by David Xavier
“Mind if I set awhile? I do not wish to be aboard that animal another second longer.”
He stepped about with his hands on his back.
“I aim to have a seat,” Braddocks said after a while. He grinned again. “Soon as I find my ass.”
The party dismounted and shuffled around the stones and logs at the firepit. Soon they were all seated in the dark with greasy smiles firelit and gleaming, the skewered remains of picked at meat over the flames. Salomon sat staring into the coals as Arturo told stories and the men laughed around him. Braddocks nearly fell backwards from his perch with his mouth open. He put a hand on Arturo’s shoulder.
“There’s this one fella at the Porter claim. He can’t seem to get two feet into a dig without the walls caving in around him. You watch him go in and come out a minute later covered in dirt. Skinny fella. What’s his name? Rat-looking fella.”
One of the men called out. “Jensen.”
Braddocks shook his head. “No, not – Jensen couldn’t figure which end of the shovel goes in the dirt. I mean the skinny fella. At the Porter claim. Looks like a squirrel face.”
There was a moment of silence, then one of the men spoke. “You mean Porter?”
Braddocks sat quiet. “Yeah, it is Porter. Well, hell. He’s always losing his tools in cave-ins. I sold this scrawny sumbitch a pickaxe one day and a shovel the next so he could find the pickaxe.”
He laughed like a sneeze with his mouth open and slapped Salomon on the back. Salomon looked at him.
“I should sell him some twine to tie round his chest so he doesn’t walk off without himself.”
He slapped again and Salomon stood and disappeared inside the mud hut. Braddocks blinked after him and let his laughter fade, then turned silently to the fire and sucked his teeth.
“What is the easiest way to San Francisco?” Arturo asked.
Braddocks raised an eyebrow. Marquez looked from Arturo to Braddocks and sat still, waiting.
“If a man was to go.”
“Well,” Braddocks said. “We came down El Camino Real. There are about a million ways to get lost in the sandstone that way, but it is the fastest route. Cuts hours and miles from your travels, which is why so many parties take that way. The rock walls are so tight in places you can barely squeeze by on horseback. The shadows play tricks on the sand and turn a man around. Even a trained navigator can find himself going around and again in a maze of passages.”
“El Camino Real,” Arturo repeated. “I know of it. And coming south, that is the way men follow?”
“It is the quickest by far if you know what you’re doing. It is the longest if you don’t.”
Marquez found Arturo’s eyes and both men looked away.
“I suspect we will skirt around it going back up,” Braddocks said into the fire. “We take cattle that way and we’re likely to only have only one or two to keep track of by the time we get out.”
Salomon lay openeyed during the night. The breathing outside was loud and uneven. In the morning he walked among the sleeping bodies and toed Braddocks upright into a gibberish holler. One head around the firepit rose and fell back again, another groaned.
“Morning,” Salomon said.
They stoked the fires and made coffee. Salomon threw Arturo’s saddle over a stone and pressed his blank paper against the leather and he leaned in with the pencil nub.
“What’s this?” Braddocks said.
“A receipt of sale. Every honest transaction has one.”
He wrote the sale of forty head and handed Braddocks the pencil nub. He leaned in with his tongue touching the corner of his mouth and stood grinning at the mark he made. Salomon tore the receipt and kept his half. Braddocks folded and slipped his half inside his shirt at his chest.
“Do I pay in dollars or Mexican reales?”
Salomon did not answer. He did not turn away and he did not blink.
Braddocks winked and turned, and went to his knees over his saddlebags with his back to the watchers. Arturo moved just his eyes, his head still facing the firepit. Marquez made to wander slowly off, but stood with his head turned watching. The other men with Braddocks idled about with their arms crossed, moving dirt with their toes or looking at the clouds. Braddocks looked once over his shoulder during this and stood again at last with a small bag of gold dust.
“Next time bring more men,” Salomon said when they were saddled. “You need more cattle for your camps and I have more to sell.”
“I will.”
