Walter Van Tilburg Clark

by Les Weil

  Tetley spoke up. You could tell his voice without any question. That superior smile was in the tone of it. "It's either now or not at all," he said. "The entrance to the Ox-Bow is less than a mile from here."

  "Let's get at it," Ma said cheerfully. "Boys," she told us, "we'd be the laughing stock of the country if we went home on account of a little snow, and it turned out we'd been right there within a mile of the men we wanted all the time."

  "Well, then, let's go," Smith said. His voice was big and hearty and empty as ever. You couldn't mistake it. "This rope will have to be thawed out now, before it's fit to use." He added, "I'm stiff enough myself. Got a drink, anybody?"

  "Hey," a man in back of us yelled, "look out!"

  "Jesus," said the man next to me. He was scared. So was I. That yelp had been loud. At first I didn't see, the horses milling some, what he was yelping about. Then I saw it. It was the stagecoach. It wasn't coming fast, but it was already close. The trees and bank had hidden it till it was nearly on us. We scattered out to the sides, some of the horses wheeling and acting up.

  "Stop him," Mapes yelled.

  "He can tell us," Ma called.

  Others were shouting too, and some of them rode back toward the coach, calling at the driver to stop.

  Caught by surprise, the driver started to pull up; his lead horses reared and the brakes squealed a little. Then he changed his mind. There was a lantern swinging off the seat on the road side. It made a long narrowing shadow of the coach and driver up a snow bank on the far side. By its light I saw the driver stand straight up and let his whip go out over the horses. The tip exploded like a pistol shot. The horses yanked from side to side, then scrambled and dug and got under way. Checked and then yanked forward again like that, the coach rocked on its straps like a cradle, and the lantern banged back and forth. The driver was huddled down as much as he dared with that hill coming. When the lantern swung up I could see over him that there was another man. He was trying to stick with the bucking seat and get himself laid over the top to shoot. There were four horses, and by the middle of the clearing that whip, which the driver kept snaking out the best he could, had them stretching together, bending away right for that grade in the narrows. We all yelled at him then, but there were too many yelling. There were passengers too. A woman screamed, and behind the flapping curtain a light went out. The guard shouted from the roof.

  "Keep down," he yelled at the people inside. "Stick­up. Keep down, I tell you, they'll shoot." I saw the driver reaching for the lantern to throw it away, but he couldn't get to it and keep his lines. All the time he was staring ahead, trying to see where the dip started.

  A man's voice from inside was yelling at the driver to stop, and the woman was still screaming almost every time the coach lurched.

  Several riders had started out to come alongside but, Seeing the guard, had pulled away, yelling at him. Winder, though, didn't seem to see him. That was his coach heading for the narrows and the creek below. He kept calling, "Hey, Alec, hey, Alec; hey, Alec, you god­damned fool," but his mule couldn't keep beside the coach. We were all yelling at the driver and at Bill now. I saw it wasn't doing any good, and touched Blue Boy up, intending to turn Winder anyhow, before he was drilled. It was all serious enough, God knows, and yet so crazy, all that commotion suddenly, and the driver and the guard playing hero, that I was nearly laughing too, while I yelled.

  I was hit in the shoulder, so unexpectedly it nearly drove me out of the saddle. At once I heard the bang of the guard's carbine, and then somebody scream and keep moaning for a moment while I pulled straight in the saddle. The report was a flat sound in the clearing, but distinct above all the others. The yelling stopped at once, and then, even in the wind, the explosion echoed faintly in the narrows.

  Distantly, with the sounds of the coach, I heard Ma Grier's big voice calling her name at the driver; then saw the horses dip suddenly onto the steep down grade and the coach yank over after them. One instant the lantern was there, flying like a comet gone loco, and the next it had winked out. There was a long screeching and wailing of brakes which echoed so I couldn't tell which was brakes and which echo.

  Blue Boy was still trying to bolt with the others following the coach, but for some reason I was pulling him. On the edge of the pitch-over I got him stopped. Then I just sat there. I was hanging onto the saddlehorn, and my stomach was sick and I was trembling all over. It wasn't until I reached up and felt of my shoulder because it was hot and tickling, and found my shirt wet, and that it slipped greasily on my flesh, that it got through to me that I'd been shot. The guard had meant to get Winder, but he'd got me behind him. I understood then, with shame, that I'd done the moaning too. I wondered how bad it was, and started to get down, but couldn't. After trying, I started making a silly little chattering, whining noise, which I couldn't stop. I thought, by God, if he's killed me, what a fool way to die; what a damn fool way to die!

