"What'll it be, Sam?" Leo Maury, owner of The Mint stopped before them. Leo personally served only important customers.
"Leave a bottle, Leo," Clay said, "I'm sure dry." To Sam he said, "I been lookin' for you, Boss."
"What luck, Clay?" Sam asked impatiently as Clay poured himself a drink and downed it, almost in one motion. He poured another and filled Sam's glass.
"You ain't gonna like this, Boss," he said, "but that range up in Alberta is worse than our'n. They'll let us winter for fifty cents a head but what the hell. They'll die off up there same as here."
"I feel like getting good and drunk," Sam said.
"Me, too."
A tall, thin, red-headed man pulled away from the group at the pianola and headed across the room. Somehow, Sam Harden knew this man was Texas John Cooney. He watched him thrust his way through the crowd until he stood before him. Cooney pushed his hat on the back of his head and drawled, "Mr. Kenton?"
Sam shook his head, noting that the other two men with Cooney had drifted in behind him. "I'm Sam Harden. I don't know where Kenton is."
"Maybe you'll do," the thin red head stated. He was any age over forty and his clothing was good but trail stained. He had a scraggly red moustache that drooped down around a square, hard chin. His hands holding his cowhide vest were big-boned, spatulate. "I'm Tex Cooney and I just trailed three thousand head up from Texas."
Sam stared, his question unspoken but implicit in his eyes and stance. More cows to cover a range already hopelessly overgrazed, he thought.
Cooney didn't move for a moment and then he leaned forward, his drawl more pronounced. "Started out with six thousand. Lost half. Had one hell of a time gettin' to where I'm holdin"em. Now I hear I'm squattin' if I move where I aim to."
"Crazyhorse has always been winter range for all the spreads around here," Sam said.
"Then nobody claims it?"
"I didn't say that. Every rancher hereabouts has a stake in that valley, Mr. Cooney. Not that it's such a hell of
a
place right now, all the grass being burned out this year. No rain. Not much snow last winter."
Cooney nodded. "Don't
I
know it. Hull durn country's burnin' up."
"You lost half your herd and that's bad. The ranchers around here stand to lose about eighty-five per cent, Mr. Cooney, unless a miracle happens. I haven't ever seen one and I'm 29 years old."
A broad, dark man moved up beside Cooney and surveyed Sam Harden with hot eyes. "Y' wastin' your time, Tex," he said, and spat in the sawdust at Harden's feet. "What we should ought t'do is—"
"Hold it now, Brad," Cooney said and took a step over, a step that put him between Harden and the dark cowboy. "Ain't gonna have no trouble if n I can he'p it."
"I'd advise you to sell and go back to Texas," Sam said bluntly.
"For less'n ten dollars a head?" Cooney wagged his head slowly from side to side. "Then I would be out o' business. Can't do that, son."
"There's nothing here for you," Sam Harden said, and brushed past Cooney and headed for the door. Clay Bassett followed slowly.
"That fella will move in," Clay said when they were outside on the boardwalk.
"He hasn't any other place to move," Sam said in a tired voice. He liked Texas John Cooney and felt sorry for him.
The man had come a long way to find more trouble than he left behind him.
"He takes the Crazyhorse, where'll we be?"
"How the hell should I know? I'm going home."
"I'll stay in town if you don't mind, Sam. Got a lot' to catch up on."
Sam said, "All right, Clay," and mounted his horse. He rode out into the night, alone, with a little feeling of envy for Bassett, for his carefree life. He went past the cattle pens, sitting easy in the saddle, and heard the fretful bawling of range cattle waiting to be loaded in railroad cars and hauled east to a depressed market. He wondered if everyone in the United States had suddenly quit eating beef. All the local ranchers were selling off, even cattle not ready for market, and this glut reflected in the low price of beef. Sam felt constricted, hemmed in, cut off. And suddenly he was sick of it. He asked himself if what Kenton said was true; that if he'd earned the land he'd feel more possessive about it.
What's the matter with me? he wondered. Am I getting soft in the head? I got a tiger by the tail and can't let loose. He had a feeling that he was standing alone, that his brother Dick was a spectator, hurrahing the tiger on.
He heard the even rhythmic pound of a running horse behind him and perversely pulled off the road into a clump of jackpine. The dryness of the year had sapped the resin smell and he sat his horse, waiting.
It was Clay Bassett on his cob of a roan, running the animal hard. Sam waited, smelling the dust that drifted out. He put his horse down the wagon track, watching Clay circle the few tents in the grove. On impulse he followed the roan's dust, around a clump of trees, and saw that Clay disappeared into the old barn of the spread that Fillmore McGee had run at one time.
Sam left his horse a distance of a pistol shot from the barn and walked forward until he reached the side of the barn. The sound of voices came to him easily.
"Been waitin' long?" he heard Bassett ask with a peculiar sound to his voice.
The soft sound coming from the darkness was laughter, woman's merriment, with a touch of wildness. Her voice said, "I never wait for a man."
"You're waitin' now," Clay said.
How long has he known her? Sam wondered. These people had been here since early summer, waiting for—what? He was surprised Clay hadn't mentioned knowing one of the girls. He shrugged in the darkness and listened without self-consciousness as Clay said, "Well, you are, ain't your
"I mean until now. I never was courted by a cowboy. I've always been sparked by farm boys." There was a silence and then she went on, "I've seen you ride by, kind of nice like the cowboys ride. Farmers don't ride like that."
"Farmers, cowboys, drivers—they're all people."
"My pop doesn't think so. He says cowboys are wild."
"Shoot, they're people, too. Spend a lot of time in the brush and get all lonesome, and then come to town and let off steam. That's why people think they're wild."
"You never farmed, did you, Clay?"
"Nope. Cows are my business."
"Did you ever feel like—well, maybe you'd like to farm?"
"Maybe it's somethin' to study on," he said cautiously. "A cowboy—well, I don't know how to say it, the life is uncertain. Cows take a lot of watchin' after. . . ." He stopped for a long running moment and then went on. "Growin' things out of the ground must kind of give root to a man. Maybe the growin' does it."
It was the longest speech Sam had ever heard Clay make. He felt a sense of shame all at once as he listened to the softened sound of voices, now indistinct. And other sounds.
They were kissing, Sam suddenly realized, with a queer feeling of loneliness.
Another long silence, then, "Reckon your pop might find a quarter section for me?"
Sam held his breath. Her answer was a soft, satisfied laugh. Sam turned away, heading for his horse. He had a feeling almost of betrayal. He caught up his reins and stiffened, immobilized, at the sound behind him. Turning his head he saw the dark shape of a man standing there, holding a shotgun. The hammers clicked back.
"Don't move, mister," a steely voice warned. "Just raise your hands and walk toward them trees over there."
III
AS HE
approached the cottonwood grove, walking carefully, Sam could
see
several fires. The man behind him with the shotgun said, "There's a little creek there so watch it."