The Rock Child

by Win Blevins

  “Abraham was a polygamist,” said Rockwell, eyeing Eve.

  Eve is detached. Fascinating.

  “King David, too. Nor does the Constitution of the United States say anything against it.”

  “We of the South hold no brief for that document on any account. What would you say for polygamy?” Eve said to Rockwell. He spoke in a genteel drawl, Gent in an uncouth mountain twang.

  “Our people are virtuous, our cities and villages are clean. Yours are cesspools of sin.”

  “Such a gracious description,” said Eve. He turned to Burton. “What about the cities and villages of your Asia and Africa?”

  “Yeah, how does it sit among the niggers?” added Gent.

  Burton looked at them with the greatest curiosity. Perhaps they are simply mad. He replied, however, judiciously. “We might better ask ourselves how the system of monogamy is working in our countries—adultery rampant, divorce frequent, houses of prostitution everywhere.”

  “Everywhere but Deseret,” put in Rockwell.

  “Yes, of course, the utopia of Deseret,” said Eve.

  “What do you think about niggers, Rockwell?” The ruffian Gent again.

  “Yes, it is Mr. Rockwell, isn’t it?”

  So they do know. Curiouser and curiouser.

  “I prefer people white and delightsome,” said Rockwell.

  Burton eased his chair back. He wanted a clear field of fire. He did not feel afraid, except of a murder charge in a Mormon court.

  “No doubt you think God does, too,” said Eve. “I agree. So why do you Mormons act like niggers?”

  Burton felt the air turn electric. He waited. His hands tingled wildly.

  Rockwell jumped up and roared.

  Burton went for his assegai and leapt forward—get inside their muzzles.

  Eve and Gent jerked up and retreated, going for their sidearms.

  Rockwell raised the entire table in his massive hands and charged.

  Eve and Gent fell over chairs and their feet and each other. Rockwell slammed the table down, crushing them to the floor. He leapt into the air and stomped the table with both feet.

  It’s over. Will he kill them?

  Rockwell took a slow step next to Gent and kicked him viciously in the head. Gent’s head snapped, and his eyes glazed.

  Burton pushed the point of his assegai against Eve’s throat. He dragged it sideways and watched red ooze out. “If you lie very still,” he whispered in Eve’s ear, “only a little blood will trickle forth.”

  “Sir Richard?” Rockwell’s voice.

  “Let’s stop now and stay out of gaol,” said Burton. He looked hard at Rockwell’s face. The man’s eyes are mad.

  “You boys have plumb wore out your welcome.” It was the barman from behind. He was pointing a cut-off, double-barreled shotgun at them.

  Burton said gently, “We admit you have command of the situation.”

  “I want to see your backs going through the door.”

  Rockwell said, “They started it.”

  “I saw what happened,” said the barman amiably. “You move along. I’ll see to it the sheriff holds these two overnight, so you don’t get shot in the back.”

  Rockwell looked at Burton. Invisible assent passed between them.

  “We’ll have another bottle,” said Rockwell. “Ours got spilled.”

  Without taking his eyes off them, the barman lifted a bottle from under the bar and spun it through the air to Rockwell. “On the house, Mr. Rockwell.”

  He never lowered the shotgun until the door kicked shut behind them.

  “Bloody relief,” said Burton.

  Rockwell shrugged his shoulders like they were tight. “The relief was teaching ’em their place,” he said.

  They unhitched the horses. This is the chance to learn something about him. “I thought you’d kill them.”

  Rockwell cackled. “You think I’m tetched?”

  The two swung into their saddles. Burton looked at Rockwell. He could see no expression. The sun was setting over the Great Salt Lake to the west. The big man’s wild, loose gray hair was set aflame by the sun, his face deeply shadowed. I’ll take the chance. “We’re both tetched, that’s certain,” he said. “I was wondering if you’re murderous. As is your reputation.”

  Rockwell touched his heels to his horse, rode a dozen trotting steps, and stopped. Burton came up alongside him and halted. Now Rockwell was looking into the sun. Above the black clothes Burton could see the deep lines in the face, and the darkness in the eyes. Unreadable. “Brother Joseph says, Sir Richard, that a certain sin shall not be forgiven in this world or the next. To shed innocent blood. I have done that. I have done it more than enough.” He whispered the next words. “On behalf of my friend Joseph.”

