Song of the West Number One:
Cool Cool Water
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It was the biggest mistake of his life.
Dan Tolliver ran a hand through his grizzled salt and pepper curls and cracked open one sand-blasted eye to glance at the young'un ridin' beside him. The boy was sittin' tall in the saddle, but that was only on account of the fact that he was sure he'd spotted an oasis in the distance. It made Dan's heart hurt to see the life spring back into the teener when he knew his words would squash it like a bug underfoot.
"Little Joe, boy, you gotta understand…."
"No, Dan, you gotta understand! I can see it, can't you? You gotta be able tosee that big green tree where there's water running free!" The thirteen-year-old's lips were cracked and parched as the desert land their horse's hooves beat a steady staccato against. Joe made an attempt to lick them before continuing. "Dan…it's waitin' there for you and me…."
Water.
Cool, cool water.
It was all Dan could do to keep the boy from takin' off fast as greased lightnin' toward the mirage. "Don't be a fool!" he snapped as his hand gripped Joe's pony's reins. "There ain't nothin' out there but sand and rock. We're miles from the nearest waterin' hole!" The wrangler glanced up. "You set out now with that sun blazin' over head and you're dead, boy! You hear me? Dead!"
The day started out routine enough. He'd been up in the high country ropin' and ridin' when that son-of-a-gun Ben Cartwright showed up with his youngest in tow. You ask anyone in these parts and they'd tell you old Dan Tollivar was a wrangler by trade. It was true. He'd been wranglin' longer than Ben had been walkin' the earth. But the rancher knew his secret. When it came to Ben's boys – Adam, Hoss and Little Joe – he could be talked into bein' somethin' else. Not that he minded, mind you, but he had a lot of water under the bridge to play nursemaid to a teener. Little Joe was a good kid – and just about as hard to tame as any pony comin' into its prime. Seemed the boy had a hundred ideas for every second that passed and needed ten times the words to explain them. After a while, he had to admit he'd stopped listenin'.
God was payin' him back for that one.
It was Little Joe spotted them first. 'Course he thought the boy was waggin' his lips to pass the time of day, so he just kept noddin' his head and not payin' attention to what he was sayin' until the bullets hit the dirt in front of his old nag's nose. Mexican banditos. Who'd have believed it? They were a rough bunch, mad as Hell that the war with America hadn't gone their way, and not interested at all about hearin' how he and the boy had nothin' to do with it. Leastways, that's what he told them. Never mind some of Ben's land just happened to belong to the Spanish way back when. Things would have gone fine if one of the banditos hadn't started shovin' Little Joe around. That made the boy mad as a rattler on a spit – and set his mouth to runnin' fast as the Truckee in spring.
'You wait!" the teener shouted. "My Pa will have your hides if you hurt either of us!"
The Mexicans laughed, of course. 'And just who, little one, is this great padre of yours of which we should be afraid?'
Danged if Little Joe didn't up and tell them!
After that, things went south real fast – near all the way to Mexico. One of the banditos took hold of Little Joe and started to drag him off of his pony. He shouted at the boy not to fight back, but the kid was scared and a scared Little Joe Cartwright was a loud Little Joe Cartwright. When it looked like the teener might get hurt, he'd jumped into the thick of things.
Dan ran a hand along his chin, dislodging a hail of sand, and then lifted it to the dirty bandage haphazardly wrapped around his temples. That was the last thing he remembered before wakin' up in the middle of the desert with a dry throat, a thirsty boy, no canteens – and no idea of where they were.
Little Joe's fingers opened and closed on the reins. He leaned forward, as if that movement could bring the ghostly water closer. "Come on, Dan. I'm telling you, it's there! I can see it plain as day. I can…hear it too. Can't you?" The boy's eyes were wide with expectation. "I can hear someone calling too. Someone is…there. We gotta keep a movin', Dan. He – "
"Don't you listen to him, Joe!" Dan glanced at the shimmering sand and then closed his eyes, less he be drawn into the boy's delusion. "I tell you, boy, that's a devil not a man and he spreads the burnin' sands with water. That devil wants you to ride to your death!"
Little Joe's lean legs stretched high in the stirrups. He arched forward and stared at the barren waste for several heartbeats before sinking back into the saddle. The gaze the boy turned on him was haunted.
"Dan?"
"Yes, son?"
