I just finished watching, for possibly the tenth time, but certainly not for the last, the 1970 Western, MONTE WALSH. I would be doing my Western-watching friends a disservice if I didn't do a review of this movie for you all.
I don't know how, but director William Fraker came up with what I believe to be THE ultimate cowboy movie when he made this little-known Western in 1970. Don't get me wrong. When I say "cowboy movie," I MEAN cowboy movie. Not gunfighter movie. Not Indian movie. Not WESTERN, but COWBOY movie.
I am told that this movie did not follow Jack Shaefer's novel, and that this is a shame. I can't judge that. I have read Shaefer's SHANE several times, but I have never read Monte Walsh. So I can judge this movie only on its own merits. And I judge it to be THE best cowboy movie ever made.
I don't want this to come across to anyone as a rip on Tom Selleck session for his remake of Monte Walsh. I love Selleck's Westerns. I really do. He makes a great hero. He's a great actor. He has done a lot of great things. But why ANYONE would ever choose to out-do Lee Marvin and Jack Palance is WAY beyond me. I know that I sure would not want to follow in those shoes. The fact that Selleck pretty much used the same screenplay, mostly just changing what was a great beginning and a great ending in the original movie, made the reason for the remake even worse. There are so many great books out there just begging to be made into movies. Not just mine, but many others. Why would anyone remake a proven classic? 3:10 to Yuma. Monte Walsh. True Grit. And now they are going to try doing The Cowboys over. No accounting for brains, I reckon. But, back to 1970's M.W.
The movie deals with aging cowboys Monte and Chet, as the days of the open range are ending. A bad winter has just wiped out most of the neighboring ranches, including the one Monte and Chet were working on, and they have narrowly missed being put out of work altogether. While Monte takes this in stride and just wants to go get a drink, Chet (Palance) is much more realistic, and he can already start to see the end of the cowboy era.
There is a lot of good humor in the movie, but there is a lot of sobering drama and sadness as well, especially if you are a nostalgic like I am. I don't remember the movie having so many tear-jerking moments, and probably for the run-of-the-mill viewer it doesn't. But for a man like me, now aging himself and who grew up on the myth of the cowboy, it was a very sobering movie.
One of the saddest scenes in the movie is when Monte and Chet are delivering barbed wire to an old man who is left now with nothing but mending fences. This old man, who once rode with "Fighting Joe Hooker" in the Civil War, says, "I had a good life." But in his eyes you can see that life is over. Later, he relives his most memorable moment, riding down "Missionary Ridge" to his death. If he couldn't be a cowboy anymore, he had no reason left to live.
The best line in the movie, and one of the best lines in ANY movie, in my opinion, was delivered by Chet to Monte right after he announces that he is breaking up their long-time partnership by getting married and moving to town.
Chet says, "Nobody gets to be a cowboy forever." It could be carved in my tombstone. Nobody gets to be a cowboy forever. To those of us who grew up in the era of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood movies and Johnny West action figures, when every night there was at least one Western series on TV and we could still drive to the local theater and watch John and Clint on the big screen, this is a very poignant line. Nobody gets to be a cowboy forever.
CBS has released this movie again on DVD, and it is as fabulous as the day it was released. With a beautiful song sung by Mama Cass at beginning and end, and a fabulous score by John Barry throughout, with impeccable acting by a score of your favorite Western stand-bys, and with Oscar-class acting by Marvin, Palance, and Jim Davis, this is a movie not to be missed, and not to be viewed lightly. It tells of the end of an era that was quintessential "America," the era of the cowboy.
Friday, May 30, 2014
Sunday, April 13, 2014
THE WOLF--HE IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY
Before anyone ever starts calling me a wolf hater, I wonder if I might put my stance in a totally different way than anything I've said so far. Please bear with me, all right? And please do read this. I think it might clear up a lot of things.
First, I like wolves. They are beautiful and majestic and loving of their own families. And born and raised to kill, to solve boredom, for exercise, and to eat. We all need to understand this simple truth.
It has been said, and very recently on this wall, that we shouldn't be "killing wolves," and that all we have to do is put them in a more controlled environment. What? You mean like in a zoo? I hope that's what the maker of the comment meant. No, never mind. I already know that isn't what they meant. They meant to put them in a place like Yellowstone National Park. What, and then tell them "STAY"? In a firm, resolute voice? Maybe we need to train them longer to "stay" and then even paint orange lines all around their territory so they won't step out of it. And next, train them not to kill anyone's dog, cat, sheep, goat, horse, cow, llama. Okay, well you get the picture.
The photos I've included here are just a sampling of animals. Let's bring them all back to their native environment. Bison. A bull can weigh over 2000 pounds. Back in their native environment means my garden. My lawn. YOUR golf course. Your city street. Elephants? Same thing. Ask the people living in Africa what kind of damage a herd of 14,000 pound bull elephants can do to the crops they rely on to survive. Grizzlies? Yeah. Your back yard, not mine.
Now let's say that I should turn my 10 rattlesnakes loose. I'm going to do it right here in my yard and not let them go into anyone else's yard. They'll stay. I just have to teach them, right? I want to know a year from now what my neighbors have to say about that. Snakes, like wolves, bison, elephants, and grizzly bears, don't stay. They have NO idea when you put them in a certain place that you intend for them to remain there--not that they would care even if they did know.
I really like wolves. I admire them a lot. They have a lot of great qualities, and they, like bears and bison--and rattlesnakes--symbolize the wild. But unless you want to spend your own pocket money spaying and neutering them to control their populations--you know, so they won't have to be murdered (or what's the fashionable word, slaughtered?), then you need to understand that wolves, like any other animal, cannot be allowed to breed willy nilly, not in our modern world. This is about common sense. All of us--BOTH SIDES--need to leave emotion out of it. The wolf haters and the wolf worshippers need to come together and meet in the middle. This situation is out of control. Why and when did wolves become more important than dogs, horses, cats, any other animal, or even people? It is time to wake up, America. Step back, stuff your hearts back in your chest and trot your brains back out to the forefront. We can enjoy wolves, and the whole call of the wild thing, but still keep them under control. This is a stupid saying and I don't generally use it, but we can't have our cake and eat it too. If we want wolves here as part of our environment, we are going to have to help them to survive. And letting them run rampant across our land with no control is NOT the help the species needs.
First, I like wolves. They are beautiful and majestic and loving of their own families. And born and raised to kill, to solve boredom, for exercise, and to eat. We all need to understand this simple truth.
It has been said, and very recently on this wall, that we shouldn't be "killing wolves," and that all we have to do is put them in a more controlled environment. What? You mean like in a zoo? I hope that's what the maker of the comment meant. No, never mind. I already know that isn't what they meant. They meant to put them in a place like Yellowstone National Park. What, and then tell them "STAY"? In a firm, resolute voice? Maybe we need to train them longer to "stay" and then even paint orange lines all around their territory so they won't step out of it. And next, train them not to kill anyone's dog, cat, sheep, goat, horse, cow, llama. Okay, well you get the picture.
The photos I've included here are just a sampling of animals. Let's bring them all back to their native environment. Bison. A bull can weigh over 2000 pounds. Back in their native environment means my garden. My lawn. YOUR golf course. Your city street. Elephants? Same thing. Ask the people living in Africa what kind of damage a herd of 14,000 pound bull elephants can do to the crops they rely on to survive. Grizzlies? Yeah. Your back yard, not mine.
Now let's say that I should turn my 10 rattlesnakes loose. I'm going to do it right here in my yard and not let them go into anyone else's yard. They'll stay. I just have to teach them, right? I want to know a year from now what my neighbors have to say about that. Snakes, like wolves, bison, elephants, and grizzly bears, don't stay. They have NO idea when you put them in a certain place that you intend for them to remain there--not that they would care even if they did know.
I really like wolves. I admire them a lot. They have a lot of great qualities, and they, like bears and bison--and rattlesnakes--symbolize the wild. But unless you want to spend your own pocket money spaying and neutering them to control their populations--you know, so they won't have to be murdered (or what's the fashionable word, slaughtered?), then you need to understand that wolves, like any other animal, cannot be allowed to breed willy nilly, not in our modern world. This is about common sense. All of us--BOTH SIDES--need to leave emotion out of it. The wolf haters and the wolf worshippers need to come together and meet in the middle. This situation is out of control. Why and when did wolves become more important than dogs, horses, cats, any other animal, or even people? It is time to wake up, America. Step back, stuff your hearts back in your chest and trot your brains back out to the forefront. We can enjoy wolves, and the whole call of the wild thing, but still keep them under control. This is a stupid saying and I don't generally use it, but we can't have our cake and eat it too. If we want wolves here as part of our environment, we are going to have to help them to survive. And letting them run rampant across our land with no control is NOT the help the species needs.
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
RED DAWN Movie Review
All right, I guess it was inevitable that I make an "official" review of the movie RED DAWN. Which one? you might ask. Well, both. A couple of weeks ago I saw the remake, and I wrote what appears to be a highly agreed upon, very brief, review.
Well, I have had the DVD of the original movie from 1981, I believe, sitting in its cellophane wrapper for quite some time now, and having bought this new computer I'm typing this review on just last night, and wishing to try out the player, I popped in RED DAWN, with the simple intention of making sure it would play. Two hours later, I was done watching the movie.
