Shortgrass Song

by Mike Blakely

“I ain’t,” she said.

  He gathered his things and went to the door. “And don’t let on to nobody that you’ve got that money, or you’ll get robbed.”

  She nodded.

  “Well, good luck,” he said, opening the door.

  “Good-bye, Caleb.”

  As he walked down the hall, he wished she hadn’t said his name. For some reason it made him feel as if he was the one turning his back on her instead of Angus Mackland or her stepmother or her brothers and sisters. She must have known that speaking his name would make him feel that way, he reasoned, and had done it on purpose.

  “Is there a relief society in town?” he asked the hotel clerk.

  “The Baptists have got one,” the clerk said.

  Caleb found the parsonage near the chapel and told the preacher there about Tess. “She’s a good girl, but she’s had a rough time,” he said, as if he had known her for years. “She needs a start, that’s all.”

  Having taken care of Tess the best way he knew how, he went to the depot and paid to have the Cincinnati house shipped to Buster Thompson at the Holcomb Station on the Denver and Rio Grande. He figured if Pete wouldn’t let Captain Dubois build him and Amelia a house, he wouldn’t take one from his no-’count brother either. Buster, on the other hand, would surely jump at the chance to get out of his little cabin with the burlap carpet. He sent a message with the bill of lading:

  Dear Buster,

  Won it for you in a poker game in Texas. See you in spring.

  Caleb

  It was after dark when he and Powder River boarded a stock car for the trip to San Antonio. The gelding was fat and rested, and that gave Caleb a great deal of comfort. He would have to cover some ground fast to get from San Antonio to the Sacramento Mountains before winter set in.

  SIXTY-THREE

  Marisol always waited for Javier to pass by before she went into her adobe for siesta. She always brushed her hair as she waited—a task that could keep her busy for half an hour or more, as her hair grew thick and luxurious, hanging in shiny waves and coils to her waist.

  She was sure that she was in love with Javier. It didn’t matter that he was old enough to be her father. She had never known her own father and recognized no particular age beyond which a man became a generation too old for her. Any man with black hair and good teeth was worth consideration, though Marisol was very discriminating in regard to the men she wasted her flirtations on.

  She had always been fascinated with boys older than she was, but ever since Javier came to Peñascosa, her interests had gravitated more toward grown men. She was thirteen then. Now she was seventeen, and she had moved out of her grandmother’s house, into her own room in the adobe-walled fortress-village that was Peñascosa. The room had been left vacant by the death of an old man. It was located in a perfect place in the compound, between the corrals and the alcalde’s house, where Javier walked every day on his way home to eat his midday meal and take his siesta. He could not fail to see her sitting in front of her room, brushing her hair.

  Many young vaqueros passed by her room, too, whether it was on their way or not. Some stopped to flirt. She didn’t pretend to resent their advances, for she relished their attention. But it was Javier she wanted more than any other. He looked good on a horse, he wore his sombrero well, he sang with the voice of a wolf, and he had the most remarkable crease in the middle of his chin. He rode as well as any vaquero and was above them all in terms of social standing, held in higher regard than any other man in Peñascosa.

  There was only one problem. Javier liked his women older and plump. Marisol had eaten tortillas and honey until she thought she would burst, but her figure remained like that of a busy wasp. Javier liked bumblebees. When he passed by her room on his way to the alcalde’s mansion, he would nod and occasionally say “Buenos días, Señorita Marisol,” but never did he look at her with any evidence of desire in his eyes.

  He fascinated her. He told stories of Mexico, Texas, Colorado. He had survived fights with bad men, killed an old white devil in a sawmill somewhere to the north, and skirmished often with Indians: Comanche, Apache, Cheyenne. He led war parties against the Mescalero when they came down from the Sacramento Mountains to steal cattle, and even commanded the respect of the Texans who wanted the ranges flanking the Rio Peñasco. He was top man, and she desired him more than anything in life. She would let nothing come between her desires and Javier, not even his fat wife, Sylvia.

