the Lonesome Gods (1983) (12 page)

I
was in the desert. I was alone. To myself I whispered, "I am Johannes Verne, and I am not afraid." My father was dead. They had killed him, and they had left me to die.

I was not going to die. I was going to live. I was going to live and make them wish they were dead. The faint light in the sky had increased. I stood by the rocks where I had gone to hide, and I looked around.

Everywhere was desert, sand and bare rock. Here and there was cactus. Those who brought me here had ridden all night, and they had said they were riding east, but I knew it was not only east. It did not matter. I would follow their tracks.

How far had we come? They had traveled at a good gait, slowing to a walk from time to time, but most of the time at what my father called a shambling trot.

I knew something of distance, for we had counted the miles westward from Santa Fe. Mr. Farley had often spoken of how far he must go each day, or how far he had come. I suspected they had brought me forty miles into the desert. Those who rode horses thought it a lot to walk, but I had walked behind the wagon sometimes and I did not think it was so far.

It would be hot. If I was to walk, it must be now when the air was cool. Mr. Farley had rested hig horses during the hottest part of the day. He would only begin to travel when the sun was down. When it was cool, I would walk; when it was hot, I would find a place to hide from the sun.

Where? I did not know.

What would Francisco do? He would do as I was doing. He would walk. What else?

There were the tracks of their horses in the sand. I could follow them back to the house of Tahquitz. Turning slowly around, I looked at where I was. It was a place to start from, a place to begin. In a few days I would be seven years old. In a few years I would be old enough, and then I would go calling. There were three men I would visit. The old don, the young handsome one, and he of the scarred nose. It was a thing to live for.

My mother had taught me never to hate. Hate would destroy him who hated. Nevertheless, I would hate. My mother was gone, my father had been murdered, I had nothing else.

My legs were short. I wished they were longer, and tried stretching my steps. Behind me the sun would be rising. The tracks were there, sometimes plain, sometimes faint. My father had taught me a little of tracking, but here it was not needed. The tracks of ten horses were plain.

I had no water. We had stopped at no spring. I had not been this way before. I did not know where water could be found. I was thirsty, but not enough thirsty to worry. I would wait, and walk.

"I am Johannes Verne," I said aloud. "I am not afraid." Then the strangeness came. Suddenly I stopped and looked all around. The sand was almost white, the rocks that had seemed black now were brown, the sky was very blue and there were no clouds. I should have been afraid, but I was not. All about me seemed familiar, although I had seen none of it before, and had ridden through it only in darkness.

I sat down on a flat rock. This was where I belonged. My mother had come to love the desert, my father had lived with it, in it, had loved it and its people. Maybe that was it, but there was something more, too. I felt that I was born for this, to live here, to be a part of it.

When I began to walk again, I did not hurry. Soon I must seek shade, and before night I should have to fin
d
water. Yet the strangeness was upon me, the feeling that I was not alone, a feeling that the desert was a friendly place.

A jackrabbit started up and bounded away, then stopped, sat up, and looked at me. Then I saw where a snake had crossed the sandy trail, and some kind of bug had crossed over the snake's trail.

It was growing hot. In the sky, no longer quite so blue, but misty with heat, there was a buzzard. He had seen me and was watching.

"Go away!" I said aloud. "I am not your dinner!"

The buzzard could not hear me, but he would not have believed me. I remembered what my father had said, that the buzzard has only to wait. In the end, we all come to him or his like.

I began to look for shade. There was none. I thought of pulling brush and piling it over a place where I could crawl for shade, but everything was stiff and dry and covered with thorns or stickers.

The shadows of the Joshua trees were short. It would be nearing midday and there was no shade. My mouth was very dry. I picked up a little pebble and held it in my hand until it was not so hot, and then put it in my mouth. It would help for a little while. I stumbled. Some kind of small bird had run ahead of me in the sand. Far off, to the south and a little west, there seemed to be mountains. Were they our mountains? They must be. How far I had walked, I did not know. I sat down again.

By the shadows it was midday, and I had been walking since just before daylight. Jacob Finney had talked to me about the desert, as had Mr. Farley and Mr. Kelso, and of course, my father. I knew I must find shade and rest. A man or a boy could not live long without water. The trail of tracks I was following dipped down into a dry wash, and the opposite side was steep. By the time I climbed out of the wash, I was very tired. And then I saw the rocks. It was only a small clump of rocks, but they were heaped together and one of them made a shelf that held a little shadow. When I was closer, I could see a hol
e
behind it. Carefully, because of snakes, I inspected it. Taking a stick, and careful before I picked it up to be sure it was a stick and not a snake, I prodded into the shallow hole.

Nothing....

Crawling in, there was room enough for me to lie down. A crack toward the back let a small breeze come through. It felt good.

Finally I must have slept, because when I opened my eyes it was cooler and I could see the sun was down. Crawling out, I looked all around. There was nothing but the desert. Keeping the stick with which I had prodded for snakes, I started to walk.

A little sand had sifted into the tracks. They were no longer so plain. Suddenly I was afraid. What if the tracks disappeared?

Stopping, I remembered what Jacob Finney had said. "Always take your bearings. Locate yourself."

I knew where the sun had gone down, which would be west. So I was facing south. Far away I could see a jagged point of rock, and it was due south. Walking on, night came, and I chose a star that hung in the south right over my point of rocks; then I walked on.

The desert is cold at night, and soon I was cold, but I walked on, stumbling once in a while. A coyote howled and I took a firmer grip on my stick. It was a good strong stick.

My mouth was very dry. Sometimes it was hard to swallow. I took deep breaths of the cool, clear air, which seemed almost like water, it was so fresh. Once I almost fell asleep walking. When I found a flat rock, I sat down. The coyotes seemed close, and I wondered if they were following me.

