The Third Western Novel

by Noel Loomis

  “It won’t hurt ’em to wait a couple of hours,” said Benson.

  “They don’t want to wait, Mr. Benson. They want to get to the promised land.”

  Benson sat back on his heels. “They won’t reach it when they figgered.”

  “And I guess it won’t hurt them,” said Ferguson absent-mindedly. “Why do you suppose that rope broke during the night, with no load on the ferry?”

  “Worn, maybe.”

  “Not worn enough to break.” He finished the coffee and walked up to the dock and onto it, his boots thudding on the boards and producing hollow sounds from the cavernous space beneath the dock. He made out the rope in the faint light from the fire, reached down and picked it up. “It didn’t break,” he said. “It was cut.”

  Benson hurried out on the dock. “You sure, Mr. Ferguson?”

  “A broken rope is frayed at the end. This one is not frayed,” he said. “Feel it. It is cut off square, as if somebody had used an axe.”

  “The dirty so-and-so’s,” said Benson. “Why would they do a thing like that?”

  Ferguson said, “This is only the beginning, Mr. Benson.”

  “Maybe you’d be better off to string with Logan and Yeakel.”

  Ferguson grinned wryly in the dark. “When I’m in the right, I’ve never had enough gumption to run.”

  He chose a coil of half-inch rope, measured it and counted the coils, and decided it was long enough to reach across the river. He saddled the sorrel and tied the end of the rope to the saddlehorn. He stationed Benson on the dock to see that it would uncoil properly, and he took the precaution of tying the other end to a post on the dock. He got on the sorrel and rode into the water; the sorrel was a good river-horse, and the river in late June was low, so that it would not be necessary to swim except in the middle of the stream. They reached the ferry, swinging at the end of the rope from the Iowa side, and he got aboard and examined it as well as he could, for down on the river it was still almost dark. He called to Benson and presently, finding nothing further wrong with the ferry, he got on again, his wet trousers not sliding very well on the leather, and rode on through the reeds and willows to the shore. He kept going in a straight line, for now the rope was running across the deck of this ferry. He went up the bank and found himself among half a dozen small fires, each by a covered wagon; he reflected that at least they had learned to save wood.

  But he had just felt a harder pull that meant that the big ferry towrope was coming across the river, when a man looked up from a fire where he was holding a strip of beef on a pointed stick, saw Ferguson, and came to meet him, walking; clumsily in cowhide boots.

  “Are you from the ferry, mister?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Reverend Sledge from West Virginia,” he said in a twangy voice. “Here with a wife, six young’uns, two cows, four mules, and a saddle horse.”

  “All right.” Ferguson started on.

  “Wait, mister.” The big man laid a hand on the saddle. “I got a question to ask you.”

  Ferguson waited.

  “We been here four days, and we’re next out for the ferry.”

  “You’d better start packing.”

  “But the ferry broke loose and has been against the bank all night.”

  It was then that Ferguson heard sheep. He said to the man: “It will be in service in a couple of hours at the most.” The sorrel moved impatiently.

  “I don’t like to be insistent, mister, but I want my turn.”

  “That’s not my responsibility,” said Ferguson. “We leave that for the emigrants to settle among themselves—and as far as I have heard, they are generally fair.”

  Teddy Root loped up on a mangy mustang that he had traded from the Otos. “Mr. Ferguson, anything serious?”

  “Not as far as I have seen.”

  “Some of the emigrants are fussing.”

  “Fussing does not help,” Ferguson said.

  “They are asking why you shut down three or four hours a night.”

  “To get some rest,” said Ferguson.

  The Reverend Sledge said: “Mr. Ferguson, you own this ferry, I hear. Why don’t you hire two more men, and keep open all night?”

  Ferguson sat sidewise in the wet saddle. “There are two reasons, reverend. The first is that there are no men old enough to run the ferry by themselves, and there are not enough mules in the country to pull it. I have every mule I can get in use right now.”

