Down to a Soundless Sea (19 page)

Mrs. Hammel had become used to Professor Gill’s prolonged silences over the years, but he seemed particularly withdrawn at present. She tried to tempt him out of his shell with her famous rum-raisin bread pudding, which he accepted and took to his room.

Mrs. Hammel shrugged, shook her head sadly, and continued her conversation with her other three boarders. The twilight’s afterglow found Solomon sitting and looking out of his bedroom window at the backyard; the rum-raisin bread pudding remained untouched upon his lap.

Solomon twitched at the sound of the distant doorbell, and the spoon slipped from his saucer of pudding. A moment later he came to life and bent to retrieve it. He twitched again when the knock came at his door and Mrs. Hammel announced that a package had been delivered by hand.

Professor Gill thanked her and asked that she deposit it on the table next to the door. When he rose to brush his teeth and make ready for an early evening, he remembered the package, a book as it turned out, a slim volume wrapped in brown paper and string and containing a note from his friend Professor Wick. He sincerely hoped that Professor Gill might find the obscure text of some interest.

The text, though dry, focused on Native American hunting societies in central California, so Professor Gill propped himself up in bed and began to read. It was almost one o’clock in the morning when he put the book aside and turned off his light.

He had been particularly absorbed by descriptions of Rumsen and Esselen coastal hunting and gathering techniques. He had discovered an interesting cross-reference that mentioned the existence of cunningly fashioned hunting camps that were used year after year.

A gentleman by the name of Bert Stevens claimed to have discovered two such sites in the company of the Partington brothers while surveying for a logging operation. He stated that the arrangement of the camps was unique and well thought-out. They seemed sturdy and strong, though no one knew when they were last occupied by their innovators. Mr. Stevens was quoted as saying that the garbage middens were large and remarkably diverse in discarded material.

Professor Gill became curious when he could find no credentialed testimony corroborating the existence of these sites in the book. Evidently no other qualified observer had ever seen or cataloged them.

Solomon Gill digested the text all through his sleep and in the morning awoke with a firm desire to know the truth about some of the things he had read the night before. After a light breakfast of coffee and toast, the professor caught the trolley and eventually made his way to the university library. He spent four hours in serious research and left with an expression of self-congratulatory success.

Gill returned to his boardinghouse just long enough to pack a small bag, retrieve a stashed purse containing his emergency funds, and bid a temporary farewell to Mrs. Hammel.
She seemed somewhat flustered at first, but Professor Gill said he was only going down to Carmel and the Big Sur for a week to do some research. That explanation appeased her, and she set about putting up a little food for the professor’s long stage ride to Monterey. Perpetually short of resources, the professor was grateful for any and all material assistance.

The first portion of his trip was accomplished by scheduled bus, an uncomfortable, home-built, rattling affair that broke down twice. After Monterey, Solomon Gill knew it would be pretty much a matter of improvisation since his destination was rather remote. There was a motor stage that made its way up and down the coast on the new road, but its scheduling was informal and unsure. The professor thus had hopes of finding a generous soul to give him a lift to Carmel. Luckily he spotted old Sam Trotter gassing up his truck across from the little Monterey bus depot. The professor had met the renowned Mr. Trotter the previous year when the professor had traveled down to see his old friend Dr. Hedgepoole.

In fact, it was Dr. Hedgepoole whom Professor Gill was traveling to visit first.

Dr. Hedgepoole had been retired for some years as a result of poor health. He rented a graceful little cottage on San Carlos Avenue in Carmel from Mrs. Hammel’s aged sister-in-law. There he led a tranquil existence amongst his books, port, and pill bottles.

The myopically studious Dr. Hedgepoole had been something of a mentor to Solomon Gill at Stanford. His lectures on clinical disciplines applicable to anthropology had drawn respectable audiences above and beyond the student body, and the doctor’s knowledge of local native lore was thought considerable, though unpublished in the main.

