Moontrap - Don Berry (12 page)

"
Yes'm," Webb muttered unhappily. "I
surely will." He suddenly pulled the hat on again. "But I
don't guess it's like to happen twice," he apologized.

Beth smiled at Webb's discomfiture. She stood from
the table. "I best be movin' on, now," she said. "Mary,
you think on what I said."

"
About what?" Monday asked curiously.

"
Woman talk, Mr. Monday, and none of your
concern." She went to the door and opened it. She turned back
briefly and said, "An' don't you go pokin' into things that
don't concern you." She closed the door before Monday had time
to answer.

"
Some punkins, that 'un," Webb said
admiringly. "Right peart for a woman, an' a white 'un at that.
Had me a Nez Percé wife oncet summat like that 'un. Lodge-poled the
bitch from Powder River t' Bayou Salade an' back again, for she
wouldn? quit. Finally swapped her off f'r a Hawkens gun 'n' three
pounds o' powder."

"What's she got her back up at me for?"
Monday said. "I didn't do nothin'."

"Nothin'," Webb muttered. After a moment he
added mysteriously, "Y' don't have to."

3

Webb and Monday unloaded the meat they had brought
down, and Mary put it all out on the counter for wrapping. There was
a stack of Oregon Spectator; in the cupboard, carefully collected
from the newspaper office when the paper was being run by Doc Newell.
They were reject sheets, crooked on the press or double impressions,
but most of them were still legible.

Webb watched with interest as Mary took the stack
down and began to roll up the chunks of meat. He grabbed a sheet from
the top, muttering, and took it to the fire.

"Goddam, coon, y' look like a English
gentleman," Monday said. "Y' do, now. Sittin' there with
y'r paper in front o' the fire, an' all."

"
Jaybird," Webb said patiently, "y're
just a heap o' shit with teeth, 'n' for oncet I wish y'd cut out
clackin' the teeth 'n' lie there still."

"
Hell, Webb," Monday said dubiously, "you
can't read now, can y'?"

Webb's proudest achievement was his reading, and it
was an almost sure way to make him come.

This time, though, there was no violence—though
Monday had seen knives drawn over the same question in the past. Webb
calmly turned the page. "This nigger c'n read slick," he
said equably. "He c'n read never mind what. If'n they c'n write
it, he c'n read it, 'n' that's truth."

Monday grinned at his back. Mary had turned slightly
around, and Monday winked at her. She smiled and turned back to the
wrapping of the meat. Webb crouched on his haunches in front of the
fire, the two long Piegan scalps dangling down between his knees as
he read. For a long moment there was only the sound of the crackling
fire and the rustling of the papers as Mary wrapped the meat.

Then Webb said angrily, "W'hat 'n hell's 'ova'
mean?" He looked accusingly at Monday as though the big man had
perpetrated the word himself.

Monday looked at him, surprised. "Means 'above,'
coon. Y' put y'r gun ova the mantel."

"
That's over, y' damn dunghead," Webb
snapped. "Ova, o-v-a."

Monday rubbed his forehead. "I don't believe
that's a real word," he said finally. "It don't sound
right."

"
It's got to be a word. Right here in the paper,
ain't it?"

Monday went over to the fire and looked at the column
where Webb was pointing. It was a long poem, fifteen or twenty
stanzas, with the title ADVENTURES OF A COLUMBIA SALMON. The paper
was several years old and yellowed, but the type was still legible
enough. Webb was on the second stanza:

'
Tis a poor salmon, which a short time past
With thousands of her finny sisters came,
By
instinct taught, to seek and find at last,
The
place that gave her birth, there to remain
'
Till
nature's offices had been discharged,
And fry
from out the ova had emerged.

"
They got a literary association over to Oregon
City," Monday explained. "Call it the 'Falls Association,'
an' they're always doin' somethin' like that in the paper."

"
Don't give a
damn
where it come from," Webb said querulously. "Just what's it
mean, ova?"

"That's what I'm sayin'," Monday said.
"It's literary. When they put stuff in you can't understand,
that's literary."

