Sagebrush Read online

  He had to climb over limestone rocks to get to the opening. It was too small to squeeze through, so he enlarged it with his knife and ax, making it just large enough to wiggle through. He made his way outside and found himself on top of the limestone that formed the canyon. The top of the cave was rough with many layers of limestone tumbled about in confusion. Large boulders were scattered around, making it possible to remain concealed should anyone be looking. From this vantage point, he could see for miles. He spread his arms wide and felt he had the whole world to himself.

  The water that drained from the rolling hills where the Indian attack had occurred had created the creek he followed to his cave. After the stream ran past the opening to his cave, it cut its way through the limestone and eroded a canyon that wandered on through a deep valley to the southeast. The terrain on both sides was rough, with many smaller canyons and gullies. Large trees grew so thick that riding a horse through them would be difficult.

  Michael was enjoying the scenery when he realized that he was silhouetted against the sky to anyone in the valley below. He dropped to his knees and crawled to the edge of the cliff, taking care to remain concealed among the boulders. Looking over the edge, he noticed the canyon where the mouth of his cave was located was about a hundred feet below and two hundred feet away. He could see up the creek to where he had entered the water when he was carrying his belongings.

  After he had watched for a while, he saw four Indians on horses, coming down the hill from the direction of the wagon. When they reached the spot where he had entered the creek, they paused. They were tracking him, and they were taking no chances of losing his trail. They examined the spot where Michael had entered the stream and realized that the person they were following had hidden his tracks by wading in the water, but they didn’t know if he had gone up or downstream. So two of them rode up the creek and the other two rode down. The Indians had had a lifetime of practice tracking animals, and they were good at what they were doing.

  Michael was concealed on the ledge, and he had a good view of the valley. He watched the two Indians that had come down the stream getting closer and closer. If they found the opening to his cave, they still wouldn’t be able to enter, because they were too big to squeeze through. But if they found a way in, they would see his things and come after him. If they found him, he would have no chance at all. His fate would be determined by what happens in the next few minutes. He was frightened and wanted to run, but there was no place to run to. He was almost afraid to breathe. The men rode right on by. He heaved a big sigh as he watched them ride down the canyon, still looking for signs of where he left the water.

  The two riders who had gone upstream returned to where Michael had entered the water. Apparently, they decided he had not gone that way. They stopped where they had separated from the other two. Michael felt sure that that meant that the others would be returning.

  Afraid to move, he waited for what seemed a very long time. Then, just when he turned to reenter the hole, he saw the two who had gone downstream riding up the hill only a few hundred yards away. He lay still until they disappeared. Needing something to conceal the opening, he found small sagebrush, and then wiggled into the hole, feet first, pulling and wedging the sagebrush into the hole, concealing the opening. It would be mere chance should anyone find the back entrance to his cave. From the outside, it looked as though a bush was growing in the crevice of the rock. Moreover, the bush would not block the flow of air needed to vent the smoke from his fires. The smoke would not be visible after traveling through the cave, and then the bush would scatter the smoke even more, making it nearly impossible to detect from the outside. When he cut the limestone with his knife and ax so he could get out, all of his diggings had fallen inside the cave, leaving nothing that could be seen from the outside.

  His eyes had been exposed to the outside light, and the cave seemed even darker when he reentered it. His torch had gone out, but slowly his eyes adjusted to the darkness until the shapes in the cavern were dimly visible. He worked his way back through the cave until the darkness was so complete that he had to feel his way to prevent stumbling into a crevasse. He was careful to stay on the same side of the stream, remembering the way he had climbed. But it seemed as though he had been following the stream a long way, and he was getting concerned.

  What if I should get lost?

  His heart was pounding, and he realized that there was no choice but to continue. At last, a light appeared below him. He was less frightened now that he was getting close to his destination. A feeling of triumph came over him when he reached the room he had chosen for his new home.

  The Indians won’t come looking for me here again. I saw them returning to their camp. I hope they haven’t found the things I buried.

  Michael spent the remainder of the day gathering fruits and nuts. He made torches from pitch he gathered from the pine trees. The torch he made to search for the second opening worked all right, but torches made from pitch would burn longer and give off more light. Other than for the small amount of light that filtered in through the opening to his cave during daylight, the torches and his campfire were his only light. He formed the pitch into balls, placed the balls on the ends of sticks, and then pushed the sticks into the ground, forming standing torches. He would have all the light he wanted; plenty of pitch-bearing trees were available near his cave.

  Night came, and Michael wished he had someone to talk to. He heard the night animals and wondered if any of them used his cave for a den. What would he do if an animal challenged him for the right to use the cave? He would have to learn what kinds of animals made what kinds of sounds, and then he would know what kind of danger he faced.

  He bathed in the waterfall, ate supper, and then looked through his mother’s books by torchlight.

  One of the books contained instructions on how to tan leather; another told how to preserve meat and fruit by drying it in the sun or over a fire. These books contained knowledge that he was going to need. After reading for a while, he rolled up in his blankets and went to sleep. He had spent his first day in his new home. How many more would he have to spend before he could find a way back to civilization?

