by Lauran Paine
WYOMING
TRAILS
A Western Story
LAURAN PAINE
Copyright © 2014 by Lauran Paine
E-book published in 2018 by Blackstone Publishing
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Trade e-book ISBN 978-1-4708-6149-0
Library e-book ISBN 978-1-4708-6148-3
Fiction / Westerns
CIP data for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Blackstone Publishing
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Ashland, OR 97520
www.BlackstonePublishing.com
Chapter One
When the coach slowed, the cold became more intense, more congealing. The soldier in his greatcoat moved a little, pulled off a mitten, fumbled at the side curtain catch, worked it free, and peered out. His nostrils pinched down against the night air; his eyes watered. Beyond were a few flickering lights, orange-yellow, some buildings, maybe thirty in all, unpainted, slatternly looking. He let the curtain fall back.
Faint in the gloom across the coach, the big girl was looking at him. He could make out the mouth and nose but her eyes were hidden in shadow. It didn’t matter; he’d seen her eyes before, when she’d first got on. They were liquid dark eyes, soft as new silk and far apart, serene eyes, and impressionable, as was her large, full mouth. He leaned back.
“All these towns look alike,” he said. “Frozen stiff.”
“It is cold,” she said with emphasis.
He nodded stolidly for a second, then stood up and began shaking off the big coat. His body nearly filled the coach. He had to bend far over and a knife blade of lantern light from outside shone briefly upon his face. An odd face, rugged and courageous enough but with an illusive childishness about it, a smoothness of texture, a fullness.
“Here,” he said.
“Oh, no …”
“Sure. I’m not cold. I mean my body isn’t. Not inside this uniform. These things are made from real good wool. Your body doesn’t get cold in them. Just my face gets cold.”
She took the coat because he was thrusting it at her. She held it a moment, looking at him, then quite abruptly she moved to his side of the coach, sat down, and spread the garment over both their legs. Tucking it in on her side, she leaned back.
He caught some fragrance from her, heard the brake squeal, the chain harness drag, and when the coach crunched down to a walk, he was braced. When it stopped, lurched, he was ready. Beyond the side curtains men called in the sharp winter air.
“Do you get out here?” he asked.
“No, I’m going on up to Tico.”
He twisted to look up at her close. “Do you live in Tico? I’m going there, too.”
“Are you? No, I don’t live there. My uncle used to live there. He died and I’m going up to sell his cabin, crate up what he had, and send it back home … And his body.”
“Where to?”
“Nebraska. My family lives in Nebraska.”
“Oh,” he said, settling back again, listening to the sounds of fresh horses being hitched up.
The door opened and two men squeezed in, bent far over to keep from striking their heads. Both peered uncertainly at the other two passengers. Both were bearded; both smelled of liquor. When the coach was in motion again, the newcomers rocked side-by-side across the tiny aisle. From time to time they took long swallows from a bottle until finally they both tilted their hats forward and settled back. They were warmly dressed and had a small buffalo robe that they tucked around their legs. The soldier looked unblinkingly at the bottle wedged between them.
“That must be good cloth,” the girl said, looking at his sleeve.
He raised it. “Plenty times you’re glad it’s heavy this time of the year,” he said, dropping the arm.
“I imagine.” She studied his profile for a moment. “It was terrible, wasn’t it?”
He looked around. Their faces were close enough for the steam of their breath to mingle. He looked away. “Terrible? Some of it was,” he said simply, “and some of it wasn’t.” The brown, shiny neck of the whiskey bottle drew his attention back.
“Were you wounded?”
“At Antietam.” The whiskey would be swishing. He wondered how much the bearded men had drunk.
“Oh,” she said with tenderness in the sound.
He liked it. It reminded him of the old woman who had cared for him at the farmhouse while he’d waited for an ambulance wagon. Old and ugly, skinny-breasted and bent, she’d had the softest touch he’d ever known. It had disturbed him and he’d felt ashamed. It had quickened an old yearning, an empty pathos.
“Was it bad?”
