Redeye

by Edgerton, Clyde

  The Mumford Rock Weekly

  AUGUST 13, 1891

  MUMFORD ROCK—A Chinese road builder exploded in his coffin on Saturday afternoon at the train station at approximately 3:00 P.M. shortly after the 2:45 train arrived from Denver. The force of the explosion destroyed the coffin and the wagon the coffin was resting in, and broke a window at the train station. The road builder, who is unidentified at this time, and probably will remain so, was apparently awaiting shipment to Denver. No information was available as to the corpse’s intended earthly destination.

  Mr. William Blankenship, summoned to the scene by a by-stander, explained that the situation was not unusual in warm climates when a corpse is removed from ice and placed in a coffin, if that coffin is airtight and the weather is hot. The local temperature reached ninety-seven degrees Saturday.

  Mr. Blankenship also explained that with modern methods, a kind of chemical drying can be effected with a corpse to prevent any such occurrences. Mr. Blankenship is part owner of Modern Mortuary Science Services, Inc. The so-called drying method he described is also known as embalming and reached widespread use among the armies during the War Between the States as well as during the time of ancient Egypt among the general population.

  Mr. Blankenship noted that this incident underscores the need for modern funeral methods in Mumford Rock. Mr. Blankenship further noted that Mumford Rock, with the help of his company, will become known as the Home of the Modern Method.

  The Mumford Rock Weekly is interested in other verifications of exploding corpses. Such may be dropped by this office on Fourth Street, in writing.

  BUMPY

  Mr. Merriwether hired me, Zack, and Mr. Cobb Pittman, the one with the catch dog, to drive a freight-wagon load of Navajo blankets and eleven head of cattle up to Leesville. He give us two pack mules and two extra horses. Zack has made the run a bunch of times. I ain’t, and Mr. Pittman ain’t, but him and Zack went together on some of the big cattle drives back when they used to do that, and so that’s how Mr. Pittman got on this little job with us.

  The trail goes up to Thorpe’s Ferry and then west toward the north side of Mesa Largo before it breaks off north. It was my first real cowboy job.

  We followed the river northeast until we got to the ferry, which is run by a Mormon bishop who had three or four wives before the new polygamy laws, but he wadn’t there. He’s got a Mexican works for him. We got everything across in two trips, and took the trail west then north.

  Everything went smooth the first day, and the first night for supper we had cornbread, bacon, oatmeal, and canned peaches. After cleaning up we laid on our backs with the campfire dying. Zack and Mr. Pittman had been talking about the railroads, and this whore named Vida Lou in Leesville—where we were going—and a Indian woman that Zack’s great-uncle married. This Indian woman would jump off the back of a horse, onto the back of a running buffalo, ride him for a mile or two, then stab him to death. They like to talk about stuff like that.

  Mr. Pittman had his saddlebags on the ground beside him while they talked. He reached into a pouch and pulled out a tiny bottle of oil, reached into this little hidden pocket on the inside of the flap on his chaps and pulled out a sort of dagger with some kind of flip blade, oiled it, and stuck it back in the pocket. Then he started picking fleas off Redeye. One of the funny things he did. That was the meanest-looking dog I ever seen. He was made real tight and had bunches of muscles and walked around like he could all of a sudden jump in every direction at once. His left eye was all solid red and he had this look on his face like he was right out of hell and hadn’t ever gone to sleep.

  He lifted his head up off Mr. Pittman’s lap and started growling and looking out into the dark.

  “Whoa, Redeye,” said Mr. Pittman.

  I heard a little tinkling noise and two Indians walked just in the circle of light from the fire, a good ways out, and stopped.

  “That’s Mudfoot and Lobo,” said Zack. “They want whiskey and candy.” Then he said this—I remember exactly what it was—he said, “By God, I hate the stink of an Indian, but it’s sweet compared to a railroad man.”

  The Indians raised their hands and smiled. I raised my hand. Zack went over to the wagon, poured some whiskey into a jar, put the lid on, and gave it to the Indians and said, “No candy, no more whiskey,” a few times, shaking his head. They walked off into the dark, happy, I guess. They was the first Indians I’d seen across the river.

