Redeye
Page 14
But, oh dear, before the Bishop left, he sat on his horse and told me a story. And I don’t know why, but it had a strange effect on me. This is what he said: “There was once a Mormon who had a wife he loved more than all his others. When she came to him, she wore a rose in her long, long hair, and lay upon his breast and spread that long, long hair over his face. When she lay dying in childbirth, she instructed that if she died, her hair should be cut off. She further instructed that each summer on the anniversary of her death, her hair, with roses in it, should be brought to the husband and spread over his face just before he went to sleep. And that is what happened.” And it had happened, the Bishop said, to his father, and the wife was his mother, who had died giving birth to him. He said he felt compelled to tell me the story—that his father had told it to him and that until now he had never repeated it. It had the effect of drawing me nearer to him.
———
Next, Mr. Blankenship. I was at the creek washing clothes when he rode up yesterday. He stood on the creek bank and called to me. “You’re not afraid to live out here all by yourself?”
“No sir, I certainly am not.”
“I was just passing by—on the way to the Merriwether Ranch—and thought I’d stop to see how you’re getting along, anything you might be needing.”
“No, I’m very well stocked, thanks to Uncle P.J. and Aunt Ann. They’ve been so good to me. But I do appreciate the thought.”
I decided to go on up and sit on the porch with him for a spell. He seemed to be in no hurry and Mr. Blankenship is always full of news about everything including his and Uncle P.J.’s horrid business of embalming the deceased. He likes to sit, but only for a minute, and talk, and often brings the Merriwether girls an orange or banana.
Uncle P.J., of all things, has taken to collecting shirts and ties and coats and dresses for the dead. Brother and Sister got in them last week and dressed up and played dead in the tree room and then went out and played in a mud hole.
Once we seated ourselves on the porch, Mr. Blankenship planted the seeds for an adventure. As he turned his hat slowly in his hands, he spoke: “I’ve come to ask for your services, Miss Copeland, in conjunction with a business plan I have. It so happens that I am in close contact with the Denver and Santa Fe Railroad, you see, and they are beginning to promote tourism in the West. We’re talking about a very lucrative business. My vision is this: If Merriwether can clear a way into the ruins, if I can get permission from the Indian agent, Greg Munsen, to take tourists into the mesa, and if we can transport proper accommodations into the mesa for—now listen—for women and children, and can advertise the ruins of a lost civilization, then we will be educating our citizenry and making a bit of money at the same time.”
“Well, it sounds interesting,” I said. “How do I . . .?”
“With the trains coming in like they are, with the Indian wars won, with the eastern seaboard looking west, and the western seaboard looking east, I know this venture can be most productive. And I believe we can start as early as next spring. Once that happens, we have in effect built the Golden Road. Families will be close behind. All paying. This is my . . . well, it’s my dream. And all you would have to do is enjoy our first tourist expedition to Mesa Largo and the cliff dwellings—at no cost to yourself. Do you follow my thinking?”
“Yes. I’d love to visit the ruins. I’ve told Mr. Merriwether that I’d love to.”
I was thrilled at the prospect and all the more so if Andrew Collier might be along on such a trip.
———
And today as I opened the gate to my yard, returning home from the ranch, along came none other than Andrew Collier, riding his horse from town. He was dusty and tired, having just returned from Denver.
“Mr. Collier, come up and sit on the porch for a while,” I said. “You look thirsty. I’ll fix you a drink of water.”
“Oh, no, thank you, I feel as though I should perhaps ask permission of your uncle before I—”
“Mr. Collier. We are in the West—the United States. You are not in England, and I am twenty-four years old.” I felt compelled to be as forward as etiquette permitted.
He smiled and dismounted.
I held the gate open for him. “You sit on the porch and catch your breath,” I said, “and I’ll put on some water for tea.”
“Tea? Ah, a real treat.”
“My aunt Ann and uncle P.J. stocked my cabin for me when I came out here—from furniture to food to tea, so I’m very lucky.”
