Bitter Trail and Barbed Wire

by Elmer Kelton

  As the wagons came up even with him, Frio said, “We’re here, Amelia.”

  She straightened. A little of the dullness left her eyes. She looked a long time and said, “It’s the prettiest sight I ever saw.”

  She had visited here many times when Frio and Tom had been partners. Those had been warm and glowing days, a time for youthful dreams, for songs and happy laughter. Seemed there was precious little chance for happiness anymore.

  Down the creek, longhorn cattle caught sight of the wagons emerging from the brush. They hoisted their tails and clattered off into the thickets, leaving only dust to show where they had been. These cimarrones were outlaw cattle that had lost domesticity in the centuries since their ancestors had escaped from Coronado and others of the early Spaniards. Of all colors and fleet as deer, they had reverted to a primal state almost as wild as the wolves and the panthers. It took fast horses to overtake them, strong men to bring them to hand. Frio had gloried in that kind of work during his free years before the war. Many a time he had camped around a waterhole with Blas and Tom McCasland, waiting to catch these wild cattle as they came up to drink. It was an adventure that lifted men’s spirits, though it broke their bones and tore their hides.

  Blas Talamantes left the ranch outbuildings and rose toward the wagons, a rifle ready across his lap. Recognizing Frio, he spurred into a lope.

  “Frio,” he said in astonishment, looking at the wagons. “What for you come here with the cotton?”

  “Had to go someplace. The Yankees took Brownsville.”

  Blas slumped in the saddle, regret in his eyes. He saw Amelia McCasland on the lead wagon, and his gaze cut back to Frio with a question. Frio said, “They killed her father and burned his place. I couldn’t leave her there.”

  “Así es la suerte,” Blas murmured, accepting tragedy as a fact of life. “Bad luck. María has our house warm. We take her there.”

  Frio nodded tiredly. “Fine. We got a boy with us, too.”

  The boy Chico sat huddled on the second wagon, bundled in a blanket. Nothing showed but his eyes and his nose.

  “If he is a boy,” said Blas, “he will be hungry. María will fix something.”

  They led the wagons down to the house and into the open gate of one of the big brush corrals. While the teamsters and Happy Jack Fleet began unhitching the mules, Frio helped Amelia down from the wagon. She shivered from the chill and rewrapped the blanket around her. Blas Talamantes reached up for the boy and carried him in his arms, talking softly to him in Spanish.

  María Talamantes stood in the open door of her stone house, watching with wide and puzzled eyes. “Entre,” she spoke to Frio and the girl.

  Frio said, “María, this is Amelia. She’ll be here awhile.”

  María bowed. She was a tiny woman, not more than five feet tall. “Mucho gusto de verle.” Blas gently set the boy down upon the hard-packed dirt floor. Chico’s blanket dropped, and his bewildered, cold-purpled face lifted toward María. He seemed about ready to cry, for tragedy and change had come too rapidly for him to grasp. María exclaimed, “Pobrecito,” and knelt to feel his stiffened hands. “Poor boy. Come to the fire. We will get you something warm to eat muy pronto.”

  Amelia and the little boy warmed themselves by the open fireplace, where blackened pots were hanging to heat over the crackling flames. “We have beans and chili,” María said. “I will fix coffee too. It is good weather for hot food.”

  The bright-eyed little woman got busy putting coffee on to boil, setting bowls on the small table. She was a good cook, if a man’s taste ran toward Mexican foods, and Frio’s did. He had often thought the best thing that had happened to this place was Blas’s marrying her and bringing her here from Matamoros. Since María’s arrival, Frio had never had to eat his own cooking when he was at the ranch.

  Frio noticed the telltale swelling of her stomach. He glanced at Blas. “You didn’t tell me. Which is it goin’ to be, a boy or a girl?”

  Blas smiled with pride. “A boy, for sure. All the Talamantes children were boys.”

  “Ojalá,” Frio said. “For you, I hope so.”

  María did not slow down until she had all the food on the table, and she sat then only because Amelia insisted upon it. Mexican women took pregnancy as a natural condition and did not coddle themselves because of it. A young married woman was usually in one stage or another of pregnancy.

