The Ox-Bow Incident Read online

  “First time in?” Canby asked.

  “Yessir,” Gil said with pleasure. Canby shook his head.

  “What’s the matter?” Gil asked him.

  Canby looked at me. “Do you always have this much trouble with him?” You always felt Canby was grinning at you, though his face stayed as set as an old deacon’s.

  “More, mostly,” I said, and told him about the fight we’d had, which Gil had finished by knocking me across the red-hot stove. We drank slowly while we talked, and Gil listened politely, as if I were telling a dull story about somebody else. “It was just being cooped up together so long,” I finished, remembering the one-room shack with the snow piled up to the window ledge and more of it coming, blowing against the glass like sand; the lonely sound of the wind, and Gil and I at opposite ends of the room, with two lamps burning, except for a truce at meal times. “It got so he wouldn’t even ride with me. We took turns tailing up and feeding.”

  “He’s naturally mean,” Canby said. “You can tell that.”

  “A man needs exercise,” Gil said. “He’s not much of a fighter, but there wasn’t anything else handy.” He poured us another. “Besides, he started them all.”

  “Like hell I did,” I said. “Do we look like I’d start them?” I asked Canby. I’m as tall as Gil is, but flat and thin, while Gil is built like a bull; his hands are twice as big as mine. Gil looks like a fighter too, with a long heavy chin and those angular eyes with a challenging stare in them. I could see myself in the mirror under the Woman with a Parrot. My face was burned dark as old leather already, but it’s thin, with big eyes.

  “You should have heard the things he said,” Gil told Canby.

  “By January,” I put in, “he’d only talk about one thing, women. And even then he wouldn’t be general. He kept telling the same stories about himself and the same women.”

  “Well, he wouldn’t talk,” Gil said, “and somebody had to. He’d sit there reading his old books like he had a lesson to learn, or writing all the time, scratch, scratch, scratch. It got on my nerves. Then I’d try to sing, and he’d get nasty. Once he went to the door, in the middle of a good song too, and stood there like he was listening for something, and all the time the wind blowing in, and thirty below outside. When I asked him what the matter was, he said nothing, he was just listening to the steers bawling; they sounded so good.”

  “Gil has a fine voice,” I said, “but he only knows three songs, all with the same tune.”

  We kept on talking off our edge, Canby putting in a word now and then to keep us going, until Monty Smith came in. He started to say something to Gil, but Gil just looked at him, and Monty came over on my side and edged up to be friendly, with his back to the bar, as though it didn’t mean a thing to him. I can’t look a man down the way Gil can, so I just didn’t look at him and didn’t answer. I put a half dollar out on the bar, Canby poured out a couple of drinks, and Smith took them. He tried to be polite about it, saying, “Here’s mud in your eye,” and I felt mean to make him feel so much like a beggar. But Gil gave me the elbow, and I didn’t say anything. Smith hung around for a minute or two, and then went out, hitching his belt in the doorway to get his conceit back.

  When the door was closed Canby said, “Now that you two are peaceable again, what’s on your mind?” He was talking to Gil.

  “Does something have to be on my mind?” Gil asked.

  “When you talk that long just being unsociable,” said Canby, filling the glasses again, “yes.” Gil turned his glass around and didn’t say anything.

  “What’s he so bashful about?” Canby asked me.

  “He wants to know if his girl is still in town,” I told him.

  “His girl?” said Canby, mopping a wet place and stooping to put the empty bottle under the bar.

  “Take it easy,” Gil said. He stopped turning his glass.

  “If you mean Rose Mapen,” Canby said, straightening up, “no. She went to Frisco the first stage out this spring.”

  Gil stood looking at him.

  “It’s a fact,” Canby said.

  “Hell,” Gil said. He finished his drink in a toss. “Christ, what a town,” he said furiously. His eyes were watering, he felt so bad about missing it.

  “Have a drink,” Canby said, opening another bottle, “but don’t get drunk while you’re feeling like that. The only unmarried woman I know of in town is eighty-two, blind and a Piute. She’s got everything.”

