Dry Divide

by Ralph Moody

  Judy had on her working clothes, with the cap pulled so far down that I couldn’t see her face, so I put my hand under her chin and turned it up to me. “No, he won’t, Judy,” I told her. “You just stop and think a minute. In the first place, he wouldn’t dare to touch me with the crew around; he knows Paco would kill him. In the second place, he doesn’t dare touch me anyway. He didn’t know the others were awake when I rode in last night. If he wanted to catch me alone, he’d have laid for me when I was putting Kitten into the corral. He’ll do a lot of yelling, and trying to egg me into starting something, but that’s as far as he’ll go.”

  She still clung to me, and her lips trembled as she said, “You don’t know him, Bud. He’s a’ready beat up . . .”

  “I know all about it,” I broke in. “Bones told me last night. Things are going to be all right, and I’m going to stay right here, maybe till the end of the month. I won’t let him start any trouble—not if he cusses me till sundown. Now you run along and get some breakfast; the boys are waiting for me.” As I said it, I leaned over, kissed her on the forehead, and went out.

  The other fellows were standing in a knot by the corral gate, Jaikus jabbering to Old Bill, Gus and Lars looking stolid, and Paco leaning on a pitchfork. When I was halfway across the yard, Doc called to me, “Let’s get away from here. Crazy or not, this man isn’t safe to be around.”

  I didn’t answer him till I reached the gate, then said, “It’s up to you fellows. I can’t tell you what to do; I can only tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to stay right here. If we leave now we’ll brand ourselves as yellow; if we stay, Hudson will brand himself that color.”

  Then, to give them a little chance to think, I turned to Paco, told him there’d be no need of the pitchfork, and asked if he’d like to milk the cows for the señora. When I turned back, Gus and Lars were nodding to each other, and Jaikus was nudging Old Bill. It was enough to let me know that I’d turned the crew my way for the moment, but I couldn’t be sure it would stay turned if we just stood waiting for Hudson to bring the horses in, so I said, “Those barge wheels have dried out enough that they’ll fall to pieces before the day’s over unless we get ’em off and put to soak.”

  It probably took us a half hour to take the wheels off and put them to soak in the tank, but there was no sign of Hudson, so I had a mental picture of him; chasing the frightened horse herd around the pasture, cursing, lashing, and trying to drive them into the lane. Paco had finished milking and was carrying the buckets to the house when he suddenly set them down and came running to me, shouting, “El jefe! El jefe! Completamente aplastada!”

  My Spanish was far from good, but I knew that jefe meant boss, and that aplastada meant crushed or smashed. For a moment I couldn’t make sense out of what Paco was shouting, then he turned and pointed toward the windmill. Beyond it, and part way down the pasture lane, Kitten came slowly, turned quartering, and dragging a motionless load from the off stirrup of the saddle. None of us needed to be told what she was dragging, and we all ran toward her, but at sight of us she spooked and turned back toward the pasture. I motioned the others to wait, then walked ahead slowly, keeping up a steady babble of talk, just loud enough to reach Kitten’s ears.

  At the sound of my voice she stopped, swung her head toward me, and stood with it high, ears erect, ready to plunge away if I made a quick move. I stood and waited a minute or more for her nerves to let down a bit, then moved on again, talking all the while. She kept her head high and her ears up until she caught my scent, then all the sap seemed to drain out of her. Her head drooped, and she stood quietly while I went to her. I had to pass Hudson’s body to reach her. One foot was hung in the stirrup, with the end of the whip coiled twice around it, binding it as tightly as a living blacksnake could have.

  There was no reason to hurry about releasing the foot, but Kitten needed comforting if ever a horse did. She was trembling in every nerve and muscle, and I had to pet and stroke her several minutes before the trembling quieted. Then I untied the latigo straps, let the cinch fall free, and eased the saddle to the ground. It wasn’t until then that I looked back toward the house. The others, with Judy and her sister among them, were standing by the windmill, motionless, and looking toward us as sheep will stare at a sight that awes them.

  I led Kitten to the mill, passed the reins to Paco, and told him to put her in the corral. Then I went straight to Mrs. Hudson. She was dry eyed, and I could see no grief in her face; only horror and confusion. “There’s nothing that can be done,” I told her. “If a bed can be made ready, we’ll bring him to the house.”

