THE CHICKENS ARRIVED, A ROBUST, STRINGY LOT WITH PARTICOLORED feathers. Only two had succumbed to the rigors of the journey, and they were eaten for dinner. Imogene’s saplings arrived on the same coach; their wavering green tops, frosted white with alkali dust, gave the mudwagon the look of a grizzled old head. Mac and Noisy supervised the planting from the shade of the porch, giving suggestions and speculating on their chances of survival. Noisy was pessimistic, but Mac figured they’d live out the week.
Summer ended abruptly. Imogene’s saplings, planted in a neat line around the house’s side yard, lost their leaves almost overnight, and a biting wind blew out of the northwest all autumn and through December. Slate-colored clouds scudded dry and cold across a dome of scoured blue.
The valley was too dry for snow, but the mountain peaks were white, and frost covered the ground through February and March. Imogene made the trip by wagon the eighty miles to Loyalton to get hay. She was gone nearly a week, and Sarah ran the stop alone. On her return they spent the better part of two days breaking the bales into manageable lots.
The weather stayed bitter through April but held a suggestion of softness in the afternoons, and rain fell in cold scattered showers, the progress of a lone thunderhead often visible as it carried its dark streamers of rain over the face of the desert. High-voiced new frogs peeped from the spring, and the winter black of the sage was taking on a greenish cast. By the end of May, the bitterbrush was in bloom and spiny yellow and blue flowers half as big as a penny and close to the ground appeared along the road where the water settled in the swale. Jackrabbits and cottontails the size of a woman’s hand grazed fearlessly on the short, coarse grass by the meadow’s edge. Occasionally a coyote, tempted by the easy game and a winter’s lean belly, would hunt them in the daylight, and the nights were filled with coyote song as they called to unseen mates over the Smoke Creek.
The coach out of Reno rattled through the crisp spring air, the dust from the horses’ hooves and the wheels plumed up behind for three hundred yards. About a mile from the house, waist-deep in the fragrant sage, Imogene shifted the carcasses of two freshly killed quail and shaded her eyes to watch the mudwagon. Van Fleet’s old coat hung from her shoulders down past her hips, its mottled blue-and-brown plaid stained with use and the blood of rabbit, squirrel, and deer. The sleeves were too short and her bony wrists stuck out several inches. The dress she wore was faded and patched, an old housedress she reserved for hunting; it had shrunk over the years and didn’t quite reach the top of her wide-toed, lace-up, men’s boots-her tramping boots, Sarah called them.
Noisy was the first to look her way; she waved and started for the road. Noisy Dave hollered and waved back. Mac, half-asleep beside him on the high seat, jerked upright. Head bare to the weather, the Henry Repeater held easily in the crook of her left arm, Imogene strode through the brush.
“You’re a ways from home, Miss Grelznik,” Mac said as Noisy reined up. Several passengers craned their necks out the side windows to catch sight of her. Imogene had become a character people talked about even in Reno.
“Can we give you a lift home?” Mac asked.
“That would be nice,” Imogene thanked him. “Sarah ought to have lunch on; we’ll get there while it’s hot.”
Mac jumped to the ground and handed her up, as gallant a gentleman as if she were in satin slippers and a taffeta gown. When she was settled between them, Noisy shook the reins and hollered instructions to the lead team. The horses, excited by the smell of water and the sight of the barn, needed no second invitation and started off at a good clip. Noisy, hunched forward, his round belly on his knees, the leather leads strung between his fingers so that he resembled a puppet master, looked over at Imogene. “You want to give it a try? Take the wagon in?”
“No, thanks,” she laughed. “Two horses are enough for me, and it took me a while to learn to handle that. We must walk before we run. Maybe next year.”
A rut, cut in the roadbed by an old wash and revived by flash floods during the spring rains, jolted the coach, and a gunnysack hung on a post by the seat yelped and whined. “I near forgot,” Noisy said. “Mac and me brought you and little Mrs. Ebbitt a present.” Spitting a graceful arc of tobacco juice over the side, he lifted the sack free and dumped it unceremoniously on Imogene’s lap. “It’s tied up tight, better leave it like that, he’s a feisty little feller. I think he’s too little to bite you through the sacking, but I wouldn’t trust him far as I could throw him, if I was you.” Imogene held the bundle carefully, trying to protect it from the jolting of the ride.
“It’s a coyote pup,” Mac explained. “Don’t know if he’ll live or not, he’s pretty small. Noisy here spotted him off to the side of the road. The bitch had been shot-must’ve been near the den, because three pups had come out to her. The pups were no more’n three or four weeks old. This little fella was the only one left alive. Just bones, tail, and ears. He was so weak he couldn’t hardly stand, but he bit old Dave a good one.” Mac laughed.
