by Mike Blakely
She shook her head. “I don’t want to wait.”
Caleb went with her toward the Washita. They passed the body of Angus Mackland, turned the corner, and saw the dead horse.
“Caleb,” she said.
“What.”
“You ain’t gonna make me pick no more bones, are you?”
“No,” he said. “Of course not.”
“Please don’t make me go back to that farm. I don’t want to stay there all alone.” She started crying again as he led her to the river.
EIGHTY-SIX
The fence ran for miles over the rolling New Mexico plains, catching tumbleweeds and coaxing whistles from the wind. Five tight strands, without a gate in sight. The pony Caleb had bought from Long Fingers didn’t care much for high stepping. He had to let down every strand but the bottom one to get the horse across.
He remembered the days when he could ride from San Antonio to the Sacramento Mountains without crossing a single fence. Now cattlemen had parceled the open range into pastures. It would never be the same. It was just as well that he was settling down. It was time to wed Marisol and take her home to Holcomb Ranch. Then, like the song said, he could camp by the gravestone every spring to tell Pete some wild stories.
He would have some to tell this spring, what with that fight on the Washita to talk about—Shorty with eleven bullet holes in his body, Long Fingers returning to his village in glory.
He wondered how Tess was getting along. She would be at the ranch when he arrived with his family. He had sent her with a letter addressed to Buster, and another to Amelia, asking them to find some work for her. He had made her swear on her life not to tell how they had met at Seymour.
Yes, he would have some stories to tell this year. But what about the spring after that? And the one after that? What kind of adventures would he have raising a herd of children on the ranch? Oh, well, it was just a song. He didn’t have to live it out.
Dread swept him up as he mounted the horse. He would have to face his father. If he was going to stay at Holcomb Ranch, he would have to arrive at some kind of truce with the old man. It was going to be harder than making the charge at the Washita.
But he would have to do it. Caleb was twenty-nine years old and knew no home. He was torn between Holcomb Ranch and Peñascosa, the mountains and the plains, the campfire and the stove. His style of life had aged him beyond his years. Creases marked his face like branches of a canyon. Seasons in the saddle had so strained his leg joints that he could hardly climb a staircase.
It was time. He was going to marry Marisol and take her back to Holcomb Ranch.
His mount stepped nervously over the wire and waited as he tapped the staples back in with a rock. It was Indian summer in southern New Mexico. Dazzling sunlight streamed over the peaks of the Sacrarnentos. He spurred the horse and headed for the last barbed wire gap between him and Peñascosa.
The next fence was one Caleb had helped build a few winters ago. When first he saw it, he thought he noticed a man standing along the fence line on the side of a hill. But when he got closer, he could see it was just a dead antelope hanging by one hind foot.
He had seen it happen with deer and antelope many times. Jumping a fence, they usually tucked their hind feet against their bellies, hooves pointing forward. Oh, if they were really pressed by something, they’d clear a fence all stretched out, with the hind hooves pointing straight back. But usually they’d just hop over with legs in the tucked position, and sometimes they didn’t hop high enough.
All it took was for one hind hoof to get hooked under the upper strand, then the leg would act as a lever as the weight of the animal carried over, and the second highest strand completed the fatal twist. It had happened here, to this buck antelope.
As he rode near enough, the drifter could see the upper two strands twisting together around a leg stripped of hide. The buck had thrashed around some time before coyotes came to rip out the tender spots. They would return for the rest tonight.
He remembered stretching that top strand. “Sorry, ol’ buck,” he said and rode on down the fence line to the gap.
He had to get down to open it when he got there. The vaqueros had recently rebuilt the gap, stretching its strands taut as banjo strings. It consisted of nothing more than five short lengths of wire between two cedar poles that stood on top of the ground. Wire loops held the cedar poles to the fence posts set in the ground at either side of the gap. In place, it looked much like any other section of fence. Unhitched, it served as a limp wire gate that could be swung to one side, wide enough for a wagon to drive through.
