CHAPTER TWO:
SOJOURNERS
And as the second day of travel broke behind the brothers somewhere back in the decaying hours distantly the town of Baardaan went about its business. Rueben and Leonard Rockstone tied their packs and took to saddle and first began going west on the Ides of November. Mayor Knight had been assumed to office but no significant change had undergone, and nearly all other members kept their seats, except the Dogcatcher seat war open and Virgil Dean Haymaker, childhood friend of Rueben, won against Jack Greogouirre, who war 35 years his senior and not seen as spry enough for the office. Virgil war happy to be employed by the city after things went south for the Haymakers.
Food war plentiful and the bees seemed to cast a fortune of an easy winter. All the town war at peace on the prairie taking care of their own, getting by, by and by, Sweet Lord by and by, those frontier people got by and took to the erth in the springtime, but there were fires to burn in Baardaan, fires that everyone had to burn through the cold that had fixed to settle upon them, but incorrigibly the narration shall follow, for a time, not eternally, the two of whom war entrusted the venture of finding a certain Native American, whom they did just so happen to have found a bill of marriage with the names of mother and child written on the back of the picture and upon the deed what they found behind the picture of George Washington what war on the wall, behind the desk of the late Mayor Gower.
The venture of Rueben and Leonard war given an allowance from the First Bank of Baardaan from Solomon Gower's account as Rudolf Knight and Sam explained what war what to the Gardner brothers, local Lawyers, to look for a man named Ezekiel, the man what they were looking for: Ezekiel Skylark, whose mother war Her Spirit is with the Wind.
And the town would give the two brothers their blessing and the two brothers left town with the faith of a mustard seed that they'd find him, but they were looking for him, them, though fair to say their minds were more preoccupied with the man, for they, both the boys, before they left, were instructed by their mother: "If you find him and he has a mother or a wife, then you treat her like me and let her ride and you can walk, both of you."
And no amount of arguing could convince Mrs. Rockstone otherwise so she war resolved in spite of the fact the boys were given enough money to buy horses and a wagon once they war out west, so both boys, they resolved again to hope they either wouldn't find anyone at all as they rode deeper and deeper, or could find horses, or perhaps they would find just the man, Ezekiel…
…The rabbits ran through the tall grass, and Rueben had to level the head of his brown mustang straight on on and on. He thought he'd see prairie dogs soon, but no, on the left and right of Rueben's horse war tall, tall grass and only rabbits, up ahead and behind. Rueben the younger, and Leonard the elder by 38 moons, rode west, into the sunset after setting out in the sunrise and as the heat set in on them during the days and they'd see the big gentle clouds and mentally block the sun with them, the metallic moon with magnesium wispy clouds in the nightly milky way (wasted energy) hope to see the sun pass them up from the morning run, up over their shoulders and out, far casted over the horizon where the purple and pink majestic hues warsh the blue sky into the night and they'd make camp to rest for the morrow war another day what there were warm winds what blew pleasantries, what pleasant memories kissing the apple cheeks of the two ruddy young men whose hearts both sank and rose with the hills.
Grizzled, grim the wind swept many-a-time sternly cross the brows as the days passed into late and the heads turned to auger against the foe, but west they rode and spared few words one to another in any way of interest.
Ruminating in the stomachs of all the Autumn and the late Indian Summer sweeping back away the Dakotan air with a shaky hand spilling all the burnt leaves, the first generation, and the dead bedding grass: the cold light of day, the dreaded cold late evenings biting the necks of their horses and the shins and thighs of the Rockstone boys as though painted in distant hills of Judea the warmth touched the milky thighs of roes, hinds; the reds and oranges on the ground, dead on the ground for now. The trees began to approach them as the Rockstone boys come to the Missori Valley, reminding them of home, the lows, for a stretch there had been seldom a landmark, the leaves already fallen but the leaves brittle under the hooves of horses other than of their horses, for the prairie is a sparse land in many ways, sparse, but also not plentiful except for the tall waves of grass, and the deer nestled upon the chilly knolls, the sunken valleys, river valleys there were hills upon hills of rolling prairie grass to ride to the final bluff.
