by Gary D. Svee
The gray light of false dawn lay upon the land. The Yellowstone was shiny black, the west hill a dark gray marked with the darker shapes of juniper and yucca. The day untouched yet by the sun was cold, and Sheriff Drinkwalter hunched his shoulders, pulling his neck into the warmth of his jacket. A moment later he pulled his gelding to a halt, turning in his saddle.
Mac was riding with his arms pulled up to his chest. Even in the gray light, the sheriff could see that the boy was shivering.
“Mac, there’s an extra jacket in your saddlebag, left side. Put it on.”
“Don’t need it.” Mac’s words came between squeezed teeth. The boy was trying very hard to stop his teeth from chattering.
“Put it on, Mac. There’s no sense being cold.”
“It’ll warm up pretty quick, when the sun comes up. I’ll be fine.”
“Put it on, Mac.”
“Don’t need it!” Although the words were whispered, an edge was creeping into the boy’s voice.
“Mac, from this point on, we’re hunting. No way in the world you can hit an antelope, shaking like that.”
Mac stared at the sheriff for a moment. Then he nodded, reaching behind him to pull the jacket from the saddlebag. Wool lined it was, with a cotton shell in the style of the dusters that so many cowboys wear. The jacket was soft and warm and smelled of laundry soap and the sun. For a moment, Mac wished that he had a jacket like that, but he pulled his thoughts from such fancy, an oft-repeated litany forming in his mind: “Dear Lord, please forgive me for wanting things that I am not meant to have.”
The sheriff rode west past a cattail-filled slough that marked a long-dead channel of the Yellowstone. He pulled his horse into a stand of trees shading the river bottom from the early morning light. A band of river rock, white with dead moss and the silt of last year’s high water, lay between the trees and black water. Wide the river was, slick water that hid its depths from anyone who dared venture into it. A ridge tiptoed into the river on the far side, keeping the bank steep, too steep, Mac thought, for a horse to scramble up. Too steep, anyway, for a novice rider like Mac to stay on the animal’s back as it struggled for purchase.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Drinkwalter said. “Only way you can get into trouble is to slip off the downstream side of the ford. It’s deep there and fast. If you go over, let the horse have her head. She’ll go for whatever bank she figures she can make. You stay with the horse, and she’ll get you through. Hang on to the saddle, or the mane, or the tail, or anything else you can get your hands on, but don’t leave the horse, Mac.
“I’ll be going ahead of you. So you just follow me, but if I go over, you just let me be. Won’t be anything you can do, anyway. You understand me, Mac?”
“Can’t swim.”
“Don’t have to. Anything goes wrong, your horse will take care of you.”
Mac stared wide-eyed at the river.
“Mac, just keep your head about you, and everything will be just fine. The ford is the tail end of that ridge. Just keep the horse headed toward that ridge, and you’ll do fine. You ready?”
“Can’t swim. I told you I can’t swim.”
The sheriff shook his head and sighed. “I made this sound worse than it is. I didn’t mean to do that. It’s just that it’s always a good idea to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. We’ll do just fine crossing this river, and once we get across, we’ll shoot some antelope.”
“You ready to cross with me, Mac?”
Mac nodded.
Sheriff Drinkwalter nudged his horse into the river just as the sun cracked the eastern horizon. The bright light turned the morning air clear and crisp. Colors appeared where only shadows existed a moment before, and the river, black as obsidian in the darkness, turned green as an emerald, the slanting rays of the sun lighting its depths.
The horses clattered across the rocks and into the water. For a moment, Mac saw the crossing. It was as the sheriff had said it would be, a natural roadway leading across the river. But as the horses edged into deeper water, the path disappeared into the darker green of the depths. The boy involuntarily sucked in his breath, holding it as though he were already immersed in the river, as though he were already drowning.
