Contention and Other Frontier Stories

by Hazel Rumney

  “By God, you’re awake!” Neal recognized the voice of big Harvey Wilkerson, then saw the walrus mustache as the station keeper came into his line of vision.

  “How long have I been asleep?”

  “Four hours, give or take. It’s about eleven o’clock.”

  “At night?”

  “Morning.”

  “Did the mochila go on to Fort Laramie and Horseshoe Station?”

  Wilkerson jabbed a thumb at the mochila hanging on the back of a chair. The Sioux arrow still protruded from the mail pouch, telling its mute tale. “Ain’t no riders here to take it.”

  “My run doesn’t end until I deliver the mail to Fort Laramie.” Neal sat up on the edge of his bunk and his head spun for several seconds. He closed his eyes to keep the room from tilting.

  “You ain’t going nowhere for a while. When the eastbound rider comes in later—if he comes in—I’ll have him backtrack and take it.”

  “That’s not his job. Gimme a mug of coffee with some blackstrap molasses in it and saddle a pony.” He staggered to his feet and had to grip the upper bunk to keep from falling.

  “I can’t let you do that.”

  “You got a clean pair of pants I can borrow?”

  “Sure, but . . . that leg . . .”

  “Is it okay?” Neal did not feel feverish, but his leg throbbed.

  “Yeah. Arrow cut a deep groove across your thigh, the cold kept the swelling down before you got here. The hostler poured some whiskey in it and sewed it up. Glad you weren’t awake for that.” Wilkerson smiled grimly. “It should heal okay, but you’ll have a good scar.”

  Neal was trying to gulp down the hot, sweetened coffee without burning his mouth. Then he sat and pulled on his high moccasins, which were still damp. A pair of pants that were too long followed, then his wool shirt. He saw his Colt had been reloaded and shoved the long pistol into the holster.

  “Has the storm passed?”

  “Yep. Left a couple feet of snow on the level.”

  He shrugged into his sheepskin coat. Something crinkled in his shirt pocket. He drew out his letter. The envelope was bent and partly stained with bacon grease.

  He walked to the fireplace and flipped it into the flames.

  “What was that?” Wilkerson asked.

  “A letter parting ways with an old love of mine. She hurt me.” He shrugged. “But we’re both young, and maybe I was partly to blame.” He jammed on his hat, slung the mochila over his shoulder, and limped to the door. “I think she deserves another chance.”

  Tim Champlin is the author of forty-one books and more than three dozen articles and short stories. Retired from the U.S. Civil Service, he remains an avid sailor, bike rider, and tennis player.

  RUNNING IRON

  BY ROBERT D. MCKEE

  The colonel knew that the man who pulled his buckboard next to the Model T was Wiley’s son.

  Don’t look at him. Look toward the cottonwoods.

  Once the wagon had rolled to a stop, Wiley’s son said, “Get out. I’m taking you home. Albert can fetch that contraption of yours later.”

  The colonel didn’t move.

  “Goddamn it, Cooper, get out of that automobile. Climb in the wagon. And get in back. I won’t have you sitting up front with me.”

  When the colonel still didn’t move, Wiley’s son set the brake and jumped to the ground. He grabbed the colonel’s thin upper arm and screamed, “Get out of that thing, you son of a bitch, and do it now.” He jerked the colonel from the runabout’s seat and dragged him to the rear of the buckboard. He dropped the tailgate and shoved the colonel onto the wagon bed.

  Jabbing a finger in the colonel’s face, Wiley’s son shouted, “I may’ve had to put up with you everywhere else for the last thirty years, but not out here. If I ever see you on my place again, I’ll shoot you. If that don’t kill you, I’ll toss a rope around you and drag you behind my horse.” He leaned in closer, and between clenched teeth, he whispered, “I’ll drag you ’til there ain’t nothing left.” The colonel didn’t respond. “Are you hearing me?” It seemed important that the colonel was listening.

  When the colonel still made no acknowledgment, Wiley’s son spit into the prairie grass and returned to his seat.

  The buckboard lurched, and as they pulled away, the colonel looked again toward the cottonwoods in the distance.