That would not have happened with the remake of this movie, starring Chris Hemsworth, for two reasons. One, I would have never owned that DVD, and two, if I had I certainly wouldn't have used it to test out my DVD player. I guess there are three reasons: If I had made the mistake of beginning to watch the remake I would quickly have thought better of it and turned it off. The only reason I watched it all the way through the first time is because I knew it just had to improve. WRONG.
All right. Let's admit this upfront: Critics also blasted the original RD, starring one of my favorite actors, Patrick Swayze, as Jed. They still do blast it. I, however, do not. Did it have its problems? Well, sure. Hollywood did make the movie, after all. Let's face it. Hollywood always has to be Hollywood. The story, about a group of high school kids and one high school graduate, played by Swayze, who escape into the forest after an enemy invasion of the Rockies, and from there conduct rebel warfare against the invaders, is full of action. Some of it is believable, some not. But far more of the original story is believable than the remake. The major problem is that in the original NO ONE involved in this group called the "Wolverines" had ANY reason to understand how to use missile launchers or automatic weapons of war, and yet they all used them throughout the movie, and generally with pretty satisfactory results. At least in the remake Chris Hemsworth, now playing Jed's part, was just out of the marine corps and could feasibly teach the others to use these weapons. That is unfortunately about the only thing the remake can boast over the original.
In the original, we had a darn good cast, in my opinion. Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen (whether you like him personally or not, he is still a good actor), Lea Thompson, Powers Booth, Ben Johnson, William Smith, and C. Thomas Howell. In the new movie they had . . . um . . . Chris Hemsworth. By the way, this movie was originally made in 2009 and has sat on the shelf since then, and it was AFTER the making of RD, not before, that Hemsworth was cast as THOR. Just a bit of trivia there.
Anyway, the characters in the original RD played very believable parts. They went from terrified kids, to hardened soldiers, and finally to worn-out vets who just wanted to die if that was the only way they could find true peace. They showed them passing through those different stages very believably. The remake forgot to address that. They also forgot to put any emotion into the remake. In fact, if anything I only wanted to punch Josh's young brother Matt in the face, not see him and Josh have touching moments together.
The action in the remake was choppy and annoying, often overbearing. The action in the original was tasteful, generally feasible (except, again, for the war scenes which no untrained force of high school kids could likely have carried out against trained armies, and if they hadn't suspended reality in that part, then there would have been no movie).
If you are going to spend money on RD, go rent or buy the original. Chris Hemsworth is an awesome guy to look at--a real man's man. But you are better off buying a poster of him and hanging it on your wall then wasting any of your time or money watching this lousy remake. Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen are still the kings of Red Dawn.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
LET ME BE A SHEEPDOG
To all sheep:
Please allow me to remain a sheepdog.
This is not a new idea. It is recycled. I am simply putting my own spin on the idea. Please listen with an open mind to what I have to say, as you know I would you.
There are three kinds of people in the world. There have always existed these three distinct kinds of people. You have your sheep, who will run with the crowd when they run, even to the point of running off a cliff in blind, emotional panic. They are good people. They want good laws, laws that are enforced. They want their rights to be defended.
You have your wolves. These are the "villains," the "bad guys," if you will. These are the Snidley Whiplashes, the Darth Vaders, the "black hats." They are those who will prey on the sheep, rape them, beat them, kill them. They live by the knowledge that they are bigger and badder and stronger, and if they aren't physically then they will use some man-made means to make it so. They live by intimidation and the willingness to hurt others to get what they want, even if what they want is merely to hurt others for their own sadistic pleasure.
And then there are the sheepdogs. These are your defenders. Your cops, your military, and anyone of like convictions.
I am a sheepdog.
Although I am no longer a police officer, I still have that mindset. I have carried that mentality since I was a child, when my grandfather was the sheriff of the county I grew up in, when I spent countless hours watching Matt Dillon, on GUNSMOKE, save the day and rescue the helpless, and when I watched Davy Crockett walk into the Alamo and fight for Texas against all odds.
I spent a young childhood being picked on at school and watching others be mercilessly harassed as well, and that is why I started lifting weights--to be a sheepdog. To be the one who stood up for the underdog--the "sheep," who "equalized" for those who weren't as strong. It is also why I became a cop, and then a firefighter.
As an off-duty cop, I once waded into the middle of a riot of people of a ... different color of skin than my own. I had two things going for me--a badge and a gun. I took my own life in my hands to stop a riot which ended up being five or ten people beating to death one who was of the same skin color they were.I have no doubt that he would be dead today if I hadn't stepped in, and if I hadn't been armed. Was it a little suicidal? I guess so. But the gamble worked.
I am the one carrying a weapon wherever I go. Why? Not because every day I walk out of the house I am paranoid that I will be set upon by thugs or murderers. But because I know that on ANY day there is always that chance. And too many times innocent lives have been lost because there were NO sheepdogs present when there were wolves, or the sheepdogs who were present were not equipped and ready to play their necessary role in society. They were unprepared.
Now... Do I take a sheepdog and pull his teeth and still expect him to fight the wolves? NO!!!! My sheepdog, to defend the flocks of sheep whose lives I am in charge of, MUST have the same weapons the wolf will always have. He MUST have the same teeth. In the human world, like it or not, those teeth are guns.
If you want to be a sheep, or for whatever reason you feel like you HAVE to be a sheep, that is fine. I have many friends in that category, who are unable, either physically, mentally or emotionally, to play the part of a defender, of self or others. I will defend my right to defend them, no matter what. But if I choose to pull my own 'teeth," in other words give up my guns, or if my teeth are pulled by the laws of the land that are supposed to protect me, and I abide by it, and then I am forced to watch innocent lives be taken when I could have stopped it if I only still had my teeth, then I am at fault. And I will always mourn that I was not there when I could, and should, have been.
I defend anyone's right to be a sheep. I don't understand it, but I defend it. And understand that I am not using the term "sheep" in a derogatory sense. Of course there are the innocent children and the frail or handicapped. I KNOW they can't defend themselves. And then there are some people who simply can't wrap their minds around taking another human life, even if it is in defense of someone they love. This concept is so far from my understanding that no amount of debate could ever change my mind.
But as for me, I refuse to be part of the "flock." So PLEASE do not take away my right to be a sheep dog. PLEASE do not take away my ability to defend the innocent or the helpless, whether they be sheep by choice or by circumstance.
I will defend my own "sheep" and any I see around me who are in need of defense with everything I have, but hitting a wolf with my tail because my teeth have been removed isn't much of a defense, I'm afraid.
Wolves will always be wolves, and sheep will most likely always be sheep.
And until my dying day I pray that I can say I will always be the sheepdog, even if I am standing alone. Please do not take away my ability to "equalize."
It has been said, if we can outlaw guns and save even one life, isn't it worth it? My response is, "You are forgetting about the countless millions that have been saved BECAUSE of guns." What of them? Were they, then, not worth saving because we used guns to save them?
This is the anthem of Colonel Colt's revolver:
"Be not afraid of any man,
No matter what his size;
When danger threatens, call on me,
And I will equalize."
I am a sheepdog. I am here to defend the helpless and those unwilling to fight against the wolves that will ALWAYS plague our society, as they have done from the very beginning.
I will not require you to become a sheepdog, against your nature. In turn, I ask one thing:
Please do not take a part in removing the teeth I need to defend you and your loved ones.
Please allow me to remain a sheepdog.
This is not a new idea. It is recycled. I am simply putting my own spin on the idea. Please listen with an open mind to what I have to say, as you know I would you.
There are three kinds of people in the world. There have always existed these three distinct kinds of people. You have your sheep, who will run with the crowd when they run, even to the point of running off a cliff in blind, emotional panic. They are good people. They want good laws, laws that are enforced. They want their rights to be defended.
You have your wolves. These are the "villains," the "bad guys," if you will. These are the Snidley Whiplashes, the Darth Vaders, the "black hats." They are those who will prey on the sheep, rape them, beat them, kill them. They live by the knowledge that they are bigger and badder and stronger, and if they aren't physically then they will use some man-made means to make it so. They live by intimidation and the willingness to hurt others to get what they want, even if what they want is merely to hurt others for their own sadistic pleasure.
And then there are the sheepdogs. These are your defenders. Your cops, your military, and anyone of like convictions.
I am a sheepdog.
Although I am no longer a police officer, I still have that mindset. I have carried that mentality since I was a child, when my grandfather was the sheriff of the county I grew up in, when I spent countless hours watching Matt Dillon, on GUNSMOKE, save the day and rescue the helpless, and when I watched Davy Crockett walk into the Alamo and fight for Texas against all odds.
I spent a young childhood being picked on at school and watching others be mercilessly harassed as well, and that is why I started lifting weights--to be a sheepdog. To be the one who stood up for the underdog--the "sheep," who "equalized" for those who weren't as strong. It is also why I became a cop, and then a firefighter.
As an off-duty cop, I once waded into the middle of a riot of people of a ... different color of skin than my own. I had two things going for me--a badge and a gun. I took my own life in my hands to stop a riot which ended up being five or ten people beating to death one who was of the same skin color they were.I have no doubt that he would be dead today if I hadn't stepped in, and if I hadn't been armed. Was it a little suicidal? I guess so. But the gamble worked.
