Fair Land, Fair Land (3 page)

Summers put the shavings over the rag, added some
fine twigs, poured a bit of gunpowder under one end of the rag and
withdrew flint and steel from his possible sack. He rubbed the powder
from his hands on his pants legs and then struck a spark. The bit of
powder went up in a puff but still ignited the rag. As the fire
spread sputtering along it, lighting the shavings, Higgins said, "By
God, a slow fuse."

It was dark now and clear of mist. Higgins built up
the fire started heating frying pans. The night was quiet except for
the crackling of the fire and now and then a sneeze from one of the
loose horses. Then came the sound of hooves and the creaking of gear.

Botter and Insko slipped from their saddles and were
quick to unload the pack horses. Unloading, Botter said, "I
found the heart with the guts, all mangled to hell and not fit to
eat. A thinkin' man wouldn't have ruint the heart."

"
Yeah, Botter," Insko answered. "Was
it you, you'd have shot the elk in the asshole so's not to break the
skin. On'y you'd never have spotted game in the first place."

It was good, their joking was, Mack thought. The
promise of a mere change of diet lifted all spirits. Small as it was
on any big scale, why shouldn't it? Men lived more by little things
than
big.

Blotter was knifing and peeling the hide from a hind
quarter. "Keep your goddamn distance, Insko," he said.
"You'll taint the meat."

"
It's beyond taintin' with you workin' on it."

Higgins took a fresh-cut steak and plopped it in a
hot pan. Then he passed out tin plates, knives and forks. Mack had
seen hungry men eat, but never, he thought, had he seen appetites
like these. One steak followed another onto plates and into mouths,
and still the men looked hungrily at the frying pans.

"
One of you feel like relieving Moss?" he
asked finally.

Insko got up, saying, "He's probably fell off
his horse, smellin' the meat. I'll go see, but keep the irons hot."

In his bedroll under the fly that night, only now and
then hearing the soft tone of a bell he had strapped on one of the
horses, Mack thought about Summers, Summers with his easy smile and
gray eyes and all-around competence. Without being pushy, he was too
damn good, that man, and here he was about to set out for God knew
where. What ate at him? What shoved him? Many a man would have
settled for what Summers was. That, he thought, again with the edge
of envy, included himself.
 
 

4

MACK LEFT THE LOOSE STOCK just as dawn was breaking.
To Botter, who was relieving him, he said, "They hardly need
watching." He had taken the early-morning shift, the one the men
disliked most, and even his presence hadn't been necessary. The
sore-footed animals had stayed put.

For all the roaming they did, they might have been
under fence. The day gave promise of being clear for a change. Any
foresighted man, looking at the forest around the clearing, would
have seen opportunity, he thought. Some of the trees were as big as
tulip poplars, just one of which would and had supplied enough lumber
for a two-story house and a good barn. Settlements and settlers
needed wood. They needed planks, studs, shingles and all manner of
milled stuff. And here for the cutting and there for the cutting were
these conifers — pine, spruce and fir, he guessed — and down
toward the river bottoms were other great trees, their leafage
frondlike, which someone had supposed were westem cedar. He had the
capital for a start. He would go into the lumber business and grow
with it. He was arriving at the right time.

You took Oregon or you left it. Rain or not, he would
take. He could see himself supplying lumber for great cities, for a
thousand towns, for farms to be.

Riding through lush and strange vegetation, he could
see the campfire winking. Summers' work probably, or maybe Higgins'.
A good sight, and he breathed deep. Mount Hood rose yonder, as big as
ambition.

Insko and Moss were coming out from under the fly and
making for the little stream to wash up. It was a good guess that
they would have slept longer but for the thought of red meat.

"
Seems like a nice, lazy day," Higgins said
to him as he climbed from his horse.

"
I think we've earned it." Mack let the
horse loose. It wouldn't go far with the reins trailing. The eastern
sky flushed before the upcoming sun.

"
Put some meat on for you?"

"
Wait till I wash."

He came back to the fire, following Insko and Moss
and told Higgins, "Slap it on."

"
Want some flapjacks to go with it?"

"God, no." Having nothing better, Higgins
had been making pancakes with weevily flour, water and saleratus.

"
Not for me, neither," Moss said, and Insko
came on with,

"
Same here."

The men ate hugely again, and presently Moss said,
wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, "I'll go spell
Botter long enough for him to feed his face."

Beyond a bare word or two Summers had been silent.
After he had chewed the last bite on his plate, he said, "Meat's
meat, come to that, but I swear I've tasted better."

"
Not me," Insko answered. "What's
better?"

"
Buffler for one, and I've set my teeth into
some good mountain sheep. I've knowed men said painter meat was best
of all."

"
Cat meat!" Mack said. "God save me."

"
Meat's meat, like I said."

Botter came in and had his meal, and all hands,
except one herder, lazed around afterward, no one seeming to be in a
hurry. Summers sat on the ground, his knees folded in front of him.
Higgins tried the same position but shortly gave up and took a seat
on the log that Mack occupied. Botter rode out to resume his watch.
Insko disappeared into the trees, presumably to relieve himself.

"
Dick," Mack said, "you haven't told
us where you were going?"

"Maybe I ain't sure myself."

"Back over the trail, I bet, back over South
Pass if the weather lets you."

"
I'm not plannin' on it."

"
Then where?"

"
Just kind of follow my nose." Summers made
a backward movement with his thumb. "Lots of places that way but
no place in particular. Just yonder."

Higgins broke in. "You tempt a man, Summers."

Mack turned on him. "Don't talk crazy, Hig. You
want to get to the Willamette. You want to get there."