  She just stood, looking at me in a confused sort of way for maybe a minute, then asked, “Could you wait till Judy takes the children away? She can drive the. . . .” Before she could finish the sentence she slumped in a dead faint, but Doc caught her, lifted her in his arms, and carried her to the house.

  Judy had seemed awestruck until her sister fainted, then she became nearly hysterical. She started to follow Doc, then turned and ran back to me, clutched my sleeves convulsively, and pleaded, “Don’t bring him, Bud! Don’t bring him now! Don’t let the children see him! With Sis fainted and all, I don’t know when I can take ’em away. Bud, you won’t. . . .”

  With each word she was becoming more hysterical, so I put an arm around her, led her toward the house, and told her, “Of course I won’t, Judy, and with a doctor right here to take care of your sister there’s no reason for you to worry about her. We’ll cover Myron with a blanket and stay away from here till after you’ve gone. In that way the children will never know anything has happened. Where are you going to take them?”

  “Home,” she told me. “Paw and my other sister will look after ’em. I’ll be back in not more’n an hour.”

  “Before you come,” I told her, “stop and tell Bones what has happened. He’ll need to know before he makes some phone calls that he was planning to make. And you tell your sister that I’ll stay right here until her crop is harvested.”

  Judy hadn’t looked up at me as we walked from the windmill to the kitchen doorway, but as I took my arm away and she stepped inside, she looked up with her eyes brimming and said, “God bless you, Bud. I’ll never forget you as long as I live.” As if she were ashamed of what she’d said, she ran across the kitchen to the door that still stood ajar at the far side.

  I motioned to the other fellows and started slowly toward the barn. When they caught up with me I told them, “The best thing we can do is to stay out of sight till the children are taken away. I’ll carry a blanket up and cover the body, but we’ll leave it where it is till they’re gone.”

  I’d little more than glanced at Hudson when I went to get Kitten, but when I took the blanket back I could see that Paco had chosen the right words when he’d said, “Completamente aplastada.” The chest was crushed almost flat. There was blood around the mouth and nose, and at both sides of the shirt, where broken ribs had cut through the skin. But even though the sun was less than an hour high, the bloodstains were dry. There could be only one answer: when Kitten had taken all the punishment she could stand she’d caught him with the whip wound around his foot, and had thrown herself over backwards before he could jump clear. It could only be that she’d done it almost immediately after he’d ridden her into the pasture, and that it had taken her the rest of the time to drag his body back. I didn’t stop to release the foot from the stirrup, but spread the blanket over saddle and all, then turned back to our camp behind the barn.

  There is seldom any reason to grieve for the dead; only for those who are left behind. And in Hudson’s case there was no reason to grieve for them. I was the only one who could be in any way injured by his death. With him gone, there was no reason for any banker to foreclose a mortgage or put an attachment on the crop, and without them my deal would certainly be as dead as Hudson.

  At our camp I told the other fellows what I thought had happened, and that our deal would be off, then we sat in silence until we heard
the old Maxwell backfire as Judy started it and drove away. When I went to the house, I found Doc helping Mrs. Hudson clear one of the front rooms and make up a bed in it. The room was almost barren, its only furniture a packing box with flour sacks tacked around it to make a table, and an old iron bed that sagged deeply in the middle. Doc was at one side and Mrs. Hudson at the other, drawing a patched sheet up over the stained mattress. She looked up as I stepped into the doorway, and said, “You could bring Myron in now; Judy has took the children to my folks.” There was neither grief nor emotion in her voice or face; only a sort of blank confusedness.

  No matter how much a man may have been despised, his remains demand some reverence, so we made a stretcher from two boards, laid the body on it, straightened the legs, folded the hands, and wrapped the blanket from my bed around the whole litter. Then Gus and Lars carried it to the house. Mrs. Hudson stood emotionless while they laid the blanket-shrouded litter on the bed, then Doc put a hand under her elbow and led her to the kitchen, while the rest of us went to our camp. There was nothing to say or do, so I did what I’d always done when there was time to be waited out; found a piece of wood, whetted my jackknife on the sole of my boot, and began whittling a little horse. I’d done it ever since I was old enough to carry a knife, and nothing ever made time slip away faster.

