Crossing Purgatory (13 page)

“I foresee a great city here,” he said. “The river and the stream coming together near the main thoroughfare. There on higher ground I'll lay out a town site.”

Thompson noticed a few abandoned shacks by the river, one of sod and one of rough-cut planking.

“This is your land?” Thompson asked.

“From the confluence upstream a good ways, until the river cuts into the canyon.”

“Those huts?” Thompson asked.

“Folks come and go,” Upperdine said. “Help me out for a season or two, don't stick.”

Thompson thought of the cities he'd passed through and could not imagine one desecrating this terrible and wonderful country. “The bottom land looks promising for crops,” was his only reply.

“Sooner rather than later,” Upperdine continued, “the emigrants will flow into this country and I'll be waiting for them.” He grinned at Thompson and slapped the team forward.

Following the smaller stream a few miles over easy country marked by wagon ruts, they rounded a broadly sweeping oxbow and passed through a field where several dozen sheep grazed. Within a quarter-hour, Thompson caught sight of a squarely constructed two-story log house nestled in the shelter of a cottonwood grove. September, the leaves turning a pale green, a few golden sprays foreshadowing the turning of the season. A curl of smoke rose from stone chimneys set at opposite ends of the house, and a covered porch ran the length. A well had been sunk not a dozen feet from the front entrance, and beside that a hollowed-out tree trunk served as a trough. To the east was a solid-looking barn with a foundation of river stone, and beside it a lean-to that stored farm implements. Farther off, a chicken coop and split-rail stock pens were visible.

Upperdine pulled ahead of the wagons and tied his horse to the post and went inside. By the time Thompson and Joseph had led the wagons to the far side of the barn, unhitched the teams, and put down fodder around their tether, Upperdine had returned outside and from the porch waved them over. As Thompson approached, a woman came from the house and stood at Upperdine's side. Thompson judged Upperdine to be in his late forties. The woman appeared younger, perhaps because of the smooth skin of her face, unwrinkled, the color of finely tanned suede. Plump, but sturdy, she wore a red calico skirt and a long shirt-like blouse cinched at the waist with a leather sash. She had expressive eyes as black and shining as her hair, which she wore in a tight bun. A slight, inquisitive smile, she regarded them with curiosity, a tilt to her head. But if she was surprised to see three strangers arrive with her husband, she did not show it, although she did glance briefly at the pouch of Hanna's belly.

“This is my wife, Genoveva. This here is Mr. Thompson Grey. Hanna Light, and her son, Joseph.”

“Pleasure.” Thompson gave a slight bow.

“Welcome,” Genoveva responded. “Mi casa es su casa.”

Thompson followed her lead when she waved them into the house. They entered into a large room with colorful woolen rugs covering smoothly finished plank floors. A well-crafted dining table and six high-backed chairs occupied the center of the room. One corner nearest the dining area was partially walled as a separate kitchen, and Thompson could see an iron cooking stove set on a flagstone hearth that extended the full width of the room. The opposite end of the cabin led to a bedroom with a second fireplace, and a sturdy ladder on the wall opposite the front door led to a storage loft. In one corner near the bedroom, two leather-upholstered chairs were arranged on either side of a small table holding an oil reading lamp. A bookcase sat against the wall behind the table. The house was well lit, with glass windows located on three of the four walls. Upperdine apparently noticed Thompson's silent inventory.

“Trading as many years as I have, a man has occasion to strike a bargain or two along the way,” Upperdine offered.

“Well done,” Thompson replied, “well done.”

That afternoon, they butchered a young goat and roasted the kid over coals in a cooking pit while Genoveva prepared bread in an outdoor oven that looked to Thompson like a clay beehive. On the indoor stove she simmered beans with rice and crushed red peppers. Upon their arrival, Hanna had stayed close by Thompson, at his elbow. But once meal preparation began, she moved into the kitchen and helped Genoveva. Thompson noticed her handling the silver dinnerware and the china settings with reverence. For her part, Genoveva conversed amicably with Hanna but did not pause for response, and Thompson surmised that the Captain had briefly conveyed to his wife the state of their small company. Awaiting the meal, Joseph remained for the most part silent, but he did admire a fowling piece hanging by the front door, and Upperdine took time to point out the walnut burl stock, and the engraved American eagle on the silver frame plate.