  “Why not oxen?” asked Reverend Sledge. “I use oxen, and they pull real good.”

  Ferguson ignored him.

  He slapped the sorrel with the loose end of the reins, and the sorrel dug in and moved forward slowly.

  “Mr. Root, will you go back to the ferry and give a holler when the big rope comes aboard?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The rope trailed out behind him, and he thought again that he heard sheep, but then Teddy Root shouted from the ferry. Ferguson went twenty feet farther and then turned and rode back, coiling the half-inch rope on his arm as he went. He reached the barge, and Teddy had untied the two ropes and was trying to tie a bowline on the iron ring at the end of the ferry. Ferguson helped him.

  It was fairly light then, and Teddy looked up at him, puzzled. “Mr. Ferguson, what happened to the guideline?”

  Ferguson looked at him for a moment. “I had forgotten about that,” he said. “Of course they cut that too.”

  “Cut, did you say?”

  “Look at the end of the rope you just tied.”

  “Yes, sir. Sure enough. Now who would be ornery enough to do a lowdown thing like that?”

  Ferguson said, “I can guess, but it would be only a guess. Now, Mr. Root, you go back to the dock and pay out the rope on your side slowly when the boat begins to move out into the middle. Don’t try to straighten it up. You can straighten up your rope after the ferry reaches the other side.”

  The reverend’s booming voice reached him: “Why not take a load aboard now, Mr. Ferguson?”

  “You can’t load in here in the swamp grass, and we could not pull it along the shore because of the sandbars. All right, Mr. Benson,” he called. “Take it away.”

  Within a few minutes, the big rope tightened and the ferry began to end around toward the middle of the river. Ferguson gathered up the rest of the half-inch rope and coiled it all on the ferry. Teddy Root got off the ferry and waded through the water to shore, while Ferguson rode up a piece and then out into the water until he picked up the guide-rope. He pulled it up to the end, and found that it too was cut square across. He rode back to the shore and began to coil the rope on the sorrel’s rump, when he became aware of the bleating sheep again, and finally turned to Teddy Root and asked sharply, “Mr. Root, what is that?”

  “There’s a feller here with some sheep, wants acrost on the ferry.”

  “He will have to wait his turn,” said Ferguson.

  “I tried to tell him,” said Teddy, “but he wouldn’t listen.”

  “I will tell him,” said Ferguson, “and he will listen. This is not a sheep-ferry. They can swim their sheep if they want across. There is a band of sheep three days back that I have contracted to take across, and that is all. Emigrants have first claim.”

  They rode up to the dock together. The sun was almost ready to come up, and down the river rolled a wall of heavy fog that was almost on them when Ferguson heard a new, harsh voice, like a man talking through sandpaper: “Ferguson?”

  He turned to a black-hatted man who was a full two inches taller than Ferguson, and had shoulders that seemed as wide as an oxbow. “What do you want?” Ferguson asked.

  “I was told I might find you here.”

  Ferguson watched the big rope, now straight, slowly move upstream, then pivoted on the snubbing-post. “I am tired of riddles,” he said. “If you have something to say, say it. If you have something to ask, ask it. Otherwise, I’ll be obliged if you will stand aside and let me go ahead with my work.”

  “They said
you was a smart one, Ferguson.”

  Ferguson said, “Mr. Root, I think you might loosen the rope now. Take a half-hitch around the post, and you can let it out as you see fit.”

  The bleating of the sheep was louder as the fog rolled over them, somewhere up a hill, Ferguson supposed. “Are those your sheep?” he asked.

  “They are,” said the big man.

  “Then you’d better get them away from these hills before the emigrants start a vigilance committee.”

  “I am here on business. I want passage for my sheep.”

  “I am not hauling any more sheep,” Ferguson said firmly.

  “You are hauling mine.”

  “I have made one contract to take some sheep across the river, and that is the last band I will take.”

  “You will take mine.”

