Tag: Old West Books

BOOK REVIEW: Old Bill Williams, Mountain Man

ISBN978-08061-1698-3, University of Oklahoma Press, 1962

Those of you who’ve read more than one of my Old New Mexico books may have noticed that I have a special fondness for William Sherley Williams, better known as “Old Bill”.

My initial introduction to Old Bill was through Old Bill Williams, Mountain Man by Alpheus H. Favour. Although written in the 1930s and somewhat infected with the era’s attitudes towards America’s First Peoples, this book still manages to provide a glimpse into Old Bill’s more progressive attitudes.

The red-headed gawky Williams left his Missouri home in his teens to live with the Osage Indians. There he married, found work with the Baptist missionaries to the Osage, then broke with his employers when he decided that Osage spirituality was more meaningful and insightful than the missionaries’.

A skilled linguist, he developed the first Osage-English dictionary and is said to have spoken at least five different languages. After his wife’s death, Williams moved west, guiding the Santa Fe Trail Survey, trapping, hunting buffalo, and scouting. Querulous and opinionated, Old Bill preferred trapping alone in places he refused to divulge to anyone else. He would eventually die as the result of John C. Fremont’s ill-fated fourth expedition through the southern Rockies in the middle of winter.

There are various summaries of Williams’ life. I have yet to find anything as detailed and extensive as Favour’s Old Bill Williams, Mountain Man. I recommend it.

Book Review: But Time And Chance

Chavez.But Time and Chance.cover
by Fray Angelico Chavez
Sunstone Press, 1981
ISBN: 978-0913270950

Padre Antonio Jose Martinez is perhaps  New Mexico’s most famous home-grown priest, and his chroniclers seem to either heartily disapprove of him or love him unconditionally. Fray Angelico Chavez’s But Time And Chance appears to try to fall somewhere between the two, striving for neutrality. I’m not sure he succeeds, but I believe this is still a valuable book for students of New Mexico history.

But Time And Chance provides a good overview of Martinez’s life and his conflict with Bishop Lamy and also describes Martinez’s background, and his relationship with his constituents and the Americanos who were so prevalent in Taos during his lifetime. Certainly, this book helped me to get a better feel for Martinez’s role in the politics of the day.

However, I do feel that Chavez spends more time than necessary in this book sifting through the Taos baptismal records to attempt to identify possible children Martinez may have fathered. Some of the evidence Chavez presents in this endeavor seems a little thin. I also question the idea that a mental health issue lay at the heart of the Padre’s actions in his later years, after he was excommunicated by Bishop Lamy.

However, despite my disagreements with Fray Chavez, I still found this book helpful in providing insight into Padre Martinez’s character and the times in which he lived. At the very least, it’s certainly a more well-rounded depiction of him than is Willa Cather’s Death Comes to the Archbishop.

I believe But Time and Chance is a book that anyone interested in Padre Martinez’s life and works should definitely include in their list of items to read.

 

NOT MY FATHER’S HOUSE – Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

Hell, he edged too close. It ain’t time yet. The man in the bearskin poncho turns away from the wind-driven snow and scowls at the cabin on the slope below. Sneakin’ around that sorry excuse for a barn was plain stupid. What was he after, anyway? Warm smoke from a chimney? Smell of bread bakin’?

He adjusts his filthy gray wool scarf over his mouth and snorts in disgust. He’s gettin’ soft. Livin’ wild long as he has, that chimney smoke comin’ up through the pines smelled good. Sharp-sweet smell. Campfire, but warmer.

He shakes his head at his own foolishness, hefts his rifle, and positions his feet sideways, making it easier to maneuver up the snow-slicked dead grass and into the trees above, where Locke and Chavez have been cutting firewood. What’d he expect? Open door? Wide-arm welcome? From that nigger and his wench? From their hanger-on greaser?

Not that they’re doin’ all that well. He chuckles and shakes his shaggy head. North end of that barn roof’s caved in. That flimsy stretch of canvas over the cut meadow grass they’re usin’ for hay ain’t gonna protect it much from the snow.

He grins and stops to peer down at the mud-and-log barn. Or cow shit. He got a good double handful into the loose hay before the door rattled and he ducked out the other side. Cows eat that, they’ll be sicker’n dogs before spring.

He snorts. They got plenty of time to get sick in. Spring comes late here. And wet. That canvas’ll be no protection at all. April rains’ll pour across it like a funnel, right into that hay. And that’s before it soaks through and damps the whole lot. He grins. Then that shit poison’ll spread even faster. He chuckles, pleased with his work.

When he reaches the top of the hill, he turns again. Smoke rises from the cabin chimney, a plume of white that merges with the falling snow. Not like his own sorry lean-to, fire spitting with random flakes, wind burning the smoke into his eyes.

Then he snorts derisively. Those two tenderfeet’ll be thinkin’ they can turn those beeves out to pasture come early March. Valley grass don’t come in that early. They’ll be lucky to have any stock left by late May. Even without his little gift in their hay pile. He grins and spits at the icy snow at his feet.

Those cows’ll be dry as the Arizona desert and that girl’ll be thinner than she was before she got hitched. His lips twist and he adjusts the gray scarf to cover them. Feed gets scarce enough, she’ll be ripe for a change.

His hands move toward his crotch, then he catches himself and scowls. Too cold for even a little self-pleasuring. Hell of a place. He eyes the western mountains. Another, denser wave of snow is working its way down slope. A steel-gray mass of clouds hides the peaks. Storm’s not slowin’ down anytime soon. The air’s heavy with damp.

And there’s more snow-bound months ahead, damn it all. That tiny valley to the west where he’s stashed his mule and goods is even more apt for snow than down here. But it is out of sight. And on a well-traveled game trail. He can sit at his campfire and kill what he needs with an easy shot. Ease out from the lean-to and bring it in, no work at all. To bad his hut ain’t as snow-tight as the cabin behind him.

Snow-tight and crowded, what with two men, a girl, and a baby. He grins, pale blue eyes icy above the stinking wool scarf. They’ll be hatin’ each other by spring. He’ll make his move then.

He settles his shoulders under the big coat, twitches his poncho straight over his belly, and plods uphill through the snow, visions of next spring keeping him warm.

THIS IS THE END OF THIS SAMPLE OF NOT MY FATHER’S HOUSE BY LORETTA MILES TOLLEFSON.

TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS TO SUZANNA AND GERALD, YOU CAN ORDER A COPY FROM YOUR FAVORITE BOOKSTORE OR ONLINE RETAILER, INCLUDING AMAZON, BARNES AND NOBLEe, or BOOKS2READ

 

NOT MY FATHER’S HOUSE – Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

The hill’s western slope is coated with a thin layer of icy snow. The big man grimaces, then drops awkwardly to his knees. The mangy bearskin poncho has twisted as he knelt. He yanks it flat over his chest and drops belly-first onto the freezing slope. Then he pushes himself up onto his elbows, fumbles for his spyglass, peers over the top of the hill.

Not much chance the men in the cabin yard will notice a flash of light from this direction. They’re hell bent on whatever it is they’re doing, hauling timber and armloads of leather binding from the half-mud barn to the shanty.

The sun’s coming up over the Cimarrons behind the cabin, it’s making his eyes water. He pulls the spyglass away and swipes the lens with a dirty sleeve. Even without it he can see that Locke and the greaser are moving between the barn and the cabin again. They’re lugging some kind of gate-like wooden contraption between ’em. The wood’s got that pale mealy look aspen gets when it been pealed.

