by Lauran Paine
There in the mud beside the far Missouri he had kneeled in squalor and want and put down his wife. There at Appomattox he had sat in numb want. Here in Wyoming he had wrestled with the land and a few head of woollies to do no more than keep his gut full. And as in those other places there was that which would deny him, which would take away his right to stand upright and vie with others for a free way of life made by choice.
He came upon a rotten stump soggy with moss and lichen. He sat upon it.
But, Lord, he was tired. A man’s spirit wearies. It was more than a sagging of the flesh. It was the knowledge, first held at middle age or beyond, that what the future holds is not happiness or pleasure or even surcease. It is struggle and deprivation and want, until death comes. It was the God-given sight to see ahead and those who had it knew inevitable tiredness because the future was only bright and promising so long as you could not see into it. He could see; he had seen. That was why he had not railed at Percy Bachelor. Because he knew in his heart Bachelor had been right.
There was no way out. There was never a compromise with death. You went to meet it a little each day. You could not change that.
He looked through the sap-filling tree limbs to a fully black heaven. He had the sight now. He knew his future as thoroughly as he knew anything. It was as Bachelor had said. Well, if there was gall in the knowledge, there was also comfort in that certainty. He would plan it so that the free-graze war would be his greatest battle.
He took his secret and his stiffening body back to the core of the camp and sank down there. All but one of the others were dead asleep. Lee, his youngest, was dark-limned against the fullness of night, awake, but turned away from Uriah. Lee was thinking, too, but differently, and of other things. Pompa’s stark stare full with the knowledge of death. His out-flared nostrils and the senseless scrabbling of his fingers in the moistening earth. In other days his laughter, his flashing teeth, and his huge smiles, half wry, half apologetic when they had poked fun at his English. Ann carrying the burden of their sin hard under her heart now. Carrying also the stigma of their love and facing those of her kind, and other kinds, who stared with steel-bright eyes because she was quickening to life another soul—from the loins of a sheepman.
With his insides shrinking, Lee thought of these things. Nearby, Charley and Dade Simpson, watching him through slitted lids, gave it up. He was the only one remaining awake. He would not sleep this night. There was no chance of escape. The Simpsons lay back and relaxed and slept. Of them all only Lee could not sleep.
Chapter Eight
In the morning Uriah told them that Harold Baker had deserted in the night and that they could no longer stay where they were lest Baker betray them in exchange for clemency.
Lee looked at his brother. Zeke did not meet his gaze but started for the horses with the others. No one said anything until they were mounted, then George Dobkins said: “We got to get something to eat pretty quick. Besides, I’m plumb out of tobacco.”
Uriah listened with his back to the others, then he nodded. Beyond the trees where he was staring was raw country, throbbing with summer’s heat rising higher with each passing hour.
When Uriah gathered his reins, Joseph Fawcett spoke up hoarsely: “You’re not going out there, are you? Why, hell, Uriah, they can see us for miles.”
“Baker made the choice, I didn’t.” Uriah turned his horse and stared at them.
Lee was shocked at the change in him. Even Zeke was astonished and sat rigidly in his saddle on the far side of the hostages.
“You hear me well and remember what I tell you. They made the rule of fang and law apply, we didn’t. So far we’ve more than carried our side of it. There’s more’n luck protecting us … you remember that. Now come on.”
They followed him dutifully but sluggishly. There were eleven of them, excluding the Simpsons. They rode in single file strung out like Indians. Lee’s prisoners seemed sunken in lethargy. Dade’s lips were shriveled and cracked. Lee held the canteen for him to drink. Charles Simpson watched this, and kept his eyes on the youngest Gorman for some time afterward.
Uriah led them in an arcing ride to the northwest, around Union City. They came upon a narrow run of water, a tributary of Cottonwood Creek. It was shallow, fetlock-deep. They crossed it, then dismounted on the far side and drank, watered their animals and refilled canteens. There was no shade along the stream but there was coolness. They were disposed to rest a moment, to savor this relief as long as they might. But Uriah ordered them astride and led them onward. Again they obeyed in dumb silence.
