Río Chama, page 20
We were stunned after the execution. The wind began to blow. A sign of God, many said, and slowly the men, women—and children! Lord have mercy—left the gallows. The soldiers marched away, Father Virgilio continued to pray, Father Amado continued to cry, and Sheriff Murphey, the drunk, stumbled down the steps. He saw Clint and me, knelt, unlocked the hand and feet manacles, and disappeared with the throngs.
I really don’t remember what happened next. It’s like piecing together a dream so many years later. I wanted to help take down Jeremiah Cole’s body, but Father Virgilio and Father Amado, who had recovered enough to assist with the grim task, begged me to leave. When I turned, I saw Roman Cole standing there, just staring, unblinking. So I walked away, looking for Clint, but he was gone.
Gasping, I hurried out of the enclosure, fought my way through the crowd. I couldn’t see him. I don’t know what made me think of it, but I got onto a wagon that had carried the curious from the railroad to T.A., and rode it back to Chama. As I write this letter, I can smell the cinders, feel my eyes burning from the thick, black smoke, and I jumped off the wagon, and ran. Lifting my ragged skirts, I ran. The train had started to pull away, and I almost tripped on the tracks, saved by a kindly drummer who pulled me onto the smoking car.
I blessed him, then walked through the cars, swaying with the rhythm of the rails. Just when I was about to give up hope, feared I had made a foolish mistake, I saw him, sitting alone, next to the window, staring at the morning light, empty. Exhausted, I dropped into the seat beside him. He looked at me, then back out the window.
“Where are you going?” I asked him.
He didn’t answer for the longest time. I grabbed his right hand, locked my fingers in his, and squeezed.
“I don’t know,” he answered at last.
I squeezed harder. He kept looking out that window.
“That,” I said, “sounds just right to me.”
I kept squeezing his hand, and did not stop, until, finally, I felt him squeeze back.
THE END
Author’s Note
Although many places in this novel (Elephant Rock, Holy Cross Catholic Church, Echo Amphitheater, and, of course, the Chama River) may be real, or based on actual sites, Río Chama is a work of fiction. Britton Wade, Clint Paden, Fenella Magauran, Jeremiah Cole, and the rest are all figments of my imagination. The only two legal hangings in Río Arriba County history occurred in 1896 when Perfecto Padilla and Robert Torres were executed for separate murders.
Helpful literary sources included The Tierra Amarilla Grant: A History of Chicanery by Malcom Ebright (Center for Land Grant Studies, 1980); Death on the Gallows: The Story of Legal Hangings in New Mexico, 1847-1923 by West Gilbreath (High Lonesome Books, 2002); and La Tierra Amarilla: Its History, Architecture, and Cultural Landscape by Chris Wilson and David Kammer (Museum of New Mexico Press, 1989).
Thanks also to the staffs at the Billy the Kid Museum in Fort Sumner, New Mexico; Chama Valley Chamber of Commerce; Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad; El Rancho de las Golondrinas; Jicarilla Apache Reservation; Santa Fe Public Library; Vista Grande Public Library; and Santa Fe State Records Center & Archives; to Dennis and Lisa Hall of Fayetteville, North Carolina, for some tricky Spanish questions; and to my wife and son, for traveling with me into the Chama River wilderness for some on-site research for this novel.
Special thanks to Colleen and Ray Milligan of Milligan Brand Outfitters in Chama, and the Glisson family—Bill, Rhonda, Cody and Dillon—at The Timbers of Chama for all their hospitality, help, support, and encouragement.
Johnny D. Boggs
Santa Fe, New Mexico
About the Author
Johnny D. Boggs has worked cattle, shot rapids in a canoe, hiked across mountains and deserts, traipsed around ghost towns, and spent hours poring over microfilm in library archives—all in the name of finding a good story. He’s also one of the few Western writers to have won three Spur Awards from Western Writers of America (for his novels, Camp Ford, in 2006 and Doubtful Cañon, in 2008, and his short story, “A Piano at Dead Man’s Crossing,” in 2002) and the Western Heritage Wrangler Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum (for his novel, Spark on the Prairie: The Trial of the Kiowa Chiefs, in 2004). A native of South Carolina, Boggs spent almost fifteen years in Texas as a journalist at the Dallas Times Herald and Fort Worth Star-Telegram before moving to New Mexico in 1998 to concentrate full time on his novels. Author of more than thirty published short stories, he has also written for more than fifty newspapers and magazines and is a frequent contributor to Boys’ Life, New Mexico Magazine, Persimmon Hill, and True West. His Western novels cover a wide range. The Lonesome Chisholm Trail is an authentic cattle-drive story, while Lonely Trumpet is an historical novel about the first black graduate of West Point. The Despoilers and Ghost Legion are set in the Carolina backcountry during the Revolutionary War. The Big Fifty chronicles the slaughter of buffalo on the southern plains in the 1870s, while East of the Border is a comedy about the theatrical offerings of Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok, and Texas Jack Omohundro, and Camp Ford tells about a Civil War baseball game between Union prisoners of war and Confederate guards. “Boggs’s narrative voice captures the old-fashioned style of the past,” Publishers Weekly said, and Booklist called him “among the best Western writers at work today.” Boggs lives with his wife, Lisa, and son, Jack, in Santa Fe. His website is www.johnnydboggs.com.
Johnny D. Boggs, Río Chama
