15 Western Short Stories — page 9: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

TOUGH, HE SAID HE WAS 9 much. It had been Washburn’s cattle they had stolen. Now it was money out of his own pocket. He recalled the way McLeod had faced the Gliddens down, and tried to imagine himself doing the same thing. A cold weight of fear settled in his stomach at the thought. Maybe he could sneak in at night and run the cattle out. But there would be no way of telling, Luke or Pete might be hiding out in the brush with a rifle. He’d be better off to keep the cat- tle he had and let the Gliddens get away with the others. But it went against the grain. It was after noon when he drove the cattle into the pasture below the main ranch house. He unlashed McLeod’s body and carried it in to the bed. The clock was stopped and the house cold and still. He went from room to room in the silence, then carried his own blankets to the barn and put them in the haymow. He was through with McLeod’s house. There was too much of the big man still in it, even to a paper scroll framed on one wall. It was a speech from a play, some guy handing out advice. “These few pre- cepts’ it began and then went on for a long time. McLeod had been like that guy, full of wise sayings. Bob was glad to be rid of the house. He cooked his supper over an open fire by the springhouse and rolled into his blankets early to think about the trail north, He was up again at daybreak and digging in the orchard near the spot where a stone marked the place where McLeod’s wife and the baby son were buried. After he finished he went to the workshop and began to fashion a coffin. He’d learned how to handle tools at the reform school and Mc- Leod had been a good workman, teaching him the easiest ways. The nearest preacher was at the Bear Creek mine, eighty miles to the north, so one of the neighbors would have to say the funeral words. He could get Henry Mueller, though Mc- Leod hadn’t liked him much. It was a poweriul lonesome country when a man had to be buried by people who hadn’t cared for him. He ought to go to town to get Washburn, but the banker might get interested in when the cattle would be sold and McLeod’s debt paid. Gretchen Mueller was hanging out clothes when he dismounted at the front gate. She put down her basket and waited as he came up through the yard. “Hello, Bob, how did the round- up go?” “No good,” Bob said. “Something is wrong?” E TOLD her, in a rush of words that astonished him. He had had no words except to his horse since McLeod’s death, and now they burst from him in a flow which embarrassed him but which he could not stop. He told her everything, everything ex- cept his plan to ride out with the cat- tle. Her eyes filled with tears. “Poor McLeod,” she said. And then, “It must have been awful, Bob.” Her touch was soft on his arm. It was this way when Henry Mueller came stamping around the corner of the house. His sour scowl settled and grew dark. “Go in the house, Gretchen. What do you want, boy?” ‘““McLeod’s dead. I want you to help bury him,” Bob said, forcing down his anger at the sharp tone Henry had used on Gretchen. “Dead! You kill him?” “His horse fell on him!” Bob blazed. “You can look for yourself.” Henry chewed at his lip for a mo- ment. “All right, we go,” he said. He left Bob standing in the yard while he went into the house to dress in the black he felt was necessary. When he and Mrs. Mueller came out with Gretchen to get in the spring wagon, Bob, his resentment growing through- out the wait, thought Mrs. Mueller looked at him with suspicion as she went by. He got on his horse and rode behind the wagon without a word. It was hot in the orchard. Mrs, Mueller sang some songs in German because she had never learned the English and Henry talked about what a fine man McLeod was and how they would miss him. As he talked Bob looked at the coffin. It was hard to imagine Big John being really gone, no more advice in that big booming voice. He remembered the way Mc- Leod had called him “son” and for a COMICLOO© CO