"I don't," Call said.
"People got opinions, that's all they've got," the old man grumbled. "If somebody was to go and come back, now that's an opinion I'd listen to."
The old man forked the Hell Bitch a little hay. When he stood watching her eat, the mare snaked out her neck and tried to bite him, causing the old man to stumble backward and nearly stumble over his own pitchfork.
"Dern, she ain't very grateful," he said. "Struck at me like a snake, and I just fed her. Typical female. My wife done exactly the same a hunnert times. Buried her in Missouri, where it's considerable warmer."
Call found the carpenter and ordered a coffin. Then he borrowed a wagon and team and a big scoop shovel from a drunken man at the hardware store. It struck him that the citizenry of Miles City seemed to drink liquor day and night. Half the town was drunk at dawn.
"The lick's about six miles north," the hardware-store man said. "You can find it by the game trails."
Sure enough, several antelope were at the salt lick, and he saw the tracks of buffalo and elk. He worked up a sweat scooping the salt into the wagon.
When he got back to town the undertaker had finished with Gus. The undertaker was a tall man, with the shakes — his whole body trembled, even when he was standing still. "It's a nervous disease," he said. "I took it when I was young, and had it ever since. I put extra fluid in your friend, since I understand he'll be aboveground for a while."
"Yes, until next summer," Call said.
"I don't know how he'll do," the undertaker said. "If he weren't a human you could smoke him, like a ham."
"I'll try salt and charcoal," Call said.
When the coffin was ready, Call bought a fine bandana to cover Gus's face with. Dr. Mobley brought in the leg he had removed, wrapped in some burlap and soaked in formaldehyde to cover the smell. A bartender and the blacksmith helped pack the charcoal in. Call felt very awkward, though everyone was relaxed and cheerful. Once Gus was well covered, they filled the coffin to the top with salt and nailed it shut. Call gave the extra salt to the drunk at the hardware store to compensate him a little for the use of his wagon. They carried the coffin around and put it in the doctor's harness shed on top of two empty barrels.
"That'll do fine," Dr. Mobley said. "He'll be there, and if you change your mind about the trip, we'll just bury him. He'll have lots of company here. We've got more people in the cemetery already than we've got in the town."
Call didn't like the implication. He looked at the doctor sternly. "Why would I change my mind?" he asked.
The doctor had been nipping at a flask of whiskey during the packing, and was fairly drunk. "Dying people get foolish," he said. "They forget they won't be alive to appreciate the things they ask people to do for them. People make any kind of promise, but when they realize it's a dead creature they made the promise to, they usually squirm a little and then forget the whole business. It's human nature."
"I'm told I don't have a human nature," Call said. "How much do I owe you?"
"Nothing," the doctor said. "The deceased paid me himself."
"I'll get him in the spring," Call said.
When he got back to the livery stable he found old man Gill drinking from a jug. It reminded him of Gus, for the old man would hook one finger through the loop of the jug and throw back his head and drink. He was sitting in the wheelbarrow, his pitchfork across his lap, glaring at the Hell Bitch.
"Next time you come, why don't you just catch a grizzly bear and ride him in?" Gill said. "I'd rather stable a grizzly than this mare."
"She bite you or what?"
"No, but she's biding her time," the old man said. "Take her away so I can relax. I ain't been drunk this early in several years, and it's just from having her around."
"We're leaving," Call said.
"Now, why would you keep a creature like that?" the old man said, once Call had her saddled.
"Because I like to be horseback when I'm horseback," Call said.
Old man Gill was not persuaded. "Hope you like to be dead when you're dead, then," he said. "I reckon she's deadlier than a cobra."
"I reckon you talk too much," Call said, feeling more and more that he didn't care for Miles City.
He found the old trapper, Hugh Auld, sitting in front of the dry goods store. It was a cloudy day and a cool wind blew. The wind had a wintry feel, though it had been hot the day before. Call knew they didn't have long before winter, and his men were poorly equipped.
"Can you drive a wagon?" he asked old Hugh.
"Yes, I can whip a mule as good as anybody else," Hugh said.
