NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 22

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 22

Those among Ewing Young’s men who’ve tasted Encarnación’s custard think of it longingly as they trap down the Gila. Game is scarce and even the fish are wary of these men who invade the beaver ponds. The trappers’ diet has shrunk to beaver carcasses and the little corn they can trade at the occasional Papago village, villages which are warily courteous to the foreigners.

The monotony of beaver and occasional corn stew is wearing. Gerald finds himself thinking wistfully of white flour biscuits and black tea. And narrow brown hands holding out a small china plate— But he stops himself. He has no right. He busies himself mending traps and creating willow frames for the pelts he collects every morning.

Young’s party is ten days on the Gila before it reaches the Colorado River. Here their diet expands to include beans traded with the Uma Indians. Then the trappers turn north, up the Colorado. They begin to see cultivated fields again, planted by Indians that Ewing Young says are called ‘Mojave’ and James Pattie insists are the Maracopper. What matters to Gerald is that, although it’s still only late February, the squash plants in the fields are already well up and looking remarkably healthy.

There’s no apparent design to the way the squash is planted, except that each hillock lies on the edge of layers of silt still moist from the river’s spring flood. It’s a very different farming pattern from the irrigation ditches among the Papago fields on the Gila, or the ones at Los Chavez.

The fields expand as the Americans move upstream. In startling contrast to the flat lands along the Gila, brown as far as the eye could see, the Colorado’s valley is a swath of green bounded by high stony bluffs that block a man’s view of anything but the river and its valley. Dense thickets of cane and arrow weed line the river banks, and beaver lodges bulk from its sides. As the expedition’s fur take increases, the trappers’ pace slows. There’s beaver enough here to last them a good while.

It’s a pleasure to work and rest here. Gnarled cottonwoods cluster wherever the ground is slightly raised. Under the trees, the grass is thick and green. The mules and horses bend toward it eagerly.

But then it begins to rain, and the reason for the river’s width and the lush growth beside it becomes clear. The rain here isn’t like New Mexico’s: a half day of moisture, then sun again, sparkling on a newly-cleansed world. On the spring-time Colorado, the rain comes hard and solid, a steady downpour that lasts all day, then into the next, and the next after that.

The trappers sit gloomily under makeshift tents of heavy canvas that they’ve had no use for until now. They huddle the tents as close as possible over the cooking fires, trying to protect the flames from the rain while also making sure the canvas doesn’t catch fire. Gerald hunkers down with Thomas Smith and Maurice LeDuc under a square piece of tenting strung between two young cottonwoods.

On the third afternoon, the rain begins to ease. As the clouds pull back, a band of half-naked Indians appears among the trees, red, white, and black designs painted on their chest.

Thomas Smith mutters “Shit!” and cocks his rifle as Gerald reaches for his pistol.

Then Ewing Young emerges from his own shelter. He waves impatiently at the weapons. “They’re friendlies,” Young says. He gives Smith a sharp look. “Unless you’re fool enough to start shootin’.”

Smith lowers his gun, his eyes narrow. “I ain’t never seen a friendly Injun that couldn’t turn unfriendly in a blink,” he says.

But Young’s eyes are on the Mojave leader moving toward him, his black-tattooed chin jutting belligerently.

“Pee-Posh,” the man says. He touches his black-striped chest, then makes a sweeping gesture toward the men behind him. Then his hand sweeps toward Young and his trappers. “Americano?”

Young nods, then they move into sign language. Smith leans toward Gerald. “They’re all named Peeposh,” he chuckles. “And they’ve all got tattoos on their chins like true savages.”

Gerald smiles, watching Young at his work. His hands move so swiftly Gerald has trouble understanding what he’s saying. But then one of the Indian men moves forward carrying a basket and he understands. This is a trading mission.

When it’s over, the trappers have two baskets of beans and more of the everlasting corn, and the Indians have red strips of cloth and eight skinned beaver carcasses.

But the Mojave don’t leave. The rain has finally drizzled to a stop and the sun is out. Gerald stands under a cottonwood and watches as, thirty feet away, the Indians dig several large holes in the ground, build fires in them, then add the gutted beaver. They cover the holes with dirt, leaving small apertures for the smoke. It’s a kind of pig roast, he realizes. Only with beaver.

By some mysterious process Gerald can’t ascertain, the Indians seem to know when the meat is ready. He watches as they claw the dirt aside, scrape the burnt crust off the meat, and proceed to feast.

Ignacio comes to stand beside Gerald. “It is like our matanza,” he says. “Although we might cook a sheep or a goat.” He chuckles. “I wonder what mi mamá would say to beaver. Or whether mi papá would be willing to eat it.” He shakes his head. “He is doubtful of the ways of the trapper. He says los americanos break the law for the joy of it.”

Gerald frowns. “What law are we breaking?”

“Not you, señor.” Ignacio glances over his shoulder. “It is Señor Young with whom he is concerned. He believes el señor does not deal honestly with our officials.”

Gerald looks at Ignacio, who continues to watch the Indians eat, their long black hair kept carefully away from their faces and food. “Does he have reason for his distrust?” Gerald asks.

Ignacio shrugs. “There have been incidents,” he says reluctantly. He glances at Gerald, then turns away. “I’m sure it is nothing.”

The Indians hang close for the next two days, eagerly accepting more beaver to roast. There’s plenty, as the traps yield thirty plews the first night, then another twenty. On the third day, the catch has dropped to ten and Young announces that it’s time to move out. The Indians drift away, presumably back to their village, and the trappers head upstream.

As far as Gerald can tell, the village the trappers come across three days later doesn’t belong to the men they traded with. The hamlet consists of two rows of brush and thatch huts. The trappers and their mules proceed between them. Tall woven baskets stand on low stilts beside the buildings, their contents protected by woven lids. Naked children and bare-breasted women with tattooed chins peek from behind the baskets and from inside the huts. There’s no sign of the men.

The trappers establish camp under a cluster of giant cottonwoods three miles north of the village and within a stone’s throw of the river. There’s a break in the thickets of cane and arrow weed, so they can get to the water easily, and a grazing meadow that surrounds the other three sides of the cottonwood grove.

Ignacio and the other camp keepers are just starting the evening meal when a group of Mojave men appear. Although their women had been timid, the men hold themselves proudly and look the Americans in the face. They’re dressed in breech clouts of woven strands of wood and the same paint as the Mojaves the trappers had traded with downriver.

Their leader is a thick-set man with a broad forehead and a black design tattooed on his chin and red and black stripes painted on his chest. His eyes are narrowed from years of sun glare. A bow and a quiver of arrows hang from his naked back.

He seems unconcerned about the language barrier. Even though Young has a rifle in his hands, the man confronts Young confidently. He points toward the river, then himself, the packs of furs, then himself again. Then he waves his hand at Young’s men, ranged around the camp fire, and shakes his head. He makes a dismissive gesture.

Gerald frowns. The man seems to be saying it’s his river, not theirs, and what comes from this river is his as well. He has a point. It is his land—his peoples’, anyway.

The Chief points at the mules and horses grazing nearby, then makes a scooping motion toward his chest.

Young’s eyes darken. “I ain’t givin’ you a horse,” he growls.

There’s no need to shake his head in denial. The Mojave understands. He frowns, points toward the river again, then himself. Then he gestures at the horses and makes another scooping gesture. He holds up a forefinger, then repeats the entire set of motions: the river, himself, the horses, the scoop.

“He just wants the one,” James Pattie says.

“And then he’ll want more,” Thomas Smith says. He turns and spits. “And more after that! You gonna give him your daddy’s mare?”

“Ain’t mine to give!” Pattie protests.

But Ewing Young and the Mojave ignore the side play. They face each other like two men about to duel, eyes steady, jaws set. Suddenly, the Chief’s hands move again, this time over his shoulder to the bow and arrows. In one fluid movement, there’s an arrow pointing at Young’s chest. The Mojave grins, almost playfully.

Thomas Smith’s rifle clicks. The Chief gives no notice he’s heard. He lifts the bow slightly and releases his arrow up over Young’s head, where it lodges solidly in the trunk of a big cottonwood.

Young turns and lifts his gun. A shot rings out and the arrow’s shaft breaks apart, the end tumbling to the ground. There’s a long silence, then the Chief nods and turns. His men follow him out of the grove.

The trappers watch them go. “That ain’t the last of him,” Thomas Smith says.

Young studies the arrowhead still stuck in the tree. He nods grimly. “There’ll be no trap setting tonight,” he announces. He turns and considers the campsite and the area between it and the river. “With the river behind us and the grassland on the other side of the trees, I suppose this is as good a place as any. And there’s plenty of deadfall.” He turns back to his men. “It’s time to fort up.”

Trappers and camp keepers work side by side to pull deadwood and branches into position on the three sides of the tree-shaded camp not protected by the river. They herd the unwilling animals inside, then go back to work on the waist-high bulwark, reinforcing it with the packs of beaver pelts.

It’s dusk before they finish. They eat a cold meal, then settle down for the night. Young orders a double guard: two men on each side of the enclosure, one along the river, two-hour shifts, no smoking or talking. For once, no one complains.

No one sleeps much either. The horses and mules move restlessly as the guards pace inside their sections of the bulwark. Gerald lies with his eyes open, staring into a moonless sky, trying not to think about why the Indians will attack in the morning. The Chief’s request seems such a trivial thing. And such a fair one.

Young’s stubborn response, and the other trappers’ apparent agreement with him, makes Gerald wonder what really happened between Robidoux’s party and the Papago villagers. What triggered that initial attack? What small thing resulted in the death of all those men? He stares up at the sky. Even the stars seem dimmer than usual.

He doses off, then a mule snorts and he’s awake again, staring into the night. The waiting seems more painful than an attack could ever be. He knows this thought is nonsense. Yet time drags unnervingly in the unmoving blackness. Only the changes in guard mark its passing.

His own duty comes just as the sky begins to lighten and he’s finally drifted into a semi-sleep. Suddenly George Yount is shaking his shoulder and muttering, “Your time!” in his nasal Pennsylvania Dutch accent.

Gerald sits up sharply and his skull connects with Yount’s with a dull thud. The big man jerks back and glares at him, then breaks into a grin. “Didn’t think you was asleep, did ya?” he asks.

Gerald grins sheepishly and shakes his head.

Yount rubs his forehead. “That is one hard skull you got,” he says.

Gerald chuckles. “So my daddy says.” Smith, lying nearby, raises his head and growls wordlessly, and Gerald lowers his voice. “Which section?”

Yount gestures toward the center, facing the meadow, and Gerald nods, reaches for his rifle, and heads toward the wall of wood and beaver pelts.

It will be a beautiful day. He peers over the bulwark at the silent grass. Dew has collected on its long slender blades. The moisture glitters in the rising light, then evaporates as he watches. To his left, Michel Robidoux leads a small group of hobbled horses through the break between the fort and river and stations them to graze on the south side of the improvised wall.

Gerald glances at the trees overhead. A light breeze moves their leaves, setting up a small, joyful sound. The peacefulness of the morning is at odds with the tension of the night. He takes a deep breath.

As he lets it out, a man on horseback appears at the top of a small rise on the other side of the meadow. Gerald stiffens. It’s the Mojave Chief, a spear in his hand, a small collection of men on foot behind him.

Gerald opens his mouth, but Thomas Smith’s voice overrides his. “We’ve got company!”

Smith is beside Gerald before Ewing Young reaches the bulwark. Smith braces his rifle barrel on a convenient notch in the uppermost log and sights on the Chief. Then Young steps forward and pushes the barrel up and away. Smith scowls.