  “Was they Mescadeys?” I asked Zack.

  “Yeah. They wear them leggings. Them two live about a mile north of here. Trade with the Mormons in Beacon City. Most of them are Mormons. That’s one of the things I can’t quite see, and I guess it’s part of why I ain’t all that welcomed over in Beacon City. The Mormons I come from didn’t take a lot of stock in redskin trade.” Zack reached under his saddle and got another drink, then passed the bottle to me. I took a little.

  “They don’t take stock in that redeye, either,” said Mr. Pittman.

  “Back when they were wild,” Zack said to me, “the government would chase Indians a month or so then forget it. Like when they caught Geronimo—they put him in a show somewheres. Had a servant waiting on him. Still does, I guess.”

  My war sack was under my head with a blanket around it for softness and I was on top of my soogans except for one fold up to my knees, because it wadn’t cold yet. I guess I felt pretty growed up, laying there on my back with the sparks drifting up in the black sky, the moon up, and the cool night air coming in, and the horses hobbled off in the dark, and real live Indians out there somewhere, though they was tame. But I could pretend to be back before the war when there was real cattle drives and wild Indians.

  MUDFOOT

  We follow our path back home in the light of the moon. Lobo wants to drink before we get home and I say no, wait, so that we will be somewhere safe when we drink. He likes to get drunk in a bad fashion where there is no protection of shelter and he is left open to bad spirits.

  If we would be found drunk in the mesa by the Mormons we would lose our Mormon supplies for a time. Bishop Thorpe, of the ferry, has declared this.

  Lobo wants to sit on a big rock and drink. We could not get into his shelter because his woman has bolted the door from inside. When he comes back late in the night he will break it down and there will be big trouble with his wife’s mother.

  We go to the rock shelter used by the sheepherders. We go inside and sit at a table and drink from the whiskey. The whiskey gives our spirits the power to leave our bodies sometimes.

  “I have not before seen the new whites, have you?” I say.

  “No, but did you see the dog?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see his eye?”

  “No.”

  “It was red, full of blood. He may hold the spirit of the one who slept on watch.”

  “He is just a dog.”

  The one whose spirit roams Orange Canyon slept while on watch when the Mescadey fought the Apache. His eye was taken and a red coal was fitted into his eye hole. He died of pain and now his spirit watches for the enemy on Mesa Largo—even though there is no more enemy except for the white man who brings more and more supplies and guns and people from beyond the Bright Owl, and now from beyond the Maracachee Mesa. At night the red coal can be seen far off among the piñon. It has been seen for many seasons, since the time of our fathers’ fathers.

  “It is too bad that the young one was not the leader,” I said. “Then we would have gotten more whiskey.”

  Our fathers and mothers moved east to this land to be near the Mormons of Beacon City, who are our providers and friends. The Mormons teach us about their Maker and those spirits among them called their Saints. We take the man who was the son of their creator-spirit, the one called Jesus, into our hearts. We take the new Jesus, Joseph Smith, into our hearts, the one who found the golden tablets and made the words on them into the Book of Mormon. We take Moroni, and Brigham Young, and Wilford Woodruff into our hearts. The
n we are able to live the afterlife. And if we accept what Bishop Thorpe teaches us, we will be given supplies.

  Bishop Thorpe tells us that his fathers and our fathers of long long ago were in a land which is across the great water and that his fathers and our fathers were brothers and were in tribes that lived side by side until the tribes became lost from each other. With the Mormons, we prepare for the Kingdom of the One Creator. We prepare to live together for one thousand cycles of seasons. Those of us who were of the Ghost Dance must now change to these beliefs or we will be without supplies that our people are no longer powerful enough to provide on the small land we have been given.

  I do not know in my heart if Bishop Thorpe’s belief is the one that is the only one as he says, but we believe so that we do not perish. I do not know what my father, my mother, my brothers would do. My father and brother went with the Ghost Dance.