He was heading for the hills again, but northerly, far from their sheep camps. Once they spied a yellow dust banner rising over swift-moving horsemen and paused to watch. The posse made a wide swing and turned southward toward Union City.
Lee’s breath ran out fully. “They didn’t see us,” he told Zeke. There was no reply.
Where the prairie dipped, then lifted, rising toward splotchy foothills, Pete Amaya trilled a warning and pointed back with an upflung arm. “Soldiers!” he called out.
There was no mistaking the measured cadence or disciplined distances kept by this second band of horsemen. They were troopers all right, and they, too, were heading for Union City. Uriah’s face was a dust-streaked mask. He watched in hard silence, the look in his strange eyes hidden behind pouches of flesh.
Trees appeared on the slopes. They rode through meager shade, and soon they came to a clearing that rose slowly to a good height, their horses’ legs swishing through wiry grass. Uriah dismounted and bent to hobble his horse. The others followed his example wordlessly as they had come to do. Only the Simpsons stood rooted, waiting. When Uriah arose to slip his mount’s bridle off and hang it on the saddle horn, the elder Simpson spoke.
“You goin’ to starve us to death, Gorman?”
“It would be quicker to kill you.”
Uriah’s answer brought several heads around. Dull eyes looked, not with speculation or even interest, but with full knowledge that Uriah might draw his gun. They wanted only to be clear of flying bullets.
But Uriah stared down Charley Simpson. The prisoner sank upon the ground and slumped, eyes closed and lips loosely hanging, a picture of defeat.
“Zeke, take Joseph and go get us something to eat.”
The elder son took wiry Pete Amaya, whose natural diffidence was entirely gone now. He rode like an Indian and looked like one in filthy, ragged clothing, only his weapons bright and shiny. Lee watched them pick a route along the foothills westerly, screened by trees and bracken. Uriah’s sudden voice snagged his attention. Uriah was standing tall with his back to the bony mountains, looking down where they sprawled in the hot dust.
“We’ll wait until they fetch back food. Then we’ll go to Union City.”
Each body stiffened. Every head drew up erect. Joseph Fawcett’s sagging jaw snapped closed—then open again. “Union City …?”
“We’ll be safe. We’ve got hostages.” Uriah scanned them singly. His face gaunt with thinness, his time-tempered whiskers grayer with dust and frayed-looking. And his eyes nearly closed in a long squint. “We’re going to offer them peace in exchange for freedom of movement for our sheep, and equal rights on the range.”
Kant U’Ren was staring Uriah. There was a new expression on his face, a look of wonder, of doubt, of a growing certainty about something nebulous. When Uriah became silent, he spoke into the hush. “We’ll get bullets. They won’t bargain. Uriah, we’re murderers. We’re outlaws. You take us down … there won’t a one of us come back.”
“Murderers?” Uriah challenged in a swift-rising voice. “Who killed the first man? Not us.”
“Don’t change nothing,” the half-breed argued. “They control the law. They got soldiers on their side. What we did at XIH’ll hang every man jack of us if we go down there. You ought to know that.” U’Ren returned Uriah’s fierce stare with un
wavering courage. “I told you to kill them kids and the old woman. I told you … but no. Now they got witnesses against us.”
“Their witnesses did not see Paxton die.”
U’Ren sighed and wagged his head. “That’s book law maybe,” he answered. “It ain’t range law. If they get their hands on us, we won’t get near a law court.”
There was a murmur of agreement among the others. Uriah’s face flamed with wrath, his lips drew out stonily, and his fists were clenched. He glared at the half-blood.
“Maybe you’d like to leave, too. Maybe you’d like to find Bachelor and Baker and make a run for it.”
“No,” U’Ren said without heat. “It’s too late for that. Bachelor might make it … he left in the night. Baker sure as hell won’t.”
