by Gary D. Svee
His hand crept around the nightstand: Bele’s journal. Maybe that would lull him back to sleep. Standish yawned and began his exploration of another man’s life. The journal began with Bele’s passage to America. Standish scratched his chin, the rasping of fingernail against beard intruding on his thoughts. A journal is a record of a person’s life. Bele opened the journal with the voyage to America. He saw his emigration as a beginning of a new life.
Standish shook his head. He shouldn’t use the pen of conjecture to draw impressions of this man until he was further into the story. He focused again on the fine hand that marked the journal’s pages.
Bele had traveled overland from Slovenia to Paris and embarked from there. The journal spoke of the privations of the journey, of the many passengers who sickened and died, but the tone changed as the immigrants approached America:
The voyage seemed interminable, not in the time taken, but in the time it kept me from the shores of America. I don’t know what to expect. So much myth surrounds this storied land that I think it may be nothing more than a giant rock painted by a master. This Sistine Chapel of a country urges mankind to dream of Eden, where all men and women are equal, where one’s lot in life is determined not by bloodline but ability.
We have all been standing on the decks, each wrapped in a jacket or blanket to ward off the North Atlantic winds, each watching for the blur on the horizon that will become our home, and then from the masthead, a shout: “Land ho.” So quickly did everyone rush to the bow that I thought the ship might be overcome by our weight and plunge us into the depths of those icy waters.
And then we see her, her torch raised to light the world, and I scramble to my room to pull the words from my Bible where I have left them. I rush back on deck, and as we near the statue, I read aloud Emma Lazarus’s words. I doubt that any more than half of the people there could understand what I was saying, but they could read the meaning on the faces of those who could.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land
Here at our sea-washed, sunset-gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome, her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin-cities frame
‘Keep ancient lands your storied pomp!’ cries she
With silent lips, ‘Give me your teeming shore;
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!’
This polyglot of people bound together by their dreams of a new life in America roared their approval. Hope swirled around the ship, riding the winds with seagulls, and we moved toward the dock like prodigal sons coming home at last.
Standish read the lines several times, remembering how he had felt when he first rode into Montana, seeing the vastness of a sky bigger and bluer and more beautiful than he had imagined possible. His quest then was not so noble as Bele’s. He had come seeking not freedom and equality, but gold. Still he had been touched. Somehow this land had reached into him, broken down the walls surrounding his heart.
But as he read on, he began to see a growing disillusionment in Bele. Immigrants were not embraced by earlier immigrants. The same class system that pervaded Europe existed in America, the difference being that class was established by wealth and not bloodline.
Bele had ranged from one menial job to another barely making enough money for food, clothing and shelter. Still, though his belief in America dimmed, it did not go out.
Then came the news from the doctor. A killer had invaded Bele’s body. A dryer climate was called for. He must leave the mugginess of the coast. Leave for what? With what? Then Bele had seen the advertisements in the paper. Free land for the taking. The rich prairie of Montana for anyone willing to create his fortune from it.
Bele had sold his father’s watch, solid gold it was, and used the money to board a train for Montana.
Standish sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. Bele had found a home. He must have been mystified by the beauty of this place. There was virtually no chance of making a living here. Still, he had planned a long life here on the shoulders of the Rocky Mountains. The effort he had put into the water system and the cooler proved that.
Enough, Standish thought, he would return to the mystery of Klaus Bele another time, tonight perhaps. He tossed off his covers and the cold sucker-punched him, leaving him gasping. He pulled on a pair of pants refrigerated overnight by the cold, slipped into his shirt and boots and stumbled toward the stove. He dropped kindling into the stove, poured on a little coal oil and dropped a lit match on his creation. Poof, the fire started. He shoved a few larger pieces of wood into the stove and used another match to light the lantern. The night was the flat black of false dawn. Less than an hour before daylight. Might as well attend to his morning ablutions.
Standish stepped toward the door, paused and came back. Might as well pour that quicklime down the hole in the outhouse. No sense putting that off just because it was dark. He hefted the sack to his shoulder, bending down to grab the lantern’s bail. The door protested only a little at his passing, but he stopped to make sure it was closed. No reason to let the heat leak out.
Brrrrr. A shiver ran down Standish’s back, and he picked up his pace, focusing his attention on the path ahead of him. The door to the outhouse was held closed by a spring. He opened the door with the hand holding the lantern and stepped inside. Good time for quick lime. Though the outhouse hadn’t warmed yet, it was already mildly disagreeable.
The pile of paper on the seat was getting a little low. He would have to subscribe to the local rag. Town the size of Last Chance should have one.
Standish did his business, and then cut open the quick-lime bag, taking care to keep it away from his face. He upended it down the hole, swinging it back and forth for good distribution as it emptied. Finished he dropped the sack down the hole and pushed eagerly into the morning.
The sky was painting the horizon in pastels, not long now before light. The chicks! He had forgotten the chicks. He’d stop by the barn and get a handful of oats. Standish stalked toward the barn, holding each foot up as he probed ahead for a safe place to land it. The barn loomed ahead of him, dark written on dark and on the east side—the door was open! He would never leave the door to the barn open all night. What the hell was happening?
