the Lonesome Gods (1983) (3 page)

"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 looked 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 tannin' 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."

The wagon slowed down and Doug Farley spoke over his shoulder. "A little open through here. Stand ready." It was dark inside the wagon. Outside it was still light, but it would not be so for long. I saw Doug Farley's hand come back to his six-shooter to see if it was where h
e
wanted it. I could see Jacob, sitting easy in the saddle, but Mr. Kelso was away off ahead of us now, around a bend in the canyon.

Now the horses began to trot, Doug Farley talking easy to them. Rounding the bend in the canyon, we could see a silvery gleam of water far ahead. My mouth was dry, and I tried to swallow.

My father put his hand on my shoulder. "It's all right, son, all right. These are good men."

Farley was talking softly to my father. "You know the place, Verne? Cottonwood Island?"

"I do." My father paused; then he said quietly, "Unless they've spotted us, it's unlikely the Mohaves will be around there at night. That big mountain on the left ahead is Dead Mountain, where the Mohaves' spirits go when they die. They don't like to be around there at night."

Farley slowed the horses through some soft sand. The wheels only hissed slightly as the sand fell from them. Kelso suddenly came in out of the dark. "Looks good, Doug. Water's no more'n twenty inches deep this side of the island."

"Pray to God we don't have a flash flood upriver," Farley muttered.

It was all downhill now, and Farley held the horses back, saving them, I guess, for a hard run if need be. I had listened to my father talk with other men and with my mother and could understand some of what was happening.

It was dark and still. The stars were bright in the sky, and we could smell dampness from the river. Farley swung the team to avoid a boulder and bumped over another. He swore softly at the sound.

"Deep cuts in the gravel here an' there," Farley commented. "Kelso will find one we can use, somewhere the bank's broken down. You know the Colorado--changes all the time. You can't count on the channel one time to the next."

"There are waves of mud underwater, too," my father said, "I've known them to take down strong swimmers." After that, nobody spoke. In the darkness of the wagon
,
I could hear the people breathing. My father took a drink from a bottle. He was not a drinking man, but sometimes it stilled his cough, and nobody wanted that now.

"Is there a road?" Miss Nesselrode inquired.

"Ma'am," Farley spoke over his shoulder, "there ain't even the ghost of a trail beyond what moccasins leave." It was quiet again. Even Fletcher was still. I heard him grunt a little as the rear wheel hit a rock. Then we heard the click of hooves on stone and Farley drew up, resting the horses. A shape loomed out of the dark. It was Kelso. "I don't like it, Doug. I don't hear the frogs."

"Maybe we aren't close enough."

"I was right up there. I haven't heard a coyote in the last half-hour."

"Not much choice now," Farley said. "Better to try it than get caught out here in the open."

"There'll be aplenty of them."

"Nobody said this was a picnic. There may be deeper water on the other side. Worse comes to worst, we can cut loose the horses and try to float downriver."

Kelso agreed. "Water's deeper in Pyramid Canyon, right below here, but that takes us right into the heart of Mohave country."

"Where's Jacob?"

"Ain't seen him in a while."

My father said, "If it's all right with you, Farley, I'll ride up there on the seat with you. This looks like close work, and I can handle my pistols better."

"Glad to have you." He clucked to the horses and slapped them gently with the lines. "All right, Kelso, stay close now. We're going in."

There was no sound but the creak and bump of our wagon and of the hooves of the horses as they walked. Kelso was ahead and a little to one side, and I could see he was holding a pistol in his right hand.

"Bank breaks off right ahead." Kelso was back beside us again. He spoke softly. "Keep right ahead, and you can cross the end of the island. No dead trees or fallen stuff in the way."

Suddenly the horses went down before us, the wago
n
bumped, slid, then went over the edge. The horses were in the water. "Gravel bottom here," Farley commented. "I've crossed here a-horseback."

The current was strong. I could feel the thrust of it against the wagon, high though our wheels were. Once the wagon was pushed and almost swung end-wise in the current, but Farley spoke to the horses and they leaned into their collars and pulled the wagon straight.

We could almost taste the coolness from the water. Farley's voice to the horses was low, confident, strong. How long we were crossing, I do not know, but suddenly the horses started to scramble and pulled as up out of the water.

We could see the dark loom of the trees on our right, a few scattered ones just ahead. It was almost a half-mile across the island at this point, or so I remembered someone saying. We moved on, and there was no sound.

Fletcher swore, slowly, bitterly. Miss Nesselrode spoke primly: "Please, sir, it is no time for that."

Fletcher was silent, and I wondered what Fraser was thinking. Now he would have something to write in his little book. If he got through this alive.

Leaves rustled softly. Kelso was guiding us through brush and fallen logs.

