Crossing Purgatory (24 page)

“Not here,” Benito said. “We're moving.”

Paloma's expression challenged, but before she spoke, she seemed to catch herself. “Why?”

“Too open,” Benito said. He casually mentioned the pony tracks, careful to mask anxiety. Paloma nodded at his explanation and gathered up the kindling and scattered the stones of the fire ring. Benito decided to re-cross the river, putting it between them and the Indians on the trail. In the distance he picked out a stand of cottonwoods that grew just upslope from a willow thicket. The brush would offer concealment and he would be able to hear the approach of any riders. A tall bluff at his back would protect them from that direction. He chose not to backtrack to the ford. The river, not yet swollen by snowmelt, ran shallow and slow. He walked upstream for a quarter-mile until he came upon a gravel bar that extended far into the river, and with Paloma on the cart he guided the burro, soaking only his trousers to the waist and keeping the provisions and his daughter dry. Still, the March breezes blew cold, and he decided to chance a small fire to boil coffee and to dry his clothes. They drank the coffee and ate dried fruit and reheated tortillas. Full dark, Paloma curled beside the embers. Benito wrapped himself in one of Teresa's woolen blankets and sat propped against a cottonwood and stayed awake as long as he could, listening for splashing hooves and the rustle of branches.

He woke before dawn and sat up, alert, aware of a change, listening. No ponies. But the wind had shifted during the night and now came hard from the northwest, carrying a bite. First light brought a sideways snow. They broke camp with urgency and made for home. Normally, they'd be traveling the far bank to the ford downstream, an easy trail. But Benito dared not chance a crossing in this weather, so they traveled slowly over un-trailed ground, the stream bank steep in places, boggy in others.

The storm built, whipping gusts, plummeting temperature. Snow covered the rocks of the streambed, a treacherous sheen of ice. Paloma slipped, caught herself, and her hand came up bloody. The cold stanched the bleeding nearly before it began.

“We need to climb from the river bottom,” Benito said to Paloma. “Reach firm ground, level going.”

“But where?” Paloma asked.

Benito searched the steep banks for an opening, any hint of a game trail, footpath. He knew the ground flattened near the ford, but it was miles downstream.

“We'll leave the cart.” He unhitched the burro and loosely secured their provision bag across its withers. He and Paloma pushed the cart into the scrub to hide it from Indians, and they started up the embankment. They traversed the slope downhill, feet slipping with almost every step. The more sure-footed burro set course straight for the crest of the bank, pulling at its lead, keeping Benito off balance. Benito at first tried to guide the burro and, failing, tried to turn loose the strap, but he'd wrapped it around his hand and wrist when they'd begun their assent, and the straining burro tightened it until it dug into his flesh. Benito planted his feet uphill and yanked desperately on the leash, felt it go taut, and then slacken, the burro's flank filling his vision, felt its weight slamming against him, a cracking in his midsection when initially he hit the ground, a tumbling, and then nothing.

B
ENITO OPENED HIS EYES AND
looked up into a gray sky that seemed somehow close to him, smothering and heavy. All was quiet, as if the snow had insulated him from the surrounding world. “A misfortune,” he thought to himself, “I must see to it.” He braced his hands in the snow to either side and attempted to rise, but he had no strength and his legs refused his will. He lay back and the snow wetted his face. He felt blood pooling in his mouth and he turned and spit and a tooth came out with the blood. He looked about calmly, dazed, and assessed his situation. Snow. Some blood on the snow, not a great calamity. Paloma?

“Paloma,” he called and pushed against the cold earth again and with great effort managed to rise to a half-sitting position and craned around, looking up the bank. There, Paloma striding, then sliding down the bank, slipping, pants torn, arms flailing, digging her heels through the snow, searching for purchase in the riprap. He watched, eyes going in and out of focus. Kneeling beside him, he felt her hands gingerly exploring his head, his neck. “A lump, like a hen's egg,” she said, examining her hand, “and bleeding.”

“The burro. Is he injured?”

“I don't think so. I don't see him. He's wandered.”

They both rested a moment, their labored breathing condensing, carried away by the wind in drifting tendrils, swirling with the flakes that continued to fall. Benito again tried to rise and again he fell back. He looked down at his legs and Paloma followed his eyes and gasped. His right leg at the thigh bent almost perpendicularly from his body. He reached into his pocket and removed a folding knife and held it out to her.

“Cut the trouser. Let me see the leg.”

She did as he directed and he looked down at the leg. The bulge of the bone was clearly visible but had not broken the skin.

“Good,” he said. “You must set it.”

“I cannot.”

“Who, then?” She did not answer. Benito dimly realized he was in shock and that both it and the numbing cold helped buffer him from the pain. But the pain would soon break through. In the end, pain always finds a route.

“Listen to me,” Benito said, his breathing shallow and rapid, words coming in quick bursts. “I may lose senses for a while.” A pang like a blade piercing his ribcage forced him to suck in his breath and go quiet for a beat. “Straighten it best you can,” he continued, fighting for words. “Can't be gentle. Find something to splint with.” He sensed himself fading. “Understand?”

Paloma nodded.

“Find burro. Collect food before snow covers. Find shelter.”

“Yes,” She said.

“Now, move to my leg. Brace your feet. That's right. You must lean into it. Now. Pull.”

PART THREE

HOME,

1859

23

T
hompson went to the well at daybreak, found the water in the trough free of ice, and again his hopes stirred. Spring came in fits and starts in this new country. He fidgeted to be in motion, free from constraints of abbreviated days and fickle climate. Mostly, he wished to be rid of idle time spent dwelling on past lives, past transgressions. He would have liked to have been invited to accompany Benito to gather wood, even if it meant sharing a campfire with Paloma.

