High Country : A Novel

by Willard Wyman

  They came into a glade, the snow not sticking as well now, the tracks of a smaller bear showing clearly. “Dressed out a elk over there on the first day,” Spec said. “Figured it would draw something.” He looked at a lodgepole, its lower branches broken away, bark almost polished. “Scratching himself.” He looked at Ty. “I’ll come back later. Maybe tomorrow.”

  It snowed hard the next morning, then cleared. But the men were into their cards, laughing and smoking and starting to drink well before it began to lift. Spec slipped away without anyone noticing but Ty, who left with him, needing to check his stock. They walked down the canyon for a mile before Ty picked up tracks and left Spec to seek his horses. He found them a long way from camp but comfortable, pleased to see him, happy to nuzzle into the nose bag and warm themselves with his feed.

  He fed them what he had, talking to Smoky Girl and Sugar, rubbing Loco’s neck, giving Cottontail a little extra. He left them to climb up to the timberline cliffs, where the sun broke through and eased the chill. He watched his horses warm in a meadow below him and looked across them at the drainages tilting down to the big river, looked beyond to other valleys lifting up to the China Wall. That was where the waters started their run to another ocean, where in a day’s ride the country changed so much it supported a different kind of life—different trees and grasses, different animals. It made him think how much Spec was a part of this country, these woods, these animals. He thought about the bear too, probably liking this sun as much as Ty’s mules, stretching in it, rubbing his back, gathering feed for winter. He hoped this would be one of those times Spec would see what he was after and decide to pass it by. He had little doubt Spec could kill the bear, which was why it held no excitement for him.

  After awhile he dropped back down to camp. The men were out in the sun now, stretching their legs and talking with Fenton before they went back to their cards. He hadn’t been back long when Spec showed up, something big and bulky lashed to his hunting pack. Spec motioned to Ty, and they walked through the trees to the corral, Spec opening the lashed manty to show Ty the pelt, asking him how to tell the men he’d taken the bear without them.

  “We would of had to bring them on horses,” Spec said. “Make a ruckus. I doubt they would have got a shot. This way I killed him clean.”

  Fenton came up and told Spec not to worry about the men. “They’d as leave shoot from a rockin’ chair, if we set one up right.” He draped the pelt over a log, smoothing it. “You done fine, Spec. They’ll be tickled.”

  “You knew where to go,” Ty said.You were too smart for him.”

  “Don’t have to be smart, with this.” He gestured at his rifle. “My people had to be . . . in their times.”

  Fenton was right. The men couldn’t have been more pleased, calling Spec Natty Bumpus and cutting cards to decide who would claim the bear. The man who won was so happy he made everyone drink with him, even Ty. He kept stroking the pelt, asking Spec questions. Later, when Spec rode out with him, the man paid him an extra fifty dollars, taking the hide in a special duffle back to Cincinnati to show his friends.

  Three more hunting parties came in that year, the last strong young men from Missoula and Hell’s Gate, friends of Horace and Etta Adams needing meat for the winter. They wanted to see the country too, get to know Fenton Pardee. But Fenton saw they knew what they were doing and left with Buck to pack out Forest Service people. “ Yo u’ll be all right,” he told Spec. “Point ’em to where there’s elk. I’ll be waitin’ when you and Ty pull out the camp.” So Spec stayed, hunting with the men, showing them the country, helping Ty learn the woods.

  But when Buck came back to take the men out, Spec had to go too. Tommy Yellowtail had taken sick, and Spec wouldn’t have it any other way than to be with his father. Jasper was already scheduled to go out, which left Ty alone to pack out the camp.

  He didn’t worry. He was mostly concerned with keeping track of the stock, which was easier now. Buck had packed in feed. It kept them close, the grass sparse, the snow beginning to stick. It was only a matter of time before it would cover what grass was left—then close the passes.

  “Take you two days to knock down the tents and manty things up,” Spec said. “You got plenty mules. If the passes close, go down. Follow the South Fork to Hungry Horse.”

