The Way West Part 19

The boy didn't move as the foot was turned. He lay there quiet, he and his little leg and the big, black leg that would kill him.

"We'll put on a root-and-milk poultice," Evans said. "That might fotch it."

Judith was stroking the hand she had brought back into hers. "He hasn't had any fun," she said, not to anyone, as if speaking a faraway wish for a new chance with him. The tears kept spilling from her eyes and sliding down the uncrying face. "He's been sick so much."

Fairman raised his head and spit and bent it again.

Judith went on as if she was all alone: "I should have played with him this morning. I should have known how tired he was of doing nothing."

"Don't fault yourself, Judie," Rebecca asked. "Please don't fault yourself any more. You ain't to blame."

Evans wished Judith would break down, wished she would begin to whoop and holler and take on as some women did and so ease herself and all the rest of them.

d.i.c.k came in with a kettle of hot milk in one hand and some straggly roots in the other and sat down at the door of the tent and put a root in his mouth. When he had chewed it up, he spit it into his hand and took another bite. "All right, Charlie."

Fairman brought his head up and cleared his mouth. Some grains of powder showed around it. "What is it?"

"A root the Sioux use." d.i.c.k moved up with his handful of chewings and plastered it on.

"Got a rag?" Evans asked.

Judith took a towel from the pile by her side and leaned across to hand it to him. He went to the kettle and dipped the towel in the hot milk and folded it and came back and laid it over. Fairman spread the blanket again.

"Would whisky help?" Fairman asked.

d.i.c.k just shook his head while he sat cross-legged, his face showing nothing but the hard patience to wait.

Evans let himself down and put his hand to his neck that was stiff with stooping, and for what seemed a long time they sat there, out of talk, while d.i.c.k chewed fresh root and Evans dipped the rag in the heated milk that Mrs. Mack kept bringing back. From outside came the wordless murmur of voices.

Judith's far-off voice picked up by and by. "He was what we were going to Oregon for."

Fairman broke in sharply, "Was!"

"I mean is, Charles. Is."

Evans stared at his hands, and then Judith cried out, cried the breaking cry that he had been wishing for and couldn't stand now, and he saw the thick and sickly matter bleeding from the boy's closed lids and knew that he was dying.

He scrambled up and ducked outside, spitting "Bad," to all the questions asked him, and found Brother Weatherby and asked him to come. Sometimes he felt like thanking G.o.d for preachers.

Chapter Seventeen.

IT WOULD be a dry, raw day, windy-warm, and a man would go along licking his roughening lips while the juices in him parched away. Already, with the sun no more than a hand above the eastern sky line, Evans felt the touch of it on his back. It would burn later and hurt the eye with its glitter, and the wind out of the west would draw up the skin of the face. The thought dodged into his head that Byrd's cracked lip wouldn't get any better today.

He stood with the rest, waiting on Brother Weatherby to start. Weatherby had his coat on and his hat off and his Bible under his arm. By him was the dirt piled on canvas and the hole left from it and the walnut box that held Tod Fairman. Evans didn't know what Weatherby was waiting for, unless for a goahead from above.

When, finally, the rusty voice sounded, Evans was back in yesterday, making the box again out of the chest that Rebecca swore she wouldn't need anyhow. It was a good coffin, better even than most made in Missouri, and he had found rest for his mind in the building of it. For the time, he almost had forgotten sadness in measuring and sawing and hammering. He had eased it by the movements of his hands and the sight of the box taking shape under them, its joints tight and smooth and its lid close-fitting. He reckoned it was the same with d.i.c.k, who had gone with Patch and Fairman and picked a spot for a grave and, so Patch said, cut the sod and peeled it back as if skinning a fine fur. He and Patch had dug the grave, deep so as to be beyond wolves, and had pitched every grain of dirt on a cover.

Evans lifted his head, for Brother Weatherby was done with praying for the time being and was saying that G.o.d worked in mysterious ways -which was the plain truth. He tried to stay on the track of Weatherby's words, but his mind kept straying off, Asking itself questions, bringing back the pictures of things seen. Rebecca and Mrs. Brewer had washed the little body and laid it out and wrapped it in its winding sheet and put it in the box along with the leg that fouled it and afterwards had sat most of the night through, kept company and later spelled by Evans and Patch and men and women who came and went, bringing meat and bread and sweetening, stammering old comforts for the Fairmans, who sat up, too, quiet for the most part and dulled by grief. Rebecca finally had talked Judith into going off for a nap, but Judith didn't stay long and Evans doubted that she'd slept.

