Virgin River (23 page)
Authors: Richard S. Wheeler
A
t Nephi, halfway to Great Salt Lake, Skye tried for food. It was a bustling little town, with a whitewashed board and batten mercantile, so Skye headed for it. Here at least the Saints were busy with their daily lives, the streets were crowded, and shutters were open.
t Nephi, halfway to Great Salt Lake, Skye tried for food. It was a bustling little town, with a whitewashed board and batten mercantile, so Skye headed for it. Here at least the Saints were busy with their daily lives, the streets were crowded, and shutters were open.
He found the bald proprietor behind a rough wooden counter.
“I'm looking for food. I have a pony to trade,” he said.
The man eyed him up and down. “You're not a Saint, I take it. No, we're forbidden to sell food to Gentiles.”
“My family's hungry.”
The man shrugged, a frown on his forehead.
“We're not at war with you. We're going home.”
“Home to Missouri or Illinois?”
“Home to my Crow wife's people.”
“I'm not familiar with that tribe.”
“Look, the pony's well broke, has a good mouth, hauls a travois, can be used as a saddle horse or plow horse or a dray.”
“You're not a Yank.”
“Londoner.”
“It's a pity. I'd trade if you were a Saint.”
“We're hungry. You'll get a valuable horse out of it.”
The skinny merchant wiped hands on his white apron, peered out into the sunny street. “Which?” he asked.
“The one hauling the lodgepoles. You get the poles too, and the travois.”
“I wouldn't really be selling food to you, would I? I'd be trading a little grain and other goods for valuable meat, right? The Church wants plenty of food on hand for the war, and horse meat is better than a barrel of flour, right?”
Skye waited.
“Ten dollars of provisions against the pony?” the merchant asked.
“That pony's worth more.”
The storekeeper wiped his hands primly. “Take it or not.”
Skye stared at the man, who somehow smiled and frowned simultaneously. “What does ten dollars buy?”
The man shrugged. “Prices are posted.”
Skye did it, mostly because he was sick of surviving on what Mickey lifted from gardens and root cellars and chicken coops. Silently he undid the travois, freed the harness, and turned the pony over to the merchant, and then he bought flour, beans, a little tea, some barley, and some raisins. It wasn't much. The merchant was enjoying himself; Skye was raging, but this was not friendly turf and a man could get into trouble fast.
They escaped Nephi minus one travois and pony, but now they had enough to feed themselves for a few days. And they still had the valuable lodge cover riding the other travois.
There was no more trouble. They reached Great Salt Lake
City in a few days. Skye knew what he was going to do, and started hunting for anyone connected with the territorial government. Here was a blooming, busy city, with a great adobe tabernacle, a walled square, the Lion House, the Beehive House, the Council House, some of the buildings looking like transplants from the east.
City in a few days. Skye knew what he was going to do, and started hunting for anyone connected with the territorial government. Here was a blooming, busy city, with a great adobe tabernacle, a walled square, the Lion House, the Beehive House, the Council House, some of the buildings looking like transplants from the east.
But not Brigham Young. Skye sensed he would get nowhere with the prophet, if he could even gain an audience. A federal judge if possible. Some inquiries brought him to the white clapboard home of Judge Serene Peace Thorndike, an appointee of President Buchanan.
Hat in hand, he knocked, while his family and Mickey waited in the dirt street, just beyond a picket fence. A woman opened.
“Judge Thorndike please, madam. I am Barnaby Skye.”
“If it's government business, he can't help. The territory's not in federal hands.”
“All the more reason,” Skye said.
A few moments later the judge beckoned Skye into a parlor to the left, and Skye settled gingerly on a horsehair settee with doilies on the arms. A lamp with twin chimneys occupied a cherry side table. Thorndike wore a gray cutaway coat, a certain formality about him even in his own home. He studied Skye, noting the trail-blackened buckskins and the bearclaw necklace that hung, as always, from Skye's neck. Their gazes met.
“You have business? I take it you're not a Saint?”
“No, sir; it's about missing people.”
Thorndike grunted. “I should forewarn you, Mister Skye, I have no power. I'm deposed. The Saints have taken over. I have no bailiff, no clerk, no marshal or constable. I might be a federal official, but you could call this house arrest.”
Swiftly Skye told his story: employment by Hiram Peacock, taking consumptives to the desert, Peacock's death from the brutal fist of a trail guide named Manville, Enoch Bright taking over, reaching the place on the Virgin River they had sought, only to have his company vanish in the hands of a local militia who said they were protecting the group from Paiute Indians.
Thorndike listened intently, his brown eyes studying Skye.
“Who are the missing?” he asked.
