Heart Mountain Read online

  When the wind calmed he put on his coat and overshoes. The storm clouds slid to the East. He cut the wires on the bale of hay he had used as a couch all summer and fed a third of it to his mare. He looked up. He heard the drone of a plane but could see nothing. The sky, like the ground, was white. Yesterday it had been purely blue. One cloud had passed overhead. It was shaped like a human penis and rode the airwaves erect, pointing heavenward, Pinkey had thought, so that now, his usual nuisance morning erections, ordinarily reminding him of his solitary state, became something blessed.

  Before leaving he added another layer of clothes: three pairs of socks, four shirts, a coat, a muffler, gloves, and a Scotch cap with the earflaps pulled down. Then he rode toward the highway. As he looked at the sky it occurred to him that yesterday’s phallic cloud had softened and drained and come apart like cooked meat into the white smithereens falling on him as snow.

  Across the road from Snuff’s Bar a calcium mill spewed pink dust across the state line into Wyoming. Two front end loaders, a long wooden shed, and three cars on a railway siding were dusted pink and for a mile thickets of greasewood and sagebrush leaning south away from shouldering winds caught the mined chalk, as did the cattle who grazed there.

  Pinkey left his sorrel mare tied between two pickups at the bar. With her back leg cocked, her whole body looked crooked. One rein dangled straight down into the mud. Someone had written “Ride me” in the snow that covered the saddle. Later, Pinkey thumbed a ride to town. The white-haired woman who owned four city lots and half-interest in the bank picked him up in her Cadillac. People are nicer now there’s a war going on, Pinkey thought, and was glad he wasn’t drunk so he wouldn’t dirty the seat and felt proud of himself for suppressing the desire to put the touch on her for five dollars. She let him off in front of the clothing store. He tipped his sweat-stained hat and said, “Thank you, ma’am.”

  His paycheck, saved from a spring and summer at line camp, went toward new wool pants and a winter jacket because the one he was wearing, though still warm, had bloodstains all over the front from calving the winter before. He looked at himself in the mirror for the first time in four months. Next to the salesman, a hulking Mormon man who wore a reddish toupee and a diamond ring on his little finger, Pinkey looked small. His short legs were bowed, his windburned cheeks looked like polished apples and from his cracked lips a line of blood drove down his chin and dripped on the floor.

  He went to the bars. They had tin ceilings and coal stoves set in the center and sunlight came off the mirrors behind the back bars like comets. “Drinks for the house,” he yelled in each one, though “the house” rarely consisted of more than two or three old men and women—sheepherders or barflies or cowboys too bunged up to work—plus the bartenders, who never drank at ten in the morning so early in what Pinkey called “the drinking year,” which began when the first storm of the season blew through.

  At the Cactus, Pinkey downed a shot of Cobb’s Creek whiskey from a bottle marked with his name. He dabbed at his lip with a handkerchief and read the new sign behind the bottles: NO JAPS.

  He ordered another drink and read the sign again. He didn’t like it.

  “Even Bobby Korematsu?” he yelled down the counter to the bartender.

  “What say?” The barman looked up from wiping glasses.

  Pinkey went around behind the bar and pulled the sign down.

  “Hey …” The barman rushed forward as Pinkey tore the sign in half so the word Japs fell to the floor beside his scuffed boot and the word No drifted sideways, teetering on the edge of the counter.

  Pinkey stood braced.

  “Get the hell out of my bar,” the bartender yelled, picking up the torn sign.

  “What about Bobby Korematsu?” Pinkey repeated.

  “Yea, what about him? He’s a Jap just like all the others.…”

  The barman’s teeth showed like a dog’s.

  Pinkey squatted in the alley between the Cactus and the Medicine Wheel bars and wiped blood with the sleeve of his shirt. His lip was cut and blood flowed from one nostril where the bartender had hit him squarely, just once, then dragged him out the front door onto the street. Pinkey had hidden in the alley, “just like an ol’ dog licking his wounds,” he mumbled to himself and wished the Mormon bishop’s dogs would come find him and take him home.

