Fair Land, Fair Land (26 page)

Summers pointed almost due north, not knowing the
way, knowing he would find it. They rode the stars pale and out and
the sun up and the sun starting down, not stopping except to make
water, and came to the time that Summers called a halt.

"
No tepees tonight," he told the women.
"Lije, looks like there's water down there a ways. Take the
horses and see can you find some meat for the kettle. Hig and me's
got work to do."

He untied the rope from Stimson's feet. Stimson
groaned as he slid from the saddle. His legs folded under him when he
tried to stand. From the ground he rubbed his knees with his tied
hands. "You sons of bitches have crippled me."

"
Watch he don't run away, Hig," Summers
said. He walked to where the women were. He told them, "When I
give the sign, come out with knives. Make like you wanted to butcher
him some."

Nocansee said softly, "You wouldn't, though."

"Not one scratch, son."

When he returned, Stimson was on his feet. He held
out his hands, and Summers freed them while Higgins held the Colt.

"
Now," Summers said, "take off your
clothes, Mr. Deputy."

"
Damned if I do!"

"
Take 'em off or have 'em took off or knifed
off, one way or t'other."

Slowly Stimson peeled off his jacket and laid it on
the ground. Next came his shirt. "That suit you?"

"
Get out of them pants. Boots, too."

"Come turn about, we'll nail you to the cross,
Summers."

"Take 'em off, I said."

The man had a time with his new boots. He dropped his
pants and stepped out of them and stood in his smallclothes. Summers
lifted his hand, and the women came screeching, knives in their
hands. Stimson's eyes widened and stared. The blood left his face. He
said, "Jesus Christ, no!"

The women ran a circle around him, squealing in
Shoshone and Blackfoot while they swung the knives. Summers hushed
them with a down stroke of his hand. They stood grinning and
fingering the blades.

"
Keep those squaws away," Stimson tried to
shout, fear in his voice.

"Why?"

The answer came out in puffs. "You know why.
They'll cut off my works — cock and balls."

Summers made out to consider. "What you think,
Hig?"

"
There wouldn't be any little Stimsons growin'
up to be deputies. That's one thing."

"
Act like white men for God's sake,"
Stimson asked.

"
Why, I figured we were," Summers answered.
"Just follerin' your lead."

"
Take my poke. Welcome to it."

"
We done took it."

"
Take my horse."

"
Got it a'ready."

"
Just let me go."

Summers said to Higgins as if Stimson wasn't there,
"You got a point. No more Deputy Stimsons. But look at it
another way. Say we let the women have their fun. I got doubts he
could make it back. Likely bleed hisself to death. I shy from
murder."

The women went to screeching and dancing again, and
again Summers stopped them.

"
What's to do then?" Higgins asked.

"Seems a shame to say no to the womenfolk, but I
don't know. Let's just turn him loose on the prairie."

Stimson croaked something.

"
Way he is?" Higgins asked.

"
Leave him his underclothes. He'll burn bad
enough with them on."

"
Boots?"

"
I reckon. He'll have a heap of walkin' to do.
Time he gets to the gulch, we'll be hell-and-gone, too far for his
law to reach. Let's go."

They left him standing in his under-britches and
shirt. He hadn't put on his boots yet.

As they reined away, Higgins said, "I could
almost feel sorry weren't he such a bastard."

"
Only right way I knowed to handle things,"
Summers said.

"
You got to keep solid in mind that a son of a
bitch is a son of a bitch, no matter how come."

32

ANY WAY a man looked at it, age was a sorry thing. It
came on a body gradual and then, almost all of a sudden, there it
was. Take Dick Summers, Higgins thought as he led a horse to a tree
to be tied up and shod. Not that Summers wasn't one hell of a man
yet, but some of the spring had gone out of his step, and, in the
mornings before he got loosened up, he walked gimpy, trying not to
show it.

People who didn't know Summers would nod, accepting
the signs. What would anyone expect in a man pushing seventy who had
maybe pushed past it? Think to see him run and jump and holler and
play hell with the ladies? Think to see him bracing one and all,
wanting to iight? But to know the man was something else again,
something different. It was to feel in himself the tired muscles, not
springy now, and the ache in his joints, and want to sit down and
bawl.

Higgins tied up the horse and went to get shoes,
nails, hammer and trimmer. The horse was pretty frisky now that grass
had sprung up and the signs of spring were at hand. It was shedding
its rough winter coat. He would have brought it closer to camp, but
the horse was a balky bastard and didn't like to be led. Better to
tie it up here and walk for the tools than to yank the jughead along.

Summers and Lije had gone hunting. The women were
sewing and working on skins. Nocansee hummed softly. It was a shame
the boy didn't sing more, though he made a good partner in a duet
when he could be coaxed to join.

These days Summers didn't have a great deal to say,
though it wasn't age that hushed his tongue. Higgins knew that. It
was the thought of Lije. It was trouble in his mind. The boy was a
man now, full grown and past the time when most young bucks married.
Not Lije. He had only smiled when told he should find him a wife,
only smiled and shook his head as if, maybe, he couldn't decide
whether he was red man or white and so couldn't settle which color he
wished for a wife. But it wasn't that matter so much, Higgins knew,
as what future there was for the boy. Where could he go, what could
he do in a world where only old codgers could hope to drag along to
the final end.

Higgins trailed back to the horse, carrying his
tools. If the horse behaved decent, he'd be free in an hour, if only
the shoes came close to fitting. What he needed was a forge. He went
to work.

