A B Guthrie Jr

by Les Weil

  "I'm busy right now. Can you come back?" Lat said, "It's all right."

  "Sit still, please," Conrad answered.

  The man smiled and said, "Later," and made for the door.

  "Be at ease, Evans, for heaven's sake!"

  "I don't mean to keep you from business." Conrad's thumb wagged toward the doorway. "Borrowers always come back." He looked away, his eyes maybe seeing long lines of borrowers, each with a story of hope or hard luck. It was a minute before he spoke again. "The chinook, you were saying?"

  "It clears off the snow cover and lets cows down to grass."

  "Of course. Of course."

  "I sound simple, I guess."

  "But?"

  "But, all right, you want the chinook to blow often and warm. That's the Tansy."

  "Let's suppose it is best. What's your thought, long range, I mean?"

  "About what?"

  "Cattle. The territory. The future."

  Out of the chance, unconnected bits of his thought he was asked now, all at once, to sum up and come out with answers. He got a pinch-hold of one. "First of all, Mr. Conrad, I see the time when grasslands will have to be owned or anyhow leased."

  "You see a long way. There'll be free graze in Montana for longer than you'll ever live. Uncrowded graze."

  "That's your notion!" With the words out he almost wished he hadn't spoken so strongly. Conrad was an older man and a banker besides. But he still could be wrong. "They said the same thing in eastern Oregon not so far back."

  "Yes?"

  "And now ranges are so crowded that cattle half-starve and some ranchers think heifers and cows should be spayed. Smart men are putting land under fence, owned land and leased land. Costs money, but it pays off. The cattle get feed. And the cows don't mix with scrub bulls."

  Conrad said, "Hmm."

  "You'll see more cows in Montana than you ever dreamed of, from Texas, Oregon, Washington, from all over the country, and all of them rustling for grass already chewed off. Then what about a bad winter?"

  He had hold of another idea now, pulled whole from the pieces of thought. He'd say it and then take his leave. "They claim cattle do fine here without feeding. They claim natural pasture is all that you need, even in winter. It isn't. Cows get poor in the winter. Too many die. Calves come out spindly. Beef weighs less and brings less than it should, even after good summer graze. Who knows but some day we'll have a cold stretch like you can't remember? Come spring, the cows you loaned money on will be dead in the coulees."

  Conrad said, "Go on."

  "We'll have to make hay and feed hay. Just tallow is one reason, and risk is another. Knocking around in this country, a man sees hay growing wild wherever there's water. I bet with a good ditch a gravel bar would come up in redtop."

  "Hay? Fences? Homesteads?"

  "That's the way I see it."

  Conrad didn't move except to bring up a finger and feel his mustache. His eyes swam out at nothing. Under the feeling finger he asked, "How much can you get for your horses?"

  "Fifty dollars, I hope. I'll take the rough off the worst ones."

  "That and your thousand won't buy many cows."

  "I'll pick up what I can as close by as I can."

  "Too bad your winnings weren't more," Conrad said. He'd forgotten, it seemed, that he could be blamed.

  "If I had more, I'd go over west and buy cows and calves because they throw the calves in."

  "You'd trail cows and young calves?"

  "Anything to get started."

  "Cows and calves from where?"

  "Oregon likely. Last year, I know, you could get a cow and a calf for around fourteen dollars. Steers cost more."

  "Uh-huh," Conrad said and was silent.

  Lat got up from his chair. "I guess a man could go down to the Emigrant Trail and try to pick up some sore-footed oxen cheap."

  "That's been done," Conrad answered, still sitting quiet.

  "Who was the first?" He frowned, trying to remember.

  "Grant. Captain Richard Grant, in maybe 'fifty or 'fifty-one."

  "I wouldn't know."

  "It doesn't matter." Conrad swung around. "Sit down! We can't talk if you keep a burr under your tail."

  Lat sat.

  "Where'd you get these ideas of yours?"

  "Partly in Oregon. Partly here. I've had plenty of time to think. We were snowed in, wolfing, and then, in slow and mean weather, two of us trailed back here from the Musselshell."

  "Held to a cabin, most men play cards."

  "Yes, sir."

  Conrad tapped with his fingers again. "I don't agree with all you've said."

  "I don't ask you to. You wanted me to tell you."