Caleb had to lean his shoulder into the cedar pole to slip the wire loop over the top of it and open the gap. He wished Javier’s vaqueros wouldn’t string their gaps so tight. It was a contest among them to see who could build the tightest one and still be able to open it.
Closing the gap was more difficult than opening it. After leading his horse through, he positioned the bottom of the cedar pole in the lower wire loop and tried to push the top of the pole near enough to the fence post to slip the upper loop over it. He had to put his left shoulder against the pole and pull toward the fence post while his right hand groped at the wire loop and tried to slip it over the top of the pole.
He finally succeeded but pinched the first two fingers of his right hand under the tight wire loop. “Ouch!” he yelled, jerking his fingers out of the bind and startling his horse. “Damned bobwire,” he muttered, sucking his injured fingers. They were going to hurt when he made his chords with Javier in the alcalde’s mansion tonight.
That’s where he would break the news to them. He would get down on one knee and propose to Marisol in the casa consistorial. Sylvia would shriek with joy, then weep with sorrow to think of Marisol leaving. Some of the children would mutter about having to leave, but Angelo would be ready. He had always wanted to go to Colorado. It would be an image they would long remember in the village of Peñascosa: Caleb on one knee, asking the mother of his children to join him in marriage.
The village came into view as he rounded the last curve in the river valley. No one saw him arrive. Javier had done away with guards since the Mescaleros had settled down on their reservation and the honest cattlemen had pressed the outlaw Texans out of the country. He turned his horse into the corral and hung his saddle.
As he walked up the lane, he heard a grinding noise and saw an old farmer named Salo pushing ears of corn into a hand-cranked mill that stripped the kernels from the cobs. He shouted, but the old man could not hear above the noise of the machine, so he walked over to the corncrib and put his hand on Salo’s shoulder.
The old man turned. His eyes opened wide.
“Howdy, Salo,” Caleb said with a grin. “Where’s my little mamacita?”
Salo didn’t answer. He grabbed another ear of corn, pushed it into the mill, and turned the crank with new vigor.
“Hey,” Caleb said, nudging the old farmer again.
Salo ignored him. Something was wrong.
Caleb left the corncrib behind and took quicker strides toward the alcalde’s house. He rounded the crook in the lane and came to Marisol’s door. Just as he put his hand on the latch, he looked across the footbridge toward the alcalde’s mansion and saw her there. Her back was turned and she was kneeling at the woodpile, but he recognized her thick mane of long, black hair. Relief swept over him. She was safe.
She looked around at him when she heard his boots clogging across the footbridge, spurs ringing with every step. She rose, holding her armload of stove wood in front of her.
“Hola, querida,” he said, smiling and putting his hand under her chin. He stooped over her to kiss her on the mouth, but she turned her cheek to him.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked.
She would not look at him.
“Here, give me that wood and come tell me what’s wrong.” He put his arms under the load of fuel.
“No, please,” she said, but he lifted the burden from her arms a
nyway. She brushed her hair away from her face and looked away.
Caleb got the wood situated and turned for Marisol’s house. He sensed after a few steps that she wasn’t following. “Well, come on,” he said, looking back. He froze, his mouth hanging open. Marisol was pregnant.
Caleb had never seen her pregnant with any of their children. They had each come into the world between August and October, while he was gone. But now it was late November and she was pregnant yet. The sight bewildered him. He thought back to the spring of the year. He had left Peñascosa in March. But she was not that pregnant. Not eight months. Maybe five or six. She clasped her hands in front of her stomach and looked at the ground beside her with an expression of utter shame.
He continued to stare at her, openmouthed, until the load of wood began to tire his arms. He tried to speak, but his voice wouldn’t work until he cleared his throat. “Who?”
She didn’t answer, but she cast her eyes a little higher, and glanced at the alcalde’s mansion.
“Javier?”
Marisol looked at him, tears welling in her eyes. “Sylvia is dead,” she said. “She got sick and died just after you left in the spring.”
