A Long and Winding Road Read online

  Sam decided to try politeness. “What is its symbolism?”

  “Please. That’s foolish barbarism. I collect them because they are beautiful.” With a sweep of one arm he indicated the room full of weavings.

  “Beautiful they are,” said Baptiste.

  “They are called slave blankets,” Armijo went on. “An irony. They are woven by women captured from the Navajos, women we hold as slaves. They produce much beauty for us.”

  He looked at them with an expression Sam couldn’t have described. He detested the man.

  “For two centuries we have stolen their women and children, and they have stolen ours.”

  “Actually,” Sam said, “they have stolen the women and children of the Christianized pueblo Indian people. Your own Nuevo Mexicano women and children mostly stay safe in your cities.”

  Armijo inclined his head in acceptance. “That, I think, is greatly to our credit.” He smiled and sneered at once. “I was only reflecting that it is a shame that peoples treat each other so, people who are capable of creating great beauty.”

  Sam kept himself from snorting. He knew that Armijo had a dozen slaves right on this rancho, several of them Navajos, and some of those forced to produce these blankets. He said again, “We’re going with you.”

  “Naturally, my friend, you are welcome. With your rifles we will be even more formidable.”

  “When?”

  “We must wait,” Armijo said. “We have sent a messenger to their head man, Narbona, and suggested terms. If they accept our proposal, a place and a day will be appointed to sign the treaty and return the captives.”

  Sam glanced sideways at Baptiste, who looked perfectly composed.

  Armijo sat down again. “I know you are impatient with our methods, Señor Morgan, but we have dealt with these savages for two hundred years. You must be patient for a few days.”

  Sam eyed the governor across the desk. Two hundred years and not a week when you didn’t rob and kill each other.

  “You would have no chance, bounding out there to search for your friends on your own. The Navajo nation is huge, almost as big as New Mexico itself. So I will send you a message when the time comes.”

  Sam nodded at Armijo. He looked at Baptiste. They left without another word.

  “Tell me about Armijo,” Baptiste said when they were mounted.

  “He’s just what you see, a man who will seize wealth and power by any means available.” Sam smiled and tasted his brandy. “Then he’ll give you a wink that says, ‘You’d do the same, if you could.’

  “I have known his like,” said Baptiste.

  “He’s a monstrous child,” said Sam.

  “We may be late to rendezvous,” Baptiste told Sam and Tomás.

  “Let’s forget our troubles with something to drink,” said Sumner. The four were gathered at a table in the cantina where he made his living at card games. “Pass brandy,” he called to the man behind the bar, “two bottles.” When the man brought the brandy from El Paso, he put down meat scraps for Coy.

  “I have to be at rendezvous,” said Sam.

  “Our trading venture,” Sumner said. Sam customarily carried goods to supply trappers at rendezvous. Sumner financed Sam.

  “We all need to make a Yankee dollar or two,” said Baptiste.

  Sam nodded. “For me the big part is personal reasons.”

  “And it’s a long ride.” Baptiste’s speech was always easy and unruffled.

  “Wherever we go,” said Tomás, “is no Yankee dollars. Is to get Lupe and Rosalita back.”

  “Das verdad,” said Baptiste.

  “Damn verdad,” said Tomás.

  “There’s no saying no to my son,” Sam told Baptiste with a smile.

  “Damn not,” said the teenager, with a dark look at Sam. “Don’t fortheget it.”

  “I’m going to tell Baptiste the story,” said Sam. “He needs to understand why.”

  “This makes me uncomfortable,” said Tomás.

  “Five years ago,” Sam began, “I saw my first conducta. Like all of them it brought expensive manufactured goods—iron tools, weapons, domestic and imported fabrics,all that stuff.” Sam paused. “And slaves. The next day, at Armijo’s rancho, I saw my first slave auction.”

  “Me, too,” said Sumner, “first and last. God damn.”

  Coy growled.

  “Tomás was one of the boys auctioned,” Sam went on.

  “Wasn’t no boy,” said Tomás.

  “You were thirteen.”

  “I never fortheget, I was sold for thirty-six dollars,” said Tomás.

