Slate Creek

by Wallace J. Swenson

  Simon tilted his hat back and wiped his brow with a forearm. Resetting it, he gigged his horse to move ahead of the team again and started looking for signs of water. Forty minutes later, a copse of cottonwood and aspen offered cool, damp dirt, and a chance to get out of the sun. His horse smelled the moisture, and her stride lengthened as she stepped a bit higher.

  “They needed that,” Malm said. He held the bucket to the thirsty horse. “Them horse apples are supposed to break apart when they poop ’em out. Couple of ’em actually bounced. Better give ’em two each. Long haul to the next water.”

  “How much farther to the top?”

  “Reckon we’ll clear the summit about sundown Sunday. Then, it’s fairly level all the way to where you cut off, couple climbs out of the creek bottoms, but nothing like tomorrow.”

  They stopped for nearly an hour and let the horses cool in the shade. The air around the trees made Simon reluctant to step into the direct sun. He waited as long as he could before he swung into the saddle and followed the lumbering wagon north again. His horse soon crusted up with dried sweat, and he looked toward the west, willing the sun to drop out of the sky.

  They stopped when they caught up with Levi Buck about ten-thirty. Simon made short work of supper: some beans heated up on Buck’s fire, and enough of his coffee to soak a few bites off some hardtack. They ate right out of the cans. Any thoughts about the previous night disappeared as soon as his head touched his makeshift pillow. Spud settled down at his feet.

  Buck’s stirring around the next morning woke Simon, and he sat up as the crippled teamster hobbled around the fire, encouraging it to restart. Simon pulled his boots on, stood, and immediately headed for the privacy of a clump of willows.

  “Hard pull today,” Buck said when Simon came back into camp.

  “That’s what Bill said. He up yet?” He glanced toward the wagon.

  “Out with the horses. He’s got one that’s ailing—heard it coughin’ last night.”

  “Right lung’s not workin’ the way it should, all rattly.” Malm joined them, shaking his head.

  “Saw that yesterday.” Buck added a few sticks to the growing fire.

  “So what do you do?” Simon asked.

  “Not much I can do. If we was down, he’d just stand around till he got better. But we ain’t, so he’ll just have to pull. Six horses can’t pull three tons of goods up Malad Summit.” He shook his head. “You take it as it comes.”

  The grade didn’t look that steep to Simon, and his horse didn’t seem to mind all that much, but the rumps and shoulders of Malm’s horses took on the appearance of frosted sugar buns. The stops were more frequent, and the horses took longer to recover each time, especially the third one on the right side. His eyes looked manic, and he blew snot with every breath.

  “Hang on there, feller,” Malm crooned. “I’ll take you out soon’s we get to the top. Pull boy.” The voice sounded gentle and encouraging.

  “Could we harness my mule with them?” offered Simon.

  “ ’Fraid not.” Malm shook his head. “If we was on the level I might try it, but not on this hill. They start fussin’ and I got trouble. Good of you to offer though.”

  Simon let his horse slow and the wagon moved past. He fell in behind.

  “Hup!” The shout brought Simon out of his traveler’s reverie and he looked to Malm. The teamster half-stood in his box. Simon moved his horse right to study the train. The ailing horse’s head hung low, and its feet barely cleared the road as it walked. The uneven gait affected the rest of the string, and the steady strain on the traces became halting.

  “Hup, stay in there, boy.” The edge of urgency made Malm’s words sharp.

  Then the sick animal stumbled, and its mate slacked off to even the pair. Confusion swept through the train as that pair slowed, and the lead team felt the added strain and pulled harder. The first swing pair slacked to keep their distance and the wheel pair behind them followed suit. Soon all four pairs were snorting and tossing their heads in frustration. Then, the off horse in the third team faltered and fell.

  “Whoa!” Malm hauled back on the jerk line and tromped hard on the tall brake handle. “Whoa there.”

  The fallen horse caused a hard drag on the off rein, and the lead pair turned sharp right, straight toward the side of the road and an impossibly steep incline.

  “Whoa, gawdammit!”

