by Les Weil
He let go of the mane and grabbed the cheek strap of the bridle and, by pulling hard, crooked the horse's head around. He kicked for the stirrup and swung on.
Nothing happened. He set himself. There was the head, held up like in surprise and fright. There, fading back, was Tom. There were the men retreating and, beyond them, rolling up, a carriage that the sun danced on.
Nothing happened except the trembling, felt quick in legs and seat, until Jehu raised a whoop and charged in and slapped out with his hat.
The horse bounced and fought the reins and tore them through the hold and bogged his head, and the earth sprang away and slammed back and sprang again. Like many a horse. Like horses ridden. Pile-driver. Rough as rock. Not rough enough. Sit soft to jolt! Watch out, that jump! Two pitches. Four. Five or six. Bets in the bag. This bronc to boot.
Not yet! Not pile-driver. Sunfisher! Live fish out of water. Head and rear beating. Switched out of joint. Earth and sky switching. Men and the carriage. Fort Benton flopping, back into the river. A voice crying, "Stick him!" Guts torn loose and gasping. No head on the horse. No eyes in the rider. Bets hung on a pants' thread. How long now? How long?
The ground appeared to level and begin streaking underneath. It seemed the horse was running. It seemed he answered to the spurs with speed instead of pitches. Earth and sky broke off and took their proper places.
Lat pulled him in and let him blow. "Good going, boy." The horse rolled back a big, still-frightened eye. Greenly, he let himself be guided.
Back at the gate men pushed in around them. Some were shouting, the Rebel cries of Ram and Stevens rising high. Tom was pounding old man Godwin. Carmichael threw his hat up. Moo Cow fired his pistol at the sky. In the front seat of the carriage sat a Negro driver. From behind him the red and white and purple of women's dresses showed.
Lat shook the hands put out. Like the horse that stood winded by his side, he hadn't much run left. He caught hold of a piece of air as Jehu crowded through. "Satisfied?"
Jehu eyed the horse. "Sugar, as a business proposition you have put me belly up." He grasped Lat's hand. "Boy, leave me know when you want a job of breaking broncs."
"Let's celebrate." Tom took Lat by the arm.
"Fittin' thing, I'd say," Ram added from the side. "Oregon, here's Texas makin' a salute."
"I want to walk." Lat pulled in another breath of air.
"Of cou'se then. We'll see the bosses get led down. You and Tom just mosey on."
They had to pass the carriage. It stood close, hitched to a high-strung team. The colored man had on a uniform of sorts-a white, high-collared shirt, an old, too big dress shirt and a hat that rode him high. Lat looked off from the women's smiles. There was a girl there, though, nice of mouth and nostril, with yellow hair like good fall range. His eyes lifted and caught hers and held. She smiled a young and friendly smile, not so open as those of the other two.
Tom, his head turned too, gigged him in the ribs. "We ain't hardly got a start on fun, Lat."
6
DARK HAD DRAWN on fast, and with it a chill that riffled along the skin without getting to the bone. Inside the tent pitched on the fringe of town the candle, burning straight, played blocks of shadow on the sidewalls.
Tom Ping puffed a little with the cold and wished for Texas, where Ram and some were free to go. As long as he was wishing, he wished that Lat would hurry up. "Shake a leg, Albert Gallatin," he said. He'd had enough whiskey, he could tell, to make his tongue slow, but some more wouldn't hurt where they were going.
Lat squatted by the candle, those letters in his hands. "Just a minute."
Tom had to hop to keep his balance while he stuck a leg into his new pants. They were striped and nice but cost real dear in this man's town. "You've read 'em a dozen times already."
"Not quite."
"Everything's all right at home, you said."
"Uh-huh."
"You learnin' 'em by heart then?"
"Yeah."
Half the boys or more had gotten letters -news from home, from girls along the line, from pardners of old times- and had gone aside and read them and, by looks and talk, felt good.
Tom pulled the pants up. They fit fine. They'd catch somebody's eye. "In my whole life I never got a letter."
"Not even one?"
"From my old man or my old lady! Hell! If they're livin', they don't remember that they borned me or give a good goddam. Couldn't read or write, regardless, not as I'm much better."
