Monte Walsh

by Jack Schaefer

  Chet shook himself and went over and picked up the bottle. There was still some liquid in it. He drank this and came back and sat beside Monte still sleeping and after a while he went and got the blanket from behind Monte's saddle and rolled himself in it beside Monte and he too slept.

  He woke with the first hint of dawn and built a small fire and took from the flour sack the makings of a small breakfast. Whistling softly to himself, he fussed about the fire and the smell of strong coffee drifted on the morning wind. He walked over and stirred Monte with a boot toe.

  "Come and get it," he said. "A little food and you'll be able to travel."

  * * *

  "I reckon Monte holds the record. Seven times I think it is. Yep, this is the seventh time Doc's had to do some repair work on him. You can't go taking on every four-footed powder keg that comes along like he does an' go looking for 'em too without getting bunged up an' stove in an' sat on an' wrung out right often. Seems like he can't hear of a hoss somebody's said's only fit for dog meat an' he has to go fuss with it an' like as not wind up making a good working animal of it. Why, I got one in my string right now the whole blamed Triple Seven was shy of, claimed it was too mean to let live. Monte got hold of it an'--well, it's my roping hoss these days an' I don't need to go explaining what that means.

  "No, it ain't bad this time. Collarbone an' one ear in need of some sewing. Fool hoss tried to roll on 'im. Not bad at all. Shucks, worst time I ever seen him bunged up it wasn't a

  hoss an' it wasn't a cow an' it wasn't anything like that at all. He did it hisself. All by hisself. With the help of a little old pair of roller skates.

  "Me an' Chet was with him that time. Over at Albuquerque for something or other. They had a skating place there, new thing it was, an' it was mighty pop'lar with the young ones. Kind of a big barn with a wood floor. Back end of it stuck out over a gulley an' was up on stilts. There was a gal Monte'd took a fancy to. Nothing to it but she's got to go skating. She was good at it too. So we're standing there watching her an' right soon a young feller's going round an' round with her an' he's cuddling her right close an' putting his arm around her. Monte don't take to that an' he bristles some. Don't look so hard to me, he says. I'll just take a fling at that myself, he says. Gets a couple skates from the man that runs the place an' cinches 'em on tight. Starts out.

  "Laugh? I figured I'd have to hold Chet up he was laughing so he couldn't stand only I wouldn't of been no help because I was doing the same. Them skates throwed Monte so fast he looks around to see what hit 'im. Tries to get up an' they throws him again. Gets mad an' starts working at it for real an' he's all over the floor like a pinwheel an' it looks like he's got seventeen legs an' maybe as many arms an' all of 'em flying at oncet. Everybody else stops waltzing around an' gets back out of the way. He sure needs the room for the fight he's giving them two little old skates. He bounces off one wall an' next thing he's bouncing off another an' his legs're going so fast trying to stay under where they belong they're just a blur. He sits down hard an' that stops 'im for a minute. He sees that gal laughing at 'im. He sees that young feller laughing too an' pointing at 'im for her benefit. I reckon it was that pointing did it. He helps hisself up an' he heads for that young feller to try an get his hands on 'im. Don't know whether he was getting the knack of it or was plain lucky but he gets to moving an' stays upright. Legs're flying wild but he's making progress. The young feller slips away an' Monte's after 'im, picking up speed. Young feller ducks aside an' Monte goes sailing right on. Can't stop. Can't turn. Don't know how to make them skates behave. Just goes sailing on. Smack into a window in the end of that barn an' right on through an' into that gulley behind.

  "I an' Chet measured it after we gathered 'im up. He went sixteen feet out from that window an' down before he lit."

  Harmonizing

  1887

  ThE TWO COW PONIES ambled easily along the wagon trace, not hurrying, not loafing, simply reaching in steady rhythm into the miles of the big land. A roadrunner skipped out of bordering rabbit brush and jerked tail jauntily under their noses and skittered on ahead, exactly matching their pace. It spurted forward in challenge, sending tiny splats of dust flicking back, and looked around in stride at them serenely ignoring it and slowed again to their pace. It tried again, sprinting forward with flourishings of tail, and looked back again and in disgust swept off to one side and disappeared in a maze of cactus.