Sam Trotter happily transferred his load of provisions to the truck bed, wedging them among some cement bags so that Professor Gill might enjoy the comfort of the cab. Solomon and Sam talked about incidentals for a couple of miles, and then Gill led the conversation around to Indian encampments in the Big Sur. Sam Trotter was about the best woodsman the coast of California had ever produced. If he didn’t know where something was, then it probably didn’t exist.

Sam had heard the stories, of course, and he had found several small locations, but nothing that quite fit the published descriptions Professor Gill quoted. The Partington brothers were responsible men, not known for salting the mines of accuracy. The Partingtons had ranged over a wide stretch of land in that part of the county, from Partington Cove, with its hand-chiseled tunnel, all the way up to Partington Ridge in the mountains.

Sam Trotter smiled, nodded, and agreed that there might be quite a bit of stuff up in those hills nobody had ever seen. People had talked of Indian gold caves for generations, but folks in the high Sur kept to their own a good deal and never talked to strangers about such things if they could avoid it.

After an introspective moment he returned to his subject. “Rumsens and Esselens were known to be very secretive hunters. For obvious reasons their encampments and blinds would be well concealed, mostly within natural occlusions. They were disguised well enough to deceive more than just passing game. Stealing food from rival clans was always a popular form of mischief.”

Sam scratched his head. “But it’s not an easy ticket, Professor. Over the years, there have been any number of people who’ve searched those mountains for one thing or another, boundary stones, lost cattle, game, Indian gold, you name it.
But I never heard anyone mention that they found much evidence of permanent settlements up in those hills. It wouldn’t surprise me to find that coastal Indians moved about a good deal, followed game and fish migrations and all.”

Sam let Professor Gill out at the top of Ocean Avenue. He apologized for not taking him down the hill, but he was afraid his old truck wouldn’t make it back up again with the load of cement bags in the back. The grateful professor grabbed his bag, waved farewell, and walked down toward San Carlos Avenue and Dr. Hedgepoole’s cottage.

Solomon Gill had long craved a plausible discovery he could call his own. Perhaps he had come upon a workable anomaly in the form of the long-overlooked and forgotten narrative. He yearned for any result, no matter how nominal, that might assist in his discovery of one of the hidden Indian camps. He foresaw a modest scholarly publication to follow, but one sure to note the exploit and bring credit to his years behind the lectern.

Unfortunately, the professor’s total budget for this peculiarly spontaneous expedition was now reduced to fifteen dollars and seventeen cents. Hardly a princely sum, but all he could scrape together at the last moment. He had started with his emergency twenty-dollar bill, pursed and secreted in the toe of an old boot. His round-trip coach fare had substantially eaten into that fortune. His future efforts would require practiced frugality, but Solomon Gill was quite familiar with the skills necessary to fashion silk purses from sows’ ears.

Doctor Thadius hedgepoole was sitting in his small garden reading his mail when Solomon Gill shuffled across the dirt
street and planted his bag on the abalone shell wall that guarded the old doctor’s roses. Hedgepoole looked up over his reading glasses, but since he was expecting no company, it took a moment to recognize his road-weary friend.

“By all that’s holy, Solomon Gill, what are you doing here? I didn’t expect to see you until … But come along there and have a seat by me. Mrs. Ogden is due with some port and hot tea any moment. It’s my favorite time of the day. So what brings you to these parts, young Prometheus?”

Solomon found it difficult to come to the point at first. He insisted on talking about minor irrelevances, but saw he was boring his host, so he moved on to the crux of his visit. The short of it being that, yes, Dr. Hedgepoole had known about the text reference to Indian hunting encampments and, no, he had personally never seen or heard of one being discovered.

“If they still exist as reported,” Hedgepoole continued, “they would now presumably be heavily overgrown and probably invisible to the naked eye. I once talked to Frank Post, years ago it was, about Indian fishing camps on the Carmel and Big Sur Rivers. He said that as far as he knew, the locations changed all the time, because the rivers and the good fishing changed all the time. But come to think of it, Frank did mention a place his mother had taken him to when he was a child. It was up near Pico Blanco as I recall. Rumsen hunting parties traditionally gathered there in the spring and autumn. But Frank distinctly said he couldn’t remember exactly where it was. It seems his mother, Anselma Onesimo, stopped taking him when he was six or seven. He was always getting himself in some mischief or other, so she finally left him at home when she went off to be with her own people.”

