“He quieted,” Fenton said, surprised. “And neither of you hurt.”
“He’ll tire.” Ty moved Loco around the corral again, circling it twice before bringing him to the packs.
“If he don’t kill you first,” Fenton said, readying the packs again.
For an hour the mule fought off the packs—once when Fenton was almost finished with the last knot.
“Maybe Spec’s right. We need to build a packing platform.” Fenton’s shirt was soggy with sweat and dust and mule hair. “He just won’t wear down.” He moved the packs back into place. “Determined bastard.”
Ty thought panicked was more like it. He hated what they were doing—but saw no choice. Again he circled the mule before bringing him back between the packs. Fenton eased the first pack against his side and again Loco went up, pulling Ty beneath the flailing feet. Fenton kicked the pack aside and grabbed the rope to help. Together they fought Loco down only to have him go up even harder, pulling them under him as he staggered backward for balance.
“Let him go.” Fenton knocked Ty into the dirt with a sweep of his arm and dropped the lead. With no weight to check him, Loco went all the way over, his head cracking against the broken post, the big body suddenly limp.
“Maybe we killed him,” Fenton panted. “Or is he just slowed?”
“Might of killed himself.” Ty got up from the dirt.
“Suicide, you mean?”
“No. Suicide takes being thoughtful.” Ty walked over to the fallen mule. “Maybe he panicked himself to death.”
“Thoughtful folks can panic to death too.” Fenton nudged the mule with his boot. “Just more rare.”
Ty was trying to figure out what Fenton meant when the mule stirred, rolled to get his feet under him, came partway up, went back down.
“Think he’s all right?” Ty asked.
“Maybe. Might be knocked a little walleyed.”
Loco was up now, legs splayed, head low, seeking balance.
“Quick.” Fenton was already moving. “Let’s pack him.”
“Pack him? Those packs could knock him back down.”
“Could. But he might concentrate so hard on stayin’ upright he won’t know he’s packed.” Ty braced himself for the pack Fenton pushed at him. “Hurry—he might improve. Don’t want his complete attention.”
They crossed the pass in darkness, Loco moving in a trance behind Cottontail, who had caused no trouble after seeing Loco serene under his packs. The climb had been fast, the Mission Range growing purple before dropping into night. Now there was only the crunch of snow, the creak of leather, the click of a shoe on rock as they regained the trail.
The moon lifted and gave Ty a ghostly picture of the country below—the high lakes making darker stains above where the timber began. They rode down, crossing the lake-drainage just as a coyote lifted a cry from high above. Others answered, calling and yipping, making such a racket that the first voice was lost. Ty guessed it was the moon. That’s when their calls lifted in the Bitterroot. He doubted these were different. Except that lone coyote who started it. He must have seen something the others didn’t.
The Bitterroot was almost forgotten as Ty rode into this new life with these new people. He felt the chill lifting from the stream and shouldered into his Levi jacket, the trail flattening to work its way through wet meadows, dark stands of timber. He liked moving along in quiet, the only sound packs in motion, a horse blowing, coyotes calling intermittently—as though tracing their progress from some wild route above.
He watched Fenton and slowed where he did, easing into darkness, and climbing back into moonlight at the same pace. He led Turkey, who would doze before snorting and farting as Ty yanked him awake. After Turkey came Cottontail, then Loco. Ty kept watching the big mule, worrying about how he would act when it came to him he was packed.
Toward dawn they skirted a long lake, the trail sometimes dropping to its bank but for the most part staying high, dipping into dark woods to cross drainages, the lake continuing on. There seemed no end to it.
He might have been asleep when he heard hooves on wood, saw Fenton’s mules crossing a walkway where a spring surfaced. Smoky and Turkey weren’t bothered, but Cottontail paused before bolting forward, yanking Loco onto clattery logs he didn’t like. He stepped off, away from the racket, and sank hock-deep in ooze before scrambling back, the sucking sound of his hooves coming free making him crowd the others. They settled as soon as they were back on the trail, but Ty saw Loco was awake, his trance gone.
