‘Are you religious?’ Henry asked Edward.
‘You mean, because of all this?’ Edward asked him, lifting a hand to indicate the sky and the plains and the warmth of a summer evening. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I gave up religion years ago. Bad for the chest, religion. All that singing by gravesides.’
Henry knew what Edward was trying to say. Somewhere, on these desolate plains, Edward must have lost someone he loved. And it was to become more and more evident to Henry as they travelled further west that Edward only crossed Nebraska now as an extraordinary kind of personal penance, as if he hated the plains but could never leave them; a man who had condemned himself to a treadmill of distance and tiredness and never-ending isolation. Henry guessed that Edward hadn’t accepted his commission for the sake of $25, nor for the promise of a gold-mine; although he had probably been obliged to make those excuses for himself. He had agreed to come back out here because he needed to, in order to make sense of what had happened to him. These well-worn emigrant trails were the maps to Edward’s whole existence.
Edward played a jew’s harp after they had eaten, and then sang a song. The fire crackled and smoked in the evening wind, and the stars began to come out, thousands of them, prickling the night; and two coyotes yipped and howled at each other, across the warm breadth of the Platte Valley.
‘I knew a girl and she was sure
She could grow more hair with mule-manure..
Henry lay back, and closed his eyes, and the night passed like the closing of a shutter.
For the next two weeks, they doggedly followed the northern bank of the Platte, rising at dawn and making camp at nightfall, and making do with as few stops as they could manage. On a fair day, they were able to walk forty miles; and even on days when the winds got up, and they had to mask their faces with handkerchiefs, and tug their mules behind them through the stinging dust like four reluctant pianos, they could cover thirty miles or more, and sometimes make up a little extra at night, when the winds had died down. Edward talked almost incessantly. He hated the Platte. ‘A mile wide and an inch deep,’ he called it. ‘You can’t fish in it, it’s too dirty to bathe in it, and too damned thick to drink.’ In places, the river’s S-bends were so wide that the sun and the wind had almost dried them out, and they were able to ford their way across to banks of silt that were usually islands, and cut some of the trees that grew on them, for firewood. Most of the time, though, they gathered up buffalo droppings, ‘the anthracite of the plains’, and built their evening fire with those. ‘Smelly and smoky, but available, and free,’ Edward remarked.
It took them fifteen days to reach the confluence of the North and South Platte Rivers, 460 miles west of the Missouri—less than half the time that it usually took a fully-laden waggon-train to cover the same distance. They arrived there on the morning of a devastating storm, with lightning crackling all around them like forests of electricity, and rain sheeting across the grasslands so torrentially that Henry found it impossible to see where he was walking. Edward led the way down the slippery bank to the edge of the river, his boot-heels sliding in the mud, and then turned to Henry and shouted, ‘We’ll have to wait! The water’s too high!’ His hat was black and drooping with rainwater, and his beard had formed a bedraggled point like the tail-end of a prairie dog. There was a roll of thunder so loud that Henry felt as if the sky was going to collapse on top of him. His mules brayed in fright, and tried to pull away from him, and in trying to tug them back he fell face-first flat in the mud. As he clambered back on to his feet, he heard an unearthly high-pitched noise over the rushing of the rain, and turned around to see that Edward was laughing at him, wildly.
‘Boy, you should just see yourself! Good thing this isn’t a Southern state, they’d string you right up for a runaway nigger!’
They built themselves a makeshift shelter out of blankets and back-packs, and sat beneath it dripping and shivering and drinking Taos whiskey while they waited for the storm to clear. The lightning crackled and danced all around them until the air smelled like burning zinc, and the rain dashed so hard on to the ground that it set up a fine spray which covered the banks of the river like mist. It was an hour before the thunder began to grumble away to the east, and the rain began to ease off a little, and even then they could see that the river was far too swollen for them to be able to ford it. Edward took another swig of Taos Lightning and wiped his nose on the back of his hand.
