Ernest Haycox - The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox

Conversation lagged. The early to bed rolled in their blankets and slept Quagmire edged nearer the fire and began poking at it with a stem of sage. Once, when his eyes met those of another across the blaze, there was a point of flame in them. Just for a moment it was so; his chin dropped, and he traced an endless pattern in the glowing ashes.

The moon, full and bright, swung down from the sky as a silver pendulum. Major Bob Gillette trotted across the swelling prairie with the carriage of a cavalryman on patrol. To his right hand the river lay against the shadows like a shining ribbon. Ahead winked the lights of Dodge; ahead was the stench of Dodge and its buffalo hides. Major Bob passed a scattering of corrals, followed a trail into the dim clutter of buildings on the south side of town, and crossed the tracks. Turning, he rode down a dusty street a-swirl with life, a street across which fell yellow patterns of light from the building windows. These buildings marched beside the street sagging and rising with it as it took its ungraded course through the town; they were, for the most part, bolstered up with a peaked or square false front as if conscious that their rickety substance needed some prop of dignity. A board sidewalk, treacherous to the high boot heel, undulated between street and buildings. Hitching racks were crowded with drooping ponies. A freighter lumbered by the Major, bull whip snapping; saloon lights were bright and alluring, pianos jingled. A woman screamed, a gun cracked, yet the men passing and repassing on the walk paid no attention. Life flowed here in a narrow and boisterous stream.

Major Bob Gillette wheeled, nosed the pony to a hitching rack, and for a moment studied his surroundings with a kind of grim- lipped pleasure. Then, dropping to the ground, he threw over the reins and marched into the Dodge House, confronting the clerk there with a short and clipped question.

"Is my son, Tom Gillette, here?"

The clerk's thumb pointed upward. "Room two. Been here a week."

Major Bob climbed the stairs and walked down the bleak hall to where he saw a crack of light seeping through a keyhole. And here he stopped, for the moment seeming to hesitate. It was quite a queer proceeding for one who was so forward and abrupt of manner, yet he actually appeared to dislike his mission, and he stood in the darkness and scowled, breath coming a little hard. In the end he turned the knob without warning, walked into the room and faced his son.

Tom Gillette had been reading, feet hooked on the table top. The unannounced entry of his father caused him to look up swiftly—and thus they met each other after five years of separation, two men of the same flesh and blood who over so long a time had been nearly a continent apart. Obviously, they were cut in the same pattern, for upon Tom Gillette there was the tribal stamp—the same big-boned frame, the same wide, deeply set eyes, the same cast of gravity. Still, there was a difference: the difference of thirty years' rough and tumble against the difference of five years' Eastern training. To Major Bob there was a certain softness in his son. His sharp eyes saw it immediately, before a word had been passed, and the fear that had been in him through the day grew more oppressive.

He was a man short of speech, he had no way of expressing what rose in him. So he spoke crisply and casually, as if his son had been away but a week. "Got in ahead of me, I see."

Tom laid away the book, marking the page. And the old man's heart lightened a little when he recognized that methodical Gillette trait. "Yes," said Tom, "I've been here since last Sunday. Didn't want to hold up the herd."

"We travel slow," replied Major Bob. "Don't wish to run off any more tallow than I can help."

Tom stood up, and the Major inspected him top and bottom as he would have inspected a horse. Good heavy muscles, fine shoulders, and a neck that coupled short. The boy had a broad barrel on him too, and he planted his feet on the floor as if he meant to take root. All these points showed through the ridiculous worsted suit that passed as fashion in the East: that suit with its short lapels, its white collar, and four-in-hand tie. Nor did the Major's eyes miss the low, flat-heeled shoes. Impractical dam' things.

There was a trace of humour in Tom Gillette's eyes as he stood there. "Pass muster?"

"How do I know?" answered Major Bob. "Turn to the light. You've lost your accent."

"It will come back. A month with the boys and I'll have it again."

"Glad to hear it," grunted Major Bob, studying Tom's face by the lamplight. The boy had left him immature, unformed. Well, he was a man now. He had been shaken down, he had filled out. He had a bearing, an element men would recognize and obey. That was his birthright. But what was in his head? How sound was his wind, how clear his eye? What did he think? The Major was almost afraid to ask, and he felt relieved when Tom, seeming to catch these unspoken queries, broke the pause.

"What's up?"

"Moving north," replied Major Bob. "Dakota Territory's been opened farther west. Free grass. Indians put on the reservation. We can't flesh up a cow in Texas, and the fever's been bothering us. Better grazing north and a better access to the market. So we are going, the Circle G, lock, stock, and barrel."

"The old home no more, eh? Kind of hate to think what's being left behind."

Major Bob heard the slight accent of wistfulness, and his fears rose afresh. There was no place for softness in a Gillette. He said so, abruptly.

"Dam' sentiment. You will get no place with that in this land, my boy. I was afraid the East would soften you. I told your mother as much. But she would have you go. Might as well be honest with you—I'd have yanked you back as quick as a flash when she died, but she took my promise to let you finish. Understand it—you have nothing to thank me for. Your freedom was her doing."

Tom sombrely studied the floor. "That I know. I'll give her credit for whatever I have learned."

"And what have you learned?" challenged the elder Gillette.

Again a flicker of humour. "Among other things that the West will do for me as long as I live."

Major Bob was too old a poker player to reveal the pleasure that remark gave him. He only nodded, and pressed his questioning. "What else?"

"Well, sir, I think I can say Eastern whisky is better than Western, and that the no-horn saddle makes a poor rocking- chair."

Trivialities. There was more than this, but the boy had not developed into a loose-jointed talker. He buried his thoughts, for which the Major was exceedingly thankful. Then and there a part of his doubt vanished. And yet, being a shrewd judge, he also understood the younger man had something on his mind. Something lay cloudy behind the eyes. And thereupon he came directly to the issue.

"You've had your woman affairs? Got your fingers burnt? Made the usual fool of yourself—like all men must?"

Tom squared his shoulders at this and spoke with laconic definiteness. "Reckon that's gospel."

"Over with now?"

"As much as anything on earth can be over with."

Still vague. Major Bob bristled. "You have left no broken promises behind you, my boy?"

Silence. Silence in which Major Bob's breathing could be heard plainly. Tom swung, one hand lying open. "I think not."

Major Bob came forward. "My son," said he, very solemn, "if I thought you had dishonoured any pledge of yours I would break you into bits and send you back."

"I made a promise," explained Tom, a kind of sudden fire in his eyes. "It was accepted. Later it was rejected. I'll say no more. Wouldn't have said this much except to satisfy you. Judge for yourself."

"Then your obligation is cancelled," decided the Major with something like eagerness. He turned half away, sighing like one whose breath had been held over-long. And to cover what was perilously close to sentiment he relapsed into casualness. "Expected I might have had to hunt through town for you."