The Unforgiven

by Alan Lemay

  Chapter Eleven

  Jude had forged eight stamp-irons for each of the two squeezes they built, so that plenty of irons were always cherry red, no matter how fast the critters came through. Using plenty of branders and plenty of fires, they branded a cow on both sides at once; while ear-markers cut a dangling strip of skin, called a jingle, on each ear, at the same time. The cows went through there on the run.

  For a road brand Cash was using a kind of Galloping X, only he said it was a bird, and that it was dancing. Plenty big, and burned high on the ribs, it could be seen as far as you could see the cow; and the jingles served to identify an animal that so much as raised its head in the middle of a herd. Zeb Rawlins had some grumbling to do about the size of the road brand, which he declared cut down the value of the hide; and he disliked the ear jingles, which seemed to him a senseless disfigurement. Ben undertook the job of assuaging Zeb, and fending him off, determined that the tough job ahead of his brother should be made no harder; and the herd was branded as Cash wanted it.

  Then suddenly all grumbling stopped. Georgia Rawlins, who had been riding virtually alongside Cash every day, came out no more; Jude and Charlie took to scouring distant corners of the range on their own, far away from the wagons. Only old Zeb still sat lumpishly in his buggy, watching over his interest with what looked like a jaundiced eye.

  “Reckon they got the word,” Cash said.

  “Yes,” Ben answered.

  Together they rode to Zeb’s buggy.

  “Zeb,” Ben said, “you got something you want to say to me?”

  “Well, no; not now,” Zeb scratched his jowls, looking them over with the stoniest eyes they had ever seen in a human head. “Not right now…”

  They knew they had got answer enough. Kelsey had been to the Rawlinses—or else had stirred up somebody else, who had carried his lie to them.

  Cassius was for dragging the whole thing into the open, and at once. Settle the matter once and for all, so far as it concerned the Rawlinses and this range, in a single explosion, as violent as needful. He never did have any use for a waiting game.

  “Red niggers,” he said through his teeth, furious enough to go to the guns. “We’re all of us red niggers to them, right now! You going to stand hitched for that?”

  “What about Georgia?”

  “Georgia will stand by me or she won’t,” Cash said in his anger. “And right now I don’t care a hell’s hoot which it is!”

  Ben judged it was time to get his own back up. “Now listen here! You bust up this drive, and you’ll never boss another—you hear me? Because I’ll bust your Goddamned back! You get that herd to Wichita, before you talk feud-fight around me!”

  Cassius wasn’t worried about his back, or what his brother might do, but the thought of having his drive broken up before it even started threw a scare into him. He shut up.

  Chapter Twelve

  Rachel drove her mother out in the democrat wagon to see the herd start off. Matthilda always announced, on the eve of every drive, that she didn’t believe she’d go out this time. The chill of the darkness before dawn made her knees hurt, and when you’d seen one you’d seen them all. But hot coffee and the excitement of the move-out always changed her mind when morning came.

  They began to hear the moaning of the cattle a long way off, and the sound of the herd, coming to them across the long prairie miles, carried a sense of its great mass, as vast in proportions as its importance to their lives. For an hour the herd remained hidden from them by the roll of the land, while its earth rumble increased imperceptibly, and its voice developed until they could hear the bawling of individual cows. Then they came out upon a ridge that Rachel had chosen the day before, and below them moved the herd.

  The first drive of the year always seemed new, as if it were the first drive of the world. The longhorns themselves were spectacular—almighty tall, gaunt, long-striding beasts, armed with horns spreading six, eight, and even ten feet; and Cash was driving more than four thousand head. They had moved some bigger herds than this, and driven them a whole lot farther than this one had to go. But you couldn’t look at this broad, slow-moving belt of horned stock, seemingly stretched out as far as the eye could reach, without feeling that here was the most portentous pilgrimage ever undertaken by man.

  Far out ahead the point rider rode at a walk, followed waveringly by the lead cattle, a long way back, held loosely to the line by the forward swing riders. No single critter had yet emerged as leader. Rachel picked a slab-sided claybank steer, of great height and spread of horns, as the one she’d bet on to be plodding in front when the herd raised Wichita, someday, beyond the curve of the earth.

