The first fire
We said:
Pull your blanket closer,
put your boots beyond the sparks.
Ben can make a supper last
from dusk till full dark.
There’s coffee in the black pot,
there’s a rock to rest it on.
Laugh along, new fellow.
We’ll tell you who when we’re done.
Ben said:
When Dave went courting Ellen
he took his finest hat.
He’d borrowed it from Walter—
Walter’s head was twice as fat.
He bowed and lost his eyesight;
she kissed his horse instead.
The horse still comes on Sundays.
Dave married someone else, they said.
Eli said:
Which one is Dave?
We said:
Dave wasn’t there that evening.
Neither was the horse.
Ben pointed down the canyon
and told the tale off course:
the kiss became a wedding,
the horse grew bridal white.
Eli waited for the ending.
He laughed a fraction late that night.
Ben said:
Now there’s a thoughtful fellow.
He checks the joke for flaws.
He’ll want to see the licence
before the horse has in-laws.
Eli said:
I mostly wanted names.
We said:
The beans stuck to the kettle.
Eli scraped them free.
Ben found him a clean blanket
and named us patiently.
Then talked about the freight job
he meant to take next spring:
steady pay, a roof at night,
no frozen cinch or broken ring.
Pull your blanket closer,
put your boots beyond the sparks.
Ben can make a supper last
from dusk till full dark.
There’s coffee in the black pot,
there’s a rock to rest it on.
Laugh along, new fellow.
We’ll tell you who when we’re done.
The second fire
We said:
Ben came back in August
in a shirt without a tear.
He brought a tin of peaches
and a week’s unused good cheer.
Eli was telling how he’d found
a calf inside the shed
where we had stacked the tack all day
and thought the door was wedged.
Eli said:
The calf came out with Walter’s vest.
I asked it for a loan.
It wouldn’t give me interest,
so I left the calf alone.
We said:
Walter said the vest was paid for;
Dave wanted collateral.
Ben took off his tidy hat
and balanced it on his knee awhile.
Ben said:
This fellow nearly drowned himself
his first week at the trough.
He put his whole head underwater
to wash the dust right off.
We hauled him out by both his heels.
We dried him on the rail.
We sent his mother half the creek
in a bucket through the mail.
Eli said:
No, Ben. I dropped my spectacles.
You watched me fish them out.
Leave Mother out of this one.
She’d send the bucket back.
We said:
The laughter had a gap in it.
The peaches passed from hand to hand.
Ben asked if jokes required a trial.
Nobody took that stand.
Eli said:
But tell them how I found them—
through the lens I couldn’t see.
I caught three leaves, a rusty nail,
then couldn’t lift my sleeve.
The horse was standing on it.
I had to ask it please.
I came out with the spectacles
and lost them when I sneezed.
We said:
Dave put down his coffee
before he laughed it out.
Walter offered Eli string
to tie them on, next time out.
Ben laughed too, a little late;
he fetched more wood instead.
His hat lay on the empty tin.
The coals burned copper-red.
Pull your blanket closer,
put your boots beyond the sparks.
Let a fellow tell his trouble
where he knows the funny parts.
There’s coffee in the black pot,
there’s a rock to rest it on.
Pass the peaches, Ben.
We aren’t through with supper yet. Go on.
The third fire
We said:
In October Ben came up the track
without a tin or speech.
We’d moved the fire against a bank
and kept the blankets within reach.
Eli shifted on his log
to make a place beside.
Ben sat and watched the kettle lid
and asked about the last long ride.
Ben said:
I thought I could unload a cart
quicker than the other men.
I pushed it through the freight-house doors
and pushed it out again.
The floor slopes toward the platform.
I didn’t count on that.
It carried twenty sacks of flour
and me, still in my hat.
The sacks fell off in twos and threes
and I went after that.
Eli said:
Did the flour pay for passage?
Ben said:
No. It travelled free.
Eli said:
Was the hat the only passenger
who knew where it would be?
Ben said:
The hat got off at sack eleven.
I stayed aboard till twelve.
They let me sweep the platform up
and stack the rest myself.
We said:
His clean shirt shook with laughing.
We asked him about sack ten.
He wouldn’t make it fourteen—
but he told us twelve again.
There was a man at work, he said,
who’d given him a broom
and pointed out a sloping floor
at every door and room.
Pull your blanket closer,
put your boots beyond the sparks.
A visitor has brought a tale
that happened past our dark.
There’s coffee in the black pot,
there’s a rock to rest it on.
Laugh with us, old fellow.
Stay until the embers settle down.
We said:
The others rolled their blankets out.
Eli banked the fire.
Ben carried up the water pail
and set it by the wire.
“You coming back next month?” he asked.
Eli pushed one coal clear.
“I’ll be here. Bring the hat.”
Ben said, “I’ll try to keep it here.”
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