The Way West Part 11

"Sure."

"Bow and arrows!"

"Bow loads faster'n an iron."

"One rifle shot," Brownie said to Mr. Tadlock, "and you're done. Time you load up, them critters'll be four days gone."

They rode away, leaving Mr. Tadlock mouthing, "Bow and arrows?" They splashed across the Platte and came upwind toward the herd, riding slow. There was a mist of dust over the buffalo, raised by the stepping feet and the pawings of bulls. Underneath the mist the humps ran like waves as far as a man could see, and now on the near edge the waves heaved around, and hot eyes showed and low-held horns.

d.i.c.k said, "Ready?"

The horses sprang to full speed, the hunters silent yet, and the waves washed one way and another, and came to be parts of one great wave that flowed away as if a dam had broken.

The old bulls were the last to get going. They watched out of their dull and angry eyes and turned and broke into a clumsy gallop and turned again as if they had a mind to charge.

A yell broke out of d.i.c.k's throat, wild and strange as any war whoop, and Brownie matched it and drummed the ribs of his horse with his heels and came among the bulls and saw an opening and raced through it while the bulls hooked at him, too late. The horns clattered like a canebrake in a wind. The ground rolled up in a thick dust, hiding d.i.c.k, hiding the herd except for the bobbing rumps of the cows right ahead. The hoofs made a thunder in the head.

Brownie dropped his looped reins and took the arrow that he had popped into his teeth and notched it to his bow. His arm pulled it back to the head and let it go, and it sank out of sight in a fat cow. The cow slowed and stumbled and was lost behind.

Five cows he killed, five fat cows while the herd fanned out. He pulled up, his horse in a lather of sweat, and squinted through the dust for d.i.c.k.

He saw him at last, saw him hard after a cow that ran with two others and a bull and a calf, and then he saw the horse stumble and pitch over and d.i.c.k slammed hard on the ground.

d.i.c.k lay there, not moving, and the bull stopped and glared and pawed the ground and started for him.

There wasn't time to think. Brownie kicked his horse and felt him lunge and reached for an arrow while he stuck to the saddle like a bur. It was close, close as a crack, the bull right on d.i.c.k and the arrow drawn its full length, aimed dead at the heart. The bowstring hummed like a string on Hig's fiddle.

The bull fell a foot from d.i.c.k, the blood foaming from his mouth. d.i.c.k looked up. He wasn't hurt bad from the fall but only weak and winded. He said, "Half of stayin' alive is pickin' your pardner."

They rode into camp, while the men and women looked at them wide-eyed. One of the pair of eyes belonged to Mercy McBee, who stood a little to one side. They had been dancing, that was it. Mercy and the Patches and the Byrds and Mr. Mack and Botter and some of the rest had been dancing while Hig sawed on his fiddle and the music of it rose thin but brave in the empty land. Now they all stopped and looked, and one of the lookers was Mercy McBee, who dropped Mr. Mack's hand while the hunters rode by. A little smile touched her mouth, of wonderment and pride. He didn't smile back. He rode soberfaced, which was fitting to a man in such a case. All the same he guessed she knew how it was beginning to be with him.

"We'll need buffalo chips, Brownie, and if you could milk it would help your ma."

"Don't be askin' him to milk," Ma said, shaking her head at Pa.

"I don't aim for you to take it so hard."

"Milkin's nothing. It's the jolts and all."

Brownie said, "All right," and pulled the saddle from old Nellie and laid it by the wagon. Rock came over and took a sniff of the damp horse blanket and looked up as if asking what was doing next.

The wagons had drawn their night circle, and most of the oxen had been unyoked and driven out to graze. Around the wagons men and women were working, pulling out boxes and fixing to set up tents and to make fires.

Pa came over to where Brownie stood. "I wouldn't get mortified. It's the same fix with everybody."

"I milked before."

"It ain't milkin'. I'm talkin' about the chips."

"I said all right, Pa."

