Hard Winter Part 3

Chapter Six.

Henry Lancaster and his grandfather have camped on the treeless hills, sitting by the campfire in the midnight blackness and cool of spring, sipping coffee. Jim Hawkins has turned taciturn once more, uttering fewer than a dozen words since that afternoon, and the boy is disappointed. He had longed to hear tales of glory, danger, stampedes, gunfights, and wild Indians on the cattle drives, but Jim Hawkins covered those weeks on the trail with little comment.

Now, both are silent, until the grandfather pulls a pint bottle from his coat pocket, and sweetens his coffee.

"I thought. . . ." The boy gambles on his words, grinning to show his grandfather that he isn't serious. "Thought you told me that you swore off chicken whiskey after you got sick that time."

His grandfather chuckles, corks the bottle, which disappears. He tastes his coffee.

"Chicken c.o.c.k and Rye," he corrects. "I did. I've never touched a drop of Chicken c.o.c.k and Rye since that autumn in Texas." Another sip. "But this is Dewar's." That's all he says, until he sets down the empty tin cup. "Whiskey's all right, boy, as long as you don't let it best you."

A longer silence.

"You see that?"

Jim Hawkins points at the black, star-filled sky.

"What?" Henry asks. "The stars?"

"The Big Dipper."

A moment pa.s.ses. "Oh, yeah," Henry says. "There's the Little Dipper, too. Find it, and you find the North Star."

"Looks like it's ladling out some good, cold water from the Sun River."

"Huh?"

After a short chuckle, Jim Hawkins says: "That's what John Henry Kenton told me and Tommy."

Henry has stepped away from the fire, staring harder at the bowl of the Big Dipper, but now he looks curiously at his grandfather. Jim Hawkins retrieves the flask of Dewar's, takes a long pull, and returns the bottle, shaking his head. As Tommy returns to the campfire, his grandfather is talking again.

Summer, 1886 . . . the prospects for stock men are not of a flattering nature, and it would seem to us that those who place pilgrim cattle upon the ranges this year are doing an unwise and unprofitable business.

-Bozeman Chronicle, July 31, 1886

Chapter Seven.

Me and Tommy were tired-just plain whipped, I tell you-by the time we got those Angus bulls to the Dee & Don Rivers Land and Cattle Company, Incorporated. The Bar DD brand. Most folks called it the MacDunn Ranch, but the MacDunns didn't own it. It was run by board of directors in Aberdeen, Scotland. No, that ain't right, either. It was run by Major MacDunn, William Bruce MacDunn, and that's why folks between Helena and Great Falls called it the MacDunn Ranch, or MacDunn Empire, even if Major MacDunn had to report to the board of directors across the Atlantic Ocean.

All that time on the train ride from Miles City to Helena, us three cowboys keeping three black bulls company while Mr. Gow rode with people in the pa.s.senger cars, I was thinking that Tristram Gow ran the ranch. Turns out, he had nothing to do with the Bar DD, had his own spread north of the MacDunn range on Muddy Creek. He was a friend of Major MacDunn, being that they were both Scotsmen. In fact, they both hailed from Aberdeen, and Mr. Gow had agreed to head to Chicago and purchase the best three Angus bulls he could find, two for the Bar DD, the other for Mr. Gow's 7-3 Connected.

When we got off the train in Helena, there was a big crowd gathered. Not for us, of course. Folks had come to hear a bespectacled man from Dakota talk. That's how come I got to meet the President of the United States.

'Course, he wasn't the President then. I never would have expected him to amount to much myself.

He stood leaning against the big wooden column. Teddy Roosevelt addressed maybe a dozen cattlemen, businessmen, and one fellow I took to be an ink-slinger for the local newspaper because he kept furiously scribbling notes, trying to keep up with Teddy Roosevelt, and Teddy was a mighty fast talker.

"In the course of time, the great ranches will break up," Roosevelt told the listeners, his eager eyes squinting through his pince-nez.

"Smaller ranches, fenced in, with two hundred or three hundred cattle, can be managed more economically."

