Skye thought he would be starved, but found himself sipping slowly, all appetite gone, wanting only the solace of sleep. His kind host understood, ate quietly, and did not press conversation upon this man who had escaped death that very day.
Skye nibbled, struggled to stay awake, and stared out the dark windows, where the breezes of Santa Fe filtered in.
And there, sitting on the sill, was the monkey, peering directly at him, waiting for recognition. Skye startled, but the monkey was already gone, swinging easily into the night.
forty-two
There was no time for tears. Standing Alone threw a blanket around Little Moon, even as they hustled the girl away from the plaza, into the darkness of the street called San Francisco, and then the street called Galisteo, and then to the riverside street called Alameda.
There the night was so thick one could scarcely see. A little moon, only a silver sliver of itself, hung low, throwing no understanding on anything.
But at last they paused. The fat white man was puffing. Victoria of the Crows was beside them, guiding the girl. Standing Alone turned her child to her. She was a woman now, not a girl, thin, sad-eyed, but whole. The girl had scarcely spoken, but now she clutched her mother’s arm.
“Nah koa, nah koa!” she cried. My mother, my mother.
So she remembered the tongue of the people. Standing Alone feared that she might have lost it after four winters of speaking the Spanish tongue.
“We have come,” she said. “We will take you to the People. There will be great joy among us.”
The girl, at last, trembled, and Standing Alone knew the tears would well up soon, but there was so much to learn.
“Are you sick, Little Moon?”
The girl sighed.
“Are you a maiden? Did you wear the rope?”
“They do not know the rope.”
That was answer enough. “We will take you to the People, as one returned from the dead, and the corruption of the body will float away. The gourd singers will come and they will rattle away evil. We will purify you with sweet grass and juniper, and make the smoke flow over you, like the clean scents of the winds, and then all the People will rejoice, and bring you gifts, and we will be a stronger people because you have returned, Little Moon.”
The girl’s great courage seemed to leak away from her.
“Quickly, where is your brother?” Standing Alone dared not name his name for fear he did not live.
“Nah nih,” my brother. “I do not know. He was taken away by the men long ago.”
“By the Utes?”
“No, the Utes brought us to the pueblo of the north called Taos, and then the Mexican men took us here.”
“You know nothing?”
She hung her head, as if in shame for having no answer. “The last word the lost one who was my brother spoke, quickly, was that he would be taken to where the yellow metal is dug out of the breast of the world.”
The mines. Victoria had told Standing Alone that the mines are bad, and now this bad news.
They hastened through the night, guided only by the burble of the Santa Fe River, the fat man leading the way, suddenly nimble on his feet. He had found a place for them to hide from the winds this night; inside the domed canvas roof of a big wagon that had rolled into town, now parked beside the yards for the horses and mules and oxen. This place he got for them by talking to one of the bearded white men who drove the oxen with whips. It would be a haven for this frightened girl, this girl of her womb, who had come back to her as from the other side, and now filled her with a joy that made her burst.
Victoria, who had excellent eyes for the darkness, led them to the place of the wagons, and soon they were sheltered within a big one. None of the bearded white men were around; they were in the earthen buildings of Santa Fe, drinking the whiskey there, and gambling away their money.
Little Moon shivered, and her fear permeated the inky place where they had found a haven. Standing Alone held the girl, her hands soothing and comforting, and felt the girl quiet in her embrace.
“Now tell me how it all happened, from the very beginning at the trading house of William Bent,” Standing Alone said softly. “I will help our friends understand. We have words enough to talk a little.”
“It was so long ago,” Little Moon said. “These friendly old women of the Utes came to us, all smiles, and motioned to us to come with them. With signs they said they would give us gifts. Ah, gifts! We smiled back, and that was our mistake. My brother and I went to receive the gifts, walking across the grasses to the place where these Mountain People had made a camp, and as soon as we walked among their lodges, they threw blankets over us. I cried out, and so did the one who was my brother, but they wrapped us tight in blankets, and we heard the sounds of great effort: the Utes were leaving.
“And so we were taken away, the blankets over us, and I could hardly breathe, and no one cared about my tears. I was on a horse and someone was behind me. If I struggled, he beat me hard. It was a long time before I saw the sky again, and when they let us look around, I could not tell where we were, and the big fort was not in sight. And then I knew I would not see my people again, and I was a Cheyenne no more, and that I would face a new life, not a good life, very bad.”
She fell silent, and Standing Alone did not urge her to talk. Little Moon was reliving so much in her mind that it was well to let her alone.
“We were watched,” she said. “Always, someone was seeing to it that we could not run away. The one who was my brother tried to whisper to me, but they separated us so we could not make plans together. They gave us a little of their food, but we were not abused.
“Then, many days and nights from the white man’s post, they began to slow down, and made camp, and hunted, and the band lived as if no one was pursuing them, but they were always careful. And then after maybe a moon, they started up again, and we were taken south to this land, through dry country where the water was poor, and this happened many days. I was not allowed to talk to the one who was my brother, but sometimes we waved; sometimes at night we whispered.
“We are going to the land of Mexico, he said one time. And that was so.”