‘I saw a woman struck by lightning once, out on the prairie. She was cooking away on a sheet-iron stove, making her family’s supper, and it weren’t even raining. Then crack, and sizzle, and there was this column of lightning coming out of the top of her head and I swear to God you could see her skeleton right through her skin. And it blew off all of her clothes, bang, and that sheet-iron stove flew right through the air and landed twenty feet off, still smoking. Well, we all rushed over, and there she was, pale as a ghost, and her hair all scorched off, even around her privates, and we looked up what it said to do in the medical book, and what it said was, “treatment, same as for drowning, only not of much use.” ‘
Henry said, ‘Have you ever wondered what you’re doing here?’
‘Is that what you’re wondering?’
‘Sometimes. I mean, I could be back in Vermont, chiselling somebody’s epitaph, and looking forward to supper.’
Edward laughed, and passed over the whiskey. ‘Instead of that, you’re sitting under a soaking wet blanket in the middle of who-knows-where, with your face as black as Henry Brown.’
Henry smeared some of the mud away from his face. He swallowed a mouthful of Taos Lightning, and then handed the flagon back. These days, he could drink it without coughing.
‘You lost somebody out on this trail, didn’t you?’ he asked Edward.
Edward didn’t even look at him. ‘Not too far from here,’ he said. ‘Just across the river, in fact. Ten years ago now, although it’s hard to credit it. I don’t suppose you would’ve thought much of her, but to me she was beauty incarnate, that’s what she was, and her name was Elizabeth.’
He was quiet for a while, staring out over the foaming fork of the rivers, and the sandstone flats beyond with their blue-green clumps of trees. Then he said, ‘I don’t think I’ve never been in love, not before nor since, not like that. She was headed for Oregon, to be a music teacher; well, a bride is what she really wanted to be; and we met up on the trail, and got friendly. She had red hair tied around in a knot, and just a splash of freckles. And green eyes. She said I was noble. I asked her what it meant, noble, and she said, one day I’ll show you, I promise. Well, that was in June, the first week in June, in Kansas, when all the wild flowers was out. But by July, when we was here, she was sick of the cholera. They was out there digging her grave even before she was dead. Well, there was nothing that anybody could do. And it was the finest day you could ever imagine, when they laid her into that grave, and most of her friends were thanking God that it was her, and that it wasn’t them.’
‘It wasn’t your fault, though,’ said Henry.
Edward looked at him. ‘It doesn’t matter whose fault it was. If someone dies, it’s no good looking for fault. What you’ve got to look for is a meaning. Not how it happened, or who was to blame, whether it was God or man, but why. Can’t you understand that? I have to know why. And that’s why I keep on coming back here; even though I hate the place; and I hate the trail; and the sight of that river makes me cold all over. Why did she die, Henry? Why did I love her, and why did she die? Can you answer me that? Can you give me half of an answer?’
Henry hadn’t told Edward about Doris. In fact, he wondered if he would ever be able to tell anyone about Doris. Perhaps if he could have guessed why Doris had died, he would have been able to say something to Edward to settle his disquiet. But the world seemed to be crowded with incidents that had no explanations, and tragedies that had no meaning, and guilt that could never be resolved. He was beginning to feel the workings of destiny in his life, but what was
the point of destiny if it had no reason? Why was he here, when he couldn’t help anybody, not even himself?
All he knew was that he must be here. It was almost like a divine punishment.
They camped that night well away from the river, sheltered by an outcropping of rock, and lit a small twig fire, and cooked themselves a sage-hen stew, with thick floury gravy. They finished the last of the Taos Lightning, although Edward kept the jug in case they needed it for carrying water. Gnawing on a leg, Edward told Henry, ‘If this gold-mine turns up good, do you know what I’m going to do?’
‘Tell me.’
‘I’m going to find myself an artist; maybe that fellow who painted the picture in the Cheerful Times; and I’m going to sit down and tell him just how Elizabeth used to look, so that he can paint her, exactly the way I can see her in my mind’s eye.’
‘Well, wherever Elizabeth is, I think that she’d appreciate that,’ said Henry.
‘You think so?’ asked Edward. He frowned at the bone he was holding in his hand. ‘I hope so.’