  Frio ate silently. Finished, he said to María and Blas, “The señorita will be here awhile, she and the boy. They’ve had a bad run of luck.” Briefly he told what had happened. He watched Amelia’s face tighten and feared she might cry. But she remained dry eyed. It came to him then that she was probably tougher than he had given her credit for.

  María stared gravely at the girl, her black eyes soft with sympathy. “Have no worry, Frio. We will take good care of her.”

  Later Frio walked over to his own house, carrying with him coals from María’s fire. He put them into his cold fireplace and with his big Bowie knife began to peel shavings from dry wood to work up a blaze. Presently he had a good fire going.

  Hearing someone enter, he turned. Amelia pushed the door shut behind her and stood with the blanket draped over her shoulders. She said nothing.

  Frio remarked, “Coaxin’ up a fire to take the chill off the place. You can have this house, Amelia, for as long as you want it.”

  She slid the blanket off her shoulders and dropped it onto a chair. “What will you do?”

  “Go on with the wagons, try to get them across the river somehow.”

  “When will you be back?”

  He shrugged. “Quién sabe? War like it is, who can tell?”

  Her hair was in pleasant disorder about her cold-flushed face, and he could see beauty there, even with the tragedy in her eyes. She moved closer. “Don’t leave too soon. Your men need rest. You need rest.”

  “The war won’t stand still.”

  She put her arms around him and leaned her head against his chest. “I don’t want you to leave me, Frio, not yet. I want you to stay here with me, just a little while.” Her arms tightened. “Just stay and hold me, and don’t let go.”

  Standing with arms tight about her, he buried his face in her sweet-smelling hair. He held her silently and listened to the crackling of the fire.

  * * *

  FRIO LOPED WELL ahead of the wagons and reined the sorrel down toward the river. He pulled in at a mud-plastered jacal a hundred yards back from the bank. An old Mexican stuck his head distrustfully around the side of the hut. Slowly recognizing Frio beneath the dust and the whiskers, he stepped out into the open, smiling broadly. He hunched his shoulders, which were covered by a faded old serape so worn that it looked as if rats had been chewing away the edges.

  “My friend the Frio,” he said, pleased. “A good name for this kind of weather, for it is a little frio, a little cold.”

  “Qué tal?” Stepping to the ground, Frio took the old man’s hand. In Spanish he said, “Good to see you, Don Andres. It has been too long. One does not have time these days to visit friends.”

  The gray-bearded man shook his head. “Too much of the war. It seems there is always time for war, but never enough time for one’s friends. Come inside. Perhaps I can find something fit for a friend to drink.”

  The old man lived alone in the hut, for his wife was buried in a tiny picket-fenced enclosure a little way upriver. Most of his children had scattered to the winds, only a couple of them still living nearby. The tiny house was a boar’s nest. A bright-feathered gamecock sat with all the pride of ownership on the edge of the old man’s unmade cot, secured by a leather thong tied to its leg. Don Andres patted the fighting rooster as he walked by.

  “It could be worse, Frio,” he said. “We could be like the rooster and have only enemies.”

  From a shelf Don Andres took a clay jug and handed it to Frio. “The first drink is for my good friend.”

  Frio took a swallow and choked. He passed the jug back to the old man.
“If that is what you give your friends, what do you give your enemies?”

  “I have no enemies. Living far out here on the river, I cannot afford them.” He took a long drink and shook his head. “The pulque is not as good as it used to be. Nothing is as good as it used to be. The young ones, they have lost the touch.” He drank three long swallows and wiped his mouth with the gnarled knuckles of his left hand. “I am glad that I am old and am not much longer for this world. All grace and beauty has left it. And all the good pulque.”

  He sat down at a tiny table and beckoned for Frio to take one of the rickety rawhide chairs. He set the jug on the table between them. “Did you come to visit an old man, or is it war business that brings you here?”

  “I must admit, old friend, that I am here of necessity. You know that the Yankee troops have taken Brownsville?”

