Torrent

1

Although their captive, neither man actually restrained the woman.  Towering above her, their heavy raincoats forming an impenetrable barrier, dark sopping hats like the leaden sky above them casting an added gloom upon the scene.  Through the chink between glistening oil-skinned arms I could see her defiance.  She could have squeezed through the beckoning crack, were it not for the huge wicker basket held grimly in the crooks of both elbows, but this apparent millstone I could see was a help as well as hindrance. It prevented her immediate escape, but the physical strain of its weight was keeping her strong, like a gallant prize fighter ignoring the odds, she thrust her shoulders forward, white knuckles against her chest.  Helpless she might be, compliant she was not. 

Her face, a narrow triangle shrouded within a maroon shawl, fixed firmly in the direction of the heavier set of the two men.  The curls braiding her forehead and nestling in the curve of a cheekbone were of no particular colour.  Glistening damp, they may well have shone golden in the sunlight, but like the rest of this sodden scene, all colour lay dormant.  The shadowy, junk-strewn alley in which the three tense figures were framed seemed to lead nowhere of any significance.  It was there they were trying to corral their prey.

The heavier set, obviously the senior partner in this enterprise, was the most confident.  No need for him the snorts and hands on hips attitude of the other.  He felt his presence alone was enough, and was probably right.  The thinner man’s habit of thrusting his head back and making scoffing sounds, effectively punctuated his partner’s comments.  The tiny white bubbled islands, eddying among the brown mud puddles at their feet, reflected his constant need to spit.  All nervous twitches and swagger, I couldn’t see his face, but I disliked him the most.

Half a dozen paces later, I brought the horse to a stop.  She seemed relieved as each step involved an effort in extraction from the oozing muck now thick with a myriad hoof-sized lakes and wheel-rutted rivulets.  Easing my Winchester from its holster, I lay it across my saddle, pointing roughly in the direction of Heavyset’s lower stomach.  An appropriate target, considering the man’s intent, it crossed my mind this was the first time I had aimed a weapon at another human being.  The hand controlling the rifle was my unnatural left.  Not the most practical way to start my career as a gunman, but like the perky little woman in front of me, I hoped physical action would not be called for.  She was using all the bluff she could muster - I would do the same.  Clearing my throat as noisily as was necessary, I tipped my hat in anticipation of their turning.  My heart, to my surprise, pounding in my chest.

As I squeezed the rim of my hat I saw water slide down my thumb and felt the chill as it entered my sleeve.  What a sight we must be - more apparition - man and horse caked in mud, steaming as if appearing from behind some conjurer’s smoke screen.  Sitting there, I sensed the drying clay cracking and falling as tiny chips of terra cotta into the inky ooze doing its best to absorb these newcomers within itself.

The woman glanced up at me and I concluded my greeting.  Hardly the shining knight on white charger, I was disappointed nevertheless her expression showed no sign of relief.  But why should it?  She was right - I probably looked more of a threat than they did.  My appearance may even have been enough to break her spirit if she thought I was simply adding to their number.  I needed to allay her fear as quickly as possible.

‘Well’, nodding and smiling, letting my eyes wander for a moment over the townscape of low shadowed buildings huddling below twin rocky bluffs, ‘If the sun ever shone round here I’d say you had yourselves a fine little town’.  I looked back for a response and found neither man acknowledging my presence.  The woman too, was looking elsewhere.  ‘I was wonderin’ if there might be a place a fella could get cleaned up and bedded down for a couple of nights.’

After what seemed an age, the skinny one turned a giant beak in my direction, took a lingering hunted look, eyes almost hidden in the deepest of sockets, and hawked out another of his tiny white floaters.  Maybe the action cleared his brain, noticing the Winchester he shifted his gaze to his partner.  Heavyset, waiting a few more moments, slowly cast his gaze in my direction, turning only his head, then only enough to reach me with one sullen eye.  He didn’t lower his sight to the gun across my saddle.   He didn’t need to, he knew it was there - and he knew its intent.  He continued to look through me as if to show, even if I did exist, to him I was nothing.  Big Nose shifted nervously, awaiting the other’s lead.  He flinched as the woman made her first move toward the boardwalk, but as Heavyset ignored her, he decided he should do the same.  Turning to me full on, the slow shifting of arms to their sides showed I was now receiving their undivided attention.  Both wore side arms and I continued my silly grin to assure them my intentions were innocent and honourable.  I failed miserably of course, but I hoped it would at least prevent them finding an excuse to resort to any kind of violence.

