Río Chama, page 6
Smiling, the priest then began talking about something strange.
“Have you heard of the curse?” he asked me.
I shook my head in the negative.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I read too much history.”
He continued his story, or should I say a history lesson, on the Tierra Amarilla Land Grant, which was in the newspapers fifteen or so years ago when Senator Roman Cole purchased those 600,000 acres for $200,000. According to Father Marcelino, the Tierra Amarilla Land Grant was set aside by the Mexican government in 1832. The grant was to be a community grant, the father said, but after the United States gained control of New Mexico Territory and during the turmoil over several fraudulent land grants, documents were poorly translated, resulting in Congress confirming and declaring that Tierra Amarilla was a private, not community, grant, which allowed Senator Cole to purchase the land, which many believe to be worth millions of dollars, stripping many citizens of the Río Chama valley of land they then believed, and believe still, to be rightfully theirs.
It was at this time, Father Marcelino told me, that a bruja in the village of La Puente cast a curse on Roman Cole. The senator, or land-stealer as he was known among whom the priest called the heirs of the Tierra Amarilla Land Grant, would see all of his family die by the rope, and then would die by the rope himself.
“That is why Senator Cole does not want to see his young son hang,” the priest said, “for then he knows that he will hang himself.”
I did not know what to say to such a story, but I have heard that the senator’s oldest son was discovered hanging in the ranch barn, and that the senator’s wife also took her own life in such a manner. Are the stories true? ¿Quién sabe? [Who knows?]
Upon my return to Santa Fe, I did not attempt to substantiate the story the priest told me, for it seemed to hold no legal bearing on the events I am recalling.
When the story was finished, I told Father Marcelino that the fate of Roman Cole, whether preordained by God or some Río Arriba County witch, did not concern me at the moment, but Britton Wade and Jeremiah Cole did. I told him the law of the territory and the law of the United States could force him to hand over those fugitives.
“I answer to a higher law,” the priest said.
We talked for another half hour, and the priest, yawning, asked me to return in the morning for another discussion, that he must prepare his supper, read his Bible, and go to sleep.
The following morning, with snow falling lightly and the skies starting to reveal patches of blue, I was concerned tremendously at the arrival of Dan Augustine and a party of ten to twelve men. Augustine was known throughout the territories of New Mexico and Arizona and the states of Colorado and Texas as a ruthless shootist, but he produced to me a commission as a duly appointed deputy sheriff for Río Arriba County, and a letter of introduction from Señor Lucas Murphey, sheriff of said county. Augustine said his orders were to bring Jeremiah Cole to Tierra Amarilla for his scheduled execution, 13 May 1898.
Anger rose among the gathering population of Santa Cruz, some of whom shouted curses while at least one boy in his teens threw icy rocks at the mounted gunmen. Through the grace of God I managed to calm down both sides, and informed Augustine that I had been talking to the priest inside the church, and thought I might persuade him to hand over the fugitives to me.
“You’ve shown your colors,” Dan Augustine told me. “I’ll be the one who takes Jeremiah Cole out of that church.”
Voices became more heated, but one of the newcomers, a man called Archie Preston, whose name I recognized as an employee of Senator Roman Cole, told Augustine to give the sheriff, meaning me, a chance. Finally, it was agreed by all parties that four of us, an Española man named Ernesto Luján and me representing the Mexican population, and Dan Augustine and another deputized rider named Zechariah Stone representing the Río Arriba County sheriff’s posse, would enter the church and continue our parley with Father Marcelino.
Again, I located him praying at the alter, and, removing our hats—all except Augustine—and sitting on the pew at the back of the church, waited for him to approach us. He greeted me warmly, and shook hands with each of the other men—excepting, again, Augustine, who ignored the priest’s proffered hand—as I made the introductions, but the pleasantness of the conversation soon ended.
“Hear me out, padre,” Dan Augustine said. “I got more than a dozen men outside, and we’ve come to fetch Jeremiah Cole. You give him up . . . I don’t give a tinker’s damn about Brit Wade . . . but you give me Jeremiah, or these walls will come tumbling down like Jericho. We’ll kill everyone standing outside that tries to stop us, and you’ll be saying mercy instead of Mass.”
