No smoke was rising from the stovepipe of the bunk house, so Ed was not surprised that the door did not open as he rode into the narrow end of the yard. He dismounted and knocked on the door, and still no answer came.
Leading the buckskin by the reins, Ed walked to the hitch rack in front of the big house. Looking up, he imagined the gables and dormers as so many brows on a beast, then as so many windows for a spy to look out of. He tied the horse, went up the heavy plank steps, thumped his boots on the porch, and was about to lift the heavy brass knocker when the door opened.
A human form stood inside, and from the appearance Ed assumed it was not Mort Ramsey. The man stood back from the doorway, and the roof of the porch cut off direct sunlight, but Ed could make out the features well enough. They belonged to a brute of a man, with a large head of the type that scientists liked to measure and study. His hair was close cropped, like a burr, and his heavy face carried about a week’s worth of stubble. He was wearing a heavy, linsey-woolsey pullover shirt with all three buttons missing on the chest. Hanging down from the sleeves of the shirt were a pair of thick hands that looked like mitts with sausages attached. He wore no gunbelt, or belt at all, just a pair of grimy denim trousers that reached down to a pair of clodhopper boots.
Ed took a breath to steel himself. “I’d like to speak to Mr. Ramsey if I could.”
The brute turned and motioned with his right hand, showing a set of wide fingernails with black, broken edges.
Ed followed him through a dusky front room with scanty furnishings to the doorway of a brighter room where light came in through a side window on the right. It was an office area, with shelves on the left wall, a wide glass-paned gun case in back with a set of deer antlers above, and a hat-and-coat rack in the corner between the gun case and window. In the center of the room sat an oak desk, at least four feet wide and three feet across. At the desk, a man sat with his chin on his left palm, the elbow to one side of some papers he seemed to be studying.
The brute rapped his fingernails on the door panel, and the man looked up. The brute muttered something, and the man leaned his head to one side in order to see past the doorway.
“Good enough, George,” he said. “Thanks.”
The brute turned and walked away, not going straight past Ed but rather at an angle. As Ed saw his profile, he remembered why the man seemed familiar. He resembled the creature on a playbill for The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
“Come on in,” said the man in the office, who had lowered his face to look at the papers again. He had brown hair, thinning on top and graying on the sides.
Ed took off his hat and stepped to the doorway. “Are you Mort Ramsey?”
The man raised his head, fixed his blue eyes with an expression of authority, and said, “Yes, I am. I’ve been expectin’ you. Herm told me about you.”
Ed frowned and studied the man, wondering if he himself had missed some link in the sequence. “I’m not sure,” he said.
Ramsey maintained his air of command, tensing the muscles on his cheekbone. “You’re probably a hand, and Herm speaks well of you, but I don’t need a foreman. Bridge does a good job for me. Herm knows that, and I understand he’s just passing your question on to me. But that’s it. If you want to hire on as a regular hand, that’s fine, but if you want to keep looking for something better, there’s no hard feelings.”
Ed was still trying to make sense of the man and what ever lay behind the blazing blue eyes, the accretion of flesh, and the small broken blood vessels on the florid face. In something of a daze, he found his words. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think you’ve heard of me before. My name’s Edward Dawes, and I’m just lookin’ for a regular cowpunchin’ job.”
Ramsey looked him over with half a scowl, then relaxed his face. “Oh. I was expecting—well, it doesn’t matter. I just wasn’t expecting some other stranger. But that’s all right. Tell me again. You’re just lookin’ to be put on for the season?”
“That’s right, sir.”
“Where did you work before?”
“Tompkins Ranch, sir, south and east of here.”
“I know where it is. Why aren’t you going back there to work?”
“I wanted to see some new country.”
“Everybody does.” His eyes slid over Ed a second time. “You ride out here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So you’ve got your gear with you?”
“That I do.”
Ramsey gave his hard stare. “You know how to take orders?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Men come and go at this work. You know what that means?”
Ed shrugged. “Could mean a few things.”
