Hard Winter Part 14

Cured him, though. Don't know if it was the painkiller or the salt poultices, but Walter's eyes got better, though they were redder than my ears got for a few days. Too bad Mrs. MacDunn didn't have anything to cure Frank Raleigh's frostbite.

He come down with that riding over toward Castle Reef to check on things. Come back complaining that he couldn't feel anything with his fingertips on his left hand. Come back with some news, too. More fence-the section on the northern side of Castle Reef-had been torn down. John Henry and Tommy's work, we knew, but n.o.body said anything about it. n.o.body said anything to Major MacDunn about the dead Angus bull that Frank Raleigh had found tangled in the coils of barbed wire by the destroyed fence.

"Wolves had already gotten to him by the time I come upon him," Frank Raleigh said, rubbing his fingers. "Might have been dead before the wolves got him. Or the wolves might have drove him into the wire. No way to know. You plan on telling the major?"

Sitting on his bunk, broken ankle propped up with a pillow, Gene Hardee shook his head. "He'll learn about it come spring. No point in starting another war. Suspect we'll lose a few more head before the Chinooks come."

"Reckon so," Raleigh said.

"An eye for an eye," Hardee whispered, not meaning for anybody to hear him, but Frank Raleigh was right there.

"And a bull for a bull?" he asked.

Gene Hardee didn't answer, and Raleigh went to his bunk, ma.s.saging his purple fingers.

Old Man Woodruff had him stop rubbing those fingers, told him to soak them in a bowl of hot water, and Frank did that, but it was too late, although he told us his fingers didn't hurt any more. Wasn't long after that, though, that the tips of three fingers on his left hand, just above the first joints, started looking like wood twigs, and the purple started turning black.

That's when Frank Raleigh got good and drunk from a bottle Paul Scott gave him, and, as Busted-Tooth Melvin held his hand down on the table, Old Man Woodruff cut off the frostbit fingers with a knife, and cauterized the ends.

Thanksgiving came and went without notice.

I wasn't particularly hungry anyhow.

Chapter Twenty-Three.

The weather seemed to break for us. Oh, those clouds to the west still threatened something awful, and icy snow refused to melt, but the storms had pa.s.sed, even the wind died down to something tolerable. Besides, thirty degrees don't feel so bad after days in single digits, and nights even colder.

With his hand mangled, Frank Raleigh said he planned on wintering with his sister down in Laramie. Hoped it would be warmer in Wyoming, he said, and give him time to get used to not having all of his fingers. It might have been pride, though, him being shamed with his bad hand, or it might have been the fact that, as Ish Fishtorn later suggested, there were a whole lot more saloons in Laramie than on the Sun River.

Like I said, we didn't celebrate Thanksgiving. Not like anyone could find a turkey to shoot, but I never felt so thankful as that December afternoon when Tommy O'Hallahan rode back to the Bar DD.

He was sprouting whiskers, just saplings, mind you, but I hadn't noticed them before. Couldn't help but notice when he rode up, though, what with the fuzz on his face caked with ice. Must have been riding quite a while, and he looked more like a cadaver than a cowboy.

I'd just come out of the barn, walking through the path we'd made in the snow to the bunkhouse. Major MacDunn stood on the bunkhouse porch with Gene Hardee, our foreman on his crutches, the major smoking a pipe. The major set the pipe aside, and stood straighter when he recognized the rider. I hadn't even noticed, but turned around when I heard the horse snort. My jaw opened, my breath an icy mist.

I stopped.

He rode Midnight Beauty, a woolen scarf wrapped around his hat and chin, warming his good ear.

The major swore, and I looked back at the bunkhouse, my heart thudding against my ribs, as my boss brushed back his long black greatcoat, and put his gloved hand on a holstered revolver. Only before Major MacDunn stepped down or pulled his pistol, Gene Hardee started talking.

"MacDunn," Hardee said, "you pull that pistol, you'll eat it."

