The Canyon of Bones (9 page)
Read The Canyon of Bones Online
Authors: Richard S. Wheeler
N
avigation was in Victoria's hands. She knew where the giant bones were; Skye had seen them once but couldn't recollect just where. All she told him was that they were not tar trom the confluence of the Musselshell and the Missouri Rivers.
avigation was in Victoria's hands. She knew where the giant bones were; Skye had seen them once but couldn't recollect just where. All she told him was that they were not tar trom the confluence of the Musselshell and the Missouri Rivers.
She led them north across high plains laced with giant coulees, sandstone ridges, and gulches filled with cottonwood trees. To the north and west, distant mountain ranges poked through autumnal haze. It was not a welcoming land. It was a place that made a man feel lonely. Sometimes when the wind quit, Skye could hear utterly nothing. The silence ran so deep that it made a man itchy. It was a land to hurry through.
The party proceeded peaceably enough. The two teamsters knew intuitively where to steer the giant draft horses as they worked up and down long grades and across a roadless sea of grass. The horses stayed fat, devouring the rich fodder.
At night, his women rarely raised the lodge, choosing to bed in buffalo robes under a bowl of stars. This always occasioned stares from Mercer and the teamsters, who put up
their wall tent each evening. Let them think whatever they wanted to think. Skye didn't care. The nights were as black as nights could be and how he and his wives lived would be veiled from the men.
their wall tent each evening. Let them think whatever they wanted to think. Skye didn't care. The nights were as black as nights could be and how he and his wives lived would be veiled from the men.
Skye roamed wide on Jawbone, training the young horse to close on buffalo from downwind and then race close to give Skye the lethal shot he needed to down the nimble animal. The great herds drifted across the sky-girt lands in small bunches, as feed and water dictated. Meat was never far away for Skye's party. This was, in its way, a food pantry, but Mercer didn't see it that way.
“When will we get to the bones, Skye?” he asked after several days of steady progress.
“Long way, mate. A week, ten days.”
“But, Skye, there's nothing here. This is the most boring land I've ever crossed.”
“It's a quiet land, I'll grant you that. But look around you. It's big country. Have you ever seen country so large or the sky so high?”
“But where's the story, Skye? I make my living writing stories. I can't see a story anywhere. I'm wasting time.”
Skye hardly knew how to respond. “There's a story in every rock, I imagine. You've seen the way the wind sculpts the sandstone. All those little wind caves make dens for catamounts, nests for birds, cubbyholes for coyotes.”
Mercer didn't see it and grew more and more testy.
“Skye, if we were crossing the Sahara, there'd be a story every mile. Dunes as high as mountains. The Berbers! Bright blue eyes, Nordic faces. I'd swear they were Vikings except they have big noses, bigger than yours. Bedouins! Camel caravans! Ancient trade routes known only to those camel drivers. They smoke hashish. They eat sheep's eyeballs. They
touch not a drop of spirits. They sometimes lose their trading goods to bandits, swift raiders on fine Arab horses that swirl out of the dust and cut them dead with scimitars. The whole Sahara is a thieves' den, Skye. Murders! Assassinations! Those caravans! The traders enter oases as if they were caliphs, and are welcomed by sloe-eyed women with flashing smiles behind their veils. Well, Skyey where's the story here? Am I on the wrong continent? I ought to have ten sensations a day to fill my journals!”
touch not a drop of spirits. They sometimes lose their trading goods to bandits, swift raiders on fine Arab horses that swirl out of the dust and cut them dead with scimitars. The whole Sahara is a thieves' den, Skye. Murders! Assassinations! Those caravans! The traders enter oases as if they were caliphs, and are welcomed by sloe-eyed women with flashing smiles behind their veils. Well, Skyey where's the story here? Am I on the wrong continent? I ought to have ten sensations a day to fill my journals!”
Skye nodded. A man looking for a sensation here might have a harder time of it. Skye couldn't help that.
The farther north they proceeded, the more he watched for Blackfeet. A war party could hide in any gulch and never be seen. So Skye roamed wide, examined the age of spoor, studied the world from ridges, and checked with his client now and then.
Mercer grew grouchy. “How long, Skye! This was a mistake! I should have known better than to come here! Can't you speed things up?”
“The pace is set by your teamsters, sir. It's the wagon that slows us. Mister Corporal and Mister Winding are making sure those draft horses don't fail you.”
“I'll tell them to hurry it up. Those horses are fine, fit as a fiddle, fat. I tell you, this is a wasted time; I'll have to write off the whole business.”
“You could study the buffalo, sir. Come with me while I hunt. They're a wise and majestic beast They can't see well but they can smell. Only the fastest horse can outrun them. When they stampede, the whole earth vibrates.”
