Ralph Compton the Empire Trail, page 11
Buchanan, Haywood, and Deems walked softly. They could not see much in the deep evening blackness. They passed the sleeping area, where Haywood’s saddle and horse were, near but apart from the others. The herd was nearby, in an area bounded by large boulders on the east and south sides, some larger than the largest cattle. The boulders mounted up, piled higher and higher and making their way to the mountains. To the south was open country; to the west, a churned-up stretch of ground that led back to the slope. The dark shapes of trees, tall and stout, rose up in the area around the boulders.
Haywood was between the men, Buchanan in front. The tracker stopped to pick up a branch, then tapped the rancher on the shoulder and pointed to the area between them and the nearest pines.
“You smell that?”
Buchanan inhaled through his nose. He picked up the rich, nutty earth scent.
“Pine cones.”
“No. Under that, a different musk,” Haywood said. “I’m going out in front to do what I was planning. Don’t nobody move.”
“Go ahead,” Buchanan told him.
The tracker crouched, felt around, and picked up a brittle pine cone about the size of a man’s foot. He forced it onto the stick he was carrying, then popped a wooden match from the box. He struck the tip on his leather belt. It sparked and he touched the flame to the pine cone. The seed scales flared and quickly ignited, burning fast, falling away as curled ash, but also setting light to the dry tinder beneath them. With a small but competent flame, Haywood rose and moved forward.
The circle of light revealed more pine cones along with tree limbs that had fallen from somewhere above, all of them lying on or among a field of small rocks. Whatever had been making the sound was no longer moving, but Haywood still felt its presence. He stopped and raised the torch higher.
There was not much wind, and the flame flickered just enough to catch the feet of the goat he had heard. It was lying with its small hooves facing him.
“Must’ve fell,” Deems said.
“Uh-uh,” Haywood replied. He raised the light very slowly.
The fire finally illuminated more than the goat that Haywood had heard. It was small, a kid as he had suspected, and it was dead. The cougar sitting on top of its prey, the one Haywood had smelled, was very much alive. The cat hissed and showed bloody teeth. Neither Haywood nor anyone behind him moved closer.
“He caught it behind the neck; goat probably never knew what killed it,” Haywood said. He continued to hold the torch on the mountain lion but he did not approach. “We’re gonna have to do something about this fella. Those rocks behind it are probably also inhabited.”
“A mate?”
“Likely as not, and if there are cubs, more feral than this one.”
Buchanan was angry that he had not thought of any of that. The eastern trails tended to be flat, with relatively few places for a predator to hide, even at night. As Patsy had tried to warn him, he did not have an instinct for this place.
“What do you suggest?” As soon as it was spoken, Buchanan regretted asking the question. The men heard him. They heard him, still early in a dangerous drive, not making a decision but asking a Double-D man to do that. It did not matter that his concern was for the safety of the men and the herd above all. He added quickly exactly what he was thinking: “Letting the critter be seems the best thing to do.
“Doesn’t seem sensible, but that’s right,” Haywood replied. “I’m going to stay here between the cat and the herd. While I keep the light between us, you all make more torches. We’ll stick them in the ground. Won’t chase the cat off, but it’ll discourage him from coming any lower. He’ll probably drag the thing back to his den.”
Buchanan turned to his trail boss. “Get ’em made, Will.”
Without taking his eyes off the cat, Haywood said, “You can use pine cones, but they’ll burn longer with dead grass mashed with soil. Look to the roots of the good growth. Doesn’t appear as if there’s been a fire here for a lotta years.”
With a disapproving look—which rolled from Haywood to Buchanan—Fremont rallied the others. Buchanan had an unexpected sense of unease just then; he felt that he could as easily have been on a ship in a storm, asked the first mate for advice, and dodged a mutiny. Had he fled so many years, so many miles, to end up going nowhere?
The trail boss relayed the order to the men clustered with arms at the ready. He instructed Deems to see if Griswold had any horse patties, which he had collected on the ranch and kept bagged in the wagon. It was necessary for fuel when wood was damp from rain.
The cat had tensed slightly when the men arrived; it relaxed now that the bulk of them had dispersed. Its mirror-slick eyes were orange-white, reflecting the fire. Moving very slowly, Haywood found a small, flat stone and sat on it, keeping the torch high and in front of him.
Buchanan stepped up behind him, standing a few paces back so as not to alarm the cat. It continued to display its teeth but nothing more.
“You understand why I questioned you back at the chuck wagon,” Buchanan said
“I do and I don’t resent it, if that’s what you’re asking. I heard what Fremont said before, that the guns’re there. I most likely would have doubted me, too.” Without taking his eyes from the mountain lion, he asked the rancher, “How do you know I didn’t take my weapons back?”
Once again Buchanan felt as if he were caught short by the Double-D man. “I don’t.”
“Truth be said, I considered running. I truly did. I knew I could arm myself and make my way down that slope better, faster, than any of you. Figured I’d go back to meet the man I work for. I mean, a man’s word wrung out of me the way you did—that doesn’t hold much coffee.”
“Why didn’t you get away?”
