Читать книгу So Far from Spring - Peggy Simson Curry - Страница 9

CHAPTER II

The two-story ranch house was sunk in the earth; the logs were bleached silver-gray from time and weather and chinked with the vivid red mud. A sagging fence surrounded the house, and the yard was choked with dead brown grass that hissed in the wind. Kelsey walked to the door and knocked. It swung open with a scraping sound and a man stood there, a stocky middle-aged man with a stubble of graying whiskers and mild blue eyes. He wore a dirty floursack apron tied around his middle and carried a big spoon in his hand. “Ya?” he said. “What you want, young fella? Boss ain’t hiring no men this time of year.”

Kelsey wet his parched lips. “I’m Tommy’s cousin from the old country.”

“Come in, come in! Hilder Larson, that’s me.” And the man thrust out a big red hand. “Pleased to meetcha. Tommy, he ain’t come in from chasin’ water yet, but he will soon. And Dalt, he ain’t in either. Sit here by the stove, young fella. You look plumb fagged.”

Kelsey lifted the tin dipper that hung over the washstand in the corner and plunged it into the water bucket. He drank, the water trickling over his chin. Then he sat down and took off his shoes. The blisters on his heels had broken and were bleeding.

Hilder made a clucking noise in his throat and got a basin of water. “You shove ’em in here. You get poison from them broke blisters if you ain’t careful.”

Kelsey lowered his burning feet into the cool water. Then he sat, looking around the kitchen, while Hilder cut up potatoes for supper. The log walls were smoked almost black and had been covered here and there with old newspapers; some, hanging almost free of the wall, rattled when a gust of wind struck the house. The place smelled of stale food, manure, and sweat. A milk bucket sat near the stove, stained with dried milk and dust; a thin crust of manure rimmed the bottom. Ashes were spilling out of the stove, and the woodbox was covered with grease. The floor looked as though it had never been touched by soap and water. My God, Kelsey thought, I’ve seen better places for pigs in the old country!

The door banged open. Kelsey looked up. A big man stood staring at him, a man with the broad Cameron nose, sharp black eyes, and thin black hair with a shine of red in it.

“Tommy!” Kelsey said, his heart filled with sudden gladness. “Tommy Cameron!”

The black eyes blinked. Then the thin lips spread in a smile. “It’s John’s boy, by God! Kelsey!” And he came forward and grabbed Kelsey’s shoulders with both hands, shaking him and shouting, “Lad, what brought you to this country? And how is the harbor? And were the snowdrops in bloom when you left? Did the braes have the bright green look to them yet? And how’s Old Crow that used to sit by the harbor tellin’ stories to the lads? And your handsome mother, Taraleean—how’s she?” Tommy paused for breath, suddenly laughing. “By God, I didn’t expect to see you.”

“I’ve had my troubles,” Kelsey said. His hands began to tremble. He burst out, “Tommy, I’ve left Scotland for good. I’ll never go back! I’ve come for a job.”

“What about your father’s shop?”

For a moment Kelsey couldn’t speak. He struggled to control the bitterness and anger that filled him.

“He always wanted you to carry it on,” Tommy said. “He planned things that way from the time you were old enough to walk down the village street with him.”

Kelsey spoke then, his voice shaking. “The shop’s in strange hands. The manager for the Duncan estate—he wouldn’t let me take it over when my mother decided to give it up.”

Kelsey bowed his head, trying to get control of himself. Tommy said nothing for a moment, then walked toward the door. “Gotta go up to the bunkhouse. Back right away.”

There was silence in the kitchen, and while Kelsey waited for Tommy’s return his thoughts went back to the bitter scene with the laird’s manager. He lived again the bright cool day when he had walked joyously down the village street, saying to Prim Munro, “Today’s the start of big things! I’m off to see the factor, Captain Morrison, and ask for the shop in my name.”

The factor was having a walk up the shore, and they met just outside the clipped hedge that surrounded the laird’s big house. Kelsey remembered to hold the excitement within him long enough to ask after the laird’s health.

“He’s off to the South of France,” Captain Morrison said, pulling at his long nose, which was turning blue in the cold air, “and I’d not mind being there myself. It’s the devil’s own weather we have here in February.”

“But good for business,” Kelsey said, “for herring are running thick in the sea and all the fishing folk spend their money in my father’s shop.”

“The shop, eh?” The captain’s face became wary.

“It’s what I’ve come to talk about. You know how my mother and I have run it since my father died—how I got her to cut down on the spending and finally paid off all her debts. Bless her, she was never a businesswoman. But the books are clear at last, and Taraleean is ready to give it up. I’d like to take over.” Kelsey’s hands gripped hard behind him, and he could feel the thump-thumping of his heart.

