Fair Land Fair Land - A B Guthrie Read online

  "No grits?"

  "Goes without sayin'."

  Higgins rolled out of bed and went to bring in the horses, his steps crunching the stiffened grass.

  Packed up and mounted they followed the trail until the last of the Big Blackfoot seeped out in a swamp. There was no need to tell Higgins they were close to the big divide. Soon the going would be mostly downhill. Soon they would come to water flowing east. He whoaed up for a moment, long enough for Higgins to say, "You'd play hell gettin' a wagon over this pass."

  Summers nodded and spoke to his horse.

  Half a mile further on, where the trail bent around a rock ledge, Feather snorted and reared and wouldn't go on. Behind him the string started acting up. Summers slid off, reins in one hand, rifle in the other. He turned back, gave the reins to Higgins, shaking his head for quiet, and turned again, walking soft, the Hawken ready.

  At first it was just a piece of fur, whitened at the tips. A step further and it became the biggest bear he had ever seen. It lay spraddled and quiet on the trail, dead maybe. Then he saw the great body rise and fall to its breathing. He skirted around it, ready to shoot. He hit it with a small rock. The bear didn't , move. Then he saw that it lacked most of a foreleg. The stump oozed slow blood.

  He walked back to Higgins and said, "Come on. Back a piece and tie up. Then follow along."

  A little way off was a tree, and they wrapped reins around a couple of branches. "Need my gun?" Higgins asked.

  Summers patted the stock of the Hawken and led off.

  Higgins sucked in his breath as they rounded the turn. He wheezed out, "God! Good God!"

  "Lost a foreleg above the second joint."

  "Bled to death?"

  "Still breathing."

  "You goin' to put him out of his misery?"

  Summers got down on one knee, resting his Hawken on the other. "Ephraim. Old Ephraim," he said.

  "How's that?"

  "I call to mind- " He didn't go on. He called to mind old days with the beaver traps, and young men, the traps lifted, sitting around campfires, and they would speak of Old Ephraim, the great white bear, and their tones held respect and awe and a sort of love, as if Ephraim somehow was a part of tlhem, a living marker of the wild life they lived. Old Ephraim.

  "He don't belong here," he said. "He belongs out on the plains. Drove here, that's what."

  "But here he is. So what?"

  Summers went on, "That Lewis and Clark party, now, they kilt ten of them by the great falls of the Missouri. Why? Why in hell?"

  "You goin' to pray over him, Dick, or get it over with?"

  "It ain't right. Why don't they leave him alone?"

  "I never heard you take on over a critter, and him nigh onto dead."

  "It's not just the one I'm thinkin' on. It's the whole breed, the whole goddamn family. What can you say later on? ‘Yep, there was grizzlies in them days? There was Ephraim. You should have seen him."

  "That ain't helpin' this bear."

  Summers rose and handed his rifle to Higgins. "Keep a bead on him. You never can tell."

  He walked back to the horses and took an old bucket from a pack. At a seep of water he made a hole with the bucket and filled it.

  "Be damn ready to fire," he told Higgins on his return. "This here"s a mite chancy."

  He walked soft to the head of the bear and splashed it with water. No action. He began to pour slowly. At last a tongue came out and licked and licked again. He walked back to the hole he had dug and refilled the bucket. He stopped by the horses and took a haunch of the deer he had shot the night before. Higgins stood silent, the rifle steady.

  Summers put the full bucket down and with it the haunch of deer. To Higgins he said, "We'Il go back to where we was. Good day to do up the washin'."

  He felt Higgins' eyes on him as they returned to the horses.

  He heard Higgins say as if to himself, "This here is crazy. A rare sparrow, that's you, Dick Summers."

  Yeah. Hig might be right.

  11

  SUMMERS kept his horse to a fast walk, feeling clean for once and freshened by cleanliness. They had washed out some clothes and greasy rags the afternoon before, flopping the things in the river current and slapping them on rocks. At least the smell went out of them.

  Afterward they had bathed, in water cold enough to curl a man's hair, not to mention other parts, and stood on the bank, shivering, and let the weather dry them.

  Higgins had asked, "How in hell did the mountain men keep clean?"

