Dusk Along the Niobrara

by John D. Nesbitt

  In addition to not speaking, Dunbar did not sing or whistle all afternoon. Up until Mary Weldon’s death, I had the impression that he already knew half of what people told him, and he always knew what to say or do in response. Now he did not convey that kind of self-assurance and control. I wondered if he felt, as I did, that we might have helped cause suspicion to fall on Mary Weldon. I also wondered if he had a plan.

  At supper that evening, Dick Ainsworth paused to stand over Dunbar and me as we ate fried salt pork with white beans and cornbread. Ainsworth’s chin was tucked toward his chest, and his knotted blue neckerchief had the effect of making his neck look shorter. I thought he was going to rebuke Dunbar for leaving during the work day, but he did not bear down on us as he so often did.

  “I don’t need both of you workin’ on that trash pile tomorrow,” he said. “The kid can finish it by himself.” Motioning with his chin toward Dunbar, he continued. “You can go back to helping Bancroft.”

  I finished moving the rubbish heap the next morning at about eleven. No one paid me much attention as I put the tools away and walked toward the area where Dunbar and Del Bancroft had been working. When I drew close, I saw what I had gotten glimpses of throughout the morning. A crew of six men had been engaged in the building of a loading chute where the cattle would be run up out of the pens and into the railcars. At the moment, the construction had come to a standstill.

  The crew consisted of Del and Dunbar, Larose and Mullet, and two men from a ranch near Hat Creek. Dick Ainsworth had joined the company, and now he and Del Bancroft were faced off and speaking in raised voices. As Mullet stood nearby, I moved close to him and asked what was going on.

  He explained that Del and Ainsworth were arguing about how to put in the big or high end of the loading chute. It had two eighteen-foot posts that had to be sunk four feet into the ground. A heavy beam had to go across the top, and two three-inch planks had to go across the bottom of the chute. The walls of the chute had to have solid planking so that the steers would not see the train cars. It was the most massive structure in the project, and the big end next to the train cars had to be sturdy and accurate.

  I moved closer to the spot where the big posts lay by the two holes, and I listened to the dispute. Del and Ainsworth were arguing back and forth about the procedure. Del wanted to sink the two posts, tamp them as plumb and even as possible, and put up the cross-members. Ainsworth wanted to assemble the two posts and the crossbeam on top and sink the two posts at the same time. Del said the assembly would be too awkward to handle and the plumbing and leveling would be too difficult as well. Ainsworth insisted that it would be too hard to put on the crossbeam later and that they would knock the posts out of plumb in the process.

  The two men went around and around about one aspect and another, repeating themselves, with each one telling the other why he was wrong. I thought Del had a much better opinion, that it would be way too clumsy to manage two long, heavy posts with a heavy crosspiece on top, whether we were setting the posts into the holes or taking them out. He said that just about any post had to be lifted out of the hole at least once for the purpose of making the hole deeper or moving it an inch or so one way or another.

  “Not if you do it right,” said Ainsworth.

  I remembered him telling me that I might have to reshape any hole in order to put the post in the right place. But I could see that he had set his mind to doing things in one way only, and he was going to make everyone else conform to his idea.

  At length Del said, “I thought we had the agreement that on any part of the job I was doing, I would have the say-so about how we were going to do it.”

  “Maybe so,” said Ainsworth. “But I’ve also been told that I’ve got the final word on any part of it. If something comes out wrong, I’m the one it comes back on.”

  Del had his chin set square. “We seem to be at loggerheads here.”

  “No need to be. If you don’t like the way we’re going to do things, you can go sulk in your tent.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” said Del. “You need every hand you can get if you insist on doing things your way. I’m glad we’ve got young Montgomery to help.”

  “If I need more, I’ll call for ’em. But we’re a sorry group if we can’t do it with the men we’ve got right here.”

  Del shrugged. “Only so many men can get their hands on one of these posts, anyway.”

