Dreams Beneath Your Feet

by Win Blevins

  When their bodies were watered, and the horses, and the kegs, they started back toward the lake bed.

  They stopped and glassed the black lake surface for tracks. “Still none,” Sam said.

  They had lost a day, exactly one, but they were still ahead of Kanaka Boy and Esperanza. Sam wondered how those two came through the sandstorm. He thought, When they get to the spring on the other side, I will be the storm Kanaka Boy doesn’t survive.

  THE MOMENT THE sun dropped behind the western ridges, they started across the black desert floor. Sam could see the notch that marked the spring. He put a hard control on his mind. It was going to be a dry, grueling night.

  When the last light seeped out of the sky, he navigated by the light of the half-moon. The Black Rock Desert, though, turned spooky. The surrounding mountains turned into smudges, perhaps smoke, perhaps nothing. To the south the black lake bed shone with a single line of light running straight toward the moon. To the west, the north, the east, and the point north of east where they were headed, it was a dark and fathomless sea.

  They stopped every couple of hours, opened a keg, drank, and watered the horses from their hats. Sam believed they had plenty of water. Plenty of confidence? He didn’t know.

  About halfway through the night—and halfway across?—the moon set.

  Sam had never seen a darkness like this. It was absolute. He couldn’t see what Paladin was putting her feet on, if anything.

  He called a halt, dismounted, watered the riders and the horses. He and Lei sat and rested a few minutes, but they spent no words. Finally, Sam said, “Let’s lead the horses. Easier on them.”

  In truth, he felt they were walking on the dark spaces between stars. He wanted to put his own moccasins on whatever surface it was, so he knew it was real.

  Now he steered by the North Star. He knew, though, that this was an inexact way to navigate. He began to worry that he might veer off as much as thirty degrees in either direction and end up several miles away from the spring. Finally he said, “We’re not short of water. It’s two hours, maybe, to first light. I can’t tell whether the spring is this way or that way.” He held his arms out at right angles. “Let’s take a nap and head in then, when we can see.”

  “He might spot us out here.”

  Sam shook his head. “He hasn’t made it to that side yet.”

  They stretched out on the surface Sam couldn’t see, but they couldn’t sleep. They talked quietly. Lei told Sam about her years with her grandfather, who was good with his hands and could make anything out of wood. He also was full of stories about his own childhood in Kauai, which sounded like a fairyland to her. When he died, she was ten, and after that she spent her time as a servant in the fort, cleaning and serving meals. The only good part about that was learning English.

  Sam talked about his own dad, Lewis, who showed him the ways of the woods, how everything relates to everything else. After Lewis’s death, Sam’s older brother leaned on him until Sam ran away from home.

  At one point Sam realized that they were both telling stories and neither was hearing the other. Then they fell into silence, and in the darkness Sam’s only hint of any other living being was an occasional chuff from the horses or a clomp of hoof.

  At first light they rode toward the notch. In half an hour Sam could see the greenery that marked the spring. In an hour they were holding the horses back to keep them from galloping ahead. Shortly, Sam and Lei rode up to the little haven of grass and shade made by the miracle of water.

  There, unarmed, with his feet in the spring, sat Kanaka Boy.

  “Good morning, my friends,” he said. “I have been waiting for you.”

  Forty-seven

  SAM LEVELED THE Celt.

  “You don’t want to kill me,” said Kanaka Boy in a sweet, melodious voice. “At least not yet.”

  “Why not?” said Sam.

  “Because then you don’t know where your precious daughter is.” He chuckled.

  Sam waiting, hating.

  “Oh, I assure you, she stays where she is until I loose her bonds. She be well tied. She be without food, without water, without shade. Did you enjoy the sandstorm? So did she. Right out in it, unprotected. Last night I gave her the mercy of a good drink of water—I mean for her to live—but her body, it must feel like someone filed it with a rasp. Very bad, hmmm?”

  He grinned and spread his arms wide. “What a very big desert, is it not? Magnificent, I believe. And a magnificent day, it is upon it, with a sun of power like a god.

