Dry Divide (6 page)

When Hudson yelled the other fellows all looked toward me, so I said, “Let's do it. If we'd quit now we wouldn't come out any better than the boys did, and maybe I can get things straightened out by morning. If not, we'll quit then. Is that fair enough?” No one answered, but they all got to their feet.

No matter how tough a decent farmer may be with his hired help, he'll give his horses a full hour's rest at noon. And even though he may be stingy in the table he sets, he'll see that his horses are well fed and watered. The amount of feed Hudson had sent in from the field wasn't more than half enough for thirteen horses, and they were fighting each other away from the last few straws when we went to the corral for them.

The afternoon went a little better for the fellows on the barges, but worse than ever for the horses—and it wasn't too easy for me. I don't know how hot it might have been that afternoon, but well above 110°, and there wasn't a breath of air stirring. Fortunately, the drivers carried water jugs, wrapped in a wet sack and hung under the barge. Each time a load came in I must have drunk a pint. I sweated it out almost as fast as I drank it, and the more I sweat the more stinging beards stuck to my skin.

Hudson didn't waste any time yelling at the barge crews, and they didn't give him anything he could yell about. Their job, like mine, grew harder as the stack grew taller, but Hudson never had to wait one minute for an empty barge. And except for a few breakdowns, he didn't wait for anything else. Even if he'd had well-seasoned horses, heavy enough for the oversized header, the pace he was setting would have been nearly enough to kill them. For the ones he was driving it was nothing short of torture, and as they began to slow down he poured the blacksnake onto their backs. By mid-afternoon every horse in the header teams had zebra stripes, but they'd reached the point where they didn't even jump when the whip hit them, and with each round I noticed that they'd slowed their pace a bit more.

As the sun sunk lower all the spirit drained out of Hudson's horses. They plodded along like benumbed, half-frozen cattle in a blizzard, too exhausted to pay the least attention to the whip. That was probably all that saved the pitchers and me from keeling over in the heat, for as the horses slowed it gave us time to catch a couple of minute's rest between each load.

I don't believe there were a dozen words spoken between the crew that afternoon, except, “Pass the jug, will you?” We'd all made up our minds to see the day through, and we were doing it just about as the header horses were. The sun was just setting, so it must have been about half-past-seven, when Hudson finished the last swath of the quarter-mile-square field, then without a word he turned the header toward the house.

Doc's barge was the last one in from the field, so we left about a foot of wheat on the floor for horse feed. He pulled in close to the corral fence, and as he and I jumped down to unhook the traces Lars began pitching the horses' supper over the fence. He'd pitched only three or four forkfuls when Hudson came out of the barn, shouting, “Don't pitch that in there! Turn them horses out to pasture!” Then he kept straight on to the house.

With it being Saturday night, I could only think that Hudson was going to lay off for Sunday, though few farmers did in harvest time. Even if the horses were going to have a day's rest, I couldn't imagine any man in his right mind turning them out to pasture without a feeding of grain, but there was nothing we could do except to follow his orders or quit.

It was dusk by the time we'd unharnessed and turned the horses out to pasture, and a lamp was lighted in the kitchen when we went to the windmill to wash up for supper. I wasn't surprised when Hudson came out and hurried away toward the barn. It was a relief, as tired as we were, that we wouldn't have to eat at the same table with him.

Supper—exactly like the other meals—was on the table, and eight places were set, with Hudson's dirty dishes at one of them. Beyond the half-closed door to the next room a child whimpered, but there was no other sound. We'd barely taken our places when I heard the engine of the old Maxwell roar and backfire. There was a clashing of gears, then the sound of the engine grew fainter and farther away. As before, we ate in silence and left the table as soon as we'd finished. I was too tired to be hungry, but fiddled along so as to be the last to leave. At the doorway I stopped and called quietly, “Judy.”

She came from the other room as quickly as if she'd been waiting for my call, and there was a half-embarrassed, half-frightened look on her face. She didn't speak until she'd crossed the kitchen and was within a foot or two of me, then she looked up and said huskily, “Bud, I'm sorry, and I'm ashamed, but . . .”

