High Country : A Novel (2 page)

Will—It might work. If he can shoe I can teach him the packing. He will learn the rest soon enough. When school quits send him up.

When the day came, Ty put what he needed in his grandfather’s old kit bag. He put on his best Levis and his best shirt and jammed his socks and underwear into the old saddlebags Will gave him, deciding to wear Jimmy’s outgrown jacket rather than carry it.

Mary looked to see what he’d left and was surprised to see he had about everything he owned with him. She gave him some peanut-butter sandwiches she’d wrapped in brown paper. He put them in the saddlebags with his socks. He’d grown tall, but there was still no weight. He looked much too young to be leaving home.

“You look older.” Mary’s hands were playing at her apron again. “Be careful. We don’t want you coming home in some new cast.”
He gave her an awkward hug and she felt his leanness through the jacket, the tightness of his body the only sign he gave her.
She went into the house after their dust settled, thinking she might have a cry. But somehow she couldn’t. She took off her apron and found a needle and set about sewing on the tie. It had broken loose again.

Ty felt hollow on the ride into Missoula. He ate one of the sandwiches, feeling a little sad about what was behind him, a little worried about what was ahead. He wasn’t nervous about the work; he was just worried that Fenton Pardee wouldn’t stand still long enough to answer any questions. And Will wasn’t much help. He just drove, concentrating on the road as he smoked. It seemed to Ty his father looked more pessimistic than ever.

His worries grew when they pulled up at the feed store and Horace Adams explained that Pardee was picking up mules north of Hungry Horse and couldn’t find anyone to meet Ty.

“Don’t you fret.” Horace looked at Ty. “I’ll ship you out there with the lumberjacks.Won’t have to test that bad arm hitching.” He looked at Will. “He’s growed. Up but not out.” His eyes turned back to Ty, the kit bag, and the ragged jacket. “And you got your gear. That’s good. Gets cold as a witch tit in that country.”

“Fenton will approve of your boy’s duffle,” Horace said to Will. “What won’t snug into them saddlebags he can fit in his pockets.” He led Ty over toward the secondhand tack. “Look at the saddles. Fenton needs some bad but claims I’m a robber if I want cash money.You best find one out there that won’t cripple you up if you’re in it for twenty hours. That’ll be one of the short days.”

Ty saw that one was a Meana rig, broken in just right. He rubbed a hand along it, tried to focus on it, but his mind drifted. He wondered how far he had to go. How he’d find Pardee when he finally got close.

“Them lumber boys’ll get you out there,” he said. “Think I’ll slip over to the Elkhorn and get a bite before I head back. Wanna come along?”
“I got the sandwiches,” Ty said. “Guess I’ll wait. Hope I can find Mr. Pardee when I get close.”
“ Yo u’ll find him. Too goddamned big to miss. There ain’t a man woman or child up there don’t know who he is. Or has had to listen to him talk about his mules. Just don’t test that broke arm too soon. And learn the knots, if he’ll slow down to where you can see how he ties ’em.”
At the Elkhorn Will heard more bad news than he wanted to hear. And spent more money than he meant to spend. It was late when he finally left, so he didn’t bother stopping back by the feed store.
By that time Ty had eaten the other two sandwiches. He’d had plenty of opportunity to look at the Meana saddle too, which was rigged almost the way he’d rig one himself. He examined it again and again, looking up every time anyone came in the door.

It turned out the men from the sawmill didn’t even come into town until the next day.Ty had to wait three more days before they were ready to go back to work at their mill below Crippled Elk Lake.

The lumberjacks were still drunk when they got to the feed store, which didn’t seem to bother Horace. He threw the Meana saddle in the pickup, saying if no one had the money to buy it, Fenton might as well keep it oiled until they did.

“Got somethin’ else too.” He went back in and came out with a blanketlined canvas coat.
“Use it.” He tossed it to Ty. “I won’t be in those mountains anyway. Too busy cheerin’ up all the hands outta work.”

