Monte Walsh by Jack Schaefer
"Wedding presents," said Chet. "Ain't it amazing what people will do? I mean isn't it. This was her idea, all of them in one place."
"My oh my," murmured Monte. 'Geeting married has some angles I never figured."
Chet stepped over and patted a tooled sidesaddle resting on one of the Mexican chairs.
"Sunfish," he said. "Made it himself."
"Yeah," said Monte. "I know."
Chet pointed at two soft colorful Indian saddle blankets on another of the chairs. "Sugar and Dally," he said.
"Yeah," said Monte. "I was along when they got them over at Domingo. How did that thing get in here?" He pointed at a low board-bottomed wire cage in a corner containing one temporarily disheartened rooster and six discouraged hens.
"Jose," said Chet. "Brought them in yesterday. Mary kind of thought they should stay outside but I put them in here this morning. I ain't-hell-I'm not going to shortchange old Jose. All in one place means all in one place."
"Yeah," said Monte. "Eggs for breakfast. If she knows enough how to cook 'em. I suppose you want that fourth one in here."
Ten minutes later the fourth stove had been uncrated and brought in and was being maneuvered into position beside the other three. The inner door from the hall that ran back through the building opened and the lady of the parasol, minus it and veil but still wearing the flowered hat, came a few steps in, saw the two of them, heard Monte cursing as he pinched a finger setting the stove down, and retreated hastily.
"Haven't seen her before," said Chet. "Must be Aunt Effie. Hard to believe Old Engle branched off that kind of a family tree. I got to go in there now and meet all of them. Some kind of lunch doings. You coming?"
"Hell, no," said Monte. "If I got to face the whole herd this afternoon, that once'll do me plenty."
"Three o'clock," said Chet.
"Yeah," said Monte. "Three o'clock. Go on in there now and behave pretty and watch your language. "I'll take the wagon back."
"You got the rings safe?" said Chet.
"Yeah," said Monte, patting a pocket. "All but the one that's going in your nose." He went out the rear door and stepped up to the seat and took the reins. The wagon backed in an arc then started forward, along the side of the building toward the plaza. "Stammering like a goddamned school kid," he muttered and slapped hard with the reins, stirring the mule into a slight show of energy. He heard a window opening.
"Monte."
He pulled reins and looked to the right and up. The firm fine-featured face of Mary Witherspoon Engle with soft brown hair piled in elaborate curls above it, flushed and lovely and utterly feminine on her wedding day, regarded him gravely from a second-story window.
"Please, Monte. It's only a little while. Don't do any drinking until it's over."
"There you go," said Monte. "Always so damn sure what I'm going to do."
"Not just for me, Monte. For Chet. He wouldn't like it either."
"Chet," said Monte, bitter. "So you're working on him already."
"Working on him? What do you mean?"
"Drunk or sober," said Monte. "It never made no difference to Chet."
"Oh, for heaven's sake, why must you be so difficult? We want this to be quiet and dignified, that's all. Just a nice quiet wedding. I want Chet to make a good impression. Uncle John's come. Maybe you don't know, but he's Haley Feeds. If he likes Chet maybe he'll back him for an agency here. All Chet needs is a start. He can get to be a big man in this territory."
"He ain't ever been anything else," said Monte. He slapped savagely with the reins, driving on.
Five minutes later he emerged from the livery stable, leaving the big doors to be closed by the gangling loose-jointed boy who slept in the back stall and was paid half the wages of a handyman and liked to call himself, when alone, the assistant manager. He walked the forty feet to the dun, swung up to ride the 160 feet to the rail in front of the TwentyFour Hour Cafe, swung down, looped reins, and went inside. Ignoring remarks from along the bar he strode over and joined Sonny Jacobs at a small table.
"Knew you'd be here sooner or later," said Sonny. "Likely sooner. So I made preparations." He waved a hand at a bottle and two glasses, one already in use. He tipped the bottle and poured and shoved the second glass toward Monte. "Look like you need it," he said.
Monte picked up the glass, held it up, looked at the clear golden color against the light coming in over the swinging doors. He set the glass down. He pushed his old hat with the new beaded band higher up his forehead. "Telling me what to do," he said. "She was always almighty good at that." He picked up the glass again.
