Holloway had ridden into and back out of every notch west of the Missouri. No question the guide was getting grey headed, and the weather creases in his face and neck were deep and many. If he were ever going to settle down, he'd have to get to it.
Holloway was still stringy strong though, and his movements were not yet shortened by stiffening joints and muscles. If you got to thinking on it, Grant Holloway was the kind that would look about the same till the day he passed on.
Tucker rode up close. "Well, if you're really set on living in one spot, Mister Holloway, I figure you might locate in a mountain park that was protected from the north. You could raise a stout cabin and still have hunting close in."
Tucker warmed to his subject. "Why you could run some cattle and make hay in your meadow. Gardens should be close where your rifle could protect 'em from deer and varmints. You'd want a good spring with runoff for your animals, and you'd have to put up a pole bam for horses and cows."
Tucker became aware of Holloway watching him, head cocked and mouth pursed. "Great ghosts, Tucker, you've laid out a mighty work for one man."
Holloway rode silently for a minute. "Of course, there are parks like you've described. Some with deep soil for raising and thick timber to break winter wind.
"Once we're done with this hunt, which'll likely be more than a year from now, I'll give closer attention to your idea."
Tucker figured the guide was done, but after another moment, Holloway said more.
"All this talk about me taking on family ignores two important points.
"First one is that I could use a neighbor up in that park we're talking about. Another year or so will be enough ramming around for you. It'll be time you hunted up that poke-bonneted gal you about fell out of your saddle staring after when we rode out of Salt Lake.
"Second point is that I figure we make a good team. We might build us a worthwhile place working together. Fact is, I'd like having you for a neighbor, Tuck, so you keep all of this in mind, just like I'll be doing."
Tucker knew his jaw sagged. How in the very deuce had Holloway known about that blue-eyed girl in the bright wagon? Man must have eyes in the back of his head. Tucker let his horse pick its way while he thought about the guide's words.
Of course, some of the ideas had been his own. He visualized tight cabins below a granite cliff that blocked bitter winter winds. In summer, their meadows would be fresh with grasses and small flowers. They would raise a hog together and run their cows in one herd. There would be a lot of visiting back and forth. He wondered if other families might be tempted? There would be safety and comfort in having other Saints close by. Might his mother and father uproot and move into their park? A community needed a good blacksmith like Mark Morgan.
Tucker jerked himself from his dreaming and saw Holloway a good fifty yards ahead. He nudged his mount into a quicker walk and caught up.
That darned Holloway could do that to him, getting him to set courses and make plans without even knowing it.
He still wondered how the guide had known how taken he was by that poke bonnet. Grant Holloway could be mystifying sometimes.
Chapter 14
Holloway sat his gelding near the crest of a low ridge. Close to the north, the Niobrara River snaked its shallow route. Behind him, Payne-Weston's train, with the artist's wagon trailing too far behind as usual, wound through a swampy area. Tucker Morgan preceded the lead wagon, making certain it stayed on Holloway's marked route.
Little was more aggravating than bogged wagons. Using the guide's old system, they usually came through well. Behind his saddle, Holloway carried a quiver of arrow sticks. Each had a bit of red cloth tied to an end. When he wanted the train to follow a course, the guide rode ahead and jabbed an upright marker into the prairie sod wherever needed. Staying just ahead of the wagons, Tucker kept them on course and running in line. He picked up the trail markers and gave them back when he could.
At the moment, Holloway wished the train would get a move on. Since they had left Omaha buffalo had been talked about. The train had taken some, but the great herds that fostered the mighty stories had not appeared.
Well, now that had changed. Beyond the ridge were enough buffalo to satisfy every curiosity ever raised. The buffs were undisturbed and there was no need for hurry, but even an old mountain rat's calloused-over nerve ends got to tingling when real buffalo came along. No other animal on the continent herded up in such astonishing numbers. There was something about a prairie crawling like an ant hill of huge animals that roused excitement.
Tucker got up the hill first, and Holloway dipped his hat in the direction to look. Tuck edged his horse a few steps higher so he could see across, then rose in his stirrups for a better view.
