Walt Coburn

“ One of the cowpunchers was getting ready for the trip to Pete’s. Sam Graybull climbed back into the saddle and rode on.
The storm had quit. The stars glittered like white sparks against the clear sky. The moon pushed up over the ragged ridges. Sam Graybull swayed a little as he rode, half asleep, half awake, back along the trail to town.
He took some tobacco and rubbed it into his eyes to sting them open. Now and then he took a drink from the jug. Not as big a drink as he wanted. Just enough to keep a man alive. That grub made a man sleepy. A paunch full of meat always made a man sleepy. ”

“ The scrub pines whispered; cattle got to their feet. Buck stirred a little under the tarp, hardly awake. Then the wind cut down the river and swept his forlorn camp. No man who has ever heard the voice of the chinook wind can ever forget its whimper. Buck threw back the tarp and the warm blast rushed down upon him.
A harsh, choking cry broke from his throat as he sat up in bed. His arms, ragged, aching, frost seared, flung out in a wide gesture. His face, bearded and scarred black, lifted. His eyes found the stars that seemed close overhead in a warm sky. ”

“ Wind that shriveled a man’s heart. Wind that cut the hide on a man’s face. Feet like ice cakes. Like the blood was dried up. God, but that whisky’d send it chargin’ through a man’s veins, though. Fill a jug and go acrost to Pete Peralta’s. A man needed talk when he’d bin alone so long. Pete’d drag out the fiddle. ”

“ The whole range spotted with dead critters. Like a boneyard a hundred miles square. We’d rode all day across a cow country graveyard. When I heard cattle bawling, I thought I was dreaming. That herd trailing up out of the breaks. A man too weak to walk, riding behind ’em, singing— It was something, Doc, that a man won’t ever forget.”
They filled their glasses and drank in silence. Then they tiptoed out and Buck Bell slept on, a smile of peace on his frost cracked lips.
Outside, the chinook wind whispered its promise to the cow country. ”

“ Well-built horse corrals, branding shute and branding pen beyond. A well-irrigated alfalfa patch, blooming and ripe for cutting. A small blacksmith shop surrounded by mowers, rakes, and two round-up wagons. Everything neat and orderly, rare indeed, for a cattle ranch.
The ranch house and adjacent bunk house were whitewashed, and climbing the walls were masses of morning glories. Wild rose bushes, pink blossoms wet with the early morning dew, lined the gravel walk that led to the doors. All around were the tall cottonwoods.
“Gosh!” whispered Shorty, and removed his hat.
Tad followed suit. ”

“ Shorty grunted.
“Look out!” called Pete in a hoarse whisper, as his horse lunged forward in the water in an effort to climb on top of the floating horse.
Now indeed, the situation was critical. Shorty ducked beneath the striking forefeet of Pete’s horse and with every ounce of his strength, jerked at his hackamore rope. Pete did likewise. The melee of struggling horses and men drifted apart. To the left, a narrow ribbon of light cut the dark wall of the bank.
“The trail, thank ——,” muttered Pete and, with a jerk that seemed to tear the ligaments in his arm, wrenched at the hackamore rope. ”

“ A lone figure in a vast white world. Cold, hungry, craving whisky as a man on a parched desert craves water. With a fortune tied in a gunnysack. Two fresh notches on the bone handle of a short barreled Colt .45. A laugh rattling in his throat.
Hay in the barn. Pete had put up that hay. The spring above the cabin was warm. It never froze. Had an iron taste to it.
Sam Graybull watered and fed his gaunt horse. While no law of God or man had weight with the killer, he never violated that creed of the range that commands its men to care for a horse that has carried a man. ”

“ Guns popped jubilant greeting to a day that held no hard ride after stray cattle.
Most of them were flat broke. Cotton Eye, the bloated financier, had lost his money and hocked his spurs for a bottle to take along. Then he engaged the bartender in conversation while a confederate stole back the spurs.
Horace gathered his men one, by one, mounted them, and started them out of town. They bucked their horses down the street, emptying their guns at a leaden sky. Behind them was their night’s pleasure. Ahead lay the dread winter.
Buck Bell got his private horse from the barn. ”

“ The crooked smile on his thin lips vanished. A man seeing a ghost could look no more startled.
“Something’s wrong as ——,” he muttered as his leg swung to catch the ox-bow stirrup. Beads of moisture stood out on his cheeks. His claw-like fingers shook as they wrapped about the ivory butt of the low-hung .45. He gazed as if fascinated at the oncoming herd.
With those cattle came ruination and defeat. The absence of Kipp, Tad and Shorty was now accounted for. Somehow, they had gotten into the Pocket, killed or captured Black Jack and his men and were bringing out the stolen herd. ”

