The Eyes That Watch Us

by James Wallace Harris

“Until I was sixteen, Nicholas, my Pa, watched me like a sparrow and commanded me like Moses,” I said to Sam, Mr. Clemens, my companion on the freight wagon. Talking wasn’t easy while driving a team of six mules. “Then we had a fight and Pa kicked me between the legs, knocking me into the horse trough. When I could get up I left home for good.”

I didn’t know if I should tell Sam this, but for two years I have lived by my own guidance, watching other men for clues. Pa had tried to whup the fear of God into me, demanding I let the almighty watch over my life, but I gave that job to me.

I looked towards Sam and could see he wasn’t minding my words, so I tracked the direction of his gaze. Our fourteen wagons traveled through a valley many days north of Lake Tahoe, heading towards an isolated mountain. Sam had spotted a lone rider galloping down from the tree line. The rider’s image shimmered in the heated air until he got about three hundred yards away.

“Shoshone!” One-eye Jack yelled out loud enough for all wagons to hear and then spurred his pony to meet the rider.

All us teamsters reined in our mules to watch that red man gallop through the sage bush. I’d never seen a wild Indian, only the pathetic tame ones that lived on the edge of our civilization. This fellow was sturdy, dark skinned and naked, riding up to two hundred feet from the wagons, yelling out in his language, over and over unknown words in a sing-song voice, while waving a seven-foot lance decorated with feathers.

I could hear the men around us jabbering. Sir Charles charged up from behind us on his tall black and called out to One-eye Jack, “What does that aboriginal want?”

One-eye Jack rode his horse around and around the Shoshone. They yelled back and forth in the red man’s language, both making wild gestures with their arms.

“He warns us to turn back and calls that yonder mountain, The Eye of Man.” One-eye Jack hated Indians. “This crazy savage keeps jabbering about dangerous spirits and insists they not his ancestors but some kind of special ghost.”

Sir Charles pulled up about fifty feet to our right and yelled to Jack, “Are you sure that’s what he said?” Sir Charles turned to Michael, his son, who rode up behind him. “This must be it! The mountain Haggard wrote about in his journal.”

One-eye Jack couldn’t keep his horse still, and he twisted around to holler again to Sir Charles, “He’s now saying he will get his brothers and come back and kill us.”

“What do we do?” Sir Charles sat on his horse and waited confidently for his man to conduct his business. Sir Charles had a man for every task.

“Nothing much to do,” One-eye Jack said back, and pulled out his Navy revolver and shot the red man in the chest.

The Indian was knocked off his horse by the blast and I felt the bite of winter in this hellish summer air. Our wagon was closest to this murderous play. I turned to Sam and he looked ashen.

Michael dismounted. He stood over the dead body and called to his servant, “Jonathan, bring out my camera.” Then he and his father talked animatedly out of our earshot.

Sam leaned over to speak quietly to me. “These damn rich English have no sense of morality. Watch them proudly pose with their murdered trophy.” Sam was an Easterner.

“Ah, it ain’t anything,” I said. “Michael photographs everything we kill.” Sally, Sir Charles’s extra woman, had come over and stood near our wagon to watch this social event. But she hung back not wanting the English women to take note of her.

“The photograph they are making will be shown around proudly, and published in newspapers and books for the entire world to see. That man was no threat to us with his big stick.”

Sam was riled. He’d come along on this jaunt to get a story for his Virginia City paper. He didn’t like Sir Charles and his party and he didn’t like it that Sir Charles had made him ride in the freight wagon with me. But I knew he had taken a liking to me, and I liked him.

“What now?” Sir Charles called to One-eye.

“We go on,” One-eye Jack said to the Englishman. “Crack your whips,” he yelled to us teamsters, and we moved out leaving the body lying uncovered on the ground. The bullet must have shattered his heart because I saw no blood on his chest. I wondered many things at once. Would his people find him? Why did he rush down to warn us knowing that most whites would shoot him? Didn’t his father teach him anything? Who watched over that man?

Since I broke free of my father’s plan to make me a farmer back in San Bernardino, I started taking jobs and watching men to see what line of work I’d like to do. Sam and Sir Charles make their way like no other men I’ve known.

