When the Legends Die (27 page)

He sat there a long time before he finally went to bed and to sleep.

The next morning Mary Redmond came in almost as gay as ever. She made his bed, straightened his room, and though she looked at him from time to time she didn’t say a word about the place in Nyack or ask where he was going. She chattered impersonally and when she wasn’t talking she was humming to herself as though afraid of silence between them. Then she brought the wheel chair and let him get into it alone.

“I’ll bet you could
walk
to the sun porch this morning,” she said. “But you’d better not try. You’re still listed as a chair patient, and if the supervisor saw you we’d both catch hell.”

He went to the porch and she left him there alone for almost an hour. Then she came back and waited for him to say he was ready to go to his room. She gave him a thorough, efficient massage, but she seemed as impersonal about it as though he were someone who had just walked in off the street. She made him feel like an absolute stranger.

When she had finished and left him alone in his room he was tempted to call her back and say he had changed his mind. That he would go to that place in Nyack, that he wanted to be taken care of, comforted, eased, protected. Then he said to himself, angrily and aloud, “You fool! You damned fool! You’ve been taken care of for almost six weeks.”

He pushed Mary Redmond out of his thinking. He had plans to make.

That afternoon, just before she went off duty, Mary came to his room again. He was sitting in the chair beside the window and he started to get to his feet as she came in.

“Don’t get up,” she said. “I just stopped in to say good-bye.”

“Good-bye?”

“I do with all my patients before they go.”

“I’m not leaving till tomorrow.”

“I’ll be off duty tomorrow. Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Remember?”

“That’s right.” He had forgotten.

“Well—“ She hesitated. “Well, good-bye. And good luck.”

He was still listening to her footsteps down the hall when Dr. Ferguson came in. He had the reports on the X rays and the tests. Everything, he said, was all right. “I’ll sign your release and check you out before I leave. You can go any time tomorrow. Where did you decide to go, by the way?”

“I’m going back home.”

“Good! Get out in the open air. Eat and sleep and walk. Best exercise you can get, walking. Check in with a doctor out there once a month or so. By the end of summer he’ll probably let you ride again, if it’s a gentle horse. Gentle, I said.”

Tom made no comment. He asked what he owed, and Dr. Ferguson said the records were at his office, but he gave an approximate figure. Tom took the office address. The doctor wished him luck and they shook hands and said good-bye.

Alone, Tom looked around the room and knew he was a stranger here. A total stranger. He didn’t belong here. So he was getting out, going back to the life he did belong to. All he had to do now was close this out and get ready to take up where he left off. By this time tomorrow he would be on the train heading west.

He turned to the window and stared out at the patch of sky beyond the buildings. Blue sky, the calm, gentle, comforting female color. Then he thought of his own name, Tom Black. Black, the harsh, ruthless male color.

He went out into the corridor and walked toward the sun porch, without the wheel chair and with no one at his elbow. He almost wished the supervisor, or someone, would try to stop him. But nobody did.

H
E WAS THE ONLY
passenger for Pagosa. The bus stopped, he got off and the bus roared and went on toward Bayfield and Durango. He stood for a long minute looking up and down the street, which wound along the valley with its shops and stores on only the one side, facing the sharp slope at the foot of which flowed the San Juan. It was a tumbling mountain stream here, not really a river; it didn’t become a river till it was joined by the Piedra, down at Arboles at the southern edge of the reservation, and began to canyon its way into New Mexico. He looked up and down the street, wondering why he had come. It was only vaguely familiar, like a place in a long forgotten dream. It wasn’t home. But he had to come somewhere.

He picked up his clothes bag and walked up the street, limping slightly. He was stiff and full of dull aches from the long ride in the bus. He wondered if he should have stayed another week in Denver, shrugged and dismissed that thought. Four days had been long enough, four days to recover from the train ride. He couldn’t afford to stay in Denver, even if he had wanted to.

He looked for a restaurant, saw the sign and mentally corrected himself. The Cafe. He went in, set his clothes bag against the wall, hung his hat on the peg above it, and chose a stool at the counter, well away from the four men already there. The waitress, middle-aged, plain, friendly, and with obviously aching feet, brought a glass of water and a menu. He glanced at the menu, ordered coffee and a hot roast beef sandwich. She started toward the kitchen and he called her back. “Cancel the sandwich. Make it a bowl of chili.”

