He woke with a start and with considerable difficulty gaining his balance.
“Fool lantern won’t torch. Pender’s gone ‘n used up the oil…”
The wagoner talked himself into waking. For a fraction of a second, he thought himself blind, for the night was pitch. He had been laying on his forearm and the burns declared themselves. The moon hovered, misty and bleak.
Was it a nightmare? Ott couldn’t recollect what he had been dreaming. Since Pappy’s passing, he had been visited by unwelcome visions. Visions of desperation and forlornness. Of drowning and of choking infernos.
A scratching sound made Ott aware that he was not alone. His heart leapt. He fondled the bristly ground for his rifle but could not place it.
The scratching came louder. It came from atop the wagon. Ott, in the hush of night, detected panting. He wanted to call out roughly. Who in hell’s acres? Show yerselves or take consequence! But his voice had left him. He sat tense, his sloped shoulders no longer sloped. The panting persisted. Ott cocked an ear. There came the quick shuffle of a step and a lunge. Something weighty had come off the coffin and landed on the ground of the opposite side of the wagon.
The man, suddenly lithe, sprang to his feet.
“By-Christ-I’ll-lay-you-out-you-contemptible-sons-o’-bitches-I’ll-show-yous-a-reckonin’…!”
A rage had taken him. He flung his arms wildly. Ott thought he glimpsed a shadow loping out of sight. He detected the swift padding of feet. The invisible pack scurried from the wagoner’s barbarous shouts. Startled from their hunt. At a distance, the note of a whine pierced the darkness, followed by the yip yip of the others. Ott ran on, hot and crazed. Heedless of any course. The rifle, rusted and forgotten, had been unnecessary.
* * *
Night passed at a snail’s pace. The visitation from the coyote pack had left the wagoner incensed and on edge. He built up a fire and circled about it. Listening for indications of movement. Barking provocations at the blanket of darkness. Sitting beside the crude coffin until the sitting became unbearable.
He washed himself in the tributary and they made on before dawn’s light.
Ott could hear the brush of tall grasses in Sir Lucien’s stride and against the wagon undercarriage. There had been no rations for a breakfast, and the man’s stomach felt the lack. He concentrated on his course, taking care to remain apart from the lip of the cutbank. Uninterrupted, they put a score of miles behind them.
There were periods during the quiet of mornings when Ott was convinced of an energy in the open range. A tide of solemnity went through him, and he noted it. In the seas of grassy fields and in the limitless skies. In the cheery birdsong that accompanied sunrise. There were moments when time warped to where Ott couldn’t tell how much of it had passed. He gaped in an empty somnolence at the deposits of brown soil. At the wrens and warblers which darted out of their hiding places. At the playful, whistling gophers. At the hawks which soared and hunted all about.
Hawks were plentiful in the region. They perched on aspen peaks, rotating their heads like owls. Always, they studied the wagoner, as though he was an intruder in their world. Uninvited. The hawks saw everything. A scurrying beside a pale rock. The cartwheeling of loose straw. They saw the nests of sparrows and waxwings; they knew when a speckled trout was running below a water’s surface. Hawks had a regal presence on the plains. They were poised and vigilant. Their eyes were glassy, their talons fitted with blades. Regularly, Ott had seen the birds diving on selected targets, then coming up with a mouse or squirrel in their clutches. The red-tailed variety were like fire against the chrome blue.
There were larger specimens. Chicken hawks, Granpappy used to call them. Together, the abundance of hawks and falcons contributed to the living energy of the region. They—along with the coyotes and rattlers and badgers—supplied a threat of danger. An intricate hunt of one type or another was forever being played out upon the land, largely unseen. Fierce struggles between the chasers and the chased. The wagoner couldn’t begin to describe the sensation of bumping through the heart of this activity. Every mile bringing fresh sights. He alongside Granpappy. Following a tributary which trickled lazy and shallow.
An unpleasant scent rode the air. Ott sniffed it. He scanned the rolling terrain for carcasses. A dead ‘coon or porcupine, he reckoned. Perhaps the fly-covered entrails of a bison, left behind by hunters who had harvested only the animal’s pelt and tongue. Ott spotted nothing. Whatever the scent, he expected at every curve that the tributary would broaden, showing the gushing water of which Granpappy had spoken. In places, he’d said, the waters were too much to cross by horse.
The sun lifted. The odour was disagreeable on the air. Perhaps it was the water that was rancid. Too little flow.