"It's a trap," Fletcher said, "a bloody trap."

They came out of the trees then, a dark wave of them, coming in silence that suddenly broke into a weird cacophony of yells. Farley's whip cracked like a pistol shot and the mustangs leaped into their harness. The wagon lunged forward, and I saw my father's pistol dart flame. A wild face painted with streaks of white suddenly appeared in the back curtains of the wagon as a warrior attempted to climb in.

Miss Nesselrode thrust her rifle against his face and pulled the trigger. The face, and the head, disappeared.

Chapter
4

Papa's pistol was empty and he passed it back to me and began shooting with the other. He did not shoo
t
hastily, yet he did fire rapidly, and there was a difference, for he seemed to make every shot count. Swiftly the Indians faded from the scene. Their ambush having failed, they would try other tactics.

The wagon raced on, and suddenly there was a shout. "Finney's down! Finney's shot!"

Deliberately Farley pulled up, and before he could speak, my father was gone from his seat. I saw him running back, I saw an Indian with a club start toward him, and my father fired, the Indian dropped.

In the vague half-light I could see Finney, or someone, pinned down by a horse and struggling to get from under it. My father raced up, fired another shot, and then offered a hand to Finney.

Somehow he got him free, and together, Finney firing now, for I knew my father's pistol was empty, they retreated to the wagon as Kelso raced back, firing.

They scrambled into the wagon and I passed the loaded pistol to my father and took the other. The wagon moved, jolted over a small log, and plunged ahead.

Miss Nesselrode, her heavy rifle in her hands, waited at the rear of the wagon, Mrs. Weber beside her. Miss Nesselrode was lifting her rifle to fire when the wagon pulled up so sharply she almost fell from her seat.

Looking past my father, who had again scrambled to the seat beside Farley, I could see the dark waters of th
e
river rushing by, much swifter here, and obviously much deeper.

The western bank of the river was there, not thirty yards away, but the water looked deep and strong. "We've no choice." Papa spoke quietly. "There are too many of them back there, and by daybreak we will be surrounded and all escape cut off."

"Steady, boys!" Farley spoke gently to the team. Urging them on, he talked to them quietly. They hesitated, then plunged in. The current caught the wagon and slewed it around downstream from the team, but they fought for footing, dug in, and leaned into their harness. For a moment they simply held their own, and then they began to move slowly. Guiding them diagonally across the current, Farley pointed them toward a gap in the brush. Slowly, steadily, they gained ground. Suddenly it seemed they were only belly-deep; then they were climbing out on to the shore and up a dry wash that emptied into the river.

"They'll be coming after us," Farley commented. He drew up, glancing back into the darkness of the wagon. "Is anybody hurt?"

"Verne has been shot," Finney said.

"I'll be all right. It is nothing."

The team started again and the wagon rolled ahead; then, when the bank was low, they went over the edge to higher ground.

Farley turned the team southwest and started them out at a steady walk. Kelso came up beside the wagon. "She's all clear so far as I can make out," he told Farley. "And flat--hard desert sand and rock. No problem."

Miss Nesselrode said to my father, "Sir? If you will come back here, I can put a compress on that wound. It will help to control the bleeding until daylight."

"Very well." My father moved back into the darkness of the wagon.

All night long the wagon rolled westward and south. Sometimes I slept, sometimes I was awake. "We can't make more than ten or twelve miles by daylight," Fletcher was saying, "and the horses must rest."

When I awakened, gray light was filtering into the wagon. Fletcher was asleep, as was my father. Farley had crawled back into the wagon, and Finney was driving. Crawling up beside him, I looked out at the bleakness of the desert, all gray sand and black rock in the vague light before the dawn.

"Lost m' horse," Finney said gloomily, "and a durned good saddle. They killed him. That there was a good horse, too."

The horses plodded wearily along, heads low. The fire was gone from them now, and I could see an angry, bloody bullet burn along one's hip. Ahead of us was a rugged, rocky range of mountains, and I could see no way through. I said this, and Finney nodded. "Does look that way, but it ain't so. There's a couple of passes, such as they are.

"Doug Farley, there, he don't make many mistakes, and he's figured this trip mighty close. Right up yonder there's a place where we'll hole up for a while. A few hours, anyway. There's water an' grass. We'll let these mustangs feed a mite and then pull out again."

"Will the Indians come again?"

"Sure." He paused, thinking it over. "Injuns are given to notions, but the Mohaves are fighters, and unless they take a contrary notion, they may follow us for days. "Y'see, son, they expected an ambush would do it, but Farley bein' what he is, we was ready for them and there were just more guns than the Injuns expected in one wagon."

When I looked from the back of the wagon, I could see the gleam of the river far behind. We had come further than I would have believed, and we were higher, for we had been climbing steadily.