Braddocks raised a finger to his hatbrim and swung his horse about. Salomon watched as the Americans cut their purchase from the herd and began moving them north, growing small on the grassland. He turned and Arturo and Marquez stood behind him.
“What?”
“They were carrying a lot more gold than what we took,” Arturo said.
Salomon hefted the bag of gold. “I sold them at twice their price. It makes me sick to do business with them.”
It was hours later as Salomon bathed in the creek that Arturo and Marquez rode out. Salomon stood from the water to see them riding fast together in the direction of the Americans. He ran to the mud hut with his dry pants sticking to his wet body and rode after them. They did not stop or slow, a twisting of dust ahead, and Salomon rode low on his pony, his shouts trailing behind him as he gained ground over the hills and flats. They rode in the trodden swath of hoofs and droppings left by the driven cattle, the dust and caved prints of which seemed still unsettled.
The feather of dust from the two riders became lost in the cloud ahead of it, swelling from the ground in a dusty stench of hide and sweat as the land rose and fell before him in folds, as if something godly had grasped the blanket of grass and sent a roll through the land. Salomon kicked his pony and shouted to it, his face in a grimace against falling sweat and rising earth, soon so thick ahead that he could only make out flashes of rider color amidst the veil. Gunfire momentarily broke the sound of hoofs in the dirt and sent the cattle to running, raising the sound to a quake.
He rode past a dead man facedown in the sand with blood spreading at the center of his trampled back still whirling with dust. Salomon kicked onward as the stampede pounded and roiled dirt skyward and gunshots hid inside, faint glimpses crossed before him. Another body floated by on his left, and another, until it was Arturo he came upon, reloading over a bleeding twisted body in its final heave. Arturo looked up to see Salomon in full stride, a dark haired shirtless rider on a Comanche pony. His eyes went wide and he raised his pistola and fired at the incoming indian. Salomon dropped onto Arturo as his pony rode on. They rolled twice and Arturo plunged his blade an inch from Salomon’s ear before they rolled again and Salomon caught himself on his feet, the knife in his hands now, and left him there.
Arturo sat and spat blood through cracked lips. His eyes were slits breaking through a mask of caked dust. He watched Salomon kneel over the twisted body and cut the man’s shirt buttons off in one motion.
“I thought you were an indian. What are you doing?”
“Getting my receipt back.”
He had spoken the words without looking back and as he pulled the folded paper the dead man’s hand grasped him at the wrist. Braddocks sat up with eyes white in their bleeding caves and Salomon fell back. Braddocks teeth came together in a jagged fitting and blood ran from the crevices like water through a dam about to give way, like he’d bitten his tongue when he fell, and saliva hung in strings from his lower lip as he spoke.
“We have a bill of sale.”
“It’s null and void now.”
Braddocks choked. “Go to hell, Mexican.”
He pulled a pistol from some fold in his crushed body and Salomon came forward with the knife in hand. Arturo watched as Salomon swung once from left to right, his arm moving like that of a field hand with a sickle, and Braddocks went limp, the pistol fallen from his outstretched hand. Salomon fell back in a sit as the man’s pulse died away, and he raised his face to the sky with closed eyes
as his shoulders heaved up and down over the body, his breath coming in great gasps as the ground drenched red beneath him.
He stood and pivoted, redchested and wet reeking, and threw the knife. Arturo pulled his feet in as the blade stuck in the dirt. He felt for it, moving his fingers over the powdered earth, not removing his eyes from Salomon.
Marquez rode up leading several horses by the reins. His smile fell and he dropped his eyes when he saw Salomon. He spoke to the ground.
“I could not turn away, Sal. Forgive me. I am a man filled with blackness and sin that I cannot hide away.”
“How much are they carrying?”
Marquez looked up.
“How much?” Salomon said again.
Marquez’s smile returned. “I have not looked yet.”
He dismounted and led the American horses. He leaned in over Braddocks’ body as he passed.
“God Almighty.”
