Monte Walsh

by Les Weil

  "What in holy hell," said Cal, surveying the wreckage, "has been goin' on in here?"

  "Nothing much," gasped Hat Henderson. "We was ... only having ... a little argument."

  "What about?" said Cal.

  "Damned .., if I know," said Hat. "What was it, Dally?" "Search me," said Dally Johnson, cheerfully spitting out blood from a split lip. "I've plumb forgot."

  "Well, you sure are a sick-lookin' bunch right now," said Cal. "But Sonny here's got somethin' to tell you."

  "Yessiree," said Sonny, grinning wide. "But maybe I oughtn't tell it to a beat-up batch of castoffs like you all. Anyway, the old man's at the ranch with his whole family even the kids and some eastern dudes too. He wants to put on a little doings for the folks. Told me to ask you boys down to sort of add to the local color. Show what kind of mangy half-human critters inhabit these parts. We're barbecuing a beef and tapping a keg of beer and it just might be there'll be a bottle or two of something stronger."

  "Right neighborly," said Cal. "You boys need something like that. Skimpy an' me'll stay here an' the day's yours."

  "Which ain't all," said Sonny, grinning wider. "We got us a little stud down there we ain't been able to do a thing with. Me and the others've got together a little purse that says there ain't a one of you can ride him. By the which and wherefore and whatever and of course, meaning that slack­jawed piece of nothing much you tolerate around here under the name of Monte Walsh."

  In the morning Cal and Skimpy sat on the old veranda and watched them, slicked and reasonably presentable, jog away southward with Sonny, all of them, even Dobe erect and grinning despite his shoulder, and Cal felt right good. He knew. He knew by the way they sat their saddles and the way the horses feeling the tingle along reins jounced with springy strides, that this bad time was over and his boys would be ready for the rough tough fall roundup and shipping with the old grim rollicking zest in the work.

  And the men themselves, jogging along, knew too. They knew, certain as sunrise, that Monte Walsh would ride that stud to a fare-you-well and likely there would be calf-roping and steer-busting just to show those eastern dudes how things were done out here in the big land and they would come jogging back to Cal with money in their pockets and good barbecue in`their bellies, ten men separate and individual, and somehow something more, single and indivisible, the crew of the Slash Y.

  * * *

  "They had a Englishman out at the Slash Y last fall. Had put money in the comp'ny an' Brennan's had word he's to be treated gentle. No ragging of this one regardless how tempting he is. Which could make sense in a way. He was having a hard time. Man he'd brought across the water to do his dirty work was took sick in Saint Louie an' wasn't with him. Why, the poor feller had to do all kind of heavy work for hisself. Had to unpack his own doodads. Had to dress hisself of a morning an' the three-four other times he might do that in a day. But what I started with was he made a mistake first thing. It was Monte come in to pick him off the stage. Englishman's fed up with traveling an' brushing his own clothes an' maybe even shaving hisself an' he's in a hurry to get where he's going. Look here, my man, he says to Monte, meanwhile looking down a nose that'd do credit to a mule. Take those bags, he says, an' be quick about it. Well, now, Monte was about ready to do just that, it being the nat'ral decent thing to do. But that 'my man' an' the way it's said stops him cold. I was watching an' I says to myself, oh oh, here's a Englishman going to be bouncing around in pieces right quick. But no, Monte's been primed by old Cal an' he just chews a knuckle an' lets it go. I reckon he did a lot of letting things go by time they was out to the ranch.

  "Well, now, this Englishman was after some hunting. Had his own guns, five of them too, an' enough other gear to set up for a store. Let it be known, offhand-like, he'd bagged birds an' knocked over critters all the way up to a he-elephant in places where hunting was hunting. Didn't need anybody to tell him anything about that, but he could use a native to guide him some. New country. Wouldn't object to the man that'd met him in town. So Monte was the one had to take him out an' keep him out of serious trouble.

