Bendigo Shafter (1979) (42 page)

We gained a few more feet, then a few more. When I returned to the warmth of the car and held my stiffened fingers to the blaze, I hated the thought of returning to the job, yet it must be done. I looked at the fuel box, then at Lorna. She was watching me, for our minds worked the same and she knew at once how little warmth remained to us. While we had worked the fuel had burned down to nothing.

Returning, I swung up to the warmth of the cab. You know this country. Are there any creek bottoms near? Anywhere I could find some fuel?

He shook his head. Not that I recall. There's a crick up ahead, but she don't amount to much. No trees that I know of.

The fireman spoke up. Yes, there's a few. Back about a hundred yards from the right-of-way the crick takes a turn, and I've seen treetops in there.

You'll have to share with them back yonder, I said. They're about out.

He gestured toward the tender. We ain't doin' so well ourselves. Unless we have fuel we don't go nowheres, an' you don't neither.

An hour more we slugged away at the snowbank, and the locomotive gained a little more. We carried armfuls of wood from the tender back to the car and fed the hungry flames. The cold seemed to have grown more intense.

Suddenly, we broke through. The wall of snow before us caved in, and we could see the rails ahead. Throwing our shovels into the freight car, we scrambled into our own passenger car to get warm while the train inched ahead.

A half mile long he had said, and we had come about a third of the distance when we stuck the first time. Now it must be almost half.

The train chugged-chugged ahead, occasionally spinning its wheels, then catching hold and going on, about as fast as a man could walk.

Fairchild looked at me. Do you think that's it? Are we through?

I shrugged. There's no telling. There's maybe another drift ahead.

Wearily, I dropped into a seat beside Lorna. Are you all right? she whispered.

Cold, I said, and tired, but I've been cold and tired before this. Don't worry. We'll get through.

She glanced at Fairchild. He's doing his share, isn't he?

He is that. He's a good man, honey.

She sat back, closing her eyes. She had lived with Cain and me too long, and she knew too well how we thought, and I expect she had worried about this, about how Fairchild would stand the gaff, and whether we would accept him. She knew we would accept him. She knew we would take him into the family, but she wanted more than that. She wanted him accepted for himself alone.

Still, the train was moving forward. How far had we come since we quit shoveling snow? A hundred yards? Two hundred?

Suddenly the train stopped. I sat still, my eyes closed, hating the thought of going out there again.

The door opened with a blast of freezing air. Shafter? You got to see this to believe it. The conductor was standing at the door. We're stopped, but it ain't snow this time, it's buffalo!

What?

I struggled into my coat. I was tired, but so were the others, probably more tired than I. Fairchild was up. Williams, Miller, and the two of us followed the conductor back through the door. We got down and started forward, and suddenly I saw them.

We had entered the narrowest part of the cut, and the buffalo had taken shelter here from the storm. They were packed solid, wall to wall of the cut, and snow had drifted over and around them. As buffalo usually face into a storm, the heavy wool on their heads and shoulders was thick with snow. They stood stolidly, peering at us.

There was no way to judge their numbers, but a rough guess would say there were hundreds.

They won't budge! the brakeman said, standing near the cowcatcher. They're alive, but they aren't about to move.

If one of them got down on the tracks, the brakeman added, it could derail the train.

Exasperated, we stood and stared at them. Heavy heads hanging, they stared back. They had found the best shelter anywhere around, and they were not going to budge simply because this puffing black monster wanted to crowd in where they had established themselves.

We could shoot them, Williams suggested. And then what? I asked. Some of those right there weigh two thousand pounds or more. The smallest I can see will weigh eight or nine hundred. How are you going to move that weight after it's dead?

The shooting would scare 'em! he insisted.

Not buflalo, I replied. Buffalo don't scare very easy. I've seen a buflalo hunter on a stand kill all afternoon from one position and the rest keep on feeding. They won't scare worth a damn. We're stuck.

We could push into them. Maybe they'd move.

You can try. You'll just get your tracks all bloody and slippery. Leaning closer to the conductor, I said, There may be five hundred of them in there.

What can we do then?

Try pushing ahead very carefully. You might start them. If you don't, our best bet is just to wait. When the storm eases, they'll move.

When a buffalo wants to go somewhere, he goes. If there isn't an opening, he makes one. Under some conditions buffalo can be stampeded, but in this cold, in such a situation, it was likely to prove impossible.

We walked back and climbed aboard the train. On the way my toe struck something in the snow, and when I kicked the snow away I saw that it was a broken railroad tie. With Alec Williams to help, we got it aboard. We had no axe, but we did have our Bowie knives and could cut loose pieces to add to the fire.

The train jerked, bumped a little, then eased forward, ever so slowly. A moment, and it stopped. Eased forward again and stopped again. Putting my head back against the plush seat, I let my muscles slowly relax. It was up to the engineer now ... maybe he could do it.

Somehow I fell asleep, and when next my eyes opened the car was gray with morning light. Lorna's head was against my shoulder, and Fairchild was curled up on two seats and a sack laid between them, just across the aisle.

Williams was peering out the window, but looking out, all I could see was white. Where are we?

Stuck, he said, and the last of the fuel is ready to go in.

Easing away from Lorna, I got her head off my shoulder and on the cushion. Slowly, I got to my feet.

Have we made any headway?

I dunno. I just woke up myself.

The others were fast asleep. I walked to the end of the car and opened the door. The cold air came in, and if anything it was colder. Suddenly a huge body brushed past the steps, almost at my feet ... then another.

