V
A task for a cripple -- Slow going --
A shadow in the yard -- A broken rifle cock -- A lesson in manners -- Gun repairs --
Ray Boot -- A scalphunter -- The boy in wonder --
What country lies west -- A prayer for paradise -- A father's suspicion --
Talks of St. Louis -- Meeting up with Captain Wilkins --
Impossible wages.
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Stand still, damn you.
While his father and his father's men had taken leave for their noon meal, Bart had been left behind to shoe the plowhorse in the corral behind the barn. The old horse was as tame as could be but Bart was left feeling quite frustrated nonetheless. He bore a crude crutch shaped of birch and bone and though it was only a month since the surgery he moved with a fluid grace and agility unsupposed by one in his condition. He leaned on the crutch and looked at the horse with a sort of dissatisfied anger that seemed to cede all disdain.
Well I reckon you're a son of a bitch then, he told the horse.
He had tried to hurry the job but that only succeeded in him cutting the heels too deeply so now it was taking twice as long as it should have. Bart now spent most of his time shaping and molding to the right shape on the left foreleg. The hoof cupped between his legs. His mouth bristling with shoenails and sweat coursing down into his eyes as he tried to keep the hoof in place while he steadied the iron shoe and rammed the nails home all at once. It was such that Bart continued cursing at the horse in a litany almost melodic in its tempo.
Oh you bastard. Hold still, damn you. Hold.
The horse snorted a plume of dust in a thick sneeze and Bart grimaced yet did not see the shadow coming up the yard behind him and standing at parade-rest there at the gate.
Well now.
Bart looked up. Well.
The man standing there decked out in fringed buckskin like latticework. A longbreech rifle cradled in his arms. His hair ragged and matted to his shoulders. A growth of beard lush and tangled. Around his neck a leather bootstring on which a silver medallion hung dull and lifeless. A white hangrope scar trenched his forehead. That there hoss dont know ye had a bad day, kid. Reckon ye ought to take a break fore he kicks yer other leg off from under ye.
Bart hobbled to his feet yet moved quickly out of range. I can get around same as ary man.
I dont doubt ye could, the man said. Ye seem right capable of gettin around on that crutch of yours. Though I do have some doubts to yer ferryin ability. Reckon ye could do better with this?
I reckon so.
He held out the gun as though for inspection. Needs a new rifle cock.
Bart wiped his hands on the apron he wore around his waist and held out his hands for the gun. The man gave it to him. It was a fullstock 54 caliber rifle. Forty inch barrel. Stock of maple. A moonshaped buttpiece and a slender supple cheek. A chunk of flint wedged in the harnessleather but the pan wasnt primed so the gun was safe. Bart thumbed the hammer down and drew it back but the safety snapped loudly. He tried it again yet the result was the same. He looked back up at the man who now stood watching him keenly.
Reckon ye can fix it son? the man asked.
I can.
Sir.
What's that?
Didnt your father learn you to sir to yer elders?
Sorry. Sir.
What's yer name?
Cooper.
I meant what's yer other name.
Bart.
Bart?
Bart, sir.
That's better. My name's Boot. Ray Boot.
Can I ask you a question, Mr Boot?
Ask away, youth.
Well sir I was wantin to know how you come by that scar.
Boot grinned affably. Bit of a tussle with a savage out on the plains, he said. The sumbuck thought my scalp look great hangin from his stinking belt but I begged to differ.
The boy looked at him with a dawning look like heroworship. So what happened then?
Boot drew back his buckskin jacket and Bart looked and saw what the man carried there like bizarre graft. A glistening blackhaired scalp slicked with grease and dried blood. Bart reached out almost unconsciously but caught himself. The older man chuckled.
Now go on and finish shoein that hoss now, he told him.
Yessir.
. . .
When he had finished nailing the last shoe on the recalcitrant horse Bart hobbled to the shop inside the barn where they cobbled the wagons that gave them their name. The big man Boot followed him inside as the boy spread a soft goathide on the roughsanded workbench, took down a couple of tools. He set the broken rifle on the bench and began to take the lock apart. He kept glancing back at Boot's belt but he could not see the scalp anymore. A feeling of fascination and quiet disgust boiled in his belly.
And yet he could not bear to keep silent so he spoke. So what's it like out there?
Out west, ye mean?
Yessir. Out west.
