Virgin River

by Richard S. Wheeler

  “Signaled? I never knew it.”

  Skye laughed suddenly, a great rumble rising out of his barrel-shaped torso. “That comes from a long marriage.”

  “Is this stalker dangerous? What is he up to?”

  “When I have an opportunity, I’ll find out.”

  “Find out?”

  “I’ll catch him at it and see.”

  “Mister Skye, I don’t want trouble, not with so many sick people.”

  “Sometimes the best way to avoid trouble is to confront it, Mister Peacock. Now, I need a few more things from you. How often do we rest? When do those young teamsters need a break?”

  “Every hour or so. Their lungs don’t afford them much air, and they tire.”

  “What about the ones sitting on the tailgate?”

  “They sometimes rotate with those lying in the green wagon. Even sitting on a tailgate wears them down to nothing.”

  “And the sickest?”

  “I sometimes carry them in my lap, sir. I take my turn on the tailgate.”

  “And when you rest, do other companies pass you by?”

  “Often they do. I try to find a place well off the trail where we can let them pass us easily.”

  Skye seemed to absorb all that. The man certainly had questions and wanted answers.

  “Tell me more about this sickness, sir. We had lungers in England and in the Royal Navy, lots of’em, and mostly they died.”

  “The agent, or exciting cause, is unknown, Mister Skye. But it causes the growth of tubercules, or hard capsules containing the diseased flesh within the body, and not just the lungs. The disease can lodge anywhere. It often lodges in the mouth and throat but most any other place is possible, and this ulcerates the flesh. Some people resist and live quite a while; others succumb swiftly, unable to breathe, coughing their life away. The worst is called miliary consumption, and it’s terrible. That person is doomed to die within a few weeks. That’s how we lost a boy, Ephraim, on the road. He went straight downhill. It’s a mystery, why God permits it.”

  “Do you blame God?”

  “He leaves my prayers unanswered, Mister Skye.”

  “And what heals, if anything?”

  “In Europe, they claim cold alpine air does it, and they flock to spas in the Alps. Here … all the evidence points to the desert. Dry, warm, and a lot of bed rest. There is no other known cure. No herbs or teas or roots or powders. No mustard plasters or emetics or cold compresses. No magical drafts that one may sip and be healed. No exorcisms, no bell, book, and candle. No dealings with the devil. Only the desert air, sir, neither too hot nor too chill, dry air, and a warm cot. That’s why I’m bringing these desperate young people two thousand miles from their homes.”

  Skye pointed. The stalker sat his horse in deep shade across the river, mostly shielded by juniper brush.

  “Know him?”

  “I don’t have the eyes to tell you that, sir.”

  “We’ll find out what he’s about.”

  They reached a widening of the narrow trail, and Skye pulled his party aside and up a gulch a way to clear the path for companies that followed. Immediately the two young men, Lloyd and David Jones, dropped to the ground and stretched out as if dead. Skye knew he shouldn’t be shocked, but he was. The youngsters sitting on the tailgate curled up on the ground, suddenly oblivious to life around them. It had been all they could manage to sit up for an hour or so. Skye hastily studied the area for snakes and thought to warn Peacock about curling up on the earth before checking it out.

  He hiked back to the green wagon, admiring its light hickory construction, and peered in on the sickest four, who lay in the shade of the bowed canvas top, staring up at him from fever-blasted faces. Skye had the sinking feeling that this was a fool’s mission; these children should be safe abed somewhere, anywhere but here, with hundreds of miles of lonely and dangerous trail ahead of them.

  Enoch Bright was checking the Morgans for fistulas and anything that might hamstring them, running a knowing hand over the horses’ withers, flanks and legs, pasterns and stifles.

  “Are they in good shape, Mister Bright?”

  “They’re Morgans, sir. They’ll do what’s required. Justin Morgan should get a gold medal.”

  “That’s a fine wagon.”

  “Yes it is, three hundred pounds lighter than any of the same size. I used hickory and ash, strong as steel. See those oversized wheels? They’ll get our patients through three feet of water.”

