Wyoming Trails

by Lauran Paine

  “Right now I got a reason to be,” he said. “That horse’s had all the use he can stand since we started working the cattle. He needs a rest. Why couldn’t she take one of the others, anyway? She doesn’t use her head sometimes, Sarahlee.”

  “She’s young, Shan, and this summer hasn’t been easy for her.”

  “It hasn’t been easy for any of us. Work, work, work!”

  Sarahlee dried her hands and went over behind his chair, leaned down, and put her arms around his neck, brushed her cheek across his hair, and held him without speaking. It worked like it always did. He relaxed against her, and most of the winteriness left his eyes.

  She stood up and took her arms away, ran fingers through his hair, then went back to the stove. “It isn’t as important as you’re making out,” she said. “It was thoughtless, inconsiderate perhaps, but she’s only a child, you know. I think she deserves better from us because she’s acquired a vocabulary of several hundred words and doesn’t have hardly any accent left at all, has learned to cook and sew. She’s really very remarkable, Shan. Georgia says she’s the most intelligent Indian she’s ever seen. Georgia’s very fond of Mary.”

  Shan stood up suddenly. “By golly, Sarahlee,” he said, “I’ll bet you that’s where she went … down to the Muller place.”

  “It probably is,” Sarahlee agreed. “Shan, Mary’s an individual, too. She’s got to have friends, go visit them just like we do.” Sarahlee sighed softly. “Maybe one of these days a handsome young civilized Indian boy will come along for her.”

  Shan went back outside where his tools lay. He stood a moment, scanning the countryside before he returned to work. There was no sign of Mary.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Mary returned late in the evening. Shan was washing up outside and heard her ride in. He looked around toward the barn angrily, but Sarahlee was standing in the doorway, talking to him. He put his head down and kept his mouth closed. He didn’t even speak to Mary at supper. Later, when she and Sarahlee were doing the dishes and he was smoking his pipe outside, looking over the measurements of the proposed porch, he heard them talking. Sarahlee was being motherly and remonstrative in her gentle way. It made him want to laugh.

  The next morning, after he’d done the chores and eaten, he was outside, checking the level lines he’d put up the day before, when Sarahlee came to the doorway with a worried look.

  “Shan, Otto wants to see you. He told Mary to ask you to ride down.”

  He looked around at her. “What does he want?”

  “I have no idea. He didn’t tell Mary. Do you suppose Georgia is ill?”

  “I guess I’d better saddle up and ride down.”

  He was turning away when Sarahlee said: “Do you suppose I ought to go with you?”

  He considered it, decided it wasn’t necessary. “Probably a sick cow or something like that,” he said.

  Sarahlee appeared undecided. She was large and pink in the doorway. He unconsciously looked at her middle; she was swelling noticeably now. Then he said: “I suppose if it had been anything serious, he’d have told Mary.” She disappeared into the cabin.

  He rode through the crisp morning with pale sunlight lighting his way. When he got to the barn, Otto was out back with a blanket coat on, cleaning feeders. He had his unlit pipe between his teeth, and when Shan rode up, swung down, and greeted him, Otto beckoned him into the barn.

  Otto had a jug out there. The first thing he did was hold it out.

  Shan took a pull and spat. “Something wrong, Otto?”

  “Sit down, Shan.”

  Shan dropped down on the log mudsill, put the jug between them, and looked into the lined face. “Something wrong about the cattle?” he asked.

  “No. I got something to tell you.” Shan had never seen Otto agitated before. He knew from experience you couldn’t rush Otto, so he relaxed and leaned back, looking out the doorway toward the house. There was a wispy spiral of smoke coming out of the chimney.

  “I’d rather be shot than tell you this,” Otto began. “I guess you’ll get mad at me, too.”

  Shan looked around. He was puzzled but felt no particular foreboding. “I wouldn’t get mad at you, Otto,” he said. “Why, I owe you folks just about everything I have.”

  “I got no business butting into this, Shan. It’s none of my damned business.” Otto looked past Shan at the back of his house. “Mary came down here yesterday.”

