Roy Bean's Gold (2 page)

I gave her a big hug and the keys to the place, joshing her about her tears as I jumped into the Dearborn beside Sam.

Texutla wiped at her eyes. “
Lágrimas de corazón son como una bendición del cielo.
” Which means: Tears of the heart are like a benediction of heaven. Then she smiled through those tears. Dear old soul, we'd not see her again.

Whips cracked, wheels creaked their rusty protest, and we trundled out into the sage and sand barrens heading for anywhere but Chihuahua, women white-faced, men clamped-jawed, and kids sniffling—all grieving for their own lost Edens.

We traveled on, most of the men on horseback, trailing their families in the heavy wagons, to the tune of forty-odd. But as we followed the sandy track northward, we kept craning our necks to gaze back at the receding white cubes and oblongs of old Chihuahua; then at last the town sank away behind the rolling brown sand hills. But it was still marked by drifting black plumes, smearing up into the bright blue sky dome, where some house or business place vanished in flames.

Gone out of sight were Conchita, Emilita, and Margarita, and all the rest of those red-lipped, dark-eyed, soft-curved ­
señoritas
—as well as a year of hard work.

We figured to be followed, but it seemed the ranting citizens of Chihuahua had felt they'd come out ahead at that. Not only had they gotten rid of the
gringos
but they'd laid their lazy, brown paws on that bustling Yankee tribe's property as well.

At first I'd figured to be treated like a first-class pariah by all our spontaneous exiles, but hardly a one, outside of old Fancher and Sam, gave me the slightest dirty look. Most seemed sort of proud of me. Those Mexicans back there might have booted us out, but I'd upheld the U.S.A. It was as if I'd won the war all over again before our retreat.

So we stretched out our wagon train to dig into the hundred hot and sandy miles separating us from the town of Jesús María in northern Sonora, our nearest place of refuge.

A
fter four days our entire wagon train creaked up the sandy yellow slopes of the Padre Baca and rumbled into another Eden in the midst of the empty wastelands. Here orchards bloomed around the nearby mines and inside the old town's walls were masses of apples, figs, grapes, pomegranates, and oranges. A goodly sized stream flowing from the upper hills had been diverted through the fields to bring forth these riches. And while we waited for our scouts to return, we filled our canteens and water barrels and tended to our stock.

But we didn't have long to wait, for within half an hour here came the scouts and tagging along as fast as they could lash their carts and wagons, every blamed
Americano
family in the place.

Word had somehow reached town of our forced exit from Chihuahua and all of Jesús María was bound to follow suit and drive off every
gringo
in sight. Before we'd finished hitching up again, at least ten families had joined us.

Again it was the same old story. Smoke from Yankee buildings billowed up into the sky like the pillar of fire the Israelites had beheld—and like those old desert wanderers we took the hint and moved on, in our case toward the border and El Paso del Norte.

It was a good thing we'd filled our canteens and casks at Jesús María for it was a long hot trek to the great bends of the Río Grande. But we gritted our teeth and stretched out, arriving at the river across from El Paso the third evening. There we went into camp in the blue dusk while the yellow lights of the adobe town began to gleam through the velvety evening.

Once ferried across the big river next morning on a pair of rickety flatboats that landed wagons and carts, one by one, at the foot of El Paso Street, there was a general meeting in the cottonwood-shaded plaza.

Most of our group, including old man Fancher and Sam, were for heading on up to Santa Fe in the New Mexico Territory, while others were determined on going back to safer ground such as Illinois, Missouri, and a few other states.

It was while we milled around, debating and visiting with the El Paso folks, that word began to circulate of some sort of gold strike out in California.

“Surely sounds like the right place to head for,” I told Sam. “Besides, our brother Josh has been out there ever since he got out of the Army back in 'Forty-Six. He's
alcalde
. what they call mayors. at some spot in the road. San Diego, ain't it?”

“Yeah, and he's the only Bean with enough gumption to go tradin' where th' Mexicans ain't so full of chili powder.” Sam had always held to a theory that Mexicans came by their hot dispositions in direct proportion to the amount of chiles they took on board each year.

