Pale Rider

by Alan Dean Foster

  “Aw, come on, Spider, it’s gettin’ late!” one man said tiredly.

  “Yeah, we’ve already taken the vote,” said another.

  “I’ll have my say! I was here first and, by the looks of it, I may be here last, but I’m entitled to tell you what I think about this business and you’re all damn well obligated to listen.” A few groans greeted this declaration, along with the admonitions of those who felt it only fair to listen with an open mind to whatever the canyon’s oldest resident might have to say.

  Conway turned a slow circle as he spoke, trying to impress his feelings as well as his argument on every man there.

  “Me and Coy Lahood seen a lot o’ ground together, startin’ back in ’55. I probably know as much about how his mind works as any man alive, including that fool boy o’ his, and there’s one thing I can tell you for sure about this business of buyin’ all of us out: greedy Coy Lahood may be, but he ain’t no fool.”

  “We all know that,” said Everson boredly. “Get to the point, Spider. If you’ve got one.”

  The old miner gazed sharply at the man who’d spoken. “It’s the point you want, is it? All right. You just think on this: if Coy Lahood’s willin’ to cough up a thousand dollars a claim, including for those that ain’t give up more’n an ounce or two o’ dust, you can be damn sure he ain’t doin’ it out of the goodness of his heart. He couldn’t be, ’cause there ain’t no goodness in Coy Lahood’s heart! The only way he’d come to part with that much money is if he knows that each claim’s worth five or ten times as much as he’s payin’ us for ’em!”

  It was clear from their reactions that this thought had not occurred to any of the other miners. A murmur ran around the circle, and a few men began to voice their agreement. You didn’t have to like Spider Conway (and for assorted reasons some of the men did not) to appreciate his logic. What he said about Lahood and his motives made sense.

  Then Jake Henderson spoke up. “I ain’t going to argue with you on what you’ve said, Spider. The way Lahood works, maybe each claim is worth more than a thousand.

  “But the way we work, we’re lucky to see a thousand dollars in a year. Some of us ain’t never seen that much money, least of all at one time.” He spat into the sand. “Me, I’m plumb tuckered out. My hands are wore to the bone from swinging a shovel. Me and the woman are tired of freezing through every winter without any meat on the table but what I can kill. I ain’t none too keen on sittin’ out another one. I say we take the offer. There’s always the chance to move on, maybe up north Oregon ways, and strike it rich on another claim. One where a bunch of cutthroats don’t come riding down on you once a week.”

  There was plenty of support around the fire for Henderson’s way of thinking, but Conway refused to give in.

  “First off, you know as well as I, Jake, that all the easy placer claims were panned out or bought up years ago. The only gold that’s left in this country is stuff that’s harder to get at, up here in the rocks. As for up Oregon way, way I hear tell it that country’s good for fishin’, farmin’, and loggin’ trees, but there ain’t enough gold up there to fill a tooth.” He spat into the fire. The wind bore away the hiss.

  “You ain’t lookin’ at your own claim straight. What about that nugget Hull here washed out this morning?”

  “Freak luck,” Henderson snapped. “You’ve been mining right next to him for more’n two years and you ain’t made a strike like that.”

  “Thanks for remindin’ me,” Spider replied. A couple of the men chuckled. “I keep tellin’ you.” He turned a slow circle. “I keep tellin’ all of you that the real gold’s here, just like Barret found. It’s just down under the top gravel is all, and you got to pan that or sluice that away to get at the pay dirt.”

  “Pay dirt my ass,” grumbled an unseen speaker.

  “All right then, tell me this,” Conway said, trying another track, “suppose one of you struck a thousand bucks in nuggets? Would you cash in your claim, quit your diggin’s and blow town? Or would you keep diggin’ for some more?”

  The miners set to arguing among themselves. A few were ready to leave immediately, like Henderson, while the majority considered all the work and hope, all the long days and endless dreams they’d already poured into their claims. But even to the latter group, Lahood’s offer was tempting. A thousand dollars in the hand was a tough nut to turn down when all you had to use for a counterweight was hope.

  Spider listened hard to the conversations, trying to determine which way the wind was blowing. Then he had a new thought and spun to peer down at the tall man who’d come among them.

