English Creek

by Ivan Doig

  I sat for a while to recover my breath—after tying Bubbles to the biggest tree around, with a triple square knot—and to sort of take stock. The pulling contest definitely had taken all the jingle out of me.

  There’s this to be said for exertion, though. It does send your blood tickling through your brain. When I was through resting I directly went over to Bubbles, addressed him profanely, thrust an arm into the pack with the canned goods and pulled cans out until I found the ones of tomatoes. If I ever did manage to get this menagerie to Andy Gustafson’s sheep camp I was going to be able to say truthfully that I’d had lunch and did not need feeding by one more sheepherder.

  I sat back down, opened two cans with my jackknife, and imbibed tomatoes. “One thing about canned tomatoes,” my father had the habit of saying during a trail meal, “if you’re thirsty you can drink them and if you’re hungry you can eat them.” Maybe, I conceded, he was right about that one thing.

  • • •

  By the time I reached Andy Gustafson’s camp my neck was thoroughly cricked from the constant looking back over my shoulder to see if the packs were staying on Bubbles. They never shifted, though. Thank God for whoever invented bootlaces.

  Andy’s band was spread in nice fashion along both sides of a timbered draw right under the cliff of Roman Reef. If you have the courage to let them—more of it, say, than was possessed by a certain bozo named Canada Dan—sheep will scatter themselves into a slow comfortable graze even in up-and-down country. But it takes a herder who is sure of himself and has a sort of sixth sense against coyotes and bear.

  I was greeted by a little stampede of about a dozen lambs toward me. They are absent-minded creatures and sometimes will glance up and run to the first moving thing they see, which was the case with these now. When they figured out that Pony and Bubbles and I were not their mommas, they halted, peered at us a bit, then rampaged off in a new direction. Nothing is more likeable than a lamb bucking in fun. First will come that waggle of the tail, a spasm of wriggles faster than the eye can follow. Then a stiff-legged jump sideways, the current of joy hitting the little body so quick there isn’t time to bend its knees. Probably a bleat, byeahhh, next, and then the romping run. Watching them you have to keep reminding yourself that lambs grow up, and what is pleasantly foolish in a lamb’s brain is going to linger on to be just dumbness in the mind of a full-size ewe.

  Andy Gustafson had no trove of dead camased ewes, nor any particular complaints, nor even much to say. He was wrinkled up in puzzlement for a while as to why it was me that was tending his camp, even after I explained as best I could, and I saw some speculation again when he noticed me slopping along with one boot unlaced. But once he’d checked through the groceries I’d brought to make sure that a big can of coffee and some tins of sardines were in there, and his weekly newspaper as well—Norwegian sheepherders seemed to come in two varieties, those whose acquaintance with the alphabet was confined to the X they used for a signature and those who would quit you in an instant if you ever forgot to bring their mail copy of Nordiske Tidende—Andy seemed perfectly satisfied. He handed me his list of personals for the next camptending—razor blades, a pair of work socks, Copenhagen snoose—and away I went.

  • • •

  Where a day goes in the mountains I don’t know, but by the time I reached the cabin again the afternoon was almost done. Stanley’s saddle sorrel and the black pack horse were picketed a little way off, and Stanley emerged to offer me as usual whatever left-handed help he could manage in unsaddling Bubbles.

  He noticed the spliced lash cinch. “See you had to use a little wildwood glue on the outfit.”

  I grunted something or other to that, and Stanley seemed to divine that it was not a topic I cared to dwell on. He switched to a question: “How’s old Gufferson?”

  “He said about three words total. I wouldn’t exactly call that belly-aching.” This sounded pretty tart even to me, so I added: “And he had his sheep in a nice Wyoming scatter, there west of his wagon.”

  “Sanford’s on top of things, too,” Stanley reported. “Hasn’t lost any, and his lambs are looking just real good.” Plain as anything, then, there was one sore thumb up here on the Busbys’ allotment and it went by the name of Canada Dan.

  Stanley extended the thought aloud. “Looks like Dan’s asking for a ticket to town.”

