“That there was a war party headin’ for home,” he said. “Several of them was afoot and they needed mounts. You ain’t about to catch them, and if you did, somebody would lose his hair…maybe all of you.
“There was,” he added, “about twenty warriors in that party. That’s enough to work all kinds of mischief. You just be glad they taken your horses an’ kep’ goin’.”
Later, the scout rode out when it was Val’s turn to watch the horses. He drew up beside Val and cut off a chew. He offered the plug to the boy, who shook his head. “That pa o’ yourn seems a right solid man,” the scout commented, “but quiet. Heard he lost his woman, your ma.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s a hard thing to lose somebody you set store by, a mighty hard thing. There’s men who find another right off, there’s others never get over it. I reckon that’s the kind your pa is. He’s a mighty lonely man, your pa. You got to think of that, boy, you got to understand him.
“Had a couple of horses one time, always ran together, stayed together. If I rode off on one without the other, the one left behind he sulked until I got back. One got hisself killed by a b’ar…’t other one was never much good after.
“Your pa’s a one-woman man. It’s like he’s lost part of hisself. You think of that, boy, an’ if he’s hard or angry, you make allowances, y’ hear me? You make allowances.”
The scout got to his feet. “Come to think of it, that’s how we all live with each other, by makin’ allowances.”
A few days later, with the mountains showing snow-topped crests against the sky, he stopped by again. “You an’ your pa take my advice. These here are just the first mountains, and they already got snow. You take my advice an’ stop this side of the Sierras an’ wait for spring. A man can die in those passes of a winter.”
The scout said, “Name’s Hiram Ward, son. Don’t know we ever met, really.” Ward glanced at him. “I hear tell you saw those men who kilt your ma.”
“I saw them. I’d know some of them.”
“Can you describe them to me?”
Slowly, carefully, he described those he had seen clearly. Some of the faces had never been turned his way, some had been in shadow. One he would never forget. It was the one who had stood over George and shot him. He did not describe him.
“That one with the scratched face. The way you tell it, that sounds like Obie Skinner. He’s a bad one. I don’t even think that’s his right name, but he’s been robbin’ and murderin’ along the Mississippi.
“Runs with a mean crowd. You tell your pa to fight shy of them. Kill him soon’s look at him.”
They sat silent for a few minutes and then the boy said, “I will not forget them.”
Ward glanced at him, struck by something in his tone. “What is it, boy? What are you thinkin’ of?”
“I am going to kill them. I am going to kill every one of them.”
Ward was silent for a few minutes. “Know how you feel, boy, but remember what the Good Book says? ‘Vengeance is mine saith the Lord.’ The evil men do catches up with them, boy. You leave it to time, and the Lord.”
Val said nothing. Within him there was a resolution, a hard core of something that no words could touch. He could only remember his mother and how his father had been while she lived. His mother and Grita’s mother had been brutally murdered, and the men who had done it were free.
“You got your life to live, boy. You get taken up with thoughts of killin’ those men…A man can lose sight of everything else when he’s bent on revenge, and it ain’t worth it.
“Suppose you find them and kill them all? Half your life will be gone and what’s left? I mean, something like that becomes an obsession that rules out everything else, and when it’s done, a man’s left empty. I ain’t got much in the way of book learnin’, boy, but I seen a sight of men.
“Your pa’s going to need help, these comin’ years. You got your life ahead of you. You build you a life and forget those men.”
“I think,” Val said slowly, “one man caused it all. They were all drinking but him.”
Ward turned sharply. “What’s that?”
“The man who stood over Grita’s father and killed him was not drunk. He waited until the others had…had done what they were doing, and then he called out that somebody was coming, and when they scattered, he went into the wagon and took the money. When he came out, Grita’s father groaned, and that man came back and shot him. I saw it.”
Ward stared at him. “Boy, are you sure of that? Would you know that man?”
“I…I think so. I didn’t really see his face, but I think I know who it was.”
“Be careful, son. Many a man’s been hung on no more than that. You don’t want to hang the wrong man.”
“No, sir.”
The grass grew shorter, the trail more sandy, and to right and left were sand-hills. The oxen made slow time of it. Once they saw a herd of over a hundred elk drifting along a hillside perhaps a mile away.
The cattle grew leaner, people talked less, and many a worried glance went to the snow on the high ridges. It was early for snow, yet it was there. Only a little as yet, but frightening in its implications.
“We waited too late,” his father said, “but we couldn’t leave that girl.”
“Hiram Ward said we should not try to go to California this year. That we should wait until spring.”
His father was silent for a long time. They were seated together on the wagon seat, one of the few times they had ridden so. The wheels rocked and rolled over rocks and rough places in the trail. It was steadily uphill now. He had not realized how much they were climbing until he turned to look back and could see the end of the wagon train a half-mile back and much lower.
“Might be best,” his father said at last, “if our supplies last. We need some meat.”
Ward drifted back from the head of the train and rode beside their wagon for a few minutes. “Tomorrow we cross the Divide. Mostly downhill until we reach the Sierras.”
They saw no game. The herds of buffalo seemed to be behind them. Far off, they glimpsed antelope.