"If'n it's a word, this nigger c'n understand it
right off." Webb snorted.

"Well, you read better'n me," Monday
admitted. "What's this'n here mean?" He pointed to the
third line of the stanza, the word "instinct."

"Wagh!"' Webb snorted. "That's
'instinct'."

"Hell, I c'n sound it out if I want to,"
Monday said. "That's nothin'. Anybody c'n sound a word out if he
wants to. But what's it mean?"

"Iggerant child, y'are now. Instinct, that's
when you do something you don't know what y're doin'."

"That's just stupid, to my way o' thinkin',"
Monday said.

Webb stood, clutching the paper tightly in his fist
and glaring at Monday. "Nobody ast y' for y'r dunghead opinion,"
he said furiously. "Just do you know what 'ova' means."

"Don't get y'r back up, hoss," Monday said
placatingly. "Mary, 'ova' ain't a Shoshone word, is it?"

Mary thought for a moment. "No," she said,
shaking her head.

"
What does it look like?" She came over to
the paper. Webb had partly crumpled it in his anger and they had to
smooth it out on the table.

"C'n she read?" Webb demanded of Monday
while Mary looked at the column.

"Hell, yes," Monday said with pride. "I
bet she c'n read better'n you."

"Never heard of a squaw could read," Webb
muttered. "Goes against nature."

Mary said, "I think maybe 'ova' means 'frying
pan.' See, is where they take the fry out of. "

"
That's it, Mary got it!" Monday said.
"See, right there. 'Fry from out the ova.' That's it."

Webb puzzled at it for a moment. "Fry means baby
fish, don't you even know that?"

"
Hell, yes. Ain't you ever had baby fish fried?
An' see there, it says about 'nature's offices'. That means when
you're hungry, don't it?"

Webb muttered something unintelligible, tracing the
lines with his finger again, trying out the meaning. Then he stood
straight and looked Monday square in the eye. "Then the son of a
bitch don' make any sense."

Monday shrugged. "That's account it's literary,
" he said affably. "Like I said. Listen, hoss, you don't
want t' worry too much about this literary stuff or you go crazy."

"The bastards," Webb growled, staring down
at the paper. "The dirty, lousy, rotten-men." Deliberately
he crumpled the sheet into a tiny ball in his fist, his teeth
clenched in anger. Slowly he bent to put the wadded ball on the
floor, his movement tense, almost shaking with rage. Methodically he
began to stamp on the paper, mashing it flat with his moccasins and
cursing in a steady stream.

"That ain't what God made words for!" he
snarled.

Monday started to laugh, and the sound only made Webb
more furious. He looked up at Monday, and for a moment Monday thought
he was going to be attacked. He held his hands helplessly in front of
him, weak with laughter, while the old man raged incomprehensibly.

Finally Webb stalked to the door, snatching his rifle
from beside the fire. He slammed the door back, and with one last
implacable curse stormed out into the night, to make his camp under
the open sky. Monday sat helpless at the table, unable to speak. Mary
went back to the counter, but she too was smiling. It had been a long
time since the cabin had been full of cursing and laughter.

After a few moments the door exploded inward,
slamming loudly back against the wall. Webb came in again, staring
challengingly at Monday. He went over and picked up the mutilated
newspaper and shoved it defiantly in the flap of his hunting shirt.
He stood for a second, arms belligerently akimbo, waiting for Monday
to say something. Seeing that the big man lacked the courage, Webb
spat in the fire and went out again. Monday put his head down in his
hands and began to shake again.

From the counter Mary said, "I think maybe he
eat it, now." Her hands deftly rolled the packages and put them
to one side.

"
No." Monday gasped, wiping his eyes. "If
I know the coon, he just can't stand to quit without finding out how
it came out. How he is."

Mary smiled. "He is not like the others, that
one."

"He's still the same as ever, god damn him. Just
like he used to be."

"
He is Absaroka?" Mary asked.

"
No, he's white—he's livin' with the Crows, is
all."

Mary shrugged. "Was that I meant. It makes no
difference to the Absaroka. He lives there, he is Absaroka. Same as
when you were Shoshone."

