The Shadow Man (3 page)

With his small single-bit ax he cut aspen branches and piled a quantity of the sweet fodder before each horse. Soon the sound of contented munching was joined with the noise of the storm.

Jacob dug the fire-starting materials, flint and steel and a pouch of dry grass and pieces of punk, from his pack. At the edge of the windfall he collected small pieces of wood. He screwed a piece of the punk into a nest of the grass and struck the flint and steel over it. Sparks sprang from his blows. A hot, twinkling fragment of steel fell upon the punk.

Jacob cupped the grass and punk in his hand and blew lightly and carefully on it. A tiny coal came to red life. A curl of smoke arose. He coaxed the incipient fire to bright, glowing life and fed it shavings of dry wood. Then larger and larger pieces of fuel were added.

He cooked elk meat and ate, washing the strength-giving flesh down with a quart of hot tea.

As the night deepened, the snow stopped and the clouds thinned. From time to time he saw the stars, glittering like ice shards flung across the ebony sky.

He sat gazing at the leaping flames of the fire, watching the sparks chasing smoke into the sky. As the last yellow blaze began to flicker and weaken, Jacob cut fir boughs and laid them thick and overlapping on the snow. His tanned buffalo-hide sleeping robe was placed upon the soft mattress.

The horses began to stir and stomp. One snorted, frightened, and jerked at its tether.

Jacob turned. Three pairs of eyes glowed red just beyond the horses at the far edge of the circle of firelight. Wolves had crept in close to investigate the intruder in their domain.

Jacob grabbed a flaming brand and flung it in a looping, fiery arc at the beasts. The eyes vanished. There was a swift scratching of clawed feet on the snow crust, and then the wolves were gone. There was plenty of food for the predators this winter. They would not be back to bother the horses.

The fire dwindled down to a small bed of living red embers. The darkness pushed in from all sides. Jacob got up and walked past the horses to stand in the gray, snowy night.

Through holes in the clouds he caught sight of the moon, round and frozen and wintry wan. Its light glowed gray-blue on the long snowdrifts. He heard the fast wind high on the mountainside whistling to the North Star. In the trees, all around, the night lay cold as iron.

He reflected upon where he was in life. He had spent most of it in the mountains. At first they had been a joyful new world to play in. Now the mountains contained only emptiness, an aloneness all around him. And in the future? He could not see, so it, too, was empty. But then, maybe not completely empty. He would go and see.

Jacob returned to his bed. He wrapped himself and his rifle in the thick fur of the buffalo robe. It encased his body snugly, soft as heavy velvet. He covered his head and lay on his back, thinking about the violence of the day and the terrible loss of his partner.

He shoved away his sorrow and for a long time pondered what the next few days would bring. Then he pushed even those thoughts aside. He listened to the arctic wind moaning an endless dirge as it wandered the dark world. Felt its cold fingers clawing at his protective covering, searching for an opening so it could come inside with him.

Jacob pulled the robe in closer around his shoulders. He went to sleep in the black, arctic night.

* * *

In the uncertain light of early dawn Jacob threw aside his frost-cloaked robe, pulled on his moccasins, and stood up. The air had a static crackle of cold. The clouds were heavy and hung close to the earth. They had spilled snow again during the night, and all around lay huge white drifts, carved and hardened by the wind of the blizzard.

Without making a fire, Jacob loaded his mustangs, mounted, and left the camp. The clouds threatened more snow. He had to reach lower country quickly, or he might be trapped in the mountains for many days by impassable snowdrifts.

The horses labored mightily, lunging through the high snow ridges blocking the route. Large plumes of mist exploded from their nostrils. Sweat began to dampen and darken the long winter coats of the brutes.

At noon Jacob came out of dense timber and struck the main stream of the Purgatorie River near its headwaters. He had dropped two thousand feet in elevation. The snow that had been crotch-deep along Saruche Creek, now reached only to his knees.

Jacob turned to make his way with the watercourse, buried under snow and ice and winding down a valley studded with giant pines. He pushed hard, often jumping down from the saddle to help the tiring animals break trail.

