Falconer's Law

by Jason Manning

"Don't shoot, Eben."

  It was Silas!

  Eben's brother steered the black stallion through the trees. Close enough to see the expression of disbelief on Eben's face, he smiled. Eben experienced a quick, hot surge of anger.

  "What the hell are you doing here?"

  "Looking for you, brother."

  "You've got some nerve, after what happened."

  Silas stayed aboard the stallion, scanning the darkening forest with fugitive eyes. His cheeks were hollow, his eyes sunk deep in gray sockets. He had the look of the hunted about him—a man who had not eaten or slept for days.

  "I didn't do anything wrong," he said.

  "Nothin' wrong?" echoed Rube Holly and snorted. "You squared off against Portugee on account of an Arapaho woman, and a cutnose to boot, pilgrim. Then you run like a rabbit."

  "You better watch—" Silas bit down hard on the retort, forced the smile back in place on his haunted face. "Look, you got it all wrong. My quarrel with the trader wasn't over a woman. It was about the whiskey he sold me. Gospel truth, Eben, he tried to poison me. It was him trying to kill me for Annie. When I threatened to expose him, he tried to cut me open from groin to gullet. I was just defending myself. I swear."

  Eben didn't believe it. He knew his brother too well. How many times had he seen Silas lie himself out of a tight spot? Silas was a master at devising barely plausible excuses for his malfeasance. Had been even as a child. But Eben said nothing now. He didn't have to. Rube took one look at Eben's face and saw, plain as mother's milk, that Eben thought Silas was speaking with a forked tongue.

  "Whatever happened," said Rube, "you'd better light out, feller. Ain't a man in this brigade will buy that story now. Might have, had you stood your ground."

  "How could I have done that? Portugee's partners were dead set on seeing me thrown cold. I'd have been gone beaver for sure, had I stuck."

  "What do you want from us?" asked Eben, ambivalent.

  "I think I finally shook those two off my trail two days ago. Followed your sign here. Waited until I got this chance to talk to you without anybody else knowing. I've got to go to California now, Eben. Don't you see? It ain't safe for me anywhere east of the Sierras."

  "You can't come with us."

  "You're not the booshway. All I want is a chance to tell Falconer my side of the story. He's a fair-minded man. Besides, I've got something to offer."

  "And I guess you still want me to put in a good word for you. Well, I won't, Silas. I can't."

  Silas had to work a little harder to keep his counterfeit smile intact, as cold fury swirled behind his eyes.

  "Not asking," he said. "Just bring Falconer out to meet with me. I'll throw myself on his mercy."

  "Hugh Falconer ain't got none of that," remarked Rube.

  "I won't bring him," said Eben coldly. "You come into camp and talk to him—if you've got the guts."

  "Let's go," said Silas, quick as always to accept any challenge, and Eben immediately regretted having issued one. He didn't like his brother's chances. No telling what the brigade would do. There was only one kind of justice on the frontier—rough justice.

  Chapter 9

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF EBEN NALL

  July 25, 1837. My brother said he had something of value to offer in exchange for our letting him join the expedition. I shouldn't say "our," as it was Hugh Falconer's decision, as booshway. He did not have to, but yesterday he let us all vote on the matter. But I am getting ahead of myself.

  Silas informed Falconer that indeed, as I had feared, the Bannocks had not left the valley. Eight of them had come into our camp to talk with Falconer—more than enough to cause mischief—and all eight were now camped at the north end of the valley. No one doubted what they were after: our horses, and our possibles too, if they could make away with them. Silas had stumbled upon their hidden camp quite by accident. With Portugee's partners after him, he said he was always on the move, never staying in one place too long. The Bannocks hadn't spotted him, but he had seen them, and he described them and their ponies so accurately that none could doubt that, at least this time, he was telling the truth.

  Falconer gave Silas an opportunity to tell his story to the entire brigade. When he was done, a majority voted to give my wayward brother the benefit of the doubt, since what he had said about the Bannocks was clearly true. I must confess I abstained from voting, though if I had been pressed to do so I would have voted against Silas. Some of the men were of a mind to ride north and confront the Indians. Falconer had a better idea. Like as not, he said, the Bannocks kept a scout posted where he could watch our camp, as the Indians were aware we were here only temporarily and might leave the valley at any moment. He told us to get our packs together that evening, which would lead that Indian spy to believe we intended to pull out in the morning. Under the cover of night, Falconer and six others slipped out of camp. I and the others who remained behind were instructed not to act in any way out of the ordinary. As usual, our horses were allowed to graze the meadows north of camp, with the customary two herd guards.