Restless, he walked to Upperdine's homestead and found the Captain in the tool shed, inspecting locust-damaged tackle. Even Upperdine's round, full face had thinned over winter, and Thompson noticed gray streaks in his beard, which he'd let grow during the cold season. Harness straps draped his shoulders like a shawl, and, stooped over a bench straining to work punch pliers, he suddenly appeared old to Thompson. Upperdine looked up at his approach.

“Thompson. I've been meaning to visit you.”

Thompson nodded a greeting. “Repair work?”

“Those damn pests ate right through the leather.” Upperdine tossed a strap onto a small heap of discarded tackle. “Some is salvageable. I've been pecking at it all winter.”

“You have need of it soon?” Thompson asked.

“I'm off with the new grass.”

“To guide?”

“To Denver first. Some trading. Then to Westport.”

“The trail.”

“Yes.” Upperdine must have heard something in Thompson's voice. “You interested in joining up?”

“I don't know. I'm about sick of the view out my cabin,” Thompson admitted.

Indeed, Thompson had thought about the trail, relived his journey time and again. Initially, he could not imagine willingly retracing those steps, revisiting that history. The act of recalling the most mundane detail, the dung beetles children played with at evening camp or the bloom of a cornflower in the damp soil of a wagon rut would cause other, darker memories to worm to the surface from some deep pit where he'd buried them. But lately, he'd begun to harbor a morbid attraction to the trail as if compelled to test his memory, to learn what remained of the nightmares.

“Winter will do that to a man,” Upperdine said. “Perhaps spring will arrive for good and your mind will turn to planting.”

“Perhaps.” In truth, Thompson also faced the coming spring with apprehension. The field held memories as well.

“But if not, you can be of use,” Upperdine said. “You have experience. Benito is established now and can look after my affairs, and his.”

A
NOTHER NIGHT WITHOUT A HARD
freeze brought to life a few strips of green that hugged the base of outcroppings where porous rock radiated the sun's heat. Thompson walked out into Benito's field. In Indiana, he'd be turning the soil by now, but here the ground remained partially frozen. He walked to the river. No sign of runoff, the water a murmuring rill, ice still thick on the bank, the pool below the acequia's diversion dam shallow and still. Irrigation waited on the thaw. Everything waited on the thaw.

Walking back toward the placita, Thompson noticed the wind shifting into his face, coming hard from the northwest. It carried the feel of weather, a damp chill. Yet another turn, Thompson wondered?

John Upperdine rode the trail from the river and overtook Thompson as they neared the goat pen. “May need to move the new kids and their does inside tonight. Fixing to pepper.”

“For sure?”

“Nothing for sure out here. But I do believe so.”

“Will they be all right?” Thompson asked, thinking of Benito and Paloma. Upperdine apparently had been wondering the same.

“I suspect so,” Upperdine said. “Winter's tolerable here compared to elsewhere in this territory.”

Upperdine turned his horse and Thompson continued toward the low rises to the west. The sky directly above remained partially clear, patches of blue showing through scudding gray clouds. But to the west, a dark curtain advanced rapidly, dust carried by stiffening gusts. He stood watching the storm approach. The clouds above, a dark shadow engulfing the plains below. Grit irritated his eyes. He felt the temperature drop suddenly as if he'd walked from the warmth of the day into an icehouse. A spit of sleet, then a curtain dropping. The horizon closed. A cold sting against his face. Another. As he began to retrace his steps, the storm overtook him. Lightning flashed from thunderclouds that expelled snow and hail with the force of grapeshot. Nothing one moment, a white wall the next. He moved downhill, following the contours of the land, but could not see an arm's length in any direction. The air white, the ground white. Land he'd walked for months now a slick unrecognizable nothingness. He sensed the river, almost walking off the embankment before catching his step and working upstream until instinct directed him to turn away, toward the placita hidden somewhere in the boil. He tramped into the force of the gale now, counting steps, thinking the walls should come into view, willing them into view, and they materialized, a vague presence rising from the earth. He made his way to the gates and entered the compound and there snow swirled around the walls like a whirlwind. Thompson felt his way, keeping one hand on the wall until he came to the raised porch and the doorway and he tumbled inside. His face numb, frost painting his eyebrows, ice shards clinging to his hair, he fell to the floor with the sound of breaking glass when he shook his head. When had he lost his hat? A quarter-hour only, a few minutes exposed to the storm and already he'd lost feeling in the tips of his fingers and his feet were numb.

Teresa and Hanna jumped from their chairs where they had been knitting. Teresa grabbed a blanket and Thompson pulled it close around his shoulders.

“You were out in this?” Hanna asked.

“Walking. Got caught, it came fast,” Thompson said, and seeing the worry in Teresa's eyes immediately regretted it.

“It is bad out, si?” she asked.

“I've seen worse,” Thompson lied. “I'm sure they will be fine. Just hunkered down in the shelter of trees until it blows over.” He went to the fire and endured exquisite pain as his flesh warmed and circulation returned. He glanced around the room, and then remembered. “The goats.”

“It's too late,” Hanna said.

Thompson hesitated. He still could not feel his nose, and his ears stung. In truth, the storm had frightened him, its ferocious onslaught. For long moments he had lost his bearings completely and now, standing beside the hearth, he understood how easily he could have miscalculated his steps. One wrong turn and done.

He had no desire to return outside. He was not accountable for the Ibarra animals and he regarded Benito irresponsible for leaving them unattended. Why should he put himself at risk because of Benito's poor judgment? What did he owe these people? The wind outside howled, the warmth of the hearth pulled him close.