“So ... altruistic. How did you know?”
“Word of mouth,” Ivy answers. “It seems many people knew this train was coming in—the reason your drivers need guards, sir.”
“Thorp. I run the train, not the freight party. They are only my cargo. If you wish to negotiate, you must take it up with them. What happened here?”
“The building was infested with risers,” Sam says. “Otherwise, the whole pass was deserted when we arrived last night.”
“There are worries besides robbers on these trails, Mr. Thorp,” Ivy says. “It would not be wise to tarry long in unloading.”
He regards her steadily for a moment. “No.... Of course not.” Then turns away with his guard.
Ivy waits with the others some distance from the armored train and heat of the fire while one freight car and two cattle cars are unloaded of three wagons in all, ready packed with the goods for transport. Four enormous oxen are harnessed to each wagon, one driver and one animal handler to each loaded and groaning cart. All, including a seventh man in charge, a Mr. Sender, are Negroes. They wear boots, trousers, shirts, waistcoats, and hats of cowpunchers rather than the nattier attire of their train guards.
Ivy watches the maker’s train unload with her stomach churning, throat tight. A train. When trains no longer run. One train down here in the middle of nowhere. Not ten thousand dollars out of reach, but standing before her, puffing away.
As the last ox is yoked, she is on the verge of approaching Mr. Thorp when Sam nods her toward Mr. Sender, who has just signed a document Thorp showed him and is now turning back to his men.
They move to the stocky, powerful-looking man with their proposition. Mr. Sender looks them up and down, says Thorp told him what they wanted, then walks away.
“Haven’t a nickel for you folks,” he says as he goes. “You want to follow along out of the goodness of your hearts and get us safe to the needy of Santa Fé, I’m sure we’re obliged.”
“Mr. Sender, you don’t know what you might be facing out here.” Ivy follows.
He turns back. “Don’t I, miss? I’ve moved oxen across the Rocky Mountains, across the Rio Grande. Weathered the worst summers, worst winters, worst floods, worst droughts, worst outlaws this country sees fit to invite in. As I say, you want to ride with us, lend your assistance and keep your own camp, I’ve no objection. But, if you’re just here for a job, you may take yourselves away. Good afternoon, miss.” He tips his broad hat and returns to his teams.
Ivy watches him go with her stomach sinking, Sam telling her he is sorry—as if he is at fault.
She dashes to the armored train as Thorp steps into the car, his men closing doors.
“Mr. Thorp.”
He glances at her.
“I am seeking a way north and east from New Mexico, sir—”
“No passengers.”
“I appreciate you are not here to—”
“No passengers. Period. This is a sanctioned and legal passage of goods to a Territory in need. I run a clean show, miss. If you want a train anywhere, there might be one from Denver with government approval someday. This great nation of ours is in shutdown. Farther north and east and a body sees cavalry and infantry outposts across this land, keeping people where they are. Unless you have official business and official leave, no one’s leaving the region anytime soon.” He touches his beaver with two gloved fingers. “Enjoy your trip back to Santa Fé, miss.” Then he swings the door shut in her face.
The train shrieks, pulls away. The fire cracks and pops with the drivers’ singing whips. The oxen put their heads down and trudge out, south to start on the long road to Santa Fé, leading them days out of their way in order to stay on more level and manageable ground, rather than the almost direct route the five riders took.
Ivy mounts with Sam’s help. She watches the vanishing steam trail, then dust cloud of three freighters rumbling away.
The whole company remains silent in their saddles, heat of the fire at their backs, their horses restless, though flies have been driven away by smoke. Ivy wonders if they wait for her to say something. Tears burn her eyes as she again looks north after the train, throat shrunken, posture rigid in the sidesaddle, fingers stiff on her reins.
“Goners by morning,” Melchior says.
Everyone besides Ivy, keeping her face turned away, looks at him.
“Light a fire,” Melchior goes on. “Bet’cha my saddle they’ll light a fire and cook up a dandy hot supper. Even if they know the ropes, won’t figure Plague-sick are out here.”
“Then they shall depart this life before outlaws get a look in,” Sam murmurs.
