• • •
“You fellers mayn’t know it,” Uncle Jim changed the subject, “but this here’s Thanksgiving and we’re goin’ to have us a feast. But first off, Homer, you trot upstairs and tack somethin’ over that winder I broke. And fetch down my snowshoes so they kin thaw out. Irons, you stoke up that fire and put a lot o’ snow water to boil.”
Sitting on the floor, Uncle Jim pulled off his boots and five pairs of stockings, one at a time. A pair of red socks remained on his feet.
“Brighty,” he said, rocking back on his hands and scratching the burro’s belly with his stockinged toes, “it’s a long night since I seen you! Three year and a mite more!” He gave Brighty a quick smile. “I’m glad you come back, feller, and there’ll be no questions asked.”
Brighty nudged Uncle Jim for more scratching, but the old man saw hungry eyes looking at his pack, and he got up to open it. Wrapped inside the blankets were a side of bacon and small sacks of flour, sugar, coffee, and raisins. Uncle Jim poured a little sugar into his hand and offered it to Brighty.
“Lord-a-mercy,” he said, as the burro lapped it up. “Ye’re ribby as a washboard; it pinches me inside just to look at ye.”
He wiped his hands on his pants and busied himself with supper. “Somebody’s et squirrel meat,” he said, smelling the skillet and wrinkling his nose. “Me, I don’t like my vittles mixed.” He handed the pan over to Irons. “Heat it red-hot, man, and burn the charred mess out o’ it. Then scour it clean with that old burlap sack.
“Now, Homer,” Uncle Jim turned to the boy, who was angling the snowshoes against the fireplace, “you add a handful o’ lard and two o’ snow to this flour and then beat it a hunnert licks. More if yer strength holds out.”
A feeling almost of coziness came into the room—Homer stirring the batter, Irons burnishing the frying pan, and Brighty bunting Uncle Jim just to keep reminding him of their reunion.
While the biscuits were baking, Uncle Jim made a wick from strings of the flour sack and dipped it in a small can of lard. “I likes to see what I’m eatin’!” he pronounced as he lighted the makeshift candle. A bright arrow of flame shot upward, and the bare room seemed transformed.
Homer snuffed the mingled odors of bacon frying and coffee boiling and the lard candle. “Smells mighty nice, Uncle Jim. I been living on nothin’ but apples and snow water for days.”
While the three men sat eating by candlelight, Uncle Jim’s eyes were on Brighty. “Mebbe,” he thought, “I’ll have to wind saplings around his feet like little round snowshoes. No,” he shook his head, “might be all right for horses in Iceland, but not for Brighty.” His gaze went down to the tiny hoofs and he could see them plunging through the crust on the snow and thrashing about in a wild panic to be free. He shuddered. “I’ll puzzle this out some way,” he promised himself.
When Brighty, too, had eaten his biscuits and a handful of raisins, Uncle Jim turned to Irons. “Me and you’ll wash up,” he said, “while Homer works on his snowshoes. ’Pears to me the webs is too far apart. With more crosspieces they won’t be so saggy when they gets wet.”
Brighty footed his way to the salthouse, and after a while Uncle Jim took the candle and looked in on him.
“Jumpin’ kangaroos!” he exploded. “Never seed a critter so neat nor two men so lazy! I’ll be danged if he ain’t mounded all his jobs in one corner and here they be, frozen and ready to pitch out. Yet ain’t a hand done fer him!”
MOON-LILY TEA
WHEN ALL the dishes were put away in the cupboard and the salthouse cleaned, a hush spread over the room. Homer was working on his snowshoes, and Irons sat staring into the fire, screening his face from the others.
Uncle Jim broke the silence, chuckling. “Now’t our bellies is plumb full and everythin’s nice and tidied,” he said to Brighty, “let’s me and you cozy up fer the night.”
He spread his blankets on the floor, and sitting down he pulled off a stocking and drew it back and forth between his toes. “Here I be, feeling good and noble-like,” he sighed, “just ’cause I made a li’l ole jack happy. Don’t it beat all how righteous a feller feels after doin’ a li’l muckin’ out!”
Uncle Jim expected no answer and got none. He wriggled down into his blankets and lay on his back, laughing up at Brighty, who kept circling him, trying to make up his mind where to settle. “Y’know, Bright Angel,” he said, “this is the first time I ever see ye in yer winter coat, and it sure is frowsy. Ye got woolly curls on yer forehead, and over yer eyes it looks ’zackly like a thatched roof. Don’t it, fellers?”
