Paloma and the Horse Traders (33 page)

He watched Graciela shivering in her blanket as
she doggedly chewed on the dried cactus. She had said last night
that she wanted something better, too.
I wonder if either of us
will know it when we see it,
he thought.

They sat in silence as the sun rose on the
enormity of San Luis Valley, trapped between two massive mountain
ranges, a high and dry desert. The Rio Bravo stretched in the
distance, lined by cottonwood trees. After dark tonight they could
strike across the valley toward the river and fill their nearly
empty wineskins with cold water.

Two days more would see them to White Mountain,
where they might find Utes. Failing that—and if they felt
particularly invisible—Graci could lead them to Great Owl’s
stronghold. What had seemed like a good idea, sitting around the
table in Paloma’s kitchen, now seemed foolish beyond words. What
they really needed to do was find Marco and his miniscule army.
That way, they could all be foolish together.

But just for now, Claudio took a deep breath of
piñon-scented air. He breathed in and out, seeing his puffs of air
in the crisp cold of an early September morning. Gazing across the
high, wide valley, he felt an unexpected emotion, one he almost
didn’t recognize. Graci was in his line of vision, so he admired
the high plain, and the erect back and handsome profile of a born
horsewoman.

He wondered, not sure, if what he felt was
hope.

In
which Marco’s little army follows a smoky trail

M
arco remembered something
Father Damiano, head of the abbey at the junction of the
rios
Bravo and Chama, had told him about pilgrims on a
journey. “You gather any group of people together, and there is
always someone who complains,” he had told Marco, who at the time
was barely out of his boyhood.

The Mondragóns had traveled from the Double
Cross to Santa Fe, to take the annual reports and bring along a
puny wool clip from a disastrous year. Continual Comanche raids and
a Comanche moon that never seemed to set had ground them down. A
hungry winter stared back at them, but his father’s records had to
be carried to Santa Fe, no matter what.

But here had been Father Damiano, bringing them
hot bread and butter, good mush and mutton. Other travelers had
filled the refectory, and sure enough, Marco heard one of them
complaining.

“
There is always one,” Father
Damiano had told him. “Always.”

Not this trip, Marco decided. Toshua never said
much, but Joaquim Gasca had proved to be a remarkable
conversationalist.

Marco had a question for Joaquim first. “You
said that there was one thing I could do to make the Double Cross
safer. Care to divulge it?”

“
With pleasure,” the
private/lieutenant of royal engineers, or whoever he was, replied.
“If you erect two stone bastions diagonally located on two corners
of your parapet, they would offer your best archers an unparalleled
view of two outside walls, without exposing themselves.”

“
Why not one on each corner?” Marco
asked as they rode along.

Joaquim shrugged. “Why bother, unless you are a
slave to symmetry? I’ll design it for you when we
return.”

“
What will I owe you in exchange for
your service?” Marco asked, contemplating the waste of a talented
man, busted down to a private in a shabby garrison, all because he
could not keep his breeches buttoned.

“
Simple, señor: Use your influence
to get me out of the army, where I am utterly useless. Or at least
get my rank back.”

“
I haven’t that much clout,” Marco
replied, both impressed and amused with the working of Joaquim’s
nimble mind.

“
You have that much, and more,”
Joaquim replied promptly, which suggested to Marco that the man had
been thinking about the matter for some time. “Just think: when we
return with Great Owl’s scalp, and all sorts of firearms and
ammunition that the French tried to sell to him, Governor de Anza
will let you do what you want.”

“
You mean the mythical French
traders?” Marco asked.

“
No myth,” Joaquim said, with
something of command in his voice now.

What a poor private you must have made
,
Marco thought. “How do you know this?” he asked.

“
I pay attention, Señor
Mondra—”

“
Just Marco. Tell me
more.”

Joaquim needed no encouragement. “I took it
upon myself to keep Sergeant Lopez’s desk tidy, which mostly
amounted to throwing out wine bottles,” Joaquim explained. “I, um,
happened to see a directive about rumored French traders from far
to the north, selling guns to tribes as they drifted
south.”

