Letter to the white Indian and all my other ghosts
I am in the sunlight in a valley in Utah, next to a town filled with people who believe that salvation comes from magic glasses and murdered prophets. I watch a powder horn shine in the sun. I had it made in Bombay, in silver and mother-of-pearl. I’ve been carrying it with me for a long time, but I have the impression that it has followed me. It was a gift I got for myself after a victory, back when I was a killer for the India Company. I became a soldier because, in the part of London where I was born, poverty killed children of my age faster than cholera. The horn followed me even after I left it on a boat, in a little bay near the Burmese coast where a fishing village was burning. Since then, it’s as if the screams of the women and children were trapped inside it. Like, much later, I was given a bottle containing the last dreams of a vanished town.
My name is Arthur Bowman and I never had a nickname when I was a child. They always called me Bowman. When I became a ship’s boy and I discovered the sea, I was sick. But I stayed on the deck and watched the ocean until the nausea stopped and I went cross-eyed from staring at the waves. I decided I would never stop travelling and here I am in America, twenty-five years later, trying to escape from a powder horn where I’ve been held prisoner for eight years.
I’ve talked to it a lot before. Now I’m listening to it.
On the morning of the third day, Bowman woke up long before sunrise and threw stones over the last embers of his fire. He had spent two days writing, the powder horn placed in front of him, with the Salt Lake stretching out endlessly behind him. He went back down from the mountains and found a hiding place among the rocks allowing him to watch the road. The sun came up behind the Rocky Mountains and its colours were reflected on the dried-out lake. All day long, he waited for the preacher to arrive, mechanically counting the carts heading to California. In the evening, he climbed back into the hills to set up camp. The next morning, he returned to his surveillance post. The preacher should have arrived the previous evening. When the sun reached its zenith, he still hadn’t gone past on the road. Still Bowman waited. The afternoon came to an end.
He had prepared for Peavish’s absence. He had even made it easy for him, but if the preacher was crazy enough to join him, Bowman thought it only fair to give him some extra time to make his decision. And anyway, he had needed time to write his story.
Other groups of travellers, stagecoaches and carts filed past. Bowman did not recognise Peavish’s figure nor the colours of his horse. The sun went down in the west, it grew dark: there was no longer any reason to wait. He watched another two horsemen ride past, going slowly, pulling packhorses. He watched one last convoy pass, then he stood up, tightened Walden’s girths, and climbed into the saddle.
Bowman came down from his hiding place and joined the path, which would soon be under cover of darkness. He headed in the direction of some trees and prairies that he had seen from his mountain viewpoint, a little oasis a few miles from the desert lake. Walden seemed to accept this renewed solitude with the same calm as Bowman; the horse’s footsteps were soft and it lifted its head in the darkness, snorting quietly. They had once again taken their place under the moon and the first stars. The path gradually peeled away from the lake, and Bowman silently rode between the fires of pioneers who had stopped for the night.
Walden’s ears pricked.
“What is it?”
Bowman stopped to listen. Nothing but the sounds of insects and the moan of the breeze. He started up again. Again, Walden’s ears went back and again Bowman stopped. Thinking that he heard his name carried by the wind, he realised he was dreaming. Maybe he and the horse both needed some more time, after all, to get used to solitude again.
“There’s no-one there. Walk on.”
Walden shivered and this time they heard it at the same time. Bowman pulled on the reins to make a U-turn and froze in the middle of the track. The sound was fighting the wind in an effort to reach him, but there was no longer any doubt: a horse was galloping behind him and someone was calling out his name. He climbed down, pulled on the mustang’s bridle and led it away from the road. Then he picked up the Henry and put a bullet in the chamber. Walden shuddered at the noise of the gun’s mechanism.
“Shh. Calm down.”
Bowman rested his arms on the saddle and aimed at the night, listening as his name was repeatedly yelled. The sound of horseshoes grew ever louder.
“Bowman!”
He made out a figure in the darkness.
