Bendigo Shafter

by Louis L'Amour

  What is it that shapes a man’s life? Heredity? Environment? Or is there some unknown element produced by certain times and conditions that will shape a man to meet it?

  I began to see that the westward movement, the pioneer movement, had been a selective process, and that those who came west were possessed of something distinctive, for better or worse. More courage? Well ... possibly. Some primitive throwback to the times of migration?

  Men had migrated for one reason or another from the beginning of time, but those migrations had been by nation, by tribe, or by group. They had been directed by a witch doctor, a chieftain, a king or a general, or perhaps a messiah. Such was not the case in America. These migrations were created by a multitude of individual decisions, of personal decisions. No one said, “We will move.” No one said, “Tomorrow you are to go.”

  In thousands of homes the issues were debated, and then a family in Virginia or Pennsylvania, a man in Indiana or Ohio, a woman in Missouri decided to go west. Each on his own, of his own, financed by himself. Individually they moved to Independence, to Freeport, to any of the towns where wagon trains made up. There they met others like themselves, banded together, chose a leader, and moved out into the vast plains to travel a thousand miles or more toward a destination that shimmered in the silvery distance, beyond the sky, beyond the grass, beyond the horizon.

  Why did some go and others stay? I did not know. Cain had a successful business. He was an artisan, skilled and aware, he could do well wherever he was ... why did he choose to go? And Neely? Irritable, complaining, never sure he had done the right thing, but nevertheless having the will to shake off the ties and move out.

  No movement in history was like it.

  Many were to die, killed by Indians, dead of thirst, hunger, cold. The Indians killed them and killed them, and still they kept coming from some endless stream, pushing on westward, fighting dust storm and snowstorm, crossing swollen streams, casting off bit by bit what they had brought west, retaining only those things inherent within them, the love of home, of law, or of church, school, and their independence. Possibly the only motivating force, understood or not, was a love of freedom for its own sake.

  They had given me the job of maintaining order. I had no wish for power, no wish to control, only to keep the peace.

  There can be no living together without understanding, and understanding means compromise. Compromise is not a dirty word, it is the cornerstone of civilization, just as politics is the art of making civilization work. Men do not and cannot and hopefully will never think alike, hence each must yield a little in order to avoid war, to avoid bickering. Men and women meet together and adjust their differences; this is compromise. He who stands unyielding and immovable upon a principle is often a fool, and often bigoted, and usually left standing alone with his principle while other men adjust their differences and go on.

  I saw nothing of Moses Finnerly, Pappin, or Trotter, yet I watched for them, and was cautious.

  Colly Benson’was in the saloon when I returned. I sat down and bought him a beer. “Staying around?” I asked. He grinned at me, that tough, cynical grin. “Want me to leave?”

  “Not at all. I want you to stay.” When he seemed surprised, I said, “You’re a fair man, Colly. We had trouble back on the trail, but you did not allow your feelings toward me to influence your judgment of me. A man like you is an asset to any town.”

  He looked uncomfortable, then laughed. “Shafter, if I stay around we might have trouble. I’m a hard man to get along with, and you and me, we both carry guns.”

  “But we have judgment, Colly. You showed it back there on the trail. Many a hothead would have got himself killed. That man back in the brush had a rifle right on you, and there isn’t a better shot west of the Mississippi. You used considered judgment. You were not in the least afraid, you just weighed the chances and made your decision.”

  “I would have stolen some of your cattle.”

  “I know that, but if I’d left you in charge of them they’d have been safe. You’re not a thief, Colly, not by nature or inclination.”

  “I’ve rustled a few head.”

  “So have a lot of western men until they realized it wasn’t the right policy. Think it over, Colly. I may need a deputy. In any case, the town needs men who are willing to fight, but above all, who know when to fight.”

  After a while I went up the hill to Ruth Macken’s place. She was watering her flowers. “Is everything all right?”

  “Quiet,” I said. “I was wondering what was left in that book box of yours. I’m fresh out of reading.”

  She led the way inside.

  The books I selected were Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, and John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, the last one published not long before we started west. Then I also took The Conquest of Granada, by Washington Irving.

  We drank coflee and talked. There was a knock on the door, and it was Henry Stratton. “May I come in? This seems to be the most likely place for conversation and a quiet evening.” He turned to me. “Your sister told me she had seen you coming up the hill.”

  A few minutes later Drake Morrell appeared, and I sat quiet and listened. As I heard them talk of far-off cities that I had never seen, of people whom both knew or knew of, of plays and books, of music and actresses, of politics and politicians, I could not help but realize how very little I knew.

  Stratton was carrying a bundle under his arm. “By the way, I shall be leaving tomorrow, but I thought you might like these. Some I brought with me, some of them have come to me since I arrived.”

  They were newspapers from Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Even one from London.

  My hand went out to them, touching their pages, as I thought of that wider world of which I knew so little.

  And where, I wondered, was Ninon?

  Chapter 29

  The cattle came in on the third day after the election, and we were all down in the streets at the first call that they were coming. I think it was the first time the newcomers gathered with those of us who had settled the town to celebrate something that brought good to us all.

