“You are?” she asked.
“Pardon me. Harley Bain. I manage a little property hereabouts. Manage is the correct word. It is open range, belonging to the government, and my actual property consists of a few acres.” He lifted an arm and swept his hand in a broad arc. “But I manage the rest.”
“You know something of me?”
“Certainly. It is my business to know everything. I know where you are living, in somewhat questionable circumstances. You are with the woodcutters. They are useful men. The whole town and half the ranches would freeze to death without them. And of course there is the miller over there, who is harboring several of your people. It happens we need him. And we need you: my men are filthy and need their clothing repaired. And it has come to me that the Sylvestres have returned to their home, even though they are not citizens, and are camped there with still more of the Métis. And I’ve heard about another family that showed up in the night a while ago, and is sheltering with that drunk who runs hogs north of town. And that’s not all. One of my riders reports that a Canadian family of about twenty has occupied one of my line camps, stuffed six deep in bunks on every wall, and all of them without privacy. It is not something that white people tolerate.”
Therese thought that this man would not contribute to her church. He sounded more and more like one of those who had supported the army, and sent all the people back to Canada.
“I will wash the clothing,” she said. “And build my church.”
“The clothing, that’s fine. But building the church? I don’t think so.”
“And why not?”
“I think I want this land,” he said. “It’s close to town, and valuable. And I’m a citizen.”
“I made a claim, in the name of the church.”
“I’m afraid you didn’t. You had no status as a citizen. Now if a bishop had made the claim, and he was a citizen, then I would say that the church would have some squatter’s rights—a sort of preemptive claim until the land can be surveyed.”
She didn’t grasp all of that, but she got the idea.
“This is where my church will rise. It is given to me to build it,” she said.
“Madame, I’m afraid not. It is not possible.”
“It is not in my hands; it is in the hands of God,” she said.
“Ah, I seem to have a powerful opponent, then. And here I thought it was merely the Métis I was facing. This little church was simply an instrument of you Canadians. Well, stern resistance requires stern measures. I think it is time for you to move on, madame. You will not want to live in Lewistown, especially one like you who is single and vulnerable.”
He smiled, the gentle creases of his weathered face crinkling up slightly.
“Au revoir,” he said, and clapped the lines over the rumps of his trotters. The bays lowered into the tugs and drew the carriage upward and finally over the brow of the hill.
Therese knelt at the altar again. “I ask for help and what do you send me?” she asked her patroness.
twenty-five
Even before the fullness of dawn, Dirk heard the thump of an axe. He knew intuitively what that was about. Pierre and Antony were out at Reilly’s woodpile chopping firewood. Reilly had barely stayed ahead of his needs, but now the Métis were determined to help the pig farmer. They were good at it. It took skill to chop wood into stove lengths.
Dirk rolled out of his worn buffalo robe and found Marie and her daughter quietly at work at the stove, heating water and measuring rolled oats.
Reilly awoke with a start.
“A man can’t get some shuteye around his own house!”
“Go back to sleep then,” Dirk said.
“What’re they chopping wood fer? We don’t need it yet.”
“Certainly we need it. You were out.”
“I’m never out. When I need wood, I chop it.”
“How long have you been in Montana?”
“Long enough to have second thoughts about it, is what my answer is to your nosy question.”
“What are you going to do with all those hogs out there when it gets really cold and snowy?”
“I’m not going to nursemaid a bunch of pork.”
Dirk laughed.
“They can fend for themselves or I’ll haul them to town in my wagon and let ’em face what’s coming.”
“You’ve just started a hog ranch, Reilly. It’s not a pig farm anymore. You’ve got some hired hands and some domestic help.”
“I knew the good times would end if I brought you out here. Now I don’t have a house to meself.”
“Let the bad times roll, Reilly!”
The hog man eyed Dirk, and then subsided. “Maybe for a few days,” he muttered.
“You think Fort Maginnis would trade some feed for some hogs?” Dirk asked.