Pa had taught me to love hard work, to follow the law of man and the law of God and most of all, to tie myself to the land and make a solid foundation. Sam and Sir Charles worked little, made jokes about men and God, and traveled the world like tumbleweeds. What had that Indian learned about life?

“Do you believe in ghosts?” I asked Sam. It was a struggle to talk. Between the next wagon and our six mules, Sam and I lived in a cloud of dust. We talked over the noise of wheels and hoofs, whips and shouts, creaking wagons and harnesses. Our wagon carried five crates of four hens on their nests squawking about the rough ride. Most men who wanted to hunt would pack some jerky, bacon and some beans and just head out. Our wagon hauled the wine, spirits, breakfast eggs, food and other dry goods. The English carried their city with them.

“I’ve told lots of ghost stories,” Sam shouted. “But I don’t believe them.” He was nervous and unsettled. I think I’d seen more killing than he had. Sam belonged back East.

“Some people believe in ghosts,” I yelled in his ear.

“That’s true, that’s true,” he replied, nodding his head. “They add excitement to a yarn.” Sam began to relax.

“That Indian believed in spirits,” I said. “He died to protect them. Or was he trying to protect us? Do you think One-eye got his words right? What is the eye of man?”

“The Indian man’s religion is full of fantastic beliefs.”

“But our religions have lots of miracles too,” I replied. “Why are our stories true, and theirs aren’t?”

“Wyatt, do you think our stories are true?” he asked.

Even though I have never looked on God or spoke with him like Pa, I had always figured the Bible was history, and I figured the red man’s stories were true, too. Why have religions otherwise? Sir Charles and Sam often argued and laughed about the Bible and God. When Sir Charles talked about a man named Darwin, the talk would get hotter than the campfire.

“Why did he pick us?” I asked Sam, who seemed frozen in his thoughts. Last night Sir Charles had come up to Sam and me and said if we could pack the mules and tend the camp, we could go up the mountain with him to hunt lions.

“He hauls me around because I’m his court jester,” Sam said, his voice breaking as a wheel thumped down from rolling over a rock, “and he likes you because of his fatherly instincts.”

“But why choose us instead of one of his rich comrades? They all want to kill a mountain lion, too,” I said.

“I think his traveling companions have been gnawing at his gizzard, and he wants some new company.” Sir Charles had caused trouble with the English men and women when he took on Sally in Denver.

I was glad he had chosen us. I wanted to get to know Sir Charles better, but I was now spooked about going up the mountain. I wondered who watched us. Do ghosts have eyes to see into our world?

That night when we made camp, I searched and found One-eye Jack. He helped me select two pack mules and gather supplies for the hunting trip up the mountain tomorrow.

“Why did you shoot that Shoshone?” I asked.

“He was going to make trouble for us,” he replied. He was big, hairy and much more savage looking than that Indian. One-eye Jack had a ripe smell. People said he never washed and joked that critters lived in his long beard. I wondered what the Indian’s impression had been of One-eye Jack.

“I sure wanted to hear his stories,” I said. I didn’t think he smelled any worse than a mule, and I considered it generous of him to help me. I bet One-eye had seen a lot.

“You expected that heathen to sit beside the fire and tell us windies?” He laughed. “You Johnny-come-lately kids have no respect for the wild man -- they’re savage killers.”

I wanted to suggest we could have chained and hobbled the Indian until we left the spirit mountain, but I’m sure old One-eye Jack would have thought me childish.

Jack didn’t seem surprised that Sir Charles wanted to hunt alone. I remembered the stories about One-eye Jack and how he had hunted alone for years.

I went and ate with the teamsters who had their own fire and cook. Because of Sam, I was the only teamster invited over to the English camp. I felt uneasy visiting the Lords and Ladies, so I usually waited until they had finished supper. The six English people ate at tables and each had their own servant. Two wagons carried just their furniture: a bathtub, dishes, cots, folding chairs, tents and other household goods.

After supper the English would drink wine, smoke cigars and talk. I’d then go sit on the edge of their camp. Sally was like me and was afraid to get close. She was twenty-two and I heard lots of stories about her. Every evening I tried to befriend her, but she let me know she thought I was a boy and not interesting enough to flirt with.

