the Strong Shall Live (Ss) (1980) (16 page)

Cherry Noble put one huge booted foot on thestep. "Now I read them there books, and more times than twice. One was the Bible, mighty good reading whether a man is of a religious turn or not. Another was a bunch of poetry like by a man named Shakespeare. That one only made occasional sense to me until the third time around and then everything began to fall into place, and it's stayed in my mind ever since. Then there was a book on law, or that's what I was told, by Black-stone. Seemed to me that book made a lot of sense, and mostly it was rules and ideas on how folks can get along together. There was another by a man named Plato that seemed to me conversations with some other folks, but one that worried me some was an account of the death of this Socrates.

"Seems they had something against him, and the powers that were said he should take poison hemlock. Well, from the account of what happened afterward it seemed to me the man was writing about something he never actually saw because we have a sight of poison hemlock in parts of the country where I've lived and it's a very agonizing death, no way so calm and easy as this man seemed to have it.

"Man told me later, a man who was up on such things, that Plato wasn't even there when it happened. I don't think a man should write things unless he can write the truth about it, or as near as he can come to it. The other book was some sayings by Jefferson, Franklin, and the like, the sort of conclusions any reasonable man comes to in a lifetime.

"Now I read those books up one side and down the other and nothing in those books told me I was crazy and nothing in them told me I was a wise man, either. So"--he smiled cheerfully--"I just let 'er rest, an' that's a good way to do with arguments."

Noble mounted the steps and went into the storeand Benton stared after him. He spat into the dust. Now what kind of a man was that?

Hack, another of the bysitters, glanced slyly at Benton. "He sure is big," he commented.

"Size doesn't make the man!" Benton said contemptuously.

The older man chuckled, looking Benton up and down. "Now that's what I've always said I" Hack agreed. "That's what I'll always say!"

The door opened and Noble stepped out. He had two one hundred pound sacks of flour under one arm and held another by the top. He walked to his pack mules and began strapping on the sacks. Then he went around to the corral and returned with three horses. Bringing out more supplies, he strapped them on the pack saddles he had brought along with the horses.

Benton had the feeling he had come out on the short end of the exchange and did not like it. Nor was he sure just how it had happened. He watched Noble loading up with growing displeasure. "Some Mormons tried to settle over there one time and the injuns run 'em out. The Green boys went in there with cattle, and the Greens were killed. You ain't got a chance back in there alone. There was six or seven of the Greens.

"Besides," he argued, "how would you make a living? Suppose your cherries grew? Where would you sell 'em?"

Cherry Noble's chuckle was rich and deep, "Why, friend, I don't worry about that. The Lord will provide, says I, and when folks come they will find the earth flowering like the gardens of paradise, with fat black cherries growing, and if by chance the injuns get me my trees will still be growing. For I say he who plants a tree is a servant of God, which I heard somewhere long ago. Even if there's no fruit on the limbs there'll be shade for the weary and a coolness in summer."

"You talk like a damned sky pilot," Benton scoffed.

"Well, I'm not one. Nor am I really what you'd call a religious man, nor a learned one. That feller who gave me the books said, 'Son, it isn't how many books you read, it's what you get from those you do read. You read those books I gave you and neither life, nor death, nor man will hold any fears for you.' That's what the man said, and he seems to have been right."

"You'll need a lot more than talk if those Piutes jump you!" Benton replied.

Noble chuckled again. "If they don't understand that kind of talk I can always use this I" He picked an empty whiskey bottle from the dust and flipped it into the air. As the bottle reached its high point he palmed his six-shooter and fired.

The shot smashed the bottle, his second and third shots broke fragments of the bottle into still smaller fragments.

Lay Benton sat down on the top step, shocked and a little sick to the stomach. To think he had been hunting trouble with a man who could shoot like that!

Noble swung into the saddle on the big mule, a huge and handsome creature who only swished his tail at the great weight. "Come visit me," he invited, "where you find me there will be green grass and trees, and if you give me time there will be black cherries ripening in the sun!"

"He'll get himself killed," Benton said sourly.

"Maybe," Hack agreed, "but injuns take to his kind."

They watched him ride down the dusty street toward the trail west, and he only stopped once, to let Ruth McGann cross in front of him. She was going over to the Border house to borrow a cup of sugar ... at least that was what she said.

They saw that he spoke to her, and they might as well have overheard it because old man Border repeated the words.

Noble drew up and gallantly swept the hat from his head. "Beauty before industry, ma'am. Youmay pass before I raise a dust that might dim those lovely eyes."

She looked up at him suspiciously. "My name is Noble," he said, "and I hope that sometimes I am. They call me Cherry because it's cherries I plant wherever I've time to stop. And your name?"

"Ruth," she replied, her eyes taking in the great expanse of chest and shoulder, "and where might you be going, riding out that way?"

"Like the Hebrew children," he said, "I go into the wilderness, but I shall return. I shall come back for you, Ruth, and then you shall say to me as did Ruth of the Bible, 'Wither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God, my God.' "

Ruth looked him over coolly. Seventeen and pert, she had hair like fire seen through smoke, and eyes of hazel. The prettiest girl in all that country it was said, but with eyes for no man. "Oh, I will, will I? You've a smooth tongue, big man. What else do you have?"

"Two hands and a heart. What else will I need?"

"You'll need a head," she replied calmly. "Now be off with you. I have work to do."

"Well spoken!" He replaced his hat on his head and as Ruth passed on across the street, he added, " 'Fare you well, hereafter in a better world than this, I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.'"

