A CRISIS
Winter came with the going of the last brigades of the geese. The
sloughs and lakes froze, and the ground hardened to iron, ringing
hollowly beneath hoofs, rumbling dully to wagon wheels. It was cold, but
there was no snow in the valleys, though it lay white well down the
flanks of the ranges. On the benchlands there was nothing to relieve the
dark gloom of the firs, the bareness of the deciduous trees, the
frost-burnt dead of the grasses.
Angus had seen little of Faith Winton. At the French ranch he felt like
a cat in a strange garret. He had little or nothing in common with the
French boys, and certainly nothing with the young men who made the place
a hang-out. Though old Godfrey French was polite enough, Angus felt or
thought he felt a certain cool contempt. Kathleen was the only one of
the family with whom he was at ease.
He was now able to ride, and help round up the cattle for the winter.
But to his annoyance there were several head which could not be found.
Again they were steers, beef cattle. As in the case of the others, some
years before, they seemed to have vanished utterly. Rennie was sure they
had been rustled, and again he blamed the Indians. In the end he took
his rifle and an outfit, and Angus knew that very little would escape
his methodical combing. On top of his other hard luck Angus felt the
loss badly. He was going to be very hard run for money. None too
cheerfully he went at the various tasks of snugging up for the winter.
In these he had little or no assistance from Turkey. The youngster was
absent more than ever, and, one morning when, instead of helping with
fencing, he led out his mare saddled, Angus ventured remonstrance.
"There are a whole lot of things to do," he observed.
"No rush," Turkey returned. "Let 'em wait."
"I am not waiting."
"Well, I am," Turkey said, his tone suddenly truculent. "I've worked all
summer and fall, and I want some fun. I'm going to have it, too."
"Perhaps I want some myself," Angus suggested, holding his temper.
"Oh, you!" Turkey's voice held careless scorn of Angus' desire for
recreation. "Well, if you want it, go and get it. Nobody's stopping you.
And nobody's going to stop me."
Angus shut his lips grimly over the words which rose to them. He saw his
brother ride away, defiance in the set of his shoulders, and he turned
to his work, bitterness in his heart. That, he reflected sourly, was
what he got for sticking to work. He was the steady, reliable old horse.
Nobody suspected him of a longing for other things. A working machine,
that's what he was. For Jean he did not mind, but for Turkey! Why, in
weeks the boy had made a mere bluff at working, for months he had
slacked. Instead of doing a man's work as he should, he had been barely
earning his grub. In sudden anger Angus sank a staple with a blow which
snapped the hammer handle like a stick of candy. He threw the fragment
from him with a curse. But the action and the oath did not relieve.
Instead of acting as a safety valve, his self-control slipped by that
much. A black mood descended on him and persisted through the day. That
night he ate in glum silence, smoked in silence, and went to bed
without uttering half a dozen words to Gus, who, Turkey not having
returned, was his sole companion.
He slept badly. In a period of wakefulness he heard the drum hoofs on
the frozen ground and knew that Turkey was coming home at last. Looking
at his watch by the light of a match he saw that it was nearly two
o'clock in the morning. A nice time for a fellow to come home who
expected to do any work the next day. But perhaps Turkey didn't intend
to.
Turkey took his time putting up his mare. When he entered the house he
tripped over a chair, coming down with a crash. Whereat he swore, and
something in his voice made Angus jump out of bed and light his lamp.
With it in his hand he entered Turkey's room.
One look confirmed his suspicions. Turkey was more than half drunk.
Angus stared at him in angry amazement, and Turkey stared back, sullen
and defiant, the butt of a cigarette between his lips.
"Well," he said, "what you lookin' at?"
"At you," Angus returned. "Who got you drunk?"
"I ain't drunk," Turkey denied. "If I want a drink I guess I can take it
without asking you."
"Who were you with?" Angus persisted.
"None of your dam' business!" Turkey told him flatly.
Angus hesitated. He felt a strong desire to man-handle his young
brother, but finally he decided against it. He went back to bed, but not
to sleep. His anger struggled with a feeling of responsibility for
Turkey. The boy must not be allowed to make a fool of himself; but he
was difficult to handle. He realized that he himself was the last person
from whom he would take advice, but something had to be done.
Puzzling over his course he became aware that the room was no longer
dark. It was not the dim light of dawn, but a reddish, reflected glow.
With the realization he bounded from his bed and into the living room.
There the light was brighter, and through a window which faced the
stables he saw a shaft of flame lick high in the air.
"Gus!" he shouted. "Fire!"
As he dashed for his room and pulled on trousers and moccasins, he heard
the weight of Gus hit the floor above. Not waiting for him, he ran for
the stables.
The stable yard and corrals were drenched in a red glare, and smoke and
leaping sheets of flame were driving with a bitter south wind. The stock
in corrals and sheds was bawling; in the stable horses were stamping and
whinnying. For a moment he thought the stable was on fire, but as he
vaulted a five-foot gate, not waiting to open it, he saw that it was not
the stable but the great stack of hay close to it and directly to
wind-ward.
