“Best carry your rucksack if you’re able. Enough weight on her as it is. Hobble her at night. Let her forage for grass. Treat her well.” The blacksmith glances at the sun. “The Spuzzum Ferry is eleven miles or so on. Roadhouse there’s run by Duteau and his half-breed wife. She makes a fine stew. Likely you could make it if you left now.”
“Spuzzum?”
“It’s Indian for something. Don’t recall for what. You’ll find there’s a lot of that around here.”
≈ ≈ ≈
What had he expected? Towering sentinels rigged up in gold miner’s garb? A wayward, black-shawled fate? No, but he had expected some sense of a beginning. He looks back as he rounds a bend, can no longer see the high outline of that tire shrinking contraption outside of Yale, can no longer see any vestige of civilization at all. Thinks of Lot’s wife. He is not one to criticize God’s decisions. Yet it does seem rather harsh to have turned her into a pillar of salt for simply looking back. It is such a simple, human desire, and harmless withal.
But come now, Eugene Augustus, is not the canyon stupendous? In all your travels through Italy, France, even in your unwanted travels through the lands of the Ottoman Turks, have you ever seen a more ingenious road? Eugene has to agree with himself. He has not. The road, wide enough for a team of oxen, has been hacked and blasted from the cliffs. The bulwarking of rocks and logs is at times fifty feet high. No barrier guards against a wrong step. Not that Eugene trembles from heights. Once swung from a belfry on a dare. But this is different. The swirl of the river works a hypnotist’s spell. And this is no Roman road that has proven its strength over centuries. This is so newly built that the cribbing logs are still paler where the bark has been ripped back. And how secure is that cribbing? If the road workers misplaced one log it could mean his death. The entire buttress could crack out from under him. Though it need not be so dramatic; a mere slip would do.
He steers Zuri closer to the canyon walls, tries to eradicate the image of himself pinwheeling into the gorge, his wail heard by naught but the birds and by this mule who would no doubt plod on without him, undaunted, uncaring. His body would be smashed beyond recognition. It would not be found for days, weeks, months, perhaps at all, and who would care in any case about one more lost miner?
He must write a note, yes. He will keep it in his coat pocket. It will explain who he is should his ravaged body be found. It will declare his love for Dora, instruct that all his worldly goods be left to her. He catalogues these worldly goods and comes up with a short list indeed. Ah, but at least his love is endless.
He stops and heaves off his rucksack. It has grown heavier in the preceding hours, has left a great blotch of sweat on his back, a cutting ache in his shoulders. He spreads the map on Zuri’s haunches. They are the only souls in sight. If not for the fly-thick turds of oxen and other mules he might wonder if they are the only souls for a thousand miles. The canyon has that sort of eeriness. Has a green liquidity cut with columns of light, an ominous quiet but for the river roiling below. Pines and spruce cling to the dry cliffs, and the shadows of vast clouds stretch over the earth like those of monsters awakening. Where is this bloody Lady Franklin’s rock? Her rock should be monumental. Something worthy of her epic search for her husband lost somewhere in the arctic ice. Would Dora search for Eugene with such determination if he should vanish? Or would she wait and wait for a return that never came, become a shadow from lamenting for him? Or would she curse his name, believing he had abandoned her? He doesn’t know. He should know. Why hadn’t they discussed such things?
He pulls on Zuri’s bridle. “Come, damn you, the day has outrun us.”
The road dips down and the river breathes out mist. Eugene recognizes fir, balsam, hemlock, maples: comforting trees that might speckle an English countryside. A bird screeches. From ahead comes the sound of rocks dislodging and splashing into the river. Bears? Lions? He hauls out his rifle. Are they being watched? Are Indians clinging to the cliff as stubbornly as the pines? And this mule. Is it possible she is slowing? Smacking her makes no difference. It is like smacking a stone.
“Move! Giddyup! Christ!” His shouts echo back to him. Zuri’s ears do not even flicker. It is alike to the dreams where he must run but cannot, as if his legs were mired in molasses. Think of other things. What did Oppenheimer say? That this road is an engineering wonder. The eighth in all the world. But then anything built larger than a grist mill is called the eighth bloody engineering wonder of the world. Which begs the question. What are the other seven? The pyramids of Giza. Cheeps, no Cheops, the largest one. No, that is an ancient wonder. But engineering went into it. They must be the same. And the Colossus of Rhodes, so huge it bestrode the harbour. A lighthouse of some description. A temple. A tomb. And the hanging gardens, yes, of Babylon.