“Don’t go giving them any provocation,” Young says.

Smith mutters an imprecation Gerald can’t hear, but Young ignores him. He glances at Gerald. “Yours, too,” he says.

Gerald glances down. His rifle is also angled toward the oncoming men. He lowers the barrel and glances behind him. Trappers are scattered in small knots across the impromptu fort’s interior, all of them casually holding a loaded firearm as they appear not to watch the Mojave warriors. Only Young gazes straight at the Chief and his clutch of men as they move toward the American encampment.

When they’re close enough for conversation, the Chief reins in and begins making the same gestures he’d made the day before. He waves a hand at the grazing horses, still grazing outside the makeshift fort.

Young glances at the animals and scowls. He lifts his chin at the Chief. “I told you ‘no’!” he shouts. Then he raises his rifle barrel toward the sky. It roars defiantly.

The Chief’s mount stirs anxiously and the man’s eyes narrow until they’re mere black slits. His horse wheels, circling toward the grazing animals, and the Chief lifts his spear. As its point bites into the nearest horse’s side, the trappers’ rifles speak from the bulwark. The Chief tumbles from his mount. Two warriors gallop forward and gather him up. Then the Mojaves move off. Rifle fire follows them as they disappear over the rise.

“Any bets on how long it’ll take ’em to try it again?” Milt Sublette asks.

“I’m thinkin’ an hour or two,” Thomas Smith says. “They’ll need to sort out who’s gonna lead ’em the second time around.”

“I’m betting it’ll be longer than that,” Sublette says. “They’ll wanta dance a little and work their dander up.”

George Yount turns toward the opening by the river. “We must bring in the horses and tend to the wounded one.”

Ewing Young paces along the front of the bulwark, pushing branches into place, shoving fur packs more tightly into the gaps. “Yes, bring them in,” he says. “Then move them as close as you can toward the water, out of the way.” He tilts his head and looks up at the tops of the cottonwoods. “Garcia, you and Sandoval climb up into the branches there—” He points to a gnarled tree just inside the fort’s right-hand wall. “And there—” He points to a slightly smaller tree on the left. “Keep your eyes peeled and let out a holler as soon as you see them red devils comin’ back.”

The two young men nod and scramble into the trees. Then nothing happens. Young keeps them up there most of the day, spelled by Gerald and James Pattie when there’s food to be prepared and distributed.

The meal is stark, but no one besides Thomas Smith thinks fire is a good idea. He wants his coffee. There’s been none since the previous morning. No one pays much attention to his grumbling. They’re all too busy watching for the warriors who don’t come.

Darkness falls and the rain starts up again. Putting up any kind of shelter against the downpour will reduce the trappers’ ability to monitor any activity outside the bulwark walls. Even Thomas Smith doesn’t suggest it.

Instead, they sit in disconsolate huddles inside the makeshift fort, pieces of blanket, tent, or buckskin draped over their heads and shoulders, and try to catch a little sleep. Even guard duty is better than sitting in the mud. By the time the rain has stopped, the ground’s a muck-ridden mess.

They’re all stiff and cold in the morning, but the rain has stopped. As the trappers stretch themselves awake and beat warmth into their arms and legs, the Mojaves appear at the top of the rise, just out of rifle fire range. The dull thud of a drum reverberates across the meadow, setting up a steady heartbeat, then the warriors begin a shuffling dance, occasionally moving to one side to shoot a challenging arrow toward the fort. The arrows bite the ground well short of the bulwark, but the message is clear. We’re coming.

“Just limberin’ up,” Smith observes laconically. “’Fraid to get closer, I guess.”

“Unusual for Mojaves,” Ewing Young says. He strokes his chin. “As a general rule, they like surprise attacks. But I’m guessing they’ll be massing up shortly.” He turns to Gregorio. “Shimmy on up that tree again and see if you can spot anything beyond that bit of hill they’re dancin’ on.”

The camp keeper scrambles up the nearest cottonwood and cranes his neck. “There is nothing, señor,” he calls down. He gestures toward the Indians. “There are no more than what you see.”

Young nods thoughtfully, studying the rise. He turns to ask another question, but the warriors have spied movement in the tree. As Gregorio begins clambering down, they group together and move forward, their taunts filing the air.

Smith rushes past Young to the bulwark. “Alrighty boys!” Smith yells. “Have at ’em!”

Young scowls but doesn’t contradict the order. He moves to one side and checks his primer, then nods at Gerald. “Are you ready?” he asks.

Gerald nods grimly. Personally, he would have given the Chief a horse. Even two. It is his people’s river, after all. But it’s too late now for second guessing. He double checks his load and braces the rifle barrel in a branch that protrudes from the bulwark.

The trappers’ first volley stops the warriors in their tracks. Two Mojaves warriors go down and another staggers and grabs at his right shoulder. The rest dash to their fallen men, grab them up, then turn and flee toward the village.

Thomas Smith scrambles over the bulwark wall and races after the fleeing warriors, LeDuc and Yount close behind him. Ewing Young watches them dispassionately, then turns to the remaining men. “All right, let’s pack up and head out,” he says. “It’s just not profitable to waste time arguin’ with a bunch of savages. They’ve learned their lesson. And there’s not enough beaver left along here to make battling them worth our while, anyway.”

And with two men dead and another injured, the Mojaves are likely to return, looking for vengeance, Gerald reflects as he helps disentangle the packs of beaver pelts from the fort’s improvised walls. Young is wise to move on. But Gerald is careful to keep his expression blank. After all, Young is the man paying the bills. He notices that when Smith and the others return, they don’t object to the move either.

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.

NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 21

“My cousin Antonia told me a story yesterday that I think you will find of great interest,” Encarnación says as she stirs the mixture of milk and sugar in the pot on the wood stove. Spring sunlight pours through the window, whose wooden shutters are thrown back to allow air into the room. The wooden grate in the window opening casts a shadowy grid on the opposite wall.

“What story is that?” Suzanna asks absently. She shakes the container of black tea leaves, then pries off the lid and peers inside. There’s less here than she’d thought. Prices are so high right now. Perhaps she should switch to strawberry leaf or rosehip tea.

She looks up at the cook. Encarnación has set the hot pan on the wooden tabletop to cool and is separating the yolks and whites of six brown-speckled eggs. “What did Antonia tell you?” Suzanna asks.

Encarnación twists her face in disgust. “That man, that Jones.” She moves to the stove. “Here, can you add the yolks to the milk and stir it? Slowly now, and steadily.”

Suzanna places the canister on the table and moves to the stove as Encarnación begins beating egg whites as if they were Jones himself. “Ugh. I can hardly speak of it,” she says.

“Now you must tell me!” Suzanna says. “What happened?”

Encarnación’s hands slow a little. “You know how it is with Antonia’s casa, how it’s out of sight of all of the others.” She shakes her head and peers at the egg whites, which are frothing nicely. “That man came to her house in the spring, while Gregorio was at the market, and he tried to attack her.” Her head jerks up. “Do you still have that knife I gave you?”

Involuntarily, Suzanna glances at the door to check for her father, then nods. “He attacked Antonia Garcia?” she asks. “And she said nothing?”

Encarnación sets the bowl of egg whites down, moves to the stove, and takes the spoon from Suzanna. She moves it carefully through the custard, scraping along the edge of the pan. “He tried to attack her,” she says grimly. Then she grins and glances slyly at Suzanna. “He was unable to accomplish his task.”

Suzanna steps away from the stove. “He was unable?”

“That’s what she told me.” Encarnación chortles. “It would seem that el amador potente is not all its owner would prefer.”

“Oh, my goodness!” Suzanna moves to the table. Her hand drops to the tea canister. “So perhaps he’s not as dangerous as we think.”

Encarnación frowns. “Perhaps.” She leans toward the pan, studying the thickening mixture, then moves to the table for the egg whites. “Or perhaps el amador springs to attention only for others of his kind.” She shakes her head and glances at the girl. “Certainly, I would continue to carry el cuchilitto. And ask Ramón to accompany you on your errands.”

Footsteps scuff the hard-packed clay floor at the other end of the hall and the two women exchange a mute nod.

“That Jones!” Encarnación says, a little more loudly than necessary. “But if I think of him further, I will curdle les natillas.”

“Oh, Chonita!” Suzanna laughs and turns to place the tea canister back on its shelf. “That would be a shame!” She grins mischievously. “You should think of Ramón Chavez instead!”

The cook gives her a half-amused look as she moves the pan to the side of the stove.

Jeremiah Peabody appears in the doorway and Suzanna abruptly changes her tone. “Where did you store the dried strawberry leaves?” she asks. “I think I’m going to start drinking that for tea, instead of the black. This February cold has begun to make my chest feel a little constricted.”

Encarnación begins to spoon the frothy egg whites into the hot pan. She nods toward the wall by the window. “It’s in the alacena.”

Suzanna moves to the wooden cupboard set into the adobe wall as her father moves across the room toward Encarnación. “Custard?” he asks with a pleased look.

“The hens have begun laying again,” Encarnación tells him. “It’s a way to use the extra eggs.”

“It is also a most excellent way to welcome the spring,” he says. He turns to Suzanna. “Are you ready for your Latin lesson, my dear?” He frowns. “Unless you are tired? Did you say your chest is constricted?” He glances at the open shutters. “Is that window too drafty?” He turns to Encarnación. “Perhaps we should install mica in this one as well.”

Encarnación scowls and Suzanna chuckles. Her father and the cook have this discussion every few months. She knows Encarnación’s opinion. “Oh, it’s not truly uncomfortable, papá,” the girl says easily. “The strawberry is merely a preventative. It will make a nice change.”

He peers into her face, humphs, and leaves the room. The two women smile at each other companionably. Encarnación turns back to her natillas as Suzanna locates the dried strawberry leaf among the other herbs in the wall cupboard.

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.

NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 20

But there are other things besides Jones to think about. After the fight, Michel Robidoux leads Ewing Young to the other side of the village, where he and his men had bedded down beside the Papago warriors. The trappers’ animals, guns, and ammunition have disappeared, but their bodies are still there. Even the most experienced men gag at the sight. Naked corpses are strewn across the campsite. Arms and bashed-in heads have been severed from torsos. Torn holes gape in stinking bellies and chests, although it’s not certain whether knives or beaks did the work. Ravens and vultures wheel overhead.

The trappers turn immediately to the task of burial. Once the top crust of sand and rock is clawed away and the damp soil underneath is exposed, the ten holes are easy enough to dig. Creating the stone cairns that will protect the dead from being dug up again is another matter.

But they definitely need protection. The birds of prey ride the sky in endless circles as the men lever rock out of the sides of the arroyo, haul it to the burial site, pile it into place, then scour the death site once again to make sure there’s nothing left for the birds or any other scavenger. In the process, Michel Robidoux stumbles on a cache of beaver traps, most of them mangled beyond repair. He picks through them and grimly collects the twelve that appear to be most mendable.

It’s a two-day task that leaves no time for anything else, so it’s easy enough for Gregorio to avoid any interaction with Jones. But once the trappers are back on the Salt and have returned with relief to the business of trapping, Jones picks up his program of harassment.

There’s a new edge to his attention, now. His eyes follow Gregorio around the camp. And he seems to be spending more time there than the other men. His trap lines are set in remarkably short order and he’s back with his morning haul well before any of the other men.

