Hard Winter

by Johnny D. Boggs

  Gene Hardee hopped over to us, while Melvin slowly worked the lever of his rifle.

  “You all right?” Melvin asked.

  Had to yell it again before Gene Hardee could hear.

  “Twisted my ankle!” He hooked a heavy mitten thumb toward the horse, still writhing in the snowbank. “Sprained it. Or something. Horse stumbled in the bank!”

  “I’ll see to it!” Melvin stepped toward the downed animal.

  I saw, too. Saw the blood pouring from the buckskin’s two front legs, the wind blowing what looked like small cherries. That’s how fast the blood froze. A crimson lake of ice already stained the snowdrift while the horse screamed and tried to stand, but couldn’t.

  Cold and the wind had turned snowdrifts into ragged knives of ice, and, when Gene Hardee’s horse stumbled, the drift tore away the flesh, carved rugged slices all the way to the cannon bones. The left leg had snapped, terribly, pushing a ragged edge of bone through the battered, bloody skin.

  Suddenly the buckskin’s head slammed into the snowbank, shuddering, gave one last violent kick, then lay still, quiet, its big eye glazing over. I didn’t even hear the report of Melvin’s rifle, didn’t see smoke from the barrel. The horses just stood calmly, too cold, too scared, too miserable to catch the scent of blood. Like the rest of us, they heard just the howling wind.

  Melvin returned the rifle to the scabbard. “Jim!” he said. “Get Gene back to the bunkhouse! Don’t tarry! Don’t look directly at the snow! But watch where you’re goin’!”

  He waited to make sure I understood, then told Hardee what he was doing, that he and Walter Butler would take care of the cattle. We helped our boss into the saddle, and before Melvin mounted his horse, he grabbed my wrist again, looking up from the ground, his eyebrows caked with frosted icy. “Stay clear of the snowdrifts! Let your horse pick its path! Likely he knows the way back to the ranch better than you! Can you do this, Jim?”

  I nodded.

  “Good boy! I’ll see you back at the ranch!”

  We waited till Melvin mounted, watched him and a trembling Walter Butler ride into the big emptiness, then I made for the Bar DD. Last thing I remember seeing was Gene Hardee’s buckskin, already covered with snow.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Crabtown got us back to the Bar DD, but, when Mrs. MacDunn seen us, she give Hardee both barrels of her Scottish tongue while helping me help him into the bunkhouse.

  “A boy Jim’s age shouldn’t be risking his life for foolish men like you and my hard-headed husband. Jim Hawkins and Walter Butler should be in school!” she said.

  “They’re in school, ma’am,” Gene told her. “My school.”

  Mrs. MacDunn muttered something I couldn’t catch, and we eased Gene Hardee onto his bunk. “What happened?” she demanded.

  “Oh, twisted my ankle is all. Sprained it. Lost my horse.” He didn’t go into details as to what exactly had happened to his horse.

  “You should put some ice on it,” she said. “Keep the swelling down.”

  “Good thing there’s plenty of ice handy,” Gene said.

  Not appreciating his humor, she gave him a stare colder than it was outside before sending me out to fetch some ice.

  Turned out, though, that Gene Hardee hadn’t twisted or sprained his ankle. He had busted the bone pretty good. Had to use a butcher knife to cut off his boot, and I think that irritated him as much as being an invalid. Those boots had cost him $15 in Helena, and he was none too happy to ruin one of them. ’Course, we didn’t have no hard plaster to fix up a cast, but Mrs. MacDunn and me got the bone set, braced with some slats from Camdan Gow’s old bunk, and she fixed him some willow bark tea to help ease the pain.

  Gene Hardee was the first casualty that winter.

  * * * * *

  Next morning, I dabbed charcoal underneath my eyes to cut down on the glare from the snow, and went outside, still bundled up against the biting cold. Forked hay to the animals in the corral and barn, and met Lainie at the woodpile, me fetching a load for the bunkhouse, and her getting some for her home. Hadn’t seen her much of late, and couldn’t hardly recognize her wearing her pa’s overcoat and overshoes. I told her I’d carry the wood for her, but she just stared past me. Not sure she even heard my offer, or even recognized me.

  Then she asked: “Jim, what kind of bird is that?”

