Whiskey When We're Dry

by John Larison

  Isaac was all lit up at the notion now. “They say Noah Harney might be the fastest gunfighter who ever lived! He shot six marshals before they could draw their guns. I heard he got away with twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  Sheriff Younger called him an outlaw, but twenty-five thousand dollars? How could one man hold such money? At once I saw my brother as Isaac did: riding fast through town, a pistol in hand, bullets bending around him. A gunfighter.

  I handed back the empty basket, the last biscuit saved in my dress pocket. “Friday then.”

  * * *

  —

  Before dinner with the Mormons I washed my dress even though it wasn’t wash day, set it to dry on a line hung near the hearth, and put juniper berries to boil. I washed out my hair even though it wasn’t bath day and put in braids. Then I dipped a cloth to the juniper water and rubbed it along my neck. I thought it might make me smell fancy. It only made me smell like liquor, so I washed it clean again.

  Them Mormons was clean people. I knew how I trusted clean people to be honest, and here I was fixing to lie about Pa. No way around it. I couldn’t let word spread that I was alone on this ranch without inviting trouble. So I scrubbed up to shining clean.

  My body hung below me like a stranger. I had nubs and hip bones but when I looked down I half expected to see muscles and a member. This didn’t concern me much, as a body is little more than a horse you don’t need to stable. But it did strike me as queer to find my mount so unfamiliar.

  Ingrid and me rode down as the sun touched the rim of the mountains. She was feeling sprightly with the trip, and the air was uncommon warm and she had springtime energy about her. She looked to the field and I knew what she was thinking.

  “Nah, girl. Not now. We cleaned up.”

  She threw her head.

  “Quit that.”

  The mother greeted me in her long black dress. It went from her neck all the way past her shoes, and her black hair was back in a tight bun no bigger than a baby’s fist. I wondered how she got all that hair back into so small a space.

  She looked past me, and her smile went to a frown. “Where’s your pa?”

  “In them mountains, Mrs. Saggat.”

  “This early?”

  “Queer year.”

  “Indeed. Well, I know the mister was hoping to talk business.”

  “Pa feels the same. Passes on his sorrys.”

  She sighed. I reckon she’d gone to some trouble to host us and was thinking how without Pa here she’d have to do it all again. But her grievance wasn’t with me and so she mustered a smile. “Thanks for making the ride anyhow.” She nodded to Ingrid. “You forgot to hitch.”

  “No need. Ingrid knows her place is with me.”

  “I won’t have her getting into our feed. Tie her proper and come on in. Kick the mud off them boots.”

  I did as Mrs. Saggat asked. But I apologized to Ingrid for the low treatment.

  When Pa brought me down on account of the bleeding I had kept to myself and let Mrs. Saggat do the talking. I was overcome first with her smell. Just being so close to an actual ma. I couldn’t help but watch her hands, how they was always tending to the children as they come by, picking off dirt and twigs or fixing a lock of hair. It was like she had two heads, one for talking to me and the other for looking after her offspring. I longed then to be one of her children even though I didn’t feel no special warmth from her. I just wanted to live a day like those children lived every day, a big woman looking down on me and keeping me clean and telling me what to do to stay safe. If you got a ma looking out for you, all you got to do is grow up.

  That time I had been still and listened. This time I was to shepherd my lie. My heart wouldn’t quit its gallop.

  Their home was two stories, the only one like it I’d seen, with glass windows in most rooms, and ceilings so high a tall man wouldn’t need stoop. The board floor was swept and there wasn’t one woodstove but two, one on each end. I never did get to see the whole house but I reckon they had sleeping rooms upstairs. Seven children fit there, the youngest was born that summer.

  Mr. Saggat wasn’t a rancher so much as a boss man. He rode well but his hired men did the real labor. Mr. and Mrs. Saggat arrived to the valley late, but when Pa come inside to mother us, the Mormons got to the better graze and soon could hire men to stay with their herds and so keep the bears and Indians in hiding. Now Mr. Saggat’s hands was clean and he was round in the belly and his neck jiggled when he spoke. He called us to the table with a bored voice.

