Father unto Many Sons

by Rod Miller

  Daniel set his cup aside and cleared his throat. “We want you to know—Mary and I, as well as Emma and Jane—how grateful we are that Abel saved our Jane. It is horrific to imagine what might have happened otherwise.”

  “Yes?” Lee said. “I see. But oughtn’t you to be thankin’ Abel?”

  “No, no—it is not that. We shall, of course, I mean,” Daniel said. “But, actually, it is something Richard said we want to inquire about. Something he said back there after Abel killed the Comanchero, and something similar he said to Mary and Emma.”

  Daniel paused, and Lee nodded him to go on.

  “It may be nothing. A result of anger, or perhaps the alcohol talking. Or it could be codswallop, pure and simple.”

  “Yes, yes, spit it out, Daniel.”

  “Well, you know our Emma is fond of Abel. Richard has had his eye on the girl, and her attentions in Abel’s direction appear to have caused a certain amount of jealousy and frustration.” Daniel turned to Mary. “Mary, you go on. Say what Richard told you and Emma.”

  Mary did not hesitate. “He said Abel was not the man we thought he was. That Emma should be wary. He suggested we ask him about Peter. Then some nonsense about the origin of his pistols and knife. Even his hat and coat.”

  Daniel picked up the thread. “And you will recall, Lee, that when Richard arrived after the killing of the Comanchero, he implied that Abel knew something of kidnapping and murder.”

  “Yes?”

  “I am sorry, Lee, but—solely in the interest of Emma’s wellbeing, you see, should something of a more permanent nature develop between the youngsters—well, we—Mary and I—are curious as to his—Richard’s—meaning, and whether his comments concerning Abel are related in some way. And, I suppose, what they mean.”

  Lee pondered for a moment, tossing the dregs from his coffee cup and rotating it around and around between his fingers, looking into its bottom. “You got three—four—girls, Daniel. I reckon they are about as different from each other in their ways as my boys. Richard, he’s always been a contrary sort. Didn’t matter if I’d tell that boy a hog has four legs, he’d argue about it. Challenged me at every turn.

  “Melvin—well, Melvin’s just Melvin. He’s a hard worker, but the boy don’t spend a whole lot of time thinkin’ about what he’s doin’ or even if he ought to be doin’ it. Mostly, he follows Richard’s lead. Has done since they was little, and not always to his advantage.

  “Then there’s Abel. He’s always been the kind of boy I wished those other two was. Smart, he is, and capable of doin’ ’bout anything he sets his mind to. And he ain’t got no quit in him. But I guess I’m kind of selfish about what I like best about the boy. He obeys me. If I was God and he was Abraham and I told him to slay Isaac, he’d do it. Might not be happy about it, but he’d do it.”

  Lee stood and set his cup on the rock seat he’d abandoned. He stretched his shoulders and massaged the small of his back. “Thing is, it just got easier and easier to ask Abel to do things I wanted done. Arguing with Richard over every little thing got too tiresome. It was a mistake on my part, I know, but I favored Abel and that upset Richard—as it ought to have done.”

  Lee paused to gather his thoughts. Then, “When we left Shelby County, we left a lot of things behind. I wanted no more of that life. Sarah wasn’t happy about it, and she still ain’t. Same with Richard.” He laughed. “I guess that ain’t no secret. Anyway, after we was gone, there was some left-behind things I wanted. Things my brother Ben had, but what belonged to me— left by our father to me as the firstborn.

  “I sent the boys back to get them. Melvin and Richard went to my brother but he sent them away—give Melvin a good beating, too. Them two gave up and was ready to come back empty-handed, but Abel, he wasn’t havin’ any of that.”

  Picking up the empty cup, Lee sat again on the boulder. Daniel and Mary waited for him to continue. After a moment, he did. He told them about Abel happening on his drunken Uncle Ben. How Ben refused the request yet again and attacked Abel. About Abel killing Ben out of necessity. And the subterfuge he used to fool Peter and obtain the wanted property.

  “He never intended to kill my brother Ben, nor to force Peter to come with us. It’s just kind of how it turned out, I guess, and it’s tortured the boy ever since. But Abel, see, he only did what I asked him to do—so if anyone’s to be blamed for what happened, well, it would be me.”