* * *
The yellow dog came from behind the livery stable and forward along the side. There was shade now, the slim-edged shadow of the building, but the dog was intent on other things. It trotted with its own peculiar sidelong gait out into the plaza, remembered the flagpole and swerved to investigate this again, found nothing new, and trotted away in the direction of the Twenty-Four Hour Cafe. It stopped, sitting in the dust, and scratched vigorously with a hind foot at one ear. An empty bottle soared out of the cafe, over the doors and sidewalk and the cow ponies along the rail, and landed ten feet away. The dog jumped and looked quickly around, located the bottle, approached warily, sniffed it, and trotted on in disgust. It slipped furtively past the cow ponies, dodging a sudden sideway kick from one that had apparently been asleep, and moved along the side of the cafe toward the rear. Sometimes at this time of day the lid of the garbage can there was put back on by an unsteady and inefficient hand.
The plaza drowsed in the sun of early afternoon. Old Man Engle, uncomfortable in his fine clothes which still smelled slightly of moth flakes, appeared on the porch of the Harmony House. Two men came around the side, the old Negro cook and the stringy half-cured consumptive ordinarily a clerk in one of the stores hired now for the day as a special waiter. Each carried a wooden sawhorse. They set these across the street in a corner of the plaza as directed from the porch. They went back around the building and came again, each carrying two planks. They laid these on the sawhorses, forming a long table, as directed from the porch. They went back around the building.
Old Man Engle stood on the wide porch with its spindled railing and wiped a finger around inside his high starched collar. He was more than willing to be released for these few minutes from the stringent gentility and active preparations currently inhabiting the old hotel he had bought from the original owner, sight unseen and price so low he had not even haggled, twenty-two years before. After more than two decades of slow settling into the easy relaxing low-standard living of this still incomprehensible country, a process facilitated by the loss of his wife midway, and an equal period of rather consistent detachment from both family trees rooted in Ohio, he was having difficulty behaving as his daughter thought proper for the occasion.
He looked about the somnolent sun-soaked plaza. There was no sign of activity anywhere unless the buzz of flies and the swish of a tail or stomp of a hoof could be called activity. The little town of Harmony held its own deceptive harmony in the heart of the big land. Old Man Engle was not quite deceived. He too had lived with it long enough to know its sudden possibilities. He might almost welcome one before this access of gentility was over. He went back into the hotel.
On down the main street behind the cloaking facade of the Twenty-Four Hour Cafe proprietor Bennie Martinez and his bartender were no longer quite so busy. They were into the inevitable early afternoon slump. A few men leaned lazily against the bar as if they had become fixtures there. Others sat at tables twisted into contorted positions which seemed to defy comfort yet did not and a few of them snored softly. Conversation was at low ebb. A general atmosphere of waiting, not for anything in particular but simply for anything, pervaded the old cafe.
Sonny Jacobs and Monte Walsh still sat at their table and Sugar Wyman and Dally Johnson sat with them and the table was littered with scraped dishes that had carried cargoes of enchiladas and tortillas. There were four glasse
"Best thing about chili," said Sugar, somber, serious, with the air of a man imparting profound truth, "it encourages drinkin'." He reached for the half-empty bottle.
"Ex-clu-sive," said Sonny, paying no attention to him. "That is precisely and exactly how I hear it is. Very ex-clu-sive."
"Aw, shucks," said Monte. "There ain't much room in that front parlor and she's got a flock of relatives."
"You can have 'em," said Dally. "Matter of fact, you got to have 'em. You got to be there. Best man."
"Ex-clu-sive," said Sonny. "And by the which and the wherefore, why then are we here? Us and the others here and around."
"Can't let ol' Chet hang hisself an' not be on hand," said Dally.
"An' for the doin's after," said Sugar. "See Chet in his fancy harness an' wish 'im the luck he likely ain't goin' to have. A sort of kind of a-a-"
"Re-cep-tion," said Sonny.
"I reckon so," said Sugar.
"They got that old piano tuned," said Monte. "Going to haul it out on the porch and a cousin or somebody's going to do some singing."
