The Lonesome Gods Page 2

  Inside the wagon we talked little, and Papa least of all. Papa was a sociable man most of the time, but on this trip he kept to himself. Maybe it was his illness, but maybe it was something else, something that worried him more and more as he drew closer to California.

  Jacob Finney rode up beside me one day when we were walking to ease the horses. We’d been on the trail no more than an hour, and it was coming on to moonlight.

  “Want a ride, son? You can he’p me look for Injuns.”

  One of the passengers spoke up. “You will frighten the child.”

  “No, sir,” I said. “I ain’t…I mean, I’m not frightened.” Although I was, a little bit.

  He took me up on the saddle in front of him. “We don’t talk,” he said, “we listen. Injuns mostly sleep of a night, but sometimes they are late gettin’ back to their lodges, just like we are. We want to kind of ease by ’em, like.”

  “We could fight.”

  “Yes, son, we could, but fightin’s something you do when you’ve tried everything else.”

  Chapter 2

  OUR WAGON WAS our world. We were six people isolated from all about us as long as the wagon moved. We slept, we read, we stared at the canvas overhead or at one another, and we listened. Always, we listened.

  Our stops during the day were brief, and always in selected positions where concealment was possible. Our rules had been laid down before the wagon started to roll.

  One or the other of the outriders did the cooking. No pans were allowed to rattle, no voices were raised. Our campfires were brief and built from wood that promised little or no smoke. The side walls of our wagon were higher than usual, but the canvas top was much lower than on the prairie schooner or Conestoga, and the canvas itself was browned by smoke and usage. We wanted no glaring white top to draw the eyes of our enemies.

  As we drew nearer the Colorado River, our travel periods were shorter and we were in hiding well before daylight.

  We saw no Indians. Once Jacob Finney found tracks, but they were several days old.

  My father talked little and did his best to stifle his coughing, yet it was a problem. Opposite us sat Thomas Fraser, a lean, tall Scotsman in a gray store-bought suit that was too small for him. Throughout the day he took notes in a small notebook he carried in the side pocket of his coat.

  Hunched over the notebook, his thin shoulders like a buzzard’s wings starting to unfold, he hovered in scowling intensity over his stub of pencil. I wondered how he could write at all while the wagon moved, but somehow he accomplished it. When we stopped for the day, he wandered off by himself to sit on a rock or log and stare at nothingness.

  On the last night before reaching the river, Mr. Farley led the horses to a secret tank where water collected from the rains. “We’ve got to water them good,” he explained, “else when they smell the river they’ll run for it. There’d be no holdin’ ’em. We’d have things scattered to hell an’ gone, and no end of racket. Bring ever’ Injun in the country down on us.”

  “Are there Indians close by?” I asked.

  “I hope not, son. But they’re about. Not many for such a big country, but they show up when least expected. Yumas can be almighty unpleasant, and they are fighters. Your pa can tell you.”

  Jacob Finney came up, his rifle in the hollow of his arm. “Smoke off to the northwest. Thin trail.”

  “How far?”

  “Six, eight miles. Maybe less. This side the river, I’d say.” He paused. “Want me to scout the trail to the river?”

  Farley hesitated, then said, “No, we’ve got it to do, and we’ll move out quietly as soon as it’s dark. No use tipping our hand until we must. With luck we can be across the river before they know we’re around.”

  He glanced over at me where I stood listening. “Y’see, son, Injuns will come out an’ study the country after the sun goes down. The glare is gone, everything is still, and things sort of stand out. Sound carries further and any movement is easier seen. You put that away in your skull an’ hold it for another time.” He spat. “No, Jacob, we’ll sit tight and take our chances.”

  It was very hot and the air was still. The wagon was drawn up among some cedars and the horses were grazing on a small patch of grass. Around us was a forest of sandstone boulders, and beyond them a rocky ridge. There was a good-sized pool of water.

  “They’ve thought it out,” Papa said, speaking softly. “The wagon’s tight, and if need be we can cut loose from the gear and float all the way to the Gulf.”