"Whewee, that's a real herd, Mister Holloway. Most buffalo I've ever seen." Tucker's whisper was hoarse, and his eyes shown as they always did when he was excited.
Holloway hid his pleasure in Tuck's enthusiasm by nodding toward the wagons. "We'd best swing 'em onto that small flat and let the whole crew come up." Holloway pushed a shoulder at Paul Laban's loitering wagon. "Look at that artist. Never keeps up. It'd serve him right if a party of Sioux whooped out and filled him full of lances and war arrows. Better yet, once everybody else has their look, I could stampede these buffler, and all he'd see'd be settling dust."
Tucker smiled because Holloway was unfailingly irritated by Laban's absentminded meanderings. If he wasn't kept after, the artist fell behind or wandered astray. Tucker volunteered. "I'll ride back and move him along."
Below the watchers, buffalo were scattered to the western horizon. Their movement was generally north, and some had already crossed the Niobrara. To see more, Payne-Weston's crew had edged higher and now stood in full view of the herd. Undisturbed, the animals grazed on.
A wind shift brought the buffalo smell to Tucker and the artist, who hurried himself along by hanging to Tucker's stirrup strap.
"So that is the buffalo stink that Holloway condemns." Laban sniffed deeply. "Smells like cattle to me."
"Reckon it does, Mister Laban, but they sure don't look like cattle."
They crested the ridge, and Paul Laban's exclamation carried across the group. "Now that is absolutely magnificent!" Tucker handed him his telescope. "Take a closer look, Mister Laban." But the artist needed the panorama first and simply stood, absorbed by the majesty of it.
Because mating was still underway, the herd had broken into small groups of cows. Each was dominated by a bull who attempted to hold his harem together while challenging the younger or weaker males with guttural rumbles and roars. Short but raging charges were accompanied by shrill whistles that sounded to Paul Laban like the steam whistles on English factories.
Without apparent reason, bulls hooked fiercely at grass hummocks or charged unsuspecting cows to deliver resounding rib or rump butts. The air was filled with the dust of the bulls' rampaging, but the cows, for the most part, grazed unperturbed by the males' ferocious posturing.
Near the herd's flank, a pack of seven wolves lolled in comfortable expectancy, and within the herd itself, Laban saw groups of antelope and even a few elk. Finally the artist raised the telescope and brought the animals in close. Horns, wicked as scimitars, swung in continual menace, and hooves pawed warning of impending charge.
Tucker said, "This time of year there's lots of new calves. About every cow has one, it seems like. Look close, Mister Laban, and you'll see last year's calves. They're nearly as big as the cows so they don't stand out."
Beyond each herd bull's range, younger males loitered, and in a few combats, great bulls battered at each other, although no females waited the outcomes.
"Some of those bulls will fight for days, Mister Laban. They aren't fooling. A big bull's horns can be two feet long, and you can see blood on some of them from here."
It was a scene of primitive savagery, the way the world had been before man's taming began. Paul Laban's fingers itched to record it all, but he knew that his single
dimensioned canvas could never capture the awesome depth of almost countless buffalo working north in summer grazing.
James Payne-Weston was also impressed. "It's as overwhelming as I heard it would be, Grant. How can we ever show this in museums?"
"No way to do it, Weston." The guide spat aside and standing close-by, Tommy Bell did the same. "Lots of things a man has to see to appreciate. A long way west and south of here the Colorado River runs in a canyon that must be a mile deep. Up along the Yellowstone, hot water and steam shoot high into the sky. Indians call it the land of many smokes.
"I think you've seen the Pacific trees that take maybe fifty strides to walk around. Up on the Snake River there's another canyon so deep you can't locate the bottom. A man hasn't seen mountains till he lays eyes on the Tetons that jump straight out of the high prairie." It was a lengthy speech, and Holloway had to pause.
Tucker picked up where the guide had left off. "Wait'll you see the elk parked for winter with bulls wearing antlers a man could lie between, Mister Weston. Then there's our great salt lake. Water is so salt a man can't sink in it. Why west of here . . ." Tucker got himself under control. "The way I see it, the west is just about a perfect place for living."
