Part 6 (1/2)
”Her brothers died,” Tommy told me later that evening.
”She told you that?” I asked.
”Of course, she told me that,” he snapped. ”I didn't just make it up. She talks to me a lot more than she talks to you, and we're not always talking about Long John Silver or what sounds a C makes.”
That riled me considerable, but I bit my tongue, and shoved my clenched fists deep in my pockets.
”How'd they die?” I asked.
”They drowned.”
We were getting ready for bed, Tommy sitting on his bunk, pulling off his boots, me just standing there with my hands in my pockets, and looking like that coyote after John Henry shot him the first time. Kind of surprised, unbelieving, hurt, all at the same time. Tommy grinned, because he knew something I didn't.
”The oldest brother got in trouble in the river. The younger one jumped in to save him, but Tavish . . . he's the young one . . . couldn't swim a lick, and they both drowned. That happened when Lainie was thirteen. That's the real reason why the MacDunns left Scotland. Oh, they knew Mister Gow . . . he'd been up here for more than a decade . . . and after Simon and Tavish died, the major wanted to put Scotland behind him. He has. So has Lainie. I don't think you could say the same about Blaire. That's why she teaches school, why she runs this bunkhouse like an orphanage. She wants her two sons back.” His grin widened. ”Lainie didn't tell you that, eh?”
I wet my lips. Looking back, I realized at first I'd been jealous that my pard, my best friend and bunky, good old Tommy O'Hallahan was spending more time with Lainie MacDunn than he spent with me. Now me and Lainie hadn't gotten off to a good start, what with her riling me so, but she'd become my friend, too. Likely the first friend who was a girl I'd ever had. I never counted that old red-haired fat woman in Mobeetie who kept telling me she'd never had a friend as good as me, her being roostered eight days a week, and a wh.o.r.e to boot.
Right then, when Tommy was giving me this look, pleased to be telling me something, and even happier to know his words were stinging me good, I knew Tommy was jealous of me. Shucks, I spent maybe twenty minutes with Lainie on Sat.u.r.day evenings, and a few minutes after school. That's all. Lainie sat across from Tommy in the schoolhouse, while I was stuck between some freckle-faced boy whose name I've long forgotten and Camdan Gow. Lainie stayed as close to Tommy as my b.u.t.t stayed to the saddle.
”I reckon we talk about other things,” I said, and Tommy's face turned red. Hadn't meant nothing by it. It was the truth, is all.
Tommy hit me first, a real chicken-livered thing to do, me with both hands in my pockets, and I somersaulted over my bunk, and fell to the floor. Tommy let out a curse, and dived right after me. I remember hearing Camdan Gow yell: ”Fight!” Next thing, I knew, I was on my feet, fists swinging wildly, Tommy grunting, getting in some good punches. I tasted blood. Couldn't see a thing, blinded by tears, but I could tell I was doing my share of damage.
”Go get him, Texas!”
”Kick his b.u.t.t, Hawkins!”
”Stay in there!”
”Use your left, Tommy!”
Only us boys filled the bunkhouse. Gene Hardee had ridden off to oversee a herd coming up from Nebraska, and Ish was the only grown-up man, other than the major, who was at the ranch that night, but Ish must have been in the barn or privy or somewhere.
I busted Tommy's nose wide open. Knew that because I heard Camdan Gow say so. Then we both were on the floor, kicking. Tommy was trying his best to get his thumbs into my eyeb.a.l.l.s, with me holding him off, but growing weaker. Maybe we would have killed each other if Ish hadn't busted through the door.
”Fire!” he yelled first. Then: ”What the h.e.l.l's going on here?” He didn't wait for any explanation, he was shoving through, tossing Camdan Gow one way, Walter Butler another. My eyes started to clear, and I focused on Tommy's enraged face. Behind him appeared Ish, who jerked Tommy off me, and threw him like he was nothing but a canvas war bag. Threw him toward the door.
”Get up!” Ish was yelling at all of us boys. ”And get out. We got a prairie fire to put out.”
Chapter Eleven.
Didn't see raging blazes, no smoke, just a small woman, a stranger, standing next to Mrs. MacDunn, and a Negro cowhand, who had driven the spring wagon. He was switching out the lathered team. She stood weaving, fanning her face, talking excitedly to Mrs. MacDunn.