  My father was a puzzle to me. From the start there was a difference in the way Farley, Kelso, and Finney treated him. They seemed to accept him as one of themselves, but the others were not treated so. Why was this so?

  Of course, my father had been over the trail before, yet even that did not seem reason enough.

  “How much farther?” I asked.

  “The hardest part will be after we cross the river. From the river to the mountains is a long way, all of it desert. There are bare ridges, lava beds, some cinder cones, and—”

  “What’s a cinder cone?”

  “Easiest way to explain it is, it’s a small volcano. Most of ’em are a couple of hundred feet high, or less, cone-shaped, with a crater inside.”

  “Is there water in the desert?”

  “Here and there, if you know where to look. There’s a river, too. Water’s not too good, and it isn’t much of a river, only a few feet across, and some places no more than an inch deep.”

  “Where will I live?”

  My father was silent for a few minutes and then said, “Your grandfather is a very rich man. He has thousands of cattle, sheep, and horses. He has a big ranch, and then he has a house in town, too.

  “Most of the men who work on the ranch are Indians, those in town are Mexicans. Good men, most of them.”

  I wanted to ask him about Felipe, and what he might have known that he was not wanted to know, but I did not. I could not let my father realize that his private conversations had been overheard, even though I only listened when they spoke about the past or about my grandfather.

  We dozed, awakened, then dozed again. Fletcher paced irritably. He was a difficult, impatient man, one accustomed to having his own way, I thought, and he did not like being just one of a group, nor did he like my father. I did not like Fletcher, nor did he like me.

  “What’s the matter with him?” he demanded once. “He doesn’t talk like any boy I know.”

  My father’s expression was bland. “He has spent much more time with adults, so he talks like one, even thinks like one. We’ve been in few places where there were other children, a fact I regret.”

  Later, when I had gone to get a drink from the pool, I heard Farley talking to Kelso. “He’s trouble, and I don’t want trouble. I’m not worried about Verne. He can take care of himself, but I don’t want shooting.”

  “There’s been no trouble so far.”

  “No, and I want to keep it that way. Fletcher looks like a tough man, but he doesn’t know anything about Verne, and I don’t think he knows much about the West.”

  There was a pause. “I want to get these people through safely and with as little trouble as possible. I nearly refused Fletcher on sight. I am sorry I didn’t.”

  Fletcher finally seated himself against a tree, removed his hat, and closed his eyes. I watched him curiously, wondering why he was going to California in such a hurry. Yet I had no idea why any of them were going except for my father.

  So far, neither of the two women had tried to talk to me, which seemed strange, as women traveling always seemed to fuss over youngsters, and I had been wary of them for that reason.

  Miss Nesselrode was a slender, graceful woman who might have been thirty and was probably younger. She wore high lace collars that were always immaculate, no matter how dusty the trail. Her gray traveling dress was much worn and there were signs of raveling at the cuffs. She was rather pretty in a fluttery way, but I did notice that with each day we were on the tra
il she fluttered less and her eyelashes were steadier. If she had a first name, I had never heard it.

  Mrs. Weber was a stout lady in black satin—or what looked like it. I felt sorry for her in that old stiff black dress she wore that seemed to have so many layers. She held a small handkerchief to her nose most of the time, and sniffed a good deal.

  Sometimes I tried to imagine why they were all going west, but could not.

  It was very still. Not a breath of air stirred. Occasionally one of the horses would stamp a hoof to drive away flies. Jacob Finney, who had been lying under the wagon, got up, and taking his rifle, went out to relieve Kelso.

  Farley walked over and dropped to the sand beside my father. “Verne? Did you ever make the crossing this high up?”

  “My first time was in Mohave country, but I never crossed in here.”

  “You know the country west of the river?”

  “Some of it. There’s some water holes at the west end of the Chocolates.” He paused, then abruptly he asked, “Farley? Do you know Peg-Leg Smith?”

