Virgin River

by Richard S. Wheeler

  Skye gazed at the distant pine-clad ridges.

  “You talked to Wyeth. What did he tell you. Did you have a place in mind?”

  “The Virgin River, Mister Skye. He said we should go to the Virgin River on the edge of the great southwestern desert and there we would find the very place we are seeking. Jedediah Smith passed that way when he went to Mexican California. There are river flats that might be cultivated and irrigated with waters diverted from the river. Some of the local Indians do just that. There’s a mild dry climate. There’s wood and grass. It’s on or near the California Trail, the southern one, so we would not be isolated. It fits the very model described by a scholar I trust who has examined the disease and its cures.”

  Skye thought about it. “I’ve never been anywhere near there. The Virgin River is far from any settlement that I know of. You think you’ll survive there, isolated, far from supplies, from food and clothing, from meat, from medicine? From roving bands of Paiutes who may or may not be friendly? From outlaws and brigands and desperadoes?”

  “Yes, sir, that is our plan.”

  The colonel turned the talk in a new direction. “I told him, Mister Skye, that American Indians are vulnerable to the diseases of white men, and surely that includes your wives, and that it must be considered.”

  “And my response, Mister Skye, was that you and your ladies need not come close to my party. We are self-contained. All the evidence suggests that the disease is transmitted by close contact, but who knows? Saliva, touching, whatever. And we would quarantine ourselves for the sake of your family.”

  Skye looked doubtful.

  “There is something else not yet discussed, Mister Peacock,” the colonel said. “Mister Skye’s services are not cheap. I’m his agent and negotiate for him, but perhaps you can deal directly with him now.”

  “We budgeted two hundred dollars.”

  The colonel shook his head. “Two hundred dollars. That doesn’t even begin to make it a proposition for Mister Skye.”

  “It’s what we budgeted. It’s what we will pay.”

  A great quiet fell over them. Skye obviously got much more, especially if the prospects were grim. A breeze stirred his unkempt gray hair.

  “We have some maps, crude as they may be,” Peacock said, breaking the silence. “We come from New Bedford, on the Atlantic coast. We made our way from Independence to here. We will make our way to what, for us, is a biblical Zion, a place of refuge in the benign air of the desert. We will find our way without a guide. Thank you for your time, Mister Skye. You have many admirers who speak in the highest terms of you.”

  He turned toward his Morgan gelding.

  “Wait one moment, Mister Peacock,” Skye said. He turned toward his women. “Victoria, Mary, we have the chance to help bring some very sick people to a place of healing. They have a white man’s disease. It would be dangerous for you. This disease destroys lungs until people cannot breathe, and their lungs fill up and they die. It would be dangerous for our boy as well.”

  Mary deferred to Victoria with a small nod. Victoria walked slowly toward Hiram Peacock. “The people of all the world are one people, and the sickness of your people makes my heart heavy. If there is a place of good spirits, let us take them there.”

  “That will be our reward,” Skye said. “We’ll get by. We always do.”

  Peacock had no words in him. He just nodded. But then he stepped forward and clasped the small hands of Victoria, the young hands of Mary, and the big rough hands of Skye.

  “Mister Peacock, you’ve got yourself the finest guide and counselor in the world,” said Colonel Bullock. “He will get you to your home in the desert, and he won’t leave you until you are settled there and he knows you are safe. Count yourself blessed.”

  eight

  A deal, then. Skye felt uneasy about it. Disease came in the night, murdered the innocent, and crept away to strike others. But what if he led the sick to a place of healing?

  He stood there, in that quiet pine-girt valley, aware that Peacock was examining him even as he was examining Peacock. The New England man wore old-style clothing, gray broadcloth knee britches, black cutaway, a stock at the throat, shoulder-length salt-and-pepper hair, at present tied into a queue, and wire-rimmed, square-lens spectacles that somewhat hid those bright, curious blue eyes. But he had that sturdy Yankee forthrightness about him that Skye liked. There was no subterfuge in this man.

