Monte Walsh

by Jack Schaefer

  Silence settled again. Monte lay still looking at the myriad stars overhead. He raised a bit and spit to one side. He lay still again. A small quivering began to shake his midriff. "My oh my oh my," he murmured. "Bet I looked like a new­branded calf diving for that water:" He began counting stars. At seven he was asleep.

  * * *

  The boot toe against his ribs was hurried, not gentle. Monte Walsh plunged awake in the dark, grabbing. The thick-muscled leg of Hat Henderson pulled away from him.

  "Snap it, Monte," said Hat. "Everybody out. There's a storm coming."

  Monte pushed to his feet. High overhead the stars shone, large and luminous in clean depth of cloudless sky. The air was still, soft and still.

  "Shucks," said Monte to the retreating back of Hat Henderson. "What's the fuss? Regular spooning weather."

  "Not for long," said Chet Rollins, gathering up his and Monte's blankets and stepping to toss them in the bed wagon. "Take a look yonder."

  Monte turned to look down the long finger of plain between the hills. Dark and ominous, piling in heavy layers, a great bank of clouds blotted the horizon. As he looked, lightning played high over them and laced through them and the low mutter of thunder rolled in dim blankness of distance.

  "What d'you know," murmured Monte. "Old Gertrude sure has a nose." In the one swoop of moving he picked up his hat, jammed it on his head, and was running toward the leggy dun.

  He heaved on the cinch, tightening, and behind him heard Chet Rollins gently cursing at the same chore. Other voices floated on the still air, cheerfully complaining, wryly joshing. Over them rose the voice of Hat Henderson, responsibility spurring him, he who was a cold bolt of concentrated action in the midst of an emergency, now as always worrying and wailing in the anticipation of it. "Jeeeesus, boys! We gotta hold 'em! Those fool cows get a-running out into that open it'll take a week to gather 'em again! Those we can find!"

  The cinch slipped in Monte's hands. He grabbed a fresh hold and heaved. The dun, disliking the prospect, sidled away and blew out its sides, eating air. "Go ahead, be smart." said Monte, making it grunt with a knee hard in its distended ribs. "I'll twist a couple of your ears off. Personal."

  "Frettin' again, Monte," said a voice above him close by the dun's rump. Petey Williams grinned down from the back of a hammerheaded sorrel. "Mebbe you oughta stay an' help Skimpy lash down the wagons. Feelin' puny the way you do." The sorrel responded to spurs and took off fast.

  "I'll puny him," muttered Monte. "Maybe biscuits. Petey's a hawg on biscuits." He stepped into stirrup and swung up to join Chet out to the herd.

  * * *

  The night air hung motionless, still, too still, clinging and oppressive. Silent now, waiting, wearing slickers now untied from behind saddles, the trail crew of the Slash Y, eight men on eight homely tough little cow ponies, rode circle around fifteen hundred four- and five-year-old longhorn steers and an old barren cow. And out of the southwest, the long back trail they had traveled hundreds of miles from the wide vegas of New Mexico territory, the great bank of clouds, huge, indifferent, funneled forward between the hills. Whisperings of wind ran through the bunch grass. The cattle were up, shifting restlessly with rattlings of horns as they pushed against each other. Arching high above, the topmost layers of clouds, driven from behind, rolled forward, blotting out the stars. The first drops of rain, large and irregular, fell with tiny splattings on the dry ground. Suddenly, as if scenting the herd, wind leaped in rushing gusts and a wall of rain, swirling, torrential, swept over.

  The wind beat in rushing gusts and the rain poured in heavy sheets and the cattle shifted and swayed in frightened mass, trying to work downwind before the storm, individuals and small bunches making frantic dashes to break away. Around them, battered, drenched, sighting by sound and instinct and intermittent flashes of lightning, swinging superb with every twist and wrench of saddles, rode the trail crew of the Slash Y, yielding ground downwind but holding the circle, tough little cow ponies as alert, as dedicated, as desperate as the men, squat hard-muscled rumps quivering as they leaped, dashed, pounded to head the runaways, push them, shoulder them, bully them back into the herd.

  Abruptly the cloudburst passed. The rain dropped to a steady downpour and this slowly thinned and the air was alive, crackling with electricity. Fireballs hung on tossing horns and little lightnings streaked along the ground. The rain died away and the mutter of thunder dwindled.

