Dry Divide (4 page)

“Okay, Bud,” he called back just as quietly, “I'll get some brine ready for those blisters,” then he kept straight on.

Judy had half risen when I called to Doc, but I'd drawn her back beside me. As soon as he'd passed she started to rise again, and said, “I'd best go in now. Sis might worry.”

I could hear the whine of the separator from the kitchen, so I told her, “Wait till Paco finishes the separating. She won't worry while she's busy with the milk. Besides, you haven't told me yet about her running away with Myron. Was that when they came up here?”

I hadn't sat in the moonlight with a girl for a long, long time, and Judy's hand was soft in mine, so when I drew her back beside me that second time I drew her closer. She didn't really pull away, just ooched over a little, leaving two or three inches between us—and I liked her better for it. She sat for a moment, looking up the golden pathway the moonlight made across the wheat field, then said, “Uh-uh, not up here. This would have been too close to home, and Paw would have come to fetch her back. They run off to the sand hills, up in Nebraska, but Myron didn't do no good up there so they come back . . . right at the beginning of harvest, it was . . . the week before Marthy was born. All they had was Kitten and Vixen . . . and a filly foal out of each one of 'em . . . not even saddles . . . and Sis rode all that ways bareback . . . and her within a week of her time.”

There was a catch in her voice as she said the last few words, but it didn't seem right to have any sadness that evening—not there in the moonlight—so to take her mind off her sister I said, “That's a shame, Judy, but you were going to tell me how Myron got the way he is.”

“Well, that's when it started,” she said, “Paw, he was awful mad, and cussed Myron out, and told him again that he wouldn't never amount to nothing. And Myron cussed Paw back, and told him he'd show him . . . and right under his own nose, too . . . and for a little bit it looked like he was going to do it. Myron ain't lazy. He hired out for a harvest hand to the banker over to Marion . . . that's on the Nebraska side of the line . . . and the banker liked the way he worked, and let him have a quarter section to farm on halvers. It was a good quarter, too, up there on the first bench, but it didn't have no house on it, so Myron put up a little soddy . . . no more'n ten feet square, and him and Sis went down there to live . . . with nothing but a straw bunk and a coal oil stove.”

“How could he farm a quarter section with two little ponies like Kitten?” I asked.

“He couldn't,” she told me, “and that's when his bad trouble started. The banker left him have money to buy a heavy team and seed wheat, and a secondhanded disk and seeder, and he didn't take no mortgage—only on the next year's crop. But Myron didn't buy no seed, and didn't plant no crop—leastways not on that quarter. That's when he bought Lucy and Lilly, the two bay mares out there in the corral. They were sure a fine team then; Lucy didn't get foundered till that winter—left her stand out when she was sweated up. And he bought two new sets of harness, and a brand new wagon, and disk, and seeder . . . and a couple of cows with heifer calves. Myron was flying high then. Guess he was trying to show Paw and the banker that he was smarter than them. He brought all the stuff across the state line, and mortgaged it to a banker over to Oberlin—the one I mind the baby and wash dishes for his wife when I'm going to school—and he used the mortgage money to pay a year's cash rent for a half section west of The Bluffs, so he wouldn't have to share crop with nobody.”

While Judy had been talking I'd heard the separator whir to a stop. Then Paco came out to the corner of the house, stood for a moment or two, and went on toward the barn. I knew Judy should have gone in, but I was interested in her story—and I liked sitting there in the moonlight with her, so I asked, “Didn't the first banker sue Myron and take the crop on the place west of The Bluffs?”

“Oh, he sued him,” she said, “but he couldn't get the crop . . . what there was of it. You see, as soon as Myron got the lease he mortgaged the crop to Bones—he's the banker over to Cedar Bluffs—to raise money for seed and a couple more cows and horses.”

“Oh,” I said, “then that banker got the crop.”

“No,” she told me, “he didn't, neither. Paw says the Lord took it away from Myron on account of him trying to be a thief. Him and Sis—she was proud then, and stout as lots of men—worked night and day till deep frost come, getting two hundred and sixty acres of wheat planted. The next spring they put the other sixty into corn. Wore the horses, all six of 'em, down to skin and bones. Then, just when the wheat was making heads, the hail hit 'em. The streak wasn't no more than half a mile wide and two long, but it beat all their wheat and most of the corn back into the ground. The rest of it didn't amount to much . . . just enough to eke 'em through the winter.