  He sat with his head tipped back against the brick wall. Now all he could think of was his wife, Janine … the night in Hardin when both of them had ended up cut and kicked and had hidden out in an alley just like this one while their noses bled and after a while she had leaned over and wiped Pinkey’s face with a dirty red kerchief he kept in his back pocket to wipe the long blade of his pocketknife after castrating or earmarking a calf. How sometime later that night they had ended up lying under a stock truck in the parking lot and made love hurriedly and drunkenly with their pants twisted down their legs, and how afterward she had felt something wet on her shirt, right over her breast and said, “I think it’s milk,” but later, in the daylight, found that a bad U-joint had leaked grease, but knew she was pregnant anyway and nine months later to the day gave birth to their one son, Vincent.

  Pinkey did not drink all the time then as he did now, because he had her, and they rode together on some of the big Montana outfits and it was a long way to town. When he did drink it was with her, when they went on a party after shipping or branding or calving, and it was just for one or two nights, nothing more; then they went back to cow camp or headquarters and ate a big breakfast to soak up the alcohol in their bodies and rode for another two or three months before they saw a town again.

  But it was always there. The bottle. Sometimes, riding in the high country, he thought he saw it shimmering behind a screen of pines, or lying at the bottom of a river, some kind of call, like the way a priest is called, he thought, but it was a beckoning to a physical place he wanted to hide his eyes from, some brightness into which he could not help but fall.

  Janine had tethered him in a way no one else in his life had. The night she cut that line, not a night like in Hardin, but a night when the baby had colic so bad he cried for four nights and days and Pinkey had left because he couldn’t stand the sound of such human agony. He had not even gone to the bar—that was the thing that always got him—but had only slept in the barn as in Depression days when people took beds and food where they could and were at the mercy of strangers.

  And when he had gone back home the baby was well but Janine was so tired she had aged and Pinkey’s things were packed and she would not let him enter the house. That night, he heeded the other calling. He knew he should have fought to stay, implored, demanded, slept at the front door until she let him in, but he gave up without any fight whatever. That was the September night a cloud rolled in and, backing into it, he felt the moisture on his neck, and in the next second, it swallowed him.

  Pinkey dabbed at his face, though the blood had dried, then went into the Medicine Wheel Bar.

  Inside the rear door Pinkey tripped on a junkpile: a 410 shotgun with a broken stock, three rolls of pitted barbed wire, and a box of rusted D-rings and buckles.

  “Is that your dowry?” he asked a man wearing a red neck scarf.

  “That’s Jimmy Luster’s stuff. Backed his wagon to the door last night and just started auctioneering things off. Said his old lady quit him and he was going to travel light for a while.”

  Pinkey stared at the goods on the floor. “Did Jimmy say where he was headed?”

  “Didn’t know,” the old cowboy said. “See, the thing is, he just found out his kid was killed in the Pacific. Them Japs sank his ship and he was in some kind of lifeboat deal for a week and he went plumb nuts. Jumped overboard. Couldn’t swim.”

  Pinkey looked out the front windows of the bar. The bright morning light hurt his eyes. Fat flakes of snow were falling fast. “He’ll just winterkill out there,” he muttered as if talking about himself. He drank for the rest of the day.

  McKay reached Pinkey’
s cow camp at noon. The snow was knee-deep. For a while, the sky cleared and what was left of the moisture in the blue air sprinkled down like glitter. Pinkey’s mare was gone. That meant he had ridden to the bar. McKay hobbled his horse and let him eat the mare’s hay. Then he went inside the cabin and lit a fire. The cabin was damp. There was food on the shelves but it had been chewed by mice. McKay reset the three sprung traps and warmed himself by the stove.

  He had been a little boy when Pinkey first came to work at the ranch. He taught McKay how to rope, how to handle a calf on the ground during branding, how to split wood, how to tell if it was going to rain by the look of the entrance to an anthill, how to kill a sage hen with a rock and barbecue it for dinner … and how to drink enough Cobb’s Creek—a special brand of whiskey no one else had ever heard of—to keep aches of all kinds, saddle sores, and stiffness at bay.

