“I can’t imagine the circumstances arising,” Atherton Jones said, “when I should ever be hanging on to a steer’s head—or a cow’s tail.”
Everyone except Earl and Karl thought this was funny.
“I am prepared for the most florid effects at the rodeo on Saturday,” Prender Atherton Jones went on. “Oscar Wilde would no doubt have approved of the colourful clothes we’ll see there. He thought the Californian miners were the best-dressed men he had seen in America: they combined the practical with the ornamental in the right proportions.”
“I’ll give you one word of advice,” Grubbock said. “I wouldn’t tell the cowboys about Oscar Wilde’s possible approval. I’ve got a feeling that that wouldn’t appeal to them somehow.”
“Probably never heard of Oscar Wilde, to begin with,” Atherton Jones said. “And if there is one thing I dislike it is adding footnotes to a joke.” He looked at Grubbock reprovingly. A word of advice, indeed...
“I hope your arm is better by Saturday, Karl,” Mrs. Peel said, trying to change the conversation and bring it round to Dr. Clark’s advice. She only half succeeded.
“How did it happen, anyway?” Robert O’Farlan asked, pointing to Karl’s arm.
“Did you fall off your horse?” Esther Park asked. “That must have been funny.”
“It wasn’t so funny,” Earl said, frowning at Esther Park, then breaking into a grin to belie his words. “At least, no one thought it was funny except me. And I didn’t think it was funny until Karl had got up on his feet again. Say, Bert was quick at catching your horse, wasn’t he?”
Karl, feeling the pain in his hand and arm, didn’t share Earl’s amusement. He had the impulse to say he was going to bed, and leave them all to laugh over his accident. That’s what they wanted to do, anyway.
Mrs. Peel was watching his face closely. She said, “Karl, why don’t you go to bed and rest your arm? Tomorrow we can—”
“Go ahead and tell them,” Karl said to Earl Grubbock, and he settled back firmly in his chair. “It’s nothing,” he said, equally firmly, to Mrs. Peel.
Grubbock hesitated for a moment. “Well,” he said, “last night we were coming back to camp. When I say ‘camp’ I mean we had found a place as sheltered as possible, which wasn’t much, near some water. And when you come riding into camp after a day’s work you’ve got to make it. You attend to your horse, unpack your roll, gather wood, build a fire, and cook your food. Then, after you’ve eaten, you’ve to get all the damned litter buried and burned and the greasy pans washed in ice-cold water. And after all that—if there isn’t something else to be done—you can sit down and relax by the fire, and you have half an hour to get warm before you hit the sack, because you’re up at the crack of dawn to start everything all over again in reverse. It’s strange, you know—”
“Cut out all the sidetracking,” Karl Koffing said. “Go ahead and tell them. What’s wrong, Earl? Sparing my feelings?” He smiled mockingly. Earl hadn’t spared them much during these last five days: would Karl stop talking so much and doing so goddamned little, he had even asked. And now Earl was the one who was talking about discomforts. He hadn’t stopped talking all evening.
But O’Farlan, who had been a soldier too, recognised the symptoms. Every post-mortem on any mission successfully completed carried its own privileges of grousing. “Must have reminded you of the Army in some ways,” he said to Grubbock. “Except that you weren’t being shot over.”
Karl Koffing rose. “I’m hitting the sack,” he said. “Good night.” He walked out of the room.
“What’s wrong now?” O’Farlan asked irritably.
“His arm is more painful than we think,” Mrs. Peel said.
“Well,” Sally said, “he’s learned a new phrase, at least.” But she looked after Karl worriedly too.
“How did he fall?” Prender Atherton Jones wanted to know. “Was he bucked off?”
Earl Grubbock didn’t answer. He knew what was wrong with Koffing. It wasn’t the arm, though that probably hurt like hell and Karl wouldn’t admit it. It was O’Farlan’s way of talking about the War. Karl had some kind of guilt about that, and what it was you couldn’t find out. But frankly it was getting a bit tiresome. Especially for five days on end, when Karl was so damned intent on proving he was braver, quicker, tougher than any of the rest of them. No one questioned the fact that Koffing had guts. Except himself seemingly.
“Was anyone to blame?” Mrs. Peel asked. That had been worrying her.