I put on the water and returned to sit beside Andrew on the porch. He had moved the rocking chairs apart.
“How was your trip?” I asked.
“Quite interesting. Quite interesting. But I’m afraid that in part it was a failure. Mr. Merriwether had arranged a meeting for me with a representative of the Denver Historical Society, hoping for their offer of financial support for his explorations. But I was unsuccessful in that regard. There are, however, several members of the historical society who expressed interest in visiting the ruins.”
“Well, that would fit in with Mr. Blankenship’s plans. He wants to set up a tourist company of sorts.”
“I’ve heard, and I hope it doesn’t come to that, but it is happening over at the Grand Canyon, you know. Miss Copeland . . .” His demeanor changed. “I almost wrote you a letter.”
“Oh, Mr. Collier. That would have been . . . just fine. What stopped you?”
“Please call me Andrew.” A twinkle appeared in his blue eyes. He has sandy hair and freckles.
“Andrew, yes. And you call me Star. Well, what stopped you, Andrew, from writing me a letter?” I actually said it—“writing me a letter.” This was happening.
“I felt it would be too . . . I suppose too forward.”
“But we’re in the West. Remember? . . . I think the water is boiling.”
I brought out a tray with my tea set and asked him again about the letter, what he had planned to write. I was so excited I could hardly breathe, and trying not to show it.
“I was going to tell you about Denver, what I was seeing, and perhaps some more about the cliff dwellings. But I’ve gone on and on about them already.”
“I don’t think you’ve gone on and on at all. It’s very interesting, and Mr. Blankenship has asked me to go on the first tourist expedition—to show that a woman can do it.”
“Really? Oh, jolly good.” He reached into his pocket and pulled a thin short stick with something wound tightly on the end. “Look at this,” he said.
“What in the world is that?”
He touched the tip. “A rat’s claw. It was used for some kind of scraping.”
“Goodness.” It was so strange and so, so . . . prehistoric.
“And I’ve also got”—he reached into his pocket and pulled out another short stick with a small rock point attached—“a jasper drill. And, Star, there are no traces of metal up there, no metal from the Spanish. This all happened before the Spanish came.”
“When was that?”
“Fifteen-forty.”
“I do hope I have an opportunity to go up there.”
“It’s simply . . . we . . . that would be grand.”
He put the little drill and claw away. “I spoke with a U.S. marshal in Denver—a student of history. He gave me some interesting information. Someone has killed several Mormons who were rumored to have participated in the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and might kill others. The reason—”
“Mormons?” I felt that I had to tell him, “Andrew, the ferry operator, Bishop Thorpe, has asked me to marry him.” It just popped out.
“He asked you to marry him?”
“Yes.”
“I thought . . . he’s already married, isn’t he? Several times over.”
“Not any more—not since the last of the polygamy laws last year. I think he was married. I’m sure he was. They have visions that guide them in their daily behavior.”
“So are you . . . are you going to marry him?”
“Do you know anything about Joseph Smith?”
“Well, I . . .”
“And do you know about the Mountain Meadows Massacre?”
“I’ve heard about it, yes. I know it happened a long time ago.”
“Not all that long ago, really. But as I was saying, in Denver I had an opportunity to learn more about it and . . .” He suddenly looked sad, as if a cloud had fallen over his countenance. “I didn’t realize you had been spoken for,” he said.
“Oh, that’s not the way it is at all. He’s given me a year and I feel that I shouldn’t just up and say no without reasonable—”
“That doesn’t mean you must take a year, does it?”
“Well, no. But I don’t want to be impolite. And I think maybe I shouldn’t have told you all this.” I was surprised by my own behavior.
“Why did you tell me, then?”
“I don’t know.” I looked around—for something to talk about. “Would you like some more tea?”
“No, I’d best be going. I need to report to Mr. Merriwether.” He placed his cup on the porch railing, stood, picked it up again, looked around.
I reached for it and said, “I hope you will consider stopping by again.”
“Why, yes, certainly.”