Under the constant surveillance, Gregorio’s work appears to slip. The sugar he’s left on the rock slab that serves as a table tumbles to the ground for no reason, the beaver skins he’s stretched fall from their tree branches in the night, the food he serves the men is sprinkled with grit or is too salty to eat.

Jones points out every error. Gregorio keeps his eyes down and goes about his business without comment, without apologizing for the mistakes he hasn’t made. At first, Ignacio tries to intervene, to point out Jones’ proximity when the sugar falls or to monitor the cooking pot so Jones can’t get near it. The trapper simply begins playing tricks on Ignacio, too.

Gerald watches it all helplessly, well aware that any intervention on his part will only make the situation worse. What he doesn’t understand is why Ewing Young doesn’t step in. Can’t he see what Jones is up to? But Young seems oblivious to what’s going on.

But then, Young has other things to worry about. He’s pulled the trappers off the Gila River and turned them northeast, up the Black. The narrow river canyon is thick with beaver. The big rodents have created a series of dams and the water seeps for miles between the dry hills at the base of the rugged cliffs on either side of the stream. The men have to wade through knee high marsh and fight through dense thickets of scraping willow, but the take in pelts is worth the discomfort. They trap steadily onward.

The hills on either side are dry rock spotted with patches of dusty juniper. Their bleakness makes the valley, with the long-stemmed grasses, bushy willow, and wild rosebushes that crowd the edges of the beaver ponds, even more inviting. Beyond the smaller stuff, where the ground is more elevated, is a narrow strip of juniper, cedar, and occasional ponderosa, the ground underneath crowded with undergrowth. Even in February, with no leaves showing yet, the brush makes for hard going unless a man stays at the base of the dry hills or is lucky enough to stumble onto a dim animal track.

Eighty miles up, the river forks. Young divides the men into two groups, one to each branch, separating Jones and Gregorio in the process. Jones, Pattie, Smith, and Maurice LeDuc move with Young’s party up the fork that heads due north. Gregorio, Ignacio, and Gerald join Robidoux, Sublette, and George Yount in the party that moves up the northeast branch.

Not having Jones around makes life more pleasant, although there’s little time for anything but the drudgery of trapping, butchering, and stretching skins day in and day out. The scenery changes as they move upstream, and the air cools as the elevation rises. Gerald is surprised at the relief he feels at the temperature change. Then he realizes it’s not really the heat he objects to. It’s the fact that it’s this hot in February. It just doesn’t feel natural.

But as they move upstream, it begins to feel more like the way February had felt in the Sangre de Cristos. The streams are frozen solid and the beaver are deep in sluggish winter sleep. There’s little point in breaking through the ice to set traps they aren’t likely to investigate.

Gerald’s team turns downstream, moving rapidly now. They reach the rendezvous point at the river fork half a day ahead of Young’s party. Jones seems quiet enough when he rides into camp behind Young, but his eyes narrow when he sees Gregorio. It’s clear the man’s attitude hasn’t changed.

The group trapping the west fork has gathered about a third more pelts than Gerald’s party. Ewing Young shrugs. “You just never can tell,” he says.

“Mollie’s got other things t’ do,” Enoch Jones smirks. He crouches beside the fire and pokes at it with a stick. “Ain’t figured out yet not to use green firewood, either.” He grins maliciously at Gregorio, who’s on the other side of the fire, stirring the stew for the evening meal. “’Fraid t’ go inta the woods to collect dry fuel, little boy?”

Just then, Ignacio enters the clearing, his arms full of broken aspen branches. He drops them onto the ground beside Jones, then begins cracking the smaller pieces over his knees and tossing them into the flames. Sparks shoot up and Jones jerks back. “Watch what yer doin’!” he growls.

Thomas Smith laughs. “Too bright fer ya, Jones?” he asks. He turns to Gerald. “How far’d that fork go, anyways? Does it really head as far as the San Francisco?”

“Nigger mollie lover!” Jones spits. He glares at Smith, stands, and stalks into the woods. Gerald focuses on Smith. As he begins describing the terrain near the head of the Black’s northeast fork, Smith, LeDuc, and Young all lean forward attentively.

~ ~ ~ ~

The trappers move down river the next day, back toward the Gila. Since they’re travelling through an area they’ve already trapped, there are no pelts to process, and little to do once they’ve made camp. Young has slowed the pace and they make camp before nightfall each day, giving the men time and daylight to mend traps and take a breather.

And to clean up a little. On the third afternoon from the fork, Gerald slips through the brush to bathe in a side stream. He’s returning along a narrow deer trail, half-bent to avoid the crowding willow branches, when he hears a guttural man’s voice in the small clearing just ahead.

He slips closer and peers through the bushes. It’s Jones, growling deep in his throat as he shoves Gregorio Garcia, chest first, his arms twisted behind his back, into the rough bark of a wind-battered ponderosa. As Gerald watches, Jones grabs Gregorio’s hair and grinds his face into the thick bark.

Then Jones releases the boy’s head. He grips Gregorio’s arms with his right hand and fumbles at his crotch with his left. “I’ll show you how it’s done, Miz Mollie boy!” he growls. His cock springs free of his clothes, and he grabs Gregorio’s cotton trousers, and gives them a yank. The back seam gives way with a ripping sound and exposes the boy’s bare buttocks. “I’ll teach you t’ be a man!”

Gerald moves then, and the sound of dry sticks breaking underfoot catches Jones’ attention. As the big man’s head swivels, Gregorio twists free. His right hand sweeps to his waist. Gerald glances at him in surprise, and Jones’ head swings back to the tree.

There’s a ten-inch long knife blade in Gregorio’s fist. It glitters in the sunlight as his knees bend slightly, balancing his weight. Jones’ eyes narrow as Gregorio’s arm swings up and out.

The knife slashes into Jones’ right shoulder, but he doesn’t flinch. “Little bastard!” he grunts. “I’ll teach ya a lesson you won’t forget!” He grabs Gregorio’s wrist with his right hand and twists the knife from Gregorio’s grasp as he reaches for his own blade.

Gregorio shrinks against the ponderosa, his eyes wide with fear and Gerald steps free of the bushes at the edge of the clearing. He pulls his maple-handled knife from his belt as he moves across it.

Jones, focused on Gregorio, seems to have forgotten anyone else exists. He chuckles as his bone-handled knife moves to Gregorio’s throat, then lifts a small piece of the boy’s cotton shirt with the blade’s tip. Jones grins maliciously. “I think I’ll just start here and work my way down,” he says. “Give ya somethin’ to think about before I get to where I’m goin’.” He glances down at himself, still uncovered and bone-hard. “We got time.”

“Time to reconsider,” Gerald says to Jones’ back.

Jones glances around in surprise. “Oh. Ya wanta share?” he asks with a lascivious grin.

“Let him go.”

Jones releases Gregorio’s shirt. “You wanta play too?” He snorts as he adjusts his trousers to cover his crotch. “I can take on both of ya and whup ya solid!”

Gerald glances at Gregorio. The boy pulls at his clothes, trying to straighten them. “You all right?” he asks.

As Gregorio nods, Jones lunges. Gerald’s head snaps toward him and his hand lifts, his big steel blade steady. They edge around each other, watching for an opening, as Gregorio clutches at his clothes.

For a big man, Jones is surprisingly agile. But Gerald, slimmer and younger, is still quicker on his feet. They dance around each other for an endless ten minutes, sizing each other up. Jones’ eyes become mere slits as he realizes the man facing him isn’t going to be cowed.

Suddenly, the big man darts in, slashing past Gerald’s blade, but Gerald slips sideways and away. As Jones turns to follow, Gerald makes his move, reaching in to slice Jones’ left wrist and force him to release the bone-handled knife.

Jones staggers back and drops his weapon. He steps sideways, but the grass has become compressed and slick from the men’s maneuvering and his feet slip out from under him. As he drops to the ground, he leans forward and grabs the dropped knife with his right hand.

“Just let it go,” Gerald pants, stepping back. “Leave him alone and we’ll call it quits.”

“You ain’t bested me yet, ya molly-lovin’ nigger bastard,” Jones snarls. He presses his left hand against his side, trying to staunch the blood from his wrist. “I ain’t through with you.”

“Enough blood’s been shed,” Gerald says. He glances toward Gregorio, who still stands frozen by the big ponderosa. “Go on,” he tells him.

Jones scowls. “He ain’t goin’ nowhere and neither are you.” He staggers to his feet. “I ain’t through with either of ya!” He lunges on the last word and his blade slices Gerald’s right forearm as Gerald dances away.

Then they close again, but Jones is awkward now, wielding the bone-handled knife right-handed. Even his feet seem to behave differently.

But Gerald is also weakening. He reverses his grip on the maple handle, holding it waist level, the steel blade broadside against Jones’ weapon. As Jones moves forward to take advantage of this adjustment, his feet slip again on the crushed grass. His weapon drops to the ground as he lurches chest-first toward Gerald and his upraised knife.

As Jones tilts toward him, Gerald jerks his knife up and away from the man’s belly. The steel slices upward and twists sideways. As Jones sinks onto the mashed-down grass, Gerald’s blade sinks sickeningly between the ribs into this big man’s right side.

They’re both on their knees now. Gerald, still clutching the maple-handled knife, has been carried forward and down by the force of Jones’ fall. He catches himself and leans backward, releasing his grip on the knife.

“Nigger bastard!” Jones growls. He wrenches himself up and back on his heels, glares into Gerald’s face, then grabs the hilt of the knife with his bloody left hand. He grits his teeth and yanks the blade free. Blood gushes from the wound, but he barely glances at it. He tosses Gerald’s knife toward him contemptuously. “That the best you can do?”

Gerald opens his mouth, but Jones clearly isn’t looking for an answer. Instead, he scrabbles in the grass for his knife and staggers to his feet. He points the big blade at Gerald, then Gregorio. It wavers slightly and he tightens his grip and presses his right hand against his bleeding chest. His eyes are icy-blue slits of fury.

“I ain’t done with you yet,” he growls. “You follow me an’ yer a dead man, ya mollie bastards.” Then he turns wildly away and crashes through the brush toward the riverbank, moving upstream.

Gregorio stares at Gerald. “He is—.” He takes a deep breath and puts a hand on the ponderosa’s thick bark, steadying himself. “You killed—”

“That may be,” Gerald agrees. He pushes himself to his feet. “It’s hard to say just how badly he’s hurt.” He looks toward the trail that Jones has left in the undergrowth and suppresses the sudden bile in his throat.

He feels drained, all the tension gone out of him. He tries to stiffen his resolve. Will Jones return? If he does, his anger toward the boy will be ten-fold. Curiously, Gerald feels no anxiety for himself. He stands, breathing in the knowledge that he’s knifed a man, perhaps killed him, feeling again the sensation of the knife sliding almost softly between Jones’ ribs. He feels curiously detached. It’s quite a different sensation from shooting at fleeing Indians. He looks down. There’s blood on his knife and his hands.

“You’re hurt,” Gregorio says.

Gerald lifts his right arm and looks at the cut in surprise. He’d forgotten it was there. Now that he’s remembered it, he can feel the pain stinging along its length. He wipes at it with his left hand. “It’s only a scratch,” he says. “Smith’ll fix me up nicely.” He glances down at the boy’s torn cotton trousers. “Can you twist those together enough to keep them up until we get back to camp? We need to tell the Captain what’s happened.”

Gregorio pulls at his trousers, trying to make himself presentable, and looks at Gerald anxiously. “But not everything,” he says.

Gerald turns away, toward the path to camp. “I don’t think we need to go into particulars,” Gerald agrees.

