Winter Rain

They were drawing close to the Green, beyond it Black’s Fork. Farther still lay Bridger’s old fort. From what he sorted out of the Shoshone’s talk, they might make the old post by tomorrow night. If not, the day after. Likely they’d run onto word of the Danites there. Those soldiers would know something. A band of white men passing by with an ambulance and a half-dozen high-walled Studebaker wagons wasn’t the sort of thing a few lazy-eyed soldiers would miss out in this lonely, desolate country.

“Never did get this far west myself,” Hook later admitted for lack of conversation as they made camp.

“Connor?”

“Naw. Protecting the wire from the Injuns. Was later we tracked Injuns for General Connor.”

“Connor jumped the wrong village, said many.”

Jonah screwed that around in his head for some time. “Seems I remember a few of the scouts saying something about that. Wasn’t Sioux or Cheyenne.”

“Indian tell you right. Connor wrong.”

A shudder passed through him, like old Seth shaking water off his back. “Not my affair no more. That’s three years gone now.”

Two Sleep seemed to regard him a moment, then took his eyes off the white man. They did not speak for some time until Hook offered the Shoshone a dark sliver of chaw. The warrior took the offering of tobacco, stuffed it inside his cheek, and nodded his thanks.

“Can’t for the life of me figure out why a man like Jim Bridger would want to build a fort here in the middle of all this nothing,” Jonah murmured. “Not when he traveled a whole lot of prettier country in his days—trapping beaver, hunting buffalo. Don’t make much sense to me, him deciding to set down roots here when there’s a lot other country more pleasing to the eye.”

“Brid-ger see trail here. Brid-ger come here,” Two Sleep replied after some thought. “Trail here where the white man goes west to the sun’s bed.”

“California,” Hook added. “It’s called California … and Oregon too.”

“Two name for same place?”

Hook snorted. “Naw, two places.”

“Why all want to go there? So many wagon, so many people—that place fill up quick.”

“Naw, not fast. Lots of land, I heard. Good sun and some rain. Grow some crops.” Jonah could see that Two Sleep had himself grown bewildered. “Crops: like corn and wheat. Folks grow crops to sell.”

“Hard work, this grow?”

He nodded, pursing his lips a bit. “Hard, but good work.”

“Man work the ground alone?”

“Not if he can help it, he don’t.”

“Your boys, maybe you help them work the ground, you get back home.”

His belly went cold as winter ice. “They … they’re not back there. Not home no more.”

“Oh,” and the Shoshone fell quiet a moment. “They in front, ahead, out there with your woman, eh?”

With a shrug Jonah answered, “No. Last I got wind of ’em was in Indian Territory. Got sold off to some Mexicans.”

Two Sleep wagged his head sadly. “Comancheros take boys far away. Go to slaves.”

“Likely.”

“You work the land hard again some day. Grow crop?”

Hook gazed at the far hills, studying the sky tinted with the strange mineral hues of sunset. “Maybe. Lot of doing between now and that time. Never really thought about farming again till you brought it up. Don’t really seem like something I wanna do without the boys, without my family around.”

“You work the ground, grow crops. Like a man grows his children, Hook. You work hard, grow your children. See them grow. Man always must say good-bye to them.”

“Don’t you understand? I didn’t see ’em grow. That’s the damned shame of it.”

Both of them went silent for a long time, Two Sleep broiling skewered venison over their greasewood fire, Hook jabbing at the burning limbs with a wand of green willow. Each deep in his own thoughts.

“Man grows crops, sell what he don’t eat. Money he gets?”

Jonah looked up, seeing the warrior’s old eyes bright. “Yes, money. Money to gamble at cards, you red heathen.”

The Shoshone wagged his head. “No, money to buy whiskey—what else for, you white heathen!”

A couple days back, Hook had owned up to liking the Shoshone more and more as the old Indian talked of a bygone time shared with Bridger and Sweete. Talked of those halcyon days at the end of the beaver trade and before the start of the white man’s war against himself back east. Those years were gone the way of dust now: a time when Two Sleep had learned the rudiments of the white man’s confusing language, learned better still the power of whiskey. Best yet, he learned the potent numbers and symbols emblazoned on the pasteboard cards the white man used to gamble. No carved pieces of bone, no painted sticks for this Shoshone. Those numbered, painted, powerful cards and their manifold combinations had fascinated him right from the start. They had been good days.

“I see why Shad liked you,” Hook said, right out of the blue that evening camped among the cottonwood on the west bank of the Green.

“Sweete a bad gambler.”

“He was, was he?”

“Worse I ever see.”

“Damn good teacher, though, don’t you reckon?”