Gather My Horses (16 page)

“Let me give you a hand,” he said. He pulled the rope and tied it off. “That should be good enough.”

That evening they pulled into an open spot that looked good for a campsite. Baker tied the horses as he and Fielding stripped them, but he must have been leery of the roan horse and not gotten him snug. Motion caught Fielding's eye, and he turned to see the roan trotting away with the rope trailing on the ground.

“Damn,” said Fielding. “You watch these, and I'll go get him.” He ran to the bay horse, which he had not yet unsaddled. In a few seconds he untied the neck rope, set his reins, and swung aboard.

He set out on a trot after the roan. He did not want to come galloping up behind the other horse, or it might take off in a game of run and walk. Instead, he kept the bay on a fast trot and gained on the roan. Coming up alongside, he leaned over and got hold of the rope, then dallied it to his saddle horn. The roan did not resist, so Fielding turned both horses and headed back to the campsite on a soft lope.

Just before he got to the trees, he felt a tug on the rope and heard the blast of a rifle. The roan horse went down and jerked the bay sideways, and a second shot crashed.

Fielding jerked the dally loose and threw the rope aside, then kicked the bay into a pounding run until he made it to the trees. He pulled the horse to a quick halt and yanked his rifle from the scabbard. On the first shot he had thought that Baker in a perverse moment had shot at the roan, but he placed the second shot as coming from across the opening, where pine trees grew in a slope of jumbled rocks.

He searched the hillside, which lay in shade, and when he saw movement he placed the object in his sights and fired. It moved again, a man crouched and running uphill. He picked up the target, got a bead on it again, and squeezed the trigger.

The gunshot split the evening, and then the wallop of a bullet hitting a body came echoing back. A man's cry lifted in the air.

Fielding waited. He thought he heard a second voice, the rattle of rocks, a scuffling sound. Dusk began to draw in. Baker had not moved from his position behind the dark horse, which he clutched by the headstall and packsaddle.

Fielding held still awhile longer. As the evening grew darker, he concluded that the man or men had made it up the hill and gotten away. “I think they're gone,” he said to Baker in a low voice. “Whoever it was, I don't think they were shootin' just to get the horse.”

Baker's pale face was visible in the dusk. “What are we gonna do?”

“I guess we finish unpacking and keep the horses tied close in. We've got plenty of grain left. We'll use the tent for a tarp to cover the gear, not set up the sleepin' tent.”

“What if they come?”

“I don't think they will, but there's no need to give them an easy target. It looks like a night for a cold camp. No fire.”

Baker swore under his breath.

“I think they're long gone,” said Fielding. “I think I hit one, and the other one's got his hands full trying to get him away. Let's get these animals taken care of and get a bite to eat for ourselves.”

In the morning, the dead horse lay where it had fallen. Baker would not even go to the edge of the trees, so Fielding went out and got the halter and rope. When he came back to camp, Baker was smoking a cigarette and had a heavy sulk on his face.

“Look,” said Fielding, “I don't like this any better than you do. If they were shooting at anybody, it was me and not you. Like I've already said more than once, I think they're long gone. As for us, there's no point in stayin' holed up here. The sooner we get on the trail and out of this canyon, the better. I think we can make it back to Chug in one long day if we get a move on.”

Baker muttered something.

“I didn't catch that,” said Fielding.

“I haven't even had a cup of coffee yet.”

“Oh, don't worry. We'll have breakfast. If you want to get a fire going, I'll feed the horses.” Fielding took a breath and shook his head. “One less to feed anyhow.”

They rode into Chugwater at nightfall, coming in by the northern edge of the huge bluffs that overlooked the town. Below them to the east, lights showed in a few windows.

Ten minutes later, they halted the pack string in front of the livery stable and dismounted. Faint light filtered out of the stable door, and out of habit Fielding counted his horses.

“I'm going to put up here for the night,” he said. “I can take care of the animals, and you can go on home if you'd like. I'll give you this now.”

He handed Baker a ten-dollar gold piece, which the man held up close to his face and then dropped into his pocket. He gave the reins and lead rope to Fielding, then took his duffel bag out of the pannier on the white horse.

