Bendigo Shafter (1979) (25 page)

Them and their get. I eat one, a time or two, an' grizzlies have taken one here or there, but the herd's grown, there's water aplenty, grass, but no way to get out.

What do you want for them?

Ain't mine. He threw his coffee grounds into the fire. I s'gest you leave the old bull and four, five head of young stuff. The old one's mean as all get-out anyways. You leave some for seed, like. You never can tell when a body might need beef. Meantime you drive out the rest and build your own herd.

That's fine of you.

Pshaw! Ain't nothin'. His hard old eyes twinkled at me. Need to be cleared out. They's gettin' to be too many head for the grass, an' if they ain't skimmed off there'll be some dyin' this winter.

Fifty or sixty head ... if we took forty our herd would be a third larger, and we'd all be better off.

We moved on with the break of day, with a mountain to climb, and cattle handle mountain passes better if you tackle them early. The morning was cool, a light wind stirring the grass.

Baker City was booming but we avoided the town, keeping our cattle moving steadily. The grass was good, and the work could now be shared by the four of us. No more was said about the box canyon with its cattle. I only knew they were somewhere ahead of us, and Stacy Follett had been vague about locations.

As the cattle gained in strength the drives became longer. From pushing them only a few miles each day we moved on to ten, twelve, and occasionally fifteen miles, depending on the country and what Uruwishi or Follett knew about grass.

The old Umatilla and the mountain man seemed to find much in common; sometimes they talked for hours in a mixture of sign language and several Indian tongues. And here, at last, camped on a small stream with the Snake River not far ahead, I found time to read the letter from Ninon.

Dearest Bendigo:

There has been a letter from my aunt in New Orleans, and she is sending someone or coming herself to fetch me away. I do not wish to go without seeing you, but you have been gone so long, and they say I must go when they come.

It is so far to New Orleans, and I am afraid you will never come to see me. I know you believe I am too young to know what I want, but I am old enough, and I love you very much. I hope you will come to New Orleans to see me. My aunt does not wish me to be an actress, so I may not stay with them, but I would tell that to no one but you.

Please hurry back before 1 must leave. I do so wish to see you.

Ninon.

Ninon would be leaving. Well, it would be better for her. She was not geared to our kind of life, nor was there much in prospect for her if she remained with us.

Still, the thought of her leaving disturbed me more than I wished to admit. She was a child, no more than that. The fact that girls often married at fifteen or sixteen had nothing to do with it. Even if she had been old enough I was in no shape to marry or to even consider it.

I'd seen too many men marry young and slave their lives out carrying the burden of wife and children. No matter how much a man loves his family, it kind of hamstrings him to have them too young ... or so it seemed to me.

Several slow days of driving followed. The grass was only in patches, for the year had not been a good one, and when we found good grass, and it was usually Uruwishi or Follett who directed us to it, we scattered the cattle and let them graze. The Snake was not for ahead of us.

When the cattle grazed and there was yet light, I found occasional moments when I could read, and more often than not I read Blackstone. There was a growing hunger in me to be something, someone.

I knew it was not going to come to me by chance or by a sudden gift. Whatever I became I would have to become by my own efforts, and the worst of it was I did not know exactly where I was going or what I wished to be.

Of one thing I was sure. I was going to be something, and I was on my way. All I could do now was to finish the drive and learn all I could en route.

There's nothing like a long, slow drive to give a man chances for thinking. By the time the cattle reached grass they were always hungry enough to need little care, and old Uruwishi and Stacy Follett scouted the country, hunted our meat, kept their eyes and ears and pores open for trouble.

At night, with Short Bull riding herd, I put my book aside and listened to the talk between Stacy and old Uruwishi.

The Umatillas were kin to the Nez Perce and once had controlled a vast sweep of country from the Rocky Mountains to the Cascades, from the Yakima Basin to the Blue Mountains. Occasional hunting parties had crossed the Rockies, but that was rare until horses came among them.

Uruwishi thought he could remember when that was. Other Indians to the south had an occasional horse, stolen from still other Indians, who had themselves raided deep into Mexico to obtain them. Uruwishi had been a child when the first raiding party returned with three horses, but by the time he was old enough to hunt by himself with a bow, they had many horses.

They had lived upon salmon most of the time. Uruwishi remembered when Lewis and Clark had come down the Columbia, trading with them for some salmon, freshly caught. They were the first white men he had seen, although his father had been down to Astoria, long before, and his grandfather had once seen some men who were shipwrecked on the coast to the south. The white man had not seemed important, for there were too few of them. Indians accepted them or killed them depending upon the mood of the moment or the white man's ability to defend himself. For a long time there were only a few rare men who drifted through the country.

For more than ten years after the Lewis and Clark group, Uruwishi had not seen even one white man.

The Chinooks were pushing in from the west, encroaching on their land. Other Indians were moving in also, and the Umatillas, never a large tribe, suddenly found their hunting lands growing less.

It was a story I had heard many times, and was to hear many times again, the story of one tribe pushing another, moving in, warring against them in long sporadic wars, and then taking over their hunting lands. Each time they were pushed they themselves pushed against other tribes, or moved to distant, less occupied areas.

Vast areas had been uninhabited, especially in the years before the horse came to give greater mobility. The Indians clung to lakes and rivers where water was in good supply. Yet there was much warring back and forth with nothing more in mind than the taking of scalps, counting coup, or stealing horses.

