Tears of the River

by Gordon L. Rottman

  They had settled down from yesterday when they were freaking out more than she was. Big long hugs all around. Karen desperately clutched them and didn’t want to let go. Her fears of never seeing them again had dissolved. She should have had more faith in herself and in them. She felt…she couldn’t describe how she felt, except she was whole again. Her mother was quietly weeping and that started her doing the same. Karen couldn’t stop, not for a long time. She wanted to say so much, all that she had endlessly worried about. They held each other with her mother repeating “You’re back.”

  There would be time to talk later, but right now she only wanted to feel their presence, wanted to hear them in the next room at home, listen to them rattle in the kitchen before waking her for school, hear Dad calling to say he’d be home late, Mom reminding her of a math tutor’s appointment, Dad darting out of the theater to take a cell phone call from a frantic patient’s mother, Mom telling her the latest office gossip, the everyday things she missed so.

  But there were others who were part of her life now. She wasn’t through protecting and caring for them just because her parent’s had arrived to take care of her. She couldn’t revert to being a kid now. She had responsibilities.

  “¿Cómo están los demás…? How’s Tía and Lomara? Where are they?”

  “They’re fine,” said her dad looking at her funny. “Tía? You mean Señora Araica? She’s still out of it, but much improved.”

  Karen started to open her mouth, shut it, then said, “Yes, she’s like an aunt to me.”

  Her dad nodded, understanding. “She’ll pull through, kiddo. The infection had gotten the upper hand, but she’s on the mend.”

  “Her arms…”

  “She’ll be fine. Dr. Amand, the bone doc, says it’s too early to tell if they’ll need to re-set her left arm. She’s scheduled for x-ray, which they just got operational.” He paused. “He said you did a good job splinting her. Her right wrist and thumb are fine, just hyperextended. We’re proud of you. For all that you did.”

  “We found your journal,” her mom said, eyes wide. “We turned in the census forms to the government center. The journal, it said…so much. It scared us. Are you going to be okay, in your mind?”

  “Lomara?” Karen cut her off too abruptly.

  “She’s fine. She’s at the church, with other lost kids.”

  “Dad, we can’t leave her there, alone. She has no one. Her family is gone.”

  They saw the desperation in her eyes. Her fear that she couldn’t protect her crew was ripping into her.

  “I think we can do something,” he said. “We’re making certain she’s taken care of.”

  And then the pain began, so bad she squeezed her eyes shut. “Jay, I lost Jay. I couldn’t save them all.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that…” started her dad.

  “Lost who, Supergirl?”

  And there was Jay with a crocked smile, standing before her, all scrubbed, tanned, and his sunburned nose and checks peeling.

  Karen was stunned speechless.

  He laughed looking at her dad, “She always had something to say about everything. I never thought I’d see her dumbstruck.”

  “Neither did I,” said her mom.

  “You didn’t drown!”

  “I came close enough to it to know I don’t want to try it again.”

  “How? I gave up on you.”

  “I don’t know. I came to in a boat. Those fishermen weren’t able to get me here until last night. I was freaking out that I wouldn’t be able to find you guys.”

  He’d said, “you guys,” that he was worried he couldn’t find his crew. He was worried about all of us.

  “You look…different,” she said.

  “Me? I almost didn’t recognize you, Supergirl. You were so scared and angry before…”

  She suddenly bolted upright and threw out her arms, her dad catching the IV tube before it pulled loose. Jay was gripping her hard and she was sobbing uncontrollably.

  “Hey Supergirl, we’re all right.”

  “Yes, we are,” she managed.

  “I was hoping you two would learn to tolerate each other on that day trip to Los Manantial, but I didn’t expect…” He was cut off when her mom smacked his shoulder.

  Jay grinned. “She was a little scary. I was afraid to talk to her at first because she looked so mean and hungry that I thought she would cook one of us.”

  After a strained laugh Karen asked, “I really wasn’t that bad, was I?”