He knew that voice, even if he couldn’t identify it, hoarse and distorted by the horse’s movement as it was. He aimed at the horse’s legs as they came into view and put his finger on the trigger.
“Shh. Don’t move.”
Then he saw the white markings, illuminated by moonlight, and recognised the piebald. He raised his gun an instant before firing.
“Sergeant Bowman!”
Bowman ran over to the track, yelling:
“Peavish!”
The preacher, surprised by Bowman’s apparition, pulled hard on the reins. The horse, its back legs stiff, came skidding to a halt on the stones. Peavish lost his balance, fell off, and landed on the ground.
Bowman helped him to his feet.
“Bloody hell, preacher, I almost shot you.”
The piebald was panting like a locomotive. The preacher began shaking Bowman, while gasping for enough air to speak.
“I missed him. He was there, Sergeant. At the same time I was. I was searching for you. I didn’t know where you were.”
“Calm down!”
The preacher shouted:
“Erik was in Salt Lake three hours ago! He’s just ahead of us!”
Now all he could hear was the jerky breathing of Peavish and his horse. Bowman turned in a circle, sweeping the blackness with the barrel of his rifle.
“Where is he?”
“I . . . I don’t know . . . He took the path three hours ago.”
Bowman stammered:
“I was watching it. I’ve been watching the path since this morning. I didn’t see him. Damn it, Peavish, I didn’t see him!”
“He went with someone. Two men on horseback and some animals to transport equipment.”
Bowman climbed in the saddle. Peavish clung to his leg.
“I’m sorry, Sergeant. I wanted to stay there. I didn’t want to anymore. But I asked questions. Just like that. And some people had seen him in the guesthouse. An Englishman. Blond hair. With money. Heading west with another man. Businessmen. Other people said he was alone and not so well-dressed. But they saw him. A former soldier . . . I didn’t want to come back. But I found him, Sergeant. I found him.”
“Let me go. For fuck’s sake, let me go!”
Bowman kicked out at Peavish’s chest and set off at a gallop.
*
He reached some houses. A lantern to guide visitors was hung over a sign: Grantsville.
Some of the houses still had lights on.
Bowman searched the stable and enclosures, looking for packhorses and other animals, trying to remember the colours of the last two horses he had seen on the path. The horses started neighing and kicking. People came out of their houses, holding lamps. In the middle of the village, Bowman rode Walden in a small circle, yelling: “Penders!”
He charged from one end of the street to the other, passing the torches held up by the inhabitants, seeing their faces terrified by this furious spectre.
“Penders!”
Men and women began to shout from windows:
“Go away!”
Bowman was growing enraged.
“PENDERS!”
A man came from his porch with a rifle and fired a shot in the air.
“Go away! Leave this place!”
Other armed men came out of their houses. All the windows were lit up now. Bowman tried to calm his horse, sent into a frenzy by his shouting and the threatening circle of Grantsville citizens. Women in pale dresses emerged from their house
s, three or four in each one. A Mormon community.
“Leave or we’ll open fire!”
There was an instant of silence. Walden had frozen. The men had stopped moving. Bowman, his face lit up by the torches, no longer knowing what to do, started edging his hand towards his gun and, in that moment of silence, a gunshot rang out.
Everyone turned towards the outskirts of town, towards the west. The shot had been fired a few hundred yards away, maybe even a mile. Bowman spurred his horse. Walden reared up and charged, knocking Mormons out of the way, sending them flying in the dust.
Still yelling, leaning forward on his horse, he heard another gunshot ahead of him. And again, someone calling him: “Sergeant!”
Bowman turned around. Peavish had caught him up. The piebald had almost killed itself chasing the mustang. The two men continued side by side. There was a light ahead of them. A little yellow dot below the moon. On the roadside, fences and trees rushed past. It took them another two minutes to reach the light. A barn.
They jumped off their mounts. Bowman put Nicholson’s pistol in Peavish’s hand.
“Take this.”