  He poured another for each of us, and took one himself. You could see it tickled him that Gil had given himself away like that. But Gil was really feeling bad. All winter he’d talked about Rose Mapen, until I’d been sick of her. I thought she was a tart anyway. But Gil had dreamed out loud about buying a ranch and settling.

  “It’s my guess the married women ran her out,” Canby said.

  “Yeh?” Gil said.

  “Oh, no tar and feathers; no rails. They just righteously made her uncomfortable. Not that she ever did anything; but they couldn’t get over being afraid she would. Most of the men were afraid to be seen talking to her, even the unmarried ones. The place is too small.”

  Gil kept looking at him, but didn’t say anything, and didn’t look so personal. It’s queer how deeply a careless guy like Gil can be cut when he does take anything seriously.

  “Anything come of this gold they were talking about last fall?” I asked Canby.

  “Do I look it?” he asked.

  “No,” he went on. “A couple of young fellows from Sacramento found loose gold in Belcher’s Creek, up at the north end, and traced it down to a pocket. They got several thousand, I guess, but there was no lode. A lot of claims were staked, but nobody found anything, and it was too near winter for a real boom to get started.” He looked at me with that malicious grin in his eyes. “Not even enough to get more than two or three women in, and they left before the pass was closed.”

  “It’s nothing to me,” I lied.

  “What is there to do in this town, anyway?” Gil demanded.

  “Unless you aim to get in line and woo Drew’s daughter,” Canby began.

  “We don’t,” I informed him.

  “No,” he agreed. “Well, then, you have five choices: eat, sleep, drink, play poker or fight. Or you can shoot some pool. There’s a new table in the back room.”

  “That’s just great,” Gil said.

  The door opened, and Moore, Drew’s foreman, came in. Moore was past forty and getting fat so his belt hung under his belly. He looked even older than he was, his face being heavily lined and sallow and his hair streaked with gray, with one white patch, like ash, on the back of his head. Moore was really a sick man, though he wouldn’t stand for having anybody ask how he felt. He was past any fancy riding now, and even an ordinary day’s work in the saddle would tire him out so his face got pasty. He had a lot of pain, I guess; his insides were all shot from staying at broncho busting too long. But he’d been a great rider once, one of the best, and he was still worth his salt. He knew horses and cattle and country as he knew his own mind, which was thoroughly. His eyes were still quiet and sure, and he never blew off or got absent-minded, no matter how bad he felt. Only I suspected he hadn’t saved any money, any more than the rest of us did, and was really scared he wouldn’t be fit to work much longer. He was a way more than average short on those questions about how he felt.

  He came over to the bar, said hello to us, and threw a silver dollar onto the bar, nodding at Canby. Canby poured him a glass, finger around, and he downed it. Canby filled him another, which he let sit while he rolled a cigarette and licked it into shape.

  “I see Risley’s still around,” Canby said. Moore nodded.

  Risley was the sheriff for this territory, but he wasn’t often closer than Reno, except on special call. I could see Moore didn’t want to talk about it, hadn’t liked Canby’s mentioning Risley in front of us. But I was curious.

  “There was talk about rustling last fall, wasn’t there?” I asked Moore.
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  “Some,” he said. He sucked two little streams of smoke up his nostrils and drank half his whisky before he let the smoke out. When it came out there wasn’t much of it, and that thin. He didn’t look at me, but at the three rows of dark bottles behind Canby. Canby wiped the dry bar again. He was ashamed. It was all right for Moore, but I didn’t like Canby acting as if we were outsiders. Neither did Gil.

  “Do they know anything about it?” he asked Moore. “Is that why Risley’s out here?”

  Moore finished his whisky, and nodded at the glass, which Canby filled up a third time. “No, we don’t know anything, and that’s why he’s here,” he said. He put his change in his pocket, and took his whisky over to the table by the front window. He sat down with his back to us, so Canby could talk.

  “It’s getting touchy, huh?” Gil said.

  “They don’t like to talk about it,” Canby said, “except with fellows they sleep with.”