“Bones, he took the two new horses and cows so's to get something out of his mortgage, and the banker over to Oberlin took the wagon and disk and seeder. They'd have took the rest of the stock too, only Lucy was a'ready foundered, the cows was too thin to sell, and nobody wants ornery little mustangs. That's when Myron turned sour on everybody. He figured like they'd tromped on him when he was down, and he's been hunting for somebody to tromp on ever since. There ain't a banker up or down the valley but he's tangled with, and the both of 'em lose every time.”

“Well, if they lose every time how can he keep going?” I asked.

She hunched her shoulders a particle and said, “By taking what's left. With wheat as high as it is now the owners will let anybody take land on shares before leaving it lie fallow, and no farmer that can get anything else will take land way up here. Before this one, the last big crop on this divide was the year Sis and Myron got hailed out. Every year till now they've had a failure and got kicked off the place they was on, then had to move higher onto the divide.”

For half a minute she sat silently, looking down at our hands, that held us together and yet apart, then said wistfully, “They'd have been rich by now—the war coming on and wheat going up the way it has, and all—if Myron hadn't tried to outsmart the banker over to Marion. That quarter section he put 'em on has raised thirty bushels of wheat to the acre ever since. Their half would have fetched near onto five thousand dollars every year, but Myron, he couldn't be satisfied to be a quarter-section farmer. His trouble is he rares at it too hard, and expects everybody else to . . . and he tries to be smarter'n he is . . . and his word ain't good.

“He's took on more land with every move, as fast as the colts grew big enough to wear harness—they're all out of Kitten and Vixen, her mate that Sis married him for, and that died last winter—and Myron keeps 'em so mean and ornery the bankers daresn't foreclose on 'em. This year he's got two sections in wheat and a quarter in corn. That's why nothing is ready for harvest. Sis has been too poorly this spring to help with the corn, and being a'ready mortgaged to the neck and in trouble with all the bankers, Myron couldn't get a loan to hire help. Working alone, it took him till June to get the last of the corn planted, and with this hot wind coming on he'd have lost it before harvest was over if he didn't get it disk hoed. He finished last night, but that's Myron for you; he always bites off a bigger chunk than he can chew, then blames somebody else if it chokes him.”

There were still a few things that puzzled me, so I asked, “If the bankers wouldn't make him a loan for hiring help to put in a hundred and sixty acres of corn, why did they loan him enough for help to plow and seed twelve hundred and eighty acres of wheat? He couldn't have done that alone.”

“He didn't, and they didn't,” she told me. “There wasn't an acre of it neither plowed nor seeded. Last year's crop was so poor it wasn't worth harvesting, so it was left standing in the fields. That's how Myron got the place. Then him and Sis hogged it back in—you know, disking both ways across it—and it took 'em till freeze-up to get it done. It's a miracle they got a volunteer crop like this one, and it'll be a bigger miracle if they get it harvested before it shatters or the hail gets it.”

She sat silently for a few seconds, just looking off across the moonlit fields, then said, almost in a whisper, “I hope the Lord don't let nothing happen to it. It would be awful hard on Sis and the children. This is the first time they've had better'n a soddy to live in . . . and there ain't no place to move to after you get kicked off the top of the divide.”

Although I knew Judy had no idea she was doing it, what she'd really told me was that we'd hired out to a man who didn't have a dime with which to pay our wages, and who was crooked enough that he'd try to beat us out of the money even if he did have it. Of course, I had no way of knowing how big the mortgages and judgments against his crop might be, or if the laws of Kansas would let them stand ahead of wage claims. But that was nothing to worry Judy with. “Don't you worry about it, Judy,” I told her. “Unless Myron goes out of his way to pick a fight, and I don't think he will, I'll do all I can to help get this crop harvested, and to keep the crew on the job.”

She turned her face toward mine, her eyes warm in the soft light, the breeze stirring a chestnut brown lock that lay across her forehead, and her lips parted slightly as if she were going to speak. When she didn't, I bent my face closer to hers, but she sprang to her feet as if frightened, and there was a touch of tremble in her voice as she told me quickly, “I got to go now . . . Bud. Sis'll be worried.” Then she scampered away to the house like a startled quail.

Hudson left the header just as I reached the barn, and when I went around to our camp Gus and Lars were snoring in their tent. Edgar and Everett had spread miscellaneous clothing atop the blackened heap of straw, and were sleeping there, stripped to their B.V.D's. Old Bill and Jaikus were wrapped in their blankets, and asleep on their straw mattresses. Paco lay on the naked mattress beside them, still fully dressed, with his sombrero hiding his face from the moonlight. Doc sat apart from the others, dozing, though not asleep. I hadn't made a sound as I came around the barn, but he raised his head and asked, “Conquest?”