The tea and port arrived, and it was decided that Solomon
would have the small guest bedroom for the night. Captain Balycott, an old friend, kindly stopped by with a basket of fresh sand dabs as a gift. Dr. Hedgepoole was overjoyed and begged Mrs. Ogden to grill the delightful creatures for supper. It was later agreed, over fine Cuban coffee, that Mrs. Ogden had certainly outdone herself in their preparation.

Once warm in front of the fire, Solomon continued a rambling query roughly centered on the subject of semipermanent Indian enclaves in the mountains. Hedgepoole came to understand that his friend was eager to have a look for himself and, though somewhat skeptical about the possible results, said nothing to discourage him from his little sojourn. In fact, he took the time to compose a note that would introduce Professor Gill to the people down at Pfeiffer’s Lodge. Dr. Hedgepoole thought they might be helpful in seeing to it that Solomon found his way about safely.

“Very good people down there,” he said. “Talk to any Dani or Grimes you come across. Their families have worked that territory since the year one. If there is something to find up in the Sur, they will know where it is. Perhaps you’ll strike the mother lode where others have failed. I have known it to happen on rare occasions.”

The next morning Solomon caught the motor stage south at the top of the hill and found himself deposited at Pfeiffer’s Lodge by three o’clock, two dollars lighter, but content. The weather had been excellent. The sunlight lanced through the trees in honed, piercing shafts, and the ocean vistas glittered with dancing whitecaps and wheeling seabirds.

A fragile perception of the impending adventure was slowly beginning to bore into Solomon’s academic shell. He was commencing to enjoy himself. He even traded amusing small
talk with Corbett Grimes, the hearty and garrulous stage driver. This was very unlike the professor’s usual shy reserve with strangers.

Dr. Hedgepoole’s note opened all doors at Pfeiffer’s Lodge. For a very modest fee they supplied Professor Gill with rustic accommodations, food, a saddle mule named Doughboy, a good map, a bindle of trail rations, and a parting admonition to stay with the mule at all costs.

Doughboy, a creature of mature sensibilities, knew his way about the mountains far better than Professor Gill. To give the animal its head was to find the way home automatically. To let the beast roam about unattended was equivalent to a long walk home. Doughboy had an abiding passion for the comforts of his own snug stall and would find his way back to it through a blizzard, if such an oddity should ever come to pass.

In either event, Professor Gill was warned against the perils of spending the night on the trail. The Pfeiffer’s stockman said, “Best you return before Doughboy starts cutting up stubborn. The dear creature is a real handful when deprived of his oats, blanket, and warm stall.” Professor Gill was in complete sympathy with the mule’s sentiment, but said nothing that might reflect humorously on their mutual affection for the simple comforts.

The next morning Professor Gill again faithfully promised to remain diligent about marking trails and to keep to a rational schedule. With help, he mounted the mule, waved a cheerful farewell, and took the trail that led north by east in the general direction of Pico Blanco.

Pinky Ransome, who was then visiting, remarked that the professor looked somewhat akin to Abe Lincoln with his long legs dangling down the sides of old Doughboy. Solomon overheard
the comment from a distance and silently fumed. It seemed the observation was destined to become a popular assertion. He cringed at the thought and spurred the mule on. Doughboy didn’t bother to respond.

The rugged slopes of Pico Blanco, mentioned in the obscure text, were far too distant to consider a journey there and back in a day. Indeed three or four days might be required, but Solomon only wished to familiarize himself with the lay of the land as much as possible. He hoped to take in the broadest probable vistas for later reference, and even made crude sketches on a small pad for later study.

The lodge had kindly loaned the professor a copy of a homemade map of all the roads, game trails, and paths in the area, a courtesy usually reserved for their seasonal hunting clientele. Professor Gill suspected that any evidence of semipermanent encampments would necessarily be within a walking radius of running water. Where water and established trails crossed, viable locations might exist on all compass points. The rest was a matter of looking for the right signs.