Shortgrass Song Read online

  “That’s the puniest engine I ever seen,” Sam Dugan said. “It wouldn’t even hurt to get run over by that thing.”

  “You know what they use for a switch engine in Denver?” Piggin’ String McCoy asked. “A mule! I swear, that’s what the fellers said who was layin’ the tracks!”

  The D & RG and the Colorado Springs Company investors had brought their families from Denver to celebrate the laying of the tracks into the new town. What gave the occasion even more reason for celebration was the fact that the tracks had linked Denver with Colorado Springs exactly one year to the day after incorporation of the railroad.

  The railroad investors congregated at one end of the tent. The laborers lounged under the other, talking among themselves, waiting for the feast to begin. About half of them were busted miners and the other half itinerant Mexicans. Caleb noticed that the two groups stayed far enough apart that Buster could have driven his buggy between them had he been of a mind to.

  As the musicians began carrying their instruments to the small platform stage, one of the cooks lit lanterns around the inside of the circus tent, and others moved food to the serving table. A servant drove Amelia and her father to the tent in the surrey. Matthew appeared to help her step down. She wore a party dress of French organdy and a hat whose color clashed with Matthew’s tie. She made him take the tie off immediately.

  Captain Dubois told Buster to stick with the waltzes while the guests ate. “There will be plenty of time later for the quadrilles and gallopades,” he said.

  As the music started, the Holcomb Ranch cowboys fell in line to get some food. The fare included oyster soup, calf’s tongue, corned beef and cabbage, venison with apple sauce, minced ham with scrambled eggs, and sweet potato pie. Piggin’ String McCoy piled his plate so high that Sam Dugan was moved to remark, “Damn, String, they ought to have give you a plate with sideboards on it.”

  Captain Dubois made the three musicians stop playing for fifteen minutes during dinner so he could make a speech about the benefits the D & RG would bring to the Eastern Slope and about how the workers who had built the road into Colorado Springs had made history, establishing the first railroad in the region. Then he sat down to a round of applause led by Matthew, and the dancing commenced.

  The railroad workers just watched. They had no women to dance with. Some of the Mexicans whirled imaginary señoritas outside the tent when the polkas played, and a few local homestead couples danced among the railroad investors. But the dance music served little purpose for anyone other than the rich folks.

  Pete sat beside the stage and watched the proceedings until he saw Amelia approaching him, then he stood up and took off his hat, rolling the wide brim in his hand.

  “You would enjoy yourself more if you’d dance with some of the young ladies,” Amelia said, taking his arm with a surprising familiarity.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know any of ’em. They all came down from Denver.”

  “You know me.”

  “Well, Matthew’s already claimed you.”

  Amelia laughed. “Claimed me? I’m not one of your homesteads, Pete Holcomb.”

  Pete drew his head back. “You mean, he hasn’t asked you yet?”

  “Asked me what?”

  “He bought a ring and everything.”

  “He’s not thinking of asking me to marry him, is he?” She didn’t really seem surprised.

  “I thought he already did.”

  She laughed again and adjusted her hat. “Your brother thinks a lot of himself. I hope he can get his money back on the ring.”

  Pete shoved a hand into an empty pocket. “So do I,” he said. He felt a palm slap him on the shoulder and turned to see Matthew.

  “What are you doin’ over here with my gal?” Matthew said. “I can’t turn my back on Pete for one minute. You talk about a charmer with the ladies.” He snapped his fingers at the musicians. “Buster, give Caleb the fiddle and let him play me and Amelia a waltz. Make it a long one.”

  She winked at Pete over her shoulder as Matthew led her to the dance floor.

  * * *

  About ten o’clock, some of the Mexican laborers came to the stage to ask Javier to play something they would recognize. “How about ‘Mujer Maldita’?” one of them suggested.

  Javier yowled so loud that Caleb thought his voice would rip the circus tent. Then he started the guitar going as the Mexicans hooted like a band of Indians on the warpath. The families of the railroad investors backed away from the stage, uncertain of what the hollering represented, giving the Mexicans plenty of room to sing and carry on.

