Little Britches (14 page)

We couldn't be buying any horses, so we stood at the back of the circle. I guess the horses were all bringing more money than Father and Mother had thought they would, because I could see them keep looking at each other every time the bidding went above fifty dollars. After a while Mother whispered, "With horses selling at this kind of price, the cows will probably be outrageous. I do hope there will be one cheap enough so that we can afford her, but we'll have to have money for groceries this winter."

I was standing on Father's side and couldn't hear what he said when he turned his head to whisper to her, but she didn't watch the horse auction any more; she just kept looking down at the ground. In a little while she leaned over close to him and said, "I'm afraid I spent more than I should have on things for the house, but there were some lovely bargains." Then Father sent me to look at Fred's new horse while he and Mother took a little walk.

I had drunk so much milk with my sandwiches and doughnuts that I had to go awful bad, so Fred took me around by the cow corral while they were auctioning off the last horse. While I was busy he went over and talked to the man who had been leading the horses out to the ring. They were looking at the cows when I got back, and I saw Fred slip a silver dollar into the man's hand when he turned away from the corral.

Father and Mother had come back, and we stood right in the front row for the cow auction. Father stood next to Mother and then came me, and then Jerry and Fred and Mrs. Corcoran— Mr. Corcoran had to stay home and herd the cows. They brought out one cow after another, and they sold for anywhere from thirty to fifty dollars apiece. One or two old skinny ones sold for a dollar or two under thirty, but the man who was having the auction bragged about every one of them.

I kept watching for the two cows Fred had pointed out to Father, but I didn't see them. I wasn't too sure I could recognize the Holstein, because there were ten or twelve black-and-white cows sold, but there was only the one brindle in the corral, so I knew I wouldn't miss her. Mrs. Corcoran bid on almost every cow, but she always stopped when the bidding got up to thirty or thirty-five dollars. It seemed as though they must have brought out all the best cows first, or else everybody got cows who wanted to pay lots of money for them, because when it was getting along toward the last, nobody was bidding much over thirty dollars. I thought sure they'd come to the end before the man Fred had been talking to led out the big Holstein. I knew her the minute he led her into the ring, and poked Father on the leg.

Mrs. Corcoran stepped right forward a foot when the man led the Holstein in, and she bid twenty dollars for her the first crack out of the box. Father said, "Twenty-one," somebody else said, "Twenty-one fifty," and then Mrs. Corcoran yelled out, "Twenty-five dollars." I knew she was going to bid more than we could pay, and hung my head down. I think I was saying a little prayer that she'd stop at thirty, when I saw Fred Aultland step right on her foot. She jumped and glared around at him, but she didn't bid on the Holstein cow any more. Father said, "Twenty-five fifty," and somebody said, "Twenty-six," but we got her for twenty-six fifty.

Before they led out the brindle cow, Mrs. Corcoran had moved down the circle away from Fred, and she yelled, "Twenty-five dollars," before the man was through telling how good a milker the cow was. I was watching her and didn't notice Fred moving down there, too, till he came right up beside her. I guess I wasn't the only one who saw him step on her foot that time, because some young fellow on the other side of the ring called out, "Get her again, Fred!" Everybody started to laugh and Mr. Wright yelled, "Sold," just as soon as Father said, "Twenty-six dollars."

I helped Father harness Bill and Nig back to the wagon while Fred and Bessie Aultland helped Mother collect the things she had bought. Father let me sit on the back of the wagon and lead our new cows home. He seemed happy while we were loading the things into the wagon, but Mother didn't say much. She had her lips buttoned up tight and her face was bright red. On the way home she talked most of the time, though. I couldn't hear all she said, because the Holstein cow held back on the rope, but I did hear enough to know she had spent more than she thought she should have. She said, "I just couldn't let those lovely Buff Orpington pullets go by at twenty-five cents apiece." And, "Two dollars and fifty cents does seem a lot of money to spend for two turkey hens, but Bessie says they're good foragers and will cost hardly a penny to feed. If I have good luck and am able to raise a brood of young turkeys, they should furnish us some very inexpensive meat—and it's so nice to have a turkey for Thanksgiving."

