For What He Could Become Read online

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Never in his life had Bill seen so many people. They walked head down with a look of determination on their faces, like they knew why they were there and where they were going. Not a one of them looked approachable on the subject of where he might find a job.

  The pounding of hooves on the ground broke through his thoughts. A galloping horse bolted off the road, took two more strides, fell forward on his chest, and skidded to a stop. In an instant the horse scrambled to his feet and stood with the left foreleg lifted off the ground, a length of wire ensnaring it and the wire was anchored to a nearby deck of logs.

  The horse trembled, his eyes wide and nostrils flared as Bill approached. When Bill touched him on the neck he shied and jerked backwards, stretching the wire until it twanged.

  While the horse kept up a steady pull against the wire, Bill held on to the halter with one hand and ran his other hand down the horse’s leg until he could touch the wire. He pulled forward on the halter. The horse pulled back.

  He patted the horse and thought about how to get the wire off. He could feel the horse’s heart pound in his neck. After a few seconds he pulled gently forward. The horse moved one back foot, then the other, then he shifted his weight and hopped forward on three legs, keeping his left foot off the ground. The wire went slack, and Bill reached down and unwound it from the horse’s hock.

  “Take your hands off my horse, sonny.”

  Bill turned around to see a man gaunt as an alder limb, his clothing clinging to him like the long underwear that showed at his wrists and ankles. The clothing swelled at every joint showing the connecting links that held his lean body together, from his moccasins to his nose that tilted over a great gray handlebar mustache.

  “I’ll take him now.”

  The man lifted the horse’s leg to examine the hock. “Just a little burn, didn’t cut through.” The man looked at Bill. “Horses are valuable up in this country. You ought not try stealing a man’s horse.”

  “I wasn’t,” Bill protested.

  “Well, you didn’t get far with this one. Good thing I—” “Look here, mister, I was just minding my business when your horse tripped over that wire—ask anyone around here.” He picked up his pack and went over to a man sitting on a log fence, smoking. “You saw it, didn’t you?”

  The man nodded.

  “Well, why didn’t you say something?”

  “Weren’t none of my business.”

  Bill gave himself a few seconds to calm down. Then he said, “Do you know where I can get a job here?”

  The man lifted the cigarette out of his mouth and pointed with it to a log building down the road. “They’re hiring locals down there for all kinds of work.”

  Bill took off. When he pushed the door to the log building open he saw ten to fifteen men and boys crowded around a desk. He finally got to the front.

  “What can you do?” the clerk asked.

  “Well, I can cut wood.”

  “Don’t have any wood-cutting jobs. Can you walk and haul water?”

  He laughed. “Sure.”

  “Okay. Pay’s seventy-five dollars a month with board and room.”

  The door burst open and the horse owner stepped inside. “I need one good man. I’m paying a hundred a month plus board and room. Need someone who understands horses.”

  “Mr. Hanley,” the clerk said, “we haven’t come across anybody who knows horses yet. I’ll let you know when we find someone.”

  “I need a man now. I start packing tomorrow and I need help today.”

  Nobody said anything.

  “I’d like a hundred dollars a month,” Bill said.

  Hanley looked him up and down. “Didn’t you just try to steal my horse?”

  Another man stepped up. “Hanley, I saw it. This guy didn’t try to steal your horse, he just unhooked the wire.”

  “You know anything at all about horses?” Hanley said.

  “I can learn.”

  Hanley turned half around. “Well, come on – maybe I can teach you. Name’s Peck Hanley.”

  “Bill Williams.”

  They walked down the street. “You drink?” Hanley said.

  “No.”

  “Good. I’ve got a contract to move supplies and I don’t need no drunk. I’ve got thirty horses but I don’t have no help. You’ll get by good here.”

  Bill looked at the skinny horse. His dull hair was long in patches and rubbed to the hide in others.

  “Don’t go judging by this swayback. Come see the rest of them.” He turned right and led Bill to a rope corral where a group of horses stood with their heads down. They had fair coats and few ribs showing, but several had peat stains up to their bellies, and their tails were a tangled mess.

