The land before them was hilly. Vegetation on the slopes showed scraggy and brown but grass was lush at the bases. Sir Lucien held to this dense growth, made green by the deluge of rain. Pollens and stamens and microscopic detritus floated through the air, cast off by nature in its constant struggle to sustain life, to end it. Spring beetles and ants had started on their pollination work. Crocuses were plentiful, opening themselves to be warmed and fed by the climbing sun.
Ott noted the mule’s steadfast pace. The farrier had done a dandy bit of mending and Sir Lucien strode without pain. The animal practically strutted, being well rested by his stay in the shabby stable.
Ott was unaccustomed to saddle riding. He was reminded that he had to make use of his legs to jockey. The ride was jerky. Every shift in weight which the animal made forced a reaction from the short-legged rider. Ott felt it in his groin. The going was quiet, for Ott was disinclined to speak. A slight brushing sound came from the swaying blades of grass. Sir Lucien’s newly shod hooves were hushed by the moist earth. Together again, they went beyond the cart tracks and put the town behind them.
Black flies had emerged in swarms. This was a sure sign of spring and an unwelcome one. The mule was forever swatting with his tail; Ott used the back of his doughy hand to force the elusive things off his nose. There were intervals when the duo covered a full mile before Ott noticed a fly on his neck or beard. Then, there were durations when he flailed and slapped and twitched, for the demons were up his nostrils and inside his ears.
Mr. Lundy’s deranged partner had screeched at him like a banshee. Filled with rage, the woman had had daggers in her heart. She possessed an actual dagger and had carved up the wall. For a moment, Ott feared he would be sliced open. The frightful vision of the woman had shaken him. He’d felt like a boy again: scared and confused. Knowing he had done wrong but unable to name the wrongdoing. Inadequate and insignificant.
He had been cast off by society just when he’d thought himself beginning to be a part of it. He tried to learn the saddle.
“They’s some tall blades, ain’t they,” he said to the mule, who had paused to snack. A tiny dragonfly fluttered past.
Granpappy had spoken of dragonflies. On a sultry morning, down at the creek, one had landed on the tip of his pole. It was a glorious pink with intricate dots and hollow circles on its wings. Pappy studied the masterpiece until it lifted into the breeze and departed. Not a minute after, the same dragonfly returned with a dead fly in its clutches. The wee hunter lodged its kill into a niche at the end of Granpappy’s pole. The niche was in a shoot of twig. Again, the dragonfly left and returned, hauling a limp, dead fly. It brought another and another, attaching the bunch by means of a glue or webbing.
Granpappy watched. The lovely dragonfly, having collected a half dozen flies, lifted them en masse into the brush. Looky there, Granpappy had said. That there’s what I call havin’ a plan. The dragonfly is a planner. A thinker. Ott harkened back to days gone by. Grief grabbed hold of his core and choked and twisted and would not let up.
They made on for a spell with Sir Lucien choosing the course. Ott saw the scenery passing before him. At the same time, he did not see. He had no plan. He was no thinker. The hours came and went like the wind.
Ott was unaware how long the dog had been following. It was some distance behind and it remained perfectly quiet. The emaciated mastiff was limping as though its hind legs were broken or had gone numb. When Sir Lucien stopped to eat, the dog closed distance but when the mule advanced, the dog lost ground.
“Whoa, boy. Whoa, now.”
Ott dismounted and backtracked to where the dog was struggling.
“Howdy there. That’s a boy. Don’t mind ‘bout me. I ain’t no harm…”
The dog let Ott approach. It hadn’t will nor strength to pose any threat. Ott saw that the dog’s ribcage was pushing hard on the lining of its skin. Its nose was dry, its tongue pale. The much-weakened animal had peculiar eyes. Ott crouched to see. One eyeball was dark with diagonal bands running through it. The other was noticeably lighter—white as milk—and seemingly blind. One onyx eye, one milky.
