"Wages"

It means he rejects wages that is where you have a job and work for a wage ($ per hour) and the tied down life that goes along with that. At the end of the movie Eli Wallach touches on this again when he sounds off on Gable about not ending up working at a service station or grocery. They saw themselves as part of the myth of the West where the movie is really about the myth vs freedom and turning around and committing to the true values (letting the horses go) that have meaning.