  Ainsworth set men to measuring, boring with the brace and bit, and cutting the crosspieces. He sent me for the bolts and metal straps.

  He not only made the men attach the top beam, but he also had them bolt on the two planks that would run under the chute, even though they could have been fitted just as well from the ground, once the posts were in place.

  When we went to lift the structure the first time, it was more awkward and top-heavy than I expected. We slid the posts into the holes, and of course we had to lift the whole thing out in order to take out the dirt that fell in and to align the holes a little better. When we began to set the assembly into the holes again, Ainsworth ordered us to hold the lower ends up so we wouldn’t push dirt in. That made the heavy end even more unwieldy, and it began to waver. We set the whole frame flat on the ground.

  “This is where we’d like to have a capstan,” said Larose.

  Del folded his arms. “I don’t know where you’d attach it, or how you’d get it or any other kind of block and tackle high enough.”

  Ainsworth said, “The same would go for getting that cross-beam up in the air.”

  Del shook his head. “It’s only one piece. Not the whole damn thing.”

  “Let’s try again,” said Ainsworth. “Lift those ends up so they’re clear of the sides of the hole, lift up the rest so it’s straight up, and then lower the two legs down in.”

  We tried his method a couple of times, moving men from one position to another, but the top was too heavy and wobbly for us to set the whole thing straight up while keeping the lower ends free of the ground.

  “Set it down,” he said. “We’ll use a rope.”

  He sent Mullet to the BC wagon. A few minutes later, Mullet returned with a one-inch hemp rope about fifty feet long. Larose tied it to the crossbeam and tossed the slack lengthwise between the posts and past the two holes. I did not see any good coming out of this plan, but I kept my thoughts to myself.

  Ainsworth positioned the two Hat Creek men on one of the ends that went into a hole, and he put Del Bancroft and Mullet on the other end. He assigned Dunbar and me to the two corners that would go up in the air while he and Larose pulled on the rope. I thought, all this was going to do was put more pressure on the two pairs of men holding the lower ends of the posts.

  And so it went. Ainsworth and Larose pulled while Dunbar and I pushed, and as soon as the crossbeam rose out of our reach, the structure began to weave. Dunbar and I stood by, ready to catch it if it began to come down.

  Ainsworth and Larose pulled some more, and the top rose almost straight up. As I expected, the weight of all the lumber, plus the pressure exerted by the rope, caused the two pairs of men to stutter-step as the top began to totter. I was trying to watch everything at once, and I couldn’t be sure, but it looked as if Ainsworth let the rope go.

  Down came the structure with a whoosh and a thud and a crack. Dunbar and I jumped clear, and the other four men had the posts shaken from their grasp.

  Dunbar put his hands on his hips and said, “What the hell happened?”

  “It got away from us,” said Ainsworth.

  “If you’d been hangin’ onto it, it would have pulled you forward.”

  Ainsworth’s face hardened, and his neck seemed to shorten. “What do you mean? Do you think I did something on purpose?”

  “It looked to me like you didn’t try hard enough. I don’t know why.”

  “Well, by God.” Ainsworth had a glare in his eye as he stomped forward with his fists at his side. “Come over here and tell me you think I did something on purpose.”
>
  Dunbar walked close enough that either of them could have reached out and touched the other.

  Ainsworth seethed. “Go ahead. Say it.”

  “I already did.”

  “You’re saying I let the rope go on purpose.”

  “Don’t put words in my mouth. I said I didn’t think you tried hard enough to hold on, and I don’t know why.”

  Ainsworth’s flinty blue eyes roved over Dunbar, as if he was expecting him to make a move. “You know, I’ve got half a mind to send you back to Foster. We don’t need troublemakers here.”

  Dunbar smiled. “Did Boots tell you what happened last week?”

  “Don’t worry about who told me what. But when someone works under me, I don’t take back-talk.”