And he’s right. In fact, he’s a little startled at the lack of surprise when he announces that Jones has fled upriver with a wound in his chest. They all seem to have a pretty good idea of what’s occurred in the woods. Smith silently bandages Gerald’s arm and Young doles out a small dose of whisky.

Gerald explains three times that Jones may be fatally wounded before Ewing Young details a group to search for him. Smith, LeDuc, and Pattie head reluctantly into the brush while the others wait out the next three days, desultorily repairing traps and other gear, and speaking of anything but the events in the clearing.

When the three men return, they report that they followed Jones up and then across the river, across the dry hills, and through a break in the canyon walls. Then the tracks disappeared. Although there’s little cover in the rock-and-sand terrain above the canyon, they didn’t spot Jones or see any sign of a body.

“Probably holed up somewhere to die,” Thomas Smith says with a shrug. He nods at Gerald. “Serves the bastard right.”

Ewing Young frowns. Regardless of the man’s character, Young is still responsible for him and it irks him to not know for certain what’s happened to him.

“That’s some knife arm you got there,” James Pattie says to Gerald. He shakes his head and glances at Gregorio. “It must of felt good to finally shut that man’s mouth.”

“We’re gonna hafta give him more opportunities with the Injuns,” Smith jokes.

Gerald smiles thinly and looks away. He’s cleaned his knife blade a good half-dozen times, but it and his hands still feel unclean. He wonders what his father would think about the use he’s put the knife to.

He studies his fellow trappers. Only Young seems concerned that they haven’t located Jones or know what’s happened to him. Is this the way of these men? Are their trapping partners as expendable as the natives? Their attitude sheds a new light on their lack of interest in his own status. Is it possible that they don’t care about the color of his skin simply because they don’t care about him? He stirs uneasily.

“Griz’ll get him,” George Yount suggests.

“Too tough t’ eat,” Thomas Smith snorts.

Gerald grins in spite of himself. Too poisonous to eat, is more like it. And yet—. He shakes his head. Jones is an insatiable bastard, but he’s still a human being. It doesn’t seem right to leave him or his dead body alone in the wilderness. And Gerald’s hands still shake slightly when he remembers the way the man’s chest gave under his knife blade, the gush of hot blood. His stomach twists and he flattens his hands against the piece of cottonwood log he’s sitting on, pressing them down on the soft gray wood. He gazes into the fire.

Inexplicably, his thoughts turn to Suzanna Peabody. What would she think about the trappers’ indifference to Jones’ fate? And how will she feel when she learns Gerald has killed him? Will she think his actions were justified? Not that she’ll ever know the worst of what Jones did, the reason for the fight in the first place. Not from Gerald’s lips.

And Gregorio won’t tell her. Even these hard-boiled trappers are unlikely to speak of such things in the Peabody’s parlor. She’s safe from the worst of it. She’ll only know about the man’s attempt to force a kiss from herself. And that certainly won’t justify a knife fight. Or a death.

Gerald shrinks away from the thought of those black eyes directed angrily at him and resolutely turns his mind to the hunting of beaver. They’ll be back on the Gila soon, and moving down it toward the Sonora’s Red River, what the Mexicans calls the Colorado. That’s where Ewing Young believes they’ll do most of what he calls their ‘real business’—trapping the furry banknotes that will recoup the expedition’s expenses and make some money besides.

Young seems to have put Jones’s almost-certain death behind him. Gerald wishes he could do so that easily. Maybe trapping will help. It’s an exhausting business, but he was relieved to get back to work after the Papago fight, and it’ll be a relief to get back to work yet again. This time, Jones and his crudities won’t be shadowing the campfire. Though the big dirty-blond man shadows Gerald’s dreams now in a way he never did before the altercation in the clearing.

Yet, if Jones is truly dead, he won’t be in Taos again, shadowing Suzanna Peabody’s footsteps. The thought produces a guilty lightness in Gerald’s chest. He shakes his head. It’s a strange mix of emotions. A sense of relief beside a deep guilt at feeling relieved. And guilt that he stabbed the man. Surely there was another way to deal with Jones’ animosity toward Gregorio and himself. Though Gerald can’t think what he could have done differently.

Gregorio himself has grown quiet and avoids Gerald’s eyes when he distributes the food at mealtimes. Is he also suffering from guilt? Or shame that he wasn’t able to handle Jones on his own? Gerald shakes his head and lifts himself off the old cottonwood log. They’ll be moving out tomorrow, and he needs to reorganize his possibles sack.

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.

NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 19

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

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.

NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 18

The next day they move into the pine-filled mountains of the Gila and Gerald’s spirits lift. He grins at himself. He’s a mountain man in the sense that the mountains feel more like home to him than anywhere else. He wonders if Suzanna Peabody feels the same way. She has, after all, grown up in Taos, the mountains behind her, the broad flat fields of the Taos Valley spreading westward toward yet more mountain peaks. Which does she prefer? Someplace where she can garden, that’s certain. He chuckles and glances down. Not that this soil would be right for that. It’s entirely too steep and rocky for potatoes.

The men push hard through the territory they’ve already trapped. There’s no sense in trying for beaver again here, and Young seems determined to make up for lost time. The trappers move steadily through the mountains, bedding down late, rising before the sun is truly over the canyon rims, living on short rations. Their only fresh meat is what happens to cross their path. The pace is so intense that it’s something of a shock when the line of trappers halts abruptly the afternoon of the fourth day.

Then a string of four trappers and three mules comes into view. They’re working their way up a dry arroyo that intersects with Young’s trajectory. He holds up a hand and his men all stop to watch the other group scramble toward them, though Enoch Jones huffs impatiently at the delay.

“Chalifoux!” Young says when the newcomers get within speaking distance. “I thought you were trapping south with James Baird!”

“Baird, he is dead,” the tallest of the two long-haired Frenchmen says. “La maladie, it got him.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“We came on anyway,” Chalifoux says. He gestures behind him. “Me, my brother, Grijalva, and him.”

The men behind Chalifoux nod at Young politely. The youngest, the one with the dark skin and tightly-curled black hair, seems to tense as Young’s gaze lands on him, but Young only nods absently and turns back to Chalifoux. “We’ve got thirty in our troop,” he says. “I figure that’s about all the Gila can handle at any one time. You headin’ that way?”

“It is as God wills,” Chalifoux answers. “Perhaps to the north, toward the salt bluffs of the Navajo.” He shrugs. “It is possible we go to the Mariposa villages, but it is also possible that Monsieur St. Vrain and Monsieur Williams are there now and nothing will remain for us. Have you heard of this?”

Ewing Young chuckles and shakes his head. “I heard they were headed that general direction, but you never know with Old Bill. He could be on the Yellowstone for all I know.”

Chalifoux grunts. “That is the God’s truth,” he agrees. He looks down the line of Young’s men. “It is a full group you have.” He scratches his bandanna-covered forehead and nods toward the third man in his small train. “Grijalva here, he shot a buck.” He jerks his head toward the pack animal being led by the dark-skinned young man. “A good size one. You want we share the meat tonight?”

“Sure, why not?” Ewing Young grins and nods toward the end of his own train. “Fall in behind and we’ll help you to cut that deer down to a more packable size.”

The Frenchman’s party stands and waits as Young’s men file past. Gerald eyes the dead buck as he passes the men on the side of the trail. His stomach rumbles. A good meal of venison will make for a pleasant evening.

But the evening turns unpleasant when the visitors produce whisky to accompany the meal and Enoch Jones takes more than his share. When he drinks, Jones is apt to be more surly than usual, and the presence of the young black man seems to aggravate him.

He’s leaning sullenly against a large rock that juts from the ground a few yards beyond the fire, nursing yet another drink, when the younger man approaches, a small book in his hand. The stranger nods to Gerald, who’s mending harness on the other side of the fire, then crouches down, opens the book, and angles its pages so the light will fall on them.

Jones scowls and leans forward. “What’re ya doin’ there?” he demands. He sets his tin cup on top of the big rock, steps forward, and nudges at the black man with his foot. “Hey! I asked a question! What’re ya doin’?”

The man looks up. “I’m reading,” he says. He turns the book so Jones can see the spine. “It’s a play by Mr. William Shakespeare called Othello.”

Jones scowls at him. “What’s yer name, anyway?”

“I’m called Blackstone.” The man considers Jones for a long moment, then asks. “And what is your name?”

Jones stalks away into the night. Blackstone’s eyes follow him thoughtfully, then return to his book.

But Jones is back a few minutes later, followed by Chalifoux. Jones jabs a thumb toward Blackstone. “You see what he’s doin’?” he demands.

Chalifoux grunts. “It appears to me that he is reading.” He turns away, but Jones blocks his path.

“That’s illegal!” Jones says. “You can’t let him do that!”

“He is a free man, Mr. Jones,” Chalifoux answers. “He can do as he likes.”

Jones’ face turns red. “He’s a nigger! He ain’t allowed t’ read!”

Chalifoux raises an eyebrow. “This is a new law? One I know nothing of?” He turns to Blackstone. “What is this law?”

The younger man looks up, moves a small ribbon to mark his place, and closes the book. “I believe there is a law in South Carolina which makes it illegal for slaves to learn to read or write.” He shifts the book into his left hand, lifting it as if its very bulk is pleasant to him. “However, as you say, I’m a free man. So the law wouldn’t apply to me even if we were still in the United States.”

“Which it is certain we are not,” Chalifoux says. He bends, picks up a stray pine cone, and tosses it into the fire.

Blackstone glances at Jones, then away. “And there’s certainly no such law here,” he says.

“Damn uppity nigger!” Jones growls. He surges past Chalifoux, leans down, and grabs Blackstone’s arm. “You talkin’ back t’ me?”

Blackstone rises in one easy motion, elbowing Jones aside. “I was speaking to Mr. Chalifoux,” he says evenly.

Jones reaches for the Shakespeare, but Blackstone lifts it out of his reach. Then Jones’ foot strikes sideways, into Blackstone’s shin, and the younger man stumbles and loses his grip on the book, which lands, page end down, on the stones beside the fire.

“You bastard!” Blackstone turns and shoves Jones with both hands. Jones sprawls backward and onto the ground beside the big rock.

Blackstone swings back to the fire and the Shakespeare, but Gerald has already risen, leaned across, and lifted it away from the licking flames.

As Gerald hands Blackstone the book, Jones heaves himself from the ground. He’s halfway to the fire again, his fists doubled and ready for battle, when Ewing Young steps from the darkness.

“What’s goin’ on?” Young asks.

Jones stops short. “Nigger bastard sucker punched me!” he growls. He jerks his head at Blackstone and Gerald. “They’re two of a kind,” he says. “I’d string ’em both up if rope wasn’t worth more’n they are.” He glares at Blackstone. “You ain’t seen the last o’ me.” Then he turns and stalks into the night.

“Is he always so pleasant, that one?” Chalifoux asks Young.

Young spreads his hands, palms up. “There’s one in every bunch.” He turns to Blackstone. “We aren’t all of his opinion.”

Blackstone nods as he brushes soot from the book’s pages. “I can see that,” he says. He looks up. “No harm done, thanks to some quick action on this gentleman’s part.”

Young grins. “Yes, I hear Gerald’s become especially partial to books since he arrived in nuevomexico. Books and the people who read them.”

Gerald smiles unwillingly and turns away. Has his time with the Peabody’s been that noticeable? First Wolfskill and now Young. But then, Taos is a small village. It’s natural enough for everyone to know everyone else’s business. But he isn’t sure he likes that they do.

