Black Noon (23 page)

“You're right about that, and I do know it.” He smiled. “I just wanted to make sure about how you felt.”

“Was there ever any doubt?”

“Not really, sweetheart. And ol' Custer will teach those Sioux a thing or two about strategy, he'll spank their chiefs and send them back to their teepees or up to their happy hunting grounds.”

“I'm not sure who'll teach whom,” she said, “but we promised Reverend Mason, and a promise is a promise.”

“Well, then, Saguaro is our promised land . . . and the Dakotas are Custer's promised land.”

He snapped the reins and the wagon rolled toward Eagle Pass.

“We'll have a lot to tell our grandchildren . . . and so will Custer after he tames all the Indians in the West.”

But just ahead at the narrow gap to Eagle Pass, more than a dozen mounted Indians, some with rifles, some with bows and arrows, others with lances, commanded the passageway like silent sentinels. Their flat faces grim with dark eyes glaring in the sun.

As the wagon stopped, their obvious leader, a man of narrow body and indeterminate age on a dappled steed, approached, followed by three younger braves.

Keyes looked down at the rifle leaning close to the Bible on the bench.

He held onto the reins with one hand and raised the other in what he hoped was a universal sign of peace among the tribes.

There was no response, physical or verbal. Only silence. An ominous silence and the same inscrutable mask of the leader.

Keyes pointed to himself, then at Lorna.

“Jon Keyes, my wife Lorna, from the East. Do you understand? Savvy?”

“I talk your language, American,” the Indian pointed to himself. “Touch the Clouds,” then around to the other Indians. “Navajo.”

“Good, Touch the Clouds, we were . . . we are on our way to Saguaro.”

“Maybe . . . you come in peace?”

“Yes.”

Touch the Clouds pointed at the Henry.

“The rifle? I use it for hunting.”

“Hunting Indians?”

“No, no. For food . . . until we get to Saguaro.”

“We know Saguaro.”

“Very good,” and under his breath, “I hope.”

“Why Saguaro?”

“To meet a man there named Mason.”

For the first time there was a different look in the Indian's eyes, and a different tone in his voice.

“Jimmy Mason?”

“Yes.”

“We know Reverend Jimmy Mason.”

“You do? He's . . .”

“He brings us medicines and seed to plant crops. Jimmy good man. Navajo grow crops. Fight no more forever.” His eyes narrowed. “You soldier?”

“Not anymore . . . Now I'm
Reverend
Johnny Keyes . . . forever.” He looked at Lorna, then at Touch the Clouds. “We're on our way to help Reverend Jimmy Mason.”

“Good.” Touch the Clouds nodded, then pointed toward Eagle Pass. “Go in peace.”

“Very good,” Keyes slapped the reins over the team, and the Conestoga started to roll. “We'll be seeing you, Touch the Clouds.”

When the wagon entered the pass, Keyes and Lorna looked back and each took a deep breath, then she touched the barrel of the rifle.

“Jon, if things were different, would you have used the Henry?”

He hesitated.

“Probably,” he shrugged, “but I'm really not sure . . . and I'm glad I didn't have to.”

“So am I . . .” She held up the Bible in her hand, “. . . but I did pick up and use this.”

“A mighty weapon . . . and it never runs out of ammunition.”

“Amen,” she said and smiled, “but will you tell me about one more thing?”

“About what?”

“That dream . . . it didn't have a happy ending, did it?”

“Sure it did,” he nodded, “I woke up, didn't I?”

The same summer sun on the same mountain desert, rimmed by the same cathedral mountains and rocks.

But now there was a two-lane road paved with seething concrete.

A lone eagle circled high in the pearl gray sky, and a mausoleum silence permeated the limitless terrain.

Heat waves rose from the surrounding sands in the blaze of noon.

A late model station wagon with lifted hood and loaded with luggage and camping gear, obviously in distress, stood half- on—half-off, the road.

A handsome, well-built man, about thirty, labored on the exposed engine as a lovely woman and young child, a boy of four or five years, watched and waited.

The man lifted his head, looked at his wife and son, and then shrugged his shoulders in a negative manner.

