High Rider Part 7

TEN.

Best not to fool with me about snakes.

Tom Lynch had provided John with a good saddle, but a mediocre horse that no self-respecting drover would have been happy with. A week into the drive, John went to Lynch and requested a better mount. Perhaps thinking that he could shut John up, Lynch pointed to a horse in the remuda known to have a mean streak. "You ride that one and it's yours." John rode it to a standstill without any difficulty, amazing everyone, including the trail boss. He always enjoyed the accolades that such feats invariably brought, but it was the acceptance, the subsequent invitation into the white circle, that he cherished most. Later, as they pa.s.sed by Helena, Montana, one of the point men quit, and Lynch asked John to take his place. It was the end of peeling potatoes and riding night herd, but he knew it would not be the end of having to prove himself. Whenever he was among a new group of white men who did not know him, he had to start all over again.

The outfit crossed the border into Canada and the District of Alberta, where officials counted 3,014 head of cattle and 10 purebred bulls. When they reached the Highwood River, about forty miles southwest of Calgary, John was glad he had allowed Duffy to talk him into joining the drive. It was as pretty a landscape as he'd ever laid eyes on and he doubted he'd be Texas-bound anytime soon.

Back at the Lost River, the name North West Cattle Company, the owner of the herd, had sounded grandiose to John. He had pictured a large ranch house with several outbuildings on a wide prairie, something like the Flint Springs Cattle Company. Instead, it was a solitary log cabin nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, in the shallow valley cut by Pekisko Creek, a tributary of the Highwood River. Nonetheless, it was a beautiful setting, with the cottonwoods fronting the creek in full fall colour, the drooping willows, and the Rockies, with snow creeping down their flanks, as a western backdrop.

The boss was Fred Stimson, a loud man in his forties with an impressive set of black mutton chop whiskers. He had a deep, abiding love for the sound of his own voice, and it was sometimes hard to fit a word in edgeways once he got started. He hailed from Quebec, where his family owned a farm with cattle, so he had more experience with the vagaries of the creatures than most men. When his father died and left him a quarter interest in the farm, he sold it for twenty-five thousand dollars and decided that the West was a good place to reinvest it. Now he needed ranch hands and asked Lynch if any of his drovers who were not moving on were worth keeping.

"The Negro," Lynch replied. "His name is John Ware and he's got a way with horses and cattle that I've not seen the likes of before. You don't want to let him get away." Lynch had not recommended Duffy, though, saying, "He's a good friend of Ware's with lots of experience, but he might be getting a little long in the tooth to give you the mileage you're looking for."

Lynch and Stimson called John over and Stimson offered him twenty-five dollars a month to stay on.

"Does the same offer go for Duffy?"

"I hadn't considered it," was Stimson's reply.

John looked at Lynch, then at Stimson. "Well, sir, I reckon it needs considerin'. I been his partner for too many years to stay on without him. He goes, and I'll be ridin' alongside him."

John had never heard Lynch laugh as loudly as he did then, no doubt remembering a similar stipulation in Pocatello. He said to Stimson, "I've been down this road before, Fred, and was glad I took it. My guess is that you won't regret taking it either."

And so John and Duffy went to work for Stimson, who was part owner and manager of the North West Cattle Company and the Bar U brand. But the truth was, Duffy was getting older and feeling it too, a little sorer from long days in the saddle and a little stiffer from sleeping on the ground. Yet he was not about to admit it to anyone, least of all John, who had the strength and appet.i.te of two men, though he did not move all that fast because of his size. Duffy could at least keep pace with his friend, which suited both of them.

In the spring, Stimson would have the herd burned with the Bar U brand, but for now, their temporary trail brand was wearing thin, and unbranded cattle on open range were up for grabs. So John and Duffy's first job was to prevent the herd from mingling with another large herd that had followed them up from Montana and was pa.s.sing through to a more northerly range along the Bow River. When the friends saw that herd of four thousand, more than a mile long, amble past their own charges, they knew they were in on the beginning of something big. Adding to that impression was the gra.s.s that billowed in every direction beneath a vast, blue sky uncluttered by clouds.

"It sorta takes the longin' for Texas out of a man, don't it?" John asked.

"Texas?" Duffy replied. "The name sounds vaguely familiar. Seems to me I mighta been there once but I don't fully recollect it."

Their job done, they returned to the ranch with the hot fall sun beating down on their shoulders, as it did for the next few days, deluding a man into thinking that he was living in paradise. But they went to bed one night after a warm evening that had seen a glorious sunset of pinks and oranges draped like a lush stole over the shoulders of the Rockies, and awoke to snow on the ground, brought on the back of a furious north wind.

