Crack in the Sky tb-3

by Terry C. Johnston

  Titus nodded. “They told me how you come back with your hair turned white.”

  Slapping the top of his thigh, Asa said, “Damn if my head weren’t as white as the fur on a winter snowshoe hare! And that sure scared all them boys something fierce.”

  Scratch asked, “Didn’t it scare you none?”

  McAfferty quietly replied, “I was more scared than all the rest put together. I’d be damned for crucifying through all eternity if I didn’t admit it was the truth. The Almighty Hisself had turned my head to white—done it to show me the power of the Holy Ghost! ’For the Lord most high is terrible; He is a great King over all the earth.’ It was plain as paint to me, Mr. Bass: Asa McAfferty had set his foot on evil ground! I figgered I’d even had a hand in setting free them Rees, the devil’s own hellions, myself.”

  “Hatcher said you all made tracks that night.”

  “Somehow we got our horses up the side of that canyon in the dark and slipped off ’thout getting caught by them Rees. But it never were them warriors I was ’fraid of while we was running south.”

  “What?”

  “It were them evil spirits I could feel all round me—clawing at my shoulder, breathing on my neck, hanging just at the corner of me eye every time I turned to look.”

  “Ghosts?”

  “Maybeso,” he eventually answered as they reached the foothills. “They was the spirits from the beyond, Mr. Bass. The same spirits that ol’ Ree medicine man was carrying with him … them devil’s whelps what come after me then and wasn’t ’bout to let go their hold on me. ’Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise thee?’”

  “Sounds like you was more scared of them spirits than you was scared of that Ree war party what was bound to be coming after you.”

  “Abominations, Mr. Bass!” he began with a voice that shriveled to an ominous quiet. “Asa McAfferty ain’t never been ’fraid of anything he can see. What I can’t see be the only thing what scares Asa McAfferty!”

  As they picked their way across the snowy landscape toward Workman’s caverns, he went on to explain to Bass how the trappers had galloped south from Arikara country. Weeks and many miles later, a restless, frightened Asa split off from the rest, and returned to Taos for the winter. The next spring he ventured north on his own.

  “For the first time I liked the lonesome. And for the most part I been alone ever since I kill’t that medicine man. ’And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people.’”

  McAfferty was quiet for a long time as they pushed on, expectant of the sun’s appearance on the mountain peaks above them. Finally he sighed when they came to a clattering halt on the rim of the prairie looking down at the canyon where Workman had erected his distillery. “Ever since that winter, seems most white fellers I run onto don’t take to traveling with a man what speaks the Bible, a nigger like me what begs the Lord for forgiveness ever’ day and night. I s’pose such folks just don’t care to be with a man who listens real hard to the voices of them spirits what be all round us.”

  “Your Bible talking ain’t bothered me none,” Bass admitted. “And I figger a fella gets lonely enough for real company … he’s bound to start talking to any damn hoo-doo and spirit what’ll listen to him.”

  “Listen to you now, Mr. Bass,” Asa snorted, then chuckled as he pressed his heels into the pony’s ribs and started down the side of the canyon toward Workman’s stone house. “’The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought.’”

  “So you figger me for a heathen, Asa McAfferty?”

  “No, I don’t,” he answered after a pause. “I figger you for the sort of friend what puts up with a very, very troubled man. A tormented man like me. An inflicted man what the Lord has set adrift in a world of woe and despair.”

  “But you ain’t alone, Asa.”

  Ahead of Titus on the trail descending into that dark canyon where the sun’s first rays still refused to shine off the icy granite flecked with snow, a somber McAfferty replied, “That’s where you’re wrong, Mr. Bass. In the end, no matter what … every one of us is alone.”

  They’d limped into Taos with little more than it would take to outfit a band of Diggers. But they had their hide and hair. And—by damned—it was Nativity time in ol’ Taos town!

  A holiday when every Mexican male appeared to turn and give the long-haired gringo a second look, when every cherry-cheeked, black-eyed senorita seemed to smile and flutter those long, dark eyelashes at him and him alone.