Grubbock shook his head. “No,” he said, “it was all his own darned fault. Yesterday evening Karl and Bert and I were riding back together. We had been out looking for strays. We’d found none. We were taking a short cut to camp, following a fairly narrow trail that would lead us through a small canyon. At the moment we were on the open hillside, with Karl riding some distance ahead of us. On our right there was a sheer wall of rock rising straight up from the edge of the trail. On our left the ground dropped away in a steep slope of grass, sprinkled with boulders and young pine-trees. Karl was just reaching the entrance to the canyon. We could see it, narrow and deep, with giant teeth of rock lining its sides, and blue spruce- and pine-trees trying to climb up between its crags. Then, suddenly, Karl’s horse stopped dead in its tracks.”
“And Karl fell off,” Esther Park said quickly.
Grubbock looked at her. Everyone silenced her nervous laugh with a combined glare. Even Atherton Jones, caught up in the picture of three men on this mountain trail, stared at her angrily.
Grubbock said, “The horse stopped dead in its tracks, and it refused to move. That was what I noticed most—the horse. I could feel something dangerous; I could feel it right from that horse. Bert said, ‘Hey, there!’ quite quietly, almost to himself. We both reined up automatically. Karl urged his horse on. It wouldn’t move. He kicked it. It started turning round. He turned it back and pulled its head to face the canyon.”
“Quite right,” Atherton Jones said. “Horses have got to be mastered.”
“But it wouldn’t go into that canyon. It turned off the trail, down the slope of the hillside. Karl yanked it back on to the trail. It turned, it twisted. He pulled it round to face the canyon. And this time it went rigid. He really gave it the heel then, and he lashed it. That was when the Wild West show started. After the third buck Karl was thrown, rolling down the hillside until he ended up against one of those doll-sized fir-trees. The horse turned and bolted.
“Now this all happened so quickly—a matter of seconds— that I was still puzzling out the rigid horse when Bert passed me. He went right into a canter and then into a lope, cutting down the hillside at a sharp angle to turn off Karl’s horse. I didn’t see how he caught it—that must have been spectacular on the sloping hillside, with its scattered boulders and pint-sized trees. I was too busy trying to reach Karl. I dismounted, but I kept a pretty tight grip on my horse’s reins, for he was beginning to act up a bit too. And in these wide open spaces a horse is the best friend your feet ever had. But just as I was scrambling down the hill, leading my horse—I wouldn’t have ridden down there if you had paid me—I saw Karl rise. That’s when I began to think it was funny. He had rolled down there like a snowball. He was lucky, though. When he was thrown he landed clear; one foot might easily have been caught in the stirrup, and then he would have been dragged. And when he landed he didn’t fall on rock; and he could put out an arm to break his fall. Then even the way he didn’t roll far was lucky: he was stopped by one of those trees instead of landing up against a boulder.”
“And what then?” Robert O’Farlan asked. “Did you go through the canyon with Bert leading?”
Grubbock shook his head. “We joined Bert far down the hillside, reached the creek in the valley, and followed its trail to the camp where we were meeting the others.”
Prender Atherton Jones said, “You mean to say that Bert, a professional cowboy, let a horse get away with that?” He looked round in amazement, shaking his head disapprovingly. Such sla
ckness was not tolerated in Central Park, he seemed to say.
“Bert said he could take a telling. We could beat our horses all we wanted, but they still wouldn’t go down that canyon. There was just one thing that made a horse behave the way Karl’s did: the smell of bear.”
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t beat the horses and force them into the canyon,” Mrs. Peel said. “What pleasure is there in mastering anyone, anyway, if you have to lash him and beat him?”
“That wasn’t the end of the story, though,” Earl Grubbock said, watching Atherton Jones with a smile. “There we were, Karl and I, both cursing his horse for having added a good five miles to our journey to the camp. We even thought Bert was a bit of a dope. Then we found the others at the camp. Ned and Robb had been looking for strays round the other end of the canyon. They had ridden up a high trail, where they could get a good view of it. There wasn’t a stray in the canyon. But they did see a bear, a quarter of a mile away, right down near the beginning of the spruce forest.”
“Good God!” said Atherton Jones. “How far is the canyon from here?”