  When he was fourteen and he and his father and Pinkey were moving cattle to spring range, and he had accidentally let the calves get separated from their mothers and run back, RJ was so mad at McKay he took his rope down and chased the boy through the sage. McKay ran as fast as he could, but his father was swinging the lariat at his back, hitting him sometimes, and when McKay tripped, his father’s horse had to jump over the top of him. McKay lay on the ground with his hands over the top of his head. He was too scared to cry. Then RJ stepped off his horse and, standing over McKay, said, “It’s all over now,” by which he meant the incident should be forgotten.

  After, McKay had gone with Pinkey to cow camp. They picketed their horses and grained them. Inside, Pinkey looked at the boy. “You did good, kid. My daddy whupped me a few times and I wasn’t near so brave.” Then he cooked a dinner of elk steaks, potatoes, and gravy. Even now, when they bunked up together, Pinkey always asked McKay if he was hungry and he always was and Pinkey cooked for him.

  Now he sometimes wondered if Pinkey was worth the bother. He was always “elsewhere” when there was work to be done—“elsewhere” being the bar—and McKay was tired of working alone.

  “There’s no fun in it,” he told himself and thought glumly that there wasn’t even anyone to tell that to. After his parents died, he had kept thinking he could at least write to them, tell them what he was doing on the ranch, what decisions he and his brothers had made for the coming year: how he had decided to cull the cows for lower birth weights and higher conception rates, how they had bought twenty bulls at a sale up in Montana, and about the colts he was breaking. He resolved to write his brother Ted a letter.

  The cabin was warm now. McKay swept the floor and wiped the table. After the coffee boiled and he drank some, he closed down the stove and rode home. On the way he picked up straggling cows and calves—the ones the storm had not brought down. They plowed through fresh snow and by the time McKay rode through the last gate, he counted 150 pairs.

  Pinkey found his dentures on the sidewalk between the Cactus and the Silver Spur bars and lost them a third time. A tremor had begun in his neck and passed all the way down to his fingertips and legs so even his knees shook when he walked. A pickup full of young cowboys passed.

  “Come on up to the Outlaw and we’ll buy you a drink,” one of them yelled.

  Pinkey looked up. A face in the cab gave him a start. It was his son, Vincent. Pinkey dove into an alley. His empty stomach convulsed.

  “Dad?”

  Pinkey supported himself between the brick walls of two buildings and looked up. “I thought you was up to the Outlaw,” he said, trying to straighten up. He had wanted to see his son. He always wanted to see him. It was a hunger like the tug of a good woman in town, but stronger. He remembered he had promised he would take the cure.

  “I came back to say hello. You in town for a couple of days?”

  “You could say that,” Pinkey replied dryly. “Oh Christ, I’m gonna be sick. You better go.”

  The dry heaves scratched up through Pinkey’s body and ended in his open mouth. He gasped and spit. Vincent held his father’s head until the nausea passed.

  Pinkey looked at his son. “When did you get so growed up?”

  The young man shrugged shyly but the wounded look in his eyes was there. Pinkey knew the look and concluded he needed one last drink before he quit for good. They walked to the Cactus. Pinkey had already forgotten he had been kicked out of there once that day. A row of icicles fell from the eaves of the building and speared a hump of drifted snow behind their backs. They went in. Tall, lithe, and slender, Vincent had a broad face that bore the scars of acne and from under his tall-crowned black hat, two braids hung down.

  “Who’s your friend?” the bartender asked.

  “This is my kid, Vincent,” Pinkey replied proudly.

  “The hell …”

  “His mother’s Crow; that’s why he’s so tall and good-looking.”

  “Yea, but who’s the father?” one of the drunks yelled from the back of the bar. The chirp in his voice sounded more like choking.

  “Well I’ve never seen a half-breed looks like that,” the bartender said.

  “That’s because you’ve never been two steps out of this sonofabitchin’ Mormon town.” Then Pinkey stood on his toes and leaned toward the barkeep. “The whole goddamned country is breeds. We’re all half this and half that and half something else, and any one of you show me some thoroughbred blood and I’ll show you a phony sonofabitch.”

