The Arrow Keeper’s Song (23 page)

Tom waved a hand toward the patrol, and Tully started the men across the meadow, their horses following the path Sandcrane had left in the tall grass. But even his companions were just so many blurred images. His mind, his thoughts, were like a storm-tossed sea, and the fragments of the past—the songs, the old teachings—were floating to the surface, rising out of the black depths. Why now? The past was behind him, or so he had assumed, and yet the dreams and visions were returning. The song had come to his lips without any conscious effort.
No, it was just a trick of memory
. After all, he was no Arrow Keeper, just a ghost, without yesterday or tomorrow. That's how it had to be. He would forget the songs, forget his father's teachings.

“I'm going with you,” Joanna firmly said. It was a statement of fact. She misread his silence for displeasure at her presence.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Celestial is my friend. And besides—What? You aren't going to try to talk me out of coming along?” She'd had her arguments all prepared.

“No.” The spell of his own troubled reverie was broken.

“Why?”

“It is your path.” He squatted by the fire, took one of the strange, ugly fruits she had gathered, drew his knife, and peeled the skin away. He bit into the cool, creamy pulp and tilted his head to look at her. Joanna had the sensation he was peering into her naked soul and seeing her as she truly was. “And it is your right.” Then he smiled, which for a moment startled her.

“What a strange man you are, Sergeant Tom Sandcrane.” Then, lowering her defenses, the woman smiled back.

Across two ridges and nestled in a wooded ravine where a cold, clear creek provided water for horses, the Lion Brigade made its camp. Dinner consisted of bread, beans simmered with peppers and chunks of pork, and coffee. Twice during the afternoon the prisoner had fallen off his horse, poison spreading through his body from the bloodied empty socket where his eye had been. Poor Mateo, by his very presence, dampened the normally good-natured banter among the soldiers. The men pitched their bedrolls in silence and stretched out to sleep the night away.

Captain Diego Zuloaga prowled the clearing, restless as a caged beast. Moonlight filtered through the branches of the lignum vitae and cast a pattern resembling iron bars over the slumbering forms of his soldiers. One of the men, unable to rest, sat propped against the trunk of a tree, caressing a melody from the guitar cradled in his arms. The music failed to soothe the captain, and he continued to pace the perimeter of the campsite as he waited for Alfonso to finish with the prisoner and report on the youth's condition. The worldly cook was a repository for all kinds of knowledge and often acted as the brigade's physician as well.

Alfonso Ramirez could patch a wound and sew a man together with the same skill he used to pamper the culinary tastes of his commanding officer. Tonight he was especially thankful the captain liked his cooking. It might serve to temper Zuloaga's considerable wrath.

“Well?” the captain said, studying a constellation of fireflies swirling against a cosmos of black mountains and silent forest.

“The prisoner does not respond,
jefe.”

“The boy stalls us. He is protecting Celestial with this pretense,” Zuloaga angrily replied.

“His fever is real.”

“Then rid him of this fever! I command it.”

“Sí,
jefe
, I will do everything I can,” the cook meekly answered.

Zuloaga sighed. There was no point in taking out his frustration on the cook. “I know you will,” the captain told him, gentling his tone of voice. Ramirez seemed relieved and dutifully hurried away. The commander continued to prowl the perimeter of camp, his jaws clenched, cursing Antonio Celestial, the man who had driven him to such behavior, torturing a boy for the knowledge he possessed. Zuloaga reminded himself that if their situation was reversed, the youth would have no qualms about killing and mutilating him.

Alfonso returned to the campfire, where he knelt by his young prisoner. The thirteen-year-old's features were sweat streaked beneath a crude bandage that covered the left side of his face.

“You don't lead us to Celestial,
el jefe
will have your other eye,” Alfonso told the sleeping form.

Mateo stirred and moaned and called out for Miss Joanna. He lapsed into silence and then a few moments later began speaking as if to a loved one. Alfonso dipped a bandanna into the pan of cold spring water he had brought from the creek and placed the cloth on Mateo's forehead.

“What is he saying?” Handsome, blond-haired Lieutenant Emilio Garza knelt by the campfire. He tossed the gnawed remains of half a roasted quail into the fire and removing a kerchief from his coat pocket, wiping his hands clean with fastidious care.

