by Win Blevins
Flare squatted by the water. Truly, he thought, a little down.
Time for the young lads to act like men. Time indeed.
Skye and Fox holding most of the crossed herd up-canyon on the far side. Bulow and Dick James holding some on this side. Flare and Craw and Garrett and Innie to do the leading across—that was the scheme of things.
It was hard. For Flare, it was living.
A fellow came to difficulty. All sorts of difficulty, naturally, from learning accounts to outwitting a competitor to walking twenty miles in a day. The sorts of difficulty that held Flare’s mind in sway were the mortal ones. You stood up to a man who was twice your size and of murderous mind. Maybe he backed down, maybe you survived the fight, maybe the awful urge in you actually made him go down, didn’t matter. Or you walked into an Indian village with nothing but your wits for weapons and your life in the balance. Or you rode right among the buffalo, the great beasts rampaging, a stumble meaning certain death, and tried to keep your mind clear enough to get a clean shot. Or, Flare supposed, if you were a bloody British lord, you took your jumper fast over big logs trying to catch the fox.
One way or another, you risked your precious hide. Your precious life.
And suddenly in the middle of it all, you felt a way you’d never felt before—blood roaring through your veins, eyes seeing colors twice as bright, sounds keener. Air grand in your nostrils, and your lungs. Skin prickling. Balls clanging.
Alive, alive-ho!
Flare had taken his fair share of big risks, and then some. He’d chosen a life of them.
He’d seen a lot of other men take their first, and discover the feeling. He liked seeing that, truly liked it. Now, funny, he had some years on him, and maybe the big ones had lost a little of their zest. But he liked showing young men the way, seeing them brave forth, and start living because they dared.
Like Garrett and Innie today.
After breakfast the four of them drove twenty horses down. Flare cursed himself for yesterday. He’d let the entire herd come to the bottom of the canyon, which had been dumb. If something spooked them, the whole herd would have been in the river, and no telling how many you might lose. Innie had told a vaquero’s story about cattle stampeding into the Sacramento and starting to circle, right there in the river, headlong flight round and round in flank-deep water. Stumbled, fell, got knocked down, trampled. Most of them drowned.
So they’d bring the horses down a few at a time today. Lasso ’em—that was the word Innie used. Innie and a couple of other coons were good at it, and Craw was coming right along. Catch those hosses by the neck. Improvise halters and get ’em tied together. Without the California hands, Flare and Skye would never have been able to get this job done.
Now time to let the new lads earn their keep, and find out how to love your life.
Craw took the first bunch, to show the way. A fine swim, no trouble. On the far side he waved his hat as though to say it was Simon-simple, and pretend it wasn’t particular cold.
Flare just gave Garrett a nod and a small smile.
Garrett could feel the eyes on him. Except for his dad and O’Flaherty, he’d stay right here. Seemed dumb, really dumb. His stomach felt like a jumble of river ice.
He looked back.
In he went, watching the rope. It came taut and the horses began to move, Flare rousting them sharp from behind. All in good order, himself upstream, them nicely spread out below and moving.
Jumping Jehosaphat, it was cold.
Well, he was crazy, but he wasn’t a coward.
He whipped his horse hard and they were swimming and the whole bunch was swimming. Jesus, it was cold.
Flare watched Innie get lined up. The lad was either too damn eager or too damn scared, Flare couldn’t tell which. But it was like losing your virginity. You were as you were, as there was naught for it but to go ahead.
“Move on in!” Flare shouted at him.
The lad did, with a close eye on the line and the horses. Good lad, on out. In good control.
Flare sat his horse at the ready just upstream, and Craw and Garrett watched closely from the far bank. Though Flare couldn’t think what good any of them could do if aught went wrong.
A rumble.
Flare looked around. What the hell was it?
The horse herd, galloping downcanyon.
“Go!” he yelled at Innie.
Flare whipped the line of horses hard as he could.
Too goddamn late.
The lead horses were on him.
