Ian and Bruce McDuff did not trust white people. Ian was seventeen and Bruce was thirteen but they still smarted when they thought of the time eight years ago when their father had decided that their isolated mountain man way of life was not what he wanted for his sons. They were bright boys and the need for isolation was not what it had been in his youth. His boys must learn to live in society. He had taught Ian to read and Bruce showed signs of having a quick mind so Fergus McDuff decided to send them to school in Carson City. It had been a cruel and traumatic experience.
Fergus McDuff had not become a father until he was sixty years old. All the plans of his youth, all the dreams he’d had for coming to America, had evaporated in an unpropitious instant. He had arrived in New York City only six weeks before he was forced to make a choice: either fight or be killed. A drunken youth, no more than eighteen or nineteen, had ridiculed Fergus’s thick Scottish brogue.
Fergus, twenty-six at the time, had made himself a peaceful man. After he had grown to manhood, he was a champion at the caber toss, and highly respected for his strength. As a child, however, his tremendous size and strength had frightened him. He would hurt other children in what to Fergus was simply boyish roughhouse play. He had a very tender heart and those unintended injuries grieved him deeply. He was probably about twelve when he resolved never to play rough or fight again. One of the reasons he left his native land was to avoid the constant pressure from his friends to join one of the anti-English movements. He chafed under English rule as much as any other Scot, but his faith, his fear of his own strength, and his personality, did not allow him to believe war and fighting was the solution to the problem.
Fergus tried to ignore and walk away from his antagonist but the bully would not be appeased. He stood, blocking Fergus’s path. His drunken friends circled Fergus so that there was no way to avoid a confrontation.
Fergus said, “I’m sorry I offended you,” but that only bought more taunts. He saw that talking would do no good. He pushed the bully aside only to feel the sting of the blade of a knife as it ripped through his heavy coat and make a shallow cut in his back. Fergus turned to face the bully and the knife. The boy was small. Fergus knew that his reach would allow him to strike a blow and remain out of the reach of the knife.
He caught his tormentor on the cheek and he went down. Fergus ran. After a short distance he realized that he was not being followed and thought the incident to be over. The newspaper the next day, however, indicated that it was not over. It would completely change his life.
The headline read, Police Captain’s Son Murdered by Scottish Ruffian. The story in no way reflected what had actually happened. Fergus assumed that the boy had fallen on his knife when he was knocked down, but the drunken friends had created a story in which Fergus was the instigator who had savagely stabbed their defenseless friend as he had pleaded for his life. Fergus knew he must leave the city. The social status of the boy, the lies of his friends, and his own lack of witnesses would surely mean the gallows were he to surrender to the police.
Fergus headed west. In western Pennsylvania, his size and his willingness got him work as an assistant to a wagon master who was taking a train all the way to California. Fergus, however, did not make it to California. Soon after they hit the Rockies, he met an old recluse, a mountain man who held to the old life even though the market for furs was no longer what it had been before 1840. Fergus was not interested in getting rich. He wanted only to survive, and when at all possible, to avoid conflict. He decided the mountain life was right for him.
For twenty-five years he roamed the mountains. He learned quickly and soon was a successful trapper. Because of the debauched lifestyle of the few remaining mountain men, he remained somewhat aloof. He had no trouble with the Indians because they believed him to be a god or at least some supernatural being. No man, they thought, could be that big and that strong.
The best trapping, of course, was in the cold north. He trapped the mountains from the Canadian Rockies, through what are now Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Though the beaver hat was no longer the style in the east, there was still some market for furs. Not being a carouser, he saved his money. At fifty, when the winter cold caused his joints to ache so that for several days at a time he was forced to remain in camp, he knew that it was time to move south. If, as he had heard, the skins in the southern mountains would not bring enough to stake a man through the next winter, he had enough money to keep him as he was accustomed for the rest of his life.
But he did no more trapping. He wasn’t looking for it but he stumbled across a silver deposit, staked a claim, and worked it just enough to provide for himself. He had no interest in getting rich, and even though he would move to lower altitudes in the cold weather, he could not use his legs or his arms for extended periods of time. He really didn’t know how much silver he had but for ten years it provided for his meager needs with no more effort required than he could put forth.
The Paiute in the southern mountains reacted to him as did the northern Indians. They were at first afraid and tried to avoid him. But those of the tribe who accidentally came into contact with him found him to be kind and generous. Slowly the Indians lost their fear of the man and some began to seek his company.
Fergus found that he enjoyed these contacts. For twenty five years he had avoided human contact but now he realized how much he had missed it and how much he needed it. He became a regular and welcome visitor to the Paiute village.
He was not aware of the tribe’s reverence for him. It was his nature to be kind and generous and, when his physical condition allowed, helpful. That was his way of living and he thought nothing of it. The tribe, however, saw it differently. He gave of himself freely and that kind of gift must be repaid. Fergus was stunned when, at a ceremony in his honor, he was presented with that gift of repayment, the beautiful eighteen-year-old granddaughter of the chief.