Ernesto Luján shot to his feet, shaking a finger and scolding Augustine for his insolence and sacrilege, but Father Marcelino, his face pleasant, told the good man to sit down, that everything was all right, that we are all God’s children.
“You’ll give up one of your children,” Augustine said.
“I cannot surrender him,” Father Marcelino said. “For he is not here.”
Dan Augustine shoved the priest aside, and began searching the church. I followed him, soon joined by Señor Luján and Señor Stone. The four of us began a thorough investigation of all buildings in the church compound, finding only some bloodstained rags that led us to believe one of the party, possibly Britton Wade, had been wounded during or before the siege. Dan Augustine, in my presence, threatened to hurt the priest, but Señor Stone told him to “leave it go. We’ve been hornswoggled is all.” Stone, a silver-haired, thick-bearded man in buckskins, laughed, and walked to the empty livery stable in the western corner of the premises. I followed, while Dan Augustine and Señor Luján raced back onto the plaza to report the departure of all the men who had been hiding at the Holy Cross Church. This also caused great excitement among all those gathered, white and Mexican. A search was organized, to no avail.
After Stone, Augustine, and Preston led their posse west, hunting the fugitives, and I disbanded the remaining men from Española and Santa Cruz, I returned to the church grounds and joined Father Marcelino inside the rectory.
“Do not ask me where those five horses came from,” he immediately told me.
“Who said anything about horses?” was my response.
“I have heard of this man Zechariah Stone. He has been called the Kit Carson of our time, a noted tracker.” The priest sighed. “I could not turn over anyone who asked for sanctuary,” he said after a long while, “but nor could I watch men who come to me for confession die for someone like Jeremiah Cole.”
“Was Britton Wade shot?” I asked.
He hesitated, but eventually confirmed my suspicions, pointing at his left shoulder.
“Badly?” I asked.
“The bullet is out. It is unlikely to cause his death. But his lungs . . .” He bowed his head.
“Britton Wade took Cole out of my jail,” I told him. “There are warrants for his arrest. Who were the other four men?”
He looked up. “There were only three. I did not learn their names. Friends of Wade, they said. But I doubt much of that, although Wade knew one of them.”
“The fourth man brought the horses then?”
His face looked bewildered. “What is all this talk of a fourth man? I gathered the horses myself. Five horses, from a dear friend whose name I will never reveal. Five men. Wade, Cole, and the three others whose names I do not know.”
“Father,” I said, “it was you who told me that Señor Stone has been compared to Kit Carson. He is the great tracker, the famous scout. We found signs of six horses in the snow and in the stable. Not five! Six! Now who was with them?”
Shock replaced bewilderment. The priest crossed himself, whispered something I could not understand. At last he told me: “I do not know!” And he rushed outside, through the snow, to look at the tracks himself, although, by that time, most of the signs had been obliterated.
These are the events that I have recalled to the best of my memory. As to what happened later in the month involving the parties I have mentioned, I cannot testify, for I returned to my job as sheriff in Santa Fe and only heard secondhand or read of the great manhunt and subsequent events.
I will state for the record that I believe Marcelino Eusebio de Quesada y Azcárranga to have been a young man driven by what he believed to be in the best interest of his parishioners, his community, and his church. He was a devout Catholic, an exceptional priest, and I enjoyed very much the chance to meet him, and talk to him. I was saddened to learn that he had accidentally drowned in the flooding waters of the Río Santa Cruz in June of this year.
Signed,
Juan Gregorio Callas,
Sheriff, Santa Fe County
Witness the Hon. Robert Ellison, Chief Justice and presiding judge of the 1st Judicial District Court of the Territory of New Mexico and seal of said court at Santa Fe this Nineteenth day of October A.D. 1898,
Danl [Daniel] Grant, clerk
Chapter Eight
Snow, wet and heavy, blown by a driving wind, stung their faces as soon as Clint Paden opened the heavy door. Turning back toward Jeremiah Cole, the gunman drew his British Bulldog, and placed the barrel under Cole’s chin. “Best remember this, boy . . . those Mexicans want you deader than I do. So don’t cry out.” It was a needless warning.
