Guy Vanderhaeghe - The Englishman’s Boy

“There’s the kicker. But I’ll bet on it.”

“All right,” said Evans, standing. “We’ll ride north.”

Hardwick allowed the horses an hour to graze the short, tough grass while the men gnawed hard biscuit and scooped pemmican out of rawhide bags with their fingers. Berries and lard and buffalo meat all scrambled together and poured hot into a leather bag to harden didn’t sit well with Hank, who had been raised in civilization, in the East. He said it was like stirring apple pie into your gravy and pork chops. No different. The Englishman’s boy held his tongue. Hardwick was listening, watching them.

The man the wolfers called Scotty, a Canadian who had ridden down the Whoop-Up Trail with them from north of the line, pulled a bottle of whisky out of his saddlebags, and passed it around to each man for a swig. He said it was Scotch whisky. The Englishman’s boy had never tasted Scotch whisky before, but he drank his swallow and thanked him.

Scotty said, “You’re most welcome.”

To the Englishman’s boy, there was something odd about the Scotchman, a peculiar, unsteady gleam in his eye. He didn’t seem to belong with this bunch, seemed not aware of the company he was keeping. He had the Englishman’s way of talking. Gentleman’s airs. Didn’t care to blaspheme. Kept himself spruce and neat. He’d seen him writing in a little book after he finished eating, just how the Englishman did. Journal, the Englishman called his book. The boy could read a little but had never got the hang of writing.

They remounted at noon and rode to the spot where they had seen carrion birds fluttering down for the past hour. Magpies skimmed away and floated back to earth a short way off to wait out the interruption of their feeding. The horses, catching the heavy, sweetish stench of death mingled with the smell of horse, arched their necks, cocked their heads, drummed their hooves, and shied sidelong past the corpse, snorting and nickering. The colt lay stark on its deathbed of wiry grass, stiff back legs streaked with long stockings of rusty blood, eye sockets empty, guts torn and scattered, body encased in a tattered mail of blue flies.

Clear of the corpse they walked their horses on under an impassive sky dappled with handfuls of torn white cloud flying before the wind like cottonwood fluff. Men and horses blinking in and out of the eye of the sun, cloud shadows overtaking and encompassing them and racing on, patches of darkness sailing over the billowing grass like blue boats running before a storm. Antelope and mule-tail, prairie chickens and jack-rabbits, coyotes and fox and grouse started out of the sage, flashed across the emptiness at their approach.

About mid-afternoon, Hardwick took his bearings, consulted his pocket watch, and booted his horse into a brisk trot. Within a mile or two, it became evident that Hank’s white nag lacked the staying power to hold the pace. Little by little, the Englishman’s boy and the farm hand lost ground until they found themselves lagging in the rear. A gap gradually opened between them and the body of riders. Ten yards, twenty, thirty. When it lengthened to forty, the boy put his heels to his horse and loped back to the column. Hank too closed ranks, but not so effortlessly, and the ground he won back he immediately began to lose again. Three more times the string ran out and had to be wound back tight, and each tightening took a little more out of the white horse. Sweat darkened its belly and patched its chest, lashings of foam flew from its bit, spattering its neck.

No one looked back to see how they fared. Hardwick gave them no quarter for their shortcomings. By late afternoon the breach had widened to several hundred yards. A look of panic crept over Hank’s face when he realized that Hardwick was not going to relent, would make no allowances. “Goddamn him, why don’t he slack off? He knows we can’t keep up.”

“I can keep up,” said the Englishman’s boy.

“I thought we was all in this together,” said Hank. “That Hardwick’s leaving us as easy pickings for any Indians that’s dogging our trail.”

“There ain’t any Indians dogging our trail. We’re dogging theirs.”

“We don’t know there’s no Indians dogging our trail,” the hired man muttered. “They might have slipped behind us. Ever think of that? That’s what Indians is known for. Slipping behind you and lifting your hair when you least expect it.”

The horsemen ahead topped a rise and descended out of sight.

“Look at that,” whined Hank. “Now they’ve skinned out on us entire. We’re cold alone and left to fend for ourselves.”

“The reason we’re cold alone,” said the Englishman’s boy, “is because of that plug of yours.”

Hank’s brow furrowed with worry. “I didn’t know what I was letting myself in for, signing on with that Hardwick feller. I never did meet a redheaded man you could trust. Every one of them is crazy.”

“If you keep up your pissing and moaning,” said the Englishman’s boy, “I just might ride on and join that redheaded man for the change of company. His talk has got to be a damn sight cheerfuller than what I’m getting here.”

With the threat he might be abandoned, Hank went even more squirrelly and apprehensive. He squirmed in his saddle and threw nervous glances over his shoulder. “First rule in the wilderness is stick together, boy. We got to look out for one another. Don’t we, son?”

“The only way we’ll stick together,” said the Englishman’s boy, “is if you kick a little more go out of that nag of yours.”

“There’s no more go to kick out of him,” said Hank. “His go has gone and went.”

They were climbing the rise. Breaking onto the crest they could see, half a mile away, the posse dwindling on the prairie.

The boy said, “They put any more distance between us, even I ain’t going to catch them before nightfall.”

“It’s a sin to leave a traveller in distress, son. Remember your Bible. Remember the Good Samaritan.” Hank put his hand in his pocket. “I got a dollar,” he said hopefully, showing it to the Englishman’s boy. “It’s yours.”

“That is one sorry-ass horse and you are one sorry-ass son of a bitch,” said the boy.

“It ain’t my horse. It’s Mr. Robinson’s,” Hank said plaintively. “And what am I supposed to do? There’s no getting blood out of a stone.” As he pleaded his case, the Englishman’s boy slipped his hand into his boot and fetched out his knife. Hank went pale at the sight of it. “What you setting to do with that knife, son?” he inquired in a tight voice.

“Get blood out of a stone.” The boy leaned over, pricked the nag in the haunch. The horse squealed, bucked once, and then broke into a clumsy, wriggling gallop which slopped Hank from side to side in the saddle. The Englishman’s boy closed hard and jabbed the terrified animal’s hindquarters again. Hank screeched for him to leave off.

But the Englishman’s boy did not leave off. He pursued horse and man across the wastes like a banishing Bible angel harrying the exile with fiery sword and implacable visage, a strange white-faced angel scrunched in a big derby hat and flapping coat, blade glittering in his upraised hand. It became clear neither pleas nor curses could deflect him. So Hank stopped his mouth and saved his breath, grimly holding on for all he was worth, like baggage strapped to a mule. They did not lose sight of the wolfers, even though by late afternoon the leading party shrank to a train of ants toiling across a tabletop.

When they rode into the camp on the Marias, the boy was still playing drover, the knife in his hand his goad, the cattle he drove a pale horse trickling thin threads of blood down its haunches and a frightened man rigidly upright in his saddle. The wolfers rose to their feet and gaped in silence. It was a sight for silence. The white horse trotted through the camp as if fire, hushed men, picketed horses did not exist. It did not turn its head. Hank had to rear back and saw the bit to check it from plunging over the bank and into the river. There it stood and shook, head between its knees.