“How many men can name so bloody many? Tell me that, damnit.”
Zuri answers with a great mournful blast, as if she has suddenly recalled some great tragedy. It startles a flock of small birds roosting in a copse of trees nearby. It certainly startles Eugene.
She haws again, ends it with a gasping sob.
“Quite so, are you finished? Zuri. It does not suit. Something tragic is what is needed here. Semele? Dido? Medea. Hah, what of Ariadne? Leading her Theseus through the maze. For I will be abandoning you as soon as possible, mark my words. And then you’ll have something to mourn.”
She flicks her ears. Eugene pushes her from behind to no avail. He hauls on her bridle. She shows her teeth, plods ever slower. Her nose. It shows white where the bridle has rubbed, where the ash once was. At least Eugene thinks it is ash. Not that it matters. What matters is that Eugene has been duped. He has bought an ancient mule, a mule ready for the knacker’s yard. For dog meat. Why was he not suspicious? A mere forty dollars for such a prize of a mule? And an aparejo and oiled canvas? And hadn’t that damned Canadian been over-eager to help him load her? As if to get Eugene on his way before he changed his mind. He could turn back. He has been on the road only four hours or so. He could demand the return of his money. But then he will still have the problem of how to haul his supplies. This decrepit mule was apparently the only one to be had in Yale. “You’re lucky to get her,” the blacksmith said. No matter, he will return her forthwith to the blacksmith and then reduce his supplies to the barest minimum. He has seen others equipped with one rucksack alone. Come now, Eugene Augustus, who ever returns money once a deal has been made? The blacksmith will merely say the mule had been nosing in the cold forge fire. No fault of his if Eugene could not tell an old mule from a young one. Green hand. Greenhorn. Useless son of the minor gentry.
“Christ’s blood and damnation!” he shouts. “Son of a whore!” He curses the blacksmith and all his Canadian brethren—a drab people who will be forgotten by England, wrapped whole in the Yankee flag, and then popped down history’s sewer. He curses all mules. A eunuch species, ignoble and traitorous. In no great tales do they figure, none that he can recall.
The echo of his shouts fades. He opens a jar of brandy and takes a steadying drink. Feels the warmth of it down to his boots. A flush of the old courage. Unrolls his map again. “You’ll be lucky to make it to Spuzzum,” the blacksmith said, no doubt chuckling inside. Yes, Ariadne is slow. She is old. She is most likely stone deaf. But she is moving forward. They are moving forward. The day is still fine. Steady on each and every day. You will make it to the goldfields. Only keep your wits, man.
He takes a great breath. “Come then, my girl. Let us get through this labyrinth.” And so they continue, Eugene imagining them merely as two old friends, walking in the park, each pondering alone life’s great mysteries.
≈ ≈ ≈
Two or more hours pass. The light is fading in the canyon and still no sign of this Spuzzum Ferry and roadhouse. Again he checks his pocket watch. At a mile per half-hour or so he should be nearly there. He takes another swallow of brandy. Holds a measure of it in his palm for Ariadne. She licks it with greater enthusiasm than she has shown
for anything else all day.
The road winds ever closer to the riverbed. The sky is a cobalt blue. Not a cloud. Hardly a wind. “We could camp, Ariadne. It is possible,” he says with little conviction.
Ariadne nuzzles the brush by the road. Ridiculous, this chatting to a deaf mule. Next he’ll be chatting to his pickaxe. His tin pan.
He tethers Ariadne and scrambles down toward the broad bank of the river. Drinks deeply from a pooled space and fills his water flask, notices, a short distance on, the smashed remains of a rocker caught in the river rocks, and a glinting in the trees just beyond. He wanders over. Ah, a forest glade. . . . Good Christ. That sweetish odour. He knows it. The road is hidden from view. Ariadne is hidden from view. There is the rush of the river, the rushing in his ears. A ferocious carved bear sits atop some nightmare creature. Poles with torn banners of calico and trade cloth. Spindly scaffolding hung with axes, pipes, bows, arrows, kettles, a wheeled toy. Atop the scaffolding are canoes. In them are bodies swathed and propped upright. One skull is near clean of flesh. Another is half-decayed. A third is intact but for its eyes, which are being picked out by the birds.
