by Paul Lederer
‘No.’ He rubbed his head again, nearly slapping at it as if that would jar some memory free. ‘I have to ask … do you know me? Can you tell me who I am?’
‘You still don’t know?’ she said, approaching the bed with concern in her eyes. ‘We … I … thought that a night’s rest might bring your memory back.’
‘It hasn’t, I’m afraid,’ he answered grimly. ‘Can’t you tell me?’
‘No,’ she said too hastily. There seemed to be a hint of fear in her eyes. She touched her throat uneasily with slender fingertips. She had been warned to tell him nothing. To make no guesses as to his identity. Father had said, correctly, ‘We don’t really know who this man is. Conjecture will solve nothing. When he’s back on his feet, we’ll turn him out. That’s all there is to it The rest is his problem, not ours.’
‘I …’ he said uneasily, spooning honey onto another biscuit, ‘am no one you know, no one from around here? Where am I, anyway!’ he asked with a surge of confusion.
‘It’s called the Tumano Basin. Right near the Snake River. Teton country.’
He shook his head. It was filled with the buzzing of confused bees. ‘I don’t know—’
‘Wyoming!’ the girl, Tess said with some frustration.
‘Wyoming,’ the wounded man said in a sort of mingled wonder and acceptance. After pondering that for a moment, he asked, ‘There was nothing … Tess … in my pockets, my saddlebags, to indicate who I was?’
‘You had no horse,’ she said. ‘There was nothing in your pockets.’
‘Nothing? Isn’t that strange?’ he asked, frowning.
‘I don’t know. Who among us has anything worth carrying?’
‘We’re not …? You and I … are we alone here?’ he asked.
‘No! Certainly not. My family lives in this house. It is our home.’
‘And I am a stranger?’
‘You are a stranger,’ Tess said. She was hurriedly collecting the coffee pot and the tray from the bedside table. He continued to hold the coffee cup between both hands, studying the way she moved, the firm lines of her throat and jaw, the quick darting of her blue eyes, the glint of morning sunlight in her golden hair.
‘Tess?’ he asked as she turned to go. She did not face him.
‘Yes?’
‘Will you do something for me? Will you christen me?’
‘Will I—’ she choked on her laughter. ‘Whyever?’
‘I wish to have a name to go by, Tess. Even a dog is given a name to respond to.’
‘As you wish,’ she said after a moment. Considering for a long minute, her features pinched with concentration, she finally offered: ‘Ned.’
‘Ned?’
‘It’s as good a name as any other,’ Tess replied. ‘It just popped into my head. You look like a Ned.’
‘Do I?’
‘If you don’t like it, choose your own!’ Tess said, flushing for no apparent reason.
‘Ned is fine. Is it short for anything?’
‘No, it’s just … Ned.’
‘And a last name?’
‘Do you need one of those?’ Tess asked as if tiring of the game. ‘All right … keep it simple, shall we. Browning. Ned Browning – unless you object,’ she said with a bit of irritation.
‘It’s a fine name,’ the stranger, now Ned, said, holding up the palm of his hand to fend off her anger. ‘Mr Ned Browning. A fine name. I will do my best to make it a respectable one.’
‘See that you do,’ she ordered with a sisterly scold. ‘I’ve christened you and any dishonor you bring to that name, you also bring to me.’
Serious young lady, ‘Ned’ thought as the girl turned to go. He could not have seen the smile she carried with her from the small room. Better just being a ‘Ned’, Tess Bright was thinking. His real name was probably Hezekiah Pybomoski. Walking along the narrow hallway toward the kitchen she was intercepted by her father.
‘How is he?’ Orson Bright asked in his slow out-country drawl.
‘Better,’ Tess answered. ‘He’s alert and talking.’
‘Talking about what?’
‘The weather. He hasn’t gotten his memory back, Father, if that’s what you were wondering. He asked me to give him a name.’
‘Did you?’ Orson asked, staring down at his daughter as if it were an unwonted intimacy.
‘I did!’ Tess shot back. ‘What’s the harm in it?’
‘None,’ Orson answered, He scratched his bristled cheek, waiting.
