This was a country where a man was supposed to saddle his own broncs and fight his own battles. Yet h e had offered to help.
"Have something," I said. "I was fixing to eat."
He didn't say anything, but he did order when Teres a came in. He was in what some folks call a brown study , I mean he was figuring something out and he didn't like it. If it was true that he figured on killing me, an d I surely believed it, he had missed a good chance o f having it done for him. He had offered to step in whe n all he needed to do was stand aside and let it happen , whatever it was. I was going to barrel right into them , but I'd no idea I could whip them both, the shape I w as in. My ribs still hurt me once in a while, and m y nose was swole. That old Indian woman had set it bes t she could, and strapped up my ribs.
"They were afraid of you, McRaven," Yant said.
"Why were they afraid? Who are you? What are you?"
"I'm an orphan," I said, "who herds cows whe n he can find the work. That's all I am."
"And all you want to be?" he asked sharply.
"Now, I never said that. Ever'body has some notio n of being more than he is, I expect."
He stared at me out of those level, cold eyes. "Di d you ever go to school?"
"Not so's it would count. Time or two I went for a spell. Never liked it much, though. I liked pa teachin g me."
"He taught you?"
"Surely did. From the time I can first recall. He'd read aloud and then we'd talk about it. I guess com e graduation time in a proper school it wouldn't coun t for much, but he surely taught me a lot. He taught m e to shoot, to throw a knife, and how to hunt and to liv e off the country. Then he taken me to the cotton markets in New Orleans and Mobile and showed me ho w business was done there, and how it was done i n stores, and where the money went that they took in.
"We talked to cattle and wool buyers, to horse traders and steamboat men. We worked in mines, and h e showed me how they operated. He used to read to m e from the classics, and after he read we'd talk abou t them, and about people he met. He was a quiet man , but uncommon shrewd."
"You knew those men?" he asked. "I mean the one s you had trouble with?"
"We went round and about awhile back. Maybe the y didn't like what they got."
You didn't like it, either, I told myself. You take n a beating up yonder. But even as I thought that, I remembered they'd been up on the plateau quite awhile.
There was no more grub than for a day .. . two a t most. Yet it had been more than two weeks and the y looked to be in good shape. Maybe that was why the y were scared. Maybe what I'd said about Blazer hi t them right where it hurt. I'd spent about ten days wit h those Indians, and I'd been a few days getting to wher e they were . . . that was all hazy now. Had it been tw o or three days? I couldn't recall.
"Your English is very bad," he said to me then.
I just looked at him. "That just ain't none of you r business," I told him. "Besides, I can talk better i f need be. Sometimes folks think you're puttin' on air s if you talk so hifalutin."
"They'll not think that of you."
"Didn't aim for them to." I pushed back my chai r and got up. I was tired of this talk, and I had som e thinking to do.
"Can you use that gun?", "I can."
"We'll have to take a ride out of town, and you ca n show me."
Well, I just looked at him. "Like hell we will, mister.
My pa taught me never to draw a gun unless I meant t o use it. Showin' off with guns is for tinhorns. If you eve r see me with a gun in my hand, mister, it'll be becaus e I got good reason. A handgun isn't a toy to pleasur e yourself with. I carry it because I live in a rough country. I herd stock where there's wolves and cougars, an d some of the stock is mighty mean itself. I need a gun , mister."
With that I walked out and left him sittin' there, an d I went for my horse, mounted, and rode out of town.
He was standin' on the walk in front of the restaurant when I rode out, and a moment later, watchin g from behind some trees on the slope of a hill, I see n him cantering out the way I'd gone. When he was gon e by, I rode down to the stable and put up my horse. The n I went up to my room and stretched out on my bed.
Hour or so later I heard him ride back, and I grinne d at the ceiling. He'd had him a ride and he'd misse d finishing his dinner. If he was going to keep track of me , he had his work cut out for him.