  Caleb’s mandolin and Buster’s fiddle had played “Mujer Maldita” many times with Javier, and they even knew how to sing some of the words, though they didn’t know what they were singing. All Caleb knew was that the song had something to do with wicked women. It was the sound of it that he liked. He knew the first few lines well and sang them in harmony with the Mexican laborers:

  Hay mujeres ingratas en el mundo

  Que se burlan del hombre y del amor,

  Hay mujeres malditas sin conciencia,

  Hay mujeres muy lindas sin pudor.

  When the musicians had finished the song, and while the Mexicans were still cheering, Captain Dubois handed Buster fifty dollars and said, “That will be all, gentlemen.”

  It seemed to Caleb that the regional music had driven off the cultured people and ended the party. They were filing from the tent like cattle. Then he looked over the heads of the Mexicans and saw old Cheyenne Dutch straddling a spotted horse at the edge of the circus tent. The aged mountain man rode in under the canvas, followed by three hounds and a burro carrying two whiskey barrels.

  “Heard they wouldn’t ‘low no liquor,” he said to the road builders, “so I brung two kegs of Towse. Swap your pay over at the sawmill if you want a taste.” He reined the Nez Perce stallion away and disappeared in the dark.

  Amelia had been among the first to leave with her father and was now out of sight, so Matthew was aching to fall back on wilder ways. “Let’s go over to Old Town,” he suggested.

  “We already got us fifty dollars to divvy,” Buster said. “What do we want to go down to that sawmill for—with that ol’ Cheyenne Dutch sellin’ that Taos lightning?”

  “I’m going to go over there,” Javier said. “I want to play some more songs.”

  “There you go,” Matthew said. “Don’t worry about Dutch. He’s too old to make trouble anymore. What about you, Pete? You goin’?”

  “I don’t know. What about you, Caleb?”

  Caleb needed only a second to make his decision. He rarely passed up a chance to play for a gathering of people, whether they were rich railroad families or common saloon drunks. He was more than a sodbuster when he played and sang. “Sure, I’ll go,” he said.

  “Gonna get you a whore?” Matthew asked, grinning like his old ornery self.

  Caleb frowned and picked up his instruments.

  “If you’re goin’, I best go, too,” Buster said. “Somebody’s got to keep you young boys out of trouble.”

  “Hell, let’s all go. Hey, Slim! Piggin’ String! We’re headin’ over to the sawmill at Old Town!” Matthew shouted.

  THIRTY

  The Colorado City sawmill had seen almost as much whiskey and blood spilled on its floors as sawdust. The fandangos that cut loose there on Saturday nights made more racket than the saw blade did by day. Stacks of lumber served as stages for the musicians, bars for the whiskey peddlers, and benches for the whores who solicited business among the cowboys, freighters, and miners passing through town.

  As soon as Caleb entered the mill, he looked around for Caroline. He didn’t spot her until he and Buster and Javier were into the middle of the third song. As she came around the saw blade, Cheyenne Dutch offered her a drink of Taos lightning from one of his kegs. She refused it, floating like a cloud onto a stack of boards, settling herself carefully among the splinters. She drew her feet up to a high stack of boards, sprea
d her knees, and pushed her dress down between her legs. She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her thighs. There she sat, listening to the music, swaying to its rhythm.

  That was what Caleb liked about her. She listened. The other girls danced to the music and tossed their skirts to it, but only Caroline had the interest to watch and listen. Sometimes he could see her through the tobacco smoke, mouthing the words as he sang them.

  The summer sky wasn’t as blue as Caroline’s eyes.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Buster asked when the song was over. “You’re playin’ the wrong chords.”

  “Sorry,” Caleb said. Then he proceeded to forget the words to “The Little Old Sod Shanty.” He couldn’t concentrate while Caroline sat in front of him.

  Matthew left the kegs to bother his youngest brother. “Hey, I see you eyeballin’ that whore,” he said, adjusting the gun belt he had buckled on after the Engineers’s Cotillion. He went on to embarrass Caleb with remarks like, “There’s the place for you to soak your rope,” and “She’ll damn sure make your hemp stiff for you.”