They dipped into the woods once more. Ty heard water before he saw Fenton’s mules on the bridge. They were in shadow, then back into moonlight, the two pack strings almost opposite as Fenton came out of the draw.
“Take it slow!” Fenton called above the water. “It’s narrow.”
Ty eased Smoky and Turkey onto the bridge. Cottontail hesitated, then hurried onto the planks after them. Loco didn’t like the clatter. His rump went down and he scrambled backward just as Turkey heaved forward, snatching Cottontail from the bridge and into the creek. She struggled up only to be pulled down farther, going over again and then again, her packs finally wedging into the V of the stream, her ropes running taut to Turkey and Loco, each struggling to stay upright, eyes flashing white in the moonlight.
“Why don’t the damned pigtails give!” Fenton was making his way back to Turkey. “Buck must of used bailing wire.” Ty was already in the stream, crawling over Cottontail, his knife out as he reached to find the loop behind the mule’s saddle.
“Pigtail’s buried!” Fenton yelled. “Cut the lead-line.”
Ty sawed through it, watched Loco spring free, fall, struggle to his feet, disappear up the trail. Fenton, somehow managing to unsnap Turkey’s line, was suddenly down in the streambed with him.
“Hustle. Mules ain’t happy on their backs . . . Any broke legs?” “She isn’t kicking.”
“Crawl a tad further. Undo them cinches. She might roll free
without the saddle.”
Ty pushed across Cottontail’s belly to reach the latigos, fearing her hooves but having no other choice.
The mule made no move as Ty struggled with the swollen leather. He got the latigos free and inched himself back, joined Fenton to pull Cottontail’s lead, stretching her head back across her body to make her fight them. She kicked up, struggled against them and found she was free of the saddle. She fought it too, fought the packs and the creek bed and came up, testing her legs, scrambling up the bank to the safety of the trail, shaking and blowing.
“Get Loco.” Fenton tied Cottontail to a lodgepole and slid back into the creek. “I’ll snag her packs. They’ll be full of water.”
Ty found Loco stopped where the walkway began, unwilling to go farther. He crossed through the mud to head him off, caught the frayed lead, and led him back, Loco nosing at the trail now, more interested in it than the packs on his back. He nosed at Cottontail too, rubbed his neck on her rump, so happy to see her he calmed.
“No damage.” Fenton’s voice rose above the stream. He had the saddle and packs across the creek. “But I don’t like the looks of them clouds.” Ty saw darkness to the south, a scrim already crossing the moon. “Bring her over. Let’s saddle and scoot. Gotta get those folks under canvas.”
Ty didn’t know what to do with Loco, but the big mule seemed so happy rubbing at Cottontail he left him there, leading Cottontail back toward to the bridge, which she bolted across.
“She don’t want to go in the creek again,” Fenton said. “Another story with Loco, unless he gets lonely. Let’s stay out of sight while we saddle.”
Ty followed Fenton up the trail with Cottontail and began brushing debris from her back. Lightning came suddenly, followed by deep thunder.
“It does like to rain when we camp at White River.” Fenton watched Ty saddle. “Tents are on them first two mules.” He spoke as though he’d resolved something. “Let’s get Loco over that bridge. I’ll slip on into camp before this rain.You pa
ck up and follow.”
“I don’t know where to go.” Ty looked at him across Cottontail. “I never been there ...I never been here.”
“You can track, can’t you?” Fenton checked Cottontail’s cinch.
“Not in the dark, I can’t.”
“Won’t be dark long. I’d worry more about the rain washin’ them tracks out. Let’s get Loco. Bet he’s lonely.”
He was right about that. Loco was so anxious to get to Cottontail he hardly noticed the bridge.
Fenton tied him near the packs, tightened Easter’s cinch, and mounted. “Your Loco mule might civilize after all.”
“I don’t know where to go.” Ty looked at the packs and then at Fenton. “Without the moon I won’t see a track at all.”
“No turnoffs before the South Fork. Hit the big river, turn up it four miles. Be light by then. Look for tracks to the river. Good ford. Cross and climb them benches. You’re in camp.” Fenton started Easter up the trail. “I’ll have coffee.”