‘Ned Browning. I decided to name him that,’ Tess said. Then she brushed past her father, carrying the tray to the kitchen where Mother Rose sang old West Virginia hill songs softly as she cleaned. Orson went out to the smoky front room where Andy Bright sat brooding in the near-darkness.
‘I’m ready to put it to him, Andy,’ Orson said. ‘Do you want to be there?’
Andy nodded and rose heavily from his puncheon chair, a knitted shawl over his shoulders, a Colt revolver dangling on his hip.
Tess had reappeared from the kitchen, a soapy tress she had tried to sweep back from her forehead nearly draped over one eye. She placed her hands on her hips and demanded, ‘What are you two playing at?’ Her eyes went from her brother to her father, an expression near menace lighting them.
‘What’s it to you?’ Andy Bright asked sullenly. He stood with his hands deep in the pockets of his twill pants, eyes downcast.
‘Father?’
‘It’s nothing, Tess. Nothing to concern yourself with. We just want to talk to the man, that’s all.’
‘Why him? Why Ned?’
‘Ned?’ Andy Bright said, his hands clenching. ‘Has he remembered his name, then?’
‘No,’ Tess said, surprised by her brother’s vehemence. Andy’s big hands relaxed slightly. He glanced at Orson, got a reassuring smile in return and apologized to Tess.
‘That’s all right then. I’m sorry.’
‘You don’t want him to remember anything, do you?’ Tess asked, frowning. ‘But why, Father.’
Orson patted her shoulder paternally. ‘You don’t need to know,’ he said waving a dismissive hand.
‘But I would like to,’ she insisted. ‘It has something to do with all the recent trouble with Colbert, hasn’t it? You want to use him … Ned … for something.’
‘If I do,’ Orson said hotly, his anger resurfacing, ‘it’s for the benefit of all of us, for the family. I don’t want you talking to him anymore, to Ned. Nothing but good morning and how are you, do you understand?
‘No,’ Tess said doubtfully. ‘But,’ she went on, speaking as a dutiful daughter, ‘I will do as you wish, Father.’
‘Fine,’ Orson said, his bony hand still resting on his daughter’s shoulder. ‘Then we’ll leave it at that. Forget about Ned, he is in my hands now. I don’t intend to trick him into anything that’s shameful. I’ll promise you that.’
‘All right,’ Tess answered quietly, letting her eyes meet his. She had trusted this man to guide her life for the first twenty years; she must trust him also in this one decision although she did not understand it entirely. Brushing his bristled cheek with her lips, she turned and went back into the kitchen, leaving Orson and his son alone.
‘She’s gettin’ to where she could use a whippin’ from time to time,’ Andy Bright said.
‘Yes,’ Orson drawled thoughtfully, looking at the closed kitchen door. ‘But then she’s also a little bit too grown-up for that.’
‘Half a woman, half a little girl,’ Andy agreed in a dull voice. Orson stared at his hulking, unimaginative son.
Half a man, half a spoiled overgrown boy, Orson thought, but did not say. He looped his scrawny arm over his son’s bearlike shoulders and reminded Andy, ‘Let me do all of the talking, Andy. I’ve got it all thought out, and you adding anything might fuddle things.’
‘All right,’ Andy agreed instantly. The truth was he had not come up with a single thing he might contribute in a conversation with ‘Ned’, and he was perfectly willing to remai
n silent while his father explained things to the stranger – and to Andy! Orson had something in mind, something important, that was clear, but exactly how he intended to go about matters was a mystery to the bulky young man. In silence he followed Orson to the stranger’s bedroom. Adjusting his face into a smile, Orson Bright rapped three times on the plank door. They were immediately summoned in.
The stranger sat bare-chested on the bed. He had managed to step into his trousers, and was now making heavy work of pulling his boots on.
‘Good morning, sir,’ he said amiably. He tugged at his boots again, wincing with the effort. ‘Well, Ned, how are you?’
The stranger cocked his head and smiled at the use of the adopted name. ‘So Tess told you that she has christened me.’
‘Yes,’ Orson said affably, seating himself on the bed beside the young stranger. ‘It’s for the best.’ Orson Bright’s eyes met Ned’s and then lowered. ‘There’s no point in having her know your real name, is there?’