“Aimin' to go to California?” One of the
Americanos
of El Paso, who'd wandered up with the crowds, tackled me. “Think I'd like to git back out there. I used to sorta be in business around San Francisco. And if you cotton to company, I'll saddle and come with you.”

Bossy old Fancher, who'd tried to coax me along with the bunch for Santa Fe, cocked an ear at us. “I been all over this end of the country, huntin' and trappin' twenty years back, and I tell you right now, she's a long way from civilized.” He yanked at his beard. “Like as not you'll run headlong into Apaches or worse. Comanche wild men.”

The big, black-bearded fellow, who'd introduced himself as Jeff Kirker, just grinned. “We'll tote along a little Blue Ruin. Best kind of insurance. Give 'em a couple of jolts of whiskey and you can even slick 'em outta their squaws. We done it lots of times when I was ridin' with old man Carleton's California Column.”

“Them Californy Digger Injuns ain't one little patch on Comanches,” Fancher growled, and, consigning us both to the devil, he shook hands and turned away to boss some easier folks.

By settling accounts with Sam, I'd got enough money to pick up a nice little bay mare with four white feet at a nearby stable on Overland Street. Then Kirker and I pooled our cash and invested in a walleyed pack mule from the same place and enough supplies from Coon's Store to take us a good long piece.

Sam, who'd definitely made up his mind to go north with Fancher and the rest of the wagon train, shook hands with Jeff and me when we mounted up next morning.

“You tell brother Josh to keep you in nights,” Sam said, grinning. “If he don't, you just might be th' cause of losin' Californy back to th' Mexicans.”

When we rode down San Antonio, followed by the good byes of all the folk we were leaving, the early sun was just spilling its beams over the eastern foothills and turning the Río Grande into one long winding path of pure gold.

* * * * *

We spent the next two days on a rough but passable trail that led along the Río Grande's east bank toward the mission town of Albuquerque. The afternoon of the second day of our jaunt we were soaked to the very hide in one of the worst storms I'd seen in all my time in the western country, but we kept on and arrived at Albuquerque in the late afternoon of Thursday, June 20, 1849.

There were plenty of U.S. troops around as Albuquerque was still an Army base, but for some reason Jeff seemed to steer clear of any bluecoats. “Brings back hard memories,” was all he said as we sat over some downright warm beer at one of the local
cantinas
.

After supper of pretty passable
frijoles
and java at a seedy hash house on Almogordo, we squatted on a bench in the plaza and watched the sunset smoldering like the tail end of a bonfire across the gloomy mountain the Americans were calling Mount Taylor, after old General Zack, but the locals still tagged Cebolleta.

“If we're gonna be pards,” said Kirker, clearing his throat all at once, “we've got to be straight with each other.” He rolled a cornhusk
cigarro
and peered at me, hard, in the red-gold light.

I rolled my own smoke, waiting for whatever he had in mind, while keeping an eye peeled for any spiffy-looking Albuquerque ladies that might be out taking the airs around the fence-lined plaza square.

“As I said, we oughter be straight with each other if we're gonna be pards,” Kirker repeated while fumbling at his shirt pocket.

“It's OK with me,” I said, catching sight of a nice young
señorita
, tagged by an old she-wolf of a
dueña
. The young lady looked back but kept on around the plaza.

“You're just a kid, young Roy, but I reckon you've been around long enough to keep your mouth clamped if it means money in your pocket.” Kirker glanced across his shoulder at a pair of U.S. dragoons in their flat caps, all tipped on one side, sauntering along easy and careless after that
señorita
.

“This here trip could mean real money for a live wire like you if you wanna throw in with me,” Jeff went on.

“Guess I'm your man, then,” I said, puffing at my cornhusk and wondering what in tunket he was getting at so all fired cautious like. I figured him for wanting to go into business after he'd heard that my brother Josh was cock of the walk at San Diego.

He finally pulled his hand from his shirt pocket and held it out to me. “Take a good look at this.”

A United States $10 eagle gold piece lay in his palm, shining in the late light with a fire of its own!

A
n odd thing happened after Jeff Kirker had shown me that eagle gold piece. One of the pair of soldiers, tagging after the pretty
señorita
, turned and ambled toward us.