There was a long silence while the gulls screamed away from the steep cliffs along the shore, while the whole sea danced with sunlight. Then the factor’s voice came out steadily and impersonally. “You can’t have it, Kelsey.”

“Can’t have it!” The rough red head came up. The wide gray eyes were unbelieving. “Can’t have it, you say?”

“You’re not twenty-one.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

The factor shrugged. “It’s a rule the laird has: no one under twenty-one can run the shop.”

“But I’ve tried to prove—” A pain was in Kelsey’s heart. A mist blinded him. “I’ve paid my mother’s debts. My God, man, I’ve had no young life. I’ve given up everything for the shop!”

“No matter of proof,” the captain said, clearing his throat. “Just policy—the laird’s policy.”

“But it’s my father’s business. It was his for years, and you can’t—”

“Oh, we’ve a man in mind. And he’ll keep you on. I’ll speak to him about it.”

“I’ll work for no man in the shop that was my father’s! Listen, my mother—let her keep it. I’ll go on helping her. I’ll—”

“Your mother,” the factor said quietly, “should give up the business. I’ve been noticing things; the way she’s run the shop hasn’t suited us. There’s no need to stand here talking, Kelsey.”

“Goddamn you! Goddamn all of you!”

“Hold that tongue of yours, Kelsey Cameron. You’ve given us trouble enough—putting up that ugly shack on the shore right under the laird’s nose, and—”

“You—” Kelsey’s voice broke. He turned and walked quickly away, the whole bright day blurring before him. So this was the answer to years of work to pay Taraleean’s debts, to months of planning the future with Prim. For a moment the boy in him rose above the man, and tears stung his eyes. He stopped then and stood, breathing deeply, staring toward the sea until it came clear and clean again, stretching away to the far horizon. Then he spoke passionately to the empty water. “I’ll leave Scotland! I’ll go where a man can become more than a thing to be stepped on by the lairds and their factors! I’ll go to America, the place my cousin Tommy wrote about. Yes, America!”

And here I am, Kelsey thought, raising his head in the smelly kitchen. And things have to work out; they’ve just got to.

He waited nervously until his cousin came in the door again. Tommy had a whiskey bottle in his hand.

“Tommy,” Kelsey said, “do you know what that bloody factor did? Just before I sailed for this country he had the gall to come to my mother’s house and offer me a job as gamekeeper on the laird’s estate. Gamekeeper—a servant to the laird! That’s when I told him to go to hell and take the laird with him.”

“Well, kiddo,” Tommy said, “you made a fine ass of yourself—let your fool Cameron pride run away with you, the way it always has. Jobs don’t grow on bushes, y’know. And beggars can’t be choosers.”

Kelsey stared at him, confused and shocked. He’d crossed an ocean; he’d borrowed money to get here; he’d been certain Tommy would understand, would say to him, “You did the right thing. I’ll see you get a new start here, Kelsey.” Now, thinking of the money he had to pay back, Kelsey felt sudden fear. He wet his cracked lips and said, “You can surely use me—I mean, I’m a good worker, and I thought—” He stopped, for there was a strange expression on his cousin’s face.

“Sure, sure,” Hilder interrupted. “We use him, eh, Tommy? He’s had bad trouble and he’s come a long way to see you.”

Tommy said nothing, set the whiskey bottle on the table, and went to the pantry for glasses. Kelsey’s confusion mounted.

“Your letters,” he began, “about all the chances for a young man—”

Hilder knelt before Kelsey, a flat tin of salve in his hand. “I fix them feet. Bandage them tonight. Rubbed raw. Jesus Christ, son, you sure walked hard!”

“Walked?” Tommy looked intently at him.

Kelsey’s face flushed. “Oh, it wasn’t so far—just from where I got off the stage. I—I was out of money. You see, I borrowed what I thought I’d need from Big Mina Munro, Prim’s mother. She was the only person in the village had the money to give me.”

“I got an old pair of slippers you can wear tonight. Rest your feet. You want a drink of whiskey?”

“My stomach’s too empty, Tommy.”

“Hell, it’s good on any stomach. Here, have a shot.” He poured two glasses half full and handed one to Kelsey. “Help yourself, Hilder, but for God’s sake don’t burn the potatoes again!” He took his drink in one quick gulp.

“Big Mina, huh?” Tommy said, smacking his glass on the table. “Is that old sow still running everybody around the harbor?”

“She is.”

“And what about that bit of fluff you fancied so, her daughter?”

“Prim? Prim’s there with her.”