  Behind the leaders the herd was a rebellious muddle for a mile and a half, but a winding backbone, where the cattle were thicker, was already beginning to show. In a couple of weeks the cattle would put themselves into traveling order of their own accord. But even in this first disorder, their very numbers gave the long straggle the effect of moving at a measured pace, and with a great, slow majesty. They went past for a long time.

  A steer broke for the brush, so far off that it appeared no more than a humping, tail-high speck; but as a pony streaked after it, closing in long jumps, Rachel knew the rider was Andy. He got the steer by the tail, and busted it end over end; whereafter it trotted back where it belonged, satisfied. A hard disappointment was ahead for Andy, and Rachel wondered if he knew it yet. Ben and Cash had told Andy a thousand times that he couldn’t be spared from home, but Andy wanted so badly to go up the trail that he wouldn’t believe they meant it. Only yesterday he had cleaned and mended all his gear, and packed his bedroll ready to go. But Ben would turn back tomorrow, with the six hands Cash was leaving him, as soon as the herd was across the Red. And when he did, Andy would be with them.

  Up from the drag came the chuck wagon under its narrow-hooped canvas, bounding most marvelously behind six apparently unbroken horses. It looked like a runaway, but the brake wasn’t on. This manner of driving seemed to be one of the ways range cooks expressed their defiance of the fate that had made them cooks. After the chuck wagon followed the bed wagon, not visibly driven at all. Some unfortunate green hand with the job of nighthawk, who herded the saddle stock by night and drove the bed wagon by day, rustling wood for the cook in between, was probably already asleep among the bedrolls, letting his team follow that of the cook as it chose.

  Behind the last cattle the cavy of saddle stock, something around a hundred and seventy head, came wandering and loafing along, let to move about as the ponies pleased. And finally Cash came loping from the farthest tail, on his way up to the point. He came up the ridge to the democrat wagon, and leaned from the saddle to kiss his mother and his sister, then galloped forward. The point was already out of sight beyond a distant rise.

  Matthilda reached for Rachel’s hand, and they held onto each other hard, as the last of the great herd passed beyond them, and out of their world.

  Chapter Thirteen

  After the herd was gone, the work went on; and for a while it seemed pretty lonely around the little soddy.

  The Rawlinses came visiting no more; but the present coolness was easily explained, entirely aside from any part that Abe Kelsey might have played. Effie had been delayed, and Jude had stayed home to wait for her. None of the Rawlinses, except Georgia, thought Cassius could handle any part of the drive without Jude along, and Hagar had actually wanted the drive held up, until after the wedding. Even Zeb saw that this was ridiculous; the market would not wait for Effie, or anybody else. But Zeb himself could not forgive Ben’s failure to consult him before making Cassius trail boss, for Zeb had hoped to put Jude in charge. Rachel could understand why the two families had better stay away from each other, for awhile.

  And Ben was gone all the time. Cash had left Ben with six men and Andy, as well as both Rawlins boys—theoretically; though Jude was supposed to ride and overtake the drive after his sister’s wedding. There was no Indian danger yet. The moon had been fu
ll as the herd rolled, but now it was on the wane; the Kiowas would let their ponies strengthen on the spring feed until the moon waxed again. Ben left two men at the house—though even this seemed hardly needful—and worked a single wagon far out. He was trying to catch up with the calfbranding in the far corners of the range, so that he could work closer home when the danger time came.

  Meanwhile, Rachel was having a harder and harder time getting away from the house. The inside work had piled up some, during the green-up; but aside from that, Matthilda seemed to feel lonelier, and less secure, as Cassius got farther away. No sense to it, of course. But Rachel was finding out that the less sense there is to a thing like that, the harder it is to talk away. This quirk of the mind went back to the year they lost Papa up there, in the crossing of the Witch River, Rachel supposed. What few times Rachel did get out to the brandings, Georgia was always there; that was what made her mad.

