Bendigo Shafter (1979)

by L'amour, Louis

  She was one of us, but she held to herself, going her own way with quiet assurance. She was the real leader among us.

  Riding with Ethan one time, I had said as much. Yes and no, he'd said. Mrs. Macken is a thinking woman who knows her mind, but you watch and listen, Bendigo. You'll see she starts things. She opens the ball but nothing moves unless Cain says so.

  Now I hadn't noticed that before, but when he said it I knew at once it was the truth. Cain was not a talking man, preferring to work with his hands, and he was sure and cunning at his craft. Perhaps because of that he was a thinking man, for working with the hands helps a man to consider. Cain was never stirred by passing waves of excitement, never took off on tangents. His judgments were arrived at quickly enough, and he was wrong as rarely as any man I knew. I had learned something about my own brother, and from a stranger.

  A woman needs a man, Bendigo, even a woman like Ruth Macken. No woman, however strong, should have to stand alone. Believe me, she's a stronger woman because Cain is there and she knows he's there.

  As I sat there in the cold, my face roasting, my back half frozen, trying to keep those youngsters warm and feeding sticks into the fire, I thought about the men of our town.

  John Sampson, who came from the same town as Ruth Macken, had probably undergone the greatest change. As he gathered respect for his abilities, he also added a dignity, or perhaps we had only then begun to notice it.

  As some men quailed beneath the awfulness of sky and plain, he grew taller, and his eyes held on the far horizon. Far as the eye could reach and day after day, there was nothing. We traveled seven, eight, maybe on a good day as much as twelve miles. A time or two we camped within sight of our last night's camp, but to John Sampson it was more than a journey, it was a rebirth.

  I thought of the men with whom we shared the town and wondered if the town would change them as much as the plains had, for even then I had become aware that it is not streets and buildings that make a town, but men and women. I began to be glad we had John Sampson, Ruth Macken, and my brother Cain, and to wonder if I had it in me to meet the demands the town would make.

  At last morning came, a dead gray sky above the white hills of snow, the trees somber against the sky, and to the north, towering mountains, white, sublime, and still. We climbed from our shelter, circled wide the valley where the Indians stayed, and at last came to the ridge above our town.

  The wind had gone down in the hours before the dawn and the cabins lay white in the morning's still cold, slow smoke rising from the chimneys like beckoning fingers that promised warmth and security. We stood there a long moment looking upon it, lumps rising in our throats. It was all so new, and yet it was ours, the place we had built with our hands.

  A door opened and closed, and I saw my brother walking toward the corral with a bucket for the morning milking. A horse whinnied, and Cain took a pitchfork and began forking hay to the stock. Something made him look up.

  We saw him stop, stare, then drop his fork and start on a run for the house. Sound carried well in that still air, and we heard him plain. Ma! They've come back, and they've got the children!

  Doors burst open, and folks ran out upon the snow, shading their eyes to see. And then they started to run, floundering in the deep snow, and we started down the hill, running, too. All but Ethan Sackett, who had no one to run to. Cain scooped Ann into his arms, and Lenny ran to his father. Neely ran to Mae. His eyes searched her face. You all right?

  Of course I'm all right. Mr. Sackett and Bendigo fetched me.

  Neely turned on Ethan, mighty uncomfortable. He thrust out a hand, but he was almighty stiff about it. Thanks, Sackett.

  Ethan brushed off the thanks with a gesture. When folks are making a fresh start they have to tolerate. He indicated me with a jerk of his head. It was Bendigo more than me. If he hadn't come out with that pistol when he did we'd probably never have got out alive.

  We started walking back through the snow and my eyes went from one to the other. They were talking and happy, victorious over the first trouble that had come our way. Maybe this wasn't how a town was built, but it was a beginning.

  Our town began with five log cabins and a dugout faced with logs. This was built by Ethan Sackett, and as you might expect, it was the warmest, snuggest place in town.