I was more interested in the woman, but taking my eyes from these two could prove to be the last mistake I ever made.  These were not happy men.  Introducing teeth into my smile seemed to make them even more resentful, but the slight tensing of my left hand brought the response I was seeking.  As Skinny worked on a big one from deep down in his chest, Heavyset seemed to be contemplating his options.  Without moving his head he fixed his eyes on the sky above and to my right.  He may have been gauging the weather - he certainly had a farmer’s pragmatic stamp.  I could hear the faint shrill cry of some broad-winged creature, no doubt as pleased as I was the rain had eased.  Its echo faded and I heard the disinterested sound emerge from Heavyset’s thick sullen lips.  ‘Three Bears’, was all he said, and with the most economical of gestures, flicked his head in the direction I had been heading.  His eyes remained on the sky.

He turned to face the alley, indicating the matter was closed.  Skinny was in crisis.  His gob not yet fully formed, he’d wanted to send in my direction, as his own parting comment. But as his mentor placed his back toward me, his failure to do so would show more initiative than his character would allow.  Instead, he too faced away into the dark lane, content with a shot at an overworked rain barrel. 

I thanked them for their help and nudged the big chestnut with my knee.  As we squelched away, I could feel their gaze burning into my back.  I wasn’t worried about the heavy one - too smart to shoot someone in the back in daylight, if that’s what this murky greyness was.  Of Skinny, I wasn’t so sure.  I knew the sorts of things they were saying to each other, which piece of me they’d cut off first if they could.  Cheated out of a valuable prize, they were the types to which holding a grudge was like a badge of honour.  Hopefully, talk would suffice for the time being. 

The sky was lightening, less charcoal, more smoky grey.  I glanced around, wanting to see her gritty little figure, but she was well and truly home, wherever that might be.  Everything else was where it ought to be, it was that sort of town.  I’d seen dozens of them over the past few months and as usual, the sheriff’s office, complete with dozing lawman, was slap bang in the middle.  So was the bank, its gothic sign exuding the arrogance so typical of such institutions.  The haberdashery, the hardware, the baker, all sat neatly alongside the printer, the butcher and the stock and station agent, as if by some federally regimented plan.  Four saloons said there had been gold around here once, the peeling paint saying not for some time.  Beyond, strategically placed to convey a permanent message to the town, the church on one hill, the grave yard on the other.  With these sentinels keeping watch it was no wonder the sheriff was content to snooze in his chair.  But if I’d seen him, I knew he’d taken my measure as well, and lawmen I had to admit, were not my favourite kind of people just now.

My Three Bears had less to do with Goldilocks than Lady Luck as the latest coat of paint, already flaking, had not quite erased the original Gambling House lettering above the entrance.  A less deft hand had updated the building’s function in gaudy red on a makeshift board beside the front door.  I could get a bath and a room, it informed me, as well as the best ‘licker’ money could buy. If I wished to partake in a hand or two of poker, well that was okay too.  No rough-housing would be tolerated, nor bad language within the presence of ladies. The proprietor reserved the ‘rite’ to eject those failing to conform.  Frankly, it didn’t look like the sort of place a lady would be seen dead in, but that was neither here nor there.  I had no reason not to behave, particularly after my morning’s resolve, but if I was going to be ejected, I would try to ensure it was after I’d taken my bath.

‘Don’t worry Gal, you’ll get one too,’ I said as I patted her rump, dust flying, chunks of dried mud crackling onto the boardwalk.  I unstrapped my bed roll and heaved the saddlebags up onto my shoulder.  ‘There you are, I knew you were a chestnut,’ I said, as I laughed at the one clean spot between us.  ‘Won’t be long beautiful.’ 