“And not likely to leave, either. Big Mina put the sign on the girl when she was hardly old enough to walk or talk—bellered and carried on about Prim tearing her apart and how she’d never be the same again. Hell, Big Mina was crippled and too fat before she ever had Prim. People used to say only the devil could have seen to the fact that Thomas Munro got Big Mina pregnant at such an age. Prim came along years and years after she’d had the two boys—and she was no spring chicken when Thomas married her.” Tommy began to laugh. “I remember once when I was just a lad and up there with my mother. Thomas was about to take off for sea again, the way he always did to get away from Big Mina. Well, the old girl threw herself on the floor and moaned and groaned that she was about to die. Thomas just stepped over her and said, ‘Go in peace, then.’ ”

Kelsey chuckled, the whiskey hot in his throat. “He’s the only one who could ever trim her sails.”

“And say, does Crowter the rag-buyer still hang around after Prim? When I was back there she was only a wee lassie—maybe thirteen—and Crowter was just getting a good start in his business. He must have been twenty or more, and he was always following Prim around like her shadow.”

“Prim never fancied Crowter and never will. Besides, if she’d wanted a lad she’d have found something better. Crowter, why he’s—”

“Beneath her? Oh, I dunno, Kelsey. What’s Prim Munro but Big Mina’s daughter? Remember how Crowter liked to whistle to Prim? He could fashion up the damnedest tunes—outta his head.” Tommy turned to Hilder, who was standing listening to all their words. “Get the meat cookin’ for supper—and see it ain’t so raw it bawls when I stick a fork in it.”

“Go to hell,” Hilder said.

Tommy laughed. “Worst cook east of the Continental Divide, but nobody else’ll stick in the Red Hill Ranch kitchen.”

Kelsey was feeling lightheaded and talkative. “If it hadn’t been for your letters I’d never have had the courage to face Big Mina and borrow the money from her. I carried one right in my fist the day I had to see her, and it put a stiffness in me. She’s always hated my guts because of Prim. She talked right up to me, told me the only reason she was letting me have the money was to get me out of Scotland and away from Prim.” Kelsey took a drink from the glass Tommy had filled again. “She said”—he snickered—“she said, ‘The Indians will fancy that red hair of yours.’ I let her think it; I wouldn’t spoil it by telling her the Indians were gone and the big cattle herds—How many cattle you got, Tommy?”

“Cattle? I don’t own no cattle. I’m foreman for Monte Maguire. Monte Maguire owns the cattle.”

Kelsey blinked, sobering. “But I thought—When you first wrote and said you’d taken up the homestead and started a cattle herd—”

“Oh.” Tommy cleared his throat. “Well, I did take up a homestead and I had a few cows. But I decided to sell. Monte bought everything from me. And I got a job here for the rest of my life and no worries, so—”

“I was sure you owned cattle—and this ranch.”

“Good God! This is a big ranch. It costs to have a ranch like this. And I’m not burnin’ to set the world afire like you always was, kiddo. A man lives and learns it don’t pay to go broke. And I want to tell you something: you’ll be lucky if you get a job in this country now. Spring work’s started, and ranchers ain’t hirin’ extra men until hayin’ season. Thirty dollars a month, that’s what you’ll get—if I can talk Monte into letting you stick around.”

“Thirty dollars a month!” Kelsey stared at him. “I did better at the harbor!”

“What’d you expect, kiddo—a foreman’s job to start?”

The door banged again, and a boy walked in, a thick-shouldered boy who might have been sixteen or seventeen. Although his face was young and smooth, his pale brown eyes looked older, as though a lot of living lay behind them. His hair was thick and straight and yellow-brown.

“Long Dalton,” Tommy said, introducing Kelsey as his cousin from Scotland. “If you want to know anything about horses—or women—ask him.”

Long Dalton grinned. “Glad to see you, buddy.”

Hilder began setting the table, tossing plates and silver on it in a haphazard manner. “Jake here tonight?” he asked.

“Hasn’t come in yet,” Dalt said. “He was ridin’ the upper pasture where we got the two-year-old heifers. The early calves oughta be starting to drop.”

“If he’s found a heifer havin’ trouble,” Tommy said, “he might not be in until midnight. Jake won’t leave a cow havin’ her first calf until he’s sure everything’s hunky-dory.”

“I didn’t see anythin’ showin’ yet when I was along the ditch today,” Dalt said. “And the water’s comin’ through fine. Guess we’re done shovelin’ snowdrifts for this spring.”

Then Kelsey remembered the little man he’d met on the prairie and said, “I saw Jediah Walsh. He’s off to the town. Said he’d be back soon.”

“Fat chance! He’ll be on a three-day drunk over town. Hell, he ain’t been out of the hills since last fall. One of us better go up to the lake tomorrow and check the headgate to be sure everything’s all right.”

“Jediah’s a great guy,” Dalt said. “Finest fella I ever did know. I heard two preachers talk in my life so far, and Jediah’s got more to say about religion and all sorts of other things. Jediah’s words make sense—even to a cussed kid like me.”

