Into the Savage Country (19 page)

By sundown we’d reached the foothills of snow-covered mountains. We could feel the snow above us in the cool air that swept down from the mountains. I was just unrolling my buffalo robe and Ferris was cooking over the fire when we saw dust rising in the dusk light. I took out my glass and watched.

“It’s Layton, right?” Ferris said, without looking up from the pot.

“Yep.”

“I’d know his horse anywhere,” Ferris said. “We don’t invite him but he can’t take no for an answer. Has to do whatever he wants. Has to follow us. Now we’ll have to invite him. And if we don’t do it, he’ll ask himself.”

Ferris was rarely put out by anything, but he seemed genuinely annoyed by Layton’s appearance. He had been looking forward to that wander and leaving the brigade behind.

“Damned blackguard. Thinks if we don’t mutiny it means we’re friends.”

After fifteen minutes Layton arrived, trailing a pack horse.

“Those natives told me of another way back,” he said as he dismounted. “Safer, they said. Not on that ridge. Thought you should know.”

“I thought you were negotiating with them for fertile land for next season,” Ferris said.

“I cut it short. It was more important that you knew of the safe route,” he said a little sheepishly. “I can catch up with them tomorrow.”

I felt Ferris’s eyes slide to me.

“Well, obliged for the warning,” Ferris said.

“Gotta keep the brigade safe,” Layton said, with false jocularity.

“You hungry?” I asked.

Layton picketed his horse near the water and sat.

“I wouldn’t turn down a meal. And I got some provisions.”

He pulled out a flask. Ferris grinned when he saw that.

“The man comes prepared,” he said with a little more enthusiasm.

Ferris took the bottle and pulled the cork out and Layton sat down by the fire. Ferris offered me a swallow before he had one himself, then lifted a pot that rested near the fire and took a large wooden spoon resting in it.

“You came all that way. Have some dinner,” he said.

Layton stayed with us that night and the next morning made halfhearted preparations to return to the Snake until we asked if he’d like to join us on our wander. By his ease in accepting it was obvious that was what he had wanted all along.

That morning the three of us started up into the high mountains and within a few hours were in dense alpine forests dotted with cold blue lakes and bounded by steeply sloping rock walls. We made camp at the prettiest of the high mountain lakes and stayed up in those mountains for two weeks, during which time we hunted and fished and explored the surrounding peaks. Ferris sketched the land and the trees and the flowers and I scribbled out my impressions from the spring season, taking much care to note my emotions in a way that only a young man can feel is necessary. And though it was unlikely that there would be any chance to send it, I scribbled out a long letter to Alene, telling her of our take for the first half of the season and of Layton’s glorious feud with Pike, which I was sure would interest her, and made vague
references to the initial discord in the brigade that seemed to have faded, though not vanished entirely. It was strange to write her from that wild and distant place. I knew that my real life and my future were with her, and that she was the single most important person in my life, yet I had not thought of her much over the previous months, and it was only late at night when I felt close to her, or that my mind returned to our life together. I am not saying my heart was not hers, but only noting a curious fact. When you are on a trapping brigade, engaged in constant struggle with constant danger, it is hard to imagine any other life, and it is easy to forget the civilized world and your connection to it. Alene had certainly known of this phenomenon, which was why she had extracted my promise to return at the end of the season. It did not seem so farfetched now that I might want another year in the savage country. I was both glad for the promise and felt half constricted by it, though I knew she was wise to have asked for it.

The days passed easily, and in the middle of the second week, as we sat around the fire, Layton spoke of his plans for the following year.

“I have had my pick of the chaff up till now, but I mean to remedy that. Once I return to St. Louis I’ll find a woman of quality.”

“You are going about it in the right way,” Ferris said, and Layton said, “How right you are, Ferris. I am making a fortune, which is exactly the thing to do. Women don’t resent anything so much as not having money.”

“I am sure that has been your experience,” Ferris said.

“As it will be yours,” Layton said.

“As far as I have seen money matters little to Alene,” I said.

“And yet she married Horace Bailey,” Layton said.

“Of course that could only be because of the riches?” I said.