“Who cares about the buffalo? Just big, dumb uglies, that's all. I don't like the sight of blood. Now if we were in Africa, I could write about lions and zebras and giraffes. There
are places on this earth that evoke something mystical in the human breast. Africa is such a place. These endless plains are not.”
are places on this earth that evoke something mystical in the human breast. Africa is such a place. These endless plains are not.”
“You might study the coyotes, Mister Mercer. Crafty fellows, mythic to all the tribes, tricksters, clever and devious, curious about everything.”
“Nothing but a small wild dog, Skye. Now the Australian dingos are worth writing about. Predators, eat babies, brutal and cunning. The Aborigines have stories.”
Skye sighed. He could not help a man determined to be discontent. Mercer yanked his horse away and rode off to be alone, while Skye stayed for the moment with his small party, his women, his horses, his burdened travois.
Victoria edged close. She had been listening. “I don't like that sonofabitch,” she said.
“Oh, he's just restless. Some people truly see the land and its animals and people; others pass through a country and never see a thing. He's one of those, I imagine. But rather a pleasant bloke most of the time. We'll show him what we can, get our money, and have a good winter.”
Then one day they reached the Musselshell River, a pallid stream dribbling along a shallow trench lined with willows and cottonwoods.
“What a poor excuse for a river, Skye. Where's the story here?”
“It's sometimes considered a boundary between the Absarokas and the Siksika,” Skye said.
“Siksika?”
“Blackfeet. The most restless, proud, handsome, ruthless, dangerous, powerful tribe on the northern plains. They despise Yanks, but might be kinder to an Englishman. They'd butcher me because I'm married into the Crows; take my
wives captive, kill your Missouri teamsters, and be content to steal everything you possess and let you hike for the nearest Hudson's Bay Company post.”
wives captive, kill your Missouri teamsters, and be content to steal everything you possess and let you hike for the nearest Hudson's Bay Company post.”
“Which is where?”
“North of the medicine line. Canada.”
“That's all the story here?”
“No; we are crossing the larder of a dozen tribes. This is where they come to eat. They fight over it.”
“No story there, Skye.”
Skye sighed. Victoria had selected a meadow under a sandstone bluff, well back from the water, where a prairie wind wouldn't topple the lodge. The bluff would also conceal the cook fire. It was a good spot, with natural defenses. Skye wondered whether Mercer grasped that the farther north they traveled, the more Skye sought to keep them safe. That was a story for Mercer if he wanted it. The incessant war between Crows and Blackfeet could fill ten journals if Mercer had wanted to learn about it. But the explorer had slid into a funk and Skye had no desire to tell stories to a man who lacked eyes and ears.
But this night was different. Mercer consulted his teamsters, dug into the wagon, and pulled out a small oaken cask.
“This stream mislabeled a river's got ice-cold water even if it's discolored. It'll give us yellow gin and bitters,” he said. “But I suppose we might imbibe. Nothing else to do but stew ourselves to the gills. I've got enough to stew us for a month. I can stew us all the way to Fort Benton and then down the river. I'll stew us at breakfast, I'll stew us at dinner, I'll stew us on the prairies, I'll stew us in the mountains, I'll stew every savage that comes visiting, I'll stew every coyote that pokes his nose into camp, I'll stew the mosquitoes. By God, this American West is a bust, an absolute disaster. How am I to get a living?”
“Aiee!” howled Victoria. She was not opposed to this plan so long as she could be included.
It was a temptation. Skye didn't mind a good sousing. But there was something about all this that was menacing. Big drunks in wild lands were trouble.
“No,” he said.
“What do you mean, no? This is my outfit and you're my employee.”
“No.”
“Are you defying me?”
“I always do what's necessary for the safety of people in my charge.”
“Relax, Skye, and have a drink. Enjoy my hospitality. Where else can you get a good gin and bitters around a friendly campfire? The trip's a bust; let's celebrate the disaster.”
In a way, Mercer's proposition was delightful. The man was making light of a bad trip and would head for other adventures in other corners of this great globe.
Skye had been there before. At the rendezvous of mountain men, when the fun sometimes turned deadly. At saturnalias where Indians, not used to spirits, came apart and went mad. He eyed Victoria, who would no doubt enjoy the rowdy times, and Mary, new to his life and white men, and vulnerable.
“No,” he said. “If you and your party get stewed, I am resigning.”
Mercer bared that row of pearly teeth once again. The man could melt the heart of a witch with a smile like that. “Not even one little toddy?”
“Not now. Not here. One would lead to another.”
“Oh, come join us, just one, Skye.”
