Canyon Song

by Gwyneth Atlee

  That was fine by Ned, though. He had something far better in the sheriff’s mare. Despite the bitter-cold grayness that had crept over the hill while he’d been inside with Judge Cameron, Ned grinned at the thought of riding here on the stolen horse. The judge would have wanted to hang him for stupidity, but Hamby had fond memories of the animal from the last time he’d taken her. A more willing, spirited horse he’d never ridden before or since.

  Yesterday, he’d nearly had to kill Hop to reclaim the chestnut mare.

  “I shot the bastard. I get his horse. It ain’t right if you take her.” Hop tapped his pistol’s grip for emphasis.

  The youngest of Ned’s gang, Hop was barely old enough to shave. He hadn’t grown into his spindly legs yet, making him look more insect-like than human. The bulging, gray eyes emphasized the effect and had the others calling him Grasshopper within days. But the men were short-cutters by nature, so he soon became Hop. Hamby couldn’t even remember his real name.

  “This horse was mine before. She’s mine now.” Ned grabbed the mare’s reins, causing her to toss her head back. “You ask these other fellas. Ain’t this Ginger?”

  The other two examined her white star and the rim of white above her far back hoof. Both agreed she was the same horse he’d called Ginger, before the sheriff reclaimed her in Copper Ridge.

  “That ain’t right,” Hop insisted. His voice dropped to a fair imitation of a man’s, as if to remind them all he’d packed a lot of bloodshed into his brief years. “I earned her.”

  “She’s already mine. But tell you what. You can have old Ark here instead, for bringing her back to her rightful owner.”

  Hop spat on the half-frozen ground and glared at Hamby’s fleabag roan gelding. “Hell, Ark’s ugly as homemade sin, and he kicks like a Missouri mule. He damn near busted your leg last month out near”

  Ned used the horse’s reins to whip Hop’s face. The kid grabbed for his pistol, but by then it was too late. Hamby hadn’t made it to twenty-six by being a slow draw. The mare, now loose, trotted away until the brush fence of the Indian sheep pen blocked her progress.

  Ned watched two stripes redden Hop’s left cheek where the leather reins had bitten. The boy stared down the barrel of Ned’s drawn revolver, his eyes wide with his shock. It took only a moment for his astonishment to harden into something sullen, something that promised trouble in the not-too-distant future.

  But there was always trouble waiting, biding its time in Black Eagle’s hostile stare or Pete’s surly remarks. The kind of trouble that eventually caught up with a man if he didn’t know when to back away and cut his losses.

  Just as Ned was going to, soon as he ran off those Navajo and maybe killed some woman for the judge. At the thought, he licked his lips. A white woman, Cameron told him. He hoped she had a pretty scalp.

  Grinning in anticipation, he swung up on the mare’s back and thought how anybody might ride a horse this fine. Could be a banker’s horse, a lawyer’s even. When he showed up back home riding Ginger, folks would look up from their business and say, Ned Hamby’s done all right. His ma might even smile. She’d probably bust her jaw grinning when she heard the bright clink of Cameron’s gold inside his pockets.

  He patted the horse’s sleek, red-brown neck and nudged her into a smooth trot. As the first, fat snowflakes swirled past, he resolved to brush the muck and blood spots from his Ginger every day, to keep her looking fine.

  Cañon del Sangre de Cristo

  March 23, 1884

  At first, Anna had been glad of Quinn Ryan’s long silence. His unconsciousness made it far easier to treat him. But more than two days had passed since he had spoken, and although his breathing sounded easier, she began to doubt he ever would again.

  The hen squawked indignantly as Anna grasped her scaly legs and lifted her off of her nest. Her wings beat frantically, setting puffs of inky feathers adrift inside the storage shed where she had sheltered.

  Anna frowned. Her last black hen. Were the gambler’s need or her own guilt less pressing, she would spare the chicken’s life.

  One of the señora’s patients might require a black hen later. To those people, the chicken’s customary color would likely matter more.

  If she had some branches of sweet basil or even lemons, she might use them instead. If her bedraggled chickens had not quit laying, she would have some choice.

