Lost Lands

by P. J. Keogh

  “Hell!” Scanlon shook his head, in perplexity. “Sanchez’s got his own grapes and winery, south of here.”

  “Good stuff at that.” Fisher’s tone was appreciative, as he took his first sample. “Not that I’m an expert, you understand.”

  “Maybe he has his own tobacco fields too.” Scanlon said, lighting his cigar.

  “And his own field-hands to do the pickin.’” Fisher lit up from Scanlon’s lucifer, drew on the cigar, rolled the smoke around his mouth, and expelled it. “It sure is quality weed.” He took another sip of wine before he asked, “Just what the Hell is goin’ on here, Major?”

  Scanlon gave a bemused chuckle. “I was wondering that, myself.”

  “Then, that’s two of us who are puzzled some.” Fisher’s expression reflected his bafflement. “This Sanchez is one hombre rico. What in tarnation does he want to fool around with a few hunert head o’ stolen, scrawny longhorns for?”

  “Beats me.” Scanlon shrugged.

  “More,” Fisher went on, “why is he treating a runaway Nigger and a drummed-out major-o’-volunteers like we was the Spanish kings or sump’n?”

  “I don’t know,” Scanlon admitted. “But there’s one hell of a lot more here than meets the eye. I guess, we’ll find out what, soon enough.”

  * * * *

  It was prompt at eight when the gong summoned them. The boy Federico led them to a long dining room. It was on the west side of the hacienda. Windows gave a view of the sun sinking behind Truchas Peak, which climbed to its two-mile height, across the valley.

  Sanchez, resplendent in silk shirt and velvet jacket, greeted them. “My apologies, Gentlemen, that I did not join you on the veranda. I had pressing business to which to attend.”

  “You have a large estancia here, Don Leopoldo.” Scanlon voiced his understanding. “It must take up most of the day’s hours. Be assured that Federico took good care of us.”

  Fisher, listening to the exchange, wondered where a frontier Apache-fighter like Scanlon got the florid lingo from, and was surprised that he could slip into its use so easily.

  “It is a great responsibility.”

  Fisher could tell that the don meant this, and he wondered again why the man spent his time, and soiled his hands in this comanchero business.

  “Be seated, Gentlemen,” Sanchez invited. He apologised once more. “I regret the absence of a hostess to grace my table.” There was sadness in his voice. “My wife died—eighteen years ago.”

  “You have my sympathy,” Scanlon commiserated. “I remember Dona Sofia only slightly. Then, I was not ten years old when I met her.”

  “Yes.” Sanchez nodded. “Your mother was alive then too. And your father. Please accept my sympathy in turn.”

  “Thank you, Don Leopoldo.” Scanlon inclined his head in gratitude at the commiseration.

  “He was a good man, Patrick Scanlon,” Sanchez reminisced. “He married into Mejico and was loyal to his choice. I recall that he ran the Gringo blockades of La Paz and Mazatlan, despite the danger to his life and his ship. He was one with whom I felt much in common. There is Irish blood in the Sanchez line, you know.”

  Scanlon confessed that he had not known this. But, in his own mind, he was not surprised. Much traffic had taken place between Ireland and Iberia, in years past. And Irish mercenaries had served in the armies of the Kings of Spain.

  Irish mercenaries! The thought gave Scanlon grim amusement. It occurred to him that some things had not changed much.

  “Eighteen years.” Sanchez, still in recollecting mood, repeated it. “At least Dona Sofia left a legacy.” The sadness in his voice gave way to pride. “Our daughter, Belen. My wife died giving birth to her. She is at school in Taos—al Convento de las Monjas de Nuestra Senora.”

  “You have a daughter? That is something else I did not know,” the major said.

  “Yes. You will meet her soon.”

  Two creak-jointed men waited at table—Federico’s job, a hundred years down the line, Fisher thought—serving dinner in four courses, the main one being juicy mutton-ribs arranged for presentation in a kind of archway rising from a silver platter. It struck the buffalo soldier, when the meat arrived, that it would be a shame to take a knife to it, and spoil the handiwork that had gone into laying it out so. The wines were liberally supplied, poured by the elder, Fisher judged, of the ancients who waited on. It was the finest meal Lije could recall.

