The Big Rock Candy Mountain

by Wallace Stegner

  “Yeah,” his father said, and laughed, but his mother said quickly. “Jim, isn’t there some kind of brace you could put on it, to hold its legs straight? I remember once at home my dad had a horse that broke a leg below the knee, and he saved it that way.”

  “Might try a hobble-brace,” Enich agreed. He plucked a weed and stripped off the branches. “I wouldn’t expect much from it, though.”

  “But it would be worth trying,” she said. “Children’s bones knit so quick, I should think a colt’s would too.”

  “Would, if you could make a colt savvy he had to lay down.”

  “Bo,” she said, “can’t we try it? It seems such a shame, a lovely colt like that.” She nodded at him slightly, and then both of them were looking at Bruce. He felt the tears coming up, and turned away.

  “How much this hobble-brace cost?” his father said.

  “Two-three dollars. Blacksmith can make it.”

  “All right,” Bo said. “Let’s go get MacDonald.” He laid his hand on Bruce’s shoulder. “It’s your responsibility,” he said. “You left Daisy out, and now you’ve got to take complete care of the colt.”

  “I will,” Bruce said. “I’ll take care of it every day.”

  Big with contrition and shame and gratitude and the sense of sudden, immense responsibility, he watched his father and Enich start for the house to get a tapemeasure. When they were almost to the kitchen door he said loudly, “Thanks, Pa! Thanks ever so much!”

  His father half turned, laughed, said something to Enich. Stooping to pet the trussed colt, Bruce caught his mother’s eye, started to laugh like his father and felt it turn into a sob. As he swung away he saw Spot, one of the pack that had done all this to Daisy and the colt, looking around the corner of the barn. Spot took three or four steps forward and stopped, wagging his tail inquiringly.

  Very slowly (never move fast or talk loud around animals) Bruce stooped and found a stone as big as a pigeon egg. He straightened casually, brought his arm up, and threw with all his might. The stone caught Spot in the ribs. He yiped, tucked his tail, and ran. Bruce chased him, throwing clods and stones and gravel, yelling, “Get out of here! Go on, get out of here! Beat it! Go on!”

  6

  Chet sat in the sun on the back step, cleaning his .22. In the yard Bruce was plucking handfuls of fresh grass from the fence corners to feed into the nibbling lips of the hobble-legged colt. It was Saturday in mid-May. Flies hummed in the yard, and a swallow, skimming like an arrow, hit the tiny hole in the barn eaves. and disappeared at full speed.

  “Hey Brucie,” Chet said. “Get your gun and let’s go shoot gophers.”

  “I’m going to take care of Socks,” Bruce said.

  “Aw, come on. He can take care of himself.”

  “He gets excited,” Bruce said. “He tries to run if I don’t watch him.”

  Chet grunted, threw away the oiled rag, and replaced the bolt in the gun. Bruce was nutty. He’d rather stick around and watch his old colt than go out and do anything. Chet spit off the porch and went in to hang the ramrod on its nail. His mother was looking at the calendar.

  “He doesn’t stop to think how a person might worry,” she said.

  “Uh?”

  “Your dad should have been home day before,yesterday.”

  “Where’s he gone? After more whiskey?”

  She looked at him long and steadily, and her mouth moved as if she had something bad-tasting in it. “Chet,” she said, “you don’t ever talk about what Pa’s doing, do you?”

  “Naw. I know better’n that.”

  “I hope you do. Don’t say anything to anybody.” She laughed and shook her head. “I guess that’s one trouble. A person can’t talk to anybody. Where were you going?”

  “Oh, out.”

  “Run up to the postoffice and get the mail before you go.”

  “Gimme two bits?”

  “What for?”

  “I need some cartridges. These old b-b’s are no good for anything. If I saw a rabbit I’d need longs.”

  “All right.” Chet followed her into the dining room.

  “Can I have a dime for some chocolate bars too?”

  “Why a dime? Won’t nickels buy anything any more?”

  “Well, a nickel then.”

  She gave him a quarter and a nickel, and as he went out he was thinking that it was kind of good to have Pa gone. He crabbed when you asked for money. Ma was better about things like that.

  He was carrying the gun as he went uptown, and by the time he reached the postoffice he had picked up Bill Stenhouse and Pete Armstrong. Pete had his Daisy pump gun, and Bill had no gun at all. Chet felt both superior and magnanimous, letting them tag along.

