Hard Winter Page 9

  * * * * *

  Some burly men loaded our four wagons at the depot, not a one of us saying a word as we watched. My mouth had turned to sand, and after the tarps were tied over our freight, after Gene Hardee had signed some papers, we climbed into the wagons, released the brakes, and headed out of Helena.

  “What about Major MacDunn?” I asked.

  “Major’s got his meeting,” Gene Hardee answered. “He’ll be here another day or two. Don’t want us hanging around town.”

  Nobody said anything else till we made camp that night, and even I had enough brains not to join the conversation.

  “This isn’t going to set well,” Ish said.

  “You ride for the brand,” Gene Hardee reasoned. “MacDunn pays me money. I don’t question his orders, nor his motives.”

  “I don’t like it,” Tommy said, and I tried to elbow him in the ribs, get him to shut up. Our cargo made him mad, too. I was like Gene Hardee, maybe. I rode for the brand, drew wages from the major, didn’t want to question his orders, but I had seen enough of barbed wire—even though this was a different brand than Scutt’s, something called Haish’s patented Original S—to last a lifetime. Devil’s rope. John Henry had come more than a thousand miles to get away from that wire, and here it was. Being hauled by me and Tommy.

  Tommy told them about the drift fence, how much havoc it had caused in the Panhandle, and Ish and Gene Hardee listened solemnly, but, when Tommy finished his story, Ish said: “This isn’t Texas, Tommy. And Major MacDunn isn’t building a drift fence.”

  “What would you know about it?” Tommy yelled, shooting to his feet. “You’re nothing but a knock-kneed Oregonian son—”

  Ish slapped him down with his hat before Tommy could finish, and, when Tommy jumped up, Ish knocked him down again. I started after Ish myself, but something caused me to change course, and I leaped in front of the cowhand and tackled Tommy, held him down, which took some doing, Tommy typically being not only smarter, but faster and stronger than me.

  “Let me go!” Tommy yelled, but I squeezed him harder. Gene Hardee had also grabbed Ish’s arms, pinned them back, but I could make out Ish’s head nodding, his eyes not so angry.

  “Let it go,” I told Tommy. “That’s Ish . . . our friend. You ain’t . . . fighting . . . him.”

  Finally I loosened my grip. Gene Hardee made them two shake hands, be pals again, and things settled down.

  * * * * *

  It rained on the ride back. Not much of a rain, and, like God wanted to match our moods, He turned the rain into hail. We got beat by those hailstones, about the size of my thumbnail, a good ten, fifteen minutes. Long time for a hailstorm. It broke a bird’s wing. I remember that. Saw the bird hopping along, flapping its one good wing, on the side of the road. We didn’t stop, of course, to help it.

  * * * * *

  Tommy stayed. He was a stayer. But he wasn’t the same Tommy O’Hallahan that I’d ridden with up the trail. I suspect he stayed because of Lainie MacDunn. Same as me.

  Chapter Fifteen

  See that tree, boy? The marks on it? Up higher. There you go. Grizzly sign. Marked his territory by slashing the trunk, letting everyone know he’s segundo of this outfit. Bent it, too, likely from rubbing against it. You probably could have found some grizzly fur in the bark before winter came along. From the looks of that mark, he did that sometime last summer or thereabouts. He ain’t around now. Horses would have caught his scent, but we might best head back to camp, just to be safe.

  Reminds me of the time Tommy roped an old silvertip.

  When we first started riding together, Tommy didn’t know nothing about roping, but he had a stubborn streak in him, a determination, and, more important-like, he had John Henry for a teacher. Tommy beat himself black and blue trying to master a lariat, but he did it. Down in Texas, boys used to bet on him roping a coyote. So Tommy was the best roper, and me a pretty good bronc’ buster. ’Course, John Henry was best at everything.

  Well, after we got the wire hauled down from Helena, Major MacDunn let me and Tommy start working the fall gather. Oh, we still had school Mondays through Thursdays, but we didn’t have to go to school—Mrs. MacDunn frowned on that—Fridays. I suspect that was a compromise between the major and the missus, him wanting us to earn our keep seven days a week. So on Thursday, after school, we’d mount our horses and ride over toward the Sawtooths, helping out Fridays and Saturdays and partly on Sundays—Mrs. MacDunn must have really stewed on that, what with us missing church and all—before coming back to the Bar DD headquarters that afternoon.