Old age now? He wasn't a young cock himself. Some of
the snap had left him, and some of the things he used to do without
breathing hard now made him suck air. Nothing to do about that,
though. Just let the seasons roll — as if a man could stop them —
and be satisfied with warmth and food and a good wife, and meat still
to be had though hunting was harder. Be satisfied with what you had.
Feel good that all debts were paid and some gold dust left over.

Today was no day to have the woes, anyhow. The sun,
sliding west, was like a warm hand on his back. He felt the deep blue
of the sky overhead. A breeze tickled the hair of the horse. When he
looked east, he saw the greening rim of the valley and beyond it, he
knew, was the endless reach of the plains. A man sitting pretty had
to be happy.

He had just clinched the last horseshoe nail when he
heard calls from the camp. He untied the horse, slapped its butt into
freedom, picked up his gear and started walking. Some way off, a man
sat in the saddle yon side of the river while his horse and a pack
animal drank. The words came faintly. "Bless you, brothers and
sisters."

"
By God," Higgins said to himself, "if
it ain't Preacher Potter."

The women were talking, loud-voiced, against the
voice of the stream. As he neared them, Higgins yelled, "Come
across. Welcome, Brother Potter. Welcome."

Potter had put on weight, lost more of his side hair
and gathered new wrinkles. Pulling up after he had forded the stream,
he asked, "How doth His good people fare?"

"Jimdandy," Higgins answered. "I got a
wife and a jug."

Potter, for a change, looked a little fazed. It was
an instant before he answered, "I could make use of the latter."

"
This is my wife, Little Wing. She's a Shoshone.
This here is Brother Potter, Little Wing. He's a Methodist preacher."

"
Bless you, Sister Higgins. Oh, hello, Nocansee.
I didn't see you at first."

No need to tell him Nocansee didn't see, either. No
need to tell him Nocansee caught on just the same.

Teal Eye told him, "My man and Lije, they be
back soon. Gone hunting."

"
I'll see them in time, the Lord willing."

"
Git down. Git down."

Potter got off his horse with a grunt.

"
Here," Higgins said, "I'll tie up
your horses and see to 'em later. To a tired man a drink comes first.
Hey, there's not enough on this pack horse to load a shotgun with."

"
All my worldly goods."

Potter let himself down on the log he'd sat on so
many years before. Higgins fetched the jug. "Good spirits,"
he said, "not that trade poison."

"
Poison is the right word. It kills, but the
Lord will wreak vengeance. Here's to you, Brother Higgins."

Potter took a nip and went on, "Total abstinence
and over-indulgence are twin crimes. Heaven never meant us to do
without something so good for soul and body or to drink it to
excess."

"
Second the motion."

"
No meat till the men come," Little Wing
said. She shook her head, worried. Food was the first and last thing
for a guest.

"
No hurry," Potter answered. "In fact
I could well do without a few meals, though I doubt that I shall."
He patted his stomach. "I confess to the small sin of near
gluttony. May I have the jug again, Brother Higgins?"

"
Wisht I carried more weight," Higgins
said.

Hearing him, Little Wing sang out, "No sense.
What you have be just right."

"
Good woman," Higgins told Potter.

"A worthy woman, who can find? For her price is
above rubies."

Summers' voice reached them from behind the tepees.

"
Game's scattered to hell and gone." He and
Lije rode in, a single antelope on one of their two pack horses.
"Well, if it ain't Brother Potter! A sight for sore eyes."
He slid from his horse to shake hands.

"For these old eyes, too, though I doubt you'll
find game in hell."

"
You remember Lije."

"
In another incarnation. In the person of a
small boy. Bless you, Lije."

Lije said, "How-de-do," and shook hands.

"
I have just met Sister Higgins," Potter
said. "I have just stated with biblical authority that a good
woman is more precious than jewels."

Lije was unsaddling and unpacking the horses and
would see them to grass. The women were busy with the antelope and
the fire.

"
He made a lucky pick all right," Summers
said.

"
Children?"

"
Nary a one," Higgins answered. "The
Lord ain't seen fit."

"
He works in mysterious ways."

"
Makin' and birthin' a baby is mysterious
enough."

"
He knows best. Trust in Him."

"Most ways I been blest all right. Just marryin'
Little Wing for one thing."

"May I ask who married you?"

Higgins saw Summers squirm. Summers said, "As to
that, it don't matter."

"
It mattered to you," Potter told him.

"
It was this way," Higgins said, seeing
nothing but the truth to be told. "There wasn't no preacher
around, but Summers remembered your words pretty good, and the Lord's
Prayer came out fine."

"
You mean Brother Summers presided?"

"Him and a Shoshone chief."

When Potter laughed, he laughed hearty.

Higgins was quick to say, "Knot couldn't be tied
any tighter, not with dried rawhide."

"
I believe you. But wouldn't you like a
Christian marriage, under God's ordinance?"

"
Me and Little Wing aim to see things through to
the end."

"But a mere civil ceremony, so to speak?"

"
It was civil enough for anybody."

"
Still, Brother Higgins?"

Summers gave his white-toothed grin. "It don't
hardly hurt at all."

"
I'll put it to Little Wing." Higgins
called her, and she came, her hands bloody from the antelope.
"Brother Potter wants us to be married. Dick, too, seems like.
It's up to you."

"
I have you. You have me. We said so."

"
Married a white man's way."

Little Wing looked at Potter, then at Higgins. "He
is not a black robe."

"
Not a black robe," Potter put in as if the
idea didn't sit well with him, "but a true servant of God."

Teal Eye joined them, her hands bloody, too. "You
say marriage? Then you get a white paper. It tells everyone."