  Marisol pulled the shawl tighter around her shoulders as a cold wind whipped down the street. She drew her brush through the tresses running over her shoulder and in front of her waspish figure. Inside her room she had a fire crackling and, warming over some coals, a bowl of chicken mole, plus a stack of tortillas and a jar of honey. She wished Javier would hurry up and pass by so she could go inside, enjoy the hot meal, and take her siesta.

  Finally, she heard his spurs jingling above the whisper of wind and the rush of the Rio Peñasco, which ran cold and clear through the compound. She tossed her hair over her shoulder, sat up straight on her stool, and pulled the corners of her shawl in front of her to hide the severe curves of her waist and hips.

  In a moment Javier came strutting up the dirt lane, wearing a leather riding coat, pulling at the fingers of his deerskin gloves. He tucked the gloves under his belt and breathed into his cupped hands to warm his fingers. He saw Marisol holding strangely to the corners of her shawl and stopped in his tracks. It was not unusual to see her there. She was always there when he passed by. But today was the coldest day Peñascosa had felt since the girl moved into the room vacated by the old man, and Javier hadn’t expected to see anyone sitting out in the wind.

  “Buenos días, Señorita Marisol,” he said.

  Her eyes came alive with hope. “Buenos días, Alcalde Maldonado,” she replied with playful formality.

  He took a few steps toward her and smiled. “Why are you sitting out here in the cold wind? Don’t you know a skinny thing like you could catch a cold?”

  She looked down and adjusted her shawl. “I was just brushing my hair,” she said, pulling her tresses over her shoulder for Javier to admire.

  “You can brush your hair inside your room, can’t you?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “But…”

  Javier chuckled. “But what?”

  She felt a tremor of nervousness flutter through her tiny stomach. Finally she had her chance to tell him. “If I brush my hair inside,” she began, “I cannot see who passes by on the street. I might miss seeing someone who passes by on the street every day and…”

  Javier was still standing there, but he wasn’t listening. He had turned toward the sound of a galloping horse. As alcalde, he had made a rule against riding horses through the village compound. They only made dust and left dung. But someone was breaking his rules.

  “Alcalde Maldonado!” a young man shouted as he rode to Javier. “A Tejano is coming up the river!”

  “Just one?”

  “Yes.”

  “How near is he?”

  “About a mile away.”

  “What is he doing?”

  “He is just riding up the river toward the village.”

  “Just one damned Tejano does not give you the liberty of galloping your horse up the street!” the alcalde shouted. “Look at the people coming out of their homes! Now you have frightened the devil out of them.”

  “I’m sorry,” the young man said, removing his hat in a gesture of apology.

  Javier regained his composure, shook his head, and smiled at the guard to make up for his outburst. “Don’t apologize. You did your job well. Take that horse back to the corral. I am coming to see about this Tejano.” He followed the horseman, neglecting to excuse himself from the conversation he had started with the skinny señorita.

  Marisol stomped her foot and tossed her hair back over her shoulder. It was just like a Texan to come around and ruin her finest chance of winning Javier’s affection. She stalked into her room and sla
mmed the pine door behind her.

  * * *

  Caleb reined in his gelding when he saw the guards posted behind the low wall running around the village. It was not the kind of place he had expected. He had envisioned Javier’s ranch as a collection of ramshackle sheds, bunkhouses, and corrals. What he saw instead was an orderly and well-fortified village between sheltering foot-hills of the Sacramento Mountains. Plenty of grass grew in the valleys, and forests of straight pines spilled down from the mountains to the very outskirts of the village.

  The Rio Peñasco, though it was narrow enough for a horse to jump without wetting a hoof, brought a constant flow of fresh water down from the high country. Just outside of the adobe walls the villagers had channeled the river into irrigation ditches that ran through fields, orchards, and vineyards. Wood smoke streamed from the chimneys, and the brown adobe walls of the houses invited him to enter. He was hoping the guards would do likewise.

  “Buenos días,” he shouted, raising one open hand in the air. “Is this Javier Maldonado’s rancho?”

  The guard at the main gate of the corrals looked back for orders, then waved the stranger in. The guns of the guards followed Caleb all the way into the compound where he found Javier poised indifferently with a heel and an elbow resting on the rails of the corral. He got down from Powder River and took off his hat. “Howdy, Javier,” he said. “Recognize me?”

