October skies

In rapid succession they made half a dozen fly-on-the-walls following around a succession of characters: a British National Party parliamentary candidate; a Muslim cleric recently returned from Guantanamo; a veteran soldier from Iraq attempting to rebuild his life (and his face); an ex-soap starlet trying to launch her pop career; the ‘ASBO King’, an objectionable hooded thug who enjoyed boasting and blustering about his criminal record; Dennis the Dentist, a charming old man who was serving an indefinite sentence for the serial murders of a dozen of his patients; and Tone, a guitar band from Reading on the cusp of success, but never quite managing to make it.

It was a great series: Uncommon People.

Since then he and Rose had failed to capitalise on the success, picking up shitty stocking-filler commissions like this one; a seedy poke at American trailer-trash and the weird crap they reckon they’ve seen. Rose already had a dozen digital tapes full of interviews they’d had with an auto mechanic, a waitress, several bored college kids and a couple of old guys in the woods who made slow-burn charcoal — swearing blind they’d picnicked with Sasquatch, made love to Jim Morrison, or seen the ghost of Elvis wandering the hills and woods around Blue Valley.

Julian sighed. It would be nice to make some serious TV again.

‘Yeah, we’re dropping that bloody project,’ he said, starting up the Prius.

‘Fair enough,’ Rose agreed.

CHAPTER 7

20 July, 1856

I should have written more in this dairy than I have. I look in here and find my last entry is more than four days old.

I shall make immediate amends.

So, we have travelled in this loose association for a while now, out of Fort Kearny. We are an interesting mix of people at this end of the train. Our guide, Keats, insists our contingent refer to itself as the ‘Keats Party’ since he has been employed as our trail captain. Rather than antagonise a man I fancy could skin and fillet me with one flick of his large ‘Bowie’ knife, I’m more than happy to go along with that.

Amongst our group I’ve found the most fascinating diversity of people you could ever hope to travel with. Our contribution to the long train of carts is just five wagons long, with myself, Keats and his Indian partner Broken Wing as the only members travelling without the encumbrance of one.

We have the McIntyres, a family of four whose journey west, so they tell me, started in New York, and before that, Cork in Ireland. Their tales of squalor, the overcrowded tenement buildings in New York, the desperate gang fights amongst groups of immigrants, sound quite grim.

Then we have another family, the Bowens, who hail from my home city; more specifically, from the East End. Just as grim a place as any I’ve seen in the Five Points.

The other two wagons are occupied by a dark-skinned family. I have spoken with the only one of them who knows enough English to manage a conversation: Mr Hussein, the head of the family. His oldest son, Omar, pilots the second wagon and also speaks a little English.

Finally, there’s Mr Weyland from Virginia, who has only a two-wheeled cart, few possessions, and a Negro woman with him. I don’t know if she is his property. I would prefer to think not. It is an uncomfortable feeling to witness one soul owned, like a shoe or a brush, by another. But, I have seen him be both respectful and tender with her. Perhaps, she is not his property.

Perhaps I’ll ask…

Ben sat back, resting his aching spine against the soothing cool oak lid of his medicine chest. He leaned all the way back and looked up at the star-spotted sky. Night-time in this wilderness was the sort of absolute darkness that he was still finding quite novel. The streets and terraced houses of London maintained an ever-present amber twilight of flickering gas and oil-fed lamps.

The wagons of their parties were drawn close together in a circular cluster, the oxen corralled securely in the centre. The Preston party wagons were drawn together in their own cluster thirty or forty yards away; not a huge distance, but far enough to clearly make the point that they wished not to interact any more than was absolutely necessary.

Keats was holding court around their campfire. Ben could feel the heat from where he sat, warming one side of him while the other side gathered goose bumps from the fresh night air.

‘… seen all kinds right across from Independence to Oregon, ’ Keats replied in answer to a question from Mrs Bowen. ‘The trick of it, ma’am, is to know your tribes, and know ’em well. You got some that are so goddamned friendly you wonder how they managed to survive so long. The other tribes? Well…’ Keats’s voice trailed off and he shook his head.

After a moment of silence, Mrs Bowen leaned forward. ‘Mr Keats?’

Intrigued, Ben carefully packed away his journal, pen and inkpot into his chest and joined the huddle of people around the glowing, warming flames.