A white bird came into view in the distance. Gracelessly, it chugged along the ground. Tumbling and pausing. Tumbling and pausing. Ott watched the bird’s progress. If it was a bird, it had seemingly forgotten how to fly. Or, more likely, it had taken on some injury. A clipped wing or a damaged spine. The creature was unable to raise itself off the land. The wagoner would collide with the flopping gull if Sir Lucien maintained his leaden pace.
It was not a bird but a slip of newsprint. The newsprint swept across the terrain like a tumbleweed, rolling in stops and starts. Ott watched as it smacked directly into the side of the wagon.
“Whoa now. I say whoa.”
He leapt from his seat and snatched the oversized paper before it be taken by the breeze.
“Looky what we come on here,” he said to the mule.
The sheet was torn and crumpled and in wretched condition. Ott brought the page close to his face and tried to make meaning of the enlarged letters at the top. THE NEW NORTHWEST. Beneath that: Portland, Oregon. The ink had faded considerably after weeks of exposure to the elements, but the straight columns of reporting could be seen. A chronicle of myriad goings on from the salty coast to the broad heartland.
…Gentlemen were attired in their best evening finery for the occasion. Ladies’ fashions were dominated by the latest lace-front style, complete with tier panels in the skirts. One Louisa May Stone, cousin to the wife of General Willis Arnold Gorman (of Potomac and Antietam fame, recently deceased) was witnessed to be giving ear to the confabulations of Sir Robert Claxton’s eldest son, Joseph. Dare we ask: could nuptials be in the cards for this summertime couple?
Lady Geraldine Callington was ravishing in a blush silk gown featuring…
More than 11, 000 freight locomotives are now in operation, transporting some 14, 200 tonnes of goods across this great nation. Passenger trains maintain the strictest of schedules, availing ambitious entrepreneurs access to new lives in a new land—fertile farmland, and hundreds of acres of it. Do you or an acquaintance dream of owning your own slice of America? Are you willing to try your luck with the pickaxe and pan in the promise of the Black Hills? Do not demur another day. Rather, we advise thee to hasten. Purchase your ticket on the mighty Union Pacific Railroad. You will not regret it…
On September the 7th, 1876, a robbery attempt was made by five persons on the First National Bank of Northfield, Minnesota. The attempt was thwarted by townspeople after the bank’s acting cashier refused to open the safe for the armed bandits. The cashier, a Mr. Joseph Lee Heywood, stood resolute even after being threatened with a Bowie knife to the throat. Those responsible for the bundled robbery proved to be none other than outlaw Jesse James and his notorious James-Younger Gang. Two members of the gang were left dead following the bloody shootout. Lawmen were quoted as…
The article went on to speculate that Jesse James, friend of the common man and opposer of bank and railroad corruption, might be on a path to meeting a similar fate to that of “Wild Bill” Hickok, whose time had recently run out in the burgeoning town of Deadwood. Opinion on the bank and train robber was divided among the public, but this reporter stood firmly on the side of the law. Theft is theft and violence cannot be justified if society is to be the noble thing that the forefathers had envisioned.
Try as he might, the wagoner could not get past the title of the periodical. The oval-shaped O was the sole character he was certain of. His own name began with an O—that much, he remembered. There was a hazy photograph of a bank near the bottom of the page. Beyond that, the newsprint heralded no information for its finder. With trousers and long johns unbuttoned, Ott squatted over a fallen birch and grunted through his business. He ripped the paper in half and used one portion to wipe himself clean. Happy for his good fortune, he folded the remaining half and tucked it away for later in the day. He gathered a pail of water for the mule, and they made on with the light of the east melting over the edge of the earth.
It was not from the tributary but from the coffin that the odour emanated. Ott deduced this as the wagon wound its way on and the scent followed. Granpappy. Ott shuddered to think of the body bound inside of the crate. Trapped in darkness. Deteriorating. He understood that all living things came to the same end—that it was a natural step in the Lord’s celestial plan. But the knowing did nothing to alleviate the sadness.
It had been death which had prompted Granpappy to leave the Dakota-Montana territory and it was death which had brought him back.
Ott harkened back to what he’d been told about the baby and the birth. By all indications, Granpappy had thought the process was unfolding precisely as it should. Not that he had appointed himself in any way an authority on the matter, but Pappy had been counting the months from one to nine. He had watched as his bride’s abdomen swelled into an immense husk and how her lower back vexed her. Granpappy had built up the fire in their humble home and he’d seen to having clean water and clean linens readied for the magical event. Extra logs were cut and dried. When the moment arrived that a spurt of water issued from between his bride’s legs and she announced that the babe was on its way, he felt he was prepared. He did what he could to make her comfortable. He dabbed her perspiring brow with a cloth. He held her hand and offered her a pine stick to bite on.