If I stayed awake long enough, I’d see all the English people retire and then Sir Charles would get out a Chinese pipe and call Sally over and they’d walk out into the darkness. I had heard that Sally had left a husband back in Denver. Anne, Michael’s wife, said she thought Sally was touched in the head. That made me wonder about who watched over Sally.

Lady Sarah, Sir Charles’s beautiful wife, never said anything about Sally. Lady Sarah was not much older than Sam, maybe thirty-three, and had dark eyes and black hair tied up tightly around her head and owned many different dresses. Sally wore her yellow hair long and flowing like a girl. Sally only had two dresses -- an old faded blue gingham one and a new dark blood-red one that Sir Charles bought in Virginia City.

I spent my idle moments, especially at night before sleep, imagining what life in England was like, thinking about being rich. It was disturbing. Sally and the English women stimulated my thoughts too. Since I left home I had seldom been close to women. I spent most of my time facing the south side of mules or near smelly men like One-eye Jack.

The next morning I was up early and saw three eagles circling high over the mountain, looking down on us. I packed the mules and waited up the hill a ways so I could look down on camp. One-eye Jack had told me it would take most of the day to get up to the lake where Sir Charles wanted to hunt.

About an hour after sunup, Sam came up the hill carrying two tin cups of coffee. He handed me one and sat down on a rock to watch me adjust the pack. I wanted to make sure the wine bottles wouldn’t break. He pulled out two cigars and handed me one. We chatted and Sam made notes in a little notebook he kept with him at all times.

“Are you going to make a story about the trip?” I asked.

“Sure thing,” he replied. “Easterners love tales of western life.” His stories were fun to read. And all the men I knew loved to listen to Sam talk. Boy, could Sam talk.

“You’re paid to do their sight seeing!”

“I’m paid to do their suffering,” he said and grinned. Sam preferred town life to trail life. He shaved and washed his face every day, and wore a coat with tails. But his eyes burned bright only when he was telling an anecdote.

“Most people can’t just pull up stakes and light out,” he replied, casually blowing out blue cigar smoke and looking up from his notebook. “If you were married to that Sally girl I see you mooning over, your life would be different.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“If you had a woman you’d need to stay in one place and make her happy.” He chuckled, took a draw on his cigar and blew out a pungent cloud. “Then some young’uns would come along. By then your life would be sewn up. Before you know it, you’d be deacon down at the church and going to political meetings.”

He had just described my Pa’s life. I realized how strange Sally was. She should be back in Denver growing roots.

“What about Sally?” I asked. “She jumped ship.”

“Women like Sally don’t live happy lives.”

“She’s happy when she’s around Sir Charles.”

“But that won’t last,” Sam said. “He’ll cut her loose in the next big town we roll into.”

“I’d like to have a woman like Sally and travel around like you and Sir Charles.” I knew a teamster who traveled with his wife, but she wasn’t pretty and she was as mean as a snake.

“Now Wyatt, that’s ambition,” he said. He smiled at me like Pa did sometimes.

“Do you think Sally would ever keep company with me?”

He frowned and gazed away, back down the hill. “Maybe someday you’ll have the gold for a gal like Sally.”

I could hear Sir Charles coming up the hill. He was singing an old Irish ballad.

“It’s time to be off,” said Sam.

I went around to the first mule, and Sam got up and grabbed the rope to the second mule and tried to look like he was helping out. Sam didn’t work much. He wrote. Sam and Sir Charles worked little and got other men to work more.

“Well, lads, are we ready to be off?” Sir Charles wore a black frock coat and stove-pipe hat and looked liked a minister. His red mutton chops were so long they flapped in the breeze. He came over and clapped me on the back. “Wyatt, my boy, are you sure we have all we need?”

“Sir, we’ll be roughing it, but I’ve your wine, whiskey and some meat for me and Sam -- some for you too if you want it.” Sir Charles didn’t eat much. The man stoked up on chow in the morning and coasted the day. He liked eggs, and his party of six demanded them every morning. And ham too. I packed a dozen hardboiled eggs for Sir Charles hoping to surprise him.

