She took his arm. "Come along, I must get my sugar." She stopped at the
entrance to the store. "Oh, Ellis. One more thing. About that New Year's
dance at Fort Laramie. I want you to know that I think it's a splendid
idea."
"You do!"
"Certainly. Young people should enjoy themselves, and Barbara will be
perfectly all right with Ynez Driscoll." She was rewarded with a smile
of the purest gratitude and delight.
Emma bought a pound of sugar, which she really had not needed, and went
back to the cabin. Contentedly she slept beside Joe, and was still
drowsy when he awakened. She knew when Joe got out of bed to start both
fires, then crawled back in to wait until the cabin warmed. She heard
the children giggling in their beds.
They breakfasted, and Emma and Barbara began to prepare the Christmas
dinner. Except that they would have had turkey instead of ham,
everything would have been exactly this way back in Missouri. But so
long had they been out, living from what they had in the wagon and
building fires under every possible condition, and so much longer had
they been at Snedeker's, eating wild meat and stretching other foods as
far as possible in order to save money, that this seemed to be scaling
the utmost heights of luxury. They baked the ham and pies, and Emma
opened three jars of string beans that had also been saved for this
occasion. There were no potatoes. But there was feathery-light bread and
butter.
It was a memorable Christmas dinner, one that was never forgotten by any
of the older people who partook of it. Emma had brought spices for the
ham, and Joe carved and served pink slices of the steaming delicacy.
When everybody had eaten as much as they could, there was still a full
third of the ham left. But Emma's three pumpkin pies had been eaten to
the last crumb.
Tad went out to test his hatchet, and after the dishes were washed
Barbara and Ellis took a walk in the snow. Emma and Joe watched the
young couple as they left. Emma had told her husband of her talk with
Ellis. His response had been an uneasy one.
"He's mighty hasty, seems to me."
"Mighty young, too," she had reminded him.
Still enthralled with their presents, the youngsters played busily.
Snedeker took a blackened pipe from his pocket, filled it with
vile-smelling tobacco, and offered the tobacco pouch to Joe.
"Smoke?"
"No thanks. I never got the habit."
"Lordy, lordy. No smokin'. No drinkin'. What do you do, Joe?"
"I like to hunt and fish."
"Of both you'll find a heap in Oregon," Snedeker assured him. "Though
'tain't an' never will be like 'twas. I remember--"
Joe and Emma listened while he spoke of the west that used to be. He
spoke of Blackfeet, Sioux, Pawnees, and of battles with them. He created
word pictures of virgin creeks which, until the Mountain Men came, had
known no white man's tracks. There were so many buffalo that the plains
were black with them and the thunder of their hoofs drowned even a
shrieking wind. Snedeker told of vast herds of deer, elk, and antelope.
He told of colorful camps and rendezvous.
"I seen it all," he continued, "and 'tain't so many years it took to see
it. The like will never be again. The west is growin' up. Buffalo hides
have took the place of beaver. Emmy-grants, crazy for land, are pourin'
in like a falls off a mountain. Mebbe, when you come to think of it,
that's right too. The west was made for people, not buffalo. Do you know
they's even crazy talk of a railroad an' wire line clean across the
kentry? Yep. Five minutes after somebody in New York says it, somebody
in San Francisco will know what he said. I misbelieve that'll ever be;
don't see how it can be. But when the buffalo go, an' they's sure to go,
they'll be lots of things. All the gold they found in Californy won't be
a acorn's wuth to what will be found. I don't mean gold, nuther. They's
ore beds in the west for the whole kentry ten times over. They's farm
land thick with wild grass, an' that'll grow crops jest as good. They's
a galore of timber, enough to make all the cities an' towns what'll ever
need be made. The emmy-grants who've gone ain't made a dent in the west.
Some day Oregon alone will have twicet as many emmy-grants as have been
over the Trail in the past ten years, an' they'll be room for 'em.
They'll be cities on the west coast to shade anything what's on the
east." He became wistful. "The west will be tamed, but I'm right glad I
ain't goin' to live to see it all tamed. I wouldn't like that a'tall."
That night Joe went happily to bed, for Snedeker's discourse had been a
great comfort to him. He had left Missouri because he needed room and
opportunity for his children, and he was getting into the west while
there was still plenty of both. When the millions came, providing they
came at all in his time, he would be too old to care and the children
would be young enough to adjust.
Rising in a cloudless sky, next morning's sun brought little warmth.
