Good Water

by John D. Nesbitt

  The cattle thundered north through the camp with riders sticking close and hollering, “Yip! Yip! Yip! Hee-yeah!” Tommy guessed the herd at about fifty head, big enough to cut a wide path of destruction but small enough that a handful of riders could keep it together and drive it fast.

  Tommy counted five men on horseback, but because of the dust and the turmoil and the thin moonlight, he couldn’t be sure of any of them. At least two men and possibly a third had large, hulky figures. Tommy ticked off the White Wings crew that came to mind: Fred Berwick, Walt McKinney, Lew Greer, and Vinch Cushman. Four men, five riders. Then he recalled the two bulldogs. Fred hadn’t mentioned them when he met up with Vinch, but they had probably been on hand. That made sense. None of the riders had the taller, cloaked figure of Cushman, but between Greer and the bulldogs, the hulks were easy to account for.

  The hoofbeats receded, as did the “Yip!Yip!” of the herders. The stampede had lasted but a few minutes. With the greater noise fading, groans and dull cries were now spreading through the camp. Someone was beating a spoon on a pan. The voices of women rose and fell, and the crying of children was steady. Two men with lanterns were moving around, calling out and getting answers.

  Tommy took the horses into camp at a walk. Dust hung in the air, as did the lingering smell of cattle. Voices ranged from murmuring to wailing. A third lantern had been lit, and men were surveying the damage. Tommy stayed back a few yards, but he got a full view.

  Blankets were trampled, and eating utensils were scattered. Buckets were tipped over. A metal washtub was crumpled. A wooden water cask had been knocked over and was leaking. A four-legged stool was crushed flat. A chicken coop had been broken open, and chickens wandered in and out of the light.

  The brown-and-white goat lay lifeless at the end of its rope. Nobody in the Villarreal family was paying it any attention, though. They were all gathered at the next wagon over. Raimundo held a lantern as Alejo and his wife kneeled on the ground. Anita and her mother were standing close by, holding each other and crying. Milena was holding her two children close to her hips.

  Tommy stopped at the edge of the lamplight. The two horses shifted and moved but did not try to pull away. After a few minutes, Gabriel caught sight of Tommy and moved toward him.

  Tommy spoke in a low voice. “What happened? Is someone hurt?”

  “My cousin Elsa. The cows ran over her.”

  “Is she hurt bad?”

  “I don’t know, but I think so. My aunt is praying.”

  Tommy did not think he could do any good, and he did not want to be in the way. “I have the horses,” he said. “I suppose we should look to see if any animals are missing.”

  “People are looking right now.”

  “Well, I’ll take these out of the way.”

  For the next few hours until dawn, people searched through the wreckage and picked up their belongings. The cattle had jostled a couple of wagons, but none of them was damaged. Smaller items were broken, like the water cask, wooden buckets, a lantern, plates, and cups. Spoons were ground into the dirt. Aside from the goat, no other animals had been hurt or killed. The only person who had been injured was Elsa.

  Through the slow vigil, things did not sound any better for her. Tommy could tell from the people’s voices when they joined in prayer and when they appealed to God. He heard the words Padre, Dios, and Señor. Father, God, and Lord. The people were wearing themselves down with worry and crying. The spirit of the whole group seemed to have sunk to the lowest point just before dawn, and then everything broke. The cries and the sobbing rose, and a wail of sorrow flowed. Voices called in prayer and in pleading. Tommy understood enough of the meaning that he could put it in his own words to himself. Elsa. May God take you and protect you. Elsa, you are with God.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The herd of sheep moved out ahead in the first full sun of morning while the people in camp pulled themselves and their things together. A combined feeling of sorrow, dread, and resentment permeated the camp. Tommy could feel it—empty, heavy, and bitter all at once. Elsa’s parents placed her body in the wagon, wrapped in a sheet, to be buried later. They stacked the wooden boxes around her and covered the load with a canvas. Alejo’s anger and grief were in full view all the while, and his wife, Leonila, did not cease in her sobbing.

