by David Xavier
Salomon – Part Two
David Xavier
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The hills carried him ascending and sinking like waves, and he rode with his head hanging, crossing sand and forest. When he brought his head up to squint through the pinetops, he did not know which way the overhead sun would fall. His lips were charred and bleeding, and fading water spots clouded his vision in every direction through eyes slit like that of an ancient. His cheeks and chin peeled under a slight beard. His mouth fell open and he blinked about, his doggish tongue at his lips. His pony took the way and he sat wavering and let it.
For days he had eaten roots and berries, cactus fruit and insects. He sat with his knees at his shoulders and picked at ants. He chased grasshoppers. He drank from cut vines. He slept wherever he fell.
His pony found water in a granite saucer under piñon shade, a small drink surrounded by dried mineral rings. Salomon slid from his pony’s back and staggered and knocked his sombrero sideways to the ground. On his belly at puddle’s edge he wet his lips and tongue, and when his pony muzzled him he rolled to his back and let it take the remaining water. Treetops scratched the scattered clouds scrolling at their fingertips. He closed his eyes and woke again with his cheek against the granite, not knowing the time spent. His pony idled nearby. He lay blinking.
A tarantula climbed the shaded granite edge one hooked leg at a time and scuttled on pins to the saucer’s edge, large enough to straddle the drying edges where the pool had been. Salomon lifted his head.
“No water left.”
He drifted a bent finger across the rock face and touched the spider’s abdomen. The tarantula tensed and raised a foreleg.
“But there will be. Again.”
He put his finger out again but the tarantula crawled away, lingering on the rock cusp before reaching over.
“There will always be again.”
By midafternoon they left the saucer and found others. A handful of antelope eased across the prairie, walking as if the earth might fall away beneath each step, and he watched with one eye from forest’s edge, balancing the miner’s rifle in a crutch of thin pine branches. He squeezed the trigger and staggered with ringing ears, a hoop of black smoke rolled away like a smoker breathing circles. The pine crutch had snapped and the rifle barrel bounced up and swung low. A bird flew off and his pony shied and stepped away. Salomon scratched his earhole and looked at the rifle in his hand.
“Damnation.”
He squinted through the gunsmoke to the prairie. The antelope were long gone, a tan lump in the grass left behind. He licked his lips. His horse nickered and he looked over. He nodded to the field.
“Know him?”
The horse turned away with a blink.
Salomon rode into dusk with the butchered flesh at his lap, drying steaks between cut hands of pine boughs. A strip of antelope hide dangled from his pony’s mane like a belt. When it dried he would make a strap for his rifle. His pistolas stuck out from his waistband on both sides of his hips and the pouch of paper cartridges and percussion caps hung opposite the pouch with the gold nugget, tied by twine. A dry water-bladder lay across his pony’s hindquarters.
He found a scratch-out in the hillside and built a fire against a stone oven. He cooked the steaks and moved away to a new spot, carrying with him a bark plate of coalsparks. On another hillside he rebuilt his fire and huddled over the meat, staring into the fire chewing.
Days later he was walking alongside his pony under the pines when it stopped. He urged it forward, but it would not move. A voice came down on him.
“Hey.”
Salomon looked up at the pines, circling with his rifle in his hands.
“Hey.”
He searched the ground and looked back up at the pines. “Hey, what?”
There was silence.
“Hey, what?”
“Just hey.”
There was a rustling and a footfall on the shed needle floor. Salomon circled again and saw an old man approaching dressed in heaps of hide rags, scraps he’d collected here and there, one on top of the other. His feet were wrapped in buffalo skins. He came near and clambered a rock and perched stinking on it like a buzzard, one eye bigger than the other, his jaw twisted beneath a frazzled beard. He wore a hat of twigged leaves. He pointed.
“Who are you?”
“Who are you first?”
The old man shrugged. “I am nobody, my friend.”
Salomon looked away, nodding. “That’s me, too.”
“You going to people?”
“Eventually.”
“I am not. I am not ever going to people.”
“How long have you been out here?”
The old man scratched at a louse. “Longer than you.”
“I’d say so.”
The man gripped his beard and pulled. “It was longer. I cut it.”
“Which way is people?”
The old man cast his hand out in all directions and squinted his small eye smaller. “Every way. Every way is people. Gold people.”
“Gold people.”
“Gold people,” the old man nodded. He lifted a hide flap on his body and showed a pouch of sorts dangling on a string beneath it. He fondled at the opening and held up what was inside. “Gold people.”
“Where’d you get that?”
“From gold people.”
“Stole it?”
The old man smirked and palmed the nugget. He hefted it once and tossed it. Salomon caught it and squatted with the rifle butt to the ground, looking at it.
“Go on, bite it.”
“I don’t need to.”
“Go on, keep it, then.”
“Keep it? It’s a big one.”
The old man waved. “Keep it.” He patted his hide clothing and winked.
“Are you rich?” Salomon asked.
“When I feel like it I will be. Until then I’m just heavy.”
