by Ward, Marsha
James jumped off the stool and walked toward the first stall. “I’m obliged. I’ve never been up the canyon.” He picked up the off rear hoof of the beast in the stall. “Did Silky pull up lame on you today? He came in limping.”
“Nah. He stepped on the chain coming up the street. Darn mule does it all the time. He’ll be fine tomorrow.”
“I’ll use Old Cutlip in his place.”
“I told you, the mule will mend.”
“You made me boss of the stable, Randolph. I’ll use Cutlip and let Silky have a day’s rest.”
“You’ve a stubborn streak in you, James Owen. It’s no wonder you butted heads with your pa.”
An icy hand jerked James erect, and he dropped the sore hoof. He let out a rush of breath from his lungs as if he’d been socked in the gut. When he looked up, Hilbrands was eyeing him, but James said nothing.
The man swore softly. “My girl was right. You and Rod did lock horns.”
“Yeah.” James set his hands astride his hips. “What else did she let slip?”
Hilbrands coughed a bit, worked his mouth, then spat into the straw covering the packed earth floor. “She mentioned Ellen Bates got took to wife by the wrong Owen brother.”
The words were like a blow to the chin. James recoiled a step, flinging his arms wide.
Hilbrands looked up. “That’s when you ‘n Rod tangled?”
James could only nod.
“Rod’s a stubborn man, too. Did he throw you out?”
James took in air, held it for a spell, then flushed it out of his lungs. “We agreed I’d best leave.” He scuffed the straw with his foot. “Does that mean you’re of a mind to fire me?”
“No, no!” Hilbrands looked shocked. “You’re here in my employ until you finish the two weeks you owe me.”
James grunted, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. He laid his left arm across his chest, then resisted the urge to scratch the healing gash on his side. “I only got one more day, Randolph. I hanker to ride out of this town before I get shot to doll rags again.”
Hilbrands sighed. “So you’re bound to leave? Can’t I offer you something to change your mind?”
“That ain’t likely, Randolph. I got a mine tunnel up north to dig out. Weather’s turning cold, and I got to raise a grubstake before snow flies.”
“You could stay here and work for wages, my boy.”
“No, Randolph. My mind’s made up. Now, what’s for supper?”
Hilbrands scowled, then his face brightened. “Mandy said Sylvia cooked up something special for you.” The man winked as he turned away.
“Tarnation!” James said to the man’s retreating back.
~~~
That evening, James whacked his hat against his thigh before he opened the outside door to the dining room, then he jammed the hat back on his head and left the door undisturbed.
Through the window he saw Sylvia’s small figure coming from the kitchen with a tray of food. He stepped backward, wheeled around, and walked down the alley toward the rear of the hotel. Then he stopped and took a long, settling breath.
“Coward,” he called himself. “That little girl don’t bite as hard as a flea in the blankets. You got your wits. Use them.”
He turned and strode back through the alley to the door, grabbed it open, stepped through, pulled the door to, and let out the breath he’d been holding.
James’s gut tightened up as he caught sight of the girl, but he got himself over to a table and was reaching for a chair when she hustled over and pulled it out for him.
“Mister James, you look tuckered out tonight. Let me take your hat. You sit right down and rest yourself.” The girl put out her hand and James gave her the hat. Sylvia took it and hung it on a peg nearby, then returned and indicated the chair again.
James sat. The girl bustled away to the sideboard and came back with a cup and saucer.
“Here’s your coffee, Mister James. Just the way you like it. You rest easy, now, and I’ll bring your supper. Ma let me cook it special for you.” She beamed at him and touched the blonde curls gathered at the back of her head.
James groaned as she rushed off toward the kitchen. I got to light a shuck out of here, he thought, sipping the hot drink. She’s digging in for a siege.
With the back of his sleeve, he wiped the black moustache he’d been training to droop on either side of his mouth, then turned at the sound of footsteps approaching. Hilbrands spun a chair outward and dropped his fleshy body into it.