“I think he speaks to his mother,” said Alfonso.

“Captain Zuloaga grows impatient. We have wasted much time because of this one.”

“There's nothing I can do,” Alfonso hissed. “I'm not the one who stuck a knife in his eye. It's not my fault if infection sets in.”

“Silence,” Garza snapped. He glanced over his shoulder to see if Zuloaga had heard the cook's outburst. Fortunately, the captain was lost in his own ruminations. The Castilian returned his attention to Alfonso. “We cannot remain in these mountains much longer. Soon we must rejoin our forces protecting Santiago. If you value your neck, have this rebel bastard ready to sit a horse by tomorrow.” The lieutenant left the glare of the campfire and made his way over to Zuloaga, fishing a flask of brandy from his coat pocket as he approached his volatile commander. Alfonso watched the younger man depart, taking note of the flask. He licked his lips. Life was never as hard for the officers.

“Now, you are in for it, eh?” one of the men nearest the cook remarked.

“No more than you,” Alfonso growled. “Ybarra, fetch me another basin of water. This has grown tepid.”

“Why me? I am tired. See, my eyelids grow weary.”

“Do as I say, or perhaps the next time you eat my stew, you'll find a tasty scorpion in your bowl,” snapped Alfonso.

Ybarra, a man in his midtwenties with thick, bushy eyebrows and a week-old growth of stubble on his chin, muttered a litany of complaints as he crawled out of his blanket. Alfonso chuckled and handed him the basin, and the man set off for the creek.

On the edge of camp Garza arrived at the side of the officer commanding the brigade. “Will you have some brandy with me, Captain?”

Zuloaga nodded and accepted the silver flask from the lieutenant's hand. He took a moment to admire the flask's design, for some silversmith had painstakingly etched a pastoral scene upon its shiny surface—three swans gliding amid water lilies on a tree-shrouded pond.

“My uncle's handiwork,” Garza proudly explained. “There is no greater talent in all of Castile.”

“Sí
. You told me once before,” Zuloaga said. “A month ago.”

“Oh, yes. I beg your pardon.”

“The taste of this fine brandy is enough payment for listening to you repeat yourself.” Zuloaga raised the flask to his lips, swallowed twice, and returned it to the lieutenant. “Alas, my family's only talent was in squandering its resources. Had I been in charge of things … well. It is of no concern. What matters is the day to come. What matters is Antonio Celestial.” Zuloaga hooked a thumb in his gunbelt. Shadows and gray light caught his attention again. A bristling speck of coppery-green light dropped from the heavens, cut its fleeting arc across the firmament, and then winked out. The soldiers awake around the campfire gasped and immediately blessed themselves, tracing the sign of the cross across forehead, lips, and chest.

“Celestial is out there, injured, alone,” Zuloaga said. “That much our young friend has told us. I will have him before I turn my back on this cursed island. And if we are to die at the hands of the Americans, it will not be without satisfaction.”

Garza frowned. Talk of dying and defeat was something he expected from the likes of Alfonso the cook, who lacked breeding. “Sir. You are a gentleman, a man of noble birth. Time and again you have proved your courage in battle. Your words do you disservice.”

“I am also a realist,” Zuloaga stated. “Another ten years and you too will see things as they are.” He inhaled sharply, slowly released his breath. A great sense of exaltation coursed through him. “The hare is cornered at last.” Zuloaga clapped Lieutenant Garza on the shoulder. “And the hound will have his day.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

M
ORNING CAME EARLY FOR
T
OM
S
ANDCRANE AND THE
other soldiers. Weeks had passed since they had spent any time in the saddle, and it showed in their stiff, cramped muscles. Yet there was not a complaint to be heard, for at least they were off the beach and heading inland. The soreness was to be expected, but it wouldn't last—after all, the Southern Cheyenne had been masters of the plains in the days when a horse was merely an extension of the warrior astride its back. The Creek half-breeds broke camp without a grumble. Tully and Philo were top ranch hands and determined to prove themselves the equal of any Cheyenne.