What’re they gonna do with a gate inside the house? A few minutes later, they return to the barn and haul the same kind of thing across the yard. The big man grunts. A bed, maybe. Or somethin’ to help with the birthing.

He swings the glass, studying the little farmstead. The little bitch must be about ready to whelp. She’s made no effort to hide her belly. Standing in the middle of the corn patch, rubbin’ at her stomach like a damn cow. She sure ain’t no lady, for all her airs and her father’s pamperin’.

He grunts. Can’t cook, but she does seem to know how to breed. Bound to happen. Two men, and one of them with a dead sweetheart.

He scratches his scraggly beard. “Wonder which of ’em the brat belongs to?” Then he chuckles. “Bet she don’t even know.”

His groin twitches and he rolls over and sits up. He reaches under the poncho and yanks his buckskin trousers into a more comfortable position. Baby’ll keep her closer to home. And her men can’t always be watchin’ for passing strangers. He grins, then pushes himself to his feet and moves down the slope, careful to stay out of sight of the cabin.

Give it a little more time, after the brat comes, and she’ll be easy enough to take.

Just like that piece in Taos. He chuckles, remembering the pleasure of that thrust, the satisfaction of giving that devil-tongued little whore what she deserved.

You’ve just read the eleventh chapter of the forthcoming novel Not My Father’s House by Loretta Miles Tollefson. You can order it now from your favorite bookstore or online retailer, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Books2Read.

 

NOT MY FATHER’S HOUSE – Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

The next morning, Suzanna wakes in the cabin loft with a headache and a pain in her chest. She rubs her hands over her face. Why does she feel so miserable? So exhausted? Then she remembers. Encarnación. Dead.

Suzanna closes her eyes against the hopeless tears. They won’t do any good. Her friend is gone. Never to join her here in these mountains. Nausea grips her and she fights it down, then gingerly pushes herself from the sleeping pallet. The only thing that might help is to move, to get outside, to breath the fresh outdoor air.

She dresses, climbs clumsily down the ladder, and retrieves the egg basket from the kitchen. Ramón nods to her somberly but she can’t meet his eye. She slips out of the house to the barn.

There’s a small door at the end nearest the corral, there to provide foot access when they’re not leading animals in and out. The door is partly open, though it provides little light to the interior. Suzanna steps inside and stops to let her eyes adjust to the dimness. She can hear Gerald and Gregorio in the far stall, preparing the mule for Gregorio’s return to Taos. As she crosses the straw-covered earth floor toward them, Gregorio says, “A knife was found.”

Suzanna freezes. He has clearly waited until now to tell Gerald about the knife. There must be a reason he didn’t mention it yesterday. She swallows against a sudden surge of anxiety and closes her eyes, listening.

“It was that big horn-handled one Enoch Jones used to carry.”

Suzanna’s throat tightens. Her fingers are cold on the basket’s woven handle.

“Jones is dead,” Gerald says, his voice stiff.

“So we believed.”

“No man could survive that wilderness with those wounds. If nothing else, the wolves would trail his blood and finish him off.”

The mule moves impatiently. Gregorio speaks to it softly.

Gerald clears his throat. “Someone must have found Jones’ body and stolen the knife.”

There’s a pause, then Gregorio’s reluctant voice. “There have been stories.”

Suzanna starts to move forward, then thinks better of it. They’ll stop talking the moment they know she’s here.

“Encarnación laughed and called them ghost stories,” Gregorio says. “Tales of a man shaped like Jones in the mountains.” There’s another pause. “Between here and Don Fernando,” he adds, his voice dropping. Suzanna has to strain to hear him.

“I did not wish to alarm la señora,” he adds. “Especially with the child coming.”

“I appreciate that,” Gerald says. “They may just be stories.”

“Sí, they may just be stories.”

Suzanna opens her mouth and steps forward, then stops. They’re only trying to protect her. And there’s no point in worrying them about worrying her. She moves quietly back to the door and the cold sunshine. She waits a long moment, then shoves the door open all the way and reenters the barn.

“Hola!” she calls. “Gregorio, are you leaving so early?” The two men turn toward her almost eagerly, as if they don’t want to think about what Gregorio has just said.

After Gregorio returns to Taos, a pall falls on the cabin, a haze of pain that refuses to lift. Gerald seems anxious and unwilling to stray far from the hillside. Suzanna watches him impatiently, suddenly refusing to believe her own fears about the man she saw on the ridge. Somewhere deep in her belly, she knows she’s being unreasonable. That the stories being told in Taos and the presence of the knife beside Chonita’s dead body mean that it’s likely Jones did somehow survive that terrible knife fight and has returned from the wilderness.

But surely that’s impossible. It must be someone else who’s haunting the mountains between the valley and Taos. She simply cannot allow herself to live in terror of any other possibility.

Besides, if Gerald believed that Jones had returned, he would have told her so. He’s said nothing about the Taos rumors or Jones’ bone-handled knife. He’s staying close to the cabin solely out of concern for both her and Ramón’s emotional state. There’s also her physical condition. The baby is due soon and Suzanna is increasingly uncomfortable.

The shock of Encarnación’s death has hit Ramón hard. The realization that she lay dead while he happily anticipated their marriage has left him in a kind of stupor. He still cooks and tends the animals, chops wood and hauls water, but he goes about his tasks in a sort of daze, eyes glazed with pain.

Suzanna herself finds that she’s sitting for long stretches, hands empty in her lap, staring blindly at the windows, glowing yellow with afternoon light. It’s hard to imagine a world without Chonita’s vital laugh, those knowing eyes, that gift for las natillas. Even the mica windowpanes remind her of the other woman. Suzanna smiles, remembering the arguments between her father and the cook about the need for sunlight and fresh air through the old-fashioned kitchen windows with their carved wooden grills, the ones her father wanted to replace with mica.

Ramón enters the room carrying an armload of firewood. Suzanna looks up at him. “You know, I think Encarnación was right,” she says. “The clear light from an open window aperture is so much brighter and truer than sunlight filtered through mica.”

Ramón kneels to add the wood to the small stack at the far end of the fireplace. “It is so,” he says. “She—” Then he stops, a piece of juniper still in his hand. He shakes his head, carefully positions the chunk of wood on top of the stack, then stands and moves toward the kitchen without looking back.

She closes her eyes. She shouldn’t have spoken. It only deepens his pain. And yet, how can she not speak, when everything seems to remind her of her dead friend? She sighs and sorrowfully rubs her belly. She had assumed Encarnación would come for the child’s birth, to assist her through it and perhaps stay on with Ramón.

Grief overwhelms her again, and Suzanna creeps across the room and climbs clumsily up the ladder to the loft. Out of the way, where she can’t do anything else to increase Ramón’s pain.

When the tears finally wear out, Suzanna lies limp on the blanket-covered pallet and stares at the bare rafters overhead. The weeping will erupt again. She hasn’t completed grieving for her friend. But the pressure in her head and chest has subsided a little. She wonders if Ramón has wept at all, if he’s found an outlet for his grief. But he’s a man. Men learn early to suppress their emotions. Perhaps speaking of his loss to another man will be all he can manage.

But when she asks Gerald that night if Ramón has spoken to him of Encarnación’s death. Her husband shakes his head.

“It will fester in him if he doesn’t express it.” Suzanna pushes another pillow behind her back, trying to get comfortable on the thin bed. “It isn’t good to hold in that kind of pain.”

“You don’t know that he’s not expressing it,” Gerald says. “We each have our own way of dealing with grief.” He leans down to give her a kiss and pokes at the pillows behind her. “Are you comfortable yet?”

