Sacketts 06.5 - The Courting of Griselda Read online

  The Courting Of Griselda by Louis L'Amourrelease info

  The Courting Of Griselda

  by

  Louis L'Amour

  When it came to Griselda Popley, I was down to bedrock and showing no color.

  What I mean is, I wasn't getting anyplace. The only thing I'd learned since

  leaving the Cumberland in Tennessee was how to work a gold placer claim, but I

  was doing no better with that than I was with Griselda.

  Her pa, Frank Popley, had a claim just a whoop and a holler down canyon from me.

  He had put down a shaft on a flat bench at the bend of the creek and he was down

  a ways and making a fair cleanup.

  He was scraping rock down there and panning out sixty to seventy dollars a day,

  and one time he found a crack where the gold had seeped through and filled in a

  space under a layer of rock, and he cleaned out six hundred dollars in four or

  five minutes.

  It sure does beat all how prosperity makes a man critical of all who are less

  prosperous. Seems like some folks no sooner get two dollars they can rattle

  together than they start looking down their noses at folks who only have two

  bits.

  We were right friendly while Popley was sinking his shaft, but as soon as he

  began bringing up gold he started giving me advice and talking me down to

  Griselda. From the way he cut up, you'd have thought it was some ability or

  knowledge of his that put that gold there. I never saw a man get superior so

  fast. He was running me down and talking up that Arvie Wilt who had a claim

  nearby the Popley place, and Arvie was a man I didn't cotton to.

  He was two inches taller than my six feet and three, and where I pack one

  hundred and eighty pounds on that lean a frame, most of it in my chest,

  shoulders, and arms, Arvie weighed a good fifty pounds more and he swaggered it

  around as if almighty impressed with himself.

  He was a big, easy-smiling man that folks took to right off, and it took them a

  while to learn he was a man with a streak of meanness in him that was nigh onto

  downright viciousness. Trouble was, a body never saw that mean streak unless he

  was in a bind, but when trouble came to him, the meanness came out. But Arvie

  was panning out gold, and you'd be surprised how that increased his social

  standing there on Horse Collar Creek.

  Night after night he was over to the Popleys', putting his big feet under their

  table and being waited on by Griselda. Time to time I was there, too, but they

  talked gold and how much they weighed out each day while all I was weighing out

  was gravel.

  He was panning a fine show of color and all I had was a .44 pistol gun, a Henry

  rifle, and my mining tools. And as we all know it's the high card in a man's

  hand to be holding money when he goes a-courting.

  None of us Sacketts ever had much cash money. We were hardworking mountain folk

  who harvested a lean corn crop off a sidehill farm, and we boys earned what

  clothes weren't made at home by trapping muskrats or coon. Sometimes we'd get us

  a bear, and otherwise we'd live on razorback hog meat or venison.

  Never will forget the time a black bear treed old Orrin, that brother of mine,

  and us caught nine miles from home and none of us carrying iron.

  You ever tackle a grown bear with a club? Me and Tyrel, we done it. We chunked

  at him with rocks and sticks, but he paid them no mind. He was bound and

  determined to have Orrin, and there was Orrin up high in the small branches of

  that tree like a possum huntin' persimmons.

  Chunking did no good, so Tyrel and me cut us each a club and we had at that

  bear. He was big and he was mean, but while one of us closed in on him before,

  the other lambasted him from behind. Time to time we'd stop lambasting that bear

  to advise Orrin.

  Finally that old bear got disgusted and walked off and Orrin came down out of

  that tree and we went on to the dance at Skunk Hollow School. Orrin did his

  fiddling that night from a sitting stool because the bear had most of his pants.

  Right now I felt like he must have felt then. Every day that Griselda girl went

  a-walking past my claim paying me no mind but switching her skirts until I was

  fair sweating on my neck.

  Her pa was a hard man. One time I went over there for supper like I had when I'd

  been welcome, back when neither of us had anything. He would stand up there in

  his new boots, consulting a new gold watch every minute or two, and talking high

  and mighty about the virtues of hard work and the application of brains. And all

  the time that Arvie Wilt was a-setting over there making big eyes at Griselda.

  If anything, Arvie had more gold than Popley did and he was mighty welcome at

  table, but for me the atmosphere was frosting over a mite, and the only reason I

  dug in and held on was that I'd scraped my pot empty of beans and for two days

  I'd eaten nothing but those skimpy little wild onions.

  Now when it came right down to it, Popley knew I'd worked hard as either of

  them, but I was showing no color and he wanted a son-in-law who was prosperous,

  so needing to find fault, he taken issue with me on fighting.

  We boys from the high-up hills aren't much on bowing and scraping, but along

  about fighting time, you'll find us around. Back in the Cumberland I grew up to

  knuckle-and-skull fighting, and what I hadn't learned there I picked up working

  west on a keelboat.

  Pa, he taught us boys to be honest, to give respect to womenfolk, to avoid

  trouble when we could, but to stand our ground when it came to a matter of

  principle, and a time or two I'd stood my ground.