  Peacock might be a New England whale oil merchant but he had gotten his sick people from the Atlantic coast to Independence, and then had brought them seven hundred miles west on an overland trail, all on his own. This was no pilgrim, to use a term much favored by the Yanks.

  “Just to be clear, Mister Peacock. We will be traveling the California Trail part of the way, over ground I know, but then we will turn off, go through the Mormon settlements, and plunge into country unknown to me or my wives. I don’t know those Indians, mostly Paiutes, nor have I the slightest experience with the Mojave tribe lower down. They don’t have the traditions of the plains tribes. The Paiutes are known as masterful camp robbers. I’m telling you this so that you know exactly who and what you’re employing.”

  “Mister Skye, you’re the man we want. You’ll receive a hundred in gold now, and a hundred upon delivering us. The second hundred will be held in escrow by Colonel Bullock.”

  Skye nodded. “When do we start?”

  “At once. This ordeal is weakening my people. So let’s be on our way.”

  “All right. By the time you’re ready there at the fort, we’ll be ready too.”

  “You mean you can break this camp just like that?”

  “Just like that, mate.”

  “Come along,” said Colonel Bullock. “When Skye makes an appointment, he keeps it.”

  Skye watched the two men trail their horses up the steep grade and vanish into the jack pine forest. Behind him he heard the sigh of falling leather. The women had already unpinned the lodge cover and let it slide down the lodgepoles. It took only a few minutes to load the poles, pack the robes, put the kitchen into parfleches, saddle their stock, and put out the cook fire. Mary lifted the richly quilled and beaded cradle-board bearing the tiny child, and slid it onto her back. The boy peered quietly at his father from within his nest.

  Skye clambered onto Jawbone, felt the unruly horse quiver under him. He steered his family up the same anonymous slope taken by the Yankees. Worries crowded his mind. Was this the dumbest thing he had ever committed himself to? How sick were those people? What sort of courage did they possess? He just had done something he tried never to do: commit without knowing the character of those he would guide into the unknown West.

  He would not back out. He had given his word, and now the only course was to make the best of it. He and his wives led the packhorses through the silent jack pines, then down a long grade into the valley of the Laramie River, and at last raised the post, which was hemmed by high bluffs. He and his quiet ladies soon plunged into a plain bustling with wagons, people, livestock, and racing dogs. They stared at Skye; they always did, noting his battered top hat, quilled leather clothing, meaty face, and weathered countenance. And they studied his Indian wives, and this time, they peered at that infant in the cradleboard Mary was carrying over her back. Why did he evoke such silence? Had these Yanks never seen a mixed-blood family before?

  Hiram Peacock was waiting near the sutler’s store, looking grand in his cutaway. His wagons stood well apart, and there was a strange emptiness surrounding them. Skye knew at once that none of those westering people in the other wagon trains wanted anything to do with a company of sick people who had a lethal disease, and they were giving the New Bedford company a wide berth.

  In a swift moment of recognition, Skye knew what he would face in the trail. On the veranda of the store, the usual loungers squinted darkly at Skye and his wives, and at Peacock. Skye ignored them.

  “Mister Peacock,” he said, “we’re about ready.”

  “So
are we. I’d like you to meet Enoch Bright, my second-in-command. He’s a master mechanic.”

  Skye shook hands with a bright-eyed skinny male, who smiled slightly but said not a word. The man wore layers of clothing, though the day was unpleasantly warm. The fellow had big scarred hands, capable hands, Skye thought. The man could probably put a turnip watch together blindfolded.

  “I’ve got the wagon hubs greased,” Bright said.

  “I guess we’re set, then. I’ll check with Colonel Bullock, and we’ll be off.”

  “He’s been paid on your behalf,” Peacock said.

  “Good.”

  Skye slipped into the store, which now had little left to sell to the migrants, and found Bullock clerking.

  “We’re on our way, Colonel.”

  “Mister Skye, there are things to watch out for, and I am not talking about rattlesnakes or wild Indians.”

  Skye smiled and waited.

