Fair Land, Fair Land (23 page)

"
I've growed to be more Indian than white,"
he told her. "The country's done it, you and the country and
all. A man gets shaped to what is around him. If I talk like a white
man, it's because I was one onct, and I know 'em."

She didn't speak again, but he knew it was grief, not
dislike, that had silenced her. Nothing like a hard fact to jar up a
couple.

Now Higgins said, "You do a heap of thinkin', if
that's what you're doin'."

Before Summers could answer, they heard the bray of a
mule.

"
I be damned," Higgins said, getting up
fast.

Summers came to his feet, too. "Round the bend.
Beyond them trees. Come on."

"
With nothin' in hand except a fish pole."

"
I'll take it. We're fishin'."

They rounded the bend, stepping soft, and saw two
men, two horses and a pack mule. One of the men was out from shore,
washing gravel in a pan. The other, on the bank, was white-whiskered
and wore a pistol on his hip. Seeing them, he madeout to draw it
until Summers asked, "Any luck?"

"If we had any, you think we"d tell you?"

"
Likely not, but without luck maybe so you
would. Me and my pardner gave it up and turned to fishin'. My name's
Summers. This here is Higgins."

"
Ralston," the man said and offered his
hand. "Him haulin' ass out of the creek is named Tevis. You say
you done panned this water?"

"
Sure did. Both forks. From headwaters clean to
the Marias and never found a show."

Tevis came up, pants dripping, a shovel and a pan in
his hand. He shook his head. "No good. No fuckin' good."

"
What with diggin' and washin' and watchin' for
Indians, we got a bellyful," Ralston said.

Higgins said, "With that hee-haw horse singin' a
come-on, I"d watch sharp for redskins."

"Any around here, close, I mean?" Ralston
asked.

"Some. They come and they go," Summers
answered.

"
They on the peck?"

"
It depends. They get some upset when the whites
mine their gold or kill off their buffalo."

Tevis dropped bucket and pan and stepped ahead. "You
sayin' it's theirs?"

The man was too damn much. Summers said, "I'm
sayin' they're sayin' it's theirs, and I'm sayin' it could be. You
want to get your dander up, do it."

"Now, now," Ralston said. "No offense
anywhere. The point is, Indians and troubles. You had any?"

"
Not to speak of. We both of us got Indian
wives."

"
Sweet Jesus," Tevis said and spit on the
ground. "Get the mule, Ralston."

As they rode away, Tevis said, just loud enough for
them to hear, "Squawmen."

"A man could wish they get their scalps lifted,"
Summers told Higgins. "Gold. By-God gold."

Higgins scuffed at the ground with the toe of one
moccasin.

"
Somethin' I been meanin' to bring up, Dick."
He sat down, saying, "Set a minute."

Summers sat, holding the fish pole upright, the hook
set in the butt. "I knowed you had some burr under your tail."

"
All right. It's money. It's gold. We got to get
some."

"
What for?"

"
You damn well know. To pay debts. They bear
hard on a man."

"
I'm mindful."

"
There ain't enough fine furs, you can't catch
enough, me helpin', to pay what we owe at Fort Benton. It's a right
smart of money, what with new horses and all."

"
So?"

"
You got the three new ones on jawbone, sayin'
you'd pay later, but, knowin' you, I know you was embarrassed down to
the bone."

Summers flicked the end of the fish pole at a leaf
overhead.

"
You don't need to tell me we"re owin'. I
got the figure in my head. And I can trap enough furs, come the time
that they're prime. Don't forget, the money ain't due yet. You ever
know me to back out on a debt?"

"
There's another thing it's in me to tell you."

"
Spit it out."

"
It's what I owe you, and only one way I can see
to pay it."

"You don't owe me n0thin'."

"
Like hell. I ain't mentioned it till now, but
it's been ridin' in my mind ever since we met up. Long as you had
some money and we added a mite with our traps, I just floated along,
all the time feelin' obliged but not pushed. Now you're broke, flat
broke, and I ain't floatin' no more. Been too goddamn long as it is.
High time to pay up."

Summers put the pole down and looked into Higgins'
eyes. They were stubborn. "You're my pardner, Hig."

"
Some pardner. More like beggin' kin. That money
you earned guidin' to Oregon, that gold coin, you paid it out from
the very beginnin', and then put up for my wife. That busted you
good."

"
Push it out of your mind for Christ's sake."

"
Nope. Gone too far and too long, things have.
You got your honor as I damn well know, so give me mine. I'm goin' to
where the gold is, Bannack or more likely that new strike they call
Alder Gulch, somewhere where there's gold."

"
I'll loan you a shovel."

"
Don't try to put me off, makin' fun. My mind's
made up. Them places ain't so far away."

"
I'm too old to muck around heavin' gravel."

"Bullshit. Where gold is, there's a good chance
of gettin' some without minin'."

"
I never set up as a gambler, crooked or
straight."

Higgins rose and started walking away. "I mean
to go, Dick."

He glanced back. "With you or without you. Think
on it."

28

IT WAS A COUNTRY of sweeping valleys they had come
through, of sweeping valleys and Christly high hills, mostly bald,
with one now and then fringed near the top or patched higher up with
dwarf pine or brush. A man was put in mind of giant heads that had
lost most of their hair.

The trip rolled through Higgins" head. Up the
Missouri to the three Forks, up the Madison, with Summers leading
like a hound on a scent. "I can sure as hell find the three
Forks and the Madison," he had said, "and where there's
water there's game trails and pony tracks likely and the marks of
travois. It's white man's pride says we discovered this country. The
Indians knowed it before."