  There was a white cloth covering the wood and plates for each of us. I’d never seen nothing like it. I took the hands of my neighbors, and Mr. Saggat started with his fancy Lord words, which he mumbled so low I couldn’t hear them myself. There was no pork but a roast turkey, a huge bird that must’ve weighed fourteen or sixteen pounds. There was squash and a bowl filled with beans. I bet they come from a jar, they was that fancy. There wasn’t no biscuits but there was corn bread. More corn bread than I’d eaten in my whole life, just sitting there, giving off steam. I was late saying my “amen.”

  There was no hiding the lengths they’d gone in preparing this meal. Slaughtering a turkey is a holiday event for most. And so I got to wondering what my neighbors had in mind.

  We sat together and I waited with my hands in my lap. I wanted to give off the right sense about me.

  Mr. Saggat pointed at my food and said, “Go ahead now, Miss Harney, eat. A shame your father couldn’t join us. I was hoping to gain his counsel on matters.”

  Mrs. Saggat hadn’t eaten yet, so I didn’t know the proper way. I tipped my head and smiled like I imaged she would.

  Mr. Saggat said. “Go on now, eat up. We wait for our guest to commence the eating.”

  I raised the corn bread to my mouth with one hand and used the other to bring a slab of turkey into position. I took care only to touch the food with two fingers and to lean my face well over my plate in case of drippage. It seemed the fancy way to go about eating.

  The children laughed at my manners. The middle boy said, “She eats like an injun.” My face felt to be blistering.

  Mrs. Saggat shushed the laughter. “There now, dear, use your utensils. Like this.”

  I did exactly as she showed. “Sorry, ma’am. I ain’t accustomed.”

  “So is he often away from home?” Mr. Saggat asked.

  I understood this to be a sliding question. If I said yes, then Mr. Saggat might get to thinking he could take advantage of our lower lands. If I said no, then he might figure Pa had chosen this day to be gone and thereby avoid this conversation. “Sir, we got cattle far and wide this spring.” It wasn’t the best answer but it was the one that come quickest.

  “Is that so? Why would you keep them spread wide so early? Ain’t they still on feed?”

  I imagined I was Pa. “Shallow snows this year up high.”

  “Is that right?” He looked down his nose. I saw it then, he was smiling at me but there was a shortage of smile in the man.

  I was sweating under my arms and I drank down all my water so as to hide behind the cup a moment and collect myself.

  Mr. Saggat turned on me. This time he spoke of Noah. “It was a sadness to learn he has chosen sin. It must trouble Mr. Harney fierce to know his only boy has turned heathen.”

  My blood quickened at his contempt. I said, “Sir, I will believe in my brother until I learn otherwise direct from him.”

  “But you can’t deny his actions? You’ve seen the newspapers, I assume.”

  “My brother ain’t no heathen.” My heat had revealed itself.

  The room went still. Not a child breathed and I could see the surprise in Mr. Saggat’s eyes.

  I crossed my arms. “But yes, sir, I worry. I pray nightly for his soul. May you lead us in a prayer now for him? It is rare I am among people as godly as yourselves and the Lo
rd knows my dear brother could use the divine influence either way.”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Saggat said. Her eyes sat heavy on her husband. “Let us pray for our child neighbor and her troubled kin.”

  Mr. Saggat put down his fork and swallowed his bite and pulled his napkin from his collar. He did all this without joy and I could tell a prayer at this moment was not to his preference. He mumbled to himself for a time and his eyes remained shut. Then he said, “Amen.”

  “Amen,” the other voices sounded. My own come a beat behind theirs, so surprised I was to amen a prayer I hadn’t been privy to.

  The little children got to talking and Mrs. Saggat got to helping the littlest. These girls and boys would grow to be mothers and fathers and they would populate this valley with wholesome little families that ate supper on white tablecloths.

