And later, one glance in his eyes told me I could never ask him about it. So, this ominous night existed in silence, and we never spoke of it.
But that only made it worse, because now he didn’t trust anything. The unknown had surfaced before us, and now to him the whole world seemed to feel unpredictable.
He didn’t think he could protect me.
He thought of himself as a failure, I could see it.
I stood and offered my hand. If only he knew that I can take care of myself.
He weakly gripped my fingers, stood, and allowed me to lead him across the meadow. I stopped before a large agave that had sent up a strong shoot. It looked like a giant stalk of asparagus.
“You know what this is?” I asked.
He nodded. “That’s an agave.”
I placed my hand on the shoot. It was only two feet tall, but there seemed some urgency to it, like it was ready to burst upward.
“I’m told these can grow a foot a day this time of the year,” I said. “And that if you put your hand on it, you can feel it grow.”
He nodded, but didn’t move, so I took his hand and placed it on the compact green bud.
He gave me a weak smile, but then it slumped, and he said, “I can’t feel it.”
Then I took his hand and placed it on my belly.
“How about this?” I asked.
He glanced at me, confused, and then suddenly there was a new light in his sad eyes. They teared up, and I could feel him trembling. “You’re pregnant?” he asked.
I nodded. And he smiled again. But this was a real smile, and I soaked it up.
Howard ambled down the path, heading for the Thompson place. He’d promised Jim Thompson twice now that he would stop by.
He would have rather had a tooth yanked.
He didn’t feel like being neighborly, but he’d shared the canyon with Thompson for a few years now and felt it was time.
About a mile from the cabin, he caught a flicker of movement and spied the young couple sitting on a blanket in a clearing, along the creek.
He didn’t want to intrude, but there was no point continuing to their cabin if they were here. He crossed the meadow, shouting, “Hello!”
Thompson sat up.
As Howard came closer, all the air rushed out of his lungs, and his heart began beating wildly. There, next to Jim Thompson on the blanket, sat his Nancy.
I watched the tall man stroll across the clearing. Unkempt beard, long, tangled black hair; there was a wildness about him. Something untamed. He scanned both sides of the meadow, as if he suspected an ambush.
Instinctively I reached for our pistol which lay in Jim’s holster by the edge of the blanket.
Jim touched my forearm. “It’s okay,” he said, “I know him.”
The man called out, and Jim waved to him.
And then the man stopped a few paces away and gawked.
He stared at me, dumbfounded; a towering dark shadow that swayed with the wind.
I glanced back, unabashed. From his expression, I could tell he held me no ill will—but rather, that he thought I was someone he knew.
Someone he loved, I realized, the longer he was held speechless.
Jim tried to break the spell with an introduction.
“Honey,” he said, “this is Mr. Howard. He’s got that place by the mouth of the West Fork.”
I knew, of course, whom he meant. We’d often talked about our elusive neighbor. Although he lived only a few miles up the creek from us, neither of us had set foot in the West Fork since the night at the lagoon. If he was home that night, we wouldn’t have known, but from what I’d heard from the trader in Flagstaff, he spent most of his time up on the plateau anyway.
I knew Mr. Howard had to be in his sixties, and he stood like an old stovepipe, bent in weird angles in a few places. And yet he radiated the strength of a much younger man.
He peered at me closely, and he looked like he was questioning his sanity.
“Mr. Howard,” I said as I extended my hand up to him. “How nice to finally meet you.”
In slow motion he grasped my hand.
His eyes dropped to it, taking in every detail. Then they swept over my hair, and my face, and finally settled on my eyes.
“Ma’am,” he managed to whisper.
“And this is Margaret,” said Jim.
Mr. Howard nodded, then slowly shook his head.
“My, how you look like my Nancy,” he said, softening.
I could feel his sadness seeping through his words.
“Is she passed?” I asked softly.
He nodded again. “Must be twenty years now. She was sixteen when we married, and me, thirty-four.”
