The Canyon: A Novella
Page 3
Sam stepped back, shaking his head, walking around the stump of a splintered, lightning-struck cottonwood, sub-consciously avoiding the patches of light that shined down through the canopy onto the dry leaves. “Dumb luck or not, I’m not gonna just stand around and wait for them to come to me. I need to be doing something about this.”
“Never said we shouldn’t. I just err on the side being realistic.”
“Then let’s be realistic,” Sam said, his voice wavering. “Let’s find a way out of here. Let’s go back to Branchwater, send a telegram to Charvet, give him his parcel, get our money, and forget this ever happened.”
He stopped walking around the stump and took a seat, nearly falling as his ankle gave way. He sighed and muttered to himself, and ran a hand through his graying hair. Gordon thought Sam looked too tired for a man his age. The war and a hard life in the desert had added twenty years to him, turning him into an old man at forty.
Gordon’s mind took a sudden turn inward, viewing himself through the same lens. He wondered if it was happening to him. He was a younger man by ten years, but for ten years he had lived the same kind of life, a life that could slowly wear away the best of a man.
He quickly dismissed the idea, writing it off as a side effect of fatigue from the growing heat and a night of broken sleep.
He looked up at the cliff, considering the matter at hand once more, and then turned to Frank. “If you had to, could you hit that tree with a shot from your Sharps?”
“Hit the tree? Maybe. Hit him on the other hand? I highly doubt that.”
“You wouldn’t need to hit him. I just need to know if you can get close.”
“I can’t be sure. If I was on the other side of that river, and found a good spot with some elevation, there wouldn’t be any question. But from here? I might as well be throwing rocks.”
“If you fired a few shots at him though, would he know where you’re shooting from?”
“I wouldn’t fire more than one or two shots at him for that very reason. And who knows what he has up there. Probably a goddamn buffalo gun with some kind of magnifier strong enough for him to see a flea on a gopher’s ass at a thousand yards.”
“But if he does have something like that, he’s not gonna be looking out over every inch of this canyon. He’s gonna be looking at one tree, trying to find the one man taking a shot at him.”
Sam lifted his head, looking hopeful. “We could distract him. Son of a bitch. That could actually work. He’d be looking down the wrong side of the canyon while the rest of us slip out.”
Frank frowned and picked up his rifle. “It still means one of us would have to stay and take a few shots. And I’m not volunteering.”
“I’m not asking you to,” Gordon said. “But I wouldn’t ask you or anyone else to stay behind either. A few shots is all we’d need. Then we all walk out. Together.”
“If there’s a way to walk out,” Frank said. “If.”
The sun wasn’t with them.
At the cave, there was talk of scouting the far end of the canyon to the west for a way out. But as the morning wore on, the protective pall of blue shadow cast by the high eastern cliffs was quickly drawn back from the canyon floor, revealing the river and the trees to the world above.
None of them dared to venture out into the sunshine unless he was safely beneath cover. And even then, there was still reluctance. There were places where the branches had been torn away, gaps where entire trees had fallen or never grown at all. There was no way to travel from one end of the canyon to the other. Not without walking out in the open. Not when the sun was up.
As the last of the shadow crawled back into the rocks an hour before mid-day, Bill and Gordon walked east along the wall beyond the canyon, following the river. What they found there was a dead end. The walls on either side of the canyon drew together into a horseshoe, holding a waterfall within its grasp. At the bottom it tumbled and crashed over rocks and boulders, raging as rapids for two hundred yards before it calmed and fed the grove.
At noon, the sun touched the entrance of the cave, and they sat, tired, in the shade, talking little and eating a meal of dried meat. Gordon could feel the pain again, everywhere and nowhere, growing and shrinking, breathing through him. He thought about Tom Talbert and hated himself for thinking. He hated that in this place, all a man could do was think, to wait out the heat of the day, impatient for the promise of something unseen.
He pretended to be interested in last week’s newspaper, reading articles that meant nothing to him. A train had derailed and killed 80 people in Ireland. The British were fighting the Mahdists in the Sudan. Marxists were holding an international congress of workers in Paris. Sullivan had gone 75 rounds with Kilrain in a ring in Mississippi and won. A prominent New York industrialist was denying rumors of blackmail and infidelity.
When the news of the real world proved impossible to focus on, he tried reading the latest installment of William Edward Tanner’s serialized novel, The Moon Kingdom. He’d been following Captain Percival Arrington’s adventures for weeks, waiting to see if he could successfully slash his way through the fearsome armies of King Shangh, and rescue Princess Allura from his evil lunar clutches.
But this too couldn’t help him escape.
There were only the thoughts and the pain that came with them.
He blamed himself for what had happened to Tom.
Tom hadn’t wanted this life.
Tom had gotten out.
In the fall of ’79, when their cattle rustling had begun to draw too much attention, he had boarded a train and gone back east. It was nothing personal. Even when their claim had turned up little more than dirt, those days had been the best of their lives. Swimming in the small creek that trickled through the bottom of the canyon where they had made their home. Lying out beneath the stars beside a well-tended fire and talking late, off-loading the burden that every man was expected to carry in silence. They had found something better than what they had gone looking for. Every summer had to end, but their summer had been perfect.