  This morning the Bannocks struck before sunrise. The valley was cloaked in a mist risen from the river bottoms. The Indians ambushed the two horse guards. From the first it was clear they hoped to avoid any bloodshed. They fired over the heads of the guards, who lit out for camp. Then the Indians fled northward with our ponies. Following Falconer's instructions, every one of us gave chase, leaving only Luck and the other squaws behind to watch the camp.

  Shortly after our hasty departure, four of the Bannocks arrived in camp, having circled around with some of our purloined horses. Their intent was to make off with as much of our supplies as they could load onto the ponies. Imagine their surprise when they found themselves surrounded by Falconer and the six men who had accompanied him. The Indians were disarmed without a fight. Falconer was pleased with the catch. He identified one of the Indians as the son of a prominent Bannock chief. The warrior was surprised that Falconer knew his true identity—he had made no mention of his pedigree at the previous parlay—but he did not deny Falconer's claim.

  The rest of us managed to pick up a few of the stolen horses, those that had strayed from the herd during the chase. All told, the thieving Bannocks made off with twenty-seven head. Falconer assured us we need not worry over the loss. Two days later a large contingent of Bannocks arrived. Some of us thought for sure we were going to have a big scrape. But Falconer wasn't concerned in the least. He ventured out alone to talk things over with the chief, the father of one of our prisoners. An exchange was agreed upon—our stolen ponies for the four warriors in our custody. The chief chastised his son for being so foolhardy as to even attempt to outwit Hugh Falconer. I was amazed to see that the Indians were generally amused by the incident. They had been bested by Falconer but harbored no grudge. As Rube Holly explained it to me, there was no shame attached to being outfoxed by a man of Hugh Falconer's caliber.

  At Falconer's invitation the Bannocks shared our camp and our food that night. A rousing good time was had by all, and we laughed and joked about the horse-stealing incident. The Indians took their leave the next morning. Later that day, we too put the Bear River behind us and headed west, secure in the knowledge that at least the Bannocks would not trouble us further . . .

  Falconer led the brigade due west from the Bear River camp, over a pine-strewn saddle. On the other side of the mountain range that hemmed the valley in that direction, the land quickly changed, and everyone was in agreement that the change was for the worse. In a single day's ride they left behind the tall, verdant stands of fir and spruce and pine, the snow-nurtured streams gamboling down the slopes, the emerald meadows of lush grass, and entered a realm of sand and stone and salt flat. For days the men could glance longingly over their shoulders and see the jagged purple line of the Wasatch Range on the eastern horizon. Up there, they knew, the gooseberries were ripe, the wild roses were in bloom, and the deer emerged in legions from the brush to drink daintily at sweetwater springs and d
ancing creeks. Up there, even in summer, water in a tin cup could acquire a film of ice overnight.

  Here, though, on the northern rim of the alkaline desert that played host to a great salt lake, there was withered sagebrush, a sun hammering spikes of blistering heat into the heads and shoulders of travelers, a truculent wind that stirred up a curtain of stinging dust. In July, most of the creek beds were dry as bone. In the summer, if the water came, it would be from flash floods, but for a week they did not spy a single cloud in the brass bowl of sky.

  Still, somehow, creatures survived, even flourished, on the salt desert. Pronghorns, usually mustered in groups of two or three, grazed on the sagebrush. They proved difficult to hunt, being twice as fleet as horses on the short haul. An occasional coyote trailed the brigade. Horned larks by the thousands nested in the sagebrush, exploding into the air to fly in low, darting swarms. There had to be water, the men told one another, but where?