  “I’ve been listening to this crowd. They’re calling it a plague company, sir, and there are plans afoot, whispers, talk of keeping it from grass and water, and maybe things even more sinister. Watch out.”

  “I will.”

  “Now, there’s something else. You’ve been out in the villages so you haven’t any word of it. A war’s brewing with the Mormons. The army may move soon. The Saints are resisting federal control. It’s all about polygamy and who runs the Utah Territory. Washington thinks it’s lost control. There’s some hotheads in Utah, and they’re raising a militia. And you’ll be plunging right through the middle of it. I think you’ll be all right, but a word to the wise …″

  “I see. Well, we’re hardly a menace to the Saints. But hotheads can cause trouble. As always, Colonel, you have gone beyond all friendship on our behalf.”

  The colonel straightened himself up, his gaze level, his beard jutting forward. “Godspeed,” he said. “And mind my words.”

  Skye passed the silent bunch on the veranda, well aware of the thoughts teeming in the heads of that crowd, and headed across the no-man’s-land to his new company. He beckoned his ladies to join him, and soon the New Bedford Infirmary Company was joined by Skye and his wives.

  “It’s time to introduce you,” Peacock said. “Come. We’ll start with the sick wagon.”

  Within the light wagon were four young people, presumably the sickest, lying side by side, with just enough room. Forward were bedding and gear.

  Skye approached, while his wives hung back several yards.

  “This young lady, on the right, is my daughter Samantha,” Peacock said. “She’s thirteen and eager to be on the trail. She’s a very brave traveler. Samantha, this is our guide, Mister Skye, and his family, Victoria and Mary Skye, and that’s North Star in the cradleboard.”

  Samantha nodded. She was obviously seriously ill, her young features gray. She clutched a bloodstained rag. She wore a grimy gray dress and woolen stockings. Even as they stood there, Samantha began coughing, and heaved up bloody sputum that she wiped away. Skye couldn’t imagine how he would get this girl to a desert place six or seven hundred miles away.

  Then the girl smiled up at him, her gaze upon him as if he were her guardian angel, and Skye resolved then and there that somehow, some way, he would take Samantha to a desert place and see her healed.

  “And this is my neighbor Peter Sturgeon. He’s nigh onto twelve, and he plans to be a cooper. He’s got the penchant for it. But life’s given him a little detour now. Peter, this is Mister Skye, and over there, Mary and Victoria.”

  The boy was gaunt, with great black hollows under his eyes, and had a feverish look about him.

  “You’ll get us there,” the young man said hoarsely, and Skye knew that the consumption had ruined his vocal cords.

  “Now these are Grant and Ashley Tucker, neighbors of ours, and twins. The pair are twelve, and they’re going to get well together, aren’t you?”

  They were brother and sister, and both had that gaunt gray look of a consumptive in the final stages of the disease. They were each wrapped in a brown blanket.

  The twins, emaciated and miserable, stared up at Skye silently. Skye hardly knew which of these four they would be burying first.

  The other patients were either sitting on the lowered tailgate of the supply wagon or standing patiently.

  The Skyes met Anna Bennett, an eighteen-year-old beauty with chestnut hair and a direct assessing gaze, sitting on the tailgate. Eliza Bridge and Mary Bridge joined Anna on the tailgate.

  An older youth standing nearby proved to be Sterling Peacock. He looked like his father, but for the dark patches under his eyes.

  “Sterling is my son, my heir if anything goes wrong, and is an able surveyor. But now he has to lick this disease. We’re going to get you back on your feet, aren’t we, Sterling?”

  “I’m already getting better,” Sterling said hoarsely. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Mister Skye.”

  But then a cough seized him, and he spat up blood into a pink-stained rag. And when he stopped coughing, he had a question for Victoria.

  “Are you going to heal us with Indian medicine?” he asked hoarsely.

  “Hell no,” she said.

  “I thought Indians have medicines for everything.”

  Victoria grinned. “Hey, I got stuff to try, eh? Goddamn white men, they don’t know nothing.”

