Crossing Purgatory (30 page)

Carlos sat up and looked about the room. He sucked in his breath and wrapped his arms around his ribs and winced. “The bear?” he asked, darkly.

“All is safe.”

“The others?”

“Safe. Once we determined that you were in no danger, they returned to their chores.” Thompson knew what Carlos yearned to ask and knew as well he never would.

“What of the bear?” Carlos asked again.

Teresa brought a cup of broth and handed it to Carlos and motioned for him to sip and set a tortilla on the covers beside him. “You were very brave,” she said. “You drove it from the gates.”

Carlos tasted the broth. “I do not remember.”

“Very brave,” Teresa repeated. “Eat. Then rest.”

Carlos finished the soup and the tortilla and reclined on the mattress and closed his eyes. The others drifted in from chores to check on him, everyone except Paloma. Genoveva brought fresh bread. Benito came late with the boys and Carlos thanked them for use of their bed. When Teresa went to draw water from the well, Thompson followed her into the courtyard. Across the plaza, Paloma worked in the small garden they kept within the walls of the compound.

“Will she see him?” Thompson asked.

“I don't know,” Teresa said. “She is stubborn.”

“She would deny herself a chance at happiness?”

“First she must allow herself to forgive.”

Thompson took the bucket from Teresa and filled it, and they started back toward the house. “The bear,” Thompson said.

“Yes?”

“It entered the compound and left in great confusion just as Carlos arrived.”

“Si.”

“What happened?”

“It started for the chicken coop,” Teresa said. “We dissuaded it.”

“How?”

“Pepper,” Teresa said. “When the men are in the field, we always keep a cup of ground pepper and a corn knife close,” she said. “For unwelcome visitors.”

“Pepper?” Thompson asked.

“Pepper,” Teresa said. “A cup of powder to the snout, the eyes, and they are discouraged.”

“But to approach so close,” Thompson said.

Teresa looked at him with confused bemusement. “What choice?” she said, and smiled.

They returned to the house and found Carlos asleep. Benito led the boys out to help herd the goats into the pen for the night.

“They will be nervous,” Benito instructed the boys. “The bear's scent still hangs in the air.”

Thompson collected his rifle and followed them to the door.

“You won't stay for the evening meal?” Teresa asked. She was adding onions, early potatoes and some wild greens to the broth she had prepared for Carlos.

“Thank you, but I should be off.”

“I, as well,” said Carlos, awakened, standing wobble-legged beside the bed.

“No.” From the open door, Paloma pushed past Thompson. At the sight of her, Carlos' legs gave out and he sat back into a heap on the matting.

“You need rest.” She came up and stood beside him. Not too close. “And you are filthy.”

Carlos examined his worn trousers, the tattered shirt, but said nothing.

“You will stay tonight,” Paloma continued. “Tomorrow we will wash your clothes. I will trim your hair.”

“As you wish,” Carlos said. His voice was weak, submissive.

Thompson eased from the house and across the courtyard. An uninspiring reunion lacking cheer, he thought. But, a start.

T
HOMPSON SAW LITTLE OF
C
ARLOS
during his convalescence. Paloma moved back into her parent's rooms and they quartered Carlos with the boys. He remained abed for three days and for a week following suffered debilitating headaches whenever he rose. Thompson noticed Paloma arriving late to the fields in the morning and leaving early in the afternoon.

“Are they reconciled?” he called to Benito one day as Thompson cut water from the acequia into the pepper field. Benito walked among the apple trees inspecting for insects. By some miracle many of the trees stripped of leaves by the locusts had regenerated that past spring and Benito coddled them if they were children who had emerged healthy from some horrific illness.

“Something is happening,” Benito said, “but I am unsure what. I know only that each morning upon rising Carlos discovers some pain that prevents him from being fully up and about, and that Paloma does not dissuade him.”

“How does he fare with the others?” Thompson asked.

“The boys won't leave him be. And Teresa used to regard him as family. Now, perhaps she's a bit more reserved in her opinion. But she is a forgiving woman.”

“Does Joseph treat him with civility?”

