Fair Land Fair Land - A B Guthrie Read online

  Mack motioned toward the log he'd been sitting on and said, "Rest yourself."

  Before Mack could speak, Higgins asked the question. "How come you're here, Dick?"

  Summers smiled and answered, "They showed me a plow, and I took off." His eyes moved from the men to the resting livestock to the camp, and Mack thought he knew what Summers had noted. He said, "I had to leave the wagons behind. My mistake, I suppose. I heard a man named Barstow was building a wagon road, but it runs south of here, and I counted on a shortcut."

  "Worst part's behind you, I'm thinkin'."

  Higgins put in, "Leastwise, we didn't have to shed any plunder."

  "Thanks to you," Mack answered. Then to Summers, "He made pack saddles out of some lumber we had. And it was his idea to lash poles to the sides of the oxen, make rope platforms behind, load the stuff on and let the poles drag."

  "All the same Indians," Summers said. "Travois."

  Mack relighted his pipe. "What the Oregon party was shy of — what we"re shy of — is what we should have given thought to. Horseshoes, for heaven's sake. Hig has his tools but no forge of course, and he has to do what fitting he can with what few shoes we have." He flung out a hand, feeling the oversight, himself guilty as any, feeling sore-footed himself. "Sand, water and rock, what they do to hooves! Painful to watch, I tell you."

  Summers nodded. "Oxen get sore-footed, too, as you've seen for yourself, but I don't put stock in ox shoes. For not havin' enough horseshoes, I fault myself some, but that don't help. For any sore-footed critter the only answer is rest on soft turf."

  "We're resting tomorrow," Mack said.

  "Rest and trimmin', which Hig can do." Summers fell silent, then his gaze went to Higgins. "You reckon you could make a couple of pack saddles for me?"

  "I come high."

  "Higher'n fresh meat, old hoss?"

  Higgins smiled his toothless smile. Looking at him for an instant, Mack thought how poor a specimen he appeared. Broken mouth, pinched-up face, thin and gangly frame. Yet he was the best member of the crew.

  "You might think I can't chaw," Higgins answered, "but I got some grinders in back, up and down both, and they team up good. My mouth's waterin', but time you brought us fresh meat, I could build enough saddles for the cavalry."

  "Hey, wait, Hig," Mack said. "You said you heard a shot?"

  "Thought I did."

  "How about it, Summers?"

  "Could have. Up the line a ways a cow elk stepped out — only real meat in Oregon, I reckon — and stood waitin' for me to shoot, and, hearin' your men callin' like with empty bellies, I obliged. The carcass ain't so far, all gutted out, ready to cut up and load."

  One of the riders said, "Coodbye to that goddamn salmon," and another followed with, "I just changed my mind. Never before now did I think the Lord would provide."

  "Botter, Insko," Mack called out. "Catch up a couple of pack horses and fetch that meat." He turned to Summers. "Can they find it?"

  Summers said to the men, "Stick close to the bank. The critter's out in the open. I got it flagged."

  While Botter and Insko rode out to catch pack horses and Moss went to keep watch on the stock, Mack said, "Looks like you're the answer to prayer, Dick."

  "Thank the elk. Me, I been livin' on wild chicken. Any more of them, and I'll grow feathers or lay an egg."

  "Now to get a good fire going," Mack said.

  "A miracle you want now," Higgins answered. "Wood wet as water but not much wetter'n me. Rain's let up anyhow. You got ideas about a fire, Dick?"

  "I've built some."

  "Want to build another?"

  "What you been burnin'?"

  Mack answered, "What we can drag in. Downed stuff. Dead fall. What else?"

  Summers was silent.

  "I suppose you know something better?" Mack hadn't meant to let the edge of irritation get into his voice.

  Summers gave him his smile. "You can make out all right. Done it so far."

  "Looky here, Dick," Higgins said. "Don't get shit in your gizzard. We're askin', friendly."

  Not for the first time Mack felt grateful to Higgins. The man had a habit of seeing and setting things straight.

  "Was it me," Summers said then, "I'm thinkin' I would knock off the low-growin' branches from pine trees. Most of 'em's dead.