“Not until this child decides to be born,” she says, exaggerating her grumbling tone, glad to have something else to think about. “Ouch!” She presses a hand against her lower chest. “That foot just jabbed my rib and now it’s pushing straight out.”

“Pushy little thing, isn’t it?” Gerald grins and he stretches out beside her. “Must be a girl.”

She gives him a slit-eyed look. “You certainly are in a good mood tonight.” Guilt wells up in her and she turns her head away. How can she be happy when Encarnación is dead and Ramón so bent with grief? Tears brim into her eyes. “When my father arrives for Christmas, Chonita won’t be with him.” She gives Gerald a bleak look. “If I can’t bear the thought of that, how must Ramón feel?”

Gerald lifts himself onto one elbow and gently strokes her dark hair. “I don’t mean to be hard hearted. I know your heart weeps for her and that Ramón is burdened with grief and self-reproach.”

“Self-reproach?”

“He believes that if he’d insisted that they marry when we did, she would have been here and safe, instead of on that acequia path.”

Suzanna’s eyes fill again. “On that path with potatoes from my patch, so far away from the village.” She shakes her head. “And I was so willing for her to stay in Don Fernando, so quick to leave her with all the work while I took what I wanted. When I left, she remained to arrange everything, to take all the responsibility for my father. And to have none of my joy.” She turns her head away from his sympathetic eyes. Her voice shakes. “I’m more to blame than Ramón!”

“Neither of you are to blame,” Gerald says firmly. “Encarnación insisted, remember? She decided what she wanted to do and that was it.” He chuckles. “Did you ever know her to change her mind once she had decided a thing?”

“No, not that I can remember.” She manages a small smile. “In fact, it was never clear whether she or my father was the first to decide that she would be our cook and housekeeper. I’ve always suspected it was Chonita’s idea before it was his, even though she was only fourteen at the time.”

Gerald grins. “She set you a good example.”

She narrows her eyes. “Now what exactly is that supposed to mean?”

He laughs. “Only that you and she both know how to get what you most want.” He leans forward and kisses her forehead. “Now please relax and let that baby finish its last bit of growth so it can arrive soon.” He reaches for her hand. “Ramón and I expect to have a surprise for you tomorrow morning, but if it’s to truly be a surprise, you’ll need to stay up here until we’re ready to show it to you. Can you do that?”

She grimaces. “Since I now need help to get down the ladder, I suppose I don’t have much choice, do I?”

He laughs and squeezes her hand. “I suppose not.” He looks around the loft. “You have the lamp and your books. The chamber pot’s empty and the wash basin has clean water in it. Is there anything else you need?”

“Chonita to be alive and this child to be born,” she says, closing her eyes. She can feel the grief pulling at her again.

Gerald touches her hair. “I wish I could make both those things happen,” he says. “I didn’t know Encarnación well, but I also feel her loss.”

Suzanna reaches for his hand. “I don’t mean to be such a weepy woman about it. I suppose it’s as much the weight of the child as grief for Chonita. If my time doesn’t come soon, I may dissolve in a lake of tears.”

“When the baby does arrive, it will be a comfort to all of us.” He looks up at the rafters. “Though I dread the process of its coming.”

“I’ll be fine.” Suzanna puts more courage into her voice than she actually feels at the moment. “We both know what to expect. After all, cows aren’t much different from humans.”

“Still, I wish you could be in your father’s house.” He turns his head, eyes dark with concern. “I shouldn’t have taken you from Taos.”

“It’s too late for that now,” she says. “I’ll be fine. I’m sure of it.”

He rolls toward her. “I’ll certainly be glad when it’s over,” he says, his face against her shoulder.

Suzanna turns her head to kiss him gently, then turns back to stare at the rafters herself. She can sleep only on her back now. Every other position is uncomfortable. As she stares into the darkness, Gerald’s body relaxes into sleep.

She can’t let go that easily. Despite Gerald’s reassurances, she still regrets her eagerness to hasten her own marriage and delay Encarnación’s. One of them needed to stay in Taos with her father and arrange for and train a new housekeeper. She had selfishly let that person be Chonita. Who is now dead. The tears slip silently down Suzanna’s face.

Finally, she sleeps. She wakes to a muttered curse in the room below and a muffled thud on the plank floor. “Are you two moving furniture?” she calls, but the only response is the scuff of boots across the floor and the thud of the front door shutting.

Suzanna frowns. What are those two up to? Oh, yes. The surprise. Well, if it distracts Ramón a little from his pain, it’s a good thing.

She closes her eyes against her own grief, then sits up. Her bladder is full to bursting. Or at least it feels like it. It could just be that the baby is pushing against it again. That nothing much will happen when she uses the chamber pot.

She gets up anyway, then slips back onto the thin pallet. She shifts impatiently, trying to get comfortable. The loft’s floor boards seem especially hard this morning, the pallet especially thin. It’s no use. She’ll read for a while, until they’re ready to show her the surprise.

She pushes herself into a sitting position. As she reaches to light the lamp, the door below thuds open again. “Shhh!” Gerald hisses. “Careful now! She’ll hear us!”

Suzanna pulls her hand away from the lamp and lies down again, a small smile playing on her lips. Let them think she’s still sleeping.

She’s actually dozed off again when Gerald’s head appears at the top of the ladder. “Wife?” he says.

“Ummm?”

“Your surprise is ready.” He sounds so pleased with himself.

She sits up and stretches her hand to him.

“Well, almost ready,” he says. “You have to see it before it can be completed.”

She chuckles. “Now I’m really curious.”

“Don’t look over the edge of the loft,” he warns. “And you’ll need to close your eyes on the way down.”

“Isn’t that’s rather dangerous?”

He laughs. “You haven’t been able to see your feet on the ladder rungs for the last month,” he reminds her. “I’ll stay right below you just like I’ve been doing, and you’ll be perfectly safe.”

“I put myself in your hands,” she says, smiling. She wraps a shawl around her shoulders and ties it firmly in place. “All right, I’m ready.”

Gerald guides her carefully down the ladder, then places his hands on her shoulders and turns her, eyes still closed, toward the fireplace. “Here it is!” he says.

Suzanna opens her eyes. A bed stands between the fireplace and the window. A real bed, large enough for two people, with a sturdy pale-gold wooden post at each corner and thinner pieces forming the frame. Strips of rawhide have been woven together and attached to the frame to create a mattress support.

“It isn’t quite ready,” Gerald says apologetically. He slips his arm around her waist. “We’ll bring the pallet and blankets down and make it up properly.”

Ramón stands on the far side of the bed, watching her. His face holds the glimmer of a smile, the first she’s seen since Gregorio arrived with his news. “It is for you and the little one,” Ramón says. He glances at the ladder to the loft. “You will be safer here.”

“It’s beautiful.” Suzanna leans against her husband and smiles at Ramón, both hands on her protruding belly. She looks at the bed. “The wood is such a beautiful soft yellow. Is it aspen?”

“Sí,” Ramón says eagerly. “And we have coated it with a thin layer of resin, to preserve it. It should last all your days—” He stops suddenly and looks away.

Suzanna’s throat catches. She turns to Gerald. “I want to try it right away,” she says. She moves to her chair and eases herself into it. She looks at Ramón, her eyes twinkling. “I’m afraid you’ve made more work for yourself, because I’ll also need the lamp and my books.”

The men move up the ladder to do her bidding and the cabin is filled with activity, pushing the loss of Encarnación into the shadows, at least for a little while.

