by Ralph Moody
It was nearly a mile to the top of that gulch, and by the time I got there the blisters on my heels were howling, but Edgar and Everett were in even worse shape. From the way they hobbled and fell behind, it was easy to see that their new trench boots were giving them fits. And Hudson added to their torture by swearing at them and yelling for them to hurry.
From the top of the gulch, the land stretched away as far as I could see in a gently rolling series of low hills, cut here and there by shallow draws, deep gulches, and ravines, and was almost equally divided between corn, wheat, and pasture. But up there on the divide the corn was only waist high, and the leaves were curled tight against the heat. The road was little more than a pair of wheel tracks, rounded up a bit at the center, and followed straight southward along the section line, regardless of what lay in its path. If Hudson hadn’t driven like a lunatic, so those of us on the running boards had to hang on for our lives, and if we hadn’t had to climb half a dozen hills afoot, I might have enjoyed that drive.
Where the land was broken by gulches and ravines, whole sections were fenced off for pasture. Other sections stretched away in billowing, golden seas; one wave following another across them as the ripening wheat swayed and nodded in the hot wind that swept above it. To me there was something fascinating about it, as it caught and reflected the sunlight in countless shades of yellow, and brown, and gold. I had seen wheat fields before, ripe ones, but they had always been beardless wheat, brown and shimmerless. This wheat was bearded like barley, and it was from the long, spinelike quills that the sunlight was reflected.
We had gone about twenty miles, nearly straight southward, when we crossed the state line into Kansas. For the next mile the land sloped away to a green valley, about half a mile wide, with cottonwoods and alders marking the course of a creek that wound and twisted through it. At the far side of the valley a little town of not more than twenty houses nestled at the foot of lofty, rolling hills. To the east of it stood high limestone bluffs, where the creek had cut deep into a hillside, and atop the highest point of the bluff a gnarled old cedar stood sentinel. Skirting the foot of the bluff and drawing a line between the town and the level floor of the valley, there was a single-track railway.
On a railroad siding to the east stood two tall red grain elevators, beyond them a little lumber yard, and farther on, shipping pens for livestock. To the west there was a red depot, with a sign CEDAR BLUFFS on the front. The main street was a single block long, the buildings all peak-roofed and clapboard sided, but a few had square false fronts. At the far end there was a bank, little more than twenty feet square, the windows painted in big letters, FIRST STATE BANK. The business block was lifeless as we rolled through the town, but eight or ten carriages and buckboards were lined up at the hitching rail in front of the schoolhouse, and as we passed the voices of singing children came from the open windows.
At the schoolhouse our road turned sharply and zigzagged up a steep hill that rose high above the bluffs. By the time I’d climbed to the top my blisters were singing louder than the youngsters in the schoolhouse. But even at that, the view from the hilltop was worth the climb. I’d never seen a more beautiful, or greener, valley than the one stretched out beneath me.
The divide we had climbed was higher and drier than the first one we’d crossed. Here and there hills were piled high, with deep valleys and gullies between them. In other places the hillsides were ripped and torn by deep gulches, but the farther we went toward the top of the divide the less the land was broken. There the hills flattened out until a few sections lay almost as flat as a floor, cut only by a shallow gulch or two. And wherever the land was not too steep or badly cut, it gleamed golden with waving fields of ripening wheat.
Where the top of the divide flattened out, seven or eight miles southeast of the town, Hudson turned off the road, and followed a set of wheel ruts toward a windmill that stood high above the waving sea of grain. Otherwise I wouldn’t have noticed the tiny cottage that stood at the base of the mill, or the low, weather blackened barn and corral. Two mongrel dogs raced out to challenge us, barking wildly as we pulled into a barren, sun-baked yard, littered with worn-out farm machinery and a miscellaneous assortment of junk. At one side there was a tumble-down shed-roofed barn, and a corral with four droop-headed horses in it. On the other side was the windmill, a water tank, and a two-room house—once white—with a blackened lean-to kitchen at the back.
