NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 9

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 9

Williams and Gerald move down the Cimarron over the course of the next week, trapping as they go, a day or two in each location, setting traps, pulling in beaver, skinning carcasses, and stretching plews. They eat what they trap until the aroma of fatty flesh drifting from the fire begins to turn Gerald’s stomach.

Occasionally, they see wild turkey. The sleek birds slip through the forest without any apparent awareness of the humans, but keep well out of reach. Old Bill claims he doesn’t want to shoot them for fear of bringing larger, two-footed varmints into range, but Gerald suspects the red-haired man has an affinity with the birds that precludes killing them unless absolutely necessary.

Gerald himself finds the turkeys unaccountably beautiful. There’s a wild wariness to them unlike anything he’s ever encountered in barnyard fowl. Although he has to admit that an alternative to beaver flesh would be nice. When the men and their mules break into the small snow-drifted valley Williams calls Ute Park, it’s more than the scenic value that lifts Gerald’s heart. A herd of perhaps thirty elk browses at the base of a small rocky cliff to his left.

Williams halts, studying the herd. Although the elk seem unaware of the trappers, they also seem restless. Suddenly, a large cow bolts toward the river on the other side of the valley. As the other elk follow, three wolves—two small grays and a big black—circle into sight, tagging the stragglers.

The elk barrel across the snow and grass, surge into the icy stream, then scramble up the far bank into the trees. A young bull, its left hind leg dragging, balks at the river’s edge, perhaps wishing for a more shallow ford. The wolves move in swiftly. As they cut the elk away from the stream, a raven caws overhead.

Williams chuckles, drops his mule’s lead rope, and lifts his rifle. As its muzzle roars, an identical blast erupts from the base of the stone outcropping, and the bull stumbles and goes down. The wolves dart in, then pull slightly back. The big black looks over his shoulder, toward the cliff.

Williams’ head swivels, following the wolf’s gaze. “Well, I’ll be hornswoggled,” he says.

An Indian man, his hair in the long braids and tall pompadour characteristic of Ute men, moves from the cliff. He waves an arm at the wolves and they slink, tails between their legs, toward the leafless willow brush that crowds the riverbank a half-dozen yards downstream. Then they turn and crouch in the grass, eyes flicking between the approaching man and the elk.

“Waagh!” Old Bill groans. “That Ute’s gonna claim that bull, and now him and those wolves have that whole herd most righteously spooked. We don’t have a chance in hell of gettin’ another one, and all we’ve got for supper is that quarter beaver that’s on the edge of sour, and that little bit of tail.”

“It may have been your shot that brought that bull down,” Gerald points out.

“Don’t matter,” Williams says. His eyes rake the valley. “He appears to be alone,” he adds thoughtfully. Then he shrugs. “Well, it’s worth a try anyhow. We’re two against one.”

He grabs his mule’s lead rope and moves forward, Gerald and his mule slightly behind.

The Indian looks up as they move toward him. Then he raises his knife and slices deep into the elk’s belly. He yanks out a long handful of glistening entrails and turns to toss it toward the wolves. The black darts in, mouths the food, and drags it off, his companions following obsequiously.

“That’s us,” Williams says over his shoulder. “Those grays.”

Gerald grins and nods, his eyes on the Ute, who’s pulled off his buckskin shirt and gone back to work on the elk carcass, pointedly ignoring the two trappers. Gerald and Williams are within ten feet before he looks up again.

Old Bill signs “Hello” and the other man nods noncommittally as his knife continues to slice into the elk.

“That there was a good shot,” Williams says, then repeats himself with a few fluent hand signs.

A smile flashes across the Indian’s face. “You shot wide,” he says in English.

Williams chuckles. He looks down at the carcass and gestures toward its front quarters. “Mind if I just turn him a mite?”

The Indian, who’s now crouched at the elk’s tail, incising careful circles around its hooves, nods and pauses in his work. Williams moves forward, grasps the bull’s neck in both hands, and lifts, twisting the body first one way, then the other.

“There’s a bullet in each shoulder,” he says.

The Indian grins. “I arrived first. Made first cut.”

“You did at that,” Williams agrees. “But that’s a whole lot of elk for one man to feed on.”

The man’s eyes flash and the knife in his hand lifts slightly. Gerald shifts his rifle, but the Ute’s eyes remain on Old Bill’s face. He gestures toward the rocky outcropping and the mouth of the narrow valley that stretches further north. “My family waits.”

“I don’t suppose we could trade you a bit of beaver for a haunch?” Gerald asks.

Williams nods at Gerald. “Beaver fat would be just the thing to flavor that elk,” he says. He turns to the Ute. “You know how dry and tough elk can be. Especially this time of year, when the little grass they’ve had is all dried out and worthless.”

The Indian’s gaze moves across the valley’s patches of still-thick brown grass, then to Williams’ face.

“Though, I have to tell you we’ve got a righteous hunger for beaver,” the trapper says. “My partner here likes it so well he just truly can’t get enough of it. So you could say he’s makin’ a sacrifice, offering you some. We can spare you some tail, too, for that matter.” He looks at Gerald. “If that’s all right with you.”

Gerald nods and Williams looks at the Ute. “We just thought we’d do you a favor, is all. Give you somethin’ to sweeten the pot and put some taste in that rangy old winter elk.”

“Show it me.”

Gerald fumbles with the leather thongs that secure the wrapped portion of beaver to his mule’s packsaddle and lifts the meat down. “It was fresh yesterday morning,” he says.

The Indian leans forward slightly, his nostrils flaring. Then he pulls back, nods, and gestures toward the elk carcass. “I trade front left shank,” he says. He grins at Williams. “Your piece.”

Gerald grins. The front pieces are smaller than the hindquarters.

Old Bill nods. “That’ll do right well.” He sticks out a hand. “My name’s Old Bill Williams and this here’s Gerald Locke.”

The Ute frowns at Gerald. “I know older man this name.”

Gerald smiles. “My father and I are both named Gerald Locke,” he says. “I am called Gerald Locke Junior.” The man looks puzzled. “Gerald the younger,” Gerald explains.

The Ute nods, studying Gerald’s face. “I can see it is so.” He lifts a bloodied hand toward his chest. “I am Stands Alone.” His gesture takes in the valley, then the peaks upstream. “This my place.”

Gerald nods. How far does the Ute’s place extend? But he merely says, “We’ve been trapping beaver on the river here. Is that all right with you?”

Williams swings his head, glaring, but neither Gerald nor Stands Alone respond. They stand, looking into each other’s faces, then the Ute says, “For beaver to flavor the pot,” and Gerald grins and nods.

Williams shakes his head in disgust. He jerks his thumb downstream. “We’re trappin’ that direction.” His tone makes it clear that he’s not asking permission.

Stands Alone nods. “No beaver there beyond a half-day journey,” he says. “The water is swift.” He jerks his head southwest, toward the other side of the river. “That way, toward the black valley, there may be beaver.”

Williams frowns. “Not in the Moreno Valley,” he says. “We was just there and there ain’t any there. Never has been, far’s I know.”

Stands Alone gestures toward the peaks that rise above the opposite bank. “That way is a smaller valley with many seeps. I have seen beaver.” He shrugs. “Too far for too little meat.” He spreads his hands and a ghost of a smile glimmers in his eyes. “I give them to you.”

Old Bill throws back his head and barks a laugh. “We can have all we want, huh? As long as we leave the elk here for you?”

Stands Alone smiles noncommittally.

Gerald chuckles and gazes toward the pine-covered slopes. “I suppose the quickest way there is back the way we came.”

Stands Alone nods. “There is a way when grass is green,” he says. “But when snow comes, following water is best.” He bends and goes back to his work, deftly cuts a section of meat from the elk’s shoulder, then proffers it to Old Bill.

Williams shrugs, wraps the meat in a piece of buckskin, and attaches the bundle to his mule’s packsaddle. Stands Alone returns to his labors and doesn’t look up as the trappers turn and move up the valley.

As the canyon narrows around them, Gerald glances back. The Ute man has been joined by two female figures and a horse-drawn travois. The women bend over the elk while he washes his hands in the river.

~ ~ ~ ~

Intermittent snow slides in over the canyon brim as the trappers move west. The flakes become steadily smaller and more intense, and the cold increases proportionately. Gerald and Williams camp again at the foot of the eagle nesting cliff. When they wake, the snow has stopped and the valley beyond is blindingly white. As Gerald squints, trying to see the peaks on the other side, Old Bill grabs charcoal from the coolest edge of the fire and begins smudging it onto his face below his eyes.

“You best be doin’ this, too,” he tells Gerald. “It keeps the glare from gettin’ your eyes. Your skin’s darker’n mine but even the Injuns do it this time of year.”

Gerald swings his head, waiting for Williams to speculate on the difference in their skin tone, but Old Bill has turned away and is smearing charcoal on his mule’s cheeks, as well. The animal pulls back, resisting, and Gerald chuckles and reaches for his own piece of burnt wood.

They move out, into a sweep of icy, concentrated sunlight. The glare bounces from the snow and forces the men’s eyes into mere slits. Gerald’s head feels like it’s being split in two, first by the dry sharpness of the cold, then by the piercing light. Even with the charcoal smudged on his cheeks, he has to work to see Williams, a mere ten feet ahead.

Old Bill hugs the valley’s eastern edge, skirting the base of the snow-covered hills as they move south. On the west, the mountaintops are buried behind a mass of gray clouds that seem to only intensify the blaze of the sun above them.

Then a breeze springs up. It lifts the top layer of snow and spins an icy spray around the men and mules. “Might as well be snowin’ again!” Williams yells. His voice drops, still muttering, then rises. “That Ute can have it!”

Gerald’s lips are too stiff with cold for him to even smile in response, but when they stop to noon in the lee of a snow-covered ridge and he’s recovered a little, he grins at Williams. “You think Stands Alone spends much time up here in winter?”

“Not in a teepee!” Old Bill says. “These winds’d blow his lodge poles to smithereens.” He grunts disparagingly and uses a finger to work a piece of jerky from behind a molar. He pulls the half-chewed meat out, looks at it, puts it back in his mouth, and tilts his canteen. Nothing comes out. “Frozen solid.” He looks at Gerald. “You got any?”