“Hey now. I know you, don’t I? You been trackin’ me all these long days? Lordy, boy. You just ‘bout walked yerself to death. Come on now.”
He scooped up the mastiff. It was a trifle in his arms. Skin and bones. Whispering comfort, he brought it to his saddlebag and found his canteen. Carefully, he dripped water onto the dog’s pink tongue. Its blind eye to Ott, the dog breathed faintly.
“God ‘n Moses. You about starved, ain’t ye?”
He doled out water. The mule glanced back at the scene then turned its head forward again, as if to allow the dog its privacy. Ott began fanning the infirm animal with his hat. A spidery fleck was embedded in the fold of its leg. Another fleck next to that.
“Why, you’s covered in ticks, ain’t ye?”
Ott began pinching the hard arachnids from the dog’s fur. The bloodsuckers clung to the mastiff’s ears and belly. They were everywhere. A colony.
“You musta been laid up in the brush, was ye?”
Some of the ticks refused to unstick. Ott would need to burn them off. This was too much, and he thought what a cruelty it was. The frontier was an arbitrary place. A place where nothing could be reasoned out.
He sat with the dog in the shade of the mule. Having nowhere to be and scads of time to get there, the wagoner waited until the mastiff fell asleep. He hoisted it gently before the saddle, wriggled his way into a mount, and cradled the dog in his lap.
“A’right, Sir Lucien. G’on where ye will.”
The mule sauntered ahead, following the contours of the land and hardly aware of the added weight.
* * *
The mastiff slept long hours. When it woke, it showed small interest in walking. It had had enough of walking. Its thirst never waned and, on the second day in Ott’s care, it ate the helping of sausage which had been donated by the cripple. The dog’s breathing became stronger.
Ott discovered that straddling the dog over the ass of the mule gave it more space and himself greater comfort. There was no saddle horn to contend with. Alternately, Ott rode with his right hand in back of him, then his left, ensuring that the pooch would not slide off while it slumbered. The wagoner—the mule rider—recounted all that had transpired since he’d crossed paths with the starving Blackfeet.
“…’n the man who weren’t wearin’ a stitch o’ clothing started bleedin’. He was bleedin’ like a stuck pig. It was slidin’ all down his chin ‘n onto the beautiful lady…”
The trees and shrubbery were no longer bare. Ott kept lookout among the leafage for berries, though it was early in the season. There was a reddish-plum berry he was fond of. When Granpappy would indicate a clump of the berries, Ott would gather a handful and pop them into his mouth. They were sour and delicious. The juice would drip out the corners of his mouth and stain his shirt.
Pesky were the flies. When they landed on the belly of the dog, Ott waved them off. He told the friendly dog that he would find him berries or currents, but there were none among the meagre brush.
A bevy of crows pecked at a carcass in a clearing. Ott squinted at the image, which changed shape as the birds hopped and overtook one another. The mule maintained its pace, heading on a trajectory near to the feasting birds.
With no opportunities for fishing in view, the thought occurred to Ott that he might need to plug a hare or a partridge. There were smatterings of geese to be had but none grounded. In flight, the heavy things had an altitude far out of range for Ott’s old peashooter. Still, Ott was grateful to Mr. Lundy that no one had absconded with his rifle while he was indisposed and assailable.
It was a dead porcupine which the crows pecked. Ott stood in the stirrups to see. The pugnacious birds tore away fragments of entrails and robbed one another of whatever was dropped to the dirt. Their curved beaks were wet with tissue. The carcass was belly up and the birds managed to avoid the quill tips which fanned out like a straw broom. The crows ignored the passing mule.
“It’s a’right, fella,” Ott whispered to the dog. “Nothin’ to worry over.”
Sir Lucien took them deeper into the hills. The frontier was serene and budding and theirs alone.
Ott was aware that they were not on a path for home. Home had been Granpappy. Sipping tea and chopping wood. Making pea soup together. Making bread. Home was hearing Pappy’s voice explaining the intricacies of carving pintail duck and how to identify its liver, its heart. Home had been a place of comfort and Granpappy was its fixture. Now, he was gone and never to return. Home had become an indistinct concept, and the rider no longer wanted it.
