What was bizarre about the death was that nobody but Crow saw it happen.
Daniel was nuzzling one of the wagon-horses, face pressed to the velvet neck.
Ben Ford was resting inside the rig, lying down, trying for the hundredth time that day to force his legs to make some kind of movement. Any kind of movement at all.
And the Reverend Charles Spangel was communicating with the Lord, praying for some kind of signal that would indicate divine approval of the valley.
Just Crow.
The girl stumbled as she walked quickly towards him, her poor vision totally blanked out by the brightness of the setting sun, directly ahead of her. Her senses muddled by the roaring of the distant river. She’d caught her toe and tripped, just too far away for the shootist to reach and snatch her back from the brink of eternity.
He’d watched her fall.
Silent through the whirling space. Arms spread like a flying angel, her dress streaming behind her like fire, the bonnet ripped from her head, fluttering after her towards the bottom of the valley, like a dove seeking a shoulder to rest upon.
He saw her land.
Because of the river he didn’t hear the dreadful splintering sound of her body crashing among scattered boulders. He saw a small cloud of dust rising from the broken corpse and the stillness.
After the strange beauty of her fall, there was the total stillness.
“That was the sign.”
Spangel’s voice broke the silence. Crow had led the blind man back to the wagon, ignoring his protests. Calling Daniel to join Ben Ford near the back of the rig. Telling all three of them the bitter news.
“What?”
“I said that this was the sign that I had been seeking, Crow.”
“Your daughter’s dyin’ is the sign. Christ, Reverend, that’s somethin’ that … I mean ... it’s crazy.”
Ford stammered out his protest, face even paler than usual. Voice thick with sadness and muffled by his anger.
“It is the sign,” repeated the old man, face carved from stone. Stubborn. Inflexible. Shuttered eyes seeking something beyond the sunset.
“Don’t you have any thoughts on this, boy?” the shootist asked Daniel.
“No, sir.”
“Your only sister. Fallin’ like that. Smashed into … And you got nothin’ to say ’bout it?”
The boy shook his head. Looking away from Ben Ford and Crow, shuffling his feet. “It’s just punishment.”
“Hold thy tongue!” snapped Spangel.
“Punishment, son?” asked Crow.
Daniel still wouldn’t look up. “For Pa.”
“What did …?”
“It’s none of your concern, Crow.”
There was a momentary stillness, but Crow could see something that the old man couldn’t. The muscles working in the boy’s face. Tight around the eyes, jittering at the corners of his narrow mouth. As he struggled to speak.
Finally: “For what Pa done. And me and Sis.”
The staff lashed up and round, smashing into the side of the wagon, less than a foot from Daniel’s skull. The force of the blow so awesome that it splintered the wooden cask where it hit. The blow jarred the staff clear of Spangel’s hands and he fell to his knees groping for it, mouth working in an insensate rage. Crow kicked it away from his prying fingers, sending it spinning yards away.
“Leave it, Reverend.”
“I got to tell “em, Pa. I got to! It’s drivin’ me mad and …”
“I will not hear it!”
“I got to say it.”
“You are no longer my son.”
“Then be damned to you!”
Crow and Ford stayed silent, listening to the bitter voices. The accusing tones; the anger.
Spangel walked away, feeling with his hands, keeping the sun at his back. Finally stopping at the far side of the small plateau, when his hands felt bare rock and he could go no further. And there he stood, like a carved pillar of stone, back turned to them.
“You want to tell us, boy?” said Ben Ford, quietly.
“I don’t rightly.
Ben smiled, and there was something of the old gentleness there that years of hard living and fighting had near washed away. “Man with an easy mind sleeps easy, son. You don’t have to tell us a damned thing. Doesn’t signify one way or t’other to me and Crow. Right?” The shootist nodded his agreement.
Daniel took a deep, deep breath, as though he was about to plunge for his life into a water-filled tunnel.
“It’s God’s hand lyin’ against us, Mr. Ford. That’s why Ma and Sis have been took. Both of ’em. For Pa and his sinnin’.”
“What was it?” asked Crow. Curious to find out whether this might be the clue as to why such a giant of a man had taken to religion. Late in life, he’d gathered.
The boy’s voice dropped, even more quietly, so that both men strained to hear it above the distant thundering of the waterfalls.
