Showdown at Buffalo Jump (20 page)

Max braced his feet and leaned again into the pole. The muscles of his shoulders and back and legs bulged under the pressure, and Catherine could read the strain on his face more clearly than a book. She grabbed Joey's shirt with one hand, holding his lolling head above water with the other. Then she leaned into the pole, putting her fear and hope and strength into the effort, and slowly, inexorably, the logs in the pile began to move. Max could hear them groaning in protest, but they moved and the drift pile shifted just a bit … and Joey popped free.

Catherine was holding Joey to her breast and sobbing, and her tears triggered Max's own. The three of them made their way across the drift pile like that, Catherine sobbing and tears blurring Max's vision. For the first time in his life, Max didn't care if someone saw him cry.

They stood for a moment on the bank, holding Joey between them, sharing the warmth of their bodies with the boy, arms encircling each other. Catherine looked up at Max, her tear-streaked face shining as though she had seen the rapture, and Max kissed her. Catherine kissed him back, and Max felt as though he could walk across the flood, carrying Catherine and Joey to safety.

But that thought broke the mood: There was still more to be done. Joey's lips and fingernails were blue with the cold; they had to get the boy back to the cabin or he would die. They couldn't scramble up the rain-soaked bank above them, with the stud or without. The only hope lay downstream, and that hope was slim indeed. The creek might wind for miles between steep, slick banks. If they didn't find a way out they would drown. But there was nothing to do but to trust fate.

Max led Catherine to the stud, helping her into the saddle.

“You take the boy. Give the horse his head unless he panics and heads for a bank he can't climb. I'll be behind you. Might be you could wait a minute to toss me the rope as I come by.”

Catherine's question was plain on her face.

“Can't swim,” Max said. He toppled a log off the driftwood and into the flood and plunged after it. The stud caught Max a few moments later, and Catherine reached for him from the saddle.

Max waved her away. “That horse gets too close, he'll kick me to death and spill you into the creek. This will work out. You take care of Joey. I'll do fine.”

They bobbed down the flood together for a few moments, a tiny flotilla of life on a thread of death snaking its way across the Montana prairie. And then the stud pulled away, swimming strongly. Catherine twisted in the saddle to watch Max, only his head showing behind the log. His eyes were focused on her as though he wanted to keep her image etched forever on his mind, and he waved good-bye as she disappeared behind the first curve in the creek.

Catherine held Joey tight. There seemed to be only a spark of life left in the boy, and she fanned that with the warmth of her body. But she sought comfort in the embrace, too. As they moved down the creek, surrounded on both sides by high, insurmountable banks, Gentleman's Promise was beginning to blow with the effort of swimming, and Catherine shuddered.

But their only hope lay ahead, not behind, and on they went, the sky blue and clear above, the sun warm on their backs, and death waiting coldly below for the horse to finally tire and panic.

Then Catherine saw the stud's ears go forward, and he began swimming for the bank. She tried to pull the horse's head downstream. But for the first time in his life, he fought the bridle, and Catherine panicked. If the stud reached the bank and tried to scramble up, she and Joey would die under his hooves or be thrown back to be claimed by the flood.

So Catherine fought the stud silently, matching will to will and strength to strength, and then she heard a whinny over the roar of the creek. Perhaps one of the searchers had come looking for them. Perhaps death was not yet inevitable. So she hugged Joey even tighter and gave Gentleman's Promise his head. She could feel the horse's hooves churning faster as he swam toward the curve ahead and whatever lay beyond.

Max's body hung behind the log like a sea anchor. He felt weightless, borne by a cold, raging wind down a world defined by the high banks of Pishkin Creek and a ribbon of sky above. That wind was cold, and Max was shivering. Despite his weightlessness, his arms were tired with the strain of tying his body to the log, to life. He wanted to shift his grip, but his hands were numb, and he wasn't sure he could will them to let go or to grasp again. He seemed to be sinking deeper, and the strain of holding his face above water made hard, stiff lines of the tendons of his neck. And finally, Max draped his arms over the log, flexing his hands to bring warm blood and strength to them, hoping the log wouldn't roll and leave him to drown. And he fought his mind as he fought the cold. It would be so easy to let go. No one could blame him for that. But Max wouldn't give up. Not yet.

