Retribution Road

by Antonin Varenne

  If that monster is still a man, then something will stop him. I am that force. I have to be. Because death is not enough: Bowman is eternal, he has never been afraid of it. But neither have I. We are no longer alive.

  Come back to life, Bowman. Die. Or wait for me.

  Today I am going to Salt Lake. This town is too big for me to pass by. I must go in and search for him.

  I would like to give up now. Go back to my mountains.

  Salt Lake City, 22 April, 1860

  Bowman was here at the same time as me. Never, in all these weeks, have I been so close to him. I will get back on the track to catch him up in the coming days or hours. The end of my journey is near. The end of his crimes, too, and perhaps of my nightmare.

  Carson City had only one doctor for a few hundred inhabitants. Fitzpatrick borrowed Penders’ mare and went off to look for him as soon as the convoy stopped on the outskirts of the town, with all the other pioneers preparing to cross the Sierra Nevada. He came back with the doctor, perched on a mule, as night was falling. People brought lamps to the Fitzpatricks’ cart.

  Jonathan waited, pacing around, while Bowman, for the first time in months, stayed outside the town without doing anything – neither hiding, nor seeking information – in the middle of a camp that resembled the one he set fire to at Bent’s Fort. Like the young Irishman, having nothing better to do, he waited for the doctor’s diagnosis. Half an hour later, the doctor emerged from the cart, wiping his forehead. The town was barely any cooler than the plains, and more humid. Clouds of mosquitoes buzzed around them, drawn by the heat of their faces.

  “There’s no reason to worry too much, young man. No complications, no infection. But it could happen if your wife doesn’t get some rest. She will give birth normally, on one condition: you must stop travelling until the baby is born.”

  Jonathan went to join his wife. Bowman offered money to the doctor, who refused.

  “I only ask for money from people who can afford it. If I needed a doctor, I hope he would extend the same courtesy to me.”

  He got back on his mule.

  “Are you travelling with them?”

  Bowman shrugged his shoulders in a non-committal way, like a sort of hesitation or a silent question.

  “If you could try to convince them, that would be helpful. I know these pioneers: they never want to stop. You wouldn’t believe how many of them have died because they didn’t want to stop and recover for a week. If they don’t listen to reason, those young folks will lose their child, and I can’t guarantee the mother’s safety either. She is very weak.”

  “What should they do?”

  “Nothing. Apart from going up into the hills, where the air is better. Up by the lake is a good place, and she shouldn’t go any further than that in her condition.”

  “The lake?”

  “They can’t miss it. The road goes right past it and it’s twenty miles long. This time of year, that’s the best place for her.”

  *

  The convoy joined with some others and, the next morning, forty pairs of cattle left Carson City in unison – nearly two hundred pioneers, following a line of horsemen who had agreed to clear their way and escort them. The Fitzpatricks’ carriage was the last to leave, going as slowly as possible in order to spare Aileen. Behind them came Arthur Bowman. The line of carts began to spread out in the curves of the track, like a column of ants moving its eggs. At each bend in the road, the air felt a little cooler. Jonathan led his cattle cautiously, letting the other carriages move ahead into the distance.

  After the first pass, they came to the vast Lake Tahoe, its miles of blue water reflecting the clouds up above. Aileen refused to listen to her husband’s protestations and insisted on sitting next to him so she could see this landscape. The abundance of colours and water, after crossing the plains from Salt Lake City, were beyond comprehension, and none of the other carts ahead of them – just like the thousands that had already passed by – stopped here. The convoys continued their way westward, refusing to be diverted from their objectives by the beauty of the mountains. Bowman thought about the Mormons who had built their town in the hollow of an arid valley, about the citizens of Reunion living in the scree of Texas and desperately seeking water for their farms, about all those villages and camps chosen for absurd reasons in places without any resources or attractions, and compared them with this place, where everything seemed ready-made for human habitation. He wondered if Penders’ mountains resembled these.

  In the middle of the day, the carts that had been travelling with the Fitzpatricks since St Louis came to a halt by the side of the lake. In a rush to join the rest of the pioneers and the line of horsemen, the families took only a few minutes to say goodbye to the young couple. Aileen Fitzpatrick gave a letter for a friend to pass on to their family in Rio Vista, in the San Francisco area, explaining the reason for their delay and promising to see them after the birth of the child and before the end of summer. Everyone wished them good luck and soon, all that remained by the waterside was their cart. Aileen and Jonathan Fitzpatrick looked at Bowman on his mare.

  “You should join them, Mr Penders.”

  Bowman climbed down from the saddle, led Trigger to the lake and let her drink, then walked back to the cart, putting the old hat back on his head.

  “What are you going to do?”

  The young man stood up tall.

  “It’s a good season. We’ll find a place to live for three months. There’s good hunting round here, and plenty of plants and berries to pick. We’re used to this kind of life, Mr Penders, we’ll be fine. If we hurry, we could even have a garden by the start of the summer. It’ll just take a few weeks.”

  Bowman looked at the last few carts disappearing up the path.

  “A few weeks?”

  Aileen turned to her husband.