She gave the order and brought a spoon and a paper napkin. He glanced down the counter at the other four men. They were watching him. All were in Levi’s, work clothes. He was conscious of his own clothes, the tan sport jacket, the brown-striped shirt, the tailored gabardines, the fancy-stitched boots. For years he had been stared at, on the street, in hotels and restaurants, and it hadn’t mattered. It was part of being what he was. Now he felt self-conscious.

The waitress brought his chili, pushed the bowl of oyster crackers toward him, and the big shaker of coarsely ground red chili peppers. She brought his coffee and asked, “Come in from the east?”

He nodded.

“The washout all fixed, up the canyon?”

“All fixed.”

“There’s a long detour between Bayfield and Durango.”

“I’m not going any farther.” He smiled at her. “I’m here.”

“Oh?”

“I used to live around here.” Unconsciously, he was trying to make contact with somebody, something.

“Come back for a visit?”

“I may stay a while.”

“There’s worse places.” She smiled and moved down the counter.

The chili wasn’t very good. Too bland, even when he doctored it with the ground peppers. He tasted the coffee. Restaurant coffee. No, cafe coffee. But he drank it and he ate the chili. The waitress came back and he ordered more coffee and lemon pie. It was cafe pie, too.

He finished and went to the desk, and the waitress came to take his money. “Is it all right if I leave my clothes bag here awhile?” he asked.

“Nobody will bother it.”

He put on his hat and went out onto the street again. Two men, Indians, were sitting on the curb in front of the hardware store. One glanced up, stared at him for a moment. He glanced at them and walked on past before he thought that the one who had looked up was someone he knew. He reached back, finally found a name. Luther. Luther who? He glanced over his shoulder. They were both watching him, saying something about him to each other. And the name came: Luther Spotted Dog. His one-time roommate, the boy he had thrown out of the room, with all his gear, and later had beaten up in that fight in the cow barn. Luther Spotted Dog! In worn, dirty Levi’s, looking like a skid-row character.

He went on, came to a market, Thatcher’s Market, the sign said. Thatcher? Then he remembered. He stared through the big window. The place was all changed, a market now, not just a store. And another memory came back, of a boy and a bear cub and a crowd of men here in the street, right here, the men threatening to kill the cub. And Jim Thatcher coming out and warning them to leave the two alone, both the boy and the cub.

He was tempted to go in, see if Jim Thatcher was still there. Probably not. It was a long time ago. Even if he were there, Jim Thatcher probably wouldn’t remember. What would it matter, even if he did?

Tom turned away, went on up the street, then came back. Luther Spotted Dog and the other man had gone. He crossed the street to a bench, started to sit down, then went on down the slope a little way toward the stream and sat down on the ground. A startled magpie flew squawking from a nearby aspen, long-tailed and strikingly black and white. He watched the water, glinting in the sun as it splashed along its rocky bed.

He had wondered all the way from Denver to Wolf Creek Pass what it would be like. Then, as the road wound steeply down from the pass through the pines and aspens the smells began to touch the quick of his being, the resinous pine smell, the damp woods smell, the clean smell of fast water, and it was almost painful, the way it cut down through the layers of the years. He finally had to close his eyes and make himself aware of the bus smells to ease it, the odors of people and dust and hot oil and exhaust fumes. Then the bus began to pass small ranches and streamside fishing camps and cabins and he could look again, smell again. Now, sitting here in the sun, watching the flashing stream, he found himself blocking out the sounds and smells of the street behind him.

He sat there half an hour, then decided he’d better find some place to stay. A cheap room somewhere. But first he had to get some other clothes. In these he looked like a millionaire dude. There weren’t any cheap rooms for anybody dressed like this.

He went back across the street to the clothing store. A clerk, dressed like New York or Chicago, greeted him and

Tom said, “I need some work clothes.” The clerk looked him over, head to foot, and asked, “What did you have in mind?”

Levi s.

