Monte Walsh

by Jack Schaefer

  "Watch 'im," said Chet Rollins from his perch on the inside gate of the small corral. "He ain't done yet."

  "Who's riding this thing?" said Monte. "Think I was weaned just-"

  The horse exploded, coming off the ground with legs spread-eagled, and hit again running and streaked straight for the corral fence. Monte wrapped reins around his hands and yanked its head to the left till the nose almost hit the straining shoulder and it swung in an arc, stumbling, fighting its own forward weight for footing. It lined out again straight for the opposite side of the corral. "Go ahead break your fool neck," said Monte. He loosened toes in the stirrups, ready to leave the hurricane deck. The horse saw the rails ahead and faltered and swung this time on its own and raced around the inside of the corral. Monte took off his hat and slapped it in hearty rhythm against the heaving withers. "Yowee!" he yelled. "Run, you bat-brain! Catch your own tail and eat it!"

  The horse stopped. Its head drooped. It was a statue of disgust and dejection, motionless except for heaving ribs and a slight quivering of legs. Monte swung down and walked around by the drooping head. "Well, now," he said. "You behaved medium to good considering-" He leaped backward, The horse's head was up and a forehoof slashed the air half an inch in front of his shirt. He leaped in close and grabbed, an ear in each hand and hung his weight on the horse's head; pulling it down.

  "Playful, ain't he?" said Chet Rollins from the corral gate. He jumped down and ambled forward through the settling dust and loosened the double rigging and pulled the breaking saddle off the horse. He ambled back and set the saddle on a top rail and opened the gate into the big main corral. Monte let go of the ears and took hold of the headband of the hackamore and in one sweeping motion stripped the hackamore down and off the horse's head and jumped aside. In a swirl of dust the horse sliced through the open gateway.

  Monte Walsh and Chet Rollins, sat on a top rail, backs to the small corral. In amiable silence they watched the half­broken horses in the big corral move with restless twitchings and roll off the sweaty itch of the day's working. Monte inspected his blunt battered fingers. He pulled a jackknife out of a pants pocket and opened it and began cleaning dust from under his fingernails. "Action," he murmured. "That's what I need. A little action." Chet turned his head slow and looked at him. Monte closed the knife and slipped it back in the pocket. He pushed his hat up his forehead. "Shucks," he said. "That's just a job."

  Chet fished a stubby pipe out of one shirt pocket and a small leather tobacco pouch out of the other. He took a long time filling the bowl to final satisfaction. He sighed. "It's only been two weeks since-"

  "That long?" said Monte. "That's a mighty long time." He reached an arm and lifted the pouch from Chet's pocket and took a paper from one of his own shirt pockets and rolled a cigarette. He leaned over and tucked the pouch where it belonged and lit his cigarette from Chet's match over the pipe. He settled back on the rail and watched the two streamers of smoke that emerged from his nose. "At my age anyway," he said.

  Chet sighed again. He drew in a lungful of smoke and took the pipe from his mouth and blew a series of lazy drifting rings and reached to poke a finger through the last one. Beside him Monte shifted rump on rail and turned a bit toward him.

  "No," said Chet. "I ain't got a cent."

  The hot glaze of midafternoon shimmered over the two corrals and on out over the plain. Off to the right Skimpy Eagens came out of the cookhouse carrying an empty bucket and disappeared into the supply shed and emerged with the bucket full of potatoes and disappeared again into the cookhouse. Monte flipped his cigarette butt into the dust and pushed out from the rail and landed light with one boot covering the butt. He strode to the side fence and vaulted it and angled to the bunkhouse. Inside he began a thorough search, unhurried, competent, pulling out the pockets of the clothes hanging on wooden pegs along the end walls, peeling back blankets and feeling under the lumpy straw mattresses in the bunks along the side walls. Several dollar bills and some change began to accumulate in his left pants pockets.

  "There'll be a little ruckus," said Chet from the doorway, "when the boys get in."