You’ve just read the tenth chapter of the forthcoming novel Not My Father’s House by Loretta Miles Tollefson. You can order it now from your favorite bookstore or online retailer, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Books2Read.

 

NOT MY FATHER’S HOUSE – Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

The man in the bulky bearskin poncho yanks the gelding’s reins, forcing the big black backward and down the snow-driven hilltop and out of sight. He’s seen what he came for and with no risk of sunlight sparking from the spyglass.

He reaches under the poncho. The glass is still in his coat pocket. Only good thing he got out of that damn desert. When he’d finally stopped bleeding and had moved away from the river caves to the dry lands above, he’d stumbled on the picked-over skeleton of a man less hardy than himself. The dented spyglass beside him was the one thing the buzzards hadn’t wanted. It’s right handy for watching the Peabody bitch and her men.

He squints up at the Sangres. Ice-bound snow stings his face. Storm came in faster’n he expected. Horse’ll need to move quick if he’s gonna get back to camp before it starts driftin’.

But he got a good head-on look at the shanty Locke and the bitch are living in. His tongue runs over his lips. Girl’s tasty, in that Mexican way of hers. Well, French Navajo. Not that there’s much difference. All foreigners. And her New England pa with his high’n mighty ways.

Her men don’t keep her real close. She was down there choppin’ corn a good hour or more, no one else in sight. His pale blue eyes gleam. They’re gettin’ lazy already. Or tired of her and her airs. Be willing to have him take care of her. He grins. He’ll do that, all right. When the time comes.

At the bottom of the ice-slicked hill, he saws on the reins and gives the gelding a sharp kick, jabbing it into a trot against the oncoming snow, toward the ravine where he’s stashed his gear. Not much danger of anyone spotting him in this weather. He can afford a fire tonight.

You’ve just read the eighth chapter of the forthcoming novel Not My Father’s House by Loretta Miles Tollefson. You can order it now from your favorite bookstore or online retailer, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Books2Read.

 

NOT MY FATHER’S HOUSE – Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

Her hand is still wrapped in bandages several mornings later. She’s sitting on the front porch, watching the Ute puppies play and studying the pattern of gold on the western slopes, when a scrawny mountain man, his long red hair clumped in rough braids, rides into the yard. He’s hunched forward over his sorrel mare, his shoulders almost touching his knees, which are level with the horse’s withers. A pack mule trails behind him on a leather lead.

Suzanna smiles. “Well, Mr. Old Bill Williams,” she says. “It’s good to see you again. How long has it been? Since last fall? I see you’ve found a horse to match your hair.”

“Well now, you know what they say,” the mountain man says. “Caballo alazán tostado, primero muerto que cansado. A sorrel-colored horse would rather die than show fatigue.” He pats a long red braid. “I figured I’d get me a horse that could righteously match me for stamina.”

Suzanna laughs and stands up. “I’m sure even a horse with her endurance must need rest and sustenance. Let me show you where to house her.”

He glances over his shoulder toward the barn. “Oh, I can find my way,” he says. “You just set there and rest yourself.”

“I’ve been resting all morning and I’m about ready to go out of my mind.” She lifts her bandaged hand. “I can’t clean, I can’t sew, and I can’t garden.”

Old Bill laughs. “Now that is a trial. Are you tellin’ me that your pa sent you into the mountains without a righteously sufficient supply of reading material?”

“Even turning pages is difficult,” Suzanna says. She steps off the porch. “Come, I’ll show you where to store your tack.”

If Suzanna wants someone to talk to her, then Old Bill Williams is the man. He has plenty to tell her. “You know I went huntin’ beaver with Sylvester Pratte and his bunch up in South Park last season,” he says as he settles onto a porch bench with a tin cup of water in his hand. He glances down at the cup, its sides sweating with moisture. “This is righteously tasty well water, but you don’t happen to have anything stronger, do you now?”

Suzanna shakes her head. “But I can make you some tea,” she says. “I’m not completely incapacitated.”

He grins. “Well, now, tea isn’t quite what I had in mind.”

She chuckles. “I didn’t think for a moment that it was.” She tilts her head. “We heard a rumor that Pratte took fifty men with him to South Park. Is that true?”

Williams snorts. “More like thirty. Which was still too many. Pratte always did have ideas that were too big for actual implementation.”

Suzanna frowns. “Did have? Has something happened to him?”

“Got bit by a dog and died. Your old friend St. Vrain up and took over for him and we brought back a righteously good catch, in spite of all the commotion.” Williams salutes her with his cup and takes a long drink. He shakes his head. “Well, it most certainly isn’t whisky, but it’s dandy well water.” He leans forward and studies the well in the center of the yard, the adobe bricks that form the lower half of the log barn, the rows of corn and the hayfields in the vega below, the men at work with their scythes. “You all have been keepin’ yourselves occupied.”

“Gerald and Ramón have worked diligently to get us situated for winter,” Suzanna says. She lifts her bandaged hand. “I was trying to do my part when this happened.”

“Burnt it, did you? Tryin’ to do kitchen work?”

She nods ruefully and Old Bill snorts self-righteously. “Your pa keepin’ you out of that kitchen was a sure-enough mistake, to my way of thinkin’. But he was settin’ you up for bigger things. Better than what your ma ever had. Or was.”

His eyes rake the snow-topped mountains to the west. “Yes sir, and then you went and married a—” He slides her a look, then shifts on his bench, adjusting himself. “Married a farmer,” he says. He tilts his head back. “Hah! And one that’s hell-bent on settlin’ just about as far away as he can get from any kind of righteous civilization.”

He shakes his head and studies the mountain slopes on the other side of the valley. “You seen any Injuns yet?” He turns and looks at the cabin door. “You do have a firearm close enough for grabbin’, don’t you?”

Just then Gerald and Ramón top the path from the valley. They cross the yard to the porch, tools over their shoulders. “Well, that’s the last of the hay,” Gerald says. “Hello, Bill! Where’d you drop in from?”

“You got a firearm she can use while you’re down in the fields?” Williams demands.

“It’s right inside the door,” Gerald answers mildly. He turns to Suzanna. “How’s the hand?”

She grimaces. “Still aching. I wish I had a prickly pear pad to put on it.”

“I haven’t seen any prickly pear up here.” He glances toward the hill behind the house. A few yucca plants are scattered on the drier parts of the slope. Their pointed pale-green spines contrast sharply with the dark-green ponderosa clustered at the top of the hill. “Will yucca do?”

“No, it’s not the same. I wish I’d asked Encarnación to bring me some prickly pear pads to plant.”

“That would be a good food source, if they will grow up here,” Ramón says. “We should send word.”

Suzanna nods and shifts her hand to her shoulder, an old trick Encarnación has always said will speed healing. “In the meantime, I wait,” she says, trying to keep the frustration out of her voice. She turns to Old Bill with a smile. “But Mr. Williams has been keeping me entertained.”

Gerald and Ramón lean their tools against the cabin wall and move forward to clasp the older man’s hand, then go inside to dip their own cups of water from the bucket in the kitchen. When they come back, they settle on the porch benches, and Suzanna turns to Williams. “So tell us what happened to Sylvester Pratte.”

“Well, you know he rounded up a bunch of us to go huntin’ in South Park and along the Platte River last fall. Right before we headed out, he was visitin’ some woman with one of those little yap-hammering dogs and it bit him.”