  “What is it you do?” Bill asked.

  “We haul freight and supplies around the bogs, or through them sometimes. Ain’t no equipment can get through some of these bogs. Other guys got big horses and they sink in like a tractor, but these are mountain horses and they can crawl through on a log if they hafta.”

  “I wanted to work on the highway,” Bill said.

  “Well, you will be. This is highway work, sure enough.” Peck rubbed his hands together a few seconds and then said, “Look here – I’ll give you $110 a month if you’ll start today. We’ll be on and around this highway from here to Dawson, summer and winter. Ain’t no way they can build it without us hauling for them. What do you say?”

  “Okay,” he said.

  Peck extended his hand. “Shake on it.”

  Bill tensed as he took the hand, but Peck didn’t grip like Mike O’Leary and he didn’t pump. He squeezed slightly and then dropped Bill’s hand.

  He had a job.

  After a breakfast of flapjacks, bacon, and coffee, Peck led the pack string to the clearing where the surveyors had assembled with their gear. Never one to waste daylight, he leapt off his horse and started laying out the pack tarps.

  “Bill, you divide that gear into pack size. I’ll pack it and then we can both put them on the horses. Be easier with both of us doing it.”

  The surveyors had gathered plenty of food and gear to sustain them while they surveyed and cut trail for the next ten miles. It took twenty horses to pack all their gear. Peck kept two to ride and Bill trailed the other eight horses back to the corral and threw them a little hay.

  As the animals strung out on the trail, the horses left behind began to whinny. Horses were a funny lot. They’d kick and bite each other in the corral, but just let some of them leave and the others thought it was the end of their world. Eyes wide with lots of white showing around the edges, ears turned forward, necks strained and nostrils blowing in and out. They’d look in the direction the others had gone, whinny, and run around the edge of the corral to get a last look as the pack string went out of view.

  The horses leaving couldn’t have cared less about those left behind. Heads down, ears forward, eyes on the trail, they would bear their burden in an almost drugged attitude until something happened, then it was Katy-bar-the-door with them.

  They could jump sideways so fast you couldn’t stay in the saddle; they’d come to a log and decide to jump it instead of step over it, almost pitching you into the peat or against the fallen timber. Bill learned that packing with horses meant long periods of dull riding and short moments of sheer terror.

  Peck stopped and surveyed the bog. It showed signs of having been recently crossed but looked mushy. On either side of the bog burned-over spruce trees huddled too close together to get a pack string through, and the ground was covered with blow-downs crisscrossed everywhere. There was no getting through there without spending half a day cutting trees. The horses stood heads down, tails swishing the flies and mosquitoes, waiting for the pull of the lead line to take them back to work.

  “Don’t like the looks of it!” Peck hollered back.

  Bill stood up in his stirrups and looked at the bog. He knew about tundra and marshes but nothing about bogs. The first
day he’d come to work, from the looks of them, he’d thought the horses swam through the bogs. Dried peat clung to their hair from their hooves to their shoulders. Peck had given him a curry comb and showed him how to scrape the animals with it and then brush their hair out. But now, standing in the stirrups, he couldn’t tell if they could walk through it or if they’d have to swim.

  “Try and keep ‘em up on the right side!” Peck yelled. “I’m ‘fraid this bog don’t have no bottom in it.” He spurred his horse and started the string through the lower edge of the marsh at a slow walk. Each horse craned its neck to sniff the surface wide-eyed.

  In three steps Peck’s horse was belly-deep in the bog and fighting the putrid mass. He leaned in the saddle and pulled the reins hard to the right. The horse stumbled, regained its feet, and tried to lunge out of the bog. It failed, then gained a footing on the bank, up to its knees in the bog. The horse stopped, its chest heaving. Peck jabbed it with his spurs. It bolted, the leap taking it clear of the soggy swamp. It shivered, the greenish-black mess dripping from its legs and belly.

  Peck dismounted and walked to the edge of the bog to pick up the rope he’d dropped and coax the horses up the far right side. They were skittish and reluctant to get into it, but started moving single file, heads down, snorting, scraping their packs against the trees at the edge.

