Jim give me a look and scratched his head to show we got to be careful with a lunatic around, and I say:
“Well why don’t you tell us about yourself instead, Frank?”
And he did. He says he’s an inventor that ain’t been give the reckernition he deserves on account of his plans was all stole by Obadiah and burned in a fire out of jealousy of his smartness. He reckons his greatest invention is something he calls the Earth Trumpet or Soul Detector, and he drawed a picture of it in the dust, like one of them horns deaf folk stick in their ears for you to holler into. Says I:
“How does it work?”
“The operation of the device is so simple a child of three, or even yourself could use it, but first the theory. When the dead are buried what becomes of their souls?”
“I don’t rightly know. Most folks reckon they go up to heaven, but I disbelieve it myself.”
“Rightly so. The soul remains with the body below ground, and the earth trumpet is designed to receive such ghostly messages as the deceased wish to pass on to us, the living. You simply invert the trumpet, resting the broad end on the ground, and apply the ear to the small end.”
“Then what?”
“You wait for the messages. The dead are bored, you see, and will talk for hours, grateful for a listening ear. I have had many a stimulating conversation with corpses, and also many a dull one. The soul retains the intelligence it possessed when the physical body lived, therefore a dead farmer will wish to discuss crop prices and the weather, an army officer will talk of military strategy and an enlisted man will complain of bad food and blistered feet. A professor, of course, will lecture endlessly on his particular field of learning, which is stimulating in the extreme. The sad fact is, a dullard remains so even after death, while the superior brain such as my own continues to function on the higher plane of learning.”
So you can see just how mad he is. He never spoke another word after that, just went to the wagon and come back with a book that ain’t got no words in it and covered the pages with pencil drawings by the light of the fire, inventions proberly, but I never liked to ask. It’s a puzzlement which one is the real person, Obadiah or Frank. If I had the choosing of it I reckon I’d pick Obadiah for company seeing as he talks friendly, even if too much.
It turned out we got both. The next two days and nights he stayed Frank and never touched a drop of whiskey nor spoke to us except to give orders about hitching the team and building fires and fixing food and such, but then he started drinking again and for three days was Obadiah till he passed out from it same as before, and when he woke up he’s Frank again, which give our ears a rest. A couple or three days on he got thirsty and drunk himself into Obadiah’s boots again, and this time when he quit talking for two seconds to catch his breath I ask him about Frank.
“Frank?” he says, and looks around. “Is Frank here? That would be unfortunate indeed.… We do not love each other as brothers should.…”
And he jumps off the wagon and looks underneath for him, all twitching and trembling till I set his mind to rest.
“No, he ain’t here. You just talked about him in your sleep is all.”
“Thank the Lord,” he says, and wipes his brow on his sleeve. “Frank cannot abide the sight of me, nor indeed the sound, in fact he has sworn to kill me if I so much as cross his shadow.”
“Well he ain’t hereabouts so his shadow ain’t neither. I reckon it must of been a nightmare that made you shout his name like you done.”
“Haply so, young Jeff,” he says, climbing back aboard, and we went on.
We was following the trail along the Humboldt River, which has got mountains all around and runs through hard country with only sand and sagebrush and some willows here and there along the banks with maybe a little grass alongside for the horses. The water got lower in the riverbed day by day and tasted worse every mile. It run east to west then bended down in a loop till it’s headed southwest, losing heart as it goes.
All along the way we seen stuff throwed out of wagons. Back in the mountains it was steepness made them do it, but here it’s because the teams was dying from not enough food or good water. There was dead animals every step of the way practickly, horses and oxen both, with buzzards ripping them open, and more wagons left too where the whole team has died off. It warn’t just the grass and water that’s problemating things, it’s Injuns too. We seen more and more carcasses with arrows in them. I could understand Injuns killing cattle for food and running off horses to use for riding, but them animals was killed for mischief I reckon, or because the Injuns ain’t pleased to see so many whites traipsing across their territory. Anyway, it’s a shameful waste for all that good meat to be rotting away under the sun with flies crawling over every inch that ain’t got a buzzard claw dug into it, and the stink in the air matched up with the taste of the river perfect.