Although I'd had no intention of doing it, I stepped closer and put an arm around her shoulders. “Neither you nor your sister has anything to be sorry for or ashamed of,” I told her, “so stop your worrying. We're not going to quit tonight, and maybe we're not going to quit at all, but I've got to know where Myron has gone and how long he may be away.”

She turned her face up to me and said, “To Oberlin, to try and get new conveyor belts, and without he has good luck he'll prob'ly be late. Why do you need to know, Bud?”

“Because I'm going to take Kitten and ride in to see the banker at The Bluffs,” I told her.

She caught a quick, sharp breath, and there was a tinge of terror in her voice when she whispered, “No, Bud! No, you can't! She'd kill you! Myron's learned her to be as dirty and sneakin' as he is. She's come near to killing three men a'ready, and there ain't nobody rode her till you did yesterday . . . nobody but Myron, and the only way he can do it is by keeping her scairt of him.”

As I turned to go I told her, “I'll watch her, Judy, but I've got to take her. If I don't see that banker tonight—and have some luck with him—there won't be any crew here tomorrow morning. Paco'll take care of the milking.”

5

Banker Bones

W
HEN
I left the kitchen, after telling Judy I was going to see the banker, the rest of the crew was waiting for me. “You still aiming to ride into town tonight?” Doc asked.

“Right away,” I told him. “I've had a couple more ideas during the day, and if I can't sell them to that banker we'll get out of here in the morning. I'm not going to stick around to see those horses killed, much as I'd like to help the woman and those little kids.”

“That's two of us,” Doc said. “Want me to bring the saddle?”

“No,” I said, “I don't dare risk it. Not that I'm hankering for any more blisters on my tail end, but that little mare flips over awful fast, and I don't want to be caught in any saddle gear if she does it. You fellows turn in. I'll be back as soon as I can.”

In the starlight I could see Kitten at the far side of the corral when I went in, so I stopped, talking quietly, to let her catch my scent. Horses, particularly mustangs, can tell whether or not a man is afraid by the smell of him, and I think they can tell a lot more: Whether he is angry, irritable, rough, or gentle. I waited a minute or two, mumbling small talk, then snapped one rein above my head. Instantly, Kitten whirled and stood facing me. I had to gamble on whether she'd remember me with hatred or willingness to let me ride her, so I walked straight to her as if I knew her to be the gentlest horse on earth—and she stood for bridling as if she were. I led her out of the corral, watered her, slipped the reins around her neck, and flipped aboard, ready to jump for my life if she reared. She didn't, but swung into an easy rhythmic lope that any child could have ridden. The ride to town must have taken more than a half hour, but it seemed less, for I had to do some careful thinking on the way.

Even though it was Saturday night I was surprised to find the bank and stores open. A dozen or more teams were tied up at hitch rails, and nearly as many flivvers were parked along the main street. I left Kitten at the rail in front of the bank, rehearsed my opening speech quickly in my mind, and went in.

The little bank was divided
T
shaped, with a few feet of customers' space at the front. Beyond, a cashier's cage filled one side of the room, and the other was the banker's office, cut off from the customers' space by a railing with a closed gate in it. There were three or four ranchers lined up at the cashier's window, and at the back of the office space a man sat working at an old roll-topped desk. He looked to be in his middle fifties, had sparse reddish hair, and was a little less than medium in size. He wasn't particularly thin, but had the craggiest face I'd ever seen on a small man; brow, cheek, jaw, and temple bones standing out sharply. I knew he'd be the man Judy called Bones.

I stood at the gate two or three minutes, and cleared my throat loudly, but the banker didn't look up from his desk, so I opened the gate and went in. He let me reach his desk before he looked up, fixed me with bright blue eyes, and demanded, “Well? What do you want?”

With that kind of a start, the opening speech I'd planned wouldn't have been worth a dime, so I said, “To help you and have you help me.”

“I don't need any help,” he told me brusquely, “and I don't make loans without security.”

