Spanish Crossing

by Alan Lemay

  He hardly believed, even when he had kicked the stiffened coyote out of the snow, that the Grinner was really dead. The animal in death looked more meanly small than before, more mangy, more fleabitten, less furry. His rigid tongue, sticking sidewise out of his jaws, was bright with frozen blood. Only the crease between his eyes gave him a resemblance to the immortal grinning varmint that had spoiled Jed's wanderings for so long.

  What would have been a grand triumph under other circumstances was reduced to only a faint ironic satisfaction as Jed opened his big knife and haggled off the Grinner's scalp.

  Jed stopped only three days at the Crazy K.During that time he cooked, and they wanted him to stay on in that job. But as soon as he was warm clear through, and tired of eating, he judged that the gray horse had downed enough grain to move on. He was anxious to prove to himself that he was as good a wolf hunter as ever, now that the Grinner was dead.

  For the first week he had little luck, for the Crazy K had been fighting wolves on its own account, but, as he came into new territory, things began to improve. For a week or two he heartily enjoyed the discovery of gray carcasses near his baits.

  Then he began to notice that something was lacking. Once more he futilely attempted conversation with Hey! Often, as he rested by his fire, he would catch himself listening; not naturally, as he habitually listened, but tensely, waiting. If a coyote yelled far off, he would stir, brightening almost, with the fresh breath of animosity that the Grinner had earned. Then his interest would fade out again, leaving the prairie more bleak than before, peopled only with the foolish brutes that ate his baits.

  Sometimes a voice almost exactly like that of the Grinner would sound not far away, and for an instant he would forget that the Grinner was dead. Even after he had remembered, he would lie listening to the yapping voice, pretending, half convincing himself that it was the same.

  Often he amused himself by thinking how he would outsmart the Grinner, if the brute were still alive. There was not much to that, though; there was so little he had not tried.

  Perpetually, as he loafed in his makeshift camp, while the gray horse grazed, his eyes wandered to sweep the snowfloored sage. The brush was a salty gray; its twigs worked faintly in the wind, with a whispering voice indescribably desolate.

  Once as his eyes roved from his fire, his nerves leaped to action; for a coyote was watching him, seated in plain sight ninety yards away, as the Grinner had sat. His rifle came up cautiously, for he expected the animal to disappear. When he had shot the coyote through the head, he lacked the spirit to walk out and get the ears; he let it go until the next day, when he was ready to move on.

  A month passed in that way. The winter had grown old, but there were still six weeks of it left.

  Late in a gray afternoon, after a dinner of fried mush, Jed got the ears of the Grinner out of his bounty sack, and put them on a rock behind a bush, a hundred yards from his camp. They made the rock look a good deal like the Grinner in the failing light. He meant to use them as a mark to shoot at, but, instead, he played for half an hour with an elaborate calculation of how he was going to shoot the Grinner this time and get around that disappearing trick.

  Suddenly he was shocked by his own childishness. With a grumble of oaths he turned his back and tried to go to sleep, but his awareness of those taunting ears out there behind the sage would not let him. On an impulse he resaddled his horse and rode away, leaving the ears behind. Three miles farther on he decided he wanted them, after all, and rode back.

  Then, as he sat his horse, staring down at that pair of ears in the twilight, a sense of his own folly overwhelmed him. He sat pulling at his lower lip with gloved fingers, gazing vacantly at those ears - two shabby triangles on a hardened bar of hide.

  He was wishing he were a granger, eating a frosty winesap apple by a hot stove, with a family of kids around him. It seemed to him that if he could only have a decent job again, away from the stark loneliness of that vast vacant prairie, he would never want anything else. Those accursed ears kept pulling his attention back.

  "Gosh," he muttered, "1 can't go this no more."

  He turned the gray horse, and they went lumbering off into the dark.

  Once, a long time after, he found himself on that prairie again, while he was driving the cook wagon for the Crazy K. Cooking had turned out a good job for Jed. Cooks were supposed to be crotchety and queer; the riders made allowances for that. Men in hopes of coffee at odd hours spoke pleasantly to him, and, if they joked over him, they put in elaborate winks and grins. He felt foolish when, as the trail passed near the rock where he had left the Grinner's ears, he turned off to see if they were still there. They were gone, of course. Something hungry had carried them away.