“I’ve been roughing it ever since I’ve been in your country,” he said, giving us a wink. I could smell whiskey on his breath, but he also smelled like flowers. When I first saw the bathtub, I thought it was for the ladies, but Sir Charles used it often and bathed with salts that made him smell good.

“Well sir, are you ready to head out?” I asked, anxious to be gone, anxious to stop thinking about the women. “We can make it to camp before dark if we start now.” I knew Sam and I could make it, but wasn’t sure about the old English gent.

“Hey, Charlie, aren’t you going to say goodbye to me?” Sally’s voice called out. I jerked around and saw her hiding behind a tree, watching us. She giggled and ran to Sir Charles. Her little trot had a skip in it which made her seem girlish.

“Sally dear, I figured you’d follow me up here,” said Sir Charles. In front of people he always treated her like a favorite daughter. One he spoiled. The stories people whispered about them were about when they were alone.

I tried not to be seen looking at them while they hugged and kissed goodbye. They were both laughing and talking secretly and quietly into each other’s ears. Then Sally jumped away from Sir Charles, acting mad. She skipped over to me and my mule.

“Why can’t I go if you can take this boy?” She pointed at me while twisting to and fro, making her blue skirt spin one way and then the next.

“Wyatt’s here to mind the mules and tend camp,” Sir Charles said with fatherly patience. “Besides, you’re much too noisy to take hunting. You couldn’t sit still.”

“I know, I know,” she said changing her mood quickly. “I’m just a teasing you.” She skipped back by Sir Charles and then ran down the path. She stopped, turned and hollered back, “But sometimes, I sure wish I was a boy.”

Sir Charles smiled, turned and headed up the trail. I tugged my mule and followed him, and heard Sam behind me following along with his mule. I was glad Sally was a girl.

The mountains are full of big cats, but we needed to gain altitude to get into their territory. Sir Charles was like half a Noah; he collected one of every animal, dead. A taxidermist even traveled with us and had his own wagon full of tools of his trade. Another wagon was our ark of dead animal heads.

By late afternoon we reached the small lake where Sir Charles wanted to make camp. Cold water filled the green lake at the edge of the pines. Sir Charles expected the big cats would come down to drink and hunt. Cats prowled at night, so the Englishman went scouting the terrain, looking for places to make his ambush.

I got a good fire going just before it got too dark to see. I cut a couple hunks off the deer haunch to roast and made coffee. Sam kept Sir Charles busy with some chatter. The old man had already gotten his first bottle of wine out. He drank from a small silver folding cup and made no offer to share.

“Now this is the life my readers want to read about,” said Sam as he leaned against a rock a few feet from the fire and gnawed a big piece of hot venison.

“You’re both lucky men,” said Sir Charles as he sipped his wine, and reclined on one arm, already snug in his blankets. “You are free to do whatever you want, not like most men who are trapped in their positions.”

“Walpole, your wealth gives you the freedom to travel anywhere in the world,” Sam said. I could sense one of their drawn-out discussions about to start when we heard a twig snap.

“Ho, men by the fire,” called a voice from the darkness, “may I come join your camp?” An old man slowly came into our light. I watched as the man, who I figured to be an old trapper, came and sat down beside us, cross-legged like an Indian. The man wore strange clothes, smoked a cigar and seemed indifferent to the dropping temperature.

“Good evening, gents,” he smiled at us like we were old comrades meeting at a bar. His hair and mustachios were long and white, and I was reminded of my grandfather.

Out in the darkness, an invisible cat growled.

“Hear that!” called Sir Charles. “I need to rise early and follow that fellow before he hides in his sleep hole.”

“After big game?” asked the old man.

“Yes, indeed,” Sir Charles said sitting up, “I’ve come all the way from England to get one of your mountain cats.”

“That’s a far piece to come,” said the old man. His gaze slowly went from each of our faces to the next. He stopped to stare at Sir Charles’s Whitworth rifles.

I wondered where this man could have come from and I wanted to ask him questions, but felt it wasn’t my place, so I let Sir Charles do the talking. Sam was strangely quiet. His eyes were locked onto the old man, and he never said a word.