“What do I need feed for?”
Dirk wasn’t sure for a moment whether Reilly was just being ornery or whether the man had no idea what a Montana winter would do to his hogs and sheep, not to mention the chickens and ducks roaming outside the window.
“You wash your face, Reilly, and we’ll load a couple of hogs into that wagon and see what we can do at the fort. Meanwhile, these people will look after your place.”
It took a while, but Reilly finally downed some of the oat gruel that the women had boiled up, and the available males hogtied two porkers and set them into the spring wagon box, and then Reilly and Skye set out for the army post six or seven miles away.
“They going to throw you back up to Canada?” Reilly said.
“I’m not Métis. And I’m a citizen.”
“Don’t make any difference to soldiers. You look Métis, so off you go.”
“I’m British and Shoshone.”
“You think maybe those gents would stick around? I mean, hire on for help?”
“Food and shelter is all they seek for now.”
“They got more coming?”
“Hundreds if you want them.”
“They work pretty hard.”
“They work from dawn to dusk, and they do the tough jobs that cowboys avoid.”
Reilly was lost in thought as his plug horse tugged the wagon eastward, through a pine-girt pass and then out upon the broad plains. The hogs struggled and whined, knowing their fate, but they had been tied up tight. The day proved to be cold and clear, and the eddying air lanced the heat away from Reilly and Skye.
“What’s your story today, Reilly?”
“I haven’t got one. And if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“Your story’s about the change, Reilly. You’ve got some hardworking people who’ll turn you into one of the biggest ranchers in the Judith Basin. Hogs, sheep, whatever.”
“I don’t want to be a big rancher. I just want my pint of ale, Skye.”
Every now and then the spring wagon careened as the hogs fought their ties, but the wagon didn’t tip.
They raised the post midmorning. It stood whitely, smoke drifting from a score of chimneys, operations largely suspended for the winter. Dirk steered the wagon toward the headquarters building, where a frostbit flag hung. Dirk had been around army posts for years and thought he knew how to proceed.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, because I sure don’t,” Reilly said.
Dirk braked the wagon, stepped onto frozen ground, and into the board and batten structure. An orderly greeted him.
“I’m looking for the quartermaster or officer of the day. Got some hogs out there we’d like to trade for some feed.”
“Hogs? Pork? Bacon?” the aide said. “You just stay right there.”
He returned in a moment with a sergeant.
“Beadle here. Let’s see the porkers,” he said.
Beadle studied the writhing hogs, lips pursed.
“Guaranteed fresh meat,” Reilly said.
“Pretty thin,” the sergeant said. “Not much on those two.”
“Well, if you don’t want them, we’ll go,” Reilly said.
“I want them. I just want to whittle down the price to what it should be, and not what you think it should be,” Beadle said.
They dickered. Dirk stayed quiet. If Reilly didn’t like the price, Dirk would hear about it all the way back. But in time, they worked it out. Soldiers hauled the hogs off and loaded the wagon with fat bags of oats and barley and some molasses for sweet feed.
Dirk thought it was a good haul.
“Bring two more in a week or so,” Beadle said. “We’re tired of beef.”
“We’ll think about it,” Reilly said, eyeing the mound of burlap bags in the wagon box. “If the price is right. If you’re going to ream me, I’ll take my custom elsewhere. It’s a long way from there to here and here to there.”
Beadle lipped a cigar and smiled.
It was a long ride back, but the trip was joyous. When Reilly drew up at his ramshackle place, he began muttering. “What’s that?” he asked.
“Looks like a hay pile to me,” Dirk said.
It wasn’t much of a pile, but it was native hay, scythed from the dried brown grass on the foothill slope nearby.
“What do we want that for?”
Dirk laughed.
“Waste of energy. We could all be lifting a tank of ale in Lewistown.”
“You’re stuck here,” Dirk said.
It seemed scarcely possible that these people could have cut so much native grass hay, but there it was. And there were some grimy-looking sheep feasting on some of it.
