Walter Van Tilburg Clark

by Les Weil

  Someone had lived there once, though, and tried to ranch the place. In the shelter of a few isolated trees extending from the forest on the west side, he'd built a log cabin with a steep roof to slide the snow off. There'd been a corral too, and a regular barn with a loft to store hay. But whoever he was, he'd given up years before. The door and windows were out of the cabin, and the board floor was rotten, seedling pines and sagebrush coming up through it. There were only a few posts of the corral left, and the snow had flattened the barn, splitting the sides out and settling the roof right over them. Small circles of blackened stone showed where short stoppers, like Gil and me, had burned pieces of the barn and fences.

  We discussed the chances of the rustlers using the Ox-Bow. The road ran right along the edge of it at the south end:, there was good grazing and water and wood to be picked up. But then, there was only that one way and out, at least for men driving cattle. On the other three sides the mountains were steep, heavily timbered at the base, then grown thick with manzanita, then covered with frost-split, sliding shale, and they didn't let you out anywhere except into more mountains. On the other hand there was no other place on the trail where they could have stopped. There was a clearing right at the summit, but the road ran through the middle of it and there was no grass or water. And the road down the other side was like this one, steep and narrow all the way; a few little washes big enough for the coach to get off the track and stand, but none to hold forty head of cattle. We couldn't see anything but the Ox­Bow or keep going.

  On the summit the wind hit full force, as if you'd stepped out from behind a wall. It was bitter cold and damp. I thought I felt a few flakes of snow on my face, but my face was already too numb to be sure. Even the horses ducked their heads into the wind.

  In the clearing Tetley and Mapes stopped us to breathe the horses again. Also they began arguing what Gil and l had thought about the trail and the Ox-Bow, and some were for turning back. With snow beginning to come, and that wind blowing, they felt sure of a blizzard. Tetley maintained that was all the more reason for pressing the chase. With their trail covered with snow, and a day or two start, time to switch brands, what would we have to go on? Davies, and Moore backed him up this time, was for sending a couple of riders on across to Pike's Hole, and getting the men there to pick the rustlers up. I could see what he wanted. Kinkaid was nothing to most of the Pike's men, and it wasn't their cattle had been rustled. They'd pick the men up on principle, but they'd be willing to hold them for the sheriff and a trial. Winder and Ma sided with Tetley. Winder was accusing Davies, and even Moore, of being so scared of the job they'd rather let a murderer slip than do it. Davies admitted he'd rather let ten murderers go than have it on his soul that he'd hung an honest man. Tetley said he wasn't going to hang an innocent man; he'd make sure enough of that to suit even Davies. To Farnley, even Tetley's manner smacked Of delay. He told them he'd rather see a murderer hanged than shot, it was a dirtier death, but that he'd bush-whack all three of those men before he'd let one of them get out of the mountains free. I tried to shut Gil up when he started, but he went ahead and told Farnley that nobody who wasn't a horse-thief himself would bush-whack any man, let alone three men for one, and the one a man he hadn't seen do it. Farnley was going to climb Gil, for which I couldn't blame him, but they couldn't pick each other out in the dark, and others held them down. I tried to talk Gil quiet, but he said, "Aw, hell," in disgust, and spit as if it was on the whole bunch of us, and rode farther out by himself. It looked as if it might be another long squabble. I'd been walking Blue Boy back and forth along the edge so I could hear some of the talk, but still keep him from cooling too fast. Cold as it was, the climb had sweated him. Other punchers were doing the same.

  Now I eased him over to the edge of the clearing where the trees broke the wind a little, and got down and wiped him over with a few handfuls of old, softened, damp pine needles. They pricked him, and he was restless, but he liked it fine when I finished him off with snow from a little drift at the top of the creek bank. The snow was hard and granular, and brought the blood back into my hands. I listened for the talk to end, but took my time. It felt good to be on my feet and moving around; I'd stiffened to the saddle.