  Most of 'em's dry, bein' sheltered by them growin' above."

  Mack looked up at the great trees that rose around the camp. The first branches were far beyond reach, sprouting out fifty or more feet over their heads. "Good idea," he said, "if we had some trained monkeys."

  Higgins picked up an ax. "I know where some runt stuff is at. Red meat deserves a good fire, not like sour salmon."

  While he was gone, Summers asked, "You got an old piece of wipe rag — it don't need to be big — and some grease?"

  "Rags, sure, but grease?"

  "Nice bacon fat," Summers said, grinning.

  "Last I saw of it was far down on the Platte. But, hey, what about axle grease? I don't know why we brought it along. No dry axles since we left the wagons."

  "Might do. Won't hurt to try."

  Mack went to the packs and returned with a strip of cloth and a bucket.

  Summers spread grease on the rag, sprinkled powder from his horn on the grease and worked it in.

  "Do you always go to such pains?" Mack asked.

  "Nope. It's just you wanted a good fire quick for them steaks."

  Higgins came back with an armload of branches. Summers took one of them, got out his knife and began cutting shavings, thin as ribbons. Nothing but a razor-sharp blade could do that, and Mack wondered how the man kept his knife in such shape.

  Summers put the shavings over the rag, added some fine twigs, poured a bit of gunpowder under one end of the rag and withdrew flint and steel from his possible sack. He rubbed the powder from his hands on his pants legs and then struck a spark. The bit of powder went up in a puff but still ignited the rag. As the fire spread sputtering along it, lighting the shavings, Higgins said, "By God, a slow fuse."

  It was dark now and clear of mist. Higgins built up the fire started heating frying pans. The night was quiet except for the crackling of the fire and now and then a sneeze from one of the loose horses. Then came the sound of hooves and the creaking of gear.

  Botter and Insko slipped from their saddles and were quick to unload the pack horses. Unloading, Botter said, "I found the heart with the guts, all mangled to hell and not fit to eat. A thinkin' man wouldn't have ruint the heart."

  "Yeah, Botter," Insko answered. "Was it you, you'd have shot the elk in the asshole so's not to break the skin. On'y you'd never have spotted game in the first place."

  It was good, their joking was, Mack thought. The promise of a mere change of diet lifted all spirits. Small as it was on any big scale, why shouldn't it? Men lived more by little things than

  big.

  Blotter was knifing and peeling the hide from a hind quarter. "Keep your goddamn distance, Insko," he said. "You'll taint the meat."

  "It's beyond taintin' with you workin' on it."

  Higgins took a fresh-cut steak and plopped it in a hot pan. Then he passed out tin plates, knives and forks. Mack had seen hungry men eat, but never, he thought, had he seen appetites like these. One steak followed another onto plates and into mouths, and still the men looked hungrily at the frying pans.

  "One of you feel like relieving Moss?" he asked finally.

  Insko got up, saying, "He's probably fell off his horse, smellin' the meat. I'll go see, but keep the irons hot."

  In his bedroll under the fly that night, only now and then hearing the soft tone of a bell he had strapped on one of the horses, Mack thought about Summers, Summers with his easy smile and gray eyes and all-around competence. Without being pushy, he was too damn good, that man, and here he was about to set out for God knew where. What ate at him? What shoved him? Many a man would have settled for what Summers was. That, he thought, again with the edge of envy, included him
self.

  4

  MACK LEFT THE LOOSE STOCK just as dawn was breaking. To Botter, who was relieving him, he said, "They hardly need watching." He had taken the early-morning shift, the one the men disliked most, and even his presence hadn't been necessary. The sore-footed animals had stayed put.

  For all the roaming they did, they might have been under fence. The day gave promise of being clear for a change. Any foresighted man, looking at the forest around the clearing, would have seen opportunity, he thought. Some of the trees were as big as tulip poplars, just one of which would and had supplied enough lumber for a two-story house and a good barn. Settlements and settlers needed wood. They needed planks, studs, shingles and all manner of milled stuff. And here for the cutting and there for the cutting were these conifers — pine, spruce and fir, he guessed — and down toward the river bottoms were other great trees, their leafage frondlike, which someone had supposed were westem cedar. He had the capital for a start. He would go into the lumber business and grow with it. He was arriving at the right time.