Gerald reaches for his own water container and jiggles it. “It sounds like something’s still liquid,” he says. He hands Williams the canteen.

“See, that’s the difference between an Injun and a white man,” Williams says. “You just hand it to me, knowing I’m wantin’ a drink. An Injun’ll bargain with you, daylight to dark, to see what he can get out of you. Make you beg for what he’s planning to give you.”

Gerald tilts his head. A white man, huh? Well, that answers that question. But he can’t, in all fairness, let the mischaracterization slide. “I wish my experience bore that out,” he says. “I’ve known white men who wouldn’t so much as let you step on their land without making conditions.”

Williams shrugs. “I reckon there’s bad apples in every lot,” he concedes. He turns and looks up the valley. “But that Ute saying this valley is his? Well, that just ain’t so. For one thing, the Apaches come through here regular-like. They might have a difference of opinion about who all it belongs to.” He nods toward the cloud-covered peaks on the other side of the valley. “And, sure as shootin’, the Taos Injuns on the other side of those mountains would have a righteous something to say about his claim. It’s their hunting grounds, too.”

He shakes his head as he returns Gerald’s canteen. “But see, most Injuns don’t see the land the same way we whites do, with clear boundaries marked out and a man’s right to work it. To them, the country’s just something to hunt on and gather from, not to plant and work and turn it into more than it was at the start. Except for the Pueblos, it takes a righteous amount of palaver to get them so’s they’re willing to divide it up between them and actually plow it. Not like us.”

Gerald looks at the other man, thinking of his preference for blazing trail over living in a cabin. Yet here he is, asserting the value of making the land more than a place to hunt and gather. Gerald’s own propensities are toward plowing and planting, so he tends to agree with Old Bill, but the Utes and Apaches have been hunting and gathering on this land for generations. Which gives them some rights. It’s a different way of looking at it, is all. They just don’t feel the need to sink their fingers in the soil, the way he does. A need which is very strong.

Old Bill rises and Gerald grimaces at the quandary, wraps his mule’s lead rope around his gloved hand, and prepares to follow Williams back into the wind-driven snow.

The cold intensifies as the setting sun silhouettes the western clouds. When Gerald lifts his hand to his face, his glove bumps numb cheeks as stiff as boards. He turns stiffly, scanning for another sheltering abutment. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he sees Williams move abruptly left. Numbly, Gerald follows.

A trickle of half-frozen water flows from the tree line, forming a slushy black line in the snow. The men and mules move along the rivulet and into the trees. The wind drops sharply in the lee of the hill and Gerald releases breath he hasn’t realized he’s been holding.

The next morning they discover that Stands Alone spoke truly. Beaver ponds dot the small valley that parallels the larger one. And they’re not completely frozen over. It takes a good two weeks to trap them out.

When the men return to the larger valley, the snow has abated and the grass is visible again. Gerald pauses beside the small, still slushy stream, and gazes at the western peaks, especially the massive middle one. He looks south, then north, and nods. Yes, he has seen this before. From this angle, it’s recognizable as the valley he crossed with Ewing Young’s mule train. The one with the long grasses, the winding streams, the soil so black his fingers itched to to touch it, to tuck seed into its fertile protection.

As he follows Williams’ mule down the valley, he studies the pine trees on its slopes. They’re black against a now-turquoise sky. And to think that same sky was thick with grey snow-bearing clouds just a week ago! What a changeable place it is! He has a sudden urge to laugh out loud.

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NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 8

Over the next two weeks, Williams and Gerald trap their way steadily up the Red River. As they move higher, the temperatures drop a little more each night. The cottonwoods and the heart-shaped foliage of the white-barked aspens turn ever more golden.

Then snow falls for the first time. Williams stands by the morning campfire and studies the sides of the canyon. Its sharp rocks are outlined in white. The trapper swings his head toward the stream and the fingers of ice that edge its banks. Then he nods eastward, up the canyon.

“I reckon it’s about time for us to head on to greener pastures,” he says. “We’re not going to spy much more beaver up this creek. From here on, it’s too narrow and steep for them to have much chance at damming it solid. And anything dammable that runs into it is gonna be froze over anyway. We’re high up enough now that the snow’s likely to be nothing but serious from now until March. I reckon we’d better head on across Bobcat before it really sets in.”

“Bobcat?”

Old Bill jerks his head to the southeast. “There’s a pass thataway. It’ll drop us down into the prettiest little valley you ever saw.” He grins. “Well, not so little. But it’s a sight.” He swings toward his mule. “We’d best get to moving though, if we want to get over it before nightfall.”

The trail to Bobcat Pass is a steady climb up a rocky path dominated by snow-dusted ponderosas and other pine that cling improbably to almost perpendicular slopes. Gerald feels the upward incline in his ears. First a dull pressure, than a sharp pain until he sets himself to yawning and swallowing air. How high are they climbing, anyway?

High enough to be above the river, which slices through a steep sided and heavily treed ravine below. The actual pass itself is more grass than trees. The snow is thick, but drifted enough that the dried herbage is still evident. The men pause to let the mules blow and browse for a few minutes. They pull jerky for themselves from their packs, then begin the descent, into the trees again, on a slant almost as steep as the one they’ve just scaled. Elk lift their heads from pocket meadows too small even for beaver as the trappers and their animals move down the mountainside.

They drop into a narrow defile and follow it east and south below slopes dotted with twisted brown scrub oak and green-black pine. The snow hasn’t reached this side of the mountains yet and a small stream, not yet frozen, trickles merrily through narrow meadows thick with willow and drying grass. Just ahead, a flock of perhaps twenty wild turkeys moves silently away from the other side of the stream and weaves uphill through the trees. None of the birds turn their heads toward the men and mules, but they’re clearly moving away from the foreign presence.

Gerald takes a deep breath, breathing in the cold pine-scented air. Though the tree-covered slopes are almost close enough touch, the sky to the east feels more open, somehow. He suddenly realizes how closed in he’s felt in the last few weeks in the Red River’s canyon.

They reach the valley early the next morning, just as the sun is rising behind the massive snow-dusted rock abutment that Williams calls Baldy Mountain. As they move south beside the creek in the valley’s center, Williams gestures to the west. Gerald turns his head. The snow-clad peaks opposite Baldy glow pink, reflecting the sunrise.

Gerald shakes his head, bemused. The sun rises in all directions in this valley. In fact, the way the sunlight glints from the dew on the brown grasses makes it feel as if the light rises from the ground itself. The grass is long and healthy. It sweeps from the bushes scattered along Baldy’s slopes down into the valley floor and then west over the foothills to the edge of the pine-covered and pink-topped mountains. It’s thickest along the creek bank. Gerald’s farmer heart twinges with desire.

Old Bill and his mule drop back to walk beside Gerald. “This little bit of a stream’s called the Moreno River,” he says.

The younger man grins. The strip of water is so narrow he could jump across it, but they call it a river.

“Here in nuevo mexico, if it flows all year, then it’s a river. It don’t rightly matter how much water actually runs in it,” Williams adds.

“Doesn’t Moreno mean black?” Gerald asks. The water isn’t black, but the soil the stream cuts through certainly is. Dark and loamy. Inside his buckskin gloves, his fingers twitch, wanting to know how such a soil might respond to the touch. It looks as healthy as the grasses that weave their roots into its heart. He glances toward Baldy again and blinks. What he’d taken for bushes on the lower slopes have resolved into a scattered herd of feeding elk. Involuntarily, he wonders what Suzanna Peabody would say to such a sight.

But Williams is talking again, his voice high and querulous, a sure sign that he’s about to launch into a story. “First time I saw this valley, there was a foot of snow on the ground and a group of Utes camping just yonder, under that stony outcrop.”

He points to the right, where a mass of stone juts from the side of a flat-topped grassy hill. “I’d just pushed over Bobcat Pass in snow so deep the mules could barely plow through it. I’d been walkin’ three days. I figured if I stopped, I’d just righteously freeze to death.”

Old Bill shakes his head. “I tell you, I was mighty pleased to see that little camp of Utes down there and even gladder when I realized its chief was a friend of mine. They welcomed me well enough, but he wouldn’t tell me a righteous lick about what they were doin’ up here in that kind of weather. They should of been down Cimarron Canyon feeding their families and waitin’ out the winter like sensible men. Instead, they were laying here, waiting on something they probably weren’t supposed to be tanglin’ with. Mexicano soldiers, most likely. I got myself thawed out a little, then I hightailed it outta there with just my rifle, one beaver trap, and the clothes on my back.”

Williams shrugs. “Old Three Hands got two good mules for feeding me a couple of days, but I got out of tanglin’ in a fight that was none of my business. So I reckon it washed clean, although I sure did miss the use of those mules. I just hope they didn’t get turned into stew meat when those damn fools stopped waitin’ for a fight and headed for home.”

He pauses. Gerald knows he’s expected to prod the story forward. “You never got your mules back?” he asks.

“Nope, I never did. And the next time I saw Three Hands, he didn’t recall having seen me at all that whole winter.” Old Bill grins. “It turns out they’d had a bit of a scrap with the Mexican soldiers. He didn’t have much to say about that, neither. Those government troops seem to have got the better of them . Old Three Hands sure didn’t want to put his jaw to talking about anything that happened that season.” Williams chuckles. “The Utes ain’t ones for dwellin’ on their defeats.”

“Like most men.”

Williams snorts in agreement and points ahead, to a cluster of ponderosas in the curve of the stream. “We’ll stop there to noon. That’ll give the mules a chance to feed up. This grass may be brown, but it’s still tasty.” He nods southward. “If you’re thinkin’ this is pretty, wait’ll you see the south part.”

“There’s more?”

“You could say that.” Old Bill chuckles. “You might just be able to say that.”

The mules are reluctant to leave the long grasses, but once the men have eaten, Williams seems eager to push on. They follow the stream through a mile-long passageway that winds between the hills. The ground is thick with grass and spotted with thick-trunked ponderosas. Then the trees end and the land opens before them. Williams halts, grins at Gerald, and waves a proud hand at the view. “Now that’s something, ain’t it?” he says.