  Jay only winked at her as her dad said, “You probably weren’t far from the truth.”

  Jay glanced at her parents, then peered at the floor. “Something I want to ask you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Our homecoming dance is the second Saturday in September. Just kind of wondering if you might like to go maybe?”

  “As long as I don’t have to row.” For some reason no one else thought that was so hysterically funny.

  Karen felt a tug on her smock and looked down at the biggest darkest eyes she’d ever seen. “Lomara!” she shouted scooping her up ignoring the pain in her hands and leg.

  Jay said, “I brought her from the church to visit.”

  “Oh my gosh, you clean up good. ¡Hermana, eres tan hermoso!”—Sister, you are so beautiful!

  “Señora Araica says she’s going to take care of Lomara,” her dad said. “We’re making arrangements to rent them a little house and get a used sewing machine to set her up a seamstress shop here.”

  Things could not be better, she thought. Except…“Dad, when can I get something to eat, and do you still have my passport?”

  »»•««

  After things had settled down her dad took on a serious look. “Look, kiddo.” He really seemed hesitant. “Johnny and Jennifer, about them…”

  “Yeah?” She suddenly felt guilty. She’d hardly thought about them—big time guilt trip.

  “Well, Johnny’s brother, Jennifer’s father, and Cris’ parents are in Managua.”

  “Oh no.”

  He pulled a chair to the bedside. “When you were out of it you said they didn’t make it out of the van, and the journal…”

  She told them about the bridge, the gorge, her jumping out, and that the others were still in the van. It was unbearably difficult and summoned up too many cruel memories. Her mom gripped her hand. She told them about finding Jay. Her dad said Jay’s parents were expected to arrive here the next day.

  “I’ll call them all,” her dad said. “I’d not told them what you’d written in the journal until we could speak to you.”

  He went on to tell her that back in Concepción Del Norte the rest of the medical group had weathered the storm. Some stayed to help out, others had to return to Houston. The disappeared church steeple had only blown down. The next morning he and her mom tried to make it up the washed out road to Los Manantial. They found the first bridge out and couldn’t find a place to cross by foot. Her dad tried for three days to arrange a flyover, impossible to organize from Concepción.

  We had reached the Rio Hauhau by then, Karen thought. Her dad thought by coming here they could arrange a search plane easier. They had been promised one in a couple of days. They had first had to make their way back to Managua, which took days, and then flew here yesterday in a government plane.

  “Jay told us about how your leg was injured and that you sutured it.”

  “Sorry it’s so sloppy, but I didn’t have any anesthetic. Kinda made me flinch.” Then she remembered. “But I only started it. Jay finished it.”

  “He left that out,” her dad said. “But you did suture yourself?”

  “Just the first three.”

  Her parents looked at her, their eyes wide, picturing it, and then they both said, “I couldn’t do that to myself.”

  “You could.” She looked down at her scratched and oar-blistered hands and torn fingernails. In her quietest voice she said, “You can do anything, once you realize you have to.”

&nb
sp; Her mom and dad glanced at each other uncomfortably.

  “Well, I guess you want to get home as fast as wings can carry you,” her dad said.

  “I do, but not until I’m sure my crew’s taken care of and only if Jay’s in the next seat.”

  Weeks later, at home, Karen ended her journal:

  This is our story, this is our song.

  About the Author

  Gordon Rottman lives outside of Houston, Texas, served in the Army for 26 years in a number of “exciting” units, and wrote war games for Green Berets for 11 years. He’s written over 120 military history books, but his interests have turned to adventurous young adult novels—influenced by a bunch of audacious kids, Westerns owing to his experiences on his wife’s family’s ranch in Mexico, and historical fiction focusing on how people really lived and thought—history does not need to be boring.

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  For a sneak peek at the author’s award winning book, The Hardest Ride, keep reading..