The following morning, the water had subsided sufficiently for Henry and Edward to ford the Platte River waist-deep to the southern bank. They would now follow the South Platte southwestwards until they reached Denver-Auraria, a mile above sea-level, on the eastern brink of the Rocky Mountains.
It was late September now, and the wind from the mountains was fresh and chilly as Edward and Henry led their mules up the steadily-rising trail that would take them into Denver. There were still signs along the trail of the Gobacks; those inexperienced prospectors who had hurried here two years ago in search of easy gold; and then, as winter approached, turned back to the east. Wooden grave-markers and broken-down waggons stood amongst the long grass by the side of the trail; and Henry paused for a while by a white-painted cross, now peeling, on which an agonized father had carved the name Laurence May, died of fever, age five.
‘If you had any tears left to cry, I think you’d cry them,’ said Edward; and then, under a sky the colour of black laundry ink, they carried on towards the Rockies; into the face of the wind.
They arrived in Denver on the evening of September 25, filthy and dusty, and still leading their mules, although one of them was lame in the hind leg, and had to hobble. Denver was two years old, a patchy assembly of shacks and log-cabins and flat-fronted stores, set on a breezy plain beneath the glistening splendour of the Rocky Mountains. Henry turned up the collar of his coat as they trudged slowly along Larimer Street, sniffing because of the cold; and looked around at J.E. Good’s General Store, advertising with printed posters a fresh arrival of jeans, and Charley Harrison’s Criterion Saloon, out of which so much tobacco smoke was blowing that it looked as if it were on fire; and Walter Cheesman’s Hygienic Drugstore. Carriages and waggons rattled past them on the dusty street, their drivers yipping ‘Coming through! Coming through!’ and one or two people stopped on the sidewalk to watch them walk past, but otherwise their arrival was unnoticed. Edward led them to the Cherry Creek Guest House, where they took the mules around to the back, and tied them up.
‘Well, I think it’s time to have a wash, and get drunk,’ said Edward. He clapped Henry on the back, so that white dust rose out of his coat. ‘And not particularly in that order, neither.’
Henry stretched, and took a sharp sniff of mountain air. The outline of the Rockies reared up beyond the township like a jagged, shadowy wall; purple now, in the light of the evening, and decorated with fingers of snow. He would one day know the outline of those mountains as well as he knew his own face in his shaving-mirror: Pike’s Peak, Bison Peak, Bear Creek, Boulder Creek, Long’s Peak. But tonight they looked alluring and secretive and misty; and he had a sense at last of having arrived somewhere, after a month of walking over flat prairies and flatter plains, and seeing nothing but horizons, and skies, and blowing grass.
The Cherry Creek Guest House was a boxlike, timber-framed building with a wide verandah and a balcony above, overlooking Cherry Creek itself: the muddy stream which had once divided Denver from the rival community of Auraria. There were three scrubby oaks at the back of the guest house; and across the street, the offices of the Rocky Mountain News. Oil-lamps were just beginning to be lit all over town as Henry and Edward climbed the steps of the guest house, and walked into the gloomy lobby.
‘Well, now, it’s Edward McLowery,’ said a warm, amused voice. Out of the shadows a dark-haired man came forward, short, about thirty-six years old, in a smart black coat and dove-grey pants and formal necktie, as if he was dressed for a dinner-party or a wedding. He was clean-shaven, with a head that was rather too large for his body, but intelligent-looking, and friendly. He shook hands with Edward, and asked, ‘What brings you back to Denver, Edward? The last time, you told me you’d given up for good.’
Edward said, ‘I come up here for my health, Mr Byers. Here, meet Henry Roberts. Henry and me have just arrived from Council Bluffs, in record time, I’d say. Henry, this is William Byers.’
‘How do you do, sir,’ said William Byers, holding out his hand. ‘Welcome to Denver. Visiting, are you, or prospecting?’
‘Visiting,’ replied Henry, evasively. He glanced at Edward for some clues as to who Mr Byers might be; and how he should treat him. But Edward simply grinned and made an elaborate show of scratching his ribs. ‘I could sure use a bottle of Old Arapaho,’ he said.
