The Joshua Tree

by Robert Cabot

  through

  time

  Hickok County, Nebraska, Wild Bill, shot in the back by Jack McCall in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, the year before you were born. They’d still talk of him, though, when they came in with their wagons for their flour and you’d be hoisting up the bags. And the cuffs would likely be for getting caught shooting down by the river where the mill dam hides you, a gun borrowed while they waited the weighing and paying. Caught and she’d drag you by the ear, growling German . . . Hamburg for a few months, I’ll get it back, bitte sehr, schönes Fräulein . . . A bear pregnant, always pregnant. Or he’d have you by the arm, tight, and you’re just a shaver, so’s the tears run.

  Those Herefords in the boat with their wild great bawling; the bricks of Ellis Island pressing on you to make you scream; the train clipping along like a horse loping in shale, out into America, prairies, rivers, the buffalo herds, the wild western hills of Nebraska; the Omahas camping along the right-of-way; the cattle driving across the tracks in a cloud of pink dust, cowboys sidesaddling and ignoring our yells.

  But those two, they’d just sit there, like they’d be still in Kov. Even their walking was a kind of sitting, solid, squat. And the heavy hand ready to smash you.

  moving

  out

  You’re on the range now, Willy, and it won’t be often they’ll know where you’re at. Wyoming, Nebraska, Dakota, Montana, the little Big Horns, the new states. Before you could grow a beard, before the lice were much interested. But your rifle speaks and you take your cattle where you will. Till the sun drops into the wild grass, and the cattle bunch for the night, and you blacken the dark with your fire and your talk with the others.

  tribe’s

  territory

  And in a silence, with even the prairie owl still, you hear the distant shuffle of a herd. They’re sneaking in to claim your range; Grady, he tried it once before. Circle and lie waiting on the bluff with your horse tied down wind. Outlined against the silver grass. You yell, and “Like hell I will!”

  root

  club

  He wheels but your rifle’s on him.

  You find him head down in the gully at sunup when you’ve driven the rest well off. And the sheriff finds you.

  This judge, he’s got no gavel. His ham hand slams down on the bench, though he’d like it to be on you. As if his law were better, who’s never been west of the saloon and wouldn’t know a range war from a church picnic. This time you can’t roll away though, Willy, and they’ll have you in jail for a couple of years . . . San Quentin? No, Will boy; fifty years to wait for that hospitality . . . But they treat you well and bring you tobacco and you learn to read and write a bit. And your beard begins to grow.

  No, the term’s not so bad, sitting around easy like, taken care of, and going to get out. Like those cuffing hands, it’s not the hurt, it’s the fact, the law slamming down on you from some authority you’d nothing to do with. Somebody else’s rules, what do they have to do with you?

  Leave it, boy, get clear away. You’ve a horse still they’re keeping for you, and a saddle and a rifle. And you know which direction’s southwest. Off where there aren’t no fences, where Arizona Territory means you’re what you want.

  Dragons

  You’re out, all legal. They come to take you home, smelling of flour and their hands so pink and pudgy, and they’d be thinking of cuffs and school and kissing their icons and the three-fingered crossing. Wayward, but what do they know of the horizon? Tobacco or incense, Nebraska, eighteen ninety or was it ninety-two? The mill to grind and grind away at you, and he’d even fenced his few cattle too on his bottom land. Slamming down on you, the silence, flour-dusted crust, crackling bearskin worn thin on the humps.

  Ai! Willy boy, you’ve rolled inside a grizzly hide soft like her skin, soft as your chin was then, warm so you shivered, cool from the sweat when she’d showed you. The pine smoke to keep off the no-see-’ems, horses stamping in their sleep, her crooning like you was a baby, stars dropped right down in the branches. And again she’d do it, like throwing a handful of salt in the embers.

  Or just the soft rub of your saddle jogging the seat of your pants and the rifle barrel fitting under your knee and the horsehair hackamore she’d braided for you so light in your fingers.

  the Hero

  slaying

  How’d they think they’d have you back there, make brown flour of you, make numbers and wheels and The Word of you. sieved and bleached and prosperous? Clear out, Willy, clean away, and it’s easy. No one’d be interested in chasing a kid just on account of miller Dan and the schoolmarm.

  Great

  Mother

  Great

  Father

  So you’ve done it, Willy Dan. And you’ve beat the moon so’s the dogs won’t see you or scent you downwind and raise a ruckus and a clicking hoof’s no more than they’d expect in a pasture. Careful though, slow, no more’n a walk or the saddlebags’ll start slapping and the saddle creaking like no bare horse would and a dog can tell; or they, for that, with an ear for thieves.

