They soon discovered that their difficulty lay not in facing the storm but in holding to the trail. That narrow, two-foot causeway, packed by a winter’s travel and frozen into a ribbon of ice by a winter’s frosts, afforded their only avenue of progress, for the moment they left it the sled plowed into the loose snow, well-nigh disappearing and bringing the dogs to a standstill. It was the duty of the driver, in such case, to wallow forward, right the load if necessary, and lift it back into place. These mishaps were forever occurring, for it was impossible to distinguish the trail beneath its soft covering. However, if the driver’s task was hard it was no more trying than that of the man ahead, who was compelled to feel out and explore the ridge of hardened snow and ice with his feet, after the fashion of a man walking a plank in the dark. Frequently he lunged into the drifts with one foot, or both; his glazed mukluk soles slid about, causing him to bestride the invisible hogback, or again his legs crossed awkwardly, throwing him off his balance. At times he wandered away from the path entirely and had to search it out again. These exertions were very wearing and they were dangerous, also, for joints are easily dislocated, muscles twisted, and tendons strained.
Hour after hour the march continued, unrelieved by any change, unbroken by any speck or spot of color. The nerves of their eyes, wearied by constant nearsighted peering at the snow, began to jump so that vision became untrustworthy. Both travelers appreciated the necessity of clinging to the trail, for, once they lost it, they knew they might wander about indefinitely until they chanced to regain it or found their way to the shore, while always to seaward was the menace of open water, of airholes, or cracks which might gape beneath their feet like jaws. Immersion in this temperature, no matter how brief, meant death.
The monotony of progress through this unreal, leaden world became almost unbearable. The repeated strainings and twistings they suffered in walking the slippery ridge reduced the men to weariness; their legs grew clumsy and their feet uncertain. Had they found a camping place they would have stopped, but they dared not forsake the thin thread that linked them with safety to go and look for one, not knowing where the shore lay. In storms of this kind men have lain in their sleeping bags for days within a stone’s throw of a roadhouse or village. Bodies had been found within a hundred yards of shelter after blizzards have abated.
Cantwell and Grant had no choice, therefore, except to bore into the welter of drifting flakes.
It was late in the afternoon when the latter met with an accident. Johnny, who had taken a spell at the rear, heard him cry out, saw him stagger, struggle to hold his footing, then sink into the snow. The dogs paused instantly, lay down, and began to strip the ice pellets from between their toes.
Cantwell spoke harshly, leaning upon the handlebars, “Well! What’s the idea?”
It was the longest sentence of the day.
“I’ve—hurt myself.” Mort’s voice was thin and strange; he raised himself to a sitting posture, and reached beneath his parka, then lay back weakly. He writhed, his face was twisted with pain. He continued to lie there, doubled into a knot of suffering. A groan was wrenched from between his teeth.
“Hurt? How?” Johnny inquired, dully.
It seemed very ridiculous to see that strong man kicking around in the snow.
“I’ve ripped something loose—here.” Mort’s palms were pressed in upon his groin, his fingers were clutching something. “Ruptured—I guess.” He tried again to rise, but sank back. His cap had fallen off and his forehead glistened with sweat.
Cantwell went forward and lifted him. It was the first time in many days that their hands had touched, and the sensation affected him strangely. He struggled to repress a devilish mirth at the thought that Grant had played out—it amounted to that and nothing less; the trail had delivered him into his enemy’s hands, his hour had struck. Johnny determined to square the debt now, once for all, and wipe his own mind clean of that poison which corroded it. His muscles were strong, his brain clear, he had never felt his strength so irresistible as at this moment, while Mort, for all his boasted superiority, was nothing but a nerveless thing hanging limp against his breast. Providence had arranged it all. The younger man was impelled to give raucous voice to his glee, and yet—his helpless burden exerted an odd effect upon him.
He deposited his foe upon the sled and stared at the face he had not met for many days. He saw how white it was, how wet and cold, how weak and dazed, then as he looked he cursed inwardly, for the triumph of his moment was spoiled.
The ax was there, its polished bit showed like a piece of ice, its helve protruded handily, but there was no need of it now; his fingers were all the weapons Johnny needed; they were more than sufficient, in fact, for Mort was like a child.