As they rounded the curve, Catherine could see a break in the bank marking the course of a smaller, feeder stream. There was a small meadow there half-covered by water, and at the head of the meadow stood Lady. She had been cropping grass beside the creek, but as the flood-runners appeared, the mare raised her head to nicker. The stud surged toward shore, carving a V into the water, and Catherine felt the horse's hooves strike ground. As they neared shore, the current shifted, moving back upstream as though the flood were a child, anxious to take one more wild ride before moving on. A moment later, they were standing beside the mare, the stud's sides heaving with exhaustion.

It was warm in the meadow, cut off from the wind and open to the full weight of the sun. Catherine steadied Joey on the saddle and stepped down, lifting the boy from the horse. Joey was limp, and Catherine carried him, supporting his head with one hand as though he were an infant, to a rock that poked out of the bank on the northern edge of the meadow. She stripped him, and laid him on the warm rock, lifeless as a basket of wash hung out to dry.

She was wringing the boy's clothing when one of the horses nickered: Max had just rounded the curve. He had spotted the meadow and was trying to push the log toward it, but the log had more substance than he, and he was swimming only weakly.

Catherine dropped Joey's clothes and ran to the stud. The horse shied, dancing until Catherine caught the reins. She jerked the rope free from the saddle and ran toward Max, copper water spraying silver from her feet. If she couldn't put the rope in his hands, he would be swept downstream to die while she raced keening along the bank above, watching helplessly.

She threw. Short! The rope snaked back to her in arm-length jerks. She twirled it over her head and let it fly again. It sailed past Max, but as it came full length, it jerked back and fell across the log. Max slipped the loop over his head and under one arm, and the rope tightened, and he was yanked off the log. Max had every nonswimmer's fear of being in water over his head, and he kicked and slapped at the flood, fighting panic, fighting to keep his face above water.

Catherine was pulled off her feet by Max's weight and the power of the flood, and she was being drawn toward deep water and death. If she let go, she could save her own life and Joey's, but she couldn't do that. She had begun a litany of Holy Marys, and then she spotted a dead juniper sticking about six inches above the surface of the water. She pulled, kicked and swam to that pole and looped the rope around it. Max swung heavy on the end of the line, and the rope cut into his chest and neck until he thought he would be strangled. Odd, he thought, to hang yourself so you wouldn't drown. But as he swung toward shore, his body was caught in the eddy drifting back upstream. Catherine could pull him along, then, taking in the slack with half hitches around the juniper stump, and finally he was there.

Max's arm came from the water, and he grabbed the juniper in the crook of his arm, embracing it as though it were life itself. They stood there, in chest-deep water, looking into each other's eyes and gasping for breath.

“Catherine O'Dowd,” Max said. “You're one hell of a woman. If you weren't married, I'd ask you to tie up with me.”

“And if I weren't married,” Catherine said, her voice so soft Max could just hear it over the roar of the flood, “I might have said yes.”

“Yeah?” Max said, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. “Joey all right?”

“We have to get him back and get him warmed up.”

Max drew a deep breath. “I'll take the rope and wade into shallower water. You leave it tied until I get set. Then I'll give you a hand coming in.”

The crowd at the Toomey place had swelled in the hour, year, century they had been gone. The women had a table heaped with food. There was a bonfire roaring in front of the cabin, and some of the men who had been wading the creek looking for Joey's body were circled around it, blankets draped over their heads and open at the front to catch the heat, celebrants of an ancient rite.

Klaus hadn't moved. He stood alone in a crowd of milling people, hat held across his chest, eyes fixed on the thin line that defines sky and land in Montana.

Children were scattered through the scene like pepper in a pot, and one spotted Joey. Wonder chased surprise from his face, and he ran for the dugout, shouting at the top of his voice: “They got Joey! They got Joey! They got Joey!”

All eyes turned to the creek in dread.