Jim and me figured it ain’t going to be long before we come in for our share of Injun trouble. We come nearly two hundred mile along the Humboldt without none so far, which is just a miracle when we seen the way other forty-niners has been bothered, and miracles is one thing I ain’t inclined to set much store by no more, not full time anyway. So we stood guard of a night in turns, only Frank reckoned it’s work that ain’t suited to big brains like he’s got and never done a lick of it. He just sat by the fire every night drawing inventions in his book, and when Obadiah was around he warn’t sober enough to be no good as a guard so it’s just Jim and me. It made us weary in the day for lack of sleep and we took it in turns to catnap in the wagon while she rolled.
It never done no good. One morning after I’ve been on watch there’s two of the horses gone. It happened without me hearing a single sound. Frank give me a good cussing then went off to draw up plans for a new kind of cannon to scare the Injuns off, not the helpfullest way to fix the problem. We put Jim’s horse and the pack horse into harness and kept going, and two nights later it happened again. They never got Jupiter, but another two team horses went. This time it’s Obadiah that got the news, and he took it calm and says with only three horses left there ain’t nothing for it but to leave the wagon behind, so we done it.
Obadiah loaded his saddlebags with all the whiskey he’s got left, just a few bottles now, and I done some figuring. Without the wagon we’ll travel faster and maybe catch up with them that’s ahead. The bulldog proberly told hundreds of people by now to watch out for an Injun boy that’s Huck Finn in disguise, so I took off my Injun clothes and had Jim chop my hair short with his knife. He done a terrible job and my head felt like a field that’s got mowed close with only stubble left behind, but when I put on the clothes Hester Weber give me I looked white again. So it’s a worthwhile sacrifice, as they say, but I reckon I ain’t ever going to be so comfortable as I was in them buckskins.
We rode off feeling freer now we’re traveling light, but trouble come the very next day when Frank found out Obadiah never brung his invention book along and we had to tie him up to keep him from going back for it. He ranted considerable but was too weak to give us any real fight over it. All that drinking Obadiah done was making both of them thin and fidgety and feeble, and we wondered if maybe we should throw the bottles that’s left away before the whiskey does a double murder, but then we seen that without no whiskey Obadiah won’t come around no more and we’d be stuck with just Frank, which ain’t our idea of good company so we let the bottles stay.
We made twenty mile and more on horseback that day, but when I woke up next morning I seen Frank has gone, and it never took much figuring to work out where. We saddled up quick and rode after him and catched up maybe five mile back along the trail. We tied him up again but lost time because of what he done, so when night come we got him drunk and next morning Obadiah was back. He stayed with us two days till the whiskey run out, then Frank come storming along and cussed us for the way we stopped him fetching his book, but it’s too far back now even for him. He reckons we’re teamed up with Obadiah to make him miserable, and sa
ys if he catches sight of him he’ll kill him, so it’s lucky we got no mirrors along with us. Just to keep Frank happy I looked in every wagon we passed that’s been left by the trail till I found one with a beat-up old diary in it with only half the paper used and give it to him. He tore out all the used part and was happier now he can scribble and draw again, and even told us about his newest invention which is a boat for rowing under the water, so it’s clear he ain’t getting no better in the head.
All of us got sick. The river turned a kind of yeller green from alkali in it and warn’t fit to drink. We seen cattle dead on the bank from having tried it, so we found a cook pot that got throwed away and boiled the water before we give it a try. It never killed us but give us the squirts, so even if we had of et three times a day we would of lost it all by nightfall. Our supplies was down to a peck of flour and that’s all. The horses got thin from no grass and never touched the brush hereabouts; proberly they knowed with horse sense it would of poisoned them. Our eyes got hollow and our cheekbones stood out some and it was tiresome just keeping sat in the saddle and not falling off from weakness. Sores come up on our bodies and faces, and teeth come loose in our heads. One of my front ones come right out when I give it a little tug, but it never hurt all that much and there warn’t hardly no blood at all. Sometimes I got dizzy spells, and Jim got them too. Frank was worse off than us on account of he needed whiskey, or Obadiah needed it, and now there ain’t none left he got crazy and raved and fell off his horse ten times a day. I seen it all before when Pap had to give up drinking one time when he never even had a cent to buy a drop with. It ain’t a pretty sight and cost us more time and strength wasted getting him back in the saddle, but we never could of just left him there to go crazy all the way and die.