  "That was days. Evenings Monte was hatching something else. Gave Cal five dollars for an old plug they had around that might've been worth ten if you was feeling real generous an' was blind too. Hoss too stupid to learn much but Monte manages to teach it the one wrinkle he has in mind. Tickle it with a spur just right an' pull its head around an' it'll freeze solid with head up pointing where you've aimed it. Along comes the last time he'll be taking this Englishman out an' he saddles this hoss. They're in the hills somewhere. Monte spots a couple antelope way off, tickles the hoss. It stops, froze solid, head where he's aimed it. Your hoss, says this Englishman, what's it doing? Sh-h-h, says Monte, it's pointing some game. Englishman looks, finally makes out the antelope. My word, he says. He's always my-wording when things take his interest. My word, he says, does that hoss do that often? Too damn much, says Monte, which is why I don't use him much. They ride on an' Monte spots a deer way ahead that slips into some brush to let them slide by. Tickles the hoss. My word, says this Englishman, he's doing it again. Looks hard. Nothing there, he says. Could make a mistake, says Monte an' pulls his side gun an' pops into the brush. Out jumps the deer hightailing away. My word, says this Englishman, staring at the hoss. Just a nuisance, says Monte, 'cause he can't tell me what it is. No good for ranch work, says Monte, though I did break him of pointing cows. Always pointing something, might be just a jack rabbit. Birds? says this Englishman. No, says Monte, guess they don't have no smell for him. Got to have hide or fur. They ride on. My word, would you sell that hoss? Gosh, no, says Monte, too dangerous. Like once I thought it was a deer an' it was a grizzly that near scalped me.

  "Well, now, there must of been plenty my-wording before they got back with the elk head this Englishman wanted. 'Cause next day when he left that hoss was being shipped with him an' the whole crew, Cal included, was in town with three hundred dollars to spend forgetting all the things they'd been letting go."

  Antelope Junction

  1884

  FIVE MEN on five stout cow ponies, tagged by a packhorse on a lead rope, stopped on the last rise rolling out of sun-washed heat-shimmered distance to look down on the cluster of squat false-fronted board and adobe buildings known, where known at all, as Antelope Junction.

  Out of distance on beyond, thin trace in the big lonesome land, snaked a single narrow-gauge rail line, final stretch straight as taut string to the cluster of buildings, ending in a short strip of double switch-rails alongside a sagging adobe station and three poled corrals in a row. Out of distance to the left, emerging from arroyo-broken badlands, trailed the thinner fainter trace of wheel tracks that could, under stress of necessity, be called a road.

  "There she is," said foreman Hat Henderson, easing rump to new position in saddle.

  "Pretty, ain't it," said Monte Walsh, dry, disgusted. "Oh my yes."

  "Off your feed, Monte," said Sunfish Perkins, raising a hand to his shirt collar and slipping it inside under his dusty neckerchief to lift sweat-soaked cloth from skin and let a little air circulate. "Thought you were hell on hitting towns."

  "That ain't a town," said Monte. "Two bars and a beanery. Anyways you know damn well what's itching. And Cal sends five of us. To pick up fifteen measly cows."

  "Bulls," said Chet Rollins, busy applying match to stubby pipe poking out from round stubbly face. "High-priced yearling bull calves. The company's mighty particular about 'em."

  "Bulls are cows," said Monte, nudging his leggy dun closer to Chet's thick-necked black, reaching with one hand to take a small pouch from Chet's shirt pocket, extracting with the other a small paper from his own pocket. "Steers too," he said, making a tiny trough of the paper between fingers and sprinkling tobacco along it. One hand rolled the cigarette while the other tucked the pouch in Chet's pocket. "It could make a man mad," he said. "Cal's sure chasing us around. One bunch up to Nebraska chewing dust all the way. Just about through spitting and another bunch
up to Raton. And right away off again on this fool jaunt."

  "Ees bad," said Dobe Chavez, grinning under dusty dark mustache. "We come of the miles thees time, seventy. Now two-three days driving of thees leetle bulls to the ranch. Ees vary bad: Ees enough to keel a man."

  "That ain't what I mean," said Monte, aggrieved, fishing in pocket again, extracting a match, lighting it on blunt fingernail. "It's the timing. Another week and it'd of been payday."

  "If you'd taken it easy up at Raton," said Chet, amiable, conversational, "maybe you'd have something to jingle in your pants right now."

  Monte drew on the cigarette and sent the match flipping. "I didn't see you easing off any," he said.

  "No," said Chet. "That's why I ain't complaining now."

