Passin' Through (1985) (3 page)

The stew she had given me was finished so I refilled my cup. To tell the truth I didn't want to leave. I was a lone-riding man and this here was the first time I'd put my feet under a real table in a home since . . . well, since longer than I liked to recall.

"That riggin' belong to the dead man?"

"No, it belonged to McCarron, the hand we hired who was killed by Houston Burrows. Every time we try to hire anybody he frightens them off. After all, they have no loyalty to us. Not many men want to take a job when it means a fight."

"Seems like a lot of shootin' goin' on. Is it always like that?"

"Oh, no! There's very little, actually."

"You've a mighty fine place, ma'am. You're lucky to have it."

"It is nice. Mr. Phillips knew I'd been dreaming of a place of my own. You don't know what it's like on the road. You see, I knew nothing else from the time I was a small child, and I always dreamed of having a place of my own where I could just stop. Where I could grow things, belong to something."

"Well, you've got a place now. Handled right, you should make yourself a nice living."

"I'm afraid not, Mr. Passin'. We can't do the work by ourselves. I can ride and so can Matty, but we just don't know what to do."

Well, I shifted in my chair. I took up my cup, then put it down. "Ma'am? If you'd like I could sort of stay on. I mean I could stay for a while, get the place into shape for you."

"Oh? Would you? I think -!"

"Matty," Mrs. Hollyrood said, "you can't ask him to take the risk. There's that awful Burrows man, and -"

"You don't need to worry about him," I said. "He'll not be botherin' you no more."

"How can you be sure? He's a mean, cruel man, and he's very dangerous."

"He might have been, ma'am, but he ain't dangerous no more. I killed him."

You could have heard a leaf fall. There was a moment when we heard a magpie scratchin' around outside, and the blue roan stomped in the dust.

Mrs. Hollyrood was looking at me. "You said you killed him?"

"Yes, ma'am. I was sort of passin' through town, an' stopped for a drink and something to eat, and he picked trouble with me. He was fixin' to kill me, ma'am, just because he wanted to kill somebody.

I was a stranger, just -"

" 'Passin' through'?"

"Yes'm. I was hot, tired, and hungry. All I wanted was a quick drink, a meal, a bath, and a place to sleep. I wasn't huntin' trouble but he was thinkin' himself a big, bad man and just had to prove it."

"But you could have been killed!"

"Not by him, ma'am. Where I been, his kind are two for a dollar. If they set in a corner an' keep quiet nobody pays 'em much mind. He wouldn't make a pimple on a tough man's neck. How big a man is depends on how big a territory he's in."

I put down my cup. "Ma'am? If I'm to stay on I'd better get busy. Comin' in I noticed the gate was busted, hangin' on one hinge."

Getting up I said, "How many head of cattle you got, ma'am? And how many horses?"

"I don't really know. Mr. Phillips kept accounts. If you like I can -"

"Later, ma'am."

Outside the air was cool. I looked up and my eyes swept the long ridge, beginning in a sort of peak topped by ponderosa pine and ending in a rock that sort of stood off by itself, a fine sweep of country. Below the peak there was a forest of aspen. There was a big old barn and a granary opposite, and the road that led past the house disappeared down the valley. It was a good piece of country of which I knew nothing at all.

Matty came to the door. "It's late. McCarron slept in the granary there. I see you have no bedding, and -"

"I'll make do, ma'am. I been doin' it all my life."

"There will be breakfast in the morning. Please come when you get up."

That made me smile. "Ma'am, I never slept past daylight in my life, and mostly I'm up long before."

"Come when you're ready," she repeated, "breakfast will be ready."

Stripping the gear off the roan, I turned him into the corral and put out some hay for him and a bait of corn in a bucket. Whilst he was eating I curried him some. He was a good horse and he'd carried me far and fast.

Currying that horse gave me time to consider. It looked to me like Mrs. Hollyrood and Matty were in a peck of trouble. Seemed like somebody wanted them off this place, but maybe I was jumping the gun. Maybe it was just happenstance that McCarron got himself killed and that other man threatened to burn them out.

Houston Burrows had picked a fight with McCarron and killed him, but maybe it was simply that Burrows was a trouble hunter. There was one in every town, and it was usually strangers they picked on, strangers or somebody they knew they could handle. The trouble with a stranger is that you never know who you've challenged, and there were all kinds of men driftin' western country, men like Chris Madsen, the Oklahoma marshal, who had served his time in the French Foreign Legion before coming to America.

There was a lantern hangin' inside the door of what was called the granary and I lit it and looked around. There was half of the place given over to sacks of oats and a bin of unshelled corn on one side, and beyond a partition there was a bunk, a chair, and a small table with a washstand. The bunk was made up army-style, a clean white sheet and a blanket drawn tight and tucked in. Some clothes hung on the wall on homemade hangers and the floor was swept. This would be a tough act to follow.

There was a tub made from a barrel sawed in half. I'd seen it standing in the granary side so I got it out, filled it half- full with water, and bathed. Believe me, it felt mighty good after the long ride I'd been on. Meanwhile I thought of my two horses and gear left behind when I left town after bein' hung. Nobody had seen me leave them, and they'd hold the horses for a while and might not even find my gear, yet I'd no wish to go back and risk hangin'.

The bed felt good, but tired as I was I could have slept on a bed of logs. The morning was gray before my eyes opened and I crawled out of bed, dressed, then made the bed as carefully as I'd found it.

There was light from the kitchen, but first off I took a careful look around. The big old barn loomed dark and ominous. Come daylight I'd walk over and give it some attention. The blue roan walked over to the fence when I came by and I leaned on the top bar and talked to him.

"We both got a bad name," I spoke softly, scratching his neck, "only I earned mine, an' you just happened to be around.

When we leave here we'll go together, you an' me."