  “I know, darn her copper hide. She took the same horse I used on the drive and never told either of us anything … just up and rode off like she does every once in a while.”

  “I know,” Otto said. “She did that the time we were all down here, remember?”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “That time she went to Tico.”

  Shan looked surprised. “Tico? How do you know that? What would she go to Tico for?”

  “Shan, Mary’s pregnant.”

  “She’s what?”

  “Pregnant.”

  Shan leaped up with his big fists doubled. “That’s a lie!” he shouted. The color was gone from his face.

  Otto ignored it. “She’s going to have a baby. That trip to Tico was to make sure. Yesterday she came to see Georgia. They’ve always been pretty close …”

  “Otto! Georgia’ll tell Sarahlee!”

  “No she won’t.”

  Shan went across the aisle of the barn to a tie-stall partition and slumped against it.

  “Shan, I got something else to tell you about this. I heard it a couple of times in town. Fellers riding after cattle saw you and Mary at different times. The whole countryside knows about it.”

  Hey, squawman …

  “Otto,” Shan said in a near whisper, “what do I do now?”

  “I don’t know. But sooner or later Sarahlee’s going to find out. If I were you, I think I’d be the first to tell her, Shan.”

  “That’s crazy, Otto. I can’t do that. I can’t tell my wife I got a squaw pregnant.”

  “I don’t know what else you can do,” Otto said.

  “I’ll get rid of Mary.”

  Otto picked up the jug, took a long swallow from it, and set it down. He didn’t say anything.

  “I’ll send her to that Indian school I heard about down in Colorado.”

  “I went to Tico last night,” Otto said quietly, “and talked to the Indian agent down there. That school doesn’t take pregnant girls, Shan.”

  “Why not? An Indian’s an Indian, isn’t it?”

  “Here, take a drink.”

  “It’d make me heave … no thanks.”

  The minutes dragged by in silence. Otto was slumped against the wall in his blanket coat, looking at the jug.

  “I’ve got to get rid of her, Otto. I’ve got to.”

  “Shan, don’t do something that’s going to haunt you the rest of your life.”

  “I didn’t mean shoot her.”

  “I didn’t think you meant that,” Otto said sharply, in a tone Shan would have been surprised at any other time.

  “I’ll find out where her people are and send her back to them.”

  “They wouldn’t take her back now, Shan. Indians look at this about like we do. They’d run her out of the tribe, maybe beat her in the bargain.”

  “All right,” Shan said hotly, “you’ve been killing every idea I get … let’s hear one good one from you.”

  “I don’t know any. I only know what you can’t do.”

  “But, Otto, I can’t let her stay around. Sarahlee’s bound to notice pretty soon.”

  “Tell Sarahlee.”

  “That’s impossible, you know that,” Shan said. Then: “Does Georgia know?”

  “She’s the one who told me. Mary told her. Mary’s scairt sick. She doesn’t know what to do and she knows your wife’s going to see it one of the
se days. You know, Shan, I told you a long time ago what was happening inside that girl. Georgia could see it, too.”

  “I wish I’d gotten rid of her then,” Shan said.

  “Well, that’s all done and past now.”

  “Your wife’s going to hate me, Otto. That hurts worse than the other.”

  “No, Shan, she feels sorry for you. For all three of you.”

  “Why can’t I just give Mary some money and a horse and send her off?”

  Otto picked up the jug and swirled it absently, then set it down. “You’d never forget doing that, Shan. You’d think of it every night you couldn’t sleep. You’d always wonder if she died in a snowbank somewhere. You’d feel pretty low for making her face it alone all the rest of your life. That’s why you can’t do that.”

  “Then what can I do?”

  “I told you. I don’t know, but I do know that this will get found out sooner or later, and I don’t expect Sarahlee’d ever forgive you if you let her find it out for herself.”

  “And your wife …?”

  “Never mind her, she’s older.”

  “What’s age got to do with it?”

  “Plenty. You’ll know when you’re my age.”