  The viejo nodded gravely. “Do not let it concern you, Frio. In my life I have seen many armies come across this land. Always they go again. One has only to wait and be patient.”

  “I have all my wagons with me, Don Andres. I have no time for patience.”

  The old man thoughtfully rubbed his bearded chin. “The young ones never do. How can I help?”

  “For one thing, I need information. Have you seen any bluecoat troops come this way?”

  Don Andres nodded. “A yanqui patrol came yesterday. It was on its way upriver.”

  Frio frowned. “You have no idea how long it might be before it passes this way again?”

  “I asked no questions. I thought if they wished me to know anything, they would tell me without my having to ask. And they told me nothing.”

  Frio clenched his fist, helplessness rousing an anger in him. “They might not come back for days, or they might be here in an hour.”

  “If I had even dreamed you would wish to know.…”

  Frio waved his hand, dismissing the subject. “Do you still run your ferry?”

  Don Andres nodded. “Sí. It is old and broken down like myself. But, blessed be God, it is still there, and somehow it still finds its way across the river.” His eyebrows went up. “You would cross your wagons on Andres’s little ferry?”

  “I have no choice. Either I cross them here or I have to take them all the way upriver to Laredo, perhaps even to Eagle Pass. I am too close to the river for that now. The Yankees would find me.”

  “Perhaps they may find you anyway. It will take a long time to cross your wagons with my little wreck of a ferry.”

  “It’s the only one there is. We’ll rush it.”

  Old Don Andres took another long swallow from the jug. “Once I was young and always in a hurry. But I finally learned that one does not rush the river, Frio. If one takes it on its own terms and at its own pace, he lives to be an old man like me. If he does not, then he dies, and the river goes on without him.”

  He extended the jug to Frio, but Frio shook his head, too preoccupied to care about a drink. Don Andres placed the jug back on its shelf and stretched himself. “But we shall see how much we can hurry it. Who wants to live forever?”

  * * *

  BLAS HAD COME along to help. Frio sent him down-river to look for any sign of patrols. He sent Happy Jack upriver to hunt the Yankee troops that had been here yesterday.

  “Now, boys,” he told both of them, “some people claim that any Rebel can whip a dozen Yankees, but I’m afraid they’ve stretched things a mite. Don’t mix it with them none. Just try to slip away without bein’ seen and get back here as fast as you can run.”

  Happy Jack had winked at Blas. “Bet you if the truth was known, a Rebel couldn’t whip more than half a dozen of them.”

  Frio had eyed Happy Jack narrowly, not sure but what the young hellion would spark a fight if he thought he had half a chance. “Mind me now, Happy. You get yourself back here if you see any Yankees. And try not to bring them with you.”

  When the pair had gone their separate ways, Frio signaled the wagons out of the brush and down toward the river. Usually he was happy to leave the closeness of the chaparral and break out into the open. This time he felt somehow naked and helpless without the mesquite and the “wait-a-minute” catclaw to help hide his cargo of cotton.

  He rode on down to the river, where Don Andres waited at the ferry with a pair of his grandsons who were to help. Frio swung down for a critical look at the ancient conveyance. It was one of the old-fashioned kind that used the river’s own current for its motive power. A heavy rope strung across the river kept the ferry from being carried away. Frio frowned. Like the viejo had said, the ferry had been here a long time. Too long, perhaps. The old lumber had twisted and rotted. Here and there Frio could see holes almost big enough for a man to stick his foot through. But people didn’t use the ferry much anymore. Don Andres didn’t earn enough from it to justify fixing it up. It kept him in beans and chili and pulque. When he was gone, the ferry probably would go too.

  “Not very big, is it, Don Andres?”

  The old man shook his head. “When I was a young man and built it, it was for burros, and sometimes for oxcarts. We had nothing bigger in those days. We had never seen anything like your gringo wagons.”

  Through the years the ferry had been used largely by smugglers, moving goods into Mexico without having to pay a duty such as was required in Matamoros or the other legal crossing points. By rights, the Mexican government should have burned this ferry years ago. But when, every so often, the customs officers came around, Don Andres made it a point always to have some coin hidden away so he could pay them their mordida. “Little bite,” the word meant in English. It was an unwritten law on the Mexican side of the river, a courtesy payment for services rendered, or for action withheld. The Americans would have called it a bribe, but then, the yanquis were notorious for being too blunt. Mordida was a much better-sounding word.

