All he needed was time to remove it from the saddlebag and open it to the section that gave him legal permission to pursue his duties before anyone decided to shoot. Folsom resecured the flap and made sure the buckles were tight and thought the other thing he needed was for the white men who stopped him to be able to read.
* * *
* * *
The woods grew dark and he could no longer see tracks left behind by the Red Priest and his small army of horses. He sniffed the air and detected no smoke from a campsite nearby. He sniffed again and smelled the distinct odor of death. And something else besides the smell of death. Something intertwined with it and somehow, almost worse.
There was death in the woods, wherever one went. It was not unusual. It did not disturb him. He simply had no wish to make camp nearby dead things. In the dark the scent would bring scavengers both large and small. He kept moving. The smell grew stronger but he could not find its source.
Folsom stopped Hates the Rain and looked straight ahead at the empty woods. Someone was watching him from behind a tree on his right, but he did not turn his head to look. He had caught sight of them only for a moment. They were quiet and moved among the shadows to remain out of sight. The fact that he was being followed and had only just noticed disturbed him.
Stroking the side of Hates the Rain’s neck, he said calmly, “I know you are there. You do not need to hide from me. I have no food or money, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
His eyes shifted sideways and he got a better look at her.
To his surprise, she was a disheveled hag, naked and covered in filth. Her blond hair was long and tangled with twigs and clumps of mud. The front of her neck and chest were smeared with glistening blood. Her mouth hung open as she stared at him. The few teeth in her mouth were black and rotted. There was more blood caked around her lips and what looked like white pieces of fluffed cotton. Not cotton, Folsom thought. Fur.
When he turned to get a better look, she ran between the trees and vanished. Getting down from the saddle, he laid one hand around the grips of his pistol and drew his knife with the other.
He crept across the woodland floor toward the tree the hag had been hiding behind. The blood on her chest had most likely come from eating the organs of a dead deer after something had killed the animal and had its fill of the meat. She’d come along like any other scavenger and eaten what was left. That would explain the stench of death, he thought. That was a perfect explanation.
He quickly found the carcass of a rabbit on the ground nearby, and sure enough, the woman had bitten into it, whole. But that was not the stench of death he’d smelled. It was too strong for what looked like a fresh kill. After a few minutes he found what he was looking for.
A dead white man was staked to the ground, bound at both hands and both feet. His face was stark white. The blood had receded to the lower reaches of his body and pooled there, turning him bright purple. His skin was intact and he had not yet begun to bloat, Folsom thought; he’d only been dead a few hours.
It was Daniel Collins, Folsom realized. It had to be. He was out in the woods, searching for the missing girl, as he’d said he would, and someone had done this to him.
But being staked to the ground and killed was not the worst of it. They’d torn open his shirt and carved symbols into his bare chest, not waiting for him to die to do it. Collins’ head was tilted back, his eyes wide, and his mouth stretched open. This man had died screaming, Folsom thought.
He bent down to inspect the symbols. The work was crude and at first he was unsure it was anything except a haphazard series of cuts made in the flesh to torment Collins. But he gradually realized the longest cut across Collins’ chest depicted a spear. It had a shaft and a pointed blade and it was being driven into something that curved along the lower ribs of Collins’ torso. A snake, Folsom realized. It was the image of a snake being impaled by a spear.
At that moment he heard Hates the Rain snort and stomp the ground in protest. He turned and saw the naked woman holding the horse’s reins in one hand as she tried to undo the straps on the saddlebag with the other.
Folsom shouted at her and ran toward the horse. The woman threw up her hands and ran off. She was faster than he’d expected. By the time he reached Hates the Rain, she was gone into the woods and there was no sign of her.
He cursed and resecured the saddlebag. The book inside it was untouched. He took a deep breath and thanked the Great Spirit for that.
Somewhere in the woods behind him, someone laughed.
Folsom’s head snapped toward the sound. The laugh was high-pitched and disturbing. Not a laugh of joy. It sounded like madness. The woman could not have made such a sound, he thought. He drew his pistol.
Hates the Rain shook his head in agitation. The naked hag had bothered him and now he was spooked.
Then, another laugh, louder than the other and more shrill. Another laugh followed that one, coming from the other side of the woods. They echoed off the trees all around him and they were coming closer.
Hates the Rain stomped the ground. The laughter and stench of foul things had agitated the beast. Folsom wrapped his hand through one of the reins to keep it steady. He tried following the sound of the laughter to gauge how many people there were, but it was coming from every direction. They were everywhere, it sounded like.
He hoisted himself up into the saddle and Hates the Rain took off running. The horse bolted between the trees so fast that it was all Folsom could do to duck under the massive branches that swept across the top of his head and back. They were running blind while the sound of the laughter echoed behind them and did not stop.
CHAPTER THREE
Lorenzo Escalante’s family buried him on the third day after his body was returned home. It was more than two weeks since he’d died, and the ones who’d brought him home were glad to see him finally go into the ground.
