Shortgrass Song (38 page)

“I'm hired on a farm out of Greeley,” the ex-private said. “I'd like to have my own, though.”

“You'll have it before dinner tomorrow,” Ab promised.

Whispers turned to talk in the audience.

“Who wants to settle alongside of him?” Ab asked. “There are parcels unclaimed along Cheyenne and Camp creeks where a dozen of you might farm as neighbors. You can share equipment, form a soldiers' colony.”

“I'll take a farm!” a voice shouted from the back of the crowd.

“I'll come along, too,” another said. “Maybe I'll take up farmin'.”

“Sergeant Holcomb!” yelled the grinning dandy in the frazzled derby and the diamond-stuck cravat. “Some of our hands don't fit plow handles. Does Uncle Sam have a saloon or a gambling parlor we might file on?”

The old soldiers split the evening calm with laughter.

Ab appeared annoyed. “No property of that nature has been surveyed for filing,” he said. “All the government has to offer is farmland or cash.”

“Cash?” asked the husky voice of one of the soldiers' wives, her face reddening at her own outburst.

“That is to say,” Ab explained when the tittering died down, “cash earned indirectly, through land speculation.”

“What does that mean, sergeant?”

“Well, there are certain land speculators who would organize discharged soldiers to file on adjacent plots of land and then purchase the whole of them together at a set price, at pure profit to the soldiers.”

“How much will they pay?” asked the man with the diamond-stuck cravat.

“Not more than a dollar and two bits per acre, for that's the government price, and quite likely half that or less. Any land speculator is going to offer as little as he can get away with.”

“You speculate, don't you, sergeant?” The dandy tipped the derby back on his head.

“After a fashion. Land speculation and ranching: Those are my concerns.”

“Would you happen to be offering cash to soldiers in exchange for quarter sections?” He straightened his cravat.

“Well, now, sir,” Ab said. “It isn't my intention here to increase my own holdings. Rather, I intend to see that you men who have done your service to your country get all that's coming to you.”

“To your credit, sir, but, as a speculator, are you offering cash to those willing to sell their claims?”

Ab drummed his fingers on his chest and looked at the sky for a moment. “Well, in fact, there are certain parcels,” he said, “not suited to farming on which I might graze a few head of cattle. But I'm afraid I can offer very little per acre. Perhaps you would earn more through another buyer.”

“How much do you offer?” the gambler asked. “If I am not too bold in asking.”

“Not at all,” Ab said. “My methods are open to the public. But I'm afraid I could offer no more than, say, oh, two bits an acre. For a quarter section of land that would add up to, oh, let's see…” Ab pretended to make calculations with his peg leg.

“Forty dollars!” shouted the gambler, shifting his derby.

“Is that the figure? That sounds correct, yes.”

“Might I have the forty in my pocket by the time the gentleman in the overalls has his farm? That is, by dinner tomorrow?”

Ab chuckled. “It could be arranged, sir. However, like any speculator, I prefer to buy land in larger parcels. I'm not at all sure I would be interested in buying just one claim.”

“He's got 'em now,” Buster whispered to Caleb.

“Who needs forty?” the gambler shouted, whirling to look the crowd over. “Forty dollars by tomorrow's dinner. And Sergeant Holcomb will be the better off for it. This is not charity, men, but business that benefits everybody. Raise your hands if you'll earn your forty dollars with me.”

By ones the hands rose. Grimy vagabond hands; soft-fingered hands of loafers and poor-farm idlers; manicured hands of swindlers and card sharks; eager, greedy, opportunistic hands that could already feel the coins pressing against their palms.

The wife who had spoken out grabbed her husband by the elbow and raised his hand for him. “That new stove,” she said.

“Do you see what he's done?” Pete said, shaking Amelia.

“Yes, he's very generous,” she replied.

“No, not that. He's just acquired every claim left along the Monument. The creek is ours. And Monument Park. The whole danged valley! I guess you'll have to marry me now. I just became the biggest rancher in the county.”

Amelia shrank from the commotion around her. How often would that one-legged man invite his old war chums after she married Pete? How many crippled cows would they hang in the doorway? How much longer could she possibly put it off? She was going to marry Pete Holcomb. She was going to become a wretched little ranch wife.

