Читать книгу The Earthbreakers - Ernest Haycox - Страница 6

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DAY was still somewhere far above this storm-choked mountain trench, but in the small hours a sense of uneasiness came upon the camp, and the fear of a weather trap worked from family to family until they rose in common reaction as a herd would rise. Wagons groaned unseen around Burnett, animals moved in dumb file past him, and men shouted above the steady cry of the wind. He packed his horses by the flagging light of the Gay fire, they having earlier departed, and set his outfit along a trail which was already crowded. The steady slantwise drive of the snow got at his sense of balance until it seemed to him the world was tilted; waves of snow broke against him like spray and lodged on his coat and slowly hardened to scales of ice.

The traveling column moved sluggishly, halted, moved again. Behind him a voice—it sounded like Old Daniel Rinearson's—beat forward. "Get on up there—get on!" He passed Harper Howard's wagon, the oxen yoked and waiting. Mrs. Howard crouched before a fire with her arms thrust out as if to pull heat into her. Her husband had a hand on her shoulder, prompting her to rise, but even through the mealy blur Burnett saw the misery on her face.

Blackness was solid beyond the camp site and beyond the string of fires and there was no guide save the heaving shadow of the wagon directly ahead of Burnett. He passed the trees and crawled up a field of loose rock which ran tilted between bluff and river. At the summit of this place a man waited to warn the passing outfits. "Take the downgrade easy. You can break your wheels. Watch beyond—it's narrow." The wagon's shadow ahead of Burnett swayed and he heard the small avalanche which its wheels started among the rocks.

Daniel Rinearson's voice cried forward once again and afterwards fell still, and the column went on at its groping gait. Presently the trail moved so close upon the river that Burnett saw the exploding waters of that rough six-mile stretch which they were now detouring, the cascades leaping as white fire across the black, and the sound—like the tearing of cloth, like the rumble of smothered explosions, like the escape of live steam—trembling against him and disturbing the earth beneath his feet. He had been more than an hour on the way and had made perhaps two miles of the portage when a first daylight crept in and the scattered house-high rocks began to stand forth along the trail and the gorge wall took on substance close at hand, rising and vanishing in the upper layers of the storm. The column worked its way between narrow pillars and crossed a short lowland piece overgrown with willows. Beyond the willows, as the daylight wanly grew, Burnett had a sight of the column for perhaps three hundred feet: the straggling stock, the great wagons slowly careening, men and women trudging in the deep-churned muck with their bodies bent against the weather. Leaving the willow flats the trail entered timber, newly fallen trees indicating where the first riders had cut a way through yard-high drifts. The column halted and he sat on the saddle and felt numbness creep along his legs while the wind laid open his face with its knife slashes; later the column lurched forward and he passed Henry Provost's wagon off the trail, Provost and two other men standing beside a dead ox. A good two hours onward from this point brought Burnett to a pinched beach at the foot of the rapids where the first arrivals were already scattered through the loose trees; the cattle had begun to drift for shelter and fires showed their first feeble eyes in the grayness.

John Gay's wagon stood hard by the river, the oxen unyoked and gone, the canvas shelter stretched again from wagon to tree. Gay crouched on his hands and knees—Katherine holding a blanket around him—and blew his fire into life. When Burnett crawled from the saddle thin ice rattled along his coat and his feet felt no contact with the earth and his fingers, working at the pack ropes, were iron rods which wouldn't bend. He struck them against the packs until sensation came, and struck so hard that blood began to break through the skin. From one of the packs he got a bundle of thin pitchwood and went to the fire. Katherine's face was stone-solid and in her eyes was a withdrawn expression as though, beaten until sensation had left her, she waited dumbly to be beaten again. He rubbed a finger along her cheek, he touched her ears.

"Feel that?"

"Yes."

He got down beside Gay and drew the blanket around him. The fire, scarcely larger than the size of Gay's cupped hands, burned feebly on its dry shavings. Burnett slid the pitch splinters across the flame, one by one, and Gay crowded the pile between his palms, flame licking against his skin. He strangled on the smoke and turned his head from side to side. Burnett built a wigwam of pitch and sticks and the two nursed the fire until the blanket started to scorch and the growing smoke drove them back. Gay scrubbed his crying eyes and returned to the job. Young Joe came in with a load of wood and Burnett got his ax to trim a short log nearby and to drag it to the fire for a backstop. He wanted to stay here to soak in a little heat but the weather warned him and he cruised the trees until he found a skinny fir and dropped it and began to cut the twelve-foot sections which, bound together, would make the small raft he needed to freight his pack stuff across the river. The wagon column moved steadily forward from the portage trail, wagon after wagon swinging beside the river to find camp space, and Rinearson's cattle drifted through the timber hollow-flanked, long horns tossing, turned into wild game. Burnett kept his eyes on them while he worked.

Watt Irish crawled from his wagon and ran toward the Gay fire, calling to Katherine. "Mother wants you—her feet are frozen."