  “So, all desert creatures know how to outsmart this sun. They drink plenty water. They stay in shade. They move about only at dusk and dawn, or, like you, during the night. The beautiful Esperanza, she knows as well as any to behave in these ways. But, alas, she cannot, being tied up and in the sun.”

  If Kanaka Boy was expecting the satisfaction of a response, Sam gave him none.

  “Such a grand, big desert, too. How many gullies you think slink down those mountain ranges with so many gullies each? Five or six ranges, no? She is maybe deposited in any one, and any gully of that. How many sagebrushes grow upon those hills, you think? She is maybe next to any one.”

  He paused in his prepared speech.

  “Oh, you find her, I’m sure of that. And Lei is sure, too, aren’t you, my dear? The buzzards will lead you to her.

  “Why no get down and join me? Have a drink, and let your horses rest from their long night’s work. We maybe talk, do you not agree?”

  They did.

  SAM BRUSHED AWAY Kanaka Boy’s flask, stepped upstream of the horses, lay flat, and drank deep. Then he dunked his face and hair. Last he filled his own flask and sat down cross-legged facing the Hawaiian. Keeping his face blank, he studied how big the Kanaka Boy really was, a grizzly bear of a man.

  Lei drank and sat next to Sam. Though she tried to hide it, he could see the quake in every movement. Kanaka Boy saw, too, and smiled at Sam and shrugged. A woman, what do you expect?

  “I have set my rifle and pistol several paces away,” said Kanaka Boy, “and my knife.” He gestured to them. “Maybe good that you do the same?”

  Sam did.

  “Your hunting pouch, too. Your patch knife, it is there.”

  Sam put it down.

  “Since I don’ know you, I can no trust you not to act foolish. So I ask you, permit me to search your person for weapons.”

  Sam stared at him.

  “Maybe you like to search me first.”

  Sam did. He thought of grabbing the bastard’s balls and twisting, then enjoyed the memory that Lei had done away with them.

  Boy searched Sam and found nothing. No one would be able to find the two weapons he kept hidden.

  “Now you, my dear, put down that silly pistol.”

  Lei took it out of her belt and set it on a boulder.

  Boy held his flask to them again, and both shook their heads no.

  “I sense that you are no in a mood for pleasantries.”

  “Damn right.”

  “A shame. Then we go straight to the deal. I speak it in plain terms, which no are negotiable. You give me your weapons and your horses. You must, I am sorry, have no chance to follow me. You give me my wife.”

  “I am no such thing,” growled Lei.

  Kanaka Boy inclined his head politely. “Then I treat you as a slave. I prefer that.”

  Lei started to retort, but Kanaka Boy stopped her with a hand and looked into Sam’s eyes. “In return I give you your life. You may take all the flasks you can carry, even my own, for I am a generous man. You set out on foot, back across the hardpan. Wait until this evening, if you like, we spend the day in a pleasant chat.” He looked across the black desert floor, beginning to simmer under the morning sun. “It’s a long way to California, but you have maybe decent chance to survive, I think. In any case, is only chance I can afford to give you.”

  Sam just glared at him.

  Kanaka Boy looked back at Sam, a slight, twisty smile on his face,
until Sam finally spoke.

  “My daughter?”

  “She is mine. I possess her. I have been think . . . I have been think I give her to my fine set of ruffians. They know how to enjoy her. But now I think I give this ex-wife to them. They hate her for her high-and-mighty airs, and right off they fork her until she dies.

  “Your daughter I keep for my own blankets. She is good in the blankets. I have train her well to delight me.”

  So Kanaka Boy was at least part bluff. Sam didn’t let his inside smile show.

  “Bring me Esperanza or we have nothing to talk about.”

  Kanaka Boy laughed. “Tell me exact how you intend to force on me this ultimatum? What you offer in return?”

  “I came for one purpose, to get her. Dying doesn’t scare me.”

  “Made friends with death already, so you claim? Could be. I t’ink you American trappers, you are brave. Stupid, but brave.”

