Grayfox

by Michael Phillips

  “Further.”

  “Clear across the Utah territory.”

  “Further.”

  “To the Rockies . . . past the Rockies,” I said.

  “Think bigger,” said Hawk.

  “Clear to the end of the country, to the Atlantic Ocean.”

  “Bigger!”

  “Across the Atlantic.”

  “Bigger, Zack. All the way . . . all the way to the end!”

  “Around the whole world!” I said finally.

  “Now you got it, son!” Hawk exclaimed. “If we set our mules moving straight in that direction, and they could swim, and we had food and lived through it all, eventually we’d go all the way around the world.”

  “But no one really could do that,” I said.

  Hawk laughed. “Yeah, you’re right. I was just trying to make a point, and it’s this: if you’re going to set yourself to go in a direction, you gotta be prepared for where it’ll take you. You gotta think about the consequences of where you’re pointing yourself ahead of time.”

  “I’m not sure I follow what you mean,” I said.

  “Well, let’s say a young feller decides to join the Pony Express,” said Hawk with a poker face. “If he knows what he’s about, he’d better think through all the implications of what that decision might mean. What’ll become of him when the smoke clears, that’s what he needs to ask himself ahead of time. If he goes off half cocked, why, he’s liable to run into all kinds of things he never anticipated.”

  By now the twinkle of fun was showing through in Hawk’s eyes.

  “Like I didn’t, huh?” I said.

  “I said no such thing. All I’m saying is that it behooves a body to think about where the road they’re on is leading if they keep on following it.”

  “I think I get what you’re driving at.”

  We rode on slowly for a while, maybe five minutes, without another word. Hawk always gave the words a chance to sink in.

  “Let me give you another example,” Hawk finally added after a while. “This time I’m not talking about you, but about that feller Demming. Tell me, what did you think of him anyway?”

  “Can’t say as I thought much,” I replied. The truth was, Demming had scared me more than just a little, and ever since then I’d been thinking about Pa, getting worried and confused all together. I didn’t know what to think, or what I oughta do about warning Pa.

  “Yep, the poor feller’s a sad example of what a man can sink to if he doesn’t pay attention to which direction he points his horse in.”

  “Huh?”

  “He pointed himself in some direction when he was young, and now he’s the kind of man he is because of it. Everything leads somewhere, Zack, like I said.”

  “You mean riding with the gang, the robbing, and all that?” I asked.

  “Oh, I reckon that’s a part of it,” Hawk answered. “But that’s not what I meant exactly about which direction he pointed his horse. Everything follows from something, from which direction you point your horse. The smoke always clears eventually, and you find out what you’re left with. I’m talking about character, Zack, about the kind of person you are. You get me?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Demming’s angry, he’s bitter, full of resentments and hatred. How’d he get that way? Not from the robbing, though I ain’t saying that’s a good thing either. But bitterness and hatred come from choices you make inside about what to do with feelings you have that maybe you’d be better off getting rid of. Demming held on to a lot of feelings he should have thrown away and gotten rid of.

  “Tell me, Zack,” Hawk added. “Is your pa as full of hatred as Jack Demming?”

  That was a hard question to face. I hadn’t been finding thoughts about Pa too pleasant.

  “No, I don’t reckon he is,” I said finally.

  “You see, it ain’t only what you do, though you gotta pay attention to that too. It’s what you do with those feelings inside that go along with what you’re doing on the surface—that’s what’s gonna decide which way your horse is headed. Once it’s pointed, if you don’t change it, it’s gonna keep going. Eventually it’ll lead a man like Jack Demming to become the sort of fellow he is. So you gotta pay close attention to where you point those feelings inside you.”

  Chapter 24

  Cooking Up a Character Stew

  “Ideas are like that too,” Hawk said after we’d ridden along for a while in silence. “Ideas, and especially choices.”

  “Like what?” I questioned.

  “Like what I was saying before—pointing a horse, or one of these slowpoke mules of ours, in a direction and thinking about where that direction will lead.

  “Everything you think, everything you do—it all has consequences. One idea or choice always leads to another, and another after that . . . and another after that. Just like heading that direction will lead to the Rockies, then to the Atlantic, and eventually around the world.”

  I didn’t reply. I wanted to hear what he’d say next.

  “If you say or do something, then what follows from it? I don’t mean just down the road a little ways, but if you follow it all the way, clear to the end . . . all the way around the world? You get me, Zack?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Every idea always leads to something else. Every choice you make moves you one step closer to something else. Every idea and choice has implications. They’re like footprints. They line up in a direction, and that’s the direction you’re going in. Lotta folks never think of outcomes and repercussions. But me, I’m always trying to think of them. I’m uncomfortable and nervous if I’m not two or three steps ahead of myself.”

  “I’ve noticed that,” I said. “Your eyes are always roving around, peering about, looking down the trail, up the mountain, ahead of us, behind us—all over.”

  Hawk laughed.

  “I don’t suppose I even notice anymore,” he said.

  “You do it every second.”

