Shortgrass Song (34 page)

Caleb sank into the snow on his knees, took a mitten off, and ran his hand through the wolf's thick fur. Logic was starting to come back to him now with the prospect of food at his fingertips. He no longer suspected old Burl of anything sinister. Burl had only followed his trail to protect him from the wolf. He had only ordered him out hunting to break the monotony of cabin fever.

“He's cooled off so much his blood won't run,” Burl said. “We'll have to warm him up in the cabin before we can drink it.”

THIRTY-EIGHT

Lee Fong was squatting on his heels, bothering Buster with one of his stories. He had worked mines in California, cooked for lumberjacks in Oregon, built railroads in Utah, and operated a laundry in Wyoming. He knew tall tales from every corner of the West and loved to repeat them, occasionally going so far as to weave himself into them.

“I was kidnapped by Joaquín Murieta,” he claimed. “You know about that Mexican, Buster?”

“Nope,” Buster said as he cultivated his wildflower patch near the Holcomb burial plot.

“A very bad bandit in California…”

Lee wore American clothes except for his dish-shaped hat and thong sandals. Over the winter he had shuffled between the Holcomb cabin and the bunkhouse in leather shoes. But now that the weather had warmed up, he had taken to wearing the sandals. His socks looked something like mittens. The big toe had its own little sleeve to allow the thong on the sandal to slip between his toes. Buster had never known anyone who could take off and put on footwear so quickly. Lee would not enter a building with his shoes on. He could shed them or put them on without even looking down at them, almost without breaking stride.

“Joaquín kidnapped me to make me cook for him every day,” Lee said.

Buster was looking for buds on his columbines, but he paused long enough to smirk at Lee.

“It's true,” The Chinese man said. “How do you think I learned to cook? Joaquín was going to kill me, but the rangers killed him first. They pickled his head and put it in a saloon in San Francisco. The hair would not stop growing on his head, and it filled up the whole pickle jar!”

A drum of hooves preceded Pete as he rode down from Monument Park. He trotted his horse to the flower garden, jumped from the saddle, and let out several inches on the latigo. “Lee, walk this horse around a little, will you?” he said.

Lee rose, bowed with a jerk, and took the reins in his hand.

“And slow down,” Pete said. “I want you to cool him down, not wear him out.”

“He don't know how to walk slow,” Buster said. “He leans into everywhere he goes like he was fightin' a blizzard.”

Pete stared blankly at the flower garden. “How long till we have blooms?”

“A couple of weeks for the early ones. Don't worry. Caleb will come home in fine shape.”

“I'm not worried about him. I've said my prayers for him.”

“You sure look worried about somethin'. What is it?”

Pete sighed and sat down on the ground. “A homesteader's taken out a warrant on a quarter section up in Monument Park. Just north of Matthew's claim. He's up there right now, takin' sods out of an old buffalo wallow to build him a house.”

Buster put his hoe aside and pushed the small of his back into place. “How come that county clerk didn't say nothin'? I thought Mister Ab had him paid to warn them homesteaders out of the valley.”

“Papa ain't done no land locatin' since Matthew died. He didn't even bother to get Matthew's warrant transferred to his name. I had to do that on my own. That county clerk has probably quit lookin' out for us.”

“You think that homesteader will prove up?”

“I don't know, but if we let one farmer get a crop in up on Monument Creek, the whole rest of the park will fill in with them. They're liable to start runnin' cattle and eat all of our grass.”

“We better tell your father,” Buster said. “Maybe it will get him back to work.”

When they opened the cabin door, they found Ab in his usual place, sitting in his rocking chair, looking out through the window at the bald hill between the house and the mountains. He had spent almost every day there since Caleb left. He usually didn't even bother to put his wooden leg on in the morning.

“Papa,” Pete said, pulling a chair up beside his father, “we got a problem. Some homesteader's staked a claim on the creek, right next to Matthew's quarter section.”