“It's Mister Skye, sir. And in your present humor, it would
not be one. No, Mister Mercer. Pour and we'll pack up, my family and I.”
not be one. No, Mister Mercer. Pour and we'll pack up, my family and I.”
That's when a voice rose out of the twilight. “Hello the camp,” someone yelled.
I
ntuitively, Skye and Victoria edged toward shadows even as Mercer welcomed whoever it was.
ntuitively, Skye and Victoria edged toward shadows even as Mercer welcomed whoever it was.
The approaching man towered taller than Skye thought a mortal could reach. Six and a half feet, perhaps. He had a gray slouch hat over jet hair. He was leading a black mule, laden with gear. If the man's height was striking, his face was even more so. He wore a jet beard as straight as spikes and sawed off horizontally at shoulder level, the shape of the beard as sharp and square as planed ebony. Above that was an aquiline nose and a pair of obsidian eyes. On first glance he seemed menacing, but Skye intuited that the man was not that way at all.
“Well, sirs, I see I am among my own. I'm Jacob Reese at your service,” the man said in a voice that rattled out of his lungs. An odd voice it was, rising from the man's belly and reaching Skye's ears as something out of a cave.
Mercer took over. “Why, Mister Reese, I'm Graves Duplessis Mercer.” Mercer was plainly waiting to be recognized, but the recognition didn't come, which just as plainly disappointed
Mercer. “Ah, this is Mister Skye and his ladies, Missus and Missus Skye, and my assistants, Mister Corporal and Mister Winding. Won't you join us? We haven't started a meal, but soon we will.”
Mercer. “Ah, this is Mister Skye and his ladies, Missus and Missus Skye, and my assistants, Mister Corporal and Mister Winding. Won't you join us? We haven't started a meal, but soon we will.”
“English are you. I saw it coming,” Reese said, which puzzled Skye.
The man picketed his black mule and unloaded his gear, while Skye quietly observed. Reese seemed entirely competent in the wilds.
At last the man finished his chores and settled down beside the low flame. “I saw it coming,” he said. “You would be here. I knew it this morning when I searched beyond the ready knowing and into the realm from which I draw gifts.”
Mercer smiled, his teeth so achingly white in the firelight that they made almost a beacon of light in the darkness. “Well, sir, you can entertain us with visions. We're about to pour a libation. Would you care to imbibe?”
Reese paused, a certain cunning in his face, and nodded. “Yes, gin and bitters. That's what you're serving. I shall sample one, with gratitude.”
“How did you know ⦔
“I don't know how I know. I just do. It comes to me. I have the inner eye. It's a gift and a curse. Did you know, sir, that silver has been discovered in Nevada? Yes, tons and mountains of it! But the word has not yet reached the States. I saw it spread upon the back of my mind. Don't ask me how. I saw it, and I shall be proven right!”
Mercer nodded to Floyd Corporal, the man who usually concocted the bitters and then added them to gin. The teamster set to work. Skye watched uneasily.
The stranger settled by the flickering flame in the twilight,
and slapped away a mosquito. Skye didn't know what to make of him.
and slapped away a mosquito. Skye didn't know what to make of him.
“What brings you here, Mister Reese?” he asked.
“Gold! Silver! Copper! Right in these northern mountains are giant bodies of ore, so rich it makes me dizzy. I saw it all; I know where to go. Gold, in filaments and flakes, in milky quartz, easy to pluck up if you wish. Fortunes to be made. Gold washing down creeks. Gold and silver buried in thick veins under the earth. Silver, crusted into strange shapes, ready to harvest.”
“Where might that be?” Mercer asked.
“I will know it when the next vision is given to me.”
“Then you don't know.”
“Of course I know! I have come this far, first on a riverboat, and then overland, from Zebulon, North Carolina. I know exactly where I am going. Silver, gold, sir, draw me ever forward.”
“But there's been very little silver found in North America,” Mercer said. “Mexico, mainly.”
“And that has changed! Even now, miners are hitting bonanzas.”
“How do you know that?”
Reese sighed. “My inner vision, sir. I see I am not believed. And that's good. For it opens the field to me alone. Where I go, you will not follow.”
Floyd Corporal began handing out the gin and bitters in sweating tin cups. Skye held his peace.
“Why do you tell us about the gold and silver? Why don't you keep it a secret?” Skye asked.
Reese fixed Skye with those obsidian eyes. “You do not believe.”
Skye admitted to himself that he didn't. The man was half mad. In all the years Skye had roamed the northern lands, mountains and plains and deserts, no one had found gold or even a mineral seam. There was little gold here; little gold to the west where the Rockies climbed to the sky.
