Shadows

Don't really know what time it is. Late afternoon, I suspect. It has been about an hour since we left Rio Salinas behind and took up on the bank of the Rio Verde. The going is easy as we amble our way up toward the safety of Fort McDowell.

No one is talking all that much, except Seedling... who hasn't stopped talking since we came upon him. He is a constant flow of questions, answers, songs, and poems. None of them make too much sense. He seems content with the monologue. I get the feeling it's the same banter you would get from a bag lady or a man in an overcoat with a foil hat.

"We'd be there by now if we weren't waiting on this guy." Antonelli leads his mount along the shore as he gestures toward Seedling.
"Yeah, but at least he knows where he is going." I tell him.
"He said the river goes right by the Fort. What is there to know?"
"Pretty much everything, I guess." Lou adds as he walks up between us, the scattergun resting in the crook of his arm. "We gotta watch where we step. Our footprints don't belong here."

We pick through the rocky shore for several hours until we get to a bend in the river. There is a natural camp of sorts here where the river turns. It looks as though it is a regular stop on the road so to speak. Seedling stops in his tracks and takes a long stretch.
"Well, s'pose we ought to make camp, eh?" He gives ole' Bess a pat on the nose, as though it is just the two of them and the rest of us are just other voices in his head.

"Make camp?" Andy looks at his arm where his watch had been, then up at the sky for a beat. "It's still light out, for Christ sake."
"Only a fool waits for dark to set camp in these parts. Libel to set your bedroll on rattler or worse."

"Is he kidding?" Andy pulls on his dress where is has ridden up. "Bedroll? We don't even have clothes, or food. Spending any more time out here than we have to is
a stupid waste of time."

Seedling is unloading ole' Bess. Frying pan, bedroll, a banjo with no strings, a couple of flour sacks that he takes particular care that they don't end up in the dirt. He grabs a leather strapped canvas bag, like one you might find in a bank. He can't help but look over his shoulder at us for a moment, a suspicious squint in his eye. When he realizes we are all looking at him he turns sharply back to his business, leaving the canvas bag and grabbing some other junk he has strapped to the old donkey.

"You don't have to worry about us." I tell him. "We don't want your money."
He turns quickly, "Ain't gone none no how."
"Got any coffee?" Lou asks, resting his hands on his hips.
"Now that I got."

With Andy's objections voiced for most of us, still echoing off of the slight canyon we sit in, a fire is made and like moths to a flame we all find ourselves gathered around it in the waining light of day.

Sundown this time of year must be around seven or so. Before the coffee is done brewing we see the sunset. No one is talking much, except Seedling, who seems to carry on a constant conversation with Bess, taking his cue off of the flick of an ear or slap of a tail.
Each of us is involved in our own inner dialogue... questioning what has happened to us, what we are doing here, and how we will get back. Lou and I had a short discussion about Seedling. A miner... obviously, and we were in need of gold. Could it be this easy.

When the smell of coffee is thick in the air it is finished. Seed produces two metal cups, both of them patched in spots and filthy as hell.
"Don't you wash these?" Andy asks as Seed hands him one of the cups.
"Oooo, Fancy pants wants his cup washed." He slaps Andy on the back, "You ain't in the Ritz, fella. Take the first splash and swirl it around in there. That'll kill anything you're afraid of."

Seedling fills his cup, not about to wash it out, then splashes some in Andy's. Andy rolls his eyes and swirls the brew and then splashes it at Seedling's feet.
"Careful now, don't want you washin' off any of the stains on my boots."
He pours the cup full.
"You take your sip and pass it on." Seedling sits on a rock near the fire and rocks side to side for a moment until he finds a comfortable spot. He holds the brew between his leathered hands, not wasting the heat. When the cup passes to me I try the same, but it is way too hot.

The cup passes to Lou and he walks over to Seedling and squats down beside him.
"Tell me, Seed, where did you come from?"
"Born out Missouri way, north of Hannibal a spell. Come out by wagon two years past. Lost my brother to consumption just after we started working the... "
He stops and looks right at Lou, as though he has tried to part him with a family secret.
"Now I don't believe I'll take to all these questions." He stands, "You folks are the ones that should be answering questions."
"Seedling, you know our story." Lou tells him.
"Story... that's all it is. You ain't no priests. Not the way you all carry on, cussing up a storm. Specially that one in the dress. Mouth like a Teamster."

I can hear Andy tisk from the other side of the fire.

Lou takes the scattergun and rests it on Seedling's shoulder, which has an immediate calming effect... and an even better quieting effect.
"Where did you come from?"
"This is it, huh... you gonna rob me now?"
"No, goddamnit, we aren't going to rob you. We just need to know where you came from. Where do you work your claim."

