All the long years, p.16
All the Long Years, page 16
"No. Make your play or I'll blow your god-damn' head off!"
"Not with that scatter-gun. It's not loaded, Reed. We both know that now."
Cable tried to stare him down. The effort lasted no more than a few seconds; his gaze slid down to the useless shotgun. Then, as if the weight of the weapon was too much for his shaking hands, he let it fall to the floor, kicked it clattering under one of the workbenches.
"Why?" he said in a thin, hollow whisper. "Why couldn't you do what you vowed you'd do? Why couldn't you finish it?"
"It is finished," Tarbeaux said.
And it was, in every way. Now he really was free-of Cable and the last of his hate, of the past. Now he could start living again.
He turned and went out into the cold, sweet rain.
Cable slumped again onto his stool. Tarbeaux's last words seemed to hang like a frozen echo in the empty room.
It is finished.
For Tarbeaux, maybe it was. Not for Reed Cable. It wouldn't be finished for him for a long, long time.
"Damn you," he said, and then shouted the words. "Damn you!" But they weren't meant for Lee Tarbeaux this time. They were meant for himself.
He kept on sitting there with his back to the wall.
Waiting.
We come down out of the high country some past sunup, Lige driving the wagon too dang' fast. Winter had played hob with the track, still had snow on it, deep in places. Every time a wheel jounced into a chuckhole or rut, the big old pine-board outhouse tied onto the bed swayed and creaked and groaned.
1 kept hollering at him to slow down. Didn't do no good. When he latches onto some notion, he's like a mule with its teeth in a bale of hay. He don't have a lick of sense, Lige don't. I'm the Hovey born with all the sense; he's the one born with all the stubborn.
"Quit your bellerin'," he said once. "That outhouse ain't gonna bust loose and go flyin'. She's roped in tight."
"That ain't what's worryin' me."
"Won't shake apart, not as solid as we built her."
"Ain't that, neither, and you know it."
"All the more reason to get this here business over with quick. I still ain't sure we ought to be doin' it."
"After all the work we done? Lige, sometimes you're a pure fool."
"Wes," he said, "sometimes you're another."
I breathed some easier when we come to the junction with the county road. Off east was Antelope Valley and the Piegan Indian reservation. Little Creek was four miles to the west, and 1 had me a wish it was where we was headed right now. After four months up in the high country, we was near out of supplies. And 1 could scarce recall my last visit to Miss Sally's sporting house behind the Red Rock Saloon.
Lige turned us east. Wasn't near so cold down on the flats, though I could still see the frost of my breath and Lige's and our roan horse Jingalee's. No drifts of snow left on the ground, neither, like up to our place. You could smell things growing again, and about time, too. It'd sure been a long, hard winter.
County road wasn't near as bad off as the mountain track, and Lige commenced to push Jingalee even harder. 1 hollered at him, but he didn't pay me no mind. Not a lick of sense, by grab. That poor horse was showing lather already, and we still had us a distance left to travel....
"Oh, Lordy Lord!" Lige said, sudden. "Wes, look yonder."
I looked. Man on horseback had just come trotting around a bend ahead. He was all bundled up in a sheepskin greatcoat and a neck muffler, his hat pulled down low, but I knowed him and that steel dust of his right off. So did Lige. Morgan Conagher, sheriff of Little Creek.
"What in tarnation's he doin' out here this early?" 1 said.
"Gonna ask us the same thing." Lige hauled back on the reins some and then give me one of his hot looks, all smoke and sparks. "You and your ideas," he said.
"Ain't nothing wrong with my ideas. You just let me do the talkin', hear?"
He muttered something and slowed us to a rocking stop as Conagher rode up alongside. He was a big 'un, Morgan was, and a holy terror with fists and six-gun, both. Smart, too, for a lawman. Unless a man was plain simple, he walked and talked soft when his path crossed Morgan Conagher's.
"'Morning, boys," he said. "Cold as a gambler's eyeball, ain't it?"
"For a fact. Warmer than up to our place, though."
"Long time since I seen you two. Snowed in most of the winter?"
"Since the first week of December. How come you to be out riding this early. Mister Conagher?"
"Spent the night at Hank Staggs's place in the valley. Little trouble out there yesterday."
