"Hope that horse of Powder's stumbles and breaks a leg," said Monte. "The leg being Powder's." Silence along the rail.
"Know what I'm a-going to do?" said Monte. "Soon as it warms up more I'm a-going over to the house and bring that leather chair of Cal's out on the porch and sit in the sun. No sense wasting sun this time of year. I'm a-going to catch up some on the sitting I ain't done in a long time. I'm a-going to sit there thinking of how Hat's been working us these last weeks. I'm a-going to sit there thinking up ways of talking you two into bringing me food so I don't even have to move none. Then I'm a-going to sit there and sit there some more trying to make up my mind should I slip into town tonight and see what's doing which likely won't be much or just take over that bed of Cal's and catch up on all that sleep I missed last month riding line extra for Petey 'cause of that bad knee of his."
Silence along the rail.
"Yep," said Monte. "That's it. And tomorrow if I feel up to it maybe I'll show you two how easy I can beat you at horseshoes but that seems kind of strenuous right about now but maybe I'll do it just to work up the right kind of appetite for that turkey and pudding and the other fixings you two'll fix."
"Sounds turrible exciting," said Sunfish. "Then what'll you do?"
"Why, shucks," said Monte. "Then I'll just sit some more and see how much mileage I can get out of my third of that bottle."
Silence along the rail.
"Well, now," said Chet, staring down solemnly at his hands on his knees. "Hat mentioned something about rehanging those crooked barn doors. Also something about working over the harness gear.
Monte shifted sideways to stare at Chet.
"And also again and likewise," said Chet, "something about putting a new gate on that other corral."
Monte stared at Chet, horrified. "You mean," he said, "you mean you're a-thinking of us killing ourselves working while the rest of 'em are off having fun? Why, it's only those silly damn beans stuck us here, that and Cal being so worrying womanish about some of us being around if something happens."
Silence along the rail.
"Dog-gone!" said Monte. "There ain't nothing happening or a-going to happen. You ever see anything so peaceful as this place right about now?"
Silence along the rail.
"Aw shucks," said Monte. "You ain't really thinking that?"
"Why, no," said Chet. "Did I say I was? Hat mentioned those things so I figured I ought at least do the same."
"Right," said Monte. "You've mentioned 'em. Now what's it really you're a-thinking of doing?"
"Sitting on that porch in the sun," said Chet. "Maybe playing a little euchre with you two so's to settle who cooks when. But mostly just sitting. That is, when I ain't sleeping."
"Me too," said Sunfish Perkins.
* * *
The sun was well past noon, the sunlight warm and reassuring. Monte Walsh sat on the ranch house veranda relaxed limp and lazy into the depths of the mouse-chewed remnants of a once imposing leather-covered armchair. A few feet away Chet Rollins leaned back equally limp and lazy in a spindle-sprung rocker padded with the remains of old saddle blankets. Both chairs were placed at precise angles for maximum sunlight benefit. A few more feet away Sunfish Perkins sat across-legged on the porch floor leaning forward to play solitaire with an old deck of cards.
"My oh my," murmured Monte. "It tires me just to hear him. Where's he get the energy to slap those cards so loud? How's he doing it with all that fat around his middle?"
"No fat," said Sunfish without looking up. "Muscle."
"Oh my yes," murmured Monte. "Certain and no doubt whatsomever. The kind of muscle they pack into lard pails."
Silence on the veranda, a lazy companionable silence broken only by the soft plop of old cards on old cards.
Over in the first corral a horse whinnied. On the veranda three heads lifted and looked into the distances of the big land. A small darkish speck moved against the seemingly endless reaches of plain to the southeast.
"He got a late start," said Monte. "That is if he's aiming at the partying up north."
"What's he doing heading over here then?" said Chet.
Silence on the porch. Sunfish gathered up the cards, set them in a neat pile on the floor, stretched out his legs and leaned back against a porch post. The speck became larger and was a man on a horse.
"Simple," said Monte. "The horse's lame."
"G'wan," said Sunfish. "You can't tell this far."
"Want to bet?" said Monte. "It's favoring the off forefoot."
