Father unto Many Sons

by Rod Miller

  Richard laughed. “Aw, hell, Pa! Abel was there. Abel, he can take care of anything, can’t he?”

  Lee searched for the right answer. “I don’t know as he can take care of anything. But I know when I ask him to take care of something he generally does it. Never found him shirkin’ his duty in no grog shop.”

  Melvin stood scratching at the dirt with the toe of his boot while Richard bristled. “Well, Pa,” he said. “I’m sure glad you have such a fine son as Abel. More than makes up for the disappointment of me and Mel.”

  “Oh, Richard, don’t say that!” Lee said with strained voice. “You’re all my sons. We’re a family.” Then, in a moment, “But I do you wish you two would abide by my wishes.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of takin’ over Abel’s job,” Richard said. “I’m goin’ to bed. C’mon, Mel. We got to get a good night’s sleep so we can get an early start on disappointing Pa all over again.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Sarah found Lee sitting by the low campfire when she arose to start breakfast. He sat on the ground, his back against a kitchen box, wrapped in a blanket. Despite the bowed head, hunched back, and stillness, she knew he was awake. She stuck some sticks of kindling into the fire and watched the flames enfold and enflame them, then added split wood to build up the fire.

  “What is it, Lee?” she said, settling atop another of the boxes near the fire, tightening the braid in her hair and twisting it into a bun at her nape.

  He did not respond for a moment, then looked at his wife as if unaware of her presence. “Sarah,” he said. “Couldn’t sleep. Well, I did sleep but then that dream came back. Woke me up and wouldn’t let me sleep no more.”

  Sarah smoothed her hair then leaned over and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Oh, Lee. You and your damn dreams. Ain’t you got troubles enough in daylight without allowin’ silly dreams to upset you?”

  “You know I don’t find dreams silly. There’s meaning in them if you look for it.”

  Sarah sighed and patted his shoulder. “Yes. I suppose. And there’s trouble in them if you look for it.” She stood, lifted the coffeepot, shook it, then poured the sludge onto the edge of the fire, raising a cloud of steam. “Which dream is it? What’s troubling you?”

  “Richard and Melvin. The same one I told you-all about, the one that keeps comin’ back, where they’re on one side of a river and me and you and Abel is on the other. We’re in a pretty country, but their side of the river is a forsaken place, not fit for humans.” He paused, shook his head, and went on. “Bad as it looks over there, them boys won’t come over to us. We beckon and call and urge them on, but they just look at us. But with empty eyes, like they don’t even see us.”

  “What do you think it means?” Sarah said as she continued filling the coffeepot with water, throwing in grounds, and setting it to heat over the fire.

  “Don’t know. I guess that’s why it troubles me so. But I don’t think it means anything good.” He stood and wrapped the blanket tighter around his shoulders even though the weather didn’t merit it. “I’m worried about those boys.”

  Mary walked into the firelight, ready to do her part in the breakfast preparations. “Good morning,” she said. “Emma will be along. Jane wanted to milk, but asked Emma to go with her to stand watch.”

  “Poor child,” Sarah said.

  “She is improving, although still frightened to be alone. But she is sleeping better, thank the Lord.”

  Lee left the women to their work. He found Abel sitting up and pulling on his boots; Richard and Melvin, who had dragged their bedrolls to the other side of the wagons, were unmoving lumps of canvas. Lee asked his youngest son to take Daniel and ride out the Santa Fe Trail toward the toll station at San Jose and see about salvaging an axle from the wrecked wagons said to be there. The Comanchero White Eyes had mentioned, and Gonzales verified, that the trail was littered with abandoned wagons, some burned, some intact.

  Years past, they had learned from Gonzales, New Mexico taxed trade on the Santa Fe Trail according to the goods on the wagons. But when inventory became cumbersome, the government assessed a flat tax of 500 dollars on each freight wagon regardless of what or how much it carried. One result was the large wagons that now plied the trail. Another was the practice of pulling off the trail ahead of the port of entry and consolidating loads in wagons large and small, filling space freed up from the food and supplies consumed on the trail with trade goods from other wagons and leaving the emptied conveyances behind, sometimes under a cloud of smoke.