“Sure does,” Homer agreed, as he interlaced the canvas strips of his snowshoes.
Irons grunted in his throat at all the talk of Brighty. He got up to get more wood, and as he passed, the burro shied out of reach.
“Hey!” Uncle Jim raised up on one elbow. “Why’s Brighty so skittish o’ ye?”
Jake Irons did not answer at once. “Why . . . uh,” he floundered at last, “he’s jumpy from being starved. Same as me. Yeah, that’s it.”
The old man’s jaws clamped and his hands made sure of the six-shooter by his side. He turned now to Homer and saw the weary flush of the boy’s face. “Quit workin’, son, and blow out the candle. Tomorrer’s another day. Lemme see,” his voice went drowsy, “we got chuck to last three, four days. Then we got to light out, for better or worser.”
Homer and Irons bedded down in their corners, with Uncle Jim and Brighty on the imaginary dividing line. Quiet again filled the room save for a small, steady ticking. And then, just as Homer’s lips made an O to blow the candle, Irons took out the gold watch and began winding.
Uncle Jim’s heart started knocking against his ribs. The room suddenly seemed to contract. There was nothing in it but the gold watch, like some meteor flashing out of the past. In his mind’s eye he was down in the canyon, seeing Old Timer with the same watch, winding, winding, winding. Old Timer’s murderer here! In this very room—a big, bold, easy target.
The ticking grew louder, like a hammer striking on steel. Uncle Jim flattened his back to the floor, his hands feeling for the revolver. He remembered the sheriff’s promise: “We’ll capture ’im—dead or alive.”
“Dead!” Uncle Jim’s lips formed the word. “Dead it’ll be!” His fingers tightened on the gun, and as he began pulling it out of the blanket he felt a squirming at his back. It was only Brighty settling closer, but the movement jolted the old man’s thoughts. “Who’d be the murderer then? Who? Me! Uncle Jimmy!” And he thought, “Death’s too easy. He’s got to atone. Me and Brighty’ll pack him out alive!”
He saw the watch now held to Jake Irons’ ear, saw it returned to its pocket, saw him cover himself with a blanket strangely familiar and get ready for sleep.
“Them li’l pin eyes!” Uncle Jim thought. “Pack rat’s eyes!” His mind began pacing back and forth. Suddenly it pounced on an idea and he reached around, patting Brighty as if thanking him for the interruption.
“It’ll work!” he said to himself with fierce determination. He waited until his angry trembling was over and his breathing steadied. Then into the silence he forced a belch. It was a big gusty belch, and it was followed by another, even louder.
“My stummick’s kind o’ queasy-like,” he said, throwing off his blankets. “That bacon grease seems to o’ gagged me. Guess I’ll brew up a pot o’ Moon Lily tea. I recollect seein’ a packet of pods.”
He went over to the cupboard to get them. “Ye all just lay there and I’ll give ye some when it’s done.” He opened the outside door a crack, filled the coffeepot with snow and set it over the fire.
“The Piute Indians thought a heap o’ Moon Lily tea,” he went on, his breath slow and even now. “Used it for the stummick, and other troubles. Wisht we had us some canned milk, but it’s flavory even this way.”
He remembered to belch again, and then he made a great racket setting out the tin cups to be sure no one fell asleep. “Either o’ ye fellers feel sick?” he asked.
“Not me,” Homer said.
When the tea was ready, Uncle Jim handed a steaming cup to Homer, and one to Irons. Then he sat down alongside Brighty to sip his own.
“Get yer nose out o’ this,” he laughed. “This here’s one thing ain’t good for man and beast.”
“Why, it tastes nice,” Homer pronounced. “And to think it was here all the time!”
Irons gulped noisily and set the empty cup on the floor.
“It’s a queer thing about this Moon Lily tea!” Uncle Jim said. “The Piutes had a great use fer it asides fer the stummick.” He interrupted himself with a belch. “Now take, f’rinstance, if some thief stole a hoss . . .”
“What then?” Homer asked.
“Then,” Uncle Jim said, “they’d find a way to get a cup o’ this-here tea into ’im, and in a little while the tea’d loosen his tongue and he jest couldn’t stop blabbin’. He’d tell ’zackly where he stole that hoss and where he’d hid it.”
