Going Home

by Richard S. Wheeler

  He was on the right trail; that’s all he knew. The acrid smell that hung in that watercourse, and the occasional manure, told him that.

  The eastern skies began to stitch threads of light, and Skye reckoned he had walked five miles. It would be a long hike home if he didn’t recover his nags. He was sorry to see daylight, which dashed his hope of sneaking into the Indian camp, finding his ponies and sneaking out with them under the cover of darkness. He persevered, wanting a drink and a rest, but knowing that his quarry might be fleeing even faster than he was chasing.

  The yellow mutt paused, sniffed, sprinted ahead, turned to watch Skye, and vanished from sight. Skye found him ahead, low on the ground, his tail slathering across clay, his nose pointed. This time the mutt didn’t bound forward. Skye took that for a caution, and peered around a black rock, discovering a sort of grassy park of several acres where the lava flows had parted. He spotted the dull forms of perhaps twenty horses. His would be among them.

  Smart dog.

  At first he saw no one, but then, on closer study as the light quickened, he saw several bedrolls and two men sitting up, staring at nothing. Cautiously Skye examined the scene. The men were gathered around a vegetated hollow, probably with a spring supplying water. The dim bulks of the horses ghosted over the grass. He could not tell his from the others.

  The mutt whined, but so quietly Skye knew the sound did not carry. Maybe that verminous creature had some sense after all. Skye hunted for an upstream exit. If this was a widening in a watercourse, there would be a gulch stretching toward the distant mountains. He did not see it at first, which worried him. Under siege, these warriors would flee upslope, pushing their ponies before them.

  Then things were taken out of his hands. The mutt slithered into the park, heading toward the ponies. Skye wished he could shoot the damned thing. The critter was going to stir up the horses, which Skye didn’t want at all. Yet he was powerless to stop what a small canine brain had set in motion. Skye did slip into the park, and drifted to one side of the gulch leading back to the Snake. If the mutt was going to stir trouble, maybe the milling horses would head for the river if he didn’t block the way.

  It occurred to him that maybe he could turn all this to his advantage, but he hated like the devil to admit it. The slithering dog caught the eye of a horse, which stared at it. The dog bounded a few paces and halted. The mutt was not headed into the horses, but past them, to the upper end of the park. Could it be that this dog was a natural herder, getting around behind the animals?

  Skye marveled.

  Then one of the savages shouted.

  “El coyote! Cuidado!”

  Men bounded up, grabbing their rifles. The horses stirred.

  These were not savages, but Mexicans, and they were about to shoot the yellow mutt.

  “Alto ahi!” Skye bellowed. They turned and stared. Some swung their rifles toward him.

  The trouble was, he didn’t know more than a dozen Spanish words, and now he was in a jackpot. He ran straight toward them, his big Hawken leveled, and began yelling.

  “I’m getting my horses back, and I’ll kill the first man that moves,” he roared, not knowing or caring whether they understood him. One lifted his rifle but found himself facing the huge bore of the Hawken, and lowered it.

  “You stole my nags. Go ahead and try to kill me; one of you’ll die and maybe more before you get me,” he rumbled.

  They spread, making themselves less a target. The yellow dog was cutting through the dancing horses now, nipping at the flanks of one of them, dodging the kicks.

  “Drop your rifles and raise your hands,” he roared, swinging toward one Mexican whose hands were busy.

  They didn’t.

  Skye didn’t stop moving, but circled closer to them, proddy and dangerous. He had caught them in a sleepy moment, but they were gathering their wits.

  “I’m getting my horses, and whoever stops me is a goner,” he roared.

  Keep talking, keep them from doing anything.

  One older man raised an arm. “Senor, I talk.”

  “Tell them I’m taking my ponies. If they try to stop me, they’re dead.”

  He had, for the moment, the upper hand. He faced four Mexicans.

  He risked a glance at the yellow mutt, which had cut out two of Skye’s horses and started them south. But the rest milled. He marveled at the dog.