“You steal these or find these?”
“I find them.”
“Find them on gold people, maybe.”
The old man grinned and winked again.
“Which way to Monterey?”
The man looked up and around and floated his finger, bearing in like a compass point. He jabbed. “That way.”
Salomon mounted his pony and swung about, the rifle across his lap. He tossed one of the antelope steaks and the old man caught it with trembling open hands and wide eyes. Salomon sat as the old man went to gnawing at it with missing teeth. He had it angled for his molars.
He came upon a village in the treed flatlands, a scattering of mud huts with thatch roofs, a communal water well with a post dangling a bell nearby, an adobe building rising low with rounded holes unevenly pocked in the walls every few feet. Beyond that were tidy rows of greenleafed corn. Salomon watched the crops sway for a time but no heads popped up.
A matted stray dog appeared and yawned. Half-naked children assembled and followed with their hands behind their backs as he rode in. They followed him to the well where he ladled from a hanging bucket. His horse nudged him and he set the bucket down and stepped away with just the ladle to drink from. The children squatted nearby with their arms propped on their knees, their curious faces, eyes that had seen plenty of travelers but each one new. Salomon touched his sleeve to his mouth.
“Where are your fathers?”
The children blinked. Salomon eyed them over another ladle. One of the children stood and pointed.
“Ciudad Diablo.”
In the far distance s
at the quaking white squares of a larger pueblo, a church steeple, a row of thatch-roofs.
“Where are your mothers?”
They did not answer. He took another sip and dropped the ladle in the bucket and put his hands on the stone well and leaned on it with staggered legs like a man trying to push something, his head down, eyes closed. A hand grasped his fingers and he opened his eyes. One of the children was tugging at him.
Inside a mud hut he sat on the floor near a brick kiln while a woman served him a plate of tortillas and beans and a bowl of hominy and tripe. When he finished he remained seated and she spooned more in his bowl. He stopped chewing and looked at her.
“I have antelope steaks. I can repay you.”
The woman said nothing, but placed a clay gourd of broth at his feet, which he drank without pause when he took it up, two hands on it. The child looked on, smiling when Salomon finally took a breath. When he was done the woman covered his shoulders with a blanket warmed and smoked by the kiln. She led him to a bed in the corner. He was too tired and the bed too soft to refuse, and his eyes faded out facing the wall.
Juana came to him in sleep, pictures of his deceased wife floating up one after the other. They bathed in the river together, their heads and shoulders above the cool water. In their hacienda, he lay propped behind her, nuzzled against her neck beneath the light of fresh linen, his arms crossing around her and her smiling up at him. She sat on his lap in the yard and watched the sunrise, her arm around his shoulders, her belly rising with each breath. She stood against the sky and twirled in the sunrays with their child held up, smiles on both their faces.
He woke to a man’s voice arguing, his shadow on the mud wall. Salomon swung his legs down in time for the man to grab him by the collar and yank him out of bed and jaw. The woman stood holding her child against her in the corner where the kiln glowed. Salomon caught a glimpse of them. The man dragged him outside, blankets trailing, and threw him from the door.
From the dirt he saw figures on all sides of him, looking down on him. A bonfire crackled in the village center and put them in half-light. They were ragged farmers wavering on their feet, slurring their words. The man stepped over him and pulled a knife. He had shucked his shirt since he had tossed him, and he stooped ugly and shiny over him with the blade between their faces. The man grabbed Salomon by the hair and yanked his head back, sticking the blade to Salomon’s throat when a voice stopped him. The man looked up, holding Salomon in place. The voice called out again and the man dropped him and stepped back.
Salomon gathered himself to a knee. The watchers stood by. The offended man was pacing in front of the figures, tossing his arms up in a puppetshow. He threw his knife into the dirt. Salomon touched the sting at his neck and sucked his finger. He spat and charged the man, a flashing figure in the firelight, taking the man tumbling underfoot in a tangle of arms and rising red dust. They struggled a short while before Salomon held the man’s head in both hands, hammering it down like a stone. Each time he lifted the man’s head it was matted more with wet dirt. It lasted no longer than a few seconds. He was yanked off and dragged twirling by a rope, a quick glimpse of faces, all looking at him, and then the figures and village left behind in the firelight, until all was dark around him and all he heard was the hoof beats pulling the rope and the swish of the dry grass as he slid over the top.
The hoofs went to splashing as they crossed a shallow stream, then back to pounding. The rope went slack and Salomon pushed himself coughing from the ground, half blinded by dust. He stood swaying and tugged at the rope around his chest and fell hard into a sit. He was still struggling when a pair of hands ripped the rope away and left him stinging in the darkness, hoofs dying away.
The white squares from the distant pueblo were close now. He was at the noisy edge of it. The church steeple rose fiery into the night. The streets were littered with shattered glass and several drunks. A horse trotted aimlessly, a stray dog licked at something in the dirt. A piano played somewhere.