“How many sheep and hogs you got here, Reilly?”
“Beats me. When they see me coming, they hide.”
“These Métis are good at sheep shearing. Next spring, you’ll have some wool if you don’t eat the sheep.”
“Are you trying to tell me how to run my own place, Skye?”
“As a matter of fact, that did occur to me, Reilly.”
“Well, you’re fired. They’re all fired. I want them off my place.”
“Guess you’re stuck with them for a while.”
Reilly threw up his arms, growled, and stomped off to the cabin.
Dirk didn’t see Pierre or Antony, but he didn’t doubt they were making other improvements on Reilly’s place. He spotted some hogs in a nearby pasture, feeding on something. The Métis were apparently collecting the feral beasts and luring them in with food.
Dirk entered the cabin and found Reilly in a sour mood. “I don’t have a corner to myself, Skye. You did this to me. I can’t get a moment’s peace around here. Look at ’em! Cooking and cleaning like they own the place.”
“Poor devil,” Dirk said. “It’s so hard to be taken care of.”
“I can take care of myself, thank ye. All I need is some ale at the pub, and I’m a happy man.”
“Your duds need mending, Reilly,” Dirk said.
“I can mend ’em myself. I don’t need a thing!”
“Well, your boots are falling apart and that coat’s got a rent in it and those britches are an embarrassment around women.”
“You’ve ruined me, Skye!”
Dirk looked around. In the space of a few hours the Métis mother and daughter had transformed the befouled cabin into a sweet-smelling, clean home. Reilly, if that was his name, would get used to it. And the place would feed and shelter the Métis until they could settle somewhere when these troubles had passed.
“Reilly, I’m done here. In the morning I’m heading for Miles City to get my stuff and then somewhere else.”
“Where you going, Skye?”
“Wherever there’s a job.”
Reilly stared and relented. “Cheers,” he said.
It wasn’t until full dark that Pierre and Antony returned, and with them came the sounds of livestock. Dirk stood in the cabin door, listening. There were scores of hogs, and some sheep were blatting too. And the yapping of a dog.
He peered into the night and made out a long-haired herding dog of some sort, which was circling the hogs and sheep as if born to the task. Where it came from Dirk had no idea, but the Métis could walk up to any mountaintop and come back with much more than the Ten Commandments. A herding dog would help the Reilly ranch more than any other creature.
As soon as the Métis men came in, Marie and Josephine began serving more of their stew, giving the first bowl to Reilly.
“What am I going to do with all these people, Skye? I don’t have a corner to smoke a pipe. Them and me, we can’t speak a word.”
“You don’t need to speak a word. They’ll take care of you.”
“Skye, you blithering idiot. I live to talk. All I want is my mug of ale and some ears to hear me.”
“Well, talk away, Reilly. It’s a good thing they can’t understand a word you say. That way they won’t be bored.”
“Insulting me now, are ye? Me, who gathered you up in the cold, and saved your lives. No sooner do you move in on me than you start in on me. Well, out with you!”
“In the morning, Reilly. I’m off at dawn.”
“You deserting me, are you?”
“Yes. I have to get my own life squared away. The army fired me.”
“And right they were too. They should’ve fired you straight off, Skye.”
Dirk had come to the same conclusion, so he just nodded and smiled.
Sometime in the night, Dirk was awakened by the barking of that mutt outside. The incessant barking woke the rest too, and in time, the women got an oil lamp lit. Dirk thought it might be wolves. Whatever it was out there, there was noise.
Reilly was the first up, in his long johns, and opened the door. There, on his stoop, were half a dozen people, one of them an elderly woman, who collapsed even as the first warmth of the doorway reached her. The others waited abjectly in the cold until Reilly helped them in. Three burly men, a young woman bundled in a blanket, two little girls, and an ancient man in rags stumbled in and fell to the floor, too weary to stand.
They were Métis.