Paden holstered the revolver, then looked over Cole’s shoulder at Wade. “Which way you say is the stable?”
“Northwestern corner.”
“All right.” His breath became frosty as he looked outside. “Can’t hardly see a damned thing out there.”
Paden took the point, leaning into the wind, head bowed, left hand pulling his jacket close against his throat, slugging through snow that reached halfway up his boots. Behind him came Jeremiah Cole, prodded along with the pump rifle held by Stew, a pockmarked man needing a shave, somewhere in his twenties, with dark, greasy hair touching his collar. Paden’s other saddle partner, Randy, followed, a suspicious, light-haired gent, maybe a tad shorter and a few pounds lighter than Stew, clutching a double-barrel W.W. Greener near his chest, nervously glancing over his shoulder, as if he thought Britton Wade might shoot him in the back.
Stew had been the one, however, voicing his suspicions about the priest’s motives, suggesting that an ambuscade awaited them in the stable.
You’ve hit bottom, Clint Paden, Wade thought, and sank into the mud, if you’re riding with these two.
That impression surprised him, as if he held Clint Paden in some regard. Quickly closing the church’s back door, he was thinking about nothing but following the four men, keeping them close, and keeping his hand on his own .44.
* * * * *
Inside the rock-walled stable, they stamped snow off their boots, shook their hats, and found, just as Father Marcelino had promised, five saddled horses, contentedly eating freshly forked hay. Another horse snorted in the far stall. A lantern hung on the wall, casting yellow light inside the stable, and Paden turned down the wick, so that there was just enough light to see. While the other men looked around, softly cursing the cold, Wade quickly picked the buckskin, the best mount of the lot, and secured his Gladstone behind the cantle.
Next to him, Clint Paden shoved the big Marlin into a scabbard, and tightened the cinch on a rangy sorrel. “Snowing mighty hard,” he said casually.
“But it won’t last.” Wade checked his own cinch before shortening his stirrup.
“In case we get separated,” Paden said, “what’s your plan? How you thinking about getting all the way to the Chama valley without getting killed?”
Wade hesitated, but a quick glance at Jeremiah Cole made him realize Clint Paden had been right. He couldn’t get the kid all the way to Chama, not working alone. A forlorn hope, just like Father Amado had told him. But how far could he trust a man like Clint Paden? Wade let out a mirthless laugh, knowing he had been forced to deal in the devil.
“Roman Cole’s men will be watching the road.” Gently stroking the buckskin, Wade eased around the horse to work on the other stirrup. “So will Dan Augustine. They’ll also have to keep a sharp eye on the stagecoaches and the railroad. Thinking we could take the train to Colorado, come down from Antonito to Chama.” He sniffed, wiped his nose. No, being seen in Española probably ruled out any train trips.
Paden blew on his hands, his eyes brightening at the thought of trains. He had an easy smile. “I like trains. Riding in those big cars, how those coaches sway, hearing the music of ’em iron wheels on ’em rails. Drinking a whiskey and warming myself by a stove. So why ain’t we catching a train?”
“I didn’t want to get caught inside a car. Not by Dan Augustine.”
“I’ll grant you that.” Paden looked back, and barked at his men: “Stew, you was the one so jo-fired we was gonna get ambushed here. I figured you’d want to light a shuck. So quit lollygagging, and get on one of these horses. You, too, Randy. Put our friend Mister Cole on that sway-backed chestnut.”
The man named Stew kept looking out the stable door into the snow and darkness, then down the stable toward the dark stalls. “Thought I heard somethin’,” he said.
Ignoring Stew, Paden looked back at Wade. “So no train. No stagecoach. And there’s only one road to Chama. Lessen you want to ride to Taos, and cut through the mountains up Tres Piedres way.”
Wade shook his head. “Roman Cole will be watching that road, too.”
“So . . . ?”
Wade swung into the saddle. “Ride through the gate,” he said. “Down into the Santa Cruz. They won’t be able to track us in the river. We’ll follow that all the way down to Española, then hit the Río Chama. And follow the Chama all the way north.”
