Gabriel's Story (31 page)

They bought food and supplies beside the Arkansas River, and
it was there that they asked if any had noted the passing of a rider
on a dun horse. It was there that they got their answer, from a
hook-nosed adolescent. Yes. Less than a week ago. They asked who
the rider was, and the Scot couldn't help hiding his surprise at the
answer.

A black boy.

A Negro? A man or a boy?

I said he was a boy. Younger than me, anyhow. I remember
cause he had a right uppity look about him.

This story was confirmed in the next town, and once more by
a wagon train carrying supplies west. The two men talked it out.
The Scot told what he knew of this boy, and the Mexican nodded,
saying that his sister had said much the same. He wasn't the one
they wanted, but they should be sure. And perhaps he would know
something more of the fate of the others. They decided to stay the
course a little longer.

GABRIEL RECOGNIZED THE LAND: the slow undulations and sweeping breadth of it, the creek that snaked its way to the south, the shallow depression that framed his family's homestead, and the squat building itself, a little larger, yet mostly unchanged by the passing months. But this was all that he recognized. He sat on a rise that he'd walked many a time the previous spring and surveyed the farm. There was not the faintest sign of the fires that troubled the western plains, no swarm of locusts and no withering hot wind. The corn crop stood tall and erect, cut in wavering lines and yet all the more beautiful for the imprecision. To the east the sloping field devoted to wheat had grown into a sun-tanned, golden expanse. The family plot showed an array of life. There were crops short and tall, gray-brown to deep green, plants that Gabriel knew and some that he didn't. Melons sat in the fields like giant seeds; pumpkins grew in ground that had been uncut sod when he'd left. Raleigh stood staked near the barn, and the pig was just visible in its pen. There were no people to be seen.

It had all changed so much. At first Gabriel felt a nagging desire to retreat. He could turn away now before anybody saw him and fade into the plains. It seemed that might be better for them all. Look, there before him was the proof that they didn't need him, the clear and irrefutable evidence that all he'd said had been wrong. The land had prospered through the hard work of others. A family he had deserted had persevered. How could he return now?

So he thought, but he didn't turn away. Without consciously deciding to, he urged the horse forward. He rode down toward the house, shy and respectful, a tight lump in his throat and tension ringing his eyes. He gripped the reins firmly, and he was no more relaxed when he finally stopped in the clearing before the house. Raleigh looked up at him and studied the new horse. The sow's grunts floated into the air. Other than that, all was quiet, still.

It was Ben who first emerged. He stepped out into the bright midday light and paused dead in his tracks. His jaw dropped, and his face was fogged by an expression of utter confusion. He was much changed—a full inch taller, Gabriel would have guessed, and a few pounds heavier around the shoulders and chest. He was shirtless beneath his overalls, and his tight torso was cast in much the same dark material as Gabriel's. But there was no mistaking him. Here was Ben, wholly and completely and undeniably this horseman's kin but a young man in his own right.

“Gabe?”

Before Gabriel had time to answer, another shape appeared in the doorway—Solomon, followed shortly after by Hiram and finally by Eliza. They were all as he remembered them. It was strange for them to be flesh and blood and standing before him, but they were unchanged from the images of his dreams and hopes. They looked up at him and took him in with disbelieving eyes—Gabriel, saddled and sitting on a silver horse, rifle and pistol at hand, hatted and tall. For the first time, the boy fully imagined the image he must cut. He felt a wave of shame wash over him. They would think . . . They would see him as . . . But he didn't even have time to shape the thoughts fully.

Eliza pushed between the others and stepped forward. She stared up at her son with a face that was guarded in its recognition, as if she saw and hoped but couldn't believe just yet. As she came closer, the sun brought out the sharp contours of her features. There were lines, not so fine anymore, around her eyes, and ribbons of gray touched her thick black hair. She ran a hand up over her forehead and tried to smooth down some of the unruly strands.

“Gabriel, I done gone hoarse from praying for you.”