Then she said something about it probably not being necessary to spend the two dollars for a chest of drawers for the girls' room, but it was solid walnut. The first thing I heard Father say was, "That's a nice-looking little cuckoo clock you got." I looked around when Father said that, and saw the red run right up Mother's neck. Then they both laughed, and Mother said, "Don't you josh me about that clock, Charlie. I know we didn't need it, but it looked so much like home, and I just got bidding for it against Mrs. Thied and some other lady, and couldn't stop."

Grace had seen us coming when we were half a mile away, and all the youngsters came running up the road to meet us. She and Muriel had Hal by each hand and were almost dragging him along. I guess we all felt we were kind of rich people to be able to buy all those things. Philip put his bid in right away to be allowed to herd our cows.

THE IRRIGATION fight broke out soon after we got our cows. July was hot, the creek was low, and there was only half a head of water coming through the ditch. It started at the gorge where Bear Creek came out of the mountains, and each ranch, all the way down, had rights to so many running square inches of water. Some of it soaked into the ground as it moved along, and some was drawn up by the sun, but—unless the creek was very low—there was enough for everyone to take his full measure. Each ranch had its own ditch box. They were wooden chutes that the whole body of water passed through. And each chute had a spillway with a gate to let out the full measure of that rancher's water right. There were gauge marks on the boxes and, when the ditch was running less than full, each man was supposed to set his gate so that it would take only his share.

There were water hogs near the head of the ditch. They were men who would take their full measure of water, and more, too, when the creek was low and crops were burning up. There had been a feud between the ranchers at the head and tail of the ditch ever since it was built. The first that I knew much about it was one night when Fred Aultland came down to talk to Father. They had a deal where Fred used all the water for both ranches twenty days, and then we had it for one. Fred came the evening before our day to have the water. Our oat field was so dry that Father was afraid the kernels wouldn't fill unless the ground got a good soaking right away. And the leaves on our peas and beans were curled up and withering. The vegetables from Mother's garden were little and scrawny.

I knew there was something the matter when I saw Fred coming down the wagon road. He always drove his tall bays as fast as they could trot, but that night they were just moping along. A cloud of dust was rising from the wheels of the buckboard that looked like white smoke from a bonfire. And Fred was hunched over with his elbows resting on his knees. Father and I went out to meet him as he came into the yard, and he looked terrible. One of his eyes was swollen and black, and there was dried blood around his mouth and nose. I started to ask him what the matter was, but Father laid his hand on my shoulder, so we just waited for Fred to talk first.

After a minute or two, he looked up at Father, and said, "Charlie, I'm afraid I've started something I'm not big enough to finish. For the last three days there hasn't been more than a trickle of water coming through the ditch as far as my place. Jerry Alder, Old Man Wright, and I went up this morning to have a look. Hardesty and Hawkins, both, had their sluice gates wide open and were taking double their full measure. Kuhl had his gate wide open and had made a cut in the bank where the ditch is built up at the back of his alfalfa field. He tried to tell me it was a natural break and he didn't know it was there, but there were shovel marks in the bank. The cut's filled in now— or it was when I left there."

Fred didn't say anything for a minute or two, and Father said, "Isn't there any court you can appeal to?"

Fred squirted a line of tobacco juice down between the off horse's heels and kept looking at the place where he had spit. After a while, he said, "Yep. We could haul 'em into court, and every one of 'em would lie like hell and say they never took more than the water that goes with their land. It would be their word against ours and we wouldn't have a snowball's chance."

Father said, "Can't you take enough witnesses up there to see what they're doing and outweigh their testimony in court?"

Fred spit between the other horse's heels, and said, "Yep, but they've all got their land posted, and we couldn't see what they're doing without getting on their land. They'd get us as bad for trespass as we could get them for stealing water."

Father said, "Isn't there a way of proving how much water passes through the ditch at their upper boundary and how much they let pass beyond them?"

