Death's Confessor
Author: P. J. Bryant
Date: 2016-08-24

Table of Contents

Title
License
CHAPTER 1: LIFE ON POST
CHAPTER 2: ABSENT WITHOUT LEAVE
CHAPTER 3: ENLISTED MESS
CHAPTER 4: MAIL RUN
CHAPTER 5: SOCORRO
CHAPTER 6: APACHES!
CHAPTER 7: THICK AS THIEVES
CHAPTER 8: GLEANINGS
CHAPTER 9: THE LOST MISSION SILVER
CHAPTER 10: APACHE SIGN
CHAPTER 11: GIVING UP THE DEAD
CHAPTER 12: WARPATH
CHAPTER 13: DISCOVERY
CHAPTER 14: AFTERMATHS
Author

Death’s

Confessor

A Civil War Murder Mystery

PJ Bryant

Death’s Confessor

© 2016 PJ Bryant. All rights reserved.

Visit the author at phillipmbryant.wordpress.com.

Cover photo © Jennifer Bryant 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, to any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

CHAPTER 1

LIFE ON POST

Peter Thomas Smith studied the board, attempting a pose of deep concentration over the chess pieces arrayed for battle. He didn’t know what to do next. He had no strategy to call upon. He was losing. But then, he always lost.

His opponent, Captain Morgan, was indulging Thomas as he let time slip away pouring over the board in indecision. The post chaplain was going to lose this round handily.

Thankfully the sun was already dipping down over the western parapets, and the intense heat of the New Mexico late afternoon was slowly fading. Across the dirt avenue from Thomas’s quarters stood the enlisted men’s barracks, the adobe brown walls now a pinkish hue, high windows turned darkened hollows in the dried mud, and the front porch a beehive of activity in the gathering shade as men enjoyed an evening’s worth of card games or animated discussions over the latest news to make it from the northeast and the real war.

The news was always months old, as it took long weeks to send papers from St. Louis across the Santa Fe Trail and then a few more weeks for those items to make it from Santa Fe and Albuquerque to the posts and villages along the Rio Grande Valley. News was also coming from San Francisco, Sacramento, and other points west in a slow route across the Mojave Desert, a path the blue-clad soldiers in the 5th California Mounted Infantry knew all too well.

It was Anno Domini 1863, the eighteen hundred and sixty-third Year of Our Lord. The Californians of the 1st, 3rd, and 5th Infantries had mustered, been sworn into federal service at Camp Union in October of 1861, and slowly made their trek across the dead expanse of the Mojave and into the Confederate territory of Arizona, more an ostentatious claim than a recognized legal entity. They had pushed on into New Mexico only to find that Major General John Sibley’s Confederates had already been forced to abandon their hold on Santa Fe and had retreated beyond El Paso del Norte and Franklin, Texas. Thomas and Morgan had missed the war. Their war now was against a more sinister foe: boredom.

They fought it gallantly. But now Captain Morgan was beginning to look bored as Thomas hesitantly fingered his queen’s bishop for a contemplated move. In the street in front of the enlisted barracks, the next guard relief assembled. Eighteen privates and three corporals lined up under the watchful eye of Lieutenant Jackson. The routine was always the same. Fall in, then right face and march toward the gates where the lieutenant would collect the men on duty and replace each with a new man from the relief. Then the first relief would be marched back to the barracks and dismissed.

It would go on all night and into the morning. There might not be any Confederates in the vicinity, but the fort would be watched as far as the inkiness of night would allow.

Momentarily distracted, Thomas looked up from his chess piece contemplations to watch the relief being sorted out. Named Peter Thomas Smith, a concession by his Protestant father to his Catholic mother for the sake of the primo vicar of Christ, he preferred instead to be known as Thomas, the primo doubter. His mother might have wanted the man whom Christ would build his church upon, but instead she got the man best known for his hesitance. Thomas was never the one to take that first step off the boat, even if it meant that someone else might take the laurels. He had become a vicar, though, following his Protestant father’s beliefs in Methodism. It was the best his mother would get.

“Same as the relief from two hours ago,” Morgan commented.

“Yes, same,” came Thomas’s laconic reply.

“Maybe the good Lieutenant Jackson can swing one of them privates by here an’ he can relieve you?” Morgan said with a chuckle.