Marie and Josephine rushed to help these people, while Pierre and Antony checked outside to see whether there were more. The newcomers began some sort of talk with the other Métis people, most of which Dirk couldn’t grasp. But there was just enough French in the dialect to give him a sense of what was being said.
“What are they yammering about?” Reilly asked.
“Night riders jumped their camp, burned every possession they had, including their tents, and left them to die in the cold.”
twenty-six
Pap Reilly looked like a trapped rat. He watched sourly as the rest helped the Métis who had stumbled to his door. The cabin swarmed with these people, and they were babbling Swahili as far as Reilly knew.
Dirk helped to settle the newcomers. They needed warmth most of all. They needed hot food and a refuge where they could weep. They filled the whole cabin, filled its floor, filled its few rough chairs, filled its bunks, swarmed its hearth, surrounded its stove. And through it all, Reilly muttered to himself and looked about to explode.
There wasn’t much to be told. These people had abandoned the Missouri Breaks as game diminished and hoped to find shelter among the Métis who had settled in the Judith country. Instead, they were left to die in the cold and everything they owned was ash.
That didn’t soften Pap Reilly one bit. He glared at the mob in his cabin. He paced. He swung the door open, stared into the quiet night, and slammed the door shut. Finally he corralled Dirk.
“I’m going to have me a mug of ale in town. Get some peace and quiet. I want them gone when I get back. They’re like dandelions; let in one and they take over the lawn.”
“I’ll help you harness,” Dirk said. “And we’ll catch a hog and you can take it to town. You’ll get there before dawn.”
“Now what would I do that fer?”
“These people need tools. Axes, saws, hammers, spades.”
“Tools! I trade a good hog for tools? All I want is a quiet ale, talkin’ with people who talk my tongue, not these pissants.”
“You trade that hog for too
ls at the mercantile, and all these Métis’ll get busy making themselves useful. You’ve got the farrowing shed, the lambing shed in your yard. Those are going to be your bunkhouse. The whole lot’ll move into them. Oh, get a sheet-metal stove and some pipe too.”
“Bunkhouse! Stove! Tools! What are ye babbling about, Skye?”
“You’re about to become the most prosperous rancher in the Judith Basin. You’ll have more hogs and sheep than there are people in the whole area.”
“Prosperous rancher? Are ye daft, Skye? I want me a pint of ale and a bar stool with my name on it and the devil with the rest. Let the hogs and sheep take care of themselves, for all I care.”
“Say, what does Pap stand for?”
“Pappy. Like in father.”
“You a father?”
“Don’t ask questions I won’t answer.”
“I’ll get the wagon hooked up,” Dirk said, sliding into the night. The well-lit cabin threw lamplight toward the pen and sheds. He fumbled around, found the bridle and harness, found the wagon dray, threw the collar over it, and buckled the rest in place. Reilly stood in the dark mumbling unhappily.
“They’ve robbed me of a night’s sleep. They’re taking over; they’re multiplying by the hour, Skye.”
“They’re going to give you the skilled labor you need. They’re going to put food and ale on your table, keep your house, do your chores, keep you warm.”
“Do my chores? I don’t have any chores.”
“Well, now you do. You’ve won the jackpot, Reilly. You’re a rich man.”
“Rich, am I? All the way to the poorhouse.”
“The saloons won’t open until noon. But you can trade a hog for tools. Now, let’s corral one of those porkers.”
Dirk found a lariat on a peg and easily dropped it over a giant hog.
“Not that one, Skye. That’s Richard, my boar.”
“You should name your next boar Barnaby, after my pa,” Dirk said.
“My next boar’ll be Thomas Francis Meagher, after a patriot I know.”
Richard was in no mood to be caught and tugged away, almost tipping Dirk. But Dirk handed himself down the rope, managed to slide it off the boar, and dropped it over a fat sow, who oinked piteously. Dirk always believed that hogs knew their fate. But with some help from Reilly, they got her tied up and into the spring wagon.
The First Dance Page 17
