Bertrand W. Sinclair

“ Charlie’s feet grew cold in the snow. He grew impatient. No way to leave a man, cooling his heels on a frosty night.
“Gosh darn these fool people an’ their family troubles,” he grumbled.
Then, between impatience and discomfort, he started for the house. It was a low-walled structure. The windows opened on a level with his waist. The door stood ajar, casting a knife-blade gleam. The window laid a bright square on the snow. Abreast of it Charlie stopped.
A man lay face down on the floor, his head turned sidewise, arms spread in a crooked curve. He had black hair like Bill Mather’s. ”

“ A dozen saddled horses stood tied to the bed wagon. The night men all kept horses ready. Mather had a mount there. So did Shaw. They drew on chaps, overcoats. Deep breathing, punctuated by snores, filled the bed tent. Every man was sound asleep. The light was out in the cook tent. They stumbled in there for a last cup of coffee out of the still warm pot, and Charlie left a word with the cook for Bud Cole, who was his second in command. As they came back by the fire, old Mather sat up in bed. He peered out at his son dressed for travel. He beckoned and Bill halted in the mouth of the tent. ”

“ It was too much to ask men to face day and night the blast of that untimely storm, to grow numb in their saddles on night guard. Their saddle stock they had to hold—they were the tools of their trade. ”

“ For a youngster he was uncommonly self-contained. He would answer with a nod or a smile rather than a word. The rough joking of a round-up crew slid off him as rain off a slicker. In camp he would sit staring at nothing, chin in hand, his lean, dark face as impassive as a Buddha’s. ”

“ They walked back to the house under a sky now beginning to show stars. A south wind whistled forlornly down that cut in the Bad Lands. Pines loomed in dark patches against white canyon walls. Frost-crisp snow crunched underfoot. ”

“ A good man always fitted in, and somehow this boy in three sentences and a look impressed him as being more than capable. Horses did fall on men. Occasionally a rider yearned for distant pastures and left. “What’s your name?”
“Bill Mather.”
“All right, Bill,” Charlie nodded. “I guess you know how to make yourself at home in a bunk house.”
Mather nodded and withdrew.
At ten o’clock Charlie looked out before he went to bed. All white, and more falling. A foot of snow in mid-April. Erratic weather.
It continued to be erratic. The Wineglass floundered in a white world for thirty-six hours. ”

“ Charlie learned more about him from the Block S.
“Nice kid,” their range foreman said. “Made a good hand for me one season. Folks ain’t much. Old man’s no account. Got a brother that’s slick as hell at a lot of things, but lazy. Girl down there, sister or something, wild as a hawk. Keep their ranch like a boar’s nest. Got a few stock in the edge of the breaks. Scrap among themselves all the time. Bill’s all right. He’ll amount to somethin’. ‘Bad Land,’ we used to call him.”
Bad Land Bill. The Block S had christened him that. The Wineglass revived it. ”

“ Mather said from his saddle. “I was goin’ to send a horse back for the old man to ride home. You could take him.”
“It’ll be three or four days before we move a wheel, maybe longer,” Charlie answered. “Can’t work cattle in snowbanks. Your old man can stay at the wagon, or, if he wants to ride home, there’s plenty of extra horses there. Somebody ought to send word to Benton about this killin’. Listen, kid. Your business is your own. ”