Someone had come in the night. Probably Bodmer was waiting in the cabin with his henchmen and a rope. Standish turned down the wick on the lantern. He didn’t want to walk to the house enveloped in light.
Standish stood in the dark, thinking of that afternoon on Flathead. They almost had him that day. He could hear Bodmer shouting. “Shoot his horse. I want to hang the son of a bitch.”
Standish shook his head. Bodmer didn’t know his men. They would have gladly killed Standish, but shooting his horse stuck in their craw.
Standish took a deep breath. He had to think this through if he were to survive. He didn’t know when the barn door had been opened. Sometime between the time he went to sleep and the time, he got up. He couldn’t imagine, though, that a stranger had stepped into the barn without the horses kicking up a fuss.
No time for the horses now, not with his life hanging from a strand in Bodmer’s web. He eased up to the cabin door. The only light inside radiated from the stove, and…Arch. The boy bent over the box with the chicks, sprinkling oats for the little birds.
Standish’s chin dropped to his chest, and the air escaped him in an explosive burst. He had to take control, shake off those memories. He took a deep breath and stepped through the door.
“You got an early start this morning.”
Arch looked up, but then he returned his attention to the box without saying anything. When he finally pulled back from the box, he stared at Standish with accusing eyes.
“Woke up this morning about 3:30. I started the stove then.” Standish said, and then regretted that he was trying to justify his actions to a child. Who the hell was Arch to hoist a full-grown man on his petard?
“I’ll take ’em home tonight,” Arch said. “I’ll keep ’em until they’re pullets, and then I’ll bring yours back.”
Standish sighed. “Is that what brings you here so early?”
Arch shook his head. “I told you I would bring you a loaf of Ma’s bread. Don’t you remember that?”
“She’s baking bread this early in the morning?”
Arch stiffened. “None of your business what she’s doing this morning. Only thing that concerns you is the loaf of bread I brought.”
Standish shut his eyes. It had been a long time since anyone had spoken to him as Arch was.
“I suppose we should break bread.”
The words scrubbed away the anger on Arch’s face. “I saw that you had some bacon. I brought some fresh eggs, and I thought.…”
Standish sighed. “That’s a great idea.”
“I got some of Ma’s huckleberry jelly, too. Ain’t nothing better than that.”
“Huckleberry jelly?” The thought teased Standish’s tongue. He couldn’t remember how many times he had pursued the tiny berries in sun-drenched mountain meadows, trying to bring a little sweetness to his life. “We’d best get started on that bread.”
“Bread will stay warm in the oven while you fry the bacon,” Arch said.
“Guess it will,” Standish said. “Let’s prepare the feast.”
Standish took the last bite of warm bread, butter and huckleberry jelly. He shut his eyes as he chewed, savoring the taste. When he opened his eyes, Arch was holding the last piece of bacon between his index finger and thumb. He stared at it as a trout might stare at a yellow-bellied grasshopper.
“Don’t see how I can eat this,” he said.
“Don’t see how you can’t.”
Arch cocked his head and gazed at Standish. “Guess you’re right. Don’t see how I can’t.” The bacon disappeared in two bites.
“Suppose we should get busy,” Standish said.
“Maybe we should take a nap,” Arch replied.
“Sun’s burning the day.”
Arch nodded and sighed. “That’s about the best bacon I ever ate.”
“No doubt in my mind that your mother makes the best huckleberry jelly ever.”
Arch grinned. “She sure does.”
“Suppose you could clean up in here, while I go tend to the horses?”
Standish half expected the boy to rail about how he didn’t do women’s work, but he nodded without a thought. His mother had trained him well.
Standish stepped into the barn, talking to his horses, telling them what wondrous creatures they were. Sally nodded. Hortenzia ignored him until she heard the rustle of oats in the bucket. Her head jerked up then in anticipation. He tended to Sally first, giving her oats and sending her off to the meadow for grass and water. She was in a fine mood, dancing as she trotted toward the serenity of the meadow.
Standish approached Hortenzia with the oats, petting her neck as she ate. “Hortenzia, I know you are a fine horse. Some horses don’t care for pulling a slip, but I know you’ve done it before so it shouldn’t bother you too much. Probably doesn’t seem fair that you have to work while Sally plays, but you’ve had a good rest, and she’s been pulling more than her own weight. She got me out of the high country. She’s a helluva horse. Course you know that. So after you finish eating, I’m going to slip the harness over your back, and we’re going to dig us a root cellar.”
Arch was standing behind him, head cocked, speculation running across his face. “You play cards with those horses, too?”
“Nope, they’re too good for me.”
“You’re crazy, ain’t you?”
“A little.”
“This the only way the crazy comes out, talking to horses like that?”
“No, sometimes I howl at the moon.”
“That ain’t so crazy. Sometimes I do that, too.”
Arch scuffed at the earthen floor, and looked up. “So why do you talk to the horses?”
