Hard Winter Part 9

"Listen, boys." John Henry grabbed my shoulder, pulled me to his side, put his arm around me. "I didn't ride over here to start a fight. I was repping the Seven-Three Connected at the gather east of here, thought I'd pay you a visit. We're pards. You just need to know that when this fight comes, you boys need to be alongside me. On the right side. Gow's been here the longest. MacDunn's nothing but a foreigner. He don't even own this ranch. Bunch of Englishmen own it."

"Scots," Tommy whispered. "They're all Scots. Even the Gows."

"Makes no difference. You boys can help me out, though."

Wanted to say: The same way you asked Camdan Gow to help you? But I couldn't, didn't want to believe it was true. Besides, had I said it, John Henry would have strangled me.

John Henry didn't have a chance to say anything else. Lainie MacDunn walked into the bunkhouse, then, holding Treasure Island in her hand, startled to find John Henry here.

She looked away from John Henry, first to Tommy, then to me. John Henry's eyes followed hers.

"Mother would be glad to have you join us for supper," she said, but her voice was forced. "I'll tell her . . ."

"No need, Miss MacDunn. Just rode over to see how the boys are doing." His eyes gleamed. "What brings you to a bunkhouse, ma'am? I mean . . . who'd you come to see, Tommy or Jim?"

She started to stutter, and I felt my ears turn red hot.

"I'd best ride, Miss MacDunn. Just paying a social visit. Tell your ma that Mister Gow sends his regards. Be seeing you, pards."

Things were changing that fall. When we first came to the Bar DD, they told us that Mrs. MacDunn closed her school in mid-November. For us boys, just a few days after John Henry's visit, school stopped in October. Once again, the major stepped into the school, pulled every boy out who stayed at the bunkhouse. Mrs. MacDunn started to argue with him, saying that education came first, but this time she couldn't make him back down. We took the wagons loaded down with barbed wire.

First post hole we dug was at the base of Castle Reef. Fencing in the pasture. Saving gra.s.s, Ish explained. Didn't appear to be much to save, I thought, dry as it had been, but I didn't argue with him. Protecting the major's interest. Saving our future. "In the course of time," Mr. Roosevelt had said. Major MacDunn had decided the time was now.

Chapter Sixteen.

Oh, my G.o.d! Oh, my G.o.d! Oh, my G.o.d!

Huh . . . ? What? Where am . . . ? Oh. . . . It's all right, boy. I'm all right. Just a bad dream is all. Whew. Haven't had a dream like that in some twenty-five years. Don't matter what it was about. Just a nightmare. Put some wood on them coals, boy. Looks to be just a couple hours till dawn anyhow. Ain't going to go back to sleep tonight, that's certain sure.

Funny. Now I remember what happened clearly.

Stringing Jacob Haish's patented wire. Reels of devil's rope. Digging holes, pounding posts, and setting them eight to ten feet apart. Make that wire taut, Gene Hardee ordered us.

Ain't no job fitting for a cowboy to do, but we done it.

Me and Camdan Gow did most of the wire work, while Tommy and Walter Butler set the fence posts. We had a lever and a wire grab-the major had ordered some Sampson wire stretchers, but us kids didn't get to use those; they was confiscated by the grown-ups stringing wire on the other side of Castle Reef. While I stretched the wire, pulling that thing tight, Camdan nailed staples with his hammer, securing the wire to the post. Had to be st.u.r.dy, strong, braced for Angus or longhorn. Then we wrapped the wire around the corner post, nailing fence staples to hold it, pulled it to the next post, working from the top down. Tight. Tight. Tighter.

The staples we carried in cut-off boot tops, the bottoms sewed up, that we hung from our saddles. That way I told myself that we was at least working with horses. Better than what Tommy and Walter Butler was doing.

They worked from a wagon, which carried our barrels of staples, cedar posts, tools, and reels of wire. Mean-looking fence it was, too. Barbed wire had to hurt to do any good, the major said, and Original S would sure do that job. Probably even tear up hides, I thought, with terrible barbs just under two inches long, but the major said stubborn cattle had to learn things the hard way.

Wire had to hurt. . . .

Well, the posts was sharpened, pointed at one end. Like spears. So Walter and Tommy would swing a pick, dig some with these post-hole diggers, or crowbars, shovels. Get the post started. Then Tommy would climb back on the wagon, and start swinging a sixteen-pound cast-iron post maul, just start hammering that fence post deep into that hard ground. He'd have to sink a post two or three feet deep.

They was working ahead of us, a pretty far piece, and we'd come behind, stringing wire. Every so often, they'd drop another couple of reels of wire for us, then move on down with the wagon eight to ten feet, hammer in another post. You ever swung a sixteen-pound maul, boy? Work up a sweat, you will. Get to where your muscles scream in pain. But, being headstrong, Tommy wouldn't let n.o.body else do it. I volunteered often enough, but he said he didn't want to touch no barbed wire. Sounded like John Henry when he said it.

That's what we was doing.

It wasn't Walter Butler's fault. He was green at this kind of thing. Wasn't n.o.body's fault. Just an accident. I didn't see it. Busy stretching wire and holding it so Camdan could secure it to the post we was on.

Way down the fence line, Tommy dropped two reels of wire to the ground, and he and Walter started a post. Then Tommy climbed back on top of the wagon bed, lifted that maul, Walter holding the post steady. Problem is, Walter plumb forgot to set the brake on the wagon, and when Tommy swung that maul, and it hit the top of the post, the mules jumped. Can't explain it. We'd been at it all day, all week, and those mules had been hearing that sound all that time. Wouldn't figure them to be so skittish. Maybe something else frightened them. Don't rightly know for certain. But the wagon lurched, just a few feet, before the mules stopped, and Tommy, exhausted, off balance from swinging the heavy maul, fell. He flung the maul away, didn't want it to come down on him, and fell hard. Fell right on the open spool of barbed wire.