  "Mostly, they wasn't too tidy. From fall freeze to spring thaw they molded in their clothes, unless the weather was good enough to set traps. Then they got wet leastwise."

  "I bet they stunk."

  "They had all outdoors to stink in."

  Now they were nearing the spot where they'd seen the big bear. "Watch sharp," Summers said. "I ain't lookin' for a charge, but you never can tell."

  "I'm bettin' he's dead."

  At the turn in the trail the horses began acting up, though not so much as before. Summers spoke to Feather and kicked him on. The bear was gone and so was the meat they had left. The bucket lay in a bush.

  "You lose your bet," Summers said. "He drank and et and got up, and like as not is layin' somewhere close. Keep your eye peeled." He slid from his horse, handed the reins to Higgins, took a forequarter of the doe he had shot and laid it in the trail. Then he picked up the bucket and tied it on.

  "You takin' on another mouth to feed?" Higgins asked. His face was squinched up, in disagreement or thought.

  "It won't hurt, for the time bein'."

  They rode on and came, at about the middle of the day, to a tiny stream where they let the horses drink.

  "Notice anything?" Summers asked.

  "Not what I ain't seen before."

  "The water's flowin' east. We're over the hump, hoss."

  "What I taken notice of," Higgins told him, "was them chokecherries. Leaves mostly dead, but there's them berries, black, ripe and ready. What say we tie up and try a few? Been a long time between fruits."

  They filled their mouths, blowing out the seeds through the tunnels they made with their tongues. After he had satisfied himself, Summers took out his knife and cut a bundle of loaded branches. He laid them on the trail, knowing that Higgins was shaking his head.

  "I figure," he said, coming back, "that Old Ephraim would have a hard time, strippin' branches with only one paw."

  "That damn bear ha'nts you."

  Perhaps it did, Summers thought. Perhaps he was playing the fool. But there was that other time, there were those other times, those other Ephraims, those other nights under the moon, and a man, looking sharp, might see the bear standing at the far edge of light, a curious onlooker at the doings of men.

  "I want he should build up his strength," he told Higgins.

  "He's bound to follow the grub trail, and I don't like the idee, him on my ass forever."

  "Now, not forever, Hig. Pret" soon, he'll hole up for the winter, and he needs meat on his bones and food in his belly for the long sleep. And he ain't goin' to hurt you nor me. I'm thinkin' he knows his friends, that I am."

  Higgins grunted but managed a smile before he mounted his horse. "You're a damn notionable man. Some would say soft."

  "Some have."

  "And learned better?"

  "Maybe a few."

  Before too long, Summers thought, they would ride out of the mountains, and the eye would ramble while the west wind blew soft, and the lungs would fill with air that was better than liquor in the belly. Yet he felt a little like holding back, like waiting, like wanting certainty.

  He straightened in the saddle, knowing that muzzling over what might be had dulled his senses. Approaching them, a rifle in his hand, was a man on horseback.

  The man rode slow, squinting for better sight, one hand fast on the rifle. At last he raised a hand and called out, "How-de-do there, gents."

  Summers lifted an arm and said, "How."

 
"I couldn't tell was you Injuns or not," the man told them as he approached. "It's them ring-tailed caps. Look like braids."

  Summers sat silent. So did Higgins behind him.

  The man had a red face and a belly that hated a belt. He had gear on his saddle — a bedroll tied behind the cantle and stuff in the saddle pockets.

  "My name's Brewer. People call me Hank," the man went on.

  "I'm tryin' to search out the biggest goddamn bear a man ever see. You spot any blood on the trail?"

  "Blood?" Summers said, turning toward Higgins. "I don't recollect any blood. How about you?"

  "Nary a drop."

  "It was like this," Brewer said. "I was huntin' buffalo, two or three days down the line, and I seen this here monster and fired. Hit him, too. He made off into the bushes with a foreleg floppin'."

  Summers asked, "When?"

