The Way West Part 3

"A mule's faster, smarter, quicker handled, and better all around. Nicer to sit behind, too."

"More wind, maybe, but less drizzle," Hig said, smiling his thin smile.

"An ox, now, will do his best," Tolty continued, "but when he peters out he lies down, and by G.o.d you can't get him up with a hayfork."

Tod yanked at Fairman's hand. "I want the big b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Father."

"That's not the way to talk, Tod."

"Beats all," Tolty said, "how they pick up things. Now whare'd he hear that, you reckon?"

Fairman asked, "How much?"

"Forty dollars each, two for seventy-five, and take your pick."

"It's enough."

"Cheap. Cheap as dirt."

Hig got into the conversation again. "Where you from, that dirt's so dear?"

Tolty only looked at him.

"And you'd take mules?" Fairman asked.

"You can ride a mule or pack 'im, which same you can't do with a ox. Come a time when you wanted to circle up against Indians, whare'd you be with a slowpoke of a ox?"

"You haven't traveled the trail?"

"No, and neither did I ever drop a shoat, but I know good bacon."

"Your advice isn't what I've been getting."

"People'll tell you anything."

The man outside the fence put a foot on a stump and dangled the bridle reins in his hand. He wasn't thin or fat, but, Fairman thought, somehow fluid with muscle. His face was lined but calm, as if it knew trouble and patience both. On impulse Fairman asked, "What do you say, sir?"

"It ain't my deal."

"Deal, anyhow, will you?"

The man addressed himself to Tolty. "How do Injuns feel bout mules?"

Tolty was quick to answer. "Crazy about 'em, like everybody else. Plumb crazy about 'em."

The man nodded silently, as if he had made a point, and looked down at the reins in his hand.

Tolty's mouth opened, as if suddenly he realized he had overstepped himself but couldn't figure how he had.

"What Injun love, Injun steal," Hig said, and the man looked up, his mouth impa.s.sive but his eyes grinning.

"Tolty faced around toward the man. "You got a G.o.ddam long nose."

"Wait!" Fairman broke in. "I asked him a question, and he answered it. You mean Indians will steal mules but not oxen?"

"Could be."

Tolty tried to stare the man away. "Leave the gentleman buy what he wants. It's none of your nevermind."

The man was quiet, flicking the reins against the palm of his hand. When he spoke again, it was still mildly. "That big mule there. Seems like he used to belong to Tom Proctor. Tom allowed he was the sure-footedest critter he ever did see."

"That's just what I been tellin' 'em."

"Yes, sir," the man went on. "Tom said that mule would look close and pick out the teeth he wanted to kick out of a man's face, and then he would let fly and never miss. Not once."

Hig said, "Now that's what I call sure-footed. If I had me a tooth, I bet he would kick it out:"

"Whyn't you get the h.e.l.l away?" Tolty almost shouted. "d.a.m.n if I ain't a mind to run you off." He moved toward the ,gate, acting full of purpose.

The man stood quiet, his foot on the stump and his hands resting on his uplifted knee. Fairman wondered whether he saw the dirk at Tolty's side. All he said was, "Take it easy, hoss."

Tolty stopped, like a dog that had run out full of noisy fury and had to brake himself at the last minute to keep from biting off more than he could chew.

The tone of grievance came into Tolty's voice. "You ain't goin' to buy nothin'. You got no honest business here."

"I reckon you're right," the man said, and took his foot from the stump and stepped back toward his horse. "What might your name be?"

Hig answered Tolty. "It might be Old Hickory. Might be Andy Jackson himself in person."

"d.i.c.k Summers."

"d.i.c.k Summers?" Fairman repeated.

"You got it right." The man swung a leg over his horse and sat still for a minute. He took them in, Tolty with his cigar,Hig, Fairman, Tod clinging to Fairman's hand. Then he swung his horse around.

Fairman wanted to call to him, to ask if he was the mountain man, to ask if he'd pilot a company to Oregon, but he stood silent as the horse jogged away, knowing only that he'd seen the second man he'd like to travel with.

Chapter Three.

d.i.c.k SUMMERS sat on a stump and smoked his pipe. The days were longer than before, but dusk already had settled among the trees, and in the cabin the women had struck a light, maybe more for the cheer of it than to see by. He hitched himself on the stump, knowing he ought to go and find the cow and milk her, seeing as n.o.body had, but he still sat and smoked, thinking he would do it after a while.

Down along the creek, where the water had leaked out into a little marsh, the frogs were tuning up. There was the smell of spring in the air, of spring full-sized and growing into summer. The dogwood and redbud had put out their flowers, and leaves waved on the poplar and wild cherry. He ought to go and milk the cow.

Far off, beyond the long plain of the Platte, along Green River or the Popo Agie and north toward the Three Forks, the trappers -or those that were left of them- would be busy, setting their traps and making their lifts and counting days till rendezvous, except that there wasn't any rendezvous any more but only Jim Bridger's fort, and it was built more for movers than mountain men.

A man moved away from the cabin and Summers saw it was his neighbor, Lije Evans, who finally had made up his mind to go to Oregon and now wanted everybody else to go. Evans asked, "Mind company?" and eased his big body to the ground and got out a green bottle and handed it to Summers. He had bought it, Summers knew, for him. They drank from it and went back to their pipes, and by and by Evans said, "She makes a real purty corpse, d.i.c.k."

Summers nodded, not speaking, letting the alcohol warm his stomach while he thought about beaver country. He had said goodbye to it once, feeling old and done in. How long ago?

Eighteen thirty-seven to eighteen forty-five. Eight years, but it seemed like forever, so sometimes he wondered if the Seeds-keedee ran like always and the mountains lifted blue out of the plain and buffalo bulls made thunder in their rutting time.