  “No. I heard of him, but who hasn’t? Trapper, isn’t he? Mountain man?”

  “He’s that, but he’s more. He’s a horse thief, too. He’s a mean, dangerous man, and he runs with a bunch of renegades, both Indian and white. He steals horses in Arizona and sells them in California, then he steals horses in California and sells them in Arizona.

  “When they take after him, he hides out somewhere in the desert. Vanishes. Just drops off the end of the world and leaves no trail. Nobody’s been able to catch him. Obviously he has a hideout somewhere in the desert north of here, a place even the Indians can’t find—or don’t want to find.”

  “What has that to do with us?”

  “Peg-Leg will steal any horses or mules he can lay hands on. He’s attacked at least one of the Spanish gold trains coming down from northern California. He wasn’t even thinking of the gold, didn’t know there was any, I expect, and just wanted the mules. He got them, too. Wiped out every man, he thought, but two of the mule drivers got away.

  “Funny part of it was, they say he didn’t take the gold, just dumped out the ore and went away with the sacks and the mules.”

  “He probably didn’t know it was gold. I’ve seen only two or three pieces of gold ore in my life and wouldn’t have bothered to pick up either piece. How many people know gold when they see it in the rock?” Farley was silent; then after a moment he said, “You mean that whole mule train of ore was dumped out somewhere and is just lyin’ there?”

  “That’s the story.”

  “I’ll be damned.”

  “The point I’m making has nothing to do with gold, but a whole lot to do with Peg-Leg. You’ve got some fine stock here, and what looks like a wagonload of something valuable, so be careful.”

  “We’re watchin’.”

  “For Indians. But are you watching for what seems to be a friendly white man?”

  Chapter 3

  THERE WAS ANOTHER time when Finney had taken me up on the saddle. “My pa used to ride with me like this. He taught me about cows. More’n I needed to know, I suspect.”

  He indicated the hills around. “Mighty bare, you’d say. Not much but cedar, but there’s always more’n a body would suspect. You’ve got to look close to see an Injun, if you ever do. Watch out of the corners of your eyes. You pick up movement quicker that way. An Injun never looks over the top of a rock or a bush, always around the base. They don’t skyline theirselves. You best learn to do the same.

  “Don’t wear nothin’ bright, nothin’ to catch the sun. Shining things can be seen for miles. Buckskin, that’s a good color. Stay away from white. Some damn fools want all that fancy, jingly stuff on their horses. Surest way to get killed.

  “Your pa, now, he knows an uncommon lot about Injuns. I’d never have figured it of him, either. He looks more like a schoolteacher.”

  “He was one, for a while.”

  “You don’t say? Well, what d’you know? I wonder if any of them youngsters knowed what a ring-tailed catamount they had for a teacher?”

  “A what?”

  He drew up to study a wide stretch of country opening before us. “Maybe you don’t know about your pa, son. Farley told me, but I’d heard a few stories before that. Seems like somebody didn’t want him alive, so they sent some outlaws after him. He killed two of them, wounded another, and got away—wounded himself.

  “When he run off with your mother, they took in after him, the old man and about forty tough vaqueros. He played hide-an’-seek with ’em in the desert and got plumb away, and him with a woman with him. There’s a lot of folks know about Zachary Verne.

  “Farley was thinkin’ of that when he taken him on. Just knowin’ how to shoot is one thing, knowin’ when to shoot is something else again, an’ your pa has savvy.”

  That had been days ago, and now we were waiting, waiting for the last long hours to pass—and then we had the river to cross.

  This was the most dangerous moment so far, perhaps the most dangerous we would encounter. Yet the Indians were a danger of which we thought little. They might attack, and the men in the wagon would fight back. Even the women would, for both of them knew how to shoot. Or they might just reload guns for the men to fire. The Indians were a present danger, but it was that fierce old man who was my grandfather that I feared the most.

  I fell asleep and was awakened by a stirring about. The sun was already low, and Doug Farley was harnessing his horses. It was something he always did himself, allowing no one to even help. He always wanted to be sure everything was just as he wished it in case Kelso and Finney spotted trouble.

