Free Fair Land, Fair Land by A. B. Guthrie Jr.

don't shoot straight."
    "Now how come you say that?"
    " It was a big target, that bear, sayin' he was
as big as you make out, but the shot got him just in the leg."
    " The bear was movin', and the size of him gave
me the fidgets. Not the fault of the rifle."
    " So you aim to finish him off?"
    "Course."
    " So I can say I kilt him, the biggest grizzly
any man ever seen."
    " You could say that regardless, I'm thinkin'."
    " Sure, but no proof."
    " You'll need another horse to carry the hide."
    The man looked into the distance, then back at
Summers. "I hadn't give thought to that," he said. "But
likely I could butcher his head off or hack out some teeth to back me
up."
    After a silence Higgins joined the talk. "You
say huntin's poor, buffalo huntin'?"
    " Puny. Buffaloes mostly has drifted south with
the season. No big herds. With a big bunch a man can shoot ten or
maybe forty from one stand."
    Summers said, "That's mighty interestin'. I
never heerd the like of it." He made his tone mild against the
dislike that was in him.
    " It takes a good eye, but about that bear. I
found blood on the trail yesterday and maybe a spot or two today."
    " If it was him for a fact," Summers said,
keeping his voice soft, "I figure he circled around you and went
on out, likely makin' for a swamp. You take a grizzly and wound him,
and if he don't charge he'll make for a swamp every time. He can cool
his hurt there and feed on cattails and such. There's cool and cure
in swamp water."
    Brewer straightened in his saddle. "Maybe so,
but I figure I'll go on a piece anyhow."
    Summers shook his head. "It's up to you. What
say, Hig?"
    " Every man's got his rights, right or wrong."
    " What are you sayin'?"
    " Don't mind us, mister."
    " What in hell is it?"
    " Injuns." Summers spoke to Higgins. "How
many was there, hoss?"
    Higgins was quick to catch on. "Ten by my count.
Young bucks."
    " Damn Blackfeet."
    " Oh, now, Dick," Higgins put in. "They
wasn't too bad. They let us through, didn't they?"
    " On account of I know some Blackfoot talk. On
account of the tobacco they took off"n us."
    " And the jug. I was forgettin' the jug."
    " That firewater will set 'em off."
    "Maybe not. What you tryin' to do? Just faze the
man?"
    The man, Summers could see, looked fazed. "Me, I
wouldn't keer to meet 'em again."
    " If they're there," Brewer said, saving his
pride, "the bear won't be nowhere near. Where were they bound?"
    "This way when they finish the jug."
    " I ain't a coward, but no man alone wants to
meet up with a war party. Right?"
    "Right."
    " How about just trailin' along with you?"
    "Three of us might set 'em off," Summers
said. "Best you go ahead. We'll laze along, kind of a rear
guard. Worst comes to worst, we got another jug."
    Brewer nodded, turned his horse around and kicked it
to a brisk walk. Turning back for an instant, he called, "If you
do any good with that squaw, hump her one for me."
    When he was out of earshot, Summers told Higgins,
"Our play-actin' sure shot him down." He grinned into
Higgins" grinning face.
    " Take a bow, man."
    " Take one yourself."
    "No fools, no fun. That's what I say."
    " What I say is, let's find a nice place to
camp."
 
 
    12
    SUMMERS was in no hurry. They had made it over the
Bitter Roots and over the Rockies, and a day or two more would see
them out on the plains. He stretched in his bed, hearing Higgins
fussing around camp. It was good just to lie thinking, to hope to see
the trapping grounds again and the clean streams that joined the
Missouri, to see space without limit or people to claim it and dwarf
it.
    Like he told Hig, it wasn't that he disliked people.
Taken singly or in limited bunches, they were all right. He wasn't by
nature like some he could name, men who distrusted strangers and
hated settlements, who shied away from all law, who took up with
squaws and abused and deserted them and went on, ready with knife or
gun at the hint of an insult. Yet he wondered.
    No. He was on the wrong trail. It wasn't crowds