Whump! A horse shouldered Doctor fiercely on the rump.
Doctor almost went over.
Flare lost his seat in the saddle. He fought for one foot in the stirrup. He grabbed the saddle horn savagely.
One foot was on the ground, and he could see nothing but flying feet and bobbing heads and rumps.
Whump!
Doctor took the bit in its mouth and scrambled out of the way.
Flare dragged along behind.
He swung up in the saddle and saw instantly.
Innie was trying to lead the string fast, but he had no chance. The lead horses in the herd crashed into the rear horses of the string, jumped on them, knocked them over.
Innie couldn’t ride across because his rear horses were pulling back on the rope.
“Let go the line!” Flare screamed at Innie.
He had no chance of being heard over the din.
He kicked Doctor into the water. Maybe he could get to the line and cut it. “Let go the line!” he screamed again.
Held fast to the end of the rope, Innie was being swept straight downstream.
Doctor wouldn’t go into the melee, threw its head, stayed upstream of the herd, began to swim hard.
Flare saw Innie throw the rope away with a big arm fling.
The entire herd was between him and Innie. He let Doctor have its head to swim across.
He stood in the stirrups and watched Innie.
The lad was buffeted by the wild horses, but he kept his seat. Good lad!
They were still in water only flank deep, and the horses were leaping on each other’s backs. One crashed into Lnnie’s mount from the side. Horse and rider went sideways and under.
A moment later both came up, Innie in the water but clinging to the saddle horn.
A horse screamed and jumped on top of Innie, front feet flying.
Then Flare could see nothing but heads and rumps leaping into the air.
In his mind’s eye he saw the rocky bottom, hundreds of hoofs, skull and bones between.
The sky was filled with the screams of horses.
Flare and Doctor clambered up the far bank and wheeled to gallop downstream. He had to do something for Innie, dead or alive, and something for the horses, dead or alive.
Craw was ahead of him. And swinging that damned reata.
What the hell for?
Craw’s throw shot out fifty feet and fell useless into the tossing waves.
Then Flare saw. Garrett was swimming horseback on the edge of the herd. The damn fool was trying to get to Innie.
Craw jerked the reata back, swung, and flipped again.
Perfect neck throw.
“Craw!” Flare shouted. “No!”
Craw had already seen and let the rope go slack.
Garrett grabbed the loop and fought it off his neck.
When he got it more than head high on his hand, Craw coolly jerked him out of the saddle.
Garrett swam for the saddle horn, but his mount went plunging ahead. The lad looked back toward Craw, bobbing in the waves, and shook his fist high in the air.
Craw just flipped the loop back to Garrett. It rode up and down in the waves. Garrett grabbed it with both hands. Craw dallied, and the lad came like a pendulum to shallow water.
While Garrett came up the bank yelling at his father, Flare kicked Doctor downstream. Let ’em bellow, he thought. The lad wanted a gesture noble but futile, and perhaps fatal. The father wanted his son alive, breat
hing, walking the earth.
Downstream, Flare might see something of Innie.
Then he saw Dick James riding along the far bank and waving. Flare stopped and watched. Dick took off his hat and gave the sign for enemies nearby.
So. Damn. The herd didn’t just stampede, it was spooked.
Flare sat his horse and looked across at Dick. He gave a big nod and motioned downstream.
First there was Innie to find. Garrett’s saddled horse to find. And the herd to round up.
And while you’re doing it, he drought, your hair to hang on to.
Chapter Twenty-five
A light tap at the door. Annie Lee Full saw it was Miss Jewel. Her husband nodded at her. It was inconvenient that he had no study where he could consult privately with those who needed him. Another hope for the coming of civilization. Annie Lee held the door open for Miss Jewel, then slipped out into the darkness of the early winter evening.
She walked toward the Wineson cabin. By custom she now walked a little with Jane after supper every night. Poor dear, married to a man anyone could see was mad. Now widowed and left to raise three children alone. Annie Lee gave her no advice on these evening walks, merely human companionship, the solace of fellowship in the midst of pain.