Then one day we seen something we never would of believed if it hadn’t of been right there in front of us. The river quit moving at all and just turned into a swamp right there in the middle of the desert, with nothing but rushes and the disgustingest stink you ever smelled, mile after mile of it. Frank give up and fell off his horse again and we figured here’s as good a spot as any to rest up awhile and see if we can’t find a taste of food. Water rats is what I reckoned on catching in a swamp, and I waded in knee deep among the rushes to look for them, but they was keeping out of sight. All I seen was moskeeters and one time a snake, but he lit out fast for cover before I could shoot him. You got to be mighty hungry to want to eat snake, and that’s what we was. Jim rigged up a little shelter made of rushes to keep the sun off Frank, who’s raving in his sleep now, sometimes talking cockeyed like Obadiah and sometimes straight and nasty like Frank, all of it jumbled together and making no kind of sense. I went back in the swamp to try again, and this time come across a dead man all rotted away. I come out fast and when I took off my britches to dry my legs was covered in leeches, thirty or more. It made me want to puke and I even started blubbering I’m so disgusted. Jim whipped up a fire and burned them off with a hot stick, but they left holes in my legs that dribbled blood.
We was never in such bad trouble before, and I wondered to myself if maybe we’re going to die. Then I got mad at myself for blubbering over them leeches and put my britches on and went into the swamp again, and I warn’t aiming to come out till I had something for us to chew on. I waded and waded with my Hawken at the ready but never seen nothing except stinking water and mud and rushes, and got half bit to death by moskeeters. I never felt the leeches but knowed they was there, burrowing into my legs and sucking the blood out. Then I seen another snake and blowed his head off and headed back, only I got lost and slopped along another hour, going in circles I reckon. Finally I seen the smoke from Jim’s fire and headed for it. He burned the leeches off me again then boiled up some swamp water to wash my legs down, but it never done much good. I felt sick as can be and crawled under the shelter with Frank to rest up while Jim skinned the snake and cooked it. I tasted worse things.
Toward sundown we drug ourselfs away from the swamp on account of the moskeeters and scooped holes like shallow graves in the sand. Then we wrapped up in our blankets and piled sand over us to keep out the nighttime cold. Frank was babbling again and thrashing around and we had to tie him before we covered him over. I slept on and off till dawn with bad dreams in my head, then Jim started another fire and we et the rest of the snake. Frank was considerable better than yesterday, which means he ain’t exactly dead or raving.
We went back to the swamp and boiled up water to fill our canteens and boiled up more and let it cool for the horses, then done another couple for them till they drunk their fill. Then we mounted up. My legs was sore from being covered in scabs, but it’s easier to ride than walk. The end of the swamp come in sight after noon with a flat desert after it stretching way off yonder. We made camp in the middle of noplace that night and never even had the comfort of a fire; there just ain’t enough brush around to build one, same as on the salt desert. We drunk only a morsel of water each and the horses got none, then we done the same trick with the blankets and sand and in the morning went on. The ground got more sprinkled with sagebrush gradual and there’s other runty little bushes too, but the end of it warn’t in sight. It stretched and stretched away south and west with mountains all around, and the wagon ruts headed out into the middle so we followed on.
It was the worst part yet, worser even than the salt desert. At least there we had them water barrels; here we got just a few mouthfuls each. There warn’t nothing to do but keep going and hope there’s a spring up ahead somewheres. The sun come down on our backs and heads like a heavy weight it’s so hot, enough to give a body dizzy spells. We seen plenty of wagons and dead teams only they never had no arrows in them now, just plain died of thirst I reckon, and there’s dead people too, not even buried decent. Jim took a hat off a dead man and says I got to wear it or get my brain cooked, so I done it and the shade give me relief, but not near enough. I drunk the last of my water and was ashamed because Jim had the will not to do the same. Frank drunk all his too. We kept on and on till Jim’s horse kind of crumpled under him. Jim warn’t hurt but the horse never wanted to get up again, so I shot it and we carved off hunks of meat to cook later on. Jim and me took turns on Jupiter all that afternoon, and when night come we et horseflesh for the first time ever. It warn’t too bad, better than snake, and we got back a little strength from it and slept easier.