  There was no mail except a letter from Aunt Kristin, from Minnesota. In McGregor’s hardware Chet bought a box of longs, and at Henderson’s drug, while he took a long time deciding what kind of chocolate bar he wanted, Pete swiped a package of spearmint gum and Bill got a vial of perfume.

  They clotted briefly outside, around the corner, to count their wealth and decide where they were going. “I got to take this letter home,” Chet said. “Come on, I’ll make Bruce lend us his old .22. He’s going to stay home anyway.”

  He left Bill and Pete leaning on the fence looking critically at the crippled colt while he took the letter inside. “Oh, good,” his mother said automatically, seeing the return address. “Nothing from Pa?”

  “That was all,” Chet said. “Ma, can Pete and Bill and me have a little lunch to take along hunting?”

  “I suppose so. You want me to fix it?”

  “I’ll fix it.” Chet sliced off some thick slabs of bread, buttered them, found three doughnuts gummed with powdered sugar, and dropped them all in a bag. From the cellarway he got Bruce’s .22.

  “Brucie,” he said out the door. “Can we borrow your gun?”

  “No,” Bruce said. He had been quarreling with Bill and Pete, who said the colt would always be an old wreck that couldn’t walk. Bruce was almost crying. “No, sir!” he said. “You leave my gun alone.”

  “Give you a stick of gum for the loan of it,” Pete said.

  “No.”

  “Two sticks.”

  “No.”

  “Aw, come on, Brucie,” Chet said. “You aren’t going to be using it.”

  “I’m not going to lend it, anyway.”

  Chet came clear out on the step. “What you want to be so stingy for? We won’t hurt your old blunderbuss.”

  “If it’s an old blunderbuss,” Bruce said, “what do you want to borrow it for?”

  “I’ll punch your nose in a minute,” Chet said. He started out, but his mother’s voice stopped him.

  “Let him alone,” she said. “If he doesn’t want to lend it, that’s his right.”

  The three started away. “I know where you little squirts got your shanty,” Chet said. “Wait and see what happens to that.”

  “You leave it alone!” Bruce yelled after them. “If you touch that shanty I’ll drop rocks through your old boat.”

  “You do and you’ll get your nose busted,” Chet said. He walked with long, Leatherstocking strides, and the others fell into single file behind him, walking in his footprints. Bill, having no gun to occupy his hands, took out his snitched vial of perfume and began dosing his shirtfront.

  A half hour later, in the exciting, growth-heavy spring wind, the three sat on pinnacles of the sandhills halfway up the bench and looked down over the river valley, the looping brown river, the willows fresh green, the valley grass a deeper, brighter green, the houses sharp-edged in the strong light. On both sides of the washed-out railroad bridge Chet saw the black dots of men moving; and the railroad itself, the double line of rails and the criss-cross of ties and the spiderweb lines of fences along the right-of-way, was drawn straight east and west along the valley.

  Hooking his legs around the sandpapery stone of his pinnacle, he twisted to look back of him at the slope. The aspen came down in three bright t
ongues, one behind the summer cottage of Howard Palmer, one directly behind the sand hills, and one behind the shanty of Tex Davis. Tex was a cowpuncher who came and went, appearing sometimes in the spring and staying a few weeks, then disappearing again, nobody knew where. Some said he followed the rodeos and stampedes, others said he was a road agent. Chet had peeked into the one window of the shack plenty of times, but his peeks had told him nothing except that Tex was a dirty old buzzard and never swept his floor.

  He turned again, looking out across the railroad to Heathcliff’s place in the bottom, across Heathcliff’s to Purcell’s dam. The air blew across him warm and soft, and all around the bottom of the pinnacles the ground was misty purple with crocuses. He could smell sweet pea perfume floating across from the peak where Bill perched.

  “There goes somebody on a bike,” Bill said.

  Chet looked and saw the smooth, floating motion of the wheel, the blaze of a white shirt as it caught the sun. “It must be Frankie Buck,” he said. “Old Man Lipscomb must have given him Saturday off.”

  He took a firm grip with his legs, shot off his .22 into the air, yelled, “Hey, Frankie!” Pete and Bill yelled too, and the figure below, almost a mile away, stopped moving. The white-shirted arm waved, and they yelled to him to come up. Frankie rolled along to the gate where Angus MacLeod’s road came across the tracks, and came walking his wheel through. He left both gates wide open as he started up. Chet and Bill and Pete slid down off the pinnacles and went over to Tex’s shack to meet him.

