Crossing Purgatory (18 page)

“Preparing the soil for spring?” Benito asked, coming up beside him. Earlier, Thompson had seen Benito at work outside the placita, but had not stopped to visit. Benito must have noticed him as well and become curious of his intentions.

“No. I plan on sowing presently. An experiment,” Thompson answered. “Obadiah Light, Hanna's husband, brought a strain of seed sent from the old country.”

“The old country?” Benito asked.

Thompson retrieved a pouch from the wagon and showed Benito the wheat seed. “His vision, to plant out here. Russia wheat. Spread in the fall. Lies dormant, soaks up the winter snow, spring rain. Harvest before the heat of summer.”

Benito examined the seed. Held it to the light. Bit it in two, tasted.

“Looks like any other wheat,” he said. “Can we ask the land to work both summer and winter?”

Thompson stooped and picked up a clot of dirt the size of his fist.

“I don't know if anything will take in this soil, regardless of season.” He attempted to crumble the clot but it fell from his hand in hard knots. “I checked Captain Upperdine's equipment. We lack a harrow.”

“John is not by nature a farmer,” Benito said. “Our tools are limited.”

“But without a harrow—” Thompson started.

“There are ways,” Benito interrupted. “We've a respectable crop in the field.” Thompson noted irritation in Benito's voice.

Thompson had taken note of the corn, and already had raked the hay, the product of Benito's effort. He shrugged in acknowledgment.

“Leave the land set for a few days,” Benito gestured to the newly broken field. “Glean the stones. Then drag it with a cottonwood log.” He motioned with his arm. “Crossways to the furrows and finish down their length. Then cast your seed.”

Thompson nodded. “Makes sense,” and, after a pause, “thank you.”

Benito helped Thompson load the plow into the wagon and they walked together as far as the placita.

“What made you decide to plant?” Benito asked as they parted. Thompson sensed that Benito had been mulling the question since inspecting the seed. Did Thompson weigh a future in this valley, seek to establish a foothold? Or, perhaps, to curry favor with Hanna Light? With Captain Upperdine?

“I felt I owed it to Obadiah Light,” Thompson said. And what he said was true, as far as it went.

“Yes,” Benito said.

They parted, Benito to work on his chicken coop, Thompson to return the wagon and fodder the oxen, an afternoon at the acequia, digging. Later, a thick slice of moon risen, Thompson retraced his steps to the low rise overlooking the wheat field. The moon cast the upturned soil into light and shadow, the furrows like a windswept pond. He'd thought to call on Hanna that evening to tell her of his plans with Obadiah's seeds, but did not. He'd been so protective of her and Joseph on the trail, felt such responsibility. But since she took residence in Benito's placita, he was content with his privacy. Unfair, perhaps to the Ibarra family to impose upon them, to have strangers within the walls of their compound, where, Thompson knew, Benito would feel accountable for them. Hanna, so fragile, and Joseph, as brooding and moody as Paloma. Perhaps they reminded him too much of his failings, perhaps he feared Hanna growing too dependent on him at a time he did not wish for closeness. Whatever the reason, Thompson valued the isolation of his cabin away from the rest.

He studied the field, listened to the silence of the night, and watched stars emerge from their dark womb, a rebirth each evening. He owed this field to Obadiah, yes. But something more, something Thompson could not fully articulate to himself and would never attempt to explain to anyone. At work on the land, he felt almost of a whole with it, the soil his substance, the seed his sustenance, the budding shoots his spirit. The emotions embarrassed him, made him feel somehow vulnerable.

17

H
arvest upon them, almost before Benito thought possible. He'd finished the chicken coop, worked on a lean-to shed, and made sturdy the goat pen after his only buck and two of his does breached the rails and wandered along the river course until Benito finally had to give up a day tracking them down. They did not have many acres in crops, only him last spring to sow and to tend Captain Upperdine's trail stock. But a second section of grass needed cradling and the acres in corn stood ready. And, Genoveva's expansive garden. He'd hand-watered the garden and the corn that past spring before he'd left for Plaza del Arroyo Seco, hours trudging the cart from the river to the field, buckets brimming, empting, refilling, beginning of day to ending. There'd been little rain. But now, harvest called. He'd not yet finished the adobe, hadn't time to start a room for Paloma.

