by Les Weil
Monte looked up and down the street, at the stragglers moving to join the audience.
"Where'd he go and get to?" he murmured. "I ain't seen him since supper."
Monte strolled along and across the street and began pushing through the crowd. Miss Francine Floriston was on the platform in a sparse spangled gown wailing "Green Grow the Lilacs" with much heaving of bosom and appropriate gestures of grief. Monte, in the front row now, regarded her with complete uncomplicated approval.
Dr. Gregory, in patched long black cape with one end hung gallantly up over a shoulder and a cocked hat with a feather on his head, was a stern aristocratic father upbraiding invisible profligate son for betraying the innocence of an invisible lovely maiden. Indifferent to such histrionics, Monte stretched tall and stood on boot-toes to peer around through the crowd. "Anything happened to him?" he murmured. "He ain't here at all."
Miss Francine Floriston, with a miner's cap atop her piled curls and a small pick in her hands, prospected about the platform in pantomime, found an invisible nugget, held it up, archly joyed at her good fortune. She threw back her head and swung into "Clementine," raucous and rowdy and contagious. Monte's chest swelled and all of him exuded wholehearted admiration. He led the applause until his hands hurt and his throat was raw.
Dr. Gregory, stovepipe hat back in place, was himself again, full of sympathy for the ills and ailments of mankind, full of benevolence he would be willing to dispense in the form of his secret elixir. The elderly Negro was bringing; boxes containing luridly labeled bottles from behind the curtain. Someone pulled on Monte's sleeve. He looked down into the pinched whiskery face of the meager little man who was handyman at Murray's stable.
"Beat it," said Monte. "I'm busy."
The little man held to the sleeve, kept tugging. "Hey Monte," he said, voice low, excited. "Come outa this a minute. You better hurry." He led to dark shadow back along the frame building to the right.
"All right, all right," said Monte. "Make it fast. I got things to do."
"Sh-h-h-h," said the little man. "Keep it down. There's a couple deputies in town. From Dodge. Maybe out there in` that crowd. They got warrants."
"Goddamn it," said Monte. "How d'you know?"
"I seen 'em," said the little man. "I heard 'em. You an' Rollins. You was mixed in somethin' in Dodge, wasn't you? People got hurt."
"Luck and me," moaned Monte. "It ain't ever anything bu bad. Where is he?"
"Rollins?" said the little man. "He was lookin' for you. Had to scat. They mighty near had him. He got your hosses an' snuck out. Know that old barn out by the bottoms? He said you was to keep outa sight an' meet 'im there."
Monte gnawed a knuckle. "A time like this," he said. He looked around. The little man was gone.
Monte pulled his hat down, low, and moved forward to the edge of light. Over at an angle he saw Miss Francine, flushed' and moist from her previous exertions, preparing to jump' very prettily from the platform to the ground with a basket full of bottles on one arm. He forced himself to look away.
A small shock ran through him as he recognized, near the outer edge of the crowd, a big man with a badge pinned to his vest.
Monte gnawed a knuckle again. "Damn oh damn oh damn," he moaned softly. He moved back along the building and struck out, striding fast, into the deeper darkness.
* * *
By the abandoned shell of a barn nearly a mile and a half out of town Monte Walsh stood, quiet, listening into the night. There was no sound anywhere. He went in through the doorless doorway and moved about in the dimness of starlight through the huge holes in the roof. Empty. Nothing there. He stood outside and called, low at first then louder. There was no response. "Funny," he murmured. "Damn funny. He should of beat me here."
Time passed. Monte waited, gnawing on knuckles. "Wonder if they got him," he murmured. "I didn't see the other one. Might of had him somewheres."
Time passed. Monte stood by the abandoned barn, checking the cylinder of his side gun. "Reckon it's up to me," he muttered. "If they got him, I got to get him." He strode purposefully through the night, back toward town. He skirted low buildings and came to the rear of one with bars across a window frame well up out of reach. The window inside, inside the bars, was open. He picked up a pebble and tossed it up and in between the bars. He heard it fall and roll a bit inside. "Funny," he murmured. "They wouldn't be taking him back till morning." He tried another pebble. Silence, unresponsive, held the rear of the building.
