Doubtful Canon (8 page)

“And when you’re finished with him, haul this other gent away from the rails.” Whitey Grey slid the rifle into the scabbard, thought of something, and walked back to the red-bearded man, going through his clothes, coming away with a half-used plug of tobacco, a piece of jerky, a few dollars and change in coin, and an open-faced, silver watch. Next, as Ian Spencer Henry and Jasmine Allison dragged Max a safe distance from the rails, Whitey Grey robbed Morgan.

“Here.” He flung the Irish woolen cap toward me. “You’ll need this.”

I hadn’t realized that I had lost my straw hat during my leap off the train.

“Now, my li’l’ pardners,” Whitey Grey said, “all aboard.”

“I don’t want to go with you no more,” Jasmine said. “I don’t like you.”

“You been conscripted,” the albino said. “And the penalty for desertion is a firin’ squad, or maybe just a bullet in the head. Y’all take stock in that. I’m lettin’ these fellers live, but if you cross me again, I won’t be so charitable.”

“They’ll need water.” I nodded at the unconscious railroaders. “It’s a long walk to Lordsburg.”

“’Tain’t that far,” he said. “They can find the
playas
iffen they gets thirsty. Now stop your jawin’, boy.” He removed his hat, scratched his head, and muttered: “You chil’ren got any notion as to how you make these centipede cars go?”

Maneuvering the George S. Sheffield & Company velocipede cars required muscle, for each weighed around 140 pounds. Ian Spencer Henry and I inspected the conveyances, urged by Whitey Grey to hurry before the railroaders began to stir.

“They’s goin’ the wrong way, chil’ren,” the albino told us.

During our examination, Jasmine Allison walked over and pointed to the brace rod that connected the third wheel. After that discovery, we figured everything out, and Whitey Grey went to work, unhooking the rod, which swung to the frame, then grunting as he lifted the vehicle and turned it around. Now we worked together, bringing the rod back, hooking it in place, and securing the flanged wheel on the far rail. The flanged front wheel and the guide wheel would keep the car in place, while the rear wheel, much wider than the rails, looked safe enough. I didn’t think it would slip off the track.

“There.” I dusted my hands.

When the velocipede car didn’t tumble over, we redirected the other machine until both pointed westward down the line.

“You sit here.” Suddenly taking charge, I instructed Whitey Grey. “You steer the front wheel with this.” I patted the handlebars. “Around curves and such.”

His head bobbed slightly, but he approached the metal vehicle with trepidation, wetting his lips, slowly reaching out, cooing as if he were trying to mount a skittish bronco.

’Tain’t no horse,
he had said earlier, and I would have smiled if not for the fact that the albino now frightened me, even more than he had when he had chased us from the Lady Macbeth Mine. “There’s only two seats, one on each velocipede,” I said after Whitey Grey mounted the Sheffield car without getting bucked off. “I’ll take the other car. We’ll have to leave Jasmine and Ian Spencer Henry behind.” I swallowed down fear, wondering if he would accept my proposal, hoping he wouldn’t just kill my friends in a bit of rage.

“No,” he said.

“But….”

“No buts. You, Jack Dunivan, you ride that centipede car in the front, and don’t get no fancy notions. Boy”—he nodded at Ian Spencer Henry—“you sit right behind him. Hold him tight, ’cause if you’s to fall off, you might get trampled by my centipede car.” No longer did he look nervous. His resolve had returned. “Li’l’ girlie, you hop on right behind ol’ Whitey Grey and get a good hold around my paunch. And don’t you boys spur that thing into no gallop, ’cause if I gets to thinkin’ you’s tryin’ to leave me behind, well, that contraption ain’t likely to outrun no Forty-Four-Forty bullet. Y’all savvy?”

Reluctantly I climbed onto the first car, gripped the bar, and waited for Ian Spencer Henry to take his place behind me on the uncomfortable metal bench. “How come you get to drive?” he said in a hoarse whisper before letting out a sigh of disappointment.

The men named Max and Morgan moaned.

“Light a shuck, boys!” the albino yelled. “We’s burnin’ daylight!”

And so we rode.

Starting off proved a struggle, but once the bicycles—would that be,
tricycles?
—on rails built up speed, once we learned to let the cars do most of the work, the vehicles moved surprisingly smooth and fast, gliding down the tracks, pushed by a slight tailwind.

“Don’t make much noise, do they, Jack?” Ian Spencer Henry said after we had traveled a mile.

“Probably for safety,” I suggested. “Need to hear any train coming.”

The desert passed before us, and I found a rhythm in the motion of the Sheffield car, enjoying the wind in my face, the speed, almost forgetting about Whitey Grey behind me with the Winchester rifle until he called out for us to halt.

Only then did I notice the rugged mountain stretching out before us, shadowing a rickety shed and weather-beaten water tower. After stopping the Sheffield velocipede, I looked behind me as Ian Spencer Henry stepped off and stretched his legs and rubbed his buttocks.