They’re standing at the top of a broad slope that angles gently down to a grassy basin that’s perhaps a mile wide and extends south toward haze-covered blue peaks. The valley is bisected by a series of low grass-covered ridges that block his view of the valley floor, but Gerald suspects the grass continues right to the edge of those southern mountains. If it’s anything like the growth at his feet, this is a rich valley indeed.

Elk are scattered across the hillside to his right. At its base, a stream narrower than the Moreno slips from the west and joins the Moreno, then snakes slowly southeast. Gerald’s gaze lifts and moves along the mountains that line the valley, east and west. He squints, puzzled. There’s something familiar about this place.

Williams gestures toward a low point in the peaks to the left, south of Baldy and a flat-topped ridge that bulks beyond it. “Those streams are headin’ there, where the Cimarron starts,” he says. “There’s a crag above the marsh there that the Injuns favor for gatherin’ eagle feathers. There were three big scraggly nests perched up in there the last time I come through. There’s likely more further up the slopes.”

He waves his hand at the grassland. “That there’s prime eagle hunting grounds for keeping their young fed up, what with the smaller birds and le petite chien.”

Gerald lifts an eyebrow. “Prairie dogs? The more the eagles eat, the better. They’d wipe out the grasses with their mounds. And that’s prime hay meadow, from the looks of it.”

Williams chuckles. “Prime elk browse, at any rate. Even the occasional buffalo.” He clucks at his pack mule. “This valley gets a mite windy and cold this time of year. We need to get a move on and get under the lee of one of those ridges before nightfall. I’m lookin’ to scout east along the Cimarron tomorrow and see if there’s any beaver come in since I was here two seasons back.”

Gerald follows the trapper down the broad slope, but his mind isn’t on beaver. The broad grassland and small streams move his thoughts inevitably to cattle and farming. The length and thickness of the grass here tell him there’s water available pretty much year-round.

And there are no people. No farmers, at any rate. The Indians apparently come through to hunt and even camp. Do they stay long? How would they feel about a man who wanted to actually put roots down here, build a house? Put in a garden? Grow a family along with it?

Suzanna Peabody’s straightforward black eyes rise before him and Gerald shakes his head. That’s presuming too much. But wouldn’t it be something if she should decide— He forces his mind back to the more plausible daydream of ranch, house, hay, and cattle.

“Does anybody actually live up here year-round?” he asks that night as he and Williams crouch next to a fire at the base of Eagle’s Nest rock. The canyon wall soars above them, black in the darkness. They’re right up against it, out of the way of the cattail-strewn marsh that absorbs the waters of the Moreno River. Gerald can hear it trickling from the marsh into the intermittent stream that runs through the canyon they’ll enter tomorrow. Cimarron Creek, Williams calls it. “Cimarron” because it’s as wild and unpredictable as the mountain sheep also called “cimarron.” “Creek” because it doesn’t flow year-round.

“This here valley’s too cold for perching in durin’ the winter months,” Williams says. “It’s a righteously beautiful place in the summer, once summer finally makes it this high up. It takes a mite longer than most places to warm up and the cold comes in earlier, too.” He shrugs. “It ain’t good for beaver though. Not enough trees and willow to make it worth their while.”

“I was thinking about how it would be to farm,” Gerald says casually. “But from what you say, it sounds like the growing season’s a bit short.”

Williams snorts. “The growin’ season’s short and the winter season’s long,” he says. “I surely wouldn’t try it. But then I ain’t a farming man.” He points to the rock abutment overhead. “I’d rather be on top of that rock, seein’ what I can see, lookin’ for new trails to blaze. Not cramped up in a cabin with nothin’ to do.” He shrugs. “But if a man was goin’ to venture livin’ up here, he could always run cattle. There’s grass enough. Though you’d have to fight the elk for the range and the wolves and the cougars for the calves.”

“And watch out for prairie dogs,” Gerald says wryly.

Williams nods. “And then you’d have to get those cows down to market.” He pushes back his hat. “I hear tell some of the Taos folk run their goats and sheep up here in the summer. Between them, the Injuns, the elk, and the weather, it’d be a contest who’d wear you out soonest.”

Gerald nods, gazing into the dark toward the marsh, his mind drifting toward the richness of the soil in the valley beyond.

“And you’d have a tough time findin’ a woman who’d be willin’ to live this far from nowhere.” Williams grins mischievously at Gerald. “Even Suzanna Peabody.”

Gerald’s head jerks toward Old Bill in spite of himself.

Williams stretches his legs toward the fire. “You ain’t the only one who’s dreamed that particular notion, you know. We’ve all had that idea, one time or the other.”

Gerald feels a tight fist of disgust in his belly and fights to keep it from showing on his face.

Williams shakes his head at the fire, a rueful smile on his lips. “Not that any of us’d touch her. She’s that fine a lady.” He nods at Gerald companionably. “But she does make you think of what it’d be like to settle with a girl like herself, don’t she now? Educated like that. Smart as a whip. Not takin’ sass off a soul, not even her daddy. But not mean like. It’s just she can talk him so sweet he don’t even know he’s been twisted around her little finger.” He chuckles. “’Course, that might be a reason for some of us to think twice about a gal of her caliber.”

Gerald permits himself a small smile. To think of another man thinking of Suzanna Peabody in that way makes his stomach clench, but he does like that Old Bill admires her qualities, knows what she’s worth.

Not that he himself really knows the girl, Gerald reminds himself. But what Williams says of her fits what Gerald instinctively feels. The true heart of her. The strength. As to her taking no sass off anybody, he knows that isn’t quite true. He’s seen her frightened, though not cowed. And he’s very glad that he happened around the corner of that narrow street where Enoch Jones had her cornered against that adobe wall.

Not that his intervention lays any obligation upon her, he reminds himself later, as he spreads his bedroll on the rocky ground beneath the cliff. Or means she’s special to him in any way. He would do the same for any woman in such a predicament.

Yet, as he dozes off, Gerald’s mind drifts to the image of black eyes looking straight into his, slim brown hands offering him a plate of food.

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NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 7

The day after the visit to the Peabody’s, Gerald shares yet another whisky with Old Bill in yet another Taos taberna. In the middle of a story about his life among the Osage Indians, Williams interrupts himself. “So how is it you happened to already know our Miz Peabody?” he asks abruptly.

Gerald shrugs. “A man was paying her what seemed to be unwanted attention and I intervened.” He lifts his drink. “Anyone else would’ve done the same thing.”

Old Bill lifts a scraggly red eyebrow. “Would the gentleman who was providing this unwanted attention happen to be named Enoch Jones?”

Gerald sets his drink on the table. “Do you know him?”

Williams’ back straightens and his eyes narrow. “I know him all right. I’ll wring his fat neck for him, the mothersuckin’ balls for brains bastard!”

Gerald frowns. “Has he been after her before this?”

“He’s made eyes,” Old Bill says grimly. “You sure it was him?”

“Oh yes. We were in the same train coming out.”

“He’ll be waitin’ for you t’ turn your back, you know.”

“He already disliked me.” Gerald shrugs. “This will just give him another reason.”

Williams raises an inquiring eyebrow and Gerald briefly describes the incident with the Kiowa boy, then—more fully—Jones’ treatment of the mules.

“He’s a godforsaken bastard, that one,” Old Bill says. “I’ve known a few craven-hearted men in my time, but he’s one of the worst.” His eyes snap. “To think he’d have the gall to put his hands on our Suzanna.”

“It was the way he spoke to her,” Gerald says. “As if she was dirt under his feet.”

“Well, he’s got this mothersuckin’ idea that a white skin makes him better than the rest of the human race,” Williams says. “And Miz Peabody being part Navajo but so well bred and nice mannered must just stick in his craw.”

“She’s part Navajo?”

“Now there’s a story for you.” Old Bill leans forward and lowers his voice. “No one talks about it much, because Jeremiah doesn’t like to be reminded how he was boondoggled.” He tilts his red head. “At least, that’s how he figgers it.” He shrugs. “Any other man would of known what the girl was up to, but he was still green and those New Englanders, they expect everybody else to have their same standards.”

Gerald frowns, confused.

Williams stretches back, fingering his whisky. “See, what happened was, Peabody showed up out here from the East along about 1809. He was still pretty much just a whippersnapper, runnin’ away from some trouble with a gal and another man.” Williams shrugs. “The usual. Anyway, he got out here safe enough and managed to sweet talk the ricos into letting him stay, but then this puta started after him. She was the daughter of a French trapper and a Navajo gal the trapper had bought from the Comanches.”

Williams grins ruefully. “The girl was a righteously pretty little thing and she pretty much got what she wanted. Jeremiah fell in love, or so he thought, and when she told him she was enciento, he hooked up with her. Didn’t marry her, though. He wouldn’t turn Catholic, even for a girl. But he swore he’d take care of her and the child. And he did, even when she started running around with other men.”

Old Bill shakes his head. “Should of turned her out. I would of. But by that time, the little girl was born and they say she was a righteous beauty even then. Her daddy fell in love for real then, that’s for certain sure.”

Williams pauses, looking incongruously bemused. “Babies’ll do that t’ a man if you’re not careful. Tie you down faster’n any woman can.” He shakes a finger at Gerald. “My advice is, don’t stay around long enough to find out if there’s gonna be a kid, and if you do find out, then cut out before the coon actually arrives. If you stay, you’re lost, sure as oil and water don’t mix.”

Gerald grins. “I’ll remember that.”

Williams raises both hands, leans forward, and slaps the rough wooden table with both palms. “So what’re you gonna do with yourself this winter? You decide yet?”

Gerald shakes his head.

“Why don’t you throw in with me?” the trapper asks. “I’ve got nothing to do here except play court to Sibley on his road commission work and I ain’t much good at payin’ court.” He snorts. “Sibley’d tell you that.” He leans back, hands still flat on the table. “I’ll show you the ropes and we’ll split the results. Just you and me, private like. I’m not about to share my hunting grounds with just anyone.”

“Your hunting grounds?”

Old Bill winks. “I know some places up in the hills that they all think are trapped out. But it’s good hunting if you know where to look and there ain’t too many out looking.”

Gerald studies the opinionated mountain man. There’s something about Williams that’s quite appealing. Or maybe it’s just that Old Bill’s loquaciousness means Gerald doesn’t have to talk much when they’re together. There’s certainly little need to explain himself or where he comes from.

