California Bloodstock

by Terry McDonell

  T. D. Jr. was pleased. He had followed her, less than a day behind, in spite of himself, and if she was glad to see him, then it was worth it. He hoped she needed help.

  Hi.

  Hi.

  How sweet, Peach said, and smirked at T. D. Jr.

  Ignore him, Taya said. He has bad manners.

  Bad manners! Peach was outraged. If there’s anybody here with bad manners, he said to T. D. Jr., anybody who forgets who their friends are, it’s your wife.

  Wife? T. D. Jr. said he didn’t have a wife.

  Oh, I get it, Peach said. He whistled through his teeth and started swiveling his hips at Taya like an aroused dog. Boys will be boys.

  T. D. Jr. jumped him from the saddle and a fistfight ensued. Taya acted like she wasn’t interested. Maybe she wasn’t. She walked away from the two of them grappling in the dust and saw to getting fresh horses. When T. D. Jr. and Peach realized that she wasn’t watching them, their enthusiasm wilted and the fight was over. The crowd that had gathered jeered at them for not acting like men.

  Taya was waiting outside the gate. When T. D. Jr. found her she snapped at him.

  I can take care of myself, she said.

  Then go ahead.

  But he didn’t want her to leave. It was a game they had begun to play. Call it go away closer.

  They both gave in. It was determined that if they had not found her father by the time it snowed in the mountains, she would accompany T. D. Jr. back to Yerba Buena, where they would both reconsider everything. That settled, they rode away from Sutter’s Fort and made an early camp that afternoon on the American River.

  51

  American River

  The sky was thin, weatherless. Taya had some questions. She was not sure what she was up against in the puzzles of men.

  She heard the fervid ticking of grasshoppers in the tall grass that stretched back from their camp on the lush river bank. The scratchy breathing of lizards and toads hung in the thick summer dusk like pagan tapestries. When T. D. Jr. told her he’d be right back and walked leisurely upstream, she waited a moment and then followed him. She tracked him silently, a short distance off to his right. He stopped in a grove of ferns, faced a deadfall, and unbuttoned his trousers. She moved closer.

  Casually, he drew out his penis and took aim at a line of red ants moving along the rotting wood. His yellow stream squirted out and splattered the insects, tracing their supply line with a smooth stain that began at once to disappear. With a flick of his wrist he was done. As the last drops fell at his feet, he turned his head and there she was, studying him.

  Offering no explanation, no apology, nothing, she reached down and took hold of his cock. It felt cold and weightless in her palm, like a small dead bird. He just stood there, unable to move, as she examined him. She stretched him out, noting the suppleness and the tender pink mushroom of a head. On an impulse she suddenly squeezed with all her strength and was surprised that he didn’t flinch. She began kneading and soon felt him begin to grow and harden. It seemed to her that he was filling with hot sand. She looked up into his face and saw him trembling.

  I…I…he stammmered. You….

  She released her grip and walked back to camp. He joined her presently and tried to make small talk. He asked her mundane questions about the weather. She could tell he was embarrassed and ignored him. She had to think. The river slid past her, hurrying to sneak through the delta and on into the San Francisco Bay. She had no way of knowing, of course, that one of the men she was after would make a discovery of his own at that very spot less than a week later, a discovery that would twist all their lives again. Even old T. D.’s in far-off Yerba Buena.

  52

  Brannan

  Dogs barked. Roosters crowed. Early birds lost in a grey sky sailed over the stainless bay of San Francisco searching for the mud flats.

  Damnable fog!

  Old T. D. Slant tumbled irritably into the morning, the furry residue of last night’s brandy hanging in his throat like spider webs. He felt his life moving ahead of him, like the town itself, growing just a bit too fast. And no wonder, he had taken up with Brannan, that landjobbing Mormon from Maine.

  Already Brannan had a suburb of adobes squatting among the sand hills at the beach. He had his people slapping up two flour mills on Clay Street with the lumber he had others milling down the peninsula and had his eye on some of the action at Sutter’s Fort. Plus, he was initiating publication of a weekly newsletter to be called the California Star. That’s where old T. D. Slant came in. Consider Slant a consulting editor.