It was distressing to hear how his bride moaned in pain. The muscles of her entire body—her abdomen, her slender arms—contracted in agony. Even the toes of her feet curled tightly. Time and again, Pappy pleaded to be told what he might do to mitigate her discomfort. She made no reply. There were periods when she did not appear to see him or hear him. It looked to take every ounce of her strength to carry on breathing. To hold to consciousness when the pain came on her, resounding and paralyzing.
Hours passed. Slow, ineffectual hours. Pappy thought he saw the colour fading in his bride’s face, though he decided this was not information he needed to relay to her. In the minutes before the dawn, a crown of a head showed crimson and glutinous in the firelight. The mother’s moans became piercing cries. She told her husband her strength had left her. She mumbled unintelligibly, tossing her head sideways, as a restless colt will do. Pappy argued with his wife to see the burden through. In tones both tender and harsh, he cajoled her to push.
This was the part of the narrative when Granpappy would drain his liquor and stare into the fire. Pender, on cue, would pour Pappy a fresh slug, and young Otto would wait.
It took all her strength—all her will. Weakened by exhaustion, she forced the babe into the existence, where Pappy caught the living thing in his bare hands and quickly swaddled it. Using the tip of his finger, he swiped mucous from the babe’s mouth and when he heard her cry, for it was a hardy girl which had been delivered into his life, he exulted.
“What a marvel. A sure miracle it is. Looka here, look on its wrinkly skin and how dainty its…”
That was as far as he could get in the telling. Overwhelmed with stabbing sobs, the old man would hide his eyes and turn away from his grandsons. Drunk and muddle-headed, he would flee to his bed, sometimes bawling in a fit of unbridled rage. Other times, whimpering himself softly to sleep, like a child.
Before a campfire on an evening, Pender had said: “He told me after a full bottle, how he had no recollection o’ snipping the cord to free her from Gran’s blood flow. He had no clue as to whether Gran’s eyes had closed or remained open, which can result, as you know. All he could see was blood. Blood on the sheets ‘n blood on her thighs. Told it how the next thing he remembered fer certain was standin’ o’er her grave, arranging clay stones as decorative as he could manage. Wantin’ to fix up the site to be perty in so much as a place like that can be.”
Warm tears slid, soaking into the wagoner’s nappy beard. The reins to the mule hung loose in his forgotten fingers. It was a common thing, Pappy often said. Many-a-woman bled out giving birth. An aunt on Pappy’s mother’s side had gone that way herself, over the homeland. It was common.
The percolating tributary water attended Ott in his melancholy. In every direction, the great frontier extended. A debilitating nausea had accumulated within the wagoner’s gut. He sat mute for the remainder of the morning.
* * *
The stench from the coffin made Ott bring the transport to a stop. He descended the steps and started in on a bout of coughing that led to spittle dripping off his lips. It was a challenge not to retch when the breeze caught the scent and flung it into his nose. In a pocket, the wagoner found a worn bandana. This he tied over his nose. He practiced breathing through his mouth before returning to his seat. He also searched the area for a wild rose bush.
Pappy used to eat the hips of the rose bush, taking care to spit loose the seeds. Ott had seen him pluck the magenta fruit from the leaves and make a snack of them, same as nibbling on a blade of grass or the gummy heads of standing wheat. The wagoner was hungry indeed, but it was the petals of the bush which he sought. If he could locate a source, he would collect the whole lot of petals, tying a few beneath his nostrils every hour to camouflage the smell of rot emanating from the skin and bones that had been his dear Granpappy.
It was neither the season for petals nor for hips, and there was not a rose bush to be found on the bare plains. Ott loosed his weasel and dribbled a puddle that would have filled a horseshoe print. The Dark River lay ahead, and its location had the corpse bearer thoroughly buffaloed.
“Git yerself on, mule. I says hump.”
There’d been no path to follow since they’d gotten onto the track of the gully. Not even a footpath, for there were no homesteaders in the area to create one. Ott felt the effects of having to play defender against coyotes through the long night. The lids of his eyes grew heavy. His want of a proper meal put him into a surly humour. In this dejected state, he was negligent in recognizing the behaviour of the birds.
The sparrows were rounding in their elastic ellipse. They refused to land on the far side of the gully and swooped farther on down the waterline, out of sight. A flock of crows, at a higher altitude, was circling against a backdrop of stagnant cloud. Like lazy kites, the black birds floated, swapping spots with one another and squawking their encrypted conversation.