Jeff hurriedly got off the bench and stuffed the coin back in his pocket. “Come on,” was all he said.

The dragoon called something, but Kirker ignored him and I stayed on Jeff's heels till we'd gotten back to the run-down adobe tavern on Tijeras where we were to stay for the night as my new partner was all for hitting the hay early.

“That fellow seemed to want to powwow with you,” I said as we piled into the creaking, double bed about 8:00.

“Just another drunk hoss soldier,” Kirker muttered as he blew out the tallow dip and rolled over onto his side of the crackling shuck mattress. “Git yourself
mucho
shut-eye. We got ourselves a power of hard ridin' comin' . . . gittin through them blamed Sandia Mountains and acrost a hell of a lot of desert before we hit California.” He yawned hard and groaned as if he was plumb worn out.

“Want to tell me about that eagle? Get straight with each other like you said?” I asked, and then waited for a response, but Jeff was already snoring his damnedest—or seemed to be. I found myself wondering if I'd been halfway smart tying up with a complete stranger.

About the time I was drifting off, it came to me what that dragoon had called out after Jeff. It was something like “Red Rosita.” But that didn't make much sense and it wasn't long until Kirker's bucksaw snores had lulled me to sleep.

Before the sun was two hands high on the horizon next morning we'd been on the trail a good hour or more. Kirker had rolled out at daybreak, poking me up to fetch our animals from the corral behind the tavern while he paid our bill.

I wasn't much on moving around so early, but all he said was: “If you want to git to California in one piece, you gotta travel early and fast.” I took that to mean we'd best scoot along before any Indians were up and about.

When we rode down the cottonwood-lined street in the watery dawn light, I noticed that Jeff gave a hard look in the direction of the local Army headquarters at the Casa de Armijo, east of the plaza. It was plain Kirker didn't want to run into any dragoons.

Late that morning, after we'd picked up a trail through a boulder-clotted pass in the saw-toothed Sandias, we turned due west, heading over the high mesas on a line that would take us through the foothills of the Zuñi Mountains and on into Arizona.

On the second evening of our trip, as we camped near a water hole in the lee of an upthrust orange-tinted bluff, Jeff broke out a bottle of his Blue Ruin from our pack mule's cargo. After several healthy belts he passed it over, then, leaning back against the rock, began to talk. For a spell he yarned about the war and the flocks of
señoritas
that had just swooned away at the sight of his manly carcass, although I noticed none of them was named Rosita.

I could match him on tall stories. So with no one around to call my hand that scrap with Esteban Domingo grew into a regular pitched battle with a whole gang of knife-fighting Mexicans. I really laid it on for I guessed Kirker had been stretching the truth himself.

But Jeff kept matching my tall yarns until he veered around to his shenanigans in California and my ears pricked up.

“You say there was some trouble?” I put in to prime him a mite.

“Trouble's one way to put it.” He downed another snort of whiskey and gave a lop-sided grin. “Y'see, I was in the Army back then. sergeant of a six-man squad, ridin' guard on a hefty Army payroll comin' up to Santa Rosa from San Francisco. and there was. some trouble.” He squinted at me through the amber bottle. His eye, magnified by the glass, looked hard and sort of wild, like the eye of a panther before it springs with claws out. Then he tipped the bottle, drained the rest of the firewater, wiped his beard, and gave a short, odd-sounding laugh.

“Roy, I like you or you wouldn't have rid five miles with me.” His voice sent a prickle up my backbone as it somehow changed. “Ever hear of Murieta?”

“Is this Murieta the jasper that caused the trouble?”

“In a way of speaking.” Kirker peered down the bottle as if he were hunting the right sort of words. Suddenly he got to his feet and heaved the empty as far as he could. The clash of shattered glass stirred up a couple of coyotes and they began to yap their complaints about the racket.

“Like I said, kid,” Kirker went on, “if I didn't take to you and . . . sort of need you for a certain job . . .” His voice dropped off again as though something besides those coyotes could be out there in the dark. “You was curious about that trooper back at Albuquerque. If you thought he knew me, you'd be about right. Think his name's Sam Harper. He was at our Santa Rosa post when I got there, but he'd gone back to another post before that. trouble. So he didn't know much.”