Stimson knew that the cattle would turn their rumps to the wind and drift until it abated. "If it blows long enough and hard enough, those d.a.m.ned beasts could end up back in Montana." He sent the men out to turn the herd, which had already broken up into smaller units as cattle are sometimes p.r.o.ne to do. But the wind was too fierce and the snow too stinging, and the cattle refused to turn. They plodded on, southward. The men had to separate and, afraid of getting lost in the storm, soon gave up. One by one, they fought their way back to the safety and warmth of the cabin.

Unaware of what the others were up to, John continued following a few hundred head, determined not to lose them to the storm. The more he tried to turn them, the more they wanted to disperse into even smaller groups. He figured he might as well let them drift and keep them all together. When the wind abated, he managed to hold them in the relative shelter of a draw where there was still gra.s.s poking through the snow. But a savage wind rose again and bit at the herd until they moved on. John felt frozen to the core, and his hands, in summer leather gloves, were so stiff he would not have been surprised if his fingers had broken off into little chips of ice. And to make matters worse, a huge gust of wind blew off his Boss of the Plains hat. He watched it somersault away until it disappeared in the slanting snowfall. He had been in worse winds and could not believe that it was gone. He lamented its loss, and memories of the Coles and Texas flooded his mind. It was as if the wind had severed his last physical connection to them. He wished at that instant to be back in the South, out of this brutal weather. But since that kind of thinking gets a man nowhere, he took his blanket out of his bedroll, wrapped it around his head and shoulders, and focused on the cattle. They were his responsibility now, every one of them.

For two days, the storm roared and kept the herd on the move. John had no idea how far they had gone. He dozed in the saddle and tried to ignore the hunger rumbling in his gut. Parts of his face had gone numb and he thought it might be from frostbite. He pulled the blanket up higher, leaving only a narrow gap to see through. On the morning of the third day, the wind weakened, patches of blue appeared in the sky, and the herd stopped. The drifts were two feet deep but enough gra.s.s showed in the sheltered areas that the cattle were able to eat.

John dismounted, so stiff he could barely move. He swung his arms to get some warmth into his body, pumped his legs up and down, and broke into a prolonged jig until he had enough movement in his limbs to gather wood and build a fire. While collecting windfall in a nearby copse, he spotted a deer, a small buck. He returned to his horse, slid his rifle from its scabbard, and, with a lucky shot, brought the animal down. Once he got a good fire blazing, he retrieved the deer, slit open its belly, and stuck his hands inside to warm them. Then he cut out the liver. He was so hungry that he considered eating it raw but instead seared it on the fire, his stomach in knots with the wait. After he had eaten his fill, he was so weary, he could barely keep his eyes open. He built the fire even bigger, got the rest of his bedroll, wrapped himself in it like a mummy, and slept.

He awoke to something prodding him. Pulling back his blanket and tarp, he saw Duffy and Fred Stimson standing over him. His face ached where the frost had penetrated it.

"Figgered you for dead," said Duffy. "You look dead."

"I can't be," John groaned as he moved. "Far as I know there ain't no pain in bein' dead."

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it, John!" Stimson exclaimed. "You should have left the herd and headed back to the ranch house like everybody else! You could've got yourself killed!"

"Thought of that many times, boss, but I didn't want those beeves to get lost and maybe end up with someone else's brand on 'em. Figgered you might appreciate it if I stayed close."

Stimson shook his head in disbelief and grat.i.tude. "Appreciate it? Without a doubt. Expect it? Not in the least."

Later he told Duffy, "d.a.m.ned if Lynch wasn't right. I'm glad I listened to him. That man is one of kind, and I've at least got to buy him a new hat."

Stimson did exactly that on his first trip into Calgary, a Boss of the Plains like the one John had lost.

John stayed around the ranch house until his face healed, then he and Duffy spent the rest of the winter leading an ox-drawn sledge with hay for the herd. After the lovely fall, the sudden onslaught of winter had taken the district by surprise and people had to get used to its ferocious persistence. By the time spring rolled around, many of the Bar U cattle lay dead, and most of the herd up along the Bow River had been wiped out.

"Remember that Texas place you talked about?" Duffy said to John. "The one I said I couldn't recollect too good? Well, it's all comin' back to me now."

Spring found them on a roundup along the Oldman River, some fifty miles south of the ranch, because that was how far the storm had pushed the cattle. Like Duffy, Stimson, and Lynch, the rest of the crew were old cattle hands, although new to John. Some had been wary of him until his plunge over the cutbank into the river on Mustard, the "f.u.c.ker of a bucker" that no one else could ride, had brought them onside. Or so he thought.