  The colonel realized Albert and Suze wanted to take the morning train to Cheyenne because they thought he was crazy. But they were wrong. Sure, he was getting absentminded. And there were times the fog came in thicker than others, but, hell, he’d turned seventy-two on his last birthday. What did they expect?

  He told that to the pup Cheyenne doctor they went to see. “I dare you to show me another seventy-two-year-old,” he said, “who’s not forgetful on occasion.”

  “So, you’re seventy-two, are you?” asked the young doctor.

  “That’s right.” Hadn’t he just said that?

  “By your appearance, Mr. Cooper, I’d put you at no more than sixty.” The doctor grinned a dimply faced, childlike smile. To the colonel, the doctor looked no more than twelve—thirteen tops. Even so, he was an arrogant little shit.

  “His hard work keeps him fit,” said Suze. Suze was the baby in the family—ten years younger than her brother, Albert. “He still works on the ranch as hard as anyone,” she added. The colonel appreciated his daughter’s exaggeration.

  Suze usually took his side. She’d been against visiting a doctor at all, but Al insisted. The colonel figured it had something to do with what happened with the tin lizzie two or three days back. That whole business had been embarrassing, and it had riled his son. Al had used that against him to convince Suze they needed to take their father to their hometown doctor, Bennett Sloan. Sloan was the only physician in Douglas, Wyoming, and a quack, as far as the colonel could tell. That was what the colonel had always counted Sloan to be. But when Sloan said he couldn’t find much wrong, the colonel’s estimation of the man shot up. For thirty seconds, anyhow. It dropped again when Sloan suggested they take him to see this young fool in Cheyenne.

  At first, the colonel had refused to go. “I won’t leave right in the middle of calving,” he had shouted at his son.

  And Al, who, at thirty-three, was way too big for his britches, said in his usual, soft-spoken, pain-in-the-ass way, “Pa, calving’s been done now for more than a month.”

  “So,” said the Cheyenne doctor, who looked like a baby, “I hear you were in the army. Is that right, Mr. Cooper?”

  Mr. Cooper. Charles Cooper had not been Mr. Cooper since July 2nd of ’63 when he’d been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. It was a brevet promotion, but, still, he’d been a mere twenty-two at the time.

  “I also understand part of your service included the big fight in Pennsylvania. What can you tell me about that?”

  The big fight? Who was this bonehead?

  The doctor offered a wink and a condescending smile. “I’m a bit of a history buff.” The tone of his voice implied confidence that the colonel gave a damn. Which he did not. But, since he could see the stern scrutiny on Albert’s face, he answered the question.

  “I served with the great John Buford.” The colonel felt the same twinge he always felt when General Buford’s name was mentioned. The general was a hero who passed much too soon. “We picked the spot where the battle would be fought, and we held them Rebs there by the McPherson place until reinforcements arrived. Most folks’ll tell you it all began on the first. But the boys in John Buford’s Cavalry Division know it really started on the thirtieth day of June when the general ordered us to set our entrenchments on the high ground south of town.”

  The colonel saw Albert’s scrutiny fold into a grimace. The kid was no doubt tired of Gettysburg stories.

  The doctor turned to Al and nodded toward a sitting area with a sofa, a cocktail table, and a couple of wing chairs on the far side of the large room. “If you don’t mind, Mr. Cooper, perhaps you and Miss Cooper could al
low your father and me the chance to have a visit.”

  When Albert didn’t respond, Suze said, “Of course,” and gave her elder brother’s sleeve a sharp tug. With a frown, he followed her to the couch.

  Even though the distance allowed some privacy, the colonel knew the kids could still hear what was being said. He expected this whippersnapper doc wanted it that way.

  The doctor stood—what was his name? Had anybody said?—and came around his desk. He took the chair Albert had vacated, scooted it over, and placed it in front of the colonel.

  “Do you remember, sir, an incident two weeks back when you drove your automobile off the ranch?”

  The colonel wasn’t sure what the doctor was getting at. “I’m always driving the tinner off the ranch. That’s what I bought ’er for.”

  Had he driven it off the ranch two weeks ago? Could be, but, so what?