  Must have happened the second weekend. Ish Fishtorn was bossing us, with Gene Hardee ramroding another group on the far side of Castle Reef, and he had me night hawking the remuda. Never cared for being a night hawk. Always figured that was a job for some tenderfoot, and I fancied myself more as a top hand. Yet I sure looked like a tenderfoot, and riled all the grown-ups in our outfit, because the horses scattered Friday night and Saturday night.

  “Boy, can’t you do nothin’ right?” said Busted-Tooth Melvin. “We burn daylight chasin’ down the mounts you scared off!”

  I promised it wouldn’t happen again, and Ish took me aside, told me it better not happen again, said if it did, I’d be back in school and church, and they’d let Walter Butler night hawk. So Saturday night, with it raining slight but steady, I aimed to keep them horses in one bunch. Around midnight, the rain turned to sleet, but I rode around the herd, singing softly with my teeth clattering, doing my job, making sure I stayed awake by chewing tobacco and rubbing the juice in my eyes. Burned like blazes, but I told myself that at least my eyes were warm. The sleet stopped an hour or so later, and the horses seemed settled down, and I started to feel a little better. Cold, but relaxed.

  Right before dawn, they all busted loose.

  Well, you never seen such a ruction. The horses didn’t just scatter, they stampeded. Some of them ran right through camp, and I’d stupidly thrown my saddle on Gray Boy that night, and he took to bucking, had me pulling leather, hanging on for dear life. Most of the boys had their best horses handy, but it took some doing for them to get a foot in the stirrup. Couldn’t hear a thing but horses snorting and men cussing, and most of those cuss words were aimed at me.

  Gray Boy pitched me into a clump of brush, but I rolled over, and went running after him. It was light enough to see, and, when I saw what had rattled those horses so, I slid to a stop.

  Ish Fishtorn reined up, glaring at me. “Boy, you beat the Dutch! I bragged on you, said you had the makings, but . . .”

  When I pointed, he shut up. Me? I couldn’t find the words, but Ish found them. He let out a whopper of a cuss.

  About a dozen horses disappeared over a hill, chased by the biggest grizzly we’d ever seen. Would have been funny, if it wasn’t our horses, and if I hadn’t been afoot.

  A whoop and a holler echoed across the still, cold morning, and Tommy whipped by us on Midnight Beauty at a high lope, working a loop over his head.

  “That boy’s crazy!” Once again Ish Fishtorn had found the words, but Tommy wasn’t the only loco waddie in our outfit. Busted-Tooth Melvin galloped right behind him. Two other boys took up the chase, as well. Ish spurred his mount back to camp, and I resumed chasing after Gray Boy, who had the good sense to run in the opposite direction of the grizzly. Lucky for me, Gray Boy had settled down, and I only had to sprint a quarter mile or so before I caught up with him. He showed his temper a bit when I swung back in the saddle, but he was too tuckered out to put up much of a fight, and I spurred him after Tommy and the grizzly.

  You know what they say about a bear? The smaller the ears, the bigger the bear. Well, that was one mighty big bear, looked more like a buffalo with that hump of muscle atop his shoulders, and its brown fur matted and shaggy. Fierce teeth and giant claws. Stood close to eight feet tall on its hind legs.

  Wish I could have seen it when Tommy threw a perfect loop around the bear’s left forepaw. Tommy and Melvin caught up t
o him first, in a coulée, and the griz’ turned its attention on the cowboys. Midnight Beauty wasn’t so co-operative, but Tommy got a dally around his horn, leaned hard on the far stirrup, while Melvin’s second try caught the bear’s head. Only problem was Melvin got too close, and, when that grizzly roared, Melvin’s bay threw him toward the moon. Horse went running after the rest of the remuda, and Melvin grabbed his rope, screaming for help, pulling in the slack, bracing the lariat against his back, backing to the edge of the coulée. Tommy couldn’t hold that bear much longer, but Paul Scott, a black-mustached man on a zebra dun, got his lariat around one of the bear’s back legs, and Old Man Woodruff done the same.

  That’s about the time I rode up, but my lariat had been knocked off somewhere during Gray Boy’s bucking spell, and I don’t reckon Gray Boy would have let me get any closer to that grizzly than the top of the coulée.

