“I have been considering the baubles you offered me yestereve and have decided they may prove handy at some later date when we begin trading with the Gentile world on a regular basis. For suitable compensation I will purchase four small water barrels to be affixed to the saddles of your spare horses. I do not make the offer for profit, but because it would distress me to think I had not done the Lord’s will by you both and allowed you to venture into the inferno beyond the mountains without adequate preparation.”
He wants both necklaces for the four barrels, which he got from a cooper, plus rope, and then he says if I throw in the brooch he’ll get all our horses reshod at the blacksmith’s. I give their hoofs a looking over same as he must of done while we was having breakfast and he’s right, they’re thin as paper, so I done the deal with him. Mormons is nice people, but they surely drive a hard bargain.
Back at the Weber place me and Jim lashed the barrels to both sides of the saddles and filled them with water and tied the lids down. They was heavy so we slung the rest of the supplies across Jupiter and Jim’s horse and was all set to go when Hester come running out of the house with a bundle of clothes which she give to me.
“Take them,” she says. “Now you’re no longer a captive of the Sioux you need not wear their heathen apparel.”
“That’s real kind of you, ma’am, but I can’t take no clothes off Amos and Jeremiah and Joel and Nehemiah.”
“It’s all old and growed out of,” she says. “Please take it.”
So I slung the bundle over the pommel along with the rest and the entire family lined up to say goodbye, also the neighbors. Remus wanted to come along too so he had to be locked in the stable, then we give them all a wave and rode off down the street to the edge of town then out past the orchards and fields with the sun behind us to where it gets desolate again. Jim says:
“Say, Huck, what kinder crittur’s a Gentile?”
“Near as I can figure it’s anyone that ain’t a Mormon, but it ain’t intended to be insulting. I reckon Injuns and niggers don’t count anyhow.”
For the next few days we went around the south shore of the Great Salt Lake and aimed for the Cedar Mountains, munching on fruit till we got belly cramp. The wagon trail turned north to go around the mountains and we followed along with the peaks rising up beside us, mighty rugged, so it’s easy to see why the wagons took the long way around and never tried crossing over. It was sunny days and I was tolerable happy for the first time since the lovebirds died. That was only a week back but I already quit grieving, which made me feel considerable guilty first off, then I figured it’s best after all; if a body done nothing but grieve, he’d grieve himself right into his own grave, and I ain’t nearly old enough to be dead yet. Jim was in fair spirits too and sung songs along the way, which is something I ain’t heard him do in a long time.
“Jim,” says I, “did you ever consider how important songs is to folks?”
“I reckon so, Huck. When I gets to singin’ it mean I’se feelin’ perty good. I don’ rec’llect no time I ever done no singin’ when de blue devils insider me.”
“It’s been a well knowed fact down through history, Jim, but songs ain’t only for happy times.”
“Dey ain’t?”
“Sometimes they come in right handy for other things too. You take King Richard now, he had a favorite song he always liked to hear and it practickly saved his life one time.”
“Dis de same king dat went lookin’ for de Holy Grail, Huck?”
“The very one, Jim, and when he never found it in the Holy Land he got disgusted and figured he may as well go on home to England, but the trouble was he spent all his money on looking for the Grail and when he opened the royal purse to fetch out a few dollars’ ticket money there warn’t nothing in it but moth holes, so he never had the coin to go back by ship and had to traipse all the way across Europe with just his horse for company.”
“Where de singin’ come into de story?”
“I’m getting to that. King Richard was passing through one of them itty-bitty European countries which is all mountains and forests and castles, and the king of that country reckernized him and pulled him off his horse and shut him away in the highest tower of his castle and sent a message to England that says he’s got their king and if they want him back they better dig deep in the royal coffins and send the cash right quick.”
“Why dey keep de royal cash in coffins, Huck?”