“The wound?” He shook his head without taking his eyes off the whiskey bottle. “Not bad. More scared than hurt.”
“It’s so unfair. You’re so young …”
She let it dwindle away unfinished, and for a while they rode in silence. The coach rocked, their shoulders rubbed, arms touched.
“My name’s Sarahlee,” she said. “Sarahlee Gordon.”
“I’m Ryan Shanley. They call me Shan.”
“You look so young …” The rest of it was lost when one of the bearded men began to snore.
He turned to gaze at her. “I’m twenty-eight,” he said, and made a smile, slow and infectious, that made him appear years younger. “You look kind of young yourself.”
“Three years younger,” she said, “but you don’t look twenty-eight.”
His smile died slowly. He gazed steadily at her, at the straight nose, the wide, dark eyes, the chestnut hair that showed below her hat around the temples, and at her heavy lips, at the ripe swelling of them, cold and scarlet. She got red and spoke quickly.
“You don’t look more than twenty. When I first got on, I thought I was older than you were.”
He shook his head without speaking. He was thinking of her mouth and the old woman’s touch, confusing one with the other and feeling ashamed again but thrilled, too. She wasn’t looking at him now.
“Does your family live in Tico?” she asked.
He moved, reached down, and tucked the greatcoat under his legs. “I don’t have any family. I got a piece of land up there. Bought one piece and got another one adjoining through the Soldier’s Bounty Act.” He looked up. “I’ve never been in Tico in my life. In fact, I’ve never been in Wyoming before … and if it’s always this cold, I’ll take the dawn coach back, too.”
She grinned. “It’s cold anywhere in winter. Wyoming’s the most heavenly place on earth in the summertime.”
He leaned back and their shoulders met and rubbed. “Do you know Wyoming pretty well?”
“I used to spend a month or two each summer with my uncle at Tico. I know that country pretty well.” She rolled her head sideways. “What made you take up land there if you’ve never seen the country?”
He regarded his mittens. “There were some soldiers in the hospital from up there,” he said. “They kept telling me about it. I figured one place was as good as another and maybe Wyoming … being so far away … might be the place to put down roots.”
“There are opportunities,” she said. “I suppose it would appeal to men, but there are still Indians there.”
“Indians … Who cares about Indians?” He was rubbing his hands together.
She looked at his face for a moment, then lowered her eyes and watched the way he rubbed his hands together. The night was stiff with cold. Outside, iron
tires crunched over frozen earth. It finally got cold enough to seep through the side curtains and chill his flesh. He looked over where the two men now slept, fastened his glance upon the bottle between them. Finally he bent far forward, got the bottle, took three big gulps, drove the cork down with the palm of one enormous hand, and put the bottle back. Sarahlee was expressionless.
The whiskey kindled new fire in his stomach and out into his bloodstream to fingers and toes. Even his ears felt warm and red. He sighed and leaned back.
“Two square miles of land,” he said. “Two whole square miles of it. Know what I’m going to do? Put a cabin right in the middle of it.” He rolled his head to look at her. His breath was spicy. “Hibernate. Not talk to anyone, not see anyone, not hear anyone.”
She smiled with her mouth. “You’ll get tired of being a hermit.”
“Not the way I feel right now I won’t.”
“I understand.”
He kept on looking until she averted her face, then he closed his eyes. He didn’t open them until dawn, and she was talking to him, rubbing his hands. His head lay against her shoulder. It was soft and fragrant there.
“We’re in Tico,” she said, and rubbed his hands more vigorously. “You’d better wake up.”
When she moved her shoulder away, he blinked and straightened up, rubbed his face, and smiled at her. “Thanks. I expect I’d have slept for a month.” He found his hat in his lap, put it on, felt stiff and cramped, sat back to relax for another moment or two, and watched her. Their thighs still touched under the greatcoat; it was a delicious sensation, made him think again of the old woman, her gentle hands, how he’d wanted to embrace her some way, not necessarily that way—sort of hold onto, sort of crawl into and never leave—that kind of a feeling.
