“Seems to me like you was the one who come for supplies the last time,” Proffer said.
“That’s right.”
Proffer scratched his beard and looked back to the east, as if looking for someone else.
“Yeah, well, the thing is, I was sort of expectin’ maybe Cal or one of the other boys would come on this trip.”
Jim laughed. “Brookline said he wasn’t going to send them anymore because they got drunk and raised a ruckus last time.”
“Ah, it was nothin’,” Proffer said with a wave of his hand. “Just a couple of boys havin’ a good time is all. What’s the harm? And they spent good money with me.” He sighed. “Well, never mind. Come on in and I’ll start filling the order.”
Jim stepped up on the porch, then looked toward the west again. Proffer stopped and looked with him.
“Yeah,” Proffer said. “I been lookin’ at that too. What with the clouds lookin’ like that, and the way the temperature’s been droppin’ all mornin’, I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t get a little snow.”
“Hope I can get back before it moves in,” Jim said.
Jim leaned down and patted the dog’s head, then followed Proffer inside. The interior of the store was dappled by patterns of shadow and light. Some of the light came through the door, but most of it was in the form of gleaming dust motes illuminated by bars of sunbeams stabbing through cracks between the boards.
Proffer’s cleaning woman, and part-time whore, was on her hands and knees in the back of the store, using a pail of water and a stiff brush to scrub the floor. She was called the “Dog Woman” by all the cowboys because she had spent three years as a captive of the Chey enne Dog Soldiers. Her real name was Anna Polla. She looked up at Jim and brushed a strand of pale brown hair back from her forehead. Her eyes were gray and one of them tended to cross, and when she smiled, there was a gap where one tooth had been knocked out by a drunken Indian. Cal had once said of her, “She’s so ugly she’d make a train take five miles of dirt road. But she’s the only whore within fifty miles, so she’s all we got.”
“Did you come by yourself?” Dog Woman asked.
“Yes.”
“That’s too bad. I was hopin’ Cal or one of the others woulda come today.” Shoving the pail to one side, she got to her feet, revealing that she had tied up her skirt to keep from getting it wet. That action exposed her legs all the way above her knees almost to the bottom line of her bloomers.
“Anna, for God’s sake, leave the man alone,” Proffer said. “Don’t you know he ain’t interested in that?”
“I’m just tryin’ to get him interested in buyin’ me a drink is all,” Anna countered.
Jim chuckled, then walked over to put a coin down on the bar. “Give Miss Polla a drink, Dennis.”
“And you don’t want nothin’ for it?” Anna asked.
“Just to see you smile, is all,” Jim said.
Anna’s mouth spread into a wide broken smile. “You’re a real gentleman, you are,” she said.
It took no more than fifteen minutes for Jim’s order to be filled, and by the time he got back to the wagon, the temperature had fallen several more degrees. His denim jacket was totally inadequate against the sudden chill.
“Jim,” Proffer called from the door of his store. “Maybe you better take this.” Proffer held out a buffalo robe. “No more’n you got on now an’ you’re likely to freeze to death before you get home.”
“Thanks, Dennis. I’ll bring it back next time I come.”
Jim wrapped himself in the robe and started back to the ranch. The snow began falling before he reached the edge of town.
Frankie and Cal were in the north canyon looking for straying cattle when the snow started coming down. The flakes were huge, and they were coming down with such intensity that visibility was cut down to no more than ten or twenty feet.
“Will you look at this snow?” Frankie said. “Cal, you ever seen snow like this?”
“Snow is snow,” Cal said. He pointed toward a draw. “We’d better check up in there.”
“No larger’n that draw is, even if there are cows in there, it couldn’t be more than half a dozen or so,” Frankie complained. “And the way I look at it, if they’ve found themselves some shelter from this snow, I say, let ’em keep it.”
Cal shook his head. “We can’t do that,” he said. “If the snow closes up the canyon and traps the cows up here, they’ll starve to death.”
“Yeah? Well, let me ask you this, Cal. Have you thought about what might happen to us if the snow closes up the canyon and traps us? The cows are dumb animals and don’t know no better, but we do.”
“It’s our job,” Cal replied, as if that explained everything.
As the men pushed on, the horses kept trying to turn their backs to the driving sleet, so both Frankie and Cal had to dismount and lead their animals. But by now the snow was really beginning to pile up, and they moved on as best they could, plunging into drifts that were sometimes knee-deep, urging their horses on. The men moved to the side of the horses, feeling somewhat guilty about keeping the poor creatures between them and the wind.
“Cal, we need to start back,” Frankie said. He had to yell to be heard over the howl of the wind. “Even if we do find any cows in here, there’s nothing we can do about them.”
“Yeah,” Cal answered. “Yeah, all right, we’ll start back.”
They turned around, then stopped. The snow was falling so hard now that they could barely see, and the ground around them was completely white.
“Which way is back?” Frankie asked.
“That way,” Cal said, pointing.
“You sure? Feels more like that way, to me,” Frankie said, pointing in a direction that was about forty-five degrees off from where Cal had pointed.
“You think it’s there. I think it’s here. Let’s split the difference and go this way,” Cal suggested.
“All right.”
The two men started back. For more than an hour they beat their way against the blizzard and the bitter cold.
“Frankie,” Cal said. His voice was weak and thin, and Frankie could barely hear him above the banshee howl of the wind.
“What is it?”
“I ain’t goin’ to make it,” Cal said. He stopped and leaned against the side of his horse, breathing heavily. “You go on without me.”
“I ain’t goin’ anywhere without you,” Frankie replied.
“I’m just holdin’ you up here,” Cal said. “If you stay here with me, you’re goin’ to freeze to death. I’m tellin’ you, go on without me.”
“No,” Frankie said. “We’ll stay here a while until you get your breath back. But I’m not leaving you here.”
Jim Robison made it three-quarters of the way back to the ranch before the road became totally impassable. The wagon was no longer a vehicle that achieved its motion by rolling on wheels. Instead, it was an inefficient sled. The team could get through, but the snow was so deep that as the horses pulled, the wagon would push the snow in front, piling it up into a huge, impenetrable wall.
Finally, Jim felt that he had no choice but to abandon the wagon. Unhitching the team, he left the wagon behind. Then, wrapping the buffalo robe around him as best he could, he held on to the tail of one of the horses, and urged them ahead.
Traveling was still difficult for the team, but less arduous than it had been when they were pulling the wagon. And as the horses walked, they cut a path through the snow, which made it somewhat easier for Jim to walk.
“Let’s go home, horses,” he said. Then, trusting in the horses’ ability to find their way back, he hung on to the tail of one of them and followed, step by foot-weary step, moving almost as if in his sleep, as the team plodded on.
Jim had no idea how long it was before he looked around and saw, almost as white shadows in a field of white, the buildings and structures of Trailback Ranch. The horses headed straight for the barn. Jim opened the door and led them inside. Though cold in the barn, it was not quite as frigid as outside, and there was the added advantage of protection from the howling wind and blowing snow.