High Country : A Novel (8 page)

Fenton saw the schoolteacher only a few more times that year, meeting when they were moving so fast in different directions that he simply avoided thinking about it—as though something were wrong with enjoying that look on her face just before she started to laugh.

Then just before Fenton’s big August trip, Jasper nearly severed his thumb with his cleaver and was out for the season. When Rosie Murphy heard Fenton planned to use Buck and Bump as cooks, she threw up her hands and volunteered, if Fenton would keep Buck on as wrangler. She knew Angie would be a lot more help to Dan if Buck were elsewhere.

The next thing she did was talk Cody Jo into helping her. Before he knew it Fenton found himself riding toward the pass with seventeen pack animals, two green cooks, and a lovesick wrangler. He had Tommy Yellowtail to help with the mules, but if Gus Wilson hadn’t agreed to come, he didn’t know what he would have done. That was before Gus got the big chunk torn from his face. And with the unexpected turn the trip took, Fenton felt lucky to have him.

Three Chicago grain traders had brought their families out to look at the country Fenton had shown them the year before. They’d come for elk, but the country was what won them over, the country and the big packer who handled their horses, kept them fed and dry, found elk for them in the thin light of morning. Now they wanted to show it to their families, acting like old-timers themselves, talking with Fenton about routes, helping saddle, herding their families around as though they’d done this all their lives.

Except for the trouble in Lost Bird Canyon—and nearly drowning Goose in the South Fork—the trip went the way Fenton’s trips always did. But there was nothing ordinary about any of it to Cody Jo. It seemed to her she learned something new every step of the way, a matter she wouldn’t admit at first, even to Rosie. She insisted on riding her flat saddle, but it took only a day of watching Fenton tie her slicker onto other peoples’ saddles to see she’d been wrong. She wouldn’t admit that either, just as she wouldn’t admit how much she wanted to stay in her bedroll when Rosie prodded her awake the first morning.

“They can make their own coffee.”
“They look for tracks.” Rosie nudged her again. “Our job is to send
them out happy so they won’t be discouraged when there aren’t any.” “What?” Cody Jo was up now, shivering. “Will the horses run away?” “Maybe.” Rosie lit the kindling. “But the sooner they find tracks the
less likely it is.”

An hour later they heard the bells and saw the horses. It was lovely to watch as Fenton and Tommy Yellowtail eased the herd into the meadow so they wouldn’t run through and out the other side. Cody Jo watched them feinting and kicking at one another before circling around Gus Wilson, out in the frosty meadow moving among them with a nose bag. She saw Buck and Tommy Yellowtail begin to catch them up, taking the gentle ones first, sometimes moving too quickly and spooking one off. There were over forty head to take care of; it took time.

Rosie took pancakes to the men when they started saddling, Tommy putting his on a log and eating as he saddled. Fenton, troubled by all the talk the night before, came into the cook tent to talk with the traders.

One of the men had convinced everyone they should go down Lost Bird Canyon to the White River camp. Fenton had made it through the canyon years ago, which he’d made the mistake of admitting when he took that same man to the head of the canyon looking for elk the year before. It was the shortest way, that was true. But Fenton couldn’t remember how he’d done it then and was pretty sure no one had done it since. What worried him was that he’d enjoyed sipping their bourbon and looking at Cody Jo so much the night before that he might have given the impression he’d try, which in the morning light he knew was a bad idea. There would be undergrowth everywhere, deadfall, and bogs—often the only way through the thick timber—that could play hell with his mules.

He got some coffee and went through it all again, surprised that his reservations made everyone even more interested. If they had to turn back, they said, the adventure would make up for lost time. They felt lucky Fenton knew the canyon. They called it “challenging,” trusted Fenton to “meet the challenge.” Rosie and Cody Jo just made things worse.

“When do we start?” Rosie asked. “Kitchen’s packed and mantied.” “Just the way you said it would be.” Cody Jo’s smile warmed everyone. “High country under a Montana sky. You the hero.” She patted Fenton’s arm. “I like you as the hero.”
Fenton raised a few more objections before going off to saddle. He felt undone again by Cody Jo. He’d been so taken by her confidence in something she knew nothing about, he’d lost his own. He grabbed a saddle and shook his head, thinking about the way she’d looked in the firelight the night before.