Fergus knew that it would be the highest of insults if he were to refuse the gift. He also saw in the girl an eagerness to go with him. He could have just owned her but he insisted that she be made his wife in an Indian ceremony.
He asked that the traditional Indian wedding feast be delayed until the next day, and left the village with his new wife as soon as the ceremony was over. They rode into Carson City to the church. In his mind it was not right to live with this woman unless they had a Christian marriage. It took some persuasion but finally the parson agreed to marry them.
They grew to love each other deeply. Before the first year was out, Ian was born. A part of his life that Fergus had thought was taken from him that awful night in New York City was finally given to him. He had a wife and son who loved him and whom he loved deeply. When they were blessed with a second son, Fergus wept out his thankfulness to God. He believed, as he had been taught as a child, that all things were ordained and controlled by God and he thought how good of God to allow him to know all those years of empty loneliness so that he could so fully enjoy the love of wife and children.
When the boys told Fergus of the cruel ridicule of the other children and even many adults, Fergus took them from school and continued his sons’ education at home. He was disappointed that they could not, as he had as a child, enjoy relationships with friends of their own age, but he would not subject them to the name calling of the town. They were children of God, not half-breeds or dirty savages. Because their mother and they had adopted their father’s religion, they were not particularly welcome in the Paiute village. They were well loved at home, and home became their world.
That world was severely shaken when their father died. His life had become one of ever increasing pain. His hands began to twist into grotesque claw-like things and his elbows, wrists and knees, swollen and red, were painful even when not in use, and excruciating when needed or even simply touched. For several months before he died, he could not walk. His wife and sons carried him to the places he needed to be. The body that had once inspired awe and fear became frail and weak. Death came from pneumonia and was welcomed even by those whose tears of anguish flowed so freely. Their love for the man would not allow them to pray for life when that life would be nothing but pain.
For two years the boys lived, desperately missing their father but basking in the love and security of their mother. As had their father, they took only the silver they needed and had arranged with a crusty old mountain man to go into town whenever supplies were needed. Simon Freeland lived higher up the mountain, disdained modern society and money, but, like their father, had become too feeble to support himself. He ate little and smelled as if he had worn the same suit of buckskins for forty years. The boys thought it very much worth the little of their silver he spent on himself so that they would not have to go into the hatred and ridicule of the town.
Ian continued Bruce’s education but had run out of new things to teach him after about a year. Fergus had taught Bear Woman to read but the only reading material available was Fergus’s old, worn Bible. It was read and reread both for its content and for the practice. Their knowledge of mathematics was limited to ciphering and what they had deduced regarding the use of those skills from the demands of their lifestyle. They were happy. They had their mother and each other, enough to eat and to keep them covered and warm. They knew of nothing else so, as far as they knew, they had everything.
Shortly before his father’s death, Ian’s body began to make some demands that he did not understand, that made him feel that he did not have everything. Something—he did not know what—was missing. His father explained that those new feelings and demands were part of every man and were to be met only with a wife, Christian married. Ian was told that perhaps he would never find a wife. The Paiute had become unwilling to allow their women to marry a Christian. To them, Christians were double-tongued, stole their land, and would kill Indians for no apparent reason. Ian himself could not foresee even the most remote possibility that he would go among whites to find a wife. Perhaps he would never have a wife, and that thought pained him. But perhaps also, he would be like his father and God would give him a wife when He felt like it.
Ian envied Bruce his childhood. Bruce could still be completely happy with the world he knew. Ian’s body pulled at him to expand his. He knew that Bruce soon would also feel that pull, that restlessness, but he said nothing. Let Bruce have his perfect world. Time and his body would soon enough tell him that it was not completely perfect.
But the imperfection of the world came in a way that neither boy had ever considered. Bear Woman, their mother, the very sun around which their world revolved, took a fever. For several days no one was concerned. Fevers had come and gone all their lives. Bear grease and fever ferns would take care of the problem as they always had.
But they didn’t. Bear Woman grew hotter and weaker. She talked crazy. Sometime she thought Ian was Fergus and sometime she thought he was her father. She could not eat and even the water they gave her did not stay down. She was dying. They knew that but they could not let it happen.
Fergus had once gone into Carson City to see if a white man called Doc Bloom could help him. Fergus had explained that doctors knew what caused many illnesses and how to cure them but they did not know what caused people to ache and twist and swell so they could not stop Fergus from dying. The boys needed to know if the fever in their mother was one of the illnesses that Doc Bloom could cure.
They had to get him but he was white. He would curse them and call them vile names and chase them away. But their mother was dying and curses and vile names were not important now and, anyway, a white man probably would not curse a half-breed who was pointing a gun at him.
The boys had used guns since they were old enough to understand how to properly use them. Both had become expert shots with a rifle and had provided food. Like all young boys they were fascinated by their father’s side arm. He had taught them how to use it and both were adequate shots with the heavy six-shooting colt. But that gun was never used. It had been important in the dangers of the northern mountains when one had to have something quicker and more convenient to grab than the heavy, awkward rifle. Their present life, however, did not demand quick protection, and Fergus had stressed over and over that no gun was ever to be used against a man.