  Sam sprang, and he saw the flick of surprise in Boy’s eyes. Sam shoulder-blocked him onto his back. With the first elbow Sam broke Boy’s nose, and blood gushed everywhere. The second elbow went straight onto Boy’s throat. Sam leaned his weight on it. One hard shove and he would break whatever part in there allowed Boy to . . .

  Sam saw laughter in Boy’s eyes. He eased up. Speak. He needed Boy to speak.

  Sam eased up very slightly. Kanaka Boy wheezed air in and out, barely able to breathe. He might have to whisper the words like a man hanged by a noose, but he could get them out.

  “Lei,” said Sam in a tone of command. “Take my wooden hair piece out.”

  Lei slipped out the finger-sized rod that tied Sam’s white hair back.

  “Twist the two ends in opposite directions. It comes apart.”

  She did, revealing a short, stiff blade. It looked sharp as a splinter of glass.

  Sam leaned a little on the elbow to remind Kanaka Boy.

  “Pick a nice, tender spot on his inner thigh,” Sam said. “Slide the knife just under the skin and cut a strip off.”

  Lei reached for the place she was told.

  Kanaka Boy pointed at his mouth.

  Sam eased up ever so slightly.

  “Kill me,” Boy rasped, “and Esperanza is dead.”

  “I don’t mean to kill you,” said Sam. “We’re going to skin you. We’re going to slice off little piece by little piece until you decide there’s things worse than being dead.”

  Lei made the first cut.

  Kanaka Boy rolled so swift and strong, it felt like trying to wrestle a mountain lion.

  Instantly on his feet, Boy swung a boning knife at Sam’s chest.

  It ripped his hide shirt all the way across his chest, and a lot of skin.

  Lei shrieked.

  Sam took one step and bounded on top of the nearest boulder, waist high.

  Boy lunged at Sam’s legs with the knife and he had to jump down backward.

  Boy circled the rock at top speed, and Sam sprinted around it in the other direction, tugging at his belt buckle. When the buckle knife popped out, he did a full spin and swiped at Boy’s arm. He felt flesh tear. He let his momentum take him two steps beyond Kanaka Boy and whirled to face him.

  Boy charged. Lei dived and tripped him with one hand. He hit the ground hard. Sam dived at him, buckle knife arcing down.

  Boy rolled. Damn, he’s quick.

  The moment Sam took to think gave Boy an opening. He kicked Sam’s wrist and the knife flew.

  Boy head-butted Sam in the chest. They both hit the ground, Boy on top.

  Boy sat up, his weight crushing Sam’s belly. He raised the knife, and Sam fixed on the gleaming blade. Already he could feel the plunge into his chest.

  BOOM!

  Boy’s knife arm exploded in blood.

  The knife skittered into the bushes.

  “That’s enough!” shouted Esperanza.

  Hannibal MacKye set his rifle down, raised his pistol, and said, “Next shot takes your head off.”

  Kanaka Boy stood up, hands high, one gripping the bloody forearm.

  “All right! All right!” he said. “Enough for now. We talk.”

  BOOM!

  Kanaka Boy grabbed his gut with both hands.

  White smoke drifted on the air above Lei’s hand, and she stared down the barrel of her pistol at her fallen husband.

  They all stood, unbelieving.

  After a long moment Esperanza threw herself into Sam’s arms.

  Then Lei moved. She reached into her belt bag, took out the pouch, fished two small lumps of flesh, and dropped them into Kanaka Boy’s open mouth.

  His eyes understood for a moment and then glazed.

  Part Six

  Forty-eight

  LEI INSISTED THAT they leave his body out for the buzzards. Even though the heat of the day was bearing down, they filled the kegs from the spring, mounted, and got out of there. “This trail leads to the Humboldt,” she said, “two days.” That was the last sentence anyone spoke for a long time.

  At midmorning they came to a dry wash with a big cottonwood, which meant there was probably water in the winter. They took a nooner. When Sam woke up, he started to dig in the wash. An hour’s work produced nothing. Lei said, “We have enough anyway.”

  Sam sat down. Hannibal sat up and blinked.

  Sam looked for a long moment at Esperanza, sleeping. Her eyelids quivered like she was having dreams. He wondered if they were nightmares. He hoped to make the long ride to California a trip back to normalcy for her, maybe with lots of talking. He hoped so.