“Are you crazy?” Paden mounted the sorrel.
“Maybe.”
“Ride up the Chama River?”
“We won’t be in the river the whole way. But we’ll sure follow the river. It’s kind of a natural road . . .”
“If you’re a trout,” Paden interrupted.
“They won’t be watching the river.” Wade glanced over his shoulder. Randy kept the shotgun trained on Jeremiah Cole as the prisoner, his hands bound in front of him with rawhide, mounted the chestnut. Stew kept looking around, licking his lips, fingers nervously tapping his rifle.
“They won’t be watching the Chama,” Paden said, “because it can’t be done. You ever seen Chama Cañon?”
“No.” Wade tugged on the reins. “Have you?”
“Not exactly, but I heard about it. On one side of it is this place called Mesa del Las Viejas. And up on the other side are some mountains, one of which is known as Dead Man’s Peak. It got that name for a reason, Brit.” He shook his head, and spit. “That’s a hell of a plan you got, pard.”
“You’re free to pull out,” Wade fired back, smiling, but finding his pistol butt. Just in case.
With a grunt, Paden pulled his hat down low, and muttered something. Wade couldn’t catch most of what the gunman said, but he did hear: “Reckon we’ll give your plan a try, for now.” Then Paden looked back at Stew, who still had not mounted his horse, and now had walked to the edge of the stable, looking in the stall.
“Stew, by grab, I . . .”
The long-haired man aimed the Lightning rifle at the loft, and spoke easily: “I tell you I heard somethin’.”
Only now, Wade heard it, too.
“This dun horse,” Stew was saying, “rode in recent-like. Saddle’s still on, wet, startin’ to slip, and snow’s melted in the stall. Come on down here, you back-shootin’ bastard!” He was yelling at the loft, pumping a shell into the little .22 rimfire rifle.
Wade pulled himself up, standing on the saddle, reaching up, then climbing into the loft, hoping Stew wasn’t so stupid as to shoot. The wind would drown out most of their conversation, but maybe not a gunshot, certainly not a gunfight.
Crouching, head bent to keep from hitting the ceiling, he peered over the straw. This close to the roof, he could hear and feel the wind, the cold night air. He reached into his Mackinaw, found the matches, and struck a lucifer on the rough-hewn cottonwood viga above him.
A knife slashed for his stomach.
Wade dropped the match, the flickering flame vanishing almost instantly, sucked in as much air as he worn-out lungs could hold, trying to avoid the knife, felt the blade tear at his coat, and suddenly he was falling onto the loft floor, watching the shadowy figure in a flat-brimmed black hat lunge at him. He rolled, trying to find his revolver, hearing the horses stomping below, found the shadow again, now drawing the Merwin & Hulbert from the holster.
A panther-like scream shattered the night. Then came Clint Paden’s surprised shout. Still clutching the knife, the shadow leaped from the loft.
Hoofs stomped, Jeremiah Cole shrieked, Stew’s rifle popped, and the horse in the far stall kicked the wall angrily. “Now there’ll be hell,” Wade said through clenched teeth. He was back on his feet, running, leaping from the left, landing away from the horses, toppling over, rolling, coming up with the .44, seeing the chestnut rearing, snorting. Randy and Paden fought to keep the horses under control. Stew pumped another round into the Lightning, tried to aim.
At what?
Wade scrambled to his feet, thumbing back the hammer, looking. Where was Cole? There. On the ground, rolling, desperate to avoid those crashing hoofs, blood gushing from his nose. The shadow in black, knife raised, cursed. The knife struck at Cole’s back.
“Don’t!” Wade aimed the pistol.
Stew’s back came into his sights. Wade cursed, moved to his left, heard Paden shout something, then saw the long-haired gunman swing the rifle hard, the octagonal blue barrel thudding wickedly against the shadow’s head. The hat flew off. Long red hair spilled out, and the shadow collapsed, knife spinning through the air, bouncing off the stone wall.
Blinking, Wade gasped for breath. It had all happened in a matter of seconds, no more than half a minute.