The horses with the pad and saddle between them and their rider above that patrician, cut under with deer-trails, raccoon-paths, footswitch, switch foot, dry dirt clods and the sort, (fine riding actually,) (though horses know what been on the trail before them, and they leave a marker to say they were here, in larger clumps) in most parts, and the Rockstone boys came across the hills west, ever west, the only ways they knew where to go, and south, sometimes, South and West, but it war a stair-step, stair-stagger, winding windy wind path, inhale; exhale, a slow creep across the prairie and took a lot of time to get through wide wild world, but soon they spotted seagulls and they knew they neared the great Missori River after fifteen or sixteen days, they had lost count…
…The two took time to rest and make fire on the east side of the river one night. For them and them's horses, and when they looked took to the bluff and set their eyes upon the Missori River, they took labor planning the crossin of the Missori, but it war aways down from its mighty springtime glory, it war, but it war still the Missori River, and they crossed it unto the other-side for to cut through South and West towards them Black Hills. They knew an eagle-eyed layout of ware they war, but they kept out of reach of civilization trusting in their packs and what war unknown. Across the Missori war the border. They had gone south and met the border of Missori Bed County. To the north war Standing Rock I. T. and beyond Missori Bed county they'd lean into the weather and cross into Gates County, hoping to find New Town, the county seat and that is where they would be amble and able to get their bearings under them…
…And then them rises and bluffs started again and they knew they war well up and out the Missori Bed, but it soon war plains and them hills were in the far off. Long grassy hills, but the mind drew sketches of stretches upon hilltops and rocky spires (they'd heard) distantly where the eye(s) spans, spinning earth from end to end on its good ear, their backs to the east except in the morning to see the sunlight dancing upon their eyelashes, the Rockstone boys woke each day for a small breakfast or a little coffee from stirrin up the ashes of the nightly fire whilst their horses ate at the grass and had the Missori water to drink just as the Rockstones, and the climbed up out the other side into the west, their eyes reaching Gates County.
The yips and howls of coyotes could be heard in far off forests as the camp fire crackled, but they were at play and distantly at play at that. The two were not fazed much by the sound, aware, but only a hair or two would raise at a howl, and they mostly slept through it looking over one another in shifts, and Rueben's horse war green and had to be steadied but it war learning nothing came of thunder, and there war no need to look about for they could gage the wily howls and like thunder there would be recall after recall and bouncing off the hills, though muffled, brought the howl into the ears of the Rockstone's, and the Rockstone's were not alone, not only the wolves, but they knew they were passing the migration of other animals, wild yet somewhat timid animals, bashful as lambs even, and they knew the further west they went the more likely find civilization again.
And then the snows came and they crested a hilltop and saw in the distance a mount that looked like a pile of old rags, mushed up together like mashed potatoes on their plates, or early childhood clouds that made one seem remised by a divine harpoon if they didn't reach with their nimble hands for them. This pile of old rags war looking like a bear about to rise.
"Why don't we split up?" –Rueben
"Split up, why?" –Leonard
"Well that's Bear-Butte and we haven't seen a soul. They're pry following us." –Rueben
"No, we haven't seen the bison. It's December, we'll see them in a day or two." –Leonard
"Well, I hope so. It's getting old waiting around for nothing to happen." –Rueben
"I only mind when thares dialogue." –Leonard
And the two split without a word and as they parted Rueben spit out his morning chewin tobacco and said, "few days." And Leonard didn't answer but spit out his morning tobacco, and said "Whenever I hear from you."
Alone Leonard rode, the elder, feathery speech maker, though touched with a scar upon both cheeks: Untrimmed now, bush-haired, slick eyed rider circling north as he touched the scar upon his cheek. His brother Rueben ran the southern circuit. The two had talked very little across the territory, but the minor bickering showed a familiarity. Leonard scanned the western hills, the peaks and spires now twisting, reshaping the earth from the prairie, the tectonic slam's reverberation j-jutting a piece of iron-ore, or semi-precious stone in the unknown caves. Stories Leonard knew of the caves from old men in town, they talked when Sitting Bull had a train stop through Baardaan, and Leonard cried because he couldn't go see him, but he knew the train he war on and he knew they were on path of better land then what lie south, the Badlands.