  Then, slave quarters had never been noted for the excellence of their kitchens, cavalry messes either, or military jails.

  After the plates were cleared away, the aged waiters disappeared. Sanchez passed around brandy, pouring it from a glass contrivance with etchings cut into the sides of it. Before pouring, he removed a heavy stopper of solid glass, carved as the body of the thing was. Fisher had not drunk likker that came out of such a vessel before. He guessed that it must be what fancy folks called a dee-canter.

  They lit cigars to accompany the liqueurs, and Scanlon said, “May I speak freely, Don Leopoldo?”

  Their host made an expansive gesture. “Of course.”

  “I can’t help but wonder, Sergeant Fisher too, what a man like you is doing in the comanchero trade. I always thought men did it for the money. But in your case...” He ended the sentence with a shrug.

  Sanchez chuckled. “You are right, Major. Some men trade on the Llano for money alone. I do so for other motives.”

  “And what are those?” Scanlon asked.

  “To hurt the Gringos. This was our land. The land of Spain and then of Mejico. It was the fool Martinez who made the mistake. He allowed Austin and his colonists to cross the Sabine, forty-six years ago. Now the whole of Mejico al Norte, from the Gulf to the Pacific, is Gringo land. If I can hurt the Tejano Gringos, I shall do so. And I shall rejoice.”

  These sentiments were expressed with a poisonous hatred manifest in the words and in the tone with which Sanchez almost spat them.

  “I can understand your feelings, Don Leopoldo.”

  This was true. Scanlon could appreciate the essence of Sanchez’s outpouring. It was suspicion of Texicans as much as any love of Union that had caused himself to join up with Carson’s volunteers, after Sumter. The aversion was common in New Mexico, had even spread to the Anglos who had settled on the Upper Rio.

  But, antipathy or not, most New Mexicans did not risk a lifted scalp or a stretched neck, merely for the sake of encouraging the plains tribes to do just some more of what they would do on their own hook, if left alone.

  Sanchez’s operation had to be aimed higher than bringing additional fear to Texan settlers, pouring extra blood into the Brazos.

  This in mind, the major probed. “But the raids of the Comanche and Cheyenne will not restore Texas to Mexico, nor will those of the Kiowa or Lipan.”

  Sanchez smiled. It was a grim, knowing smile. “That is true. But there is more. You served with Juarista forces, Major.”

  Scanlon affirmed this. “I did.”

  “And you are aware that no army can function without funds. From where did you believe Juarez’s came? It seems no less than just that those who live off land that, by rights, belongs to Mejico, should be forced to make their contribution.” Sanchez spoke with the air of one taking pleasure in springing the unexpected.

  The unexpected was sprung alright. Fisher could read this in the major’s face, as the question came. “You are financing Juarez?”

  “I and others,” Sanchez said. “Despite the fact that he is the leader of a peasant rabble, he is Mejicano. And his fight is that of Mejico. That Austrian throne-stealer, Maximilian, and the French cabrones who put him there have no place in our country. We want them out. And we will have them out. Events are taking place that will have great significance for the whole of Mejico. Soon there will be more to tell you. Provided, of course, our relationship continues.”

  The don did not make clear what the alternative to the relationship’s continuance might be, and Scanlon felt danger to be lurking somewhere be
neath the words.

  Prudence being called for, he said, “Sergeant Fisher and I are happy in your employ, Don Leopoldo. Even more so, now I know of your support for the Juaristas.”

  “Good.” There was warmth in Sanchez’s smile this time. “That being so, I have a further task for you to perform. The cattle you brought from the Llano have a buyer waiting in Colorado. I wish for you to take the herd up there, when Pedro and his men have finished with the branding. And, on your way back, Major, a personal favor.”

  “Name it, Senor.”

  “By the time of your return, my daughter will be at the end of her schooling. If you would do me the honor of escorting her home, I should be most appreciative.”

  “The honor will be all mine.”

  Scanlon said this with guilty humility. To be entrusted with the safety of a daughter by a man of Sanchez’s class was the sign of highest regard. The major felt more than a twinge of conscience, as he accepted the task.