  “Bill—don’t let those nags beat up that equipment on those trees!”

  Bill didn’t know how to stop it. There was no room between the trees and the edge of the bog. The horses fought hard to stay on the bank. They snorted and threw wide-eyed glances at the green stuff bubbling around their feet, sniffing it with flared nostrils.

  The first horse jumped across and dragged the second horse, which was tied to it. The next three horses reared. A tie string broke. Two turned around and pushed back against those in line who were trying to cross over bog that was tromped into a thick soup. A horse fell but quickly regained its feet and let out a snort, shaking its head and mane and danced to the side smashing the pack into the tree. A box broke and tools fell loose and crashed in a pile.

  Without warning the rest of the horses broke for the edge, banging their packs on the trees, slipping and jumping over perceived threats on the ground. Suddenly Peck’s horse reared, he dropped the lead line and fought to stay in the saddle. The horses snorted and bucked and took off on a dead run. Equipment banged against trees, against horses. Loud whinny’s and sucking noises filled the air.

  Bill sat astride his horse wide-eyed with indecision. The noise closed out all thoughts, his vision narrowed. He threw an arm over his face to ward off the flying muck and spurred his horse forward toward the end of lead rope snaking through the quagmire.

  In three jumps he was where he had last seen it. The horse was thrashing under him as he leaned out of the saddle, holding his breath, both hands reaching for the disappearing end of the rope. He felt his fingers close on it. Frigid water rammed up his sleeves and in an instant he lost his stirrup and pitched under the water. His horse was screaming—trampling the bog. The icy liquid leaked through his clothes, tightening his chest, choking his lungs. He tried to gather his legs under him but the horses thrashing made waves that wouldn’t let him settle.

  On his side, under the surface, the rope tightened and the forward momentum of the horses dragged him out of the bog like a sled on water. He felt his body hit the bank and bounce onto soft peat moss. He reached for a tree in front of him— looped the end of the rope around it, then braced his palms against it. At the end of the rope the horses jerked to a stop. Bill let out a scream.

  “Damned ornery no good sonsabitches!” Peck bellowed. He shot his left leg out at a horse but missed. The sight of the gloved hand between the rope and the tree told him instantly what had happened. He reached down and slowly unwound the rope. Bill shook his hand several times, then gingerly started to pull the glove off.

  “Damn, damn, and more damn,” Peck said. “You okay?”

  Bill looked at it. “It hurts—some.”

  “Damned ornery no good sonsabitches. Well—you sure saved us. Those bastards could have been back to camp by now if you hadn’t held on.”

  Bill squinted and tightened his lips. The thumb was raw, pink and green looking with little rivulets of blood starting to show where the capillaries had been severed. He shoved his glove back on while the thumb pounded like a church bell in even, steady beats. Using his right hand, he maneuvered his horse beside him and climbed into the saddle. Peck dallied the line around his saddle horn, and turned toward the trail. The others fell into place and strung out behind him, placid as could be.

  By the time they got to the camp Bill’s thumb was swollen, black and blue, and leaking blood and fluid from cracks in the skin. The only guy in camp who knew anything about first aid gave a long low whistle as Bill displayed it for him.

  “You’re lucky it didn’t get taken off,” he said. “I got to bandage it.”

  “Damned ornery sonsabitches,” Peck offered. “He saved us a lot out there by catching ‘em.”

  Peck unloaded the equipment and repacked the horses with what little stuff was going back. By the time he was done, Bill was in so much pain he rode silent all the way back.

  A mile from camp, the engineers had built a log bridge over a stream Peck and Bill had forded on their way out that morning. The horses snorted at the smell of the fresh-cut logs and shied at the hollow sound their hooves made, but after they lowered their heads and sniffed the logs, they consented to walk over it.

  “I wish they’d bridged that damned bog instead,” Peck said.

  When they got back to the corral and were removing the horse’s saddles, three of the engineers stepped up.

  “Hi,” one of them said. “I’m Corporal Refines Sims Jr. from Philadelphia.” He stuck out his hand.