  There was much to be done and Brannan had confessed to Slant his need for someone with hard editorial experience, someone who knew the territory, a nuts-and-bolts, meat-and-potatoes, ball-and-cap, jack-and-hammer sort of fellow to help him whack out his grandstand ideas. The Mormon saw California as a fine country, an ecology favored with a bountiful nature by the Lord himself. A good place for good people. Yet he also perceived waste, both physical and moral, cysting up like so many carbuncles on the fair face of paradise. Something had to be done and, as president of the Associated Immigrants for God, Brannan felt the lance of responsibility heavy in his hands. The decadent Californios and their swarthy Spanish ancestors had accomplished practically nothing in the way of good works, and the Worm Eaters were, of course, beneath consideration. It was time for nature’s more worthy children, he told Slant, time for them to step in and set grade for the road to prosperity. And his newspaper would be like a clean wind, blowing away the old fogs of sloth and ignorance, scattering the seeds of development across the land. Brannan heard California singing.

  Old T. D. Slant was amused. What a colossal joke. But then what is a joke to a man with a jaded life?

  53

  Foothills

  T. D. Jr. looked at the peaks of the Sierra Nevada in the distance and thought they were spectacular. He raved to Taya about the majestic qualities of the layered light he saw shining down through the passes. And what scale!

  But getting there proved tricky. As they rode farther up into the foothills, his wonder at what he saw in the distance gave way to the insidious frustrations of where he actually was. The bleary flatness of the giant valley that fell away behind them looked comfortable in comparison. The steepening hills were thick with brittle growth unimagined in the East. Ticks dropped down his collar. And worst of all, a full day of sweaty travel seemed to gain them nothing. Trails disappeared in dusty box ravines and the cresting of one ridge merely called up the need to crest another. There was no end to it, like chasing the horizon.

  His only pleasure came in the evenings. He would remove his shirt and sit with his back to the fire while Taya searched him for ticks. Her fingers skimmed over his clear skin like tiny water birds. He felt them in an intricate and gentle tatoo across his shoulders and down his spine. Then the twisting pinch, and she would lean close around him with one of the parasites on display like a peppercorn oozing blood between her slender fingers.

  Since the American River, a certain tension had been tightening between them, and he ached for her now, for her smooth legs and perfect hands. He imagined tracing them with his tongue, taking all of her delicate parts between his lips and….

  Late at night, cock in hand, he would stare at her across the dying fire and shut out all else. Gone, the clouds flying past the moon and the wind purling through sumac and oak. Gone, the hard ground beneath him and the beasts ranging about in the dark. Gone, everything except his image of her, pacing his climax like a string of mules winding up into some far-off pass. Then wet spurts, and he would rise up in an arch before falling back on his blankets to moan himself to sleep.

  A light sleeper, Taya would sometimes be awakened by his muffled howling and ask him what was up. He would explain earnestly that because he was an artist he had the dreams of an artist. And such dreams were incomplete without certain guttural punctuation. The muse demanded it, he told her, and he had no control anyway.

  He assumed she under
stood that he was just being polite, and hoped that she was flattered by such exquisite and complicated longings. But she considered his dreams presumptous and icky. When he tried to explain what he was feeling with subtle hints and innuendos, she yawned.

  It was not that she didn’t have healthy appetites of her own, or that she didn’t like him. She liked him fine and even felt a certain tingle when she looked at him sometimes. But she had decided that certain things were impossible.

  Then one day, when they had almost cleared the foothills, she asked him about his dreams. They had stopped earlier than usual and were looking back down over the way they had come. She wanted to know if his dreams were always the same.

  No, he told her. Except they are always, uh, inspiring.

  She didn’t say anything. He thought maybe he had misunderstood her question. Perhaps it wasn’t a question at all, an invitation maybe.