“Eighteen, nineteen…” The gambler shoved his way toward the platform of kegs and crates. “We have at least two dozen takers,” he said. “That's a large enough parcel for any speculator. And you say we'll have forty each by dinner tomorrow?”

“I stand on my word,” Ab said. “We'll leave at first light. Any man who wants a farm or forty dollars will have it tomorrow.”

“I'll shake on it!” The gambler took Ab's hand and used it to pull himself onto the stage. “I have a proposal!” he shouted, squeezing Ab's shoulders in his hands. “Holcomb has worn stripes on his sleeves too long. He's fought in two wars, led us all to victory at Apache Canyon, fed and entertained us here for three days, and now he has brought us to farms and grubstakes! A promotion is in order. I say we brevet him Major … no,
Colonel
Holcomb!”

As the former enlisted men sorely outnumbered the officers, all opposition was shouted down with hip hip hoorays, and Ab was thrust into the crowd to the tune of “For He's the Jolly Good Fellow.”

This last bit was the gambler's own device, and it took Ab completely by surprise. Imagine that! Colonel Holcomb! The king of all cattlemen between Denver and Colorado Springs. If only Ella could be here with him now.

“I told you,” Buster said to Caleb. “I told you he was gonna get you a bigger ranch. Now he's gone and done it.”

“It ain't my ranch,” Caleb said, watching the crowd mob his father.

He turned away in disgust, left his mandolin in his seat, and trudged off. The corner of the barn dulled the sharp clamor of the celebration when he turned it, and he found Allegheny hanging in her sling in the doorway. It was something of a surprise to see her suspended there, though he had helped do the suspending. It was just such a ridiculous thing to do to a cow. But with the noise of his father's success throbbing in his ears, he decided he might as well let her down a notch, ridiculous or not.

The old cow's eyes rolled to follow him when he walked behind her to loosen the rope, and when he yanked at the knot, she kicked him. The sharp hoof of her right hind foot jerked back and caught him on the shin right above the top of his boot. He sucked in an epithet and started to kick her back or give her a good twist of the tail when he realized what she had done.

He hobbled back to the corner of the bam. “Hey, Pete!” he called. “Buster!” But there was no use in hollering. The music and commotion that surrounded Ab drowned out his voice.

At that moment Caleb knew he hated his father. Suddenly he despised old Ab Holcomb more than he ever thought possible. The man was a soulless fraud. He had no right hoarding all that attention. He didn't even enjoy it. He probably hated it. That false smile on his face was a scandal.

Caleb Holcomb was the one who deserved the adulation. He was the one who needed it, lived for it, sought it so desperately through his songs, his stories, the music within him that made his fingertips itch for the bite of catgut.

But all his life, his father had taken things from him. And now he would take this, too.

FORTY-THREE

Pete found Caleb in the corral the next morning, tying a fiddle and a mandolin behind his cantle. The ranch droned with voices and rattled with equipage being piled into wagon beds.

“Allegheny's standin' up,” Pete said, cheerfully.

“I know. She kicked me yesterday.”

Pete watched his brother loop the end of the latigo through the saddle ring as neatly as a silk tie. “Where you goin'?” he asked.

“I don't know. I have to hunt up some work somewhere.”

Pete blinked in wonder. “Work? I'll have more work than you can stand after these old soldiers leave.”

“I haven't been asked to stay on.”

“I'm askin' you right now.”

“I didn't mean by you.”

Pete climbed over the rails, into the corral. “Well, listen, you haven't even given Papa a chance. He's had this reunion on his mind. If you'd ask him whether or not he wants you to stay, he'd tell you.”

“I'm not gonna ask him nothin'. He should have thought about me before his danged old war pals. He doesn't even like any of them old soldiers. He just wanted them to file on land.”

“Yeah, for us. He's buildin' us the biggest ranch on the Front Range. We'll own the whole creek after today and control every acre it drains.”

Caleb shook his head. “He never did want me to be part of this ranch. I don't plan to stay where I ain't wanted. Open that gate for me, will you?”