It was a long, hard night. Outside, things were quiet except for wolf howls far off and now and then a breeze that found the tent and whispered death and slid away, but the breath of time seemed to sound, of time and distance and things that had been and things to come. Hearing Judith sob as her loss came alive in her, feeling the press of misery on him, Evans was struck by the littleness of grief here. It had to be walled in, it had to be kept close in a tent, else it would blow like dust and be gone and never a sign of it remain in the high sky or on the long land.

"'Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in G.o.d, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions ...' "

Mansions! What would a little boy care about a mansion? His mother was the best mansion he had. But G.o.d worked in mysterious ways. Leave it to G.o.d! There wasn't any choice anyhow. Leave it to G.o.d!

Evans felt the tired sadness and the strength of Rebecca, who stood by him, her arms crossed loose under her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her eyes big with misery and too-little sleep, and he guessed her thoughts wcre on their second-born, who had sickened and died in a year And so left all their hopes on Brownie, for Rebecca couldn't catch again.

Brownie stood on his other side, in his face a boy's wonder at the hard way of things. How could a man explain it to his young one, who expected goodness and fun not just all the days of his life but all the days of his life forever and ever? He could say it was the will of G.o.d, which probably it was, but that was like saying he didn't understand, which he didn't. So saying, he felt ignorant and poor-suited as a father and had to catch what comfort he could in knowing that death was an accident in the minds of the young. It came and was done with and wouldn't come again except maybe far off, at a time too distant to worry about.

Bring comfort to the bereaved, Brother Weatherby was praying. Let them accept Thy will. Let them find comfort in Thee and be strengthened by Thy loving strength.

Ahead of Evans, closer to the box, the Fairmans bowed to the prayer. They were a little apart from the rest, for people had drawn back to leave them with their grief. While Evans watched, Judith's shoulders hunched to a choked crying.

The prayer would be the end of it, except for a song and ashes-to-ashes, Evans thought, and then Weatherby lifted his head and pointed his bony arm and put power in his voice as if of a sudden his feelings had got the best of him. "G.o.d created everything and it was good; save thou, alone, snake, are cursed; cursed shalt thou be and thy poison."

Scripture? Was Adam's curse Scripture, or just a saying that some people believed would make a snake crawl off and die? Not that it mattered, and anyway the snake was dead. Brownie had chopped it up, or one just like it. In quick revengefulness he had grabbed the hoe when he heard the news about Tod and had gone off as if to square accounts and had come back with rattles in his palm. Evans had nodded at him, letting him feel that in killing the snake he had done the prime thing.

More praying after the curse. More bowing down. More asking of comfort. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the unG.o.dly shall perish. Even in a funeral preachment Weatherby couldn't keep from taking a lick or two at the swearers and the Sabbath breakers.

A song then. "The Day Is Past and Gone." A kind of queer song for a burying. Weatherby lined it out and pitched it with a voice that showed its age when he tried to sing, and the other voices joined in, frail beside the rock, frail over the lost tumble of country and the wild buffalo grazing and the breeze blowing out of nowhere into nowhere.

The day is past and gone; The evening shades appear: O may we all remember well The night of death draws near.

We lay our garments by, Upon our beds to rest; So death shall soon disrobe us all Of what is here possessed.

Lord, keep us safe this night, Secure from all our fears; May angels guard us while we sleep, Till morning light appears.

Evans walked up, along with Summers and Patch and Mack, and lowered the box with ropes, and Weatherby took a pinch of earth and recited ashes and dust while Judith broke down again.

The crowd drifted off, going back to their wagons to ready for the start. Evans and d.i.c.k filled in the grave and carried what dirt was left and dumped it in the river. "If G.o.d's so G.o.ddam loving-kind," d.i.c.k said while he shook the dust out of the canvas, "He's got a queer way of showin' it."

"I reckon you got to take G.o.d or leave Him, whole hog or none."

"You can have Him. This child wouldn't care for none."

Hearing d.i.c.k, Evans knew something about him he hadn't quite known before. d.i.c.k was tender and tough, both, and the one explained the other when you came to think about it.

d.i.c.k stuffed the canvas under his arm. "You go on. Give me a little time, and I'll fix the grave so no Injun eye can spot it."

"All right. Might as well let me take the canvas." Evans headed for camp. Halfway there, he saw Brownie coming to meet him.

"Pa?" Brownie said while still a half a dozen steps away.

"What is it, boy?"

"I got the tent down and the wagons loaded and the oxen hitched and all."

"So?"

"And it ain't my turn with the cattle."

"What you workin' up to?"

"So could I stay back and chisel my name on the rock?"

"You had all yesterday, Brownie."

"Not all. I stood guard and killed the snake and things."

"It ain't safe."