In the distance a dusty pickup truck appeared and slowed down as it approached.

“Look, Daddy,” the boy pointed, “somebody's coming. Maybe they'll help us.”

The man stepped away from the station wagon onto the road and waved at the pickup truck.

The truck, with three people in the front seat, braked and came to a stop.

The driver had rolled down the window.

He was middle-aged, tall, and clean featured, with a smooth, almost saintly face.

On the other side sat a rope-thin man with an elfin visage, creased by a thin-lipped smile.

Between them, a beautiful young lady, her hair pulled back, revealing a soulful, suasive appearance.

The driver smiled as he called out.

“Can we give you a lift?”

The pickup truck towed the station wagon as they approached and passed a road sign.

 

 

The three people inside the truck looked at each other with contented anticipation, then at the sign again.

Through the side-view mirror the words on the sign were, of course, spelled backwards.

 

Turn the page for a bonus short story from the award-winning

T
HE
W
ISE
O
LD
M
AN
OF THE
W
EST

Across the campfires he was known only as the “Wise Old Man.” Most of the time he would appear out of the dark and disappear before first light.

He didn't talk like any of the cowboys, more like a college professor; dressed as if he had just stepped out of a San Francisco opera house—at least to the cowboys—complete with malacca crosier and high-toned homburg. Clear-eyed and clean-shaven, except for a meticulously trimmed military mustache.

Countless campfires like this one dappled the inconstant landscape, afterglows of an uneven link of cattle drives out of bankrupt Texas to bankable Kansas.

Raw-boned, saddle-worn men of all lineage, some known to each other only by tags such as Slim, Baldy, Buster, 'Bama, Clay County, Misery, Hondo, and Ofty-Ofty, wore out remudas and themselves over a venturous trail blazed by a half-breed Cherokee called Chisholm.

Indispensable to each drive was a range cook sometimes dubbed Belly Cheater, Biscuit Shooter, Dough Puncher, but most often, Cookie. This camp's Cookie couldn't have topped out at five and a half feet, from the bottom of his Justin boots to the tip of his Stetson, and didn't weigh in at more than one hundred and thirty pounds including his gun belt and loaded Colt. He had a voice like a constipated canary, but he was the cock o' the walk. Nobody crossed or back-talked him. And when they choked down his chow they'd best grin and sing out “Just the way I like it, Cookie.”

The Wise Old Man never asked for anything, but all the different Cookies of each camp, as well as the drovers, were pleased to supply him with coffee, beef and beans, plus tobacco for his curved Meerschaum, just to hear him talk.

Talk came easy to the Wise Old Man.

And in what the wrangos considered a fair swap for the coffee, beef and beans, plus tobacco, the Wise Old Man would spin a yarn or two. Sometimes in answer to a cowboy's question, or, he'd just talk about something he felt like talking about.

But that night the Wise Old Man did look around and make an inquiry.

“Where's Tom Riker? Isn't he the trail boss of this drive?”

“He sure as hell is,” Cookie nodded, “but ol' Tom went up ahead with Hondo, lit out at noon, took some grub and extra canteen to where the trail divides, to figure which of the two he's gonna have us follow. Makin' dry camp tonight. We'll meet up tomorrow. Left Red here as the high hickalorum.”

Red Flannigan was dependable, had the most schooling in the outfit—all the way through the sixth grade, he claimed. He could read without moving his lips, and do pretty good with his sums.

Flannigan was not reluctant to display his erudition. It didn't take him long to make a show of it in front of the Wise Old Man. He commenced by saying he'd heard about a fella, a Spaniard named Poncho de somethin', who searched for a fountain of youth. Did the Wise Old Man ever hear of such a thing—or place?

“Yes,” the wise Old Man recalled, “Ponce de Leon, of course. He sought the magic waters that would prolong life, keep a man young and fit till the end of time.”

This grabbed the heed of the cross-legged cowboys, most of whom were somewhat stove-up and looked at least a decade older than their birthdates.

“But,” the Wise Old Man went on, “that puts me in mind of another tale concerning another man involved in that same elusive quest.”