“Far enough. Still, a lone bear can cover a lot of territory. Every now and again, it seems, a bear comes straying through these mountains. ‘Travelled a fur piece,’ as Bert said.”
“Appropriate remark,” Prender Atherton Jones said. “I suppose this specimen got disgruntled with Yellowstone Park? The tourists can’t be so entertaining this summer.” He looked round with an encouraging smile.
“And what did Karl say then?” Sally asked.
“Nothing very much.” Grubbock looked at the scuffed toe of his boot. Shut up, he told himself: you’ve done a lot of criticising in these last few days, and no doubt Karl found just as much in you to criticise. A trip into the mountains was certainly one way of getting to know a man.
“Anyway,” Earl Grubbock said suddenly, “Karl has plenty of courage.” That was one thing Karl had plenty of. Damn’ fool courage sometimes, but courage.
“But you were all afraid of an old bear,” Esther Park said.
He studied her face. “Ned, Robb, and Bert wanted to go after it and rope it. Jim said what the hell, it was doing no harm. When it started causing trouble they could go on a hunting-trip.”
“But what would you do if you met a bear?” Carla asked, wide-eyed and troubled.
“I asked Bert. Seemingly you walk, don’t run, to the nearest exit.”
“But how do your legs obey you?”
“Bert said he had often wondered about that.”
“But bears are sweet,” Esther Park said. “Why, I’ve fed them in Yellowstone! They come right up to your car, and—”
“I think we may take it from Bert that a stray bear isn’t one that likes tourists,” Grubbock said. “Or do we know more than Bert does?”
This was such a new line for Grubbock that Mrs. Peel stared. Then she smiled. “Earl’s right,” she said. “There’s a hospital in Yellowstone Park that’s kept to sew up tourists after they’ve fed the bears... I believe that over sixty people last year had themselves scalped and de-armed and otherwise torn about. And these are the nice, safe bears, Esther, not the bad-tempered strays.”
“Do you mean to say that we taxpayers,” Atherton Jones began, “have to keep up that hospital and for—” But at that moment Mrs. Gunn entered to say that Milton Jerks had just driven up from Sweetwater in his new car, and Dr. Clark was with him. They were talking to Jim now out in the yard.
As Mrs. Peel started to explain about the doctor’s unexpected visit Mrs. Gunn passed over a note to Sally. It was addressed to her in Jim’s handwriting. She opened it and read it.
The note was written with extreme correctness, following the usual pattern of a formal invitation. “Mr. James Brent requests the pleasure of Miss Sarah Bly’s company at the corral of Flying Tail Ranch on the evening of Friday, the twenty-seventh of August, at seven o’clock.” Down in one corner was “R.S.V.P.,” while up in another was “Western saddle.”
Idiot, thought Sally happily, complete idiot. Hello stranger, do you never go riding any more?... When I’m asked... Getting formal, aren’t we? We were, she thought, but I’m not going to be a fool any longer. That is all past tense, Sally Bly.
* * *
“Well, who is it this time?” Dr. Clark said, when he entered the living-room, followed by Mr. Milton Jerks carrying newspapers safely tucked under his arm.
Mrs. Peel apologised for the trouble she had given them.
“No trouble at all,” Milton Jerks said, replying for both of them. Dr. Clark was too busy talking to Earl Grubbock, anyway. “No trouble at all. We were at the meeting— Sweetwater Improvement Committee—when this call came through. And Doc, after sitting down and thinking about it, said he was coming out here after all. That broke up the poker game, anyways, so I figured I’d just come along and give Doc a lift in my car. It’s a whole lot quicker than his old rattletrap. Eh, Doc? About time you were getting a new one.”
“When prices come down, Milt,” Dr. Clark said amiably. “Well, Mrs. Peel, it is just as we thought. Booster shot, needed here. And your other writer needs the whole works. I’ll give him an antitoxin test first, just to make sure. Brought everything along with me. Come on, Grubbock; we’ll get over to the cabin.” Grubbock followed him out of the room with only an eyebrow raised by way of objection.
“What on earth was he talking about?” Prender Atherton Jones asked.
“Tetanus injections. Wherever you’ve got horses you’ve got tetanus,” Milton Jerks said, with the wise air of a man raised on a ranch. Mrs. Gunn sniffed quite openly. That salesman from St Louis, she thought.