  Somebody in the middle of the clearing sang out, "Scatter, boys, there's horses coming." Tetley didn't seem to like the order, for I heard him giving others quickly, but not loud enough so I could understand. The group was already scattering to both sides of the clearing. I could see the shadowy huddle in the middle fanning out toward the edges. In the wind 1 couldn't hear them, any more than I'd heard anything coming. They were so many shadows floating off slowly, like a cloud breaking up in front of the moon. The middle of the clearing became just a gray, open space waiting for something to come into it. I could see why Tetley hadn't liked that order, besides its being yelled that way. There wasn't a man among us, in the edge of the woods, that could risk a shot into the clearing in the dark and with others right across from him. Four or five riders stayed together and disappeared into the shadow where the road entered the clearing. Tetley was with them, I thought. He kept his head in this sort of thing. I listened hard, but still couldn't hear the running horses I expected from that shout. All I could hear was the wind, roaring on and off in the pines, and higher up booming at intervals, as if clapping in space; and faintly, like a lesser wind, the falling of the creek. Those, and right behind me the trunks of the taller pines complaining.

  One of the shadows, on foot and leading his horse, came toward me and disappeared under the trees very near. Then I was listening for him too. A man hates to have somebody near him in the dark when he doesn't know who it is. I felt the animal advantage of being there first.

  A voice from the other side of me, Mapes I thought, called out, "Stay where you are till I give you the hail. Then circle out slow if it's anything we want. Don't do any shooting."

  It struck me that in that darkness and wind, unless Tetley's bunch stopped him, a rider could be across the clearing and into the narrows before we were sure he was there. And on that down grade, riding alone, he'd have a big advantage on us. I told myself that was none of my worry, but the thought kept me tense.

  The man near me was coming closer. I could hear the slow, soft thuds of his horse plodding on the thick blanket of pine needles.

  "Who is it?" I asked.

  The thudding stopped. "It's jus' me, Spahks," a voice finally said. "Who ah you, suh?"

  "Art Croft," I told him.

  He seemed to think that over. For some reason I thought of my history since this business had begun; what I found made me feel humble but irritated. Then he asked,

  "Don't mahnd if ah come ovah a bit closah, do you, Mistah Croft?"

  "No, come on. I'm findin' it lonesome myself."

  He stopped right beside me. It was black in there though; I still couldn't see him. He reached out and touched me, just light and quick, to make sure I was there.

  "Theah you ah," he said.

  Then, apologizing, "Ah wasn't quite cleah you was with us, Mistah Croft. Guess ah wasn't noticin' all that was goin' on. Ah did see you fren' Mistah Cahtah."

  "I wasn't mixin' in much," I admitted.

  "It's mortal cold, ain't it?"

  I remembered that he had on only a thin shirt and jeans. He was a heat-loving nigger anyway, not used to this mountain country yet.

  "I've got a blanket if you want it."

  "Thank you jus' the same, Mistah Croft." he said. He had a sad little chuckle. "It takes all mah hands to keep on this ole hoss."

  I'd noticed that Sparks never called me "sir" when he knew who I was. Not that I wanted to be called sir, and not that Sparks was ever anything but polite, but it did nettle me that he wouldn't be as careful of me as he would of a sponge like Smith, or a weak sister like Osgood. And even if you don't believe in them, you pick up feelings about darkies from men you work with. I'd worked in outfits with a lot of Southern boys, mostly Texas. They'd drop a white man who played with a ni
gger even faster than they would a nigger, and they had a sharp line about niggers. They wouldn't condescend about them, the way some of us did, but they wouldn't eat or drink where black men did, or sleep in blankets a nigger had used, or have anything more to do with a house where a nigger had been let in the front door. They didn't condescend, I thought, just because they never even considered a nigger the same kind of creature enough to make comparisons. I'd picked up just enough of this crude habit to make me feel guilty whenever I had such thoughts. I did now.

  "I've got some whisky in my canteen," I said; "better have a couple of shots."

  "No, thanks, Mistah Croft, ah guess not."

  "Go on," I said, "I've got plenty."

  "Ah don't drink it, Mistah Croft." He didn't want to sound like a temperance lady. "There's devil enough in me bah mahself," he explained.

  "In this cold you could drink the whole canteen," I told him.

  "No, thanks."