  “You’ve heard what I’ve had to say and what the others have had to say, Preacher. What do you think we ought to do?” Other voices took up the query in a rush.

  The man with the collar sat on his log and considered. Finally he looked up at them, first at Conway, then Henderson, and then the rest.

  “What I think doesn’t count. It’s your sweat he’s buying. My life isn’t here. I don’t lay claim to one foot of this canyon, and so I can’t have any say in the business.”

  This reply was not the one the miners wanted to hear. They didn’t want honesty from the stranger. They wanted him to make the decision they themselves were unable to make. They wanted him to give them The Answer.

  He listened to their expostulations. “Maybe you all should sleep on it, decide in the morning. Doesn’t pay a man to be hasty with his future.”

  Some of the men were willing to accept this advice, but not the tenacious Conway. “What if we can’t decide in the morning?” He gestured toward his vacillating neighbors. “We ain’t havin’ much luck makin’ any decisions now. I don’t see that a night’s sleep is goin’ to make much difference. We could argue on it from now ’til doomsday without reachin’ a consensus, and we ain’t got ’til doomsday.”

  “No, you don’t,” the Preacher agreed quietly.

  “What happens if we take your advice and we do wait until morning and we still can’t decide? What then?”

  The Preacher was using a piece of driftwood to trace a pattern in the sand in front of him. No one thought to look at it. They were all watching his face, waiting expectantly for him to tell them what to do.

  “I expect,” he finally said, “that Lahood would take that as the same as saying ‘no.’ ”

  “And then what? More riders?” Ev Gossage wanted to know.

  The Preacher hesitated a moment before replying. “Something more than that, I’m afraid. He said he’d call in a U.S. Marshal.”

  Hull Barret frowned. “Is that supposed to frighten us? Hell, I wish he would bring some real law down here. What kind of threat is that? We don’t have anything to fear from the law.”

  “You don’t understand.” The Preacher looked up at his friend. “There’s the law as it’s written. That’s the kind of law that’s represented by your claims. Then there’s the law that some men know how to twist to suit their own ends. That’s Lahood’s kind of law. And the poorer you are, and the farther away from any other kind of law, the more twisted it can become and the easier it is to twist. This man Lahood’s talking about bringing in isn’t just any Marshal.”

  There was something in the Preacher’s tone that subdued even the bellicose Spider Conway. “What are you gettin’ at, Preacher? What kind of Marshal is Lahood talkin’ about?”

  “His name’s Stockburn, but that doesn’t tell a man much. You have to know more than his name to know what kind of man he is. I don’t know how he ever managed to get himself appointed Marshal, but that doesn’t matter. Not everything that happens on Earth happens for the good. Fact remains that he is what he is. ‘There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ ”

  Conway made a quick scan of the solemn circle of miners. “Ain’t nobody here named Horatio, Preacher. Ain’t never been.”

  The tall man did not smile. “There’s more than just the Marshal. Stockburn’s got six deputies been with him a
long time. Six—and they’ll uphold whatever law pays them the most. Killing’s their way of life.” He paused to study their faces. “I want you all to know that, because unless you accept Lahood’s offer, it’s likely you’ll be meeting up with them.”

  Until the Preacher’s short speech the miners had only been uncertain and confused. Now a new element had been introduced into the equation they were attempting to resolve: fear.

  Spider Conway was as puzzled as any of them. The words the Preacher had spoken weren’t the ones the old sourdough had been prepared to hear. He stared at the tall man.

  “You talk like there’s no doubt in your mind about this fella. You know this Stockburn?”

  “I’ve heard of him,” was the soft reply.

  It was dead quiet around the fire. Then Hull Barret stepped out of the circle. “All right, now we know what we’re up against. Me, I think it stinks. Lahood ain’t just sayin’ ‘take my offer.’ He’s sayin’ ‘take my offer or else.’ It’s one thing to offer to buy a man out, but rubbin’ his face in it ain’t right.”

  A chorus of protests rose from the anxious men. “We’re family men, Hull,” said one.

  “Yeah,” another added, “we ain’t no match for seven guns!”