  This I didn’t follow. In all the range ritual I knew, and even in the perpetual wrestle between Dode Withrow and Pat Hoy, the herder always was angling to provoke a reason for quitting, not to be fired. Being fired from any job was a taint, a never-sought smudge. True, Canada Dan was a prime example that even God gets careless, but—

  The puzzle pursued me on into the cabin. As Stanley stepped to the stove to try rev the fire a little, I asked: “What, are you saying Canada Dan wants to get himself canned?”

  “Looks like. It can happen that way. A man’ll get into a situation and do what he can to make it worse so he’ll get chucked out of it. My own guess is, Dan’s feeling thirsty and is scared of this timber as well, but he don’t want to admit either one to himself. Easier to lay blame onto somebody else.” Stanley paused. “Question is whether to try disappoint him out of the idea or just go ahead and can him.” Another season of thought. Then: “I will say that Canada Dan is not such a helluva human being that I want to put up with a whole summer of his guff.”

  This was a starchier Stanley than I had yet seen. This one you could imagine giving Canada Dan the reaming out he so richly deserved.

  The flash of backbone didn’t last long, though. “But I guess he’s the Busby boys’ decision, not mine.”

  Naturally the day was too far gone for us to ride home to English Creek, so I embarked on the chores of wood and water again, at least salving myself with the prospect that tomorrow I would be relieved of Stanley. We would rise in the morning—and I intended it would be an early rise indeed—and ride down out of here and I would resume my summer at the English Creek ranger station and Stanley would sashay on past to the Busby brothers’ ranch and that would be that.

  When I stumped in with the water pail, that unlaced left boot of mine all but flapping in the breeze, I saw Stanley study the situation. “Too bad we can’t slice up Bubbles for bootlaces,” he offered.

  “That’d help,” I answered shortly.

  “I never like to tell anybody how to wear his boots. But if it was me, now . . .”

  I waited while Stanley paused to speculate out the cabin window to where dusk was beginning to deepen the gray of the cliff of Roman Reef. But I wasn’t in any mood for very damn much waiting.

  “You were telling me all about boots,” I prompted kind of sarcastically.

  “Yeah. Well. If it was me now, I’d take that one shoestring you got there, and cut it in half, and lace up each boot with a piece as far as it’ll go. Ought to keep them from slopping off your feet, anyhow.”

  Worth a try. Anything was. I went ahead and did the halving, and the boots then laced firm as far as my insteps. The high tops pooched out like funnels, but at least now I could get around without one boot always threatening to leave me.

  One chore remained. I reached around and pulled my shirt up out of the back of my pants. The remainder of the tail of it I jackknifed off. Stanley’s hand didn’t look quite so hideous this time when I rewrapped it; in the high dry air of the Two, cuts heal faster than can be believed. But this paw of Stanley’s still was no prizewinner.

  “Well,” Stanley announced now, “you got me nursed. Seems like the next thing ought to be a call on the doctor.” And almost before he was through saying it, last night’s bottle reappeared over the table, its neck tilted into Stanley’s cup.

  Before Stanley got too deep into his oil of joy, there was one more vital point I wanted tended to. Diplomatically I began, “Suppose maybe we ought to give some thought—”

  “—to supper,” Stanley finished for me as he dippered a little water into his prescription. “I had something when I got back fr
om Sanford’s camp. But you go ahead.”

  I at least knew by now I could be my own chef if I had to, and I stepped over to the packs to get started.

  There a harsh new light dawned on me. Now that we had tended the camps the packs were empty of groceries, which meant that we—or at least I, because so far I had no evidence that Stanley ever required food—were at the mercy of whatever was on hand in Stanley’s own small supply pack. Apprehensively I dug around in there, but all that I came up with that showed any promise was an aging loaf of bread and some Velveeta cheese. So I made myself a bunch of sandwiches out of those and mentally chalked up one more charge against my father.

  When I’d finished, it still was only twilight, and Stanley just had applied the bottle and dipper to the cup for a second time. Oh, it looked like another exquisite evening ahead, all right. A regular night at the opera.

  Right then, though, a major idea came to me.

  I cleared my throat to make way for the words of it. Then:

  “I believe maybe I’ll have me one, too.”

  Stanley had put his cup down on the table but was resting his good hand over the top of it as if there was a chance it might hop away. “One what?”

  “One of those—doctor visits. A swig.”

