Duster (9781310020889) (22 page)

He stood with his feet planted wide apart
and solid, and somehow that didn't look natural. It wasn't until
much later that I recalled that, but when I thought on it I
realized then that a cowman or trooper or anyone who spends a lot
of time in the saddle won't often stand so sturdy on the ground.
They tend to keep their feet underneath them and balance from the
waist instead.

Anyway, he stood in the doorway there for
what seemed quite a spell, looking out into the yard where I was. I
guess his eyes needed to adjust to the dark. He'd been inside in
the light, and coming out it would of been hard to see, especially
since it was so dark I couldn't hardly see anything and my eyes had
had all kinds of time to adjust themselves to the night.

"Can you help me please, mister?"

"Vasist?"

"Sir?"

"Kommen sie hier, bitte."

"Sir?"

"Kommen sie hier."

"He want you to come in, mister." One of
them little girls, the older of the two, had come to the door too.
"He do not speak the very good English."

"Okay, but can you folks please help me?" I
said as I came up close. "We got a terrible sick man back at
camp."

The girl and her pa set to talking, sort of
excited like, in a language I didn't understand. I guessed that he
was trying to figure out who I was and what I wanted from them in
the middle of the night. The girl, she must of been talking off in
another direction, for I sure hadn't said enough for her to talk so
much about just trying to explain what I wanted.

I seemed to have come in and started up a
family spat to judge from the waving of arms and the way they
talked real deep in the throat and kind of growling at each other.
I stood by, quiet as I could, hoping they'd get around to me again
soon so's I could try and get some medicine.

While I waited I admired the inside of their
place, which I could see now that I was close up to it. It was a
one-room soddy, built by cutting pieces of river bottom sod and
laying them up in a wall like bricks. But they'd done well building
it. It was bigger than most, and on the inside they had taken and
plastered mud over the walls to make them smooth and then
white-washed the dried mud just like city folks put paint on real
plaster. It looked nice. The furniture was homemade, but it seemed
solid. The man talked funny and didn't dress or build the same as
any other rancher I'd ever seen, but what he did do looked to have
been done good.

When I turned back to the girl and her pa,
they was still going at it, first one growling and then the other.
Finally a thin, red-faced woman come out from behind a blanket hung
in one corner of the soddy, and she cut them both off.

"Nein," she hollered.
"Nein-nein-nein-nein-nein! Dis I vill not haf." She looked mad as
all get-out, long braids flying and the bottom of her nightdress
snapping around her feet as
she stomped
across the room and butted in between the two of them.

She threw the girl's pa a hard look and said
something to him in that funny language. Then she reached out an
arm and dragged me inside, pulled me in between the two of them and
on into the soddy. I didn't know what she wanted but I went along
with her. None of these folks had the look of being mean.

"Gerda..." the man started out in a
low-pitched voice, but she cut him off with some more growling and
arm waving like the girl had been doing. This time, though, instead
of arguing, the man threw one hand up in the air, shook his head so
hard I was afraid his front teeth would come loose, and stalked off
behind the curtain. I heard a rope bed creak and he snorted a time
or two but not real loud, just loud enough to be heard in the room
and let everyone know he didn't like what his womenfolk insisted on
doing.

In the meantime, the girl let the blanket
back down over the doorway and went to some trouble to see that the
edges were tucked tight at the bottom. I couldn't figure why, since
it wasn't cold out and there weren't bugs enough to worry with.
About the only thing she was accomplishing was to keep light from
getting out.

Her ma went over to the rock fireplace and
stirred some coals to get a fire going, then she hurried back to
the table in the middle of the room and blew the lamp out. The only
light left was coming from the fireplace and it wasn't much. Next
she came and took hold of my arm again and pulled me over to the
table.

"You vait here," she said. "I get food
ready. You eat. Den ve hide you. Those bad mens do not find you
here. You are safe here."

"Ma'am, I surely don't know what you mean,
an' while I do most surely 'predate your offer of food I ain't
hungry none. I just need to find out do you have any medicine I
could borrow of you."