Gerald nods thoughtfully, then more firmly, looking into the trapper’s face. “I’d be honored to throw in with you,” he says. “When do you expect to start?”

“Well, there ain’t no time like the present!” Williams scrapes back his chair. “Let’s get a move on.”

Gerald follows him out the taberna door, squelching his desire to make a farewell visit to the Peabody home, aware that he has no right to make such a call, hoping against hope that he might chance across Suzanna before he and Old Bill leave town. Or that Williams will decide he needs one last meal of the Peabody cook’s wheat flour rolls.

But when the old trapper decides to do something, he throws himself into it completely. He and Gerald are busy from dawn to dusk: stocking up on flour, coffee, and salt; purchasing Gerald’s gear, including elk hide moccasins and buckskin trousers and shirt; and locating and bargaining for two sturdy mules for their gear. Gerald keeps an eye out for Suzanna Peabody, but doesn’t catch so much as a glimpse of her in the next three days.

They slip out of Taos in the middle of the night. Williams has mentioned casually to several of the other trappers that he’s heading up the Rio del Norte, and he and Gerald move out in that direction under a star-studded sky.

The next morning, the wheat fields of Taos Valley give way to rolling hills covered with forty-foot juniper and occasional long-needled thick-barked ponderosa pine. But Old Bill is paralleling the Rio del Norte, not heading toward it. He moves due north, then slightly east, to hit what he calls Red River Creek well east of its confluence with the del Norte. They camp beside the creek that night, in the shadow of the mountains it flows from. According to Williams, the stream is called “Colorado” in Spanish, in honor of the reddish sediment that stains it during spring runoff.

The next morning they follow the Red’s narrow canyon east into the Sangre de Cristos. Williams leads the way, the gap between the men too far for any real conversation and Old Bill anxious not to be spotted. Gerald’s not sure if Williams is more concerned about Indians or other trappers.

He takes the opportunity to study the massive granite and sandstone boulders that jut from the canyon walls, dwarfing the men and mules, and the ponderosas that cling precariously in the gaps between them. There’s a brooding beauty in the darkness of the pines. Sunlight breaks around the rocks onto the clear-running river below, then cuts off abruptly as the canyon rim narrows overhead.

Where the canyon is wider, broad grassy areas stretch beside the stream. Even Gerald can spot the old beaver sign in these meadows. Graying tree stumps stick up from the grasses and show themselves among the alder and willows along the river bank. Their tops, gnawed long ago into dull points by beaver incisors, are chipped like poorly sharpened pencils.

The men find no truly marshy areas or ponds with active beaver lodges until well into the second day. Williams is ahead and Gerald’s beginning to wonder when he’ll decide to noon, when the older man raises his reedy voice. “Well now, that’s a beaver dam if ever I saw one!”

A windblown snag straddles the river from bank to bank. Ten- and twelve-foot lengths of two-inch thick branches are jammed hard against the snag at every possible angle. River mud has been smudged between them, whether by beaver or water flow, it’s hard to say.

The dam is massive, perhaps eight feet tall and fifteen long. Grasses dot its top and sides. They’re well rooted in the sediment and enhance the dam’s strength. Water slips around its near end, trickling downstream just enough to keep the pond behind it in check. There are no discernible banks to the pond itself. The impounded water seeps through a swath of cattails, then into a tangle of coyote willow. Beyond the willows, long grasses rise from mucky soil, creating a bog that blocks the canyon floor for a good quarter mile upriver.

Williams pushes his hat back on his head and scratches his scraggly red beard as he studies the dam and the pond. Then he turns to Gerald.

“This is where moccasins are better’n boots,” he says. “We’re about to get damp.” Old Bill’s mule nickers at him and he looks at her impatiently. “Ah hell, let’s noon first.” He pulls off his hat. “Then we’ll start slogging.”

They loose the mules to graze among the water-rich grasses, and munch buffalo jerky while they study the bog. “We could trap it from here,” Williams says. “If we’re careful, the beaver won’t know which direction we come from.” He snorts. “There’s sure enough water around here to wash our stink out.” He glances up at the sheer canyon walls. “But we’d only have one way out if any Utes or Apaches show up.” He clucks his tongue as he shakes his head. “We’re gonna have to get past this. Come at it from upstream.”

“And if Apaches or Utes show up when we’re above this?” Gerald asks. “Won’t this mess block us from moving out of here quickly?”

Williams grins mischievously. “Then we’ll have to head upstream instead.” He glances at Gerald’s feet. “Better put your moccasins on. Those leather boots will take a month of Sundays to dry out good and proper.”

Gerald grimaces. He suspects the elk hide moccasins aren’t going to be much protection against the icy water.

And he’s right. When he steps into the stream, the shock to his feet is truly breathtaking.

Ahead of him, leading a reluctant mule through the water-logged grass, Old Bill looks back over his shoulder and grins. “They’ll numb up soon enough,” he says. “Then you won’t feel a thing.”

Gerald grins wryly and clucks at his mule, who seems more interested in eating than wading. Smart animal, he thinks grimly.

They move upstream and well beyond the pond before Williams finds a camping site to his liking. The next morning, he gathers gear enough for a day’s trapping, hands Gerald a long piece of deadwood sharpened on one end, hoists a pack onto his back, and leads the way back to the beaver dam.

They maneuver downstream perhaps a mile, though it seems longer. Gerald’s feet are blocks of ice before the trapper abruptly halts. “Here it is!” Williams hisses. “Looks different, this direction.”

Gerald wades through the water to stand beside Williams in the eddying stream. A wall of willow lines the river’s banks, marking the edge of the beaver pond. On their left, there’s a narrow muddy incline between the willows. Neatly-clipped willow sticks lie beside it. A small bush has been sheared off to within a foot of the ground, the tip of each stub angled and sharp.

“Beaver feeding?” Gerald asks.

Williams hisses, “Quiet!” Then he nods and jerks a thumb toward the strip of mud. “That there’s their slide,” he whispers. “We’ll be settin’ the trap out from that, a good three feet or so.” He points at a small section of water that’s noticeably darker than the rest, a sign that the pond bottom drops sharply in that location. “Right about there.”

Gerald considers the dark spot and wonders just how deep the pool actually is. But he only nods.

Old Bill wades forward cautiously. He stops, extends his foot, and taps it along the bottom of the pond, then grunts approvingly. He turns and beckons to Gerald. “Come and see.”

Gerald edges closer, staying between Williams and the bank.

Williams moves his foot from side to side. The water swirls, turning brown with silt. “I’m using my foot to move some of this here mud into a little hill,” he explains. “When I’m done, the top of it’ll be about a foot below the surface.”

Gerald nods his understanding, if not his ability to see what the trapper is actually doing.

“I’ve got to make it wide enough to hold the trap and all,” Williams explains, gesturing with his hands, forgetting to whisper. He yanks the bag on his back around to rest against his scrawny belly, then pulls out a trap and begins unwrapping the steel chain that’s wound around it. “You know how to set this beast?”

“Well, I do on solid ground,” Gerald says.

Williams grins. “It ain’t so theoretical now, is it?” He lifts the trap chain to one side, out of the way, then flips the trap itself onto its side and braces it against his thigh. He wraps his hands around the metal clamps at each end and squeezes steadily, forcing them together. As the springs compress, the trap jaws are forced open and into position.

Old Bill gives Gerald a little nod and jerks his chin at the trap. “Just flip that trigger piece into that there dog.”

Gerald gingerly uses his free hand to snap the dangling piece of narrow, angled metal into the notch on the opposite side of the trap. This will keep the trap’s jaws open until an unwary animal ventures too close and bumps the trigger and the metal jaws clamp shut around the animal’s leg or other body part.

Williams lifts the trap carefully, gives a satisfied nod, and grins at Gerald. “That’s the way to do it.”

Gerald grins back at him. “That approach requires some real strength.”

Williams nods complacently. “It’s all in the hands.” He deftly slides the trap under the water and onto the pile of dredged-up mud, then lifts the chain and moves farther into the pond. When he finds the anchorage spot he’s looking for, he motions Gerald to bring him the trap stake.

Gerald wades across and hands Williams the piece of sharpened deadwood, and the trapper slips its blunt end into the final loop of the chain. Then he pulls a leather cord from a pocket, wraps it around the stick twice, then threads it through a loop of the chain, and knots it into place just below the top of the stake. Once the chain is attached, he grabs the stick with both hands and shoves the pointed end firmly downward, driving it into the pond floor. He nods in satisfaction and turns to follow the chain back to the trap site. Gerald wades after him.

“Cold yet?” Old Bill asks over his shoulder.

“Startin’ to feel it,” Gerald says, his lips so stiff he can hardly form the words.

Williams chuckles. “You got sand, I’ll say that for you.” He gestures toward the stake. “All that’s the preliminaries. This next step’s the crucial piece.” He wades to the willow bushes along the bank, pulls out his knife, and slices off a long switch. He scrapes the bark from one end, then reaches into a pocket. “I’m gonna need you to take care of this,” he says. He holds out the corked piece of antelope horn that serves as his bait container.

Gerald has smelled castoreum before, but the choking scent of it is always a shock to his senses. He grimaces as he removes the cork and tilts the contents toward the trapper. Williams grins at him, sticks his gloved forefinger into the goop, and smears it onto the scraped end of the willow switch.

As Gerald recaps the bit of horn, Williams chuckles. “Look at your face!” He shakes his head. “Better get use to it, sonny. That stuff’s what fortunes are made of.”

“It stinks like a lot of necessary things,” Gerald says dryly.

Old Bill laughs and moves to the edge of the pond. He forces the thicker end of the willow stick into the bank at an angle, so that the baited end hangs out over the water and dangles perhaps six inches above the surface and the set trap underneath.

“That should do it,” Williams says. He turns and begins wading upstream. “We need to make tracks up a ways before we can climb out. We don’t want that beaver smellin’ us. These critters can be mighty intelligent when they take a notion to be.”

There’s a good-sized male beaver in the trap when they return the next morning. Gerald carries it back to camp, where Williams proceeds to demonstrate how to skin and butcher the carcass, then how to stretch the skin onto a hoop he constructs from willow branches and thin strips of rawhide. When he hangs the hooped pelt from a ponderosa branch, the sun shines through the skin and gives it a reddish hue.

