by Les Weil
Beyond the man who had spoken, beyond a farther scattering of people where a couple of dogs smelled the ground, another bunch, mostly Indians, formed a ring. Through the screen they made came glimpses of the dappled horse. A horse to knock a man's eye out, seen close. An Appaloosie they would call him in Oregon, one of the strain bred for bottom and foot by the Nez Perces.
"Them brands ain't been questioned so far, though it's just as well we bet Jehu's ponies with Injuns," Whitey said under his breath.
Lat nodded. Horses, men and outfits seemed to dance and mix and voices high and low to be one flowing voice. "You did a fine job."
"Not up to my old self."
The secret days and nights of work came back, of hunting, chasing and corralling horses and of throwing them when dusk or dark provided cover. Then Whitey, sobered up and eager, would get busy with his knife. "Can't risk a fire," he'd said, "so irons is out. Knife's nigh as good, but this night work strains my peepers. Lucky for that moon. Remember, just in case, Lat, to cut always with the hair. Won't do to go against it. Leaves blood beadin' out."
The circle of men had drawn closer. Out of their talk a voice rose. "Let's get on with the race, boy! That horse'll putrefy."
Whitey moved back and stroked Sugar and looked him over with an old horseman's eye. He would be wondering if Sugar was conditioned enough. A few days of good oats and good hay, which hadn't filled out all the wrinkles. A few days of exercise with Jehu's ten broncs. That was all. That was everything possible. No time for more. No use to wonder. No use to worry that the false brands would be found false.
Back there in his office, before the branding, Whitey had figured. "Jehu's brand's a Lazy F," he'd said and with his stub of pencil branded a piece of paper F. "Now the way I see it, don't take no horses with prior brands, no matter if they're vented and Jehu's later brand put on. Just Lazy F, that's what we want. You get it? As for changin', look here." He worked again with the pencil. The F became . "That's Double Box, I guess. Too simple, maybe. We could put wings on it and call it Flyin' Double Box, but that's a little hard to swallow." He lengthened the line between the boxes and now had . "Yeah. Yeah. I told you I used to be a artist. Basket, we'll call her, the Basket brand. Can't bring to mind any such before."
Now Whitey stepped back from Sugar. "Looks pretty good, considerin'."
"Whitey," Lat said, keeping his tone low, "I don't know why you let yourself in for this. It's not your funeral. I was crazy to ask you."
"Quit thinkin' blue!" Whitey said, almost too loud. "Hell, Lat, I like a stir. Beats whiskey, even, or why am I playin' camel?"
Lat breathed deep. The air came out in a sigh. The circle was less a circle now than a press, loud-mouthed and curious.
Into it the banker man, Conrad, was edging, one hand on the horn of his mustache. Lat caught the cool flit of his eyes. A man in a plug hat put his palm on Sugar's rump. "A hundred this bag of bones loses, that is, if ever he starts."
Conrad answered, "Not me."
Whitey asked, "Feel like warmin' him up?"
"Yeah."
"Don't worry, now. Remember Tom'll be at the start and Carmichael and me at the finish and Godwin one place or another."
Out in the open to the west, watched by the crowd over there, an Indian was limbering up the Appaloosie. The horse galloped short and frisky, fighting the hold that held him in.
Lat said, "I just wish it was longer."
"Six hundred yards is pretty long in this here country," Whitey answered as if he had not said the same before. "Line to line, we diddled 'em out of maybe more'n that." His head turned. "Here's Tom now."
Tom strode up from the side. The six-shooter hung big on his hip. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing."
"Let's get on with the ball then. Godwin's got the stakeholders under herd, and Carmichael's set, and I'm beggin' time off from work."
Hearing him, the men close around chimed in. "Come on!" "Fork him!"
"You stuck on a sandbar?" "Race or get off the pot!"
Tom pulled Lat close and spoke in his ear. "The rider they're pittin' against you won't weigh eighty pounds with his tepee throwed in." His eyes, showing trouble, asked what about that.
"Can't be helped." Over the brow of the hill that led down to the town a carriage was coming, drawn by two horses, the black top of it climbing the swell of the earth, lifting to view the dark face of Happy up front at the reins.
