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

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

CHAPTER 11

Gerald steps out of the trader’s store and pauses in the late February sunlight, waiting while Old Bill seals his own fur-trading transaction with a drink or two. He looks up at the sky appreciatively. It’s deep blue and holds only a handful of small, fluffy white clouds. The sun catches the flecks of mica on the Plaza’s adobe walls. The glitter reflects his mood. There’s $332 dollars and fifteen cents in his money belt, more than he’s ever possessed.

His hand moves unconsciously toward the belt and a passing young woman with long black hair, short skirts, and a low cut blouse looks flirtatiously into his face. Gerald smiles slightly and shakes his head. Is it that apparent? But then, any trapper just back from the mountains and standing outside a trader’s store is likely to have money to spend.

Old Bill bends his lanky frame through the low wooden door frame and straightens beside Gerald. “Ah, it’s a wonderful thing, ain’t it?” he asks. “Those furry banknotes.” His breath smells of whiskey. Another young woman passes, this one flicking her skirts around her knees, and Williams’ eyes follow her appreciatively. “I think I’ll get me a drink and a señorita,” he says. He glances at Gerald as he claps his hat on his head. “I don’t suppose you’d care to join me.”

“Perhaps for the drink,” Gerald says. “But not for the señorita.”

“Ah, what a wondrously righteous thing is young love,” Williams says. “You keepin’ yourself pure for Miz Peabody, are you?”

Gerald scowls and Old Bill raises a hand. “That’s that there Taos Lightning loosening my tongue a might, that’s all that is,” he says apologetically. “I’ll take myself off now, before I say something we both find regretful.”

He grins at Gerald mischievously and Gerald smiles back in spite of himself. He watches the long-legged trapper lurch across the plaza to the nearest taberna and considers Williams’ remark. It isn’t so much that Gerald is keeping himself pure for Suzanna Peabody. After all, he has no claim on her affections. And the fact of his black heritage weighs on him, makes him reluctant to put himself forward. He can’t bring himself to even think how her face might change in the instant she knows the truth about him.

But he’s never met another girl even remotely like her. And why would he chase after other girls when there’s someone like her in the world? He can’t imagine being attracted to anyone else. Not that there’s much hope for him. He doesn’t even know her father well enough to approach their house on his own. He certainly doesn’t have the impudence to take her a gift. Her father’s eyes darkened at the idea of potatoes. Gerald can’t imagine what he would say to jewelry.

He turns away from the plaza and spends the next three days restlessly wandering the village or meandering down to the still-empty blacksmith shop in Ranchos to confirm that his father hasn’t returned. There’s nothing for him here. He’s wasting his time. He should locate someone else to trap with in the fall.

Or go to Santa Fe and try for a place on a mule train returning to Missouri. He has enough now for a small farm of his own there, if he’s careful. If prices haven’t risen with the onslaught of farmers and slaves from the southern states that had begun well before he left.

But he feels only a sinking sensation in his stomach when he thinks of Missouri and he knows he won’t return. After the freedom of movement he’s experienced here, the acceptance, he can’t imagine returning to an American slave state.

What he will do is less certain. All he knows is that he continues to find himself wandering Taos’ plaza and few streets, especially the small lane where he first glimpsed Suzanna Peabody.

He sees little of Old Bill, who seems to be trying to spend all of his season’s earnings in the plaza tabernas. Other trappers have also drifted back into town and several, including Enoch Jones, are making themselves at home in the saloons.

Gerald himself visits the plaza at least once a day, walking in from his campsite beside Ewing Young’s pasture north of town. He tells himself he needs provisions and that it’s best to buy them fresh daily, but this task somehow takes up most of each day, and while he’s about it, his eyes tend to stray toward any girl taller and slimmer than usual.

On the fourth day, he’s just purchased a small clutch of eggs and a few still-warm tortillas when voices erupt in front of a saloon on the opposite side of the square.

