One-Eyed Death

by James W. Marvin

  Even from the height of the winding path the sound of the tumbling white water was loud. Trapped in the steep rocks that funneled the noise in, finally releasing it to the ears of the solitary man above. Crow had seen the trail of the Mexicans divide. Seven of them heading northwards, while the remainder of them carried on down into the beautiful green depths.

  He scanned the land as far as he could see, but there was no trace of life. The place was too far from any kind of civilization for it to have become populated. There was no mining near. No stage lines. No towns. Nothing. He guessed that the Mexicans must have a camp somewhere nearby and he hoped that they’d have moved on by the time he’d led the wagon down the perilous track.

  He tethered the horse, hearing the rig a couple of hundred yards back, rattling and groaning, the voice of Daniel, high and thin, as he urged the tired horses on towards the crest of the rise.

  The cliff edge was littered with small, irregular stones and the shootist stepped carefully over them, aware of the sheer drop below. Working his way close, and looking over, his body craning away from the tumbling horror of the cliffs. The mountain was undercut, the edge of the trail overhanging, so that there was literally nothing but empty air clean to the floor of the valley, hundreds of feet down.

  If Spangel could have seen the place, Crow wondered whether he might not have been tempted by its isolated splendor. If there was really as much money there as Ben Ford had suggested, then it wasn’t impossible to build your hopes in such a place. Though the trail was dangerous, at least it was there.

  And there was plenty of water.

  Maybe too much if there was a sudden rain. He leaned forward a little more, holding on the black hat, feeling the wind tug the long hair from around his lean, pale face. Watching the river as it coursed through the valley, thundering over rapids, then disappearing into a misty maelstrom of awesome ferocity at the southern end. Vanishing below ground to come out again the Lord only knew where. At its widest point it was around a hundred feet across, narrowing at one point, towards the north, to about fifty feet. It was at the narrowest point that the darker colors lightened, showing the possibility of a ford there.

  “Whoa, there. Hold back! Whoa!”

  Daniel was reining in the team, squinting at the solitary figure of the shootist, near the rim of the world. The boy tipped his head to one side, moving it round and round, almost as though he was trying to peer through a faulty telescope.

  “Shall I hold ’em here, Mr Crow?”

  “Sure. Keep the team well back from the edge.”

  But he wasn’t sure if the boy heard him. Ben Ford was leaning out of the open back of the wagon, straining to see where they were. The Reverend Charles Spangel was already trying to climb down from the high seat, even before his son had kicked on the brake.

  Mary was still inside, out of sight.

  Daniel halted the rig, looping the reins over the brake handle, helping his father scramble down. The patriarch brushed himself down, combing back his long hair with craggy fingers. Almost as though he was preparing himself for a Sunday river crossing meeting. Taking his carved staff in his right hand, beginning to walk towards Crow, some fifty paces away from him.

  “Is it good, Crow?”

  “Looks fine.”

  “Seemly for us to rest a whiles?”

  “Mighty seemly, Reverend.”

  “Any sign of those Mex bastards, Crow?” yelled Ford from the wagon.

  “Nope. Likely gone further down the valley. Maybe out th’other end.”

  “Raidin’ again?”

  “Could be. But some have circled around north. Could be this lot are headin’ back home again.”

  Crow saw the daughter fumbling her way down out of the Conestoga, taking off her glasses and rubbing at them with the hem of her skirt, as though she was having some trouble with them. But his attention was taken by the confident approach of the old man, striding closer to him.

  “Take care,” he warned. “Mighty long drop to the bottom.”

  “My eyes are those of the Lord, Mr. Crow,” replied Spangel, with the nearest thing to jollity and good humor that the shootist had yet seen. The fresh wind blew through the father’s clothes, whipping his mane of silvered hair out behind him so that he looked like a picture of the Old Testament prophets that Crow recalled from school primers.

  “Take care the Lord don’t blink,” said Crow, stepping in to take Spangel’s arm, halting him a few paces short of the rock-littered edge.

