The following material is an extract from NOT JUST ANY MAN, A Novel of Old New Mexico, Copyright © 2018 Loretta Miles Tollefson. Published by Palo Flechado Press, Santa Fe, NM

A Note about Spanish Terms: This novel is set in northern New Mexico and reflects as much as possible the local dialect at that time. Even today, Northern New Mexico Spanish is a unique combination of late 1500s Spanish, indigenous words from the First Peoples of the region and of Mexico, and terms that filtered in with the French and American trappers and traders. I’ve tried to represent the resulting mixture as faithfully as possible. My primary source of information was Rubén Cobos’ excellent work, A Dictionary of New Mexico and Southern Colorado Spanish (University of New Mexico Press, 2003). Any errors in spelling, usage, or definition are solely my responsibility.

CHAPTER 19

Ewing Young tells the camp keepers to link the Pattie horse to one of the pack mules when they head out the next morning and orders the two-hour night watch rotation to continue. He’s convinced they haven’t seen the last of the Apaches.

Three nights later and two days march from the attack site, Gerald is assigned first watch. It’s a bitter night, desert-cold and no moon. At ten o’clock, when no one comes out to the herd to relieve him, Gerald heads back to camp.

Blanket-wrapped men lie in mounds around the fire. Only Enoch Jones is awake, warming himself with a tin cup of stewed coffee, a pistol stuck in his waistband. Gerald steps to his bedroll and drops his rifle beside it, then moves into the light, opposite Jones on the other side of the flames. Jones continues to stare into his cup, studiously ignoring him.

Gerald holds his hands over the fire and waits. A coyote yips in the distance. Finally, Gerald says, “Aren’t you up for the next watch?”

“In a minute,” Jones growls.

“Young wants them monitored closely,” Gerald observes mildly.

Jones scowls, his eyes narrow. “You tellin’ me what t’ do?”

Gerald’s stomach tightens as he resists the urge to respond in kind. But then a distant voice calls “Hallo the camp” from the darkness, and Jones’ head swings away. He half rises, hand to his pistol.

Gerald squints into the night. His hand moves to the pistol at his own waist as he silently curses himself for leaving the rifle by his bedding.

“Come on in,” Gerald calls cautiously. A blanket lifts on the ground behind him, and then Thomas Smith is standing next to him, rifle barrel pointing toward the voice.

One shadowy form appears, then two, their hands well away from their sides, rifle barrels pointing to the ground. Americans, by the look of them. Certainly not Apache.

As they step into the firelight, a voice from a blanket on the far side of the fire says, “Well, I’ll be!”

“Jim Pattie,” Smith says. He lowers his rifle barrel. “And LeCompte too, by God.”

The younger man’s dirt-streaked face breaks into a grin as he takes off his battered hat and runs a hand through his curly blond hair. “I sure am glad to see you all,” he says.

“Sacrebleu!” the man beside him says. “C’est une miracle!”

“We’ve got Michel Robidoux back there,” Pattie says, jerking his head in the direction he’s come from. He scowls. “We’re the only ones left, thanks to him.”

Ewing Young materializes from the dark, gun at the ready. “Only ones left of what?”

“Of Robidoux’s thirteen.” Pattie’s eyes sweep the men around the fire, all of them roused now. “We got hit by Papagos.” Pattie’s voice rises. “I told him, those dirty Indians weren’t to be trusted, but he wouldn’t listen!”

“Better go get him,” Young says. “Then we can talk.”

Pattie scowls and turns. He says something in broken French and his companion nods and turns away.

“There’s Apache around,” Young says. “You’d best go with him.”

Pattie’s scowl deepens. “I’ve been on the move since yesterday morning.”

“A little longer won’t hurt you.”

“I’ll go with you,” Smith says. He flourishes his rifle. “Just let those Injuns get near me and I’ll be bringin’ back a scalp or two.”

Pattie nods unhappily and turns back into the darkness, LeCompte and Smith close behind. They return an hour later with several mules, two horses, and Michel Robidoux, his face and shirt stained black with blood and dirt, his jaw swollen to twice its natural size.

All of Young’s trappers are awake by now. They crouch around the built-up fire and listen attentively as Pattie tells the grim story. This is rightfully Robidoux’s role, as the party’s head, but the Frenchman’s jaw is too swollen to allow him to do more than mutter a few phrases in confirmation or denial of Pattie’s version of events, and LeCompte has too little English to do more than nod his thanks for the freshly brewed coffee and study the fire-lit faces surrounding him.

As Pattie tells it, Robidoux’s trappers were on the Salt River a mile or so above its junction with the Black, when Robidoux foolishly let a group of Papago warriors talk him into visiting their village, then piling his men’s weapons in a single stack between their huts. Even worse, to show how much he trusted them, Robidoux allowed the Papago men to sleep alongside the trappers in their camp just beyond the huts.