  “Bullshit!” Hull glared at them. Silhouetted by the flickering light of the fire, he appeared somehow changed from the soft-spoken, easy-going man so well known to his neighbors. There was a new confidence in his voice, an unexpected assertiveness to his manner.

  “How many of us are there? Twenty! I heard the Preacher same as the rest of you. I know these men he’s talking about are—professionals. But I fought at Bull Run and Shiloh. Henderson, what about you? You going to let some Marshal scare you off your land? You were at Manassas.” Jake Henderson nodded slowly in agreement.

  “And Ev—Ev, you were with Farragut at Mobile.” Ev Gossage looked away but didn’t deny it. “You ran torpedoes—you goin’ to run away from half a dozen hired pistols?” He turned a slow circle. “It’s still twenty against one, ain’t it? And we know how to pull a damn trigger, don’t we? You all fought for Jackson and Grant and Lee. Now’s the time to fight for yourselves and your kin.”

  “That was years ago, Hull,” said Ev Gossage quietly. “I didn’t have a wife and kids with me then, and Grant ain’t here to tell us what to do, and there’s no cavalry or cannon to back us up.”

  “Didn’t have no cannon with us at Vicksburg,” muttered another of the men. “Fought our way through the damn swamps, we did.”

  There was a flurry of agreement from a majority of the others. The War Between the States had taught most of them how to use a gun. Sure they were older now, with families some of ’em, but that was a skill never forgotten once learned.

  On the other hand, they’d been common foot soldiers. This Stockburn and his men were professionals.

  Ev Gossage raised a hand for quiet. “If it comes down to it, I’m willin’ as any man to fight before I’ll be driven off my claim. You’re right about that, Hull. We shouldn’t let ourselves be run off. But dammit, we’re not talking about being run off! Lahood’s offer is fair, and I ain’t just got myself to think about. There’s the missus and the kids depending on me. They weren’t in the war and they can’t fight back. If I decide to go and get myself killed, that’s my decision, but I got to think of them. I still vote we take the money and use it to start over fresh somewheres else.”

  Gossage’s reasoning provoked a new storm of controversy. Hull had to shout to make himself heard.

  “Hey, startin’ fresh always sounds good when folks get in trouble. That’s why most of us are here now instead of grubbin’ out on somebody else’s farm or clerkin’ in somebody else’s store back east. But before we vote to pack it in, we ought to ask ourselves what we’re all about, what we’re doin’ here in the first place. ’Cause if it’s no more’n money, well then, hell, we’re no better than Lahood himself.” He waited a moment for the import of his words to sink in.

  “So you all look at yourselves and then tell me: why did we all of us come out here and set ourselves down in this godforsaken—excuse me, Preacher—place?”

  Spider Conway took a seat close to the fire and tossed another split length of juniper on the blaze. Sparks flew, disappeared into the night sky. He was nearing the age when the cold started to dig its way into a man’s bones, making him ache when he had to get up early in the morning or slip out of a warm bed to stir the fire in the pot-bellied stove. But the chill was still a long ways from reaching his heart.

  Hull gestured toward him. “Spider here asked us a question. If one of us turned up a thousand dollars’ worth of nuggets, would he quit? Hell, no! He’d build his family a better house, buy his kids some new clothes. Maybe even,” and here he glanced ever so briefly in the Preacher’s direction, “build a school or a church. If we were farmers we’d be plantin’ crops. If we raised cattle we’d be tendin’ ’em. But we’re miners, so we pan and dig and break our backs for gold. But hell, gold ain’t what we’re about.”

  They listened silently; Gossage and Henderson and Williams and the rest of them, conscious that Barret, who was one of their own, was on to something all the talk and arguing had so far avoided.

  “This canyon’s our home,” Hull went on. “Our dream. We came out here to find gold, sure, but also to put down roots. To raise our families. God knows it ain’t much, but it’s a start. Better than any of us would’ve had back east, or we wouldn’t be here now.

  “We’ve buried relations in this ground. This was their dream, too. Some of ’em died for it. Are we gonna take a thousand dollars and leave their graves untended? Don’t we owe ’em more than that? We owe ourselves more’n that. If we sell out here, what price do we put on our dignity the next time? Two thousand? Less? Or just the best offer?