“You ever eat beaver flesh?” the trapper asks.

Gerald shakes his head.

“Well, you’re in for a treat,” Old Bill says. “Beaver tastes like beef and even has a little fat in it, unlike venison or antelope. They’re so dry you’ve got to add fat to the pot to make them righteously edible.” He squats next to the fire and reaches for the coffee pot. “With all that grease, beaver flesh doesn’t last long, but it’s good the first day, at any rate. And it’s a nice change from deer or elk or those other hoofed creatures.”

“I understand beaver tail is quite tasty.”

Williams grunts disparagingly. “If you’re craving fat, it’ll pass for it,” he says. “It’s too bland for my tongue. Though that cook of Jeremiah Peabody’s knows what to do with it. Someone brought her some last fall and by the time she was done with it, Peabody said it was like ambrosia.” He shakes his head. “That Chonita is a looker, too. It’s beyond my understanding why she’s not married yet. Waiting for the best proposition, I suppose. A female like her can take her time, be righteously choosy.”

Williams pauses, still holding the coffee pot, staring up into the golden narrow leaf cottonwoods between them and the river. “I knew another one like that once. An Osage gal.” He shakes his head and puts the pot back on the stone next to the fire. “Pretty, too.” He looks at Gerald. “Have you met her?”

“Jeremiah Peabody’s cook?” Gerald shakes his head.

Williams grins mischievously. “Well, you met his daughter, so nobody else matters much now, I reckon.”

Gerald looks away. Suzanna Peabody’s name isn’t something to be bandied about around a campfire.

“Ah, come on now,” the trapper says. “It’s not a thing to be ashamed of, that spark between you. And you can’t deny it was there. I saw it.”

Gerald glances at him, then rises. “I’m to bed,” he says.

Old Bill chuckles knowingly and reaches for the coffee pot again. Gerald’s face tightens. Is the man taking liberties because of the color of his skin, or is he just taking liberties? How dare he talk about Suzanna Peabody in that way! He has no right!

Gerald pulls himself together and spreads out his blankets. He has no rights either. No permission to think of the girl with such a combination of sweetness and longing. And no reason to think he’ll ever have such permission. She may smile that way at every new man she meets. She certainly must meet plenty of them in her father’s parlor. He seems to keep open house.

Despite these obvious facts, Suzanna Peabody’s dark eyes still sparkle in Gerald’s memory as he lays down, covers himself, and tries to force his mind elsewhere, away from the look on her face in that first unguarded moment in her father’s small Taos parlor.

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NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 6

“So how is it that you knew Gerald Locke Jr. yesterday, even though you had not been formally introduced?” Jeremiah Peabody asks Suzanna the next morning as he cuts into his egg-and-corn-tortilla breakfast.

Suzanna reaches for another tortilla. “You know, Encarnación’s tortillas are so delicious, I’m sure our visitors wouldn’t mind having them for tea instead of wheat rolls.”

“The cost of wheat flour may be high, but it means a great deal to these men to have a semblance of home in the shape of wheat bread, tea, and a pretty woman to serve them,” her father says. “And, as you say, Encarnación’s corn tortillas are well made, so it’s no sacrifice to eat them at our other meals. That young woman is quite a cook. I thank the day she appeared at our doorstop.” He looks up at her with a slight frown. “Unless you have grown weary of tortillas, my dear. In which case—”

“Oh no,” Suzanna says. “I could eat Chonita’s tortillas at every meal and never weary of them.” She pops the last bit into her mouth and lifts her cup of milk. “That and this good cow’s milk that Ramón so thoughtfully brings us.”

“Well, we do pay him for it, although Ramón has also been a great friend to us. Although I have reason to believe that we are no longer the primary attraction for him.” He smiles. “He seems to think Encarnación’s acquaintance is worth cultivating.” Then his eyes narrow. “However, if you think you are going to deflect me from my purpose, you are very sadly mistaken. How is it you know this Gerald Locke?”

Suzanna chuckles as she places the milk back on the table. “I couldn’t help but try,” she says. She looks at her plate. “I— I didn’t want to worry you.”

His head lifts sharply. “Should I have not invited him in? Shall I forbid his return?”

“Oh no!” She looks up in alarm. “He’s a good man who saved me from a very uncomfortable encounter. I was glad to meet him properly.”

“An uncomfortable encounter?” Jeremiah’s hands fall away from his plate and flatten on the edge of the table. “I think you had best start at the beginning.”

His knuckles have whitened by the time Suzanna finishes her story and his compressed lips are one thin angry line. “That Enoch Jones is a man who cannot rise above his station and so resents anyone who looks as if they might do so,” he says angrily. “Or anyone who has already surpassed him.” He takes a deep breath, picks up his knife and fork, and gives Suzanna a sharp look before reapplying himself to his food. “And Gerald Locke Jr. has clearly done so.”

She smiles at him radiantly. “I’m so glad you like him, papá.”

He raises an eyebrow. “So, it’s ‘papá’ now, is it?” He smiles and shakes his head. Then his face sobers. “But please be more careful as you traverse the town, my dear. There may not always be a Mr. Locke nearby to save you from men like Enoch Jones.”

Suzanna sobers. “I know it. I’ve thought about my route that day, and decided on a new path for getting safely to and from the plaza.” Her chin lifts. “But I have no intention of allowing the likes of Enoch Jones to keep me from enjoying my life.”

Her father chuckles, tosses his napkin onto the table, and pushes back his chair. “I have no doubt that is the case,” he says. “Not even I am likely to stop you from achieving your wishes. Are you prepared for your Latin lesson this morning?”

“Of course,” Suzanna says. “But before we begin, I need to check on the courtyard plants. I put straw on the greens last night, to protect them from the frost, and they need to be uncovered.”

“Has the frost reached the courtyard?”

“I thought that it might, so I was worried about the lettuce. I want to keep it going as long as I can. There’s enough for at least another salad or two.”

“And did you find a way to protect your seed potatoes until spring?”

Suzanna’s eyes brighten. “I placed them under the straw, as well. This afternoon I’ll find a dry space for them in the root cellar. It may be difficult to keep those tiny eyes from growing too long before it’s time to plant them.”

Jeremiah smiles at her. “I’m sure you’ll find a way.”

But her plants aren’t enough to keep Suzanna Peabody from thinking about Gerald Locke at odd times over the next few days. The way he looked into her face, didn’t let his gaze drift lower. The shy but somehow confident smile. The broad forehead above his gray eyes. The tone of his voice as he spoke to her father: low-timbered, respectful, self assured. There’s something about the way the man carries himself, a kind of firm gentleness.

She wonders what he’ll decide to do during the coming trapping season. There are groups going up to the Platte River country. At least that’s what their leaders are telling the government officials. They’re claiming that they’ll head north to trap outside Mexico’s boundaries. But word is they intend to sneak back across the border, then move south, all the way to the Gila’s rich beaver country. Somehow, she doesn’t think Mr. Locke would misrepresent his intentions in that way. He just doesn’t seem the kind of man who would intentionally deceive others.

He seemed interested in her potato project, Suzanna reflects as she picks pieces of straw from between the leaves of loose-leaf lettuce. He had leaned toward her a little, his gray eyes on her face as she explained how she planned to overwinter the pieces Carlos Beaubien gave her. She smiles a little to herself as she reenters the house, thinking again of that broad forehead, that kind-looking mouth. She doesn’t pause to think that she knows virtually nothing about him.

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Decisions

The four young people stood inside the ranch cabin’s newly whitewashed walls and looked at each other uncertainly.

“What will you do?” Andrew asked. His sister Alma frowned at him, but Kathy only shook her carefully braided blond head, white handkerchief to her blue eyes.

William went to the window. A line of Taos Pueblo riders moved steadily toward the cabin through the gap from the southern part of the valley. “Here they come,” he said. He turned to his sister. “You gave your word.”

Kathy nodded, then shook her head. “Not precisely,” she whispered.

“I beg your pardon?”

Kathy lifted her head. “I didn’t say that I would marry Peter,” she said. “I didn’t say those precise words. But I’m sure that’s what he understood me to say.”

William’s jaw tightened under his reddish-blond beard. “And you didn’t disabuse him of that notion, either.”

She shook her head and turned away, to the only other woman in the room. “Oh, Alma, what am I going to do?”

The dark-haired, deeply tanned, and sturdy Alma put her arms around her pale thin blond friend. “You should follow your heart,” she said, feeling the inadequacy of her words.

Kathy shook her head against Alma’s shoulder. “I don’t know,” she sobbed. “I’m so afraid.”

Andrew was at the window now. “You’ll need to decide pretty quickly,” he said. “They’re almost here.”

But by the time the Taos Pueblo party rode into the dirt and gravel yard, Kathy had disappeared out the cabin’s back door. William and Andrew moved outside to provide an initial greeting and deal with the animals. Alma took a deep breath and faced the doorway, her square brown face anxious. She tucked an unruly curl behind her right ear.

Peter entered first, his dark face bright as an expectant schoolboy’s. He wore a blue and white checked shirt and pants so new they still had fold creases across the thighs. He took one look at Alma’s face and his expression fell. He moved to the far wall and faced it quietly, dark head bowed. Several children followed him inside and Alma scooped up a three-year-old boy she’d never seen before. “Where’d you get those big gray eyes?” she asked him. He giggled and she held him to her chest as she faced Peter’s father, Oscar, as he came through the doorway, dressed in traditional Taos garb, long hair tucked into a bun at the nape of his neck.

“Who is this little man?” she asked. “I haven’t met him before.”

Oscar’s eyes swept around the whitewashed room and came to rest on his son, face to the wall. “He’s my wife’s nephew’s child,” he answered. “The one who married the half-French girl.” He turned to the two men who had followed him in and shook his head slightly. The men turned back to the yard, shutting the door behind them. Oscar glanced at Peter, then Alma. “And where is my son’s Katarina?”

Alma’s eyes dropped and she set the little boy on the floor. He looked up at the two adults uncertainly, then he and the other children moved to the door.

Oscar let them out, then turned back to Alma. “Is there a problem?” His voice was mild enough, but there was an edge to it, as if he already knew the answer to his question.

“There has been a misunderstanding,” Alma said.

