Powder River

by S. K. Salzer

  He ran his hand through his hair, searching for a lump or some evidence of a blow to the head, perhaps from a falling branch. He found nothing to account for the weird memories—if that’s what they were—or his confusion. Sniffing the air, he detected no trace of the strange scent he remembered. The air was sweet and fresh. It must’ve been something I ate. Maybe the jerky.

  Anxious to be away, Dixon returned to his tent and started rolling his blankets. Only then did he notice the dried blood on his left hand. He stopped rolling and rocked back on his heels. There was a deep, fresh cut on the fleshy part of his thumb.

  Odalie

  Billy Sun had no trouble finding work in Johnson County, thanks to a stroke of good fortune that came his way one warm spring afternoon, several weeks after his arrival. It was late afternoon and he was returning from town, on an errand for Mrs. MacGill. He was riding the high road above a wide green valley when he saw a buggy leaving a large, frame house on the bend of a pretty stream. The house, he knew, belonged to Moreton Dudley, the wealthy, British-born owner of the EK outfit. Billy watched the driver climb down to raise the crossbar blocking the lane. He led the team, two well-matched harness horses with glossy black coats and high, straight shoulders, through the gate and turned to replace the bar. As he did, the horses started forward at a walk. Disaster could have been averted had the passenger, a woman in a cream-colored dress and wide-brimmed hat, taken up the reins, but she made no attempt to do so. Billy heard the man shout for the pair to stop, but instead they quickened to a trot. The driver started running after the two-wheeled buggy, still yelling at the horses, who only went faster. When the woman screamed, they broke into a full-out run, with the buggy careening along behind.

  Billy kicked Sugarfoot into a gallop, abandoning the road and heading straight down the steep, rocky hill toward the runaway buggy. The matched pair was fast, but Sugarfoot was faster, and he had nothing to pull. Billy gained ground quickly, but now the buggy was out of control, swinging from one side of the road to the other. Billy feared it would overturn and crush its occupant before he could reach her. The woman clung for dear life, losing her seat as the buggy bounced violently and tipped onto one wheel. Billy saw her cower on the floor, clutching the upholstered seat cushion, though her face brightened when she caught sight of him, riding hard to overtake the panicked team. Sugarfoot surged forward in response to Billy’s urging, finally drawing even with the team. He leaned over and grabbed hold of the right horse’s noseband, using all his strength to turn the animal’s head as Sugarfoot planted his feet and dug in as he would when holding a steer. Luckily, the harness horses were exhausted and out of fight. They dragged Sugarfoot a short distance but then stopped, lathered and breathing hard, and lowered their heads.

  Billy jumped out of the saddle and ran to the buggy to help the woman down. She was shaking and tearful.

  “Oh, thank you,” she said, holding him by the arm. “Thank you. I truly thought I was about to die, and well I might have if not for you. You saved my life and I am entirely, infinitely grateful. What is your name?”

  She was tall and very pretty with a lovely shape, which her fitted dress made no attempt to disguise. She spoke in the Southern way that Billy recognized, because of Dr. Dixon’s Kentucky heritage and because most of the range riders who worked the cattle came from Texas. Still, this woman’s voice was different, lilting and musical and, to his ears, altogether charming, as was the woman herself. Her fair hair had pulled free of the silvery net that bound it at the nape of her neck, and shining locks hung in disarray about her face. But most striking of all her eyes, which were large and blue and somehow like Rose’s, though he could not say how they were the same.

  She was looking at him with a question in her eyes, and he realized she was waiting for an answer.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, feeling his face go hot. “Would you say again?”

  She smiled, apparently accustomed to her effect on men. “I said, what is your name?”

  “Billy Sun.”

  “Billy Sun. Thank you for saving my life, Billy Sun.” Her tears had dried, but she was sniffling. He offered his handkerchief and said, “It’s clean.”

  “Thank you.” She accepted the red bandanna and wiped her nose. “I’ll launder this and return it to you, Mr. Sun. Where—”

  At this point her male companion reached them, red faced and panting. He took her gloved hands without a glance at Billy. “My God, Lady Faucett, are you all right? I am sorry, I am prostrate—I cannot think what made the horses take off like that! They’ve never done it before.” The man spoke with a British accent, a thing Billy had never heard before moving to Wyoming Territory.

