A
s dusk approached, Skye hunted for a good campground. There was wood smoke in the breeze, which made him uneasy. But this was fine camping country, with ample grass and firewood and a rushing creek. Even the weather was perfect, the temperature swiftly falling after a hot afternoon. Except for a few clouds lanced by the Uinta Mountains, the sky was clear.
He rode ahead of the infirmary company, and finally settled on a pleasant meadow that ran alongside the rushing creek. It had been much used by travelers on the Mormon Trail, but it was one of those watered places where the grass sprang back as fast as it was grazed. Cottonwoods, aspens, willows, and jack pine crowded nearby slopes along with juniper and sagebrush.
He signaled to his wives, who were not far behind, and then steered Jawbone along the trail, wanting to know all about the wood smoke. It didn't take long. Once he rounded a bend, he beheld an even larger and greener valley, and here,
on both sides of the little creek, were scores of wagons, their white wagon sheets making them look like giant boulders strewn everywhere. This was no small company. At a great distance he saw people wandering everywhere, busy with their evening chores, for the burdens of overland travel did not cease when the wagons stopped rolling.
Even from Skye's perspective, it was plain this was a westbound party, and a large one. And that posed the usual problem. Should he and Hiram Peacock act as ambassadors once again, and let this great party know of the presence of some consumptives? Sometimes that was the right and diplomatic thing to do; but Skye had seen it work badly too. What pained him worse was the possibility that this was the giant train that Rockwell had warned him about, with Millard Manville and his crony, Jimbo Trimble, guiding.
So far, he had not been seen. He quietly turned Jawbone and vanished around the bend, sensing that maybe the best course was to camp obscurely a way back and simply avoid trouble altogether.
He found Peacock settling in. He used a bedroll and slept outside whenever the weather permitted, and under a wagon or sometimes in the supply wagon when the weather was troublesome.
“There's a big camp up the road. Forty or fifty wagons, a lot of people.”
“Well then, we must visit them.”
“I'm not sure we should, Mister Peacock. I think this is the Missouri crowd that Rockwell warned us about. And Millard Manville and his crony are guiding it. We might well just hunker down and avoid trouble.”
“I wouldn't think of it. This whole trip, candidness has served us well. Companies didn't like to camp near us, but at
least they were not surprised. And besides, it's the thing to do.”
Skye held his peace. Peacock lived by his code, and now he would adhere to his code, no matter what the result.
“All right. You want to saddle that Morgan?”
Peacock swiftly caught the Morgan horse and soon was ready to go.
“We're going to visit the camp up there,” Skye told Victoria.
She stared, her eyes flinty.
But just as they were about to ride up the creek, two horsemen appeared out of the twilight, coming from the camp above. Skye waited quietly. Camping companies always wanted to know who their neighbors were.
“I believe we've saved ourselves a trip, Mister Peacock,” he said.
The two horsemen approached in a leisurely manner, and Skye could make out the brims of slouch hats and the relaxed forms of experienced horsemen. Then, as the pair drew near, Skye knew who his guests were: his Fort Laramie rival, Millard Manville, and his flunky, Jimbo Trimble. This would not be a friendly visit. Skye noted that Trimble kept his left arm in a sling fashioned from a black bandanna. No indeed, not a friendly contact from a neighboring camp.
“Gentlemen?” Skye said.
“So it's you. We thought so,” Manville said easily as they dismounted. The perpetual smile was on his freckled face.
“I'm most pleased that you've come by,” Peacock said, dismounting. He offered his hand to Manville, who shook it.
Skye waited warily for trouble, but it didn't seem to materialize.
“I've been hoping you'd come for a visit,” Peacock continued. “Perhaps you can tell me what's ahead.”
“We're just looking things over,” Manville said. “Those sick people, are they getting along?”
“It's hard for them, Mister Manville. But I've never seen such courage. They're going to get where we're going.”
Trimble had said nothing, and his gaze roved everywhere, finally settling on Jawbone, who stood saddled near Skye, his ears laid-back. He knew an enemy when he saw one.
Light from Victoria's cook fire was swiftly replacing the twilight, as the world turned darker.