  I turned, following where she was pointing. It was hard to spot in that snow, but I found it at last atop the barn.

  Big bird, I mean to tell you, maybe two feet long. The color of snow, but with a fair amount of black, and feathers all the way down to the feet. The face was pure white, except for its big black beak, but what really struck me were those eyes, a cold, penetrating yellow. It took off just a few seconds later, and I’d never seen a wing span like that on no owl, which is what I had taken it for. Some kind of owl, a white owl, a big owl.

  Later, I’d see two more of them birds—one with no dark splotches, at all, I mean completely white—except for that black beak and jaundice eyes—with heavy feathers. Nobody had ever seen those owls, except Frenchy Hurault, and that old Métis shook his head sadly when he saw another big owl that evening.

  “Mon Dieu,” he whispered, talking to the big bird. “You are far from home.”

  A bird from the Arctic, a snowy owl. Flying south.

  “A bad omen,” Frenchy said.

  All night, we heard that owl’s haunting call.

  Pyee! Pyee! Pyee!

  Prek! Prek! Prek!

  Pyee!

  Until the wind started howling again.

  * * * * *

  Within a few days, however, the temperatures warmed, and the drifts of snow grew smaller, yet the hills surrounding the Bar DD remained a barren expanse of white, of crusted snow. Dark clouds became a fixture over the Rocky Mountains.

  “What we need,” Ish Fishtorn said, “is The Black Wind to take care. . . .”

  “You will have a long wait before you see your first Chinook,” Old Man Woodruff said, rubbing his left knee. “That’s what these joints of mine tell me.” He sighed. “I never should have left Florida.”

  Walter Butler came down with snow blindness, hurting something terrible. We put him to bed, and Old Man Woodruff laid salt poultices over his eyes, but Walter acted like a wild man, throwing those off, begging for us to kill him. Had to tie his arms and legs to the cot. You wouldn’t think snow blindness would do that to a fellow. We kept those salt poultices on him for three, four days, but Walter could hardly eat or drink, he was hurting so bad.

  Finally Mrs. MacDunn brought over a small bottle of Perry Davis Pain Killer, but she sounded skeptical.

  “I’ve heard this works,” she said. “But I am not sure.”

  Well, we removed the poultices, and got ready. Ish Fishtorn pulled back one of Walter’s eyelids, and Mrs. MacDunn let a few drops fall into his left eye. Most of the liquid dribbled down Walter’s face, but a couple of drops must have hit the mark, because that boy started screaming, pulling at his sheets we’d used to tie him to his bed, cussing up a storm. Walter Butler wasn’t known for having such a foul mouth, and I felt glad that Major MacDunn wasn’t around to hear what that boy was calling Mrs. MacDunn. Felt gladder, I’ll admit, that Walter had the snowblindness, and not me.

  Proved even harder to get those last drops into Walter’s other eye, but we done it, and Walter’s shrieks like to have blowed down the bunkhouse walls.

  Cured him, though. Don’t know if it was the painkiller or the salt poultices, but Walter’s eyes got better, though they were redder than my ears got for a few days. Too bad Mrs. MacDunn didn’t have anything to cure Frank Raleigh’s frostbite.

  He come down with that riding over toward Castle Reef to check on things. Come back complaining that he couldn’t feel anything with his fingertips on his left hand. Come back with some news, too. More fence—the section on the northern side of Castle Reef—had been torn down. John Henry and Tommy’s work, we knew, but nobody said anything about it. Nob
ody said anything to Major MacDunn about the dead Angus bull that Frank Raleigh had found tangled in the coils of barbed wire by the destroyed fence.

  “Wolves had already gotten to him by the time I come upon him,” Frank Raleigh said, rubbing his fingers. “Might have been dead before the wolves got him. Or the wolves might have drove him into the wire. No way to know. You plan on telling the major?”

  Sitting on his bunk, broken ankle propped up with a pillow, Gene Hardee shook his head. “He’ll learn about it come spring. No point in starting another war. Suspect we’ll lose a few more head before the Chinooks come.”

  “Reckon so,” Raleigh said.

  “An eye for an eye,” Hardee whispered, not meaning for anybody to hear him, but Frank Raleigh was right there.

  “And a bull for a bull?” he asked.