And Young didn’t remark on any other similarities between him and Blackstone. Only the books. Was Young just being polite, skirting the issue of his race?

Gerald shakes his head. Is he really passing?

“It appears that I am,” he mutters. He’s not sure if he’s glad or anxious about that. The lack of total honesty goes against the grain. But then, he’s never claimed to be white. He just hasn’t brought the subject up. And he’s ignored Jones’ remarks. Of course, that’s the only thing any decent man, either white or black, would do. The man’s a bastard. The best way to deal with someone like that is to have as little as possible to do with him. But Gerald wonders how feasible that would be in the long run in a town the size of Taos.

Don Fernando de Taos is still on Gerald’s mind the next day as he and the rest of Young’s party continue on through the Gila wilderness. If he’s going to stay in nuevomexico, find some land he can make his own, continue to pass as white, it might be best to do so away from Taos. Santa Fe might be a better option. It would be easier to blend in there.

Gerald grimaces. Perhaps. But with Sibley’s survey of the Santa Fe Trail, more people will be coming in from the States, including men with Enoch Jones’ prejudices. Besides, Santa Fe is several days journey from Taos. Suzanna will be reluctant to separate herself that far from her father.

Gerald chuckles and shakes his head at himself. He’s aggravated by comments from Wolfskill and Young about Suzanna Peabody, yet here he is, making assumptions himself. Or at least daydreaming. He has no right to such thoughts. Yet the images linger—slim brown hands reaching for the teacups, that willowy form striding beside him toward her plot of potatoes, her face turned toward him, steady black eyes level with his.

When he comes out of his reverie, he finds Ignacio Sandoval beside him, head down, watching the path. “Where’s your mule?” Gerald asks in surprise.

Ignacio gestures toward the back of the line. “We strung them together,” he says. “Gregorio and I.” He shrugs. “It is more interesting to walk together than to see only the back end of a mule.”

Gerald chuckles and glances ahead, where the back end of Thomas Smith’s new animal blocks his own view forward. “I see what you mean,” he says.

“And I wished to speak to you privately,” Ignacio says. He glances ahead uneasily. “When there is little chance of being overheard.”

“Yes?”

But Ignacio is silent, his head turning to examine the pine and cedar through which they’re climbing. Gerald studies the younger man’s face, then turns to cluck at his mule. The animal twitches his ears, huffs impatiently, and looks away.

They walk perhaps thirty minutes before Ignacio speaks again. “There was a letter from mi papá waiting for me in Taos.”

Gerald grins. “That was excellent timing,” he says. “Did you answer it in a way that will allay your father’s suspicions?”

Ignacio nods, his eyes anxious. “I do not like to lie to my parents,” he says. “But it is sometimes necessary.”

Gerald nods sympathetically.

“In the letter, he gave me news.” Ignacio breaks off to move ahead and allow Gerald and the mule to negotiate a particularly rocky, and therefore treacherous, piece of trail. When he rejoins them, he seems reluctant to go on. “Perhaps it is nothing,” he says. “My father worries a great deal about almost everything.” He makes a small hopeless gesture. “My mother believes it is nothing.”

Gerald chuckles. “In my experience, it’s the mothers who worry.”

Ignacio laughs. “It is not so in mi familia. I think sometimes my mother has decided mi papá worries enough for both of them.” His voice changes, the anxiety gone. “One day when they were newly married, he told her with great excitement that the well had gone dry. Even she was concerned at the possibility that this was true. He was beside himself with worry. But when mamá went out to investigate, she discovered that the bucket, it had developed a hole!” He laughs. “Papá was muy, how do you say—”

“Embarrassed?” Gerald asks with a grin.

“Si, embarrassed. He was embarrassed.” He laughs again. “Poor papá. Now when he begins to worry, mamá asks if he has checked for a hole in the bucket.” He chuckles, his eyes sparkling.

Gerald smiles and clucks at the mule again and they walk on. Whatever has been bothering the younger man seems to have been removed by the story, and after the mid-day break he rejoins Gregorio and the pack mules they’re responsible for.

The trappers push through the mountains for ten long days, following the Gila as it drops west out of the pines and into dryer country, toward the mouth of the Salt. They begin to see Apache sign again—moccasin tracks, old fires—but this time nothing disappears from camp. Ewing Young establishes two-hour watches. With thirty men, this means no one watches every night, so there are no complaints, except from Enoch Jones, who demands an extra ration of whisky for his trouble. Young isn’t forthcoming.

Jones mutters for a solid week, becoming more and more surly, but Ewing Young ignores him. He has his hands full with Thomas Smith and Milton Sublette, who are hell bent on making the Apaches pay for what they did to Smith’s mule and Sublette’s leg.

Young vetoes the idea of trying to locate the Indians’ camp and taking the battle to them. For one thing, it’s unlikely that even the most experienced American tracker can find the Apache encampment, unless the Indians want him to. For another thing, hunting Apache will take time away from the trappers’ primary task. Now that he’s reached untrapped waters, Young wants to focus on beaver, not revenge.

But Smith isn’t taking ‘no’ for an answer. In fact, he’s even enlisted Enoch Jones in his schemes.

“I’m for just cuttin’ out on our own and doing a little huntin’,” Gerald hears Smith telling Jones one morning as he rubs oil onto the stock of his rifle.

Gregorio is kneeling on the ground nearby, mixing tortillas for the morning meal. Jones spits toward Gregorio’s big wooden bowl, but the boy shifts slightly, blocking the bowl. The spittle lands on the ground next to the barrel of flour, which stands beside him. Gregorio looks away from the two men. He glances at Gerald, on the other side of the fire, then toward the pine and rocks beyond.

His hands freeze in the batter. “Apache!” he exclaims.

The trappers all turn at once. A loose line of long-haired warriors stands among the rocks and pines at the far side of the clearing. The man in the center sports a large palmetto hat and scarlet leggings and long sleeve shirt. It’s the Chief who confronted Wolfskill. Three warriors are positioned on his left, two on his right. As before, another warrior stands slightly back, an arrow fletched in his lightly-held bow.

There’s a long silence, then Ewing Young makes a welcoming motion.

The man in the hat moves forward. He stops beside the fire and looks slowly around the clearing, as if he’s appraising the value of every item in sight, including the rifle in Thomas Smith’s hands.

Then his gaze falls on Gregorio. He points at the barrel of flour. “Meal!” he commands.

Ewing Young frowns, then nods. The Chief picks a wool blanket up from a nearby rock and flicks it open, an edge in each hand.

“That’s mine!” Enoch Jones protests.

Smith shakes his head at him. “I’ll give you mine,” he says. Then he steps backward into the trees, and begins circling toward Gregorio and the flour.

The Chief positions himself in front of the barrel and lets Jones’ blanket sag slightly between his hands, forming a kind of container.

Ewing Young waves Gregorio aside, leans over the barrel, and begins scooping out double handfuls of flour. As he drops them into the blanket, a dusty haze rises into the morning air.

The Apache turns his head and gives his men a satisfied smile. He doesn’t see Thomas Smith step from the trees behind Gregorio, rifle cocked and ready.

Young pours another double handful of flour into the blanket and holds up his white-dusted palms to show that he’s finished.

The Apache leader growls something unintelligible in response.

Young scowls and raises two fingers. “Two more,” he says.

The Chief nods and lifts the blanket slightly, ready for more.

As Young reaches into the barrel again, Thomas Smith steps past Gregorio, shoves the rifle muzzle up under the blanket, and pulls the trigger. The bullet explodes through the cloth and blood-spattered flour splashes the Chief’s torso.

As the Apache crumples to the ground, his men dash into the clearing. Gunfire erupts. Arrows fly. A trapper drops, then an Apache, then another.

Ewing Young, his upper body coated in white flour, shakes his deafened head. Then an arrow flashes through the air and bites into the ground at his feet. He lunges for his rifle and aims into the trees. But the Indians are already gone, vanished into the rocks and the pines.

The Chief lies where he fell, his red sleeves dusted with flour, his chest an incongruous paste of flour and blood.

Thomas Smith stands over him, his own face and hair coated in white. “That’ll teach ’em!” he says triumphantly. He grins at Enoch Jones, who’s crouched beside a dead Apache, the man’s beaded knife sheath in his hands. “That’s worth a hole in a blanket, ain’t it?”

Enoch Jones grins back at him, his eyes glittering. “Three dead, four t’ go!” he agrees. “They can’t be far yet.”

“Three dead’s enough,” Ewing Young says grimly as he beats flour from his clothes. “That was a stupid stunt, Smith. You think that’s all of them? If that band doesn’t come after us by nightfall, it’ll only be because they can’t decide who their new leader is.” His eyes glare from the flour still spattered across his face. “Next time you decide to shoot an Indian, don’t do it in my face, or I may just mistake you for one.”

“Well, I wasn’t gonna stand by and just let you give ’em our flour!” Smith snaps. “Then they’d just be wantin’ more. You ain’t got the courage of a lizard!”

Young gives him a withering look and turns to Gregorio. “You all right, son?”

The boy has positioned himself behind the barrel of flour. He nods reluctantly and Jones looks up, then barks with laughter. He points at Gregorio’s thin cotton pants, which cling damply to his thighs. “He wet himself! Did more than that!” he chortles. “I can smell ya from here! You never seen a man die before, Miz Mollie?” He laughs again and yanks his bone-handled knife from the sheath at his waist. “Here’s something else for you to think on!”

He bends, grabs the dead Apache’s hair, pulls it out straight, then moves the steel blade swiftly down and across, cutting away the man’s scalp. He straightens and waves the bloody mass at Gregorio. “Here’s what happens t’ weaklings!”

The boy turns and stumbles out of the clearing. Jones laughs again. “Needs a good fuckin’ to make him a man,” he says. He looks down at the Apache’s body and nudges it with his moccasined toe. He swings his head and sees Ignacio Sandoval. “You! Mexican!” he barks. “Get rid o’ this thing!”

Ignacio looks at Young questioningly and Young nods. Gerald pushes his own nausea aside and steps forward. “I’ll help you with that,” he says.

“Two of a kind,” Enoch Jones sneers as Ignacio and Gerald lift the body, one on each end. “Gonna have a little fiesta after yer done, are ya?”

Milton Sublette limps into the clearing, leading a tall sorrel mare with a notch in its left ear. “Look what I found,” he says. “It must of got loose from the Injuns.”

“That ain’t no Injun horse,” Thomas Smith says. “Look at that head and those shoulders. That’s an American horse that’s been bred to run.” He narrows his eyes. “Seems to me like I’ve laid eyes on that sorrel before.”

Ewing Young steps to the mare, palm up, and she nickers softly. Young runs a hand over her withers. “This looks to me like Sylvester Pattie’s horse,” he says. He turns to Smith. “Didn’t you say he and his son were up this way last winter?”

“Yeah, they complained all last summer about how Sylvester’s horse was stolen by the Apaches around here last season,” Smith says. “The damn Injuns gave those Patties fits all the time they were here.”

“It’s always the same group causin’ the trouble.” Sublette says. “It don’t surprise me that this outfit had Pattie’s horse.” He shifts slightly, easing his leg. “Say, isn’t Jim Pattie comin’ back this way with Michel Robidoux’s group? I wonder if he knows his daddy’s mount is still kickin’.”

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.

FLASH SALE!!!

NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 17

Gerald tells himself that his restlessness is triggered by the Chavez fields and acequia system. The wide pastures and black soil make him wish for land of his own to cultivate. His yearnings have nothing to do with an American/French/Navajo girl who grows Irish potatoes beside a Spanish acequia. He feels a surge of relief when word comes that the men are on their way back from Taos.

But he’s surprised to see that William Wolfskill is not with them. Ewing Young has apparently recovered enough from his illness to head up the dozen and a half men who ride into camp a good two weeks after Wolfskill had headed north.

Yount and Stone are with him. Ignacio Sandoval trails behind with another young mexicano. Gerald’s heart jumps when the rider lifts his head. It’s Gregorio Garcia. He’ll have news of the Peabody household.

Then Gerald’s surge of anticipation is replaced by something else. Enoch Jones rides with the men clustered around Ewing Young.

But there’s no time to do more than greet Gregorio and avoid Jones’ half-drunk scowl before Young gets down to business.

“Wolfskill’s mindin’ the store,” he says brusquely in response to Thomas Smith’s question. He releases his mount to a camp keeper and reaches for the coffee pot, on a rock by the fire. “He told me what happened, but I want t’ hear it again from you all.”

Smith hunkers down on the other side of the fire and launches into a detailed narrative that begins with the first pilfering and ends only when his mule has suffered a lingering death. His ire rises as the story progresses. “Damn Apaches!” he finishes with a growl.

Young is silent for a long while, staring into the flames, then looks around at the other men. “So that’s what happened, is it?” he asks.

Gerald suppresses a smile. Young’s eyes rest on his face and Gerald looks away. Who is he to contradict Thomas Smith: merchant, veteran trapper, and seasoned Indian fighter?

“Close enough,” Solomon Stone answers as his big hands snap small cottonwood branches into kindling for the fire.

“Jest like he says,” Maurice Leduc asserts rather belligerently.

Young’s eyes swivel back to Gerald’s and Gerald gives him a small shrug and a nod.

“I’m not too sure it’s worth the time and trouble to go back in,” Young says. He looks at Milton Sublette, who’s perched on a chunk of cottonwood log with his legs straight out in front of him. “We’ve already had one man wounded. How’s the leg, Milt?”

“It’s doin’, Captain,” Sublette says. “Long as I can keep the witch woman away from it.”

“La curandera try to help, he no want,” the oldest of the camp keepers explains as he hands Young a bowl of mutton stew.

Young shakes his head and stirs the stew with his spoon. “Those woman healers generally know what they’re about,” he tells Sublette. “You ought to have taken her up on that.”

“She wanted to put some stuff on it that she’d been chawin’ on!” Sublette moves his leg impatiently, then grimaces. “I’ll cut it off before I pack it with stuff some old Mexican woman’s been chawin’ on for who knows how long!”

Young chuckles. “Well, as long as you can walk or ride, it’s no business of mine.” He spoons a bite of stew into his mouth as he scans the faces of the men around the fire. He swallows, takes another bite, then says, “I’m thinkin’ we should call it a loss and get out while the gettin’s good.”

Thomas Smith jumps to his feet. “You ain’t lost nearly what I have! And I’m goin’ back!”

“We all run risks every day of our lives,” the captain says mildly. “I’m just not sure there’s enough beaver there to make it worth our while. Maybe we should try headin’ in a different direction entirely.”

“If we don’t go back, I’m out!” Smith snaps. “I’ll head in there on my own! Those bastards need t’ pay for what they done!”

“And I’ll go with him,” LeDuc says from the shadows.

“And we’ll take anyone else who wants t’ come,” Smith adds.

“You’ll be breakin’ our agreement,” Young says. “I footed the bill for some of your gear. You’ll be owin’ me.”

“And you’ll be owin’ me for a mule!” Smith blusters. “We made an agreement to hunt the Gila and the Salt and beyond. As far as I can see, if you don’t go back, you’re the one breakin’ that contract, not me! Those Apaches need a lesson, or no white man’ll ever be safe to trap that way again! They’re gettin’ way too cocky for my taste!”

Ewing Young gives Smith a long look. “I’ll think on it,” he says.

Smith stomps away from the fire, still muttering, but he gets what he wants. The next morning, Young announces that they’ll head back into the Gila that very afternoon. “We’re gonna have to make good time if we want to get any furs worth mentioning,” he observes. Surprisingly, Smith reacts only with a curt nod.

The mid-day meal includes a last treat of wheat flour tortillas from the Chavez hacienda and a visit from the courtly old man himself. “Vaya con diós,” he tells the assembled trappers. “May He bless all your ventures.” There’s a hush as he turns to leave. Even Enoch Jones is suppressed by the man’s white-haired self-possession.

Then Smith gets to his feet, breaking the spell, and they break camp. The band of thirty trappers moves west across the llano in clusters of threes and fours, the camp keepers trailing behind with the pack mules, Gregorio and Ignacio among them.

Gerald has still not found an opportunity to speak more than two words to either of them. But to lag behind would attract attention and he can feel Enoch Jones’ eyes on him, as the big dirty-blond man stalks silently beside George Yount and Milton Sublette, the only trapper on horseback. Gerald stays where he is, alongside Smith and LeDuc.

It’s an hour past full dark and they’re still on the llano when Young calls a halt for the day. In the interest of time, the evening meal is served cold. Gregorio lays a piece of buckskin on the sand and rock ground and crouches over it to slice mutton off the haunch Señor Chavez has sent with them. He layers the pieces between cold tortillas and hands them to the men as they meander over to him in the moonlight.

When Gerald presents himself for his portion, Gregorio looks up with a smile. “Hola, Señor Locke,” he says. “Señor Peabody and his daughter send greetings.” His eyes twinkle. “Mi mamá también.”

Gerald smiles. “She allowed you to come, after all.”

The boy’s smile widens. “Señorita Peabody, she persuaded her.”

Gerald chuckles and is about to reply when a rough voice demands. “What’s takin’ so long? The resta us gotta eat too!”

Gerald turns. Enoch Jones scowls back at him.

“You wanta talk, do it later!” Jones growls. Then he leers into Gerald’s face, his breath foul on Gerald’s skin. “It’s plenty dark. The boy’ll be waitin’ for you, if you ask him nice like.”

Gerald looks at the man in disgust and brushes past him without speaking.

“Gotta get it anyway you can, don’t ya, ya black—”

“Your food, señor,” Gregorio interrupts, thrusting the tortilla-wrapped meat into the man’s hands.

Jones jerks back and the meat and tortilla fall to the ground. His closed fist strikes out, hitting the boy in the arm. Gregorio jerks away and half-falls onto the buckskin, knocking the remaining meat into the dirt.

“You greasy mex bastard!” Jones howls. “Look what ya done!” He grabs Gregorio by the arm and yanks him to his feet. “That’s good food yer throwin’ around!”

As Jones pulls back to slug the boy again, Young appears. He grabs Jones’ arm. “That’s enough! Let the boy go.” He nods at Gregorio. “Use your canteen water to wash off that meat and see that everyone’s fed.” He turns brusquely away. “Sandoval, help him clean it up. We don’t have all night.”

As Ignacio moves toward Gregorio, Young swings around, his eyes taking in Gerald and the other men. “We’re moving out at first light, so the sooner we eat and bed down, the better. And don’t guzzle your water. There won’t be any more until late tomorrow.”

As he says this, Ignacio and Gregorio pull out their canteens and begin pouring water over the dirt-covered mutton. The haunch is still a good-sized portion, in spite of feeding half the men, and the grit is well embedded. By the time they’re done, neither will have enough water to get them through the next day.

When everyone’s eaten, Ignacio and Gregorio begin repacking the food in the dark and the trappers roll themselves into their blankets. Even with no fire to center them, they stay close to one another, an instinctive reaction against the darkness and the empty grassland. Gerald is a little behind the others in his preparations. He lays out his blankets, then moves to the two camp keepers. He holds out his canteen. “Let me top off your water,” he says.

Ignacio extends his canteen and Gerald begins to carefully pour water into its small opening, but Gregorio turns to look at the sleeping men and shakes his head anxiously. “Gracias, señor,” he mutters. “But no. They will not like it.”

Ignacio glances at his friend and then at Gerald, then gestures for Gerald to stop pouring. “Gracias, señor,” he mutters. “It is enough.”

Gerald nods and holds the canteen out to Gregorio. The boy looks again at the sleeping men, then reluctantly hands over his own container. Gerald dribbles the precious liquid carefully, not wanting to drip any down the side. It’s hard to see in the dark. When the container feels perhaps a third full, Gerald hands it back. “I’m sorry I brought Jones down on you like that,” he says quietly.

The boy shakes his head. “He’s been that way since we left Taos.” His mouth twists. “It is difficult to avoid him.”

Gerald nods grimly. No wonder Gregorio’s mother didn’t want him to join the trappers. There’s a frail look to him that incites negative attention from men like Jones. He looks at Ignacio.

“Nothing is ever what it seems,” Ignacio says bitterly. Gerald raises an eyebrow, inviting an explanation, but Ignacio turns away and Gregorio follows him.

Gerald shakes his head and heads for his own bedding, careful not to trip over any of the sleeping men. It isn’t his problem, yet he feels somehow responsible for both these Spanish boys. Though they aren’t truly boys. They’re young men. He was barely their age when his father left him behind in Missouri, essentially alone.

Yet still he feels responsible, especially for Gregorio. If nothing else, he’s a link to Suzanna Peabody. Who seems very far away at the moment.

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.

NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 16

“I met William Wolfskill in the plaza this afternoon, on my way back from Padre Martinez’s house,” Jeremiah Peabody says as he helps himself to more mutton stew.

Suzanna’s head jerks up involuntarily. “They’re back?” Then she stops herself. There’s absolutely no reason to sound so delighted.

Her father smiles at the tortilla he’s tearing in two. “Just Wolfskill and a few of his men. Not Mr. Locke, I’m sorry to say.” He glances at his daughter, who’s examining her bowl of stew, and forces the amusement from his voice. “I would have enjoyed hearing his reaction to a prolonged expedition with a large group of men. I expect the experience will be quite different from what he experienced with Old Bill.”

“I expect so.” Suzanna’s voice is carefully neutral. She will not ask whether Gerald Locke has sent a message. She has no right to expect such a thing. And he’s too much of a gentleman to presume to do so. She forces herself to eat another spoonful of stew. “Chonita has done an excellent job of flavoring this stew.” She grins at her father. “Did you notice that it includes Irish potatoes?”

“I did!” he says. “Are these from your harvest?”

She nods, forcing her thoughts away from the memory of Gerald Locke helping her plant the seed for the potatoes, walking beside her along the acequia ditches toward home. To her home, that is. Not his. She looks up at her father. “They’ve stored nicely,” she says. “And the straw Ramón brought me to cover them was extremely clean, so Encarnación found no bad spots when she prepared them.”

Her father nods, knowing a change of subject when he hears one. “They’re quite tasty,” he says.

Suzanna watches him. She wants badly to ask if he’s invited William Wolfskill to tea, but this once quite ordinary question now feels somehow dangerous. “And did Padre Martinez have any news of interest from Santa Fe?” she asks.

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.

NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 15

The ground is dry and the going easy, and two days bring the trappers to the Chavez rancho, which is sprawled along the river. As Wolfskill’s party moves toward it across the llano, they pass shepherds grazing mixed flocks of goats and sheep. There’s no apparent move to get word to the Los Chavez padrón and former nuevomexico governor Franscisco Javier Chavez that the trappers are coming, but by mid-day a man on horseback has appeared to welcome them and lead them politely to a campsite under the massive cottonwoods beside the river.