He stepped over a fence and found himself in the middle of a herd of cows, Peavish just behind. Bowman pressed his body against the barn wall. The light was coming from a window, under which a saddled horse waited, its reins dangling on the ground. They went around the building, pushing through the crowd of cattle, which began to moo and jostle nervously. The doors of the barn were half open and a stain of light illuminated the ground.
Bowman signalled Peavish to remain where he was, then he bent double and ran past the light. He positioned himself on the other side of the double doors and slowly breathed in.
“PENDERS!”
There was no sound.
“Throw your gun on the ground and come out of there!”
Peavish cocked the hammer of his pistol and called out in turn: “Erik, it’s Peavish! Come out of the barn! I’m with the sergeant. We came to find you. It’s over, Erik.”
The preacher’s voice broke. With a surge of courage, he yelled at the top of his voice: “It’s over, you hear? We came to find you!”
Sergeant Bowman stood up straight, walked towards the beam of light and raised his rifle.
“Peavish, open the door.”
The preacher crawled over to Bowman’s legs.
“Don’t kill him, Sergeant. Don’t kill him.”
“Open the door.”
Peavish lowered his head and sobbed into the dust. Then he reached out his arm, caught hold of the door and pulled. Bowman rushed inside.
The oil lamp was placed high up on a beam. A saddled horse and two others with packs on their backs stamped their feet and moved around in front of him, preventing him from seeing beyond them. Bowman crouched down to look between their legs. He squeezed past the animals, moving along the wall. As soon as he was out of their way, the horses spotted the open door and ran outside. Bowman stood with his back to the wall. Peavish entered, arms dangling, holding the pistol without any intent, and fell to his knees.
Still Bowman aimed his gun. His lips moved. The preacher had dropped the pistol, joined his hands together and closed his eyes.
Between two posts, one arm tied to each of them, was a bare-chested man, covered in blood, his head drooping over his chest. Just as before.
Lying on the ground, arms by his sides, head back, Erik Penders had his eyes open. His back was arched, his throat cut, and he lay in a pool of his own blood, a rifle next to him and a pistol in his hand.
Two corpses.
Bowman dropped his rifle and moved towards Penders. Then he too fell to his knees and crawled through the dust. After yelling so loud his voice broke, he repeated one more time in a whisper: “Penders?”
Sergeant Penders had been dead for only a few minutes or seconds. Bowman could feel the warmth of his body and blood was still flowing from his throat. Perhaps he had even heard Bowman and the preacher. Perhaps he had tried to call out to them.
Like Bowman, his beard was blond and grey; like Peavish, his face was prematurely aged, his wrinkles deepened by a grimace of pain. The man who had watched the Burmese coast rush past from the deck of the Sea Runner, with the marks of the Company’s fetters on his ankles.
Sergeant Bowman sat back on his heels, his head fell forward and he began to weep. The preacher approached them. His long, thin fingers touched Sergeant Penders’ eyelids, closing them, then he walked over to the hanging corpse, made the sign of the cross, wiped his tears away and began to pray in his calm voice: “Lord, receive unto You the souls of these two men . . .”
Behind him, Bowman started speaking:
“It’s not you.”
“. . . so that beside You they may know the peace they did not find on earth . . .”
“Why didn’t you wait for me?”
“. . . none deserve to die like this, but they are with You now . . .”
“I was looking for you, Penders.”
“. . . and will remain there for eternity.”
“I didn’t want to believe it was you.”
“. . . where we will join them soon to celebrate the beauty of what we will leave behind us.”
“What am I going to do?”
The preacher’s voice suddenly changed, becoming hard and cold: “And now, Lord, let me do what I have to do. You can turn your back if you want. This does not concern you.”
*
Peavish went out of the barn and returned a few minutes later with all the horses. They started sniffing the floor for the remains of their feed, indifferent to the corpses and to Bowman, who was incapable of moving. He unloaded the equipment strapped to Walden’s saddle and did the same thing with Penders’ horse, which had remained outside, waiting, while the others had fled. He searched Penders’ body and emptied his pockets, then those of Bowman, who, paralysed, let him do it. Once all the belongings were spread out in front of him, Peavish sorted through them and began redistributing them.