  That old six-shooter of mine was a caution. It looked old enough to have worn

  out three men, but it shot true and worked smooth. My hands are almighty big but

  I could fetch that pistol faster than you could blink. Not that I made an issue

  of it because Pa taught us to live peaceable.

  Only there was that time down to Elk Creek when a stranger slicked an ace off

  the bottom, and I taken issue with him. He had at me with a fourteen-inch blade

  and my toothpick was home stuck in a tree where I'd left it after skinning out a

  deer, so I fetched him a clout alongside the skull and took the blade from him.

  A friend of his hit me from behind with a chair, which I took as unfriendly, and

  then he fetched out his pistol, so I came up a-shooting.

  Seemed like I'd won myself a name as a bad man to trouble, and it saved me some

  hardship. Folks spoke polite and men seeking disagreement took the other side of

  the road, only it gave Popley something he could lay a hand to, and he began

  making slighting remarks about men who got into brawls and cutting scrapes.

  Words didn't come easy to me and by the time I'd thought of the right answer I

  was home in bed, but when Popley talked I felt like I was disgracing Griselda by

  coming a-courting. So I went back to my claim shanty and looked into the bean

 
; pot again, but it was still empty, and I went a-hunting wild onions.

  Nobody could ever say any of us Sacketts fought shy of work, so I dug away at my

  claim until I was satisfied there was nothing there but barren gravel. Climbing

  out of that shaft I sat down and looked at my hole card.

  There was nothing left but to load up my gear on that spavined mule I had and

  leave the country. I was out of grub, out of cash money, and out of luck. Only

  leaving the country meant leaving Griselda, and worst of all, it meant leaving

  her to Arvie Wilt.

  Time or two I've heard folks say there's always better fish in the sea, but not

  many girls showed me attention. Many a time I sat lonely along the wall, feared

  to ask a girl to dance because I knew she'd turn me down, and no girl had paid

  me mind for a long time until Griselda showed up.

  She was little, she was pert, and she had quick blue eyes and an uptilted nose

  and freckles where you didn't mind them. She'd grown into a woman and was

  feeling it, and there I was, edged out by the likes of Arvie Wilt.

  Popley, he stopped by. There I was, a-setting hungry and discouraged, and he

  came down creek riding that big brown mule and he said, "Tell, I'd take it

  kindly if you stayed away from the house." He cleared his throat because I had a

  bleak look to my eye. "Griselda is coming up to marrying time and I don't want

  her confused. You've got nothing, and Arvie Wilt is a prosperous mining man.

  Meaning no offense, but you see how it is."

  He rode on down to the settlement and there was nothing for me to do but go to

  picking wild onions. The trouble was, if a man picked all day with both hands he

  couldn't pick enough wild onions to keep him alive.

  It was rough country, above the canyons, but there were scattered trees and high

  grass plains, with most of the ridges topped with crests of pine. Long about

  sundown I found some deer feeding in a parklike clearing.

  They were feeding, and I was downwind of them, so I straightened up and started

  walking toward them, taking my time. When I saw their tails start to switch, I

  stopped.

  A deer usually feeds into the wind so he can smell danger, and when his tail

  starts to wiggle he's going to look up and around, so I stood right still. Deer

  don't see all too good, so unless a body is moving they see nothing to be afraid

  of. They looked around and went back to feeding and I moved closer until their

  tails started again, and then I stopped.

  Upshot of it was, I got a good big buck, butchered him, and broiled a steak

  right on the spot, I was that hungry. Then I loaded the best cuts of meat into

  the hide and started back, still munching on wild onions. Down on the creek

  again the first person I saw was Griselda, and right off she began switching her

  skirts as she walked to meet me.

  "I passed your claim," she said, "but you were not there."

  She had little flecks of brown in her blue eyes and she stood uncomfortably

  close to a man. "No, ma'am, I've give ... given ... it up. Your pa is right.

  That claim isn't up to much."

  "Are you coming by tonight?"

  "Seems to me I wore out my welcome. No, ma'am, I'm not coming by. However, if

  you're walking that way, I'll drop off one of these here venison steaks."

  Fresh meat was scarce along that creek, and the thought occurred that I might

  sell what I didn't need, so after leaving a steak with the Popleys, I peddled

  the rest of it, selling out for twelve dollars cash money, two quarts of beans,

  a pint of rice, and six pounds of flour.

  Setting in my shack that night I wrassled with my problem and an idea that had

  come to me. Astride that spavined mule I rode down to the settlement and spent

  my twelve dollars on flour, a mite of sugar, and some other fixings, and back at

  the cabin I washed out some flour sacks for aprons, and made me one of those

  chef hats like I'd seen in a newspaper picture. Then I set to making bear-sign.