Ott presided over the wagon, his thoughts drifting to Granpappy seated at a flat rock, illustrating the best technique for deboning a fillet of pike. To afternoons inside of the barn, observing Granpappy repairing the buckle of a saddle. He thought of Pender, before he got big-headed and quarrelsome, greedy for his own roof. Ott thought of days when the pair of them would set up snares in rabbit runs, working side by side, like friends.
The lead drover came on the gully abruptly. He rode a chestnut horse and bore a grey Texas flattop hat. His tattered kerchief was stuffed into the V of his shirt. He was on the opposite side of the tributary, heading in Ott’s direction.
Eventually, the wagoner registered the drover’s presence. The cattleman’s features could not be made out, but Ott thought he saw the fellow tip the brim of his hat in a gesture of geniality. The drover then sallied near to the lip of the gully, where he guided his mount to and fro, examining the water levels.
This was a thing to roust the wagoner from his lethargy. Snapping at the worn reins, he bade the mule to keep pace with the drover.
It had fallen to the unidentified man to play the role of scout on this particular day. His duties were to gauge water supplies in the approaching terrain, to forewarn his fellow riders of potential hazards, such as canyons or dense brush. Only yesterday, a scout had come on a nest of rattlesnakes. He shot the venomous vipers and lopped off their warning tail shakers. The company of cattlemen roasted the sinewy remains and enjoyed the change of diet, alongside their usual fare of sourdough biscuits and sugared coffee.
As Ott neared the drover, the point man of the moving drive could be seen some mile or so distant. Dark flecks which formed a line in back of the point man suggested a herd of a hundred head or thereabouts. A chuck wagon accompanied the operation. At least one swing rider was in view and Ott thought he could hear the slow rumble of the livestock procession.
Standing precariously over his seat, Ott called across the water: “It’s a might dandy thing to see another livin’ soul! Hello! I says it’s a dandy thing—”
The drover lifted a rawhide finger upon hearing these words, and, squeezing his mount with his thighs, he continued in his study of the land. Ott cupped his mouth and hollered louder.
“Hello there! If’n yer well provided, I was wonderin’ if maybe you could spare a can o’ beans for a hungry traveller!”
The drover reacted now. He steered his horse in the direction of the wagoner, spat on the ground and answered.
“Supplies is packed back yonder on the chuck,” he nodded sideways. “Seems to me yer on the wrong side o’ the gully fer receivin’ handouts, partner.”
Ott looked the stream up and down, recognizing the point which was being made by the stranger. The water was shallow: it could be forded without risk. But there was the cold. Ott would lose time, drying himself and his clothing. Granpappy’s corpse was decomposing with each passing hour. It would be judicious to journey onward. Cliff to cliff, it was a fair toss for a man to get a container across. Whatever the drovers cared to concede, Ott would accept it and be grateful for it. He began to envision the various foods that might be stored inside the shuffling chuck wagon.
“Yer course was from the south, mister. This here spit o’ water. Do it grow fat in that direction?” Ott pointed at the advancing string of cattle. “Or do it piddle itself out into a drought?”
The drover stretched his weary back and wagged a pouch of chew which he had produced. “I can tell you that fer certain.” He crammed a pinch of the tobacco into his mouth. “This here ooze is nothin’ but an offshoot to what’s waitin’ on ye back thataways. That’s real water where we was set up last night. Saved us on losin’ half the herd, Old Edgar reckoned. I tell ye, we was mighty satisfied to come on a gush o’ water such as that. We been pushin’ head since Colorado.”
The conviction in the drover’s words was a sweet gift to Ott. He looked again to the slow approach of the American’s outfit, and to the wooded territory beyond.
“You got kin somewheres on the river?”
Ott’s response was delayed. “No. No, I ain’t.”
The drover regarded the slope-shouldered half-pint. His lips smacked as he worked over the chew between his teeth. With a quick clicking sound, he put the chestnut into motion again.
“Cook goes by the name of Grayson. Looks like his eyes is bruised underneath but that’s just the way they are. He won’t take offense if you apply fer a handout. That’s not to say he’ll oblige, mind.”
Ott understood the consultation he’d been given. He watched as the drover departed, on the lookout for carnivores, for madmen and for telltale landmarks. Leading the mule, Ott went for the marching bovine.
“You hear that, boy?” his tone was sugary. “Real water, he said. I do believe we’re on its heels now.”