I am the one carrying a weapon wherever I go. Why? Not because every day I walk out of the house I am paranoid that I will be set upon by thugs or murderers. But because I know that on ANY day there is always that chance. And too many times innocent lives have been lost because there were NO sheepdogs present when there were wolves, or the sheepdogs who were present were not equipped and ready to play their necessary role in society. They were unprepared.
Now... Do I take a sheepdog and pull his teeth and still expect him to fight the wolves? NO!!!! My sheepdog, to defend the flocks of sheep whose lives I am in charge of, MUST have the same weapons the wolf will always have. He MUST have the same teeth. In the human world, like it or not, those teeth are guns.
If you want to be a sheep, or for whatever reason you feel like you HAVE to be a sheep, that is fine. I have many friends in that category, who are unable, either physically, mentally or emotionally, to play the part of a defender, of self or others. I will defend my right to defend them, no matter what. But if I choose to pull my own 'teeth," in other words give up my guns, or if my teeth are pulled by the laws of the land that are supposed to protect me, and I abide by it, and then I am forced to watch innocent lives be taken when I could have stopped it if I only still had my teeth, then I am at fault. And I will always mourn that I was not there when I could, and should, have been.
I defend anyone's right to be a sheep. I don't understand it, but I defend it. And understand that I am not using the term "sheep" in a derogatory sense. Of course there are the innocent children and the frail or handicapped. I KNOW they can't defend themselves. And then there are some people who simply can't wrap their minds around taking another human life, even if it is in defense of someone they love. This concept is so far from my understanding that no amount of debate could ever change my mind.
But as for me, I refuse to be part of the "flock." So PLEASE do not take away my right to be a sheep dog. PLEASE do not take away my ability to defend the innocent or the helpless, whether they be sheep by choice or by circumstance.
I will defend my own "sheep" and any I see around me who are in need of defense with everything I have, but hitting a wolf with my tail because my teeth have been removed isn't much of a defense, I'm afraid.
Wolves will always be wolves, and sheep will most likely always be sheep.
And until my dying day I pray that I can say I will always be the sheepdog, even if I am standing alone. Please do not take away my ability to "equalize."
It has been said, if we can outlaw guns and save even one life, isn't it worth it? My response is, "You are forgetting about the countless millions that have been saved BECAUSE of guns." What of them? Were they, then, not worth saving because we used guns to save them?
This is the anthem of Colonel Colt's revolver:
"Be not afraid of any man,
No matter what his size;
When danger threatens, call on me,
And I will equalize."
I am a sheepdog. I am here to defend the helpless and those unwilling to fight against the wolves that will ALWAYS plague our society, as they have done from the very beginning.
I will not require you to become a sheepdog, against your nature. In turn, I ask one thing:
Please do not take a part in removing the teeth I need to defend you and your loved ones.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
THE SECRET OF TWO HAWKS (chapters 1 to 3)
THE SECRET OF TWO HAWKS
Winner of 2010 Spur Award for Best Western Novel on Audio
Audio read by Kevin Foley, Books in Motion, Spokane, Washington
to be released, fall 2012
Publisher's note: "The Secret of Two Hawks tells the story of young Austin Everett, a conflicted boy of sixteen, who has been beaten by his father, his only blood relative, his entire childhood and has no understanding of the real love of family. Austin meets another lost soul, Alto Martinez, whose wife and daughter have been killed and who is on the trail of a killer. When Austin's father is murdered in the night, Austin sets out to find and kill the man, and he becomes partners with Martinez and a third partner, the one-armed, one-eyed Mexican named "Lefty." This is the triumphant story of the true love of friends, of revenge, betrayal and lies, and the one secret that carries the story through like a continuous flash of lightning and the thunderous boom that inevitably comes at its end. A story long to be remembered, about the triumph of love and of unexpected justice."
To the memories of the best of friends:
Dave, Loui, Rick, and Shawn
And to my good friend Mike Corkish,
without whose help the town of Helena and its
environs would have been an uncharted jungle
Dave, Loui, Rick, and Shawn
And to my good friend Mike Corkish,
without whose help the town of Helena and its
environs would have been an uncharted jungle
Also, to Dell Mangum—
yes, the same “Dell” in the book
Far and away the most startling and tragic realization in
life is the revelation that the old adage is true: You never know who your
friends are.
Chapter One
Austin Everett and
a green willow switch would never be friends. But intimate acquaintances they
were. All too often it was hard to tell where the switch left off and Austin’s
scarred back began.
The swat of the
branch made a hiss in the air and a whip-cracking, wicked snap across the sixteen-year-old’s back. His teeth ached from
clenching them, and blood ran down the inside of his cheek where he had bit
down at the first stroke.
But oddly, the
switch didn’t hurt much anymore. Austin Everett had forgotten the last time it
had hurt bad. Some time lost to fickle memory it had stopped feeling like
new-kindled fire and begun to seem more like the slap of the old cow’s
manure-matted tail—annoying, but nothing that would bring tears.
He heard the switch
whistle through the air before it slapped his back. In a detached sort of way,
he listened to the whoosh, then the
solid whack—which didn’t seem so
solid anymore. And it wasn’t that his father was losing his strength, nor his
knack for corporal punishment. If anything, he was improving. But Austin’s
ability not to feel was improving faster. To survive, he had adapted.
The old man’s
tenth blow hadn’t brought so much as a whimper from Austin.
So the next broke with vehemence over his scarred young hide, and Austin
winced. But still he refused to cry out.
Austin
slipped into a dream world. He pictured the branch’s graceful arc, the raising
of a new scarlet welt as it crossed a T or an X. The entire design must be a
unique etching by now—Old Rock Everett’s brutal work of art.
After the
fifteenth swat Old Rock began to apply his soul. Austin
felt the change with almost a sense of relief, for he knew his father was
growing weary of the beating. Austin’s
strength began to wane. His will drained away with the warm rivulets coursing
down his back.
With a final,
blood-letting blow, his father brought an end to the day’s lesson. But Austin
didn’t feel it. His conscious thoughts and his strength had failed him, and he
was already headed for the ground.
“Rub it on there
thick, woman, or he’s bound to get worms in them cuts.”
Through a cobweb
of semi-consciousness, Old Rock’s voice clawed into Austin Everett’s ears.
“Layer it on.
Boy’s gonna have to be healed an’ ready to pull them stumps, an’ there’s a ten
acre stretch of field yet to be plowed.”
The woman’s voice
was harsh like the man’s, but ragged and worn thin. “I’m doin’ same as always.
Let me do the doctorin’. You done yore part.”
An unintelligible
rejoinder followed, spiced by sullen curse words. Austin
didn’t listen. He’d heard the same basic exchange many times.
Hunger began to
gnaw at his insides. But he didn’t dare let on he was waking up, even though he
was usually safe after Lucille started slathering the grease on his wounds. By
then his pa was either worn out from the beating or didn’t want to waste good
grease. Maybe he’d best wake up now if he wanted to catch some hint what had
brought on the beating. He guessed it was the broken hinge on the barn door,
which hadn’t been his fault. Old Dolly, the plow horse, had done that. The old
lummox. But he couldn’t blame her for being old and clumsy. Apparently his
father didn’t blame her either. Why should he? He had a better scapegoat in his
son.
He lay there for a while longer. Even with Lucille’s
rough hands there was no pain—or none he would let himself feel. He actually
liked the feel of the heavy grease oozing into his wounds, in part because it
meant the humiliation of the beating was over, and that was the part he hated
most.
He knew by the
earthy odor of corn shucks in the mattress and by the mustiness of the quilt
crushed against his face that he was lying in a bed. But this wasn’t the smell
of his own blankets, which didn’t surprise him since even as powerful as Rock
was it would have been a big chore and called for a block and tackle to haul a
boy of his size up the vertical ladder into his loft. Before he decided to own
up to being conscious, he heard the lumbering steps of Old Rock fading away
across the puncheon floor. He lay there for a minute more, smelling the grease,
the corn shucks, the musty quilt and the stale odor of fried meat trapped in
the broad ax-scarred log wall near his head. He groaned to the rough feel of
Lucille’s calluses on the worst of his wounds. She stopped her motion and waited.
After several
seconds, she grunted. “Boy, I can hear you awake. You may’s well get up now. He
ain’t gonna waste good grease on beatin’ you no more today. ’Sides, he’s fixin’
to heal you up for plowin’ while he takes the hosses and that bunch of steers over
to Challis.”
Knowing he was
caught, Austin started to rise, but
the woman pushed him back down, her hands not hard, yet not gentle. “Hold on a
minute, boy. Let me wrap you up, else you gonna get this mess over everything.
I shore am tired of you causin’ trouble, you know it? Seems like half my days I
spend smearin’ you with grease after you got a whuppin’. I wish you’d grow up
or leave this place. Rock an’ me could get along just fine without you. You
know that?”
Austin
worked his face deeper into the rough-sewn blanket. When Lucille finished
wrapping his torso and tying off the bandage, she stood up from the bed. “Yore
free to go, boy. Now try an’ stay out of trouble, would yuh?”
He pushed to a
sitting position on the edge of the bed, his head throbbing. He looked toward
the woman through bleary eyes, but she was walking away. In his head, he called
her a name—after the mother of the new pups that lived behind the barn. And
that animal didn’t have an official moniker, only a category.
Lucille was her
real name, but he couldn’t remember saying it more than once or twice. Cuss
words seemed to fit her better, though not near as well as they fit his pa.