Half a score of miles later, Purgatorie River swerved directly east. Jacob had traveled that path, a rapid descent through a narrow, rock-walled gorge down to the great plains lying five thousand feet below. He turned aside and continued due north, passing over a low saddle and finding North Fork of the Purgatorie River. By dusk he had climbed up and over a second rock-choked divide and found the tiny creek that was the beginning of the Cucharas River.

A silent camp was made in the edge of the night. It began to snow.

* * *

When the cold morning arrived, three inches of new snow lay on the ground, and icy mist filled the valley of the Cucharas River. Vision was shortened to a range no greater than a long rifle shot. Yet Jacob knew when he passed beneath Spanish Peak, towering fourteen thousand feet unseen on his right hand.

When the Cucharas River veered to the northeast, Jacob angled away from it and went northwest. He began to climb the steep, heavily wooded slope. By noon he had reached Veta Pass, crossed over, and was tramping south beside Sangre de Cristo Creek. He did not stop to rest at all.

Jacob hurried down from the mountains with snow frozen to his back and the wind clouting him. He made camp on the south end of a low range of frozen hills fifteen miles east of the deep lava gorge of the Rio Grande.

* * *

All day Jacob held course toward Santa Fe, traveling south between the canyon of the Rio Grande and Taos Mountain. Clouds hid all of Taos Mountain above a couple of hundred feet. Snowflakes, large and soggy, sifted down through the pinon pines to pile upon the packs and the backs of the ponies.

He crossed the Rio Pueblo de Taos on thick ice and halted his string of horses at the edge of the ancient Indian settlement of Taos. The weary ponies hunched their backs, let their heads droop dejectedly, and stood stock-still in the wind and snow.

Jacob surveyed the adobe homes of the Pueblo. The buildings rose one, two, and in a few sections three stories high around a large, open plaza. Pole ladders led up from one level to the next. Gray wood smoke climbed from chimneys, vanishing almost immediately in the hanging overcast.

An old Indian woman with a blanket wrapped around her and a fold of it thrown hood-like up over her head came out of one of the dwellings. She shuffled across the snow in an aged, stiff-legged waddle and drew near half a score of dome-shaped ovens. She stopped at the one round structure that had its snow cover melted away.

Jacob stepped down from his mustang and walked quietly toward the woman. Intent on her task, the woman didn't see or hear his approach. She lifted aside a thin slab of rock to open the door of the oven. Then, with a slat of wood, she reached into the hot interior and brought out a big loaf of brown corn bread. It immediately began to send short streams of steam into the cold air.

Jacob caught the aroma of the fresh bread wafting toward him on the wind. He breathed it in slowly, savoring the tantalizing odor. He had not tasted bread for months, and his craving turned his mouth moist.

“Mother, I will give you a Mexican peso for half of that loaf,” Jacob called.

The woman flinched back at the sound of his voice. She whirled to face him.

Her old eyes ran over the white man, searching quickly for any danger that might lurk in him. He calmly gazed back, seeming not to notice the long-barreled rifle that hung in the crook of his arm. His light-colored eyes were frank and open, and a pleasant half-smile of anticipation lay on his lips. One of his hands went into a small pouch fastened over his shoulder. He brought out a silver coin.

The old woman bobbed her head at the white man who spoke her language so well. With a peso she could buy enough cornmeal or flour in Santa Fe to cook several loaves of bread. “That is a fair price,” she said.

She held out the loaf of bread on the wooden paddle. “Do you have a knife to cut it with?”

“Certainly, Mother.” Jacob slid his long skinning knife from its scabbard.

Steadying the end of the wood slat with his hand, he divided the loaf with one sweep of his sharp blade. He returned the knife to its scabbard, then reached and took one of the pieces of bread.

The old woman noticed that the division had been quite even, and that the white man had chosen the section that may have been slightly smaller.

“You are an honest man,” she said.

Jacob grinned at her and took a large bite of the warm bread. The crust broke between his teeth, and the soft bread within lay deliciously on his tongue. His grin broadened. He shut his eyes and started to chew, very slowly, leisurely. This was no time to hurry.

The old Indian woman remained, peering through the falling snow and watching the satisfied expression on the man's face as he devoured the half loaf. He finished and looked directly at her.

