Hard Winter Page 12

  I like to have toppled off the rail.

  “Yes, sir?” Surprised I could even talk.

  “If you want to ride off with your friends, get your war bag and saddle, and be gone.”

  Which was all I needed to hear. I jumped down, started for the bunkhouse to get my possibles, get out of Montana, make things right between John Henry and Tommy and me. Too stupid, too green to know any better.

  “No!”

  John Henry’s voice stopped me. Turning around, I looked up at my two pards.

  “You ain’t fit to ride with John Henry Kenton,” John Henry said, leaning forward in his saddle. “I ride with pards I can trust, not some back-stabbing son-of-a-bitch who’d steal my pard’s girl.”

  “John Henry,” I pleaded, and felt tears welling in my eyes. “Tommy, I ain’t . . .”

  “We left Texas, boy,” John Henry said, “to get away from the wire. You forgot that. You put a pick in your hands like some miserable sodbuster, nailed the devil’s rope to fence posts. And look what you did to Tommy. Your friend! I hold you responsible.”

  My head fell to my chest. The tears dried up, but I knew John Henry was right. Right about most things—about me forgetting, about me being responsible for Tommy’s injuries. But he was dead wrong about me ever trying to steal Lainie from him. I liked her a lot, but I’d never do a pard like that. Never do anyone that way.

  “Get off my land,” Major MacDunn said with a quiet authority. “Both of you. And remember my warning.”

  I heard John Henry’s words. “Oh, I’ll remember them, MacDunn, but you remember this. You look long and hard at what you did to Tommy. You study his face. Because the ball has just started.”

  Hoofs sounded. Footsteps walked away. I stood there several minutes, not knowing what to do, felt a presence before me, and knew it was Lainie. I looked up into her tear-filled eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Jim,” she said.

  “Ain’t your fault,” I told her.

  Beyond her, I saw that elk-skin pouch, still in the dirt, where the major had left it.

  * * * * *

  Oh, I reckon the major later got that money. Don’t think he left it for Busted-Tooth Melvin to steal. Don’t know for sure, though, because snow covered the ground by evening.

  * * * * *

  Ain’t what you figured, is it, boy? Certainly, it ain’t the way they’d make it happen in one of those moving-picture deals they show down in Helena. No big shoot-out. Hardly a gun even cocked. No cowboys lying dead in the dust.

  No heroes, either.

  There was no range war, not between the MacDunns and the Gows. We went back to cowboying, not preparing to kill people.

  * * * * *

  I think about that. Have thought about it often. How things changed. I think about how blind we were. All of us. We didn’t notice, didn’t pay attention to all the signs, didn’t think about what was happening all around us. We was all too concerned about barbed wire, and a dead bull, and winter grass, and Mrs. MacDunn. And Lainie. We kept considering what we’d wind up doing, or how we’d act, who’d live and who’d die, when that first trigger got pulled.

  Nobody, not me, not John Henry, not Major MacDunn or Mr. Gow or Gene Hardee or Bitterroot Abbott saw what was happening. Not a one of us thought about why a grizzly would come out of its range hunting horses to eat, or why its coat growed so thick. Or why Angus bulls started sporting hair like you’d find on a buffalo. Or why those black bulls started acting so unpredictable, certainly not the calm beasts they was supposed to be. Or why geese flew south long before normal. Why the other birds vanished. Or why a cottonwood tree’s bark got so thick. Why the wind blew so cold. Why our horses also grew winter coats so early.

  Why beavers worked harder than even beavers was supposed to work. Or why muskrats took to making their homes on the creeks twice as big as they usually did.

  Oh, there was a war coming, sure enough. Only it come from another direction. And it would have every last one of us, from the Bar DD to the 7-3 Connected, from the Judith Basin to Miles City, across all of Montana and the Dakotas and Wyoming and beyond. . . .

  Have every one of us fighting to hold on.

  Fighting to stay alive.

  Chapter Twenty

  In the early dusk, they cross the shallow waters at a bend in the Sun River, letting their horses pick their paths over smooth, slippery stones, then push through the brush toward the cañon’s high wall. It’s here that Jim Hawkins and his grandson make camp, using driftwood on the river’s edge to build a fire, warming themselves against spring’s chill.

