Newt knew he ought to thank him, but he didn’t feel in the mood to thank anybody. The information just seemed to make his whole life more puzzling. It spoiled every good thing he had felt, for most of his life—not only about his mother, but about the Captain, and about the Hat Creek outfit as a whole.
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AS THE HERD and the Hat Creek outfit slowly rode into Montana out of the barren Wyoming plain, it seemed to all of them that they were leaving behind not only heat and drought, but ugliness and danger too. Instead of being chalky and covered with tough sage, the rolling plains were covered with tall grass and a sprinkling of yellow flowers. The roll of the plains got longer; the heat shimmers they had looked through all summer gave way to cool air, crisp in the mornings and cold at night. They rode for days beside the Bighorn Mountains, whose peaks were sometimes hidden in cloud.
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The observation worried Jasper Fant so much that he lost his appetite and his ability to sleep. He lay awake in his blankets for three nights, clutching his gun—and when he couldn’t avoid night herding he felt such anxiety that he usually threw up whatever he ate. He would have quit the outfit, but that would only mean crossing hundreds of miles of bear-infested prairie alone, a prospect he couldn’t face. He decided if he ever got to a town where there was a railroad, he would take a train, no matter where it was going.Pea Eye, too, found the prospect of bears disturbing. “If we strike any more, let’s all shoot at once,” he suggested to the men repeatedly. “I guess if enough of us hit one it’d fall,” he always added. But no one seemed convinced, and no one bothered to reply.WHEN SALLY AND BETSEY asked her questions about her past, Lorena was perplexed. They were just girls—she couldn’t tell them the truth. They both idolized her and made much of her adventure in crossing the prairies. Betsey had a lively curiosity and could ask about a hundred questions an hour. Sally was more reserved and often chided her sister for prying into Lorena’s affairs.
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As a result of the battle, night herding became even more unpopular. Where there was one grizzly bear, there could be others. The men who had been worrying constantly about Indians began to worry about bears. Those who had chased the wounded bear horseback could not stop talking about how fast he had moved. Though he had only seemed to be loping along, he had easily run off and left them. “There ain’t a horse in this outfit that bear couldn’t catch, if he wanted to,” Dish contended.
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“Reckon we ought to shoot?” Augustus said. “Hell, this outfit will run clean back to the Red River if this keeps up.” “If you shoot, you might hit the bull,” Call said. “Then we’d have to fight the bear ourselves, and I ain’t sure we can stop him. That’s a pretty mad bear.” Po Campo came up, holding his shotgun, Newt a few steps behind him. Most of the men had been thrown and were watching the battle tensely, clutching their guns.
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Indeed, the Hat Creek outfit was in disarray, the wagon and the remuda still fleeing south, half the hands thrown and the other half fighting their horses. The cattle hadn’t run yet, but they were nervous. Newt had been thrown sky-high off the sorrel Clara had given him and had landed painfully on his tailbone. He started to limp back to the wagon, only to discover that the wagon was gone. All that was left of it was Po Campo, who looked puzzled. He was too short to see over the cattle and had no idea there was a bear around.
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“Hell, I don’t care if they shoot at one another,” Augustus said. “None of them can hit anything. I doubt we’ll lose many.” He studied the bear for a time. The bear was not making any trouble, but he apparently had no intention of moving either. “I doubt that bear has ever seen a brindle bull before,” Augustus said. “He’s a mite surprised, and you can’t blame him.” “Dern, that’s a bit big bear,” Call said.“Yes, and he put the whole outfit to flight just by walking up out of the creek,” Augustus said.
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“Well, my lord,” he said, from time to time. “My lord.” An Indian boy had killed him, the Captain said. Deets was still wearing a pair of the old patchy quilt pants that he had favored for so long. Pea Eye scarcely knew what to think. He and Deets had been the main hired help on the Hat Creek outfit ever since there had been a Hat Creek outfit. Now it was down to him. It would mean a lot more chores for him, undoubtedly, for the Captain only trusted the two of them with certain chores. He remembered that he and Deets had had a pretty good conversation once. He had been vaguely planning to have another one with him if the chance came along. Of course that was off, now. Pea Eye went over and leaned against a wagon wheel, wishing he could stop feeling weak in the legs.
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But Pea was not forthcoming. “Oh, I mostly just stay with the wagon,” he said, which was no answer at all. Indeed, while they were standing around getting used to having money to spend, Pea got his horse and rode off. Except for Lippy and the Irishman, they were the only members of the Hat Creek outfit left in town.
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He went into one that had a huge rack of elk horns over the door and a clientele consisting mostly of mule skinners who hauled freight for the Army. None of the Hat Creek outfit was there, though he had seen a couple of their horses tied outside. They had probably gone straight to the whorehouse next door, he concluded. He ordered a bottle and a glass, but the boisterous mule skinners made so much racket he couldn’t enjoy his drinking. A middle-aged gambler with a thin mustache and a greasy cravat soon spotted him and came over.
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Then there was Lorena. In the last weeks she had proved sweeter than any woman he had known—more responsive than his wives, kinder than Clara. Her beauty had flowered again—the cowboys were always thinking of excuses to ride within twenty or thirty yards of them, so they could get a glimpse of it. He ought to consider himself lucky, he knew—everyone in the outfit, with the possible exception of Call, considered him lucky. He ought to let the past keep its glow and not try to mix it with what he had in the present.
