Cowboy Roundup

The Spring at Sloan Pond by Lee Crittenden-1

The Spring at Sloan Pond by Lee Crittenden

A bullet spanged off the rock, and the roan mare spooked, tried to buck. Nick fought to keep his seat, hauled at the reins.

He fumbled his gun out then—but there was nothing the hell to do with it. He was surrounded by a wall of rock, an up thrust of basalt in the sere grass of the range, but the same outcrop kept him from anything to shoot at. He jerked around, identified a gap, and kicked his horse into position, but it was too late. Laughter and the whoops of cowboys were already retreating through the pines, accompanied by thudding hoof-beats.

Nick cursed at them, shaking with fury, but that was as useless as the gun, so finally he reined in the anger like he had the horse, and put the thing away. It was just as well. The blued steel Colt felt awkward and heavy in his hand. He’d never carried a gun in his life until the previous month, and it was still a clumsy weight on his hip. It left him off-balance in a lot of different ways.

Wet trickled down his face. The roan mare was in a lather, jerking at the reins and lashing her tail. The pack horse was rolling its eyes, sweating, too, and tangled in the lead. Nick got down from the mare and sorted them out. Then he wiped at his cheek with one sleeve and found the wet was blood. A chip from the rock must have cut him, though he didn’t exactly remember it.

He cursed feelingly. It was a hell of a way to show up in town. Anybody who wasn’t already gossiping like crazy about the trouble would start in when they saw him cut that way. He had recognized the crew that had taken off through the trees: Eisner’s hired hands—or hired guns, maybe—he wasn’t sure. The newest one, a dangerous kid named Raidy Hart, had only recently showed up. The misery had been going on for a while, but Hart was the devil that had started this harassment Eisner’s crew found so hilarious. It seemed like they wanted to start a range war, but he couldn’t reckon why.

Nick got his face cleaned up and the horses calmed down, but there wasn’t a thing he could do about the brown stains on his shirt. Disgusted and still shaking with suppressed rage, he climbed back on the mare and rode on into the pines, headed for the river trail.

The Snow River was more like a creek. Every spring it flashed down out of the mountains like a real cascade, and then died down by mid-summer to only a trickle. Sometimes it was stagnant and yellowed in the heat, but it was always there—at least on the Bain homestead—like the way the sun rose in the mornings over the high peaks of the Sierra Nevadas. It was fed by a spring that nobody knew about until the previous year when the drought had lowered the level of Sloan Pond enough for it to show.

Now the water was at the yellow trickle stage and heat rose off the rocks like the waves of steam from a cook stove. The woods were usually full of the chatter of blackbirds, but now they perched in the shade with their beaks open and silent, and their flinty eyes dull, panting from the dryness. Further on toward Klammath, where the lodge pole pines and firs grew sparser, the creek formed a final scummy pool, its banks marked by the deep, muddy prints of cows, and then stopped running altogether.

After the shot Nick was more careful, skirting the edge of Eisner’s land. Once he saw a cloud of dust and the specks of riders in the distance, but it looked like a freight wagon. Another time a deer crashed through the brush suddenly, making him start and grab for the handle of his gun. But there wasn’t any sign of Eisner’s crew where they were supposed to be, and so he rode on into town, leading the pack horse behind him.

Klammath Falls was different in the past year or so. The clapboard fronts of the stores were mostly white washed and clean looking, and a barber shop and a row of fine houses had joined the older, ramshackle cluster of hotels and saloons left from the gold rush days. Nick rode on up the dusty street and stopped in front of the sheriff’s office.

The sheriff’s name was Buckley. He was a virile, heavy-shouldered man with a thick mustache and a lustrous shock of graying hair. Bent over his desk, he was writing laboriously when the door swung open, but he looked up and leaned back when he saw Nick, ran a heavy hand through his hair.

“Well, Nick Bain,” he said. “What are you doing here, boy?”

Nick took off his Stetson and sat on the edge of the extra chair, uncomfortable somehow just looking across at the man, at the weight of his shoulders, the heavy line of his jaw. Nick’s eyes dropped to his hat, where his fingers were creasing the brim.

“Sheriff Buckley,” he said. “I’ve come to report somebody’s been butchering our beef. I’ve…found three or four dead steers in just the last week, over in our ravine.”

“Well, have you now?” asked the sheriff, squinting. A sharp crevice appeared between his brows, and deep crows’ feet cut into his sun-browned cheeks. He tapped the stub of his pencil on the desk. “How did you find them, Nick?”