“But sometimes security doesn't do a banker much good, does it?” I said. “If I understand right, you have a lien on at least a part of Myron Hudson's wheat crop, and a mortgage on everything else he has. I think I'm the only man who can do you much good in getting your money back.”

Bones had never moved his eyes from mine, but neither they nor his voice were so sharp when he said, “I never talk business with strangers. Who are you? Who's your father?”

I told him my name, that my father wasn't living, that my mother and our family now lived in Massachusetts, but that I had been sent back West because of my health, and that I was one of Hudson's harvest crew. When I'd finished he leaned back in his chair and said, “Sit down, Son. What's on your mind?”

I sat down beside the desk and told him, “I don't know whether or not the man is crazy, but from the way he went at things today he might as well be. If he abuses his horses just one more day as he did today he'll break them down or kill them, and if I can't take back some assurance from you he won't have a man on the place by morning. What's more, he can only hire men in McCook, where they won't be tipped off before they hire out to him, and even if he hires them he won't be able to hold them more than a day—not if he feeds and treats them as he's fed and treated us. And without horses and a crew he'll never get that crop harvested before it shatters onto the ground.”

When I'd finished Bones sat for a minute or two, rocking back and forth in his swivel chair, and evidently trying to figure out what I was leading up to. “Well,” he said at last, “if he's crazy, he's crazy like a weasel . . . and slippery as a wet frog . . . has been ever since he came into this country. I know how he treats his stock and his help . . . if he's lucky enough to catch any. Treats us bankers the same way when he catches us, and he's caught most of us, one way or another.

“Sure, we all hold liens against his crop, and you're right as rain about the chance of getting it harvested, but what can we do about it? We can't go out there and make him behave, and there's no sense hauling him into court any more. Sue a beggar and catch a louse. Catch a weasel and he'll do you more hurt than if you leave him alone. Afraid I can't do much for you, Son. The only chance we bankers have is to play along with him now that he's got a crop, round up a new crew for him every day if we have to, and hope those little nags of his will hold out till he gets enough wheat harvested that it'll be worth attaching.”

“I don't think so,” I said. “You're holding the mortgage on his horses and equipment, aren't you?”

He looked at me, half-irritated, half-puzzled, and said, “Sure. Sure, I hold a mortgage on everything out there, but what good is that going to do? All he's got is a bunch of junk that wouldn't bring a hundred dollars. You talk about horses; he hasn't got any. Nothing but a herd of wild little broncos that everybody knows are as crazy as Hudson himself. A man couldn't get ten dollars apiece for 'em! Not if he was to throw in the halter and harness! Take them away from him and what chance would there be of getting an acre of that crop harvested?”

“Plenty,” I said. “That's what I came to talk to you about.”

He sat for at least a minute, just looking straight into my eyes. Then he said, “Well?”

“I want to buy all that equipment, harness, and every horse and colt on the place. You foreclose on it, and I'll take it off your hands at three hundred dollars. I haven't got a dime, but I'll sign a note for it, payable on the first of August.”

By the time I'd gone that far Bones was shaking his head vigorously, but I kept right on. “Then I'll make all you bankers who hold liens on that crop a proposition,” I told him. “For two dollars an acre I'll harvest the whole two sections and have it in the stacks by the end of July. I can keep the present crew, will feed it, and hire whatever extra help and equipment is necessary to get the job done by the end of the month. At any time I fall more than two days behind schedule you bankers can cancel the deal by paying me a dollar and a half an acre for whatever we've harvested up to that time. The other fifty cents an acre is to be credited against my note for the horses and equipment. What's more, I'll sign a note you can foreclose without going to court if the contract is cancelled before six hundred acres are harvested.”

Bones stopped shaking his head, but looked at me as if I were some sort of a curious animal in a zoo. I just grinned at him and said, “There are still a couple of hookers to the proposition. I told you I didn't have a dime, so I'll need something to come and go on. I want a line of credit at one of the stores here in town; enough to cover grub, whatever clothes the crew may need, and repair parts for harness and equipment. Then I want you to open an account for me here in the bank and credit it with eighty dollars for the forty acres we harvested today. After that you can check on us each week, and credit the account for whatever acreage we've put into the stacks.”