  There was no need to shout any more and addressed the one who knew a little English. “Go get my other one. If you do, no one gets hurt.”

  “That is a dog of many wonders, Mister Skye.”

  Skye turned sharply. “How do you know my name?”

  The man shrugged. “Everyone knows the man in the black hat. Mister Skye is the greatest of names.” He turned to the others. “Senor Skye,” he said. “Senor Skye.” Then back to Skye. “We did not know it was you, friend. Come sit with us and we will talk, eh? We are hermanos, brothers, from Taos, Nuevo Méjico, and we have come to make our fortune, eh? Gold, silver, beaver, horses, who knows? You do us honor with a visit.”

  “How do you know me?”

  “In the winters, the Yankee trappers stay with us in Taos and you are spoken of.”

  Skye watched the yellow mutt cut the last of Skye’s horses and start it south.

  He lowered the Hawken.

  fourteen

  So they knew him. Skye glowed. His fame as a mountaineer had traveled even to Mexico. He had worked long and hard for the fur company, done well, and now he was known as a good man.

  But then his glow vanished.

  They were laughing, the bores of their big dragoon revolvers pointing at him, their eyes lit with glee.

  “Ah, Senor Skye, it is so, you are a great hombre. And now we will honor you. Ah, it is pleasure to honor so great an hombre. In all the world, under heaven above, there is not so great a man as Meester Skye. This we hear from Christopher Carson and other Yanqui hombres grandes who live among us.”

  Skye debated swinging his Hawken upward and shooting the man. But not for long. Three big pistols and a venerable fowling piece would make a swift end of him. His skin crawled. Rarely had he looked into the black muzzle of a loaded firearm, and the sight of four such bores pointing at his chest catapulted his pulse and squeezed his throat.

  “You will do us the honor of dropping your Hawken, very very carefully, to the groun’, si?”

  Skye did as he was told. At least they weren’t shooting at him. He trembled so much he could not control the spasms in his hands.

  “Now, the powder horn, si?”

  Skye lifted the horn and deposited it on the grass. It was a beauty, with an ornate box that held his caps.

  “Ah, muchas gracias, Senor Skye. This is to pay for your horses. You have bought them back from us, did you know that? A fair trade. One fine rifle for tres caballos. Our papa, he says, there is wealth everywhere. Go get the riches and bring them to me. Make us ricos grandes. So, my brothers, we go get the riches. He is right. They are everywhere. Now we will be the envy of Taos, si?”

  “You letting me go?”

  “It is an honor to meet the mountaineer. Shall we kill you? Only if you are foolish, amigo. Go. You have your horses, we have a fine Hawken, made in St. Louis, the rifle that puts a ball right in the center. Ah, half of Nuevo Méjico would sell their souls to el Diablo for that rifle.”

  Skye scarcely dared to turn his back, knowing these brigands might have one final surprise for him. But it mattered little whether they shot him from front or rear, so he retreated.

  They were silent.

  He rounded the bend and smelled the dust raised by his horses.

  Shame swept over him. He had succumbed to his own vanity. All they had to do was flatter him, crudely and grossly, and he had lowered his guard. Sugared words. He had heard few of those in his life; not once in the navy had anyone praised him. And his father had not been one to commend him. Only among the Yank trappers had he heard a word about his worth.

  He vowed th
at, if he lived, he would never be tricked again, and the flattery of others would never be of consequence to him for as long as he survived. Rarely did anyone have a second chance in the famous college of the Rocky Mountains, as his trapper friends called it. He counted this as a lesson learned, and a lesson he would never forget.

  He rounded a bend in the black rock and breathed easier. They had had their fun, humiliated a gringo, and let him go. But he was unarmed and facing hundreds of miles of travel.

  He walked quietly, knowing the horses were ahead, herded by the yellow cur. He owed that mutt his loyalty. The mutt was more dog than he had supposed.

  He focused on the good things. He had the horses. They could ride and pack. Victoria was a gifted hunter, and she had a dozen deadly arrows in her quiver. They would be traveling among friendly tribes and could barter for food.