  Shan crossed the aisle, picked up the jug, tilted his head far back, and let the whiskey gush down his gullet, set the jug down, and began to fill his pipe. When he lit it, the taste was flat and bitter.

  “I’m going home, Otto. I’ve got to think.”

  Otto got heavily to his feet. “I did my thinking last night and this morning,” he said, and watched Shan go to his mount, give the cinch a little tug, toe in, and spring up, whirl the beast, and lope northward, then he started toward the house with the jug dangling from his hand. His wife was watching him from the doorway.

  Shan rode with the feeling that every joint in him was made of putty, his backbone a length of rubber. When he was close enough to see his cabin and barn, he jerked the horse easterly and went on past.

  His cattle, his ranch, his wife—what would happen to them now? The horse slowed at last, picked its own way down to the deadfall, and stopped. Shan sat there, staring at the dead-gray old trunk, hating it with all his soul.

  He got down and threw up his arms and swore. It made the cold, brittle sunlight reverberate with sound. Then he stood stockstill and told himself he wasn’t going to lose anything, wasn’t going to be hurt. But the truth loomed larger than ever. Just a wife was all, just a big beautiful girl with his child in her was all. Just everything he’d worked harder to get than he’d ever worked in his life was all. Just everything: respect of neighbors, the dreams of how things were going to be, those soft, velvety evenings Otto had talked about, after the work was done. That was all he was going to lose. Squawman! It was all over the countryside already, not as Otto said it would be—not later. It didn’t matter about Tico, about the O’Briens and the Monroe outfit that had looked at him strangely down at Tico’s corrals. Those things made him know the depths of humiliation, of shame, but they weren’t important. What was important was Sarahlee—and the Mullers—like folks to him, the Mullers.

  He’d tell Sarahlee, like Otto said. He’d have to tell her. He didn’t fear her wrath; it was the way he knew she would look at him. He shrank away from that in his thoughts.

  The sun drifted down beyond the road somewhere, still wearing its veil of steel, and shadows hastened from under things, spread out, low and thick, to join with the cold.

  Tell her. That’s all there was left to do. Tell her and die a hundred times while she listened and looked up into his face.

  He mounted his horse, thinking of Mary, wishing she were a buck Indian. He’d ride into the yard and call out, and when the dark skin showed, the black obsidian eyes, he’d shoot her right there in the yard. He struck the saddle horn with a fist and told himself he was thinking crazy. If Mary’d been a buck Indian, it wouldn’t have happened.

  He rode westerly with the dying bloodred light on his face, saw his cabin and his barn, and for the first time he rode toward them without eagerness. Sarahlee crossed the yard when she heard him ride up.

  “What was it, Shan?”

  He fumbled stiffly with the latigo. “What?”

  “What did Otto want?”

  “Oh … just talk.” He kept his back to her as he lifted the saddle, hung it by one stirrup on its peg, went back to remove the blanket and bridle.

  She watched him with a faint frown. “Shan, it was more than just talk. I can see it in your face. What’s wrong?”

  He put the horse in a tie stall, forked him some hay, hung up the bridle in silence, and began to drape the sweaty blanket over the saddle.

  “Shan!”

  “I don’t want to tell you, Sarahlee.”

  She went over and turned him to face her with one hand. She stood so close that the thrust of her bosom was hard against his shirt. It was like being struck with something, personal contact with her right then.

  “You’ve got to tell me, Shan. I’m your wife. We share everything. Your troubles are mine, too. Now tell me!”

  “This is going to kill everything, Sarahlee.”

  “What are you talking about? What do you mean?” She was frightened now.

  “Mary’s going to have a baby.”

  “Mary? Is that what Otto told you?”

  “Yes.”

  “How could he know? You mean our Mary?”

  “Mary told Missus Muller.”

  “Yesterday, Shan? Is that where she went when she took your horse?”

  “Yes.”

  “But it isn’t possible, Shan.”

  “Yes it is.”

  She read the answer to her unspoken question in his face. She wavered backward just the smallest bit. “You?”

  He nodded.

  “You?”