  The driver had got the coach stopped at the foot of the first pitch; I don't know how. It was standing on the level­off just before the first turn, which would have put it into the creek. The lantern settling made a big shadow of the coach moving back and forth slowly on the wall of the gorge. The driver was leaning out to look back, and the guard was standing up beside him, watching, over the baggage on the roof, the riders come down in the dark and spit of snow. He wasn't sure yet, and was holding the carbine ready in both hands. Most of the riders passed me and went down to the coach. Those that didn't want to delay any longer hesitated, but then slowly went down too. I felt like crying when they all left me. It was the jolt, I suppose; it hadn't begun to hurt yet, but I felt shaken to pieces, like I'd been hit by a big rock instead of pierced by a little slug. I heard Tetley asking who'd been hit, but couldn't seem to tell him. I wanted to wait until I was steadier before I tried talking. I was holding onto my shoulder with some idea of stopping the bleeding, but I sould tell by the warm tickle down my ribs that I didn't have it stopped.

  One rider passed me, but turned in the saddle and peered at me, then pulled around and came back. It was Gil.

  "That you, Art?" he asked, still peering.

  "I guess so," I said, trying to pass it off.

  He came alongside, but facing me. "What's the matter?"

  I told him.

  "Where?" he asked.

  "In the shoulder, I think; in the left shoulder." It seemed important to me that he knew it was the left shoulder.

  "Lemme see," he said.

  "Hell," he said after a moment, "can't tell a thing here. How do you feel?"

  "All right."

  "Can you make it down to the coach? We can see something there."

  When we started down he steadied me in the saddle, but I was already a lot clearer. The shoulder was beginning to hurt, so the dizziness was gone and I didn't feel so much like throwing up. I told him I could make it.

  There was a lot of talk around the coach. The driver, who was white, and still trembling in the knees from his close call and standing on the brakes, was hanging onto the edge of the seat and repeating, "I thought it was a stickup. God, there was a lot of you. I thought it was a stickup." He was Alec Small, a little, thin, blond man with a droopy mustache, a nice fellow, but not tough, and not the driver Winder was. Winder was bawling him out and telling him he was lucky by turns, and looking at the horses' ankles between curses. The horses were trembling and restless; they kept turning their heads toward the drop-off and wanting to sidle into the cliff. Gabe was getting down to quiet them. Small didn't seem to hear Winder. He was drunk, and the mob dazed him.

  I knew the guard too, Jimmy Carnes, a big, black­bearded man with a slouch hat and a leather coat. He'd been a government hunter for the army and then for the railroad while it was building. It had been a good thing for Winder, if not for me, that it was dark and the coach rocking.

  Carnes was saying, "I hope I didn't get him too bad."

  "Get who?" Ma asked him.

  "I got somebody," he said. "I heard
him yell. You know," he went on, "you hadn't ought to have come barging out like that, in the dark especially. It's only lucky if I haven't killed somebody. You hadn't ought to have come barging out like that." He shook his head heavily. He'd been drinking too, and was thick, and his face was worried. "I was pretty near asleep when Alec yelled at me," he said. "I couldn't see who you was, and everybody yelling.

  "I didn't kill anybody, did I?" he asked.

  Now Winder was wanting to know what the hell the stage was doing on the pass at night anyway. For a minute Gil and I couldn't get through the press; I didn't care if we got through; I felt far away, like watching a picture. Gil was getting angry though, and trying to be heard and to push a way to the light.

  The passengers were getting out while everybody watched them. They were two women and a man, and they'd been thrown around, by their looks. Their stylish clothes were askew, and the ladies, after they got down shakily, were trying to straighten themselves without being too obvious about it. They looked around haughtily. They'd been well scared. The man was young, tall and thin, and had red mutton-chop whiskers, and was elegant in the way young Tetley might have been if he had noticed things more. He was laughingly accepting it all as a joke, although his beaver was badly bent. This made the men around them grin too.

  When the shorter woman turned around I saw she was Rose Mapen. You could understand why young Tetley was so hot about the hens running her out, and why Gil had talked about her all winter like a boy about his first iove. She had dark hair showing out from under her bonnet, which was lacy, a broad-cheeked face with big, dark eyes and a big, full-shaped mouth that was beginning to smile inclusively, and yet personally. She had big, full but firm breasts too, and a round-limbed, strong, fiery figure. Her dress was cut as far down between her breasts as she dared. When she recognized some of the riders she began to charm them at once; it was a habit with her. Right then I wasn't much interested, but I could see how I might have been. Her manner wasn't that of handing out cheap promises though. Nobody but a drunk or a jealous woman would take it for that.