One day, he reached for the horn of his saddle to mount up and his hand landed on a dead snake some prankster had looped around the horn like a lariat. He jumped back in shock and tripped and fell, cursing. It was only a large bull snake, but that did not matter. It was a snake and it had its usual effect on John. He was determined to find out who had committed the prank and confronted every man in the outfit. No one admitted to it. Duffy had no idea who might have done it, but his fear of snakes was almost as deep-seated as John's, so he was not a suspect. John was incensed and let everyone know it.

"I ain't afraid of nothin' except snakes," he told them, his eyes. .h.i.tting hard on theirs. "I hate 'em, even dead ones. Somebody's had a good laugh on me, but I'm warnin' all of you, I don't find it funny. Neither will the man who did it if I get my hands on him. Best not to fool with me about snakes."

None of the crew was bold enough to scoff at the warning or ridicule what to many of them was an irrational fear.

Practical jokes were common on trail drives and roundups, but that spring they all seemed directed at John. One morning someone hid his saddle, as well as the spares, so he had to ride bareback all day, and one night his bedroll disappeared while he'd gone to relieve himself. A few days before the end of the roundup, he was bedding down next to Stimson's floorless tent, which the manager shared with a cattleman named George Emerson. John preferred to sleep under the stars when the weather was nice, as did a couple of the others. He spread out his bedroll, went to relieve himself, came back, and climbed into bed. He had just managed to get comfortable when he felt movement against his back, like something trying to get out from under him. In his mind it could be only one thing-a snake! He shot out of his bedroll, fumbling for his pistol. At that point, he noticed a rope being pulled out from under his tarp and sliding into Stimson's tent. He jammed his gun back in its holster and in two quick steps was at the front of the canvas shelter. He grabbed it with both hands and yanked it away from its occupants, throwing it to the ground. Stimson and Emerson were sitting up, with silly grins on their faces, and John saw the rope coiled on Emerson's lap.

"I told you . . ." he yelled, lunging for Emerson, who raised his arms to fend off the attack. John had meant to grab the prankster, haul him up, and punch him. Instead, he tripped over Emerson's feet and went sprawling on top of him, banging his mouth on Emerson's head. He felt a tooth pierce his lip, heard Stimson shout, "John!" and felt the cold barrel of a gun against his temple.

"Back off! Back off! G.o.dd.a.m.n it, John, don't make me shoot you!" Stimson warned.

There was a tremor in his voice and John did not know whether that meant Stimson would pull the trigger or not, but he obeyed. He was angry, but not so much that he was willing to die over it.

"For G.o.d's sake, John, it was a joke! That's all. Just a joke," the manager said.

John got to his feet but Stimson kept the gun trained on him. "I told you, those kinda jokes ain't funny, and I'd punch the next man who pulled one on me." He said to Emerson, "Get on your feet and we'll settle this like men."

Stimson waved his gun. "I'll be the only one settling matters here, John."

Duffy came over and threw his arm around his friend's shoulders. "Come on, John. Leave it be. This won't get you nowhere." He tried to steer John away, but John broke from his grip and faced Stimson.

"I'm done here. You get yourself another n.i.g.g.e.r boy to play with. I'll be out to the ranch next week to collect my pay."

"No need to be rash about this, John." Stimson was still sitting up in his bedroll, although his gun was no longer pointing at John. "You'll see it better in the morning light. George was just having a little fun."

"Maybe so, but it's always me you're playin' with to have your fun, and I ain't n.o.body's toy."

Amid Duffy's protestations, John collected his bedroll and tack, and stalked to the remuda. Saddling his horse, he ignored the night wrangler's query about where he was going, and rode off, disappearing like a ghost in the star-filling dusk. He had not gone far before he heard a rider trotting up behind and Duffy joined him. They rode side by side in silence for several minutes in the descending darkness. Duffy was the first to speak.

"Fred's kickin' himself back there. He don't wanna lose you."

"Then I reckon he's smart enough to figger out what to do about it."

"I'd be surprised if he wasn't workin' on that right now."

John considered Duffy's words, trying to subdue his frustrations. "Well, it never shoulda been a job that needed doin' in the first place, Duff. I don't ask for nothin' I ain't worked hard to earn and that includes respect. It don't seem right that I always have to work harder than everyone else to get it."

"It surely don't, brother. And it don't seem right that a lotta folks born with a white skin somehow think it's a better colour than yours. It's a G.o.dd.a.m.ned impossible notion to me. But throwin' a fit and runnin' off ain't worth a pinch of c.o.o.n s.h.i.t either. Sounds like you're whinin' and that ain't a bit like you."