  "They're ideas, though, worth considering. But the ride raised the curtain. I like stickers. By the way, if you trail cattle from Oregon, you'll need some or all of those horses you won."

  "I'm not doing it. Haven't money enough."

  "You haven't, huh?" Conrad hunched forward, his elbows propped on his desk. "Get your money together, Evans. Find a range to your liking."

  "That's first, of course."

  Conrad put one hand flat on his desk. "Come back when you're ready. We'll match your money or even do better. I like stickers."

  "What!"

  "Just that."

  "That -that's wonderfull" Lat answered in place of shouting or jigging.

  "Straight business proposition. The money will cost you one per cent a month." Conrad smiled. "That rate makes figuring easy."

  Lat got up as Conrad did. He put out his hand. "You won't regret it, I swear."

  The mouth brought the whiskers into solemn position. "One point, Evans, if I may make it as an older man. Too many men seem to think that the business of ranching can be tended to in bars and hookshops."

  Conrad had seen. Of course he had seen. Lat felt the blood climbing his neck. "I know better than that, Mr. Conrad. Evans -not to brag, but Evans is a good name in Oregon."

  Conrad said, "Fine," and tomorrow was a new day and a new chance, and a new man could float out of the door of the bank and down the stairs, out into the clean dusk and clean chill, out to Sugar and the Appaloosie and Tom.

  "Tom!"

  "What? Took you long enough."

  Lat grabbed Sugar's reins and Tom's arm. "Come on! We're in business!"

  "Meanin' what?"

  "Meaning we're matched and more."

  "Matched?"

  "By the bank, you old muttonhead! Our money against theirs. A loan."

  "I'll be damned!" Tom pulled back against the push on his arm. "But look, Lat, I ain't got anything. The chips is all yours."

  "I thought we were partners."

  "Jesus Christ, Lat!" For the rest of his answer Tom gave a quick clutch to the hand holding his arm. After a while he added, almost in a whisper, "Seems like no one ever gave me a second thought till I met you and Jen."

  Ahead was the livery stable, where they'd put up the horses and, on Whitey's arrival, settle the score he kept. That would leave Callie. Callie? Just the name was a call. All of her was a call. Together, how they could rejoice! Once more then, since he wished it and she would? Once more, out of some due and upside-down decency? A poor start for a new man. Evans is a good name, Mr. Conrad. But damn it!

  Tom slowed to a stop and faced around, head bent with some thought, and slowly lifted a face that his eyes and the shadows of darkness made serious in spite of his small turn of a smile. "I was workin' up to tell you, Lat, comin' in. Bein' we're so close-"

  "What's on your mind, Tom?"

  "Well, you see-hell-" Tom never was embarrassed. "We want you should stand up with us."

  "What!"

  "You'n Callie, that is."

  "Stand up?"

  "Me'n Jen, we're gettin' hitched."

  "You? To her?"

  "She says I'm good enough."

  "Tom!"

  "We'll make it proper, Lat. If that good preacher Brother Van's in town, we'll have him tie the knot."

&nbs
p; "Think about it!"

  "I've thought enough. Oh, I know, Lat, I got nothin' savin' pardnership with you, and she's got nothin', but between us we got each other, or will have, and that beats a cipher to hell."

  "And her trade?"

  A shadow came over Tom's face, deeper than the shadows of dusk. "I ain't so pure myself, no more'n you are. I asked you a question. You goin' to stand up with us?" His tone softened. "We'd like it the best in the world."

  Stand up and be counted. Let everyone know. Read it in the paper, in the Benton Record, which Mr. Conrad would read. Send home a clipping. Mr. Tom Ping -Miss Jen ­what was her last name? Mr. Albert Gallatin Evans and Miss Callie Kash of Miss Fran's well-known establishment, attendants.

  With no choice left, Lat spoke bluntly then. "Tom, she's a whore. Wife or not, always she'll be known as that."

  Tom threw down the Appaloosie's reins. He might be going to swing. "You! You that are so pious and so pussy­struck! I'm a muttonhead, but I know who you're thinking of." His face twisted. "Goodbye!" He wheeled around and started off.

  Lat took one step after him, to say he'd stand up after all, but Tom turned back. "I wouldn't let you take a piss with me!"