“Was it Javier?” Caleb said.
She covered her face with her hands.
He dropped the load of wood and stalked toward Javier’s door, anger and shame boiling up in him.
“What are you going to do?” she asked as he passed. He didn’t answer, but she saw him put his hand on the butt of his revolver. “No!” she screamed, grabbing his arm.
He shook loose, pulled the Colt out, cocked it, marched for the kitchen door of Javier’s house. Above Marisol’s screaming, he heard singing coming from the kitchen. Holding the pistol in front of him, he opened the door and flung it hard against the adobe wall.
The singing ended and children screamed. Caleb saw Javier sitting in a chair at the kitchen table, children of all sizes around him, some hiding behind him. Some were Javier and Sylvia’s children. Some were Caleb and Marisol’s. Angelo was sitting on the table in front of Javier, a guitar in his hands. Javier was teaching him. They had all been singing.
Marisol pulled at him from behind, but Caleb hardly felt her.
“Put that pistol away,” Javier said. “You are frightening the children.”
Caleb pointed the revolver at the ceiling and eased the hammer down. He let the weapon hang at his side, cold in his grip. Marisol squeezed by him to get inside. She rushed to Javier’s side to protect the children. Marta was standing at the fireplace, staring at him in disbelief and fear.
“Take the children in the other room,” Javier said, getting up. “Take them!” he repeated.
She herded them away.
“Come outside,” Javier said to Caleb.
They stepped out, and Javier closed the door to the kitchen. He walked to the woodpile and turned around to face Caleb. “If you want to shoot me, do it here. Not in front of the children.”
“Go get your gun.” He seethed with rage. Javier was remorseless.
“No. I don’t care if you want to kill me, but I will not try to kill you. I would rather die than shoot at you, my old friend.”
“Don’t ‘old friend’ me, you son of a bitch. You’ve dishonored me and my woman.”
“I have honored her where you would not. I married her. Marisol is my wife.”
Caleb staggered back. “You married my woman?”
“Not your woman. My wife.”
“The mother of my children!”
“And I will care for them as if they were my own. You will never have to worry about them. You can still come to see them if you wish. But they will stay here with their mother and me.”
The shadows of the mountains were on Peñascosa now, and a breeze chilled the sweat on Caleb’s forehead. “What are you tryin’ to say?” His anger turned to sick fear.
“I am telling you that if you want Marisol and the children, you must kill me now. That is the only way I am going to let you have them.” He lifted his eyes to the mountains, held his creased chin high, and awaited Caleb’s decision.
It was unthinkable. Caleb had never considered that Marisol might quit him for an aging don like Javier, who was growing gray haired and paunchy. Seven winters had gone wasted. Amelia was right. He should have married her long ago.
He was late again. He had let one year too many pass. He could have had them all with him under one roof. Now he was expected to turn his back on his children. He did truly love them. He thought about them often, bragged on them all over the shortgrass plains, cuddled and wrestled them when he was with them. That they would so quietly, so readily, adopt a new father stung him hard.
It was like that winter on the Cimarron, when the cowboys held him down and clipped his dead fingers off with the dehorner. He could feel his own flesh and blood tearing away from him again, leaving him huddled and shuddering in pain and disbelief.
“You can visit them, just like always,” Javier said. “But they live under my roof now, and Marisol is my wife.”
Meekly, he slipped his pistol back into the holster. He grasped for something to salvage from Peñascosa. He felt like a dog sniffing for scraps.
It was worse than the Cimarron. He could visit his children, but he would sleep alone in a dusty Peñascosa adobe while Javier warmed himself with Marisol’s body. There would be no more hunts in the mountains, no more songs sung in the casa consistorial.
“Now I think you better go away and cool down someplace,” Javier said. “Do you want some food to take with you?”
“Hell no, I don’t want no food from you! If I want food, I’ll go shoot somethin’!”
Javier shrugged.
Caleb shuffled in his tracks. “Well, I’d like to tell ’em so long.”