Cantwell was a strong man, and, although the north had coarsened him, yet underneath the surface was a chivalrous regard for all things weak, and this the trail-madness had not affected. He had longed for this instant, but now that it had come he felt no enjoyment, since he could not harm a sick man and waged no war on cripples. Perhaps, when Mort had rested, they could settle their quarrel; this was as good a place as any. The storm hid them, they would leave no traces, there could be no interruption.
But Mort did not rest. He could not walk; movement brought excruciating pain.
Finally Cantwell heard himself saying, “Better wrap up and lie still for a while. I’ll get the dogs under way.” His words amazed him dully. They were not at all what he had intended to say.
The injured man demurred, but the other insisted gruffly, then brought him his mittens and cap, slapping the snow out of them before rousing the team to motion. The load was very heavy now, the dogs had no footprints to guide them, and it required all of Cantwell’s efforts to prevent capsizing. Night approached swiftly, the whirling snow particles continued to flow past upon the wind, shrouding the earth in an impenetrable pall.
The journey soon became a terrible ordeal, a slow, halting progress that led nowhere and was accomplished at the cost of tremendous exertion. Time after time Johnny broke trail, then returned and urged the huskies forward to the end of his tracks. When he lost the path he sought it out, laboriously hoisted the sledge back into place, and coaxed his four-footed helpers to renewed effort. He was drenched with perspiration, his inner garments were steaming, his outer ones were frozen into a coat of armor; when he paused he chilled rapidly. His vision was untrustworthy, also, and he felt snow-blindness coming on. Grant begged him more than once to unroll the bedding and prepare to sleep out the storm; he even urged Johnny to leave him and make a dash for his own safety, but at this the younger man cursed and bade him hold his tongue.
Night found the lone driver slipping, plunging, lurching ahead of the dogs, or shoving at the handlebars and shouting at the dogs. Finally during a pause for rest he heard a sound which roused him. Out of the gloom to the right came the faint, complaining howl of a malamute; it was answered by his own dogs, and the next moment they had caught a scent which swerved them shoreward and led them scrambling through the drifts. Two hundred yards, and a steep bank loomed above, up and over which they rushed, with Cantwell yelling encouragement; then a light showed, and they were in the lee of a low-roofed hut.
A sick native, huddled over a Yukon stove, made them welcome to his mean abode, explaining that his wife and son had gone to Unalaklik for supplies.
Johnny carried his partner to the one unoccupied bunk and stripped his clothes from him. With his own hands he rubbed the warmth back into Mortimer’s limbs, then swiftly prepared hot food, and, holding him in the hollow of his aching arm, fed him, a little at a time. He was like to drop from exhaustion, but he made no complaint. With one folded robe he made the hard boards comfortable, then spread the other as a covering. For himself he sat beside the fire and fought his weariness. When he dozed off and the cold awakened him, he renewed the fire; he heated beeftea, and, rousing Mort, fed it to him with a teaspoon. All night long, at intervals, he tended the sick man, and Grant’s eyes foll
owed him with an expression that brought a fierce pain to Cantwell’s throat.
“You’re mighty good—after the rotten way I acted,” the former whispered once.
And Johnny’s big hand trembled so that he spilled the broth.
His voice was low and tender as he inquired, “Are you resting easier now?”
The other nodded.
“Maybe you’re not hurt badly, after—all. God! That would be awful—” Cantwell choked, turned away, and, raising his arms against the log wall, buried his face in them.
THE MORNING BROKE clear; Grant was sleeping. As Johnny stiffly mounted the creek bank with a bucket of water he heard a jingle of sleigh-bells and saw a sled with two white men swing in toward the cabin.
“Hello!” he called, then heard his own name pronounced.
“Johnny Cantwell, by all that’s holy!”
The next moment he was shaking hands vigorously with two old friends from Nome.
“Martin and me are bound for Saint Mike’s,” one of them explained. “Where the deuce did you come from, Johnny?”