  Or a jealous man. When Gil saw her he stopped shoving and sat still on his horse. The man with the red whiskers was holding Rose's elbow to show she was his property. Winder stopped chewing, and we could hear Rose's voice too, a voice such as I thought Ma Grier's must have been once. She was introducing the man to Tetley and Gerald and Davies, and to the rest of us in the pack, as Mr. Swanson of San Francisco, and her husband. Tetley managed a compliment to Swanson and a joke about Rose being in such a hurry to show the women what could be done, all in one. Even Tetley was willing to be delayed further to have a look at Rose and hear her talk. She laughed at his joke, but I don't think it was altogether funny to her; she bridled with an air of purpose. Davies was pleased by her too, and congratulated her and shook hands with Swanson, but chiefly he was watching the men. They were all congratulating Rose too, some, who couldn't get closer, calling out to her, and only Smith was a little bit ribald, asking Swanson had they only been married that day that he was still able to get around. The others went no farther than saying to Rose they thought it was mean of her to do it secretly and where they couldn't interfere, and telling Swanson he could thank his stars it was all done and beyond help before he came to Bridger's Wells. They were all cheerful and lively seeming, as men always were with Rose, but some of them had moments of being a bit stiff too. They were embarrassed at this pleasantry when they thought of the job they were supposed to be on. They didn't know what to say when Rose asked them back to Canby's to have a celebration for the Swansons. They looked at Tetley or at Davies, and just grinned. It was a temptation, in their doubt and on such a night. Only young Tetley didn't offer any congratulations or even smile, but stared at her with big serious eyes and kept swallowing as if about to say something. Rose tried to ignore him to keep cheerful. She was curious about what we were doing up there at night too, but didn't ask, and nobody wanted to tell her.

  The other woman was introduced too, but nobody paid any attention to her after the first polite murmur and hat­lifting. She was Swanson's sister, a tall thin woman, older than he was I thought, dressed in dark silk with a cape around her shoulders. Her face was long and thin too, with heavy lines under the eyes, hollow cheeks, and heavy, unhappy grooves down from her mouth. In the lantern­light her complexion was powdery white. She stood there while they talked, playing with the coach door with one hand and looking from face to face, quickly and nervously, as the men spoke, yet not as if she really expected them to do anything. She wanted to get back into the coach and be sheltered from the spit of snow and all the unknown faces.

  Then Gil recovered enough to stop glaring at Rose and her red-whiskered man. There was no change of expression on his battered face, but I could tell he was furious. He shouldered his horse through to the lantern without even making a sign to the men, and I followed him. None of the men said anything though; they thought he was going to make trouble about Rose. Tetley must have thought so too, for he stopped talking to Rose and Swanson and watched Gil, and didn't understand him for a minute when he said, "Art's shot. Carnes got him in the shoulder."

  But Davies understood right away, and helped me down, telling Gil to get a trunk from the coach for me to sit on. Gil did this without saying anything to Rose or even looking at her, though he passed right in front of her. If he hadn't been too busy about what he was doing, you couldn't have told he knew she was there. Rose watched him, though, and stopped smiling, expecting him to speak. When he didn't she began to smile again at once, and was all worried over what had happened to me. I didn't notice her. Rose and I had never got on, and I wasn't going to help her out now. Swanson noticed this act. He studied Gil while Gil was getting the trunk down, and then looked at Rose and then at Gil again. He was still smiling, but not the same way. I'd figured him for a weak sister at first, something Rose had got hold of because she could handle it, but now I wasn't so sure.

  I sat down on the trunk, and Sparks brought the lantern over and held it while Davies began to take my shirt off, being too gentle where it was beginning to stick.

  "It's nothing," I told him.

  "Do the women have to watch this?" I asked him. I was going to feel sick again, and it made me angry, with everybody watching.

  The women offered to help, Rose saying she was good at that sort of thing. I told Davies I didn't want their help, and Rose stopped smiling and encouraging me. She and Gil looked at each other for the first time, and Gil grinned. Rose turned around quickly and got into the coach. Swanson also stopped smiling and stared at Gi1 at the same time he helped his sister into the coach with Rose. Gil was standing with his legs apart and his humbs hooked in his gun belt, which was a bad sign. He stared back at Swanson and continued to grin the way he had at Rose. It wouldn't take much to set him off, but when Swanson closed the coach door he leaned in the window and talked to Rose for a moment, and nothing happened.