Nothing could save the stack. The fire had a good hold and the flame
sheets were leaping and smothering in hot smoke with the noise of a
hundred flapping blankets. The fire and the sparks were driving directly
at the stable. Its walls were of peeled logs, which offered little hold
for fire, but its roof was of split shakes and its mow full of hay.
He threw the doors wide and began to turn the horses loose. But
frightened by the glare and the smoke and the roar and crackle of
flames, they hung back snorting, cowering in their stalls.
It was no time for half measures. Gus joined him, a fiendish figure in
red flannel underclothes, which he wore day and night all the year
round, for the big Swede had waited only to pull on a pair of
moccasins. With whip and pitchfork they slashed and prodded the animals
out.
"By the Yumpin' Yudas!" Gus cried, "Ay tank dae stable ban go."
It looked like it. The flames were reaching and snapping back, and
flying streams of sparks were now driving upon the weather-worn, dry
shakes. If the roof caught, or if a vagrant spark reached the hay with
which the mow was filled, nothing could save it. But Angus was not
inclined to lose his stable without an effort.
"Get all the horse blankets and wagon covers, soak 'em, and throw 'em up
to me," he ordered. "I'm going up on the roof. Help me with the ladder."
A ladder hung on the north wall of the stable. Together they shot it up.
Angus grabbed a coil of lash rope and a couple of lariats, and ran up
the ladder. Making the rope fast to the top rung and taking the coil
over his arm he crawled up the steep slope of the roof. As he put his
head over the ridge smoke stung his eyes and bit at his lungs. The pitch
was fairly bubbling from the old shakes on the southern exposure.
Behind him Gus staggered up the ladder with an armful of dripping horse
blankets which he had soaked in the ditch. Angus ripped off a bit of
loose lining and tied it over his nose and mouth. Then, taking the wet
blankets on one arm and a turn of rope around the other, he drew a full
breath of good air and went over the ridge into the smoke and flying red
cinders.
Down close to the eaves he saw a little, blue flame start and die, and
start again and live. He went down, his body at right angles to the
pitch of the roof against the pull of the rope, and spread a dripping
blanket on it. As he did so a big fluff of burning hay lit above him.
He extinguished that. Little, creeping lizards of fire began to glow,
and he beat them out and yelled for more blankets. The moisture was
being sucked from his body, his eyes stabbed with pain and his lungs
ached. Sparks clung to him and burned through to the skin, the heat of
the roof struck through the soles of his moccasins. The little, creeping
flames, starting everywhere, seemed personal enemies, and he beat upon
them with wet blankets, and stamped upon them and croaked curses at
them. Then Gus was beside him, a very welcome demon in his red garments,
working like a maniac and swearing strange oaths. Together they kept the
roof till the heat lessened, and the tongues and sheets of flame snapped
no more in their faces, and blackened and gray ashes instead of red
cinders powdered them, and where Angus' fine stack of bright hay had
been was a red and glowing heap.
They came down from the roof and drank deeply from the running ditch,
and the cold wind striking their overheated bodies through burnt and
insufficient clothing, cut to the bone.
In the house, changing his burnt garments for warm clothes, Angus for
the first time thought of his brother and looked into his room. The boy
slept. He had known nothing of the fire.
"By Yimminy, dat kid sleep like a mudsill," Gus commented. "Ay holler at
him when Ay go out, too."
"Let him sleep," Angus said. "Come on and get the horses into the stable
again."
He spoke quietly, but there was bitter anger in his heart. It was bad
enough that Turkey should lie in drunken slumber; but far worse than
that he was the last person who had been near the stable and stack.
Neither Angus nor Gus had been out of the house for five or six hours
before the fire. As they put the horses back Angus found Turkey's mare's
manger full of hay. Drunk or sober the boy would look after the animal's
needs. But to get hay he had either to fork it down from the mow or get
it from the stack. As the mow was dark, with a ladder to climb, there
wasn't much doubt that he had got it from the latter. Then at the stack
he had either dropped the butt of a cigarette or the end of a match.
There was no doubt in Angus' mind as to the origin of the fire.
But as was his custom, he kept his thoughts to himself. He sent Gus to
the house to get what sleep he could, and he remained on guard against
chances from stray sparks.
As he stared at the heap of black and gray and red which had been his
stack his anger hardened. In the heart of the heap he seemed to see the
fields where the hay had grown, green and tender in the spring, laced
with the silver threads of irrigation waters; and lush and high and
waving in the summer winds, tipped and tinged with the pink and red of
clover and alfalfa and the purple bloom of timothy. He thought of the
labor that had gone into it--the careful irrigation, the mowing, the
raking, the hauling, the stacking--all to the end that the stock should
be full-bellied and fat-clad against the cold and snow that shrinks
ill-nourished stock to racks of hide-tied bone. He looked ahead--two
months, three--and he could hear the hunger-bawling of the cattle
clustered by the corral bars, and see them hump-backed and lean and
shivering, and weak and dying of cold and hunger. He could see their
eyes, looking to him for the food man should provide.
Unless he would see that picture become grim reality he must buy feed,
and he had no money to spare. His straw was quite insufficient to
winter his stock on. Then he had counted on selling some of the hay. It
all meant that his debt must be increased. In the breath of the fire the
fruits of his hard work had been wiped out. As he thought of all these
things he was filled with bitterness against his brother.