  Least, that's what we called them in the mountains. Most folks on the flatland

  called them doughnuts, and some mountain folk did, but not around our house. I

  made up a batch of bear-sign and that good baking smell drifted down along the

  creek, and it wasn't more than a few minutes later until a wild-eyed miner came

  running and falling up from the creek, and a dozen more after him.

  "Hey! Is that bear-sign we smell? Is them doughnuts?"

  "Cost you," I said. "I'm set up for business. Three doughnuts for two bits."

  That man set right down and ate two dollars' worth and by the time he was

  finished there was a crowd around reaching for them fast as they came out of the

  Dutch oven.

  Folks along that creek lived on skimpy bacon and beans, sometimes some soda

  biscuits, and real baking was unheard of. Back to home no woman could make

  doughnuts fast enough for we Sackett boys who were all good eaters, so we took

  to making them ourselves. Ma often said nobody could make bear-sign like her

  son, William Tell Sackett.

  By noon I was off to the settlement for more makings, and by nightfall everybody

  on the creek knew I was in business. Next day I sold a barrel of doughnuts, and

  by nightfall I had the barrel full again and a washtub also. That washtub was

  the only one along the creek, and it looked like nobody would get a bath until

  I'd run out of bear-sign.

  You have to understand how tired a man can get of grease and beans to understand

  how glad they were to taste some honest-to-gosh, down-to-earth doughnuts.

  Sun-up and here came Arvie Wilt. Arvie was a big man with a big appetite and he

  set right down and ran up a bill of four dollars. I was making money.

  Arvie sat there eating doughnuts and forgetting all about his claim.

  Come noon, Griselda showed up. She came a-prancing and a-preening it up the road

  and she stayed around, eating a few doughnuts and talking with me. The more she

  talked the meaner Arvie got.

  "Griselda," he said, "you'd best get along home. You know how your pa feels

  about you trailing around with just any drifter."

  Well, sir, I put down my bowl and wiped the flour off my hands. "Are you aiming

  that at me?" I asked. "If you are, you just pay me my four dollars and get off

  down the pike."

  He was mean, like I've said, and he did what I hoped he'd do. He balled up a

  fist and threw it at me. Trouble was, he took so much time getting his fist

  ready and his feet in position that I knew what he was going to do, so when he

  flung that punch, I just stepped inside and hit him where he'd been putting

  those doughnuts.

  He gulped and turned green around the jowls and white around the eyes, so I

  knocked down a hand he stuck at me and belted him again in the same place. Then

  I caught him by the shirt front before he could fall and backhanded him twice

  across the mouth for good measure.

  Griselda was a-hauling at my arms. "Stop it, you awful man! You hurt him!"

  "That ain't surprising, Griselda," I said. "It was what I had in mind."

  So I went back to making bear-sign, and after a bit Arvie got up, with Griselda

  helping, and he wiped the blood off his lips and he said, "I'll get even! I'll

  get even with you if it's the last thing I do!"
/>   "And it just might be," I said, and watched them walk off together.

  There went Griselda. Right out of my life, and with Arvie Wilt, too.

  Two days later I was out of business and broke. Two days later I had a barrel of

  doughnuts I couldn't give away and my private gold rush was over. Worst of all,

  I'd put all I'd made back into the business and there I was, stuck with it. And

  it was Arvie Wilt who did it to me.

  As soon as he washed the blood off his face he went down to the settlement. He

  had heard of a woman down there who was a baker, and he fetched her back up the

  creek. She was a big, round, jolly woman with pink cheeks, and she was a

  first-rate cook. She settled down to making apple pies three inches thick and

  fourteen inches across and she sold a cut of a pie for two bits and each pie

  made just four pieces.

  She also baked cakes with high-grade all over them. In mining country rich ore

  is called high-grade, so miners got to calling the icing on cake high-grade, and

  there I sat with a barrel full of bear-sign and everybody over to the baker

  woman's buying cake and pie and such-like.

  Then Popley came by with Griselda riding behind him on that brown mule, headed

  for the baker woman's. "See what a head for business Arvie's got? He'll make a

  fine husband for Griselda."

  Griselda? She didn't even look at me. She passed me up like a pay-car passing a

  tramp, and I felt so low I could have walked under a snake with a high hat on.

  Three days later I was back to wild onions. My grub gave out, I couldn't peddle

  my flour, and the red ants got into my sugar. All one day I tried sifting red

  ants out of sugar; as fast as I got them out they got back in until there was

  more ants than sugar. So I gave up and went hunting. I hunted for two days and

  couldn't find a deer, nor anything else but wild onions.

  Down to the settlement they had a fandango, a real old-time square dance, and I

  had seen nothing of the kind since my brother Orrin used to fiddle for them back

  to home. So I brushed up my clothes and rubbed some deer grease on my boots, and

  I went to that dance.

  Sure enough, Griselda was there, and she was with Arvie Wilt.

  Arvie was all slicked out in a black broadcloth suit that fit him a little too

  soon, and black boots so tight he winced when he put a foot down.