“Honest?” Homer asked, and added, “I’m glad I ain’t stole nothin’.” He hesitated. “ ’Cept once I took some overripe peaches out of a orchard down to Fredonia.”
“By thunder!” Uncle Jim slapped his leg in delight. “Ye’re still guzzlin’ yer tea and already ye’re confessin’! The Piutes used to say, ‘Big crime take longer.’”
There was a moment or two of silence before Uncle Jim pointed his revolver at Irons and asked, “How ’bout ye, Jake? Tea beginning to sweat out any thievin’ or killin’? How about a murder? Y’ever hear o’ Old Timer?”
Irons choked and his face went purple-red. The questions were striking into him like barbed arrows. He tried to get up but he only writhed in his blankets, hands held against his stomach. “I been poisoned! I been poisoned!” he screamed. “It was Old Timer’s fault! His own fault!” The words poured out in a torrent. “He was there on that ledge and I aimed to pass and his footing give way and he fell—splash—into the river.”
“And p’raps”—Uncle Jim’s voice was slow-measured—“p’raps his footing give way ’cause you pushed him? Just a leetle? Eh, Irons?”
Irons’ voice shrilled. “No! No! No! ’Twas only a little nudge I give him and he made a death scream and he was bobbin’ in the water like a piece of wood, and then he got sucked under.”
“You awake, Homer?”
“Yes, Uncle Jim.”
“Willing to be my witness, Homer?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And so ye stole his watch, Irons?”
“He hadn’t no need for it! The sheriff came, and another old coot, and I warn’t going to give them the watch.”
“That other ole coot was me, Irons.”
Terror caught at the man. He tried to stop his lips with the back of his hand, but the tumble of words rushed on. “That Old Timer,” he shrieked hysterically, “could’ve kept his old rocks. They never paid off.”
Uncle Jim’s eyes were cold and mocking. “Now, ain’t that just too bad. Here I thought ’twas a nice big vein, like the one bulgin’ on yer forehead.”
Irons clasped his head. “No! No! No!” His voice rose to the breaking point.
“That rifle,” Uncle Jim demanded, “where’d you throw the gold plate on it?”
“In the fire! In the fire!”
“At a cabin back a ways in the meadow?”
The man screeched his “Yes.”
Still holding the revolver on Irons, Uncle Jim walked backward, skirting around Brighty. He took his own rifle off the cupboard and gave it to Homer. “We’ll have to stand watches on this scoundrel,” he said to the boy, “till we can hand him over to the law. As fer ye, Jake Irons, one move and that loose clapper o’ yer tongue will be stopped fer good.”
As Homer took the rifle, a change came over him, an almost man-grown look. He pointed it at Irons and settled himself, ready to shoot.
“By the way,” he asked after a while, “how’s your stummick feel now, Uncle Jim?”
For answer the old man threw his arms around Brighty’s neck and laughed into the shaggy hair. “Moon Lily tea, me eye!” he chortled. “Them weren’t any lily pods. I gave ye real green tea what I packed along from Fredonia!”
NO ESCAPE?
THE SNOW continued to fall. For four days more it piled up. Now only the rooftree and the chimney of the house were uncovered. Inside, the feeling of desperation grew. The tunnel of the wide porch had seemed a last avenue of escape. Now it, too, slowly closed in.
Three pairs of snowshoes against the wall, waiting. The men and the burro grown thin, waiting. Flour almost gone. Even the candle grease eaten. And now hunger gnawing, hurting, and morning and night stalking each other, and Old Timer’s watch sounding big in the quiet.
With the windows sealed, the air grew foul. Homer called out in his nightmares. “Uncle Jim! Uncle Jim! I can’t breathe! They’re clampin’ the box lid down. They got my fingers caught. Save me, Uncle Jim. Save me!”
Even Brighty slept fitfully. He took to nightwalking. From salthouse to hearth, from hearth to salthouse, back and forth, back and forth, until Irons’ nerves too were breaking.
“Stop him!” he screamed at Uncle Jim. “I’m going crazy! Stop him!”
“Humph!” Uncle Jim snorted. “You been crazy all along, crazy as a hoot owl, thinkin’ to get away from the law.” He shook his pistol like a forefinger. “A quick, outright killin’ is too nice fer the likes o’ ye. There’s got to be a trial with eyes boring into ye, and questions spit at ye, and ye a-sweatin’ and a-squirmin’.”
