could make it?"

  Monte Walsh stood straight under his load. "I'll get there," he said.

  "Of course you will," said the man.

  * * *

  This road came out of sandy distance and dipped to cross where old cottonwoods and scrubby brush lined the sides of a dry watercourse and climbed to lead on into distance again. The several ramshackle buildings by it might someday be a town. Right now they were only a stage stop--two sheds and a longish narrow building fronting the road with CAFE in peeling black paint over the door and a leaning slant-roofed house inhabited by the proprietor and the fat stringy-haired woman who passed for his wife.

  Along the road came Monte Walsh, hot, tired, limping in old work shoes whose soles flapped at the toes. His thin body was thinner now in his worn jeans and dirty remnants of shirt. The rolled blanket was gone somewhere and his ragged jacket was off, hanging ' down his back with sleeves tied loose­ly ly around his neck. An ancient hat, picked up somewhere, half the brim gone, holes in the crown, was on his head. He stopped by the narrow building and sniffed the odors of cooking that drifted out the open front door.

  A man, tall, stoop-shouldered, full-bearded, with greasy cloth tied around his waist and hanging below his knees, appeared in the doorway. He looked Monte over. His lips pushed out, showing through the beard, and he spat a quantity of dark liquid into the road. "When did you eat last?" he said.

  "Yesterday," said Monte.

  "How'd you like a good meal?"

  "I'd like it fine."

  The man shifted the wad of tobacco in his mouth from one cheek to the other. "Afraid of work?"

  "No."

  "Come on," said the man. He turned back into the building and Monte followed. The fat stringy-haired woman at one end by the stove looked up at him and grunted something unintelligible. The man went right on, out the open back door, and Monte followed.

  The man stopped by a big tangled pile of dead cottonwood branches cut into four-foot lengths. Beside the pile stakes ' were driven into the ground, in pairs in a line, each stake about four feet high, the pairs about eight feet apart. The man picked up a branch length and laid it on the ground inside and against the first pair of stakes. "Pile 'em here like that," he said. "When you finish you get your meal." He went back into the building.

  Monte unlooped the sleeves of his jacket and hung it on a stake. He went to work, pulling pieces from the tangled pile and fitting them snugly together between the paired stakes.

  Time passed. He had one eight-foot section full, a solid neat section, the branch lengths tightly packed together.

  "Good gawd a'mighty!"

  Monte jumped around, startled. The man was in the rear doorway. He stepped down and strode over and stood glaring at the piled section. His cheeks and forehead above the beard were turning a dull red. "Tryin' to cheat me?" he shouted. "Packin' 'em in like that! I sell that stuff by the cord! Spread em out right an' you could make two outa that one!" He stepped to the piled section and put a foot against it and tried to push it over. It was too well, too solidly packed. Arms tlying, he began to heave pieces off the top.

  Monte stared at the man. "Whyn't you tell me?" he said.

  "Tell you!" The man spun around, a piece of wood in one hand. "Good gawd a'mighty! Ain't you got any brains? G'wan! Beat it!" He stepped forward, stick upraised, and Monte jumped back.

  The man stopped. The sound of hoofs and creaking leather came from the road, beyond the building. "G'wan!" he shouted. "Tryin' to cheat me! G'wan, beat it!" He smacked the piece of wood on the ground, snapping it in two, and hurried away, into the building.

  Six horses braked hard in front of the building and a big old coach stopped, swaying on its thoroughbraces. The driver Jumped down. "Ten minutes!" he shouted. "Pile out!" Five passengers piled out and hurried into the building with the driver where the man and the woman were slapping dishes on the one long table.

  Spoons and forks clattered against thick crockery. Jaws worked in hasty rhythm. The man in the greasy apron stepped to the rear doorway and looked out. The jacket was gone from the stake. Monte Walsh was nowhere in sight.

  The passengers were again in the coach. The driver, high on his seat, shook out his whip and cracked the tip near the cars of the leaders. The horses leaned into the traces and the coach began to move, to pick up speed downgrade toward the dip in the road.

  Inside the building the man was putting coins into a small leather bag hanging from a wall nail near the stove. He whirled about. Monte Walsh, jacket flying out behind, was leaping in through the rear doorway, crossing the room toward the front doorway. He scooped a half-loaf of bread off the table as he went and was on out, stuffing the bread inside his remnants of shirt, bounding on thin knobby legs after the coach.