Opportunity came when there was yet good daylight, near a copse of tilted poplars. It came in the form of a hawk. Ott had just tethered Sir Lucien to a branch when he spied the bird of prey motionless in a field. It was a red-tailed hawk.
Ott crouched. He tried to think. Sliding free his rifle, he put himself prone upon the ground. The pooch, sleeping on the mule’s ass end, did not stir. So far, so good. Cautiously (and with an extensive amount of grunting), Ott crabbed forward, into the open. It was awkward having to hold the rifle in one hand. Dirt pushed under Ott’s shirt and inside his trousers. He covered twenty yards. The hawk was still there.
The weapon was a weathered Brown Bess. Granpappy’s. The musket weighed nearly seven pounds. It was badly scuffed and nicked. What brass it had been decorated in had long eroded, and the ramrod was bent where it projected from its channel.
Rolling onto his side, Ott searched for the powder. It had been months since he had executed the steps. Granpappy’s illness had consumed his every minute in the final weeks. Before that, there had been canning and pork to eat. Flour to make biscuits. When Granpappy was still able, it had been he who’d done the shooting. Ott, as with catching a hen or bashing a mouse with a stick, tarried too long with a rifle. Luck never seemed to be on his side when it came to taking aim.
Pappy’s cartridge box had been lost over time. Ott had scant ball-and-powder mixtures in his saddlebag. He admitted now that he’d done a poor job of preparing for his trip. Biting the paper wadding, he remembered to prime the pan with a dusting of powder. Granpappy had shown him the method. The remainder of the powder, along with the lead ball, was packed into the barrel. The gun was cocked and ready. Ott encouraged himself.
“Easy now. Easy. You got a hound in need besides yerself…”
The inexpert marksman got an elbow secured in the dirt and he shut one eye tight. The hawk was a middling-sized female. It stood on a bald patch of earth, looking sideways to the hunter.
A Franklin’s Gull soared aloft. The hawk was sharply aware of the gull’s presence and adjusted its head ever so slightly to keep the other bird in check. Typically, a hawk attacks from above, circling its target until the moment is right—when the mouse is apart from its hole or when the hare is unsuspecting. In this case, the hawk took a chance on making an attack from below, and it was at the instant Ott triggered the old flintlock that the hawk launched itself upward and outward. The gull, spooked by the hawk and then by the rifle blast, flapped for its life.
It needn’t have. Ott, peering as he could through the puff of smoke, saw the hawk fall hard to the earth. It lay there motionless.
“Sakes alive.”
The shot had been two feet too high, and the outcome was ideal. Ott went in the direction of his kill.
Around the cooking fire, an hour after, Ott discovered that the dog preferred the meat nearly raw. The hunter peeled morsels from the bird’s breast and offered them up. One after the next, the mastiff clamped onto the meat and ate. He remained standing, eager for the next bite. Ott could see his fangs and molars with each serving.
“Good boy. There you are. You feelin’ better, ain’t ye?”
It was a crude spit. Ott no longer carried his fire irons. The weight of the bird caused it to collapse repeatedly into the fire, and the meat of one leg was burned to a char. Ott handled the bird precariously, fumbling to balance it again over the heat. The tips of his fingers blistered from contact with the wafting flames.
The dog was intoxicated by the scent of sizzling fat. It ate half its weight of the savory meat. Ott nibbled meagre portions. He did not know good from poor as he turned to his rifle, which leaned against the saddle. Thin light remained in the sky.
It was late when the trio lay at the campfire. No two fires were alike, and Ott had missed ending his days aside a smoky blaze. He fed branches into the flames and, with the glowing tip of a twig, unglued the remaining ticks from the mastiff’s coat.
“Easy now. I don’t mean to hurt ye.”
As they took in the warmth, he recounted the steps of his hunt. The stealth involved, the moment of conquest.