  Dunbar did not speak. He made a tiny motion with his gloved right hand, which hung at his side. It could have been one of those involuntary movements, like a twitch, or he could have been getting ready to ward off a fist.

  “Don’t even think of it,” said Ainsworth.

  Dunbar wasn’t wearing a gun, so I imagined Ainsworth had heard that he packed a good punch.

  Dunbar said, “You never know what someone is thinking. Even Boots Larose, who you think would stick up for you no matter what happened. Or these other four men. They watch you insist on doing something in a wrong-headed way, and some of them may wonder how the rope got away from you. You don’t know what they think, and you can’t tell them what or what not to think.”

  Ainsworth continued to glare. “I told you I can’t have troublemakers around. I won’t put up with you tryin’ to set these other men against me. So I’m tellin’ you and your little pal here to go pack your gear and go back to your ranch.”

  “Good enough,” said Dunbar. “But it doesn’t change anything that has happened.”

  Ainsworth’s eyes narrowed. “Like what?”

  “Just a general idea. You can apply it as you wish.”

  Dunbar and I sat around and drank another cup of coffee after the crew had gone back to work.

  Dan said, “I don’t know what problems he thinks he’s solving. We’re all going to be together for roundup before long, anyway. Some people don’t think ahead very well. Maybe that’s related to makin’ others follow through with a bad idea.” Dan shook his head. “I’m glad I wasn’t there. Tryin’ to hoist up something like that, with Boots Larose on the end of the rope. Did he let go, too?”

  Dunbar raised his eyebrows. “Looked like it to me. And they were both wearing leather gloves. It’s not as if they were trying to keep from getting rope burn.”

  “Fools at best,” said Dan.

  Dunbar gave a mild frown. “It’s too bad it came to what it did. I would have liked to have seen this job through to the end. There’s not that much left to do.”

  The three of us turned our attention to the corrals. The fresh lumber gleamed in the sun of late summer. I fancied again that the main gateway was superimposed on the catwalk, and I imagined Boots Larose pulling on the rope to bring them together.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Dunbar and I returned to the shipping pens five days later to help Dan bring the chuck wagon back to the ranch. Most of the other workers had already left, and the site that had been bustling was now still and quiet, like a deserted village.

  I climbed up onto the catwalk to appreciate the project. From above, the system of alleys, gates, and corrals looked like a maze. The planks were still bright and shiny, and the scent of new lumber hung in the air.

  I took a complete 360-degree view of the layout. As I came back to the point where I started, something caught my attention two blocks away, in the shade in front of the mercantile. It was a moment like many I have had since then, in which I see something, realize that it is familiar, and take a second look to confirm what I had already registered without being conscious of it. Like seeing a cow in the mottled shade of low-lying box elder trees, or a deer in the shadow of a rocky bluff, I recognized the form and the essence of Emma.

  I thought she recognized me as well. She raised her hand close to her face and made what I thought was a tentative wave. I raised my hand and waved, then hurried down the steps and across the bare ground where all the work activity had worn the grass away. I hoofed it to the other side of the street and turned left. I had no sense of the businesses I walked past until I came to The Missouri Primrose, where the sweet smell of whiskey drifted out through the open door. A few seconds later, I stopped in the shade of the overhang in front of the mercantile.

  Emma was holding a book in front of her. She let go with her right hand as I moved my left hand toward her.

  Her face was gleaming, and her eyes were shining. “So good to see you,” she said.

  “And for me, too. I didn’t expect to find you here.”

  “We brought the wagon in. It’s time to buy supplies, and my father can ride back with us.”

  “Nothing out of order on the way in?” I asked.

  “No, but we kept our eyes open.”

  I didn’t want to spoil our time together by telling her about the recent deaths, and I thought she would hear of them on her own if she hadn’t already. I said, “How long will you be in town?”

  “Not long. We’ll go home this afternoon. And you?”

  “The same. Dunbar and I came to help Dan with the wagon. We got word yesterday that the project was finished.”

