Monte Walsh by Jack Schaefer

  He looked ahead and saw Chet Rollins swaying some, catching balance in jerky movement. He slapped spurs to the dun and it plowed forward through the snow and he came alongside Chet. "Wake up!" he shouted. "Get down and walk!" He looked ahead. The big body of Sunfish Perkins, hunched down, was rocking slowly forward, jerking back, rocking forward again.

  "You too," muttered Monte. He slapped spurs again and the dun plowed forward again and he was alongside Sunfish. "Snap out of it!" he shouted.

  Sunfish's head turned slowly to look at him. "What's eating you?" said Sunfish drowsily.

  "Goddamn it!" said Monte, reining in the dun with one stiffened hand, forcing his reluctant body to swoop down so he could take the reins of the bay close by the bit and yank the horse to a stop. He straightened in saddle. "Tired and cold," he said. "Hell of a combination. We'll freeze solid sitting these saddles. Get down and walk."

  "Yeah," said Sunfish, shaking himself. "Reckon you're right." Moving stiffly, he climbed down and started to shuffle forward, leading the bay. Monte turned back. The black had stopped behind them. Chet sagged in the saddle, blinking at him. "What you stopping for?" he said drowsily.

  Christ a'mighty!" said Monte. He dismounted and in one furious heave yanked Chet out of the saddle and into the snow. "Give out on me now," he said, grim, "and I'll bust you one you'll remember." He yanked Chet to his feet and Chet stood swaying, blinking drowsily at him.

  "Ain't you got ears?" said Monte. "I said get walking!" He took the reins of the black and put them in one of Chet's hands and closed the hand over them. He turned Chet forward and gave him a push that sent him stumbling ten feet through the snow, the black jerking on the reins and stepping out to follow.

  "Keep moving," said Monte. He took the reins of the dun and moved up by Chet and reached out to push him again. He moved up and pushed once more.

  "Quit that," said Chet, standing straighter and moving under his own power. "Keep it up and I'll try kicking your teeth in."

  "That's the talk," said Monte. "But just keep moving."

  Silent in the great white cold of distance, three men leading three horses in single file pushed steadily forward, moving stiffly, intent on the effort of driving one foot ahead of the other through the resistant snow.

  Monte Walsh felt the blood moving in his legs, feeling returning to his feet, energy building again in hard muscles of his body. He looked ahead and saw that the same was happening to the others. He saw the big barrel body of Sunfish Perkins smashing steadily through the long edged drifts, breaking trail. "My oh my," he murmured. "I'd never tell him but that sure ain't lard he's packing on that carcass of his.

  * * *

  Cold had crept into the main room of the old adobe ranch house. The fire in the fireplace dwindled to ashes and a few faint embers. Sunfish Perkins, still bundled, knelt in front of it, whittling shavings over the embers from a piece of pinon with clumsy stiffened fingers on the knife. Monte Walsh was lighting one of the lamps. Chet Rollins, finishing shedding his jacket and hat and the bandanna that had been tied over head and ears under it, was starting to unfold blankets and lay them on the mattresses.

  Chet stopped, straightened. Slowly he turned and picked up his jacket and started to put it on.

  "Hey," said Monte. "You locoed?"

  "We ain't fed the horses," said Chet.

  "Think I'd forget that?" said Monte. "Why'd you think I ain't stripped down? Just thawing out a little first. You get busy with those beds."

  Monte pulled up his jacket collar, pulled down his hat, slipped on his gloves, went out the door. Down by the first corral he looked through rails at the dark shapes crowding close, expectant, and began counting. "Six and Sonny took one and left one," he murmured, "which keeps it the same and Sunfish brought in seven and Jose swapped even." He nodded and went to the barn and pushed open one of the protesting doors. "That thing ain't a-going to be fixed soon," he said and went on in, reaching in the dark to pull down a bale of hay. He carried it out by the rails, slipped off the twin cords, and heaved it over, a half at a time.

