Crossing Purgatory (27 page)

“That line is crooked, true it up.”

“We should be making better time.”

“We?” Thompson asked. He tried to understand Benito's frustration, watching the fields take shape because of Thompson's sweat, the strength of Thompson's back. But at times irritation overcame his good intentions.

When Upperdine's fields had been readied, they turned to Benito's. Thompson had worked Upperdine's land for two weeks, but the first pass over Benito's ground felt altogether different. Upperdine's fields had been broken previously and the plowing went relatively smoothly. Benito's land was unbroken, resistant. And more. The plow cutting into the undefiled plain seemed a desecration of something primeval and irreclaimable. When the blade turned the furrow slice to expose the ribbon of alien yellow soil, Thompson had to pull up before reaching his turn. He slumped over the handles and began shuddering with grief and with longing for deep woods and black loam and Matthew and Daniel bumbling along beside him and Rachel at the hearth and in his bed. With his longing came the flood of guilt. He recoiled at the suddenness of its resurfacing, its intensity and burrowed permanence.

He concentrated on willing himself forward, the plow carving deep ruts. Why these emotions, at this time? He'd worked Upperdine's fields. He'd plowed and sown Obadiah's wheat. Then it came to him. The first a business endeavor, the second an experiment only, and a repayment of sorts. But this field, this land, Benito's claim, Benito's declaration of freedom. The beginning of his legacy. And, a complete growing season come and gone since Thompson had buried his own legacy, forfeited his past. He straightened, self-conscious, realizing he'd again halted the team mid-row. There, Benito, resting in the cart. Had he noticed Thompson's jerky movements? Thompson gripped the handles and shouted the team forward.

W
ITH PLANTING COMPLETE
, T
HOMPSON WALKED
to his patch of wheat and found that it too had awakened with the season. Pliant shoots grew dense and boot-high. Thinking back, he found it ironic that the health of the wheat had likely been ensured by the very storm that had threatened Benito and Paloma. The storm that had served to anchor him to the valley for the planting season. Had it been a warning, or a godsend? The wheat prospered. Thompson plucked a stem and held it between his teeth and tasted the sweetness, its potential.

Hanna should see this. Obadiah's dream bearing fruit. He walked to the placita and knocked on her door without answer. He checked with Teresa, who reported seeing Hanna earlier in the day. She had helped with the tortillas. Thompson thought to return to the fields, the endless harrowing of weeds, but decided first to stop at his cabin to bundle a midday meal. As he approached, he heard scraping sounds from within, and he entered cautiously.

Hanna moved about the room whisking a broom over the plank floor. Destiny rode at her hip in a sling, burbling. Hanna glanced up, unsurprised, at Thompson's arrival.

“Hanna?”

“I brought you dinner,” Hanna said, pointing to a cloth package on the table. “Some tortillas and
carne seco
.” She shrugged her shoulders. “But you weren't to be found. So, I stopped it by and thought to tidy up.”

“That's kind of you, but you shouldn't trouble.”

“You keep the place orderly. For a man. It's no trouble.”

Thompson scanned the cabin. Indeed, what possessions he did own were neatly arranged. His rifle hung on two pegs wedged between the chinking on the wall beside the door. His cookware occupied one end of the hearth: cup and plate and fork stored in the kettle that sat on the iron pan. Kindling and a day's measure of cordwood stacked on the other end. One extra shirt and pair of pants and his winter coat on nails above his bed. Ax, spade, handsaw, and pick occupying the far corner of the room, the tools a loan from Upperdine in exchange for putting them to use. He thought briefly of the life he'd abandoned in Indiana, the contrast between current paucity and former abundance, and for a moment he went dark. When his thoughts cleared, he saw that Hanna had stopped sweeping and was watching him intently.

“I own little clutter,” he said.

Hanna smiled. A rarity, he thought at once. Her lines softened when she smiled. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and lifted Destiny higher onto her hip.

“Well,” he said, “I'd best be to work. Thank you.” He picked up the food and turned for the door.

“Do you mind if I finish up here?” She looked at him, steady-eyed, a leveling inquiry.