“Mother, that was most enjoyable. The men in your family must be well fed. They could grow fat just on your bread.”

“They do not complain,” she replied. A pleased smile creased her wrinkled features.

“That I believe,” said Jacob. “I must be going. Goodbye, Mother.”

He climbed astride his pony, guiding his animals into the snow and south toward Santa Fe.

The day turned to dusk. On the gray snowscape, objects were blurred and distances distorted. The nipping wind had sharp teeth, and Jacob cinched his coat in more tightly.

He should have found shelter and a warm bed at Taos Pueblo. However, that opportunity was now past, and he would not turn back. He kicked his horse lightly in the ribs with his heels. The willing animal lengthened its stride, towing the three packhorses across a flat stretch of land studded with scattered clumps of juniper.

Ahead at the border of a dark wood, there was a tiny flicker of light. Jacob recognized the short burst of sparks rising from a chimney as someone poked the fire or tossed on a log. He headed straight toward the spot.

The squat outline of a small adobe cabin with a flat roof took form. Shutters were drawn closed over the windows. A heavy plank door barred the entrance. Jacob smelled smoke and felt warmer just thinking of the fire.

A cramped rail corral lay off to the right of the house. From within the enclosure a bony horse watched Jacob. He saw no hay or other feed for the gaunt animal.

Jacob rode up to the front step of the house. He hung his rifle on the saddle horn and climbed down. At his knock he sensed the people inside becoming instantly quiet and alert.

“My name is Tamarron,” Jacob called in Spanish. “I want to talk to the man of the house.”

There was no response, only a waiting silence from within. Jacob understood the wariness of the occupants, for strangers at night could mean attack and death.

“I mean you no harm,” Jacob spoke through the door. “I wish only to buy some food and a place to sleep tonight. I will pay two pesos and leave early in the morning.”

Slowly the door opened, showing yellow light from the fireplace. The bearded face of a Mexican peered past the doorjamb. He held an old blunderbuss, and he swung it to point straight at the man on the stoop.

Jacob slowly reached out, caught the end of the barrel, and deliberately started to push the heavy weapon aside. The blunderbuss had no range, but up close like this, it could blast a cave in the chest of a man.

The man's arm stiffened against the thrust of Jacob's hand.

“I'm a friend,” Jacob said.

“Then you shall be treated as a friend,” replied the man. He moved the gun to the side. “Come inside.”

“My horses?” asked Jacob.

“Let us talk. Then we shall decide about your
caballos.”
The Mexican motioned for Jacob to enter.

He is a brave man, thought Jacob as he stepped through the doorway. He jerked off his fur hat and shook the snow from it, his eyes examining the short, squarely built Mexican.

“My name is Jacob Tamarron, and I'm on my way to Santa Fe.”

“I am Joaquin Otego,” said the man.

Jacob nodded and glanced around the one large room that made up the man's home. A dark-skinned woman, almost pretty, held a boy of four or five years pressed close to her. From her round face and small hands and feet, Jacob judged her to be a Pueblo Indian.

All the sharp, black eyes of the family watched Jacob as he untied his fur coat. He pointed at the leaping flames in the fireplace. “May I warm myself?”

“Yes,” replied Otego, still evaluating Jacob with narrowed, cautious eyes. He cast a questioning look at the woman.

Jacob pivoted to put his rear to the fire. As he turned, he saw some communication pass between the Mexican and his wife.

“You said two pesos?” asked the man.

“Exactly so.”

“You may stay the night. Our food is very simple. And I have no feed for your horses.”

“Then they will have to do without one more day,” Jacob said, glad that the man had made a quick decision to allow him to stay. A night under a roof with friendly people would be a pleasant change. “I'll turn them into your corral.”

“I will help you. Mariana, prepare Señor Tamarron some food.”

The horses were led into the corral and unloaded. In the growing darkness the animals stood slackly in the snow, eyes sad and ribs showing through the long winter hair covering their bodies.

“There are bandits roaming the valley,” said Otego. “You must bring your furs inside the house to keep them safe.”

“I appreciate your advice,” said Jacob. He hoisted a heavy pack and, taking his rifle, carried it to the house.