“It means no one’s indispensable. First time you don’t follow orders, you’re off the ranch. It’s that simple.”
“Fine with me. When I ride for another man, I do things his way. It’s easier.”
“Should be.” Ramsey smiled now. “I’ll give you a try. What did you say your name is?”
“Ed. Edward Dawes.”
“I thought so. Well, I’ll tell you what. The other boys are out right now, but you can find an empty bunk in the bunk house. You saw it comin’ in? First building.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Go ahead and put your gear in there. If the other boys want you to move to a different cot, go ahead. Bridge knows what’s best. Do what he says unless I tell you different.”
“All right.”
“After you leave off your bedroll, you can put your saddle in the barn and your horse in the corral. You’ll see where.” He gave Ed the straight look again. “Any questions?”
“I don’t think so, Mr. Ramsey.”
“Just call me Mort.” He stood and reached his hand across the desk.
As Ed shook his hand, he noticed how the man filled out his shirt and hung over his belt. He might have been a good-looking, husky fellow in his youth, but now he was puffed up like a toad. He gave a smile of assurance and settled back into his chair.
Ed turned and walked out of the office into the dusky front room, which he now saw had a vaulted, open-beam ceiling. George was nowhere in sight, though for all Ed knew, the brute could be lurking in a shadowy corner. Ed crossed the room, opened the door, and put on his hat as he stepped out onto the covered porch. In the light of day, everything looked normal.
He went first to the bunk house, where he left his rifle and scabbard, his warbag, and his bedroll on an empty bunk. He did not spend any time inside, as Ramsey had told him he might be resituated later anyway.
Leading the buckskin to the other end of the yard, he saw that the barn door was now open, as was the door to the other shed. He approached the buildings from several yards out, to see if he might get a look into both before he put away his horse. When the interior of the shed came into view, he saw George the brute standing on the third rung of a ladder and wrapping a chain around a crossbeam. Ed kept leading the horse, and the open doorway of the shed moved out of his view. He stopped at a water trough outside the barn, where he let the animal drink.
Inside the barn, he tied the horse to a stanchion, pulled off the saddle, and set it on a saddle rack that hadn’t had any dust worn off it in a while. He laid the sweaty blanket across the saddle, damp side up, to dry out, and he hung the bridle on the saddle horn. Then he led the buckskin out the back door and turned him into the corral.
In no hurry, Ed walked to the north end of the corral and leaned on the top rail, where he could see the back of the ranch house and the bunk house. There was not much to be seen. Each building had one back door and an out house about twenty feet away. Weeds grew up behind each house, and between the two privies lay a rubbish heap of cans and bottles with an occasional twist of wire, broken water pitcher, or curled boot tossed into the mix.
Ed wandered through the barn and out through the front door, where he stopped short. Mort Ramsey was standing outside the wagon shed and looking in. He was wearing a brown hat, a brown wool vest hanging loose over his
full shirt, and a gunbelt. The latter was of dyed brown leather, inlaid with silver conchos on the holster and belt, and holding an ivory-handled six-gun.
Ed took a wide turn to see if he could catch a glimpse inside the shed. As he did, he saw that George had an animal, the size of a yearling steer or heifer, hanging by the hind legs. The carcass had been skinned, and a huge mess of guts was spilling out the opened abdomen. Ed was amazed at how fast the brute must have worked, unless he had skinned the animal on the ground and then decided to hang it up. Saying nothing to the boss, who took no notice of him, Ed walked back to the bunk house.
It came as no surprise that the man referred to as Herm turned out to be Cooley, Bridge’s riding partner. The two of them came into the bunk house in the early evening and did not seem to care much about the presence of a new hand. Without saying much, Bridge got up a fire in the stove and heated some leftover beans with a few bloated scraps of pork rind swimming on top. The men sat down to eat, and the two regular hands plied the newcomer with the usual questions of where he came from and where he had worked before. They did not give any indication of having seen him before, and they took little interest in the information he gave about himself.
