At such times, one feels a need to thank someone – some compassionate spirit, or guardian angel – although why this is so, I could not say. A person could just as soon curse the gods for ever allowing him to reach such a nadir in the first place. Nevertheless, I offered up a bit of gratitude to any deities who might have been listening.
“Thank you very much for the reprieve,” I muttered. “I promise now to do my best in delivering Virtue to her rightful destination.” I nodded to the sky. “You have my word.”
I did not honestly know what my word might have been worth right then. And I admit to feeling somewhat silly in saying anything at all. But one senses that it is always wise to appease the powers that be. There are plenty of stories, Biblical and otherwise, offering dire examples of those who had failed to do so.
A WIDE WALL OF peaks stood between us and our westward progress.
They emerged from the horizon, stretching out in both directions of north and south, growing higher and steeper with the closing distance, until we drew near to the foot of the range.
“The Ute Indians call these the Wasatch,” I explained to my companions, “Which I understand to mean something like passage over the mountains.”
The massif towered before us – imposing, and none too diminutive in stature. But I was pleased to see that no new snow had fallen on the interior hillsides. There were only a few dwindling snowfields gleaming in the angular sunlight striking the uppermost slopes. This bit of luck was reassuring. We would not have to travel around the range, but could find a speedier route by way of the zigzagging canyons that bisected the mountains.
We picked our way north along the hills for a few miles, until we found a sizeable stream tumbling out of a wide gulch. After deciding it was highway enough to afford us passage, we entered into the mountains.
*****
The autumnal sun was low; the days short.
We traveled mostly in deep canyon shadow, following game trails and an old Indian pathway that had been in use for a thousand years. The stream was generally swift and tumbling, but in the back eddies and pools one could find fringes of ice that did not melt away throughout the day. Trout fanned beneath these ice windows, their blood red gills pumping in the clear water. There were many aspen trees in the ravines, bright gold and dropping their coin-shaped leaves on our heads as we passed beneath their branches. Otherwise the forest was made up of fir and pines. The air was chill and delicious to breathe. I wore my blanket wrapped around my shoulders. Virtue had found a wool coat in one of the trunks, and she wore this as we picked our way.
*****
Nighttime was too cold to sleep. I was still getting over my previous bout of illness and was all but skin and bone, with little fat to insulate my emaciated body. I built a sizeable fire and sat close to it while Virtue slumbered near the horses.
The night dragged on.
Milk-blue moonlight splashed across the ridgelines high above me. A handful of stars turned slowly in the narrow band of sky that opened between the steep walls of the canyon.
I passed the time with thoughts of poetry.
I was feeling something inside of me – a stirring. It is hard to explain, but I felt like a new vivacity was taking shape within the wilderness of my soul, a burgeoning life where there had been no life at all. I recognized it was a poem, and I knew it wanted out into the world. But damned if I knew how to deliver it! It seemed all my previous genius had slipped away with the years. I was a washed up rhymester, cut-rate and hackneyed and without much of a way with words.
“Perhaps I could write it in French, and that would rejuvenate my muse.”
But my mother tongue was so deeply submerged that I feared I could never bring it back with any fluidity and wit.
“Well,” I shrugged, “what about writing it down in Ute?”
For a moment I entertained the idea of settling in with the local Indians and learning their philological mode of expression. I would get myself closer to The Word that Winston Dirge had so earnestly sought. Surely the Indians were nearer to it than any of us. But my talent for acquiring new languages had become less than impressive, and so it seemed unlikely that I would ever speak Ute with fluency enough to create a great work. Besides, everyone knew that the big languages were swallowing up the little ones. What kind of future could a poem hope to enjoy if it is written in such a soon-to-be dead dialect?
There will surely come a day, I reminded myself, when no one will remember Homer either.
This thought sobered me. I felt all poured out and sad. I felt like the very essence of humanity itself was slipping away into the stars.
