It wasn’t two hours on when the listless water became a vigorous spurt. The tributary, for such it was, widened before the wagoner’s eyes. A greater number of trees—spreading poplar and meandering birch—thrived here. It was the season for budding and greening.
“This is it,” Ott said to his trusty mule. “I believe we made it.”
Encouraged, he found the shred of newsprint and squatted aside the wagon.
…all indications are that timber sales will continue in this favorable trend. Certain among those in the industry have been so bold as to predict that state exports will increase as much as fivefold before the century is out. The Willamette River and its arteries can be relied upon to provide access to numerous new markets. “Oregon timber and milled boards will comprise the backbone of our economy for the foreseeable future,” Senator Grover remarked confidently.
The innovative young man, born of Farmington, Maine, claims his idea came to him while ice skating. Young Greenwood states that he asked his grandmother to fashion two patches of fur onto the ends of a wire. The wire was then balanced overtop the head, affixing the fur patches to the wearer’s ears. The newly patented “Ear Protectors” are impervious to winter weather and will be stocked in major…
The Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company, recently come under the command of Mr. Jay Gould of New York State, is proving itself to be a formidable rival—dare we say a contentious rival—to the Denver-based Western Union communications company. Mr. Gould is quoted as saying he is “encouraged by reports of progress being made” west of the Ohio River. A & P continues to lease telegraph lines from the Union Pacific Railroad, bringing efficient communications services to new settlements. Who knows? Perhaps one day, the modern convenience of telegraph messaging will be made available to all persons living on Union soil.
Ott had little to show after sitting with his arse in the breeze. He wiped himself with the paper and went to higher ground. Between the branches and foliage, he saw it: the point at which the gully was bisected by a deep gash in the earth. Ott could not see the water itself, but he was confident. He had reached the mighty river.
It was a relief to have sustenance in the belly. The tin of salt pork was hardly a square meal, but it gave the wagoner strength to persevere. He scratched roughly at his forearm. Rolling up his sleeve to inspect the skin, he saw that the flesh about the grease burns was yellow and swollen. He had packed no medicinal supplies for the journey—no ointments or salves. Taking a coarse hair off the mane of the mule, he tied the cuff of his shirt tight to his wrist. This way, the wound might be kept clean, and the incessant scratching would not go directly on the skin. Ott had hoped the burns would be healing by now.
A quandary unfolded as the wagon trundled forth. The bisection of river meant a decision would need to be made. Which direction were they to take? In vain, Ott tried to recall every scrap of detail Granpappy had imparted about the dwelling he and his bride had once shared. Did he say that it lay near a range of mountains? Or in the shadow of rolling hills? In a glen? A wooded grove? No categorical description came to Ott’s head. A cross of red stones was all Ott could remember for certain.
“Move yerself, ya drowsy horse licker!”
They went through a patch of low, bristly bush. Sir Lucien was disturbed by the footing and tried to shirk his duty. The mule’s forelegs became coated in burrs; Ott was forced to pluck the bothersome thorns free. They lost an hour of daylight but the nearby sound of river in flow gladdened the wagoner’s heart. They reached the mouth of the tributary.
Granpappy had said. Gushing waters too great to cross with a horse. He had spoken the truth. The grandson suddenly became flushed with a profound sense of accomplishment. Of real pride. The sensation was unfamiliar to him, due to its rarity. He allowed his nagging back to rest. The river’s current was steady, and he triumphed in being there at its rim.
* * *
When he woke, the mule and wagon were gone and the sun had set.
“What in the hell…”
His eyes adjusting to the moonlight, the wagoner got his bearings. The sound of running water told him where the river lay; groggy-legged, he zigzagged the area from which the wagon had come.
“Sir Lucien! Git yer ass on back here now! Lucien!”
Ott discovered that the less he roamed and the less he shouted, the better he could hear. He came to a wavering standstill.
Fatigue from his travels had overtaken him at the river’s edge. He had not tethered the ignorant mule. Ott had no notion of how long he’d slumbered but the moon was low, and he decided the cold of middle night would be harsher than this. The lazy animal couldn’t have gotten far, toting a wagon.
The frontier seemed silent at first. Eerily so. The river’s voice was constant, yes, but beyond that Ott could not detect even a cricket. A gentle breath of air went through the area, causing a quiet rustling in the tall grass. Other than that, the world was asleep.
“Come to me, ya dumb rhinoceros! Sir Lucien!”
