“Jarvis,” responded Håkan’s host, relying once again on his cheerful face. “And drop the mistering. I told you it’s just plain Jarvis,” he said in a tone of friendly remonstrance.
“Mr. Jarvis, sir,” the bearish man muttered, proffering a small sack. “From my wife, sir. With her compliments.”
He seemed to curtsy as he bent his knees to hand the gift over to Jarvis, who, sitting on the tarpaulin, accepted it ceremoniously.
A lash and a muffled cry came from the gloom.
“Edward,” said Jarvis with grave appreciation. “Thanks. Many thanks.”
Edward looked at his strangled hat. Jarvis opened the sack and poured out a handful of glazed pecans. He tried one. The big blond mustache danced to each crunch. Edward kept looking at his own hands squeezing his hat. A lash and a cry.
“Gold nuggets. That’s what these are. When did I have one of these last? Years?”
“From my wife, sir.”
“Well, please—please—thank her.” He was about to eat another nut but checked himself. “Sorry,” he said, holding out the bag. “Please.”
“Thank you, no, sir.”
Håkan declined as well. Jarvis shrugged, ate another pecan, and put the bag by his side. Edward bid them good-night, took a few steps backwards, turned around, and left.
Similar scenes, with different visitors and different offerings, took place numerous times throughout the evening while Jarvis asked Håkan the same questions again and again (“But where are they? So rifles and pistols, eh? How many did you say they were?”). Timidly obsequious men and women approached Jarvis with their offerings—tea, molasses, a penknife, dried pumpkins, tobacco, silver. And in each case, Jarvis showed himself humbled but deserving.
“The horse, then,” said Jarvis after having accepted the gift of a blanket from a girl holding a baby that could well have been either her sister or her daughter. “I’ve got one for you.”
“How much?”
“Oh please,” Jarvis said with friendly affront.
A pause ensued. Jarvis probably expected Håkan to break the silence by asking him once more to name his price.
“Do you know how to use a gun?” Jarvis asked when the lull was getting awkward.
Håkan looked confused.
“A gun,” Jarvis repeated while miming a firing pistol with his thumb and forefinger.
Håkan shook his head.
“Look,” Jarvis said. “Most these people are sore fond of me. You’ve seen it for yourself. I mean.” He pointed to the gifts and shrugged his shoulders. “But there are a few who. Look. These here are hardworking people. And this here is all they own. Some get nervous. And I fear some may be greedy for my life.”
Håkan looked down.
“You are a big fellow. You travel alone. No property. No family. I could use your help. Just ride along with me. We’ll get there in a few weeks. And you’ll have your horse. It’ll be easy to make up for lost time. What do you say?”
“I don’t know.”
Håkan was not sure of their location (were they closer to the Pacific Coast or New York?) and had no way to gauge whether it would be worth it to follow Jarvis and then make up for lost time on a horse, or if he should set off east by foot immediately. There was, on the other hand, the issue of the actual job he had been asked to do and the risks it might entail. The discontent clouding the convoy was manifest, and the animosity many felt toward Jarvis was clear. But unlike the moody prospectors he had met along the way, or the Clangston gang, or Lorimer’s tracker and his crew, these were family men. They worked hard, cared for their children, and read from their Bibles. However disgruntled they might have been, Håkan could not picture them shooting anyone down in cold blood. Furthermore, many liked Jarvis—the offerings proved it. Whatever his detractors’ reasons were, he could not imagine what Jarvis might have done to justify his fears of retaliation. Håkan thought of Linus and wondered what he, who never showed a sign of vacillation, would do. Would his brother have accepted the elements in this dilemma—guns, horses, mutiny, the wilderness—as perfectly expectable circumstances, and therefore have an answer ready? All Håkan knew was that this would probably be his only chance of acquiring a horse.
“Tell you what. Just ride along for a couple of days. Think about it. I’ll throw a saddle into the bargain.”
By the time the fire was dying out, a considerable pile of goods lay on Jarvis’s canvas. He wrapped them all up in the blanket he had been given, wished Håkan good-night, and retired to his wagon. The belting, which had stopped for a while, resumed in the dark.
“Get up! Get up! Get up!” The screams filled the air at the first light of dawn. With these cries, the donkeys started braying, forcing even the heaviest sleepers to wake up, get out, and set to work. Tents were rolled up; flour and water fritters sputtered in lard; roped oxen were wrestled back into their yokes; teams were hitched to carts; canvas bonnets were adjusted on wagon bows. All these arrangements were made under the close supervision of the dogs roaming the quickly dissolving camp. “Get on! Get on! Get on!” was now the call echoing throughout the plains as the wagons got back on the trail and resumed their slow progress.
Later that day, Jarvis, carrying a shovel and a broken wagon wheel attached to his saddle, took Håkan for a ride. They headed south, away from the trail, and stopped when the caravan had disappeared behind their backs. After dismounting, Jarvis asked Håkan to help him bury part of the wheel and prop it up with some rocks so that it would stand on the ground. Once it was in place, they took about fifteen steps, and, from an inner chest pocket, Jarvis produced the strangest pistol Håkan had ever seen. There was nothing extraordinary about the grip or the trigger, but the rest of the gun was monstrously overgrown, as if thickened and disfigured by some morbid disease. It had six massive barrels mounted in a circle around a central axis. Seen frontally, the six muzzles resembled a gray flower. It smelled of oil and sulfur.
“That’s right,” Jarvis said, dreamily smiling at the gun. “Bet you never seen a pepper-box before.”
He cocked the unloaded pistol and pulled the trigger repeatedly. After each click, as Jarvis squeezed the trigger, the hammer rose and the barrels turned over so that a new cylinder would get under the pin just in time for the next impact.
“See? You don’t have to stop to reload. And none of that flintlock rubbish. That’ll just get you killed. Twice!” He chuckled. “Twice they’ll kill you while you ready one of those old things.” All the while, he kept pulling the trigger, the barrels kept rolling on, and the hammer kept snapping on the empty chambers. “No, no. None of that flintlock rubbish. You just put these here like so,” he explained while putting caps at the end of each barrel. “And you’re good to go. Not one, not two, but six shots,” he said after loading the balls. “Look.”
Jarvis took aim and fired at the wheel in rapid succession. The sharpness of the shots was dulled by the curved immensity around them.
The wheel stood unscathed.
“Well, it’s not an easy gun to aim, on account of the front being so heavy. You’re supposed to shoot leaning it on your pommel.”
He started loading the gun again.
“This takes a little bit of time. But then you have six shots.” A long pause. “Six.” A long pause. “Won’t even feel the ball through their vitals.”
Håkan sat down on the ground. The horses stared at him.
“Let’s get a little closer,” Jarvis said when he was done.
They took six or eight paces toward the wagon wheel. Jarvis took aim and fired. He was more deliberate this time and took a short moment before each one of the six shots. The wheel, however, remained untouched.
“Could the shots have gone between the spokes?” Jarvis wondered aloud.