And Now the News (32 page)

Roy Fox squeaked like a booted mouse and rocked back in the saddle, to wheel; but he jerked the lines so hard his horse squealed and reared high, staggering forward. The nester stood right under the flailing hoofs (and if he won't back up for that, thought Vic, he won't for anything on earth) until, for balance, the horse fell away sidewise, barely keeping its feet, and streaked away grunting and bleeding from the mouth, with Roy crouched low in the saddle and roweling away like a cyclist.

Delia's mount skittered and danced and then followed Roy's, less frantically. She cried, in the rusty, taut tones of a sparrowhawk, “Three weeks!” and let her horse gallop.

Vic Ryan cantered away from the shack slowly, half-turned in his saddle, his carbine ready, all his attention on the shack and none for his horse, which he knew would follow the others. He sat that way, cramped and concentrated for an uphill mile, and still the nester filled the doorway, the shotgun in his hands, and they filled the air
with hate and fear, until the hill crest intervened and Roy could turn to find the others.

Roy was just throwing his empty bottle at a hornet's nest. He missed it. “I guess I told
him!
”

Delia didn't say anything. Vic blew, short and sharp, from his nostrils, so hard he hurt his ears, but he didn't say anything either.

They rode three miles and camped, and in the morning dark, Vic rose and left them. He got back two hours before they did, kicked the hell out of Kewkie, one of the worthless drifting cowhands they had to hire, and got some sleep in the bunkhouse …

And now the three weeks were gone, and three days more, and Delia was trying to get him to go raid the nester and gun him out. She loco? He thought wonderingly. Seen her hot after things before—might's well try to turn a stampede with a willow switch; but nothing like this nester business, the way she's got her ears laid back. Vic shook his head slowly, rose and stretched, and went to bed.

It was the darkest predawn when he jolted up to a roaring and chattering. He sat up grunting, peering at the color of the night through the open door, sorting out the time of day from the noises he heard, then sleepily pulling the noises apart. It was Roy Fox, charging around the bunkhouse in the dark and calling him. He heard the flat of a hand strike flesh, and Roy's roar, “There you are, Ryan! Come up out of there,” and the whimper, “It's me, Kewkie, Mr. Fox.”

“I'm over her,” growled Vic, and his nose confirmed what his ears had told him: Roy Fox was crazy drunk.

“Well, come on,” Roy yelled. “We got a chore to do.” He started one of his Rebel yells but got to coughing.

“Come on where?”

Roy Fox aimed himself at Vic's voice. “You told Dele you'd take my orders, right from here to that gopher hole?”

“The nester. My God, Roy—”

“Put up or shut up. You got my orders, you'll have 'em all the way. Come on now, jump, damn you! I'm go' git me a yella pelt and nail it up in the honeywell an' use it to—”

“Your sister ready to ride?”

“What you think I am? This here's a
man's
chore. She can stay here and keep house.”

“Well, hell just froze over,” muttered Vic. He pulled on his Levi's and hung on the holster. He saw it all—his flat refusal to do this job unless Roy bossed it, Delia's determination to find some way, somehow, to make it happen. Enough of her rasping nag, enough firewater, enough—well, that would be enough. He sighed and got his hat. “Come on then.”

They saddled up and rode.

Within the first hour Vic Ryan was so heartily sick of the whole project, and everything and everyone connected with it, that it took an effort of will not to cut away and head straight over the mountains to the south, leaving the valley forever. He had help, however, in keeping the course with Roy. It was that thing within him, waiting all these years, waiting for a certain something from Roy, a certain something from Delia. It had divined that he need not wait much longer.

It had better not be much longer.

Roy's voice went on and on in the dimming dark, exultant, laced with that rich, deep laughter, avid, eager. “… woman's fine in a kitchen and not too bad with her nose in a ledgerbook, but the fightin' and the ridin's not for them. You been the places I been, Vic ol' hick”—this brought on a paroxysm of alcoholic appreciation from its author, but nothing from the audience—“you learn about ladies. They have feelin's. Sensibilities. Now that nester froggin' and' hoppin' down the hill, they can see a thing like that and only laugh.” He laughed. “But the job we're gonna do, a little hollerin' when we stick 'em, a little red ink splashed around—you know—we wouldn't want the ladies in on that. For men's work—
men
,” he boomed. He got the cork out of a bottle with his teeth. “The ladies, bless 'em!” He gurgled and went
ahh
shrilly; the sound recalled to Ryan the hoarse panting of the nester (or was it the hamstrung bear?). In revulsion he learned, on the instant, a trick of voluntary deafness, so that the universe contracted to the trail jerkily unrolling under the horses' hoofs, sealing seethings from that impatient thing inside of him, and Roy Fox's voice became just a drone conveying nothing.