  Mr. Saggat was chewing an especially large bite of turkey. “Your father is in dire financial times, no?”

  “Zeke,” Mrs. Saggat exclaimed. “Jessilyn is a girl alone without her kin.”

  “What I say is no slander. Harney missed market this year. Came in low last year. Now his cattle are scattered in the mountains and he’s sure to fail this coming summer. I do not mean any offense but only to clarify the reality. The time has come to sell.”

  “Please.” There was heat now in Mrs. Saggat’s voice.

  Mr. Saggat lifted his napkin and wiped his brow. “My men tell me your father has been tending to his herd by himself since your brother rode off. It is no wonder he is coming up short. Cattle require a payroll. I have seen this countless times before. I am more than just a cattleman, you understand. I am also invested in the efforts of others. Our people work together and so rise together. That is the way with the Saints.”

  “Yessir.”

  He leaned closer to me than he had before. I could smell not only his breath but also his perspiration. He smelled of moldy dough put to the oven. He said low like it was just the two of us at the table, “I can help you and your father. You tell him as much, okay?”

  Just as soon as dinner was over Mrs. Saggat packed a plate for Pa.

  “That’s awful kind of you, ma’am. I worry about staying late on account of the ride.”

  “I’ll ride with you,” Mr. Saggat offered. “Maybe Mr. Harney will be returned.”

  I didn’t have to refuse. Mrs. Saggat said, “The girl knows the way, and Isaac is counting on your help with his reading tonight, Zeke.”

  Mr. Saggat looked at his wife. The moment sprawled, until Mr. Saggat began to laugh. “Seems my wife is intent on making me rude.”

  Mrs. Saggat led me toward the door. Outside the night was complete, the moon near full. She handed me the plate but it was her embrace I so desired. I was in hard need of the most basic sustenance. She picked up her toddler to her hip and said, “Bundle against the cold, dear, and give your pa our kindness.”

  Over her shoulder Mr. Saggat was fiddling with something in a desk drawer. He rose from his work and crossed the room and took my hand in his and I felt him passing something into my palm. He smiled. “Give Mr. Harney our blessings,” Mr. Saggat said.

  Ingrid was waiting for me where I had hitched her. The Mormons watched me from the stoop.

  From the windows at the top of the house I could see candles burning and children’s faces peering down at me. All them children was gathered there together to watch. So many children. At night I doubt they needed quilts for all the warmth they shared.

  I pulled on my riding jacket and flipped up the collar against the wind. Two minutes before I had been in a warm room with roast turkey. Now I rode into icy darkness.

  A mile down the road I checked what Mr. Saggat had given me. It was a slip of paper. But when I unfurled it I saw it wasn’t paper but paper money. He’d slipped me a dollar.

  Back at home I lay in bed. Sleep was slow in coming. I kept thinking of that dollar. Neither friends nor thieves just up and give a girl a dollar and expect nothing in return.

  I rose and relit the lantern by feel. I carried it to the door and pulled in the latch string.

  When sleep did come it was Noah who visited me. We was riding side by side across rolling plains. Just wind over our ears and hooves in grass, and both of us together, running from something.

  * * *

  —

  The next day I awoke late. The sun was already up and the cabin smelled of ash blown out the fireplace by the morning breeze.

  I finished what was left of the Mormon’s supper and then carried the dollar out to the holehouse where Pa kept our savings. I reached through the hole and up onto the bottom side of the wooden seat to a box sitting on a shelf there. It was a long reach for me and the smell was as you’d expect. As I did my business I added the dollar to the box and counted. There was twelve dollars, including the California gold piece Pa had carried with him since the war. I put the box back in its place before leaving.

  When I come around the edge of the house, I saw a saddled buckskin hitched to our post.

  The front door was open.

  I thought to the location of the Colt, still under the pillow.

  I knew my only advantage was surprise so I stalked to the edge of the house.

  I heard spurs on the dirt floor. I looked and saw Sheriff Younger appear in the doorway.

