Virgin River (18 page)

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Authors: Richard S. Wheeler

BOOK: Virgin River
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S
kye′s company was lost in brooding silence. Nothing but the creaking of wagons and the faint clop of hooves disturbed the quiet.
The wind had shifted to the northeast and was gusting cold.
He had never penetrated such a land as this, arid, towering, harsh, and yet grand. In watered places, thickets of green foliage shone brightly against red cliffs and purple shadowed canyons.
They topped a low divide and at last Skye could see far ahead, to a line of dense green brush he took for a watercourse. The two-rut trail headed relentlessly toward that bottom, miles distant. He gauged the time to that green streak as two or three hours, but the day was failing and he hesitated to travel through the night. There was no wood here, not a stick, and the light was failing because a massive gray cloud bank stretched across the northwest sky. A fall storm. The tumbling sun was lighting the underbelly of the clouds.
He steered Jawbone to Victoria, who was riding quietly along, attending their pack and travois ponies.
“We'll need wood,” he said.
“I am thinking the same.”
“I'll go ahead. We should try for that flat and hope there's water in it. That's the only wood in sight.”
“It'll get damn dark with them clouds.”
“If there's wood there, I'll build a fire.”
She laughed, her tone mocking. He could read her mind: there were times when a fire was impossible.
He hated to leave his company behind, but he knew wood was critical. He had sick people who would need warmth. He had an infant of his own and only a small leather lodge that was a poor shelter against a torrent, especially when no fire lifted smoke and heat through its upper vent.
Jawbone loved to run, and snorted when Skye touched his moccasins to the flanks of the great gray warhorse. Skye tugged the hackamore. This would be a three- or four-mile run, and he would keep to a slow canter. Jawbone settled into an easy rocking-chair stride, and Skye let the horse pick his way toward that green flat. It took a long time. The wagons diminished behind him, and then were little more than gray spots, bugs crawling over a giant country.
The whole western and northern horizon grayed and blackened, and outliers began sailing overhead. A stiff cold wind picked up, lifting dust from the worn trail. Skye pulled the horse down to a walk to rest him, and then rotated into a hard trot, a gait Skye hated because Jawbone's trot was cruel, bouncing and hammering Skye until his legs and torso howled at him. He had spent most of a life in the wilds of the American West, and had suffered wounds and exposure, starvation and
thirst, and all these had taken their toll. His body howled with every bounce of the horse.
He reached the sink at the exact moment when the first fat raindrop slapped his cheek. Swiftly he surveyed the brushy bottoms, which had a lot of living shrubbery and not much firewood. He jumped Jawbone across a foot-wide rivulet tumbling out of the northwest and found better pickings on the other side; juniper with all sorts of dead limbs, none of it ideal firewood but it would do.
He worked furiously, but the pile of wood only grew slowly. There wasn't much to burn here. And the rain thickened into a steady drizzle, soaking the wood as dusk settled. It would be a cold night. He saw no sign of his company as the twilight deepened, so he caught Jawbone and rode back toward the divide, uncertain what was delaying them, leaving the firewood behind him.
Sometimes the rain obscured the trail. Patchy ground fog had collected in hollows and shrouded his path. Jawbone was shivering in some unnatural way, and suddenly Skye knew why: ahead was a band of Indians, all on foot, their almost naked forms shining dully in the wetness. He sensed at once these were Paiutes, but probably not a war party. He saw bows and arrows, spears, clubs, and lances, and one wore a sheathed sword. They swarmed around him but did not seem hostile. They were plainly ready for trouble, and would answer it lethally.
Jawbone danced, sawed his head up and down, and was ready to commit mayhem. The rain had darkened Jawbone's hair, and now was dripping off Skye's top hat. Jawbone pawed restlessly, murder in his head. The horse would kill several Paiutes before they pincushioned him with arrows.
Skye held up his hand, palm out, a peace sign. They stared.