“Not sure. I may still.”
Buchanan was touched by the man’s truthfulness, even resting as it did on dishonesty. He considered distributing the Dawson guns among the men when this was over.
The men had begun returning with branches wrapped in a variety of kindling on branches of various shapes and lengths. To conserve matches, they lit the torches from Haywood’s torch and stuck them in the ground. It reminded Buchanan of a picket line Captain Dundee had once set to frighten enemy horses. It turned a charge into a chaotic route, and Dundee’s front line was able to capture several good steeds.
When everything was arranged, and the cat seemed content that it was safe, it proceeded to do as Haywood had predicted. His teeth locking on the limp, bloody neck of the animal, the mountain lion backed off, dragging it behind. In the farthest reaches of the light the men saw the predator reach the rocks; a second cat emerged to help pull the goat up and into the darkness. Only when the animals had returned to their den and the night birds returned did Buchanan realize how quiet it had been.
“No crickets out here either,” Haywood said.
“I was just noticing.”
“That surprised me, too, scouting in the Black Hills during the war. On the plains, if that sound goes away, you hear it and you wake up. Likely the winds. Flatlands—insects ride them. If they came here, they’d ride up and down, cold to heat, probably die.”
“You know how to write?”
Haywood shook his head. His expression seemed to move in the flickering light. It had not. The man was as serious as a sharpened hatchet.
“I saw before that you keep a journal,” the former slave said. “Maybe you’re thinking I should do the same.”
“You’ve got a lot of wisdom to record.”
“Well, I never learned writing. No opportunity. I try and speak well by imitating what I hear, so I can show people I am no less than they.” He tapped his temple. “I keep my travels up here and also on my back. Every scar is something I said or did or tried, someone I helped when I shouldn’t’ve, like a house slave giving birth or a white girl who stumbled while she was chasing butterflies through the field. All of it branded into my flesh. Funny thing is, I still wrestle with what’s right as against what’s right to survive.”
“I reckon there’s too much of the mountain lion and too little of the angels in most of us.”
“Angels.” Haywood pushed his torch into the ground and stood. Buchanan rose as well. “You asked why I didn’t run. Truth is, I seen you and your ladies in church a few times. If this drive ends with a widow and two girls having no father, no wherewithal . . .” His voice trailed off. “We don’t need to bring the mark of Cain out here, to a new Eden. I don’t want to be a part of that. As long as you and your man there, Fremont, don’t give me cause, I want to see this through.”
“‘Want to’?”
“It’s a struggle. Things have happened kind of sudden. I’m still thinking about it.”
He turned back toward the horses corralled near the chuck wagon, then stopped. “Make a note of this in your journal, because I wasn’t truthful with you about my intentions. I did take them—the guns. It was easier and quieter feeling for my familiar belongings in the dark than hunting for a box of matches.” He flipped the box to Buchanan. “You can have these back, though.”
The rancher caught them and watched the tracker as he went back to his solitary spot.
“Why are you telling me now?” Buchanan asked.
“Because I don’t have to worry about anyone trying to take them. I can track, I can ride, and I’m a real good shot. Learned during the war; best training there is.”
Skills, experience, and gold, Buchanan thought. Those three were what he expected to gain on the drive. The words were inscribed in his journal. He had not inscribed “wisdom,” which, ironically, underscored how much he did not yet possess. The reason for that was he knew and understood his men. Through López, he grasped what was important to Mexicans. He had not expected to meet, let alone travel with, someone like Haywood. Part of him was humbled, part of him frustrated, but mostly he was grateful.
Somehow he would have to explain that feeling to the rest of the hands. Otherwise, resentment, like weeds, would foul the drive and poison the aftermath.
I want to choose how my life flows, not have it forced on me, he thought as he returned to his bedroll.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The men woke in a crawling mist. It was cold, clinging, and thick, blinding them for more than a few feet before them. Buchanan and Fremont approached Prescott, who had been on watch the past two hours.
“It started comin’ down from the mountain just before sunup like it was something alive,” Prescott said. “I didn’t like rippling heat on the plains, but I liked it better’n this.”
“Map’s not gonna help us here,” Fremont said. “Dammit, we’re in new terrain. I should’ve set out flags last night.”
“Don’t whip yourself. We’re getting smarter by the day,” Buchanan said. The rancher walked into what had been plateau the day before and was cloud now. “We know where the western fall-off is and we know generally where the rocks are. If we have two point riders and move slowly, we should be all right.”
“We had about two miles of ground ahead,” Fremont said. “Hopefully, this’ll lift by then.”
“Until it does we’ll take point together,” Buchanan said. “Double length in front.”
* * *
* * *
After a quick breakfast around the chuck wagon—with Mitchell eating by himself, acting “prickly,” as Griswold put it—Fremont and Buchanan prepared to take point with everyone else in the same positions as before. No one said anything to or about George Haywood. He fell in with Griswold as he had the previous day. The cookie had removed his sling during the night and was taking advantage of the slow pace to roll his arm, wincing whenever it hit a sore spot.