Everyone turned to look at the round, red face of Mr. Jerks, beaming with good-will and pleasure, but his elaborate costume made them speechless. He bowed to Mrs. Peel. “Brought you the papers, ma’am,” he said, and presented them with a flourish. “Guessed you wouldn’t get them until the mail carrier came tomorrow. Why keep good news? That’s what I say. It’s a real pleasure and honour to meet you, Mrs. Peel.”
That reminded Sally that she hadn’t introduced Mr. Jerks to anyone, although they must have seen many signs of him around Sweetwater.
“This is Mr. Milton Jerks,” she said, “who runs the Fill-up Gas Station, the airfield, the Western Supply—”
“With the hitching-rail at the door,” Mr. Milton Jerks amended. “Sorry we don’t see you all using it more this summer, but the doods from Double Tee Emm and Fennimore’s, not to mention the Lazy Runaround, all find it kind of handy. Yes, sir, it’s become a mighty popular place, the old Western Supply. The best silver jewel’ry, rugs, beadwork, and hand-painted cushions you’ll find anywhere in the State of Wyoming. Or Colorado or Montana, for that matter.”
“What’s wrong with Arizona, Idaho, New Mexico?” asked Carla, and then giggled.
“Sure, them too,” Milt Jerks said generously. “Got all the best Indian work you ever saw. I’m a blood-brother of three tribes, the Iropshaws, the Squeehawks, and the Flatfeet. Yes, sir.” He looked at Sally expectantly. “Sorry, ma’am. I interrupted you.”
“But I’ve now forgotten all the other things you do, Mr. Jerks.”
“There’s the Rocky Mountain Regal Palace Cinema,” he prompted her.
“Oh, yes... And the Wigwam Laundry Service.”
“The one with the tepee outside?” Carla asked. “Is it a real one, Mr. Jerks?”
“Straight from the Squeehawks. Chief Bird-in-Hand gave it to me himself. He bought his new 1948 sedan super coupé model from me. And I got it for him before his cousin, Chief Two-in-the-Bush, managed to get his 1948 sedan super coupé from the dealer over in Three Springs.”
“I take it that meant a lot to Chief Bird-in-Hand?” O’Farlan asked. “Then he could add another coup to his stick?” He grinned around delightedly. He hadn’t made a silly joke like that for years. A wonderful feeling. Also, he was proud of the Indian knowledge he had been collecting from Mrs. Peel’s library ever since he had arrived. The other
s, startled at first, began to laugh.
As well they might, Milt Jerks thought. “He added the coupé to his garage,” he explained patiently. “He’s got three cars now. His squaw drives one, and the kids have the third to rattle around in.”
“And how many cars has Two-in-the-Bush?” Mrs. Peel asked.
“The same. They’ve always got to have the same. That’s how they got their names. Been rivals ever since they were strapped to their mothers’ backs.”
“Oh...” Mrs. Peel was horribly conscious of the strained look on her guests’ faces. So she smiled and said quickly, “Do tell us about the Indians. Do you know many of them, Mr. Jerks?”
“Sure. And just call me Milt. Everyone does. Eh, Ma Gunn?”
“What about a nice cup of coffee?” Mrs. Gunn asked pointedly, preparing to leave the room and hoping to take Milt Jerks with her. And don’t Ma me, she thought angrily. And Milt, that Jerk, is what Cheesit Bridger and old Chuck call you. Dr. Clark says you’re all right, just need a bit of getting accustomed to. He even says that Sweetwater needed someone like you, and if all the things you started here were taken away from us we’d miss them. But Cheesit says he doesn’t trust anyone who can make money as fast as you can; it just isn’t natural. Still, you’re generous too—this new hospital, and the new playground for the school-kids... Mrs. Gunn left the room then, for she wanted to fix something for the doctor to eat; she was still puzzling over the problem of Milt Jerks, much as she had done for the last fifteen years, ever since he stepped off the train at Three Springs.
“Well,” Mrs. Peel said, as Mrs. Gunn went and Milt Jerks didn’t budge, “do sit down. And if you don’t like coffee, what can we offer you? We’ve beer, and some Scotch, I think, and—”