  He leaned on rails, looking through at the horses jostling one another to get at the hay. Suddenly he pushed out and returned to the barn and with experienced hands took two hattered pails from nails on a beam and lifted the lid of a big tin-lined wooden bin and dipped the pails in. One weighing heavy in each hand he went out to the corral and in through the gate and to a trough along one side and emptied the pails into it, scattering the contents along the full length. "Come arid get it," he said. "You're too damned stupid to know but it's a Christmas present." He watched the horses catch the meaning, the rattle of the pails, and drift over, crowding each other. He saw the pinto, coming late and wary, ease in between two others. He saw the smallish neat sorrel approach cautiously and slide in too. "When I wake up," he said, "if I ever do, maybe there'll be some more." He left the corral, walking slowly, aware of the weariness dragging his legs, and moved up to the house.

  Inside, Sunfish Perkins sat on the hearth out of range of a new healthy fire, slumped back against the side stones of the fireplace, head dropped sideways, snoring in steady rhythm. Chet Rollins sat in the remnants of armchair, head nodding but still awake.

  "I thought maybe you'd bring that bottle," said Chet.

  "Shucks," said Monte. "I'm too damn tired even to drink. Likely it's froze solid anyways. Come on, let's tuck him away. Take the head. There ain't much in that part of him."

  Together they lifted Sunfish and carried him to one of the mattresses and laid him down and spread a blanket over him. "If he dies in his sleep," said Monte, "at least he'll have his boots on."

  Silence in the big old room except for slight rustlings as two men pulled off each other's boots and one blew out the lamp and both lay down on mattresses and reached to draw blankets up over them.

  Silence in the big old room except for the outside sound of wind hunting along the eaves and finding no entrance.

  Monte lay flat, looking up at the old beamed ceiling. "Know what we'll be doing when we get up?" he said. "We'll be eating beef and beans and riding out to thaw windmills and if that crust that's starting already on the snow out them gets bad we'll be hauling feed to a lot of hungry cows."

  "Yeah." said Chet drowsily. "That's about it."

  Monte raised on one elbow to look over at Chet stretched out flat. "You think I don't know," he said, "you fixed it some way for that brown bean just 'cause I already had one? Well, it's kind of got you a bellyful."

  "It ain't so bad," said Chet drowsily. "Somehow wherever you are things are always happening."

  "Shucks," said Monte. "That just goes to show. That's what I keep telling you. Luck and me, we~--" He stopped. Chet was asleep.

  Monte lay back down and stared up at the shadows from the firelight flickering between beams. A small wry smile flicked on his lips. "San Nicolds," he murmured. "That's me. To a couple silly kids and some horses." He stretched long and lazy under his blanket and in the act of stretching was asleep.

  * * *

  Christmas day dawned cold and clear over the frozen white wonder of the big land. The first light of morning sun touched the capped peaks of the mountains to the west and moved down them, pink flushed, and moved over the badlands at their base and a small valley where a three-room house sent smoke drifting up from chimney and stovepipe and moved on over the long ridge that screened this and other valleys and on across the wide white miles where the blurred tracks of three men and three horses showed in the snow and moved on to glow softly on the drifted flat roof of an old ranch house where three men slept the deep dreamless sleep of tired muscles and the simple uncomplicated assurance that they had done and would do whatever needed to be done.

  * * *

  "So you think it's funny I wouldn't sell that man a drink just because he wanted to pay in pennies? Nothing funny about it. I'm fed up to my eyeteeth with him and his pennies. I've got a whole bag of 'em already and I'm not taking any more. Let him carry the wad to some town that's got
a bank. He had no call to take after Rollins--that's Chet Rollins-­like he did anyway. Chet didn't mean to bust up his wagon. It was just that Chet's hoss spooked when that snake come crawling out a drainpipe unexpected and when it come down, that's the hoss, it was spang on top the wagon and the blamed wagon's so rickety it falls apart. All the same this Martin claims . . . Oh, Martin? He's the man with the pennies. He claims the wagon's worth at least a hundred dollars. Maybe it was, new. But it's old as he is by then. Demands damages. A hundred dollars. Chet oflers him fourteen which is all he and Monte--that's Monte Walsh--has on them at the time but Martin says no, a hundred, and after they bat it around a bit with Martin getting nasty Chet tosses him on top what's left of the wagon which shuts him up for the time being. Next thing they know a week or so later Martin's been to the county seat and got a judgment. Against Chet. For a hundred dollars. Chet's been sent some kind of notice to appear but hasn't paid any attention. He knows the blamed wagon wasn't worth anything like that. Mac--that's our sheriff--doesn't like the job but he has to do it and he takes the papers out to the ranch and lucky it's him and not Martin or there'd have been fur flying. Mac cools 'em down some by pointing out that lynching Martin or putting him through a meat grinder won't wipe out the judgment and it'll still have to be paid. Of course, Chet can appeal it but that'll be a real nuisance and likely cost more'n the hundred by the time he's through even if he wins. So they pay. He and Monte. But do you know how they pay? They draw a hundred ahead from old Brennan--that's their boss--and they take a pack hoss and two full day's riding to every town within reach that's got a bank and they make up the tally and when they come in to pay they've got a flour sack full of pennies. Ten thousand of them. They find Martin and they pull their guns and they say: There's your money and now you're going to get busy while we watch and you're going to count each and every goddamned penny in there and you're going to write us out a receipt for each and every one hundred of them you count."

