For a moment he looked about. A skunk? It could be, of course. The smell was not unlike that of a skunk, yet different somehow. He was turning to go back inside when his eyes caught several long hairs trapped under slivers on the outer surface of the door. They were coarse hairs, a kind of a dirty whitish yellow in shade, and unlike anything he had ever seen.
There were three of them, and carefully, he took them from the door and went inside. Why he did so he did not know, but he placed them in a folded paper for future examination.
Certainly, he had never seen such hairs. A silvertip grizzly? No…these were different.
When Weaver came next with the stage he would ask him, as being long in this country, he might recognize them. The hairs had been more than two thirds the way up the door, and standing on the flagstone doorstep they would have been at eye level for him, or even a mite higher. He shook his head, irritated by the puzzle.
A grizzly standing on his hind legs could have left them. Probably hairs from the white part of his chest, he thought.
Cleaning up the place took most of the day. He stored his food, gathered extra wood, and made ready for the night. The horses would be coming any day, and he found himself looking forward to their arrival. They meant more work for him, but they would also be company.
He glanced toward the flanks of the mountains, thick with a stand of timber. Suddenly, he thought of his telescope and went within.
When he had been unable to return to his ship they had put his gear ashore, and the telescope had been stored in his sea-chest.
Getting the glass from his gear, he returned to the door, where he spent some time examining the mountains. They were rougher than they at first seemed; he saw among the trees more of the outcroppings of boulders, and what could be cliffs.
As darkness came on, he found himself growing uneasy. He retreated within the station, rebuilt his fire, and settled down for an evening of reading. As a boy he had no access to books, and had worked most of the time from daylight until dark, finally going to bed so tired he was at once asleep. Not until he went to sea had he any experience of reading for pleasure.
He had but one book, a copy of a novel by Bulwer-Lytton given to him when he lay recovering from his wound. It was Rienzi, the Last of the Roman Tribunes. He settled down to reading, taking time out only to replenish the fire. Several times he went to the door or windows but heard nothing, saw nothing. At last, his eyes growing tired, he turned in.
—
At daylight he took his rifle and scouted the area. He found no tracks, no sign that anything had come near the station. Relieved, he went back inside, taking care, however, to bar the door.
He had fried bacon and put out some bread and dried apples which he had soaked well during the night, and was preparing to sit down when he heard a sound of hoofbeats, then a shout.
He went to the door, took down the bar, and glanced out. Seeing a herd of horses and two men driving them, he put his rifle down beside the door and stepped outside.
The older man rounded up a bay with three white stockings that seemed inclined to stray while Loccard walked across the road and took down the gate-bars.
When he saw the last of the sixteen horses through the gate, he looked around at the riders. “Coffee’s on. Come on in. You had breakfast?”
“We done et,” the younger man said. He was scarcely more than a boy, but tall and strong. “We camped up the road a piece.”
“You could have come on in last night,” Loccard suggested.
“Never git me to come up here of a night,” the older man said grimly. “This here’s no place to be once dark comes.”
“He stopped away back yonder,” the younger one said. “I’d have come on in.”
“Ain’t got no sense. Not a durned bit. Not after what happened to them others.”
“What did happen?” Loccard asked, following them through the door.
“Disappeared, that’s what. Vanished. One day they was here, next day gone. I come up here bringin’ grub an’ such. They was gone.”
“Well, not both t’ onct. Each in his own time. Jed Slocum…he was a good man. Sharp man, too. He wasn’t feared of no ha’nts, but little good it did him.”
“What do you think happened?” Loccard asked.
“Who knows? Somethin’ got ’em. Jed, he lived it out for nigh three months. Got thinner an’ more peaked by the day. Looked like a dead man last I seen of him, but he wouldn’t say nothin’ about it.”
“He said something to me,” the boy said.
The older man stared at him. “You?”