“Well,” Kelsey said, smiling, “he’s really got a strong smell to him.”

The men laughed. Dalt said, “That’s beaver castor smell. He baits his traps with stuff made outta the castors. He’ll get aired off good by the Fourth of July, and then he won’t smell no different from the rest of us.”

“Set up to the table,” Hilder said. “Food don’t taste so greasy when it’s hot.”

“Jake’s the best cow foreman in the Park,” Dalt said, dragging a chair to the table. He glanced at Kelsey. “Jake takes care of all Monte Maguire’s cattle, and Monte’s got three ranches. There’s this one, the North Fork Ranch across the hogback, and the home place over on the Platte River.”

Three ranches, Kelsey thought wonderingly, remembering that Tommy had said a place like the Red Hill cost a lot of money. He reached for one of Hilder’s soggy biscuits. “What kind of man is Monte Maguire?” he asked.

The men looked at one another. There was a silence, and then Tommy said, “You’ll find out.”

Late that night Kelsey took the kerosene lamp and went upstairs to the small bedroom Tommy had told him was his. It was a narrow, stall-like place; the hay-filled bunk was covered with soiled blankets and a stained tarpaulin; an overturned wooden box served as a table; and rows of spikes shone along the walls. Hay, old magazines, crushed cigarette butts, and a few crumpled handkerchiefs littered the floor.

Kelsey set the lamp carefully on the low box, went to the one small window, and opened it. The air inside was very stale, and the blankets on the bed smelled of men and sweat. He took the blankets to the window and aired them, shaking them carefully, and then remade the bed. After that he opened his suitcase, feeling a need to see and to touch the few belongings that were part of home. He folded and unfolded the heavy sweater Taraleean had knitted for him before he left Scotland, and he took out his father’s old Bible, a small one John Cameron had always carried in his pocket. Kelsey held it tenderly in his hands, stroking the worn leather. He found a shirt Prim had given him. In the pocket was a postcard she’d once sent him from Edinburgh while she was on a trip. He peered in the dim light to read the brief, neatly written message: “Be home in a fortnight—your loving lass, Prim.” For a long time he sat with the postcard in his hand, staring at the log walls of the bedroom with a sense of unreality. At last he closed the suitcase, undressed, blew out the lamp, and got into bed.

The bunk was very hard; his sore heels burned like fire, and his legs kept twitching. His mind began to work feverishly with thoughts of the past and the future. He figured again the amount of money he owed Big Mina and tried to guess what would happen to him if Monte Maguire didn’t let him stay on at the Red Hill Ranch. And when he thought of his meeting with Tommy a sense of distress filled him; although Tommy had been pleasant at the supper table and during the rest of the evening, there had been something lacking. It’s like there’s no warmth left in him, Kelsey thought. Had this strange, cold country changed his cousin from the easy, big-hearted lad Kelsey had known around the harbor? Or had he never really known Tommy well enough in those early years to understand what kind of person he was?

Kelsey’s eyelids closed. He dropped into deep sleep and began to dream of the day his father died, the day he had been a lad of thirteen, walking down the village street with his mother. Taraleean had a little basket over her arm; she’d fried a fresh fish and baked scones for her husband’s lunch. They came into the shop and saw his father slumped forward in the old chair, his chin resting on his chest. Taraleean put down the basket and tiptoed forward, bending over John Cameron to cover his eyes with her hands and whisper, “Who is it?” It was so quiet then, and Kelsey heard her voice change as she said, “John—John!” And the sound of her sorrow began, drifting out to the quiet harbor street. The women of the village came running, their long full skirts fluttering like frightened birds. They pushed past him, saying, “Oh, dear God! It is the sound the Irish mothers make when their sons have been drowned at the sea! Taraleean has lost her man!”

Kelsey wakened, shaking, and felt the strange bed under him. And he thought that grief was a thing a man was never free of, for it came back from some far place in the mind to live again when least expected. He lay in the darkness, remembering the night he had sat with family and friends by the casket of his father in the front parlor at home. All that night his sisters had combed their black hair, weeping and using the new tortoise-shell combs an uncle had given them. And toward morning he had cried to his mother, “Make the lassies leave their hair be!”

Then Taraleean had put her arms around him and said, “Steady, lad. You must be strong. Who is to help me run the shop if I can’t count on you?”

He turned over in bed, punching the lumpy pillow that smelled even more rank than the blankets, and he longed for his room in Taraleean’s house, the big clean room with the fireplace in the corner. I mustn’t think on it, he told himself. That’s all past. He heard a cow bawl on the Red Hill meadow. Cattle, that was what he must put his mind on. And the cow foreman, the man Jake. Jake could tell him what he must know.