Part 11 (1/2)

”Sure.”

”Bow and arrows!”

”Bow loads faster'n an iron.”

”One rifle shot,” Brownie said to Mr. Tadlock, ”and you're done. Time you load up, them critters'll be four days gone.”

They rode away, leaving Mr. Tadlock mouthing, ”Bow and arrows?” They splashed across the Platte and came upwind toward the herd, riding slow. There was a mist of dust over the buffalo, raised by the stepping feet and the pawings of bulls. Underneath the mist the humps ran like waves as far as a man could see, and now on the near edge the waves heaved around, and hot eyes showed and low-held horns.

d.i.c.k said, ”Ready?”

The horses sprang to full speed, the hunters silent yet, and the waves washed one way and another, and came to be parts of one great wave that flowed away as if a dam had broken.

The old bulls were the last to get going. They watched out of their dull and angry eyes and turned and broke into a clumsy gallop and turned again as if they had a mind to charge.

A yell broke out of d.i.c.k's throat, wild and strange as any war whoop, and Brownie matched it and drummed the ribs of his horse with his heels and came among the bulls and saw an opening and raced through it while the bulls hooked at him, too late. The horns clattered like a canebrake in a wind. The ground rolled up in a thick dust, hiding d.i.c.k, hiding the herd except for the bobbing rumps of the cows right ahead. The hoofs made a thunder in the head.

Brownie dropped his looped reins and took the arrow that he had popped into his teeth and notched it to his bow. His arm pulled it back to the head and let it go, and it sank out of sight in a fat cow. The cow slowed and stumbled and was lost behind.

Five cows he killed, five fat cows while the herd fanned out. He pulled up, his horse in a lather of sweat, and squinted through the dust for d.i.c.k.

He saw him at last, saw him hard after a cow that ran with two others and a bull and a calf, and then he saw the horse stumble and pitch over and d.i.c.k slammed hard on the ground.

d.i.c.k lay there, not moving, and the bull stopped and glared and pawed the ground and started for him.

There wasn't time to think. Brownie kicked his horse and felt him lunge and reached for an arrow while he stuck to the saddle like a bur. It was close, close as a crack, the bull right on d.i.c.k and the arrow drawn its full length, aimed dead at the heart. The bowstring hummed like a string on Hig's fiddle.

The bull fell a foot from d.i.c.k, the blood foaming from his mouth. d.i.c.k looked up. He wasn't hurt bad from the fall but only weak and winded. He said, ”Half of stayin' alive is pickin' your pardner.”

They rode into camp, while the men and women looked at them wide-eyed. One of the pair of eyes belonged to Mercy McBee, who stood a little to one side. They had been dancing, that was it. Mercy and the Patches and the Byrds and Mr. Mack and Botter and some of the rest had been dancing while Hig sawed on his fiddle and the music of it rose thin but brave in the empty land. Now they all stopped and looked, and one of the lookers was Mercy McBee, who dropped Mr. Mack's hand while the hunters rode by. A little smile touched her mouth, of wonderment and pride. He didn't smile back. He rode soberfaced, which was fitting to a man in such a case. All the same he guessed she knew how it was beginning to be with him.

”We'll need buffalo chips, Brownie, and if you could milk it would help your ma.”

”Don't be askin' him to milk,” Ma said, shaking her head at Pa.

”I don't aim for you to take it so hard.”

”Milkin's nothing. It's the jolts and all.”

Brownie said, ”All right,” and pulled the saddle from old Nellie and laid it by the wagon. Rock came over and took a sniff of the damp horse blanket and looked up as if asking what was doing next.

The wagons had drawn their night circle, and most of the oxen had been unyoked and driven out to graze. Around the wagons men and women were working, pulling out boxes and fixing to set up tents and to make fires.

Pa came over to where Brownie stood. ”I wouldn't get mortified. It's the same fix with everybody.”

”I milked before.”

”It ain't milkin'. I'm talkin' about the chips.”

”I said all right, Pa.”

”It's just that it's new that bothers you. Do it awhile and you'll think nothing to it.” Pa put his big hand on Brownie's shoulder. It felt warm and solid. The smile on his face was inquiring, as if trying to see through to the Brownie that lived inside.

”It don't trouble me,” Brownie said, but he didn't look at Pa. He looked at Ma, who was digging kettles out of a box.

”If you mind, I'll do it, and you can set up the tent.”

Brownie shook his head. There wasn't any way out of it but to gather up buffalo chips. It shamed him to do it, but it would shame him more to show his shame to Pa. He had a lead rope on Nellie. He would take her over to where the herd was grazing and pick up some chips on the way back and maybe not be seen but by a few.