“Damn pup,” Noisy growled amiably. “Be a good dog if somebody don’t kill him first.”
The pup stirred inside the burlap bag and Imogene laid her hand on it. She snatched it back quickly. “He was trying to bite me through the sack!”
“He’s quite a pup,” Noisy agreed.
“Watch him, Miss Grelznik, pups’ve got teeth like needles. You want me to hold him?” Mac offered.
Imogene shook her head and arranged her skirts around the swaddled coyote so he couldn’t reach her with his teeth.
The coach rolled into the inn yard and Noisy pulled up before the steps. “Sarah!” Imogene called as she climbed down. “Sarah Mary!” The door burst open and Sarah darted out of the house, her apron clutched up under her chin in both hands.
“Look who’s come out to meet us! Maybe it’s my birthday or something and I don’t know it,” Mac teased.
“Imogene,” she gasped, grabbing the older woman’s arm, “a rat chased me out of the kitchen. It stood up on its hind legs and jumped at me. It was huge.” She held her hands, one above the other, about a foot apart. “This tall.”
“A rat ran after you on its back legs?” Imogene tried not to sound incredulous.
“Jumped at me.” The coach door opened and a round-but-tocked man backed out. Sarah made a couple of little hops to demonstrate the tactics of her attacker.
Mac laughed. “Must’ve been a kangaroo rat.”
“Mac,” Imogene admonished, “it scared her.”
He looked hurt. “I’m not fooling. Kangaroo rats come out around this time of year. About so high, big-bottomed, long tails-they hop around like kangaroos.”
Imogene and Sarah eyed him warily.
“It’s the truth if I ever told it,” he protested.
Sarah glanced nervously over her shoulder at the passengers emerging from the coach, knocking the dust from their clothes. “I better be getting on with lunch,” she murmured.
Imogene handed her the quail. “These ought to go in the icehouse unless we’re having them for supper tonight.”
“Just chase that kangaroo rat out with a broom or something,” Mac hollered after her. “He’ll leave you alone.”
“She don’t mix with folks much,” Noisy said.
“Sarah’s a shy little thing,” Mac admitted, “till she gets to know you.”
“She’s better.” Imogene held the gunnysack away from her. It was wet and beginning to smell. She hung it back over the post by the seat. “Sarah works herself to death, thinking she has to make up for letting me meet the coaches and take care of the customers. She’s quite a cook. And she can skin a rabbit in half the time it takes me.”
Imogene greeted the passengers as Mac and Noisy busied themselves with the livestock. It wasn’t until after lunch had been served and cleared away that Imogene remembered the coyote pup.
The gunnysack hung slack on the post, looking empty. In the bottom, a slight widening indicated the pup. Imogene cupped the inert form in one hand and lifted the sack free. “Hey, little fella,” she called softly. There was no answering squirm. She carried the puppy, still wrapped in the sack, into the kitchen, away from the noise of the dining hall. Sarah was doing the dishes, humming a song to herself in a sweet, high voice. Gently, Imogene set her burden on the plank tabletop and unwrapped it.
“What’ve you got there?” Sarah dried her hands and came over to the table.
“A coyote pup. I’m afraid I’ve killed it. I forgot about it and left it out in the sun.” She freed the small form from its burlap prison and stroked the dirty fur. The puppy, light brown and feathery-tailed, was no longer than her two hands. He was gaunt, and his fur was caked with his own filth. “He’s breathing, I think.” Imogene rested her hand lightly on the tiny ribcage. “I’ll put him someplace cool and maybe he’ll come around.”
Sarah got a wet cloth and squeezed a few drops of water on the pointed nose. A pink tongue flickered out. The fur around the pup’s mouth was crusted with dirt and stood out in spikes.
“He looks as though he’s got moss growing on his jaws,” Imogene remarked. “The water seems to be helping.” When the pup ceased to accept water, they laid him on the back porch, near the trap to a small cellar, where it was cool. They folded the burlap bag into a cushion and sat a bowl of water nearby. Sarah left the door ajar so she could listen for him.
In the middle of the afternoon, much recovered, the little dog tottered out of his nest. Sarah was at the kitchen table peeling and dicing onions. He growled, a sound so small it was almost a purr, and Sarah looked up.
“Hello, little moss-face,” she said softly. He growled again. “Don’t you growl. You’re too little to growl.” Talking reassuringly all the while, Sarah slid out of her chair and sprawled prone on the floor propped up on her elbows.
When Mac and Imogene came in from the barn an hour later, Sarah had coaxed the little animal onto her lap and was squeezing milk into its mouth from a badly chewed corner of her dishcloth.