Silence descended over the little camp. Lee slept for an hour, then awakened. Around him others were lying out flat, while some snored. Charley Simpson was craning his neck southward where a spiral of dust moved from west to east, hope was in his face with painful clarity. Lee looked away from it, looked straight up at the brassy blue sky where a lowering sun rode golden-yellow and immense. Around him was a full throbbing solitude. The sun at its great height burned down. The ground was hard against his flesh. His thoughts were quiet things, very rational and orderly and torturous. If Uriah got his kind of peace with the cowmen—which would never come to pass—the cowmen would let the Simpsons die many times over before they would agree to equal rights for sheepmen. But if Uriah got his peace as he wanted it—there would be more blood spilled, more fights. It had always been that way. Wherever Uriah had led them, there had been antagonism and unpleasantness.
It hadn’t always been Uriah’s fault, true, but it had been like that, nevertheless, and he didn’t want to spend his years and his strength fighting. He wanted to live, to grow things, to marry and have young …
Ann.
He closed his eyes and went back the trail into memory. It was so vivid, so clear to relive in his mind. But only for moments. You couldn’t continually relive something like that and not destroy it. It was a memory to be cherished, to be hoarded, and relived rarely. It was a kind of wealth you could squander into meaninglessness by constant reference. He would not do that, because it might be the only beautiful memory he would have. He would not destroy it.
Leave, his mind said suddenly. Get up and ride off … leave while you still can.
He could go back secretly to the Fosters. He could lie hidden until Ann came out. She would go with him and they could escape. He knew they could.
The apathy fell away. His body tensed against the ground. A desperate sense of urgency swept over him. He raised up and looked around. They were asleep. All but the Simpsons and Uriah, who had gone off somewhere to be alone. They were sprawled in exhaustion and dullness. His hand slithered over the ground, his body was seized with trembling, a great burden lifted off his spirit. He half started to his feet, and then he saw Zeke and Pete Amaya returning through the shadows of dying day and his brother’s face was gray and bloodless with a weariness that went deeper than bone and muscle, and while he looked into his brother’s face, the headiness dissipated, and in that moment he knew he was lost. He could not do it. He could not desert them like this.
He sank back down with pain moving behind his eyes, with shame and terrible sadness in him. He had no clear thought. He only knew he could not leave them.
Zeke was calling. Ahead of him, already dismounted from his head-hung horse, Pete Amaya was emptying a jute sack and grinning from ear to ear. The others were coming to life, blinking and sitting up and exhaling foul breath. Uriah came out of the underbrush, too, and Lee saw the look of approval on his face, then he got up with the others and stumbled forward, almost blindly. Lee could not leave them in treachery.
Zeke stood back, watching the others tear at the food. He and Pete had already eaten, he told them, but he would drink coffee. As they made the little dry-oak fire that gave off no smoke, Zeke turned his horse out and sprawled near them, long legs thrust out fully, aching body going soft against the ground. Uriah asked about the food, and Zeke told him. His words carried no threat at first, while the others ate, but later they did.
“There’s a big posse camped between us and the camps,” he said. “We saw them from the hills. When they rode off, we raided their cache.”
“How big a posse?” Uriah asked, around a mouthful.
“Maybe thirty of ’em. I recognized old Matt Karnahan from over by Chugwater. The others were strangers.”
Uriah repeated the name thoughtfully. “Chugwater. That means they’re recruiting outsiders.” His grinding jaws grew still. “Which way did they ride, boy?”
“Toward the camps … back into the hills where we left the woollies.”
The men went on eating but Uriah heeded. “They’ll scatter the bands … probably drive them off some bluff.”
“Yes, I think so.”
“They can’t find us so they’ll take it out on our sheep.”
Lee went to his brother with a tin mug of coffee. “You better sleep, Zeke. We’re riding out tonight.”
The eldest son reached for the cup and sipped from it. “Riding out where?”
“To Union City with our hostages.”
“What?”
“That’s what Paw says.”
Zeke finished the coffee without looking again at his brother. He put the cup aside and faced toward their father. A throbbing vein swelled at his temple but his voice did not change.
“Paw?”
“Yes, boy?”
“You’re not taking anyone to Union City tonight.”