He had made a kill.
With Granpappy’s old musket.
He knew that he should have felt pride for a job well done, but instead he was hollow. There was no one there to share in his triumph. There was no one expecting him, awaiting him. Salt tears welled as Ott faced the luminous coals and ash. Overhead, the grove of stars was unsympathetic.
* * *
The mastiff trailed the mule, pawing at gopher holes and ladybugs as they presented themselves. Occasionally, the dog raced ahead to see what lay on the other side of a hillcrest or to bat its paws at a moth or a wren. It walked as much as it was carried. The next day, it managed to travel by its own strength as long as the sun was up. The limp it appeared to suffer had disappeared entirely.
They encountered a stream which carried clear drink. Ott filled his canteen to the brim and the trio continued, on the whims of Sir Lucien. The mule and dog were amicable in their dealings, the mastiff occasionally engaging in a sort of play whereby it would circle Sir Lucien a half dozen times then leap slightly, as if to show that the game had been won.
It did not occur to Ott to name the dog. He had not named the mule, either. Naming duties had been Granpappy’s or Pender’s, and Ott found no reason to take on the responsibility. When he needed to address the dog, he called it boy.
“Come along now, boy. I ain’t turnin’ back fer ye.”
The mastiff lagged behind some fifty yards. It had fallen into a wary crawl. Ott thought he heard it whining.
Rounding the curve of a hill, he saw the tents. Four of them, forming the shape of intersected windowpanes from Ott’s vantage point. There were no signs of occupants. Ott urged the mule forward.
Indians, to Ott’s knowledge, did not employ tents. Their homes were of animal skins—of bison or moose, said Granpappy. Young Ott and Pender had crafted their own small versions of teepees in their playtime. With string, Pender would fasten together sticks. Balance them on the dirt. Around the conical frame, the boys would wrap a chamois cloth or squirrel pelt. Their imaginations were lively then. They invented thefts and slights and bold acts of righteousness. Using carved ponies and deadly wooden pistols, they enacted frontier justice.
These were not animal skin teepees. These were the temporary homes of settlers. A small, covered wagon could be seen in back of them. Ott ambled nearer, wondering at the rotten odour which hung on the air.
“Hidy-ho! Is there anyone about?”
He turned to locate the dog. It had parked itself a way back, crouching low to the ground. It refused to go beyond that point. The plain was free of riders. No man could be seen in the area. Ott alighted and went for the flap of the nearest tent.
“How-to in there?”
No response. The horrible stink caused him to retreat. He coughed and spat.
“Ooh! Land sakes.”
Sir Lucien watched his rider twirl about, his hands on his knees. Recovering, Ott drew a lungful of semi-fresh air and went again to the tent. It took a few moments for his vision to adjust to the light within.
“Mercy me.”
Two bodies lay on bedrolls with their mouths open, each facing the other. They were covered with blankets and had cups set out for them. Ott was almost certain the two were children, but the skin on their faces was wrinkled and dry. The corners of the lips were crusted. Initially, Ott thought them dead. He clamped a hand over his nose and stepped forward.
He heard breathing.
Out of air, he charged from the tent.
A pair of adults lay in the next tent. Man and wife, maybe. Three figures were found in the next, one being a woman of forty or fifty years. She was conscious. When she saw Ott enter, she reached for him like he was a long-lost relative who had returned explicitly for her. By fate. Ott, gagging, tripped on a tent spike as he back-pedaled through the canvas opening.
It was a camp of sickly. A pestilence had spread among these people.
Ott positioned himself behind the mule, as if the animal would protect him from contagion. There was one tent left to inspect but he needed a minute to fortify himself.
“They’s sick,” he informed Sir Lucien. “Ever last one o’ them.”
The reek of human waste triggered fear in him. Memories of Granpappy and sitting helpless at his bedside. The bilious fever, he thought. But no, this appeared to be something else. Other noxious smells came from the tents. The smells of illness. Granpappy’s skin had not calcified like these.