  Fear was his constant companion, but he kept busy and tried not to think about being alone.

  At first light, he took the shovel back to the wagon and dug up the things he had buried. Fortunately, the Indians hadn’t found them. It required several trips to carry everything he had stored, and by the time he had completed the task, it was getting dark. He again prepared a meal of fried bread, salt pork, fruits, and nuts. Then he crawled outside and sat on the rock ledge in front of his cave, enjoying the sunset and watching the animals playing in the meadow across the stream from his cave.

  The trees in the meadow created a park-like appearance. The shade of the giant trees covered the ground so completely that no sunlight could get through and no vegetation could grow. Off to the northeast, he saw a smaller creek running into the one that ran in front of his cave. The streams ran together only a short distance below the opening to his cave and met at the beginning of the limestone canyon.

  It was a beautiful place; the evening was warm, with a soft breeze blowing. High, thin clouds reflected the rays of the setting sun, and a pink light illuminated the clouds giving the trees in the meadow a magical glow. Under any other circumstance, it would have been a wonderful thing to see, but now it only made him more aware of how alone he really was. He wished he had someone to share it with, someone to talk to, and someone to tell him what to do. He had no one to share his thoughts, his hopes, and his concerns. All he had were the animals, and they couldn’t talk.

  * * *

  In the morning, he began going through the things he had recovered. He didn’t know the value of the gold coins—they were heavy, of Spanish mint, and there were more than a hundred of them. At least, when he found his way out of this predicament, he would have money.

  Among the papers was his mother’s Bible and nine oth
er books. One was the book of instructions he had started to read last night, on how to do the things a person might need to do while living on the frontier.

  Where he and his family had lived, in Virginia, people made their living doing the things mentioned in the book. The book gave instructions on how to make gunpowder and how to make the lead shots for the guns.

  How to make gunpowder? A lot of good that will do me. I don’t have the material for making gunpowder. The ingredients are charcoal, potassium nitrate, and sulfur. I could make the charcoal, but how do I get potassium nitrate, or sulfur? I have no way to make them, but maybe someday I’ll have a use for this information.

  In the collection were books about history, mathematics, geography, and English literature. He would have plenty of time to read the books, and there was information in them that might help him to survive. At least, they would help pass the time. These books were his mother’s treasures, and he would cherish them always.

  He read his father’s papers. One of them was a document of title to fifty percent ownership of a ranch in New Mexico; that explained why they were going to Santa Fe. The other paper was a letter written by a man named Don Diego to his granddaughter Señorita Juanita Diego, explaining who Robert McBain was, and why he was coming to her aid. Don Diego explained that he had been on his way to Santa Fe to help her when privateers sank the Spanish galleon that he was a passenger on.

  The letter also explained how he had been floating for days in the ocean clinging to debris when Robert McBain rescued him and took him into his home. Robert and his wife cared for him and tried to restore him to health, but he had been in the water too long. Realizing that he could never recover, he asked Robert to act in his behalf and help her save the land. The papers and the letter were signed: Don Antonio Fernando Hidalgo Diego. There was also a letter signed by Robert McBain, swearing a solemn pledge, that he would do everything in his power to prevent Juanita from losing her right to the land.

  Father is dead now, so this obligation has fallen upon my shoulders, and I’ll try to keep the pledge. I know that is what Father would want me to do. First, though, I’ve got to survive, and my chances of surviving don’t look too good right now . . . . But if I do survive, the first thing I’ve got to do is to avenge the killing of my mother and father.

  He continued looking through the things.

  Among the other things, he found an eight-place setting of silverware—knives, forks, and spoons. He also came across a box of family pictures, a book of family records, two unbroken crockery containers with lids, and a few other kitchen tools. He stored them away in a dry chamber deeper in his cave.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Learning the Way

  Michael pledged that each day he would gather food and store it for when he might not be able to obtain food. He knew that if he didn’t do everything he could, he would never survive long enough to fulfill his vow to kill the Indians who had killed his parents, and then fulfill his father’s pledge.

  He devised a routine so that everything that needed to be done, would get done. He began each day by cleaning his cave and making sure there was nothing left on the outside to indicate that his cave was occupied. When his morning chores were completed, he explored his surroundings and gathered whatever he needed.

  There was no shortage of food. The creek was filled with fish, so he learned different methods for catching them. He used the fishhooks and line to catch fish, and for bait, he placed grasshoppers and night crawlers on fishhooks and tied a small rock onto the line. The rock caused the bait to sink, and then he used a piece of dry wood as a float to allow the bait to sink to the depth he wanted. When a fish was caught on the hook, the floating wood would bob up and down, letting him know that he had a fish on the line. He cleaned the fish with his knife, then took them to his cave, and fried them.

  As time went by, Michael learned by trial and error the best way to cook fish. On most days, he just roasted them over the fire. Sometimes he baked them by wrapping them in a leaf, then packing the whole thing in wet clay and laying it in the fire until it was cooked. After the fish was cooked, he peeled away the layers of leaf and dried clay, and he had a delicious baked fish.