  The black hen cackled, as if asking Anna for another chance. The chicken’s pleas availed it nothing, but something else sufficed: a brown curve Anna glimpsed beneath the straw.

  Releasing the hen, which clucked furious complaints, she took the half-hidden egg instead. Her stomach growled as the warm shape filled her palm. She would have welcomed an egg to supplement the pinto beans and bacon she had eaten earlier, but instead she focused her attention on the current of el dón that would sweep through her as she sought to heal Quinn Ryan. Curling her fingers around the light brown shell, she imagined it as a spring flowing through a fissure in the stark face of a canyon wall. Life bursting through the cold rock, touching the stream’s edges with the tender greens of new growth.

  She thought again of Quinn, lying still as death inside her cabin. Neither the curing woman’s poultices nor herbs had opened the closed door of his consciousness. Only faith suggested that a simple egg and prayer might be the keys.

  Anna closed the shed door and stepped outside. She shuddered against the deepening cold. Glancing up beyond the canyon’s red walls, she studied the perfect stillness of the junipers’ upper branches, the flat blue-gray of the sky beyond. She smelled snow coming, a frigid moisture that weighed down the odors of evergreens and animals, of dried grasses and cold earth. A bad day for travel, she decided. Maybe she’d been right to stay with Quinn instead of riding to check on the Rodriguez child. Burdened as she was by the injured gambler, she could only offer prayers for the young babe.

  Quinn, too, needed words now even more than herb lore. Sometimes the soul required more attention than the body’s wounds. During her apprenticeship, Anna had seen many people relieved by healing rituals. Their faith helped to restore them because they had been brought up to believe. Yet hadn’t the old woman made her believe as well? Hadn’t Anna been saved by the strange cleansings and whispered prayers every bit as much as herbal treatments?

  In their common log corral, the horse and goats munched noisily on their feed as she walked past them toward the cabin. Perhaps she could pass on the señora’s favor to this man that she had wronged. Perhaps in doing so, she could restore peace to her own troubled soul.

  * * *

  “Shit. If there was a white woman within twenty miles a here, we’d a heard tell of it,” Pete growled. He hadn’t stirred out of his bunk all day that Hamby knew of.

  Hamby grabbed the whiskey bottle from Pete’s hand. One thing he could always count on. Pete wasn’t going to leave a warm cabin or a bottle without whining like a babe pulled off the tit. The miner’s shack they’d taken over wasn’t much by anybody’s standards, but this morning, when Ned had stumbled outside to relieve himself and tend to Ginger, the air felt cold and oddly heavy. Rheumatism weather, his mama always called it.

  He wondered how she was faring in the harsh dregs of winter of the Texas Panhandle. The thought set him to worrying, as always. Worrying that his mama wouldn’t be alive when he got back. Worrying almost as much that not even his fine mare and gold watch would be enough to buy him his family’s welcome.

  You always was a no ‘count. Always was and always will be, too. The words stung like scorpions when Mama said them and only a bit less when his younger brothers took them up as well. It was up to him to prove they’d all been wrong. Ned Hamby was going to make his mark on this world, show them all.

  Ned took a slug out of the inch or so remaining in Pete’s bottle, then roared with anger at the especially smooth taste.

  “We was savin’ this, you idiot! We was savin’ this for goin’ home time.” He glared at his men and realized that although they
were as likely to kill each other as ever, the three had passed around his bottle while he’d been asleep. Sorry bastards.

  “If any one of you was worth the bullets, I’d shoot the whole damned lot,” Ned said. “But as it happens, you ain’t, and besides, I got a thing we need to do.”

  “Trackin’ down some imaginary white woman in the canyon?” Hop laughed. “Hell, Ned, that’s half a day’s ride, not to mention whatever it’ll take to find her. Why not just tell Cameron she’s dead and be done with it?”

  “Judge’s got them puppet’s strings too tight,” Pete said.

  Hamby’s revolver was clear of its holster in an instant. Unlike the others, who had slept late on his whiskey, Ned had gotten up and around at a decent hour this morning. And he never dressed without strapping on the Navy Colt.

  “Didn’t mean nothin’ by it, Hamby,” Pete murmured. “Just don’t none of us like runnin’ Cameron’s errands.”

