Redeye (16 page)

I also understand your concern about my health. The arid climate of Colorado, however, is altogether different from that of England and seems to alleviate the symptoms of my tuberculosis.

Mr. Merriwether has a comprehensive library in his home. I do believe you would like him. Other educated people reside in this area, including a young woman of unestablished background who has received a college education, albeit in the American South. Through her and her most congenial uncle, Pleasant James Copeland, I hope to learn something of the American South, its myths, history, and the War Between the States, as the Copelands call it. The young woman's name is Star. On the whole, I find many American names quite creative—some even humourous. I have met, believe it or not, a man named Anonymous Cheekwood. And the Americans seem to have a knack for creating words. For example eggs are also known as “cackleberries.” Maple syrup is called “lick.”

In the event I am able to finish any articles about my travels (including unusual names), I will send them along for you to submit to the
Daily Telegraph
under the heading “From the Far West.”

Please give warmest regards to Mother and please tell Mary Charlotte I am proud of her marks, especially in Latin, and that I am sorry about her illness. And I am so glad to learn of the success of your trip to Venice. I look forward to hearing more when once again we relax before the library fire.

Father, indebted as I am for your support of this trip thus far, I find it absolutely necessary that I take at least one expedition onto Mesa Largo. I will send a report and I beg that you seriously consider my request, surely now in your hand, for an extended stay here.

With Sincerest Regards and
with Love,
Your devoted son,
Andrew

On that first expedition we started out from the Merriwether Ranch in the dark of morning—all those loaded wagons creaking and feeling heavy—so as to reach the ferry by soon after light. We took empty wagons too, horses and pack mules herded together, and Mexicans bringing up the rear.

Cobb Pittman was along, with his dog's head sticking out his bag. And he had what looked liked six or eight prunes tied to a saddle string. The Englishman asked him about them.

“Ears,” he said.

———

My job was to be a general handyman, the wrangler. Everybody would be digging in the ruins, and I'd be doing what they told me to, but the Mexicans or Indians couldn't give me orders. I could give them orders if I needed to. The Indians were the Mescadeys who lived just north of the mesa, Mudfoot and Lobo.

Night before, I'd helped load the freight wagons—about five feet deep—with four barrels of water, tarpaulins, ropes, bedrolls, oil lamps, axes, pickaxes, fourteen long-handled shovels, grain and baled hay, boxes of canned goods, bags of cornmeal, flour, sugar, crates of canned coffee, a side of beef, slabs of bacon and salt pork, and some goods the Englishman had brought.

And I'd helped Pete, the cook, load the chuck wagon. It is one fine wagon. I'd never seen it full up. It holds a lot. A four-foot-tall box with shelves was made into the back. That had stuff in it and another box fitted over it, waterproofing it, and it could be separated out and used as a table. Then there is a boot with a hinged door where the skillets, pots, irons, and fire hooks all hang. You can tell a lot of thought went into building it. When Mr. Copeland was working on it, I couldn't figure where the different things would fit.

We had four pack mules, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Jake, three loaded and one unloaded, and extra horses, and two extra wagons for relics. We'd loaded Jake with about two hundred pounds of supplies and Mark and Matthew carried loads of tools and bad-weather gear. Luke was barebacked. The pack mules and extra horses seemed like they knew where they was going and didn't wander all over like cattle. We used a bell mare.

Jake—famous Jake, the pack mule—of course didn't want to get on the ferry, but Mr. Merriwether and me both pulled and we got him on. He jerked his head and snorted the same way he had on our trip to Leesville. It took us four trips in all to get across. The Bishop tried to milk us about what we were up to, but we stuck true to what Mr. Merriwether said to say to him, that we was just exploring.

The Englishman asked the Bishop questions all about when the river was up and when it was down. He stayed behind and then caught up. We all figured Bishop Thorpe was feeding him Mormonism. Then we found out the Englishman had a sketchbook and had been sketching the ferry. He'd been to college and studied science and collected plants and stuff and his daddy had explored the Amazon something.