“I disremember the reason, Jim, but it’s what they done. Most likely they buried it underground for safekeeping. Anyway, while King Richard was away in the Holy Land all them years his brother John got his turn on the throne and he liked the feel of it, so when he got the message he let out that the royal coffins was empty and he can’t pay the ransom. It warn’t nothing short of a dirty lie, but he’s the king and no one called him a sneaking lying brother-hater to his face or he would of got his head cut off and throwed in the dungeon, so King John figured he’s safe to rule England for another ninety-nine years at least with the real king rotting away in Europe. But he never knowed that Richard got a faithful singer by name of Blondel on account of his yeller hair, and when Blondel heard the news he packed his harp and jumped on his horse and rode across to Europe, and every castle he come to he strummed and plucked and sung King Richard’s favorite song which is called ‘Greensleeves’ after the king’s Sunday best jacket, and he traveled all over Europe for years just playin’ this one song under the castle walls.”
“How come he never got sick’n’tireder playin’ de same song all de time?”
“Earplugs, Jim. It was the only way to keep from driving himself crazy from hearing ‘Greensleeves’ about ninety million times. There was a heap of castles in them days. Anyway, he finally come to the right castle and sung the song same as usual, and King Richard was still up in the tower after all this time and when he heard it he says to himself, ‘That’s “Greensleeves,” by jiminy. How come I hear it way out here?’ And he went to the window and looked out and there’s Blondel plucking and strumming and hollering and the king yells out ‘You remembered!’ meaning he figured Blondel would of forgot his favorite song after all this time, but Blondel never heard him on account of the earplugs, see. Blondel was the most wonderful singer in the world, but not too bright. The king seen the way of it and flung a stone at him but he missed, so he emptied a jug of drinking water over him and that made Blondel look up to see if it’s raining, and he seen the king waving at the window and whipped out the earplugs, which is lucky because the next thing the king would of emptied over him was a chamber pot.
“Blondel was real happy to find the king at last on account of it means he don’t have to sing ‘Greensleeves’ no more, and he asks how he can get the king out of the tower. He’s got a rope with him along with the harp but he can’t throw it up that high, and the king yells down to hold on and then starts feeding his hair out the window. Them Europeans was awful mean to him and never once give him a haircut in all them years so his hair was yards and yards long, awful dirty by now but enough of it to reach the ground easy. He would of clumb down it long before, but it ain’t possible for a body to climb down his own hair. Maybe you could climb up it, but what warn’t the problem; he’s in a tower, not a cellar, so down it all went to the ground with the king leaning out the window, and Blondel reckoned he understood the plan and jumped off his horse and started climbing up King Richard’s hair with the rope slung over his shoulder to deliver it, but that ain’t what the king planned at all, and he screams ‘You’re pulling the hair out of my skull, you danged fool! Just tie the rope around the end of it and I’ll haul it up!’ So Blondel clumb down again full of apologizing and done what the king says, and the rope got hauled up and tied around a bedpost and King Richard slid down it quick before someone come along and seen what they’re doing, but he’s too late.
“A guard give the alarm and the drawbridge come crashing down and all the soldiers in the castle come thundering across to stop them
getting away. King Richard says, ‘Quick, gimme your sword so’s I can cut off this pesky hair.’ Blondel’s horse never could of carried him and the king and all that hair too, but Blondel says, ‘I ain’t got no sword. Why would a singer have a sword?’ And Richard cussed him something awful and says, ‘Well ain’t you even got a pocket knife to trim your toenails?’ Blondel had one of them all right and the king sawed off his hair right quick and they galloped away, and when the soldiers come to the spot their legs got all tangled up in the hair lying around and they fell over one on top of the other, and the king and Blondel got clean away.”
“What de king do when he gets home, Huck?”
“He was mighty sore at brother John for what he done and marched into the throne room and flung him to the floor in front of all the lords and ladies and sat on his head till he hollered, ‘ ’Nuff!’ then banished him out of the kingdom forever.”
“How ’bout de singer?”