He had said goodbye to it and had come back to Missouri to farm, and so had bought himself a team of mules and built a cabin and married a white woman and set out to grow corn and pigs and tobacco and garden stuff, and had counted the old life as something done with except as his mind remembered it -except sometimes as his inside eye saw the sun push up over the edge of the world and make its great sweep and slide in fire behind the mountains. Under the sun he would see maybe a beaver pond and hear the smack of a tail on water, and then the riffles running and dying out and the pond lying so quiet you would think nothing lived there.

Or he would see an Indian village, and squaws with red blankets, and a young one with full b.r.e.a.s.t.s looking his way as much as to say yes, tonight, while he told the chief the white hrother's heart was good and he spoke with one voice, and the pipe made the rounds. Or he would see friends like Jed Smith or Dave Jackson or Jim Deakins, and all of them dead now and the Grand Tetons rising lonely by Jackson Lake. And then the smell of pig manure would come to his nose, or Jack, the old mule, would bray, and he would know he was nothing any more but a grayback farmer who'd better be tending to his ch.o.r.es.

Evans said, "You made up your mind what to do yet, d.i.c.k?"

Summers shook his head.

"Reckon I oughtn't to ask you that. It ain't a time when you'd want to figure."

"It's all right."

"I wouldn't ask, except time is pus.h.i.+ng. We got to know before long now."

"Uh-huh." Summers took the bottle that Evans offered and drank from it again. Up the Sweet.w.a.ter and over the Southern Pa.s.s and down the Sandys to the Green he was seeing the wild goats or antelopes as people were calling them now, and the young ones running with them, light and skittery as thistle And it came on toward night, and the sun was down and the fire of its setting dead, and the coyotes were beginning to yip on the hills and the stars to light up, and there was the good smell of aspen smoke in his nose. He ought to milk the cow.

Evans drew in a breath, as if he took notice of the smoke, too, but what he said was, "Them crab trees smell nice."

A man lost one thing and thought about others lost before. Like he thought about Jackson's Hole and the Wind Mountains and the squaws he had known, a long time ago when the blood was hot in him. Like he thought about the buffalo on the Laramie plains. Jesus Christ, so many that he had fuddled himself trying to put a figure on them! Like he thought about his old friend, White Hawk. a chief of the Shoshones. Like he thought about streams running quick and clear and the stands of white-trunked quaking asp.

"Tadlock is bound and bedarnned on an answer," Evans said. "Can't say I blame him too much now, d.i.c.k."

"Why you goin', Lije? You didn't leave nothin' there."

"I told you. We got to take Oregon, d.i.c.k. I feel I got to help."

"That ain't all."

"No. I ain't been there, but I been here. I ain't satisfied just to work to keep myself up so's I can work some more. There ought to be more to livin' than that."

"I never figured you for lazy."

"Maybe I'm not. There just ain't enough range in Missouri."

Summers nodded.

"It's in the air, d.i.c.k, like the fever hangs over a swarnp. Brownie wants to go and so do I, and Rebecca's willin'. What the h.e.l.l? I don't care much to ask myself why. I'll just go."

Summers made as if to get up. "Got to milk the cow."

"You milk the cow! Set down!" Evans' voice went out in a bawl. "Brownie! Hey, you Brownie!"

Summers could see a figure coming from the direction of the cabin. Brownie lagged up, a boy still mostly arms and legs and neck, who probably thought he was a man but wouldn't sniell like one yet.

"What's it, Pa?"

"We forgot about the cow. Your mother and them other women did. Get yourself a bucket and go hunt tip d.i.c.k's cow and milk her."

The boy scuffed the ground with his toe.

"Let 'im be," Summers said. "h.e.l.l, a man don't like to do women's work."

"This ain't like ordinary, Brownie," Evans said. "There ain't anyone going to make light of it at a time of death. You go on."

The boy said, "All right," in the sudden, coa.r.s.e voice of the calf turning bull. The unexpected sound of it seemed to rattle him. He wheeled around and made for the cabin.

"How old's he?" Summers asked.

"Long seventeen."

"Don't hardly seem that old."

"He's been slow growing up, like weedy young'uns are. Mostly stalk so far, but he's comin' along."

"Good boy."

Summers could tell Evans was pleased.

Evans said, "It's partly for his sake I'm goin'. I'd like for him to know something besides root, hog, or die."

They drank again.

Afterwards Evans asked, "Is it such a h.e.l.l-buster of a trip, d.i.c.k?"

"Easy, by foot or horse, I don't know as to wagons. I used to think a wagon couldn't travel beyond the Green much, but some have."

"I oughtn't to plague you, askin' questions," Evans said, s.h.i.+fting his position on the ground. "Anything I can do for you?"

"Reckon not."

Peopple wouldn't let a man with a grief do anything for himself. They brought him meat and bread and cake -more'n he could eat in a week even if he took to fancy fixin's -and they tidied up his place and built a walnut box and dug a grave and the women laid the body out. And all of them stayed around -the men smoking and chewing and talking pigs and crops, and the women talking women's talk -until the body was under ground and the earth thrown on top. And then they might build a grave house so's to close the body away from weather and varmints.

"Tadlock's a good-enough man," Evans said. "Got more learning than most. Spills over with feelin' for America. He sure-G.o.d wants to be captain of the company."

"Where'd you say he's from?"

"Illinois. Illinois-river country, but I don't figure him for a farmer. Officeholder, more likely. I seen him in town this morning. Told him not to come out, but it could be he will. He's a mule-headed man."

Summers didn't let himself answer, not being sure what to make of Tadlock. Right off, though, he didn't take to him.

After a silence Evans asked, "You want to take a look?" He bent his head toward the cabin. "The women want you should have a look."