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Authors: Guy Vanderhaeghe
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slouch hat. “We’ll get them pelts in. I didn’t freeze my ass all winter skinning carcasses to get my carcass skinned come spring.”
“Not to worry,” said the redhead. “We’ll get them pelts in right smart and we’ll get on the trace of them horses right smart, and we’ll spank them red scamps right smart, won’t we, boys?”
“Hardwick,” remarked Vogle, “I swear to Christ you’re happy as a pig in soft shit that them Indians lifted our horses. You’re just looking for an excuse to take a crack at them.”
Hardwick flashed an uncanny smile. “Happy is the man doing the Lord’s work,” he said.
“Happy, happy, happy,” said the one in the slouch hat. He didn’t smile but he spat.
As Hardwick had said, with the loan of six teams and a couple of saddle horses to haze them out to the Teton, the wolfers ran their pelts into Fort Benton right smart. Bumping up Front Street in wagons, they cut a sorry sight, the grim set of their jaws testifying that they knew they were laughing stocks for getting carelessly relieved of their horses on the very doorstep of civilization. In the saloons to which they dispersed, there were sly remarks and winks about infantry and church parades and having to visit a cobbler to get your boots half-soled. That is unless the redhead, Tom Hardwick, happened to be present. He and John Evans were standing drinks all around in an endeavour to recruit a posse to recover the horses and punish the Indians. Both men were well-known in Benton. Most considered Evans an easygoing, affable sort, but Hardwick was held to be a dicey proposition and nobody to mock to his face.
As the day wore on the wolfers got drunker, touchier, and blood-thirstier. There was no stampede of volunteers to help retrieve the horses, and a reluctance to sign on often occasioned charges of cowardice and name-calling, a scuffle or two. Among the wolfers themselves there was resentment against Hardwick for threatening to turn them out of Benton so soon to pursue the horse-rustlers, nipping their fun in the bud after a solitary, cold winter. Philander Vogle, for one, was trying to cram as much amusement as he could into an afternoon at a crib on the line. The crib girls were the cheapest a jump, but they didn’t allow you to take your boots off, so Vogle stood at the end of the bed with a bottle in his fist, his pants down around his ankles, waiting for Nature to reassert herself with the wherewithal for a repeat poke. However, the lazy whore kept dozing off in between times – which wasn’t much encouragement to Nature.
Throughout the course of the day the Englishman’s boy kept moving, drifting up and down the town. He had nowhere to stop, nothingto do, nothing to eat but a box of crackers bought at a general store for an exorbitant price. Left high and dry by the Englishman’s untimely death, starvation seemed a probable fate. When he tired of tramping, he perched himself on a wagon tongue or a barrel, the flies and dust from Front Street settling on him as he gnawed his dry crackers and cogitated plans. Maybe he should try to swap his fancy pistol for a double-barrel and shells to keep himself in meat, potting grouse or rabbit or duck. The truth was, no matter how much sense such a scheme might make, no matter how hungry he might get, he knew he was not going to part with the pistol. The pistol made him, for the first time in his life, any man’s equal.
When night drew down, Fort Benton grew a good deal livelier even than it was during the day. The saloons poured light and music and drunken patrons into the street where they pissed and fought in the roadway. These fights, noisy affairs with much loud cursing and bellowing of threats, riled the horses tied to the hitching posts to a terrible pitch. They thrashed about, rolling their eyes and tossing their heads until their terror and tension became unbearable. Then they flew at one another, like the men in the street, kicking and biting and rearing
“Not to worry,” said the redhead. “We’ll get them pelts in right smart and we’ll get on the trace of them horses right smart, and we’ll spank them red scamps right smart, won’t we, boys?”
“Hardwick,” remarked Vogle, “I swear to Christ you’re happy as a pig in soft shit that them Indians lifted our horses. You’re just looking for an excuse to take a crack at them.”
Hardwick flashed an uncanny smile. “Happy is the man doing the Lord’s work,” he said.
“Happy, happy, happy,” said the one in the slouch hat. He didn’t smile but he spat.
As Hardwick had said, with the loan of six teams and a couple of saddle horses to haze them out to the Teton, the wolfers ran their pelts into Fort Benton right smart. Bumping up Front Street in wagons, they cut a sorry sight, the grim set of their jaws testifying that they knew they were laughing stocks for getting carelessly relieved of their horses on the very doorstep of civilization. In the saloons to which they dispersed, there were sly remarks and winks about infantry and church parades and having to visit a cobbler to get your boots half-soled. That is unless the redhead, Tom Hardwick, happened to be present. He and John Evans were standing drinks all around in an endeavour to recruit a posse to recover the horses and punish the Indians. Both men were well-known in Benton. Most considered Evans an easygoing, affable sort, but Hardwick was held to be a dicey proposition and nobody to mock to his face.
As the day wore on the wolfers got drunker, touchier, and blood-thirstier. There was no stampede of volunteers to help retrieve the horses, and a reluctance to sign on often occasioned charges of cowardice and name-calling, a scuffle or two. Among the wolfers themselves there was resentment against Hardwick for threatening to turn them out of Benton so soon to pursue the horse-rustlers, nipping their fun in the bud after a solitary, cold winter. Philander Vogle, for one, was trying to cram as much amusement as he could into an afternoon at a crib on the line. The crib girls were the cheapest a jump, but they didn’t allow you to take your boots off, so Vogle stood at the end of the bed with a bottle in his fist, his pants down around his ankles, waiting for Nature to reassert herself with the wherewithal for a repeat poke. However, the lazy whore kept dozing off in between times – which wasn’t much encouragement to Nature.
Throughout the course of the day the Englishman’s boy kept moving, drifting up and down the town. He had nowhere to stop, nothingto do, nothing to eat but a box of crackers bought at a general store for an exorbitant price. Left high and dry by the Englishman’s untimely death, starvation seemed a probable fate. When he tired of tramping, he perched himself on a wagon tongue or a barrel, the flies and dust from Front Street settling on him as he gnawed his dry crackers and cogitated plans. Maybe he should try to swap his fancy pistol for a double-barrel and shells to keep himself in meat, potting grouse or rabbit or duck. The truth was, no matter how much sense such a scheme might make, no matter how hungry he might get, he knew he was not going to part with the pistol. The pistol made him, for the first time in his life, any man’s equal.
When night drew down, Fort Benton grew a good deal livelier even than it was during the day. The saloons poured light and music and drunken patrons into the street where they pissed and fought in the roadway. These fights, noisy affairs with much loud cursing and bellowing of threats, riled the horses tied to the hitching posts to a terrible pitch. They thrashed about, rolling their eyes and tossing their heads until their terror and tension became unbearable. Then they flew at one another, like the men in the street, kicking and biting and rearing
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