Nowhere Ch. 15 - From Nowhere to Nothing

Virgil sat for two days while the strange grass around him died in the heat. At night he slept on the ground and in the daytime he sat once again. At some point, he remembered not when, he unhitched the horses from the wagon and hobbled them. When he drank the last of the water from his canteen they had crowded close, pitiful with dehydration. It was only his sympathy for the horses that got him up and moving again. Where the well had once been in the town of Grantham, he found the barest seep of water. It was muddy and brackish, but when he dug it out it refilled gradually. When the horses had drunk, he strained muddy water through his neckerchief into a canteen. On the next day, he heard the lowing of cattle and soon cowboys drove a herd into view. These were some of the hands from the Bar D, and their north herd. They looked at Virgil's face and saw their madness mirrored in his eyes. They asked him where the town had gone and Virgil told him that he did not know, but that it had taken his family with it. They told him how they had awoken to find the other bunkhouse, the corrals, barns, and ranch house missing. And all the other hands and the Burdocks. "I had wife and children," said Virgil. No one spoke after that. They sat a long time as the afternoon turned to night, bereft of an explanation. Finally, the setting sun moved some of the cowboys to go out in search of firewood. As one of them saddled up he asked, "if this isn't Grantham, then what is this place?" Virgil said, "Nowhere." "Hunh,” said the cowboy, “a town called Nowhere,” and rode on. The Cowboys stayed that night, slaughtering one of the beeves for dinner. Virgil got some flour from his wagon and they had steak and biscuits. Even though his heart was broken and he was adrift in a cruel world that he could not force to make sense, the easy way of the Cowboys lifted his spirits. They were free and unencumbered by family or attachment. They joked and sang and carried on as young men always had. And their pranks and cocky banter brought a smile to Virgil's face. In the morning, they rode back north to graze the herd. They said they'd get through the calving and the fattening, then drive the herd to the railhead in Tucson, sell the stock and head their separate ways. What would Virgil do, they wondered? He had no answer for them. He did not know himself. As they rode off, the youngest said, "Put up a saloon in this town of Nowhere and we’ll visit more often.” Virgil thought long and hard about what he could do. Could he give his old life up for lost -- be as accepting and carefree as those Cowboys? Maybe he could head down to Mexico. Hell, he might drift back to Bisbee, and kill Fetterman just for the enjoyment of it. In this incomprehensible situation, he could see how Fetterman was the reasonable person to blame. If that shifty b*****d had honored his contract, Virgil would've been in town when whatever had happened had happened. He would still be with Laura and Mac and Pen. It hurt to think of them. It hurt to close his eyes at night and see their sweet faces. Hear their squeals of delight, and Laura's whisper in his ear. Remember the light in Mac's eye when he looked up at him with pride, even though Virgil knew the boy would feel differently if he knew the truth of his father's past. He vowed he would be with them again, no matter what it took. What if they were dead? He shook his head to rid himself such an evil thought. They lived yet, he could feel it. With furious anger, he willed it to be so. For if they were dead, where were the bodies? But then, where hadthey gone? And how have they managed to take the buildings with them? The questions circled endlessly in spirals. Where were the people? Where were the buildings? But where were the people? But where were the buildings? The next day he was sick of drinking muddy water, and even sicker of questions that had no answers. He spent all day gathering wood. That night he made a bonfire. The smoke from the fire rose straight into the air, up to the cold and indifferent stars that twinkled down on one man's problems from so impossibly far away. He remembered an old Indian and the smoke of another fire in the Oklahoma Territory years ago. After Chickamauga, he had fallen in with guerrilla fighters. Murderous men who fought from ambush and showed no mercy. Virgil had wanted to have done with the war, but it wasn't safe to ride the lawless territories alone. But since a man named Grundy had deserted their rough company he had spend more and more time thinking about it. The rumor had gone around the camp that Grundy had been a Union spy. Virgil had thought nothing of it, there were a million rumors in war and this was just one more. Bill Crawford, the leader of the 5th Arkansas Irregulars had taken a different view. They had ridden a day out of their way, deep into the mountains, to an abandoned Indian encampment. Abandoned except for one old man, living in a badly patched army tent. The old Indian stood in the door of his tent and said nothing as they rode up. From his horse Crawford said, "I know you're not a good Christian man, but it doesn't seem too much to ask for a word of greeting." "I thought maybe you had come to shoot me, so I wasn't wasting my breath," said the Indian. Crawford acted like he was genuinely hurt by this, even though they were, for all intents and purposes, a band of outlaws. He asked, "Now why would you think such a thing?" The old Indian shrugged and said, "that's what happened to everyone else," indicating the crumbling wigwams and the abandoned fire rings of the settlement. "I thought maybe they left on account of your poor manners,” Crawford said. The Indian shook his head sadly and said, "They are still here. You see the wildflowers?" And only then did they notice the patches of brilliant color scattered throughout the settlement. Bright mounds where the prairie had grown up into and around the bodies of the fallen. "Jesus Christ, why do you stay here?" With a strange light in his eye, the old Indian said, “It’s quiet here and I hope the spirits will come visit.” Uncomfortable with this whole line of questioning Crawford got to it. "They told me you track men." "I send after them, I don't go get them." And then Crawford nodded and they talked price. When the Indian had settled his fee he nodded again, as if resigning himself to an unpleasant task, and gathered sticks. None of the Arkansas Irregulars helped him. They all watched, most smoking pipes, laying on the ground, but none speaking. The old Indian made a fire and the smoke from it rose in a thin line. He muttered to himself in Cherokee, then turned to the white man and said, "not enough smoke." He walked into the abandoned village and soon came back with more wood and a handful of moldy rags that had once been a tunic. He built up the fire and threw the damp fabric on top. Soon smoke roiled from the blaze. Then the old Indian asked for an article of clothing from the man Crawford wish to hunt. Crawford handed him a battered hat that Grundy had left behind when he fled. The Indian cut a strip of the felt and added it to the foul-smelling blaze. Then he began to chant. The smoke formed into a dense column that rose straight into the sky. So high that it hurt Virgil's neck to seek the top of it. Then, as if a wind had sprung up, the smoke curved off to the southeast, but Virgil felt no breeze. Crawford looked at Virgil and said, “You stay here and watch him. See he doesn't put out the fire and run off.” Virgil nodded. It was OK with him, he'd always liked Grundy. Well, at least as much as he had liked any of these boys. The Irregulars rode on and Virgil sat down. When old Indian stopped chanting Virgil pulled his gun and asked, “Don't you have to keep that up?" The Indian said, “No, that's not how it's done. The chanting is mostly for show, so the secret can't be stolen by a rival tribe or evil shaman. That kind of thing. But there are hardly any more tribes and no more sha… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit patrickemclean.substack.com