  So this, thought Tip Roddy, swinging down from his saddle without being invited, is High Wind MacDowell - himself.

  About all Roddy knew about MacDowell, except that his cattle were the best range stock in the Southwest, consisted of a rumor picked up in Redregon to the effect that old High Wind was going to have a concrete statue made of himself, and set up at the Dog Wolf water hole that he had fought over for so long.

  Redregon was wasting its time debating what the statue was going to look like, and whether it would be in natural colors, gold leaf, or just plain, buckwheat-batter cement.

  The town was split, some thinking the effigy would resemble a white-face steer looking through a Joshua bush, and others expecting it to look more like a balloon. But all agreed that it would not stand out there in the cactus very long before taking on a likeness to the Spirit of Smallpox, so many Redregon riders were going to throw lead at it - men that had always wanted to jump High Wind MacDowell in person, but never worked up to it.

  Of course, the concrete business had nothing to do with Tip Roddy, except that Roddy, now that he was meeting old High Wind for the first time, thought he saw new light on several aspects of the statue rumor. MacDowell had grown portly in his advancing years, but his short, grizzled beard still bristled like nobody's business, his eye could kindle faster than the powder in a gun, and he had a voice like thunder up the gulch.

  "What horse is that?" demanded High Wind bluntly.

  "Just a horse of mine. My name is Roddy, and I'm from...."

  "So you want to see me, do you?" High Wind blared with no marked cordiality. "Oh, you do? Hold on now! Don't get talkative yet. Answer me this, young man. How many cows can a calf have in one year?"

  "How many cows can a calf ...1 don't get you, mister," said Roddy.

  "1 said," roared MacDowell, "how many calves can a cow...?"

  "Oh," said Roddy. "That's different. Looks like you had your feet tangled up in your rope for a minute there, Mister MacDowell. Well, they tell me that on some ranges, and providing they have the right brand, a cow is liable to come in with two or three calves... and maybe a couple of colts," he answered.

  "Just fresher than a steam laundry in hell, aren't you?" rumbled MacDowell. "You had a peach of a nerve, riding the front half of your horse right up into the step of my verandy. Still, riders is scarce this fall, and you seem to have the right basic idee." He ran a slow eye over Tip Roddy, from Stetson hat and smooth-shaved jaw to worn chaps and time-polished rowels. "Yeah, 1 can use you, 1 guess."

  "You don't mean to tell me," said Tip Roddy. "And what for?"

  "Ain't you been looking for a job with me?"

  "Not by a long spit," Roddy told him. "1'm looking around to buy fifty, sixty head of two-year-old bulls for a spread I've got over in Moon Pan Basin. And now, my short friend, since you never asked me to step down, I'll step right back up again. I'm right sorry my horse set foot on your porch step ...he must have mistook this for a ranch house, such as he's always been welcome at before. Thank you kindly, good bye, and go to the devil," said Roddy, and prepared to mount.

  For a moment High Wind's jaw slacked, but immediately his short beard spread in an unaccustomed grin, and he chuckled.

  "Wait a minute," he said more genially.
"1 mis-assumed you for one of these darned student-cowboys, at first, but 1 see plain where 1 got my saddle on wrong end to. The drinks are on me, Mister... Rocky, was it?...and I'll take it as a kindness if you'll step down and have something to eat."

  Tip Roddy was not surprised. He had learned by this time that it is only secretly uncertain men who like to do business with crawlers. Still, High Wind's apology sounded overdone to Roddy, so that he suspected sarcasm; and he would have replied that he wouldn't choose anything, thank you just the same, if Kit MacDowell had not come to the door just then.

  Roddy took off his hat, dropped it, picked it up, and stood pulling the brim around and around through his fingers. Even from his first sight of the girl, Tip knew that he was done for. It came on him in a sort of dazed, sinking sensation, as if he knew he was up against his manifest destiny, and that any minute it might find him short of powder.