  Ferguson faced him through the fog. “Mister, I don’t want to be rude, but you are pushing my patience to its limit. I promised one man named Mawson, and—”

  “I am Zachariah Mawson,” said the man in his grating voice.

  “You are not Mawson, he is two days back.”

  “I am Mawson, and I am damned sick of all this talk, Ferguson. Are you going to take my sheep across or aren’t you?”

  “You are not Mawson. He had more sheep.”

  Mawson smiled. “Don’t I have enough?” The fog was already lifting, and the sun broke over the horizon to speed it up. Ferguson said, “How could you move that many sheep so far in one day?”

  The big man shrugged and smiled cynically. “How do you know where I was two days ago?”

  Ferguson went over to watch the rope. He heard footsteps, and looked around to see the Reverend Sledge on the dock, accompanied by four other men, emigrants all, by the look of them—high boots, droopy hats, overalls, and checked shirts.

  Sledge said: “Ferguson, we come to demand that you carry us in our regular order.”

  “I intend to.”

  Mawson grinned. The fog had lifted and thinned, and the area was suddenly clean and sunny, and now Ferguson saw why the bleating of the sheep had come from so many different directions: all the hills within sight were covered by thousands of woolly backs. Mawson looked at Sledge. “Either I take my sheep across, or they will have to be herded on these hills.”

  CHAPTER IX

  Ferguson refrained from any expression when he looked at Sledge. “Reverend, it looks like you get a chance to decide for yourself.”

  One of the men with Mawson said, “Them sheep will eat up ev’rything green within miles—and they will stink like h—Pardon me, reverend.”

  Sledge drew a deep breath and faced the huge man. “Mister, you are interfering with the rights of human beings.”

  Mawson said, “I’m a human being too, reverend. I’ve got sheep here, and they can’t go hungry, can they?”

  “Nobody told you to bring those sheep in here without first making arrangements for passage,” he said.

  “It’s a free country. I got as much right to bring sheep as you got to take your kids.”

  Ferguson had to hand it to Sledge: he didn’t back down. “No, you don’t. My children are my family.”

  Mawson was complacent, because he could not lose. “Reverend, you better call your flock together around here and decide whether you want to move now or be et out. And remember one thing; a few will get across, but them that stay behind had better start feedin’ grain.”

  That of course was a telling blow, for the emigrants did not carry any grain for the stock; they depended entirely on grass. Ferguson looked at Sledge and felt a little sorry for him. Sledge was the next man across; if he should give up his place, he might wait several days, and the fact was that the effect of the sheep’s presence would be felt immediately, even if the emigrants should wait. On the other hand, if Sledge should insist on his right to cross, the man behind him would then become first and would also insist, and there would be no end to it—so naturally all those down the line would look to the Reverend Sledge to do the right thing.

  Sledge’s blue eyes blazed for a moment, but he got control of himself; then the light in his eyes was replaced by the dullness of frustration. He said slowly, “I will have to consult the people who are waiting.”

  Mawson watched him stalk silently away, and turned to Ferguson with sardonic amusement: “The reverend will find out that most people are more interested in gettin’ across the river than they are in savin’ their souls.”

  Ferguson looked at Mawson and said, “You are an overriding and unfair man.”

  “What do you care?” asked Mawson. “Are they any kin of yours?”

  Ferguson said slowly: “Your kind of man would recognize only one thing: somebody who could lick you.”

  Mawson grinned. “A lot have tried that—and some of them weighed twice as much as you.”

  Ferguson said, “I will move your sheep in whatever order the emigrants decide, but I don’t like your methods and I won’t stand for them to be applied to me.”

  The black eyes were sardonic again. “How long do you figure it will take to cross my sheep?” asked Mawson.

  “How many head?”

  “Close to twelve thousand.”

  “Well, it’s a good-sized ferry, and it will carry a hundred and fifty head. At twenty round trips a day, that’s three thousand head a day—four days.” He looked at Mawson. “You would be better off to swim them across, at that. You could get them across in one day, and you could hire help from the emigrants and save about nine hundred dollars.”