The heavy old colt had not been used for years. After having shot it a few times under Fergus’s supervision, the boys lost interest. It was too heavy and, from the boys’ point of view, useless. Its range and the boys’ lack of skill with it, made it worthless for hunting game.
Ian had to look for several minutes to find it. Without really looking at it he strapped on the old gun belt and walked down the mountain. If he had to, he’d go into town but only if he had to. He hid himself by the trail that led into town. Several men rode by in the saddle but all of them were wearing side arms. A family in a wagon passed but Ian wanted nothing to do with white children.
Finally a solitary man in a buggy came toward him, his horse at a slow trot. Ian stepped into the road but kept the gun hidden behind him. The man stopped and in the only English he knew, that thick Scottish brogue of his father’s, Ian asked, “Do ye ken Doc Bloom?”
The man did not answer but puzzled at the boy’s question. He had heard that mode of speech before but for the moment where and when eluded him. Ian asked again, this time with a feigned severity that belied his trepidation. “Do ye ken Doc Bloom?”
The man in the buggy brightened. Fergus McDuff, that’s where he had heard that brogue, and he just as quickly interpreted the question. This had to be one of Fergus McDuff’s boys and he was asking if he knew Doc Bloom. Indeed he did. “I’m Doc Bloom,” Harvey answered.
Ian gave him no chance to say more. He pointed the gun at Harvey’s head. “Mum’s down wit a fever and the bear grease and fever fern wilna work. Tie your horse, get wa ye need and come wit me.”
Harvey saw both determination and fear in the boy and it was that ambivalence that caused Harvey to do as he was told. Harvey knew people, and it was obvious that, for this young man, this was not a normal behavior pattern. The boy was afraid of what he was doing but it was more than that. The boy’s eyes and demeanor showed fear, but Harvey also saw deep anxiety and distress. Harvey both pitied and feared the boy. He knew that when one is operating in the unfamiliar, impulse, not reason, tends to determine action.
Harvey did not talk. Anything could trigger a rash impulse in this frightened boy. With gestures Harvey was told to follow a steep and rugged footpath. After what was probably a two-mile climb they reached their obvious destination, a well constructed and neatly kept log cabin that the exhausted Harvey had no idea existed. Harvey was not as aware of his exhaustion as he might have been. He was more occupied with his surprise. He thought he knew every house in the area.
Ian motioned toward the door with the gun. As they entered, Bruce was standing directly across from the door, the rifle aimed at Harvey. Harvey immediately saw the reason for his kidnapping. He went to the bed where Bear Woman lay. Ian’s voice quivered, on the verge of tears, “She’s a Indian but she my mum. I know ye whites hate Indians but ye got to make her well. If ye don’, I’ll kill ye.”
“Ian, Papa said donna’ ever use a gun against a man. He’d blister ye could he hear ye talken’ that way.”
Now Ian broke down and sobbed. “Bruce, this is no time for a wee lad to be givin’ advice. She all we got. We talked it over. We can’t go back to the Paiute and we not gonna have the whites callin’ us half-breeds and dirty savages. I’m near a man but taken’ care of ye, scares me. I’m na sure I know enough to do it right. We can’t let him let Mum die, and he’s white. He would if I let him so it’s best he knows if she dies, he dies.”
Even in the horror of the moment, Bruce was offended at being called a wee lad. “I’m not a wee lad. Ye turned a man when ye was almost fifteen. I’ll be fourteen soon and then I’ll be a man. I donna’ need ye talken’ care o’ me.”
“Bruce, just donna’ talk. Ye just turned thirteen and ye heard Papa say havin’ the body of a man donna’ make ye one. I might sound like a man when I talk but I donna’ feel like one. We can’t let Mum die.”
Now both boys were crying and Harvey began to relax. He believed that when it came right down to it, Ian could not kill him, but the situation was still dangerous. He must choose his words carefully and explain each move before he made it.
“Boys, I’m going to open my bag and get some things I need. Why do you think that I’d let your mama die because she’s an Indian?”
“Our papa sent us to school in Carson City when I was nine and Bruce was five. We know how white people think about Indians.”
“Wasn’t your daddy white?”
“Yes, but he was Scotch white and they be kind and gentle.”
“My mother came from Scotland. I’m half Scotch just like you are.”
That confused Ian. He didn’t know what to say so again feigned severity and said, “Donna’ talk. Just see that my mum donna’ die.”
Harvey didn’t blame the boys. They had reason to be very frightened, but in that condition, intentional or impulsive, they might do something rash. Harvey had to bide his time and watch for a chance to escape. There was nothing he could do for Bear Woman. She had been dead when he arrived. Harvey continued to dab her forehead with cool water Bruce had brought him and wait for the boys to tire or to be willing to talk. After four hours, neither had happened.
Copyright © 2003 Gordon L. Klopfenstein