  The nearside horse of the third pair shied away from its ailing mate, lunging into the lead horse ahead of it. That horse kicked back and its partner tried to rear up.

  Crack! . . . Crack! The first salvo split the air to the right of the lead team, the second over their heads. Eighteen feet of deadly looking black whip snaked back over the wagon, paused as the loop straightened out, and then shot forward for another ear-splitting reverse over the struggling horses. Crack!

  “Whoa, damn you. Stand still.”

  The lead pair stopped short, and the second almost ran into them. All four stood stock-still, feet well apart, their massive muscles quivering as they waited the next command. Caught between the steadied pair nearest the wagon and the standing leaders, the frantic third horse quit bucking. The horse on the ground did not move.

  “Sonuvabitch.” Buck muttered as he climbed off the seat. Sliding his hand over the wheel horse’s back, he made his way up the right side to the downed animal.

  “Whoa boys, stand easy,” he murmured.

  He reached down, turned back the upper lip of the downed horse, and let go, shaking his head. Leaning over, he laid his hand on the horse’s shoulder and waited a few seconds. “Dead,” he said simply, then heaved a sigh as he stood.

  “You mean he just died?” Simon looked down at the sweat-encrusted animal. A lump formed in his throat as a thin trickle of blood leaked from the horse’s nose.

  “Yep. If you ask them to, they’ll pull till their hearts break. This one wasn’t meant for it, but you never know that by just lookin’ at ’em.”

  Simon swallowed hard twice. The lump remained stuck fast and started to ache. He avoided Malm’s eyes.

  “We got a real job ahead of us. Find four good-sized rocks and stick ’em behind the wheels.” Malm moved to the left side of the road and picked up a big one.

  Simon, glad to have something to do, spied another down the road a little and hurried after it.

  “Back, easy now, back . . . whoa!” The heavy wagon settled on the rocks. Malm put all his weight onto the brake lever, then dropped the lines loosely into the driver’s box.

  “Let’s sort this mess out,” he said as he climbed down.

  They unhooked the lead horses and led them up the hill a ways. The nervous mate of the dead horse came away next.

  “Now, the hard part,” Malm said. He tugged on the round ball atop the hames that went up either side of the horse’s neck. “Ain’t no easy way to move thirteen hundred pounds of dead horse. We have to get that collar off, and his left side clear. The swing and wheel pair ain’t gonna like that much, and if they get frisky, we could yet lose that wagon.”

  They struggled with buckles not meant to be released under such tension, and tugged at straps lying under the lifeless beast. Simon thought his head would split with exertion, and they did it all with one eye on the uneasy pair who stood over them. The sweat poured off him under the merciless sun until they freed the horse of all the leather straps.

  “Let’s take a breather,” Malm said. He walked over to the wagon, and squatted in the sliver of shade on the right side.

  Simon plopped down beside him. “Can the rest of the string pull us over the top?”

  “Not without risking another one.”

  Simon waited for him to continue.

  “We’ll wait till sundown and then off-load everything we can lift. There’s some stuff we can’t unload without help. Then we’ll”—he paused—“He hears somethin’.” Malm pointed at Spud who stared intently uphill.

  The teamster stood and peered around the wagon. “Huh, might’
ve known. It’s Buck.”

  The three of them rolled the dead horse off the harness and over the bank. It slid and tumbled all the way to the bottom.

  “Sorry, young feller,” Malm said as they watched it go.

  “You and your damn sentimentality.” Buck sniffed. A tight-mouthed grimace marked his face, yet he winced as the big brown animal slid to a stop in the rocks. He looked at Simon and shook his head sadly.

  Malm turned away from the edge of the road. “How long did you wait before you started back?”

  “Little over an hour, I reckon. Figgered I’d find you unsnarling a dead one.”

  “I was watchin’ real close too.” Malm’s clamped jaws showed his frustration. “He didn’t falter but once or twice.”

  “Sometimes you can’t tell. I’ll put my two in there and get you to the top. Six will make it from there, ’cept that haul outta Marsh Valley is gonna take a little longer.”

  It was nearly full dark before they hauled the team to a stop by Buck’s parked wagon. Simon had never been so tired in his life.