  The wagon was a work of genius, and its maker was along on this trip, which consoled Skye. Things broke down on the road.

  “Are those Jones brothers all right?”

  “No, none of them are all right. But they carry on. They get more air flat on their back like that than curled up. It’s air they’re wanting. Ten minutes like that and they’ll have some air in’em.”

  “Should they rest rather than walk?”

  “They all should rest.”

  “Will this trip kill them? That’s what I’m trying to say.”

  “If it doesn’t, something else will.”

  “Mister Bright, you have a wisdom of your own.”

  A wagon company rounded a slope and rolled into sight, two men on saddle horses were leading, followed by four wagons pulled by ox teams, and behind them a gaggle of scrawny cows, herded by children. The leaders saw Skye’s party resting upslope from the trail and hesitated.

  But Hiram Peacock headed full sail straight toward them, his cutaway coat flapping open as he walked. Skye thought he ought to follow. There could be trouble.

  “Gentlemen,” yelled Peacock, “we’re a company with sick people in it, and we trust that you’ll keep a safe distance.”

  The lead men, their faces shaded under wide-brimmed slouch hats, eyed the whale oil merchant silently and studied the wagon and cart drawn apart from the trail.

  Then they studied Skye, and observed his family, and finally the youths sprawled on the ground and the others slumped below the tailgate.

  Skye was close enough now to see those faces hidden in the shade of their hat brims, and he knew these were two of Manville’s guides. And there could be trouble.

  “Lungers, eh?” said The Cork. “Someone ought to shoot the whole lot.”

  ten

  Skye braced for trouble, but trouble passed by. This party was entirely young men, probably headed for the goldfields of California. None of them wanted anything to do with a company of consumptives, so they kept as far away as they could.

  Two more wagon trains followed, both of them composed of families, and Peacock afforded them the same warning that he had given the first company. These people stared, curious, at the sick in Peacock’s company, stayed well away, and continued on their way. They were all too travel-worn to afford the slightest kindness to Peacock. Skye absorbed all that. Most of those westering people were decent sorts, people who in other circumstances might give aid to the sick or at least comfort them, but not on this trail where a thousand troubles beset them and competition to reach the goldfields drove them.

  Skye made note of it.

  “Is this how they dealt with you on the road to Fort Laramie?” he asked Peacock.

  “Oh, mostly. Some were friendly enough. Few had been out long enough to deal with all the troubles, the breakdowns, the collapse of livestock, the sicknesses. I’d say the farther west we’ve come, the harsher we’ve been treated.”

  It made sense, and it wasn’t good news.

  At a nod from Peacock, his beleaguered group started west again. The Jones boys seemed to have revived, and prodded the ox and horse teams to life. Enoch Bright had seen to the needs of every patient while they rested, bringing water to each.

  Through all this Victoria and Mary kept their distance at the rear, observing the ritual of the trail. That was fine with Skye.

  They rolled along the North Platte, sometimes cutting over steep hills that tired the oxen. But eventually they left the Black Hills behind them and emerged on an arid,
sagebrush-choked plain with little grass. Even as dusk approached, the heat built, and the trains ahead of them left a smothering powder in the air that could only do more damage to those in this traveling hospital.

  Still, it was not a bad day. He rode ahead, looking for grass for the stock, but found none. The great migration had chewed every blade. Then he spotted a steep brush-choked coulee sinking toward the pewter-colored river, saw at once that it had been ignored and that ample grass might be found under the canopy of sagebrush above it.

  “Here,” he said.

  In short order, the company had pulled well away from the main trail and camped on a rise next to the brush-choked gulch. Enoch Bright and the Jones brothers knew what to do, and soon the stock was watered at the river and turned loose in the brushy gulch to graze.

  That’s when Skye spotted the lone rider, the stalker, in the shadows across the Platte. The man sat his horse, didn’t move, and probably imagined he was invisible behind a wall of sagebrush and rock.

  As planned, Mary and Victoria put up the Skye lodge at some distance from the consumptives. Victoria was crabby about it. “We’re taking them, and I don’t even know them,” she said. There was something in her that was reaching out, wanting to befriend those sick people.