"Ach, med'cin, you are feel ill too?" She
shook her head and looked about as sorrowful as a human person can
manage.

"So much troubles for one so small boy." She
went right on shaking her head and pulling cold meat and other food
out of a stout box that was so cunning made that you couldn't see
the joints and I'd have bet you couldn't hardly see them in good
light.

She piled the table full of food and then
came over in front of me and felt of my forehead the same way Ma
used to do when I was feeling poorly.

"Ma'am, I truly ain't sick. It ain't me that
is. It's Crazy Longo. He's back in camp and he's sick awful bad and
I need the medicine to take back to him. Laudanum, if you got it.
That'd be best."

The woman looked puzzled. Then she
brightened. "Yah. Yah, I understand now. There is more than one of
you hiding from the bad mens and you need the med'cin for the other
one, yass?"

"Not quite, ma'am. There's no bad men that I
know of. Just a bunch of us in a cow camp and one of us awful sick.
His name's Crazy Longo, like I told you, and he needs the medicine
bad. But there ain't nobody chasing after us that I know of,
ma'am."

"Nein? Not ill? Not...sick...as you say it?
But I think…Ach, now I do so understand you. You say a terrible
sick man, yah?" She shook her head. "I am so stupid in the English
words sometime. We think you say six terrible man, yah?"

"Oh, no, ma'am. My friends are all mighty
fine folks every one of them. They wouldn't harm nobody for
anything, not even in fun they wouldn't. The only thing is, we're
all kind of short on cash money until we get our cows sold and we
haven't any medicine for Crazy Longo."

"And you come here to look for med'cin,
yah?"

"Yes, ma'am, that's it. I come here hoping
you folks might have some medicine to ease my friend."

"And how is he ill?"

"He has a misery in his belly, ma'am. I
think some laudanum would ease him like it did for my baby brother
once."

"Then mayhap ve can help your friend. What
it is dis loud-a-nam?"

"I don't rightly know of it by any other
name, ma'am. That's all I've ever heard it called is laudanum."

"I do not know what dis may be, but ve haf
something to help, yah?" She turned and hurried off behind the
curtain where her husband had gone. I could hear her rustling about
in there, and her and her husband said something to each other in
that language. Finally they both came out in the main room, him
looking a bit sheepish, with a few little glass bottles of stuff in
their hands.

The man clumped over to the table near where
I was and whacked a couple bottles down on the tabletop and then he
turned away and sat on the bench facing away from me, looking into
the fire like maybe he had to share the room with me but like he
wasn't about to have to look at me too. I believe he was ashamed of
himself for not wanting to put me up when they thought I was hiding
from somebody, and I really couldn't fault him for getting mad to
cover it up. It wouldn't be easy for a growed-up man to feel he'd
been shamed in front of his womenfolk.

His wife Gerda, now, she looked just as
pleased as punch over it all. She set the rest of the little
bottles on the table and lit the lamp. Then her and the biggest
girl got in a huddle, peering at the labels and chattering to one
another in that language.

In the end the two of them decided on a pair
of bottles on the order of candy jars except a lot smaller, and the
girl held them out to me. "Mister, Ma figures one of these do some
good for your friend maybe."

The bottles each had bits of paper pasted on
them, and there was writing on the papers. The ink had faded some
but you could make out what they said. One said it was Flagler's
Bitters. The other was Spirits of Opium.

I didn't know what Flagler's Bitters might
be, but whatever it was it didn't sound like something we ought to
give to Crazy Longo. I figured his belly was probably bitter enough
already without adding something more along that line. The Spirits
of Opium sounded better, so I decided on that. I set the Bitters
aside.

"Ma'am, I surely figure this could help my
friend, but there's one problem I guess I got to make plain in case
I didn't before. I haven't any money to pay you for the use of your
medicine."

"Pay? Money? Oh, nein, nein. Ve don't take
money for the med'cin. You use." She seemed real put out that I had
mentioned money. "You go now. Take the med'cin and go, yess?"

She and the bigger girl got up and shooshed
me out the door and I went willing enough but trying to thank them
too, the best I could anyway. The man, if he ever looked around or
said a word I never knew it.