Catching a glimpse of myself in the front window, I hastily ran my fingers through my beard, only to find them snarling in the matted mess.  I considered swabbing down in the rain barrel, but what the heck.  The rest was so untidy a clean face would only accentuate the fact.  If they threw me out I could always go and bathe in the river - there must be one if the place was called Twin Cascades.  As for Gal, she loved nothing better than to frolic in a stream.  She reckoned that was better than a bucket and brush any day.  Unfortunately I didn’t really have the energy for frolicking just now.  It pained me to remember how only hours before I had been totally devoid of any kind of drive, making the decision to get on my horse and approach this town took every bit of my limited resolve.  Even fronting those brutes at the alley, I had to admit, was more death wish than gallantry.  In recent months I’d spent too much time living on the edge like that.  It was time for a change.  Pushing open the door with my blanket roll I approached the counter with the same stupid grin I’d employed with Heavy and Skin.  With any luck, the landlord would take me for an idiot and have pity on me.

A dingy low-ceilinged entrance hall, the counter a continuation of the bar stretching on into the saloon area.  A glance into that equally gloomy den of smoke and huddled bodies declared me not the only bedraggled refugee.  Eventually the barman caught a glimpse of me in his gigantic mirror, and after just enough time to make me feel inadequate, wandered in my direction.  His timing was such he managed to give the glass three more huffs, each accompanied by the obligatory five anti-clockwise rubs with his cloth, before coming to a stop at his secondary post of desk clerk.  By the time he stood opposite me he’d well and truly looked me over, each subsequent huff a greater expulsion of disgust than the last.  He placed one hand firmly on the counter - the other dangled by his side, no doubt in easy reach of whatever weapon he’d chosen to secrete there.  He didn’t look the shotgun type.  It was most likely a forty-five.  One big hole or many small ones, it didn’t make much difference in the end.  Taking a slow deep breath, he stared me straight in the eye.  My throat was a little drier than it ought to be.  I watched as his mouth twitched.  Little sucking sounds accompanied the twitches.  Perhaps a nagging piece of spinach being eased from a crevice.  Without warning, he raised his head slightly and turned to one side, screaming at the top of his lungs.

‘Mazza!’

I copped the finest view of rotting teeth one could wish and a stench to have done any sewer proud.  As for his tongue, its colour and texture reminded me of an infested mattress I’d once seen on a soggy rubbish dump outside a town not unlike this one.  His hair, slicked down with some highly viscous lotion, was parted ever so carefully in the middle.  As a result of his outburst, the strands directly above his ears were now poking out horizontally, quite spoiling the original image, if not the symmetry.  I felt a little shame in my part in defacing what must be considered a local work of art.  However, I didn’t have time to ponder his strange action, as the subject of his summons appeared through a side door almost immediately, dumping her load of towels and sheets on Clarence’s counter.  His wife gave substance to the dictum of opposites attracting.  He was big, brutish, red-faced and loud - she was a nervous sparrow.  No - more a small woodpecker.  She was quiet, but that beak, supporting delicate wire-rimmed spectacles with glass so clean it might not have been there, was undoubtedly capable of poking itself into the toughest situations.

‘Wants a room and a bath I expect,’ he guessed correctly, ‘waddya reckon?’ 

Without appearing to look at me at all, she flushed lightly and continued to place folded linen on rough hewn shelves at the far end of the room.  Her tone was matter of fact, with a hint of weariness.  She spoke to the wall.

‘There’s room for one more in with the mule skinners Clarence.  Payment in advance.  Please notify us of your intentions if you wish to extend.  There’s no room here for your horse.  Livery at the south end of the street.  Valuables may be left in the safe.  No women in your... Well that hardly applies to the mule... I’ll see to your bath.  It could be half an hour.  The girls are busy.  I’ll do my best.’