“I found them same as the buzzards did—the ones circling over the carcasses, I mean. It’s that Eisner crew,” he went on. “Those skunks, they run over our range all the time.”

“Who, Nick?” asked the sheriff. “What skunks?”

“Raidy Hart,” said Nick, warming up, “and that Red Slocum and Tom…”

“Nick,” Buckley said. “Now you know I can’t arrest nobody on just your say so. It could be Injuns doin’ it. Or have you got a witness?”

“Sheriff…”

“You got no proof,” insisted Buckley, and then leaned forward like he meant to be personal. “Listen, Nick, I hear your brother got killed in a shoot-out over in Montana somewheres.”

Nick flinched and shut up, feeling a slow burn set in around his heart. Nobody had mentioned Keith Bain for years, at least not in front of his dad, old Isaac Bain. Everybody knew Isaac and Keith’d had a set-to over something, and he had run the boy off. Keith had always been some wild, and people said he’d had gone from bad to worse after that, into outlawry. The past year word had gotten around he was finally dead, but Buckley had no call to bring it up now.

Nick got to his feet. “Sheriff,” he said. “Thanks for nothing.”

Outside he heaved out his breath and jammed his hat back on, headed across the street. To hell with the man. He’d been looking the other way from the beginning, and Nick should have known before coming in here what he would say.

Nick couldn’t afford whiskey, but he liked a beer when he came to town. Now he wanted to cool off after the ride in through the heat, and to think about what Buckley had said, and about his own irritation.

The Briar Rose wasn’t a fine saloon and it didn’t have women, but it did have cheap drinks. After the glare outside it was dark beyond the swinging doors, and the rose print of the wallpaper made dim curlicues above the bar. The owner was Willard Holt. A solid, hairy chunk of a man, he had been a miner at one time, and he still had the hands for it. Outfitted in a white shirt and garters and a handlebar mustache, he was polishing glasses with a towel.

He cleared his throat as Nick leaned up against the bar.

“Uh,” he said. “Howdy, Nick. What’ll you have?”

“A beer, Willard.”

Willard produced it, but his eyes slid away to the back corner of the room. Nick’s eyes followed his gaze and found the reason Eisner’s crew wasn’t anywhere on the range. They were all sitting at tables in that corner, playing faro.

He straightened, ready to abandon his beer, but the warning had come too late. The men were already pocketing their winnings, headed Nick’s way like a pack of hounds. They gathered around him at the bar, and he suppressed a thrill of panic, glanced over to find Raidy Hart leaning on one side and Red Slocum on the other.

They were so close he could feel the heat off them, the animal radiations of warmth and sweat and menace. Willard looked tense and uncertain, but for some reason, once Nick was caught this way, his nerves settled near to ice.

“Hey, Willard,” said Raidy Hart. “Let’s have whiskey all around.” Then he turned and smiled slowly at Nick. “Well now,” he said, “aren’t you Nick Bain?”

“Yeah, reckon so,” said Nick coolly. “Have we met?”

Hart appraised him with a derisive stare. The boy was no more than twenty, sun-dark and slim. His hair was black, long enough to curl across his shoulders, and he wore black chaps and a vest with silver concha trim. Something about his cheekbones said maybe he was a breed, but nobody dared say that to his face.

This close, his eyes had a dash of yellow, like a wolf—or maybe just a coyote.

“Name’s Hart,” the boy said, “from Idaho.” He kept on smiling, like something amused him. “What the hell’s happened to your face, Nick?”

“Little accident out on the range,” said Nick. Their closeness teased him. He was surprised to find his own voice even.

“I guess you know how these things go.”

“Yeah,” said Hart. “There is some stray s**t flyin’ around these days.”

One of the others laughed, but Nick ignored it, keeping his eyes on Hart. He lifted his beer to take a swallow and Red Slocum jogged his elbow, sloshed the beer down Nick’s shirt and along the counter.

Nobody had a chance to react. Willard had his shotgun out from under the bar and had it leveled before the beer had fully spilled.

“Listen,” he said. “There ain’t going to be no trouble in here—this is a nice place. You boys finish your drinks and get out. Now!”

The cowboys shuffled their feet and muttered, but Willard was going red and white by turns, looking mean, and so they used good sense, drank up, and headed out. Hart slapped Nick on the shoulder as he went by, and his hand lingered as it slid along Nick’s shoulder, too familiar.