"It's just that it's new that bothers you. Do it awhile and you'll think nothing to it." Pa put his big hand on Brownie's shoulder. It felt warm and solid. The smile on his face was inquiring, as if trying to see through to the Brownie that lived inside.

"It don't trouble me," Brownie said, but he didn't look at Pa. He looked at Ma, who was digging kettles out of a box.

"If you mind, I'll do it, and you can set up the tent."

Brownie shook his head. There wasn't any way out of it but to gather up buffalo chips. It shamed him to do it, but it would shame him more to show his shame to Pa. He had a lead rope on Nellie. He would take her over to where the herd was grazing and pick up some chips on the way back and maybe not be seen but by a few.

It was troublesome, to be ashamed of shame but to be ashamed just the same, and not just about buffalo chips, either. Here on the naked Platte there wasn't a bush to stand or squat behind. People couldn't build a brush arbor as they did at camp meetings. And, for fear of Indians, they couldn't walk out of sight. They did the best they could. Some of the women had chamber pots inside the wagons. Some hadn't and sometimes were caught sudden along the way. Or a rider would get off his horse and stand on the off side and make out to be idling or sizing up the country, but the cant of his head and the slope of his shoulders would give him away.

They thought up a system, the women did, and morning, noon, and night a bunch of them would trail off a piece, and the up-standing ones would make a shield for the others while the menfolks around the wagons made out to be so busy they didn't know what was going on.

Brownie took the rope and set off with Nellie. Maybe there wasn't anyone, he thought, as mortified as he was, and not just when it came to himself and his business, either. It struck him as ugly -the women making their shield, the men standing behind horses, the young ones squatting almost anywhere. When he thought about it, the feeling of goodness in him drew off.

He untied the rope from Nellie and turned her with the rest and wound the rope around his waist and knotted the ends, so's to have his arms free for gathering.

The chips ripped up, pulling loose from the whitened gra.s.s beneath. There were bugs under the chips, little scuttlers of gray and black that ran seeking among the stems when the roof was lifted from over their heads. He would have watched them, except that he would be seen watching. He cuffed old Rock, who made a show of himself by coming close and looking, curious as a chicken, whenever a chip was raised.

Other people were working, too, young ones, like the strawhaired Brewer girl and her two brothers, and Joe Turley and Jeff Byrd and John Shields and Harry Gorham and two or three of the Daughertys. Some of the men didn't have a family and so had to do for themselves, like old Brother Weatherby, who said people shouldn't complain but praise G.o.d that, anyhow, there were chips to make fires with. Brother Weatherby gathered up the chips slow and sober, maybe saying a prayer to himself while he did it.

The land lay quiet. The only sound Brownie could hear, except for the ring of distance and the little commotions of camp, was the tearing sound of chips being pulled from the gra.s.s. The sun was half sunk, as if just letting itself peek at what was going on. Then the children got to playing, throwing chunks of manure at one another and yelling shrill until the old folks called from the wagons and told them to get busy.

Brownie picked up one chip and another and another. They were thick here. Buffalo chips meant buffalo -and not so far away now, d.i.c.k Summers said. For two days the train had kept crossing trails from the bluffs down to the river, trails as wide as the span of two hands and worn deep as a fist and as smooth as a spade could cut. Bones lay around, too, skulls and leg bones and ribs, some of them set in circles or half-moons and splashed with paint, by the p.a.w.nees, d.i.c.k said.

He picked up more chips, looking at n.o.body, and after a while had an armful and stood straight, and there was Mercy McBee not five steps away, and she hadn't seen him, either, and so stood surprised, holding half an armful. Underneath the pile, Brownie could see the small fingers bent around.

She didn't speak, or turn her eyes down, either, but the blood climbed slow in her cheeks.

He couldn't think of anything to say. He felt heat in his own face and knew it was red, too, but still he looked at her, seeing the dark eyes and the face framed with hair that the wind had blown wild. He had a sudden, crazy wanting to reach out and touch her as a person might touch a small, scared thing, making up to it with the gentle hand. It was as if at the touch the two of them would melt into understanding that wiped away shame, into tenderness that went without words.