“Enoch Bright, sir, a mechanic. He made the wheels turn. He encouraged and comforted the sick, and taught them to dream of a better day to come. They would not have made it without him.
“And Anna Bennett, slim, eighteen, fevered and yet strong and willful, determined to get well. Lloyd Jones, a lunger like the others but sturdy Welsh stock, who teamstered all the way. Lloyd has a brother, David, just as sturdy as himself.
“And Eliza and Mary Bridge, lovely sisters, seventeen and nineteen, both of them afflicted and fevered, yet they carried on, dreaming of a place where they could breathe once again. And twins, Grant and Ashley Tucker, twelve, terribly ill, but determined. And Peter Sturgeon, the sickest, the one who had to be carried all the way ⦠Sterling Peacock, Hiram's boy, actually the heir, the one who owns the wagons and equipment and stock, sometimes fevered, sometimes strong, rallying and losing ground. He's a man with his fatherâ²s gifts, sir. I should add that the Peacock family lost others along the way, Samantha and Raphael. That's a terrible sickness, sir. Hiram Peacock tried to get them all out to the desert, and bad luck dogged him all the way.”
Thorndike stared out the window a moment. “This town's
buzzing with certain rumors that I will not divulge. Nothing has been proven and until there is evidence I will say nothing.”
buzzing with certain rumors that I will not divulge. Nothing has been proven and until there is evidence I will say nothing.”
Skye sensed there was a lot happening in Utah Territory that he might never know.
Thorndike finally stared directly at his visitor. “Frankly, Mister Skye, the chances are very slim.”
“Chances?”
“That they live.”
“The Paiutes, then?”
Thorndike shook his head, sadly. “Now, sir, are you aware that there is a territorial warrant for your arrest?”
“Warrant, for what?”
“Theft. It says you stole a Sharps rifle from a guide named Jimbo Trimble. The complaint is signed by another guide named Manville and a Saint named Rockwell, from Fort Bridger.”
Skye felt a certain horror, then rage. He stood. “Then be damned,” he said. “Manville's the man who murdered Hiram Peacock, and now he's guiding a wagon train to California. Trimble shot at my company, killed a prize horse, and lost the Sharps in a scuffle. I found it.”
“Whoa, Mister Skye. I haven't so much as a constable at hand, and I probably would dismiss the warrant as groundless anyway if I had a court, but I don't happen to be a sitting judge, courtesy of this little war.”
Skye was poised to bolt. He had no intention of getting trapped by such accusations.
“Sit.” A single wave of the judge's finger sufficed.
“Manville is simply a scoundrel. I have not administered the courts of this territory with deaf ears. And Rockwell's fired by fanaticism. A fanatic, sir, is a man who will ride
roughshod over every ethic, social restraint, or law, to further his cause. This territory's full of fanatics, and to such a degree that I fear for my life and stay armed.”
roughshod over every ethic, social restraint, or law, to further his cause. This territory's full of fanatics, and to such a degree that I fear for my life and stay armed.”
Slowly he drew his cutaway coat open, to reveal a small revolver at his side.
“Your course of action should be plain. Do not go back the way you came. There are twenty-five hundred of the Utah militia near Fort Bridger, waiting to take on the federal column when it comes. And some Paiutes too. You would not last ten minutes. There are other ways to escape this territory. North, for one. It is not patrolled, but you would wish to be careful even so.”
Skye nodded. “To the Bear River and into the mountains. I've been that way.”
“Go that way.”
“We have almost no food and no way to get it.”
“I can't help you. But there's game up there.”
“You know the country, sir.”
“Mister Skye, I wasn't going to tell you rumors, but I have changed my mind. The rumors are that a large party of California-bound immigrants, called the Fancher Train, was besieged by Paiutes at a place called Mountain Meadows, near Cedar City. These Indians had been incited to attack the train by Saints. It is further rumored that the Saints offered to intercede, take the immigrants to safety.” His manner grew stern. “Then when the immigrants were freed from the grasp of the Paiutes and had surrendered their arms as a token of good faith, the Saint militiamen themselves slaughtered them, save for little children. A hundred twenty men, women, and children. It seems there were a few Missouri and Illinois people among them, though most were from Arkansas.”
The federal judge spoke dryly, not the slightest emotion crowding his narration.
“Of course it's all rumor,” he said. “We are wanting the facts. But there are a few loyal men here, even among the Saints, who have kept me apprised. It'll be something to report to the president when I can.”
Skye felt dizzy. “What militia?”
“The county militia there. The one based in Cedar City. The Saints have militia in every community. These were the ones who, I suppose, took away your people from their camp for their safety.”
It was too much to endure. Skye turned his head away so Judge Thorndike could not see his face.
