The High Divide by Lin Enger Page B

whistled, and snapped his switch at the ox, which bellowed and swung its head before pulling forward. At the building with the green door, he hauled in and climbed down. A crude sign hung from the eave: TONGUE RIVER AGENCY . He knocked and waited, knocked again, and stepped back into the street, such as it was. Except for the boys, he seemed to have attracted no interest. A hundred feet away a pair of old women sat in the scant shade of a stunted poplar, bent at some kind of handiwork. Ulysses started toward them but hadn’t gone a dozen steps before the sound of a dry hinge stopped him. He turned.
    A man with a lumpy, turnip face leaned out from the green door, just his head and shoulders visible. “You’re wantin’ me ?” he asked.
    â€œI am if you’re Adams.”
    He emerged from the doorway. He was round like a turnip, too, and stood with his fingers tucked into the front of his dirty pants, thumbs on the waistband, stomach thrown forward.
    Ulysses put out his hand, which Adams regarded for a moment before meeting it with a soft, damp grip.
    â€œI’m Pope,” Ulysses said.
    â€œWhat kind of freight you got?”
    â€œI’ll give you a look.”
    At the back of the wagon Ulysses pulled back the canvas to reveal the potatoes in their burlap bags, a dozen fifty-pound sacks of flour, a few bolts of cotton in bright colors, and the keg of molasses he’d found on the side of the trail his first day out of Miles City. A few other odds and ends.
    â€œI ain’t seen you before, have I?” Adams asked.
    â€œNo. But I heard in Miles City that you had need of provisions down here. Heard the government shipments are running behind.”
    â€œHeard from who?”
    â€œChurch, at the livery. Also from the bone-man, Slovin.”
    â€œThere’s a pair of thieving bastards for you.”
    â€œThey told me wrong?”
    Adams pulled one small hand from the front of his pants and rested it on the top of his belly. He lifted his eyes to the empty sky as if searching for something there.
    â€œThey said considerably more than that, truth be told,” Ulysses said. “About hungry people and the cold weather coming on, nothing in the storerooms. They said there’s been talk of men getting restless and going off the reserve to hunt for game that’s already hunted out.”
    â€œYou got an earful then.”
    â€œI did.”
    Adams turned south, in the direction of a cluster of men who had gathered across the dirt road and stood between a pair of squat log buildings, watching. The old women beneath the poplar tree watched now, too. Adams hawked and spat.
    â€œYou’re not interested in what I’ve got?” Ulysses asked him.
    â€œThat ain’t what I said. It gravels me, though, when a fellow I don’t know from Judas comes rolling in on a Sunday morning, overestimating the value of his load.”
    â€œWe haven’t talked about the value of my load. And what does Sunday morning have to do with it?”
    â€œDay of rest and all—shit, not a thing,” Adams said, breaking a smile. “Remember, though—I’m a Indian agent, not a banker. And the federal sons of bitches have me drawing from a well that’s near to dry.”
    The men from across the road were coming forward, their feet raising little puffs of dust in the air. Seven of them. The pair of old women got up from beneath their tree and followed after. They all passed close enough to have a look at the cargo before they went to stand in the shade of the agency building. Ulysses reached into the bed, right behind the buckboard, and shoved a couple bags of potatoes toward the back, exposing a woolen blanket, which he tossed aside. On the wagon’s plank bed was a layer of oilcloth packages, each a foot and a half in length and as big around as a man’s arm. He lifted one out and covered up the rest with the blanket, then walked past Adams,