Silence on the porch. The man and the horse came closer and were Sonny Jacobs of the Diamond Six and a smallish neat sorrel definitely favoring its off forefoot. They came closer and stopped by the porch. Sonny crossed his arms and leaned on these on the saddle horn surveying the veranda and its occupants. A wide smile creased his broad young face. "I never thought to see the day," he said. "Blamed if you don't look like three old ladies sitting around at a sewing circle."
"That's better'n you look," said Monte. "Which is plain foolish, expecting to get anywheres on one of those batbrained horses you raise down your way. What'd it do, step in a badger hole?"
"Hell, no," said Sonny. "Shied at a rabbit and into some goddamned cactus. I worked on that fetlock maybe half an hour but must be some spines still in it. You got anything particular to say about which one of yours I take?"
"Shucks no," said Monte. "Be a relief to see you on a decent horse. Any one you want in the corral there long as it's the gray."
Three heads turned slightly to watch Sonny ride to the corral, dismount, open the gate, lead the sorrel in. His saddle rose into view from inside, heaved up to rest on a rail. Dust rose in the air over the corral and a rope flashed briefly through it. The saddle disappeared down inside. The gate opened and Sonny came out leading a biggish flop-eared mean-looking gray. He closed the gate, swung up, and rocked in the saddle as the horse plunged forward, bucking. Four lively minutes later he sat serene in saddle by the porch as the horse stood quivering under him. "You sure can pick 'em, Monte boy," he said. "He'll be right interesting."
"And go the distance," said Monte. "And in good time without you kicking him into it. And he ain't afraid of no rabbits. You sure you ain't afraid of him?"
"Plumb scared to death," said Sonny, smiling wide. He reared the gray spinning on hind legs and started away fast and swung in a short circle back. "Almost forgot to tell you. I came up your east range. Following the drift fence. There's a stretch of it down." He swung again and was gone.
Silence on the porch. Three men sat still, very stilll, looking at one another and away.
"Damn," said Sunfish.
"No, sir," said Monte. "I ain't a-going to move. Let it stay down a while. When the others get back'll be time enough."
Chet sighed. "Yes-s-s-s," he said. "Yes, I guess maybe it will."
* * *
The sun was well into the afternoon, the sunlight full on the porch. Monte Walsh reclined in the remnants of armchair, limp and lazy, eyes closed. A few feet away Chet Rollins reclined in the old rocker, head dropped sideways onto one hunched shoulder, breath coming in soft sighs not quite strong enough to be called snores. A few feet more away Sunfish Perkins lay full-length on a doubled-over old quilt with a corner of it bunched up under his head, definitely snoring in long slow rhythm.
Monte wriggled a bit in the armchair. He opened his eyes, blinking into the sunlight. "Funny," he murmured. "Sun's right up there right on the job but I feel kind of chilly around the edges." He closed his eyes and let laziness relax him deeper into the armchair remnants.
Slowly, then with increasing swiftness, the sunlight faded. Over by the other buildings a loose piece of roofing tin rattled. A gust of wind, whirling, picking up dust, swept past the veranda. Monte opened his eyes and raised his head some. He sat up straighter. His eyes focused into distance to the west. Laziness left him in a silent rush. "Chet," he said, voice low, urgent. "Chet. Take a look."
Chet snapped out of s
leep and straightened in the old rocker, looking. Off to the west the mountains were gone, erased in a great drab grayness that filled the horizon and obscured the sun. Another gust swept past and in the following stillness, suddenly heavy and ominous, Sunfish Perkins grunted and pushed up from the porch floor and stood, looking too.
High overhead wind sighed, long and seeming sorrowful, and died away into distance eastward.
"Coming this way," said Sunfish, shivering. "And colder by the minute. Must be snow in it."
"That ain't good," said Monte. "It ain't any damn good at all."
"Sure not," said Chet. "If this turns into something and any cows get through that fence, they'll drift with it clean over into Texas."
"Aw, hell," said Sunfish. "And I was dreaming so nice." "Finish it later," said Chet. "What've we got in the corral?"
"Two apiece," said Monte. "That is, we did have before Sonny stole one. Come along." He led fast toward the bunkhouse.