“He deserved to get rewarded, Jim, but what happened was King Richard wanted to hear ‘Greensleeves’ again to celebrate being back on the throne, and when Blondel heard the order he throwed himself in the castle moat and drowned in preferment to singing it even one more time, and the moral of the story is: enough is enough.”
“It don’ pay to mess wid kings, Huck.”
Next day the trail turned west again where the mountains petered out and in the afternoon we seen the awfullest sight ahead which the map calls the Great Salt Desert, flat as a pancake and white with salt and not a blade of grass or nothing far as you could see. We figured we’d wait till night and get as far across as we can in the cool, and maybe reach the far side before nightfall tomorrow. While we was figuring we seen a little stand of trees half a mile off at the base of the mountains and headed for it hoping there’s a spring we can refill our barrels from.
The spring was there sure enough, and so was Randolph and Bob and Jesse.
23
Sun and Salt—Trouble and Tribulation—Separate Paths—Injuns Again—Mission of Mercy
Well, well,” says Bob. “Look what the net hauled up. How’s it with you, Injun?”
“Fine, I reckon.”
“Seen that idiot detective?” asks Jesse.
“No I ain’t.”
We got down and led the horses to the water, which they drunk deep of.
“I see the Mormons have persuaded you to buy barrels also,” says Randolph, and I seen their pack horses is barrel-slung too. Says I:
“Are you waiting for night to start across?”
“We are. You may as well join up with us again.”
“I reckon we will.”
I would of rather not but there ain’t no way around it, so we loosened the saddle girths and the horses cropped at the patches of brush hereabouts and we smoked our pipes in the shade, resting up before nightfall. Bob and Jesse fell asleep and Randolph come over to me and says:
“How was it at the end?”
“I don’t reckon you got the right to know, Mr. Squires, but if it’s all that important I’ll tell you. She shot herself, then we burned the wagon. I reckon I’m tired now.”
I turned away from him and pretended to sleep. He went away and never asked nothing more about it, proberly feeling guilty, it’s hard to tell with Randolph. I never disliked him outright, just never warmed to him the way you can with some folks. Then I truly fell asleep.
Jim woke me when the sun was down and all of us filled our barrels brimful of water and started out. The wagon ruts was easy seen when the moon come up a little later, stretching out straight as an arrow for the far side of the desert. The air was cool and we went on hour after hour just listening to the jingle of harness and hoofs crunching into the salt, considerable noisy when you got ten horses in all. The desert was pale and our shadows stood out sharp in the moonlight. There’s stars scattered all across the sky, winking and blinking even brighter than over the plains. They was kind of beautiful and made you forget who you are and where you’re headed if you looked at them long enough. No one talked, but it warn’t a companionable silence like Jim and me had when we ain’t got nothing to say, more like ignoring each other, but I never let it bother me. We went on and on but never seemed to get nowhere. There ain’t no trees or rocks or nothing to see up ahead, nothing but salt desert, flat and running away beyond eye-reach.
It took forever till dawn come up behind us and the desert turned pink for a little while, then white again as the sun clumb higher and beat on our backs. Before it got too hot we stopped and watered the horses and rested awhile, then started off again. By midmorning the air was like an oven door that’s opened full in your face, hot enough to melt your brain. I wrapped one of Amos or Nehemiah’s shirts around my head for a hat and let the tail hang down over my neck to keep from getting sunsick. The horses plodded on, their legs all caked in salt dust. By noon it’s so hot it parched your throat just to breathe. I done a heap of drinking from my canteen to get relief and it come flooding out in sweat a minute later, but before it even got my shirt wet it got sucked away by the air and I’m hot as ever.
“I reckon I’ll go to heaven when I die,” croaks Jesse. “I already seen hell.”
