“They won’t come after us till morning, if then,” he said. “Old Smoke will recognize this as my work, and he remembers me of old, back in the days when they called me the Bloody Arm. He might come after us later, but not on foot. It’ll take ’em nearly all day to hike back to the fort for more horses.”
We rode on to our rendezvous with Spy and Plover.
CHAPTER IX
PINE LEAF SLEPT with Beckwourth that night.
WE BROKE CAMP at first light, rode hard all day to the north, and by sundown were in sight of the Encantadas. Once again I was put in mind of sawteeth, ready to rip the heart of heaven itself.
Pine Leaf rode beside Jim, saying nothing to anyone but him.
The sun was still high when we made camp on a ridge in the pine- clad foothills of the range. Spy, Plover, and Gwen busied themselves preparing supper. To replenish our larder the Shawnee had killed a half-grown buffalo cow the previous day, and while we waited for the meat to dry into jerky he prepared his menudo norteño from its honeycomb tripe and one of its feet. He was busy now fussing over his ingredients. Pine Leaf was tending the horses, rubbing them down and checking hooves.
I took Jim aside. “How is she?”
“Wild.”
“How do you mean?”
“I’d rather not talk about it. But I didn’t, well, impose myself upon her, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“Does she know about Owen’s being alive? Does she know we’re going after him?”
“I didn’t mention it. Neither did she. We talked old Sparrowhawk stories most of the night. Heroes of the past. How the People found fire. That kind of thing. She’s . . . like a child. Just learning to talk. Sometimes I think she doesn’t remember anything that happened to her after leaving Crow country. But then she glances down at her chest and turns away. Goes dead quiet.”
I was silent for a moment, too, thinking about that.
Jim said, “I think we’ve got to go slow and easy with her right now. I’ve seen this before, too many times. Usually it’s white children, girls especially, who’ve been taken captive by one tribe or another. In their minds they revert to childhood to forget the horror of their experiences. But they always seem to hold onto something they loved in their old lives. A scrap from an old calico dress. The sole of a boot. A song or nursery rhyme they sing over and over when they’re really down. Maybe it’s a way of escape. I want Pine Leaf s scrap to be me, for right now at least. I don’t want to remind her of Owen until she’s good and ready for it.”
“She’s your soldier. Do what you think best.”
The spicy scent of toasting chilis—anchos and poblanos—reached my nostrils, along with that of the soup itself, with its onion, garlic, peppercorns, and tripe, simmering uncovered over the fire. The quartered calf s foot bubbled along with them, softening and blending its rich flavor with the other ingredients. Later Spy would strip the meat from the bones and knuckles, chop it into chunks, and toss it back into the mix. Spy always added some hot chilis to his menudo, what he called cuaresmeños. He’d brought the seeds north with him from the Mexican state of Jalapa during his scalp-hunting days and grew them with great devotion in our backyard garden in Santa Fe. “My menudo can raise the dead,” was his boast. He’d discovered it during his drinking days and found it a sure cure for the anguish of his hangovers.
When we sat down to supper, Plover wouldn’t eat.
“What’s the matter?” I asked her. “You’re not getting sick, are you?”
She shook her head. “What did Doña Ana say about smoke?” she asked. “The smoky horses?”
She’d caught an echo of that prophecy in our pony raid on Old Smoke’s camp the previous night. She could feel everything coming together now. She didn’t believe for a moment that the wily old outlaw would give up on Gwen and go home.
“He might sneak into our camp this very night,” she said, “and make off with her. Esme, too. And me, and … I know he’s coming.”
“He’s too old to sneak very fast or quietly,” I said. I ripped off a chunk of sourdough bread and sopped up the rest of my menudo, then held out the bowl for more.
“Or send in one of his friends to do the job.” She ladled me more soup.
“All right then, we’ll stand guard together tonight, you and I, and let the girls sleep between us as we watch,” I told her. “Now eat your soup. It’ll fire you up if we have to fight. Here, have a slice of liver. It’s damned good, fresh and juicy still, and I dipped it in gall just the way you like.”