  “It’s near abouts,” Henry Lancaster hears his grandfather say. “It’s got to be around here. If I can find the place. . . .”

  Without another word, Jim Hawkins pulls a lengthy piece of twisted wood from the fire and, using it as a torch, makes his way through the brush, holding the blaze close to the cañon’s limestone walls. Quietly Henry follows.

  His grandfather looks intently at the wall, bringing the torch closer, then moving along, finally reaching an overhang, and ducking inside the natural shelter. His boots brush back weeds and stones, revealing nothing, and, sighing, he lifts the torch toward the ceiling.

  “See those?” Jim Hawkins asks Henry.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Small hand prints dot the limestone wall, like wallpaper patterns, the color of dried blood. Some are smeared, others so clear, Henry can picture someone pressing his hand against the stone.

  “Who made them?” the boy asks, then chances a guess. “You?”

  “No,” Jim Hawkins answers. “Some Indians. Don’t know how long ago. Before I got to Montana. Before I was even born. Maybe even before my pa was born. Who knows?”

  Henry thinks he sees other drawings on the wall, figures of some kind, perhaps drawings of Indians holding shields, maybe a spear. It’s hard to tell in the fading light. He wonders what they mean.

  For a few minutes, Jim Hawkins kicks around in the natural shelter, lowering the flame, searching the rubble, finding nothing.

  “Ain’t nothing here,” he says. “Hell, there was nothing here then, neither.” He looks back at the hand prints. “Except those.”

  “When?” the boy asks. “When?”

  Jim Hawkins doesn’t answer. He steps out, begins moving back to camp. The flame on the torch is dying.

  Again his grandson follows.

  When they reach camp, Hawkins tosses the stick in the center of the pit, squats by the fire, holds his gloved hands out to warm them. A coffee pot rests on a flat stone, the smell of the strong brew reminding Henry of how long it has been since he has eaten. The horses snort. The river ripples. An owl hoots. Henry Lancaster kneels beside his grandfather.

  “I guess I owe you the rest of the story,” Jim Hawkins says. “Ain’t given you much lately, just some bits and pieces, way things I remember them. But you deserve an ending. And all of it. Lainie knows most of it, but not everything.”

  The flames illuminate Jim Hawkins’s weathered face. His eyes don’t seem to blink. He wets his lips, lowers his hands, finally sits back.

  Henry watches, waiting, unsure.

  “Kissin-ey-oo-way’-o,” his grandfather begins in a whisper. “The wind blows cold.”

  Winter, 1886-87

  Winter in Montana seldom

  begins before the First of January,

  and extreme cold scarcely ever lasts

  more than two or three days at a

  time. . . . Still, for Montana’s flocks

  and herds, much depends on

  the coming winter.

  —Great Falls Tribune, December 18, 1886

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Iawoke in the bunkhouse, shivering underneath my blankets. Just the sound of the wind turned my blood cold. The bunkhouse seemed to be creaking, moaning. Felt like another gust would send the entire log building sailing all the way to eternity.

  November 16, 1886.

  First thing I saw was Old Man Woodruff x-ing off the
date on the calendar tacked up next to a tintype of some girl—nobody remembered who she was or who stuck the picture on the wall—near the stove.

  The door swung open, and the wind blasted us, as Old Man Woodruff directed some prime cuss words toward Ish Fishtorn. How hard was the wind whipping? Well, it took both Ish and Frank Raleigh to get that door shut.

  “Is it snowing?” I asked sleepily.

  “Too cold to snow,” Ish answered.

  That brutal wind would cut you deep, freeze the marrow in your bones. Felt that way, anyhow. The temperature dropped to two degrees below zero, and gray clouds blocked out the sun. Most times, it might get cold in Montana, but if the sky remains clear, the sun feels warm. Twenty degrees didn’t always feel so miserable when the sun showed itself. But two below zero, with the wind tearing across the hills at better than fifty miles an hour, well, there was no sun, no heat, just relentless cold.

  Too cold to snow?

  Not hardly.

  The blizzard struck the next morning. November 17. Made me almost forget about the killing storm that struck Texas some ten months earlier.

