Monte Walsh

by Jack Schaefer

  "Worked," said the man. He tossed a coin and Monte caught it. A quarter.

  "Hey," said Monte. "You promised fifty cents."

  "Run along," said the man. "That's more'n enough." He started away along the street.

  "Yeah?" said Monte. "It's gone up. It's going to be a dollar now."

  The man stopped, turned hark, weaving sonic. "Want me to bat your cars off?" he said.

  "Want me to go in there and tell about it?" said Monte.

  The man stood, swaying, biting at one thumb. He fumbled in a pocket and took out a silver dollar and tossed it toward Monte. "Smart" he said. "Like me." he moved away along the street.

  Monte picked the coin out of the dust. "Dollar," he said. "And a quarter." He moved off, angling toward the door with its cheerful one-paned patch of light and its even more cheerful EATS.

  * * *

  Rolling country this, rolling into distance everywhere, broken only by far-scattered low thickets of scrub oak. The road, despite a few wheel tracks, was little more than a horse trail. The sun, high overhead, slanting into afternoon, sent down a steady glare. In the meager shade of an oak thicket some thirty feet from the trail Monte Walsh sat on the ground, legs stretched out. He had not eaten for a day and a half. He had not spoken to anyone in that time because there had been no one to speak to, no one anywhere. He had come seventeen slowing miles since morning. The blisters inside the cowhide boots were rubbed raw.

  He sat motionless. Nothing seemed to move anywhere. He became aware, by another thicket across the trail a hundred feet away, of a coyote watching him. It had not been there a moment before. It stood still, one forefoot raised, and looked steadily at him.

  Its ears lifted and it turned its head to look along the trail to Monte's left. Silently, a shadow sliding, it slipped around the thicket to the right and was gone.

  Monte turned his head to look along the trail to the left. Over the last rise rolling down to his shadowed niche came an old Indian, the years long ago lost in the many wrinkles of the stern old face, Cheyenne from the firm set of the features and the shape of the head and the proud carriage of this on the thin old neck, riding bareback on a squat bunch-muscled pinto. He was naked from the waist up, wearing only some kind of faded canvas trousers and moccasins. He was leading on a twenty-foot length of grass rope a heavy-shouldered dark gray mustang.

  He came along the trail at a steady dogtrot, seeming oblivious to the jerkings of the mustang on the rope, and he looked to neither side, yet when he was opposite Monte he stopped and the mustang came up and stopped by the pinto's hind­quarters and he turned his head to look as steadily as had the coyote at Monte in the shadow of his thicket.

  There was no discernible expression in the wrinkles of the old face. He raised an arm and swung it, pointing on ahead along the trail.

  Monte nodded his head vigorously. "Martin's ranch," he said. "Red Fork Ranch."

  The old Indian might not have heard. No flicker of expression showed. He raised the arm again and pointed at the mustang.

  "You bet!" said Monte, jumping up. He came forward, hobbling on blistered feet, and around the pinto and approached the mustang. It stood motionless, head turned slightly, watching him with one rolled eye. He put a hand on its withers. It stood, motionless. He leaped to throw a leg over and as he leaped it hunched its back, high, and he hit off balance, awkward, and it bucked, head down, hind­quarters rising in sudden surge, and he pitched forward and sideways and hit the ground, hard.

  Monte flipped over and away fast and sat up. He stared at the old Indian. The old body was rocking on the pinto, shaking in tremendous silent mirth.

  "Like that, is it?" said Monte, mad. He stood up. The blisters in the cowhide boots were forgotten. He plunged forward and was astride the mustang before it could hunch, hands fastening into the sparse mane. It reared, angry in turn, and pounded down and forward, bucking, and the rope tautened and was yanked from the old Indian's hand and Monte clung, thin legs gripping the heaving sides.

  The old Indian sat still and quiet on the pinto, watching.

  The mustang scattered dust like a small whirlwind. Monte leaned forward, upper body tight along the neck, arms around. He caught hold of the dangling rope and whipped a coil around the mustang's nose. He sat up, pulling hard, and the coil tightened and the mustang squealed, fighting for breath, and slowed. It stopped, legs braced, resigned to the day's fate. Monte pulled its head around and kicked it into motion, back toward the pinto.

  The old Indian regarded him, impassive, expressionless. The old Indian raised a hand, palm outward, in what could have heen a kind of salute. He nudged the pinto into its dog­trot along the trail and beckoned to Monte to follow.