No Major. No Mister. Just MacDunn. Tell you something, boy. I'd never been prouder of Gene Hardee than I was at that moment, standing up to his boss like that. Never been so surprised as when the major let Hardee's remarks pa.s.s, took his hand away from the Bulldog revolver, and tightened the coat around his waist again.

Gene Hardee hobbled on the crutches through the icy path, and stopped beside me. We waited for Tommy. A moment later, the major walked over, and stood behind us. I could hear his heavy breathing.

Tommy reined up, and looked down.

"You riding the grubline, son?" Hardee asked. "Or looking for a job?"

"I don't think many outfits are hiring this time of year,"

Tommy said.

"You might be in luck. One of my hands lost some fingers to frostbite. He'd been at the line camp at Sun River Caon. He quit, so I need a good cowboy."

MacDunn grunted.

Tommy wet his frozen lips.

"Are you riding this country alone?" the major said. "Or do you have a partner?"

Tommy swallowed. "I'm alone."

"Certain of that?"

"Yes, sir."

After clearing his throat, Major MacDunn told Gene Hardee he'd leave the hiring up to him, then, head bent, he walked back to his house.

"You don't have to make your mind up about the job yet," Hardee said. "n.o.body ever left the Bar DD hungry. Tend your horse, and come inside. I'll warm up stew. Jim, you help him. Expect y'all have some catching up to do."

At first, we worked in silence, removing the saddle and bridle, rubbing down the grulla roan. Finally Tommy muttered an oath, and faced me. "You might as well ask your questions. I can see curiosity is tearing apart your stomach."

I didn't let him buffalo me. "Where's John Henry?" I asked.

"I don't know."

"Did you help him tear down that stretch of fence that Gene Hardee helped put up?"

He rubbed the corner of his eye patch. At first I thought he was reminding me of what wire had done to him, but then I realized he was just hurting. He patted Midnight Beauty, and stepped away. I followed him.

"It's one thing to tear down fence. . . ." His words died, and he let out a heavy sigh. "He's changed, Jim."

Tommy squatted by the barn door. I knelt across from him. The wind started to pick up.

"Yeah, I was with him," he admitted.

"I don't blame you," I said, just to say something. Well, I didn't blame him. Had my face been slashed up by that wire, likely I'd've done the same thing.

"But after. . . ." His head shook. "He's talking crazy, Jim."

I didn't interrupt, just knelt there, waiting.

"After we pulled down some fence, we rode to the line camp. You know, the one across the Sun River by the caon?" My head slightly bobbed. The same camp Frank Raleigh had been working. The same camp where we'd worked when Tommy's bad accident happened. "Spent the night there, just to get out of the cold. I figured we'd light out, but, come first light, John Henry said we needed to visit the hackers up at Tie Camp Creek. So, we rode up there. John Henry asked to see the ramrod."

I pictured that thieving, whiskey-swilling coward named Burke.

"He almost beat him to death. The man came in, and John Henry slammed his revolver barrel against his head. Just beat him, the poor man screaming till he was unconscious. Then the other workers came, and John Henry whirled. He didn't shoot anybody, though I suspect he would have if anyone had tried anything. Just threatened them, told them this was a personal matter, and we'd be gone. We mounted up, rode out at a high lope." Slowly Tommy stood. "I quit him."

I nodded.

"Quit him like a coward. He had a bottle of whiskey, which put him to sleep. We'd camped in some cave. Left him snoring. I just couldn't ride with him. You made the right choice, staying here."

Wasn't my choice. Yet I said: "Those hackers were cutting the fence posts for the Bar DD. John Henry just blamed them." I swallowed, staring at Tommy's eye patch. "For what happened to you. He was fighting for you. He was always fighting for us. Like that time at Doan's. Remember?"

Tommy shook his head. "It's more than that, Jim. He blames everybody, not just the hackers, not just MacDunn and you. Blames the railroad for freighting the wire to Montana. Blames the Stockgrowers a.s.sociation for allowing it to happen. I quit him. Left him in the middle of the night like some sneak thief."