“Why, that’s almost the same as Jim and I!” I said, standing, only to find I still had to look up at his face. He truly was a giant of a man.
Suddenly his eyes became dead serious.
He glared at Jim and said, “You take good care of her.”
A bit defiantly, Jim replied, “I’ll do my best.”
I chanced a playful squeeze of Mr. Howard’s arm and said, “He´d better—there’s going to be three of us soon.”
I patted my belly.
Mr. Howard’s face melted into a crooked smile. “Well, that’s about the best news I’ve heard in a long time. Congratulations!”
Jim blushed. “I just found out myself.”
“Mr. Howard,” said Jim and stood up, “I would like to show you around my place if you have a minute.”
The older man began to protest, falling back on his reticence to socialize, but he conceded as soon as I spoke. “We’re all going to have some fresh apple pie! I’ve kept this secret long enough, I want to celebrate! And I’d like you to join us.”
“Okay, ma’am,” he said. “I will join you for a bit. And if you need anything at all in the coming months, you just let me know.”
He was so different from what I’d expected. I glanced up at him. “Well, Mr. Howard, I hear you spend a lot of time on the plateau—do you ever venture near Munds Park?”
Howard scratched his beard thoughtfully. “I know where it is, but I don’t have any need to go there directly,” he said.
I must have frowned, because he immediately asked, “Why are you interested in Munds Park, if you don’t mind my askin’?”
“My Pa is summerin’ there, and I’d sleep better at night knowing someone checked in on him from time to time.”
“That would be no problem at all,” he said.
I felt emboldened by his compliance and couldn’t stop the giggle that flowed out before I asked, “I hear you do not seek the company of other people much, Mr. Howard. Do you not like company?”
We began walking down the creek while he pondered my question. Soon he said, “In general, I don’t mind most folks, but if you’re being particular, I’d have to say I like some people, and dislike others.”
I couldn´t help but pester him with another question. “And do you have any children?”
At this his face broke into a smile, far deeper and more relaxed than his demeanor suggested he was capable of.
“Yes, I have two—and two grandbabies,” he said, beaming, “I’m gonna bring them all out here one of these days.”
We continued, our place just around the corner. With Jim ahead of me, and Mr. Howard behind, I felt as safe as houses.
At Thompson’s cabin, by the site where the old wickiups had stood, Richard Wilson was rubbing salt into a wolf hide, preparing to stretch it. He looked up briefly and nodded curtly at Margaret and Jim Thompson, and paused when he saw Howard.
“Howdy, folks,” he said.
Margaret did the introductions and then said, “If you gentlemen will excuse me, I need to go warm up a pie.”
Wilson went back to work, and the two other men sat down in the shade and watched him. Leaning against a tree was a Sharps .50 caliber rifle. Howard eyed it for a minute, then extended his hand, but stopped and looked at Wilson.
“Ma
y I?” he requested.
Wilson nodded, a bit reluctantly.
Howard hefted it and stared down the sights and said, “I heard Billy Dixon used one of these at the battle of Adobe Walls and dropped an Injun at fifteen hundred yards.”
Wilson was watching the man nervously; he let very few people handle his gun. Howard set the gun back down, and Wilson said, “Shoot today, kill tomorrow,” then asked, “Have you seen battle?”
“Yes, I have. The Mexican War. I served under Sam Houston,” said Howard. He rubbed his lower back. “Still got a Mexican slug in my back.”
Thompson nodded. He said, “I took a bullet in Georgia when Sherman made his push for the sea. Got captured there, too.”
“What did you do during the war, Mr. Wilson?” asked Howard.
Both men turned and looked at the old hunter.
Wilson had started poking holes in the hide and running strips of leather through them.
“Well,” he began and then paused. “Arkansas was far behind me when the war started—I’d already gone west. So, I guess I never really considered it my war.”
Howard stared off, watching the creek, and Thompson nodded.