  "Shucks," said Monte. "I ain't complaining. Just talking. I bet there ain't two dollars on the whole bunch of us."

  "Lucky if that," said Hat, lifting reins to lead on down. "Come along while I check on those cows of the male variety. Then we'll strip pockets. We might have enough for a bottle."

  * * *

  Antelope Junction drowsed in late morning sun, devoid of all signs of active life. A dog lay limp, motionless, in the slim shade of a water trough beside a rock-rimmed well topped by an umbrella-like wooden hood in the center of what would have been the plaza if Antelope Junction could have enclosed a plaza. Two cow ponies drooped, sunk in wise lethargy, by the tie rail of a longish low building that proclaimed in faded paint on weathered plank over a double doorway ROOMS & EATS and beneath this the legend in faint scriptish eloquence, Biggest Beefsteaks West of Boston. A lone mule lay, legs tangled in harness, apparently lost in sleep between the shafts of a decrepit wagon that leaned sideways against its wheels in front of a solid structure with adjoining barn that was cafe and livery stable and stage stop. On the sagging roofed platform of the one store, general merchandise no longer very general, an old man was stretched on a bench, flat on back, battered old hat over face, holes showing in soles of toe-upturned boots. Against the front wall of a low otherwise blank building simply and sufficiently labeled SALOON sat two figures, rumps on ground, knees hunched up, well hidden from sun and scrutiny by tattered blankets up around shoulders and faded cone-crowned wide-brimmed hats tilted far forward.

  Across what would have been the plaza, where the lone track led in out of distance and became two, the plank door of the station hung open on loose hinges. In the small square dim interior insulated against outside glare by the thick adobe walls and strips of jagged cardboard tacked at close intervals across the windows, a long thin bald-topped man leaned back limp and loose-jointed in an ancient wired-together Morris chair beside a warped old desk littered with yellowed papers and magazines, gazing intently up at the fly-specked ceiling. Fastened to one corner of the desk top was a telegraph key. Beside it lay a flyswatter made of a small piece of leather tacked to a thin board.

  Stealthily the bald-topped man reached to take the swatter. Stealthily he rose from the chair to long thin height and swung the swatter with soft smack against the ceiling. He collapsed back into the chair and laid the swatter on the desk and took a pencil stub and made a tiny mark on a well­marked piece of brown paper. He leaned back and resumed his study of the ceiling.

  The dim interior dimmed a bit more. The bald-topped man rolled his head slightly to look at the big slope-shouldered figure almost filling the doorway.

  "You in charge here?" said Hat Henderson.

  The bald-topped man straightened in the old chair. He looked carefully around the small room. "I do not see anyone else here," he said, "so I suppose I am." He rubbed one hand over his bald top. "I will let you in on a little secret. I never see anyone else here."

  "Bulls," said Hat. "A little matter of fifteen pedigreed bull calves. Due in here today. What train they likely to be on?"

  "What train?" said the bald-topped man. "I am full of secrets today. Very free with them too. I will let you in on another. There is one train." He rubbed again over his bald top.

  "That is, if you care to call it a train."

  "When's it come in?" said Hat.

  The bald-topped man pointed to a piece of cardboard tacked to the wall. "According to that schedule," he said, "at 11:07. In the A.M. Very precise and scientific, that schedule. It is figured out in terms of miles and weights and steam pressures and wheel sizes and revolutions per minute and such. Very precise. Not 11:06. No. Not 11:08. No. At 11:07." He rubbed again, this time down over his long thin face. "The trouble is, that schedule does not mean a thing."

  "Jeeeeesus!" said Hat. "I ain't trying to pull your teeth! All I want to know is when the damn train comes in!"

  The bald-topped man looked at Hat, friendly, sad, sharing the grief. "That is the one secret I do not know," he said. "Two years, three months, seventeen days, I have been here. I have kept charts and I study them. And I have not figured that secret yet. All I can say is that train favors the afternoon. The late afternoon. It is a trifle closer to five o'clockish than anything else. Then again it fools me and sneaks in somewhere around three. Once last year at 2:13. I try to regard all that as joyful, something new and refreshing each day. It is not. It is depressing." He rubbed a hand again down over his face and the face emerged a bit brightened. "Would you care to see my charts?"