Imogene pulled off her work gloves and knelt beside them. Mac, leaning in the doorway, pushed back his battered hat and wiped away the perspiration with his forearm. “Wish you gals would get yourself a hired hand. Bucking hay and mucking out ain’t women’s work. Nor an old man’s, neither.” He scrubbed his grizzled stubble with his finger stumps. “You’ll bust something inside, you keep at it, Miss Grelznik.”
“I’m strong as an ox, Mac, you’ve said so yourself. There’s a lot of men that don’t work as hard as I do.”
“Still and all…”
Imogene reached out to stroke the pup’s fur, but he growled at her, a funny gurgling sound through the milk. Sarah looked up. “Mac, will he kill my chicks, do you think?”
“He might. ’Less you teach him different. You maybe could teach him, coyotes are smart beggars.”
“How do I teach him?”
“First time you catch him messing around the chickens, hit him between the eyes with a two-by-four. That’s got to get his attention. Then just tell him real nice not to do it.”
Dinner was over. A fire crackled in the stone hearth at the end of the dining hall away from the bar. Most of the clientele had left on the northbound for Fort Bidwell. Two wagoners played checkers at a table near the bar. Noisy was gone, opting to sleep outside to save money, though the temperature still dropped below freezing most nights. He was going to retire when he’d saved enough, he said, find the fat of the land and a rich widow, and live off them. Mac and Imogene sat near the fire, their chairs drawn up close to the blaze, nursing their after-dinner coffee. Except for a kerosene lamp turned low over the checker game, the fire was the only light in the room.
“Sarah still playing with her new dog?” Mac asked.
Imogene smiled. “I imagine. She set about making a bed for him out of an old crate so the little fellow won’t get cold. She’s good with small, timid things.”
“She’s got a feeling for what it’s like being scared, maybe. Creatures can sense a person’s insides that way. That little gal is doing fine. I never figured her for a life as hard as this, but she’s doing okay.”
“Sarah Mary is stronger than she thinks.”
Mac slurped his coffee noisily and stared into the fire. The sound of the checkers slapping down mixed pleasantly with the pop of the burning pitch. A spark flew out and Imogene reached for the shovel.
“There is no Mr. Ebbitt, is there?” Mac asked.
Imogene scooped up the burning ember and threw it back in the fire. “That’s right, Mac. I forged his name on the lease.”
For a long time, neither of them said anything. The fire burned low and-more for something to do than from necessity, since it was warm so near the hearth-Mac threw another log on the grate.
“You two gals oughtn’t to be trying to run this place alone. It’s rough country out here.”
“We’re doing all right.”
“I expect you are. Better’n some. Food’s a damn sight better, but the place is looking rundown, needs some paint and nails.”
“I can do it, Mac.”
“I’ll give you a hand when I can.”
“You’re not going to tell Mr. Jensen?”
“No, I ain’t.”
Imogene leaned back in her chair, her eyes resting on Mac’s gnarled old face.
“Thanks, Mac.”
“Mr. Ebbitt dead?” Mac asked after a while. “Or don’t he exist? Nate was poking around the Wells Fargo office, asking questions, soon as Sheriff Graff let him out.”
“Mr. Ebbitt is real and living, the last we heard. Sarah writes home every day, and her mother gets a letter to us every six weeks or so. What did Mr. Jensen tell Nate?”
“That Mr. Ebbitt was coming to join his wife and that was that. Nate got thoroughly drunk and got himself thrown back in the hoosegow. Soon as he was let out again, he unloaded that farm he bought and lit out for the mines down Washoe way. Weldrick ain’t a bad feller. A girl could do worse.”
Sarah came in from the kitchen, carrying an unlit candle.
“How is your coyote doing?” Imogene stretched out her hand and Sarah took it, perching on the arm of the chair.
“He’s still pretty skittish. He won’t really come to me unless he’s hungry. But he’s better-he’ll be tame in no time. And he eats a lot.”
“What’re you going to name him?” Mac threw the last of his coffee into the fire, and there was a hiss and a momentary dark spot on the log. “What was that you were calling him this afternoon? Moss Face? That’s a good name for a prickly-jawed little coyote.”
“No. I’m going to name him something pretty. Maybe something Indian or something.”
“Are you heading for bed now?” Imogene asked.
Sarah nodded and stifled a yawn.
“Need a light?” Mac asked. Sarah held out her candle. He struck a match against the sole of his boot and lit it for her. At that moment there was a banging on the door.
“Who the hell could that be?” Mac growled. “It’s damn near ten o’clock.” Imogene started for the door, but Mac stopped her. “Let me get it. Nobody just happens by this part of the country in the middle of the night.” He grunted and pushed himself to his feet. The checker players paused in their game to see who the latecomer was.