Her voice was instantly familiar, although the boy wasn't sure how to read it, as frank a declaration as it was. He made to speak, but he didn't yet have the words. Only a few seconds had passed, but he wasn't even sure that he had heard her right, or that she had spoken at all.

The woman seemed to understand this. “We've just started eating,” she said. “There's a place at the table for you if you're inclined.” She let this sit in the air between them, but this was not enough either, and she knew it. She waited a second longer, then she stretched her arms out to him as if her feet were rooted to the ground but her arms could reach however far they had to. “Come here.”

It took the boy a moment to recognize her posture, so long had it been since he'd seen it. She stood thus as he slipped from the dun. His feet touched the earth, and his legs instantly went wobbly. In three strides he covered a lifetime of distance. With the first step he forgot that he was Gabriel the hunted. With the second he knew nothing but the nearness of his mother. And by that third step he was a child who'd just learned to stand. He fell into her embrace with a force that almost knocked the woman down. She wrapped her arms around him and whispered to him and soothed him as she would a baby. He didn't know when he began to cry, but at some point he realized his body was shaking with sobs. He felt the tears squeezing through his tight-shut eyelids and falling onto the warm shoulder of his mother, felt her hand brush his hat off and stroke his head, and heard her words soft and soothing in his ears. In the space of a few seconds, he was her child again.

THAT EVENING THEY SAT AROUND THE KITCHEN TABLE as Gabriel told his tale. He began with halting phrases and apologetic glances. The others prompted him cautiously. Eliza sat next to him, rubbing his hand and affirming his words with faint murmurs of understanding. Solomon made a pot of coffee. He fumbled with the small cups in his large hands. Hiram sat silent and attentive, an expression of troubled joy written on his face. And Ben stood near at hand, with undisguised awe in his large eyes.

Gabriel stumbled forward as if it were not only the tale but the words themselves that he needed to recall from the past. He told of the ride south in the wagon, of the men he rode with and the homesteads they passed. He told of the chain of events that broke the group up, of the long walk he and James made together, of the things that came to pass at McKutcheon's, of being twice shot at. He told of the wonder of the land across which he'd traveled, losing himself in the unpeopled landscape of his mind, creating a panorama of desolate expanses and flesh-covered mountains and temples carved in stone. He told of the gold. He let it be known that he had seen things he wished he never had and that people had been wronged greatly, some even to death, but he did not give details.

It was difficult, but manageable, to tell of those things. It was another thing altogether to find the right words to form the images that haunted him still. Ugly Mary and Rickles staring out at the rising sun, a deer impaled upon a living tree, smoke hanging in the air above Santa Fe, the sight of a homestead and a river glistening in the morning sun: of these things he didn't speak. Of friendships made and lost; of James and how he was betrayed; of Dunlop, whom he'd last seen bound and tied in the light of campfire; and of the girl, so abused, robbed of blood and history and kin: of these he did not speak, only bowed his head and prayed for the images to pass in silence.

Eliza watched him, both as he spoke and through his silences, and she never took her hand from his. By the time he finished, more than one pot of coffee had been consumed. He had told his tale incompletely, with great chunks left yawning with questions, but Gabriel felt more exhausted than ever before. It seemed the toil of all those days in fear had been relived in one evening, and he sat with his head heavy between his shoulders. The night had grown thick about them, and each member of the family was alive with questions. Most of these they held to themselves, either to keep safely unspoken or to ask at some later, gentler time. But some questions were too urgent to wait.

Ben swallowed before he spoke, a sound loud enough to warn the room of his intention. “Gabe? What's happened to James?”

Gabriel seemed pained by the question. He closed his eyes and his lips and then inhaled through his nose and exhaled his words. “I don't know. I couldn't bring him with me.” He opened his eyes. His gaze met his mother's, and something in the contact brought forth a flow of words, one fast upon another. He repeated that he hadn't been able to bring him. He had tried and he had wanted to, but James wouldn't have made it. He was in the water already. He was floating away, and Gabriel had only a second to make his choice. As quickly as his words came out, he lost composure. His lips worked and his forehead wrinkled into jagged lines and tears burst from his eyes. His words were twirling away, snapshots of thoughts and images that none in the room could follow.