“Treasure stories. The world doesn't lack them,” Mercer said. “On every continent, among every people. I don't put much stock in them. I couldn't even sell them to the
Times
. But I am looking for stories, Mister Reese. I write little things for British papers. Now, when you were coming upriver, did you see anything out of the ordinary?”
Times
. But I am looking for stories, Mister Reese. I write little things for British papers. Now, when you were coming upriver, did you see anything out of the ordinary?”
“It suits me that you don't believe,” Reese said. “You see, I intend to claim it all and then put it to good use.” He eyed each of the people sitting around that fire intently. “There's enough gold and silver and base metals within two hundred miles of here to transform the republic. We're a poor people, we Americans. We scratch livings out of the poor soil. We are roadless. We spin our cloth and hoe our gardens and barely get along. I'm going to change that. I will claim all these minerals before the greedy steal them and exploit them all for themselves. Yes, once I own these minerals, sirs, I will use every cent to bless the poor and the hungry. All a widow will need to do is apply. All an orphan needs to do is apply. The same for the sick and blind and wounded. I'll give a competence to those in need, and better than that, I'll set up people in business. A poor orphan might become a shopkeeper. A lame man an artist. You see? For once in human history, the wealth in the earth will be spent entirely on those in need.”
Skye marveled. The man might be mad, but never had he heard such a visionary and noble design.
Reese stopped suddenly, waiting for a response, perhaps waiting for objections, but no one objected.
“I am being led by Divine Providence,” Reese said. “Just as surely as I have seen the future, I will harvest the wealth and devote it to the needful.”
Mercer seemed amused. The teamsters kept silent. Victoria accorded Reese all the respect that her people gave to madmen.
“This is a fine libation,” Reese said. “You might suppose that I would not approve; that I teetotal. You would be wrong. I am not a puritan or a fanatic. Anglican, if you wish to know my background.”
“Truly noble, Mister Reese,” Mercer said. “But I do have a question. How will you claim these fields and mountains of minerals? Has your republic laws that permit it? This is public land, isn't it? Has it been surveyed? Can you file a claim somewhere?”
Reese sat up. Even sitting, he towered over them all. “What I find will be mine. What I claim will be mine. For I will know, while standing upon a bonanza, where it is and what is there. And once I know, that is all that is necessary. I will drive my corner stakes when I am called to drive them. Until then, the secret will reside in my soul.”
“But, forgive me, how will you pass the secret on to others? Surely you don't expect to develop all these bodies of ore in one lifetime?”
“My nature is monkish,” Reese said. “It is true that the secret abides only in my bosom. If I had heirs, they would fight over the spoils. So if I perish the vision will perish with me. This, too, I have seen, for it has been given to me to see things in the back of my mind.”
“How far are we from gold? Right here, how far?” Mercer asked.
Reese closed his eyes, almost as if he were sliding into a
trance. “We are sixty-eight miles as the crow flies from gold. But that is not a large deposit,” he said.
trance. “We are sixty-eight miles as the crow flies from gold. But that is not a large deposit,” he said.
Skye had the uneasy feeling the man was exactly right.
“How far from this mountain of copper you mention?”
Again Reese seemed to draw into himself. He closed his eyes, and then opened them. “One hundred ninety-four miles to the mountain of copper, again as the crow flies. But the surface of that place has silver. The copper is lower.”
“Where is the best gold?” Mercer asked.
“One hundred and seventy-eight miles southwest,” Reese said.
“How do you know that?”
Reese looked affronted. “Have I not told you how I know? I could take you there. We could start this moment and I could take you to the exact place, a river so full of nuggets that it will yield millions and millions of dollars.”
“Where is the nearest silver, Mister Reese?” Mercer was obviously enjoying this game.
“Not far. There's a rich carbonate ore of silver one hundred and eight miles distant.”
“Very good, Mister Reese. I wish you luck,” Mercer said.
“It is not luck, sir. If it were luck, I would spend my life meandering. No, I am being taken where I am being taken, and for the good of the Republic.” He finished his cup, stood, and addressed them all.
“I thank you for the hospitality. I cherish a good gin and bitters. Now I'll be on my way.”
“At night? You'll not stay for a supper? We've some buffalo tongue.”
“Night and day make no difference to me, Mister Mercer. It is all one. Sleep and wakefulness make no difference. When I rest, it is for my mule's sake, not mine.”
With that, Reese retrieved his black mule, loaded it, and vanished upriver. In utter silence they watched the man go, and then there was only the night.
“I come to North America looking for a good story, looking for something, anything, to promote science and entertain London, and what do I find? A madman,” Mercer said. “There's not a good story anywhere. The trip's a bust.”
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