“Quite bloody so.” He backs away, revolver in hand. Hears footfalls.
“Who’s there! Goddamnit! Who’s there? I’ll fire. I’m well-armed!”
There, along the riverbank, passing not fifteen feet before him. Indians. Thirty at least, including the children. They wear deer hide, blanket cloaks, trade bangles, beaded necklaces, calico. One man wears a scarlet tunic with epaulettes, another a linen duster. A woman wears a fanciful bonnet, its lace torn to shreds. They have rifles and long knives and carry boxes of goods from tramping lines across their foreheads. They pay him no mind, as if he does not exist. The breeze carries their odour of old leaves, earth, uncured hide. All except the very young are terribly scarred from the pox. Some have one eye that is milk-white, gelid. One woman is wholly blind. She walks with her hand on the shoulder of the boy before her. Eugene could call out Klahohya or Tillicum. At least one of them must know Chinook. He will tell them he is just a sojourner. Then what? No, they are not interested in conversation. They are not even speaking to each other. Eugene’s mouth is dry. If they are hostile, he is doomed. Dammit all. This road is not a place for a man alone.
The man bringing up the rear is slightly built, stoop-shouldered. He wears spectacles, a trade blanket coat, the white of it now grey with dust, the edge stripes of red and green encrusted with dirt. His left eye is a hole, rawly healed. His right eye passes over Eugene, but he gives no indication that he has seen him. And it is not a trick of the thinning light. His matted hair is blonde, his skin dark from the sun alone. Eugene does not call out. Could not even if he wanted to. The people disappear ’round the bend. At that instant a boom reverberates through the canyon. Ariadne haws. Eugene drops his revolver and it clatters on the stones.
≈ ≈ ≈
“And so you see Hank?”
“Is that his name? Then, yes, I saw him just several miles back. I saw an Indian graveyard as well.” Eugene says this to Gerald Duteau, the caretaker of the Spuzzum roadhouse. Duteau glances to his wife who is busy at the stove. She ladles out a plate of stew and hands it to Eugene, instructs him to eat.
“My thanks, madam. I have never smelled anything so fine,” Eugene says. He is not exaggerating. He has never been so ravenous. Still, he must concentrate on each bite so that he is not tempted to push the stew aside, so that he does not think of the half-decayed skulls, that sweet and sickening odour.
The roadhouse is a one room affair of whipsawn logs caulked with manure and straw. A greased cloth serves as a window, beaten earth for the floor. A fire cracks at the far end and throws shadows over the men already in their blanket rolls. The other men make room for Eugene at the sawbuck table. They are twelve or so all together, Oswald among them. He is picking his teeth with his knife. His boots sit beside him and his heels are bound with bloodied cloth.
“Fucking blasting,” he mutters. “Fucking boots.”
“It is not always meet to be in a great hurry,” Eugene says. “You are familiar with the tale of the tortoise and the hare?”
“No I god-blamed ain’t,” Oswald says and spits into the fire.
“Ah, quite so, in any case . . .”
Duteau hands Eugene a glass of grog. “On house,” he says, and then, after a pause: “And he look at you?”
“Who? Ah, the strange Whiteman. He stared straight at me, sir, but said nothing though I called to him. I said I was a friend in various tongues, but it was as if I had disappeared. Should he be rescued? Brought back to the fold of civilization.”
“Christ’s balls! He don’t need fuck-what rescuing. He’s gone Indian,” Oswald says.