Trimble finally pointed at Jawbone, a gesture that Manville picked up at once; he nodded slightly.
“Looks like you've got a Sharps there in that sheath, Skye.”
“I do. And I prefer to be addressed as Mister.”
Trimble was looking itchy now, and Skye sensed what was unfolding.
“Well, now, I think that's my Sharps. Same brass patch-box in the stock. Most likely it is. It was stolen from me, plumb stolen when I wasn't looking.”
“You accusing me, Mister Trimble?”
Manville stood ready, and Skye knew a confrontation was brewing.
“Well, I'm just getting my property back.”
“And how do you suppose I got it, if it's yours?”
“Now that's a real question, ain't it? Likely someone made off with it.”
“Are you calling me the thief, Trimble?”
Trimble licked his lips and glanced at Manville. It would be Manville's play, with Trimble's arm laid up like that.
Manville smiled easily. “Seems to me, Skye, you should hand it back. A guide taking these nice folk out to the desert
really should be a little more careful about how he conducts himself, don't you think?”
“Trimble, your arm's laid up. What happened?” Skye asked.
“I took a fall,” he replied. “Now do I get my property back, or do we push a little, Skye?”
“You push.”
“Now see here, Mister Skye, if this man's Sharps is in your possession, it behooves you to return it,” Peacock said.
Skye ignored him.
“Shoot horses, do you? Shoot a prize Morgan horse, do you? Try to strand some sick people in the wilderness, do you?”
“This is the man?” Peacock asked.
Skye discovered a massive Colt Dragoon revolver in Trimble's fist, aimed squarely at himself.
“Hand over my Sharps, Skye,” Trimble said.
Manville was grinning, his hand in the pocket of his duck cloth jacket.
Peacock exploded. “You shot my horse? What sort of wretch are you! You destroyed a great horse. You've endangered my party! You scoundrel, I'll have your hide. I'll report you to authorities and see you punished. When we reach Salt Lake, mark my words, you'll see irons on your legs.”
Trimble's revolver never wavered, its muzzle squarely on Skye, even as Peacock bulled toward the man, the tails of his frock coat flapping.
Then everything happened at once. Manville stepped forward, brought that brutal fist up into Peacock's gut, just under the ribs. That diverted Trimble long enough for Skye to land on Trimble, slug him even as a shot sailed by, wrench Trimble's good arm and spill the revolver, and then kick Manville, who was aiming another blow at the toppling Peacock.
Let them see a limey seaman in a brawl. He snatched the Dragoon revolver and hammered Trimble's head with the barrel, lashed at Manville, who was no longer smiling, and landed another blow on Trimble's ear and another on his bad shoulder, which set Trimble howling. He lowered his head and battered that handsome Manville with it, knocking Manville over even as the guide tried to wrestle a weapon out of his pocket. Skye's moccasin smacked Manville's hand. Skye heard something crunch. Manville quit, lay on his back panting, his handsome face gazing at evening stars.
Trimble sat stupidly, holding his ruined shoulder and sobbing.
But Peacock was on his back, his face distorted into a horrible grimace, unable to breathe.
Skye yanked a Navy revolver from Manville's pocket, checked the other pockets, and then handed it and the big Dragoon to Victoria, who rushed to the scene, a nocked arrow in her bow.
Mary collected Manville's and Trimble's horses and led them away.
“You've just donated your horses to my company,” Skye said. “And the two won't repay the loss of the Morgan. Now clear out of here.”
But both of the guides were too battered to move.
Watching them warily, Skye turned to Peacock, whose paralyzed body writhed on the ground. Skye leaned over him. “Breathe?” he asked.
Peacock couldn't. Skye remembered what Manville's punch had done to him back at Fort Laramie. Peacock stared up, bug-eyed, desperate. Skye squeezed Peacock's chest, and again, rhythmically, until at last Hiram Peacock coughed and
breathed, the air sucking in and out in desperate convulsions. Manville's fist had very nearly killed Hiram Peacock.
Skye turned to the two guides. “Start walking. Don't come back. Expect worse if you do.”