Tucker fell silent. Then Tommy Bell said loudly, "Just about perfect!" They all looked sharply at the boy, but he was watching the buffalo, unaware that he had drawn attention.
James Payne-Weston laid an affectionate arm across his nephew's shoulders. There was meat on the boy now, and he rarely wheezed at night. The hunter could understand the youth's love of the place. Here, health gave strength. Friends set powerful examples that he could follow. Adventure seemed over every ridgeline, and a thousand and one lessons in living were accepted without recognition.
Payne-Weston gave thought to the boy's enthusiastic endorsement. Tucker Morgan's ways were guiding Tommy Bell, but the uncle was comfortable with it.
Chapter 15
Paul Laban had trouble with buffalo. He drew and redrew. He placed a freshly taken buffalo head on his wagon's tailgate and sketched it from various angles. His results did not please him.
"Look at that, Tucker." The artist stepped back from his painting. "It is nothing but blobbed colors. A buffalo's head has no shape. Even its profile is an uneven bunch of lumps."
"Looks like a buffalo to me." Tucker leafed through the disarray of Laban's charcoal sketches. "Most of these seem right to me."
"I like it, Mister Laban." Tommy Bell was certain.
The artist stared down almost balefully at the boy. He recognized that if Tucker Morgan had announced Laban's buffalo as looking like speckled trout, Tommy would have seen the resemblance. Laban wondered if he would ever find a student or acquaintance so admiring that his every posture would be copied and each word memorized. He doubted it. Youth idolized the heroic. Tuck Morgan stood on his saddle and shot running rabbits with his rifle. No one's paint daubing could challenge those marvels.
The artist swallowed his disgruntlement and responded civilly. "If you look closer you will detect unsureness of line, and the eyes are as dead as lead bullets. Where is the fire of the great bull's rage? Where is the panic in the fleeing cow? I have put more expression into fence posts."
Laban's disgust with his buffalo art was clear enough, but Tucker didn't agree. "Way I see it, Mister Laban, you're trying to put in something that you think ought to be present, when really, the expression isn't there at all.
"I've seen a lot of buffalo, and their eyes are always sort of muddy and don't change, other than widening a little or scrinching down almost closed."
Laban frowned, but before he could comment, Tucker went on.
"Seems to me a buffalo's face doesn't move enough to show anger or even that he's startled. When a bull charges, huge muscles jump out all over him and that shrieking whistle he lets out announces what he's up to, but I don't see any eyes a'flaming."
Tommy Bell said, "Your eyes look right to me, Mister Laban."
The artist glared at the boy, but his mind was on Tucker's words. Could he be trying for something that he wished to see, rather than what was real?
Paul Laban did not savor the possibility. He had often been described as a quick study. "Show Laban a thing once, and he'll sketch in every detail a month later." The artist took pride in that reputation. Payne-Weston had selected him as his artist because of that very ability.
Realism was his specialty. Yet here, Laban suspected, Tucker Morgan had caught him unknowingly doctoring his buffalo to be something they were not. Galling. Utterly galling, but an accusation to be faced.
Paul Laban did not deceive himself about his ability.
He could reproduce a scene with startling clarity. Most paintings had a "distance." Viewed that many feet away, each looked its best. Closer up, those paintings became only brush strokes and color. The closer a Paul Laban was examined, the more detail was discovered. Laban's leaves had veins, and Laban fur was composed of visible hairs. The shaggy, almost shapeless buffalo heads challenged the artist's insistence on detail.
Somehow, Laban's careful detailing labeled him an illustrator. His works did not adorn drawing rooms. "Why would one display what one could see anyway?" The moneyed collectors of fine art preferred larger or cozier than life imaginings. Flies should not buzz about their horses nor should manure be heaped in their painting's background. A Laban might include both.
Laban paintings and sketches were found in hunting lodges and men's meeting places. In a Paul Laban you could tell if a fowling piece was a Greener or a Rigby. James Payne-Weston admired the artist's accuracy and chose him to illustrate the collection Payne-Weston would assemble.
In his hunger to get it right, the artist brought forth the wrath of Grant Holloway.
