Shortgrass Song

by Mike Blakely

  The celebration didn’t get under way in the casa consistorial until about ten o’clock that night. Then the big room became quickly crowded with people from great-grandfathers to babies. Children ran in packs like yelping coyotes. Dogs waited outside the double doors to catch the bones tossed out by the feasters. When they had washed down their sopapillas and honey with coffee, the musicians got the dance started.

  Because its economy revolved around Javier’s cattle herd, Peñascosa claimed a disproportionately large number of young vaqueros. Competition for available señoritas was intense. Few of the girls got to sit out even one dance. Marisol had a particularly long line of dancing partners to deal with.

  Empty wine and tequila bottles began to pile up as the night wore on. The guitar players worked in relays, so the music never flagged. Caleb made a debut with his left-handed fiddle, playing an easy waltz with great success. He also made a profound impression on the crowd by singing, in near perfect Spanish, “Mujer sin Corazón.”

  When finally he saw Marisol sitting in a chair and refusing offers to dance, he put his guitar aside and filled two glasses with wine.

  “Hola,” he said, taking a seat next to her and handing her the wineglass.

  “Thank you,” she answered, taking a little energy from his arrival.

  “I wish I could ask you to dance,” he said, “but I don’t know how to dance to these Mexican songs.”

  “I can teach you how,” she said.

  “You can?”

  “¿Cómo no? I can teach you right now.”

  “In front of all these people?” Caleb said. “I wouldn’t know how to take the first step.”

  “You are not afraid, no?” She tilted her head and let a cascade of dark, rich hair tumble over her shoulder.

  “Yes, I am afraid. I’m afraid of makin’ a fool out of myself. How do say it? Bufón?”

  Marisol laughed. “Yes, that is right. Bufón.”

  Caleb was aware that every gossipy crone and every jealous vaquero in the room was staring at him.

  “You need to take your dancing lessons privadamente,” she suggested.

  “What’s that mean? Privately?”

  She nodded as she lifted the wineglass to her lips.

  “You’re right. Private dance lessons, that’s what I need.”

  “Give me about five minutes to get away,” she said. “Then come to my room. We can hear the music from there. I will teach you how to dance.” She got up, leaving the wineglass on the table. “Don’t let anybody see you come in. The old women will gossip.” She left without waiting for his response.

  He wandered casually back toward the musicians, forcing himself to ignore Marisol. After a couple of minutes, he picked up his fiddle and strolled into Javier’s kitchen. He felt his way through the dark house to his room, left the fiddle there, and went out through the door to his patio. Sneaking along the side of the house, he hid behind a woodpile and waited until the way was clear between Javier’s house and the rest of the village. Then he rushed to the footbridge and crossed the river.

  Walking with the closest thing he could manage to an ordinary gait, he swung down the lane toward Marisol’s door. When he saw the firelight leaking out around the portal, he glanced over his shoulder and, seeing no one behind him, leapt at the door and knocked on it. It swung open immediately, and his dance instructor pulled him in.

  “Did anyone see you?”

  “No. Everybody’s at the baile.”

  The only light in the room came from the bell-shaped fireplace that bulged from one corner. Marisol’s straw-filled mattress was rolled, tied, and placed against the wall to make room for dancing.

  “Stand over here out of the way and I will show you some steps,” she said. “They are playing the music for the bolero. Watch.”

  As the musicians played, barely audible away up the hill, Marisol whirled and stamped her feet on the tiled floor, sweeping her hands over her head, striking sudden poses. Her hair enveloped her face when she spun, raked the whitewashed walls with shadows, and even brushed her student as he stood watching.

  “There,” she said. “Can you make those moves?”

  Caleb took a step toward her. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Let’s start with somethin’ a little easier. Más fácil.”

  “Something like what?”

  “Come here and I’ll show you.” He put his right arm around her waist and took her hand in his. “We’ll have to be real quiet to hear the music.”

  “I am not the one talking,” she said.