Ivy inhales deeply through her mouth, sniffs, blinking, and turns to look at Melchior, then the others.
“I suppose ... we will have to be altruistic after all.”
Without another word, the company moves off, slowly, one by one, leaving the railhead behind, as they start down the road after the freighters.
They do not stay on the road for long, however. Ivy discovers right away that trailing ox teams is slow, tedious, loud, and astonishingly dusty.
Rosalía casts her a commiserating look and jerks her head to the west. Ivy follows her up a slope onto higher ground and sagebrush. Grip moves with Rosalía while Melchior and Sam take lower ground east of the trail. They are already on a downhill after the peak of the pass. Mountain vistas roll away in the far distance below a perfect blue sky which seldom offers rain. Only a few tiny scrub trees dot the landscape about them, with dry brush, dry sandy earth, and bleached yellow rocks. The peaks to their left offer patches of color from evergreens, plateau tops running smooth as tables over many miles. The farthest distance reveals peaked ranges glowing frosty blue on the farthest horizon. The air feels so thin and sharp it makes sea level air feel as if one had to wade through.
Her nose has stopped bleeding every few minutes in the dry altitude. She had a satisfying meal today. No one seems interested in paying for the job, but they are here and they might as well go along. At last, she finds herself reining Luck in more than pushing her on. They even pause to let their mounts graze when they pass a stretch of grass not too dry.
As they start again, Rosalía glances at Ivy, who watches those far off blue mountains through her sungoggles.
“I never get tired of it.”
Ivy looks at her, now gazing into the distance, her dark hat shading her face.
“My father, before he lost his sight, used to call it El Reino de Dios en la Tierra. God’s Kingdom on Earth.”
“I ... I don’t know why I....” Cheeks flushed, Ivy pauses, glancing around at Grip riding silently at their flank like a surly guard dog. “I never really noticed it before. I should have. All this time I’ve been here.”
When Rosalía again meets Ivy’s eyes her expression is sad. “Wishing not to be somewhere will tint your sight as you look upon any land.”
Ivy stares ahead.
“I’m sorry you are having such difficulty getting home, Ivy.”
Ivy nods and swallows.
They ride in silence for a long time before she says, “Rose ... would you mind ... could you please teach me a few words of Spanish?”
Rosalía’s bright smile returns. “I will teach you todo.”
Rosalía starts her with sí, no, por favor, hola, and buenos días. Then they spend half a mile practicing Lo siento, no hablo español and—at Ivy’s request and to Rosalía’s amusement—how to ask for a bath and hot meal without chiles.
After another half-mile, Grip finally speaks: “Dile cómo pedir ayuda. Eso es lo que ella necesita.”
Rosalía tells him to mind his own business in English, to which he responds he has been trying his whole adult life while no one else will allow it.
This reminds Ivy of something and she shifts to face him. Not easy to ask. Yet she is feeling fatalistic and tries not to envision her mother’s disapproval.
“Who is the Anglo lady with Eastern attire in Santa Fé who seems so greatly to favor
your company?”
Grip glares at his horse’s black mane.
Rosalía also partly turns in her new saddle to look at him.
When Grip persists in silence, she finally turns to Ivy. “That’s Winter. She’s from Chicago, but her family came down here when she was a little girl because her father was a school teacher. He took ill with consumption and died after running a local school for many years. Now her mother is also ill and Winter cares for her, bringing in washing, baking and cooking for local bachelors or cowhands passing through. She’s a remarkable cook. Really a wonderful young lady. Bright and attractive and sweet as—”
“¡Basta!” Grip calls behind them. “Entendemos.”
“Do you?” Rosalía looks around at him. “You don’t behave like it.”
Ivy looks uneasily at Rosalía. “I ... don’t understand.”
She sighs. “Nor do I. The respuesta corta, the short answer, is that Winter ... she’s ... unusual. In a good way, mostly. And she believes that my brother is perpetually one day away from proposing to her.”
“Is he...?”
“Are you, Grip?”
When he says nothing, only glaring ahead, Rosalía looks back to Ivy. “She’s a lovely person. I’ll introduce you when we’re back.”