  Her eyes carried an expression of mild surprise. “I thought you were here working on it.”

  “We were, but we got sent home early. Borden Crowley’s foreman can be hard to get along with. Even your father had a disagreement with him.”

  “My father?”

  “Yes, but he knew when to give in.”

  “Unlike Mr. Dunbar?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  She smiled, and her pretty teeth showed. “I wouldn’t think you would do something to get the two of you sent home.”

  “You’re right,” I said. After a glance around, I continued. “I’ll tell the story in more detail some other time. Oh. I just remembered something.”

  Her dark eyes quickened. “What is it?”

  “I have something for you.” I reached into my vest pocket and drew out the little redstone figurine of a horse. “Mr. Dunbar found it and gave it to me. Said I might find something to do with it.”

  She held it in her palm. “How thoughtful of you. It’s very pretty.”

  My nerve stood me in good stead. “For a pretty girl.”

  She lowered her eyes, and I saw her dark eyelashes.

  “I didn’t mean to be too forward,” I said.

  “I’m just shy.” She raised her head and smiled.

  “One of these days I’ll—”

  “You’ll what?”

  I felt as if I had put myself on thin ice. I needed to back up a little. “I’ll try not to stand in front of a store window, where people can look out and see us.”

  I had let go of her hand earlier, and now I took it again. We moved aside a couple of yards so we were no longer in front of the window.

  I said, “That’s better. I don’t feel that I’m being watched.”

  “What’s to be seen?”

  “Nothing.” I glanced down at the book that she held. “Is that something you’re reading?” I asked.

  “Yes, it’s by Jane Austen. It’s called Mansfield Park.”

  “Oh. I haven’t heard of it. Didn’t she write one called Emma?”

  “Yes, she did. And Pride and Prejudice as well.”

  “Is this one about love and courtship, too?”

  “So far, it’s about a young girl who doesn’t have much, and she has to go live with some well-to-do relatives. They have a country estate, and that’s where the book takes its name.”

  “I see.”

  “She’s made to feel like a servant at first. Rather sad, but we’ll see how it goes.” Emma paused. “You’ve read a little, haven’t you?” Her dark eyes showed interest.

  I could tell she
wasn’t just making conversation. I said, “A little. Not as much as you, I’m sure. The last couple of things I’ve read, in the past year, have been The Oregon Trail and Two Years Before the Mast. They’re both interesting. They tell about the authors’ experiences in their travels.”

  “We have Parkman at home,” she said. “I’ve read The Oregon Trail. Some of it takes place not far from here.”

  “I’m sure the book you’re reading now is interesting, too.”

  “Oh, yes. It’s a novel, of course. Not real-life experiences. You’ve read novels, too, I’m sure.”

  I laughed. “Different kinds. When we were younger, we all read Harry Castlemon’s books. That is, those of us who did any reading on our own. And I’ve read Robinson Crusoe and Treasure Island. Then there’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It’s more serious than these others.”

  She nodded. “Oh, yes. It’s important.”

  I hesitated as I glanced at the window. “I can’t see if there’s anyone looking out.”

  “You seem to be worried about that.” She brushed away a wisp of hair.

  “Well, I don’t know if you’d want me to, anyway.”

  “Want what?”

  My eyes met hers, and I tried to say something, but I couldn’t. My lips moved, and I pressed her hand.

  Her eyes softened and her eyelids closed as I moved toward her. A couple of seconds later, we drew apart, and we were two people standing in the sunlight looking into each other’s eyes.

  “That was nice,” she said. She glanced over her shoulder toward the store window. “I don’t mean to be in a hurry, but I think I should go.”

  “Me, too. I’m supposed to be working.”

  “Thank you for the little horse.”

  “I’m glad you like it.”

  “When will we see each other again?”

  “I don’t know. Probably when roundup’s done.”

  “It’ll be getting cold then. And we might be going to Lincoln.”

  I pressed her hand again. “We’ll find time.”