Mac opened the door and Sarah screamed. Leaning in the doorway was a man with no pants. A grimy red plaid shirttail fell over the man’s bare buttocks and gaped open at the front under his vest and short jacket, exposing a matted thatch of dark hair. His legs and thighs were burnt lobster-red, and tiny white blisters pushed through the skin like mushrooms. Both of his feet were bare and swollen to twice their normal size. Behind him on the porch, brown footprints in blood showed the way he had come. Blinking at the light, he dragged his hat off and clutched it respectfully in one hand. In the other was an army canteen. A short growth of beard shadowed his mouth and jaw, white streaked his hair at the temples. He was around forty years old, tall and lean. As they gaped, he slumped against the doorframe and fell to his knees. Mac caught him before he pitched forward onto the floor.
“Sarah, put on some washwater,” Imogene ordered. “We’ll see to him in the kitchen.” Sarah tore her eyes away and ran from the room.
The wagoners left their checker game to help Mac carry the man into the kitchen. He was coming to his senses and they half-carried, half-dragged him between them, stopping just long enough to snatch a cloth from one of the tables and tie it around his waist. He was conscious enough to sit up while Imogene bathed his feet in warm water and Sarah made cold compresses for his sunburnt legs.
The man was slow of speech and stunned from the sun and the miles barefoot across the desert, but after drinking a generous glass of corn whiskey, he managed to tell his tale.
His name was Karl Saunders. He had been riding across country from Deep Hole to the Indian settlement at Pyramid Lake-not on business, he had a friend there. He carried only a little money and his saddle was old and cheap. Three young men, the oldest not yet twenty, had overtaken him southwest of the coach road about ten miles east of Round Hole. They had stolen his horse, his gun, and, as a joke, his boots and pants. They’d left him his canteen and told him there was a stage stop a few miles to the west. He’d walked barefoot through the desert to Round Hole.
Sarah tore an old bedsheet into strips, and Imogene bound his lacerated feet loosely. Kindness crippled him. When to walk was to live, he’d walked miles over rock and broken ground without boots, but under the compassionate ministrations of the women, he could no longer stand. Mac and one of the drivers carried him onto the back porch, where Sarah and Imogene had hastily improvised a bed of flour sacks and horse blankets. Sarah sent Mac upstairs to fetch a blanket and pillow from the men’s quarters. The bright eyes of the coyote pup peered out at the proceedings from the hiding place he’d burrowed in his bedding.
In the morning, before sunrise, when Sarah came to start breakfast, there was already a light showing under the kitchen door. She pulled it open a few inches and peeked in. Karl Saunders stood hunched over the drainboard, his long legs spread wide so he would be closer to his work surface. He wore his blanket tied around his waist, and the shirt and vest they’d put him to bed in. His feet were still bound, mummylike, in the cotton windings. Sarah hovered, poised in the doorway, unsure whether to go in or run away.
He felt her eyes on him and turned slowly from his task. “Morning, missus.” His smile was warm and childlike in the rough face. He was easily as tall as Imogene.
“Good morning, Mr. Saunders.” Sarah slipped in, staying near the door. Karl had a belly that hung down over his twine belt; it began to throb and pulse independently, and Sarah stared, transfixed. The small pointed nose of the coyote pup thrust through Karl’s open shirtfront, and Sarah laughed. Charmed, she crossed the kitchen, her fear of Karl gone. “He’s took a shine to me,” Karl said, and smiled down into the bright brown eyes. “You got cold by yourself with no ma, and come to sleep with old Karl, didn’t you?”
Already at ease with this big simple man, Sarah stroked the ears of the pup as it peeked out from its hammock in Karl’s shirt.
“I’m peeling,” the man said, and gestured to a pile of carefully skinned potatoes on the sink sideboard.
“You oughtn’t to be standing on your feet.” Sarah got him a bowl for the leavings and settled him at the table. “There’s a lot needs doing. The morning stage from Buffalo Meadows is due in today. Mac and Noisy run the folks on down to Reno.”
“Good slop pickings,” Karl observed. “Ought to have a hog.” And with less furor than the coyote pup had caused, Sarah assimilated Karl into life at the stage stop.
As Noisy steadied the horses and Imogene helped the passengers aboard, Mac glanced back into the shadowed interior of the bar. Karl, wearing a pair of overalls that Van Fleet had left, shuffled after Sarah, carrying a tray heaped with dirty dishes. Moss Face trotted close at his heels. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a couple of strays,” Mac commented.
Imogene followed his gaze. “Mr. Saunders can stay until his feet heal.”
“Maybe you ought to hire him on,” Mac urged. “Big fellow. Might make you a good hand.”
Imogene watched Karl, a quiet ambling man, following in Sarah’s wake, seemingly content to help with the house chores and talk to the puppy. “He can stay as long as he likes,” she said.