  A friendly, understanding sort of girl Kit MacDowell was, with a merry mouth, and sober, comprehending gray eyes. She was golden tanned, and her soft chestnut hair was sunburned where it curled about her ears, and you knew by the general look of her that she could ride any old horse, any old time. And at the same time she was so beautifully clear cut and all, like a racing filly, or a flower....

  "It just does seem like I've seen that horse before," High Wind mused. "Would you mind saying where you got him, Mister Rocky?"

  "Gave an Indian five bucks for him, three, four years back. He's old, but 1 like him."

  It was kind of awkward, Roddy felt, that High Wind MacDowell did not introduce him to the girl. Roddy turned on her a sort of confused look, and she smiled at him, as if she understood and felt the same way about it, and at that Tip dropped his hat again.

  "May 1 hold that for you?" she said.

  "Ma'am?"

  "You've dropped your hat twice."

  Just so almighty competent and cool, thought Roddy. And so almighty sweet, too. His knees went watery on him, and he turned red as he mumbled some fool answer. At that, all this confusion was something new to Roddy, who had always been considered to have a free-handed way with girls.

  "This here is my niece, Kit," High Wind came to earth. "She's from Montana. Her paw and maw died on her.. .that makes her my niece. Kit, this here is Mister Rocky. He...."

  "Roddy," Tip corrected.

  "Roddy? Not Tip Roddy? Well, I'll be darned! 1 remember now, we wrote some letters back and forth this spring, about them same bulls. Sure enough. ..1 remember hearing you'd set up a right nice little lay, over in the Moon Pan. Kit, Mister Roddy. He's stopping by with us a few days.. .he's got one of the prettiest little spreads over in the Moon Pan...."

  "Pleased to meet you," mumbled Roddy, looking it.

  "Mister Roddy is liable to succeed," said High Wind expansively. "He tells me he guesses a cow can be got to bring in three, four calves a year, with right handlin'."

  "1 said, I've heard they do on some ranges," Roddy corrected him, looking MacDowell over as cool as be damned. "In the Moon Pan we think an eighty per cent calving is mighty good, and a credit to the brand."

  "Are you criticizing my beginnings?" bristled MacDowell.

  "1 don't criticize anybody."

  "Well," growled High Wind, "see that you don't. And in reference to me, just remember this, young man... from the Sierras to the Pecos, they've never pried a settlement off me yet!"

  It seemed to Tip Roddy that High Wind MacDowell, king of the Redregon, cattle baron, former gunfighter, long known as the toughest man to buck in the Southwest, was running a good deal to windiness in his old age. The old border raider - if such he had been - was sliding into the reminiscent stage without pulling in his horns by so much as an inch.

  As the supper gong rang, they were joined by a lank mourner who was introduced as one Lem Wilkinson, High Wind's top foreman. This man shook hands with sorrowful suspicion, opined that it didn't look much like no rain, and relapsed into silence. Throughout the meal he divided a tragic gaze between Kit MacDowell and his plate, confining his conversational efforts to low affirmative moans upon being offered second and third helpings.

  Tip Roddy sat through supper in an increasing daze. He could not look at Kit MacDowell without strangely stirring, upsetting sensations, and he could not keep from looking at her. She invariably caught him at it, which seemed to amuse her. Indeed, her eyes were no longer sober; her amusement had turned them sultry, and illuminated her glances with a new but not unfriendly light. Roddy was distinctly afoot in the sandhills by this time, with no common sense in sight.

  Toward the end of the meal High Wind abandoned his stewed apricots long enough to go stumping out. Through the window Roddy saw High Wind out by the feed rack in the dusk, peering between the poles of the corral for a better look at Roddy's horse.

  "If he's hinting around for me to give him that horse," Roddy confided to Kit, "he's just wasting his time. There's other horses... and he's got his share of 'em."

  "1 want to thank you for something," said Kit.

  "Who, me?"

  "1 couldn't believe my eyes," Kit told him. "I've been here nearly two years, and you're the first man 1 ever saw stand up and shout back at this uncle of mine. It sure is a relief to see a man come in here and talk like one...and 1, for one, want you to know I've enjoyed it."

  Lem Wilkinson, whose existence had been forgotten, threw his spoon into his plate with a protesting clatter. The lank cow boss sat up straight for a moment to favor Kit with a stare of sorrowful rebuke, then rose without excuse, and tramped expressively out.

