by David Xavier
Salomon turned and slung a leg over his horse. He stepped in place and adjusted the dragoon’s pistol in his waistband.
“Your horse is wandering these canyons. Find it before the wolves do.”
Then he turned and nudged his pony along. Arturo and Marquez followed him, but Tsunipu dismounted and approached the rider. They turned to see the rider retreating on his backside with wide eyes as the indian came close. Tsunipu gripped the man by the throat and carried him with legs kicking, like a man with a puppet, to where the canyon’s edge dropped away in the wind. He threw the rider in. The man yelped once as he left the indian’s grip, but he fell in silence, facing the sky with eyes aghast, and not another sound was made until he landed. It seemed he would fall forever, as if the canyon were bottomless or continued to open further below him, until one final grunt left his lungs and came bouncing back up the rock walls in repeats.
The three of them watched as Tsunipu stepped to his horse and mounted in one movement. They kept their eyes on the indian as he walked his horse past them, his face as dead to emotion as it ever was. The indian did not look over but kept on.
They rode south out of those canyons leading their train of packed horses into the needlebed hills north of Santa Maria. Salomon led them to where limestone monoliths towered above the trees like gods and the men rode up to the base of these and dismounted as if to pay homage. They climbed among the rocks with saddlebags over their shoulders and hid part of their fortune in the hollows between stones before moving on through the hills, riding in moonlight. An owl flew overhead with muffled wings and the riders turned their heads to the naked sky as it drifted past, the only sound being that of the horses sucking dry air and the hoof thumps upon sunburnt grass.
They stopped at an overlapping of hills bare of trees but built upon by mineral columns of pale green, stacked like the large bricks of early peoples. They buried more gold here, and Arturo and Marquez sat their horses in the darkness as Salomon emerged last from the lunar-backed monuments, a moonlit golden ash rising in bursts from his clothing with each step.
“These hills must be worth millions now,” Arturo said.
“Sal must be worth millions,” Marquez pointed. “He has golden eyelashes. He could pluck those and we could sell them outright.”
Salomon looked at them a moment over his pony’s back before mounting.
“Where did Tsunipu go to?”
The two blinked and turned about glancing left and right in their saddles.
They rode into Santa Maria the three of them with a long lead of rich horses trailing. People watched them from the boardwalks as they came in with the wind behind them, some of those people leaning in to whisper rumors among themselves about the men who rode before them now with rocking shoulders and clothes matted and crusted by months of sweat and blackpowder and limestone, and bloodstains dried hard by sun and wind. Salomon removed his sombrero and it frayed in his grip, his hair cubed by the squeeze of the hatband. He blinked and looked around. When he slid from his pony in front of the cantina, dust wafted from his clothing.
A child emerged from the watchers. It was the boy with the green eyes of his mother. Salomon smiled to him.
“Vicente.”
The boy smiled in return, but turned and ran off.
Arturo and Marquez were already at a cantina table with their sombreros pushed to their backs, their horses left crowded at the hitching rail, tied one to the next with gold still on their backs. Salomon joined them and they ate hunched over their tin plates with their eyes up as people peeked in the doors and windows every so often. The barman stood watching them while drying glass mugs and placing them blindly on their shelves.
Vicente came through the bar doors and crossed the barewood floor in slapping, shoeless feet. They watched him, themselves in midbite. He stood before Salomon with his hands behind his back for a moment, then placed a fish knife with a pearl handle on the table. Salomon moved his eyes from the knife to the boy. Vicente held a high smile.
“Is this your father’s knife?”
“It is mine. I will hunt down the Americans and cut their throats.”
Arturo laughed with food in his mouth. Salomon glanced to him and Marquez and turned back to Vicente.
“You do not like Americans?”
“I have never met one. But I will find them and stab them with this knife.”
“You would go to jail and be hanged. If you killed them.”
“Then I will only kill them if they hurt my mother.”
“Your mother.”
“Yes.”
“With the green eyes.”
“Yes.”
Salomon leaned in. “Vicente. Listen to me. You must not hunt for Americans with this blade in your hands. You are the only man for your mother now, and what can you do for her if you are in jail? Or hanged dead and buried? You should stay by your mother’s side with this knife in your hands, but only by her side.”
“To protect her?”
“Of course.”
“Not to hunt them down and stab him?”
“Of course not.”
“But you hunt Americans down and shoot them.”
Salomon sat upright looking at the boy.
“You are the gold bandit, Salomon Pico, aren’t you? They talk about you and you showed me how to work a pistola when you were sleeping in the stables and they say you are a bandit who shoots the Americans who have taken California and you drop bags of gold in the church box–”
“Vicente.”
“What?”
He put his finger to his lips. Vicente stood there and watched as the men finished their meals. Arturo stood back his chair and clawed to straighten his mustache before announcing he wanted a room. The barman nodded and pointed to the stairs with a forced smile instead of words. Arturo steadied himself and went up the stairs. Marquez put his head on the table and began to snore. Salomon reached for the glass in front of Marquez and held it under his nose. He touched inside and put his finger to his tongue. He set the glass down and looked at Vicente, the boy’s tattered and thin linen shirt, his pants with holes at the knees, too short to cover his ankles. His bare feet. The child’s large eyes.