Chapter VII Curiously, I began to look forward to those meeting s with Felix Yant. He irritated me, and I was wary o f him. I was sure he meant to kill me, but there was a quiet elegance about him that I envied, and his obviou s assurance, which I lacked . . . except maybe when I w as out in the wild country.
Oddly enough, I think in his own way he liked me.
Not that it would have stopped him from killing me i f the chance offered, but there was something in each o f us to which the other responded. He was like pa, whic h may have been part of it, but in some ways I was free r with him than I ever had been with pa.
Yet I doubt if he had an ounce of human sympath y for anyone or anything. Whatever he was, he wa s complete in himself. He asked for nothing but to remain as he was, and if there was money involved, I b elieve he wanted it to give him isolation. Solitud e is a hard thing to buy if one expects bodily comfort , too, and he was a man who liked to take his ease.
He reminded me of a rattlesnake on a warm rock, jus t content to be there.
To have the solitude he wanted demanded money , and he was not the kind of man to turn outlaw. No matter what anybody says, an outlaw's life is a hard. o ne. He spends most of his time dodging the law, hiding out in the hills or in shacks away from town. I f he's half-smart, he won't flash money around to mak e 53 p eople curious as to how he got it, and in most way s it is a rougher life than making an honest living.
Felix Yant would have none of that. He had a distaste for the crude, the uncomfortable, and the ignorant.
He had nothing but contempt for most people, and i t showed.
"What are you going to do with yourself?" he demanded suddenly of me. "Do you expect to spend th e rest of your life just looking between a horse's ears?
Haven't you discovered that the world belongs to thos e who can use it?"
"What's wrong with me? I'm gettin' along all right."
"Are you?" He eyed me coolly. "You're just like a million others, just walking blindly through life. Wh y don't you get out of the rut you're in and get an education?"
"You mean go back to school?"
"Of course not. All any school can give you is th e barest outline of an education. You have to fill it i n yourself. Read . . . listen . . . taste. An ignorant ma n has such limits on his possibilities of enjoyment. He i s denying himself all the richness in life. Just as with food , your taste in all things needs experience of flavor. Education is in part just learning to discriminate betwee n ideas, tastes, flavors, sounds, colors, or whatever yo u wish to mention. The wider your range of taste experience, the greater your possibilities of pleasure, o f enjoyment.
"If evil and hardship come upon you at least yo u will be aware of what is happening, and you will hav e some understanding of why. It is better than fallin g under the axe like some dumb brute in a slaughter--h ouse who has no awareness of what is happening t o him. A wise man can even experience the approach o f death with some awareness. It may be the final experience, but it is experience."
There was nothing much I could say to that. Yet i t fired me to be taken with such contempt. Pa had read a lot to me, and I'd read a good bit myself, when w e could find the books. And there was more to be learne d than just from books. There was music in the mountains, and lessons wherever grass grew, and a bod y who kept his eyes open could learn anywhere.
"Why did you come west?" I asked him straight out.
"You could live the way you want to back whereve r you came from."
"That I could," he said dryly, "and I shall soon b e back there again, living as I wish. Often to attain one's goals one has to take a
few extra steps." He looke d straight at me with a kind of amused contempt. "I hav e one minor chore. When that is done I shall return, liv e the life of a country gentleman and leave the pushin g and shoving to the rest of these pigs."
I had an idea what that minor chore was, and i t made me sore to have him speak of it thataway.
"I ain't been east since I was a youngster," I commented, "although pa used to talk about times whe n the azaleas were in bloom. He was always a man wh o loved fine horses, too."
"He sounds like a most interesting man. Did he giv e you that gun?"
"He was murdered," I said, "by some coward wh o was afraid to face him. Shot in the back of the head.
Had he seen his murderer he would have killed hi m first."
Yant shrugged. "Then the murderer, as you call him , was wise not to be seen, was he not? Yet it sounds mor e like an execution than a murder."
"Does it? I wonder what gave you that idea? Executions are carried out by what pa used to call 'dul y constituted authority' and in a legal manner. Anyway , pa never did anything to be executed for."