Lat mounted. "Someone ought to see the track's clear." He wound through the watchers and, in the open, let Sugar lope. Ahead rolled the quiet plain. Ahead lifted the quiet hills. There, where headland and sky touched, a man could watch the slow, white-against-blue drift of a cloud. For late winter, fine weather, it seemed -springtime in Oregon. Almost no wind. Ground bare, it seemed, and turf good. Sugar eager. A fair race coming up, or so it seemed.
Yonder now the course was opening, lined by rigs and people. The red and blue of blankets, the brown and black of white men's clothes, now and then the gleam of metal, of buckles, rings and plated spurs, brown faces, white faces, swinging braids, ribbons, feathers, colored quills, weathered wagons, weathered buggies, the black shine of a carriage, horses sorrel and bay and black and pintoed -all nothing against the giant nothing of the land. Light and dark in polka dots, the Appaloosie was prancing near the start. And Sugar was warmed up.
They moved aside as he came up, their tongues quieting while their eyes worked. Tom stood at the starting line. It was a couple of sticks with a mark scratched between. The Indian rider was cutting didos with his horse, bidding for attention. He had a face like a skull and a bob-tail of a body that wind and sun had sucked dry. He wore leggings and moccasins and a blanket, fallen now to his waist, that he'd likely discard. For a saddle he straddled a cloth surcingled with a ribbon of rawhide.
"Bring 'em up when you're ready." It was Tom, taking charge.
Lat swung to the ground. "Not yet. I'm shucking this saddle."
While he worked at the latigo, a hand poked his shoulder. The Indian rider had reined close and leaned over. "Me bet," he said out of his almost bare bone of a face. He pointed to Sugar. "Him."
The finger changed aim to the Appaloosie. "Him."
"You own him?"
Tom put in, "No, Lat!"
Someone said, "Put up or take low," and someone else added, "Ante or crawl."
"You don't want to risk Sugar!"
"I'm gone if I lose anyhow."
"All or nothin'," another voice called. "Can't let a damn Injun out-gizzard us."
The Indian repeated, "Me bet."
It wasn't the voices. It wasn't gizzards. It was a case of up or down, one way or the other. "It's a bet then," Lat said. The tone wasn't his own. He looked at the faces around him, dark and light faces, faces haired out and smooth, the faces of three squaws on the fringe, the eyes of an Indian remembered from somewhere, all of them pointed with interest. "You heard," he told them. "My horse against his." Like bobbers to a fish bite some of the faces bobbed.
He turned back to the saddle and without looking knew that Tom had pushed close. "Jesus Christ, Lat!"
"It's done. Now stop!"
"Yeah, pard." Tom breathed in a deep breath and let it out in a whisper. "With the Injuns maybe we got a hole card, worst come to worst. That old son-of-a-bitch of a chief what's his name? Rising Moon -he's here playin' hard to see." The whisper stopped for an answer and went on. "We could make it hard for them Piegans. We could make the tribe ante up or some of 'em go through a frolic, our way?"
Those were the eyes remembered, the eyes of Rising Moon, father of Little Runner, who had prayed for his son in a time realer than this one and had seen the prayer answered and gone on his way, friend out of enemy. For an instant Lat jabbed the knife again, and the poison flowed out. For an instant there was their parting again.
"After the race, I mean. Hear me, Lat?"
Lat peeled off the saddle. The ring of watchers cracked to let him through. Rising Moon had his blanket drawn up on
his face and his chin tucked down in it, and it was only his betraying eyes that asked if here was friend or foe. Lat put out his hand. "Rising Moon, how?"
The blanket fell away. The face was even leaner than before, as if from longer hunger. From the starved flats of his cheeks his nose hooked starved but proud. "Heap Medicine!" His mouth spread in a smile that furrowed mouth and eyes. "Me you, all same."
Lat wheeled around and made his way through the ring and climbed aboard Sugar. A voice said, "All right, you two. Ease up there! We want a fair start." Tom was still taking charge.
From the tail of his eye as he brought Sugar up, Lat saw the Appaloosie spinning and mincing, scattering people aside while the rider pretended he couldn't help it.
Ahead stretched the course, here lined with people fanning out for the start, there ragged with a rig and a wagon and nothing and a wagon and watchers on foot inched in too far, and yonder, dizzier than distance accounted for, the finishing clutter with the gleam of a carriage top in it.