  "Looks like we make it!" The voice of Hat Henderson lifted out of the dark. "Close up an' quiet 'em down!"

  From elsewhere out of the dark rose the voice of Chet Rollins in hoarse tuneless somehow soothing monotone.

  "I love not Colorado where the faro table grows,

  And down the desperado the rippling bourbon flows.

  Oh-h-h-h-h-h,

  I love not Colorado where the card sharp fleeces fools,

  And a girlie-girl won't give a man..."

  Lightning in one great flare of flame ripped the dark and a steer reared bellowing, outlined in fire, and thunder broke like a cannon shot. Out of the void of darkness following the flash came the heavy rising roar of the herd in motion, a dark tide of panic-stricken animals, pouring downwind in relentless onrush.

  Above the muffling roar, the cracking of hoofs, the rattling of horns, climbed the shrill yell of Hat Henderson: "Jeeeeesus! Ride, you mavericks! Ride!" And Hat and seven other men rode.

  Out in front Dobe Chavez and Powder Kent, caught in the onrush, engulfed by it, surrounded by frenzied running steers, jostled, hit, battered, their horses fighting to hold their feet, ears flat, heads slugging in desperate effort, plunging forward, kicking in stride, taking advantage of every break to work out toward the side. On the left flank Petey Williams and Monte Walsh and Dally Johnson and Hat Henderson, strung out, racing headlong into the dark, ripping off slickers at full gallop, striving toward the head of the herd. On the right flank Sunfish Perkins and Chet Rollins, dropping back to dash around the rear of the stragglers and drive forward after the others.

  "Puny is it?" yelled Monte Walsh, yanking the dun past the tail of Petey Williams's sorrel to join him in smashing in toward the lead steers, flailing at them with his slicker. A horn tip raked across his thigh, ripping through cloth, drawing blood, and he did not know it. The slicker flapped in shreds. Pounding alongside a big steer, he flung the remnants in its face. He pulled his gun and began firing into the ground in front of the foremost steers.

  Other guns were out and sounding, flaring in the dark, a barrage angled out across the rushing forefront of the strung­out stampede. The leaders swerved, swinging to the right, the others blindly following. They hit the first slopings toward the hills and slowed some on the climb and, under pressure, swung still more. More, and the herd was running in an arc, a wide u-shaped course. Still more, and the leaders were swinging back into their own tracks, catching up with the stragglers, and the rough flattened circle was closed. The cattle milled around it, gradually slowing in weariness, letting themselves be crowded inward, slowing more to a shuffling walk, slowing at last to a stop, sides heaving, tongues hanging.

  * * *

  Gray and forlorn under overhanging clouds, dawn crept over the great open plain that was miles closer now and slipped down the wide finger between the hills. In the dim half-light the chuck wagon with trailing bed wagon, lurching behind their four-mule span from where the camp had been, stopped a quarter of a mile away. In a few moments the first flickering of a fire showed, fed on wood carried and kept dry under the canvas. From back down the finger of plain a weaving blotch of dark shapes approached, the cawy coming up.

  In the gray growing light the trail crew of the Slash Y left I positions around the herd and gathered together, men with eyes bleared and bloodshot, clothes torn and mud-spattered, horses bloody and sweat-streaked, legs quivering, worn close to exhaustion and still standing to whatever more might be asked of them.

  "Those bonehead cows ain't going anywheres," said Hat Henderson. "Not now for
a while anyways. I reckon we can go in and get us something hot."

  "Hey, look," said Sunfish Perkins. "There's the horses coming. The kid musta held them."

  "Of a certainty, senor," said Dobe Chavez, grinning. "He is of my people. A boy in the years. A man with the horses."

  "Damn lucky for us," said Hat. "We got us a day ahead. I saw a couple bunches break into the draws over there. Must be strays all through those hills."

  Silent again, the trail crew of the Slash Y started toward the chuck wagon, horses wearily plodding.

  "Coffee," said Monte Walsh. "Ain't that a lovely smell? If Petey tries messing with-"

  "Petey," said Chet Rollins. "I ain't seeing him around."

  "Jeeeesus!" said Hat Henderson, rising in stirrups to look about. "Has that fool gone an'-" He stopped speaking and sank down into saddle, shoulders sagging. He spoke again, voice heavy. "All right, boys. Spread out an' look sharp."

