Free Shortgrass Song by Mike Blakely

“Hey, somebody’s comin’!” Caleb shouted.
    Ab was six timbers high on one corner, watching Buster work a log with the drawknife. He looked across the creek, where the Arapaho Trail led from the mountains, and saw a distinctive herd of beasts following a rider toward the cabin.
    An old mountain man rode up the cutbank on a chestnut gelding with a white rump, the white rump harboring chestnut spots the size of silver dollars. A mare trailing behind was white with bay spots from the shoulders back, and solid bay forward. An eagle feather stuck out of a beaver top hat. Stiff shocks of iron-gray hair bristled out from under the dusty brim, ran down the jowls, climbed the cheeks, hid the mouth, and brushed the collar of a bright red gingham shirt. The butt of a long rifle jutted from a fringed saddle sleeve.
    â€œIt’s old Cheyenne Dutch,” Ab said, climbing down from the corner.
    Cheyenne Dutch had come west thirty years ago to trap beavers and trade with the Indians. He had kept a trading post on the South Platte for the first fourteen years, until he lost it in a game of three-card monte. Then he had killed the new owner with a Cheyenne lance and burned the place to the ground. He had wandered among the Indians since. It was rumored that he had a wife with every tribe in the Rockies.
    Five dogs prowled at the heels of Dutch’s gelding as he approached the unfinished cabin, one sorrowful sway-backed specimen almost dragging her teats on the ground. The old trader tightened his fur-trimmed reins when he arrived, and reached into a sack tied behind his cantle.
    â€œBitch whelped,” he said. “Want one?” From the sack he lifted a whining puppy by the nape of the neck.
    Matthew and Pete dropped their tools and raced to get their hands on the puppy. Dutch let them handle two of them so they wouldn’t pull the one apart.
    â€œCan we have ’em, Papa?” Pete begged.
    Ab folded his arms across his chest. “What kind of dog?” he asked.
    â€œBitch’s there,” Dutch said, pointing. “She’s hound. Other half’s wolf for all I know.”
    â€œWhat will you trade?”
    â€œTobacco?” Dutch suggested.
    â€œWe don’t keep tobacco here,” Ella said, leaving her oxen to confront the visitor. She had an instinct for judging some people, and she didn’t like this Cheyenne Dutch.
    The mountain man refused to look at her, preferring to do his trading with men. “Don’t you smoke, Holcomb?”
    Ab shook his head.
    â€œWhiskey?”
    â€œThat either,” Ella said.
    â€œYou don’t drink?”
    â€œNo,” Ab said.
    Dutch grinned, gold-capped teeth glinting through his whiskers. “Well, let’s see. Don’t smoke, don’t drink. Probably ain’t got no use for that squaw down there in the corn, either. Swap her, and I’ll give you the whole goddamn litter.”
    â€œSir,” Ella said, “we don’t bargain in human flesh. And mind your language around these children.”
    â€œHolcomb, ain’t you even allowed to cuss?”
    â€œNo,” Ab said. “Will you take some flour or coffee or something?”
    The trader scratched his beard a moment. “Some coffee for one pup. Sugar for another. That’s fair. Them dogs’ll help that squaw keep the cows out of your crops.”
    â€œAll right,” Ab said, “we’ll swap.”
    Matthew and Pete hollered for joy and took their pets under the wagon to play with. Caleb put the mandolin in the milk wagon and hung over Pete’s shoulders to pet one of the puppies. He knew better than to get close to Matthew’s dog. He wished his father would have traded for three pups, but he was afraid to ask for another, thinking his mother might change her mind about the mandolin if he got greedy.
    As Ella went to the dugout to get the coffee and sugar together, Dutch scrutinized the black man up on the wall.