Overnight the weather had turned very cold, so that a thick glazing of
frost lay on the windows. Since there was a great pile of logs at the
building site, and no special hurry about getting any more, today Joe
and Ellis were to see if they could find some buffalo. By all means they
were to bring in something, for meat stocks at the post were low. If
they couldn't find buffalo, they were to try for elk or deer. Should
they discover a herd of buffalo, they were to shoot as many as possible.
Though there was a limit to the meat that could be used, Snedeker could
hire squaws to cure the hides. There was a steady market for buffalo
robes in the east, but it was not necessary to send them east in order
to realize a good profit. Oregon-bound emigrants would pay four dollars
each for buffalo robes right at the post.
Ellis rode his horse, Joe mounted the mare mule, and each man carried a
rifle. Without speaking they mounted the ridge behind the post and went
into pine forest. A deer flitted among the trees and Joe raised his
rifle. But the deer was gone before he could get a shot.
"Let's try for buffalo first," Ellis suggested. "We can always pick up
something else if we don't find any."
"All right with me. Have you hunted buffalo?"
"Yes. There are meadows back here where we'll find them if there are any
around. They stay there because of good grass and it's out of the wind.
If we find a herd, take those on the outside first."
A little while later Ellis held up his hand because it would be unwise
to speak, dismounted, and tied his horse to a tree. Joe slid off the
mule and tied her. He followed Ellis through the pines and looked down
on an open meadow.
Sixteen buffaloes moved sluggishly about while they scraped for grass
with ponderous hoofs. Ellis Garner's rifle came up as easily as though
it were an extension of his own arm. He sighed, shot, and a buffalo
dropped heavily. Ellis indicated another cow that stood on the fringe of
the herd and reloaded.
They shot six before the rest scented blood and pounded clumsily away in
a cloud of flying snow. Ellis watched the fleeing herd until it was out
of sight. Joe warmed to him. Whatever Ellis might be, he was no
deliberate killer. He had shot buffalo because it was part of his job,
not because he loved to shoot. Joe suspected that a flying buck or
lurking elk would have been game much more to his liking.
Ellis asked, "Want to bring a sled up while I skin these? If we both
leave, they'll be nothing but wolf bait."
"I'll help you."
"It's no job. You just slit them up the belly and around the legs, cut a
slot for a rope, and let your horse pull the skin off. I'll be done by
the time you're back."
Joe said, "Tad shot a buffalo on the way to Laramie and it took us a
long while to skin it. Where'd you learn this trick?"
"Jim taught me."
Joe rode the mare mule back to the post, harnessed the team and hitched
them to one of Snedeker's bobsleds. He followed the tracks they'd made
going in and saw the six buffalo carcasses, rawly naked already
freezing. Ellis was walking about, beating his hands together to warm
them.
"Better take some of the humps," he said. "It's one of the best parts."
Joe scratched his head. "I heard that too, but I couldn't even cut it
out."
"I'll show you."
There was a ridge of bone over the hump, but it did not go clear
through. Ellis inserted his knife, cut deftly, and lifted out a
three-pound chunk of meat. Under Ellis's direction, Joe did the next
one. They took the humps, the livers, half a dozen hind quarters, the
loins and the tongues, and laid them on the fresh hides.
While they loaded the meat on the bobsleds, Joe was silent, preoccupied
by his confused feelings about Ellis. The young man was undoubtedly a
hard worker when he wanted to be, and he was friendly and
respectful--when he wanted to be. But always Ellis gave you the feeling
he was going to do exactly what he wanted, and if that thing happened to
be unfriendly, why that was the time for a person to watch out. He had
an impulsive way of speaking and acting. Ten to one he'd tell you just
what he thought about something, even if the telling might cause some
folks real embarrassment. That was honesty, of a kind, but it could be
cruelty, too, and Joe wasn't exactly sure which it was in the case of
Ellis. As for Barbara, Ellis seemed smitten, sure enough, but would he
be respectful and take good care of her on the jaunt to Laramie? Emma
seemed confident, but Joe was deeply uncertain, and the uncertainty made
him grim and silent as they loaded the last of the meat.
The next day they cut wood, and Joe glanced questioningly at the sky.
The sun still shone, but there was something in the air that Joe could
not analyze. It was a faint but startling thing, like the sudden rustle
of a leaf when there is no wind, and it seemed to grow stronger as day
followed day. But there was only an uneasy feeling and nothing tangible
to furnish evidence that something grim and terrible did lurk behind the
sun.
On the last day of the year, the rest of the Towers watched Ellis,
riding his horse, and Barbara, mounted on one of Snedeker's with her
dancing dress carried in a pack behind the saddle, start down the Trail
for the New Year's dance at Laramie.