  There are moments in life when one feels helpless and this was one. Skye also wanted to befriend the sick people now that they were making camp and gathering around a cook fire, but he couldn’t. None of his family could. The health of that infant in his mother’s cradleboard, the health of his vibrant young Shoshone wife, the health of his old companion of the trails, Victoria, all stopped him.

  “I’ll be back,” he said.

  Victoria eyed him sharply, watched as he boarded Jawbone and slid his old Hawken from its sheath, and nodded. In that nod was a whole unspoken colloquy: she was there if he needed her. She knew exactly what he would be doing.

  He rode through dusk, heading for a ford they had passed a half mile back. The dusk almost cloaked him; he didn’t much care whether it did or not. He reached the river, eased down to the bank, and urged Jawbone ahead. The blue roan horse hated cold water, clacked his teeth, sawed at his rein, turned and glared reproachfully at Skye, and then stepped daintily into the flowing river, which soon tugged at his hocks. But it was an easy passage, and in two leaps Jawbone bounded up the mud bank to grass, shook, almost unseating Skye, and then stood stock-still while Skye studied the silent, gloomy riverside brush, now sliding into the oblivion of night.

  There was no evening song here. No birds trilled. He slid off Jawbone. The horse would lock there, wait, ready for anything. Skye slid his Hawken into its saddle sheath, preferring his ancient hickory belaying pin, that ship’s fitting so often used by limey sailors in a brawl, and walked through the brush, making no sound at all if he could help it. But not even the most experienced man could avoid the occasional snap of a stick in areas like this, deep in the debris of sagebrush as tall as Skye.

  Across the river a cook fire bloomed, and he could see shadowed men he knew to be Peacock and Bright hanging a kettle on a support rod. The young people, already wrapped in blankets, lay listlessly near the cart. In the background rose two ghostly tents, probably erected by the Jones brothers, ready to shelter these ill people from the dews and damps of the night.

  Skye’s night vision was still good even in his fifties, mostly because he made a point of discerning things in the dark, registering shapes and shadows, so that the whole wild world was stamped in the back of his mind. He liked working in the dark, and could find his way better than most men. Better than a Yank ruffian posing as a guide, for example.

  He worked upriver, gliding from cottonwood to willow when there were trees, or sliding forward, crouched as low as the surrounding brush, so he would not outline himself against the clear, starlit heavens. He had last seen the stalker directly opposite the camp. He might be there, or more likely he might be clear down at river′s edge, a hundred yards closer, a rifle shot closer.

  Ahead, the dark bulk of a horse shifted: its head went up, and it snorted and sidestepped. Skye froze. He heard nothing but the pumping of his own heart. The stalker was not on the horse. A slow, careful study of the immediate area suggested that the stalker was not nearby, either. Skye edged forward again, found a pebble and tossed it, and got no response. The stalker was down at the river.

  Skye decided to leave the horse alone, tempting as it was to free the animal. The horse might give the game away. Skye took his time. When one is stalking a stalker, time is an ally, haste is an enemy. The man’s horse had turned to stare at Skye, ears pricked forward, which might tell an experienced wilderness man something. But Skye doubted this was an experienced man.

  It was time to wait, to study the shifting shadows, to listen for the crackle of footsteps returning from the river. The night was soft and the air was kind, and only a few mosquitoes found him there. He let them bite.

  The crack of a rifle told him he was too late. A thump rose from the riverside, fifty yards distant. The ball had struck flesh. He had heard balls strike flesh all too many times. Skye slipped forward, straight for the river, barely concealing his passage. Across the river he heard shouts, and dread welled up in him. He heard the crash of footsteps off to one side, too far for him to reach, the crack of boots on debris. Skye whirled, raced toward the man’s horse, saw a shadow climb onto it and spur the animal away. Skye followed, aware now that the man wouldn’t be looking behind him, but would focus on getting out of the brush and away.