Lucille had come around not very long after a runaway team killed his mother in
the streets of Corinne, Utah,
eight years ago, back in seventy-one. This rough-talking woman had fit right in
with his pa. So well, in fact, that he sometimes wondered if his mother’s death
hadn’t been more than an accident.
Viewed solely from
the back, Lucille wasn’t all that mean looking of a woman. A slender thing, the
two drab dresses she owned hung off her frame like curtains, squaring at the
shoulders then dropping straight down and wrapped around her loosely like they
might possibly have held two of her, had she been Siamese twins. Her hair was a
mop of greasy, dead blond strings, seldom put up, seldom even tied. She just
threw it back out of her face and let it part itself and hang how it chose.
Lucille chanced a
look toward Austin, and he met her
eyes defiantly and from her drew a frown. She motioned toward a plate on the
counter. “Yore pa said not to give you any food, but you may’s well eat that
’fore he comes back in and I’ll tell ’im I did it. He says to strengthen yuh up
so’s you c’n do the work around here, an’ I shore don’t see how we gon’ do that
if’n yore hungry.” She stared at him, and he stared back. “Well, come on,
fraidy cat. It ain’t me that hurts yuh—don’t know what yore always so scared
of.”
Pursing his lips, Austin
glanced about the room to be sure the old man was gone. He stood and edged
toward the plate, which was scantily covered with grits and a tad of pork not
much bigger than bite-size to an overgrown shrew. He wolfed this down while
Lucille glanced at him now and then out of the corner of her eye. Then he
scooted out of the house.
Outside, he
scanned the yard. The moment he heard the ring of the ax around back he made
for the barn as fast as he could walk.
Austin
found haven inside the barn. He glanced up at the raw, sturdy rafters, at the
near-empty loft. It had been a long winter, and it was good the grass was
coming on, for their hay supply was nearly down to toothpicks. Climbing into
the loft, he sank down to his stomach on the rough-hewn floor. From here he
could stare out the window, across the long, upsloping meadow toward the creek.
From here he could dream.
But he dreamed of
a flailing willow switch . . .
Austin
had noticed one thing long ago. When he was younger, his father’s beatings were
never long. Back then, he couldn’t hide his pain, and after five or six blows
he would begin to cry, even if only very softly. Not long after, Old Rock would
stop. There were no soft words, sometimes no words at all. More often it was a
growled warning about “next time,” and Austin
was left for the night to nurse his wounded pride on an empty stomach.
But sometime after
his thirteenth birthday, Austin’s
ability to hurt seemed to vanish, or at least crept into the far reaches of his
brain. He didn’t remember ever consciously trying to block the pain. It just
happened. After that, his father’s cruelty seemed only to grow with each
passing year. He seemed to need reassurance that his calculated whippings
caused pain, and not receiving that proof drove him into a frenzy. The last few
times ended with Austin’s going
unconscious.
But even knowing
how he could get out of the greatest of the blows, Austin
couldn’t escape like that. His father could beat him into jerked meat if he
wanted to, but Austin Everett was not about to cry.
Back in the house
late that afternoon, Austin heard
the dog barking out in the yard, and, sometime after, strange voices. Curiosity
staved off his pain, and he limped to the kitchen window—the only glass window they had—and peered
out. Four men sat their horses in the yard, leaning in the saddle in various
muscle-stretching contortions while a fifth man stood in front of Old Rock.
Hands on his hips,
Austin’s father exchanged words
with the man on the ground.
“Creek water’s
free to ever’body,” his father was saying. “As to victuals, I don’t know how fur
along the woman is on supper. You of a mind to stay, I don’t mind the
company—if you’re peaceable.”
The man on the
ground was friendly looking, and smooth-faced but for a well-trimmed brown
mustache. He was handsome even on his own, but compared to Old Rock, Austin
imagined him to look like one of the ancient, fabled princes his mother used to
tell him about. But then being handsome was something no one ever accused Rock
of. The stranger held a pair of white doeskin gauntlets in one hand, and a big
shiny Peacemaker tilted in a cross-draw holster on his left hip.
“Fact is, mister,”
the stranger said, “the lot of us are about tuckered out. Been ridin’ nigh five
days on these same broncs, and we could stand to rest them. A trade would be
even better.” As he spoke, he glanced beyond Rock Everett at the corral full of
horses leaning their heads over to eyeball the strange mounts.
Rock Everett
looked over the jaded animals. Then he slowly shook his head. “Like I said,
boys. Water’s free, and I don’t mind the comp’ny. But I breed hosses fur a
livin’, and I got no use fur them’ns yer ridin’. I’m takin’ these to Challis fur sale. I’d
like ’em lookin’ fresh, and yours ain’t.”
Austin
looked from the handsome man to the mounted crowd. One big man with hair as
black as his father’s sighed and stepped down from a long-legged, mostly white
pinto horse with an arching, muscular neck. The only markings that were obvious
were a sorrel blanket across its hips and a sort of cap of the same color that
covered the top of its head and its ears. It was, he remembered a visitor once
telling him, what they called a medicine hat.
The big man eased
around one side of the medicine hat
as if checking his cinch. He was starting to draw a rifle out of the boot when
the sound of Lucille’s voice farther along the wall at the front room window
opening startled Austin.
“Best find a place
to rest yer hands, mister,” the woman growled. Austin
looked over as the double hammers of the shotgun clicked back. Lucille freed a
hand to push a greasy hank of hair out of her face. “There ain’t no deer in
this yard, ’n’ if you go shuckin’ thet rifle I’m gonna s’pose you mean to use
it for no good.”
The dark-haired
man pivoted, and slowly his hand slid away from the rifle. But he wasn’t
scared. A half-smile tilted up one side of his mouth, and he stared at the
woman for a long time, his eyes glittering. Then he walked around the horse to
stand beside his handsomer cohort. “Put the scattergun away, Missus. I don’t
aim no harm. But I do aim to trade that hoss of mine.”
Austin
looked the black-haired one up and down. He didn’t appear to be the leader
here, but he was the biggest of them, and his face could have been broken from
the same weather-worn granite as Rock’s. His mouth cut a wide, ugly gash
through his whiskers, and a wrinkle deep enough to have been hacked with a
hatchet ran down his forehead to the top of his nose. He wore an open-crowned
hat with battered brim, and a pistol inside the front of his waistband. His
hands were big—near as big as Rock’s.
Austin
couldn’t see his father’s face, but his words were clear and bold. “You c’n
trade that hoss of your’n in. I would, too. But y’ain’t tradin’ it here. I take
pride in my stock, ’n’ thet crockhead ain’t worth the saddle on his back.” Austin
wondered if Old Rock were talking only to talk, because one thing the old man
had taught him was horses, and the pinto looked pretty good to him. It was
young, but it would fill out, and it had the looks of making an impressive
saddle horse.
The black-haired
man’s eyes turned flat and mean, flickering over at his cohort and back. The
handsome man had a smirk on his face, and he looked from Rock to his partner.
Before either Rock or the black-haired one could speak, the handsome one’s lips
moved.
“Mister, you look
like a wagerin’ man. And I don’t need to add that you appear capable of lickin’
your weight in wet bearskins. Bill, here, he’s quite a man himself when it
comes to knuckle dustin’ and crackin’ heads. I’d like to propose a challenge.”
Rock scanned the
handsome man’s face. “What challenge?”
“You an’ Bill go
hand to hand. If he wins, we trade horses. You win, you take his rifle. And
don’t sell that pinto short. He’s wore out now, but he’s a mighty fine horse.
Pure saddlebred, and a breedin’ stud.”
Old Rock nodded. “You
ain’t from around here.”
“No,” Handsome said. An amused twinkle perked
his eyes.
“That’s obvious.
Men from around here don’t gen’rally challenge Rock Everett to fisticuffs.”
Handsome rocked
easily on his heels and showed a brief sparkle of teeth. “My name’s Matt
Mosbrucker, Mr. Everett. And this is Bill Warjack. Name fits him, too—he sure
likes his little wars. Like you say, I’m not from around here, so I don’t know
any better, and neither does Bill. You take the challenge, or don’t you?”
“What kinda gun
you got?” Rock asked Bill Warjack.
Warjack’s eyes
narrowed, and he gave a little smile. “A brand new Winchester
.44 carbine. It don’t have more’n twenty
rounds through it. But you ain’t
puttin’ none through it. Nobody whips Bill Warjack.”
Rock’s head pivoted, taking in the other riders.
“Sure they don’t. Not when you got four hoot owls to back you up.”
Warjack looked
around at the others. “Boys, this fight is mine. Anybody takes a hand in it
I’ll personally break their arm.” He spoke with a smile that lacked a couple of
teeth and bragged others that were browned by tobacco.
Old Rock Everett
was a bear of a man, with small, narrow-set eyes and a wide, oft-broken nose.
He was broad across the forehead and shoulders, and the hips, too. Finesse did
not know him. His black hair was cropped short and uneven, parted in the middle
and greased down until it looked like a melted candle top. The only practiced
expression of his habitually whiskered face was a scowl.
Old Rock Everett
wasn’t really old. He could be over fifty, perhaps under forty-five. Austin
had never heard. The power of the man was legend throughout Alturas
County, a county that in the year
of 1879 covered a good fourth of the Idaho
Territory.