  The August heat rose, and he was parched, but there would be no water anywhere on that long dry gulch. But by the time the sun reached its zenith he would be back in camp, explaining to Victoria his humiliation. He resolved not to hide it. There had never been anything hidden between them, including his defeats.

  He walked another mile, abraded by the reproach of his soul, and then came upon the horses, which stood somnolently while the panting dog lay in the dry gulch. The mutt did not rise at his approach. He wondered if he could catch a horse and ride it barebacked. The horses were haltered, but he had nothing with which to make some reins. He could not control his saddler, but it had no place to go but forward, hemmed on both sides by jagged volcanic rock.

  He owed the dog something.

  “You’re better than I allowed,” he said. “Like Victoria says, you’re looking after me.”

  The dog stared but made no move toward him. And he feared he’d be bitten hard if he tried to pet the dog. It lay there, sinister, yellow, scarred, vicious, slackjawed, and stupid, except that it wasn’t stupid. It had its own approach to life, its ways, and they had kept it alive.

  He wondered if his big spotted horse would let him get on, and eased slowly toward it, watching the beasts sidle away from him. But he talked quietly, finally grabbed the halter and tugged the horse toward some rock that would help him mount. The horse obliged him.

  It stood quietly while he clambered up the jagged rock and then slid a leg over its hot back. Moments later he was seated, nervous because he had little control. But the yellow dog was on his feet again.

  Skye tapped his moccasin heels into the side of the horse, and it walked forward. The dog didn’t need to herd the others; they followed naturally.

  And so he rode back to camp, relieved not to walk, feeling better because he had gotten his horses.

  As he approached the sunken river, which slashed this land into north and south, he found Victoria and Professor Nutmeg nestled under an overhanging slab of rock back from the well-used trail along the north bank. She watched him come in, her gaze surveying the horses and then watching the yellow hound.

  Skye slid off, landing awkwardly, while Victoria bridled the horses.

  Nutmeg handed him a water flask, and Skye drank greedily.

  “They took my rifle,” he said.

  “Who?” Victoria asked.

  “Mexicans from Taos.”

  “But you got the horses.”

  “The dog did.”

  Her eyes lit. “It is as I said.”

  “You’ll have to make meat.”

  “The dog will feed us.”

  “I’ve got to tell you something. I let the Mexicans trick me, Victoria. They told me I was a great man and invited me to sit and visit.”

  She eyed him solemnly. “I will not condemn you. You are a great one among the trappers. You have not heard this with your own ears. But it is said of you everywhere. The Absaroka know it. My people respect you. The white men I talk to, they know it. So now the stories about you have flown to Taos, in Mexico. That is not bad. It is good. I am proud to be your woman.”

  He peered at her, amazed.

  She busied herself with the horses again. “We are three now. You, me, and the dog.”

  He peered at the beast, which lay panting again.

  “Let’s go down to the river, fella,” he said.

  This time the dog followed him as he descended a steep and treacherous path that took him to the swift-flowing Snake. The mutt lapped the water and then waded into the current. Skye knelt, drank again, sloshed water over his stubbled face, and drank once more.

  The dog swam to the bank, clambered up the muck slope, and shook himself.

  A bond had been forged. Skye settled himself quietly beside the river and the dog wiggled toward him in short bursts, ever ready to bolt. Skye dared not reach out and kept his big, blunt-fingered hands to himself.

  “I owe you,” Skye said.

  This earned him the first, tentative switch of the dog’s scruffy tail.

  The dog wiggled closer and Skye knew that this was a long delayed but important moment in the lives of each of them. He eased his hand outward, palm up. The dog squirmed closer and sniffed it. Then, tentatively, the dog licked Skye’s hand. The tongue rasped over his flesh and Skye made himself hold still.

  “I guess I have a dog in my family,” he said.

  The dog edged closer and sniffed Skye’s moccasins, buckskins, back, and shirt. Skye glanced behind him and discovered Victoria watching from the bank high above.

