Guy Vanderhaeghe - The Englishman’s Boy

The boy bounced his heels on the horse’s ribs, left the Scotchman making faces and muttering to himself, and jogged ahead to the trio of James Hughes, Charlie Harper, and Ed Grace. Better to get shut of that lame duck while the getting was good. He’d had enough of lame ducks to last a lifetime. First, the Englishman Dawe, who’d sickened and died on him, then sorry-ass Hank, now this crazy-grinning Scotchman. He had enough to look out for, looking out for his own skin.

Hughes, Harper, and Grace rode hunched in their wildly flapping coats, Hughes shouting over the roar of the wind. “Hardwick’ll land us at Farwell’s post. If he starts flying his kite there, he’ll soon forget about them horse-snatchers. We’ll do a few days’ drinking, turn around and head for home. That’s all she wrote.”

“The hell he’ll forget,” said Harper. “Those Arapaho took him captive in Wyoming put a burr under old Tom’s foreskin when it comes to Indians. I don’t know what they done to him, but he’s got one bad hate on for our red brothers. You heard what happened in the Sweet Grass Hills last April. He scattered lead on a bunch of Assiniboine riding in under a trade flag. That’s bad business, shooting the customers.”

The Englishman’s boy gave close attention to Ed Grace. Grace was a quiet man who didn’t bandy opinions, but now he seemed to be studying some thought, slowly shifting a wad of tobacco from cheek to cheek. A tall, raw-boned man with a strong hooked nose, hooded eyes, and a balding head, Ed Grace was nicknamed the Eagle. He shifted in the saddle, crooked his neck, and squirted a stream of tobacco juice over his shoulder, downwind. “Beating up on Assiniboines is one thing,” he offered in a hoarse voice. “Assiniboines are a scrubby, poor sort of Indian. Short on horses and nothing but sawed-off Hudson’s Bay flintlocks for guns. But I figure there’ll be Blackfoot camped in Cypress. There were last year. Caught sixty Cree braves collecting spruce gum and rubbed them all out, didn’t spare a one. The Blackfoot got no shortage of horseflesh – even the squaws and brats ride fine ponies – and they own plenty of rifles, good rifles, Henrys and needle-guns. The Spitzee Cavalry didn’t do anything to keep repeaters out of their hands and they aren’t the least bit shy about turning them on whites. The dose of the smallpox they caught lately didn’t do anything for their sweet temper or our popularity. I don’t care how much that burr under Hardwick’s foreskin is bothering him – he better not go taking any potshots at Blackfoot or some of our hair will be dangling from their belts.”

The Englishman’s boy could see what Grace had said didn’t go down well – with Hughes in particular. He wasn’t about to swallow it. “Ain’t no goddamn Indians ever going to get the drop on old Tom,” said Hughes. “He’s a foxy one. No Indian’s going to outfox the fox.”

“Anyway, we got Eagle here to protect us from the Blackfoot,” said Harper, giggling through his bad teeth, the fool. “This side of the line Queen Victoria owns the Indians. Eagle being a Canadian, it’s up to him to be hospitable, see that we Yankee boys have a good time and don’t have our hair troubled by no British Indians. Eagle’s the Queen’s rep’sentative. Ain’t you, Eagle?”

“God only knows what I am,” said Grace, “but I assure you I’m not happy. Not with this situation. I ask myself why in hell I’m here. There’s no percentage in it and that’s the truth.”

“Why, you’re here for friendship’s sake, ain’t you?” Hughes hollered into the wind. “We all of us seen the winter out together, didn’t we? We all been good partners, thick and thin. Friends is duty-bound to stand by friends, ain’t they?”

“Who was Farmer Hank’s friend?” asked Grace. “Who stood by him?”

Hughes and Harper threw one another troubled glances.

“Not me,” the Eagle answered, “and not you either.” He pointed to the Englishman’s boy. “Ask him if he’s riding with us for friendship’s sake.”

Hughes and Harper swivelled in their saddles and squinted hard at the Englishman’s boy as if they were seeing him for the first time, as if they were striving to plumb his heart, his mind, his soul for some dark motive. Grace had to smile, seeing the way the Englishman’s boy stared back at them, like a stray alley cat outfacing a pair of mangy, slat-ribbed dogs.

Harper said, “The kid’s riding with us because he had to pull foot from Benton after he stabbed that hotel man. He don’t want to face the music. He scared off out of there.”

“That’s right,” said Grace. “Fear landed him here. Same as us. Only we’re along because it’s Hardwick’s got us shitting yellow.”

“Hell,” said Hughes peevishly, “I don’t appreciate that remark. Why you go putting such a complexion on things?”

“I’m not putting on a complexion. Complexion’s there. I know it for a fact and you know it for a fact,” said Grace. “We’re all of us afraid to cross the Green River Renegade.”

“He don’t like that name,” warned Hughes.

“Why?” said Grace. “He worked hard to earn it.”

Harper had been working on his righteous indignation until he’d puffed up like a tom turkey. “I ain’t afraid of Tom Hardwick. Any man says I am is a liar.”

“That’s right, he ain’t,” confirmed Hughes. “And I’m a gent cut from the same rough cloth. Jimmy Hughes ain’t afraid of any two-legged creature walks God’s green earth. I got myself out of tight corners Tom Hardwick couldn’t have spit out of.”

“That being the case, you brave boys sure as hell don’t belong in the company of two cowards like us,” said Grace. He paused. “So why don’t you heroes piss off out of here and go pin a medal on each other.” Grace leant back in the saddle and spat over his shoulder in summation. The gesture, the tone of voice, were two slaps in the face, bald contempt on bald contempt. Hughes swore, savagely jerked the reins of his horse, the bite of the bit hooking open its mouth, flinging back its head, popping its eyes.

Grace and the Englishman’s boy kept on, didn’t bother to look back. Hughes and Harper were cursing them, the wind wiping away whole words and phrases, like a cloth smearing chalk on a slate. The Englishman’s boy strained to catch their threats. “Bastard… don’t ride away from me… you’ll answer… Jimmy Hughes… don’t forget… we’ll settle for you…”

The Eagle gave no sign he was listening, only passed a clumsy hand back and forth over his face like he was brushing off flies. “Maybe I ought to have held my peace just a little longer,” he said. “But I might have bust. Passed the worst winter of my life, shacked up with that bunch of whoreson rascals. I thought once we reached Fort Benton I’d get shut of them, and then five mile out of town those plaguy Indians scampered off with our horses. I always was a fellow scanty on luck. I got a ten-per-cent share in twenty-five-thousand-dollars’ worth of wolf pelts and you can bet how much of that I’d see if I’d told Hardwick I didn’t intend to help get the horses back.” He fell silent, absent-mindedly rummaging about in his jacket pocket as he contemplated hard luck and mischances. A piece of soiled candy came up in his fingers. “I got no use for this,” he said, turning it over and over. “Bad teeth. But a youngster likes his candy.”

He passed the sweet. The Englishman’s boy popped the smudgy peppermint in his mouth. “I ain’t no kid,” he said, sucking hard.

By early afternoon, Evans suggested they call a halt, but some time between breakfast and then Hardwick had undergone a change of plan. He had ditched the notion of leisurely travel and demanded they press forward. Evans did not argue and no one else asked for an explanation; they knew Hardwick better than to question the man’s decision. For the next five hours they pushed on, then paused to water the horses while the men ate a little biscuit and jerked meat. After twenty minutes, Hardwick signalled them to mount again, there were miles to be made before dusk fell.