“Nice meetin’ you, Nick. Maybe we’ll see you again out by that spring.” He smiled again. The skin crinkled around his eyes, and his teeth seemed extra white against the dark brown of his face. He gave Willard one last yellow-eyed stare. “See you ‘round,” he said.

When the doors had swung behind them, Nick’s tension eased. He brushed at his shirt.

“Thanks, Willard,” he said. “I thought…”

“I meant you, too, Nick.” Holt was still holding the double barrels even. “They wouldn’t be no trouble weren’t for you.”

Nick started to ask for his money back, but he decided against it. Willard was still too white.

Maybe he should start back home. Nick couldn’t think of a trip in that had ever gone worse than this—but disgusted as he was, still he had things to do. He started off down the street, watching out for the cowboys, but they seemed to be gone. People stared at him as he walked by in a pointed way he had to notice, like they could see he was unsettled by the encounter in the bar. He found himself thinking back on it.

Hart seemed nothing like Sheriff Buckley, but he had the same quality, the same sharp, animal magnetism that Nick found so uncomfortable in a man. The boy affected him oddly.

He started back to reality suddenly, found he was about to pass the general store. He tipped his hat to the parson and his wife, then stepped up under the porch, glad to get off the open street. Inside, his boots sounded hollow on the wooden floor, but the sound was absorbed by the tumbled clutter on the shelves. He went right to the back and collected flour and sugar and coffee, a fifty pound sack of dried beans and a few cans of peaches, a handful of nails. It was enough to tide them over for a while. He added tobacco to the lot and carried it back up to the scarred, dark wood counter where the proprietor was waiting.

“How are you, Mr. Klemmer?”

“Fine, Nick,” said Klemmer. “How’s your old man?”

Joe had a creaky, old-man’s voice. A wispy, dried up husk of a man, he looked like he’d blow away in a stiff wind—though he must have been wiry and strong as a kid.

“All right,” Nick said, “and Joy, too. Just a mite dazed by the heat. Can I have credit again this month?” he asked. “I’ll pay you back, but I don’t have…”

Klemmer shifted his feet. “Nick,” he said. “Listen. I’m sorry. I don’t own the store no more. Lou Burke’s bought it, that’s partners now with Eisner. I can’t give you no more credit.”

Nick was floored. “But Mr. Klemmer…”

“Sorry, Nick. You’ll have to have the cash up front from now on.”

Nick felt a hot flush rise up his face, but there was nothing to do but leave the goods there on the counter. He left the store in a fog, wondering what he was going to say to Joy. What the hell were they going to eat for a month?

He stood on the porch for a while, aimless and desperate, but finally he realized people were staring at him. He was off balance again, thinking too slow. He still had to go to the bank—maybe he could keep a few dollars back from the p*****t.

The bank was the newest building in the town, faced with white columns, and the floor was slick, varnished pine. Merle Lawton was the cashier that worked the window. His hair was always parted in the center, slicked down with oil, and his shirt was a spotless white, tight across his chest.

Nick waited through a short line, stepped up to the window.

“Mr. Lawton,” he said. “I’ve come to pay on our debt, but I need to hold back some money for groceries. I can make it up like I did before…”

The cashier shoved back the bills. “Nick, I can’t take your money,” he said.

Nick was thunderstruck. “What do you mean?” he demanded. “Mr. Lawton, I been making the payments regular every month…”

“Somebody’s bought out your mortgage, son.”

“What?” said Nick. “Bought out what?”

He didn’t know such a thing was possible. The land was all they had. Old Isaac Bain had never been rich. He’d started with that mortgage for a stake, and for thirty years he’d barely scraped a living out of his sparse homestead. His wife had died early on, and he ended up raising his two boys and a girl by himself off the few cows and whatever else he could scrape up to keep things going. And now…

“Who’s bought it?” asked Nick tensely.

Lawton looked concerned. “Nick,” he said, “I’m sorry. It was done through an agent, and whoever bought it didn’t want you to know. Just wait…”

Nick didn’t wait. He jerked away from the window and out the door, hearing the whispers start behind him, the sharp-tongued widow Hayes loud and clear. On the step outside he brought up short. It wasn’t hard to figure this, and suddenly he felt wild and furious.

There was nothing handy for him to break, so he stalked back down the street like a thundercloud and thrust the bills at Klemmer with shaking hands. Then, loaded and mounted on the mare, he dragged the white-eyed pack horse out of town and onto the trail.