‘That is all a man...a woman can do,’ I said to Clarence, in an attempt at friendly ice-breaking man-to-man chit chat, but he was on the turn, about to discover the devastation to his thatch.  I thought it best not to be there when he made the observation and headed for the door so curtly indicated by my hostess.  Her nose, like a weather vane in a sudden wind squall, vibrated toward a low doorway under the stairs at the rear of the room.  The idea of a night with a bunch of wild mule skinners, even with their boots on, was hardly putting a spring in my step, but like an obedient but reluctant schoolboy, I shuffled toward the stairs.  I bent to enter the black hole beyond, the woodpecker already sweeping away the debris I’d left on her floor.  Pity Clarence had gone, we could have discussed the one about cleanliness and godliness.

Stowing my gear on my bunk, I read the notes each mule skinner had placed on his personal pile.  Those who could write, did so with impressive economy, leaving no doubt as to the consequences of any tampering with their belongings.  The illiterate among them were equally explicit in their warnings.  The skull and cross-bones was clear enough, mind you, painting with a chewed stick is never as easy as it sounds.  The body with severed head was certainly graphic, if primitive, but my favourite was the man hanging from a gallows by his privates.  Here the artist took the trouble to add what appeared to be lip rouge to the inflamed genitalia to emphasise his point.  Or should I say argument?  This showed not only style and wit, but great valour in defying the woodpecker’s fifth commandment.  Yes, he got my vote.

After pondering for some time as the best method of warding off wandering hands I left a single cartridge sitting on the top of my saddlebag.  I considered a note saying ‘get the message or get the bullet’ but I was chasing the simplicity award.  The only valuables I had were a silver shaving set sent by my parents, relieved to hear after seven years their lost son was alive.  Although unused in several months, it was precious to me all the same.  I chose not to place my cash in the owner’s safe, preferring to leave it in the secret compartment sewn into my saddlebag, virtually impossible to detect.  Some bright spark might steal the whole kit and caboodle of course, but I had decided long ago to scuff it up to make it as unattractive as possible.  It was a considered risk, one I was prepared to take.

The kid at the stable, on seeing the state of Gal, uttered the immortal words, ‘shit a stick of rhubarb,’ quoting me fifty cents to wash her down and give her a brush. 

‘Do you for an extra fifty’. 

I liked his style, said no thanks, and gave him the dollar anyway.  As an after thought, I called back if he had time to polish the saddle I’d throw in another dollar.  He shat another stick of rhubarb.  I was pleased he was pleased.

‘Oh my high heavens.’ 

The man in the clothing store was obviously no vegetarian, as far as shitting was concerned I couldn’t imagine this dried up prune producing anything but pebbles.  Hoping I’d tire of his rudeness, and disappear into a hole in the ground, he remained behind his counter dithering through a number of make-believe chores. Hunting under things for other things, and surprise, surprise, they never seemed to be there.  I wasn’t entirely without sympathy.  I doubt whether I’d like me, smelling like I was, in my haberdashery, but surely a shop owner has better strategies than pretending a customer doesn’t exist?  It did cross my mind to run amok, but it was exactly that sort of behaviour which had seen me on too many jail cells in too many small towns like this in recent months.  Subtlety, which I wasn’t sure was my strong point, was the way I would go.  It worked so beautifully I almost laughed.  The sight of me about to try on one of his ready-made jackets saw him by my side in an instant.  Placing his tape measure as near to my stinking clothing as he could bear, he wrote his findings on his little tab, making cryptic scribbles and uttering small sounds of disdain as he went. 

‘And what about Sir’s hat?’ he asked, when the rest of me had been measured and notated.

‘Sir will stick with the one he’s got thankyou old son,’ I said, ‘some things are sacred, aren’t they?’

He closed his eyes and gave a little shudder.  He then assured me, resentfully, everything would be ready by closing.  I suggested middle afternoon, to get rid of me he agreed, but only after seeing the colour of my money, holding each note up to the light and counting it twice.  I left him flapping a newspaper with one hand and opening the window with the other.  He wasn’t the only one in need of fresh air.

