Lost Nation (43 page)

She paused again. Then she said, “Others speak of the coincidence of your arrival here this spring with the beginning of our misfortunes. Contrary to what you might think, I myself take no such simple view. Still, I regret that a man of your wit and ambition cannot serve the territory in a manner more uplifting than the one you chose.”

Now Blood sighed. “My girl has gone off. I’ve no real use for the cow, even if I could tend her. Which I can’t. But with the number of children and people housed here you might find use for her. Her milking’s been irregular the past few days but once she’s at ease she’ll let down well again, I would think.”

The Chase wife looked at the cow as if for the first time. Which Blood knew was not the case. Then she looked back to Blood. “How was your wound obtained?”

“The same as all such. Through altercation.”

She cocked an eye. Then said, “Is it clean?”

“It seems to be fine. Draining somewhat but in a healthy fashion.”

“You have experience with such things?”

He said nothing.

After a bit she said, “For the moment at least, the use of your cow would be a great help here.”

“I had thought as much.”

“When things return to some form of normalcy she could be returned to you.”

Blood shook his head. “I don’t want her back.”

The Chase woman scrutinized him openly. Then said, “It will be a harsh winter for many. A cow could be of great benefit to one of the families that stick it out.”

“I would leave that discretion to you. You’d be in the best position to choose.”

Again she paused. Then cast her eyes strongly upon him and said, “It would be a kind thing to do, Mister Blood. But, you must know, there can be no question of payment at such a time as this.”

Blood said, “The cow is useless to me. A scant few days more of the treatment she’s been receiving she’ll be useless to all. It’s her fortune I’m looking out for, no one else’s.”

“You care more for the fate of the cow than those she’s to serve?”

“Beasts,” said Blood. “Do not manufacture malice. They hold it only when it’s earned.” And he dropped the leather lead on the ground and turned away, wobbling damnably on the goad as he got himself in motion once more. His leg has stiffened.

The Chase woman called after him. “Mister Blood.”

He stopped but did not turn.

She said, “Once she settles, I’d send down a bit of milk and butter.”

He turned his head over his shoulder. “No,” he said. “I’ve lost my taste for it.”

He resumed his march. There was a solitary raven beating against the stained glazed sky. From the lake beyond the mill came the throaty gabble of rafted geese. He heard her call to one of the boys to come catch up the cow. Then all he heard was the suck of his boots in the dissolving mud of the road. His head down to watch his way.

* * *

That same afternoon the three encamped in the marsh sat out on a granite ledge in the ashen sunlight, warming themselves and watching three horses in leather hobbles grazing the rough grass of the hummocks. A bay and two chestnut geldings of indeterminate age but fair soundness that an hour before Cooper had appeared leading strung together, all three geared in shoddy bridles and saddles, the horses knotted together with bridle reins run back from the headstall of the first horse on to the second and then again the third. Coming up the narrow trail behind Cooper along the brook snorting and one or another pausing and jerking its head as if to throw off the whole affair but falling into line again as the others went along. Once they came into the open land they quieted as Cooper unsaddled them and used the reins to fashion loose hobbles, removed the headstalls and stood back and said, “Well. You were so lathered up coming through the woods. Now what’re you going to do?”

They stood watching him, ears pricked, heads alert. The bay horse walked to one of the pools, lowered its head and drank, came alert dribbling water looking around. The chestnuts followed. Then settled to cropping grass, each working its own route careless of the others but in the practice of herd animals never moving in such a way they couldn’t see their fellows. Also watching the three humans sitting on the long whaleback ledge of granite.

When Cooper approached Sally about the gold to go after horses she backed away, walking without speaking from the camp out into the marsh where she turned and waited for him. When he did she already had the pieces clenched in her hand but she did not offer them. She said, “What do we want with horses now? Blood’s right down the trail.”

He frowned at her as if disappointed. “We’re not done with this country yet. But close. Old Fletcher is healing better than he knows. And the day comes we choose to leave, we might care to do it quick.”

She nodded. She wanted him to know she understood this. She wet her lips and said, “I already told you I can’t ride.”