Lat was looking up. "Friends?"
"A kid don't make no friends, Lat, not with men, and I was only ten when I shook loose from home. Oh, they used to get me drunk and take me to the whorehouse, and they had fun doin' that, but they was older and I was just a little freak, though tryin' man's work all the time."
What had they cared, what did they care now, any of them, Ma or Pap, the men once tickled to see a kid in bars and hook-shops, the grown-up girls who'd giggled and forgotten? It didn't matter any more except, for a fact, he'd been lonesome, wanting someone to tie to. Even later, an honestto-God friend somehow had been hard to come by. They'd josh around and drink with you, the men you rode with would, but goodbyes were goodbyes and left you by yourself again. But to hell with all that now!
"Pard," he said, "please get a hustle on!"
Lat folded the sheets and got up. One hand went to his head and felt his haircut. He didn't stir himself. He acted as if he had to think first.
"They mistake you for a bull calf at brandin' time some time?" Tom smiled as he spoke and clapped Lat on the shoulder.
Lat's smile seemed kind of weak. "Tom, what do we do?"
"Now?"
"Next week! Next month! This winter and all!"
"In time we got to die, but look close, Lat! We tend she-stuff tonight. Tomorrow that Shonkin outfit's pickin' up this tent and other plunder, so we find us a hotel and wait around for work. We got enough to last a while."
"Ever think of wolfing?"
"Nope."
"Moo Cow says with luck there's money in it."
"Lat, I'll ride with you, but now, for God's sake, ride with me!"
Lat started to take off his clothes. What he'd bought for dress was plain wool pants and a plain wool shirt, not striped pants and a collared shirt and a brown plush vest with darker braid and a red silk handkerchief and sash to set them off. O1' Lat didn't appreciate full war paint yet.
There wasn't a good mirror in the tent or, for that matter, light enough to give a real look. Tom ran a comb through his hair. There would be a white swath where the barber's shears had worked. He angled on his hat. " 'Bout ready?"
"Just about." The words came out on a little sigh.
Tom moved over and took Lat by the elbow. "I been onthinkin'. You're kind of played out. That ride must've took some starch out."
"Some."
"A drink'll fix you up."
For himself Tom felt fine, felt smart in his clothes, felt ready. Any girl would take a second look, he guessed. But Lat? Lat in his plain clothes? Good face, still boyish if too sober. Lean body, medium tall. But no prize over all, not in this rigging, not with that borne-down look.
"Pard, you take first choice," Tom said.
Lat followed Tom outside and went on slow, as Tom did, while he waited for his night eyes. It was the stars that came out first, burning bright as fires, and then the high hills heaving for them. To the left a freighter's outfit grew out of the dark, sounding to the munch and stamp of work stock tied about. Down along the river the town sat dark and huddled, with here and there a glimmer that was a lamp inside a bar or shop or home. Or house.
Fort Benton, far from Oregon, away from old, respected ways, divided by the miles and mountains, linked only by frail air and trusting words on paper. About now, over there, Ma and Pa would be reading from the Bible.
"Let's step it up," Tom said.
In the distant darkness a squaw wailed for her dead, and dogs chimed in, joined by coyotes on the hills. They sent a shiver up the
spine, of chill and lonesomeness and dread and hope of things to come. Step by step the town marched toward them, step by step the waiting lamps, one waiting lamp somewhere among them.
"Them girls we saw live this way, Fatty told me." Tom slipped his arm through Lat's. "It's a frame house, name of Miss Fran's." Tom's hand gave an eager squeeze. "Stylish place. Regular parlor house, the man said. Even got a nigger to bring drinks."
They angled around a pole fence and a barn that smelled of cows and crossed an open, weedy lot. A dog all legs and backbone ran from beside a shack and growled, and the Indian woman keened again, and the dog rumped down and raised his nose and howled the bass.
The house sat low. It had a picket fence around it and a light inside, hidden by a curtain that glowed red.
Tom rapped on the door. From inside came the creak of steps. The door opened. The Negro driver stood there, still in his rusty coat. "Yes, suhs, come in, you all."
The Negro was maybe forty-five or maybe fifty. He had a long, sad face. The brass buttons on his coat gleamed as he turned and bowed them in.