  He was puffing when he came up the hill, and his stockings had slid down, leaving his bowlegs bare. Frankie was adopted by Mr. Lipscomb, who ran the Ledger, and he had to work a lot, setting type and delivering. “Hi,” he said. “What you kids doin‘?”

  “Horsing around,” Chet said. “How come you don’t have to work?”

  “I have to this aft,” Frankie said. “Have you shot anything?”

  “Chet couldn’t hit anything if we saw it,” Pete said.

  “Oh, couldn’t I?” Chet said. He looked around for something to shoot at, found an old demijohn behind the shack, and set it. up on a fence post. From fifty feet away he aimed and fired. There was a spann-n-n-g! but the demijohn didn’t break. Pete haw-hawed.

  “Well, I only had a b-b in,” Chet said. “I hit it, didn’t I?”

  “I can do as good as that with my air gun,” Pete said. He pumped his gun and shot, and again there was a noise, a higher, lighter noise, spinn-n-n-g! The demijohn was still intact.

  “You guys are terrible,” Frankie said. “Leave me have a shot, Chet.”

  He shot and missed. Then Bill shot and missed. Chet slipped a long into the .22 and waved them back. “Lemme show you how it’s done,” he said. He shot high and broke the neck off the jug. Bill and Frankie started pegging rocks at it, and in a minute it was in a dozen pieces. Inside was the dried body of a mouse.

  “Lookit that,” Frankie said, picking it up by the tail. “I bet he died happy.”

  He threw the mouse at Pete, who fell on him. They wrestled till they were both winded and lay sprawling on the warm ground.

  Then they were all lying on the ground looking up into the empty, pale, sunny sky. Pete lifted his head as if that was all the strength he had left. “Gosh I’m hungry!” he said. So they ate the sandwiches and split the doughnuts and the chocolate bar and all had a drink at the spring behind the shack. On the way back, Frankie chinned himself up to the high little window and peeked in. He banged his hand against the sash, and the sash gave a little.

  “Hey!” he said. “I bet we could get in here.”

  He pried and hammered at the sash, but it wouldn’t give far enough to give him any leverage. “Stand back a minute,” Chet said. “I bet I move her.” He jammed the gun butt against the side, but the butt slipped, and there was a shattering tinkle of glass.

  Chet pulled back and looked at the others. Bill looked scared. Frankie and Pete looked as if they didn’t know how to look. “Now you’ve did it!” Bill said.

  “Oh hell!” Chet said. He reached up the barrel and knocked another of the four lights out. In an instant the other kids were clattering and banging and pounding, and the window was a total loss.

  Excitement was in them now. “Gimme a boost,” Frankie said. He jumped for the sill, but Chet pulled him down. “I busted the winda first. I get to go in first.”

  There was an argument, but Pete gave him a hand and he popped his head into the musty twilight of the shanty. He picked the glass out of the road, got his leg over, and slid inside to the littered floor. He was hunting plunder before Pete’s face was in the window, and he had found the horse pistol before Pete was halfway inside..

  With the treasure in his hand he snapped the door lock and let in a flood of sun. The pistol was an enormous single-action Colt .44 with a great arching wooden butt. It was so heavy that he needed two hands to aim it. The other kids crowded around and wanted to handle it, but he kept them off. It was his prize. And it was even loaded, five shells in it and the hammer carefully down on the empty chamber. Chet broke it and looked through the barrel. Clean.

  Pete and Frankie were turning the shanty upside down looking for more, but Bill was a little scared. He said, “You ain’t gonna keep it, are you, Chet?”

  The word touched Chet’s mind briefly: Stealing. But the gun was in his hands, ponderous, heavy, a real honest-to-goodness man-sized six-shooter. “You bet your life!” he said.

  The other two, having found nothing but a rusty butcher knife and some tin dishes, were looking under the bunk. Pete lifted the mattress, and field mice dropped and scattered.

  “Whee!” Frankie yelled. He leaped sideways out of a half dozen twittering, frantic mice that skittered and scurried and hid and popped out again and jumped up and down. Frankie grabbed an old alarm clock almost as he jumped, and as he alighted he turned and threw it. The thing smashed like a bomb, scattering glass and hands and wheels and springs halfway across the room.