At the three Forks he had told them, "It was
around here that Immel and Jones and their men got rubbed out.
Blackfeet."

But they had seen little of Indians — a couple of
hunting parties and one camp — and these had given no trouble.

Valleys and hills that were trying to be mountains
and might brag of a timberline if they kept growing, say for two
hundred years. River and creek crossings, go-rounds where gorges
choked travel, buffalo here, buffalo there, antelopes watching, the
sun high and hot and low and cooled down, and pitch camp and break
camp for another hard day after short sleep. Summers in the lead,
trailing two pack horses, the women mounted, Lije on his own horse
leading another that Nocansee sat on and himself at the tail end with
two more pack horses in tow.

Higgins watched while the horses drank. Here was
Alder Gulch. Here was the creek muddied by pans and sluice boxes. Up
and down and in the stream were men working their eyes fixed on what
shovels brought up and water cleared. No time for how-de-do and a
chat. No time but for searches and grunts and a glad yelp once in a
while. So far as his eyes could see, side to side, were nothing but
claims and the men working them.

Summers had found the place, not asking questions,
going by what he knew from before, going by hunch or some secret
sense like a migrating loon. So it was up Grasshopper Creek and on to
Bannack, which seemed to be dying out and then on the traveled road
to Alder Gulch. He had picked a camp site on a hillside northeast of
the settlement where a trickle of water flowed, enough just about to
cook by. Later in the season it would dry up.

He let the horses drink their fill. Likely they would
be dropping mud balls by morning. So be it. No harm done. No harm in
letting the mind run far and high, seeing the valleys and hills again
and the Madison where trout asked to be caught.

The tepees were up and a fire buming when he got back
to their camping place, pufling from the climb. Summers had built a
rock and earth dam to catch the little water that seeped close by.
Higgins hobbled the horses except for three that they trusted not to
range far. He put a bell on one that they didn't, hobbles or no.
Afterward he said to Summers, "Christ, Dick, there's miners
clear up and down the gulch, miles of 'em, and what town I seen was
tents and wood shacks a breeze would blow down, all strung along in
the dirt."

"
It follers."

They stood, toeing the ground now and then, waiting
for supper. The boys were close up, silent and listening.

"
I reckon their eyes have turned yeller,"
Higgins said.

"
Gold-eyed. That's what they come for. That's
us, too."

"
It's what I aim to get."

Into a little silence Nocansee said, "Someone
comes."

From a dip in the side of the hill two horsemen
appeared, heads showing first, then shoulders, and horses and all of
them as they climbed. By and by they could make the men out, their
faces bearded like an old buffalo bull's, their pants and shirts
stained, their boots crusted with mud. They pulled their horses to a
stop. "We figured there might be a stream flowin' down this here
coulee. You stakin' a claim?"

"
Naw," Summers answered. "Not us.
There's the stream you was lookin' for, flowin' drop by drop. We
tried a pan or two just for luck. No color. Stake if you want to.
Minin's not our business."

The men studied the tepees and eyed the women and
boys who stood near, and the second one said, "It don't look
like it for a fact."

The first one said, "I don't guess it's any
use."

"
I say go up the gulch, way up where no son of a
bitch is. No tellin' how far the strike runs. Come on." They
rode away.

Once they had eaten, Higgins told Summers, "Reckon
I'll mosey down into town. Might pay to scout around. Comin'?"

"
Teal Eye, Lije," Summers said, turning,
"we're leavin' for a spell. I figure the camp will be safe
enough, but remember you got the scattergun and the musket. Load 'em
but don't use 'em careless."

Teal Eye smiled and said for a joke, "We play
with them. Throw around. Make big noise."

"
I shoot straight, too," Little Wing put
in.

"
Hell, Dick," Higgins said, "you got
so used to carryin' a rifle you feel naked without it. I say leave
our shootin' irons. What good they do us?"

"
None to my knowin'."

Along the gulch lights were showing as the dusk
settled, and voices sounded and the frail music of strings. They
walked down the rough street, looking and listening. Men traipsed
back and forth, going from one saloon to another, from one gambling
table, Higgins guessed, to another where luck might be better. They
spoke loud. Their voices rose and were lost in the great silence
around them, lost in the sky and among the hills where they were no
matter. If a man wanted to learn to cuss, here was the school for it.

"
My fiddle sounds better than that there
hurdy-gurdy," Higgins said.

"
And tepees are better'n tents."

A good part of the camp was tents, staked to the
ground or to wood platforms. Some places were part tent and part
wood. The best were built of poles or logs or whipsawed lumber, and a
man could throw a cat through the cracks. The best one, a saloon, had
a plank walk in front of it.

A freight string of mules — eight mules, four yoke
Higgins counted — had pulled in, and men were unloading boxes and
barrels and such from the five wagons they'd drawn. The men cussed
because the delivery was late, and the driver cussed back at them.
They worked in shadow. The best of lamps didn't throw out much light.

Two men broke out of a saloon door, their speech loud
and hard-edged.

"
By God we'll settle this," one of them
said. "Try it, you Yank son of a bitch!"

They squared off, but the talk wasn't quite over.
"Talk about me, you're a goddamn galvanized Yank."

"I done fit for my side, and that's more than
you ever done. Hurrah for Jeff Davis."

"
My ass to him. Hurrah for the union."

Jeff Davis swung and Union went down. He got up, his
mouth bleeding, and said, "We'll beat you bastards." But
the fight had gone out of him. He went back into the saloon.

Summers said, "Friend, not my business but seems
you got your differences."

"
Whose side you on?"

Higgins answered for Summers. "I don't guess we
rightly know. Got to hear more of the fors and againsts."