Higgins chewed on a stem of grass, his crowded eyes
thoughtful. "The trouble with there is there," he said and
paused.

"
That's quite a cryptic remark, wouldn't you
say?"

"
My maw never taught me them big words, and
about all my old man taught me was how to shoot squirrels and drink
out of a jug. Most of what I know I learned fixin' things, that and
workin' in a blacksmith shop."

"
That explains things, I suppose?"

"
I come over the trail with Mr. Fairman, eatin'
his grub and workin' it out in trade. I mean helpin' him with
whatever I could. He don't need me now. Neither do you for a fact."

"
I wouldn't quite say that."

"
Just too polite, you are."

With a stick Summers was making idle lines on the
ground.

"
Anyhow, let's get down to it, Hig," Mack
went on. "I don't understand. What is it that really tempts you?
What's the trouble with there?"

"
There? Well, I figure this way. There is there
all right, until a man gets to it. Then it ain't there. It's here,
and here is what you wanted to get away from in the first place."

Mack shook his head. "The only way out that I
can see for you is for you to shoot yourself."

"
Not as long as there's trails I never took. Not
while there be yonders and yonders. Ain't I right, Dick?"

Summers looked up. His gray eyes glinted. "That's
a way of lookin' at it."

Mack said, "You're a great josher, Hig. Now come
off it. I know you can't be serious."

"
That depends. I got two horses that Mr. Fairman
gave me."

Higgins turned to face Summers. "Not meanin' to
shove myself in and beggin' your pardon, but would you keer to two
it?"

"
Still got your fiddle?"

"
Sure thing."

"
Sometimes I hanker for music."

The deal was made then, Mack knew. Two wild men,
bound into the nowheres of wilderness. For a flash he wished he were
one of them, footloose, worry-free, rid of ambition, following his
nose into the yonders of the world.

The wish left him as quickly as it had come. What a
way to live! Always poor in pocket. Never settled. Enduring the
pinched, mean life of camp after camp, with camp smoke in their eyes
and the cold biting at them. Wildemess bums, womanless, childless,
without goals. That was their future. It was if they beat or survived
the snows of winter, if they made it over the high, bitter passes and
came out on the plains. Already the season was advanced.

"
Time to pack up, I reckon," Summers said,
rising. "I got two horses in the bunch."

"
I'll tack some horseshoes on if I can find any
that come close to a fit," Higgins said.

"
If anyone can catch that spooky horse of
Dick's." Mack doubted that anyone could.

"
You mean my Feather?"

"
Feather in a high wind is more like it."

"
Reckon I should have told you. He's
whip-broke."

"Whatever that means."

"Closer to the mark to say plank-broke."
Summers was looking toward the horses. They were grazing near,
Feather in the forefront as usual, his bay coat shining.

"
I had him since he was a colt," Summers
went on. "You know how it is. Get a horse in a corral, and, not
likin' the idea of a rope or a bridle, he turns his hind end to you,
even if he's pretty well broke."

"
So far so good," Mack said.

"
Now every time that colt did it to me, I
slapped him smart with a board. Pretty soon he learned if he faced me
he didn't get a lick on the ass."

"
He's not in a corral now."

"
No, but I drilled it into him. Horses ain't so
smart in some ways. He got it into his head that wherever he was he
didn't dast tum his butt to me. I'll go get him."

Summers took a piece of rope and a length of firewood
and moved toward the horses. "Here, you, Feather," he
called out. "Whoa now, boy."

The horse half-turned as if to run, and Summers
raised the stick. "None of that now."

The horse moved to face him, its nostrils quivering.
Summers slid the rope around its neck and started to lead the animal
in.

"That damn man could do anything he set his mind
to," Mack said to Higgins, knowing his tone was vexed. "He's
at home in the world, or could be."

"Yeah," Higgins answered as if only
half-agreeing. "His world."

"
And yours?"
 
 

5

THEY DIDN'T SET OUT, he and Hig, until early the next
morning, Hig having said it would be a good idea to shoe all four
horses, poor as the shoes might fit. That was a good idea for a fact,
and he had helped while Hig tacked the shoes on and pared down the
broken and flattened edges of hooves.

They rode off, Summers in the lead with one pack
horse and Higgins behind with another. They signaled goodbye to the
Oregon crew, itself about to mount up.

Summers was content to poke along. The morning with
chilly but clear, and soon enough the sun would get busy. Why hurry?
Sure, the snow might catch them, though he had a doubt about it. If
it did, they could make out. Mountain men had known their lean-belly
times, but how many of them had gone under? They had found things to
eat, even rattlesnakes, and had fought off the cold one way or
another. He had himself.

Soon enough, he thought, they would be over the
mountains and into chinook country where the long wind blew warm and
chased off the frost. How to get over the mountains was the question,
but he wouldn't worry his mind about that. Look for notches in the
hills. Follow game trails as the Indians did, making the trails all
the plainer. Unknown and trackless wilderness, hell. There were
plenty of tracks if a man looked for them, if he had the good sense
to follow.

At noon they got off their horses where a spring made
a trickle, let the horses drink and then drank themselves. "That
cold water leaves somethin' to be desired," Hig said, rubbing
his belly.

"Should have brought along stuff for a picnic,"
Summers answered. "Only what? Brace up, Hig. We got red meat for
tonight."

They had. They had taken a joint from the elk.

"
Thinkin' about it just makes me ganter. But
don't worry. I'm only a shadder at best."

The trail meandered, leading from bare ground into
trees and back to bare ground. Where the trees grew thickest, Hig
pointed to one side, calling out first, "There's where we left
the wagons."