“Have I told you I hate this game?” Thomas said as he eyed the group of men again. In what the army manual termed “light marching order,” the privates stood in their sack coats-that ubiquitous woolen dark blue coat. Crisscrossing their chests were leather cartridge box and haversack on left and right side respectively, waist belts riding high above the hips, forage caps pulled down low over the eyes to ward off the lowering of the sunlight. They stood at attention with muskets resting idly along their right hips. Thomas noted the blank stares as Jackson looked each man over with official precision.

“Every game. If you don’t move soon, we might both be carried away on litters having died of severe waiting.”

“A man’s wisdom yieldeth patience.”

Morgan smiled devilishly. “You sayin’ I’m unwise?”

Thomas shook his head vexedly. “I told you I’m learning. You want a better match, you are certainly welcome to find another partner.” He exhaled slowly and turned back to his queen’s bishop. He had meant it—he really hated chess. Not because he didn’t understand it but because he wasn’t good at it quickly. He hated anything he couldn’t pick up fast.

“Perhaps the bishop can say a little prayer for you?” Morgan added with a smile that Thomas ignored.

“Perhaps,” Thomas said and screwed his lips tightly.

“How would that go in Latin?”

Thomas grimaced and resumed his impassive expression. “Sapientia hominis cedit patientia,” he recited and moved the bishop to queen’s pawn two and then back once again.

Morgan nodded and smiled. “A dead language for a dead proverb. You have a tell, you know.”

“Oh?”

“You bite the end of your tongue when you move the pieces about and you don’t intend to keep the position.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You did it just then as you moved the bishop.” Morgan folded his arms and leaned back in his chair.

Captain John Morgan, not to be confused with the Missouri bushwhacker John Hunt Morgan—Thomas often ribbed his friend about his bloodthirsty Confederate namesake—was commander of Company C of the 5th California Mounted Infantry. Tall and gaunt Morgan perpetually looked as if he were about to keel over from malnutrition. No matter how much he packed away, it never filled the man out.

“Hmmmph,” Thomas grunted.

“And when you decide on a move, you turn the corner of your mouth and then quickly move your piece in a totally different move, so I’m waiting on you to do that so I know you’re done.”

Stiffly Thomas replied, “Maybe we should switch roles and you go about all day long trying to see to the post’s spiritual needs, since you are so confident in your ability to read people.”

Morgan shrugged and let out a long sigh.

“You can always go and do something else, Morgan!” Thomas snapped. Always affable and reserved, he nonetheless felt himself free to express his frustration at learning to play this game to his friend.

“I’ve got four days before I’m officer of the day again, so I’ve got nothing better to do than watch you crease your brow for hours on end.” Morgan was smiling.

“There, happy?” Thomas said as he moved queen’s bishop two to king’s bishop four. “You’re the one who’s been after me to learn to play, and then all you do is badger me when I do.”

“A man needs distraction,” Morgan said as he quickly moved king’s knight one to king’s rook four. “Besides, this is grand fun, and your intractability just makes it funner.”

Thomas regarded Morgan coldly before pressing his index fingers to his lips and leaning over the board once more. Chess—this game no more than any other—was becoming exceedingly difficult to track with its myriad of possible moves and countermoves, and Thomas was not finding it very relaxing.

Morgan, like many who had found themselves in California before the decade of building hostilities prior to the 1846 elections, had been a lieutenant in the Regular Army before the gold rush. When gold was discovered he resigned his commission and studied law, opening a practice in Monterrey. He sort of fell into the business of gold-seeking too. Payment for settling disputes came in many forms, and at times he found himself in possession of claims that needed someone to work them. Morgan didn’t actually go out and pan or dig for any of the gold; he had the good sense to hire people to do the panning and digging for him.

There was plenty of cash to be made by trolling for business and working out deals between litigants, and John Morgan made a small fortune in the halcyon days of the rush, both from litigation and his own holdings. Once things quieted down, companies formed to buy up competitors’ claims, and the business of mining for gold became a corporate activity. Morgan settled back down to just lawyering and raising a family. Though he’d not had the hardscrabble life of a prospector, he looked the part still.

“Our interpreter is back,” Morgan commented as a lone man dressed in civilian clothes rode down the middle of the street.