Mulling over Duffy's words, John said nothing.

Duffy added, "Could be that they was pickin' on you so's you'd know you belonged."

"That's a funny way of showin' it."

"That it is. But like the Devil, a man's admiration for another man comes in many disguises."

John decided that he would not return to the Bar U, at least not right away. When he went to collect his pay, Stimson apologized for allowing the pranks to get out of hand and offered John a five dollar a month raise to return. John was tempted to stay, because he was beginning to believe that maybe Duffy was right, that perhaps flattery and admiration actually did hide behind different masks. But he felt in need of a change, and it wouldn't hurt to stay the course in order to let everybody know that he, like Lynch, was not a man to fool with.

John shook his head. "I took work somewhere else for a while, Fred. Maybe in the fall."

Stimson looked off into the distance. "The offer might not be good in the fall, John."

But John didn't hear much conviction in the manager's voice. He looked at Stimson, holding his eyes. "Well, that may be, but it ain't in me to accept right now."

He was about to mount up and depart when Tom Lynch hailed him. His old trail boss was with George Emerson and the pair came over.

"Glad I caught you, John," said Lynch. "George and I are heading to Montana to bring back another herd and wondered if you'd care to join us."

George nodded in agreement. "First thing, John, I owe you an apology. It was me who coiled that dead snake on your saddle and me who put the rope under your bedroll. It was a d.a.m.ned fool thing to do and I regret it. When it comes to a good horse or a good man, colour doesn't mean a thing. And you're a good man. I know that." He offered his hand to reinforce his sincerity.

"Well, I mighta overreacted some," John admitted, taking Emerson's hand, "but when it comes to snakes, I ain't never been shy about lettin' my feelin's show. Anyway, if a man takes the time to apologize, I ain't one to deny it. Much obliged." To Lynch, he smiled and said, "I appreciate the offer, but I found the country that's gonna be my home and I ain't leavin' it. Not even for a little while."

He mounted up, touched the brim of his hat, and rode off. He did not know if Lynch and Emerson believed him when he said he was never leaving Alberta, but he had never spoken truer words. He would have his own ranch here one day, of that he was certain. He would have a wife, too, although of that he was less certain. The country was not exactly crowded with black folks-in fact, he had yet to see another one-which made him a bit of an oddity. But maybe Calgary held the solution to that problem, and he decided that it wouldn't hurt to make a trip there one day to see if it harboured any similar oddities of the female kind.

He took work, with a couple of other men, digging a long irrigation ditch near the town arising at the Highwood River crossing. The hours were long and the labour hard, but it at least relieved the stiffness in his large frame, put there by long hours in the saddle. He also discovered that he felt lonesome not being around Duffy, so he rode out to the Bar U from time to time for a visit, and Duffy would come to the crossing. They found a comfort in each other's company that was not available in other men.

Astonished, John watched, with the knowledge that his decision to stay in Alberta was the correct one, as herd after herd poured into the country. By summer's end, there were more than twenty thousand cattle in the district. The word was that many more herds were expected. It seemed he was not the only one bent on making these prairies and foothills home.

He stayed away from the budding town and also from Calgary, saving his pay. He returned to the Bar U in the fall, rejoining Duffy, who was happier than anybody with his return. There were friendly nods from the other ranch hands who knew him, even a "good to see you back" from one man. Fred Stimson showed his pleasure by making good on his promise of a raise.

ELEVEN.

Some things are worth holdin' on to in a man's memory.

The Bar U Ranch had fallen into a predictable rhythm of work-buildings rising from the earth, corrals and fences built. In the fall, the crew gathered hay for winter feed and moved the herd to a closer pasture. During the winter, hay had to be taken to it and ice broken in the ponds so that the animals would have water to drink. It could be rough work when it was forty below, and only those with hardier dispositions stayed on. In the spring, the roundup began again, the cycle repeated itself, and another year pa.s.sed.

During the summer of 1884, John took some time away from the ranch and went with Duffy and a couple of friends to look for gold. There were rumours of a lost mine somewhere in the foothills, and John and the others were no different from prospectors the world over: they set off in search of a lost treasure, believing they could find it. But after a summer of traipsing up and down creeks and rivers, they had to admit defeat. It was not a complete waste of time for John, though. The foothills became lovelier as they rose into mountains, and Alberta impressed itself even deeper on his mind. It became part of him as he had become part of it.

After his return from prospecting, he rode into Calgary to make a homestead claim. While ranchers used thousands of acres of land for grazing their cattle, they leased it from the government and did not own it. The railroad from the east to the west coast was near completion, and the government was encouraging settlers to the North-West Territory by offering homestead rights on rangeland. Most of the ranchers opposed this, but their complaints went unheeded. John paid ten dollars and claimed a homestead west of the Highwood River crossing.