  Quiet, separated each in his own searching silence, seven men rode back over the wide trampled ground reaching toward the hills beyond. There was daylight now, veiled with stringy gray mists under the overhanging clouds. It was the voice of Powder Kent that called. The others gathered with him on the flat bench a short way up the sloping where a colony of prairie dogs had riddled the sandy soil. They looked down at the sprawled shape, the lean twisted whip­cord length of Petey Williams, rain-washed face upturned, strangely white and empty, head awry at grotesque angle. Thirty feet away the sorrel, crumpled on the ground, both forelegs broken, raised its head and whinnied softly at them.

  Hat Henderson shifted weight in saddle, turning to see who was closest to the sorrel. His voice was small, tired. "All right, Monte. Shoot the horse."

  Monte Walsh stared at the still, twisted shape. He forced his head to turn a bit and stared at the sorrel. The muscles along his jaw ridged and the tendons in his neck stood out taut. "Goddamn it!" he said. "I broke that horse. Taught him his manners."

  Fury flared in Hat Henderson, shaking him, shaking his voice. "You soft-brained bitching bastard! I said shoot that horse!"

  Monte swung to face the other man, tense in saddle, body muscles tightening toward the blessed relief of motion, action. A shot sounded and, caught by it, he turned and saw the sorrel's head dropping, the whole body going limp, and he turned more and saw Chet Rollins slipping gun back into holster. The muscles along Monte's jaw twitched. A small humorless smile showed on his lips. His head moved in a slight nod, saying what he could not say in words, what he could not even comprehend in words. Thanks, Chet. That's how it is. You've rode with Petey too. You helped me break that horse. I blow a lot and I strut a-plenty and maybe I can ride a horse or two you can't and take on two to your one in any kind of brawl. But dig down to bedrock you're the better man.

  Slowly, wearily, Hat Henderson dismounted. He moved close by Monte and reached and slapped Monte's leg. He did not look up. "Petey an' me run together a long while," he said. "Kind of like you an' Chet." He strode forward and scooped up the already stiffening body and came back to his horse and heaved it over his saddle. He took the reins and started leading the horse toward the new camp.

  Silent, staring at the ground, the others followed. It was Monte Walsh who carried Petey's saddle in front of him over the tired shoulders of the dun. It was Dobe Chavez who turned back and leaned down in weary but still graceful sweep from the back of his tired bay to pick from the ground the muddied felt that had been Petey Williams's hat.

  * * *

  The fire was little more than a smoking smoulder, fighting the heavy moist air. The trail crew of the Slash Y hunkered on heels close by it, scooping food from tin plates. Hat Henderson laid his, emptied, on the ground beside him. "Got to bring in those strays," he said. "That rubs out today. Three days on to the Spring an' that's only a stage stop. I reckon we got to do it right here." He straightened. "Dobe. Sunfish. Get a couple fresh bosses and out to those cows. We'll holler when we're ready." He strode to the bed wagon and pulled out two shovels.

  The mists had lifted some and rain fell in a thin drizzle. Chet Rollins and Monte Walsh worked on the deepening grave. Skimpy Eagens, limping on old game leg, rigged a canvas shelter for his fire. Young Juan watched in mournful useless silence. Hat Henderson and Dally Johnson and Powder Kent leaned over the stiffened body of Petey Williams. They wrapped it carefully in a blanket. Around this they rolled a trimmed-down tarpaulin. Around this they stretched two bridle reins and tied them.

  "Jeeeeesus!" said Hat, stretching up from the task. "Ain't there anything we can use for a cross?"

  The fire burned better under its canvas shelter. Coffee was hot in tin cups. Hat Henderson looked up from his. Out of the drizzle young Juan was approaching, riding bareback on his little bay. He was dragging something on a rope after him, the weathered broken cast-off endgate of an emigrant wagon.

  "You're all right, kid," said Hat Henderson. "Dally. Get an iron and stick it in the fire. We'll rig a marker outa that."

  The two best boards were fastened together with horseshoe nails to form a crude cross. Dally Johnson knelt on another board, running iron in hand, burning letters into wood. The others watched, silent, intent.

  Dally looked up. "Maybe," he said, "maybe this ought to say Peter."

  "Petey," said Hat Henderson, quick, sharp. "That's what he was all the time I knew him. That's what he'd a wanted to be."

  Dally reached and laid the end of the iron in the fire. "When was he born?" he said.