He shrugged. “All the better reason to get em now, before they’re needed. Give you a chance to get used to em.”

She considered the implications of this. She handed him the gold and
said, “You want I should go with you? To Van Landt’s? He knows me, he’s not laid eyes on you.”

Cooper said, “I believe it’s better it’s just me. If he has the horses they’ll be high, with all that’s been going on. But this idn’t paper money or a note of promise. It should do.”

She said, “I could at least show you the way.”

He looked at her a time. Then reached and laid the fingertips of one hand on her forearm. He said, “You best stay to look after Fletcher. I can find my way.” He took his hand away. But kept his stare upon her a brief beat of time. Then shook his head and walked away.

Cooper made a leisurely circuit of the horses, gradually making his way to each and running his hands over the animal, starting at the head where he worked slowly with his hands until one lay along the jawline and the other up rubbing as if at a knot behind the near ear until the horse dropped its head low, putting the ear even with Cooper’s chest. As if the horse would lay its head against his chest. After a time of this he made his way along the horse, running his hands over the neck and withers and back and if the horse stood well for this, down underneath the belly and legs. Then back to the head where he’d started for a few minutes, before moving along toward the next horse. Often the one just finished would follow him some few steps.

Sally and Fletcher sat on the ledge. Sally watching Cooper and Fletcher watching Sally. But when she turned to him he looked out at the horses, at his brother, at some imprecise point of the marsh.

“How’s he know to do that?”

“He grew up with horses.”

“But you grew up together. Don’t you know em too?”

“I can ride,” he said. “But I never was handy with em like he is.”

She looked back at the boy working the horses. With some nugget of pleasure, some satisfaction unnamed lodged within her.

Cooper came up and said to Fletcher, “You had to do it, could you ride?”

Fletcher worked his lower lip with his teeth. Then said, “I could. It’d throb some I spect but nothing I couldn’t live through.”

Cooper turned to Sally. “That bay horse, he’s the one for you. We need to get you started.”

She said, “He’s god-awful big. Why him?”

He shrugged. “He’s big enough I guess. But he’s got the most sense. Of the three, he’s the calmest.”

She thought about that. Then said, “How calm does that make him?”

He grinned at her. “Calm enough.”

For want of a curry or brush Cooper cut a section from a burlap bean sack and with this wadded in one hand one at a time went over the tethered horses, not so much a cleaning as a pretense of such, gestures familiar and soothing to them.

He rode each horse around the marsh, circuiting the old beaver ponds and the trickle-streams that flowed from them, turning the horses at odd and sharp angles, making them stop and back, then moving them forward again. Once with each horse making them wade through the deepest of the pools.

The last Cooper rode was the bay he’d singled out for Sally. She sat watching and couldn’t see much difference in the bay from the others; they all seemed to behave more or less well for Cooper. The bay was skittish about entering the water. Cooper turned the horse several times to face once again the water, pausing before trying to urge the horse on until, by some decision Sally couldn’t detect, Cooper would turn the horse again. And sit waiting. Until that final revolution when the horse stepped forward and walked through the pond as if it weren’t there at all.

When they came out the other side Cooper rode the horse in a smooth trot three times around the widest opening of the marsh before cutting straight across and drawing up before where Fletcher and Sally sat on the ledge. He stepped down from the horse and stood a moment by its head, kneading the skin behind the horse’s ear. The horse dropped its head down level with Cooper’s chest.

His face serious but bright with pleasure he said to Sally, “You ready?”

“You mean now?”

As if he hadn’t heard her he said, “This is all you really got to know: Keep the reins tight from your hands to the bit. Not so as to pull his
head down but tight enough so he knows you’re the one in charge. And don’t set on the saddle but down in it. So your behind and your thighs feel like they’re part of the saddle. You hold him that way, and sit him that way, then all you got to do is use a little pressure with the hand and leg to tell him which way to turn. You want him to go forward bring your hands up a little and tighten both legs. Other than just getting used to him and letting him get used to you, that’s all there is to it.”

“That sounds like a lot. How do I make him stop?”