“He ast me if I ever seen a yaller bear.” The younger man sat down on a bench and stretched his long legs. “I said I never. There was no such thing. Brown bears, black bears, an’ them polar bears. They’re white. But no yaller bears.”
Jeremy Loccard shrugged. “Who knows what’s in those mountains? There could be bears of a kind no man has ever seen.”
“Or other things,” the older man spat, and Loccard winced. He had just swept and mopped that floor.
He helped himself to bacon from the frying-pan. “You ever really look at this here country? She’s good country. Grass, timber, water if you know where to look, but there’s no Injuns…or mighty few. Now I say that’s odd…mighty odd. I come west along the Humboldt River. Godforsaken country, but there’s Injuns there, so why not here? I say they either was run off or somethin’ took ’em.”
Loccard got the pot from the stove and filled cups for them. “Those horses out there,” he asked, “any of them riding stock?”
The younger man shrugged. “That grulla mustang has been ridden a good bit. Fact is, that’s why we brought him along. If any stock gits away you can round ’em up ridin’ him.
“There’s two or three others been rid some, too, but mostly they’re drivin’ stock.” The older man glanced at Loccard. “Heard your name. Jimmy, ain’t it?”
“Jeremy…Jeremy Loccard.”
“Jed Slocum, he was a nice ol’ feller. Good man. I never did cotton to that Zimmerman, though. He looked mean…kind of sullen, like.”
“He was the man here before Slocum?”
“Uh-huh. He was here three, maybe four months. Always had his nose in a book, big ol’ books, like of which I never did see…kind of worried pictures in them.”
“Worried?”
“Uh-huh. There was devils and such.”
“Weird?”
“That’s it. Worried. He seen me lookin’ at a book left open on the table and he got mad as hell. He come over here and slammed it shut, said something about me bein’ nosy. Anybody else an’ I’d have took it up, but not him. He was a mean…mighty mean.”
“He’d of killed you, Tom.”
“Mebbe. An’ mebbe I don’t kill so easy.” Tom glanced at Loccard, indicating the gun he wore. “You any good with that?”
“Good enough.”
The older man chuckled. “All y’have to be!” he said. “That’s all you have to be!”
A thought occurred to Loccard. “That Zimmerman, now? Somebody come an’ get his gear?”
Tom looked over at his companion. “You get it, Beak?”
“Must still be around. I know Duro never brought it down…all them books, too. It would have taken some liftin’ to get them aboard. Heaviest boxes I ever did see, an’ I helped him off-load them.”
“Them?”
“There was three…not so big but almighty heavy.”
“Hid ’em, prob’ly. He was that kind. Wanted nobody nosin’ around. He said as much, more’n onct. He had some notion…I dunno what…but some kinda notion about this place…these mountains. Maybe the desert.
“Asked all kinda questions. What was the Injuns like? Was they on’ Paiutes? I ever see any other kind? Ever hear tell of any stories the Injuns tell?
“Hell, like I tol’ him, these Injuns don’t tell no stories. They don’t even talk much. Anyway, what would they have to talk about? Nothin’ but ignorant savages, runni
n’ around with no drawers on.”
Loccard nodded. “Maybe so, but I’ve sailed on some far waters, and I’ve seen things….It doesn’t pay to take too much for granted with any people, no matter how primitive they seem.”
“Bah! The sooner they’re all gone, the better. I seen aplenty of them, here and there. Good for nothin’.”
Loccard did not reply. To protest would do no good. The man had his mind made up and what he had decided pleased him, and left room for no further consideration of the subject. A neat pigeonhole was often a substitute for thought and a means of isolating ideas that might otherwise become disturbing.
“That Zimmerman, now. He was a canny one. Mean, but canny. I think he had something, some burr under his saddle. He didn’t come here just for no job. He was looking for something, something he figured was worth plenty.”
“How could that be?” Loccard suggested mildly. “In a country where there was nothing but savages?”
The contradiction irritated the older man. “Mayn’t always have been Injuns here. Who knows who was here before? I tell you, I seen things…well, they was things no Injun ever done.”
