Crack in the Sky tb-3

by Terry C. Johnston

  “I’ll catch up to you!” Kinkead said, clutching his Rosa tight. “G’won past Rowland’s hut, off yonder—I figger we’ll cut the trail out by his place.”

  On all sides of them the devastation increased as they pushed for a narrow street on the far side of the village square. There at the corner squatted an old woman, a filthy shawl hanging half on her head, each of her hands resting on the body of a dead man crumpled at her knees. Beneath her fingers lay a bloodied face dotted with a gray stubble, the old man’s skull cracked open. At her feet sprawled the body of a younger man, perhaps a son. At least four arrows were stuck deep in his bare brown back. A dog slinked close, cautiously, its feral nose twitching at the smell of blood and gore seeping from the bodies.

  Bass gave heels to his horse, reining straight for the cur. The dog’s neck ruff bristled as Scratch leaned over, swinging his rifle butt for the canine, smacking it in the ribs. Rolling over and over with a pitiful yelp, the dog picked itself up from the icy ruts and scurried away down the street, tail tucked between its legs.

  Here and there in the village around them some of the squat adobe houses smoldered, wisps of ghostly smoke seeping from the rawhide-covered windows, curling up in twisted columns from the portals where the doors hung akimbo on broken hinges. Overturned carretas. A dead goat or dog, a pig or some chickens—the refuse of animal carcasses strewn about to mark the Comanches’ path through town.

  Villagers suddenly converged on the path the Americans were taking, appearing from behind them in the narrow street, flowing in from both left and right to form a noisy mob. Weepy-eyed women and angry men shuffled into that open ground where a handful of squat sapling-and-mud wattle huts stood leaning against the cold dawn sky. There on the snowy, trampled ground three women were hunched over their prey, pummeling the enemy again and again with short pieces of firewood, one wailing hag swinging a long wrought-iron fireplace poker. More of the mob surged forward, eager to join in—shrieking, swinging, and kicking.

  “Get back!” Hatcher bellowed above them as he steered his horse into their midst. “Goddamn ye—get back!”

  The crowd may not have understood his words, but there was no mistaking the gringo’s meaning. Slowly the villagers stepped back, and back some more, until the trappers recognized the bloodied, battered body of an Indian.

  He didn’t look to be too tall a man, dressed only in a shirt and breechclout above his moccasins. A blanket had been torn from his waist. Bare-legged, his hair disheveled, the Indian had a face almost unrecognizable as such.

  Someone had even begun to decapitate the body. A woman nearby shook with rage, a huge knife trembling in her bloody hand.

  “He dead?” Solomon asked as he halted his horse with the others.

  “Damn well better be,” Caleb growled. “Let ’em work the son of a bitch over, Jack. That dead Comanch’ is the only thing they can take it out on now.”

  “First whack, it’s my turn,” Hatcher said as he kicked his right leg up and to the left, sliding off the bare back of his horse.

  The crowd inched back even farther, muttering in unrequited fury as he strode up without hesitation, yanking his skinning knife from the sheath hung at his hip. Without a word he knelt, whizzed the sharp blade around the head, then wiped the knife off on the Indian’s shirt before he stuffed it away. Placing a foot on the warrior’s face, Hatcher leaned back against the Comanche’s thick hair until the scalp peeled away, complete with the tops of the ears.

  This moist, limp trophy he held up for all to see at the end of his outstretched arm. Slowly he turned, the blood dripping in the dirty snow. Suddenly Hatcher opened his mouth and let out a long primal scream. Nothing close to being a word, only a frightening sound—some guttural, wild, and feral noise the people in that crowd understood.

  “Wagh!”

  With that ear-shattering cry of the grizzly boar preparing for battle against one of its own, Jack pushed on through the crowd, walking up to a wooden door, where he looped the long black hair over the top hinge, took a quick step back, then spit on the scalp.

  As others, mostly old men and young boys at first, shoved out of the throng to imitate the trapper by spitting on the scalp themselves, Hatcher turned and pushed his way back through the crowd. At that moment some of the infuriated Mexican women threw themselves back onto the body, resuming their brutal, passionate dismembering of the dead enemy.