  The colonel assumed the whole mess began a couple of days earlier in the barn when he couldn’t get the Ford started. Albert was furious. No matter how hard and often the colonel cranked the damned thing, the motor wouldn’t catch. Though he’d gone through the routine a thousand times before, on that day, for some reason, the colonel was unsure if the spark retard and throttle were supposed to go up or down—or, he wondered as he sat in the doctor’s office, had it been that he’d forgotten to flip the magneto switch? Whatever it was, it had been something stupid. He had admitted that, and, in the colonel’s opinion, Al’s overreaction was uncalled for.

  “Yes, of course,” said the doctor, “I know you purchased the auto for transportation around the ranch and for trips into town, but I’m told this time when you drove away, you hadn’t mentioned leaving, and you were gone for more than fourteen hours before a neighbor brought you home. Do you recall that, Mr. Cooper?”

  “It’s not Mister. It’s Colonel.” Voicing the difference sounded petty, but he didn’t care.

  “Sorry, sir, of course. Do you recall being lost for more than fourteen hours, Colonel?”

  Lost? When was he lost?

  “I remember I couldn’t get the motorcar going.” Wasn’t he still in the barn on the ranch when it wouldn’t start? Even if he was out and about when the Model T stopped, he sure as hell couldn’t believe some neighbor brought him home.

  He ran a shaky hand though his still thick and mostly brown hair. “What neighbor are you talking about?” he asked.

  “That isn’t important,” said Albert from across the room.

  Just as the colonel figured, his son could hear every word.

  If he did drive off without telling anyone, he could understand how Al might be upset. But it was still no cause to haul him a hundred and thirty miles to some know-nothing pip-squeak of a doctor.

  “When the neighbor found you, you were stopped in a pasture.” The doctor spoke with slow deliberation, as though speaking to a child. “He found you in the automobile, staring into the distance. You would not respond when he spoke to you. What had you been doing, Colonel, for all that time? And why didn’t you go home?”

  “The lizzie wouldn’t start.” The colonel cringed at the old-man inflection that had crept into his voice. “But that was in the barn.”

  “No, I’m sorry. Two weeks ago, you were off the ranch. As I understand, a couple of days ago, your son found you in the barn trying to start the auto once again without telling anyone you were leaving. But the time I’m asking about occurred two weeks ago. You were trespassing. A neighbor brought you home. And the automobile was working fine, sir. It started easily enough when your son retrieved it. Tell me, Colonel, what were you doing at the neighbor’s?”

  As the pushy pup kept firing questions, the colonel’s throat constricted. He stiffened and gasped.

  “Colonel?” the doctor asked, leaning forward.

  With difficulty, the colonel swallowed away whatever clogged his throat.

  “Colonel, are you all right?”

  The colonel dug a kerchief from his hip pocket and blew his nose. “Yes,” he lied but doubted the doctor was convinced.

  “Why . . . were . . . you . . . in . . . the . . . pasture?”

  And with that, the fog slithered in.

  Had he really been at some neighbor’s?

  The fog thickened. Answers to the doctor’s questions were there. He could almost see them. They hung in the mist, dangling just above the ground.

  “Oh, God,” he whispered, suddenly terrified. The feelings of panic came more often now. And here, in this strange place, he couldn’t fight them anymore. “Oh, God,” he repeated, and to this baby—this fool—the colonel admitted the truth. “I can’t,” he said, his eyes burning with tears. “I try and try, but I can’t remember.”

  He was asleep in the hammock behind the house when he again dreamed of the cottonwoods. The dream was a frequent visitor, but this time it was so real he could hear the wind soughing through the upper branches.

  The voices in the trees called him.

  He first heard them long ago, but for years he shoved them aside. Now he heard them often. They refused to be ignored.

  With effort, the colonel escaped the tight arms of the hammock and made his way to the barn.

  Once inside, he noticed the phaeton was gone. During the week, Suze kept it and the horse she used to pull it at the colonel’s house in town. Suze stayed at the house when she was teaching. The sorrel Al usually rode was also gone. With the warm weather, perhaps Al and a few of the boys were moving cattle to higher country. His son was a busy man, and the colonel never knew where he was.