Somebody had said they did not eat people. My father laughed at that. They were carnivores, he said, and would eat anything available. They were afraid of the man-smell because it meant danger, but they would attack anything they might eat if it could not fight back. If a man or a child is helpless, my father said, he might be eaten. Jacob Finney had agreed.

"No animal has any special respect for man," he said. "It is just that they have learned to fear. Once they lose their fear, a man has to be careful."

Clutching my stick, I waited. If one came close, I would hit him.

Bending over, I gathered some rocks. They were black against the white sand. I piled them beside me on the flat rock.

Sometimes I dozed, yet I tried to stay awake, and several times I heard something moving, but I couldn't see anything. A small wind stirred, rustling the dry leaves on the brush. Something stirred again, closer. I picked up a rock and threw it hard. After that I heard no sound. A long time later I awakened from dozing and heard a soft sound, so I took my stick and hit the brush near me; then I threw another stone into the darkness. In stories, they always spoke of gleaming eyes peering from the darkness. I saw no eyes. I heard only the soft rustling of something moving in the darkness.

When the first gray light came, I stood up. I was very stiff, and very tired. Also I was hungry, but mostly I wanted a drink. The coolness of the night had made it better, but I wanted a drink, I needed a drink.

Papa had said one could get a drink from a barrel cactus, but I did not see any. Just stiff, dry wood and sometimes whitish-looking grass.

My point of rock was gone. My star was gone. I could not find the tracks, yet I could see where the sun was rising and I started off to the south. I had not gone far when I saw a coyote track in the sand. It was a fresh track.

When I topped a small rise, I sat down. My legs ached and I was very tired. I put a pebble in my mouth again, but it did not work very well. The sun had come up, and it was very hot.

Heat waves shimmered on the desert, and far ahead I could see a blue lake that was only mirage. There were rocks ahead, and more brush. Beyond them I could see the mountains, the San Jacintos they were called, but they seemed far, far away.

Then, walking on, I found the tracks again. Following them, I fell down, and when I got up from the sand, my hands were bloody from the gravel.

There were other, older tracks. I was on some kind of a trail, and it seemed to dip down into the hotter desert, but beyond were the mountains. My tongue was dry and I could not swallow. My eyes hurt and I was very hot. I wanted to lie down, but the sand was like a hot stove.

For a time there was a sound, a drumming sound, and then it became the sound of horses, and I turned around. A half-dozen riders were coming at me. Was it a dream? My eyes blinked slowly, and I frowned, trying to make them out. They were only a blur against the shimmering heat waves, and the horses seemed to have legs enormously long, but that was the heat waves again.

They came up, coming out of the heat waves and the dust, and the foremost rider had a wooden leg.

They pulled up, and the man with the peg leg said, "Holy Jesus! It's Verne's boy!"

He dropped from the saddle, amazingly agile, and held his water bag to my lips. A sip and a swallow, then he took it away.

"Just rinse your mouth this time," he said. "Let it soak in a mite." After a moment he said, "Where you comin' from, boy? Where's your pa?"

"They killed him," I said. "They were waiting for him. He tried to push me away so I would not be hurt, and they shot him."

"He git any of them?" another man asked.

"One, I think." Peg-Leg gave me another swallow and then stepped back into the saddle, reaching a hand down for me.

"Come on, son," he said. "We'll take you in." Then he hesitated. "Your pa's dead, boy? What'll you do now?" "I want to go to our house. Peter Burkin will come." "Reckon he will, at that. Pete's a loyal man." Peg-Leg started off, leading the way. "You got grub in that house, boy? You got some'at to eat?"

"Yes."

We rode on for a little way, and then he stopped and let me have a drink, stopping me before I drank too much. "We come on your trail, boy," Peg-Leg told me. "We follered you. You come quite a stretch, you surely did." He looked down at me. "You got anybody in Los Angeles, boy?"

"No, sir." Then I said, "Maybe Miss Nesse!rode." He laughed. "Say! I mind her! That there's quite a woman!" He turned in his saddle to speak to the others. "Said if I stole any of her horses she'd hang me!" He chuckled. "By damn, I think she'd do it, too! That there was some kinda woman, boy. When the time comes, you find yourself a woman like that. Ain't none any better." A long time later, after the drum of hooves and my own tiredness had made me fall asleep, we rode up the lane toward our house. All was dark and still.

"Tom?" Peg-Leg said. "Take a look inside. See if there's anybody there. We'll cover you."

Tom swung down, and, gun in hand, walked over to the door and lifted the latch. He stepped inside. A moment, and we could hear him fumbling about for the candles; then light streamed out the door.

His boots went from room to room; then he came to the door. "She's clean as a whistle, Peg!"

Peg-Leg lowered me to the ground. "You'll be all right here, boy? You an' them Injuns get along?"

"Yes, sir."

"I know they set store by your pa. You get some sleep now, boy. Drink a mite now an' again, but don't tank up until tomorrow. Then you'll drink more'n you ever thought a man could hold.

"An', boy? You be careful of that ol' Spanish man. He hears you're alive, he'll come back for you. He'll skin you alive."

For a moment longer he stayed, and then he said, "You see, boy, I dasn't stick around. I'm a man with enemies. There's some as would hang me in a minute if they come upon me. I d'clare, boy, I'm goin' to pack it in an' head north. This here's too rough a life for an old man. I ca
n
make a good livin' up there in Frisco sellin' maps to that gold mine folks think I lost."

He turned. "See you, boy! I'm right sorry about your pa. He was a good man!"

For a long time I stood alone in the yard near where my father had fallen, listening to the receding sound of their horses. Then I went inside and looked around. I was alone in the house of Tahquitz. Would he be angry that I was here? Would he come to drive me away or kill me?