The Snowblind Moon

CHAPTER ONE In a sheltered upland valley, circled by ridges and accessible in winter only through a cut in the hills where the river flowed between a low cliff on one side and a wagon track cut into a steep hillside on the other, the smell of woodsmoke hung in the air. Up against the wooded foothills at the north end of the valley the wagon road ended among the buildings of a small settlement dominated by a two-story log building that for more than twenty years had been the largest private dwelling and public house between the Black Hills to the east and South Pass far to the west, at the foot of the. Wind River Mountains. Behind the building stood a large barn, a chicken coop and a pigpen, and a scattering of sheds and outbuildings. Closer to the creek, standing against the woods, was a tipi of northern plains design, painted in the style of the Sioux. From the peak of the tipi and from two rear chimneys of the main building, smoke drifted away to disperse in the winds that occasionally gusted a plume of snow from the long front porch of the big house. In the snow-covered meadow below the settlement a tall black man and a teenaged boy tossed hay from a large sled drawn by two draft horses. Strung out. behind the sled were fifty or sixty mixed-breed cattle browsing on the hay, a few horses and mules among them. The two men pitched the hay in even fines on either side of the sled, careful to spread it out so the less aggressive feeders in the bunch would have room to get enough. "That's about the last of it," said Julius Ingram. Butch nodded. Julius said the same thing every morning. Every morning they loaded the big sled with hay and hauled it to the bawling cattle in the meadow and every morning when the hay was almost gone Julius would say "That's about the last of it," and Hutch would nod, saying nothing. At first he hadn't said much because he'd never worked for a nigger boss before. Not for a lady boss either, for that matter, although he was used to both of them now, to his own surprise. "Whoa." Julius spoke no louder than if he were talking to Hutch, and the two Belgians stopped in the traces. The short hair that curled beneath the flat brim of the Negro's hat was gray. His mahogany skin lay smooth over every bone and muscle in his face; the effortless movements of his broad shoulders as he cleaned the last of the hay off the sled suggested reserves of strength untapped by the morning's work. He wore a new corduroy coat and wool pants that had once been light blue but were now so faded and stained and patched that they could not be said to have any distinct color. At seventeen, Hutch had attained nearly his full height and still he was a good head shorter than Julius. Unlike the tall black man, who appeared lean despite his strength, Hutch's form was stocky and heavily muscled, his movements short and economical. He took off his wool knit cap and stuffed it in a pocket of his ok) blanket-fined canvas jacket, enjoying the feeling as his scalp cooled in the wind. The thaw that had lasted for nearly two weeks was over and done with but the day was tolerable even so, nothing like the bitter cold days of midwinter. The snow that had been falling, since before dawn was thinning now, and for the first time that morning he could see across the creek and the broad expanse of willow marsh to the far side of the valley. He breathed in deeply arid noticed, not for the first time, how the smell of smoke from the stoves in the main house stayed in the air on a day like this when the clouds were low. "When the chimney smoke's on the rise, you'll see clear skies," his mother, had told him. "When the smoke hangs low, it's bound to snow." But the rhyme hadn't explained how lCooke, John Byrne is the author of 'The Snowblind Moon' with ISBN 9780812524611 and ISBN 0812524616.