Fred seemed to be thinking about it for a minute, then he looked up at Father, and said, "Look, Charlie, this is the hell of it for you and me: The water goes with the land. Your deed says you are entitled to so many inches of water, or '
such proportion of same as may be available
!' There's nothing that says whether that means available at the head of the ditch, or available at your own sluice gate. It's been fought ever since there were courts and ditches here, and there are rulings both ways. Every damned one of us would break himself if we tried to fight it clear through the courts. And, besides, if we'd get a high court ruling that it meant available at our own sluice boxes, these ranches at the end of the ditch wouldn't be worth a damn an acre. There's only one way to do it; we've got to take the law into our own hands and fight the water through the ditch. And, by God, I'm going to start tonight."

Father didn't like me to be around when men were swearing, and Fred looked mad enough to begin any minute; but before he did, Father sent me to get our cows. They were picketed out on the prairie near the railroad track.

During supper Father hardly said a word. Mother didn't eat much and kept biting her lip the way she always did when she was nervous. Father always milked the Holstein and I milked the brindle. While we were milking that night, I asked him if he was going to do anything about the water. He didn't answer me for a while, then he said, "Son, there are times a man has to do things he doesn't like to, in order to protect his family." He didn't say any more, and I didn't think I ought to ask him.

Something woke me in the night. It must have been after moonset, because it was dark as pitch. I lay listening for a long time, then I thought I heard a man's voice from over toward the railroad track, so I got up and looked out the windows. There were three little lights moving around in our oat field, and two more in our bean field. They were so far away that they looked like fireflies. I thought Father ought to know about it, and went into the house to tell him. Mother was wide awake, but Father wasn't in bed with her. She told me to go right back to bed because I needed my rest, and that the lights out in our fields were all right.

I went back to the bunkhouse, but I didn't go back to bed. I pulled my overalls on over my nightgown and tiptoed out into the darkness. I knew Father was out there somewhere with a lantern, and I wanted to see what was going on. When I was almost to our oat field, the lights all came together in one place and moved up the railroad toward Fred Aultland's. I thought I heard water gurgling among the oats, and when I went a little closer my foot sank ankle-deep in soft mud. While I was standing there watching the lights from the lanterns grow smaller and smaller up the track, I heard the sound of half a dozen rifle shots from way off toward the west. I was worried about Father, and afraid he might not be one of the men with a lantern, but be farther up the ditch where there was shooting. I wanted to run after him and tell him to come home, but I was scared and went back to the bunkhouse.

I didn't sleep another wink all night, and when it was just light enough so that I could see the outline of Loretta Heights against the eastern sky, I heard Father come home and go in the kitchen door. I couldn't see him and would never have known him by his walk. His feet sounded as though they were dragging, and he had on rubber boots. I heard him take them off before he went into the house. A little later I heard him coughing. It was that dry, hollow cough he had after the windstorm. As soon as it was light enough to see in good shape, I got up and got the milk buckets. I milked both cows, watered the pigs, and fed the horses before I went in to breakfast. I got cramps in my hands before I got done milking the big Holstein. She gave a bucket brimful of milk, and her teats were large with little bits of holes in them.

Father wasn't up when I went to work, and at breakfast Mother wouldn't talk. She kept biting her lip and her eyes looked as though she had been crying. I didn't see a soul around Corcoran's place when I let the cows out of the corral, and there was nobody in sight when I went past Aultland's. The road was all muddy where our ditch went under it. The culvert was a good big one, too, so I knew there must have been a terrible head of water come down through there during the night.

I didn't see a moving thing, except the cows and Fanny, until Grace brought out my dinner pail. She said Father had just got up and that there was a big red lump on his forehead, and he had been coughing in his sleep all morning. Grace could usually get Mother to talk, but she hadn't been able to find out a thing. Mother had made her play out in the back yard with the other youngsters all morning. I told her about the water in our oat field, and the lanterns and the shooting up beyond us on the ditch. I thought maybe the lump on Father's forehead was where he had been hit with a bullet, but Grace said it wasn't. She had read lots of books about wars—she liked them best of all—and she said she'd bet it was where he had been hit with a clubbed rifle.