Duteau agrees that the man has. “He is from New York, this Hank. He came up in ’58, with maybe eight more, all green hands. Maybe he was clerk or scholar. I don’t know. But his friends, they leave him behind. That in ’59. It different then. Not like now. Now it easy. Then we have no roads, no roadhouses, no good cooking like this. And in ’58, it worse. Some Whitemen rape the Indian women and the Indians they chop off heads and send the bodies back down river, until us men, we march up river with guns and we make a peace. And in ’59 we make own trails. In spring we go along the canyon walls like lizards because the water it toss a canoe like a leaf. The Indians they make boards narrow like hands and hang them along the cliff with the ropes of deer hide. So it is, what? A ledge, yes? But one time it break and a Mexican he fall long time, and the water swallow him and we never see him more. But of this Hank and his friends, they stay too late and winter coming. And this Hank he is sick and his friends they think he die so they leave him with a gun and water and food and go back with the not much gold they have. If they carry him they all die, maybe that what they tell him. After days the Indians come and these Indians pity this Hank and take him to their place. And this Hank he hate his friends for leaving him and he loves Indians now and he marry to one of their women and dress like an Indian and worships the spirits like an Indian.”
“And what of his eye? And their eyes?” Eugene asks.
“That winter the pox it come and kill off half the tribe and Hank he take care of them, and some live, but near all have only one eye now and some are blind and most are scarful and ugly. And they put the muck-a-mucks high up with their goods and that is what you see, their graveyard with the old dead and the new. And they say it Hank’s fault and that he make a spell because only he not getting sick. I suppose he have pox before or he lanced. And so they going to kill him or send him away—I hear two stories there–but he swears he an Indian and that he not speak English again and he not look at Whitemen again and he take a hot stick from the fire and he cut out his one eye, and now he think that he like to them and one to them.”
“He is mad, poor man,” Eugene says, and the other men voice agreement.
Duteau shrugs, says: “Now this tribe, none look at a Whiteman now. They say we ghosts, evil spirits, and if they not look at us we go away.”
“A tribe of one-eyed men,” Eugene says. “Better than Ulysses and the Cyclops.”
“I never heard of him and a, whaddya-call-it, Cyclops,” Oswald says.
“A Cyclops is a one-eyed giant. His name was . . . was. . . . Ah, it has slipped my mind.”
“Whaddya blathering about, one-eyed fucknit giants.”
“Ulysses.”
“Grant’s killing them whore-son rebs. He ain’t fighting no one-eyed monsters.”
“Hah, quite so. I see we are speaking at opposite ends. I am speaking of an ancient hero written of thousands of years ago. The hero was gone from his beloved wife for twenty years or some such and had many adventures in his returning. You, if I am correct, are speaking of the inestimable Ulysses S. Grant, hero of many battles against your Southern adversaries.”
“There ain’t no one-eyed monsters in America, see.”
“Most likely not.”
“If there were they’d be in fo
r a holy fucking thrashing.” Oswald says this as if daring Eugene to argue with him. Eugene chooses not to. Instead he calls for a toast. “For our first true day on this wondrous wagon road. What do you say, gentlemen? I am standing treat. Mr. Duteau, a glass of your finest grog for each of us here, and one for yourself and your lovely wife as well.”
They toast the road, and then an end to the blasting which is holding up their passage, and then to poor Hank. The conversation saws back and forth across the table. The men sleeping are oblivious. Twice Eugene catches Duteau and his wife glancing at him and then each other. It makes him uneasy. He is not so far gone yet. Not compared to some of these others who look and smell as if they haven’t bathed in months, who have the look of men born under hard circumstances, their fists forever curled.
Mr. Duteau makes his bed atop the bar to insure that no one has a midnight thirst. Mrs. Duteau hands Eugene another blanket though he has not asked for one. She smiles and pats his arm.
He tries to sleep amid the snoring, his head on his rucksack, his supplies near at hand. What do the Indians expect their dead will receive after all the preparations? A great blue river? Woods of endless game? What, for that matter, is the reward for the Queen’s Prince Albert, stuffed with spices in his marble mausoleum? What is the reward for Eugene’s dead parents and his three siblings, dead at infancy or in childhood, buried in the family crypt? What will be his? Furniture made of puffy white clouds? God’s rays? Winged cherubs? Would that he could believe it.
Eleven
Another night in the Bastion Square jail and the men are snoring, the boy is crying in his sleep, and the idiot no longer seems a harmless presence, rather like a creature sucking marrow from fresh bones. How can the bastards sleep so easily? It is as if sleep were one of those small inconsequential actions, like pulling on your boots.
Reckoning of Boston Jim Page 11