“You devil! You pig! Get your filthy hands off of me! How dare you accost me!” The young woman’s shawl has slipped off her dark head and the full force of her glare is focused on Enoch Jones, whose hands are reaching for her shoulders.

She slaps at him and her palm connects with his cheek. He grabs her upper arm and she yanks away and faces him, hands on solid hips, large black eyes blazing. “You sorry excuse for a human being! You four footed beast! Eres más mala que Judas! You are more evil than Judas!”

Jones laughs and lunges at her again. He grabs her shoulders, one in each dirty hand. “Just one little kiss!”

The girl twists, trying to get away, but his face darkens and he jerks her toward him. As she turns her face from his slobbering mouth, Gerald moves forward, eggs and tortillas still in his hands.

Then a long red-headed form erupts from the taberna door and Old Bill has Enoch Jones by the scuff of the neck. “Let her go,” the trapper growls.

Jones’ hands fall away from the Spanish girl’s arms. “I was jus’ askin’ fer a kiss,” he says.

“I am not one of your putas!” the girl blazes. “How dare you!” She backs away, still glaring, then nods at Williams. “I thank you, Mr. Williams,” she says. She looks him up and down as she straightens her shawl. “Though I would prefer to have met you without so much liquor on your breath.”

Williams releases Jones from his grip and draws himself up to his full lanky height. “I apologize for inconveniencing you, Señorita Encarnación,” he says with drunken dignity. He turns back to the taberna door.

Jones snickers. “Yeah, Carny,” he says. “Make him apologize. Make ’im grovel fer yer favors.”

She looks at him contemptuously. “Filthy pig!”

Jones scowls. “You think yer so high ’n mighty in Peabody’s kitchen, but yer just a Mexican slut like the rest of ’em.” He waves his arm, encompassing the plaza and the silent, brown-faced men and women watching. “Yer all a bunch o’ greasy Mexicans too lazy t’ do anything but take the money o’ anyone man enough to winter in th’ mountains an’ take what’s rightfully ours.”

“Yours?” Jeremiah Peabody strides into the plaza, his mouth a thin angry line above the neat black chin beard. He pauses at Encarnación’s side and looks down at her. “Are you quite all right?”

She nods and raises her shawl to cover her now-disheveled black head. Peabody turns to Enoch Jones, his eyes steely. “I will thank you to leave the members of my household in peace.”

Jones scowls but doesn’t respond. Williams reappears in the taberna doorway and Peabody looks him up and down. “And when you have recovered from your drunk, I will be pleased to see you once again under my roof.” He turns away. “And now, gentlemen, I will leave you to your recreations.”

Then Peabody catches sight of Gerald, halfway across the square and still holding his eggs and tortillas. Peabody’s face softens. He says something to Encarnación, pats her on the arm, then crosses the plaza toward Gerald. “Mr. Locke, you appear to be a man who knows how to provision himself,” he says. He smiles. “If you would care to visit us, I’m sure Encarnación will be happy to provide you with even fresher tortías. And my daughter would be happy to make your further acquaintance.” He touches his finger to his hat and moves away as Gerald nods dumbly.

Movement returns to the plaza as the vendors, marketers, and Encarnación begin once again to go about their business. She smiles slightly as she passes Gerald, and drops him a small curtsy. “Señor,” she says pleasantly.

Gerald, still processing Jeremiah Peabody’s words, can only nod. ‘My daughter would be happy to make your further acquaintance.’ Gerald tamps down the surge of delight and the smile on his face. The man is merely being polite. There’s no more to the invitation than that.

He stalls for two days, unwilling to believe Peabody is serious. But then they meet again, again on the plaza. This time, the New Englander is accompanied by Suzanna herself, her hands tucked into his elbow, her eyes tight with irritation. The eyes relax a little when they meet Gerald’s. She glances at her father and releases his arm.

“Mr. Locke,” Jeremiah says. “How fortunate to meet you here.” He glances down at Suzanna, who gives him a small nod, then returns his gaze to Gerald. “I hope you will join us this afternoon for tea. I believe we will be quite alone, so we can have a nice chat.”