  He raked his horse with his spurs and galloped down the street, his long hair twisting in the wind.

  Thought Burton, I am in the company of the devil. He took thought and smiled. How instructive.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  1

  I stepped through the door, and said “Howdy.”

  The trader stopped and set down his fiddle. The man was always singing or bowing or picking. He had a standard explanation. “The Welsh are a musical people.” That’s why we were friends.

  “How, Asie,” said Owen Lloyd. This was the trader trying to be funny. I’d never heard an actual Indian say “how.” Neither had Owen.

  I looked around the bull pen to make sure no other whites were around. I’d loitered outside watching for the chance to catch Lloyd alone. Can I count on you? Known to the whites here along the Logan River as Owen Lloyd, the trader was known to the Shoshone as Two Owls—“sown by a Welsh father,” he liked to say, “in a fertile Shoshone mother.” Which was why I came to him now.

  “What can I do for you, Asie?” Owen knew that working at a mere, I wouldn’t be here to trade. But I am.

  “Sun Moon,” I said.

  She eased through the door behind him. Some folks have an airy way of walking. She had a rooted way that I loved, a right-down-into-the-earth way.

  Whatever Owen’s reaction to an Oriental woman in his bull pen was, he didn’t let it show.

  “We want to be Indians,” I said.

  “You already are.” Owen was the one white person who’d always told me I needed to find out about the nation I came from, the people whose blood I bore.

  I tilted my head sideways, indicating Sun Moon. “Both of us. For a truth. If we look like what we are, they’ll kill us.”

  Thoughts and feelings danced in Owen’s eyes. He stared at us for a long while, speculating.

  “Blankets,” I said. “Feathers. Leggin’s. Moccasins. Do you have them? Will you help us? We have a little money.”

  Owen looked hard at Sun Moon’s face. Don’t ask, I urged him in my mind.

  Owen stepped to Sun Moon. “A China Polly as a Shoshone,” he said. He lifted her queue.

  I couldn’t help but be reminded, The first motion of scalping her.

  “Well, two braids instead of one, for a start.” He called to the back room, “Noddy, will you come out here?” His wife materialized, like she’d been waiting. We didn’t exchange any greeting. Her Shoshone face showed no surprise. “Would you get a calico dress that will fit this … lady? And vermilion, and plain moccasins?” Noddy disappeared.

  Owen cupped Sun Moon’s face in his hands. “The shape of the face is good. Less round and more shaped than a Shoshone, even.” He guided her by the shoulders toward the back room. “Go change your clothes, Mrs. Whoever.

  “Now you,” he said to me. He held up a bolt of blue trade cloth. “What an Injun you are, lad, never wore a breechcloth.” He cut a double arm span. “Come behind the counter and get your pants off.” He held the cloth doubled against my waist and nodded to himself. “Your cheeks will show, cute little half-moons between leggin’s and breechcloth. Never you mind. Don’t be pondering your modesty or trying to cover ’em up. An Injun wouldn’t.”

  Owen p
ut his arms on his hips and stared into space. “Guess I can give you a feather off something old of mine.” He disappeared into the back room. I stripped off my pants and covered myself with the breechcloth, holding it awkwardly front and back. The first time, one of those things makes you feel like a fool. I could hear Owen whistling. We are a musical people.

  Owen came back with a hawk feather and some sinew. “You need to put your belt on and hang that cloth over it, front and back.” Then he muttered, “Don’t even know how to tie a feather in your hair. Can’t paint yourself.” He fiddled with my hair and whistled while he worked. “We are artists, and artists are masters of illusion,” he said. “You need braids, too.” He starting humming. “Illusion is lies done artful-like.”

  “We have to try it,” said I.

  Sun Moon pouted.

  I took the pony’s reins, led her into the road, and started walking. I didn’t look back. I felt determination in my back. After a little bit Sun Moon followed, mincing.

  When she caught up, I said, “We can’t sneak around by night on the California Trail. We need to travel in the day, like Injuns would. Not always right on the road, but by day.”

  Sun Moon whimpered.