Pattie hadn’t liked the looks of things from the start, and he and LeCompte slept away from the others, rifles to hand, horses saddled, mules packed and ready to light out at a moment’s notice. When the attack came, they hung around just long enough to confirm that they could be of no use to their fellows, then lit out. Robidoux glares at the assertion that they even considered coming to his rescue, but his jaw is so battered that he can do nothing but growl wordlessly and shake his head.

According to Pattie, he and LeCompte headed up the Salt as fast as they could. The next morning, watching the back trail for Papagos, they spied Robidoux instead. They retrieved him, gave him food and water, then laid up the rest of the day while he recovered.

Robidoux scowls at this assertion and shakes his head. “Weren’t tha ba,” he mutters.

Pattie ignores him, his eyes on Ewing Young. He runs his hand through his hair. “When I seen your fire, me and LeCompte slipped close enough to make out you weren’t a bunch of Injuns,” he says.

Gerald raises an eyebrow at this. The two men had been at least 200 feet out when they’d hailed the camp and the night is pitch black and moonless. They couldn’t have seen anything but the fire’s glow. Only desperate men would head for a fire of unclear origin.

“We’ve got your daddy’s horse,” Milton Sublette says abruptly. “The one the Apaches stole last season.”

Pattie turns toward him eagerly. “You don’t say! What happened?”

But Ewing Young isn’t about to be sidetracked. He’s looking at Robidoux. “Are you three truly all that’s left of your bunch?” he asks.

Robidoux nods. He holds up his hands, fingers splayed out, then grimaces and shakes his head.

“The Papagos got ten men?”

There’s a sharp intake of breath from Young’s trappers. Robidoux nods, eyes grim.

Young turns to Pattie. “Where’s this village?”

Pattie gestures vaguely south and west. “Down river maybe five miles.”

Robidoux grunts and shakes his battered head. When Young looks at him, he raises both hands and lifts seven fingers. He tries to speak, but pain spasms across his face.

“Seven miles?”

Robidoux nods just enough to answer the question but not enough to start the pain up again.

“Right on the Salt?”

Robidoux shakes his head slightly, then puts his hand to his jaw, his eyes squinting against the pain.

Young looks at Pattie. “How far is the village from the river?”

Pattie shrugs. “A mile. Maybe a mile and a half.”

Robidoux nods slightly, his hand still holding his swollen jaw.

Ewing Young’s head turns, taking in his circle of men. “No trapping tomorrow,” he says. “We’re huntin’ justice instead.” He pauses. “But not everyone. The camp keepers can stay here, except for Gregorio.” He nods at him. “Bring what we’ll need for a couple of days. And the shovels.” He rises to his feet. “We leave at first light.”

They don’t go far the next day, just a few miles, to a protected bluff near the river bottom where they wait under the gnarled cottonwoods while Thomas Smith and Leduc head downstream to reconnoiter. The two men return looking satisfied, and report that a four-foot deep arroyo curves along one edge of the Papago camp, between it and the river. Young nods at the lines they draw in the rocky sand. “That’ll do,” he says.

 The trappers head out an hour before dawn, moving cautiously through the tree-lined river bottom and into the narrow sand-and-gravel wash Smith and LeDuc have spotted. They crouch below its banks and wait silently in the cold darkness. Smith and Leduc are positioned in the center of the line of trappers, at the deepest part of the curve. Young is to one side of them, Gerald to the other. Michel Robidoux crouches just beyond Gerald.

Quiet settles. There’s only a mouse scurrying, a man’s weight shifting on the gravel, Robidoux’s labored breathing. A slight breeze rattles a dead cottonwood leaf overhead.

Finally, the sky begins to gray toward dawn. Small birds rustle in the trees. Young gestures to Smith and Leduc. They grin at him happily and scramble up the side of the gully, their moccasined feet pushing the gravel behind them and into the wash. As they crest the top, they both let out a blood-curdling yell. They raise their rifles over their heads and run toward the cluster of Papago huts, howling like maniacs as they go.

Young raises his head above the gully’s edge just far enough to watch them, his face immobile. Suddenly, without turning his head, he settles his rifle in the dirt in front of him, lifts his hands, palm up, and moves them slightly upward. The trappers rise in a single fluid motion, the edge of the wash at chest height now, and ready their weapons.

The morning light is still uncertain and it’s difficult to see at any great distance, but it’s clear that Smith and LeDuc are now moving back toward the gully, still yelling. Forms materialize behind them as almost-naked Papago warriors respond to the apparent attack. Smith and LeDuc take their time, stopping every few yards to take a pot shot at the warriors, who gain shape and increase in number, their round white shields glowing in the early morning sun.