Ty had spent the last three days at the Adams’s house, most of it working with Smoky Girl, Etta Adams’s filly. Fenton Pardee had started her under a pack saddle the summer before, and when Etta fell in love with her, he’d traded her to Horace against his feed bill.

Only Smoky Girl hadn’t worked out the way Fenton said she would. She was hard to ride right from the start, and over the winter Etta had given her so many sugar cubes and carrots and little sweet apples that getting more was all that interested her. She wouldn’t even let Etta get a foot in the stirrup until Ty got hold of her. He made it so she wanted to pay attention, but mostly to Ty, who soon saw she was probably more filly than Etta could handle. He was about to talk with Horace about that when the lumberjacks came, swearing at each other and putting him between them in the cab. The man to Ty’s right fell asleep immediately. The driver turned the heater up and started to doze off himself, the smell of beer and stale cigarettes getting so strong Ty felt sick. He was about to ask if he could wind down a window when the driver bolted upright and slapped himself. Ty was startled to see a man hit himself that hard.

“Jesus.”The man’s cheek was red from the blow. “Another dream about them yellow bears.” He wound his window down, stuck his head out into the cold. “Bastards.” He pulled his head back in. “Hate that dream.”

But the subject kept him awake. From there until Seeley Lake he told Ty stories about the bears and their doings with lumberjacks and Pardee’s packers. He was still telling stories when they pulled up at the bar at Seeley Lake. A man with a deep scar on his face was waiting. To Ty he seemed surprisingly good natured, considering the condition of the two lumberjacks.

“A man could get light headed off these fumes,” he said, opening the door. “I’ll drive. Don’t say a goddamned word about why you’re late. Those stories lost their excitement for me.”

The man who had slapped himself got out and surrendered the keys. Ty climbed out himself, getting into the bed of the truck with the saddle and his kit bag.

“You the guy Fenton thinks can wrangle his mules?” The man with the scar looked at Ty. “Between Fenton and his mules you’ll get a compressed education.”

“My name is Ty Hardin.” Ty was surprised to hear his voice crack. “I look forward to gettin’ started.”
The man looked at Ty more closely.
“Might as well call me Gus Wilson.” He leaned across the bed of the truck, his hand out. “The rest do. Hell, there’s Wilsons all over this valley. Won’t hurt to know a few.” The two lumberjacks were swearing at each other again, this time about who would ride in the middle. “These are some wilted. But they’ll repair. They perk right up after a few days at the mill.”
Gus Wilson said something persuasive to the men and they piled into the cab. After a few miles Ty dusted off the window and saw that both men had fallen asleep. He settled back, feeling better since the man with the scar had shown up.
He wondered about the scar, thinking it must have come from some scrape with a grizzly. Gus Wilson, he thought, must be the Wilson you could count on if you wanted to get somewhere. And more than anything else, Ty wanted to get somewhere. The more people he met the less sure he was of what he would be doing, even where he was going. The suspense was a lot worse than the work, no matter what that turned out to be.
He buttoned Horace Adams’s coat against the wind, watching the high crest of the mountains rising to the east. He had studied this country on Horace’s road map and was pretty sure he was looking at the Swan Range. He didn’t know what the name of the range was to the west, but he saw it was almost as high. Snow was still on the ridges, purplish looking in the cold and the distance. Beyond the Swan Range was the mystery. He hadn’t seen any roads there until well beyond the Continental Divide, almost to Great Falls. He wondered what was in between, what kind of country you would find if you made it over that snow and rode to where the waters changed direction.
The men woke at the road to Fenton Pardee’s, tumbled out of the cab stomping and spitting. The one who’d slapped himself took a long pee while Gus Wilson unloaded Ty’s gear. They all seemed livelier now that they were closer to home. Ty liked hearing them call out their warnings about Pardee and his mules, about the back-country.
He shouldered the saddle and started up the road, wondering what it would be like to live in the shadow of a sawmill with big saws whining and skinned logs stacked everywhere. He figured if Gus Wilson worked there, there’d be some plan, some order to it.
Looking out across a little meadow that opened toward the Swan, he wondered if there were any order ahead for him. He studied the peaks lifting above the trees and suddenly had questions about everything. He was sorry he hadn’t learned more from Gus Wilson. He wanted to know about trails and horseshoeing and schedules, fearing Fenton Pardee wouldn’t provide many answers. It was getting late, but he was held there, caught by the sunlight slanting through the trees, deep shadows on the Swan, snow on the ridges beyond.
He was not yet into his sixteenth year, but he already felt a long way from home. And he was looking at a country that seemed to pull him still farther. He felt odd, apart from himself, just as he felt apart from his new height and the strength he was beginning to know, apart from his family’s problems—as far behind him now as the Bitterroot Valley. He wasn’t thinking about what was behind. Everything in him was looking ahead, up at the Swan Range, across it and into the country beyond.