  Falconer seemed to know. When the confidence of the other men began to falter, they had only to glance at him to recover. When almost every canteen was dry, he called a halt at midday on the rim of an arroyo, took ten men down to the bottom of the cut, and with their help dug a hole six feet in depth. The men started to despair, until they saw that at four feet the sand became damp. They dug with renewed vigor, but at six feet there was still no water. Falconer told them not to worry. In the morning they would have a drink. He was right. At daybreak they found two feet of muddy gray water in the bottom of the hole. Falconer ordered the water poured through strips of cloth before any of it was consumed; when the exercise was complete the cloth was stiff and caked with salt.

  According to Indian legend, this great basin had once been an immense inland sea a thousand feet deep. By comparison, the great salt lake, all that remained of this ancient sea, was a mere puddle. Long ago the sea had been connected to the western ocean. A tremendous earthquake closed this outlet. Because of its inordinately high saline content, the sea eventually evaporated.

  Skirting the salt lake, the brigade doggedly kept to its westering course. In time a range of distant mountains could be discerned straight ahead. The men cheered, so great was their relief. But another ten days of suffering was required to reach this high country, and the last three days were pure hell, as one of the water holes the Bannocks had told Falconer about turned out to be dust dry. After forty-eight hours without water, horses and men alike were on their last legs. One man was caught bleeding a packhorse, to slake his raging thirst with the animal's blood. Falconer flew into a towering rage. He threatened to cut the man's throat and let him drink his own blood. This was a side of Hugh Falconer that Eben had not seen before, and he questioned Rube Holly about it, since Rube seemed to know their booshway as well as anyone.

  "He ain't no saint, that's for sartin," conceded the old-timer.

  "Still, a man's life is of more value than a single horse."

  "And I thought you were smart," chided Rube. "Our ponies are bottomed out. If Falconer let one man get away with that, what do you reckon the rest would do, if they were thirsty enough? Then, 'fore you know it, half our horses would be buzzard bait. If that happens, who's gonna carry our supplies? You want to load up with about a hunnerd pounds of gear and try walkin' to California, boy? How far you reckon you'd get?"

  "I never thought of it that way," confessed Eben.

  " 'Course you didn't. That's why Hugh Falconer's leadin' this crew of cutthroats and scoundrels, and not you. Don't you ever cross him, Eben. He'll skin you alive and not blink an eye. He may seem like a nice enough feller most of the time, but you don't want him riled at you."

  On the third day without water Eben began to think they were all going to perish. Floating like a dream above the heat shimmer, the mountains seemed no closer than they had appeared to be two days earlier. Eben's tongue and throat were so swollen he could hardly swallow. His stomach was a knot of twisting agony—he could scarcely sit upright in his saddle, much less stand. His saltrimmed eyes burned like the gates of hell. That morning, two horses dropped dead in their tracks. Falconer finally called a halt. Eben slipped off the stalwart Appaloosa and lay, weak as a kitten, in the strip of shade cast by the mare. He never knew if he passed out or just went to sleep, but when someone shook him awake he opened his eyes to see the sun higher in the sky and Hugh Falconer bending over him.

  "I'll have to borrow that horse of yours," said Falconer.

  His words gave Eben a small dose of strength, enough to get to his feet. He clutched the mare's reins tightly.

  "I don't think so," he said, and the croaking travesty of his voice startled him.

  Falconer's brown eyes darkened with anger, turning almost black. Eben's heart lurched in his chest. It was insane to stand up to this man. He would not have risked drinking his own blood for anything else in the world except the Appaloosa mare.

  "I—I won't make it without the mare," he stammered, trying to explain his insubordination, putting into words a feeling that had only just crystallized into conscious thought, and then dead certitude, when he was faced with the prospect of losing the horse—the certainty that the Appaloosa, with her unfathomable stamina and indomitable spirit, was the key to his own survival.

  Falconer heard the despair, the dread, in Eben's voice, and his anger subsided. "You will get her back. And you will survive. We all will. But I'm sending Gus Jenkins ahead to find water, and I want him to have the best two horses in the brigade. Means I need the loan of your Appaloosa."

  "We can't just sit here and wait for death," protested Eben.

  "I know," said Falconer, suddenly the soul of tolerance. "We'll move on during the night. But Jenkins must ride day and night, if need be. The life of every man here depends on it."

  It almost broke Eben's heart to do it, but he handed over the reins.