Benito walked over to Thompson and removed his hat and scratched his head. “We've seen nothing of him since the incident.”

“Nor I,” Thompson said. “I'd just assumed he was helping out elsewhere. Mrs. Light's garden or with the goats.”

“No,” Benito said, and returned his attention to the trees.

T
HE DAY CLOSING
, T
HOMPSON CALLED
on Hanna Light. He'd kept from the placita these past days by intent. He was uncertain how the arrival of Carlos might affect the tenuous peace that existed between Paloma and her father, especially given the awkwardness of having the Lights occupying the room originally intended for her and Carlos. Thompson brooked little interest in social intrigues. Nevertheless, once he learned of Joseph's neglect, he felt compelled to check on Hanna and the baby.

The plaza was quiet when Thompson entered, Benito's family retired for the evening, smoke and the scent of piñon fire in the air. He knocked quietly on Hanna's door and waited on the porch. She answered but rather than join him outside, she swung the door open and turned into the room. He stepped inside. Fireplace embers offered faint light. She fed the embers with kindling and when it flared added a pine knob. Soon, a flickering illumination opened the space to full view. Well-kept, clothes folded on a stand in one corner, the kitchenware neatly arranged on the dry sink, white lace on the table, a pleasant, clean smell to the room. A quilt covered the bed, concentric octagons in vibrant colors. He could not take his eyes from it. He'd not been in a room with a quilt since Indiana, and the sight made his heart tighten in his chest. Destiny lay on the quilt, curled into a ball, sucking her thumb. He ached.

Joseph was absent. “He's away?” asked Thompson.

“More days than not,” she said. “I rarely see him. Neglects the chores, keeps off to himself somewhere.”

“Since Carlos arrived?” Thompson asked. Hanna nodded.

“Are you getting by?” he asked. “Do you need help?”

“No, thank you,” she answered. “The garden is not too great a chore, and I'm able to help Teresa some. I do wish Joseph would take on more in the fields. We owe them.”

“Them?” Thompson asked.

“Captain Upperdine. Señor Ibarra. I know we've been a great imposition.” Tears welled; her eyes glistened but did not spill.

“Would you like me to talk to him?” Thompson asked.

“I'm afraid he's lost to reason,” Hanna said. “I don't know him at all. I tried to be a mother to him after Obadiah died, but he wouldn't take to it.”

“You've done right by him,” Thompson said. “I'll talk to him.”

“I'm not sure where to find him,” Hanna said.

“I have my guesses,” Thompson said.

“You are kind,” Hanna said. “You are a good and kind man.”

“Well,” Thompson said, and started for the door.

“Mr. Grey,” Hanna said, and he turned and she stepped close and took his hand. “Thank you,” she said, and brought his hand to her heart and held it there for a time looking into his eyes. “For everything.” When she did release his hand, he did not remove it from her breast. He caressed her, felt her heart beating, the warmth and swell of her. She closed her eyes and he also, remembering the feel, the connection between two people and then the baby stirred and their eyes opened and Thompson stepped away. Hand on the latch, he turned back.

“Do you think about them?” he asked. “The ones left behind?”

“Only in memory,” she said.

“Do you ever ask what more you might have done?” he asked.

“I do not,” Hanna answered. “I was there for them.”

“But more,” Thompson said. “Could you have done more?”

“There was nothing more. After the grief worked its way through me, I knew there was nothing more to be done.”

“I suppose,” Thompson said.

“Have you died in your grief?” Hanna asked. “Died and come out on the other side?”

“I don't know,” Thompson said. “I don't know what that would feel like.”

Hanna smiled and Thompson saw a measure of sorrow reflected in the firelight.

“If you don't know,” Hanna said, “then you haven't.”

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, T
HOMPSON WENT
to the river, forded at a shallow crossing and approached Carlos's old campsite. As he suspected, he found Joseph stooping beside the hut, a small fire, absently hacking a cottonwood limb with a machete. Thompson stepped from the thicket and Joseph looked up, seemingly unsurprised by his appearance.

“So, you know of this place,” Thompson said. He sat on his heels next to Joseph.