  They stood together for a moment, trying to hear the distant guitars above the crackling of the fire. He saw the reflections of the flames in her eyes. His heart was pounding in his ears. He couldn’t hear a thing. The musicians had stopped playing. He pulled Marisol closer to him; closer, until she was looking almost straight up at him. He faintly heard the band strike up a waltz.

  Instead of dancing, he kissed her. She didn’t resist. In fact, she pressed herself against him. Then, after a few seconds, she pushed away.

  “You did not really want to learn how to dance, did you?” she whispered.

  “No. I’m hopeless at dancin’. I never was any good at it.”

  “Then why did you come to my room?”

  Caleb stammered. He could never tell what women wanted to hear. “Because I … Well, I … I want to get to know you better.” He felt her hand move on his shoulder and showed a sudden surge of foolish courage. “I mean, a lot better.”

  She slipped from his grasp and backed away. He glanced at the door latch to see how it worked, in case she had it in mind to hit him with a water bucket or a fire-place poker or something. But Marisol had no intention of driving him away. She knew what he wanted, and she knew she would not deny him. She had made her decision well ahead of time. She liked the way he sang. He said nice things to her. She had known all along that this time would come, and she was ready.

  She knelt and began untying the strings around her mattress. She let the soft cushion unroll itself across the cool tiles.

  III

  SORROW & BEAUTY

  1882

  SIXTY-FIVE

  The flurry of white on Powder River’s hips and flanks had become a blizzard by the time he reached his ninth year. The markings that had once merely dusted his coat now formed solid white spots with roan edges. From the shoulders back he looked as if giant snowflakes had splattered on his hide. Caleb could have been no prouder of the spots had he grown them himself.

  “Where did you get that horse?” asked the manager of the Double Aught Ranch, in the Davis Mountains of Texas.

  “He’s a Nez Perce horse. They come from up in the Idaho Territory. My brother raises ’em on our ranch in Colorado.”

  “I’ve seen a couple of other horses with spots like that. I was told they were called Appaloosas.”

  “Same thing,” Caleb said. “They come from the Palouse River country. I reckon that’s where the name Appaloosa comes from. Did you ever hear of a crazy mountain man name of Cheyenne Dutch?”

  The ranch manager bit a corner from a plug of tobacco and mulled the matter over as he moistened his cud. “I’ve heard some tall tales about him,” he finally admitted.

  “Well, we got our brood stock from him. The Nez Perce had told him those spots were magic, and he took ’em at their word. He used to get crazy spells where he’d think he was an Indian god called Palousey. He had spots tattooed on his butt.”

  The rancher chortled and spit. “Now there you go branchin’ out again.”

  “No, that’s the truth,” Caleb insisted, but he didn’t have time to do much convincing. The sun was getting high, and he had a lot of ground to cover.

  “Where you headed?” the ranch manager asked as the musician mounted the spotted horse.

  “Got me a Mexican woman in the Sacramento Mountains.”

  “That’s a ways from here. You got grub to get you there?”

  Caleb knocked on the fiddle in his saddle wallet.
“Here’s my supper. I’ll call on the boys at the Two Bar tonight and trade ’em a few songs for some grub.”

  “Well, you didn’t have to up and leave all at once, you know. You’ve only been here two days.”

  “I know when my welcome’s worn out. Your cook don’t like me laying around in his trail all day long.”

  “Yeah, he’s an ornery cuss, but he makes a fine apple pie.”

  Caleb reined Powder River north. “Then you’re better off losin’ me than him. You can’t eat fiddle music.”

  The ranch manager laughed, spit, and waved until Caleb rode over the ridge.

  He hadn’t been gone two hours when he came upon a fence. It was getting difficult to ride anywhere in Texas without having to let down a barbwire fence every couple of days. The stuff was twining its way all over the plains. He wondered if the day would come when a man couldn’t ride horseback from one ranch to the next. He had to let every strand but the bottom one down to get his gelding across. Being raised as a plains cow pony, Powder River had never been much of a hand for jumping.