  “Sam and I bought him,” said Sumner. “The trader Cerritos got drunk later and told me that with our money he got one fanega of corn, six blankets, three mares, and one buffalo robe to take back down the trail and trade.”

  “We’re the ones to go get Lupe and Rosalita,” said Tomás. “We been slaves.”

  Baptiste ventured dryly, “Three of the four of you.”

  “That’s it,” said Sumner.

  Coy whimpered.

  “Back to that day,” Sam said. “The auction. We saw something horrible.” He looked gravely at Tomás. “First off, Cerritos led out a beautiful teenage girl in chains, hand and foot, and put her up for auction. Her name was Maria.”

  “One day I kill that bastard,” said Tomás.

  “Enough,” said Sam. “Cerritos told the crowd, all men except for Paloma, that Maria wasn’t yet good enough for us. Then he stripped her naked and raped her.”

  Sam watched Baptiste and saw his lips stiffen and his eyes flash.

  “‘Now,’ Cerritos told us, ‘she’s good enough.’”

  “Merde,” said Baptiste.

  “I kill…”

  Sam shushed Tomás with a hand and despite an evil look pushed on. “The story has just begun. Sumner and I took Tomás back to Rancho de las Palomas and told him he was free.”

  “All the way free,” said Sumner. “Do whatever you want, go wherever you want. Course, he was too young….”

  “What we didn’t know yet was that Maria was Tomás’s sister.”

  No one at the table seemed to be breathing.

  “The next morning Tomás was gone. When he came back, he’d killed the man who had bought his sister.”

  “Estupendo!” said Baptiste to Tomás.

  “Except that Don Emilio lived. Tomás’s cleaver took a fine portion of scalp, but it bounced off the don’s hard skull bone.” Sam and Tomás smiled at each other. “After that, Tomás had a little trouble with the law in Santa Fe. That’s why he stays down at the rancho and comes to town damn seldom, and why we’ll winter in Taos from now on.”

  Before Baptiste could speak, Sam added, “The host of the slave auction that day was our ex-gobernador. I took Tomás to the mountains, taught him the beaver man ways, and ended by taking him as my son.”

  Sumner said, “I offered to teach him everything I know about gambling. That way he could reach into the chests of the oppressors and grab what they keep hidden in their hearts, their money.”

  “We talk about that,” Tomás said, “when we finish taking me sisters back.”

  8

  The spring was in a nowhere place, below an outcropping of ocher stone. Trickling away, the creek was lined by willows and a few cottonwoods in new leaf. Around it for as many miles as the eye could see were broken desert cliffs studded with cedar trees. Only Mt. Cebolleta to the east rose high over the horizon, pointing in the direction of the New Mexican settlements. Sam wondered if the water ran all year round, or only in the spring months. Turkey Spring, they called this place.

  Coy sat and sniffed in the direction of the Indian camp.

  “Anything could happen here,” warned Baptiste.

  It was true. Sam used his field glass to study the Navajo encampment at the spring. “No more than twenty,” said Sam. Which meant they could honestly be a delegation sent to Armijo to give formal approval to the treaty and exchange captives.

  “A hu
ndred could be in the next valley,” said Baptiste. A band of warriors to wipe the New Mexico party out.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” said Sam. But he didn’t distrust the Navajos, particularly. He was damned leery of both sides.

  Armijo touched his spurs to his mount and pussy-footed down the soft slope toward the creek. Sam, Baptiste, and Tomás flanked him. The soldiers bearing the flags of Mexico and New Mexico fell in behind.

  “We’ll camp below those rocks,” Sam said, indicating with his head.

  Sam wanted a place he could defend. To Armijo’s credit he turned that way.

  Sam, Baptiste, and Tomás put their bedrolls a little apart from the tents of the soldiers and other official representatives. They hadn’t brought Joaquin, because every they saw him he was drunk. As the three went through the routine of setting up camp, Sam kept an eye on the Navajos upstream.

  Coy padded to the creek and lapped for a long time.

  “Is this going anywhere?” Sam said to Baptiste, half idly. He meant the proposed exchange of captives and treaty-signing.