  “It’s all right, Fred. I’m fine,” she said, “thanks to Mr. Sun here.” She touched him lightly on the arm. “I was asking him where he lives. I’m sure Richard would like to recognize Mr. Sun’s heroics in some manner.”

  For the first time, the man, Fred, turned his eyes on Billy. “Would that be Billy Sun?”

  Billy nodded.

  “Yes, I’ve heard of you. They say you’re very skilled at breaking horses.”

  Billy said, “If you understand an animal there is no need to break his spirit. There are other ways to let him know what you want.”

  “Is that so?” Fred said. “Well, I suppose that’s the Indian way of looking at it.”

  Odalie Faucett clasped her gloved hands. “Why, what perfect timing! Richard has just acquired a string of wild horses, and his man, Ringo, is having no luck. Richard could use someone with your talents, Mr. Sun. Are you available to come work for us?”

  Billy could not believe his luck. Since coming to Wyoming he’d been living with the Dixon family, helping all he could, but the doctor had little work for him. “Yes, Lady Faucett,” he said, addressing her as Fred had done. “I am available. Very much available.”

  “Oh good. That’s settled then.” She laughed and Billy thought of a mountain stream rippling over smooth pebbles.

  Fred cleared his throat and turned to her, giving Billy his back. “Odalie—that is, Lady Faucett—perhaps you had better check with your husband before making such an offer.” He lowered his voice but Billy heard him clearly. “Consider, too, Ringo might not like it.”

  “Rubbish! Richard respects my opinion in all matters, and as for Albertus Ringo,” she waved her hand dismissively, “who cares what he likes? Come by the house tomorrow, won’t you, Mr. Sun? Do you know where it is?”

  “South of town,” Billy said, “near the confluence of the three forks. The place they call The Manor.”

  She smiled, showing dimples in both cheeks and small white teeth. “Yes, that’s us. We’ll look for you around five o’clock then, if that suits?”

  Billy nodded. “It suits.”

  “Well, then, that’s that.” She offered her arm to Fred, who helped her back into the buggy. Billy walked to the right-side horse and held his headstall as Fred took the reins and climbed in after her. “Thank you, Sun,” he said curtly, “but I’ve got things under control here. Your assistance is no longer necessary. Good day to you.”

  He slapped the reins against the horses’ backs, and the buggy started with a jolt. Odalie turned and waved. “Good-bye, Billy Sun. Until tomorrow!”

  Billy waved back, though he thought this white-person custom silly and had never done it before. He swung into the saddle and watched the buggy grow small in the red dusk.

  “What do you think?” he said, leaning forward to stroke Sugarfoot’s neck. “Do you like her? Yes, so do I.”

  Billy Sun

  Billy arrived at The Manor the next day at exactly five o’clock wearing a clean white shirt and store-bought pants so stiff they rubbed raw places on his knees and between his thighs. The fabric of one leg brushed against the other as he walked, sounding like a wooden block going up and down a washboard. Two cowboys cleaning their tack in front of the bunkhouse stopped to watch—and listen—as Billy looped Sugarfoot’s reins loosely around the rail and a
pproached the big house. They grinned at each other as he climbed the porch steps, his boots loud on the green-painted floorboards, and lifted the knocker, a shining brass ring through the mouth of a lion. A full minute passed before an Indian woman in a calico dress and apron opened the double doors of heavy, imported oak.

  She did not greet him but looked him over from head to toe. Billy smiled, surprised to see a fellow Indian in this fine place, but the woman did not smile back. He removed his hat and raised a hand to smooth his pomaded hair, neatly parted just left of center.

  “Billy Sun to see Mr. and Mrs. Faucett,” he said.

  The corners of the Indian’s woman mouth turned down. “Lord and Lady Faucett expect you?”

  “They do. I was invited by Mrs.—by Lady Faucett.”

  “You wait.” She closed the door in his face.