“How about tellin' us about it,” Red suggested, and pointed to the empty tin cup the Wise Old Man held in his firm, ropy fingers, “while we fill 'er up with some of ol' Cookie's hot tar?” Red said it with a grin.

“Fair exchange,” the Wise Old Man smiled, while Cookie reached for the pot and poured, as the circle of drovers leaned closer. Most of them had heard, or heard tell, of the Wise Old Man and his tales.

From some not too far but unseen ridge, a lonesome coyote wailed into the night, and waited for an answer. It never came.

The Wise Old Man sipped the bitter brew between his pale lips, cleared his scratchy throat, and went at it.

“A man, very successful, let's call him Claude, at the peak of life, wanted to go on living for a long, long time. Claude had been convinced that somewhere there was a fountain of youth.” The Wise Old Man pointed the stem of his Meerschaum toward Flannigan. “Like you, he had heard about de Leon. But where was that liquid treasure?

“He was determined to find the answer.

“His determination became an obsession. He spent days, nights, weeks, and months looking for clues, confirmation of any kind. From the Bible, from sources before the Bible—and since Gutenberg, to the latest periodicals. On walls of caves, scrolls in basilicas of ancient Greece. He left no evidentiary stone unturned—no writings unread—and with the aid of interpreters—even in seven different languages.

“But his quest was not only literary, it became widely geographical—on foot, rail, sailing ship, horse, camel, and caravan.”

“Get to the nub!” One of the young drovers called out through a haze of cigar smoke. “What the hell happened to him?”

“Shut up, Curly!” Flannigan ordered. “Let him tell it in his own way.”

“A failing of the young fellow's generation,” the Wise Old Man puffed on his Meerschaum, “impatience to proceed in an orderly fashion. But there is something to be said for young Curly's point of view—and even Shakespeare advised, ‘hasten thy story'—besides, it's getting late, and you good fellows are entitled to a good night's sleep after a hard days labor. How many miles did you cover today? Fourteen? Fifteen?”

“Closer to nineteen.” Curly said.

“Very good. From now on I'll do my best to summarize without losing the gist and flavor of the narrative . . .”

“Like I said,” Red pushed back the brim of his hat on his forehead, “you tell it in your own way. If pip-squeak Curly needs his sleep so bad, he's always got his saddle for a pillow waitin' nearer than further.”

“Nah, I'll finish the rest of this cigar.” Curly inhaled. “Go ahead, ol' timer. What happened next?”

“‘Next' turned into a long, long, time, even though it was just a blink in the eye of eternity—but years and years, as men count it. And he covered thousands more miles than you fellows did today—searching the world and drinking the world's waters.

“Near freezing waters of the icy north, to gurgling hot waters of the unforgiving desert. From the mystic birthplace of the gods, Olympus, to the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. From Babylon, where once there hung those gardens considered one of the wonders of the ancient world, to India, where Alexander had no more to conquer.

“Through Asia, across the steppe and into the Kerulen Valley, homeland of the Mongols, once led by Genghis Khan.”

The Wise Old Man drew deep through the stem of his Meerschaum, then continued.

“This, and more for his travel's history—perhaps best chronicled by the Bard's black Moor, Othello: ‘Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle, rough quarries, rocks and hills whose summits touch the heavens . . . And of Cannibals that each other eat, the Anthropophagi, and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders.'”

There was a silence of uncertainty among the drovers until Cookie chirped.

“Could you chew that a little finer—what the hell does it mean?”

“It means, my liege, roughly speaking, that in his sojourn he had audience with the most pious—from monks in monasteries to even the Holy Father at the Vatican—and with their opposites: scoffers, apostates, and Satanists. The good, the bad, and the in-between. That's about as fine as I can chew it.”

“Good enough,” Cookie nodded, “go on.”

“And Claude went on, to one disappointment after another. At times it seemed otherwise. He heard of a place in Anatolia where men and women lived a long, long time. He sought it out and they did. But not nearly long enough—one hundred to one hundred and twenty years—not nearly span enough for him, and not because of any special water, but from digesting an abundance of yogurt, which he tested—and detested.”

A rapid volley of voices shot out from around the campfire.

“What the hell is yo-gert? Never heard of it . . .”