"
I expect," Monday said, never having
thought about it.

"
He is very much mountain," Mary said. "He
is free, not like white men."

"
White men are free too, Mary," Monday
said, frowning. "It's just a different kind of life, is all."

"
May be that way, " Mary said quietly. "You
know, that one, he is the Wild Man Thurston talk about."

Monday laughed. "Wagh! He is, now. Won't
Thurston be surprised when he finds out it's just an old friend."

Mary finished the last of the meat and stooped down
to open the trapdoor to the cooler. "No, I think he not be
surprised. But he will be angry."

"Angry? Why the hell angry? Webb ain't going to
hurt anybody."

Mary stacked the packages carefully and methodically,
moving slowly because of her bulk. "I think maybe he hurt you."

"
Webb?" Monday laughed. "Hell, he's
just playin'. It's like old times, Mary."

"No, is because the old man is—Absaroka. It
hurt you to have a friend like that here. Thurston, he does not like
mountain people around here. You know."

"
Hell," Monday said, "nothin' I c'n do
about what Thurston likes or not."

"
But it hurts you just the same."

"
Mary—listen, Mary. You worry too much about
things you don't understand. If Thurston don't like my friends—it
don't make any difference. I'm doin' the best I can here."

"
No," Mary said quietly turning to look at
him. "You smell mountain. Now, the old man here, you start to
talk mountain again. And you will never be one of them here, you
smell mountain. You have mountain ways, mountain friends"—she
hesitated briefly—"mountain wife."

"Enough, woman." Monday stood, resting his
lists on the table. He had spoken in Shoshone, and Mary became
silent. She closed the trapdoor over the cooler and stood, brushing
the dust from her gingham skirt. She went to the fireplace and hefted
the pot, shaking it to hear the liquid.

"There is coffee," she said.

Monday looked down at the table, leaning on his
knuckles. "I'm going to take a walk down to the river."

"
I heat it again when you come back," Mary
said.
 

Chapter Six

1

The moon was risen. It cast sharp shadows in front of
him as Monday walked down to the river bank and sat himself. 
Below the bluff the Willamette rolled silvery and silent. Across the
river the trees were cut-out silhouettes against the lightness of the
sky, motionless and seeming very far away in the black and silver
dimness of the night.

She was there all the time, he thought. Listening to
Thurston talk about "that Indian servant" and "biological
needs." Though, at the root of it, Monday supposed it didn't
matter. lt wasn't new. Times enough in the past seven years, scraps
of conversation, sidelong glances, wrinkled noses as she passed in
the streets of Oregon City before Monday had gotten enough sense to
keep her home. It was nothing new to Mary, or to him.

Meek and Newell both had Indian women, Nez Percé
sisters. How the hell did they stand it? Wrginia Meek just stayed
home; there was no way to tell what she felt, if she felt anything.
But then, Joe had a "position"; being marshal probably made
quite a bit of difference.

Monday shook his head. There was no answer. Except
the one some had found, getting rid of their women and getting white
girls. But it was no way out for men like Meek and Newell and
himself, who had their women not as a convenience, but because they
wanted them and loved them. Until he'd bought Mary he'd never had any
notion of having a woman permanent, and in fact it wasn't in his mind
then. Like the two that had come before her, somebody to keep a lodge
for him and mend his moccasins and warm his body in the cold winter
nights. But, over the years . . .

Well, the hell with it. It was just the way it was.
It was hard and you had to put up with it and try to get along as
best you could. He stood up, stretching his shoulders, trying to ease
some of the tension out of them. What frustrated him most was the way
things kept becoming problems; things that didn't have any right to
be problems. What the hell difference did it make to Thurston and the
rest of them if he did have an Indian woman? That was what he
couldn't understand. Their lives were not changed by it, not even
affected. In the end he supposed it was the same as Thurston wanting
to hunt down an unknown solitary, just because he was solitary. And
the new talk about sending an expedition into the up-country tribes
that never hurt anybody and wanted nothing from the whites except to
be left alone. It was just that they were there.