“Rain could wash those tracks away!” It came to Ty why Spec was wary of packing. He felt a little sick.
Fenton stood down and got something from his saddlebag. He came back and handed Ty some strips of jerked elk. Lightning flashed, thunder close behind.
“Sugar here ain’t carrying any tents.” Fenton untied his last mule. “I’ll leave her. Ride up the big river a ways and then put Sugar and Turkey out in front. They’ll bring you in.”
“How will they know?” It made no sense to Ty.
“Turkey knows where there’s grain, and Sugar goes for White River like a homing pigeon. Smart mule and a greedy horse’ll bring you in every time.”
Fenton watched Ty chew as lightning flashed again.
“Sometimes in these mountains,” he said, his voice almost tender, “you find yourself learnin’ more than you got time to consider.”
Ty bit off more jerky, wondering what he was supposed to consider. He chewed, watching Fenton ride off into darkness.
It seemed to Ty he had horses and mules tied everywhere, but it was Cottontail’s packs that worried him. They were so water soaked he could barely lift them, and he was afraid if he got one on it would pull the saddle over before he could get the other in place. He found a high bank down the trail, wrestled one up, tied it off, and rested it there as he fought the other into place.
He lined the string out, Sugar in the rear to encourage Loco. Lightning was almost their only light now. When they left the lake and entered the woods, there was no way he could see at all. He gave Smoky her head and hoped the packs would ride, finally dozing in the saddle until a rumble too steady to be thunder told him they’d found the river. Smoky turned up against it, paralleling the noise, which lifted and faded and lifted again. At dawn he saw they were on a faint trail crossing low benches and going through stands of timber that opened into meadows. Across the meadows he could see the river, swollen and gray with silt.
The rain was starting in as they crossed a bog, the sucking sound of hooves too much for Loco. Ty was thankful Fenton had fashioned a new pigtail. It gave way as Loco fought back, his knotted lead hanging useless as he stood with Sugar, watched Ty cross with the others. Ty tied up and made his way back. He released Sugar, who hurried across to join Turkey, flinging mud on Ty in her haste. Loco wouldn’t follow. Ty stroked him, leaned against him, dozed as he talked and calmed him. But it was no good. Each time he led him to the crossing, he balked, set his weight, scrabbled back.
Ty knew Loco wasn’t crazy this time, just scared. He also knew he was too tired to fight him. He took the lead-line and slopped his way through the mud to Smoky, mounted her to ride into a country he’d never seen. He’d come back for Loco when he found out where he was, if he ever did.
Turkey and Sugar were free now—both of them unconcerned as Ty led Cottontail and tried to pick up tracks. But the trail was everywhere awash—and he was having trouble staying awake. He stopped when he saw a faint trace leading off toward the river, the animals so tired they made no protest. Turkey drifted off to graze, but Sugar nosed along the trail until she passed him, moved down the trace, and turned through timber toward the river. Ty followed, seeing what they were on hadn’t been used for years and knowing he should turn back—if his body would respond. Then Sugar, well ahead now, went belly-deep into the river, quartering upstream against the current. Smoky followed her, the rain settling in hard now but Ty too weary to think about his slicker. He looked back, thankful Turkey was following so closely, and thought he saw something along the bank. There was too much rain to be sure. And he was tired, coming alert only as they pitched steeply out of the river, climbed up and still up again to a broad bench, an opening in the timber. In the clearing was Fenton, standing under the big kitchen fly, the wall tents already up against the rain. Spec and Jasper were there too, all of them looking at him, calling out to him.
He got off Smoky, relieved his legs didn’t buckle, tied Cottontail to the log where the saddles were stacked.
“Had to leave Loco.” He looked at Fenton, standing under the ridge beam of the cook tent with his coffee. “But we made it. Sugar brought us in.”
“You ain’t the first to be rescued by a mule.” Fenton was smiling.
Ty saw the others were were smiling too. He looked down at the mud on his pants, his shirt—mud everywhere from his struggles in the creek bed and with the packing and through the muddy crossing.