Standing Alone knew it had to be something like that. The Utes did that often. She listened as her daughter described the trip to Taos, the whispered bargaining with Mexicans in the night, and then the Mexicans gave the Utes four horses and blankets and axes and knives, and the powerful Ute warriors dragged the children into the light of a lamp, where they could be seen by the new owners, and then the Utes left.
“It was very dark that night; the one who was my brother was afraid of these new men who made us stand naked so they could see if we were whole. We whispered, but they told us to be quiet. Then they made him dress, and that was the last I saw of him. Just before they took him away, he said he was being taken to the place where the yellow metal is dug, and so I knew a little.”
She wiped a tear from her eyes. “I have not seen my brother again.”
Standing Alone translated for Victoria. The fat man, who spoke a little Cheyenne, listened intently in the dark, as the night breezes flapped the canvas of the wagon.
After Standing Alone had finished, Little Moon continued.
“I was brought here to this place, and there was much talk, and I was given to this chief of these people. He is very important, this Armijo, and he needed much help from women to keep his big house clean and his clothes washed and much food for many guests, and that is what I have done for four winters.”
Her voice broke.
“What I do, it is never enough.”
“Did you try to return to the People?”
“I thought much about it. But this Armijo, he has a man and woman who tell us what to do, and warn us that we will die if we do anything bad, like go away. We must be like this until we grow old, that is our fate.”
“Until now.”
The girl sobbed now, while Standing Alone conveyed the story to Victoria.
&
nbsp; “We are going to find the one who was your brother, if he lives,” Standing Alone said.
“You do not know …”
“We know it will be hard. But we have friends here, strong and wise to the ways of this country.”
Little by little, Victoria conveyed the rest of the story to Childress, who sat silently in the dark. Then they talked in English, the tongue Standing Alone did not know well, and she wondered what they were saying. It was so hard, this traveling with people who did not speak the same language, and now they were in another country with still another tongue. The People possessed one tongue among so many, and that is why they were banded together, but knew so little of others.
Finally Victoria turned to her, and in their patois, she got the idea across. Childress, the fat man, was moved and grateful, and vowing to search to the ends of the earth for the missing boy. He was pleased that Little Moon was in good health, and soon would be in good spirits if that medicine was strong.
But now they needed to get her man, Skye; Childress knew how to do that. Skye would be with a merchant on the plaza if he had not found someplace else to sleep. It was time to go get him, while the darkness cloaked their movements.
And here Victoria’s voice quivered, for she had not been with her man since the drawing of the beans from the jug, and there was such pain in her voice that Standing Alone grew aware that Skye had come to the edge of death, and all for her, because he and Victoria would not even be in this place if they had not agreed to help her find her children.
“Yes, go,” Standing Alone said. “Bring him here, so that I can thank him and we can be together.”
“I will go back to the plaza with the fat one,” Victoria said. “And the Little Person, who will find my man for me.”
“Ah, the Little Person! He is a great warrior.”
Victoria snarled something. She never did trust that creature. “Maybe we will leave tonight. I don’t know. But now I go back to the plaza,” she said.
Standing Alone watched the others clamber out of the wagon and into the starlit night, and moments later their ghostly forms were gone.
She pulled Little Moon to her bosom, and held her daughter in the great sweet silence, and rejoiced.
forty-three
The American consul Alvarez lit the way down the long stairs with a candle lantern, and bid Skye good night.
“Señor, you have no place to go,” he said, questioning.
“I have never had a place to go since I was a boy,” Skye replied.
Skye stepped into the dark plaza, smelled the freshets eddying down from the Sangre de Cristos, noted the deep starlit heavens, the black rooflines of buildings around the square, and waited. The little monkey had summoned him; the monkey would find him. Victoria hated that monkey, and Skye could never understand it. The monkey had constantly aided them all.
Now he heard a soft chittering. He walked blindly into the plaza, following the sound, and suddenly found the others looming out of the depths of darkness.
“Skye, dammit,” Victoria cried, and she wrapped her arms about him, hugging him fiercely, and he felt her thin, bony body pressed tight against him, and her hands possessing him. He hugged her joyously, this woman who had been his friend, lover, mate all these years.
“Victoria!” he whispered.
“I think maybe I never see you again.”
“I’m here.”
Victoria’s hands found his face, the stubble of his beard, his neck. He scraped a rough hand down her back, the embracing filling and blessing him.
“Ah, Skye,” said Childress. “Come.”
Skye paused, his anger welling up in him, but he contained it. The man had gotten him into mortal trouble—and then had gotten him out of it.
They led him out of the plaza. He trusted Victoria’s eyes because he could see so little at night and the sliver of moon didn’t help any. Santa Fe this night was as dark as anyplace he had ever been.
He felt Childress’s heavy footsteps beside him.
“I will explain it all,” Childress whispered. “Rejoice! We have good news.”
Skye thought the man would have a lot of explaining to do to make it right.
He was being led gently downslope and south and west; that was as much as he could fathom. But eventually they struck the Rio Santa Fe, and he was oriented.
“We have recovered Standing Alone’s daughter,” Childress said, after they had reached the river.
Skye stopped dead. “You what?”