000

Tilly was a twit.  A country kid with a full head of hair, half a brain, no front teeth and freckles.  Her curls, escaping in all directions from beneath a white cotton cap, appeared to be her finest feature.  Her giggle perpetual, as was her sniff, her nose as red as her rouged cheeks from the constant wiping with the back of her hand.  Occasionally the giggle became a snort, producing more work for her hand. I decided the best way not to be sick was to look the other way.  Entirely without malice, and quite unfazed by hard work, her bucket-wielding ability showed a back of iron and my guess was, from her conversation,  the local boys made sure she spent a great deal of time on it.  As this was a hick town, what else was there to excite a poor kid like this?

Meg was everything Tilly wasn’t.  Not particularly attractive, she was poised, confident, self-possessed.  Her movements thoughtful and efficient, her presentation neat, her hygiene sound.  Masterful in her handling of the younger girl, Meg exuded that matter- of-fact confidence of one who used to responsibility, and a wider world.  Tilly, partly because thinking was a chore, but more from experience, responded unquestioningly to her mentor’s every suggestion.  A cross between a mother and an older sister, Meg guided Tilly through each activity with gentle encouragement, and a spirit of good fun.  They were playing together, one lost in the game and loving it, thriving on the physicality and good natured competition, the other content with the reward of her companion’s happiness.

Their attitude to my nakedness summed up the girls completely.  Tilly, shaken by the fact I’d not expected them to leave the room as I undressed, convulsed in the dilemma of whether to use her hand to cover her spurting giggles, or wipe the snot from her reddening face.  In her retreat, she stepped backward into the fireplace scorching her calf, propelling herself forward again with a jolt.  Tripping over the bathtub, she was forced to clutch at my arm, nearly upending both of us and splashing scolding water from her large iron kettle across the room.  Meg had the floor mopped dry, my foul smelling clothes wrapped in a sheet before Tilly even looked like having regained her composure.  My request for them to scrub my back drew more sprayed snorts from the embarrassed Tilly.  Meg, realising an admonishment would not only fail to stem the gushes, but dent the other girl’s pride, turned it all into another game.  Injecting her own humour into what was already a fun and slightly risqué situation, she gave us all a legitimate reason for laughing and rid the matter of all embarrassment.  She scrubbed like someone demented and as I screamed in mock agony she pretended to hunt for the lost soap, rolling her eyes in a fiendish pantomime as she fished around in the bottom of the tub.  Her pretending to find someone’s false teeth in the suds broke the last of the ice and we soon had Tilly joining in. Accepting for the first time in her life that female hands on male skin, could in certain circumstances, be a non-sexual and quite guilt-free activity.

Once the glue was rinsed from my locks I asked Meg if she would give me a shave and a trim.  We seemed to be back at square one with Tilly, as the thought of this latest exercise again reduced her to convulsions.  Meg, to my relief showed she was more mere mortal than saint, and chose to send the giggler off on an errand. 

‘Oh bum and bother,’ said Meg, as if it had just come to her, ‘clean forgot.  We’ll need to get Mr Ryder’s clothes to Mrs Ryan if he’s not to walk the streets in his suds.’  The idea hit Tilly’s funny bone and she began snorting her own bubbles.  Meg flipped a handful of the subject in hand in her direction, and for a few moments anarchy reigned.  Taking advantage of Tilly’s burst of energy, Meg asked, ‘Would you be a pet Til and run that stuff over there right away on those speedy little legs of yours.  I’m not sure I’d have the puff.’

‘Awww,’ said Tilly, feeling she was getting the sucked end of the toffee.  ‘Can’t I stay?  This’s terrible fun.’

‘Well my little cherub, you’re only going to miss a lick and a spit,’ said Meg, tapping the pouting girl on the tip of the nose, ‘that is, if you don’t get caught up with that young Chuck Saunders I saw riding into town an hour or so ago.  On second thoughts, perhaps I’d better go myself, as slow as these old bones are.’