The patrol hit the trail shortly after sunup, and by afternoon Tom had worked the tightness out of his muscles and, like the others, sat easy in the saddle, achieving a comfortable slouch that took pressure off the back and made the rider one with the movements of his mount. For her part, Joanna Cooper more than held her own. A year spent traveling the forested back trails of the Sierra Maestra had transformed the healer into an excellent horsewoman as well.

As they traveled farther inland, the hills grew steep and the horizon closed in, becoming a series of steep ridges and densely wooded slopes broken only by stretches of meadow that frequently opened onto shadowy arroyos, fragrant with wild orchids, where streamers of
jagüey
vine threatened to choke out the thickets of mahogany and sweet cedar. Many of the arroyos were large enough to conceal a Spanish patrol, and Tom did not relax until each pocket of emerald gloom was well behind them. He was keenly aware of the enemy's presence in these mountains. The night before, around the campfire, Joanna had spoken of her earlier encounter with Captain Zuloaga, how she and Mateo had separated in hopes that one would reach the Americans. She described the captain and his infamous Lion Brigade and briefly explained how Diego Zuloaga and the rebels led by Antonio Celestial had played cat and mouse for almost two years.

The Spaniards were unremitting in their quest. Even now, with the American army arrived to threaten the fortified city of Santiago, the Lion Brigade stalked the Sierra Maestra in search of Celestial. There was no way of telling how many men this Zuloaga had with him, but his brigade was bound to outnumber the American patrol. And if the Spaniards had caught Mateo and forced the youth to talk, then all of them could be riding into a deadly trap.

For the first few hours of the morning, Joanna, Tom, and the soldiers followed a wheel-rutted trail that wound through a series of valleys cutting deeper into the mountains. The trail was for the most part over level ground, and when Tom wasn't searching the canyons for enemy patrols, he was studying the map Joanna had drawn. She was hardly a gifted artist, but she assured Tom the layout of the deserted village of Rosarita was reasonably accurate. Tom noted the ravine that served as a rear entrance to the village. Here was a back door they might need to close in a hurry if trouble came their way. He congratulated himself for bringing along the dynamite.

At midmorning Joanna guided them onto an overgrown path that zigzagged up the side of a towering ridge. Tom questioned the wisdom of leaving the low road, but the woman explained her course would shorten the journey by nearly half a day and bring them into Rosarita through the same narrow gorge that had caught Tom's attention on the map. Tom acquiesced, conceding the doctor's experience in these mountains. Fortunately, the trail over the ridge followed, for the most part, a meandering creek, which flowed down through the trees, a sweet, sun-dappled ribbon of water.

Despite the proximity of a cooling drink, the steady climb took its toll on the wagon team, and by midafternoon Tom ordered the patrol to take a lengthy break before the push to the top. The other four soldiers were only too happy to obey. They dismounted and led their horses to the narrow rivulet of springwater that merrily gurgled down the wooded slope, spilling over mossy, water-smoothed stones and losing itself among the fern and bromeliads, whose pale cream flowers added an extra dash of color where sunlight streamed through breaks in the timber.

Tom checked his saddlebags for a leftover biscuit. His hand brushed against the beaded buckskin pouch containing the Medicine Pipe. He removed the pouch and held it up into the sunlight, running his hand along its soft white surface, feeling the weight of the clay bowl and the crackle of dried sage beneath his touch. He left his sorrel ground-tethered by the undulating brook and sauntered off alone through the lush twilight of the woods, where tree ferns towered thirty feet in height and birds with iridescent plumage chattered and scolded, decrying this latest intrusion of man.

Enos caught a glimpse of Tom as he vanished into the underbrush; the Cheyenne immediately began to plot his own escape. It wasn't long before Stump Horn found the opportunity to slip away from the patrol. Behind him Tully and Philo argued over the wisdom of taking the wagon any farther up the steep ridge, while Joanna strived to assure them that once at the summit, the irregular and treacherous path they were following would cut across a narrow trail running along the spine of the ridge and ultimately bring them down where a better passage awaited. Willem Tangle Hair, although intending to keep watch on Enos, had become preoccupied with dislodging a stone from the left front hoof of his mount. He'd have to work the tip of his knife beneath the iron shoe and loosen it before freeing the stone. No one by the creek noticed Stump Horn ease behind a mahogany tree and creep off into the shadows.