  Reluctantly I dragged myself from beneath the covers again to the smell of coffee and bacon, and the roaring, unrelenting wind. Once I found my boots, I realized it had to be well past dawn. Wasn’t nobody in the bunkhouse except Busted-Tooth Melvin, a still-snoring Walter Butler, me, and an ice-covered cowhand who stood by the stove stamping snow off his boots. They’d let me and Walter sleep in, seemed like, and that riled me. I expected to do a day’s work for a day’s pay, like everybody else, had been doing that since I came to this country, and I didn’t like being treated like some green pea. Oh, them boys meant well, still thinking of me and Walter as kids, but I’d show them. So would Walter. I hollered at him to get up, that daylight was fading.

  Fading? It felt like the sun kept moving farther and farther away. Looked like early dawn or dusk, even at high noon, the next two days.

  As I went to pour my first cup of coffee, I eyed the man who’d just come in from the storm. Slowly he revealed himself to me as he unwrapped a long woolen scarf that he had looped over his hat, pulling the brim down over his ears. His beard was crusted white, his nose red. Gene Hardee swore again while shedding his coat.

  “Hope you got a gallon of coffee, Woody,” Hardee said. “’Cause I aim to drink it all. It ain’t frozen, is it, Jim?”

  I filled his cup.

  “How long has it been snowing?” I asked.

  “Since September, feels like. Ain’t like those dustings we’ve had. Ain’t like anything you’ve ever seen.”

  “You wasn’t in Texas in January,” I told him.

  He grunted. Didn’t believe me. Didn’t believe it ever got cold in Texas. I let him remain ignorant.

  Fortified with some stout Folgers, I headed back to my bunk, fetched my shirt, pulled my shirt over my head, and grabbed my hat.

  “Where is everybody?” Walter asked with a big yawn.

  “Working.” Hardee rubbed some feeling back into his nose. “Stupid cattle. A horse is fair smart. Smart enough to forage for food. A horse’ll eat snow when it can’t find any water, but a cow’ll just founder and die in belly-deep snow.”

  “We best get after them,” I told Walter Butler, grabbing my heavy coat, and headed for the door. Good, loyal Walter followed me.

  “Where you two goin’?” Busted-Tooth Melvin said.

  “I earn my keep,” I told him.

  Walter said: “I got to visit the privy.”

  Gene Hardee piped in, “Not like that, kiddoes.”

  I didn’t like that word. Kiddoes. It was what John Henry always called me and Tommy. I kept right for the door.

  Gene Hardee cut me off. Shaking his head, he opened the door, let me see just what that storm was doing. Just briefly, mind you, but long enough to get another scolding from Melvin. I saw nothing but white. Then Hardee pressed himself against the door, got it closed, and sent me and Walter back to our bunks.

  “You break a leg,” Hardee said, “you don’t want to freeze to death lying on the ground. Got to dress you proper.”

  Well, Hardee and Melvin rigged me up so that I could hardly move, and done the same for Walter. Four pairs of socks, two of them thick woolies, and one of them stretching all the way over my knees—Dutch socks, Hardee called them—flannel underwear pulled up over my summer muslins, and an itchy undershirt, too, my duck trousers, and a heavy wool bib-front shirt. And my boots, of course. That wasn’t all, neither. Though I already felt like I’d put on more clothes than I’d ever owned in all my years, Gene Hardee sat at the table, nursing coffee while using a pair of scissors on . . . well . . . it still kind of embarrasses me, all these years later. . . .

  Ladies undergarments. Black, thin, real fancy. And soft.

  “What are those?” Walter Butler said.

  “Cashmere hose,” Hardee said, handing me my pair and going to work on another pair for Walter.

  “Hose?” Walter wailed, and I looked at the unmentionables in my hands. “You mean for a woman’s . . . limbs?”

  Busted-Tooth Melvin snorted so hard, he sent a bunch of spit flying between his missing front teeth, causing the stove to sizzle.

  “Put them on your arms.” Hardee said and tossed Walter his pair. “Use them as extra sleeves.”

  “Uhn-uh!” Walter dropped those black hose like they were rattlesnakes. “I’m not putting a woman’s underwear on my arms!”

  I just stared at mine. Hardee had cut out the feet.

  “You’ll do like a say, Walter. It’s not going to get any warmer for quite a while, and, if you lose your arms up to your elbows because of frostbite, Missus MacDunn’ll never let me hear the end of it.”