“My wife calls me Youth,” he said. I wanted to laugh at that; the man was old, very old, maybe in his seventies. “The lion will kill one of you tomorrow.”

“Humph! There’s always a chance of that,” said Sir Charles while stroking a rifle. “But if any man should die, it should be me.”

“It’d be safer if you’d all go back down the mountain,” the old man said. “Ghosts of the future watch you.”

“Now that I know a cat’s about,” said Sir Charles, “you two can wait here in camp for me while I track her, or even go back down to the big camp and entertain the ladies.”

I liked that idea, but I also wanted to watch Sir Charles track the cat. I looked into the darkness expecting to see the eyes that watch us.

“I was just planning to work on my notes,” said Sam. “Will I be safe sitting here by this fire?”

I got the feeling Sam was humoring Mr. Youth. Sam didn’t sound scared. Sam had joked before in front of the ladies about shooting a lion too, a cub.

“The lion doesn’t like the smell of the fire.”

Was this an old trapper that just liked to tell ghost stories? Was he the Shoshone we killed? “Mr. Youth, how do you know about the future? Are you a prophet?”

“No, Wyatt, I’m just out for a little stroll.” The old man got up and looked down at us. “I’ve got to get back to my wife; she’d be worried about me if I stay out too late.” He took off his hat and bowed and then quietly walked back into the dark.

I strained to listen to his footsteps and struggled to see into the blackness. A big cat howled again. The three of us looked at each other and started laughing.

“My, my, you Americans are a strange tribe,” said Sir Charles, pouring himself another cupful of wine.

“No, Walpole, that man was strange even to me,” said Sam.

“Did you notice his clothes?” I asked. “They were city clothes like I’ve never seen before. I bet preachers from Boston don’t dress that well.”

“They were evening clothes,” said Sir Charles. “He was the first properly dressed American man I’ve met since we crossed the Mississippi.”

“Wyatt, did you know that man?” asked Sam.

“Nope, I never laid eyes on the man.”

“Then how did he know your name?”

“That’s right!” I said. “How did he know it? And he appeared to know you, too.”

Sir Charles started to laugh but gulped down his wine instead. “I bet you both a twenty-dollar gold piece that Michael sent that fellow up here to rattle us.”

“That’s one idea,” said Sam. “I was thinking that another party of hunters just wanted to spook you off their claim.”

“Maybe so,” said Sir Charles.

I could tell the Englishman was getting sleepy. Normally he stayed up very late and needed to finish a bottle of wine and smoke the Chinese pipe to find peace. The hike must have been good for his nerves.

I got up and put some more wood on the fire. I looked at Sam and nodded towards Sir Charles. Sam smiled and kept quiet. After awhile, I could hear them both snoring. Scrunching down under the blankets, I thought about the strange old man. The night air was cold, and the fire barely warmed my face.

Hours before dawn I woke up and heard Sir Charles stirring about. I played possum and listened. The fire was barely embers, but a full moon was up giving the mountainside an eerie illumination. Sir Charles was going to head for the spot he’d picked out on the other side of the lake.

Just as the Englishman was about the leave, I whispered to him, “Aren’t you afraid of what the old man said last night?”

Sir Charles turned back to look at me, then to Sam who was still snoring under his covers. He said quietly, “If my fate is to die today, then I don’t want to be late.” The Englishman turned and walked away with such stealth that I was impressed.

I have known plenty of men who have died, but their deaths were always a surprise. Deep down I knew that the old man from last night was right, and I also knew that the Englishman was going to die soon. I was certain that Sir Charles knew it, too. How could that be? How can you just walk off to face death?

I waited for what I thought to be thirty minutes, and hoped was at least twenty. I got up and got my Henry rifle and began to follow Sir Charles. I stopped about half way around the lake, and started climbing a rock quietly as possible to gain a view. I found a little ledge that tucked itself under another larger rock. It was just big enough to lie prone and gave me a good vantage point to watch the lake. It was peaceful here and I could smell the pine and the water off the lake.