  At least the railroads hadn’t spread as much here as they had in other places. There was just one railroad between the Davis Mountains and the Sacramentos. The lack of rails was one thing Caleb liked about his annual autumn trip to Peñascosa. New Mexico was still wide open. Colorado, on the other hand, was becoming veined with rails as if caught in some gigantic spiderweb.

  In his wanderings he still found vistas devoid of fences, railroads, and windmills, but they were getting scarce. At only twenty-eight, Caleb was getting nostalgic, pining for the days before the Indians were whipped and restricted to reservations, before the buffalo were slaughtered to make way for cattle, before the steam whistles rent the quiet air of the prairies.

  On the other hand, progress had served his brother well. Pete had made his fortune selling cattle to railroad crews. Windmills had gotten Holcomb Ranch through the drought. Barbed wire had enabled Pete to fence out the cattle of neighboring ranches so he could control grazing in Monument Park and improve his herd with blooded bulls. He had made enough money to build Amelia her stone house. They had been married seven months now. They had held the wedding in the spring, so Caleb could be there.

  He wondered if Pete would be a father when he returned next spring. He looked forward to having nieces and nephews, but a persistent dread nagged him when he thought of becoming an uncle. What if Pete turned out to be a better father than he had been? He was, in fact, almost sure that Pete would beat him in that respect. Fatherhood had taken Caleb by surprise.

  He had met his son, Angelo, when he returned for his second winter in Peñascosa. Since then, Marisol had turned them out like clockwork, one every other year, so that Caleb was now a father three times over. He adored his children, but he was only with them three or four months out of twelve.

  He had told Marisol from the first that he would have to return to Monument Park every spring to see his brother. And he had promised her that if he ever smoothed things over with his father, he would make an honest woman of her and take her back with him to Colorado to live year-round. He meant it, too. Sometimes he even looked forward to it happening. Other times he was sure it never would.

  During the rest of the year he drifted, found work, sent money to Marisol. Javier was glad to have him in Peñascosa for the winter but could not offer him wages without taking money from some other hand who stayed to work all year.

  Caleb was convinced that he was doing all he could do for Marisol and his children. He had no place else to take them. He did well enough at fatherhood one season out of the year. Maybe not as well as Pete would, but better than his own father had done with him. Of that he was confident.

  By midday he had almost contemplated himself into a headache, so he shook his head as if to cast off his worries and sang some verses he had been working on for several months:

  The drifter was faithful, returned every year.

  His brother was eager his stories to hear,

  And he’d watch o’er the hilltop when wildflowers bloomed …

  (He was having a devil of a time trying to find an appropriate word that would rhyme with bloomed.)

  At nights, by the fireplace, he’d listen to tales

  Of wild West adventures and hard-ridden trails,

  Of mountains so high that the trees didn’t grow,

  Of deserts so wide and of canyons so low.

  The drifter pulled a mandolin from his saddle wallet and accompanied himself as he rode alone through the desolate mountains of the Davis Range. The spotted gelding seemed to quicken his pace to match the rhythm.

  SIXTY-SIX

  He always found Peñascosa the same. Still a hundred souls, give or take a few. Still all Mexican, except during the winter when the lone Anglo came to live with Marisol. Still quiet at siesta, riotous with music at night, and nestled between the hills, out of the coldest winter winds.

  He arrived at twilight, left Powder River in the corrals, and walked up the lane to Marisol’s home. She had moved to a two-room house, just across the Rio Peñasco from the alcalde’s mansion. When he opened the door, he smelled beans frying.

  “Where’s the little mama?” he shouted.

  A crawling baby girl looked up from a rug on the floor. A three-year-old peeked around the kitchen doorway. Then Marisol appeared and ran nimbly to the front door to kiss Caleb.

  “Where have you been?” she asked. “It’s almost December.”

  “Oh, I wound up in Houston and figured, since I was so close, I ought to go and see the ocean.”