He stumbled about in near blindness. The night was cool and the thought of being without the tinder box did not bolster confidence. Ott beckoned the lost beast further. New possibilities entered his mind. A night alone on the plain was an unwelcome prospect. It could rain, though the sky hadn’t threatened it through the whole of the trip. The coyote pack could return. A different pack. Would Ott be aware of a predator’s approach without firelight to reflect its eyes? Rattlers were very real risk in the dark of night. Other snakes. Did they come out in the night or in the day? Ott couldn’t recall. It might be that Sir Lucien was bitten while Ott was asleep. A snake bite would spook a mule horribly. God knows how far the stupid creature would run.
Sir Lucien could be down and lame already. In the darkness. Ott’s anger gave way to concern. He backtracked the riverbank, where a fresh explanation hit him. The river. Could the bumbling mule have toppled over the precipice by accident? The drop was not far; still, it was enough to snap the leg of a mule hitched to a wagon. The wagon would have collapsed on top of the animal, wouldn’t it? What of Granpappy’s corpse then? Ott peered down at the water. There was no sign of a pileup. No evidence of splinted planks. Besides, a crashing wagon and mule would have woken the sleeping man, wouldn’t it? Ott considered the situation. Sir Lucien had to have wandered off.
The mule was an imbecile. He would carry forth in the same direction they had been going. If there was any reasoning to his course, it would a desire for vegetation. He would follow where his stomach would take him. Since there had been little greenery before they’d reached the main artery of river, Ott began eastward, at a generous distance from the cliff edge.
“Wandering ninny of a…”
The moon afforded sufficient light for walking. He held the collar of his coat to his throat. The irritated skin of his forearm stung. Granpappy’s coffin was out there somewhere and he’d no idea where.
“Mule! Git on back here right quick! Lucien!
* * *
First light was a mixture of wines spilling forth in slow motion. Ott’s legs were giving out. He had grown accustomed to riding, but walking hour upon hour was a punishment for his undersized limbs. His depleted boots were causing his feet to cramp.
The wagoner, who had by force become the bone-chilled wayfarer, made limited progress. He shivered with cold. He chastised himself for having succumbed to exhaustion earlier. For failing to tie the mule to an anchor. Repeatedly, he second guessed himself: was he marching in the wrong direction, would he manage to find the idiotic mule, and, unthinkable as it was, had he blundered so gravely that he’d lost Granpappy’s remains?
Pender would tell him, were he here. It was not the mule who was the idiot of the operation. I done told ye so.
Taking child steps, he staggered on till better light revealed something in the hilly distance. Amid the clusters of fir and spruce—indeed, a wealthier deposit of conifers than Ott had seen since setting out from home—he saw a decidedly manmade shape. A perfect rectangle which could only be made of stone.
He turned his woeful feet in that direction.
There had once been a fire. That much was clear. A long time ago. No ash was present, but Ott could see stains from heat damage on the stone foundation and char on a wood beam that had fallen to the ground. Perhaps an Indian raid had forced the lodgers to abandon the dwelling. A raid for food or for horses. Revenge, maybe. Tentatively, Ott entered. A shudder passed through him.
The crunch of pebbles came from his tread. He reached out to touch an oval stone with his fingertips. Leaning on another, he found that the stones were loose and gave way easily. What security or preservation the homesteaders had once felt was mere memory now. Time and weather had made the groundwork fragile. Spotting a shard of metal, Ott bent to it. A jagged, black piece. Maybe a fragment of the stovepipe or the stove itself. He wedged it between two stones.
There were no personal items remaining. No photographs or porcelain pieces. Ott found one half of a pair of farrier tongs. A broken end of a corrugated horse rasp. Whoever had inhabited the dwelling had been handy with stable tools. Ott set the items down and approached the crumbling hearth. From habit, the weary traveller put forth his hands. He imagined the warmth. He wished for warmth and direction and the return of his grandfather. It was then that he noticed.
At the base of the hillside, partly overgrown by burdock weed and cress, there was a configuration on the land. A marking of some sort. At first, Ott could not make it out. He squinted. Then, stepping over the low stone wall, he walked toward it. The wild grasses and burdock brushed against his shins—shins which ached after the night’s empty patrol. The river was sweeping here—no longer the weak trickle of the northern tributary. There was an energy to the land. The interconnection of dales and abundance of shrubbery combined into a richness. This was a fertile land where rabbit and bee and deer and man could prosper. Ott saw the logic in a settler choosing the location to build. The supply of clean water was close by and limitless. A smattering of trees provided firewood and logs for construction. It was a pretty part of the world, this glen amidst hills.