“Pa was a regular Hell-raiser, once. ’Fore I knowed him. And Ma was right in the head. Used to be a teacher, in a small town near Pensacola. Then Pa started havin’ eye troubles. Not too bad at first. Then worse. Pains in his head. He figured it was God.”
“So he became a Minister?” asked Ford.
“No!” Daniel’s voice rose in surprise. “Not then. He took against God. Said he’d teach him. Fight him. He’d blaspheme and all. Day in and out. Folks told me this, you understand. I wasn’t yet born.”
“You’re just pickin’ at the skin and not comin’ close to the liver and lights, boy,” said Ford.
“He knew Ma.”
“Knew her. Course he … Oh, you mean he really knew her? Like in the Bible. Course he did.”
“And Sis.”
“Holy Jesus Christ!”
“He had a sister himself. Laid with her. And her daughter. It was his way of … of …”
“Pissin’ on the boots of the Almighty,” suggested Crow.
“That’s why we’re all cursed. When Ma found out the learnin’ took her mind off some place. And then the blindness came to us all.”
“Why should you be blinded for what your Pa did, boy?” asked Ford.
“The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children even unto the third and fourth generation. That’s what the Bible says.”
Crow shook his head. That’s just dried horse chips, son. God, if there is one, likely doesn’t operate that way.”
“Sure,” encouraged Ford. “Not as though you did something awful yourself that’d make …”
“But I did.”
“What?”
The boy put his head on one side, peering at both men. Craw noticed that the bad eye, the left, seemed to have an odd life of its own, moving sideways, while Daniel strained to focus his seeing through the narrow tunnel left to him in the good eye.
“No, son. You’ve told enough!” yelled Spangel, raising his hands above his head in his distress. Looking like some primeval god about to hurl lightning and destruction on some innocent, sleeping township.
“I ain’t, Pa. I’m goin’ to tell it all. Been hid long years enough.”
“You don’t have to, son,” said Ben Ford, trying to stretch and pat Daniel on the shoulder, but the lad was too far away for him to reach. “There’s doors best left closed and words best left silent.”
“Wasn’t just Pa.”
“How’s that?”
He sniffed, trembling on the brink of tears. “Me as well.”
Dark shadows seemed to swoop and circle around the two listening men as they realized that the boy was talking about black secrets. Taboo and almost sacrilegious in most races.
“You mean you and your Ma?” asked Ford, voice hardly even a whisper.
“Sure. Me and Ma. And me and Mary. Poor Sis too. And Pa with Sis.”
“Jesus,” sighed the ramrod.
“Jesus didn’t have a damned thing to do with it, Mr Ford,” spat the boy, turning and walking quietly away, the far side of the wagon from his father.
It was some time before the four survivors could gather themselves together sufficiently to get the wagon rolling again.
Not until the following morning at first light.
Daniel sat the box, with Ford propped up among some chests and blankets, ready to lend a hand if it became necessary on the dangerous looping, swirling trail to the bottom of the valley.
The Reverend Charles Spangel kept himself out of sight. After the stunning revelations of his son he had stayed clear of Crow and Ford, finally stalking unsteadily towards them, the staff searching the ground ahead of him to warn him of hazards. Reaching the Conestoga and climbing into the bed of it, keeping utterly and totally silent the whole time.
Indeed, all that night and through into the next morning he didn’t say a word.
Crow led the way, sitting comfortably in the saddle of the black stallion, heeling it onwards down the steep slope. Occasionally turning and calling out a warning to the boy to watch out for particularly dangerous bits of the road. In places rains had washed away the outer edge of the trail, narrowing it to only a couple of feet wider than the wagon’s axles and the greatest care was needed to get on down.
They stopped briefly when they were near the bottom for some food. Oddly, the pounding of the river didn’t seem so loud as they neared it. Perhaps the high cliffs had trapped the sound, amplifying it and funneling it upwards. The noise was still there, like a sullen roaring, and they could see a bright rainbow haze shimmering above the whitest part of the rapids, the sun just penetrating that far.
Crow could only see part of the valley as they neared the bottom, and he started to grow uneasy again about the Mexicans. Once they were down on the flat floor they could be easy meat for any attackers. A par-blind boy, a cripple, a totally blind old man and himself.
It wouldn’t give good odds against a dozen or so bandits.
The shootist figured that they would be at most risk from an attack during the night.
And, as it turned out, he was quite right.