I peered up into those stars, squinting, wondering if I could feel any sense of myself tumbling away into that stellar dust. I almost thought I could, when I was startled by a sound in the brush, and what I took to be a splashing noise.
I turned to face the shadows. Of course there was nothing but forest darkness beyond the light of the fire. Still, I was sure I had heard something, and felt myself being watched.
The stream clinked along its icy bank. Perhaps I had only heard a trout leaping at the reflectory light of the stars.
“Rain,” I grinned to myself. “I do believe you are growing goosey with your advancing years.”
But my private joke did not make me feel any more at ease. I stood, and then took two steps toward the darkness. My heart picked up its beat. I shivered and wrapped my blanket tight around me.
“Who is there?”
My voice gave way my dread.
“If you know what is for your good, you will show yourself to me now.”
I felt unthreatening in my velvet dress and state of gunlessness, and knew that if scoundrels were afoot, I was most assuredly dead. I leaned forward, trying to see.
“Marguerite?”
But no one answered my challenge. The woods grew silent. The stars. I gazed over to where Virtue was sleeping. She had not stirred. Brownie was watching me curiously, but the other horses kept their eyes closed.
I shrugged to my friend and explained, “I thought I heard a noise.”
Brownie let his head dip forward, and then he went back to sleep.
NEXT MORNING, WE TREKKED as far as the headwaters of our little stream, climbed to a col, and then dropped down into the headwaters of another stream on the other side. This new waterway flowed west, into what the Mormons called Deseret. I had always figured this was nothing more than an inspired and poetic misspelling of desert. The word had a Franco-phonic twist to it that gave it a certain exoticism, something akin to the paradisiacal insinuations of Xanadu, Eden, or El Dorado. But in general, the place was rather bleak in character. The basin beyond the Wasatch was arid and not the stuff of your typical oasis. The soil seemed largely composed of salt and sand. It offered little to recommend it as a place to settle down. But the Mormons had proven themselves a determined bunch of enthusiastic procreators, tireless and devout and not easily exterminated, and so one suspected that unless some Dark Angel felt inclined to erase them from the map, an empire was surely in the offing on this barren plain. A blue-white emptiness filled the horizon to the southwest. I knew this to be the Great Salt Lake – America’s answer to the Dead Sea.
But then Brigham Young’s Mormon promised land was not our destination. We were bound for an offshoot of that particular truth, “a tributary of a purer verity,” as Thurman had so articulately explained it to me back in Independence.
We left the Wasatch behind, directing our westerly course in a somewhat northbound angulation toward the City of Rocks.
*****
“Thirty thousand dollars.”
We were close enough now to our objective that I was beginning to smell the sweet and encouraging scent of possibility. Perhaps financial solvency would help me to feel more secure and capable of settling down to my life’s task. “Maybe that is all that I have lacked.” One presumes that poverty is an impediment to creative thought, and I had most assuredly been under its tyrannical influence f
or the last many years. Not having to worry about where one is going to get his supper might just free up some mind room to enjoy a bit of literary toil. I was eager to find out.
As for my good friend Cedric Dallon, I had been doing some thinking about his role in this enterprise. He was a good sort, and I surely owed him much. After all, I would not have this job without his footwork and diligence. But what, besides connecting me with Thurman’s people, had he done to deserve such a hefty recompense? I was the one who had endured the perils. I was the one who had been stampeded upon by buffalo. I was the one who had been burnt and heartbroken and masculinarily compromised. I was the hero of this story, not he. And so I had come around to thinking that maybe he did not deserve a full cut of the treasure. Surely an industrious sort like Dallon would, through thrift and discretion, make a good investment of only a third of the entire sum, or even, for that matter, a fourth. At any rate, he did not seem deserving of a full half, and I was determined that I might adjust his payment accordingly. That is, just as soon as I got it in my hands.
I laughed out loud, and turned to Virtue. “I do believe we are going to make it.”
