by Win Blevins
“Godawmighty, Hannibal!” said Sam.
“This is good,” the captain said softly to Sam.
Sam shut up. He noticed, though, that Jedediah was keeping a very sharp eye out.
“‘Five,’” said Hannibal, “‘because in every animal that walks upright, the deficiency of the fluids that fill the muscles appears first in the highest part. The face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the neck; then the breast and arms; the lower parts continuing to the last as plump as ever…’”
“We’re turning around,” interrupted Jedediah.
He wheeled and headed back to the river at a trot. Every man followed him close. “The Mojaves are coming,” Diah said quietly to Sam.
They would have a better chance in the cover of trees along the river.
WHEN THEY GOT to the river alive, they eyed each other as though sharing a secret joke. In a grove of cottonwoods they felled small trees, grumbling that they had to use knives, since Sam wielded the only tomahawk. They made a flimsy breastwork from these poles. Then, waiting, men began to lash their butcher knives to the ends of light poles, making lances.
No need to speak about the situation. Only five of them had rifles. Sam and Hannibal had pistols, useful only at short range. Since they got their powder horns soaked swimming the river and there wasn’t time to dry it, the other men gave them powder. Three men had no weapons but the lances. The river protected the trappers’ backs, but the Indians could attack from three directions. They would probably outnumber the trappers fifty to one. More than one trapper pictured the Indians’ hands still dripping red with the blood of their comrades.
Sam said to himself several times, “Make them pay.” That’s all the defenders could get for their lives.
As he worked, he thought of other reasons to make them pay. The bastards had The Celt. They had Paladin. Probably Skinny would try to keep Paladin, but Red Shirt would claim her for himself, because of the wonderful tricks she could do, the routines Sam and the Mage had taught her. Sam grimaced. The chief wouldn’t know how to signal Paladin to perform, and wouldn’t understand why she didn’t.
On the other hand, Paladin wouldn’t get the fun of doing the circus routines again.
“Let me see those wounds,” Hannibal said.
Sam turned his hip to his friend (this was the convenience of wearing just a breechcloth), then raised his shirt to show the ribs.
Hannibal fingered both of them. “Tonight I’ll put poultices on them.”
Sam grinned at him. Tonight—that’s optimistic.
“What’s that blood on your belly?”
“A Mojave’s.” Sam whipped out the belt-buckle knife and mock-pointed it at Hannibal. “Gideon made this for me, said it was thanks for amputating his leg.” The two friends held each other’s eyes a moment.
Sam snapped the knife back into its belt buckle guise, and flashed it out again. “Easy to get out.”
Hannibal inspected it. The blade was the sheathed part, fashioned in the double-edged style of a dagger and very sharp.
“So you have two secret blades,” said Hannibal, fingering it. They each had a knife concealed as a hair ornament. “You ought to wash the blood off.”
Sam thought about the stabbing, about Stout, and about his dead friends on the far bank. “No, I’ll keep it for a while.”
Coy barked. Head to tail he pointed toward the river behind them.
Five rifles trained on the brush in that direction.
“Hey!”
The voice came from the riverbank. Every man looked down his sights or held his lance in that direction.
“Hey!”
“That’s English!” said Hannibal.
Thomas Virgin’s half-bald head peeped out of the bushes. It was still bleeding.
Sam ran forward and supported the old man. His shiny head sported a lump nearly the size of a fist. The wound was still trickling blood. Sam remembered he’d been clubbed. A stone war club could do a lot of damage, often fatal damage.
Virgin was soaked, and he’d lost everything. His britches were gone (he preferred those to a breechcloth), his shot pouch was gone, his belt, his knife, and his belt pouch were gone. He lost his knife and pistol. The old man was nothing but flesh, moccasins, and a torn cloth shirt.
“I dropped ever’thing in the river, one by one,” he said.
“You wouldn’t have made it otherwise,” said Hannibal. He and Sam helped Virgin up to the breastwork.
How had the old man made it? Sam wondered. The sight of him lifted his spirits. But it wouldn’t for long.
