by Les Weil
A blurred figure dashed past outside, splatting mud at every step. The front door flapped open and the mine superintendent staggered in. Water dripped from his peaked earflapped cap and from the raincoat over his lumber jacket and his heavy shoes and puttees were gooey with mud. He closed the door and leaned against it, chest heaving.
"Too late," said Monte. "Meal's over. Likely double the price now."
"Don't be ... funny!" gasped the superintendent, fighting for breath.
The lank man was in the inner doorway, a plate in one hand, a cloth in the other. "What's going on in here?" he said.
"We had ... a slide," gasped the superintendent. "Big one ... busted up ... three men ... bad."
Monte was up, striding forward, helping him to the other chair by the checkerboard.
"Easy," said Monte. "Easy now. Tell it slow."
The superintendent gulped in air. "No warning," he said. "It just came ... all at once. Right above us. Buried some of the sheds. And the shaft. Lucky no one was in there. But it caught three of us. Took them on down. Must have slammed them against trees on the way. They're alive, but they're in bad shape."
"Where?" said Monte.
"In the hoist building. There's a fire going and it's dry. But they're in bad shape. You hear me? Bad shape. Bones broken. Maybe hurt inside."
Monte turned away, slumped into his chair, stared out the window. The lank man, unaware of his own movement, wiped at the plate with the cloth.
"Don't just stand there!" said the superintendent. "Get busy. Harness your team. Get out your hay wagon."
"I notice," said Monte, bitter, "you ain't mentioning your goddamned autymobile."
"Shut up," said the superintendent, turning to him. "If you have to know, it's stuck in about ten feet of mud." He turned back to the lank man. "Look. We can lay mattresses on the wagon. Rig a tarpaulin over. Take them down to the hospital in town."
"Town?" said the lank man. "Take them? You crazy? The bridge's out."
The superintendent whirled to the window, leaned forward on his chair, staring. "Oh good God!" he said. He whirled back. "You don't understand! I've got to get them to a hospital! Or get a doctor with what he'll need up here!"
"You think I knocked down your bridge?" said the lank man. "You think I got another one in my pocket I can slap out there? Supposing I did, it wouldn't help any. That road's nothing but a mess of mud now. A wagon wouldn't get half a mile. I'm telling you there's no way out or in till this flood goes down."
"How long will that be?"
"Four-five days," said the lank man. "A week. Hard to say this time of year. But we'll just bring them down here to my place and do the best we can till then."
"Stupid!" said the superintendent. He pulled off his soaked cap and clutched at his damp hair. "Don't you understand? They need a doctor, medicine, expert attention! As soon as possible!"
"You think I got those things in my pocket too?" said the lank man, exasperated, angry at the whole situation.
Monte Walsh stirred on his chair. "The railroad trestle," he said. "Could a train get up in here?"
"That's it!" The superintendent jumped to his feet. "At least one man's got some sense. Rig a snowplow in front and plenty of men with shovels just in case, a train could get in. That's it. All we have to do is get a message down to the company."
The gray-haired woman was in the inner doorway beside the lank man. "Get a message down?" she said.
"Yeah," said the lank man. "How you going to do that? There's no way out."
Monte Walsh stirred on his chair again. "The trestle," he said.
"Sure," said the lank man. "Oh sure. Any one of us might scramble over. You get on the other side, then what? A man wouldn't have a chance. Rough country for three-four miles, still choked with snow. Turning into slush up to your neck. Try to follow the tracks and every cut'll be plugged with drifts packed in. Try to follow the road and you'll be wading in mud. Give out in no time. So you're a goddamned buffalo bull and you make it across that flat out there. Then you got fifteen miles with them damn gulleys all along. Every one'll be running, trying to act like the river out there. How you going to cross them? So you ain't drownded or knocked on the head or washed away. Who knows what'll it be like down below? Nothing but mud flats and more gulleys. It's forty-seven miles to town and that's if you go direct. It can't be done. There was a man tried it first year I was here, weather something like this, only not near so bad. You know what happened to him? We found him six weeks later, what was left of him, wedged atween rocks in the gorge. It can't be done. Not till things slow down and dry out some."