Once the animals are unpacked, the men disperse to make themselves presentable to the Don and his daughters. The river is too shallow for proper bathing, but its waters are warmer and wider than the mountain streams in the highlands. Gerald finds a depression near the bank where he can shed his layers of clothing and weigh them down with some rocks, then lower himself into the water and let the river wash away at least some of the stink.

As he’s climbing back into his clothes, Ignacio appears, waving at him. “Come,” he says. “El señor prepares for us a feast.”

Don Chavez’s women have roasted two lambs and cooked several kilos of tortillas, as well as a tender cheese, or queso. Though there is no opportunity for interaction with the Chavez daughters, the food is a welcome change from camp fare. The trappers are in a mellow mood when they head back to the campsite. But their faces darken when William Wolfskill announces that they’re heading up to Taos the next day.

“We don’t all need to go,” he adds. “In fact, it’ll be quicker if most of you stay here.” He grins. “Especially those of you with Taos sweethearts. There just won’t be time for all that. We need to get there, consult with Ewing, and then hightail it back here and decide how to proceed.”

“Decide?” Thomas Smith growls. “What’s t’ decide? We’re gonna go back in there and teach those mothersuckin’ Apaches a lesson they ain’t gonna forget! Damn Indians!”

“We’ll need more men to do that,” Wolfskill points out. “And more supplies. Since Ewing has the biggest share in this outfit, it’s going to depend on what he wants to do and how much more money he wants to lay out.”

Smith scowls. “It’s my mule that got killed. I’ve got a right to a voice in this.”

“I know it,” Wolfskill says. “And that’ll be part of the considerations. But my partner and I need to confer. And if the decision goes the way I think it might, we’ll need more men.” He shakes his head. “There’s not likely to be many left in Taos this time of year. We’ll be scraping the barrel.” He looks around the circle. “Now, I need a few to go with me. Enough that we can fend off anyone layin’ in wait and get through t’ Taos in good time.” His eyes rest on Gerald, then pass over him. “Sublette, you’ll be wantin’ to stay and rest up that wound.”

Milt Sublette stretches his leg slightly and grimaces. “I’d just slow you down,” he agrees.

Wolfskill’s eyes move on. “I’m thinking Stone and Branch and Dutch George.” He grins. “As far as I know, none of you have sweethearts to distract you.” He nods to Ignacio. “And Sandoval to do the cooking.” He chuckles. “You can check in with your teacher, so he can send news to your pa that you’re workin’ hard.”

Ignacio grins sheepishly and Gerald feels a pang of something almost like jealousy. Had Ignacio been studying with Jeremiah Peabody before he joined Wolfskill’s trapping group? Would he see Peabody’s daughter? It’s more likely that he was working under Taos’ new Catholic priest, Padre Martinez. But there’s still a chance that the boy’s path will cross the Peabodys’ while he’s in Taos, and Gerald feels a twinge of envy. It would be good to see Suzanna again.

But he has no rights to such thoughts. He considers the fact that William Wolfskill didn’t name him as a man with no Taos sweetheart to distract him. He has to admit that Suzanna Peabody would be a distraction, but Gerald isn’t sure whether he’s pleased or annoyed by Wolfskill’s silence. Are others besides Old Bill aware of the pull the Peabody casa has for him? He feels a glimmer of amusement, then discomfort, and remains in the background the next morning, lest someone should decide to ask him what message he wants delivered to the Peabody parlor.

While the Taos party is gone, Gerald devotes himself to grazing his mule along the river in locations that won’t interfere with the Chavez stock and getting his gear back into shape. He also studies the way the Chavez acequia system channels water to the hacienda’s fields, and the primitive but effective wooden gates the laborers use to send it where it’s most needed.

The soil is sandy here, but rich wherever the river has flooded, and he’s told that it produces bountiful crops of chili and corn. The fields are barren now. Brown leaves rattle in the cottonwoods along the river. But Gerald can see that it’s a good land, and fertile wherever the irrigation system’s channels have been extended.

His mind strays to the girl in Taos who’s growing potatoes beside a similar water course, but he forces himself back to the ditch at hand. He has no right to think of her long-limbed stride, her black eyes gazing into his face. He has no right.

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.

NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 14

But Jeremiah Peabody’s last sentence has registered on some level. By mid-October, after a month in the pine-covered southern mountains, Gerald has begun to seriously wonder what ‘doing well’ really means when it comes to trapping beaver.

A few days before the trappers left Taos, Ewing Young took ill and remained behind, so William Wolfskill is in charge. Wolfskill is a dark-haired, solidly built man with a broad forehead and determined eyes and mouth, and he sets a hard pace.

He has to, with twenty men along. As they move through the Gila wilderness, anywhere from eighty to one hundred traps are in action at any one time, and the beaver seem to evaporate from the landscape. Wolfskill’s band is rarely in the same place more than a night. Each morning they lift traps, skin the night’s catch, then push on to the next location, stopping in the early evening to fan out and set yet another round in the streams that thread the headwaters of the Gila River.

The pace is rough and there’s little time to enjoy a quiet smoke or conversation. When there is talk, it doesn’t focus on trapping. These men aren’t about to share what they know. Free trappers don’t talk about where and how they set their traps, and they don’t share tips for getting better results, either.

Instead, big-bodied Milton Sublette and short, round Thomas Smith brag about sharp trades they’ve made and Indian battles they’ve fought. Their impetuosity always comes out triumphant, of course. Trapping partners Alexander Branch and Solomon Stone swap travel stories with Richard Campbell, as well as tales of encounters with animals of various types and size, some of them more exaggerated than others. The trappers don’t always win these conflicts, but even when they’re worsted, the resulting scar is worth showing off, and there’s usually another story about the size of the wound and how quickly it healed.

Not everyone is loquacious: Smith’s partner Maurice LeDuc and the big Pennsylvania Dutchman George Yount say as little as possible. They simply listen and smoke.

The half-dozen Mexican camp keepers have little leisure time. While the trappers chat, the Mexicans go about the business of cooking, keeping the campsite organized, and preparing the beaver plews the trappers have collected.

Most of the workers seem content with their routine, but twenty-year-old Ignacio Sandoval apparently expected to actually learn how to trap on this trip. Wolfskill ignores the younger man’s dark looks, but Gerald is curious.

He can also see that, when the traps are full each morning, the Mexicans have more work than they can easily handle. Gerald begins skinning his catch himself and trying to re-teach himself the art of stretching the beaver pelts tight on their willow hoop frames. He’s surprised at how much he’s forgotten.

He’s hung his second attempt for the day from the lower branch of a pine tree and is standing back to admire the way the late-morning light glows red through the stretched skin, when Ignacio Sandoval approaches him.

“El señor, he say I stretch pelt for you,” the boy says.

Gerald turns. “Hmm? Thank you, but that’s not necessary. I only have two more to do.” He gestures toward the tree and smiles ruefully. “I’m still remembering how to go about it, so these are a bit rough, but I’m sure I’ll improve with some practice.”

Ignacio moves toward the pine. A grin flashes across his face as he examines the furs, which sag badly to one side. He starts to shake his head, then stops himself. “Si, señor,” he says politely.

Gerald chuckles. “They’re that bad, are they?” He moves toward the pine. “Perhaps you can help me tighten them up a bit.”

The boy gives him a swift, anxious look, but Gerald’s face shows only a desire for help.

Ignacio smiles. “Four hands son necessario a veces,” he says as he lifts the hoop from the tree.

Gerald chuckles. “Sometimes four hands truly are necessary to make it work,” he agrees. “Especially when two of them are mine and don’t know what they’re doing.”

The boy gives him a swift grin, then bends his head over the knots that hold the beaver pelt in place.

~ ~ ~ ~

By the time the trappers follow the Gila west out of the pine-covered mountains and into the juniper and piñon that scatter the foothills, Gerald has mastered the art of stretching beaver pelts. This is partly because there are fewer streams here and therefore fewer pelts and more time to string them.

Wolfskill doesn’t seem concerned about the reduced number of beaver. There’ll be more when the trappers reach the Colorado. What worries him is the increased sense of an Apache presence.

It starts while they’re still in the mountains. Although no one in the party actually sights an Indian, items disappear from camp: a sugar loaf from the mess, a beaver pelt hung on an outlying tree, a knife left on a rock, meat from a plate unattended while its owner takes care of private business.

If a horse or two had been stolen, it wouldn’t be so nerve-racking. They’d at least know for sure that Indians are around. But the disappearance of these smaller items makes their owners question their own perception. Did they actually leave the knife on the rock? Perhaps it slipped into a crevice or was picked up by one of the other men.

Yet the knife doesn’t reappear and the very pines themselves seem to wait for someone to turn his back. It’s a relief to get into more open country, where the landscape gives less cover to whoever is trailing them. But small items continue to evaporate in the December sun. Even when there’s no cover to speak of.

“I’ll warrant it’s that same band Sylvester Pattie was yammering on about when I saw him and his son James last summer, before Sylvester headed to the Santa Rita copper mines,” Thomas Smith says. “He and his boy were up in these parts last season and a group of Apaches harassed them all winter. Stole Sylvester’s Kentucky ridin’ horse and generally made their lives hell.”

“But here we are,” Maurice LeDuc observes philosophically. “Because here is the beaver.”

“We just need to stay out in the open as much as we can,” William Wolfskill says. “And keep a sharp lookout.”

~ ~ ~ ~

But a camp needs cover of some kind, if only to keep personal business personal. And the trappers are forced to stay along the river, among its cottonwood and willow, if they want to collect pelts. As the men move down the Gila toward the mouth of the Salt, small things continue to disappear and the tension continues to rise. It’s almost a relief when a small band of Apaches finally materializes.

The trappers are in the process of breaking camp. Thomas Smith, roping a half-pack of pelts onto his mule’s off-side, is the first to glance up and see the line of six warriors standing motionless beneath the rugged cottonwoods on the opposite side of the clearing.

“Holy shit!” Smith exclaims. Around him, men turn swiftly, following his gaze. Their hands move swiftly to rifle, knife, or hatchet—whatever is closest to hand—and William Wolfskill barks, “Settle and steady now!”

The Apaches are solidly built and menacing in their silent impassiveness. The very length of their black hair exudes a dangerous strength. Only one wears a shirt and something resembling trousers. There’s a broad palmetto-leaf hat on his head and red sleeves and leggings on his limbs, clearly the marks of a chief. The others wear strands of shell on their bare chests. Their legs are covered with thigh-high moccasins that reach almost to their breech clouts.

The Chief’s hands are empty, but two of his men carry battered rifles. Two others hold empty bows at their side. A younger man stands slightly behind, a notched reed arrow in the curved wooden bow he holds casually at his waist.

The man in the palmetto hat moves forward. His eyes sweep the trappers and land on William Wolfskill, who moves toward him. Wolfskill raises his eyebrows questioningly and lifts his hands. He closes his fists, points both index fingers toward the sky, then sweeps his hands swiftly down and across each other and up again, making the sign for trade.

The Apache chuckles and shakes his head, then stretches a hand toward Wolfskill, palm up, and gestures toward himself in a scooping motion.

Wolfskill scowls. “Give you?” he asks. “Why should I give anything to you?”

Thomas Smith moves forward with a hatchet in his hand. He snaps a few words in Apache. The Indian gives him a contemptuous look, then turns and speaks to Wolfskill.

“He says we ain’t goin’ any farther if we don’t give him gifts,” Smith says, his eyes on the Chief’s face.

