Read Online Fair Land, Fair Land by A. B. Guthrie Jr. - Free Book Online

I got to make bold to say
we haven't the men or the arms to fight off what's comin'."
    Summers had to laugh. "Sit down, soldier. We
don't aim to fight them. The idee is just to go where they ain't."
    " Just to get a taste of her, huh, before the
flood laps her up?"
    " Before she gets tamed."
    " Suits me." Higgins sampled the whiskey and
went silent again as if he had gone back to his earlier thoughts. A
night bird called from the aspens behind them, and he asked, "What
you reckon it is?"
    " Just some little old bird, I reckon."
    " Yeah, the bird in the bush, and that's another
thing," Higgins continued as if talking to himself. "Take,
now, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. That"s true of
the gut, but I got doubts for the spirit. The bush, it"s always
yonder and yonder. Right?"
    " You frazzle things, Hig. Me, I'm goin' to bed."
    Once in his bedroll Summers couldn't sleep. He heard
coyotes and wolves, far off, and close at hand the voice of the night
bird. The bird in the bush. Had he held it once, not knowing? Did it
flutter there in his hand in those gone days, there along the upper
Missouri, there in Jackson's Hole, there at rendezvous, where men
drank and sang the old songs in young voices, and a squaw's eyes said
yes, after a while? Where beaver swam in every stream, and a trapper
knew his foot was first on the land and he walked with the gods of
the world, knowing himself to be small and big and blessed and,
ignorant, didn't give thanks, not full thanks, not until too late?
Was the bird once in his hand, full-plumed, bright-colored, and had
he let it slip from his grasp and fly on, calling him, its voice
soft, its flame alive in the bushes, and when he went after it, it
fluttered on, almost but not quite within reach?
    That damn night bird
called again. That damn Higgins was snoring.
    * * *
    The frost lay silver on the grass when he woke up. It
silvered the willows and the branches of the quaking asps. Low in the
west a quarter moon was sinking. To the east the sky glowed red,
showing the sun was on its way up. He rose and built a fire. It would
be deer meat again, stabbed by sticks held over the coals.
    Higgins lifted himself on an elbow and said, "Please
to bring me coffee, black, and a platter of bacon and half a dozen
fried eggs."
    "No grits?"
    " Goes without sayin'."
    Higgins rolled out of bed and went to bring in the
horses, his steps crunching the stiffened grass.
    Packed up and mounted they followed the trail until
the last of the Big Blackfoot seeped out in a swamp. There was no
need to tell Higgins they were close to the big divide. Soon the
going would be mostly downhill. Soon they would come to water flowing
east. He whoaed up for a moment, long enough for Higgins to say,
"You'd play hell gettin' a wagon over this pass."
    Summers nodded and spoke to his horse.
    Half a mile further on, where the trail bent around a
rock ledge, Feather snorted and reared and wouldn't go on. Behind him
the string started acting up. Summers slid off, reins in one hand,
rifle in the other. He turned back, gave the reins to Higgins,
shaking his head for quiet, and turned again, walking soft, the
Hawken ready.
    At first it was just a piece of fur, whitened at the
tips. A step further and it became the biggest bear he had ever seen.
It lay spraddled and quiet on the trail, dead maybe. Then he saw the
great body rise and fall to its breathing. He skirted around it,
ready to shoot. He hit it with a small rock. The bear didn't , move.
Then he saw that it lacked most of a foreleg. The stump oozed slow
blood.
    He walked back to Higgins and said, "Come on.
Back a piece and tie up. Then follow along."
    A little way off was a tree, and they wrapped reins
around a couple of branches. "Need my gun?" Higgins asked.
    Summers patted the stock of the Hawken and led off.
    Higgins sucked in his breath as they rounded the
turn. He wheezed out, "God! Good God!"
    " Lost a foreleg above the second joint."
    " Bled to death?"
    " Still