It was troublesome, to be ashamed of shame but to be ashamed just the same, and not just about buffalo chips, either. Here on the naked Platte there wasn't a bush to stand or squat behind. People couldn't build a brush arbor as they did at camp meetings. And, for fear of Indians, they couldn't walk out of sight. They did the best they could. Some of the women had chamber pots inside the wagons. Some hadn't and sometimes were caught sudden along the way. Or a rider would get off his horse and stand on the off side and make out to be idling or sizing up the country, but the cant of his head and the slope of his shoulders would give him away.

They thought up a system, the women did, and morning, noon, and night a bunch of them would trail off a piece, and the up-standing ones would make a s.h.i.+eld for the others while the menfolks around the wagons made out to be so busy they didn't know what was going on.

Brownie took the rope and set off with Nellie. Maybe there wasn't anyone, he thought, as mortified as he was, and not just when it came to himself and his business, either. It struck him as ugly -the women making their s.h.i.+eld, the men standing behind horses, the young ones squatting almost anywhere. When he thought about it, the feeling of goodness in him drew off.

He untied the rope from Nellie and turned her with the rest and wound the rope around his waist and knotted the ends, so's to have his arms free for gathering.

The chips ripped up, pulling loose from the whitened gra.s.s beneath. There were bugs under the chips, little scuttlers of gray and black that ran seeking among the stems when the roof was lifted from over their heads. He would have watched them, except that he would be seen watching. He cuffed old Rock, who made a show of himself by coming close and looking, curious as a chicken, whenever a chip was raised.

Other people were working, too, young ones, like the strawhaired Brewer girl and her two brothers, and Joe Turley and Jeff Byrd and John s.h.i.+elds and Harry Gorham and two or three of the Daughertys. Some of the men didn't have a family and so had to do for themselves, like old Brother Weatherby, who said people shouldn't complain but praise G.o.d that, anyhow, there were chips to make fires with. Brother Weatherby gathered up the chips slow and sober, maybe saying a prayer to himself while he did it.

The land lay quiet. The only sound Brownie could hear, except for the ring of distance and the little commotions of camp, was the tearing sound of chips being pulled from the gra.s.s. The sun was half sunk, as if just letting itself peek at what was going on. Then the children got to playing, throwing chunks of manure at one another and yelling shrill until the old folks called from the wagons and told them to get busy.

Brownie picked up one chip and another and another. They were thick here. Buffalo chips meant buffalo -and not so far away now, d.i.c.k Summers said. For two days the train had kept crossing trails from the bluffs down to the river, trails as wide as the span of two hands and worn deep as a fist and as smooth as a spade could cut. Bones lay around, too, skulls and leg bones and ribs, some of them set in circles or half-moons and splashed with paint, by the p.a.w.nees, d.i.c.k said.

He picked up more chips, looking at n.o.body, and after a while had an armful and stood straight, and there was Mercy McBee not five steps away, and she hadn't seen him, either, and so stood surprised, holding half an armful. Underneath the pile, Brownie could see the small fingers bent around.

She didn't speak, or turn her eyes down, either, but the blood climbed slow in her cheeks.

He couldn't think of anything to say. He felt heat in his own face and knew it was red, too, but still he looked at her, seeing the dark eyes and the face framed with hair that the wind had blown wild. He had a sudden, crazy wanting to reach out and touch her as a person might touch a small, scared thing, making up to it with the gentle hand. It was as if at the touch the two of them would melt into understanding that wiped away shame, into tenderness that went without words.

He said, ”I reckon I got a load.”

She looked down and bent a little and a crumb of the dried manure fell from under her hand and caught on her faded dress and stuck there.

The words he had said beat back on him, the empty, clumsy words, and he saw himself as if he stood outside, saw himself gawky, big-handed and big-footed, with the pale fine sprouts of new whiskers on his face, saw himself unproved and likely cowardly, lost in fool dreams.

He took two steps and wrenched around and said, ”I could do it for you.”

Her glance came up in a quick, liquid look that he couldn't understand.

”I'd be pleasured to.”

”I can do it all right.” She turned without thanking him. She walked away and stopped and stooped, somehow pitiful and somehow dignified, and fingered for a cow dab.

Of a sudden, while he dared to watch, he understood something about her, seeing in his mind's eye old Hank McBee and his dirty whiskers and the thin oxen, hitched along with an old roan horse, that pulled the McBee wagon, and with the wagon Mrs. McBee and her loud brood and a coop of messy chickens.