“Get to bed early, my boy. We leave at five.”
“That suits me.”
“Good. Use Cutlip tomorrow, if you’d rather. You have an eye for animals.”
James took another sip of his coffee, then let part of his mouth turn up in a grin. “I planned to, Randolph. With or without your say so.”
The man rapped his knuckles on the table. “Cheeky young’un, ain’t you? You need somebody to put you into double harness, take some of that extra starch out of your veins.”
James tipped his chair backward, balancing it on two legs. His grin faded, and his steady stare made Hilbrands squirm in his seat.
“Just a suggestion, you understand. Don’t forget to hit the pillow early.”
“You can count on that, Randolph.”
“Here comes your supper. Eat hearty. The girl worked hard.”
“My time’s about up.”
Hilbrands rose and moved toward the kitchen as Sylvia put a plate on the table. It contained a large slice of boiled buffalo tongue, two boiled potatoes with the jackets on, and a pool of gravy. The girl stood back and looked anxiously at James. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply of the delicate aroma of the tongue.
“Six little beans, girl. How’d you know that was my favorite, next to antelope tongue? I reckon you done yourself proud.”
The girl took in a breath, her smile going from tentative to beaming, and headed for the kitchen, calling out, “Ma. Ma, you were right. He likes it!”
Yes, indeed I do. But I ain’t staying around, little girl, he thought, cutting a generous bite of the tender meat and bearing it to his mouth. I won’t pay double for Ida’s trick.
Chapter 7
As James got the last mule into harness he looked at the sky. It had changed in color from black to gray since he’d risen and started harnessing the animals. Dawn was coming.
He’d loaded the freight wagon after supper and left it standing overnight in the yard behind the hotel. Now he brought up the team and backed the mules alongside the tongue of the black shadowed wagon. He hooked the doubletree and swing chain into place in front of the axle and gathered the lines, waiting for Randolph Hilbrands to come out the back door.
The chain clinked as one of the animals shifted position. James looked to see if the beast was straddling the iron links, then stooped between the mules to lift a misplaced hoof. The brown odor of warm mule flesh surrounded him, filling his nose, and he sucked the fragrance deep into his lungs, taking pleasure in the smell and the heat given off by the animals.
Light began to work its way into the sky on the prairie side of town. First the gray turned to a peach like glow, then red streaks shot up toward heaven, lighting up the cloud or two that floated on the high up breeze. James leaned back with his elbows propped against the side of the wagon and watched the free show. He couldn’t help feeling good with such a glory of a morning shaping up. He pushed aside a sudden pang when he thought how much the sunrise reminded him of Ellen’s bright hair, and set his mind to enjoy the upcoming trip.
Hilbrands ambled through the rear door opening with a “Good morning to you, my boy,” and climbed into the wagon, stowing a brown paper wrapped parcel and a lunch tin underneath the seat before he sat down.
“Sylvia made a meal for us, my boy. She was up cooking breakfast at three. Insisted on doin’ it herself.”
A shiver ran down James’s back under his coat, and he wondered why he felt like somebody just stepped on his grave. Something
about the hearty way Hilbrands spoke set the hair to rising on the back of his neck. James shook off the sensation, climbed to the right hand seat, and sorted out the leather ribbons as he seated himself. Then he released the brake and picked up the coiled whip from the wagon seat.
“Ready?”
“Let’s go, my boy.”
James cracked the whip popper over the ears of the lead team, shouting “Come up there, mules!” and the six animals leaned into their collars. The chain behind the leaders’ doubletree snapped taut against its mooring at the axle, and the point and wheel teams pulled the wagon into slow motion, creaking as it began to roll.
The mules hauled the wagon out of the opening to the yard of the hotel and down the alley, where James swung the animals wide at the corner where the alley met the side street. They turned into the main road, and the wagon straightened out for the trip up river to the mining district around Cañon City.