Outside it was black dark and I felt kind of
chilly after being inside a house again. I stuffed the medicine
bottle down in my pants pocket and groped around until I found my
horse, then I made it back to camp as quick as I could.

I WAS SETTING on the creek bank for a
minute, catching my breath after hauling wood for the breakfast
fire, when Mister Sam Silas came over and set down beside me. He
had two cups of coffee and he handed me one of them. I didn't know
what to say at first, him fetching me a cup of coffee and all, but
I mumbled something and he just nodded like he never thought a
thing of it.

For a few minutes we neither of us spoke,
just sat there sipping at our coffee and admiring the morning. The
sun wasn't quite up yet and some night devils, little pockets of
mist, drifted over the creek water. It was cool enough that my coat
felt good, even though I knew it would be hot during the day. The
coffee was hot and fresh and the warmth of it cut through the chill
and made me feel good all over.

"I just checked Crazy Longo," Mister Sam
Silas said finally. "His belly's eased and he says he's hungry.
He's mighty weak but he seems better now. I thought you would want
to know. It appears to have been that medicine of yours that did
it."

"Well, I'm awful glad to hear that, sir. I
surely am."

"I knew you would be. I told Bill to let you
relax today. We'll be staying here until Crazy Longo gets back on
his feet. Jesus will collect the rest of the firewood and help Bill
today, and the rest of the boys can keep the cattle and the horses
in line. I believe you've earned a day off for finding that
laudanum."

"Thanks, sir. Thank you very much. And if
you don't mind, I'll use the time to take the rest of that medicine
back to the folks I got it from. I didn't have any money to pay for
it, and I'd guess they wouldn't have money to buy more if they
need."

Mister Sam Silas gave his chin a good
rubbing with his hand while he seemed to think on that, then he
nodded and said, "I'll ride along with you while you go. Come get
me when you're ready."

He started to stand up to go, but something
he'd said occurred to me then, and I stopped him. "You said that
the laudanum helped. That's what I set out after, but what I got
from them folks was some kind of spirits."

"That's right, Duster—spirits of opium.
That's just a fancy name for plain old laudanum." He laughed. "The
only difference is whether you buy it from a general store or from
a professor of druggistry. The easiest way to figure it is to look
at the man you're buying from. If he is in shirtsleeves with
garters, he will sell you laudanum. In a frock coat he'll sell you
spirits of opium or perhaps tincture of opium. And if he's wearing
a linen duster and smoking a seegar," he brushed a hand over his
own linen coat, "don't buy. That fellow would sell you a mixture of
honey and vinegar and pepper and call it by whatever name you asked
for."

"Yessir," I said. I had been luckier than
I'd knowed the night before.

We both of us got up and headed back toward
the camp. I was right interested in a good, big breakfast and some
more of Digger Bill's coffee, so what I did was to follow my nose
upwind to the fire where there was steaks and johnnycakes cooking,
and since it was a special sort of day Bill had even broke out some
prunes to pass around. That was one fine breakfast.

I believe everybody else
enjoyed it as much as me, for they all pitched in good and hearty
and cleaned up everything
Bill cooked.
Crazy Longo, he was laid out in his blankets near the fire. He was
still feeling pretty low and Bill wouldn't let him set up yet, but
he was well enough to eat a johnnycake and near a whole cup of
prunes by himself.

We was all in pretty high spirits, having
thought we might be burying Crazy Longo instead of feeding him, and
Split Emmons was cutting the fool. He kept pretending he was going
to spill coffee down Tommy Lucas's back, standing behind where
Tommy couldn't see him. He swayed around and teetered and made such
faces though that the rest of us got to laughing and Tommy looked
around. He reached back and gave Split a little shove and him being
off balance to start with Split fell over sideways into Jesus's lap
and slopped hot coffee all down Jesus's front. Jesus didn't think
much of that right off, but the rest of us thought it a pretty fair
joke on all three of them, and in a minute or two, Jesus decided it
was funny, too, and he flung a clod at Split Emmons to show that he
wasn't mad about it.