“The ‘outside,’ started for Stony River, but—”
“Stony River!” The newcomers began to laugh loudly and Cantwell joined them. It was the first time he had laughed for weeks. He realized the fact with a start, then recollected also his sleeping partner, and said,
“Shh! Mort’s inside, asleep!”
During the night everything had changed for Johnny Cantwell; his mental attitude, his hatred, his whole reasonless insanity. Everything was different now, even his debt was cancelled, the weight of obligation was removed, and his diseased fancies were completely cured.
“Yes! Stony River,” he repeated, grinning broadly. “I bit!”
Martin burst forth gleefully, “They caught MacDonald at Holy Cross and ran him out on a limb. He’ll never start another stampede. Old Man Baker gun-branded him.”
“What’s the matter with Mort?” inquired the second traveler.
“He’s resting up. Yesterday, during the storm, he”—Johnny was upon the point of saying “played out,” but changed it to—“had an accident. We thought it was serious, but a few days’ rest’ll bring him around all right. He saved me at Katmai, coming in. I petered out and threw up my tail, but he got me through. Come inside and tell him the news.”
“Sure thing.”
“Well, well!” Martin said. “So you and Mort are still partners, eh?”
“Still partners!” Johnny took up the pail of water. “Well, rather! We’ll always be partners.” His voice was young and full and hearty as he continued, “Why, Mort’s the best damned fellow in the world. I’d lay down my life for him.”
With the exception of Louis L’Amour, no writer of popular Westerns attracted a larger and more faithful audience in the fifties, sixties, and seventies than Luke Short (Frederick D. Glidden). From 1936, when his first novel, The Feud at Single Shot, was published, until his death in 1975, he wrote more than fifty novels whose aggregate sales in hardcover and paperback exceeded thirty million copies. Among his most memorable titles are Fiddlefoot, Saddle by Starlight, High Vermillion, Silver Rock, and King Colt. Many of his short stories, and many of his longer works as well, appeared in such magazines as Collier’s and The Saturday Evening Post. It was in the pages of the latter that “Top Hand,” considered by many to be the finest of his short tales, first saw print in 1943.
Top Hand
Luke Short
Gus Irby was out on the boardwalk in front of the Elite, giving his swamper hell for staving in an empty beer barrel, when the kid passed on his way to the feed stable. His horse was a good one and it was tired, Gus saw, and the kid had a little hump in his back from the cold of a mountain October morning. In spite of the ample layer of flesh that Gus wore carefully like an uncomfortable shroud, he shivered in his shirt sleeves and turned into the saloon, thinking without much interest Another fiddle-footed dry-country kid that’s been paid off after roundup.
Later, while he was taking out the cash for the day and opening up some fresh cigars, Gus saw the kid go into the Pride Café for breakfast, and afterward come out, toothpick in mouth, and cruise both sides of Wagon Mound’s main street in aimless curiosity.
After that, Gus wasn’t surprised when he looked around at the sound of the door opening, and saw the kid coming toward the bar. He was in a clean and faded shirt and looked as if he’d been cold for a good many hours. Gus said good morning and took down his best whiskey and a glass and put them in front of the kid.
“First customer in the morning gets a drink on the house,” Gus announced.
“Now I know why I rode all night,” the kid said, and he grinned at Gus. He was a pleasant-faced kid with pale eyes that weren’t shy or sullen or bold, and maybe because of this he didn’t fit readily into any of Gus’s handy character pigeonholes. Gus had seen them young and fiddle-footed before, but they were the tough kids, and for a man with no truculence in him, like Gus, talking with them was like trying to pet a tiger.
Gus leaned against the back bar and watched the kid take his whiskey and wipe his mouth on his sleeve, and Gus found himself getting curious. Half a lifetime of asking skillful questions that didn’t seem like questions at all, prompted Gus to observe now, “If you’re goin’ on through you better pick up a coat. This high country’s cold now.”
“I figure this is far enough,” the kid said.
“Oh, well, if somebody sent for you, that’s different.” Gus reached around lazily for a cigar.
The kid pulled out a silver dollar from his pocket and put it on the bar top, and then poured himself another whiskey, which Gus was sure he didn’t want, but which courtesy dictated he should buy. “Nobody sent for me, either,” the kid observed. “I ain’t got any money.”