  At the very least it meant an assured supply of meat for the winter. At best it meant the beginning of several herds and of a new industry.

  Bob Harvey, who had brought the Holsteins to the town, was there to watch. “I’m starting a distribution of milk,” he said to me. “Would Cain’s family be interested?”

  “Sure. Have you talked to John Sampson? They’ll want milk, too.”

  “How many head have you got?” Harvey asked.

  “I’ll have to check. We may have added some calves, but it will number close to one hundred and seventy head. We’ll graze them higher up in the mountains in the summer to get the best of that grass.”

  “What about Indians?”

  “We’ll run that risk, and keep a sharp lookout. We will have to use that mountain grass while we can.”

  The herd came quietly, up the one street of our town, and we bunched the cattle on a rough flat below Ruth Macken’s place and behind the town. Only a few of them, ten or twelve head of those Stacy Follett had led us to, were longhorns.

  Everybody came down to look them over, and I introduced everybody to the Indians as well. Follett grinned at Drake Morrell. “I ain’t huntin’ you no more. Those youngsters convinced me I had to be wrong.”

  “Glad they were there,” Drake agreed. “We might have killed each other.”

  The cattle were in good shape. During the last part of the drive the grass had been good, and they had come along at a moderate pace. Now they settled down nicely, seeming to realize the long trek was ended.

  For several days, all was quiet The Indians took the cattle to the high meadows. Stacy Follett and Ethan went off into the Wind Rivers, setting traps for far and hunting game.

  On Sunday Finnerly showed up for meeting, but only a handful attended. Neely and the Crofts were up the hill at John Sampson’s service, and oddly enough, Webb
showed up.

  Cain went to him at once. “Webb, I’m sorry about the boy.”

  Webb shrugged. “He had it comin’. Damn’ fool, listening to that crowd. Well, you cured him of wantin’ to be a gunman. It’ll be months before his hand’s any good, if it ever is.”

  “I guess I shut my hand too hard,” Cain said. “I forget my strength sometimes.”

  They stood and talked, then went into meeting together. I was the last to enter, standing for a while and looking down the street of our town. Either it or I was changing, for once again it seemed familiar and was no longer a town but had become strange.

  Three Oregon-bound wagon trains came duough that week, and we did a brisk business. I traded two head of strong steer for three used-up oxen and a saddle with fifty .44 cartridges thown in.

  Bob Harvey started sinking a well, and Cain picked up a contract to supply ties to the railroad. The season was late, but our town prospered, and we had put away food against the coming cold. We had jerked venison, stored potatoes, carrots, and onions, as well as canned berries from our gathering along the creeks.

  As town marshal I drew fifty dollars a month, but I augmented my income from time to time by repairing wagons for passersby, and trading. I swapped a bridle woven from rawhide for a colt, newborn and too weak to stand the trek to Oregon.

  Follett insisted I add the cattle he had located in the box canyon to my herd. “See here,” he argued, “you made the drive, without you there’d have been no cattle here. Them cattle are mine to give or leave. You take ’em. I live on wild meat, shot with my own rifle, and I don’t take to cow meat, nohow.”

  So, with two oxen for which I’d traded, I now had fifty head of cattle, four horses, and a colt. Then I swapped a bearhide for a day-old calf.

  On the third week after election nobody showed up for Finnerly’s service. His sermons had grown increasingly filled with bigotry and hatred, and people preferred John’s reading and our singing.

  Several times I encountered Finnerly. He passed me by without speaking. Pappin spoke always; Ollie was surly, avoiding me.

  With the first snow in the high country we brought the cattle down. Cain, John, Bud, and I had cut hay from several meadows and stacked it against the winter.

  Alongside the hay stacks we built a pole corral, made into a wall against the wind on the north side, and a shed to shelter some of the stock.

  When I went up the hill for supper I was thinking of the newspapers Stratton had given me. For the first time it would give me a chance to see what was taking place away from our town, and I began to wonder about what had been happening in the world far from our valley.

  Those newspapers, of which I read every item, showed me how things were in other communities, in places where life was less simple than our town. A lot of lawing in those days was settled by the local justice of the peace and never went beyond him.

  Back east business was picking up, and there was much talk of what the Union Pacific would do for the business of the country when it was complete, which would be soon.

  I began to realize how little I knew of our country and what made it work. The more I’d read and observed the more I realized that the best intentions in the world will get a man just nowhere unless he knows how to get results and can enlist the cooperation of others. And cooperation means compromise.

  Used to be that I’d get impatient that evils were allowed to be. I figured there ought to be some way of just shutting them off. The trouble was, there was no way short of dictatorship, and that meant worse evils. What was needed was to take one step at a time, not to be too drastic, and to bring about the changes with the least amount of friction. No changes could be forced upon people. They had to want it, to be ready for it. And public life demanded folks who would do a little more than they were paid to do.

  Being marshal of a small town was not a full-time job, and most marshals worked at something else, too. However, this was the town where I lived, so I looked around. There was a mudhole shaping up where the watering trough stood, and in front of Dad Jenn’s where the hitching rail got the most use there would be a dust pit come summer. Without saying anything to anybody I hitched up a team and hauled gravel from a pit a few miles south. Between times I dumped gravel by the trough and the hitch rail, filled the mudhole, and gravelled a good part of the street. It was only two blocks long. With rain and snow it should pack down solid during the winter months.