The women began putting up garden produce while the men finished the haying and began cutting and shocking the acres planted in corn. After drying in the field, Benito and Thompson gathered the shocks and stacked them beside Upperdine's storage bins and each evening after supper, weary, they all collected around the growing mountain of stalks to shuck and strip the corn by the dim wash of a lantern. The dried corn went into baskets and burlap sacks, stalks and husks were chopped and pitched into the wire and wood-slated storage bins to be used as fodder over winter. Cobs were saved for kindling. After just a single evening's work, they all suffered cramped hands and bloodied fingers.

Most evenings, Captain Upperdine easily tired of the labor and much preferred entertaining them with ditties sung by trappers and with yarns about the old days. He'd pace the yard, moving alternately within and beyond the reach of lantern light.

“I come out here with the freighters when I was no more growed than the boy here,” Upperdine pointed to Joseph, who straightened and watched Upperdine intently. “Put on blustery airs so the others might think to take my measure, but mostly they just laughed. They brought me along because they needed a hand.” Upperdine paced, and drank from the cup he seemed always to have in hand during evening hours. “Worked me into the routine from the get-go. Pulled night watch right off. Nobody needed to prod me awake. Every time the wind stirred, every titmouse moving through the grass was a grizzly or a prairie wolf or a savage. When I pulled early watch, I couldn't hardly calm back down until about daybreak, and when I pulled late watch, couldn't sleep at all beforehand. I was wore thin before even a week in the barrens.”

“So one night, I stationed up, hunkered down, and the night was real warmish, and I dozed a little. But even in my sleep, things seemed too still, too calm, and I jerked awake. Not five paces away they'd come up out of the dark, five, six Red Men, moving among the livestock, selecting the best of the horses. They watched me take notice, kept their eyes on me as I stood, but didn't seem none too alarmed. I just stared at them, couldn't move a muscle. Tried to shoulder my musket, but it weighed a hundred pounds. Thought about the long knife in my belt but couldn't move. Stuck in place. Couldn't call out. No voice.”

Upperdine drained his cup and the others continued with the work and waited while he searched for his jug. The night fell quiet for a while, the scratchy sound of brittle husks being pulled from ears and tossed onto the fodder heap. Then Upperdine returned and took up where he'd left off.

“It seemed they'd seen my sort before. They just watched me out of the side of their faces while they went about their business and then one of them motioned to another, hands moving all this way and that, and this savage edges close. I see that he is no older than me and the same fear showed in his eyes, except that he willed hisself forward. He's got his hand on the hilt of his knife and he's all jittery and dancing, and I can't move. He gets to within six feet or so and then he just leaps, like a deer clearing a log, and before I can even register it, he come up on me and taps me on the top of the head with his open hand and runs back to the others and they are all smiling at him. They pick up the leads of the horses they done cut out and start back through the field, and all a sudden a shot rings out over my right shoulder, so loud my ear goes numb and them Indians scatter into the dark.”

Upperdine paused and looked off into the shadows and several sets of eyes involuntarily followed his gaze, searching for danger. “There was shots ringing out and men shouting and Indians giving up their spoils and running for their ponies and after all that chaos we ended up losing but a single horse. Only one. But enough that I worked the entire trip without pay to make up for it.”

Benito watched Paloma to see if she might react to Upperdine's story, if her expression might show any hint of compassion for a young man put to the test and rendered immobile by fear. But if she was affected at all, she did not show it. She just continued with her work, as though not listening to the story at all.

“How come they didn't kill you outright?” Joseph asked Upperdine.

“I don't know,” Upperdine said. “Thought about it over the years. Figure maybe I was just no proper test for them. No honor to be gained by putting me under.” Upperdine chuckled and plopped down cross-legged beside Genoveva and the young boys and absently picked at an ear of corn.

Benito studied Joseph, how he had perked up considerably at John Upperdine's stories. Joseph was a boy just bursting to become a man, and Benito also noticed him displaying uncommon eagerness to join the work group in the evenings, sitting close by Paloma, shyly glancing from the corner of his eye, watching her hands at work, stripping the husks and shelling the kernels from the cob. Once, Benito watched Joseph attempt to engage Paloma in conversation, but she turned away with a dismissive gesture.