  Daniel and Abel saddled the horses, and Abel loaded the wagon jack along with tools he might find helpful on one of the mules. They rode through the plaza at Las Vegas and followed the Santa Fe Trail out of town down South Pacific Street. Like the plaza, the street catered to the wagon traffic. Even at this early hour, occupants of the adobe houses lining the road displayed goods for sale on their covered front porches, or portales. Daniel determined on the way out that on the way back he would purchase a small wheel of aged cheese from one of the several homes showing it. He doubted he would find anything of the quality of cheddar that was part of his English upbringing, but any cheese with heft would improve on the occasional batch of pot cheese Sarah cooked up from cow’s milk curdled with vinegar.

  The farther from town they rode, the more wagons—or remnants of wagons—they passed. Some were heaps of ash and twisted metal, others torn apart and scattered, some nearly intact. Abel found what was left of a wagon that appeared suitable. The box had been stripped of its planks and boards and the tongue was missing, but the running gear looked to be intact. Best of all, the rear axle looked to be a replacement, showing less age than the bolster or hounds or wheels to which it was attached. The wagon had no brake.

  The wagon frame went up easily over the jack and Abel pulled the wheels and washers, then the hound braces and throughbolts and dropped the axle. The clouts were in good shape with essentially no wear. He examined the wheels, but found them no sturdier than the ones they already had so let them lie. With the axle and tools lashed to the mule, the men mounted up and headed back to town.

  They rode into camp to find Richard pointing Abel’s spare Paterson Colt at his Pa. Abel dropped the mule’s lead rope and hurried his mount between his father and brother.

  “Get the hell out of the way, Abel. This don’t concern you.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Rich.” Abel turned to his father. “What’s going on, Pa?”

  “It ain’t nothing, Son. Just a little spat.”

  “Spat? He’s pointin’ a gun at you!” He turned to Richard. “My gun.” Rather than pulling the pistol’s mate from the holster hanging from his saddle, Abel slipped his foot from the stirrup, lifted his leg and planted his boot in the middle of Richard’s chest with all the force he could muster.

  It was enough. Richard’s feet left the ground and he tipped backward, the air leaving his lungs in a whoosh when he lit. The pistol fired, but the bullet went harmlessly upward. Abel hoisted his other leg over the saddle horn and slid out of the saddle and was on Richard before he could catch his breath. He tossed the pistol aside, rolled Richard over and wrenched one of his arms behind his back.

  Before Melvin could insert himself into the fight, Sarah placed a hand on his arm. It was enough to hold him back.

  “Rich, hold still,” Abel said between clenched teeth when his brother struggled. He forced the twisted arm up between Richard’s shoulder blades and applied pressure until the thrashing diminished to squirming then stopped.

  “Let me up, you sonofabitch!”

  “What’s goin’ on with you and Pa?”

  “None of your damn business.” More pressure on the arm. “All right! I’ll tell you. First, let go of me.”

  Abel let go and took a step back. Richard rolled over, raised himself to his knees and launched himself at his brother. Abel sidestepped and landed a boot in Richard’s ribs as he hit the ground. He grabbed him by the collar and lifted him to his feet, spun him around a
nd grabbed his shirt front with both hands. Abel shook Richard until his head rattled then pushed him back against the wagon and pinned him there.

  “Now, big brother, tell me what’s goin’ on.”

  Lee laid a hand on Abel’s shoulder. “Let him go, Son. Like I said, it’s nothing.”

  Abel looked at his father in disbelief and let go his hold on Richard. Richard flexed his strained arm and tugged the disarray out of his shirt front.

  Abel said, “It had to be something, Pa. It looked like he was about to shoot you!”

  “Oh, he wouldn’t have shot me. It was just his way of saying him and Melvin didn’t want to unload the wagon if you come back with a new axle.” Lee looked from Richard to Melvin and back again. “That looks like an axle on that mule’s back. What do you say you get the wagon unloaded and help Abel get it put on.”