  The two cow ponies jogged steadily along. Monte Walsh kneed his leggy dun closer to Chet Rollins's thick-necked black. He looped reins around his saddle horn and reached and took a small leather pouch from Chet's shirt pocket. "I'll bet," he said, taking a small paper from his own shirt pocket and sprinkling tobacco from the pouch along it. "I'll just bet you don't know what's agitating around in my mind along about now."

  Chet reached to regain the pouch. He began filling a stubby pipe. "You just feel like talking," he said. "I couldn't miss."

  "Too damn smart," said Monte. He extracted a match from a shirt pocket and struck it on blunt fingernail. "Go ahead anyways."

  "Simple," said Chet. He extracted his own match and cupped it lit to light the pipe. "You're thinking of coffee instead of whisky."

  "Well, what d'you know," said Monte. He watched two thin streamers of smoke drift from his nose. "How'd you figure that?"

  "You never quit trying," said Chet. He blew a small smoke ring and tried to poke a finger through it as it drifted back past him. "Furthermore you brushed your hat. And further­more again you're wearing that fancy belt."

  Monte looked down at the soft deerskin belt that circled his waist through the loops of his faded old levis and under the heavier overriding angled-down leather of his gunbelt. He patted the turquoise-studded silver buckle. "Pretty, ain't it?" he said.

  The two cow ponies ambled easily along. A jackrabbit broke from behind a low clump of mesquite, soared in a spy hop, and was away in ten-foot leaps. "It's pretty, yes," said Chet. "But I ain't so sure your wearing it is. You get an Indian girl sweet on you. She gives you that belt. And you wear it to impress somebody else."

  "Shucks," said Monte. "All's fair. Ain't that how the saying goes?"

  The two cow ponies jogged in tireless unvarying rhythm. On ahead a hawk rose from the remnants of some small creature and soared upward for height. Chet leaned his head back, looking up, stubby pipe poking straight up, and watched the hawk swing in a lazy circle waiting for the disturbance below to pass. "And I'll bet," he said, "you get about as far as before." A bit of ash from the pipe fell in one eye and he dropped his head, blinking, rubbing at the eye. "Which," he said, "is just about precisely nowhere."

  The two cow ponies stopped on the crest of a low rise. Below them, down the slope, out of distance on the right, into distance on the left, ran the stage road, becoming for several hundred yards the main street of the unorganized town of Harmony.

  Monte Walsh stubbed out the tiny stump of his cigarette on stirrup leather. He fixed his hat more firmly on his head and straightened a bit in the saddle. He turned his head to look at Chet.

  Chet Rollins sighed. He knocked ashes and still-glowing bits of tobacco out of the pipe against one boot. He settled his own hat more firmly. "All right," he said. "If that's the way you want to play it."

  Monte Walsh slapped spurs to the leggy dun. It leaped into stride, picking up speed down the slope. Alongside it, sweeping in stout-rumped powerful rush, pounded the thick-necked black.

  The two cow ponies hit the stage road and swung along it, racing into town. "Yow-eee!" yelled Monte, pulling his gun and firing into the air. "Harmony, here we come!" Companion shots sounded beside him. The two cow ponies, leaping high at the shots, bucking in midair, raced through town.

  An old man in too-big clothes that seemed even older dozing in a rickety chair on the little porch of a general store jerked awake, focused watery old eyes on the racing disturbance, and raised one old hand and slapped it down on a knee. A plumpish man wearing patent-leather button shoes and neatl
y pressed striped pants with a once-white cloth tied around his neck and the waxed tips of a mustache showing through lather on his face appeared in the doorway of the little frame barbershop. A few leathery faces under assorted wide-brimmed hats moved into view above the swinging doors of the three which were open of Harmony's four saloons. A bony bay between the shafts of an ancient wagon by the blacksmith shop perked, considered the possibility of some action of its own, thought better of it, and gave a plain pretense of hearing nothing.

  Swirling dust and hammering hoofs swept on along the street.

