Part 12 (1/2)

Suddenly Tommy shot me a hard look.

The crooked smile vanished from the major's face. ”But you come here fancying my wife!”

Groaning, Mrs. MacDunn took a step toward the major, but Lainie saw that look in her father's eyes, a look that scared her, and she grabbed her mother's arm, pulled her back.

”William,” Mr. Gow pleaded.

”Don't call me William. I should kill you right now.”

He sounded sadder, older, worn out, Mr. Gow did, when he spoke again. ”I am sorry if I have led you to believe . . . I . . . it is not fair to Blaire to . . .”

”Missus MacDunn, Gow. She's Missus MacDunn to you!”

Another eternity pa.s.sed.

”Mister Gow?” the black rider asked. He was ready and willing to pull his rifle, and draw blood.

Mr. Gow's head shook tiredly. ”I have never desired anything from your wife except her friends.h.i.+p,” he said, and this time he turned to look at Mrs. MacDunn. ”I am sorry if I led you to believe otherwise. She is a friend. A dear friend. As you once were, William.” He looked back at the major. ”But I love my wife. I love my family. And I love what I have tried to carve in this wilderness for them.”

He looked down at his son. ”Catch up your horse, Camdan. It is time we go home. Quickly, Son.”

”I have seen enough bloodshed on this frontier,” Mr. Gow said when Camdan had disappeared inside the barn. ”I had prayed you would have, too, after those lynchings a few years back. I detest violence. You know that. There will be no war on the Sun and Teton Rivers, Major MacDunn. At least, I shall not start it. I will find winter gra.s.s elsewhere. In Canada. If it's not too late.”

He shot his arm out toward Tommy and John Henry.

”These men admitted to me their handiwork in the ruination of your fence. I have fired Kenton, have banished them from my range. Yet I trust you will show mercy, will not press charges. There is enough money in that pouch to replace your precious wire. The boy, I believe, has been hurt enough.”

Camdan rode out of the barn, and Mr. Gow tipped his hat at Mrs. MacDunn. Her lips mouthed the words-”I am sorry.”-and the 7-3 Connected riders loped away, disappearing over the hills, leaving behind John Henry and Tommy, whose horses took a few nervous steps, wanting to run after the other riders, wanting to get away from the Bar DD.

I felt the same way.

What happened? Nothing. Not really. Well, maybe everything.

My heart pounded against my ribs, but I could breathe again. We watched the dust fade, then John Henry, his hand still on the b.u.t.t of his revolver, turned toward Major MacDunn.

”Well?” His words were icy. ”What's your play?”

The major stared at him, started to look at either his wife or daughter-I'm not sure which-but stopped.

”Get out of my sight,” the major said. ”If I ever find you on MacDunn range, I will hang you both. Jim Hawkins!”

I like to have toppled off the rail.

”Yes, sir?” Surprised I could even talk.

”If you want to ride off with your friends, get your war bag and saddle, and be gone.”

Which was all I needed to hear. I jumped down, started for the bunkhouse to get my possibles, get out of Montana, make things right between John Henry and Tommy and me. Too stupid, too green to know any better.

”No!”

John Henry's voice stopped me. Turning around, I looked up at my two pards.

”You ain't fit to ride with John Henry Kenton,” John Henry said, leaning forward in his saddle. ”I ride with pards I can trust, not some back-stabbing son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h who'd steal my pard's girl.”

”John Henry,” I pleaded, and felt tears welling in my eyes. ”Tommy, I ain't . . .”

”We left Texas, boy,” John Henry said, ”to get away from the wire. You forgot that. You put a pick in your hands like some miserable sodbuster, nailed the devil's rope to fence posts. And look what you did to Tommy. Your friend! I hold you responsible.”

My head fell to my chest. The tears dried up, but I knew John Henry was right. Right about most things-about me forgetting, about me being responsible for Tommy's injuries. But he was dead wrong about me ever trying to steal Lainie from him. I liked her a lot, but I'd never do a pard like that. Never do anyone that way.

”Get off my land,” Major MacDunn said with a quiet authority. ”Both of you. And remember my warning.”

I heard John Henry's words. ”Oh, I'll remember them, MacDunn, but you remember this. You look long and hard at what you did to Tommy. You study his face. Because the ball has just started.”

Hoofs sounded. Footsteps walked away. I stood there several minutes, not knowing what to do, felt a presence before me, and knew it was Lainie. I looked up into her tear-filled eyes.

”I'm sorry, Jim,” she said.

”Ain't your fault,” I told her.

Beyond her, I saw that elk-skin pouch, still in the dirt, where the major had left it.

Oh, I reckon the major later got that money. Don't think he left it for Busted-Tooth Melvin to steal. Don't know for sure, though, because snow covered the ground by evening.

Ain't what you figured, is it, boy? Certainly, it ain't the way they'd make it happen in one of those moving-picture deals they show down in Helena. No big shoot-out. Hardly a gun even c.o.c.ked. No cowboys lying dead in the dust.

No heroes, either.

There was no range war, not between the MacDunns and the Gows. We went back to cowboying, not preparing to kill people.

I think about that. Have thought about it often. How things changed. I think about how blind we were. All of us. We didn't notice, didn't pay attention to all the signs, didn't think about what was happening all around us. We was all too concerned about barbed wire, and a dead bull, and winter gra.s.s, and Mrs. MacDunn. And Lainie. We kept considering what we'd wind up doing, or how we'd act, who'd live and who'd die, when that first trigger got pulled.

n.o.body, not me, not John Henry, not Major MacDunn or Mr. Gow or Gene Hardee or Bitterroot Abbott saw what was happening. Not a one of us thought about why a grizzly would come out of its range hunting horses to eat, or why its coat growed so thick. Or why Angus bulls started sporting hair like you'd find on a buffalo. Or why those black bulls started acting so unpredictable, certainly not the calm beasts they was supposed to be. Or why geese flew south long before normal. Why the other birds vanished. Or why a cottonwood tree's bark got so thick. Why the wind blew so cold. Why our horses also grew winter coats so early.

Why beavers worked harder than even beavers was supposed to work. Or why muskrats took to making their homes on the creeks twice as big as they usually did.

Oh, there was a war coming, sure enough. Only it come from another direction. And it would have every last one of us, from the Bar DD to the 7-3 Connected, from the Judith Basin to Miles City, across all of Montana and the Dakotas and Wyoming and beyond. . . .