"You through yapping?" said Monte Walsh.
"Yeah. Why?"
Monte rose to his feet. "Because you're all wrong. Maybe a man couldn't do it. But a good horse could. Mine's going to."
"Good God, man! How'll you get him across?"
"Shucks," said Monte. "That horse'll go anywheres I can and plenty places I can't. Sairy, fix me a couple sandwiches. I'll be needing them even if this ain't going to be no picnic. Hogan, get your goddamn message written down so's I'll have it straight." He strode to the small side room and in.
"Is he joking?" said the superintendent. "I never know just how to take him."
"No," said the lank man slowly. "He ain't joking."
"No," echoed the gray-haired woman. "He's not joking. He's just doing what he can't help doing."
"And what's that?" said the superintendent.
"Being what he is," said the woman and turned back to go into the kitchen.
* * *
He stood by the cot looking down. Spread out on it was his bedroll, opened earlier for his morning shaving. He moved, swift and sure, and sat down on the edge of the cot and pulled off his battered boots and took his extra pair of socks and put these on over those already on his feet. He stood up, tugging hard to get the boots back over the double thickness. He picked up his worn old gunbelt and hefted this in one hand then poked out all the cartridges from their tiny loops to fall on the spread-out bedroll. He took the gun from its holster and loaded five of the cylinders and let the rest of the cartridges lie on the bedroll and put the gun into its holster and strapped the belt around his waist. He took one of the two big bandannas and folded it over and wrapped this around his neck, loose, and pulled his shirt collar up over it and buttoned the top button. He shrugged into his worn winter-lined jacket and checked the side pockets for his old leather gloves. He settled his big wide-brimmed old hat on his head and struggled, grunting some, to get his streaked old slicker on over the jacket. He looked down at the meager array of items remaining on the cot. "Be back for those later," he murmured. Suddenly he picked up a small packet of frayed old papers that could have been letters out of some long-ago time and he fingered through these and pulled out a small stiff old photograph. Faded, browned, blurred. The tiny figures barely distinguishable. A group of assorted squinteyed rawhide-hard men in old-fashioned range clothes standing in front of the sagging veranda of a weathered adobe ranch house. He looked at this for a moment and tucked it carefully away, inside the slicker, inside the jacket, in a pocket of his shirt. He strode out into the big room.
Sounds of the gray-haired woman's activity came from the kitchen, faint against the permeating rumble of the river outside. The superintendent was bent over the store counter writing rapidly on a piece of heavy paper. The lank man stood by the window, staring out. The lank man turned and moved to confront him. "Don't do it. Those three are maybe done for anyway. Don't make it another one."
"Quit fretting about me," he said. "I've rode with men taking cattle through weather like this who'd think it was only a breeze."
"Maybe. Maybe. But you ain't so young any more."
"Shucks," he said. "I'll make it down to Macready's store, that's only twenty-some miles, and telephone the rest of the way." He moved on, around the lank man, out the door, and around to the barn.
Seven minutes later, with a brown paper parcel in his one saddle bag and a fla
t packet wrapped in oilcloth with a string tied around it in a jacket pocket, slicker fastened against the rain, dripping hat brim pulled low, he rode through splashing mud toward the upslope of the left-hand ridge and the grayhaired woman, shawl wrapped around and open umbrella in hand, and the lank man hunched down under the umbrella beside her and the superintendent standing oblivious to the driving rain a few feet away watched him go.
They reached the upslope, the man and the horse, and the dun slowed, slugging into the climb on uncertain footing, slipping back, scrambling forward, working up, working up, and they were on the long pencil-gash of the railroad embankment. They moved along it and were at the blunted ridge end with the trestle just ahead and the rushing river beneath.