“You either bury him by noon tomorrow, or I will take Papa out into the desierto and do it myself!” Mirta Escalante had warned her mother.
“I am waiting to hear if the bishop will perform the ceremony,” Alma Escalante had said. “It is what your father would have wanted!”
“Papa would not care if the pope himself was coming! He did not give a damn about such things!”
Alma Escalante trembled with anger and her other four daughters shrank away from her. “Eres una bruja! It was you who did this to him! It is your fault he is dead!”
Mirta would not back down. “Noon, tomorrow,” she’d said. “Or I do it myself.”
Now the local priest standing over the grave told everyone to bow their heads in prayer. There was a large crowd surrounding the gravesite. All of them were Mirta’s relatives and most of them were people she could not tolerate.
Three of her sisters were married and had six grandchildren between them. Camila, the oldest, was studying to become a doctor in Chicago and was married to a doctor. They’d arrived in a car, a brand-new one, open on its sides, with a roof and fine wooden doors. It had a lantern on either side of the front for driving at night and the engine rumbled so loud that Alma had covered her ears when it arrived. There were two seats in it. One in the front for the driver who had to steer a large steering wheel and work a series of levers to get the car to run and move and stop and shut off. There was a second, larger seat, behind the driver, from which Camila emerged like the queen of all she surveyed.
The rest of the family had gathered around the car in wonder. Alma ran her hand along the car’s metal frame and said, “¿Que es esto?”
Camila stepped down from the car and waved her hand at it like a showgirl revealing the results of a magician’s trick. “This is the Landaulet,” she said. “Fresh off the assembly line at the Woods Motor Vehicle Company right in Chicago. It’s their luxury model. The frame is made of armored steel and the seats are burgundy leather. They’re the softest thing you
ever did feel.”
Camila stepped aside and waved for Alma to come forward and press her hand down into the seats. Alma’s eyes widened at how soft it was. “¿Cuánto costó?” Alma asked.
Camila feigned embarrassment and said, “Almost three thousand dollars.”
They all gasped in shock at the price and Camila laughed and said, “I have been so blessed by God. After we bury poor Father, I will let each of you go for a ride in it.”
They’d all argued about who got to ride in the car first, except for Mirta. She’d stayed in the barn, where her father’s remains were still lying in the back of the wagon she’d driven home because no one else seemed interested in making sure the body wasn’t dragged off by coyotes.
Mirta regretted she had not been able to bring Lorenzo back alone. Two useless men had insisted on coming with her. The first was an old cripple named Hank Odell. Odell’s right hand had been cut off decades earlier by a vengeful prison warden. Once Odell had led a gang of outlaws called Red Trail. Perhaps back then he had been someone she would not have minded riding with, but now he was nothing but a weepy-eyed old man with white hair.
Even more useless was Odell’s grandson, Connor Sinclair.
All of this was Connor’s fault, Mirta thought. He’d gotten himself captured by a rancher named Nelson Granger and been too much of a simpleton to escape. Then the task of saving him had fallen to Lorenzo Escalante and his old friend Ash Sinclair, who had the misfortune of being Connor’s other grandfather. Now both of them were dead.
If Ash had not given his life to save her, she’d be dead now too, she thought.
Mirta had liked Ash Sinclair immensely. He was a bad man and never pretended to be otherwise. She understood why her father had called him jefe, even when they were both old.
The preacher was still talking. “Before he came to live among us, Lorenzo was a gold prospector who was always known to be firm but fair in his business dealings.”
Mirta snorted and her mother glared at her. Gold prospector, Mirta thought with a silent chuckle. If by that you mean he’d go out and look for banks or trains to rob of their gold, then yes, that was true in a certain way.
“I am told Lorenzo was a God-fearing man who came to church every Sunday,” the preacher continued.
Another lie, Mirta thought.
“Together, he and his beloved wife, Alma, raised five lovely daughters, who are all gathered with us today. I had the pleasure of speaking with their oldest daughter, Camila, and she showed me the fine automobile she and her husband just purchased. I’m told nothing made Lorenzo happier than seeing all of Camila’s success.”
Camila raised her face to the sunlight and closed her eyes, as if the heavens themselves were bathing her in warmth. At her side, her husband reached into his vest and checked the time on his pocket watch.
None of Mirta’s other sisters seemed to be listening to anything the preacher said. All they did was nod along mindlessly, or miss his words because they were too busy telling their children to be quiet.
It was all Mirta could do not to shout out the truth. Lorenzo Escalante had never gone to church once in his entire life. He’d never even spoken of it. He’d wept when Camila went off to school. Not because he didn’t want her to be successful, but because he would miss having one of his daughters near. He loved them all deeply. Even his wife, Alma.
He was strong. He was brave. He was loyal. He was one of the finest trackers in the world. He could shoot an enemy from hundreds of yards away and the bastardo would be dead before the sound of the gunshot would reach him. He was an outlaw. He lived by a code. He was her father. He was a man. And now he was dead.
Tears came down her face and she scowled at their betrayal, swiping them away before anyone could see.