They crowded around Jawbone, but kept just out of kicking range. The Paiutes had few horses, unlike most of the plains tribes. These were hunters or warriors, probably searching for food of any sort. There never was much game in this part of the world.
Was this an advance guard, and were there scores more of the Paiutes tying up the wagons? At least Mary was there; the Paiutes spoke a Shoshonean tongue that she might understand. The rain sheeted down now, soaking through Skye's buckskins, darkening his shirt and leggins and puddling in his moccasins. This was a bloody bad fix, and he hadn't any idea how to proceed.
He tried finger-talk. Peace. Friend. We talk. I am Skye. My people are that way. He pointed.
They stared. Great Plains sign talk didn't necessarily convey meaning to these desert people.
A chieftain made signs too, and Skye couldn't fathom them, but it seemed the man wanted him to step down from Jawbone.
Skye tried ordinary English. “My people are back there. Come visit us.”
“Mericats?”
Skye vaguely remembered something Mickey the Pick had said about the alliances the Saints had achieved with this band.
“Some are Saints. Mormons.”
That seemed to be understood.
“Give eat, eh?”
“Eat,” Skye said.
“Eat him.” The chieftain pointed at Jawbone.
“Bad medicine,” Skye said.
The chieftain pursed his lips. Then he nodded.
Skye edged Jawbone through the dusk toward the wagons somewhere ahead. The rain quickened. With every step Jawbone took, the Paiutes kept pace. Jawbone laid his ears flat back, his nostrils wide, his eyes on one and another Paiute. But walk they did, through a murk so thick Skye finally realized he didn't know where he was going, except it was slightly uphill.
Then suddenly there were many more Paiutes, their naked bodies wet. And just beyond, barely visible, were the wagons. The whole company was halted. Victoria and Mary hunched on their ponies. Mary had pulled a small leather hood over the cradleboard.
“Goddamn, Skye, we're in big trouble.” Victoria muttered it, not wanting to sound alarmed.
Bright emerged from the gloom. “What outrage is this? I have only a fowling piece, and that's in the wagon.”
Mickey the Pick slid forward too, barely visible. “Don't count on me, I don't even own a rock in a sock, lad.”
Skye addressed Mary. “Have they said what they want?”
“I don't understand them, Mister Skye.”
“Nothing?”
“Their words, I can't tell.”
“I tried English and got somewhere.” He turned to the chieftain. “Eat?”
“Eat, eat, eat.”
The chieftain pointed at Jawbone, but Skye shook his head.
Then, one by one, the Morgan and the ponies came under scrutiny, but Skye said no, no, no. The Paiutes examined the mules gotten from Pete Hunsaker, and Skye said no, no. They worked back to the second wagon, and paused before the rain-soaked oxen, their bows ready.
Sterling Peacock materialized in the half-light. “What do they want?” he asked.
“Food. Meat.”
“But we can't feed ourselves.”
“Consider it a tribute for crossing their land. A toll. I wouldn't give them my horse, the Morgan, or the mules.”
“Aren't they allies of the Mormons?”
“I tried that. You can try it.”
Sterling approached the headman, who waited with a nocked arrow in his bow.
“Saint. Mormon. Friend,” he said.
“Mericat?”
“No, me Latter-Day Saint.”
The headman strolled to the hospital wagon, saw women within, and smiled.
“Eat,” he said.
Sterling resolutely pointed to Christopher Carson Ox. “There.”
The headman held up four fingers. He wanted all the oxen.
Sterling offered the lead and the off ox, pointing at both.
The headman smiled, held up four fingers, and laughed. This hunting party would have a feast this night, no matter whether it rained.
The entire hunting party arrayed itself around the company, bows at the ready. Skye saw how it would go, and nodded.
Bright slowly unhooked the lead yoke, and freed the two oxen from their wooden collar. Then he freed the other yoke.
The headman turned to Mickey the Pick's burro cart, and pointed to the caged creatures within. Several of his men snatched the cages of ducks, geese, and piglets and vanished
with them. The geese and ducks flapped, and the piglets whined and grunted.