  I’d whittled only enough to outline the head and neck when I heard an automobile drive into the yard and stop. I knew it couldn’t be Judy, because there was no clattering, and the engine ran smoothly until it was shut off. With Doc at the house there was no reason for my going, so I kept on with my whittling for maybe another half hour. Then I heard Judy drive in, and a few minutes later she came to the corner of the barn and called, “Bud, Sis and Bones want to talk to you.” She didn’t wait for me, and was out of sight by the time I’d put my whittling away and gone around the barn.

  When I reached the corner of the house Doc and Judy were sitting on the windmill platform, talking, and when I went to the back door Mrs. Hudson and the banker were seated at the kitchen table. “Come in, Son,” Bones said when he looked up and saw me, “there’s some things we’d better talk about. Sit here where we can look at each other.”

  “I understand,” I said, and took a chair opposite him.

  For maybe a minute after I’d taken the seat, Bones looked down at his hands, pulling one finger after another until the knuckles snapped. It was plain enough that he didn’t like to tell me what he was going to, and I knew well enough what it would be. After he’d cracked all five knuckles, he looked up and said, “Last night I made you an out-and-out promise that I’d foreclose on Myron’s horses, equipment and harness, and let you have the whole works on a note for three hundred dollars.”

  Then he stopped and cracked another knuckle, so I said, “That’s right, but you didn’t know what was going to happen then, any more than I did. There’d be no sense in foreclosing now, and I’ll never try to hold you to the deal.” As I said it I took the memorandum out of my pocket and pushed it across the table toward him.

  That time he cracked two knuckles before he said, “We shook hands on it, didn’t we, Son?”

  “Sure,” I said, “and I’ll shake with you again to release you.”

  “That’s what I wanted to hear,” he said, “and what I wanted Clara to hear. I wanted her to know what kind of a man she was dealing with. We’ve talked the whole thing over, and she wants to go through with the deal just the way we made it last night. She won’t have any use for horses after this crop is in, and if it’s as good as I think, she’ll be well fixed for years to come. Of course you understand there won’t be any attachments now, and your deal will be with Clara, not me or the other lien holders, but she’s told me to open that account for you, just like we talked about, and to credit it every week with what you’ve harvested. Do you want that I make out a new paper for her to sign?”

  “There’s no need of it as far as I’m concerned,” I told him.

  “I’d trust her as far as I would my own sister, but if she’d rather have a written agreement I’d be glad to sign it.”

  Mrs. Hudson had been sitting as though she had no part in the deal, looking down in an unseeing manner at her folded hands. When I’d finished speaking she raised her head, looked squarely into my eyes, and said, “I’m beholden to you for what you’ve a’ready done around the place . . . giving me a hand with the milking . . . putting the barges into shape . . . and promising to stay on through harvest and thrashing. There’s no man I’d leaver have take care of the crop . . . or to have the horses . . . half of ’em are colts of my little mare, Vixen . . . she passed on last winter. I don’t want no paper less’n you do.”

  “Then I reckon we’ve got a deal,” the banker broke in. As he spoke he reached in his pocket, bringing out a checkbook and a signature card. He pushed them across the table toward me, and said, “Better put your John Hancock on that card, so we’ll know your checks when they come in. Clara’s going to stay a few days with her folks . . . till the funeral’s over . . . but Judy’ll come out and do the cooking for you—you’ll look after her, won’t you, Son?—and if you’ll give her a list of the grub you want she’ll fetch it out this morning . . . Joe’ll open up to get it for her. Think you can make out all right?”

  “I wouldn’t be much of a man if I couldn’t make out with backing like this,” I told him, “and I want you to know that I thank you for your confidence—both of you.”

  “Don’t thank me,” Bones chuckled; “thank Judy. I couldn’t get the little tyke off my coat tail till I’d promised to come right on out here and get things buttoned up for you to boss the job. Clara thought, like I did, that the best thing to do was to go on through with the deal you and I made in the first place. She’s going to ride back to town with me after the undertaker comes—I’ve phoned him so he’ll be along pretty soon. When there’s anything I can do for you, let me know; I’ll be dropping out now and again to see how you’re getting on.”