  Trail Herd

  1885

  THE TRAIL HERD was bedded on a wide flat finger of plain stretching between long low hills. To the east, out of the hills, was bedded on a wide flat finger of plain stretching between long low hills. To the east, out of the hills, the plain spread vast and open into limitless distance. To the west, between the hills, it dropped imperceptibly across the miles to the lower level of an ancient long-dry lake bed.

  Large and luminous in the clean depth of sky an incredible number of stars looked down on the wide land and on the dark speckling blotch of the bedded herd and on Monte Walsh riding slowly around the rim serene in saddle atop a deep-chested leggy dun.

  "Keep a-moving," murmured Monte. "Want me to fall asleep astraddle your knobby backbone?"

  The dun swiveled an ear back toward him and ambled on. It felt him slumping lower into the saddle and slowed to a stop, head drooping. Monte pulled himself awake. "Keep agitating those legs," he said, "or I'll give you a leathering. Personal." The dun sighed and raised its head and ambled on.

  Monte stretched erect in saddle and looked around. Off to the left he could see the compact blotch of the cavvy in its rope corral and the dirty gray blob of the chuck wagon canvas and the small individual blobs on the ground that were others of the trail crew sweetly sleeping. Faintly he could make out the glimmer of the remains of the cook fire. Off to the right, across the big speckling blotch of the herd, he could see the slow-moving small blur that was Chet Rollins atop a chunky gray. A soft breeze stirred and Chet's voice drifted to him, a melancholy tuneless monotone.

  "Now, all you young maidens, where'er you reside,

  Beware of the cowboy who swings the rawhide.

  He'll court you and pet you and leave you and go

  In the spring up the trail on his bucking bronco ..."

  "I've heard frawgs could croak better," murmured Monte. His attention was caught by movement nearby in the herd. The old barren cow, point leader of each day's drive, was heaving to her feet. He stopped the dun with a touch on reins and watched. Head high and swinging, slow, the old cow tested the air. Slowly she turned until she was facing back over the herd, back down the long finger of plain between the hills.

  "Got the worries, old girl?" said Monte. He turned his head to look in the same direction. Clean and cloudless with its myriad stars the sky arched into distance to meet the far horizon. "Nothing back there but sky and a thousand miles of grass," he said. He tilted his head to look up. "My oh my," he murmured. "Time has been footprinting along." He swung the dun and started back around the rim of the herd.

  Toward him out of the dimness of dark, easy and comfortable atop gently jogging gray, came Chet Rollins, round stubby pipe poking out of round stubbly face. The two cow ponies stopped, nose to nose.

  "Quite a man," said Monte. "That braying of yours gave old Gertrude the itch."

  Chet extracted a match from a pocket of his open jacket, scratched it on blunt fingernail, applied it to the pipe. Monte nudged the dun forward, reached and pushed Chet's jacket further open, plucked a small leather pouch from Chet's shirt pocket. Out of a pocket of his own shirt came a small paper. Defty he hollowed this between fingers and poured a portion of tobacco along the tiny trough. In the one easy moving one hand tucked the pouch back in Chet's shirt pocket and the other rolled the cigarette. He raised this to his lips and licked along the paper edge.

  "One of these days," said Chet, "I'll quit buying tobacco."

  "No," said Monte, aggrieved. "I ain't ready to quit smoking." Out of one of his own jacket pockets came a match which flared briefly. "Shucks," he said. "Always carry my own papers and matches, don't I?"