“I will tell them for you. I think it is best that you come back to see them when you are not so mad.”
“What about Marisol?”
“I will tell her you said adiós.”
He felt the remorse in his stomach. There was nothing he could do but go. He wasn’t going to shoot Javier. He walked toward the footbridge, avoiding the black eyes of the old ranchero as he passed. He reached the woodpile, then stopped. “I thought you liked ’em big,” he said.
Javier smiled a sad, sympathetic smile. “I have seen her big many times. Big with your children. And now she is big with mine. I have been here when you have not.”
He started again and didn’t look back. He took an agonizing stroll across the footbridge, down the lane, to the corrals. He saddled up and went to spend a lonely night on the prairie ground. He would be cold, hungry, and alone. He would probably get the mandolin out and play a couple of the saddest songs he knew. Certainly he would play the “Shortgrass Song.” With a musical instrument in his hands, Caleb could make a kind of celebration even out of agony. He found beauty in sorrow. The music was his only refuge. The fiddle would drone and wail, and gush high clear melody like tears from his eyes.
EIGHTY-SEVEN
“Shorty had eleven bullet holes in his carcass.” Caleb leaned back on his old saddle, its stirrups spread-eagle on the ground between the fire and stone. “Looked like a chunk of rat cheese. I whitewash that story when I tell anybody else, Pete, but I’m here to tell you it was the bloodiest mess I ever seen. It was almost as bad as the time we found poor old Elam butchered by the Comanche.”
He sighed, looked out over Monument Park, speckled as he had never seen it with the lantern lights of homesteaders where once he and Pete had ridden together on unfenced range.
“What’s happened to the ranch, Pete? You’re not a year in the ground, and it’s busted to pieces. Damn, I had some big ideas about bringin’ Marisol and the kids here, and takin’ things over.” He threw a chunk of wood on the fire. “Hell, I don’t know what I’m gonna do now.”
He listened to the fire pop and caught himself looking at the dim light shining from Ab’s cabin. “I wish I could patch things up with the old man.”
He fell back on his saddle and looked at the stars twinkling in the clear winter sky. “What do you do up there all day?” he said, watching his breath cloud take an orange light from the fire. “Maybe turn them longhorn devil-critters back from the pearly gates, and chouse ’em back to hell.” He smiled. “That would make a pretty good song, wouldn’t it?”
He closed his eyes, heard tunes, saw memories, and fell off to sleep.
* * *
The next morning Caleb saw the Rampart Range in its full cloak of snow for the first time in ten years. Buster was waiting for him in the Cincinnati house when he came down. Caleb met Buster’s newborn baby, Frederick, then walked to the mansion to get a look at his new nephew, Pete Holcomb, Jr.
“My stars,” Amelia said, hugging him. “What are you doing here this time of year?”
“I’ve come to see Little Pete.”
She puffed her cheeks with a sigh. “Oh, please, not now. He’s been up all night with the colic, and I just got him to bed. Come back tonight for Sam’s farewell dinner.”
He left the mansion, and Buster drove Caleb to town in the old spring buggy. Looking under the seat as they drove, Caleb saw the hole in the floorboard where once he and Buster had stepped the mast. How old had he been that day they drove through Monument Park on the wind wagon, the triangular sail billowing before a chinook? Ten? Eleven?
They stopped at the Holcomb depot the two of them had built together. Nearby stood a new store, a bank, a café, a livery, a laundry, and a few other businesses. Caleb went into the boardinghouse to see how Tess was getting along.
“How come you to end up workin’ here?” he asked.
“The colonel give me the job,” she said. “He read your note to Buster and asked me if I wanted to work here.”
Caleb merely shrugged. “The old man sure knows how to throw a town together quick.”
That night Caleb and Buster were arguing lyrics in Buster’s old cabin when Ab burst in without knocking.
“Buster!” he shouted. Then he saw Caleb, but it was too late. He looked away from his son and glared at the black man. “Where were you today when the stovepipe caved in at the café and filled the place with smoke?”