  The silence stretched out, long and brittle. Ned wondered if he’d have to shoot Pete sometime soon if he was to keep the other two in line. The tension made him tired, as well as the thought of hunting that white woman in the canyon. He wanted to be done, done with this bunch of idiots, done with the woman, so he could get on home.

  “You mean to tell me you got no use for Cameron’s gold?” Black Eagle asked. He spooned some beans onto a tin plate. Raised by his white mother, he bore the strong Apache features of the man who’d raped her. He’d once told Ned he’d had a proper Christian name when he was younger, but around the time he’d turned to stealing cattle and horses, he’d decided Black Eagle more fitting for an outlaw.

  If Black Eagle was trying to keep the peace, he must have some reason. Damned half-breed never did anything out of the goodness of his heart. Of the three men Ned rode with, he was by far the most dangerous, Hamby had long ago decided. A fellow who was smart enough to learn to write his name and cipher when no schoolhouse in the country’d take an Indian. A fellow who was mean enough to skin a man alive, then tan his hide for leather.

  If Black Eagle wanted to ride on out to the canyon, he must have his own reasons. And they probably involved killing the woman on his own and claiming all the profit instead of sharing as they’d earlier agreed. Course, the half-breed didn’t know that the reward Ned had promised was only half what Cameron offered, but what use was being leader if Ned couldn’t claim a bigger cut?

  And Black Eagle better never find out, either, or Ned figured he wouldn’t survive to see his Mama, much less live to make her proud.

  * * *

  Quinn jerked awake at the warm moisture on his shoulder. If she had put that stinking poultice on him again

  He sniffed. It didn’t smell the same now. Instead, the odor was sour, almost cheesy.

  “Don’t you make any medicines that smell good?” he turned his head to ask.

  The blasted dog licked his mouth. He swore. Being shot was one damned humiliation after another. It wasn’t enough that Annie had plastered that disgusting mess all over his shoulder while he slept, he also had to endure the affections of this overgrown mongrel. He shooed the cur away, only to have it circle around and slather him with damp affection once again.

  If he could get up, he would boot it out the door into the nearest snow drift.

  “Annie!”

  She didn’t answer, so carefully, he moved his head to look around and for the first time noticed his surroundings. The walls were made of peeling logs with mud and dried grass daubed between the cracks to keep the wind out. Judging from the draft, the effort wasn’t entirely effective. Still, the crude stone chimney drew well, so no smoke hazed his vision.

  Where the hell had Annie gone? With his luck, she’d be out collecting dung for her demented idea of a treatment.

  Strangely enough, though, his breathing had eased, and he did feel better. Maybe there was something to her ideas after all.

  “Annie!” he called again, though the effort set him coughing. As if in sympathy, the dog stopped licking and lay its head down on its paws.

  Uncomfortable on his belly, Quinn decided to try turning on his side. That was when he noticed someone had undressed him.

  “Shit,” he muttered. That lovesick dog must have taken advantage of him in his sleep.

  Actually, the only possible truth didn’t sit much better. Annie’s hands had touched more than his wounded shoulder; no part of him remained a mystery to her smoky gaze.

  What in God’s name had she done with his clothing? Feeling more vulnerable than ever, he hoped she’d merely washed the mud and blood away and they were hanging somewhere close to dry.

  Carefully, he eased himself over to the left, but not quite carefully enough. The movement sent expanding shafts of bright pain into his shoulder and clouded his vision.

  He lay still for a time, willing himself to outwait the discomfort. After a few second, his gaze focused on a pair of battered pans hanging on pegs, then took in the remainder of the room. A thick, woolen serape had been tossed carelessly over a crude table. Nearby, a pair of flimsy-looking stools stood close at hand, and a wooden chest took up the space along one wall. Atop it sat a clay bowl, a small painting that might be the Holy Virgin, and a half-dozen candles, all unlit.

  A ladder pointed toward a narrow loft, more a shelf than a true room. He wondered if Annie slept there, if she might be asleep there now. At least one mystery was solved, though. His shirt and jeans dangled from the overhang, reminding him uncomfortably of a hanging man.

  Hating to do it, he called her name again. His mouth felt bone dry, and this mongrel’s slobber was a poor substitute for a cup of water.