  There was little more left to say, so I thanked Mrs. Hudson again, and asked, “Did Mr. Hudson get the new conveyor belts for the header last night?”

  “No, he didn’t,” she told me, “and that’s partly what he was so mad about. They wouldn’t leave him have ’em without he paid cash.”

  “Could I get them at The Bluffs?” I asked Bones. “I’m afraid the ones we’ve got now are too rotten to run another day.”

  “No, not for an old fifteen-foot header like this one—there can’t be more than three or four of ’em left in the country,” he told me. “You’d have to go to Oberlin to get ’em, but the Cooperative keeps open on Sundays in harvest time, and they’ll take your check all right. Get anything you need, and I’ll phone ’em and tell ’em you’re good for it. If you talked real sweet to Judy I reckon she’d drive you over there. You could come by The Bluffs and pick up your grub on the way back. Joe’ll be up and about by that time, and it would save you making up a list.”

  7

  On My Own

  WHEN I left the kitchen after my talk with Bones and Mrs. Hudson, Doc and Judy were still sitting on the windmill platform. I went right to them and asked, “Doc, would you ask the others to come up here? We’ve got a little business to talk about.”

  Judy was as eager and jumpy as a race horse at the barrier when I sat down beside her. Doc was barely out of earshot before she took hold of my sleeve, twiddled it nervously, and asked, “You’re going to boss the harvesting, ain’t you, Bud? Sis said she wanted you to, and I talked to Bones, and he said . . .”

  I took her hand off my sleeve, but didn’t let go of it, and broke in, “Yes, Judy girl, and more than that; I’m going to be in business for myself on it. We’ve made a deal that I’ll hire the crew, feed it, and harvest the whole crop. If I get it done by the end of the month, all the horses and equipment will be mine, and I’ll have made a good stake to boot. It’s going to be a big job—bigger than I can handle unless the fellows stand close behind me and want to see me win out.
Can I count on you to help me with it?”

  She looked up into my face earnestly, and told me, “You know I’ll help you all I can, Bud. Till Sis comes back I’ll have to sleep to home, but I’ll come early in the mornings, and stay till everything is took care of at nights, and I can pitch wheat almost as good as any man my size. I could . . .”

  “Yes, you could kill yourself in about three days if I’d let you, but I’m not going to,” I said. “We’ll get our own breakfasts, and take care of the milk and dishes after supper, but you can do the rest of the cooking and dishes, then drive barge for Gus and Lars in what extra time you have—that is, if the rest of the crew sees this the way I do. That’ll give you both hands full, because I plan to be a harder slave driver than Myron was.”

  Judy sat looking down at our hands for a minute, rubbing her thumb along mine. Then without looking up, she asked, “What you going to do when the harvest’s ended, Bud?”

  “I don’t know,” I told her, “but I like that valley where the bluffs are; it looks to me like awfully good cattle country. If I win out on this job and get the horses, and a little stake, I might stay around a while and try to get a small place of my own—not farming, but cattle. I worked with them when I was a little kid, and I guess I got cattle and horses into my blood. I’ve always told myself I’d be a cattleman when I grew up, and I’m just about there. I’ll be twenty-one in December. If I’m ever going into the business it’s about time I made a start.”

  We let go of each other’s hand when we heard the shuffle of boots, and were talking about going to Oberlin for conveyer belts when Doc came back with the crew. “Sit down and let’s do a little chinning,” I told them. “An hour ago I thought the deal I told you about last night was all off, but it isn’t. The bankers are out of it now, but Mrs. Hudson has made me the same proposition, and I’ve taken it. Last night I was figuring on hiring another man to make up a crew of eight, but Judy thinks she could cook for us and help in the field too. If she does, we might get along without another man, but she’d share with the rest of us on the money. Gus and Lars would have to get along without a driver for a couple of hours a day, and somebody would have to pitch in on cooking breakfast and washing the supper dishes. It’s up to you fellows: what’ll we do; get another man, or say we’ve got one?”