  “The rushing of waters is mighty loud,” commented the Reverend. “I can scarce hear a word from you.”

  “Sure is a mighty fast falls. Rapids all white from rock to rock. Anything goes in that it won’t come up for miles.”

  He had raised his normally quiet voice so that Spangel could hear him. The old man nodded, head slightly on one side, listening.

  “It is a good noise. A gladsome sound that fills my heart with joy. Perhaps … Perhaps this might be the place I have sought these wearisome miles.”

  Crow let go of the arm, conscious of the sheer physical strength of the old man. If it hadn’t been for the blindness, Charles Spangel would have been a fearsome adversary in a bar-room brawl. A head taller than Crow he outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds.

  In his younger days he must have been a terrifying man and the shootist wondered just what it might have been that set him off on the path of religion.

  “I wish that there could be a sign.”

  “A sign, Reverend?”

  “Yes, my friend. Some portent from the Almighty that will show his approval of this place for the final resting of his tabernacle.”

  Crow remained silent, his eyes still raking the deeps below them, wondering where the Mexicans had gone. How long they might have gone for. If they’d return.

  Though he was quite prepared to go along with the old minister’s lunacy in thinking he could create a city in this wild spot, he wasn’t prepared to go along so far that his own life was endangered. It crossed his mind that he would have a quiet talk with Ben Ford that evening. It would be as well to camp where they were, even though the animals needed water. The trail down was so dangerous that it would be madness to attempt it in failing light, with everyone tired.

  “We’ll go down in the morning, Reverend,” the shootist suggested.

  “I agree with that. I can feel the sun warm upon my face from the west.”

  Crow squinted across the valley to the shadowed cliffs opposite. The sun was setting away and its light was bright gold. Like molten metal, dazzling. With the thunder of the falls, it created a strange, disorientating effect, so that you hardly knew where you were.

  “We goin’ to stay here, Crow?” shouted the ramrod, his voice faint and barely audible.

  The shootist waved a hand to show his agreement. Seeing Daniel was standing close to the heads of the horses, holding them and gentling them, blowing into their nostrils like a good handler.

  “Where’s Miss …?” Crow began, spinning around and suddenly seeing her. Standing with her hands folded in front of her, lips moving in silent prayer. The sun glinted off her glasses so that he couldn’t see her face properly, and he looked away again.

  “A sign, Lord,” whispered Spangel, at his side. “I beg a portent for your most humble servant. If there is nothing, then truly will there be no rest here. Send us a sign.”

  Crow heard the crunching of boots in the stones close behind him and started to turn. Conscious of the girl moving towards him.

  Towards the edge of the cliff.

  “Watch out for the …” he began, distracted by the low voice of the Reverend at his elbow, still keening for a sign from God.

  The feet still moving.

  Towards the blinding sun.

  The edge.

  Stumbling.

  “Crow ... I can’t …”

  Reaching ... too slow . .. too far.

  Over and down.

  The odd thing was that she didn’t make a sound
as she fell through the empty space.

  Chapter Twelve

  What was bizarre about the death was that nobody but Crow saw it happen.

  Daniel was nuzzling one of the wagon-horses, face pressed to the velvet neck.

  Ben Ford was resting inside the rig, lying down, trying for the hundredth time that day to force his legs to make some kind of movement. Any kind of movement at all.

  And the Reverend Charles Spangel was communicating with the Lord, praying for some kind of signal that would indicate divine approval of the valley.

  Just Crow.

  The girl stumbled as she walked quickly towards him, her poor vision totally blanked out by the brightness of the setting sun, directly ahead of her. Her senses muddled by the roaring of the distant river. She’d caught her toe and tripped, just too far away for the shootist to reach and snatch her back from the brink of eternity.

  He’d watched her fall.

  Silent through the whirling space. Arms spread like a flying angel, her dress streaming behind her like fire, the bonnet ripped from her head, fluttering after her towards the bottom of the valley, like a dove seeking a shoulder to rest upon.