She tucked her hair under the tiny hat with both hands. It thrust her bosom out sharply in the cold, pale light. She was a big girl. “If you don’t know anyone here,” she was saying with her face averted, “I’ll be at my uncle’s place … anyone can tell you where the Gordon cabin is. Come see me. Maybe I can help you get acquainted.”
When she left him on the plank walk with steam all around them from their breath, from the horses, and on the store windows, he felt like someone had emptied the world of companionship. He watched her walk away, leaving that void behind. He stood there until the horses were led away, the baggage unloaded, the little clutch of men hastening toward the stage office and the stove. It was like his first day in the army. Surrounded by people, noise and activity, and more alone than ever.
Beyond the town was emptiness. Far out under a low gray sky were gaunt mountains with dirty snow upon them. The heavens were lead-belly gray and the ground looked like it was contorted with pain, glistening with frost that could have been sweat on a forehead, upon an upper lip, its face rigid, ashen-looking.
He saw a saloon. People moved thinly around him. The bite of winter was numbing. Human breath hung, quivering in the cold. He went into the saloon, found it warm and rank-smelling. The men loafing there were rough-looking and hard-talking. Their behavior, like their attire, was rude, and he found their Wyoming whiskey like swallowing rasps. He drank it and choked, coughed. He set his bag down and blew his nose. Some of the water was drawn away from his eyes. Down the bar several feet a huge, shaggy-headed man gazed at him steadily. He ignored the man and ordered another drink, downed it, and that time controlled the choking but it cost an effort.
The bearded man snickered, then laughed with his head back. “Well,” he said in iron merriment, “an Abe Lincoln boy who ain’t got guts for Green River Lightnin’.”
Out of the corner of his eyes Ryan Shanley saw a few saturnine smiles. The whiskey flowed moltenly in his blood. “Been busy lately,” he said carelessly to the big, bearded man, “fixing it so’s stay-at-homes could have the time to learn about drinking this stuff.”
There was no particular animosity in the words but a fingernail of sharp steel picked at civilian consciences. The smiles died away. The bearded man’s face grew blank and unpleasant, his stare brittle and appraising. Without relinquishing the hold he had on a whiskey glass, he said, “Didn’t you get enough fightin’ in your war, bluebelly?”
Shanley pushed his glass away. The heat and fumes were making him perspire. He felt as limp and oily-muscled as all outdoors, as big and invincible. He wore a mirthless little smile.
“I still got a little in me, whiskers,” he said, “if you want to dig around to find it.”
The bearded man nodded slightly, gently. “Any day,” he said.
Ryan Shanley moved easily, threw a big looping blow the bearded man lacked the wits to dodge. He went over flat on his back, rolled over, got up as far as his knees, and looked like a gut-shot bear down on all fours.
Chairs rattled back, men crowded up making noise, their breath preceding them. The stench of whiskey, horses, sweat, and damp clothing hung in the warm atmosphere. When the bearded man was back on his feet and unsteady, a stocky bartender worked through the press of bodies. His face was expressionless and he held a whittled wagon spoke in one hairy fist, but before he could get close enough, the bearded man had fumbled under his rider’s coat and come up with a pistol. Ryan Shanley struck him again, as he was cocking the weapon, and that time he stayed down.
The fire dwindled in Shanley’s brain. He stood there, looking downward, watching the bearded man scrabbling at the floorboards with crooked fingers, and knew he had been drunk. It made him feel a little ashamed. The barman pushed him roughly away. He listened with his head down to what the barman was saying.
“Want to fight, go outside. Y’had your drink, soldier, better move along now.”
He went back out into the bitter cold, found the hotel, got a room, and bedded down. When he awoke, there was a dazzling sun in his face and his right hand ached. Two knuckles were skinned. He washed and went back outside. The morning air was cold but crystal clear, the sun dazzling, eyes watering, he could see as far as the curve of the world. While the sun gave off no warmth, it felt good nevertheless. He rented a horse at the livery barn, saying he might return within a few hours and he might not return for several days, asked the liveryman where his land lay, got the directions, and rode north out of Tico.