  When snow fell we were in no shape to face the winter. We had the walls up and the roofs on, and we tacked canvas from our wagon tops over the windows until we could hang shutters. As the ground was frozen and we could not bank our cabins with earth, we banked them with snow, pitching it as high as possible against the walls to make a cushion against the wind.

  As we worked we watched the ridge and the trees for Indians, for we were few, and by now they must have taken a measure of our strength.

  Yet there was another thing that had begun to show itself in our town, and my brother Cain put it into words. There is determination, there is the will to survive, the will to endure. We have that, and few as we are, and no matter what trials we must endure, when spring comes we will be here to greet it.

  Neely Stuart scoffed, yet he himself listened, and I know he profited by Cain's words, for about Cain there was something indomitable, something immovable as a mountain. It had taken Ethan Sackett to open my eyes to my brother's worth, but once opened I could see how much we all depended upon him and somehow waited for his leadership. He had the ability to impart strength to others, and even Neely stood a little straighter because of what my brother had said.

  Most of our time was devoted to the never-ending task of finding, cutting, and hauling fuel. We were cutting brush on the fringes of the forest to deny hiding to Indians when Cain commented, It is no wonder the Egyptians could build pyramids.

  What do you mean? Croft asked.

  It was an easy land they had, with a warm sun, no fuel to find, and a river that each year brought them fresh soil and always carried water in aplenty. I doubt not it gave them time to think on other things.

  There must be time for thinking here, John Sampson said. We must give our children more than meat.

  What is it you have in mind?

  A school with desks and blackboards. On the hill yonder I saw some sheets of slate, and we can find chalk somewhere about.

  A school and a church, Cain agreed.

  You are building a town before you have finished a cabin, Neely protested, but he was listening, and he was interested. Lately he had talked less of California.

  There was a longing in me when they spoke of school, and regret, for I was past the age for school and had little learning, precariously come by. Ours had been a Bible-reading folk, and I'd spent time mulling over what the Bible had taught me. Mostly I'd read the stories for the wonder of them and less for the Lord's word than was proper, yet the sound of the words was a rolling music to my ears, and I longed for a command of them so that I might speak and write with wisdom.

  There was much history there, too, and it worried my mind that I did not know more about the lands of the Bible. Those ancient people spoke of things I knew, of flocks and shepherds and watches by night, and I wondered if those who reared up the mighty walls of Babylon had once begun as we now did, from a few simple walls, a stream, and a few cattle.

  The longing was in me for books other than the Bible, which was the only book we had brought west. Back at home I had read Jonathan Edwards' Freedom of the Will, which had been left at our house by a traveler when I was a child. It was that same traveler who'd left us William Penn's Some Fruits of Solitude.

  My father, who died when I was very young, had been a follower of the Reverend John Witherspoon, a Scottish minister whose philosophy of down-to-earth common sense appealed to him. Vaguely I remembered some supper-table discussion of this, and no doubt it had more to do with shaping Cain's thought than mine.

  Often when our wagons were rolling westward I would sit by the fire and listen to the talk of men, and especially, in the days before he died, to Ruth Macken's husband, who was an educa
ted man. He was a tolerant and thoughtful one as well.

  He talked much of writers long dead and of the thoughts they had left to us, and I longed to know such men, men who had painted, composed music, or written books. Once when I had said as much, Macken commented, Often they are fine men, enough to be admired, but often they are sadly, weakly human, too. Remember this, Bendigo, that it is the work a man does that matters. Many men who have made mistakes in their own lives have created grandly, beautifully. It is this by which we measure a man, by what he does in this life, by what he creates to leave behind.

  Ruth Macken knew of my longing for knowledge, of my longing for a larger, brighter world somewhere beyond the distance. She was a woman to whom a boy might talk of things dreamed. There was understanding in her, and sympathy. Also, I thought, there was a longing in her for the same things. An Indian arrow had taken away her husband only a few days out upon the plains, and he was one who had none but kindly thoughts of Indians. A woman less strong might have turned back, but she had little money, nothing to return to, and a son to rear.