  Two figures seated on the ground, knees hunched up, leaning back against the wall of an adobe shack, hidden from scrutiny by blankets up around shoulders and huge hats tilted far forward, raised their heads, identified the nuisance, looked at each other, shrugged shoulders, and relapsed into somnolence again. Several whinnies came from the small corral behind the livery stable. On the veranda of the combination hotel and office building two men, one distinguished by a city hat and a gold watch chain, the other by a leather vest bearing a tarnished badge, stopped talking and turned to survey the street. Beside the building a good-sized black bear tethered by a chain to a ragged cottonwood roused from apparent slumber, rose on its hindlegs, batted mechanically at the air with its forepaws, stopped that abruptly, grunted disgustedly, and lay down again.

  The two cow ponies reached the other end of town, reared, pivoted neatly, and started back along the street through the dust of their previous passing. A shot sent dirt flying over a mangy yellow dog lying by the veranda of the combination hotel and office building and the dog yelped shrilly and fled around the far side of the building. The watchchain man on the veranda flinched back toward the open doorway behind him. "What's going on?" he said. A faint smile twitched the lips of the leather vest man. "Slash Y," he said. "In for the mail."

  Another shot flicked dust over the shiny patent-leather shoes of the man in the barbershop doorway. He ducked back out of sight.

  The old man leaned forward on his rickety chair and watched a leggy dun and a thick-necked black cavort in circles, bucking, crow-hopping, for his particular benefit. He raised both old hands and slapped them down on his knees. "Ride 'em, boys!" he yelled in a high quavery voice. "Ride 'em!"

  They lined out again along the street and swung again in circles in front of a small adobe building that defied its general sagging shabbiness with a freshly painted screen door and a calico curtain at the one front window. The black subsided some but the dun surprised itself with its own exuberance, spinning, dancing on hindlegs, exploding in various directions at once. It finished with a high-tail flourish and dropped down by the tie rail, the black beside it, and the two, the immediate job done, looked somewhat sheepishly at each other and promptly drooped, except for mildly heaving sides, into a wise and a patient lethargy.

  Monte Walsh and Chet Rollins swung down and loosened cinches. "Think she was watching?" said Monte.

  "You're going at this thing wrong," said Chet. "But if it pleases you any, I saw that window curtain move."

  Monte pushed his hat up at a jaunty angle, hitched his gunbelt higher on one side to expose more of the deerskin belt and its silver buckle, and led the way to the screen door. The interior of the little square building, insulated against the outside sun by its adobe walls, was relatively dim and cool. Facing the door, extending almost from wall to wall with narrow passageway around the ends, was a wooden counter with eight stools along it, evenly spaced and fastened to the floor. A few feet behind the counter rose a white­washed partition fronted with shelves on which lay a meager collection of chipped dishes, chiefly plates and bowls and cups, a low wooden box containing worn knives and forks and spoons, a pile of reasonably clean pieces of flour sacking for counter cloths, a dried rattlesnake skin, a stuffed horned toad mounted on a small wooden block, several dog-eared magazines and a flyswatter. A narrow doorway in the partition gave a slice view of the rear room, disclosing several iron pots and a huge frying pan hanging on the back wall and the corner of a big old cookstove. Sounds suggesting some kind of meat-chopping operation came from elsewhere behind the partition. The subtly increasing aroma of simmering chili drifted through both rooms.

  Also behind the counter, near the left end by a side window, perched on another stool not fastened down, sat a young woman of pleasing proportions pleasantly accentuated by a tight skirt and a frilly starched shirtwaist whose high currently fashionable collar poked up under a firm chin. The general effect of her face, in the mode portrayed in the magazines on the shelf, was upward, from the chin to neat almost precise mouth, to pert uptilted nose, to eyebrows plucked or trained to rise peaked in perpetual surprise, and to high surmounting upsweep of sleeky brushed brown hair above. A magazine was open on her lap. Something in it had a strong hold on her attention. Not even the squeaking of the screen door swerved her from it.

  Monte Walsh stood by the door, hands hooked in the deer­skin belt, masculine charm exuding from him. "Howdy Miss Hazel, ma'am," he said, cheerful, hopeful. "Nice day. Outside and inside. Specially inside."

  Miss Hazel did not look up. "Go away," she said. "We won't be serving supper for at least an hour."

  "Shucks," said Monte. "Anytime's coffee time, ain't it?" He bounced forward, arched a leg over and eased onto a center stool. Chet, following, took one beside him.