It was almost sundown when they made camp, and his father got down his rifle. Val looked at it in awe. His father rarely handled the gun, and there had been too little chance for hunting.
“Can I come?”
His father was about to refuse, then said, “Yes.”
They started out from camp and Ward rode after them. “Huntin’ meat?” he asked.
“We are.”
“Easy to get lost. Injuns out yonder, too.”
“We will not go far. If we see nothing we will return.”
“Yonder,” Ward pointed, “there’s a crick. Some years the deer come down to drink there. You go easy and you might find game. Be careful, there’s Injuns about.”
They walked on, down a slope of sparse gray-green grass, around an outcropping of rock, through some trees. They saw a glint of water and stopped, looking carefully about.
Val looked up at his father, but said nothing. They moved through the trees, trying to walk softly. They glimpsed the water again, dipped through a low place, and came up a grassy slope to look down along the creek where five buffalo were standing.
Val looked quickly at his father, whose face was white. Slowly, carefully, he lifted the rifle, and laying it over a low branch, he took careful aim at the nearest cow buffalo. He aimed, then stopped and straightened up, wiping his eyes. Val looked at him again but his father was intent upon the buffalo.
There was something moving over there. “Pa?”
“Ssh!”
His father took aim again and slowly squeezed off his shot. The cow lunged, then slumped to her knees and rolled over. Excited, Tom Trevallion burst from the brush and then pulled up short.
Still quivering in the flank of the buffalo was an arrow!
There was a pound of hoofs. The boy and the man looked up to see five Indians sitting their ponies.
One Indian pointed to the buffalo. “He belong me,” he said.
Tom Trevallion shook his head and touched his rifle. “I killed it.”
The Indian lifted his bow and then pointed at the arrow. Then he indicated Trevallion’s rifle. “You gun gone. He empty.” He held up the bow with an arrow ready. “Bow no empty. You go.” He pointed at the buffalo. “Mine.”
“No.” Tom Trevallion stood his ground. “My bullet killed him. You see.”
The Indian looked at his companions. “Five mans. You one mans. We take meat.”
There was a sharp click and the Indian turned his head sharply to Val. The boy saw his father look around, too. He held his father’s pistol with the hammer eared back.
Val took one hand from the gun and spread five fingers toward the Indians. “Five,” he said, “five balls, five mans.”
Without turning his eyes from the Indians he said to his father, “Fifty-fifty?”
Tom Trevallion looked at his son as if he had seen him for the first time. Then he said to the Indians, “Fifty-fifty? You take half, we take half?”
Suddenly something like a smile came into the Indian’s face. “Hifty-hifty,” he agreed.
Carefully, Val lowered the hammer on his six-shooter and put it back behind his belt.
The Indians went quickly to the buffalo and began skinning it, carefully dividing the meat.
Tom Trevallion looked at his son. “Who gave you permission to bring that pistol?”
“Nobody.”
“After this, you ask me first.”
When the Indians had finished skinning and cutting up the meat, one of them indicated the hide. “Hifty-hifty?”
Tom Trevallion smiled. “You take it. You will use it better than I could.”
They started off, then one of them turned and looked back. He waved a hand. “Hifty-hifty!” he shouted, and away they went.
Tom Trevallion watched them go, then loaded his rifle. “All right,” he said, “let’s go back. We’ve got some meat.”
CHAPTER 3
They camped one night on a branch of Mary’s River, and Hiram Ward stopped by their wagon. “Fill up your kegs and anything else that will carry water. Then cut some grass for hay. You’ll find neither water nor feed this side of the Carson River.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Desert…two days of it.”
“We’ve seen a lot of desert, Ward.”
“You ain’t seen the Forty-Mile. This here’s the worst of all, and none of the stock is in good shape. There’ll be no water at all, and no grass. There’ll be a dead animal for every fifty yards and a ruined wagon for every hundred. There’s one spring, boiling hot water.
“It’s about twenty-four hours of travel. We’ll not set out until afternoon; it’s too hot. Every few hours we’ll stop, feed a little hay and give them water, and then we’ll go on. Fill everything you’ve got with water…you’ll need it all.”
With hand sickles they went to cutting grass in a meadow close by. They carried it in their arms to the back of the wagon. Much of the weight they had when they started was now gone, for they had used their spare wagon-tongue, and they had eaten most of the food. There was more left than expected, because they were feeding one less than planned.
Val walked into the meadow and, crouching down, began cutting the grass off short. It was not very tall, and they needed every bit. The morning was hot and his back ached. From time to time, he would gather the hay and carry it to the side of the meadow. He looked at the river and thought of swimming in the ocean at Gunwalloe. Would he ever see Gunwalloe again?
His father went by, leading the oxen to water. He glanced over. “Get on with it, boy. There’s no time for idleness.”
He went back to work, cutting another armful, and still another.
His father returned with the oxen and left them to graze. A bee buzzed near Val in the warm, lazy day. He was hungry, but there was nothing to eat except at the wagon, and he dared not go back while his father was around, and there was little enough. He might get a piece of jerky.