  Today the wagons waited so that the group could travel together in a caravan. Every driver’s seat had a rifle or a shotgun at hand. Faustino Romero stood next to his wagon in the lead, arms crossed, in a posture of command as if he were the wagon master. With his back to the sun, he made an impressive figure. He wore his straw hat and drab work clothes, and in contrast, he had on display his gunbelt with the silver-inlaid black holsters and the white-handled revolvers jutting out.

  Tommy stood by his horse, waiting for the last couple of groups to show that they were ready to go. No one was going to hurry anyone else at a time like this, when violation and mourning hung in the air. Tommy sensed that patience was natural to Raimundo in these circumstances, even when both Romero brothers now stood with their arms folded, waiting.

  As for himself, Tommy felt that people ignored him, or perhaps made an effort not to notice him. They all knew he was on their side, but he was still a gabacho, a fair-skinned American like the men who had carried out Cushman’s act of aggression. And Tommy knew that at least some of the people were convinced that he was part of the reason for Cushman’s vendetta. Maybe he was.

  Tommy had put on his own gun and holster that morning, not because he thought he would shoot anybody that day but because he felt it was his responsibility to protect, or to do his share in protecting, the people he lived with. He could not imagine himself broad and powerful enough to protect the group, but he could picture himself standing in front of Anita to face the threat. He knew at the same time that it was a fancy idea, almost a schoolboy daydream, and he thought that the pistol on his hip could be seen by others as showing off. So their ignoring him was, in a way, a comfort.

  The wagons began to move. Tommy snugged the near rein and mounted up. He moved his horse off to one side, where he waited as the wagons strung out in order. Horses and burros pulled, people walked alongside, goats followed, and dogs ran to and fro. Tommy waited. He had decided to fall in behind like a rear guard.

  As the wagons rolled out, they left behind a littered campsite. The wreckage lay strewn where it had been trampled—bits of cloth, the broken wooden cask, the crumpled metal tub, the brown-and-white goat stretched out and beginning to bloat in the morning sunlight. All of the debris lay now on the open range, next to a mudhole that looked like a sore on the landscape.

  Tommy shifted his gaze to the wagons ahead. Only Elsa, the treasure, wrapped in a sheet, was being carried away, like a jewel in a rosewood casket.

  A familiar feeling haunted him. He recognized it as he rode on in silence. It was the way he had felt about Red’s passing—a young person, now gone for no good reason, losing out on all the chances, good and bad, that the rest of life might have held. And yet the two young people were not the same. Deep down, Tommy had always felt there was something flawed about Red. He hadn’t felt that way about Elsa, except that she had been friendly to Red, and the attraction hadn’t lasted long. Now they were together, in a strange way, though they were drawing farther apart. Elsa was going away. Tommy wondered if Red had in any way been responsible for Elsa dying. He felt that he himself had been, and so he felt guilty twice over—for helping bring Cushman’s wrath upon the people, and for going on living when Elsa died.

  He swallowed hard as his throat constricted and tears came to his eyes. He made himself think of something better, of the beauty of Elsa when she was alive, and of the bittersweet beauty of her going away, loved and cherished by her family and people.

  That was more than Red ever had, and Tommy was sure it was more than he himself would have had if the cattle had trampled him to death. The people would have buried him by the mudhole.

  There he was again, think
ing of himself, when someone innocent had died and when her family, including Anita, had real grief to suffer. Tommy took in a deep breath, told himself to brace up, and fell into line with the procession.

  The wagons did not stop at midday but pushed on to arrive at the next camp in midafternoon. If the group had not been so weighed down by sadness, the site would have had a pleasant atmosphere. A stream flowing from the northwest made a single bow around a grassy area on higher ground. Box elder trees and a few young, bright cottonwoods grew along the bank on the near side. Tommy could see that both the location and the layout were very good. The place had water and a bit of wood, and as the campsite did not lie out in the open, it would be less susceptible to another stampede. In addition, he was glad to see the people place the wagons and carts in a circular arrangement with the camp area in the middle.

