Bendigo Shafter (1979)

by L'amour, Louis

  Come daylight on the sixth day I could stand it no longer, so taking my rifle I left the cabin while it was still dark. Ethan was up, huddling over his small fire, nursing a cup of coffee to warm his hands.

  He glanced at me, then at the rifle. You gone crazy? There'll be no game out in this cold! It must be forty, maybe fifty below zero!

  I was thinking of those snares along the river. We might find a rabbit or something.

  All right. He got up and put on his coat. I don't believe it, but I'll go along. There's danger in a man being out alone in this weather.

  He took his rifle down and checked the loads while I looked around. Ethan had less to do with than any of us, but he was a man who knew how to contrive. He had a double bunk against one wall and a fireplace with a chimney that drew well. He had rigged the chimney so the smoke rose through a clump of brush that spread it out and thinned it so that it faded from sight almost at once. It was a trick I'd not seen before, but I tucked it away in my thoughts for future use. Ethan was full of things like that, most of them so natural to him he'd never think of telling anyone about them.

  We stopped on the crest of the ridge to catch our breath and to look over the country, yet as far as eye could reach the white expanse of snow was unbroken.

  We watched each other's faces as we moved along, looking for the white spots of frostbite. When we saw one appear we would warn of it, and he who had the spot could warm it away with his hands.

  No wind blew ... nothing moved. There was no sound but the crunch of snow under our homemade snowshoes. It was easy traveling because all the rocks and rough places were covered by snow.

  Our walk was for nothing. The snares were empty. As we started back I said, I've been reading a book.

  I read when I can find aught to read.

  This is about Comanches, writ by a man who was prisoner among them.

  Lies, most likely.

  It isn't. It's gospel. He was a man who rode with Jack Hays, Ben McCullogh, and them.

  Learn you anything?

  Uh-huh. He tells how they'd stop at evening, maybe an hour shy of sundown, build them a fire and cook up, letting their horses graze the while. Then they would douse their fire and ride on several miles before camping for the night.

  That's common sense. You don't need a book to tell you that. I've been doing that since I was a boy.

  I never heard of it before.

  We plodded on. They were in a fierce fight at a place called Walker Creek. Killed Indians there.

  Ethan looked around me. You don't say. Who wrote that book, anyway?

  A man named Lee, Nelson Lee.

  Ethan stopped short. Nelson Lee wrote a book? I didn't know he could write his name.

  You knew him? You knew Nelson Lee?

  Well, I should smile. I was at Walker Creek. I was in that fight. I lost a friend there, name of Mott

  He mentions him.

  He should've. Mott was a friend to him also. When we had closed the cold out and were stirring the fire in the dugout he said, I'd admire to see that book of Nels Lee's. I surely would.

  I'll have to ask. It belongs to Mrs. Macken.

  Ah? Out of that box of hers, I'll bet. Macken told me it was full of books, but I scarcely believed it.

  Of a night sometimes I'd sit with Cain, making nails against the summer's work. It was a thing we could do inside, and it took our minds from the hunger in us and the fear. Cain was a man who never stopped doing. His hands were forever busy, and so were his thoughts.

  The end of a nail rod was heated and hammered to a point, then the rod was laid across the sharp edge of a wedge and a dent made around the rod at nail-length from the end. Then we'd put the rod into a nail-header, which was a wooden block with a hole through the center big enough for the nail-rod. We'd push the nail-rod through the hole as far as the dent, then snap it off. Afterward the end was hammered into a head, put into water to shrink the metal, then dropped from the header.

  In a day's steady work a man could make several hundred to a thousand nails, if he had the rods. For most of our building we preferred careful fitting and wooden pins, which lasted longer and did not rust and rot the wood around them. In all our building, we built to last. It was Cain's way, and it was mine.

  We made lists of the timbers we would need for framing and the planks for siding and roofing. Three times, during that cold spell, I went cruising timber to pick the proper trees for cutting.

  At table of an evening, after the supper dishes were cleared, Cain, John Sampson, and I planned the mill and the smithy.