Peter made a muffled sound and turned to face them, slim body tense. “There has been no misunderstanding.” He looked at his father. “I have built us a house. Katarina may have misunderstood, but I did not.”

Oscar’s jaws tightened. “It is because we are Pueblan.”

Alma shook her head and spread her hands, palms up. “It is just a misunderstanding. Perhaps some confusion of languages.”

“There has been no confusion,” Peter said stiffly.

“Come, my son,” Oscar said. “We will not waste our words on this matter.”

“I am so sorry,” Alma said helplessly.

Oscar nodded slightly, acknowledging her words as he turned away. Peter, on the other hand, scowled into her face before he followed his father from the cabin and its mocking white walls.

Alma stood in the center of the room for a long time, eyes closed against the windowed sunlight, grieving for the pain in Peter’s face, the controlled anger in Oscar’s. The man had been her father’s good friend. Would he ever forgive her for her part in this? In the yard, men’s voices muttered and horse hooves stirred the gravelly dirt. A child asked a plaintive question, then the group from the Pueblo was gone.

Alma slipped out the back to look for Kathy and found her hunched on a small boulder on the hillside, staring south at the receding horses, her face wet with tears. “Oh, Alma, what have I done?” she asked plaintively. “I have hurt him so much.”

“It’s better to hurt him now than to live a lifetime of misery together,” Alma said stoutly.

Kathy shook her head. “It would not have been a complete misery.”

“I told him there had been a misunderstanding.”

Kathy nodded, her eyes still focused on the horses moving steadily toward the lower Moreno Valley, where they would cross Palo Flechado Pass and move west down the Rio Fernando valley, then north through the village of Don Fernando de Taos to the pueblo. “Misunderstanding is certainly the appropriate word,” she said ruefully.

Alma looked away, studying the creek bed below and the cattle in the rich grass beside it. It was fine ranch land, this upper section of the Moreno Valley. Richer in some ways than the land she and her brother ranched in the lower part of the valley. The Taos Valley was well enough. It certainly had beautiful pasture land. But it was dryer there, and hotter in summer. It wasn’t the Moreno, with its green, high-mountain beauty, narrow meandering streams, and cool summer breezes. If she were Kathy, it would be hard indeed to leave such a place.

But then Kathy took a deep, ragged breath. “I have misunderstood my own heart,” she said. “And angered and insulted Peter’s family. Oscar is a proud man and his wife is even prouder. She dislikes me because I am not Pueblan. Now she will have even more reason to object to me.” She turned to her friend, tears welling again. “Oh, Alma, what have I done? They will never forgive me for this!”

* * * *

Three weeks later Kathy paid an unexpected visit to the lower valley. Alma was in the bare yard of the cabin she shared with her brother on the hillside overlooking the head of the Cimarron Canyon, but for once she was paying no attention to the scenic valley before her. Instead, she was carefully following the directions of the old curandera Guadalupita Otero, learning to make soap from yucca roots.

As they did every summer, the Taos folk healer and her son’s family had camped at the eastern end of Six Mile Creek, southwest of Alma and Andrew’s cabin, to graze their sheep and goats and take in the cool mountain air. Alma had happened upon Guadalupita on a nearby hillside, struggling to carry a large basket of yucca roots. As they carried the basket between them down the hillside, the old woman had explained that she would make soap from the roots and Alma had asked to be taught the process. Now they were carefully chopping the peeled and slippery chunks and mixing them into a pot of water simmering over a fire in the yard.

When Kathy arrived, they took a break inside, out of the sun, and Alma used a bit of precious sugar to sweeten the wild mint tea she’d brewed that morning. “I haven’t had time to chill it in the stream,” she apologized.

“It is better for you warm,” Guadalupita said.

Kathy nodded absently. She sipped her tea and looked at the floor.

“How is everything up at the ranch?” Alma asked. She looked more closely at her friend and the pensive tilt of her blond head. “Are you well?”

Kathy looked up and glanced from Alma to the old lady, then to Alma again.

“Claramente, this is a private matter, ” Guadalupita said. She set down her cup and pushed herself to her feet. “We can finish the soap another day.” She turned to Alma. “Finish adding the amole to the water and then…”

“Please stay, señora,” Kathy said. She leaned forward and looked into the old woman’s face. “I may need your assistance. Certainly I need your advice.” She dropped her eyes. “If you would be so kind as to give it.”

Guadalupita peered into the younger woman’s face and then sat down again.

Alma frowned anxiously. “Kathy, what is it?”

Kathy took a deep, ragged breath. “I sent word to Peter that I am with child.” She glanced up, then at the floor. “He is a good man. He will have to marry me now.”

Alma’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh Kathy,” she said. “Are you certain?”

Kathy looked up. A grim little smile passed over her pale face. “I’m certain that I sent him the message.”

Guadalupita chuckled.

Alma shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“After my foolishness last month, it’s the only possible way to obtain his parents’ agreement.” Kathy turned her head, avoiding her friend’s eyes. “And it will be true soon enough after we’re married.”

“Then you’re not actually….”

“It’s the only way I could think of.”

“But surely they’ll know that you aren’t actually….”

Kathy shook her head. “It’s too soon to tell without an physical examination.” She turned to Guadalupita. “I am not Catholic. The priest is almost certain to ask for confirmation from a curandera.”

“This Peter is the Taos joven? Oscar Lujan’s younger son?” Guadalupita asked. “I think his mother will ask, if the priest does not. I have heard that she is very angry that you rejected her precious hijo.”

“I was a fool.” Kathy dropped her head. “I know that now.” She looked up, her eyes pleading. “Señora Otero, would you confirm it for me?”

“And if you do not become pregnant immediately after el casamiento?”

“I will say that I lost the child.”

Guadalupita clicked her tongue and shook her head.

“And what about Peter?” Alma asked. “Will he believe you?”

Kathy smiled and her cheeks reddened. “He will know it is not true. We have never— I wouldn’t let him—” She looked down at her hands, then at Alma, calmer now. “If he responds with a message acknowledging the child, I will know he has forgiven my foolishness. If he sends a message rejecting it, or if he doesn’t respond, then I will try—” She bit her lip. “I will try to forget him,” she whispered. She covered her face with her hands. “And I will never forgive myself,” she sobbed.

“Oh, Kathy.” Alma knelt beside Kathy’s chair and put an arm around her friend’s shoulders. “Are you certain this is the only way?”

Kathy took her hands from her face. “I can think of no other.” She lifted her chin. “I don’t know whether or not I have done the right thing, but that is what I have done. I won’t go back now.”

Guadalupita chuckled. “Verdad you are a child no longer, I think.” She looked out the window for a long moment, then turned to the girl and gave a sharp little nod. “I will help you.”

“Oh, señora,” Kathy said. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You would perjure yourself?” Alma blurted, eyes dark with surprise.

The old lady compressed her lips. “I will help you.” The girls stared at her determined eyes and knew that it was not for Kathy that she was doing this thing. But the look in Guadalupita’s face did not invite questioning. “But for now, we will make soap,” the curandera said firmly.

* * * *

As she made her slow way back to her family’s campsite that afternoon, Guadalupita pondered her decision. It had been made on the spur of the moment, but it felt inevitable. Sixty-some years ago her mother had lain with a young Apache man. She herself was the result of that summer romance. But her abuela, her mother’s mother, was one who clung fiercely to the purity of her Spanish blood. She had rejected any possibility of marriage between the young people and badgered her daughter into a rapid casamiento with a pure-bloodedwidower who had three young sons, a temper, and a penchant for Taos Lightning. It was of no importance that he was a drunk and a wife beater: the unborn child would be baptized with a Spanish lineage.

Guadalupita hadn’t known her true origins until she herself was married and her mother was dying. Always she had wondered why her father and abuela disliked her so much. It had been a relief to discover that she was not related to the hombre who had caused her and her mamá so much pain.

She knew Peter’s mother, of her pride in her Pueblo blood lines. Guadalupita shook her head. She would not stand by while another young woman lost her güiso, her sweetheart, as a result of such foolishness. There would be pain enough in the day-to-day living of their love, with a mother-in-law always looking to find fault.

The old curandera stopped to rest, eyes contemplating the green-black mountains that lined the western side of the valley. Below the opposite slopes lay the Taos Pueblo. Guadalupita shook her head and smiled, recalling the look in the blond girl’s face as she’d said “That is what I have done. I won’t go back now.” She was a strong one, that Katarina. Stronger than she knew.

The old woman turned and began walking again. As for perjuring herself: Hah! She was not afraid of the priests. She had ceased listening to them seven years before, on that January morning in the American year 1847 when so many had died in the Taos revolt, including her own esposo. Those who inveigh against a thing and then are horrified when their listeners take action against the thing execrated deserve no respect. They do not speak for el Dios. Guadalupita’s chin jerked defiantly upward, unconsciously mimicking the movement of Kathy’s face three hours before.

from Old One Eye Pete

WATER OF LIFE

“Now what’re you gettin’ yourself all fired up for?” the matted-haired trapper demanded. “I’m your pa and I can do I want.” He lifted the pottery jug from the wooden table with both hands. “I been feelin’ a mite poorly since I come in from the mountains and this here’s a right good anti-fogmatic.”

“Aquardiente,” the girl said contemptuously. “Your so-called water of life.” She pushed her long black hair away from her face. “Water of hell!”

“Ah, now girlie.” He grasped the jug’s narrow neck with one hand and reached for her arm with the other.

She slapped at him. “I’m not your girlie any longer. Don’t you touch me!”

His eyes narrowed. “I’m still your pappy,” he said. “Just ’cuz I been gone five months don’t mean you can be disrespectin’ me.”

She sniffed and turned away.

He gulped down a swig of the liquor. “Where’s your ma, anyways?”

“She went to the merchant’s to settle her bill.”

“Don’t want me to know how much she spent while I was gone, huh? What new piece of fooferaw have the two of you took a cotton to now?”

The girl whirled. “You mean the cotton for your shirts? The white wheat flour she saved for your biscuits while we spent the entire winter eating cheap corn tortillas?”

The jug thudded onto the table. “What’s eatin’ you girl, that you think you can chaw on me so right catawamptiously? It ain’t fitten!” He surged from the chair, his hand raised. “I’m thinkin’ you need a rememberance of who’s head o’ this household!”