“We’re like those rhymes for kids,” Griswold said. “Y’know, a strange fit like Bessy Bell and Mary Gray or Robin Hood and Little John.”
“I’m guessing, cookie, that you say these things when there’s nobody else here. Am I right?”
“There’s horses. I know they listen, I can see their ears move.”
“I suppose it’s possible,” Haywood said. “Trees listen to the wind, so why not?”
Griswold chuckled. “You sounded like a Paiute just then. Met an old one last autumn while I was headed to San Bernardino for supplies. He had—if you can believe this—he was out in the plains with his horse and he had this mat covered with food his tribe had growed. He was swappin’ for things they needed, like canteens, utensils, eyeglasses.”
“How did he do?”
“I never saw him again, so either he got everything he wanted or he didn’t get spit. I wonder about that every time I take that trail.”
The two men continued to talk while the herd got underway. This time the pace was slow, without the lurching and stopping that had rattled Griswold and his animals the previous day.
“Kinda like heaven must be when you first get there,” Griswold said as they proceeded. “Mebbe not as cold, though.”
“Or noisy,” Haywood pointed out.
Griswold listened. “Yer right. Everything sounds louder. I wonder why. Prob’ly because you can’t see anything, so you listen harder.”
Haywood moved in front of the chuck wagon team. He wanted to try and see the cattle. In the mist, with the sound spread out, it was difficult to tell whether he and Griswold were staying in a line or going astray—whether they were right on top of the herd or a ways distant.
There was a whinny from somewhere just ahead. Haywood moved forward cautiously.
“Who’s back there?” Reb Mitchell asked.
“It’s Haywood.”
“You need something?”
“Just keeping Griswold near to the herd.”
“I’ll shout if I stop hearin’ the wagon,” Mitchell said. “Horse don’t like a rider this close to our back.”
“Him or you?”
“Don’t bother me, mister. I got work to do.”
“Cattle’re moving fine on their own. I asked whether it was the horse or you who don’t like it?”
“Your meanin’ was clear. So was mine, I thought. Go back where you belong.”
“On tail?”
It took a moment for Mitchell to realize what he was being asked. “On tail.”
“I was listening when you all decided to let me stay,” Haywood went on. “You didn’t want me here.”
“You’re a Dawson man.”
“I got you out of a jam last night, freed the chuck wagon the day before.”
“I looked in the chuck box when I had my coffee,” Mitchell said. “Thought I’d heard the picks and shovels rattlin’ more than before. You also took your guns.”
“Suspicious man.”
“Of a man who put a gun on me? Yeah. I’d shoot you for that here and now if your acts was mine to judge.”
“Why don’t you?”
“I’m not sure Fremont or the boss’d believe my reasons.”
Mitchell rode ahead a bit, and Haywood stopped to let the man and the herd move on. “I wondered where your ultimate loyalties lay.”
“Now ya do,” Mitchell said, his voice fading as he himself was gone with the mist.
The chuck wagon rattled up a few moments later and Haywood fell in beside Griswold.
“I guess we’re purty close,” he said. “I could hear ya talkin’.”
“Talk. It’s like overlapping trails. Does nothing but confuse you.”
Griswold smiled. “I like that,” he said. The smile was fleeting as he looked ahead at the gauzy white expanse, heard the clops and moos and occasional quiet voices of the hands. “Y’ever get tired of it?” Griswold asked. “Havin’ a twister inside, whippin’ things up?”
“I think I’m thirty years old, and I cannot recall a time when there was quiet. But, yeah, I’m tired. Tired of men like St. Jacques and Reb Mitchell wearing their hate in their eyes.”
“Friend, their world got ripped up at the seams. You hold that against them, you’re no better than they are.”
Haywood dismissed the thought but did not say so. It would not be possible to explain to this man what the fall of that civilization meant to a vast population of souls in bondage, without dignity or hope.
The tracker returned to the front of the wagon. Behind him, Griswold sat merrily composing rhymes about flies and foxes, clouds and ponds, any mismatched combination he could think of. Whether the horses enjoyed them or not, they were less agitated than they had been the day before.
It was late morning when the mist began to break. There was relief—and surprise—as the men were able to get their bearings.
They were still on a plateau but before afternoon it would come to an end. The edges, from what they could see, suggested it stopped in a sheer drop. There was, however, a slope that turned to the east, up the mountain.
Buchanan and Fremont rode ahead to confirm what they had seen. Finally able to kiss the ground, the warming sun had caused a nest of baby rattlesnakes to become active; Buchanan heard and then saw the vipers, swerving his horse at the last moment.
Reaching the ridgeline, the men rode right to the edge and looked down. Below was a wooded area like the one they had left. It went on for miles. Between it and the herd was a straight drop of several hundred feet. It struck Buchanan like one of the cakes Patsy baked for birthdays. The rock wall looked like a knife had come down and sliced away a huge wedge of rock. Even if they could get down to the forest floor, it presented the same problems as the landscape they had left behind. That left only one way out: the slope to the east, rising into the peaks of the San Bernardino Mountains. It was girded by a narrow ledge that disappeared behind an intervening mountain.