  "Four, five days ago. I figured it best to let him stiffen up or bleed himself weak and not tackle him fresh-wounded. But I had a time, then, findin' enough buffalo to keep my skinners busy. That's what held me up. Mainly, that is." The man's smile had a hungry and remembering look. "I wasted time yesterday tryin' to make up to a squaw. Damndest thing. There she was, alone except for a young'n, camped in a coulee and kind of hidden away. You know how a man gets away from women. Hard up, that"s what I was. So I begged like and, bein' a fair man, offered a blanket and even some money, and all the time she held an old musket pointed straight at my gut. Crazy, I call it."

  Brewer looked at Summers for approval. "But that ain't here or there. It's the bear I"m after."

  "Judgin' by the bore of that rifle, you could shoot a horse turd through it and not grease the barrel," Summers said.

  Brewer patted the rifle's stock. "I had it made to order, my order, and, by God, you shoot a critter with it any old place and down it goes."

  "Too bad it don't shoot straight."

  "Now how come you say that?"

  "It was a big target, that bear, sayin' he was as big as you make out, but the shot got him just in the leg."

  "The bear was movin', and the size of him gave me the fidgets. Not the fault of the rifle."

  "So you aim to finish him off?"

  "Course."

  "So I can say I kilt him, the biggest grizzly any man ever seen."

  "You could say that regardless, I'm thinkin'."

  "Sure, but no proof."

  "You'll need another horse to carry the hide."

  The man looked into the distance, then back at Summers. "I hadn't give thought to that," he said. "But likely I could butcher his head off or hack out some teeth to back me up."

  After a silence Higgins joined the talk. "You say huntin's poor, buffalo huntin'?"

  "Puny. Buffaloes mostly has drifted south with the season. No big herds. With a big bunch a man can shoot ten or maybe forty from one stand."

  Summers said, "That's mighty interestin'. I never heerd the like of it." He made his tone mild against the dislike that was in him.

  "It takes a good eye, but about that bear. I found blood on the trail yesterday and maybe a spot or two today."

  "If it was him for a fact," Summers said, keeping his voice soft, "I figure he circled around you and went on out, likely makin' for a swamp. You take a grizzly and wound him, and if he don't charge he'll make for a swamp every time. He can cool his hurt there and feed on cattails and such. There's cool and cure in swamp water."

  Brewer straightened in his saddle. "Maybe so, but I figure I'll go on a piece anyhow."

  Summers shook his head. "It's up to you. What say, Hig?"

  "Every man's got his rights, right or wrong."

  "What are you sayin'?"

  "Don't mind us, mister."

  "What in hell is it?"

  "Injuns." Summers spoke to Higgins. "How many was there, hoss?"

  Higgins was quick to catch on. "Ten by my count. Young bucks."

  "Damn Blackfeet."

  "Oh, now, Dick," Higgins put in. "They wasn't too bad. They let us through, didn't they?"

  "On account of I know some Blackfoot talk. On account of the tobacco they took off"n us."

  "And the jug. I was forgettin' the jug."

  "That firewater will set 'em off."

  "Maybe not. What you tryin' to do? Just faze the man?"

  The man, Summers could see, looked fazed. "Me, I wouldn't keer to meet 'em again."

  "If they're there," Brewer said, saving his pride, "the bear won't be nowhere near. Where were they bound?"

  "This way when they finish the jug."

  "I ain't a coward, but no man alone wants to meet up with a war party. Right?"

  "Right."

  "How about just trailin' along with you?"

  "Three of us might set 'em off," Summers said. "Best you go ahead. We'll laze along, kind of a rear guard. Worst comes to worst, we got another jug."

  Brewer nodded, turned his horse around and kicked it to a brisk walk. Turning back for an instant, he called, "If you do any good with that squaw, hump her one for me."

  When he was out of earshot, Summers told Higgins, "Our play-actin' sure shot him down." He grinned into Higgins" grinning face.

  "Take a bow, man."

  "Take one yourself."

  "No fools, no fun. That's what I say."

  "What I say is, let's find a nice place to camp."

  12

  SUMMERS was in no hurry. They had made it over the Bitter Roots and over the Rockies, and a day or two more would see them out on the plains. He stretched in his bed, hearing Higgins fussing around camp. It was good just to lie thinking, to hope to see the trapping grounds again and the clean streams that joined the Missouri, to see space without limit or people to claim it and dwarf it.

