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 35

After the meat is jerked and divided between them, the Utes and trappers go their separate ways. Gerald and Ramón move east into the small valley Old Bill and Gerald had trapped two years before, then south toward Coyote Creek, gathering beaver pelts as they go. Gerald revels in the shadows of sun and cloud chasing each other across the green-black peaks, the exhilaration of the clear mountain air. In spite of Stands Alone’s cautions, he finds himself continuing to ponder the possibility of a spread at this altitude. He can’t seem to let go of the idea.

They make a good catch. Two ninety-pound compressed packs of furs weigh down the mules. More streams beckon in the mountains and valleys between them and Taos, but as the weather lightens in early February, the two men begin to contemplate a return to Taos.

“We’ll get there before most of the big parties return and we’ll be able to set our own price,” Gerald says hopefully as he warms his hands at the campfire one night.

“The arrival we can control, I think,” Ramón answers. “The price is up to el dios.”

“The price for quality pelts was good last spring,” Gerald points out.

“That was last spring,” Ramón says. “Who knows what will happen this year? But I agree it is time to return. I am hungry for Encarnación’s raised biscuits.” He smiles at the trees beyond their camp site, then at Gerald. “She has said perhaps I may ask for her hand, if we return well.”

Gerald smiles at the hopefulness in his friend’s voice, though a pang of jealousy touches him at the same time. What he would give for such a ‘perhaps’.

“And you will be glad to see Señorita Peabody, I think,” Ramón says.

Gerald nods and looks away. Will she be glad to see him? He shakes his head at himself. Each time he goes away, he hopes she’ll greet him especially joyfully at his return, give him some sign that he means more to her than the other men who visit her father’s parlor.

He reminds himself that she did seem especially pleased to see him when he arrived in the spring. Then he remembers the admiring looks she gave James Pattie’s horse. He grimaces. Maybe that’s not a good comparison. The problem is, the longer he’s away, the more his doubts creep in, the more he realizes the audacity of daring to tell her how he feels. And then there’s the matter of Jones.

And his own race. Jones’ death is a small issue compared to this thing about himself that he hasn’t confessed. Despite Ramón’s opinion that Suzanna has the right to decide which truths she wants to hear, telling her this fact seems fraught with danger. And there’s also the fact that it seems audacious to simply blurt it out as if he has the right to think she ought to know everything about him. If she doesn’t love him, then why should she or her father care about his race? He has about as much right to tell Suzanna Peabody the truth about himself as he does to ask for her hand.

Which is no right at all. He crosses to his mule and checks the straps around its pack of furs for the third time. This, at least, is something he can control. “Shall we plan to head out tomorrow then?” he asks over his shoulder. “To get you back to Encarnación in good time?”

~ ~ ~ ~

Neither man’s predictions about the price of beaver furs is quite met: they are neither as high as Gerald hoped or as low as Ramón feared.

Because his expectations were lower, Ramón has an extra bounce to his step as he and Gerald leave Beaubien’s mercantile. “Shall we go now to the Peabody casa?” he suggests.

Gerald grins at him. “I think you should wait at least a week before you press your suit,” he teases. “After all, it isn’t good for a woman to know you’re too eager.”

Ramón flashes him a smile. “I have waited long for this day,” he says. “And I owe it to you, my friend.”

Gerald shakes his head. “It’s I who owe you,” he says. “Your mountain skill and your trapping.” He grins. “And your cooking.”

Ramón chuckles. “My cooking is as nothing compared—” He stops, embarrassment shading his face. “But perhaps I speak of her too often.”

“Is it possible to speak too often of a woman you admire?” Gerald asks.

“But you do not speak of la señorita.”

Gerald tilts his head in acknowledgement. “I should have said, ‘of a woman you admire and of whom you have reason to hope,’” he says.

Ramón shoots him a glance and turns his eyes back to the dusty street in front of them. “You do not believe you have reason to hope?”

“I don’t have her father’s status and resources,” Gerald says simply. “I have no right to such hopes. And there are things I haven’t told him. Things he has a right to know.”