“What sort of things?” Jeremy asked.
“Mummies, an’ such. Seen ’em in caves.”
“Probably just the dry air,” Loccard suggested.
“Mebbe. Mebbe so. I was just tellin’ you what I seen. I seen aplenty, I have. That Zimmerman, though. He was no tin horn. He was a mighty big, mean man but he was knowledgeable. I never figured nothin’ would happen to him.”
The older man squinted at Loccard. “We got us a bet, down to Los Angeles. We got us a bet on you. I’m sayin’ you don’t last out the month. Somethin’ will git you, or you’ll run.”
Loccard had disliked the man before; he liked him even less now. “Who’d you bet with?” he asked.
“Weaver. He says you’ll stick it. I say you won’t. I say something’s goin’ t’ git you.”
“I hope it was a good-sized bet,” Loccard suggested. “Something worthwhile?”
“Bet him a month’s wages, mine against his’n.” He grinned, showing broken teeth. “He makes three times what I do, so I got me a good bet.”
“No bet is good if you lose,” Loccard said. “And I am going to make sure you do.”
The older man shot him an angry look, then went outside. The boy lingered. “Mister,” he said. “What he said about that Zimmerman was true. Those books now…There was some kinda strange signs inside. One book had some o’ these funny signs where one end points one way, and the other end the other way.”
“A swastika?” Loccard sketched the design in the air.
“That’s it.”
—
Loccard stood in the door and watched them ride away. He glanced toward the horses, who seemed at home in the corral, but he went out and added several buckets of water to the trough, his eyes restless over the mountainside and down the trail toward the desert.
Zimmerman had brought three heavy boxes and none had been taken away, so either they were here or they’d been taken by someone. He hesitated but did not add, something.
Slocum had lost weight, had been under strain, had asked the boy about yellow bears. Had he seen such a bear? Or was it something else? Some other kind of creature?
The articles found in the living quarters of the station had obviously been those of the last occupant, who was Jed Slocum, so where were those of Zimmerman, who had preceded him?
Walking to the corral, he glanced over the horses. Before going off to sea he had known a little about horses, and these were good stock. He located the grulla and offered him a handful of rich green grass, pulled from near the well. The grulla took it gratefully and held still while Loccard rubbed his neck and talked to him, but shied away when no more grass was forthcoming.
Yet it was the beginning of a rapport between them, and Jeremy hoped the grulla understood who he was: the man in charge, the man who fed him, the man who would be riding him.
Nothing had been said as to when the next stage would come through, but he assumed it would be today. He had turned back toward the house when from the corner of his eye he caught a flicker of movement near the corner of the barn.
He turned sharply, glancing that way, cursing himself for not having the rifle. His pistol, however, was in his holster, easy to his hand.
For a moment there was nothing, and then he saw them.
An Indian man appeared suddenly, ghostlike, at the corner of the barn. Loccard blinked, and a woman was standing beside the Indian. Then one by one, a slim, wiry boy, a girl of perhaps eight or nine, and one still younger, of perhaps but four.
They stood, silent, staring, their eyes upon him as though he himself were a ghost.
CHAPTER III
“Hello there,” he spoke quietly, not wanting to alarm them, for they seemed poised to run. “Come on in!” He swung his arm at them in a gathering gesture. He knew nothing of sign language but hoped they would understand.
They did not move, just watching him. He smiled at them, and then went about the corral, checking it for strength. On the far side he came to an abrupt halt. There in the earth was a smudged track, a huge track, not unlike that of a bear, yet different, somehow.
He glanced at the Indians. The man had come a little closer, so he motioned them on again, then pointed to the track in the earth. This time the Indian came on, whether from curiosity or because he was getting over his fear, Loccard did not know.
When the Indian was only a few feet off, Loccard indicated the track, then stepped back a little, spreading his hands and shrugging, as if to say he did not know what it was.