  "Shucks," said Monte. "They always ante in an emergency." A quarter hit the floor and rolled. He bent to retrieve it. "This is an emergency," he said. He pushed past Chet in the doorway and strolled toward a fenced enclosure behind the barn, collecting his saddle and bridle and a rope from the barn on the way. The experienced cow ponies in the enclosure eyed him with wary suspicion and drifted to the far side. He dropped his gear by the fence and slipped through. He carried the rope coiled in his left hand and shook out a loop with the right. He looked the horses over and picked a short­coupled pinto and with sure instinct the pinto knew and drifted further away among the others. He strolled forward with the loop trailing on the ground beside him and the horses shifted toward the left and he angled that way and they bunched in the corner, the pinto far back among them. He strolled closer and they broke, scattering to left and right to race past him, and the pinto feinted fast to one side and wheeled to plunge to the other and around, snorting, head high, hoofs pounding, and his right hand flipped forward and the rope snaked out and the loop opened and dropped over the pinto's head. It reared back, testing the rope and his hold. Its forefeet dropped to the ground and it stood, patient and resigned, watching him approach.

  Ten minutes later, jogging along at a steady pace along the wagon trace toward town, he heard hoofbeats behind him. Chet Rollins on a chunky gray came alongside and pulled to the same pace. They jogged along in a companionable silence.

  "Poorest outfit I ever was with," said Monte Walsh. "Only seven dollars and seventeen cents."

  * * *

  The unorganized town of Harmony slept in the afternoon glaze. Curtains were pulled or flour bags hung at the windows of the few adobe houses to shut out the sun. The doors of the livery stable and the blacksmith shop and the stage station were closed for the same sensible reason. The wide porch of the combination hotel and office building served the same purpose. A blanket hung down over the one wide window of the barber shop. An innovation, an awning, shaded the front of the general store. Even three of the four saloons had the solid doors behind the swinging doors closed. Down the brief length of the main, the only recognizable, street not a twitch of movement disturbed the silence. Two freight wagons stood motionless in the street dust, their ox teams lyin down under the yokes. Across the way an old farm wagon sagged over its axles, its team still and wooden, too dull even to flick tails at flies. Harmony reigned in Harmony. An over the last rise of the rolling plain that stretched its long lonely miles all around and on down to the main street jogged a short-coupled pinto and a chunky gray.

  "Well, lookathere," said Monte Walsh. "One new shack and a frill on the store."

  The two knowing cow ponies swung together to the tie rail in front of the one open saloon. Monte and Chet Rollins dismounted and eased cinches and stepped up across the plank sidewalk and went inside. The bartender, perched on a stool behind the bar and hunched forward on his elbows reading a newspaper, looked up and saw them coming. He reached under the bar and set out two small glasses and a plain labelless bottle, half filled with a dark deadly liquid, and returned to his paper.

  "Not that stuff," said Monte. "We can pay."

  The bartender turned his head to look up sideways. He waited. Monte fished in his left pants pocket and pulled out one of the dollar bills and laid this on the bar. The bartender swiveled on the stool and reached with both hands, one to take the dollar, the other to take a bottle with a bright label off a shelf behind him. He set the bottle by the two glasses and in the same motion restored the first bottle to its place beneath the bar. He settled again on his elbows over the paper. "That'll cover four," he said.

  Monte Walsh and Chet Rollins drained their first pair and leaned with backs against the bar surveying the interior of the saloon. An old man in too-large clothes that looked even older sat slouched on a chair near the front staring dull-eyed out the one sid
e window at the blank wall of the next building. Farther back the two freighters from the two wagons outside slept with long puffing snores by a streak-topped table. One was upright, head back, mouth open. The other was slumped forward on the table, head cradled in his arms by an empty bottle.

  "Mighty lively," murmured Monte.

  The bartender slapped his hands down on his newspaper and pushed up straighter. "What d'you expect?" he said. "A brass band an' dancing girls? Won't be payday for any outfit around for a week or more." He settled again to his paper.

  Monte Walsh and Chet Rollins drained the second pair. Monte stooped down and peered toward the back of the saloon. At this level he could see, behind a round table in a corner, stretched out on three chairs in a line, the long thin form of a man lying asleep with a hat over his face. Monte strolled back and fingered the top chips in a box on the round table. He picked up the deck of cards beside the box and riffled them with little snapping sounds. The figure on the chairs stirred and a voice issued from under the hat. "What've you got?"

  Monte tried to sound joyful. "Six dollars," he said.

  "That ain't even drinking money," said the voice.