  He saw her land.

  Because of the river he didn’t hear the dreadful splintering sound of her body crashing among scattered boulders. He saw a small cloud of dust rising from the broken corpse and the stillness.

  After the strange beauty of her fall, there was the total stillness.

  “That was the sign.”

  Spangel’s voice broke the silence. Crow had led the blind man back to the wagon, ignoring his protests. Calling Daniel to join Ben Ford near the back of the rig. Telling all three of them the bitter news.

  “What?”

  “I said that this was the sign that I had been seeking, Crow.”

  “Your daughter’s dyin’ is the sign. Christ, Reverend, that’s somethin’ that … I mean ... it’s crazy.”

  Ford stammered out his protest, face even paler than usual. Voice thick with sadness and muffled by his anger.

  “It is the sign,” repeated the old man, face carved from stone. Stubborn. Inflexible. Shuttered eyes seeking something beyond the sunset.

  “Don’t you have any thoughts on this, boy?” the shootist asked Daniel.

  “No, sir.”

  “Your only sister. Fallin’ like that. Smashed into … And you got nothin’ to say ’bout it?”

  The boy shook his head. Looking away from Ben Ford and Crow, shuffling his feet. “It’s just punishment.”

  “Hold thy tongue!” snapped Spangel.

  “Punishment, son?” asked Crow.

  Daniel still wouldn’t look up. “For Pa.”

  “What did …?”

  “It’s none of your concern, Crow.”

  There was a momentary stillness, but Crow could see something that the old man couldn’t. The muscles working in the boy’s face. Tight around the eyes, jittering at the corners of his narrow mouth. As he struggled to speak.

  Finally: “For what Pa done. And me and Sis.”

  The staff lashed up and round, smashing into the side of the wagon, less than a foot from Daniel’s skull. The force of the blow so awesome that it splintered the wooden cask where it hit. The blow jarred the staff clear of Spangel’s hands and he fell to his knees groping for it, mouth working in an insensate rage. Crow kicked it away from his prying fingers, sending it spinning yards away.

  “Leave it, Reverend.”

  “I got to tell “em, Pa. I got to! It’s drivin’ me mad and …”

  “I will not hear it!”

  “I got to say it.”

  “You are no longer my son.”

  “Then be damned to you!”

  Crow and Ford stayed silent, listening to the bitter voices. The accusing tones; the anger.

  Spangel walked away, feeling with his hands, keeping the sun at his back. Finally stopping at the far side of the small plateau, when his hands felt bare rock and he could go no further. And there he stood, like a carved pillar of stone, back turned to them.

  “You want to tell us, boy?” said Ben Ford, quietly.

  “I don’t rightly.

  Ben smiled, and there was something of the old gentleness there that years of hard living and fighting had near washed away. “Man with an easy mind sleeps easy, son. You don’t have to tell us a damned thing. Doesn’t signify one way or t’other to me and Crow. Right?” The shootist nodded his agreement.

  Daniel took a deep, deep breath, as though he was about to plunge for his life into a water-filled tunnel.

  “It’s God’s hand lyin’ against us, Mr. Ford. That’s why Ma and Sis have been took. Both of ’em. For Pa and his sinnin’.”

  “What was it?” asked Crow. Curious to find out whether this might be the clue as to why such a giant of a man had taken to religion. Late in life, he’d gathered.

  The boy’s voice dropped, even more quietly, so that both men strained to hear it above the distant thundering of the waterfalls.

  “Pa was a regular Hell-raiser, once. ’Fore I knowed him. And Ma was right in the head. Used to be a teacher, in a small town near Pensacola. Then Pa started havin’ eye troubles. Not too bad at first. Then worse. Pains in his head. He figured it was God.”

  “So he became a Minister?” asked Ford.

  “No!” Daniel’s voice rose in surprise. “Not then. He took against God. Said he’d teach him. Fight him. He’d blaspheme and all. Day in and out. Folks told me this, you understand. I wasn’t yet born.”