  With that, Lee walked back to the wagons. Daniel and Mary sat and watched him go.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Reaching Las Vegas was a revelation to the Pates and Lewises. The mountains, which first appeared as a sky-blue smudge on the western horizon many days ago, were now upon them. The town was a beehive of activity after lonely weeks on the plains. The low-slung, flat-roofed adobe buildings that fortified the central plaza looked strange to them. Dust and dung seasoned the air, spiced with sweat and smoke and the smells of unfamiliar foods.

  Tall-sided, big-wheeled, lumbering Santa Fe Trail freight wagons rolled along behind six, eight, even twelve yoke of oxen driven by filthy, foul-mouthed bullwhackers whose popping whips kept the travelers’ heads down and on the lookout for gunfire.

  Mexican men led donkeys and pulled handcarts and pushed wheelbarrows burdened with loads of every description. Women spread colorful blankets around the edges of the plaza, displaying for sale baskets and pottery and silver jewelry and corn and chili peppers and other fruits and vegetables. Others squatted next to cooking fires where they flipped tortillas on comals and warmed clay pots of frijoles and tamales and stewed meats and other fragrant foodstuff, with atole and horchata and other beverages at hand to wash it down.

  As soon as Daniel and Lee turned their wagons out on a side street and found a place to park, Jane jumped down from the wagon and slipped between it and an adobe wall, huddling in shade and fear. Emma, eager to explore the first settlement of consequence since leaving Fort Smith, instead crawled into the shadows and huddled with Jane, cuddling and whispering she had nothing to fear—never mind that many of the men milling about the town resembled the dark-skinned Comanchero who instigated her terror.

  Lee left instructions for his boys to wait while he and Daniel located a safe place to camp but they had no sooner turned a corner when Richard led Melvin by the arm toward the plaza for a taste of what served to wet a whistle in New Mexico. Neither Sarah’s nor Abel’s entreaties served to stay their course.

  Spying a flagpole hanging a limp banner, Lee and Daniel made their way to the doorway beneath it. The place had little to distinguish it from the other adobe buildings in the row, some of which appeared to house stores, others offices of one sort or another, still others residences. Ducking through the entrance, the men noticed the drop in temperature as they passed through the thick wall. A man seated at a desk pushed against a side wall saw them enter from the corner of his eye and held up a hand to stop them as he signed the bottom of the top sheet of a stack of papers before him. He put the pen in its holder, sprinkled powder from a pounce pot and gently shook the sheet for a few seconds before blowing away the excess powder. He put the page back on the pile and stood, tugging straight the lapels of the vest of his American-style suit.

  “How may I be of service, my friends?” he said in accented English. He introduced himself as Hilario Gonzales, Justice of the Peace for Nuestra Señora de los Dolores de Las Vegas. “ ‘Our Lady of Sorrows of the Great Meadows’ is the official name of our growing community, but it is simply Las Vegas by which it is known. Welcome, my friends, to New Mexico’s newest city—it is only five years since our foundation, but already we are home to a few hundred souls, and, as you have seen,” he said, with a wave toward the door and the plaza beyond, “visited by many, many who pass through on the busy trail. Now, how may I be of service?”

  Lee asked about a safe place to lay over, and Gonzales directed them to a bow in the Gallinas River where they would be shaded by los alamos and have access to plentiful grass for their animals. He ask
ed their business in New Mexico. “Only out of curiosity, you understand my friends, and in the event I am able to render assistance.”

  “We are looking to settle in New Mexico, perhaps,” Lee said. “But we don’t know much about the place or the prospects. Could be we’ll go on to Alta California, if we can’t find what we’re a-lookin’ for here.”

  “Aah, yes. Americanos have been trickling in to our country since the opening of the great Santa Fe Trail years ago. Not so many people, you understand, but some. Two of your countrymen—brothers—have become citizens and were awarded land here in our valley, near the hot springs.” Gonzales paused, his brow furrowed. “I feel it my duty to inform you that many of our people resent the intrusion of Americanos. Some accuse them of—how do you say it?—la estafa—swindling native New Mexicans out of lands that have been in their families since the old days of Spanish rule. Not all will welcome you, I am afraid.”