He said, "I reckon I got a load."

She looked down and bent a little and a crumb of the dried manure fell from under her hand and caught on her faded dress and stuck there.

The words he had said beat back on him, the empty, clumsy words, and he saw himself as if he stood outside, saw himself gawky, big-handed and big-footed, with the pale fine sprouts of new whiskers on his face, saw himself unproved and likely cowardly, lost in fool dreams.

He took two steps and wrenched around and said, "I could do it for you."

Her glance came up in a quick, liquid look that he couldn't understand.

"I'd be pleasured to."

"I can do it all right." She turned without thanking him. She walked away and stopped and stooped, somehow pitiful and somehow dignified, and fingered for a cow dab.

Of a sudden, while he dared to watch, he understood something about her, seeing in his mind's eye old Hank McBee and his dirty whiskers and the thin oxen, hitched along with an old roan horse, that pulled the McBee wagon, and with the wagon Mrs. McBee and her loud brood and a coop of messy chickens.

He could imagine now that a snake had been by her, a rattlesnake that someway didn't rattle, and he had seen the ugly head rise from the gra.s.s, unseen by her, and the dirty coil of it close by her ankle, and, without thought for himself, he had leaped forward and smashed the head under his heel.

He jumped and came to himself and found he was on the way to the wagon, the heel of one big foot ground into the dirt and old Rock looking queerly at him, but still he talked to her saying, "Mercy! Mercy!"

In his dream she came to him, came tenderly, with the shimmer of tears in her eyes, and put her mouth on his and rested soft in his arms -and he felt the animal rising in him, eager and pushful, and was ashamed of his coa.r.s.eness.

Chapter Twelve.

TADLOCK STOOD at the side of his second wagon. "Martin," he said sharply, looking underneath. "You, Martin!"

He straightened, waiting for an answer, suspecting already that something was wrong. Not once, in more than a month on the road, had Martin lain abed after the sentinels had fired their four-o'clock volley.

"Martin!"

Dawn was firing the east, far down the shallow valley of the Platte, and here and there the waters of the river glowed to it, like puddles under the moon, but here the night lay dusky, licked by the little fires people had commenced to make. The smell of camp smoke, of dung or wood igniting to punk and powder struck by flint and steel, came sharp to his nostrils.

"Martin!" He couldn't make out the man, but only the gray hump of him under the piece of wagon sheet that Martin used for cover or tent, depending on whether the night looked fair or stormy.

Tadlock stooped and caught the corner of the sheet and pulled it, calling out again. "What's wrong here?"

The hump moved then. It lurched and settled back and a voice came out of it. "I'm sick. Jesus!"

"Get out from there, then. We'll have to make you a bed in one of the wagons."

Tadlock got no answer to that. He imagined Martin thinking it over, asking himself weakly, in the manner of an indisposed woman, whether he was strong enough for the day. In sharp annoyance he said, "You were all right last night. You stood your turn at guard."

He flicked the ground with the whip he carried. d.a.m.n the luck! Here they were at Brady's Island, within striking distance of the forks of the Platte, and the road was good and buffalo were plenty and the weather fair enough, and now a man had to get sick. The suspicion came to him again, while the dawn drew on and the itch to get going grew in him, that Martin was pretending to be sicker than he was. Some people would exaggerate a mere indisposition, especially if they wanted to turn back, especially if they had listened too long to weak talk about Indians and hardships. The train never camped but that someone, like Turley or his wife or one of the Byrds, began crying about dangers.

Dangers! They'd hardly met a one. They had had a stampede, and Mack, like the fool Tadlock told him that he was, had .shot a scrawny Indian. Later a delegation from the Kaws had called about the killing, but he as captain had handled them all right. He had outfaced the bunch and sent them packing, without so much as one twist of tobacco to soothe their scurvy feelings. For the rest, they hadn't seen a p.a.w.nee, a Cheyenne, or a Sioux. They'd made all the crossings safely. And, until now, no one had been sick, barring a mild flux or a stomachache.