  Above the loft, bunches of brittle-looking twigs and roots hung from the ceiling, making strange shadows in the amber firelight. But aside from his drying clothing, none of the shadows looked remotely human.

  Had she abandoned him?

  He hated the fear that permeated the thought, his overwhelming need for her. Physical needs, for water, sustenance, and someone to tend his wounds. His body did not care that she’d once robbed him and, worse yet, delayed him in Mud Wasp and then Copper Ridge until it was too late. His body only needed what there was no one else to give.

  His sense soon overtook his terror. Of course she hadn’t left. The fire still burned brightly. The dog was by his side. She might just be outside, tending to the needs of nature or bringing in some wood.

  Might be. Must be. Must be.

  * * *

  Canyon Sangre de Cristo may have been named for Christ’s blood, but Ned Hamby thought it looked more like the devil’s lair. A mile wide at one end, it snaked for what seemed an eternity, ever-thinner, along the narrow creek that carved it. In some spots, openings honeycombed the rock, doorways to the dwellings from some long-forgotten Indian past.

  Hamby had always hated those caves that seemed to stare like empty sockets, even though he and his boys had holed up in them more than once. The hard, cold rooms, though sheltered from the elements, set him to mind of tombs and all the crawly things that gnawed a body when it lay inside one.

  Astride his stolen horse, Ned gazed down into the canyon. If there really was some white woman down there, she might have a cabin tucked up in the trees or partly hidden by a rock outcropping. Possibly, she was crazy enough to live inside one of the caves.

  He’d be damned if he wanted to spend the next six months looking for her. He had something easier in mind. This far from civilization, the folks that lived around this canyon were likely to rely on one another now and then. Hamby thought back to his family’s Texas ranch, how even distant neighbors might help sink new post holes for a fence-line or maybe castrate calves.

  Among those who weren’t Indian, that might be true here, too. And he’d remembered one small family of Mexicans they’d mostly ignored so far, except for stealing stock from time to time. Hamby was glad they’d let them be, for he felt sure that they could be convinced to tell him what they knew. And if they resisted, hell, he and the boys were always in
need of entertainment.

  Hoof beats marked the approach of a horse even before it neighed a greeting to the animals it knew. Black Eagle, who liked to brag that he was a better scout than any full-blood, was returning.

  “Find them Mezcans?” Pete asked eagerly. He wasn’t much for work, but the idea of a raid always got his blood up.

  “They ain’t moved. Guess they thought we’d ride on past that sorry little hut a theirs forever,” Black Eagle responded, with a shake of his lank hair.

  Hop turned from his task of picking a stone from one of Ark’s huge feet. The gelding’s hooves were magnets for horse cripplers. “They see you?”

  Black Eagle’s face froze. “You think I’m so clumsy I’d let ‘em know that I was there?”

  The boy grinned. “Way you tell it, you move like the wind. Way I hear it, sounds more like a tornado.”

  The half-breed pulled an evil-looking Bowie knife from his right boot. The same knife he’d used to teach the bunch of them the art of scalping.

  Ned gritted his teeth. He didn’t know which was worse, Black Eagle’s mean streak or Hop’s attempts to prove himself a tougher outlaw then the others. Fortunately, Ark chose that moment to bite Hop on the hand.

  Pete, who’d always liked Hop, laughed extra hard to defuse the situation. Black Eagle glared for a long moment, then finally put away his knife. For now.

  One of these days, that half-breed was going to cut up Hop. Ned peered at Hop’s red-brown thatch, trying to imagine how it would look in his collection.

  Even though Black Eagle was the half-breed, it was Ned who’d started the collecting. He liked to take those scalps out and rub his fingers through them. Made his skin prickle with accomplishment at the thought of those he’d killed.

  Ned thought again of killing, so he urged his mount in the direction of the Cortéz place. One way or another, they were going to learn the whereabouts of a lone white woman in this hell.

  It didn’t take much time to find out what they wanted. An hour later, they were riding toward the canyon’s mouth. Ned didn’t like the low, gray ceiling of the sky, the quick transition from a few white flakes to what looked like serious snowfall.