The water was lapping at Mac’s feet, seeping through the holes in the soles of his shoes. The river seemed eager to reach the boy, eager to claim him for its own. Mac jerked his feet up, and the horse, feeling the tap of her rider’s feet, surged ahead. Mac almost panicked, but he eased back on the reins, willing the horse to walk.
The water was over his ankles, the river welling on the upstream side, raging against the arrogance of this four-legged creature and its rider. Rocks, ledges, mountains had fallen to the river in its eons of existence, each yielding to the power and majesty of the Yellowstone. It was pure folly for a four-legged to resist its flow.
Mac could hear the river’s warning in the rush of the water. He had spoken with the river before. The boy had been down on the banks of the Yellowstone, watching trout leap from its emerald depths, silver spraying from their twisting, writhing bodies. He had thrust his head beneath the surface to see what frightened the trout so.
He had expected the river to be quiet, but the water was filled with a great clatter as the current rearranged its bottom, moving one rock here and another there. Perhaps the trout were fleeing the rocks that the river was throwing at them.
The mare stumbled, and Mac wondered if the river had hurled a boulder at her steel-shod feet. He wondered if the river would pick this moment to shift in her bed and send the boy and the horse flailing helplessly against the current and the depths downstream.
Mac tried to pull his thoughts away from the rocks bouncing past his horse’s feet. The far bank was nearer now; they were nearly halfway across. But the water was deeper here, nearly up to the boy’s knees, and he could feel the horse scrambling for footing on the rocky bottom. He wondered what would happen if the horse refused to go on. If he tried to turn back, she would be swept over the edge. So they wouldn’t be able to go on, and they wouldn’t be able to go back. They would stand in the middle of those dark green waters like a four-legged boulder until the cold of the water took away their strength, and then they would surrender to the Yellowstone.
The mare was leaping now, fighting for footing. Mac was hanging on to the saddle horn, afraid he would be thrown off. He looked up just as the sheriff’s gelding slipped over the edge. The sheriff’s horse screamed, eyes rolling in terror, as he threw his head back to keep his nose above the water.
The current was faster than Mac had imagined. The sheriff’s gelding was swept downstream, fighting to keep its head up, to breathe the air that would fuel its fight with the river. Mac’s mare turned to follow, but Mac jerked her head around. “Hyah, hyah.” The boy urged her into the current, away from the edge that carried the sheriff away. Too far they went, the horse stepping into the deep water upstream, but just as the sheriff had said, the current carried her back to the ford. She lunged up on the gravel, seeking footing, seeking safety.
Mac’s eyes desperately searched the opposite shore, looking for the end of the crossing. There, just where the ridge stepped into the water. Safety lay there.
“Hyah, hyah.” The mare lunged toward the shore, the current carrying away her wake, the only evidence of their passing. “Hyah, hyah.” Mac was slapping the mare with the reins, urging her on, and then the water was back down to his knees, and then his shoes. Only then did Mac seek the sheriff. The current had carried the horse and rider nearly a quarter mile downstream. But they seemed no closer to the bank. The gelding, head held back in fright, was flailing the water with his hooves, making little progress.
Mac’s mare was only knee-deep in the water now. Without the river to restrain her, she lunged toward the safety of the bank, nearly throwing Mac off. She reached the bank, dancing out her fear in the shallow water.
No time for dancing. A trail led up from the river, just as the sheriff said it w
ould. Mac pointed the mare’s nose toward the break in the willows and chokecherry bushes. A moment later, he broke out on a meadow. He wheeled the mare downstream and kicked her into a gallop. She ran as though to free herself forever from the green waters of the Yellowstone. Mac held to his saddle horn, giving the horse her head. He had to help the sheriff. If he didn’t get there in time … Mac drove the thought from his mind as he drove his heels into the mare’s belly.
6
The sheriff’s gelding was fighting the river. If the horse could have gotten his feet under him, he would have reared, bucked against the indignation of being dumped into the cold water. But there was nothing beneath his feet to offer purchase. So he ran for his life, feet flailing.