  Gonzales advised their best course would be to continue on to Santa Fe and seek an audience with Governor Armijo, or perhaps Guadalupe Miranda, another government official, for advice on a land grant. They talked some more, then thanked the man and left.

  “Where’s Richard? And Melvin?” Lee said when he and Daniel returned to the parked wagons.

  “Left near ’bout the time you-all did,” Sarah said. “Couldn’t dissuade them, though I tried.”

  Lee huffed. “Told them boys to wait here!”

  Sarah’s face sagged. She shook her head, then said. “I know it. But I do believe them two boys is about done listenin’ to you.”

  He grasped the wagon wheel with both hands and leaned down until his head touched the iron tire. “I don’t know what’s to become of them two.”

  “Nor do I,” Sarah said, laying a hand between her husband’s shoulder blades. “They don’t hold with your ways, Pa, and now that they’re growed and got minds of their own—well, I guess they mean to go their own way.”

  He stood upright and sighed. “Don’t know what I done wrong, Sarah.”

  “You did what you thought best. Them boys don’t think it’s best all the time.” She chuckled. “For that matter, neither do I. Made no secret of it, neither. Fact is, you are a man prone to take on a lot of fool notions. Let your heart get the best of your mind.”

  “I know you think so, Sarah. But I’m bound to do what I believe I’m meant to do.”

  After a moment, Sarah said, “So are them boys, Pa. So are them boys.”

  Lee wiped the corners of his eyes with a thumb and forefinger, then said, “Well, I reckon we best get on to where we can camp. I’ll deal with Richard and Melvin later.” He snugged the cinch on the saddle horse and stepped into the stirrup and lifted his leg over the cantle. Finding the opposite stirrup, he rocked himself into the seat. Seeing Daniel ready to go, he nodded to him to get up the oxen.

  Before riding ahead to lead the way, he said, “Abel! Drive the wagon if you will.” He heeled the horse into motion, knowing full well Abel would obey.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  No mirrored back bar graced the dim and smoky cantina and the rough-cut bar held no polish; no sparkling fixtures dispensed beverages nor did a brass rail prop feet off the floor. Rather than sparkling glassware, Richard and Melvin drank from coarse clay mugs.

  Richard signaled the bartender to refill his cup with the fiery mezcal from the earthen jug, watching his brother sip pulque as he waited. “I don’t know how you can drink that sour crap,” he said. “It’s thick as vomit and smells about the same.”

  Melvin smiled, took a sip, and licked the residue off his upper lip. Richard shivered and shook his head, fluttering his cheeks and lips. Melvin smiled again and hoisted his mug, signaling the barkeep to fill it with another dipperful from the crock.

  The man behind the bar, a filthy apron wrapped around his waist, had yet to speak a word to the brothers, words which would have been wasted as he had no English and they no Spanish. Instead, the Pate boys each dumped a handful of coins on the bar and sampled the limited aguardiente on offer until choosing their poison. The bar man fingered the coins, scratching out the necessary denominations and sliding back change.

  “Pa ain’t goin’ to be happy to find us gone.”

  Richard sipped his drink. “I don’t give a damn if he is or he ain’t, Mel.” He took another drink. “Fact is, brother, I think this may be as far as I go with Pa.”

  Melvin’s forehead wrinkled and he cocked his head to one side. “What is it you’re sayin’, Rich?”

  “I’m sayin’ it’s time for us to go.”

  “Go where? What do you mean?”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Mel—I been saying it for weeks—months. I thought you was with me. I’m sick and tired of followin’ Pa and his fool notions. We’ve followed him clear the hell to Mexico! Ain’t that far enough?”

  Melvin worried the mug in his hand, sloshing the heavy pulque around, staring into the swirl and suds. “I don’t know, Rich. It’s hard to feature bein’ away from the family—Ma especially. What would we do?”

  The wood on the bar resounded like a gunshot when Richard slammed down his mug. “Dammit, little brother, grow up! We light out of here, we can do anything we want!”

  “Yeah, but what do you want to do?”

