Outcast (6 page)

Arch's face fell. He ran to the box, and his head dropped, making him seem even smaller than he was. He reached into the box and gently lifted one of the chicks, holding it against his chest.

“This is the runt,” he said. “They ganged up on him just like they always do. I'll take him home with me, and I'll keep him alive. Then I'll bring him back to you.”

“Why don't you keep him?”

Arch looked up, stricken. “If I keep him, I won't be able to.… I couldn't kill him.”

Standish sighed. “Why don't you go get some hay from the barn, and a handful of oats?”

Arch looked at the chick, and his face wrinkled as his mind ran through the possibilities.

“Just set the chick beside the box. I'll keep an eye on him.”

Arch nodded and ran through the door.

Standish shook his head. The boy had two speeds, eating and full-speed ahead.

Standish leaned back. The strings outlining the root cellar were in place. As near as he could determine with only a compass to guide him, the building would lie north and south with the door to the south. It wouldn't be very large, fifteen feet by fifteen feet, but it would store enough foot to keep him through the worst winter. An involuntary shiver ran up Standish's back at the thought of another bad winter.

Arch had proven himself to be a good worker. He wasn't easily distracted once he set his mind on a task. Standish explained each of his decisions to the boy. Arch absorbed information as tree leaves absorb the rays of the sun. The hard work would be tomorrow. Standish couldn't see how Arch could be of much help in digging the hole, but odds were that the youngster would find a way to make himself indispensable.

Standish waved. “Arch, let's call it a day.”

Arch wilted. “Lots of sun left.”

“It's going to be a hard day tomorrow. We should get some rest tonight.”

“We?”

“Sure. You're my hired hand, aren't you?”

Arch's eyes disappeared into the shadow of his eyebrows, and the corners of his mouth twitched. “Hired man? Thought that was just today.”

“Yeah, but you worked so hard, I'd like you to come back tomorrow.”

Arch looked down at his feet. Fascinating, they were, encased in worn-out shoes with tattered laces. “Have to 'gotiate.”

“That's the way it is with labor and management.”

Arch nodded, the weight of the labor market on his shoulders.

The two walked side by side to the cabin. Standish nodded at the case of peaches against the east wall of the cabin. “Why don't you get one of those while I get the cheese out of the cooler?”

Standish glanced at Arch as he was tying the pulley rope to the top bar of the cooler shelves. The boy had two cans of peaches, one in each hand, weighing one against the other. He put down one, and picked up another, going through the same process. No different, Standish decided, than a shopkeeper biting a gold piece to ensure that it was legitimate.

The cheese was cool, and Arch was right about the damp cloth. The cheese looked freshly cut. He turned the round up on one edge, and was about to start the cut. Arch appeared at his elbow.

“Might as well cut both pieces in one.”

“Both pieces?”

“The piece for my Ma so she can give a second opinion about how good it is, and then the piece for me for working all afternoon.”

“All afternoon? I thought it was you who said that it was too early to quit.”

“Management sets the hours.”

Standish nodded.

He moved the knife to cut a larger portion.

“Little cheap with that.”

Standish sighed. “How much is fair?”

“About there,” Arch said, putting his finger on the round.

Standish nodded.

“Ma makes the best bread ever.”

“That your opinion?”

Arch shook his head. “Everybody says so…well, everybody used to say so before.…” Silence stretched.

“Before what?”

Arch's face twisted into a grotesque mask. He didn't answer the question.

“Ma would make some of that good bread if she had some flour. You could see how good it tastes. It's crusty, and.…” Arch swallowed.

“How much flour do you suppose your Ma would need to bake some bread for you and for me?”

Arch scuffed his shoe on the floor. “Probably quite a bit.”

Standish looked around the room. “How about that pan there?”

Arch nodded.

“Want me to help you carry all this.”

Arch shook his head violently. He stepped toward Standish, his face dull red and ugly. “You go near my Ma; I will kill you dead.”

The hairs on Standish's neck bristled.

“See you tomorrow, Arch.”

Arch nodded and disappeared through the door.

CHAPTER 3

Miles Standish lay on his back with his knees pulled up. Lying awake in bed was a waste of time, but it was hours before light. Not much he could do in the dark.

He rolled over to his side, reaching for one of the matches he kept on the stand beside his bed and his hunting-cover pocket watch. The match flared. A little after three. He set the match to the kerosene lantern. The lantern wrapped Standish in a globe of soft yellow light. Shadows rose from the cabin's corners to investigate the fuss. Standish might have had a cigarette if he had any tobacco, and if he hadn't stopped smoking. A cigarette would taste pretty good at a time like this.

His hand crept around the nightstand: Bele's journal. Maybe that would lull him back to sleep. Standish yawned and began his exploration of another man's life. The journal began with Bele's passage to America. Standish scratched his chin, the rasping of fingernail against beard intruding on his thoughts. A journal is a record of a person's life. Bele opened the journal with the voyage to America. He saw his emigration as a beginning of a new life.

Standish shook his head. He shouldn't use the pen of conjecture to draw impressions of this man until he was further into the story. He focused again on the fine hand that marked the journal's pages.

Bele had traveled overland from Slovenia to Paris and embarked from there. The journal spoke of the privations of the journey, of the many passengers who sickened and died, but the tone changed as the immigrants approached America:

The voyage seemed interminable, not in the time taken, but in the time it kept me from the shores of America. I don't know what to expect. So much myth surrounds this storied land that I think it may be nothing more than a giant rock painted by a master. This Sistine Chapel of a country urges mankind to dream of Eden, where all men and women are equal, where one's lot in life is determined not by bloodline but ability
.