  “It’s a long way from any border,” he said after a minute, “and everybody in the valley would know if there was a stranger around.”

  “And there isn’t?” I asked.

  “There hasn’t been, that knew cattle,” said Canby, sitting back up on the counter, “except you two.”

  “That’s not funny,” Gil told him, and set his glass down very quietly.

  “Now who’s touchy?” Canby asked him. He was really grinning.

  “You’re talking about my business,” Gil said. “Stick to my pleasures.”

  “Sure,” Canby said. “I just thought I’d let you know how you stand.”

  “Listen,” Gil said, taking his hands down from the bar.

  “Take a drink of water, Gil,” I said. And to Canby, “He’s had five whiskies, and he’s sore about Rose.” I didn’t really believe Gil would fight Canby, but I wasn’t sure after his disappointment. Whenever Gil gets low in spirit, or confused in his mind, he doesn’t feel right again until he’s had a fight. It doesn’t matter whether he wins or not; if it’s a good fight he feels fine again afterward. But he usually wins.

  “And you keep your mouth shut about Rose, see?” Gil told me. He had turned around so he was facing right at me, and I could tell by his eyes he was a little drunk already.

  “All right, Gil,” I reassured him. “All right. But you don’t want to go pitching into your best friends on account of a little joke, do you? You can take a joke, can’t you, Gil?”

  “Sure I can take a joke,” he argued. “Who says I can’t take a joke?” He stared at us. We kept quiet. “Sure I can take a joke,” he said again, but then turned back to his drink. “Some jokes though,” he said, after a swallow, but then took another swallow, and let it go at that. I looked at Canby and bent my head a little toward Gil. Canby nodded.

  “No offense meant, Carter,” he said, and filled Gil’s glass again, pouring slowly, as if he were doing it very carefully for somebody he thought a lot of.

  “It’s all right, it’s all right,” Gil said; “forget it.”

  Canby put two plates on the bar, and then got some hard bread and dried beef from under the counter and put them on the plates. Gil looked at them.

  “And I don’t need any of your leftovers to sober me up, either,” he said.

  “Just as you like,” Canby said. “It’s a long time since lunch. I just thought you might be hungry.” He put some strong cheese on the plates too, and then took some cheese and a bottle over to Moore at the table. He stood by Moore, talking to him for a while. I was glad neither of them laughed.

  I ate some of the dry food and cheese. It tasted good, now that I was wet down. We’d had a long ride, and nothing to eat since before daybreak. Finally Gil began to eat too, at first as though he weren’t thinking about it, but just picking at it absent-mindedly, then without pretense.

  “Are they sure about this rustling?” I asked Canby when he came back.

  “Sure enough,” he said. “They thought they’d lost some last fall, but with this range shut in the way it is by the mountains, they’d been kind of careless in the tally, and couldn’t be too sure. Only Bartlett was sure. He doesn’t run so many anyway, and his count was over a hundred short. He started some talk that might have made trouble at home, but Drew got that straightened out, and had them take another tally, a close one. During the winter they even checked by the head on the cows that were expected to calve this spring. Then, it was about three weeks ago now, more than that, a month, I guess, Kinkaid, who was doing the snow riding for Drew, got suspicious. He thought one of the bunches that had wintered mostly at the south end was thinning out more than the thaw explained. He and Farnley kept an eye out. They even rode nights some. Just before roundup they found a small herd trail, and signs of shod horses, in the south draw. They lost them over in the Antelope, where there’d been a new fall of snow. But in the Antelope, in a ravine west of the draw, they found a kind of lean- to shelter, and the ashes of several fires that had been built under a ledge to keep the smoke down. They figured about thirty head, and four riders.”

  “And the count came short this spring?”

  “Way short,” Canby said. “Nearly six hundred head, counting calves.”

  “Six hundred?” I said, only half believing it.

  “That’s right,” Canby said. “They tallied twice, and with everybody there.”

  “God,” Gil said.

  “So they’re touchy,” said Canby.

  “Did everybody lose?” I asked after a minute.

  “Drew was heaviest, but everybody lost.”