“Stein’s Peak,” Whitey Grey said. “Let’s get these contraptions off the tracks. Don’t want ’em to get mangled by no passin’ train. We’ll hide ’em in the brush. Might come in handy when we gets my gold. They don’t take no food and water like a hoss or mule, but they ain’t so comfortable on my ol’ knees and hind-quarters.” Pointing the Winchester barrel at the tool box behind my seat, he added: “And let’s open that and see if ’em railroaders packed somethin’ useful. Then we’ll bust in that shed, steal us some picks and shovels. Oh, and one other thing….”

Savagely he grabbed Jasmine’s arm and shoved her toward us, brought the rifle to his shoulder, and eared back the hammer. “You chil’ren been playin’ ol’ Whitey Grey for a fool, and I ain’t no fool. You think I done forgotten ’bout what happened with ’em railroaders? I ain’t. My brain don’t forgets a thing. There ain’t no orphanage in Shakespeare. You chil’ren lied to me. Now, give me the truth, or I might get riled.”

My friends stared at me, again electing me spokesman, and slowly I let the truth out, skimming over some of the personal tragedies involved, just trying to make the albino understand that our parents—my drunkard father, Ian Spencer Henry’s preoccupied dad, and Jasmine’s fallen mother—most likely would jump for joy at our departure, if they ever noticed our absence.

It didn’t set well with Whitey Grey.

“They’ll come lookin’,” he said with a snarl. “I should put you asunder now, be shun of you and your troubles. Law might charge me with kidnappin’, child stealin’, and I don’t fancy spendin’ no time in the territorial pen up in Santa Fé. No, sir. Never been charged with child stealin’ afore.”

Ian Spencer Henry cried out his argument: “By the time my pa finds out the truth, we’ll be back in Shakespeare with our money and you’ll be long gone.”

“We wrote a note,” Jasmine offered. “Jack left a note for them to find in the mine. It says we’ve run off to El Paso. No one will think to look out here.”

The white-skinned man didn’t hear them. His hollow eyes stared off toward the rugged peak. “’Course, iffen you three was to turn up dead hereabouts, laws might put the blame on ’em renegade Apache bucks. That’s a notion to consider.”

He stared back at me, and my throat went dry, my eyes darting from the Winchester on his shoulder to the Colt stuck in his waistband. Would he have killed us? I’m not sure, for Whitey Grey kept proving to be a difficult man to read, but he seemed to be leaning toward that option when a whistle blasted all four of us out of our wits.

The crazed adult recovered first, moving back and forth, hollering at us to take cover behind the rocks beyond the water tower. “It’s the eastbound!” he yelled. “Get out of sight!”

When Ian Spencer Henry didn’t move fast enough, Whitey Grey picked him up and effortlessly tossed him over the outcropping, then herded Jasmine in the general direction, and at last turned toward me. I needed no more encouragement, and certainly preferred the route Jasmine had taken over that of Ian Spencer Henry’s. The hard, metallic
clicks
and groans grew closer as the Southern Pacific crept over the barren pass, coughing and puffing, slowing,
squeaking, hissing
…yet never stopping.

I peered around the natural rock wall after making sure Ian Spencer Henry had not broken his neck. “That smarts,” was all he said, as he sat up, rubbing his shoulder.

“You’re a wicked old man!” Jasmine told our jailer.

“Hush,” he said, Winchester in his arms, his dead eyes keen. “Don’t you chil’ren get no notions ’bout runnin’, neither.”

The train rumbled on now, picking up speed, moving with an urgency to get through this rough, abysmal country. In a moment, all we could see were the clouds, then tendrils of black smoke, and soon even those had vanished in the desert.

“It didn’t even stop for water!” Jasmine exclaimed.

“Ain’t no water here.” The albino lowered the hammer on the rifle and stood, his knees
creaking.
“Nearest water’s six, seven miles up the road, at the old station. Fool railroaders tried diggin’, but they might as well go all the way to China afore they’d ever find nothin’ wet. No, sir, chil’ren, the onliest thing this patch of ground’s good for is holdin’ the two ends of the earth together.”

I found no fault in his assessment. The country lacked color, looked crude, raw, ugly. In years to come, it would support a small town—water being hauled down and sold for $1 a barrel—after gold, silver, lead, and copper were discovered in the Peloncillo Mountains north of here, taking first the name Doubtful Cañon and later Steins, but even those ventures would prove relatively short-lived. In the autumn of 1881, the place looked as far removed from civilization as anything I had ever witnessed. Even the rawhide water tower—indeed, now I could tell it had never been finished—and the small shed seemed out of place. No wonder that train had hurried through this place. I felt the urge to run myself.

“’Tain’t pretty,” Whitey Grey said as he walked around the rocks and toward the shed, guarded by only cactus. He had forgotten about his thoughts of murdering us, and we weren’t about to remind him.

The lock had already been broken, most of the tools long gone, but the albino managed to pull out two empty canteens—actually three, but one had a hole in the bottom—a spade with a broken handle, and a pickaxe in surprisingly good condition. He also found an ear—a human ear—equally well preserved, which gave Whitey Grey great pleasure and almost an hour of entertainment.