“Get over here.”
Marquez did so, holding the reins as Salomon went through the saddlebags. Arturo wiped his knife and stood by as the bags of gold dust dropped at Salomon’s feet. When he was done he crouched about the litter. A dozen bags under his knees.
“What were they going to buy?” Marquez asked. “All the cattle in California?”
“There are more like them,” Arturo said. “You heard him say it. They come down El Camino Real carrying all their gold.”
“Where would it stop?” Salomon asked. “How much does a life cost?”
“An American life?”
Salomon looked up. “The lives of my wife and child.”
Arturo’s smile fell away. Salomon stood and spoke, his bare chest streaked and rancid with the tar of dust and blood like rotting skin on some undead body, jabbing a finger about before turning away.
“Burn the bodies and bury anything that’s left. I want nothing to be found. We’ll gather the cattle and sell again.”
Arturo and Marquez did not move. Salomon looked over his shoulder at them and Arturo nodded.
“You need another bath.”
They stood beside a towering fire in the night, the flames scorching much more than bodies, and the next day they kicked through the burning ashes, destroying any smoldering bones and skulls. What was left was a black scar on the grassland like a fallen star gone white to nothing. Arturo stood looking down in the center of the scar like a man who survived a lightning strike, his boots smoking beneath him.
“There’s nothing left to bury.”
Marquez looked up from the grave he had been digging. He was on his knees and just his head showed above the ground. He tossed aside a toothed rock he’d been digging with and stepped out with his hands at his lower back and his face to the prairie. Salomon was riding a dozen gathered cattle in from afar, appearing again and again over each fold, coming at them like the cavalry. Marquez sucked his teeth and dropped his head. A pile of hardware, knives and pistols, had been tossed from the bodies before burning. He toed the hot barrels and blades and bent for a machete.
“What kind of American carries a machete?”
“He probably took it from a Mexican.”
Marquez twisted the blade in the sunlight and went into a fighter’s squat to slash once across the air, holding the pose. He straightened up.
“Well, I’m taking it back. For California.”
“That is weak metal. Look at the base.” Arturo pulled his own knife, one he had made years before, the one he had used for the first time to stick a man to the wall of his metal shop. He spun it several times. “I can make one for you that can cut a bull down in midstride with one chop to its spine.”
The ground began to rumble and both men looked. Salomon had disappeared with the cattle, nothing left of him but smoker’s wisps of rising dust behind the rolls. They looked at their feet as the tremors went through their toes. The cattle came over the final roll close to them, and the two men crouched and held their blades to the dozen herded cattle that trampled past. They dodged between cattle shoulders, avoiding being stomped underhoof in a cloud of dust. Salomon rode past behind the cattle and wheeled to face the two as the drum of hoofs faded.
“When you boys are done playing we have cattle to move.”
Marquez picked up his hat and slid the machete under his belt. He scooped the hot pile of pistols and knives together and took two long strides toward his grave, tossing the hardware into the hole. He knelt and rubbed his hands on his shirt.
“A shame to throw away such a collection.”
Arturo looked down from his saddle as he passed, leading four saddlepacked horses by reins behind him.
“Toss that machete in.”
Marquez watched him go on. He pushed the mounded dirt into the hole and swept over it with his fingers. He mounted his horse and followed, leading the remaining two American horses. He came back minutes later to dismount, dig, and bury the machete.
Behind the disguise of creosote in the distance, an indian stood his horse and watched Salomon gather the scattered cattle. He saw the two men playing children’s games with knives, and watched as Salomon rode the cattle directly at them. His expression did not change as the cattle stampeded over the men. One of the men went sideways and straightened up, and the other bounced left and right on his feet. The dust cleared and the men still stood. Salomon rode off and the other two followed. The one came back and pulled a machete from his belt, jabbing it into the dirt before he knelt to dig.
Marquez patted the earth flat and compact and dragged his fingers across it, then he stood and looked down at it. He spat and nodded. When he turned for his horse the indian was standing near it, rubbing its muzzle and whispering. Marquez went to the ground and grabbed for his pistola as he sat.