The Appaloosie spun close. Sweat lathered his neck. The Indian still wore his blanket. Sugar stood steady enough. Tongues quieted, except for one. "Bring him up. Easy! Not on the run!"
Wind drowned the "Go!", the surge of wind at the hard surge of flesh, and hoofs beat it out on the turf. Quick in the lead, too quick to believe, there went the dappled horse, the rider bent low, a corner of blanket aflutter behind.
Let him run! Let him tire! But try to keep close! These two lengths! Not more! Then fast for the finish! Then drive for the line!
A wagon flashed by, the wave of a hat, a man and a scared team, blankets with heads on, lines and bunches of men. They charged and swept past, now ahead, now behind, pieces of things, winks of movements, parts of men open-mouthed and unheard.
Sugar was steadying. He was leveling out. In the seat of his pants, in the grip of his legs, Lat felt the bunch and thrust of his muscles and the faster and evener stride. Three lengths to the spotted rump, three lengths, still three lengths, no loss but no gain, the lead fixed forever, riveted into the earth. And here came the finish!
Lat bent ahead and said, "Now!", and kicked Sugar, and the blood began to run in him, up from this final and utmost straining of flesh. A foot gained. A yard. And another. The gap closing, stride by brave stride. Here was the tail of the spotted horse, here the end of the rump, just there the rider, and still Sugar rolled the earth under hoof and the other horse with it.
The Indian's head screwed around. His mouth made a quick hole in his face. He turned back, and his arm moved, and the blanket, torn from his waist, flashed out in a blinding flutter.
Falling, Lat grabbed for the mane, the pinch of the knees lost and the hold of the seat as Sugar bolted aside. With the sliding heel of his boot he dug for a catch on the spine. Face up, cheek hard against hide, he willed his hand to hold on and his heel to stay anchored on bone while Sugar steadied and went on. He willed all of himself to hang on, to hang on, through the bounce of his head against muscle and the wild jerkings of sky.
By a hair and a hair his heel gave, and then all gave at once. And so it was no use in the end. He hit the ground and fell and was rolling ...
He was in bed with a headache. He had his head in a lap. Fingers touched soft on the ache, and a soft voice was saying, "Be all right, Lat! You have to be all right."
A rougher voice said, "He better be! Lie still, you Piegan peewee, or I'll grind your face off in this gravel!"
The soft voice went on, "You won! Can't you hear me? You won!"
20
HE HAD a headache and a knot on his temple where Sugar had clipped him by accident, but he had eleven horses, too, and almost a thousand dollars in cash, not counting what Callie had loaned him, and he'd settle with her, for everything, and settle with Whitey and still have enough left for some kind of a start as a rancher.
What Tom said went in and out of his ears as they lazed down to the town, himself leading Sugar to walk the heat out and Tom with the Appaloosie in tow. Godwin and Carmichael and Whitey would haze in the other horses he'd won, to the stable corral where all but maybe a couple would go up for sale. Most of the crowd had faded away, toward home or saloon or office or store, the tag-enders spread out but in sight ahead, led by the black carriage that was rocking from view round a corner. Here there were just Tom and himself and his luck.
"That Carmichael sure surprised me." Tom couldn't keep from talking. "Easygoin', but, quick as scat, he snatched that little Injun off his horse and rubbed him in the dirt. Don't know what he'd done if you'd lost or been hurt bad." Tom grinned as he added, "It couldn't be that he likes you, Lat."
"Without you and the others I couldn't have done it."
"Aw, we didn't do nothin' much. But I wish I could have been in at the finish. How you hung on, nobody knows."
"Luck."
"Huh-uh. I was talkin' to a man that seen it all, and he said it was gumption glued you on. Hey, that reminds me. He said maybe you'd like to talk to him. Conrad, his name was, with a dust-catcher on his lip."
"He did!"
"What would it be about, do you reckon?"
"I don't know." About money, now it was too late? About a job better than cutting wood or skinning a team? About bidding for Sugar so he could race him himself?
"That Callie, Lat! She came bustin' out of that rig like a shot."
"What else did Conrad say?"