  This drew me a considerable look from Stanley. He let go of his cup and scratched an ear. “Just how old’re you?”

  “Fifteen,” I maintained, borrowing the next few months.

  Stanley did some more considering, but by now I was figuring out that if he didn’t say no right off the bat, chances were he wouldn’t get around to saying it at all. At last: “Got to wet your wick sometime, I guess. Can’t see how a swallow or two can hurt you.” He transferred the bottle to a place on the table nearer me.

  Copying his style of pouring, I tilted the cup somewhat at the same time I was tipping the bottle. Just before I thought Stanley might open his mouth to say something I ended the flow. Then went over to the water bucket and dippered in a splash or so the way he had.

  It is just remarkable how something you weren’t aware of knowing can pop to your aid at the right moment. From times I had been in the Medicine Lodge saloon with my father, I was able to offer now in natural salute to Stanley:

  “Here’s how!”

  “How,” Stanley recited back automatically.

  Evidently I swigged somewhat deeper than I intended. Or should have gone a little heavier on the splash of water. Or something. By the time I set my cup down on the board table, I was blinking hard.

  While I was at this, Stanley meanwhile had got up to shove wood into the stove.

  “So what do you think?” he inquired. “Will it ever replace water?”

  I didn’t know about that, but the elixir of Doctor Hall did draw a person’s attention.

  Stanley reseated himself and was gandering around the room again. “Who’s our landlord, do you know?”

  “Huh?”

  “This cabin. Who’s got this school section now?”

  “Oh. The Double W.”

  “Jesus H. Christ.” Accompanying this from Stanley was the strongest look he had yet given me. When scrutiny told him I was offering an innocent’s truth, he let out: “Is there a blade of grass anywhere those sonuvabitches won’t try to get their hands on?”

  “I dunno. Did you have some run-in with the Double W too?”

  “A run-in.” Stanley considered the weight of the words. “You might call it that, I guess. I had the particular pleasure once of telling old Warren Williamson, Wendell’s daddy, that that big belly of his was a tombstone for his dead ass. ’Scuse my French again. And some other stuff got said.” Stanley sipped and reflected. “What did you mean, ‘too’?”

  “My brother Alec, he’s riding for the Double W.”

  “The hell you say.” Stanley waited for me to go on, and when I didn’t he provided: “I wouldn’t wish that onto nobody. But just how does it constitute a run-in?”

  “My folks,” I elaborated. “They’re plenty piss—uh, peed off over it.”

  “Family feathers in a fluff. The old, old story.” Stanley tipped a sip again, and I followed. Inspiration in a cup must have been the encouragement my tongue was seeking, for before long I heard myself asking: “You haven’t been in the Two country the last while, have you?”

  “Naw.”

  “Where you been?”

  “Oh, just a lot of places.” Stanley seemed to review them on the cabin wall. “Down in Colorado for a while. Talk about dry. Half that state was blowing around chasing after the other half. A little time in both Dakotas. Worked in the wheat harvest there, insofar as there was any wheat after the drouth and the grasshoppers. And Wyoming. I was an association rider in that Cody country a summer or two. Then Montana here again for a while, over in the Big Hole Basin. A couple of haying seasons there.” He considered, summed: “Around.” Which moved him to another drag from his cup.

  I had one from mine, too. “What’re you doing back up in this country?”

  “Like I say, by now I been everyplace else, and they’re no better. Came back to the everloving Two to take up a career in tending camp, as you can plainly see. They advertise in those big newspapers for one-handed raggedy-ass camptenders, don’t you know. You bet they do.”

  He did seem a trifle sensitive on this topic. Well, there was always some other, such as the matter of who he had been before he became a wandering comet. “Are you from around here originally?”

  “Not hardly. Not a Two Mediciner by birth.” He glanced at me. “Like you are. No, I—”

  Stanley Meixell originated in Missouri, on a farm east of St. Joe in Daviess County. As he told it, the summer he turned thirteen he encountered the down-row of corn: that tumbled line of cornstalks knocked over by the harvest wagon as it straddled its way through the field. Custom was that the youngest of the crew always had to be the picker of the down-row, and Stanley was the last of five Meixell boys. Ahead of him stretched a green gauntlet of down-row summers. Except that by the end of the first sweltering day of stooping and ferreting into the tangle of downed stalks for ears of corn, Stanley came to his decision about further Missouri life. “Within the week I was headed out to the Kansas high plains.” If you’re like me you think of Kansas as one eternal wheatfield, but actually western Kansas then was cattle country. Dodge City was out there, after all.