In the hall, before an open doorway, Tom said like one at home, "Evenin'. This Miss Fran's?"
A fat, square woman in a purple dress with big bows at the shoulders sat on a sofa doing needlework. She put it aside and got up, easily for her heft, and stepped toward them on feet no bigger than a faun's. She had a bosom like a butt of hay, and too much of it bulged bare above her dress.
"Howdy, honey," she said in a voice as rough as a file. "Rest your hats, you and your friend." She cracked her paint and powder with a smile that didn't touch her eyes. "Fran's my name and fun's my failin'."
They entered. Lat put his hat on a steer-horn rack and then saw Tom had kept his on his head. The light played on the silver plates along its band. The woman turned back toward the sofa. Another butt of hay bulged out behind. Except for it she might have fallen on her face from the overload in front.
"The girls'll be in directly. Set." Before she eased herself back on her seat she sucked in a breath and sent it out in a bellow. "Company, girls!" Her eyes went to the Negro. ''Happy?"
The Negro said, "Yassum," and scuffed to a door at the back and went out.
Lat watched Tom for what he'd do and sat down when he did. There was a big, gilt-bordered mirror on the wall and a couple of pictures, one of a horse and the other of a woman with a haze of light around her head.
Tom kept on his hat. "Nice place you got. Puts a man in mind of them bigger Kansas towns."
The floor was bare except for small rugs, on one of which, with a show of petticoat, Miss Fran had crossed her tiny feet. A piano, ringed by the sweat of glasses, stood against a side wall. At one end a wood fire flickered in a stone fireplace. What other light there was came from a big, pot-bellied lamp covered with red roses.
Miss Fran was saying, "When I can't run a decent house, I won't run no house at all. And if a girl don't know how to play the lady, she don't belong in here." She raised her face from her needlework and bawled again, "Company. Hear?"
The Negro named Happy came back in the door he'd gone out of, balancing in one hand a tray of drinks. He served Miss Fran first, then Tom. He stood by, after Lat had taken his, and it struck Lat late that he was waiting to be paid. Happy took the ten-dollar gold piece to Miss Fran, who reached high under her skirts and brought out a purse and started making change, saying, "We'll take out for the girls, too, long as we're about it. They'll be dry. Happy, fetch some more after you've give the gentleman his money."
Happy said, "Yassum," and brought the change and lagged back out the door, looking as if sin was heavy on his conscience.
There was the sound of laughing then, and a door by the piano opened and two women entered. One had a mouse's dark, quick little air, the other a thin, fair face that her smile turned mostly into teeth.
"You kep' the gentlemen waitin'," Miss Fran said, not as if she really meant to scold. "Gents," she said, motioning, "this here's Jen, and this here's Amy Lou." Jen was the mouse and Amy Lou the set of teeth.
The door they'd come through swung to of itself.
Lat got up before he noticed that Tom didn't. Tom just hitched in his chair. "I'm Tom, and shake hands with my pardner, Lat."
The girls came over with a sway of hips. Their hands clung. They showed too much of bosom, too.
"You're cute," came through the crop of teeth. "Isn't he cute, Jen?"
"And not just on a horse," Jen said. She smiled smaller than the other and spoke softer.
"Doesn't anyone like me?" Tom asked. "Won't so much as shake my paw."
It was Amy Lou who answered. "Why, Sugar Tit!" They both went over, and Amy Lou took off Tom's hat and fiddled with his hair.
Miss Fran went on with her needlework.
The girls' dresses fit tight around the hips and came low to the shoes but in the back as in the front were cut away. Amy Lou had a ribbon around her neck that crossed her kdam's apple. The hair of both was drawn up and curled high in front.
Happy came in with more drinks.
"Don't let the gents get thirsty," Miss Fran told him, not looking from her work. "And see what's wrong with Callie."
"Yassum."
Tom had jackknifed Jen into his lap. "You put me in mind of a baby coon. Cunnin', I mean."
She smiled her held-in smile and sipped her drink and melted against him.
"We'll team all right," Tom said. "But wait!" Of a sudden he drew back and looked at Lat. "Your first pick, Pard. You rather have this baby coon?"