  “Check your weapons,” he said. “This here’s liable to end in a fight. Don’t be skeered. Just shoot low and take your time.

  “I don’t want a fight, but if we get one, we’ve got to win it or die. I figure we’ve got a fifty-fifty chance of swimming the river without bein’ spotted, but no better than that.

  “Just gettin’ across ain’t the end of it, for they might chase us into the desert, seein’ we’re only one wagon. We’ve got to be ready for that.”

  Farley turned to my father. “Verne? What do you think our chances would be, startin’ now? We’ve got a canyon about three miles long to get through, with some big rocks in the trail. That’ll take us the best part of an hour. By that time it will be dark.”

  “I’d say start now.”

  “Finney? Kelso?”

  Both men nodded. “We can miss some of the rocks if we can see, otherwise we’ll bump over them an’ make a racket.”

  Kelso rode out ahead, keeping well to the left, as close to the canyon wall as the fallen rocks would permit. He rode with his rifle in his hands. Fifty yards behind and on the opposite side rode Jacob Finney. Riding warily, eyes searching the canyon ahead and the rock walls and rims, the small group moved slowly down the canyon.

  Papa called it a “cavalcade,” and it sounded strong and good to me. He had his own rifle out and now he had a shotgun too, which he took from his blanket roll. He put his hand on my shoulder. “Now, Johannes, I have taught you how to load and fire a gun. Today I want you to load for me. As I put down the rifle, take it up and reload. The same with the shotgun. If, when we are fighting, some Indian tries to crawl into the rear of the wagon, take this pistol and shoot him. But you be sure it is an Indian, because Finney or Kelso might have a horse shot from under them.”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  My heart was beating with great, heavy thumps. He was trusting me. He was depending on me. I must do it right. Step by step I went through the reloading process in my mind. There might be many Indians, and I would have to work very swiftly and surely.

  Surely. Papa had always said not to be too hasty. Not to be nervous, not to waste time.

  We were moving at a walk, the wheels grating on the sand. My mouth was dry. I inhaled deeply. My father always said if I was nervous to take a few deep breaths and tell myself to be calm.

  Mrs. Weber l
ooked around at me. She was on her side with a rifle in her hands, and surprisingly, she winked at me. “Don’t you worry, son. We’ll be all right.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I was worried about Mr. Kelso and Mr. Finney.”

  “Well you might, son, well you might. If they attack, those boys will take the brunt of it, but they are good men, mighty good men.”

  She looked around at Miss Nesselrode. “If I was you, miss, I’d set my cap for that Jacob Finney. There’s a right upstanding young man. He’d make a good husband for a girl like you. He’s knowledgeable, he’s steady, he ain’t no drinker, and for the right woman he’d make a fine husband.”

  Miss Nesselrode tried to look shocked. She didn’t make it very real. “I am sure he would,” she said primly, “but I am not coming to California to look for a husband.”

  Fraser looked at her; then, as their eyes met, he looked quickly away. Fletcher simply snorted, and Miss Nesselrode blushed.

  My father looked at her and smiled. “The young men of California will be the losers, ma’am. It will be a disappointment to them.”

  “There are other things than marriage,” she said with dignity.

  “There surely is,” Mrs. Weber said, “an’ I tried one of ’em. There’s bein’ a spinster and there’s bein’ a widow, an’ I don’t care for neither. Not that I was ever a spinster. I married when I was sixteen an’ seen my man die when a log jam broke on the river whilst he was runnin’ logs.

  “Two years later I married up with a gamblin’ man. Flashy, he was, a handsome man with diamonds and all, an’ for a while we had everything. Then he had a run of bad luck and I taken in washin’ to he’p us live. Then he hit it big again, a run of luck that lasted three year, an’ we bought us a fancy house in Dubuque, had us a carriage drawn by four black hosses, an’ then he run off with a red-headed woman from Lexington.”