“Can you deny his riches were persuasive?” Layton said. I began to answer but he cut me off. “Don’t misunderstand me, Wyeth. I don’t blame her for marrying into money. I’m glad it was her and not someone else. I am simply stating the facts. She chose Horace Bailey over all others because he was the richest of the men courting her.”

“Richer than you?” Ferris asked.

“Far richer.”

“It couldn’t have been that she simply preferred Bailey,” I said.

“I am not saying it could not have been. I am saying it wasn’t. Can you deny the money was persuasive?”

“I can deny she chose him because of it,” I said. “And I can give you proof. Despite the fact that you tried to persuade her with the aid of money in the settlement, she was never partial to you, not before Bailey and not afterward.”

Layton’s eyes blazed. “That money I gave her in the settlement was hardly meant to court her. She was in need of charity and unlike all the others surrounding her I managed to get her to accept aid. None can deny that.”

“They could deny it was meant disinterestedly,” Ferris said, after a moment.

“It is true that I cannot prove that it was done disinterestedly,” Layton said. “And given my past conduct I am sure I deserve your suspicion. But I can assure you that it was done without any motive except to aid her in a time of need. I did court her at one point. Like all who have come into contact with Alene, I have seen her to be a fine woman. But my hopes for her ended with Bailey’s marriage. In the settlement when I gave her that money it was simply to aid her, nothing more. Though it is
true I hoped that she would see that I helped her disinterestedly and would judge me to be a changed man.”

“She is far from thinking so right now,” I said.

Layton looked into the fire. “Well, I hope you will speak to her in my favor, Wyeth. If you feel I deserve it,” he added.

Ferris laughed. “You want Wyeth to woo her for you?”

“I told you already. My hopes in that direction died a long time ago, long before Wyeth was joined to her. I want him to speak against the false beliefs she has of me. I was a scoundrel at one time. But I am no longer. You must see that.”

“The case is not so definitive as you present it,” Ferris said. “We see that at moments you recognize your bad behavior, but that does not mean you have changed it.”

Layton continued to look unhappily into the flames. “In time you will see that I have.”

“Why care what Alene thinks of you?” I asked.

“Because she is a good woman who saw me at my worst. If I can change her opinion of me I will know I have remedied my life. Until then it is just something I wish for. Not something I know to be true.”

Ferris and I were both silent, embarrassed to hear irreverent Layton speak so earnestly of another’s opinion of him. I understood something that night. As I lived against my father’s imprecations, so Layton lived against Alene’s hard judgments of him. At least that is the way he explained his need to impress her. Given Alene’s absolute and nearly illogical hatred of Layton, I felt this desire to win her approval was a much more difficult task than he imagined. Alene blamed Layton for Bailey’s death. I could not see that anything he did would change that.

After a moment, Layton said, “I devised a method for aiding
Alene. I did it disinterestedly. Or with the intent only of improving her opinion of me. Don’t judge me harshly until I have done something to justify it.”

“We could hold your entire previous life as justification,” Ferris said, laughing. “But we will withhold judgment in this particular case until you have given us the needed ammunition. Then we will pin you to the wall with it.”

“I expect nothing less,” Layton said.

The subject was not mentioned again, but several times over the next week I wondered whether his vehemence on the subject was because he had remedied his behavior or because he desperately wanted to believe that he had.

Those two weeks in the high country passed with the most amicable feeling between us, and it was not until the last day that Layton showed the unpleasant side of his personality that we all knew existed. On that day it was as if Layton purposefully went out of his way to spoil all the goodwill he had built up over the previous weeks. Our planned diversion for the day was to ride to a teardrop-shaped lake that we had spotted from a high ridge. We set out at noon and for the entire ride Layton was in an irritable, poisonous frame of mind. This ought not to have been surprising. One of Layton’s peculiarities was that as soon as he’d had an enjoyable time, he reacted against the good feeling it produced, as if this feeling were a bind or restriction. I do not quite understand the mechanism—perhaps it was a barrier against the bonds of friendship, perhaps some form of self-hatred or self-sabotage—but he inevitably became insufferable after having an enjoyable time, as if to balance out what was pleasant with a dose of poison.