"Did he not? I doubt if you were with him all hi s life, and most men have done something for which the y should be hanged."
"Do you speak for yourself?"
He turned those hard, straight eyes on me. The y stared unblinking, and I met his gaze. After a momen t he shrugged. "You must learn to guard your tongue , boy. A man must answer for his words when he talk s with men."
"I've talked with men since I was six," I said coolly , "and am prepared to answer for anything I say or hav e said. Anyway, you spoke of men generally, and I merely wondered if you spoke for yourself too." .!
He did not like me and he did not like the way I r eplied to him, so he got up and walked away withou t speaking or looking back. I watched him go, suddenl y conscious that Teresa was at my side. "Be careful o f him," she said. "I'm afraid of him."
She sat down across from me, and for a moment w e looked at one another. I'd never known many girls , or how to deal with them, but with Teresa it seeme d no problem. "What are you going to do?" she aske d suddenly. "Are you going to stay here? There isn't muc h to do, you know."
"I'd be gone," I said "if it weren't for you . . . an d him."
A few people came and went, and after waiting o n them she came back to sit with me. Betweentimes I t hought about my father and Felix Yant. Someho w there was a connection, and I meant to know what i t was.
"If I leave suddenly," I said, "just remember I'l l come back."
"Maybe," she said. "Men always say they will com e back, but they rarely do."
"I will."
She was silent a minute, and then she said, "He wa s talking to them, to those men who came in here tha t day."
To Wacker and Dick? Now what did that mean?
What could he get from them that he did not know already? Or was he going to let them do the job for him?
"Tomorrow," I said, "watch for me. But don't expect me."
"Watch for you?"
"So he will think I am coming."
I rode out quickly at sundown, back a half hou r later. He watched me from behind his curtain but di d not follow. Was he so sure I'd be back?
Immediately I went to bed. I had eaten earlier, no w I wanted rest, but I put my few things together first , and at four in the morning, with a cold wind blowin g along the streets, I slipped out and went to the stables.
Swiftly I saddled, keeping my face toward the door.
Then I walked out and took a trail out of town, aroun d the corrals and away from the street. When I passe d from sight of any window in town, I started to canter.
It was still dark, and what warned me was a sudde n catch of wood smoke on the air. Just a breath of it , then it was gone, yet instantly I was alert. The win d was wrong for the town, and there were no shacks ou t here that I knew of.
Instantly, I turned the roan into the deeper shadow s along the edge of the forest and drew up, touching hi s shoulder gently with a gloved hand. Again I caught th e smoke. A camp or a cabin of which I knew nothing... s omebody was there . . . close by.
The roan walked at my signal, hoofs crunching a bi t on the hard snow. Suddenly a man loomed up befor e me, rising out of a creek bed, but his rifle was not up , and I had the impression he had not meant to be seen , for when we glimpsed each other he shied as if h e would try to hide, but there was no place, so he stoo d still. It was Wacker.
"So that's it? He set you to spy on me?"
He stood silent, watching me warily. "I think," I s aid, "I would be very slow about going to him wit h news of my ride. He won't like it when I come bac k into town."
"If you do."
"If I do. But wouldn't you like it better if I di d not? Where is your bread buttered, Wacker? Woul d you rather have me gone where I cannot get peopl e to asking questions, or in town where you have to worry?"
"I think he means to kill you."
"I have no doubt of it, Wacker, but you found that I d o not die easily, and I'm tougher now. Go if you like , but if I were you, I'd let well enough alone. Go in a n hour from now and tell him you saw me leave .. . c hoose whatever time you like." I grinned at him. "By that time I may be coming back."
He stood there looking at me, and I was wastin g time. "What is it between you? He wants you bad, I t hink."
"Ask him."
"I'd ask him nothing. Not that one."
He stepped aside and I rode on, watching back , however, and trusting him not one whit. When ther e was a good two hundred yards and a bend in the roa d between us, I spoked the roan and we took the nex t mile at a good run, then slowed, steam rising from u s in a cloud.
