Now I eased him over to the edge of the clearing where the trees broke the wind a little, and got down and wiped him over with a few handfuls of old, softened, damp pine needles. They pricked him, and he was restless, but he liked it fine when I finished him off with snow from a little drift at the top of the creek bank. The snow was hard and granular, and brought the blood back into my hands. I listened for the talk to end, but took my time. It felt good to be on my feet and moving around; I’d stiffened to the saddle.
Somebody in the middle of the clearing sang out, “Scatter, boys, there’s horses coming.” Tetley didn’t seem to like the order, for I heard him giving others quickly, but not loud enough so I could understand. The group was already scattering to both sides of the clearing. I could see the shadowy huddle in the middle fanning out toward the edges. In the wind I couldn’t hear them, any more than I’d heard anything coming. They were so many shadows floating off slowly, like a cloud breaking up in front of the moon. The middle of the clearing became just a gray, open space waiting for something to come into it. I could see why Tetley hadn’t liked that order, besides its being yelled that way. There wasn’t a man among us, in the edge of the woods, that could risk a shot into the clearing in the dark and with others right across from him. Four or five riders stayed together and disappeared into the shadow where the road entered the clearing. Tetley was with them, I thought. He kept his head in this sort of thing. I listened hard, but still couldn’t hear the running horses I expected from that shout. All I could hear was the wind, roaring on and off in the pines, and higher up booming at intervals, as if clapping in space; and faintly, like a lesser wind, the falling of the creek. Those, and right behind me the trunks of the taller pines complaining.
One of the shadows, on foot and leading his horse, came toward me and disappeared under the trees very near. Then I was listening for him too. A man hates to have somebody near him in the dark when he doesn’t know who it is. I felt the animal advantage of being there first.
A voice from the other side of me, Mapes I thought, called out, “Stay where you are till I give you the hail. Then circle out slow if it’s anything we want. Don’t do any shooting.”
It struck me that in that darkness and wind, unless Tetley’s bunch stopped him, a rider could be across the clearing and into the narrows before we were sure he was there. And on that down grade, riding alone, he’d have a big advantage on us. I told myself that was none of my worry, but the thought kept me tense.
The man near me was coming closer. I could hear the slow, soft thuds of his horse plodding on the thick blanket of pine needles.
“Who is it?” I asked.
The thudding stopped. “It’s jus’ me, Spahks,” a voice finally said. “Who ah you, suh?”
“Art Croft,” I told him.
He seemed to think that over. For some reason I thought of my history since this business had begun; what I found made me feel humble but irritated. Then he asked, “Don’t mahnd if ah come ovah a bit closah, do you, Mistah Croft?”
“No, come on. I’m findin’ it lonesome myself.”
He stopped right beside me. It was black in there though; I still couldn’t see him. He reached out and touched me, just light and quick, to make sure I was there.
“Theah you ah,” he said.
Then, apologizing, “Ah wasn’t quite cleah you was with us, Mistah Croft. Guess ah wasn’t noticin’ all that was goin’ on. Ah did see you fren’ Mistah Cahtah.”
“I wasn’t mixin’ in much,” I admitted.
“It’s mortal cold, ain’t it?”
I remembered that he had on only a thin shirt and jeans. He was a heat-loving nigger anyway, not used to this mountain country yet.
“I’ve got a blanket if you want it.”
“Thank you jus’ the same, Mistah Croft,” he said. He had a sad little chuckle. “It takes all mah hands to keep on this ole hoss.”
I’d noticed that Sparks never called me “sir” when he knew who I was. Not that I wanted to be called sir, and not that Sparks was ever anything but polite, but it did nettle me that he wouldn’t be as careful of me as he would of a sponge like Smith, or a weak sister like Osgood. And even if you don’t believe in them, you pick up feelings about darkies from men you work with. I’d worked in outfits with a lot of Southern boys, mostly Texas. They’d drop a white man who played with a nigger even faster than they would a nigger, and they had a sharp line about niggers. They wouldn’t condescend about them, the way some of us did, but they wouldn’t eat or drink where black men did, or sleep in blankets a nigger had used, or have anything more to do with a house where a nigger had been let in the front door. They didn’t condescend, I thought, just because they never even considered a nigger the same kind of creature enough to make comparisons. I’d picked up just enough of this crude habit to make me feel guilty whenever I had such thoughts. I did now.
“I’ve got some whisky in my canteen,” I said; “better have a couple of shots.”
