A few days later they finally came to the Milk River. It was a crisp fall day, and most of the men were wearing their new coats. The slopes of the mountains to the west were covered with snow.
“That’s the last one,” Old Hugh said. “You go much north of that river and you’re in Canada.”
Call left the herd to graze and rode east alone for a day. The country was beautiful, with plenty of grass and timber enough in the creek bottoms for building a house and corrals. He came across scattered buffalo, including one large herd. He saw plentiful Indian sign, but no Indians. It was cold but brilliantly sunny. He felt that the whole top of the Montana territory was empty except for the buffalo, the Indians and the Hat Creek outfit. He knew it was time to stop and get a house of some kind built before a blizzard caught them. He knew one could come any time. He himself paid no attention to weather, and didn’t care, but there were the men to think of. It was too late for most of them to go back to Texas that fall. Like it or not, they were going to be wintering in Montana.
That night, camping alone, he dreamed of Gus. Frequently he woke up to hear Gus’s voice, so real he looked around expecting to see him. Sometimes he would scarcely fall asleep before he dreamed of Gus, and it was even beginning to happen in the daytime if he rode along not paying much attention to his surroundings. Gus dead invaded his thoughts as readily as he had when he was alive. Usually he came to josh and tease, much as he had in life. “Just because you’ve got to the top of the country, you don’t have to stop,” he said, in one dream. “Turn east and keep going until you hit Chicago.”
Call didn’t want to turn east, but neither did he particularly want to stop. Gus’s death, and the ones before it, had caused him to lose his sense of purpose to such an extent that he scarcely cared from one day to the next what he was doing. He kept on going north because it had become a habit. But they had reached the Milk River and winter was coming, so he had to break the habit or else lose most of the men and probably the cattle too.
He found a creek with a good stand of sheltering timber and decided it would do for a headquarters, but he felt no eagerness for the tasks ahead. Work, the one thing that had always belonged to him, no longer seemed to matter. He did it because there was nothing else to do, not because he felt the need. Some days he felt so little interest in the herd and the men that he could simply have ridden off and left them to make the best of things. The old sense of being responsible for their well-being had left him so completely that he often wondered how he could ever have felt it so strongly. The way they looked at him in the morning, as they waited for orders, irritated him more and more. Why should grown men wait for orders every day, after coming three thousand miles?
Frequently he gave no orders—merely ate his breakfast and rode off, leaving them with puzzled expressions on their faces. An hour later, when he looked back, he would see that they were following, and that, too, irritated him. Sometimes he felt he would prefer to look back and see the plains empty, all the followers and cattle vanished.
But nothing like that happened, and when he had settled on a headquarters, he told the men to drive the cattle east for a day and then let them graze at will. The drive was over. The ranch would lie between the Milk and the Missouri. He would file on the land in the spring.
“What about them of us that want to go back to Texas?” Dish Boggett asked.
Call was surprised. Until then no one had suggested going back to Texas.
“It’s late in the year,” he said. “You’d be better advised to wait and go in the spring.”
Dish looked at him stubbornly. “I didn’t hire on for no winter in Montana,” he said. “I guess if I could have my wages I’d take my chances.”
“Well, you’re needed for the building,” Call said, reluctant to lose him. Dish looked as if he stood ready to ride south then and there. “Once that’s done any can go that wants,” Call added.
Dish Boggett felt angry. He hadn’t hired on to carpenter either. His first work for the Hat Creek outfit had been well-digging, and his last would be swinging an ax, it appeared. Neither was work fit for a cowhand, and he was on the verge of demanding his wages and standing up for his rights as a free man—but the Captain’s look dissuaded him, and the next morning, when they started the herd east along the Milk, he took the point for the last time. With Old Dog dead, the Texas bull was frequently in the forefront of the drive. He looked ugly, for his wound had been sewn up unevenly, and being one-eyed and one-horned had made him even more irascible. He would often turn and attack anyone who approached him on his blind side. Several men had narrowly escaped disaster, and only the fact that Captain Call favored the bull had kept them from shooting him.
Dish resolved that as soon as the building was done he would go like a streak for Nebraska. The thought that a stranger might come along and win Lorie before he could get back was a torment to him—but it made him one of the more vigorous members of the logging crew once the building got started. Most of the other members of the crew, Jasper and Needle particularly, were less vigorous, and they irritated Dish by taking frequent breaks, leaving him to chop alone. They would sit around smoking, keeping a close watch for bears, while Dish flailed away, the sound of the striking ax echoing far across the valley of the Milk River.
Before the work had been in progress a week, an event occurred which changed the men’s attitudes dramatically. The event was a blizzard, which howled out of the north for three days. Only the fact that Call had seen to it that ample firewood had been cut saved the outfit. The men had never known or imagined such cold. They built two large fires and huddled between them, feeding them logs, freezing on the side not closest to the fire. The first day there was no visibility at all—the men could not even go to the horses without the risk of being lost in the swirling snow.
“It’s worse than a sandstorm,” Needle said.
“Yes, and colder too,” Jasper said. “I’ve got my feet practically in the fire and my dern toes are still frozen.”