  Grizzly kept roaring, horses kept dancing, Melvin kept grunting, and Tommy kept laughing. Ain’t a one of us had a gun, and only Old Man Woodruff had a weapon of any kind, but I don’t think his Barlow knife would do much good on a giant, ornery silvertip.

  “Where’s Ish?” Paul Scott yelled.

  Looking over my shoulder, I spied Ish riding hard for us.

  “I’ll get him!” I yelled. Tell you the truth, it made me happy to get out of there. Well, I made a beeline for Ish, and told him what had happened. He pulled his horse to a stop, suddenly grinning up the biggest scheme I’d ever heard. I galloped back to the coulée.

  “I found Ish,” I told my pards. “Told him what you-all done.”

  “Where is he, damn it? What did he say?” Old Man Woodruff yelled above the grizzly’s roars.

  I grinned. “Said to tell you boys you best not let go of them ropes.” Then, howling with laughter, I spurred Gray Boy back toward Ish, who sat doubled over in his saddle, cackling like a crazy hen.

  Best laugh we’d had in a ’coon’s age.

  * * * * *

  I asked Tommy why he done it, but he never answered nothing more than a shrug. Sport it was. Something new. ’Course, we killed the griz’. Ish had gone back to camp to fetch his Winchester, a big old Centennial model that sounded like a Howitzer, and we didn’t leave the boys alone with their ropes for too long. Killed the bear, and had bear stew, and that thick hide of his made a great rug at the line shack over at Sun River Cañon.

  Nobody had ever seen a bear that big, or one that hungry, and its coat seemed so heavy. We talked about that for a long time, and you should have seen the look on Lainie’s face when we told that story once we got back to the ranch. Didn’t have to stretch the truth any, either. A crazy thing to do.

  Everybody said so. Everybody laughed. Except John Henry.

  * * * * *

  When John Henry surprised us with a visit one evening that week, Tommy couldn’t wait to tell him about roping the bear, but John Henry had no interest in tomfoolery.

  “Didn’t expect to see MacDunn’s two bulls,” he said, and my stomach started acting funny. We were in the bunkhouse, and, when John Henry asked that question, Camdan Gow got up and left. Walter Butler followed, leaving us alone with John Henry.

  “Major MacDunn hasn’t turned them loose yet,” Tommy said.

  “I see.”

  I saw, too. With a heavy heart, I went over to my bunk, pulled that big Colt out of my war bag, handed it to John Henry, butt forward.

  He let out a little snort. “The Gow kid didn’t have it in him, eh?” Reaching for the gun, he looked at me, and asked: “What about you, Jim?”

  When I couldn’t find the words, he snatched the gun so hard, it like to have tore off my hand.

  “Why do you think MacDunn killed Gow’s bull?” he snapped.

  “Put out that grass fire,” I answered.

  John Henry muttered an oath. “Don’t be blind.” I smelled the whiskey on his breath.

  “What’s in those wagons?” he asked.

  Lucky, canvas tarps still covered those reels of barbed wire, barrels of staples, and tools. They’d been sitting in the wagon for a couple of weeks, waiting for fence posts to get cut.

  My throat felt parched. Tommy answered softly: “Supplies.”

  John Henry turned, stared at Tommy till he looked away, and then our old pard let out a heavy sigh. “You two are nothing but a couple of kiddoes,” he said. “Green peas still. Hoped you might have earned this.” He hefted the Colt, before shoving it in his waistband. “But I reckon not. You ain’t men yet.”

  “Takes a big man to ask a kid like Camdan to shoot two helpless bulls,” I said, and John Henry struck like a cat, pinned me against the wall, pressed his forearm against my throat. I thought he might kill me, but just as quick he let me go, took a deep breath, gathered my hat he’d knocked off, and dusted it on his chaps, then handed it back to me.

  He almost apologized, but John Henry could never bring himself to say he was sorry. I didn’t expect it from him, and I figured I was to blame for riling him so. Mean thing I’d said to my mentor.

  “You best know one thing,” John Henry said in a hoarse whisper. “Both of you. Tristram Gow needs some winter range. There’s a fight coming, between Gow and MacDunn. Part of it’s over grass. Most of it’s over MacDunn’s wife.”

  “That’s a . . .” Yet Tommy couldn’t finish, couldn’t call John Henry Kenton a liar. Or maybe he didn’t want his windpipe just about crushed by John Henry’s arm.