  “Would you rather go look at the ocean than come here to look at me?”

  “Of course not,” Caleb said, hanging his hat on a peg. “But I thought I’d go get a look at it so I could tell the children about it. Now turn around and let me look at you.”

  She whirled as if dancing the bolero.

  “You cut your hair!”

  “Just that much,” she said, measuring a few inches between her thumb and forefinger.

  “Well, it shows.”

  “I have to cut it sometime,” she argued. “You don’t want it looking like the tail of a wild mustang.”

  He grabbed her and pulled her against him. “I don’t know why not. I’ve tamed wilder fillies than you.”

  “Stop that!” She wrestled out of his grasp. “The children are watching.”

  “Is this little Elena?” He picked the baby up from the rug. She looked at him, bewildered, reached for her mother, and began to cry. Caleb gave her to Marisol. “And that must be Marta,” he said, smiling at the little girl in the kitchen doorway. “Come here, Marta.” He knelt and opened his arms to her.

  Marta glanced at her mother, looked back at the strange man.

  “She doesn’t remember you,” Marisol said.

  “She does so.” Caleb took a stick of hard candy out of his shirt pocket. “Look what I brought you from Galveston,” he said, bribing the little girl with the candy. “A peppermint stick.”

  Marta took a few careful steps and, seeing her mother smiling, ran to get the candy. Caleb wrapped her in his arms and kissed her cheek, scratching her tender skin with his mustache.

  “Don’t eat it all before supper,” Marisol warned.

  “Where’s Angelo?”

  “I don’t know,” Marisol said, trudging back to the kitchen with Elena in her arms.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “I mean, I don’t know. I told him to come home before dark, but he never listens to what I tell him anymore. You better get a switch and teach him a lesson. He’s making me go crazy.”

  “Well, it’s not very dark yet,” Caleb said.

  “It’s dark!”

  “Well, honey, I can’t give the boy a whippin’ on my first day back.”

  The front door burst open and little boots clopped against the tile floor. Angelo slid into the kitchen, looking worried, until he spotted the man with the mustache. “Papa?” he said.

 
“You’re dang right, it’s your papa.” He crouched and braced himself.

  “Angelo, go close the door!” Marisol said.

  The boy ignored his mother, jumped into Caleb’s arms, gritted his teeth, and squeezed his father’s neck as hard as he could in a brutal hug, his eyes popping with intensity.

  “Oh, ouch, stop it!” Caleb said in mock agony, collapsing to the floor and rolling with the little boy.

  Marta giggled and leaped onto the pile.

  “Angelo! I said go close the door.”

  “Oh, let us rassle some, honey,” Caleb said.

  Marisol sighed indignantly and stepped over the mass of bodies on the floor to close the door herself. “Ask him why he didn’t come home at dark like I told him to,” she said when she came back into the kitchen.

  “What’s that, honey?” Caleb asked, hugging the squirming children.

  “Ask him why he didn’t come home on time!” she shouted.

  “Oh, yeah. Hold on, you little lizards!” He stood the boy on his feet and looked him sternly in the eyes. “Angelo, your mama is a little riled at you.”

  “Not just a little!” she said. “I am mad enough to pinch his head off!”

  “You hear that?” Caleb said, faking a fearful grimace.

  Angelo laughed.

  “Now listen here. You knew you were supposed to be back here at dark, didn’t you?”

  Angelo nodded. “But, I was playing…”

  “Now no buts about it,” his father warned. “If you want me to get you a little horse to ride, you’re gonna have to do what your mother says.”

  “A horse!” Angelo cried. “Mama, I’m going to get a horse!”

  Marisol lolled her head back and looked with disgust at the ceiling.

  “Only if you mind your mama,” Caleb warned. “Now do you promise not to come in late anymore?”

  Angelo nodded energetically.

  “Good,” Caleb said.

  The boy jumped on him again, pulling him to the ground, and began riding him like a horse, saying, “Arre, arre!”