‘I’ll go,’ said Tilly, the various parts of the equation falling into the answer Meg had constructed for her.  Besides, the idea of being left alone with a naked man in a bath tub was more than a little daunting, newfound maturity or not.

The local washer woman would wash and press my entire outfit for a dollar, so I asked Tilly to give her two dollars from my pocket seeing the job would be such an onerous one. 

‘I don’t want her to put it in the too hard basket,’ I said, but Tilly reckoned Mrs Ryan only had the wicker kind. 

I smiled. ‘Tell her not to hurry it, as I’ve got another errand for you.’  Tilly rolled her eyes before throwing a nervous glance at Meg.  Meg nodded with great enthusiasm and Tilly grudgingly accepted this new responsibility.  ‘There’s a particularly pompous haberdasher in the shop with the blue door...’ I said.

‘Ugghhh.  Mr Troppin.  He’s soooo rude,’ said Tilly, with the look of having tasted one of the stable boy’s sticks of rhubarb.

‘Yes, well I wasn’t greatly impressed either, but he does have a bundle of clothing I’m rather depending on, so let’s all be nice to Mr Troppin until he hands over the goods.  Then you have my permission to tell him to go and stick his head up a moo cow’s bum.’

At this Tilly couldn’t wait, and Meg took it upon herself to remind Tilly I’d been joking, saying she could certainly think those words, but it might be best not to say them. 

‘It’ll be more fun if we know and he doesn’t,’ said Meg, and to my surprise the young girl readily agreed.  Conspiracy was one of her favourite games it would seem.

‘Righto Megs, I’ll say it under my breath,’ she said.

‘Good girl,’ said Meg.  ‘That’s the smart thing to do.’

‘Yes, the smart thing,’ echoed Tilly, and was gone.

‘I’m not asking too much with this barbering business am I Meg? I wouldn’t say I’m vain, but I could do without the treatment I got back on the ranch I worked on up in Wyoming.  I couldn’t take my hat off for two months after old Jake finished with me.

‘Oh, I think you’re safe enough Mr Ryder...’

‘Jack’, I said, not for the first time.

‘I make it a rule never to call naked men in my presence by their...’

‘Bullshit.  It’s Jack.  And I would’ve thought you’d have that around the other way, Miss whatever your surname is.’

‘As I was saying Mr Ryder,’ said Miss whatever her surname was as she pushed a handful of soapy water into my mouth, ‘I nursed my Pa after his stroke - and before it if it comes to that - so it was shave once a day, bum wiping sometimes once, sometimes twice, and on bad days continuously.  Nails in the bath once a week and hair trim once a month.  It left me loads of time for cleaning, washing, ironing and sewing; cooking, milking Dewdrop, cutting the firewood, mending the roof and all the other outside chores.  You could say I’ve been very well trained for this...this life of mine.’

I was well and truly put in my place.  I felt inadequate to respond.  Her words sounded bitter, but she didn’t.  I’d been wrong, she was a saint, like so many of her kind, and all I could do in response was to sympathetically pat her wet hand with mine.  To my relief she did not pull away, but her gentle boxing my ear with her free hand brought us back to the present. 

‘I’m in your hands madam,’ I said nodding deferentially.

‘And your ear might be too if you don’t keep still,’ she said, as she boxed it again and began her snipping.

This, I was coming to realise, was a town of spunky ladies.  Was I up to it I wondered?