  I asked no help, used my own team, did the work with my own shovel, my own sweat.

  Every night I studied the papers. Red Cloud’s Sioux were raiding in the eastern parts of the Territory. There was talk of splitting us off from the rest of Dakota and forming a new territory, called Wyoming. I mentioned it, and Cain smiled. “You’ve been gone, boy. That’s already done.

  “Grant’s been nominated for president against Seymour, they’re about to try Jeff Davis for treason. They tried to impeach President Johnson, but lacked the votes. There’s been a lot going on.”

  Due to Indian troubles the stage did not run regularly, and only a rare passenger stopped off in our town. News was scarce, unreliable, and usually devoted to the sensational aspects.

  We checked out the number of men able to defend the town and warned each to keep a rifle close by. Follett and Ethan were usually off in the hills. I took to riding up on the ridge as I had in the first days, so we would have ample warning if the approach of Indians was not first observed by Follett or Sackett.

  We had snow from time to time but the grazing was still good, and we held the cattle on the open plain a couple of miles from town.

  Handling the herd was simple. We held them on the grass, moved them occasionally to a new area, and kept our eyes open for Indians or cow thieves.

  Chapter 30

  The town was quiet then, for three months. The snow fell deep upon the land, few people were traveling, and I took time to help Cain with tie-cutting. His mill was busy on the railroad contract, and I was felling timber back in the Wind Rivers.

  A last wagon train came through ... they had been thinning out before snow fell, and we all felt sure it was not only the winter. Many people would now be waiting for the steam cars to run.

  That last wagon train was a worn-out lot, their hearts heavy with grief. The Sioux had hit them hard, driving off some stock, killing four of their men and one woman. The long stretch ahead was too much for them, and they stopped right there at our town, circled their wagons, and came up to see us.

  Stacy Follett, Ethan, and I were sitting in Dad Jenn’s when their wagon boss came in. We invited him to sit down.

  “We’re quittin’,” he said. “We ain’t damn’ fools and with that desert and all ahead, and it being too late to cross the passes through the Sierras, we’re just going to cash it in.”

  “There isn’t much to do here,” I said. “How are you fixed for grub?”

  “We got aplenty, even with what was burned when the Injuns raided us, but me, I got a brother down Texas way. He wanted me to come work with him but I was hot for Californy. I reckon I’ll sell my outfit if’n I can find a buyer, and I’ll keep my saddle horse and ride out for Texas.”

  “What about the others?”

  “Four or five of them are pulling out come daylight for the south. It’s cold, but they reckon they can make it down to where the railroad’s coming through and be settin’ there come spring.

  “Two, three families figure to stick around here, if they can find a place. Miller Pine, that actor feller, he’s in no shape to travel ... got bad lungs. He’ll stay on. You’ll find him a right pleasant man ... got a thousand stories to tell, all worth hearin’.” He looked at me. “Marshal, there’s good folks in that outfit, and some not so good, but one and all they’ll need cash money. If you got enough to buy with, you can make you a deal, startin’ with me.”

  “What do you have to sell?”

  “Four head of oxen, in bad shape, six head of beef cattle, four of them heifers, comin’ fresh in the sp
ring. I got a wood-bumin’ stove, some tools, kitchen fixin’s, and an old printin’ press.”

  “A what?”

  “Printin’ press. I ain’t no printer, but I come on a feller in Laramie ... there at the fort ... who was. He had run out of eatin’ money, and it looked like he was never goin’ to start no newspaper in Californy. He swapped it to me for a side of bacon, ten pounds of beans, and a crow-bait mule so’s he could ride out of there.”

  Mentally I took count of what I had and it wasn’t much, then I took count of what they needed, and it was a whole lot, so I walked down to the wagon circle.

  Certainly, they would be fools to try to go further. Once down off the pass they’d miss most of the snow, but they might come into it again in Nevada, and there was no way they could cross the Sierra Nevada until spring. They were in much the same shape as we were only they didn’t have a Ruth Macken, nor a Cain Shafter, when it came to that.

  Their stock was in bad shape. The beef and milk cattle were doing fine ... they’d just walked along and the grass had been all right. The wagon teams, whether horses or oxen, were pretty dragged out and beat, and so were the people. Listening, I could hear they’d had a time of it. Indian fights, one wagon and a family lost swimming a river ... several head of stock lost in a stampede of buflalo ... a man killed there, another with a broken arm and leg.

  “I am not one to take advantage,” I told them, “but whatever I bought I’d have to buy cheap. Cash money is hard to come by.”

  “We done talked it over. The families that stay in your town will need all they have, but we who are to travel, well need grub for traveling and some cash money when we get there, if it’s only a dollar or two.”

  We did some dickering, and I ended up with four head of oxen, two of the heifers, and a few odds and ends. Finally, when all else was completed and the only thing left was the printing press, he looked over at me. “I can’t pack that on no horse, mister. You give me ten dollars and it’s yours.”