  Doggedly, Skye followed. The man slowed down up ahead, preferring quietness. But he was still gaining ground. Skye began to trot. He had never been a runner; his stocky beefeater body wasn’t made for it. But now he trotted behind that horse, fearful of losing his quarry in the dense dark, but the horseman had slowed to a leisurely walk. Skye saw him looming against the starlight, slipped to one side, and brought the belaying pin hard against the man’s shoulder. Skye felt it strike home and heard the man howl. A rifle clattered to the ground. The man cried in agony, spurred his mount into a frenzied gallop, and vanished into the stygian darkness.

  The old belaying pin felt fine in Skye’s hands. It had been the favored weapon of British seamen for generations, and it was as familiar to him as his old Hawken. In the distance, hooves clattered over turf, and then all was silent. But Skye swore he heard a sob out of the night.

  He tripped on the rifle and picked it up, not knowing what sort of weapon it was. It hefted well and was unfamiliar to his hand. Spoils of war. It took him a while to orient himself. Where was the river? Where was Jawbone? But the North Star steered him, and he worked his way to the riverbank, and then easterly toward his patient horse. Jawbone sawed his head up and down, as if to tell Skye that this business had required his services, and that horseman would not now be fleeing if Jawbone had been around.

  “You’re right. I’m not always very bright,” he said, and quieted the stallion with a gentle hand.

  He rode to the ford, splashed across, feeling the tug of the stream on Jawbone’s hocks, and then the horse plunged up a grade, shook off water, and headed toward camp.

  Skye dreaded what he would find there.

  “Hello the camp,” he said, fearful that Peacock or Bright might shoot.

  “Skye! What is this? Come quickly,” Peacock said.

  Skye hurried toward the fire where people were gathering. He saw Victoria and Mary, and felt a flood of joy sweep him. They were all right.

  “What was that shot, sir?”

  “The stalker, Mister Peacock.”

  The whale oil merchant sagged. “That shot killed my Morgan,” he said. “Killed my prize horse. Killed me, in a way.”

  Skye waited, saddened, but there was no more.

  He found Victoria and hugged her, and Mary and hugged her.

  “We’d better put out the fire,” he said roughly.

  eleven

  A bitterness flavored the night. Enoch Bright scratched a lucifer, lit a bul
l’s-eye lantern, and motioned. Skye followed. The mechanic led him into the brushy gulch, the lantern throwing wavery light on sagebrush and juniper, until they reached a hollow near the river. There one of the Morgans sprawled awkwardly.

  He held his lantern in a way that let Skye see the neat bloodless hole in the horse’s chest. Bright growled softly, knelt, unbuckled the halter, and slid it off the Morgan’s head.

  “What’s the justice of this?” Bright said. “Killing an innocent horse. What crime was this horse guilty of, tell me? Nothing. This animal had no sin in him, sir. Justice is the most important thing in all the world, the highest and noblest of all ideals. And here is an innocent whose life is stolen from him.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that, Mister Bright.”

  “Now, sir, if I were to go off and kill that man’s mother, who’s innocent of all crime save for giving birth to that cockroach, that might be revenge, but it wouldn’t be justice. Because not even that fiend’s mother deserves such a fate. Killing an innocent, sir, now that’s the devil’s own wickedness. Come along; you’ve seen enough. I will not have us indulge in morbid excitement here.”

  Skye found himself gazing tenderly at the handsome chestnut Morgan horse, and they slowly made their way upslope, past the other grazing stock, and returned to the campfire.

  Peacock stalked sternly, round and round in a circle. “What am I going to tell the young people, tell me that? Some degenerate has shot our horse? And why was this deed done? Can you tell me? It’s an outrage. This West, sir, this West is criminal. That Morgan was a saddle horse, fourteen and a half hands, but the pair had been trained to perform all things for us. That pair, Mister Skye, would draw the cart and pull the plow through virgin land wherever we settle. That pair would help us cut irrigation ditches. The life of my hospice rested in the bosom of that dead horse. The scoundrel will be whipped, I say. I shall thrash him personally and without quarter. And after he is thrashed, I shall confiscate enough of his possessions to replace what was lost.”

  Skye peered into the darkness around the two tents, and saw solemn young faces there. Someone would have to talk to those sick young people, tell them that others on this road to California meant them harm.