When dawn came and all danger was over he went in to breakfast. Turkey
still slept. Angus let him slumber, and going to the workshop went to
work repairing a set of sleighs.
He had worked for an hour or more when Turkey emerged from the house,
his hands in his pockets, his back hunched. At first he did not notice
the absence of the stack. When he did, being almost at the stable, he
stopped short, staring at the black heap, at the frozen blankets and
covers hanging on the fence. He entered the stable, came out again, and
hearing Angus' hammering, made for the workshop. As he came in Angus saw
that his mouth was set, his face flushed, his brow scowling.
"Say--" he began and stopped. "Say--"
"Well?" Angus returned, coldly.
"The stack!"
"You can see for yourself, can't you?"
"Why didn't you call me?"
"You'd have been a lot of use!"
The boy flushed darkly.
"What started it?"
"You ought to know," Angus replied, "whether you do or not."
"What do you mean?" Turkey cried.
"I mean that you started the fire yourself."
"What?" Turkey exclaimed. "I didn't! What do you take me for?"
"Where did you get the hay to fill Dolly's manger?"
"From the stack," Turkey admitted.
"I thought so. And you dropped a butt or a match. Nobody else had been
near there for hours."
"I didn't. I didn't light a cigarette till after I came out of the
stable."
"I don't think you know what you did. The stack is gone. We have to buy
feed now, and we haven't the money to pay for it."
"That's not my fault," Turkey asseverated. "I won't be blamed for what I
didn't do."
"No," Angus returned grimly, "but for what you did do."
"If you say I started that fire you're a ---- liar!" Turkey flared.
Angus looked at him with narrowing eyes.
"You had better go slow, Turkey," he warned. "I don't feel like taking
much from anybody this morning. And I'll take less from you than
anybody."
"Then don't say I started that fire!" Turkey cried "The hay was mine as
well as yours. You act as if you were boss here, and I won't stand for
it any longer."
Under ordinary circumstances Angus would have let that go. But now he
was sore and worried and angry. He had worked hard, denied himself a
good deal to hold the ranch together and make a living for them all. It
seemed that a show-down had to come and he was ready for it.
"We may as well settle this now," he said. "I am boss. I mean to stay
boss, and while you're on this ranch you'll toe the mark after this,
understand?"
"Is that so?" Turkey sneered.
"It is so," Angus repeated. "Let me tell you something: I've given you
the easy end right along, and you haven't held up even that. You've
shirked and loafed every chance you've had. This has got to stop. And
there will be no more of this coming in at all hours of night."
"I'll come in when I like and go where I like," Turkey declared
defiantly, "and I'd like to see you stop me."
"You will see it," Angus told him grimly. "You ought to be ashamed of
yourself. You've burnt up our stack--"
"You're a liar!" Turkey cried hotly. "Don't you tell me that again!"
"Tell you again!" Angus said contemptuously. "I'll not only tell you
again, but for two pins I'd hand you something to make you remember it."
"Then fly at it!" Turkey cried, and struck him in the face.
For an instant Angus was so surprised that he did nothing at all. Then,
taking another blow, he caught his brother by wrist and shoulder and
slammed him back against the wall with a force which shook the frame
building. He was white-hot with anger, and all that restrained him was
fear--fear that if he once lost grip of himself he would go too far. As
he held the boy pinned and helpless he fought his fight and won it. His
grip relaxed and he stepped back.
"Don't ever do that again, Turkey," he said quietly.
Turkey, freed, stared at him. "I called you a liar and hit you twice."
"I know it," Angus returned impatiently. "And I could beat you to a
froth, and you know it. I don't want to start--the way I'm feeling.
That's all."
"Then I'm sorry I hit you," Turkey conceded. "But all the same, I didn't
fire the stack."
"We won't talk about it."
"Yes, we will. If you think I did, I'm pulling out."
"You'll do as you please," Angus said coldly. "You'll come back mighty
soon."
"Don't fool yourself," Turkey retorted. "I'm sick of this dam' place,
and working day in and day out."
"I've told you what I think of your work. If you're sick of it I'm just
as sick of coddling you along. Can't you get it through your head that
you're almost a man?"
"Yes," Turkey returned, "and I'm going where I'll be treated like one."
"Then you'll have to change a lot," Angus informed him. "When you behave
like one you'll be treated like one, here or anywhere else. Till you do
that, you won't. And here it is cold for you, Turkey, with no trimmings:
You may go to the devil if you like; but you can't stay on this ranch
and do it, because I won't stand for it."
And so, at last, the issue between the brothers, so long pending, lay
clear and sharply defined. There was no middle course. For a long minute
they looked each other in the face. Then said Turkey:
"You and the ranch can go to hell!"
He turned on his heel and went to the house whence, a few minutes later,
he emerged wearing wool chaps and a heavy mackinaw. In one hand he
carried his pet rifle; in the other a canvas warbag. He went into the
stable and presently led out his mare, saddled. Then he jogged away
without a glance in Angus' direction.