“No,” I told him, “not even a goodnight kiss. She's a nice little girl, and from what she tells me your guess isn't too far wrong on Hudson, except that he's no drunk.”

“Hold it till you get your boots off and your hands and feet soaking in this brine,” he told me. “Wheat beards will raise Old Ned with those blisters unless you get 'em hardened up.”

It couldn't have hurt much more if I'd stuck my hands and feet into a fire instead of the bucket of brine, but Doc made me keep them there while I told him the story Judy had told me. When I'd finished I said, “You've got to do something to get Hudson out of the way tomorrow night; I'm going to take that little mare and ride to town. I've promised the little girl to stick it out unless he keeps on trying to pick a fight, and that I'd do my best to keep the crew on the job. But there's no sense in our being stuck for our wages, and there's only one way I can think of to head it off. The banker has a mortgage against this crop, but he can't collect unless it's harvested before it shatters. I'm going to put the bee on him to guarantee our wages.”

“Now you're whistling!” Doc told me. “When you came back I was sitting here thinking we'd best move on in the morning—soon as we'd had another bait of that delicious pork—but maybe you've got an idea. I'd risk a day's work if I thought it would do that woman and those poor little kids any good—and I'd risk three or four of 'em if I was your age, and a nice little turtle dove would sit in the moonlight and spoon with me. But right now we'd better turn in; we've got a big day ahead tomorrow.”

I'd caught a glimpse of Paco when I first came into camp, but had forgotten about him until I was loosening my belt to lie down. Then a pinch came into my throat at the sight of him lying there on the naked heap of straw, his beautiful blanket spread over the larger and deeper pile beside it. He lay as peacefully as a contented baby, but I couldn't leave him there while Doc and I went to bed on his blanket, and I was afraid I might hurt his feelings if I woke him and told him to move over. I think Doc knew how I felt, and I didn't have to tell him what I wanted to do. Together we lifted the sleeping boy carefully and laid him on the center of his blanket. He didn't wake when we slipped off our overalls and lay down beside him.

4

Under the Lash

T
HE
moon hung low in the western sky, pale with the breaking of dawn, when Hudson bellowed, “Turn out, all hands of you!”

I sprang up to one elbow just in time to catch a glimpse of him turning back from the corner of the barn. Otherwise I'd have thought I was dreaming, for at that time of year it couldn't be later than four-thirty, and I'd never heard of a man putting a crew into the field before seven. For a couple of minutes we sat on our blankets, grumbling, then pulled on our overalls and boots, for we had little choice. With the possible exception of Gus and Lars, every one of us was dead broke.

By the time we'd washed and reached the kitchen, Hudson was mopping up the grease on his plate with half a biscuit. He crammed it into his mouth as we sat down, swallowed it almost whole, and ordered, “Get it into you and come to the corral!”

The breakfast was exactly the same as supper had been, and there was no sign of Judy or her sister. If it hadn't been for Hudson's order to get it into us, we'd have stuffed the nauseous food away as fast as we could, but no one hurried, and no one looked up from his plate until it was empty. Even at that, we couldn't have been at the table more than fifteen minutes, and Hudson must have been working at a run.

When we went to the corral the two old bay mares and the four largest mustangs were missing. The six smallest and wildest, together with Kitten, were crowded into the far corner, and two sets of ragged harness lay by the gate. Hudson came out of the barn carrying a third set, dumped it beside the others, and ordered, “Three of you harness the teams in the barn! The rest of you harness these here, exceptin' my saddle mare!” Then he kept right on walking toward the header.

I'd worked on farms and ranches most of my life, and it was always understood that the man who was going to drive a team harnessed it; those who weren't going to drive had no harnessing to do. And whenever there was a new crew the first thing the boss did was to assign each driver the horses he would handle. For maybe a minute we stood there, puzzled, then I noticed that the men were all looking at me, but I was as puzzled as they were. There were only two drivers among us—Old Bill and Doc—but there were three barges, three pairs of pitchers, and twelve horses.

There was no doubt that harnessing the wild bunch was going to be up to me, so I looked around the circle to see who might be able to help me. I knew Gus and Lars would be too slow, so when I caught their eyes I nodded toward the barn, then nodded for Doc to go with them. Edgar and Everett looked plain scared, and Jaikus beat me to the punch. “Don't be lookin' at me,” he jabbered in his thick brogue, “I come here to pitch wheat, not to be fightin' divils.”