Ruth McGann turned on the steps of the Border house and watched him disappear down the trail. It was only a dim trail, for not many went that way and fewer returned. "Who was that?" she asked. "I haven't seen him before."

"Some stranger," Border said, "but a mighty big man. About the biggest I ever did see."

Ruth crossed the porch and went into the house for her cup of sugar, a strange thing, as old man Border commented, for her ma had bought a barrel of sugar only a few weeks before, looking to a season's canning. The story was told aroundthe sewing and the knitting circles for days after, and around the horse corrals and in the blacksmith shop as well. She was chided about her big man, but Ruth offered no reply.

A month passed, and then six months, and then Port Giddings came in with three riders. They had crossed the rough country to the west and stopped by the McGanns. "Wild country yonder," Port said, "but right in the midst of it we found Noble. He asked to be remembered to you, Ruth. He said to tell you when his place was in better shape he'd be coming for you."

Her eyes flashed, but she said nothing at all Only when they talked she listened and went on with her sewing.

"The way that valley has changed you wouldn't believe," Giddings said. "He's broken sod on more than a hundred acres and has it planted to corn and oats. He's got two hundred cherry trees planted and sprouting. Then he rounded up those cattle the Green* boys lost, and he's holding them on meadows thick with grass. He's using water from those old Mormon irrigation ditches, and he's cut a lot of hay.

"Best of all, he's built a stone house that's the best I've seen in this country. That man sure does work hard."

"What about the Indians?" McGann asked.

"That's the peculiar part. He seems to have no trouble at all. He located their camp when he first rode into the country, and he went in and had a long talk with the chief and some of the old men. He's never been bothered."

Cherry Noble could not have taken oath to that comment. The Indians living nearby had caused no trouble, nor had he made trouble for them. The same could not be said for passing war parties. A raiding band of Piutes had come into the country, stealing horses from the other Indians and at that very moment Noble was hunkered down behind some rocks at a water hole.

Luckily, he had glimpsed the Indians at the same time they saw him. He had reached the rocks around the water hole just in time. He shot the nearest Indian from the saddle and the rest of them went to the ground. Noble got the mule down on its side and out of rifle range. He readied his Winchester and reloaded his six-gun.

It was a long, slow, hot afternoon. There was no water nearer than fifteen miles except what lay in the water hole behind him. He knew that and so did the Piutes, only he had the water and they did not.

Sweat trickled down the big man's neck. He took a pull at his canteen and put a reassuring hand on the mule. The animal had been trained from birth for just this eventuality and lay quiet now.

They came suddenly and with a rush and Noble took his time. He dropped one, then switched his rifle and missed a shot as they disappeared.

There were at least five Indians still out there. A buzzard soared expectantly overhead. He moved suddenly, further into the rocks and only in time. A warrior, knife in hand, dove at him from a rock and Noble threw up a hand, grasping the Indian's knife wrist and literally throwing the man to the ground near the pool.

Noble put a gun on him and the Indian looked up at him, judging his chances. "No good," Noble said. "You," he gestured, "drink!"

The Indian hesitated. "Drink, damn you!" And the Indian did, then again.

"Now get up and get out. Tell them to leave me alone. I want no trouble, do you hear? No trouble.

"You steal even one head from me and I'll hunt you down and kill you all." How much the Indian understood he had no idea. "Now go!"

They went, wanting no more of this big man who lived alone.

Noble returned to his work. There were more trees to plant, a vegetable garden to fence, traps to be set for rabbits that were playing havoc with his crops.

Four days later, as if testing him, he found several steers driven off and tracked them to their camp. They had eaten heavily and were sleeping, doubting one lone man would attempt to pursue them.

He went into their camp on cat feet. He gathered their rifles and was taking a pistol from one of them when the man awakened. His eyes riveted on Noble's face and he started a yell, but the pistol barrel across his head stopped it.

Walking out of their camp he gathered their horses and led them to where his horse waited. Surprisingly, they were still asleep. Perhaps somewhere in their raiding they had found some whiskey, for they slept too soundly.

Picking up an armful of brush he tossed it on the fire and at the first crackle of flame they came awake. He was waiting for them with a gun in his hand.

They started to rise and he shouted, "No! You stay!"

They waited, watching him. They were tough men, and thank God, one of them was old enough to have judgment. "No trouble!" he reiterated. "I want no trouble!"

"My cow," he gestured, "all mine! You go now. Don't come back!"

The oldest of the warriors looked up at him. "You say we come again, you kill all."

"I don't want to kill. White Stone Calf is my friend. You can be friend also."

"You say you kill. Can you kill me?"

"I can kill you. I do not wish to. I am a man who plants trees. I grow corn. If an Indian is hungry, I will feed him. If he is sick, I will try to make him well, but he harms my crops, if he attacks me or steals my cows or horses, I will kill him. Some have already died, how many must die before you understand me?"

"We will go," the Indian said. "You will give us our horses?"

"I will not. You have taken my time. I take your horses. Next time I shall take more horses. You go. If you come again, come in peace or I will follow to your village and many will die."

The following year there were two raids into the area, but they rode around the big man's land; and when the next winter was hard and the snows were heavy and icy winds prowled the canyons he rode into their village, and they watched him come.

He brought sides of beef and a sack of flour. He rode to the Indian to whom he had talked and dropped them into the snow before him. "No trouble," he said, "I am friend."

He turned and rode away, and they watched him go.

Giddings stopped again at the McGann home. "Dropped by to buy some stock from that Noble feller. Got fifty head of good beef from him. I reckon he's got at least three hundred head of young stuff, and he's kept a few cows fresh for milking."