“Ow, ya bloody pirates, stealing from me, are ye?” Mickey howled.
Skye laughed. He couldn't help it.
“It's not the same, you'arf-arsed'umbug. That's food they're snatching. I've a mind to pick their camp clean.”
The Paiutes howled happily and drove the four gaunt oxen into the darkness. Within a moment or two, they were invisible, and the Paiutes melted away also, suddenly gone into the murky night. The tongue of the supply wagon rested forlornly on the clay. And that noble ox, Christopher Carson, was gone.
T
wo mules, two burros. Some horses. And perhaps fifty miles to go. The last stretch was going to be hardest of all.
“There is no wind in our sails,” Enoch said.
Trouble indeed. And nothing could be done this mean night. Skye saw some of the invalids shivering in the rain.
“We'll make camp right here,” Skye said. “We're on good ground, well drained. It won't flood. And there's a little grass.”
Victoria had already anticipated him, and was wrapping four lodgepoles together, something she could manage even in this darkness. In minutes, with this heavy cloud cover, it would be utterly black.
Rain soaked Skye's buckskins, dripped off his hat.
“We'll make our bunks in the wagons,” Bright said.
The Jones brothers had anticipated him and were shuffling supplies around inside the supply wagon.
Skye unsaddled Jawbone and turned him loose, and then freed the packhorses from their travois. The women had completed the lodge frame and were lifting the cover. Skye helped
them. It was heavy work, and the rain made the leather slippery. Mostly by feel, they slid the willow pegs through the slits that would button the cover in place. There'd be no hearthfire within this night, and only some emergency pemmican. Still, the Skye family would be dry. He lugged the damp buffalo robes into the blackness and spread them as best he could. Rain pattered on the buffalo-hide lodge cover.
“Dammit, Skye, that's for women to do,” Victoria said. She was always ashamed of him when he did their work. She believed it was a sign of weakness in him.
Now there was no light at all. Still, Mary found her way in, and set her cradleboard away from the smoke vent, where rain was misting into the lodge. Skye wanted to talk to the rest, but knew the night was so thick he could easily get lost.
But then there was noise outside, and some wavering light.
“Blawdy arful night, eh, matey? You mind if Bright and me, we bunk in'ere?”
Skye pushed aside the flap and discovered Bright and Mickey the Pick, lit by a bull's-eye lantern in Bright's hand.
“The wagons are full up with lungers. Women in one, lads in the other. We got under the wagon but the wind whips rain at us,” Bright said.
“Room enough,” Skye said. The men clambered through the lodge door.
“Bloomin' fur on the floor!” Mickey said. “Bloomin' West-minster Palace.”
The pair settled on the other side of Skye's small lodge.
The lantern burned brightly in the middle, under the vent. This pair had brought blankets. Even without a lodge fire, the shelter was warm enough.
“Remarkable,” Bright said, studying the lodge. “Chimney draws off smoke. Excellent engineering, I'd say.”
Victoria pulled out the parfleche with pemmican in it. “You hungry, eh?”
She handed each a chunk of the waxy cake.
“What's this tallow, eh?”
“Pemmican,” Skye replied. “Shredded meat, fat, and berries. It'll do. This time it's buffalo and chokecherry.”
“Indian ship's biscuit,” Bright said, sampling the fare.
“I'm glad you're here. We're in a fix,” Skye said.
“Blawdy thieves.”
“They were hungry; they saw meat,” Skye said. “It's an old story.”
“Whiles they was haggling with youse, the rest made off with me fowl and piggies. Not a porker in me poke.”
Victoria started laughing, and so did Mary.
“Damned pirates!” Mickey mumbled.
“Four oxen, fifty or sixty Paiutes; how do you calculate it, Mister Skye?” Bright asked.
“Worn down and skinny oxen. One big feast for a crowd like that, and maybe some breakfast.”
“And some ducks and piggies for dessert, the bloomin' blokes.”