Quite alone? The phrase sends a shiver of alarm through Gerald’s spine, but the look Suzanna gives him is so friendly, he finds himself smiling an acceptance to her father’s invitation.

“About three then?” Peabody asks. A smile flashes across his thin face. “Or have you acclimated so well to Mexican time that we must be more general than that? Mid-afternoon?”

Gerald laughs. “No, I haven’t adjusted that thoroughly,” he says. “Three o’clock, then.”

He arrives at the Peabody’s door a few minutes before three and loiters outside the gate, not wanting to enter before his time. Besides, his boots are muddy. As he scrapes them against the edge of a nearby rock, the young woman Enoch Jones accosted in the plaza appears in the gateway. She puts her hands on her sturdy hips.

“The boots, they are dirty?” she asks.

He nods and gestures at the street. “The roads have become muddy with the spring rains.”

“Sí, but the rains have also watered Señorita Peabody’s plants,” she says. She smiles at him. “I am called Encarnación Mora. I believe you are Señor Gerald Locke.”

“Yes ma’am.” He pulls his hat from his head. “I am Gerald Locke Jr.” He bows a little, not sure if he should offer his hand, and she chuckles.

“I am not a señorita, sir,” she says. “I am only the cook.”

“And a quite accomplished one,” says an amused voice from behind her. “She makes up for my shortcomings.” Suzanna appears at the shorter and plumper woman’s elbow. “Welcome again to our home, Mr. Locke.” She dips him a small curtsy.

“Please, call me Gerald.” He moves forward, his hand out, and she takes it with a smile.

She looks into his eyes and something moves within him. It’s as if his heart has adjusted itself to a different rhythm. “And I am Suzanna,” she says.

“Yes,” he says. “Suzanna.” Then feels like a fool.

But she only smiles, turns, and leads the way across the courtyard, between the two small garden beds, and into the house.

Her father is in the parlor, reading beside the fire, and truly alone. Suzanna enters ahead of Gerald, then immediately turns and disappears back into the hallway. Anxiety rises in Gerald’s chest. But then the older man puts down his book, smiles, rises, gestures Gerald into the chair on the other side of the fire, and sits down again. “I’ve been re-reading Susanna Rowson’s novel Charlotte,” he says.

He waves at the cloth-bound book on the table beside his chair as Suzanna comes in with a tray piled with sandwiches. Her father stands again, takes the tray, and sets it on a table in the corner. “Do you know the book?” he asks Gerald.

Suzanna shakes her head at him and smiles at Gerald. “He reads more novels than I do,” she says. “I prefer Shakespeare or botanical texts.” She perches herself on the brightly cushioned and painted wooden chest opposite him as Encarnación carries in a tray with a teapot and three cups.

Gerald grins. “I prefer Shakespeare, myself.” He turns to Jeremiah Peabody. “Although I have not read Miss Rowson, so perhaps ‘prefer’ is too strong a term.”

Peabody chuckles. “You are a diplomat! But Suzanna is teasing me. She knows I enjoy Shakespeare as much as she does.”

“Though I think you prefer your Latin authors above all else,” she says. She moves to the table and begins preparing the tea.

“My daughter can read Latin as well as I can,” Jeremiah Peabody tells Gerald, pride touching his voice.

Gerald looks at Suzanna. “I envy you,” he says. “My education never extended that far.”

Suzanna hands him a cup of tea. “Oh, I forgot,” she says. “Do you take milk or sugar?” She wrinkles her forehead in a self-deprecatory smile. “Somehow I just assumed you take your tea black.”

“Actually, I do,” he says. Their eyes lock for just a moment, then she moves hastily away to prepare her father’s cup.

Gerald turns to Jeremiah Peabody. “I’m afraid I learned to read at my mother’s knee,” he says apologetically. “I had no opportunity for a formal education.”