Ramón chuckles and Williams laughs. “Yep, nobody seems to know who the dog belonged to or why it decided Pratte needed bitin’, poor devil,” he says. “I figure the woman’s true man put a spell on the dog to keep Pratte away.” He grins. “Or maybe Pratte’s wife back there in St. Louis did a little voodoo.” He turns to Suzanna. “Anyhow, the bite got righteously infected and the poison seeped into his blood.” Williams grimaces. “I’d rather get caught by Comanche than die all swelled up like that.”

Gerald glances at Suzanna, then gives Williams a warning look and changes the subject. “Pratte had half that group under contract, didn’t he? What happened with those agreements?”

“Oh, they all got together and talked St. Vrain into takin’ over.” Williams shakes his red head. “I’m not saying it was smart of St. Vrain to agree to do it. It’s risky enough to run your own outfit, much less somebody else’s, with contracts you didn’t set up. But it does say something about the youngster that they asked him to do it. Says he can do more useful things than what he’s been doin’, with his smugglin’ goods in across the mountains and undersellin’ those who don’t.”

“My father believes Ceran will go far,” Suzanna says. “Despite the smuggling rumors, men seem to just naturally trust him, even if he is only in his mid-twenties.”

“He does seem sensible enough,” Williams agrees. “More’n that fool Smith.”

“Smith was with that expedition to the Gila and Colorado that I joined a couple seasons ago,” Gerald says. “That group William Wolfskill and Ewing Young put together. Smith had an opinion about just about everything. Half-way up the Colorado, he and a few of the others split off and headed out on their own.” He shakes his head. “He was so opinionated, I think Young was glad to be rid of him.”

Williams snorts. “That’s Smith, sure enough. I heard he and that little bunch of his had a hell of a time before they made it back to the settlements. Served ’em right.” He stretches his legs into the patch of sunlight that’s moving across the wooden porch. “He was as opinionated this last season as he’s ever been, and now he’s a big hero for cuttin’ off his own foot.”

They all stare at him. Williams grins, flips his braids behind his back, and leans back against the cabin wall.

“Cómo fué eso?” Ramón asks.

Williams chuckles. “How indeed,” he says with a satisfied air. He looks at Suzanna. “You should of seen it. We got in a righteous bit of a scuffle with some Rocky Mountain natives and Smith took an arrow in his left leg.” He gestures toward his ankle. “Right about there. It shattered the bone. There was blood spoutin’ everywhere—” He looks at Suzanna. His gaze rests lightly on her midsection, then flicks away. “It’s a righteously bad thing to be tellin’ a woman.”

“My imagination will probably make it worse than it actually was,” Suzanna says.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Williams says. He looks away and studies the mountains as he speaks, choosing his words. “An arrow got him in the left ankle.” He waves toward his leg again. “Well, just above. It was quite a sight. He kept his head though, and tied it off quick, so the bleeding stopped soon enough. But the bones were sticking—” He glances at Suzanna apologetically, then turns his eyes back toward the mountains. “He decided it was too mangled to save, so he took a butcher knife to it.” He glances at the two men. “Did it himself.”

Suzanna’s bandaged hand goes to her mouth and Gerald growls, “I think that’s enough.”

Williams scowls. “She wanted to know.”

“I did,” Suzanna says. “Poor Mr. Smith! Is he all right now?”

“He and Milt Sublette got the foot and ankle off clean enough and tied up the leg. It appears to be healin’ well enough. There’s talk of making him a wood stump.” Williams shakes his head. “The man’s all mouth and fire, but he’s got gumption, I’ll say that for him.”

Suzanna shudders. “What a horrible thing. He’ll never be able to trap again.”

“Knowing Smith, I doubt a missing foot will stop him,” Gerald says. He looks at Old Bill. “Do you have anything less graphic and more pleasant to tell us?”

“Well, let’s see.” Williams scratches his head. “St. Vrain’s back in Taos, selling goods and prosperin’ well.” He grins. “Of course, no one he’s sellin’ to is demanding to know if any customs duty was paid on the goods.” He turns to Suzanna. “I saw your Pa as I passed through. He says to tell you hello and that he and that girl cook of his’ll be here for Christmas.”

Suzanna smiles in delight, then shakes her head at him in mock disgust. “That should have been the first thing you told me.”

Gerald laughs. “If you’d told her that first, she wouldn’t have even heard the rest.”

“But thank you for the message,” Suzanna says. She stands and moves into the cabin’s main room and toward the ladder to the loft. “I’ll just toss down some blankets and we can make up a pallet for you by the fire.”

The men move to follow her inside and Ramón heads to the kitchen. Suzanna, halfway up the ladder, suddenly gasps and stops, her bandaged hand in mid-air.

“Are you all right?” Gerald asks.

“I just put too much pressure on my hand.” She turns her head so he can’t see her face. The hand throbs and her stomach churns. She fights to keep her voice steady. “I just need a moment.”

“What’re you puttin’ on that burn?” Williams asks.

“I made an ointment from some dried prickly pear, but it’s not the same as fresh,” Suzanna says. She begins climbing again, careful to grip the ladder with her left hand and use her right forearm for balance. She maneuvers carefully into the loft, but the right hand has to accept some pressure no matter how she positions herself.

She bites her lip and drops onto the floorboards, waiting for the throbbing to lessen. Then she takes a deep breath and goes to the chest for the blankets Williams will need. As she tosses them down with her left hand, a wave of shaky nausea hits her. She takes a deep breath, pushing the acid away, steadying herself. Pain bites her hand and she gasps against it. She gulps hard, blinks the tears away, then peers around the ladder into the room below. “I’m going to remain up here,” she says, trying to keep her voice steady. “It’s too rough on my hand to go back down and then come up again.”

“I can fold my own blankets,” Williams tells her with a grin.

“I’ll bring a plate up to you,” Gerald says.

She nods gratefully to him and moves backward to sit on the pallet. The pain stabs again. As she bends over her hand, biting back the pain, Williams say, “She needs some fresh prickly pear on that.”

“It’s healing, but very slowly,” Gerald says. “Which is making her impatient, of course.”

Williams chuckles. “Suzanna Peabody impatient? That’s just righteously difficult for me to believe!”

Suzanna grins, in spite of the pain. “I heard that!” she calls and the men chuckle and move into the kitchen. “By the way, I hear your Pa’s gone north to the Yellowstone,” Williams says as the door closes behind them.

The red-headed mountain man’s blankets are empty when the others rise the next morning. Gerald returns from the barn to report that the trapper’s packs and mule are still there, but Williams and the sorrel are missing. “So there’s little doubt he’ll be back,” he says as they gather around the breakfast table.

Sure enough, the red horse and rider clop into the yard late that afternoon, a lumpy cloth bag tied behind Williams’ saddle.

“I’ve been down Cimarron canyon,” Williams says as he dismounts. He unties the bag and turns to Suzanna. “This here is what that hand of yours is needin’.”

She takes the bag with her left hand, shakes it slightly open and peers into it. She looks up with a blazing smile. “That is exactly what I need!” She turns to Gerald and tilts the top of the bag toward him. “Prickly pear pads.”

A few minutes later, she’s sitting at the kitchen table and Gerald is removing her bandages while Ramón gingerly disengages a thick pale-green oval pad covered with two-inch spines from Williams’ bag. As Williams hovers in the doorway, Ramón rinses the pad in water, singes it over the fire, then deftly scrapes the remaining needles off with a sharp knife. He fillets the green slab into two half-inch pieces and crosses the room to the table.

Gerald dabs at the wound with a damp cloth, then Ramón places a prickly pear pad, cut-side down on Suzanna’s palm and holds it in place while Gerald secures it with a fresh bandage.