“We seem to be at the end of the rails, sir,” Bright said.
Skye pondered it.
“We'll put what supplies we can into Mickey's cart, and alternate the mules and the remaining yoke of oxen on the hospital wagon,” Skye said. “And that's if the Paiutes haven't made off with a few other animals.”
He doubted they had, but no one would know until dawn.
“What's in the wagon, Mister Bright?”
“Not much. Spade, axe, pike, shovel, a plowshare, tools, rope, canvas, several sacks of seed, some oats, harness, some
nails and bolts. Things we'll need to get started. And my worthless fowling piece. I don't know why I brought it.”
Bright was sliding into melancholia, Skye thought.
“We're probably only fifty miles from where we're going. It'll be the hardest fifty, but we'll get there.”
“I have sick people, sir. They haven't any breath. They can't walk more than a little.”
“My wives and I will gladly walk, leading our horses, and on each horse will be one or two of your sickest. We can abandon this lodge, and that frees two more ponies. Those will carry two more, maybe four more if we double up.”
“You wouldn't!”
“We'll do what we have to do. It might be that we can stash the lodge down below in the river brush, and come back for it.”
Victoria and Mary eyed Skye bleakly in the wavering candlelight of the bull's-eye lamp. Many moons of labor went into a lodge.
Skye didn't know how it would work out. But he knew the heavy supply wagon would go no farther. He knew also that the tools and implements and seed had to get to the Virgin River so these people could settle and build their infirmary. He knew some of those invalids could walk, such as the Jones brothers and Sterling Peacock, while others were much too sick, such as fevered little Peter Sturgeon and Ashley Tucker, who shouldn't walk at all and would perish if they faced a physical ordeal.
“Could we drag the big wagon down to the creek and hide it too? I'm thinking of selling it,” Bright said.
“It'd be found almost at once.”
“The Saints fill their purses scrounging from the trails,” Mickey said.
“Are there settlements ahead?” Skye asked.
“I guess we'll find out, eh?” Bright said.
“I am thinking of riding ahead for help.”
“Fat lot of help the Saints'll give ye.”
Skye didn't argue it. If there weren't some sort of war going on, he didn't doubt he could find whatever help he needed. But just now no one in this company knew anything. Was there fighting? Were the Saints forming into a militia? Skye sighed. There was nothing he could do about any of that.
North Star stirred and began to whimper. He was lying free, covered with a small blanket. But now his tiny arms flailed and he sobbed.
“He is hungry,” Mary said, and began to loosen her bodice.
“Ah, hold your horses,” Bright said. He grabbed the lamp and blew out the candle. Suddenly the lodge was pitch-black. There was some soft stirring.
They sat quietly. Skye heard the faint sound of North Star′s sucking. These visitors in his lodge had come from another world, which Skye understood and Victoria mocked.
A gust of air shivered the lodge.
“There's some settlements on the Virgin, mostly blokes what don't get along anywhere else,” Mickey said. “I've'eard tell they're a mean bunch, all right. They got fire in their eye. They's nothing to stop them from doing what they please. Old Brigham, he's way up at the capital city, and down'ere, they's no saying what this bunch'll do.”
“Then we'll have to find them and let them know our intent,” Skye said. “It pays to make ourselves welcome and stay in sight.”
“Ye bloomin' East Ender, what I'm saying is, don't stop'ere. Forget the Virgin River. Keep on moving. Go to the Mohave. You won't make friends'ere, not with sorts that don't
want friends. There's some that want enemies, that ache for trouble, that ′unt for it. That's what I'eard about this bunch of Saints down'ere, far from anything called law.”
But Bright had the answer to that. “We can maybe make fifty miles, but no more. Fifty miles, and no food, and cold coming, and nothing waiting for them but cold and starving, that's what's in store.”
“In two days we may reach the Virgin River, and soon we'll find what we're looking for,” Skye said. “I don't think we'll find trouble unless we invite it.”
“I've lived most of this year for that day,” Enoch said.

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