Katherine still held the blanket to shield her father at the fire. She dropped it, caught a bucket and went to the river; she scooped up water and hurried on past Burnett and into the Irish wagon. Young Watt came slowly back toward Burnett. He shook, and braced his shoulders, and shook again.

"What have you got left for food?" asked Burnett.

"A piece of bacon and some onions."

"Go back to the fire and stay there," said Burnett.

Wind struck its sledgehammer blows on the camp and bent the stunted firs and ripped the snow into shredded streamers. Coldness was an acid burning holes through Burnett's body, and out of these holes his energy ran in waste. The swinging of the ax brought feeling back to feet and legs but his cracked hands continued to bleed and his motions were awkward. He dragged the raft sections to the beach and laid them together and he dropped another thin tree and trimmed out crosspieces to bind the logs. He returned to his pack for spikes, walking with his feet spread apart; coldness got at his mind as well as his muscles and he had to push himself. He spiked the crosspieces to the logs, tied a rope rowlock at each side of the raft and cut two lengths from the tree to make his oars. These he carried to the fire and went to his packs for his jerked meat and his skillet. He pushed Lot White and Daniel Rinearson aside and squatted at the fire to make his meal. The crowd had grown larger.

Mrs. Irish sat at the fire, wrapped around in a patchwork quilt. She let her head fall back against Katherine behind her; pain flickered around her mouth, put there by the revived sensation in her feet.

"I thought Oregon was gentle," said Lot White.

"We're in the neck of the funnel—it all collects here."

More people came off the trail with the telltale walk of exhaustion; it was a drunken walk, a swaying, drag-footed, loose walk; their heads bounced on their shoulders, they were mudcaked from ankle to knee and a thin sheeting of ice glittered on their clothes. Ralph Whitcomb moved among them, touching ears and noses and hands. Mrs. Howard came in and sank beside Mrs. Irish. She laid both hands over her face and softly groaned.

"Well," said Lot, "it's worse by the hour. We might get frozen in here. We had better move on fast."

John Gay said: "It's time to send a man back to cut loose the rafts and let 'em run the cascades."

"I'll be surprised," said Lorenzo Buck, "if they come through and not be torn apart."

"The risk's to be taken," said Gay.

"How'll we catch 'em when they get here?"

"Row out with my little raft," said Burnett, "and pick 'em up."

"The man that goes back can't cut 'em all loose in one batch," said Lorenzo Buck. "Let's get this timed right."

The men in the circle looked toward the water, visualizing the little raft going out, the pickup of the big raft, the towing of the big raft ashore, the return of the little raft.

"Half an hour," said Ben Provost.

"Ever try to tow something heavy?" asked Ryal McIver.

"Forty-five minutes," said John Gay. "That's about right."

Daniel Rinearson said, "Who goes back?" He was, at sixty, a hale man of moderate size, well-wrapped inside a buffalo coat; he had a chunk of cloth wound around his head like a turban and this, covering his ears, made him bend forward to catch what others said; the exposed part of his face—a face with frosty brows hanging above the horse-trading eyes, bold sharp nose, and a chin built forward—was whipped to a barn-red by the wind. His scanning glance stopped on young Watt Irish. "You go back and cut the rafts loose."

"No," said Rice Burnett and went on eating.

Old Daniel's arguing countenance settled on Burnett. "It's fair enough for the boy to lend us a hand."

Mrs. Irish had been listening with her eyes closed. She opened them and looked from man to man, and then to her son standing at the fire. "If it's thought he should, then he will. But I wish—"

"No," said Burnett. "He's beat-out."

"Well, then?" said Old Daniel and stood with his lower lip rolled out.

"You've got more men in your family than anybody else," said Burnett.

"Hell of a lot of free advice around here," said Old Daniel. He took his silent poll of the crowd and drew his conclusions. "All right, I'll send one of the boys."

John Gay gently said: "Which one, Daniel?"

"Does it make a difference between my sons?" said Old Daniel.

"It's a responsible thing," said John Gay. "If they're cut loose too close together we'll miss some, and then there's trouble. Don't send Whit."

Daniel Rinearson tossed his head and let go with a loud laugh, but his eyes lay resentfully on John Gay. He looked about once more, sensing the will of the crowd. "All right, I'll send Ared." Then he said, "Think he's got sense enough?"

Harper Howard said: "Send him soon. We got to get out of here. We're short of food and it's still two-three days to Oregon City. It wouldn't hurt if we had a solid meal of beef in us before we started."

Daniel lowered his eyes to the fire, rubbed his hands together, and ignored the quiet watching of the others. He said, "Well, I'll get Ared on the way," and left the circle.

"Tell him to cut 'em loose forty-five minutes apart," called John Gay. He looked to Harper Howard with a short break of humor. "He didn't rise to it."

"Rich men don't rise," said Howard. "He wouldn't miss a couple cows from that hundred. But, no, he don't give anything free."