  Gene Hardee didn’t answer, and Raleigh went to his bunk, massaging his purple fingers.

  Old Man Woodruff had him stop rubbing those fingers, told him to soak them in a bowl of hot water, and Frank did that, but it was too late, although he told us his fingers didn’t hurt any more. Wasn’t long after that, though, that the tips of three fingers on his left hand, just above the first joints, started looking like wood twigs, and the purple started turning black.

  That’s when Frank Raleigh got good and drunk from a bottle Paul Scott gave him, and, as Busted-Tooth Melvin held his hand down on the table, Old Man Woodruff cut off the frostbit fingers with a knife, and cauterized the ends.

  Thanksgiving came and went without notice.

  I wasn’t particularly hungry anyhow.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The weather seemed to break for us. Oh, those clouds to the west still threatened something awful, and icy snow refused to melt, but the storms had passed, even the wind died down to something tolerable. Besides, thirty degrees don’t feel so bad after days in single digits, and nights even colder.

  With his hand mangled, Frank Raleigh said he planned on wintering with his sister down in Laramie. Hoped it would be warmer in Wyoming, he said, and give him time to get used to not having all of his fingers. It might have been pride, though, him being shamed with his bad hand, or it might have been the fact that, as Ish Fishtorn later suggested, there were a whole lot more saloons in Laramie than on the Sun River.

  Like I said, we didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving. Not like anyone could find a turkey to shoot, but I never felt so thankful as that December afternoon when Tommy O’Hallahan rode back to the Bar DD.

  He was sprouting whiskers, just saplings, mind you, but I hadn’t noticed them before. Couldn’t help but notice when he rode up, though, what with the fuzz on his face caked with ice. Must have been riding quite a while, and he looked more like a cadaver than a cowboy.

  I’d just come out of the barn, walking through the path we’d made in the snow to the bunkhouse. Major MacDunn stood on the bunkhouse porch with Gene Hardee, our foreman on his crutches, the major smoking a pipe. The major set the pipe aside, and stood straighter when he recognized the rider. I hadn’t even noticed, but turned around when I heard the horse snort. My jaw opened, my breath an icy mist.

  I stopped.

  He rode Midnight Beauty, a woolen scarf wrapped around his hat and chin, warming his good ear.

  The major swore, and I looked back at the bunkhouse, my heart thudding against my ribs, as my boss brushed back his long black greatcoat, and put his gloved hand on a holstered revolver. Only before Major MacDunn stepped down or pulled his pistol, Gene Hardee started talking.

  “MacDunn,” Hardee said, “you pull that pistol, you’ll eat it.”

  No Major. No Mister. Just MacDunn. Tell you something, boy. I’d never been prouder of Gene Hardee than I was at that moment, standing up to his boss like that. Never been so surprised as when the major let Hardee’s remarks pass, took his hand away from the Bulldog revolver, and tightened the coat around his waist again.

  Gene Hardee hobbled on the crutches through the icy path, and stopped beside me. We waited for Tommy. A moment later, the major walked over, and stood behind us. I could hear his heavy breathing.

  Tommy reined up, and looked down.

  “You riding the grubline, son?” Hardee asked. “Or looking for a job?”

  “I don’t think many outfits are hiring this time of year,”

  Tommy said.

  “You might be in luck. One of my hands lost some fingers to frostbite. He’d been at the line camp at Sun River Cañon. He quit, so I need a good cowboy.”

  MacDunn grunted.

  Tommy wet his frozen lips.

  “Are you riding this country alone?” the major said. “Or do you have a partner?”

  Tommy swallowed. “I’m alone.”

  “Certain of that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  After clearing his throat, Major MacDunn told Gene Hardee he’d leave the hiring up to him, then, head bent, he walked back to his house.

  “You don’t have to make your mind up about the job yet,” Hardee said. “Nobody ever left the Bar DD hungry. Tend your horse, and come inside. I’ll warm up stew. Jim, you help him. Expect y’all have some catching up to do.”

  * * * * *

  At first, we worked in silence, removing the saddle and bridle, rubbing down the grulla roan. Finally Tommy muttered an oath, and faced me. “You might as well ask your questions. I can see curiosity is tearing apart your stomach.”