“You want a hoss
awful bad,” said Rock, and he turned to look back at the house, where Lucille’s
shotgun still leaned on the windowsill. “Lucy, if this buck beats me fair and
square give ’im his choice of the hosses. And the rest of ’em too.” Lucille
just nodded, forcing a bored frown.
Rock turned back
to Bill Warjack, his hands dangling along his thighs. “Wal, Whore-jack,” he said with contempt and
spat. “Come on over here’n’ let’s see if you can muss my hair.”
Warjack snaked
out his pistol and handed it to a smug-looking Matt Mosbrucker. His hat came
next. Dipping his chin, he walked toward Rock, swiping a hand the length of his
whisker-blackened jaw. When he got close to Rock, he looked him up and down,
his eyes hating and hard and full of intent to do great harm. Warjack was no
gentleman, guessed Austin. He must
have killed men before.
Warjack’s fist
shot out, and Austin couldn’t
remember seeing his father move so fast. One moment his blocky head was a bold
target. The next, he had Warjack by the arm and was slamming a knee into his
belly. Austin was astonished, for
he had heard stories about his father’s fights but had never seen one. He was
just a boy of sixteen, and he hadn’t been around other boys enough to practice
up on fighting of his own. It wasn’t until that moment that he started to
realize what it took to win a fight.
The two men fought
around and around the yard, and Rock didn’t always appear to be the top dog.
Warjack got in enough blows of his own to ugly Rock Everett even more, but
every time Rock seemed like he was out of wind and about to go down he found a
reserve somewhere.
Warjack, breathing
in and out with fierce gusts, finally had enough, and he whirled on his
comrades. “Get off yer horses and give ’im hell!”
Hesitantly, two of
them started to climb down, but Matt Mosbrucker’s cold voice stopped them, and
for the first time the smile was gone from his eyes. “You boys plant your
seats. I promised a fair fight, and that’s just what we’ll have. Bill—” he looked
at his cohort disdainfully “—I thought better of you.”
Warjack stared at
Mosbrucker, and finally he spat blood at his feet. “To hell with you.”
He turned to
finish the fight.
It wasn’t long
before Rock landed a blow to the bridge
of Warjack’s nose that brought him
to his knees. A kick to his chest finished him.
Rock Everett
stood breathing in ragged gasps, sputtering blood and pawing at his face like
some fiery ogre. Mosbrucker and the others stared at him while Warjack lay like
waste meat in the black soil of the yard.
Mosbrucker raised
his eyebrows and sighed. He walked around to the right side of Warjack’s horse
with the sound of shotgun hammers clicking in the house behind him. Giving no
indication that he’d heard, he jerked the shiny new ’73 Winchester
from Warjack’s scabbard and walked over to hand it butt-first to Rock. The big
man looked it up and down, but he couldn’t speak yet. He let his lungs fill up
and empty a couple of times, then gave Mosbrucker a grudging nod.
“Man of yer word,”
he said, and sucked a deep breath. “If’n you want—you c’n trade your horse—for
any in the correll. An’ thet fella, too.” He heaved more air and pointed to the
only other man who hadn’t made an attempt to answer Warjack’s call for help. He
was a little man with slanted eyes, red hair and big ears that protruded
comically to the sides under a buckskin-colored hat.
“That’s Sherm
Edgley,” said Mosbrucker with a smile. “The other two are Jim Dillard and
Fingers Bronson.”
Austin’s
eyes snapped to the hands of Fingers Bronson, seeking a clue as to his odd
name. He had made the right guess: two missing fingers made Bronson’s left hand
resemble a disfigured claw.
Sherm Edgley gave
a shy smile, but Jim Dillard sat as sullen as Fingers Bronson. Both had been
singled out as unworthy to trade horses. They must have known why, but it was
obvious that didn’t make it easier.
Mosbrucker turned
back to Rock. “I sure appreciate the offer, Mister Everett. I think Sherm and
me will take you up on it.”
Old Rock nodded
and jacked the lever of the Winchester,
making a full cartridge spin out of the chamber and land in the dust. Rock had
always taught Austin not to leave a
cartridge in the chamber until he expected to use it; obviously, Warjack had
intended to. “Go pick yer hosses,” Rock said, bending over to retrieve the
cartridge as his waistband forced a long sigh out of him. Mosbrucker was eyeing
the carbine, and Rock looked down at it as if surprised it was there. “Don’t
worry ’bout the rifle. Sometimes there’s coyotes in my yard.” As he said it he
gave Bill Warjack a hard look.
“Come on, Elf,”
Mosbrucker said to the little redhead, and he tramped off to the corral,
leading his buckskin. Sherm Edgley touched spurs to his bay and followed.
Austin
didn’t go outside. He didn’t know what kind of humiliating treatment he would
get from his father in front of the strangers. He didn’t think Rock ever meant to make him look bad. That was
just how the old man was.
After five
minutes, Edgley and Mosbrucker rode back around the house on two horses that Austin
recognized as two of his father’s prize animals. Mosbrucker had chosen a buckskin
that looked a lot like the one he had been riding before, and Edgley sat a
beautiful blue roan. The buckskin was easy to identify because the blaze that
ran from under its forelock to its upper lip was broken in three places,
resembling a dotted line, and all four of its legs were black up past its
knees. Old Rock’s expression didn’t waver. He only nodded when the two men
stopped in front of him.
“Will these do?”
asked Mosbrucker, swinging down.
“They’ll do,” said
Rock. “You got a good eye fur hoss flesh.”
Matt Mosbrucker
walked over to his still-unconscious comrade and nudged him in the ribs with a
toe. “But I guess I don’t have too good an eye for pardners.”
Old Rock grunted.
He turned and yelled at Lucille to bring him a pail of water. When she brought
it, Rock emptied it on Bill Warjack’s head.
The downed man
sputtered and shook the hair out of his eyes. At last he pushed up to his hands
and knees, then rocked back on his haunches. Bleary-eyed, he looked around him
until his eyes came to focus on Rock Everett. He started to speak, then must
have thought better of it as he staggered to his feet and pawed dirt and blood
off his face.
Warjack finally
looked beyond Rock, to the window where Lucille still stood. For a long,
breathless moment he pierced the woman with his hard black eyes. “You people
ain’t seen the last of Bill Warjack. Next time I come here it’ll be to kill
you.” The last words were directed at Rock.
Rock watched him,
and for the first time Austin
noticed the ready spring to his old man’s legs. His father might have looked
like an oaf at first glance, but Austin
felt a strange sense of pride fill his chest. That was his father standing out
there!
He was still at
the window, watching out across the sagebrush-covered valley long after the riders
had disappeared.
Austin Everett
woke to the sounds of Lucille screaming, their dog yapping and horses
galloping.
He heard his
father roar, and shots exploded in the night like fireworks.
Chapter Two
Nearly falling out
of bed, Austin groped for his
shoes. He pulled them on and scaled down the ladder by dangerous leaps, landing
with a thud on the puncheon floor. As he reached the front door, a shape loomed
up and crashed into him. By the smell and the size he recognized Lucille. He
stood as if in a trance as she fumbled for matches and lit the coal oil lamp on
the front room table, making her face come into view in a sickly yellow light.
It was wreathed in purple spots, and blood trickled from one corner of her
mouth. Lucille ran and got the shotgun, thumbing in shells as she made her way
back to the front door and out on the porch. Austin
didn’t have a gun of his own, but he trailed outside with her just the same.
By now the horse
sounds had faded, except for a restless whinnying and a whirl of hooves from
the corrals out back. Austin looked
over to see puffs of smoke coming from one of their sheds, which sat off to the
right, toward the Salmon City-Challis highway. The sound of Old Rock cursing
came from there.
Lucille almost
threw down the shotgun when she realized the shed was on fire, and she and
Austin rushed out to help. By the time they got there Rock had the fire down to
smoldering embers. He had reacted quickly and sensibly enough to wet a gunny
sack in the nearby horse trough and beat out the flames. Now he was using the
gunny sack, wadded up, like a scrub brush to snuff out remaining embers. The
fire hadn’t really had time to get going well, so it hadn’t been much of a
fight.
Neither Lucille
nor Austin dared be anywhere near Rock now, and both backed away from the shed
to wait for the ebbing of the big man’s tirade. Rock was throwing things
around, cursing what Lucille called a “blue streak,” or, as Old Rock would say,
“like a Frisco whore.”
The tantrum went
longer than normal, but after fifteen minutes, when it was surprising he would
even have a voice left, he came out of the shed toting his new carbine. Lucille
had lit a lantern, and in its light they could see the big man’s face and hands
were smeared with soot, and there was scarlet dribbling down his right cheek.
He flung out a few more curses, but the enthusiasm had gone from his voice.
Lucille and Austin waited breathlessly.
“Got a bunch of
stuff out of the shed,” he said huskily. “An’ got off with probably ten head of
hosses. I stopped ’em ’fore they c’d git to the other corral.” He stopped and
stared at his wife as if noticing the forming bruises and the blood on her face
for the first time. “They hurt you bad?”
Lucille shook her
head quickly and lowered her eyes. “Slapped me mostly, and did a lot of
cussin’. It was all that big man—Bill. He was gonna—” She stopped, looking down
at the torn shoulder of her dress, then over at Austin.
“…Gonna do more. But that Mosbuck fellow stopped him, wouldn’t let it happen.”
