This House of Sky - Ivan Doig [106]
Even McGrath, seasoned conniver that he was, seemed shaken by the wordless withdrawal of the Jensen ranch from us. And Dad and Grandma now faced a Reservation summer with no point of return at its end.
The one thing plain in this new muddle was that the arrangement with McGrath was fractured. The three of us were agreed that we wanted no more of his risky ranches and jinxed sheep. Also, if the summer could be passed without catastrophe roaring in from the mountains or grabbing up out of the earth, this would at last be a year when we had made good money from the sheep and could afford some new start. How about if we stay on until Mac can sell the ewes this fall? Dad suggested. Might take a month or so after the lambs are shipped, but we can tell him that's all, we're walking away from his damned sheep if he's not rid of them by then ... Good enough, I said.... Hunky-dory by me, Grandma said, I won't shed tears over old McGrath....
It was this final herding season for Dad and Grandma that I spent on the trucking job near the Canadian border, and my exploded truck was not the only blast mark on our summer. I arrived to visit at the trailer house one Sunday to be told that Kitten had vanished several days before; Dad figured that an eagle had ended his stalking career. Another Sunday, as I stepped from the car only Spot pawed ecstatically up at me. Where's Tip? I asked quickly, and Grandma's face told me that there no longer was a Tip. Dad again gave me the details: the black dog at last had become the casualty of his chasing-and-biting habit, sneaking from camp to run with a dog pack on the range west along the Two Medicine. Dad had heard in Browning that the sheepmen came onto the dogs and shot several of them in their tracks; Tip had to have been among them. He got what he was asking for ... Grandma began and broke off in silent tears as Spot eyed around at us to choose one for his next fond nuzzle.
Only the sheep seemed immune from calamity that summer. The lambs fattened and fattened, and brought a top price at shipping time. McGrath next located stubblefields south of Dupuyer where the ewes could graze for a few weeks. That autumn's trailing of the sheep southward was our longest ever, nearly sixty miles. Dad and Grandma wearily waited in the trailer house amid the blond stubble for the sale of the sheep. A buyer was found, the ewes we had struggled over for a dozen seasons in the Jensen ranch-Reservation rhythm of years now vanished in a gray blatting stream into boxcars. On a day in early November of 1956, we drove north to Cut Bank to settle our finances with McGrath. Dodgy as ever, he was to meet us in a hotel room there.
I spent the trip dreaming of showdowns: Give us our money or I'll break your ugly damn face. I could all but hear the same battle breaking out in Grandma's mind: God darn you ornery old cuss, we did all the work for three years and you think you're gonna keep the money in your dirty paws; you got another think coming. ... As we parked in front of the hotel, Dad said, I want you two to wait here. I know how I'm going to handle this. Half an hour later, he climbed in the car and showed us a check for our full share. McGrath had taken our calculations without a question, made out our amount and said only: You people did a powerful amount of work for me.
The one thing the three of us agreed on next was that we should not move away in this,