Ghost Moon (17 page)

“A handgun's only good for shooting at something closer than a hundred feet away,” he used to say. “If you're that close to a man and you need more than one or two shots, you're probably already dead.”

I practiced with the revolver until I became a pretty good shot, and I feel comfortable knowing that it's lying with my saddlebags across the fire from me.

“Won't you need it once I'm gone?” I asked my mother when she gave me the gun.

“No use for a gun here now,” she said with a smile. “This is 1877. When your father first came up here, it was a different matter. There were a lot of rough characters coming through then and not much law to control them, but all that's changed. We've got laws and government now. A lady doesn't have need of a handgun here, but you may where you're going.”

“I have to go and find out what happened to Dad,” I said. “I always said I would as soon as I was old enough and able. I'll be sixteen in three days and I've got some money saved, so there's no point in waiting.”

Mother nodded slowly. “When you make up your mind, nothing changes it. You're stubborn, just like him. He kept his thoughts close to himself, but once his mind was made up, God Almighty himself couldn't change it. I know I can't stop you going but, remember, you may not find him. He told me he was going to Mexico, but Mexico's a big place. Besides, he may not wish to be found or,” she hesitated, “something may have happened to him.”

“That's true, but somewhere down there, someone knows where he is or what happened to him, and I aim to find that out.”

“Even if you find him,” mother said thoughtfully, “he may not be what you expect. You were only six years old when he left, and he'll be forty-five by now. What do you remember about him?”

“I can see him like it was yesterday, not tall but strong. He could lift me like I was a feather. His hair was dark, but I was always fascinated by how red it was at the ends, especially his mustache where it dropped down the sides of his mouth. When I was little, I always thought he grew that mustache to try and pull down the edges of the smile he always wore.

“I remember him teaching me Spanish and telling me stories. He told me about the vaqueros and Spanish grandees in Mexico, the wild Apache Indians and cowboys in Arizona and New Mexico, and the gold prospectors and gamblers in California. I promised myself that I would go and see these places for myself one day.”

“He was a good storyteller,” mother said wistfully. “But there was a lot about his life before I met him that he never did tell, and God knows I asked often enough. For all his talk and tales, he was a secretive man, never wanted anyone to really know him. I wondered sometimes if he had something dark in his past that he was running from. He used to have nightmares, you know. I'd wake to find him sitting in the bed beside me, bathed in sweat, his eyes wide and staring as if the room was full of ghosts. I used to ask what he saw in the night, but he never told me. Always passed it off as something he ate for supper that disagreed with him.”

“I didn't know.”

“No reason for you to know. Mostly they were in the years after I first met him. They eased off after we got the stopping house set up and running, but they came back in the months before he left. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there was more to your father than the stories he told. You might be disappointed when you meet him.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but Mother went on. “I'm not trying to talk you out of going. I know you've got his obsessions, and nothing I can say will change that. I just want you to go down there with your eyes open, because, even if all his stories were true, things have changed. It's not the world he knew down there twenty years ago. There are cattlemen, cowboys and gunfighters moving in there now. Civilization's creeping in, but it's a slow, violent process.”

“But I have to try,” I repeated.

“I know, and I've tried to give you the best tools I can. You're a fair shot with that revolver, you can at least stay on the back of a horse, and I've encouraged you to keep up with the Spanish he taught you. I also hope I've given you the sense to know when to stand and fight and when to run. So I guess all that's left is to wish you luck.”

We embraced, and the next morning at daybreak I was gone to New Westminster to catch
the Robert Boswell.