When next he tuned in the voice, the melody had changed. “You'd never know it to look at me,” Roy was saying sorrowfully, “but I'm a man of culture, having received, back East, an enviable education, among people among whom, my sickly-hickly friend, you'd be lost among …”

“Give me a drink, Roy,” said Vic, and took the proffered bottle and hurled it against a rock. “By gosh, it slipped right out of my hand,” he said.

Roy Fox looked deeply injured. “I shall not chastise you for that, Ryan. I shall simply withhold my gentlemanly instincts and refrain from sharing the next bottle with any such piebald pismire as you.” He broke out another bottle, drank, and dramatically corked it. Ryan disconnected him again, and lapsed into the jogging miasma he had just invented.

The growling of his stomach at length became noisy enough, and a midmorning sun high enough, to call him back to an earth on which he had saddled up without breakfast. He pulled up and dismounted.

“Whassamatta?” Roy wanted to know.

“Eat something,” said Vic shortly.

“I give the orders around here,” said Roy Fox in an ugly voice.

“Order us to pull up and spread some chuck then,” said Ryan wearily.

“Very well,” said Roy with a grand wave of the hand. “You will halt here an' prepare shushtenance.” He fell off his horse.

Ryan let him lie there and got a fire going. He broke out some Arbuckle coffee, put it in a can, filled it from the nearby brook, and set it on a flat stone in the fire to boil. He tore up some sourdough bread and put some bacon in the skillet. Then he stepped over Fox's prone figure and went through the man's saddlebags. He found one bottle, two-thirds gone. He put it back. He saw to his disgust that the man's rifle boot was empty; on a hunch he felt down inside it and found a pint flask of whiskey. He hurled it away into the woods. Then he bent over Roy Fox and pulled him to a sitting position.

“Come on, Roy. Soup's on.” Fox merely mumbled incoherently and hung his head; when Ryan released him he sagged like a half-bag
of oats. Ryan cursed and went back to the fire and ate.

For two endless hours Roy lay like that, defying shouts, slaps and the smell of the powerful coffee. At last Ryan squatted on his heels and did nothing but wait. When Fox stirred at last, Ryan arose, grunting from pins-and-needles in his legs, and got the can of coffee. He handed it over without a word, and Roy Fox bent his head over the fumes. Without drinking any, he set the can down delicately and said in an apologetic tone, “Li'l eye-opener, y'know?” and pulled himself up beside his horse. He found the remaining third of a bottle, drank it thirstily, and said in a strong clear voice, “Now for some of that coffee—go just right.” He sank to his knees, sipped twice, then gulped down the coffee. He was quite still for a time, then threw up his head, belched loudly, started at the sound, and looked all around him. “Where am I?”

Ryan told him. Told him why, too.

Roy Fox just shook his head, wondering, disbelieving, denying—Ryan could not know. Ryan swung up on his horse. “Well, let's get it over with.”

Roy Fox hesitated, then slowly followed suit.

They rode in silence for another hour, and then Fox began fumbling in his clothes, his saddlebags, even the rifle boot. Once was not enough; he searched again and again. At last he spurred up beside Ryan. “Got any whiskey, Vic?”

“No.”

Roy fell back again. For another hour, silence. Once Ryan thought he heard weeping, but he could not bring himself to turn. Then, “Vic!”

Ryan moved over to the side of the trail to allow Fox to ride up, but he did not. “Vic?” he called again.

Ryan cursed, wheeled, and cantered back. “Now what the hell?”

Fox wet his lips. “What we want with that nester? What's he done to us?”

“What's bothererin' you, Roy?”

“Valley's too small, him and us? Outside our land, takes a whole day to ride between …”

His voice expressing a patience he did not feel, Vic Ryan said
softly, “What's the matter, Roy? What do you want to do?”

“Well, I don't know what the hell we're doing out here.”

