by Win
The old man shrugged. “‘I didn’t find any meaning,’” he said. “The man who gave it to me, I told him I couldn’t figure it out. He said, “Me neither. I thought maybe you was smarter than me.”’
Hannibal let a moment pass, laughing at himself. “I said to the old man, so you were kind of tormenting me.’
“He said, ‘Sí, just like you will torment the next fool.’
“‘One day will someone win this game?’
“‘Oh yes,’ said the old gentleman, ‘the wise man who says, “I don’t analyze life, I just live it.”
“Now the old gentleman lit his pipe, and looked at me through the flame. ‘But maybe this wise man, I think, he will keep the kaleidoscope because it makes pretty things.’”
Coy howled into the dark night.
The night yelled back. “Hello the camp!”
Sam jumped up. He started to reach for his pistol and then thought, I know that voice.
“Hello the camp!”
“Hello yourself.”
Tomás rode straight up to the fire. And on Vici. Sam wanted to hug him. He said, “Looks like you got a story to tell.”
“More than one.” He turned back and said, “Come out of the dark so they can see you.”
Baptiste Charbonneau came up on his mount, and behind him an unknown woman.
“Mr. Sam Morgan,” said Tomás, “Mr. Hannibal MacKye, meet Grass, who is my fiancée.”
55
“Tell us everything,” Sam said. “This beautiful young woman, Vici, everything.”
“I’ll translate,” said Baptiste. “Grass is a Comanche, has made barely a start at English yet.”
“It would be easier to tell stories,” said Tomás, making a face at his cup, “over better coffee.”
Sam grinned at him. He was glad to see his son.
“Let’s see.” Tomás’s voice was a pretend shrug. “My horse? The Blackfeet take him from Mr. Sam Morgan, Tomás takes him back.”
Sam gave him a mock evil eye.
So Tomás launched into the telling about Vici first, and the story was one big brag. How he and Baptiste slipped off with Old Bill, fooling Sam. How Tomás spotted Vici and stole him back, got caught, and was rescued by Baptiste. How they quit Old Bill and went hunting for Lupe and Rosalita. Walkara told them, maybe Bent’s new fort. Since Walkara wanted to see it, they joined up and rode over the mountains to the headwaters of the Arkansas and followed that river all the way to the big house the Bent brothers built.
“You should see the fort,” said Tomás, “it is incredible. Right on the Santa Fe Trail and immense. A huge courtyard surrounded by two stories of rooms, stables, a corral….”
While Tomás talked, Sam quietly checked out the girl. She was very striking and very sexy. Probably Tomás felt like a lightning-struck tree.
“Civilization in the wilderness,” said Hannibal. “First American Fur’s big castle on the Missouri, now this one.”
Sam wanted to sound like he’d been listening. “Guess everybody will be going there.”
“We even,” Tomás said, “sort of found Pegleg Smith. I don’t fortheget him for a minute. Walkara, he teases with you, Mr. Sam Morgan, me, all of us the whole time. He says, ‘They went to rendezvous. They went to Bent’s Fort.’ All the time he knows they are in the opposite direction.”
Sam looked at him quizzically.
“Pegleg and some Utes went to California to steal horses and bring them back to Taos.”
“Walkara played us along the whole time?” Sam was chuckling.
“The son of a bitch,” said Tomás. “When we find Pegleg, Mr. Sam Morgan, my sisters better be with him.”
Sam noticed that Grass was staring off into the darkness. Probably bored by talk about people she didn’t know. “Grass,” he said, and Baptiste translated, “we are glad to have you with us. How did you and Tomás get together?”
Tomás plunged in immediately. Grass said not a word, though she seemed intent on everything Tomás said. He told about the first time he saw her, how he impressed her with the circus riding, their electric union that very night, the courtship enforced by her father, the offensive offer to sell her to Tomás…
Clearly Tomás was infatuated. Grass’s gaze on Tomás was intense. Sam wasn’t sure what it meant. Perhaps adulation. And she looked like she ached to touch him, which would have been terrible manners.
The story of how Tomás abducted her was dramatic, and Sam was glad Grass had been plenty willing. Then, suddenly, he heard the story of the sentry Tomás had to kill. The tone in the youth’s voice was pride, plus something Sam couldn’t read.