  They were the first Negroes Bill had ever seen, and while he knew it wasn’t polite to stare at them, he couldn’t help himself. He introduced himself, shook hands, and looked down.

  “It don’t rub off,” Corporal Sims said, and the three of them laughed. “What you doing with these nags?”

  “We pack supplies on them. Out to the surveyors.” He pointed down the trail. “What do you guys do?”

  Sims drew himself to attention and saluted. “Sir, we are the 93rd Combat Engineer Regiment. We been doing so much with so little for so long, we can now do the impossible with nothing in no time. We’re building a road from the United States to Alaska.”

  The horses came up and sniffed the strangers, and Sims played with the muzzle of a horse that was licking his hand.

  “The only horses I ever saw were pulling the ice wagon in Philly,” Sims said.

  Bill couldn’t imagine an ice wagon.

  “Where you from?” Sims said.

  “Alaska.”

  “You an Eskimo?”

  “I’m Indian. Athabascan.”

  Sims threw his head back. “Oh. We don’t have any Indians in Philly.”

  “We don’t have any Negroes in Arctic Village.”

  Sims grabbed the horse’s lip and was playfully pulling on it while the horse tried to get his lips around his fingers.

  “Can I ride one of these nags?”

  “Ask the owner,” Bill said, and indicated Peck.

  “Aw, come on. I’ll just slip up on his back and ride around inside here a couple of times. What d’ya say?”

  Peck had disappeared.

  “Guess it wouldn’t hurt,” Bill said.

  Sims ducked between the corral ropes and, in a move that astounded Bill, grabbed the horse’s mane in both hands and vaulted on its back. One second he was on the ground and the next he was astride the horse.

  “I’ve seen Gene Autry do it that way,” Sims said. He prodded with his heels and the horse pricked up its ears and moved faster around the corral, the other horses getting out of its way as it went around the outside loop in a slow trot. After two laps Sims threw one leg over the horse’s neck while it was stil
l on the trot and slid off, landing on both feet. He raised his arms and smiled. His companions laughed and clapped.

  “I should of been a cowboy,” Sims said. “Instead I drive a bulldozer for the U.S. Army.” He looked at Bill. “Thank you, Bill Williams. Come on over one day and I’ll give you a ride on my bulldozer.”

  As they walked away from the corral, Bill crawled through the ropes and grabbed the mane of the nearest horse with his good hand. He mentally pictured what he had to do to get on top of the horse with one swing. The horse started moving and he walked beside him twice around the corral, but he couldn’t get a good picture in his mind of what had to happen to mount the horse in one jump. He became aware of the other horses crowding around him and felt uncomfortable getting caught between them when Peck wasn’t there so he let go of the mane and dashed between the horses and under the rope. He would have to think some more about what Sims had done. That was really something.

  In the morning it was twenty degrees below zero. By noon it had stopped snowing and was thirty below. Bill walked over to the engineers’ maintenance tent to see if they needed any equipment hauled by horse. His thumb was pounding like a jackhammer. Sims and a guy named Leon were working on a Studebaker 6×6, stopping every few minutes to stamp their feet and swinging their arms across their chests.

  “Can’t keep warm,” Sims said. He had his hat flaps tied under his chin and was wearing the army-issue almost-to-the-ankles coat, but he was still shivering. “Ain’t you cold?”

  “No. Way you’re dressed, why are you?”

  “Could be because the snow’s up to our butts and the temperature’s about ninety below.”

  Bill had never been asked to solve problems for other people, nor had it ever occurred to him that he might have information they could use. But now he thought back to what his Dad and Uncle Charlie had taught him about staying warm.

  “What size boot you and Leon wear?”

  “I’m nine and Leon, he’s a nine too.”

  In the equipment and supply tent that loosely functioned as a local quartermaster’s warehouse, Bill found two pair of boots in size 10 and 10 1/2. He pulled bunches of dry grass that lay beneath road equipment and lower tree limbs and took them back to the tent. The soldiers stood around watching while he filled the boots with the grass, pushing it down into the toes and up the sides. Then he shoved a sock inside and worked it into its natural position.