Call bought supplies — not only coats and overshoes and gloves but building supplies as well. He managed to rent the wagon he had carried the salt in, promising to return it when possible.
"You're restless," Old Hugh said. "You go on. I'll creep along in this wagon and catch you north of the Musselshell."
Call rode back toward the herd, but at a fairly slow pace. In the afternoon he stopped and sat for several hours by a little stream. Ordinarily he would have felt guilty for not heading back to the boys right away, but Gus's death had changed that. Gus was not a person he had expected to outlive; now that he had, much was different. Gus had always been lucky — everybody said so, and he said so himself. Only Gus's luck ran out. Jake's had run out, Deets's had run out; both deaths were unexpected, both sad, terribly sad, but Call believed them. He had seen them both with his own eyes. And, believing in the deaths, he had put them behind him.
He had seen Gus die, too — or seen him dying, at least — but it seemed he hadn't started believing it. Gus had left, and that was final, but Call felt too confused even to feel sad. Gus had been so much himself to the end that he wouldn't let even his death be an occasion — it had just felt like one of their many arguments that normally would be resumed in a few days.
This time it wouldn't be resumed, and Call found he couldn't adjust to the change. He felt so alone that he didn't really want to go back to the outfit. The herd and the men no longer seemed to have anything to do with him. Nothing had anything to do with him, unless it was the mare. For his part he would just as soon have ridden around Montana alone until the Indians jumped him, too. It wasn't that he even missed Gus yet all that much. Only yesterday they had talked, as they had talked for thirty years.
Call felt some resentment, as he almost always had when thinking of his friend. Gus had died and left the world without taking him with him, so that once again he was left to do the work. He had always done the work — only he suddenly no longer believed in the work. Gus had tricked him out of his belief, as easily as if cheating at cards. All his work, and it hadn't saved anyone, or slowed the moment of their going by a minute.
Finally, as night fell, he mounted and rode on, not anxious to get anywhere, but tired of sitting. He rode on, his mind a blank, until the next afternoon, when he spotted the herd.
The cattle were spread for three miles over the great plain, grazing peacefully along. No sooner had the hands spotted him than Dish and Needle Nelson came racing over. Both looked scared.
"Captain, we seen some Indians," Dish said. "There was a bunch of them but they didn't attack us yet."
"What did they do?" Call asked.
"Just sat on a hill and watched us," Needle Nelson said. "We were going to give them two of these slow beeves if they'd ask, but they didn't ask."
"How many in the bunch?"
"We didn't count," Dish said. "But it was a bunch."
"Women and children with them?" Call asked.
"Oh yes, a passel," Needle said.
"They seldom drag their womenfolk into battle," Call said. "Probably Crow. I'm told the Crow are peaceful."
"Did you find Gus?" Dish asked. "Pea can't talk about nothing else."
"I found him. He's dead," Call said.
The men were turning their horses to go back to the herd. They stopped as if frozen.
"Gus is dead?" Needle Nelson asked.
Call nodde
d. He knew he would have to tell the story, but didn't want to have to tell it a dozen times. He trotted on over to the wagon, which Lippy was driving. Pea Eye sat in the back end, resting. He was still barefoot, though Call saw at once that his feet were better. When he saw Call riding in alone he looked worried.
"Did they carry him off, Captain?" he asked.
"No, he made it to Miles City," Call said. "But he had blood poisoning in both legs from those arrows, and he died day before yesterday."
"Well, I swear," Pea Eye said, "I wished he hadn't.
"I got away and Gus died," he added sadly. "Wouldn't you figure it'd be the other way around?"
"I would if I had to make odds," Jasper Fant said. He was close by and had loped over in time to hear.
Newt heard the facts from Dish, who soon rode around the herd, telling the boys. Many of them loped into the wagon to get more details, but Newt didn't. He felt like he had the morning he saw Deets dead — like turning away. If he never went to the wagon, he would never have to hear any more. He cried all afternoon, riding as far back on the drags as he could get. For once he was grateful for the dust the herd raised.