She was noticeably less enthusiastic than me, and I scolded myself for my overt indifference to her pending nuptial bondage. At once I felt bad. Virtue was more to me than a commodity, I realized. Much more.
I will not deny that I had – since concluding my period of mourning for Turtle Dove – entertained a fanciful scheme that placed Virtue in the role of my own wife. I blush to admit. But sometimes all the money in the world does not seem worth the loneliness one must trade it for. Maybe, I considered, True Love is the muse by which to create a genuine epic, not currency. One suspected as much. But having had neither in my life, I was unsure which was a surer route to contentment. Could money buy me that love? I greatly doubted it. Although I was sure that cleaner and prettier whores could be mine for a larger fee than I was used to paying. Still, one mistrusted that such was the purer variety of amour that had so inspired the great works of poesy throughout the ages. Surely Dante’s adoration of Beatrice overrode his fiscal stability when putting his pen to paper.
But then all this guesswork assumed that my love for Virtue was reciprocal.
What, friend, makes you think the girl could feel any love for such a bombastic failure and scalawag as yourself?
No. Perhaps I had mistranslated the few small gestures she had made. Perhaps mine was a notion too absurd to be considered. And yet, consider it I did.
We trotted along toward some inevitable climax. I knew that if I never found out how Virtue felt about me I would be haunted by the possibilities throughout my days and, most especially, my nights. I needed that one piece of information – positive or not – to move forward into the rest of my earthly existence. Hell! I needed it in order to move into the next day. Her answer would surely sway my inclinations toward the Prophet or otherwise. For the promise of Love, I might even be willing to defy Providence.
The thought of laying my heart before her made me very nervous. I laughed at myself for this. What is it that makes the possibility of rejection so intimidating in such situations? And yet, I could not have been more mortified. I went over and over in my head how to most gracefully broach the subject. I was fairly driving myself mad with possible scenarios. I felt to be tying a knot, ever larger and ever tighter, all around my Adam’s apple.
Oh, Rain! I told myself. Simply force the moment to its crisis!
We were passing through a valley hemmed on both sides by rolling hills. A few crooked trees leaned against an invisible wind. The site was not picturesque or otherwise memorable. But I could not stand the thought of waiting to find a lovelier place to pose my pressing question. It was now, I decided, or never.
“Whoa, Brownie.”
I took a deep breath of air, hoping to calm my nerves. And then I climbed down off my horse.
Virtue and Puck and Genevieve came alongside and stopped. I felt them watching me and waiting for an answer as to why I had pulled up here, but I could not make myself turn and face them. I pretended to be checking the straps on my saddle. I swallowed, closed my eyes, and bowed my head, whispering a little prayer for courage. And then I turned to Virtue.
Oh, she was lovely!
The many miles of the trail had done nothing to diminish her charm and beauty. She most certainly was virtue – unsullied and good. It struck me as absurd that someone like myself could ever hope to be loved by someone so pure. Hope dies a hard and miserable death.
Again and again.
I stepped close to her, and rested my hand on her horse’s shoulder, letting my knuckles boldly come into contact with her slate gray dress. I was fairly shaking with fear. I wanted to look handsome for her, someone for whom a lady could feel affection, but I felt less than charismatic right then. Perhaps it was my own dress that undermined my poise. Maybe it was my age and trampled demeanor. I do not know. I tried to overcome all of these failings, but the words were hard to find.
“Virtue,” I said, and coughed. “Darling.”
She gazed down on me from her mount. I could not read her look. Did she suspect what I intended?
“Virtue,” I repeated myself. “Darling. I just wanted you to know… before we reach… I just want you to know that it has been a privilege to be with you all these hard miles.”
She bobbed her head toward me, bolstering my mettle.