He moved around the corner and along the side of the ouilding to the street. This was deserted now. Across and down in the vacant lot the van was dark, platform folded in mud up to become the back again. Patches of lamplight along the near side of the street marked the battery of saloons still a active operation.
Monte worked his way along, stopping at each patch to peer in. He was by the front window of the Red Light, peering through the fly-specked glass. His body stiffened. Inside, at the near end of the bar, flanked by three jovial townsmen, a look of serene contentment on his face, stood Chet Rollins.
The swinging doors flapped wide as Monte strode in. "Hagen," he said. "Ben Hagen. From Dodge. He's in town."
"Was," said one of the men. "He was just passing through. Asking about some hoss thief."
"You know," said Chet Rollins, beaming at Monte, `I didn't know you would go for it. But I sure hoped."
Monte stood very still. "You better spell that out," he said.
"Simple," said Chet, grinning. "You owe me five dollars."
Monte's eyes narrowed in the rock of his lean young face. The three townsmen, seeing, began to edge away. Monte looked down at his gnawed knuckles clenching into fists then at Chet again. "I owe you something all right," he said. "I owe you a bust in the nose."
"Dollars," said Chet. "You set the rules. You said it was wide open."
"So's this," said Monte. He plunged forward, gnawed knuckles smashing into Chet.
Action, fast and furious, raged in the Red Light. The general impression could have been of a dozen men engaged in a frantic free-for-all. The simple fact was merely two men, honed to rawhide hardness by years on the great trails, engaged in attempts at mutual mayhem. All others in the saloon scattered to safe viewpoints of advantage. The bar shook. Tables went over. Chairs broke into splintered pieces.
"'Wow!" yelled someone. "We ain't had one like this in a month a Sundays!"
Chet Rollins, hat gone, shirt ripped, one eye swelling shut, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, lay in the wreckage of a chair, dazed, coming back to focus on the proceedings. He rolled over onto hands and knees, shaking his head, and pushed to his feet and dove headlong into Monte's middle, carrying him over backwards.
Chet Rollins, one eye swollen shut, nose mashed and bloody, lips split, lay limp with head and shoulders against an upturned table, dazed, coming back to focus on the fact of his position. He heaved around, grabbed at the upturned table, made it to his feet. Head wobbling, feet dragging, he moved toward Monte.
"Goddamn it!" gasped Monte, wiping blood from his own battered lips. "Dont you know when you're beat?" Chet came on.
Chet Rollins, shirt half gone, mottled bruises emerging on the portions of anatomy exposed, both eyes shut, face an unrecognizable mess, lay sprawled over the low rail along the bar. One eye forced itself open into a thin slit. One hand twitched and moved and had hold of the rail. He heaved and his shoulders were rising. The other hand reached and caught the edge of the bar. He heaved again and was on his feet, leaning over the bar. He pushed around, leaning back against it. Split lips moved. "Getting your money's worth?" came through them. He pushed out, wobbling, and moved toward Monte. His knees buckled and he collapsed downward.
Monte Walsh, lean face lumpy and bloody, shirt hanging in ribbons, chest heaving, stood with legs braced apart, swaying some. He took hold of a shred of shirt and wiped his face, wincing as he wiped. He looked around at the scattered audience emerging from its points of vantage. "Goddamn it," he ga
sped. "He asked for it, didn't he? He kept coming."
Monte fished in the jagged remnant of a pants pocket and pulled out a crumpled five-dollar bill. He leaned down, having to brace himself with one hand on the floor, tucked the bill into one of Chet's limp hands and closed the fingers around it. He straightened, staring down. Twinges of shame and frustration flicked through him, retreating swiftly into the security of renewed hot anger. "Tell him," he said to one of the bartenders coming forward with a damp cloth, "tell that fat-faced bastard if I never see him again that'll be soon enough." Monte turned and limped to the doorway and out into the night.