A new idea struck him. “Or could be,” his voice dropped to a whisper, “could be the snow’s the law. Mebbe the snow’s yer leg irons, holdin’ ye down til ye starve to death.”
Just saying the words and trying to make his voice sound big took all the old man’s strength. He leaned against the wall to hide his exhaustion.
A crazed look came into Irons’ eyes. “I ain’t going to starve! I ain’t going to die!” He reached under his blankets where he had hidden some raisins in a soup can. He popped one into his mouth and another, squashing them with his tongue, then chewing fiercely to get the full strength.
Without a word of warning, Uncle Jim drew a bead on the tin can and shot it out of Irons’ hand. The man fell back, unhurt, on his blanket.
“What happened? What happened?” Homer called out in alarm.
“Nothin’ much,” Uncle Jim chuckled. “A rat was just makin’ off with the last o’ our raisins and I sure scared the livin’ daylights out o’ him.”
“I heard tell of starving people eating rats,” Homer said.
“You nor me couldn’t stummick this one, Homer. It was a sick ’un, enough to pizen yer blood. I missed him a-purpose.” He relaxed against the wall and felt stronger for the sureness of his aim.
“Uncle Jim?” A pink flush crawled up Homer’s face to his temples.
“Yup?”
“Supposin’ we don’t make ’er out of here?”
“Ye’re talkin’ foolish now.”
“But just suppose.”
“All right. I’m supposin’.” He looked at Homer and saw that the boy seemed overcome with what he had to say. “What is it frets ye, son?”
“It’s just . . .” Homer’s voice faltered. “I wanted to tell you . . . I’m sorry.”
“Pshaw. I knowed ye was. Knowed it all along. But hadn’t been fer ye, we might never o’ catched Jake Irons, nor had us this reunion with Bright Angel. I’m tired now, boy. How’d it be if ye stood watch fer a bit?” The old man talked on, but his words were muffled in drowsiness as sleep overcame him.
The boy sat up straighter, his back against the cupboard, his rifle pointed toward the dark lump that was Irons.
BLAZING GUNS
HOMER SEEMED alone—all, all alone with sleep. He was shut in with sleep, and it was deep as the night is and long as the day is. The steady sounds of sleep came to him—Uncle Jim’s a slow purring, and Irons’ the harsh snore of a man lying on his back. But Brighty’s was une
ven, troubled perhaps by dreams.
As he kept his lonely watch, Homer’s fingers played along the rifle, feeling the chill of the steel, feeling the four tiny holes where the gold plate had been. He rubbed the smoothly polished wood, and his thumbnail made an imaginary notch.
“I could do it now!” he said to himself, and a fierce joy leaped up in him. “I could kill Jake while Uncle Jim sleeps. I could pull the trigger. It’d be easy. Just one little pull, and then I could sleep, too.”
His forefinger slid around the trigger guard, then fitted itself into the curve of the trigger. He raised the rifle and took aim. A shadow leaped up on the wall. It was the barrel of the rifle, a finger, accusing. “Coward!” it said. “Coward!”
Homer tried to ignore the pointing finger, but it side-tracked him without his willing it. He looked at Uncle Jim and thought of his gallant courage. How little he seemed, and old! And the forelock of his hair was all of one color with Brighty’s—a dusty gray, like sagebrush.
The thought of sagebrush set Homer to longing for summer winds and summer skies, and he forgot he had intended to kill a man. He shrugged at the shadow on the wall, and with a sigh lowered the rifle.
The fire licked its way around the logs and one log fell with a shower of sparks. Blue vapor curled and rose and the boy watched the flames, letting his ears listen for trouble.
But there was none. Only the fire making little crackles like squirrel feet running on dry leaves. And the sleep sounds—deepening, slowing.
Homer’s eyelids began to droop. He blinked rapidly, trying to focus on the objects in the room. He picked out his snowshoes and made believe they were magic. He could put them on and walk off across the snow to a table set with chicken legs, and he would gnaw them clean as if he were a dog, and then he would suck on the bones. But the table faded away and in its place he saw nothing but snow—downy, drowsy snow, drifting gently down.
The gauzy stuff enfolded him, whirled him slowly around, until he was sucked up and up into a cloud. And the cloud was made of feathers of sleep—so restful, so restful. He cushioned his head in their soft comfort and his eyelids closed.
Brighty of the Grand Canyon (Marguerite Henry Horseshoe Library) Page 12