  You took Oregon or you left it. Rain or not, he would take. He could see himself supplying lumber for great cities, for a thousand towns, for farms to be.

  Riding through lush and strange vegetation, he could see the campfire winking. Summers' work probably, or maybe Higgins'. A good sight, and he breathed deep. Mount Hood rose yonder, as big as ambition.

  Insko and Moss were coming out from under the fly and making for the little stream to wash up. It was a good guess that they would have slept longer but for the thought of red meat.

  "Seems like a nice, lazy day," Higgins said to him as he climbed from his horse.

  "I think we've earned it." Mack let the horse loose. It wouldn't go far with the reins trailing. The eastern sky flushed before the upcoming sun.

  "Put some meat on for you?"

  "Wait till I wash."

  He came back to the fire, following Insko and Moss and told Higgins, "Slap it on."

  "Want some flapjacks to go with it?"

  "God, no." Having nothing better, Higgins had been making pancakes with weevily flour, water and saleratus.

  "Not for me, neither," Moss said, and Insko came on with,

  "Same here."

  The men ate hugely again, and presently Moss said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, "I'll go spell Botter long enough for him to feed his face."

  Beyond a bare word or two Summers had been silent. After he had chewed the last bite on his plate, he said, "Meat's meat, come to that, but I swear I've tasted better."

  "Not me," Insko answered. "What's better?"

  "Buffler for one, and I've set my teeth into some good mountain sheep. I've knowed men said painter meat was best of all."

  "Cat meat!" Mack said. "God save me."

  "Meat's meat, like I said."

  Botter came in and had his meal, and all hands, except one herder, lazed around afterward, no one seeming to be in a hurry. Summers sat on the ground, his knees folded in front of him. Higgins tried the same position but shortly gave up and took a seat on the log that Mack occupied. Botter rode out to resume his watch. Insko disappeared into the trees, presumably to relieve himself.

  "Dick," Mack said, "you haven't told us where you were going?"

  "Maybe I ain't sure myself."

  "Back over the trail, I bet, back over South Pass if the weather lets you."

  "I'm not plannin' on it."

  "Then where?"

  "Just kind of follow my nose." Summers made a backward movement with his thumb. "Lots of places that way but no place in particular. Just yonder."

  Higgins broke in. "You tempt a man, Summers."

  Mack turned on him. "Don't talk crazy, Hig. You want to get to the Willamette. You want to get there."

  Higgins chewed on a stem of grass, his crowded eyes thoughtful. "The trouble with there is there," he said and paused.

  "That's quite a cryptic remark, wouldn't you say?"

  "My maw never taught me them big words, and about all my old man taught me was how to shoot squirrels and drink out of a jug. Most of what I know I learned fixin' things, that and workin' in a blacksmith shop."

  "That explains things, I suppose?"

  "I come over the trail with Mr. Fairman, eatin' his grub and workin' it out in trade. I mean helpin' him with whatever I could. He don't need me now. Neither do you for a fact."

  "I wouldn't quite say that."

  "Just too polite, you are."

  With a stick Summers was making idle lines on the ground.

  "Anyhow, let's get down to it, Hig," Mack went on. "I don't understand. What is it that really tempts you? What's the trouble with there?"

  "There? Well, I figure this way. There is there all right, until a man gets to it. Then it ain't there. It's here, and here is what you wanted to get away from in the first place."

  Mack shook his head. "The only way out that I can see for you is for you to shoot yourself."

  "Not as long as there's trails I never took. Not while there be yonders and yonders. Ain't I right, Dick?"

  Summers looked up. His gray eyes glinted. "That's a way of lookin' at it."

  Mack said, "You're a great josher, Hig. Now come off it. I know you can't be serious."

  "That depends. I got two horses that Mr. Fairman gave me."

  Higgins turned to face Summers. "Not meanin' to shove myself in and beggin' your pardon, but would you keer to two it?"

  "Still got your fiddle?"