Uriah sensed the rising rebellion. But more than that he felt growing anger and surprise. Zeke had never, in all his years, contradicted him before. He pushed away the food and turned where he hunkered. He checked the anger and said quietly: “They won’t dare do anything while we have hostages. We’ll give them our terms. They’ll accept and the free-graze war’ll be finished. It’s got to be that way, Zeke.”
“They’re thicker’n grass down there, Paw. And there are soldiers. They’ll let you kill the Simpsons … then they’ll kill you.”
“No,” Uriah replied, still in that foreign way of speaking, quiet and gentle. “No, son, we’ll go by stealth. You know there never was a cowman could match us in that. We’ll get Bob Ander and one or two others of them and we’ll make our peace.”
There was something coming here, the others knew. They rolled their eyes and twisted to watch and listen. Zeke had never in all their recollections challenged Uriah before.
“Paw, Pete and me saw at least thirty armed men in one posse this afternoon. There’s at least two more posses out just as big. There are soldiers … maybe a hundred of them. You saw them. We all saw them. Listen to me a minute.”
Uriah got suddenly to his feet and stood rigid. The bloodless line of his lips was razor-thin; his beard reflected the oak firelight, dull red, and his tawny unkempt white thatch stood askew. To Catholic-raised Pedro Amaya, looking in awe, he was Moses on the Mount. To the others he was towering wrath personified. They shrank from looking at him. Only Kant U’Ren peered inside his shirt for an insect that had bitten him, and ignored both Uriah and his eldest son.
“Paw, I don’t know who’s right and who’s wrong. All I know is that what little we had is gone now. Maybe if we’d just hide out a spell, things would die down. Then we could gather what’s left of the bands and go away. Down to Colorado or over into Idaho. Start over again clean.”
Uriah was still standing, stockstill and silent, sharp-pointed shoulders stark against the gathering night, burning eyes unblinking on the face of his eldest son.
“We lost Manuel Cardoza, Gaspar Pompa, and the others. They’ve lost old Clement, Slocum, Hoag, and Hogan. Paw, let’s not lose everything.”
Uriah’s voice came finally, echoing like dist
ant thunder. “Answer me, boy! Would you rather live on your knees or die on your feet?”
Zeke’s gray face tightened perceptibly. Throughout the camp there was stillness. He made no immediate reply but got stiffly to his feet. They were equally as tall, as big-boned and craggy, but Zeke was thirty pounds heavier, and now he returned the old man’s stare doggedly.
“I’d rather live on my feet,” he answered. “It can come out that way if you’ll let it.”
The exploding fury of Uriah’s glare was strong with near-madness. Zeke braced into it, but Lee, standing beside him, flinched as though from a blow.
“You!” Uriah ground out in bitter scorn. “Of all people … you! Turning on me. Father in heaven, I never thought I’d live to see this day!”
“Paw, listen to me …”
“No! You’re a coward, Zeke. You’re like your brother … you got your maw’s blood in you. All the Hairstons was cowards.”
“Listen to me! There’s something else in the back of your head. I got no way of knowing what it is, but it’s there, Paw. You want to lead a band of guerrillas against the cowmen and the soldiers … you want to hit ’em hard and fade away before ’em. You think they’ll make peace out of fear, but they won’t. Everyone here knows they won’t. Please, Paw … not Union City.”
Uriah said no more. He turned his back fully upon his sons and glared at the others. They hid their eyes from him, sat rooted and hushed, and then he whirled and went storming out into the thickening darkness. They heard the crashing of his progress through underbrush and sat awkwardly still, their hunger gone.
Lee went over to the fire and poked at it. No one looked at him. Only Kant U’Ren moved. He refilled a cup with coffee and leaned back to sip it. His black stare was broodingly fixed on the thin flames that sparkled under Lee’s stick. Zeke dropped down again, back against his saddle. He picked up some small stones and filtered them through nerveless fingers. George Dobkins asked someone for tobacco. Moments later his pipe was bubbling syrupy and a strong fragrance rose.