Coy sniffed Virgin like he was something alien.
“Everyone keep watch,” said the captain.
“The next voice won’t be English,” someone muttered.
The men eyed each other surreptitiously.
Five minutes ticked by. Ten. The men spent it by cutting brush and stuffing it into the breastwork. It wouldn’t do much, but…
LaPoint said in a quavery voice, “Can we do it, Captain?”
Marechal snickered.
“Captain?” echoed someone else.
Sam grimaced. The men wouldn’t ask if their blood wasn’t running chill.
“We’ll drive them off,” said Jedediah.
His voice was calm, firm. Sam was amazed. He and the captain looked at each other, and Sam saw that Diah knew better. Knew for sure.
He and Diah had nearly died on the Missouri when the Rees fired down on them on an unprotected beach. Most of the men stayed on that beach forever. Diah and Sam and a few others escaped.
They almost died together just three months ago, crossing the salt waste from the California mountains to the Salt Lake. Bashed by heat and weakened by thirst, they actually buried themselves in the sand. But they rose from those graves and walked.
Sam said to himself, Every man’s luck runs out.
Jedediah glassed an area south in the brush, then let the glass hang from the lanyard around his neck. Sam looked carefully and saw them even with the naked eye. Yes, the Indians were coming.
“Rifles, spread out across the breastwork.”
Galbraith, Marechal, Swift, and Turner placed themselves where they could shoot in three directions.
“I’ll call the fire,” said Smith. “We’ll always keep two rifles in reserve. I’ll name two men, and those only fire.”
The riflemen nodded. “Under no circumstances empty all rifles at once.”
Coy stood stiff, facing south. He heard or smelled the enemy.
Sam’s hands felt ridiculous without The Celt. Hannibal looked as edgy as he felt. Sam wished he and Hannibal had Swift’s and Turner’s rifles. Ike Galbraith was a great shot—he could knock the heads off blackbirds at twenty paces. Marechal was a good hunter. But Sam wasn’t sure of Swift and Turner. Goddammit! I’m the one to defend my own life!
Indians showed themselves now, defiantly standing in the open and then ducking back.
“Galbraith, Marechal, ready,” said Jedediah.
The shooters trained their sights on whatever targets they could. It was a long shot, over a hundred paces, but there was no wind. Four Mojaves were visible.
“Fire!”
Two Mojaves dropped. A third grabbed himself, perhaps wounded, and started running away.
A dozen Mojaves ran away. A score. A hundred.
Several hundred Indians bolted from cover and streaked away from the trappers, scurrying around rocks, bounding up hillocks. Their hide loincloths flounced in the afternoon sun.
“Rabbits!” called Hannibal.
“Rabbits!” yelled the other men. “Rabbits!”
The trappers stood up and shook their fists in the air. They clapped each other on the back.
“Sum bitch!” yelled one.
“We done it!” yelled another.
“Victoire!”
“Zey are tinned cowards!” cried Marechal.
Diah and Hannibal looked at each other, and everyone at them. They shrugged and started laughing.
&n
bsp; “Tinned?” said Hannibal, slapping his thighs.
“Tinned cowards!” hollered Sam, shaking his fist.
They all took up the cry. “Tinned cowards!” They stumbled around like they were drunk. They embraced each other.
Everyone celebrated but poor Tom Virgin, who was unconscious.
“All right!” said the captain loudly. “Get a drink from the river and get back here! This might not be over!”
But it was. The trappers waited, alert, until nearly dark.
Jedediah got Virgin awake and spoke soft words to him. Virgin struggled to his feet.
“Let’s go,” said the captain.
THEY MARCHED THROUGH the night hungry and thirsty.
“Better than during the day,” said Sam.
“Better than being dead,” said Hannibal.
Sam kept an eye on Virgin. The wounded man weaved as he walked, but he managed to go slowly, steadily forward.
The trail was an old one, worn by long years of trading with people of the seashore. The Mojaves wanted the shells of the sea, and the coastal peoples wanted Mojave melons, pumpkins, corn, squash, and beans. The captain and Sam had ridden the stretch three times last fall, the first being a false start. It wasn’t a hard trek, even in the dark.