It seemed to him it would have been better if the Indians had ridden in and killed them all — having it happen one at a time was too much to bear, and it was happening to the best people too. The ones who teased him and made sport of him, like Bert and Soupy, were happy as pigs. Even Pea Eye had nearly died, and except for the Captain and himself, Pea was the last one left of the old Hat Creek outfit.
All the men were annoyed with Captain Call because he told of Gus's dying brusquely, got himself a little food and rode away to be alone, as he always did in the evening. His account was pregnant with mysteries, and the men spent all night discussing them. Why had Gus refused to have the other leg amputated, in the face of plain warnings?
"I knew a spry little fellow from Virginia who could go nearly as fast on crutches as I can on my own legs," Lippy reported. "He had two crutches, and once he got his rhythm he could skip along."
"Gus could have made a cart and got him a billygoat to pull it," Bert Borum suggested.
"Or a donkey," Needle said.
"Or his dern pigs, if they're so smart," Soupy said. Both pigs were under the wagon. Pea Eye, who slept in the wagon, had to listen to their grunts and snores all night.
Only the Irishman seemed sympathetic to Gus's stance. "Why, it would only have left half of him," he said. "Who wants to be half of himself?"
"No, half would be about the hips," Jasper calculated. "Half would be your nuts and all. Just your legs ain't half."
Dish Boggett took no part in the conversation. He felt sad about Gus. He remembered that Gus had once lent him money to visit Lorena, and this memory lent another tone to his sadness. He had supposed Gus would go back and visit Lorena, but now, clearly, he couldn't. She was there in Nebraska, waiting for Gus, who would never come.
Into his sadness came a hope that when the drive was over he could draw his wages and go back and win Lorena, after all. He could still remember her face as she sat in front of the little tent on the Kansas plains. How he had envied Gus, for Lorena would smile at Gus, but she had never smiled at him. Now Gus was dead, and Dish determined to mention to the Captain that he wanted to draw his wages and leave as soon as the drive was finished.
Lippy broke down and cried a time or two, thinking of Gus. To him, the mysterious part was why Gus wanted to be taken to Texas.
"All that way to Texas," Lippy kept saying. "He must have been drunk."
"I never seen Gus too drunk to know what he meant," Pea Eye said. He, too, was very sad. It seemed to him it would have been better if he could have persuaded Gus to come with him.
"All that way to Texas," Lippy kept saying. "I wager the Captain won't do it."
"I'll take that wager," Dish said. "He and Gus rangered together."
"And me too," Pea Eye said sadly. "I rangered with them."
"Gus won't be much but a skeleton, if the Captain does do it," Jasper said. "I wouldn't do it. I'd get to thinking of ghosts and ride off in a hole."
At the mention of ghosts, Dish got up and left the campfire. He couldn't abide the thought of any more ghosts. If Deets and Gus were both roaming around, one might approach him, and he didn't like the thought. The very notion made him white, and he pitched his bedroll as close to the wagon as he could get.
The other men continued to talk of Augustus's strange request.
"Why Texas beats me," Soupy said. "I always heard he was from Tennessee."
"I wonder what he'd have to say about being dead?" Needle said. "Gus always had something to say about everything."
Po Campo began to jingle his tambourine lightly, and the Irishman whistled sadly.
"He never collected all that money he won from us at cards," Bert remembered. "That's the bright side of the matter."
"Oh, dern," Pea Eye said, feeling so sorrowful that he wanted to die himself.
No one had to ask him what he was derning about.
98
OLD HIGH AULD soon replaced Augustus as the main talker in the Hat Creek outfit. He caught up with the herd, with his wagonload of coats and supplies, near the Missouri, which they crossed near Fort Benton. The soldiers at the tiny outpost were as surprised to see the cowboys as if they were men from another planet. The commander, a lanky major named Court, could scarcely believe his eyes when he looked up and saw the herd spread out over the plain. When told that most of the cattle had been gathered below the Mexican border he was astonished, but not too astonished to buy two hundred head. Buffalo were scarce, and the fort not well provisioned.