  With the wagons unhitched and the animals set out to graze, a few people sat and stood around to eat. Some people had eaten along the way, and all of the food consisted of leftovers or other small portions at hand. For his part, Tommy had a cold bowl of soup with a few shreds of chicken meat and some remnants of potato.

  As he was finishing his brief meal, he became aware of Raimundo standing at his right. Looking up, he saw the older man’s solemn expression.

  In a low voice Raimundo said, “We are going to have the burial now.”

  Tommy nodded. This was a time to say nothing and to let others talk.

  “Everybody will go, of course.”

  Tommy held his breath.

  “But it is not good for everybody to turn their back.” Raimundo motioned with his hand. “The camp, you know. If we could have someone to look out.”

  “Oh. Me?”

  “If you can. If it can be done.”

  Tommy blinked. “Sure. Of course.” He wondered if he was being excluded, but he told himself it didn’t matter. He would treat it as if he was performing a valued service, which might even be the case.

  “We give our thanks. Everyone is worried that trouble will come again.”

  “With good reason.” Tommy glanced toward the north end of camp, where people were beginning to gather. He said, “I’m sorry for what happened, and I know I’m not really a part of the rest of the group, but I—” His words escaped him, but others came. “My thoughts will be there.”

  “Thank you. There will be much praying, for everyone. I am sure some of us will pray for you, too.”

  “For me?”

  “For the young, and the unprotected, and for everyone who is exposed to danger.”

  “I’m not very good at any of that. Praying, that is. I haven’t been to church very much.”

  “We are all the same in the eyes of God.”

  “Someone will speak, though? Or read from the Bible?”

  “Oh, yes. And later, when things are better, we will come back with a priest. But God does not forget anybody.”

  Tears came to Tommy’s eyes. He wanted to tell Raimundo to tell Elsa he loved her, but he could not think of any way to say it except in the plain words that he could not bring himself to say. Instead he said, “I will keep an eye on everything.”

  Raimundo nodded and pointed toward his own eye, in a gesture that Tommy had become used to. Then he gave a brief smile of assurance and walked away.

  Not everybody came back from the funeral at the same time. Faustino and his brother, Emilio, were among the first. They set up the fire pit while two other men went to the edge of the watercourse to look for firewood. They all continued to ignore Tommy, so he did not offer to help. He minded his own business, standing at the edge of camp and keeping an eye out. Behind him he could hear the people who had not come back from the burial. Their voices rose and fell together in prayer and separately in cries of lamentation.

  Gabriel arrived a while later and said they were going to kill a sheep. An old ewe, or mama sheep, as Gabriel put it, that had failed to raise her lamb this last time, was limping after all of the recent walking, and so she was going to provide the next meal. Tommy asked if they needed help, and Gabriel said, no, not in the killing. There were men who always did that, to make sure it was done right. But because Tommy was good at cutting meat from the bone, he could help with the stew.

  Tommy agreed and stayed where he was, looking out for trouble that he did not think would come in broad daylight. The afternoon was warm, and the landscape grew hazy in the distance, as voices and crying continued to carry from the site of Elsa’s grave.

  Steam was drifting from the top of the cauldron, wafting the odor of mutton along with the smell of pepper, red chile, and oregano. Under Milena’s hand, everything from the old ewe, including the heart, liver, and kidneys, had gone into the pot. Tommy’s hands felt of fat and smelled of mutton, and he was glad of the prospect that all the raw meat was being cooked into a better state.

  The sun was setting beyond the low horizon when the stew was ready. With the camp more centralized than before, almost the whole company sat gathered around the campfire area, though back a ways from the heat. Elsa’s parents stayed close to their wagon, and a couple of men and one boy were out looking after the sheep, but as nearly as Tommy could tell, everyone else was present. Two women ladled the stew into bowls, and the food was handed out.

  Faustino had withdrawn when Milena had been tending the pot, but now that she sat a few yards away with Anita and Eusebia, Faustino stood in plain view in his oratory posture. He had traded his straw hat for his ornate sombrero, he had put on a short-waisted jacket, and he was wearing his gunbelt with the brace of pistols.