Gus picked up the dollar and got change from the cash drawer and put it in front of the kid, afterward lighting his cigar. This was when the announcement came.
“I’m a top hand,” the kid said quietly, looking levelly at Gus. “Who’s lookin’ for one?”
Gus was glad he was still lighting his cigar, else he might have smiled. If there had been a third man here, Gus would have winked at him surreptitiously; but since there wasn’t, Gus kept his face expressionless, drew on his cigar a moment, and then observed gently, “You look pretty young for a top hand.”
“The best cow pony I ever saw was four years old,” the kid answered pointedly.
Gus smiled faintly and shook his head. “You picked a bad time. Roundup’s over.”
The kid nodded, and drank down his second whiskey quickly, waited for his breath to come normally. Then he said, “Much obliged. I’ll see you again,” and turned toward the door.
A mild cussedness stirred within Gus, and after a moment’s hesitation he called out, “Wait a minute.”
The kid hauled up and came back to the bar. He moved with an easy grace that suggested quickness and work-hardened muscle, and for a moment Gus, a careful man, was undecided. But the kid’s face, so young and without caution, reassured him, and he folded his heavy arms on the bar top and pulled his nose thoughtfully. “You figure to hit all the outfits, one by one, don’t you?”
The kid nodded, and Gus frowned and was silent a moment, and then he murmured, almost to himself, “I had a notion—oh, hell, I don’t know.”
“Go ahead,” the kid said, and then his swift grin came again. “I’ll try anything once.”
“Look,” Gus said, as if his mind were made up. “We got a newspaper here—the Wickford County Free Press. Comes out every Thursday, that’s today.” He looked soberly at the kid. “Whyn’t you put a piece in there and say ‘Top hand wants a job at forty dollars a month’? Tell ’em what you can do and tell ’em to come see you here if they want a hand. They’ll all get it in a couple days. That way you’ll save yourself a hundred miles of ridin’. Won’t cost much either.”
The kid thought awhile and then asked, without smiling, “Where’s this newspaper at?”
Gus told him and the kid went out. Gus put the bottle away and doused the glass in water, and he was smiling slyly at his thoughts. Wait till the boys read that in the Free Press. They were going to have some fun with that kid, Gus reflected.
JOHNNY MCSORLEY STEPPED out into the chill thin sunshine. The last silver in his pants pocket was a solid weight against his leg, and he was aware that he’d probably spend it in the next few minutes on the newspaper piece. He wondered about that, and figured shrewdly it had an off chance of working.
Four riders dismounted at a tie rail ahead and paused a moment, talking. Johnny looked them over and picked out their leader, a tall, heavy, scowling man in his middle thirties who was wearing a mackinaw unbuttoned.
Johnny stopped and said, “You know anybody lookin’ for a top hand?” and grinned pleasantly at the big man.
For a second Johnny thought he was going to smile. He didn’t think he’d have liked the smile, once he saw it, but the man’s face settled into the scowl again. “I never saw a top hand that couldn’t vote,” he said.
Johnny looked at him carefully, not smiling, and said, “Look at one now, then,” and went on, and by the time he’d taken two steps he thought, Vote, huh? A man must grow pretty slow in this high country.
He crossed the street and paused before a window marked WICKFORD COUNTY FREE PRESS. JOB PRINTING. D. MELAVEN, ED. AND PROP. He went inside, then. A girl was seated at a cluttered desk, staring at the street, tapping a pencil against her teeth. Johnny tramped over to her, noting the infernal racket made by one of two men at a small press under the lamp behind the railed-off office space.
Johnny said “Hello,” and the girl turned tiredly and said, “Hello, bub.” She had on a plain blue dress with a high bodice and a narrow lace collar, and she was a very pretty girl, but tired, Johnny noticed. Her long yellow hair was worn in braids that crossed almost atop her head, and she looked, Johnny thought, like a small kid who has pinned her hair up out of the way for her Saturday night bath. He thought all this and then remembered her greeting, and he reflected without rancor, Damn, that’s twice, and he said, “I got a piece for the paper, sis.”
A Century of Great Western Stories Page 28