“No, thanks, Mistah Croft, ah guess not.”
“Go on,” I said, “I’ve got plenty.”
“Ah don’t drink it, Mistah Croft.” He didn’t want to sound like a temperance lady. “There’s devil enough in me bah mahself,” he explained.
“In this cold you could drink the whole canteen,” I told him.
“No, thanks.”
I shut up, and he felt I was a little stiff, I guess.
“Ah wish we was well out of this business,” he said.
“It’s a way of spendin’ time,” I told him.
“It’s man takin’ upon himself the Lohd’s vengeance,” he said. “Man, Mistah Croft, is full of error.” He said it jokingly, but he wasn’t joking.
I suppose I think as much about God as the next man who isn’t in the business. I spend a lot of time alone. But I’d seen, yes and done, some things that made me feel that if God was worried about man it was only in large numbers and in the course of time.
“Do you think the Lord cares much about what’s happening up here tonight?” I asked him, too sharply.
Sparks took it gently though. “He mahks the sparrow’s fall,” he said.
“Then He won’t miss this, I guess.”
“God is in us, Mistah Croft,” he pleaded. “He wuhks th’ough us.”
“Maybe, then, we’re the instruments of the divine vengeance,” I suggested.
“Ah can’t fahnd that in mah conscience, Mistah Croft,” he said after a moment. “Can you?” he asked me.
“I’m not sure I’ve got a conscience any more.”
He persisted, taking another angle. “Mistah Croft, if you had to hold the rope on one of those men with your own hands, could you fohget it raght away aftahwahds?” he asked me.
“I don’t suppose I could,” I admitted.
“And wouldn’t it trouble you to think of it, even a long time aftah?”
“Not with a rustler,” I lied.
When Sparks didn’t say anything I felt I’d let another good man down, the way I had about Davies.
“I haven’t heard anything yet,” I said. “Did you hear anything out there?”
“Ah didn’t,” Sparks said, as if he wasn’t interested. “It was Mistah Mapes and Mistah Windah.”
“It don’t seem to me the rustlers would double back when there’s only one trail,” I said.
“No, suh.” That “sir” had the politeness of a grievance. It annoyed me.
“You seem to be taking this pretty personal.”
“It’s like ah was sayin’, Mistah Croft,” he answered after a moment. “There’s some things a man don’t fohget seein’.”
You can’t ask a man to talk about such things, so I didn’t say anything. Perhaps on account of the darkness Sparks decided to tell me anyway.
“Ah saw mah own brothah lynched, Mistah Croft,” he said stiffly. “Ah was just a little fella when I saw that, but sometimes ah still wakes up from dreamin’ about it.”
There was still nothing for
me to say.
“And pahtly ah was to blame,” Sparks remembered.
“You were?”
“Ah went to find Jim where he was hidin’ and they followed me and got him.”
“How old did you say you were?”
“Ah’m not shuah; a little fella, six or seven or eight.”
“You couldn’t have been much to blame then,” I said.
“Ah’ve ahgued that with mahself, Mistah Croft, but it don’t help the feelin’,” Sparks said. “That’s what ah mean,” he added.
“Well, had he done what they picked him up for?”
“Ah don’t know; we didn’ any of us evah know foh shuah. But it still don’ seem lahk anythin’ ah evah knew about Jim.”
“They wouldn’t lynch him without knowing,” I said.
He thought for a while before he answered that. “They made him confess,” he admitted. “But they would have anyhow,” he protested. “It wouldn’t have done him any good not to, and confessin’ made it shortah. It was still bad, though; awful bad,” he added. “Ah wouldn’ lahk to see a thing lahk that again, Mistah Croft.”
“No,” I said.
We were quiet and I could hear his teeth chattering.
“I’ll tell you,” I said, as if I was joking, “a drop or two more whisky can’t do my soul any harm. You take my coat and I’ll take the drink.”
“No, thanks, Mistah Croft.” I was afraid he was going to feel responsible for my drinking too, but he went on, “Ah’m all used to it now, an’ you’d catch youah death o’ cold takin’ that coat off.” He wanted that coat, though; it wasn’t easy for him to object.
“I’ve gone in my shirt sleeves when it was colder than this,” I said, “and my shirt’s flannel.”
I took off the coat. He protested, but I talked him down cheerfully and he put it on.