“You have the speech and carriage of an educated man.”

“Speaking correctly was important to both my parents.” He looks into his teacup and smiles. “My mother was something of a stickler for proper manners.” He looks up. “As was my father, but he wasn’t quite so insistent.” He chuckles and shakes her head. “My mother was passionate about everything she did.”

 “They are both deceased?” Jeremiah Peabody looks into Gerald’s face as if he wants to read his very soul.

Gerald lifts his chin slightly, holds his voice steady. He will not lie to any man. And he will not be ashamed, no matter the outcome. “My mother died when I is still a child,” he says calmly. “My father— My father is here in the Mountain West. I don’t know where or with whom.”

“You came here to find him?”

Gerald nods, a slight trace of sorrow in his eyes.

“Well, give it time,” Suzanna says. “Sooner or later all the mountain men and traders pass through Don Fernando de Taos. It’s a kind of magnet, drawing them. Even Major Sibley was here this winter, when by all rights he ought to have been in Santa Fe speaking with the Governor.”

“He had business to attend to here and he believes our air to be more salubrious than that at Santa Fe,” her father says drily. He turns to Gerald. “I came here myself to escape the confines of the States and have not had reason to return.” He smiles at Suzanna. “Or perhaps I should say I found a reason to stay.”

She smiles back at him affectionately, then turns to Gerald. “A sandwich?” she asks. “I think Encarnación’s bread is the only norte americano bread in nuevomexico.”

“Yes, please,” he says. He turns to her father. “I have been trying to pick up a little Spanish. When you first arrived here, did you find the language a difficult barrier?”

The talk moves on then, to language, to Shakespeare, to Suzanna’s plants and her plans for her spring garden beds. Gerald finds himself relaxing in spite of the slight formality of the New England man’s diction and bearing. He clearly cares deeply for his daughter and she clearly respects and loves him, although she feels no obligation to bow before his opinions.

Finally, the conversation turns to Gerald’s recent trapping expedition with Old Bill.

“And Mr. Williams has again debased himself with drink.” Suzanna shakes her head. “It’s such a shame that he carries on in that way. He’s such a— A nice man when he’s sober.”

“For a moment I thought you were going to call him a gentleman,” her father teases.

“Well, he can behave in a gentlemanly way when he wishes to,” she says tartly. “Though all of that seems to disappear when he’s been imbibing.”

“Even when he’s been drinking he doesn’t quite forget himself,” Gerald says. “Your Encarnación can attest to that.”

They look at him, startled.

“She didn’t tell you?” Gerald frowns, uncertain. “The interchange with Enoch Jones?”

“Father entered the plaza just as that ended,” Suzanna says. She chuckles. “Chonita said a good deal about her interaction with Jones, but most of it was not repeatable. At least, not by me.” She hesitates, then gives Gerald a slight frown. “She said nothing about Mr. Williams.”

Briefly, Gerald tells them what happened before Jeremiah arrived in the plaza.

“The entire incident demonstrates the goodness of William’s heart,” Jeremiah says.

“And the filthiness of liquor, and the pain and sorrow it causes!” Suzanna says. She turns and begins rattling the tea things on the table beside her, her black eyes snapping. “That Enoch Jones is a disgusting man made even more disgusting by drink! Sometimes I think trapping is the very essence of evil. The men endure incredible deprivation to accumulate furs in order to satisfy the vanity of folks back in the States and in Europe, people who have no inkling how their luxuries are obtained.”

She glares at her father. “Then when the trappers come out of the wilderness and exchange their plews for gold, they’re like springs wound too tightly for too long and they go on a binge fueled by Taos Lightning. Aguardiente indeed! Water of fire? Water of poison! They fling away a season’s hard earnings in a matter of days and are left with nothing to show for the misery they’ve endured!”

She flounces a little in her chair, as if the irritation she feels is too much to hold in, and turns to Gerald. “It’s just nonsensical!”

