CHAPTER TEN
GARY HAS SPEECH WITH HUMAN BEINGS
Since Gary was not a young man of pronounced literary leanings, he failed to chronicle all of the moods and the trivial incidents which borrowed importance from the paucity of larger events. He finished hoeing the potatoes and spent a mildly interested half-day in running the water down the long rows, as Waddell’s primitive system of irrigation permitted.
That evening there was no voice shouting from the hillside, and Gary spent a somberly ruminative hour in cleaning the mud off his shoes. He was worried about his clothes, which were looking the worse for his activities; until it occurred to him that he had passed and repassed a very efficient-looking store devoted to men’s clothing alone. It comforted him considerably to reflect that he could buy whatever he needed in Las Vegas.
On the eleventh day he started down the cañon on the chance that he might see Monty coming across the desert. The tall piñon trees shut out the view of the open country beyond until he came almost abreast of the last pool of the creek where the cattle watered. He was worrying a good deal now over Monty Girard. He could not believe that he had been deliberately left afoot there in the cañon, as effectively imprisoned as if four stone walls shut him in, held within the limit of his own endurance in walking. Should he push that endurance beyond the limit, he would die very miserably.
Gary was not particularly alarmed over that phase of his desertion, however. He knew that he was not going to be foolish enough to start out afoot in the hope of getting somewhere. Only panic would drive a man to that extreme, and Gary was not of the panicky type. He had food enough to last for a long time. The air, as he told himself sardonically, was good enough for any health resort. He didn’t feel as if he could get sick there if he tried. His physical well-being, therefore, was not threatened; but he owned himself willing to tell a heartless world that he was most ungodly lonesome.
He was walking down the rough trail with his hands in his pockets, whistling a doleful ditty, the spotted cat at his heels like a dog. He was trying to persuade himself that this was about the time of day when Monty would be most likely to show up, when Faith ran before him, stopped abruptly, arched her back and ruffled her tail at something by the water hole.
Gary stopped also and stared suspiciously at two men who were filling canteens at the water hole. What roused Gary’s suspicion was the manner of the two men. While they sunk their canteens beneath the surface of the water and held them so, they kept looking up the cañon and at the bluff across the creek; sending furtive, frightened glances into the piñon grove.
“Hello!” shouted Gary, going toward them. The cañon wall echoed the shout. The two dropped their canteens and fled incontinently out toward the open. Gary walked over to the pool, caught the two canteen straps, filled the canteens and went after the men, considerably puzzled. He came upon them at their camp, beside a ten-foot ledge outcropping, a hundred yards or so below the pool. They were standing by their horses, evidently debating the question of moving on.
“Here’s your canteens,” Gary announced as he walked up to them. “What’s the big idea—running off like that?”
“Hello,” one responded guardedly. “We don’t see who hollers. That’s bad place. Don’t like ’m.”
They were Indians, though by their look they might almost be Mexicans. They were dressed much as Monty Girard had been clothed, in blue overalls and denim jacket, with old gray Stetson hats and coarse, sand-rusted shoes.
Gary lowered the canteens to the ground beside their little camp fire and got out his tobacco and papers, while he looked the two over.
“So you think it’s a bad place, do you? Is that why you camp out here?”
“Them cañon no good,” stated the other Indian, speaking for the first time. “Too much holler all time no see ’m. That’s bad luck.”
“You mean the man up on the bluff, that hollers so much?” Gary eyed them interestedly. “Who is he? You fellows know anything about it?”
They looked at one another and muttered some Indian words. The old man began to unpack the apathetic mule standing with dropped lip behind the two saddle horses.
“You know Monty Girard?” Gary asked, lighting his cigarette and proffering his smoking material to the younger Indian when he saw an oblique glance go hungrily to the smoke.
“Yass! Monty Girard. His camp by Kawich,” the old man answered in a tone of relief that the subject had changed.
“Well, I don’t know where Kawich is—I’m a stranger in the country. Seen him lately?” Gary waved his hand for the younger Indian to pass the tobacco and papers to the older buck. “Seen Monty lately?”
“Nah. We don’t see him, two months, maybe.” The old buck was trying to conceal his pleasure over the tobacco.
Gary thought of something. “You see any Walking X horses—work horses, or saddle horses?”
With characteristic Indian deliberation the two waited until their cigarettes were going before either replied. Then the old man, taking his time in the telling, informed Gary that the horses were ranging about ten miles to the east of Johnnywater, and that they were watering at a small spring called Deer Lick. It occurred to Gary that he might be able to hire these Indians to run in the horses so that he could have a saddle horse at least and be less at the mercy of chance. With a horse he could get out of the country without Monty and the Ford, if worst came to worst.
He squatted with the Indians in the shade of the ledge while they waited for the water to boil in a bent galvanized bucket blackened with the smoke of many camp fires, and set himself seriously to the business of winning their confidence. They were out of tobacco, and Gary had plenty, which helped the business along amazingly. He caught himself wishing they wore the traditional garb of the redman, which would have been picturesque and satisfying. But these Piutes were merely unkempt and not at all interesting, except that their speech was clipped to absolutely essential words. They were stodgy and apathetic, except toward the tobacco. He found that they could dicker harder than a white man.
