by Lloyd Zimpel
From all this he receives no response, but he maintains a pleasant look. To me, he says, Yes, indeedy, some cold weather a-coming. I seen sundogs, and look at my team here, the way that hair is growing in.
Yes, Emil, say I: It is winter and I do not dispute it.
As if I have uttered words of wisdom he nods, and from his fine perch leans down toward me, saying in a confidential way: Gerhardt, I rode over here to see if I could talk with your boy, Harris. Do you suppose he is anywhere handy where I could see him for a minute?
He smiles, or smirks, as a sign of bogus friendliness; but it is only plain aggravation to Cornelius, who calls out: What the hell business do you have talking to him for?
Our proper lawman raises his eyebrows at this, but looks not to Cornelius but to me, and I raise a hand to shut the boy off, for all that I agree with his feeling. But for Ma, among them all he is the gloomiest, grim and unspeaking, in that he is closest to Harris in age, the two separated by less than a full year: they had a way of looking out for each other, playing as youngsters in the swamp, or running through the winter storms to school together, their dinner in the same pail.
To me, Pfeiffer says: I was hoping to have a talk with Harris. Might be, we could straighten some things out easy enough. You know, It aint like me to be hard with my neighbors.
Emil, say I, I would help you out here, if I could. The fact is, Harris is not here. I do not know where he is; there is nobody here who knows, for he has been traveling the last few days. He has a way of doing that, going off. . . . And, saying this, I am thinking: God will forgive me, surely, as this is my son. . . .
And when he turns up here again, well, we will find out where he has been and see what he has to say for himself; that is, about what you want to talk to him about. . . . Boys, they go off. You can understand how that is, being the father of boys yourself.
Pfeiffer stares down at me, without a word, as if a response will only humiliate us both; but Otto steps up: Listen, if you got questions for Harris, go ahead, shoot, we will answer them.
Pfeiffer shakes his head, but tolerantly. Otto is not done; he is never quite done: Listen, if it is Beidermann who sent you here, you are on a fool’s errand; and let me ask you this: Where is your damn warrant?
Pfeiffer blows out a steamy breath. I have been mistook here, boys, says he. Nobody is talking about a warrant, then. But, Hell’s fire, I am a sworn officer and I have got to follow what the law says; and when there is anything to do with a shooting, that is to say, the unlawful discharge of a weapon in such a manner as to endanger the public safety, then certain duties do fall to me.
From behind me, murmurs: Shooting? Shooting? And I might well add my own whispering question to them. I say: Emil, there is no soul standing here, or anywhere on my land, who can tell you anything about a shooting.
I do not doubt your word, Gerhardt, and I will agree that what you say is so—nobody here. But we have Schwantz himself who tells me this. You know him as well as I do—better, I would say. How long you been trading with him, you and the missus? A lot of years, eh? Back when his kids were still around helping him, I bet. Well, Schwantz, I do not see him lying about this, and besides, there was a witness, this big overgrown redhead name of Kirchoff, works for that hide-shipper Foss, comes through every once in a while, got that yard south of town where they used to have the mule pens. Maybe you know him, great big fuzzy-headed boy, got one eye wanders to the south a lot? His old man went bust near Friedrich five, six years ago and hauls everybody back East, except this big kid would not go. I guess he figured he could make a dollar here as easy as he could a dollar there. He sure as hell aint the kind of boy who could make much more than that, no matter if he is in Minnesota or Wisconsin or anyplace else. . . .
He would rattle on until dinner. I call out: What is this shooting, then? You claim there was a shooting—.
Gerhardt, he says, what I claim has nothing to do with the matter; we are talking about the discharge of a firearm in a public habitation witnessed by two people. It is a fact, not a claim, for I have seen the hole in Schwantz’s screen door and in the back, in a beam over that big pickle barrel of his, a big splintered hole where the slug is. You can come and take a look at it yourself.
Emil, say I: I have to say I am tired of getting invitations to inspect ravages hereabouts. I already have one from Beidermann.