Rock glowered at his
son, then looked back at the woman. “Well, I hurt ’em, that’s shore. There’ll
be a dead horse lyin’ out in the fields, I ’spect. I’d a killed the rider, too,
but he got out there in the dark, and the others set up a cover fire while he
got the saddle off and skinned out.” He paused and stared at Lucille again. “So
. . . you say the feller I beat down was the one set on you . . . and that
Mossbucker feller stopped him, uh? Mebbe I’ll recollect that come killin’ time.
They shoulda left a plain enough trail. I’ll catch up with ’em.” Saying that,
the big man wandered off toward the creek, disappearing in the dark.
Lucille turned
back to the boy. “You wanna keep from gettin’ in his way, boy. I’s you I’d
hightail it for bed ’fore he comes back. He’ll likely be lookin’ for somethin’
to make pain for.”
Austin
appreciated the advice, and knowing she was right he turned and headed back to
the house, climbing the ladder to his bed. It was late in the night before he
was able to drift off to sleep.
Early the next morning Rock Everett made ready
to set out for Challis, the supply point for Custer, Bonanza and the other
mining towns along the Yankee Fork of the Salmon River,
as well as Bay Horse and Clayton. In the last couple of years, Challis had
become an important market for beef and horses, a market with which the
scattered ranches in the area had to work to keep up. The Everetts
also sold corn, wheat, red beets and potatoes there.
From trailing the
plentiful tracks, Rock had also learned it was the direction the thieves had
run with the horse herd. Going after them was going to be convenient.
With the sun
bursting fresh across the eastern slopes, Austin
sat on the log porch in front of the house, feeling the irritating tickle of
his wool shirt catching against the scabs on his back every time he moved. Old
Rock rode up on a stocky bay every bit as ugly and swollen-nosed as its rider.
He was leading a string of horses, each one tied to the tail of the one in
front of it. He held his new Winchester
across the fork of his saddle, and he swiveled it until it very nearly pointed
at his son’s midsection. He didn’t seem to notice.
“Now, boy. You
keep yer tongue in check with my woman. Understand? Do as she tells you an’ you
finish up what I said. I’ll maybe try to bring somethin’ back for you, maybe a
new jackknife or a lassoo or some boots, if I get a good price on the stock.
An’ you know they’re sellin’ high on the Yankee Fork. Them boys’re ’bout
starved out up there. How’s yer back? It shore is gettin’ ugly.”
Austin
shrugged, looking away briefly, then back to meet his father’s eyes. “It’s
healin’ up, I reckon. That grease does good.”
“Good, good. Well
sir, I reckon Lucy’s still a-sleepin’, ’n’ I won’t wake ’er up. Tell ’er I
should be back in five, six days at the most, ’n’ she c’n plan on waitin’ ready
with the so’rdough biscuits. I aim to be horngry as a hog with a cut throat
when I git back. You take care of that ugly mug of your’n now, hear? I’ll bring
you somethin’.”
“I will, Pa. Pa?”
“Yes sir?”
“What about them
men? You aim to . . . fight ’em all?”
“Don’t you worry
’bout yer old man, sonny. Ain’t no five men c’n whip the likes of me.” He
winked.
Austin
stood up, walking a few steps out toward Old Rock’s horse. He yearned to shake
his pa’s hand before he left. But the only time they ever touched was when Austin
had done something wrong—or leastwise when Rock figured he had.
Rock Everett
saw his boy coming closer, and like a skittish horse he dipped his chin in
farewell and started off toward the pen where he had kept fifteen fat steers
overnight. Six days he would be gone, most likely. Six days Austin
knew he wouldn’t have to be beaten. But still, he didn’t like being left here
alone with Lucille. At least Rock and he shared the same blood. He and the
woman hardly shared a smile.
Over the winter,
the ground had frozen hard, and now spring thaw was deep within the earth.
These two acts of nature had heaved at corral posts, but more importantly at
tree stumps. Owing to this helping hand, April and early May were the prime
months to pull a stump, and Austin tore into the job with a vehemence, wanting
to prove to Old Rock that he was a man.
He harnessed the
old sorrel plow horse, Dolly, and drove her mercilessly through the day,
pulling at stumps when he wasn’t chopping stubborn roots with the twin-bit axe.
As the stumps came out he made the old horse drag them into a line, a makeshift
fence. At the least, the roots would make a home for rabbits, and this would
one day be a prime hunting spot.
The next day, he
decided he needed to break ground on some of the many acres of sagebrush Rock
had left him. This he had dreaded, because of the sores healing on his back.
But he had no choice. He went at the plowing with the same vigor he had savaged
the stumps, and soon much of the sagebrush land lay in furrows, waiting to be
seeded.
He went home that
evening with his shirt stuck firmly to his back.
On the second day
he tried to plow, but with his back in bloody agony he could do little before
his will gave way. He would lower his pride enough to allow Lucille to grease
up his back, then he would rest an hour or two, eat a big meal, and go at the
plow again. It was a job that must be done, to avoid a new whipping before the
blood was dried from the previous one.
The third morning
and the fourth were even worse, for his back seemed to be festering. But he
went out all the same, with his father’s threats ringing in his ears. He wasn’t
worth much. He knew that because Old Rock had told him since as far back as he
could recall. But if he could get all that plowing done, along with the stumps
cleared, maybe Rock would start to think different. If he could ignore the pain
his back was giving him and just work his blamedest while Old Rock was gone,
maybe he could avoid another beating and win some respect to boot.
The fifth morning Austin
was sick with fever, so he lay in bed. Lucille yelled at him a few times, and
when he heard her coming up the ladder to the loft he groaned inwardly. Was she
going to beat him, too? More likely she would just wait for Rock to come home
and tell him his good-for-nothing son had slept in past sunrise. That would
bring a healthy beating on, maybe even a few blows from Rock’s fists.
To Austin’s
surprise, when Lucille saw him she didn’t say a word. He feigned sleep and
heard her step toward him. The back of her hand, cool from the morning air, lay
gently across his forehead. Then, strangely, her palm came to rest against his
cheek. It was the briefest of touches, and then it withdrew. Much more quietly
than she had ascended, Lucille went back down the ladder. She brought a glass
and a pitcher of water up later, but other than that he didn’t see her again
until she brought him a big bowl of chicken broth around noon, and again in the evening.
The sixth morning,
Austin was up early, with the fever
still burning deep in his back. Cold sweat stood out all over his face, and he
shook with sickness. But there were still three stumps to pull out of the field
and five acres of land to plow before he could call his work finished. There
was fresh salve on his back this morning, not because Lucille had pulled her
lazy carcass out of bed to do it, but because he had improvised with a long
wooden spoon. But thanks to the plow straps, his back would be a long time
healing. It was far worse now than it had been the first day.
All day long Austin
drove the old horse. The sweat standing on his skin was cold. Once, he went and
had a few bites, but he threw them up later. He pushed and pulled at the stump
roots, chopped, even attempted to burn them. But one of the stumps would not be
moved. He had to do it, just to show Rock he was a man. He had to show him he
could do what had been left to him. Then perhaps the beatings might stop.
But the heart of
the horse gave way before the stump did.
By evening Old
Dolly’s eyes were glazed, the pupils swollen, and blood ran from one corner of
her mouth. The faithful old horse lay dead in the field.
And Austin
slumped there in the new-plowed earth, leaned on the sweat-dampened old ribcage
and wept. No one could see him here. He would never have cried if they could.
Chapter Three
The medicine
hat stallion’s name was Valeroso, meaning valiant. He
had been gone for more than six days. The tall, handsome, broad-shouldered
Mexican with eyes like shotgun barrels dogged the thieving bandidos relentlessly, but he was getting no closer. These men were
running scared. Like most men who rode the wild country, particularly those who
had called themselves “cowboy,” the Mexican was adept at reading sign. And this
time in particular it was little challenge, for he followed six horses over
mountain trails deep and oozing with spring melt. But the thieves had a long
head start, and the only thing in his favor was a determination born of hate.
His name was Elmer
Martinez, and he was of Hispanic blood but born to Texas.
The given name was English in origin, and it meant noble—highborn. But he
didn’t feel very noble or highborn right now. He rode alone, without adjutants
or porters, without a soul who would hear his orders even if he gave any. His
face was wreathed in bruises, and the grime and stink of days on the trail
stuck to him like tar. He was a weary man, but that weariness would have to
wait to be salved. Until his gun was smoking and at his feet a man lay dead he
did not intend to stop.
Martinez
had no concern about the rose dun gelding beneath him. Little Pueblo was born
to country like this, had run it with his mother and the wild mustangs of Idaho
until he was almost two years old, when Martinez
roped him from a herd of bachelor studs. Next to a mountain goat, there wasn’t
a more sure-footed animal than Pueblo.
And with Martinez standing
six-foot-two and one hundred ninety pounds it would have taken one brute of a
mountain goat to carry him.
Back in the mining
town of Rocky Bar they had stolen
his horses, Valeroso and Pueblo,
taken them out of the livery as brazen as street corner prostitutes. It wasn’t
an act of chance; the five thieves had targeted Martinez
and taken his horses to foil pursuit. That was after cornering him in a
secluded alley and beating him unconscious. But it hadn’t stopped Martinez.
Their mistake was not being smart enough to kill him or cut off his feet.
He had been laid
up for four days in a hotel room until he could recover from ribs that should
have been broken but appeared to have been only bruised, eyes that had both
been swollen completely shut the morning following the beating, and a forearm
that he still wasn’t sure didn’t have hairline fractures. But the moment he
thought he could travel again, he packed his gear and made ready.