  Billy stood for another four minutes, hat in hand, eye to eye with the brass lion and starting to hate the thing. Once he turned to look at the two grinning cowboys, suspecting their good humor was at his expense. Billy shifted his weight from foot to foot, turning his hat, wondering if he had been forgotten. He was about to knock again when the door opened and, instead of the Indian woman, or Lady Faucett, he found himself looking at Fred Jolly, the buggy driver from the previous afternoon. The Englishman appeared as disappointed to see Billy as Billy was to see him.

  “Follow me to the bunkhouse,” Fred said, brushing by him and descending the steps. “I’ll show you your quarters. You’re a fortunate fellow, Sun. I was done with roundup hiring, I had no intention of adding another man.”

  Billy turned back to the house. “That’s it? I’m hired? I thought I was supposed to meet with Lady Faucett and her husband.”

  Jolly shook his head. “She spoke to his Lordship for you, that’s all you need to know. Your business is with me now, Sun. Lord Faucett has instructed me to offer you a position. In addition to the horse work, he insisted on giving you a place in the spring roundup. Your wages will be the same as the others’—that amount, plus seven dollars for each horse you break—or whatever you Indians call it.”

  Any disappointment Billy felt evaporated. Seven bones a head? He couldn’t believe his ears. The going rate was five and often less.

  As they neared the squat, unpainted frame bunkhouse, the two cowboys stopped oiling their tack. Jolly greeted them with a brisk nod of his head. “Nate, Jack, this is a new man, Billy Sun. I am your foreman, Jack Reshaw is your wagon boss.” A stocky young man in his mid-twenties stepped forward and offered his hand. He had clear, blue-gray eyes, a steely grip, and a friendly smile.

  “Good to have you, Billy,” Jack said. “I hear good things.”

  “And this,” Jolly indicated the second man, “is Nate Coday. He’ll show you where to put your gear. Good luck to you, Sun.” Before leaving the yard, Jolly stopped and turned back. “Work hard and stay out of trouble.” His eyes cut to Coday. “Don’t make Lady Faucett sorry she spoke for you.”

  Coday made an obscene gesture to Jolly’s back, then offered Billy his hand. Coday was taller than Reshaw and a bit younger, but with an equally strong handshake. “Lady Odalie herself spoke up for you?” he said with a low whistle. “How the hell does a red Injun like you manage a thing like that?”

  Billy pulled free his hand.

  “Leave him be, Nate,” Reshaw said. “Sun has special talents, or so I hear. I suspect he’ll earn his pay. Come on inside, Billy. I’ll show you where to put your gear.” Reshaw looked over Billy’s shoulder. “Where is it?”

  Billy gestured toward Sugarfoot, standing patiently at the rail. All his professional belongings—spurs, quirt, lariat, and the short bits of grass ropes he used for hobbling—were in his bedroll and saddlebags.

  “That’s it?” Reshaw raised his eyebrows.

  “Most of it. I got clothes back at the Dixon place but nothing that won’t fit in a suitcase.”

  Reshaw said, “Before you go for those, come on down to the corral. Me and Nate cut a horse out for you. We want to see what you got before the boys get back.”

  “You want me to finish a horse right now?” He looked down at his stiff new pants.

  “Why not?” Reshaw said. “We got a gelding yonder.” He nodded his head toward the round, pole corral where a single horse nosed one of his companions in the neighboring enclosure. He was big for a wild horse, at least fifteen hands, the product of interbreeding between Spanish mustangs and stray U.S. Cavalry animals, with thick, muscular shoulders and hindquarters. He was a bay, with a white star and coronets on three legs. He looked like he had plenty of fight.

  Billy shrugged. “I’ll need a blanket and a working saddle.”

  “We got those.”

  Billy cursed himself as he retrieved his gear from his saddlebags. He should have expected this. Now he’d have to finish a horse in pants that felt like they were made of iron. This would interfere with his use of his legs, his ability to feel the animal beneath him.

  The bay eyed him warily as he entered the corral, then started trotting around its circumference, breaking into a run as Billy took the coil of rope from his shoulder. Reshaw and Coday perched on a rail, watching Billy rope the gelding around the neck on the first throw and snub him to a post in the middle of the corral. The bay’s eyes showed some white, and Billy talked to him in a low voice, hoping he wouldn’t have to throw him to get a bridle on. If he could get close, Billy would try to introduce himself by breathing in the horse’s nose, getting him familiar with his scent, but Billy doubted the bay was going to cooperate.