"Fe-male?" said Sonny, staring at him.
"Chet says it wears a skirt," said Monte, squirming some on his chair.
"Singing," said Sonny. "By a fee-male relation. Oh ... my....God!"
Monte sat very still, gnawing on a knuckle.
"Engle's payin' for a barrel of beer," said Dally. "Goin' to set it up outside there."
"Beer," said Sugar. "Might as well be water. An' you know what I bet what for? Somebody's smart little ol' idea for tryin' to keep us animals out there an' from crowdin' in an' steppin' on toes." He reached and poured a round, emptying the second bottle.
"Quiet and dignified," muttered Monte. He picked up his glass, drained it, set it down. "A funeral," he said to no one in particular. "That's what they're doing to it. Chet's getting the woman he wants to bed down with him permanent and they're treating it like it was a funeral." He rose from his chair and walked swaying to the doors and looked out over them. The Slash Y buckboard was moving past, drawn by one of the smart-looking trotters he had trained to harness, and Herbert Y. Morris very proper in sober Sunday clothes was on the seat, bound for the Harmony House. Across the way he saw Doc Frantz emerge from his doorway in sober dark suit and starched collar and be joined by Justice Coleman from his doorway around the corner in full regalia, striped pants and frock coat and high collar, and the two of them walk with slow dignity toward the Harmony House.
"Goddamned funeral," muttered Monte. "You'd think they was burying him." He stood looking out and slowly his shoulders stiffened and his head rose higher and he reached up and pulled his hat down on his forehead and then he suddenly turned and strode swaying toward the table and he bounced off his boot toes as he strode. He leaned both hands on the table edge and talked fast and Sonny's broad face widened in a grin and Dally sat up on his chair, eyes brightening, and Sugar hugged himself crooning softly, "Got you, Monte, got you" and Monte turned again and strode swaying out the doorway, sending the doors flapping wide, and threw a leg over the dun and rode angling across the plaza to the harness shop and behind in the cafe Sonny was up and moving from man to man along the bar and at the other tables and Sugar and Dally came out the doorway and separated, staggering some, and Sugar went around the corner toward Thornburg's nameless saloon and Dally went two doors along the street to Nordyke and Perea's Jinglebob Emporium.
Over in the little shop Monte talked fast again and Dobe Chavez grinned behind his black mustache that had flecks of gray in it and strode out and swung up on his bay and loped off toward the older part of town with its ancient weathered small adobe houses wandering here and there and Sunfish Perkins rubbed a hand over his thinning crop of grizzled hair and said, "I'll go you better'n that, I'm on the Fourth committee" and picked up his hat and went out through the little back room.
Old Cal Brennan sat in his wheelchair and looked at the one of his onetime boys who would always have been his favorite son of the wild jackass if he had been forced to a choice though he never would have said so. "Monte boy," he said. "Don't ever grow old. If only I could still straddle a hoss. But I'll think of something."
"Horse!" said Monte. "I been forgetting!" He was outside again and on the dun and scudding across the plaza and down one of the straggling side streets. The dun slid on its rump by a small corral beside one of the last houses and he was leaping to the ground before it had stopped moving and he vaulted over the fence, taking a bridle made of soft handworked leather from a post as he landed inside. A neat, compact, clean-legged roan that had perked ears and shied away some when he came over the fence whiffled at him now and stood for him and opened its mouth for the bit. He unhooked the gate and led it out and was on the dun again, leading the roan. At a fast pace they threaded through a cluster of adobe shacks and tumbledown sheds, scattering several dogs and a batch of near-naked children, and were across the main street where it swept west out of town and loping along the alley behind the buildings.