He left the government office not feeling anywhere near as buoyant as he should have. The frigid reception he had received from the clerk disturbed him, as did the cold stares and snide comments made by pa.s.sersby. The atmosphere made him shiver. He discovered what was going on from a man who stopped and warned him that he would do well to get his "black hide" out of town without delay. It was not welcome in Calgary and could be downright dangerous for the man wearing it.

"Why's that?" asked John. "I ain't been in town long enough to have offended anyone."

"It's not so much you, personally," the tobacco-chewing stranger sneered. "It's your kind."

"My kind? What'd my kind ever do to you?"

"Your kind are heartless, murdering devils. Your kind took a good man from us, slit his throat wide open over at McKelvie's store. We just hung him for it. Our first n.i.g.g.e.r hanging, and with any luck at all, the last one."

The news and the vitriolic nature of the encounter stunned John. At the crossing and at Fort McLeod, where the spring roundups began, the townsfolk and his fellow cowboys treated him with respect and in some cases showed deference because of his enviable skills. But the only thing Calgarians noticed when he entered their town was his black skin. To them, it was no different from the one they'd strung up for murder, a hanging that must have taken place while he was roaming the foothills, because this was the first he'd heard of it.

Wanting to avoid trouble, he did not linger in town. But he wondered about the killing. Was the black man the real culprit? Because this was not the South, he supposed there must have been witnesses. Perhaps it was a violent reaction by a man fed up with others denying him the right to buy food for his table. Granted, that was no cause to take another human being's life, but if it was the last insult heaped on an ever-growing pile . . . Some men might snap under the onerous weight.

He told Duffy about his experience and his concerns, but his friend was optimistic. "I wouldn't take it too much to heart, John. Word'll eventually spread up there about the kind of man you are and life'll get better. Wait and see."

"The only way it'll get worse is if they lynch me for somethin' I didn't do."

"That ain't gonna happen. There's law and order in this country."

"Well, from what I heard up in Calgary, the law is pretty quick to order a hangin'."

John chose a good building site on his claim, about a half mile back from the river, and he and Duffy cut several poplar trees upstream, trimmed them, lashed them together into a raft, and poled them to where they could be hauled to the site with a horse. They had four tiers of logs up when Fred Stimson sent word that he would appreciate their presence back at the Bar U for the fall roundup and work over the winter. It meant more dollars saved toward his ranching future, so John accepted, as did Duffy.

The roundup and winter pa.s.sed uneventfully, but spring ambled in bringing trouble. In late March, near the tiny village of Duck Lake, some five hundred miles to the northeast, a skirmish between half-breeds and the police left a dozen men dead. It did not come as a surprise. Word of a possible uprising along the North and South Saskatchewan Rivers had been in the rumour mills for some time. Then Cree Indians, members of Big Bear's band, ma.s.sacred nine civilians at Frog Lake, which was a bit closer to home, and the entire territory was on alert. Government soldiers were on their way from the east, while a local rancher mustered a force in Calgary.

John considered enlisting but Stimson advised against it. He did not think it prudent for all the able-bodied men in the area to be absent. Several horses had been stolen and cattle killed recently, the meat cut away cleanly with knives rather than torn out as a predatory animal would do, raising concerns that the local Indians could not be trusted. To deal with these problems, Stimson organized John and several others into a militia referred to as Stimson's Rangers. Members received government rifles, and their job, in addition to ranching duties, was to patrol the area and keep it clear of Indians. Meanwhile, all the women in the area sought the safety of the mounted police fort in Calgary.

John patrolled but never ran into any real trouble. Whenever he or the authorities thought Indians were within threatening distance of the cattle, he ordered them to move on, back to their reserves. When one small band refused, John offered encouragement by throwing his la.s.so over the top of their teepee and pulling it down. He dragged it off a hundred yards in the direction he wanted them to go. Sullen and angry, the band moved on.

The need for such tactics was rare. John's presence usually provided the incentive for the Indians to obey. His size and black skin were mysterious to them, and they believed he might have special powers. Anyone who was not an Indian was by default a white man, so they called him the "bad black white man." John could not have cared less what they called him. He did not think much of the Indians, especially the men, whom he considered lazy, spending most of their time sitting around talking while the women did all the work.

Meanwhile, battles between government soldiers and the half-breeds and Indians flared up along the North and South Saskatchewan Rivers, but by May, the rebellion was over, with government forces victorious. Life in the territory eased back to normal, and John and Duffy rode to Fort McLeod to join the spring roundup.