  Hiram Peacock listened intently, and then smiled.

  Two ambulatory young men, Lloyd and David Jones, both in their twenties, completed the entourage. The Jones brothers seemed the healthiest, and indeed were sharing the burden of making and breaking camp, and acting as teamsters.

  But there was a long road ahead.

  “Are you ready, sir?” Peacock asked.

  “If you are, Mister Peacock.”

  Victoria and Mary sat their ponies quietly, letting Skye lead this small, fragile party westward, away from the safety of the fort and into the unknown. Skye turned back to watch the party form behind him, his women and his packhorses bringing up the rear. The Jones boys steered the teams, Lloyd beside the foremost oxen, David beside the pair of Morgans drawing the light wagon. Peacock and Bright walked. A stray cloud threw a deep shadow over them just as they were abandoning Fort Laramie, but the sun still shone on the crowd before the sutler’s store, who were all watching with reproachful silence. No one waved.

  nine

  Hiram Peacock waited until his entourage was well clear of Fort Laramie and working through the black hills before engaging Mister Skye. The guide rode ahead a little, his battered top hat shielding his weathered face from the summer sun, his skin stained dark by a lifetime lived outside. That blue roan devil was a menace and Peacock intended to heed Skye’s warning to steer clear of it.

  Still, questions seethed in his mind: who exactly was this man who had been entrusted with the life and safety of this company of the sick? Maybe Skye was equally curious, because he soon dismounted and left Jawbone entirely free, not even holding a rein, and settled in beside Peacock, his stocky legs laboring a bit to keep up. Jawbone spurted ahead, intending to lead this parade.

  “Why, Mister Skye, I was hoping for your counsel. I should like to acquaint myself with your practices on the road, and what you think is wise policy in this country.”

  “Well, Mister Peacock, we’ve a mutual curiosity. It happens I have a question or two. There’s something I need to know.”

  Peacock nodded.

  “Did you have trouble on the trail before you got here?”

  “You mean about the disease? Not really. I made a point of informing the companies ahead and behind that we had invalids with us. Generally, they appreciated it, and gave us a wide berth at night when we all were camping.”

  “Did any company give you trouble?”

  “Oh, now and then. One captain threatened to shoot our stock unless we moved far from the spring where we were staying. I moved at once. I understand how people feel about a deadly disease.”

  “Were those all the threats? Any serio
us threat? To hurt you, to drive you off the road?”

  Peacock pondered it. “No, not that. But some were unfriendly, especially the ones in a hurry who passed close by when we were burying one of our children. They always wanted to know what caused the death, and I always told them.”

  “That reminds me, Mister Peacock. You introduced us to ten young people with the disease. Is that the whole roster? Are you or Mister Bright sick?”

  “Mister Skye, I may be the next one. I thought I had escaped even though my beloved Emma lies in her grave and all my children have it. But about the time we started from Independence, I found tiny red specks in hand whenever I coughed, and I suspect the clock may be ticking for me, though I have no real proof of it. I feel well enough. Two buried. Ten ill. Only Enoch seems to resist it. With that pressing on me, I hope you’ll forgive me for being in a hurry. The sooner we settle in the desert, the better chance we have.”

  “I’m glad you told me. I’ll want to keep my family apart. On the road to Laramie did anyone stalk you?”

  “Stalk? Us? Why, sir, even those who didn’t like the company of invalids didn’t stalk us. Why do you ask?”

  “Because we’re being stalked, and have been since Fort Laramie.”

  “Stalked, sir? I’ve seen no one.”

  “Across the river a rider appears now and then and vanishes, but the man is not moving faster or slower than we are.”

  “Stalked? Why would anyone stalk us?”

  “In that wagon is a deadly cargo.”

  “What would they do?”

  “We’ll have to see. I imagine before long we’ll know.”

  “Are we in danger?”

  Skye sighed. “Let me deal with that.”

  “When did you see this stalker?”

  “I didn’t. My older wife, Victoria, signaled me.”