  She listened when I told her of John Sampson's talk of a school. Of course, we must have a school, but the building is less important than the teacher. It is the teacher who makes the school, no matter how magnificent the building.

  A school is wherever a man can learn, Mr. Shafter, do not forget that. A man can learn from these mountains and the trees, he can learn by listening, by seeing, and by hearing the talk of other men and thinking about what they say.

  Most of us in those days were pleased to have a roof above us and a solid earthen floor, but not Mrs. Macken.

  Mr. Shafter, she said, when I was counting my work finished, is there a way you can make planks for a floor?

  She was educating me in more ways than she knew, and from her I was beginning to learn the wiles of women and how they work upon a man's pride and vanity to get things done. Her phrasing was a shrewd thing, for it was a challenge to my show-off.

  Planks can be made, I admitted warily. They can be split from logs, but I'd say flat stones might do as well.

  I would prefer the plank, Mr. Shafter, and 'as well' is never good enough. The plank, if it would not be troubling you too much.

  Each day I worked for her she would stop at midafternoon and sit at the table to drink tea or coffee. We would eat small cakes and talk. She told me in confidence that Bud needed the rest, but it was the custom she liked, something left to her from another life. It was not long before I realized how shrewdly she guided me along the path of my wishing. It was from her that I learned much of the world beyond the limits of our wilderness. I learned from her that a man's world need be no smaller than the mind of the man who scans it. And I learned from her and from Cain the beauty of building, and a hatred of all who destroy, of all who are heedless of the work of others.

  The village people called me Ben or Bendigo, but to her I was always Mr. Shafter, and when I spoke she listened as if every word were important.

  Eighteen I was, and a man grown these three years, but I had worked my life on an Illinois farm, and only gone to school a few months at a time. I had learned to read, to write, and to cipher, and the books of which I have spoken I had read over and over again. Ours was a house where people stopped, and when my chores were over I listened to the talk of the travelers.

  When Ruth Macken spoke of the floor I knew I was in for it, and there would be more hunting and exploring to be missed, yet she was not one to settle for anything but the best, so I set to work splitting planks from large logs, using wedges and a beetle, which was a heavy wooden sledge borrowed from Cain.

  One day when the floor was half completed she went to her chest. Now Mrs. Macken's chest had been a much talked of thing while the wagons rolled west, for it was heavy, and there were some who believed it was filled with gold, one of them being Neely Stuart's wife.

  A time or two when her wagon bogged down we'd had occasion to lift it down, and four good men were needed for the lifting, unless one of them was Cain. Nobody had seen the cover lifted, although Ethan Sackett surmised what it contained.

  That day in my presence she opened the trunk and what lay within was better than gold, for it was lined with three layers of oiled-cloth and tightly packed with books and a store of paper for writing.

  There are fifty of these books, Mr. Shafter, that would give you an education if you read them and no others. Many who consider themselves educated have not read so many or so well.

  She took several books from the chest. Some of these books my husband brought because he thought they might teach him something of the land to which we were coming.

  The rest were chosen carefully because of weight and because he wished to bring those books that would prove the greatest value to Bud and to himself.

  He often said he might have chosen another list that would be equally valuable. However, I am going to let you read first the books about the western lands. They may prepare you and help you.

  She handed me books I'd not seen or heard of before, and I'd no idea people had written about the lands to which we had come, or those similar. She handed me Josiah Gregg's Commerce of the Prairies, the Journals of Lewis and Clark, A Tour of the Prairies by Washington Irving, and one but lately printed, Three Years Among the Comanches, which was the personal story of Nelson Lee, a Texas Ranger. This had been published in 1859, so was very new.