There was, I gathered, vast differences in the temperament of the various tribes, some very energetic, others lazy, and those living in the Great Basin country to the south and west of us had the least interesting cultures, due no doubt to the desperate struggle to even survive in a land of little water and less game.

Lorna's letter was the last one I opened. Its date was one month later than either of the others.

Dear Bendigo:

I am sad to tell you that Ninon is gone. A Charles Lairman and his wife (he is an attorney) came for her. She did not wish to go, nor did we want to see her go, but Cain agreed they were fine people, and she will have a better chance. Her aunt, we understand, is a very wealthy woman, very aristocratic, and has no children of her own.

It is just as well she is gone, for there has been trouble here. More gold has been found, although Cain says most of it is scarcely enough for the miner to live on. Nobody is getting rich, not even Neely Stuart. Cain believes Mr. Trotter and that other man are stealing from him, but he is (Neely is) afraid to accuse them. Moses Finnerly has demanded there be an election, and has offered to run for mayor. Quite a few of the new people are for him. He has offered Ottie Trotter as town marshal and Mr. Pappin for justice of the peace.

Some people want Cain as mayor, but he favors Mr. Sampson, and so do most of us. Something must be done, for there have been several robberies, and Mr. Aylmer, who discovered some gold on his claim, was murdered.

There was an election at the stable one night without anyone being consulted, and Jake Robinson was made town marshal. He came out on the street with his badge, and some of the toughs around Dad Jenn's saloon took his badge off, pushed him around, and beat him up.

A man tried to break into Mrs. Macken's two nights ago and she ordered him off; he laughed at her and kept lunging at the door, so she shot through the door. The man cried, swore, and warned her he'd be back.

Putting the letter down, I stared off across the fire. We were still a good two weeks away from our town, but I had a hunch I'd better start back ... that letter was three months old.

With sunup the old trapper led us back through winding canyons into a hollow in the hills. I'd seen such places before, but this was of singular beauty, wide open to the sun with a stream running through it and a meadow of fine grass. It ran back into the mountains for upwards of three miles, with several hollows or basins, too steeply walled for the cattle to escape. The canyon narrowed down to the rail fence that guarded the entrance, a fence often renewed by the look of it.

My own cache, Follett said, got my own ranch. I never seen no tracks but wild game an' my own. She's a lost valley, and that's what I call it.

We drove our own cattle into the valley and let them stay the night, and when morning came we carefully cut out those we were to leave behind and headed the rest toward the gate.

Some of the wild stock tried to cut back, but our cattle were well broken to the trail and the Durham and Shorthorn stock was more inclined to be placid, so the wild cattle drifted with the herd.

All right, I said to Follett, I am leaving you in charge. Just keep coming as you are, but when you get closer to our town you'd better keep your eyes open ... somebody might try to run off the herd.

What about you? Stacy Follett stared at me, his old eyes thoughtful. You're ridin' into trouble, boy.

I know it. But I have it to do.

What you figurin' on?

I don't know. I'll just have to ride in and do what I can.

I shook hands all around, had a word for each of the Indians, and then I stepped into the saddle. I was taking two horses, a gray horse with a little dappling on the hips and a buckskin.

In the clear light of morning, I started and rode the sun from the sky, swapping my saddle to the second horse at midday and continuing on. Two hours of rest and I was off again, and when midnight was well gone I camped, staked out my horses, and rolled into my blankets. At daybreak I was up, ate a piece of jerky, drank coffee, and was in the saddle.

Four days later, with my watch showing it was past ten o'clock, I rode up the street of our town.

Chapter
26

From a half mile off I could see the lights of what appeared to be a saloon. As I drew nearer I could see there were other lights in a half dozen buildings. No light showed from the bench where Ruth Macken's place stood nor from where Cain's house would be.

When I'd ridden several hundred yards further I saw the road that turned up to enter the street, and there was a sign there. couldn't make it out, so I stepped my horse closer and struck a match.

I had gathered the reins and was turning away from the sign when a voice spoke from the darkness.

Well, what did you make of it? The voice was a strange one, the tone pleasant, somewhat speculative, I thought.

I made it out to be a mistake, I said quietly. I know who founded this town and when, and there was nobody named Finnerly present.

That kind of talk could get a man into trouble, the speaker said. I'd soft pedal it, if I were you.

You're not me, I replied quietly. This settlement was put together by a small party of people who wished for security, who wished to build something honest, something worth having and keeping. There seem to have been some changes.

He was walking toward me and I could make him out now. He was a shorter man than I, blocky of build, older I'd guess. He carried a rifle.

The people who first settled the town are outnumbered now. They are peaceful people with families and homes. Most of the newcomers are without families and they couldn't care less about peace.

There has been gold found here, and these men have come in hoping to pick up what can be found. They are not those who care about anything permanent or stable.

And you?

I am a bystander, sir. I'd not say an altogether innocent bystander. I have seen many towns born, and I have seen several of them die.

Of what did they die?

Lack of attention, I think. Lack of love, lack of the will to take a stand, a willingness to let things be, to not be involved ... a peace at any price policy, I think.

And where did you stand?

I am a watcher, sir. I belong neither here nor there. You come at a most auspicious time, my friend. If you are planning to take part in the election, I'd say a most auspicious time.

Who is running?

Why, the Reverend Moses Finnerly is running for mayor, I believe, opposed by a white-haired old gentleman known as Sampson. A Mr. Pappin is running for justice of peace, and he is opposed, of all things, by a woman.