Read Online The Englishman's Boy by Guy Vanderhaeghe - Free Book Online
Authors: Guy Vanderhaeghe
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sweet as any church bell to his ears, whanging away on Dan’s poll.
So there his brother had laid swooning in the yard for nigh onan hour, the chickens clucking and cocking their heads at him, eyeing the blood leaking from his scalp and puddling on the ground. But at last Dan gave himself a shake, climbed to his feet like the risen Lazarus, and reeled for the cabin, muddy gore caked to his face. When he sallied back out with the flintlock, raising the stakes like that, gun against a shovel, what was he to do but fold his hand, cut and run? Now that he owned guns of his own, one at his belt, one at his back, God help any poxy bastard who snicked a bullet past his ear the way Dan had. He was done with showing his heels to any man.
The Englishman’s boy turned his eyes over his shoulder and to the river bluffs across the Missouri. There the strong glow of the rising sun lit a mass of shelving cloud so that it appeared a bank of molten lava squeezed from the guts of the earth, each striation distinct and gleaming with a different fire. The topmost layer the rich ruddy purple of cooling slag; then the dim cherry of a horseshoe heated for shaping; then layers of orange and yellow which smelted down to where swollen, bulging hills met the sky in pure white fire. He faced west again where the sun over his shoulder was painting the valley hills with a tenderer light. On the crest of these hills the Englishman’s boy could make out three tiny black dots, moving.
They were still so distant he could not make them out, but he presumed they were horsemen. The sun came nudging up behind him, soaring above the folds of the river bluffs. On they came, figures swimming in the waxing light. The Englishman’s boy shielded his eyes with his hand and squinted. He wasn’t sure, but he thought the three might be afoot. White men didn’t go abroad without horses. He took the Winchester off his back and laid it across his knees. The Colt he put no real stock in as yet, having never owned or even fired a short gun before. It was the carbine he trusted because he had been a hunter since the age of seven and a crack shot with a rifle. He sat and waited, hands relaxed on the gun-stock.
By the time the great yellow yolk of the sun was completely clear of the earth, he knew the men descending the slopes to the river flats were not mounted; but it was only God’s guess whether they were white orred. At six hundred yards the heads became dots and the bodies tapered. At four hundred yards they still lacked faces. At three hundred yards the heads were blurred, but now he knew they were white men. At two hundred yards they began to resolve into individuals.
Without more delay they were upon him, three men in stinking clothes stiff with grease and blackened with old blood, one of them in a slouch hat with eagle plumes stuck in its beaded band, another who called to mind a flour barrel with legs, the third, a redhead with a wispy beard the colour of a fox’s brush and the burned red face and white cracked lips of a man cursed with a complexion unsuited to constant sun and wind. They halted at the rock and leaned on the muzzles of their rifles.
“Morning,” said the redhead.
The Englishman’s boy nodded warily.
“What’s this?” said the stocky one. “Welcoming committee?” He was evidently in an ugly mood.
“Don’t pay no mind to Vogle,” the redhead told the boy. “He’s out of sorts from riding shank’s mare. He ain’t too light on his feet so’s it’s a chore.”
“Lost your horses?”
“Had twenty head lifted,” said the redhead. “Camp’s five mile from here up on the Teton. Didn’t think there was any need to ride night-herd so close to Benton, but we was wrong. Goddamn Indians would steal horses stabled in your front parlour.”
“Ten thousand wolf pelts sitting out there in six wagons and no horses to move them,” said the one the redhead called Vogle.
“We can borry teams from I.G.,” said the man in the
So there his brother had laid swooning in the yard for nigh onan hour, the chickens clucking and cocking their heads at him, eyeing the blood leaking from his scalp and puddling on the ground. But at last Dan gave himself a shake, climbed to his feet like the risen Lazarus, and reeled for the cabin, muddy gore caked to his face. When he sallied back out with the flintlock, raising the stakes like that, gun against a shovel, what was he to do but fold his hand, cut and run? Now that he owned guns of his own, one at his belt, one at his back, God help any poxy bastard who snicked a bullet past his ear the way Dan had. He was done with showing his heels to any man.
The Englishman’s boy turned his eyes over his shoulder and to the river bluffs across the Missouri. There the strong glow of the rising sun lit a mass of shelving cloud so that it appeared a bank of molten lava squeezed from the guts of the earth, each striation distinct and gleaming with a different fire. The topmost layer the rich ruddy purple of cooling slag; then the dim cherry of a horseshoe heated for shaping; then layers of orange and yellow which smelted down to where swollen, bulging hills met the sky in pure white fire. He faced west again where the sun over his shoulder was painting the valley hills with a tenderer light. On the crest of these hills the Englishman’s boy could make out three tiny black dots, moving.
They were still so distant he could not make them out, but he presumed they were horsemen. The sun came nudging up behind him, soaring above the folds of the river bluffs. On they came, figures swimming in the waxing light. The Englishman’s boy shielded his eyes with his hand and squinted. He wasn’t sure, but he thought the three might be afoot. White men didn’t go abroad without horses. He took the Winchester off his back and laid it across his knees. The Colt he put no real stock in as yet, having never owned or even fired a short gun before. It was the carbine he trusted because he had been a hunter since the age of seven and a crack shot with a rifle. He sat and waited, hands relaxed on the gun-stock.
By the time the great yellow yolk of the sun was completely clear of the earth, he knew the men descending the slopes to the river flats were not mounted; but it was only God’s guess whether they were white orred. At six hundred yards the heads became dots and the bodies tapered. At four hundred yards they still lacked faces. At three hundred yards the heads were blurred, but now he knew they were white men. At two hundred yards they began to resolve into individuals.
Without more delay they were upon him, three men in stinking clothes stiff with grease and blackened with old blood, one of them in a slouch hat with eagle plumes stuck in its beaded band, another who called to mind a flour barrel with legs, the third, a redhead with a wispy beard the colour of a fox’s brush and the burned red face and white cracked lips of a man cursed with a complexion unsuited to constant sun and wind. They halted at the rock and leaned on the muzzles of their rifles.
“Morning,” said the redhead.
The Englishman’s boy nodded warily.
“What’s this?” said the stocky one. “Welcoming committee?” He was evidently in an ugly mood.
“Don’t pay no mind to Vogle,” the redhead told the boy. “He’s out of sorts from riding shank’s mare. He ain’t too light on his feet so’s it’s a chore.”
“Lost your horses?”
“Had twenty head lifted,” said the redhead. “Camp’s five mile from here up on the Teton. Didn’t think there was any need to ride night-herd so close to Benton, but we was wrong. Goddamn Indians would steal horses stabled in your front parlour.”
“Ten thousand wolf pelts sitting out there in six wagons and no horses to move them,” said the one the redhead called Vogle.
“We can borry teams from I.G.,” said the man in the
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