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belonging to one of the blue heelers went in a pack basket, the runtinside Jack's coat, for he loved a little dog. Ennis picked out a bigchestnut called Cigar Butt to ride, Jack a bay mare who turned out tohave a low startle point. The string of spare horses included amouse-colored grullo whose looks Ennis liked. Ennis and Jack, thedogs, horses and mules, a thousand ewes and their lambs flowed upthe trail like dirty water through the timber and out above the treeline into the great flowery Meadows and the coursing, endless wind.They got the big tent up on the Forest Service's platform, the kitchenand grub boxes secured. Both slept in camp that first night, Jackalready bitching about Joe Aguirre's sleep-with-the-sheep-and-no-fire order, though he saddled the bay mare in the dark morningwithout saying much. Dawn came glassy orange, stained from belowby a gelatinous band of pale green. The sooty bulk of the mountainpaled slowly until it was the same color as the smoke from Ennis'sbreakfast fire. The cold air sweetened, banded pebbles and crumbsof soil cast sudden pencil-long shadows and the rearing lodgepolepines below them massed in slabs of somber malachite.During the day Ennis looked across a great gulf and sometimes sawJack, a small dot moving across a high meadow as an insect movesacross a tablecloth; Jack, in his dark camp, saw Ennis as night fire, ared spark on the huge black mass of mountain.Jack came lagging in late one afternoon, drank his two bottles ofbeer cooled in a wet sack on the shady side of the tent, ate two bowlsof stew, four of Ennis's stone biscuits, a can of peaches, rolled asmoke, watched the sun drop.
"I'm commutin four hours a day," he said morosely. "Come in forbreakfast, go back to the sheep, evenin get em bedded down, comein for supper, go back to the sheep, spend half the night jumpin upand checkin for coyotes. By rights I should be spendin the nighthere. Aguirre got no right a make me do this.""You want a switch?" said Ennis. "I wouldn't mind herdin. Iwouldn't mind sleepin out there."
"That ain't the point. Point is, we both should be in this camp. Andthat goddamn pup tent smells like cat piss or worse.""Wouldn't mind bein out there.""Tell you what, you got a get up a dozen times in the night out thereover them coyotes. Happy to switch but give you warnin I can't cookworth a sh*t. Pretty good with a can opener.""Can't be no worse than me, then. Sure, I wouldn't mind a do it."They fended off the night for an hour with the yellow kerosene lampand around ten Ennis rode Cigar Butt, a good night horse, throughthe glimmering frost back to the sheep, carrying leftover biscuits, ajar of jam and a jar of coffee with him for the next day saying he'dsave a trip, stay out until supper.
"Shot a coyote just first light," he told Jack the next evening,sloshing his face with hot water, lathering up soap and hoping hisrazor had some cut left in it, while Jack peeled potatoes. "Big son ofa bitch. Balls on him size a apples. I bet he'd took a few lambs.Looked like he could a eat a camel. You want some a this hot water?