Invited to the table by Genoveva, Thompson felt some awkwardness after so many weeks on the trail. He sat in a chair at table rather than cross-legged on the ground. He had at his disposal a linen napkin rather than the sleeve of his tunic, and crystal glassware rather than a dented tin cup. No soot from buffalo-dung fires coating the meat, no muddy water to filter through a charcoal bag before drinking. He hesitated at his plate while Genoveva recited grace in a melodious, rolling tongue, and then she took up knife and fork and the others followed. They ate the meat and sopped up the beans and rice with the freshly baked bread. Genoveva served them water flavored with lemon crystals and sugar. The water was cold from the well and free of alkaline and tasted fresh as a new day.

After eating, Genoveva brought coffee and sweet custard that reminded Thompson of butterscotch. They finished eating with an hour left of good light and Upperdine asked Thompson to walk with him by the river. In late summer, the stream ran weak, following only the main channel, leaving wide sections of the riverbed exposed. The water showed green as it flowed over moss-covered pebbles and it gurgled pleasantly and offered a soothing, meditative backdrop to their stroll, an excuse to walk in silence. They followed a worn footpath that skirted the thick brush on the lowlands and turned close to the stream when the trail climbed and the banks were high and free of undergrowth. After a half-mile or so they rounded a bend and ascended a small swell and came upon another homestead under construction. From the ruins of Bent's Old Fort, Thompson recognized the same soft red brick of the buildings. An adobe wall partially enclosed a plaza, three sides complete, eight feet high, a foot and a half thick, and three feet of the remaining wall put up. He could see that the wall formed the back end of a series of small rooms that opened to the inner square. The adobe brick had been finished in a reddish mud plaster and the corners smoothed and rounded so that the walls of both the outer perimeter and the inner rooms swirled together in a curving, symmetrical architecture that gave Thompson the impression that it flowed up from the earth like an outcropping.

“A Mexican homestead?” he asked Upperdine.

“Well, technically an American, now. Although white folks don't necessarily see it that way. This is his
placita.”

“An acquaintance?”

“The husband of one of Genoveva's cousins. Her favorite. The husband, Benito Ibarra. A country man, not as refined as Genoveva. But he knows the land. This land. Turn a patch of rock and prickly pear into the Garden of Eden. And can sense water. Located the wells on both our sites. In exchange for his help, I let him cut out some of the acreage for his own. He'll pay it off over time, with work and with share. In return, a home for his family. Company for Genoveva.”

“Indentured to you?” Thompson asked.

“No, no. He's Genoveva's family,” Upperdine said, defensively. “It's just that in his gratitude, he insists on lending a hand.”

“Of course,” Thompson said.

Thompson surveyed the compound. The area to be enclosed by the adobe square was bare, cleared of grass, brush, and trees, and a well had been sunk in its center. A series of wooden forms lined the partially completed fourth wall along with several stacks of adobe brick. A corral of cedar limbs and oak snags extended from the outer side of one completed wall, and another larger corral enclosed a garden of ripening vegetables, red and oblong like pudgy fingers.

“Peppers,” Upperdine explained. “Genoveva tends his little patch.”

“He is away?”

“With his family down south, outside Santa Fe. He spent the most of last year here, helping me with planting, harvesting in the fall. Started on his placita when he could find the time. Don't know when he rested. He wintered over, working on his quarters as the weather allowed. Helped put in the crop this past spring, then back down to Santa Fe. Due back presently, but this time he'll return with his family, his wife, daughter, and two boys, and stay for good.”

“Seems a schedule to drag out a man.”

“It does, but he refused to bring up his family until the rooms were at least livable. Hard enough country as it is.”