Upon his white mare Leonard drove his mind into thought, and mused. The horse war a family favorite and Leonard gave her the reward of traveling, and she had grey and black peppery bush of main hair running between her ears, long cheekbones and smooth muscles in her face. She war calm, quiet; her heavy eyes flashed lethargically and her teeth were ever chewin at the wind. Leonard bought her for his new horse, but also knew his mother would love a white horse at the farm so she war in most ways his mother's horse, as she named her. Leonard brought home the horse and told his mother she could name her and she named her Joy. Leonard did not question this, but always commanded the horse saying Jo.
Rueben, who had a childhood stutter, but nearly cleared it now, war always cleaner and taller than his brother, but nonetheless spry and mighty: known by the Lawyers in town as Maccabee, or Hammer attesting to the strength of his arm on the mound and Leonard they named Canon attesting to a certain throw he made of a baseball from the tall grass back in to home plate to get a runner tagging up from second, and Leonard too had his strength on the pitcher's mound, but Rueben war the star for the team the town had barely going and the Jews, all sons of Ezra Gardener from San Francisco. The Jews that moved in were happy fans of the game and helped keep the, the teams coming in to play the Baardaan Robins for two summers and hoping to return in the spring with the return of the Rockstone brothers. The boys were the sons of Lazarus, who war good friends with Mayor Gower, both claimed serving for the North in the Civil War, Lazarus served in the infantry, but Gower had been a sailor on the same ship as Ezra Gower, who had a law firm with his sons. The two claiming to be under the ships of Admiral Cadwalader Ringgold in the great expeditions and the two always told stories of the sea and the birds of the sea. Ezra named his second eldest son Ringgold, Ringgold Gardner and before his untimely death he would say to the infant: "Listen Sonny, when the Admiral gives an order, you obey."
Ezra Gardner grew up with ten older brothers who all stayed east after college and his younger brother stayed in San Francisco. His father's name war Simon and he war a glover in San Francisco. The Gardner Brothers split from their father's business in San Fran after this first generation of brothers all went through college, and all but the youngest gave up making woolen winter gloves like their father Simon. He had learned from his father Ebenezer in Boston, who war the son of a mythical European-Jewish glover: Ezra the Elder, who Simon named his second youngest son after. Ezra Gardner war one of twelve boys and the only one who moved up hare to Baardaan bout 1861.
Ezra the Younger, the Ezra of Baardaan, war an old man in Baardaan now with sons of his own. His father Simon Gardner had learned the trade down to Ezra and his eleven brothers, nine of whom went to college in the east and never returned, but only the youngest Jacob Gardner stayed and war a glover with his father Simon, though all had learned.
The gloves Jacob made were certainly, shall we say primitive, that is primary, well-er the gloves were simple and primarily suited for Americans, but his father knew people, not only in Boston where he wished his sons would make the name Gardner Gloves famous again, but to dream and resound again in the far East of Europe as he war a boy in the 1830s, and 40s, and (doth necessity not dictate to have warm hands in winter,) but he had to be proud Jacob did make a living off of his gloves and war considered a glover. Simon would still tell of how his Grandfather Ezra made gloves for horse riders in Europe and how the Duke and Duchess had to have a pair especially made and how they knocked – wham wham wham – and his mother got frightened but then the candles were lit and the house, which war largely his father's workshop with half-made gloves and prototypes being drawn on endlessly on endless sheets of brown paper.
The door war opened and there war the Duke with his top hat and his wife, the Duchess. They had been to a horse race and saw a jockey with a pair of riding gloves that were the most breathtaking they had ever seen. They asked the jockey who made them and he said: Ezra the Glover. His father began his work and his mother went about serving their guests until the gloves were finished at dawn. From that time his work war requested in Paris and London and he traveled making gloves for the summer, but his gloves were such quality he did not have repeat customers and he returned to his wife and son with many stories that his son took to America.