"Serious?"
"Not so's you'd notice. Hank figured he had a gripe against a couple of Piegan braves. Turned out to be the other way around." Conagher took his corncob pipe outen a coat pocket and commenced to chewing on the stem. Pipe bowl was black, but I'd never seen him smoke the thing. Gnawing the stem seemed to satisfy him the same as tobacco. "Now that's a curious sight," he said.
"What is?"
"Thing you got tied in your wagon there. Looks like an outhouse."
"Well, that's what she is, all right."
"Can't mistake that half-moon cut in the door."
"No, sir, sure can't."
"Takin' it out for an airing, are you?"
Lige, who don't have no more humor in him than he does sense, just set there. But 1 laughed before 1 said: "Be a couple of jugheads if that's what we was doing, wouldn't we, Sheriff? No, the fact is...."
"Fact is," Lige said before 1 could get anything else out, "we're takin' her over to Charley Hammond's place."
"That so?" Conagher said. "What for?"
Damn Lige for a fool! I give him a side wise glance and a sharp kick with the toe of my boot, both by way of telling him to put a hitch on his fat lip, but he went right on blabbering.
"She don't set the ground right," he said, "and she's got chinks and warped boards. Wind comes whistlin' through them chinks on a cold night, it like to freeze you where you sit."
"Uhn-huh."
"Well, Charley's the best carpenter in the county," Lige said. "So we figured to take her over and let him fix her up."
"Seems like a lot of work for you boys. Been easier to've had Charley bring his tools up to your ranch."
"Sure it would. But he's gettin' on in years, and we're askin' a favor, so we come to the notion of bringin' her down to the valley instead."
Conagher nodded and chewed his pipe stem, and 1 began to have the hope he'd ride on and leave us be. But then he said: "How come you closed off the bottom end?"
"Sheriff?"
"Bottom end there. Closed it off with canvas, didn't you? Canvas over boards, 1'd say."
"Well, now," Lige said, and then he just set there, the big jughead, on account of he couldn't think of no good answer.
"Tell you how it looks to me," Conagher said. "Looks like you boys built yourself a big packing case out of your outhouse. Now why would you go and do a thing like that?"
"Sheriff," 1 said, "it ain't no use tryin' to fool you. Lige and me done closed off that bottom end, right enough, but it wasn't to make a packing case. No, sir. It was something else entire we made outen that outhouse."
"Such as?"
"A coffin. We built us a coffin."
"Coffin?" Conagher frowned and chewed his pipe stem, and then he said: "Who for?"
"Old Bryce. Our hired man."
"Mean to tell me you got him inside there?"
"His poor froze-stiff remains, yes, sir. He up and died two nights ago. Had him the ague and it turned into newmonia, and he up and died on us. Man weighed three hundred pounds, if he weighed an ounce... you know how big he was, Sheriff. So there we was with a three-hundred pound, six-foot-and-three-inch-high corpse and no way to give him a proper Christian burial."
"How come no way? Ground still froze at your place?"
"Froze hard as stone," 1 said. "That's one reason we couldn't plant old Bryce. Other one is, we didn't have no wood left to build a coffin. No lumber a-tall. Winter was so long and cold, we run out of stove wood and had to burn up the last of our lumber to keep warm."
"I thought you boys always took pains to provision yourselves against long winters. Got a reputation for laying in plenty of food, plenty of wood."
"That's just what we do, usual, Mister Conagher. But this winter we got caught short. Had us a lean year, last, and the first blizzard took us unawares, and next thing we knowed, we was snowed in. Why, we was just about ready to chop up that there outhouse and burn it. Would have if the weather hadn't finally broke. And then old Bryce up and died on us."
"Uhn-huh."
"Big and tall as he was, why, he fits inside there just about snug. Couldn't have hammered up a better coffin from scratch...."
"Where you fixing to bury him?"
"Sheriff?"
"Old Bryce in his outhouse coffin. Where you intend to put him down for his final resting place? Town cemetery's in the other direction."
"Yes, sir, that's right, so it is."
"Well?"
lige had that hot look in his eyes again; he kicked me down low on the shin where Conagher couldn't see. But I wasn't about to just set there like him. 1 said: "Potter's fishing hole."