Thompson hesitated. A simple question. Why did it seem more complex?

“That's kind of you,” he nodded and hurried out. He was in the field and hoeing before he remembered he'd not mentioned Obadiah's wheat to her.

25

O
ne day in mid-July, weeding, Benito limped over to Thompson. He mopped his face with his forearm and gazed off into the cloudless sky.

“Behind me,” Benito said to Thompson. “Do not look. A glint from the brush on the river bank.”

“Near bank or far?”

“Far, I think.”

“Indians?”

“I do not believe so. If Indian, we probably wouldn't have seen them until they wished to be seen.”

“Then who?”

“Highwaymen perhaps. Vagabonds. I don't know.”

“I'll cross upstream,” Thompson said. “And circle back, from above.”

“Take care.”

Thompson glanced at his grub hoe. A sturdy tool, a sorry weapon. “I'll do nothing foolish.”

Thompson went to where Joseph and the boys were hunched over the rows, picking leaf beetles and cutworms from the plants. Joseph straightened at his approach, stretched his back.

“Take the boys to the placita,” Thompson instructed.

“Why?” Joseph asked.

The question irritated Thompson. Lately, Joseph had taken to challenging nearly every request made of him, quarreling at the slightest provocation.

“Some activity down by the river,” Thompson said. “Not sure who it might be or what their intentions.”

Joseph searched along the banks. “Boys can get back on their own.”

Thompson regarded Joseph; tall, lanky, beginning to fill in. His pants were too short in the leg and his shirtsleeves hung just below his elbows. But not yet a man. “Do as I say.”

Thompson walked upstream as if inspecting the corn, and once out of sightline, crouched low and moved to the river and crossed at the gravel bar. On the east side, he scrambled up the bank and continued several hundred yards out into the plains and then turned and moved downstream. He could see the placita and the upper edge of the field that rose from the floodplain but had view neither of the riverbank, nor of Benito's exact location. He turned back toward the river and approached the high bank on hands and knees and studied the willow thickets upstream and down for movement. Nothing seemed out of ordinary. He looked across the river and saw Benito in the cornfield, but was unsure whether Benito saw him. Thompson remained motionless except for his head, which he moved imperceptibly as he searched. He wished the wind would rise to mask his sound, allow him to inch closer. But for the moment, it remained still. After five minutes he resolved to change positions. He began to edge away, but stopped when he saw Benito wave his cane in the air and begin marching to the river, moving deliberately to a position directly across from him. Benito reached the bank and called out.

“
Hola!
Hello! Who is there?
Quien es
?” He waited for response and called again.

Thompson noticed movement in the brush immediately in front of him. The willows parted and a man backed out, hunched low, carrying a machete in one hand and a metal tube in the other. Thompson watched the thicket for sign of others. No one. Could he be alone? The man backed to within ten feet of Thompson. Thompson stood, hoe at ready, like a musket at arms.

“What is your business?”

Startled, the man whirled around and raised the machete. Thompson was positioned on the bank above the man, the distance between them loose and sandy, and he felt confident of his ability to dodge any advance, so he held his ground. The man was young, ragged, hatless, and dark-complexioned like Benito.

“Do you speak English?” Thompson asked. “State your business.”

The man eyed Thompson without answering. He seemed to be measuring the strides between them, but his eyes also darted to either side as if assessing escape routes. The man's reluctance for battle was obvious, but Thompson also sensed a dangerous edge to him, nerves frayed, eyes sunken and hungry. He wished he'd more carefully thought out the confrontation before engaging the stranger. He could not walk away, leaving this unknown threat so close to the homesteads. But he was ill-equipped to advance on him.

A splashing from the river attracted the attention of both men. There, mid-stream, Benito crossing, unbalanced, his movements made clumsy both because of his injury and because moss covered the river rocks. Spring runoff had receded but he'd not chosen a safe ford, the water waist-high in the pools, the current swirling. He floundered, and fell, and his bad leg gave him no purchase to right himself. The stranger raced toward Benito, machete in hand. Thompson started down the bank, slipped on the loose footing, and tumbled, hoe flying from his hand, body folding into a hoop, landing at the bottom of the embankment in a flail of arms and legs. He jumped immediately to his feet but, stunned, collapsed into a sitting position and sat for a moment, dizzy and disoriented. He again struggled to his feet, looked midstream, and there, the stranger stood above Benito, machete at ready.