We was stretched out single file with a wagon up front and the Mexicans in the rear. It was one of those clean, cool days with the air bright clear as far as you could see. Mr. Merriwether had wanted to get this big excavation done before the first winter snows. Then he could go back in after the snows but not with all this equipment.

We rambled along with the sound of the wagons creaking in and out of holes, and the saddles on the horses squeaking, and the soft plop of the horses' and mules' hooves. We stopped and made day camp at a campsite in a little bunch of piñon and cedar. The Mexicans were gathering wood for a fire and Pete warmed up beans that he'd cooked before we left. We had some cornbread, beans, jerky, coffee, and canned tomatoes. It was okay except for the jerky which was almost too tough to eat.

The Englishman had a little fold-out chair he sat on.

Zack says to me, “He's got enough gadgets to sink a boat. Have you seen what-all he's got?”

“Who?”

“That Englishman.”

“I just seen his chair and his pocketknife with all them blades.”

Then the Englishman stood up, come over, cranked up a conversation with me and Zack.

“You've been up here before?” he asked Zack. “In the mesa?”

“Few times. Looking for cattle.”

“Have you been in any of the dwellings?”

“Me and the boy come up on one last month, but it won't in here.”

“How was it—the condition of it?”

“Just a old Indian dwelling.”

“Cliff dwelling?”

“Yeah, it was in a cliff.”

“How many rooms?”

“About eight.”

“What did you find?”

“About eight rooms.”

“I mean pottery, relics.”

“Pottery, animal skins, mostly. Heap of corncobs. They didn't clean up too well before they left.”

“Did you come across a trash heap?”

“No.”

“I'm interested in the trash.”

“Is that right?”

“How'd you find out about all this?” I asked him. “The cliff dwellings.”

“A lady of the Denver Historical Society. She wrote a letter of introduction to Mr. Merriwether for me. But I'd read quite a bit about the Aztec ruins in Mexico.”

“Lady?” said Zack. “Society?”

Andrew looked at him funny. He didn't get it. Then he said to me, “There's a good chance of finding mummies.” He raised his eyebrows and smiled. “Arid regions, you know, tend to preserve human remains.”

“Good luck,” said Zack.

I could tell Zack didn't, but I kind of liked the Englishman.

It was the first time the whole group had eat together. The Indians went off a little ways in one direction, and ate squatting down. The Mexicans went off in another direction and ate out of their frying pans and drunk water out of tin cans. The Indians was the two we'd met on the trail that time, Mudfoot and Lobo. Mudfoot works some for Mr. Merriwether.

Everybody was speaking in their own language except for Mr. Merriwether who could talk to the Indians
and
the Mexicans. Zack could speak some Spanish and had started teaching me some. The Englishman was took up with the Indian language and he walked over to Lobo after we ate, and pointed to some things, and wrote down some words. Mr. Pittman mostly talked to Redeye.

  THE TRAIL  

 

“On the trail.” What a ring these three words bring to the air. You cowboys and cowgirls will find yourselves viewing the same vistas that heroes, heroines, and villains of yesteryear viewed as they searched for their destinies among these archaeological wonders. Where, on this holy earth can one find . . .

After a long afternoon ride we camped in a wood of low pines where there was grass for grazing. My job was to hobble the remuda.

For supper we had a good stew from one Dutch oven and rice and raisins from another—Pete called it moonshine. For dessert we had lick dripped over canned Ambassador peaches and biscuits. It was the best food I'd had in a long time. Being outside, eating, tired, butt sore, the sun down, the sky purple, and the air clear and cooling fast, I felt pretty happy and comfortable.

We sat around our fire and talked for a while and the Indians and Mexicans sat around theirs. Most of the talk was done by Mr. Merriwether and the Englishman. They was sitting across the fire from each other.

Zack rolled a smoke. When he finished he stuck it against a coal until the end flamed up, then stuck it between his lips.