Grudgingly, Pete lifted the sagging gate so it would swing open. “You're leavin' just to spite him, ain't you?”

Caleb paused with his foot in the stirrup. “You don't know how it feels, Pete. He doesn't look away from you when he sees you comin'.” He threw his leg over his instruments and settled into the seat.

“You know what I think? It's a problem you don't want to handle, so you're just up and turnin' your tail. Takin' the easy way out.”

Somehow Caleb felt he had a better argument from the saddle, looking down on his brother. “You come ride with me for a year if you think I'm takin' the easy way.”

Pete couldn't find words. He tried to make them form in his mouth, but none would come. He huffed and gritted his teeth in frustration. “You're just like him,” he finally said. “You're just as hardheaded as him.”

They glared at each other until Caleb got tickled at the colors Pete was turning and started to laugh. “I guess I'll see you next spring,” he said.

“That's fine. That will give you the rest of the year to grow some brains. I swear, you're just like him.”

“Oh, settle down, Pete. There's always a chance we'll run this ranch together someday.”

“When? When Papa's gone? Do you think he's gonna move back to Pennsylvania? You think he's gonna up and die for you?”

Caleb stared at his saddle horn. “All I know is, I won't stay where I ain't wanted. You don't know how that feels, so don't tell me I ain't talkin' sense.”

Pete slid the latch on the gate with unnecessary ferocity. “See what I mean? You're just like him.”

Caleb shook his head. There was no way he could make Pete understand. He couldn't explain why he felt more welcome among strangers than he did on his own family ranch. A year had shown him how folks would cook their best grub and spread their cleanest linen for a man with a fiddle. They would laugh at his stories and dance to his songs. The welcome seldom lasted long, but there was always another one down the road somewhere. Maybe he was meant to be adrift in the world.

“So long, Pete,” he said. He nudged Five Spot to the west.

“Hey!” Pete shouted when Caleb had ridden beyond the barn. “You better come back with some more of them wild stories next spring!”

Caleb nodded, waved, and rode on. There was nothing for him here. Pete had more ranch than he had ever dreamed of owning. Pete had Amelia to marry soon, start a family. Old Ab had every last plat on the Monument Valley map, save for the one Terence Mayhall claimed, and Ab would find a way to cheat the southerner out of that one soon enough. Buster had his own quarter section and plenty of additional work to do for the homesteaders who continued to populate the creek bottoms.

Caleb Holcomb had only guilt to live with here: his mother and his brother buried together on the shortgrass plains, the indifferent wildflowers speckling the mounds of their sepulchers with bandanna colors. He caught himself indulging a sinister desire. He wished old Ab would just die, so he could come back here, burn that damned cabin, and watch the chinooks scatter the ashes of that cursed ridge log across Monument Park. What kind of son was it who would first cause his mother's death, then wish for his father's? This place, as much as he loved it, made him backslide into the worst order of contemplation. He felt small here; he thought mean thoughts. His place was among strangers.

A bugle blared amateurishly, and Caleb saw an obstreperous column of fours riding from the old soldiers' campground. His father led the rabble on old Pard. His first thought was to spur Five Spot out of the way, avoid the conflict. Then he looked back at the corrals to make sure his brother was still watching and reined Five Spot to face the oncoming soldiers' colony. Now Pete would see who was afraid of the fight and who wasn't.

When the soldiers approached, he caught a glimpse of his father's eyes, but Ab's hat brim quickly broke the line of sight between them. Bursts of laughter punctuated the general din of the party as the old soldiers reached Caleb's place in the road. Ab turned his back to his son, twisting in the saddle as if to look behind him at the column of fours. The old soldiers rode blindly all around the spotted mare, and Ab turned his eyes to the front again, his son behind him.

“Hey, watch out!” the gambler with the diamond-stuck cravat warned as Five Spot grunted and leapt forward between Caleb's spurs.

The young drifter drove hard through the ranks, circling his father. Caleb's nostrils flared with anger as he tried to make the old man look at him. He galloped ahead, placed the mare in Pard's path. Colonel Ab turned in the saddle again, guided the party off the road, around his son. Caleb fell in beside him at a walk, but the old man mounted a trot.