Upperdine led Thompson into the partially walled compound and opened the door into one of the completed rooms. “Benito's quarters,” he explained. From the doorway, Thompson could see that the compartment held a table, three chairs, a cupboard, and two narrow beds covered with buffalo robes. A fireplace in the same oval shape as Genoveva's outdoor oven occupied one corner and above the hearth hung an ornately carved wooden cross, inlaid with tin, and a string of dried chilies. Upperdine pointed to the corner. “That one fireplace provides all the warmth you could wish for, what with these thick walls.” An archway joined Benito's quarters with another room. “For the boys,” Upperdine said. They walked to an adjacent room that had a separate outside entrance and joined Benito's quarters by a shared wall. This apartment held no furnishings but was the same basic design as the first, roughly twelve by fifteen feet with an adobe fireplace in the corner. “For his daughter. I thought the Lights could room here temporarily. We'll see about more permanent arrangements once Benito arrives. One of the spare rooms, perhaps, once finished.” On the second wall of the compound, two similar rooms had been roughed out, and smaller storage rooms begun along the third wall. Upperdine ran his hand over the smooth plaster of the adobe. “For his relations, if they follow. You might lend him a hand, here and there, as you see fit.”

“Seems a fair trade for the Lights' quarters,” Thompson said.

“You might could take one of the unfinished rooms,” Upperdine said. “Still protection enough from the elements.”

Thompson's silence must have struck Upperdine as indecision. “Or, I got a little shack on that bluff down by the river.” He pointed toward a thicket of sumac, and Thompson made out the cabin, almost hidden in undergrowth. “Put it up first season here, before I built the house.”

“Looks like a pleasant view from there,” Thompson said.

“Some of Genoveva's kin lived in it on and off,” Upperdine said. “Come up to watch over her when I went running trade. But they never did take to the land. No one's lived there for a few years now. Might have to clear out some varmints, but it's got a iron stove that still works, far as I know. And, I laid a plank floor. In off the trail, I didn't want nothing more to do with dirt under my feet.”

“I expect it will do just fine,” Thompson said. He could tell from a distance that the cabin would need work to make it habitable. But he was not comfortable housing within the same complex as Hanna and Joseph. He felt responsible for them but also trapped, entangled, and he found appealing the idea of being a short distance removed.

Thompson returned with Upperdine to the log house where Genoveva had waiting for them two glasses of pear brandy which they took out to the porch while evening came. Genoveva and Hanna moved about inside, and occasionally a silhouette passed one of the windows. Joseph, a darkening shadow down by the river, sat on a boulder and whittled with his pocketknife. A white heron glided silently past. The harsh, high cry of a curlew cut through the quieting day. Thompson relaxed, eased into the slowing rhythm of evening, watched the birds alighting to roost and the farm animals circling to bed, imagined the fields almost exhaling the day, and a sense of familiarity washed him like a warm zephyr. He finished his brandy and went to the wagon to collect his bedroll and camp gear.

In wan light he made his way to the Purgatoire and washed himself and scrubbed his clothes. There was the well available at the placita, but he'd tasted the water and, finding it pure, it seemed to him almost a sacrilege to waste such a treasure frivolously. So he bathed in the river, and afterwards, full dark, he returned to the placita, draped his clothes across the garden corral and, naked, returned to one of the unfinished rooms and dressed in his spare set of underclothes and wrapped himself in his bedroll. Indoors for the first time in weeks, insulated from the wild sounds and shielded from the stars, he lay straining for the familiar murmurings, the chorus of wind and wild, and for the familiar sights, the blossoming night sky, and suddenly he felt entombed. Presently, he heard a small wagon approaching and Upperdine leading Hanna and Joseph to their quarters. He listened to them settle. With the Lights so proximate, his sense of confinement increased. He looked forward to moving to the shack on the rise. When the buckboard had creaked away and the night quieted again, he rose and went outside onto the plaza and, wrapped in his blanket beside the water trough, fell asleep almost immediately and did not stir once during the night.

The following morning, refreshed, Thompson went to the river, splashed his face, and shaved in the reflection of his tin plate. He had felt compelled to remain clean-shaven upon joining the emigrants outside of Westport. Upperdine had cautioned him that in the western territory some might take him for an Indian at a distance, but he persisted in this new habit, for whatever reason. A form of grieving, a refusal to hide his mourning behind a mask of whiskers, a confession; he did not understand the why of his decision, only the firmness of it.