  * * *

  The scrub thickets cast long shadows over the big land. Two other long shadows moved among them, cast by an old Indian on a squat pinto and a thin knobby boy on a dark gray mustang. They jogged along and the shadows lengthened and they jogged on in a somehow companionable silence.

  They came to a sharp fork in the trail. The old Indian stopped and the boy moved up beside him. The old Indian raised an arm and tapped himself on the chest and pointed out along the south prong of the trail. He pointed at the boy and out along the north prong.

  "Shucks," said Monte Walsh. "I guess this is where I get off." He slid from the mustang's back. He handed the rope end to the old Indian. He looked up into the stern wrinkled old face looking down and reached to slap the near old leg in its canvas covering. "Thanks," he said. "I hope you know what that means."

  The old Indian raised the arm again and pointed at Monte and then at the mustang. He shook again in silent mirth. He raised the hand again, palm outward, in what could have been a kind of salute. He swung the pinto to start along the south prong of the trail and the rope tightened and the mustang followed.

  Monte Walsh watched them go, dwindling into distance. They dropped from sight into a hollow and he turned to start along the north prong.

  The blisters broke into pain and he hobbled slowly, favoring them as much as possible. Time passed and he hobbled on and there was nothing but the trail leading on, rising some as the land sloped upward. "Shucks," he murmured. "Wonder if that old buck thought it'd be funny to lose me out in the middle of nowhere." He hobbled on.

  The shadows were stretching to merge together as he topped out on the rising land and the ground fell away before him in long slow slopes and in the last light of the sun he saw it, several miles away still, out on the level, the long thin ribbon, only a thin ribbon from here, there narrowing and widening and narrowing again and rods wide at the narrowest, the great trail cut deep through brush and sod by thousands of hoofs moving north.

  His head turned as his eyes followed it swinging northward. There it crossed the Cimarron, the Red Fork of the Arkansas. There it snaked on through a natural clearing in the black jack forest of stunted oaks that came down to the river and stopped. And there, where the clearing widened in huge sweep, was the big cattle corral, big enough to hold twenty-five hundred head, and some distance away the smaller horse corral and the two stockade-style log buildings.

  "What d'you know," murmured Monte. "I guess I've got there."

  * * *

  The one building, the original, built by the first owner when land could first be leased from the Indians, was low with slant sod roof, used now for cookhouse and storehouse. The other was two story, gabled, shingle-roofed, two-roomed, one big room directly over the other, the lower used as bar and store and trading post, the upper, reached only by an outside stairway, for sleeping quarters.

  Monte Walsh, blisters healing inside socks inside the cowhide boots, thin body cased now in new-old jeans too big for him and an oversize flannel shirt with sleeves cut down to length, swept the plank floor of the bar-store-trading post with an Indian brush-broom every morning with conscientious regularity. Now and again he carried assorted items from the other building and put them on shelves as needed and as directed by a stout gruffly genial redheaded man.
He slapped an ancient cavalry saddle on an always mean-tempered Indian pony and rode out with a coiled rope hanging over one shoulder and rode back dragging firewood for the querulous but competent bent-legged man who ruled the cookhouse. He ate enormous meals to the constant amused amazement of the redheaded man and the never-expressed satisfaction of the querulous man and his thinness tightened toward the rawhide leaness of a youmg animal.

  And whenever a cloud of dust rose to the southward and drifted with the wind over the great trail and came on and was a herd of Texas cattle and these were bedded for the night sumewhete in the natural clearings of the black jack forest beyond and men lean and hard and ,quint-eyed from wind and dust, wearing high heeled knee length hoots with huge spurs and low slung cartridge belts with holstered Colt .45's, eight inch barreled and wooden handled, clattered in for supplies and domething to rake the dust out of their throats and slow drawling talk of the trail, Monte hung close and listened and looked for the one quieter than the others with responsibility on him and edged closer and asked his question--and was shushed and pushed aside, tight-lipped and disgusted.

  And one afternoon when Monte was sweeping and the red­headed man was checking antelope hides left by an old Indian who always pointed at Monte and sketched in the air with his hands an imaginary mustang and shook with silent mirth, hoofs sounded outside and a well-lathered cow pony slid to a stop by the door and a man entered. He was young as most of them always were, not much into his twenties, but big­framed with wide sloping shoulders, and a hard-worn dusty competence came from him.

  The redheaded man looked up and promptly set a bottle and a small glass on the counter beside the skins. "Hat!" he said. "Hat Henderson. Wondered if you'd be coming up this year."