  Then Tom swung around and went away, walking hunched and fast as if to leave something behind forever.

  PART FOUR

  21

  "I'VE GOT TO RIDE over south," Lat told Whitey. From the window of the cabin the prospect didn't look pleasing. Last night's snow lay a foot deep and, in the first sunlight, the air danced with cold. He leaned forward in his chair and drew a pair of Dutch socks over the two regular pairs he'd put on. "Those cows might have hit the drift fence."

  "It's a wonder how a cow ever lived till you come along." Whitey took the water bucket and filled the teakettle that fretted on the stove.

  "A lot didn't."

  "Want me to help or anything?"

  "I guess not."

  Whitey began gathering up the breakfast dishes. "I'll swamp out the shack then and take off for town."

  "You're welcome to stay."

  "Manners!" Whitey said. "You'll never live down your trainin'. 'Course I'm welcome to stay. You told me enough times. But Carmichael's due in town today or tomorrow, the note said, and this is a dry camp to boot."

  "Tap it careful."

  "You forget I got a dose of your trainin', too. Hell, I've turned into a temperance shouter, pret' near. I keep hearin' your old man at prayers, and strong drink is a mocker and that stuff. Every time now I take a snort, I look to see is God watchin'. Hallelujah!"

  "You'll get me thinking you're cured, and for good. It's quite a while since you heard those prayers."

  "Once in grace always in grace, don't it go?" Whitey pointed with a fork. "And it's just young squirts that think three years is a coon's age."

  Lat put on his moccasins. Two suits of underwear, three pairs of socks, moccasins, overshoes, pants, overalls, chaps, heavy shirt, sour-dough coat, wolf-skin cap, wool gloves inside heavy mittens -with these a man could make out though they burdened and slowed him. Just the same, from the look of the weather, he'd better take along some pine splinters soaked in coal oil so's to have a night fire if he needed it.

  Whitey had the dishes in the pan. "Not to bait you, but I figger your old man must wear God out, always chewin' His ear," he went on in the manner of one just wanting to talk. "Or maybe he's got an idea the Old Gent is deef."

  He had said the same before, but Lat kept still and let him ramble.

  "Or maybe he just naturally needs more help than we do. S'pose so? S'pose he's got a hid weakness like drink or women?"

  Lat got up. "You're way off the track."

  "Maybe so." Whitey stepped to the stove. "Here, you set down, and we'll have some more coffee. Your butt'll be cold enough by the time you get back." He poured the cups full and set the coffeepot back on the stove. "But that prayin' and Bible readin'!" he said, taking a chair. "I can't get it

  out of my head."

  "Now you know there wasn't so much."

  Whitey pursed his mouth. "Like the goose said when he emptied out nine miles up, a little of that goes a long way. That blessin' the food, when me and Mike and old Goddy would've rather took her unblessed and et in the barn!"

  "Yes. I know."

  "More'n your father and them prayers and all, it was your mother. A good woman she scares a man that's spent his time rawhidin' around in rough country. He can't face her for thinkin' that maybe, onthinkin', he'll break wind or something. Seems like every time I set down to that table of yours my belly was growlin', or I had an itch where it weren't nice to scratch, and I was afraid of forgettin' that, too. And talk! What's there to say without a cuss word for seasonin'?"

  "You did well enough," Lat answered, but he saw them again, the three of them three years ago, all ill at ease and spare-spoken in a good home, before a good woman, in the general odor of goodness.

  "Want your coffee het up?"

  "No thanks." There was that last time, when they were about to start out with the cattle he'd scratched up in Oregon. They stood on the porch, he and his crew and Ma and Pa; and Pa had to choose this time and this company to make him a gift of a new leather-bound Bible while he said for a joke not meant much as a joke, "You can carry the Word to the heathen, son." For a minute all stood stiff and speechless, and it would have helped to have Grandpa on hand for a saying, out of the grave to which he'd gone a few weeks before. Whitey and Carmichael fingered their hats, and, seeing them, Godwin uncovered. There was thanks to say while they watched him, their eyes solemn and guarded. kfterwards, Godwin looked at the Book and got out, "Handsome," and Carmichael said, "Real handsome," and Whitey, "Uh-huh!"; and they were happy to clatter down the steps and win free, not knowing, not being of kin.