  Fenton called it their “emergency exit,” but both Spec and Ty were pretty sure it wouldn’t be needed. The sky looked as blue as Wilma Ring’s eyes that day they pulled her father out. And Spec knew Fenton’s cutoff to the pass, told Ty about the big boulder that marked the route.

  “Save you riding all that way down and climbing back up the drainage,” Spec said. “Come in right at them meadows where Ring camps. Save half a day, maybe more.”

  That sounded good to Ty. With the days getting shorter, that was time he could use. It meant starting early, riding late. But with no camp to make it could be done in a day, which is what he wanted to do.

  “Track us,” Spec said, swinging onto his horse and taking the leadline from Ty. It was such a clear day that Spec wasn’t even complaining about packing. “We’ll be at Fenton’s by dark,” he called out. “When you leave, get started earlier.You got more to bring.”

  Ty liked the picture they made, stocking caps pulled low, rifles in their scabbards, elk racks top-tied on the packs, breath steaming in the cold. He watched them cross the stream and waved as they dropped from sight.

  He looked around at the camp, manties thrown over the saddles, tools stacked, tents snug and tight, the high country lifting above them. He’d learned a lot setting it up, meeting Jasper’s needs for his cook tent, placing the corral, the guest tents. But there was so much more to learn—things he had no way to know were important that first day when he’d wound up biting down on Loco’s ear. Spec had most of it in him already. He decided it was best to hang around Spec, hope some of it rubbed off. He tossed his coffee into the snow and started working.

  It warmed, and he worked all that day gathering tools and equipment, lining out loads to be packed, knocking down everything but the big cook tent. He made a dinner of rice and eggs and elk steak. After dinner he went back to work, getting as much as he could balanced, ready.

  The next day it was cloudy. He brought the horses in and gave them feed before going on about his packing. By noon it had begun to snow, big flakes coming gently at first and then thickening into a white curtain. He moved his work into the cook tent and considered waiting it out. There was plenty of food and he’d brought in lots of wood. But the snow was coming hard; it might keep coming for a week. If he waited too long, he might not even be able to get to the South Fork.

  He decided to try for it the next morning. He’d ride to the cutoff, and if things weren’t too bad, make a try for the pass. If the snow kept falling, he’d go on to Hungry Horse, an idea he didn’t like at all. He didn’t know where to camp, what meadows would hold his mules— didn’t even know if the trail was marked. Traveling in snow wasn’t all that easy when you knew where you were going; it was miserable when you didn’t.

  Whichever way he went, he’d have to leave early. He worked late getting everything ready, even eating a cold supper so he could pull the stove apart. When he’d done all he could, he put on Fenton’s canvas coat and went out to feed, the cold hitting him so hard he felt lucky Fenton had left it. But cold meant clearing; there were only a few flakes falling now, stars showing off to the south.

  Smoky Girl nickered as he neared the corral, came to him. The mules shouldered one another aside to get close. He buttoned the coat higher against the cold, watched them for a long time before going back. He knew there wouldn’t be much sleep anyway.

  He fired the lanterns before dawn, the sleepless night all energy now. The snow had stopped but much had fallen, blanketing everything, beaten down only where the mules had moved in the corral, pissing and dropping piles, huddling against the cold. He rigged a lantern and began to saddle, wanting everything ready for first light.

  As dawn
came, he was knocking down the cook tent, mantying it on the bare ground where it had stood—the work slow but his ropes tight, his knots sure. Snow was starting in again, big flakes drifting down and sticking on the ropes. He wished he had Spec or Buck, even Jasper, to hold the packs while he tied them off. It took over an hour to get everything right, but he made sure it was, that everything would ride. It was going to be a long day whichever way he went. He didn’t want to spend half of it making right what he’d done wrong in the first place. He put the eight mules together quickly, Cottontail first, then Loco, each behind one he favored. He tied little Sugar in last, knowing she hated being left, would push the string along. He pulled Fenton’s big canvas coat on over his Levi jacket. He could hardly get into Horace’s anymore; if he could, he would have worn it too. The packing had kept him warm, but the sky was dark, the cold in to stay.