Manville shakily got up. Trimble didn't. He sat holding his ruined arm, whining. Skye yanked him up, amid a long wail.
“Go,” he said. “Or die.”
S
kye didnâ²t dare to move Hiram Peacock. The merchant hovered on the knife-edge. His breathing quit for long stretches, only to spasm to life, a desperate sucking and expelling of air. Manville's fist had torn something to pieces in the old man.
Victoria and Mary stared, ready at any instant to pump the merchant's chest, squeeze air out, and hope his desperate lungs sucked more in.
Somehow the sick ones at the other campfire absorbed the events, and soon Sterling Peacock appeared out of the gloom, staring at his father sprawled over meadow grass.
“Pa!” He turned to Skye. “Pa's hurt!”
Hiram Peacock coughed blood.
“What happened?” Sterling whispered.
“Manville and his flunky, Trimble. Tried to get the Sharps back. I dealt with them. But Manville got to your father. It's bad,” Skye said roughly.
“How bad?”
“Manville's got a trick. Fist up that pocket below the ribs.
It kills. It almost killed me, and I was watching for it, but I never thought Manville would use it on an old man.” Skye saw the shock in Sterling's face. “I'm bloody sorry, mate.”
Sterling knelt beside his father, watching the older man struggle for each breath.
“Can't move him,” Skye said. “We'll cover him up and he'll stay right here. We're going to have to watch tonight, and hope he starts breathing right.”
“I could help you lift him into a wagon, Mister Skye.”
“If it rains, I'll ask you. You can help by taking one of the watches. If he struggles for air, you'll need to press on his chest.”
Victoria emerged from the gloom with Peacock's bedroll, which she laid out, and then stepped back from Sterling. Skye and Sterling gently slid the merchant onto one blanket and folded the other over him. Peacock convulsed, coughed, and caught some air.
Sterling settled beside his father, two lonely figures at the edge of firelight.
Skye and his women and his little boy rested quietly around their own fire. The women had not erected the lodge this mild night but soon they would. The nights were lengthening, and they could expect autumnal rains anytime.
Enoch Bright showed up. “I've fed the sick, and now what do you want me to do?”
“Pump his bellows,” Skye said.
“The scum,” Bright said. “I'll bring them to justice.”
“Pump,” Skye said. Bright gingerly reached over his employer and pressed on the lungs. Peacock convulsed, gasped, sucked in air, and coughed.
“That's it. Keep him going, and pray that nature takes over,” Skye said.
“I wish I had a galvanic battery to shock him,” Bright said. “I'd give him regular shocks.”
“Stay here two hours. Then we'll get someone else,” Skye said.
The Jones brothers took the next watch later in the evening, after Skye had come to them with his request. First Lloyd, and then David, stared at the desperate man, whose irregular breaths were alarming. Skye taught them not to permit the silences to go too long. Contract the man's lungs and keep on doing it if they quit.
Skye drifted over to the other campfire, where they gazed solemnly up at him. No one had gone to bed. He saw fear in every face. The man who would take them all to a healing place was in trouble.
“Hiram Peacock's in grave condition,” he said. “We need to keep him going. We think he'll be better in the morning.”
“What happened?” Anna Bennett asked.
Skye told her as forcefully as he could. It never helped to soften reality. He needed to prepare them for the worst.
She absorbed it quietly. “I'll pump his lungs all night,” she said.
“I've arranged watches. If I need you I'll certainly call on you.”
“You don't trust a woman,” she said.
Skye felt worn-out and ignored her. He doffed his top hat and returned to his campfire, where Peacock lay in his bedroll.
The wounded man was conscious, staring up at Skye. Beside him sat Enoch Bright.
“Take me to the summit,” Peacock said. “Show me the desert. Let me see the desert, the healing place, and I will find peace.”
“You'll be well soon, Mister Peacock.”
“Let me see the desert before I die.”
Skye knelt beside the man. “I will,” he said.
Peacock spasmed again and closed his eyes.
Enoch Bright wept.
