by David Xavier
In the morning Salomon stood among the trees against the sunrise. Marquez watched from his bedroll. Salomon used to look out on his land that way. Any of his vaqueros could tell it was his wife he was thinking of, his Juana, for he would turn from this soundless state with a smile and ride to his hacienda faster than any of the experienced horsemen could ride. But today there was no smile.
Marquez swept himself from his blankets and put his hands over the dead coals. Arturo lay snoring away from the fire pit, sprawled with his chest arched as if a rock lay beneath it. When Salomon returned, one arm in a sling of torn fabric, Marquez had his hands warming over the first flames. He did not raise his head.
“I heard about your family. Your wife and son.”
Salomon did not speak.
“Huevón told me. He left the rancho when you did not return. All the vaqueros did. They thought it best to leave your cattle to roam the land on their own than to drive them elsewhere. They thought it would be stealing. Some went back to Pueblo de Los Angeles. Some moved on to other ranchos, in Baja California, where Americans do not crowd us out. I saw Huevón in Ensenada. Sitting in the shade. The men were afraid, he said.”
“Afraid of me?”
“Afraid of association. Of retaliation. You killed two Americans.”
“They stole from me.”
“They stole from you,” Marquez repeated into the fire. He remained hunched on his heels, warming his hands like some ancient cave dweller. “They stole everything a man could want in the world. Any sense of happiness a man could ever hope to find. For how does a man rebuild his life after his heart has been killed inside him? He said you let the doctor live, Huevón did. You even paid him. I am surprised you stopped when you did.”
“The doctor was there to help.”
“And yet he told the story. He turned you in. It was rumored that you were hanged.”
Salomon squatted by the flames. “News spreads quick.”
“The rumor did not last long.”
Arturo snorted and blinked in half-sleep at the talkers, his eyebrows pinched in annoyance. He soon relaxed and his eyes slowly closed, his mouth fell slack and returned to snoring.
“And now what do you do? What were you doing in Montecito?”
“We came down here looking cattle.”
Marquez looked up. “I know where to get some.”
They rode through the soft pinebeds and swaying branches of Los Padres Hills and stood at the forest edge overlooking a large rancho. Cattle loped and lazed about, speckling the ground with their color. Marquez sat double with Salomon and pointed.
“We don’t need that many,” Salomon said.
“Cut what you need. First thing I need is a horse. And you need a saddle.”
“I ride better without.”
Arturo leaned and spat. “Whose cattle are these?”
“They belong to El Flaco. I don’t know his name. His wrists are this small around. I worked for him until he sent me away.”
“What for?”
Marquez shrugged. “His daughter used to come to me in the night.”
Arturo looked at him.
“I had to lock the door but she knew how to open it. I switched bunks with other vaqueros, but she would find me in the dark. I had to take my blankets into the night and find a shadow to hide in.”
“So? He sent you away for that?”
“No.”
“Well, what then?”
“His wife came to me after that,” Marquez said. “I did not hide from her.”
Salomon nudged his horse forward. Marquez grabbed a hold of Salomon.
“Wha, hey hey hey…”
“What?”
“He will shoot me on sight.”
“Well, get down if you want.”
“And what are you going to do? Negotiate?”
“What else?”
“You will not get far talking to him.”
Salomon turned his head.
“He does not sell his cattle to other rancheros,” Marquez said.
“Well then what did you bring us here for?”
Marquez looked to Arturo and back to Salomon.
“We wait for night and take what we need.”
They crept in along the treeline and through the arroyos out of sight to where the corrals and stables lay, and the hacienda of El Flaco.
“See that light in the window?” Salomon said.
Marquez nodded. He slid off the pony’s back and slipped into the stables. After a few minutes he appeared smiling, mounted upon a great, muscled horse.
“Did you have to pick a white one?” Arturo whispered. “I could see that one from a mile.”
“This is El Flaco’s own horse, Gallito. Saddle too.”
“Hey. Come on then,” Salomon said. “Let’s get going if you’re not going to whisper.”
Marquez turned to the house and blew a kiss. “Adios Señora,” he said. “You are a fine large woman.”
“Will you shut your mouth and get on.”
In the cattlefields, the eyes glowed and hides glistened in the moonlight and cattle bawled as the strangers approached. Muted hoofs on pale grass, they culled what they needed and rode out. They drove the cattle north. At one point Salomon drove the small herd up a wide creek and came out the other side a hundred yards away. Arturo wheeled at the creek bank.
“You know a blind man could find those tracks again.”
“Well, let’s hope there are no blind men among them.”
They rode the nodding cattle through the woodland of Los Padres Hills. The cattle wound under the treeshadows like ghosts. The next day they crossed the sand swaths that suffocated the grass and growth, and rode steaming upon the grassland plains where Salomon sat his horse under a falling gray sky, rainwater pouring from his sombrero. He tore away his sling and let his arm rest at his groin. Marquez rode up alongside him.
“You must have prayed for this rain, yes?”
“What do you mean?”
“To wipe away our tracks.”
“What sort of man asks God to hide the cattle he just stole?”