  “That’s a what?”

  “Nothing.”

  John Henry looked at Tommy. “You know what I’m saying is true, don’t you, O’Hallahan?”

  Tommy stared at his boots.

  “Listen, boys.” John Henry grabbed my shoulder, pulled me to his side, put his arm around me. “I didn’t ride over here to start a fight. I was repping the Seven-Three Connected at the gather east of here, thought I’d pay you a visit. We’re pards. You just need to know that when this fight comes, you boys need to be alongside me. On the right side. Gow’s been here the longest. MacDunn’s nothing but a foreigner. He don’t even own this ranch. Bunch of Englishmen own it.”

  “Scots,” Tommy whispered. “They’re all Scots. Even the Gows.”

  “Makes no difference. You boys can help me out, though.”

  Wanted to say: The same way you asked Camdan Gow to help you? But I couldn’t, didn’t want to believe it was true. Besides, had I said it, John Henry would have strangled me.

  John Henry didn’t have a chance to say anything else. Lainie MacDunn walked into the bunkhouse, then, holding Treasure Island in her hand, startled to find John Henry here.

  She looked away from John Henry, first to Tommy, then to me. John Henry’s eyes followed hers.

  “Mother would be glad to have you join us for supper,” she said, but her voice was forced. “I’ll tell her . . .”

  “No need, Miss MacDunn. Just rode over to see how the boys are doing.” His eyes gleamed. “What brings you to a bunkhouse, ma’am? I mean . . . who’d you come to see, Tommy or Jim?”

  She started to stutter, and I felt my ears turn red hot.

  “I’d best ride, Miss MacDunn. Just paying a social visit. Tell your ma that Mister Gow sends his regards. Be seeing you, pards.”

  * * * * *

  Things were changing that fall. When we first came to the Bar DD, they told us that Mrs. MacDunn closed her school in mid-November. For us boys, just a few days after John Henry’s visit, school stopped in October. Once again, the major stepped into the school, pulled every boy out who stayed at the bunkhouse. Mrs. MacDunn started to argue with him, saying that education came first, but this time she couldn’t make him back down. We took the wagons loaded down with barbed wire.

  * * * * *

  First post hole we dug was at the base of Castle Reef. Fencing in the pasture. Saving grass, Ish explained. Didn’t appear to be much to save, I thought, dry as it had been, but I didn’t argue with him. Protecting the major’s interest. Saving our future. “In the course of time,” Mr. Roosevelt had said
. Major MacDunn had decided the time was now.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God!

  Huh . . . ? What? Where am . . . ? Oh. . . . It’s all right, boy. I’m all right. Just a bad dream is all. Whew. Haven’t had a dream like that in some twenty-five years. Don’t matter what it was about. Just a nightmare. Put some wood on them coals, boy. Looks to be just a couple hours till dawn anyhow. Ain’t going to go back to sleep tonight, that’s certain sure.

  Funny. Now I remember what happened clearly.

  Stringing Jacob Haish’s patented wire. Reels of devil’s rope. Digging holes, pounding posts, and setting them eight to ten feet apart. Make that wire taut, Gene Hardee ordered us.

  Ain’t no job fitting for a cowboy to do, but we done it.

  Me and Camdan Gow did most of the wire work, while Tommy and Walter Butler set the fence posts. We had a lever and a wire grab—the major had ordered some Sampson wire stretchers, but us kids didn’t get to use those; they was confiscated by the grown-ups stringing wire on the other side of Castle Reef. While I stretched the wire, pulling that thing tight, Camdan nailed staples with his hammer, securing the wire to the post. Had to be sturdy, strong, braced for Angus or longhorn. Then we wrapped the wire around the corner post, nailing fence staples to hold it, pulled it to the next post, working from the top down. Tight. Tight. Tighter.

  The staples we carried in cut-off boot tops, the bottoms sewed up, that we hung from our saddles. That way I told myself that we was at least working with horses. Better than what Tommy and Walter Butler was doing.

  They worked from a wagon, which carried our barrels of staples, cedar posts, tools, and reels of wire. Mean-looking fence it was, too. Barbed wire had to hurt to do any good, the major said, and Original S would sure do that job. Probably even tear up hides, I thought, with terrible barbs just under two inches long, but the major said stubborn cattle had to learn things the hard way.