  Jack grabbed a handful of his horse’s mane and flung himself onto its back. Taking up the reins, he brought the animal around and began to part the growing crowd that clamored for vengeance upon the raiders. One by one the Americans slipped their horses through that narrow gap in the mob. Alarmed by sudden and wild shrieks from the Taosenos, Bass turned to look over his shoulder—seeing the Indian’s head appear above the throng. In the next moment it was hoisted far above the Mexicans at the end of a long, sturdy pike, the people swirling about on their heels like a throbbing mass below this gory, eyeless trophy they began to carry back toward the square.

  As the mob washed away, a group of young boys led by a pair of old women stayed behind to tie lariats to the wrists and ankles of the headless body. As the last rope was knotted, the youngsters took off on foot, wildly screaming together as the beaten, bloodied, pummeled body bounced, tumbled, and flopped crazily behind the racing boys. Hobbling along behind the torso came the teetering old women, both of them striking what was left of the enemy again and again with firewood switches.

  While the clamor of the mob faded toward the square, from a side street came the sudden clatter of boot heels echoing off the cold whitewashed walls of the village. Suddenly more than fifty Mexican soldiers burst around a corner. The trappers brought up their long weapons. For a terrifying instant, both groups stared at one another provocatively—ready for the other side to open fire. Every bit as disheveled as the Americans, the soldiers looked as if they too had just been pulled from their beds. Very few of them wore a complete uniform—and those who had managed to pull on their coats hadn’t taken the time to button them in the morning’s cold. Red-eyed, pasty-faced: these were men rousted from their barracks with the toe of a boot or the point of a bayonet.

  “Señores!” the thin-faced officer at the head of the formation finally yelled as he took two steps toward the trappers, slapping a sword against his tall boot. “Americanos!”

  With his eyes locked on the officer, Hatcher quietly spoke from the side of his mouth, “Willy—ye know their talk better’n I do. Tell ’em to get out of our way so we can find our friend.”

  After a quick dialogue, Workman said, “This one—he’s the ensign.”

  “What’s that?” Hatcher demanded.

  “The big soldier chief here ’bouts,” the whiskey maker replied. “Name’s Don Francisco Guerrero. These here are his soldiers ’cause he’s Senior Justice and War Captain of San Geronimo de los Taos.”

  A smirk crossed Jack’s bony face. “This bastard’s got too damned many names for me, boys! Willy, tell him to get his ass out of our way.”

  Wagging his head emphatically, Workman protested, “But they ain’t fixing to stop us—”

  “Damn right these greasers won’t stop us!” Isaac bellowed as he came up to stand shoulder to shoulder with Hatcher.

  Workman continued, “But this here Guerrero says they found the Injuns’ trail.”

  “Where?”

  “Heading north out of town,” Workman said to Hatcher, pointing.

  “With them red niggers gone, we go find Johnny—”

  “They want us to help ’em go after the Comanche.”

  Hatcher turned to look at Workman now. “Why they want our help trailing after a bunch of Injuns?”

  “Guerrero here, he says the Comanche took some women and children with ’em.”

  “We know that!” Jack snapped.

  “One of them women is the wife of the gov’nor,” Workman explained quietly. “And … they run off with his li’l girl too.”

  “Why us?” Hatcher de
manded, eyeing the soldiers suspiciously.

  Licking his lips, Workman sighed, “They figure the only chance they got of trailing the Comanche is using us gringos as trackers.”

  “Why use us gringos?”

  Workman grinned. “These Mex think we’re damned close to being ’bout as bad as Injuns anyway, Jack.”

  “So we work for the Mexican army as trackers?” Jack squeaked in protest. “’Cause we’re the only ones can foller Injuns?”

  “To hell with ’em!” Caleb snarled. “They can track the Comanche on their own!”

  “There’s J-johnny!”

  At Isaac’s wild cry, Scratch jerked around.

  His forehead smeared with blood, Rowland suddenly emerged from a thick veil of smoke that clung close to the snowy ground like the bushy tail of a black cat switching back and forth as it waited patiently for a mouse to come within pouncing distance. Soot smeared his face in broad, grotesque patches.