* * *
Morning, and Monte Walsh, in new shirt and stiff new jeans, stood in the doorway of a blacksmith shop and watched Dr. Gregory's van move out of town toward the west. "I could follow to the next stop." he murmured. "Sure I could. Nothing's holding me." Somehow the prospect failed to please. He turned back into the shop and to limber his stiffened muscles went to work on the bellows for the smith.
Afternoon, and Monte Walsh strolled along the main street of Caldwell. Across the way, on a chair in the sun in front of a small cafe, he saw a square-built solid figure also in new shirt and stiff new jeans with pieces of sticking-plaster over its nose. Monte scowled and looked away and strolled on, increasing his pace. Somehow irritated, annoyed at existence in general, he headed for the stockyards and saddled the black and rode out, down the trail, and came on the first of several trail herds spaced by their dust clouds on down, and jogged back along with it, swapping gossip with the men of the outfit.
Evening, and Caldwell was well in stride, busy at the business of extracting dollars from newcomers. Three herds were bedded out beyond the limits. A rail crew had arrived for construction of a spur line. Monte Walsh came down the rear stairway of the Red Light, relaxed and temporarily content. He looked at the poker game in progress at the back table and looked away, scowling some, suddenly not quite so content. He wandered forward and bellied up to the bar. He leaned back against it, drink in hand.
A big slope-shouldered man appeared out of somewhere and pushed in and claimed a drink and turned about, leaning back beside him.
"Howdy, Monte," said Hat Henderson. "It's been a while but I'd know you anywheres. A long while."
"Sure has," said Monte. "So here's to you." He tossed off his drink.
"Right back at you," said Hat, tossing off his. "I been hearing about you, Monte, off and on. Hearing plenty. Looks like I'm in luck tonight." He swung around and acquired two more drinks and swung back and handed one to Monte. "Yeah," he said. "Thought I was through for the season. Been up in Nebrasky. Coming back and a wire catches me. Now I got to take a bunch of cows up to Dakota. Late and it could be rough."
Monte held up his little glass and inspected it against the light of a lamp on out overhead.
"Yeah," said Hat. "I got me a few good hands but not enough. An' I ain't so sure how good they are topping broncs. I remember once way back you said you'd ride any hoss I had. Well, I got me some real raw ones for this trip. All I could find in a hurry. I'm needing somebody to teach 'em some sense while we go along.
Monte regarded his drink in silence. He sipped gently at it. He could feel the itch running through him, the tingle down his legs for the sides of a horse with a mind of its own, the lean energy asserting itself and asking for the action of the hard work that paid for itself in the doing.
"All right, Monte," said Hat. "I ain't going to talk all night. How about it?"
"I might," said Monte. He tilted his glass then set it down behind him. "I just might," he said. He pointed at the poker table in the rear of the big room. "That is, if you took him along too."
A slow chuckle came from Hat Henderson. "Which one?" he said.
"That one," said Monte. "That fat-faced baboon by the post looks like a mule tromped him."
"Him?" said Hat. "Rollins? I know Chet and his rope. Matter of fact, I put it to him only a while ago. Know what he said? He said he'd think about it--if I took you along."
* * *
Monte Walsh and Chet Rollins rode north, point and swing, all the way past the badlands of Dakota and on around the Black Hills with a herd of longhorn cows and half-grown calves that resented the trip and the direction and kept them and the other riders busy most of the time around the clock. When they hit an early blizzard and were trying to keep track of stock moving stubbornly with it in the dark and Chet went over a high bank on a skittish brainless gray that broke its neck in the fall and was missing in the murk of morning, it was Monte, grim and sleepless, who rammed a rawboned sorrel through the storm until it could barely stand on quivering legs and found Chet staggering along on foot in bad shape and brought him in. They delivered the herd at Spearfish and were paid off there and the others headed back south, but Monte wanted to stay on and see what fun could be dug up there and Chet shrugged and said why not, and when Monte found more of his kind of fun than he could handle with three men climbing all over him it was Chet who sighed, with the glint in his eyes belying the sigh, and waded in to make the odds about even. Then the cold weather really took the land and the two of them wore out the winter bucking drifts and riding line for one of the new cattle outfits up that way with Monte complaining about the cold much of the time. The early spring day they came on a lean winter-worn grizzly and Monte, maybe for the warming it might give but more likely out of sheer damnfoolishness, slapped a loop and caught a forepaw and the grizzly yanked Monte's black right off its feet and went for Monte bouncing on the ground, it was Chet's rope, flashing out from a short-coupled bay at full gallop, that took the grizzly around the neck and kept it occupied until Monte could get to the Winchester in his saddle scabbard.