  The stern look melted from the alcalde’s face as he glanced from the man to the speckled horse to the guitar sticking out of the saddle wallet. He took a step toward the stranger and squinted. “Wait a goddamn minute,” he said. “Is that you, Caleb Holcomb?”

  “It’s me, all right.”

  Javier laughed as he shook Caleb’s hand. “¡Un abrazo!” he said, squeezing the new arrival in a hug. “We thought you were a goddamn Texan. You’re grown up as big as your father.”

  “Bigger. I’ve got both legs.”

  Javier laughed loudly and gave orders for the vaqueros to take care of Caleb’s horse. “I almost didn’t recognize you with that mustache.”

  “I just started lettin’ it grow in San Antone,” Caleb said, following Javier out of the corrals and into the village compound. “Saves me time shavin’.”

  “I know better,” the alcalde said. “You are wearing that to tickle the señoritas.” He laughed, wide-eyed, and slapped Caleb on the back. “How about some enchiladas and tamales?”

  “Sounds good. I haven’t et much since I left Fort Stockton a week ago.”

  As they walked briskly up the dirt lane, Javier asked about Ab, Pete, Buster, and the cowhands he had known at Holcomb Ranch. Doors opened as they passed, and curious faces peered out from the warm rooms.

  “Me and the old man fell out after you left,” Caleb was explaining. “I’ve gone back every spring, but I’ve been mostly driftin’ since I left home. How come everybody’s lookin’ at us?”

  Another door opened, and a beautiful, slender, ample-haired girl leaned out. Javier didn’t notice, but Caleb did.

  “They think you are a Texan. Some of those goddamn Texans have been trying to get this valley from us. Besides, my people want to know what is going on with their alcalde,” he said, thumping himself on the chest.

  “Their what?” Caleb was staring over his shoulder at the long-haired señorita.

  “I am the alcalde here. The jefe, the mayor, the boss.”

  Caleb’s view of the girl was broken as they rounded a corner. “You mean you’re the hookin’ bull of this whole town?” Their boots clogged over the planks of a foot-bridge crossing the river.

  Javier nodded proudly.

  “How many people live here?”

  “You know, it is a funny thing. We have exactly one hundred. Old Garcia died a few months ago, but then José Hidalgo’s wife had a baby and now we have one hundred again.”

  “I hope you won’t mind me makin’ it one hundred one.”

  Javier stopped at the side door of the biggest house in the village, and the highest. It looked down on the town, the river, and the arid plains to the east. “Have you come to stay with us, then?”

  “Lookin’ for a place to winter. Got any work for a cow-boy?”

  “You are welcome to stay, of course. I cannot pay you anything, but you will have food to eat and a place to stay. Anyway, as I remember, you were better with guitar and fiddle than with horse and cattle.”

  “Well, things change, Javier. It’ll take me a while to get you caught up.”

  The alcalde put his hand on the door latch. “We eat first,” he said. “Then siesta. Then we play some songs and you can tell me about all the things that have changed with you. I have suffered some changes myself.”

  When Javier opened the door, Caleb beheld a rotund, rosy-cheeked woman carrying a baby boy under one arm and setting steaming platters of tamales, wrapped in corn shucks, on a table of hand-hewn pine planks. Without even looking up, she lit into her husband in Spanish, rattling off syllables with woodpecker rapidity.

  “Sylvia…” Javier attempted as she continued to jabber. “Sylvia…” he tried again.

  Caleb saw a tiny girl child pull herself up to table height in one of the chairs.

  “Sylvia!” Javier shouted.

  She turned, scowling. Then she saw Caleb, gasped, and put on the sweetest smile and the warmest disposition. “Oh, buenos días,” she said, hoisting the baby to her shoulder. “Hello, hello.”

  As Javier explained in Spanish, Caleb picked out the few words he knew: “… amigo … Colorado … Caleb Holcomb.”