  Then her face vanished. She was leaving this rapprochement to Skye and the dog.

  Skye studied the mutt. Its ears had been chewed on. Its face bore scars, so many they formed almost a hatchwork of ridged flesh. One eyelid drooped. There were patches of hair missing, bare gray hide poking through its abused torso.

  He scarcely dared move his hand for fear the ugly thing would bite it off. But tentatively he did, slowly, letting the dog see every move in advance. Once the dog went rigid and Skye retreated, but after a moment Skye’s hand was running down the dog’s neck and over his back.

  The cur growled and Skye retreated. That was enough for one day. His hand was still intact.

  They clambered up the steep slope together.

  “What you gonna name the damned dog?” Victoria asked.

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know. He’s your dog. You name him.” She sounded testy.

  “You’ve domesticated the dog?” Nutmeg asked. “Ah, he and Dolly are a match. You need a name for him.”

  “I don’t have a name,” Skye said, irked. “He’s just a bloody ugly dog.”

  “He will tell you his name,” Victoria said. “He is a spirit-dog, and his name is secret. But you will get it in a dream. Or maybe a vision quest.”

  Skye grunted. He didn’t put much stock in all that.

  “Let’s move. We’ve an appointment at Vancouver,” he said.

  fifteen

  They toiled through blistering August heat, sometimes making little visible progress. The Snake River sulked in a black canyon on their left day after day; the hazy benches and mountains brooding on their right never changed. It seemed to Professor Nutmeg that they were on a treadmill, doing each day’s progress over again.

  He would have been more assiduous in his botanical collecting, but sheer hunger had enervated him, and so he roamed less far from the trail, conserving his energy. Finding places where they could descend to the river and water their horses became a problem. Few streams entered from the north.

  But the overarching worry was hunger. They had only Victoria’s bow and arrows, but not even Skye’s rifle would have helped much in this arid land. They saw no large animals; only an occasional hare. The dogs stalked gophers and various other small beasts, hunting at night. But they starved, too.

  Skye had fallen into silence, his eyes peering from slits in his swollen face, his gaze ceaselessly raking the world for something to eat: antelope, deer, sheep, even a stray horse. But neither he nor Victoria, who rode off now and then to try her luck away from the trail, succeeded. Even the fowl had dese
rted this stretch of the gloomy river.

  The parched corn vanished and then the pemmican and the jerky. They devoured the small hoard of sugar and molasses the Skyes had kept in their gear. They boiled the last of the tea. Victoria showed Nutmeg which berries were edible and after that the professor haunted the river bottoms, hunting for the occasional bitter chokecherry or wild grape. He found little in that arid land, and the hole in his belly was not filled.

  Only the horses flourished. Bunchgrass, unending, fed them, along with lush green shoots in the river bottom. Nutmeg, who was forced to walk for the want of another horse, trudged wearily onward, thinning down each day and aching for any sort of food. He fantasized food, dreamed of sausage and milk and cheese and butter and fresh bread.

  Then the river seemed to rise in the canyon, or rather the land and the river reached much the same elevation once again, and the malevolent Snake rolled by, offering them nothing but wetness for their parched bodies and grass for their beasts. Somehow the dogs did better than the humans, but Nutmeg didn’t know how they survived. Once he found them carrying chunks of an ancient carcass, which they chewed upon whenever the party rested.

  Dolly roved so much he feared he would lose his precious samples and drawings that she bore in a waterproof harness on her skinny back. He didn’t have much to add to his collection these days, and regretted that he lacked the strength to roam.

  He began to wonder whether he would survive. Then one day Skye stepped down from his mount.

  “You’re done in, mate. You and I’ll share. Victoria needs a fast horse to chase game, but we’ll make do. You ever ridden before?”

  “Very little.”

  Gratefully, Nutmeg clambered into the saddle.

  “I’ll take the reins and lead for a while. You just relax and if you see a specimen, we’ll stop and get it. Who knows, maybe it’ll be something to eat.”