I cringed whenever he pointed the copper-colored atrocity, coated with dust, at me, and Ian Spencer Henry kept gagging, while Jasmine refused to show any girlish emotion. Instead, she merely shook her head to dismiss the albino’s childishness.

“That’s gross!” Ian Spencer Henry said, ducking his head as Whitey Grey swept the ear toward him. “Don’t put that thing near me!”

“What’s that, boy?” The white-skinned man howled. “Speak up, kid. This Apache can’t hear too good!”

“Apache?” I asked, curious now instead of repulsed.

“Yeah.” Whitey Grey flipped the ear as he might a two-bit piece, caught it, studied it. “I bet the gent who earned this trophy is upset he lost it.”

“Do you think it’s from one of those Indians who left San Carlos?” asked Ian Spencer Henry, keeping his distance from the ear.

The albino snorted. “No, by grab, this might’ve got took ’bout the time that bluecoat capt’n got kilt here. Placed is name after him, you know. That was in the ’Seventies. Maybe this here ear gots took afore that. Desert has a way with bodies. Preserves ’em good, you see, iffen the coyotes and the wolves and the ravens don’t gets at ’em.”

Sticking the grisly trophy in his pocket, he wandered over to the Sheffield velocipedes to check the tool boxes. “Let’s see,” he said, “if there’s somethin’ better for us here. We’ll take ’em two canteens with us, fill ’em at the water hole afore we enter the cañon.”

Whispered Ian Spencer Henry urgently: “He’s not going to kill us.”

“Shut up,” Jasmine snapped. “He might hear us.” Yet we had nothing to fear from the albino, for he pulled out a bottle of mescal, about three-quarters full, from the small box, and cut loose with a Rebel yell. “Praise be!” he yelled, holding the bottle high over his head. “And my flask was empty!”

By dusk, Whitey Grey was roostered. By the time the moon had risen, he was stretched out underneath the false water tower, Winchester at his side, empty bottle smashed on the rocks in front of him, singing at the top of his lungs.

Sittin’ by the roadside on a summer day, Chattin’ with my messmates, passin’ time away, Lyin’ in the shadow underneath the trees, Goodness, how delicious, eatin’ goober peas! Peas! Peas! Peas! Peas! Eatin’ goober peas! Goodness, how delicious, eatin’ goober peas!

For some reason, Ian Spencer Henry thought this might be a good time to carry on a conversation with the drunkard.

“You lived in Detroit, I heard you say. How long?”

“Five years,” he said, and sang: “Five delicious years. Chattin’ with my messmates, passin’ time away.”

“I’d like to visit all the big cities,” Ian Spencer Henry informed him. “And Michigan’s where….”

“And I’ve seen ’em all,” Whitey Grey said. “All the big ones. Detroit. Huntsville. Jefferson City.” He sang again: “Goodness, how delicious, eatin’ goober peas.”

“Keep talking to him,” I told my friend, and slowly rose. Jasmine sat up straighter, staring at me as I crept toward the rocks, listening to Whitey Grey sing and talk, listening to Ian Spencer Henry, now that he had a chore to do, stumble at asking anything. Jasmine had to assist him.

The three of us might be able to move the velocipede cars onto the track, heading east, away from Whitey Grey and Doubtful Cañon. Despite rolling clouds, the moon, practically full, would be bright enough, and, besides, a coal oil headlamp was affixed at the front. Just make sure we didn’t pinch off a finger trying to put the flanged wheels on the rails. Ride as fast as we could, get back to Lordsburg, reconsider our options there, in relative safety.

I touched the metal bar, still warm from the day’s sun, and jumped at a
thump
behind me.

“It’s us, Jack!” Jasmine said in a whisper.

I blinked, stammered, looking for Whitey Grey to come charging, shooting.

“It’s all right,” Ian Spencer Henry said. “He’s snorin’ like a freight train. That fool drunk….” He stopped, his face apologetic.

“What are you doing, Jack?” Jasmine asked.

Before I could reveal my plan, a wolf howled. An owl answered.

“I’m scared, Jack,” Jasmine said.

“Jasmine, that’s just….” Ian Spencer Henry couldn’t finish. Silence returned except for the albino’s drunken snores, and a terrible thought raced through my mind.

Animals…or Apaches?

“He…Mister Grey…he says that Apaches don’t attack at night,” Jasmine said.

As if mocking her, the wolf howled again.

Maybe,
I thought. Yet we’d make enough noise to wake the dead trying to move those Sheffield velocipedes back on the tracks, and, even if the Apaches didn’t attack us, they might learn our position. On the other hand, they might have heard Whitey Grey’s drunken singing. Or maybe they didn’t know we were here. Maybe those were wolves and owls and not Indians. Maybe Whitey Grey would wake up, find us, kill us. Maybe we couldn’t move those vehicles to the tracks. If we did, maybe a train would run us down and kill us. Maybe I didn’t want to go home, to face my father. Maybe….