“Wait!” Thompson called. The stranger turned at the sound. His free hand gripped Benito's shirtfront. He turned back to Benito and began dragging him toward the near bank. Thompson closed the distance, losing sight of them as he scraped through willows, tripping over low-growing tangles and flood-swept debris, and then he came suddenly upon Benito prone on the bank and the stranger kneeling over him, machete thrust into the ground at his feet. Beside the machete lay a telescope. Before Thompson could assess the situation, he heard a commotion to his right. Joseph broke through the brush a few feet from Benito and raised a pistol to the stranger's back.

“No,” Benito screamed.

There sounded the sharp plink of hammer against cap followed by the dull fizz of bad powder, and before Joseph could fire a second time, Thompson wrapped him in his arms and turned him away. He felt the heave of Joseph's chest and saw the bloodlust shining in his eyes. Instinctively, Joseph fought Thompson's hold, a snarling from his throat, spit and a trickle of blood on his lip. Thompson did not dare release the boy, but he felt vulnerable to the stranger and his machete.

“Easy,” Thompson said. “Let go the pistol.” Joseph attempted to raise his arm, to re-aim, but after several seconds the futility must have registered and the resolve weakened, and he went limp and the pistol fell to the ground.

“Easy,” Thompson repeated, as if calming a skittish colt. He slowly relaxed his hold on Joseph and retrieved the Allen pistol and turned to the stranger. Benito now stood beside the man and rested one hand on his shoulder for support, his crutch lost to the river.

“Are you hurt?” Thompson asked.

“No. I am fine,” Benito answered.

Thompson found himself short of breath and he bent with his hands to his knees, still holding the pistol. He and the stranger eyed one another cautiously. The stranger's attention moved between Thompson and Joseph and he appeared on the verge of bolting for cover.

“Thompson,” Benito said. “This is Carlos.”

The name meant nothing to Thompson. “Carlos de Vargas.” Benito said. “From near Plaza del Arroyo Seco.”

It came to Thompson then. Paloma's betrothed.

“I'll be damned.” Thompson said. “What the hell is he doing here?”

“I did not recognize him at first,” Benito said. “Nothing to him but bones.”

Although they all had endured a difficult winter at the placita, Carlos seemed to Thompson worse off by an order. Joseph towered above him, bulky by comparison. Carlos's hair hung straight in long tangles, and he wore a patchy beard.

“But what the hell is he doing here?” Thompson repeated.

“He helped me from the river,” Benito said. “Then you arrived. We've not had a chance to visit.” Benito turned to Carlos and they conversed a while in Spanish. Carlos's voice sounded soft and youthful, in sharp contrast to his appearance. Thompson thought him too frail to have lasted any length in the wilderness. His face was fine-featured, almost feminine, with a thin nose and deep-set eyes. Ragged clothes hung loosely from narrow shoulders.

“How did you find us?” Benito asked, switching to English. Carlos responded in kind, but with a heavy accent Thompson found difficult to understand.

“I asked at the village. I traveled to the mercantile on the Arkansas, and they directed me back.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Ten days.”

“Along the river? You set camp?”

“Yes.”

“You are welcome at my home. Why didn't you present yourself?”

Thompson knew the answer to Benito's question as well as Benito did, and suspected he asked only out of courtesy and because he wanted Carlos to address the issue directly. Carlos looked away, stammered in English, “I. I.” and reverted to a rapid Spanish. Thompson walked downriver a few paces, and motioned Joseph to follow. He searched for Benito's lost cane in the shallows.

“What did you think you were doing back there?” Thompson demanded.

“Just trying to help,” Joseph said.

“But for bad powder, you might have killed a man.”

“Wildman sneaks into our home, how do you expect to greet him?” Joseph asked. Thompson detected no remorse.

“He is an acquaintance of the Ibarra family,” Thompson said.