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“I’m getting attached to Martin,” she said. “He ain’t mine, but he ain’t your wife’s anymore, either. Young things mainly belong to themselves. How they grow up depends on who gets attached to them. I’ll take Martin, if she don’t, or you don’t.” “But your husband’s sick,” July said. Why would the woman want a baby to care for when she had two girls to manageand a big horse outfit to run?
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When they sighted the Republican River Gus was with him. From a distance it didn’t seem like much of a river. “That’s the one that got the Pumphrey boy, ain’t it?” Augustus said. “Hope it don’t get none of us, we’re a skinny outfit as it is.” “We wouldn’t be if you did any work,” Call said. “Are you going to leave her in Ogallala or what?” “Are you talking about Lorie or this mare I’m riding?” Augustus asked. “If it’s Lorie, it wouldn’t kill you to use her name.” “I don’t see that it matters,” Call said, though even as he said it he remembered that it had seemed to matter to Maggie—she had wanted to hear him say her name.
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Shot ’em, hung ’em, and then burned ’em.” “He must have been a hard case, that Dan,” Jasper said. “I seen him once. He had them little squint eyes.” “I’m glad he never squinted them at me, if that’s the way he behaves to white men,” Needle said. “What was Jake doing with an outfit like that?” “If you ask my opinion, that whore that Gus has got was Jake’s downfall,” Bert Borum volunteered.
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The thing is, I never meant no harm,” he added. “I didn’t know they was such a gun outfit.” He looked down at Pea Eye and Deets, and at the boy. Everyone was silent, even Gus, who held the coiled rope. They were all looking at him, but it seemed no one could speak. For a moment, Jake felt good. He was back with his old compañeros, at least—those boys who had haunted his dreams. Straying off from them had been his worst mistake.
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“Let’s stay the night,” he heard a man say. “I’m too full of liquor to be chousing horses in the dark.” “It’ll sober you up,” another voice said. “It’s cooler traveling at night.” “Why travel?” the first man said. “Some more wagons might come along and we could rob ’em. It’s easier than banks.” “Eddie, you’re as lazy as Jake,” the second voice said. “Neither one of you pulls your weight in this outfit.” “I’d have to be quick to beat you at killing people, Dan.’ little Eddie said.
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“Fifty dollars?” Dish said, genuinely astonished. He had never heard of such extravagance in his life. “Did he actually pay it?” “Well, he give me the ten,” Lippy said. “I imagine he give Lorie the fifty, too. Gus ain’t cheap, he’s just crazy.” Dish remembered the night before he had hired on with the Hat Creek outfit, when Gus had lent him two dollars for the same purpose on which he had apparently spent fifty. There was no figuring the man out.“You oughtn’t to blabbed,” he told Lippy.
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The Captain must have decided he was grown, to bring him on such a trip. After all, only the original Hat Creek outfit—the Captain and Mr. Gus, Pea and Deets—were going along, and now he was included. Every few minutes, as they rode east, he put his hand on his pistol to reassure himself that it was still there.
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“If you see any bushes, bring one back with you,” he said to the mounted men. “If we had a bush or two I wouldn’t have to walk so far just to do my business.” “I don’t know why you’re so modest,” Augustus said. “Go over and squat behind a cow. You got a hole in your stomach anyway.” “I wish we’d brought the pia-ner,” Lippy said. “A little pia-ner music would go good right now.” Call put Dish in charge of the outfit, meaning that he suddenly had two heavy responsibilities—Lorena and the herd. It left him subdued, just thinking about it. If anything should happen to the girl or the herd he’d never be able to hold up his head again.
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Deets shook his head. “White men,” he said. “Horse-thieves.” “Oh,” Call said. “Murdering horsethieves, at that.” But it relieved his mind, for horsethieves wouldn’t attack an outfit as large as theirs.
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“Get Deets,” Soupy said. Deets was the best horse doctor in the outfit, though Po Campo was also good. Both men came over to look at the wound and both shook their heads. Newt, on the other side of the herd, saw people waving at him, and loped over. When he saw Mouse gushing blood he felt faint, from the shock.
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“Oh,” the man said. “A small outfit. This is a funny time of night to be starting out, ain’t it?” “I guess it is,” July said, but he started anyway.
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“Which outfit are you with?” the old man asked.
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“Well, it was your idea,” Dan said. “You wanted the practice, and you got it.” “He’s mad because he didn’t get to shoot nobody,” Roy said. “He thinks he’s a shooter.” “Well, this is a gun outfit, ain’t it?” little Eddie said. “We ain’t cowboys, so what are we then?” “Travelers,” Dan said. “Right now we’re traveling to Kansas, looking for what we can find.” Frog Lip rejoined them as silently as he had left. Despite himself Jake could not conquer his fear of the man. Frog Lip hadnever said anything hostile to him, or even looked his way on the whole trip, and yet Jake felt a sort of apprehension whenever he even rode close to the man. In all his travels in the west he had met few men who gave off such a sense of danger. Even Indians didn’t—although of course there had been few occasions when he had ridden close to an Indian.
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“He can afford them big horses,” Roy pointed out. “Maybe he’s got money.’” Dan had been about to ride past, and Jake hoped he would. He still hoped they’d hit Dodge before the Suggs boys did any regulating. He might get free of them in Dodge. Two accidents wouldn’t necessarily brand him for life, but if he traveled much farther with a gun outfit like the Suggses, he couldn’t expect a peaceful old age—or any old age, probably.
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