Sheriff Drinkwalter leaned forward in the saddle, face near the horse’s neck. “You can make it, boy. We’re almost there. You can do it. Good hoss. Good hoss. Just run, boy, just keep running, and we’ll make it.”
The gelding’s ears flicked back at the sound of the sheriff’s voice, and Drinkwalter sensed a strengthening of resolve. The horse was swimming now, pulling away from the panic that had been pulling the animal into the depths of the river.
“Good hoss. We’ll make it across. I won’t let anything happen to you. We’ll make it.”
And then a click, steel against stone: one of the horse’s hoofs had struck a boulder beneath the water. That was good and bad: good because it meant that they were entering shallower water; bad because the bottom might be littered with boulders, traps for a horse’s thrashing feet. A trapped hoof could snap a leg or hold the horse captive while the relentless surge of the river pushed him to the bottom. Either case meant death for the horse and perhaps for the sheriff.
“Good hoss. We’ve almost made it now. We’re coming up on the bank. It’s not so steep here that we can’t climb out. Good hoss. Good hoss.”
The gelding surged on, encouraged by the sharp scent of willow buds about to burst into leaves, encouraged by the scent of new life. Click! Another rock and then a clatter as the horse charged toward the bank.
The gelding pulled free of the river and danced out his freedom. The sheriff pulled back on the reins, speaking softly to the horse. “Easy, now. Easy.”
The sheriff’s eyes searched the crossing above. Mac wasn’t in the crossing. The boy had made it across. But then another thought pierced the sheriff’s consciousness. The boy could have slipped over the crossing just after the sheriff did. If he couldn’t turn the mare toward the shore, if the horse took the easiest path and swam downstream, he could be … The sheriff’s eyes jerked downstream. The river made a wide bend to the north there. Could he already be around the bend? There was something in the water there, dark against the darkness of the water.
The bank was too steep and high here to climb to the meadow above. Drinkwalter pointed the gelding downstream, the sheriffs eyes probing the bank for a path leading to the top, probing the river for a sign of the boy.
He had traveled nearly two hundred yards downstream before he found a game trail leading to the top. At each step the sheriffs dread had grown. He reined the gelding over to the trail, and the horse took easily to the climb, anything to free himself from the dark waters of the river.
As the sheriff breached the top, a smile spread across his face. Mac was sitting on last year’s grass, leaning against the trunk of a cottonwood.
Mac glared at the sheriff.
“Good to see you, Mac. I was worried about you.”
The muscles at the back of Mac’s jaw bulged. One eyebrow crept up the sheriff’s forehead. He would probe with words the source of the boy’s anger as delicately as a surgeon’s scalpel probes for a malignant growth.
“Helluva ride, wasn’t it? Something to tell your mother about.”
Nothing. The sheriff took a deep breath and eased it out.
“Well, we better get up on top if we’re going to catch those antelope in the pastures. Won’t be long before they move off. No need to dry our clothes. The sun will dry us off soon enough.”
Mac spoke, his words seasoned with deadly resolve. “I’m not going hunting with you. Not now, not ever. Just waited to tell you that. I’m going to take the road back to town. I’ll leave the rifle at the livery.”
The boy stood, stepping toward his mare on legs shaky with rage.
“Mac, wait a minute. What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Go to hell.”
“Mac, at least tell me what rankles you so. You owe me that.”
“I owe you nothing!”
Mac had removed the mare’s bridle and loosened the saddle’s cinch. He took the bridle now from the low branch where he had hung it, slipped the bit into the mare’s mouth and the bridle over her head. He stepped up to the horse then, tugging against the cinch to tighten it. But the mare had taken a deep breath; Mac couldn’t pull the cinch tight.
The sheriff’s words came softly: “Kick her in the belly, Mac. Then she’ll let you tighten the cinch.”
“Yeah, kick her in the belly. What’d she do, fail one of your stupid damn tests?”
“Mac, your mother wouldn’t like you using language like that.”