  Lots of times Sun Moon acted like she was older and smarter than me. This tickled my funny bone. I kept hoping she’d figure it, and listen up sometimes.

  I pulled gently on the reins. She was a poor pony, but the price was right. Owen said, “Two Indians traveling on foot? Not good. Every rancher along the way would notice, and keep his horses close-herded that night.”

  “We can’t afford no horse.” I looked at the pathetic beast. “No horse.”

  “Pay me later.”

  “May not be coming back,” says I.

  “In that case, I reckon I could remember the pleasure you give me making music.” He pondered. “The pony is a going-away present.”

  I started to protest, but he waved it off.

  “It can carry all your possibles,” he said with a chuckle.

  True, we had so little even that pony could carry it.

  Now I told Sun Moon, “It’s only a couple of hours.” Meaning until dark. I knew she would want to walk through the dark—the moon was full. Then I’d have to talk her into moving on the road in the open tomorrow afternoon.

  “We’ve got to trust this,” I said. I waved the bottom of my breechcloth with one hand. “We’re Indians.” I waggled my bottom and looked sidelong at Sun Moon. I wondered what she made of that.

  She started walking along the road, and I fell in beside here, leading the pony.

  We’re Indians. Felt good to me. But… Where do I belong? Do I really want to go to Tibet, wherever that is? What music do they have in Tibet?

  Come to think, I wondered what music the Indians out in Washo had. The Indian music I’d heard seemed mysterious and appealing. But what is my music?

  An answer came. Birdcalls with the music of the stars. Which didn’t help.

  I glanced sideways at Sun Moon again. I hadn’t learned to read her face much. She had a way of not letting anyone see. The monks and nuns where she comes from, do they ever get music from the rivers and the birds?

  I nurtured a secret hope that my people, whoever they were, got music from the rivers and the birds. I didn’t dare voice this hope, not even in my own mind.

  I wondered, too. The words I heard in the river. Do my people speak that language? Maybe I would recognize it when I heard it, and know them.

  I walked next to Sun Moon feeling gratified, confident. She was from the other side of the planet. She had come all the way here. I can go all the way there. Or anywhere. And I will. To find my music again.

  I wiggled my hips, loosened my stride, and walked. No use in thinking too much. I put a bounce into my step and started whistling.

  2

  Porter Rockwell paid attention to the motion of his horse instead of the John Bull. He surely preferred horses to Englishmen, and liked the air of the evening and the road better than anyone’s rattle-tonguing. Rockwell liked horses, particularly this stallion, a blood bay that was his favorite traveler these days. It was the first horse he’d named in twenty years. For good and sufficient reason he called the stallion Blood. Earlier Sir Richard had rattle-tongued some more on the subject of plural marriage, which he called polygamy, just like a gentile. He was a case. After defending the Mormon way to the two ruffians in the tavern, he turned coat. “In plural marriages, surely,” he began in his uppity way, “there is but little of that choice egotism of the heart called love.” Rockwell hardly listened to the John Bull’s account of how love could blossom among two, but when spread among three or more descended to mere friendship and domestic felicity. Whatever felicity meant. “And thus gloom,” Sir Richard concluded. “That gloom which infects the very air of Salt Lake City, and which all Mormons breathe daily.”

  Rockwell kept himself and Blood on a tight rein. Stallions like us need a firm hand.

  Out of respect for Brigham, he was behaving himself with restraint toward the John Bull. Oh my, yes, the very air, Rockwell wanted to snort loudly, rolling his eyes sardonically. Why would you think I give a damn about what some foreigner thinks about Saints? The nerve.

  Rockwell quickened Blood’s trot just a hair with his knees. At this pace its trot was smooth as a woman’s inner thigh. Rockwell didn’t know any person he liked as well as Blood. Why is the John Bull rummaging around in his head when he could be feeling the silkiness of a fine horse? Or noticing the blood-spouting way the sun is going down?

  Blood. Jesus Christ came indeed to wash away the sins of the world, a blood sacrifice. Joseph Smith had come to restore the priesthood of God. Thus he saved the believers, the Saints. But maybe he saved them and threw me away. Porter, this man is a burden to us. Porter, that man is a trouble.