“My palm feels better already,” Suzanna tells Williams. She nods at the lumpy bag on the work table. “And it appears that you’ve collected enough for me to plant some, as well.”

“That’s what I had in mind, all right,” Williams says. “Since there’s yucca on the gravel spots on these hillsides, I’m bettin’ pear cactus will grow up here too, if it’s given half a chance.”

Gerald straightens. “Once more I’m indebted to you.”

“Ah, it ain’t nothin’,” the mountain man says. “You’d of done it yourself, if you’d known where to look.”

Gerald nods, then frowns. “I don’t remember seeing prickly pear in the canyon.”

“It’s further down,” Williams says. “Where I found it really wasn’t canyon anymore.” He grins at Suzanna. “We’ve got to get those hands of yours righteously back in shape so you can take care of that baby that’s coming. That and plantin’ your plants. I saw you had maíz at the bottom of the hill. Are you gettin’ it to grow proper-like up here?”

“What I’ve been able to keep those rapacious raccoons out of has been growing, but it doesn’t seem to want to ripen,” Suzanna says. She moves her hand and winces. It still hurts, though not as much. “The growing season up here is remarkably shorter than it is at Don Fernando. We had snow showers off and on and the ground was half-frozen all through May, so I wasn’t able to plant until early June. Then keeping it watered was a challenge, since we had no rain until the July monsoons began.” Her eyes darken. “I lost a quarter of my plants. When the corn finally did start to form, the raccoons were more than inquisitive, the pernicious beasts. Nothing seems to slow them down much, not even Indian puppies.” She lifts her hands in disgust. “And the deer will be descending pretty soon. I’ll be surprised if there’s anything left to harvest at all.”

There’s a small silence, the men glancing toward the walls and the floors, carefully avoiding Suzanna’s eyes. Then Ramón turns to Williams. “How far north did you all travel this past season, Señor Bill? Did Señor Pratte’s party clean out the Platte River region completely?”

Two weeks later, Bill Williams has gone on his way, Suzanna’s hand is healing nicely, and the little corn that has matured is safely harvested and dried for planting the following season. It and the peas for next year are stored in the root cellar beside the strips of dried squash and ropes of garlic.

At least the squash and garlic crops were good, Suzanna thinks ruefully as she lifts her lantern over the cellar bins and shelves to see the results of her first season in the valley. The potatoes still need to be harvested, but they’re well covered with meadow hay and she hopes to winter them in the ground.

And now she has nothing to do. She hates the end of the growing season. The baby kicks just then and Suzanna chuckles in spite of her low spirits. She rubs her belly. “Yes, I know,” she says. “You’re going to keep me occupied soon enough.” She turns, looking again at the nicely-crowded cellar, then heads toward the door. “But in the meantime, I have nothing to do but clean and sew. How righteously enjoyable, as Old Bill would say.”

As she fastens the root cellar door and moves across the twilight-filled yard, Suzanna reflects that, if she were in Taos, her father would be creating a reading plan for the coming months and deciding which Latin texts she’s ready to tackle.

She could create her own reading and study plan. But somehow she doesn’t feel up to it. She’s just too restless. And bored at the same time. She needs to find something active to do while she still can. Before winter sets in completely.

You’ve just read the sixth chapter of the forthcoming novel Not My Father’s House by Loretta Miles Tollefson. You can order it now from your favorite bookstore or online retailer, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Books2Read.

 

NOT MY FATHER’S HOUSE – Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

Stands Alone’s prediction that fall will arrive early holds true, and Suzanna realizes irritably that he also correctly predicted that her corn won’t ripen in time. The September afternoons are chilly, but the ears of maíz are still so thin that the raccoons have stopped monitoring them.

The scarecrow she erected to keep the ravens away isn’t necessary, either. The big croaking corvines are too busy playing tag with the red-winged blackbirds in the clear sunlight. Two eagles circle endlessly above the smaller birds, seemingly indifferent to everything but each other.

As she stands in the middle of her corn patch, the Ute puppies playing at her feet, Suzanna rubs the sore spot under her ribs and turns slowly, studying the mountain slopes north and west. They’re gradually turning yellow, the patches of aspen getting brighter each day.

She turns back to her half-formed ears of corn. Tarnation. She planted as soon as she was able. There’d been so much to do when they arrived in mid-May. Although it’s unlikely that planting any earlier would have done any good. It had been too cold to expect corn to sprout.

Suzanna’s cheeks redden. It hadn’t been too cold for other things. The little lean-to she and Gerald had slept in those first few nights before Ramón arrived and the men started work on the cabin had never really felt chilly.

She smiles and rubs the sore spot just below her rib cage again. She has to admit she was a little preoccupied when they first arrived in the valley and not terribly concerned with getting the planting underway. She chuckles. As a result, she’s going to be preoccupied next spring, too. She’ll have a baby to care for.

But surely that won’t take all her time. And surely this last spring was colder than usual. Suzanna studies the anemic rows of corn. “This child had better like to garden,” she mutters. “Because next year I need to get seed into the ground a good month earlier than I did this season.”

She shakes her head at the maíz and turns away. There isn’t a blessed thing she can do to speed it to harvest. She moves on to her produce garden, which lies closer to the marsh. At least the squash is doing nicely.

When she returns to the house, she’s dragging a half-full bushel basket of fat green-striped squash behind her. The kitchen is empty. Ramón and Gerald are in the hayfield in the valley bottom, turning the windrows they’d scythed that morning.

Suzanna sets aside the squash she thinks Ramón will need for the evening meal, wraps an apron over her dress, and begins washing and slicing the remaining vegetables into strips for drying. “At least I can do this much,” she mutters.

When she’s filled the largest of Ramón’s wooden bowls, she carries it to the ramada that shelters the woodpile behind the house. There’s just enough space beside the stacked wood for the woven-twig drying racks Gerald constructed for her. She arranges the strips of squash on the racks, covers them with a light cotton cloth to discourage the flies, and returns to the kitchen.

It’s almost noon. Suzanna’s feeling both hungry and restless. She pokes in the cupboard to see if she can tell what Ramón has planned for the midday meal. A cloth-wrapped stack of corn tortillas and a bowl of mashed beans. A plate containing the small tomatoes she harvested yesterday. The few that were ripe. She shakes her head in disgust. She’ll be drying green tomatoes before long.

She studies the tortillas, lifts them from the shelf, and turns to the fireplace. The coals are carefully banked, conserving their heat until a fire is needed again. She can at least get it going, ready for Ramón when he and Gerald come in. She sets the tortillas on the table and crouches beside the hearth.

Her father did her no favors when he banned her from her mother’s kitchen, she reflects as she scrapes ash from the live coals and feeds the resulting glow with thin strips of juniper bark. Regardless of what he thought of her mother’s morals and the value of a girl learning Latin, her father’s choices definitely stunted her development in wifely duties.

The baby kicks just then, jabbing a foot into Suzanna’s ribs, and she dimples self-consciously and pats her belly. Well, not all wifely duties. And she certainly knows how to sew, though it isn’t her favorite task.

She sits back on her haunches and studies the kitchen’s hand-hewn work table and food cupboards. She learned to sew by observing a neighbor woman and then asking Encarnación for occasional advice. Surely she could lean the rudiments of cookery the same way. Her lack of ability here makes her so dependent.

It’s also hard on the men. Ramón never seems to sit down. And his kitchen duties reduce his ability to assist Gerald outdoors. Assistance Suzanna can’t give, especially now that she’s pregnant.