Ott compelled himself to go to the last tent. On the ground between the huts was strewn a shredded square of vellum, an overturned water keg, a pair of girl’s shoes. He saw a bent spoon and a number of glass vials—all empty. There was a small cooking pot hanging over a spent fire. A pea soup reheated down to a mixture of char and paste. Covering nose and mouth with his sleeve, Ott strode around these items and was about to enter the final tent when a call came out.
“You there! Cease! Skin outta there!”
Coming from a ridge not far from the mastiff were two riders in full gallop. Their pieces were drawn. Ott watched the horses close in, dust billowing where they trod as if an immense rope was being ripped from the earth. Ott didn’t dare move. Too late, he thought that it might’ve been wise to have loaded his musket. The men reared up when they reached the sinister camp.
“State yer business, man. This ain’t no place to tarry.”
They were not lawmen. Neither wore the markings of a sheriff or a sheriff’s agent. Both were some age older than Ott and both had a pallor to their skin. Perspiration stains showed down the front of their shirts. The man in the Stetson dismounted hastily and rushed into the children’s tent. He carried a jar containing a clear liquid.
“Name yer intentions,” said the one still holding a weapon. There was panic in his voice.
“Just passin’ on through. Me ‘n my mule here.”
Ott was prepared to tell the skittish man about Granpappy’s coffin and their detour into the town. Gruff words made Ott nervous, and nervousness put him to blathering. But the man spotted Ott’s weapon on the mule, out of reach, and seemed to deem the intruder harmless. He slung a leg round and got off his mount.
“You don’t wanna dawdle here, mister. The cholera’s got us in its clutches ‘n won’t let up none.”
This man took no medicine with him as he ducked into the tent Ott had not inspected. As the one disappeared, the other reappeared. Stetson man had, by now, forgotten about showing his gun. Wiping his brow, the concerned man—father to the stricken children, perhaps, or uncle—ignored Ott and slipped into a different tent.
Ott pressed thumb to fingers and raised them chest high. He hadn’t opportunity to speak.
When the rifleman re-emerged, he said angrily, “Lucy’s barely drawin’ breath no more. You best give ‘er a mouthful right quick.”
Ott could hear the Stetson man praying to the Lord, through the canvas of his tent. He was imploring the sufferers inside to swallow a portion of the medicine. They were too weak to cooperate.
“Goddamn’ flies! They’re crawlin’ down into their throats! I can’t hardly—”
The sound of coughing came from within. Whimpering. A woman’s voice was pleading. “…got to take the children. Promise me, Asher. Promise me you’ll do it…”
Ott found himself once more beside Sir Lucien, gripping the reins. He wanted to be of service somehow but couldn’t settle on a way. He watched the desperate men dart about and brush shoulders. They became cross with each other and cussed.
“What can I do? She cannot stomach it!”
“You must force her!”
“You must! Don’t raise yer hand to me!”
There was an impasse. Ott feared the men might come to blows, though it seemed they had a common aim. In a fit of rage and grief, the Stetson wearer stomped off to see what use he could be to the afflicted people. The remaining man, whom Ott estimated to be senior and the more composed, appeared to sag like a windless sail. He went to some far-off place for a minute then began speaking. His teeth were orange.
“You come from the west? Ain’t no physician there, was there?”
Ott replied in the negative, though the man already seemed to know.
“We ain’t met up with a one since we started out. Asher begged help from a midwife he found in a cabin—yonder a half day’s ride—but she ain’t never had nothin’ to do with such meanness. She run off from us in hysterics soon as she seen Asher’s wife.”
The weary man had the butt of his gun in the dirt. He leaned on it like a staff and dragged his fingernails along his jaw until they met at his chin. Ott saw that he kept to a certain distance.
“Our mares is whipped ‘n hungry. You ain’t got nothin’ but this sorry ass? No kin followin’ you? What about yer bags?”
