Meanwhile Góshé gathers up the horse. We pad out of earshot. The boy and I mount up and run for the hills. Zastee hot on our heels.
Once we’re past the business district, we slow down. The rifle scabbard proves to be empty.
I check the coat roll behind the cantle and feel my best friend, Nelly, still snug inside.
“Them two was real pros,” I tell Góshé.
“Yeah?” he says.
“They never searched through the cantle roll. Fingers crossed they just handed Tenner to the livery guy and never checked the saddlebags neither.”
Hoss joins us on the outskirts of town.
“How is this?” asks Zastee, petting her broad back.
“Guess she don’t like crowds,” I say.
“Smart dog,” she says, giving the big bitch a kiss on her furry head.
“How did you escape, Lil Dog?” I ask.
“I waited ‘til no one was watchin’,” he says, “and ducked out the door. I hid under the boardwalk. When it got dark, I went to the livery, waited for the groom guy to fall asleep. Saddled Tenner like Bigan taught me. Easy.”
“How did you get that bloody big saddle on his back?” asks Zastee.
“Stood on a bucket and pushed real hard. Bigan figured it out when he was little like me. He taught me.”
“Tenner held still?” I ask.
“He’s a good horse,” says Góshé. “You know that.”
53 Bigan: Tail Job
Bigan trots Magpie down the hill, weaving back and forth among the scattered juniper and pinyon pine scrub and over to the edge. Headed east southeast.
The pinto mare is mostly black. The white areas between her large black spots are narrow, making it easy to mud over the white areas for night raids.
From here he can see the distant train tracks that have invaded the wide valley. Bringing bad men west. Evil men with no respect for the spirits. Intent only on stealing away the Nemene homeland, Comancheria.
As they, in turn, had stolen it from the Apache. Long enough ago that the vast reaches are now considered the Comanche’s ancestral lands.
The Apache are out west now, for the most part, in Old Mexico, the New Mexico and Arizona Territories. Or east, in Indian Territory. Treaty neighbors with the Kiowa.
They eastern clans are now called the Kiowa-Apache. Originally enemies, they banded together to fight off the Comanche. Didn’t work.
These days they all share a reservation. Redskins are redskins as far as Washington, D.C. is concerned.
He looks at the back of his hand. Light brown from the sun, not red at all. It’s the same with Mexicans; they come in all colors, but folks from back east believe they’re all brown.
The grass prairie is wide open, save for the silver slash of tracks. The well-used rails sparkling bright in the sun. The grassland flows east, north and south from the edge of the foothills; long green blades waving in the breeze all the way to the horizon.
An expanse as yet untamed and mostly unsettled, patiently awaiting the return of the buffalo. Unfortunately for all, redskins and buffalo alike, the seemingly inconsequential iron rails with their stinky, creosote-soaked wooden ties signal a new day. He’s sure of it.
The cattle that man has brought in to replace the buffalo have suffered greatly over the past winter. Deep snows, high winds and freezing cold have devastated the herds.
Would the native herds of buffalo have survived such a winter? The bigger, thicker skinned animal, surely they had before. They no doubt had survived time and again over the millennia.
This past winter was merely Mother Nature’s nudge, once again reminding them all that some things are best left alone. Man is not the master. Nature had unraveled the white eye’s work with an imperious wave of her wand. Still in charge.
His breechclout flaps in the strong breeze. His sixgun is in the open on his left hip. The rifle slung over his other shoulder. His long hair beats at his face, obscuring his vision, until he turns his horse into the wind, pushing the long strands behind his ear.
“It’s really something out here,” he tells Magpie.
He raises the reins and nudges the horse forward.
The spring shoots of grass are busy pushing their way through the old thatch, anxious to feel the life-giving rays of the sun.
Lupine, Indian paint brush, four o’clocks and many other flowers are in brilliant spring display. Flashy advertisements of the fertility brought on by a wet winter.