Sam knew, though, that the sands blew, and blew, and signs of the trail would be wiped away in some places, perhaps for miles. Parties steered by landmarks of hills and mountains, which were murky and deceptive at night.
His spirits were low. As he tramped, he talked to himself.
We’ve got no way to carry water, said the nervous part of himself, and added mockingly, one kettle.
Gonna be parched all day, every day, said some other part. This part was more relaxed.
What if we miss a spring? said Nervous.
What if? said Relaxed.
We’ve got about one day’s supply of food.
Shining times, answered Relaxed.
Ten- or fifteen-day trip, said Nervous, starving.
That’s how I remember it too.
We’ve lost all our horses and nearly every damn thing.
Hallelujah!
Tom Virgin’s going to slow us down.
Or he may die.
Why are you so easy about it?
Just crazy, I guess.
The outfit came to the spring before the sun got hot the next morning. They drank. They ate a little meat, very little. Because the August sun would get blistering hot, they stayed by the spring all day. Mostly they slept in the shade of bushes or rocks. For an hour in mid-afternoon Jedediah worked on his journal.
When he finished, Sam moved next to him. “What did you write?” As a brigade leader in training, Sam wanted to know.
“First, what happened when we pushed off into the river, and the names of the men who died.” Diah looked at his own page. “‘Silas Gobel.’” Sam and Diah looked at each other. Gobel was one of the companions buried in the blazing sands two months ago. He rose up from that death only to walk blind into another.
“‘Henry “Boatswain” Brown,’” Jedediah read on, “‘Polette Labross (a mulatto), William Campbell, David Cunningham, Francois Deromme, Gregory Ortago (a Spaniard), John Ratelle, John Relle (a Canadian), Robiseau (a Canadian half-breed).’”
A checklist of slaughter. Sam took a big breath in and out.
“Next, a list of the men still with me.” Sam could see the ten men around him—aside from Sam and Hannibal, Galbraith, Marechal, Virgin, Turner, Swift, LaPoint, Daws, and Palmer.
“Then an account of how we drove them off at the riverbank.”
“Read it to me.”
“Here’s part of it. ‘We survivors with but five guns were awaiting behind a defense made of brush the charge of four or five hundred Indians…Some of the men asked me if we would be able to defend ourselves. I told them I thought we would. But that was not my opinion.’”
The captain and his segundo looked each other in the eye. Hannibal walked over and sat close. Coy lay down against Sam’s thigh.
“A wise man learns his letters, my friend,” the magician told Sam.
“Yeah.”
“A brigade leader needs a record,” Jedediah said.
“That’s what a clerk is for,” said Sam. He didn’t add that he wasn’t eager to be a brigade leader. Something about it bothered him.
The brigade’s clerk, Harrison Rogers, was ahead in California. Meanwhile Jedediah kept the ledgers himself, company property sold or given away.
“Learn to read or not?” said Hannibal.
“Learn to read,” said Sam, “some time.” He turned to Diah. “So what are we going to do?”
“Go to the Californians.”
“Damn.” He looked at Hannibal. “Last year they practically jailed Jedediah because we didn’t have passports. They told us we could go only if we hightailed it out the way we came and stayed gone.”
Jedediah spoke up now. “We left coastal California by the same pass. Then we went to a desert the Spaniards haven’t settled and north to some mountains they haven’t approached. I don’t think they have any honest claim to that country.”
Hannibal nodded, understanding.
“We can’t go straight to the brigade?” said Sam.
“We need horses, we need food, we need weapons, we need a lot of things. Father Joseph will help us.”
“He’s the head of San Gabriel Mission,” Sam told Hannibal. He looked back at Diah. “And the governor may arrest your ass this time.”
Jedediah gave a thin smile. “We’ll be quick on our feet.”
Sam frowned.
“Sam, I know you’re anxious to get to Esperanza. We said we’d be there by September 20, and we will.”