  He did not answer and a muscle twitched in his cheek. Sarahlee moved farther away, walked to the manger, and let herself down slowly. When he crossed to her, she turned her face away. He stopped ten feet from her and the silence roared in his head.

  Ride away, he thought. Saddle up and ride away, disappear. Head into the bloody sun and keep on riding forever. After a while Sarahlee got up and left the barn. He did not follow her. It’s this ranch, he told himself, four men’s ghosts haunt it … make things happen like this. There was a little pool of water seeping from beneath the spring house floor. Look at it, he told himself, red as blood.

  He walked away from the barn, walked until the shadows were tangled around his feet and it was hard to see the way. Wild horses couldn’t have pulled him to the cabin. When it became so cold his body ached, he went back to the barn and burrowed into the hay and slept. When he awakened, it was dawn and some cattle were bawling outside. He got up, brushed stalks off his clothing and out of his hair, went out and fed, saw that the same steely sunlight was spreading, saddled up finally, and rode southerly. Bypassing the Muller place wasn’t difficult. He leaned forward and let the horse run. He covered the distance to Tico in record time and left the trembling beast for the liveryman to cool out and care for.

  There wasn’t a soul in the saloon. The barman was cleaning shelves along the backbar. He gave Shan a drink and a long look, then went back to what he had been doing.

  “Where is everybody?”

  “Not many folks drink before breakfast,” the barman replied.

  “Give me another one.”

  He had four stiff drinks and went back outside. Across the way three men were holding up a wagon while the blacksmith wrestled a rear wheel close enough to hoist onto the spindle. Shan crossed the road and laughed aloud. The reddest-faced man looked up at him.

  “What’s so funny?” he demanded, looking mean.

  “Three of you holding up a wagon,” Shan replied, the liquor hot and pleasant in him. “Here, let me try it.” He grasped the wagon
under the tailgate and straightened his legs. The wagon went up several inches higher and a big vein in the side of Shan’s head swelled, turned purple under the stress.

  The blacksmith got the wheel on after three tries, and nodded. Shan let the wagon down and blinked away bursting lights that danced in front of his eyes.

  No one said anything. The men moved off, and the smith was busy at the hub. Shan waited a moment, then went back across to the saloon. When he entered, the bartender and a thin man in a black frock coat were talking together. They both looked at him and fell silent. He ordered another shot and downed it. The man in the frock coat went out, and because it was so silent in the saloon, Shan said: “Who was that feller?”

  “He’s the sawbones hereabouts. His name’s Jim Heath.”

  Doctor, a doctor. Shan put the cup down hard. The doctor. He went to the door and looked out. Dr. Heath was small in the distance, riding northwest. He was too far off. Shan went back and had another drink. “I wish I’d known that,” he said. “I’d have stomped the whey out of him.” The bartender looked at him but said nothing.

  “He got an office in town?”

  “Yes, south of here about a square, but he’s hardly ever there. He goes out on calls at daybreak and don’t get back sometimes until midnight.”

  “You’re a friend of his, aren’t you?”

  “Doc’s a fine fellow,” the bartender said.

  “And you’re a damned liar, aren’t you?”

  The barman’s mouth flattened a little but he said nothing.

  “Telling me he won’t be back. You know damned well he’ll be back and you’re afraid I might be waiting for him, aren’t you?”

  “Listen, Shanley, Doc Heath makes a pretty big circuit. He usually stays overnight at the last place he makes a call. Tonight he won’t be back at all. That’s what he told me when he was in here, and that’s why I been trying to tell you.”

  “How come you know my name?” Shan asked.

  “That’s not so hard. Tico’s pretty small. There aren’t a lot of folks in this country. Anyway, you’re the fellow who whipped Tim O’Brien.”

  “Am I? Give me another shot then.” He drank it and heard a roaring in his ears. “That’s who I am, isn’t it? The feller who knocked some sawdust out of Tim O’Brien.” Shan leaned over the bar and lowered his voice. “That’s not what you’re thinking at all. You think I don’t know? You’re thinking I’m a squawman, that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”