  “And there are a few camps around the lake. We could live with other people, so you won’t be on your own when I can’t do anything anymore.”

  She smiled, her forehead and cheeks still pale. Her husband looked at Bowman.

  “You see? We’re in the clear. This place is perfect. Aileen will give birth by the lake and afterwards we’ll be on our way with another convoy. We’ll make it to San Francisco long before the autumn. If you’re over that way, you’ll have to come and see us once we’re settled in.”

  Bowman looked at the young man, who was trying to maintain a firm, unwavering voice in front of his wife. He got back in the saddle. His eyes lingered on Aileen Fitzpatrick’s swollen belly.

  “I don’t need to follow the convoy. I’ll leave once you’re settled.”

  The seekers of gold and money from Mount Davidson, about forty miles east of the lake and Carson City, had not yet made it here. In the little camps that they visited, local inhabitants, before even saying hello, asked if they were prospectors, then spat on the ground, hoping that no-one would find any gold in this region. The land had been bought from the Paiute Indians by the government of the Utah Territory, which in itself meant nothing as the Indians did not consider themselves the owners of the land and the sums paid were ridiculous anyway. An office in Carson City registered plots of land, marked off their borders, fixed the prices, delivered the ownership deeds, and banked the money.

  An old man, who stank of rotting meat and said he had lived in the Sierra for more than fifteen years, told them not to worry and to tell the representatives of the State to go screw themselves.

  “Just settle down wherever you want. The people who run the Territory are a bunch of varmints who’d be better off if they just left the mountain alone. I came here in ’44, with Frémont and Carson. I haven’t moved since and I’d like them to come ask me for my deeds of ownership. I melted it down to make bullets, if anyone wants to read it with their own eyes!”

  On the eastern shore of the lake was a series of log cabins, spaced at intervals of one or two miles, filled with dogs and children, cooking pots over fires, drying hides and furs, and all along it
the smell of rotting carcasses. The families and the solitary trappers were dressed in a mixture of hides and cloths; the children had long hair and the men beards; the women wore knee-length dresses. Half wild, silent and suspicious whenever the cart passed, they were like something halfway between Indians and white people, an intermediate race in the process of adapting to its environment.

  They headed towards the southern part of the lake, passing by one last camp. They greeted a woman with children clinging to her legs, who responded with a hostile stare, and then rode another two or three miles without encountering anyone. They began to look for a place to set up their camp. A little further ahead, they spotted a stretch of green. A stream flowed into a little cove, about fifty yards in diameter and not very deep. The water there was transparent; sunlight illuminated its bottom, where fish swam between aquatic plants. At the end of the cove, the blue became darker and the water suddenly much deeper.

  Reeds grew all around the cove, then a thick grass, and then the first trees, before the slope got steeper and the dense forest began. Redwoods, junipers, aspens and, higher up, sequoias. Fitzpatrick pulled on the reins and the cattle halted. Bowman crossed the stream with Trigger, riding in a wide circle up to the trees, as if he were simultaneously tracing and following the border of a plot of land. On the slope, between tree trunks, he came to a halt and looked at the clearing and the little peat bog around the cove. He stayed there for a few minutes while Jonathan and Aileen got down from their cart and approached the water. Bowman joined them, climbed down from the saddle and took the Winchester from its holster. He used the lever to arm the rifle. Aileen and Jonathan watched him, uncomprehending. Bowman lifted his gun, pressed the butt against his shoulder and aimed at the mountain, setting his sights on the trunk of a giant redwood three hundred yards away. He took his time, put his finger on the trigger, and fired. The sound of the gunshot ricocheted from the mountain, seeming to turn around and come back to them before disappearing over the lake. Bowman lowered the Winchester and, with Jonathan and Aileen, looked at the pale mark on the trunk of the tree where the bark had been removed. He swivelled northward and, in a single movement, took aim at another tree near the lake. He fired again. Aileen Fitzpatrick gave a little cry of surprise and fear. Another pale mark on another tree two hundred yards away. Bowman handed the rifle to Jonathan, who smiled, turned to the south and aimed at a fir tree on the edge of the clearing. He, too, sent fragments of wood flying, and all three of them admired the triangle they had just traced, in the middle of which they stood. Aileen took the gun from her husband’s hands.

  “What are you doing?”

  She moved the lever, turned to the water, put the butt to her shoulder and aimed at the sky.

  “Aileen! Not in your condition.”

  She smiled and fired a fourth gunshot, at a forty-five-degree angle, straight into the blue above Lake Tahoe.

  *

  They took down the tarp and hoop from the cart and transformed them into a tent, in which they put the couple’s equipment and belongings. The Fitzpatricks possessed almost nothing. Apart from an old wool mattress, they had no furniture at all. They arranged the bed for Aileen, who refused to lie down and insisted on helping to set up the camp. There was only one thing in their cart of which Jonathan was proud: an old saddle. His wife mocked him:

  “He bought that in Independence. It’s no use at all and he paid far too much for it.”

  Jonathan paid no heed. He looked at Bowman.

  “It’s a good saddle. I can repair it.”