  He lined the mules out, circling so each would know his place as he checked to see if something forgotten poked up through the snow. Then Smoky splashed across the creek, brushing past snow-heavy trees as she sought the trace leading from the canyon.

  Snow was falling hard now, the woods changed. Drifts made the deadfall look cushiony, soft, the floor of the forest so smooth it seemed you could ride anywhere. The trail was gone, but Ty trusted Smoky to know where to go. His own eyes were on the woods, the pack string. He looked ahead for drifts but mostly looked back, turned in his saddle as though on a pivot, watching to make sure the packs balanced, no mule broke from the long line.

  They moved through the snow for an hour, and Ty felt better. It wasn’t so cold in the deep woods—no wind, the big flakes floating in so gently he could read their patterns on Smoky’s mane. He thought about Fenton’s cutoff, wondering if he’d even find it, wanting to mark it as he rode past on the way to Hungry Horse. That seemed the only way out—until next year.

  He hunkered into the coats, watching. It was like riding into a new world, moving through this white. The trampled route behind them was the only thing that marred its surface, leaves and branches churned up as the mules felt their way along the forest floor. It was easy to see where they’d been. Where Smoky was taking them was the mystery, the woods so open and inviting any direction seemed possible. Ty liked riding through the white, watching it lift and resettle as Smoky made her way.

  They went down so quickly he came off as though dismounting, his foot going boot-deep in snow before hitting something solid. He pushed off instinctively, found himself coming back into the saddle as Smoky struggled up, Cottontail already stumbling over the buried danger.

  His hands were shaking as he slowed, easing the rest over the log, exposed now and manageable. He watched each mule step across, cursing himself for letting the snow lull him so, make him immune to all the trouble it could hide.

  He took stock, worried that something bad had already happened. Steering Smoky wide of a drift, he leaned off the saddle to look back for blood on legs, blood on the snow; look ahead for something safe, some sure footing. But there was no way to tell, just the silent white, the easy fall of big flakes. He worried about how far they’d drifted from the trail, saw there was no way to know that either. He must have been in a trance when they left it. He couldn’t remember crossing any drainages; wasn’t even sure whether Smoky had been taking him up or down. He peered back through floating snowflakes, hoping for some landmark, then swept the woods before him. There was nothing to help him in either direction, just the silent white.

  I could tie up, he thought, take Smoky back, find the route, then track back to the string, take them to it. But how far back? How much time lost? Where would that put us when night fell?

  He focused on what was ahead, every other sense suspended—no sensation of the cold, the saddle under him, the lead-line in his hand. His mind spun: if he were going to turn back, it had to be soon. By night his tracks would be buried with everything else. Besides not knowing where to go, he wouldn’t know where he’d been. Still he didn’t stop, couldn’t bring himself to pull up, tie his mules, go back.

  His mouth went dry as he saw how little there was to work with. All he had was the ragged scar his mules left in the snow. He tried to calm his mind, make use of it. He looked back as far as he could and got direction from his own tracks, following them forward as a man might follow a pointer.

  He looked ahead for something to fix on, found an uprooted tree, dirt showing through the twisted roots. He started for it, found a lightningtopped fir beyond the root, fixed on that. Then a leaning deadfall. He went from target to target, looking back to keep his course, ahead for some point to fix on—seeking always for something to tell him he was crossing the trail, paralleling it, some way to get it back so he would never lose it again.

  His mouth went drier still when it came to him that the trail might be below them already, that he might ride until night with nothing showing up at all, that when his mind had drifted from him he might have missed not only the drainages but the buried creek too. The shifting snow had leveled the woods, changed everything he knew.