"Please, Pa. It's safe enough. You'll be in sight for a long ways."

"Why you so took of a sudden to cut your name?"

"I just am, Pa."

Evans noticed that Brownie's eye wouldn't quite meet his. The boy was holding something back, some foolish notion, likely, that was still his notion and his secret and not to be pried at by grownups who thought themselves so wise. He smiled into Brownie's waiting face. "You're doin' a man's work, boy. I reckon you can decide for yourself. Only hurry up, I don't care much to leave you alone."

"Thank you, Pa," Brownie said, showing a quick and thankful gladness. "I'll wait'll you roll."

"Watch for Injuns."

"Sure."

Evans walked to the Fairman tent. It was the only tent not struck yet, and Fairman's teams were the only ones not yoked. He stooped and went inside and saw Judith seated on the bed, her face in her hands, and Fairman standing motionless.

"Ain't Becky here?"

Fairman didn't answer.

"Can I help, Charlie?"

It was another minute before Fairman spoke. "She's coming back. I'll get to it."

"I could yoke your teams now. My outfit's ready."

In the waiting silence Evans heard Judith's held-in sobbing. "I'll get to it."

"We got to roll, Charlie. You know we got to roll."

"I know."

"Not yet, please!" The words cried at Evans, coming out of the wet, torn mouth that the hands had left, coming out of a face past bearing to behold. "We can't leave him yet. Don't you see! We can't leave him."

"And not know where he lies!" Fairman burst out. "Never again to know where he lies!"

"Toddie," Judith said, talking to the grave. "Poor Toddie."

Fairman's voice was rough. "Don't you see? Can't you see?"

Evans saw all right, and wrenched with the seeing, and he saw d.i.c.k Summers, too, poking his head in the tent and coming in silently and standing stooped, his face solemn and the twinkle gone from his eyes. "I kin always find it for you, ma'am, any time," he said.

Chapter Eighteen.

SUMMERS LED OFF, and the wagons rolled into line, the Fairmans' outfit right after the lead team though it wasn't their turn to be shut of the dust. The herders behind shouted and whistled, riding among the animals to the flick of reins and rope ends, and the horses and mules started frisky, s.n.a.t.c.hing for last bites of the bottom gra.s.s before they ran. The cattle got going slow, stopping to bawl and spatter the ground, and crowded into the strip between Independence Rock and the Sweet.w.a.ter.

Brownie sat his horse and watched the train file away and fell in at the tail and helped push the cow column through. He held up then and waved at the riders and reined right and came to the even-steep western face of the rock. A man could climb here, though he had to watch for a slip that might crack a bone.

He slid off his horse and tied it to some high-growing sage, wishing while he did it that the flies weren't so bad. Already, with the sun hardly more than two hours high, they were warmed up for the day's business. There were little, yellow ones that bit like bees and gray ones with bulging eyes and shiny-black ones with white wings that drove a critter crazy. They had followed up, out of the damp of the river growth, against a wind that still must have blown some of them away. He rested his rifle against the rock and laid his hammer and chisel down and went over Nellie, especially the tender, unhaired skin of her t.i.ts. His hand came away smeared with sucked-out blood. He wiped it on his pants and picked up his chisel and hammer. He wouldn't need the rifle, he figured. It would just clutter him up. He'd leave it right here.

The climb was stiff, though more dangerous-looking than dangerous, up the slanting face of rock flecked with grays and browns. Part way up, he stopped to blow, remembering too late that d.i.c.k Summers had said the way to mount a hard rise was to step slow, one step and afterwhile another, so as not to wind yourself. He faced around and sat, holding to the chisel and hammer that might clatter down if he let go.

The train was stretching out as it settled to the day's pull, heading for the gap to the left of Devil's Gate, which from here wasn't a gate but just a niche in a sudden pitch of mountain. d.i.c.k Summers rode in the lead, as always, trotting his horse to put a proper distance between himself and the first wagon. d.i.c.k was easy to make out. His buckskins marked him, and the rifle carried crosswise, and his way of riding, which was as if he'd been born with a saddle between his legs. The riders with him were harder to fix, but they would be Botter and Davisworth and Insko, who usually herded but were going to have fun today, scouting ahead for buffalo, finding out for the train whether to stop and kill and dry meat against the climb over the pa.s.s. Brownie saw buffalo far beyond them, a small herd that seemed to swim in the shimmer of the morning sun.