Coming on the configuration, it took the wagoner a moment to reason it out. He had to pull away swatches of weed and blade to see. On the ground, there was a line of rocks. Stones. Each was the size of a man’s hand. Each a rust-red sandstone, coarse and dazzling when seen up close. Ott stood to see the configuration as a whole. The stones had been placed in the shape of a cross. In mere seconds, Ott’s brain completed a series of rapid connections, and his mouth fell low.
“Gran,” he said softly.
In his exhaustion, the seeker dropped to his rounded knees. He removed his unsightly hat and leaned on it with his forward weight. He began to whimper, speaking to his grandparents in childlike tones. In the gibberish of the physically and emotionally drained. In truth, he had stunned himself. He had actually succeeded in locating the plot. He had done it. He wept openly, in equal parts exhilaration and grievousness. Gran’s gravesite. Gran, whom he had never known—never met. The moment overtook him. It was little wonder that he did not see the mule grazing contently over the crest of the hill, nor the wagon containing the pine box which had been nailed by his own hands.
* * *
The ground was hard. He stabbed at it with the shovel and the pickaxe. The sharp blade of the shovel nicked the weedy soil by inches only. He discarded the clumps of sod, shaping a section long enough to hold the coffin. It was tough slogging.
His body was tired—he knew it—but the digging could not be postponed. The sun had begun to warm the ground; if he toiled now, he might finish by late afternoon. Mostly, it was the stench which urged him on. The corpse had decomposed considerably. The fetid smell suggested it. Holding his breath beneath his kerchief, Ott stabbed and tossed. He attacked the soil with the axe, breaking down the area into a thousand small clods. During rest periods, he devoted his attention to the mule.
“…brainless, buck-toothed ignoramus. Leavin’ me to march like a Chippewa idjit through the eternal night. Freezin’ m’self down to the nuts. My toes goin’ blue…”
Never mind the relief at having safely recovered the corpse. Never mind finding the mule alive and uninjured. These thoughts did not pass the gravedigger’s lips. By rights, he should have whipped the dumb creature’s hind. He would have done so if he hadn’t had desperate need of him for transportation. Panting now, Ott summoned a particularly colourful epithet for the animal and resumed his work.
There were places in the ground where loaves of rock were embedded and needed extricating. A family of worms, some sliced into pieces by the shovel, were startled out of their subterranean refuge. Writhing naked and blind, they arced through the air and landed in separate little thuds.
The wagoner pitched the soil. His shoulders began to burn and stiffen; his thighs quavered, forcing him to his knees. The shovel made less impact when plunged from so low. Ott decided to pause and collect water. He needed refueling. Ensuring that the roaming mule was properly secured, he went to the river on rubbery limbs.
Granpappy would be laid to rest alongside his beloved. There was satisfaction in the accomplishment. Ott dipped his hands into the flowing water. The cold stung his cracked skin and abrasions. He splashed his face and beard. Casting his eyes about the country, he saw young Pappy toting water from the river and chopping wood. He saw Gran, swollen bellied, kneading dough. He saw the two of them, walking the shoreline arm in arm. Talking. Laughing. Seeding a garden area. Warming themselves before a home fire on evenings when rainstorms crossed the skies and saturated the land. Maybe dancing a spry jig. The lightning cracking and the thunder rumbling.
He returned to the grave.
The sun was retreating by the time the coffin was pulled from the wagon. The cordage which had held the rear board in place throughout the journey had long unwound and been lost. The plank tumbled to the ground at the faintest touch. Ott looked at the broken piece and knew it was of no further use. He stared at the end of the pine box.
The finality of setting Granpappy into the earth and covering him over with dirt was too much to conceive. The thought made Ott nauseous. It was an affront to his soul. Yet here he was, heavy of heart, lugging the coffin toward the hole.
The indignity of the occasion became clear. He had not thought to carve a slope into the grave. By degrees, he hauled the pine box—surprisingly light, for Granpappy had wasted away to mere bones before paying out his last breath—to the precipice of the grave. Scratching his forehead then and massaging his sticky neck, Ott considered his proceedings. The box was not sturdy. He had constructed the thing himself and could see where daylight seeped into the cracks and joints. If he were to send the container torpedo-like into the hole, which was not quite five feet deep, the wood would splinter considerably on impact. Granpappy’s blanketed head (or perhaps feet, for Ott wasn’t certain which end of the contraption was which) would possibly be ejected. Ott would then need to crawl inside the hole and, in pinched surroundings, heave Pappy back into the coffin and attempt to repair it. He could not very well leave Pappy in a dislodged state for all eternity. Where would he stand and how would he manage to wield a hammer in such confinement?