They wanted ten dollars for driving in his horses, and even then they made it plain to Gary that the price did not include getting them into the corral. For ten dollars they would bring the horses right there to the mouth of the cañon.
“Not go in,” the old man stipulated. “Bring ’m here, this place. Not corral. No. No more. You take my horse, drive ’m to corral. I wait here.”
Gary knew a little about Indians, and at the moment he did not ask for a reason. The corral was not a quarter of a mile farther on; as a matter of fact it was just beyond the cabin at the edge of the grove of piñons.
Faith came out from a clutter of rocks and hopped into Gary’s arms, purring and rubbing herself against him. The Piutes eyed the cat askance.
“B’long ’m Steve Carson, them cat,” the young Indian stated abruptly. “You ain’t scare them cat bad luck?”
Gary laughed. “No—I’m not afraid of the cat. Faith and I get along pretty well. Belongs to a Steve Carson, you say? I thought this was Waddell’s cat. It was left here when Waddell sold out.”
They deliberated upon this, as was their way. “Waddell sell this place?” The old Indian turned his head and looked into the cañon. “Hunh. You buy ’m?”
“No. A friend of mine bought it. I came here to see if it’s any good.” Gary began to feel as if he were making some headway at last.
They smoked stolidly.
“No good.” The old man carefully rubbed the ash from his cigarette. “Bad spirits. You call ’m bad luck.” He looked at Gary searchingly. “You hear ’m holler?”
Gary grinned. “Somebody hollers about half the time. Who is it?”
The two looked at each other queerly. It was the younger one who spoke.
“Them’s ghos’. When Steve go, comes holler. Nobody holler when Steve’s all right. Five year them ghos’ holler. Same time Steve go. Nobody ketchum Steve. Nobody stop holler.”
“Well, that’s a heck of a note!” Gary smoothed the cat’s back mechanically and tried to laugh. “So the Voice is Steve Carson’s ghost, you think? And what happened to Steve?”
“Dunno. Don’ nobody know. Steve, he makes them shack. Got cattle, got horses, got chickens. Mine a little, mebby. One time my brother she go there. No ketchum Steve Carson no place. Hears all time holler up there. My brother holler. Thinks that’s Steve, mebby. My brother wait damn long time. Steve don’t come. All time them holler up on hill. My brother thinks Steve’s hurt, mebby. My brother goes. Hunts damn long time. Looks all over. No ketchum Steve. My brother scare, you bet!
“My brother comes my place. Tells Steve Carson, he’s hurt, hollers all time. Tells no ketchum Steve no place. I go, my father goes. Other mans go. Hunt damn long time. Nobody hollers. No ketchum Steve Carson. Saddle in shed, wagon by tree, canteens hang up, beans on stove—burnt like hell. Them cat holler all time.
“By ’m by we go. Hunt two days, then go. We get on horses, then comes holler like hell up on hill. Get off horses. Hunt some more. All night. No ketchum holler. No ketchum Steve no place. Them cat go ‘Yeouw! Yeouw!’ all time like hell.
“My brother, she’s damn ’fraid for ghos’. My brother gets on horse and goes away from that place. Pretty soon my brother dies. That’s five years we don’t find Steve Carson. All them time holler comes sometimes. This place bad luck. Injuns don’t come here no more, you bet. We come here now little while when sun shines. Comes night time it’s damn bad place. You hear them hollers you don’t get scared?” It would seem that Gary’s assertion had not quite convinced them. The young Indian was plainly skeptical. According to the judgment of his tribe, it was scarcely decent for a man to foregather with ghosts and feel no fear.
The mottled cat squirmed out of Gary’s embrace and went bounding away among the rocks. The eyes of the Indians followed it inscrutably. The old man got up, clawed in his pack, pulled out a dirty cloth in which something was tied. He opened the small bundle, scooped a handful of tea and emptied it into the bucket of boiling water. The young man opened a savage-looking pocket knife and began cutting thick slices of salt pork. The old Indian brought a dirty frying pan to the fire.
Gary leaned against the rock ledge and watched them interestedly. After so long an exile from all human intercourse, even two grimy Piutes meant much to him in the way of companionship. They talked little while they were preparing the meal. And when they ate, squatting on their heels and spearing pork from the frying pan with the points of their big jackknives, and folding the pieces around fragments of hard, untempting bannock, they said nothing at all. Gary decided that eating was a serious business with them and was not to be interrupted by anything so trivial as conversation.
He wanted to hear more about the Johnnywater ghost and about Steve Carson. But the Piutes evidently considered the subject closed, and he could get nothing more out of them. He suspected that he had his sack of Bull Durham to thank for the unusual loquacity while they smoked.
After they had eaten they led their horses up to the pool and let them drink their fill. After that they mounted and rode away, in spite of Gary’s urging them to camp where they were until they had brought in the Walking X horses. They would go back, they said, to Deer Lick and camp there for the night. In the morning they would round up his horses and drive them over to Johnnywater.
Gary was not quite satisfied with the arrangement, but they had logic on their side so far as getting the horses was concerned. Their own mounts would be fresh in the morning for the work they had to do. But the thing Gary hated most was their flat refusal to spend a night at Johnnywater Cañon.