  “There’s too much loss in swimming.”

  “There needn’t be. I can swim those critters across and guarantee less than a quarter percent loss.”

  But Mawson wanted the sheep to cross on the ferry. “If a sudden rise came up—”

  “There aren’t any rises like that, this time of year.”

  Something flickered in Mawson’s eyes. “My man made a deal with you at eight cents a head. I’m holding you to it.”

  Ferguson said quietly, “Your man also told me you were two days back, and I will not take you before that time unless the emigrants agree to it.”

  “They will agree,” said Mawson. “They’re already down on their prayer-bones.”

  The tone of his voice was more than Ferguson could take. “You’ve no right to ridicule a man for doing what you order when you hold a pistol at his head.”

  “Ain’t I, though?”

  “You ain’t,” Ferguson said positively.

  He saw a new light—a hard and antagonistic glint—in the man’s eyes. He turned away to watch Teddy Root letting the rope spiral slowly around the post as the ferry neared the Nebraska shore. “Now, then,” said Ferguson, “when Mr. Benson gives you the signal that all is well, you can prepare to pull the ferry back to this dock for the first loading, but meantime I will go back across the river with the guide rope. Otherwise you and No Horse would have to balance the mules against each other to keep the boat from swinging downstream against the bank again—either that or control the rope by the snubbing-post—and that would wear out two good men in their prime.”

  “Maybe there ain’t no good men in Nebrasky,” said Mawson.

  Ferguson looked at him. “Maybe there are no good men in Iowa,” he said.

  Ferguson went to the sorrel and picked up the cut end of the guide rope. “See that it’s paid out,” he said, and pushed the sorrel into the water.

  He reached the other side and rode up onto dry land. Benson took the rope and spliced a piece onto it, then fastened it to its ring. Benson was an ex-sailor and knew his knots.

  “Drop your towrope,” Ferguson said, “and we’ll try it again.”

  Up the slope, No Horse disengaged the rope from the doubletree, dropped the trace chains so the mules could graze on the scanty grass, and started back down. Ferguson called across the river: “All right, Mr. Root.”

  Benson came up and said, “Sounds like I hear singin’.”

  “Very likely,” said Ferguson.<
br />
  “‘Rock of Ages’, sounds like.”

  “Probably.”

  Benson looked up at him. “Sandy John Ferguson, you know what’s going on.”

  “I can guess.”

  “You might tell me,” said Benson, sounding aggrieved.

  “The Reverend Sledge is calling on the Lord for guidance—which means that if, by the time prayer meeting is over, he can figure out a way to best Zachariah Mawson, he will do it, but if he cannot figure out a way, he will advise the brethren to turn the other cheek.”

  The ferry began to move away from the dock, and the rope trailed after it.

  “What are they up to?” asked Benson. “Prayin’ for another ferry?”

  “I don’t know what they’re praying for, but I know what they’re wishing: that Zachariah Mawson would take his sheep somewhere else and give them away to the Indians.”

  “I thought I saw sheep over there, and I sure smelled ’em.”

  “Reverend Sledge is wrestling with his patience,” said Ferguson, walking to the coffeepot, “but I don’t think he can win. He wants across the river because he figures the free land is going fast, but he’s really a sincere man, and I think he will have trouble justifying what he would like to do, so I expect a load of sheep.”

  “Whyn’t you go over on the ferry, then?”

  Ferguson looked down at his wet clothes. “And take a chance on getting dried out?” He watched across the river for a moment, where the Reverend Sledge’s temporary congregation was now on its knees in prayer, and the stentorian voice of the Reverend Sledge rose and fell in measured cadence. “When they make their decision, I’ll go over and show them how to get the sheep onto the ferry.”

  “You’re pretty sure,” said Benson.

  “It’s the only way it can go.” He looked around. “Where’s our audience this morning?”

  “Major Yeakel and Simmons came lookin’ for you while you was gone. I told them where you was, and they went away.”