Everything that might identify Bowman was given to Penders: his clothes and the powder horn. Everything that might identify Penders went to Bowman. Then he filled the saddlebags on the dead soldier’s horse with all the food and money he could gather, and he went through the pockets of the stranger’s corpse, the killer’s last-known partner. Finally, Peavish went over to Bowman and helped him to his feet.
“You have to take off your clothes, Sergeant.”
“What are you doing?”
“Look at me.”
Bowman’s eyes rolled in their sockets, staring all over the barn.
“You have to trust me.”
Bowman managed to concentrate and looked at the preacher’s face.
“Do you trust me, Sergeant?”
Bowman nodded.
The preacher helped him to undress, then took the clothes from Penders’ corpse and dressed it in Bowman’s.
When they had swapped clothes, Peavish picked up the pistol and approached Penders’ body.
“What are you doing, preacher?”
Peavish looked at Bowman.
“No-one knows Erik here except us. There is only one name on the track now. You become Erik Penders. Sergeant Bowman died today. I killed him.”
The preacher raised the revolver, aimed at the corpse’s chest and fired twice. The bullets went through the body as through straw. He raised his sights, aimed at Penders’ face and fired the last four bullets from the cylinder. Penders’ head exploded.
All that was left on the ground was a body the same height as Bowman’s, with his clothes on his back, and some blond hair.
Bowman collapsed unconscious beside the disfigured corpse.
When he came to, Peavish, with his tall frame, thin fingers and calm voice, was lifting him onto Penders’ horse.
“What’s happening?”
“Hang on, Sergeant.”
Lying with his arms around the horse’s neck, Bowman articulated: “Who is it? Answer me, Peavish. Who were we looki
ng for?”
“I’m not looking anymore, Sergeant. It’s over. It all ends here. I won’t go any further. And you should save yourself too. This is your last chance. It is easier to live with God than with ourselves, Sergeant. You’ve known that for a long time and I discovered it only a few weeks ago. But it’s over. There is only one thing left for you to do.”
Peavish smiled, eyes shining.
“What should I do, preacher?”
“Hang on to this horse and don’t let go until it has taken you far from this place. The villagers will be here soon. You must be gone when I tell them my story.”
The horse stamped at the ground.
“You think it wants to gallop?”
“I’m sure of it.”
The preacher took the horse’s bridle and led it outside.
“Peavish, I’m not going to make it.”
Edmund Peavish whispered in Bowman’s ear:
“Your letters are in your bag. The only thing that remains of you, Sergeant Bowman. You’ll bury them yourself.”
Bowman had enough strength to put his hand on Peavish’s shoulder. Peavish put his on the sergeant’s back.
“Goodbye, preacher.”
“Save yourself, Arthur. Go.”
Peavish hit the horse as hard as he could, giving a war cry worthy of a Mandan Indian.
Erik Penders’ horse was large, with a good stride. It ran hard along the black road.
IV
1860–64
Sierra Nevada
1
Arthur Bowman left the road and followed the traces of vegetation, a few yellowed bushes along a dried-up creek, until he reached some tufts of grass and a trickle of water flowing down a slab of rock. The horse licked the water from the stone and Bowman let himself fall from the saddle. The water was lukewarm. He splashed some on his face and lay down on his back. He didn’t know how long he had ridden from Grantsville, nor what distance he had crossed in the hot sun, but the plain around him was just a long, pale desert and the next line of hills, at the horizon, were at least thirty miles away. For an hour, he did not move a muscle, staring up at the blue sky, letting his thoughts evaporate in the heat. He took off Penders’ jacket, which he soaked in water and rubbed at with all his strength to remove the bloodstains. He left the clothes to dry and untied the horse’s saddlebags. The horse was a mare, about the same age as Walden, with calm eyes, a light chestnut that did not seem to suffer too much in the sun.
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