  This second winter among the Mexicans was proving all the more joyous than the first, perhaps because there weren’t all that many Americans around. From what Workman reported, most of the gringo trappers had spent only a few days here earlier in the month, then moseyed on down the road to Santa Fe. Those who remained behind were the quiet sort—not at all like Hatcher’s bunch, not the sort given to stirring up a ruckus among the Taosenos. A few here and there even remembered Scratch, remembered how he had been one of those daring Americanos who had risked his life to bring back the Comanche captives.

  A few of the hard-eyed soldiers glared at him whenever he came to town. Bass figured they were just the sort to remember the faces of those gringos who’d stood their ground at last year’s grand baile. Scratch didn’t figure he could blame them—not since he had himself been the sort to nurse his thirst for revenge for some two years until he ran across the Arapaho buck what took his hair. Just the same, he never put the soldados at his back and always made sure there were folks around, along with an escape down a side street, or up a set of outside stairs, or was always near a likely runner of a horse. A man always needed him a way out of a tight spot when he found the odds stacking against him.

  One thing for sure, no handful of soldiers was going to jump him anywhere near the Taos square. Not while Ol’ Bill Williams was around to help.

  That morning of his third day out at Workman’s, Titus decided he would give the village a try, figuring he would stroll about the tiny plaza where he could mingle with Mexican folks, maybe buy himself a sugar-sweetened treat or two. After knotting his horse’s reins to one of the iron rings sunk deep along the walls of adobe lining the treeless square, Scratch turned at the strong fragrance greeting his nose on the cold, chilling air. There, near the center of the plaza, he spotted several of the vendors gathered around their communal fire, each of them roasting coffee beans and brewing a thick, heady concoction.

  His pouch a peso emptier and his fingers wrapped around a clay mug he peered over to take in the holiday scene, Titus sipped at his coffee and began to wander. He hadn’t taken but a few steps toward the north side of the square, when he suddenly stopped and turned at the cry of a familiar voice.

  Unsure at first, Bass squinted through the fingers of thick smoke curling from every one of the many fires where vendors warmed themselves or prepared kettles of frijoles, baked their crepelike tortillas, or offered customers freshly slaughtered chicken and lamb, each selection hanging from the rafters of their huge-wheeled carts. It was then he heard that voice call out again in greeting to someone across the square, and laugh.

  Sure enough. The smoke danced aside, and there stood Bill Williams his own self, slapping a vaquero on the shoulder, sharing a lusty story between them.

  How good to see an old face!

  Immediately Scratch cried, “Ho! Bill!”

  Williams turned, finding Bass headed his way. He quickly said something to the Mexican before beginning his long-legged way across that corner of the square.

  “You remember me, Bill?”

  “Scratch, ain’t it?” he asked as he came to a halt and held out his bony paw. “We run onto one ’Nother up to the Bayou, didn’t we?”

  “Right on both counts,” he replied, shaking the offered hand vigorously.

  “Down to Taos for the winter, are ye?”

  Bass said,
“Me and a partner come in three nights back.” Then he whispered. “Laying up out at Workman’s.”

  With a nod Williams rocked back and roared, “Sometimes it’s best to stay low around these here pelados. But as for me—I damn well let ’em all know I’m in town for a spree!”

  “You’re here for the winter too?”

  “Been here for more’n a month now,” Williams answered.

  Gesturing toward the canvas-draped stall filled with bright, gaudy, eye-catching trade goods, Scratch said, “This here fella appears to have him quite the geegaws and hangy-downs, that’s for sure, Bill!”

  Williams started them toward his sales stall. “Ye see anything catch yer fancy?”

  “You don’t need my help trading off your plews now,” Scratch snorted as he glanced at the way a couple of Mexican men looked him over, figuring the pair for the shop’s keepers. “How’s this here feller’s prices?”

  Williams grinned as if it were going out of style and brushed some of the long fur on his wolf-hide hat back from an eye. “This here nigger’s prices is allays low as they can be and him still make a decent living. Lookee here, Scratch.” He stuffed his hand into a wooden tray and brought up strings of huge varicolored glass beads, each one bigger than his thumbnail. “Won’t those make some senorita’s eyes shine just to look at ’em?”