The Indian took one glance, then stepped back so quickly he almost fell. He backed away quickly. “Bad! Bad!” he spoke hoarsely, obviously frightened.
“Bear?”
“No bear! Bad! Ver’ bad!”
“No bear? Then what is it?”
“Bad!” The Indian backed away. His fear was obvious. “More big! Ver’ bad!”
Loccard gave it up, for the time being at least. “Eat?” he suggested.
The Indians had been about to walk away; now they hesitated. The man wanted to go, the woman was protesting. Her gestures indicated she was speaking of the children.
“Come!” Loccard said. “There is meat.”
Reluctantly, they followed him, avoiding the area near the track. Loccard was puzzled, for their fear was obvious and he had never known Indians to fear any animal. To respect them, to be wary of them, but not to fear. He had known no Indians so far west, yet he had known other primitive peoples, and fear of wild animals was rare among them.
There might be fear, however, if the animal was possessed of an evil spirit, or believed to be so.
He thought of that. There was something here, and he must know more. He must know more to satisfy his growing curiosity, and he must know more simply to survive.
He led the Indians back to the station and sat them down on the bench at the door. Then he went inside, put together some bread and meat, and brought it out to them. He did not know these Indians, and they might only be scouts for an attacking party lying somewhere nearby, awaiting a signal. Others had vanished from this place, and no man knew how. He doubted that Indians were involved, but who could be sure? He would take nothing for granted.
He brought out meat and bread for himself, then squatted on his heels where he could see the road, and ate with them, asking no questions, saying nothing at first.
Finally when he did it was in his halting Spanish. He spoke of a good day, asked if they’d traveled far.
“Not far,” the Indian replied in English.
“You are alone?”
The Indian indicated the woman and children. “They are with me. We look.”
“For a place to live?”
The Indian shook his head. He seemed to be searching for a word, then gave up and said it in Spanish. “Amigos.”
“Friends? Here?” Then he said quietly, “I will be
your friend.”
The woman glanced at him slyly, almost hopefully, but she said nothing. The children watched him with large dark eyes.
“I have just come,” Loccard said. “I like it here.”
“You go,” the Indian said quietly. “It is not good place for man.”
“I serve the stage. The stage goes through. I help.”
“You go.”
Loccard was silent. He went inside and got cups from the shelf and filled them with coffee.
“You know this place?” He gestured around, taking it all in. “You have been here before?”
“I am Kawaiisu. This my land. One time I live”—he pointed toward a place to the northeast—“there.”
He sipped his coffee. Obviously he had once known more English, but now was feeling his way with a language long unused. At least, that was what Loccard thought. Having partially learned many tongues himself, he knew how quickly a language only slightly known can disappear. That was the trouble of being a seafaring man. One rarely stayed long enough in one place to learn a language well. He knew a smattering of marketplace, waterfront language from fifty ports.
Suddenly the Indian said, “One time many mans here. All gone, maybe.” He looked at Loccard. “You see?”
“No…not yet. I have not been here long,” he said. “You are the first Indian I have seen. But,” he added, “I was not expecting to see any yet. Maybe they have not made up their minds about me yet. Maybe they look at me to decide what to do next.”
“They look, too. Soon they take you.”
“ ‘They’? Who are ‘they’? And where would they take me? And why?”
The Indian shrugged. He wiped his hands on his legs. “Is no good here. Many mans here…where now? Gone…”
He finished his coffee and Loccard refilled the cup, adding sugar. The Indian sipped his coffee. “All around…bad places here. Ghost places. You no stay. You go…now.”
“I must stay.”
They sat silent. The children finished their eating and their mother likewise. They sat silently beside Loccard while the minutes passed into a half hour, then an hour. Finally, Loccard got up. “You stay…rest. We talk.”
Volume 1: Unfinished Manuscripts, Mysterious Stories, and Lost Notes from One of the World's Most Popular Novelists Page 4