Falconer's Law

by Jason Manning

  Game, however, was almost nonexistent. Falconer dispatched several hunting parties, which forayed far afield, but to no avail. In those nine days we managed to kill only a handful of scrawny rabbits and a couple of rattlesnakes. The latter, I must admit, weren't half bad. You must make sure the venom sacs have been removed, of course, but skinned and sliced and cooked on a sharp stick over a hot fire, snake meat is surprisingly palatable.

  The rains caused the desert to bloom. Groundsel, snakeweed, and thistle blossomed. The last is used as a medicinal by the Indians. One variety produces a sap that, when dried into a gum, is a powerful cathartic. A decoction of another plant, the broomrape, is commonly used as a treatment for sores, or so I am informed by none other than Doc Maguire, who has more than a passing interest in the healing properties of plants on the frontier. A number of these plants are poisonous to livestock, so care was taken to keep our horses away from them. Without doubt the most imposing vegetation in this part of the country is the joshua tree. There are very large stands of them, and they host a startling variety of birds. But the most abundant and omnipresent of all plants in this country is the sagebrush. This is a very hardy plant, resembling a miniature oak tree, and grows in deep sand or among rocks. Each night we build our campfires with sage. A hole two feet deep and just as wide is dug into the ground. Sagebrush is chopped up and burned in it until the hole is filled to the brim with glowing red coals. There is little smoke produced, and such a fire will provide warmth all night to those who huddle around it. The horses don't care for sage, but almost always where sage grows, so also grows bunchgrass, more nutritious than almost any other grass for livestock.

  But for the lack of fresh meat we fared well in the crossing, and all were at a loss to explain the shortage of game, just as everyone was glad Falconer had made us lay in a stock of dried meat along the Bear River. The only creature larger than a rabbit that we saw during those nine days was a coyote, which seemed bent on accompanying us across the plains. It stayed with us night and day. At first several of the men tried to hunt it down and kill it, supposing that even coyote steaks beat leather-tough jerky. But the coyote managed to elude them all. During the day, while we were on the move, the creature could be seen off to one side of the column or the other, keeping a parallel course. Whenever anyone unlimbered a rifle, the coyote vanished. Eventually we all agreed it would be better to live and let live where our coyote companion was concerned. At night it would sing for us. A coyote's "music" isn't easy to describe. It has many different voices, which seem to echo, so that several coyotes in concert can sound like a hundred. Sometimes our coyote would be answered by one or two others, way off in the distance. Theirs is a distinctly lonesome sound, yet oddly comforting at the same time.

  I think only Rube Holly refused to indulge in a fond regard for our strange coyote friend. "He is the Ishmaelite of the desert, boy," says Rube. "The consort of rattlesnakes and turkey vultures. He is a bushwhacker and a tyrant and a prankster. When first I come out here, a greenhorn like you, a coyote latched onto me and damn near stole everything I owned, which warn't much, I can tell you. The devil even dragged my saddle off one night and chewed big holes in the leather—for the salt, I reckon. I set many a trap for the cunning varmint, and finally thought I had him, but he chewed clean through his trapped leg and got away."

  When we reached the foothills of the Sierras, the coyote left us. I, for one, missed him.

  Our spirits rose when we reached the foothills. The great mountains soared into the sky before us, a towering, jagged barrier of granite, capped with snowfields, the highest peaks wreathed in cloud. These mountains are particularly imposing, as they rise up in great red ramparts thousands of feet above the desert plain. The hills are well timbered with oak and pine. They are steep and broken, rising steeper and higher, increasing in height like stairs until they reach the Sierra. They are cut by deep, wild ravines, clogged with boulders and dead timber and thorny chaparral. Numerous streams, born in the high snows, tumble down through the gulches. Among the trees can be found an occasional meadow, lush and green. These shady glens are inviting to us all, as we have been two long months in the desert. The air is sweet, filled with the resinous aroma of pine, cedar, and wild bay. For mountain men this is heaven, and our inclination is to linger here and recover from our previous ordeals. Yet, as Falconer tells us, to tarry would be a foolish, perhaps fatal, mistake. Soon the snows will come to the high reaches, and the passes will be blocked for the winter, and if we are caught here on the eastern slope, between the desert and the divide, we would suffer immensely before spring arrived.