Felix Yant would be after me now. This would b e his chance to kill. I had no doubt that he was a dea d shot. His kind would be. An excellent horseman, also , but his horse was a finely bred eastern gelding, not a mountain horse. I felt very sorry for that horse.
My destination was Georgetown, but I headed west , away from it. I headed away from the high, snow-c overed peaks with their passes choked with snow. I h eaded for the desert.
He had told me nothing of the years he had lef t behind, but I doubted they were akin to mine. He ha d lived well, I thought, or almost well, and he wante d more of that life. Now he would find how others lived , for I knew where he was to be taken. Mine were bu t seventeen, almost eighteen years, but they had bee n lean and hungry years, with long, lonely rides. Since I w as old enough to recall, I had ridden the wild country , and I knew how to live there even like the coyotes wh o haunt the empty desert spaces.
Did he know the high desert in winter? Did he kno w those vast and empty spaces, sometimes spotted wit h patches of thin snow, always swept by cold and bitte r winds? If he did not know, he would learn, for tha t was where I now went.
The roan knew. The roan was bred in those spaces , in the wild, remote canyon country and in the hig h deserts to the south of there. If Felix Yant wanted m y hide, he would have to buy it with suffering, cold, an d every bit of toughness there was in him.
Wild and broken was the land to the west, a lan d of little water and less rain, a land where the river s ran in canyons a thousand feet deep and where th e springs were hidden in hollows of rock. Where a fe w Indians lived and no white man except a chance prospector or a trapper whom no one had told that th e great days of fur were gone.
I rode down with the wind, down off a lofty platea u and into a canyon, then out to the lonely outpost store , where I led my horse to the stable. I had an hour, perhaps two. I went inside after watering my horse an d giving him a bait of corn. Inside the store was warm , and an old man, very tall and thin with steel-rimme d spectacles, read a book by the potbellied stove. He looked over his glasses at me. "Not many ride in thi s weather," he commented.
"There's a man behind me," I explained.
"The law?"
"No . . . an enemy. I don't know how much of a n enemy, but if he follows where I am going, he'll b e wanting me bad."
"You been out there before?"
"I have."
"Has he?"
"I don't believe so."
'West, south, and north," he said, "there isn't another white man for a hundred miles . . . more likel y two hundred miles."
"Nobody at Lee's Ferry?"
"They come and got him. Or took him somehow. I d on't think there's anybody there now."
He looked at me. "You're almighty young. Have yo u killed somebody?"
"Not yet," I said. "rm hoping not to."
"If he ain't use to it, an' he follers you," the ol d man said, "you won't need to kill him. That countr y will do it."
He looked at me again. "You been there, you say?"
"I come across with my pa. I was a youngster th e first time, standing about as high as the sight on a Winchester."
He nodded slowly. "With a tall man? A gentleman?"
"He was my father," I said gently, "and he was always a gentleman, and always a man."
"Ride well, son," the old man said, "an' make you r grub last. I seen you come in. That's a good horse."
"This was his country," I said. "Pa taken him fro m the wild bunch over there back of the Sweet Alic e Hills."
The land fell away in a vast sweep like a great, empt y sea where no billows rolled, nor even waves. Stiff gras s stood in the wind, scarcely bending, and the ceda r played low, humming songs with the wind.
I rode away into the empty land, and there was n o sound but the drum of hoofs upon the hard ground , and there was no dust, and scarcely a track to mar k my passing.
Chapter VIII What is it makes a man do the things he does? Tim e to time I've wondered about that, and it was pa wh o set me to thinking. I never realized that pa was running until it was too late. Sure, it occurred to me no w and again that we moved a lot, sometimes leaving goo d jobs and places we liked. It was only now that I wondered if pa was running away from something, or simply avoiding an issue, a settlement he did not wish t o face.
the Proving Trail (1979) Page 6