  We selected logs not only for size but for ease of hauling, and while coming and going from the woods I tramped down the snow over the route we must follow so the hard-packed snow would freeze and make easier the task of skidding logs.

  There was no Indian sign, and once I scouted as far as the hollow where the Indians had camped, but the place was deserted.

  When it begins to thaw, Cain suggested, keep an eye out for any bit of iron. I can use anything you can find. There might be odds and ends cast over by movers.

  Ethan was with us that night. You might find something southwest of here. There was mining done there a few years ago.

  Mining? Webb was alert. What kind of mining?

  Gold, Ethan said, and by all accounts they found it.

  What happened?

  Indians.

  Ruth Macken came to visit a time or two, but on those occasions Cain talked little, watching the fire and smoking. He was normally a silent man, speaking rarely and to the point.

  On the ninth day the cold spell broke, and on the tenth day Ethan Sackett killed a deer.

  Nobody talked of leaving now, for everybody was talking of gold.

  Of gold and Ruth Macken's floor.

  Even Cain went along to see it, sizing it up, testing it with his weight, for he was an almighty heavy man, square, thick, and powerful. He studied the joining of the planks and the way the corners were fitted, and when he straightened up he looked over at me and said, I never saw it done better.

  I was a proud man.

  Stuart, Croft, and Webb were after Ethan to tell all he knew about the gold. It was little enough. It began with miners returning from the California gold fields. They had camped nearby, and one of them had seen something in the makeup of the country that reminded him of a place he had seen near Hangtown. He ran a few pans just for luck and found color.

  They settled and began mining and stayed until the Indians drove them out.

  The need for meat was serious so Ethan, Webb, and I were out most days or some part of the day. Ethan killed an elk while Webb and I each accounted for an antelope. We came across the tracks of a bear ... a mighty big bear.

  Evidently that bear hadn't fattened up enough before hibernation, so he had awakened and gone on the prowl for food.

  It was on that trip that I first saw Webb shoot. He brought down a running antelope with as neat a neck shot as I ever saw, and that antelope was just picking up speed. It gave me pleasure to see it, for I admired good shooting, and such shooting might be the saving of us all.

  Ethan was the best rifle shot among us, although he claimed that I was. Webb and my brother Cain were as good, or almost as good.

  John Sampson had hunted along the creek bottoms back home, and as a boy had done some Indian fighting. As to Stuart and Croft, I did not know. Both had hunted, and we presumed they could account for themselves.

  That's five who can be counted on to hit what they shoot at, Cain said, when I'd told him about Webb.

  Six, Sampson said. There's Ruth Macken. We just looked at him, and he nodded. Mrs. Macken is an excellent rifle shot. As good as any of us. She's been shooting since she was a child.

  She's a remarkable woman, Cain said. We lived in the same town, although I knew her only by sight. Her husband had been a major in the army, and she knows Indians and can talk their sign language as well as some of the Indian tongues. There were Sioux all around us in those days, but
she had lived on several frontier posts.

  When it could be managed I slipped away and climbed to the loft. The loft was the warmest place in the house, for the heat from the fireplace rose and kept the loft warm longer than anywhere else in the cabin.

  About half the ceiling of our cabin was formed by planks resting on the roof beams to form this loft, and it was a pleasant place. Getting into bed, I lit my candle and soon was lost in the account of Nelson Lee's pursuit of Rublo, the outlaw.

  For security as well as for warmth the candle had been placed in a tin can into which hundreds of holes had been punched. The light was not very good but it was the best to be had away from the fireplace.

  After my eyes tired I lay awake planning to make a window for the Widow Macken from some bottles I'd found where the miners had worked. There were at least two dozen bottles and by cutting out a window hole not so tall as the bottles, then setting them into a groove in the log at the bottom and a deeper groove to take the necks at the top ... or vice versa ... she would have a window that could let in light, although she wouldn't be able to see out of it ... or not very well.

  Short of noon the following day when I was at Ruth Macken's explaining my window, Ethan appeared.