“Take me to your mother.”
The boy and his mother lived among the alleys of mud hovels where Californios without land lived close together and shared the same well water and cut the same straw for their beds. Each night they built a fire at a plaza in the center of the hovels which set the mounds to glowing. The fire crackled now in the dusk and a man crouched and reached to poke at the base of the flames with a rolled newspaper. The man looked up as Vicente led Salomon among the dwellings. Salomon nodded to the man, but the man just crouched and watched the mismatched shadows elongate aside the man and boy as they crossed in front of the fire, and he gasped and shook his fingers and waved his arm back and forth with wild eyes and patted out a tiny flame at his sleeve. When Salomon looked again, the man was gone.
Salomon stood before the hovel while Vicente went around to one of the unlit windows and pushed a crate against the wall. He climbed upon the crate and peered through the windowcracks for a time before climbing onto the sill.
“Vicente.”
The boy did not speak back but crouched low on the sill and motioned for Salomon to be silent. Salomon pointed.
“There is a front door made especially for people who are coming and going. Why don’t you use the door?”
The door opened and the boy’s mother looked out. She looked Salomon up and down, a figure in the night. Salomon did the same, dropping his head to look upon himself. He was covered in filth and stains and was wearing his pistolas under his arms.
“Vicente. Who is there with you?”
Salomon said his name. Her eyes widened and caught the light and she stepped out in the dust and whispered for her child. Vicente stepped to her with his head low.
“I wanted to give you this,” Salomon said. He held pinched a small pouch like a bubble of sand. �
�The boy wears no shoes.”
“I have shoes for him. He does not wear them.”
“Then for a new shirt, perhaps.”
“He wears through his shirts in weeks. His pants even quicker.”
“Allow me to help, señora.”
“Get inside, Vicente, and wash up. And you, stop shouting out there.”
“Yes, señora.”
Three horsemen approached from the streets of Santa Maria. Salomon turned at their hoof beats. The Mexican firemaker was running afoot in the lead. Salomon spoke without taking his eyes from them.
“They are coming for me. These men.”
The boy’s mother leaned from the door and looked at the approaching men, just figures in the dark, the firemaker’s white linen tinted a pale blue and flashed as he ran.
“How can you tell?”
“The man in front there. He was here by the fire and now he is leading riders. I think they come for me.”
Salomon took his eyes from the riders only when the boy’s mother took his hand in her’s, coming from her door in quick silence, and led him into the low-mounded, three-room adobe where Vicente now sat at a table in the flicker of candles with washed hands and face, looking to the boiling pot on the fire. His mother shut the door and blew one of the candleflames out and Salomon put his back to the wall by the door as the riders slowed and began a search among the alleys, their horses clopping over the stones and hardpacked earth. One of the riders shouted to the firemaker, who swore back that he had seen the wanted bandit. The mother stood listening on the swept tile floor.
“You are Salomon?”
Salomon looked at her.
“They are Mexican,” she said.
Salomon nodded.
“You are one of us. The priest has spoken of your deeds. Why do your own people look to collect a reward on you?”
“A reward has no loyalty.”
One of the riders dismounted and faced the hovels as his horse trotted steps away and the other riders continued to duck their horses between the alleys. Salomon could see the man through the gaps in the doorframe, the dusk and firelight playing on their halves of his face and body. The bounty hunter’s eyes went down the line of adobes and came back. The spurs on his boots sounded his approach until it could approach no further but to enter the room. The door knocked. The boy’s mother put her hand to her heart and Salomon drew his pistola and eased the hammer back. The knock came again, this time a hammering upon the door, and the boy’s mother covered her mouth.
“Open it,” Salomon told her.
She shook her head in the blurred light. The knock came harder, followed by a shake of the handle.
“Open it now.”
“Señorita Valderez.” The bounty hunter removed his sombrero when he saw her. “Forgive my disturbance. I am looking for a man who was seen in these alleys.”
“I have seen many men in these alleys.”
The man smiled. “This man, he wears pistolas in holsters around his chest. Across like this. He is said to be in need of a bath and a shave.”
“If I see him I will tell you.”
The bounty hunter stared at her unblinking. She began to close the door and he put a palm to it.
“Señorita Valderez. This man is Salomon Pico, the bandit of the gold trains. You have heard of him? He is – he is a dangerous man. I do not wish to alarm you. He is suspected with little doubt in the holdups of many men. The American government is offering large rewards for his capture.”
“His capture or his killing?”
“Either way suits them.”
“Father Benito speaks of his good deeds. What of his good deeds to his people?”
“This man is no servant to his people, Señorita. Don’t be fooled.”
“Why not? We let the Americans take our land. Take our homes. The Californios need an uprising. We need a man like Salomon.”
The bounty hunter let his hand drop. “I think Father Benito would turn him in for the reward if he had the chance.”
One of the other riders shouted from the night. The bounty hunter looked that way and put his sombrero back on, pulling the strings tight beneath his chin.