  They drank more brandy, finished their cigars, then, with courtesies to which Lije was beginning to grow accustomed, retired to their beds.

  * * * *

  Despite the good food and the high-class booze he had taken aboard, Fisher found sleep elusive that night. There was confusion in his mind. His ill-feeling toward Texicans notwithstanding, he did not like the comanchero trade. It went against his instincts somehow. Also, in his days with the 9th, he had seen how the plains tribes were prone to leave a farm or ranch when they were done with it. Even Texican Whites deserved cleaner ends than those suffered by some he had come across. And the comancheros were a party to those depredations.

  Against that, there was his understanding of Sanchez’s grievance. A sense that one’s own people have been wronged can prove a powerful source of hatred. A fact Fisher knew all too well. What troubled him most, though, was the deceit of it. Doing a man down was one thing. Taking his hospitality, whilst planning it, was something else again.

  With these thoughts on his mind, he drifted into sleep.

  * * * *

  Fisher took up his misgivings with Scanlon, the next morning. They were walking to the stable, to throw saddles onto their mounts, so as to ride across the creek to see how Pedro’s brand-blotching was coming on. Alone in the horse-yard, they were free to speak.

  “It doesn’t make me happy,” Scanlon replied when Lije had said his piece. “And that’s a pure fact.”

  “So what do you plan to do?”

  “See the job through.” Scanlon’s face was troubled, as he spoke. The duplicity in this affair suited his taste no better than it did Fisher’s. Hadn’t from the start. And now that Juarez’s name had come up on the other side he liked it even less.

  “But Hell, Major! You’ve said yourself you don’t favor this sneaky damn business.”

  “And I don’t. But it’s not just that simple.”

  “Why not, Major?” Lije felt worse about this thing than about any act he had committed. He wanted good reasons why he should carry on with it.

  They halted by the stable door. “Those men I shot in Albuquerque,” Scanlon said. “They worked for Don Leopoldo.”

  “That’s right. That’s why he hired us.” Fisher saw no point in being told that which he already knew.

  “And they were sidekicks of a man called Armandez. He was my second-in-command in Juarez’s army down in Mexico. But he sold us out. I’d put him in charge of reconnaissance, since he knew the country best of all of us. He guided the regiment into an ambush. That’s how come I was in Queretara Prision when Carson found me. I lost some good men, damn good friends, because of Armandez. I want the bastard. And I guess, somehow, he’s mixed up in this.”

  “So that’s it. You’re in this to settle a score.”

  “That’s part of it.”

  “And what about the rest?”

  “Carson’s the rest. If there’s more to this than funding Juarez, at the cost of Texican scalps, Carson needs to know what that is. And I made him a deal.”

  Fisher shook his head. “That ain’t no deal a court would enforce.”

  Scanlon made a bitter, laughing sound. “Those are the kind you’ve got to abide by.”

  “Even if it means doing’ dirt on your own kind?”

  “My own kind, Lije?” The major gazed across the valley toward the high peaks. But he was not looking at the mountains, Lije could tell. “I wonder sometimes just who the Hell they are.”

  Chapter 10

  The mountains had been named by Franciscan Friars come from Spain to bring salvation and civilisation to this savage corner of the New World. ‘Sangre de Cristo’ was what those God-fearing servants of Rome and the Hispanic Kings had called them—‘Blood of Christ.’ The mountains had been well titled. The sandstone of which they were formed was of a strange, almost crimson, red and when the light fell on them in a certain way, their surface took on a suffering, gory look. It was a big range, the Sangre, stretching from the headwaters of the Arkansas south to the rising of the Pecos. The stretch of range the Cheyenne herd had to cross, en route to Colorado, was called the Raton Mountains. The trail it followed traversed Raton Pass.

  A creek rose, high in Raton Pass. It was not much of a creek, one the herd and the remuda could walk across with little more than dampened hooves. In its course, it would recruit other streams, widen and deepen, grow to become the river called the Red, and flow on to join the Mississippi’s journey to the Gulf.