”Mother!” Camdan Gow sprinted ahead of me, and wrapped his arms around that tall, frail spectacle of a female. Almost knocked her down. ”What is it, Mother?”
”Prairie fire.” She looked past her son and at the major, who just stepped out of the house, throwing fancy leather braces over his shoulders. ”You've got to help us. Please help us. I've ridden. . . .”
I reckon she was about to collapse from the strain of it all, because Mrs. MacDunn took her, helped her toward the house.
”Where?” the major asked.
”North of Old Agency,” she said.
The major turned. ”Fishtorn, get these boys mounted. All of them.”
”Not Camdan!” Mrs. Gow pleaded, but her son wouldn't have none of that. He told her he was going, and the major agreed.
”We must all go. Tristram will need every hand he can get, dry and windy as it is. Blaire, you and Lainie. . . .”
”We are going, too,” Mrs. MacDunn told him. Yes, she was the only person I ever met who could make the major back down.
Rode all night, we did, taking advantage of a half moon, but even before dawn we could smell burning gra.s.s. Our eyes started to sting. At the Gow Ranch, we fortified ourselves with coffee, and, it being daylight by then, Mrs. MacDunn noticed my face, swollen, bruised, caked with dried blood.
”My goodness, Jim,” she said. ”What happened to you?”
”I run into something at the bunkhouse,” I said. That wasn't enough, so I explained further: ”It being dark and all.”
At first, she halfway believed me, but Tommy stood just a few rods behind me, and, when she spotted his smashed lips and that s.h.i.+ner I'd given him, she asked: ”Did you run into the same thing, Tommy?”
”Just about,” he said, which got Walter Butler to giggling like a girl.
The major ordered the girls to stay behind at the ranch, then led the rest of us to the fire, but not before he gave the girls one last order: ”If the fire gets too close, get into the root cellar. Do not try to outrun it. You will die if you do.”
Never seen a prairie fire, have you, boy? Pray to G.o.d you never do. Like you're standing by the hinges of h.e.l.l, watching the inferno come straight to you.
The wind blasted us with heat, smoke so thick, boiling, blotting out the sun, the mountains, the sky-just something awful. Couldn't believe how fast those flames moved, how hot, how intense. n.o.body had any idea what started the fire. Dry lightning perhaps. Good a guess as any.
The wind came from the west and northwest-almost always did-and just kept pus.h.i.+ng that fire.
”Thank G.o.d you're here!” Tristram Gow sprinted toward us, pumping the major's hand, but the major turned away from Mr. Gow, and barked an order at us to get moving.
”What are we supposed to do?” Walter Butler asked.
I knew. Me and Tommy had seen fires in Texas, some worse than this one. We hobbled our horses, and walked toward the inferno, me emptying my canteen over a gunny sack, then tossing the canteen to the ground, and Tommy toting his rain slicker, not saying a word, not looking in my direction, just walking on. I pulled my bandanna over my mouth and nose, and just started pounding the flames, taking a place beside one of Mr. Gow's hands, armed with a broom. Must have been two dozen or more cowboys out there, swinging, swatting, sweating, but I didn't spot John Henry. Fighting right alongside us waddies were even a couple of grangers trying to make something out of their homesteads. Wasn't but a handful of farmers up here in those days, this being cattle country. And sheepherders. There were plenty of sheepmen, most of them north or west of the Bar DD and 7-3 Connected ranges.
This fire could have been wilder. Gra.s.s had been pretty much overgrazed. That helped a mite. Still, it turned brutal real quick.
We attacked those flames. Backing up to keep from getting burned alive. Couldn't hardly breathe.
Tell you the truth, I was still a heap mad at Tommy, so I hit those flames with that wet gunny sack like I was punching Tommy's nose out the back of his head. Pictured myself doing it. I thought the long ride would have calmed me down, but it didn't do nothing but give me a lot of hours to hurt and fume, especially since I'd been riding right behind that spring wagon that was carrying the womenfolk, including Lainie.
Might could have burned to death, mad as I was, if it hadn't been for Tommy.
There I stood, that gunny sack dried out by now, starting to smolder, and I felt someone pulling on my shoulder, soft at first, then almost jerking me off my feet. Eyes pained from the smoke, heat, dust, I whirled to find Tommy.