The rocker creaked rhythmically as Ab pushed his good leg against the wall. It took several seconds for Pete's words to come through to him, then the chair stopped rocking and a look of consciousness filled his eyes. He was pallid from lack of sun, but some color seemed to come to him when he looked at Pete. “Must have read the map wrong,” he said. “That fellow in the county clerk's office was supposed to tell me if anybody tried to file up there.”

“You haven't dealt with him in over a year, Papa. I don't think he's lookin' out for our best interests anymore.”

Ab stared out through the window and drummed his fingers on the chair arm.

“What do you want me to do about it?” Pete asked.

Ab sat like a statue for a long moment. “Right next to Matthew's claim?”

“Yes, sir.”

For months Ab had been mired in self-pity, seldom leaving his house, avoiding everyone. One son had died and another had left him. Many were the times when, alone in the cabin, he would load his old Walker Colt and put the muzzle against his head. Caleb would come home to stay if he killed himself, and his sons would have the ranch together.

But now the thought of nesters trying to take Monument Park from his sons fired him with indignation. He became almost instantly drunk with anger. He had been looking for something like this to turn his fretting mind to good use. He forced back the echoes of his fight with Caleb and started thinking ranch.

“Papa?” Pete said. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“I'll take care of it myself,” Ab answered. “Buster, go hitch your buggy. I want you to drive me to town. Where's my leg? What has that Chinaman done with my leg now?”

*   *   *

A line of land seekers led to the log building in Colorado City where the county clerk handled homestead claims. Ab stepped down from Buster's buggy and walked past every man in line. A homesteader was just leaving the office when Ab marched in.

“Bertram!” he said. “My son tells me a homesteader has filed on Monument Park. Why in Hades didn't you tell me about it?”

“I didn't think you were interested anymore,” Morley Bertram said, glancing nervously at the men heading the line outside his building. “You haven't expressed any interest in that land in quite some time.”

“You know what my interests are,” Ab said. “I thought we had an understanding.”

Bertram winced and jumped up from his desk. He was competent enough as a county clerk, but crises tended to rattle him. He grinned apologetically at the homesteaders in front of his office. “This won't take long, gentlemen,” he said as he closed the door in their faces. “Please keep your voice down, Mr. Holcomb.”

“Why should I?”

“These nesters are getting suspicious about the way we go about our business. Land's getting scarce. Things have changed around here.”

“I'll say they've changed. Time was when you'd tell me if somebody tried to file on my valley, and I could steer them somewhere else.”

“As I recall, I earned a stipend for such service, Mr. Holcomb, and stipends have not been forthcoming for over a year now.”

“You'll get your stipend when you start looking after my interests again, and you can start by voiding that claim up in Monument Park.”

“Too late for that,” Bertram said. “The fellow's already completed his application. If he can prove up, he'll own that land.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Ab said, his pale face flushing with anger.

“Don't take any rash actions,” Bertram warned. “I tell you things have changed. If you start running men out of Monument Park, they'll take a closer look at your cowboys' claims with the rotten houses on them where nobody lives, and the little garden patches where nobody farms. These newcomers can challenge your claims, you know. Then the land office will send an investigator, and you're likely to lose everything you don't already have title to.”

“Just what do you suggest I do then?” Ab asked.

“I suggest you content yourself with what you have. There's only five miles or so of the creek you haven't taken up already. Let somebody else have it.”

“That five miles of creek gives me control of a hundred sections or more!” Ab shouted. “If some other cattlemen get that water, they'll fight me for every blade of free grass in the park. I set my mind to owning that whole creek a long time ago, Bertram, and I am not about to change it now.”

“You'd better figure out a way to get it quick then,” Bertram said. “At the rate settlers are trailing in, there won't be any of it left by the end of the year.”

“How am I going to lay claim to that much land by the end of the year?”

“The only way is to buy it outright.”

Ab rapped his wooden leg against Bertram's desk in anger. “I am not as rich as General Palmer,” he said. “I cannot afford to purchase that much land at a $1.25 an acre.”