“Little Moon had been employed in the very Governor’s Palace where you spent a fateful hour, working for Governor Armijo. We ran into her utterly by accident. Standing Alone started to swoon; the girl fled. But we succeeded. We have her!”
“You have her now?” It was all too much for Skye.
“We do; we executed a little maneuver this evening.”
“Is she well?”
“Ah, Skye, Sah, what is slavery but the destruction of dreams and hope, eh? She was a prisoner, what they call criados sin sueldo, servants without hire. A convenient set of muscles to be used at labor, a mortal without the hope of a life.”
Skye marveled that this self-proclaimed privateer and pirate could speak so eloquently of slavery in its various forms and subtleties. But Childress was an enigma, and there was no point in wondering about him. Nothing on earth could explain the man.
They proceeded downriver to a place where livestock were penned, and numerous wagons lurked in the slight light of a sliver of moon.
“Here, Sah, is where we are domiciled,” Childress said, steering toward one big Conestoga that he somehow singled out of the gloom.
He stood outside the mammoth conveyance. “Standing Alone, we are here,” he said.
The monkey bounded inside and Skye heard a rustling and voices. Victoria clambered in, and soon stepped through the puckered canvas, followed by two women.
“Hey, this here is Little Moon,” Victoria said, her voice crackling.
Skye found a gaunt Cheyenne girl, fear visible in her face even in that sparse light. But her mother was talking swiftly, and soon the girl’s fears subsided, and she even smiled at Skye.
He held out his hands and the girl took both of them shyly. Standing Alone clasped her hands over the girl’s, capturing Skye’s hands in their embrace. They were thanking him with tears and clasps and sighs.
This was a strange, sweet moment. For just this had Skye thrown aside everything else and come here. Before him was one of the missing children, a young woman now, safe and free—at least if they could smuggle her out of Mexico.
He knew that Armijo would probably put things together: Childress, pretending to be a British diplomat; a girl vanishing from his staff; and Skye, released from death by Childress’s monkey. Give those odd facts to a man as alert and suspicious as Armijo, and there would soon be a platoon of soldiers tracking them all.
He held these hands a long moment, for he shared their joy, and wanted them to know it.
They repaired to the dark confines of the wagon where they would be safe from wandering gazes, and there Skye learned their story: Childress’s amazing acquisition of the carriage in Taos, obtaining the dresses for the women, a suit of clothes for himself, spare goods, a little food, a few knives, even a rifle, all by mortgaging his stock of goods up on the Arkansas River. All of it the work of a self-proclaimed pirate.
Skye sighed, unbelieving. What was Childress? Trader? Texas Colonel? Filibuster? Pirate? Rescuer of Indian children, a man absorbed with slavery and justice? What sort of alchemist was he, transmuting the base metals of his character into gold?
“I accused you, Mister Skye, Sah, because one of us had to escape and deploy. It worked, eh?”
Skye felt his rage boil up, but there was little to say. The man who had put him in such jeopardy got him out, somehow. Or the damned monkey did.
“Shine palmed a white bean?” Skye asked.
“Ah, Skye, I trained him to leave the black beans alone.”
That ended it. Skye felt his rage and terror leak away, like blood from a cut wrist.
There was too much to absorb. Skye sat quietly, leaving his fate to the rest. His weariness was telling on him again. Victoria’s hands found him in the dark, each caress loving him, each touch of a finger reaching beyond his flesh and into his soul.
Finally Childress broke the quiet. “We have a good idea where the boy, Grasshopper, is, if he’s alive,” he said. “The last thing he said to Little Moon was that he would be taken to where gold is scratched out of the earth.”
Skye sighed. Chances were, the boy would be dead, then. But at least they had fulfilled half of their goal; they had rescued a sweet Cheyenne woman.
“I made inquiry, Skye. As a Briton looking for a good investment, I had a perfect cover. I’m now a baronet, Sir Arthur Childress. Where would a man invest in gold mining? I asked. They said no foreigner could work the gold deposits. But that didn’t deter me. I said I might make a considerable payment to the governor for some land in the goldfields. Well, Mister Skye, Sah, I got the whole history.”
Skye nodded. Now Childress was calling himself a baronet.
“Back twelve or fifteen years ago, Sah, a herder stumbled on some placer gold, loose gold flakes trapped in gravel, you know, not far south of here on the east slope of the Ortiz Mountains. There’s plenty of it there, and it’s very pure, assays at .918 pure, almost as good as it gets in nature. But there’s not much water there for washing it, so mining has been slow and most of the washing’s done in winter, when snow can be melted. They have chopped deep into the gravel there, and employ slaves to do it, all Indians. Much of the ore is trapped in a conglomerate that needs to be broken up.
“There were some later discoveries of vein gold farther south, but most of the work is taking place scarcely thirty miles from here. They use the most primitive methods, Sah. Wooden vessels called bateas to wash the gold. Arrastras, rude stone grinding devices powered by bullock. Slave labor hauling the sands upward in baskets, climbing ladders fifteen or eighteen feet high, nothing but notches in a log. There’s a bit of a town there called Dolores, and that’s where we will go.”
The Deliverance Page 23