Dish found to his annoyance that his own breath caused his mustache to freeze, something he would not have imagined could happen. The men put on all the clothes they had and were still terribly cold. When the storm blew out and the sun reappeared, the cold refused to leave. In fact, it got colder, and formed such a hard crust on the snow that the men slipped and fell just going a few feet to the wagon.
Only Po Campo seemed to thrive in the weather. He still relied largely on his serape, plus an old scarf he had found somewhere, and he annoyed the men by nagging them to go shoot a bear. His theory was that bear meat would help them get used to the weather. Even if it didn’t, a bearskin might come in handy.
“Yes, and them dern bears probably think a little man meat would come in handy,” Soupy observed.
Pea Eye, the tallest man in the group, had developed a new fear, which was that he would be swallowed up in a snowdrift. He had always worried about quicksand, and now he was in a place where all he could see, for miles around, was a colder version of quicksand.
“If it was to cover you up, I reckon you’d freeze,” he said, over and over, until the men were tired of hearing it. Most of the men were tired of hearing one another say anything—the complaints characteristic of each had come to bore them thoroughly as a group.
Newt found that he had no urge either to talk or listen, but he did have an urge to stay warm, and he spent as much time by the fire as he honorably could. The only parts of his body that he was still conscious of were his hands, feet and ears, all of which were dreadfully cold. When the storm abated and they rode out to check the cattle he tied an old flannel shirt over his ears and they still felt frozen.
The livestock weathered the storm fairly well, although some of the cattle had drifted far south and had to be pushed back toward the Milk.
Even so, within ten days of the blizzard, a sizable rough log house had been built, complete with fireplace and chimney, both the work of Po Campo. He took advantage of a few days’ thaw to make
a great quantity of mud bricks, all of which froze hard with the next freeze. The roof had hardly been on the cabin a day when the next blizzard hit. This time, though, the men were comparatively warm.
To their amazement, Captain Call refused to live in the house. He set up the old tent of Wilbarger’s in a sheltered spot on the creek, and spent his nights in it, sometimes building a small fire in front of it.
Every morning, the men expected to come out and find him frozen; instead, he came in every morning and found them sleeping too late, reluctant to leave their blankets for the chill.
But there were still corrals to build, and a smokehouse, and improvements on the cabin. Call saw that the men stayed at work while he himself did most of the checking on the livestock, sometimes taking Newt with him on his rounds. He killed several buffalo and taught Newt how to quarter them.
Old Hugh Auld came and went at will on his spotted pony. Though he talked constantly while he was with the crew, he often developed what he called lonesome feelings and disappeared for ten days at a time. Once in a prolonged warm spell he came racing in excitedly and informed Call that there was a herd of wild horses grazing only twenty miles to the south.
Since the Hat Creek remuda was not in the best of shape, Call decided to go see about the horses. They had a great stroke of luck and caught them in a box canyon only fifteen miles from the headquarters. The horses were smallish, but still fat from a summer’s grazing. Bert Borum, the best roper in the outfit, caught eighteen of the horses and they were brought back, hobbled, to the remuda.
True to his word, Dish Boggett drew his wages and left the day after they caught the wild horses. Call had assumed the blizzards would have taught the young man the folly of leaving, and was annoyed when Dish asked for his pay.
“It’s no time to be traveling in country you don’t know,” Call said.
“I pointed that herd the whole way up here,” Dish said stubbornly. “I guess I can find my way back. Besides, I got a coat.”
Call had little money on him, but he had arranged for credit in the little bank in Miles City and he wrote Dish out an order for his wages, using the bottom of a frying pan to rest his tablet on. It was just after breakfast and a number of the hands were watching. There had been a light snowfall the night before and the plains were white for miles around.
“Dern, we might as well hold the funeral right now,” Soupy said. “He won’t even make it to the Yellowstone, much less to Nebraska.”
“It’s that whore,” Jasper said. “He’s in a hurry to get back before somebody beats his time.”
Dish reddened and whirled on Jasper. “She ain’t a whore,” he said. “You take that back or I’ll box your dern ears.”
Jasper was appalled at the challenge. His feet were cold and he knew he couldn’t cut much of a figure in a fight with Dish. His hands were cold too—they were usually cold—and the thought of having to strike someone with a hard head with one of them was not pleasant.
“Well, I meant she was in her younger days,” Jasper said. “I don’t know what she does for a living now.”
Dish stalked off in a cold silent fury. He had resented many of the men throughout the whole trip because of their casual talk about Lorie and saw no reason for elaborate goodbyes. Po Campo hung him with so many provisions that he could scarcely mount.
Dish thought them unnecessary. “I got a rifle,” he reminded Po. “There’s plenty of game.”
“You may not want to hunt in the blizzards,” Po Campo said.
Before Dish left, Call told him to take an extra horse. Dish had mainly ridden Sugar all the way north and planned to ride him all the way back, but Call insisted that he take a little buckskin for insurance.
“A horse can always go lame,” he said.
All the men were standing around, disturbed that Dish was leaving. Newt felt like crying. Leavings and dyings felt a lot alike.