  I dream about beautiful things, he said, hoping it was what she wanted to hear.

  She still didn’t say anything. He felt her silence tightening around him as if he had made some terrible mistake. He decided to take a chance. He asked her about her dreams, what they were made of, what she saw in them.

  Dead animals, she said.

  Buckdown would have been proud.

  THIRTEEN

  54

  Buckalo

  Who was to say that Buckdown was crazy? Certainly none in his herd. He schooled them in inconsistency, teaching them never to move in any discernible pattern. He emphasized milling about, like so many shag balls blowing on the wind. And when trouble came they must scatter, he insisted, gallop off like smithereens. It would drive the white hunters nuts and make the Indians even more respectful.

  Some were slow to understand, but he was patient, touching them constantly, assuring them, loving on them. Eventually he even took some of the slower learners as wives, figuring that his seeds, packed as they were with savvy, might improve the line.

  Buckdown explained later that couplings were rather awkward at first, but by the spring of 1846 there were a number of little buckaloes roaming with the herd. If Buckdown is to be believed, it is not unreasonable to speculate that these results of his snortings into the bovine life force had something to do with the eventual long march into Canada that saved what was left of the herd many years later. It is impossible to know for sure.

  Anyway, Buckdown lived with the buffalo and tried to forget. Occasionally he would leave his herd to seek out His Own Ghost. The strange Indian was always glad to see him. They would smoke a little tolache together and consider various aspects of the mythic content. Buckdown aspired to join the ranks of the Animal People, a pantheon with which His Own Ghost was sociable. But the sly albino was not about to forfeit his connections with a hasty or undistinguished recommendation and was somewhat standoffish whenever Buckdown broached the subject.

  Your motives are pure, His Own Ghost would tell him, but I’m afraid there are certain weaknesses in your background. All that animal murder in your youth, you know.

  But Buckdown would not be daunted, and his determination never failed to touch the shaman and make him feel proud, like a warrior when a daughter asks why she, too, cannot steal horses. So although His Own Ghost knew that he could not in good conscience encourage Buckdown, he cheated a little and did not discourage him either.

  When it was time to say goodby, His Own Ghost always presented Buckdown with a new supply of his potent little buttons and one of his favorite double-edged cantos: Go your own way and you will get what you deserve.

  His Own Ghost knew that the Animal People were always watching. They were very sneaky.

  55

  Animal People

  To and from his rendezvous with His Own Ghost, Buckdown routinely sabotaged whatever works of man he came across. Former colleagues, making their rounds to collect the soft pelts that made such fine hats and coats for the sissies back east, found their traps prematurely sprung and their bait buried. Such men were, of course, too singleminded to suspect one of their own kind of such bizarre and unnatural subversion. They figured it was the arrogant red man again, axing, out of ignorance and envy, at the roots of an obviously superior wilderness technology. Incidents occurred.

  As for the Indians, whenever they found a fish dam mysteriously busted or watched a herd of antelope veer suddenly away from a carefully conceived ambush, they usually cartooned the event into their oral history as the Great Spirit having a little fun at their expense. Occasionally, however, if Buckdown’s mischief was a shade too obvious, a philosophic brave might build a fire and proceed to dead-color the sky with smoke signals suggesting (generally with a rather heavy-handed irony) that the Animal People were at it again. Buckdown could read their smoky semaphores and was encouraged by such flattering speculation, but back with the herd he was never known to brag like he had in his book.

  FOURTEEN

  56

  The Edge of History

  Brass-colored light bounced off the water. Not hot yet, but a stickiness hung in the early morning air like a promise. Gnats were hatching in the eddies downriver, and from somewhere back up the bank in the trees, Millard heard the mumblings of naked men marching to work. It was usually his job to watch them, keep an eye out that they didn’t damage the logging hardware or run off to their mud caves before quitting time. But not today. It was Millard’s day off and their singsong moaning seemed as ambiguous and remote as whatever he was going to do next.

  Take the day off, Joaquin Peach had told him. You know, relax. Think about bigger things.