The man glances at Smith, then speaks to Wolfskill again, rather impatiently. There’s a low chuckle from the men behind him.

“He says he’s the Chief of all o’ this land and we gotta pay to be here,” Smith translates.

“And you can just tell him to go to hell,” Wolfskill says pleasantly, his eyes scanning the men behind the Chief calmly. “They’ve been pilfering and we don’t have anything left to give, even if we wanted to. They don’t even hunt beaver, far as I know. We’ve got just as much right here as anyone else.”

Smith grins malevolently and nods at the Indians behind the Chief, then says something in Apache. The warriors’ postures shift slightly, then an arrow flies over Smith’s head and hits his mule’s left flank with a dull thud.

As the animal screams in terror, Smith’s hatchet flies across the clearing. In the same instant, rifles roar from both sides and more Apaches appear from the trees.

“To me!” Wolfskill bellows and Gerald finds himself beside the man, Ignacio Sandoval behind him, loading a rifle. Gerald takes a deep breath, aims carefully, and fires into the gunpowder haze that rises from the trees.

As he begins to reload, a hand touches his shoulder blade. Gerald turns his head and Ignacio offers him a newly-loaded rifle. Gerald nods, trades weapons, and turns back to the fight. Another mule screams.

A few yards to Gerald’s right, Milton Sublette howls with anger and charges across the clearing toward the trees. Then his legs crumple beneath him and he sits down abruptly and clutches his right thigh. An arrow protrudes from his buckskin leggings.

Gerald pulls his eyes away from Sublette and fires into the cottonwoods, then trades weapons with Ignacio again, the acrid gunpowder bitter on his tongue. The flurry of arrows from the cottonwoods has slowed. Gerald pauses, considering whether it’s worthwhile to fire again.

William Wolfskill raises a hand. “They’re gone, boys!” he says.

Gerald lowers his rifle and takes a deep breath. He and the others keep an eye on the trees as William Wolfskill moves around the campsite, assessing the damage, then heads toward the hobbled animals in the clearing beyond.

“Shit!” Milton Sublette says as he tries to sit up.

Thomas Smith goes to Sublette’s possibles sack and rummages through it. When he pulls out a whisky bottle, Sublette smiles grimly.

“Well, at least I’ve got a reason to get soused,” he says.

“Save some for sousin’ that wound,” Smith says. He pulls a clean shirt from Sublette’s pack and begins tearing it into strips. “Hey Locke, you game for helpin’ me with this?”

Gerald nods and moves forward. Then he pauses and reaches for his canteen. “Give me a minute to wash.”

“Naw, use the whisky,” Smith says, holding it out.

Gerald washes a swig of water through his mouth, swallows the bitterness that still clings there, then takes the whisky bottle from Smith and splashes liquor on his hands as Smith slices into Sublette’s buckskin trousers. He peels the leather back to reveal the Apache arrow and the bloody gash it’s made in Sublette’s leg. He carefully cuts off a strip of the buckskin, folds it into a narrow band, and hands it to Sublette, who grimaces and slips it between his teeth.

“Ready?” Smith asks.

Sublette nods, his eyes slitted with pain.

The arrow’s shaft is made of some kind of thick reed. Smith grabs it with both hands, one fist above the other, and snaps the shaft off six inches above the wound.

Smith raises an eyebrow at Sublette and the big man nods grimly.

Smith gently moves the shaft back and forth, working it away from the edge of the wound. “It’s a good thing Apache arrow heads ain’t barbed,” he says. “I ken pull it straight out.” He looks at Sublette, who nods again. A little impatiently, Gerald thinks. Sweat drops stand out on Sublette’s broad forehead.

“You’re gonna hafta hold his hands,” Smith tells Gerald. “Or he’ll grab at me in spite of himself.”

Sublette’s eyes are clenched shut. Gerald takes his right hand and reaches across for his left. “Go!” the wounded man grunts around the leather in his mouth.

“Got him?” Smith asks Gerald.

Gerald nods and Smith turns to the arrow. He moves the shaft gingerly, as if testing it, then tightens his grip and gives a little grunt as the blood-smeared head lifts free of Sublette’s leg.

Sublette gasps, shudders, and lies still, his chest heaving. As Smith begins binding the wound, Gerald releases Sublette’s hands. The wounded man takes a deep, shuddering breath. “Coulda done that quicker,” he grumbles. He turns his head. “Where’s the whisky?”

As Gerald hands Sublette the whisky bottle, William Wolfskill walks up, his hands on his hips. “Well, we got at least a couple of the bastards,” he says. “But we lost three of the mules and yours is wounded, Smith. It looks pretty bad.”

“The hell she is!” Smith exclaims belligerently. He scrambles to his feet, the piece of arrow still in his hand. “Those damn red skinned mother suckers! That’s the best mule in the whole damn outfit!” He scowls at Wolfskill. “I ain’t puttin’ her down, William.”

“I didn’t say she had to be put down, now did I?” Wolfskill asks reasonably. He looks around at the silent trappers, then turns back to Smith. “The more important issue at hand is how much we have remaining in the way of supplies. And it’s not much. We’re going to have to pull out.”

“Retreat?” Smith spits. “After they attacked us and wounded my mule and put a arrow in Milt’s leg? You wanta retreat?”

Wolfskill lifts a hand. “We need to regroup,” he says. “I say we go back to where we can get word to Taos for reinforcements and more supplies, then we come back and teach these bastards a lesson they won’t forget.”

There’s a murmur of agreement from the other trappers, but Smith only says, “We’re takin’ that mule with us.”

Wolfskill gives him a skeptical look. “You’ll need to practice your doctoring skills on her,” he says. “But if she can keep up, we’ll take her with us.”

Smith crosses to the mule, who’s standing at the edge of the clearing, blood seeping steadily from the arrow in her left flank. He runs a hand over her rump and she jerks away from him, her ears back. “Hurts, don’t it?” he asks. “Thata girl. We’ll fix you up so you’ll be in high beaver.”

“She’s going to have to keep up,” Wolfskill says again. “And we can’t be waiting around for her, either.” He studies the other trappers, then turns to Sublette. “Milt, do you think you can ride?”

Sublette moves his leg slightly and winces. “Give me a day and I’ll be ready to go,” he says.

Wolfskill nods. “Day after tomorrow then.” He turns to Smith, who’s pulling a jar of ointment from his possibles sack. “Day after tomorrow early,” he says, raising his voice slightly, but Smith doesn’t respond.

The doctored mule is limping and irritable, but she’s in the train that turns back up the Gila River within an hour of sunrise two days later. Unlike the other animals, she carries no packsaddle and there’s an oily smear on her left flank. But she’s moving. Smith is in good spirits.

While Milton Sublette’s leg heals more slowly than he would have liked, it is healing. By the fourth day, he’s able to walk for short distances. But the mule isn’t so fortunate. She’s weaker than when they began the trek and her wound is giving off a rotting-meat smell. The other animals, and then the men, give her a wide berth.

“That’s going to start attracting mountain lion,” Wolfskill tells Thomas Smith that night. “She’s not going to make it, Tom.”

Smith scowls at Wolfskill’s back as the group’s leader walks away. He strokes the animal’s neck, trying to coax her to eat, but she only rolls her pain-ridden eyes and gingerly lifts her hind leg, as if this will ease the discomfort.

“Godforsaken mothersuckin’ Apache!” Smith growls.

Gerald watches sympathetically but knows there’s nothing he can do to help. When Smith leads the limping animal out of camp the next morning, no one accompanies them and they all pretend not to hear the gunshot that reverberates across the mountainside half an hour later.

Everyone avoids Smith’s eyes when he returns. “Damn Apaches!” he mutters as he drops the mule’s halter and rope onto a log near the fire. “Coyote bastards! She was the best damn mule I ever had!”

Sublette, perched on a big piece of sandstone at the end of the log, shifts his leg into a more comfortable position. “Damn Apaches, is right,” he says. “We’ll come back and take that mule outta their skin, Tom. That and some payment for this leg.”

Smith drops down to sit beside him and leans forward to lift a stick from the ground. He pulls out his knife and begins whittling ferociously. “I’ll cut off more’n their scalps,” he vows. “That there was my best mule. Best one I ever had.”

Gerald looks at the two men thoughtfully. Is this what trapping in Apache territory does to a man? Winds them up so tightly that they value a mule’s life over that of another man’s? At least two Apaches died in that fight. But then, not everyone thinks an Indian’s life is equivalent to a white man’s. Or a Mexican’s. Gerald watches Ignacio Sandoval move to the fire with an armful of wood. Would Smith have been so upset if Sandoval or one of the other camp keepers had died?

Gerald stirs uneasily. If an Apache or Mexican life isn’t worth much to these men, how would they value a black man who’s also part Indian? Especially one who’s passing as white? His stomach clenches. It seemed so simple at the time. On the prairie. On the road between Ranchos and Taos. And surely some of them have guessed. But no one has confronted him, and they certainly seem to treat him as an equal.

His tension eases a little and his back straightens. He’ll just have to play it out and see where it takes him. But the fact remains that he’s not like these other men. He’s not just any man.

Smith is still muttering about losing his mule when the trappers break out of the mountains a week later and see the Rio del Norte winding like a silver ribbon through the dry land below, the bosque’s gnarled gray cottonwoods running beside it. The hamlet of Socorro, surrounded by fields and sheepfolds, lies between them and the water.

“Well, it ain’t much, but it’s bound to have food,” Milton Sublette says as they gaze down at the dusty clutch of adobe casitas.

Suddenly, Ignacio Sandoval is at William Wolfskill’s elbow, looking at him pleadingly, his voice low and urgent. Wolfskill gives the young man a quizzical look, then throws back his head and laughs aloud. He turns to the others. “I guess we’re gonna have to take the long way to the river,” he announces. “Sandoval here says his Daddy lives down there and he don’t know Ignacio’s with us. He’ll likely cause quite a ruckus if we show up with the boy in tow.”

“Thought you was from Taos!” Thomas Smith says to Ignacio.

“He believes me there,” the younger man says reluctantly. “He sent me to study.”

“You’re supposed to be goin’ to school?” Sublette asks incredulously. “You’re a Mexican! What the hell do you need schoolin’ for?”

Ignacio gives him a sheepish grin and shrugs.

“I know his daddy and he’s got a sharp streak to him,” Wolfskill says. “We’ll just ease on around this little mud town and head on up to Los Chavez. Señor Chavez is likely to be more welcoming and he has a bunch of pretty daughters, besides.”

“Well, for a pretty girl I guess I can go a little farther on this bum leg,” Sublette says. There’s a general chuckle of agreement and the trappers move out, heading north across the dead grasses of the llano, keeping the gnarled gray cottonwoods that line the Rio del Norte well in sight.

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.

Fiction and Fact From Old New Mexico

LorettaMilesTollefson.com

Author: lorettamilestollefson

NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 22

NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 21

NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 20

NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 19

Copyright © 2018 Loretta Miles Tollefson

NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 18

FLASH SALE!!!

NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 17

NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 16

NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 15

NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 14

Menu

LorettaMilesTollefson.com

CHAPTER 22

Share this:

CHAPTER 21

Share this:

CHAPTER 20

Share this:

CHAPTER 19

Copyright © 2018 Loretta Miles Tollefson

Share this:

CHAPTER 18

Share this:

Subscribe to continue reading

Share this:

CHAPTER 17

Share this:

CHAPTER 16

Share this:

CHAPTER 15

Share this:

CHAPTER 14

Share this:

Menu