Dish, too, at the last moment, felt a powerful ache inside him at the thought of leaving the bunch. Though most of the hands were disgraceful, rude and incompetent, they were still his compañeros. He liked young Newt and enjoyed teasing Jasper. He even had a sneaking fondness for Lippy, who had appointed himself cook’s helper and seldom got far from the big fireplace.
But Dish had gone too far to stop. He had no fear at all of the dangers. He had to go see Lorena, and that was that. He mounted and took the lead rope of the little buckskin.
Pea Eye, who had been off near the lots trying to loosen his bowels—the main effect on Montana had been to constipate him—missed the preparations for leave-taking. He had been in a sorrowful mood ever since the report had come back on Gus, and the sight of Dish ready to ride off upset him all over again.
“Well, I swear, Dish,” he said. Tears welled in his eyes and he could say no more. Several of the men were disturbed by the sight, fearing that they might behave no better. Dish shook hands quickly all around.
“So long, boys,” he said. “Look for me south of the Brazos if you ever get home.” Then he touched Sugar with his spurs and was soon only a black speck on the snow.
Call had debated giving him the letters Gus had written to the women, but thought better of it. If Dish was lost, and probably he would be, the letters would be lost too, and they were Gus’s last words. Better to keep them and deliver them himself—though the thought didn’t cheer him.
Sitting in his tent that night, he pondered the change in himself. He had let the young man override his warning and leave. He could have ordered him to stay and put a little more of himself into the order, as he often had at times when men were unruly. Dish had been determined, but not determined enough to buck a forceful command. As captain he had given such commands many times and never had one failed to be obeyed.
But in this case he lacked the interest. When it came time to summon the force, he hadn’t. He admired Dish Boggett, who indeed had held a true point for three thousand miles; he had also often proved himself the best man to break a stampede. But Call had let him go, and didn’t really care. He knew that he wouldn’t care if they all went, excepting Pea and the boy. He had no impulse to lead the men another step.
The next day, since the weather continued pretty, he decided to go to Fort Benton himself. Major Court had indicated that the Army might frequently need beef if the winter got bad and the tribes fared poorly. After all, he had come to Montana in the hope of selling cattle. Once the news reached Texas that they had made the drive, others would soon follow, probably by next fall, and it was well to establish good connections with the Army, the only buyer in the Territory who might want beef.
It was during the Captain’s absence that Newt discovered a talent for breaking horses. Ben Rainey, an excellent rider, had been assigned the task of breaking the mustangs, but on the very first day of work a strong black horse threw him into a tree and broke his arm. Po Campo set the bone, but Ben declared he had had enough of bucking broncs. He meant to apply for another job when the Captain returned. Newt had been on wood detail, dragging dead timbers up from the creek and helping Pea Eye and Pete Spettle split them. He told Ben Rainey he would have a try at the black, and he rode him to a stand-still, to the surprise of everyone, including himself.
Of course he knew that riding a horse through a bucking spell represented just a small part of a horse’s education. They had to be gentled enough that it wouldn’t be necessary to tie them down to saddle them. They had to be taught to rein, and, if possible, to take an interest in cattle.
When the Captain returned a week later with an order for three hundred beeves to be delivered to Fort Benton by Christmas, Newt was in the little sapling corral they had built, working with a hammer-headed bay. He looked nervously at the Captain, expecting to be reprimanded for changing jobs, but Call merely sat on the Hell Bitch and watched. Newt tried to ignore the fact that he was there—he didn’t want to get nervous and upset the bay. He had discovered that if he talked a lot and was soothing in what he said it had a good effect on the horse he was
working with. He murmured to the bay while the Captain watched. Finally Call dismounted and unsaddled. It pleased him to see the quiet way the boy worked. He had never been one for talk when there was work to be done—it was his big point of difference with Gus, who could do nothing without talking. He was glad the boy was inclined to his way. When they drove the beeves to Fort Benton, he took Newt and two other men with him.
That winter there were several such trips—not merely to Fort Benton but to Fort Buford as well. Once when they arrived at Fort Benton, the Army had just trailed in a bunch of raw, half-broken horses from the south. When they brought in beeves, the fort was always full of Indians, and there was much bargaining over how the beeves would be divided between the Major and an old Blackfoot chief the soldiers called Saw, because of the sharpness of his features. Some Blood Indians were there too on this occasion, and Call felt angry—he knew he was seeing some of the warriors who had killed Gus. When the Indians left, he felt like tracking them and revenging his friend—though he didn’t know which braves had done it. He held back, but it made him uneasy to leave an attack unanswered.
The Major found out that Newt was good at breaking horses and asked Call if he would mind leaving the boy at the fort for a few weeks to rough out the new string of horses. Call didn’t want to, but the Major had dealt with him on fair terms and he didn’t feel he could refuse the request, particularly since there was not much to do back at ranch headquarters. They spent their time making improvements on the log house, starting a barn and checking the cattle after the frequent storms. Most of the men spent their spare time hunting, and had already brought in more buffalo and elk meat than could be eaten in a winter.
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