  He turned to Hannibal and noticed that Lei had stretched out near his head. Now she was looking at him from behind.

  “All right,” Sam asked his partner, “how did you do it?”

  “I followed you. You should have guessed I would. When I saw you weren’t going to track Kanaka Boy, I did, a day behind. Had to go real easy at first, couldn’t take a chance he’d see me, wanted him to swallow your idea no one was following him.

  “On the second morning he decided you weren’t coming, or more likely he figured out what you were up to. Probably just asked what a smart fellow like himself would do in the same situation. Anyway, he rode like hell. That man was a traveling maniac—he could cover ground. I had trouble keeping up, and I thought he was going to wear Esperanza to death. He didn’t check his back trail at all. He was beelining, with a purpose.

  “When we got to the Black Rock Desert, he went up to the spring on the near side real cautious. Looked around for tracks and didn’t find any. Filled up on water and circled around the north end of the lake. Long way, an extra day compared to going across, but he knew where a spring was. He moved at night, and I lagged back. On the way around he got hit by the same sandstorm.

  “I thought he must be playing a trick. When he got to the spring where you found him and made camp, I knew. Trouble was, Esperanza wasn’t with him. That’s when I understood the trap.

  “I went back. Had a good idea where she might be. He didn’t give a damn whether he killed her, but he wanted Vermilion, always eager to have another horse. On the northeast side of the hardpan there was one rocky gully I’d seen, looked like a grove of trees about a mile up.

  “Sure enough, there she was, tied up tight and right out in the sun.

  “I had to give her a lot of water and let her rest in the shade before she could ride. Not a bit too soon. We no more than rode up and I saw Kanaka Boy sitting on top—”

  “I was a dead man,” said Sam. “Truth is, I’m still too rattled to thank you properly. But thank you.”

  Hannibal beamed. Hannibal had one of the finest, most generous smiles on the planet. “You’re welcome,” he said.

  “You know that’s the third time you saved my life?” said Sam.

  “At the Mojave villages and where else?”

  “When you gave your speech about the wild hair.”

  “That’s not the same.”

  “And look where it’s got me.”

  Hannibal held an arm out
to the wide desert. “You got plenty o’ nothing.”

  “You got us, in a way,” said Lei, indicating Esperanza, too. “And you got Warrior, too.”

  “Warrior is yours,” Sam said. “You inherited him.”

  “I will touch nothing to do with that man. Nothing.”

  Sam looked at Hannibal, who looked at Esperanza.

  “Want one of the best horses you’ll ever see?” asked her papa. “Fine breeding stallion—got size on him.”

  She managed to nod yes.

  ESPERANZA KNEW PAPA Sam wanted to help her, wanted her to talk about what had happened and set down some of the burden of it. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t face any of it. Being ripped out of her home, losing the man she loved and got pregnant by, that seemed small and distant now. Taking Joe as a husband, being left alone, losing the baby—she could barely cope with that.

  Being Kanaka Boy’s plaything, though, that was beyond . . .

  He tortured her. All day he rode like a madman with Vermilion on a lead. When they stopped at night, he started his talk. He couldn’t be bothered with her, he said, a contemptible creature barely old enough to bleed between her legs. He had a couple of dozen men would enjoy her, though. He would give her to them right off, and they would do her. Every man of them would do her right in a row, and then they would do her again. Every one would stick it between her legs and go on to places she didn’t know men stuck it. They would do her everywhere hard and mean, so it hurt. He would tell them to use her up all the way. Last time he did that, there was a Digger woman who slapped one of them who came up to her with his cock sticking out. So they did her and he did her and over and over until she gave up and died. No accident, either, that’s what they wanted. That’s what they would do to Esperanza.

  Every evening, that’s all he talked about. He acted like the kind of boy who builds a little grass fire and throws bugs and lizards on it. They were going to do her until she died, and he was going to urge them on and, when she was dead, piss on her face.

  He didn’t rape her, which seemed bizarre. He said he was waiting for the orgy.