  You’ve got beyond the hill, Willy, and the moon’s on the east now, a Crimean orange, rotting. Put it over your left shoulder, let out to a jog – you’ll learn, walk or run, jogging’s tiring – let the prairie slide by now, boy, distance. Stay clear of the telegraph towns till your beard and your hair fill out long, trade horses soon’s you can. For the rest, isn’t much to identify, nor worth it.

  warm cave

  outside

  black

  monsters

  Polestar back over the right, let her hang there. There’s snow still on the north slopes, the air comes in cold from ahead. Hunch well into your winter buckskin, fur out for the rains. Lost your fishskin slicker. A scarf to tie your hat down over your ears. Hands so soft from jail, one or the other slid into armpit or crotch to keep warm. The moon’s hard silver in your left eye. Howling, the yips and the long cry, hill to hill. The shadow form, the thin voice, and the answering, answering. They’ll lift you, with their calling, high into the night air, and you’ll hang there even when it dies. Reaching for something, you and they, but will you ever know what or why? Origins, something way way back that ties us, or the fearful unknown, or hunger, or song?

  rising

  sap

  Watch the sky rise, Willy, the stars fade, the prairie flatten without shadows. But then it’s time for cover, for the first days, for you wouldn’t have them sending out after you and finding you under the sun. A draw, down out of sight; that’ll hold the sun, grass for tethering, too close to home for hobbles and he could wander up onto the skyline, doesn’t take long to tell a hobbled horse even from miles off. And runoff water, and dry willow wood, dry so’s not to smoke, and the side of bacon you borrowed with a pot which will make coffee too. Sugar you’ve brought, and the salt, a shirt too, and the other bag’s mostly ammunition – best eating there is. Pick off a spring-fat hare, roast him on a green willow spit, and you’ll be gnawing him each time you wake to piss and change the tether in the new grass.

  Russian

  Polestar

  hole

  And the sky drops and rises, drops and rises, the sun slides higher, the moon dies and comes back a sliver, and always the polestar back over the right shoulder. Your hands are hard, the hair’s worn off now in the inside of your legs. You can drape the chaps behind except when you’re cross-country in the brush.

  to escape

  from time

  You ride through Denver at noon and spit on the sidewalk in front of the Brown Palace, for your beard’s filled out, your hair’s long now, bleached, and Jerry Dan is somebody else.

  from space

  Down the dry edge of the Rockies. Your third horse now; not for hiding, you’re beyond them now, Willy, forever, but because the second one lamed and you had to work in the stockyard a week to pay the difference. Where the thunderheads pile up every afternoon and break on you if you’re in too close to the foothills. Head into them, Willy, you
r first mountains, leave the roads and the trails. Let them have you, these great black afternoon shadows. Your saddlebags are full, you’re fleshed, the two of you, your boots and the clicking shoes are new again from Canon City.

  let me

  be the

  one, the

  Where the black turkeys race through the dark forests and you’ve missed them more than once. Where the antelope won’t come, for their safety is the open distance. Where the deer slips through the aspen stands and the green spring ponds backed up by the beaver. Where the wolf has full voice and the elk swings his antlers on the skyline, roots into the sky. Where the white goat and the bighorn drop rocks from cliff faces that lean down on you till you’ve slid clear out of the saddle. Where a rifle shot isn’t once and maybe a splat of dust in the thin grass, but comes back at you, closed in, angles and halves.

  first me

  And where finally the spruce and the juniper cripple and can climb no further. The air is light like whiskey, and what are you doing here, Willy? Here where the grass and the flowers quit and it’s all a pile of rock set like a bear trap to let loose on you. Here in a wind that turns you back-to and whips your tail to your belly.

  Back to the timber, Willy, follow the game trails and you’ll find a pass over.

  club

  so still

  in the

  giant ferns

  Round cat tracks big as your hand, in the soft earth, crushing the flowers, with the claws drawn in. Here the moss and violets are still moving, straightening. The brook is loud and he’s up-wind. Easy now, tie the mare in the thick spruce stand. You’ve heard of them, cougar, two hundred pounds. You could use the meat, jerky in this dry weather so you won’t have to bother with small game, and the skin’d come in useful, saddle blanket, a jacket, the claws for ornaments. Must be hunting up ahead or already set on a ledge above this deer trail ready to drop. Careful, Willy, it could be you. Here, where the big center pad pressed into the humus, a rock bug is just getting free. Rifle on your hip, Willy, it’s quickest there. No ledges here, though, no trees big enough to climb out on for the drop; must be moving on ahead on a scent, concentrating, less likely to pick you up.

  Black-flies swarm, eyes, nose – swallow it, swallow it, wouldn’t do to loose a hand or sneeze or cuss the critters. Or piss or loosen your shirt or have tobacco on your breath or fart in your gut or mineral oil on your rifle (just animal grease) or soap or a glued felt hat or the stink of man-fear. Or walk on your heels or shine the whites of your eyes or your palms or the city-shine of your rifle or wear spurs, rodeo boys, or have a scarf-end flutter in the wind. It’ll come, boy, it’ll come and there’ll be no thinking about it.

  hands at

  his throat

  Better to catch him before he’s found a ledge. Slide along, Willy. Here you can see ahead through the trees, he’ll be beyond by now and perhaps heading up the side of the open draw. Slide along as fast as you pick up his tracks. His stride is spread now, running, why? There are no other tracks he could be on, and would he suddenly run a scent or a sound? Or is it to spring over this fallen trunk? But he’d need no run for that. Mind that drop of fear, Willy, mind it well, down, with the rifle light and free, no breathing, your knife hangs loose at your hip. A ground squirrel on the trunk, back and forth.

  slice

  your flesh

  No! Willy, it’s his tail, flick before the leap, up, ready at your hip, he springs, you fire and throw yourself to the left. He twists in the air, falls on his shoulder, you have your knife in his brain.