  “One thing you can be damn sure of. If Ev’s right and there is another good place, sooner or later another Lahood’s goin’ to find it too, and then what’ll we do? I say we make our stand against the Lahoods of the world here and now!”

  There was utter silence around the campfire. Normally a reticent type, Hull was suddenly embarrassed at having made himself the center of attention. Having done so, however, there was no place to hide.

  Besides, the words had to be said, and it had been left to him to say them.

  It was Spider Conway who jumped to his feet to stand next to him in the spotlight.

  “I say to hell with Lahood!” He raked over his fellow miners with his eyes. Most of them were younger and stronger than the old sourdough. They knew it and so did he, and it embarrassed them. The old man knew exactly what he was doing. If he couldn’t argue them into fighting, then maybe with the aid of Barret’s unexpectedly eloquent soliloquy he could shame them into sticking up for their rights.

  Hull was as surprised as anyone when Ev Gossage stepped forward to join them. “I, uh, I ain’t a brave man, but I ain’t no coward, neither. I didn’t run from Pickett, and I sure as hell ain’t gonna run from the likes of Coy Lahood. We took our chances this far. I think it’s been worth it and I’d hate to chuck it all just now.” He gazed out into the darkness, past his friends and neighbors, past the places weakly lit by the fire.

  “I been thinking about what Hull just said. The family and me, we been here over a year now, and I kind of like this canyon. We’ve seen what Lahood’s methods do to the land. I’d hate to see that happen here in Carbon. See, way I figure it, we owe this canyon something. It’s been decent enough to us, and I reckon we ought to be square by it. That means not givin’ it over to a man like Lahood.

  “So—I vote we keep it up. Hull’s right. There’s more at stake here than gold, and a lot more that’s worth fightin’ for.”

  “Hell with Coy Lahood’s money!” shouted Williams. “I ain’t leavin’ Carbon until I’m good and ready.”

  The slight youth seated next to Williams sprang to his feet and glared excitedly around the circle. As the youngest unmarried miner in the canyon, Peterson
was hardly older than Megan and had kept his peace in front of his elders. He could do so no longer.

  “I ain’t givin’ up my home! First I ever had and I’m damned if I’m gonna be run out of it!”

  “T’hell with Lahood and his gunnies!” The cry was taken up by each man in turn as the men found themselves caught up in a whirlwind of unexpected commitment.

  “Yeah . . . I got a rifle! . . . let ’em come! . . . We’ll blow him and his dogs back to Sacramento!”

  Overwhelmed by their newly resurgent enthusiasm and the spirit of defiance, they fairly danced around the fire. Only one man remained seated. The Preacher sat on his log and watched them, his eyes flicking from one celebrant to another. Now that they’d made their decision, they were trying to dance the tension away.

  It would take a lot more than enthusiasm to stop Stockburn and his deputies, the Preacher knew. As he watched them gambol and prance around the flames, his eyes were filled with understanding and concern—and something else.

  Sadness.

  Because he knew what was coming now, knew it as surely as these simple but good folk did not. Just as he knew what he was going to have to do to prevent it.

  No one paid much attention to him as he rose, turned, and walked away from the circle of men who continued to shout their defiance at the stars. Their yelling and whooping quickly faded behind him, as did the tiny pyramid of light that was their fire. He needed neither lamp nor torch. There was enough of a moon to show him the way.

  He climbed without any particular destination in mind, following the only trail that wound upward. Knowing what he knew, he could not join in the celebration that was taking place below, and he did not wish to dampen it with any more truthful answers to difficult questions. Better to leave them to their newfound assurance and confidence.

  They were going to need all of it they could muster.

  It was good to be alone on that cool, clear evening. Except that he wasn’t truly alone. There was the forest to keep him company, and the night sounds of small mammals skittering through the roots and bushes. He had the companionship of the patient moon and a few curious clouds. Somewhere a Great Horned Owl soared just above the tops of the pines, its huge yellow eyes scanning the earth below, intent on small murders. A fox’s eyes glittered with moonlight as it froze to follow the movements of the tall human. It waited like a brown sculpture between two ironwood bushes until the man had gone and only his scent remained, and then continued about its business.