Crossing Purgatory (23 page)

Upperdine climbed onto the wagon and took up the reins. “I expect to move smartly and return before the month is out.” He pulled a buffalo robe around his shoulders and slapped the reins against the animals' haunches, and the wagon creaked from the yard and followed the river trail downstream.

“I offered to accompany him,” Thompson said. “He declined. Said he was meeting up with some of his old boys out from Bent's Fort.”

“He does grow anxious when duties or weather keep him home-bound for long,” Benito said.

“He's not a natural landsman,” Thompson said.

“No. Land for him is a means to an end, not the end itself.”

“Yet he's laid claim to a large tract.”

Benito looked over at Thompson, paused and breathed deeply as if to begin a story. But he said only, “Yes. An impressive holding.”

“But not impressive enough to keep him,” Thompson said.

“John is drawn to the trail,” Benito said, “and that is partly why we've been invited here. To keep Genoveva company.”

“I thought the land for the placita was offered in exchange for your service.”

“Si
, everything is an exchange for John. A field to ensure my continued assistance, but also his wife's contentment.”

T
RUE TO HIS SCHEDULE
, U
PPERDINE
returned on the last day of January, invigorated of spirit and full of news. He summoned Thompson and Benito to dine with him and when they took a place at the table, he emptied a purse full of gold flakes on the plate in front of him. Thompson moved around to sit beside Upperdine and they both leaned close over the plate to examine the small mound, Upperdine with a self-satisfied grin, Thompson wide-eyed with surprise. Thompson took up a pinch of gold and let the flakes drift down through the flickering light from the hearth fire.

“So, the prospectors have found success,” Thompson said.

“Hardly.” No sizable deposits, Upperdine explained. A little placer gold, yes, and rumors filling the air like flocks of pigeons. He described the camps strung along Cherry Creek and the South Platte as shabby clusters of huts and tents inhabited by ragged men desperate for supplies and willing to part with the whole of their meager earnings for basic necessities.

“Many have ate their own mule. Will have to walk home.”

“So, how were you able to sell your wares?” Benito asked.

“A few of the experienced ones, the veterans of forty-nine, knew what to look for, actually sifted a few nuggets from the gravel. Others have backing from the states. They were excited to see glass windows and plank boards. Rushed to outbid one another for bragging rights. Eggs, a dollar a dozen, and more, and I thought to bring none.”

“Tobacco?” Thompson asked.

“Two dollar a pound.”

“Whiskey?” Thompson asked, his voice rising.

“Handed out a goodly amount free,” Upperdine said. “Grease for the hub, so to speak. Loosens the purse strings. The rest, whatever the market would bring. A nickel a cup, sometimes ten times that, depending on the mood and the luck of the miners.

“But the glass panes,” Upperdine shook his head in disbelief. “Those glass panes brought them to frenzy.”

Thompson and Upperdine talked on after the evening meal. At length, Benito excused himself and walked back to the placita. The night sounds quieted, only his footfalls on the frozen earth. What men were these, he wondered, who rush into the territory, his territory, shovel and pan valued over the plow. Men fueled by greed and false expectations, turned mean by disappointment and hunger. And what of Upperdine and Thompson, flushed with ambition at the sight of gold dust sparkling in the firelight, shining in their eyes?

22

M
id-March, a cold day of blustery winds and intermittent snow, Joseph presented himself at Benito's door. Ice braided the hair left unprotected below his hat, and the white tip of his nose suggested frostbite. He held a brace of jackrabbits by the hind legs. Benito motioned him inside and Teresa ushered him to the fireplace.

“Look at you, no sense to be out in this.”

Benito understood why Joseph needed to be outside. Daylight reclaimed a few minutes each day, but no rhythm yet to the season. Clear skies, restorative warmth followed by ice storms pounding the tableland like fists. They all fidgeted to be out and beginning the work of spring. Even Benito's animals showed restlessness: his does, low-slung bellies and swollen udders, had kidded, and now were anxious to graze.

Joseph went to the corner where Paloma sat at a chair, churning butter from goat's milk. He watched her for several moments while she pumped the handle, the sinew in her forearms defined, her upper body bending to the task. Waiting for notice. She ignored him.

