High Country : A Novel (18 page)

Winter passed quickly, Ty settling into a routine to manage his chores and his schoolwork and repair the tack Fenton and Horace left with him. Fenton even brought in the Meana saddle, saying Horace wouldn’t need it for another year and Ty should rig it to his liking. Ty oiled it, adding a flank cinch and new latigos and making scabbards for different tools. When the weather was good, he’d saddle one of Horace’s horses and work him hard. It wasn’t long before all the horses were in better shape than they’d ever been.

Horace liked Ty’s quiet way with animals. He would look at the Meana saddle and smile, say he expected Ty would own it some day. “Just can’t figure out whether Fenton’s gonna give it to you or trick me into doin’ it for him.”

Ty liked being kidded by Horace, but he could never think of what to say. And he couldn’t even imagine owning the Meana saddle.
He learned algebra and studied history, looking at the maps where Lewis and Clark had tried to cross the snow-choked Bitterroot. He was mystified about why they would try after the Nez Perce warnings but impressed that they didn’t lose any horses. He read Twain and Crane for Miss Wright, talking with her about the stories before she sent him back to read more. And Cody Jo brought him books by Dreiser and Dos Passos, taking him out for Cokes when she was in town, asking him why he thought they wrote the things they did.
When Jennifer’s baby came, Mary called from the store at the Missouri Bar. A healthy boy, she said, with strong hands. Ty could tell she was anxious to get the baby home. But a few weeks later she was in the hospital herself, sounding so worn he didn’t recognize her voice. They found out what was wrong, she said, only then saying anything was wrong at all.
“It’s that fever.” Her voice was weak. “They knew right off. They have medicine. It’ll make everything right.”
Horace closed up the feed store the next morning and drove Ty out to the hospital. But they were too late. The medicine didn’t make everything right.
“It would have,” Jennifer told him, the baby tiny under all the wrapping. “If they had known earlier.”
“When?” Ty wanted to know. “When did it start?”
“A week.” They stood outside the curtained room where Ty had seen Mary, the blotched skin, the hair still wet from fever, the body worn. “She took to drinking water. The way she does. She wouldn’t complain.”
“Couldn’t he see? Tell how sick she was?”
“She wouldn’t say anything, Ty. She said you weren’t to blame him.”
“She would. That doesn’t make it right.”
Will was already with the doctor, hands moving along the brim of his hat. The doctor was careful: spotted fever, he explained. The medicine not soon enough. The fever high. Blood pressure low. Lungs filling.
Will thought Ty should come home, that they should talk.
“It’s okay,” Ty said. “You got things to do. I’ll go back to school. We can talk at the service.”
But they didn’t talk at the service. Will seemed to have forgotten, looking forlorn as the minister spoke. They lowered Mary into the grave and gave him some dirt to throw in. Then he left to finish up with the funeral people. Ty waited with the others under the weak spring sun.
“I’ll go back to Missoula,” Ty said to them. “He’ll be all right. I’ve got that work in the mountains. I’ll help if you need me.”
“Oh, Ty.” Jennifer was rocking her baby. “Ty ...”
“It’s all right. “I like it up there.”
Will came back, still holding his hat in front of him, turning it.
“You coming, Ty? Jennifer will fix a supper.”
“I got school. And that work in the mountains.”
“Well,” Will said, his mind someplace else. “Don’t have no accidents.”
In June Ty was back with Fenton, shoeing, bringing in hay—getting things right for the season ahead. He liked it, doing well from the first the work he would do for the rest of his life. He liked the mules and the horses; better still he liked the mountains, the way they provided food and comfort. The way watching his animals there taught him to make it a home.

Bob Ring watched Ty ease his mules into the clearing, the lumber extending well beyond each but Ty moving the string so carefully there was no trouble, even on the switchbacks. It was Ring’s job to build the lookout shelter. He’d packed in his own tools, but bringing lumber in was another matter. He was impressed to see Ty manage it alone.

Limping with a hitch he would have always, he went to help unload, surprised by how quickly it all happened. In no time the mules were belled and turned out, Ring hardly helping at all but admiring Ty’s efficiency.

After dinner they climbed to the lookout site, sat on a ledge in the late sun. To the north, parallel to the broad valley of the South Fork, was the China Wall, where the waters started their long run east. The sun gave life to the ridges, deepened the greens of the forest below.