  “Oh Lordy!” Bill moaned. He stood back, but the other three kept on. Pete threw the butcher knife and it stuck quivering in the wall. Frankie skimmed a plate and cup after the clock. The mice were all out of sight by now.

  “I know what,” Chet said. “Here, Frankie, you take my .22. I’ll use the horse pistol and Pete’s got his air gun. Bill can yank the mattress up and jump back and we can all blaze at once.”

  Bill said, “What if old Angus MacLeod came around here and caught you? He looks after this place for Tex.”

  “Oh, Angus!” Chet said. “He’s so tight every time he farts he whistles.”

  They all laughed. He looked around and saw them laughing, and with a Dead-Eye Dick draw he yanked up the horse pistol and aimed it at the bed. “Come on, Bill,” he said.

  “You’d shoot me,” Bill said. “I don’t want to bust up Tex’s shack anyway.”

  “You helped bust the winda,” Chet said. “What are you such a sissy for?”

  “I ain’t a sissy.”

  “You sure act like one,” Pete said.

  “It ain’t fair,” Bill said. “You’d all get to shoot and I wouldn’t.”

  “You can have second shot with my .22,” Chet said. “Frankie’ll shoot, and then you can.”

  Bill hesitated. “Well, all right,” he said. “But don’t any of you shoot till I get out of the way.”

  He walked over to the bunk, eyeing them. “Wait till I get clear out of the way, now.” He stooped, still watching them, yanked the mattress over the edge, and jumped clear. Two mice dropped out of a wide hole and darted for the corner. Another one dashed from under the bed. The air rifle went off, then the .22. The mice switched back toward the bed. Chet held the pistol with both hands and pulled the trigger.

  There was a tremendous roar, the gun kicked clear up over his head and almost out of his hands. The four stared. The mice had vanished, but there was a great splintered gash in the floor..

  “Holy cow!” Chet said.

  For a moment the damag
e that that one slug had done to the boards shocked them silent. How would you like to get shot with a thing like that? It would make a hole through you you could put your hand into. Bill was staring with his eyes wide and scared. “Jiminy!” he said. He looked at Chet. “I’m gonna get out of here!” he said, and bolted.

  Frankie reached out a toe and scuffed at the splinters the .44 bullet had ripped from the floor. They looked at each other, almost holding their breath. Then the impulse struck them almost simultaneously. They yelled. They fired their guns into the sodden mattress. They tipped over the table and spilled magazines and candle-ends onto the floor.

  “Let’s burn the damn place down,” Chet said. He shot the .44 into the bed again, and a mouse ran out. They cornered and killed it, ripped the mattress into the middle of the room, kicked at the mice that scattered frantically. Frankie wrenched, till he got a leg off the table, and with that for a club he beat down the shelves. From the doorway the scared face of Bill watched them.

  “Burn ‘er down!” Chet said. “Break ’er all to pieces!” He smashed a chair against the wall and splintered one leg, threw the whole thing on the pile. Pete was bending down trying to light the mattress, soggy with winter damp. “I need some paper,” he said.

  The air was immediately full of crumpled sheets of paper. Pete twisted a handful, lighted the feathered end, and stuck it under the pile of broken furniture and rubbish. The flame caught, grew. Chet looked at Frankie and wet his lips. He shifted the .44 to his other hand and moved over by the door.

  “You guys are gonna catch it,” Bill said from outside.

  “Aw bull,” Chet said. He wet his lips again and watched Frankie doing a wardance around the fire. The shack was beginning to get smoky, and the smoke was exciting. Chet leaped after Frankie, waving the gun. He struck a pose by the window and stood crouching, the gun in his belt, his hand like a claw. “I’m Buck Duane,” he said. “I’m the old Lone Star Ranger. Any-a you outlaws lookin’ for me?”

  He looked around the shack slowly, contemptuously, eyes narrowed and mouth a slit. The others were all watching. “I guess I’ll just shoot your lights out anyway,” Chet said, “seeing you’re all too yellow to come on.” He snatched for the gun in a lightning draw, but the front sight caught in a belt loop and he had to tug it loose. He fired twice into the ceiling, and Pete, by the door, pretended he was shot, clutching at his breast and staggering loosely around the floor. Frankie stuck out his foot and Pete almost fell in the fire. He arose full of wrath.