Of course, says Pfeiffer, of course, Beidermann would do that. I know the talk about Leo’s barn going up, and his poisoned hounds—damn, I sure do hate to hear about poisoned dogs. I tell you, Gerhardt, I bet most men would rather be known to shoot a man than to poison a dog . . . well, maybe not if the man died. . . . Those were real high-bred hounds he had, too; some pups on the way worth a bunch, too. . . .
Out of patience once more, Otto says: Sheriff, you go on and on about shooters and poisoners and barn burners, and you do not have a warrant and there is none of the whole crew here, whom you keep talking about.
Ah, says Pfeiffer in a wily way: I think you have hit on it, Otto, not here, but then where? Where is Harris?
Now I have no more patience than Otto: Wait, wait just a minute, Emil. I am still not sure what you claim; but how, in any reasonable way, do you fasten this to my boy?
Gerhardt, you see, the law works this way: let me explain it to you all plainly. I have Schwantz and this big redhead testifying to the illegal occurrence, as follows: the two of them are in the Mercantile, late, having a chat, although I have never known Schwantz to be much of a talker. Harris comes in—now, Schwantz was not sure of the first name—he knew it was not Otto—but he swore it was a Praeger, the one with the wine-colored cheek, and he buys himself four bits’ worth of stuff—Schwantz says, beans, crackers, like that; and this big redhead is talking to him—Schwantz says he did not know what was said, until he realized the big kid told the Praeger boy he smelled like a sick whore; and Schwantz said he then went to the back of the store; for damn sure he wanted no part of that conversation. But after that, there was none, says Schwantz. The Praeger boy put his bean cans and cracker sack in the crook of his arm and, saying nothing, left. Schwantz, fearful in the dark rear of his store, counted his blessings. Then, smack! a damn shot, right through the screen door and into that upright in the rear. Not near to killing anybody, but it had the redhead hiding behind the pickle barrel until Schwantz told him to come out, for God’s sake. The shooter, leaving behind a strong fishy smell, was long gone. And, says Pfeiffer, the redhead told Schwantz that if someone dug the slug out of that beam, to save it for him, for his watch fob.
Emil, say I, are you saying Harris took a shot at the redhead, or maybe Schwantz? I cannot see . . .
Now, now, says Pfeiffer. It is not for me to say that he was shooting at somebody—no blood was shed—but he sure did shoot into the store.
Otto speaks up: God knows whose word you are going on, Sheriff, in these accusations about Harris: but you know there are folks around here jealous of us Praegers, what my father has built up here, and that fact rubs some of these buggers who never cleared a dime a year, wrong; and then they say these things.
Yes, Otto, surely people differ, and there are folks hereabouts who might be jealous of your old man—your father, that is—and if you just tell me who they are, and if they been shooting into our public buildings, or even just burning barns and poisoning dogs, why hell, I will pinch them in a minute!
Otto glowers, and Pfeiffer goes on: You know what happens then, if someone is so resentful of your old man? Well, he will not be burning your neighbor’s barn, by God, he will burn yours!
Clearly, Pfeiffer grows testy. I say: Now, then, is my whole family to be dragged into this, our good name: You are awfully quick to throw in Harris’ name here, and it could be anyone. It could be Clarence Schneider, or Burton—.
Pfeiffer pulls himself up; the little peacock on his shiny perch, managing to puff himself into a larger size, more to that of a man, and a simmering redness comes into his face: he has had enough.
Damn it to hell, Gerhardt, he yells. I can not keep up this play-acting of yours forever. We have known each other for a long time, and I never known you to give a man so much horses--t as now.
Emil, say I, you never came here before with a claim that one of my boys shot at a man.
Ha ha, says Pfeiffer. Go ahead and think of him as a hot gunslinger, ha ha; but he burned a barn and poisoned them dogs—that is what he has been up to, Gerhardt, your boy.
He huffs and puffs, steaming up the icy air all around his head, and out of that cloud announces: You think you can hide him for long, do you, eh? We will get that son of a bitch of yours, you bet! He aint going nowhere that he can hide from that mark on him. We will fetch him right over to Yankton and put him away for a nice little vacation; you can bet on that, Gerhardt!
He snaps the reins over the rear ends of his little team and turns so tightly his buggy wheels scarcely make the circle, and is off.