Their wagons had been in place for two days at Lance Creek headwaters. Tucker and Holloway rode south to examine the easiest route to Rawhide Creek. They would follow that stream until Pine Ridge loomed close. A dozen or so miles beyond that rise lay Fort Laramie and their return to civilization.
It was time they got in. The hide wagons strained beneath their loads, and emptied supply wagons bulged with horned skulls and more hides. It was early September, and the antler-shedding moose, elk, and deer were returning to full glory. Payne-Weston would dispatch his loaded wagons to the east. With a replacement wagon and a partial resupply, the remaining train would head into the Laramie Mountains for elk and mule deer. Before the first serious freeze, they would be back in Fort Laramie, and James Payne-Weston, Paul Laban, Tommy Bell, and a few helpers would depart for the east. Traveling lightly, they would speed along and be across the Mississippi before freeze up.
By winter's heavy onslaught, Payne-Weston would be in New York. During the cold months the hides would be worked into mounts, and James Payne-Weston would lecture to small, select gatherings about his trophy hunts in the west. Paul Laban's art would illustrate.
Riding easy, Tucker and Holloway came into sight of the wagon camp. They had been watched for. Tommy Bell galloped to them on the horse his uncle had finally allowed. The boy appeared anxious.
"Tucker! Mister Holloway! My uncle's off hunting with Mister Jones and one of the skinners. Well, Mister Laban found some buffalo over east. He's out there right in the middle of them, Mister Holloway. He doesn't pay any attention, but it scares me more than a little."
Holloway heeled his gelding. "Show us where, boy." They followed Tommy Bell at a lope.
The trio topped a ridge, and Holloway pulled up exclaiming, "Thunderation!"
It was a respectable buffalo herd, already drifting toward southern winter graze. Well within the herd, Paul Laban stood in his wagon bed. The bowed top had been hastily thrown aside, and the artist labored at his easel. Even as they watched, Laban whipped a telescope to his eye and focused on a large bull, already within spitting distance. It was a quick look before he returned to his palette, and unmindful of the giants shuffling past his ground hitched horses, he worked on his canvas.
Holloway
spoke grimly. "That man hasn't the sense of a flea.
"Now we've got to ease him out of there real careful. Too fast and the herd might scare. We'll spread out a bit and walk our horses in a line. Keep even with me. I stop, you pull up. The point is to give the closer buffler time to fade away without packing them against the others. We'll edge on till we turn 'em past Laban's wagon.
"Be slow, boys. Don't make sudden moves. It's miraculous one of those bulls hasn't already jabbed a horn into Laban's team. That happens, and we'll have trouble identifying what little we do find. Let 'em smell us before we're too close. Move now."
They inched down the hill. Holloway began humming his favorite Saints’ marching song so Tucker joined in. Tommy Bell didn't know it too well but he followed along.
Buffalo lifted their heads and sidled away. Holloway pulled up, and his helpers did the same. After a minute the guide moved them out again. A yearling snorted and plunged into the herd. Holloway again halted and waited until uncertain milling subsided.
Gently they pressed against the side of the herd, allowing it to drift. They slowly drew closer to Laban's wagon. The artist labored on, either unaware or ignoring their approach, twisting his head from his moving subjects to his canvas. A buffalo rubbed against his wagon, and the artist whipped at it with his hat. His horses whinnied and stamped their feet anxiously. Laban called soothingly to them, and Tucker heard Holloway groan.
Gradually they moved the buffalo away.
As his subjects distanced, Laban remained at his canvas, and when Holloway rode close, the artist said brightly, "Why hello, Grant."
Features blacker than a well bottom, the guide didn't even look at him. He spoke softly to Tucker. "Move that team away, Tuck." Then he kept edging the buffalo where he wanted them.
Tucker bent low and lifted Laban's iron horse anchor. He rested it in front of his saddle and clucked his mount forward. Laban's team surged ahead and there was a crashing from the wagon bed as the artist and his equipment upended. Over his shoulder, Tucker saw only one of Laban's feet above the wagon sides.
Tuck Morgan, Plainsman (The Gun of Joseph Smith) Page 8