“Wasn't hard to find once I set to it,” Joseph said

“That's his machete,” Thompson said.

Joseph continued chopping until the limb severed and he tossed one of the lengths onto the fire. “He left it in the dirt beside the gate that day with the bear. He wants it back, he can come take it.”

“You here regular?” Thompson asked.

“Once he took up with them,” Joseph answered, and suddenly animated, he propped the remaining length of cottonwood against the ground and cut the branch in two with a single violent stroke of the blade. “I never would of let them touch her,” he said.

“You've said that you know of their troubles,” Thompson said.

“I got ears,” Joseph said. “Hanna is friends with Teresa. They talk.” Joseph sunk the blade into the hard sand. “They would have been called to account.”

“Easy enough to say without a pistol in your eye,” Thompson said.

Joseph spat in the fire.

“Look,” Thompson said, “when the test comes, all we have is the moment. You can't go back, change things. Have to live with it, make your own peace, and move on.”

Thompson stood and stretched and looked down at Joseph. “That time on the trail when the men came. Nothing you could have done.” Joseph did not respond, continued hacking at the cottonwood branch with the machete. Thompson left the campsite more apprehensive than when he'd arrived. Joseph was a boy looking for a fight, any excuse to prove to the world that he was not his father.

Thompson recrossed the Purgatory and joined Benito in the field, moving down the rows, weeding and pinching cutworms and corn borers. Morning wore on, the work tedious and never-ending.

Toward midday, Benito called to Thompson, “Someone coming.”

They both recognized the lead wagon, a six-mule team with Captain Upperdine astride the pole mule.

Thompson was not surprised at Upperdine's arrival. He had been expected shortly. Indeed, Genoveva already had readied their house for his arrival, filled the decanters with his pear brandy and stocked his tobacco tin. But both he and Benito were more than curious about a second wagon following behind Upperdine's, a light hitch pulled by two perfectly matched white jacks.

“A fine-looking team,” Thompson remarked.

“Fit for a patrón,” Benito said, “or a bishop.”

“A single driver,” Thompson said. “Wagon high on its springs.”

“Light cargo,” Benito finished Thompson's thought.

They cut across the field and met Upperdine just up-trail from his house. As was his nature after prolonged absences, Upperdine was buoyant, full of himself, effusive.

“Look at this place,” he said, sweeping his arms. “You've created an oasis in the midst of the wasteland. Tall crops. My oxen and sheep, fat as ticks.”

“We've had good fortune,” Benito said.

“The pests have left us be, for the most,” Thompson added.

“Nonsense,” Upperdine said. “Give credit where due.”

“Your journey was safe?” Benito inquired.

“The usual tests,” Upperdine said.

Thompson and Benito both glanced at the trailing wagon and the man at the reins.

“Mr. Ansell Foster,” Upperdine said. “From Zanesville, Ohio.”

“Long way from home,” Thompson said.

“Come to dinner. I'll explain everything.”

“I'll see to the team,” Thompson said, gathering the lead rein while Upperdine dismounted and walked back to Foster's rig.

T
HAT EVENING
T
HOMPSON CALLED AT
the appointed time, but nevertheless was last to join the dinner party. The women had dressed for company. Both Teresa and Genoveva wore shawls of fine lace that reminded Thompson of snow crystals he'd once viewed through a magnifying glass. Hanna owned nothing of matching refinement but had dressed carefully and had cinched her waist with a colorful belt of dyed cloth borrowed from Genoveva, he supposed. Even Paloma had troubled to arrange her hair up off of her neck in a fashionable twist. Carlos devoured her with his eyes. Genoveva apparently had relayed to John Upperdine news of Carlos, for the Captain accepted him at the table as an expected and welcome member of Benito's family.

Alejandro and Benjamin played by the hearth quietly with the baby. To Thompson's surprise, Joseph was present, his clothes brushed, presentable. A stranger coming into the territory always attracted interest. While they ate, Upperdine explained that he had met Ansell Foster in eastern Kansas Territory as he was forming up a westbound freight train.

“What news do you bring us of the east, Mr. Foster?” Genoveva asked.