Ned tried to read the old man’s intent, but could not. Something in the back of his mind raised a cautious head and growled a muted warning. Ned could not have said what the internal warning meant; he was having more of those episodes as the day grew older. Memory, trying with enormous effort to bring him back to himself, and failing with each try.
‘You … know who I am?’ He asked Orson carefully. The old man’s face lit up with mock astonishment.
‘Of course, boy! Of course. Wasn’t it I who sent for you? Damn … you can’t even remember that much, can you?’
‘No, sir,’ Ned answered as if shamed by the admission, ‘I cannot recall even that much.’
Orson Bright’s expression grew solemn. ‘And with all the money I sent you!’ Orson said dismally. Ned had risen shakily to his feet, and Orson Bright told his son: ‘Take one of your shirts out of the closet, Andy. Help the man dress himself.’
Andy obeyed mutely and withdrew a faded dark-blue shirt from the closet to clothe Ned. Buttoning the shirt, Ned raised downcast eyes to the lanky Orson Bright. ‘You paid me money to do some sort of work for you, is that right?’
‘Of course,’ Orson said with evident frustration ‘Two hundred dollars sent to you in Leesville. I don’t know if you spent it, lost it or—’
‘I don’t even know where Leesville is,’ Ned said, tucking his shirt tails in.
‘But you know where you are now?’
‘Only by what Tess told me.’
‘God’s sake man!’ Andy said, unable to control himself. ‘We paid you, you accepted the job. Why do you think you are here now? How did you make your way here?’ the boy asked.
Orson Bright quieted Andy’s outburst with a withering look. Andy was on the right track now, but his assistance was not called for.
‘I made my way here …’ Ned muttered, still searching for the lost voices in his mind. He wandered to the sun-bright window, seated himself in a ladder-backed wooden chair and let the warmth of morning bathe him in a flickering, golden glow. ‘Mr Bright,’ he said, ‘I do not know who I am or what task I agreed to perform, but I feel that … I am a man of my word. Tell me what project you have engaged me on, and I promise you that I will do my best to perform the task, assuming of course, that I can recall the requisite skills.’
‘Huh?’ said Andy who was often confused with words of more than two syllables. Orson sighed, directing the expression at Andy Bright and Ned equally. A fine pair, he seemed to be thinking.
‘I’m assuming that you have retained your necessary skills,’ Orson Bright said, walking nearer to Ned, covering him with his narrow shadow. ‘A gunman doesn’t forget how to draw his Colt and dispense frontier justice.’
THREE
Orson Bright continued to speak. He had crossed the floor of the small room in order to toe the door shut for privacy. Now he rubbed his white hair, gestured with a nod for Andy to take a seat on the rumpled bed, and himself leaned against the rough wall of the room, arms folded, watching Ned Browning seriously.
‘Mister …’ he began and then clamped his jaw shut. A moment later he continued: ‘I don’t know what to say to you. Your credentials are well known across Wyoming. When you agreed to take care of this little matter for us, we considered that we had spent a lot of money, but expected in return to have a true professional coming to assist us. Now,’ he said, waving an agitated hand, ‘we find ourselves saddled with a man who not only does not seem able to remember our proposition, nor who he even is, but has given an indication that he does not recall receiving payment for the work and therefore has no obligation to perform it!’
‘I didn’t say that,’ Ned answered promptly but faintly. ‘It’s just that—’
‘It’s just that you have no memory of payment, promises made or obligation to us.’
‘It’s just,’ Ned said holding his head in both hands, ‘that I have no memory of anything at all.’
‘None?’ Orson said, his voice rising. ‘No idea of who you are and how you just happened to find your way to my place in a territory of nearly a hundred-thousand square miles?’
‘No,’ Ned said, lifting tormented eyes.
Orson threw his hands into the air. ‘So then my money is lost – simply lost! Do you have any idea how hard it is to save two hundred dollars, how much labor and thrift it demands? And then to put all of our hopes in you, mister … all of our hopes of surviving.’
‘If I could only—’ Ned began, but it was just then that Tess opened the door, saw her father stalking the floor, her brother sagged onto the bed, Ned sitting like a witness being interrogated in a courtroom.