  If Bishop Thorpe does not see us drink whiskey, then the One Creator does not see us drink either. So we hide here and after we drink we tell stories of the days when our fathers could travel over the entire land.

  “Do you remember the summer that we came upon the maidens and you did your dance without garments?”

  “Oh, no, no, no. That was your dance. Remember, I was afraid to show the great limb between my legs to the maidens because they would all run away.”

  “No, no, no. I would have been afraid myself to show my great limb—if you had not been so brave to take off your garments and run and dance along the riverbank while they cleaned their grouse by the river. I remember.”

  “They were not cleaning grouse. They were cleaning rabbits.”

  “No, it was grouse, and I was the one with the great limb.”

  “No, that was me.”

  “You are getting too old to remember.”

  “No, you are getting too old to remember.”

  “Here, have some more. It is mostly gone.”

  “Perhaps we should return for more.”

  “They will be asleep and we can get whiskey from the wagon.”

  “No. The horses will make noise and we will be shot.”

  “And fed to the horses. Or to the dog.”

  “But it was me with the great limb.”

  “I will put mine on the table and you will be ashamed to put yours on the table.”

  “With mine, the table will fall.”

  “Have a drink.”

  “My limb wants a drink.”

  “Does he have hands to hold it?”

  “The last time I looked upon him, he did not. But he has a great head.”

  “We must keep them in our garments so that they do not drink all the whiskey.”

  “Yes. I think you speak truth.”

  We finish the whiskey and go out into the night and dance. We only do this when we know that no Mormon will see us. We dance the dance of our fathers for the hunt of the rabbits and then we sit and laugh. I tell about the rabbit that escaped the snare with a broken leg so that we chased and chased him and he wiggled from our hands and we chased him again and he was such a brave rabbit we kept him.

  When we came to my shelter, my belongings were not outside so I knew peace with my woman was possible. My woman was asleep and I was quiet. And as I do when I have the whiskey I call out to the hidden sun and to the four breaths of winds and to the spirit of water, for when I drink the whiskey I am unable to find the One Creator of the Mormons. But I call out quietly so I will not wake my woman, who makes the loud breathing noises under her covers.

  BUMPY

  Next morning, Cobb Pittman cooked breakfast on a flat rock that was in the fire all night. He knew what he was doing. You can tell he’s at home on the trail. That’s kind of the way I want to get to be.

  When we got ready to start out, and counted up, three steers had wandered off. Mr. Pittman found their trail and we followed it up this gorge on the north side of the mesa. Before we got far we saw two fellows just breaking up camp.

  “Hell, that’s Markham Thorpe and somebody,” said Zack. “Bishop Thorpe. Runs the ferry.”

  We rode up.

  “Seen any lost steers, Bishop Thorpe?” says Zack to the old one.

  “Matter of fact, we heard some in the night,” he says. He looked at me and I remembered him from times at the ferry. “They seemed to be heading up the canyon here,” he said.

  “Yeah, well, we had three wander off last night.”

  “You’re working some for Merriwether now, aren’t you, Brother Zack?”

  “That’s right. Sometimes.”

  “This is my son, Hiram,” the Bishop said to all three of us.

  Hiram was mounted and leading their pack mule. I was leading Jake. I’d seen Hiram but never met him.

  “That’s Jake, ain’t it?” Hiram said to me.

  “Sure is.”

  “And you . . . ?” Bishop Thorpe said to Mr. Pittman. “You’re . . .”

  “Cobb Pittman.”

  “Mr. Pittman.” The Bishop touched his hat. “You’re working for Merriwether, too?”

  “Today.”

  “I’ve not seen you around these parts.”

  “Hadn’t been around long.”

  “And you?” the Bishop asked me.

  “I’m Bumpy—Bumpy Copeland. I live with Mr. P.J. Copeland.”

  “Copeland?”

  “Copeland. They adopted me.”