Lined up in front of the house, and watching us as if they realized what a motley crew we were, stood four barefooted and dirty children—a boy about two years old, and three girls ranging up to one about eight. As Hudson swung the old Maxwell in a circle and brought it to a stop, the youngsters broke and ran to the back of the house like frightened rabbits. The jalopy had barely jolted to a stop when Hudson jumped out, grabbed up a club, fired it at the dogs, and followed it with the loudest, longest, and most vehement swearing I’d heard in years. He missed the dogs, but they seemed to understand the language, and raced away to hide under the house. Then he turned back to us just long enough to say, “Straw stack’s behind the barn,” and strode off to the house.
Gus and Lars knew what he meant as well as I did. As soon as the dunnage had been unloaded they picked up their bedrolls and trudged away toward the barn. Old Bill and Jaikus gathered up their bundles and followed, but Edgar and Everett stood, suitcases in hand, looking as puzzled as if they’d suddenly found themselves on the moon. “The hotel’s behind the barn,” I told them, “but there’s no chambermaid; you’ll have to make your own beds.” I didn’t say it sarcastically, but they seemed to take it that way, shot me a pair of haughty looks, and limped away behind the others.
I didn’t notice Paco until the boys had gone, and the first thing that caught my eye was the beautiful Indian blanket that he carried, rolled tightly at full width, tied with rawhide thongs, and slung over his shoulder in the shape of a horseshoe. He was standing by the empty jalopy, glanced into it, then looked up at Doc and me questioningly and spread his hands, palms up. There was no need of his asking what had become of our bedrolls and luggage, and there was no reason for my explaining. I just shrugged my shoulders a fraction of an inch and told him to go with the others.
2
Blacksnake
WITH the rest of the crew gone to make their beds, Doc and I were left standing alone in the center of the desolate yard. He bowed to me as though he were addressing an audience, swept an arm around in an elegant gesture, and declaimed in a resonant voice, “Behold the Promised Land!” Then, dropping his voice enough that it wouldn’t reach the house, he went on, “My dear companion of adversity, I fear that Fortune still turns her beaming face against us, and has cast us like pearls before swine.”
“Well, if we’re pearls, we’re certainly imitations,” I told him, “and right now I’m hungry enough that I’d be glad to be cast before swine—plenty of it—fried, and with potatoes and gravy. What I can’t figure is how we’re going to harvest any wheat with the junk lying around this yard and those four old nags in the corral. How did a man like this one get a ranch in the first place, or a crop planted on it after he had it?”
“Share cropper!” Doc told me. “Share cropper of low degree, a mere vassal of the landlord and the banker, driven to the summit of this bleak and barren divide by the exigencies of poverty.”
It seemed to me that Doc was letting himself be carried away by the eloquence of his oratory, for we were surrounded by hundreds of acres of knee-high golden wheat, so I said, “I don’t see anything bleak about this divide. It looks to me like the finest wheat country that lies outdoors.”
I think Doc resented my disagreeing with him, but I think he remembered eating my doughnuts, too. He linked an arm in mine, led me toward the corral, and told me in a patronizing voice, “Ah, my dear young friend, you speak from unenlightenment. But two years in seven the eye of God rests upon these high divides, and in grief at their desolation He sheds tears of compassion upon them to bring forth harve
st. In years of drought only the soaring buzzards look down upon them, and the lowly raven needs must carry rations to span their wide expanse. But come, let us survey the establishment. It appears that our employer has been readying his barges and header for the bountiful harvest.”
I had no idea what Doc meant by barges and header. I’d seen wheat harvested, but always with a binder that cut the grain and tied it into sheaves. The machine Doc led me to looked as if it had been put together backwards, for I could see that it would be pushed ahead of the horses, rather than being pulled behind them. The frame was in the shape of a T, with the crossbar, or axle, supported by great, wide-flanged wheels. The end of the tail was supported by a steering post, with a small swivel wheel at the bottom and a rudder at the top. And tripletrees attached below the rudder showed that six horses would be used, three on each side of the tail.