  “You got your sights on a likely gal, have you?”

  “Hell, no, Scratch! I thort ye might get yer wiping stick polished yer own self, seeing how ye’re here to winter up.” Then Williams slung an arm over Bass’s shoulder. “And we both know winterin’ is a time for a man to get hisself a hull passel of polishing!”

  Scratch hooted, “Better polish it enough to last him through till next year!”

  “Lookee here too. The man’s got tin cups and American blankets. Brass wire for them ear hangy-downs of yer’n, child. You could string ye a big bead or two on them wires ye got awready—it’d purty ye up real good.”

  Scratch’s eyes bounced over some of the rest of the trade goods displayed against the stall’s three sides as the cold breeze tugged at the canvas walls and roof. “Almost sounds to me like you’re wanting me to buy something from this here trader, Bill.”

  Williams dug at his chin whiskers with a dirty fingernail. “Sure as hell am! How ye ’spect a man to make him an honest living?”

  “You know the trader?”

  “Know him!” Williams snorted. “The god-blame-med trader’s me!”

  “You?”

  “This here’s my plunder!”

  Wagging his head in disbelief, Bass sputtered, “W-why the hell you selling your own plunder?”

  “Decided I’d give a offhand shot at turning trader, Scratch. Brought my plews in last month. Traded ’em to a Kentucky feller here what come in with a train from St. Lou. He give me good dollar for my beaver, so I’m pounding my bait-stick in right here in Taos.”

  “Ain’t you gonna trap no more?”

  “Not if I can make a living right here, sitting in the sun ’stead of wading in icy streams up to my huevos and cock-bag!”

  They both chortled; then Williams retrieved his own china cup of coffee from the rocks surrounding a nearby fire where the two of them stood warming themselves as Taosenos crisscrossed the plaza in their daily shopping excursions.

  “Bill Williams—trader,” Bass announced, testing the feel of it.

  “Don’t sound too bad, do it?”

  “You’re happy with staying put to one place, Bill?”

  “Wouldn’t you be happy?” he asked. “Happy not to worry about having yer hair raised, or yer bones gnawed on by some wild critter back up in that high lonesome where no man might never again set down another mokerson?”

  Scratch raised his coffee mug in salute. “Then I’m glad for you, Bill Williams. Here’s to your success this winter.”

  “How’s trading sound for you?”

  “For me?”

  “You, become a trader like me,” he answered. “Like the rest of these here damned pelados.”

  “Titus Bass—trader,” he rolled the words off his tongue. “Naw. Don’t taste right.”

  “Ye don’t mind living yer life on yer fingernails, eh?”

  “Don’t get me wrong, Bill,” Bass explained. “There’s been many a piece of ground where I wondered then and there if I was about to leave my bones bleaching in the sun. But I figger a man takes him a little bad with all the good of living free like I do.”

  “I’m a free man! I can pack up my truck and ride off any time I want,” Williams bristled in protest. “I just don’t have to worry ’bout no red varmit putting a early end to my days, afore my time.”

  “Damned Apache almost put me under this fall,” Bass admitted.

  “West of here? Or was they roaming north?”

  “Over on the Heely. Bastards follered me and my partner for days,” and Bass went on to relate the tale as Williams poured more coffee for them both.

  When Titus finished the story with their arrival at Workman’s place a few days back, Williams said, “This McAfferty—he’s the one I heerd tell of got his hair turned white.”

  “One and the same.”

  “And folks call me a strange one!” Williams chortled. “From what I hear, that McAfferty takes the circle.”

  “He may talk strange and have him his spells a’times—but he’s never let me down.”

  “That’s all a man needs in a partner,” Williams agreed. “Find a partner what don’t ask for no more than he’s ready to give his own self. So”—and he turned, ready to change the subject as he gestured toward his stall—“ye had yer wiping stick polished yet since ye come in to Taos?”