Jeremiah grins at Gerald. “I suppose you have no idea what her opinion is about such matters,” he says drily.

Eyes still bright with anger, Suzanna stands and paces to the window. She peers out. “I wish I could actually see through these selenite panes,” she grumbles. “The light may come in, but I can’t see out.”

She turns back to the men. “And the impact the trappers’ nonsense has on the women in this town is just unconscionable,” she says. “They wait all winter for men who don’t actually return when they return. They’re too busy carousing. Most of them have completely forgotten the promises they made, even to women who have born them children. Instead, they squander their money on women of the street, some of whom have sunk to that condition as a result of mistreatment by other men who’ve wandered into the mountains and never returned.”

She scowls at her father again. “I swear, this town would be better off without hunting and trapping, without the furry banknotes that Old Bill Williams is always lauding. The income it brings is more of a curse than a blessing.”

 Gerald studies her as she stands there, her tall gently curved figure in its old-fashioned narrow gown silhouetted against the dim light from the mica-paned window. “There are some men who are able to endure the discomfort of the wilderness, obtain their financial reward, and yet not succumb to the temptation to squander their wealth when they return,” he says mildly.

Suzanna looks down at her hands and crosses the room back to her seat by the table. Gerald turns to her father. “Not that I would call what I obtained on this expedition true wealth,” he says ruefully. “But it’s certainly more than I’ve been able to accumulate in the past.”

Jeremiah Peabody takes his pipe from the small table beside his chair and begins filling it with tobacco. “Will you return to the wilderness?”

Gerald nods. “I think so. I’d like to gather enough of a nest egg to set myself up with a farm.”

“A farm?” Suzanna’s voice is calmer now. She leans toward him. “What would you raise?”

“I know a little about wheat,” Gerald tells her. “And cattle always seem to bring a good profit, if you can over-winter them safely. My daddy is a blacksmith, so I know enough to do most repairs myself.”

When Gerald turns his head, Jeremiah Peabody is studying his face, his eyes slightly narrowed. “Your father’s a blacksmith?”

Gerald nods. Has he said too much? His chin lifts a little. He won’t deny who he is, even if it means losing this girl. Not that he has this girl. “Yes,” he says. Best to just leave it at that.

Peabody nods and leans into his pipe, lighting it.

“You would only grow wheat?” Suzanna asks. “What about corn and potatoes and peas?”

“Those also, perhaps,” Gerald says. “That reminds me, have you planted the potatoes Charles Beaubien brought you?”

“It’s too early to plant them just yet,” she says. “And I’ll need more space than what’s available in the courtyard.” She glances at her father. “I’m trying to find a small plot outside the village that I can rent.”

Gerald feels his muscles relax as they plunge into a discussion of site requirements and potato spacing, as well as the best types of fertilizer and what might be available here. Jeremiah Peabody returns to his book, and the rest of the room recedes until there’s nothing but the subject at hand and the spark in Suzanna’s intelligent black eyes.

Finally, the light beyond the window’s small panes dims so much that even Gerald becomes aware that he’s outstayed his time, and he tears himself away. He moves briskly through the dusk toward his campsite, his spine energized by conversation and hope. What a girl. What eyes, what smooth hair, what enthusiasms. He smiles. The intensity of her opinions is something else again. He spins on his heel and faces the village, its adobe walls glowing in the light from the setting spring sun.

What he would give for the right to return to that adobe house and its courtyard, to continue talking to the girl with the fiery eyes and strong opinions. To sit in the parlor with her father and watch her hands move over the tea things. To tell her that there are men in this world who want nothing more than a woman to return to. A woman like her.

Gerald shakes his head, straightens his shoulders, turns, and heads himself firmly toward the edge of Ewing Young’s pasture.

Copyright © 2018 Loretta Miles Tollefson

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER 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.

Copyright © 2018 Loretta Miles Tollefson

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER 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.

Copyright © 2018 Loretta Miles Tollefson

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

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