2

Clarence I noticed, with mild surprise, had both hands on the counter.  His hair recast, I could swear his cherubic lips bore the trace of a smile.  I allowed him to look me up and down before I spoke.  In a sense this was a mistake - but an enjoyable one.  Seeing his head shift to the right and pivot I felt a sense of déjà vu, but even as the raucous sound began to ricochet around the room, and his hairdo began to disintegrate, I was still to discover what was happening.  The Woodpecker’s piercingly blue eyes flashed at me through pristine glasses as she swept into the saloon with her armful of freshly washed trays.  Her cheeks this time remained their natural white.  Clarence’s face did not deviate, but his eye revealed a slight annoyance at his wife’s disappearance.  He wore the look of a man who might have to make a decision and this would be his maiden voyage.  To his clear relief, the Woodpecker returned in a trice, and he was able to resume his normal role of wooden desk clerk.  I couldn’t help my smug smile, and with brimming confidence in my new clothes and scrubbed body, the feeling in my stomach was somehow different from the last time I’d stood here.  Then, it had been a tiny knot of nerves, of self-doubt - this time it was hunger.  I hadn’t eaten for... I couldn’t remember - days probably.  Drink yes, I’d had plenty of that.  God, had I ever.  But now I needed food, and Clarence would be just the man to direct me to the best cafe in town.  I took a breath and began.

‘Ah, I was...’

‘Just passin’ through or plannin’ t’ stay awhile?’ asked Clarence.

The penny dropped.  I should have twigged - they hadn’t recognised the new me.  Would I rub their noses in it, stretch it out as far as I could?  Would I turn the knife a little, sprinkle in a little salt.  What might that do to Clarence’s hair?  Even now there was a sprig of heavily greased hairs on the verge of rebellion.  I decided to be gentle, after all, I was trying to steer my life in a new direction.

‘Room for the night for starters I’d reckon,’ said Clarence to his wife via the wall behind my head. 

‘Well, actually you...’

‘Ah, stayin’ on are we?  Good.  You’ll enjoy it here.  Great little spot the old Cascades.  Mind you, it’s cascadin’ a sight more’n usual.  Never seen such rain.  Anyway, leave it t’ you dear,’ said Clarence, ‘busy as a cattle dog with two legs in the bar today.  Must keep moving.’

His wife had almost pecked her way to the bit about no ladies in the room before I could get a word in.  By chance, she happened to glance in my direction and could tell by my pained expression she’d got something wrong.  ‘What is it you don’t understand?’, she asked desperately.

‘Actually I already have a room.  You’ve put me in with the mule skinners.’

It would be wrong to say there was a deadly silence, what with the hubbub in the saloon bar, but it would be fair to say there was a sense of a deadly silence.  Clarence stopped dead in his tracks and stood motionless as if the cogs in his reverse gear were giving trouble.  Two blue bespectacled eyes had me fixed as in a trance.  The only reason I didn’t continue to speak was because I thought one of them would have responded - but they didn’t.  They didn’t look at each other either, but I could almost see the mental telepathy at work.  It was hard to tell which looked most guilty, but as with any husband and wife, they each thought the other was to blame.  Once again, I decided to let them off the hook.

‘Just wondering where the best place to get a bite...to eat...would be.  A rather large bite as it happens.  Could eat a horse...except it probably wouldn’t be enough.’

My nervous laugh annoyed me as I wasn’t the one who should be feeling bloody stupid.  I put my weakness down to starvation.  Clarence blinked a few times, the effort the last straw for the few strands remaining loyal to his brushwork.  Looking like a pin cushion some ignoramus had pushed the pins in the wrong way, he did his best to appear calm. He nodded his head three or four times past me and to my right. 

‘The widow woman’d be your best bet... Wouldn’t you say Maz?  Yeah that’d be the go.  Um, just across the street, up round the main bend a ways.  Juts out a bit.  You can’t miss it.  That would be... What do you think Maz?  Um, yeah.  Yeah.  The widow woman’s place’d be the...  Hm.  Maz?’  But the bird had flown.

The neat little blackboard with corn flowers chalked in the corner told me dinner would be served from 5.30 onwards.  The rumbles from my stomach echoed my disappointment, but as I had an hour to kill, I decided it would be a good opportunity to seek out the famous twin cascades.  It would at least give me something to chat to Clarence about.  And the mule skinners too - they’d be big on geographical highlights.