  "The way I see it," Whitey was saying now as he sipped at his coffee, "that's why cowpunchers and such mix with chippies, feelin' on what you might call common footin'." He added with a grin, "Another reason, o' course, is they're women."

  "You said once you'd got beyond that."

  "Not so much beyond as be-damned. It just ain't worth the effort." His eyes, as he went on, were half sly, half accusing. "It strikes me, Lat, that everyone excuses, for themselves, what they like best."

  "So be it." Lat got to his feet.

  "Don't snort at me, boy! You know damn well I'm like one of them Roman confessions. Hear all and blab nothin'."

  "I'll see you in town tomorrow."

  "Me?" Whitey asked, grinning.

  The cows were all right, Lat told himself, but he'd be easier in mind if he made sure before going to Tansytown tomorrow. He heeled the Appaloosie and felt the faster amble of him through the powdered, knee-deep snow. Now, in March, with spring by rights around the corner, it was like Montana for winter to strike back.

  Not that he had any right to complain, not last year or this one or that first year when the cattle from Oregon were new to the range and softer than now. The weather had been mild and open, the cows and calves had wintered well, and people had laughed at the little fenced-in stacks of hay put up against hard seasons. Losses had been small, from cold and hunger and wolves and boggings -down and rustlers white and red- none from diseases like the Texas fever and pleuro­pneumonia that Montana ranchers feared.

  "Dearest Son" -the opening words stood clear- "We thank you, and God bless you! We bought a new carpet with the money." It was real pretty, and the first they'd had in almost forty years. But still they couldn't get used to his living in a wild land like Montana where even the names were strange to other ears.

  The Tansy. The Sun. The Missouri, better called the Smoky Water, as the Indians called it. The Goose Neck. The Knees. The Judith. The Musselshell. The Dry Forks. The Marias. The Crocondunez near Fort Benton. The Freezeout. The Two Medicine. Names strange to Ma but wild and sweet on the tongue. Far-ranging names that acquaintance with the country made better. A hundred miles behind him, when he turned to look, he could see the mantled nipples of the Sweet Gras
s Hills.

  Names and places, and things no words could tell. Spring in Montana. Summer. Fall. The look of ranges, bench on bench. The month of the wild rose. The time that cactus flowered. Everywhere the grasses straight or blowing. Cows and calves, and all the fat earth for a pasture. The chinook, out of its mother cloud over the mountains. The feel of winds. Winter, even, and the tonic feel of cold. The sky. Always the sky.

  He pulled a hand out of his mitt and rubbed his face. Sunburn, they called it, but snowburn was closer, the burn from the sun that bounced from the snow. Better now and here, though, than later on the bags of his cows. Not even mother love would let a calf suck a sore tit.

  Nothing was in sight, nothing but white seen through the tear-shimmer of cold and bright snow, nothing but the mountains to westward chiseled from frost and the Tansy hard by, smothered under its blanket, fringed by willow and , cottonwood standing poor as a Chinaman's beard. No rabbits were out, and no birds but for one chickadee dee-deeing to nothing. The cattle would be somewhere in the brush, if they hadn't gone farther.

  "Well, how's it coming?" Conrad had asked just last spring. "Still shoestring but good."

  Conrad smiled under his mustache there at Fort Benton. "Note's due, and you're prompt. How many head do you tally now?"

  "Counting calves, right at eight hundred head."

  "Good." Conrad smiled again. "And that plan of yours, how's it panning out?"

  "There's the count."

  "And the land?"

  "There's my desert-land claim and the ditch, which I told you about. I aim to make the ditch bigger."

  "Yes?"

  "Two friends of mine, Godwin and White -you might have met them- have filed on claims for me."

  "How much an acre?"

  "Fifty cents to a dollar, depending. I'd like to be able to give them a dollar, but they won't raise a row."

  "Don't be too open-handed."

  "And another friend, Carmichael, will do the same thing."

  Conrad had nodded, as if at last he recognized that ranges were crowded and more cows were coming in every season. "Fenced?"

  "Part of it." Dollars? Dollars? Who had the dollars? Dollars for grub, for entry fees of two bits an acre, for barbed wire, for interest, for payment on principal, for a few tools and stuff like a window for the cabin he'd built mostly himself?