  Frio stepped off the ferry’s length, his mouth going grim. It would hold one loaded wagon at a time. It wouldn’t take a team of mules. For one thing, it wasn’t big enough. For another, some of them might break their legs stepping through the holes. No, they would have to swim the mules. Low as the river was, there wouldn’t be a great deal of swimming to it.

  Don Andres was plainly chagrined over the shortcomings of his equipment. He shrugged and said apologetically, “A poor man has only a poor man’s ways.”

  Frio replied, “We’ll make the best of it.” He signaled for the caporal to bring along the first wagon. The heavy brake dragged in shrill protest against the rear wheels as the wagon started down the incline. Frio climbed the bank to look for any sign of Blas or Happy Jack. He didn’t expect to see either one and hoped he wouldn’t. If they came back this soon, it could only mean trouble.

  They weren’t in sight. He returned to the water’s edge, where the ferry bobbed gently up and down at its mooring.

  “We’ll put the team across first,” he said to Don Andres and the caporal. “Then it can pull each wagon off the ferry and up the other bank.”

  A couple of teamsters took off most of their clothes and pitched them onto the first wagon, where they would stay dry. Then, shivering with cold, they moved the mule team out into the water and splashed across the river.

  Frio and the other teamsters put shoulders to the first wagon and grunted and pushed it onto the ferry, tongue first. Panting hard, Frio stepped back onto the dry ground and waved his hat.

  “Take it across, Don Andres.”

  Frio stood and watched while he tried to regain his breath. The river wasn’t particularly wide at this point; the main reason the old ferryman had picked this place to set up long years ago. But right now it seemed to Frio that it must be half a mile to the Mexican side. Old Don Andres and his two young grandsons used long poles to shove the ferry out into the stream. Carefully they quartered it around so that the current began to catch the conveyance and carry it along.

  Impatience gnawed at Frio as he watched the ferry’s snail-paced movement across the brown Rio. The great weight of the wagon and cargo
was almost too much for the ancient conveyance. It pushed the platform so far down that water lapped up over the side. A little imbalance might tip it.

  The caporal brought down another wagon and moved it into position. Across the river, the two naked and cold teamsters had the mule team waiting when the ferry reached the far side. The first thing they did was put on the dry clothes it had brought along. Then they hitched onto the wagon and pulled it up the south bank, hauling it well out of the way. As the ferry returned, the teamsters unhitched the mules and brought them back to the small mooring for a second wagon.

  So it went, one wagon at a time, at an eternally slow pace. Over and over, Frio counted the wagons as each one reached the far bank—three, four, five, six, seven. And still seven on this side, waiting to cross.

  He heard a running horse. A Mexican teamster called him and pointed upriver. Frio swung onto his sorrel and moved up the bank. He saw Happy Jack spurring hell-for-leather, horse beginning to lather.

  Happy slid to a stop. Arm outstretched, he jabbed a finger toward the northwest. “That bluecoat patrol the old man told you about—it’s on its way!”

  8

  Frio’s stomach drew into a knot. “How far off is it?”

  “Five, maybe six miles upriver when I left them. They’re just walkin’ their horses like they’re not too anxious to get back to the fort and go to work.”

  “Did they see you?”

  “If they had, they’d be right behind me. I was careful.” His brow furrowed in concern, Happy counted the wagons that still waited on the north bank. “We ain’t got time to cross that way, Frio. Them Yankees, they’ll be here before you can finish.”

  Frio frowned, indecisively rubbing the back of his neck. “How many men would you say there were?”

  “Twenty-five, maybe thirty.” His eyes narrowed. “You ain’t about to try and stand them off, are you? Most of these teamsters can’t shoot for sour apples. They’re no match for them troops.”

  “No, Happy. I was just thinkin’ how we might decoy the federals away for a while, you and me.”