Burnett finished his meal and shaped out the oars beside the fire. The group around him constantly changed, other settlers coming in from the trail to thaw the misery in them before they went on to make camp. The day worsened and when he carried the oars to the raft a dense snowfall blotted out the far shore. He carried a third of his packs to the beach, slid the raft into the water and loaded it. He put the oars through the rope-holes and shoved away; twenty feet from shore the current seized him and the rollers, quartering against the raft, threw it sidewise into the air; then the rollers ran away from the raft and it dropped into the troughs with a jar that snapped his head. Halfway over the river he saw a small crowd watching him from the shore but when he reached the far beach they were lost in the driving mist.

He recrossed and stood at the fire a moment, and reloaded and crossed again; on the third trip, with the last of the packs, the rollers caught him and rushed over him and only the support of the oars held him aboard; he came wet to the fire and crouched there to dissolve the iron ache in his bones.

"It's about time for the first raft," said John Gay.

Burnett got a coil of rope from his camp stuff; he cut it into two sections, making a towrope for each end of the small raft. Squatted low against the beach to scan the river, Lot White suddenly said, "Think I see it comin'," and John Gay and Ben Provost got aboard the little raft and flattened themselves on it as Burnett rowed away. He saw the big raft come through the boiling cascades, swinging end to end, sinking below the surface, rising with all the force of the current behind it to leap from the water like a clumsy fish.

Burnett maneuvered the small raft into midstream and dug the oars deep to hold it; a wave rushed under him, seized an edge of the raft and sucked it down, and buckshot pellets of spray drew a sharp shout from Ben Provost. When they rose from the trough they discovered the big raft dead ahead, slowly revolving in the current. Burnett brought the small raft directly against it and waited for the collision. Provost and Gay, half risen, clung to the small raft's logs.

"Watch now," said Burnett.

The big raft came on, spray breaking over its downstream edge. Burnett checked the small raft as a roller lifted it. He back-oared. The small raft struck the big one and Provost and Gay jumped and fell flat on the logs. Provost had the towrope from the little raft; he squirmed around to make a tie on the big raft, and signaled and rose to follow John Gay toward the lashed downsweep at the far end of the big raft. Burnett swung the small raft away, taking in the towrope's slack.

It was like pulling at a stump, for the force of a ten-mile current surged on the big raft's broad surface, and against such power his two oars made poor impression. He laid his weight against them until he felt the green wood give. He used the little raft as a kind of anchor to haul the big raft around, but it was a quarter-hour before the little raft was upstream and the big raft stood below him, so slanted as to catch the shoreward push of the river. They were four hundred yards downstream when Burnett brought it to the beach. He untied the towrope and started along the water's edge with the small raft. Harris Eby came on and took the rope from him and hauled the raft upstream. Burnett turned back to give Provost and John Gay a hand with the big raft, the three of them slowly pushing it through the back eddy—John Gay using the sweep as a pike pole at the stern, Provost holding the raft's nose off the beach, and Burnett shoving from behind, hip-deep in the river.

By the time they tied the big raft to the trees near the fire, the small raft was out in the water again, Harper Howard and Lorenzo Buck lying flat beside Harris Eby at the oars; men crouched near the beach watching the little craft rise and fall in the charging current and Mrs. Howard stood at the fire with her two sons and looked into the river with her engraved anxiety. Through the almost horizontal flickering of snow, the second big raft showed itself in the cascades, ponderously bucking the water, flinging spray over its gray back. Burnett observed Eby's great shoulders swaying at the oars and he thought: "I should have warned him," for there was power enough in Eby to snap those oars.

Wind sharpened the ice-chill of Burnett's clothes; he was suddenly caught by a long, rough shuddering of muscles. He walked on to the fire. Katherine poured him coffee.

"How many rafts to come down?"

"Five or six," he said.

"It will be dark before then. When are you crossing your stock?"

"Tomorrow."

"How far is it to Oregon City?"

"Three days," he said.

In the semi-twilight a voice came through the trees—George Collingwood's voice—and Collingwood's wagon came from the trail, followed by Lattimore's. The wagon stopped and Collingwood called, "The women have got to get warm," and waited while his wife climbed from the seat. Edna Lattimore crawled through the other wagon's rear opening, slipped on the snow and, laughing, recovered herself.

A short cry came from the river's edge and out of Mrs. Howard's throat rose a penetrating scream. Thrown around by that wild note, Burnett saw the little raft flung half aboard the larger one, with Eby bent far back on the oars and one other man lying flat on the large raft's edge with his arm seizing vainly at the water. Mrs. Howard's scream rose again and she and her two boys rushed to the water's edge. Harris Eby backed away from the big raft and swung downstream in huge heaving shoulder motions. For one moment, on the water's surface, Burnett saw an arm rise and a face show its pale disk through the driving weather; then it disappeared and Mrs. Howard began to run downstream along the water's edge, her voice crying back through the brutal wind, "Harper—Harper—Harper, oh, my God, Harper!"

Katherine turned about to follow Mrs. Howard. In a moment she looked back to Burnett and gave him a glance, and he dropped the coffee cup and followed her.