It was some minutes before the wagoner drew near the drive. Point man to drag rider, the line of beasts and men spanned nearly a furlong. There were two covered wagons, one on a side, and a handful of riders who were constantly adjusting their positions. The senseless creatures bunched in small groups to nibble at tufts of grass or to avoid colliding head on into the hind quarters of those before them. The point drover, a sable-bearded fellow of fifty or more, could be heard hollering back at the herd—not in words but in a barrage of monosyllabic commands unintelligible to Ott’s ears. There was also the lowing of the cows themselves. They were brown and tan, a number of the calves having fur of a greyish hue. Bobbing their enormous heads, they went like blind things, appearing to hold to the cowboy’s route purely by accident.
Coming opposite the lead horse, Ott attempted to solicit the rider’s attention by wielding his hat aloft.
“Hullo! Howdy, stranger!”
The neck of the cowboy’s mount twisted with each tug on its reins. The bearded man guarded the cattle zealously, as though guarding and guiding his own children. He was unresponsive to Ott’s bellowing.
“Hullo!” Ott gestured, “Yer partner there, away on ahead. We had us some words just now and, and he told it that…he imparted y’all had yerselves a cook by the name o’ Graybeard, er, Grayman.”
A renegade cow found an ounce of energy and trotted perpendicular to the others in the drive. The cowboy, hollering, pounced into action. The hooves of his mount sent earth flying in clods. Rider and horse were upon the runaway cow within seconds; Ott, on the far side of the tributary, was left to his own devices. He directed Sir Lucien on, toward the covered wagon.
Ott and Granpappy had not tried their hands at cattle livestock, but they had acquired hogs. Granpappy was a natural with the animals. He said hogs were stout creatures. Fond of corn scraps. Granpappy prepared a pen, which needed to be sturdy. Ott was instructed to watch for discharge from the hogs’ noses and any loss of appetite among them. Often, he was reminded not to be loud near the animals. Not to dole out too much feed.
As Pappy’s health deteriorated, Ott was forced to take on more duties. He slaughtered the smallest of the bunch when the cellar stores ran thin. Butchering was hard business, he realized, and it occurred to him partway through that he ought to have slit the throat of the eldest hog rather than the youngest. Still, he and Pappy had to eat.
Of the remaining pair, one took to lying down apart from its mate. Shivering. Its breathing became laboured and it eventually refused food. Ott tried to roust the sow but without success. “Come on. Git yerself watered,” he urged. She couldn’t lift her head. He reported the decline to Granpappy, who was then possessed with a hellish fever. Granpappy asked if the feed had gone mouldy. Ott wasn’t entirely certain.
The hog died some days later. Ott was too shaken to inform Granpappy that he didn’t know how to remove the carcass from the barn. The hog surely weighed a hundred pounds more than Ott himself. More and more, Ott stayed inside the cabin, at Pappy’s bedside. He was unaware when the last of the hogs broke free and set out for wild country.
Across the gully, the cattle lumbered in their leisurely fashion. A hum came from the movement of so many hooves and Ott doubted that he’d be heard, should he cry out to the one called Grayman. Sir Lucien was overdue for grazing and for water; the wagoner got himself as close to the shallow cliff as he was able and waited until the chuck drew near.
“Hullo to y’all! Hullo, I says!”
The canvas stretching over the wagon was considerably frayed and torn. A water barrel sat on the sideboard, alongside a half dozen wooden posts. Two kettles and a number of pans dangled from hooks. Ott called again to the driver of the approaching pantry.
“Hullo from o’er here! Can ye hear me, friends? I wonder: could ye spare a meagre bite for a lonely traveller?”
The driver, whose features were hidden by the bowler he wore askew, appeared to turn his head somewhat and speak a few words in the direction of the tent. His company must have been situated within. The chuck wagon rolled on.
“I say! If only a sliver o’ pork or perhaps a handful o’ saltines…”
The chuck wagon was beginning to distance itself. Ott’s insides tightened. The prospect of getting a morsel were vanishing as he watched the food cart bumble away. Just then, a head poked out at the rear of the tent. A balding man with the darkened eyes of a raccoon emerged, tossing his head about. When the man, Grayson, spotted the stranger in the rickety wagon on the opposite shore, he heaved a tin of unknown contents at him, as though tossing a ball to a dog. The cook had to throw on a slant, the result being that the tin sunk into the wet bank of Ott’s side with a thud. Ott, going to the precipice of the gully, thrust forward his head to look down on the projectile.
“Huh,” he emitted, and began the short descent.