After supper, Bridge rolled himself a tight cigarette and lit it, while Cooley cut himself a chew of tobacco and then with the same knife took to paring his fingernails. Neither of them had spoken much since they came in, and now Bridge, with the cigarette clamped in his thin lips, told Ed to wash the dishes.
A stack of dirty cups, plates, and silverware from a couple of earlier meals waited for him in the kitchen area, so he had plenty to wash along with the plates, spoons, and pot from the evening meal. Bridge had left a basin of water on the stove, but the fire had died down and the water was barely tepid. Ed set the basin on the table, scattered in some soap flakes, and went to work. Bridge and Cooley sat at the other end of the table, talking about places Ed had not heard of, places where they were going to have to get the calves and cows out for branding.
When he was done with the dishes, Ed asked if he had his gear in a good place. Of the dozen empty bunks, he had picked one at random in the middle.
“Sure,” said Bridge, with a flicker of his close-set eyes. “This place’ll fill up in a coupla days anyway.”
Ed went to his bunk and in a few minutes was settled in. As he stretched out to rest, he glanced at the other end of the room, which was lit by a kerosene lantern. Cooley had taken up a newspaper and was looking at it, while Bridge sat straight up in his chair and held his cigarette between thumb and forefinger on the table in front of him. Smoke rose in a thin ribbon, and Bridge seemed to be reading it.
“Hold that son of a bitch down.” Bridge’s voice, never loud, came thin and tense across a few feet of space.
Using the rope, Ed pulled the calf’s head up off the ground as he sat on the animal’s front quarter. Cooley centered his considerable weight on the calf’s hind end, and Bridge bent over with the running iron. With a steady hand he burned the brand into the calf’s flank as neat as if it had come from the regular branding iron. The smell of burned hair rose in the air, and the calf kicked and bawled.
“Let’s cut ’im.” Bridge had his pocketknife out, cutting edge up. “Herm, pull those legs apart. And you, haul up on the rope.”
Bridge leaned into the task, and a minute later he stood up, flicking the testicles away with his bloody left hand. “That’s got it. Now let ’im up.”
The three men stood back, and the calf flailed and thrashed until it came to its feet.
Bridge looked at Ed, and still in his low voice he said, “What the hell you doin’? Take that rope off.”
Ed slipped the loop from around the calf’s neck, up and over the ears, and past the nose. The calf was a husky one, born sometime between seasons and making it on its own, and it had given some fight. For the moment, though, it seemed dazed, as well it might.
“Let’s get goin’,” said Bridge, kicking in the little sagebrush fire. “We’ll see if we can find that one over by Flat-top.”
Ed mounted up and fell in behind the two other men. They seemed to be old hands at mavericking, and Ed guessed they had been waiting for a third man to come along so they could get a few of the larger calves. Ramsey must have told Bridge that the new kid was ready to take orders, because Bridge made no secret of what they were up to, and it figured that he was losing no time to get this work done before the rest of the crew arrived. As for Ed, he was glad for the opportunity to play in.
That evening, Bridge fried beefsteak. Ed recalled the animal he had seen hanging the day before, and he assumed it did not have the King Diamond brand—the two slanted legs of the K forming the two left sides of the diamond—that Bridge had so artfully inscribed on the range animals. It didn’t matter much, as it was customary to eat beef from other brands, as long as an outfit went about it with discretion, and if a dozen men were about to show up, yesterday’s fresh carcass would be down to bones in a few days.
Six of the new men came into the yard the next evening. Ed was sitting in front of the bunk house on the wide, flat rock that did for a doorstep, and he saw the men piled in the back of a ranch wagon with their duffel bags and bedrolls. Ed stood and watched as George pulled the wagon to a stop and Ramsey climbed down from the seat next to him. The boss was dressed as before, with hat and gunbelt, but he had his vest buttoned tight, and a silver watch chain glinted. As he brushed off the road dust, a diamond ring flashed on his left hand.
The new hired men climbed over the sideboards and off the tailgate, some of them stiff and some of them shaky from the long ride. They looked around with wide eyes and, every one of them wordless, trudged into the bunk house carrying bags and bedrolls.