  The cool morning air crept under the blanket that Simon had snugged tight around his ear. Settling in a little lower, he willed himself to go back to sleep. One eye popped open. Sitting not a foot away, a striped ground squirrel watched him closely as it took bites out of something it held in its front paws. Three more bites and whatever it was nestled securely in the bulging cheeks, which proudly signaled a successful foraging trip. It went down on all fours, and with a flick of its sparsely covered tail, shot under the wagon and out of sight. Simon smiled, let out a soft sigh, and sat up.

  “Oh, damn.” He flexed his shoulders gingerly, then reached up with his hands to squeeze the muscles in his neck. Buck and Malm, two disheveled lumps a few feet away, showed no signs of life, and Spud peered from under Buck’s wagon, his tail moving side to side, questioning. Simon patted the ground beside him one time, and his dog got up and sauntered over.

  “Mornin’ boy,” Simon said quietly. Spud sat down as close as he could and Simon put his arm around him. “Would you look at that.”

  Parallel ranges of mountains stretched into the north as far as he could see. The road ahead dropped into a valley he thought must be twenty miles wide; a farmer’s dream, covered with grass, trees, and low bushes.

  “Wish I had my map,” he said out loud. Too loud.

  Malm stirred, rolled over on his side, and propped himself up on one elbow. He saw the direction of Simon’s marveling stare. “Pretty, ain’t it?”

  “Beautiful.” Simon threw the blanket toward his feet and stood. The cool air felt wonderful. He retrieved his boots and pulled them on, hopping on one leg, then the other. Then he grabbed his hat off the wagon wheel and tamed his hair with it.

  They had gone to bed the previous night without making a fire, too tired to care. After taking care of the morning’s urgency, Simon broke off several dead branches from a gnarled juniper tree and dragged them over to the wagons.

  Buck was rolling up his bed when he got there. “Coffee’s gonna taste good even with water out of the barrel.”

  “Won’t be but a few minutes. Do you want me to make a hot breakfast?”

  “Whatcha think, Bill?” Buck asked.

  “I think them horses earned another hour’s rest. Go ahead and fry up some bacon.”

  “You have what I need to make slapjacks, and I saw a can o’ molasses in the box.”

  “My gawd, you kin make a pancake?” Buck looked at Malm, eyes wide.

  “Sure. Be happy to.” Simon lifted the lid on the kitchen box and started taking out what he needed.

  An hour later, full of fried bacon, pancakes, and coffee, the men harnessed the teams and prepared to descend into the valley.

  “Would you mind riding up here with me till we get to the bottom?” Malm asked. “We’re loaded heavy, and I could use someone’s leg on the brake.”

  A fleeting pause, a momentary hitch in time, took Simon by surprise. Me and Buell were always “we” blinked into his mind. The twinge of recognition turned into a knot in his throat; he hurriedly swallowed. “Sure, I’d be glad to,” he replied, too hastily.

  They sat atop the wagon until Buck had been gone twenty minutes, Simon absorbing the sheer size of the scene below.

  “Okay, kick off that brake, but keep your foot on it. Watch the traces on the wheel pair. If they go slack, gimme a little brake. Ready?”

  Simon leaned his weight into the wooden handle and slipped it free of the cog.

  “Git up.” Malm shrugged his shoulders and settled his butt into the seat, his right foot firmly planted on the edge of the driver’s box. The wagon moved easily toward the slope.

  They had an uneventful descent to the bottom, even though in some places the grade became steep enough to smoke the wooden brake blocks. Then the road leveled out, and both men relaxed as the horses took up a steady fast walk.

  “How far until we get to the big river?” Simon had shown Malm the map.

  “You’re talkin’ about the Snake. We’re all day today and half a day tomorrow to the Portneuf. Pretty good climb outta there and once on top you’ll be able to see it.”

  “Those mountains I’m going into, they as tall as these?” Simon swept his hand toward the range on their right.

  “Those are just hills. Too bad it was night when you approached the mountains on your train ride. You coulda seen some real ones there. Nope, wait till we get past the other end of this valley and through what’s called the Portneuf Gap. You’ll see ’em, stretched out like a string of pearls.”