The indian wore a blue cap of the Mexican Army and the blue trousers of the US cavalry. His hair waved as black ribbons over one shoulder. He was shirtless beneath a hide vest. He had to bend to the horse’s ear. When he spoke his face gathered no more emotion than when at rest, like some stone figure that found language.
“Put it away before you shoot.”
Marquez licked his lips, the pistola shaking in his hands. His voice cracked. “Get away from my horse.”
Tsunipu stared a moment, then turned to the horse once more to whisper a last word before he stepped away. Marquez looked around. The man was alone, not even a horse nearby in which he rode in on. A being to appear at will when men turned their backs. Marquez tried to gather saliva but he could not. His mouth had dried away and his tongue with it. Sweat dripped into his eyes and he fought for vision like a child looking up at the rain. The pistola then felt useless in his fingers, the workings of which became unfamiliar. Tsunipu walked to a stone, his legs snapping in long strides beneath him. He sat with his legs wide and his arms on his knees. He pulled at a long grass and chewed the end. Marquez shook the pistola at him.
“Who are you?”
“You know who I am.”
“I do not.”
“You have read about me since you were a child.”
“Who are you?”
“You have listened to the priests warn of me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I am the one you pray against.”
“You are not.” Marquez licked his lips. “You cannot be.”
“You have a god and you have his enemy.”
Marquez ceased to blink. Tsunipu opened his mouth and took the long grass again.
“You are…”
The indian nodded. Marquez’s eyes widened.
“You are…”
The wind came from behind Tsunipu’s back. It took the indian’s hair across his face, and it rippled the brim of Marquez’s sombrero. Tsunipu raised a hand and flicked his fingers and the sombrero blew off. Marquez dropped the pistola and fought for his feet, grabbing dirt and grass as an animal would, and ran into the prairie without looking back. Tsunipu sat. The corner of his mouth rose slightly as Marquez appeared again, scaling the hilly land on hands and fee
t.
The indian gave a short whistle, the sound of an unknown bird of another world. A black horse rose huge and gleaming from behind the rolls.
They rode together and caught Salomon and Arturo, who had discussed going back for Marquez at one point, but agreed it was a waste of time. He would be kneeling over the grave of pistols, contemplating whether to leave or to take, and would come along after. Both men sat still their horses and watched as this indian approached alongside Marquez, dwarfing him to a childlike presence. They flexed their fingers but stopped short of reaching for their pistolas. The American horses stepped about and tugged at their reins as the indian came closer. Arturo gave the reins a yank.
When they rode up, no man spoke. They all watched the indian. Tsunipu ignored their eyes and looked ahead at the small plodding cattle herd. He moved forward without a motion or word to urge his horse onward, and he split the herd and rode far ahead. The men watched him to shrink to nothing on the land, then looked at each other and kicked their horses forward.
At the Rancho Los Alamos the herd rejoined the cattlefields at a lope into the dark. The indian was already crouched with his hands in the firepit, seemingly summoning flames from his fingertips. Salomon slid from his pony and slapped his sombrero against his leg. Marquez and Arturo remained mounted. Salomon looked up at them.
“Get down.”
Arturo and Marquez looked at each other, the whites of their eyes reflecting the last of the light, and Salomon turned to them again.
“Get off those horses.”
Flames leapt from Tsunipu’s hands and grasped at the kindling, climbing with red arms. The men sat at the far side of the fire, on the edge of their stones. Salomon ducked into the mud hut momentarily, appearing again with a comal to place upon the fire. The men leaned back as Tsunipu stood to his full height. In one step he escaped the flickers of firelight and faded into the night. The men sat and listened for a while but there was nothing to hear.
“We will be lucky he does not scalp us in our sleep.”
“No,” Salomon said, staring out at the darkness. “He had that chance on me once already. I don’t think he would wait for a second time.”