She’d offered solace to Miss Jewel yesterday and been rebuffed. It did not disturb Annie Lee to be rebuffed. Pride was momentary. Life buffeted people, and everyone needed solace sooner or later, and she was glad to give it. Annie Lee had a good heart. She did wonder, sometimes, why she generally felt more pleased to see people hurt and grieving than happy and optimistic. What she never liked to see, though, was people prideful. Like Miss Jewel.
Annie Lee tapped on the Wineson cabin door and turned back down the path toward the mill. Jane would come along quickly.
Dr. Full was going to tell her once more, she knew, that it was all going to be all right. Miss Jewel supposed it was his attempt to make her feel better, which was crazy even for him. Her mind was bedlam, and feeling better was a sea change away. She could barely hear and couldn’t think.
“Miss Jewel,” Dr. Full concluded, “only God is omniscient. I do not know all here. I can only go on what I see before my eyes. What I see, when all is said and done, is a man and a woman. Each makes certain claims. One humbles himself before God, the other stands prideful. One admits sin, the other insists on innocence.”
The look he was giving her was intended to portray a loving but aggrieved friend, she was sure of that.
What on God’s green earth did he think she could do now?
She clicked it over in her mind again. Billy confessed sin, falsely. In so doing he accused her of sin, falsely. Everyone believed the lying man, no one believed the innocent woman. Her only way out was to confess.
She would go insane.
She stood up. Her legs felt mechanical, her body numb. She wondered if she would fall. Somehow she kept standing. She opened her mouth to speak.
Screams came out. Horrible, soul-scoring screams like Miss Jewel heard in her dreams.
Her mouth was open and the room was full of screams.
No, the screams were in her head.
Then Dr. Full bolted for the door.
Screams outside by the river.
Miss Jewel ran, stumbled, then ran hard right behind him.
Annie Lee and Jane sat down on the riverbank, just above the mill. They both liked the mill. Annie Lee couldn’t tell why Jane liked it. She was so peculiar these days you couldn’t tell much about her at all. Anyone would be peculiar if her husband was so crazy he crucified himself. All you could do was be with her a little. She would accept that much.
Annie Lee rubbed the sleeves of her wool sweater fondly. She usually wore this heavy white sweater on these walks because it looked nice in the moonlight.
Annie Lee liked the mill because of the sounds it made. All the little creaks and groans suggested labor to her, effort, painful toil, the stuff of human life. But the sound of the water flowing through the mill, pushing the blades, dripping back into the river, that meant work done, accomplishment. The river shooshed down the millrace and up against the banks and over and over itself and onto the great mill wheel and turned the mighty paddle to do the work. To saw the boards that made the houses that made Oregon fit to live in.
Dr. Full had used the mill one Sunday in a sermon, and the sound reminded her of what he said, which was very different. The mill showed the inexorability of life, he said, the way things flowed on and flowed on and never stopped or changed but just kept coming. Annie Lee felt that about life. To her it was inexorably sad. The grief, the grief rose here and fell there, but like the mill wheel it churned ever on.
In the dark above their heads the great wheel turned. They saw only a shadow against the sky, but they heard its ceaseless, sibilant shoosh.
Annie Lee listened to Jane jabber. She didn’t say much in these evening talks, really, a bit about the kids, sometimes something about her mother, often something about her childhood. Lots of times what she did say didn’t make much sense. When she talked about being a kid, sometimes she swung her legs over the bank and waggled her feet in the dark above the water and giggled. Those were her best times.
Tonight the river was up. Annie Lee could see the moon dimpled on the water of the millrace just below their toes, and she could hear the extra power of its push against the paddle blades. That was good. A mill put the good Lord’s nature to work for man. When it rained, as it had rained on and on for the last week, nature worked its muscles even harder.
She would have to tell Samuel that, and he could put it into a sermon. Though he didn’t use many of her ideas. It wasn’t her sphere. She knew her sphere, and was pleased with it.