As we rode that day Layton complained of the route, his horse, the dust kicked up, the idea of the ride itself. He complained of the pace Ferris set and of how I sat in the saddle and of both our horses. He complained of every aspect of the ride and the day and our conveyance. He reverted to that high-toned, simpering, superior manner that all found aggravating, and by the time we arrived at our destination, we were both ready to turn our guns on him to shut him up.

On reaching the edge of the lake, Ferris leaped from his horse, I thought to get away from Layton, but after thrashing through reeds Ferris emerged hauling a vessel made from three roughly planed logs and bound with twisted sinews and horsehair. He floated the vessel to a sandy beach and stood admiring it. We thought it most likely that some trapper had constructed it earlier that summer.

“All aboard,” Ferris shouted, and climbed on top of the makeshift craft, sending small waves out over the mountain lake. He found a long piece of driftwood that could serve as a pole and began moving the craft back and forth in the shallows. I found a split branch that could be used as a paddle. Layton, who at first looked as if he would not join us, waded through the water, climbed on, and stood in the center, feet spread wide. He had not taken a pole or an oar, but just stood there as if waiting for us to ferry him. Ferris, who noted this complacence, took his pole and shoved the raft so Layton fell.

“Captain’s down,” Ferris said. “What a pity.”

I stepped on the raft at the exact point where Layton had fallen so the water sloshed on him. Layton scrambled up unsteadily, half doused, which did nothing to improve his ill temper. I got on the raft, holding my oar. Ferris pointed at a rocky island in the center of the lake.

“Onward,” he said.

“Double time. Captain’s orders,” Layton said.

Ferris caught my eye at the words
Captain’s orders
. I could see he imagined that was the way Layton thought of himself, as the captain, and us as the subjects. We both hated that.

Ferris began poling. I paddled. Layton balanced in the center of the raft, not trying to help in any way but calling us “slaves” and telling us to paddle faster.

Once free of the shore the raft glided slowly and smoothly over the surface of the lake. I could see the stones and rocks and old submerged trees angling deeper as we drifted outward. The lake was entirely bound by gray rock walls. It was very still at that hour and every sound seemed clear and distinct and even a normal voice resounded. With each movement the makeshift vessel sent small, rounded swells slowly toward the edge of the lake. I could see the swells reaching the reeds on shore and see the rocking tips of the reeds as the waves passed through them.

“Are we poling fast enough for you?” Ferris said to Layton.

“Heave ho, deckhand,” Layton said.

The raft approached the small island and moved between two jutting rocks that formed a sort of inlet. Green ferns swirled beneath the water as the oar and the pole passed over them. The sand rose to meet us. We grated ashore.

“Land ho,” Layton said. He leaped onto the beach.

Beyond the sand of that island there was a small strip of grass and crooked-trunked aspens that lined a grove of evergreens. The rocks that formed the two arms of the “bay” were white-stained from birds. The steeply sloping walls of the abrupt valley seemed larger and grander and more ominous from the island. I could see snow overhead. I had not been able to see that from the shore of the lake.

“I’ll yell if I find buried treasure,” Layton said, and walked off into the aspen grove. Ferris and I were quiet until he was out of sight, and then, when we could no longer see him, Ferris said, “ 
‘Heave ho, deckhand.’
You know that’s what he really believes. That he’s our king and we’re the slaves. We should make him swim.”

“That would be a fair punishment,” I said.

“The deckhands rise up against tyranny!” Ferris said.

He reached for the pole and I took the paddle and we jumped back on the raft and without another word shoved off toward the center of the lake, leaving Layton on the island without means of returning to shore.

The sun was low in the sky and the air was thicker and duller now. The tops of the granite peaks were pink and I could see a few wispy clouds near them. We were fifty yards off the island when Layton walked back onto the beach and saw we’d abandoned him. I noticed he was carrying a long branch that could be used to pole and I understood that he had walked off to find a pole so he could help us propel the raft on the return. When he saw we had left him he understood in an instant what had happened: his ill-temper had driven us away. Layton stood beneath that towering gray rock at the silvery water’s edge. I did not exactly pity him. Layton was too annoying and overbearing to truly pity. But seeing him alone out there, abandoned by his friends, I felt a twinge of remorse.