“Sure a fahn coat,” he said happily. “Ah’ll get me warmed up a mite in it, then you take it. Ah get awful cold around the heart,” he said seriously. “Seems like ah always feel it most there. This woolly’ll warm me up in no tahm. Then you take it again.”
“I don’t even feel it,” I said, which wasn’t true. “You keep the coat, Reverend.” I’d been cold again from standing around, even before I’d taken the coat off, and there was more snow in the wind now, blowing in even under the trees. There was no question about its being snow. Still I felt more cheerful than I had since morning, which seemed a long way back now, and like another life.
I found the canteen on my saddle and had two long swallows. It was rotten stuff of Canby’s all right, but it was hot in the mouth and warming in the belly. It gave me a good shiver, then settled broadly in my middle and began to spread through my body like a fire creeping in short grass. I stood there and let her spread for a minute; then I had another, corked the canteen, tied it back on the saddle and rolled a cigarette. I offered Sparks the makings, but he didn’t smoke either. I turned my back to the clearing to cover the flare I’d make; two or three voices called at me though, low and angry. Having started, I held the flame until my cigarette was going. The smoke was good, drawn in that cold air, and after the whisky in my mouth.
I could hear somebody leading his horse, and stopping close on my right.
“You damn fool,” he said in a low, hostile voice, “want to give us away?” I thought it was Winder. I knew I was in wrong, which made me even sorer.
“Who to?” I asked him out loud.
“You guys have been hearing things,” I told him, the same way. “Let’s get moving before we freeze stiff and can’t. Or are we giving this up?”
I heard his hammer click; the sound brought me awake, quick and clear. I kept the cigarette in my mouth, but didn’t draw on it, and got hold of my own gun.
“You chuck that butt,” he ordered, “or I’ll plug you. You’ve been a lily since this started, Croft.” He must have seen my face when I lit up.
“Start something,” I told him. “For every hole you make, I’ll make two. Anybody who’d ride a mule couldn’t hit a barn in the daylight, let alone a man in the dark.”
I was scared though. I knew Winder’s temper, and he wasn’t more than five steps off. When I’d talked the cigarette had bobbed in my mouth too, in spite of my trying to talk stiff-lipped; he’d know where it was. I made a swell target; he could judge every inch of me. When he didn’t say anything, my back began to crawl. I wouldn’t have thought I could feel any colder, but I did, all under the back of my shirt. Still, after the way he’d put it, I couldn’t let that cigarette go either. I drew my own gun slowly, and kept staring hard to see what he was doing, but couldn’t. I wanted to squat, but it was no use with that cigarette. The best was to hold still and let the ash form.
I jumped when Sparks spoke behind me, but felt better at once. My mind was beginning to freeze on the situation, and his voice brought me to my senses, though I didn’t move after the first start, or look away.
“It looks like you’ll have a lot of shootin’ to do, Mistah Bahtlett,” Sparks said. So he thought it was Bartlett. That idea made me feel a lot happier. I looked along the edge of the woods and saw what Sparks meant. Half a dozen men were lighting up. They felt the same way I did, I guess, foolish about waiting so long. The closest man was Tetley’s Amigo. He had his hands cupped around the match, and I could see his brown, grease-shining face before he flipped the match out and drew deeply, making the cigarette glow and fade.
“Damned fools,” the man said, whoever he was. Then I heard him let the hammer down again, and his horse following him off.
“Let’s go,” I said to Sparks. Other shadows were moving out into the clearing again.
It was a thick dark, even out there. You couldn’t have told it was snowing except by the feel. I didn’t get used to the feel; it kept on being a surprise. I could see shapes moving when they crossed against a snow bank, but that was about all, except the cigarettes. Once in a while one of these made a brief shower of sparks when a man turned across the wind.
In the huddle somebody, Mapes I thought, said, “Reckon we must have been hearing our own ears, boys.”
“We heard it, and it warn’t no ears,” a voice told him. That was Winder I was sure, and I thought again that it must have been Winder under the trees.
“To hell with it,” somebody said. “This is no kind of a night for the job.” His voice was nervous from waiting blind.
“You’re right there,” another agreed.
“This snow will be three feet deep by morning,” the first man said.
There was a lot of muttering in agreement. After trying to see into the clearing all that time the job did look ridiculous. Also, unseasonable winter takes the heart out of men the same as it does out of animals. You just get used to the sun and the limber feeling, and when they go you want to crawl back into your hole.
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.
The Ox-Bow Incident Page 15