  “I doubt it.”

  Sam led Paladin downstream and let her drink. Baptiste and his mount came along.

  “When you glassed the camp, did you see any captives?”

  “No.”

  “If Lupe and Rosalita are here—if any captives are here—they’re being held somewhere away.” Within half a day’s ride, near water.

  “Let’s talk to Enrique and ask where it would be.” Enrique was the messenger originally sent to make contact with the Navajos and set up this meeting, though he did not speak their language. In their arrogance the Nuevo Mexicans expected the Navajos to conduct all business in Spanish.

  Enrique’s answer wasn’t helpful. “In springtime like this,” he said, “all the washes, the ones that are usually dry, they run with a little water. More Navajos, they could be anywhere.”

  “And we’re on their ground.” Baptiste said.

  “Sí.”

  Sam looked across at El Gobernador, busy making motions and giving directions. “I think we’re wasting our time.”

  “As long as we’re not wasting our scalps,” said Baptiste.

  Within half an hour the Navajos sent a man to say that they wanted to meet this evening.

  Armijo raised an eyebrow at Sam. “You are my major domo,” he said.

  El Gobernador had sense enough to know that the mountain men would be better protection than his soldiers.

  Sam considered. On Navajo land he would not know what was around him. But the evening light would last. The meeting might be mostly ceremonial, and Sam was impatient—he wanted to get Lupe and Rosalita and be gone.

  “We will come soon,” Armijo told the messenger in Spanish.

  “You, Enrique, me, and Baptiste,” said Sam.

  Armijo nodded.

  “Nearby,” said Sam, “four of your men, armed, and Tomás.”

  Baptiste spoke decent Navajo, but Sam said nothing about that to Armijo. It was an advantage he and Baptiste would keep to themselves.

  In a hour they sat in a circle, a dozen men in the inside ring, a good many Navajos behind, opposite the Mexican party’s backup. No one in the circle was armed. In theory. Sam knew that the blankets of the Navajos concealed knives and tomahawks. He and his party had their hidden weapons as well. One of his was a belt buckle that popped out and became a knife.

  Sam eyed the old man who led the Navajo contingent, Hosteen Tso. His body was scrunched with age, but he had a striking head of silver hair tied into a bun with white cloth and brightly intelligent eyes. He reminded Sam of a wise lizard, at home in the desert, a survivor. Sam felt a flicker of hope.

  On Tso’s left, in a position of seniority, sat a tall, beautifully muscled man in his twenties. He was as fine a physical specimen as Sam had ever seen, with the predatory eyes of a hunting bird.

  Enrique spoke some initial courtesies, and on behalf of the generous government of New Mexico he made some gifts to its friends the Navajo people. He introduced El Gobernador and his companions White Hair Morgan and Baptiste Charbonneau. A young man on Tso’s right murmured a translation into the leader’s ear.

  At length Governor Armijo rose to his feet. Young Piercing Eyes frowned, but Tso’s face was neutral. Sam wanted to say, ‘This Gobernador doesn’t know it’s rude to put his head above yours,’ but he kept his mouth shut.

  As an amanuensis recorded his words, Armijo proceeded to state the four main points of the proposed treaty in a florid and ceremonial way:

  “The Navajo nation will turn over all captives which you may have made of our people and return them without hiding any. The same with the fugitives, if there are any.”

  Armijo gave the old lizard Tso what was meant to be a commanding look. Tso glanced briefly at Sam and Baptiste, and his eyes seemed to smile. There was no hint of a smile on Piercing Eyes’ face.

  “The government of New Mexico will return to the Navajos those people who fled to us. That is, we will return them provided they wish to go back. However, if they should wish to receive the saving waters of Baptism, it is the desire of Catholics to favor them with the Sacrament and exhort them to the end that the number of faithful adoring the True God of the Christians is multiplied.”

  Sam kept his eyes down. He didn’t want to see Hosteen Tso’s ironic amusement, or Piercing Eyes’ anger.

  “You will return all that you have stolen in the Province of New Mexico, since the date of the last peace celebrated, giving back to the injured parties what was taken, in its entirety.