‘I just wondered—’ she said. A look from her father silenced her. Something, she knew intuitively, was going on – something of great importance. But it was a secret thing among the men. They would tell her when they wished her to know. Her dark-blue eyes met those of Ned Browning and a look passed between them that was questioning and reassuring at once. ‘I see it’s not the right time,’ she said with a faint, nearly heartsick smile and turned away from the door.
‘Her too!’ Orson Bright said. The old man was no fool. He had intercepted and analyzed the look that had traveled between his daughter and Ned. ‘Can you imagine what it would be like for a young woman like Tess to be without food, warmth or home when winter comes? Is she to wander the wastelands when the snow falls, with savages like Santana prowling the winterscape?’
‘I don’t—’ was all Ned was able to murmur.
‘I wasn’t thinking only of my land, my pride, myself when I sent that message to Leesville, sir! I was thinking of my family! Of Andy here, of Mother Rose … of Tess.’ He lowered his head and turned away. ‘I will hold you to no bargain. Circumstances, I see, are extraordinary. Heal, rest and then go on your way, mister … Ned Browning. We shall suffer our fate as we must. It was a forlorn and desperate hope that encouraged me to seek your help. I can see now that I should have only trusted the Lord … and pocketed my two hundred dollars.’ These last few words were delivered in a pulpit tone. Whether they were intended to shame Ned or not, they had that effect. A family trusting him – counting on him – whoever he was! For their salvation. Perhaps it was because he was still so confused, perhaps out of a sense of honor. Perhaps because of Tess with the blue eyes that he shook himself drew a deep breath and rose from the wooden chair.
He asked, ‘Tell me again what the situation is, and let’s try to find a solution.’
Orson Bright had seated himself on the foot of the bed, facing Ned who still stood at the window. Andy Bright, easily bored and willing to get back to his hard labors, had picked up his hat and walked out, leaving the two men alone in the closed, sunlit room.
‘Ten years ago,’ Orson Bright began, ‘I came into the Tumano Basin. The Shoshone Indians still had not been pacified and we were forted up much of the time, trying to defend the little we had. There was an outlaw called Santana roving the timberlands too. He claimed to be Indian-Mexican, but I doubt if he knew himself what he was or where
he came from. He left us alone for the most part until a few years back.’
‘What happened?’ Ned asked.
‘He and my older son, Dan, got into it over something down in the town of Hoyt’s Camp. What it was, I never knew for sure.’ Orson shook his head and licked his lips. ‘A woman, they tell me. Who she was, what happened to her, I can’t say. I can’t even swear that it’s true.
‘We, as a family, fought on, however. You can see the timber resources here. Lodgepole pines, jack pines, cedar. All plentiful hereabouts. And the money is good – down-river, beyond Hoyt’s Camp, they’re building little settlements nearby as quick as they can saw lumber.’
‘Then?’ Ned prompted.
‘Then we prospered for a time, after years of doing without the basics of life. But a man named Lyle Colbert moved in below us. He figured how to make himself a lot of money without the back-breaking effort that timbering requires.’
‘Namely?’ Ned interrupted. He was interested, but his wounds had sapped his energy and, seating himself again in the ladder-back chair, he felt as if he would drowse off before Orson Bright reached the end of his tale. Bright seemed to sense that; he rushed on.
‘What Colbert has done, Ned, is throw a chain across the river. Two-inch thick steel the links have, and he won’t lower it for our timber rafts unless we pay a toll. A heavy toll,’ Orson said unhappily. ‘Now we’ve got only my son, Andy, and two hired loggers working the timber. Three other men quit because I couldn’t afford to pay them full wages. It’s gotten to this. I’ll go broke and be forced from my land, leaving the timber to Colbert – which is what he wants – or we declare war on him and drive him and his river pirates from the Snake.’
‘Which brings us to the reason you sent for me,’ Ned said, looking up.
‘Which brings us to that point.’
‘How do you propose to fight Colbert?’ Ned asked. ‘And how many men has he with him?’
‘As to how many men he has, it varies. Between ten and thirty, I would estimate.’ Orson hesitated and said sincerely, ‘As to how to fight him – well, that’s your business, isn’t it? That’s what you have been paid to figure out.’