  The question remains, How do we cross these forbidding mountains? No notch or pass is immediately evident. Falconer has decided to leave the brigade encamped upon one of these lush meadows and reconnoiter ahead. He has asked Bearclaw Johnson and me to accompany him. Imagine my astonishment at this unexpected invitation! I can't think why he would want me, of all people, to come along . . .

  It was rough going for both men and horses, a stiff climb, but Eben's Appaloosa mare proved equal to the task, as he had known she would be. She seemed every bit as strong and surefooted as Falconer's wild-eyed mountain mustang. Bearclaw's pony, though, had some trouble. Part of it was Johnson's bulk. Bearclaw weighed two hundred and fifty pounds if he weighed an ounce. Not that he was fat. It was all grit and gristle. But he was a load, and his horse slowed them down some.

  Falconer was convinced that a way across the mountain existed somewhere nearby, based on what the Bannocks had told him, but at first they had no luck in finding even so much as a promising trail. The high palisades towered above them to dizzy heights, apparently unconquerable.

  It got much colder as they climbed higher, and that afternoon the clouds gathered, as usual, piling up against the crags. Before long a slashing rain struck at them, saturating their clothing. The chill searched their bones. The wind howled in their ears. In a matter of minutes Eben was perfectly miserable.

  They camped for the night not far below the timberline, where junipers, stunted and warped by the weather, grew somehow among red stone needles that rose like a predator's fangs from the base of a shale slope, twenty to thirty feet tall. At some point in time boulders the size of cabins had become detached from the parapet cliffs above and rolled down to the needles, crushing some of the trees. Beneath and between these jumbled boulders the mountain men found dry wood and a modicum of shelter from the storm. Building a small fire, they heated a pot of water, into which they placed strips of jerked venison. This softened the jerky and left a hot, flavorable soup, which all of them drank greedily. After eating, Bearclaw Johnson rolled up in a buffalo robe and in moments was snoring loudly. He had not, as far as Eben knew, spoken a word all day.

  "He's not too sociable," said Falconer, as though he could read Eben's mind, "but he knows how to survive in the high country, no matter what."

  "I was just thinking," said Eben, "that this country sure has a mean streak. It must bleed something out of a man if he succeeds in adapting to it."

  Falconer nodded. "That's reasonable. For everything a man gains he must lose something else. The way life is, I reckon."

  "These are the most unfriendly mountains I've ever seen. They were tailor-made for suffering."

  "There's a reason for everything. A reason the grass grows. A reason the rivers run. A reason for the snow to fall. That's how God planned it. I guess He had a reason to put some mean-spirited mountains here."

  "Yes, but is there a reason for us being here?"

  "My mother," said Falconer, with a wistful smile, "used to tell me we were put on this earth to suffer. It's God's plan. I reckon that's why a man is never satisfied with what he's got. Always wants to know what's on the other side of the mountain, and he'll play hell getting across that mountain, too, but he'll do it, only to find he's not going to be satisfied with what he sees on the other side either."

  "That makes our existence seem kind of futile."

  "Not really. B
ecause sooner or later we're supposed to pluck the scales from our eyes and see life for what it is."

  "What's that?"

  "A lesson. Life is supposed to teach us that our only satisfaction lies beyond the grave—not in this life, but in the next. Of course, we don't always learn that lesson."

  Eben was silent for a moment, mulling it over. "What you're saying is that California won't turn out to be that paradise on earth we've all heard so much about."

  "That's right."

  "Then why do we bother?"

  "We have a foolish nature."

  "Then what's the use in having dreams?"

  "Dreams are meant to humble us, because they never turn out just right. I had a dream once, of living alone in the high country with Touches the Moon until the day I died. I'd leave the world alone if it would leave me alone. I had a few years of living my dream, which is more than a lot of men can say, and I thought I was fairly well satisfied. Thought I had everything I could possibly ever need. But then Touches the Moon died, and I was reminded that nothing ever stays the same. You see, the dream was supposed to last forever."