  Like he told Hig, it wasn't that he disliked people. Taken singly or in limited bunches, they were all right. He wasn't by nature like some he could name, men who distrusted strangers and hated settlements, who shied away from all law, who took up with squaws and abused and deserted them and went on, ready with knife or gun at the hint of an insult. Yet he wondered.

  No. He was on the wrong trail. It wasn't crowds so much that disturbed him. It was what crowds meant, what settlement meant.

  For now he just rested, and a small fear was in him, the fear of what he might find. Things changed, himself included. Would the plains look as they once had? Seeing, would his chest swell again? Memories could play a man false. Could he see through the eyes that were young once?

  Well, enjoy the now time. It wouldn't come again, though likely he would wish it to. Think of Higgins and his fiddle and the song he'd made up on the trail. He heard it again, heard the music of the fiddle and Higgins' clear voice, sometimes singing, sometimes just reciting to the bare touch of the strings. He had asked Higgins to run through it again, so's he'd remember. He heard it now, tone by tone, word by word, and saw Higgins, sawing and singing in the light of the campfire.

  I met up with the Bitter Root

  On a warm and sunny day.

  It met me with a friendly hand

  And said, "Please, stranger, stay."

  Oh, my wanderin' soul.

  Oh, my wanderin' soul.

  Why can't it settle down?

  Then came another pretty place.

  Clark's Fork it was by name.

  I said, "I'm pleased to meet you."

  It said, "To you the same."

  Oh, my wanderin' soul.

  Oh, my wanderin' soul.

  Why can't it settle down?

  My pardner says keep goin'

  Beyond the mountain range.

  "No tellin' what we'll find there,

  But it will be a change."

  Oh, my wanderin' soul.

  Oh, my wanderin' soul.

  Why can't it settle down?

  My pardner says, "Make tracks, hoss.

  From country that's too mild.

  It'll draw the white man sure, hoss.

  He'll have it quick with child."

  Oh, my wanderin'
soul.

  Oh, my wanderin' soul.

  Why can't it settle down?

  Now I'll tell you why and which,

  And there we'll let it be.

  I'm pardnered with a son of a bitch

  Who has the itch,

  The self-same itch as me.

  ** *

  Summers laid another chunk of meat on the trail. There was enough left for supper and breakfast. Next day he'd shoot more for the pot. The way was mostly downhill now, falling away through the mountains to open country. The sun was halfway down from its high point when Higgins called ahead. "I got a feelin' we're bein' follered. I got a hunch, Dick."

  "Likely so," Summers answered, speaking what he thought was maybe true.

  "And here I am at the tail of the string. Bait, that's what I am."

  "Act pretty, then. Swell up. Ephraim don't go for stringy meat."

  "Good. He'll pass me up and go for you, you puss gut."

  "Just send him on."

  The trail fell away and climbed, and there, beyond the tumble of foothills, soft in the sun, spread the plains. Summers pulled up. It was a flung land, he thought, a land broadcast by the first hand from the raw beginnings of earth. There were the buttes, standing ragged in the light, and the levels that led to the end of the world. There was a stream with its border of growth, bound down to meet the big river. There against the far skyline were shapes that were buffalo. Here Boone Caudill had roamed.

  A wind came up from behind him. It blew his hair before his eyes and went on to ruffle the yellowed grass.

  He pushed the hair from his eyes and said, "Blackfoot counuy, Hig. Crow country south and east."

  Hig answered, "Your country, Dick."

  13

  THEY MADE CAMP that night in the foothills by the side of a creek that Summers felt sure was a fork of the Dearborn. It was strange country to him, strange in the sense that he had never been right here before, but familiar because it was of a piece with country he knew.

  Lying awake, he saw Old Charlie again, tracing water courses in the sand with a forefinger as they sat by the night fire. "It was purty country, that Dearborn stretch was, purty as this nigger ever saw, that's what it was, and beaver in every bend of her, but here, along nigh to sundown, come the Blackfeet, a party of 'em, and this child come close to losin' his hair. Would have wasn't it for a fast horse. Arrers singin' past me like birds and one took me in the arm. We was just two, my pardner and me, and we lit out, sayin' one day we'd traipse back and git our traps, but we never did, that we didn't."