  "Certain I'm coming," said the man. "And all hell's been coming with me." He poured a drink and downed it. "I get shoved up to trail boss. And what happens? Nothing but trouble. Spookiest bunch of goddamned cows ever rattled horns. Running most every night. Then I lost a man crossing the Washita. Now another one has to go bust a cinch and break a leg."

  "Rough," said the redheaded man. "Real rough."

  "But we ain't lost any cows," said the man. "You got a bed upstairs--for Petey--it was Petey broke that leg--till the stage comes?"

  "Of course," said the redheaded man.

  "Supposing we put them goddamned cows in that big corral for tonight? Get some rest."

  "Go right ahead," said the redheaded man.

  The other started for the door. Monte Walsh stepped forward. "Hey," he said. "Hey, mister-"

  "Quit it, kid," said the man. "I ain't got time for you." He was out the door and away.

  * * *

  Twenty-two hundred longhorn steers were in the big stock corral, stout, proof against them, made of logs set stockade-style. Seventy-three cow ponies were in the horse corral made of split rails set in post stanchions. In the upper room of the two-story log building a lean whipcord young man, maybe all of twenty, lay on a cot with barrel-stave splints along one leg. In the light of a small kerosene lamp another of about the same age sat by the cot playing euchre with him, with old grimy cards. Sounds of various occasionally boisterous activities came through the floor boards from the room beneath.

  There, in the room beneath, apart from the seven men around a big table, the redheaded man leaned on the inside of the short high counter he used for a bar. Hat Henderson leaned on the outer side, cradling a drink in one big hand. Monte Walsh sat on a small box by the end of the counter.

  "Hey, kid!" shouted someone at the table. "Bring us another bottle."

  The redheaded man handed a bottle to Monte and made another mark on a piece of paper. Monte took the bottle to the table and came back to his box.

  "--shift young Jenkins to regular riding," Hat Henderson was saying. "He ain't no Petey. Not yet anyways. But maybe he can make it. Then who in holy hell'll wrangle the cavvy?"

  "Damn it," said Monte Walsh. "I'm right here."

  The wide sloping shoulders turned some till Hat was leaning on one elbow on the counter, looking down. "So you are," he said. "What there is of you. Think you can handle hosses?"

  "Sure," said Monte. "Sure thing."

  "Can you ride?" "Sure. Sure thing." "I mean ride."

  "Damn it." said Monte, sitting up straight on the box. "Anything you've got."

  "You don't say?" murmured Hat. He raised his glass to his lips, looking down over it. He swung toward the redheaded man. "Mighty big talk," he said.

  The redheaded man chuckled, shrugging his shoulders. He sobered. He nodded his head just a bit.

  "All right, kid," said Hat. "We'll try it anyways. Be around in the morning."

  And later when they all had left and were rolling into blankets in the clear cool of night out near the horse corral and the redheaded man and Monte had finished wiping the table and counter and putting things in place and sweeping up assorted debris, the redheaded man pointed to the three new unused saddles on their racks by the rear wall. "Maybe you could use one of those," he said.

  "Shucks," said Monte. "I can't pay for it."

  "Don't I know that?" said the redheaded man, gruff, seeming angry. "I ain't dumb. You trying to do me out of a sale? Pay me when you come back through or send it by somebody."

  And in the morning when the chuck wagon had taken on supplies and was moving on and the men were swinging loops in the horse corral and one of them, grinning, led out a rangy dark bay, Hat Henderson said: "Might be fun to see. He sure talked big. But we ain't got time for games. Bring us that little dun."

  And when the dun was brought, bridled and ready for him, Monte Walsh slapped his new saddle on it and pulled the cinch tight, fumbling some, conscious of the critical young eyes on him, and he swung up and the horse broke in two mildly, getting the kinks out of its backbone, bucking some in sheer exuberance of release into the morning, and Monte rode out the little storm and Hat said, "All right, kid, likely you'll do. That one and the little black over there and that pinto will be your string. Come on, we'll get the bunch moving. They're pretty well trail broke."

  And while the others loped for the big stock corral, Hat and Monte hazed the rest of the cavvy out of the horse corral and started them following the chuck wagon. "Stop when Cookie stops," said Hat, "and keep 'em bunched handy." He struck spurs to his own big gray and left to join the others.

  Like a great sprawled snake, weaving and changing shape but always reforming into the long wide line of crackling hoofs and rattling horns, twenty-two hundred longhorn steers moved north along the trail. Off to the left, drawing ever more in advance, the chuck wagon bumped along and behind it trailed the cavvy and behind this rode Monte Walsh, erect in new saddle, rump flat to it, a part of the horse beneath him.