“A man who wishes not to be caught.”
Only after a moment did Salomon speak. “If a man is going to pray for rain it is best to go to the grassland where it rains every afternoon.”
Days later they joined the herd with the cattle that already grazed their land at Rancho Los Alamos. Arturo dismounted and returned the bags of gold dust to the blackened hollow trunk. When they turned, Marquez was there watching. They stood looking at each other before Arturo jerked his head toward the trunk.
“I counted every grain.”
The new cattle mingled and strayed. They were too many for the rancho to feed, and Salomon let the herd spread beyond his property border.
The three men built upon the small mud hut at the center of their land. Each morning they woke to the mewing of cattle that stepped close to rub their flanks on the mud walls and nose the stick windows. Salomon ran from the hut one morning to chase a cow tugging branches from the low thatch roof.
They rode into Santa Maria often, checking in at the Land and Grant offices to see if any cattle buyers had traveled south from San Francisco. Salomon went in while Arturo and Marquez stayed outside and leaned between buildings with their faces under their hat brims.
“Don’t worry,” the short man behind the desk told Salomon. “Buyers will be along soon and you will wish you had had more time to build your herd.”
“I have no room for a larger herd.”
He did not leave, and the man looked up.
“I would like to borrow the official county stationary,” Salomon said.
“What for?”
“To draw up a receipt of sale. When the time comes. Every honest transaction has one.”
“You can use any paper. I’ve seen it carved on a stone.”
“If it is all right with you I would like to use county stationary. It is professional and a receipt will save legal trouble if lega
l trouble decides to come about.”
The man went busy at the desk drawers. He pulled a pad of blank papers and a nub of a pencil. He pushed them to the edge of the desk.
“Would you like the county stamp as well? Perhaps the signature of the deputación? It is but a few days ride for him.”
Salomon folded the stationary. “Is that customary?”
“No, it is not.”
While Marquez followed Arturo to the cantina, Salomon walked his pony to the stables where he could toss a few coins for cut oats and get his pony’s hoofs carved for less than the drinks his partners would order.
A mute man with deformed ears and a crooked face caught one coin and searched the ground for the dropped other, yowling something under his breath, perhaps unknowingly. He led Salomon’s pony to the feed trough, and while it was eating he caught its hoofs one by one at his knees and carved the wear and splits from the edges, continuing his garble with eyes lopsided.
Salomon slumped in the hay and humid odor of an empty stable and soon lay propped in the corner with his hat over his chest and one forearm behind his head. The steady carve from the deaf and mute stable man carried on like that of a boot shiner, immune to distraction, the only pause being for the switch to another hoof, and he fell into breathing along with the rhythm and soon fell asleep and lost track of time. He opened one eye.
“What are you doing?”
A small boy stood peeking through the stable slats, his face pressed in and his hands holding the slat under both cheeks. The boy did not run.
“Watching.”
Salomon nodded and closed his eye, taking in a large breath and exhaling with a hum. After a moment he opened both eyes in a squint.
“I have seen you before.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where?”
The boy pointed at Salomon with his thumb up and made the sound of a gunshot. Salomon closed his eyes and smiled.
“You got your green eyes from your mother, yes?”
“No. I always had them. Let me see your pistolas.”
Salomon raised his arms. “See.”
“Let me hold one.”
“No.”
“This is my pistola.”
Salomon opened his eyes and the boy was pointing with a curved stick.
“Does your father not let you see his pistola?”
The boy was silent. Salomon sat up, placing his sombrero on with one hand and drawing a pistola with the other. He removed the flint and tapped out the paper cartridge and held it forth. The boy discarded his stick and reached and took the pistola by the grip. His arm sank and he raised it back up with the help of the other hand. He was smiling and his eyes were big when he looked up.
“It is heavy.”
Salomon nodded. He held the paper cartridge between his finger and thumb. “This is the load. The ball is here, see? The powder is this end. See. A very smart man invented this. It used to be a man had to carry the powder and the ball with him separately. Now it is all done and ready.”
The boy was paying close attention, his mouth slightly parted. Salomon put his finger down the barrel.
“You put the load in the barrel this way. And this is the cap that sparks. It goes here, see the hole? When you pull the hammer back – that’s this thing. Pull it back. Both thumbs. Until it clicks, there – when you pull the hammer back it is ready to fire.”
“Then I pull the trigger.”
“Then you pull the trigger. The sparks ignite the powder in the cartridge, and the ball comes out so fast you don’t even see it.”
The boy held the pistola perched at his chest. He grit his teeth and blinked several times and the hammer clicked. Salomon swept a handful of straw overhead and clutched high at his chest. He fell back in the stall with his legs sprawled and did not move as the airborne straw settled about his body. The boy stuck his face in the slats. Salomon remained still.
“Hey, mister.”
Still he did not move. His breathing was steadied and slow so his chest did not noticeably rise. The boy looked around. The deaf stable-man was now brushing the pony’s coarse hair, again in a steady rhythm. The boy looked again.
“You’re not dead.”