Her lower lip curled. “That’s right. Beat me. Just give me an excuse to leave. That’s everything I could wish for.”

He dropped his hand. “And why would you leave, girl?” He peered at her. “You find a young man to spark you while I was gone?”

She lifted her chin. “I don’t need a man.”

He threw back his head. “Hah! And what else you gonna go and do?” Then his face changed. “You ain’t gone and done something you’ll regret, have you now?”

Her lips twitched with amusement. “You might regret it,” she said. “I won’t be of much use to you.”

He moved toward her. “What the tarnation have you gone and done?”

“You’ll know when I’m ready to tell you.”

As he grabbed her arm, the door opened.

“Be careful of her, por favor!” the girl’s mother said as she entered. “She has been accepted into the convent in Santa Fe, to serve as a helper! Our child is a matter of grace to us now!”

The mountain man stared at his wife, then his daughter. He turned to the table. “Women!” he muttered as he lifted his jug.

from Old One Eye Pete

THAT’LL TEACH EM

Gregorio, as the youngest of the trapping expedition’s camp keepers, was responsible for preparing the morning tortillas. He placed a small barrel of flour on the ground, scooped what he needed into a large wooden bowl, cut in the proper amount of fat, and mixed in water from his canteen. The mixing was more a matter of feel than attention and he glanced lazily across the campsite as he worked.

Then his head jerked. “Apache!” he exclaimed.

The trappers all turned at once. A loose line of long-haired warriors stood among the rocks and pines at the far side of the clearing. The man in the center sported a large palmetto hat and a bright red long sleeved shirt. He was clearly the Chief. Three warriors were positioned on his left, two on his right. Another stood slightly back, an arrow fletched in his lightly-held bow.

There was a long silence. Then Ewing Young, as the trapper leader, made a welcoming motion.

The man in the hat moved forward. He paused by the fire and looked slowly around the clearing, as if calculating the value of every item in sight, including the rifle in Thomas Smith’s hands. Smith scowled and the chief permitted himself a small smile before moving on.

Then his gaze fell on Gregorio. He pointed at the barrel of flour. “Meal!” he commanded.

Ewing Young frowned, then nodded reluctantly. The Chief stepped to one side, lifted a wool blanket from a nearby rock and flicked it open, an edge in each hand.

“That’s mine!” Enoch Jones protested.

Smith jerked his head at him. “I’ll give you mine,” he said. Then he stepped backward, into the trees, and began circling toward Gregorio and the flour.

The Chief positioned himself in front of the barrel and let Jones’ blanket sag slightly between his hands to form a crude container. Ewing Young waved Gregorio aside, leaned over the barrel, and began scooping out double handfuls of flour. As he dropped them into the blanket, a dusty haze rose into the morning air.

The Apache turned his head and gave his men a satisfied smile. He didn’t see Thomas Smith step from the evergreens behind Gregorio, his rifle cocked and ready.

Young poured yet another double handful of flour into the blanket and held up his white-dusted palms to show that he was finished.

The Apache growled something unintelligible in response.

Young scowled and raised two fingers. “Two more,” he said.

The Chief nodded and lifted the blanket slightly, ready for more.

As Young reached into the barrel again, Thomas Smith stepped past Gregorio, shoved the rifle’s muzzle up under the blanket, and pulled the trigger. The bullet exploded through the cloth and blood-spattered flour splashed across the Chief’s torso.

As the Apache crumpled to the ground, his men dashed into the clearing. Gunfire erupted. Arrows flew. A trapper dropped, then an Apache, then another.

Ewing Young, his upper body coated in white flour, shook his deafened head. Then an arrow flashed through the air and bit into the ground at his feet. He lunged for his rifle and aimed into the trees. But the Indians were already gone, vanished into the rocks and the pines.

Their Chief lay where he’d fallen, his red sleeves dusted with white, his chest an incongruous paste of flour and blood.

Thomas Smith stood over him. “That’ll teach ’em!” he chortled. He grinned at Enoch Jones, who was 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?”

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

“Three dead’s enough,” Ewing Young said grimly as he beat flour from his clothes. “That was a stupid stunt, Smith. You think we’ve seen the last of them? If that band doesn’t come after us by nightfall, it’ll only be because they haven’t decided yet who their new leader is.” His eyes glared from his white spattered head. “Next time you decide to shoot an Indian, don’t do it in my face, or I may just mistake you for one.”

from Old One Eye Pete

A Piece of No Secret Too Small

Here’s another piece of my new novel No Secret Too Small. This section is set at the plaza del Chimayo in northern New Mexico during the feast of Santiago, the village’s saint.

CHAPTER 18

Finally, the fields are all blessed and the procession has returned to the plaza. The little carved saint is placed back in its chapel, the horses are released into the corrals outside the plaza, and everyone’s voice is louder and more cheerful.

The children and their mother follow Señora Ortega into her cousin’s house, where they’re given a seat at the table. The stew is thick with meat and fresh corn, and hot with green chile. When the señora passes the platter of bread, she says, “And here is some the americano child helped to bake,” and everyone laughs kindly.

As Alma dips a piece into her bowl, Prefect Abreú enters the house. Donaciano Vigil stoops through the door after him.

“Ah, Don Ramón!” the host says. “You are most welcome! And Señor Vigil as well!”

The prefect gives the sergeant a quizzical look. “Señor Vigil? You’ve come up in the world, Donaciano. Or else he’s angry at you. I thought you were his cousin.”

The host flushes. “I was just being polite. In honor of his companion.”

The big soldier puts a hand on the man’s arm. “It’s only me, primo. There’s no need to stand on ceremony.” He looks at Ramón Abreú. “I believe you know everyone here, Excellency?”

The prefect looks around the room, smiling and nodding to those at the table as well as the women who are serving. Then his eyes reach the children and their mother. “I don’t believe I’ve had the honor of meeting this young woman and her siblings,” he says gallantly.

Donaciano Vigil and Alma’s mother exchange a wry grin. “Suzanna Peabody Locke, may I introduce our prefect, Don Ramón Abreú,” he says formally.

“I’m pleased to meet you.” She touches the children’s shoulders. “These are my children, Alma and Andrew.”

The prefect’s face tightens slightly. “You are of the family which squats in the mountains east of Don Fernando de Taos.”

Her hand is still on Alma’s shoulder. Her fingers tighten into Alma’s cotton dress, but her voice remains calm. “We reside on the border there, guarding the Passes,” she says evenly. “And maintaining friendship with the Utes.”

The prefect breaks into a smile. “Ah, well put! Keeping an eye on things for us, are you?” He spreads his hands. “But you are here, not there watching!”

“My husband and father-in-law are there.”

“They are business partners with Juan Ramón Chavez,” Donaciano Vigil interjects. “Juan Ramón is my cousin on my mother’s uncle’s side.”

Prefect Abreú laughs and slaps his thigh. “You people! I have lived here all my life and still I cannot grasp the way you are all so connected!”

“Live here long enough and you will find it is the same for yourself,” his host says. “But please, be seated and take a bite and talk with us. Perhaps you will find that you’re related to someone here after all.”

“I’m sure the Sergeant will be!” Ramón Abreú says. “But I’m afraid my duties demand that we continue on our way. However, I thank you for the kind invitation.”

As the host walks the two visitors to the door, Señor Vigil turns and grins at Alma’s mother, then gives Alma a wink. She smiles back at him shyly. He’s almost as nice as Gregorio.

“I wonder where Alcalde Esquibel is eating,” someone at the other end of the table says in a low voice.

“Down by the river, I hope,” a man answers. “Where he can escape.”

Alma’s mother sends them a sharp look, then leans toward the woman sitting opposite her. “Can you explain this corrida del gallo to me?”

Andrew stops eating to listen.

The woman glances at him, then says reluctantly, “It is a horse race, but they do not race to see who finishes first. Instead, they chase each other to capture the prize.”

“And the prize is a rooster?”

The other woman nods. She glances at Andrew again before she answers. “The rooster is pegged out on the ground and the initial contest is to see who can get to him first and grab him up while the rider is still on his horse. Then the second part is to try to grab the bird from the rider who has him.”

“How do they decide who wins?” Andrew asks.

The woman moves her spoon through her stew. “I’ve never known for sure.”

Andrew frowns. “There must be rules.”

The woman looks away. “I think it’s when the rooster gives up.”

“Gives up the ghost?” his mother asks quietly.

“Something like that.”

Andrew is looking at his mother, waiting for an explanation.

She grimaces. “When the rooster dies.”

“Oh.” He puts his spoon in his bowl. His hands drop to his lap. Then he pushes back from the table. “May I be excused?”

She nods and he maneuvers around the other diners and out the door.

“Lo siento,” the woman says apologetically.

Alma’s mother shakes her head. “You only spoke the truth, and that as gently as possible. He has an adventurous heart but a tender soul.”

“Pobrecito,” the other woman murmurs.

Andrew has disappeared by the time Alma and her mother return to the plaza. Men on horseback mill in groups up and down the road, Señor Beitia among them. Alma spies Alcalde Esquibel in the middle of a cluster at the eastern end, leaning forward from his saddle to shake someone’s hand.

Then she’s distracted by Gregorio, who appears at her mother’s elbow with Señorita Fajardo on his arm. The girl dimples at Alma, then her mother. Gregorio is opening his mouth to make introductions when silence falls over the plaza.

Prefect Abreú is back on his white horse, once again riding in from the western entrance at the head of his blue-jacketed soldiers. Donaciano Vigil brings up the rear. There’s something about the set of the men’s shoulders that says they’re not here for a rooster race. Gregorio’s breath hisses between his teeth as they pass.

The only sound is the clomp of horses’ hooves on the dirt road, then the prefect pulls up in front of the group that contains Juan José Esquibel. Words are exchanged, too low for Alma to hear. The alcalde’s chin lifts angrily and the prefect turns his head and barks a command at the blue-coated men behind him. The soldiers’ horses move nervously, but not forward.

The prefect scowls. “I said, take him into custody!”

Sergeant Vigil’s horse edges around the soldiers and draws alongside Alcalde Esquibel’s. “Perdóneme, primo,” he says courteously. His voice echoes across the plaza. “We have come to place you in safekeeping until the events of recent months can be investigated and addressed.”