Most of the dried kernels would be used for
posole
and to grind into meal for the tortillas. But a portion Upperdine set aside to experiment with fermentation, having once sampled a local distillation in Taos and determined to duplicate it. Last year, his efforts resulted in a gut-churning concoction unfit for consumption, good only for sopping the hogs or for sale to the most desperate and thirsty of lowlifes passing by the new fort. But he claimed to be inching closer to that magic formula, that this year his confidence was high. Genoveva scolded his wastefulness, but did not begrudge his folly.

Benito silently questioned Genoveva's generosity with the corn. The field yielded fairly, but this winter there would be additional mouths to feed. He'd worked to exhaustion the previous spring putting as many acres as possible into production, planning on his family's arrival. The unexpected presence of Thompson and the Lights imposed an additional burden on the stores. Benito had discretely raised the issue with Upperdine, who had dismissed his concerns.

“Thompson will bring in meat,” Upperdine had said. “If our grain runs short, he'll make up for it with game.”

“Grain keeps through the winter,” Benito had countered. “Meat can spoil.”

M
ORNING OF THEIR THIRD DAY
hauling corn from the field, Benito stood at the end of a row, stretched the muscles of his lower back, and assessed the dwindling number of shocks. They should have the remaining corn loaded by day's end, forenoon tomorrow at the latest. Another few evenings of husking, and the storage bins would be full. More than a decent yield, he thought. He removed his hat and mopped his head. The humidity had come up during the day and he noticed a dark cloud on the horizon. He hoped rain would hold off until the crop was safely stored. He studied the sky for an answer. The cloud seemed to undulate, to change shape before his eyes, to grow and shrink, darken in mass, a dense ball, and then lighten and thin out. He heard a horse advancing and saw Captain Upperdine galloping toward them. Thompson and Joseph came from their wagon and walked to Benito and stood beside his cart waiting for Upperdine.

“Gather in the corn, boys,” Upperdine called from his horse as he drew near. “Stack as high and as fast as you can.”

Benito and Thompson looked at one another in confusion and then at Upperdine, unsure how to respond.

“That's what we're fixed on,” Thompson finally answered.

“Hurry. We have two hours at most,” Upperdine shouted, pointing to the west.

“Grasshoppers.”

The three regarded the cloud with a grim comprehension.

“Son of a bitch,” Thompson said.

Speechless, Benito watched the swarm for a moment longer before leading the burro at a run toward the next row of shocks. He called to Upperdine over his shoulder, “Have the women collect what's remaining in the garden.”

Within a half-hour, sweat-drenched, Thompson, Benito, and Joseph delivered full loads to Upperdine's barn loft. Hay and other fodder occupied normal capacity, but they stacked corn to the ceiling and when they could wedge not another stalk, they began tossing shocks onto the barn floor, leaving Joseph and the young boys to stack it. The women saw to the garden, hauling in under-ripe melons and pumpkins, pulling bush beans and pepper plants up by the root, throwing everything they could gather into the house.

With each trip to the field, the swarm advanced. Benito calculated the remaining minutes, urged his strength-drained legs forward, palsied with fatigue, down the rows. He filled his cart and ran the burro to the placita and, after unloading, he and Teresa took a few minutes to chase the goats from the pen. He was unsure how the grasshoppers might harass his animals but wanted to give them opportunity to seek what relief the low hills might offer. He covered the well with a tarp and weighted the tarp with stones and hoped Upperdine thought to do the same. Arriving back in the field, he continued gathering shocks. His back ached. His shoulders and arms as well. Dizzy with fatigue, his ears buzzed. He stood for a moment to regain equilibrium, to catch his breath. His dizziness abated but the buzzing intensified. He shook his head and looked up. The cloud loomed, the air vibrating with the whirling onslaught. Benito threw bundles of corn stalks haphazardly onto the cart. Deafening, the high-pitched din coalesced into a single voice as the swarm advanced low overhead, fully blotting the sun, casting an ominous twilight over the land. His cart half-full, Benito turned for the placita as the first insects alighted.