  Tommy did not take it as a personal affront when Faustino addressed the group in Spanish. The people spoke that way around him all the time, and he had developed an ability to follow the gist of a conversation even if he could not parse out the words or details to himself in English. Still, he found something disagreeable in Faustino’s method, as the man began speaking, with very little preliminary matter, about the young Americans.

  This was a sad day, Faustino began, and the troubles were shared by everyone. And yet all of the troubles commenced when the two young Americans began coming around. Nobody could deny that the trouble from the outside came from Americans, from the malice of Cooshmon, the ugly one, and the men who did his work.

  Here Faustino paused, with his left hand on a pistol butt and his right hand held out, palm up. He went on. Even though Cooshmon was the aggressive one, and he hated the Mexicans beyond comprehension, yet he also had some kind of vengeance for the young Americans. Killing the first one was not enough, just as cutting off our water and burning our houses was not enough. And so this one, even if he was not the primary cause, should not be ignored. He was bad luck, and he brought bad fortune to the people.

  Alejo appeared out of the shadows, short and dark and turbulent. Firelight played on his swollen face and reflected in his bloodshot eyes. Everyone turned to look at him. He raised his head and sniffed as he wiped his eyes. Addressing Faustino and then the rest of the group, he said that Faustino was reasonable in all that he said, but it did not do any good. The person responsible for all the badness, the man who caused the damage and the misery that could not be undone, was the disgraceful Cooshmon. That was where they should place the blame, and that was where they should seek revenge. They should take up, every man among them, all of their rifles and pistols and shotguns, and they should go after Cooshmon. They should kill him, and his foreman El Gordo, and the others who rode with them, including the one who was always neat and clean as well as the one who shot the dog. Alejo’s mouth trembled as he went on. If only Cooshmon had been content with killing a burro and a dog and with burning their houses. But he took it further, and the people needed to do something now, not only to get even with what had been done but to prevent this pestilence from visiting them again.

  Alejo hung fire after this barrage, and Tommy felt relieved that not all eyes were on him. He thought Faustino would answer, but silence floated in the camp for a moment.

 
Now Raimundo stood up. As the people turned their attention toward him, Tommy had the sense that Raimundo had more authority, or at least earned more agreement, than either of the other two. To Tommy’s surprise, Raimundo spoke in English.

  “Alejo, you and I are like brothers. Our wives are sisters. And so the death of your daughter hurts me deeply, also. I believe as you do, that Cooshmon is the guilty one in all of this, and that he should be punished. But I do not think we should run to our guns and horses and try to do it. We all know that God punishes. Dios castiga. I believe that if Cooshmon comes again, we should defend ourselves. But I do not believe we should go after him.” Raimundo shifted his feet and directed his gaze across the dying fire toward Faustino. “And I do not believe that this boy is at fault. The blame is not his. He has made his contributions to us, la gente. The people. He has not caused any trouble in our town, o bien, in our camp. Let us agree with my brother-in-law, Alejo, that Cooshmon is the one to blame, and if he comes again, let us show him that we have our pride and we defend ourselves. With lead and steel.” Raimundo ended his speech with an upward flourish of his hand.

  Faustino remained in his stoic pose, with his arms folded and his face expressionless except for the trace of haughtiness that never disappeared. Although the man did not speak, Tommy had the impression that he was thinking it through and would come back with a renewed argument at some later time.

  The sliver of a moon had grown just enough for Tommy to notice, and it cast a glow like the night before. The stars were shining in a clear sky. As Tommy lay in his blankets outside the loose circle of wagons, staring upward, he had a clear sense of where things were in relation to one another. The horses and donkeys and goats were staked out on the grass to the west of camp. On the east side and downslope a ways, the creek ran silent. He had not been able to see it from camp in the evening, and it did not gurgle like a mountain stream flowing over rocks, but he could feel its presence. Clean and clear, a foot deep and a yard wide, it was the best water they had camped on since leaving the village.