  "No," said Hat. He rubbed a hand down over his own face. "All I want to know is about today." He pointed at the telegraph key. "Can't you find out on that thing?"

  "That thing?" said the bald-topped man. "Did you notice any wires out along the tracks? No, of course not. No sane man can notice what is not there. They sent me that thing two years ago but they never got around to stringing any wires. But it is there. I tell myself it should be used. So I tap myself out messages now and again. I sent myself one this morning. Would you care to know what it was?"

  "No," said Hat, gnawing on a knuckle.

  "I will tell you anyway," said the bald-topped man. "Just three words but conveying vast and formidable information. It was: `Hot again today."'

  "So we wait," said Hat, regarding chewed knuckle in disgust, turning away. "Maybe the whole goddamned day." He turned back. "Mind if we put our horses in one of those corrals?"

  "Delighted," said the bald-topped man. "Always delighted to extend hospitality to horses. To nice horses." He saw he was speaking to a disappearing back and sighed and sagged in the old chair to study the ceiling.

  Outside Hat Henderson stepped down from the low platform bordering the rails and regarded his travel-worn crew with grim grin. "I been pulling teeth," he said. "All I can make out is the damn train'll be here when it gets here. Likely not till late afternoon. So we wait. We'll unsaddle an' shoo the hosses in here." He took his reins and led toward the first gate.

  "Gentlemen. Please."

  Five heads turned. The bald-topped man stood in the station doorway, flyswatter in hand. "Not in there," he said. "That one is occupied. It is not safe at all. Not in the least." Five heads turned again, this time toward the first corral baking quietly in the sun, apparently as empty as the other two.

  "Jeeeesus!" said Hat. "Is that yapping coyote trying to pull our legs?"

  "In the corner there," said Chet Rollins, pointing.

  Four more heads concentrated on the corner. Through the rails showed sections of a raw-boned mottle-hided horse, weight settled on three legs, big hammerhead drooping almost to the ground.

  "That is a very dangerous animal," said the bald-topped man. "And that, gentlemen, is not a secret."

  "I get it," said Monte Walsh. "It must of been losing his hair made him like that."

  "Something sure did," said Hat, shrugging wide shoulders, leading toward the second corral. "But he's in charge here an' we might as well play along."

  Saddles and pack were off and perched on the top rail of the second corral, bridles hanging from horns. Horses were turned inside. The trimmed-down trail crew of the Slash Y started in unspoken unanimity across the tracks. The bald­topped man watched them go. His voice reac
hed after them. "Gentlemen. You might care to know that I have killed seventy-three thus far today. This is four more than yesterday at this time."

  The trail crew of the Slash Y stopped, turned, stared at him.

  "Shucks," said Monte. "I ain't got nothing to lose but my pride. I'll bite, mister. eventy-three what?"

  "Flies," said the bald-topped man.

  "My oh my oh my," said Monte, striding with the others on across straight for the blank building labeled SALOON. "I'd sure be scared was it me cooped up in there all alone, fighting the things."

  * * *

  Antelope Junction drowsed in midday sun. The dog, limp and motionless again, had moved a few feet to stay in the slim shade of the water trough. The two cow ponies still drooped by the tie rail, betraying life at long intervals with futile tail-switchings. The lone mule, rousing once, had tangled further in harness and subsided again into apparent stupor. The old man had left his bench and shuffled slowly into somewhere. The two figures hunched against the saloon building had become three, had followed the shade and were around by the left side wall. A shapelessly fat woman had padded on bare feet out of one of the scattered adobe houses or huts in various stages of disrepair that could or could not have been inhabited, had hung a few gaudy garments on a line and had disappeared inside again. And close by the front corner of the little station on opposite side from the corrals, where a scraggly cottonwood helped the little building create a patch of shade, the trail crew of the Slash Y lounged on the ground, relaxed in assorted collapsings. Four of them could have been asleep. Not Monte Walsh.

  "We had one measly pint," murmured Monte, contemplating a small empty bottle by his right boot. "Split five ways. Just about enough to make a man know he's thirsty."

  He studied the bottle for a moment. "Ought to be a way," he murmured, "to get something more out of it." His face brightened. He pushed up, took the bottle, counted off fifty paces, set the bottle upright on the ground, came back to the others. His boot toe nudged Dobe Chavez.