  The books filled me with excitement, and, tucking them under my coat, I took them home. When supper was over I settled beside the fire with the first of them. I chose Nelson Lee's book and was soon lost in its pages.

  Some of the men he mentioned I'd heard talk of about the fire, men such as Jack Hays and Ben McCullogh, for their names were well known. There was much about riding and shooting, fights with Mexican bandits and Comanches, and finally his capture by the Indians.

  None needed to tell me how much the Mackens had sacrificed to bring these books, for no item was taken without its displacing some other, possibly equally important. Clothing and food made up much of the load, although wiser travelers carried a small sheet-iron stove with a boiler, for it was often windy, and fuel was scarce along the way west. Dutch ovens, skillets, plowshares, axes, saws, and augers, all these were necessary.

  My brother and I had brought two wagons and Ruth Macken did also. My brother needed his tools, and she brought goods to open a store.

  It was not recommended to bring over 2500 pounds, although those with strong teams packed more than that, figuring by the time rough country was met they would have eaten their load to half its size, and such was the case.

  The days at our town went swiftly by, but I did not neglect going up the ridge to look over the country around, and I often rode abroad with Ethan for hunting or to learn the country.

  Our town was located in South Pass, the great, wide open pass taken by all the wagons bound westward. To the north of us the Wind River Mountains towered against the sky, and we longed to explore them as Ethan had.

  We saw no Indians, but were not relieved, for they would return. The young Indian would find others like himself, and they would come to steal horses or take scalps.

  When I could find the time away from the widow's home I helped Cain, for we had large plans between us. We were setting up the smithy, and when it was done we planned to build a mill for the grinding of flour. For this we needed logs cut, squared, and left to season.

  Our mother's family was a family of builders, Cain told me. They built ships, steamboats, bridges, and houses. Part of her family came down from Canada and were French once upon a time. Ma could speak French, he added, and was an educated woman.

  Little enough I knew of my mother and I treasured the times when Cain spoke of her; nor did I know aught of my family before Pa, although Cain being older had heard more.

  There was not much food among us. We ate sparingly and looked upon the months to come with unspoken fear. As long as the heavy snow lasted there was no fresh meat, and we had eaten deep
into our supplies, saved against the cold months. Our stock had grown poorly due to lack of forage, and as we looked upon them we worried. During this time only Ethan seemed to find game, and that was little enough.

  Usually I was the first to rise. After my eyes opened I would lie within the comfortable warmth of my blankets, staring at the gray ashes in the fireplace and wondering if any spark remained that I could coax into flame.

  Suddenly, I would move, throwing back the blankets. I would rush across the room, shivering in the bitter cold, stir the coals, pile on a few slivers of pitch pine and bits of shredded bark to any hint of an ember, then blow the coals to a tiny blaze. Once the flames began to crackle I would heap on wood and duck back under the covers until the room had lost its chill.

  We banked our fires against the morning, but pine burns with a quick, hot blaze, leaving little behind. When we tried a back-log it would as often as not slowly gather all the fire into itself, then smolder and go out. There were a number of ways of nursing a fire through the night, and sometimes they worked.

  The first one up in the morning would crack the ice in the water bucket, or if it was frozen to the bottom, which happened often enough, place it close enough to the fire so it would melt.

  Once there were three days of such bitter cold that nobody ventured out but to water and feed the stock, rustle fuel for the fires, or do the few odd chores that had to be done each day.

  We had dug a halfway sort of shelter for the stock from the side of a slope near the town and banked high the snow around it. We had almost no feed for them, but we had cut a hole in the creek ice so they could water. During the worst of the cold it had to be reopened every time they went for a drink, which was twice each day.

  We had managed to cut a little hay in the meadow but used it sparingly, fearful of the months to come.

  On the fourth day of the bitter cold worry began to draw lines upon the faces of the men. The women-folks made light of it to save their men trial, but food was scarce, and the bitter cold killed any chance of hunting, for the wild game would be holed in, waiting out the weather.