"Fenced?"

Me and Teddy Roosevelt looked at John Henry. Shoot, everybody give John Henry a stare. n.o.body was used to hearing Teddy Roosevelt get interrupted.

"Fenced, sir. It is not an obscene word. It is the future."

"Who the h.e.l.l are you, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Roosevelt, sir. Theodore Roosevelt. I own the Elk Horn . . . the Maltese Cross brand . . . along the Little Missouri in Medora over in Dakota Territory, although I embark for New York after these meetings. I have been asked to run as the Republican candidate for the mayor of New York City."

"You stringing wire in Dakota?" John Henry had something stuck in his craw. Me and Tommy knowed what it was.

"Sir." Roosevelt removed his gla.s.ses, and cleaned the lenses with a fine handkerchief. "If you missed my earlier comments, I precipitated them with the words 'in the course of time.' I have no idea when the right time will be, merely that at some point these vast ranges of this big, wonderful country must be fenced in. Your gra.s.s looks no better than the gra.s.s in Medora. The range is already strewn with dead cattle coming up the trail from Texas. We are facing one of the worst droughts in the history of the Northern Plains. In Montana, as well as in Dakota, in those creeks that still have water, I have found water so alkaline that even cattle dying of thirst refuse to drink it. Something must be done. Progress is not a filthy word."

John Henry had heard enough, and walked away. Me and Tommy started after our pard, but Mr. Gow stopped us, whispering: "Let us hear what else this man has to say." Well, we was drawing wages from Mr. Gow, and I saw John Henry duck inside a saloon, so I knew he wasn't going nowhere for a while. Later, Mr. Gow told us that Roosevelt had been the President of the Stockgrowers a.s.sociation in Dakota, and had been sent as a representative at Montana's meeting of stockmen.

"Tell us about how you tracked down them thieves, Mister Roosevelt, hauled them back by yourself."

With a grin, he placed the gla.s.ses back atop his nose. "That story has made its way all the way to Helena?"

"Why didn't you just hang them?" another man asked. "That's what Gran Stuart and William MacDunn would have done?"

A few men chuckled.

"Good men, both of them, but their methods are not mine."

"Didn't you read to 'em?" one man asked, and another fired right back: "Druther be hung myself!"

That caused a roar of laughter, and I don't think anybody laughed harder than Mr. Roosevelt.

"No, gentlemen, I read to stay awake. Alone, outnumbered three to one, I had to fight off sleep for forty hours, guarding them. But I had good company in Tolstoy."

"Tolstoy's a wonderful writer," Tommy said, and Mr. Roosevelt reached over to pat Tommy's shoulder, saying: "Bully for you, young man. Bully for you."

Someone brought out a mug of sarsaparilla from the saloon, and, while Mr. Roosevelt slaked his thirst, Mr. Gow said we'd best fetch John Henry, which is what we done. 'Course, by the time we come out of that saloon, Mr. Roosevelt, and the crowd, had gone.

After that, we walked to where they was holding our bulls in a pen, and Mr. Gow bought us some horses. John Henry got himself a big sorrel. Partial to sorrels, John Henry was. Tommy threw his saddle on a black-faced grulla roan, and I picked out a garnet bay with a spider-web face. All of them was geldings, of course. Tommy called his horse Midnight Beauty, though I didn't think there was anything even pretty about that horse. John Henry never called his horses nothing, unless he was cussing them, except by the color, but I named mine Crabtown, because I never had much imagination when it came to naming horses. The watering hole across from the Sommer's Livery was called the Crabtown Saloon, which is where John Henry led us before we picked out our mounts.

We got fed in the Crabtown, too, because the bartender there served pickles, crackers, and sandwiches to patrons, and the food was free. Mr. Gow liked that. Nice guy, he was, but as big a skinflint as ever I worked for. Next, we got those horses I just mentioned. Old Man Sommer was shaking his head after he and Mr. Gow settled on a price, and we hit the trail, herding the three bulls right down Last Chance Gulch, and on out of town. Mr. Gow had a sorrel horse, too, bigger than John Henry's, and his was a stallion. He called him Champion.