  "If what you're saying is true, I might as well have stayed a store clerk back in Ohio."

  "No. That's not what I'm saying at all. If you don't chase your dreams, you'll never learn your lesson."

  "Well," said Eben, "I'm still not sure I understand why you're so dead set on getting to California, if you know it won't turn out to be what you're looking for."

  Falconer smiled as he rolled up in his blankets. "I never said I'd learned my lesson."

  Chapter 16

  Eben Nall found it hard to sleep that night. This had nothing to do with the storm, or the cold, but rather with the conversation he'd had with Hugh Falconer. Though disturbing in some of its aspects, the talk was a comfort to Eben. Falconer, the living legend, had become more human in Eben's eyes as a result of their parlay. And it occurred to Eben that Falconer had seen fit to share his innermost thoughts with him. Eben suspected that this was an honor bestowed upon very few men, even while he was mystified that Falconer would choose him, of all people, to confide in.

  As a rule, mountain men were a profane and rowdy bunch, and Eben was somewhat surprised to learn that Falconer had a deeply ingrained religious streak. For this had been Falconer's point: nothing in this life would ever truly satisfy a person—such fulfillment could be had in the next life. Nonetheless, Eben found his desire to experience the wonders of California undimmed. For some reason he felt certain he would find answers there—answers to questions regarding what he was supposed to do with his life. Of course, first they had to find a way across the forbidding Sierras—no easy task.

  Finally Eben drifted off to sleep.

  Falconer woke him at dawn. The storm had passed. The sky was a beautiful robin's egg blue, and dawn light painted the high snows in shades of pink and indigo. But it was bitterly cold. Falconer had the fire blazing and coffee brewing; Eben managed to pour some into a tin cup even though he was shivering violently. The coffee was hot enough to burn his tongue, yet, oddly, he could scarcely feel the heat of the cup on his frozen hands.

  "We'd better get over these hills in a hurry," he said. "I'd hate to be stuck here when winter comes in earnest."

  "I think we ought to split up," said Falconer. "Cover more ground that way. You go north. I'll head south. We'll meet back here no later than tomorrow morning."

  Eben looked around for Bearclaw Johnson and noticed for the first time that the man was gone.

  "He lit out about an hour ago," said Falconer, with a sigh. "When he woke up he said he smelled bear. He has spells like this sometimes. When it happens there is nothing you can do to stop him. He forgets about everything else and goes off to hunt grizzly."

  "Hadn't we better look for him?"

  "When he's over it, he'll find us. If you do run across him, just let him be. He's not in his right mind."

  Nursing the coffee, Eben spent some time in somber deliberation of his immediate future. The prospect of exploring these strange mountains on his own was daunting enough without having a loco Bearclaw Johnson to look out for. But he said nothing to Falconer, merely trying to conceal his anxiety.

  A half hour later Eben was on the trail. He climbed higher, across gray and barren screes of shale, through the last of the wind-sculptured junipers. A chill wind fluted around the peaks and, striking him, seemed to bore holes right through him, holes out of which his energy seeped. Above loomed majestic peaks, and in their presence Eben was reminded of the helpless inconsequence of man. Still, the cautions that were so much a part of his nature ebbed away, and thoughts of the risky endeavor in which he now found himself were intoxicating. It struck him again that Hugh Falconer had seen something inside him—something he himself had not been aware of—that had prompted the legendary booshway to burden him with awesome responsibility. The success of the expedition, and quite possibly even the lives of the men in the brigade, rested at least in part on his shoulders at this moment. They had to find a passage through the Sierras, or there would be hell to pay, and of all the savvy frontiersmen to choose from, Falconer had elected to bring him along.

  About midday he reached the crest of a rocky shoulder and heard for the first time the gushing roar of a waterfall. Far below, in a deep gorge strewn with boulders, a river foamed as it careened wildly along its rocky course. Descending from the shoulder, Eben tried to keep to the rim of the gorge, but the going was too treacherous for even the surefooted Appaloosa, and after a couple of hair-raising close calls, he urged the mare back up onto the mountain's flank. He realized that the river gorge snaked through the peaks in such a way that from the lowlands to the east it went undetected.