IT IS A SAD and silent supper we sit down to; and I think more than one of us is not far short of tears. Her face drawn gray with worry, Ma serves out the cornbread with twitching fingers. . . .
His supper complete, Otto announces: Well he is halfway to Oregon by now; and he goes to the foot of the stairs to pull off his boots, and then up to bed, without another word. And the others go, too; Ma as well, although she does not sleep, I know; putting a match to the lamp on my table here in the corner, I can hear her breathing.
This becomes a most wretched duty, setting down these last events. I am not sure I will do it much anymore. A man must have an appetite for it, or it is only scribbling.
. . . Halfway to Oregon; I would say not. I would say to the south and east—the badlands, the sand hills. To go there, I think would be for Harris . . . suitable . . . if he is indeed running; or is he just now dragging back from a Zimmerman debauch and ignorant of all the commotion into which his name has been thrown?
Surely no one under this roof sleeps soundly these nights: perhaps the twins, given the easy ways of youth; but who else? Ma lies most grievously awake: there is near to a sob in the catch of her breathing; and I know her thoughts well enough, for all the years we have lain side by side: Is Harris gone then, too? Is he the second child lost to me, to Gerhardt and me? . . . That first baby taken from us before she had a name, as if she would never be known to the world. But in murmured agreement at her little grave we bestowed upon her a name, her secret name.
And far above in dreamless sleep.
Safe in Christ’s tender fold,
Our Esther doth serenely rest,
From winter’s chill and cold.
NOV. 3. This is not a frost but a freeze. Ma hauls the last of her geraniums into the back porch, and ice needs breaking in the stock tank where a heifer or two slides her nose in puzzlement across the ice. I put a woolen shirt over my underwear, and doing so, I think that a man in open country, sleeping where he can, will find this very hard weather.
We are at our bacon and eggs, and as she brings her night-clothes to the porch to air, Ma says: You have not banked the house yet. And indeed we have not, with such distractions as have presented themselves.
Yes, yes, says Otto as if he has just been kicked in his hinder; this was not the kind of thing he ever forgot. Me and Henry will do it today. We got that pile of manure we saved west of the barn. We was going to do it, and other things got in the way.
But Ma is at the sink, washing dishes, and does not listen. Otto, watching her bent back, says: We will do it, Ma; we will do it.
NOV. 5. Why I bother to set this down, I hardly know—well, yes, I know; scratching at this page becomes a substitute for sleep, if there is a substitute for such; I think not. But this has been a frozen dreary day, all the drearier in that we have the duty to entertain our neighbor Krupp, who has for some reason dragged along on an old hip-sprung mule one of his snot-nosed brats, who sits sniffling and snuffling deep on his sway-backed mount, while Krupp greets us as if the Queen of England was sending the Praegers best wishes by way of him. I know his good nature to be spurious, and yet it is a small relief to have even that countering the sour glumness which overlays us the past several days.
He too has winter on his mind: She will be a cold one, he says: you seen them sundogs? She will be cold.
Yes, yes, say I: Nor would I be surprised. I have seen some cold summers and some hot ones, and some cold winters, but I have never been privileged to see a hot winter. How about yourself?
He passes over my little speech with a wincing smile. Gerhardt, says he, you know that business over at Beidermann’s?
I have heard.
Well, it is a damn shame, aint it? That old boy is up against it now, the time of year being what it is, and him with all that stock, and all his hay gone up—well, he had a little stack off from the barn but it does not amount to beans. Now, what I been thinking—well, I been talking to Schneider and I ran into Willis at the livery day afore yesterday—he was having hisself a little chat with the Widow Jenssen; she was waiting there by the wagon for Beidermann to buy hisself some stuff and, boy, he needs plenty. Well, what Willis says, and I agree with him, is that the both of us, and Schneider is going along, we throw in a few loads of fodder for Beidermann. He got plenty of range, sure, but his cattle sure cannot handle ten feet of snow and ice until next April.
By this time Krupp has found himself a comfortable seat on my porch steps, for all that I have not invited him to do so; and chill as is the air, he has a sufficient layering of tallow to stay warm. He tamps a wad of rough tobacco into his pipe, and in the yard his boy slides off the mule, which stands dead on its feet, as its recent rider shuffles toward the barn to see what the twins, who seem pleased to see him, are up to.