I
n the clay street, Skye told his family and Mickey what he had learned. They listened somberly.
n the clay street, Skye told his family and Mickey what he had learned. They listened somberly.
“They are dead,” Victoria said.
“It is only rumor,” Skye said.
“I knew it long ago.”
Skye had learned not to dispute her ways of knowing things. He nodded.
The September sun lit the broad street in this gracious city, erected out of the wilderness by a persecuted people. He tried not to grieve. They might yet live. And yet, oddly, he had already grieved. They were gone and he would not see them again. Their dreams had come to an end on a healing field, surrounded by red rock, beside a babbling creek.
He lifted his old top hat and held it in his hand, feeling the wind riffle his hair. It was loss, not grief, that he felt. He wished that Enoch Bright might be standing beside him, his mechanic's mind repairing wagons, people, animals, and dreams. He wished Hiram Peacock might be here, his dream of healing a dozen sick young people flourishing in his
bosom. He had brought them on an epic journey across a continent, looking simply for a climate that would drive the disease out of their young bodies. He had put his last penny into it, gambled that he could do it, and now there was nothing left. No Peacock survived. The family was gone.
bosom. He had brought them on an epic journey across a continent, looking simply for a climate that would drive the disease out of their young bodies. He had put his last penny into it, gambled that he could do it, and now there was nothing left. No Peacock survived. The family was gone.
He thought of Anna Bennett, willful, devoted to the rights of women. Mary Bridge and Lloyd Jones, whose blossoming romance Skye had been slow to discover, perhaps because their healing came first and they were afraid there would be no future for them without the blessings of dry air, sun, and rest. He thought of Peter Sturgeon, so sick he was carried the whole distance, coughing, his eyes bright with pain and fear, and yet clinging to life because his elders told him he would have a chance in this new Zion where the sick might be healed.
He thought of the Tucker twins, Grant and Ashley, and how pretty the fevered Ashley looked. He thought of Eliza Bridge, her lungs hurting, struggling west, hoping to heal, see the sun rise one more day, and one more day after that, so that someday she might enjoy a family of her own.
And Sterling Peacock, sole heir of all this after Hiram had been buried, struggling to fill his fatherâ²s boots even while he wheezed his way west, the sinister disease eating away his lungs and his spirits.
He thought of them all, and at last let them be dead in his mind. They were gone.
He saw Victoria stiff before him, her body unnaturally rigid, and he reached for her and drew her to him, and comforted her, or was it that she was comforting him? He held her, and then saw Mary, still sitting her pony, the infant slung in her shawl, and he reached upward and drew her hands to his face, and kissed them, and felt her fingers in the strands of his beard.
It seemed to be a chapter of his life without an ending and yet it had indeed ended. He had been hired to deliver this company of the ill to their own Zion and he had lost every single one of them. He had lost the man who had hired him, entrusted the safety of this company to him. He had lost this man's children, his neighbors, his trusted yeoman. All were gone. Never in his life had he, as a guide, lost a whole company, every soul entrusted to his care. Had he failed? Had there been some way he might have spared them? He knew he would be worrying that in his head the rest of his days. He thought he would never again guide another party.
Gradually, the present returned to him, and he was standing again on a clay street in Great Salt Lake City, on a mild late September day, in bright sunlight. He found Mickey gazing patiently at him.
“We're going to Victoria's people, and you are welcome to come with us, Mickey.”
“Naw, it's no place for two East Enders, mate. One Londonerâ²s enough for any tribe, eh? I'll stay here.”
“What'll you do?”
“What I've always done. Why did they call me Lord Cutpurse, eh? I blawdy well know how to make a living.”
The little fellow smiled brightly. “Don't you worry about old Mick, eh? Let me tell you something. This'ere profession of mine, it's right'onorable, and it beats butchering innocent people, eh? I'll tell you something. These'ere people, they need a cutpurse or two around, they need a crime wave to teach'em a thing or two. Maybe if they're busy with a crime wave, they'll quit picking on strangers.”
Mickey thrust a nimble hand in Skye's direction, and Skye shook it heartily.
“This'ere's been a hard time. I like you, Skye. I surely do.
Go now, get out of this'ere place before they decide to turn you into missing people, eh?”
Go now, get out of this'ere place before they decide to turn you into missing people, eh?”
Mickey grinned crookedly and walked swiftly away. Skye watched him amble down the street and turn a corner, and then he, too, was gone. There was only Skye's family there beside him, Jawbone, two riding ponies, and one hauling a travois.
Skye thought Mickey's last advice was sound. This was a war capital. Yet everywhere, in the temple square, in the architecture, in the decorum of its people, this city spoke of passionate faith.