  “Last, and a point of importance, you will give great consideration to allowing priests of the most Holy and Apostolic Catholic Church to come among you, as the people of the Pueblo tribes have done, and like them be converted to belief in the One True God. After that, you will live as the Pueblo tribes do in fixed settlements.

  “When you have agreed to these stipulations, we will exchange captives and fugitives here tomorrow, so that they may return to their families.”

  Sam concentrated on looking at the red sand in front of his legs. He knew Armijo’s dirty little secret.

  El Gobernador sat down.

  Hosteen Tso, Piercing Eyes, and the other Navajos gave Armijo the courtesy of waiting quietly and at least appearing to give consideration to his words.

  Sam and Baptiste looked sideways at each other. Will we have to run for our guns? Or would Hosteen Tso somehow be accommodating?

  After what seemed too long, Tso spoke quietly and easily in the Navajo language, his eyes fixed on Armijo. “My good friend El Gobernador,” Tso’s translator began, “we are glad to return to you people taken from your settlements, or from the pueblos. But we ask, what of those who do not want to go back? What of those who prefer the Dineh way of life? What of the women who have married our men, borne their children, and prefer to stay with their families? What about children who love their new mothers and fathers?”

  Armijo coughed. Sam knew he was not about to admit, in a proceeding being recorded for posterity, that some captured Christians might prefer the barbarous Navajo style of living, might put Navajo gods before the one True God, might choose nomadic life over civilization. After all, was not civilization the path of righteousness? The governor blinked rapidly at Tso.

  “Perhaps you are not ready to answer these questions yet,” Tso went on smoothly. “We can discuss them tomorrow. In the meantime, I will put a few more questions to you.

  “Why are the people held by the Dineh said to be ‘captured’ and those held by the New Mexicans described as ‘fled to us?’ You know well that you sent men from the pueblos along with your own soldiers and took our women and children by force. Just as we did to yours. If we are to be friends, does not friendship begin with candor?”

  Now it was Armijo Sam couldn’t look at. But he felt a heightened respect for Tso.

  Piercing Eyes wore an air of triumph.

  “You say you will give us back our women and children, except those
who want to be baptized, who prefer your Christianity. In that case, are we permitted to keep those New Mexicans and pueblo people who want to walk with us the path of harmony between the four sacred mountains?”

  After a brief pause he went smoothly on. “You propose that we give back whatever we have taken from your people. Do you then intend to give back the sheep, goats, and horses you have seized from us? Do you intend to pay us for the fields and orchards you burned? The hogans you destroyed?”

  Tso spoke slowly, as Armijo had, and probably with words equally ceremonious, perhaps even beautiful. His tone held no rancor, his eyes no anger. All the anger was on the face of Piercing Eyes.

  “As for the suggestion that we welcome your priests, accept your gods, and take up life in pueblos, I know I speak for my people when I declare that we are content with our own path. Since we came to this glittering fifth world, we have lived as we do, growing a few crops, grazing our herds wherever the grass is good, hunting where the game is abundant, and setting our feet on the path of beauty and harmony. We wish to continue in our own way.”

  He let a moment go by, evidently so Armijo could absorb this point.

  “Our last statement, like yours, is an important one. We will never accept a settlement of your people at Tosato. You have your soldiers at Cebolleta, on the east side of Turquoise Mountain, where your lands are. But that is as far as you may go.

  “Perhaps one day, if you are interested, during the winter, when it is time to tell stories, we will tell you the tale of how Turquoise Mountain was created, and how Boy Who Carries One Turquoise and Girl Who Carries One Grain of Corn came to live there, or even how the Hero Twins slew the monster at that special place. But that story is not for today.”

  Sam looked at Armijo. The man had gotten bored and distracted just when he should have paid attention. If Armijo believed in understanding his enemy, he’d missed his chance.

  Tso gave Sam an ironic glance. He had seen it too.

  “Men of good will may disagree on some matters and still cooperate,” Tso continued. “We would like to give you the people of yours we have brought to this place, if you will in return do the same.”