On the other hand, if he were to descend into the grave and, by slow means, drag the coffin in after him, new and different problems would arise. He might wind up underneath it. Himself literally buried, with Pappy and the pine box pinning him down. Ott stared into the excavated hole and perceived that there would be no space between coffin and wall for him to wriggle free from such a predicament. Nor did he fancy the idea of standing upon Granpappy’s coffin to leap out of the grave. How could he do Pappy such discourtesy?
The obvious solution was to pull the coffin away from the brink and begin shoveling anew. Ott could fashion a gentle slope in an hour or so, he estimated. But he made no move to grasp the shovel that lay nearby. His sunken shoulders pained him to the point that he could hardly lift his arms. His biceps were knotted like a sycamore root. The prospect of further digging made the weary man want to weep. His muscles needed rest.
The corpse reeked of decay in the heat. It had passed through its stage of autolysis and entered the period of bloating. Odours of feces and must and rotten eggs exuded. The body’s enzymes had eaten away at the decomposing cells from the inside out. Gases trapped within the corpse had built up to the point that they forced themselves free, emitting a fragrance of rot which made the wagoner gag. He was forced to limp apart from the coffin to consider his dilemma.
Sagebrush and juniper were plentiful on the hillside. Once finished coughing, Ott crouched over a thatch of silver sage and inhaled the aromatic shrub. His arms continued to throb with pain. The leaves of the sage were just beginning to show but the juniper was further advanced. Using his knife, Ott cut armfuls of both species and tossed them in a heap near the grave. He went on aching feet to each sample on the hill until he’d gathered a pile of greenery.
“Right, then.” He gulped a lungful of air and pushed a sleeve across his brow.
In small bunches, he dumped the shoots onto the bed of the grave. He shuffled around the perimeter of the hole so that he was able to distribute the branches evenly. The effect, when he had run out of shoots, was a cushioned bottom for the coffin to collide with. He examined his work. The hole was made shallower, but the weight of the coffin and dirt would press the shrubbery down into a matted cradle. Ott was satisfied with his efforts and would have smiled had there not been profound malaise lodged deep within him. The box was balanced on the fringe of the grave, ready to be sent over.
With a blankness of mind—a woeful void of thought or even a single word to utter—the grandson placed his boot onto the base of the untested container, and he leaned. The coffin fell.
The box did not settle flat. The foot of it (or, perhaps, the head) got caught up on the wall of the grave and would not lower despite Ott reaching down to shove it. But the coffin remained intact, and for that reason the grandson declared the burial a success. Granpappy’s skeleton was, by all judgements, entombed, and the place of burial was precisely where he had wanted it. Pappy was home.
Red-eyed and beaten, the wagoner went to the long grasses of the river’s edge. He gazed at the transparent water and saw the foam where it hit rock and branch. He tarried there, breathing the fresh air and working up the grit required to complete the next step. And when he was ready, he took up his shovel and began to toss loose soil onto the man who had been his family.
Ott had not thought to bring a prayer book on the journey. He hadn’t the forethought to bring along a cravat or a vest. Nor a starched shirt packaged to keep off the prairie dust. If he had, it wouldn’t have mattered, for he did not possess such apparel.
He had remembered the shovel, and again he put it to use. With each low pitch of Montana soil, he felt Granpappy being pushed a greater distance from him. Propelled to a place from whence none return. The finality was hard ballast to bear, and, in his heart, Ott had never known a worse case of lonely. Tears drizzled off his rough-worn beard. Sir Lucien hung his head in quiet ignorance, or obeisance. Granpappy, laid to rest beside his beloved wife, was gone.
* * *
They called it the Missouri. A generous sweep of water coursing two thousand miles from the peaks of the great range to the Mississippi divide in the east. For millennia, the Missouri offered sustenance to the People. It offered life. Bass and carp and silver redhorse swam there. An abundance of fillets to dry and salt for the lean seasons. The magical properties of the willow were found in plenty along the Missouri. The willow’s bark gave the People a medicinal herb for aches and pains. Baskets were woven out of the willow fibres; boughs were essential for the construction of lodges. The willow sprig was a spiritual protector that warded off threatening weather and illness.
Sacred poles were crafted from the trunks of the Missouri cottonwoods. Cottonwood leaves were employed to heal cuts and abrasions, to reduce swelling. The bark of the dogwood was boiled into a paste and set upon wounds gotten in hunts or in combat. Dogwood bark tea was commonly made for the sick. The tea fought against fever and promoted sleep. Red dogwood ossier was particularly prized among the Sioux and the Cree. Warriors rubbed the inner bark into dyes of garnet or yellow. They painted themselves and their horses before battles. Before bison hunts. The dye of the red ossier was a part of the hunting rite—a vital aspect of solemn ceremony.