  “T-they got m-my … Maria,” John sobbed, his eyes pooling, tears spilling down his cheeks, tracking the black soot as he stood before the smoking ruin of the hovel that was his Taos home.

  Hatcher held down his hand, grasping Rowland’s in sympathy. “We been told they got away with some women, and young’uns too.”

  John nodded, choking on his sobs. “When I come out of the house, I see’d they had the gov’nor’s wife and his little g-girl with ’em,” Rowland explained. He turned away suddenly, looking to the north, swiping a hand first beneath his nose, then dragging it beneath both eyes, smearing soot. “The red-bellies knocked me in the head and left me for dead, I s’pose. Afore they took ’em all that means—”

  “We’re going after your Maria now, Johnny,” Rufus said as Rowland looked away, a man clearly uncomfortable with his grief.

  “We’ll bring her back to ye.”

  Rowland whirled back around on them, his wild eyes darting between his friends and the soldiers, his lips moving wordlessly for a moment before his voice crackled in its growing rage the moment he lunged forward and seized hold of Hatcher’s reins. “I’m going after her with you!”

  “Ye’re … hurt right now,” Jack explained, rubbing his fingers across his own forehead there below the front of his badger-fur cap. “Better ye stay behind.”

  As if he had been unaware of the wound, John touched his bloody brow where the gaping skin had been split with a club of some sort. Rowland said, “Ain’t nothing can keep me from killing my share of those red sonsabitches.”

  “It’s gonna be a long ride—”

  “You ain’t leaving me!” he shrieked, balling up a fist and daring to shake it right under Hatcher’s chin. “I can find my own way just as good as I can ride with the rest of you.”

  Hatcher dropped his reins and with that empty hand gripped Rowland’s defiant fist. “Ye ain’t goin’ on yer own, Johnny. Ye’re gonna ride with yer friends. We aim to all go after yer Maria with ye—together.”

  Bass watched those simple words shake that wounded, grieving man right down to the soles of his moccasins. He stood there trembling, tears gushing from his eyes as he tried to control the sobbing, tried his best not to show his grief in front of these hardened, bloodied veterans of mountain winters and Indian warfare.

  “It’s awright, Johnny,” Solomon reminded him quietly as the wild shrieks of the mob faded behind them. “A man what lost his wife got him a right to get broke up just like you.”

  Jack reminded, “Ain’t a one of us wouldn’t cry too.”

  “Been you got rubbed out, Johnny,” Isaac admitted, “I’d be broke up like that my own self.”

  Rowland suddenly dragged in a deep breath, slowly pulling his fist from Hatcher’s grip as he gathered himself together with a trembling shudder of emotion. Biting his lower lip a moment, the trapper blinked his eyes clear, swallowed hard, and said, “Lemme find a horse—just gimme chance to find me a horse … they got mine … run off with mine—”

  “Get you a horse,” Jack agreed. “We’ll fetch us up some saddles and food out’n the houses here first whack—something for the trail. We’ll set off after ye’ve got a horse.”

  “How ’bout the soldiers here?” Workman asked. “What we tell them?”

  “Tell ’em … tell ’em go get their horses pronto, Willy. Tell Guerrero we’re gonna lead ’em to them Comanche.”

  “Sun’s coming up,” Graham pointed out as Workman turned aside to speak to the Mexican officer.

  The trappers turned to gaze east just as that loud cathedral bell pealed its last and the brassy horn’s final note drifted into the cold dawn. The top edge of the bright orb was just emerging over the Sangre de Cristos, every bit as red as blood. The blood of Christ, Scratch was reminded as some of them gasped at this vivid portent written there between the mountaintops and the early-winter skies—the underbellies of the cold, bluish clouds suddenly aflame with savage streaks of crimson.

  “That’s a sign, by God,” Isaac whispered while the soldiers turned on their heels and double-timed it back down the rutted street toward their stables.

  “Damn right,” Elbridge grumbled in agreement. “Gonna be a bloody day for them Comanche.”

  Bass figured it would be a long and bloody day for them all.

  That first night the Comanche didn’t stop.

  Neither did the Americans and the Mexican soldiers strung out behind them on the backtrail.

