to Tame a Land (1955) (3 page)

"Indians often smoke their bodies in sage to kill bod y odor when going on a hunt. Mint will do the same thing , or any grass or plant that smells."

We were several miles ahead of the wagon train an d far off to one side when we drew up in a grove of aspen.

Ever seen aspen growing? Most times they grow in thic k clumps, grow straight up, their trunks almost all of a size.

Logan Pollard swung down and I followed him. The n he paced about fifty feet from an aspen about four inche s in diameter. "Take out your gun," he said, "and hold i t down by your side."

He faced the slim young aspen and drew his own gun.

"Now," he said, "lift your gun in line with that aspe n trunk. Just keep lifting it at arm's length until your gu n is shoulder high."

When I had done that a few times he had me take th e shells from my gun. For over an hour we worked. He kep t me at it, lifting that six-shooter and sighting along th e barrel. Lifting it straight up from the base of the tre e trunk until it was at eye level, always sighting along th e barrel and keeping it in line with the trunk. Not until I'
d been at it a few minutes longer did he start me mappin g the gun when it reached shooting position.

"Every day," he said, "you'll practice that. Every da y we'll ride out here."

"Will you teach me to draw real fast?" I asked him.

That was something I wanted to know. I'd heard talk o f Jack Slade and others who were mighty good that way.

"Not yet." He squatted on his heels. "First you lear n how to use a gun. The draw isn't so important as it is t o hit what you shoot at. Learn to make that first shot count.

You may," he added dryly, "never get another."

He taught me to look where I was shooting and not a t the gun, and to shoot as a man points a finger, an d how to hang my holster so my palm came to the gun but t naturally. "No man," he said, "ever uses a gun unless h e has to. Don't hunt trouble. Sooner or later you'll alway s find more than you want. A gun is a tool, mighty hand y when you need it, and to be left alone until you do nee d it."

Beyond the shining mountains" there was desert, an d at its edge we left the wagon train.

"We'll be in California, Rye," Mary Tatum said. "I f you want to come, you're welcome."

"Another time, ma'am. I'm riding south with Pollard."

She looked past me at Logan, who sat slim and straigh t on the black horse he rode. "Take care of him, Logan. H
e might have been my son."

"You're a child yourself, Mary. Too young to have ha d this boy. Maybe when he comes, I'll come with him."

She looked up at him and her cheeks were a littl e pinkish under the tan. "Come, then, Logan Pollard.

There's a welcome for you, too."

So we watched them start off toward the Salt Lake an d the distant Pilot Butte, beyond the horizon. "If she couldn'
t marry Pap," I said, "I'd rather it would be you."

Pollard looked at me, but he did not smile. Only hi s eyes were friendly-like. "Rye," he said, "that was a nic e thing you said."

South we rode then, and he showed me Brown's Hole , where the trappers used to rendezvous, and we rod e through the rugged country and down to Santa Fe. Onl y it wasn't all riding, and it wasn't all easy. Every day h e drilled me with the gun, and somehow I began to ge t the feel of it. My hands had always had a feel for a gu n butt, and the big six-shooter began to handle easier. I c ould draw fast and shoot straight.

We lived off the country. Logan Pollard showed m e how to rig snares and traps for small game, how to mak e a moose call, and what to use for bait when fishing. H
e showed me how to make a pot out of birch bark in whic h a man could boil water as long as the flame was kept below the water-level in the pot. He showed me how to buil d fires and he taught me to use wood ashes for bakin g powder in making biscuits.

Sometimes we would split up and travel alone all day , meeting only at night, and then I would have to rustl e my own grub, and often as not track him to where we wer e to meet.

When he would ride on ahead and have me track hi m down, I would practice with the gun while waiting to star t out. It had a natural, easy feel in my hand. I tried drawing and turning to fire as I drew. But Logan Pollard tol d me to respect a gun, too.

"They make them to kill," he said, "and you can kil l yourself or somebody you love just as easy as an enemy.

Every gun you haven't personally unloaded that minut e should be treated as a loaded gun. Guns aren't suppose d to be empty."

Santa Fe was a big town to me, the biggest since th e wagon train left Missouri, and bigger than any town I'
d seen up to then, except St. Louis.

There in Santa Fe I took a job herding a small bunc h of cattle for a man, keeping them inside the boundar y creek and out of the canyon. It was lazy, easy work mos t of the time. He paid me ten dollars a month, and afte r two months of it Logan Pollard came around to see me.

"You need some boots," he said, "and a new shirt."

He bought them for me from a pocketful of gold coins , and then we went to a Mexican place he knew and ate a good Mexican meal, chicken with rice and black beans.

Only he made me tuck my gun down inside my pants, an d I wore it like that when I was in Santa Fe.

One day when I was with the cattle he rode out t o see me and he took a book out of his saddlebags.

"Read it," he said. "Read it five times. You'll like i t better each time. It's some stories about great men, an d more great men have read this book than any other."

"Who wrote it?"

"Plutarch," he said, "and you can read it in the saddle."

It was warm and pleasant in the sunshine those days , and I read while I sat the saddle, or loafed under a tre e sometimes, making an occasional circle to hold the stoc k in. And then one day two Mexicans rode up with a mea n look in their eyes, and they fretted me some looking ove r the cattle like they did.

One of them rode out and started to bunch the cattle , so I put Plutarch in the saddlebag and got up on Old Blue.

He walked out there mighty slow. I figure Old Blu e knew more than me, and he could smell trouble making u p before it hit.

We were halfway out there before they saw us, an d they hesitated a moment, and then, getting a better look , they laughed.

"Nih-o," he said, and kept bunching the cows. And a s I drew nearer they started them moving away from me , toward the creek.

"Leave those cows," I said. "Get away from here!"