The boy reached and placed the pistola in the straw at Salomon’s feet. He wiped his hands on his shirt and watched for another moment longer, then turned and walked to the stable doors, looking back once more.
“Muchacho,” Salomon called.
The boy ran back to the stall and peeked in. Salomon was sitting up.
“I knew you weren’t dead.”
“You did not look so sure.”
The boy nodded. “I knew.”
“What is your name?”
The boy opened his mouth to speak but a woman’s voice said his name.
“Vicente.”
They both turned to look. The boy’s young mother stood at the stable doors, her figure outlined in the sunlight. She approached quickly and took Vicente’s hand.
“Who are you talking to?”
“Just a man.”
She looked and saw Salomon sitting in the straw with his arms on his knees and his ankles crossed. The pistola was at his feet where Vicente left it. His mother’s eyes widened.
“You are not to talk to strange men.”
“I was showing him how a pistola works.”
She turned to Salomon. “My son does not need to know how a gun works.”
“It is a helpless man who does not know how to fire a weapon.”
“It is a peaceful man who does not pick up a pistola.”
“It is a dead man who does not.”
The boy looked back one last time and Salomon winked. Vicente smiled over his shoulder as he was pulled through the stable doors.
Salomon found Marquez slumped asleep over a cantina table, his sombrero fallen to hang at his back, an empty glass at his fingertips. He nudged the chair leg with his heel and Marquez jerked awake, a bushel of black curls coming alive on his head. He leaned back and crushed his hat. When he saw it was Salomon who stood over him he smiled and lowered his head to rest again. Salomon heeled the chair once more.
“Where is Arturo?”
“Arturo? Upstairs.”
Salomon looked to the stairs for a moment. He took the empty glass and held it up. There were sips in the corners still.
“How many did you have?”
“Just the one, I think. It is poison. He tried to poison me.”
“You should not fall asleep in this town.”
“Why not? There are no more brothers looking for me.”
Salomon smelled the rim and tipped the glass back, taking the final sip. He set it down with three fingers. Marquez sat swaying with fixed eyes.
“What are you doing, Marquez? You could be a top hand for any ranchero. You could be a ranchero yourself, have your own spread.”
“A ranchero? Don’t make up stories.”
“You were the best cattleman I–”
He pounded the table. “No. I would be lying to myself. Lying to myself and to the world. I belong here at this table. Here with this…drink.”
Salomon turned to leave and looked back once from the door. Marquez was leaning forward with glazed eyes. He left them there and rode out. He returned to his herd. He rode his borders. At sunset he could see the golden squirm over his land, the burnt cattlebacks moving against each other. He flexed the fingers of his hand. They were strong once again. He built another room on the mud hut. At night he would go about each small room and set at each window with his rifle cradled and watch the pale land. When the breeze picked up it brought sometimes the faint smell of the not so distant past. He closed his eyes and thought of his Juana. She came to him in glimpses, no longer in full memories. A sunlit smile here, a reaching hand there. Cradling their son in the yard, but only for an instant before that yard was bare again and they were gone, a quick flicker like flamelight in his mind.
In the daylight he rode out and found a slaughtered cow lyin
g in the heat. A brown hump in the grass with upturned legs. The other cattle gave it a wide berth. As he approached, three wolves came up on the other side of it, their teeth bared as they did not stop their feast. He pulled his pistolas and shot two at once, their skulls splitting red in a dull crack over their grins. The third wolf left the kill and ran off. Salomon followed it until he could not see the tracks from horseback, but saw its white fur trotting along a black ridge in the night. Salomon slid from his horse and pulled the rifle. He knelt with the barrel propped on a joshua limb and led the wolf. The rifleshot sounded in all directions. When the moonsmoke cleared he could see a still white patch in the black.
A week later a group of riders came in, splitting his herd as they approached. Salomon watched their approach with one eye through his rifle sights. When he recognized Arturo and Marquez in the lead he stood and propped his rifle against the rock. They were leading six riders and they came in with bright smiles.
“Gentlemen,” Arturo spoke to the men. “This is Salomon Pico, the owner of this herd. This is Mr Braddocks and his men, down from San Francisco to purchase cattle.”
Salomon’s sombrero remained low on his eyes. These men were mostly lighteyed beneath beards and slumped in the saddle. Gringos. The kind he had seen trampling across his land and coughing across his table. The kind that had passed his son around and had shook his Juana’s hands with filthy fingers.
These were not cattlemen. They wore the distinctive clothing of eastern Americans come west, dusted vests buttoned every one and neckerchiefs with the knots at their throats, flat hatbrims warped and bowed by sun or pressed up at the forehead. Their saddlebags were heavy, and Salomon could see Arturo’s eyes go to them between words.
Braddocks spoke while the other men sat slack shouldered and deadeyed behind him. He wanted meat for the mining camps, as many cattle as six men would be able to drive north. Six inexperienced men. He did not know a good number. Braddocks dismounted and staggered on unused feet. He pulled his hat off to reveal a grin.
“Been a long ride.”
Salomon nodded. Braddocks swept his hat at the firepit in front of the mud hut.