Scowling at me, he asked, “Where does the rest of the crew get off if I credit it all to you?”

“They trust me,” I told him. “Check with them if you'd like to.”

Bones looked at me sharply for another minute, then stuck out his hand and said, “So do I, Son. You've made a deal. But you understand there's nothing can be done about it before Monday. Tomorrow I'll get in touch with the other lien holders—they'll go along all right—but we'll have to go before a judge to get attachments, and the sheriff will have to serve them before. . . . Say, what do you aim to do about Hudson? He'll be a wild man when those attachments are served on him. He'll get you any way he can, and he's clever at it. Do you think you're big enough to stand him off. A sheriff can't stay there to protect you.”

“I'd thought of that,” I said, “but I'm not afraid of him. In the first place he's a coward, and in the second place the whole crew is itching to lay hands on him. I won't do anything about him if he leaves us and the horses alone. If he doesn't I'll swear out a warrant and have him thrown in the calaboose till the job is finished.”

“Sure, you could have him arrested and held if you could get proof against him,” Bones told me. “The sheriff's kind of like your crew; itching to lay hands on Hudson, but like I told you, he's slippery as a wet frog. If he gets wind you're behind this he'll get you when you're alone, someplace where there won't be any witnesses around, then whip the whey out of you. That's the way he does it, then claims self-defense, and it's one man's word against another's. You can't throw a man in the calaboose till you prove him guilty. I'm afraid you're trying to bite off a bigger wad than you can chew.”

“I'll risk it if you will,” I told him. “He'll never lay a hand on me—or a whip either. He had his chance when we were alone, and when he was mad enough to kill me, but he didn't dare risk it. He never will. How about our deal; have we got one?”

Instead of answering, Bones stuck out his hand and shook with me again, so I asked, “Will you write me out a memorandum; something to show the other fellows?”

“Fair enough,” he said, then turned to his desk and scribbled a few words on the back of a blank check. As he passed it to me he said, “That's to Joe, in the store this side of the street. He'll let you have what you need, but don't go to laying in any groceries yet awhile. You boys will have to make out the best you can till Monday, and you'll have to keep mum, but I'll write you out a memo while you're getting your stuff. It'll be ready by the time you come back.”

In a hand clear enough that I could read it at a glance, Bones had written, “Joe—Give this boy what he wants—up to $50. I'll stand good for it.”

I'd planned to get a few cans of salmon, so I could stay somewhere near my diet, but after what the banker had said about groceries I thought I'd better not. Instead, I picked out the things Doc and I needed most: a pair of wool blankets, overalls, blue shirts, good solid work shoes, and horsehide gloves. I rolled the stuff in the blankets, tied them into a shoulder sling, and went back to the bank.

Bones had the memorandum ready for me, written in indelible pencil, with a carbon copy. It was short, but covered the deal just the way I'd laid it out, although Hudson's name was never mentioned. The last sentence was: “This agreement to become effective only in the event that, not later than July 10, 1919, certain writs of attachment discussed by the parties hereto shall have been granted by judicial authority.”

We both knew the paper was nothing more than an unenforceable memorandum. When I'd read it I signed the original and slid it over on Bones' desk. Then he signed the duplicate, passed it to me, and held out his hand, as much as to say, “This paper is worthless, but here's my hand on the deal.”

As we shook he looked me straight in the eyes, and said, “You understand, Son, I can only speak for myself right now. I'll go through with the mortgage foreclosure on the horses and other stuff for you, but I won't guarantee the rest of the deal unless the other lien holders stand with me and we get a court order. I'll do the best I can, and they'll just about have to go along. If they do, we'll try to get the attachments on Monday, but till we get 'em you boys will have to make out the best you can.”

“We couldn't ask for anything more,” I told him, “and we'll gamble on our wages up to the tenth.” Then I grinned and added, “Of course, you understand I'm talking only for myself right now, but I think the rest of the crew will go along.”