"You keep her."
"If that's the way you want it." Tom's hand went to her knees.
Amy Lou swayed over from them. "Are we leaving you all by your lonesome, Sugar Tit?"
He started to get up, but the side door opened, for the moment halting Amy Lou, and let in the girl remembered, the girl with hair like good fall range, or more like molded butter. She halted, standing young and slim. She smiled as if in hesitation. Between the parted lips her teeth showed white and even. Anywhere but here her mouth might be thought sweet. Somewhere else her eves might be remindful of a clean noon sky.
Miss Fran kept busy with her needle. "That's Lat over there," she said. "Lat, this here's Callie. The other gentleman's named Tom, if Jen will let you see him."
Tom stopped his pawing long enough to let out, "Howdy."
The blue eyes barely touched Tom and came back. "I saw you ride," she said.
He had gotten up, and now he cast back for his chair, his gaze held by hers. "That's good. I mean -it took some starch out of me."
She half turned and went over and sat down by Miss Fran and looked again. While she moved, he saw that Amy Lou had ceased her stand on him and was seated and finishing her drink.
"Let's have a drink," he said. "I feel like drinking."
"Happy's fixin' you up, if he ever gets here." Miss Fran kept her face down -turned on her work while she let loose her bawl. "Happy! Make it all around."
The "Yassum" came muffled from the rear. "And get your thumb out!"
"It was a dandy ride." After Miss Fran's bray the girl's voice sounded soft.
"Thank you."
Happy scuffed in with the tray.
Tom quit his nuzzling to accept a glass. "We'd have kilt him if he didn't stick." His dark face was darker yet with heat and whiskey. He raised his glass and grinned. "Here's to Albert Gallatin Evans! Hadn't been for him, you wouldn't've had the pleasure of knowin' us on account of us bein' broke."
"I'm glad you won," the girl said as a nice girl might have said it, meaning no more and no less than that.
"I got a good horse out of it. That Sugar will turn out a good horse. Won't he, Tom?"
"It's horses that my pard loves," Tom said against Jen's neck.
Happy had sidled over, Tom being too busy to be bothered about money. Lat put another gold piece on the tray. Miss Fran took it all this time.
Amy Lou got up, her mouth closed on her teeth. She walked to the door without a wiggle and went out.
Lat looked at the lamp, the pictures on the wall, the fire that Happy had just fed. He slid over Tom and Jen and caught the blue eyes on him. "You're lucky," Miss Fran told him.
"I guess I was."
"Hmm." Miss Fran bit her thread in two and began needling in another place. "It ain't that. Callie here's my niece and takes advantage of it. Likes to pick and choose. And in this business!"
The girl just smiled. Her teeth, half showing, were white as alkali.
"Then, mister, here you come," Miss Fran went on as if somehow she'd seen and figured everything without glancing from her lap, "and right away, so help me, if you ain't the blue hen's chicken!"
Callie didn't protest. She kept smiling quietly, her blue gaze unembarrassed on his face as if, against Miss Fran, they hand an inner secret, or as if Miss Fran spoke the simple and admitted truth. But she might have heard, she would have heard, these words before, put out as bait for backward men, and had answered to them, teasing, as she answered now.
Miss Fran held out her fancy work and squinted at it and brought it back and plied the needle. "Men's all alike, that's what I tell her. Got the same fixin's. Want the same thing. But no." She paused. "Picky," she told her piece of embroidery.
Jen got off Tom's lap and stood up, and Tom stood up, and both faced the door the girls had used on coming in.
Miss Fran smiled her approval. "Fun's our failin'."
Tom held the door for Jen and patted her behind as she went out. He looked at Lat and winked. "See you." The door closed after them.
Miss Fran took a stitch or two. "Well?" she said to Callie. The girl rose to her feet. The look she gave him was a question, too.
The yellow head shimmered ahead of him, through the door, into a pitch-black hall. He heard her hand upon a latch and then the whine of hinges. A shaft of light cut through the dark. She held the door and made a little gesture, inviting him to go in first.
The room was small. A coal-oil lamp burned low upon a washstand which also held a basin and a pitcher and some towels. There was a bed. The far wall had a curtained window. He heard the door come to.