“Like starting. Except draw your hands back a little. You don’t have to saw, just a light touch. He’ll know what you want.”

“You going to walk around with me?”

“No. He’d be following me then. Instead of paying attention to you.”

“Seems to me, it wouldn’t hurt you was to take at least one turn around with me.”

He glanced hard at her. “If he’s going to dump you off he will. You ain’t ridden until you been throwed. Now, you going to set talking all day or are you going to ride this horse?”

“Well.” She was nervous. The talk about being thrown hadn’t helped. She made a final feeble plea. “I guess I don’t have a choice.”

He was swiftly serious. “This horse, in the days that come, might be the best thing ever happened to you. You understand?”

She looked at him. His eyes were hot on her and she felt her own flare to meet him. All nervousness was gone. She slid off the ledge. “All right,” she said. “But you hold him while I get on. I got to figure out my skirts.”

Once she was settled, with her skirts under her but pulled back so her legs were bare from midthigh down to her boots, Cooper let go of the headstall and the horse began to wander among the ponds, Sally slipping in the saddle, dropping first one rein and then the other, having to stretch forward along the horse’s neck to retrieve them, her rear lifted high as she slid her hand down toward the bit for the rein. The bay walked at leisure, in no particular pattern and without visible agitation, as if awaiting this strange human to locate itself and send some directions his way. Meanwhile he was content to amble.

The brothers sat on the ledge, not talking, both watching the vision of the girl riding. She was beginning to guide the horse.

Cooper said, “I knew that was the one for her. That bay horse, as long’s she can stay on him, give him some idea what she wants, he can do the rest.”

Sally was moving the bay slow along and between the pools of water. Around a clump of thick young alders. The horse working well. Cooper said, “Look at that. That horse is just waiting for her to learn what he needs her to learn. That’s a good horse.”

Fletcher reached back with his good hand and pushed off from where he leaned against the ledge. “All right,” he said. “Which of those sorrels do you figure for me?”

Cooper grinned at him. “I ain’t sure. Let’s go look em over.”

When Blood returned from giving away the cow it was without satisfaction of any kind. Even being done with the animal gave no pleasure. His leg was hurting badly and it looked to be an evil night before him. Already the brief warmth of the day was gone and the wind was lifting off the lake. He was cold and sore and came up to the tavern to find Gandy waiting with a skinned and gutted young bear, the carcass hanging from the meat-hook by the tavern door. An old trapper’s handsled with fresh bloodstain in the yard.

“Meat,” Blood bleated. His body washed with the colors of pain. He wanted hot water and to change his dressings. A big fire and a cup of rum. He would’ve been happy with potatoes for his supper. Let Gandy come tomorrow, was what he wished.

Gandy said, “This should keep you some time, the weather stays cool. If it don’t freeze up like a rock. Then you can hack at it with a axe. But I need to settle. I need powder and lead for the winter. I expect some rum as well. If you ain’t been keeping a tab I have. The bearmeat is just the tip-end of it.”

Blood said, “I’m sorely worn. Leave the bear hang. We’ll settle on the morrow.”

Gandy said, “No I don’t believe we will. I want to be done with it tonight. I hauled the bear with my sled and plan to leave before nightfall with my winter provision.”

Blood shook his head. “It will have to wait. One more night sleeping on the tavern floor won’t be the death of you.”

Gandy studied Blood a moment and then easy as a cat swung the rifle up and covered Blood. He said, “Things’ve turned against you Blood. I can’t say I’m sorry but wouldn’t say I’m glad neither. I just don’t plan to get caught in the midst of any of it. So I’ll load my sled and head for the Dead Diamond country tonight. I can do it with you approving what I take in trade or I can do it otherwise. But, unless the Lord smiles such that you’re here come springtime this is the last you’ll see of me. You clear on that or do you need another hole in you to sharpen your senses?”

Blood leaned on the goad. He said, “I hadn’t expected this of you.”

Gandy said, “I ain’t survived so long in this hellhole land by being as much a fool as you think me Blood.” He stepped up and kicked open the tavern door, still holding his weapon upon Blood. “You go on first. Go slow.”