"You done what you needed to do. And John Henry'll come around." I quickly changed the subject. "You gonna take that job Gene Hardee told you about?"

He shrugged. "I guess so."

"Be lonely. Up there. All winter." I thought about Lainie.

"I could use some time to myself. Think about things." He started out, but stopped, turned back to me, and started: "I've been a handful. . . ."

"Forget it." I waved him off. "I've vexed you a time or thirty."

"More like three hundred." He forced a smile.

We walked to the bunkhouse together.

Two days later, he rode out to the Sun River Caon line shack, leaving behind Midnight Beauty, who looked plumb tuckered out anyway. Tommy left riding a zebra dun, and pulling a pack mule and couple of mounts for his string. He never said anything to Lainie, and she never tried to talk to him. Ish Fishtorn told him to take care of himself, and Mrs. MacDunn made him promise that he would ride back down for Christmas. Said she planned on cooking a goose, and wouldn't hear of him spending the holiday up in that line shack alone.

He tipped his hat at her, give the silent Major MacDunn a quick nod, and rode out. Rode toward those mountains, and those black clouds.

Chapter Twenty-Four.

I think it was the winter.

The wind, the cold and snow and darkness, the emptiness. Nothing feels as lonely as Montana in winter. Nothing looked as terrible as the winter of '86 and '87, like it would never end. All of that plays on your mind, and I think that's what affected John Henry. He had no love for barbed wire, and what happened to Tommy just pushed him farther, but, had it not been for that winter, I think John Henry would just have rode on. Like he did in Texas that spring. Rode off in search of something new, some new place, a new country to make him forget about what had happened, make him forget about how things in cattle country kept changing. Yeah, I think it was the winter.

After breakfast, we'd ride out from the Bar DD-all except Walter Butler, no longer blind from the snow, but still mending, still weak-and work the cattle, try to find spots where the snow wasn't too deep. Kept right on working.

Word come of a bad train wreck west of Helena, but nothing more about John Henry. Nothing about the Gows. Tell you the truth, I started to miss school. Oh, Mrs. MacDunn give me a Reader, told me I needed to keep up my education, and Lainie would still come over on Sunday evenings, and we'd practice some from Treasure Island. But I missed seeing all those other kids who had attended school. You grow a little restless, seeing nothing but a white horizon, seeing the same faces, hearing the same voices, the same jokes. December had just started, and winter stays a long time in this country.

When the next storm hit, we bundled ourselves up, and rode out, trying to keep the cows from drifting to the river. All those layers of clothes must have weighed a ton, but the wind still pierced our veins, and snow stung our eyes, about the only part of our bodies not covered with some kind of clothing. The temperature dropped to right at zero, and, after a few hours, you could hardly see anything but a wall of snow.

Ish Fishtorn rode up, yelled at me to turn back, that we needed to get back to the bunkhouse. That man wasn't about to get an argument from me, so we returned to the Bar DD, waiting for the blizzard to blow itself out.

It did, but not till two, three days had pa.s.sed.

Another break came, and I got to suspicioning such turns in the weather. They'd get our hopes up, make us believe things would be all right, then winter would blast her chillsome fury again. Snow wasn't that deep, maybe five or seven inches, but it turned hard and icy, and drifts piled everywhere, and those drifts might reach four, maybe six feet high.

Well, one morning after I had coffee-ed up and went to fork hay into the corrals, I spied a rider. First visitor we'd had since Tommy rode up, and I watched him come, riding a black horse, all hunched over from the wind and bitter cold. Tommy had come up when it was thirty degrees, but on that morning it was right at seven, and the wind just tore through you. Didn't think anybody would be riding to the Bar DD for no social visit.

