Grayfox
© 1993 by Michael Phillips
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Ebook edition created 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansâfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingâwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4412-2951-9
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
To boys and men everywhere, who are seeking the maturity of their own personhood and being.
And to the women who will love and admire them for their depth of character.
To my young men who are well-advanced on the road to their manhood, Gregory, Patrick, and Robin Phillips.
It is my prayer that you will each meet your own Hawks as you progress along life's trail, that you will learn to see the depths of your Father's mystery and being and revelation, and that you will, like Zack, discover character and strength and the meaning of life within yourself, and thus will come to know the depths of true manhood.
Chapter 1. Riding from Home Like the Wind
Chapter 4. Me and Pa Come to Blows
Chapter 10. Thoughts on the Trail
Chapter 12. A Voice in the Dark
Chapter 15. The Lay of the Land
Chapter 17. Legend of the Gray Fox
Chapter 19. A Talk Over Cattail Pancakes
Chapter 21. A Guest at the Campfire
Chapter 22. Surprise Morning Attack
Chapter 23. Where Do You Figure We'd Get to?
Chapter 24. Cooking Up a Character Stew
Chapter 26. Hawk the Medicine Man
Chapter 27. Where Do the Roots Go?
Chapter 29. In the Camp of the People
Chapter 30. A Talk Before Falling Asleep
Chapter 32. Making a Run for It
Chapter 33. Trying to See What the Birds Saw
Chapter 34. Remembering to Look Up
Chapter 36. Out of the Hidden Ravine
Chapter 37. The Wounded Bird Ploy
Chapter 38. Water . . . Water . . . But Where?
Chapter 40. Riding for Our Lives
Chapter 42. Where Hawk Had Been
Chapter 45. Why Did God Make Fathers?
Chapter 46. Back Up to the Winter Cave
Chapter 48. The Rest of Hawk's Story
Chapter 49. Looking Inside Myself
Chapter 51. Don't Be Half a Man
Chapter 52. Down to the Valley
Chapter 53. What Kind of Man Do I Want to Be?
Chapter 54. Goodbye to a Friend
The following books were helpful in researching the history of the Paiute Indians and the 1860â61 period in the western portion of the Utah territory. I would like to acknowledge my appreciation for these authors and their research:
Gae Whitney Canfield,
Sarah Winnemucca of the Northern Paiutes
(Norman, Ok.: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1983).
Marion E. Gridley,
American Indian Women
(New York: Hawthorn Books, 1974).
Ferol Egan,
Sand in a Whirlwind, The Paiute Indian War of 1860
(New York: Doubleday, 1972).
Margaret M. Wheat,
Survival Arts of the Primitive Paiutes
(Reno, Nev.: Univ. of Nevada Press, 1967).
The story of
Grayfox
stands alone and may be read and enjoyed by itself. However, you will undoubtedly enjoy it more if you read it in conjunction with its companion volumes, each told by Zack's sister, Corrie, in the J
OURNALS
OF
C
ORRIE
B
ELLE
H
OLLISTER
series. How Zack and his brother and sisters came to California is told in the book,
My Father's World
. The rest of the books in the series are listed at the end of
Grayfox
.
Before my sister, Corrie Hollister, left for the Eastâthat was in April of '63âshe hounded me near every dad-burned day to get to writing down about the eight months I spent up in the mountains and deserts of Nevada with Hawk Trumbull.
“I ain't no writer, Corrie,” I must've told her sixteen dozens of times.
“That doesn't matter, Zack,” she told me back just as many. “You write it down, and I'll fix it up for you so folks can read it.”
(She did help fix it up too, but I told her I wanted to write down this personal part all by myself. That's why it probably sounds a heap different than the rest.)
“Who'd wanta read it?” I asked her after a bit.
“I do, that's who. And I know Pa does, and Almeda. And don't forget your kid brother Tad. He's more'n just a mite proud of you, Zack, you gotta realize that.”
I shrugged. Yeah, she was right. My little brother does look up to me some, I reckon.
“Lotta work just so my own kin can read it,” I said after another minute. “Shoot, Corrie, I can just tell 'em all about it in a coupla hoursâbut it'd take me a month of Sundays to write it down! You recollect what a hard time Miss StansberryâI mean Mrs. Rutledgeâused to give me about my writin'!”
“You were a boy then, Zack, and you're a man now. Let's go visit her right now, and I'll wager she'll agree with me that you oughta write it down.”
“I still don't understand why I hafta write it.”