  I shut up, and he felt I was a little stiff, I guess.

  "Ah wish we was well out of this business," he said.

  "It's a way of spendin' time," I told him.

  "It's man takin' upon himself the Lohd's vengeance," he said. "Man, Mistah Croft, is full of error." He said it jokingly, but he wasn't joking.

  I suppose I think as much about God as the next man who isn't in the business. I spend a lot of time alone. But I'd seen, yes and done, some things that made me feel that if God was worried about man it was only in large numbers and in the course of time.

  "Do you think the Lord cares much about what's happening up here tonight?" I asked him, too sharply.

  Sparks took it gently though. "He mahks the sparrow's fall," he said.

  "Then He won't miss this, I guess."

  "God is in us, Mistah Croft," he pleaded. "He wuhks th'ough us."

  "Maybe, then, we're the instruments of the divine vengeance," I suggested.

  "Ah can't fahnd that in mah conscience, Mistah Croft," he said after a moment. "Can you?" he asked me.

  "I'm not sure I've got a conscience any more."

  He persisted, taking another angle. "Mistah Croft, if you had to hold the rope on one of those men with your own hands, could you fohget it raght away aftahwahds?" he asked me.

  "I don't suppose I could," I admitted.

  "And wouldn't it trouble you to think of it, even a long time aftah?"

  "Not with a rustler," I lied.

  When Sparks didn't say anything I felt I'd let another good man down, the way I had about Davies.

  "I haven't heard anything yet," I said. "Did you hear anything out there?"

  "Ah didn't," Sparks said, as if he wasn't interested. "It was Mistah Mapes and Mistah Windah."

  "It don't seem to me the rustlers would double back when there's only one trail," I said.

  "No, suh." That "sir" had the politeness of a grievance. It annoyed me.

  "You seem to be taking this pretty personal."

  "It's like ah was sayin', Mistah Croft," he answered after a moment. "There's some things a man don't fohget seein'."

  You can't ask a man to talk about such things, so I didn't say anything. Perhaps on account of the darkness Sparks decided to tell me anyway.

  "Ah saw mah own brothah lynched, Mistah Croft," he said stiffly. "Ah was just a little fella when I saw that, but sometimes ah still wakes up from dreamin' about it."

  There was still nothing for me to say.

  "And pahtly ah was to blame," Sparks remembered.

  "You were?"

  "Ah went to find Jim where he was hidin' and they followed me and got him."

  "How old did you say you were?"

  "Ah'm not shuah; a little fella, six or seven or eight."

  "You couldn't have been much to blame then," I said.

  "Ah've ahgued that with mahself, Mistah Croft, but it don't help the feelin'," Sparks said. "That's what ah mean," he added.

  "Well, had he done what they picked him up for?"

  "Ah don't know; we didn' any of us evah know foh shuah. But it still don' seem lahk anythin' ah evah knew about Jim."

  "They wouldn't lynch him without knowing," I said.

  He thought for a while before he answered that. "They made him confess," he admitted. "But they would have anyhow," he protested. "It wouldn't have done him any good not to, and confessin' made it shortah. It was still bad, though; awful bad," he added. "Ah wouldn' lahk to see a thing lahk that again, Mistah Croft."

  "No," I said.

  We were quiet and I could hear his teeth chattering.

  "I'll tell you," I said, as if I was joking, "a drop or two more whisky can't do my soul any harm. You take my coat and I'll take the drink."

  "No, thanks, Mistah Croft." I was afraid he was going to feel responsible for my drinking too, but he went on, "Ah'm all used to it now, an' you'd catch youah death o' cold takin' that coat off." He wanted that coat, though; it wasn't easy for him to object.

  "I've gone in my shirt sleeves when it was colder than this," I said, "and my shirt's flannel."

  I took off the coat. He protested, but I talked him down cheerfully and he put it on.

  "Sure a fahn coat," he said happily. "Ah'll get me warmed up a mite in it, then you take it. Ah get awful cold around the heart," he said seriously. "Seems like ah always feel it most there. This woolly'll warm me up in no tahm. Then you take it again."