"Am I gonna…." The teener swallowed hard. "Are we gonna die out here?"
"Not if you listen to what I tell you, boy." The wrangler's gaze went to the high peaks and low dunes surrounding them as he released Joe's reins. "You see…I been here before."
A sudden breeze, hot as Hades and dry as tinder, had taken him back. He'd been a mite older than Joe Cartwright when he traversed this land for the first time, but only a mite. Seventeen, maybe eighteen at most, and as cock sure of himself as he could be after a short stint in the army. He'd signed up to ride shotgun on a wagon train comin' out of Illinois and it all went fine 'til they hit the desert. Came a day, he and the city slicker leadin' the train disagreed about what path to take. After exchangin' words – and a few blows – they parted ways with some of the wagons followin' him north through a gap in the rocks and the others goin' south along the path laid out by the company. The ones with him fared all right even if, by the time they'd reached the nearest town, they were a few pounds shy of skinny and near out of their heads.
The ones who followed the city slicker?
Dan eyed the twisting, burning sand before him, his eyes tracing the path the others had taken that day.
He just hoped they didn't stumble over their bones.
Or become bones themselves.
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Joe Cartwright licked his cracked lips. If he'd had any saliva left, he would have been salivating. He could see it – water, trees; a lush green oasis not a mile away from them.
Dan wouldn't go there.
So he had to wonder if it was really there at all.
"The night's cool, Joe," the teenager breathed, speaking the words out loud to give them more authority. "You're a fool. You might as well believe that the stars are pools of water."
Cool, clear water.
Joe looked up and couldn't help but smile. He might be only a few hours from dyin', but he couldn't help but notice how beautiful the desert sky was. His pa had an expression – 'black as pitch'. The sky was blacker than that. Pitch caught the light. Out here the sky was flat like the crepe fabric ladies wore over their faces when they were in mourning. But it wasn't sad like that. It was…amazing…because that flat black was punctured with points of light; white light inflexible as the rock beneath his feet and brilliant as the glint of sunlight on crystal clear….
Cool.
Cool water.
Joe felt a nudge on his shoulder. He turned to find Dan Tollivar standing behind him. The older man held out his hand.
"Here, boy, take this."
Joe frowned at the odd lump of slightly scorched matter.
"What is it?"
"I found a prickly pear. This here's the roasted meat. Chew it slow, boy. It'll keep you alive."
Joe wrinkled his nose as he took it, which made the old wrangler snort. "What's it taste like?"
Dan winked. "Better than you think."
He was right. It tasted something like a raspberry and a strawberry hooked up.
"Not bad."
"Could have tasted like rotten rattler and I'd have made you eat it, boy," the older man said.
Joe gave him a weak smile and then turned his attention back to the barren landscape that stretched before him. The encroaching darkness had swallowed the oasis and almost all of his hope. A single tear trailed down his cheek, surprising him, as the shadows swayed before him.
He would have fallen if Dan's hand had not caught his shoulder.
"We'll be all right, boy," he said. "The man up there, He'll hear our prayer. Tonight, we pray for water."
Joe sniffed, wiped the tear away with the back of his hand, and nodded. It was his first time lost in the desert and, as first times go, not what he'd expected. Somehow he'd always supposed he'd be with his pa, or at least his brothers. But here he was alone with Dan.
"Old Dan and I with throats burned dry," he mused, "and souls that cry for water."
Cool, cool water.
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All the next day they faced the barren waste without a taste of water. The relentless sun over their heads baked them as they rode, erasing any memory of the cool, fathomless pools of darkness from the night before. It had been all he could do to get the boy to wake up and yawn, and carry on.
To water.
Cool, cool water.
Dan shifted his dusty hat forward, claiming what little darkness he could. He hated to admit it, but they had the banditos to thank for the fact that they were still breathin'. The ornery cusses had stripped them of all their valuables, but left them with their horses and hats. Without the first, they would have been dead long before this. Without the second, they'd be out of their heads.
Well, more out of their heads.
He'd sat up most the night staring at that rocky pass and thinkin'. Near dawn he'd remembered somethin' and he hoped it would prove their salvation. Trouble was, first of all, he had to get the boy past the idea of that big green tree where the water was runnin' free. Joe Cartwright was skinny as a bed slat. He was also young and bearin' up under the heat better than him – physically, at least. Once he was up and movin', and had caught sight of it again, the teener was bound and determined they should head toward for what he knew was a mirage.