As the gap between warriors and trappers narrows, Gerald keeps one eye on Ewing Young. the Captain’s arms are still stretched out, his hands sideways now, signaling Gerald and the others to hold their fire. Gerald hears Robidoux huff impatiently.

The Papagos are within a few yards of Smith and Leduc now. The two trappers reach the edge of the wash, turn to fire once more, then drop over the edge of the gully as Young shouts “Fire!” and reaches for his rifle.

Gerald feels his gun blast before he’s aware that he’s squeezed the trigger. Then he and the others are firing, reloading, and firing again, putting up a solid wall of bullets. The Papagos waver, realizing they’ve been tricked, and begin to retreat.

As the warriors fall back, the trappers scramble up the bank, maintaining a steady rain of fire as they curse the rock and sand that slides out from under their feet and slows their ascent. Then they’re over the lip of the arroyo and moving after the Indians.

As the Papagos retreat, women and children pour out of the village and scatter into the fields beyond. The trappers follow. When they reach the huts, James Pattie and a few others give up the chase and begin investigating the buildings for stragglers. Gerald slows too, not wanting to participate in more killing than he has to, though it seems unlikely that there’s anyone left in the village.

He stands in a broad path between two rows of wooden huts and studies the encampment. The only substantial part of the buildings are the posts at each corner, which are set deep into the ground. The hut walls are simply dead tree branches attached to the posts with leather straps. Rough porches much like the freestanding Ranchos de Taos blacksmith shop stand in front of the huts. Like the shop, the gaps between the poles on the roofs allow light and air to filter through while still providing shade. The bare wood glints like dull silver in the morning light.

Gerald turns and glances beyond the village. Milton Sublette, slightly behind the others, limps between two fields, gun at the ready. The winter-brown fields are neatly laid out. Thin lines of what appear to be irrigation ditches run between them. Gerald’s eyes narrow, automatically trying to identify the plants from their remains. What would grow out here in this desert?

But then his attention is pulled back to a hut just ahead and to his right. He hears a man growl a curse, then a scuffling sound. Enoch Jones appears in the door opening. He’s dragging a Papago girl by the arm. She’s perhaps twelve years old, her breasts just beginning to show her womanhood. Her eyes are wide with fright. She wears only a clumsy grass skirt around her waist.

Jones drops her to the ground under the hut’s porch and leers down at her as he fumbles at his crotch. Gerald takes a step forward, but then Gregorio Garcia appears from the other side of the building, a rifle in his hands.

“Déjela de paz!” the boy yells. The rifle barrel wobbles, then straightens and fixes directly on Jones’ chest. “Let her go!” he repeats.

Jones’ pants fall open, revealing his pale cock, which stands straight up. He looks down at it with a kind of glee and waggles his hips at Gregorio. “I’m gonna show ya how it’s done,” he says. He leans down and yanks the girl around, reaching for her buttocks. “See, ya—”

“I said, let her go.” The boy takes a step closer. The rifle barrel dips, aiming at Jones’ crotch. “I will blow that thing off.” It’s a statement of fact more than a threat.

Jones looks into the boy’s face and his smile disappears. His eyes narrow. Then he looks down at the girl. “Tell ya what,” he says. “You can have her for yerself.” He reaches down and slaps her on the thigh. “She’ll be jest right fer a first time.”

He tucks himself back into his pants and refastens his buttons. “She’s all yers, Miz Mollie.” He turns on his heel and walks away, up the path toward the fields. He looks back. “You do know what t’ do with her, don’t ya?” He laughs harshly. “That’s a favor ya owe me now, Mollie boy!” Then he disappears around the corner of another hut, doubtless in search of another victim.

Gerald and Gregorio look at each other, then the girl. She lies motionless on the ground beneath the porch, her terrified eyes fixed on the boy with the gun. Tear marks streak her face. Gregorio lowers his rifle barrel and gestures at her to go. She stares at him blankly.

“Adelante!” he yells, waving his free hand. “Go!”

She blinks and turns her head. She sees Gerald and her eyebrows contract. He nods and waves his hand toward the fields with a shooing motion.

Suddenly, she seems to understand. She pulls herself cautiously into a sitting position, looks at Gregorio, then Gerald, then leaps to her feet and scuttles away from the porch, toward the field.

Gregorio moves toward Gerald. “I did that,” he says, his voice shaking. “I would have killed him. I felt it.”

Gerald put his hand on the boy’s arm. “It’s over now.”

Gregorio snorts, his eyes anxious. “That Jones, he will be angry and full of the vengeance.” He shakes his head. “It is not over, señor.”

 Copyright © 2018 Loretta Miles Tollefson

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