  Richard huffed, but signaled Melvin over with a nod of his head and lifted the tailgate out of the wagon box.

  Daniel, still horseback, held up the sack he carried in his lap. “I say—would anyone care for a bit of cheese?”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  The wagon came apart and went back together without incident. The new axle fit well and Abel was pleased to see his repaired axle was serviceable yet, with very little play between the broken ends. He lashed it under the hounds before the box went back on, thinking to save it in the unlikely event it should be needed again. By suppertime, the wagon was loaded and would be ready to roll come morning.

  Richard and Melvin sat off by themselves during the evening meal, Richard periodically rotating his wrenched shoulder and glaring at Abel. Mary carried the coffeepot over to where they sat, each leaning against a cottonwood tree.

  “Would you gentlemen care for more coffee?”

  “Thank you kindly, Miss Mary,” Melvin said. “I would enjoy another cup.”

  She filled his cup then did the same for Richard. She stood over him for a moment, watching him watch the steam rise off his coffee. She set the pot on the ground and folded her legs under to sit. “I guess we shall move on in the morning.”

  Richard finally looked at her. “Guess so,” he said.

  “What do you suppose we will find in Santa Fe?”

  With a sniff, Richard said, “Don’t know. Don’t care.”

  “Mel, would you return the coffeepot to the fire, please? No sense in letting it grow cold.”

  After he left, Mary smoothed the skirt of her dress where it lay across her thighs. “Richard, it is your future we are talking about. Have you no interest in what your life may become?”

  He thought a moment. “Not much, to tell you the truth. I just know I don’t want it to go on the way it is.”

  Mary smiled. “That is good. I should think you would want to stop being so contrary and grow closer with your family.”

  Richard snorted and tossed out the coffee in his cup. “Put some distance between me and them, more likely.”

  The hard look on Richard’s face startled Mary and she stood, took the cup from Richard, and started back to the wagons. She stopped when he called her name.

  “Yes?” She turned to find Richard a step away.

  “What you said about growing closer—how about you and me get a little closer? Sometimes you act like it ain’t such a bad idea.”

  His hands shot forward, grasping her shoulders. Mary cringed at his foul breath as he leaned in and pressed his wet lips to hers. Wrenching herself away, she shoved Richard aside, gathered her skirts, and ran toward camp.

  Richard spat upon the ground as he watched her go.

  With a long evening ahead and little to keep him occupied, Abel took the family Bible from the wagon’s jockey box and unwrapped the sacking that protected it and Ezekiel Pate’s old journal. He studied the worn and scuffed cover of the Bible that was the source of much of his sorrow. Richard, who seemed to have lost any interest in his family and his heritage, would, by right as the firstborn son, inherit the Bible and journal that was its mate. Abel wondered if the books would be safe in his brother’s hands, and if another generation would hold the books.

  Not knowing the answers to his own questions, Abel left camp for the riverbank in the opposite direction his brothers had chosen, sat against a tree and opened the book. He thumbed through the pages at random and read a few lines from Ecclesiastes.

  I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.

  For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.

  A sound distracted him and he looked up to find Emma sitting before him. “Emma!” He closed the book on his thumb and scrambled to his feet. “I’m sorry—I didn’t hear you come up.”

  “Sit,” she said with a smile. “What are you reading?”

  He sat and opened the book and looked again at the passage he had just read. “Not sure,” he said, thinking that was often the case when he read the Bible. “I think this part is about me and my brothers. Says the sons of men are beasts—at least no better than.”

  Again, Emma smiled. “I do not think you are a beast. Richard, he may well be, though. But somewhere else in that book, as I recall, it says something like, ‘A wise son maketh a glad father.’ I believe that does a better job of describing you.”

  Abel blushed at the compliment.

  Emma said, “I don’t know if you have been properly thanked for rescuing Jane. Without you, a terrible fate surely would have befallen her.”