  Millard was stumped. What to do? He wished Galon were with him. Galon would know. Galon….

  Millard certainly missed his brother. And it was all so confusing. What had happened, that is. His memory scattered back on him like a loose pattern of buckshot through a forest of petrified regrets, pinging here and there off how sorry he was. But since he had no idea why Galon didn’t like him anymore, Millard’s recall suddenly jumped to the good times, the good old days on the Rosebud, buffalo runs through the Tetons, frisky trades at Counsel’s first place on the Wind River, high glee toots in Taos. Whoopee, he remembered their song:

  Oh mountain men, how great are we,

  We cannot stand for trifles.

  We hang our balls on canyon walls

  And shoot ’em down with rifles.

  Yeah, that old T. D. Slant got what he deserved for getting it all wrong and making Galon mad. Maybe Galon would like him again if he got the literature fixed for him. Maybe if he got Buckdown….Anyway:

  We fuck our wives with bowie knives

  And feed on bears and pickles.

  We wipe our ass on broken glass

  And laugh because it tickles.

  In high spirits now, Millard set off with new resolve to do good for Galon, to do good on his day off, and to do good in his work for Sutter. Galon would see.

  So Millard Burgett went wading up the shallows of the American River looking for helgramites and wound up staring over the edge of history.

  57

  Eureka

  When his eyes caught the curious yellow sparkle, he pondered not at all. It was instinct. Gathering himself like a puma about to leap some dark chasm, Millard plunged his arm elbow-deep in the clear water and grabbed. His gnarled fingers closed around a gold nugget the size of a dog’s eye, and his crusty palm began to tingle with anticipation.

  He scrambled up the riverbank and into the tall grass. He crouched like a fetus. He turned the soft metal over and over in his trembling hands. He popped it into his mouth and bit down, tasting a sweet pain on his rotting teeth. Millard was a fool no doubt, but this was definitely the real thing. Eureka!

  But now what? He peeked out through the reeds, his eyes wide and cryptic. Across the river, a family of valley elk, timid except for antlers, dipped velvet noses into the current, drinking. And so was Millard, but he was quenching a different kind of thirst. His tongue worked new saliva around the nugget bulging in his cheek like an ac
orn.

  Events would shape themselves from here on out. Cause and effect were finally in play again. A brand new game was about to open and the trump turned out to be sneaky and vicious enough to rival the wine-drinking, virgin-seducing catechisms of the missions in their heyday. Millard, of course, had no idea. The possibilities were beyond him as he raced off to show Sutter how good he had done.

  58

  The King of California

  Let’s keep this our little secret.

  Sutter weighed the nuggest in his hand and winked at Millard for emphasis. Lord, this was all he needed, a secret partnership with a geriatric half-wit who didn’t have sense enough to wink back. Sutter needed more time. And there was still so much to be done, so many arrangements to make. The situation was getting much too volatile. Schemers were lurking everywhere. That jingoist Brannan was waiting for him in his inner office at that very moment.

  Millard kept watching him, smiling like an adopted puppy. Sutter wanted to grab him by the throat and squeeze, wring every last yelp of breath from his stupid life. But he didn’t. Instead, he produced a key which he kept hidden next to his skin and moved to a long cedar chest, heavily inlaid with cherry and walnut, that waited in one corner of the room like a coffin. Make that a sarcophagus.

  Close your eyes, Sutter told Millard and proceeded to open the chest and rummage through what sounded to Millard like metal plates. When Sutter finally instructed him to open his eyes, Millard saw before him a mandolin with little lambs depicted in romp about the sound box.

  Go on, take it, Sutter told him.

  The mandolin made Millard very happy; it was smooth, it was clean, and it made noise. Millard plucked and fondled it in front of the fire while Sutter laid out the conditions of what he called their limited partnership. How could Millard possibly guess that Sutter had already made plans to relegate the official discovery to one James Marshall, a man of ordinary intelligence and little style. So Millard just grinned.