  Four or five years of ranch jobs out there in jayhawk country ensued for Stanley. “I can tell you a little story on that, Jick. This once we were dehorning a bunch of Texas steers. There was this one ornery sonuvabitch of a buckskin steer we never could get corraled with the others. After enough of trying, the foreman said he’d pay five dollars to anybody who’d bring that sonuvabitching steer in. Well, don’t you know, another snotnose kid and me decided we’d just be the ones. Off we rode, and we come onto him about three miles away from the corral, all by hisself, and he wasn’t about to be driven. Well, then we figured we’d just rope him and drag him in. We got to thinking, though—three miles is quite a drag, ain’t it? So instead we each loosed out our lariat, about ten feet of it, and took turns to get out in front of him and pop him across the nose with that rope. When we done that he’d make a hell of a big run at us and we’d dodge ahead out of his way, and he choused us back toward the corral that way. We finally got him up within about a quarter of a mile of the dehorning. Then each of us roped an end and tied him down and went on into the ranch and hitched up a stoneboat and loaded him on and boated him in in high old style. The foreman was waiting for us with five silver dollars in his hand.”

  Cowboying in the high old style. Alec, I thought to myself, you’re the one who ought to be hearing this.

  As happens, something came along to dislodge Stanley from that cowboying life. It was a long bunkhouse winter, weather just bad enough to keep him cooped on the ranch. “I’d go give the cows a jag of hay two times a day and otherwise all there was to do was sit around and do hairwork.” Each time Stanley was in the barn he would pluc
k strands from the horses’ tails, then back he went beside the bunkhouse stove to braid horsehair quirts and bridles “and eventually even a whole damn lasso.” By the end of that hairwork winter the tails of the horses had thinned drastically, and so had Stanley’s patience with Kansas.

  All this life history of Stanley’s I found amazingly interesting. I suppose that part of my father was duplicated in me, the fascination about pawing over old times.

  While Stanley was storying, my cup had drained itself without my really noticing. Thus when he stopped to tip another round into his, I followed suit. The whiskey was weaving a little bit of wooze around me, so I was particularly pleased that I was able to dredge back yet another Medicine Lodge toast. I offered it heartily:

  “Here’s lead in your pencil!”

  That one made Stanley eye me sharply for a moment, but he said only as he had the first time, “How,” and tipped his cup.

  “Well, that’s Missouri and Kansas accounted for,” I chirped in encouragement. “How was it you got up here to Montana?”

  “On the seventeenth of March of 1898, to be real exact,” Stanley boarded the first train of his life. From someone he had heard about Montana and a go-ahead new town called Kalispell, which is over on the west side of the Rockies, about straight across from there in the cabin where Stanley was telling me all this. Two days and two nights on that train. “The shoebox full of fried chicken one of those Kansas girls fixed for me didn’t quite last the trip through.”

  In Kalispell then, “you could hear hammers going all over town.” For the next few years Stanley grew up with the community. He worked sawmill jobs, driving a sawdust cart, sawfiling, foremanning a lumber piling crew. “Went out on some jobs with the U.S. Geological Survey, for a while there.” A winter, he worked as a teamster hauling lumber from Lake Blaine into Kalispell. Another spell, he even was a river pig, during one of the log drives on the north fork of the Flathead River. “It was a world of timber over there then. I tell you something, though, Jick. People kind of got spoiled by it. Take those fires—December of my first year in Kalispell. They burned along the whole damn mountains from Big Fork to Bad Rock Canyon and even farther north than that. Everybody went out on the hills east of town at night to see the fire. Running wild on the mountains, that way. Green kid I was, I asked why somebody didn’t do something about it. ‘That’s public domain,’ I got told. ‘Belongs to the government, not nobody around here.’ Damn it to hell, though, when I saw that forest being burned up it just never seemed right to me.” Stanley here took stiff encouragement from his cup, as if quenching the distaste for forest fire.