He swung down and stood by the head of the horse, talking to it, stroking it along the neck. He stepped out, holding the reins, onto the first few ties with the open spaces between and the rushing river below and he turned around, facing the horse. He pulled on the reins, gently, then harder with steady pressure, and the horse stretched out its neck, legs braced, immovable. He pulled steadily, talking slow, reassuring, and the dun's sides heaved in a long sigh creaking the wet saddle leather, and its weight eased forward and one forefoot reached out, testing the first tie. The hoof settled, firm, and the other forefoot reached to the next tie.
He backed, feeling backward with each foot in turn, and slowly, one tie and one hoof testing at a time, the horse moved out after him.
Slowly, slowly, then a shade faster as they had the slow rhythm of it, the man and the horse moved out on the trestle.
His left foot, reaching back, slipped on the wet wood and he tottered sideways and the horse stood, braced, head firm, and he caught himself, hauling on the reins for leverage, and was back in balance.
Slowly, slowly, plain above the stark tracery'of the trestle against the blank grayness of sky beyond, the man and the horse moved above the rushing river.
He was at the far edge. He stepped back to solid ground, the rock of the remnant of ridge beyond the river, and aside, and with a leaping scramble the horse was there with him. He took off his hat and waved it and jammed it back on his head and was in the saddle again and the dun moved, striking into a lope along the solid remnant of ridge and then was over and dropping into the broken country beyond. The man's head bobbed for a moment, sharp against the skyline, and then was lost from sight.
"I'll never open my big mouth again," said the superintendent. "I talked down that horse."
* * *
A long ride and a wet ride and a cold ride ... A man and a horse, aging both, still rugged in the simple unthinking endurance of the life they shared, moving together across the great brute spaces of the big land that had shaped them to its own...
Broken country here, rough and ragged with rock spines thrusting up and pools of slush between and scattered stillcrusted drifts of old soggy snow. Slow going. They held to the high spots as much as possible, slugging grimly through the low spots, slipping sideways into pools and scrambling out, smashing through drifts when there was no way else, working down, working down.
Time passed and the rain slackened some and the thin drizzle was worse than the pelting rain had been, seeming to seep through the slicker and soak into the clothes beneath, and they were out on the high plain that stretched its miles to the renewed arroyo-cut downgrades beyond. The dun, warmed to the work, impatient at the mud clutching its hoofs, struck into a fast lope. "Easy," he said, slowing it. "Easy. We got a long ways to go."
Time passed and there was no sound anywhere but the whisperings of rain on the drenched ground and the small creakings of wet saddle leather and the suckings of hoofs pulling out of fetlock-deep mud and splatting in again and they had angled over to reach the road, itself a shallow flowing stream, and they discarded it and followed along, paralleling it, to take advantage of its bank-cuts into and out of the arroyos ahead.
Time passed and the dun plowed on, hoofs sinking deep with every step, and he could feel the steady wearing strain in the stout muscles moving under him and they were working down again and came to the first real arroyo. The water rolled, strong and turbulent, dirty brown, heavy with silt. He let the dun stand, relaxing, gathering strength, and while it stood he estimated the flow against the height of the banks. He nudged the dun forward. It moved out, unhesitating but slow, into the water, feeling for the bottom ahead. The water roiled up around his boots and they were across, on the other side.
Another arroyo. And another. Always another. To work off to the right and try to head them would be to wander into broken twisted all but impassable country. To work down to the left would be to run into the river itself. They held to the fairly straight line of what had been the road.
Ahead now was a wide arroyo where a shiny new automobile had been bogged in moist sand only twenty-four hours before. They stopped, looking out over forty feet of rushing silt-heavy water that flowed from bank to bank. He leaned forward and patted the dun's neck. "I reckon we got to swim it," he said. He studied the main current. It swept around a curve from upstream to strike the near-side bank about fifty feet to the right and swung across to meet the far-side bank about a hundred feet on down below the road-crossing.