  And still he went on, trying to hold his direction but bending and twisting his string of mules as the forest grew thicker. His heart sank as he eased them through places more and more difficult, knowing something might stop him at any moment. He was turning to check his course one more time when his eye caught something high in the timber. It was behind them—something out of place, wrong. He strained to make it out through the falling snow, finally turning back and riding toward it. He was almost under it before he realized it was a limbed lodgepole, almost fifteen feet long, high and braced on branches where nature could never put it.

  He rode under it, dismounting into the knee-deep snow, feeling his legs shaking as he saw the woods opening in a lane, coming at the lodgepole at cross purposes and going off again down the canyon. He looked again, sure now that he’d found the trail but surprised that the lodgepole pointed off still another way. And where it pointed was Spec’s big boulder, marking the way to the cutoff as surely as a signpost.

  Spec had done it, he thought. Stopped with the hunters, found the lodgepole, lifted it into place. Shown him the way.

  He took off his stocking cap, shook the snow from it, noticing the sky was getting lighter, the snow stopping. He felt blood rushing through him, his heart pushing at it. He realized he needed to pee but went to his mules first, checked their packs, their legs for cuts. Then he stepped away, emptying himself as he dug under his coats for his pocket watch. Soon he’d need to look for a camp. He was thankful he’d packed feed.

  He looked at the watch, put it back, walked over to Smoky and rubbed her neck, thinking of what Fenton would do. He took out the watch again, put it to his ear, made sure. He looked at it still another time before he put it away. Then he tightened Smoky’s cinch and climbed back on.

  It was not yet noon.

  14

  Snow

  “Let me tell you about snow.” Fenton was carving a spoon for Jasper. It was August; they were camped up toward the China Wall, going still higher in the morning to pull out a fire crew. Ty couldn’t figure what snow had to do with anything at that time of year.

  “On that spring snow you can walk your mules over places you wouldn’t dare, could you see them,” Fenton said. “Don’t need to know where you are so much as where to go—if the goin’ ain’t too steep and you start early.” He compared the spoon with the one Jasper had broken rescuing the Dutch oven from the fire. “Use it right, old snow solves your problems. Gets you over places a goat couldn’t navigate come summer.”

  He sipped at his coffee. “Fall snow is different. Might hide where it’s bad, but it don’t save you from it. Mostly air. Won’t hold a pinecone.” He looked at Ty. “To get out of these mountains in the fall, you got to know where the hell you’re going.” He looked back into the fire, whittling again.

  “Most of them who lose their mules,” he added, “don’t.”

  Ty was well along the cutoff when Fenton’s words came back
to him. The truth was he’d made his decision without them, sitting there on Smoky for a long time thinking more about what Fenton would do than what he would say. It seemed to Ty that Fenton talked most of the time when he was doing something, but hardly ever about what he was doing. And it was hard to predict what he would do. He just did it, not a word about why.

  Ty wasn’t sure himself why he’d taken the cutoff. He’d just watched the snow and thought about Fenton and then found himself leading his string past the big boulder. He still wasn’t sure it was the right choice. All he knew was how anxious he got when he considered riding all the way down the South Fork to Hungry Horse.

  But he was feeling better. Remembering what Fenton said about snow helped. That the snow had stopped helped more, the sky still dark but nothing new coming down. And the way was surprisingly open. Now and then he could see where Spec had broken twigs off the trees or a dip in the surface of the snow where Spec’s horses must have gone. He didn’t know exactly what was under that snow, but at least he was on Spec’s trail. And if everything went right, he’d soon be in a place he did know. The cutoff was supposed to come out in the meadows where Bob Ring’s camp had been. Ty had scarcely known what he was doing that day, but everything about it was with him as though it were yesterday—pulling Ring’s horse along the trail, watching the man fight his pain, hearing the girl cry, feeling every bump and switchback as though jarring something broken in himself.

  He crossed the blanketed meadows by midafternoon, passing Ring’s campsite and breaking ice to ford the stream. The weather had lifted. He could see the headwall now, some of the trail exposed before disappearing into wind-blown drifts. If I have to come back and camp, he thought, I’ll have to turn everything around up there. He looked back at his string. There was a lot to turn around.