Ed had the momentary feeling of being a little superior, having a couple of days’ seniority, until Ramsey spoke.
“Here, you. There’s a sack of beans and another of rice. Haul them into the kitchen.”
The bags weighed a hundred pounds each, and the burlap was rough to the ear as Ed hoisted each one on his shoulder, but he had the work done before some of the men had settled on which cot to take.
Ramsey came into the bunk house and approached a man who was loitering at the kitchen end of the long room. “Pat,” he said, “you’ve got to feed these men. There’s meat and spuds for to night. You can cook beans and what-all when you have more time. I’ll bring a second load of grub when I go for the rest of the men.”
The cook was a slouching man, slender, in a close-fitting pullover sweater and baggy trousers. He nodded and went to work as Ramsey, with his thumb resting on the hammer of his pistol, surveyed his new crew and walked out.
The cook was up and rattling around long before daylight. Ed heard the clunk of firewood in the stove, the scratch of a match, the gurgle of water being poured. After a minute’s silence, he felt a hand on his shoulder and heard the cook’s voice.
“Hey. Don’t you have any bacon grease?”
Ed frowned and opened his eyes. “Bacon grease?”
“Yeah. I need some grease. Where is it?”
“I don’t know. Ask Bridge.”
“I’m askin’ you.”
“I just got here a couple of days ago. He did all the cookin’.”
“My God, you’re as dumb as the rest of ’em.”
At breakfast, Pat showed more of his good nature. He must have found the bacon grease, for he set out two heaping platters of shiny fried potatoes and had two skillets crackling with more. “There’s coffee, too,” he said. “Boil up your insides. Some of you look like you need it. Go without whiskey for a while, maybe you’ll be fit to do some work. Now eat up.”
The men were going to work with horses out of the corral, and Ed realized that not one of the new men had brought a saddle. This must be quite a crew, he thought. Maybe the cook was right about some of it.
Ed finished his coffee and was rising from his chair when the cook’s sharp voice rang out.
“You,” he said, p
ointing at Ed, “and you.” He pointed at a shaky-looking fellow with dull eyes. “I need the both of you to sort beans. Clear off this end of the table, and go at it. I don’t want no clods or rocks.”
The other man raised his head and showed a sick look on his face. “Do we have to sort the whole sack?”
“Not yet. I’ll tell you how much.”
The men had worked two days with the horses, and the second half of the crew came in on the wagon, again without a saddle among them. The next morning after breakfast, Bridge rolled a tight cigarette and crooked his finger at Ed, who had picked his hat off the wall and was about to go out into the morning air.
“You go with Herm today,” said the foreman in his steady voice. “I’ve got my hands full with this new bunch.”
Outside in the new daylight, Ed saddled a gray horse from his string and followed Cooley out of the ranch yard. They rode north about a mile, veered west, followed the base of a low rim for another mile and a half, and stopped at the head of a gully.
“There’s one down there that’ll do,” said Cooley, pointing at a small cluster of cattle.
Ed saw right away that there were two cows, two calves, and one in between that was a yearling or a little better.
“Let’s go.” Cooley spurred his horse and rode down into the draw.
Ed followed, and within a minute he saw that Cooley wanted to cut out the midsized animal, which was a heifer. He could also see that the animals were range-wild, as they bolted in three different directions.
Cooley pounded his horse’s flanks and came up on the left side of the heifer, pushing it up the right side of the draw. Ed went after it to haze it on the right, until the animal cut straight across in front of him.
“Rope the bitch!” Cooley hollered.
Ed took down his rope and went after the heifer. As he came up on the left side, he saw a brand as clear as day. It looked like a wigwam with a circle inside it and a dot inside that. Ed did not yet know the brands up in this country, but he knew it sure wasn’t the King Diamond. But he also knew he had to make a good showing, so he swung his loop, made his toss, and dallied off.
Stranger in Thunder Basin (Leisure Historical Fiction) Page 9