‘Edward is trying very hard not to tell you that I am the owner and editor-in-chief of the Rocky Mountain News,’ smiled William Byers. ‘Last time he was here, we ran an article on the life and times of an emigrant guide, which was all about him; and good reading it was, too. Did he tell you the story about the woman who was struck by lightning? All lies, of course, but marvellous copy. I just stepped over the road here to pick up Mrs Cordley’s latest advertisement. You’ll like it here, although I say so myself, and she’s an advertiser of mine. Clean sheets, good food, and not too much interference, if you know what I mean.’
Edward said, ‘You busy this evening, Mr Byers? Fancy sharing a bottle of whiskey? And a steak maybe? You could bring Lizzie along, if you were minded.’
‘I’m busy this evening,’ said William Byers. ‘But you’re welcome to come around to my house, both of you, when you’re cleaned up and rested. Maybe Saturday morning.’
‘I’d like that,’ said Henry.
‘Well, fair enough,’ said William Byers. ‘Come round at eleven, and I can show you the printing-presses before we have lunch. That’s quite a story in itself, the way we dragged those presses all the way from Council Bluffs, as well as the stones, and the type, and two pages set up ready to print.’
‘I remember what you said on one of those pages,’ Edward remarked. ‘“What key is it that opens the gate of misery?” that’s what you said. And the answer was “Whiskey”.’
William Byers gave Henry an odd, sloping smile; and said, ‘Saturday, then,’ and nodded to Edward, and left. Henry had the impression that he had met a man who he would either like very dearly, or hate. Whichever it might be, he had the distinct feeling, irrational or not, that Byers would play a very influential part in his life. It was almost as if the two of them had recognized each other; not from a previous meeting, but from a dream.
Perhaps he was simply tired. Perhaps Edward was right, and all they needed was a hot bath and a bottle of whiskey. Edward was certainly doing his best to expedite both: by banging with the flat of his hand on the bell of the hotel counter, and calling out, ‘Now then, Mrs Cordley! How about it! No use hiding yourself!’
They heard footsteps down uncarpeted stairs, and then Mrs Cordley appeared, a plump, good-looking, big-busted woman with her hair drawn tightly back into a tortoiseshell comb, wearing a white apron and a maroon dress with printed flowers on it.
‘What’s all this hollering?’ she demanded; and then recognized Edward, and stopped, and twirled like a little girl, and came up with the coyest of smiles, and said, ‘Edward McLowery, if it isn’t the very same! Well, too,’ and th
en said, ‘He always makes me come over pink, I shall never know why. You’d think there was something between us. But he’s always so flattering. I never knew anybody so flattering; and I always come over pink just thinking of what he’ll say next.’
‘Mrs Cordley, you’re the star of my life,’ said Edward. He was so thin and loopy and droopy-whiskered, and yet when he spoke to Mrs Cordley like that, she clapped her hands to her cheeks and let out a tiny little shriek.
‘I can’t abide it,’ she giggled. ‘He always makes me so pink!’
Later, in their shared room, as Edward prized off his boots, Henry asked him, ‘Why do you always make Mrs Cordley come over so pink?’
Edward shifted himself around on the bed, so that the springs squeaked. He sniffed, and said, ‘I fucked her once, up against the wall in the cor’dor, in the middle of the night; and that was all; just once; and I wouldn’t fuck her again, because I don’t believe in it; and she’s probably forgotten all about it, how it really was, but made up a story of how it should have been, and dreamed about it, and that’s why she always goes pink. Nothing to do with me. It’s all up here, right in her head. The way I did it was plain and simple and nothing to get pink about, not after two years.’
Henry said nothing, but unbuttoned his long johns. He was beginning to realize that Edward didn’t always tell the truth. Perhaps Edward’s life hadn’t been quite so much of a romantic tragedy as he would have liked Henry to think. Perhaps there never had been a red-haired Elizabeth, after all; or, if there had, perhaps she hadn’t died. Perhaps she was out in Sacramento even now, with her husband and children, a happy California wife, with no recollection at all of the bearded guide who had watched her balefully for mile after mile as she sat on the seat of her emigrant waggon, heading west along the Platte Valley, past Independence Rock.
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