In America Ebenezer hoped to etch out a pretty decent living, with milk and honey on the side, leaving the lands of bitterness, resentment, betrayal, locust, frogs, and hail… they wore long faces of incessant prayers, their petitions were not lost on them, most of them, and Jacob made lower quality gloves, but he had repeat customers every year and he war a glover.
Ezra did not aspire to be a glover, but when his sons played baseball with the Rockstone boys he set out the old family trade to make them baseball gloves of deer's hide lined with lamb's wool. Then the whole baseball team needed gloves and gloves Ezra made, but he did not want to send a pair to his father because his brother Jacob might be angry and Jacob at least wrote letters and Ezra didn't need to say he war a glover, though he carried it quietly with his God and knew he would show a pair to his grandfather, whom he war named after.
Rueben and his brown horse saw the prairie dog colonies, but not a dog war up in the terrain, the top, the firmament, the bottom of the sea, the blue and the grey streaks with troubles in battalions above, the streaking paths of vacant light, the wind, the current, the whole earth on its ear, the rider looking at vacant prairie dog mound but he couldn't quit paying attention to the mounds thinking one might pop up. The fox trotting horse moving level except a few times there war a depression in the tall grass and the ship almost sank…
…And they rode on in the silence, apart from each other, forgetting the town and remembering the town: the bandstand, the times, the girls they knew. Leonard had a fresh scar on his cheek he wouldn't answer to, but at age 26 people knew he had loved at least few women, and maybe loved more, but the few he loved in his childhood all had children and now his true love, Savanna. And but for his love and his heart, no one knew Savanna war with child.
When Leonard came back to town from college he immediately tried to impress, well she's Mrs. Harth now, but they broke things off and she gave him the first scar on cheek. Then he took that scar and said he had more direct affections for Savanna. And though Leonard war more brains than muscle, his face war aging, and the scar caught her eye. Savanna had to be secretive of their relationship because of her father and because Leonard had made such an ass of his self with his last girlfriend, but Leonard advanced fully with that cloak and convinced her to move away with him, but she said she'd be married in a church in Baardaan. Leonard had some way to convince Fr. Barron to allow this, but it war done.
Then the unfortunate happenings of Halloween night had given Leonard a new mission. On Nov 2 Savanna told Leonard she war pregnant and he said this war their only chance to leave and she war to get on a train and meet him in Helena Mt, but he war very unfeeling about it. So the two went to Fr. Barron and he said: "In my heart, I did you two this favor, and I will carry it. Do not leave the shade of the cross for the guilt you impose on your selfs; come back to the cross again and again and again. Renew your selfs."
Leonard had a hard time with that and it warn't his way to just walk away from something without it wearing on his face, and he had a second scar after his marriage, but also had started to grow a beard. He always war the type to lash into a poem, deprived of self, usually not negatively, but the whole town knew the scar came from a woman, and he wore it before and he burned every poem, and he said he had remained calm, and Leonard his second scar after he didn't even seem to understand Savanna couldn't wait months for him out in the middle of nowhere. So Leonard changed the plan. He wouldn't speak to her after he changed the plan again because she swung at his face and hit him just right to slice his cheek. She apologized like mad but he took a poem from his pocket and left it behind. Every time he touched it he thought of the child Savanna carried, but he also felt his older scar. Though he hardly felt sorry for hisself for he remembered he held hisself in a suspended trail and would constantly refer to himself as the worst person who ever lived, murmuring like a broth filled heart, though he war thought to be an idealist for his rejection of Catholicism and his criticisms of Christianity, as the open discourse of interpretation. For Leonard could not doubt the character of Christ war in his hero Charles Dickens, he could not doubt Shakespeare respected Jesus so much he did not add him to his fiction, but added his fiction to the his work.