But, I reckon you ain't interested in horses.

Took us five, six days to make it to the Bar DD, not forcing those bulls, because Angus bulls ain't ones to be hurried, and the range wasn't much to look at that summer. Not much good gra.s.s for those bulls, or our horses, to eat.

"Country'll be right pretty," John Henry said, "when it greens up."

"Aye," agreed Mr. Gow. Both of them sounded like they were trying to convince themselves of it.

That was about all the conversing anybody done, at least whilst me and Tommy was around. Now, Mr. Gow and John Henry talked some at night, or when they rode ahead of us, in whispers mostly, but would shut up whenever me and Tommy come close enough to hear. That was bothersome for Tommy. He didn't like secrets. I was too tuckered out to worry about it, and, besides, when John Henry had something to tell us, he'd tell us. Wasn't going to worry over his private conversations with Mr. Gow.

So, you figure it this way. I'd started out that spring skinning dead cattle in the Texas Panhandle, then worked as a muleskinner between Mobeetie and Dodge City. Then rode drag on a herd to Ogallala, and another outfit from Nebraska to Miles City. Then helped keep three black bulls company on a rollicking, stinking, noisy train all the way to Helena. And spent almost a week nursing those Angus doddies to the Bar DD ranch. I was tired.

John Henry laughed at me. Said: "You'll be able to sleep all winter."

Anyway, we got to the MacDunn Ranch, and it wasn't much to look at, either. I don't know. I guess I was mighty green in those days, no matter how grown-up I thought I was. I thought there'd be this real castle at the Bar DD headquarters. One of the books that Tommy had gotten from Jenks Fergus had been The Lady of the Lake, and Tommy would read some poems from it at nights on the trail. Even those muleskinners freighting for Captain Jonas admired Tommy's reading, because Tommy read real good. Well, The Lady of the Lake was about old Scotland, full of fights and heroes, and, well, naturally, I figured the ranch house would be like something Tommy described from that book.

We put the three bulls in an empty corral, and looked around. There were quite a few corrals, and a whopper of a barn, made of big logs c.h.i.n.ked with mud. The main house was also a log cabin, with a dreary sod roof, just like the chuck house that stood between the MacDunn house and the bunkhouse. Guess it was slightly better than some of the ranches we'd worked for in Texas, and a mite better than those sodbusters' places we'd seen in Nebraska. A four-seater privy, too, by thunder, tucked up underneath the hill rising behind the bunkhouse.

"What's that?" Tommy asked. I followed his finger to the lone building in a dip, partially hidden by a lean-to. Now, that building just didn't fit in with all the dirt-colored structures on the ranch. Some fool had taken whitewash to its plank boards, and it stood out among the weathered, brown gra.s.s. Looked brand-spanking new, until I got the opportunity to see it up close a short while later. That whitewash needed a fresh coat, let me tell you. The wind had beaten that paint and boards something fierce, so that, when you looked at it when you was near, it didn't appear to be no better than any of the ranch buildings. And me and Tommy got plenty of chances to see that house up closer than we-at least me-ever wanted to.

I figured it for a church. Boy, did I figure wrong.

"They put it up two years ago," said Mr. Gow, who was walking to the bunkhouse. "Come on, I want to introduce you to the boys. We'll get some coffee."

Boys was right. First one to race out of the bunkhouse wasn't even my age, and two other kids followed. What struck Tommy first was that n.o.body was in any hurry to come outside till after we got those three bulls penned. Maybe they hadn't heard us. The two stragglers couldn't catch that red-headed young 'un who was screaming-"Papa!"-and leaped into Mr. Gow's arms, almost knocking the Scotsman down. Me and Tommy didn't know what to make of that commotion. John Henry just grunted something, disappointed that his coffee would have to wait on account of some fool kid.