Eliza pulled the boy close to her once more and held his head under her chin. She told him to let it go. “These things are past. Don't hold them too tight.” With her eyes she cautioned Ben to question his brother no further. “You just let them go and pray for the souls of the departed,” she said.

She held Gabriel until he pulled back and wiped the moisture from his face. He seemed to want to speak more, but he didn't. They sat in solemn thought for some time. Attempts at conversation went nowhere, and it wasn't until Eliza suggested bed for them all that Gabriel again found he had something that needed saying. He got up from the table and stepped outside and returned with a saddlebag. He unbuckled the bag and set it on the table.

“I've got more I should tell you,” he said. “I will, but . . . I can't say it all just yet. But you should maybe look at this.”

The others sat a moment looking at it, as if the worn leather somehow spoke volumes all by itself. Eventually Solomon reached out and emptied the contents onto the table. The gold bar made a strangely muted sound against the wood. It was less than spectacular in appearance, but still it took the collective breath out of the room.

Solomon gripped his jaw in his hands and massaged the tension there. This done, he whistled. “You rode off on the man's horse . . .”

Gabriel dropped his eyes to a dark space on the floor. “I didn't mean to. It was crazy that night. The horse just came to me.”

“A blessing and a curse both,” Hiram said. He seemed to have trouble controlling the lump in his throat. “I'll be damned.”

Ben stepped closer, the tip of his tongue protruding through his teeth as if he might touch it to the metal. “Man alive. That's gold? It don't even look that nice.” He reached a tentative hand toward the bar.

Eliza stopped him, saying, “You leave that where it lies, Ben.” Her gaze flicked up to Solomon, who seemed to have one eye on her and one on the gold at the same time. She again placed her hand on her son's and squeezed it. “Let's not forget what's happened today. We done got Gabriel back. He's walked along the valley of death, but he's come home.”

She allowed no more conversation. She said it was time for them all to sleep, and she carefully put the gold back into the saddlebag. They left it there on the table and went off to their troubled sleep, each trying to work out through dreams the questions that the morrow would bring.

GABRIEL WAS AWAKE BEFORE SUNRISE. He lay listening to the room around him. It seemed that the sounds of his sleeping kin were the most comforting noises in the world. He tried to remember a time when this had not been so, but it seemed impossible. How could he ever have wanted to be anyplace else? What's better than waking to the touch of your brother at your elbow? Or the sound of your stepfather's snoring? Or the rustle of the linen when your mother rolls over in her sleep? All of the closeness that had once seemed suffocating and wrong now seemed life-giving and so fundamentally right as to be unquestionable.

He heard Solomon rise before any of the others. He listened as the man dressed, following each motion betrayed by sound, from pulling on his thick overalls to sliding his feet into his boots and doing up the laces. The leather creaked as the boots grew tight, and Gabriel almost thought he could hear the protests of the man's gnarled fingers. Just after Solomon had slipped quietly through the door, Gabriel rose, dressed, and followed him out.

Although the western horizon lay gray and slatelike, the east was already growing light. The very rim of the eastern sky was tinted a tranquil turquoise. A lone bird called its greeting to the morning from the roof of the house, then darted for cover when Gabriel turned toward it. He couldn't see Solomon, and it took him a minute of listening to the prairie silence to locate the man. He found him hefting the slop bucket up onto the fence of the sow's enclosure.

Solomon paused when he saw the boy and said, “Morning.” Gabriel nodded his greeting and indicated that he would like to help. Solomon made it clear that he didn't have to. Actually, he said, it was normally Ben's job to feed the animals. He had just figured they could all use some rest, what with staying up late the previous night. Gabriel wasn't sure, but he thought he heard a backhanded bite to these words, as if Solomon would offer his generosity while reminding the boy of the disruption he had caused. His face betrayed no such double meaning, but the boy heard it all the same. Gabriel took the bucket from him and climbed into the pigpen.