"Bury a dead man in a fishing hole?"
"No, sir, not in Potter's hole. Near it. That was old Bryce's favorite spot in all of Montana. He spent every free chance he had down at Potter's fishing hole, and that's a fact."
"Uhn-huh."
"Well, right before he croaked on us, he said as how he'd like to be buried down by Potter's fishing hole. Didn't he, Lige?"
Lige had enough sense to nod his head. Scowl on his ugly face said he was of a mind to gnaw my innards the way Conagher was gnawing his pipe stem.
"Can't deny a man his dying wish," 1 said. "So me and Lige, we pulled the outhouse down and put old Bryce into her and closed off her bottom and now we're headed down to Potter's to find a shady spot to plant 'em both."
"How you figure on doing the planting?"
"Sheriff?"
"I don't see any tools in that wagon bed."
"Tools?"
"No pick, no shovel. Not even a hoe. Was you boys thinking of digging old Bryce's grave with your bare hands?"
"Lordy Lord," Lige said, disgusted, and spat out onto the road. Done it too close to Jingalee; roan horse hopped forward a couple of steps before Lige hauled him down again. When that happened, the outhouse lurched and swayed some-same as my insides was doing right then.
"Well?"
"Well, now, Mister Conagher, sir...."
"Time you untied those ropes," he said.
"Sheriff?"
"You and your brother. Untie those ropes and we'll have a squint inside that outhouse."
"Ain't nothing to see except old Bryce's froze-stiff corpse...."
"Untie, boys. Now."
Wasn't nothing else we could do. Conagher was wearing his official holy terror look now, and his hand was setting on the butt of his Judge Colt. lige kicked me again, twice, while we was taking off the ropes; l just let him do it.
"Open up that half-moon door, Wes."
1 opened it, and Conagher poked around inside. A smile come to his mouth like a hungry wolf with supper waiting. "Well, well," he said. "Sure don't appear to be old Bryce's remains to me. What's all this look like to you, Lige?"
Lige didn't have nothing to say.
"Wes?"
"Well," 1 said, "1 reckon it's jugs."
"Fifty or more, I'd say. Packed inside there nice and tight, with burlap sacking all around. What's in those glass jugs, Wes?"
1 sighed. "Corn likker."
"Uhn-huh. Com likker you boys cooked up over the long winter, using up all your stove wood and spare lumber in the process. You and Lige and old Bryce, who's alive and kicking and tending to his chores this very minute. That about the shape of it?"
"Yes, sir. That's about the shape of it."
"And where were you taking all this corn likker? Wouldn't be over to the reservation to sell to some of the feistier Piegans, would it? Even though it's against the law to sell firewater to Indians?"
"No, sir," 1 said, "that sure wasn't what we had in mind. We was gonna sell it to the ranchers in Antelope Valley. Charley Hammond and Hank Staggs......
"Charley Hammond don't drink. He's a Hard Shell Baptist, in case you don't remember. And Hank Staggs don't allow likker of any kind on his property. And Mort Sutherland's got a bad stomach. You figure to sell more'n fifty jugs of corn to Harvey Ames alone? Don't seem likely. Lot more likely you were headed for the reservation, and 1 reckon the circuit judge'll see it the same when he comes through next week. Meantime, boys, you'll be guests of the county. Close up the evidence and let's get on to town."
We closed her up. Lige said to Conagher: "You knowed, didn't you, Sheriff? Knowed we wasn't taking her to Charley Hammond's, knowed we didn't have old Bryce's remains inside. Knowed all along she was filled up with jugs of corn."
"Well, 1 had a pretty fair notion."
"How?"
"Funny thing about that outhouse," Conagher said. "When you first rattled to a stop, and again when your horse frog-hopped, 1 heard noises inside. Good ears is one thing 1 can brag on, even in cold weather."
"What noises?"
"Sloshing and gurgling. Never yet heard an empty outhouse that sloshed and gurgled. Nor a man's froze-stiff remains that did, either."
Lige punched me in the chest this time. "You and your gol-dang' ideas! You ain't got a lick of sense, Wes Hovey! Ain't got the sense God give a one-eyed grasshopper!"
Well, hell, he didn't neither, did he?