She shook her head no. “I’m just not hungry,” she said.
Pine Leaf was also off her feed, picking at her supper in a halfdazed, half-demented sort of way. And now Gwennie wore a solemn look. Her bowl was only half-empty.
Women. . . .
Well, all the more menudo for tomorrow. It gets better with the passage of time.
WE PUSHED NORTHWEST into the sawtoothed mountains. This was rocky country, and there were times when even Jim lost Owen’s trail. But we didn’t really need it. I knew where the mine lay from a distinctive symmetrically shaped mountain that towered over the Buenaventura’s valley. It was one of those conical mountains that the Spanish call pilÓncillos, sugar loaves, and I recalled Owen saying that it had a distinctly volcanic look about it. I thought I could make out its peak even now, over the crags just ahead.
I kept Spy on our backtrail, with orders to skin his eyes for the signs of approaching dust. Old Smoke couldn’t be on our trail just yet; it would take him a while to get back to Fort Bridger, buy new horses, and then, if he were still persistent enough, which I didn’t think he would be, catch us up.
No, I was worried about Dade. We hadn’t made the kind of time on this journey that men can make traveling alone. Plover insisted on frequent stops to change the baby’s diapers or to let the girls rest. The interlude with Old Smoke and at Mo-he-nes-to’s camp had cost us nearly a day by themselves. I worried, too, about what we’d find when we got to the mine. Owen must surely have gotten there by now.
If, as Bridger had said, the minería was wiped out by Indians, Owen might very well have blown up the shafts already with his gunpowder. Even if he hadn’t killed Jaime, which I doubt he would have, he might have moved on after the explosion to some other locale. I had no idea where he’d head next. Back east? Back down to Baja California?
“No,” Jim said when I told him my concerns. We had halted at the top of a steep climb to let the horses blow. “He’ll stay at the mine, waiting for you or Dade or both of you to show up. He’s getting along well with your son.”
“How do you know?”
“By the sign at his camps. He hasn’t tied the boy up when they’ve overnighted or even restricted his movements. Just this morning we passed a spot, near that trapped-out beaver pond I pointed out to you, where they camped two or three nights ago. He let Jaime go out and rub down the horses; then the boy fetched firewood while Owen hunted up some meat. Judging by the burnt bones in the fire, all he got was a couple of blue grouse.”
“Well, maybe—”
“Maybe nothing. They sat around the fire after supper, probably just jawing until they went to bed. The dog sleeps with Jaime. You’ll have to get him one when you get home, if I know kids. Your brother is smoking cigarillos nowadays. I think he may have allowed Jaime to try one. There were two stubs ground out near the fire circle.” He looked over at me and smiled. “Don’t worry. Your boy is fine. They’ll be there when we get there, safe and sound. Then all we’ve got to do is convince Owen to clear out with us before Dade shows up. And maybe the presence of Bar-che-am-pe will turn the trick.”
I looked ahead up the trail. It seemed to top out just a quarter-mile ahead, but mountains will always deceive you. You reach the top of a pitch, figuring it’s the summit, only to find another one ahead of you— just a little ways more.
“Hand me over that canteen of menudo,” I said to Jim. “It goes down good cold.” The weather had gotten very hot and oppressive. A r
ainstorm was looming blue-black in the distance, the thunderheads rimmed dirty white. We didn’t have time to stop for a midday meal, no matter what Plover said about the girls needing their nourishment. They could suck menudo with the rest of us and ride on at the same time.
WE GOT TO the divide an hour or so later. The storm was nearly on us now. From the crest I could see the pilóncillo clearly. It looked to be about five miles away. In places the Buenaventura flashed silver or green through the jumbled hills, snaking its way toward the Pacific, into the gloom of the approaching storm. A quarter of a mile down the trail I saw the spot where we’d given up the hunt for Owen and Pine Leaf back in ’33. Then I turned to look down our backtrail for any sign of Spy. I saw the flash of a mirror from the trees far below. He was signaling to us.