The horses was leg weary now and their heads hung low. We stopped again to let them drink then went on again. It took strength just to keep sat in the saddle, and there’s a kind of ringing in my ears. Jim says he hears the same thing and Bob says it’s a heavenly chorus getting us set for dying, and laughed. Now the sun was ahead of us, too bright to look at, and our heads bowed low like the horses to shade our eyes. Then Randolph seen something up ahead, not big but easy picked out on account of there ain’t nothing else around, and when we come nearer parts of it broke off and flapped up into the sky—three buzzards. When we come to the spot we seen a dead man lying by the trail with his skin all puckered and blistered and his belly tore open by the buzzards. I never felt nothing looking at him, just curious maybe, and we moved on without even getting off the horses. He warn’t no one I knowed.
On and on we went never-ending. My eyes was gritty and hard to blink so I kept them shut and trusted Jupiter to follow along with the rest. But that made me start to fall asleep, so I opened them again and seen trees kind of dancing along the horizon, rippling like reeds under water. I opened my mouth to tell the others but only croaked. Randolph seen what I’m pointing at and says:
“Mirage. There’s nothing there, only more desert.”
“Wait on,” says Bob. “Look beyond.… Ain’t they mountains?”
They was there all right, a powerful distance off, but at least we know the desert ends someplace. I kept my eyes on them mountains, wispy blue is their color, but they never seemed to get no closer, just shimmered behind the dancing trees that ain’t there.
“Huck,” says Jim, “now I knows how Shadrach, Meshach an’ Abednego feel when dey’s throwed in de fiery furnace. I reckon I’der bowed down an’ worship’ de golden idol like de king wanted if’n dat furnace jest half de hotness dis place got. I’se jest burnin’ up.”
“Ain’t we all, nigger,” says Jesse.
“Quit calling Jim nigger,” says I. “He’s got a name same as you.”
“You talkin’ to me, Injun?”
“And you can quit calling me Injun too.”
“Can I now, you little piss-ant. Come over here and I’ll knock you off your horse, you talk to me that way. Goddamn, it’s a fine day when a man can’t call a nigger a nigger and gets backtalk from a boy that’s done murder.”
“If you truly believed I done it you would of handed me over to Bulldog Barrett,” says I, and he says:
“I don’t like no law officers and detectives and suchlike trash is all. If you was the biggest killer in the country I never would of lifted a finger to see you brung in, but I reckon you ain’t so lily-white as you try and make out, boy. Nobody gets chased this far if he ain’t done nothing wrong.”
It warn’t no use to argue. Jesse’s the kind with a mean streak that don’t allow
for friendliness and he’ll pick a quarrel deliberate if he wants to so I never answered back, just let Jupiter carry me on across the burning salt. The sun got lower and still we went on, mile after mile, and the mountains quit shimmering and settled down but still never seemed all that much closer. It was weary and dispiriting. Finally the sun turned from white to gold and later on to red just before it sunk behind the mountains, and we stopped and set the barrels down again for the horses to drink. I laid out a blanket and spilled a sack of oats on it for them so they won’t lick up desert salt too and make theirselfs thirstier, then we all lay down for a couple hours to rest.
Jesse woke me up with his boot and we got moving again. It’s hard on the horses after all they done for a night and a day, but it’s smarter to push them through another night when it’s cool than have them suffer another day like today. It was the same thing again as last night, only this time the stars never looked beautiful, just cold and not caring and far away. I fell asleep in the saddle and come near to falling off a couple or three times but jerked up straight each time. I seen the others do the same, but Bob done it one time too many and fell right off and cussed a blue streak. He warn’t hurt but no one laughed. We was all weak and wore out, and when the dawn finally come along we stopped. The horses sucked the last drop out of the barrels and our canteens was near empty too, but the mountains was much closer now and brown, not blue no more. The desert was changed too, from white to yeller brown and there’s scrubby little sagebrushes here and there getting thicker the further we go on. The sun crawled up behind us and I seen a wispy little cloud overhead which I begged to come between me and the sun, but it never. There was buzzards aplenty up there to keep it company, flying around and around without ever flapping their wings.