Only Paco looked straight at me, and his eyes were bright with excitement. “Go find a throw rope and a long piece of baling wire,” I told him, “and say a prayer before you bring them back.” Then I told the others, “Come in and give us a hand at holding the horses in the corner, but keep clear of their teeth and heels, and watch yourselves. Each of you bring a bridle.”

Edgar, Everett, and Jaikus stayed out of the corral, but Old Bill followed me without the slightest show of fear. He was cautious, but spry as a cat, and was always in the right spot to head a horse back when it tried to break from the corner.

When Paco came back, white teeth flashing and eyes dancing, I knew he was a natural horseman—far beyond my ability—that he'd tackled many a mean bronco, and liked nothing better. The rope he'd found was a worn old piece of half-inch, not more than fifteen feet long, but he'd already tied a honda at the end, and was drawing a three-foot loop through it. He held the rope out to me as we crossed the corral toward the frightened, milling horses, but I shook my head and told him, “No, you throw it.”With six feet of the rope doubled into the loop, a man had to get dangerously close to those flying heels to make a catch, but Paco darted in and out like a terrier worrying a pack of fighting rats. He didn't try to swing the clumsy rope, but held the loop behind one hip, and flipped it overhand to catch the first head that turned toward him. Then the fight was on. With both of us hanging to the rope and digging our heels in, the little seven-hundred-pound mustang dragged us half the length of the corral, rearing and bucking, before we could get her snubbed to a post. We'd no sooner snubbed her than Paco snatched a wire from his belt and, dodging her striking hoofs, slipped a loop around her muzzle. There was no need of tightening the loop; she knew the pain it could cause only too well, and stood trembling while I harnessed her.

Each of the six frightened little horses handled in about the same way, though a couple of them gave us a harder battle than the others. I'd expected the harnessing to take us more than an hour, but with Paco's skill and cunning it was less than half that time until we had them lined up, one at each corral post. When I went to the barn, Lars was buckling the last straps on a fractious gelding, and the other five were already harnessed. As I stood watching for a minute, Gus told me, “Goot little horses; yust spoilt rotten.” Except for their names, it was the first thing I'd heard either him or Lars say.

I'd paid no attention to Hudson while we'd been harnessing, but he'd evidently been watching us closely enough to know we were finished. He came storming into the barn just as Gus told me the horses were spoiled rotten, and could hardly have helped hearing it. He was almost on the run, and kept right on past us to the far end of the barn, but as he went he shouted, “Don't be loafin' around in here! Get them horses hitched onto the barges!”

At the sound of Hudson's voice the four mustangs panicked, crowding into the farthest corners of the stalls as if they'd been trying to hide. It would have been senseless and dangerous to rush into those stalls, so I motioned Doc and Gus to stay back. After the horses had quieted a bit I went into the nearest stall, and was just reaching for a halter buckle when Hudson threw them into another panic. “Get 'em out of here!” he shouted. “Get 'em out of here! I ain't got all day to waste!”

I had to duck for cover as he passed the back of the stall, a bundle of sticks about three feet long under an arm, and trailing a blacksnake whip about half as long as the one he'd used for cutting the horses the night before.

The old bay mares had either become used to Hudson's shouting, or he'd treated them less roughly than the mustangs. He'd barely left the barn before Doc led them out, and a minute later Gus followed with the second team, but it was two or three before my pair quieted enough that I could back them out of the stall.

As I led my fractious team to the water tank I had a chance to figure out several things I should have noticed earlier. The pair Gus had led out were much heavier than mine, and were far less wild. It was evident that Hudson had been using them and the old mares for working his corn crop, so they were fairly well worked down. My team must have been a spare, used only once in a while, and the six in the corral hadn't probably been in from pasture since the previous fall. While we'd been catching and harnessing the wild bunch I'd seen enough of Old Bill to know he was no stranger to horses, but I couldn't be too sure of Doc, so while my team was drinking I nodded to Bill and he came to me. “Why don't you take this team?” I asked him quietly. “They're going to take some handling the first day or two, and I'm afraid Doc might have a little trouble with them.”

Old Bill couldn't have been more pleased if I'd slipped him a twenty-dollar goldpiece. He peeked up at me from under the visor of his cap, grinned, and told me, “I'll handle 'em, Bud. Just give me a hand a-gettin' 'em hooked to the barge the first time. Always did like a team with a little get-up-and-go to it.”