“Gan you read what he says?” I asked Jim.
He studied the flashes, then raised his rifle over his head three times, to acknowledge receipt of the message.
“He says he sees a dust cloud a couple miles down the trail. Coming our way. Says many riders. Asks what we want him to do.”
“What do you think? Who is it?”
“Could be either of them, Old Smoke or Dade and his boys.” “Let’s get Spy back up here,” I said. “We can decide then if we want to make a stand.”
“All right, but I think when he joins us we ought to press on, and fast. This isn’t any place for a fight. They could slip men around us and cut us off up here without food or water once we ran out of what we’ve got with us. We ought to push on to the mine. And fast. Make a stand down there.”
“Get him up here, then,” I said. I told Plover to strap Esme on her back and get ready for a fast downhill ride. I told her to put on their slickers.
Pine Leaf looked over at me, into my eyes, for the first time since her return. Her whole manner had changed, and for the better.
“We fight soon?” she asked in English.
“Mebbe so.”
“Bueno!”
SPY APPEARED HALF a mile down the trail, leading his horse. The heat and humidity were intense now, in the moments before the storm broke. You could see the sweat on both man and horse. While Spy labored up the steep pitch, I went around securing all the loose gear on the horses, tightening cinches, retying pack ropes, rigging a tarp over the food bundles. Spy came up the pitch with the reins in one hand, his rifle in the other. His pirate kerchief was askew. He was breathing hard. His face gleamed with sweat. His horse was blown. Finished.
Then the storm hit. A few fat drops of rain at first, some quick gusts of premonitory wind, then a dirty white wall of wind and water hit the ridgetop. In a few minutes it would make the trail down the mountain impassable. We’d be trapped up here. “Ride for it!” I yelled to Plover. “Ride like lightning!” She and Gwen kicked their horses to a gallop and began the descent. Jim and Pine Leaf followed.
Spy reached the top. He cut loose the bridle and saddle from his blown horse and swung aboard the pony Esme’d been riding. He slapped the exhausted horse on the rump, and it sloped off back downhill toward a grassy shelf.
“How many?” I asked him.
“Couple dozen . . . maybe thirty.” He was still breathing hard.
“Who is it—Dade?”
He shook his head. “Both of them.”
“Old Smoke, too?”
He nodded. Then raised his hand, bent at the waist, and took some deep breaths with his head down, elbows on his knees. “Way I figure . . . Smoke’s on his way back to Bridger. . . runs into Dade . . . ‘Who put you afoot?’ . . . ‘The Bloody Arm.’ . . . ‘Same man I’m chasing.’ . . . They join forces. Now they’re coming on fast.”
“How far back are they?”
“I think we’ve got a mile on them, maybe less.”
“Are you all right now?”
“Yes.”
“You know this trail better than I do. You lead the way. We’re going to make a stand down at the mine.”
He looked out at the pilÓncillo, barely visible through the blowing rain. He nodded. He started down the slope, overtook the others, then led the way with Plover and the rest following. I waited a few minutes, watching the backtrail.
A rider on a tall horse appeared through the rain.
It was Ed Chambers, the Delaware they call Big Nigger. He was huge. His dark face was topped by a battered plug hat. He was dressed in black buckskins. I dropped to my belly behind the rock. Brought the Hawken to my shoulder. The range was about five hundred yards. I lifted the sights a foot and a half over his head. Fired. The bullet kicked up dirt ten yards ahead of him. He did not flinch. He looked up at me. I raised my rifle over my head and shook it. I grinned down at him. He stared. Then Lafe Dade came up the trail, his red beard gleaming in the rain. Chambers pointed up at me and said something. Dade threw back his head and laughed. I headed downhill, fast.
IT WAS A wild ride through the rain. Water raced down the trail, carrying loose stones and gravel with it in dirty brown rivulets. Littering the mountainside were downed lodgepole pines, which the horses had to clear in a single downhill leap. Old avalanche scars bled mud and gushers of white foam. Hairpin bends with sheer cliffs falling far, far to the Buenaventura below. . . . Gwen rode it like a centaur. We all rode like centaurs. The horses held up. No one skidded and fell. No one foundered. The slick black rocks sped past in a blur, and then we were in the flat beside the river.