Once they were on the road outside of Pueblo, James looked sideways at Hilbrands. The man’s thin black moustache had been freshly trimmed, and one or two small red spots on his throat showed his hurry in shaving this morning. James tweaked his mouth to one side as he faced front again, ashamed of the unkempt condition of the heavy black beard that covered his jaw.
You’re not a town boy, James, he reminded himself. He was born and bred a storekeeper, and he looks it. Mule tails, Randolph Hilbrands has his own style. That don’t make it wrong for me to wear a full beard.
James drove the mules around a curve in the road, taking heed that the point and wheel teams stepped over the chain as it moved into their path. Once they’d made the turn without tangling up, he sat easy on the seat again.
“Good mules, Randolph,” he commented, breaking the silence between the men.
“Best in the Territory.” The man squinched up his face, then looked over the rolling ground through which they traveled. His voice came slowly. “My boy, I feel real bad about the trouble Ida caused you, throwing over Carl, then him wedding Miss Ellen, and all. I owe you a debt of honor.”
James lurched on the seat at the man’s words. “No! There’s no sense talking like that. What’s done is done, and you can’t change it.” His voice was a file rasping against iron.
“I know that, but maybe I can offer something to make up—”
“I said no! It’s best forgot.” James wished the man would stop bringing up the subject of Ellen. His enjoyment of the bright morning was slipping down a garbage hole.
“What about Sylvia?”
“What do you mean?”
“I know she’s a mite young, but I reckon she’s a real nice looking gal, and she takes after her ma in the cooking department.”
James half rose on the wagon seat, then sank back, swallowing hard to contain his breakfast. He breathed in great, ragged gulps for a time, then took up the whip and popped it to cover his discomfort. Hilbrands sat quietly, staring into the distance at the canyon walls rising ahead, lit by the sun burning level over the prairie.
Some time later, Hilbrands turned his face toward James, creases pulling his mouth down. “I spoke out of turn. I hope you bear no ill will.”
James compressed his lips, then pushed out a breath between them. “Not toward you, no.”
“I reckon the thought of another girl is out of the question right now?”
James gave no answer, and Hilbrands looked away.
The horizon drew up close to the wagon as they entered the gorge of the river. James cracked the whip over the leaders’ ears, and the mules put their shoulders into the collars, hauling the wagon up the grade. The sun hadn’t warmed up the red rock walls yet, and James shivered a bit in the crisp air.
“Plenty of time later.” Hilbrands rubbed his cheek.
“What’s that?”
“You’ll get over this disappointment. A man like you don’t want the girls to keep away for long. You stand six feet in your stockings, I’ll wager, and look at them thick shoulders and arms you carry.”
James silently granted the point that he was full grown and then some through his shoulders, chest and arms, being that he was farm bred, and used to heavy work all his life. But the way Hilbrands talked about his body, as if he were a horse at auction, made James squirm. He clamped his jaw, waiting for Hilbrands to try to open his mouth and inspect his teeth.
“Good muscle there, and a strong back,” the man continued, prodding James in the side. “Why, those bullets Danny put in you hardly slowed you up at all. With a shave and a change of clothes you can have your pick of any woman in the Territory.”
James took a deep breath, feeling a mad rising up from his toes. He couldn’t keep it in, and he exploded.
“For all the little brown beans! I don’t want my pick of women. What I want, I can’t have, so leave me be!”
Hilbrands backed down, nodding his head like he wanted no part of James’s temper, and fisted his hands together in front of him. His knuckles stood out in white peaks above lumpy veins.
After that, the men spoke only when necessary. At mid day they watered and fed the mules, then the two of them sat a couple of yards apart under a clump of oak trees to eat the ham sandwiches and split pea soup Sylvia had packed. Some of the autumn brushed leaves still clung to the high branches above James, and he chewed and spooned and contemplated the leaves, wondering how soon they were likely to fall and go back to the cycle nature intended.