  "Sure thing."

  "Sometimes I hanker for music."

  The deal was made then, Mack knew. Two wild men, bound into the nowheres of wilderness. For a flash he wished he were one of them, footloose, worry-free, rid of ambition, following his nose into the yonders of the world.

  The wish left him as quickly as it had come. What a way to live! Always poor in pocket. Never settled. Enduring the pinched, mean life of camp after camp, with camp smoke in their eyes and the cold biting at them. Wildemess bums, womanless, childless, without goals. That was their future. It was if they beat or survived the snows of winter, if they made it over the high, bitter passes and came out on the plains. Already the season was advanced.

  "Time to pack up, I reckon," Summers said, rising. "I got two horses in the bunch."

  "I'll tack some horseshoes on if I can find any that come close to a fit," Higgins said.

  "If anyone can catch that spooky horse of Dick's." Mack doubted that anyone could.

  "You mean my Feather?"

  "Feather in a high wind is more like it."

  "Reckon I should have told you. He's whip-broke."

  "Whatever that means."

  "Closer to the mark to say plank-broke." Summers was looking toward the horses. They were grazing near, Feather in the forefront as usual, his bay coat shining.

  "I had him since he was a colt," Summers went on. "You know how it is. Get a horse in a corral, and, not likin' the idea of a rope or a bridle, he turns his hind end to you, even if he's pretty well broke."

  "So far so good," Mack said.

  "Now every time that colt did it to me, I slapped him smart with a board. Pretty soon he learned if he faced me he didn't get a lick on the ass."

  "He's not in a corral now."

  "No, but I drilled it into him. Horses ain't so smart in some ways. He got it into his head that wherever he was he didn't dast tum his butt to me. I'll go get him."

  Summers took a piece of rope and a length of firewood and moved toward the horses. "Here, you, Feather," he called out. "Whoa now, boy."

  The horse half-turned as if to run, and Summers raised the stick. "None of that now."

  The horse moved to face him, its nostrils quivering. Summers slid the rope around its neck and started to lead the animal in.

  "That damn man could do anything he set his mind to," Mack said to Higgins, knowing his tone was vexed. "He's at home in the world, or could be."

  "Yeah," Higgins answered as if only half-agreeing. "His world."


  "And yours?"

  5

  THEY DIDN'T SET OUT, he and Hig, until early the next morning, Hig having said it would be a good idea to shoe all four horses, poor as the shoes might fit. That was a good idea for a fact, and he had helped while Hig tacked the shoes on and pared down the broken and flattened edges of hooves.

  They rode off, Summers in the lead with one pack horse and Higgins behind with another. They signaled goodbye to the Oregon crew, itself about to mount up.

  Summers was content to poke along. The morning with chilly but clear, and soon enough the sun would get busy. Why hurry? Sure, the snow might catch them, though he had a doubt about it. If it did, they could make out. Mountain men had known their lean-belly times, but how many of them had gone under? They had found things to eat, even rattlesnakes, and had fought off the cold one way or another. He had himself.

  Soon enough, he thought, they would be over the mountains and into chinook country where the long wind blew warm and chased off the frost. How to get over the mountains was the question, but he wouldn't worry his mind about that. Look for notches in the hills. Follow game trails as the Indians did, making the trails all the plainer. Unknown and trackless wilderness, hell. There were plenty of tracks if a man looked for them, if he had the good sense to follow.

  At noon they got off their horses where a spring made a trickle, let the horses drink and then drank themselves. "That cold water leaves somethin' to be desired," Hig said, rubbing his belly.

  "Should have brought along stuff for a picnic," Summers answered. "Only what? Brace up, Hig. We got red meat for tonight."

  They had. They had taken a joint from the elk.

  "Thinkin' about it just makes me ganter. But don't worry. I'm only a shadder at best."

  The trail meandered, leading from bare ground into trees and back to bare ground. Where the trees grew thickest, Hig pointed to one side, calling out first, "There's where we left the wagons."

  Summers reined toward the point. The wagons had been put where no chance traveler was likely to see them. The tongues were lashed up so's to keep the ends off the ground. The wheels were chalked.