  “Ah, I’ve heard about that. Copeland’s is where I bought this very saddle,” he said, patting it. “And a fine one.” He was a kind of big square old man with a big flat face and eyebrows that went every which way and eyes underneath them that stared at you hard. I’d heard about him having visions and how he’d had three wives that he said were just his friends now. They say Brigham Young had nineteen wives and about sixty children and Mr. Copeland said when one of the wives tried to divorce him and asked for a lot of money, he claimed they won’t married.

  “We’ve been witnessing to the Indians,” said the Bishop.

  “Not many in here no more,” said Zack.

  “What’s your religion, young man?” the Bishop asked me.

  “Baptist.”

  “Well, you ride up to my ferry someday, the one you come across on. Give me a chance to discuss Scripture and tell you about our prophets, Saints, and the Kingdom. We believe much that the Baptists believe.”

  “Well,” said Zack, looking around, “right now we got to find some cows.”

  So we went our way and they went theirs, and we found the cattle grazing together in a little pine grove about a half-mile on along ahead of us. We herded them back to the others, and the day was long and hot and, all in all, pretty boring.

  That night I was tired. My ass was sore and I was happy to get a chance to walk down to the river, gather some driftwood, and get the stiffness out while Zack hobbled the horses. The sun was down when I got back to camp and the sky was red. We had biscuits, coffee, and bacon, and then Zack and Mr. Cobb Pittman rolled them a cigarette apiece. Zack asked me if I wanted one. He can roll a cigarette with one hand really fast. He said he learned from a one-armed Mexican. I told him yeah and I tried but spilled out a lot of tobacco.

  Mr. Pittman was picking fleas off Redeye again. He wears smoked spectacles in the daytime and then at night he puts on reading spectacles for flea picking. His eyes are red and run water all the time.

  Zack looked at the cigarette I’d tried to make. “You just got to get where you can hold the sides up like this. Here, look. Like this. Just practice holding the side up, like this. That son of a bitch Mexican would roll one for everybody, say six or eight in a row, before anybody else could roll one, and him with just that one arm.”

  “How’d he lose his arm?”

  “Somebody told me he hung from a cliff with a rope tied around his wrist until his arm rotted and when they cut him down they thought he was dead but he weren’t and they had to cut off his arm because of gangrene. This was back around ’75 or ’80.

  “Why was he hanging by his
arm?”

  “Nobody said. They had to saw it just above his elbow.”

  “I met a man that knew him in Texas,” said Mr. Pittman. “If he’s the same one. Been kidnapped by Apaches, and left hanging. Apaches won’t torture you unless you been a coward,” he said to me. I think that was about the first thing he’d said directly to me.

  Redeye kind of waddled over to me and I rubbed his head. His nose was short and he was bow-legged. Hard as a rock. His blind eye looked like a ball of blood with a film over it.

  “He don’t seem all that mean,” I said.

  “Who said he was mean?” said Mr. Pittman. “He’s a good dog. He just lost his training for a while. He’ll be all right. Some of his kind get stuck on something’s nose and you have to kill them or kill whatever it is they’re hooked into. The Indian I got him off of was a Papitaw—a breed that uses dogs to hunt boars. The dogs catch the boars by the ears—else the dog gets gored. Did you know that?”

  “Yessir, I’d heard that.”

  “He told me he’d choked Redeye’s brother to death. Damn thing hooked into a milk cow’s nose and he tried everything he could and finally had to choke him and the damn dog died hooked in.” He snapped his fingers. “Come here, Redeye. Here, get in the bag. And the cow broke its neck trying to get him off.” He rolled him another cigarette. “They was a family of clear purpose dogs.” Redeye got in his bag, worked up until his head was sticking out his head hole, and Mr. Pittman tied the other opening shut. “I tried to teach him to smoke but it didn’t take.” Redeye looked up at Mr. Pittman like he loved him. “Say your prayers, boy.”

  It seemed to be a little more chilly than the night before, so I went back to the river and got some more wood, built up the fire, and laid some aside. Then I got settled in, leaned back against my war sack, and pulled my soogans over my legs.