“Not much more than a year ago you pulled me out with my leg broke,” Bob Ring said. “They had a time making the repairs.”
“I won’t forget. I was pretty scared.”
“Fenton did what he could. Not many could do more.”
The sun was almost gone, its light holding on the highest peaks.
“They tell me you came to be a fine player for those Spartans,” Ring said. “Willie and I would like to see a game sometime.”
“It’s fun.” Ty looked to make sure Ring wasn’t kidding him. “It’s just not serious.” The sun had left a blush of color on the cliffs, as though within them they held some light of their own. “Like this.”

“Like a cow pissin’ on a flat rock.” Buck looked gloomily out at the summer downpour. It was Ty’s third year of packing. They were camped with Miss Wright and her new husband at Danaher Meadows, which looked more like Danaher pond as the runoff filled it with pools, the trail now a stream.

“Bet the fishing’s good.” Ty came around from behind the cook tent with his shovel, his slicker dripping water. “Get that last tent ditched, I might turn Doc into a fisherman. Warm rain like this, they jump right in your creel.”

“I’ll ditch the damn tent. Angie’s so keen on bakin’ camp bread she don’t even know I’m here.” Buck put on his slicker and went out into the rain with Ty. “Come down like this once at White River. After I squashed my nose. Can’t recollect if it was this steady.”

Ty had placed them in a stand of timber well above the meadow. There was almost perfect drainage for the tents, but it was Ty’s way to make sure. He felt even more responsible on this trip. Miss Wright had married the young doctor who’d seen Angie through the scarlet fever quarantine, and what she’d wanted more than anything else was a honeymoon in Ty’s mountains—with Ty’s friends. Her reasons mystified Ty, but he was more than willing. She’d come to mean a lot to him; he wanted to give her the best trip possible.

“Should we read a book each day?” he’d asked. “Study up for dinner?” “None of that.” She liked it that he could tease her. “No grammar.” Her eyes grew earnest behind her lenses. “Just show me your mountains.” By 1941 everyone knew Ty was Fenton’s best packer, some said the best in all the Swan. And Alice Wright had grown more than fond of his quiet ways. He read every book she gave him, talked with her about them in his direct way. But she always sensed things withheld, unsaid. She’d even taken to going to his football games, surprised by the satisfaction he found in a sport so violent. It made her wonder about him, why he lost himself in some things so completely: being around his horses, working on his saddles, certain books. He had a way of disappearing into whatever he liked, making her think there was much to learn from that country that took him in so completely as soon as the snows melted.

She wanted her doctor to know Ty better too, hear how Ty put things, talked about his pack animals, his mountains. She wanted to see if Thomas found the same odd promise in this boy that she did.

“He likes Sherwood Anderson,” she said on one of their walks. “Who would think some packer would like Sherwood Anderson?”
“Who is Sherwood Anderson?” Alice Wright had linked her arm through Thomas Haslam’s, touching him so lightly yet completely it made him dizzy.
“He writes about people most of us hardly notice.” She watched him watching her, needing her. “Pinched people. People with odd troubles.”
She thought how both Ty and her doctor were drawn to people others overlooked. They just came at them from different directions. She wanted Ty to know Thomas too, understand all the good in him. She squeezed her doctor’s arm, knowing that wasn’t going to be easy, not with him as lost in her as he was. She turned to him now, taking pleasure in the way he looked at her, and told him about the people in Anderson’s stories.

Thomas Haslam was so smitten with Alice Wright his mind wouldn’t leave her, despite how bewildered she made him. He still wasn’t convinced she’d like a honeymoon of long hours in a saddle and cold nights in a tent. And he already knew the young packer—and liked him, had ever since the time Angie had knocked Buck through their bedroom window. He and Ty had sat on the steps long into that night considering what would have happened if Angie had cut Buck up with all those broken bottles.

“He’ll bring Buck and Angie to help.” Alice had seemed pleased just saying their names. “It will be so beautiful up there. Romantic. So . . . western.”

“Western is right here in Missoula,” Thomas told her. “And in Indian town, where we haven’t money enough for inoculations. The people drunk half the time....Eating the wrong things.”

“The best of it may be up in those mountains.” She took his hand. “Maybe not letting them stay in their mountains is where we went wrong.”

“Maybe.” The doctor felt himself surrendering. “It’s just not the best place for what I have in mind.”
“Oh, my.” She put her hand to his face. “We’ll have plenty of time for that.” She touched his lips. “I’ll make sure. We’ll want lots of time for that.”
He felt his need for her wash through him. “I just wish we didn’t have to go into the mountains to find the time,” he said.