The man reined up in front of me, wearing green eyegla.s.ses to protect him from s...o...b..indness, covered in an ice-crusted buffalo robe, and a coyote-fur cap. I didn't recognize him until he spoke my name, said I was just the fellow he had come to see.

"What you want with me?" I asked Bitterroot Abbott.

"I ain't talking to you out here, boy!" he snapped. "I got caught in this storm a day out of Helena, and, if I don't get some coffee and a hot stove, I'm apt to start shooting."

Pitchfork in hand, I led his horse into the barn, directed Bitterroot to the bunkhouse, said I'd be in directly after I saw to his horse. He studied me a moment. I couldn't see his eyes through them funny-looking gla.s.ses, but I could tell he wondered if I'd run off from him. Crazy notion. Like I'd go anywhere in this weather. Reckon he come to the same conclusion, because he left me with his dun horse, and I put the gaunt animal in a stall with some grain and water. Had to bust ice in the bucket so the poor animal could drink. Threw his saddle and traps on a peg, and walked to the bunkhouse to see what a gunman like Bitterroot Abbott wanted with a cowboy like me.

When I walked into the bunkhouse, Bitterroot had shed his big buffalo coat-about as mangy a thing as I'd ever seen-and coyote cap, and was warming his hands by the stove, talking to Gene Hardee, who stood beside him on his crutches, holding a tin cup. Both men looked at me. My eyes locked on the six-point badge pinned on Bitterroot's bib-front s.h.i.+rt.

"You a lawman?" I asked.

Bitterroot snorted. "I didn't steal this badge, boy. Can you read it? It says Deputy U.S. Marshal." He tapped the piece of s.h.i.+ny nickel. I'd pegged him for maybe a stock detective, but nothing like a federal peace officer.

Walter Butler sat in his bunk, saddle-st.i.tching a pouch he'd been working on, but, noisy like he was p.r.o.ne to be, he put down his needles, deer hide, and sinew thread, and trained all his attention on me and Bitterroot Abbott. I hung my coat on the hanger, removed my scarf, hat, and gloves, working slowly, as unhasty as I could, but Bitterroot wasn't going nowhere, so at last I joined him and Gene Hardee at the stove.

"Hoped you was here," Bitterroot said.

"I ain't done nothing," I told him. I was defensive and defiant, yet truthful. I hadn't done a thing except work cattle and try to keep from freezing. I feared he wanted to arrest me for a robbery or murder. "I haven't been to Helena since . . . September . . . I reckon."

With a contemptuous snort, Bitterroot put his coffee cup down. "This badge means I got jurisdiction not just in Helena, boy, but all across the district of Montana. I go wherever Marshal Kelley wants me to go, and I bring back whoever he sends me after. That's my job." He nodded, and reached inside a canvas bag he'd dropped by his feet, still talking. "Major MacDunn's letter of introduction proved mighty handy. The major thought I'd be a big service to him in a fight against Gow. 'Course, that war never panned out, but I'm beholden to the major. Pretty good job I got. Or so I thought, till I got caught in that G.o.d-awful blizzard. But, here I am, doing my job." He handed me a folded photograph, which he'd fetched out of his bag.

Slowly I pulled back the cold paper, careful not to rip it, and stared. Felt sick down to my stomach when I realized what I was looking at. A girl, younger than me. Hard to say with her face so cut up, yet I could tell she was dead when the picture got took.

Gene Hardee gasped, and swore at Bitterroot Abbott for showing such a thing, and Walter Butler jumped out of his bunk, and hurried over to see. When Gene started to jerk the photograph from my trembling fingers, Abbott snapped: "No, I want him to keep looking at it. I want him to remember it."

I dropped the picture to my side before Walter Butler got an eyeful. "What . . . I don't . . . what's this . . . got to do with me?" I looked at the lawman, but I couldn't get that girl out of my mind. b.l.o.o.d.y, bashed up, folded hands holding a little old rag doll to her chest.

"Her name was Velna Oramo."

"I never heard of her. Never seen her before."