  “He bought that before he even found a mattress!”

  Jonathan continued speaking to Bowman:

  “Mr Penders, when we have finished setting up camp, a few days from now, I’ll have a favour to ask you.”

  Bowman rolled a barrel over to the tent and returned.

  “You can take the mare. But don’t break your neck trying to bring a horse back when your wife is going to give birth two months from now.”

  Fitzpatrick grinned.

  “They’re magnificent, Mr Penders. I have to take one with me to San Francisco.”

  The tent was ready. They took the cart and the cattle to the edge of the forest, loaded some stones onto the bed of the cart and then dug a hole in the earth, large enough to cook big game and smoke meat. Around this they built a hearth with the stones and then dragged over some dead trunks, which they cut up with an axe.

  It had been a long day. Lying on her bed, Aileen watched the sun set over the lake. Jonathan and Bowman washed their arms and faces.

  “I’m going to take a look around, see if I can shoot something before nightfall.”

  Jonathan rushed ahead of him.

  “I’ll take care of it, Mr Penders. You’ve done enough already.”

  “You don’t know the area and it’s nearly dark. I just want to take a look around.”

  “There’s a good hour of daylight left. I won’t go far, and anyway we have enough to eat for tonight.”

  Jonathan kissed his wife, and Bowman handed him the Winchester.

  “At least take this.”

  Jonathan walked off towards the mountain, stopped at the edge of the woods and yelled while waving his hand before disappearing between the trees.

  Bowman lit the fire and sat next to it. He started to take apart the Springfield to clean it. The air was growing cool and, in the dim light, above the rushes, insects fluttered. Frogs came out of the water and fish swam to the surface, chasing dragonflies. Aileen came out of the tent, a blanket over her shoulders, her hair dishevelled and her face drawn. She sat on a stone next to Bowman. She was silent for a while and Bowman, glancing up from the dismantled rifle, looked at her on the sly. Her hair must have been blonde when she was a child. The roots were dark and only the tips, in the light of the setting sun, still appeared pale. She still had the smooth, round face of an adolescent.

  “It was kind of you to stay with us while we found this place, Mr Penders. When I saw it, I even wondered why we have to go to Rio Vista. But in any case, we’ll be fine here until the birth.”

  She might not even be twenty years old.

  “Why are the two of you travelling alone?”

  Aileen pulled the blanket up to the back of her neck.

  “Jonathan’s parents are dead. We’re going to join his uncle and aunt. They left Cork five years ago. My parents were too old and they didn’t want to leave the farm. Jonathan worked in a factory every day for three years to save up the money for the trip. His uncle sent us a bit of cash too.”

  “Your husband is a brave boy.”

  “Yes.”

  She looked up at the mountain. Shadow was spreading over the lake and their clearing, rising up the slopes.

  “Mr Penders?”

  Bowman put the rifle back together and glanced up. She looked at him, hesitated, and turned towards the fire.

  “I was a bit suspicious of you to start with. I wanted to apologise. I just had trouble trusting you.”

  Bowman put the rifle down and took a little tobacco pouch and Penders’ pipe from his pocket.

  “No need to apologise. It’s normal.”

  She smiled at him, but Bowman could tell there was something else. While he waited for her to go on, he stuffed tobacco in his pipe and lit a match.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “When you arrived on the first day, you looked like you were in a bad way. Lost or something. You kept repeating your name.”

  Bowman said nothing. The young woman wriggled on the stone, searching for her next words, her arms wrapped around her big belly.

  “As if it wasn’t really yours, and you wanted to get used to it. And then you went off to read. And there’s your hand, and that scar on your forehead.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  She looked down.

  “We haven’t asked you any questions, and if you don’t want to talk, we respect that. But I wanted to know if there’s somethin
g you’re hiding.”

  The peaks of the Sierra were turning red in the sunset and the lake had darkened. The ballet of insects and amphibians became frenetic.

  “What I’m hiding is not important. When I’m gone, it won’t do you any good to know. The only thing I can tell you is that Erik Penders is not my real name.”

  She looked at him shyly.

  “What is your real name?”

  “Arthur Bowman.”

  “And the other name, why did you keep repeating it?”

  “It was the name of someone I knew. He was killed.”

  Aileen stood up, one hand on her belly.

  “I have to go and lie down now. Thank you, Mr Bowman.”

  “I didn’t kill him, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

  “I’m not worried anymore.”

  She went into the tent and lay down. Bowman looked up at the mountain. It was almost night now.

  *

  Bowman took Penders’ journal from his pocket and thumbed through it. Peavish’s little magic trick did not change anything. Erik Penders had died in vain. Arthur Bowman would follow the same path and fall into the same error.

  He threw Penders’ journal on the embers and watched it burn, then threw all the wood on top of it that he could. The flames rose ten feet high. They could probably be seen from the other side of the lake and far off in the forest. He moved away from the heat of the blaze. Aileen’s voice reached him from the tent.

  “Isn’t he back yet?”

  Bowman tried to smile and the light of the flames painted a disturbing mask on his face. The young woman shivered and did not hear what he said: