the Lonesome Gods (1983)

by L'amour, Louis

  "They'll be coming after us," Farley commented. He drew up, glancing back into the darkness of the wagon. "Is anybody hurt?"

  "Verne has been shot," Finney said.

  "I'll be all right. It is nothing."

  The team started again and the wagon rolled ahead; then, when the bank was low, they went over the edge to higher ground.

  Farley turned the team southwest and started them out at a steady walk. Kelso came up beside the wagon. "She's all clear so far as I can make out," he told Farley. "And flat--hard desert sand and rock. No problem."

  Miss Nesselrode said to my father, "Sir? If you will come back here, I can put a compress on that wound. It will help to control the bleeding until daylight."

  "Very well." My father moved back into the darkness of the wagon.

  All night long the wagon rolled westward and south. Sometimes I slept, sometimes I was awake. "We can't make more than ten or twelve miles by daylight," Fletcher was saying, "and the horses must rest."

  When I awakened, gray light was filtering into the wagon. Fletcher was asleep, as was my father. Farley had crawled back into the wagon, and Finney was driving. Crawling up beside him, I looked out at the bleakness of the desert, all gray sand and black rock in the vague light before the dawn.

  "Lost m' horse," Finney said gloomily, "and a durned good saddle. They killed him. That there was a good horse, too."

  The horses plodded wearily along, heads low. The fire was gone from them now, and I could see an angry, bloody bullet burn along one's hip. Ahead of us was a rugged, rocky range of mountains, and I could see no way through. I said this, and Finney nodded. "Does look that way, but it ain't so. There's a couple of passes, such as they are.

  "Doug Farley, there, he don't make many mistakes, and he's figured this trip mighty close. Right up yonder there's a place where we'll hole up for a while. A few hours, anyway. There's water an' grass. We'll let these mustangs feed a mite and then pull out again."

  "Will the Indians come again?"

  "Sure." He paused, thinking it over. "Injuns are given to notions, but the Mohaves are fighters, and unless they take a contrary notion, they may follow us for days. "Y'see, son, they expected an ambush would do it, but Farley bein' what he is, we was ready for them and there were just more guns than the Injuns expected in one wagon."

  When I looked from the back of the wagon, I could see the gleam of the river far behind. We had come further than I would have believed, and we were higher, for we had been climbing steadily.

  Farley turned the team off into a hollow among the rocks. There was a little grass, and only enough water for the horses in a small tank where the rocks captured runoff water.

  Finney, carrying his rifle, went immediately to a place high in the rocks where he could watch our trail.

  When I saw my father in the light, I ran to him. He was pale and his shirt was all bloody.

  "Here," Mrs. Weber said, "I'll fix that." She helped him off with his shirt, and we could see blood oozing from a hole in his shoulder. The shaft of an arrow with feathers on it was sticking out of his back. "I cut the head off," Papa said. "I thought you could draw it out."

  Miss Nesselrode's face was pale. "I'll try," she said. "It got in the way of my compress," she added.

  Farley came over. "Better let me do it, ma'am. I've done it before."

  Taking a firm grip on my father's shoulder, he drew the arrow out, carefully holding it straight so as not to enlarge the wound. I could see the sweat break out on my father's forehead and face, and his eyes were very wide, but he made no sound. I was sad for him. His shoulders seemed so thin and frail, and I remembered them as strong and muscular when I was in his arms, only ... I did not know how long ago.

  "You saved Mr. Finney's life, you know," Miss Nesselrode said.

  "Each of us does what he can," Papa said. "We are traveling together."

  "You are a hero!" Miss Nesselrode said positively. Papa smiled at her. "It is an empty word out here, ma'am. It is a word for writers and sitters by the fire. Out here a man does what the situation demands. Out on the frontier we do not have heroes, only people doing what is necessary at the time."

  Kelso squatted on his heels against a rock, his hat off, head tilted back, eyes closed. I thought he did not look like the man he was, but one who my mother would have said should have been a poet.

  Fraser was sitting cross-legged on the sand. As Farley walked by him, Fraser looked up at him and said, "I failed. I could not do it. I failed."

  Farley stopped, taking out his pipe. "You failed? How?" "I could not shoot at first, and then I could hit nothing." "You fired? How many times?"

  "Only two shots. I was clumsy. I am a failure."

  Farley stoked his pipe and said, "That's two more shots than I got off in my first Injun fight. It all happened so fast I set there with a rifle in my hands and never fired a shot. You done all right, Fraser. Just don't worry about it, an' take your time. If you fire only once, make it count."

  Fletcher sat by himself, his face sullen. How many shots did he fire? I did not see. I did not know. Perhaps many.

  There was shade where we were, and as the sun rose higher, it was needed. Miss Nesselrode helped my father put on a fresh shirt. It was his last one, and he was a man who liked fresh clothing, and to bathe often. He stifled a cough and Miss Nesselrode said, "You are a sick man, Mr. Verne."

  "So it has been said." He smiled at her. "Thank you, ma'am. It was kind of you to help me. I am afraid I shall have a stiff shoulder for a while."

  "Your little boy loaded your pistols. How does he know to do such things?"

  "I taught him, ma'am. I have also taught him to respect weapons and handle them with care. We wish there were no violence in the world, but unhappily there are those who use it against the weak. I would not be one of those."

  He smiled again. "You did very well yourself, ma'am." She blushed. "I did what seemed necessary."

  "Of course. It is that way, is it not?"

  "Will you be staying in Los Angeles?"

  Papa smiled a faint smile. "Perhaps ... for a few days. Somehow I do not believe I shall be staying anywhere very long. Men and civilizations are alike, ma'am. They are born, they grow to strength, they mature, grow old, and die. It is the way of all things.

  "At least," he added, "I am returning to the sea, where I came from. As a boy I planned to be a ship's officer, as my father was, but then I came to California."

  "You changed?"

  "I fell in love, ma'am. I fell in love with a gloriously beautiful Spanish girl whom I saw going to church. It changed my life, and hers too, I am afraid."

  "She is the boy's mother?"

  "She was. We lost her, ma'am. I am taking the boy to his grandparents."

  There was a long silence. I sat in the shadow of a great rock with my eyes closed like Mr. Kelso. It was very quiet.

  Finney came down from his post and took a pull from a water bag. "Nothin' so far," he said to Farley. "We got us a good view from up yonder."

  "Want me to spell you?"

  "Sit tight. I'm good for a couple of hours longer." He glanced over at me. "Come up an' join me after you've et. You can help me look for boogers."

  "All right."

  .. you ran away into the desert?" Miss Nesselrode was talking to my father. "They pursued you?"

  "Yes, ma'am. There were many of them. They had men watching at the river crossings, in the towns, at the water holes."

  "However did you escape?"

  My father was growing tired. His voice showed it. "We have never escaped. We only believed we had, ma'am. Now I am taking his grandson back to him because there is no one else."

  There was another long silence, and then she said, "I could take him."

  My father's eyes opened and he looked at her and said, "Yes, I believe you would, but first ... first we must try his own blood, his own people."

  "Even if they hate you?"

  My father shrugged. "What is hate to me? What they feel
toward me does not matter. It is my son who matters. He must have a home."

  Slowly the day waned on, and after we had eaten a little, I climbed the rocks to where Finney lay, taking his beef and bread to him.

  From the crest of the rocks, under some cedar trees, we could look out across a magnificent stretch of canyons and broken, eroded land to where the river was. The mountains were blue with distance, and cloud shadows lay upon the desert.

  "It is so dry. How does anything live?"

  Finney wiped the crumbs from his lips. "They fit themselves to it, son. They adapt. The animals, the plants, all of them.

  "Ever see a kangaroo rat?"

  "No."

  "Well, he's sort of a ground squirrel, you might say. Has him a tail two, three times as long as his body, seems like. He can jump like you wouldn't believe.

  "Now, that there kangaroo rat, he doesn't drink. He gets all the moisture he needs from what he eats. An' off down south of here along the dry streambeds you'll find some trees called smoke trees. That's because from a distance they look like smoke. Well, you take a seed from one of those trees and plant it, and nothing happens. Something in that tree knows that seed will need water to grow, so the trees grow along the dry washes, and when they drop their seeds the seeds are washed away by flash floods, and while being washed away they are banged around by the rocks in the dry wash, smashed against one rock by another, rolled over, and banged again. Then, when that seed finally lodges somewhere, it will be along the bank of one of those arroyos, as we call 'em, and it will grow where from time to time it can get water." Finney nodded toward the desert. "Look yonder. Some folks start scannin' afar off, and gradually work closer an' closer to theirselves. I do it the other way because if somethin' is close, I want to know it. I look slowly from as far as I can see to one side, to as far as I can see to the other, right close in front of me. I look for movement or something that doesn't fit, some wrong shadow or something.

  "Then I look a little further out and sweep the field again with my eyes, and further and further until I'm at the limit of my vision, whatever that is.

  "Of course, you pay especial attention to good hiding places or ways that can be traveled without being seen.

  "This sort of thing you learn by doin'. Your pa, now, Farley tells me he's a first-rate desert man. None better, Farley says, an' from Farley that's high praise.

  "Well, you try to be better. You learn from him. Learn from the Injuns, they've done lived with it, an' maybe from me, Kelso, an' Farley."

  He glanced at me. "Is that Nesse!rode woman settin' her cap for your pa?"

  "No. I don't think so. She is just being friendly, I think." Then I said, "My father is sick. She knows that." "I reckon so." He was silent for several minutes and then he said, "I come an' I go, son, but you all just remember. You got you a friend in Jacob Finney. You need anything, you come to Jacob. Or send word, and I'll come to you."

  He finished the last crumbs of his beef and bread and added, "Folks out west stand by one another. It's the only way. An' your pa surely didn't waste no time unloadin' from that wagon when I went down.

  "Why, I'd hardly hit ground, with Injuns comin' up on me, when he was there, shootin' an' helpin'. That's a man, son, an' don't you forget it."

  Suddenly he pointed. "Look yonder! That's desert! Real of desert! But let me tell you somethin'. It's been called 'hell with the fires out,' an' that's a fair description, but there's life out there, boy! Life! You can live with the desert if you learn it. You can live with it, live in it, live off of it, but you got to do it the desert's way an' you got to know the rules.

  "But never take it lightly, son! If you do, she'll rise right up, an' the next thing you know, the wind is playin' music in your ribs and honin' your skull with sand. You take it from me, son, you just take it from me."

  Chapter 5

  My father was asleep when I climbed down from the lookout. The few shadows had thinned and it was very hot. Mrs. Weber sat in the wagon's partial shade, occasionally fanning herself with her hat.

  Doug Farley looked up at me from where he sat near the rock wall. "How's things up yonder?"

  "We didn't see anything."

  "This hour, it isn't likely, but it doesn't mean they aren't out there."

  "No, sir."

  "You pay attention to Jacob, boy. He's right canny. He's got an instinct for places where there'll be trouble." Fraser's thin knees were drawn up before him, his back against a rock. His notebook was held against his knees and he was scribbling in it--I wondered about what. From time to time he looked up, as if thinking.

  A lizard, its tiny sides pumping for air, seemed to be watching me. In the far-off distance a red-brown ridge edged itself against the sky, but I was tired and looked for a place to lie down. All the good places were taken. I crawled into the wagon, although it was hot under the canvas.

  Alone in the wagon, I shivered, for I was very much afraid. I wanted to cry, but Mrs. Weber would hear me and I would be shamed before Mr. Farley and Mr. Finney. Huddled in a tight ball, I tried to forget the weird yells of the Indians and the shooting. I wished my mother were with me, and then I did not, for she would be afraid too. I thought of my poor father, so sick and hurt, lying under the wagon.

  Then I heard a faint stirring and my eyes opened and I knew I had slept. It was all dark and still inside the wagon, and when I looked out, it was dark outside, too. Horses were being moved around, and somebody picked up the wagon tongue. Miss Nesselrode climbed into the wagon, and when I moved almost under her feet, she gasped.

  "It is me," I said.

  "Oh? Johannes, you startled me. I had no idea anybody was in the wagon. Are you all right?"

  "Yes, ma'am. I was asleep."

  "I envy you. I tried to go to sleep, but it was too hot. Mr. Farley is hitching the team now. We're going to go on.

  Mrs. Weber got into the wagon, and then one by one the others. Fraser helped my father when he climbed in. He sat down near me. "Are you all right, son? I'm afraid I haven't been much comfort.-

  "It's all right."

  Jacob Finney sat beside Farley on the driver's seat. We moved out, Mr. Kelso riding a little way before us.

  My father moved to the back of the wagon, where he could watch our trail. Fletcher watched and said, "You ain't in much shape for a fight."

  My father's reply was cool. "I hope I shall always do my share."

  "You hintin' I didn't?"

  "I never hint, my friend. I say what I mean. I was much too busy to observe what you were doing or were not doing. I would assume you did what you could." He paused briefly. "After all, we all wish to live."

  After a bit: "You're pretty handy with that gun, I'll have to admit," Fletcher said grudgingly.

  "The use of weapons is sometimes a necessity," my father said, and there was silence inside the wagon. We rumbled along, grating over gravel, bumping over rocks. "Is it far to the other side?" I asked.

  "It will take us all night to reach the pass," my father said. "The horses will have a hard time of it, and we may have to get out and walk."

  The night was cold. My father told me this was the way of deserts, for there is nothing to hold the warmth, and the heat passes off quickly.

  Yet we did better than my father supposed, for by daylight we had come out upon a vast plain, a desert beyond which were distant blue mountains. It was a rocky desert, and there were plants of a strange kind, two or even three times the height of a man, yet with strange limbs, twisted oddly. They were like no trees I had seen before, having, instead of leaves, sharply pointed blades. "They are called Joshua trees," my father explained. Then he pointed. "There! A day's travel away in those mountains, there is a spring. We shall have no water until we reach there, unless there is some in Piute Wash, which is almost halfway. Usually there is no water there." Doug Farley squinted his eyes at the distance. "Twelve? Maybe fourteen miles?"

  "About that."

  "Well, the horses are in good shape." He glanced back. "The
y don't seem to have followed us."

  "I wouldn't trust them," Kelso replied. "Maybe we made it so tough they won't want to try it again, but that's not like the Mohaves."

  "We could make another mile, maybe two." Farley looked around at us. "Is everybody game?"

  "Let's go," Fletcher said. "It'll be as hot here as there." Westward and south we walked, beside or behind the wagon, letting the horses have less weight to pull. My father, weak though I knew he was, walked beside me. "We must take care," he said, "when we approach the spring."

  "There will be Indians?"

  "Perhaps. All who travel in the desert must have water. The Indians know this. They also know where the water is. They might be there before us, waiting."

  We had fallen behind a little, and now he stopped. "Johannes, when I leave this life, I shall have almost nothing to leave you, except, in these last months, some little wisdom. Listen well. It is all I have."

  We started on again, and he said, "Much of what I say may be nonsense, but a few things I have learned, and the most important is that he who ceases to learn is already a half-dead man. And do not be like an oyster who rests on the sea bottom waiting for the good things to come by. Search for them, find them.

  "This desert is a book of many pages, and just when you believe you know all there is to know, it will surprise you with the unexpected. Nor was it always desert. You will see where ancient rivers have run, you will find where villages were, and where they are no longer. "If you dig down a few inches, you will find a layer of black soil that is decayed vegetation. Once there was grass here, and there were trees. Oaks, I would presume. Along the shores of streams or lakes where men once lived, I have found arrowheads, flint knives, and scrapers for cleaning the fur from hides.