by Les Weil
He expected some answer, but Evans kept still.
"Be-damned if I didn't run up against a friend of yours there. Godwin's his name, and by soundin' him out I found out you was here." With hardly a pause he went on, "'Course, I never let on to him or to a Christ's soul that you and me was connected. Best to make sure how we struck it off. Relatives can puke you, like I know."
Again Evans held his tongue.
"I knowed already you was somewhere in Montana. Your folks wasn't sure just where."
"You saw them?"
"For a minute. I couldn't stay. But, like with your other grandpa, your pa and me was bosom friends." The clawed hand took hold of Evans' arm. "I helped raise him up, you might say. Son, you ought to let your folks know whereabouts you are."
It wasn't any use to tell him that they knew. "Anyhow I found you."
"I see you did."
"I call it luck, the nick of time, you might say. You see, son, I was raisin' plenty color there nigh to Gold Butte, but then my spondulix played out, and I was pawin' air until I thought, why, Lat Evans ain't so far away, and he'll be glad to put me up till I get on my feet. Blood runs strong in us McBees." He raised a leg and broke wind heartily and said as if this were an incidental, "Nothin' but gas in me."
"There's grub inside."
"No hurry. Now that wife of yours, if she ain't a purty thing, and good, I bet, whichever way you figger." The inturned lips made a little smack. "Free-hearted, too, I'll bet to boot, or you would fan her little backside."
"Never mind about that! Where'd you see her?"
"Just inquirin' after you. Oh, I didn't tell her. Hell, no, not till I seen how you and me made out." Now, bright as a moulting hen's, the eyes came up and put a question.
Evans looked away, catching a glimpse of Carmichael watching and waiting out of earshot at the kitchen door, his face lined to a half smile.
"Son, I thank Christ Jesus we got years yet to enj'y each other, and it ain't as if you had the sorry job of layin' me away soon. Look!" McBee faced half around and bent his knees and jumped. It was a good jump, allowing for the coat. Straightening, he raised his hands and brought them down and touched his knuckles to the ground. "Notice my knees ain't crooked a mite. How's that for pressin' eighty?"
At the kitchen door Carmichael was grinning over the hands that rolled a cigarette.
Evans sighed. "How much to put you on your feet?"
A gleam flicked in the old-bird eyes, but the mouth said, "Oh, no, son. I didn't have my mind on that." With one scaly hand he pushed the very thought away. "I just figgered I'd stay a spell with you and maybe find a job of work and afterwards climb in my hole."
"How much?"
"You see, stickin' around, I could help you to the Senate where I hear you're headed. Be glad to. Hell, I know politics." He threw an arm out and addressed the prairie. "We got to have a good, honest, savin' administration, and who can do it better than Albert Gallatin Evans? I ought to know, folks. The good Lord made me his grandpa."
Evans said, "Fifty dollars and a horse."
"That's open-handed, real open-handed, but you know, not to little you, fifty ain't so much with grub so high. I don't s'pose I could cut 'er on that, thankin' you all the same."
"Fifty and a horse."
"That little boy of yourn ought to know his great-grandpa. And your woman, ain't she curious where you come from?"
"Make it a hundred."
The dirty claws of hands came up and clawed each other. "That's closer to the mark, but God cuss me if I don't want to be real kinfolks to your woman. I want to see her skitterin' around, neat as a pin, and good, waitin' on the old man. Me'n her, I could tell, would team like tumblebugs."
"A hundred dollars and a horse. And goodbye."
McBee's sharp old eyes looked at the offer and decided. "All right, but I can't help wonderin' what your ma would think, blood of my blood, as the sayin' is." He drew himself up and buttoned his coat. "I didn't know you was so cramped for room." The note of injury changed fast. "A good horse, though!"
That was that, Evans thought as he and Carmichael topped the ridge of the Tansy valley and came to flatter footing for the horses. Or he could tell himself that was that.
Ahead the benchlands flowed away, their drops and pitches quivering in the dazzle of the snow, their wind-bare patches floating unsupported like loose rafts of earth. There was no brush here, no road, no fences, nothing but little snow mounds that would be carcasses in a swale and, not far away, one ribby cow with a bag that had been frozen. There were no landmarks even, no sure and bold ones, but a man went sure, ground kin to the V of wild geese that cried the sure north overhead. Like shouts of lonely reassurance their voices drifted down.
They reached the Bar 0 as night began to dull the snow. Already the others were on hand, plus Hector's hired hand, Gunderson. Ten men altogether, ten mostly silent men. Rax, the quietest by nature, had the most to say. "We hit the right time maybe," he told Evans and Carmichael on arrival. "Howie had two horses took from under his nose last night, and Johnson says he's shy. Damn rustlers prob'ly figured on the snow to cover up their tracks. You missin' any?"
"Haven't noticed."
"Just so our thievin' friends ain't got the horses off their hands yet, or into Canada. Put your broncs in the barn. There's oats in the bin. Then come in and eat a bait."
They ate in haste, waited on by Rax's fat squaw wife, who paddled back and forth, unintroduced and speechless. Even her eyes, crowded between the thrust of her brow and the high flesh of her cheeks, seemed speechless. After she had poured coffee, she went into another room. Evans imagined Rax was a demanding man. In the fits of silence he could hear the slow squeak of her rocking chair.
"You boys think we'd better take along some grub?" Rax asked.
"Naw," Hector answered. He looked around at the rest. "We'll have a man or two for breakfast."
Soon after nightfall they were ready -bellies filled, guns and ammunition talked over and examined, horses fed and saddled, three extras put on lead ropes for emergencies. They moved out quietly, Rax at the front because he knew this country best.
Riding, Evans wondered what was in their minds. Carmichael he knew. Mike had come out of friendship and loyalty and perhaps something of the rider's feeling against a man who'd leave another man afoot. But the others? Which ones were eager? Which maybe daunted? Which ones, like himself and McLean and Chenault, were reluctant but committed by the ugly need?
A horse sneezed, and a mouth let out a word. Leather creaked, and the snow squeaked under hoof. From somewhere coyotes quavered, and from the blind night sky more geese cried north. Ten men, Evans thought, and each rode by himself. On that strong bay horse he'd been presented, Grandpa McBee could put a lot of miles between himself and Tansytown. Grandpa! Mother's father!
The moon came up like a Christmas orange and climbed the sky and changed into a silver dollar, bright on the land, bright on rifles and revolvers, on the taffy coils of new rope held by saddle straps; and they rode on through the night, up slopes, down slopes, across the flats, with minds alive and forward-cast, if they were like his own, and bodies tired and loose with tiredness.
As they struck the rougher country the moon squeezed out among the westward mountains, and darkness closed in like a hand, shutting out the mountains and the skyline and the stretching snow and all except a star and the half-imagined glimmer of a circle underfoot. All of them, as members of the Tansy roundup pool, knew something of this section, but in this darkness, on this uncertain footing, they strung out Indian file, leaving Rax to pick the way.
By and by, like a wound, the east showed a spatter of red. Not like a wound, though, Evans thought, letting his mind picture what it would. Like the fight of day against the night. Like the bloody birth of morning. The glimmer underfoot inched out, and the men ahead took shapes of black. An unseen owl asked who went there, and a horse shook himself, clattering his gear, and the coyotes sang again.
The file slowed dow
n and stopped and grouped. "One cabin lays ahead and to the right," Rax said, low-voiced. "Second is down the crick a mile or two, but here's the biggest. Just yonder is a patch of brush where we can tie the horses. We best sneak up on foot. Ride closer, and a horse'll whinny." He waited for their approval and led away again.
They reached the brush and got off and tied up and drew rifles from their boots and untied the two new coils of rope and regathered around Rax. "There's a corral just left of the cabin, not more'n ten-twelve jumps away," he said. "That's all, it and the cabin, except an old shithouse."
McLean's voice was almost a whisper. "How does the cabin set?"
"Facin' us. South, that is. One window and one door in front and no place else for them to make a break."
"I'll leave Gunderson with the horses just to play safe," Hector said. "Gunderson, if you hear me whistle, fog one up "
Gunderson was Scandinavian. He answered, "But ay shoot goot."
"Stay good. Stay!"
"Yah, sure."
"Let's get posted." Hector started moving off.
Evans stopped him. "What's the plan?"
"Crawl up and take cover and wait for light to open the ball."
"Then?"
"Call 'em out."
"And shoot to kill?"
"If anyone resists."
"I don't like it."
Hector hitched his rifle impatiently. "What do you like?"
"Evidence. And kept promises."
"Christ, Evans, be reasonable!" Hector had raised his voice. He lowered it as he went on. "We'll listen to 'em if they come out peaceful. Where you goin' to get your evidence?"
"The corral's a chance."
Chenault said, "Why not?" and McLean chimed in, "That suits me, too."
"All right." Hector overdid his sigh. "Who scouts it then? One man's enough and two's too many. You?"
Evans said, "I will."
"But an empty corral won't prove they're innocent." Hector had to have this last word.
They set off slowly, led again by Rax, careful not to kick a stone or thrash a bush, though the cabin, it developed, was too far to call for such a cautious start. For a quarter of a mile or more they walked this way, their arms snugged close, their eyes hard on the next step. Rax halted at a gap between two knolls. "Through there," he whispered down the line.
Downhill and ahead the corral was a stripe of shadow that held a pool of darkness. Farther on the cabin made a blur.
Rax beckoned for a huddle. "We can circle round this rise, keepin' it between us and the house," he said just loud enough to hear. "Farther, but they might spot us movin' in plain sight. Yon side of the rise there's some brush and boulders in close range." Again he waited for their judgment.
Someone whispered, "Good enough."
Rax turned to Evans. "Looks like this is the spot for you to angle off."
Evans left the bunch, hearing Carmichael's parting "Careful, Lat!" behind him. He walked light-footed as he went down the slope, light-footed and hunched low, for from here the window looked on him. A rock rolled under his foot, nearly throwing him, and slid softly in the snow and came to rest. He held up, watching. The little grind of boots above him faded into nothing. He reached the bottom of the slope and cut left and now was out of the window's eye.
The smell and sight of horses came together. They stood high-headed, minus bodies, like stuffed heads hanging, awake already to the scent or sound of him and ready to take fright. He went up slowly, keeping the corral between him and the house and, closer, spoke low to keep them quiet. They moved around, snorting softly, checked by the words he pitched to reach no farther.
They had bodies. They had brands, made almost readable by the rising blood-smoke of the eastern sky. He waited, looking through the poles of the corral. Thought waited. Time waited. The world and all had reached a stop, was deadlocked at this dead hour of morning.
A scar came out -Rax's Bar 0 on a buckskin. Then, as the horses shuffled nervously, Howie's Round Top T. Then Johnson's iron. They were sufficient, but still Evans moved around to see if there were more.
It was then that he heard the door open and close. He froze against a post, hands ready on his rifle; and a man passed almost close enough to spit on, close enough to show a crow's-wing forelock that was a brand itself, and went on toward the privy.
Evans sidled around the corral. He began running, as quietly as he could.
29
CARMICHAEL lay behind a boulder the size of a bucket, his rifle pushed ahead beside it. Waiting, he wished he'd gone with Evans, who was too fair for his own safety. Brave enough, for sure, but measured in his judgments. A man quick on the trigger could perforate him while he gave the benefit of doubt.
Left and right, each behind a boulder or a bush, the other men lay spread out, their bodies black against the snow, their rifle barrels faintly lined with light. Nobody whispered much. Nobody would until Evans showed up.
Carmichael squirmed, inside himself reaching ahead for that time. A lot it would matter to Hector and Rax if anything happened to Lad Yeah, a man lost, Evans it was, Lat Evans, the candidate for the Senate. Yeah, a pretty good man but upright as all hell. Didn't seem to want much to dirty his hands, either, in cleaning out that nest in the breaks. And was he one to pamper his help! Damn fool paid Carmichael in full for all that time he was laid up. Too bad about his woman. Too bad about the boy. For an instant Carmichael was back in the sickbed and Lat's eyes were on him, anxious and well-wishing, and Joyce's hands were clever and her voice gentle. For an instant the baby held out his arms, wanting to come. Until at last their feet quit itching, some men couldn't appreciate a family.
He raised his head and looked over the boulder. Things came dark-sharp to his eye in the slowly lifting light -the black cabin front with its window barely spotted by a sack or rag stuffed in a broken pane, a twisted cottonwood nearby with a limb made for a rope, a stream behind the house that ran inky except for one reflection of the morning sky, a fret of brush along the stream and, still farther on, the sawtooth outlines of the breaks. From here the backhouse didn't show. A bird was cheeping somewhere.
By degrees the higher faces of the hills turned to a gray that straggling bushes left dark wrinkles in. The cloud bank to the east turned redder, but still the cabin held on to its patch of night. There was movement in the corral, though, a suggestion of movement. Down there close a man might read a brand by now.
Carmichael blinked and looked away. He told himself that this was what came of staying too long in one place -this nagging worry instead of carefree fun, this felt responsibility, this concern with Joyce and Little Lat and Lat himself, this riding after rustlers for that matter, though it wouldn't bother him too much to give a guilty man his due. He had changed, he thought, or been changed, for he had no regrets. Lat was a man to fasten to. So was his family. And at the last even a drifter had to fasten on to something, and was lucky to. A strange thing, as to himself and Lat, was that he should feel the older and the younger both, both needed by Lat and somehow needful of him. Age had got the best of him, and not age, either, for he wasn't fifty yet. It was a case of borrowed ambition, of things he might have had and now could have at one remove. It was maybe the direction that he couldn't find himself. It was maybe, to lean on, the fixed strength he'd never had. But Lat might profit by the kind of strength he did have, and by his old savvy, too.
"Can't see hardly a damn thing down there," Whitlock muttered fretfully.
But now sounds came from the left. Carmichael cocked his head around. It was Evans, humping up the slope, too fast for quiet. He breathed hard as he stopped and squatted down.
Hector let out, "What in hell! Something spook you?"
"No."
The others had crawled up to hear. "Noisy enough! What then?"
Evans was still panting. "Stolen horses all right. Rax's, Howie's, Johnson's, maybe others."
Hector hissed at him, "Satisfied?"
"Must be they aimed to slip them horses out t
his morning," Whitlock put in. "What say we blow the bugle?" He was a nervous man, Carmichael figured, the kind without the mettle to bear waiting.
Hector said, "Too early yet. Too dark. Get back to place!"
They started crawling off. Carmichael beckoned to Evans. "Another rock by me." They lay down side by side.
Then, to Carmichael's great surprise, to the surprise he felt like a breath up and down the line, Evans shouted out, "All right, down there! Come out! Hands up!"
The men made murmurs in the snow as they flattened flatter and brought their rifles up. Above the murmurs Hector's voice growled, "Of all the loco capers!"
"Come out!"
They waited.
The sack swept from the window. Fire flashed where it had been. Carmichael heard the ground thump of the bullet and the beginning echoes of the shot and saw the dawn light shaken on the peaks. Then around him guns were answering. He lined his sights and answered with them. Glass shattered in the window, flashing as it fell. Wood splintered in the flimsy door. A bullet chipped the rock Carmichael lay behind.
"All right, Mike?"
"All right."
As he levered in another cartridge Carmichael saw smoke wisping from the muzzle of Lat's gun. In that split second before he shot again he wondered if Lat was really aiming. Foolish question. Of course he was. The window spurted fire, and the fire around him put it out.
Silence then, a waiting, listening silence. A white cloth poked from the window and began to wave. A blur of face appeared above it and cried out, "No more! Mon dieu! We come!"
"Come or croak!" Hector was taking charge again.
The door swung open and hung sagging behind two figures with upraised hands.
The bunch followed Hector down the slant, their rifles ready, and halted maybe twenty feet away. One man was small, and one was big. The little one was in his underwear. The other had pulled on a pair of pants. The little man fell on his knees. He had a breed's face. He lifted it. "Mon dieu! Pitee! Pitee!" Barefoot and unclothed, he trembled in the snow but not, Carmichael knew, from cold.