  “Welcome, welcome,” Sylvia said, pulling out a chair for Caleb. She turned her face to her husband and snarled a few words at him in Spanish. Then she smiled sweetly at Caleb again. “He is late,” she explained. “The food is getting cold.” She hurled a few more choice Spanish expletives at her husband for emphasis.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  Caleb moved into a room in the back of Javier’s house with its own fireplace, a door to the outside, and a patio that stood on the edge of the pine forest growing above Peñascosa. Someone in the village brought an old violin, unused for years. Caleb strung it left-handed and began to relearn the art of fiddling.

  One afternoon, after fiddle practice, he saw an old woman and some children trying to herd a pig back into its enclosure near the corrals. They were having little luck, so he gave them a hand. When the pig was back in, he saw Marisol coming with an armload of pine pickets to be used in mending the pen. He became suddenly expert at fixing pigpens and stayed to see that it was done properly.

  “Javier told me you speak English pretty good,” he said, sharpening a pine limb with a hatchet.

  “Yes. I do speak some English. But not all of it.”

  “Maybe we should talk more often. I could teach you English, and you could teach me Spanish.”

  “Of course,” she said. “¿Cómo no?”

  “¿Cómo no?” he repeated.

  “That means ‘Why not?’”

  “Como no,” he said. They worked together in awkward silence for a minute. “Is this your pig?” he finally asked.

  “No, it belongs to my grandmother. That old woman, there.”

  The old lady smiled toothlessly when he looked.

  “Where’s your folks?”

  “Folks?”

  “Yes, your mama and papa?”

  “Oh,” she said, driving a picket into the ground. “My mama is dead. And my papa…” She shrugged.

  From that day on, Caleb met Marisol every afternoon so they could teach each other their native languages. He brought his guitar one day to have her translate a song Javier had taught him. When he found he remembered new words better if they came in the form of lyrics, he continued to bring the guitar. He embarrassed the daylights out of Marisol by making her sing to him in English. People would stop and stare at them in bewilderment as they repeated patches of songs to each other. But Marisol soon became accustomed to the method of learning, and even the people in the village accepted it after a
couple of weeks. Her singing voice was timid but pretty.

  Winter brought snow to the mountains and pushed the game closer to Peñascosa. When Caleb suggested a simple hunt one day, Javier delved into a week’s worth of co-ordinating cooks, butchers, skinners, mule packers, wood choppers, camp rustlers, and guides. When the expedition finally got under way, it included twelve men, nine hounds, six pack mules, and four canvas wall tents complete with stoves, three guitars, a fiddle, and a case of tequila.

  Their base camp was a mountain meadow a thousand feet higher than Peñascosa and ten miles away by trail. Smoke from the ever-burning tent stoves filtered up through the branches of towering ponderosa pines around the camp. After ten days the party had more meat than it could carry back to Peñascosa, so the hunt was judged a success and called to an end.

  “You know, this would be a good place to build a huntin’ cabin,” Caleb said the last night of the hunt as the men passed a tequila bottle between songs.

  “A warm one with a big rock fireplace,” Javier added.

  “There’s plenty of straight trees to build with, and water runnin’ at the bottom of the meadow. A cabin would sure beat these drafty tents.”

  “We will build it next November when you come to spend the winter with us again.”

  Thus it was suggested, with no argument from Caleb, that he might spend every winter in Peñascosa—hunting, singing, learning Spanish, and perhaps even working a few cows.

  The hunting party returned in glory with sprawling antlers of elk and deer lashed to every mule and fine furs from two wolves, a bear, and a mountain lion in addition to the deerskins and elk hides. The entire village began to prepare for a wild-game feast to be held that evening.

  The front half of Javier’s adobe mansion consisted of a single large room that functioned as a public meeting place and dance hall called the casa consistorial. It had cavernous fireplaces at both ends and a hearth in the middle where red-hot rocks were piled for further warmth. The adobe walls stood all of ten feet high, and overhead, huge trunks of ponderosa pine, stripped of bark, spanned the breadth of the room. Lanterns hung around the inside walls on twisted wrought iron fixtures. The entrance to the public room was an archway closed by carved double doors.