“And also, I want you to know that I have come to care a great deal for you. A great deal.” I took a small fold of her dress and rubbed it betwixt my fingers, noting the fine texture of the fabric. “And so I was wondering,” I said. “Well… I was wondering if… You know, if here – in front of God and everyone – if you… Well, if you, could ever in a thousand years…”
I was still struggling to put together the correct sequence of words when, from nowhere, there came a thwiiiiiit! sound, abruptly punctuated by a thwang-g-g-g!
Puck jerked, and my glance went to where he was standing close by. I was amazed to see what appeared to be a long-stemmed sunflower blooming from out the side of one of the trunks slung over his sawbuck. How peculiar! So distracted was I by my effort to speak to Virtue that it took a long second for me to notice that the flower was not a flower, but an arrow. One fletched with meadowlark feathers.
I squinted at it.
I placed my finger to my chin.
“Oh, Cupid,” I murmured, “Thy dart hath shot wide.”
I TURNED AND SPIED seven mounted Indians galloping toward us from over the hill.
“Bother!”
It seemed pointless to run away. I was flat footed on the ground, and they held the advantage of momentum. They were sure to overtake us if we fled. We might as well save our strength. They poured silently down the slope, like wolves closing in on a band of sheep.
“Virtue,” I said, all afluster. “In this remaining moment of tenderness… As I was saying before we were so inconsiderately disturbed… Well, if this imminent encounter does not go well, please know that I, your Didier…”
I was determined that I would complete my confession of love to the girl if it was the last act I ever completed. It appeared as if it might be just that. But by the time I had sorted my words for eloquent delivery, the natives were upon us and had taken Virtue’s attention away from me.
“Bother and vexation!”
They rode around us in a circle, each with an arrow nocked in his bow and aiming our way. They seemed to be sizing us up. I, in turn, assessed their degree of apparent threat. They were certainly dressed for trouble, complete with feathers in their hair and paint on their faces. But even through their masks, I could see that they were not full grown men. Boys. Juveniles. They appeared to be no more than a bunch of ruffians out looking for mischief. I took them to be from the tribe known as the Bannock, as this was their territory. But in this day and age, what with the Indians so uprooted and strewn asunder by the white man’s Manifest Destiny, it was not uncommon for the tribes to comingle some
what, in an effort at collaboration against the Caucasian onslaught. They could have been from any number of tribes.
They still did not advance, and neither did they whoop nor holler in that way one expected. They clomped round and round. The longer it went on, the more hopeful I felt that we were not in mortal danger. I stepped forward with my hands raised in the air as a sign of peace. I smiled. “Greetings, friends!”
They gathered in a bunch before us, their bows still poised to shoot us through with arrows.
“Do any of you know English?” I asked. “I regret to say that I do not speak your tongue.”
They stared at me, their eyes flashing a wild mix of fear and excitement.
“We are traveling through your country here.” I spread my arms to the surrounding hills. “And a fine piece of property it is. Quite spacious. We mean you no trouble, and would appreciate it if you would let us pass without incident.”
At this, the biggest boy – the one I took to be the leader – hopped down from his horse’s back and stepped close. He glared at me, leaning in so that I could feel his breath while he examined my face. He wrinkled his nose, and made a curious expression. Then, of a sudden, he thrust his hand between my legs and groped my stick and stones.
“Whaa!” I squealed, and bent forward. For this move greatly surprised me.
He then took a handful of my dress and lifted it out to the side, admiring its velvety sheen. At last he turned to his friends and said something I did not understand.
They all laughed.
They then turned their attention to Virtue. It struck me that they were somewhat in awe of her. She was quite extraordinary to behold, as if she had been lifted right from a Renaissance fresco. I suppose even these heathens could see that she was something of an angel. Some of the boys were shirtless, and it seemed to me that they all puffed their chests for Virtue’s benefit. Yes, they were handsome lads, well muscled and quite healthy. And yes, I admit to feeling a jealous pang at their advantage of youth over my own aged and battered physique. The leader seemed especially smitten with Virtue and strutted like a bantam rooster so that she could observe the finery of his plumage.
Delivering Virtue Page 21