“Yes, I am.”
He stood beside me for a moment and said, “Your mother and I used to walk into the desert at night. We loved it, and loved our time together. “Long ago, before the Indians who live here now, there were other people. Perhaps they went away, or maybe they died or were driven out by these Indians’ ancestors, but they are gone. Yet sometimes I am not sure they are gone. I think sometimes their spirits are still around, in the land they loved. “Each people has its gods, or the spirits in which they believe. It may be their god is the same as ours, only clothed in different stories, different ideas, but a god can only be strong, Hannes, if he is worshiped, and the gods of those ancient people are lonesome gods now.
“They are out there in the desert and mountains, and perhaps their strength has waned because nobody lights fires on their altars anymore. But they are there, Hannes, and sometimes I think they know me and remember me. “It is a foolish little idea of my own, but in my own way I pay them respect. Sometimes, when crossing a pass in the mountains, one will see a pile of loose stones, even several piles. Foolish people have dug into them, thinking treasure is buried there. It is a stupid idea, to think a treasure would be marked so obviously.
“It is an old custom of these people to pick up a stone and toss it on the pile. Perhaps it is a symbolical lightening of the load they carry, perhaps a small offering to the gods of the trails. I never fail to toss a stone on the pile, Hannes. In my own way it is a small offering to those lonesome gods. “A man once told me they do the same thing in Tibet, and some of our ancient people may have come from there, or near there. Regardless of that, I like to think those ancient gods are out there waiting, and that they are, because of my offerings, a little less lonely.”
When I climbed into the wagon, Miss Nesselrode was sitting up, and Mrs. Weber was also. Fraser was lying half on his side, still trying to sleep. Fletcher seemed not to have moved from where he sat. He stared at me, then looked away irritably. He did not like me, but then, he did not seem to like anybody. My father got into the wagon at the last and sat near the back. Nobody talked. Some of us dozed. We were descending slowly, and we had been told it would be hot. The sun came up and the coolness disappeared. Fraser hesitated, then with a mumbled apology took off his coat. After a bit, Fletcher did likewise, and unbuttoned his vest.
“It’s below sea level down there,” Fraser said suddenly. “One of the hottest, driest places in North America.”
Nobody answered him. He mopped his face, and then he said, “It used to be an old sea bottom, or maybe the bottom of a lake.”
My father looked around at him. “When we get down a little further,” he said, “you can see the beach line along the edge of the mountains. There are seashells there, some of them thin as paper, and they almost crumble in your hands.” “But surely,” Miss Nesselrode said, “that was a very long time ago?” “A very long time,” my father said, “yet the Indians have memories of it. They say the basin has filled up five times within their memory. There is even a rumor of a Spanish vessel that came in through a channel from the Gulf of California, a channel opened by a sudden break when the sea poured in. However, when the ship could find no way out, it returned, to find the channel blocked, and it was trapped.”
“What happened?” Mrs. Weber asked.
“The crew were killed by Indians, the ship drifted, hung up somewhere, and was buried in the sand. At least, such is the story. Of course, according to the story, it was loaded with treasure.”
“Nobody found it?” Fletcher asked.
“Not yet. At least there’s been no report of it being found.” “There might be something to it,” Miss Nesselrode suggested. “Did not the Spanish believe California was an island? The crew evidently hoped to sail around the other end.”
“It is possible.”
“Treasure?” Fletcher muttered. “A shipload of it?” “That could be,” my father said, “but I doubt it. Some pearls, perhaps, as they had just come up the gulf, where there were pearls and pearl-fishing. I cannot think why they would be carrying treasure and going away from Mexico.” “Maybe they were stealin’ it. Maybe they just wanted it for themselves,” Fletcher suggested.
“In any event,” my father said, “the area that was once underwater is very large. It would be there or along the shores somewhere.” “Betcha some of them Injuns know where it is,” Fletcher consented. He turned his eyes on my father. “They tell me you know them Injuns. They might tell you where it is.”
“They might,” my father said. “Indians have their own ways of thinking, and many of the things important to us are not at all important to them. Also, they might not think it safe to tell another white man where Indians had killed white men.” “Scare ‘em into tellin’,” Fletcher suggested.
Fraser looked at him contemptuously. “From what I have heard,” he said, “Indians do not scare easily.”
It was growing hotter by the minute. “It’s mighty hot,” Farley told my father, “but I want to get to the mountains. Once we get to Agua Caliente, we can hole up. Stay a couple of days, if need be.” He paused. “Do you know the place?” “I do. It is likely you’ll find some Cahuillas camped there.”
“I never knew them to be trouble.”
“They are not, if you respect them and their ways,” “They the ones who helped you?”
“One of the tribes. The Luisenos and Chemehuevis did also.” There was no more talk. It was very hot, and I tried to sleep. The wagon rocked, rolled, and rumbled, dragging through sand, bumping over rocks, sliding down banks.
After several hours Doug Farley stopped the wagon and gave a small amount of water to each of the horses.
Fletcher raised up on his elbow at the sound of water being poured. “How about some of that for me?”
“Sorry. We’ll have no water until we cross the desert.” Fletcher sat up, grumbling, but Farley paid no attention. Fraser pulled his skinny knees closer and tried to write. Mrs. Weber dabbed at her nose with a flimsy handkerchief, and Miss Nesselrode simply leaned her head back and closed her eyes.
Nobody talked, nobody wanted to talk; they just sat. “Oven!” Fletcher said suddenly. “It’s like an oven!”
Mrs. Weber fanned herself with her hat. She had removed it at last, and her hair was drawn tight to her skull except for buns over each ear. Her hair was parted in the middle, and she looked more than ever like a tired bulldog. Miss Nesselrode opened her eyes to look toward Farley, who sat on the driver’s seat. I had not noticed before how large her eyes were. She caught me looking at her, and with a perfectly straight face, she winked. I jumped. It was so unexpected, and I had never seen a lady wink before, although Papa sometimes did. But her wink from such a straight face was so droll that I had to smile, then I grinned, and she smiled back, then closed her eyes. I decided I really liked Miss Nesselrode.
It was almost dark inside the wagon when my father sat up. I had been asleep, and so had most of the others. Jacob Finney was driving the team, and Farley was sitting in the very front of the wagon behind him, his eyes closed. “We’re comin’ up to Indian Wells,” Jacob said over his shoulder. “Hear the place started as a spring, but the water level kept falling. Now they have to go down steps to get to it.”
It was cool now. It was as if the heat had never been. Mrs. Weber put her hat on, and both Fraser and Fletcher put on their coats, but not before I saw that Mr. Fletcher carried a small derringer in his vest pocket. Later, when we had stopped and were alone, I told my father.
“Good!” He squeezed my arm. “You are observant. I like that, and it is important.”
“It is on the left side,” I said, “and the butt is turned toward the left.”
“Oh?” He paused a moment. “Now, that is interesting. The butt toward the left?
That I had not noticed.”
Nine
It was after midnight when we stopped at Indian Wells. My father climbed from the back of the stage, staggering a little.