Many Mansions
Chapter 4
By Pharoah'sCat
Author's note: In his own unique way, Buck Cannon gets a chance to put his oar in John's decisions or lack thereof. This is quite brief, but along with the preceding chapters, I hope it continues the path John might have taken to find his way to Victoria - who was waiting there all along. Next and last chapter should be up in a few days. (The comment about the Apaches needing as much to live for as die for comes from one of the very early season 1 episodes.)
A couple of weeks later, Buck Cannon studied his older brother from a distance. He and Blue and John and most of the hands had spent the better part of a day moving the herd from one feeding ground to another. With the cattle settled, John had sent all but the night herders back to the ranch and had ridden off by himself, saying he was just going to check a survey point. Buck now found that John had dismounted and climbed a small promontory, where he stood gazing northeast as the sun began to set behind him. He was just standing there.
Buck left his horse near John's and scrambled up behind him.
"If I had been an A-patch, you'd be dead now," he informed his brother cheerfully.
John snorted in derision. "Not an Indian in the whole continent would make as much noise as you did."
Buck chuckled. "That's true enough. But ya know, John Boy, you been just standing and staring so long the buzzards might start to take an interest. Whatcha lookin' at?"
"The future."
Buck gazed out at a nearly featureless desert plateau. He could see a small oasis of green near the water hole they had just left, an arroyo and a great deal of cactus. What he didn't see was the future.
"We can build it all. John said firmly. "Towns, ranches, railroads, people, schools…everything."
"Its a desert." Buck pointed out, not unreasonably.
"Of course. That's why water is key. Even more so than the land. We will have to build an irrigation system that takes advantage of wet years to nourish the dry years. They did it in Babylon and Egypt, and I don't supposed we are any less smart than they were. But it is going to have to be a system that can sustain itself, or we will blow away with the dust like they did."
Still without looking at Buck, John continued, "Greed will be the problem of course."
"Of course," Buck said, feeling a little lost.
"Greed always digs away at the foundation of whatever good people build. But, if we plan it right, if there is law fairly enforced, if we make sure that everyone is treated fair... that calls for the best in us...maybe we can build a foundation that can withstand the worst in us."
"Hmmm…and where do the Apache and the Pima and the others fit into your future?"
John turned to face Buck for the first time. "I don't know," he said simply. "I still believe that there is a way for everyone to share this land. But if we can't figure out how to allow the Apaches as much to live for as die for, then …well maybe I was naive."
"About the Apache."
John shook his head. "No, about white men. I knew there was hatred and mistrust and fear. But I don't know how deep that hatred ran among whites; people are totally blind to the simple fact that the Apache and the other tribes are men, like any others…trying desperately to protect their lives, their land, their way of life."
"We're white men."
"Yeah…we are. And if I am wrong …if we …whites…can't find away to live in peace with the Apache then I will be as guilty as any, because no matter what happens, we are here and staying here and others will follow. There is probably an Apache looking out at this same place and seeing a very different future."
John sighed and looked at Buck with a kind of pained bewilderment.
"Sometimes I feel like every time there is a raid or a conflict, another nail goes into their coffin. And yet every time I manage to broker a truce, a peace, any kind of agreement, I am really only helping to set the nail."
John turned from Buck and resumed his gaze over the land. "But I can't seem to stop seeing what could be."
Buck shook his head. "Well, you always could see further out than any man I ever knew. Even when we were kids, you had that faraway look in your eye. Seeing something that the rest of us couldn't."
Buck was silent for a moment or so, and then continued.
"I'll tell you though, John, and it was true when we were kids and its true now; the problem with people who see so far ahead is that sometime they can't see what's right in front of them. Can't see the things… the people…that they don't even know they depend on to help get them that view."
John turned to face his brother again.
"Oh? Like what? Like who?" He demanded sharply.
Buck gazed at this brother calmly.
"Now, Brother John, you don't really need me to tell you that, do you?" It was more statement than question.
Before John could reply, Buck tightened the chinstrap on his hat.
"C'mon…let's get out of here…I could eat a buzzard myself…if they don't get to us first."