Miguel Tafoya was a half-Piro Indian, half-Spanish tracker whose service now was for hire to the United States government as an Apache interpreter. He was often at the post, as he also brought in game for the commissary and was called upon to go with patrols on occasion when it was expected that Apache raiding parties might be encountered. The Jicarilla Apache were often active in the region. They had raided the Piro Pueblos and then white settlements to abandonment for over two hundred years.

Thomas looked up from the board to watch Tafoya slowly make his way toward the stables that lined the rear of the fort’s eastern boundary.

“No game.”

“No, wasn’t out hunting. He’s brought someone in, though. Fine mount,” Morgan said.

Tafoya rode a brown-and-black maned horse with a white patch at the front along the chest, a common enough sight against its otherwise solid brown. To Thomas, it was just another horse. Four legs, a head, and a tail. What else it was that made this a “fine mount” escaped him entirely.

“Fine as in it’s moving, then yes, it’s a fine mount. Did we have anyone out?”

A figure riding on the back of Tafoya’s mount was slumped over Tafoya’s back, riding listlessly.

“Not that I know of,” Morgan replied, still watching the two figures ride past. “That horse could carry our Piro friend over there at a gallop farther than any of our mounts could. Just look at the musculature of the hindquarters and the neck. That is one finely bred mount.”

“Different breeding, I suppose,” Thomas replied. “Different stock out here from a long line of Spanish bloodlines, I would think. I do like his kit, though. Those Spanish saddles seem more practical than our McClellan. I don’t recognize who’s with him.”

Thomas turned back to the board, but he found his eyes drawn back to the newcomers despite his desire to ignore them. Tafoya was a splash of color amidst the adobe and wood of the barracks. A nicely battered black bowler sat atop his dark head and almost blended in with his black hair. A black woolen vest covered his rough cotton civilian shirt, with a finely woven pinstripe of red and green thread that ran parallel to thicker stripes of black down his arms. A homespun neckerchief hung loosely about his dark brown neck, and tan woolen trousers finished the clothing. Compared to the light blue trousers and dark blue sack coats or vests worn by the soldiery, the Piro brought much needed contrast.

His accoutrements said his life, at this moment in time, was more interesting than that of anyone in the post. A tan leather water bag hung loosely about the shanks of his mount, as did a red blanket roll, a leather sheath for his musket, and a rather evil-looking stunted sword that Morgan said was called a Bowie knife, named for the famous Jim Bowie, who had died at the Alamo. It clung to the saddle in an bead-ornamented, thick leather sheath.

The Piro seemed always to scowl, and Thomas had rarely seen anyone with him. When he was about he was typically alone and left alone. His passenger wore Union blue, was dark complexioned, and looked the worse for wear.

“Hate to see him wield that knife of his in anger,” Thomas commented as Tafoya turned the corner of the street at the last enlisted barracks and toward the hospital at the rear of the fort. “Don’t he usually ride out alone?”

“Never seen him out with anyone else. I hear that knife weighs a good pound and a half,” Morgan replied.

Thomas watched his friend as Morgan studied the board. Morgan’s penchant for wearing his uniforms in a loose sort of way, ignoring convention and bearing, was on full display now. He sat this evening with his wool coat open all the way down and his undershirt collar askew at the neck. He preferred to wear his rank, the double silver bars of a captain, sewn directly to the shoulders instead of gracing the customary shoulder boards. It was a style popular among western officers, but it gave him the appearance of a careless waif whom one had to look at hard to determine if he were even a gentleman. The captain’s face was not unlovely, but was not cavalier, and his high cheekbones brought his mouth and jaw into a permanent scowl that worked well for a man who might have to order his men to march into death. The company he’d raised at the start of the war was made up of other men who had made a living on the prospecting fields and were used to being in the elements at all times of the year. There were no dandies or paper-collar soldiers to be found in the 5th California, and John Morgan did not cut the picture of the typical officer. Hatless and with several days of stubble growing on his chin and cheeks, Morgan looked like a drunk and a man who had not seen the inside of a house in years.