“
Sergeant Lopez never mentioned that
to me,” Marco said, wondering what else the poor, stumbling-drunk
sergeant had never mentioned.

“
Between you and me, I doubt he will
be alive when we return,” Joaquim told him.

Marco crossed himself. He thought about Joaquim
Gasca and his obvious ambition.
Joaquim, my wife would tell you
that anyone can change
, he thought. “If what you predict is
true about the sergeant, how would you run the garrison? It will
never be an important
presidio
.”

“
No, but it can be disciplined and
orderly, with troops riding out on regular patrols, even if only
five or six soldiers at a time.” He smiled at nothing in
particular, as far as Marco could tell. “See there, maybe I like
order and symmetry, too.”

“
Then I will see what I can do,
Joaquim.”

They followed the eastern slope of the Sangre
de Cristo Mountains some distance, then crossed the range on a
Comanche trail, according to Toshua, who told them stories of
raiding parties as they sat close together around small evening
fires.

“
Do you miss that life, Toshua?”
Joaquim asked one night after the wineskin had been passed around
one time too often.

God knows Marco would never have asked such a
question, but he did want to know what Toshua would
reply.

“
I admit I wouldn’t mind a good
raid, now and then,” Toshua said, after another swig. He held out
the wineskin and gave it an owlish stare. “This is worse that
tizwin. But I like to have my wife nearby, and I like to be near
Paloma. You, too, Marco. Sometimes, anyway.”

“
Only sometimes?” Marco
teased.

“
The way I see it, I can solve a lot
of your problems with Valle del Sol people, if I can torture them
and kill them. But no, you won’t let me. You will never know the
satisfaction of drawing a knife around a squirming man’s head, and
yanking off his whole scalp, plus ears. Rip. Squish.” He
yawned.

Marco and Joaquim stared at each other. Marco
put the wineskin away.

Another chilly night and warm day followed.
Toshua shot a deer, and they gorged until their bellies were full.
Lazily over that night’s campfire, they argued the merits of
packing along the rest of the raw meat, or leaving it some distance
away for grizzlies. The grizzlies won.

“
We are an army with no ambition,”
Marco said the next morning as they saddled up and continued
trailing close to the foothills. In the distance was Mount Blanca,
still with a trace of last winter’s snow on top. Marco doubted it
would last the week.

Toshua stood with his hands on his hips, gazing
at the mountain. He pointed with his lips. “See that
smoke?”

Marco strained his eyes. “No.”

“
Utes. The village of the man you
seek, Rain Cloud.” He stared again. “Or maybe not. Rain Cloud is
usually to the north by now, hunting the buffalo, getting ready for
winter.” He shrugged. “We will see. He should not be
here.”

They set out across an empty plain of
short-stubbled grass, brown after furnace blasts of summer sun,
even at this high elevation. Hawks swooped and glided on air
currents, looking no more filled with purpose than the men riding
far below them.

Marco sensed that something had changed. Toshua
rode ahead now, alert, his head on a continuous swivel. A few times
he patted his quiver, as if to assure himself it was there, and
full of arrows.

Joaquim didn’t seem to notice. He breathed deep
of the clean air and chewed on a piece of jerky.

Or maybe he did have concerns. “Marco, how is
it that you don’t seem a little apprehensive to be approaching a
Ute camp?”

“
They allied with us when Governor
de Anza took his soldiers and settlers like me to track Cuerno
Verde and kill him, back in ’79.”

“
I was still dallying with the
colonel’s wife in La Havana,” Joaquim said. “I’m sorry. Go
on.”

“
I know Rain Cloud,” Marco said, his
eyes still on Toshua, even farther ahead now, having kneed his
horse into a gallop. Marco tapped Buciro with his spurs and
quickened his own pace, deeply aware how wide this open valley
looked and how vulnerable they really were.