By now the sun was about to crest the eastern mountains. The sky was a dull grey with a pinkish glow towards the east. After about ten minutes of straining my eyes I spotted Sir Charles. All I could see was part of a rifle barrel, a piece of arm, and part of his face. The Englishman was covered over with a blanket, probably to keep warm and to hide his body.

The Englishman had climbed up a ways like me but had found a hole between some boulders to stand in.

It was still cold and I wished I’d brought a blanket. I really wanted to be near a warm fire. I told myself not to think of the cold but to watch Sir Charles. Two mountain sheep were drinking at the lake. The birds had begun their morning industry and telegraphed their signals to one another.

About a half hour later, as I watched Sir Charles I sensed a flicker of movement in the trees. A large cat leaped twenty or thirty feet from a limb near Sir Charles and crashed down on the Englishman. As I watched the horrible event I felt that cat had been hiding in the tree all night, waiting for us.

Both were out of sight. The lakeside turned instantly quiet. The lion gave a horrible cry. I raised the Henry and waited. I knew I couldn’t run to Sir Charles in time to be of any help. My only hope was to get sight of the lion. But when the lion did show, it was a grisly vision. The lion had one of the Englishman’s legs in his mouth and he was trying to drag the body away. Letting go of the leg, the lion jump out of the hole, flipped around and dug its huge paw back down to fish for the leg. I watched it struggle to pull the body up.

I aimed and fired. The lion’s body shuddered. It stood for a moment, and a dark spot appeared behind its shoulder. The cat collapsed and fell back into the hole.

I ran trying not to break a leg hopping from rock to rock, and jumping over the smaller boulders that blocked my path. It took me three minutes to make it to the spot where I saw the animal fall. My lungs burned and my legs felt like they were about to give out.

Looking down I found the bloody cat lying across Sir Charles’s torso. His right leg stuck up in the air, leaning against the side of the rock, the trouser leg shredded, exposing a bony white limb. A chunk of thigh gnawed away. The man’s blood was on the cat’s muzzle and stained the rocks, and his neck was broken.

Both were dead.

I needed Sam’s help. We probably couldn’t get the mules much closer, so we would have to drag the body back. It took me almost an hour to get back to camp, tell Sam the story and bring him back to the bodies.

I jumped down into the hole and tied a rope around the cat. Between Sam pulling and me lifting and shoving, we dragged the big stinking cat off Sir Charles’s body and out of the hole. Sir Charles was much lighter and we didn’t need the rope.

“How’d that old man know one of us was going to die today?”
“He couldn’t have,” said Sam quickly.

“But he did,” I said puzzled by Sam’s lack of interest.

“Remember how he was strangely dressed?” asked Sam. “He was another hunter and wanted to scare off Walpole. And his joke turned bad. That’s all.” Sam didn’t sound sure, he sounded nervous.

“Do you think we could find that man?”

“Don’t you think we need to get Walpole’s body back down to the camp and let his wife and friends know what happened?”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I said while grabbing Walpole under the arms. I expected Sam to grab the feet, but I could see he was staring at the hole the cat tore out of Sir Charles’s leg. “Do you think you can haul the cat?”

“That monster must weigh as much as both of us!” Sam said, surprised at my suggestion. “I think we should leave it for the varmints to feast upon.”

That would have been the easier route to take. “Don’t you think they want to see the beast that killed Sir Charles?”

Sam stood quietly. He bent over to gather a leg of the dead man in each arm, and stood back up. “I’ll help you haul him down to the mule, and then we’ll both come back for the cat.”

It was disturbing to see Sir Charles’s head flop around so easily, so we stopped and found several sticks which we spaced around his head to hold it in place. Then we took off the Englishman’s coat and tied it around his head, which hid his face and made us feel better.

As we carried our burden over rock and boulder, I kept thinking about the old man. “In the Bible, they have prophets that know the future.”

Sam struggled to carry and talk at the same time. He wheezed out, “No one knows the future; we live in rational times.”

“Are you saying the Bible is wrong?” I asked.

“Well, if you want to talk, let’s rest a bit.” We laid Sir Charles over a small boulder and we sat down. “The Bible was written a long time ago, so we don’t know the facts.”