He had used every
last bit of money he had to his name for his five nights in the hotel and meals
to nourish him back to strength. He had nothing left with which to buy another
horse. But the thieves were wrong if they thought being set afoot would stop a
Texan with hatred in his heart. Martinez
was bent on justice—or revenge, whatever a man wished to call it. He would not
be turned aside.
Sore-footed and
near exhausted from packing his rifle, saddle and bedding, Martinez
had arrived in the mining camp of Atlanta
late that same evening. Fourteen miles of mountain travel had left his feet raw
and aching inside tall-heeled riding boots. He soaked them in the icy waters of
the Boise River,
rolled out his bedding in the freezing cold grass along the bank, and awakened
more angry and determined than ever to track these men down the river Styx
if he had to.
But fortune was
with Martinez. Fortune and a
faithful horse. The morning of the second day, with the sun striking full force
down through the ponderosa pines to warm the Mexican’s shoulders and burn into
the scabs on his face as he hiked along the thieves’ trail, he heard the drum
of a horse’s hooves. Waiting beside the trail, he was surprised to see Little
Pueblo come rounding the bend. The dun must have broken away from his captors,
and his escape trail led him back the way he had come. The way he had last seen
his friend. Martinez had no idea
how far away the horse must have broken free of the thieves, but certainly it
was many miles. And days! But still it didn’t surprise Martinez
to see his friend coming back. The horse was gaunt from hard travel and lack of
good feed, but he wasn’t much worse for the wear, and he was glad to greet his
friend.
Martinez had had
no idea how exhausted he was until he settled into that saddle—the saddle he
had packed by then nearly eighteen miles in hopes of finding something to fit
it. He was too honest to steal a horse. But he had known people with the mercy
to loan a lame traveler a horse, and it was that mercy he had banked on in
packing the saddle. He had not figured on seeing Little Pueblo again for some
time. Then again, the saddle had been a gift from his wife, a wife who now lay
beneath the sod. It would have been tough to leave it behind.
Around noon of the seventh day on the trail, Martinez
spotted the house blending into the sage a couple hundred feet below. It was a
crude cabin—one room, maybe two, with a tall roof section that likely held a
loft. A log barn squatted close by, an empty corral tacked up to it, and an
array of outbuildings scattered through the pale sage. He could make out one
cow, half a dozen hogs in one pen, and what appeared to be more cattle grazing
far out in the brush, hundreds of yards beyond the house.
Even as Martinez
nudged Pueblo’s ribs with his spurs
and started him down the decline, movement from the left drew his attention.
Pulling on the reins and setting Pueblo
crosswise on the slope again, he shifted his eyes to take in a lone rider
coming slow along the ranch lane from the direction of what appeared to be a
well-used highway. He was a big man—that was notable even from four hundred
yards. His height couldn’t be told, but the great bulk of his body was
remarkable. He sat the bay horse like a man who didn’t belong there, and it was
a good bet the horse wished he wasn’t.
The big man swayed
in the saddle, headed for the cabin yet in no great hurry to get there. In the
group who stole Martinez’s gaited
pinto there would be no man as big as this. Between the weight of the man and a
horse that big, the tracks would be deep, and there were no such tracks in the
bunch Martinez followed. Besides,
no man that big could have kept up the merciless pace the others were setting.
No, this man he was watching had nothing to do with the stolen horse—except for
the fact that the tracks Martinez
was following led straight down the mountain toward this ranch. So perhaps this
man had at least seen them.
But something made
Martinez wait and watch. Pueblo
wanted to be moving. He fidgeted and tossed his head, stamping a hoof against
the damp soil. Yet Martinez was
cautious, for some men did not like to be ridden up on and taken by surprise. Martinez
was one of those men himself.
The stranger drew
up, and Martinez watched him
studying what appeared to be a dead horse lying in a freshly plowed field. The
stranger watched the dead horse for a time, then moved on. He reached the barn,
and after looking about for a moment he rode on inside. Martinez
had just started Pueblo down the
slope when he caught sight of a slighter figure striding from the house and out
toward the barn. A woman stood at the front of the house with her hands on her
hips, watching after the other one, who appeared by his light gait to be a boy.
By all appearances the man in the barn was a family man. That was good. It had
been a while since he had been around people who cared about each other. It
would do his heart good to sit down to a meal with family people—if they would
invite him. Some white people would not stand for a Mexican at their table.
Martinez
let Pueblo pick his way down the
ridge, his eyes on the barn. He was unworried about the mustang’s footing, even
on the muddy, rock-impregnated slope. He was watching the barn’s big, open doorway
when the slighter man—or boy—came reeling out and landed in the dirt.
Martinez
jerked back on the reins. The little dun responded appropriately, but he didn’t
like the treatment. He tossed his head, tearing some of the rein out of his
rider’s hand.
Martinez
didn’t even have time to apologize to the horse. As he watched, the big man
lumbered out of the barn and came at the other one. As he reached him, he bent
and jerked him off the ground, backhanding him across the face and sending him
to earth again. Judging by the treatment, and by the way the man was able to
throw him around, Martinez had
decided this was indeed a boy.
Anger twisted his
features, his thin-haired mustache curving around a lopsided grimace. There was
no thinking in him now, only unreasonable anger. He drew the sleeve of his
hickory shirt across his mouth so it nearly ripped skin off his lips. But it
didn’t wipe off his scowl. With his eyes watering up so he could hardly see, he
rolled his spurs and started downhill.
It was instantly
obvious Pueblo had no intention of
making that steep descent at the speed Martinez
wanted. He jammed the spurs deeper, his eyes still set on the man below. Even
as Martinez sank the spurs, the big
man once more struck the boy, who made no move to get away.
When Pueblo
felt the spurs, he reacted with a jump. Martinez
wasn’t a man to misuse a horse, so Pueblo was unaccustomed to the bite of the
spur. He came down wrong on a scree outcrop and lost his footing. As he started
to tip to the side, Martinez came
to his senses enough to kick his feet free of the tapaderos and shove at the
dinner plate saddle horn, trying to avoid what was sure to be a nasty fall. But
Pueblo already had his momentum,
and as he went over sideways he took the Mexican with him.
The horse plunged
to his left side, Martinez still
scrambling to clear him. When Pueblo
rolled onto his back, as he had no choice but to do, he jerked Martinez
clear over him and past his flailing hooves, sending him sprawling down the
slope. Certain he was bound for the bottom of the hill, Martinez
was stunned when he slammed up against the tangled base of a serviceberry bush.
Numb, the Mexican
sat up, and instinct made him reach for the Colt Army in his belt. It was still
there, the grip scuffed. His hands went next to his face, and his gloves came
away streaked with blood. Uphill several yards, Pueblo
stood blowing in fright and confusion. Wild-eyed, he looked down at Martinez
and shook his head violently.
His legs and heart
shaking, Martinez stood up,
brushing off his brown-striped, rough-woven pants, which had a ragged tear in
one knee. After his own harrowing mishap, he had forgotten the scene below. But
now he turned his eyes that way.
They must have
heard Pueblo’s scream of fright as
he fell, for the big man stood looking up at him, hands on his hips, and the
woman had come out to stand beside him. The boy sat on the ground, holding his
bowed head.
After what could
have been a deadly fall, Martinez’s
surge of anger had ebbed. Watching the people in the yard, he pulled off his
gloves and palmed his face, wiping the blood back on his gloves. He drew a
breath and looked up the slope at Pueblo.
“Well, amigo, we
might as well go down there. Their fight’s over, and I’m out of wind. You
better watch those rocks, caballo. And
I promise to watch the spurs.”
The Mexican looked
down again toward the three people who watched him, waiting. The anger he had
felt before the fall might have left his face, but it dwelt in a more dangerous
place—his heart. He was afraid something bad would happen if he went down the
hill. But nothing could be worse than what Elmer Martinez had already been
through—the tragic incident which had led him to his brutal beating at Rocky
Bar.
Climbing the
several yards to the horse, he picked up the trailing reins and started
downhill once more. Only this time he trod with care.
By the time Martinez
reached the ranch yard, the boy had picked himself up and gone to the house.
The man and woman stood beside each other waiting, and Martinez
stopped before them and dropped the reins.
“Took a bad fall,
stranger. I count you lucky to be standin’ here.”
Martinez
gave a wry, one-sided grin to the heavy-set man, his cheek dimpling. He pulled
off his flat-crowned gray hat and swept back collar-length hair, dabbing again
at the oozing cut on his cheek. “The horse is young.” He tossed his head toward
Pueblo and lied: “He doesn’t know
the way of the mountains. Mind if I water him here?”
“Hell, water him,
mister. Looks like he c’d use it. Name’s Everett,”
the man said. “Rock Everett. And
this here’s Lucy.”
The man held out a
thick, black-haired hand, and Martinez
looked down at it, then shook his head with a slight smile. “I have blood on my
hand.” He held up the palm of his right hand for them to see. “You don’t want
to shake with me.” In truth, it was the other way around.
“Laws,” growled Everett,
spitting to one side. “I fit Injuns, I skinnt rotted cows an’ all kinds o’
critters. Ain’t no little bit o’ blood goin’ bother me.” But even as he
finished speaking his broad hand was falling away, gladdening Martinez.