  Caleb felt relieved when Pete pulled Matthew over to a stack of lumber to talk to him.

  “About Amelia…” Pete said.

  “What about her?”

  “You sure you want to marry her?”

  “Why? Do you want her now? Find your own gal, Pete. That one’s mine.”

  “No, I don’t want her. I’m just not so sure she wants any of you.”

  Matthew drained his cup and glared at Pete. “The hell! She’s probably over at her house tryin’ on my name right now.”

  “I don’t think so. Not from the way she talks.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said she hoped you could get the money back on your ring.”

  Matthew backed up a step. “Are you lyin’?”

  “No, I ain’t lyin’. Have you ever known me to lie?”

  “No, but I ain’t ever known you to lay eyes on a proper lady before, either.”

  “Well, I ain’t lyin’, and I’ll tell you what else she said. She said she ain’t no homestead and she doesn’t belong to the first man to come along and claim her.”

  Matthew looked worried. He put his hand on the ring in his breast pocket and glanced around the sawmill. Then he slapped the stack of lumber and forced a laugh. “Hell, she’s just waitin’ for me to drive my picket in to stake my claim.” He grabbed the crotch of his trousers for emphasis.

  “You think she’s like that?” Pete asked.

  “They’re all like that. It feels good for them, too, Pete. Haven’t you ever pleasured any of these whores?”

  Pete looked at the prostitutes dancing in the sawdust. “Not so much that I’d notice,” he admitted.

  “Well, sometimes they just don’t let on or else you might not pay ’em if you thought they were havin’ as good a time as you were.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a gold coin. “Here, give one of ’em a try and see if you can’t make her holler.”

  “No, thanks,” Pete said. “I’m done whorin’. I don’t think it sits right with the Good Lord.”

  “The Good Lord put ’em here on earth, that’s all I know. You want to go have a cup of Towse with me?”

  “No, thanks. I’m gonna listen to them play.”

  “Suit yourself. And don’t you worry about Amelia. She’ll know it when I stake my claim.”

  Matthew passed in front of Caleb on the way to the kegs and tossed his head at Caroline, urging him on. Caleb looked away as if in disgust, but, in fact, he was wishing he had Matthew’s gumption and could just walk up to Caroline and tell her he wanted to soak his rope. He slipped into the wrong key, and Buster poked him in the back with the neck of his banjo. “Sorry,” he said.

  Caleb resolved to throw his concentration into the music and avoided looking at Caroline. He did all right until he sensed her moving from the corner of his eye. He saw her floating down from her bench of stacked lumber, meandering through the dancers, drifting toward the stage with her eyes fixed on his. When she smiled and beckoned to him with her finger, he almost busted a string.

  From his angle, looking down on her, he could see her breasts trying to push out of her dress. He smelled the fragrance of powder on her when he knelt to hear her speak. She put her lips against his ear and whispered like wind in the pines.

  “I’m going to my cabin,” she said. “It’s the third one down toward the creek. Come along and tell me the words to that last song you sang. I want to write them down.”

  Caleb stood back up and watched her mane of yellow curls follow her out of the sawmill. His breath felt hot in his chest.

  “What did she want?” Buster asked.

  “I know what she wants,” Javier said. “You better give him his part of the fifty dollars.”

  “She didn’t want anything,” Caleb said. “I have to go outside for a minute.”

  “What for?” Buster asked.

  “What do you think?” Caleb jumped down from the rough-sawn boards and left the mill, using a different door than the one Caroline had passed through.

  He ran around the outside of the building just in time to see the door close on the third cabin down the row. A drunken miner stumbled out of the sawmill and staggered up the street past Caroline’s cabin. Buster and Javier struck up a Mexican song inside.

  Before he knew what had happened, her cabin was standing in front of him. It seemed like someone else’s fist knocking on the door.

  “Come in,” she said.

  The stub of a burning lantern wick cast Caroline’s shadow around the bulges of the log wall. She sat at the foot of her bed.

  “Latch the door,” she said, “so nobody will bother us.”

  Caleb bolted the door behind him and and took his hat off. “What song was it that you wanted the words to?”