"Did you get the animals, Papa?" the red-headed boy asked, after a long hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"See for yourself." Mr. Gow pointed at the corral.

The boy didn't spend much time looking at the Angus beef, because me and Tommy took his attention. He just stared at us, didn't pay John Henry no mind, and looked back at his father.

"Can I help you drive ours back home?" he asked.

"You know the rules, Camdan," Mr. Gow said.

"But . . . Papa."

"No buts, Son." He squeezed his son's shoulder, and turned back to us, made the introductions.

Yeah, that was the first time I met Camdan Gow. He grew up, didn't he? Would have been thirteen back then, younger and shorter than me, but I was about to turn sixteen in another month or thereabouts. Well, I can't say I paid much attention to Camdan while his pa introduced us, because I was staring at the two boys who had come out of the bunkhouse behind Camdan Gow.

One of them wasn't no boy at all.

She had dark hair, and was wearing a red-checked blouse and duck pants. I couldn't recollect ever seeing pants on a girl before, but that was how she was dressed that day. Picture it plain as if it happened just yesterday.

"And, gentlemen," Mr. Gow said, "this is Lainie MacDunn and Walter Butler."

Lainie give us a curtsey. Walter, a big, strapping boy with close-cropped yellow hair, held out a big, strapping hand. I took it. He had a firm grip. Plus, he had better manners than Camdan Gow, I thought. Better manners than Tommy O'Hallahan, too, because Tommy didn't even offer to shake Walter's hand. On account he didn't see it, him staring at Lainie so. And, yes, sir, she was staring right back at him.

"No school today?" Mr. Gow asked.

"It's Sunday, Papa," Camdan replied.

"No church?"

"We read our scripture to Missus Blaire after breakfast," his son answered.

"And where are Blaire and William?"

"I am right here." A sprightly if stout woman followed that voice out of the chuck house. Her brown hair, just starting to gray, was tucked up in a bun. She busied herself wiping her hands on an ap.r.o.n, her face flushed, smiling, trying to fix her face as she walked toward us, wiping it with the hem of the ap.r.o.n after she had cleaned the flour off her hands. "I must look a mess, Tristram. Trying to make sourdough biscuits for supper. Good heavens, I did not expect you back for two or three days."

Her accent was straight out of Sir Walter Scott, too.

"I left Chicago as soon as I could. Saw no need dallying around there, Blaire." Mr. Gow kissed her cheek, and Mrs. MacDunn stepped back. They seemed to be admiring one another.

"Can we see the bulls?" Lainie MacDunn asked.

"Lainie!"

Let me tell you this-Mrs. MacDunn could scowl with the best of them. Back in those days, that wasn't a question befitting a proper girl-you didn't even say bull in front of a lady-but I figured any girl who wore duck trousers wasn't proper.

"La.s.s," Mr. Gow said, "I promised these young lads they could have coffee first. I dare say they've earned it, and maybe a bowl of your mother's delicious pudding. Blaire MacDunn, these fine cowmen are John Henry Kenton, Tommy O'Hallahan, and Jim Hawkins."

"Jim Hawkins?" That took Lainie's attention away from Angus bulls or Tommy O'Hallahan. She sized me up right quickly. "With an i-n or an e-n?"

I didn't know what to say. Wasn't sure I heard right, or what it mattered, or maybe I was just flummoxed to have to try to converse with a girl, a real pretty girl, who wore pants.

"I-n." It was Tommy who answered. "H-a-w-k-i-n-s."

Well, my ears started burning red again. "I can spell my own name, Tommy," I told him, and that was true. Ma had learned me my ABCs, and, while I couldn't read real good-all right, I couldn't read hardly nothing at all-I knew how to sign my own name, even though I made the J and S backwards, and my K always turned out crooked.

"Is that true?" Lainie asked.

Now, I was really mad. "Yes, ma'am. I can spell my own name. J-i-m. That's short for James, but n.o.body ever calls me James. H-a-. . ."

"Not that, you dumb oaf."

"Lainie MacDunn!" her mother snapped.