“Paloma,” Benito said. His harsh tone caught her attention and she paused, looked up.

“Thought you might like one of these.” Joseph held up the rabbits. The two young boys came up beside Joseph and stroked the soft fur underbelly. Paloma turned back to her work.

“I do not care for rabbit,” she said. “Stringy.”

“Soak it in milk. I could skin one out for you if you like,” Joseph said.

“What I would like is for you to take those rodents from my sight,” Paloma said.

“Paloma,” Benito said.

“Father, this boy is pestering me.”

Joseph stepped back, his face blanked, shutting down. Benito approached Paloma, bent near and hissed in her ear. “I will not have this rudeness, do you understand?” So intent was he on the reprimand, he did not notice Joseph back from the room and retreat into the sleet.

The following morning when Benito cleaned the goat pen and carried a bucket of droppings to fertilize the field, he came upon the torn carcasses of two rabbits. They had been decapitated, their heads stacked one on top of the other, and their bodies mangled, chopped. He toed the body of one and thought about the troubled boy and about the dark moodiness threatening to overcome everything decent about his daughter. He did not know the boy well and feared he had little guidance to offer him. But he did know his daughter, or had known her, and resolved not to surrender her to melancholy without contest.

After three days of pelting hail and battering winds, the quarrelsome weather lifted, skies cleared to an intense blue, sun warmed the fields, and gentle breezes carried the scent of budding sagebrush. March grass tentatively sprouted through last season's brittle stubble, pliable shoots not yet sufficient to support the livestock of trade caravans or wagon trains. But the promise of renewal. Benito checked the skies, noted the direction of the wind, and loaded the cart with ax, saw, and a bundle of fodder for the burro.

Inside, he found Teresa and Paloma making tortillas, the rhythmic slapping of masa from hand to hand, the flattened discs hissing on the stone. Cornmeal supplies had diminished and Teresa made tortillas only four days a week. Other days they made do with stale leftovers or went without. Benito took a hot tortilla from the basket and folded it and ate slowly, watching them.

Mother and daughter working together, as it should be. But not conversing, not connected. Benito ached to hear the banter that greeted him daily from the Plaza when he returned from the fields. The boys playing with their cousins, the young women whispering between themselves while seated at their mothers' elbow, learning the work. Where had the companionship gone? The belonging? Why did Paloma refuse even to attempt opening to her mother, reestablishing their bond? On impulse, Benito addressed his daughter.

“Accompany me?”

“Where?”

“To gather wood.”

“I'd rather not.”

“I need your help.”

“Take the boys. They love to be with you.”

“I want to collect upstream from the Arkansas ford. They'd soon tire.”

“Too far for me as well.”

“We'll camp one night only, return tomorrow before noon.”

“Surely you don't expect me to—”

Benito suddenly found it difficult to breathe and his vision blurred. The disharmony she created simply by her presence in a room, the pressure of her brooding, and her invariable low-grade disdain worked like thumbs pressing into his temples until he felt his head might explode. He slammed his palm on the table, a resounding crack, his hand instantly numb.

“Quiet,” he sputtered. “Not a debate. Go.”

Paloma rose from the hearth, gave her mother a pleading glance, and went to her room to change. Teresa continued to work the masa. “To what point?” she asked.

“I don't know. Alone perhaps we can talk without reservation. I don't know.”

Benito took a stack of tortillas and wrapped them in a flap of cloth. Paloma returned dressed in trousers and a wool shirt, her hair tucked under a man's hat. She took her jacket from the peg and shrugged it on and went outside without a word to either of them.

Benito led the burro from the placita, Paloma following behind the cart at a distance. He walked back to pull shut the gates and heard the latch engage. The sound reminded him of leaving the Plaza del Arroyo Seco for the last time, the gate at the outer wall swinging shut, the hinges squeaking like a high moan and the latch catching with a clanking finality. His grandfather had helped reinforce that gate and rebuild the section of wall around it following a Comanche raid three years before Benito had been born. Benito would not look on that gate again, he'd not have that gate to remind him of the life and times of his father and of his father's father, and of the fathers who had gone before.