  The Hardest Ride by Gordon L. Rottman

  Chapter One

  When I started working for Barnabas Scoggins at the Triple-Bar up in Burnet County, I thought I knew something about punching cattle. Heck, been doing it since I was thirteen. I’d had to do something to make a living since leaving home pronto was a good way of staying alive. Ma didn’t much care for my “bastard ass.” It was either me or her.

  Then I met up with ol’ Pancho Salazar, I didn’t know so much about punching after all. It’s no secret vaqueros know just about everything there is about cowboying. A lot of good ol’ Texicans don’t like to own up to that, but they know it sure as Texas Hill Country cattle tanks dry up in August.

  When it came to roping, us Texicans only thought we could. Hell, those Mex ’queros could rope a full-run antelope underhanded from their horse, riding in the opposite direction and sitting the saddle backward.

  Ol’ Pancho was the caporal heading up the ranch’s ’queros. That old man with his big droopy white mustachio had eyes that looked into far distances seeing things none of us could. He knew more of the ways of the campero and the balance of the world than any meager cowpoke.

  I like how ’queros outfitted themselves with a bandana around their head to hold a sombrero on, short jacket, tight pants with a hundred buttons up the legs, and leather leggings, sheepskin chaps, gourd canteen, and always a big knife. Their hands are so tough they don’t bother with gloves.

  I got no idea why, but ol’ Pancho took a liking to me. That was strange because most them Mexes didn’t much rub elbows with us gringos. There wasn’t much tolerance between them and us Texicans. They worked with us fine, but we all knew they had about as much use for us as a dog does fleas. Their ways was just different. They didn’t say much; even the one’s what could talk American.

  I’d been on the T-Bar only a week the first time Pancho talked at me. I’d shot at a water moccasin with my rifle. Killed it, but the slug bounced off a rock and took a chunk out of ol’ Pancho’s cantle, right behind his butt. Shooting his saddle set his horse to bucking and threw him, truly an embarrassing state for that old scallywag. I knew he was rankled when he pointed his Colt Navy conversion at me and said, “I gonna chute joo, pendejo.” I truly feared he was, but instead he just made a long solemn speech in Spanish, ending it in American, “Joo ain’t got nothing under joo hat but hair, gringo.”

  The second time he had words for me was weeks later when some of us were shooting tins and bottles. Something I’d got going because I believed in lots of practice throwing lead. Ol’ Pancho looked at my Winchester rifle and Remington revolver, after asking if I were going to “chute” at him again, and said, “Joo like dee long-barrel guns.”

  “I do. The further off I can shoot them injuns, the better for me.”

  “That good, but I like to look them een dee eye when they die.”

  I knew he meant that.

  Seeing both my guns were .44-40, he said, “That good joo guns chute same bullet.”

  “That’s true,” I agreed. It made things easier, two guns, one cartridge.

  Pancho started telling a tale. “Me and Red, many year ago, indios come at us. Red make mistake, try to load his .45 Colt bullet into Winchester .44 like joos. He scared,” Pancho laughed, but he paused like he was seeing that day in his head. “Eet go een, but stick, no work. Red throw that damn carabina down, so I peek eet up. Use el cuchillo to take out side-plate screw, take out bullet, and put plate on.” He was going through the motions like he’d just done it.

  I tried to see that in my head, him standing there all levelheaded and backing out a little screw with a jackknife with whooping injuns riding at him.

  “I load with correctas bullets, keel muchos indios.”

  Red, who’d taken two arrows and a bullet that day nine years ago, said, “That old turd shot down six of ’em redskins. Scalped ever’one of ’em. Ax him to show ’em to ya.”

  I did. Ol’ Pancho had nineteen scalps.

  When I hit a tin with my first rifle shot at a hundred paces, ol’ Pancho took an interest in me. There was something else happened that I didn’t pay no mind to, but Pancho took notice. One evening I found a calf what lost its mama. It was so weak I’d had to carry it back to the herd across Vaaler Creek. Never did find its mama, but found another cow that let it suckle.