They were well into the canyon by midmorning. Old Babe, the horse he’d ridden before Easter, kept finding the remnants of a trail, but after awhile it didn’t seem important. The sky was clear. They moved easily through meadows and open timber, watching game and stopping once to watch a black bear and her cubs scurry up the bluffs, the sow looking them over before disappearing.

They had lunch in a high meadow. Below them the canyon narrowed and flattened, the timber heavy. After that it eased down to the South Fork, across the stream’s broad alluvial fan. Fenton knew that part would be easy, a gentle ride through open woods to the South Fork ford. Getting through the heavy timber was the problem. Even watching Cody Jo couldn’t keep him from worrying about that.

Tommy Yellowtail rode Pinto ahead to scout out a route while Fenton let the mules graze. He sat with Gus and Buck, apart from the rest, eating and talking about what was ahead. They could hear Rosie and Cody Jo bantering with the children, getting the littlest to help make sandwiches.

After lunch it seemed no time at all before they were at the edge of the deep woods, Fenton deciding to loose-herd his mules. He’d just finished breaking up the strings when Tommy appeared, coming from the other side of the stream and shaking his head.

Fenton didn’t waste any time. He sent Tommy back into the woods to try again, told Rosie and Buck where he’d spotted a likely campsite and sent them back to find flat ground for the tents. He didn’t even string the mules back together, handing their lead ropes to the best riders, giving Cody Jo one too. But her mule pulled back, and without a saddle horn she couldn’t hold him. Fenton led him up the canyon himself.

It was a good place for a camp, backed up against aspen with grazing on the slides above. Fenton trimmed a deadfall so they could stack the saddles. Gus got lodgepoles for the A-frames and put Buck to work cutting them to size as he unpacked the canvas. Fenton belled two mares, saved out a third bell for Babe and pushed the stock out of camp. Then he got Gus and rode back with axes and the handsaw, tracking Tommy into the woods. It wasn’t long before they heard Pinto nicker. They tied up there and went ahead on foot.

It got darker in the woods, the stream slowed, drifting across the floor of the canyon to form bogs, the stream and the bogs murky looking. The wetness pushed them closer to the canyon walls, where they found Tommy, high on some deadfall, looking discouraged.

It looked even worse to Fenton—the forest dark, the ground spongy, the stream spreading and uprooting trees, laying claim to the whole canyon. Tommy said the other side looked no better, the stream running close under the walls, a bog going almost to the cliffs. But it seemed to Fenton that’s how he’d made it years before, never sure of a trail, just scrambling through, clinging to the hem of the canyon. It had been later in the year, drier. But he’d made it. He didn’t want to give up now.