Ramón smiles. “I do not think it is her father’s ideas or opinions that should concern you,” he says. “La señorita’s mind and opinions are her own.”

Gerald chuckles. “That is true.” Then he sobers. “But I don’t know her mind on this matter.”

Ramón shrugs. “There will be time to discover that, now that we have returned.”

They reach the Peabody casa’s wooden gate, which stands slightly ajar. Ramón puts his hand on the heavy wooden bar which serves as a handle. “Are you ready?” he asks as he swings the gate open and steps forward.

They stand just inside the courtyard. It’s bright in the early February sun. Bits of green poke through the soil in the neatly dug garden beds. Yet there’s an unusual silence and no sign of activity. The heavy wooden kitchen shutters are closed. Gerald and Ramón exchange an apprehensive glance.

Then the house door opens and Encarnación appears and turns to the kitchen shutters without glancing toward the gate.

As she lifts the wooden bar that holds them shut, Ramón moves forward. “With your permission,” he says.

Encarnación whirls, her hand reaching for her skirt pocket. Then she realizes it’s Ramón and her face relaxes. “Oh, Ramón!” she says. “Such a time we have had.”

“Is there sickness?” Gerald asks from the gate, trying to keep the anxiety from his voice.

She looks toward him. “La señorita is well,” she says, answering his unasked question. She shakes her head. “The señor has been taken by an ague and has fever.” She looks toward the gate disapprovingly. “Suzanna seems to have gone in search of herbs.”

Ramón raises his eyebrows. “En febrero?”

Encarnación shrugs. “There are places where the grasses have begun to green, where herbs can be found.” She gestures toward the courtyard’s southern wall, where the tendrils of plants are taller than anywhere else in the bright space. “As you see.” She shakes her head. “We have dried forms of what she needs and a few leaves here are already producing. But la señorita believes the wild plants are stronger in value.”

“El señor, he is quite ill?”

Encarnación nods, her face troubled. Then there’s a movement at the gate and her lips tighten. “You left no word!” she says.

The men turn to see Suzanna, her skirts damp and carrying a small basket half full of reddish-brown twigs and sprigs of green.

Suzanna gives Gerald a glad look, then turns to shut the gate. He hurries forward to help her. She turns toward Encarnación as he lifts the bar that latches it into place. “I left you a note,” she says mildly.

The other woman humphs and turns back to the kitchen shutters. “With these shutters closed, who can see?”

Ramón leaps to her side and swings the wooden squares away from the window. As he latches them out of the way, Encarnación turns and goes into the house. Ramón looks at Suzanna and raises his eyebrows. Suzanna chuckles and gestures for him to enter the house. He shakes his head and waves her ahead of him.

Suzanna and Gerald grin at each other and move across the courtyard toward the door. “I hope your father is not as unwell as Encarnación indicated,” he says gravely.

She turns her head, her dark eyes anxious. “She’s right to be concerned,” she says. “He’s suffered a great deal from the cold this winter and nothing I gave him truly eased his discomfort.” She nods at the plants in her basket. “I did find some willow that was already producing new growth. Its spring bark will be more efficacious than what I dried last fall.” She sighs. “I hope it will help.”

Then she brightens. “And I also found poleo, which is very rare this early in the year. I don’t know that it’s of any value for what ails him, but he loves the taste of it, especially with a little black tea added.” She chuckles. “It will also help to stretch the black tea, which is his only beverage of choice at the moment.”

“It’s good to know that he has the energy to make choices,” Gerald says.

She laughs. “Yes. As long as he’s asking for black tea and Encarnación’s natillas, I think we have a reasonable hope of recovery.”

Copyright © 2018 Loretta Miles Tollefson

Thank you for your interest in Not Just Any Man. You can access other free chapters here. Want to get future chapters in your in-box? Sign up to follow me via email.

If you would like an ebook or print copy of this novel, it is available from your favorite brick and mortar store as well as Bookshop.org, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or your favorite ebook retailer.