  Silence. "Damned if I know," said Hat. "About my age but I never did know exact. We got to leave that go."

  Dally took the iron and bent over the cross. "What's today?" he said.

  Silence again. "It's April anyways," said Chet Rollins. "That's close enough."

  Dally finished and rose to his feet. They all stared down at the crude cross. Near the top of what would be the upright, the Slash Y brand. Under this, on the wider crosspiece, the simple legend:

  PETEY WILLIAMS

  died on trail

  April, 1885

  "All right, Dally," said Hat Henderson. "I reckon we're ready. Kid, slip on out and fetch Dobe and Sunfish."

  "Goddamn it!" said Monte Walsh, kicking viciously at a clod from the freshly dug grave. "That's a hell of a measly marker for a man like Petey!"

  Small and alone in the big land they stood around the grave, seven riders and an old man and a boy. Using ropes slipped under, they lowered the rolled tarpaulin into the grave. They stood in an uneasy silence.

  "Jeeesus!" said Hat Henderson. "Ain't there anybody knows any of the words?" The silence held again. "Maybe just as well," he said. "Petey never was much on churches."

  "He was a damn good man with a rope," said Powder Kent. "Maybe that'll count some."

  "Petey never cussed much," said Sunfish Perkins. "Only when he was mad and that don't mean nothing."

  "He was almighty good company," said Chet Rollins. "Always keeping things lively."

  "The long-legged loon was one up on me," said Monte Walsh. "That coffee sure fixed me plenty."

  The silence held again. Hat Henderson broke it. "Petey wouldn't want us moping around like a bunch of mangy coyotes," he said. "We got work to do. Skimpy. An' you kid. You can fill this hole. All right, boys. Fresh hosses all around. We got to comb those hills."

  * * *

  The herd had grazed part of the day and watered at pools collected in old buffalo wallows. It was bedded again close to where the last night's run had ended. In the deepening dusk clouds still hung overhead, blotting out most of the stars emerging in the high clean depth of sky above. The three dark shapes close by the bedded herd were Monte Walsh on a rat-tailed skittish roan and Chet Rollins on a thick-necked black and Hat Henderson on a big rangy bay.

  "Hate to stick you two with it," said Hat. "You're bushed as the rest of us. But it's your watch. Looks nasty but maybe it won't do more'n rain a bit. I'll try an' keep an eye open. Anything happens we'll all come a-fanning."

  Monte Walsh and Chet Rollin
s watched him jog away toward camp. "Creeping catfish," said Monte, wriggling inside shirt and jacket. "Feels like I'll never get dry again. Been raining off and on all day."

  Chet fumbled in a jacket pocket and found his pipe in shirt pocket and extracted the small pouch. He began to shake tobacco into the pipe.

  "A hell of a life," said Monte. "Wearing out your backside in a saddle all day, all night, chousing cows that belong to somebody else. If you ain't cooking in the sun you're feeling like a cold sponge. A hell of a life."

  "Yeah." said Chet. "Ain't it." He found a match, scratched it on blunt fingernail, applied it to the pipe.

  "Forty and found and break your fool neck," said Monte. He forced the roan to sidle closer to the black and reached and extracted the pouch from Chet's shirt pocket. He fished in his own and extracted a wad of wet gummy small papers. He stared down at these in his hand and in disgust threw them on the ground.

  "You'll get to a pipe yet," said Chet, taking the pouch.

  "What in hell did we ever come on this junket for anyway?" said Monte. "We could of stayed at the ranch. There's that new bunch of three-year-olds to be broke."

  "Hat was shorthanded," said Chet. He found another match, scratched, tried again on the pipe. "Shorter now," he said.

  "Petey," said Monte. "You ever think he didn't even know who he was working for? Who we're working for. Not even a man. Just a goddamned syn-di-cate. A bunch of soft-bellied money grubbers back east somewheres."

  "Yeah," said Chet. "That's right, ain't it. But Petey wasn't thinking of that. Petey was just doing what he signed on to do." Chet swung the black and started off around the herd.

  "A hell of a life," murmured Monte, starting in the opposite direction. "Seems like I ain't slept in a week. Maybe two." The roan shied at a low bush, swinging its rattail and skittering sideways. "Quit that," said Monte, clamping down on the reins. "I ain't in no mind for games. Just to sit here trying to forget I got wet pants on."