Ten minutes later the three of them, in heavy jackets, gloved, hats pulled well down, led three horses, saddled, out of the corral. Over the saddle horn of Monte's rat-tailed roan hung a coil of light bating wire. The wind came in long sweeps now, leaning against them, and the sky steadily darkened.
"Sunfish," said Chet. "This gets bad like it looks it could, we'll be needing plenty of relays the next day or two. You swing out and bring in some more of the saddle stock. Six or eight anyway. Then you can get a fire going in the house where likely we'll hole up and something hot cooking. Monte and me, we'll get that fence."
"Got you," said Sunfish. He swung up and left at a lope around the corner of the corral.
"Shucks," said Monte. "Looks like his bean wasn't as brown as mine. Yours too. Bring in a few horses. Cook a meal. And we got six-seven miles just to get there, then there's ten miles of fence."
"Sonny rode it," said Chet. "Mentioned one stretch down. One. Could be in the first mile." He swung up, started off.
"With my luck," said Monte, mounting and moving up alongside, "it'll be the last mile. Damn Cal and his silly goddamned beans. Why does it have to be us?"
"If I knew I'd tell you," said Chet. "But it is."
"Yeah," said Monte. "It sure is. Well, let's move." He slapped spurs to the roan.
* * *
Under the darkening sky wind moved over the big land, swirling dust, whipping the short winter-cured grasses. The first flurries of snow skittered with it, big-flaked, hardening as the temperature dropped. Like a long blurred pencil-marking across the bigness, the drift fence came out of distance and went into distance, not so much a discernible fence as a dark gray line of tumbleweed banked against the poles and wires. Where some violent freak of wind, likely an oversize dust devil, had smashed sometime recently against massed tumbleweed and used this as a battering ram to rip wires loose from posts, a rat-tailed roan and a chunky bay stood, patient and enduring, heads drooping, rumps hunched into the wind. Not far away, moving away, two men worked steadily and rapidly, alternating at posts, wire cutters in hands, tugging to lift the ground-sagging barbed wire strands and snipping short lengths of baling wire with which to lash each strand back into place on the posts.
"Should of done this when the fence went up," shouted Monte Walsh against the wind. "You and Hat and your goddamned staples. They ain't worth a hoot in this country. Soon as the posts dry out they rip loose."
"Live and learn," shouted Chet Rollins. "They work fine back where I was raised."
The wind rose in intensity and the snow increased, smallflaked now and hard and stinging, and two tough little cow ponies waited, patient and enduring, and two men, fingers numbing, worked steadily and rapidly on down the line.
And across the darkening miles, back by the ranch buildings, another man, big barrel body swinging in saddle, raced on a sweat-streaked mottled roan to pocket a batch of skittery horses in an angle of fence and push them through a gate into the big holding corral and follow them in and close the gate and open another at the other end and work them on into the smaller regular horse corral.
* * *
Swirling snow, wind-driven, filled the darkness of early night, making a grayness over the big land in which vision died at fifteen feet and all directions seemed the same. A rattailed roan and a chunky bay, sleet-crusted, pushed through the grayness, angling into the wind at a steady jog. The men in the saddles were hunched low, jacket collars up, hats pulled down with short lengths of baling wire over the crowns and holding the brims down over their ears and ends twisted together under their chins.
The roan raised its head higher and looked to the right, snorting snow out of its nostrils and whinnying.
"Christ a'mighty," said Monte Walsh, drawing rein. "What now?"
"What say?" shouted Chet Rollins, stopping beside him.
Off to the right, lost in the swirling grayness, a horse whinnied.
They swerved right. Moving abreast, wind at their backs, they advanced slowly, peering ahead. They stopped. Directly in front of them stood a small scrawny horse, showing pinto through the patches of snow gathering on it.
"Ain't that one of Gonzales's?" said Monte.
"Saddled," said Chet. "What's holding him?"
The horse sidled around to face more toward them and raised its head. One rein hung limp. The other drew taut, fastened to some object on the ground rapidly becoming indistinguishable under a mantle of snow.