  But he surprised him. Though he pulled back and braced his feet as Billy came near, the wild horse was unprepared for the strangling effect of a snubbing lariat and didn’t fight the bridle. For the same reason, Billy was able to cross-hobble him with the soft grass ropes. If he’d had more time, Billy would have tied an old pair of pants around the horse’s belly, giving him a chance to get used to the sensation before he threw on a saddle, but that wouldn’t happen today. The bay’s eyes rolled when Billy came at him with the blanket and saddle, but he remained straight-legged and stiff when Billy threw them on and tightened the cinch. It wasn’t until Billy freed him from the snubbing post that the bay showed what he was holding. Despite the hobbles, he fought like a tiger, hopping around the corral and dragging Billy like he was one of Lorna’s rag dolls. Billy was vaguely aware of hoots and hollers coming from the pole bench where Reshaw and Coday had been joined by a third man, but he didn’t take his eyes off the horse for an instant. The furious bay pulled Billy around for the better part of an hour when he suddenly stopped and hung his head, seemingly spent.

  Billy approached him cautiously, sensing the animal still had some left. “What’s this?” Billy smiled, his teeth white in his dirty face. “You think you can trick me?” The horse watched him with an eye that was wary but still bright. Billy reached out and grabbed the bronc’s ear, giving it a hard twist. This distracted him long enough for Billy to swing aboard.

  This was Billy’s favorite part of horse work; it was an art form, as much as quillwork or beading or a white man’s picture-making with paint and brush. One of the secrets to keeping your seat came in knowing how much rein to give; too little and you go over the head, too much and you come off the other end. Billy liked to start off with the reins two fists’ distance from the front of the saddle.

  He’d learned to keep his feet high, so the stirrups were at or above the horse’s shoulders, so when the bronc came down on his front legs, with his rear legs up high in the air, Billy was almost standing. He used his spurs and his quirt when he had to, because it was necessary to teach the animal that bucking and spinning would bring pain, but Billy took no joy in hurting a horse and seldom drew blood. Keep your seat in the saddle, your hips moving in time with the animal between your legs, and let him know you’re not fooling and you’re not going anywhere. In a way, Billy thought, gentling a horse was sort of like being with a woman. Certainly, there was beauty in both, beauty and feeling. It w
as a thing a person was born to. You could teach a boy to ride, but you could not teach him how to find the beauty and joy in it. You either felt it or you didn’t.

  Finally the bay had truly had enough. He came to a shuddering stop and hung his head, breathing hard. Billy always felt a breath of sadness when this moment came. The horse was defeated and he knew it. His days of roaming the rangeland, running free and unencumbered with the wind at his back, were over. Billy leaned forward and stroked the bay’s sweating neck.

  Other cowboys had returned while Billy was fighting the horse, and by the time it was over a crowd had gathered around the corral. One man took the bay’s reins and led him to the enclosure that held the remuda. Coday and Reshaw came to Billy in the center of the ring.

  “Welcome, Billy Sun,” Coday said, slapping Billy’s shoulder. “I picked that bay ’cause he looked the meanest, and you broke him in no time. Hell, you made it look easy.”

  “It’s never easy.” Billy wiped his cracked lips with the back of his hand. His mouth tasted of dirt, and his new clothes were filthy.

  “That was good work.” This was the third man, the one who’d first joined Nate and Jack on the rail. “How’d you learn to ride like that?”

  “I just did.” Billy disliked the question, one he heard often. Usually the person asking it seemed to think horsemanship was a talent that came with Indian blood.

  The fellow smiled and offered his hand. “Tom Waggoner,” he said with a thick German accent. He appeared to be about thirty, older than Nate and Jack, with long, greasy hair hanging below his hat and a dark complexion. Billy didn’t like the look of him. His eyes were flat and lifeless, like black buttons, and his hands were sweaty. Billy resisted the impulse to wipe his palm on his pants leg after they shook.

  “You take contract work, Billy Sun? I got me some mustangs need breaking. I’ll pay five dollars a head.” Behind Waggoner, Jack Reshaw was shaking his head.