They talked for another hour. For whatever reason Tomás always called his father “Mr. Sam Morgan.”
“Time for bed,” Tomás said, with a hot glance at Grass. No doubt he felt good, being the only man of four to have a woman to warm his blankets.
When Sam rolled up in his blankets and buffalo robe, he had trouble getting warm. The night was bitter. These days fatherhood didn’t seem heart-warming either.
56
“I want to stay here,” said Grass.
Sam didn’t care for the whine in her voice, but her Spanish was coming along fast.
Tomás said, “We must go to mass. This is the day to honor the Holy Innocents.”
“I rather be with Xeveria,” said Grass.
They were standing in front of the cantina where Xeveria worked, Tomás and Grass, Sam, Hannibal, and Baptiste. This was the plaza of the town Fernandez de Taos, three miles down the creek from Taos Pueblo.
“I have to work,” said Xeveria, coming up. “You go on. I wish I could go to mass today.” She looked sideways at her older brother, Gabriel. “But the boss…”
Tomás took Grass by the hand and led her toward their horses. She gave a last glance back at their friends.
“They’re lucky,” said Hannibal, “they get to ride.”
Villagers were flocking up the road to the mission on foot. Though both the town and pueblo had churches, one priest, Antonio Martínez, served both, and he would celebrate this feast day’s mass at the pueblo’s church.
Sam, Hannibal, and Baptiste took an outside table, for the winter day was mild, and this place sat on the north side of the plaza in the sun. Coy curled up next to Sam, and Xeveria took their order.
“You suppose Grass knows Tomás spent the whole last year fantasizing about Xeveria?” asked Hannibal.
“I doubt it.” Sam watched the waitress walk away. “I can see why.”
“That woman,” Hannibal said, “the way she smiles and wiggles and wiggles and laughs, you forget she’s not beautiful.”
“Many a mountain man,” said Baptiste, “has forgotten she’s not beautiful. Or so I hear.”
Coy gave a little yip.
Xeveria’s background was murky. Rumors said she’d been married, gone to Santa Fe, and come back alone. Her brother owned this cantina, and she helped make it popular with the Americanos. Now they shared a low adobe house, and Xeveria’s part had its own entrance, said to be well used.
“Funny how the Mexicans and Taoseños are way different,” said Sam, “except they both go to that mission.”
San Geronimo had stood at the pueblo for two centuries, and Sam thought it was extraordinarily beautiful. This Mexican village a couple of miles down the creek, Fernandez de Taos, was new, and unappetizing to the eye.
“Oh profane plaza here,” said Hannibal in a silly way, “sacred plaza at the mission.”
Xeveria brought their orders, for Sam and Hannibal café and biscoche, a delicious local biscuit, and for Baptiste Taos lightning. As she walked away, she made her skirts swirl.
Hannibal went up, “Up there they drink communion wine, which purifies their souls. Down here we drink Taos lightning, which leads us into sin.”
“Here’s to sin,” said Baptiste. They all clinked their cups.
This cantina was a good spot to watch the coming and goings of the feast day. Almost all the New Mexicans
were at the mission. Sam eyed a few women as they walked across the square carrying jugs of water on their heads.
“Classic grace,” said Hannibal.
Paloma has been gone for eight or nine months, thought Sam, and I haven’t looked at a woman that way since.
Feast days, immediately after mass, turned into market days. Even now sellers laid out their blankets and arranged their wares. Here was a family from Picurís Pueblo, the husband with a hat made of aspen leaves. From San Ildefonso had come a man with a load of pottery jars for sale. An Apache wearing gaudy earrings displayed beaded belts and beaded moccasins artfully on a blanket.
In an hour or so, when the priest said the last words, people would flood from the plaza of the sacred to the plaza of the profane. Women would buy bright baubles. Children would play. Men would smoke their cornhusk cigarillos and gamble away their wages. People would gossip and laugh.
