He went through the land of blue-green sage clumps, leaning into the wind whipping over low hills, walking alone. There weren't any cars or people. More sage, more hills, more wind, but no human trace but the road beneath him like a main street of some vanished civilization. Open range, there were no fences or water tanks. He looked at his Road Atlas and guessed that he was a little ways up into South Dakota, a little below the Bear in the Lodge River with the Rosebud Indian Reservation to the east and the Pine Ridge to the north. He tried to remember who it was he'd seen in the same situation. Randolph Scott? Audie Murphy? Brian checked the sun's position to reassure himself that he was heading in the right direction. There was nothing else to tell by. A patch of hill suddenly broke free into a butternut cluster of high-rumped antelope, springing away from him. He was in The West.
He had been walking on the road for over an hour when an old Ford pickup clattered to a halt next to him. A swarthy, smooth-faced man wearing a green John Deere cap stuck his head out.
"Who you workin for?" he called.
"Huh?"
"Who you workin for? Whose place you headed?"
"I'm not working for anybody," said Brian. "I'm trying to hitch west."
"Oh. I thought you were a hand. S'gonna give you a ride over to whatever outfit you're headed for."
Brian tried not to look too pleased. Thought he was a hand. "No, I'm just hitching. I was walking up to the Interstate."
"You got a hell of a walk. That's twenty miles up."
"But the guy said it was only five."
"What guy?"
"The old guy back there. He's got a buffalo."
"Sprague? You can't listen to him, son. A nice fella, but he's a little bit touched. Got a sign up on go, says it's only five miles to his place. Figured nobody's gonna bother, they know the real story, and he's right. Guess he's started to believe his own publicity." -
"Oh."
"But you hop in anyway. I'm goin up that area in a while." Brian tossed his duffel bag in the back and got in with the man. "J.C. Shangreau," he said, offering his hand. "I'll get you north surer than most anything else you're likely to catch on this road. If you don't mind a few side trips."
Brian had to kick a shotgun wrapped in burlap under the seat to make room for his legs. "Don't mind at all."
"Got to pick up some hands to help me work my horses." Shangreau had quite a few gold teeth in his mouth and very bloodshot eyes. "Got me a couple sections up there, I run seventy-five head. Gonna have ourselves a cuttin bee if I can roust out enough of these boys."
They turned off left on one of the access roads and began to pass clusters of small trailer houses propped on cinder block. Shangreau stopped at one, went to the door and talked a bit, then came back alone.
"Hasn't recovered from last night yet. Can't say as I have either. There was nothin to celebrate, cept it being another Friday, but I did a job of it. You know when your teeth feel rubbery in the morning?"
Brian wasn't used to adults asking him hangover questions. "Yeah."
"That's the kind of bag I got on. Rubber-toothed."
He stopped at another trailer with no luck. This one hadn't come home overnight.
"Hope he's feelin good now, cause there's an ambush waitin at home for him. I had a big one like that in the kitchen I'd think twice about carryin on. She'll just squeeze all the good time right out of that man."
"Many of these people around here Indian?" Brian asked it noncommittally, fishing. The drill-rigger the night before had gone on and on about how the Indians and the coyotes should have been wiped out long ago.
"Oh sure," said Shangreau, "most of em. Not many purebred though, things being what they are. Most of these boys I'm after is at least half or more Indian. You got your Ogalala around here, your Hunkpapa and the rest. I'm a good quarter Sioux myself. Old Jim Crow who we're headin after now is maybe seven-eighths, fifteen-sixteenths, something like that. It's hard to keep count. Jim has got three or four tribes to start with, his mother was part Flathead as I recall, and then he's got white and I wouldn't be surprised if one of them buffalo soldiers didn't slip in a little black blood way back when. But you won't see too many purebred, less we catch Bad Heart at home, and he's another story altogether. What are you?"
"Irish."
"Me too, a good quarter. Monaghans."
They came to a pair of trailer houses that had been butted up together. A dozen fat little children wearing glasses ran barefoot out front. An older fat boy with extrathick glasses and a silver-sprayed cowboy hat chased them, tossing a lasso at their legs. Brian got out of the pickup with Shangreau and a round, sad-looking man met them at the door to the first trailer.
"I see you're bright-eyed an bushy-tailed as everone else is this mornin," said J.C. "Them horses don't have much competition today, it looks like. Jim Crow, this here's Brian."
"Hey."
Jim Crow nodded. He was wearing nothing but flannel pajama bottoms and his belly hung over. His slant eyes and mournful expression made him kind of Mongoloid-looking.
"You know anyone else could join us? Couple of my possibilities crapped out on me."
"My brother-law's here from over the Rosebud. Sam. I'll ask him. And Raymond could come along. Raymond!"
The boy in the silver cowboy hat turned from where he had just cut a little sister out from the herd.
"You're coming along with us to work J.C.'s horses. Go tell your ma."
Raymond left the little sister to untie herself and ran off looking happy.
Sam was a little older and a little heavier than Jim Crow and had blue eyes. Brian sat in front between J.C. and Crow while Raymond and Sam were open in the back. Raymond's hat blew off almost immediately and they had to stop for him to run get it. His father told him to sit on it till they got to J.C.'s.
They stopped next at a lone trailer still on its wheels to pick up a young man called Jackson Blackroot. All the men got out and went to the door to try and catch a glimpse of Blackroot's new wife, who was supposed to be a looker. She obliged by coming out to say Hello boys and offer to make coffee. They turned it down, suddenly shy. She was dark and thin and reasonably pretty though Brian didn't see anything outstanding. Jackson was a friendly young guy with a big white smile who looked like an Italian. He shook Brian's hand and said he was pleased to meet him.
Bad Heart's trailer was alone too, a little box of a thing sitting on a hill. J.C. stopped out front and honked once.
"Be surprised if he's there," whispered Crow.
"If he is I be surprised if he shows himself."
They waited for a few minutes with the motor running and Shangreau had the pickup in gear when a short, pockscarred man emerged from the trailer and hopped in the rear without a greeting.
It was a long bumpy way up to Shangreau's ranch and he did most of what little talking went on. The other men seemed to know each other and about each other but weren't particularly comfortable riding together.
"Brian," asked J.C., "you in any big hurry to get up there?"
Brian shrugged.
"I mean if you're not you might's well stop for lunch with us, look on when we work the horses. Hell, you can join the party if you're careful, can always use an extra hand when we're cutting."