Before Güero went east to speak to Cha’a’s people, they rode up the highest hill. The sheriff drew the look of the hills and dales in the dirt, once again, and pointed out the features for Bigan to use as guides before he left. And named a few of the peaks in the Rocky Mountains to their west. Injin names. So they could meet up after their respective searches.
“You been here before?” Bigan asked.
“Not me,” said Güero. “It’s all Many Horses.”
Bigan nodded. The ancient warrior has been and seen more than the rest of them put together during his long life.
Güero wished him well and trotted off north and east, toward the upper waters of what the white eyes call the Arkansas River. Set on finding Cha’a somewhere out on his circle.
Bigan turned to his task just a ways to the south, assured by his dream that he would be the one to find her. And unsure that he actually could.
The kid’s plan is to check out the tracks Many Horses spoke of only to him. The trackways of those that came before. The tracks from his dream.
It’s a place that Cha’a might well be drawn to whether she knows it consciously or not. Even, he thinks, if she doesn’t know they’re there.
That’s his understanding of prophetic dreams.
Of course, Many Horses could have mentioned the tracks to her, since the girl is inextricably linked to them. In any case, this is the task before him.
After checking them out, and either finding the blonde woman or not, Bigan will meet up with Güero at the crossroads of the ancestors.
The other two warriors are off to the west, hopefully having found the still warm trail of the two lithesome girls and the little boy.
He pushes his young mare, she’s only a five-year-old, but not all out. She’s a strong steed, and reliable, except for the occasional fit of crowhopping, which will disappear once Magpie has a few hundred more miles of hard work behind her.
The kid got this mare, well capable of carrying the biggest of the four muscular man, because she is the strongest of the MadDog’s herd. Her bloodline’s endurance is long proven; she’s the best of a long line of tough cayuses. Magpie is a true mileage horse.
To conserve weight, he’s riding bareback. And is minimally clothed, which will also help him fit in with his intended compadres.
He has his loose horse, War Chief, lightly loaded with little more than the bare essentials, and some recent bounty, following along. Maybe a bit like human war chiefs, the packhorse tends toward a cantankerous and crafty frame of mind.
They get to the edge of the draw and watch the empty valley for a while. Watching.
Seeing no sign of human life, he heads out.
Magpie slows, picking her way down the steep rocky deer trail to the Purgatory River. Down into the bottom, where the huge ones walked. Long, long ago.
The stream bed is wide, the bottom stripped of vegetation by a recent high water.
He crosses the shallow channel and sure enough, frozen in time on the rock bar on the south side of the flowing stream, there they are.
“Holy cow,” he says, sliding off his mare.
The tracks are huge, medium sized, and tiny, too. A whole herd passed through. Or more than one.
He leans down and runs his fingers over the deeply imprinted sandstone. He walks down the trail, splaying around, spotting the tracks of three different species.
A well-versed man, Many Horses had shared his knowledge of them.
One has round feet with webbed bumpy toes. Apatosaurus, meaning unreal l
izard. A massive quadrupedal herbivore, over seventy-feet-long.
The one with three distinct rounded toes is Allosaurus. A thirty-foot-long bipedal carnivore.
The third species has three distinctly pointed toes, like a bird. Strong toes terminating in thick, birdlike claws. Grandfather didn’t know its name. He said that fossil impressions have shown that it was a feathered omnivore with a toothless beak, like a chicken. A birdlike dinosaur.
He runs his fingers over each, feeling the ancient power they hold. Huge dinosaurs, shaking the ground with each step.
Cha’a should see this. Or would she rather not? Would it fuel her nightmares? The girl has a complex relationship with the ancient reptiles.
Dinosaurs walked here. The original conquerors, long before man. This was their planet once.
There are also ripple patterns in the rock. Proof that they left their prints on the shore of a huge inland sea. One so large and deep that it may well have split the huge continent in half.
He thinks about that. Imagining a herd of the monsters appearing suddenly on the ridgetop above. Predators; stalking, searching, spotting him next to the river below. A puny mammal. Out of place and time. To them he’s of no consequence, merely a delicious snack.