"We'll get a bed fixed. You crawl out of there." Tadlock turned and walked part way round the circle, raising his whip when people spoke to him. His own wagons were so laden that he couldn't spread a decent bed without transferring part of the contents. He would consult Mack about that. He came first, though, to the Evans fire and on impulse stopped there, nodding to Evans and his wife and d.i.c.k Summers. The Evans boy, Tadlock guessed, had gone out to help gather up the stock.

''Little nippy this morning," Evans said, hitching his shoulders.

"We've got a sick man."

"Who?"

''Martin."

"What ails him?" Tadlock shrugged.

"How sick?" Evans asked.

Tadlock shrugged again. "I'm going to rig a bed."

Summers took the pipe from his mouth and held it in front of him and blew a cloud of smoke around it. The action irritated Tadlock. It was typical of the man, as if the train had all of time to consider one case of sickness. He searched for words to describe Summers. Undisciplined. Unsystematic. Accustomed to living without purpose, like a savage. "We'll roll out on time," he told Summers pointedly. "We can't hold up for one man."

Mrs. Evans was sc.r.a.ping out the pans they'd eaten from. "Lije," she said, "you better have a look."

Summers' gray eyes, appearing almost white against the backdrop of dawn, slid to her in an expression of approval and regard.

"Well, you can see for yourselves," Tadlock said.

"Uh-huh," Evans answered mildly. He stood up, looming big, a close, solid shadow among the shadows that were lifting to the west. Tadlock felt for him the impatience that he might have felt for a child. A slow-going, slow-witted man, Evans was, competent but without force. Tadlock found himself wondering whether the man ever lost his temper, ever came to a decision without guidance from his wife or Summers. "Come on then."

Summers knocked the heel from his pipe and got up, too.

"Don't you reckon you'd best take some medicine, Lije?" Mrs. Evans asked, and Evans nodded and went to the tail of his wagon and, after what seemed a long time to Tadlock, came back with a box.

Martin lay as before, except that now he could be seen, the hair untidy on his head, the whiskers gray and stubbled on his lank face.

The three of them bent over, like three hens, Tadlock thought, at the sight of a strange bug.

"What's the matter, hoss?" Summers asked.

"Come on out, Martin!" Tadlock ordered. "We can't doctor you there, or get you in a wagon bed, either." He tugged at the wagon cover.

Martin opened his eyes and lay staring up at the underside of the wagon. He licked his mouth and said, "Jesus!"

"Come on!" Tadlock saw that Martin's face was flushed and his eyes feverish, but still it was in him to say, "You can't be that sick, man."

Summers said, "Reckon he knows better'n you."

"I'll handle this." While Tadlock spoke Martin moved. He got himself over on his belly and raised to all fours and came crawling out, stumbling on the wagon sheet that trailed with him. When he was out, he let himself go flat again.

"Acts bad off," Evans said.

"He won't feel any worse in a wagon," Tadlock told him.

Summers knelt and helped Martin over on his back and felt his forehead. "Easy, hoss," he said, and then, to Tadlock and Evans, "Could be camp fever."

"What's that?"

"Camp fever. No other name to it."

Martin said, "Jesus!" and closed his eyes, and Summers looked up and shook his head. Some of the others of the camp had started to come up, attracted by the sight of the three of them standing and the man on the ground. "What's wrong?"

Tadlock felt them behind him, but he didn't turn or answer. He wished they would clear out. They would all have ideas. Some might want to go on, but some would want to wait and some wouldn't know what to do. And some would want to physic the man and some to bleed and some to blister him. The result would be an endless dillydallying, when the part of good sense was to load Martin in a wagon and start rolling.

It was like Evans to answer the question. "Camp fever," he said.

A woman's voice asked, "Is it catchin'?"

Tadlock snapped back, "No!"