  Miss Hazel moaned softly. She laid the magazine on a shelf, left her stool, clunked two cups on the counter, swerved with a flounce of skirt to go into the rear room. Monte watched the retreating hip action with approval. "A very nice day," he murmured. Miss Hazel returned with a big enamelware coffeepot and sloshed a dark fierce-looking liquid into the cups. "Sugar?" she said.

  "Shucks, no," said Monte, beaming. "Just dip a finger in and sweeten it."

  Miss Hazel sniffed her disdain, set the pot down, retired to her stool and her magazine. Chet Rollins sipped his coffee and studied a calendar on the wall presenting a lurid picture of a resplendent cowboy in buffalo chaps whirling a wide loop from the back of a snorting horse in pursuit of several ferocious longhorns.

  "Doggone it," said Monte, plaintive, appealing. "This is five times I've been in here and you ain't even smiled at me once. You better watch out, Miss Hazel, or I'll be getting the notion maybe you don't even like me."

  Miss Hazel popped off her stool. The magazine fell on the counter. She put her hands on her hips. "Well," she said. "Well, I just never. I'll have you know, Mister Monte Walsh, that I don't like or dislike you for the simple reason I never think about you enough to do either one. I have better things to do with my mind than to go thinking about any of you deadbeat cowboys that never have much more'n a nickel to spend on anything except whisky and think if you go shooting around and bucking on a horse why then a girl'll just think you're just wonderful."

  Miss Hazel warmed to her subject. "And I'll have you know, Mister Monte Walsh, that I know all about you. Maybe you are about the best bronc rider anywheres around and I suppose that means something but you're always in trouble of some kind for being a crazy fool, mostly from chasing after women because anything in skirts looks good to you no matter what and that doesn't make it any kind of a compliment for a girl when you go looking at her."

  Miss Hazel paused for breath. A gray-haired pasty-faced man with a sagging paunch under a short dirty apron appeared in the partition doorway. He was minus one leg at the knee and balanced himself on a crutch. "Give 'im hell, Hazel," he said cheerfully. "But not so much he shies away permanent. A customer's a customer." He pivoted on his remaining leg and swung away out of sight again.

  "Well, lookathere," said Chet Rollins, pointing at the calendar picture. "See how he's handling that rope. He's a dally man."

  "Doggone it," said Monte, rallying, grinning. "You're prettier'n ever, Miss Hazel, when you get riled that way."

  "Riled?" snorted Miss Hazel, sniffing again. "Well. I just never. I'm not riled. I'm just plain disgusted. You cowboys are all alike, only you, Mister Monte Walsh, why yo
u're just more so. You think just because a girl has to work for a living, why then you can be free with her and get fresh and just because you buy a cup of coffee she has to be nice to you and listen to your silly talk you don't mean anyway and just use on anything in skirts you think you might get hold of." Miss Hazel retired to her stool, grabbed her magazine, and despite its being upside down became intent upon it.

  "Supposing he does get that rope on one of those things," said Chet, still studying the picture. "He'll have himself a time. Look at his cinch. It'll slip first yank."

  "Doggone it," said Monte, holding hard to his "What'd I do now? All I said was-"

  "Go away," said Miss Hazel. "Will you go away."

  Chet hunted in a pocket, extracted a quarter, laid it on the counter. "Come along, Monte," he said, swinging on his stool. "I'm thirsty." He led to the door and Monte, reluctant, followed.

  They strolled along a stretch of board sidewalk toward the first of Harmony's four saloons. "I ain't exactly rubbing it in," said Chet. "But I told you so. All the same, for a female that don't think of you any she sure knows plenty about you."

  "Deadbeat," said Monte. "That's what she said."

  "Ain't it the truth?" said Chet, amiable, conversational. "I don't need to ask to know you ain't got much more'n fifteen cents on you. And I've got just about enough for two drinks

  apiece."

  * * *

  They stood at the front end of the bar, savoring first drinks, nursing them for mileage. Midway down the bar, behind it, world-weary, having long since seen and heard everything worth seeing and hearing in Harmony, the bartender leaned over a spread-out newspaper. At the other end the man in the patent-leather shoes, freshly barbered, in full regalia of striped suit and gaudy vest and bowler hat, had an appreciative audience of some four of the usual afternoon clientele chuckling at his travel-garnered traveling-salesman tales. His voice carried past the indifferent bartender, on down the bar.