  Carnes climbed down from the box, and came over with that worried look on his face, and kept asking me in his thick voice if I was all right, and telling me that he hadn't meant to get me, that he was sorry, that he was sure sorry it had happened, until I was tired of assuring him, while Davies was picking at the wound, that it was all right and how could he tell who we were. The picking around the edge of the wound made me faint, and I didn't think I could stand much more of Carnes' apology. Gil finally saw how it was, and told Carnes toshut up. Again I thought there'd be a scrap, but Carnes was really feeling so guilty he did shut up, looking as if he were going to cry.

  I'd spilled quite a lot of blood already. That side of my jeans, under the chaps, was soaked with it too. But the wound itself wasn't so much. The bullet had just gone through the flesh of my chest, and ripped on out at the back, lower down, Davies told me. He thought maybe it had nicked a rib, but nothing much more. He pressed me along the side to see if it had nicked the rib, and it hurt all right, but I couldn't be sure. Davies was careful, but too slow. I had to go out to the
edge of the road and throw up, with Gil holding onto me. Then Moore gave me a stiff drink, and another when Davies was done picking the threads of shirt out of the hole, and I felt strong enough, just light-headed. All that bothered me was that I continued to tremble all over, as if I had a chill or was all nerves, but Davies said that was probably just from the impact; that it would take a long time for the shock to wear off from being hit from a heavy rifle that way. He washed the wound clean with whisky, but told me they'd have to fire it to prevent infection. They took the lantern into the coach to get it out of the wind, and slowly heated a pistol barrel red hot in the flame. Then Gil and Moore held me down while the wound was burned. I got through the front side well enough, just holding my breath and sweating, but on the back I passed out.

  When I next knew where I was Davies had me bandaged up tightly with strips of somebody's shirt, my sheepskin was on me again, and Moore was trying to pour another drink into me. I felt shaky and empty, but angry too, because so many people had watched me pass out.

  The men pretended they hadn't seen any weakness; they were going about their business, remounting and forming above the coach. Gil lit me a cigarette, and when I looked at the men forming and then at him, he nodded. I felt weak, all washed out, and it was snowing harder than before, a thin cover of snow showing on the ground in the light around the circular shadow of the bottom of the lantern. I wasn't interested any longer, not either way; the voices talking were like those of people in another room, heard through the wall. They didn't concern me. But when Davies told me that "the fools still meant to go on," but there was room for me in the coach, and I'd better

  go back and rest at Canby's and get some hot food and get out of the wind, I told him hell no, there was nothing the matter with me. He argued a little, and Ma came and joked at me but helped hirn argue, and I got to feeling stubborn and just sat there smoking my cigarette and saying no, and finally just smoking. When I had to stand up so they could put the trunk back on the coach, Rose got out and came over and took hold of my elbow and tried to charm me into going down with them. Somehow I could tell from her talk that she knew what we were doing now. That only made me all the surer; I didn't want to ride down with her and the spinster sister and red­whiskers all interested and pumping me about it. I liked her hand holding me affectionately by the arm as if I were an old, dear friend she was worried about, but even so it only made me more stubborn, because I knew she didn't mean it. Then Winder came and told me not to be a damned fool, to get in the coach and go on home, where I wouldn't be in the way. Gil told Winder to mind his own business, that he'd look after me himself if I needed any looking after. Winder turned his head slowly and stared at Gil like he couldn't believe he'd heard anyone speak to him that way, but Rose broke it up this time by letting go of my arm and telling Winder to let the idiot, meaning me, go ahead and act like an idiot if he wanted to, it was none of their funeral. That made Gil grin at her again. She stared at him for an instant too, but thought better of what she was going to say, and turned her back on him and got back into the coach with a flourish of her skirts. She slammed the door after her, althouqh her husband wasn't in. He'd been standing by the back wheel of the coach all this time, once in a while brushing the snow from his front, and talking with Tetley, Small and Carries. Again he hadn't missed anything. He took his part in the talk, so quietly I couldn't hear him, but he watched Gil all the time, very steadily. He didn't even stop watching Gil when Rose slammed into the coach, but kept looking at him like he wanted to remember everything about him.