His tone was not threatening: only needy. Ott unstrapped the nearest saddlebag and showed the man how bare it was. When the man next spoke, it was as if he was resigned to his fate—that there would be no help in the region for his people.
“You heard of any leaf er seed we oughter try? Any field weed maybe? In a broth?”
“My pappy took to sucking on a lump o’ ice. He was forever sweatin’ his waters out. But that were in the winter.” Ott strove to offer more. “He was comfitted by a slug of his liquor. It were the bilious fever what he had, we think.”
Ott felt the inadequacy of his knowledge of medicines. The plaintive cries from the tents quieted.
“We started out from The Crossin’—what they now like to call Bismarck Town. Our uncle was guidin’ us. He’s tended a hundred sixty acres near on ten year. Was fixin’ to help us sow our first fields when the littluns’ lungs got to whoopin’. We thought it’d pass, but then they couldn’t keep their food down. Water neither. We oughter’ve turned back. We waited too long…”
It was the orange-teethed man’s turn for a coughing fit. He spun away from Ott, the crook of his arm over his face.
“Uncle saw it fer what it was. The cholera. Said the territory had it in spades a few year ago. Thought it had run its course. He instructed us in makin’ dandelion teas, green teas. Nothin’ helped. The backdoor trots set in. We was forced to put up tents.”
Ott asked how long they had been stalled here.
“Ten days. We’re run down on supplies. Asher ‘n me, we take shifts tendin’ to them as we can, ridin’ across tarnation, huntin’ up a doctor. Ain’t a living soul around fer twenty miles, I swear.”
The man spoke to the top of his boots. Slower now.
“My missus, Asher’s missus…they want us to load up the chillun’ ‘n head fer a train. They want us to leave ‘em behind.”
A hush fell over the camp, eerie and bereft. The breeze hesitated. Sir Lucien jerked to discourage the flies which had congregated on his mane and ears. Ott was unsure if the sagging man had reached the conclusion of his story. He looked to see that the dog hadn’t moved from its place. It had no interest in joining the gathering.
“My canteen is full,” Ott said. He proffered the water and the man received it.
“I would take a nip from yer flask, if you was obliged.”
Ott shook his head. “Don’t carry no liquor. Gives me a powerful head pinch.”
The man chuckled sadly. He returned the canteen with a gesture of parting and began toward his ailing relatives. Neither he nor the Stetson wearer emerged again. Ott waited, hearing sporadic bouts of weeping and muffled whispers. Consoling.
Sir Lucien was being persecuted by flies and miniscule gnats. The mastiff continued to sit unattended. Ott, finding no avenue to assist the family, walked the mule to higher ground. The dog began to wag its tail on their arrival. It stood, pivoting its head between Ott and the silent camp. Hanging loose its tongue.
Ott heaved himself into the saddle and got his footing right. He looked again at the tainted tents, trying to push unwanted ruminations from his mind. Kicking Sir Lucien to action, they left the deplorable site. It was as if the mule had now chosen a destination: it did not waver in its course. The terrain continued to be marked by hills and dales. Ott’s thighs felt the ache of riding. The dog trotted easily at his side.
They passed beneath a patch of maples. The leaves had yet to turn and fluttered mint-gold. The sound was of a thousand hands being rubbed together, and the temporary cover gave the mule a cozy feeling. They had stumbled on a wagon path, it seemed—a road that no doubt wound to another that eventually connected to iron rails which coiled away to the soaring Appalachians and the port cities of Granpappy’s fireside chats. To Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore. Places Ott would never see and never miss.
They made it through the ceiling of branches and were given new slopes on the other side. Sir Lucien was in fine form and strolled comfortably. The robins and sparrows were as numerous as the gophers, which raised themselves with tails placed firmly on their low mounds. Scores of furry tripods. Surveying and listening and sniffing. When the report of gunfire cracked like thunder across the land, the varmints bobbed out of sight. In unison. Ott could not be sure, but the shooting seemed to originate from the tents of the stricken homesteaders.