When Geena moved out and filed for divorce, the first two things 1 did were to put the house up for sale and to quit Unidyne, a job 1'd hated from the beginning. Then 1 loaded the Jeep and drove straight to Death Valley.
I told no one where I was going. Not that there was anybody to tell, really; we had no close friends, or at least 1 didn't, and my folks were both dead. Geena could have guessed, of course. She knew me that well, though not nearly well enough to understand my motives.
1 did not go to Death Valley because something in my life had died. I went there to start living again.
October is one of the Valley's best months. All months in the Monument are good, as far as I'm concerned, even July and August, when the midday temperatures sometimes exceed 120 degrees Fahrenheit and Death Valley justifies its Paiute Indian name, Tomesha-ground afire. If a sere desert climate holds no terrors for you, if you respect it and accept it on its terms, survival is not a problem, and the attractions far outweigh the drawbacks. Still, I'm partial to October, the early part of the month. The beginning of the tourist season is still a month away, temperatures seldom reach 100 degrees, and the constantly changing light show created by sun and wind and clouds is at its most spectacular. You can stay in one place all day, from dawn to dark-Zabriskie Point, say, or the sand dunes near Stovepipe Wells-and with each ten-degree rise and fall of the sun the colors of rock and sand hills change from dark rose to burnished gold, from choco late brown to purple and indigo and gray-black, with dozens of subtler shades in between.
It had been almost a year since 1'd last been to the Valley. Much too long, but it had been a difficult year. 1'd been alone on that last visit, as 1 was alone now, alone the last dozen or so trips since Geena refused to come with me any more five years ago. I preferred it that way. The Valley is a place to be shared only with someone who views it in the same perspective, not as endless miles of coarse, dead landscape but as a vast, almost mystical place-a living place-of majestic vistas and stark natural beauty.
Deciding where to go first hadn't been easy. It has more than three thousand square miles, second only among national parks to Yellowstone, and all sorts of terrain; the great trough of the Valley floor with its miles of salt pan two hundred feet and more below sea level, its dunes and alluvial fans, its borate deposits and old borax works, its barren fields of gravel and broken rock, and five enclosing mountain ranges full of hidden canons, petroglyphs, played-out gold and silver mines, ghost towns. I'd spent an entire evening with my topos-topographical maps put out by the U.S.Geological Survey-and finally settled on the Funeral Mountains and the Chloride Cliffs topo. The Funerals form one of the eastern boundaries, and their foothills and crest not only are laden with a variety of canons but contain the ruins of the Keane Wonder Mill and mine and the gold boomtown of Chloride City.
I left the Jeep north of Scotty's Castle, near Hells Gate, packed in, and stayed for three days and two nights. The first day was a little rough, even though I'm in good shape. It takes a while to refamiliarize yourself with desert mountain terrain after a year away. The second day was easier. 1 spent that one exploring Echo Canon and then tramping among the thicktimbered tramways of the Keane, the decaying mill a mile below it which in the 1890s had twenty stamps processing eighteen hundred tons of ore a month. On the third day I went on up to the Funerals' sheer heights and Chloride City, and the climb neither strained nor winded me.
It was a fine three days. 1 saw no other people except at a long distance. 1 reestablished kinship with the Valley, as only a person who truly loves it can, and all the tension and resdess dissatisfaction built up over the past year slowly bled out of me. 1 could literally feel my spirit reviving, starting to soar again.
1 thought about Geena only once, on the morning of the third day as 1 stood atop one of the crags looking out toward Needles Eye. There was no wind, and the stillness, the utter absence of sound, was so acute it created an almost painful pressure against the eardrums. Of all the things Geena hated about Death Valley, its silence-"void of silence," an early explorer had termed it-topped the list. It terrified her. On our last trip together, when she'd caught me listening, she'd said: "What are you listening to? There's nothing to hear in this godforsaken place. It's as if everything has shut down. Not just here, everywhere. As if all the engines have quit working."
She was right, exacdy right: as if all the engines have quit working. And that perception, more than anything else, summed up the differences between us. To her, the good things in life, the essence of life itself, were people, cities, constant scurrying activity. She needed to hear the steady, throbbing engines of civilization in order to feel safe, secure, alive. And 1 needed none of those things, needed not to hear the engines.