Thomas, on the other hand, was the picture of an officer. Despite the heat, his dress conformed to strict standards—though the rank he proudly wore on his shoulders, the shoulder straps of a captain, was neither sanctioned nor required. Chaplains in the Union army were paid as captains of cavalry. Early confusion had often led chaplains even to purchase uniforms based on the yellow trim of the cavalry arm and wear the captain’s bars. Though not considered an officer of the line, Thomas preferred to at least have some semblance of his rank visible lest his fellow officers or the enlisted men forget that he too was an officer. A tailored short jacket, vest, tie, and paper collar were always on his person, and these he kept buttoned at the neck in strict regulation style. If the coat was to be buttoned, it must be buttoned at the neck. If he could be permitted some small act of rebellion against official sanction for his uniforms and deportment, his rank as captain was it. Thomas was going to act the captain even if he couldn’t officially command troops in the line.

Unlike his tall and gaunt friend, Thomas was a little on the plump side, owing to too much food and too little in the way of manual work. With his daily routine of walking the post or riding a horse, he had little to do to exercise the body, so he often filled his uniforms out to a state of discomfort. His face was constantly clean of whiskers save for a delicate mustache, and his cheeks were rounded, falling off into a somewhat narrow chin.

Both men had thick black hair, but Thomas’s was always cropped short on the ears and high on the forehead. Thick and rounded lips made up his mouth, which some said was pleasing to look at but at times said things that were not so pleasing to hear.

Of the two men, it would have been forgivable to assume that it was Thomas who was teaching Morgan how to play chess. Alas, one would be greatly mistaken.

Other officers of the post were idly sitting on chairs or in the doorways of their rooms enjoying the falling of the sun when their attention was turned to a frantic falling of feet upon the street.

Thomas’s and Morgan’s quarters were at the far end of the first row. Thomas, still pouring over the board, looked up long enough to see that Morgan was fixated on something. With a curt nod, Morgan motioned toward the sound of the running feet—rapidly approaching.

Turning slightly, Thomas beheld the approach of his assistant.

“Hoffsteadter, what the blazes . . .”

“Chaplain, Chaplain Smith, you’re needed in the hospital.”

Private Elias Hoffsteadter stood at the foot of the porch panting and motioning toward the rear of the fort where the hospital stood. It was only a walk a few minutes minutes time at a slow amble. Private Hoffsteadter seemed nonplussed by Morgan’s or Thomas’s lack of reaction.

“Hoff, where’s your decorum?” Thomas asked. “You may not think I’m that much of an officer, but Captain Morgan here is an officer of the line!”

“You’re needed in the hospital right away,” Hoffsteadter repeated. Despite his show of rank and his dress, Thomas never really pulled off the tone of command he was trying for.

Thomas looked at Morgan for a moment. “Someone ill?”

“Not that I know of,” Morgan answered. “Several on sick call this morning and some in for a fever, but no one on death’s door.”

Morgan regarded the private sternly. Still not catching the hint, Hoffsteadter took a step forward and put one foot on the porch as if to hurry Thomas along.

“Who needs me? What is it, man?” Thomas asked, exasperated.

“Sir, the surgeon wants you to come quickly. A man wants to confess.”

“The soldier Tafoya just brought in? Then he doesn’t need me, he wants a priest,” Thomas replied and regarded Hoffsteadter closely.

“Sir, yes. The man the Piro just brought in. Surgeon say he needs you, sir. Will you come?” Hoffsteadter pleaded.

Medical emergencies were not Thomas’s department, but the surgeon’s call meant that someone was about to pass from this world. Thomas sat motionless, regarding Hoffsteadter a moment longer. He couldn’t hear a man’s confession. He was not God or Christ or anyone who could do such a thing on earth, and his Methodism wouldn’t allow for it. Should he even entertain the thought of hearing a man confess his sins? Thomas opened his mouth to protest but hesitated. He would not have hesitated to help someone absolve themselves before their Creator, but he could not pretend that it was he who was doing the absolving!

Private Hoffsteadter was an atypical Californian, a none-too-easy status to achieve. He was not an adventurer, not a fortune seeker, not a man of Spanish or Indian descent, not a merchant or a landowner. His father had lighted upon San Francisco’s wharf in the 1830s when the territory was still teaming with Mexicans and Indians and the occasional white-faced trader of oriental goods brought from India. New England shippers and newly arrived German migrants had brought the German all the way to the other side of the world and back before he decided it was time to strike solid land once more.