“ The sheriff came in, an icy gust of wind and snow following him inside the lamplit, smoke hazed saloon.
Dick Powell was a blunt statured man, husky, reddish of hair, with keen gray eyes and a drooping mustache. A good natured sort of fellow who was rated as a crackerjack cow hand. ”

“ Not a word passed their clamped jaws as they rolled to the water’s edge and under the feet of Shorty’s horse.
The horse, frightened, lashed out at the struggling forms. A shod hoof struck Bill in the ribs and with a groan, he relaxed his grip. Rolling free of the horse’s flying hoofs, Pete staggered to his feet, aiming a kick at Bill’s face. The stocking-clad heel caught Bill on the cheek. With a last effort, the outlaw clutched Pete’s leg and wrapped his arms about it, jerking Pete off balance and bringing him to the ground. ”

“ Buck wore a cap made out of a piece of Hudson’s Bay blanket. He refused the offer of Cotton Eye’s clothes.
With December came real winter—the hardest winter the cowmen in Montana have ever known. The hay was giving out. Buck worked on a snowplow. The cattle in the field grew in number each day. Gaunt flanked, hollow eyed, bawling as they trained at a stubborn walk with the storm.
Gray days. White days. Bitter days. The cattle drifting down into the badlands. Even the big native steers were finding it hard to paw to feed under the crusted snow. ”

“ Something in Fox’s bearing silenced her usually ready tongue.
“Better drift, Ma,” mumbled Hank.
She turned her horse and rode away. The old horse, headed on the homeward trail, voluntarily quickened his pace and she gave him rein.
Hank licked his dry lips and stared at Fox who had taken the .45 from its holster and was spinning the cylinder, his eyes on a solitary horseman who had quit the herd and was riding toward the lone tree.
“That will be Joe Kipp,” said Fox, his voice flatly emotionless. “For a man who has spent his life in the saddle, he sits a horse badly.” ”

“ Sam Graybull’s right hand was his gun hand.
Out of the hills and onto the main road to town. Daylight now. Sleepy. Dozing in the saddle. Ridin’ that horse like he owned him. Payin’ off the only debt he owed to his only friend.
Yonder was Beaver Crick. Old gray wolf a-comin’ outa the bare willers. With a belly full of meat, headin’ fer a safe place to sleep it off. Sam never killed a wolf. Hell, he was a wolf, hisself. A he-wolf. A killer. No rabbit, like Pete Peralta. Pete, whinin’ over a busted laig. ”

“ Months of hard work in the saddle and branding corrals without a holiday, long days from the crack of dawn until dark, with two hours night guard for good measure, had starved them for a little fun.
These men belonged to a breed that has no equal. For forty dollars a month and grub they ride mean horses, face death and hunger and thirst and cold and bitter discomforts. They ask no favors, whine out no complaint, taking the good along with the bad. It is all in a day’s work. ”

“ Kipp shot Tad a covert glance, laden with suspicion. Did the cow puncher suspect him of lying in wait for Fox? But Tad’s homely features were guileless. They rode on in silence.
In telling this story, Tad felt that he was accomplishing two purposes. He was perhaps giving the nerve-racked sheriff a new grip on his ebbing courage and self-control. Likewise, he was explaining to his own conscience, his reason for breaking one of the unwritten laws of the cow country. The law that says a man shall tend to his own affairs and leave the affairs of his fellow men strictly alone. ”

“ Somethin’ Pete didn’t have. Pete was a chicken hearted cuss. With his wife and his fiddle. Never taken a chance. Never would get nowhere. Like a cow pasture. A muley cow. Well, no man had ever sawed Sam Graybull’s horns. No fence made ever held him. No jail, neither. Never bin ketched. Them as tried it had some hard luck. Have a drink. Damn that cork. A man’s hands stiff and numb. There she comes. Good whisky. Thawed a man’s belly. Fightin’ whisky.
Sam Graybull’s laugh grated on the silence of the winter night. There’d be fightin’ a-plenty if a man run into that fool posse. ”

“ He tied his saddle horse to the off horse and loaded his bed and grub on the snow plow. Then he scrawled a note and laid it on the rawhide covered table, weighting it with a can of frozen tomatoes.
Closing the door of the log cabin, he picked up the lines and seated himself on the snow plow. As the team got under way, he grinned back over his shoulder.
“So long, cabin. Here goes nothin’.”
Behind him, bawling hungrily, trailed the cattle. Their dumb faith was pinned to the man and his horses.
South into the breaks across the frozen river. The sun was a dim white ball in a dead sky. ”

“ Midway between the tree and the herd, Joe Kipp came on, his horse at a running walk. Fox, riding to meet him, halted for a moment to call over his shoulder to Hank.
“A man may be a scoundrel, Basset, but still not be a coward.” ”