Somehow, tea on the porch had turned into a less uplifting event than I had hoped for. Why had I blabbed so?
THE MESA
Whereas your Monday-night camp was a “trail camp,” your Tuesday-night camp will be permanent campsite, White Rock Campsite near the longitudinal center of Mesa Largo. This spacious and comfortable camp has been the center of operations for all excavations into lofty Eagle City.
At White Rock we will unload our tour wagons and “settle in.” Tarps will be spread throughout the camp at head height. (April snow on Mesa Largo is not unheard of! August rains are frequent.) Pine and cedar tables and bed frames built by Merriwether and his crews are sturdy permanent fixtures. Bed frames enable tourists to stay comfortably up off the ground away from those pesty “polecats” who call this area home.
High above you, along the canyon wall, winds the trail up to the top of Mesa Largo. It has been widened by Chinamen road gangs since those days back in ’92 when a pack mule was lost from the heights along the then narrow and dangerous (now 100-percent safe) trail.
How secluded the cliff dwellers were! What did they fear? Wild animals? Savage marauding enemy tribes? The Spanish? Sabre-toothed tigers? Such questions will no doubt plague the best minds that the fields of archaeology and anthropology offer well into our present century—and perhaps the next . . .
COBB PITTMAN
It was hot and dry, and dusty, but I decided to make the rounds, see could I get a feel for what might be going on. Let Thorpe know about what they’re finding up there. See if he might bite. Something about the cliff dwellings are calling me to do my duty up there.
There is a higher power and with it comes the whole order of justice, which means making the big people little and the little people big. The Gentiles were innocent. I got to level it out.
I stopped by Copeland’s saddle shop, the place I’d stayed, asked the little boy there, “Where’re your dogs?”
“They been taking a notion to go down to the creek about every day lately.”
“Then I’ll let my dog down to take a shit. By the way, was that a sheep crossing I saw back up the road a piece?” Boy looked to be about seven years old. One of Copeland’s.
“Yessir. Probably so. There’s one back there. A Navajo lives back there.”
“That your dogs coming?”
“Yessir.”
“Redeye. Redeye. Come here to me. Get in there, boy. We’ll take a shit down the road.” I got him in the bag and he growled at the dogs coming in the yard. “Hush up.” Dogs had their fur up, growling and barking. “You got anywhere you can put them up?” I said to the little boy. “All but one?”
“I can put them in the cooler if there ain’t no meat in there—or Grandma.”
“How about checking for me—if you can spare a few minutes. Help me with my dog a little bit.”
A woman came outen the house pushing a old woman in a rolling chair. I walked to the cooler room with the boy—a down-under room rigged with a barrel of water for cooling. No meat in there so the boy put the dogs in, all but one, and I asked him to rope that one and take him across the road. He did and I reached down in the bag, put my lasso around Redeye’s neck, then dropped him out of the bag. He spied the boy’s dog and squatted like a sheep dog and started moving toward him with this quiet growl and then picked up speed and when he was just about wide-open running I yelled, “Halt, Redeye,” and he didn’t of course, cause of his queer notions, so I jerked on the rope as hard as I could. He was about ten paces from the boy’s dog and it turned him for a good flip. “You son of a bitch,” I yelled and jerked again. He got up and tucked his tail between his legs and looked over his shoulder at me, with that red eye pumping blood cause it had about gone white, I’d jerked the rope so tight. “Now, you come here to me,” I said, and he slid back to me on his belly, like a snake, his tail tucked and twitching. “Redeye, you don’t learn to mind, I’m gone kill you.”
That was the fourth time in a row I’d done it. I figured maybe four more times and he’d get the idea, and then I’d just keep quiet when I wanted him to go on and hit, and let him know when I didn’t—that’s the way it was supposed to work. I didn’t much think I was going to ever have to say “Hold fast” again.
The woman came back outen the kitchen pushing the rolling chair but without the old lady. She was a good-looking woman and I wished I was the Copeland man for the night.
“Where are the rest of the dogs, Brother?” she hollered.