  Roddy and Kit MacDowell grinned at each other. Left alone with this girl, Tip could think of nothing to say. He stared at her dazedly, until she flushed. "Do you like living here with your uncle?" he got out at last.

  "It would be all right, if he didn't keep trying to marry me off."

  "Try to! Who, him? Why, that old...say, I'll jump right down his throat."

  "If he tries it on you?"

  "Wait, now.. .that isn't what I meant. Say, is he trying to palm off this Wilkinson grief as a...?"

  "Oh, no. Lem Wilkinson is a volunteer. The other thing 1 don't like is seeing everybody back up for him. `Yes, Mister MacDowell,' and `Kindly, kick me again, please, sir,' until it's fair sickening."

  "1 betcha."

  "Have some more apricots, Mister Roddy."

  "Thank you kindly. Wait, though ...1 thought you said apricots. Them's the potatoes."

  A silence fell - a silence that somehow became slowly palpitant. It was embarrassing, in a way. Yet Tip Roddy was sorry when High Wind MacDowell returned.

  MacDowell dragged Roddy off to a smoky little cubbyhole of his own, the walls of which were racked with past-model rifles and feathered with an accumulation of trophies that ran from mountain lion hides to coup sticks, and back again. Here an effort was made to pursue business across vast and plains of reminiscence having to do with the Life and Times of King MacDowell - His Exploits and His Deeds.

  It was after midnight when Tip Roddy escaped from the pipe smoke - but Kit was there, to say good night at the door.

  "You didn't need to wait up," said MacDowell. "You should have been in the soogans hours back."

  "No trouble," said Kit.

  The brief pressure of her hand was almost too much for Roddy, and he dropped his hat - but this time caught it again - as he took his leave.

  "That's better," said Kit. "You've learned the ins and outs of that hat."

  Tip Roddy rode off that night in exalted mood.

  The next day Kit rode all day long with Tip Roddy and High Wind as they made a general pick and survey of the stock that Roddy wanted. High Wind was with them every minute, but there was a certain companionship about it that permitted them to get used to each other - better, in a way, than if they had needed to talk.

  While High Wind was washing up that evening, Kit and Tip Roddy walked out to the corral to take a look at Tip's horse. He had ridden one of MacDowell's that day, to save his own for the long cattle drive ah
ead.

  Two minutes after the feed rack had screened them from the house, Roddy swept Kit into his arms.

  Kit brought a small fist up to his jaw with stinging accuracy, and took advantage of his surprise to fling free of him. "You're just like all the rest," she stormed, her voice low and intense. "I've got no earthly use for you."

  He caught her wrist.

  "That isn't so."

  "Let me go!"

  "1'm damned if I will," said Roddy. "Not now, nor ever. I'll tell you this flat ...I'm not going back to the Moon Pan without you."

  "Do you mean that?"

  "I take that to be just a sort of form question," said Roddy. "Honey, come here."

  This time she came into his arms as naturally as a pony puts its muzzle to fresh water.

  Twice more in the course of the evening High Wind MacDowell excused himself to go out to the corral and take long stares at Roddy's horse. As Roddy saddled by the light of a lantern MacDowell had brought out, the old man struck his conclusion at last.

  "1 know him now! 1 knew 1'd remember him!"

  "Yes?"

  "That's Slade Tucker's horse!"

  "Is that so?"

  "Yes, that's so! I never forgot an animal yet, and I'm right on this one now! You never bought that horse from no Indian! You're the man killed Slade Tucker!"

  "Yes?" said Roddy.

  "It's no use denying it!"

  "1 deny nothing."

  "You killed Slade Tucker! 1. always wondered who done that. And you collected the reward, 1 suppose? No? But anyways stole his horse?"

  "Stole, MacDowell?"

  "Yes. And 1 say this, and I say it plain... when you shot Slade Tucker, you killed a better man than you are!"

  "You knew this Slade Tucker?"

  "No one," said High Wind, "knew him better than me. A fine, upstanding, straight-shooting, clean-living young squirt, Slade was, and the reward should never have been slapped on his head!"