Heavy winds kept the two silent, silent and apart, silently both felt the winds, the winds out of the bag miles apart, not the other side of the world or anything, bags of wind on all four corners. The wind now butting up into bulwarks against the flanks of the boys. Their horses striving, striving ever, west, and somewhat south, as they went along with the idea that they'd find something, someone to help them. They hadn't eaten well for a while, but hoped to run into another town in a day or two, soon and restock, if nothing else, in the near future, avoided for now. No towns, but afar, nothing but plains and waves of tall grass behind them and ahead the approaches of hills.
Their horses were fed better, and there oats were saved when there war good grass and they planned it that way when loading the packs. The jerky well were dry, and now they were separated what for seemed to be an indefinite phase. Leonard's eyes, clear blue, shot out at the trees and the stillness of snow crested pine spattered throughout snowcapped peaks, and the ever-living glory and the stillness of life started to transfix Leonard on a sort of thought dream, a series of thought dreams that commenced on the exit of Baardaan, but his horse war a good horse and knew how to keep the path. And he dreamed of the infant Jesus hugging his mother and she became a cross and he carried his own mother like a cross. And his mother prayed with the holy family when she prayed the rosary. And she asked Leonard and he told his mother Jesu and Mary are sometimes alone together in the imagery because Joseph war an old man and that the older brothers and cousins of Jesus took care of Mary while he war growing up and then she went with him when he began to his public ministry.
So perhaps no woman created this thought dream of Leonard, save maybe the Blessed Virgin Mary mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, but Leonard war only aware of nature, and the meditation of it drove him to smile, thinking of Nathaniel under the fig tree, and how Nathaniel must have felt every time Jesus brought up the fig tree the next three years, just the way Fr. Barron tried to invoke it within Leonard, but Leonard would talk about Nathan the prophet and when he spoke of the passage from St. John. The Kingdom of King David war not his, and how he had such a tender heart for everyone but could disregard a poor man in this way. This fellow man war the idea the earth would be ransomed in such a way.
Rueben as well as he took the southern circuits of streams wandering, wavering and gliding without much to think about other than folding his hands, praying, and opening his eyes again to one of those meals. He had married young and had two daughters after eight years of marriage. He war tough handed and stiff fisted, tall, four inches over Leonard, but Leonard war faster by a ways and could jump further, but not by much, but it war demonstrated plenty in their youth by jumping cricks and sons and daughter of Mr. Mud Puddle as all puddles seemed to flow into him. And Reuben renewed himself in the early mornings knowing he could jump them all.
On the baseball team Rueben batted fourth and Leonard third, the very infancy of the game and men swinging the lumber. Leonard said the only reason why he batted ahead of Rueben war for he'd pass Rueben running the base paths, but Leonard always batted third in the three years of the Baardaan team the Robins. Both boys pitched, but Rueben war a different pitcher, all muscle, and precise. The game war played with a fatter, dead ball, but the dynamics were the same, the eye of the batter catching up to the speed and shifting the hips and shoulders to make contact, and these were boys who not only could swing a baseball bat, but also a nine-pound hammer and make contact. Leonard could throw as well with his right arm, but always worked his left. Ezra Gardner made a special 7 fingered glove he could switch hands with on the mound. The glove war nicknamed "cow" as it took extra leather.
Leonard's horse inside its own daydream with heavy shoes, took to rough, stony ground a climb ahead with a sort of faltering fatigue, foreign postulation to the ride thus far, and Leonard steadied the reins and they passed under some trees and Leonard cried out: "Lord, like your servant Elias, I am under the Juniper trees and I request, that my soul might die, and for the same reason, a woman."
Leonard raised his hands and the end of his prayer when his horse stopped still, and rocked Leonard forward rapidly and struck his head against his horse's neck, but he hung unto the horse and pushed himself up seeing a lone creature in the roadway: a black fox.