I cannot say I have ever seen Krupp so much at home on my place as he has made himself this cold morning; he is usually a man who shows some deference; but now he has his pipe pulling well and points the stem at me, saying: So what we been talking about, Schneider and me and the other boys, is we get all the folks around here to throw in—you and Johansen, and Laverene if we can get hold of him when he aint in Bismarck trying to finagle something out for himself with the government. Hell, we get eight, ten boys chipping in, and we get Beidermann with them giant animals of his to help haul it, and I do believe we can do it in three, four days, stack it up close against the south side of his house. Everybody come up with a couple or three loads; some of us, a little better off, might chip in more, eh? What do you think, Gerhardt? Half-dozen loads, maybe?
One does well to stay wary of Krupp until he reveals himself fully—if such is possible for him to do. He would like to think himself a tad ahead of the next man, always, unaware that he lacks the wherewithal to bring it off.
Krupp, my friend, say I, you are a man with keen neighborly instincts, as is the admirable Schneider and whoever else you have rung in on this.
Now, above his team, on a rack of the last cornstalks fit for feeding, Otto comes into the yard, draws up and tosses the reins to the twins who move the rack to the side of the barn for unloading.
He comes over, hailing Krupp: How are you, sir?
Krupp replies: Very well, my boy. He waves his pipe stem toward the load the twins are throwing off, and says: I see you are working short-handed, then?
Otto looks to me, uncertain, and I say: We have all we need; and to Otto: Our Mister Krupp here is in the business of collecting hay, to see Mister Beidermann through the winter.
From out his mouth Krupp expels vaporous clouds of the foul weed he burns, through which emission he mutters, True, true, and you will throw in what you can, eh? Gerhardt? Three loads? Four?
Otto, who knows our hay, I might say better than myself, says: Hold on. We got to know where we stand in our own needs. This winter will not be any easier on us than the last, and we aint got that much more hay. Give us a couple weeks of ice holding up a thaw, and we got to bring in our horses, too, and they can go through—
Krupp is as expert at waving his pi
pe stem as an Old Country conductor is with his baton. Yes, yes, Otto, he says. The winter here aint likely to be much worse than the one at Beidermann’s, eh? And there is the other thing you got to work into your figuring—and he is talking to me now, not Otto—which is that Beidermann sure as hell did not bring this business on himself. His barn was burned, eh? And he did not light the match which done it; and I would be a lying bastard if I said he was the one poisoned his own dogs, eh? Listen, we got some weather coming, Gerhardt, no squaw winter this year. You remember times we fed cottonwood bark and ground-up cobs? Well, them fine horses of Beidermann will be living off the tarpaper off his house. Help is damn well due him, these being the circumstances . . . and from you, considering. . . .
And he falls silent, a breath short of uttering Harris’ name.
He may have his need, sure, says Otto. Everybody does. But I will not be the one to haul hay or anything else to him. He would shoot me the first foot I set on his land.
Krupp knocks out his pipe on the porch step and says: I can see if he will send his team over to pick up—
No, no, say I. Krupp, let me ask you to suppose that it is me bereft of fodder, and you approach Mister Beidermann as you approach me here, cajoling aid for the Praeger benefit. You demand he deliver a half-dozen loads of hay out of his barn, where it is stored for the vital use of his animals, as it is all they will have to keep them alive in freezing weather. What do you suppose he says to your entreaty?
He would surely have to say yes, says Krupp and proceeds with a cleverness he has shown little knack for in the past; first I tell him this, that you will be feeding your spring seed to your hens so you have something to boil up for Sunday dinners, up to March, maybe. But your barn and all your hay—gone up. I see you got a little stack of slough hay over there where it did not catch, which will feed your milkers for a while; so you got that much anyways. But now me and Schneider see if we can talk Beidermann into helping out, and he has to think about it. But you see, what eats at him, Gerhardt, which does not eat at you, is another thing—those dead dogs, poisoned. A man hates to see that, and here it is some unknown neighbor sneaks in and tosses some poisoned fish to your dogs, so as to have the time to dump his coal oil aside your barn and get it to burning—
