the Lonesome Gods (1983) (28 page)

Thinking of them led me to think of Meghan. Where was she now? Did she ever think of me? I smiled into the darkness beyond the door, thinking how foolish that was. Why should she think of me? I was just a boy who had sat close to her in school, a boy too shy to talk, too awed by her presence to do anything but grow red and embarrassed if she so much as looked at me, which she rarely did.

How did my father meet my mother? Had he been shy, too? I doubted it. He seemed the essence of confidence, of assurance. Months had gone by with Meghan, and I had said nothing, yet ... there had been communication of a sort. We read better than others in the class, and Thomas Fraser had often had us read aloud, first one, and then the other. It was not much. I realized.

Restless because Francisco had not appeared, I saddled my horse the next morning and rode down to the store. As I walked up the steps, a man came from the store. It was Fletcher.

His smile was not pleasant, and there was a kind of a taunting in his expression that irritated me. "Been keepin' an eye out for you," he said, "wonderin' when you'd head for the desert."

"Does it concern you?"

His smile was there, but the amusement was gone from it. "Maybe," he said. "Maybe it does. Your pa, now, he spent a lot of time in the desert. Him and those Injun friends of his. I been wonderin' why, and there's some who figured that was where he got his money."

"Money?" I was puzzled. "What money?"

"Him an' your ma. They lived it up back east there, an' your pa had money to pay your way west. Now, you take what your pa paid for you an' him on the wagon. That's a good year's income for many a well-off man these days. "Where'd your pa come by that kind of money? I figure he had it when he went east. I figure he got it out of that desert."

I simply stared at him. My father had had a difficult time during those years back east, barely having enough to keep us alive at times. There were periods when he had, briefly, done quite well, and then at the end the windfall from the races the horses had won, and the generosity of his employer.

"You are mistaken, sir," I said. "My father had nothing when he went east beyond a little he had saved from cattle sales and furs."

Fletcher took a cigar from his pocket and bit off the end. "Maybe, an' maybe not. Why'd he stop here instead of ridin' right into Los Angeles with the rest of us?" He waved a hand. "Why stop in this godforsaken spot? I say he had reason. I say he'd found gold, or those Injuns showed him where it was.

"I say your Miss Nesselrode knows about that gold. Why else has she been keepin' you? Why are you goin' into the desert with that there Finney?"

He put the cigar in his mouth and struck a match on his pants, bringing up his knee to draw the material tight over his thigh. "You go ahead. I'll foller. Maybe there's enough for all of us."

"Fletcher," I said, "you're a fool."

For a moment I thought he would strike me, and I said, "Don't try it, Fletcher."

Something in the way I said it seemed to warn him, for he suddenly looked at me again. "Hell, you're a man now. 'Least you've growed up. Now I can kill you."

What happened within me, I do not know, but I was suddenly lighthearted. I smiled at him. "Whenever you're ready, Fletcher. Whenever you're ready!"

Chapter
31

What I thought of as the store was really nothing of the kind. It was merely a sort of dwelling where th
e
owner kept a few supplies which he sold to the Cahuillas or to passersby. Under the counter he kept a jug from which he dispensed occasional drinks.

When Fletcher walked away, I turned to see him go. Already I had learned that one does not become careless around such men. There was murder in the man; I accepted the realization and was careful.

Yet when I turned, I was surprised. Francisco was there. For a moment we looked at each other, and then I drew a quick round face in the dirt. He took the twig from my hand and added the smile. Then we looked at each other, and slowly he held out his hand.

His was not a muscular handshake. For that matter, few Indians whom I had known more than touched palms. The strong handshake that many think is an indication of character is not so at all. Many very strong men merely clasp one's hand. Theirs are not limp handshakes, nor the firm grip one hears of in fiction.

We walked over and stood in the shade of some mesquite. "We're going up-country," I said, "to catch wild horses."

He squatted on his heels, and I did likewise. "We hope to catch many horses," I said, "and we will need help." With a twig I dug in the soil for a pebble, turning it over. "We would like to find five or six Cahuillas to help us."

Francisco pushed his hat back and squinted at the pebble I had dug from the hard-packed earth. He picked it up and turned it in his fingers.

"We are thinking of three or four hundred horses. We would build a long fence of brush to guide them into a corral. There would be much work, but we would pay or share the horses."

"We do not need horses," he said. After a silence he said, "You catch cows, too?"

"Maybe."

"Catch cows, we take some cows."

"All right."

We sat silent, watching a raven plucking at something in a palm tree.

There had been times when I was a boy that I had gone with them to the oak groves to gather acorns, or to the mesquite for their beans. I had worked beside them and learned to know them, a little.

There were old men I remembered who sometimes talked to us as they worked. I remembered the stories of the coyote who had planted mesquite beans after the sea disappeared from the basin and left it dry. The fish and the seabirds on which the Cahuilla had lived were gone, but there were forests of mesquite soon. Yet, until the mesquite grew, times must have been hard. They did not speak of that, only the story of the coyote planting the mesquite.

Later, talking to Monte, I mentioned the story. "A legend," he said. "The Plains Injuns, too. They have many stories of the coyote."

"But in all the legends there is some truth. As for the coyote planting the mesquite, it could be true."

He took the cigarette from his mouth. "You mean you believe that?"

"Why not? The coyote eats the mesquite beans. He goes into the desert to hunt rabbits. Where he stops to do his business, he leaves some undigested beans, perhaps? They grow. Why not? That's the way plants are often scattered, through bird and animal droppings."

"Didn't think of that," Monte admitted. "Runoff water would bring down some seeds, too, I suspect."