Then I heard the worst screams I ever heard.

Me and Camdan come running, found Tommy writhing on the ground, yelling. The blood. Blood just gushing.

"My eye!" he yelled. "I can't see!"

Walter just stood there, mouth open, frozen in some kind of panic.

Tommy's face had hit the reel of wire. I guess he'd pushed himself up, turning his head, ripping his ear, then fell again, using his hands to break his fall, tearing gashes in both palms.

I pried his hands off his face, pressed my own to stanch the blood.

"Oh, my G.o.d! Oh, my G.o.d! Oh, my G.o.d! Oh, my G.o.d!"

His face was a mess. Might have cracked his cheek bone from hitting so hard.

Walter started-"I didn't mean. . . ."-before he collapsed on his knees, retching.

"Oh, my G.o.d! Oh, my G.o.d! Oh, my G.o.d! Oh, my G.o.d!"

Strange. Here's the thing. All these years, all the times I've remembered-never wanted to, mind you, but couldn't forget-that incident, pieced it together. All the times, I thought it was Tommy yelling: "Oh, my G.o.d." But now I recollect. Now I hear that voice.

It was me.

I turned, saw Camdan, face whiter than a sun-bleached bone.

"Camdan!" I barked. "Fetch Gene Hardee or Ish." Both had gone to the other side of Castle Reef, directing the fencing operation there. "Tell him what happened. Tell him we need help! Now! Now! You got to go now!"

Next I ordered Walter to loosen his bandanna, hand it to me.

When he did, I wadded it up, pressed it against the worst cuts. Used my own bandanna to wrap around Tommy's head. Hoofs sounded. That was Camdan riding off. I looked down that unfinished fence line, looked up at Castle Reef, and over at the Sawtooths. Never felt so far away, so hopeless.

"Walter, I need you to help me," I said. Surprisingly calm. Then to Tommy: "Tommy, we're going to get you to the line shack. You'll be all right."

"How bad is it?" he cried. "I can't see."

Ripped off my left shirt sleeve, used it to wrap his cut hands.

"You got blood in your eyes," I told him. "That's all. You're no worser than I was when I stepped on that cactus in Texas."

It was, of course, a lie.

His left eye was gone, and that wire had laid him to the cheek bone, mangled his ear, both hands. Bad hurt, he was, but Tommy was alive.

Problem was, he didn't want to be.

Nearest doctor was in Helena or Great Falls, so they were no help. Ish Fishtorn st.i.tched Tommy up with horsehair, after we'd shaved his hair around the cuts, me and Gene Hardee holding Tommy down. None of us had any John Barleycorn to dull the pain. Nothing we could do for the eye. Once we got him st.i.tched, patched up as best as we could do in a line camp, we unloaded one of the wagons of barbed wire, and hauled Tommy in the back all the way to the Bar DD headquarters. Then, it was Lainie and Mrs. MacDunn who were crying so terribly, Lainie most of all.

Tommy wouldn't see her. Rather, he didn't want her to see him.

"I'm a monster," he told me. "A hideous monster. Cyclops."

"No, you ain't," I said.

He told me to go to h.e.l.l.

Went like that for a week, Tommy brooding, Lainie crying. Infection set in, and Major MacDunn had to cut off the remnants of Tommy's right ear. It's a miracle the rest of his wounds didn't bring him down with gangrene.

The first snow fell a week after the major had removed Tommy's ear. That's when I first noticed how peculiar Gray Boy looked. I was staring at him, when Major MacDunn came up to me, angry and mean. He whirled me around, demanded to know why I hadn't fed his two Aberdeen Angus bulls. I told him I had. He cussed me for a liar, grabbed my collar, dragged me all the way to the bulls' corral. Pressed me against the rails, then let go. I guess he could see the remnants of the hay I'd forked over.

"They have eaten it," he whispered. "All of it."

Never seen those bulls that hungry, and maybe he started to notice the same thing about those Angus as I had just noticed about Gray Boy.

Winter coats were coming on, earlier than usual, heavier. Something else struck me, and that was how silent the ranch had become. No birds. Least not so many of them. Even the ones that stayed north all winter had turned south.

"Jim?"

I jumped off the chair, spilling my coffee, and ran to Tommy's bunk. He sat propped up against the wall, his head still wrapped up like a mummy, face below the bandages pale, his one good eye red-rimmed.

"Yeah, Tommy."

"I want you to do me a favor."

"Anything. You want me to fetch you a book to read?"

"I want you to write a letter.

I didn't know how to answer.

"Tell John Henry what happened."

He held up his bandaged hands. "I can't very well write with these."

"But John Henry can't read."

"Someone will read it to him. Tell him everything."

"Lainie," I tried, "would write a whole lot better than me. I could ask. . . ."

"NO!"

I gave it to Mrs. MacDunn, because I didn't know how one went about posting a letter, especially at the Bar DD. Smiling sweet but sad, she said she'd take care of it. I told her I'd pay whatever it cost, and she just nodded, and I left her.

Started back for the bunkhouse, but Lainie stopped me.

"How is Tommy?" she asked.

"He's mending. Some."

"Why doesn't he let me help him?" Her lips started trembling. I wanted to be long gone before she started bawling.

"You got to give Tommy some time, Lainie. He's prideful.

Shames him to be hurt and . . ."

"It's my father's fault! He and . . ."

"It ain't n.o.body's fault. Just an accident. Could have happened to any one of us."

"But . . . it . . . happened to Tommy. . . ."

She started sobbing something awful. I couldn't leave her like that, so I come up to her, pulled her to me. Let her cry on my shoulder, all the while telling her that Tommy would be fine.

That was another lie.