They worked their way across the canyon and found the bog, looking just as bottomless as Tommy predicted.
“I’m goddamned.” Fenton looked at Tommy. “Got through once. Can’t see how.You think it was that much drier?”
“Shit yes. Best is just before snow. That’s when my people traveled. Down. Always down for winter.”
“Yes, and in spring they came up,” Fenton said. “They couldn’t go down if they didn’t come up. How the hell did they get up?”
“Same way everyone does. But them horse soldiers.” Tommy enjoyed seeing Fenton swatting at mosquitoes. Mosquitoes didn’t bother him. “Stayed high.” He looked up at the cliffs. “What’s up there?” “Straight up, is what’s up there.”
“Not up top it ain’t.” Tommy was already starting. “There’s other ways to get on top a cliff. Up there we maybe find a smart way.” He swung himself up over the ledges, moving easily for such a big man.
“I’m thinkin’ we’re whipped.” Gus knocked limbs off a deadfall to see what kind of ground was under it. “You must of come through before these trees plugged it up.” His shirt was wet with sweat, spattered with mud.
Tommy’s call was welcome. They wanted to get above the bugs. By the time they climbed up to find him, Tommy was convinced.
“See? Didn’t move nothing. Used the country. My people.”
They were on a shelf. For thirty feet to either side there was a clear way, like a good game trail. Across some shale Tommy found more. Then it was gone again. They combed back and forth, picking it up in bits—narrow, dropping or climbing to intersect other shelves, but there. They worked toward the South Fork, staying high until they found a clear trace that angled down to meet the broad alluvial fan. They marked it, followed it back, lost it entirely until it came to them that it switched back against itself, dropped into the canyon down a rough chute, cutting into the woods above the big bog. It crossed the canyon there, skirting a water-soaked meadow, and climbed the other side, found another shelf before dropping back, returning to the canyon floor just above their horses.
Fenton considered it as he rode up the darkening valley toward camp.
No trail, but there was a way. If he had to bring Tommy and Gus through with a few mules, he could make it. There would be steps to dig in the chutes, footing to hack into the shale, but it could be done. It was a different matter to bring a whole party through, most green as grass.
“No good for them people.” Tommy spoke as if he heard Fenton’s thinking. “Don’t see the no good places.” Tommy always worried about people from the city. They didn’t seem to know what could happen to them in the mountains.
Fenton understood Tommy’s objections, but they were so close. It might take three more days if they turned back, four if the weather changed. He was about to ask Gus what he thought when they heard bells high on the grassy slide. Babe whinnied, the bells pausing as if in answer.
They came into camp just after dark. Fenton belled Babe and pushed her out toward the others, knowing the feed would hold them. He knew too that this was a good camp: the sleeping flies taut, water close by, lots of room around the fire, where everyone seemed to have gathered. He went to the creek to wash. When he came back they were huddled around Gus and Tommy, asking questions. Rosie gave him a bowl of thick stew and he moved away, letting the tiredness wash through him, hearing the talk without listening to it. There was so much to think about that he hardly realized they all had gone quiet, waiting for him.
He turned back to them, thinking things through. He told them about looking for the trail, the logs choking the canyon, only Tommy Yellowtail knowing they should look high. Cody Jo’s eyes were on him as he talked, her face still.
“We’ve come this far,” he heard himself saying. “We’re awful close to White River. Guess it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try.” There was a murmur of approval. Subdued, not at all like the night before. They’d heard enough from Gus and Tommy to know this was a gamble.
Fenton squatted, drew a map in the dirt, feeling Cody Jo’s eyes on him still. He told them how they could help, saying even if things went well it would take the morning to get the route ready. He hoped they could be on their way by early afternoon. That way, barring a wreck, they could be across the big river and camped on the White River benches by dinner.
Cody Jo and Rosie started putting things away as people drifted from the fire, talking among themselves. Fenton answered a few more questions, then slipped away. He had more thinking to do before he went to sleep. He’d been surprised by some of the things he’d said himself. He went past the saddles and looked at the stars as he took a long pee.
“You piss like a moose.” A voice lifted from the darkness.
“Should of spoke up.” Fenton knew Tommy slept by the saddles, watching the weather and keeping the porcupines away, but the disembodied voice gave him a start. “Might of pissed right on you.”
“You done that already.”
“Not ’cause I didn’t know you were there, if that’s what you mean.”
“I mean you didn’t have no idea what was gonna come out when you started sweet-talkin’ them people. Me and Gus sure didn’t. We just didn’t count on you bullshittin’ yourself.”
“Truth is I
didn’t
know. I was so occupied by how I got through there in the first place, I wasn’t ready. Still don’t see how I done it.”
“Maybe you was so green you didn’t know it couldn’t be done. Most of us was that way once. It’s best to disremember.”
“Well, I made it. That’s the thing.”
“The wrong thing. And you went the wrong way.You was strong and dumb and lucky. Luck don’t come that often. Don’t pay to ask for it twice. Now you’re gonna take these people through what you don’t remember back when you didn’t know no better than to try.”
Fenton was startled to get such a long speech from Tommy. “Let’s think how we will, not why we shouldn’t. I might of chose wrong, but I chose. We just got to do it.”
“Horse shit,” Tommy grunted. “Even Spec would know better.”
Special Hands, Tommy’s son, was barely ten but already known for his skill as a hunter and skinner and woodsman. Fenton liked it when Tommy talked about Special Hands. He stood there waiting for more, looking up at the Big Dipper and listening to the creek. Tommy started to snore just as the cold came in. Fenton went back to his bedroll, moved around until he was comfortable and could concentrate on the day ahead. There was much truth in what Tommy had said. There were cliffs and bogs and snags all over the place. Something told him it was too big a bite to take, but something stronger told him to take it. He hadn’t come all this way just to turn back.