  He watched to see where the prairie chickens and wild turkeys went to roost at night. Then it was easy to go to their roosting place and catch the ones he wanted while they were sleeping.

  He caught animals and prepared them for cooking before he brought them back to his cave to prevent leaving evidence that someone was living in the cave. He left the remains of the cleaned animals for the scavengers. In that way, none of the animal went to waste, and he kept the forest clean. To an Indian who might see where he had cleaned the animal, it would look as though a predator had caught and eaten a catch.

  When he chased a rabbit, it would usually run into a hollow log or a hole in the ground. Then, by cutting a green stick that had a forked tip, he could reach into the hole, press the stick against the rabbit’s hide, give the stick a twist, and pull the rabbit out. Then all he had to do was clean and cook it, and he had his meal for the day.

  Herds of elk, deer, antelope, and buffalo roamed the plains. These animals were more difficult to catch, but just one of them provided a lot of meat, so he didn’t have to catch many. He used a similar technique for catching and killing the larger animals that he used for catching birds. He watched to see where the herd would lie down to sleep, then creep into the herd at night, cut the jugular vein of the yearling he wanted, and then wait until morning. When the other animals moved away, he would go to the animal he had slain and claim his prize. He would then remove its hide, take only the portions he wanted, wrap the cuttings in the hide, and carry his hard-earned prize back to his cave.

  Sometimes, he had to compete with wolves or coyotes. He had to frighten them away to prevent them from taking what he had worked so hard to earn. After taking his kill back to the cave, he cooked a meal from the fresh meat, and then cut the rest into long, thin strips, and smoke-dried it over a fire. Making jerky was a slow process, but if he did it right, and stored it in a dry place, it would remain viable for a long time. In this way, he was able to store a supply of meat for winter.

  He tracked wild pigs and found ways to catch them. He had to learn to prepare and cook them. He got the oil he needed by rendering the fat, but catching wild pigs was dangerous. His father had told him that a wild boar is as dangerous as a bear. It took Michael a long time to learn how to catch the pigs, while avoiding the dangerous boars. He had to be wary of other dangerous animals, such as coyotes, wolves, bears, bobcats, and mountain lions.

  He collected the skins of fur-bearing animals, and made clothes and blankets. The Great Plains was a land of abundance, but poisonous snakes, spiders, centipedes, and scorpions had to be contended with, also. Most of the big animals were not dangerous unless they believed their offspring were being threatened. He avoided most of them and learned to defend against those he couldn’t avoid. Watching from a distance, Michael observed their habits and methods of hunting. He learned the art of stealth, how to be invisible, and how to catch the food he needed. Little did he know that not only would it save his life, it would someday save the lives of others as well.

  In spring, he gathered green succulent leaves and learned which plants he could eat by watching what the grazing animals ate. Some of the things the animals ate were coarse and bitter, but some of it was good and gave him fiber in his diet. His favorites were the things his father had shown him how to gather, such as squaw cabbage and wild onions.

  In summer, he gathered seeds, nuts, and fruit. The fruits consisted of strawberries, blackberries, crab apples, grapes, plums, persimmons, mulberries, and hackberries. He also found gooseberries and currants. He harvested the fruit in season, sliced it thin, and placed it in the sun to dry. The dried fruit, stored in a dry place, would remain good, so he had an abundance of fruit and seeds to use in the winter.

  He retrieved honey from the bee hives in hollow trees. His fathe
r taught him how to use smoke to gather the honey without being stung too badly. Bee stings hurt, but other than the sugar in the fruit, the honey was his only source of sugar and well worth the pain. He kept his honey in the crockery jars that he had saved from the wrecked wagon. If he had more honey than the jars would hold, he stored it in hollow logs by placing the logs on end, and then sealed the ends with wedges of wood, and kept the honey fresh for a long time. He made candy in his spare time by mixing chopped nuts, honey, and flour, forming them into patties, and then frying them until they were crisp. The candy was delicious. It was a simple and nutritious food that could be stored easily, or he could take it with him on his trips.

  In autumn, he gathered acorns, walnuts, hickory nuts, and pecans, and stored them—he had nuts all year round. There was no shortage of food and no shortage of danger. He learned to live by using what nature provided. At times, he had to place himself in danger. Should he fall from a tree while gathering fruit or nuts, he might break a leg. If he hurt himself with no one to help, he would be in serious trouble. How could he set a broken leg and provide for himself while the injury healed? He had to be cautious, but caution has to be tempered by need.

  His father had been his teacher. He taught him the art of boxing and the skill of wrestling. He also taught him to use tools for working wood and metal. Michael learned other things by reading his mother’s books. He smoked and cured enough meat to last through the cold winters. He used hides to make clothing to replace those he wore out or outgrew. He hadn’t thought to bring his father’s extra clothes from the wagon. When he went back to get them, the Indians had taken them. But fortunately, they had not taken the tools. They had left a good set of files, wood-working tools, and a set of tongs for working hot metal. He would need them for hunting and as weapons to defend himself. He gathered all of the metal he could find. He even removed the springs from under the wagon. He took the metal hinges from the boxes and stored them in a dry place.