When the dawn come we still never seen no end of the desert, just the trail stretching ahead with more wagons left by the side and buzzards with their heads stuck inside the teams. I counted twenty-seven wagons in the morning for something to do while we dragged along, then lost count and was too tired to start again. Jim was counting dead men and he made it sixteen and one woman, but there could of been more off in the brush that he never seen. Around noon Jim shared out the last of his water, just a couple spoonfuls each, then it’s all gone. In the afternoon Frank’s horse sunk down and never got up again so we killed it and cut off more meat to keep us fed, then Frank rode Jupiter with Jim and me hanging on to the stirrups to keep from falling over with tiredness.
All that day I never had a single thought in my head. Most times if you ain’t doing nothing in particular you get a headful of pictures and recollections without hardly trying, but that day I never thought nothing. Every time I seen a little picture start to happen I shut it off because I never had the strength to make the next little picture that would of come along after it, nor the one after that the way it always happens. I never wanted to think. I never wanted nothing but water. The hot air going up my nose give me a headache and every step took made my brain jolt. I never had the strength to complain, just give silent groans inside of me, and when evening come I sunk down like a dying horse right beside Jupiter.
Jim covered me with a blanket and lifted Frank down and done the same for him, then got a fire started and cooked up horseflesh. The smell made me hungry, but just you try eating meat without no water to wash it down. It ain’t easy. Our tongues was swole up
inside our mouths like leather, so big and dry we couldn’t hardly talk around them, but we never felt like talking anyhow and pretty soon was drowsy. Jim says we should keep going by night when it’s cool and I agreed, but fell asleep halfway through saying it so we stayed there.
In the morning I tried to get up but never budged an inch I’m so weak and feeble. I kind of screamed at myself inside my head and finally come to life, and when I got on my feet I seen Jim has already saddled Jupiter and was putting Frank on him and tying him to the saddle so’s he won’t fall off. We started moving, then Jim says I left my Hawken behind. I never cared, but Jim went back and got it and carried it the rest of the day. I had my hand wedged tight inside Jupiter’s girth strap so I never had to grip with my fingers, which I never could of done, and my legs stumped along like a doll Becky Thatcher showed me once with legs that moved from the hip, left, right, left, right, mile after mile till a picture snuck into my head of me being nothing but a big doll marching along all stiff-legged and pretending to be a human person. It’s so funny I got to giggling and warn’t able to quit, only it ain’t normal sounding, more like a croak. Jim asks if I’m all right and that struck me even funnier so I croaked and croaked till I would of cried if there was any water in me. Then it hurt to laugh and I quit. It hurt my throat and my head, even my legs. Everything hurt. I seen my hand stuck in the girth strap and the skin is wore off it and bleeding some but I never even knowed, and I kind of cranked my head around to face frontwards again to keep from being sick. Frank was slumped with his face in Jupiter’s mane, and Jupiter warn’t looking too spry himself with his head drooped and his hoofs plodding heavy and slow, not picking them up spirited like he generally does, but he ain’t had no water in two days now and has got to carry a rider too. There ain’t a handful of horses in the world could of done it I reckon.
On and on we went with the sun beating down hard and the buzzards flapping on top of carcasses, watching us go by then back to supper. Forty-nine was a good year for buzzards. There warn’t no clouds up above, the sky just as blue as blue, turning yeller white where the sun is, too bright to look. Then there’s a pain in my knees and my hand and I’m kneeling next to Jupiter with my fingers still stuck behind the girth. He must of stopped so he don’t drag me along the ground, or maybe he never had the strength left to drag me. Jim come around and set me on my feet again and tries to say something only his tongue is swole up so bad now he can’t make a sound. I give him a nod to say I ain’t hurt and we staggered on.