  Monte strolled toward the front. Chet Rollins was inspecting what looked like a framed picture on the wall but there was no picture in the frame. Between the board back and the glass many nails in zigzag patterns stuck out from the wood, their tips almost touching the glass. Along the top were slits in the frame. Along the bottom, behind the glass, was a row of little compartments. The one in the middle offered, in gilt letters, the golden legend: $10. Two others, spaced out on each side, proclaimed $5. The others were blank. Pasted to the back boards in an upper corner, plain through the glass, was a diagram showing a coin being inserted in one of the slits and tracing with a dotted line its course bouncing from nail to nail and dropping into the $10 compartment.

  "Ain't that cute?" said Chet. "Those blamed nails're so close together over the winners nothing could get through if it tried."

  The bartender slapped hands down on his newspaper. His voice was aggrieved. "Man so stupid he can't figure that out," he said, "deserves to lose his money." He settled to his paper again.

  Footsteps sounded on the plank sidewalk outside. Two pairs of polished boots showed beneath the swinging doors and two top hats above them passing by. Monte Walsh and Chet Rollins stood by the bar and looked at each other. Monte reached for the bottle but the bartender's hand was there first. The bartender went on reading, his hand holdin the bottle. Monte fished in his pocket and extracted another dollar bill. The bartender's hand left the bottle and took the bill.

  "Wonder who's dead?" murmured Monte. The bartender turned his head and looked up. "Funeral ain't it?" said Monte.

  "No," said the bartender and returned to his reading.

  Monte Walsh and Chet Rollins drained the third pair Monte strolled over to the old man by the window. He was beginning to bounce a bit off his toes as he walked. "Hell Johnny," he said. The old man's head lifted and swung toward him. Monte leaned closer. "Buffalo," he said.

  The old man straightened on the chair. His eyes brightened. "Where?" He jumped up and looked around and ' eyes focused on Monte. "Aw-w-w, you," he said. "Cow. That's all you know. You ain't never seen 'em. Thick as flies they was, right around here." He waved an arm in a wild gesture and his voice began to climb. "Skinnin' was what I did. Any jack kin shoot a gun. You gotta know to skin." He moved out into the open and began to flourish an imaginary knife. "Cut it around the neck. Up by the horns. Slice down the belly. Clear to the tail. Slit it down the legs. Peg through the nose. Hook on the team and start-"

  "Not now, Johnny," said Monte. He was headed for the door and the sound of hoofs and creaking of wheels outside.

  The old man subsided, shaking his head, and returned to his chair.

  Outside on the sidewalk Monte Walsh and Chet Rollins watched the stagecoach swing in by the hotel down the street. They saw two men climb out and recognized these despite their dressed-up appearance as the proprietor of the general store and one of Harmony's two land-claim lawyers. They saw these two stand aside, very respectful, while a third man climbed out, very neat and respectable in a matching suit and tall hat. They saw the three be greeted on the hotel porch by the two who had passed the saloon and all of them disappear inside. They looked at each other and returned to the bar in a companionable silence.

  Monte filled the two glasses again. The old man was off his chair and coming close. "Lemme tell you," said the old man. "Sixty-seven in one day. That's what I did. It was out-"

  "Some other time, Johnny," said Monte. He leaned over the bar and reached under and found another small glass and filled it from the bottle and handed it to the old man. "Make it last," he said and the old man retired to his chair hugging the glass to his outsize old shirt front.

  The bartender took the bottle and set it on the shelf behind him. "Ought to count that," he said and returned to his reading.

  Monte Walsh and Chet Rollins raised their fourth pair and looked at each other over the glasses. "Preacher?" suggested Chet.

  "No," said Monte. "Wrong kind of collar. Railroad man maybe."

  The bartender groaned. He folded his paper and set it aside. He picked a cloth from under the bar and began to wipe already dry glasses with mechanical gestures. "It's a judge," he said. "Kind of a judge. Justice of the peace. Sent out by the county to civilize you heathen."

  Monte studied his glass, shifting it to catch the light from the doorway through the whisky. "Anything interesting for him to judge today?"

  "No," said the bartender. "Ain't been a payday lately." 'Monte studied the glass some more. "You mean," he said, "you get a judge here today and there ain't a thing for him to judge about?"