“What about the
water?” He glanced around the yard.
“Creek out back o’
the barn,” Everett said, giving a
wave that direction.
“When you done,
come back to the house,” the string-haired blonde woman added. “You ’pear nigh
starved to death.”
Martinez
nearly turned down the offer. He was hungry,
right enough. But that was not why he stayed. It was no longer for pining to be
in the company of family affection, either. He would find that more quickly
among a pack of wolves than among this clan. He didn’t rightly know why he
agreed to stay.
When he had
watered Pueblo and turned him loose
on a field of bright green grass spotted with blue lupine and white clover, Martinez
went to satisfy his own hunger. The inside of the house was dark, with tattered
gunnysacks languishing over one hole that served as a window, and a film over
the only glass window, in the kitchen. The floor was puncheon, so roughly cut
it would not behoove a man to walk barefoot across it. The crooked slab table
held a spread of victuals that made Martinez’s
mouth water.
Martinez
was strongly aware of the boy’s absence when they sat down at the table. “I
hope I’m not eating the boy’s food.”
Everett
jerked his eyes up from his plate, then sliced a glance toward the woman. He
dabbed a hunk of pan bread into his gravy and shoved it into his mouth, then
spoke around it, “We didn’t catch your name, stranger.”
Martinez
shrugged. “Elmer. Elmer Martinez, up from Texas.
Most folks call me Alto.”
Leaning down over
his plate for a drip of gravy to fall off his chin, Everett
raised his eyebrows to look up at his dinner guest. “Texas,
eh? You don’t say!” He straightened up and looked over at his woman, food
pooching out his lower lip. “You don’t say. I sorta thought you might be from Mexico,”
he said with a dry chuckle, swallowing his mouthful and picking up a thick
steak with his fork to rip a bite out of it.
Martinez
gave his little half smile and tugged at the thin tuft of hair below his bottom
lip. He wasn’t sure if Everett
was so ignorant as to believe everyone of Hispanic origin came from Mexico,
or if he didn’t care. “Yes, of course you would have guessed that,” he said. He
changed the subject. “I should have asked before—did you see five riders come
by this direction?”
“Woman was here,” Everett
said with a shrug, looking at Lucille questioningly as he wiped another dribble
of grease from the point of his chin.
The woman
shrugged. “Nobody been by while I was lookin’. Why you ask?”
“They stole a
tall, rangy pinto from me. A medicine hat.”
Rock Everett
made a loud noise when he swallowed, then slurped at a tumbler of cider,
letting out a belch. A dark look came over his face as he looked back at Martinez.
“Yeah, I know ’bout losin’ a hoss. Boy just kilt my plow hoss. Drove her int’
the ground.”
“Killed her how?”
“Told you. Drove
her int’ the ground pulling out tree stumps.” He glanced darkly at Lucille. Her
eyes were lowered, looking at her plate as she carved away a piece of steak.
“It sounds like
the boy was working hard,” Martinez
mused. “A hard-working boy’s not easy to find.”
“Hard-workin’, my
laig!” Everett snapped. “Lazy
good-for-nothin’ ain’t done a full day’s work in his life.”
Martinez
forced his eyes down as he worked a mound of potatoes onto his fork and put it
in his mouth. If the boy had killed the horse pulling stumps, it sounded like
he was working hard. But who was Martinez
to say? He didn’t know the boy.
“Boy!” Everett
bellowed. “You ’bout done cowerin’ up there? Git down here an’ go take care of
ole Ned. He’s gone hungry ’n’ still saddled ’cause o’ your stupid doin’s.” Old
Rock was apparently not the quintessential horseman who always cared for his
horse first.
There came a
scrape on the floor of the loft, and the boy appeared and came down the ladder,
a thin blanket wrapped about his shoulders. His face was almost gaunt, and very
pale at the moment. Droplets of sweat stood out all over his forehead and
cheeks, and his eyes appeared sunken in. He started past the table, not looking
at its occupants, but Rock Everett towered out of his chair and grabbed at a
corner of the blanket as the boy went by.
“What you dressin’
like a Injun fer? Go git clothes on ’fore you come down with comp’ny here.” He
yanked the blanket from the boy, leaving him standing shirtless.
Martinez
felt his teeth grind against one another until he thought they would crack. He
looked at the boy, but he could hardly see him through eyes blurred by anger.
He fought his vision clear and glanced down at his food, not daring look at
Rock Everett. But as the boy went to make his way back up to the loft, and Everett
flung the blanket after him with the order to take it with him, Martinez
turned his eyes back to the boy.
The white skin of
the boy’s back was a road map of welts, bruises, old scars and nasty wounds
scabbing over. A switch had made most of the marks. A switch in the hands of a
hateful, worthless man who in Martinez’s
opinion knew nothing about raising a boy.
Martinez
dropped his eyes to avoid looking at Everett.
He concentrated on his food, cutting into his steak with a vengeance. But even
as he chewed he could not taste it. There was no pleasure left in this meal—if
there ever had been.
Suddenly, Martinez
stood. “You’ll have to excuse me,” he said through tight lips. “I’m not getting
any closer to those thieves sitting here.”
Everett
stared up at Martinez with his
half-open mouth full of steak. As if he had just remembered it, he gave it
three quick chews and swallowed it in a big lump, slurping cider. Neither he
nor his wife stood up.
“Well, you should
stay longer. We don’t git comp’ny here much,” Everett
said as his hand fumbled after another piece of pan bread. “Hope y’ find them
rustlers. Ain’t nobody so worthless as a thief.”
Martinez
nodded and thought, At least there aren’t
very many people worse. He turned from the table, picking up his hat at the
door. With a deep breath, he forced himself out into the sunshine and off
toward the barn.
He had not gone
far before he heard Rock Everett’s voice behind him, from the porch. “Say,
stranger! How many men d’you say you’s chasin’?”
Martinez
turned back. “Five.”
Everett
glanced back into the house, then stepped into the dust. “There was five men here, but it ain’t been
recent, or I’d a mentioned it sooner. It’s been some days back. One of them was
ridin’ a ugly lookin’ long-legged pinto hoss. Reason I think of it is that hoss
was a medicine hat, like you
mentioned.”
A fire started
once more to burn deep in Martinez’s
guts.
“Can you tell me
more about the horse?”
“Not much hoss.
Tall stewball stallion, but with that medicine hat.
Had a sorrel blanket on his rump. Don’t remember much other color.”
The description of
the horse was dead on, other than the man’s misuse of the word skewbald,
meaning a brown and white pinto horse. Martinez’s
interest was piqued, but one more question needed answering. “Did the men say
who they were?”
“One dandy by the
name o’ Mossbucker and another by the—”
Martinez
took an urgent step closer. “Mosbrucker, you say? Where’d these men go?”
“Well, they went
on to Challis, but I missed ’em there. Last I knew they had turned around and
was headed thataway, t’ward Blackfoot. Must of slid past me in the dark.”
If Matt Mosbrucker
was headed toward the freighting town of Blackfoot,
maybe he would lay up there. Maybe, too, he would die there.
Martinez
gleaned as much more information on the horse thieves as he could before
turning away from the yard. His thoughts were on Matt Mosbrucker, murderer of
babies and women. But sitting in the saddle he flinched at the last sound he
heard as he rode grimly away—Rock Everett bellowing and the sound of an open
hand striking flesh. He clenched his teeth and sank into his saddle, tickling Pueblo
with the spurs.
That same night,
Austin Everett heaved himself up in bed, soaked with sweat. He had been having
a nightmare. But in a moment it was plain that was not what had awakened him.
Outside, he heard
his father shouting, and then the bellow of a rifle. More shots followed, and
the faint sound of hoofbeats.
Again! They had
never had trouble in this place before. Now twice in one week!
Deliriously, Austin
rolled off his bed, losing his balance while trying to struggle into his canvas
britches. Neglecting to put on his tattered old shoes, he scrambled down out of
the loft, leaping from the third rung of the ladder and nearly landing on top
of Lucille.
Swearing at him,
Lucille reached the cupboard, and he heard her curse again at the sound of
shotgun shells rattling around the floor. Austin
ran outside. All he could see was a dim vision of the yard by the sliver of the
moon.
The pound of horse
hooves rolled back to him from off toward the road, and then all was silent.
“Rock!” Austin
cried into the night. “Rock!” Not even a cricket answered him as he stepped out
away from the house.
Lucille suddenly
stood beside him. He looked over to see her quivering, holding the shotgun up
chest-high and searching the darkness almost frantically. “Rock! Rock, you out
there?” Again, there was only quiet.
Bewildered, Austin
started toward the shed until Lucille’s snarled words stopped him. “Boy! They
might still be out there.”
“Who?” he asked.
“I dunno. Whoever
come. Maybe they got old Ned. Injuns. I’ll bet them Bannocks again! You know
how they was at it last year.”
A chill ran up Austin’s
spine, and he backed toward the house. Lucille must have scared herself at the
thought of the Bannocks, for she followed him. Her eyes, gone wide, dodged this
way and that in the dark, the moonlight shining off the whites of them.
They made it to
the house, and Lucille slammed the door behind them and dropped the bar in
place, for all the good it would do with the two big windows. And then once
more the silence settled in.
After a long, long
time they heard the first tentative cricket begin to chirp, and soon there was
a chorus of them. Their music seemed to drown out the world.
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