  Bendigo, I've got to see you.

  When I walked off a little way with him he said, There's horse tracks on the ridge. Shod horses.

  We went down to Cain's house, and the men gathered. If they were honest men, Ethan suggested, they'd have come down to talk and have some coffee.

  How many were there?

  Three, I'd say. They sat up there quite awhile, sizing us up. Ethan Sackett paused. There are renegades around, raiding wagon trains and laying it on the Indians. It could be some of them.

  What do you advise? Sampson asked.

  Get set for a fight. Cain, if this sounds right to you, I'd suggest you, Sampson, Stuart, and Croft get inside and stand by to back our stand. I'd like Webb outside with us.

  What's to be done? Stuart said. Maybe they aren't hunting trouble at all.

  I'll talk, Ethan said, and we'd best not reveal our strength unless forced. If trouble starts, shoot them down. We have no choice. He paused. It's my guess they are after our stock and whatever we have, but mostly they want the women ...

  My rifle was up at Ruth Macken's, so I walked back and laid it out for her. She listened, then nodded. Tell them Bud and I will be ready. From here we have a good view of the approaches and a good field of fire.

  When I looked surprised, she smiled at me. Mr. Shafter, you must remember my husband was an army officer, and I lived much of my life on army posts. I know all the language.

  We all got out of sight then, except Ethan, who put his horse between himself and the open and commenced fussing with his saddle. We were ready none too soon.

  They came down off the ridge in a tight bunch, sixteen or seventeen by count, spreading out a little as they came but not as if expecting trouble. They would have a fair idea of our strength, judging by the number of cabins.

  A tough bunch! Sampson commented, watching them through his glass. Bendigo, Lutrell is among them!

  Lutrell had been with the wagon train and had followed my sister Lorna to the creek when she went for water. When I came upon them he had grabbed my sister by the arm, and I straightaway knocked him down.

  My fist is a hard one, toughened by many a day's work with axe or blacksmith's hammer, but he got up and came at me with a thick club he had laid a hand to.

  Clubs were not a new thing to me, and I went under his blow, throwing my left arm over and under his right and grasping his shirt front. Forcing him back to his right, I clobbered him good with my right fist.

  Anger comes to me seldom, but this man needed a lesson. I gave him such a thrashing that two weeks later he had to be helped from a wagon at Fort Laramie, and he stayed there, refused permission to continue with us.

  When they were fifty yards off, Ethan lifted a hand. Hold up there! he ordered.

  They drew up, but a big, hairy man in a dirty buckskin shirt yelled back at us. What's wrong? We're just aimin' to visit a mite. He had kept moving, but slowly, as he spoke.

  We've nothing to talk about. Be off now. Webb and I had moved up alongside Ethan when talking started, although keeping a bit of distance between us. Suddenly Webb swore and turned sharply around. From the corner of my eye I saw what he'd guessed. While those in front held our attention, others were closing in behind.

  Stand where you are! Webb shouted. Then in a lower tone he said to us, Take those in front. I will handle this.

  He walked quickly away from us, his gun muzzle down. Backing a step, I tried to keep an eye both ways in case Webb should need help.

  John, I said, speaking just loud enough for Sampson to hear, the back window.

  There was a scurry of movement from within the house, and the renegades pulled up, seeing their trick was revealed to us. Yet it was plain they were amused rather than otherwise, for they outnumbered us three to one or more and fancied themselves tough men.

  Go ahead, I heard Webb say, if you feel lucky. And then he pushed it hard. God damn you! he shouted. Try it!

  With his rifle muzzle down I guess the man thought he could take him. He, like all of us, had a lot to learn about Webb, the trouble was that man had just run out of time.

  He made his move, and Webb flipped a six-shooter from beneath his shirt with his left hand and fired.

  It opened the ball.

  From the back of the house Sampson's big Spencer .56 boomed, and Ethan fired with almost the same sound. Dropping to one knee I shot three times as fast as I could work the action on my rifle. A man at whom I fired tumbled from his saddle, and the hairy man at whom Ethan fired fell, one foot hanging in the stirrup. His horse ran away, dragging him over the frozen ground.