  Another young one was riding north with a trail herd, with the men and the horses that were taking the Texas longhorn to the farthest shores of the American sea of grass, unthinking, uncaring, unknowing that he and his kind, compound of ignorance and gristle and guts and something of the deep hidden decency of the race, would in time ride straight into the folklore of a weary old world.

  "Yeah, they'll do that. I had me one somethin' like it in my string last time. Mouse-colored mutt he was. An' mean. Morn­in's I was figurin' on usin' 'im he'd know an' he'd get up steam an' take a header right over the rope corral we strung out from the wagon. Someone'd have to run 'im down an' throw 'im. Well sir, we'd took on a kid down at Martin's. Herdin' the hosses an' doin' right fair at it too. He must of been studyin' on that mutt. Know what he did? Snitched a rope--it was Jess's rope an' Jess he didn't think much of that when he found out an' he was aimin' to bust the kid a few but I got in the way an' took that notion away from 'im. He didn't have no real squawk. Rope wasn't hurt none. Well sir, along in the night somehow that kid tied that rope around that mutt's neck an' left it draggin' an' by mornin' that mutt he was so used to it draggin' he'd about forgot it. Well sir, we had 'em in the corral an' that kid slips in there with 'em an' he flips tother end of t
hat rope around the neck of one of the wagon mules with a good knot an' when that mutt he went to sailin' over the corral rope like he did he was one mighty surprised piece of hoss. Rope took 'im right in the air an' flopped 'im back down an' knocked the wind clean out of 'im an' at tother end of that rope that mule was about yanked off 'is feet. Made the mule mad an' that mule he jerked that mutt around some on the ground 'fore he could get up an' finished off kickin' 'im with a thump you could of heard clean to Kansas. Well sir, that mutt he was a mighty careful actin' hoss for quite some time after."

  Monte

  1872 1877

  KNOCK OFF a few years fast. Let a boy emerge as a man, age in the years unimportant but the seasoning yes, a young one absorbing the skills of a trade, of a way of life, of an attitude toward existence. Maybe it will add up to something, if only to a grasp on one of many like him, separate only in the small fragments of individuality, who shared that trade, that way of life, in a time and a place, a short time but a big place, a wisp of eternity across a third of a continent.

  * * *

  Monte Walsh, coming sixteen, rode up the trail to Newton wrangling the cavvy with a herd of longhorn steers road­branded Circle Dot and lost two horses on the way, likely to a pair of Pawnees who eased them off one night and were long gone by morning. That bothered him plenty until he learned there were other wranglers in this and other years who lost more. When the cattle were loaded on the cars and the outfit was paid off, Monte took his, less the wholesale cost of the blanket and tarp and rope that had been supplied him, in a few silver dollars and a little dun cow pony that always broke in two mildly when he first swung up and then went about its work with an all-day quiet competence. He lost most of the dollars at the Bull's Head trying to learn to take his liquor straight and losing most of that too but he held on to the horse. None of the men scattering now to find cold weather work wanted a young green one tagging his heels. Monte wandered about lonesome and had to take what he could get. He wore out that winter in and about a small smelly dugout far back in lonely country helping a lank scrub-bearded wolfer who rarely spoke ten words a day but kept him busy skinning and scraping hides and disposing of the carcasses. There was a bad time the day the wolfer found a forgotten half-finished bottle in among his trapping gear and promptly finished it, becoming surly drunk in the process, and began knocking Monte about, but when Monte came up off the ground with a skinning knife in one hand and an obvious desperate intent to use it in all of him the man sobered fast and backed away and said be black-damned if I don't think you would and thereafter kept hands off. The dugout was forty miles from the nearest settlement and the few trails were clogged with snow so there was nothing to do but stick and Monte stuck. He was worried the wolfer, being a wolfer, might cheat him, but when the snow in the bottoms was melting at midday and they made it the long way to town with a wagonload, the man paid over the promised one quarter of the proceeds before plunging himself into the serious business of blowing the other three quarters on a sustained noisy spree. Monte spent half a day soaking and scrubbing in the back room of a barbershop trying to get rid of the smell and then drifted southward on the dun. He stopped at a road ranch on the Cimarron and paid a red­headed man the price of a saddle and even had a few jingly coins left and he drifted on southward down to Austin looking for the big slope-shouldered man who had paid off at Newton and found him.