  You’re on your hands and knees and you drop to the damp earth and your vomit gurgles and stings in your nose.

  Jerky, Willy, and a hide and fresh steaks, but most, you’re breathing and it’s his blood, and you’ll know how and how not to press game close. It’s then they’ll turn on you. The three-fingered cross before you know it, and perhaps it’s the last time ever.

  Jerky, Will Spear, but Willy Dan sits here in your skin, hefting your albums – Danziger, Dan, Speare, to Spear ’cause the feller over in Serrano Palms kept getting my mail, nineteen ten that was when I’d moved into the ranch a piece. Left the last sack for the Missis when they took me off to San Quentin, ’forty-three that was. Beef jerky, but it’d be good from the wildcat’s white meat or the cougar or the desert bighorn or badger or horse, and Jamie Pope would jerk mule meat. Coyote stinks. Any time of year here in the desert. Strips of raw steaks, dipped in hot tallow boiled out of the bones, and salt and chilies for flavor and to keep the flies off. Hang’em just before dark, when the flies bed down, on a rope like a clothesline so’s the flies have no place to lay their eggs. Turn’em over the next morning and they’d be ready in perhaps five days. Keep’em in a gunny sack to let the air get through. Indians they wove sacks of grasses.

  the pit below

  hold on

  hold on

  Few whites, least of all these parts, jerked meat. Prospectors’d buy from the Indians. Omahas taught me, I taught Jamie. Eat it dry or boil it or the Missis’d grind it up and make it into a good gravy on potatoes. Well water, put-up peaches and barrel-cactus candy dipped in lime water the way the Walapais taught me. She’s gone now, Will, gone now, gone now. Looks at old Will, her window in the sky, at the canned corn and the rice and the saltines and jam.

  onward

  Jerky, Willy Dan, wrapped loose in the skin, tied on the back of the saddle. No chilies, but you tried a bit of wild onion, gives it an edge. Not bad, boy, and you’ve found your way over one range, and you slide the talus ’most on your hocks – tallow, you’ve kept it in the bladder, on the fetlock cuts, lamed-up would be bad. Bark-slab lean-to for the rains the mountains catch from the westerlies on this side, fire reflecting in to dry things some.

  gold

  Sun’s

  threads

  spun

  Through the flames – freeze your gut, Willy, get your rifle back together, Willy – that form, moving at you. Don’t know bears, but would he come at you upright? Fool! to come at a campfire, silent like that, would’ve dropped him if your rifle hadn’t been knocked down. Old-timer, come up from downstream when saw the fire. Hungry more’n company, prospectors don’t look for company. Can’t find time, for the fever, to hunt vittles. Jerky, Willy, but you’ll make him pay well. Stay with him a bit, feed him, get more game and jerk it for his cache swinging ’bove bear reach. And learn all you can – gold, the panning and the sluicing and the dry-washing, that’s all he’s got for you and you’ll be waiting till Prescott and Death Valley and Kern County for the rest of your education. And something about silver and sampling and how to make something good look bad and vicy versy. And how to live alone with your fever . . . Jamie Pope.

  ’round

  Earth

  That bag of dust looks good, does it Willy? Hefts and shines and should pay well for the jerky, should it Willy? Yellow Jacket Pass and down to Durango and you’ll learn different. Worth salt, ammunition, postage to Nebraska (you’ll be long gone in the Territories by then), and then the drinks, that’s all, Willy.

  Whiskey and the fever, corruptions.

  Weaver

  tying

  threads

  They’re beat now: only a drop for company when the old fellers come up with a flask and the Seven-Up out under the Joshua tree, and gold is just to keep the stamp mill going in the spring, use up those bags of high grade. Corruptions, man against his nature, like when he ruts when the woman’s out of season, or gives himself to machines, or fouls the air and the water and the land with his wastes, or rips up the desert or the jungle or his brothers with his explosions – Armageddon. Quiet, old Will, the bees are stinging in your brain, itch and itch on the pate, buzz, millions in your ears. Files for your corns, sticks for your knees, pills and quiet, old Will, for the bees – but you’ll be moving on soon, yes, you’ll get there. Hamburg for the bottles shining on the Elbe, and the dog-carts, and to get your tongue oiled up. Kov for the windmills and the men dancing in the
dust, and Elizabeth Petrovna saved us, and the mists caught in the reeds along the Volga. And on. To Siberia, fruit and forests, Eden all around, radium in the earth to suck out the pains and the bees. India where they understand. You’ll be moving soon, Will.

  Durango, between the San Juans and the La Platas, two whiskeys and it lets you go, and by night you are well over the border. Navajos and Utes, down along the San Juan River. The country stretches out. Game is scarce and distant, hard to hit in the heat.