Turning toward the house, I stopped and put my hand up to my jaw. Three days' growth of beard ... I walked back inside and shaved into the rectangle of mirror held against the doorpost by four nails. Only then did I cross to the house.

The door opened at once. "You're late," Matty said.

"I had to go back and shave." My fingers went to my jaw. "Out in the hills a man can forget."

"You shouldn't." Her look was cool, appraising. "You're a good-looking man."

Me? I was astonished, and embarrassed. Somehow I'd never thought of my looks, one way or the other.

Chapter
Three

It was warm and comfortable in the kitchen. Crossing to a chair at the table, I put my hat on the floor close at hand. There were two coal-oil lamps on the walls with reflectors behind them, and there was a glow from the kitchen range.

"Do you like oatmeal, Mr. Passin,?,, "I do, ma'am, and bacon, too." I had seen her slicing it into the frying pan.

She was busy at the stove, then dished up the oatmeal for me. "We have a cow," she added, "a milk cow."

Milk cows weren't common in range country, but this here was different, being a mixed lot of country. They ran cattle here, and higher in the mountains, sheep. Mostly it was mining country.

"My name isn't Passin' Through," I said, "that was Mrs. Hollyrood's joke."

"You did not tell us your name, and one of the things we have learned out here is not to ask a man's name or where he is from," Matty said. "To us you are Mr. Passin' until you decide to tell us something else."

Well, I didn't know her name, either, when it came to that, and I was not asking questions. Besides, what does a name mean? Nothing, until a man makes it mean something.

The oatmeal was good but I was taking my time. It had been a long time since I'd set down in such a pleasant place to eat, and served up by such a woman. Come to that, I'd never known anyone like her, nor anyone near as beautiful. When it comes to asking questions, she was not the sort you'd ask.

"That posse hasn't appeared."

"No, ma'am, an' I'm not real anxious they should."

"Will you run?"

Now I didn't like the sound of that. No man wants a woman to think he'd run, and when it came to that, I'd run as far as I intended to go.

"No, ma'am. If I see 'em in time I'll go hole up in the hills yonder. I wouldn't want to have no lead flyin' around you womenfolks."

"These walls are thick. They are squared logs, Mr. Passin', and if a person were to stay away from windows there would not be too much to worry about."

She brought the bacon to the table, then sat down opposite me. "We have no eggs but Mrs. Hollyrood plans to raise chickens. We will have some soon."

"Yes, ma'am. It's been almost a year since I had eggs. That was out in Pioche, Nevada."

"Pioche? I've heard of it. A rough town, they say."

"Sort of. There was shootin', time to time. They say they buried seventy-five men before one died of sickness. They seemed fight proud of that fact. I've heard of places where the climate was so healthy they had to shoot somebody so's they could start a graveyard, but those folks in Pioche sort of overdid it."

"Are you a miner, Mr. Passin'?"

"I'm anything it takes to get the coon. When there's mines, I work at minin', and when there's cows, that's my game. A man has to adjust."

"And if there's shooting?"

"That's part of the adjustin'. I was brought up to respect the rights of others and to protect my own self and my rights. Out in this rough country when it's new, there isn't any law standin' around to protect folks. You got to do it yourself and the law expects it of you. There'd be mighty few marshals or sheriffs around if they had to do all the shootin' themselves. Some of us folks have to sort of trim around the edges, like."

"I understand." She looked like she did, too. And she'd shot that man chargin' the house with a torch. This here was a woman a man would have to treat gentle. Not that I'd treat one any other way, if I had one. And that was unlikely, me bein' a driftin' man with no fixed abode and mighty little silver showin'. She puzzled me some.

The fire crackled, and she got up, lifted a lid on the stove, and added a chunk of pine. I finished the oatmeal and moved closer to the bacon. She filled my cup.

"Where I come from," I said, "we weren't Sunday shooters. I mean we weren't folks who went out of a Sunday to shoot at targets. We boys had to hunt meat for the table or we didn't eat. My pa, he was away workin'. He'd no time to hunt so it fell to me. He'd give me six balls and the powder for them, and come evenin' I had to have six pieces of game, the unfired balls, or a da - a mighty good explanation as to why I missed. I didn't miss much."

"I know," Matty said quietly, "it was the same with us."

"Your brothers?"

"With me. I did the hunting until I was twelve, then my mother died and my father took me away from all that. He went back to riding the boats."

Well, I looked at her. "The riverboats?"

"My father was a gambling man. He'd quit when he married my mother, but when she died he went back to it and took me along."

Those riverboat gamblers were a smooth lot. They were gentlemen, mostly, men who had been southern planters who lost it all during the War. Or there were some who posed as southern gentlemen but were not. Gambling on the riverboats needed a smooth hand.

"He was a wonderful man," Matty said, "and I loved him very much. He sent me away to school and I did well but never liked it. I liked being on the boats with him, and in the summer, I was."

"What happened?"

"He made a big winning one night, very big. I was sixteen then, and he had always told me that when he made his stake we would go back to Boston, that was where he came from, and live there.

"There were some gamblers on board who worked together. My father outwitted them and won and they came after him. He never got back to our stateroom."

"Murdered?"

"Yes." She was quiet for a moment and then she said, "He was stabbed as he was passing the stacks of firewood when he was coming back to our cabin. They robbed him and threw his body overboard. I heard the splash."

Her face was pale, her eyes large in the lamplight. "Tough," I said, "sixteen and alone on a riverboat. Did you have any money at all?"

She looked at me, her face very still, very cool. "I had it all," she said. "I had everything he'd won."

"But -!"

"I was up, waiting for him to come in.

I heard him fall, a moment of scuffling, and then the splash. They went to their cabin, and when I opened the door one of them was wiping off a bloody knife. If the blow had not killed him the knife would."