Saddle & Ride (Musaicum Vintage Western). Ernest Haycox

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СКАЧАТЬ the mountain country, lay Gurd Grant's Crowfoot. Eastward, out on the flat glitter of the open desert, was the outline of the windmill on Lige White's Running W. Morgan saw dust boiling near the Potholes, which was the roundup crew at work; he turned that way.

      Ducking in and out of the small ravines of the land he came upon cattle and young stuff occasionally grazing, herding these before him and throwing them back toward the roundup crew. Three men were working this section—Charley Hillhouse and two other Three Pines hands. He drove his small collection of beef into the held bunch and started on another circle, Hillhouse accompanying him. Around ten o'clock, having dragged the north end, they started the held bunch back for the main roundup.

      The sun was a copper-red flare in the middle sky and the dust began to thicken behind the herd. Morgan dropped back to the drag, throwing his neckpiece over his nose. Charley Hillhouse, on a flank of the beef, motioned one of the other men to take his place and joined Morgan and made his first speech in two hours.

      "I been thinkin' over last night, Clay. Hard to figure."

      "Let it slide, Charley."

      Charley Hillhouse retorted, "It won't slide," and stared before him. He was a compact, capable man, not given to much talk; the type to worry a lot of things around in his head, to reach his own answers and hold his own conclusions. A Three Pines rider pushed against the flank of the straying herd, yipping, "Hi-hi-hi!" Charley Hillhouse's clever horse shot in against the rear of the beef, checking a bolt, and then Charley came beside Morgan again, still staring in front of him.

      "A man's got to stick with his kind, Clay. Ollie Jacks was a crook. Why take his side?"

      "A break, Charley."

      Charley Hillhouse had a dry answer for that. "He had his break a long time ago—and didn't take it. A crook's always a crook."

      "Maybe," agreed Morgan. "But last night when he came out of the courthouse I got to thinking—it might have been me, or you."

      Hillhouse, disgruntled by the unpredictable side of a man who had been his friend for so many years, took this last remark almost as an affront. "Don't talk like that. If I ever get on the wrong side of the line, I hope God strikes me dead. Right's right and wrong's wrong. You should stay out of the dirty messes men like Ollie Jacks make for themselves. I don't like to hear you go soft."

      Morgan was smiling behind the bandanna; the reflection of it showed in his eyes and in the quick crow-track wrinkles at the edge of his temples. He murmured: "All right, Charley. I'll change the tune, when I see Herendeen."

      "Be a mighty bitter tune," commented Hillhouse, "for one of you. I will say no more."

      They pushed the beef down a ravine and out into a flat plain upon which lay the dust smoke of cattle approaching from all points of the compass. A chuck wagon and a string of horses on picket showed in the foreground. Beyond it men rode through a held bunch of cattle, neatly cutting out the calves for branding and throwing the cows of the various outfits into each outfit's separate bunch. There was a bawling and a bleating through all this boiling dust, and the smell of scorched hair and hide, and the resounding firecracker rattle of a man's cursing.

      These roundups were always short-handed. Morgan took his place with Lige White, snaking calves out of the herd, dumping and dragging them to the brand fire and afterwards shagging them off to their proper bunches—Three Pines, Crowfoot, Long Seven, or Running W; there were, additionally, a couple of reps from ranches farther away to take care of cattle which had strayed into this range. Everybody worked. Somewhere around noon men left the dust to eat a quick meal, and ran back into the dust again. Herendeen, with two of his crew, rode out of the south and with a fresh batch, ate his meal and went away; he had not directly looked at Clay Morgan. Gurd Grant came in from the hill country, driving everything he saw before him. Lige White's men were combing the desert over by Fanolango Pass. When the dust got too bad they hit the cook's coffeepot and dashed back at the job. Every few hours the cutting men took fresh horses from the picket line.

      Lige White's eyes were bloodshot and he didn't feel in the best of spirits. He said to Morgan: "I'm old enough to know better than to drink a quart of rye in one night. But, dammit, when a man starts tapering off it means he's getting old—and I hate to admit it. Fat cows, this year. How's Janet?"

      "Fine. I left her in town."

      "Damned pretty girl. Well, you're lucky, Clay. Mighty nice to have a youngster to ride the trail with, watchin' him grow and tellin' him what you know about things. I used to think that if I had a boy I'd sure show him the world. Hear the old owl hoot and listen to the cougar scrape his whiskers on the tent wall. Shake the frost off our blankets and ride the rim to see daylight come. I wish I had that boy."

      It was, Clay Morgan knew, a sore spot in this handsome, likable Lige White—that he had no son. It was on his mind a good deal and he often spoke of it whenever he thought of Janet; any child drew his attention and his charming smile. He was always praising Janet and always wanting to buy her candy in his large-handed way. He was a man who had to put his affections somewhere. Through the middle of his sweaty, dusty afternoon's work, Morgan thought about this intensely human streak in Lige White which seemed to find no outlet; then he remembered Mrs. White's set and calm expression and her quiet voice—and the misery of her eyes.

      Herendeen and his men cleared the Haycreek Hills of the last straggling stock; Gurd Grant cleaned up the edge of the Potholes and came in. Running W had scoured Fanolango Pass, and at twilight this day the job was done, the brands segregated and held in separate herds. After supper Morgan started Harry Jump back to the Mogul range with the Long Seven beef, and the Crowfoot and Running W cuts went away, lumbering shadows in the moonlight, the scrape of feet and the click of those long horns and the plaintive "Baw" of the last calf riding back through the night-still air.

      Dust and heat were gone and the campfire's flame, so still was this air, tapered upward to a blue-yellow, almost stationary point. Charley Hillhouse, who was wagon boss, said: "We'll move over and work the Antelope Plains tomorrow."

      The cook swore around the shadows, harnessing his team. Afterwards the mess wagon went bumping away on its four-hour ride, to be ready on the Antelope Plains by daybreak. Lying on his blanket, head athwart the seat of his saddle, Clay Morgan listened to the dry groaning of the wagon wheels fade into this enormous night. He rolled a cigarette and savored its keen smell. Stars crowded the sky; they washed that limitless sweep of black with a diamond-glitter, all down to the black horizon's edge, until they seemed to fall below the rim of a flat world. Here and there in the pine summits coyotes began to hark up their mourning plaint, "Ar-ar-oo-oo." Hillhouse and Clay Morgan and Lige White sat by the fire, their cheeks sharply, taciturnly graved by light and shadows; and men lay blanketed in the background, weary and relaxed and cradled by their inward thinking, Herendeen walked forward from the shadows to stand high above this sprawled group. He tossed a sage stem into the fire and watched the pale and heatless flame rise. He was across from Clay Morgan; his eyes searched the crowd. The edges of his vest fell away from the rounds of his shoulders and the deep stretch of his chest; his bigness was all in proportion, legs and arms and torso; it was a muscular bigness, a bigness of thick bones.

      Cap Vermilye was a Long Seven man, the oldest rider of the lot and the most prolific storyteller. He said now, from the background: "Reminds me of a time in the Staked Plains. This was in Seventy-eight—"

      Ben Herendeen broke in as if Cap Vermilye hadn't spoken.

      "Lige," he said, "I hear there's a new homesteader come to the spring Jim Spackman used to squat on."

      "I heard so," said Lige White.

      Cap Vermilye said no more and СКАЧАТЬ