Seedling pauses for a moment. You can almost hear the rusty wheels turning in his brain as he decides.
"Back down south a spell. No wheres you folks would know."
"Well, I tell you what." Lou grabs him by the collar and lifts him gently. "Let's take a look in that bag of yours."
Seed struggles a bit... coffee cup hits the ground.
"Now you done it."
Lou snaps him up a little harder.
"Okay, okay... don't get jumpy now. We can take a looksee."

Lou guides him over to Bess, who has been standing peacefully at the firelight's edge. Seedling opens the bank bag and peers in, "Can't see much. Best wait till daylight."
"I don't need to see anything. Just grab a some of it and hold it up."
"So you can snatch it?"
"Seed, I could have blown your head off and had the whole lot and the donkey too."

He pauses for a moment and then reaches in, pulling up a small cloth bag.
Lou turns his arm to the bag and I understand.
"Jake... come here."
I walk over and grab the gun from him.
"No, not that, just... do you feel anything?"
I present my chipped arm and try to discern any difference. "Nothing"
"Me neither."

"You fellars are a might queer. You ain't no thieves, I'll give you that."
Seedling replaces his gold and closes the bank bag. "Mind if we go back and finish our coffee."

We sit by the fire for a while longer. Seedling sings a little song to himself about trains, trying to lighten things up a bit. He sips his refilled cup of the black coffee. It is an aquired taste for our twenty-first century pallets. Once you are passed the bitterness and the grounds in every sip, the aftertaste reminds you that you are drinking coffee.

Lou starts in a quiet conversation with Ollie. Antonelli joins in for a moment and is sucked into the conversation. This leaves me, Andy, and Mike with Seedling. He rifles through one of the canvas sacks in the dirt and comes up with something wrapped in brown paper.
"Don't have quite enough for a belly full for each of ya, but enough to take the edge off."
He passes out a little slab to each of us, then stands and walks over to Lou and them and hands them each a piece.

I give it a sniff. It smells like something you might loose in the corner of your pocket for a week or two and then find it again. It is hard, smells a little smokey, and I assume it is meat.
"Buffalo jerky... never git tired of it." Seedling puts a corner of it in his mouth and starts sucking on it. "Once you soften her up it makes fir a mighty long chew."

There is marked silence as we all partake in the jerky. It is completely dark outside of the glow of the campfire. The horses are tied up to some scrub at the water's edge. There seems to be a lot of commotion. Rather than loose them to panick over a coyote or something, Lou and I take the shotgun and walk that way.

"Easy now... " Lou puts a hand out in the dark and finds the withers of one of the mounts. I do the same and find a muzzle for a moment, then some reigns which I hold steady. Just then there are splashes in the water up river from us. We watch from the darkness as seven riders make there way into camp.

"Uh oh." Lou whispers, hiding in the darkness beyond the horses. I join him and we both watch.

The riders don't dismount. They pound into camp, guns drawn. The boys freeze where they are. Seedling stands, hands up... more in the way of welcome than surrender. I can hear pistols cock, a shotgun is brandished and pointed at Seedling. The boys stand, each of them paired off with an appropriate firearm being held on them from horseback. The outlaw on Seedling gets off his horse and proceeds to rob our man of his bank bag and two pistols that ole' Bess had been hiding for him.

Mike looks our way more than once, awaiting rescue I can only presume. There are too many of them for a double barrel shotgun. Better they think there are only five. Mike's constant peering into the darkness at us doesn't go unnoticed. One of the men starts toward our position. We step out into the river and lay on our bellys.

"Found three good horses." The man calls out, jumping down off of his mount to gather the reigns of our three horses. He hops back in the saddle and leads the horses back to camp.

We can hear Seedling pleading with them not to take Bess. They don't. But they take pretty much everything else. As an after thought on their way out they spot the pile of robes.

"Hold it."
The gang slow their horses, then stop.
"What do we have here?"
One of the men dismounts and yanks the robes out of the Clarok. As he uncovers it, Ollie makes a move and catches a rifle butt to the side of the head, knocking him to his knees.

"Looks like a fancy bowl of some kind."
In the dark it doesn't look like much. I am hoping that when they try to lift it they will leave it behind.

"Ox, get over here."
A huge man in a duster rides back from the departing gang and dismounts, gathers up the Clarok, and they all ride off up river.

"Oh SHIT. GODDAMN FUCKING LUCK ANYWAY." Andy is in rare form tonight.

We rejoin the camp, wet and cold. After explaining the strategy of keeping ourselves hidden, we field a flurry of questions from the boys. How, where, when, they all depend on first light and our ability to track.