“I guess.” Pa was always sure.

“Well, did you ever read about riverboats in the Bible? If they knew about the future, why didn’t they mention riverboats?”

“Maybe we’re too far in the future?”

“We know about the people who wrote the Bible, so far in the past,” replied Sam. He pulled out two cigars for us.

“Suppose a man could know about the future?” I asked.

“How could someone know the future?” Sam sounded annoyed.

“You’re the intellect here.”

Sam sat and thought. “We know the past because time is like floating downriver. I suppose if a man could swim upriver of time, he could know the future.”

“So a prophet is a man who lives backwards through time?” I asked. It was a powerful idea that hurt my mind. “That old man knew about today because today is yesterday for him?”

“Wyatt, you have the making of a tall tale.”

“I sure wish we could find that old man.”

“If we did, he’d just ruin your story. He’d tell us the truth and spoil everything.”

We got to moving again and after awhile another thought came to me. “What if that old man was the lion? Indians all the time talk about people turning into animals and vice versa. Maybe that old man was just a friendly old cat that was warning us away?”

“Now do you believe that?” Sam shouted over his shoulders.

“No,” I said. I guess I didn’t.

“Neither do I,” replied Sam huffing and puffing. I thought a young man shouldn’t wheeze like that.

“But why are our religious stories true and the red man’s stories false?” I asked.

“You have a wild mind, so why don’t you tell that ghost story when we’re back in camp.” Sam twisted his head back to speak to me. I could tell I was making him edgy.

Sam’s suggestion that I tell the story back at camp scared me. The thought of all those men and women gathered around me and having to speak to them all at once gave me a chill. I wanted to talk to Sally, but alone. I wondered what she would do now that Walpole was dead. The English wife might scalp her.

We got the bodies packed on the mules and back to camp just before dark and both of us were exhausted. We had only stopped our march to drink water or visit the bushes.

Sally found us first and let out a howl when she saw Sir Charles. The two English men and three English women came running fast. Lady Walpole shoved Sally away from the mule holding her husband. “How did it happen?” Her voice was quiet but stern.

“He went out early ....” I wasn’t sure if I should mention the old man now. “He told us he wanted to hunt alone because we’d scare away the game. But I followed him anyway, to watch him hunt. I saw the cat come out and jump him.”

“You shot the cat?” asked Michael, grabbing my shoulder.

“They both fell behind a rock, and then I saw the cat trying to drag Sir Charles away. That’s when I shot the cat.”

William, the old preacher, ordered his servant to take Sir Charles to his tent and sew and clean him up. Two of the drivers were ordered to pull the cat off the mule, and they laid him out for the English people to stare down at.

“A beautiful specimen,” said William, kneeling by the lion.

Lady Sarah, tears in her eyes, stared at the dead beast and then went off to Sir Charles’s tent. Sally sat on the ground and cried openly.

Alice, Michael’s wife, said shrilly, “You men and your cruel ways. If we had stayed at home this magnificent animal would be alive and so would Charlie.”

“Yes, but Charlie died in battle. I’m sure he’s a happy man,” said William, the old Anglican, sounding like Pa.

“Battle, you call this battle?” Alice said weeping.

“We all fight for our honor in this world,” said William. Pa would have said we all fight sin for salvation. But I felt we all just fought to stay alive. I didn’t want to think I was being watched and judged. I glanced up at the twilight sky.

Alice turned to her servant. “Get these men some food and drink. We’ll all want to hear the details tonight at the fire.”

“I think Wyatt and I need a bath,” said Sam.

I looked down at the blood and dirt that covered me. I smelled worse than One-eye Jack. We washed by the stream and put on clean clothes. Then we ate at their table. Alice ordered Sir Charles’s man to give us a bottle of wine.

The five English people sat with us, their servants just behind them, and then the working men in an outer circle. Sally eyed me from the edge of the darkness, sitting alone on a keg away from the fire.

Sam played his usual role as story teller and gave the crowd a colorful tale of our expedition up the mountain. I was glad I wasn’t the center of attention. When it got time to tell about the old man, Sam just skipped that part. He looked over at me and waited.