* * *
* * *
After the funeral, Alma turned the kitchen into a battleground and conscripted her daughters and their husbands and older grandchildren into service. She assembled her troops at different battlefronts, then raced between them screeching orders. The pozole needed more salt. The meat and fruit that was going into the picadillo was not chopped finely enough. Camila’s husband had taken his carro lujoso to get corn for the elote and he was still not back yet? What good was having a carro lujoso if it took so long to go get corn, Camila?
The grandchildren who were too young to help, or had been dismissed from service, played outside. They ran around laughing and screaming and fighting with one another. Mirta stayed nearby. Her mother did not miss her in the kitchen. She remained near the children and told them to stop bothering the chickens or to put up their hands to protect themselves when one of their cousins tried to hit them. She inspected their scraped knees and told them it was nothing to cry about. She yelled only when necessary.
“Está listo,” she heard her mother cry out from inside the kitchen. Everything else fell quiet at the overpowering sound of the woman’s voice. “¡Vamanos!”
The children ran into the house like they had been starved of food their entire lives. Mirta stayed back. She had no stomach to eat and even less to be around the rest of her family. She rounded up the straggling children and sent them in to wash up, then walked the fence line to make sure none of them had unlatched the gates for the chickens or any of the other animals. As she walked, she saw Hank Odell and Connor Sinclair working on the wagon they’d used to bring home Lorenzo Escalante’s body.
Connor was hammering a wheel back into place as Hank watched. “That top pin’s not straight,” Odell said.
“It’s as straight as I can get it,” Connor said.
“Take it out and reset it,” Odell said.
Connor looked over his shoulder. “Do you want to do it?”
“With only one hand?” Odell said. “What I want is for you to set the pin correctly.”
“It’s set straight!” Connor said.
Mirta bent down beside Odell to inspect the pin and said, “It’s bent.”
Connor dropped the hammer on the ground with a groan, then got up and walked away from the wagon. He folded both his hands around the back of his head and muttered to himself about how impossible both of them were.
Odell watched him go, then looked back at Mirta and tried not to laugh. “The wagon was ready hours ago, but I was afraid he’d be following you around this place like a lost puppy if I didn’t give him something to do.”
Mirta sighed. “I know I’ve been miserable toward you both the past few days. I am sorry, Mr. Hank.”
Odell put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “It’s quite all right. You just buried your father. We both understand.”
“It’s not that,” Mirta said. “It’s my mother. I hate being around her.”
“She certainly has some spirit, don’t she?” Odell said. “You have to be patient with her as well, Mirta. She just lost her husband. I’m sure she’s doing the best she can.”
“All she ever did was yell at him.” Mirta scowled. “She was cruel to him, just like she was cruel to all of us. Now she pretends to be the grieving widow and hires a man to say false things about my father now that he’s gone. I don’t want to stay here any longer.”
“All right,” Odell said. He leaned back against the wagon and looked at the house. Through the windows he could see the crowd of people jockeying for position inside the kitchen, all trying to move around one another. Alma’s voice was louder than everyone else’s, yelling for them to get out of the way. “You know, you can always come back to Edna’s Prayer with us,” he said, referring to the Sinclair ranch. “Jesse already asked you to stay. She’ll need all the help she can get to get the ranch back up and running again.”
“I will not scrub the floors and wear dresses and tie up my hair like Miss Rena,” Mirta said.
Odell laughed. “I’m sure having one Miss Rena at the ranch is plenty. No need for a second.”
; Mirta’s eyes fixed on her mother inside the house. “And you think Mrs. Sinclair would have me?”
“I know she would,” Odell said. He turned and looked at Connor, who was making his way back to the wagon. “And even if she wasn’t sure, I know of someone who would insist upon it with all his might.”
Mirta looked at Connor and her lip curled upward. He was just a boy, she thought. He had the body of a man but the mind of a boy and that was what he was. He had grown up with books to read and clothes to wear and money to buy things. Now he would inherit a ranch from his dead father.
Ash Sinclair and Lorenzo Escalante and Hank Odell had been outlaws and had nothing to leave to their children, but at least they had lived free and bowed to no one.
William and Jesse Odell Sinclair, Connor’s parents, had grown up with no prospects or money, just disreputable family names, but they’d worked their fingers to the bone and fought and struggled and endured and forged themselves into landowners and ranchers.
What had Connor done except be born into the life his parents had earned? Did she see the way he looked at her with his big, dumb eyes? Yes, what of it? Cows had big, dumb eyes too. She certainly wasn’t going to be swayed to kiss one.
A boy who was raised by parents who owned land and horses and had a team of hands to work them, who had grown up in an enormous house with servants, would never understand someone like her. They came from two different worlds.
His, where everything was given to you before you even knew you were supposed to want it.
Hers, where your only clothes had belonged to all of your sisters before you and did not fit, and when you outgrew all of the shoes your family owned, you wore your father’s boots and everyone else laughed at you.
Hell Snake Page 4