"You got about as much sense as a six-year-old," said Chet, amiable, conversational, helping with the skinning.
"Shucks," said Monte. "We got him, didn't we? Maybe this thing on top of my blankets'll keep me warm."
And when the grass was greening above the roots and the spring roundup and branding were done and no one could say they were pulling out of a bad spot for the boss, they asked for their time.
"Shucks," said Monte. "Folks shiver even in summer up here. I like me some real sun. Let's make tracks."
"Anywheres," said Chet. "What the hell. Anywheres at all."
"I've heard there's good cattle country opening down in New Mexico," said Monte. "You ever been there?"
"Looks like I will be," said Chet.
Side by side Monte Walsh and Chet Rollins, content with each other and with the world, at home anywhere in their whole vast part of it, drifted southward together across the big land.
* * *
"Monte-and-Chet. You kind of get the habit of saying it that way. Never see one without the other no further'n just around a bush somewhere. And if you get to seeing 'em often like I have, there's a kind of pattern to it. Monte always tangling into something, Chet always pulling him out. Which I won't have you taking as meaning I'm saying Monte can't take care of himself. About as taking-care-of a man in most any kind of scramble you're likely to meet in a month of Sundays. But Chet's kind of likely to be a jump ahead figuring a better way. Like the time only a couple months back Monte done a good job of taking-care-of on some young feller over in Goshen a ways east of here. Kind of changed his features permanent. Over some woman like it usually is with Monte. This feller was with a big local outfit that stood in high with the town folks and feeling was running mighty strong. They'd salted Monte away in their jail and was figuring on a hearing in the morning. Could of gone rough with him the way they was feeling. But Chet, nothing ever ruffles him, he plays a cool hand. Along in the middle of the night he pops Monte out of the box. Not much to that, not for a man like Chet. A gun in the jailer's ribs at the right time, some rope and a gag, and he and Monte are walking away. But getting him out is one thing. Getting them both away is another. There'll be posses, kind of mean ones, scouring the country before long. That feller's outfit has some salty characters that won'
t be shook easy. Old Chet, he has that all figured. On the edge of town he has an old wagon stashed, canvas covering rigged over. Their hosses in some kind of old harness. He hopes folks won't know them hosses too well but to be sure he's splashed water over 'em and thrown dust till they're plum dusty and mud-caked. Has a patched fly-rig on one, a silly straw hat with holes punched in it on the ears of the other. Look like a couple old plugs. He sticks a wad of hosshair on Monte's lip something like a mustache and he takes some red paint and slaps little splotches on Monte's face and neck. Gets him to lie down in the wagon on some old bags with a blanket up to his chin. Then Chet rigs hisself in a woman's dress he's got somewhere, a shawl high up, a big flapping sunbonnet on his head pulled down low. Climbs on the seat and tucks his feet up under the skirt and pulls off down the road cool as a cat in a icehouse. Sure enough, sun ain't very high before there's riders sighted here and there. A bunch comes closing in, foreman of that feller's outfit hisself in charge. Chet just sits hunched down like he was female sad and full of mighty powerful female worries. Ma'am, says this foreman, what've you got in that wagon? Chet just hunches down more and tries to look sadder. Ma'am, says this foreman, we ain't aiming to be disrespectful but we got to see. He slides off his hoss and lifts the back end of the canvas. Careful, says Chet suddenlike, keeping his voice high. Smallpox, he says. This foreman jumps at that and he don't look very hard, just a quick peep sighting someone in there with them red splotches. He backs off. Keep away, he says to the others and waves them off. Worst case of smallpox, he says, I ever did see. Ma'am, he says; faster you can get away from hereabouts the better. Yes, ma'am, he says,-; and I hope that man of yours makes out all right."