by Bowen, Peter
Elder McMullin had got it into his head that a man on a pinto horse was coming to poison his tea. I’d killed one son and busted up another and he’d dragged me back to his hovel and then just forgot I existed. More I thought about it, the more sense it made. Still, I rode like hell all night long, to the east, and I smelled the piney scent of mountains on the night wind.
At this rate, I figured, I’d be a rain god on some South Seas island before I was old enough to vote. I wasn’t old enough to grasp that my cocky feelings always arrived just before a disaster. (In my age, if I wake up feeling good I get the cold sweats.)
I knew nothing about the Injuns in the mountains ahead of me, other than their high chief was named Ouray. Ouray the Arrow, they called him.
Daybreak I made a dry camp and stared hard about for sign, but there hadn’t been anybody by for days. If it was discovered that I’d flown the coop, I thought that I’d still have an eight- or ten-hour head start on them, and so I’d be a fool not to rest. The horses was in good shape, and I gave them some grain and took them to water at a little spring, hobbled them, and turned them loose to gnaw on the cactus.
I curled up in my henskin and went to sleep—the day was coming on hot, even in winter. I wasn’t more than half a mile from the trail, and I had taken a branch of sagebrush and wiped my tracks away. Trouble with this country is that you can hide in it easy enough, but tracking’s easy, too, since there are so few water holes or ways through the slickrock. (Later, when I was a manhunter, it served me well, this country.)
So it seemed that all I had to do now was find this here Palmyra, toast her toes a bit till she give me the letters, and lope back to the Prophet and collect my gold. I still thought life could be that simple. Well, when one of the players is Brigham Young, nothing is simple.
There was about a half million square miles of country before me, and I didn’t know it or its ways. I still swelled up with tears from time to time, crying for Eats-Men-Whole and me, too, and I was a pretty simpleminded youth to begin with.
Such a fine sun lights that slickrock and mountain country. I swore I could see the tongues of birds at a half mile, waving crimson as they sang. The distances were huge and beautiful and, in a way, mine. I felt so lordly I commenced into whistling. If I’d have had a tuba, I’d have played it.
An Ute kid all of ten years old saw me coming, and being a nasty little bastard he tied a stone to a length of rawhide and the whole arrangement to the branch of a tree and he whacked me right off my horse with a neat head shot, merely letting go of the stone, from his perch. It swung on a long arc of the sort that is favored by pendulums and caught me square in the right temple. At least that is what I got told later. I wouldn’t know. The kid run off to fetch his mother and got a hiding from her because the Utes was friendly to whites who was not wearing Mormon hats. Utes is as easily bored as anybody else.
I come to feeling cool water on my head and I had a pain throbbing in my right temple like a steam engine with the safety wired down. Little colored spots danced in front of my eyes.
When you come out of unconsciousness after a whack on the head like that you never remember anything that happened. It’s wiped out and gone forever.
The brat and his momma had been out gathering herbs and seeds for medicines. She knelt by my side and bathed my head, frowning with concern.
I rolled over on to my side and threw up.
“Morr-monn?” she said, quizzically.
“Hell no,” I snarled.
“Many come,” she said, pointing back down toward the west and the house of McMullin.
I stood up right quick and caught my horses. She motioned for me to follow her, and we went around behind a big wind-scoured rock and took shelter in the shade of the lee.
She brushed away the foot- and hoofprints, and walked out to the trail and began to gather leaves from a bush.
Pretty soon the passel of McMullins came and they spoke with her, asking if she’d seen me. I couldn’t see, but I could hear fine, and the squaw was a right good liar. She said I had been through six hours before and she had seen pine boughs tied to the tails of my horses to broom the tracks off the trail.
“JUST LIKE A TRECHRUSS JEW GENTILE BASTARD!” says Elder McMullin. “I’M GONNA SKIN HIS JEW GENTILE ASS!” To this end, so to speak, the good Elder put spurs to his horse and led his witless brood on.
The squaw come to me and she was laughing and pointing a twirling finger to her temple, Plains sign for crazy. She knelt in the dust and scratched away at the ground with a twig and drew a checkerboard. I didn’t see it at first, until she took pebbles and put them on the squares and when she jumped a pebble she took it away. I finally got it.