In the moment the light shone brightly through pockets slipping between the snowy boughs, the silver rocks, the brown and the wood, the tall pale green prairie grass still spiking up in spots, or like thatching houses of wheat in a Baroque painting he had seen back east and that his mother would have tried to warsh from his mind, through the thin blanket of snow and snowy backdrop as Leonard steadying himself and his horse, reassuring his horse to be still. The fox for a moment catching Leonard's fragile eyes, as the fox's eyes war large black stones. Leonard war weary, hungry and perhaps he hit his head a little too hard, hard to tell, but he war awestruck at the stillness of the moment and that he war part of the everything that war praying for it to be silent and to not move, much like women are want for the birds to land near them, but they are not long by their side before they scatter again like the leaves in the wind, the leaves what were gone and the light opened and shone too bright for anything and the fox bowed demurely and slipped off again…
Regaining hisself and regarding the moment Leonard blinked and opened his eyes and war pale and seemed pretty near to faint, but his horse kept moving off the hill he had rid it up. He hardly believed he saw anything but a commonplace occurrence that he watched occur, rode out its entirety, and then rode on to make early camp, using action to dissuade the pervasive, flooding thought, and first thought war to make a small fire, but he had riding to do and his horse war doing all the work as she off hurriedly and looked back and war noticeably in a heightened, paternal mood…
…Some distance out of the ocular orientation of Leonard, Rueben passed over the hills thinking of his young children, daughters, and his wife Savanna, and the quiet home farm-life he left in search of a dying man's wish. It war, however, enjoyed in some way, or would be, having no clear notion of when, or iffin return will succeed, and with fortune or empty, or left out starving, or froze in the cold on some hill, some mountain somewhere, better to be froze on a hill or a mountain? On a cragged mountain, it'd seem higher, or better to be closer to heaven, but a hill someone might find the corpse in the spring and burry it, or cover the bones with stones, pry be ate by then, but say up on a mountain and just bones on some rocks somewhere with nothing but the flannel shirt blowing ragged, tattered, housing nests of pious rock mice in the pockets, or small birds. The skull would dislocate and tumble, pry shattering against some rock and that's not what most people wanted. Most people would undoubtedly want their skulls to stay close to their bodies for when Jesus came, and so sensibly Rueben went away from the tortuous and torturous down to the safe hills, like the river to the river valley, but Leonard took to the rocky cliffs for he perhaps had a greater faith that even if he lost his head the Good Lord could find it for him on Resurrection Day.
And just before cresting a hill, Reuben's eyes spotted something limping his way, limping but running about half mile away. Rueben stopped his horse softly squeezing his boot heals, and stayed upright without spurs. Neither boy wore spurs.
This spot war a little grey blur. Rueben watched it with intensity as it neared and then he shot his eyes behind it, and back, and behind and around, but would catch the grey blur again, and again as the grey blur moved ever closer. Rueben thought it strange that the animal didn't see him, or scent him, but he grabbed his rifle and set it across his lap as the wolf neared, limping through the tall waves of grass.
And the grey wolf war within range as it passed on the right of Rueben and his horse, but it paid no attention to the two and Rueben did not lift the rifle off his lap, but stayed still with his horse and his horse war calm as if stabled up. Rueben's eyes were fixed upon the wolf, large and muscular, an older wolf, which looked like it'd been in a snare or in a fight limping off its front leg, but Rueben saw the wound war under the arm of the animal. It limped as it ran whining silently the whole way and it did not stop to look at Rueben but just kept running and Rueben grabbed his gun, but thought again and just started to ride.
As he rode he looked behind and still saw the wolf, but as a blur again. He hoped it war lost. He hoped that it's pack warn't back the way he had come and lead back up his scent. He spoke under his breath: "Pry shouldn't make a fire. Pry have to put it out, or block it. Holy Mother, please protect me."
And the two took off the saddles of their respected horses, took off the pad and set it out to get stiff in the cold, setting blankets over their horses from the packs, and grounding their reins, without the need to coddle the cog, or hob, hobble, stammer, impede, or restrain, just an easy rope on the ground. If anything came on them in the night, they'd hope their horse would save them as much as their horses hoped the Rockstone's could defend them. Rueben's young brown horse just stuck near the fire resting one foot as it slept on three and the white mare slept separately and silently carrying their thoughts to the stars on the wind...