Fair Land, Fair Land by A. B. Guthrie Jr. Page A

Someone would find this place, as
Summers said, and others would be on his heels, but now this cupped
world was all theirs, and the only tame sounds were the far-off
barking of dogs in an Indian camp that Summers had sighted and
sneaked them around, saying only, "I don't hanker for
pipe-smoking and palaver, not now, though the Flatheads is
peaceable."
    Lying down in his bed that night, hearing the busy
river, thinking of this valley in the high hills, Higgins told
Summers,
    "Wake me up when the last trumpet toots."
 

    10
    THEY WERE OVER the Bitter Boot, over Clark's Fork and
well up the Big Blackfoot, the River of the Road to the Buffalo. Give
them two more days, maybe three, Summers thought, and they'd spill
out on the plains. Winter was holding off, and now he knew for a fact
just where he was, though not once on the long trail from Oregon had
he had to backtrack or correct course.
    It was no more than the middle of the day, but
Summers pulled up his horse and the string halted behind him. Here
was a long, level open space, grassed, shrub-clumped and not thick
with trees, and at its side flowed the Big Blackfoot, reduced now to
stream size as the trail approached the divide.
    " Hig," he said over his shoulder, "I'm
thinkin' it would be smart to make camp and let the horses rest and
fill up."
    The horses were pretty gaunt, but, thanks to Higgins,
there wasn't a sore foot in the bunch or a saddle sore. The claw
marks on Feather's rump were healing up good.
    " Suits me," Higgins said, "and will
suit the nags even better, that's if they remember what full bellies
feel like." His thin face screwed up as he studied the lay of
the land. "We'll be needin' fodder our own selves."
    " Name it. Deer. Elk. Maybe moose. I reckon you
could catch us a mess of trout, if'n you feel like it."
    Some aspen trees, still carrying a good half of their
leaves, fingered down from a coulee, and they rode around them so as
to have cover if the night wind blew. They unpacked and unsaddled the
horses. The horses rolled, got up, sneezed and stepped off, feeding.
    Higgins took a piece of rank meat from a pack and
started cutting it in pieces for bait. His nose twitching, he said,
"Fur as I know fish can't smell." Bait, fish line and hooks
in his hand, he went on, "I'll cut me a pole down by the river."
    Summers watched him as he made off. A man wouldn't
think there was any strength in that long, scrawny body or any push.
He wouldn't think so, and he'd be surprised. Like as not, Higgins
would catch some fish. He usually did what he set out to do.
    Summers gathered wood for the night fire and set
rocks around so's to nest it. Then he sat down and allowed himself a
pipe of tobacco, taking note to tell Higgins, for what they had they
shared, much or little. They'd gone mighty easy on the whiskey, too,
though they might drink some tonight.
    He felt ease in him, the ease of almost arrival, and
with it a sort of unease. Would the high plains be as remembered?
Would buffalo graze there and antelope bucket away and halt, curious,
and the sun shine long, morning and evening, and the buttes rise
clear against the painted sky? And if they did, would it be as it was
once? Too often, things weren't what they were cracked up to be. He
let himself nap.
    Higgins woke him up, Higgins coming into camp with a
nice string of trout on a willow stick. "Nothin' to it," he
said. "Gave up when my bait ran out. Ain't they pretty, though?"
    Summers got to his feet. "They shine for a fact.
My turn now. What'l1 it be?"
    " Quail on toast, if it be so's to please you."
    He didn't have to go far. With dusk closing in the
deer were coming down to feed and water in this natural pasture. He
lay behind a clump of brush and waited. A doe came first, her growing
fawn behind her. They hadn't learned to be hunter shy. They had only
to watch for the big cats, wolves, and sometimes a bear. Then came a
plump doe — no fawn. She was a pretty thing, as delicate as, well
as delicate as a she deer.