“Couple of reasons. The sound of a man’s voice can calm horses. When they get a little skittish, they like to have someone tell them everything is going to be all right.”
“They can’t talk,” Arch said.
“No, they can’t talk.”
“So how do they know that you’re telling them everything is okay?”
“More from the tone of your voice than the words, although they do understand some words.”
Arch’s hands went to his hips, and his eyes rolled.
“Sally knows her name. That’s a word isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“So she knows some words, doesn’t she?”
Arch sighed. “I guess so.”
“Other horses know what to do when they hear gee or haw or whoa, don’t they?”
“Yeah.”
Standish waited a moment, and then continued. “I told you there were two reasons I talk to horses.”
“Yeah.”
“The other reason is that sometimes horses are the only creatures who will listen to me.”
“I can see that,” Arch said, nodding sagely. “You being crazy the way you are.”
“S’pose so. Now, are you willing to start digging that root cellar with me?”
“Long as you don’t do nothing crazy.”
“S’pose it’s alright if I talk to Hortenzia?”
“S’pose so.”
Standish leaned back, running the back of his wrist across his forehead. It had been some time since he had worked so hard. Still, he was working no harder than Arch. The cabin sat on a glacial moraine. Standish should have known that when he saw the quaking aspen grove in the high meadow. A botanist had explained to him once that quaking aspen spread from one root. It was believed that the hardy little tree had ridden into Montana on the brow of a glacier. The cabin squatted on a lateral moraine, marking the sides of the glacier’s movement, much like the snow that dribbles off either side of a shovel.
Moraines are marked by rock rounded and polished in their trip from the Precambrian Shield in Canada. Each time Standish slipped the edge of the shovel into the dirt it clanged against rock. Each time he heard that clang, he stopped Hortenzia, pried the rock loose from its bed and dumped it on the slip to be carried with the soil to a pile at the far end. There, Arch was separating rock from sandy dirt, building a pillar of rock beside the pile of dirt.
Standish shook his head. The boy had little give to him. He tried to do a man’s job with a boy’s body. Several times during the day, Standish had been forced to admonish the boy not to try to lift the larger rocks. Each time the boy had stared at him, rebellion etched on his face. Tough little nut. Tough as hell.
Standish had given the boy a job as a lark. He thought he could let the kid think he was earning the treats—maybe staples—he took home to his mother. But there was little lark in Arch. He took everything seriously. He set out to earn what he had been given, and he sure as hell had.
A shrug of the shoulders didn’t ease the ache in Standish’s back. Maybe a good night’s sleep would help. Probably not. He looked at Arch. The boy had caught up with the slip, all the rock was out of the dirt, but that wasn’t enough. He was digging through the pile with a shovel, hoping to find more work with the strike of steel against rock.
“Arch.”
The boy looked up.
“That’s enough for today.”
“Not done,” Arch said.
“We’ll finish tomorrow.”
“Still got sun.”
“Tomorrow.”
Arch’s legs and back and bones disappeared, and he collapsed in a pile on the dirt.
Standish pulled the slip around, lining it up for the next day. “Back, Hortenzia, back.”
Hortenzia stepped back, trusting Standish’s commands. He unsnapped the tugs and urged the horse toward the barn. Once there, he slipped the harness off the horse’s back. He strung the harness along one wall and slapped Hortenzia toward the meadow. She could get some fresh water and grass there. He would give her an extra measure of oats when he brought the horses in tonight.
“Good job, Hortenzia. Good girl. You earned your oats tonight,” he called after her.
Hortenzia whickered, but Standish figured she was talking to Sally, not to him. She trotted off, and Standish wondered how she could find the energy to trot.
Standish wanted to sit down. More than anything he wanted to sit down, but he couldn’t do that with Arch lying on the dirt pile. He would let the boy rest for a while. He stepped out of the barn, willing his legs to carry him up to the cabin.
The chicks were fine, scratching through the grass hay at the bottom on the box for oats Arch had sprinkled there that morning.
Standish sighed, his mind going through a list of possible dinners. He settled on salmon loaf. He stoked the stove, willing the oven to be ready when he was. He opened a can of salmon, beat two eggs and added them. He tore up a couple slices of Arch’s mother’s bread and mixed it. He stopped, his mind ranging over other possible additions. Onions! He had onions. He cut one of the onions in half, diced it, and added it to the concoction and put the loaf in the oven.
Then he filled the boiler on the stove with water, willing it to heat. He would have a hot bath tonight. He would luxuriate in it, settle into the biggest bathtub the Last Chance Emporium ever had. He would soak out all the dirt and aches he had accumulated.
Meanwhile, he ran some water into a basin and set it on the stove. He was too dirty to eat. That wasn’t paying proper homage to his food, and Standish knew better than anyone how important it was to treasure food.
Standish sat down at the table, laying his head on his hands. Salmon wouldn’t be ready for a while. Might as well relax just a little.…
The scritch of a plate against the rough wood of the table jerked Standish awake. Arch was setting the table—for two. The boy walked to the oven and opened it.