  “I reckon you’re right,” he said. “Mostly I’m trying to keep a few steps ahead of myself in my thoughts and my choices. If I say something or do something, I want to know what it’s likely to lead me into tomorrow. See what I mean?”

  “I think so.”

  “Let’s say I was heading out for two days across the desert, where I knew there was no water—now, if I drank all the water I was carrying the first day, that would have definite results. Do you know what that result would be?”

  “You wouldn’t have any water left!”

  “Right,” Hawk laughed. “Everything’s like that, though maybe not so easy to see. Tell me, Zack, do you believe God is good or God is evil?”

  “How could he be anything but good?”

  “All right, then let’s say you get caught out in a terrible thunderstorm, and lightning’s flashing down nearby—you think you might be scared?”

  “Likely so.”

  “If God is good, why would you be scared? Won’t he take care of you?”

  “Yeah, I reckon so.”

  “Who made the lightning and the thunderstorm?”

  “God.”

  “And you say he’s good?”

  “Yeah.”

  “If he’s good, won’t he take care of you?”

  “I reckon. But people still get killed in storms, and in lots of other ways too,” I said.

  “Does that mean God isn’t good?”

  “No, I reckon he still must be.”

  “Even if people are dying?”

  “People have to die.”

  “And God is still good?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you see what I’m aiming at, Zack? If you say God is good, then it must mean something to you. It seems to me that one of the things it means is that you ought not to be afraid. If you say God is good, then you’ve got to follow out and see where that statement leads you. All the way up the mountains and down the other side . . . clear across the country. Not much sense believing something if you d
on’t know what the results are going to be.”

  “Yeah, that seems true enough.”

  “Lots of folks only follow what they say as far as is convenient for them. Like when they get up high into the mountains or come to a wide river or even the ocean, instead of keeping going to see where their direction leads, they stop their horse, get out of the saddle, and quit. That’s why I kept pushing you a while back until you said around the world. You gotta learn to follow your ideas and what you believe all the way to the end like that too.”

  “You’re always doing that with me, trying to make me look past where I’d get off the horse if I was by myself.”

  “I try to, son. It’s the only way to be an honest thinker. It’s the only way to see things like they really are.”

  “What were you going to say about God being good?” I asked.

  “The way I look at it is that saying God is good leads to the conclusion that he’s gonna take care of you, no matter what happens. Even if you die, God’s still good. Even if you get struck by one of those bolts of lightning, he’s still taking care of you, ’cause he’s still good. You see—saying you believe something, well, that’s got consequences. Thinking it through till the smoke clears, that’s what I call it.”

  “So are you never afraid?” I asked.

  “Heck, yes. I’m a man just like every other man. I ain’t saying I’m never afraid, ’cause sometimes I am. Plenty of times, in fact. I was afraid when I was fighting Demming. A man full of hate fights to kill—they’re the hardest to whip, the angry ones. I’m just trying to help you see how you’ve got to follow ideas out to the end and see what comes of them.”

  “What about choices?” I said. “You said your choices and what you do leads places and has results too.”

  “Yeah, and in some ways I reckon the choices a feller makes are even more important than the ideas he holds, ’cause your choices go into making you who you are. That’s how your character gets put together—by all the choices you made all your life.”

  “How do they do that?”

  Hawk thought for a minute.

  “Let me see if I can say it like this. Imagine your stepma fixing your family a big pot of stew. She might put in some meat and some carrots and potatoes and celery, maybe some onions and peppers, a little salt, maybe some wheat or barley. A stew can have most anything in it, can’t it?”

  “You’re making my mouth water just talking about it,” I said.

  “Mine too!” said Hawk. “Well, anyway, the fact is that she could make just about any kind of stew she wanted—a beef stew, a chicken stew, a ham stew. It could be thick or thin. It could be mostly vegetables or mostly meat. And what would decide what kind of stew it turned out to be?”

  “What she put in the pot?”

  “That’s it exactly! That’s why every stew’s likely just a tad different from every other stew.”

  “And that’s just like people, right?”

  “Now you’re getting it, Zack, my boy! Exactly like people. We’re all different, too, depending on what we put in our own pots.”

  “You’re saying I’m like a stew.”

  Hawk laughed.

  “Did I say that?”

  “You implied it,” I said.

  “You got me there! Thinking it through till the smoke clears—you’re a quick learner!”

  “So am I like a stew?”

  “I reckon you are. So am I. So is every man or woman alive. We’re cooking it up ourselves, all our lives, throwing in new ingredients all the time. The more kindness we throw into the pot, the more kindness there is in the stew. The more unselfishness we put in, the more unselfish our character will become. But a man like Demming, who’s been tossing in anger and bitterness and hatred and selfishness all his life, why, by this time his is a pretty foul-smelling batch of stuff I sure wouldn’t want to come near.”

  “But does what you did when you were a kid matter that much?” I asked.

  “You bet it does. Everything goes into the pot.”

  “But half the time you don’t know no better.”