As soon as Bill's team was hitched to a barge I went to the corral, where Hudson had the six little broncos lined up in two teams of three each, with the two wildest in the centers. Each team was poled together with the sticks he'd brought from the barn, one end wired to a hame, and the other to a bit ring on the next horse's bridle. With the sticks crossed in X's between each pair, no horse in a team could rear, crowd, or pull aside more than an inch or two without tearing its mouth. Paco was helping Hudson put jerk lines on one of the teams when I swung the gate back to go into the corral, but Hudson shouted to me, “Leave that gate open and take this team out! This Mex can't talk American.”

Those little horses knew the punishment of jockey poles too well to fight them, and I had no trouble in driving when I picked up the jerk lines. Hudson led the way with the other team, trailing his blacksnake behind him. Although the horses had stood all night without water, he didn't let them go to the tank, but yanked them around and drove them to the header. The only trouble we had in hooking them to it was in being careful to avoid a flying heel or two. I'd lost all track of time during the harnessing, and when I stepped back from hooking the last trace chain I was surprised to see that the sun was only an hour high. I'd also forgotten that we were short one driver until Hudson turned toward the house, and yelled, “Hey, you! Get out here!”

Hudson's voice had barely echoed back before Judy came around the corner from the kitchen. She had on a faded denim jacket that must have been her sister's, and pulled up over it was a pair of overalls that must have been Hudson's. The shoulder straps had been shortened until the bib reached nearly to her chin, and a foot or more of the legs was folded into cuffs. With her hair tucked inside a big cap that pulled down over her ears, she looked like a teddy bear as she came running toward the first barge in the line, the one with the two old mares hitched to it. Edgar and Everett headed for it too, but Hudson bawled at them, “Get outa there and take that barge where the Swedes are at!” That left Paco and Jaikus to go as Old Bill's pitchers. And since I'd hired out to do the stacking I just picked up a pitchfork and stood off to one side—anxious to see how a header worked, and how Hudson was going to steer it and handle all the levers and pulleys while driving two teams of half-wild mustangs.

Astraddle of the rudder bar, and perched, nearly standing, on the little seat at the top of the steering post, he hung each pair of jerk lines around his neck, then pulled down the boom that lifted the cutting machinery. As it rose, not more than two or three feet in front of the already frightened horses' heads, they went into a panic, fear of the monster rising toward them greater than their fear of the punishing jockey poles wired to their bits. Dancing, plunging, and rearing till the poles jerked them down, each team swung outward, trying to escape the awesome contraption, but Hudson yanked the inside jerk lines with all his tremendous strength. At the same time he swung his whip from side to side, lashing the outside horses on their faces and driving them inward.

Whether intentionally or through carelessness, Hudson had left the machine in gear. As the horses plunged away from the sting of his whip they lurched forward into their collars, turning the drive wheel and setting the clattering cutter bar, the reel, and the conveyor belts into motion. Insane with fright the horses leaped back, but Hudson poured the blacksnake across their backs until the welts gave them the appearance of zebras, driving them inward and forward toward the clattering, whirling-armed monster before them.

From the time I'd talked with Judy I'd promised myself that I wouldn't let Hudson goad me into losing my temper and starting any further trouble between us. I don't believe he could have done it by any amount of yelling and swearing at me, but to stand there watching him beat those defenseless horses, and yank the jerk lines till their mouths bled, drove me nearly as insane as they were. Before I realized what I was doing I ran toward him with the pitchfork raised above my head, shouting, “Lay off those horses, you coward!”

I suppose I'd have tried to knock the whip out of his hands if I'd got close enough, but I didn't—and he did the knocking. I was still three good long strides away when the whip lashed out in my direction, and the fork went flying from my hands as if it had been struck by lightning. As the fork sailed away he shouted, “Keep outa this, you fool!”

Doc and Paco must have started running the instant I did, and they grabbed me before I could prove that Hudson had been right in what he called me. Their grabbing brought me to my senses, but it didn't do my judgment much good.

“Let's get out of here, Bud,” Doc told me as he pinned my arms back. “There's nothing you can do to stop him, and he'll kill you if he takes after you with that whip.”

“Don't worry about that whip,” I told Doc, “he'll never touch me with it. He's had two chances now, and he didn't dare do it either time. You quit if you want to, but I'm going to stay right here till I get those horses away from him. I don't know how I'll do it, but I will.”