My head was still ringing and I felt like two halves of me but I did manage to blurt out “Checkers?,” which made her nod happily and go to gathering pebbles.
Hard as it is to believe, with about one gross of bloodthirsty Mormon nitwits after the hide of Kelly I spent a most pleasant afternoon playing checkers with an Ute squaw in the middle of a stony desert, and she beat me every game.
She was just waiting to take me on to Ouray the Arrow, as soon as the sun was down. In this country you travel at night. For one thing it gets damned chilly as soon as the sun goes down and moving keeps you warm, for another the night covers the dust you raise. The daylight draws water off men and stock—and you don’t feel it go. It is so dry the moisture goes right into the air and you can easy go on feeling fine until black spots dance in front of your eyes and suddenly you are too weak from lack of water but fall over and lie there and wait for the buzzards, who hover over everything like deacons.
The squaw and her brat led me through rocks carved by the wind into the shape of buildings taller than any built by man, and just at dawn we come to a hidden pocket valley. There was a scent of red cedar burning on the air, the sweetest of all perfumes.
It was a safe and easily defended camp. The trail in wound through a narrow channel cut in the living rock and the walls went up three hundred feet, straight up at that. High above a slim band of black shot with stars was all you could see of the heavens, it looked like a stream of silk shot with jewels. One man could hold off hundreds in the trail in, it was a bit more than one horse wide and no more.
Twenty or so laughing brown children shoaled around us and two boys of perhaps seven grabbed on to my spurs and hopped along with the horse, trilling like waterbirds. (Many years later I was to hear that eerie trilling, up in the Arctic, among the Inuit.)
I got down and my horses was taken off by two young men and the squaw led me over to a fire had a pot of dog stew bubbling on it and she nodded at a moon-faced gent in quills and buckskin and eagle feathers who was lounging lordly like against a willow backrest. He had a chessboard set up to his right and a checkerboard set up to his left. He got to his feet and waved to another squaw, who brought me a backrest and a gourd of fruit juice—the cactus apples was in season. It was tart and good and sure cut the dust in my throat. Then I was given a plate of dog stew, which I wolfed down, and when I had belched politely and nodded thanks for another big gourd of cactus-apple juice the gent—and Ouray was above all a gentleman—extended a hand missing two fingers and took mine in it.
“I am Ouray the Arrow,” he said. “Do you play checkers?”
“Luther Kelly,” I says, “and chess, too.”
To home I’d been taking nickels off my uncles at those games for years. Then I remembered that the squaw had taken me every game.
So whilst Elder McMullin and his loathsome offspring beat the creosote bushes for the ass of Kelly, I sat in this oasis drinking cactus-apple juice and playing checkers with Ouray the Arrow. Ouray had three passions in life. Chess and checkers, traveling salesman jokes, and limericks. Now, time to time I have put up with much in life, but worse than any battle ever I was in was that Injun droning on about the farmer’s daughters, small barnyard animals, and the drummer’s luck.
We was about halfway through a hard-fought
game of checkers in the twilight of the canyon—there wasn’t but about ten minutes a day of direct sunlight in it, and a man could dream in that shadowed light. The Ute tales of Creation are as beautiful as the cedar smoke curling up in the pale light.
There was a soft rustle of deerskins and someone had come up beside me. I turned to see a tall, slender woman standing, with the glow of the rim of the canyon behind her. She sank down gracefully to her knees and put out her hand and touched my shoulder.
“I understand that my father has sent you to look for me,” she said, her voice was a smoky, creamy one, with something of a faint lisp to it.
I looked at her close and almost gave off a gasp. She was beautiful in a cool Northern way, and her blue eyes were clouded over with white. She was blind of cataracts and likely had been at birth. She’d lived all of her life in darkness. No wonder that bastard of a father married her off to Elder McMullin, that wizened little shit. I was consumed with sudden rage, just at the mere thought of this beautiful woman stuck in that tumbledown sty with that goatish madman. All thought of Brigham’s money flew clean out of my head. What I wanted now was his balls, and a few days to skin him slowly.