We have all been standing on the decks, each wrapped in a jacket or blanket to ward off the North Atlantic winds, each watching for the blur on the horizon that will become our home, and then from the masthead, a shout: “Land ho.” So quickly did everyone rush to the bow that I thought the ship might be overcome by our weight and plunge us into the depths of those icy waters
.

And then we see her, her torch raised to light the world, and I scramble to my room to pull the words from my Bible where I have left them. I rush back on deck, and as we near the statue, I read aloud Emma Lazarus's words. I doubt that any more than half of the people there could understand what I was saying, but they could read the meaning on the faces of those who could
.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land

Here at our sea-washed, sunset-gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome, her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin-cities frame

‘Keep ancient lands your storied pomp!' cries she

With silent lips, ‘Give me your teeming shore;

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!'

This polyglot of people bound together by their dreams of a new life in America roared their approval. Hope swirled around the ship, riding the winds with seagulls, and we moved toward the dock like prodigal sons coming home at last
.

Standish read the lines several times, remembering how he had felt when he first rode into Montana, seeing the vastness of a sky bigger and bluer and more beautiful than he had imagined possible. His quest then was not so noble as Bele's. He had come seeking not freedom and equality, but gold. Still he had been touched. Somehow this land had reached into him, broken down the walls surrounding his heart.

But as he read on, he began to see a growing disillusionment in Bele. Immigrants were not embraced by earlier immigrants. The same class system that pervaded Europe existed in America, the difference being that class was established by wealth and not bloodline.

Bele had ranged from one menial job to another barely making enough money for food, clothing and shelter. Still, though his belief in America dimmed, it did not go out.

Then came the news from the doctor. A killer had invaded Bele's body. A dryer climate was called for. He must leave the mugginess of the coast. Leave for what? With what? Then Bele had seen the advertisements in the paper. Free land for the taking. The rich prairie of Montana for anyone willing to create his fortune from it.

Bele had sold his father's watch, solid gold it was, and used the money to board a train for Montana.

Standish sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. Bele had found a home. He must have been mystified by the beauty of this place. There was virtually no chance of making a living here. Still, he had planned a long life here on the shoulders of the Rocky Mountains. The effort he had put into the water system and the cooler proved that.

Enough, Standish thought, he would return to the mystery of Klaus Bele another time, tonight perhaps. He tossed off his covers and the cold sucker-punched him, leaving him gasping. He pulled on a pair of pants refrigerated overnight by the cold, slipped into his shirt and boots and stumbled toward the stove. He dropped kindling into the stove, poured on a little coal oil and dropped a lit match on his creation.
Poof
, the fire started. He shoved a few larger pieces of wood into the stove and used another match to light the lantern. The night was the flat black of false dawn. Less than an hour before daylight. Might as well attend to his morning ablutions.

Standish stepped toward the door, paused and came back. Might as well pour that quicklime down the hole in the outhouse. No sense putting that off just because it was dark. He hefted the sack to his shoulder, bending down to grab the lantern's bail. The door protested only a little at his passing, but he stopped to make sure it was closed. No reason to let the heat leak out.

Brrrrr. A shiver ran down Standish's back, and he picked up his pace, focusing his attention on the path ahead of him. The door to the outhouse was held closed by a spring. He opened the door with the hand holding the lantern and stepped inside. Good time for quick lime. Though the outhouse hadn't warmed yet, it was already mildly disagreeable.

The pile of paper on the seat was getting a little low. He would have to subscribe to the local rag. Town the size of Last Chance should have one.

Standish did his business, and then cut open the quick-lime bag, taking care to keep it away from his face. He upended it down the hole, swinging it back and forth for good distribution as it emptied. Finished he dropped the sack down the hole and pushed eagerly into the morning.

The sky was painting the horizon in pastels, not long now before light. The chicks! He had forgotten the chicks. He'd stop by the barn and get a handful of oats. Standish stalked toward the barn, holding each foot up as he probed ahead for a safe place to land it. The barn loomed ahead of him, dark written on dark and on the east side—the door was open! He would never leave the door to the barn open all night. What the hell was happening?

Someone had come in the night. Probably Bodmer was waiting in the cabin with his henchmen and a rope. Standish turned down the wick on the lantern. He didn't want to walk to the house enveloped in light.

Standish stood in the dark, thinking of that afternoon on Flathead. They almost had him that day. He could hear Bodmer shouting. “Shoot his horse. I want to hang the son of a bitch.”

Standish shook his head. Bodmer didn't know his men. They would have gladly killed Standish, but shooting his horse stuck in their craw.

Standish took a deep breath. He had to think this through if he were to survive. He didn't know when the barn door had been opened. Sometime between the time he went to sleep and the time, he got up. He couldn't imagine, though, that a stranger had stepped into the barn without the horses kicking up a fuss.

No time for the horses now, not with his life hanging from a strand in Bodmer's web. He eased up to the cabin door. The only light inside radiated from the stove, and…Arch. The boy bent over the box with the chicks, sprinkling oats for the little birds.

Standish's chin dropped to his chest, and the air escaped him in an explosive burst. He had to take control, shake off those memories. He took a deep breath and stepped through the door.

“You got an early start this morning.”

Arch looked up, but then he returned his attention to the box without saying anything. When he finally pulled back from the box, he stared at Standish with accusing eyes.

“We lost one,” he said. “Cold last night, so they all crowded together, and we lost one. Wouldn't have died if you'd kept the stove going.”

“Woke up this morning about 3:30. I started the stove then.” Standish said, and then regretted that he was trying to justify his actions to a child. Who the hell was Arch to hoist a full-grown man on his petard?