  Smoke billowed from the cookshack chimney. Albert had assigned Lester, their cook, the task of watching the colonel during the day. But Lester was a poor nursemaid, especially at times like now, when he was busy throwing together chuck for the boys who were not trailing cows up the hill.

  The runabout was in the back of the barn. Its top was down, and the colonel admired the machine’s lines. What a remarkable thing it was. How much the world had changed since his boyhood.

  Who could’ve dreamed of such changes? With a smile, the colonel answered his own question. Maybe Henry Ford, and that Edison fella. And those two bicycle makers from Ohio, who, of all things, learned how to fly.

  Yes, sir, all those boys dreamed of a new world, all right, but the colonel hadn’t. The old world was good enough for him.

  He could, though, appreciate the wonders the dreamers produced. For now, at least some of the frightening clouds that so often filled his head were gone, and he was certain he could start the T.

  Set the magneto. Lift the timing stalk to retard the timing. Push the throttle down—slightly—to set the idle. Pull the hand brake to neutral. Go ’round front and give her a crank.

  Again he smiled.

  And hope she doesn’t backfire and break your arm.

  But the colonel would not take his lizzie. Lester, even as he banged his pots and pans, could not miss the louder bangs and pops the flivver would make as the colonel drove it through the yard.

  Instead, he crossed to a stall holding Ginger, his old strawberry roan. She huffed a greeting. “Hey, ol’ gal,” he said, rubbing the horse’s pink nose. “Let’s get outta here. What d’ya say?”

  When he saw the distant cottonwoods, he clicked his tongue and put Ginger into a lope.

  On this late spring day, the trees had already leafed out nicely. Soon the air would be thick with their floating cotton. The stuff would pile up in the tall grass like snow.

  Why was he drawn to this stand of trees? The festering answer had been with him for years, but now it was lost. Part of him was glad. Relieved. But another, larger part could not let it go.

  As Ginger took him closer to the trees, the fog began to lift.

  The colonel, having once been a cavalry officer, enjoyed the sounds behind him when he led a group of riders. The hooves pounding the earth. The musical jangle of bits and spurs. The snickers and snorts of horses. To the colonel, these were all grand sounds, whether he was leading men to battle or
merely to right a wrong.

  At a quarter mile from the ranch house, the colonel lifted his right hand, and the fifteen riders behind him slowed to a trot. He turned in his saddle and gestured for Benjamin Jeffers to come forward.

  “Ben,” he said, “go on ahead. Take three men and search the barn.”

  Jeffers nodded. He motioned to Clark Hughes, his hired man, and two others. The four gigged their horses, rode past the cottonwoods along the creek, and toward the barn.

  Chickens scattered as the colonel led the rest into Alexander Wiley’s yard.

  When they stopped in front of the house, the low afternoon sun cast the group’s thick shadow all the way to the corrals.

  The colonel turned to Rick, his foreman, and said, “Call him out.”

  The foreman stood in his stirrups. “Wiley, come out of that house.”

  A window curtain moved, but there was no response.

  The foreman raised a hand to the side of his mouth and called again. “Wiley, Colonel Cooper needs to visit.”

  The colonel waited for the door to open—or, he thought, with a touch of foreboding—a rifle barrel to poke from a window. But neither of those things happened. Instead, a small, shirtless man carrying an axe came around the side of the house.

  “What do we have here?” the man asked. He wore no hat, and the sweat on his bald head gleamed even in the dimming, late-afternoon light.

  “What you have, Mr. Wiley,” answered the colonel, “are some concerned citizens.”

  “Concerned about what?” Wiley hefted the axe over his shoulder and slammed it into the ground, burying its head. “I hope it won’t take long, Colonel. As you can see, I’m busy out back chopping our wood.”

  “It won’t take long, sir.” Sir. It never hurt to show respect to a man you were about to ask uncomfortable questions.

  The colonel dug a small pipe from his vest pocket. The pipe was already loaded with short-cut tobacco. He popped a match alight with his thumbnail and took a full minute to get the pipe going.