Call was short with Major Court. He had been short with everyone since Gus's death. Everyone wondered when he would stop going north, but no one dared ask. There had been several light snows, and when they crossed the Missouri, it was so cold that the men built a huge fire on the north bank to warm up. Jasper Fant came near to realizing his lifelong fear of drowning when his horse spooked at a beaver and shook him off into the icy water. Fortunately Ben Rainey caught him and pulled him ashore. Jasper was blue with cold; even though they covered him with blankets and got him to the fire, it was a while before he could be convinced that he was alive.
"Why, you could have waded out," Old Hugh said, astonished that a man would be frightened over such a little thing as a soaking. "If you think this water's cold now, try setting a few beaver traps around February," he added, thinking it would help the man put things in perspective.
Jasper couldn't speak for an hour. Most of the men had long since grown bored with his drowning fears, and they left him to dry out his clothes as best he could. That night, when he was warm enough to be bitter, Jasper vowed to spend the rest of his life north of the Missouri rather than cross such a stream again. Also, he had developed an immediate resentment against beavers and angered Old Hugh several times on the trip north by firing at them recklessly with his pistol if he saw some in a pond.
"Them's beaver," Old Hugh kept saying. "You trap beaver, you don't shoot 'em. A bullet will ruin the pelt and the pelt's the whole point."
"Well, I hate the little toothy sons of bitches," Jasper said. "The pelts be damned."
Call kept riding northwest until even Old Hugh began to be worried. The great line of the Rockies was clear to the west. Though Old Hugh was the scout, it was Call who rode on ahead. Once in a while Old Hugh might point out a landmark, but he was shy about offering advice. Call made it clear that he didn't want advice.
Though accustomed to his silences, none of the men could remember him being that silent. For days he didn't utter a word — he merely came in and got his food and left again. Several of the men became convinced that he didn't mean to stop — that he would lead them north into the snows and they would all freeze.
The day after they crossed the Marais, Old Dog disappeared. From being a lead steer, he had drifted back to the drags and usually trailed a mile or two behind the herd. Always he was there in the morn
ing, but one morning he wasn't. Newt and the Raineys, still in charge of the drags, went back to look for him and saw two grizzlies making a meal of the old steer. At the sight of the bears their horses bolted and raced back to the herd. Their fear instantly communicated itself to all the animals and the herd and remuda stampeded. Several cowboys got thrown, including Newt, but no one was hurt, though it took an afternoon to gather the scattered herd.
A few days later they finally came to the Milk River. It was a crisp fall day, and most of the men were wearing their new coats. The slopes of the mountains to the west were covered with snow.
"That's the last one," Old Hugh said. "You go much north of that river and you're in Canada."
Call left the herd to graze and rode east alone for a day. The country was beautiful, with plenty of grass and timber enough in the creek bottoms for building a house and corrals. He came across scattered buffalo, including one large herd. He saw plentiful Indian sign, but no Indians. It was cold but brilliantly sunny. He felt that the whole top of the Montana territory was empty except for the buffalo, the Indians and the Hat Creek outfit. He knew it was time to stop and get a house of some kind built before a blizzard caught them. He knew one could come any time. He himself paid no attention to weather, and didn't care, but there were the men to think of. It was too late for most of them to go back to Texas that fall. Like it or not, they were going to be wintering in Montana.
That night, camping alone, he dreamed of Gus. Frequently he woke up to hear Gus's voice, so real he looked around expecting to see him. Sometimes he would scarcely fall asleep before he dreamed of Gus, and it was even beginning to happen in the daytime if he rode along not paying much attention to his surroundings. Gus dead invaded his thoughts as readily as he had when he was alive. Usually he came to josh and tease, much as he had in life. "Just because you've got to the top of the country, you don't have to stop," he said, in one dream. "Turn east and keep going until you hit Chicago."
Call didn't want to turn east, but neither did he particularly want to stop. Gus's death, and the ones before it, had caused him to lose his sense of purpose to such an extent that he scarcely cared from one day to the next what he was doing. He kept on going north because it had become a habit. But they had reached the Milk River and winter was coming, so he had to break the habit or else lose most of the men and probably the cattle too.