Mac stormed away from the horse toward the sheriff. “Who the hell are you to tell me what my ma wouldn’t like?”
The sheriff sighed. “You’re right, Mac. I don’t know what your mother would say. I don’t know what put the burr under your saddle, either, but I sure as hell would like to.”
Mac’s face pinched together and for a moment it seemed that the boy might burst into tears. But Mac McPherson wouldn’t be brought to tears: not by anything, not by anybody.
“I told you I couldn’t swim, but you dragged me into the river anyway. And then you pulled off that fool stunt.”
“What stunt?”
The muscles in Mac’s jaw tightened, and his eyes cut like razors.
“You went over the edge. I’ve never seen a horse terrified before, but that’s what your horse was. His eyes rolled back like the devil had him by the lead rope. I thought I was going over then, too.”
Mac glared at the sheriff. “All I could think about was what it would be like to be laying on the bottom of that river and not being able to breathe. And finally I’d take a breath and get a lung full of water and cough myself to death down there. I couldn’t breathe just thinking about it. I didn’t take a breath till I got to shore.”
“Then all I could think about was you being out in that river. I thought about all the things that could be happening to you.”
Mac’s face grimaced. “So I ran down here, first place I could get to the river and I watched you, watched you swim that horse to shore. You know what?”
Drinkwalter’s face wrinkled. “What?”
“Not one time did you look over your shoulder to see how I was doing, to see if I made it across the river or not. Not once did you even look back!”
Mac’s jaw clamped shut, and only the force of his anger could squeeze the words between his teeth. “At first I thought you didn’t give a damn if I drowned or not. At first I thought you were one cowardly son of a bitch who wouldn’t pitch in to help someone … someone who didn’t know how to swim.”
“But then you started looking around for me. You looked upstream. You looked upstream because you knew I would make it across. You knew that because you knew that you could have made it across! You went into that river on purpose.”
Mac stood and stomped around the little clearing, his feet raising little puffs of dust. He turned to face the sheriff.
“This was another of your stupid damn tests. Just like the test to see if I would check the chamber of the rifle before firing it. Only this test could have killed me!”
Mac’s voice roared now, as a fire roars with a gust of wind. “You were willing to see me dead just to see if you could ‘trust’ me to do what you told me to do. Well, I passed the test. I did exactly what
you told me, and I got across the river.”
“But I’ll tell you something, Sheriff. You failed my test. There is no way I can trust you. Don’t you ever come around me and Ma’s cabin again, Sheriff. If I don’t ever see you again, it’ll be too damn soon.”
Drinkwalter’s face blanched white. “Mac …”
The sheriff’s mouth opened and closed silently, as though he were a fish waiting for the current to carry him air to breathe, and then his thoughts caught up to the moment.
“Mac, we’re here. We might as well take some meat back with us. We might as well.”
“You go to hell, Sheriff! You get any meat, you don’t bring it to us. We don’t need you. I told you at the beginning. We don’t need your damn charity. We don’t need it now. We don’t need it ever!”
Mac stepped back and kicked the mare in the belly, using his rage to tighten the cinch. The boy twisted the stirrup, stepped into it and pulled himself into the saddle. He was reining the horse around when the sheriffs voice, flat as a homesteader’s dreams, came to him.
“Mac, it’s true. I did that to see if I could trust you. Truth is I need your help. I probably should have come to you straight on, but I didn’t do that.”
The sheriff’s chin sunk toward his chest.
“Mac, you keep that rifle. It was Deak’s. I know he’d be pleased that you have it. Maybe you can get a deer down on the river bottom by your place.”
“I …” The sheriff sighed. He shook his head and dropped his eyes to the ground. He waved, a last, flickering gesture, without looking up. “I’m sorry.”
The sheriff seemed to have aged decades in the last few moments, and Mac’s anger fled as quickly as it had raged.
“I couldn’t keep the rifle.”
“Keep it. I don’t need it. Shame to have it go to waste.”