They approached the rear of the Harmony House and Monte pulled to a stop and swung down and looped the reins of the dun around the handle of a rusty abandoned pump by one corner. He held the reins of the roan and looked about, swaying some again, feeling the warmth of the recent action and of the whisky in him. "Got to surprise Chet," he murmured. "He ain't said a thing, but he's wondering what I got." A sudden grin touched his lips. "All in one place," he said. He led the roan to the three steps and the door above them and reached up and opened the door. He stepped up and in and turned, facing out, and pulled gently on the reins. T'hc roan whiffled softly at him, questioning, reluctant, and stood by the steps with head stretching out as he pulled. It put one forefoot on the first step, testing, and as he spoke to it, low, reassuring, its muscles gathered and with a scramble of hoofs it was up and in. He led it the few feet to the first of the four stoves and tied the reins to the oven handle. "Ought to be solid enough," he murmured. He pulled from a pocket a small square of cardboard with a string through a hole in it and tied this to the cheek strap of the bridle. He stood by the horse, patting its neck, rubbing its ears. "You sure can't be called a stove," he murmured. Faintly from the front regions of the building he heard a piano and a feminine voice singing "Oh Promise Me." "Hey," he said, "I better hurry." He strode to the back door and out and the horse stood, quiet, turning its head to watch him go, whiffling softly as he closed the door. He went around and forward along the building, conscious of the swaying in his stride and tightening muscles against it, and he hurried up the front steps to the porch and Chet was waiting in the doorway for him, Chester Arthur Rollins surprisingly mature and dignified in shiny black shoes and striped trousers and black cutaway coat and gray vest and high winged collar and white bow tie, and the light leaping in Chet's eyes seeing him come was something he would never forget.
* * *
Quiet and dignified. A little southwestern territorial town could turn the trick, in a small way, and the bride had no reason to be ashamed of the selected townspeople rubbing elbows with the relatives from the States. The big land and the brand it laid on its own were outside, temporarily removed, shut off by the four walls of the front parlor, and all inside was sober and genteel and respectable, except perhaps for the one apparent incongruous touch, not so much actually out of place as symbolic of what was happening, of the old being submerged in the new, the lean rawhide length of the best man in his simple range clothes made reasonably clean and neat for the occasion. The bride even smiled at him, recognizing perhaps out of her own early pretraveled years that there was a rightness to his being there, understanding too perhaps that to the groom, dazed now and overwhelmed by what he was doing, the one touch of reality in the whole seeming unreal procedure was that same man standing by him in worn old newly polished boots with gay silk handkerchief knotted loosely around suntanned throat, fighting as hard as ever he had on a bucking horse t
Quiet and dignified. The bride had the wedding she wanted. The minister from Albuquerque pronounced the words "man and wife" and there was the usual hovering hushed hesitation and then people in their sober respectable finery were coming forward to congratulate and shake the groom's hand and implant genteel restrained kisses on the bride's cheek and Monte Walsh, swaying a bit in the release of tension in tightened muscles, moved against the current and to the doorway into the other front room that was the lobby and to the outer doorway onto the porch and raised his hands high, waving, and threw back his head.
"Yow-eeeee!" he yelled. "They've done it!" And on and about and around the plaza the little town of Harmony erupted into an impromptu version of a fine violent frenzy.
The air rocked with racket, loud and clamorous and increasing, reaching into the old hotel. Wedding guests gasped and stared about in confusion and babbled silly questions and some crowded by the front window of the front parlor to peer out and the more daring pushed into the lobby with its big window and a few even out onto the porch.
From the corner by the Twenty-Four Hour Cafe and Thornburg's nameless little saloon, led by Sonny Jacobs and Sugar Wyman, riders were boiling forth into the plaza, scattering dust on skittering cow ponies, racing into the circuit around, yipping and pulling guns and shooting holes in the sky. Out in the center Dally Johnson was running a flag up the pole. Grouped about it a haphazard Spanish band, hastily recruited by Dobe Chavez--three guitars and a banjo and a snare drum and a trumpet and one brass horn--was striving hard to make itself heard. Forty feet away Sunfish Perkins and Old Red Hawkins were busy with fireworks purloined from the stock imported for the Fourth of July celebration next week, setting off firecrackers a pack at a time, while Short-Hair Hale waved an exploding Roman candle in each hand. And over in front of the harness shop, serene in his wheelchair, old Cal Brennan with a rifle in his hands was apparently bombarding the Harmony House itself,, methodically knocking off one by one the cracked wooden knobs of the onetime fancy scrollwork jutting up from the roof.