Fenton didn’t have much faith in the way the Conner boys had stacked the hay, and they’d only tied the bales down with one lash cinch. He wasn’t even sure they’d cinched that tight, which was why he was creeping along at five miles an hour when he saw the boy staring off into the woods. He was taller than Fenton remembered but thin as a post, and Cody Jo’s misgivings came back to him. She’d watched him hurry Buck and Spec out to the barns that morning to shoe the mules. “Strong as trees,” she’d laughed, “and about as inventive. They need perfect directions.” Fenton knew she was right. He also knew he wasn’t very strong in the direction-giving department.

Which is why he’d sent for Ty, who was supposed to be different. He’d heard from Horace, who picked up things from people in the Bitterroot, that the boy had a lot of his grandfather, old Eban Hardin, in him. That was good enough for Fenton. He thought he might have learned more from Eban Hardin about mules than he’d learned in his forty years of packing, and he hadn’t even seen him that often. But what he had seen of Eban made him know what he needed now: someone to quiet the stock, not fight it like Buck. And when Spec slipped off into the woods like the Indian he was, someone to watch the camp, know which way the horses were drifting, when to get wood, water, how to keep the bears away. He needed someone who looked after things rather than let them slide.

In the Elkhorn that night,Will Hardin had finally admitted that Ty was better than good with the stock—gifted somehow. But Will didn’t linger on the good. Mostly he talked about how accidents weren’t supposed to happen to Ty, who was so careful with his stock he never had wrecks. To Will Ty’s accident proved how sour the Hardin luck had gone. He didn’t need it verified with a lot of doctor bills.

Fenton thought Will must have been born discouraged. He didn’t pay nearly as much attention to Will’s complaining as he did to the other, the part that said it wasn’t the boy’s way to have accidents. Fenton figured that even if Ty had some of that gloominess that kept dragging Will down, he had the right training. He’d done about everything there was to be done on the Hardins’ scratchy little ranch. And he had Eban Hardin’s blood.

Trouble is, Fenton thought as he slowed the truck, he
is
just a boy, which had been Cody Jo’s worry all along. “Boys grow,” he’d told her. “I’ll take it slow. Make it so he won’t get jumpy—bent mean somehow.”

Cody Jo had just smiled, saying she doubted it was in him to take things slow.
Maybe I am optimistic, Fenton thought, shoving the hay hooks off the dashboard to stop their rattling. But no serious deaths on my trips . . . and I never had to kill one mule.

“I see Horace give in and sent me out that Meana saddle. Bet he didn’t say a goddamned word about how deep he is in my pocket.” Pardee leaned over and opened the door. “Throw in them things and climb up on the bales. It’ll ride smoother with some weight up there.”

It wasn’t until the truck was moving that Ty realized he hadn’t said a word to Fenton Pardee since the feed store. But he didn’t think about that for long; he was bouncing around so he had to grab the rope to stay put. He supposed the rope was meant to cinch things down, but it was a lot looser than he would have it. The road got rougher and he flattened himself on the bales, holding on to keep from bouncing off.

Fenton was easing the flatbed around a curve when the bales started going. One popped loose from the second layer, then the bale Ty was on started to go,Ty scrambling to keep from going with it. But bales came out from underneath and the whole stack tilted and went, Ty still scrambling but scrambling now to keep from being buried in bales. He hit the ground running, still clutching the rope but inside its loop now and running to stay upright. He fended off bales and got closer to the truck, holding the rope with one hand and pounding on the door with the other.