As long as he sat beneath, the leaves clung there, like they hoped to stave off what must be. James wondered if he’d done the same, clinging to his hard headed belief that Ellen’s reserved way when they were together meant maidenly modesty, not reluctance to love him. Maybe Pa spoke the truth, he thought. Maybe she did choose not to have me. A fear of that had once crossed his mind like a raven’s shadow, but he had driven it out, thinking she would not fight her pa’s will.
Now, as James sat wrapped in bitterness, hope dead, he felt a kinship to the leaves scattered around him, their glory decaying, as though he, too, was waiting his turn to rot into the earth.
After an hour’s pause, James got the mules into harness, and drove the wagon to several mine headquarters Hilbrands pointed out, where they left supplies. The young man unloaded orders while Hilbrands settled accounts, then he drove the empty wagon into a livery yard in Cañon City as dusk marched down the canyon.
When James had turned the mules into the corral and the men had pushed the wagon into a corner of the yard, Hilbrands took James’s elbow and steered him into the darkness of the street. Somewhere ahead a piano player thumped out a tune over the hum of voices and the clink of glasses on a bar. They passed the bright lamplight, the noise, the smell of cheap whiskey, and turned onto a side street, stopping in front of a small dining room tucked into a fold of clapboard wall.
Several men sat at rough tables in the half dark room. None of them looked up from the grub on their plates as Hilbrands and James entered. A pudgy woman with lank, mouse colored hair escaping from the twist at her neck ladled stew onto one man’s plate from a blackened pot she held against a grimy apron.
“How do,” said the woman. Her voice matched her apron. “We got stew tonight.”
“Two,” said Hilbrands, and pulled out a chair. “Maybelle, this here’s my new teamster, James Owen. Make up a tab for him, and you can take it out in trade.”
“They call you Jim?” The woman plunked down two plates and a handful of silverware.
“No. James. From the Bible,” he said. Ma would have been scandalized. The Good Lord never called his apostle ‘Jim’.
She shrugged. “Fancy handle. You pack a gun?”
“I drive a team.” He hadn’t seen a need for his gun belt and pistol outside of Pueblo City, so he’d left them tucked into his war bag back at the hotel.
“You’d best pack a gun here with that fancy name.” She turned to Hilbrands. “Short of speech, ain’t he?”
“He’s pining over a girl, plum lovesick,” he said, grinning at the waitress.
<
br /> James sat up straight. He didn’t like the jesting way Hilbrands made light of his code of honor. In fact, several things about Randolph Hilbrands rankled him by now.
The woman laughed, a crow’s caw. “You take him down the alley. Annie’ll cure that.”
James raised his eyes from a greasy lump of potato and stared at the waitress. Ma used to say, ‘A man don’t slither with the snakes to show backbone’. She was firm set against girling and drunkenness and such, and favored living by the Ten Commandments. He thought he’d only paid as much heed to her words as any high spirited young’un, but here he was in a place he didn’t want to be, with a man bound on molding him after his pattern, and the notion galled him. “I want no truck with a strange woman,” he said.
Hilbrands chuckled. “Oh, Annie’s not strange. She’s the best dove in town.”
“Six little beans!” James grabbed the edge of the table to stop the anger from lifting him to his feet. He fought to keep his hands from curling into fists to strike Hilbrands. “I don’t want your harlot.”
Hilbrands’ fingers gripped his shoulder. “You’re a man, aren’t you? Annie’ll fix you right up.”
“I don’t need a whore to know I’m a man.” James shrugged the man’s hand loose. “Leave me be, Randolph!”
The woman spoke up. “Come on, boy. Loosen up. Enjoy the town.”
James took a deep breath and held it. A man can take only so much nonsense before he makes a stand or caves in, he thought. He let the air release slowly from between his lips. He had no family and no girl. Pain lanced through him like the devil’s own fork was stabbing him when he thought of Ellen encircled in Carl’s arms, but he wasn’t of a mind to follow the path of Randolph Hilbrands, down the alley to sow wild oats with a strange woman. He shoved away the plate and stood up.
“I’m obliged for the meal, Mr. Hilbrands. If you want me, I’ll be at the wagon yard.”