“Wyatt heard our fearless hunter get up this morning.”

They all turned to look at me. My mind worked to remember, and my heart beat fast. “I heard Sir Charles get up. He had slept in his clothes with his rifle under the covers. The moon was full when he left our little camp. After about twenty minutes, I got up and shook Sam awake and told him I wanted to follow Sir Charles and watch him hunt.”

For some reason I didn’t want to tell the story about the old man either. I don’t know why. Maybe I was afraid they wouldn’t believe me. No one had said anything about sending a man up to follow us. All the English people just sat and nodded during our stories and then quickly hurried off to their tents.

The next morning I got up and waited till I was alone with Sam. “Why didn’t you tell them about the prophet?”

“Tall tales are better told away from the facts.”

“But you do believe we all saw him. It wasn’t a dream?”

“Who knows what we saw.”

I had watched men enough to know that some men talk a lot and some men talk little. Sam was a talker, and I was surprised that he was closed-mouth now. What did that mean?

The hunting party headed west. Sally, Sam and I and several freight wagons headed east, back to Virginia City. I immediately got a job on a freight load back to San Bernardino. About a year later while visiting my parents in California, they showed me a letter. Inside was a clipping from the Virginia City, Nevada Territorial Enterprise, dated June 16, 1866. Sam had probably sent it soon after it was published. The clipping read:

I know this reporter has told his share of tall tales and fables about ghosts, séances, acts of divine retribution and other manifestations of the spiritual world, but it was always meant with a sense of fun. I wanted to entertain, you, the reader. This reporter does not believe in ghosts, but instead supports the ideas of progress, since after all this is the year 1866, and not 1366. However, the holy science was scared out of me two weeks ago when I ran into said ghost.

As many of you may remember, the famous English naturalist and big game hunter, Sir Charles Walpole, came through our fair city on the way to San Francisco, and points beyond on his round-the-world jaunt. Being a reporter, and a snoop, I was able to get an invite to tag along on his mountain lion hunt on the trail west of here. His party of fifty wagons included one boy genius mule skinner named Wyatt Earp, who I rode with and befriended. And as luck would have it, Sir Walpole invited Wyatt and I to accompany him up the mountain, which is where we met the ghost mentioned above. Our first night in camp a spooky old gentleman showed up in the dark and warned us that one of us would be killed in the morning unless we headed back down the mountain. The man then left, and we all laughed this off. But early the next morning Walpole was murdered by a mountain lion, which young Wyatt then executed.

While carrying the bodies of man and lion back down the mountain, young Wyatt, who has a speculative mind, tried to understand how the old man knew the future. At first, this reporter was sure a friend of Walpole was playing a trick on him, but since then I have decided a reader of mine wanted to play a trick on me. It was a good trick, but unfortunate odds made it tragic and spooky. And to prove how much I believe in my theory, I’m willing to offer ten dollars if that ghost will show up and collect it in daylight.

At first I thought he might be right, but I never heard from Sam again. Over the years I would think about the incident and finally developed my own theory. I believed the old man was Sam’s ghost, and that Sam knew it, too. I had decided that our souls, when they were set free, could travel in time and become our guardian angels. Who else would choose to watch over us? And who else would care about our destiny? I liked this theory because it was a spiritual form of self-reliance. God was for people back East; we people in the West stood alone.

Sally’s ghost must have been a poor guardian angel. I’d always asked about her and eventually met a man with an answer. She had died of consumption at twenty-six while working in a place where most any man could afford her company.

Yet, my theory didn’t account for Sir Charles. I had decided that no man could live forever, and Sir Charles had jumped at the chance to confront this destiny. Nor was Sir Charles committing suicide, because I knew that the lion could have been waiting for me that morning. Evidently, nothing is for certain, and life is a gamble. And if it wasn’t me who watched out for my life, then whose eyes are watching me?

The End

This story fails for a number of reasons, but my primary worry is it fails to do what I wanted it to do. Mark Twain and Wyatt Earp are two people from history that are constantly studied and researched. I wanted to write a fantasy in which these two people feel the eyes of of future staring down at them. I'm still open to any critical suggestions, so please email me with ways to improve my writing.