"Dan, you gotta believe me," Little Joe pleaded, those green eyes of his made even bigger and more sincere by his shrunken face. "It's there. The water is there."
The wrangler swallowed hard. He wasn't about to admit it, but he did see it – a silver lake glazin' the burnin' sand, surrounded by swayin' trees and tall grasses. Sailors were a superstitious lot, or so people said. Little Joe's pa had been a sailor. He'd known Ben long enough that he'd heard his tales of the high seas dozens of times, includin' the one's about the sirens' song. Dan's bone-dry eyes took in the silver water hangin' on the horizon. Superstition or not, the things seamen believed kept them alive.
Just like him believin' the Devil himself had laid out that silver lake would keep him and Ben's boy alive.
Dan coughed out a puff of sand. "Do you trust me, Little Joe?"
The boy made a feeble attempt to wet his lips as he gazed longingly – hungrily – at the apparition.
The wrangler understood. It was so close.
So…real.
Finally the boy nodded. "You know I do, Dan."
"I thank you for that, Little Joe. Now, boy, you listen to me. This here's a lesson God meant for you to learn. You see that water?"
The teener nodded.
"Ain't there. Not a lick of it." He touched the boy's leg. "God's lesson is this – you can't always believe your eyes, boy."
"But Dan…."
"That ain't no water. It's an illusion. I know it and you know it." The older man narrowed his eyes as his thoughts took him back once again to the horror he had witnessed. "Years ago, I came this way. I was ridin' shotgun on a wagon train. The man what led it went that way and the Devil laughed as he took a hundred souls to eternity with him. We can't go south, boy. Not if you want to see your father and brothers again."
Joe fell silent – it seemed for the better part of a minute. "Do you believe in the Devil, Dan?"
He nodded solemnly. "Ain't a man who travels these parts who don't."
"I do too," Little Joe said, his voice a whisper on the hot wind.
"So what do we do?"
The boy's jaw grew tight. "We gotta keep a'movin', Dan. We don't listen to him, Dan." Little Joe turned to look directly at him and repeated his words. "He's a devil, not a man."
"That's right, boy." He gave Joe's leg a squeeze before lifting his hand. "You put your fingers in your ears if you got to and close those big green eyes of your'n to that mirage. We gotta head north through them rocks. We found a green spot on the other side all those years ago. God willing, we'll find it again." Dan paused, fearful. There was no strength left in him to chase the boy down if he heeded the sirens' call and took off. "Are you with me, Little Joe?"
The teener stared at the mirage and then deliberately turned his horse's nose the other direction. "I'm with you, Dan."
"Don't look back, son," the wrangler said as they started to move. "That's another lesson God and the desert will teach you. When you know what's right, you head for it. Lookin' back will only bring you trouble."
Ben's young son found the energy to smile. "Thanks, Dan. I'm glad you're with me."
"But you'd rather be with your pa. That's okay, boy. I wish your pa was with us too," he replied. "Now, let's see what we can do about getting you back to him and finding that cool, cool water."
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Water.
Dripping on his lips Sliding into his mouth. Reflecting in the eyes of his Pa and brothers as they surrounded him and Dan where they lay nearly spent.
They'd been waiting on the other side of the pass. Waiting for them in the shimmering sand underneath the green trees where the water ran free.
Little Joe Cartwright lifted his head and looked at his companion. Dan Tollivar's sun-burnt and sand-blasted face reflected his own. It reflected his weary smile as well.
The Man up there, He'd heard their prayer and led them to where there was water.
Cool.
Cool.
Water.
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Cool Water by Bob Nolan
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All day I've faced a barren waste
Without the taste of water.
Old Dan and I with throats burned dry
And souls that cry for water;
Cool, clear, water
The nights are cool and I'm a fool.
Each star's a pool of water.
Cool, cool water.
But with the dawn I'll wake and yawn
And carry on to water.
Cool, cool water.
The shadows sway and seem to say
Tonight we pray for water.
Cool, cool water
And way up there He'll hear our prayer
And show us where
There's water. Cool clear water
Keep a-movin, Dan, dontcha listen to him, Dan.
He's a devil, not a man and
He spreads the burning sand with water.
Dan, can't ya see that big, green tree
Where the water's runnin' free
And it's waitin' there for you and me?
Water.
Cool, cool water.