  “Naw: this here’s my first trip in from Workman’s.”

  Williams draped a long, bony arm over Bass’s shoulders and urged him toward the stall as he confided, “Hmmm—let’s us see what a man like you could need, what with him figgering to get his wiping stick polished!”

  Despite the coffee, Scratch’s mouth was going dry. “You hap to know where a feller might go to … to find him a likely gal—”

  “A bang-tail whore?”

  Embarrassed at Williams’s loud response, Bass flicked his eyes this way, then that.

  “Hell!” Williams roared loudly. “These here greasers don’t know much American talk! And they sure as hell don’t know sheep shit from bang-tail whores!”

  Several of the Mexicans nearby turned at Bill’s loud voice, but they as quickly returned to their own affairs.

  “See, Titus Bass?” he asked. “Ain’t a one of these here pelados know any American!”

  Speaking in a hush, Scratch asked, “You know where I can find me a gal might be happy to let me crawl her hump?”

  “There’s two places in the village,” Williams explained. “But, for my money, the gals over to the Barcelos house are the finest American money can buy!” And he smacked his lips in delight.

  “Barcelos, you say?”

  “Senora Gertrudis Barcelos,” Williams repeated. “She ain’t here herself no more, but she’s got her sister running the Taos house since she went down to Santy Fee. Older gal—’bout as tough talking as a Yankee sailor, she is … but she runs the best knocking shops and saloons here ’bouts in north Mexico.”

  Grabbing hold of Bass’s shoulder, Williams turned Scratch and pointed off to the east side of the square. “Off yonder, that way takes ye to a street where ye’ll come to a fork at the corner of a low building—been whitewashed just this fall. Go on down past it to the left, and ye’ll come to a place allays got horses tied up out front, morning and night. Allays busy with soldiers, them gals is.”

  Bass marked it in his memory the way he would a piece of ground he figured to remember. “Barcelos.”

  “Barcelos,” Williams echoed.

  “And it might be worth yer while to ask for Conchita,” Williams advised. “If she ain’t busy with no soldier.”

  “She a looker?”

  Williams expressively
held his cupped hands out in front of his chest as his eyes got big as saucers. “A likely gal with lots for a man to enjoy kissing on, if’n ye catch the way my stick floats. But this here Conchita ain’t young as most of them others at the Barcelos house. Still, she knows her business, and her business is pleasuring a man like he ain’t been pleasured in a long time.”

  “Good, eh?”

  “For my money Conchita is the gal to ride yer wiping stick till ye’re panting like a played-out mule and yer eyes roll back in yer head!”

  20

  Conchita was everything Bill Williams said she would be.

  Of course, it wouldn’t have taken much to satisfy a man with as wild a woman-hunger as he was nursing about the time he and McAfferty banged the huge iron knocker against the cottonwood plank door that very next evening.

  Stripping his wide-brimmed hat from his hair he had tied in braids for this special occasion, bowing low in his freshly brushed and dusted buckskins, Bass used a few of the sparse words Williams had taught him to greet the fat, moon-faced woman who answered the door—light and warmth, music and laughter, pouring out around her ample form.

  “Buenas tardes, Senora!”

  “Sí?”

  “Senoritas?” he asked, working hard to get the right roll to it.

  Her red, liquor-puffy eyes shifted to McAfferty and took their measure of them both. “Gringos, eh?”

  “Sí,” Scratch answered, thinking he might get this Mexican talk licked yet. “Senoritas for us. Two. Dos senoritas.”

  She poked a grimy finger at the corner of her bloodshot eye and rubbed as she stepped back out of the way, then motioned for them to enter. The sudden warmth of the place surprised him as they stepped into the entry. On two sides of a large parlor flames danced in tall fireplaces. Rugs and blankets lined the walls where a half-dozen men sat, each of them accompanied by a woman. As the Americans followed the large one toward a small bar in the corner, the room fell hushed of a sudden, merry laughter and happy voices disappearing as if swallowed in one great gulp of silence. Only the two guitar players in another corner played on a few more measures before they too looked up in wonder and fell quiet.