  The bartender shrugged shoulders and eyebrows at the same time. He made a point of turning about and retiring with his cloth to the other end of the bar.

  "My oh my," murmured Monte. "What'll he think of the' place?"

  Chet Rollins sighed. He drained his drink and picked up the paper and edged away from Monte and unfolded the paper and inspected the front page.

  "What kind of a judge d'you think he is?" said Monte. "Five-dollar kind?"

  Chet folded the newspaper slow and careful and put it down. He pointed at the nail-studded contraption on the wall and held out a hand, palm flat. Monte fished in his left pants pocket and pulled out a nickel and laid it on the palm. Chet ambled over and dropped it through one of the slits. It joggled from nail to nail and bounced into a blank compartment. Chet ambled back. "See?" he said.

  Monte paid no attention. He was cradling his drink in his right hand and rocking slow and soft on his boot soles and staring upward dreamy-eyed. "Looked like a five-dollar judge' to me," he said.

  Chet sighed again. "I ain't listening," he said. "I ain't even here." He ambled to the opposite side of the saloon and set a chair by the wall and sat on it, tilting it against the wall and settling his feet on one of the rungs.

  Monte reached his left hand into his left pants pocket and took it out and counted what was in it. He put the hand back in the pocket and took it out empty. He drained his drink and set the glass down with a little flourish. He strolled on into the middle of the floor and reached up and pushed his hat off his forehead. "Yow-eee!" he yelled. "I'm a-howling!"

  The old man turned on his chair and regarded Monte with a vacant stare and turned back to his glass and the window. Chet Rollins sat still and studied his boot toes with a pained expression on his face. The two freighters stirred a little and went on snoring. The man lying on the three chairs at the rear jackknifed up to sitting position and surveyed the room and retrieved his hat and lay down again. The bartender groaned and tossed his cloth aside and leaned on his arms on the bar to watch developments.

  Monte pushed his hat farther back and scratched by one ear. He strolled over by the freighters, bouncing off his toes with each step, and fingered the high crown of the hat of the one slumped over the table. With gentle tou
ch he tested the space between the top of the crown and the head beneath. He strolled back to the middle of the open space and pulled his gun and fired and the hat lifted off the freighter's head and flapped to the floor with a neat hole through the crown. The two freighters jerked on their chairs, struggling out of sleep, and their eyes focused on Monte. They saw him dropping his gun into its holster. They saw him stand, rocking on boot soles, grinning at them. "Yow-eee!" he yelled. "I'm really a­howling!"

  They looked at each other. One fumbled a coin out of a shirt pocket. "Tails," he said and flipped it spinning and caught it and slapped it on his other wrist. A slow smile spread over his face. He tucked the coin back into the pocket and started to rise. "Shucks," said Monte, rocking forward. "I mean both of you." He took hold of their table and tipped it onto them and they went sprawling and came up off the floor in a roaring rush.

  The bartender reached under the bar and took hold of a heavy bung-starter and walked down the length of the bar and around the front end. "That ain't polite," said Chet. He was quiet on his tilted chair but his gun was out of its holster and held in his right hand on his lap. "All right," said the bartender, "but it's a lot quicker." He laid the bung-starter on the bar. He threw back his shoulders and drew in a deep breath and plunged into the whirling melee in the middle of the floor.

  "Yow-eee!" yelled Monte Walsh, slammed into the bar to the tune of rattling glass and bouncing off and using the momentum to drive a shoulder into the bartender's midriff. "Three's more like it!"

  * * *

  Justice Coleman rocked with slight little testing sways in the swivel chair that adorned the office that had been his for almost an hour. He liked the chair. It fitted his rear proportions and did not squeak with the rockings. Encouraged, he leaned back in it until it rested against the edge of the rolltop desk behind him. He folded his hands in his lap and looked straight ahead to inspect the battered lean figure of Monte Walsh. "Disturbing the peace, eh," he said in a careful judicial tone. He turned his head a bit to the right to inspect the battered figures of the two freighters and the bartender. "There would appear to be ample evidence," he said and turned his head to the left toward the row of townsmen along the wall for appreciation of his remark and obtained it. He looked straight forward again at Monte Walsh. "Well, young man, I expect you are expert at explanations."