Fixed points along the sparkling watershed were traditional homes to nations of the plains. They were summer camps and burial sites and hunting grounds where the upright Wakan Tanka would grant good favour. It was near one of these consecrated places where the wagoner’s cart broke down.
The wagon’s right flank body braces had jarred loose from rusted bolts since before Granpappy owned hogs. Now the top box board, vibrating through miles of a quest to find a cross of stones, had shifted. It collapsed from the lower board, causing the wagon seat to sink off kilter. Ott had been in a state closer to slumber than wakefulness when his ass cheek dropped and a clapping of wood on wood came from the rear of the wagon. He pontificated an assortment of adjectives of a sacrilegious vein and wriggled wildly to avoid tumbling to the ground.
He brought the mule to check.
“…ramshackle, scrap pile fucktard…” This was directed at the wagon, not the mule, though it was uncertain whether Sir Lucien registered the difference. Ott climbed off his sagging seat and went to investigate. Not only had the boards dislodged: the metal underworks of the contraption had fallen loose and ajar. Pins and hooks had gone missing. Bar irons dangled uselessly. Ott, squatting to see the convolution of parts—the stake, the reach, the bolster band, the bars and plates—was shocked that the vessel had gotten him as far as it had.
He lay on his back and patted a vibrating piece which hung perilously off the axle. Doing, doing, doing. It was a miracle of Granpappy’s own making that the wagon had supported the weight of the coffin. Ott gave the undercarriage the firm heel of his boot, causing a small nut to fall and hit him squarely on the head.
“Aa! Son-of-a-whoremonger!”
He scrambled from the crippled carriage and scanned his surroundings. The mule had pulled them some distance from the river; Ott could see the swerve of it through a haze of pollen. It had mattered little the direction they took after leaving the grave. Ott was overcome with fatigue, and he permitted the mule to travel where it would. Here, the hills combined with a vista of birch and fir, a matting of lichen or fungi clinging to the roots of the trees. The soil was moist compared to what he had seen since he didn’t know when.
The hills were soon to assert their dominance, their smooth shapes enlarging on the horizon. Ott held his pudgy hand flat over his brow and briefly considered what people inhabited the other side. How many days’ ride they were. The Anishinaabe or the Arapaho. The Osage, the Pawnee. White settlers on newly staked acreages. Scottish immigrants. Belgians. He cared not who they were. His heart, pumping involuntarily, was hollow.
For minutes, Ott failed to notice the herd of pronghorns taking supper near the shadows of trees. In silence, the animals chewed and stood static, watching the wagoner. The eldest of the herd had known the crack of gunpowder and, hence, were skittish around the two-legged mammals. Their muscular necks were zebra-like, striped in copper and white. Their ears were perked and aimed directly at the conspicuous biped. A minority of the herd were males. Their horns poked up, curling inward at the tips. From where Ott stood, the horns looked like blocks of maple bark. The does were more slender of face and neck than the bucks. Timorous and alert, the does awaited a cue to know whether the situation was safe. Ever on guard against the slightest of sounds or a shifting in the air.
Ott observed the goat-deer without expression. They reminded him of home—how they would leap and scatter at Pender’s gunshot. How fleet of foot they were at dusk, with the glow of the dropping sun as their backdrop. But this was a momentary memory, and quickly the wagoner’s mind went black. He hadn’t the will to remember. He wanted reprieve of it. Of thinking. His mind was infirm. A blank tablet.
The wagon needed repairs beyond what tools and faculties he possessed. He removed the saddle and set it on the ground. The saddle bags would hold few of his belongings, but he felt no remorse over the fact. What need did he have of tools with no wagon to fix? Languidly, he unhitched Sir Lucien from the tongue. He packed the coins Pender had given him. The flint and the firesteel. What few ball-and-powder packets he had and the old rifle. Since the bump from the fallen nut, he had developed a drubbing headache.
His body needed nourishment, but he did not think to take a poke at one of the antelope. He felt himself withering amid the grandeur of the peneplain. Rather than being a part of it, he was apart from it. Detached in a way that the standing grass and the grazing goats and the river would never be. Otto felt himself wilting when, all around him, the wild frontier was in bloom.
In ones and twos, the antelope departed. They had judged the biped to be no threat, and their pace was leisurely. They went in search of more grass. Ott watched them go. Infection set in where his skin had been scalded by the pork grease. He picked at the blotches, which were pussy at their centres.