that keep him broke,” Dalt said, winking at Kelsey.
“Well, it sure is a nice way to go in debt,” Jake murmured.
The gong rang, announcing the noon meal, sending a clear ping-a-ling across the wet day.
“Hurry up,” Dalt said as they walked toward the house. “Hope Hilder had better luck with his pie today. Last one was all fruit and one before was all crust. Looks like he could strike a happy medium.”
“I want to take another look at that calf his mama wouldn’t claim,” Kelsey said. “Then I’ll be in to eat.”
“He’s fine,” Jake said. “A man’d think he was related to you, the way you fuss over him.”
Kelsey hurried on to the barn. The calf was in the back stall, fenced off from the rest of the barn. It thrust a wet, cold nose through the bars. Kelsey smiled and put his hand on the white face. “Now, young Robin O’Dair,” he said softly, “you look better than you did two weeks ago when I carried you in—and you can’t be hungry again!” The calf sucked at his hand. He fondled it a few minutes longer, wishing it belonged to him instead of to Monte Maguire.
When he left the barn he saw the storm had broken and tatters of cloud were streaming over the shoulder of the hogback, drifting between the aspen trees like smoke. “The creepin’ Johnnies are with us,” he said to himself, and thought suddenly of his mother, Taraleean, who always spoke of the fogs and mists as the creeping Johnnies. How close she seemed! And he stared at the long cloud-wreathed ridge and tried to hear again the sound of her voice. It was at night that he missed her most, drawing the rough, smelly blankets close to warm his loneliness. And it was at night too that he remembered his sisters with a closeness he had never felt for them when he was home. When he thought of them and of his mother, he missed also the Reverend Angus McCullough, who had been his father’s close friend and who had treated him like a son after John Cameron’s death. In the garden of the manse he had spent many pleasant hours with Reverend Mr. McCullough.
And what have I come to? he asked himself now, hurrying toward the house. What has this land to offer but cold and no green and a man’s back breaking from shoveling manure to build dikes in the meadows?
When he walked into the kitchen Tommy said, “You ride the upper ditch this afternoon, Kelsey. The big boss, Monte Maguire, oughta show up tonight. Gotta have everything checked and in top shape. But before you ride the upper ditch, fix that broken dam below the barn—in the upper part of the meadow. Take the sodboat and a load of manure from the corral.”
“And be sure you get it off’n your rubber boots when you come in for supper,” Hilder said. “We want things to smell good when the boss comes.”
As Tommy walked to the barn with him after the noon meal, Kelsey said, “I been talking to Jake. Jake says the only money’s to be made in cattle.”
“Well, he damn sure better talk that way. He’s cow foreman, ain’t he? That’s what he’s paid for, makin’ money with cattle.”
“If I could start a cow and calf—”
Tommy stopped and stared at him. “You got a debt to pay Big Mina Munro. You got a job—at least at the moment. You got a bed to sleep in and food to fill your belly. And, by God, you’re eatin’ your heart out to get a cow and calf! If you didn’t happen to be related to me I’d send you down the road talkin’ to yourself, so help me!”
“What’s wrong with a man dreaming and planning? Do you think I borrowed money and left Scotland just for a job? I’ve a right to have cattle, just as much right as any man.”
“Not here, you don’t. It ain’t Monte Maguire’s policy to let hired men run stock.” Tommy shook his head wonderingly. “Who the hell do you think you are, anyhow? Now, you listen, kiddo. Hook a team to that sodboat and get to spreadin’ manure. And then ride the upper ditch. Get the lead outta your pants or you won’t have a job at thirty bucks a month!”
Tommy brushed on past him. Kelsey stood for a moment outside the barn door, angry and a little puzzled by his cousin’s words.
Kelsey hooked the team to the sodboat, which was a long low contraption with a frame of two poles with the ends slanted up like sled runners. Over the poles boards were nailed to form a floor for carrying manure from the corrals to the meadow. As Kelsey drove up to the big manure pile at the corner of the barn, a movement caught his eye and he saw a muskrat come out of the slough. The slough was trickling with water that came from the springs in the willow clump above the house. The muskrat curled up in front of the manure pile, which was steaming in midday sun and warmed the muskrat’s back as a stove might have.
Kelsey leaned on the pitchfork, smiling. “Fancy that,” he said. Then he remembered Long Dalton had told him a man could pick up extra money from the pelts of coyotes, beaver, and muskrat. He took a step toward the animal, lifted the pitchfork, and then hesitated. “Go on with you,” he muttered. “I’ll not knock the life from you when your eyes are closed in sleeping and your back warm and not a care to trouble you. But I’m making you no future promises, mind you. And tomorrow you’d better stay in the willows.”
When the sodboat was loaded he put a shovel and a pitchfork in the pile of manure and drove down the meadow, standing up front, his feet set wide apart and braced. Water sloshed up between the boards and drained off brown with manure stain. He came to where the small dam had broken and mended it carefully, tramping down the manure with his rubber-booted feet.
Then he turned toward the hogback; on its lower slopes was the glitter of the outlets from the main ditch, where water spilled down at intervals. Below and parallel to the main ditch was the spread ditch, shaped shallow so that water poured over all its edges, sparkling like scattered diamonds in the sunlight. Farther down, below the spread ditch, furrows and laterals caught up the water again and spread it over the meadow. The whole system of irrigation fascinated Kelsey, and now another thought struck him. There was the way the cattle came onto the meadows in fall and were fed hay all winter; their manure fertilized the spring earth, bringing up new grass to become hay and feed them the next winter. “The wonderful economy of nature!” he exclaimed to himself.
Whistling, he stopped by one of the outlets of the main ditch, where the flow of water was controlled by sod and rock. He got off the sodboat and went to examine the outlet, which seemed to be spilling too much water. After digging sod, he packed the sides to prevent washing. Then he bent over the stones that were in the mouth of the opening. He started shifting them, as he had seen Dalt do to hold back some of the water.
His ear, always sensitive to sound, caught the change in the noise of the water; he moved a big rock, and it babbled forth in a different key. A smile came over his face and, forgetting his work, he began to play with the stones, arranging them this way and that, his head bent to catch the music. And suddenly, when a fine note struck his fancy, he burst out singing, tilting his red head back.
“Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair?”
He was back in Scotland. He was walking in the heather with Prim beside him and his arm about her, holding her so close they walked as one person. He closed his eyes and sang again, his heart reaching across the big valley, the mountains, and the far ocean, his singing saying the things he could never say in the letters he’d written at night by the feeble glow of the lantern.
He played with the stones and sang until he felt light and mellow and at peace with the world. Then he went back to the barn, saddled a horse, and rode the ditch
