Bendigo Shafter (1979) (31 page)

Suddenly, Cain said, Bendigo, you've got to ride out of here. Don't take a chance on being caught here, don't waste yourself in this place.

It's our town, I said, surprised. We built it.

Bendigo, we built ourselves a place against the wind, but that was for us. Don't let it be for you. There's a larger world out there ... I don't know what it's like, really. I guess I'll never know ... but I wish I did, I wish I had.

I got caught, Bendigo, I was caught in a trap I set for myself.

A trap? You?

I planned to go to New York, Bendigo. You know how it is with tools and me. I could always do just about anything, make about anything. I had some inventions ... just little things, but I had ideas. I wanted my own shop, in time, my own factory. I had big ideas, Bendigo, but I believe there was no reason why they should not have happened.

Well, I just sat there. I remembered now, when I was just a youngster, a city man who kept coming to town and wanting Cain to go with him, offering to put up the money for Cain's skill and his knowledge, but by that time Cain was walking out with Helen.

I've been here before, Bendigo, when they were visiting ... just to sit and smoke.

Does Ruth Macken know?

I think so, but she'd never say anything, nor will I. You know, Bendigo, it is the easiest thing in the world to forget a man's responsibilities, chuck it all, and go following some red wagon ... but it isn't a man's way.

Helen is my wife, and we've grown along together. We understand each other, we mesh like gears ... and I'd never find another woman like her. I could go chasing off, calling it love or whatever a body wished to call it, and I'd only prove myself a damned fool.

The world isn't built around people who do what they want to do, Ben, what they want regardless of who gets hurt. It is built by people who do what they should do.

You've been reading a lot... Plutarch, and the like. Well, the old Romans built what they had by being strong, inside as well as out, and they lost it when they began giving in, going the easy way. They lost everything, Ben, when they ceased to be men, and a man is one who does what he has to do when it has to be done, and does it with pride.

Are you in love with Ruth Macken?

Don't ask that question, Ben. Don't even think it. I am in love with Helen.

Maybe ... just maybe ... had Ruth and I met at another time, another place ... well, who knows? Maybe she feels the same way, but I shall never find out because I don't want to. I married Helen, and we've had warm, friendly, wonderful times together. We've the children, and we understand each other. Any damn' fool kid can go tomcatting off after everything he sees ... takes no particular knowledge, skill, or much of anything.

Cain got to his fleet. I grew up a long time ago, Ben. And I am glad I did. I miss the dream, but maybe if I'd followed the dream I'd never have found anyone like Helen.

The thing you have to remember are the years. Not the hours, not the days or nights, but the years. When you want a woman you want one you can live down the years with. I have been dreaming, too, Ben, not of anything I have wanted to happen, not of anything I expected to happen, but just a land of romantic thing that was there in my mind. But do you know something? I am glad you came up the hill tonight, we've had a good talk, and I don't think I'll be coming back here again. Let's go back to the party.

We walked back down the hill, and neither of us ever mentioned it again. Snow crunched under our feet as we walked, the breath showed before our mouths, and we heard the music as we went toward the mill.

Ruth looked up as we came in. She looked at Cain, and then at me, but she said nothing, nor did she move.

Slowly, I worked my way around, speaking to people, stopping to talk here and there. Webb was standing off by himself, and I stopped there beside him, not saying a word. After a while he said, Nice evening, Ben. We need more like this.

You helped make it possible, Webb. You did as much as any of them.

It was Ruth Macken and Cain, he said, and you.

Webb, don't you ever forget. You were always there when the going was rough. You never sidestepped, you never welshed.

You know something, Webb? I always knew you'd be there. I never even had to look.

Thanks, he said, and a little later he went out, and just at the door, I stopped him. Webb, Foss ought to be here. You tell him we'd like it if he'd come up and dance a couple.

Webb stood a little straighter. Shafter, we don't need any ... He stopped then and stood watching the dancers. He'd like to come. He was blue about it, Ben. He was afraid nobody'd speak, nobody would dance with him.

'Tell him to come on up. Hell, Webb! This is our town! He was one of the first of us!

Maybe a half hour later, the door opened a crack and Foss stepped in. His hand was still bandaged up, but he had his hair slicked back.

Well, I caught Lorna's eye and moved my head a little, and she was over there. She danced with him, and Helen did, and then Ruth, and Mae Stuart.

Miller Pine, he led the singing of Darling Nelly Gray, Comin' Through the Rye, and Annie Laurie, and then we broke up, stood around outside talking a mite, but it was cold for much of that, so we went home in the crisp, still air, the snow sparkling with a billion tiny stars.

One more time I walked around, making sure, from a distance, that Ruth and Bud got safely up the hill. They had a warm house waiting ... with some smell of tobacco smoke in it.

Maybe that was just as important to comfort as a warm fire.

I don't know why it was, but that night when I went to sleep I was thinking of that printing press.

Chapter
31

Miller Pine had brought with him a half dozen novels as well as a sheaf of plays, some of which he had performed, some in which he had hoped to appear. He let me have these to read, and I went through them quickly, fascinated and amused.

Anna Cora Mowatt's Fashion; or life in New York was the first, followed by The Black Crook, by Barras. Then The Octoroon, by Don Boucicault, and Rip Van Winkle, as played by Joseph Jefferson.

The days were bitter cold, there were frequent storms, and I found myself going again and again into the woods to haul fuel for the town. It was a task that needed all our efforts.

There was no travel. The stage ceased to run, the roads and trails were deep in snow, but there was constant fear of the spring. The Sioux were increasingly restless, we heard, and with spring there was certain to be trouble.

Several times I had gone to Sampson's loft to look at the printing press. Drake Morrell had worked as a printer's devil, or sort of errand boy and assistant to a printer, and explained much about it.