He glanced at me. "You think those Injuns will come?" "You can depend on it," I said. "They will come and they will be ready."

"You've been in their villages?"

"Time and again. Lived with them when I was a boy. I stayed in this house but often went hunting with them, gathering nuts and seeds, listening to the old men tell of when the water disappeared, little by little.

"It came and went several times. Sometimes it came slowly, and at least once it came with a great rush, carrying great logs on a vast wave that swept up the valley. Many Indians were lost. The only ones saved were those hunting in the mountains or close enough to the mountains to escape."

Gesturing toward the mountains, I said, "They have villages up there. In the Santa Rosas, too.

"There are old trails in the mountains and on the desert. A few of them I have followed, and there are more I shall follow."

"Whys"

Why, indeed? Turning that over in my mind, I shrugged. "How do I know? It is my destiny, I think. All I know is that I shall never rest easy until I have gone into the desert alone. Until I have followed some of those trails to wherever they go."

"I know," Monte said wistfully. "It's something around the bend in the trail or over the next ridge. I feel it, too."

We would need extra ropes, so we bought hides from the Indians or the Mexicans and we made ropes. We worked, waiting for the day. Our horses were in good shape, as we knew they must be for the work ahead. The next morning, when we went outside, Francisco was there, and five Cahuillas were with him; with them were their horses.

"Come on in," Jacob invited. "We're fixin' some grub."

Nobody moved. One Indian lit a cigarette; the other
s
simply looked across the desert toward the mountains. Francisco looked at me and shrugged. "It is the house of Tahquitz," he said.

Jacob walked over and looked at their horses. They were good stock, mustangs all, and built for the work they most do.

"Tomorrow we go," he said. He glanced at Francisco. "All right with you?"

"Bueno."

There were still a few supplies to get, a little work to do. When my part was done, I sat down with The Last Days of Pompeii, by Bulwer-Lytton. It was one of the books I was leaving for my unseen visitor, but I wished to read it first. However, I was scarcely reading, for my thoughts were of him.

Who was he? What was he? A giant? A monster? An evil spirit, as some presumed? Had my father known him? Had the Indians seen him?

If he was so large a being, how could they not have seen him? Where did he live? How did he move back and forth without being seen?

At night ... of course, he did travel at night, at least until he returned to the mountains. That he came from the mountains, I was sure, for there was the smell of pines about him.

Where had he come from? Where had he learned to read? Or to lay mosaics as he had here? Or to build so beautifully? How did he pass his days?

The only thing I actually knew about him was that he was or had been a builder, a worker in tile and timber. Also, that he liked to read, and read good books. Presumably he was a thoughtful man, but I did not know. Nobody knew.

Suppose he was mad? Suppose on some occasion he should suddenly go berserk? Or decide that I was spying upon him? What then? He could--he had--come into this house in the night. Suppose he did it when I was here alone?

Inadvertently I glanced over my shoulder. What did I know of him? Nothing....

By the time I closed the book, all were asleep. I extinguished the candle and went outside. The Cahuillas had chosen to sleep in the shed, so I walked along the path that led into the sandhills. It was very still, the stars bright as only desert stars can be.

Alone, I stood, feeling the stillness, the softness of the night. Far off I heard a faint music. Straining my ears, only half-believing.... It sounded like a flute, like one of those I had often made as a child. I listened, but the sound faded, vanished.

The night was empty again.

An Indian? Some of them played flutes, but the music had a sound ... It must have been European or American music.

At last I walked back to the house and went to bed. Tomorrow the desert, and after that the northern valley--the San Joaquin, some called it.

Captain Pedro Fages had been there, probably the first one. Others had followed, but very few. The northern desert was the haunt of the Mohaves, at least at times. In the mountains a few Piutes remained, although from what Francisco had told me, they were leaving, going away. There was something about that Tehachapi country they no longer liked.

"I do not know it," Francisco said. "RamOn does." "Ramon?"

"He will meet us. I do not know where, but he will." He glanced at me. "He comes when he will. Of you I have spoken, and he will come. He will know where the horses are. Ramem is of the desert," he added, "and the mountains. He comes alone to join us."

"He is Cahuilla?"

"No Cahuilla, no Chemehuevi, no Piute. I do not know." "There are wild horses there?"

"Muchos. There is grass, amigo, and from there to the north and in the mountains there are horses. There are also cattle."

"We will touch no branded cattle."

"Of course. It is understood."

I thought over the situation, and what lay ahead. It was good to be with Francisco again, and I must come to know the others. And in the morning before we left, I must sweep the floors, leave all as we had found it.

At daybreak I was up and dressed, going outside to saddle my horse before Jacob had started breakfast. Monte joined me, and the Indians were already trooping into the yard, bringing their packhorses to tie to the corral bars.

As they rode, I followed, trailing behind. Glancing toward the store, I saw four saddled horses at the water trough.

Whose horses? Why? It was unusual at this hour, and the sight of them disturbed me. The Indians, too, were noticing them and talking among themselves. As the last of them disappeared down the trail into another clump of mesquite, I glanced back again.

A man had walked out from the store and was shading his eyes after us. It looked like Fletcher.

My thoughts returned to Los Angeles, and I wondered where Miss Nesselrode was, and Aunt Elena.

Aunt Elena, who had never been married, a strange, lonely, yet lovely woman, so tall, so remote, so very quiet.

What did she think to herself when she was alone? What did she think of that brother who had kept her so? And Miss Nesselrode. Who was she? Had she ever been married? Was the story of a lost love and a broken heart true? What was it that drove her? And was it her loneliness that caused her to reach out to me?