  Finally he reached a point from which he could see the falls, cascading in three stages into the gorge below, falling at least a thousand feet in all. A swirling mist rose from the depths of the gorge, accompanied by perpetual thunder. It was a magnificent scene, but Eben was more interested in what lay beyond the falls: it appeared that a narrow canyon gave access to the heart of the Sierra range.

  Riding on, he found a game trail that skirted the head of the falls, providing several dizzy glimpses of a chasm filled with indigo shadows and the sound and fury of the cascades. This led him into the mountain trench. He had gone but a mile when the afternoon clouds gathered quickly overhead to blot out the sun, their gray-black bellies pregnant with rain. The wind picked up; trapped in the canyon, it swirled madly and tore at his clothing with invisible claws. Then the heavy mists of rain closed in, and the tattered shreds of the broken thunderheads crept down into the trench to blind him. The Appaloosa slipped and slid on the slick rocks of the trail. Thoroughly miserable, Eben retreated within himself, seeking to escape the surface misery. He left progress entirely to the Appaloosa; his faith in her was complete.

  By late afternoon the coldness in him was a burning ache. At day's end it had become a numb sensation in his arms and legs. The trench widened. The river widened too and became less violent, and Eben sought refuge in a stand of pines. Nightfall trapped him there—but better there, he decided, than on the perilous game trail above the gorge. There was nothing for it—he would wait here until morning light and pray throughout the long, cold, wet, hungry, miserable night that by daybreak the storm would have passed. Then he would take one quick look at the valley before starting back. No chance of reaching the needles, where he was due to meet Falconer, by the appointed time. But he had to know if the valley was going to pan out. Anticipation prevented him from getting a wink of sleep. Sitting on a carpet of wet pine needles, wrapped in a thoroughly saturated Point blanket, in the lee of the Appaloosa mare, he suffered through an interminable night. Finally the rain ceased. The bitter cold wracked his aching bones with merciless persistence. Dawn crept over the peaks and down into the valley. His heart sank as he watched a thick cottony mist rise from the white-water river. But when the sun reached the skyline, its golden rays seemed to shred the mist, and Eben rejoiced a
t the sight of pristine blue sky.

  Ahead of him lay the panorama of the valley, with its wooded flanks and its high mountain meadows sparkling like emerald facets with the morning dew. By the angle of the sun he could tell that the valley cut east to west, through the Sierras. Was he the very first white man to ever see this valley? Probably. Would there be a pass at the other end, along the divide? No telling. That was a chance they would have to take, unless Falconer had discovered a more promising route.

  Wincing as he rose from beneath the mare, Eben wiped the saddle with his blanket before mounting up. A solitary timber wolf appeared across the river, stopped short in surprise at the sight of him, barked once before melting back into the purple shadows of the forest. Eben turned the Appaloosa around and headed back.

  He was surprised to find Falconer waiting for him at the needles, well past the appointed hour.

  "I had no luck," said Falconer. "What about you?"

  Eben told him about the promising valley he had discovered, but he stressed that he did not know if it would take them all the way through the Sierras.

  "We'll have to risk it," decided Falconer, studying the sky, which was once again filling up with angry clouds. "We don't have much time before the first snow falls."

  "What about Bearclaw? Any sign of him?"

  "Not a trace. And we don't have the time to search for him. He'll find us, if he's able."

  They reached the brigade late that night. They were on their way before the next sunrise, and the long climb to Eben's hidden valley began.

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF EBEN NALL

  October 21, 1837. I have been too busy trying to stay alive to attend to this journal with any kind of regularity. The crossing of the Sierra Nevadas was a difficult one. On our second day in the mountains the snow began to fall, and it fell in abundance every day thereafter. The drifts became so deep that we lost several horses to them, and I believe we were lucky not to lose any men. The snow piled up so thick in the pine forests that at times we could not make passage through the trees at all, and had to seek a way around them, which often entailed ascending a steep and treacherous precipice.