The clerk led him to a counter, showed him a pair of tight-cut, fancy-stitched denim pants. Tom shook his head. “Work clothes,” he repeated, then glanced at himself. “I’ve got the dude kind,” he said with a smile.

Another man came in, a man in dusty Levi’s and a black hat mottled with sweat stains. He stood at the desk while the clerk took Tom toward the back of the store, to a pile of folded Levi’s cut for ease, not style. He chose a pair in Tom’s size, held them up. Tom nodded. “And a couple of shirts and a brush jacket.”

The clerk asked his shirt size, brought the blue work shirts and a short denim jacket. Tom tried it on, asked for more shoulder room. Then asked, “Have you got a place where I can change?”

The clerk took him to a fitting room and Tom put on the work clothes, then came out and told the clerk he wanted a pair of plain work boots. While he was fitting the boots the clerk asked, “You staying around here?” It was a conversational question.

“I used to live around here.” Then, with a smile, “I used to herd sheep, over near Bayfield.”

The clerk chuckled. It was a joke, but he would go along with it. The dress boots Tom had just taken off cost eighty-five dollars a pair, and the clerk knew it. And that mohair jacket must have cost at least a hundred.

They went back to the desk and the clerk carefully folded the mohair jacket, the gabardine slacks, the striped shirt, and packed them with the spare blue work shirt in a box. He wrapped the eighty-five-dollar boots. Tom paid his bill and turned to leave.

The man who had come in while Tom was choosing the Levi’s said, “Did I hear you say you used to herd sheep?”

“That’s right.” Tom smiled, sharing the joke with him.

“You wouldn’t know where I could find a good herder, would you?”

Tom shook his head. Then, following the same impulse that made him talk to the waitress, he asked, “What do you need a herder for at this time of year? Your flocks must all be out on grass by now.”

“They are. Up on summer range. But I lost a herder last week. Damn fool shot himself in the foot. Had gangrene when my supply man found him. May lose his leg.”

“Where is this flock?”

“On the Piedra, up on Horse Mountain.”

“Good grass up there. Used to be, anyway.”

“Still is. You know that country?”

“I’ve been there.”

“Your face is familiar. Do I know you? My name’s Jim Woodward.”

“I’m Tom Black Bull.” He said the name without thinking.

Woodward shook his head. “No, I guess not.” He turned to the clerk. “You know a herder looking for a job, Henry?”

Tom left them, went out and started down the street. Then, on impulse, he turned back and met Jim Woodward as he was leaving the clothing store. “I’ll take that flock for you,” Tom said.

“What!” Jim Woodward stared at him, unbelieving. Then he asked, “You mean that?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!” Woodward laughed. “In the cafe, a little while ago, I said you probably were an actor from that movie crowd over at Durango. If you don’t mind my asking, what do you want to herd sheep for? The job is yours, but I’m just plain damn curious.”

“I’ve been laid up a while, sick. I want to get out in the hills doing something that’s not too hard work for a while.”

“How soon can you go?”

“Any time. Right now.”

“Well, come on! I’ve got a man from the home ranch up there holding the flock, but I need him in the hay field. Throw your things in the pickup over there while I get a couple boxes of .30-30 shells. I’ll be right with you.”

T
HEY HEADED WEST ON
the highway. Woodward asked only a few questions, and Tom gave short answers.

“I’ve been back East. … A broken leg. But they pinned it and it’s all right now to walk on, the doctor says. … I’m Ute, not Navaho.”

Tom asked questions and Woodward said the home ranch was in the San Luis Valley, over near Antonito. He ran twelve to fifteen thousand head of sheep, parceled them out in flocks of two thousand head or so and sent them into the high country for summer range. Fed out his own lambs in the fall, wintered his ewes on the home ranch. He had three flocks between Pagosa and Durango. “Trail them out to summer range, back in the fall. My supply man makes the rounds once a week. If a good herder wants to stay on, I’ve got work for him at the home ranch all winter. If you know that Horse Mountain country, you’ll make out. Only, for God’s sake, if you got to shoot yourself, do it in the head and make a clean job of it.” Woodward laughed wryly. “God, how gangrene stinks! Just like a flyblown sheep carcass.”