  I didn’t let him buffalo me. “Where’s John Henry?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you help him tear down that stretch of fence that Gene Hardee helped put up?”

  He rubbed the corner of his eye patch. At first I thought he was reminding me of what wire had done to him, but then I realized he was just hurting. He patted Midnight Beauty, and stepped away. I followed him.

  “It’s one thing to tear down fence. . . .” His words died, and he let out a heavy sigh. “He’s changed, Jim.”

  Tommy squatted by the barn door. I knelt across from him. The wind started to pick up.

  “Yeah, I was with him,” he admitted.

  “I don’t blame you,” I said, just to say something. Well, I didn’t blame him. Had my face been slashed up by that wire, likely I’d’ve done the same thing.

  “But after. . . .” His head shook. “He’s talking crazy, Jim.”

  I didn’t interrupt, just knelt there, waiting.

  “After we pulled down some fence, we rode to the line camp. You know, the one across the Sun River by the cañon?” My head slightly bobbed. The same camp Frank Raleigh had been working. The same camp where we’d worked when Tommy’s bad accident happened. “Spent the night there, just to get out of the cold. I figured we’d light out, but, come first light, John Henry said we needed to visit the hackers up at Tie Camp Creek. So, we rode up there. John Henry asked to see the ramrod.”

  I pictured that thieving, whiskey-swilling coward named Burke.

  “He almost beat him to death. The man came in, and John Henry slammed his revolver barrel against his head. Just beat him, the poor man screaming till he was unconscious. Then the other workers came, and John Henry whirled. He didn’t shoot anybody, though I suspect he would have if anyone had tried anything. Just threatened them, told them this was a personal matter, and we’d be gone. We mounted up, rode out at a high lope.” Slowly Tommy stood. “I quit him.”

  I nodded.

  “Quit him like a coward. He had a bottle of whiskey, which put him to sleep. We’d camped in some cave. Left him snoring. I just couldn’t ride with him. You made the right choice, staying here.”

  Wasn’t my choice. Yet I said: “Those hackers were cutting the fence posts for the Bar DD. John Henry just blamed them.” I swallowed, staring at Tommy’s eye patch. “For what happened to you. He was fighting for you. He was always fighting for us. Like that time at Doan’s. Remember?”

  Tommy shook his head. “It’s more than that, Jim. He blames everybody, not just the hackers, not just MacDunn and you. Blames
the railroad for freighting the wire to Montana. Blames the Stockgrowers Association for allowing it to happen. I quit him. Left him in the middle of the night like some sneak thief.”

  “You done what you needed to do. And John Henry’ll come around.” I quickly changed the subject. “You gonna take that job Gene Hardee told you about?”

  He shrugged. “I guess so.”

  “Be lonely. Up there. All winter.” I thought about Lainie.

  “I could use some time to myself. Think about things.” He started out, but stopped, turned back to me, and started: “I’ve been a handful. . . .”

  “Forget it.” I waved him off. “I’ve vexed you a time or thirty.”

  “More like three hundred.” He forced a smile.

  We walked to the bunkhouse together.

  * * * * *

  Two days later, he rode out to the Sun River Cañon line shack, leaving behind Midnight Beauty, who looked plumb tuckered out anyway. Tommy left riding a zebra dun, and pulling a pack mule and couple of mounts for his string. He never said anything to Lainie, and she never tried to talk to him. Ish Fishtorn told him to take care of himself, and Mrs. MacDunn made him promise that he would ride back down for Christmas. Said she planned on cooking a goose, and wouldn’t hear of him spending the holiday up in that line shack alone.

  He tipped his hat at her, give the silent Major MacDunn a quick nod, and rode out. Rode toward those mountains, and those black clouds.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I think it was the winter.

  The wind, the cold and snow and darkness, the emptiness. Nothing feels as lonely as Montana in winter. Nothing looked as terrible as the winter of ’86 and ’87, like it would never end. All of that plays on your mind, and I think that’s what affected John Henry. He had no love for barbed wire, and what happened to Tommy just pushed him farther, but, had it not been for that winter, I think John Henry would just have rode on. Like he did in Texas that spring. Rode off in search of something new, some new place, a new country to make him forget about what had happened, make him forget about how things in cattle country kept changing. Yeah, I think it was the winter.