  “Oh, it weren’t no big thing. I just did what had to be done.” He paused and hung his head. “Just wish I hadn’t of killed that man.”

  Emma reached out and placed her hand on his arm. “Oh, Abel! Don’t say that! As you said, you only did what had to be done.”

  He looked into Emma’s eyes. “It seems to come too easy to me. I ain’t but sixteen years old and already I’ve killed two men—one of ’em kin.”

  With no other comfort to offer, Emma raised herself to her knees and leaned into Abel, enfolding him in her arms. He grasped her shoulders and held her close for a moment, then gently pushed her away. He swallowed hard. “We had best be getting back to the wagons. It’s coming on dark.”

  After the calf sucked, Jane tied it to the back of the wagon and led the cow out to a patch of grass, pounded a stake into the ground with a rock, and left it to graze. The oxen and mules and saddle horses were likewise tethered, the horses and mules and one of the oxen cropping grass, the other oxen lying on their bellies chewing cud. She looked around in the dim light and hurried back to the wagons and the light of the fire. She fetched the bucket of milk from where it sat and carried it to Sarah.

  Sarah smiled as Jane passed her the bail. “Thank you, child. You don’t know how much I appreciate your taking on the milking. It relieves me of a burden.”

  “I like it,” Jane said. “It is so calm. And the cow is warm and soft where I lean against her.”

  From beside the fire, Daniel called, “Gather ’round all! I’ve a treat for you.” Sitting before him on a cloth bag laid out on an upturned box sat the wheel of cheese purchased from town. With a kitchen knife he cut out a wedge and pared off slices, balancing them on the side of the knife blade to pass them to the others.

  Melvin was first in line and gnawed off a bite. “That’s good!” he said. “That don’t taste like no cheese I ever had before.”

  “It is tasty,” Daniel said as he continued slicing and serving. “Not English cheddar, you understand, but toothsome nonetheless.”

  Abel nibbled at his hunk, unsure.

  Melvin said, “Don’t you like it?”

  “I don’t believe I do,” he said with wrinkled nose. “Reminds me of sweaty socks.”

  “I’ll eat it!” Melvin said. Abel handed him the cheese and his brother bit into it with a smile.<
br />
  Lee stood, pinching off and eating pieces of his portion. “Will you-all be ready to leave at first light?”

  Mary said, “Our wagons are ready, save the kitchen boxes.”

  “Our wagon’s all set,” Abel said. “That new axle looks good and Rich and Mel got all the stuff loaded back up.”

  “Good,” Lee said. “We’ll roll out after breakfast and see if it’s any easier traveling on that Santa Fe Trail. We’ve more or less made our own road up till now.”

  Sarah said, “It will be a comfort to have other folks around— even if they are Mexicans and them awful bullwhackers.”

  “I’m sure they’re all fine folks in their own right,” Lee said.

  “Not all of them,” Jane said with a shiver. At the thought of the Comanchero, tears welled in her eyes but did not fall. Emma moved close to her sister, wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close.

  “You’re right, of course,” Lee said. “But I do believe most people are good at heart, thank the Lord.”

  “I concur!” Daniel said with a smile. “More cheese, anyone?” Melvin stepped up for another slice. “Now, to quote the Bard, ‘To sleep, perchance to dream.’ We must be rested for tomorrow’s resumption of our journey.”

  Sometime in the night as the others slept, and perchance dreamed, Richard and Melvin saddled the horses and rode away forever into the night.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  Up and around and preparing breakfast early, Sarah did not realize she and the Lewis girls would be cooking for fewer people that morning. It was not until Emma and Jane came into camp with the milk cow that anyone had any inkling this day was different from any other.

  “Missus Pate?” Emma said. “The horses are gone. All the other animals are there, but not the horses.”

  Sarah wiped her hands on her apron and went to rouse Lee from sleep. There was no sign of Richard or Melvin or their bedrolls. “Lee,” she said, shaking her husband’s shoulder. “Lee!”