Even a man as big as he would be a two-bite meal. He shivers at the thought. Like he shivered back at home in his bed after the dream.
Is this a sign? Is this where the dream meant for him to go?
Would Ma’cho think it was? The clan shaman is a firm believer in signs.
It’s funny that he didn’t feel he should share his dream with his clan brother. But, it seemed private, personal. Intimate.
Bigan thinks his friend is right about signs. He’d always thought that Ma’cho had some Apache skill that was unavailable to him.
He had the dream this time though. He did; the one he didn’t share with anyone else either, shuddering awake about midnight. It remained his alone to share with Cha’a.
Maybe the ability to foretell is one he and Ma’cho both have. Like Cha’a.
Their meeting two years ago was pretty solid proof that her prescient dreams were real. This dream of his felt the same.
“Cha’a,” he had yelled.
It was real at first. The fear.
He had checked her side of the bed. Empty.
Maybe, he thought, still half asleep, she really was gone. The thought numbed him.
The shiver that ran through to his very bones just after kept him awake the rest the night. Not wanting to think of such a thing. He was wretched. Without her, he might as well die.
Then, Táági arrived and revealed that she was indeed gone. The dream had truly been prophetic.
Or a huge coincidence. But, he didn’t really believe in coincidence.
Suddenly, underneath his long auburn locks, the hair on the back of his neck stands on end.
Something’s watching.
54 Zastee: Weathered In
Ninety miles west.
“There it is,” says Zastee.
“I hate towns,” says Cha’a. “And this fucker’s a pure on city.”
They’re in the trees, staying out of sight. Peering through them down the long hill at the big settlement.
They work their way back down to the road.
“See,” says Cha’a, gesturing at a wooden sign. “Thousands of folk.”
It says, ‘Trinidad, Colorado, pop. 3533.’
“Chicken?” asks Zastee.
Cha’a kicks at the dirt. “Naw, never. Come on.”
Cha’a heads off toward the road, leading the bloody horse, who seems a great help in the transport of Góshé. And their meager supplies. The deer meat. And the rifle, before it was confiscated.
And he’s friendly. Likes a scratch. Okay, Zastee decides, horses are huge and scary, but they can be useful.
They merge into a bigger road, which has a fair amount of traffic. Around a few bends are barns, fields, houses.
They walk and walk.
Soon the houses are closer together. With no barns, only gardens with picket fences. People walking along the road with and against them.
Soon the gardens start to peter out.
There’s a stretch of country.
“City must be close,” says Cha’a.
“What was the name of that other place?” she asks.
“Hell Boiled Over,” says Cha’a.
Góshé laughs explosively. They have to shush him. People are turning to stare.
“Nah, it was Raton. Spanish for rat. We should have shot those two law rats,” says Cha’a when they’re alone again.
“Oh, sure, that wouldn’t have brought the whole bloody country down on our heads.”
Cha’a nods. “Why I didn’t do it when the one first walked in on me. Big mistake. Should have knifed him. Hid the body.”
“Tempting?”
“It was. But dangerous, too. The deputy had me. The sheriff had you two. If the deputy had made a noise when I knifed him…”
“Too bloody right.”
“Yep, I made a judgment call. Hey, what about those two shots?” the blonde asks. “One was yours, right?”
“Quite,” she says. “Some bastard come out the back of that copse as you went in the front. He caught sight of something, probably the sun hit my pistol wrong. Shot at us, anyway. I responded.”
“And?”
“Dunno, the lawman stepped in just after, faced me down. All I know is that when the shot hit, he fell flat,” she says. “I don’t know if he was hit or just ducking.”
“More reason to kill the fuckers. Let the spirits sort ‘em out.”
“Low profile is the name of the game around white folk for me,” says the dark-skinned girl, glancing around carefully.
“Duck and shuffle,” the blonde says, eying her for a reaction. “Just like Tang.”
“You know bloody Tang?” asks Zastee, surprised.
