Read Online Redeye by Clyde Edgerton - Free Book Online Page B

built up the fire, and laid some aside. Then I got settled in, leaned back against my war sack, and pulled my soogans over my legs.
    Mr. Pittman was laying on his side, looking in the fire. He says, “At the time, I didn’t even know Papitaws had milk cows.”
    Zack took his bottle from his saddle roll and handed it to me and I took a drink and he took a drink. I took a bigger drink than the night before and about spit it back, but held it down. I handed it back. “You want another drink of this?” he said to Mr. Pittman.
    â€œNo.”
    Zack was laying on his back with his head on his saddle, and looking in the fire. “Ain’t nothing like a fire, is there?” he said. I could see in his eyes he was getting a little drunk. “It won’t be long before every house in the country has a stove. They’re bringing stoves and clothes wringers out here by the train-car load. And they’re saying it won’t be long afore they got stoves and fireplaces run by electricity and there won’t be no more woodcutting for cooking
or heat
because electricity will do it all. There won’t be nobody left in a hundred years knows the first thing about building a fire. It’s pitiful. Hell, it’s pitiful now. Pigs and sheep all over the place. And they got telegraph wires strung through the air, rails up off the ground, getting light through wires that run through the air. What it’s going to come to is a mancan live and never touch the ground or a piece of wood. We’re going from the land to the air.”
    Mr. Pittman stood up. “I’m going to walk down to the river.” He left. Redeye’s ears perked up and he watched him walk off into the night, whined a little bit, pulled his head in, tried to get out of the bag, gave up, and stuck his head back out of his hole, perked his ears again.
    â€œHas he got a job?” I asked Zack.
    â€œHe works for the government. Surveying or some such. I met him after the war. And he did some trapping somewhere along in there. We did some of the last big cattle drives for the Bridger Company. We drove one bunch from Texas up to Oregon and got lost in the mountains up there. God awful trip. His eyes were just starting to go bad then. In fact that’s the trip we gave out of food and had to kill a mule. You ever had any mule’s head soup?”
    â€œNosir.”
    â€œWe did. Without salt. It’s better with salt.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong with his eyes, anyway?”
    â€œRed and swolled. He has to wear them glasses.”
    â€œHe looks poorly.”
    â€œHe is poorly. He always was. Always looked that way, except he used not to have a beard. And he’s pretty old. Looks old. He’s probably on up in his sixties. Seems like his mind wanders sometimes. I have heard that he killed a man over in Parson Creek, a Mormon, somebody said a Jack Mormon, but I don’t put no stock in it.”
    â€œIs that a Mormon that ain’t a Mormon no more?”
    â€œThat’s about it. They won’t let you go—they have to kick you out.”
    â€œDo you believe all that about Joseph Smith?”
    â€œThat’s as easy to believe as any of it. I just ain’t ever took real good to the Beacon City Mormons. My folks was a different brand of Mormon.”
    â€œI don’t like that Bishop.”
    â€œHe’s a hard man. I’ve heard he was involved in the Mountain Meadows.”
    â€œDid you ever know anybody involved in it?”
    â€œNo, but I remember hearing about it when I was nine years old. I know I was nine because we’d just moved to Salt Lake City. I heard it whispered more or less and you got a clear idea that it was something that wouldn’t be talked about, something that Mormons were ashamed of. Since then I’ve heard sides—one that the Indians did it, one that the Mormons did it. One that the wagon train was guilty of doing something to the Indians,