After Tom left, he had moved around a lot, working respectable jobs that didn’t pay respectably, never living in one place for more than a few months. But they had never lost touch.
In ’84, he had married a woman in Chicago. Gordon hadn’t really understood it, but he had taken a train east to see them down the aisle. Tom was a changed man by then. He had drifted away from the life he’d had out west and traded it all for a badge and uniform. He was happy, he said. He was ready to settle down.
Then the bomb had been thrown in Haymarket Square in the spring of ’86, and seven officers had been blown to pieces. Tom had gotten scared. He had gone looking for a quiet life. He thought he’d found it. And now there were riots in the streets, and people were dying. It was changing him in ways he didn’t want to change. It was one thing to fear death, and it was another to fear being asked to beat a man because he was raising his voice for better pay and better conditions and encouraging his fellow workers to strike.
Gordon had encouraged him to come out west again, to live on his own terms, to bring his young wife with him and make a home here. Tom was reluctant, but he gave in halfway. He would move out west, but he wouldn’t bring his wife with him. He couldn’t let her see what it took to make a living out in the territory any more than he could let her see what kind of man her husband would become back in Illinois.
He took to carrying a cheap gold pocket watch with her portrait inside the cover, a reminder that he was still a loyal partner. He sent her letters and money, and made promises of returning home soon. But “soon” was stretched out for three years.
Gordon had always given him reasons to stay. There was always another job or opportunity. They had become acquainted with Charvet and done steady work for him, taking the things that his anonymous clients wanted them to take.
It wasn’t a good life, but it was a living.
Until Tom had died.
Gordon
stood, feeling the pain flow and then ebb. The heat was suffocating him.
He dropped the newspaper and walked deeper into the cave, allowing the darkness to envelop him. He sat against a beam, breathing the foul stench of the rats, listening to their scratching movements.
He waited.
Waited.
Waited.
Hours later, he heard the arguing, the voices filled with accusations bleeding into each other. He pulled himself up from the cool ground and walked toward the light, watching the silhouettes of Bill and Sam stab the air with pointing fingers.
“Lower your damn voices,” he said. “They can hear you all the way back in Branchwater.”
Bill and Sam fell silent, their raised hands foundering and then dropping to their sides.
Gordon stepped between them. “Now, one at a time, tell me what all the hubbub is about.”
Sam went first: “We’re almost out of food. Only got what was in my saddlebags, and that wasn’t much. I figured since the sun is going down and all that maybe, under cover of darkness, we might try retrieving the other saddlebags. But Frank says he isn’t carrying anything we can eat, aside from dope, and Bill says he doesn’t have any food. Jimmy ain’t said a word all day, so who knows what he’s got. And I didn’t figure you were carrying much either, Gordon. So, I suggested, quite innocently that maybe we should eat one of the horses.”
“That wasn’t the way you put it,” Bill said. “You tell it to him like you told me.”
“I didn’t tell it any other way.”
“Yes, you did! You know you did.”
“All I said was –”
“All you said was I should go out there and get killed!”
“Stop it,” Gordon said. “We’re not doing this again!”
Bill tried to push past him. “You can’t fool me, Reb. If you want me dead, you’re gonna have to do it yourself.”
Gordon pushed him back. “I said stop!”
Bill stumbled and caught himself, bracing an arm against the wall of the cave to keep from falling over. As he regained his balance, he curled his hands into fists. He took a step forward, looking at Gordon, wanting to hit him. Within a second, he realized what he was doing and stopped himself.
“Hey, Gord. I’m…I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me. It’s just that he –”
“I’m sure he’s thinking the same about you, Bill. But I don’t want to hear any more of it unless you’re gonna keep it well mannered. Do you understand?”
“Well, yeah.”
He turned to Sam. “How about you? Do I have to explain it again?”
Sam held up his hands in surrender. “No, sir. I understand completely.”
Gordon stepped back, testing the tentative truce he’d just brokered by giving them enough room to start swinging. They eyed each other, considering it, but didn’t make a move.
“Now tell me,” Gordon said, “without pointing fingers, without raising voices, what the situation with the food is.”
Sam walked over to his saddlebags and pulled out a paper sack. Gordon could hear the stray bits of jerky rattling inside before Sam opened it and showed him how little there was.
“Is that all?” he asked.
“That and a piece of salt pork. Hardly enough for one man, let alone five.”
“What was this about eating one of the horses?”
“Well, I figured, one of us could go out there and maybe cut off a leg. Only been out there a day. The meat should still be good enough to eat after we put it on the fire.”
“He was volunteering me to do it,” Bill said.
“I was asking you. Because you used to be a butcher.”
“Yeah. Damn near thirty years ago, when I was younger than the kid. Doesn’t mean I wanna go running out there when some Johnny Sureshot is sitting up top with a rifle. And I sure as shit don’t appreciate you volunteering me for it.”