“Afraid Gopher-boy'll take your ear off with his shotgun?”

“That ain't it!” snapped Roy.

“You're like a steam train, Roy—you can carry just so much to stoke yourself with and when that's gone you quit.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Guts. Whiskey.”

“Now look, damn it, I give the orders and you don't ask why. Didn't you come out on my orders—didn't I tell you you'd have my orders all the way?”

“That was the arrangement.” The waiting thing inside him fairly hummed with tension.

“Well,” said Roy Fox smugly, “you'll ride back to the Circle F, starting now, with me, and that's an order.” He turned his horse and started along the back trail.

“Yes, sir, boss,” said Vic Ryan, and drew his carbine, and shot Roy Fox through the head. Fox stiffened, made an ineffectual gesture with both hands, and fell forward. His horse started slightly and then began to jog toward the Circle F. Ryan spurred his mount and he began to gallop, also toward the Circle F. “Yes, sir,” Ryan said again. He drew alongside the other horse and caught the jouncing body just as it was about to slide off. “Whoa,” he crooned, and both horses stopped.

Ryan dropped off, still supporting the corpse, and it was only then that the rage overcame him—a flood, a flame of it. Or perhaps it had been there all along, and only now emerged where he could see it.

Finally it washed by, leaving the husk of that waiting thing inside him, and some dull lumpy leavings at the bottom of it. It was this he had waited for, all these years, and what all the years of waiting had been for. All that was left was this nameless lump of leftovers. He'd scour that out too—he knew he would; he knew it couldn't be cleaned out here, but he knew he'd do it.

Time enough—time enough for all that. He was used to waiting for the time to come. He turned the body belly-down across the saddle
and snugged it with a lariat, shoulders to ankles, under the cinch. Finished, he stopped to watch a mosquito treading the dead man's neckerchief with its delicate feet as it slowly made its way to the strip of flesh that showed between silk and denim; then he swung up into the saddle.

He was asleep when he reached the Circle F. It was after sundown, raining a little, and he awoke slumped in the saddle, with the dark bulks of house, bunkhouse, saddle shed, and barn about him in the yard. He climbed down stiffly and for a moment leaned his head against the arch of the horse's neck. His eyes closed and he very nearly slept again; he had never in his life been this tired. He straightened his back and struck himself roughly on the cheekbones with the palms of his cold wet fists, and turned on the wet knots of the lariat. He pulled the body by its shoulders and it slid off into the mud while he respectfully held the head high enough so it wouldn't go down too. It was a respect indicating only how completely through he was with Roy Fox; he had nothing left for him—no vengeance, not even disgust. He dragged the body into the saddle shed and turned it over on its back in the dark there. He went out and shut the door and returned to the horses. He turned them into the corral and threw the saddles into the bunkhouse. He didn't know what he was doing, but he didn't have to. He hadn't been able to see in the saddle shed either, and he hadn't needed to.

Someone came in. A lantern. “Vic?”

“Yuh.”

She said, “Where's Roy?”

“Saddle shed.”

The lantern went away. He turned to where he had thrown the saddles on the floor and kicked them with his boot toe. The lantern came back. “What are you going to do?”

“Sleep.”

He stumbled away, but her hand held him. She said, “Don't stay out here, Vic.” She led him to the woodshed which adjoined the pantry connecting with the kitchen, and then across a floor and around a corner and through a door. The bed there was softer than a bed ought to be, but he was conscious hardly long enough to be aware of that.…
Being dead turned the saddle shed into pale blue paint and crazy-quilt, chintz, rag rugs, and a spool rocker … how was old Ryan making out in the house?

Then a slight sound from the doorway chased the dream, and he wasn't Roy Fox lying lifeless in the saddle shed but Vic Ryan lying here looking at—he clutched the quilt to his bare chest and gasped like a schoolgirl.

“It's all right,” said Delia, coming in.

He had never seen her this way. Her hair, no longer skull-tight and bunned, was parted in the middle, and two braids framed her face. She wore a close-fitting robe with a huge skirt right down to the floor, and it was the palest pink at the top and gradually got to be scarlet at the bottom. She had lip-rouge on, too, and her lips weren't clamped tight and sucked in any more. She walked over to the bed and sank down on the floor until their heads were at a level and all he could see of her garment was the pale pink part. He cast a nervous glance over her head at the door.