  Pinkey stepped back from the bar. He was still mad about the NO JAP sign. He turned, kicked the jukebox until it lit up and played a tune, then followed Vincent to the street.

  “Hey, Pinkey, you owe me for the drinks,” the barman yelled.

  When Pinkey reached the sidewalk he slipped on the ice. Vincent helped him to his feet.

  “I’d better catch that ride back to the ranch,” Vincent mumbled. “You got wheels?”

  “Yea, sure,” Pinkey said. The color had drained from his face. He watched Vincent walk east along Main Street. He moved like a wildcat, Pinkey thought. Smooth and swift and careful. Maybe I’m not the kid’s daddy, he thought, then brushed the snow from his new coat, adjusted the gray Stetson, and walked the opposite direction, toward Snuff’s and home.

  Stores gave way to small frame and brick houses where lawns burned under the snow. Pinkey’s hat was cocked sideways on his head and his legs were so bowed. A few dogs barked as he passed. He smiled as though acknowledging applause. Past the last house the sky closed down like a dark awning unreeled from the mountains, lowering what Pinkey thought of as infinity, all the way down to the pint bottle in his back pocket from which he stopped to drink. A skunk ran out from behind a rosebush. Pinkey howled with laughter, brushing against the red blossoms already skewed by heavy snow. He wiped his mouth as the liquor slid down. The skunk zigzagged down the road, the stripe on its back crossing the road’s white line, like crossing his t’s and Pinkey thought the highway would spell out messages for him if he walked far enough along its edge.

  The dogs came out from behind the Mormon church and trotted at Pinkey’s heels. “Hello, Bishops,” he said and clucked to them. For twelve years he had trained the stock dogs at McKay’s ranch. He didn’t have any theories or methods. “It’s just a meeting of minds,” he liked to say. He was happy now. He had wanted company and now he had these dogs. They were the Mormon bishop’s Border collies, raised to work sheep. Pinkey laughed when he thought how mad the old bishop would be when he found they were gone.

  He looked at the sky. The clouds had curdled and thickened. Sure enough, the penis cloud he had seen the day before had knocked up some old gal and now there was this.

  Pinkey stood on the side of the highway and looked west. A red and white grain truck approached. The dogs sprinted ahead, leaping up and changing directions midair to chase the truck. “Atta boys, get ’em out, way around,” Pinkey yelled, then he took another swallow from the pint bottle. The dogs came back to him and jumped up on his leg and he patted their heads.

  Another loaded truck barreled toward them and the dogs re
peated their act. Pinkey crouched down and followed the action with his head like a first base coach. They nipped at the hubcaps. Pinkey whistled and they came back to him and licked his face. Then he stood. The road was empty. No trucks, no cars. The snow had started again so he and the dogs clambered down into the borrow pit. Like swimmers, they waded through tall grass, their feet rolling over discarded beer bottles as they walked.

  Finally the headlights of a car appeared. Pinkey crawled to the road, clutching at bunchgrass. The headlights bore down on him. “You jacklightin’ sonofabitch.” Then the lights were on him like crossed eyes. He crouched down, barking in unison with the dogs, a magnificent high-pitched crooning cut off suddenly by a whomp.

  The car shuddered, fishtailed, and slid to a stop. A cyclone fence on the far side of the borrow pit vibrated. Pinkey, half sprawled against the fence and half on the ground, moaned.

  The driver of the car ran to the collapsed figure. “God almighty, mister, are you …?”

  Pinkey looked up. The man crouching over him had dark eyes. Like Vincent’s. Was this Vincent? No. Then Pinkey remembered why he had come to town that day. It was Vincent’s birthday and until now, he had forgotten.

  “You killed me, you sonofabitch,” Pinkey said.

  The driver dropped to his knees.

  “Well hell, I ain’t really dead,” Pinkey said, grinning.

  The driver just looked at him.

  “I know I’m good-lookin’, but don’t stare. Take me to the hospital. I think my leg’s busted.”

  The man pulled his jacket off and spread it across Pinkey’s chest. “I’m sorry, man, I’m really sorry.”