  “You’re just pickin’ at the skin and not comin’ close to the liver and lights, boy,” said Ford.

  “He knew Ma.”

  “Knew her. Course he … Oh, you mean he really knew her? Like in the Bible. Course he did.”

  “And Sis.”

  “Holy Jesus Christ!”

  “He had a sister himself. Laid with her. And her daughter. It was his way of … of …”

  “Pissin’ on the boots of the Almighty,” suggested Crow.

  “That’s why we’re all cursed. When Ma found out the learnin’ took her mind off some place. And then the blindness came to us all.”

  “Why should you be blinded for what your Pa did, boy?” asked Ford.

  “The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children even unto the third and fourth generation. That’s what the Bible says.”

  Crow shook his head. That’s just dried horse chips, son. God, if there is one, likely doesn’t operate that way.”

  “Sure,” encouraged Ford. “Not as though you did something awful yourself that’d make …”

  “But I did.”

  “What?”

  The boy put his head on one side, peering at both men. Craw noticed that the bad eye, the left, seemed to have an odd life of its own, moving sideways, while Daniel strained to focus his seeing through the narrow tunnel left to him in the good eye.

  “No, son. You’ve told enough!” yelled Spangel, raising his hands above his head in his distress. Looking like some primeval god about to hurl lightning and destruction on some innocent, sleeping township.

  “I ain’t, Pa. I’m goin’ to tell it all. Been hid long years enough.”

  “You don’t have to, son,” said Ben Ford, trying to stretch and pat Daniel on the shoulder, but the lad was too far away for him to reach. “There’s doors best left closed and words best left silent.”

  “Wasn’t just Pa.”

  “How’s that?”

  He sniffed, trembling on the brink of tears. “Me as well.”

  Dark shadows seemed to swoop and circle around the two listening men as they realized that the boy was talking about black secrets. Taboo and almost sacrilegious in most races.

  “You mean you and your Ma?” asked Ford, voice hardly even a whisper.

  “Sure. Me and Ma. And me and Mary. Poor Sis too. And Pa with Sis.”

  “Jesus,” sighed the ramrod.

  “Jesus didn’t have a damned thing to do with it, Mr Ford,” spat the boy, tur
ning and walking quietly away, the far side of the wagon from his father.

  It was some time before the four survivors could gather themselves together sufficiently to get the wagon rolling again.

  Not until the following morning at first light.

  Daniel sat the box, with Ford propped up among some chests and blankets, ready to lend a hand if it became necessary on the dangerous looping, swirling trail to the bottom of the valley.

  The Reverend Charles Spangel kept himself out of sight. After the stunning revelations of his son he had stayed clear of Crow and Ford, finally stalking unsteadily towards them, the staff searching the ground ahead of him to warn him of hazards. Reaching the Conestoga and climbing into the bed of it, keeping utterly and totally silent the whole time.

  Indeed, all that night and through into the next morning he didn’t say a word.

  Crow led the way, sitting comfortably in the saddle of the black stallion, heeling it onwards down the steep slope. Occasionally turning and calling out a warning to the boy to watch out for particularly dangerous bits of the road. In places rains had washed away the outer edge of the trail, narrowing it to only a couple of feet wider than the wagon’s axles and the greatest care was needed to get on down.

  They stopped briefly when they were near the bottom for some food. Oddly, the pounding of the river didn’t seem so loud as they neared it. Perhaps the high cliffs had trapped the sound, amplifying it and funneling it upwards. The noise was still there, like a sullen roaring, and they could see a bright rainbow haze shimmering above the whitest part of the rapids, the sun just penetrating that far.

  Crow could only see part of the valley as they neared the bottom, and he started to grow uneasy again about the Mexicans. Once they were down on the flat floor they could be easy meat for any attackers. A par-blind boy, a cripple, a totally blind old man and himself.

  It wouldn’t give good odds against a dozen or so bandits.

  The shootist figured that they would be at most risk from an attack during the night.

  And, as it turned out, he was quite right.