  The cow ponies drowsed, heads drooping. Monte dragged deep on the cigarette and watched smoke float from his nose in two tiny streams. "Wonder what's keeping the boys," he said. "The dipper up there's been dipping." He drew again on the cigarette, inspected its shortened length, stubbed it out on stirrup leather. "I'm a growing boy," he said. "Need my sleep."

  "Don't be so damned previous," said Chet, amiable, conversational. "They're coming now."

  Monte swung the dun to face the night camp. Two dim blurs had left it and were moving toward them. These came closer and were Dally Johnson astride a squat bay and Powder Kent astride a short-coupled roan.

  "Anything doing?" said Powder.

  "My oh my, yes," said Monte. "Busy every minute. We had to fight off two jackrabbits and a horned toad."

  "Old Gertrude's uneasy," said Chet. "Better keep an eye on her."

  In companionable silence Monte and Chet jogged to camp, dismounted, eased cinches and picketed their horses by the others kept ready, saddled, for night duty. Together they pulled blankets from the bed wagon beside the bigger chuck wagon and unrolled these on soft spots earlier picked and claimed. Monte straightened and looked toward the remains of the cook fire. On the tripod over it hung a battered coffee­pot.

  "Monte," said Chet, low-toned, casual. "Why not forget the coffee tonight. You'll sleep better."

  "Shucks," said Monte, starting away. "Gabriel tooting wouldn't keep me from sleeping."

  Chet sighed and collapsed down on his blanket. He raised on one elbow, watching. Over by the chuck wagon Monte pushed a hand under the canvas and pulled it out holding a tin cup. "Good old Skimpy," he murmured, moving toward the embered fire. "Always leaves me some in the pot." Leaning down, he tipped the battered pot until a dark liquid gurgled into the cup. Squatting back on his heels, he poked a finger into the liquid and yanked it out fast and shook it vigorously. He bent his head and blew into the cup and sloshed the liquid around in it. He tried the finger again. "Just right," he murmured and raised the cup and tilted back his head for a long drink.

  "Ow-w-w-w-w!" yelled Monte Walsh, uncoiling upward like a tight spring suddenly released, spluttering, spitting. Frantic in haste he plunged toward the chuck wagon and tripped over the wagon tongue and went sprawling. Still frantic in haste he scrabbled to the water pail hanging by the wide tailgate and grabbed the dipper. Water dribbled down
his shirt as he gulped and spat, gulped and spat.

  He stood by the chuck wagon, dipper in hand, and looked around. Not far away, up on one elbow, Chet Rollins regarded him with solemn interest. Elsewhere about lay five other figures, under blankets, quiet, apparently lost in sleep. He reached and let the dipper drop with a clatter into the pail. He waited. No sound, no movement marred the quiet. "Some bat-brained baboon-" he said and stopped. There was a quivering under one pulled-over blanket, a strange small moaning sound. The blanket flipped back disclosing the lean whipcord length of Petey Williams, shaking, knees doubling up.

  "Lordy!" gasped Petey. "Oh Lordy Lordy Lordy Lordy Lordy! Maybe that'll learn you not to come thumpin' in every night clitterin' an' clatterin' an' wakin' me up."

  "Why you-" said Monte, starting forward.

  "Easy, Monte," came the voice of trail boss Hat Henderson. "Or we'll all take a hand."

  "Not me, Monte boy," came a voice from the chuck wagon. "Anybody likes my coffee an' says so like you do kin have all he wants anytime."

  Monte looked around, calculating the odds. The slender shape of fourteen-year-old Juan Rodriguez, brought along to wrangle the cavvy, did not count. But the wide sloping shoulders of Hat Henderson, sitting up on his blanket, were enormous in the dim starlight. The black-mustached face of Dobe Chavez, sitting up too a few feet away, could have been wearing a hopeful grin. The big barrel body of Sunfish Perkins bulged huge under his blanket.

  "Shucks," said Monte. "If that damned pepper hadn't made me feel right puny, I'd scramble the whole bat-brained bunch of you." Injured dignity emanating from him, he stalked to his blanket, took off his hat, lay down, set the hat over his face and pulled the blanket over him.

  Silence settled on the camp.

  "Holy hell!" said Monte Walsh, lifting the hat off his face and setting it aside. "How'm I going to get my sleep without my coffee?"

  "Quit it," came a voice. "Or we'll put you to sleep permanent."