In the fireplace, tiny flames lick at the narrow strands of juniper bark. Suzanna adds a few pieces of kindling, then layers thicker pieces over them. At least she can build a fire. She looks around the room. The water bucket is nearly empty. She adjusts a piece of wood to better catch the flames and pushes herself to her feet.

As she crosses the yard to the well, she sees the men in the field below, heading toward the house, the wooden windrow rakes over their shoulders. Gerald’s hat is pushed back on his head, his long stride shortened to keep pace with Ramón, who waves a hand at the remaining grassland and turns his head to say something to the taller man. Gerald laughs, then places his hand companionably on Ramón’s shoulder. They stop and turn to look back at their handiwork.

Suzanna lowers her bucket into the well. As she hauls it up again, her stomach rumbles. The men are certainly taking their time. Once they get their tools put away, they’ll still need to clean up. She turns toward the cabin. In the meantime, she might be able to warm the tortillas without burning them. And heat the mashed beans.

Back in the kitchen, she finds the smallest of the cooking pots, scrapes the beans into it, and sets it to heat at the edge of the fire. Then she positions the cast-iron skillet and its three-footed supporting grate over the flames and goes to the cupboard for a small pot of lard.

She drops a spoonful of the grease into the skillet and watches it slowly begin to soften. Suzanna yawns. The fat looks as if it’ll sit there all day, doing nothing. This is why she dislikes cooking. There’s so much sitting and waiting. She pokes at the fire with a stick and repositions a burning log so it’s more fully under the grate and the pan.

Finally the fat heats and liquefies. It sizzles busily and Suzanna nods in satisfaction and drops a tortilla into the black skillet. But the extra flame has made the pan hotter than she realized. The flat yellow tortilla buckles sharply in response and the fat pops furiously, then turns into a smoky haze.

Suzanna jumps up, grabs a wet towel from the counter, and darts back to the fire. Smoke fills the room. She leans down, tosses the towel over the skillet handle, and yanks it away from the flames. As she pulls, heat sears through the wet towel, stabbing her palm.

“I swear!” she yelps, jerking away. The skillet clatters to the floor and the charcoaled tortilla tumbles out beside it. Suzanna is doubled over, gasping in pain, when the men come through the door from the main room.

Gerald leaps toward her. “Are you all right? Let me see.”

Suzanna collapses onto the floor. “How stupid of me,” she gasps. “I know heat goes right through a wet towel.”

Gerald reaches gently for her hand. Two red welts bisect her palm. Ramón appears at Gerald’s elbow with a dripping cloth. Gerald wraps it around Suzanna’s hand, then lifts her to her feet and guides her to a bench beside the table. “Just sit,” he says soothingly. “I don’t think it’s very bad.”

She nods, ashamed of her outburst, embarrassed by her stupidity. “I know to use a dry towel,” she says again.

“We all make mistakes,” Gerald says soothingly.

“Not in the kitchen.” She raises her head, her mouth trembling. “I’m the only woman I know who makes mistakes in the kitchen.”

Ramón has placed the skillet and tortilla on the work counter and is now crouched over the fire, moving the pot of beans away from the licking flames. He half turns as he wraps a dry towel around the pot. “I almost killed my brothers and myself once,” he says. “I had no sisters at that time. My parents were called away and I was assigned to cook while they were gone. I used a haunch of pork that had gone bad.” He rises, places the pot on the wooden counter, and stirs it gently. “These are nicely warmed.”

He returns to the fire and uses a thick piece of kindling to maneuver the three-legged grate away from the center of the flames. Over his shoulder he says, “I decided the meat simply needed more seasoning to cover the bad taste.” He rises and lifts the skillet from the counter. As he wipes it out with a small towel, he shakes his head. “I didn’t want to take the time to check the rabbit snares or go fishing.”

He leans to place the skillet on the grate. “We were all sick as dogs when my parents returned.” He chuckles. “And soon after they returned, I was also sore on my backside. My father was very angry and he was a firm believer in the dicho that says la letra con sangre entra.”

Gerald raises an eyebrow. “The word enters better with blood?”

Ramón grins. “The parents’ words. There seems to be some truth to that saying. Never since then have I forgotten to throw out bad meat.”

Suzanna chuckles and rearranges the cloth over her palm. Her fingertips tingle with incipient blisters. She winces. “My hand will certainly remember to reach for a dry towel when I need to lift something hot from the fire.”

You’ve just read the fifth chapter of the forthcoming novel Not My Father’s House by Loretta Miles Tollefson. You can order it now from your favorite bookstore or online retailer, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Books2Read.

NOT MY FATHER’S HOUSE – Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

A month goes by before Suzanna sees another man who isn’t her husband. This one is tall and thin, clothed in black, and walking up the trail from Taos beside a well-rounded woman whose head is shrouded in a voluminous shawl. They each lead a donkey, a wooden bench perched precariously above bulging packsaddles. Half a dozen cattle splay out on the trail behind them, raising lazy spurts of dust when they aren’t straying into the grass and patches of purple flowers that lie beside the path. A thin young man walks behind the cows, waving a long switch at them when they wander too far off-track.

Suzanna stands in her corn patch below the cabin and gazes at the little caravan, puzzled. Then joy lights her face. It’s her father. And Encarnación. Ramón will be so glad! She makes a face at the raccoon tracks in the dirt at her feet and trots up the hills toward the house.

But Ramón has already spotted the travelers. He’s watching them from the cabin porch, a basket of eggs in each hand. He smiles at Suzanna as she reaches the steps. “It is Gregorio Garcia with the cattle,” he says. “And your father with the mules.” His eyes brighten as his smile broadens. “And la Encarnación.” He glances down at the eggs, his mind clearly on the evening meal. “It is well that el señor went hunting this morning.”

Suzanna nods, then follows him into the cabin and begins straightening the books on the table by the set of four panes of thick mica that form the single window. In the kitchen, Ramón whistles tunelessly. She chuckles at his gladness. Though she has to wonder whether the figure trailing behind the cattle actually is Gregorio Garcia. How can Ramón possibly have recognized him?

But the young man really is Gregorio, as dark eyed and lanky as ever. He drives the reluctant cows into the rough wooden corral at the edge of the hilltop and swings the gate shut behind them just as Gerald and his horse trot in from the hills, a deer carcass slung over the back of the trailing mule. Gregorio follows Gerald into the open-sided shed behind the barn and helps with the butchering while Suzanna and Encarnación supervise the unloading of her father’s pack animals.

The two carved and brightly painted benches come off first, followed by Suzanna’s big wooden spinning wheel on its stand, three bags crammed with wool, containers of dried maíz, chile, and ground wheat flour, and two rhubarb plants that have been carefully swaddled in straw, then wrapped in rough cotton.

“Rheum rhabarbarum for medicinal or other uses,” Jeremiah Peabody says with a small smile as he strokes his black chin beard.

“Thank you for bringing it,” Suzanna says. “It should do nicely up here. I had such a time keeping it alive in Don Fernando. The heat was almost too much for it.”

Encarnación turns to Ramón. “For medicine or other uses,” she says. “It is also called pie plant.” She tilts her head, her eyes crinkling. “But perhaps you prefer las natillas.”

“Ah, Chonita, I prefer anything that you prefer to make,” Ramón says and she rewards him with a brilliant smile. “Come, let me show you the kitchen and how I have arranged it,” he says. “It does not seem quite as it should be.”