“Please finish your game,” said Palmyra. “I hope you are beating Ouray. He needs to lose.” She laughed, and so did Ouray.
“I lost in 1854!” said Ouray, mock horrified, “and a mountain fell down. Do not wish trouble on us, daughter.”
Whether Palmyra had distracted him or he thought he’d set me up for more traveling salesman jokes, Ouray had moved a checker to the one spot on the board he never should have. I jumped all of his but one and raked off the pieces.
“Weasel shit,” said Ouray.
“You want to give up now?” I says.
“I want to give up two moves ago,” says Ouray.
“I’ll never breathe a word of it,” I said. “I’ll promise.”
“I promise to tell everyone,” said Palmyra, “starting with your wives.”
“My wives already know what a fool I am,” said Ouray, “don’t bore them with more examples.” He grumbled and scratched and lit a pipe and sat back against his backrest.
He saw a woman walking a bit away and he called to her and they rattled back and forth pretty brisk for a moment. She went into one of the brush wickiups and come out again with a long quilled buckskin case. She brought it over to Ouray.
He undid the ties and slid a long rifle out, a single-shot Sharps Creedmore. They was worth thousands of dollars. This was a beauty, with a hollow ebony and ivory stock and long ebony and ivory propsticks. Feller knew his business could kill at fifteen hundred yards with this.
Ouray handed the gun to me and I looked it over. It was heavy and the barrel so long it seemed more like an old Kentucky rifle than what it was.
“There’s two hundred rounds of ammunition for it in my lodge,” said Ouray. “The gun is yours, Kelly. No one beats me at checkers.”
I was astonished. I sort of spluttered and said how I couldn’t possibly accept such a gift.
“You will need it,” said Ouray.
Well, he was right, I would.
15
OURAY THE ARROW WAS nothing if not a gent—rare critters and you are as likely to find them among the Dyak headhunters or Tauregs as anywhere. Ouray up and moved off and left us alone, so as not to hear things he might not want to know. It works both ways.
There was a big tin coffeepot asmoke on the coals and I poured Palmyra some and asked her automaticlike if she cared for milk or sugar.
“There is neither milk nor sugar here, Mr. Kelly,” said Palmyra, “but thank you for reminding me of them. I am told that Elder McMullin and many of his odious sons are looking for you, with murder in mind. They have done much murder, Mr. Kelly, directed, of course, by God, who speaks daily to that horrible little man. But the McMullins of this world are dangerous only in numbers.”
She went on to tell me that she had made her escape on her wedding night in Salt Lake City, so she had never seen Elder McMullin or the rabbit warren that his family dwelled in. Well, that made me feel like just killing Brigham right off rather than slowly skinning the bastard and feeding him his balls as I scraped slowly along.
Palmyra had a lover, Mountain Jim Cannon, who had cat-footed into the Lion House, put three guards asleep forever, and carried her off and handed her over to Ouray, who took her to the slickrock. Mountain Jim left a good trail for Brigham’s killers—the Sons of Dan—and he led them on a merry chase, now and then picking one off to stir them up.
Brigham was in a flaming rage because his Sons of Dan came back without Palmyra, the letters, or Mountain Jim’s head. Only one in three did return—Jim killed nine of them—and they wasn’t too enthusiastic about a rematch.
“Where’s Jim now?” I says, curious.
I’d seen a flash off a piece of glass up high some time in the late afternoon.
“He fled to West Texas for a while,” said Palmyra.
“What about these letters Brigham is so eager to get,” I asked, wondering how long it would be before Mountain Jim come down to join us. What was up there was him with a buffalo rifle and a telescopic sight aiming at my heart. It’s true, I could have been a spy of Brigham’s, and in their shoes, I’d have been up there, too, with just that equipment.
“Ah, the letters,” said Palmyra. “The letters of Joseph Smith wherein he reveals himself to be nothing more than a half-mad sharpster sure of his right to women by the score and the Throne of God when he ascended into heaven. At one point he speculates that his holy emanations will force God to bring Joseph the throne right down here on earth. He was shot down like a rabid cur by some tasteful soul and tossed in the lime pit with the glandered horses and the cats crushed by wagon wheels.”