His pony appeared from the night behind him, his sombrero on its head. A boy slid from the pony and scampered away into the grass, back to the little village. Salomon called out thank your fathers for their hospitality, and the footsteps paused a moment before continuing.
Salomon rode in. Ciudad Diablo, the child had called it. Men with low eyes watched him from where they sat with legs dangling from the boardwalks. Other men staggered the boards and street and women draped in shawls stood in doorways. Figures played in the orange glows of tent walls. A dog yelped somewhere, and somewhere else that piano still played. Three men sat teetering on the hitching rail with bottles in their hands, slurring their words. Their sombreros touched and folded over each other as their heads bobbed. Salomon tied his pony and went for the door.
“You farmers don’t go in here.”
Salomon turned. The man had a patch over one eye, a black eyepatch compressing a white bandage underneath. It covered most of his face.
“I’m no farmer.”
Salomon lifted his head so the light hit his face. The man blinked his one eye.
“No, I guess you’re not. I thought you were, coming across the creek the way you did. The farmers play in the other cantina. Across the street.”
“I’m no farmer.”
“But if you were. Over there.”
One of the other men spoke up. “Where’d you get an indian pony like that?”
Salomon looked at the pony and back to the teetering three. “From an indian.”
The man smiled. “What’s your name?”
“What’s it matter?”
“What’s it not matter? Just being friendly.”
He paused before answering. “Salomon. Pico.”
“Salomon Pico,” the man repeated.
Salomon stood there. The men did not speak. They stared back at the stranger with dumb smiles and slow blinks. The far sitter tipped his bottle up and fell backward, his feet in the air. The other two forgot about Salomon in laughter, and when the fallen man did not stir behind them, they stepped down and crouched to jab at him. Salomon went in.
There were few men playing cards at tables. Most were drinking and shouting about something. At one table the sitters were pushing a notepad between them, taking long looks at it before passing it on. Other tables sat in shadow where women sat on men’s laps.
“How far is Monterey?” Salomon asked the man behind the bar.
The man served him a drink without prompt. “Not far. That way.”
Salomon lifted the glass. “What is this place?”
“You come in from far or something?”
“Where is this?”
“You are a Californio, yes?”
Salomon paused before the glass touched his lips. He lowered it slightly and looked at the barman. The barman spread his arms on the bar and leaned in. “This is Villa de Branciforte.”
“Devil Town,” Salomon said. “A child told me that.”
An old man looked over from his slouch at the bar edge. He turned on his stool, his hands shoved under his arms.
“Devil Town?” the barman laughed. He nodded. “Yes. Devil Town.”
Salomon turned and leaned back against the bar, his glass in hand. The old man at the edge had moved closer. He leaned in close and hit every hard consonant.
“You are looking to go on to Monterey?”
“No.”
“Then why ask for it?”
“So I can go past it.”
The old man shook his head. “You don’t want to go to Monterey. Not now. It is not how it was for us. You cannot walk across the street without bumping into gold hunters.”
“I am going past it.”
“You don’t want to go north.” The old man leaned in. “The smart man goes south today.”
Salomon looked at his glass. He held it up for a moment. “Why do you spit when you talk?”
The old man leaned in closer, his shoulders curved and his chest pulled inward, his hands still tucke
d like a man wearing a strait-jacket. “Every American goes to Monterey. To San Francisco. To Santa Cruz. We don’t want to go there.”
“My brothers live in Monterey.”
“Not for long they won’t. Americans are digging up their land. You will find they are. I haven’t seen one yet that didn’t carry a shovel. Soon California will be fifty feet under. You will have to climb just to see what time of day it is.”
Salomon took a drink.
“The smart man goes south. There are other ways to make money, better ways than finding gold.”
“Then go do it.”
“I am too old.” The man bounced on springy feet at Salomon’s face. “I would break my back to pieces.”
Salomon looked at his glass again. He set it on the bar and pushed it away. He rubbed his eyes.
“The smart man sells cattle to the camps. A ranchero is richer than a gold miner.”
Salomon looked at him. The old man nodded.
“A ranchero sells a thousand head to the hungry miners. The miners find little gold but they keep digging, keep working up an appetite. The ranchero brings more cattle. Any gold the miner finds he uses to continue the search. Meanwhile the ranchero goes home with all the gold and comes back for more. There’s money to make for the man who knows how to make it. The smart man goes south.”
Salomon turned to the bar and leaned on it. After a while he shook his head.
“Where is a good place to sleep?”
“Sleep?”
“Yes.”
The old man put his hands on the bar and blinked.
“Nobody here sleeps.”
Salomon stepped outside and found a man circling the Comanche pony in a crouch. The pony was toeing in place, readying to kick if the man stepped in range. The three drunks had lowered themselves from the rail to the ground. They stood close by with mason jars half-filled with beer in hand, watching the standoff between the man and horse without expressions. When they saw Salomon they straightened up. Salomon spoke from the door.
“What are you doing?”
The man spoke over his shoulder, not taking his eyes off the pony. He held his hands low.
“I’m taking those pouches on this pony. And that rifle slung there.”