“Mose’ son? Sure,” says Cha’a. “He’s a handsy bastard. And always gettin’ in trouble with the law. With Güero. He’s the sheriff, you know.”
Zastee nods. “So you’ve said.”
“That’s when Tang puts on the duck and shuffle, mock repentant. Emphasis on the mock part,” Cha’a continues, “Güero keeps givin’ the man a second chance. Gives him a work/release job. Must be on his fourth fuckin’ second chance since I been around.”
Zastee scoffs.
“Say, how the hell do you know Tang?” asks the blonde.
“Bloody bastard took me prisoner.” She raises her palms. “True, I came upon his camp and was trying to steal some of his food. I was sick and bloody starved,” she says. “Anyhow, once he had the drop on me, I apologized and offered to work for it. He tied my hands, but he did feed me. Then, all amicable, he gave me a blanket and we went to sleep.
“In the middle of the night, the bastard snuck in behind. Thought I was sleeping. Tried to have his way with me. The back way, no less.”
“You get away okay?” asks the blonde.
“Too bloody right I did. I had read his greedy eyes earlier. I lay in wait. Bruised the bastard up good.”
“Good fer you. Fucker’s made advances on me, too. I seem to recollect pullin’ a sidearm or some such. Can’t shoot Mose son, though. Sheriff’s even run him completely out of the country twice, but he’s just another bad penny, keeps comin’ back.”
“Hard to believe that bloody waste of human flesh is Mose’ son.”
“He was raised by his mother, who is no fan of Mose,” I say. “Never met her, but I know Mose. He’s the good guy in this story, never treated me any way but right. I don’t know where Tang’s ways come from, damn sure wasn’t his pa.”
“Men are scum,” she says.
The blonde shakes her head. “My men are the best. All the men in the clan. Even ole Two Bears. He’s an ass squeezer and an eyeballer, but that’s all. He never made an untoward advance on me. Don’t judge all men by the bad ones.”
Zastee is quiet.
“Okay, whatever. We’ll go into the damn town, get this pore horse a good feed of grain,” says Cha’a, tossing a pebble at a sunning lizard. “We’ll find out when the train leaves. So’s we can get our asses back out of there.”
“You aren’t worried that they telegraphed ahead about the killing and the jail break?”
“I am,” says Cha’a, putting hands on her hips and looking at Zastee. “I figure we’ll change our looks. What can we do to change yore hair? What say we cut it plumb off?”
“No bloody fucking way,” she says, fingering the red beaded dreads. “We can brush it out. Take out the beads. And cut yours.”
“Unh uh. No fuckin’ way. Long hair holds powers of intuition. No way am I ready to lose mine. I’ll tie it up under my hat and wear my vest. Become a man. In loose clothes, no one notices my tits.”
They find a shady spot out of sight of the road. Under a big oak tree by the chimney of a burnt-out house. Cha’a points out old Comanche markings on the place. Their jinx. Meant to invoke the spirits, to scare the white eyes away for good.
The ever-hungry little boy gets the last of their trail food. They only have deer meat left. It needs to be smoked and dried into jerky. Or eaten, soon.
The blonde lights a little fire; they strip it thin and narrow and hang it over the coals.
Her dreads take a long time to untangle and comb out, but patience gets it done.
Ten Spot grazes while they work.
“Yore hair ain’t kinky?” asks Cha’a, fingering the loose locks.
“I’m only a bit African,” she says. “My hair is Rarámuri. Once the strands relax, it will be straight.”
“Wow.”
“Shall we make yours into dreads?” she asks.
“No time. I’ll twist it into a bun. ‘Sides, if they did send out a telegram, the law will be watchin’ fer dreadlocks.”
Góshé gets a bun to replace his Injin braids. With his hat on, his hair looks short.
When they finish, Cha’a looks short-haired too, and Zastee has long wavy black hair halfway down her back.
“You could pass fer Mexican now. You speak any Spanish?”
Zastee shakes her head.
Hell of a Horse Page 14