  Andy rode home every day or so, but Ben got home only once during that wane, and he might much better have stayed away. He came in very late, and drank his coffee without sitting down. “You all right, here? I’m fine. Work’s going fair, I guess. No, they haven’t heard from Effie, far’s I know. You folks need anything?” He filled his pockets with cold vittles, and was actually at the door, when he turned back to cut Rachel’s girth for her, once and for all. “Oh, by the way—Sis—you’ll have to quit all this ramboodling around the country. You’ve got to stay home.”

  “Now wait a minute!”

  “For a lot of reasons,” Ben explained. He had found Indian sign almost every day he had been out. No big war parties, looking for fight—ponies not ready, yet, to shake off a pursuit. Mainly horse thieves, playing hide-and-sneak. But the whole Indian situation looked bad. Fort Sill troops had been fired into—not just once, but three times that he knew about. Ben predicted a full-out uprising, come summer. “Just wait till their ponies are ready. Then you’ll see!”

  “Well, they’re not ready yet! Never heard such a far-fetched excuse in my life,” Rachel argued. “What are you up to out there you don’t want me to know about?”

  “Who, me?”

  “What about Georgia? I notice she rides on the wild loose every day of the world! Everyplace you do!”

  “Who’s Georgia? Oh, Georgia. I’m not running Georgia. It’s you I’m responsible for,” Ben answered her, making out it was all a matter of sweet concern for his sister’s welfare.

  Rachel was left low in her mind, and haunted by suspicions. Georgia pretended to be helping with the tallies, but Rachel thought it was mighty funny that she was always to be found tallying for Ben. Never felt called on to help her own brothers, who got on fine without any put-in from Georgia, seemingly. Not much to go on. Rachel couldn’t really convince herself that anything was wrong. All she knew for sure was that a spring of seeming promise was turning into something pretty tiresome, with fly season not even begun.

  But now Abe Kelsey was in the Dancing Bird country again.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Kelsey did not come to the house this time, though he might have been on his way there. Neither Rachel nor Matthilda saw him. If Rachel’s understanding of her younger brother had been less acute, she would not have known about the ugly thing that happened then, in those days before the Kiowa moon.

  One afternoon Andy rode in two hours before he could rightly be expected, in a dusky rain; and Rachel ran down to the corral, a carbine under her slicker, to unsaddle for him, in case he was of a mind to catch up with a few chores. One look at Andy’s face brought her up short. He had a greenish pallor, for one thing, like something under water.

  “Andy! You’re fetching down with something!”

  “No—oh, no—I’m fine—” He tried to keep his face turned away from her as he stepped down.

  “Then you’re hurt. Either a colt stacked you, or—” Another possibility struck her. “Is Ben all right?”

  He nodded, and pushed his rein into her hands; and he ran around behind the trough shelter. She could hear him being sick back there, as soon as he was out of sight. She tied the pony, and got a gourd of water from the well by the Dancing Bird.

  Andy gulped at it. “Tell me one thing. Was he here? Did you see him?”

  Confused, she almost said, “Who, Ben?” Then she understood. “No,” she answered him. “I haven’t seen him. But I think you have. Today.”

  “I didn’t say…” He let it die out, and made a vague move toward his pony.

  She said, “You weren’t going to tell me that, were you? And there’s more you haven’t told me. Which of you killed him?”

  “Nobody,” Andy said, and looked as if he wanted to be sick again. He drank the rest of the water. “We had a chance at him. But somehow—something went wrong.”

  She got the rest out of him, then. Andy had been with Ben, a long way out from the wagon, when Kelsey showed himself. He came toward them, first, as if he wanted to talk—maybe had been watching for a time when they were apart from the others. But when they pointed their horses at him he lost his nerve, and ran for it. Andy thought he must be trying to lead them into an ambush; he pulled up, yelling at Ben. But Ben went on, so Andy drew carbine and followed. Kelsey rode a pretty fair horse this time, but with no grain to it, of course. Ben closed on him fast, and pulled his pistol. Kelsey took one look back, and the next thing he did was unbelievable. He pitched away his rifle—and went tearing on with his hands up, kicking his horse full stretch. Ben seemed flabbergasted; plainly he didn’t know what to do. He could have gone ahead and shot Kelsey, but he didn’t seem to think of that. He hesitated a few seconds, then stuck away the pistol and shook out his reata. And the rest was a night-mare.