  “But they would, wouldn’t they, with that kind of a job,” Gil said angrily.

  “The way you say,” Canby agreed.

  We could see how it was, now, and we didn’t feel too good being off our range. Not when they’d been thinking about it all year.

  “What’s Risley doing here? Have they got a lead?” Gil asked.

  “You want to know a lot,” said Canby. “He’s down just in case of trouble. It’s Judge Tyler’s idea, not the cattlemen.”

  I was going to ask more questions. I didn’t want to, and yet I did. But Moore got up and came back to the bar with the partly emptied bottle. He pushed it across to Canby, with another dollar beside it.

  “Three out of that,” he said.

  “Lost any over your way?” he asked us.

  “No,” I admitted. “No more than winter and the coyotes could account for.”

  “Got any ideas?” Gil asked him. Canby paused, holding Moore’s change in his hand.

  “No ideas, except not to have any ideas,” Moore said. He reached for his change and put it in his pocket. “Game?” he asked, to show we were all right.

  Canby fished a deck out of a back drawer for us, and the three of us sat down at the front table. Moore played his cards close to his vest, and looked up at the ceiling with narrowed eyes every time before he’d discard. We played a twenty-five-cent limit, which was steep enough. Canby sat in with us until others began coming. Then he went back and stood wiping the bar and looking at them; he never liked to speak first. Most of the men who came in were riders and men we knew. I thought they looked at Gil and me curiously and longer than usual, but probably that wasn’t so. Each of them nodded, or raised a hand, or said “hi,” in the usual manner. They all went to the bar first, and had a drink or two. Then some of them got up a game at the table next to ours, and the rest settled into a row at the bar, elbows up and hats back. The place was full of the gentle vibration of deep voices talking mostly in short sentences with a lot of give and take. Now and then some man would throw his head back and laugh, and then toss off his drink before he leaned over again. Things didn’t seem any different than usual, and yet there was a difference underneath. For one thing, nobody, no matter how genially, was calling his neighbor an old horse thief, or a greaser, or a card sharp, or a liar, or anything that had moral implications.

  Some of the village men came in too: old Bartlett, who was a rancher, but had his house in the village, Davies, the store own
er, and his clerk, Joyce, a tall thin sallow boy with pimples, a loose lower lip which made him look like an idiot, and big hands, which embarrassed him. Even the minister from the one working church, Osgood, came in, though he ostentatiously didn’t take a drink. He was a Baptist, bald-headed, with a small nose and close-set eyes, but built like a wrestler. His voice was too enthusiastic and his manner too intimate to be true, and while he kept strolling pompously among the men, with one arm flexed behind him, the fist clenched, like the statue of a great man in meditation, the other hand was constantly and nervously toying with a seal on the heavy gold watch chain across his vest. I noticed that none of the men would be caught alone with him, and that they all became stiff or too much at ease when he approached, though they kept on drinking and playing, and spoke with him readily, but called him Mr. Osgood.

  Bartlett came over to the table and watched. He was a tall man, looking very old and tired and cross. The flesh of his face was pasty and hung in loose folds, even his lower lids sagging and showing pools of red, like those of a bloodhound. He breathed audibly through his mouth, and kept blowing his mustache. He had on boots, but a flat Spanish sombrero and a long black frock coat, such as only the old men were wearing then. When Jeff Farnley came over too, Moore invited them to sit in. Farnley had a thin face, burned brick red, stiff yellow hair and pale hostile eyes, but a quick grin on a stiff mouth. He wiped his hands on his red and white cowhide vest and sat. Bartlett sat down slowly, letting himself go the last few inches, and fumbled for a cigar in his vest. When he got to playing he would chew the cigar and forget to draw on it, so that after every hand he had to relight it.

  Osgood stood behind Moore and watched Gil and me playing. We were new to him, and I had an uneasy feeling, from the way he was sizing us up, that we were due to get our souls worked over a little. There was that about Osgood; he wouldn’t know the right time from the wrong. Not that he’d try it here, but we’d have to move sharp when we left.