It was time to leave. Skye climbed aboard Jawbone and his small family worked north, hemmed by the mountains to the east and the great salty lake to the west. No one stopped them. This road would take them to the Bear River and into the towering mountains beyond, and with luck they would make their way across them before the snows closed them.
This way would avoid the militia gathered near Bridgerâ²s Fort to resist the federal column. They made good time, and found abundant ducks and geese in the marshes and bays of the great lake, which Victoria gathered with her arrows. There would be food enough; more food than they had eaten or collected during their entire journey in Utah Territory. That evening Victoria and Mary industriously plucked the fowl, disemboweled them, and roasted them. Skye ate heartily. He ate as if he had never eaten before, as if he had been starved for months.
There was constant traffic en route to Ogden, but the Saints kept to themselves, and Skye's family did not interest them. Ogden was a small, bright stair-step town rising into the mountains. The Saints had made a paradise of it, putting
its ample water to good use in gardens and lawns. It was a good place, but Skye and his wives hurried past. Someday, sometime, it would welcome strangers.
its ample water to good use in gardens and lawns. It was a good place, but Skye and his wives hurried past. Someday, sometime, it would welcome strangers.
They rode north, the days hurrying by, but they didn't escape settlement. The industrious Saints had built homes and farms and ranches in country that only a few years earlier had been wilderness. It made Skye uneasy. He turned away from the great basin and headed toward Bear Lake, in a mountain valley to the east, a place all trappers knew and loved. It had seen many a frolic during the beaver days. But here too settlement had pushed in, so that Skye wondered whether this amazing growth would soon overwhelm the Rocky Mountains forever.
Every time they rounded a bend and found some new ranch or farm, Victoria muttered to herself. This, plainly, was uprooting her whole life, her very nature. They finally reached Bear Lake, and found the Saints busy there, turning it into an agricultural valley. Was there no end to it? Who were these people, who turned thousands of square miles of wilderness into settled country in the space of one decade?
But a few days later they ran out of Saints, and headed toward Davy Jackson's Hole on the Snake River. Now, at last, they slid into the eternal wilds. Snow laced the Tetons, but the valley was still verdant. Bear and wolves and elk roamed the bottoms. Skye had no trouble making meat.
His women cut lodgepoles and put up the lodge on a sunny meadow beside the river. This would be a good place for a while, and later they could follow a water-level route taken by the Astorians long before, and find themselves in Crow and Eastern Shoshone country on the other side of the mountains.
It had been a trip steeped in silence. They hadn't talked
about the missing, but their thoughts never strayed from those consumptives seeking their own Zion. Indian summer bloomed there, in the valley, while the aspen on the slopes turned to gold and the Snake River sparkled by.
about the missing, but their thoughts never strayed from those consumptives seeking their own Zion. Indian summer bloomed there, in the valley, while the aspen on the slopes turned to gold and the Snake River sparkled by.
The women scraped elk hides, made fresh moccasins, and looked after the ponies. They jerked elk meat, made pemmican, gathered nuts, and sewed new skirts for themselves. Jawbone guarded the camp, chased coyotes, and fattened on the dried grasses. Skye at last did nothing. It was enough to let the wind sing through his hair, let the October sun warm his neck and shoulders, let the deer drift by unmolested, and turn his back to the settled world to the south. Some would call it civilized. He did not.
But the thing he loved most was to see his infant son lying peacefully on a thick, brown buffalo robe before the lodge, on a sunny afternoon, sometimes sleeping, sometimes writhing, making his little muscles work. Sometimes the infant stared at Skye, recognizing him. Other times the child seemed lost in his own small world. Mary smiled at the sight of Skye and their son, stretched out side by side on the warm brown hair of the robe, getting to know each other. The boy was one year old this day, if the women had reckoned it right.
In this boy was Skye's own blood, the part of himself that he would pass along to the future. Here was a son: North Star or Dirk.
Skye counted himself lucky. Lines ceased. The Peacock family had vanished forever from the face of the earth, leaving no trace behind except Hiram Peacock's great dream and courage.
But here was a son who would grow up in a risky and changing world, one that would be unrecognizable to Skye. The boy would probably live in towns as yet not founded, or
in imperial cities. He would live in comfort unknown to Skye, whose adult life had spun out in places like this.
in imperial cities. He would live in comfort unknown to Skye, whose adult life had spun out in places like this.
This boy, too, might die young, might even die of consumption, or any of the white men's diseases that were decimating his motherâ²s people. But Skye was glad the child had come into the world.
Mary, sitting beside him, lifted the boy and lowered him onto Skye's chest, where Skye's great brown hand held him in place. And she smiled.
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