  I started to pull one of the things over my right arm, while Walter reluctantly picked up his pair.

  “Where’d you get a pair of cashmere hose?” I asked.

  “Two pairs,” Busted-Tooth Melvin corrected, spitting on the stove again.

  Gene Hardee grinned. “Utica,” he finally answered. “Stole them from a couple of . . .”

  “Poor, distressed ladies,” Melvin chimed in.

  Hardee finished his coffee. “Wouldn’t call them ladies.”

  “Nuns,” Melvin said. “Nuns from Saint Peter’s Mission.”

  Walter dropped the hose on the floor again, and I thought both Hardee and Melvin would die.

  “Nuns don’t wear cashmere hose,” I told those men. I knew they were funning us.

  I also knew what kind of women Hardee had been visiting in Utica.

  Wasn’t finished dressing, yet. Put on overalls—looked like I was nothing but a poor granger—and chaps, my gloves, and a mask Melvin had made for me by cutting out the inside lining of an old coat. You wouldn’t recognize me. Felt like I was a bandit about to rob a bank. Wrapped my bandanna over my head the way Gene Hardee had done, pulling the brim of my hat down over my ears. Walter was luckier. He had a cap made of sealskin to keep his ears warm. He also had a pair of big overshoes instead of stovepipe leather boots.

  Thus fortified, we stepped outside.

  And like to have froze to death.

  * * * * *

  This was like no wind that ever blew, the most vicious gale, carrying with it the screams of thousands and thousands and thousands of men and women and animals and monsters. Like it came from the depths of hell, only with a numbing cold instead of the worst heat, filling the air with snow that stabbed like rock salt fired from a shotgun.

  It slashed. It cut. It tore. It wailed.

  No matter how many layers of clothing Gene Hardee and Busted-Tooth Melvin put on me, it wasn’t enough. Nothing could protect you from that icy fury.

  When I think about it, the snow didn’t really amount to much. Not then. The big storms came later. That November day, I’d guess we got six inches, maybe seven, but the wind kept whipping it around. It felt more like riding through a West Texas sandstorm than a snowstorm. Those Aberdeen Angus cattle, black as midnight, were easy t
o spot in the wailing, gray-tinted whiteness. That was our one bit of good fortune, but the cattle hadn’t gotten used to this range, and they’d drift, and bawl, and drift, and moan, and drift, and drift, and drift. Snow drifted, too, piling high against the walls of the ranch buildings, producing mounds scattered on the wind-swept, snow-covered hills that surrounded the Bar DD headquarters.

  * * * * *

  Heads bent low, hands stuck deep in our coat pockets, reins hanging around saddle horns, me and Walter, Gene Hardee, and Busted-Tooth Melvin pushed some Angus and longhorn toward something that might resemble a shelter. Finding a windbreak in Montana proved mighty hard.

  I didn’t see the accident. Didn’t even hear it. If Busted-Tooth Melvin hadn’t been paying attention, we might would have left our boss lying in the snow to die, but Melvin kept yelling, and finally the wind blew his shouts in my direction. I pulled my hands out of the pockets, took the reins, stopped Crabtown, and shouted hard at Walter Butler. Walter was riding right beside me, but the wind cried so loud, blew so hard, it took me four or five good whoops before he heard me, and reined up. I pointed, and we turned our mounts, rode into that brutal wind, and saw what had happened.

  Gene was standing, hopping, favoring his left leg, trying to catch the reins of the buckskin, which was lying on the snow. He yelled something. Couldn’t hear it. Couldn’t hear anything. Saw Busted-Tooth Melvin’s head shake.

  “Get down!” Busted-Tooth Melvin made a motion with his hands, and me and Walter swung from our mounts, watching Melvin pull a Marlin repeater from the scabbard. Next he handed me the reins to his claybank.

  “For God’s sake, boy,” he said, and I could just barely hear him, “don’t drop these reins! Keep between the horses. That’ll protect you from the wind. And hold ’em reins tight. Tight! You hear me?”

  I wasn’t green. Knew if I let any horse wander off, we’d be in a bad fix. My head bobbed, and I started to pull off one of my gloves, so I could get a better hold on the stiff, cold leather, but Melvin stopped me pronto.

  “You want to lose ’em fingers?” he barked. “Keep that glove on!”