Fenton hit the brakes, figuring something had gone wrong with his gear box. He was surprised to see bales fly past and bounce up the road. Ty went by as fast as the bales, running until the rope took him down, a final bale knocking out his wind before bouncing on.

Fenton thought he’d seen something go by with the bales and got out to check, thinking maybe the trouble wasn’t his gear box after all. He was surprised to find Ty on the side of the road opening and closing his mouth as though he wanted to say something.

“Doubted that rope was tight,” Fenton said, looking at the bales scattered along the road. He reached in the truck for the hay hooks. “Well, we ain’t got far to go. Lets us load up a few and send Buck and Spec for the rest. Them boys is cut out for this work.”

Ty managed to suck in just enough air. “Jesus!” he said, wanting to say more.
“Skip the formalities.” Fenton threw him a hay hook. “Climb up and I’ll toss up these close ones. And call me Fenton.” The first bale was already flying onto the truck bed. “Old Jesus never knew his ass from his elbow when it come to mules.”

Horace Adams claimed Fenton Pardee was well into his sixties, but the way the man buried his hay hook into bale after bale and swung them up made Ty wonder. It was all Ty could do to slide one into place before the next one came at him. And somehow Fenton talked the whole time. Ty was finding it harder and harder to heave the bales into place when suddenly Fenton threw him the lash cinch. “Cinch her down some,” he said. “Them boys can get the rest. I’m curious how they done with those mules.”

He watched Ty cinch down the load. “Hard to beat a tight rope, ain’t it?” he said, taking the saddle out of the cab and throwing it on the truck bed with the bales. Ty got in and they drove on to the pack station, which—Ty had learned while Fenton was throwing the bales at him— wasn’t even the starting place for their trips into the mountains.

Fenton did most of his packing at the corrals he’d built three miles up the trail at Crippled Elk Lake. Fenton’s stock trail converged there with the road, the same that led past the Wilsons’ sawmill. The Pardee pack station itself was dominated by a log lodge where Fenton and Cody Jo lived. Cody Jo fed the packers there, making fun of how much they ate but always ready with more. The rest of the pack station consisted of an old barn and some ragged outbuildings Fenton had tacked together for his gear, the outbuildings sprawling along the edge of the big meadow where he wintered his horses.

“Weren’t we ambitious?” Fenton stopped the truck and studied the big log building. “Thought those eastern folks couldn’t wait to come out here to shoot our elk. But they never. Not like we thought. The way money is now, I doubt they will.” He pushed his hat back. “Cody Jo would dance up a storm if I was to up and finish this place.” He looked at Ty, amused. “She loves to dance. But you know this packin’ business.” He eased the truck on toward the barn. “Little time for dancin’ and a shit load less for construction.”

They’d rigged a little room off the barn for Ty. They threw Ty’s things in: Fenton pleased because Buck had done a good job boarding up the broken window and sweeping out a rat’s nest.Ty because he’d never had a place all to himself. Dusty tack was hanging in one corner, and he would need to get a bedroll for the cot. But there were shelves under the window and two pack boxes he could store things in. It would clean . . . and it was his.

Over the top rail of the catch corral they watched a slender, dark-haired man ease a fence pole across a mule’s body, levering up the hog-tied legs. Another mule, moving back and forth until she seemed to be trotting in place, was tied to a fence post at the far end of the corral. She had a white bull’s-eye on her rump, which was tucked down as though waiting for a blow. A big, flat-nosed man with a torn shirt was lying across the thrown mule’s head, swearing and gesturing, a blood-soaked rag wrapped around his hand. The slender man sunk his weight onto the pole and brought the mule’s feet up. The mule thrashed, bridging up so violently the big man was thrown into the dirt.The mule jobbed his legs and went all the way over, flopping down heavily on his other side. He lay there panting, his hog-tied legs useless, streaks of sweat darkening his neck. He lifted his head, offering a mournful bray, and the other mule’s rump dropped even lower.