  “One thing’s for damn sure—I don’t want to work my fingers to the bone for Pa only to have him fritter it all away again. Besides, there’s Abel. Hell, you know as well as I do that Pa don’t care nothin’ about me bein’ the oldest and you bein’ older—it’s always Abel he favors. Every damn time. And it’s that way even with Pa knowin’ how hard it is havin’ a younger brother lordin’ it over you all the time. That only makes it worse, to my way of thinkin’.”

  Melvin wondered at his brother’s words about Pa, worried it over for a moment, then shrugged and swallowed another mouthful of pulque.

  The longer the brothers stayed in the stuffy cantina drinking Mexican alcohol and breathing stale air that had the taint of being breathed too many times before, the more Richard chipped away at his brother’s uncertainty. They bandied about retracing their steps to return to Arkansas, or Tennessee, or elsewhere in the States. They mulled over going west to California, or north to the Oregon country. They talked about going south, deeper into Mexico.

  Then Richard presented a plan that appeared fresh to Melvin, but was well measured in his own mind. “Comes to it, Mel, we don’t have to go somewhere—leastways not any place in particular. Say we hook up with one of these freight outfits and be teamsters. Hell, if we didn’t want to do that we could find that Cejita de Los Comancheros place and travel with them Indian traders. What do you think?”

  Melvin pulled off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know, Rich. I’m too tired to think.”

  “Whatever we do, now’s the time to do it.”

  “Well, I’ve got to sleep on it. I can’t make up my mind about nothin’ right now.” He drained off the pulque in his cup and rolled forth a satisfying belch. “Let’s go find the wagons and get some sleep.”

  The brothers were unsteady, propping one another up when needed as they walked back to where they left the wagons. They stopped in the little side street, looking out into the darkness and wondering which way to go.

  Squatting in the shadows against the adobe wall where Jane had sought refuge, Abel watched his brothers for a few minutes, amused at their wobbly legs and unruly tongues as they argued about the most likely course to take. He would rather be with the wagons, rolled in his bed and resting. But his father asked him to try and locate his brothers, so here he was. He spent the evening hours in the plaza but did not see his brothers among the roving bands of bullwhackers who had long since left town. Nor did he find Richard and Melvin in any of the drinking establishments he ferreted out. But he did not find the dumpy little out-of-the-way taberna where the boys sacrificed sobriety for pleasure.

  The brothers jumped at a voice out of the darkness. “You boys lookin’ for something?”
They spun in slow circles seeking out the source of the sound. Abel stood and stepped out of the shadows. “Over here.” Again his brothers started, then found him.

  “Abel. Should’ve known it was you. Nobody else’d hide out just to scare us,” Richard said.

  “Yeah,” Melvin said with a giggle. “Damn near made me pee my pants.”

  Abel shook his head. “It ain’t like I was hiding. If you-all wasn’t blind drunk, you wouldn’t of had no trouble seeing me.”

  Melvin wobbled a bit, belched, then bent over and with hands on knees, puked in the dusty street. He heaved several times, unloading his stomach, then wiped his chin and mouth with his fingers and attempted to fling the residue aside.

  “Damn!” Richard said. “That pulque smells as bad comin’ up as it does goin’ down. I told you not to drink that crap.”

  Melvin belched.

  “C’mon, you-all. We best get Mel to bed. Sleep wouldn’t hurt you any, either, Rich.”

  Richard swept off his hat and cocked it across his waist as he took a deep bow, stumbling and almost falling as he did. “As you wish, your Highness.”

  Abel led the way to the wagon camp by the river, Melvin and Richard following behind but urging him, again and again, to slow down.

  Lee hauled himself out of his bedroll when he heard his sons coming.

  “Evenin’, Pa,” Melvin said.

  “Son.”

  “Pa.”

  “Richard.”

  Abel stood aside and watched as his father and brothers watched each other.

  Lee broke the silence, saying, “Did you-all not hear me when I asked you to stay with the wagons?”

  “We heard,” Richard said. “But we didn’t see no need. Didn’t want to sit around. Been so long since we saw a town we wanted to have a look-see.”

  “What about the wagons? What about our goods? The stock? The women?”