“Has anybody . . . ?”

“Not in this outfit . . .”

“I sure as perdition did.” Cookie's chirpy voice declared. “It's spoiled milk . . . milk with a disease. Goat's milk.”

“
Goats
?!”

“I can't abide goats. Goats is dirty . . .”

“Goats stink. “

“Might as well try to milk a skunk . . .”

“Goats eat cardboard, leather, timber . . . tin cans . . .”

“Tin cans? Then what kind of milk can goats give . . . ?”

“Spoiled milk that makes you live over a hundred years, I guess . . .”

“It ain't worth it . . .”

“Who the hell wants to milk a stinkin' goat?”

“I guess some women do . . .”

“What kind of women milk goats?”

“
My
kind is any kind . . . after a long drive . . .”

“Yeah, even women with whiskers—like goats have . . .”

“Boys, you got it all wrong,” Cookie wiped at his nose, “it don't come out of the teat spoiled. They let it ferment like whiskey . . .”

“I'll stick to whiskey that don't come out of a teat, you can shuck your goats and their yo-gert . . .”

As the chatter subsided, the Wise Old Man smiled and continued.

“Nevertheless, yogurt can be traced back thousands of years and in spite of, or even because of, its bacterial content, is still considered salubrious nutrition. But for Claude it was no substitute for what he sought, the fountain of youth—everlasting youth—and so, his search went on.

“And so did one disillusion after another, sometimes with humorous consequences, and at other times with more disagreeable effect.

“From the diary of a ship's captain, Claude ascertained that at a remote village there flourished a tribe where no one, man or woman, appeared older than approximately forty-five years of age. The captain wrote that he had even taken photographs, with a camera obtained after the recent U.S. Civil War, as evidence of what he had written. Unfortunately, such evidence had been lost, but the diary did include the latitude/longitude of the tribe's location. The captain had, also, written that the tribe had a secret, which he had vowed never to disclose.

“It was not easy, but eventually Claude managed to locate and enter the remote settlement. What the captain had described was true. No one appeared to be over forty or so.

“The tribe was not unfriendly. Claude sought out an elder who seemed no more than forty years of age and was obviously their spiritual leader. The elder was called Sonsiri and even managed some semblance of English, which he had acquired from the ship's captain.

“Most promising, there was a waterfall that plunged into a radiant body of water beneath.

“Claude's expectation soared. After gaining the confidence of the elder, he feigned thirst and mentioned that he'd appreciate a drink from the waters below.

“A dark reaction clouded the elder's visage. Not from those waters, he managed to explain. Those waters were holy. Nobody drank from them. There was a well in the village for drinking and other purposes.

“After pledging himself to secrecy, Claude pressed for further explanation.

“Sonsiri took him at his word and confided to Claude that the tribe worshiped Wotam, the God of Youth. There was, in their religion, only one way to achieve eternal youth. Not from
drinking
the water.

“First of all, no one was ever allowed to learn how to swim. And on the day of each individual's forty-first birthday, he, or she, must enter the water just above the precipitous cascade, and in order to make sure of their fate and destiny to live eternally, be weighted down with a belt of iron.

“The elder, himself, was already preparing for the ritual—to make his voyage to the bottom of the waters—and had chosen his successor, a youth of twenty-one years.

“Sonsiri went so far as to show Claude the iron belt that had been fashioned for his own transitional journey—to be transported into the sacred waters below.”

After a stunned silence, some of the drovers voiced their reactions that ranged from laughter to incredulity, to contempt, including Red Flannigan's comment:

“What kind of mumbo jumbo religion is that?”

The Wise Old Man only smiled as he answered.

“There are many arcane beliefs concerning the path to eternal life. That was only one of them.”

“Not mine!” Curly smirked.

“Nor Claude's.” The Wise Old Man intoned. “And so his excursions ensued.

“He even retracked de Leon's Floridian expedition from the dank swamplands of Okefenokee, where grew the rare ghost orchid on trunks of cypress trees, and through the perilous territory of the unsurrendered Seminoles, to the sun burnished white water lilies of the Everglades—more disappointment for both Ponce de Leon—and Claude.