Tonight would be even better. The women would powder their faces with pale lavender, wrap themselves in their rebozos, wear their flashiest necklaces, earrings, and bracelets, and hang heavy crosses between their breasts. Men would cover themselves up to their mouths in their serapes. Musicians would tune their instruments. And all would converge on the plaza and turn a lazy New Mexico afternoon into a wild fandango.
The mountain men didn’t care about the mass, but they felt damn perky about the party.
“What’s the name of this fiesta again?” asked Sam.
“Feast of the Holy Innocents,” said Hannibal.
“What’s that mean?”
“The story goes, King Herod found out about Jesus from the three wise men, and he ordered all male infants in Bethlehem under two years old killed. Those are the holy innocents.”
“Didn’t want to take any chances,” said Baptiste with a sly smile.
“It’s all right with me that Tomás believes these things,” said Sam, “but he drags Grass along too.”
“Hell, Grass has gone to mass four days in a row,” said Baptiste. “More than I’ve gone in five years.”
Sam couldn’t remember the names of the saint’s days that came in a row after Christmas, which his son called the Nativity.
Suddenly Old Bill Williams stood above them. He was still tall as a scarecrow on a pole, and just as disheveled, but he’d found a hat that didn’t let his graying red hair poke out the top.
Coy growled.
“Sit down, Bill,” said Sam, “and ease the crick in the coyote’s neck.”
He did. Then he looked at them with a bright gleam in his eyes. “Buy me a whiskey, and I’ll tell you something you want to know. Want to know bad.”
“I’ll buy you a drink on general principles, Bill,” said Hannibal. He signaled to Xeveria. She brought Old Bill his drink, leaned down to rub Coy’s head, and threw Sam a smile that seemed to be just for him. Hannibal gave Sam a knowing look.
Bill made them wait until the whiskey was in his gullet. Then, in a low and conspiratorial voice, he said, “Pegleg Smith just came in with about a hundred Californy horses. He’s camped right down where the creek hooks hard left.”
“Where in hell is he?” yelled Sam.
He’d sent Baptiste to the mission after Tomás—at least they knew where he was. Sam and Hannibal were looking for Joaquin. They’d assumed he’d be sleeping it off in the rooms they rented and, unfortunately, let him use. But he wasn’t there. Maybe he’d sobered up enough to get interested in a woman.
“Joaquin!” Sam hollered.
Why in hell, today of all days?
Sam barged into Young and Wolfskill’s store, Coy at his heels. Ewing Young, a big man, measured them from behind a counter.
“You seen Joaquin?”
“Every barkeep in town has seen him,” said Young, “no telling which one last.”
Sam banged out the store.
Hannibal came out of another building.
“Any luck?” called Sam.
“No.”
Tomás and Baptiste came roaring through the street on their mounts. Grass rode behind them, but without the hell-for-leather enthusiasm.
“Tomás!” called Sam.
His son ignored him, and Baptiste followed Tomás.
Grass reined up and tied her horse at the cantina. Coy trotted down to her.
Sam clomped into another street of low, windowless adobe houses, cursing.
Coy sent up a flight of yips.
“Coy,” called Sam from a block away, “come.”
Instead the coyote sent up a whole herd of yips.
What the hell is wrong with him? Sam stomped toward the plaza. Coy trotted a few feet and out of sight. When Sam got there, Coy was lying next to Joaquin, who was talking to the Apache selling belts and moccasins.
“Joaquin, let’s go!” said Sam.
Lupe’s husband kept talking to his new friend.
Sam grabbed a hand and jerked him to his feet.
“¿Que-e-e?” said Joaquin.
“Lupe,” said Sam, “Lupe’s here.”
Sam got him up behind the saddle on Paladin, and they dashed for Pegleg Smith’s camp, Hannibal and Coy on their tails.
Pegleg looked straight into the muzzle of Tomás’s rifle, and his eyes said he wasn’t going to tolerate it. Sam noticed Pegleg’s rifle leaning against a cottonwood, just out of reach. Baptiste stood off to one side, the butt of his rifle on the frozen ground.
“Tomás,” barked Sam.
Coy barked too.
“Tomás, put that rifle down.”
The youth didn’t budge.
“Easy, Pegleg,” said Sam, “there doesn’t need to be trouble here.” Which felt like a lie.