There was a deceptiveness to the land. It looked like it slanted upward but actually it was flat. “Go north,” the liveryman had said, “till you come to a tree with brands burned into the trunk … west from there to a two-story house, the Muller place. Beyond that you’ll be on this land you’re talking about.”
The ground was frozen; his horse’s hoofs made a sharp, loud sound magnified by the stillness. As he rode, his mind leaped from one thought to another, and when he got to the tree, there was a roll of land where he got down, flexed his arms and legs, and looked back the way he had come. Tico showed as a tiny blotch in the milky flow of country. Out a ways was a crooked, broad river. Farther still were forests, purple, forbiddingly dark. He groped for the bulky bag of shag, the thick packet of papers, rolled a cigarette like he’d learned to do from the Reb prisoners, smoked a moment with the congealing cold on his face, and squinted into the brilliant sun smash. Before going on again he drew a small bottle of whiskey from a coat pocket, uncorked it, drank deeply, and replaced it in the pocket. Warmth returned.
Maybe he’d done right. His eyes moved over the immensity of country. Maybe Wyoming wasn’t such a bad place in spite of the cold. It was big, bigger than anything he could remember seeing or imagining. Bigger than the North and South rolled into one. Quiet, too. Quiet and still and new. He turned north and led the horse along behind him.
Chapter Two
When he saw the two-story house there was a dark spiral of smoke rising straight up from its solitary narrow chimney. He looked at the house and smiled, opened his mouth and laughed without making a sound. It was square, tall, ludicrously city-like in its frozen setting of emptiness. There wasn’t anot
her house as far as anyone could see. Nothing, just barren land, just Wyoming sprawling north and east and west, rising a little here, flat as the palm of his hand there, tilted on end elsewhere. Open, timbered like a ten-year growth of whiskers, or brushy as could be. Slanted, flat, rolling, precipitous—Wyoming land, land, land. It made him feel tiny. He stopped walking when a herd of buffalo, far out, caught his attention with movement. He shook his head at their smallness—specks crawling over a huge prostrate body, naked and white with dead frost.
In all this void stood that two-story house. He got back into the saddle and rode toward it with his grin. A dog let off one startled yelp and fled toward the log barn. There were banks of white snow around the shaded corners of the house, a dirty, trodden path from house to barn. The stillness was crushing. He dismounted heavily and waited, stood there with reins in his hands not feeling like he ought to break that great depth of silence. Then a door slammed around in back, the report as sharp as a pistol shot in the cold air. A burly, squat man hove into view, shrugging into a sheepskin coat. He had coarse gray hair, a seamed, blunt face, and small blue eyes. He nodded without a smile as he approached. Shan noticed his nose was prominent and hooked. When he was closer, Shan could see coffee and tobacco stain on a skimpy mustache.
“Good day, mister,” Muller said, gazing fixedly at Ryan Shanley’s face towering above him. “Not many soldiers up here this time of the year.”
“Good day, sir.”
Muller gestured with a thick arm. “You looking for soldiers? They’re farther out, westerly.”
Shan shook his head. “I’m not looking for any soldiers,” he said. “I’ve seen all I ever want to see of them.” He rummaged in a pocket with a stiff hand, fingers slid over the smooth glass of the little whiskey bottle, found the soiled scrap of paper that he drew out and unfolded. “Can you tell me where this land is?”
Muller bent to look. Shanley’s sharpened sense of smell caught the scent of smoked meat, whiskey, horses, and cattle. Muller traced out the lines with a spatulate finger, then looked up. “Sure, I know that land well.” He turned, screwed up his face and motioned with his arm. “Follow the road north. A mile from here you’ll come to a juniper tree that’s got a blaze on the side of the trunk, facing the road. The blaze is an old trail marker. That’s the southwest corner of this here land.” Muller ran a thick finger down the paper again, then let his arm drop to his side. “Rest of it’s about squared-off from there, runs easterly. There’s over two miles of it, mostly northeasterly. You can square it up by riding between the markers. Did you buy it?”