Closer, the wagons inched away across the reach of plain, tilting right and left as the wheels. .h.i.t the clumps of sage, Daugherty and his red-painted wagon cover in the lead and then the Fairmans and then Pa and Ma and then Holdridge or Gorham and Tadlock. Brownie ran his eye along the line, seeing could he make out every outfit. Some he guessed at by the dogs that trailed along, or by the children. There wasn't any way to miss Brewer and his crowd, or maybe there was. Byrd and Daugherty drew a tail of young ones, too, and McBee.

With his eyes closed, he thought, he would know the McBee wagon, for Mercy was driving. At this distance, with her no more than a flutter of dress and a shadow that marched before, he could see her, the straight, strong little body and the face above it that didn't smile often but spoke with the eyes. He remembered the voice of her that night at Laramie, not the words so much, not the "I'll be all right, Brownie," but the tone she used, the gentle tone. He wondered if others saw her for as pretty as she was, for as touching on the heart. Davisworth? Hig? Botter? Moss? Any of the single men? Or the married ones like Mack that he felt thankful to for being nice to her family that the rest made small of? No, it was his feeling and his alone, for no one else could feel the same, and he would hold it to him while he waited for the time to speak.

The horses and mules followed close on the wagons, driven by Hig and Willie Brewer, and after them lagged the cattle, hating to face up to distance, moving balky while Gorham and McBee and Shields and Patch worked at them. They all had crossed the river, which meandered toward the Gate, its banks sprouting bushes close-pressed by the sage.

Last of all came the dust, streaming the other way, driven hard by the wind. It was a strange sort of country, where the wind blew with hardly so much as a cloud in the sky.

Down in the shadow of the rock Nellie stomped against the flies. Up here there weren't any flies, or any dust-shot in the face, and the shadowed stone was still cool from the night, and a man could hear distance singing with the wind, from the mountains ridged far off to left and right, from the great pa.s.s and d.i.c.k's Green River and from Oregon, where Pa said wheat was growing rich and stock fattened and fish swam solid in the rivers.

A woman, tired already but not tired enough to ride, was hanging to the tail of a wagon, letting the oxen pull her feet along. It was Mercy's wagon, and the woman would be Mrs. McBee, who couldn't be very strong and so talked about miseries and cures while weller people smiled behind their hands. Maybe they would act different if they really knew. Maybe the McBees never had had a chance and would show up good if given one. So they all got to Oregon, and he, known now as Mr. George Brown Evans, made a heap of money, being rich in land and grain and animals, and he set up his in-laws, saying, "Don't think nothin' to it," and they did just fine, and McBee shaved and tidied up, and a nicer bunch of people you'd never want to meet.

The dream didn't come sharp or stay long, being dulled and cut off by the underthought of death, of Tod Fairman and the life gone out of him and his mother choking at the burying, and, farther back, of Martin with no one to grieve over him except a nephew in Illinois who would get the money that his little plunder earned when auctioned off at Laramie. Were they part of the sky now? Was it their voices sounding in the wind, mourning at being gone? Did they look down and see and know from under the wing of G.o.d?

He couldn't imagine himself dying, but he could see himself (lead, lying pale and cold while Ma cried over him and Pa said, "Boy! Boy!" and Mercy sobbed open and unashamed, owning up now to the feeling she had had for him. How he came to die was that he stood off an Indian war party while the train corralled. He had stood between them, steady behind his horse, his aim true on the chief, and had brought him down; and when his own horse had fallen, he had forted up behind it and drawn the pistols at his belt -he happened to be wearing d.i.c.k's pistols and done for two more before an arrow found him. People had said, after they had got his body and pulled the arrow out, that he was the bravest thing they ever saw.

The bravest but also the deadest! He shook the fool picture out of his head. He had to laugh at himself, making out to be so brave when like as not he'd fill his pants if ever he met up with an Indian alone. Maybe he'd turn tail and run. No telling what he would do. When he brought himself honest against the face of danger, he felt the cold turn of fear and so, except when he let dreams drift in his head, went around with doubt in him. He wasn't stout inside but weak and watery. And what he did that might seem bold, like staying here at the rock, wasn't bold at all, for there wasn't any felt risk in it.

He was about to get up and climb some more when he saw a dog loping back from the train. It was Rock, leaping highheaded through the sage, coming to see were things all right with him. "Here, Rock!" he shouted into the wind. "Here, boy!"

He scrambled down the slant. "Here I am, boy. I come to meet you, like you come to meet me." Rock trotted up to him, wet from the river, and wagged his tail and held his head to be scratched and touched Brownie's palm with his cold nose. "You got no business to be runnin' so, you that was lame just a shake ago. Don't you know that? But I reckon you knew I was struck with lone and so come to cheer me up." The words sounded thin against the windy distance. "Now I got to do all that climbin' over again. Kin you make it, boy?"