  For the rest of the day and a good part of the next, they traversed the gently rolling ground on the bottom of the valley. A couple of times, a steep grade caused the horses to strain, but for the most part Simon sat in his saddle and enjoyed the scenery. Twice they saw herds of deer, one that numbered over forty.

  The view opened up as they crested a rise at the north end of the valley. Distant snowcapped mountains on the far side of the immense river plain took Simon’s breath away.

  “Whoa . . . whoa now.” Malm set the brake and slacked off the lines.

  “So that’s what Walks Fast was talking about.” Simon said it more to himself than to Malm.

  “If he was talking about big country, yep, that’s it. From up here, you can see into next week.”

  “Those three buttes there.” Simon pointed to the northwest. “They the ones shown on my map?”

  “The same. Folks’ve been usin’ ’em as landmarks forever. Now’s a good time to get the lay of the land. You see that darker lookin’ country in the middlin’ distance.”

  “Looks . . . I don’t know—unfriendly?”

  “It does, and for a reason. That’s lava fields, and you go around them. Even the wild animals avoid it. Cripple a horse in a hundred yards.”

  “Then it’s possible those buttes are extinct volcanoes?”

  Malm looked him up and down. “Did you go to one of them eastern schools?”

  “Nope. But I had a teacher who did, and I’ve read a lot.”

  “Humph. Well yer right, and that’s what ya got. The stuff is so ragged and sharp and piled up, you can’t get over it. And there’s no water. A wagon road goes ’round the north side of ’em and a cutoff from the Oregon Trail called the Goodale Route skirts the south. You may run onto the Goodale when you head west from the river, I’m not sure. Both ways will take you past the nasty part.” He stood and pointed into the distance. “Now, you see that range running off to the north, the one that seems to start at that biggest butte?”

  “I think so.”

  “Well, you’re gonna go up the valley on the west side of that range. Buck and me will go up the east side of the mountains, a range over, almost straight north of here.”

  “How long to get to the buttes?”

  “We got two long days once we git down from here. And then we part company. You go west for a couple of days and then north for three or four. Buck and I’ll go on north for ’bout a we
ek.”

  Simon stared at the white-tipped mountains to the northwest, hazy in the heat of the afternoon. Though he’d been raised on the Nebraska prairie, those snowcapped peaks seemed somehow familiar, the distance minimized by his desire to reach them.

  “You got that look in your eye, young feller,” Malm said. “Seen it before. You can already feel ’em closing in around you, can’t ya?”

  “What is it that draws a person, Bill?”

  “Usually the feelin’ that you can forget yourself in there. I’d’a thought you were a little young to be thinkin’ thoughts like that, but I reckon it ain’t the years, it’s the miles.”

  Simon recognized curiosity in the teamster’s look. “Did some hard living the last five years, and had a couple disappointments just before that. It’s not so much that I want to forget something as it is I want to understand some of it.”

  “Saw you was a thinker right off. Well, that’s a place you can do some serious contemplatin’. Yes’ir, some serious lone time.”

  Malm kicked the brake loose. “You had your rest, now get us to the bottom.” He shot an indifferent ripple down the lines. “Git up now. Hup.”

  The ground on the flat river-plain was a stark contrast between verdant green and a dusty gray-brown. Gangly cottonwood trees and thickets of willow huddled together near any water, creating welcome shadows in whose cool depths dandelions and bunchgrass grew. The road they traveled ran through a continuous carpet of chest-high sagebrush. Silver-gray and aromatic, it covered the ground in every direction. A rabbit, wiry looking with ridiculously long ears, sat stoically in the meager shade of a low bush as they passed. Simon spotted it just as Spud did, and the dog bolted into the brush.

  “Jackrabbit,” Malm said when Simon urged his horse alongside the wagon. “He’ll find them a little faster than the small ones he’s been eating so far.”

  “But he will catch it.” The dog zigzagged across the ground until Simon lost track of him. “Many of those around? That critter’s big enough to last Spud all day and then some.”

  “Some years you see hundreds of ’em. This year not so many, but more than enough.”