The alcalde’s eyes narrow. He shakes his head. Alma stiffens. Will there be a fight?

But then he smiles. “Ah, amigo,” he says. “You have a rare gift for words. It’s too bad you insist on working for men who know so little of honor.”

The prefect’s head jerks. He scowls at Esquibel, then the sergeant. “I said, arrest him!”

Donaciano Vigil looks at the alcalde and shrugs eloquently. He turns his head, studying the men in the plaza, the women at the house doors, the children. When he turns back to Señor Esquibel, his face is grave. “I believe it would be best if you come with us quietly, amigo.”

The other man glances around the plaza, then nods. He reins his horse past Ramón Abreú without looking at him and heads toward the western exit. As he passes Alma’s little group, he spies Gregorio. He leans from his saddle. “Get word to the Montoyas.”

“Silence from the prisoner!” the prefect shouts. He spurs his horse into a trot and moves past the soldiers and the alcalde. The big white breaks into a canter as it passes the houses and heads down the hill.

In the plaza behind him, voices erupt. “What about the rooster?” someone calls.

“Oh, just let him go,” a man answers. “We have more important races to run now.”

Señor Beitia’s horse trots toward Alma’s mother.The man’s eyes flash with something between anger and excitement, but he speaks calmly enough. “I’m afraid there will be no more festivities today,” he tells her. “The prefect has used the feast for his own ends and spoiled it.” He turns to Gregorio. “But we know what to do in response, do we not?”

Gregorio’s eyes are hooded and his jaw tight. He looks at Alma’s mother, then Gertrudis Fajardo. “It may be best for you to return home. I fear events may take an ugly turn.”

“Or at least the discussion will be ugly.” Señor Beitia’s voice is grim and excited at the same time. “Decisions must be made.”

Gregorio frowns. “I must seek out the Montoyas. I believe they are in the eastern orchards arranging for the race and this evening’s dance.” He looks at the señorita. “Let me return you to your cousins and give them the message.” He turns to Alma’s mother. “Will you go back to Señora Ortega’s house?”

“I will escort las senoras y los chamacos,” Señor Beitia says officiously. He swings off his horse and bows to Alma’s mother.

She gives him a brief smile and nods to Gregorio. “We will be fine. Go safely.” She turns to Gertrudis Fajardo. “I hope we will meet another day.” Then she holds out her hands to Alma and Andrew. “Come along, children.” She glances at the senora. “That is, if you are ready to leave?” Senora Ortega’s face is grim and irritable at the same time. She nods and turns away abruptly to lead them down the hill.

from No Secret Too Small.

LOST AND FOUND

The two trappers had met by chance in the Gila wilderness: Old One Eye Pete hunting beaver on his lonesome, the way he liked it, Marion Buckman on a scout to find his son Jedediah. Jed was with a large trapping group, out from Taos a good three months longer than expected. His father was sure in his bones that something was wrong and, against all advice, had taken out after them.

One Eye Pete was on his fourth straight day of spotting Apache sign when he came across the elder Buckman. Given the circumstances, Pete felt right pleased to encounter another white man, despite his preference for trapping alone.

Buckman had been out six weeks. He was hunting blind at that point and about ready to give up. Pete convinced him that there was always a chance that they’d run across evidence of Jedediah’s bunch up one stream or another. They might as well collect some furry bank notes while they were looking and before the Apaches got wind of them and they were forced back to the settlements for good and all. So he and Buckman located a likely creek in the bottom of a small canyon and followed it, watching for beaver sign.

The west end of the third pond looked promising. Pete leaned his rifle and gear against a downed cottonwood and waded into the water to make the first set. He’d just shoved the trap stake into place when Buckman let out a grunt, as if someone had slugged him in the gut. Pete jerked around, his hand to the pistol at his waist, but Buckman was unhurt and staring wide-eyed at the barren ridge north of the creek.

“Apache?” Pete asked.

Buckman shook his head, his eyes still fixed on the ridge. He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his graying hair as he stared upward. Then he blinked and looked at Pete. “I thought—” He shook his head again, his eyes puzzled. “I thought I saw Jed.”

Pete turned and squinted at the ridge with his good eye. There did appear to be something moving up there, just below the canyon’s rim. Somebody hunched over and doing his best to stay below the ridgeline and unseen. Pete moved cautiously out of the water and reached for his rifle. “Let’s just wait and see,” he said.

Buckman refocused on the ridge. “There’s three of ’em. I can tell that much. And they look to be white men. See the rifles?”

Old Pete studied the side of the slope. Sunlight glinted from a gun barrel. “I see one of ’em,” he said.

“Injun’s ’ll dull down the barrel,” Buckman said authoritatively. “White men like to keep ’em shiny-like. My Jed’s real partic’lar ’bout that.”

Pete nodded and didn’t say what he was thinking: that any man fool enough to polish his rifle barrel deserved the shooting he was likely to get. Instead, he watched the men above work their way around and between the boulders scattered across the slope. As they got closer, he saw that they were dressed like white men, in woolen trousers and low moccasins, rather than Apache breech clouts and tall leg-protecting footwear.

Beside him, Marion Buckman made a sucking sound between his teeth. “It is him!” he hissed. Then he plunged along the bank to where the stream narrowed just below the beaver dam.

“You sure about that?” One Eye Pete asked. But he followed anyway. There was no sense in letting the man walk alone into a trap. After all, Buckman’s concern for his son was something to be admired, even if it did lead them both into danger.

Pete paused at the base of the dam and squinted again at the men on the slope. The middle one raised his head and registered the trappers below. He lifted an arm and waved it wildly until the man in front of him turned and raised a warning hand. Then the three of them went back to working their way down through the rocks.

Definitely white men. Old Pete shrugged. Unless they had Indians tracking them, he and Buckman were safe enough. And if Apaches were indeed following them, they’d all be in for it, anyways. He followed Buckman across the creek.

The other man was already angling through the brush toward the bottom of the ridge, on a line that would intersect the path of the descending men. Suddenly, he disappeared behind a boulder twice the height of a man. Old Pete heard a voice shout “Pa!” and then silence.

When Pete rounded the big rock a few minutes later, he found Buckman holding a younger man by the shoulders while two other men looked on, their faces streaked with dirt and lank with exhaustion.

Marion Buckman turned, his face wet with tears. “My son,” he said. “My Jedediah. I found him.”

from Old One Eye Pete

CULTURE CLASH

Ewing Young and his trappers were well into the Gila wilderness and moving steadily through its rocks and pines the afternoon the string of four men and three mules came into view. The strangers were working their way up a dry arroyo that intersected with Young’s path.

Young held up a hand and his men all stopped in their tracks and watched the other group scramble toward them, though Enoch Jones huffed impatiently at the delay.

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

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

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

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

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

“It is as God wills,” Chalifoux said. “Perhaps to the north, toward the salt bluffs[1] of the Navajo.” He scratched his bandanna-covered forehead and nodded toward the third man in his small train. “Grijalva here, he shot a buck.” He jerked 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 grinned and jerked his head 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 stood and waited as Young’s men filed past. The trappers eyed the dead buck with interest. A good meal of venison would make for a pleasant evening.

But it wasn’t quite as pleasant as it could have been. The visitors produced whisky to accompany the meal and Enoch Jones took more than his share. Jones was apt to be more surly than usual when he drank and the presence of the young black man seemed to aggravate him.

He was leaning sullenly against a large rock that jutted from the ground a few yards beyond the fire, nursing yet another drink, when the younger man approached, a small book in his hand. The stranger crouched down beside the stones that circled the fire, opened the book, and angled its pages so the light would fall on them.

Jones scowled and leaned forward. “What’re ya doin’ there?” he demanded. He set his tin cup on top of the big rock, stepped forward, and nudged at the black man with his foot. “Hey! I asked a question! What’re ya doin’?”

The man looked up. “I’m reading,” he said. He turned the book so Jones could see the spine. “It’s a play by Mr. Shakespeare called Othello.”

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

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

Jones stalked away into the night. Blackstone’s eyes followed him thoughtfully, then returned to his book.

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

Chalifoux grunted. “It appears to me that he is reading.” He turned away, but Jones blocked his path.

“That’s illegal!” Jones said. “Ya can’t let him do that!”

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

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

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

The younger man looked up, moved a small ribbon to mark his place, and closed the book. “I believe there is a law in South Carolina which makes it illegal for slaves to learn to read or write.” He shifted the book into his left hand, lifting it as if its very bulk was 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 said. He bent, picked up a stray pine cone, and tossed it into the fire.

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

“Damn uppity nigger!” Jones said. He surged past Chalifoux, leaned down, and grabbed Blackstone’s arm. “You talkin’ back t’ me?”

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

Jones reached for the Shakespeare, but Blackstone lifted it out of his reach. Then Jones’ foot struck sideways, into Blackstone’s shin, and the younger man stumbled and lost his grip on the book, which landed, page end down, on the stones beside the fire.

“You bastard!” Blackstone turned and shoved Jones with both hands. Jones sprawled backward, away from the fire and onto the ground beside the big rock.

Blackstone swung back to the fire and the Shakespeare, but Chalifoux had already leaned down and lifted it away from the licking flames.

As the Frenchman handed the book to Blackstone, Jones heaved himself from the ground. He was halfway to the fire again, his fists doubled and ready for battle, when Ewing Young stepped from the darkness.

“What’s goin’ on?” Young asked.

Jones stopped short. “Nigger bastard sucker punched me!” he growled. He glared at Blackstone. “You ain’t seen the last o’ me.” Then he turned and stalked into the night.

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

Young spread his hands, palms up. “There’s one in every bunch.”

Chalifoux shrugged expressively, then tilted his head back to study the trees and the stars overhead. “We will move north in the morning,” he said. “My party and me to the salt bluffs, I think. They tell me they are a sight worth the seeing.”

from Old One Eye Pete

Fiction and Fact From Old New Mexico

LorettaMilesTollefson.com

Tag: American West fiction

NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 9

NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 8

NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 7

NOT JUST ANY MAN – CHAPTER 6

Decisions

WATER OF LIFE

THAT’LL TEACH EM

A Piece of No Secret Too Small

CHAPTER 18

LOST AND FOUND

CULTURE CLASH

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CHAPTER 18

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