So much for my cynicism.  The falls themselves were impressive, the surrounds spectacular, but they were hardly twins.  One stream cascaded in a dozen or so scalloping loops before hitting the pool in a rainbow of spray. The other, a single continuous drop, hit the bottom like an oil rigger’s drill.  Only the highest summer sun would ever spotlight their common pool, so deep was the gorge engulfing it, and me.  But it didn’t need a spotlight - it was better off without one.  The colours were of velvet - of breath.  Colours you would huff on rather than apply with a brush.  There were purples, blues, browns and greens, but even the words sound coarse and unsubtle.  I couldn’t express it, even to myself.  The best way I could phrase it would be to describe them not so much as colours or tones, but moods.  Perhaps I was having a mystical experience, and maybe these are only ever experienced when the belly is empty and the mind begins to feed on other foods.  Why two such grand water courses would find their way to the one magical spot like this only the Indians could give you a reason.  We latecomers could explain how and why the geographical forms produced this result, but that was hardly a reason - more of an excuse.  I thought of Wyoming - I couldn’t help it.  That had been my first mystical experience.

If you’d asked me on that night I snuck out my bedroom window and headed off into the dark, my worldly possessions slung over my shoulder, if I would know when I’d reached my destination, I would have had to say no.  How could I?  I knew nothing of the world.  I hadn’t even looked at a map.  All I knew I was being stifled and I hated my parents for it.  But even then I sensed it wasn’t their fault.  They’d been moulded to think a certain way and that was that.  Why I couldn’t think their way was just as much a mystery to me as it was to them.  I knew I would die, at least inside, if I didn’t get away.  And for me, that meant heading west.  Perhaps if I’d been born out here, I’d have wanted to go east - who knows?  Maybe my mental compass got jolted at birth.  They always joked about my popping out before the midwife was ready.  Landed on my head I was told.  Had to live through sixteen years of chiacking based on that one.  Skinned many a knuckle on it too.  So why was I smiling as I thought of it now?

The McPhersons were even worse than my lot, so why could I see their shenanigans were full of love when I hadn’t recognised it in my own folks?  I thought about that one a lot - particularly over the last few months.  I’d thought about a lot over those months, when I was sober.  Making up for lost time I suppose.

I’d gone with the flow - travelled in and on stage coaches, sometimes as a paying customer, sometimes not.  Worked my passage on the big river steamboats, even acting as a gambler’s sidekick.  Dangled my legs over the back of wagons filled with everything from sly grog and guns to pigs and manure.  Swept out saloons, dodging bottles and bullets as well as drunks who couldn’t seem to tell me from the painted ladies - or perhaps they could.  Dug potatoes, felled trees and hauled barges until my back cracked like roasting chestnuts, my hands raw and bloody.  Being an avid reader, long schooled by both Kate and her mother, I even found myself teaching history, painting and music to a farmer’s daughters, who in turn taught me they were at least as worldly as  me, and in some departments more so.  But the day I struggled from my sleepy huddle in the bottom of the buffalo skinner’s cart to see the dying sun painting the vast dry meadow with muted pinks and greys flecked with honeyed golds - all against a black purple sky - I knew I was there.  The crisp chill wind nipped my ears and burnt my cheeks.  Maybe it was that same wind filling my eyes with wetness as the scene before me shimmered into a blur, yet remained crystal clear and permanently fixed in my brain.  They were nothing like the velvet hues at Twin Cascades, but the burning in my chest was the same.  I knew immediately that windswept meadow should be my home, and it was, for seven years.  It became part of me.  Or is that too pompous?  I became part of it.  No matter, the point is, I belonged there - I belonged.  But I’d left, and in disgrace.  Two homes and I’d run away from both.  Whether that was to be my lot, I couldn’t yet tell.  What hurt me now though was a large component of the burning in my chest was fear. 

After learning my first lesson that perhaps I was more at fault than I’d realized in my estrangement from my family, a second dawning of insight began.  With each year of greater comfort, greater confidence, in myself and what I felt I would achieve, I set my sights on the grand goal of obtaining the foremanship of the property.  Once I’d achieved that I knew I would be ready to face my demons.  Each night after the lamp was snuffed, I imagined the second letter I would write home - a letter full of pride and achievement.  A kind of certificate of success like the one Kate brought back from