Well. Depends on what ye heard.
Bart bit his lip then dared to go on. Well, sir, I heard tell it aint much of nothin out there. Just one big wasteland.
Oh it aint that, boy, this man Boot said. Aint that at all. It's wasteland. It's an ocean of grass. It's rivers as far as the eye can see. Lakes the size of seas. Mountains that touch the sky. Forests that never end. It's like what the Garden of Eden must of been like.
As the man went on in this vein the boy looked at him in growing awe and something akin to heroworship.
Then ye got the Pacific, Boot went on. I swear, you aint never seen a sight like that. Vast and blue and with ships ready to take you on to paradise.
My pa told me there aint no ships. That the sea over there's as dead as the one here.
Well son has your pa ever been out there?
Bart hesitated, then shook his head once. He aint never been out of the county, sir.
Well then how would he have a notion of what's out there? I been and I seen. It's God's country out there, young Master Cooper.
Bart shook his head. It sounds like heaven.
That it is, boy. That it is.
Bart turned back to look at the rifle on the bench and bent over it. He slid out the lock and set it down. He saw the problem immediately. The sharp edge of the sear had been cracked and so it caught on the halfcock cog but not the lesser fullcock which meant the gun would not work properly at all.
I can fix it, he said.
You said that already.
I know it.
Bart went and stoked the forge in the corner which was roaring quite nicely a short time later and he poked the sear into the flames. When it was scorching and white he plucked it out with tongs and started hammering the knife edge back into shape on the anvil. The blows of the hammer sounding off in groups of three as he coaxed life back into what had been lifeless. Only temporary. He did this for a minute or so as his father had taught him. Then he scooped it up and dumped it in a swollen cedar bucket brimming with dirty water and steam billowed out as it cooled. Then when that was done he slid the sear into a vise and started filing the edge razorsmooth with a chisel.
What's goin on here?
It was his father. He and his hired hands stood in the doorway returned from their break. The big man Ray Boot looked up at him with a familial smile. Boy's mendin my rifle cock. He's a fine youth, sir. Your son, aint he?
That he is, said Cooper. He strode over and brushed his boy aside to examine the work being done. Bart had to grab the workbench to avoid falling over. Why dont you let me finish this fore the boy ruins it. He aint really reliable when it comes to smithyin.
Even though he'd said this Bart knew that his father was nervous of this large knifescarred man with the scalp hanging from his jacket and so he'd used the excuse of finishing the job so he wouldnt have to talk to the man. Such as it was as it had been before.
Before Bart could turn away Boot took him in with an easy glance. Say there sonny. Suppose ye might be able to put an edge on this? He reached behind his back and pulled from a leathersheath an eighteen inch long knife of heavy steel. He handed it over to Bart who took it and weighed it in his hands. He sat down at the grindstone and ran his fingers across the wickedlooking blade. Gauging the steel. The tips of his fingers pressed against the blade and when they came away he saw they were faintly stained with dried blood. Perhaps from the owner of the scalp hanging from Boot's jacket.
Knife that big aint for pickin yer teeth, boy, said Boot.
You're far from home aint you? Bart's father asked.
Growed up down the road a piece. Thought I'd have one last look at me old homestead fore I moved on for good. Regret it now.
You're homesick.
Rightly so, but it aint for here. My home aint some miserable little township. It's out there in the mountains. My larder's the prairie and my bed's the meadows.
Westward, you mean.
Yessir.
Where you headed now, sir?
Saint Louie, said Boot. Off to make my fortune and meet with Cap'n Wilkins.
Bart glanced up from the grindstone. Who's Captain Wilkins?
Boot looked at the boy and then at the boy's father. Well now son, Cap'n Wilkins is the man what blazed the south pass to the territories out west. God made only a handful of men for us to look up to and he's the best of em. And now I hear he's lookin for some of God's chosen men to head out west to blaze the biggest trail of em all. Expedition leaves come spring.
How much can a man make on the trail? Bart wanted to know.
I dont know rightly, but I reckon upward of five or six thousand a year. Just as long as people keep headin west to those great golden ships to take em to the promised land, that is, and I reckon that'll be just about till judgment day.
Mr Cooper fitted the sear back into the flintlock and sealed it shut with a snort. Hell fire. No man earns those wages in a lifetime.
Some dont, said Boot. That's true. But there's those who do.