They paid me no mind and I was getting scared. I'
d been set to watch those cows, and if anything happened t o them it would be my fault. They were driving them toward the creek when I raced Old Blue ahead and turne d them back.

The big Mexican with the scar on his face swore at m e in Spanish and raced at me with a quirt. He raced up an d I pulled Old Blue over and he swung, lashing at me. H
e struck me across the face, and I pulled the Shawk & McLanahan out of my pants.

His eyes got very big, and me, I was shaking all over , but that gun was as big in my fist as his.

He began to talk at me in Spanish and back off a little , and then the other Mexican rode over to see what wa s happening. When he saw the gun he stopped and looke d very serious, and then he turned away from me as if to rid e off, but when he turned he suddenly swung backhande d with his rope and the gun was torn from my hand an d sent flying. Then he came at me, and he hit me acros s the face with the rope, and then lashed me with it ove r the back, and the half-coiled rope struck like a club an d knocked me from my horse.

Then he spat on me and laughed and they drove off th e cows, taking Old Blue along with them, and I lay ther e on the ground and could do nothing at all.

When I could get up I was very stiff and there wa s blood on me, but I walked to where the Shawk & McLanahan lay and picked it up.

It was ten miles back to town, but I walked it, and aske d around for Pollard. When I found him he was playin g cards. He waved at me and said, "Later, Rye. I'm bus y now."

The place was crowded with men and some of the m stared at my bloody face and the dirt on me, and I wa s ashamed. They would laugh at me if I told them I'd bee n knocked off my horse and had my cattle run off. So I wen t and borrowed a horse and took out after those Mexicans.

It was not only the cows; my mother's picture was i n the saddlebags, and the Plutarch. And the Joslyn carbin e was in the boot on Old Blue.

That night I didn't come up with them, or the next , but the third night I did.

They were around a water hole where there wer e some cottonwoods. It was the only water around and I wa s almighty thirsty, but I looked for Old Blue and saw hi m picketed off to one side.

It was dark and I was hungry, and they had a fire goin g and some grub, and I shucked the old Shawk & McLanahan out of my pants and cocked her.

The click of that gun cocking sounded loud in the night , and I said, not too loud, "You sit mighty still. I've com e for my horse and cows."

"El niiio," the scarred Mexican said.

I stepped into the light with the gun cocked.

"Kill him," the scarred Mexican said. "Kill him an d they will think he took the cattle himself. Kill him an d bury him here."

The other Mexican was sneaking a hand toward a gu n "Stop!" I said it loud, and I guess my voice sounde d shrill.

He just dived at the gun, and I shot, and the bulle t knocked him rolling. He sprawled out and the other Mexican lunged at me, and I tried to turn, but before I coul d shoot there was a shot from the edge of the brush, an d then another.

The Mexican diving at me fell face down, all sprawle d out, and then he rolled over and there was a blue hol e between his eyes, and the first Mexican, the one I shot, ha d another bullet that had torn off the side of his face after i t killed him.

Logan Pollard stood there with a gun in his hand, hi s face as still and cold as always.

"You should have told me, Rye. I didn't realize you'
d had trouble until one of the men said you were bloody.

Then I started after you."

We walked over and looked down at the Mexican I h ad shot. My bullet was a little high .. . but not much.

Pollard looked at me strangely, then caught up Ol d Blue and we started the cows toward home.

The next day he told me to quit, and when I collecte d my money I had thirty-two dollars, all told. With that i n my pocket, and the money from my Pap, which I'd neve r touched yet, I felt rich. We started northwest into th e wild country around the San Juan, following the ol d Spanish Trail.

"We're going to California to see Mary Tatum," h e said, "and then maybe you can go to school. You're to o willing to use a gun."

"They stole the cows," I said.

"I know."

"And Ma's picture."

He glanced at me. "Oh, I see."

It was a wild and lonely land of great red walls an d massive buttes. There were canyons knifed deep in th e rocky crust of the earth, and cactus with red flowers , and there were Indians, but they seemed friendly enough , and we traveled on, me riding Old Blue.

The sun rose hot and high in the mornings, and sometimes we took all morning to get to the bottom of a canyon, then all afternoon climbing out. We crossed wide re d deserts and camped in lonely places by tiny water holes , and my face grew browner and leaner and I learned mor e of the country. And one morning I got up and looked ove r at Logan Pollard.

"Today I'm fourteen," I said.

"Fourteen. Too young to live like this," he said. "A m an needs the refining influences of feminine companionship."

He was a careful man. Careful of his walk, careful o f the way he dressed, careful when he handled guns, an d careful in the care of his horse. Every morning he brushe d the dust fiom his clothes, and every morning he combe d his hair.

And when we rode he talked to me about Shakespear e and the Bible, and some about Plutarch and Plato. Som e of it I didn't set much store by, but most of it made a kind of sense.

From Virginia, he'd come. Educated there, and the n he'd come west.

"Why?"

"There was a man killed. They thought I did it."

"Did you?"

"Yes. I shot him fair, in a duel."

We rode on for several miles. I liked watching th e shadows of the clouds on the desert. "I was to have marrie d his sister. He didn't want me to."

And in California I went to school.

Logan Pollard stayed around for a while, and then h e rode away. I did not believe Mary Tatum wanted him t o go.

Yet he was gone no more than a week before he cam e back, and when I came riding in on Old Blue I saw the m talking, serious-like, on the porch. "It has happened before," he was saying, "and it may happen again."

"Not here," she told him. "This is a quiet place."

"All right," he said finally. "I'll stay."

The winter passed and all summer long I worked, fellin g logs for a lumber mill and holding down a riding job o n a nearby ranch the rest of the time. In the fall and winte r I went to school and learned how to work problems an d something of history. Most of all, I liked to read Plutarch.