Thomas Haslam had a hard time making sense of what Alice Wright did to him. She was a model of decorum at her school. Bull Trout was devoted to her, had her pour tea at school gatherings, serve cookies. At the faculty meetings she would pass bread warm from her oven, keep minutes in her perfect handwriting. Older teachers chose her for their special committees and studies. She volunteered for the most difficult tasks, deferring to her colleagues, offering her own ideas only when asked.

But all that propriety dropped away when she was alone with Thomas—on picnics, or in the car, or when she snuck into his room. Then she would touch him everywhere. Kiss him. Mock him. Swim naked with him in cold mountain streams.

“Wait until you can go inside me,” she would say when they were back on their blanket, kissing and holding one another. “Just wait.”
And she did make him wait, telling him she wanted to save only that one thing. He would feel sick with his need, wanting her so he would turn away, angry with himself, with her, with the wantonness that filled him.
He was a scientist to the bone. But he found nothing instructive about what she did to him, his obsession baffling him as much as the heartbreaking restraint that came over her just when they wanted one another more than life itself.
“We mustn’t,” she would say, her hair wild, her breathing heavy, pushing him away, reaching for her glasses. “We can’t. Not yet.”
He would hold his temples, wait for the throbbing to subside, so consumed understanding seemed impossible.

The night after the wedding they made love in the big guest bedroom at Cody Jo and Fenton’s, coming together in such a rush it did little to settle him—a passion remaining that was hardly compatible with seven hours in a saddle, numbing baths in mountain water, freezing nights in a tent. He was thankful Cody Jo had sent a puffy double bedroll, thankful that Ty would set their tent a little apart each night. But his yearning was constant.

When the warm rain started in and the women went to making camp bread, he saw his chance. He got his books and took Alice’s arm even as he heard what he dreaded.

“Do you need me to help with the baking?” Alice gave him a look, gently pulled her arm away. “I’m ready to help.”
Angie waved a floury hand. “Take your cow-eyed man and go. He’s bordering on desperate.”
Horace Adams, in his rain gear, ready to fish the swollen river, enjoyed it. “Want to watch me put a fly where they can’t resist?” Horace studied his flies. “Mostly pure science. You would take to it right off.”
“No.” Thomas’s mouth was dry. “We’ll be all right. Ty said he’d show me later.” He held up his books. “Got reading.”
“Well,” Horace looked at the books before stepping into the rain. “Don’t you two steam up them pages. Might be handy if we got to start the fire.”

Thomas and Alice sat naked in the middle of their rumpled bedroll, books thrown aside. Alice held Thomas’s flooded penis as his hand traced the soft line of her breast. There was no way in the world, he was sure, that a man could be happier. He was leaning to kiss her when they heard the sucking sound of a shovel, as though someone were digging under the tent. Alice pulled away, reached for her glasses.

“Ty?” she called out. “Is that you?”
“Should be.” Even with the clatter of rain, Buck’s voice made them jump. “Much as he loves ditchin’. But it ain’t. He’s already dug trenches from here to Texas.” The shovel hit the tent wall and rattled the canvas. “Now he ain’t gonna be satisfied until I dig a canal around the two of you.”
Alice smiled at Thomas, began to laugh. She looked so beautiful in her nakedness, her smile wide, her glasses misting, Thomas thought his heart might break.
“I’ll come out there and help,” he called out, resigned. “You shouldn’t have to worry about our tent.”
“You keep right on studyin’ your books.” Buck’s voice was so clear Thomas thought he might be about to come in. “If you can read above this racket. Shovelin’ is more along my line anyway. Read up for when my kids get sick again.” Suddenly his voice came from the other side of the tent. “Or when Angie decides to whack me.” Then there was only the steady rattle of rain.
Thomas began putting on his pants, picturing Buck out there in the downpour, leaning on his shovel, thinking.
“She does things so sudden, Angie does,” Buck’s voice finally continued. “When I was courtin’ her, she wouldn’t have anything to do with me until Sugar jerked his head and flatted my nose. Don’t believe I looked good at all when I come out of the woods. But then it seemed she couldn’t do enough for me. Worried over me and washed me up, and when I asked her to marry she couldn’t of been sweeter.”
“`Of course I will, Buck,’ she says. `You poor thing, you,’ she says. I got busy and come up with the papers before she changed her mind. And that’s when we got married. Maybe mashin’ up my nose wasn’t such a bad thing after all.”
“You think it was the nose that won her over?” Thomas was in his rain gear standing there with Buck now, the rain finally letting up.
“Can’t think of what else,” Buck said, studying the doctor’s face. “Surprised me as much as when she hit me with the bag of bottles.” He started to shovel again, still thinking.
“There’s been other times she surprised me,” Buck added. “She ain’t all that predictable.”