“I’m sorry, I just thought…”
“Yeah, you just thought. Thinking never was your strong suit, Sam.”
Sam frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I never could understand how a Tennessee man could fight for the Confederacy. Unless he’s got no brains between his ears.”
Sam stepped forward, his hand dropping to the butt of his pistol. Gordon reached out and grabbed him by the wrist, squeezing tight.
“Don’t.”
Sam looked at him, his eyes filled with violence.
“When we get out of here,” Gordon said, “you two can do whatever you want. But right here, right now, I need you to be calm and courteous. If you kill each other, it’s just gonna make it harder for the rest of us. And I don’t have a shovel, so you’d forfeit a Christian burial.”
Bill grinned. “You could forego a burial altogether and serve us up as a Donner Party dinner.”
“We’d give you a mighty bad case of indigestion though,” Sam said.
“Sam, you and Bill already do,” Gordon said.
Sam and Bill laughed, friendly again, or at least pretending to be friendly. He would have to watch them closely.
This place was bringing out the worst in them.
As the sun dipped beneath the plateau to the west, they built another fire.
Even without enough food for a full meal, they placed the pan over the flames and cooked the single strip of salt pork, cutting it into five equal pieces. As they ate, they tried in vain to make conversation, but the words faded and drifted off, bled dry of enthusiasm.
Frank produced the bottle of Laudanum, now half-empty, and turned it over in his hands, looking at the flames through the brown glass. He pulled the stopper, and tilted his head back.
“How are your ribs?” Bill asked.
“They’re not cooking on the fire, waiting to be served for sustenance.” He lifted the bottle in a toast. “This fine libation helps quell the appetite though.”
“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to save some of that libation for the rest of us just in case it’s needed.”
“You suppose correctly. Besides, the kid hasn’t said a word all day.”
Bill slid away from the fire and turned to Jimmy. He sat clutching a canteen, huddled in a small alcove worn into the rock. The flickering light of the flames drew shadows in the hollows of his pale, thin face.
“How are you feeling, Jimmy?”
Jimmy drummed his fingers on the canteen, saying nothing.
“Kid, are you feeling sick?”
Jimmy’s gaze shifted upward, taking in Bill and the rest of them sitting around the fire.
“I’ve got this terrible thirst.”
“Drink some water, kid. You’ve got some in hand.”
Jimmy shook his head, his eyes losing focus. “There’s nothing in it. Hasn’t been all day.”
“You haven’t had water all day?”
“Water won’t be enough. I never had a thirst like this before. It’s…it’s like the whole inside of me is empty. Like I could drink the whole world and I’d still be parched.”
Bill stood up and walked over, kneeling to look at him more closely. “Kid, when was the last time you had something to drink?”
“I can’t remember.”
Bill placed a hand on his forehead. “You’re burning up.”
“We’re all gonna burn.”
“For Christ’s sake, Jimmy. Don’t talk like that. Gordon? Frank? Somebody wanna go down to the water and fill his canteen?”
Jimmy closed his eyes and pulled away, hugging the inside of the alcove. “No. That water’s dirty. I’m not drinking it. I’ll catch my death.”
Sam got to his feet, wobbling on the bad ankle. “That water’s safe, kid. Been drinking it myself all day. I’ll get you some.”
“No, not you. Not anyone. You’re gonna poison me. You’re just waiting for me to turn my back.”
“That’s not what we’re doing,” Bill said. “We’re trying to help you.”
“You’re not!”
Jimmy shook his head, over and over, crying now. He reached out and grabbed onto Bill, collapsing against him.
“I’m being punished, that’s what it is.”
“Punished? What are you talking about? Punished for what?”
“For the things I’ve done. I’ve done awful things. Things I’ve never even told.”
Jimmy buried his face in Bill’s shoulder. The older man hesitated and then wrapped his arms around him, gently placing a hand on his back.
He spoke softly. “You just hush up about that now. You’re a good kid.”
“I’m not. I’m not. There was this…this boy…lived in the same town as me. Went to the same church. His mother and mine were friendly. They thought we should be friendly, too. But I never liked him. I…I hated him. Didn’t even have a reason. I just hated him. Hated seeing him every day. Hated hearing him speak. Hated having him follow me everywhere I went because his mother told him he was my friend.
“One day…one day I was up on the hill outside of town. No one was around but me and him. He was…talking to me…laughing…saying things. I wasn’t even listening. I just looked at him and I wanted him to stop. So, I pushed him. I pushed him and he fell. He fell like we fell. He went down the hill, and when he got to bottom, he was dead.
“They didn’t find him ’til the next day. I said I hadn’t seen him. I lied to everyone. I went to his service and said a prayer with his mother. And the whole time I was thinking about how I killed him. And I didn’t feel a thing. I wondered how it was even possible to not feel something. Like there was this…big hole in the middle of me. And it’s been there ever since.”
The tears flowed.
Bill held him.
The rest of them watched, not knowing what to say.
“I’ve done awful things, too,” Bill said. “Terrible things. But there’s nothing we can do about it now. Why don’t you get some sleep? I’ll get you some water.”