“No, there,” the boy shouted, pointing to Max and Catherine, “and he's alive.”

A shout went up from the crowd, and the homesteaders pushed singlemindedly toward the riders. People were shouting and talking and pointing to Joey, clapping one another on the back and wiping tears away with aprons and sleeves.

Klaus looked up at Catherine, his face ravaged by tears strong enough to crack a rock, and when he spoke it was as though he were reciting a high and holy prayer.

“I'm sorry, Joey. I'm sorry, Joey. I'm sorry, Joey.”

Klaus reached for Joey and held him tight to his breast, his breath coming in choking sobs. And then, tentatively, two little four-year-old arms reached around his father's neck, and the cheer from the crowd must have been heard in heaven.

Max and Catherine rode to the homestead in silence. They stopped at the dugout, and Max went inside to pull blankets and pillows from the bed. Catherine's trunk was still sitting under the wagon, and she picked a change of clothing from that.

They left the door to the dugout open, and the dry fall air pulled moisture from the raw earth like a wick. After Max cared for the horses, he pitched hay into one of the unused stalls and spread his bedroll there. Then he carried Catherine's bedding into the loft. As he came downstairs, she was looking out the bam door, seeing in her mind's eye the tears on Toomey's face and little Joey's hug, perhaps his first.

“Maybe I was wrong,” Catherine said, smiling at Max. “Perhaps God did call this storm upon us for a reason.”

14

Catherine awoke to the scent of hay and fresh-cut pine. She had grown accustomed to the dugout—air heavy as earth and raw as a wound—and by comparison the hayloft seemed light and easing to her spirit.

Max's snoring below had awakened her several times during the night, and she had heard him leave the barn some time ago. She dressed in the dark and made her way to the ladder leading from the loft, climbing down through shadow into the light of a kerosene lantern, painting the barn in yellows, browns, and blacks. She picked her way through the light to the door outside.

Max was sitting in a globe of flickering yellow light cast by a campfire, and Catherine wondered for a moment where he had found dry wood after yesterday's storm. The sky was glorious, stars bright enough to tug at the soul. She stood in the midst of infinity and felt exalted, not humbled, for her small part in something so vast and beautiful.

Max had carried the table and chairs from the dugout to the campfire, and Catherine took hers, watching him as he cut bacon.

“Mud's ankle deep in the root cellar, and the ice is gone,” Max said. “Bacon was hanging from the ceiling, and water doesn't hurt potatoes so they're all right. Everything else is gone.”

“What about the dugout?”

“Water got in, but not too bad. Don't go in yet, though. The whole thing might just drop into the creek.”

“It's good we got the trunk out.”

Max nodded.

“Max?” Catherine said tentatively. “Yesterday was special, but it doesn't change anything. I'm still leaving when Father Tim comes.”

“It changed one thing,” Max said. “Catherine.”

Catherine nodded, and Max smiled. “I like the sound of it.”

The bacon and potatoes were done, and Max served breakfast on a table lit by the campfire and the stars. They lingered over coffee until the sun rose in the east, casting long shadows across the prairie of man, woman, and table.

They rose, then, walking together to the bank overlooking the creek. The water had retreated during the night, but the flood had strewn its bones across the bottom. There was silt and driftwood and carcasses from one high-water mark to the other. Catherine could hear the breath hissing through Max's teeth as he viewed the desolation.

The day was backbreaking. Catherine rode the creek, looking for live animals mired in the bottom, while Max cleaned up around the dugout. A section of corral fence had been torn down by the flood. The outhouse was leaning on its side, and the creek had filled the hole with silt. The chicken coop was gone, and much of the grass on the creek bottom was covered with mud. He had counted on the creek bottom for winter grass, and now it was gone. He felt like a man going into a Montana winter without a coat.

Max was a practical man. He built his days on a framework of priorities, working first to last. But today as he looked at the desolation across the bottom, his mind returned most frequently to the swing he had built for Catherine, and when she returned, it was the swing he was working on.

She watched for a moment, a shadow crossing the pensive smile on her face, and then she took Lady back to the barn and unsaddled her.