"You know, Lat, we're lucky." Tom's tone had turned thoughtful. "Y'ever stop to think? We ain't no special prizes in the grab bag, but still there's Jen and Callie?"
"What about Conrad?"
"Oh. That was all. Just said maybe you'd want to see him. Just asked me to tell you." Tom's voice trailed off.
In silence they reached and entered the town. At the bank Lat held up and put Sugar's reins in Tom's hand. "Hold him," he asked.
"What for?"
"For me to see Conrad."
"For God's sake! Mean to say he's a banker?"
"Supposed to be, anyhow." Lat turned and went in. A man with money in his pocket didn't think of a bank as a jail, of the pencil pusher there as condemned. He could say how do you do, or the weather was fine and ask what was in mind and go out of the place, yes or no, as big as before.
Conrad's voice came from the side of the place. "Come in, Evans." He got up and stood waiting, a smile spreading the horns of his dust-catcher. He put out his hand, saying, "Sit down," and, when they had shaken, reached to his coat and pulled a cigar from a raft of them that nosed up from his pocket. "Smoke?"
"No thanks."
"Don't smoke, huh? Good. Never touch them myself." He put the cigar back in his pocket as he took his seat. "Needless extravagance." His eyes studied Lat. Under its horns his mouth let out, "I keep them for clients."
"I'm not a client. You turned me down."
"So I did. So I did." Conrad looked away. "I saw you today. I know the whole story."
"All of it?"
"Enough to have formed certain suspicions. Two of those horses you wagered I happened to recognize. Call it a coincidence. Bankers do get around."
"Jehu wouldn't pay what he owed me."
"So? You're not alone."
"And I turned his horses loose, so where's the crime?" Conrad's hand waved as if to throw something away.
"Crime? I might mention your nerve, but I wouldn't say crime."
Lat kept silent.
"But, above all, it was the way you stuck to that horse. I like stickers, Evans. Wish we had more of them in our organization."
"I don't want a job, Mr. Conrad, not after today. I know I'll have to start on a shoestring, but I'm not after a job." Conrad's hands came to his desk. His eyes were direct.
"Did I say you were?" His fingers tapped on the wood. "How much did you win?"
"Eleven cayuses, counting the race horse, and about a thousand dollars in cash."
"What are your plans?"
"Ranching."
"Cattle or sheep?"
"Cattle."
"They call sheep the golden hoof."
"I like cattle."
Conrad nodded slowly as if he allowed a choice. "Texas stuff?"
"No, sir. Take away the horn and bone, and what have you got? Give me Durham strain."
The head bobbed in stronger agreement. "You have a range in mind -or do you yet?"
"Somewhere along the Tansy, close to the mountains."
"Tansy?" Conrad said as if trying the word on his tongue and not finding it quite to his taste. "There are outfits already there. That section's older, you know, than some others. What's more, it presses the reservation. Hungry Indians don't honor brands. Have you thought about that?" He went on with hardly a pause. "The big men of the territory are locating east, for instance along the Flat Willow and Musselshell. There's new range that direction, now that the buffalo are being cleared away, and it's practically empty and at the same time big enough for all the cattle in Texas." His eyes lifted, asking how this advice sounded. "I'm talking about people like Kohrs and Hauser and Stuart and Davis. You know them?"
"I've heard of them." Who hadn't?
"They know what they're doing."
"Maybe so."
Conrad leaned forward. "Say it, Evans! You don't have to stand back. What about the Tansy?"
"It's pretty high, and high grass is fat grass, everyone knows."
"Thinner, though."
"Some places. Some seasons."
"And that's all, just that grass at higher elevations is fatter?"
"No, sir. It's the chinook. As an old man said to me, the closer the bone the sweeter the meat, only he didn't mean it in the way you might think."
One horn of the mustache crooked up, as if Conrad was thinking what you would think. "I don't get the connection."
"The chinook's warmer close to the mountains. It blows more. It's sweeter."
"Uh-huh." Conrad was tapping with one finger like a man tapping to thought. While he tapped, looking up at the ceiling, footsteps sounded behind Lat, and a voice said, "W. G.?"
The visitor had on a smart overcoat and a hat straight and business -like and a high, white collar with a gap at the neck filled by a black bow. "Could I see you?"