  The sheriff saw me then too. He put an arm to the doorjamb. He had his hat on and his pistol hung low. “Ain’t you a silly-looking sight.” I was still wearing long johns from the night. “Where’s your pa?”

  “Out.”

  “Out where?”

  “He comes and goes.”

  “Is that right?” he asked while touching a match to a cigarillo.

  “Yessir.”

  He waved out his match. “Ain’t you gonna offer me coffee or nothing?”

  “Don’t got no coffee.”

  “No pa and no coffee.”

  “I got a pa, he’s just out. Ain’t got no coffee.”

  “He makes a habit of being out, don’t he? Stopped by the mercantile and his name come up. Seems he hasn’t been by in some months. Seems you’ve been running up his debts.”

  “You want me to pass along a message?”

  He took a seat on the bench by the front door. He watched his smoke blow away in the breeze. “Maybe I’ll just wait a piece, see him when he returns.”

  I caught myself before I could say he would be gone a while. I didn’t want this man knowing I would be alone here for even the hour. “I’m going in to get dressed. I’d appreciate some distance.”

  I walked past the sheriff. I shut the door behind me and dropped the juniper latch and pulled in the string.

  Inside I put on my dress and my sheepskin coat. It was a touch more coat than necessary given the day, but it was thick enough to conceal the Colt I hid at my back.

  I looked around the room, this time from the sheriff’s mind. There wasn’t a thing of Pa’s out, not his sleeping things or his tobacco. On the table was my one dish. I set out another, then decided to clear both.

  I opened the door and stepped into the sunlight.

  I took a position out in the open. The sheriff was smashing the rest of his smoke on my bench.

  “Think your pa’ll miss his saddle? Saw it hanging in the barn.”

  I spat, though I didn’t have no tobacco, Pa’s habit when asked a question he didn’t want to answer.

  The sheriff reclined and looked off toward the hills. The magpies called from the willows. The fowl was making a courting ruckus on the lake, and the breeze carried their cackles our direction. The creek was milky with runoff and in the meadows the purple camas was up and close to bloom.

  “Looks to me like your herd is down. Probably doing the best you can without your pa around to help. Did he go and die on you? Or’d he finally turn to mush and run off?”

  “You full
of crazy thoughts, sheriff.”

  “There be cruel people passing through these parts. A girl with fat cattle? A lush spread to herself. There be people who would see this and think they found themselves an opportunity.”

  “Let Pa’s rifle talk some sense into them.”

  The sheriff laughed. He took off his hat and brushed it on his knee. His hair was silver and clean. He was a bathing man. He said, “Your pa probably let on he was some kind of hero with that Yankee rifle.”

  I didn’t take his bait. I knew Sheriff Younger had fought for the Confederacy.

  “Your old man was a low-down, dry-gulching son of a bitch. He tell you that? His kind hid like cowards and shot good men in the back. I seen what they done. They ain’t no heroes.”

  I felt mean as a bear now. I might’ve mauled that smile from his face. “I’ll tell him you said so, sheriff.”

  Younger picked something from between his teeth. He examined his clean fingernails. “I can help you, you realize. We can get your head sold at fair prices. We can get this burden of a ranch out from under you. You’ll have good money. You won’t have no problem marrying yourself a well-to-do man. I know a widower up Malheur way with five sections who’d do real well by you.”

  “Why would you want to help me?”

  “My position requires I offer assistance to all citizens of the county, even the kin of a yellow Yank.”

  Younger seen something in my eyes then. His forehead furrowed. He put his hat on. “Your brother been around?”

  Younger scanned the near hill, the barn. “Maybe he come home to help you, now that your pa turned to mush?”

  My power rested in what he thought he knew. “Appreciate you coming by, sheriff. Now you best get on, I got me plenty of work to do before Pa come riding back.”

  He took his buckskin’s reins and walked him from the house. He swung up and wheeled around on that antsy stallion. I could see the horse trusted him as much as I did.

  “You know I rode a long way this morning to come see you,” he said, looking down at me.

  “I know the distance.”