A gleam entered Wilson’s eye, and suddenly he grinned.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done my share of killin’—just not blue or grey coats. Killed just ‘bout every animal we got in the west, and a few men if’n I’m bein’ honest.”
Howard held the man’s eyes. “I suppose we’ve all done some killin’.”
Wilson chuckled. “Well, I had my reasons. All I want now is to kill that big silver grizz I saw a while back down in here—know anything about him?”
Howard raised an eyebrow. “Ain’t seen many bear around here at all. Got some up on the plateau, but they’re mostly black, no grizz.”
Wilson scratched his mop of white hair. “I ain’t hunted much above the rim—maybe I should give that a shot.”
Howard cleared his throat. “I’m here being neighborly, so I’ll say this politely: I’d prefer if you hunted somewhere else.”
Wilson’s eyes narrowed and bore into Howard. “I suppose you don’t want me venturing into the West Fork either.”
Howard shrugged. “No, I reckon not. It’s kinda my back yard.”
Wilson sat back, several leather thongs still in his hand, his project only halfway finished.
He squinted. “Mr. Howard, I think you’re hiding something.”
Howard laughed. It was a deep, rich laugh that concealed nothing. “All I’m doing is protecting my privacy. What else would there be?” he asked.
But Wilson´s eyes were alert, his demeanor edgy. “There’s plenty you could be hidin’. You ever seen signs of the Lost Coconino?”
“That old mine?” asked Howard. “I heard of it, but never saw nothin’ that made me feel I found it.”
“Nothin’? Really? You never came across any timber supports in a cave, or telltale marks from a miner’s pick on a wall?”
Howard laughed. “Nope. Wouldn’t be interested even if I did—I’m done with gold.”
Wilson shook his head. “I won’t call you a liar, Mr. Howard, but I’m not sure if’n I believe you.”
The hair on the back of Howard’s neck stood on end, and he was about to rise and confront the man when Wilson turned his attention to Thompson.
“And I’d really like to know what you’re hiding.” he said.
“Me?” asked Thompson.
“Yes, you. I show up here a year ago and your wife’s been shot, clearly, but nobody will talk about it. And you both turn real pale whenever I mention that bear—but again, nobody’s seen it.”
Thompson stood and brushed his pants off. “I’ve got nothing to hide from you, Mr. Wilson, we’ve been over this.”
Wilson looked at the ground. “Shit, I’m not tryin’ to take anything from either of you—I’m just due for some good luck. For a break. And I’m gonna keep searchin’ ‘till I get one.”
Later, Thompson and Howard stood by the path, not far from the cabin. The sunset was long past, and the sky was peppered with brilliant stars. Several bats hunted above them.
“You know, I’ve been planning on building another cabin by the mouth of Oak Creek Canyon—down in the valley,” said Thompson. “Now that Margaret is pregnant I think I should get on it. There are a few other settlers there, and it might be helpful when the baby is born.”
“Sounds prudent,” said Howard.
Thompson was hoping not to offend his only neighbor. “And I reckon I’ll leave Wilson here, to watch over the place and tend to the crops.”
Howard sighed. He turned and spat.
“You don’t think much of Mr. Wilson, do you?” asked Thompson.
The tall man peered into the darkness.
Finally, he said, “I heard down in the valley you can get mail—could I possibly give your address to my Mattie?”
Thompson nodded. “You sure can.”
“Good then,” said Howard, placing a hand on Thompson’s shoulder. “I’ll be seeing you soon.”
And then the old man headed up the mountain, using his steep burro trail, to his Kingdom on the plateau.
Chapter Forty-four
1881
A gentle breeze blew over the plateau, the pines swaying with it, as if to music. The forests here were interspersed with numerous meadows, and many had secluded alpine ponds.
Howard pulled on a strand of barb wire until it was taught, connecting the trunks of two towering pines. Thick gloves protected his hands as he leaned back, putting his weight into it.