If you are going to start up a religion make sure that you have it as preposterous as possible, that way you get the folks too dumb to live, and no backchat.
“The letters are hidden at the Lion House,” said Palmyra, “and you, Mr. Kelly, are going to get them for me.”
“Now just a goddamned minute here,” I said, starting to rise, “If you think I’m going ...” I sort of trailed off right there because this knife had appeared out of nowhere and was ever so delicately pressing the skin right above my jugular.
“Perhaps we should talk about it,” I said. “I’m open to any and all reasonable suggestions.” The knife pressed just a bit more. “Or even unreasonable ones,” I said, lamely.
“Brigham would welcome you if you brought him the head of Elder McMullin,” said a deep voice I’d bet gold on was Mountain Jim’s. “I don’t know what he likes so about heads, but he seems to flat dote on ’em.”
So I told them about Brigham’s explanation for the throat-cutting, how good help was hard to find, and what he had for hard boys could remember Scripture all right but couldn’t think if they was on fire.
Jim pulled the knife away before he started to laugh.
“Well, that blood atonement makes sense for the first time,” he chuckled, “as much as any of that trash makes sense.”
“I’d just as soon keep Elder McMullin’s head for my own self, my father-in-law has a Blackfoot head he pisses on at state occasions.” I stopped, I’d thought of my wife and hadn’t meant to.
And Washakie had done such a good job on me I thought no more of murder than if I’d have been a goddamn Mormon.
Mountain Jim folded himself down next to Palmyra and took her hand. She put her head on his shoulder. Jim was a big rangy redhead with a lopsided grin under his cookie-duster moustaches and them kind of pale blue killer’s eyes that is always froze solid no matter what the heat in the air might be. He’d do to ride with for bad work, I could see right off.
“You understand, Mr. Kelly,” said Jim, “that Palmyra and I will have no peace until we hold Brigham hostage to the truths he cannot afford to be known.”
I was young and more than half crazy, and with Eats-Men-Whole dead I made about the best sort of warrior. One
who don’t give a perforated damn whether he dies or not but is cold mad and wants a lot of blood.
I was also more than a little vexed with Elder McMullin on my own account. I was damn well going to kill him on my own tick, nobody had to ask me to do that.
“I’m your man,” I says. “I’ll go collect McMullin’s crazed noggin.”
“I’ll go with you,” says Jim. I could see Palmyra give a little start.
“No,” I says, “I’ll kill him and his sons won’t amount to a hill of ants.”
“I believe that you will,” says Jim.
He was right then and would be from time to time—I ain’t a hero, mind you, my hat size is above five, but there is some things I’ll risk my neck on that don’t include things like flags and that damned Grace Company I was to get tangled up with later. Well, all those stories in their time.
That nice Creedmore Ouray had given me figured large in my calculations. After a little practice so I knew where it threw I’d be able to shoot and them firing back would be out of range. I’d hear of folks hitting a man’s head at two thousand yards. And a little fiddlework on the slug’s noses and they’d be explosive.
But I wouldn’t use a head shot on Elder McMullin, on account of it being my ticket in to see Brigham, and I was young and cocky enough that I thought I might get close enough for a clear shot at the Prophet his own self. I had death as my vocation then and now I am ashamed a little, but the dead are dead and I ain’t so that’s all the story, I guess.
I idly asked Mountain Jim what the hell he was doing out here. I was struck by their fine faces in the soft canyon light. Good people. Jim was a Britisher and as a young feller he left home and school—he was the second son of a peer, wouldn’t say who—and he come to America to seek his fortune. Kind of like me, he was westering at a young age. He saw the Rockies, and he looked in the high valleys for gold. Didn’t find much, but he was curious, and soon he knew the west slopes of the Colorado Rockies pretty good. In truth, like no other man but a few Utes. He’d found the silver where Silverton is now, got cheated out of his claim, shot the cheat, and like so many of us skedaddled from the swift grip of the law. We all tended to be short on temper and scruples and long on imagination and curiosity.