  “Bueno, gringo,” was all he said. But he winked, and that meant something. I guess most cowpokes woulda put the calf out of its wretchedness.

  Pancho taught me how to break a bronco using patience and gentleness, not be a bronc fighter doing more harm than good. I learned how to make hackamores, to braid lariats from rawhide and mare’s tail hair, shoe horses, to tie all sorts of knots—“Eef joo can’t tie good knots, tie lotta knots”—how to rope from all angles, braided a cuarta—the horseman’s short whip—and he helped me build my own double-rig Mex saddle with a gourd horn. He told me to carry a buckhorn-handle—for a better grip—six-inch hunting knife on my right hip. Showed me how to use it for a tool and for fighting. Made me pack my revolver on my left side, forward of the hip to draw easier when horsed.

  That old man taught me to track. We spent a lot of time following deer trails and just about anything else on four legs, two legs too. He’d tell some of the Mex kids on the T-Bar to hightail it and give them a head start before I started tracking. He made me pay them a penny apiece. Heck, they’d of done it for free. It was a game to them. Them little scamps could surely lead me into some tough places to follow them.

  There was something else he taught me, and I ain’t even realize it back then. We’d be sitting at the fire, and he talked about hunts of animals and men and injuns. He’d say something like, “I keel and hurt many peoples, but I deed not like eet, except dee indios. There ees too much pain een dee world.” He peered into the dancing fire like he was looking way back in time. “There ees too much pain, and a good man does not make more pain for peoples, unless they deserve eet. Do joo know what I mean, Güero?” He’d started calling me that. It means someone with light hair. Mine’s kind of sandy.

  “I don’t rightly know. I guess you mean don’t hurt no one you don’t have to, or treat people right, like you’d wanna be.”

  “Joo not so dumb as joo act, Güero.”

  “Gracias…I guess. Eh, I like your boots,” feeling like I had to pay an accolade back.

  “Can I trust joo, Güero? Can I take joo word for truth?”

  “With you, Tío, you can bet on it.” I’d started calling him Tío, means uncle in Mex.

  “Not right answer.”

  “It’s not?”

  “Nope.” After a long wait, “Any man should be able to trust joo word.”

  That was just like Tío Pancho, to tell it like it is. You can’t get the water to clear up until you get t
he pigs out of the creek.

  One time we were hunting whitetails on a ridgeline. “How do joo know to do dee right thing, Güero. Eet ees hard some time to see what ees right.”

  That was a tough one. “I guess I’d have to see how it’ll shake out, go with my gut feeling.” I looked at him, wondering if I got it right.

  Tío Pancho looked thoughtful. “Almost right, Güero, almost.” He didn’t say nothing for the longest damn time. He could be madding like that.

  “Almost right, Güero. Don’t go by joo gut feeling. Go by joo corazón…heart.”

  “My heart?”

  “You will know eef joo are dee man, I think.”

  That was the day I felt gooder about myself than I’d ever had. I hadn’t been much raised to think that.

  One day Tío Pancho told me about a bear cub what lost its mama to a hunter. “All ’lone, Cub wander the woods ’til Boar Bear find eet.” He looked solemn. “Boar bears alway keel cubs, but this bear deed not. Eet teached Cub to hunt, find berries, to fish, how to hide from men.”

  Pancho crocked his leg around his saddle horn and lit up his pipe. “Boar Bear understand Cub was not of lesser value because eet small and helpless.

  “One day Cub got loss from Boar Bear. Eet was afray, but eet hunt for food on own. A puma found Cub and follow eet. Cub saw Puma across da creek and deed like Boar Bear had teached eet. Cub stood and raised eets arms over head and try to roar. Eet only sound like leettle yelp. But Puma, she run off. Cub was proud for scaring off Puma, but he turn around and behind him was Boar Bear, standing there with his arms spread wide.”

  Ol’ Pancho sat his horse for a long piece watching the dying sun pink the clouds. “Eet ees important to protect something what cannot protect eetself. Only real hombre can do that.”

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