Mounted in front of the axle, and hung from it by cantilever arms, so it could be raised or lowered by a boom pole, was the harvesting machinery. There was a jagged-toothed cutter bar, about fifteen feet wide, with a revolving reel above it for pushing the cut grain back onto a canvas conveyor belt. At one end of that conveyor there was another, rising at an angle and held in place by a crane with ropes and pulleys. And all the moving parts were connected to the great driving wheel by a series of sprockets, gears, and chains.
It was easy enough to see that the wheat wouldn’t be bound into bundles, but carried along the conveyors just as it fell, and dumped loose into the wagons that I supposed were called barges. I didn’t want even Doc to know how ignorant I was about harvesting, so I didn’t pay much attention to his orating about the age and bad condition of the old header. Instead I tried to figure out how it worked, and what chains and sprockets turned which parts. I was still trying to figure it out when I heard the engine of the old Maxwell start with a roar. There was a screeching of gears, and Hudson drove out of the yard as if he were headed for a fire.
I watched him race down the wheel ruts to the corner, turn it in a cloud of flying dust, and streak away to the west. Then I turned to Doc and said, “I wonder where he’s going in such a hurry.”
He straightened up, settled the frock coat more snugly on his shoulders, and announced in his most vibrant tone, “My dear companion, lacking clairvoyant powers I find myself unable to throw light upon this sudden and strange departure, but on pretext of seeking elucidation I shall call upon the fair mistress of yon manor house. And, preadventure she prove affable, shall procure raiment more fitting to the arduous occupation which confronts me on the morrow.”
Whatever Doc lacked in honest piety he could make up for in benign expression, and when he walked slowly away toward the dingy little house he looked for all the world like a visiting preacher. He was gone for maybe fifteen minutes, while I looked over what I knew must be the barges for hauling wheat from the header to the stacks. They were rickety, weather blackened platforms, fenced around the edges by slats, and three or four feet higher on one side than the other. Many of the slats were broken or missing, but fresh hammer marks showed where a few rusty nails had been driven into the half rotten floor boards.
The barges lay flat on the ground, and behind them three blackened running gears lay equally flat—wheelless, and with the hub spindles crusted by dried-out grease from the previous summer. In the corral two old bay mares and two runty mustangs stood, heads hanging down, and tails switching at the flies, but there was no haystack or other sign of feed for them. I’d forgotten about Doc, and was looking at the horses when I heard a voice that sounded like his, but without the deep-throated vibrance, call, “Hey, Bud! Come here a minute!”
Doc was standing in the barn doorway when I looked around, wearing a tattered blue shirt and patched old overalls. As soon as I looked his way he motioned to me and went back inside, so I hurried over there, puzzled enough by his change of voice, but more by his calling me “Bud,” instead of, “My dear companion.”
The barn was only a dark shed, with half a dozen double stalls along one side, a row of dilapidated harness hanging on the opposite wall, and the runway between littered deep with dried manure. Doc was in the farthest stall, kneeling and wrapping his neatly folded frock coat, vest, and striped trousers into a newspaper covered package. As soon as I’d found him I called, “What’s the matter, Doc?” But he didn’t answer until he’d stowed the package carefully on a brace board below the rafters.
Then he turned to me and said in a quiet voice, “Buddy boy, this outfit’s in a bad way. Either this jasper has been on a long drunk, or he’s crazier’n a hooty owl, else he’d have his horses in from pasture and his barges together before he hired a harvest crew. I’m not legging for him, but I sure feel sorry for that poor woman in there and those little kids. They’re as scared of him as the devil is of holy water, and the woman’s worried sick that he won’t get this crop harvested. I found her in there trying to cut up a hog half the size of a horse, with a squalling baby under her feet, and one under her apron that looks to be due almost any time. Hudson has gone for her kid sister, Judy, and I’m going in to cut up that hog for her. Why don’t you get the boys together and set up those barges?”
If Doc had spread wings and flown I couldn’t have been more bewildered. It didn’t seem possible that he could have packed his oratory away with his medicine-man clothes, but I liked him much better without it—and I liked him even more for what he’d said. It struck me so quick and hard that I couldn’t think straight for a few seconds. I just stood there like a dummy, then said, “Sure. Sure, Doc. But I didn’t see any wheels for the wagons.”