They had food, but there wouldn’t be enough if they had to stay the winter on this side of the mountains. He went back to work and cut grass. He was still cutting grass when the sun went down, and then slowly he tied up bundles of it and carried them to the wagon.
Ward came by their fire and drank coffee with them.
“Nineteen wagons left,” he said, “and we started with twenty-four. Buried five people along the way.”
“Is that a lot for the trip?” his father asked.
“Can’t rightly say it is. Hansen’s wife died of fever the second week, Burnside shot hisself pulling his rifle out of the wagon, muzzle first, and then there was the Hansen baby, and McCrane who wandered off.”
“Who was the fifth? I don’t recall anybody else?”
“John Helder. He died last night.” Ward glanced at Tom Trevallion. “You two take care of yourselves. I think you can make it out here, and we need good men.” He stood up, swallowed the last of his coffee and placed the cup on the ground near them. “We’ll lose some more before we see the Carson. Folks are in bad shape. Some of the womenfolks are ailin’ and there’s Thorsby. He’s coiled his rope too tight. One of these days she’s goin’ to come unwound, sudden-like.”
They slept the night, at least Val slept part of it. His father seemed to be wide awake whenever Val opened his eyes, staring up at the underside of the wagon.
The day dawned hot and still. Not a breath stirred. At noon they led the oxen to the wagon and hooked up. The horse they tied behind the wagon.
Slowly, without fanfare or confusion, the wagons moved out. Puffs of alkali dust arose from the rolling wheels and the hoofs of the animals. Nobody talked, and there was little yelling at the animals. The oxen, heads low, plodded steadily in an almost hypnotic trance. As the day wore on, the sun grew hotter. Val longed for a drink but dared not ask for one, nor take it.
He glimpsed the rib cage of a mule, half-buried in sand, and a little further along the ruins of a broken wagon, gray and splintery from long exposure. He plodded on, walking beside the lead team. The wagons rumbled along, and they mounted a low rise to look over the land ahead, and there…a miracle of miracles, a shimmering blue lake!
“Pa! Look!”
Others had stopped, staring. “Water! My God, it’s water and they told us—”
“Mirage,” Ward said. “It just looks like water.”
One man turned hotly. “Are you trying to tell me that isn’t a lake yonder?”
“You’ll be seein’ that every day. It’s only mirage. Caused by heat waves or such. Can’t say I understand it myself, but it’s a reg’lar thing out here. Wonder you ain’t seen it before.”
Several of the men gathered together, staring at it. Finally Tom Trevallion turned away. “Maybe it is a lake,” he said, “but it’s off the trail.”
He took up his ox goad and started his team. Reluctantly the others turned back to their teams, and one by one they started.
Suddenly, one of them shouted, “The hell you say!” Deliberately he turned his team and started out toward the shimmering blue water. Ward shouted at him, shouted again, then rode after him, but the man would not listen. “I don’t know what reason you got for lyin’,” he shouted, “but that there’s water!”
Hiram Ward swore bitterly. “He wouldn’t listen. He just wouldn’t listen at all! And he’s got a wife and two youngsters with him!”
“Maybe he’s right,” one man muttered. “Maybe we’re the fools.”
“He’s not right,” Ward said. “There’s a mirage out here somewhere most of the time when the sun’s high. He’ll kill himself. Worst of all, he’ll kill those youngs
ters.”
“If he’s wrong,” a man said, “he can always come back to the trail and follow on.”
Ward shot him an angry glance. “Did you look at his oxen? When they get into that basin they’ll never have strength enough to come out. His only chance will be to leave the wagon and mount his wife and youngsters on the oxen and try to get back. Not one chance in a hundred he’ll have sense enough to try it.”
Slowly they moved on, the heavy wagons rocking and swaying over the desert. After sundown Ward signaled a stop, and they pulled up right where they were, unyoked the oxen and carried to each one a small bundle of hay. It was not enough by far, but it was something. When they had finished, each one was given a hatful of water to drink.
“We’ll rest two hours,” Ward told them. “Then we’ll move on until after midnight. We’ll pull ahead for a few hours after a rest and take another rest just before daybreak or right after.”
“And then?”
“The Carson River by noon, if we’re lucky. Then we’ll rest.”
Val lay down in the wagon, desperately weary. He heard his father fumbling about and then no sound. The movement of the wagon startled him, and he awakened, and for a time he lay still. Had his father forgotten him? Why was he not awakened? He crawled back to the end of the wagon and got down over the tailgate.
His father was plodding along near the oxen, and as Val sighted him, he saw him stagger. For a moment, trembling with fear, he was afraid his father would fall, but he recovered, and plodded on.
Catching up to him, Val said, “Pa? Why don’t you get in the wagon? Why don’t you rest?”
“Don’t be a fool, boy. They’re having all they can do to pull the wagon now, let alone with me in it.”
It was after midnight when they stopped again. The night was very clear and the stars seemed close. There was nothing but the stench of dead animals and dust, ever and always, the dust.
His father sank to the ground and rested his head in his hands, and Val slowly took what remained of the hay to each of the animals, and once more filled his father’s hat with water and gave each animal just that much.
Comstock Lode Page 3