  The man leaped to follow. The greasy apron hampered leg action and he stumbled through the front doorway and went to his hands and knees in the road. He pushed up an stood staring. He saw Monte overtake the coach and grab and be dragged and pull and climb up on the boot and the coach moved on, gathering momentum for the run up and o of the dip. "Good gawd a'mighty," he said. "Cheatin' me again."

  * * *

  The shadow of the unfinished homestead cabin was long in late afternoon sun as Monte Walsh unloaded stones for the fireplace from a flat makeshift stoneboat. He rolled the last rock off. He unhitched the meager Indian pony and hung the harness on a knob of the cabin wall and ran his hands down the pony's front legs to fasten a rope hobble in place before removing the bridle.

  "Well, now," said the gray-mustached man in cap an overalls standing in the doorless cabin doorway, "you sure got more out of that horse in an afternoon'n I ever could. Come on. Food's ready."

  Monte sat inside under the unfinished roof on a small keg by the wooden box that served as a table and contemplate the empty plate in front of him that had been filled three times.

  "Well, now," said the man. "You sure you can't hold more? Like I told you I ain't got any cash, not right now, but I got plenty to eat."

  "Shucks," said Monte. "I'm crammed full."

  "Always like to see a young one eat," said the man. "Always wonder where they put it all. Well, now, whyn't you stay around a few days? Like I say I got plenty grub."

  "No," said Monte. "Thanks. But I got to get where I'm going."

  "Not tonight," said the man. "I got blankets. In the morning I'll fix you up with some breakfast and something to take along." He was looking at Monte's old work shoes, at what remained of them, and the bare toes poking through. They seemed to worry him. He looked at them and away. He looked back. He began to pull off his own hard-worn but still stout cowhide boots.

  "Try these," he said. "I got another pair I been saving some."

  * * *

  This was a real town. Not much exactly yet, but still a town. In the not-quite-dark of early evening the lamplight through doors and windows of the false-fronted straggly buildings was beginning to throw patches of pale yellow out onto the dust of the one street. Monte Walsh sat on a tie rail in front of a blacksmith shop, legs limp and off the ground, resting blistered feet in cowhide boots. Across the way, still faintly distinguishable, was a sign EATS over a door with set­in small pane of glass through which lamplight shone cheerfully. Monte looked at this and away, shrugging thin shoulders. He looked on around, considering possibilities of holing up for the night.

  Across and further down
the street an Indian, bulky in wrapped-around blanket and carrying a lumpy burlap bag, came out the door of a small general store and swung a leg over a scrawny stunted horse with a rope bridle and rode off into the deepening dusk.

  "Shucks," murmured Monte. "He ought to be carrying the horse."

  "Hey, bub."

  Monte turned on the tie rail. A man had come through the swinging doors of the saloon beside the blacksmith shop behind him. He wore a miner's cap and a jacket stained with coal dust over dirty striped coveralls. "Hey, hub," he said again, weaving a bit on unsteady feet. "Want to make fifty cents?"

  "Sure," said Monte. "Sure thing."

  The man put a forefinger to his lips and beckoned with the other hand. He led the way to the corner of the saloon building. He put a hand on Monte's shoulder, leaning on him. "Going to get 'em this time," he said, low-voiced, confidential. "Get 'em good. Clean me out every week, they do. Let me win at first to get me going, then clean me out. Get 'em this time. You got me?"

  "Shucks," said Monte. "How'd I know what to be getting?"

  "Poker," said the man. "Get out while I'm ahead, see?" He pointed along the saloon side to an open window near the back. "You wait by that window. Quiet." He took the stub end of a cigar out of a pocket. "When I throw this out, you come around in and on back there and you say, 'Hey, Mister Felder.' That's me, my name, Felder. You say, `Hey, Mister Felder, your wife's took sick over at your house and's calling for you.' Got that, hub? Got it good?"

  "Sure," said Monte. "Sure thing."

  "Smart," said the man. "Like me." He moved along the saloon front and in through the swinging doors. Monte moved back along the building and squatted on the ground by the patch of light from the window.

  Time passed. He heard the chink of glasses, the riffle of cards, the mutter of men's voices. He waited. The stub of cigar, lit now, came flipping out. He rose and went around by the entrance. He pushed the swinging doors open and ran toward the back room.

  Two minutes later Monte and the man were in the street a short way from the saloon.