“
I was wounded in that first
battle,” he explained, looking over his shoulder at Joaquim. “A
lance in my ass, if you must know.”

Joaquim laughed. He had put spurs to his horse,
too.

“
Rain Cloud got an arrow in his leg,
a bit more dignified. We were laid out side by side in camp. That’s
a good way to get to know someone,” Marco said.

“
You speak Ute?”

“
Enough. His Spanish is pretty
good.” Marco stared ahead at that visible smoke that he knew was
more than a morning campfire. He dug his spurs into Buciro, aware
that his faithful horse would require no more encouragement to
break into a run. He stopped Buciro alongside Toshua, who was
waiting for them.

“
There is trouble in the Ute camp.
If it is Great Owl trouble, I am not riding in first, to face angry
Utes,” Toshua said.

“
Toshua, you can do anything,” Marco
said.

Toshua gave him a look, the one that made him
wonder if Toshua was deadly serious or toying with him. “Now and
then, I wonder why Paloma married you.”

“
So do I, Toshua. Wait in that clump
of trees. I’ll go alone.”

Mount Blanca loomed to the north now, but he
knew the little pass because even though wounded himself, he had
escorted Rain Cloud and other injured warriors home after the
second battle and Cuerno Verde’s death. Rain Cloud had told him
this was a favorite place, with a spring and sheltering
cover.

He heard voices before he saw the camp, and
knew the Kapota women were slashing their arms and screaming their
sorrow. The keening began low, then grew higher and more frenzied
until the screams reverberated inside his skull. He came closer and
sucked in his breath to see the aftermath of the raid. The brush
shelters were smoldering mounds now. Untended children cried
because their mothers had been slung over horses and carried away,
probably as Graciela had been abducted four years ago.

He turned away at the sight of older women dead
in terrible ways. One struggled in her death throes, her feet
digging into the ground. His glance fell on Rain Cloud, squatting
in the dirt by one of the women.

Her face was battered beyond recognition, but
Marco remembered a kindly Ute woman who fed him, too, when she came
to care for Rain Cloud.
A husband shouldn’t have to see such
things
, he thought, filled with a wrenching combination of
anger and grief.
Why in God’s name do I live here?
he asked
himself, not a new question. God must be weary of hearing him
whine.

Their faces menacing, other Utes started to
gather around him. Marco prudently dismounted and squatted close to
Rain Cloud. He swung the light cloak he had been wearing from his
shoulders and covered the naked body before them.

“
Great Owl did this?”

Rain Cloud nodded, his eyes bleak. “We came
back from hunting elk, Marco.” His eyes welled with tears. “We had
enough meat to get us through the winter.”

“
Has Great Owl molested your village
before?”

Another nod, this one slower, as if it took all
of Rain Cloud’s energy. The old man put his hand on Marco’s arm.
“It is time for us Kapota to move toward the setting sun to other
mountains. The bears have left us behind. It is an omen and we must
follow our brothers the bears.”

“
I have two men with me, one a
soldier and the other a Comanche—Toshua, a Kwahadi, but my friend
and brother. May I motion them in, if they will be safe here?”
Marco asked.

“
We have heard of your Comanche.”
Rain Cloud spoke to two of the mounted warriors. “They will go with
you to escort them in. Three of you? Only three?”

Marco nodded, dread sinking lower into his
stomach like sour beer. “We are a very small army, aren’t
we?”

In
which Claudio remains a perfect gentleman, so Graciela does not
stab him

T
wo riders in a large and
lonely valley, Claudio and Graciela continued to hug the western
slope of the Cristos. The absence of buffalo suggested that Utes or
Comanches had been hunting and scattered the herd. Claudio wasn’t
too proud to scare away buzzards from one carcass that had been
shot to eat right then on the hunt, probably while other hunters
raced on to overtake and shoot more. The best parts were gone—the
heart, liver and haunches—but they salvaged enough back meat for a
good dinner that night, one that made Claudio hold up his hand in
protest when Graciela tried to offer him another chunk.