  From the Macken house a bullet caught a man who was riding at me with a pistol, and he dropped his gun, grabbed the pommel with both hands and rode away, blood all over the front of his shirt.

  As quickly as that, they were gone. Most of them.

  Three men, their leader included, lay sprawled on the icy grass and the frozen snow.

  Out back Webb's man lay dead, a bullet through the skull. Another lay on the ground, trying to crawl, one leg almost torn away by Sampson's second shot.

  Cain came from the house and stood beside me, an odd expression in his eyes. We could have warned them off, he said. There needn't have been a fight.

  Better to get it over with, Cain. They would have come back, and next time we might not have been ready.

  Webb tricked that man. I think he wanted to loll him.

  Well, I replied, we taught them a lesson.

  Do you be careful of him, Cain advised. I think there's a hunger in him.

  Ethan was speaking. Take their guns and what ammunition they have, and we will bury them, although the ground is frozen. He turned to Cain. Will you read over them?

  Webb indicated the man Sampson had shot. Wait for him. He'll go with the others.

  Fully conscious the outlaw stared bitterly at Webb. Give me a gun, he said, and I'll ...

  His voice faded out as Sampson came from his house carrying a small kit of medicine and bandages. The man was dead, stiffening in a pool of his own blood. Others emerged, shocked and pale from the sudden violence. The women held the children within the cabins that they might not look upon death, yet fascinated and fearful, they strained to see.

  We should find out who they are, Mrs. Sampson suggested, and write to their families.

  Nobody wished to go into their pockets. We did not want to know who they were, or if they left anyone behind, as some of them must have. It was easier to be impersonal about the anonymous.

  Their rifles and ammunition we would need, for we had too little of either, and each morning we looked upon the hills with fear.

  Black Lutrell was not among the dead. In the melee that followed Webb's shot he had blurred among the others, and we had not seen him again.

/>   We gathered guns and belts, catching up the horses that had not run off. Fine, handsome animals they were, stolen no doubt from folks killed.

  We from our town stood together, and Cain read the service of the dead. We buried them upon the small knoll, the first to die there in our time, and when it was over we had drawn a little closer together.

  Once more we had met with fear and emerged a little stronger than before, a little more tightly knit.

  Yet we stood a little further apart, too, I guess, because some of us had killed, and we were not used to killing, nor to violence.

  Only Webb, I think, looked upon what he had done with satisfaction, and I, who knew what was happening out there with a land of instinct, knew that what Webb had done had saved us all. His sudden action had destroyed their timing. They had planned to begin it, and his move, for whatever cause, had caught them short.

  When I finished reading Nelson Lee's book I started on Washington Irving, and followed that with Commerce of the Prairies. Sometimes I talked about what I read to Ruth Macken, and she shared ideas with me.

  Her talk stirred all of us to restlessness, I guess. Neely Stuart did not like her talking to Mae, and said it gave her notions, which no doubt it did.

  When Neely spoke to Mrs. Macken about it, she merely smiled at him. Mr. Stuart, I have no doubt that she has ideas, and she should have them. Nobody got anywhere in this world by simply being content.

  What about Bud? I asked. Why do you want a school but for him?

  I want the school for the town, as well as for Bud. I want him to like it here, but I want him to help it grow. I want him to understand what is happening here, then go on to something bigger, better. Happiness for a man usually means doing something he wants to do very much, something that gives him a sense of achievement.

  She turned to me. What about you, Mr. Shafter? What do you want to do? What do you wish to become?

  It shamed me to say I had no idea. I loved the life, but the feeling rode with me that it was only something passing. Maybe we all had that feeling about wherever we were. We were not like the Europeans from whom we had sprung, we were not settled in villages or classes where we would stay, generation after generation. We were a people on the move, and whether that was good or ill, only time would tell. Many of those who came west came to get rich and get out, but some of us came to stay, and most of us had the idea of enriching the country somehow, although many had no notion of how to go about it.