The buffalo were moving. The engineer whistled, and they started to gallop, then slowed down. I knew there was no steam to waste and that whistling would do little good. The engine threshed its wheels, then eased slowly forward.

We had cleared the last of the cut, and were on the downgrade when we sighted a square heap of snow that had to be a pile of ties. The train stopped, and we all got down, brushing the snow from the ties and loading most of them onto the tender. Several we carried back to our car.

There's a town ahead where we can get some grub. Maybe some hot coffee. We'll stop.

Back at the stove I brushed the snow from my gloves and put them down on the seat. Lorna was awake, and so was Dr. Fairchild.

Alec Williams stopped by, grinning. Well, we're on our way. How do you live out here, anyway?

Like anywhere ... we do one thing at a time. It's a good country for men, but as somebody said it's hell on horses and women.

He chuckled. Maybe ... only my wife's been tryin' to talk me into comin'west for a year.

He started away, then came back. Say ... didn't they call you Shafter?

That's right, Williams. I'm Ben Shafter.

Well, I'll be damned. I'll be forever damned. He shook his head. Wait'll I tell them back home I been workin' side by side with Ben Shafter!

Lorna had moved over to sit beside Fairchild, so I leaned back and closed my eyes. In a few hours we'd be in Cheyenne, and there would be a stop there long enough to do a little business. The train whistled and the sound lost itself over the vast, snow-covered wastes. It was no longer snowing, and the wind had gone down. The last whisper of the wind stirred the snow like an empty ghost, whirled it, and lacking energy to persist, dropped it. Under the snow there was grass lying still, waiting for the warmth of a spring sun, and where the snow now was there would be buffalo walking, and when the buffalo were gone there would be cattle, and then there would be wheat or corn or rye or flax.

The Indians would kill some of the newcomers. Cold, starvation, drought, and storm would kill others, but there would be no end for they would still come. Men like Williams and Miller, men like Cain and Webb, men like Neely and Drake and Sackett ... they would still come. There was no end to them.

The Indian, like the buffalo, would pass from the face of the land or become one with those who came, for they were all caught up with change, the inevitable change that comes to men and towns and nations. Men move across the face of the world like tides upon the sea, and when they have gone, others will come; and the weak would pass and the strong would live, for that was the way it was, and the way it would be.

For a little while men might change that, but in the last analysis men would not decide. It would be the wind, the rain, the tortured earth, and the looming mountains, it would be drought and hunger, it would be cold and desolation. For it is these elements that decide, and no man can build a wall strong enough to keep them out forever.

Lorna touched my shoulder. Ben? We're coming into town.

Chapter
42

One who returns to a place sees it with new eyes. Although the place may not have changed, the viewer inevitably has. For the first time things invisible before become suddenly visible.

Our valley remained the same, as did the pines and the white cliff that backed our town. The trees along the hill had thinned out more than I realized, cut by indiscriminate woodchoppers hunting fuel or timbers for the mines.

Ruth Macken's home and trading post had settled against the hill as if it had been there always, and this I knew she had planned. The makeup of the building itself and the way it fit into the hill were perfect. She understood, as had the ancient Greeks, how the architecture must belong to the setting.

The trees there were still lovely, the silver in the sunlight on the stream, the snow melting under the morning sun. Someone was cutting wood there. I saw the flash of the axe blade, and a moment later heard the sound of the axe, with always that interval between testifying to the difference between the speeds of light and sound. I think there is no more lovely sound than the ring of an axe on a frosty morning.

Lower down and further back, our own place. Or I should say, Cain's place. The mill was ours. I had helped to build it and was a partner, and yet I had always thought of it as Cain's. He was the master here, and rightfully so. Yet the small cluster of original cabins sat well against the hill, and those built later were further down the small valley, closer to the road, the unpainted buildings weathered now and a little shabby.

We rode up into the street, and the first person we saw was Colly Benson.

Howdy, Ben. We missed you.

We gripped hands. His was hard and strong. Everything's quiet, Ben. Just like you'd want it.

Thanks, Colly.

There's been a few people driftin' in, he said, and a few leavin'. I think more are leavin', Ben. More of the latecomers are just stoppin' by.

See anything of Finnerly or Trotter?

Well ... no. Only somebody took a shot at Neely awhile back, and a couple of days ago somebody tried to break into his mine. He'd rebuilt the door, set heavy timbers into the rock wall, and they made too much noise. But they got away before we could get to them.

We rode on up the slope, Lorna, Dr. Fairchild, and I. We could hear the ring of Cain's hammer from the blacksmith shop and the whine of the saw in the mill.

John Sampson came to the mill door and looked down the hill. We rode up to him, and a smile creased his weathered face. Time, which had used our town unkindly in some respects, had only laid a blessing upon John. His hair was as thick and white as ever, his eyes as clear and kindly, his face a little nobler. He made me think of Hawthorne's story about The Great Stone Face, and the man who came to resemble the face on the mountainside. Age, confidence, and growing knowledge and usefulness had worked a miracle with John ... or perhaps it had always been there, and we saw it only now. Yet I believe it began on the way across the plains, when for the first time men and women came to him for advice.

We're home, John. And Lorna's brought a friend with her, Dr. Fairchild.

How do you do, sir? Are you a medical doctor? Our town can use one. He turned his eyes to Lorna. Lorna ... you're a woman now, a beautiful woman.

She blushed and laughed to cover it. I'm just a country girl, home from the city.

Cain came out, then Helen, and the others. On the slope Ruth Macken was shading her eyes at us. I've some coffee, Helen said, and I've baked a cake.

She's baked one every weekend since you left, Cain said, expecting you home.