“Look here,” Annie Lee said, “you didn’t see in the dark.” She stood up and flattened her skirt against her spraddled legs. Jane crooked her neck queerly to look, like she was looking around a post that wasn’t there. “It’s a new skirt I made out of that calico that came.”
It was full and had oversize pockets. Annie supposed Jane couldn’t see the dark skirt as well as the white sweater, but she made sounds of approval.
“I made one for you, too,” she said, “the blue instead of red.”
She pulled the folded skirt out of one of the big pockets. Jane took it in a subdued way. Annie Lee had been afraid Jane would act funny and say no. All she wanted was to make the poor woman smile.
Annie Lee twirled and made the skirt balloon, full of the night air.
At that moment a little more of the underside of the bank gently let go and eased into the water. The bank had been doing that since the millrace was dug, and had been doing it rapidly during the past week of rain. This time it was only a small amount, a handful or two or dirt. A moment later Annie Lee put a dancing foot near the edge, and that was enough.
The bank caved in.
The earth cracked and toppled. Annie Lee Full, still twirling, pitched outward. She turned in the air and fell back. Because the water was deep now, her head did not hit the rock hard enough to knock her out.
But it made her woozy. She didn’t think about Jane.
She didn’t think about getting her feet on the bottom and getting out. The wooziness even protected her against the freezing temperature of the water a little. It was cold, but after a moment it didn’t matter so much. She tried to move her arms, but they were too heavy in the soaked wool sweater. There was something acceptable, inexorable about it all.
The current sucked her down the millrace steadily at first, and as she approached the great wheel, she felt its hand take hold powerfully, like the will of God.
When the earth gave way, Jane Wineson started to scream. The water froze the scream in her throat.
She found the bottom, scrambled to her feet, lost the bottom, and went onto her hands and knees under the goddamn freezing water. She clawed for the surface.
She was in a fury. She got to her feet. She was angry at God. She hated the world. She lashed out at
it with both hands. She stepped into a hole and lost her footing and went down again. As the current took her, her clawing hands hit roots. She grabbed on savagely.
Exposed roots of a big tree, she saw. She grabbed and pulled herself into the root ball. Farther into shallow water, only knee deep now.
She looked up. She was under the body of the tree, tangled in the roots, caught. She couldn’t go upward, she couldn’t go sideways, and she wouldn’t go back into the deeper water.
She looked around, petrified.
She calmed a little. I’m all right, she thought, the tree has me.
That was when she saw the white blob moving steadily away downstream. And in her mind identified the blob as the sweater, and Annie Lee.
Floating into the mill wheel.
Jane screamed for help. She climbed hard into the roots, but only came against the bottom of the tree. She looked at the dark, icy water, the only way out. She would never be able to go into the water.
She screamed. She found all the agony of her life in her guts and screamed it out.
Miss Jewel sat by the body of Annie Lee Full. It was half in the water. So was Miss Jewel. She was also muddy and cold and terribly, terribly tired.
The life went out of her a little when she jumped into the millpond, she had felt it. Dr. Full had gotten to Jane first, but somehow Miss Jewel knew what had happened and ran downstream of the mill wheel.
She spotted Annie Lee’s white sweater in the still pond below the wheel, floating gently, circling, at peace.
Miss Jewel plunged in, grabbed Annie Lee under the arms, and started to pull her to shore. She looked at Annie Lee’s face, and it was peaceful. Something about the face made Miss Jewel reach out and touch Annie Lee at the hairline.
The skull gave like the white of a hard-boiled egg.
Miss Jewel put her arms around Annie Lee and held her and put her head to her breast.
All at once the cold from the clothing, the cold of the water, and the cold of death sucked the life out of Miss Jewel.
It was all she could do to stagger toward shore, dragging the husk of Annie Lee Full.
Then she sat. Just sat by the body. A couple of men ran up and asked what was happening. She told them. Astonished, they touched the body, felt for signs of life. Then they ran off to take care of Jane.