By turns they watched over Hiram Peacock that night, several times pressing his lungs to work, restoring breath to him when it faltered. Manville's fist had done terrible damage, and now Peacock hung by a thread to this world.
But dawn came, and he lived, and with the dawn the last of the watch, David Jones, stood and stretched. There were the usual morning duties, and a meal to prepare.
Faintly on the breeze, they heard the other wagon party hitch up and plod west. Skye did not hasten to follow. He had not yet decided how to carry Hiram Peacock. Probably the gentlest place would be a nest hollowed out of the supplies in the large wagon. Maybe the steady rocking of the wagon would induce breath in Peacock. Or maybe it would kill him. But for the moment, the man who had formed this mission of mercy still lived.
Quietly they yoked the oxen, put packsaddles on ponies, prepared to head west once again. Skye and Bright made a pallet in the supply wagon for their stricken leader, and gently lifted him into it. Peacock coughed, and a film of blood slid from his lips. There was some sort of internal bleeding. And yet he lived. Anna Bennett slipped into that wagon beside him, ready to press the man's chest anytime she thought he was too long comatose. And then they were ready.
Skye headed back to the sick young people.
“We're going now,” he said. “We have Mister Peacock on a pallet, and he's being watched every moment. He wants us to keep on going. He told me so. I want you to keep on going, for his sake as well as your own. Soon we'll reach the desert.”
None of them spoke. Skye knew they were recoiling from the possibility of Peacock's death, finding themselves out here, far from everything, without their protector.
Skye clambered onto Jawbone, but was stayed. The horse's ears were rotated backward, and then Jawbone craned his long neck around. There was something approaching from behind.
Skye turned to meet whatever was toiling up the grade, and was met with the sound of harness jingles, all of them making a merry tune to the rhythm of the draft animals. Here was a whole wagon company, but unlike any Skye had seen. A couple of gents in slouch hats were leading the parade, which consisted of a dozen freight wagons with high sides, or flatbed wagons. Only one had a bowed canvas top. And poking from these wagons were all sorts of furniture and household goods.
The lead man halted.
“You're Mister Skye,” he said. “Recognized this outfit.”
“I am, and who am I addressing?”
“Pete Hunsaker, Great Salt Lake City. I'm in the furniture business. Call it the scavenger business.”
“You're harvesting the debris from the trails, I take it.”
“That's it. It's worth a fortune in my town. Good furniture's rare in the desert, a thousand miles from anywhere else. So's most everything else. I make a good living at it.”
“So I see,” Skye said.
There were half a dozen men involved in this enterprise. No doubt all of them Saints.
“You got a bunch of sick with you,” Hunsaker said.
“Consumptives, sir. We're taking them to the desert. There's some evidence that dry warm air heals them.”
Hunsaker grinned. “From what I heard, you're spreading the Black Plague hither and yon.”
“It's not transmitted that easily, and the sick keep their own mess and stay apart.”
Hunsaker eyed the company. “You've got trouble here,” he said. “Two wagons hooked to three span.”
Skye nodded. “Plenty of trouble.”
“Those saddle horses. Seems to me I saw them recent.”
“It's a long story,” Skye said. “We acquired them as compensation for some losses we suffered.”
Hunsaker was grinning broadly, baring gapped teeth. “Entertain us, Mister Skye. I want to hear it. Those two nags right there were, last I knew, the property of a pair of bung-hole guides.”
Well, why not? Skye motioned them off their horses, and Hunsaker and some of his men collected around him. The story came easily. Enoch Bright contributed some indignation of his own. But then they turned somber when they found out about Hiram Peacock's condition.
“That gut-punch is a sure killer. I've seen a man die of it, and I heard all about Manville. He's just ahead, you say?”
“With a big company, two divisions of them, Arkansas and Missouri people.”
“Pukes,” Hunsaker said. “That's Captain Fancher's outfit. They ain't friendly to the Saints, I'll say.” He eyed Skye and Bright. “I think you ought to travel with us.”
“I think we should too,” Skye said. “But we'll slow you down.”
“Not if I put my spare mule team on that light wagon.”
“You'd do that?”
“I reckon I'd help folks in trouble, like you.”