“In the cooler.”
“What in the world for?”
“He’s training his dog.”
She came pushing the rolling chair over to where we were standing.
“How do you do, ma’am,” I said. Tipped my hat.
“Oh,” she said when she seen Redeye’s head sticking out of the bag. “He’s the one I heard about. What kind of dog is that?”
“A mix, with some bulldog mainly—a catch dog.”
“What happened to his eye?”
“Well, ma’am, he was borned that way. Some Indians up in Utah had him, and they made a lot out of him. He was something special. Then they all had a sick spell, the Indians, and blamed it on the dog, and they wanted to kill him. I saved him. He already had the name of Redeye. Except it didn’t sound the same in Papitaw.”
She was a pretty woman and I was hoping she might ask me to supper, but she didn’t. You never know when a woman might want to talk to you, get to know you.
The boy asked me if I wanted to see a baby mummy. Baby mummy? The mama went back in the house and the boy led me out to the kitchen house—the room what they did their embalming in, and the next room was where the grandma lived. She was sitting next to the bed in a rocking chair and in the bed was a little casket, walnut it looked like, with silver corners, and a glass top, and inside was this mummy, a baby, with a sort of yellow head, holes for eyes, and a faint little red cross on its forehead. Probably from the cliff dwellings. I would see that Thorpe knew about that. He would like that cross. It was a mighty well-preserved mummy.
“She used to wouldn’t sit in no chair except her rolling chair,” said the boy, “but now she won’t sit nowhere but in that rocking chair by the mummy.”
“Can’t she hear?”
“Yessir. She can hear good, but she can’t talk.”
“God works in mysterious ways, don’t He?”
“Yessir, I guess He does.”
“Where did that mummy come from—the cliff dwellings?”
“Is that your baby?” I asked the little old thing. She rolled her eyes up at me, kept chewing her cud, or whatever it was. She was old and ugly.
Little later, I rode on to the Merriwether Ranch and came up on two children and their governess—Copeland’s niece—under the cottonwood trees.
“Howdy. I’m wondering if you might be able to tell me where I could find Abel. I seen you at the train station, didn’t I?”
“Yessir. I arrived on the train the day you-all tried to blow up the Chinaman.”
“I remember that. I’m Cobb Pittman.” Tipped my hat.
“How do you do. I’m Star Copeland. Mr. Merriwether’s in to town right now and should be back tomorrow.”
“I see. Well, I’m looking to ride into Beacon City. And so I just wanted to say howdy to Abel. Honey,” I said to the biggest little girl, “I wouldn’t get too close to that dog. He might bite your arm off.” She moved back pretty quick. “I just stopped at the saddle shop and talked to the lady there, Copeland’s wife. I’m interested in joining up with the Beacon City Mormons, maybe bringing my family out from Georgia.” God brings words to me, natural.
“Well,” said Miss Copeland, “I’m sure Mrs. Merriwether would say you can stay in that tent down there if you’d like to wait for Mr. Merriwether to come back tomorrow. And could I get something for your eyes?”
I’d taken off my specs. “No, ma’am. They’re like this all the time. Redeye, you stop that growling. I’ll stay in the tent, ma’am—I’m much obliged—and I’ll speak to Mr. Merriwether when he comes back tomorrow.” And you could come out tonight and relieve me of my burden.
I got settled in and staked Redeye out on a leash. I hate to do that, but it’s necessary. He’s a good dog. He licks my eyes open when they get dried shut of a night. Didn’t take but a couple of times rubbing some cold gravy on them, and saying, “Eyes, Redeye. Eyes.” I don’t have to use the gravy more than once a year now. Redeye gravy.
Sometimes I wonder had I stayed in the fur trapping, but then that great big hole would have been left in my knowledge. Now, I’m able to walk into the hole, to go after them that let the worse-than-animal come into their souls; I’m able to fill out the whole pattern, to sew in the stitches, to make everything complete by killing all the leaders that allowed it to happen while they had such a lack of heart they had to say they was doing God’s holy will.