  Scratch thought Hatcher’s bunch was about as prepared for this endurance ride as they could have been even if they had been given an hour to make ready. The only thing that might have been better was to have themselves some more guns. The villagers dug up enough blankets and saddles for the Americans, a few gourd canteens, and some poor cloth bags filled with meager offerings of food. It touched Bass’s heart to see how these simple people, who had so little, expressed their gratitude for what risk the trappers were about to take.

  As it was, the Americans made good time that day, stopping for a few minutes every couple of hours as the afternoon aged and the winter light waned and night was sucked down out of the eternal sky all around them.

  Then they were alone with the land, and the black gut of night, alone with one another once more. Somewhere behind them in the dark the Mexican officer and his men were struggling to force their tired horses into the cold night. They were making a lot of noise, every clatter and voice sounding all the louder here in the dark. At first their clumsy bumbling had angered Titus, but over the long, cold hours in the saddle, he gradually figured that they just might have a chance to turn that bumbling into an advantage, one that might somehow pay off in a big way.

  If the Comanche believed they were being followed by soldiers who had no real chance to catch up to them, and even if the Mexicans did catch up, there would be no way in hell Guerrero’s men could beat the warriors…. Then the trappers might just have a shot at rigging a surprise for the raiders.

  There wasn’t a whole hell of a lot said among Hatcher’s men as they loped their horses north toward the foot of the hills that winter dawn, then found the wide trail of Indian ponies driving along stolen horses, cattle, and a noisy, bleating herd of sheep sweeping around to the south against the upland. The Comanche were doubling back toward the high country, turning east into the difficult terrain of the Sangre de Cristos, striking the narrow valley of Fernandez Creek itself.

  Near midmorning Hatcher had called a short halt, turned around, and faced the rest of them, discovering Kinkead catching up to them on their backtrail, the Mexicans strung out down the slope behind him.

  “Yonder comes Matthew,” Jack quietly told the rest as they came out of their saddles. “We’ll let the ponies blow till he gets up—then we’ll go on.”

  Scratch asked, “You figger them greasers gonna stay up with us, we keep humping like this, Jack?”

  “They’ll stay up.”

  Then Workman added, “Any soldiers what bring in the governor’s wife and daughter—they’ll be heroes, don’t you know. That Guerrero’s go
nna damn well make sure his men stay up the best they can, even if he’s gotta stick ’em with that fancy sword of his.”

  For a moment they all fell quiet as the horses snorted and blew, some tearing noisily at the dry grass. A few of the men watched Kinkead approaching, others stared higher into the foothills rumpled against the high mountains.

  “Those red sonsabitches going up there, ain’t they, Jack?” Caleb said it more than he asked it, for it was as plain as pewter where the Comanche were heading.

  “It’s for damned sure they ain’t tried one lick to blind their trail,” Bass declared.

  Elbridge agreed, “Not with all them cows and sheep they been driving with ’em.”

  “Red bastards,” Hatcher growled almost under his breath. “They don’t figger no one to try following ’em.”

  “Leastways no white man,” Rowland said as he eyed the ragtag formation of more than fifty soldiers struggling up the slope behind them.

  Hatcher nodded in agreement as Kinkead came up, hauling back on his reins and letting out a long sigh himself. His eyes landed on Rowland, and he urged his horse over, holding out his hand.

  “Johnny.”

  “Matthew.”

  Kinkead dragged a hand under his nose. “Damn, but it’s good to see your face.”

  “The others,” Rowland started, his voice already cracking with emotion once more, “they tol’t me you figgered me for d-dead.”

  Kinkead touched his own brow below the blanket cap he had pulled down over his bushy hair. “Half-dead anyway, from the looks of you. We ought’n sew that up—”

  “M-maybe later,” Rowland argued. “After … after …”

  Kinkead’s eyes moistened. “I’m glad … glad you’re with us to go get your Maria.”

  Hatcher watched Rowland turn away, blinking his eyes. Clearing his throat, Jack used his rifle to point up the creek into the timber and rugged slopes that stood over them. “Looks like they’re run off for the highlands, Matthew.”