They passed through his field and on toward the Arkansas River. The land appeared much the same as it did in New Mexico Territory, but for the first time it felt unfamiliar under Benito's feet, and for a moment, only a moment, loneliness crept over him. He would miss the forays into the hills with friends to collect piñon nuts, and the companionship of the field, to the right and to the left, his brothers and his cousins bowed over the rows. Peppers would grow in this new home, but they would taste altogether unlike those that earned him renown on the plaza, lacking the heat and the earthy flavor produced by that particular marriage of soil and climate.

They reached the river and forded upstream from the confluence with the Purgatoire and set camp beside a pool that collected clean water and ate a midday meal of pickled eggs sprinkled with pepper flakes. They did not talk. After eating, they followed the course of the river, collecting deadfall. Wagon trains had yet to converge on the trail and firewood was plentiful. With his ax he hacked the limbs into manageable lengths that Paloma loaded onto the cart. After two hours, Benito stopped to rest, tied off the burro, and led Paloma up the embankment to the broad mesa. He stopped and she stood beside him and he motioned with his arms.

“Turn in place,” he instructed Paloma. “Tell me what you see.”

Paloma glanced around. “Nothing. A waste. Ugly brown nothing spreading into nothing.”

“People?”

“No.”

“Plazas? Towns?”

“Of course not.”

“Water?”

“The river. Out there, a desert.”

Benito moved to face her. “Correct. A harsh geography. But, there,” and he pointed in the direction from which they'd come, “a stretch of land with willing soil, an acequia that soon will flow, neighbors to help and in return to offer help. A home.”

“Neighbors?”

“If you give them a chance.”

“Overrun with Americans. It's already begun. How can that place be home? They spit on us. Pepper-bellies, they call us. Greasers.”

“You exaggerate. Our neighbors treat us with respect.”

“The boy is dark. He lurks. I don't trust him.”

“And John Upperdine, your uncle, so generous to us,” Benito continued.

“Papa, please. He's no saint. I've heard Mother and Tia Genoveva talk. I know why he's so anxious for the trail, why he is hardly at home, why he depends on you to manage his fields and his animals.”

“You are young. You do not understand as much as you think you do.” Benito took her shoulders in his hands and turned her to face him. “I know the Americans. I am not quite the foolish old man you take me for. I know their ambitions. But there are places here, land they are too lazy or too ignorant to make use of. They have no interest, and that land will be our home.”

He studied Paloma for some sign that she understood, but her expression refused to disclose her feelings. At an impasse, they went quiet and looked out over the yawning plains.

“They touched me,” Paloma said at last. “The soldiers.”

“I know.”

“Their hands,” she said. “Their eyes.”

“Yes.”

“They opened me for the world to see.” Tears were running down her cheeks. “They touched, they stared. Others saw.”

For the world to see, the words struck Benito. Her world. Carlos. And Teresa. The two, wanting to shield their eyes but unable to. And it dawned on him that the chasm between Paloma and Teresa must have something to do with shame. A shared humiliation.

“Don't let the soldiers ruin you,” Benito urged.

“Carlos,” Paloma said.

“Yes,” Benito said.

“I loved him so.”

“And now?” Benito asked.

“How could I? Someone who allowed me to be treated so?”

“What would you have had him do?” Benito asked. Paloma did not answer.

“Die for you?” Benito asked.

Paloma, after a long pause, “Yes.”

The wind picked up and a keening rose through the branches of the cottonwoods beside the river.

“It must be complicated for you,” Benito said.

“How so?”

“To at once love someone and wish them dead.”

Paloma stiffened. “No matter,” she said. “It is finished.”

“No,” Benito said. “Sadly, it is far from done with.”

T
HEY RETURNED TO THE RIVER
bottom and filled the cart and had started back to camp when Benito noticed the tracks in the firm sand of the riverbank. Ponies, six perhaps, unshod, hoofprints still damp and well-defined. Too soon in the season for Indians to leave winter range, he thought. A hunting party? Had they noticed his cooking ring and bedrolls? The tracks led out of the river and upslope. When Benito arrived at his camp he cautiously walked the perimeter of the clearing and found no sign of Indian presence. When he returned, Paloma was arranging kindling in the cook fire.