Lupe stood in front of the lodge flap, and Rosalita was halfway out, blocked by her sister.
“Tomás, put that damn thing down.”
Joaquin mooned at Lupe from behind Sam.
Walkara strode up with several Utes, eyeballing the situation.
“Brother-friend,” said Pegleg in the Ute language, “I need your help.”
Instantly, Walkara pointed his rifle at Tomás. All the Utes did the same.
Tomás quivered. His barrel bobbed like he was going to turn it toward the Utes, then it quickly refocused on Pegleg.
Sam launched himself and shouldered Tomás flat.
The Celt, left standing, arced toward the earth. Hannibal grabbed it.
When Tomás hit the ground, the hammer of his muzzleloader snapped.
KABOOM!
White smoke surrounded Tomás’s head.
Sam turned a tackle into an embrace.
Gradually, the smoke cleared. Tomás’s black hair was gray. His face was white. As far as Sam could tell, nothing was red.
No one around seemed to be shot. Maybe Tomás’s ball had killed nothing but weeds.
Hannibal said to the Utes, “I ask you to lower your guns.” His tone said, ‘I’m only going to ask once.’
They did.
“You son of a bitch!” Tomás yelled into his father’s face.
Sam held him tight, half from love, half to keep him from attacking his father or someone else.
“You ass!” Tomás elbowed him hard.
Sam climbed right on top of him and held on until Tomás stopped wiggling.
Coy lifted his leg on a bush.
After a few moments Sam and Tomás got up slowly.
Sam looked at Pegleg and knew that he and his son didn’t have long in this camp. Pegleg had his rifle in hand now, though all weapons were pointed at the ground. Pegleg had called Walkara “brother-friend.” Sam’s side was outnumbered.
“Hello, Lupe,” he said. “Hello, Rosalita.”
“Hello, Sam.” Their smiles were tremulous.
“Pegleg, I’m sorry for the ruckus. We’ve been looking for these women for months.”
Tomás snarled, “You enslaved me sisters…”
Sam turned and clamped one hand over Tomás’s mouth and the other one behind his head, firmly. He looked hard into the young man’s eyes.
He whispered, “Shut up or you’ll get yourself killed.”
Sam turned back to Pegleg. “Can we talk about these women?”
“What right you got to say words about my wives?” said Pegleg.
Your wives!
Sam gave Tomás a look of warning. Not that this one will do any more good than the others.
Wives! That was a horse of a different color.
Sam remembered how tough this man was. He was said to have amputated his own leg.
“There’s a story behind this,” Sam said. “I ask a favor. Will you let me tell it?”
“¿Porque?” said Lupe. “No importa.” Why? It doesn’t matter.
Sam tried to suss out this situation. He sure didn’t see any wife rushing to Joaquin to greet her long-lost husband. Lupe and Rosalita stood behind Pegleg like they were backing him up. “May I tell the story?”
“You don’t have a whole of rope here,” said Pegleg.
Sam told briefly how Tomás, Lupe, and Rosalita had been slaves who came to Rancho de las Palomas, and were freed. How they adopted each other as brother and sisters. He left out the part about them getting married in a big ceremony at the church. Instead he told how the Navajos stole them from their husbands, he and Tomás found out about it, and for eight or nine months now they’d trekked from Santa Fe to high on the Siskadee and all the way to Bent’s fort, trying to find Tomás’s sisters and rescue them. He said nothing about Joaquin, nothing about the unborn child.
Not that there was an unborn, not any more.
“You’re talking about my wives,” said Pegleg. His voice rasped with anger.
Lupe piped up, “I am with this man now. He is the one I love. He is good to me. And he is rich.”
Lupe apparently didn’t need to add to that.
Joaquin burst out, “Querida, I love you.”
Lupe laughed. “What? You old drunk? Even now you barely walk or talk. You love only booze.”
“Querida…”
Lupe stepped forward and slapped him hard. “You think I forget how you hit me?”
Joaquin stumbled backward, tripped over a root, and fell flat on his back.
“You hit me.” She advanced and kicked him. “There, this is my revenge. You deserve it.” She kicked him again. She laughed. “Kicks instead of kisses, like you gave me.”