  Porter Rockwell felt a warm flush of guilt. He knew he’d thrown himself away, and not all in obedience. Not every killing he’d done was for the Church. They have the comfort of God’s face, and I have forever the coldness of His back. It wasn’t Joseph, or Brigham, it was him.

  Porter Rockwell’s gut ached sharply. He often felt a rat in his guts these days, chewing and chewing. Sooner or later it would kill him.

  Now the John Bull was rattling on about the Lamanites, whom he called Indians. “Lo, the poor Indian, reminds me of a Tartar or an Afghan after a summer march. Lo sits his horse like the Abyssinian eunuch, as if born upon and bred to become part of the animal.”

  To get away from the John Bull’s words, Porter Rockwell put his mind on his joining to Blood. Sir Richard went on for a while about “the custom of the Sioux Indians of cutting off, or more generally biting off, the nose tip of an adulterous woman. It does not surprise me—the same is practiced in the Hind.”

  Whatever the Hind is, and whyever I should give a damn. And whyever a soldier would rattle-tongue about such stuff. Rockwell found it hard to believe Sir Richard was a soldier, and had been for twenty years. In his experience soldiers didn’t rattle-tongue, or rattle-brain either.

  “I do not believe that the Lo of the Plains can ever become a Christian,” the John Bull went on. “He must first be humanized, then civilized, and at last Christianized. I doubt his surviving this operation.”

  Rockwell had had enough. The John Bull knew nothing about Lamanites—why did he call them Lo?—except what some book told him. Rockwell not only knew Joseph’s revelations but knew Lamanites right up close, firsthand. “Let’s lope ’em,” he said, and kicked Blood to a canter.

  In a moment Sir Richard drew alongside. Rockwell didn’t allow himself to look sideways. That’s how horses turned competitive. Men, too, for that matter. He wondered, What would it be like to get into a pissing contest with the John Bull? Bear’s ass, no contest—I’m better mounted. A fight might be something else. He acts like he’s seen some action.

  Porter Rockwell swallowed hard. Not often these days did he eye men and calculate. No one’s seen action like me. He spat. That’s
why it’s boring to calculate.

  He didn’t let his eyes roam to the right, at the John Bull. Instead he forced his gaze to the left.

  The sun was setting beyond the Great Salt Lake. He put his right hand, the one without reins, on Blood’s withers, felt the working of the stallion’s muscles, the warmth of its flesh. Dark clouds curdled on top of the Hogup Mountains beyond the lake—dry, desert mountains, rock and sand without a tree or a bush. Desert lake, too salty for man or beast to drink. Dry country beyond, where only the mind’s eye could see, white sand, alkali, barrenness, a country scorched and seared. Like my soul.

  The sun squatted on the mountain ridges, and its light still shot the whole scene red—crimson clouds, maroon hillsides, waters of flowing vermilion. He felt his eyes drawn to the parched hillsides, an old and crusty red, like half-dried blood.

  He raised his eyes to the clouds, lowered them to the lake. Be-e-yoo-tiful, he said mockingly in his mind, the way his first wife would have said it, the mother of his children, the one who had divorced him.

  Looks like bloody pus to me, he thought, and snickered.

  Then he saw them—dark, vertical lines against the scarlet glare of the lake. On the road. People, but he couldn’t make out whether two or three, whether or not mounted. And then, like swirls of dust in the wind, they were gone.

  3

  “Get away from me! Get away!” cried Sun Moon.

  Asie stood still, staring straight at her, looking mortified.

  “Go!” she whimpered.

  Soft! They’re too close!

  “Go!” You fool!

  “He’s not after you, go!” She gasped breath in desperately. “Act like you’re hunting for feed.”

  Asie slouched away unconvincingly. He got into moods where the world didn’t seem real. Not now!

  She crouched behind a giant sagebrush and tried to shrink, to melt into its shadow. Though it seemed to her silly, like the fear of children, she didn’t look up. If I can’t see them…

  That was the worst of it. Them. She heaved breath in and out. I saw Porter Rockwell, that I’m sure of. Maybe she couldn’t be confident of him from a distance, maybe she couldn’t check by seeing his widow’s peak, his flaky skin, his hateful, slitty blue eyes. But she could see his spirit, as you see a twisting funnel of wind, a black whirl, a nothingness, yet it would suck everything in and destroy it.