Occasionally I visited the Indians in their dugout near Ethan's, listening to their stories, talking of hunts and legends and stories of the past.

Often in the evening we would gather at Ruth's or Cain's, talking politics, planning for the day when Wyoming would be a state, and of course there was much talk, and some joking about women's rights. Most of us were in favor of women voting, and in our own private elections they'd been doing it all along.

As marshal there was little to do. The bad ones had holed up for the winter, and ours was a peaceful people, too busy keeping ourselves warm and supplied with meat and fuel to create trouble.

When the storm broke, Ethan, Bud Macken, and I saddled up.

Ethan and I rode up to Ruth Macken's before daylight, but she was an early riser always and had coffee on and breakfast making. Sit down, you two ... and thanks for asking Bud. He's been wanting to go.

We're going to scout back of Beaver Rim and maybe up the canyon. Maybe we can scare up a deer or an elk.

By the way, Mr. Trask told me you could buy paper in Salt Lake ... for your printing press.

That made it almost too easy. The trouble was, there was no way a man could make a living with a printing press in our town, even if he could sell some papers to the other settlements that were filling in along the creeks.

There aren't enough people, I said, but I've given it some thought.

I am not sure, Ben. It isn't the deserted place it was. There have been some new miners moving in on Hermit Creek. They moved into those abandoned cabins over there and are getting ready for spring. There's some others on Willow Creek.

It was something to consider. Riding around over the country, I'd noticed a couple of small communities had sprung up, at least one of them abandoned shortly after the first snowfall.

Ben, Bud interrupted, there's a paper published over at Fort Bridger now. Called the Sweetwater Mines. Mr. Trask left a copy last time he was through.

The three of us started for the hills. It was a quiet, sunny morning. The snow was not deep on the level, and as always the folks in town were short of meat. The game had left the low country because of the people around, so we headed up the valley.

The Wind River Range was magnificent, covered with snow, only here and there a sheer face of rock showing black and bare against the whiteness. We saw rabbit tracks aplenty, but a man can starve to death eating rabbits ... there just isn't enough nourishment in their meat ... and we were hunting bigger game, hoping for an elk or two ... if we were lucky a buffalo, although there were few of those around at any time.

We hadn't gone far when we saw two riders approaching. We pulled up and waited for them. It was Uruwishi and Short Bull.

You hunt for meat? Uruwishi asked.

Yes, and you? Also, Short Bull said.

Ride with us, I suggested. I would learn from the wisdom of Uruwishi.

We rode in silence for some distance, riding single file and weaving our way through the pines toward the higher country. Around us was the stillness of winter, with no sound but that of our own movements, the creak of leather, the occasional sound of metal, the hoof fells of the horses.

When we stopped again to let our horses rest, Uruwishi gestured toward the Big Horns, which lay off to the east. Many days' journey to the north there is a place, a place to see. It is a stone wheel... a Medicine Wheel.

A wheel?

Many days. It is high ... a high, far place where a man can look all around. The Wheel is of stones. Standing up? I was incredulous.

On the ground. Many stones maybe so high he showed his hands two to three feet apart, moving them slightly as he spoke and many spokes.

Who built it?

He shrugged. Who knows? The People Who Came Before It Was Light... maybe the Little People. They were there.

Have you been there?

Once ... when I was a papoose. My father prayed there, to the Great Spirit.

He turned his horse slightly. I think it fa a Medicine Wheel ... I think it is big medicine. I think many moons, many lifetimes ago people came there to pray, to sit in thought upon the grass around the Wheel.

On some of the ridges there are stone arrows that point the way.

You say it was built long ago?

Long, long ago ... it was built when the animals with long noses and long teeth were hunted. Men carved their bones then, and scratched upon them to count the moons, and to remember ttie planting times.

Animals with long noses?

Bigger than buffalo ... long hair. Noses they curled back when they charged. The people who lived before my people hunted them with spears, drove them into swamps, and stoned them for their meat.

Do many Indians come to the Medicine Wheel? From many tribes?

They come.

Why?

There is magic there. Nobody knows why ... only that it is there. The Cheyenne know ... they built their medicine lodges like the Wheel.

Will you take me there, Uruwishi?

The old Indian was silent. Then he said, I am old, and it is a long way, yet I should like to see it again before I die. If the Great Spirit has not come for me when the snow is gone, I will ride with you.

He is too old for that, grumbled Short Bull. He will die there.

Uruwishi shrugged. Then I shall die ... who is it who lives forever? My days are finished ... long ago I believed I was to die, and I sang my song of dead, and then this white man came and he did not say, 'Sit by the fire, Old One.' He said, 'Come ride with me.' And I felt young again. What there is of my life is his, for he has given it to me. Where should I die? Seated by the fire? I who killed the great bear? Who hunted the bufialo and the wolf? Who drove the Blackfeet into their canyons? Am I to sit like an old squaw and wait for death? I am a warrior! I am a chieftain!

When I swung my club, men fled! When I took up my bow the bears trembled! He glanced sidewise at me, his old eyes twinkling. These young ones! What do they know?

We will ride then, Old One. We will ride when the snow is gone!

Higher we rode, skirting a canyon wall. Down below the water rushed, its banks edged with ice. We saw, suddenly, the tracks of elk ... a half dozen or more. Uruwishi rode ahead, following the trail.

Snow tumbled from the heavily laden branches of the spruce. We rode single file again, trusting only the well-marked way. I was close behind Uruwishi. Suddenly we saw them. The elk were moving slowly across a clearing several hundred yards ahead and at least three hundred feet lower. It was a temptation to shoot, but the distance was hard to judge due to the snow and die lower level at which they moved.