“Then my advice is to buy as much as you can at intervals along the creek. That way your cattle will have access to the water and will still be able to graze around the homesteads.”

“Homesteads!” Ab shouted. He sank into a chair and glowered at the little bureaucrat across the desk.

“It's the only way,” Bertram said. “You'll have to give up hope of owning the whole park unless you can buy the homesteaders out in the future. Take my advice. Buy a few plots at intervals like I suggested. I know a way you can get one quarter section right now at no charge.”

“How's that?” Ab said.

“You can use your soldier's homestead rights.”

“How does that work?”

“Your time in the army satisfies the usual residence requirements. All you have to do is bring your discharge papers to prove up.”

“Just like that?”

“Yes.”

Ab sat forward in his seat. “Can any soldier do that?”

“Any soldier with an honorable discharge. Bring your papers and you can choose any quarter section you want.”

“Why haven't you told me about this before?”

“It's a new law. I just got word from the land office last month.”

Ab got up and paced across the office, his peg leg clacking against the puncheon floor. “What's the name of that homesteader that filed on my valley?” he asked.

“Mayhall. Terence Mayhall. He's from Georgia.”

Ab nodded. “Bertram, you do whatever it takes to keep those homesteaders out of Monument Park. Tell them it's too far from town. Tell them the soil's no good. Tell them the creek floods in the spring and runs dry in the summer. If you can keep them out another month, you'll start seeing your stipend again.”

“What do you plan to do?” Bertram asked.

Ab opened the door. “Never mind. Just do as I say.”

When he climbed back into the buggy, he told Buster to take him to the telegraph office. By the end of the day he had notified the newspapers in Colorado Springs, Denver, and Pueblo that he would host a grand reunion of the old First Regiment of Colorado Volunteers at Holcomb's Ranch on Monument Creek. There would be food, music, speeches, contests of skill. Any member of the Colorado Volunteers or any other unit of the Union Army was encouraged to attend to partake of the festivities.

Buster thought Ab had lapsed into delirium. He had never known him to attend a party, let alone throw one.

“Buster, see that you invite that claim jumper to supper tomorrow. His name is Terence Mayhall.”

*   *   *

Buster had too many things to do around his farm, so he talked one of the cowhands into riding up the creek with the invitation. He didn't meet Terence Mayhall until the man arrived on foot at the Holcomb cabin the next day for supper. Lee Fong had gone all out with steak, potatoes, turnip greens, corn, fresh bread, butter, and milk.

Terence Mayhall looked as though he had been made of wet rawhide shrunk over a stack of cobblestones. He was rather short, but he was so stout that he had to buy his clothes a size large and cuff them around his wrists and ankles. Even then, burls of muscle strained the seams.

Lee Fong's feast turned out to be a mistake. Mayhall asked if all the food had come from the Holcomb Ranch. When Ab told him it had, the nester was encouraged more than ever about the prospects of success with his homestead.

“But we've got better water than you'll have up the creek,” Ab said.

Mayhall shrugged and continued to eat.

“The soil is better down here, too, and we're closer to town.”

Mayhall grunted.

“It took us years before we knew we would make it. Didn't it, Buster? It sure gets dry here sometimes. We wouldn't have made it if we hadn't been able to save a few cattle.”

Mayhall wiped his hand across his chin. “Cows brought you through? Guess I better get me some, too. Grass is free, anyway.”

“Not for long,” Ab warned. “I hear the government is going to start leasing out the range. No, cows will just be a drain on you. I sure wish you'd have talked to me before you filed your claim. I could have found you a better homestead.”

“Too late for that now,” Mayhall said. “I'll just have to make out with what I got.”

“Maybe it's not too late,” Ab said. “There are ways to improve your situation if you know the land laws well enough, and I do.”

Mayhall shook his head convulsively. “Not interested,” he said.

Ab pretended not to hear. “You can commute your claim after six months. That means you can buy it outright at a dollar and two bits an acre.”