  “Don’t be in such a hurry. Come sit down.” She patted the bed beside her.

  Caleb’s legs felt wobbly, but they got him to the bed. As he sat down, she untied the ribbon that held her hair back, and it fell around her shoulders like a waterfall. The straw mattress sank deep under their weight and pulled them together.

  “Was it that sad one about the dyin’ prospector?” Caleb asked. His voice cracked when he spoke. “Or the funny one about them Mormon polygamists?”

  “I’m afraid I lied about wanting to know the words,” Caroline admitted. She stroked her fingers against the back of Caleb’s neck, sending chills down his back and over his scalp. She leaned toward him and kissed him softly on the cheek. “Why don’t you take your boots off and get comfortable?”

  Caleb liked music, but he had never dreamed that it would lead him to getting comfortable with an experienced woman. “All right,” he said and began pulling at the foot gear.

  Caroline stood up to help him get the boots off, and he sank back on his elbows as she pulled. She turned the wick down on the lantern. Caleb felt too weak to move. Without even a window to let in the starlight, the cabin went dark as soot in a chimney. He heard her clothing rustle. He felt her sink into the mattress beside him. When they rolled together, he felt nothing but hot flesh.

  For a long, terrifying minute, Caleb thought he had forgotten how to undress himself. His pants wouldn’t come off. Then Caroline got up again to help him, pulling indelicately at the legs of his pants as if they were coming out of a wringer. She settled in beside him again.

  “Well, get on,” she said.

  He floundered around clumsily, worried sick that his hemp would go limp before he could make use of it. When Caroline grabbed it, he worried he would make use of it too soon. Then he felt her warmth, and all his worries ended in fifteen seconds of unorchestrated rooting. His elbows buckled, and he collapsed on her, disoriented in the dark, unable to visualize his whereabouts. He didn’t know the floor from the ceiling, or the foot of the bed from its head.

  It was the music, he thought. She must like the music an awful lot.

  Caroline chuckled lightly, almost
mockingly. “You can get off now,” she said. “I can’t hardly breathe.”

  * * *

  The whores and the Taos lightning were claiming dancers quicker than Buster could change chords. “I wonder what’s keepin’ Caleb,” he said. “I better go find him.”

  “Just play a couple of more songs,” Javier suggested. “Stop worrying about that boy. He won’t take much longer.”

  Matthew stood beside the big saw blade, leaning against the stack of boards Cheyenne Dutch was using as a bar. As the crowd thinned out, he and Dutch ended up standing at the bar alone and he noticed the old trader staring at him.

  “I know your face,” Dutch said. “Just can’t place it.”

  “I favor my father, Absalom Holcomb.”

  Dutch adjusted the beaver top hat. “One-legged Ab Holcomb? The hero of Apache Canyon? Ab Holcomb’s your pa?”

  Matthew nodded.

  “Why the hell didn’t you say so, damn you? Do you like a fight the way he does?”

  “I’ll fight that circle saw and give it two rounds head start,” he boasted.

  Dutch laughed hoarsely. “How much have you swapped me for this old Towse?”

  “A few dollars, I guess.”

  Dutch pulled a leather pouch from the pocket of his fringed shirt and tossed it at Matthew. “Color of the Tarryall Diggin’s. It’ll fetch fifteen dollars an ounce. I’ll not take pay from a son of Ab Holcomb.”

  “Thanks, Dutch,” Matthew said, contemplating the weight of the gold dust in his hand.

  Dutch rolled one of the kegs on the stack of lumber, sloshing the liquor inside. “Take my kegs, too. I’ll stake you to the whiskey trade. I’m bound to swap my earnin’s to that yaller-haired whore.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Matthew said. “I happen to know she’s busy right now.”

  Dutch scratched his dirty fingernails through his beard. “Maybe you wouldn’t, boy, but I will if I please. Take my quirt to him she’s busy with and have her to myself. Palousey goes horselike a thousand miles over these mountains and studs where he pleases.”

  Matthew had heard of Dutch’s addled jabber, and knew it put him in a mood for trouble. “Well, wait a minute before you go, and drink a toast to Ab Holcomb with me,” he suggested.