“I would like that, thank you.” And she means it. Another English-speaking woman, one who can relate to homesickness, would be a blessing. She does not care how peculiar the woman may be.
They set out so late in the day from the railhead that it is not many hours before the sun begins sinking. Down and down they travel, ever descending from the pass, drivers frequently placing drags on the wheels of their heavy wagons, the landscape sometimes growing so steep or rugged on one side of the road that either Ivy, Rosalía, and Grip must ride behind the wagons, or Sam and Melchior must from the far side.
They have a solid hour of daylight left when the freighters pull off the road onto a smooth, open stretch of dirt and scrub to make camp.
The riders keep a distance between them, sending Sam—since Ivy supposes the drivers will not listen to her and, as Melchior says, Sam speaks the Queen’s English—to warn them about killing all traces of fire when night falls.
They build their own hasty fire and enjoy one more sparse pot of jackalope stew with meat they already had roasted from that morning. No grass for the horses, almost no water for the whole day either, and little grain and hay. Rosalía tells them they’ll reach lower ground and grass by the next day—no comfort to the restless animals tonight. Ivy knows enough about horses by now to realize they prefer to graze practically all day and all night whenever possible.
To her relief, the freight men comply with no fire after dark and Ivy is just settling her own bedroll and cloak when Grip says, “Who is watching?”
Silence.
“I can start,” Sam says at last.
“I’ll start,” Melchior says. “Lie up anyway. You’re out in two ticks. Then I’ll wake Grip and he’ll wake you for last.”
“He was up all last night,” Rosalía says. “Wake me for last. Grip and Ivy can have a turn tomorrow.”
Ivy listens in some amazement. It had not dawned on her that protecting a load of goods would involve, well, so much security. Clearly one more oversight.
She curls up in cloak and bedroll, wishing Es Feroz could be here, has to shift off a rock, then curls up again, head on her saddle. Rosalía lies just beside, Sam and Melchior at their feet and across the dead, ashy fire. Grip, as always, stays away by a good ten or fifteen feet. At least he lies down tonight. She recalls what Rosalía said. So Grip really was up all last night? Why? Was he more concerned by the little outpost in the dark than he let on? Perhaps her and Melchior were not the only ones.... Or, perhaps, he just ... likes stars....
Twenty-Eighth
ABC
The next day passes like the first until they arrive late to a substantial town on the former stage line. The population seems to have shrunk to a quarter of its former inhabitants since Ivy’s momentary visit a year back. A handful of old men sitting on porches smoking, a few ranchers in the saloon.
The drivers make their way quickly to the empty livery, with Melchior, Sam, Grip, and Rosalía riding between the wagons and the few men off the streets walking up to gawk. Shouted questions are asked about the destination and contents, but men soon disperse in the face of highly visible firearms.
Plenty of feed for both horses and humans, though both run at absurd prices. The freight men pay no attention to the riders, who return the favor. As if all happen to be on the same trail, going the same way, without being aware of it. Barring shifts with the animal handlers watching goods at the stable, they spend the night at the only hotel in town. As far as Ivy is aware, Grip never enters the hotel and remains at the livery all night.
At least rooms at the Monkat Creek Hotel are the only thing in town not four times normal price. The weedy little Frenchman behind the counter seems disappointed they will not upgrade to four rooms instead of two for sixty cents extra. But Ivy is glad for Rosalía’s company in the dark little room with two small beds crouched on each side of a square window. The desolate and nearly deserted feel of the place makes her think of Raton Pass as darkness falls, and she feels grateful she does not have to face it alone.
The third day it seems they move backward, so slow is the pace compared to riding across country the direct way—even slow compared to stage on this same road. Part of it may be the noise: the great weight on wooden axles and wheels creates a grinding, screeching sound only tolerable at a mile’s distance. This mind-numbing noise makes even dust, odors, and heat small matters by comparison.
One hundred yards behind freighters, Ivy practices new Spanish words under her breath, watching for Es Feroz, sure she spotted the fox slipping along a ridge looming over a steep part of the trail some way back.
When they make camp, she removes herself far from the others as darkness sets in, waiting, watching, calling softly. Es Feroz never comes. Ivy returns to camp in the dark.