As Encarnación sweeps before him into the cabin, Suzanna turns to her father. “He certainly knows how to please her,” she says, smiling.

He looks down at her. “And you?” He glances toward the barn, then peers into her face. “Does your life here please you?”

She looks down at the ground, blushing, knowing that he really wants to ask if her husband pleases her, then looks up. “Yes,” she says shyly.

A shadow crosses his face and she puts her hand on his arm. “It is not my father’s house,” she says. “And I do miss you, papa.” She wrinkles her nose. “And the mountains are closer than I would prefer.” Then she looks into his eyes. “But my life here is as pleasing as it can be without being in Taos and near you.”

He smiles ruefully and gives a little nod as he turns to look out over the valley. “The mountains are very near, but the view is delightful.” He tilts his head toward the corn patch at the bottom of the hill. “And I see you’ve already planted a garden.” He smiles at her slyly. “Your husband is a very smart man.”

“It’s a source of food,” Suzanna says defensively. Then she laughs. “And it keeps me occupied. I have peas and spinach and squash and potatoes and maíz, all of which are doing quite nicely, now that the monsoon rains have begun. And as long as I can keep the pernicious raccoons away from them. Though the corn seems slow to develop. We had no rain in June, and it didn’t get a good start.” She tucks her left hand into her father’s elbow. “But come and let me show it all to you.”

Her right hand brushes her belly as she leads him down the hill. How will she find a way to tell him? She feels an unexpected shyness toward the man to whom she’s always been able to say almost anything.

But there’s no need for her to speak. Immediately after the evening meal, Encarnación rises and begins clearing the table. Suzanna stands to help her but the other woman waves her back into her chair beside her father. “Women in your condition should not carry heavy dishes,” Encarnación says gaily.

Suzanna reddens as her father’s head swivels toward her. Ramón and Gerald, at the other end of the table, both chuckle. Gregorio looks at her with wide eyes.

“Chonita!” Suzanna protests. She slides a glance toward her father and covers her face with her hands. Then she glares at Ramón. “Did you tell her?”

Encarnación laughs and reaches for the serving platter. “There was no need to tell me. I have eyes. A woman sees such things before a man does.”

Suzanna looks helplessly at her father. “I was going to tell you this evening.” She gives Encarnación a mock glare and glances away from Gregorio’s embarrassed face. “In private.”

“It may come from a private matter, but there’s nothing very private about a child, as you will see!” Encarnación chortles as she turns toward the sink.

“There’s no keeping her quiet, when she wishes to speak,” Ramón says as he rises and follows her, his hands full of plates.

Suzanna, Gerald, and Jeremiah exchange bemused glances. Jeremiah chuckles and shakes his head. He turns to Suzanna. “I am delighted, of course. When do you expect to be confined?”

“As nearly as I can tell, at the end of the year,” Suzanna says.

“We may give you a grandchild as a Christmas gift,” Gerald adds.

Jeremiah’s thin face works under his beard. There’s a long silence, then the unemotional New Englander lifts his palms and stares down at them. He reaches blindly for Suzanna’s hand and turns to Gerald, tears welling in his eyes. “You have made me quite happy,” he says simply. Then he releases Suzanna’s hand, gives it a sharp pat, rises, and leaves the kitchen.

As the door to the porch thuds closed behind her father, Suzanna looks at Gerald. “He is quite speechless. I have never known words to fail him.”

Gerald chuckles. “His baby has grown up and is about to become a mother. I’m sure it will be a shock to us when it happens.”

She laughs in sudden delight. “It is something miraculous, isn’t it?”

He pushes back his chair, moves to stand behind her, and bends to kiss her the top of her head. Encarnación turns from the sink and flaps her wet hands at them. “Go, go,” she says, beaming. “The kitchen is not a place for such activity.”

When Suzanna wakes the next morning, Gerald’s side of their attic pallet is already empty. Encarnación moves around the room below, shaking out blankets and pushing furniture back into place. Suzanna smiles drowsily. It will be good when the other woman is here permanently. She’s missed Chonita’s bustling energy.

Then the image of the man on the ridge rises unbidden in her mind. Suzanna frowns. Should she tell Encarnación what she saw? If Enoch Jones is still alive, Encarnación certainly has a right to know. After all, the dirty-haired mountain man harassed her, too.

Suzanna gives herself a little shake. Jones is dead. Gerald killed him. The man she saw on the ridge was simply someone passing through, someone built like Jones. Those hunched and strangely massive shoulders, that angry bull-like tilt of the head. Or perhaps she simply imagined the whole thing. Ramón didn’t see anything and he has exceptional eyesight. He knew Gregorio was Gregorio when the young man was still well down the valley and behind a haze of dust kicked up by half a dozen cattle.

And, if she tells Encarnación that she thinks she saw Jones, her father is certain to hear of it. And then he will worry. Besides, Jones is dead. Gerald killed him. Well, knifed him in the chest, a wound that would kill most men. Though after Jones fled into the wilderness, the searching trappers never did find his body, never actually confirmed he was dead.

Suzanna closes her eyes, fighting the bile in her throat. Her hand wanders to her belly and she takes a deep breath. Worrying about such things is bad for the child. She will think about pleasant things and not let her imagination run away with her.

In the room below, Encarnación throws open the door to the porch. A broom swishes vigorously across the plank floor. Suzanna chuckles and sits up. At this rate, Chonita will be white-washing the rafters before the day is half over. Suzanna stretches, lifts herself from the sleeping pallet, pulls on her clothes, twists her hair into its usual loose bun at the nape of her neck, and heads to the ladder.

Their visitors stay a week, her father walking the land with Gerald and Ramón, Encarnación organizing the kitchen for maximum efficiency, Gregorio hoeing the corn patch and devising ways to stave off raccoon depredations. Then they head back down the valley to Palo Flechado Pass and on to Taos.

Suzanna watches them disappear over the first long rise that bisects the valley, then turns back to the cabin. The men are in the barn, harnessing the mules for a wood cutting trip up the slope behind the cabin. She gazes around the empty cabin. It’s so quiet without Encarnación’s bustling, her father sitting by the fire holding a book, Gregorio in the corner mending mule harness. So empty.

She takes a deep breath, gives herself a little shake, and heads out to her corn patch to see whether the rascally raccoons have succeeded in breaching Gregorio’s barrier of brush.

You’ve just read the third chapter of the forthcoming novel Not My Father’s House by Loretta Miles Tollefson. You can order it now from your favorite bookstore or online retailer, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Books2Read.

NOT MY FATHER’S HOUSE – Chapter 2

 

CHAPTER 2

The man on the ridge grunts in satisfaction and tucks the spyglass into his pocket. It’s her, all right. With some greaser. Word in Arroyo Hondo was she married that bastard Locke, but that ain’t him. Must be that Mex named Chavez that used to work for her pa. The big man snorts and shoves his dirty-blond hair away from his face. The greaser and Locke, too, probably. Take two men to keep her the way she thinks she needs.

He steps backward down the slope, no longer sky lit on the grassy ridge. Don’t want her gettin’ too good a look. Just enough to make the little bitch wonder. ’Cuz he’s dead. Killed by that interferin’ bastard Locke. Left to be tore apart by the Gila Apaches and the wolves after them. He’s just a pile of bleached bones, somewhere west of the Zuni villages.

The big man chuckles sardonically. Ain’t he?

You’ve just read the second chapter of the forthcoming novel Not My Father’s House by Loretta Miles Tollefson. You can order it now from your favorite bookstore or online retailer, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Books2Read.