  It was on the bank of this infant waterway that former mountain-man, Dick Wootton, sat. In the span of his fifty-odd years, Dick’s frontier fame had spread as wide as that of Kit Carson, but had risen not so high. This was why, while Carson sported a brigadier’s star, and had Fort Garland and regiments at his command, Wootton mounted guard in the doorway of his shelter by the creek side, Hawken rifle in hand, demanding toll from those who used the length of road he had possessed the wit to corduroy.

  Scanlon and Fisher drew their mounts to a halt, as Dick came out from his shack. “Howdy, Scanlon.” Wootton, an early pioneer in New Mexico, had known Scanlon since the latter was a boy.

  “Dick,” the major returned the greeting. “You know Lije Fisher, don’t you?”

  “I do.” Wootton nodded to the Negro, as he spoke. “Heard you’d joined the reg’lar army, Fisher.”

  “I did,” Lije told him. “Now I’m a civilian again.”

  Wootton showed his understanding. “Army life ain’t no good to any freedom-lovin’ man. I scouted for ’em enough years to know that for a fact.”

  He looked again at Scanlon. “And I heard you was in Old Mexico.”

  “I was. Now I’m not.” Scanlon was studying the sign, crudely lettered, put up beside Wootton’s shelter. ‘RIDERS - 5 CENTS. CATTLE - 10’, it read. “What the Hell is this, Uncle Dick?”

  “My toll. And I ain’t your Goddamn uncle.” Wootton always did get riled when called the name he was mostly known by.

  “Toll for what?” Fisher asked.

  Wootton pointed to his engineering work. “Use o’my road.”

  “Road?” Fisher laughed out loud. “Those few slats o’ timber in the dust there?”

  “Slats?” Wootton made out to be angry. “That’s a military standard piece o’ corduroy. Learned to do it when I guided for the Corpse o’ Topographicals. I built the road. I’m entitled to charge for its use. It’s a matter of what’s right. ’Sides,” he grinned a grin with mischief in it, “a man needs a pension in his later years.”

  Fisher laughed at Wootton’s nerve, and in admiration of his enterprise.

  He had heard that two drovers, Charlie Goodnight and Ollie Loving, had commenced driving Texas cattle on this route north. Where they led others would follow. If Uncle Dick could comb some dollars off the back of the longhorn cattle-trade, then why not?

  Had it not been for men of Wootton’s breed there would be no cattle-trade out here, no Whiteman’s trade of any kind, and no Whitemen to pursue it.

  Scanlon and the road-builder haggled, and for
one hundred dollars out of the major’s trail-fund, Wootton let the herd and the remuda pass.

  As the last head of stock went up-trail, Scanlon handed Dick his cash, and posed a question. “Do you see Carson, these days?”

  “Now and then,” Wootton said. “But he’s a man of some importance now is Kit. Got responsibilities. Patrols from Fort Garland swing this far south though. And Garland’s where he’s in command.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Scanlon passed Dick an envelope. “See that Carson gets this, will you?”

  Wootton gave a sly look. “Cost you another five dollars for the postal service.”

  Scanlon gave him the money. Wootton took it, looking sly again. “I somehow didn’t figure you to be in the beef trade, Major.”

  “Keep that opinion to yourself.” Scanlon’s look made that an order, not a matter simply of advice. He pulled rein, and urged the roan mare up the road that led across the pass.

  Wootton put away his loot. His expression thoughtful, he turned back toward his shelter.

  Chapter 11

  Trinidad, Colorado, stood on a fork of the Arkansas. Named for Father, Son and Holy Spirit, it had been settled, in the ’50s, by Spanish-speakers spilling up from New Mexico, displaced by Norte-Americano spread.

  It was on the town’s mainstreet that Scanlon and Fisher drew up. It was a muddy street, its dust turned pasty by a fall of springtime rain. They had ridden ahead of the herd, Scanlon on the army bay, Fisher riding a blocky gray from Sanchez’s remuda. They had got an early start, and made good time.

  Tobias Sedgwick was Town Marshal in Trinidad. An Anglo who owed his office to the fact of marriage to a Mejicana wife, he stood on the boardwalk outside the jail.

  Tobe was a tubby-built man who liked his ease. Badge-toting in a trail-town further east would have paid more dollars, but would have been on the lively side for his taste. Trinidad suited him fine, and he aimed not to have it changed any.