  “It ain’t so much that every tiny thing has that big an effect. But every bit of bitterness or anger or selfishness you throw in your stew makes it easier to add more the next time. So what you do when you’re young matters a lot if it means you get headed in a certain direction and you keep going that way and never turn your head toward someplace else. The anger and selfishness gets all the more natural the more of it you put in the stew, till before long you’re just an angry, selfish person. You just kept putting those kinds of choices into your stew until that’s all it tastes like.”

  “Sounds kinda hopeless if you’re a brat when you’re little.”

  “Nah, nothing’s hopeless. All you gotta do is point your horse in a new direction . . . make a new, better-tasting stew. It’s just that most folks don’t take the energy to go someplace else than where their horse is already going. Too much work for them.”

  “But how does somebody make a new kind of stew if it’s already full of bad-tasting vittles?”

  “It might take a little time, but you just gotta start putting better-tasting things into it. And there ain’t no law against sticking a spoon in the pot and taking something out, either. What would your stepma do if she threw a big onion into her stew and then realized it was rotten and was gonna spoil the whole thing? Likely she’d fish it out pronto, right?”

  “I reckon.”

  “Character stews ain’t no different. They taste like what they got in them. So folks who put in good-tasting stuff like kindness and generosity and patience and love, folks who take out the rotten onions—those are the kind of folks you like to be around. They’re pleasant. Their characters taste good to the soul.”

  “I do see what you mean,” I said.

  “Anybody can make a pleasing stew that folks’ll want to partake of. It just depends on what kind of ingredients you put into it. That’s your choices.”

  Chapter 25

  A Second Stranger

  Three or four days after Demming left us, Hawk said to me from out of nowhere, “What are you angry about, Zack?”

  “I ain’t angry,” I said.

  “Sure you are,” laughed Hawk, treating it in a matter-of-fact way, even though after we got to talking about it, the conversation grew more and more serious.

  “Why do you think I’m angry?”

  “It’s written all over you,” replied Hawk. “I don’t mean angry at me, or angry about some certain thing that happened. I mean that you’re just generally angry down deep inside. It’s not all that hard to see if you know what you’re looking for. In your own way, you’re carrying grudges from the past just like Demming.”

  “You can see it in me, huh?” I said, more like a grunt than anything else. I wasn’t sure I liked what Hawk was saying.

  “I’m practiced at seeing what’s going on down underneath the surface, remember? People’s got more things going on down under the surface than creek beds and hillsides, that’s for certain.”

  “What makes you such an expert on it?” I said, the tone of my voice probably confirming exactly what he’d said. “What makes you think you know what’s going on inside other people so well when you’re just out here all alone by yourself?”

  “Because I been spending all these years doing the best kind of learning a fellow can do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Getting to know what’s going on inside me,” Hawk replied.

  “So what do you figure I’m angry at?” I said, still with a cocky, halfway defiant tone.

  It wasn’t usually Hawk’s way to say something to me that I didn’t ask for or that he didn’t figure I wanted to hear. But for some reason, on this particular day, even though it was obvious my attitude wasn’t the best, he kept boring right on toward me. I guess he knew I needed to hear what he had to say, and I’m glad he told me, though it wasn’t too pleasant at the time.

  “Most anger comes from folks figu
ring life’s just not going like they’d like it to. From all you told me about your pa and your family, it sounds to me that you think you’ve had a pretty tough time all these years, not having your pa around and all.”

  I was glad enough that I never had a chance to reply.

  Later on, when I was looking back on those days, I asked myself why it never seemed to occur to me to go back and warn Pa about Demming. I don’t even know how to answer my own question, except that I suppose I didn’t really think Pa was in any immediate danger because Demming was still after the half-breed. If I’m really honest, I guess I was still trying so hard not to think about Pa that I couldn’t let myself admit the danger was real. You get so accustomed to thinking your folks can take care of themselves and don’t need anyone’s help that it hardly crosses your mind that they might need your help.

  Our conversation was interrupted when suddenly we happened upon the half-Paiute Tranter that Demming was tracking.

  If I thought the bounty hunter had a mean streak, this young fella had a temper that was a whole lot worse. He carried a look in his eye that made me sure he would have killed us for three cents. When we stumbled across him, though, he was in no condition to kill anybody, being half dead himself. Even though we did our best to help him, he had a malicious look in his eye that seemed to hate us even more for trying to help him.

  We found him laying alone on the ground, no sign of a horse, unconscious, with a bloody gash along one side of his chest. It was obvious from one look at him that he was part Indian. His hair was black, his skin dark and tanned from the sun but somehow pale and lifeless at the same time. He wore a big knife at his side but didn’t seem to have anything else with him.

  “Oh no!” exclaimed Hawk the instant we saw him. “What have we got here?”

  Hawk ran to him and knelt down. For all I could tell he was dead. Hawk put his ear to the man’s chest.

  “He’s still alive,” said Hawk, “though barely.”

  “You think he’s the guy Demming’s after?” I asked.

  “No doubt about it.”

  “Looks like he already found him,” I said.

  “No,” said Hawk, standing up. “The way I read our friend Demming is that if he found him, this poor fellow would be either dead or on his way back to Carson City in chains by now—probably both.”