Satisfied, he wrapped the wire around a nail he’d already set in the stout tree. “That’ll do,” he said to himself. He took off his gloves and stretched his fingers, then surveyed the repair he’d just completed.
His fence now stretched from the south rim of the West Fork to the plateau’s rim facing the Verde Valley. It was only a mile and a half long, but that little fence effectively staked out his Kingdom.
Ten square miles, he thought, and almost all of it protected by the steep canyon cliffs on three sides.
He was alone out here. In fact, the closest person was miles away. Even Shadow was absent—corralled in the West Fork for now.
Two black mules watched from an alpine pond, about fifty feet away. He would have preferred burros for his trail down into Oak Creek Canyon. The mules were too large for that kind of work, and they were skittish around heights.
But they could pull a big load and were perfect for hauling a wagon on the dirt road to Flagstaff, and that’s what he really needed right now.
He continued along the fence, removing dead limbs that had fallen with the wind. The elk and mule deer could easily jump over the fence, but sometimes they didn’t see it and smashed right through.
He found no other breaks but decided to get some fabric when he went to Flagstaff next and tie off strands where his fence crossed a deer run.
Near the rim, an old Indian trail followed the plateau, and here he had made a gate.
Just inside the gate, a large wagon sat parked in the shade. His rifle was propped against the wagon´s only bench, next to his hat.
He sat on the bench and ate a lunch of jerky and bread.
He was about to lay down in the back of the wagon and take a nap, when he caught a flicker of movement to the west. Beyond his fence, across a flat meadow, he glimpsed a dozen deer standing in the shade of a cluster of small pines.
He sat up and put on his hat.
“Time to go to work,” he whispered to himself.
The first thing he did was swing open the gate.
From the back of the wagon he retrieved a bucket and filled it with a handful of grain from a burlap sack. Then he grabbed a bridle and horse blanket and walked toward the pond.
He shook the bucket and whistled.
The mules lifted their heads, as did the deer, but the only animal that moved was the mule missing an ear—Diggy. He took a few tentative steps toward Howard who lowered
the bucket and shook it again.
“That’s right, boy,” he said softly, “come on over.”
Soon the mule was by Howard’s side, nibbling grain from the bucket.
While Diggy was distracted, Howard put on the bridle and blanket, and as the mule was swiping up the last of the grain, Howard hopped on his back.
As they passed through the open gate, Howard leaned over and grabbed his rifle from the wagon.
It didn’t take him long to circle around and get behind the deer. They seemed curious about Diggy, but not alarmed.
When he was in place, Howard raised his rifle and sighted in on a large doe. He clenched his knees right before he fired, to alert Diggy, and to hold on in case the mule bolted.
A thunderous boom shook the forest.
Diggy jumped, slightly, like he’d been shocked, but then remained still. The doe dropped as the other deer bounded off to the east.
Howard smiled as he watched them leap away, out of sight in three hops. They went straight into his Kingdom; some through the open gate, others over the fence.
He put another bullet in the chamber, pocketed the empty brass casing, and nudged Diggy toward the gate.
Over the next few hours Howard and Diggy slowly pursued the deer. He used the rim to funnel them into dead ends, and he managed to shoot four more before they escaped across his fence to safety beyond.
When the shooting was done, he returned to the wagon. It took a little coaxing to get the other mule, Bagga, to come over, but eventually he had both mules in the wagon’s harness.
Now came the hard work.
He rode the wagon to each felled deer, gutted it, and then hoisted the carcass up into the wagon. He left the skins on for now, because they’d keep the flies off for a while. He also kept the heart, kidneys and liver, letting them air-dry. Then he rubbed them with salt from several barrels that he had on the wagon, along with some brown paper and twine that he used to package the innards.
The sun had set by the time he finished with the fifth deer.
In the descending coolness he directed Diggy and Bagga north toward Flagstaff. He hoped to cover the twenty miles in the chill of the night, and not have to worry about the meat spoiling.
The Sirens of Oak Creek Page 23