“Probably in the water tank, getting soaked up so they won’t fall apart the first day,” Doc told me as he started for the doorway. Then he called back, “There’s a bucket of axle grease there in the corner, and a hub wrench hanging above it.”
When I went behind the barn to call the crew I could see why Gus and Lars had been carrying such big bedrolls. They’d set themselves up a little tent, covered the floor with about a foot of straw, spread blankets over it, and were having a siesta. Beyond the tent there was a blackened heap of straw, one side of it yellow where clean mattress material had been dug out. Old Bill and Jaikus had laid out narrow beds of straw, covered them with their blankets, and were sitting on them. Beside them was another narrow oblong of straw, and Paco was covering a much wider one with his colorful blanket. Edgar and Everett hadn’t bothered to lay out beds for themselves, but had their boots off and were taking a nap in the shade of the barn. “How about giving me a hand at putting the barges together?” I called.
Gus and Lars heaved themselves onto their rumps and reached for their boots, with no more expression on their faces than a couple of sleepy steers. Paco came to me as soon as I spoke, and Jaikus and Bill got to their feet, but Everett and Edgar only propped themselves sulkily on their elbows. Then Everett asked, “Do we get paid for it?”
“No,” I told him. “Not a dime, but unless those barges are ready for harvesting, we won’t get paid for tomorrow either.”
Although I had no right to do any bossing, the other fellows seemed willing enough to have me tell them what to do. We found the wheels in the water tank, just as Doc thought they would be, but they were little more than junk, and no attempt had been made to repair them before they’d been put to soak. While Old Bill, Jaikus, and Paco hunted for baling wire, old nails, and anything we could use for tools, Gus, Lars and I fished the wheels out of the tank. Then we three went to work on them, binding split spokes and hubs with wire, wedging the fellies tight, and pounding them as straight as we could inside the tires. By the time we had the wheels fixed up enough to mount on the running gears, the other fellows had the barges patched up enough to be usable.
We were lifting the last barge onto the running gear, and I had my back to the roadway, when I heard the old Maxwell rattle into the yard behind me. By the time we’d landed our load, so I had a chance to look around, a perky little girl of about eighteen was walking toward the hou
se with a suitcase in her hand. She wasn’t taller than five-feet-two, but she carried her head high, and she filled out her gingham dress as prettily as any girl I’d seen in a long, long time.
Hudson paid no more attention to us than if we hadn’t been there, but took three pitchforks from the back of the jalopy and started away toward the barn. He’d gone about halfway when he looked back and ordered, “Whichever one of you can ride, help me get the horses in!”
I hadn’t been on a horse since riding in falls for the movies the previous November, and I hadn’t ridden bareback since I was a boy, but it was certain that whoever went to help Hudson would be riding that way, for there was only one beat-up saddle in the barn, and he was evidently going for it. I’d noticed a split-ear bridle hanging on a post at the corral gate, so when none of the other fellows made a move I went over, took it down, and went in.
The old bay mares paid no attention to me, but the two mustangs whirled and circled toward the back of the corral. The smaller of the two, weighing no more than seven hundred pounds, ducked her tail and kept her face turned toward me. I knew instantly that she’d been whip broken, so had learned to keep her face toward any man on foot. I swung one bridle rein back as if it had been a whip, but before there was time for it to snap forward the little mare wheeled and stood stock-still facing me. Her ears pinned tight against her neck as I walked toward her, but she didn’t snap when I raised the bridle to her head, and she opened her mouth for the bit when I slipped a thumb between her lips. As she did, I noticed that her lower teeth were nearly an inch long, and extended almost horizontally, a sure sign that she was at least thirty years old.
As soon as I’d slipped her ears through the bridle loops I tossed the off rein over her neck, gathered it with the near one, and swung a leg back to vault onto her. I’d barely swung the leg when Hudson yelled, “Stay off that mare!”