  With Luck's help, Eben and Rube rigged some shade using their rifles and the lean-to cover of skins sewn together. Huddled beneath this shelter, the three of them settled down to await day's end. The salt flats were eerily silent. Not a man or woman spoke. The horses stood still as statues, their necks bowed. Falconer had ordered all saddles and packs removed. Every now and then one of the ponies would blow, drooling yellow lather. The flies came, crawling all over the men and horses, seeking moisture. Eben was too exhausted to swipe at them. Then the buzzards showed up, and before long dozens were circling effortlessly on the heat rising from the blistered flats.

  Eben was beginning to drift off again when he heard a scuffling sound, and opened his eyes to see Silas crawling on hands and knees toward the lean-to, a wolfish grin on his face.

  "We're all gonna die," slurred Silas.

  "Shut up."

  "We're all gonna die in this godforsaken desert." He giggled.

  "He's plumb out of his mind," observed Rube Holly.

  Silas got to his feet, stood bent over, arms dangling, body swaying to and fro. Pure malice tugged his features into a grotesque mask.

  "I'm gonna kill you, old man. I'm gonna kill you and drink your blood . . ."

  Eben lashed out with a foot and swept his brother's legs out from under him. Silas hit the ground hard and passed out.

  "I'm sorry," Eben told his partner. "It's the heat and lack of water. Made him crazy."

  "Probably drank his own piss. You gonna spend yore whole life makin' excuses for this feller?"

  Eben didn't reply.

  Rube stirred himself. "Well, come on. We cain't leave him out in the sun for what's left of his brains to bake. Help me drag him into the shade."

  Time had ceased to be of any consequence to Eben, and he had no idea how much of it crawled by before a thought lodged itself in his skull.

  "You think Jenkins will come back, Rube?"

  His tongue was swollen, his lips cracked and bleeding, and he had trouble pronouncing the words. They sounded like a foreign language to his ears, but Rube Holly seemed to have no trouble comprehending.

  "Long as there's breath left in his body he won't let us
down."

  "Why didn't Falconer go?"

  "Reckon he wants to stick close, in case we need him. He's our booshway, boy. Wouldn't be right, him leavin' us behind. If there's water to be found up ahead, Jenkins will find it just as quick as Hugh could."

  Eben lapsed into silent misery. The sun, or so it seemed to his fevered mind, was stuck in the sky at its zenith. Would this hellish day never end? But if it did end, they would have to start moving again—and Eben didn't think he could make another mile. Why trade one agony for another? Why not just lie here and count buzzards until he went to sleep one last time?

  "Hey, boy."

  Eben had been drifting away. His eyes were open, but everything was a colorless, and meaningless, blur. He tried to focus. The sun had sapped all the color out of the world. Rube Holly was standing in front of the shelter.

  "Eben, Jenkins is back."

  Somehow Eben mustered up enough energy to bestir himself. Crawling out into the merciless sunlight, he groaned as heat hammered between his shoulder blades.

  "Look!" exclaimed Rube Holly. "He found water!"

  The old-timer helped Eben to his feet. Eben had to narrow his eyes to slits—the brightness was like needles jammed into his temples from the inside. He could see Jenkins, on the Appaloosa mare, leading the other horse, bent slightly over in the saddle as he spoke to Hugh Falconer. Then he noticed that almost all the horses were moving, plodding closer to the mare and the other horse Jenkins had taken with him. They pressed near the mare, sniffing its muzzle, whickering softly.

  "See?" asked Rube, so excited he was almost dancing a jig. "Them ponies know. Yore mare and that other cayuse have had themselves a drink. Yessir, Jenkins found water, and we're gonna see another sunrise after all."

  Chapter 10

  The brigade's desert ordeal wasn't over. For eleven more days they trudged across the parched plains. But every now and then they found good water, and eventually they reached the Humboldt. A river had never looked so wonderful to Eben Nall. Neither the men nor the horses could be restrained when they topped a dusty rise and spotted the stream, curling like a silver-blue ribbon through the dun-colored hills. A stampede followed, with snorting horses and hollering men. The men cavorted in the shallows all afternoon, or crawled up into the blessed shade cast by gray cottonwoods to sleep like the dead, while the horses preferred to stand shoulder-deep in the river, soaking up moisture through every pore.