  "I don't even feel it," I said, which wasn't true. "You keep the coat, Reverend." I'd been cold again from standing around, even before I'd taken the coat off, and there was more snow in the wind now, blowing in even under the trees. There was no question about its being snow. Still I felt more cheerful than I had since morning, which seemed a long way back now, and like another life.

  I found the canteen on my saddle and had two long swallows. It was rotten stuff of Canby's all right, but it was hot in the mouth and warming in the belly. It gave me a good shiver, then settled broadly in my middle and began to spread through my body like a fire creeping in short grass. I stood there and let her spread for a minute; then I had another, corked the canteen, tied it back on the saddle and rolled a cigarette. I offered Sparks the makings, but he didn't smoke either. I turned my back to the clearing to cover the flare I'd make; two or three voices called at me though, low and angry. Having started, I held the flame until my cigarette was going. The smoke was good, drawn in that cold air, and after the whisky in my mouth.

  I could hear somebody leading his horse, and stopping close on my right.

  "You damn fool," he said in a low, hostile voice, "want to give us away?" I thought it was Winder. I knew I was in wrong, which made me even sorer.

  "Who to?" I asked him out loud. "You guys have been hearing things," I told him, the same way. "Let's get moving before we freeze stiff and can't. Or are we giving this up?"

  I heard his hammer click; the sound brought me awake, quick and clear. I kept the cigarette in my mouth, but didn't draw on it, and got hold of my own gun.

  "You chuck that butt," he ordered, "or I'll plug you. You've been a lily since this started, Croft." He must have seen my face when I lit up.

  "Start something," I told him. "For every hole you make, I'll make two. Anybody who'd ride a mule couldn't hit a barn in the daylight, let alone a man in the dark."

  I was scared though. I knew Winder's temper, and he wasn't more than five steps off. When I'd talked the cigarette had bobbed in my mouth too, in spite of my trying to talk stiff-lipped; he'd know where it was. I made a swell target; he could judge every inch of me. When he didn't say anything, my back began to crawl. I wouldn't have thought I could feel any colder, but I did, all under the back of my shirt. Still, after the way he'd put it, I couldn't let that cigarette go either. I drew my own gun slowly, and kept staring hard to see what he was doing, but couldn't. I wanted to squat, but it was no use with that cigarette. The best was to hold still and let the ash form.

  I jumped when Sparks spoke behind me, but felt better at once. My mind was beginning to freeze
on the situation, and his voice brought me to my senses, though I didn't move after the first start, or look away.

  "It looks like you'll have a lot of shootin' to do, Mistah Bahtlett," Sparks said. So he thought it was Bartlett. That idea made me feel a lot happier. I looked along the edge of the woods and saw what Sparks meant. Half a dozen men were lighting up. They felt the same way I did, I guess, foolish about waiting so long. The closest man was Tetley's Amigo. He had his hands cupped around the match, and I could see his brown, grease-shining face before he flipped the match out and drew deeply, making the cigarette glow and fade.

  "Damned fools," the man said, whoever he was. Then I heard him let the hammer down again, and his horse following him off.

  "Let's go," I said to Sparks. Other shadows were moving out into the clearing again.

  It was a thick dark, even out there. You couldn't have told it was snowing except by the feel. I didn't get used to the feel; it kept on being a surprise. I could see shapes moving when they crossed against a snow bank, but that was about all, except the cigarettes. Once in a while one of these made a brief shower of sparks when a man turned across the wind.

  In the huddle somebody, Mapes I thought, said, "Reckon we must have been hearing our own ears, boys."

  "We heard it, and it warn't no ears," a voice told him. That was Winder I was sure, and I thought again that it must have been Winder under the trees.

  "To hell with it," somebody said. "This is no kind of a night for the job." His voice was nervous from waiting blind.

  "You're right there," another agreed.

  "This snow will be three feet deep by morning," the first man said.

  There was a lot of muttering in agreement. After trying to see into the clearing all that time the job did look ridiculous. Also, unseasonable winter takes the heart out of men the same as it does out of animals. You just get used to the sun and the limber feeling, and when they go you want to crawl back into your hole.