  Kelsey was jerked off his horse, but the loop had got an arm and a shoulder, as well as the neck, and he hit the ground alive. Ben didn’t seem to know what to do about that, either. He just spurred on….

  “When finally he stopped, and I come up, there wasn’t nothing on that reata but…”

  Rachel let him skip that part of it.

  “Ben threw away his reata, rather than step down and loose it,” Andy ended.

  “You don’t call that killing him?”

  He shook his head. “We went back to the wagon, for tools to dig a grave. And it started to rain. Took us two hours, before we got back where we left him. And when we did…he was gone from there.”

  “Didn’t you cut for sign?”

  “It was raining hard by then. We couldn’t find out anything.” They never did find out how Kelsey left there. “I never knew Ben to foozle so. I suppose I should have shot Kelsey, somewhere in there. I guess,” Andy finished uncertainly.

  “Why should you?”

  Andy stood opening and closing his mouth. “Ben told us we had to,” he said finally.

  They stood out there talking a long time, though Matthilda twice came to the door of the house and banged on the triangle. Andy didn’t know anything more. But talking had got some of the kinks out of him, and he returned to his normal color. They didn’t have to explain anything to Matthilda, which was just as well. The truth was that they didn’t know then just what had happened—whether Kelsey was alive, or dead, or what.

  That night Rachel wept a little, silently, into her pillow, thinking sentimentally about her brothers. She was sorry for Andy; in this mood she thought of him as still the little innocent-eyed boy of whom he sometimes reminded them. And she was sorriest for Ben, the one who had always been so steady, so gentle, and so kind, yet had somehow been driven to saddle not only himself but his brothers with a commitment to murder. Perhaps he still did not know whether he had killed the old man or not. But if he had, he had done it in the clumsiest way it could be done, and she could believe he might be haunted all his life by that.

  She hoped for a while that Kelsey was indeed dead, so that the whole nightmare was over with. Then she thought how awful it was if the corpse was stiffening somewhere out there under the brush tonight; and she was horrified at herself, and fill
ed with a sense of guilt.

  Why does he haunt us so? He has a reason. He had it before, and all along. Or Ben would not have called his death. What evil thing was it we did—or Papa did—long ago, that makes this happen now?

  She believed she would be able to make Ben tell her, now.

  It did not work out that way. Before she ever spoke to Ben again, another thing happened. This time it happened to Rachel herself, and to nobody other, except as everyone in the family was affected by a disaster to one. And the world as Rachel knew it turned from beneath her, past all possible recovery.

  Chapter Fifteen

  During the night the rain stopped; the skies were clear, the day after Kelsey was dragged. Rachel plotted to get a horse saddled and out of there. She meant to find Ben at once. She knew about where his crew was at work.

  Only a year or so back, it had been hard to get Matthilda to go and lie down, or to take any daytime rest at all. But her afternoon had hardly begun when the bedroom door closed upon her. Rachel was out of the house in the same minute. She walked past the corrals, and along the Dancing Bird, pretending to size up the driftwood brought them by the spring rise, in case Matthilda happened to be watching her out of sight.

  In another minute, as soon as she had given her mother a chance to doze, she would have turned back to rope a pony.

  She never got it done, for Ben appeared unexpectedly, and Georgia was with him, stirrup to stirrup. They came surging up out of an arroyo some distance downstream and Georgia was laughing, having a great time. Then Rachel saw her do an odd thing. Georgia’s laughter stopped abruptly; she checked, and whirled her horse in what looked very much like an attempt to get out of sight. Too late, of course. Georgia recovered herself at once, and stopped where she was. Her horse shied, she explained afterward. It was not important. What mattered was the way Rachel took it. For her resentment of this girl suddenly popped sparks like a sap log.