Sam walked off. He thought. He fretted. He looked down at Coy. He looked at Tom Virgin, who tumbled to the ground like a rag and slept every time they stopped.
Sam thought, Life goes topsy-turvy into death.
THAT NIGHT, WANDERING among the desert hills, Jedediah stopped the line of men. For a moment he looked around.
“You know where we are?”
“No,” said Sam. They’d traveled this route only once, with guides, and in the daylight.
Everyone sat down. Some sprawled, and Virgin seemed to pass out. They’d trudged all night, zigzagging through creosote bushes, dipping down into dry washes and clambering up the other side, mounting hillocks and descending again onto flats that appeared infinite, but flexed irritatingly up and down. Now the captain doled out the liquid from their one kettle, a swallow at a time for each man except himself. “I’m used to going without,” he said. He made Virgin sit up and take an extra swallow. That was the last drop.
“God, more water,” said LaPoint.
“Balm of Gilead,” said Hannibal.
“We’re lost,” said Jedediah.
That got their attention. The captain didn’t know where the next spring was. Every man wondered if he would taste water again.
“Daybreak soon. Let’s rest until then.”
Coy whimpered. He thinks this is ridiculous, thought Sam.
They stretched out. Some slept. Most couldn’t.
At first light Jedediah said, “I’m going up that hill to spot the trail.” There was the advantage of the field glass Diah carried.
A while after sunrise he was back. Sam could see the result in his face.
“I don’t know. The trail goes on one side of that hill or the other, but I can’t tell which.”
The men were too tired to grouse.
“I want one man to go with me to look for water.”
“I’ll go,” Sam and Hannibal said at the same time.
“No.” He looked around. “Galbraith, come with me. That hill”—Jedediah pointed toward a much higher one—“that’s the direction we need to go.” It was the opposite direction of the rising sun. He pursed his lips, thinking. “If Galbraith and I don’t come back, head that way. Sam, you’re in charge. You’ll recognize where the next spring is.”
“Understood.”
Diah and Ike Galbraith walked off.
“I don’t know if I’ve got any move left in me,” said Hannibal.
“I’ll carry you if you’ll carry me.”
They watched their friends disappear around a hill.
Sam studied Virgin, asleep, his mouth hanging open. The bulge in his skull looked terrible.
“All of us could easy die,” said the Mage.
IN AN HOUR Galbraith was back, looking amazingly hearty.
“We found water. The captain’s there sleeping.”
“Zis man, my Ike, he has ze hair of ze bear inside him.” This was Marechal.
“The water did it for me. Let’s go. It’s only gonna get hotter.”
Sam roused Virgin and they tramped off.
The little spring was marked by a few bushes where fluid seeped from rocks at the bottom of a hill. Jedediah sat up as the outfit approached.
They were too dry to talk. Each man scooped a little water into his hands and slurped it up. The trickle was tiny, and they took a lot of time, one after another, filling their bellies with liquid. Waiting made them wild-eyed. Finally, they were lazing by the spring. They watered their stomachs over and over, and rubbed water onto their faces and arms and legs, and wadded their clothes up in the spring.
“We’ll stay here today,” said Jedediah. “Right now I’m going to climb that hill”—it was the highest in sight—“and look for the trail and the next spring.”
Off he went.
“Hellacious almighty,” said Galbraith, looking after the captain.
“We walk all night, no water,” said Marechal.
Hannibal said, “We can’t even piss.”
“Jedediah walks up a hill and back by himself while we rest,” said Sam, “and then he hikes off and finds water.”
“Now,” said Galbraith, “with me panting and desperate, he marches off to climb a big hill in the heat of the day.”
“And he’ll come back ready to walk tonight.” Sam rolled onto his side to nap. “That’s why he’s the captain,” he said.
THE CAPTAIN DID spot the trail in the glass, about five miles to the south, and he saw where the next spring was. That night he led the party straight across open desert, not bothering with the trail until they rejoined it at the spring. They rested there all day and all the next night. Jedediah rationed out a little dried meat, about a third of what a man needed for sustenance, every other day.