Out of courtesy more than anything else, Fielding said, “I'll have a little more work comin' up later on. Don't know if you'll be interested.”

“I don't think so,” said Baker. “I've had enough of wranglin' in the mountains.” In his slow way he walked to the bench, sat down, and began to roll a cigarette.

Holding two sets of reins and two lead ropes, Fielding led his eight horses to the stable door.

The campsite on Antelope Creek looked the same as when Fielding had left it ten days earlier, with the exception that it now lay in midafternoon sunlight and did not have the freshness of morning.

Fielding unloaded all the gear and turned out the horses. The poles were where he had left them, so he set up the gear tent and his sleeping tent. By then he was tired and sweaty, and he could tell he had been on the trail awhile. He went to the creek and had a bath, changed into clean clothes, and washed the ones he had been wearing.

The sun was slipping in the west. He felt worn out and empty but not hungry. After taking a last look at his horses, he went into the small tent and went to bed.

Flies in the tent woke him, and he saw he had slept past sunrise. The sun was beginning to warm the tent, and that was what got the flies going.

He rolled out of bed, pulled on his clean clothes, and went out to check on the horses. Everything seemed to be in order. He moved the picket horses and gave grain to the buckskin in the corral. Having no pressing business in town and being in no
hurry to talk to other people, he decided to make some biscuits.

Once he went to the trouble of getting a bed of coals, it was worth his while to make a full batch. A half batch often did not come out as well, and besides, he had plenty of provisions.

First he sliced the amount of bacon he thought he would need to give him enough grease. He laid the slices in the cast-iron skillet and set it on the coals to cook as he got out the dry ingredients and mea sured them.

In less than ten minutes, the smell of frying bacon seeped out from the covered skillet. Fielding picked up his wooden pothook, a little over two feet long, and lifted the lid. A cloud of steam rose as the crackling sound came alive. Fielding set the lid on a log, took up his fork, and turned the pieces. Then he settled the lid onto the skillet again, to keep the drifting bits of ash from landing in the food.

With the same two-pronged roasting fork, he mixed the dry ingredients he had measured out—flour, baking powder, and salt. He stirred round and round one way, then the other. He shook the metal bowl and leveled the mix, then worked the middle with up-and-down circular strokes.

Setting the dry mix aside, he handled the pothook again and took the lid off the skillet. The bacon had all turned brown and crisp, so he lifted the skillet off the fire and forked all the pieces onto a tin plate. It looked as if he had just enough grease, so he poured it into a tin measuring cup. When the grease rose to the half-cup level, all he had left in the skillet was grains and crumbs of bacon with
less than a spoonful of grease, so he set the skillet aside.

Dry heat rose from the coals as he settled the Dutch oven into the place where the skillet had been. With the pothook he set the hot lid on the oven, as the lid fit both cast-iron implements.

Now he poured the grease into the mixing bowl and stirred with the big fork. He stirred and folded, stirred and folded, until he had an even consistency of dough. He set aside the bowl and the fork. With a small piece of cloth he swabbed grease from the skillet and wiped it onto two tin plates. Then with a large tablespoon he dropped gobs of dough—a star of five, with a lump in the center—so that he had six biscuits ready in each plate.

Lifting the lid of the oven, he saw smoke rising from the bottom of the pot, so he set the first plate inside and covered up. He went about tidying up his materials while the first bunch cooked. After ten or twelve minutes, he lifted the lid and turned the biscuits.

By the time he had dug out another plate, served himself a portion of bacon, and poured a cup of coffee, the biscuits had baked a couple of minutes more, so he lifted out the plate and put in the one with the raw dough.

The biscuits tasted smoky with a hint of bacon, plus a bitterness from the tin plate, but they were good, especially parted in the middle with a piece of bacon stuck in. When the first bunch was gone, the second plate was ready to take out. He set it aside to cool next to the bacon, which he covered with a sheet of newspaper. He would eat the second portions cold.