“Don’t be foolish, Señorita. There is enough reward to go around.”
He turned away and she shut the door. Salomon clicked his pistola hammer down. He walked past the señorita and sat beside Vicente. They sat looking at each other as grins grew upon their hard faces.
“What are you smiling at,” Señorita Valderez said. “Vicente. Cut it out. And you. The bandit of the gold trains. What is the reward for you?”
“I have seen a poster that said one thousand American dollars. But the drawing did not look like me.”
“What is it for? Are you a thief or a – Vicente, go wash up.”
“I already did.”
“Are you a thief or a killer?”
“Neither. I am just a man. A Californio. And you are a señorita. I have been calling you señora. I thought you were–”
“No. I am not. I have never been.”
“What is your name?”
Señorita Valderez hesitated a moment. “Marisela Valderez.”
She served supper and Salomon ate again without removing his pistolas. With each passing footsteps outside he held still with his fork halfway between mouth and plate, and listened until they were no more. When they were finished, Marisela tucked Vicente in bed and spoke in low voices behind the curtain. She emerged from the room as Salomon was reaching for his sombrero.
“You are welcome to stay the night. I have an extra blanket and you may stoke the fire all night if you like.”
“I am a hunted man.”
“Not in here you are not.”
She crossed the room and took a second pot from the coals, a large pot filled to the brim with water. Salomon watched. She poured the water into a washbasin large enough for a man to sit in.
“If you can remove your pistolas for a moment, the water is warm and you are as filthy as I’ve ever seen a man.”
Salomon looked down at himself. She motioned to the washbasin.
“The water won’t be warm all night.”
Salomon put his sombrero back on the table but did not move further. Marisela took his hand and led him to the washbasin and unbuckled the leather of his holsters. He held his arms low as she turned him and slid the leather straps off.
“I will leave them here on the floor while you wash.”
He removed his coat and placed it over a chair, and began unbuttoning his shirt. He stopped. Marisela reached out and began popping the buttons for him. She pulled at his shirttails, reaching her arms around him, and he raised his arms out of the way.
“If you move this slow the water will freeze by the time you’re in it. I might as well have thrown it out.”
She slung his shirt over the chair and stood looking at his bare skin, a shade lighter.
“What are those scars?”
“Just scars.”
She motioned to the washbasin and turned her back. He undressed quickly, keeping his eyes on the señorita as he did so. When she turned again, he stood with his sombrero covering himself.
“Well, get in.”
While he washed, she sat at the chair beside the basin and scrubbed at his shirt and coat, plunging them into the water with him from time to time. She held the coat up.
“You were in the Mexican Army?”
“Not long.”
“This might have been a sheepherders coat for all the dirt it carried. I could hardly tell it was blue.”
“I almost forgot it was.”
She looked at him sitting in the basin, moving a washcloth over his shoulders. “I could hardly tell you were a man under there too.”
Salomon looked up and moved the tiny washcloth to cover himself. Marisela shook her head.
“Don’t be so modest. I didn’t look.”
He continued scrubbing and she sat behind the basin and lathered a soap and rubbed it into his beard.
She tilted his chin up and put the razor to his throat and started his shave.
“Have you killed a man?”
His head back in her lap, he raised his eyes to her while she worked. “Yes.”
“How many?”
“More than one.”
“Why do you do it?”
“Because they keep coming.”
She continued in silence, leaning close to make no mistakes. He watched her eyes as she worked and he looked at her cheeks and mouth, still young. When his face was clean, she put the cloth to the back of his neck and Salomon let her wash where he could not see.
“Salomon,” she leaned close to him to where her lips were inches from his ear and she spoke in a soft voice. She smelled as if she wore flowers in her hair and she touched as if she were handling an infant. “Salomon, you are a good man. When Father Benito speaks of good men, it is you that he has in mind.”
“Who said I wasn’t a good man?”
“The man at the door tonight.”
“Maybe he is right. Maybe Father Benito is mistaken.”
“No, Salomon. Vicente looks up to you. He speaks about you. Children do not idolize black hearts. They can see what adults are blind to. But California is not blind. The Californios know you. That man at the door tonight is a traitor to his people. A man filled with greed.”
“No.” He turned his head to the side. “He is correct. They do not put rewards on good men.”
She traced an old scar that streaked across his back like the tunnel of some insect below the skin. “Where did you get this from?”
“Get what? Is there a scar?”
“One of many.”
“I don’t know. I didn’t know it was there.”
She tossed the washcloth over his shoulder and leaned back. “Why is it that boys never know where they got their marks from?”
“I’m no boy.”
“I know this.” She stood and pushed his sombrero on his head and pressed her hands to her clothing as she walked through the candlelight, and he watched her from the basin as she moved, stopping at her door to look back before disappearing behind it for the night. “You are good, Salomon. Vicente would not admire a bad man.”
He was gone by the time she woke the next morning. In the empty chamberpot he left a pouch of gold dust and a wildflower with white petals which she held and twirled like a tiny fan and smiled over, this bandit for his people, now here, now gone, fighting for something he would not tell of, something that remained hidden and buried within for people to guess at.