In the morning, she starts out again trailing behind the party, watching and calling.
Reaching the base of a rugged hill, they start across shortgrass prairie of blue grama and buffalo grass already turning gold and red in this dry spring. Ivy almost likes the prairie after so many dangerous mountain passes, forest obscuring vision, and steep ups and downs for horses and riders.
Even in this open ground, she does not see her gold, gray, and white fox.
She cannot ask Grip to leave his dog behind when they travel together. Even with the dog away, there is the wagon noise. She will have to search around Santa Fé when they return.
Wondering what to do about the big dog, and if she has the nerve to broach the subject with Grip, Ivy shakes her head and knees Luck to a slow canter to catch up. Luck has just bounced into her chopping canter when Ivy’s hat is struck off her head with great force. Something hard, fast, hot slams across the back brim just above her neck at the same instant she hears the crack.
A sound like Sam’s Henry repeating rifle. But Sam is far ahead, riding to the right of the wagons with Melchior, his rifle in its sheath. And the noise came from behind, back up on the slope.
All in a second. Then she jabs the mare with her heel, slaps reins, leans forward, and shouts, “Go!”
Luck goes. The shot spooked her and she flies like a falcon over a groove in the rutted wagon road, ears flat, neck outstretched, legs pounding away.
As another shot rings out, Ivy hears the searing buzz of a bullet fly past, sees the pop of dirt in the road far ahead where it strikes and sees, thanks to sungoggles giving her clarity, her company wheeling their horses to face her while freight drivers crack their whips and oxen rumble ahead.
It is a flashing moment before Luck has covered one hundred yards, bringing them in line with their companions, all with weapons drawn, Sam and Rosalía shooting rifle and carbine.
As Ivy and Luck streak past, the four wheel their horses to
follow. Though Sam and Rosalía’s fast use of their ranged weapons has covered them, the wagons are moving with lumbering slowness compared to galloping horses. Not to be a high speed chase if they are here to protect freighters. Ivy should draw her revolver to shoot behind as her companions are doing. Even if she cannot hit anything, they need the extra fire. But it is all she can do to cling to Luck with both hands and focus her strength on staying in that bouncing sidesaddle.
Melchior and Grip shoot backward. Ivy can hear their revolvers crack just behind her. Rosalía and Volar plunge past, racing for the near freighter.
So much dust is kicked up by the three wagons, twelve oxen, and now one horse ahead of Ivy she cannot see through the cloud as she draws close. She tries a frantic look behind, but the three men and horses at her flanks are only dark, flying blurs in yellow dust. The idea of seeing as far as actual pursuers is absurd, yet they must also be nearly impossible to see.
Ahead, Rosalía shouts to the drivers. Ivy can hardly make out her voice through crack of guns, thunder of hooves, banging, creaking wagons ahead, and her own coughing.
It never crossed Ivy’s mind that they would be attacked by humans with guns on this trip. Who shot at her? Why? Who could be chasing them across this horrible dry road with no ditch or bank, not a tree for miles, no cover in reach? Didn’t seeing armed men around a transport keep trouble away? Possibly risers, possibly warn off robbers with their presence and firepower. Now, to actually be shot at and chased—absurd.
Luck stops. Ivy has no idea how she manages it so fast: pelting along like a greyhound one moment, the next, the freighter looms ahead, apparently stationary in the middle of the road, bursting from dust as if rushing them in darkness. Luck slams down all four feet, her body twisting, rump swinging sideways past her shoulders as her quarters drop and her head is thrown high, to avoid crashing headlong into the great wall of crates and sacks that is the freighter.
Ivy does not stop. She has a single moment to think that, like being shot at and pursued, she never imagined this would happen, as her left boot and right leg are ripped from the saddle. She catapults over the mare’s white-blazed head, across the mound of goods, then crashes over the top. What breath she has left is knocked from her body. She smashes against sacks of rice and dried fruit at tremendous speed. At least sharp-edged crates rest at the bottom.
Lightfall Two: Fox, Flight, Fire (Lightfall, Book 2) Page 9