Although he felt better after taking on a meal, the empty feeling still haunted him. He recalled the previous time in this camp, and others before that, when the kid Bracken had eaten by the same fire. The kid had liked this camp, the horses, the work—Fielding shook his head and tried to get rid of the tightness in his throat. It didn't do any good to dwell on sadness, but he couldn't just forget about the kid.

After two cups of coffee, Fielding cleaned up the camp and put things away. It was time to go back out into the world and see if any news had come this way ahead of him.

He saddled the buckskin and corralled the other horses. After taking a look around the campsite, he mounted up and set out upstream. He crossed the creek sooner than he usually did and took a wide way around, to put a line of hills between himself and Dunvil's camp. Fielding did not know if the wild-bearded man was still around, but if he was, Fielding preferred to wait until later to visit with him.

Angling to the southwest again, Fielding came over the last hill and paused to take a view of the Magpie, Richard Lodge's little spread. Everything looked the same as on his last visit except that the grass was drier, fading to a pale green, and Lodge was not standing in his pasture. The two sorrels were there, standing head to tail and swishing flies.

As Fielding rode down the hill, he saw Lodge working in the shade of the cabin. It looked as if he was washing something in a tub. Fielding nudged the horse around the front of the house, where he dismounted near the hitching rail.

“Go ahead and tie up,” Lodge called out.

Fielding did so, and as he walked around the hindquarters of the buckskin he saw the pile of stones by the cabin door. He could not tell if it had grown any since he had seen it before. Another couple of steps took him into the shade where Lodge was working.

The man had the sleeves rolled up on his drab work shirt, and his dark gray vest was buttoned, the better to keep it from dipping into the water. The tub itself, round and galvanized, rested on the bench that usually sat against the house. Lodge pushed down with a swishing, burbling sound, then amidst the rushing of water he raised up a dripping saddle blanket. Lodge dunked it again, sloshed it up and down, and pulled it out.

Fielding could almost feel it himself, sodden and heavy, and the smell of wet wool carried in the short distance.

“I'll be done in a minute or two,” said Lodge.

“No hurry.”

Lodge held the blanket up higher, to clear the edge of the tub, and carried it to the top plank of the corral. There he spread it out lengthwise as he had done to the first one. Returning to the bench, he picked up a tin bucket from the ground and dipped it into the tub. He pulled it up and carried it out front, where he poured the water into the earthen bowl around a knee-high cedar tree. It was one of a pair of trees, fifteen yards from the cabin door, that Fielding hadn't paid much attention to because the trees were so small.

Lodge returned for a second bucket of water and poured the contents around the other tree. He took
two more trips, then lifted the tub to pour the last of the dirty water into the bucket. This last amount he divided between the two trees.

Fielding thought the man might be done, but he pumped half a bucket of water into the pail, rinsed the tub with it, and poured the water back into the pail. Again he gave an equal portion to each tree. After that he took the pail and the tub around back, where Fielding heard the door open and then close a few seconds later.

Lodge came back, picked up the bench, and set it in its usual place. “Have a seat,” he said. “Don't sit in the wet spot.” When they were both settled in place, he gave Fielding an expectant look and said, “Well, tell me of your travels.”

Fielding took a breath as he thought about how to begin. “Quite a bit happened, as it turned out. Some of it may have gotten back ahead of me.”

“Go ahead.”

“Well, we got loaded up and pulled out of here the next morning after I saw you last. The first day out, nothin' much to report except we saw Henry Steelyard, who said he was on his way to Rock River.”

“I heard he left.”

“The next day we got into the mountains, and everything went all right until we started to make camp. And who should show up but that smart-talkin' kid Mahoney and his backup man, Pence.”

“Out there?”

“That's right. So Mahoney starts needlin' my wrangler, Ed, and finally goads him into a fight. Ed tries to pull his gun, which he had just bought, and Mahoney puts two bullets through him. I'm
sure they were tryin' to get me to play in—Pence even invited me—but I didn't go for it, and I think they didn't want to draw first, just in case everything didn't go right for them. Then they wouldn't be able to say it was self-defense, which they could with Ed. I'll tell you, I felt worthless, knowin' that I was the cause of it and then couldn't do anything about it without gettin' killed myself.”