Obedient to the reins, the dun turned right and moved along the bank. Where the current hit, slicing in, they stopped again. He pulled off his gloves and tucked them in a pocket of the slicker. He unbuttoned and peeled off the slicker itself and rolled this and turned in saddle to tie it by the dangling whangs behind the cantle. He took his rope and tied one end tight to the saddle horn and the other end about his chest, under the armpits, and held the remaining coils in his left hand. He took the reins in his right hand and nudged the dun forward. It moved with short steps, reluctant, and stopped at the very edge of the bank. "We can't get any wetter," he said. "You've done it before. Maybe not as bad but you've done it. You're doing it now." He struck with his spurs and the dun, knowing, unhesitating now, hunched hind legs in close and leaped out into the rushing current. They dropped down and water rose almost to his shoulders and they bobbed up and he could feel the dun under him, swimming strong, strong and steady, and they swept downstream, angling across, and the far-side bank. seemed to leap to meet them and the dun heaved, finding some footing, and had forehoofs on the bank, pulling up and out, and the bank crumbled under and it fell back, floundering, off balance, tilted by the current, and he was sucked out of the saddle. He tried to strike out, swimming, and could make no headway, hampered by the dragging weight of clothes and jacket, and he swept on downstream, bobbing under, out, under, out, gulping air as he could, and suddenly the rope tightened around his chest and he hung in the water with the current rushing past him. The dun had battled to the bank again, further down, and was up and out, standing solid, braced. Hand over hand he went along the rope, choking, strength ebbing, and with a final effort was partway out on the bank. He lay there, legs still dragging in the water, hands clenched on the rope. The dun whiffled softly at him and he hitched himself forward and was all the way out and he lay there in the clinging mud by the strong patient hoofs and the coughing took him, hard and long, and this passed and he lay there and gradually he became aware of the icy chill soaking into him and the shivering shaking his body. He reached up and took hold of a stirrup and pulled himself to his feet and leaned forward over the saddle and slowly the heaving of his chest subsided. He straightened and one hand reached to stroke along the neck of the dun. "All the mean things I ever called you," he said. "Forget 'em." He pushed away from the horse a few feet and flapped his arms and twisted his body, slowly then with increasing vigor and he could feel the lean hard energy still bedded deep in his aging muscles creep through them again. He rubbed a hand over his dripping head, hatless now, and fumbled around his neck to pull out the soaked bandanna. He opened this and put it over his head and tied it under his chin. He untied the rope and coiled it in. He reached for the slicker. Gone. He opened the saddle bag and took out a soaked mud-streaked
mess that had been a brown paper parcel. He let this fall to the ground. He shrugged. "We're wasting three men's time," he said and swung up into the saddle.
* * *
The storm, spreading out over the lowlands most of the day, had passed there now, retreating into the mountains again, leaving streams searching through the bottoms and morasses of soft sticky mire between. Yesterday's promise of spring was faint and forgotten now as the sharp chill of early dusk, moist and penetrating with a hint of a possible freeze, tainted the air.
Macready's store and the several squat houses and the few outlying sheds that marked the start of a junction settlement were wet and forlorn in the deepening grayness, seemed lost and deserted in the immensity of the sodden land. The only movement discernible anywhere was that of a mud-streaked man, arms crossed with hands under his armpits, hunched in saddle with reins looped around the horn, on a tired mudsoaked dun-colored cow pony jogging forward along the side of the remnants of the main road.
They stopped in front of the store building. He swung down, moving stiffly, and stepped to the door. Padlocked. He grunted and kicked at the door. He looked around. There was no sign of life anywhere. He pulled his old mud-streaked jacket up on the right side and took his worn old gun and aimed down at the padlock. The gun roared, a sudden shattering sound in the stillness. Once. Twice. He put the gun back in its holster and twisted the smashed lock from the hasp and opened the door. Dim and deserted inside. He stepped to the one counter and lifted the chimney off the oil lamp there and took a match from the box beside it and lit the wick. He set the chimney in place and stepped to the crank phone on the wall by the end of the counter, fumbling for the oilcloth packet in his jacket pocket. He held this in his teeth while one hand took the receiver off its hook and the other hand cranked. He held the receiver to his ear. No sounds. Dead. He cranked again, vigorously. The same.