“It ain’t the mud,” Jasper said. “We was wondering about the waterproofed trousers. Is that to keep you dry when you wade the river?”
Ty looked, saw that the neat’s-foot oil had stained and darkened his pants everywhere.
“Guess I oiled too much. Wanted to protect the saddle.”
“That oil’s done its work,” Fenton said. “You have too. Come in here and get you some coffee.”
“Gotta unsaddle. Then I’ll slip back for Loco.”
Spec put his slicker on and went out to help. Fenton held his cup out to Jasper, who was waiting with a steaming cup for Ty. Jasper poured it into Fenton’s cup instead.
“Jasper,” Fenton said, sipping the hot coffee. “I believe we’ve found us a packer.”
Fenton (1927)
There are some who still say Fenton Pardee is where Ty Hardin really started.
7
The Packer
Fenton Pardee and Cody Jo Taylor were married in 1927. Fenton was fifty-five years old, Cody Jo twenty-six. But their union aroused people’s interest for larger reasons. Fenton had enjoyed being single for so many years it was hard to predict what would happen when he wasn’t. The mountains always seemed to answer his spiritual needs, The Bar of Justice his physical ones. Though it was clear the tall schoolteacher with the wonderful smile could make even Fenton change his priorities, none predicted she would be the one who did the convincing, not the other way around. Half the bachelors in the valley had vied for her hand. It shocked them to see Fenton wind up with it, looking a little shocked himself.
But it wasn’t such a shock to the others. They’d enjoyed watching Cody Jo find such humor in Fenton’s doubts, find humor in her efforts to dispel them too. She seemed to take pleasure in his apprehension. They would shake their heads, puzzled over why a man like Fenton Pardee would be skeptical about such a sparkling woman. Some thought it his age, some his general contrariness, others his deep wariness. None saw it had less to do with what they could see than with what they couldn’t: Fenton’s love of his mountains, his fear that this wonderful girl would keep him from them.
What was clear to all of them from the day Cody Jo arrived was that she made things better, bringing more life to the Swan Valley schoolhouse than it had ever known. Children liked her, mothers believed in her, cowboys and lumberjacks lined up to dance with her at the schoolhouse socials. There wasn’t a man not pleased to tip his hat to her, a woman who didn’t like to visit with her: the women liking her because she got things done with so little fuss, the men because she kept them so off-balance they
couldn’t tell whether she was laughing at them or with them. All they knew was that when she was happy, things were livelier. They were thankful for whatever triggered it.
And Fenton made her happy. It was a mystery that only added to one already alive in the Swan: how Fenton Pardee could be the shrewdest, most relentless trader in the country when he was out of the mountains; the most selfless and charitable packer in the range when in them.
But all talk of how frugal Fenton could be, how unconventional the courtship, was put aside for the important day. No banter was exchanged, no jokes delivered by forsaken suitors. And if someone smiled because for once they were seeing Fenton manipulated, no one minded. What interested them most as they drank and laughed at the big wedding on the edge of Fenton’s pasture was that they had never seen Fenton Pardee as happy—or as grateful. At least not when he was out of his mountains.
They all knew about Fenton, but only Fenton knew about Cody Jo. She had told him everything, looking at him steadily, going through it carefully—as though their future depended on his seeing all of it. As she talked he became so full of admiration for her she could have told him anything. Her candor left him queasy and dry-mouthed, every doubt he had vanishing. It was like jumping off a cliff into a South Fork pool. After you stepped off, you left behind everything that had held you back.
He had met Cody Jo at the fall dance in the schoolhouse. “The tall one,” she’d said. “White on top, like your mountains.” Then she was off with one of the Wilson brothers, swinging out among the couples on the dance floor. He could see she was a marvelous dancer, liked it that she gave him a wave or a smile as she went by.
He enjoyed watching the young men circling her for their chance, watching them drift outside to drink and talk about everything but the schoolteacher before they came back in to try again. He watched her encourage them too, laugh with them, help even the clumsiest come more alive when they moved around the floor.
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