“'Cause telling it's not the same, Zack. Then you got nothing to hold in your hand after you're done. But when it's written down, it's forever. Writing makes things moreâmore permanent.” And mainly it's for
you
, Zack. For the rest of us, too, but mainly for what it'll mean to you someday. And to your family someday when you get married and have children.”
“Shoot, Corrie, I just don't think I could do it.”
“'Course you could, Zack. Anybody can write down what's happened to them and what they're thinking. No big secret of how
to do that. If I can, you can. Just write it down, that's allâjust like it comes into your head.”
“That's easy enough for you to say. You're a famous writer.”
“But I wasn't when I started writing in my journalâthat's what I'm trying to tell you. Besides, Zack, from how you told it to us, I think lots of folks would like reading about you and Hawk and what happened to you. No reason why it couldn't be just as interesting a book as anything I've written about. If they can make a book of my journals, there isn't no reason they can't do it from something you'd write too.”
“A book!” I stared at her, thinking that she'd gone plumb crazy now. “Corrie, I can't write good enough for no book.”
“You write down what happened to you, Zack, and I'll help you fix it up. And Mr. MacPhersonâhe'd help too because he likes to publish things like that. You know all the stories about the West by Ned Buntline and Edward Ellis and Prentiss Ingraham? Folks are keen to read
their
books, and they're all made up. I know Mr. MacPherson'd publish a story that was true about the Pony Express and the Paiute Indians and living with a mountain man and surviving out there where there's not much more than rattlesnakes. I know that folks'd want to read about that, Zack! You write down what happened, and I'll help you fix it up, and then we'll send it to Mr. MacPherson.”
“I reckon I
could
write down what I did,” I told her finally, “though it'd take me a coon's age. I don't write none too fast.”
“Doesn't matter. You just work on it while I'm back East, and when I get back, then we'll see what's to be done next.”
“Just tell what happened?” I asked her again.
“Yep,” she told me. “Write it down just like you're talking. Pretend you're telling it to all of us. Writing is just talking on paperânothing more to it than that.”
Then she got a thoughtful look on her face.
“Actually, Zack,” she added after a minute, “there is one other thing you oughta do while you're writing down what happened.”
“What's that?” I asked her.
“I think you gotta tell about the
inside
of your story, not just the
outside
.”
“I don't get you, Corrie.”
“Outside is what you're doing. Inside is what you're thinking and feeling.”
“What difference does it make what I was feeling? Ain't it supposed to be about what I done?”
“I reckon you're partly right, Zack,” Corrie answered me. “But the minute you start writing, the folks reading what you did'll start wondering about who you are too. They'll like to know what was inside your headâwhat you were
thinking
âand what was inside your heartâwhat you were
feeling
âall at the same time as you're telling them what was
happening
. That's what most folks is interested in when they readâall of it put together. All about you.”
I thought for a long spell on what she'd said. It sounded to me like a downright hard thing to do.
“It's just like talking, Zack,” she said to me again. “Talking on paper. The only thing that's hard about it is that you menfolk aren't usually too practiced at talking about the feeling part. I reckon you feel things just as much as women do but you just don't know how to tell about it. But I reckon you can do it if you set your mind to it.”
I thought a lot more about what she said, and in the end I figured my sister was right. I could give it a try, and if I didn't like it, I could always throw it away.
Besides, what Corrie'd told me made a heap of sense.
I did like the idea of having something to help me remember what had happened to me out in Nevada, even if it was just for me. I'd learned a lot of things from Hawkâa lot about life, a lot about myself. If I didn't write it down, maybe I'd forget most of it someday. I didn't want to forget any of it! If I ever did have a son of my own, I wanted to be able to give to him some of what Hawk had given me. And I reckon, too, I wanted to help him stay away from some of the fool mistakes I'd made.
So I decided to give it a try. I worked on writing everything down while my sister Corrie was in the East, which turned out to be longer than any of us figured it would be. Then when she got back to California and Miracle Springs, we worked on it some more together before sending it to Mr. MacPherson in Chicago.
What you got here's the result of all that.
I don't know how many of you're gonna care about reading it. I done it mainly for me, and for my son if ever I'm lucky enough to
have me a son of my own someday. I reckon even if it's just for the two of us, it's worth it for that.
I left home to join the Pony Express in early July of 1860. I came back a little over a year later, in August of '61. So this is the story about my life during those thirteen months after I left home as a little kid, and came home pretty well started on the road to becoming a man.