In one swift motion Monte was down and striding forward. In one swift matching motion Chet had swung in saddle and scooped up the reins of Monte's horse. He watched as Monte bent low, following the taut rein of the other horse down, fumbling to untie it from around a man's wrist. He watched as Monte brushed snow aside and heaved, rolling the object over so that the whiteness of a face under an old cap looked up into the swirling snow.
"Jose?" said Chet.
"Who else," said Monte, dropping to his knees, bending lower.
"Alive?" said Chet.
"Yeah," said Monte. "And drunk. Smells like a goddamned saloon."
"Not too drunk not to hang on to the horse," said Chet.
"Maybe the cold caught him too. That ain't much of a coat he's got."
"Yeah," said Monte. "He's sure out cold now. Be stiffer'n a poker in another hour like this." Moving swiftly, Monte stepped to the roan and with fumbling gloved fingers began to unfasten the cinch. "What d'you figure he's been doing out here?"
"Been into town," said Chet. "Stayed too long. Too many primos and too much vino. Likely he was getting some things for the kids. Tomorrow's Christmas or have you forgot?"
"I been trying to forget," said Monte, pulling the saddle blanket from under his saddle, fastening the cinch again. "Ain't this a hell of a way to be spending Christmas Eve." He stepped back by the pinto and spread the blanket on the snow-covered ground and rolled the limp body of Jose Gonzales onto it. He wrapped the blanket around, tight. "That'll help some around the middle anyways," he said and, stooping, picked up the wrapped body and laid it, belly down, over the saddle on the pinto. A half-full burlap bag hanging from the saddle horn was in the way. He unlooped this and handed it to Chet. With his rope from the roan he lashed the body down reasonably fast. He took the pinto's reins and led it around and swung up on the roan. "Give me those leathers," he said. "And let's move. I'm almighty hungry."
* * *
The central room of the old adobe ranch house that had been many things in its time was warm and cheerful in the light of two kerosene lamps and a big fire in the huge stone fireplace. Cal Brennan's old desk was pushed into a back corner by the well-filled gun rack. Three straw mattresses and a pile of blankets from the bunkhouse were ranged beside it on the floor along the wall. A fair-sized iron kettle and a wide flat pan and a big coffee pot sat on the raised hearth, keeping their contents hot in the flickering glow from the fire. One whole front corner of the room was filled with fragrant pinon firewood.
Monte Walsh sat in the mouse-chewed remnants of armchair at safe range from the fire
on one side of the fireplace, working on his seventh biscuit, his third cup of coffee, his second bowl of the Sunfish specialty, stewed beef swimming in a sauce of mashed beans. Sunfish Perkins himself sat in the old rocker on the other side of the fireplace, watching with considerable interest the activity near the closed front door. There, well away from the fire, the somewhat stiffened meager body of Jose Gonzales, stripped naked, lay on the floor. His worn clothing, patched long underwear and ragged jeans and shirt and thin coat and cap and old boots, were draped over and about a stout ladder-back chair before the fire. His half-full burlap bag sagged against the front wall by the door. Beside him on the floor knelt Chet Rollins, rubbing Gonzales's bare arms and legs with melting snow from a nearby pail.
"Gosh," said Sunfish. "There ain't much of him, is there?"
"Not exactly in your overweight class," said Monte. "But there's enough of him to have more'n any of us's got. A wife and two kids."
"And a sister," said Sunfish. "Dobe'd never let you forget that."
Over by the door Jose moaned softly and kicked feebly with one foot. "Go ahead, kick," said Chet. "I know it hurts like hell thawing out."
"And he eats prodigious," said Monte. "Looks like we got another boarder till this thing lets up."
"I ain't hauling in no other mattress," said Sunfish. "He can have yours. We'll just take you up on that talk about Cal's bed. You'll freeze your gizzard in that little room with no fire but you'll freeze fancy."
Over by the door Jose's head raised a bit and thumped back on the floor and he began to thrash about in aimless feeble motion. "Well, well," said Chet. "So you're wiggling all of them now." He picked up a piece of toweling and began rubbing with this.
"Shucks, Chet," said Monte, rising and ambling over. "You got to eat too. I'll wrassle with him some."
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