Already the first spate of brown water had hit the ford. Trees and brush and deadwood came tumbling down with the current. In a few minutes the horses would have to swim. We splashed across the ford in the nick of time. Then we rounded a bend . . . and there it was.
Los Padres Per didos.
We stared at it through the rain.
But my God, what had Dade done to the place?
The slopes of Garnet Greek had been clearcut to provide balks for the mine shafts and fuel for the refinery. Stumps and slash rotted in disarray on the eroded hillsides. The alder brake was gone, the mud bridged by a rough road of slabs and riverbed gravel. A cluster of roofless burnt-out cabins straggled down the riverbank, with stone guard towers covering both ends of the line. The compound was surrounded by a man-high stone wall daubed with adobe. This must be where the prisoners were housed.
The ruins of a stamp mill loomed on the bank near the spot where Garnet Greek emptied into the Buenaventura. Its overshot waterwheel, fed by sluices from a dam upstream, hung awry, partly burned, as was the roof of the mill. A tall chimney stood at the downstream end of the building. Dade’s engineers must have roasted the ore in there, after the drop hammer worked by the waterwheel had broken it up. Slag heaps as high as barns surrounded the mill, leaching their poisons into the river. The water looked yellowish green near the banks, and tendrils of it snaked their way down through the riffles. A stink of brimstone from the crushed, roasted ore still hung in the air.
As we neared the stamp mill we began to see skeletons. First of fish, and then of the birds which had fed on their poisoned bodies. Ospreys and bald eagles by their rotting feathers. A rotting white pelican. Then the skulls of men. Some of them split by axes, some crushed by war clubs, others intact or with the hungry black mouths of bulletholes gaping from them.
The Grovan had done a thorough job, all right.
The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started. Bright sunlight broke through. Steam rose as if from geysers all along the mountain face.
Spy led the way toward a low building made of stone. It looked like the mine supervisor’s headquarters and perhaps his living quarters as well. A thin column of smoke scrawled from its chimney. The roof was still intact, and the building itself hadn’t been burned like the slaves’ quarters. Wet horses were tethered in a corral beside the building, among them the gray Morgan. The ponies looked up at us and nickered.
Owen stepped out of the door as we approached. The dark sombrero was tipped back on his head; his white hair and beard gleamed in the morning sun. A revolver hung holstered at his hip, slung low on his
leg like a gunfighter’s. He wore a red, black, and yellow serape, its folds thrown clear of the gunbutt. He was smoking a long black cigarillo. The little brown-and-white terrier stood beside him, growling low in her throat. Her ruff was up. The dog looked like the reincarnation of Thump.
“Brother,” Owen said in a flat, noncommittal voice. “Do you come in peace or war?”
AND THERE I stood, dumbstruck, smote between the eyes with awe and reverie. For I had not believed, or perhaps believed only in hope, that he would, could, still be alive.
Even after all this travel. This travail.
There he stood.
Tall (though in fact I was taller than he, had been since my early teens), bold (his eyes still flashed as always, yet death now glared from within them), dark and scarred by the sun, seared and seamed by events, ineffably aged, the scars on him from bullets and arrows and time and contradiction etched deep in his face, in the poised, coiled slouch of his body, in the slight crook of his fingers over the grip of the gun.
My brother.
The brother who’d been my childhood’s greatest fear, the bully of my youth. Yet the brother who’d taught me how to fight with my fists, gig frogs, catch trout, shoot guns, ride horses, love women, kill men.
The brother who had worked the mines back in the nightmare East, who had been spared when a stroke of fate felled our father, who had first suggested the trip west. The brother whose lust for gold had triggered the sequence of events that had tom us all apart and led us through the years to this awful place, yet who seemed to have learned the error of his ways.
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