Marrying a woman of Mexican descent and settling down to work the docks, the emigrant had produced Elias Hoffsteadter, who resembled any of the brown-skinned former Mexicans but had been raised on a diet of German cooking and Catholicism—making him an interesting choice for the Methodist chaplain’s assistant. Fluent in Spanish and German and English, Hoffsteadter was an asset for Thomas when he ventured out of the fort to visit the far-flung companies of the 5th California in Messilla, El Paso del Norte, Fort Fillmore, and Fort Davis. Thomas was learning the native tongue and thanks to his mother’s influence was versed in Catholicism, though he’d heeded his father’s demand that no child of his be raised as a “damned papist.” Despite their differences in religious expression, his father loved his mother deeply.

“Well, aren’t you coming?” Morgan said as he stood and straightened his loose coat.

“No,” Thomas said. “I said I’m not a priest. Or haven’t you been paying any attention to my sermons lately?”

“C’mon, you know you want to see what’s going on,” Morgan said and stepped off the porch.

Thomas sighed and tried to work the effort up to rise from his chair. Though a call for his ecumenical services should have elicited an immediate call to action, this one brought about a conflict in him of spiritual order. Confession might be good for the soul, as the psalmist said in Psalm 119, but it wasn’t going to save or harm it one way or the other. Hoffsteadter might disagree, but it wasn’t his ear that was to be bent with some list of sins that wanted forgiveness. As if it was up to him to forgive.

“Who is this man anyway?” Thomas asked skeptically.

“Come and find out,” Hoffsteadter replied, undeterred.

“Very well, Hoff, but it is not going to do the man any good,” Thomas replied as he finally relented and stood. “There is no intermediary but Christ between created and Creator in the question of sin and forgiveness.”

“Now you can find out who that was that the half-breed drug in,” Morgan muttered as Thomas brushed past him and got reluctantly underway with his assistant.

“Now, what is this all about?” Thomas asked as he strode beside Hoffsteadter. Morgan quickly caught up with them. Fort Craig was a collection of low-lying adobe buildings and dirt streets. The path to the hospital followed an eastward walk of seventy-five yards and passed the second officers’ quarters to the left and the enlisted quarters to the right, the street separating them by thirty yards in width. A few officers leaned in doorways quietly smoking or sitting on the covered porch engrossed in games of cards.

The westward set of the sun cast long shadows that crossed their path in the long walk to the hospital building, now bathed in rich orange hue. To their left was the north sally port and a well-worn path leading out of the fort. To the right were the quartermaster buildings, the stables, the armories, and along another street following behind the enlisted barracks, the latrines and food stores. The latter were rectangular adobe buildings partially dug into the earth, giving the storerooms a cooled and at times chilly atmosphere.

“The half-breed Tafoya brought him in a bit ago, found him out along the way to the fort in a bad state of sunstroke. Nobody we know. Surgeon says he’s too far gone. The man wants to confess something an’ won’t let up about it.”

“You told him the fort doesn’t have a priest, right?” Thomas asked.

“Wouldn’t listen. I think the man’s from the 1st New Mexico in Socorro. A Mexican and seems to speak little English, at least so far.”

“The 1st?” Morgan exclaimed. “I thought all those companies were spread out further north?”

“There’s that company in Socorro from the 1st,” Thomas replied.

Hoffsteadter shrugged. The post hospital was a low, single-story building of the same adobe construction as most of the buildings save for the commander’s residence, which was a stately two-story stone edifice that towered over most of the rest of the buildings. The hospital had two wards and a dozen beds each, and today the wards were only a third occupied, with several men suffering from fevers.

Upon entering the doors, Thomas felt a sudden shock of cool darkness, and he had to halt to allow his eyes to adjust. Though there were several windows, they were placed high upon the walls and only let in a sliver of light. Candles and oil lamps had to do the rest.

“This way.” Hoffsteadter led the party off through the first ward and into the second, partitioned off by a wall and doorway.

Gathered in a corner was a crowd of men surrounding a bed. The assistant surgeon, Price, and hospital steward, Blackwell, were conversing in low tones at the foot, and another soldier was bent over the bed’s occupant with a damp rag, cleaning a wound in the man’s leg where part of his fibula was still projecting out of the skin. A pus-colored ooze surrounded the wound, and a slight odor of putrescence emanated from the man. Tafoya was standing in a far corner looking unconcerned.

As Thomas and Hoffsteadter approached, the surgeon looked up from his conversation with the steward and nodded.

“What is it?” Thomas asked reluctantly.

“Tafoya,” the surgeon said with a jerk of his thumb toward’s the scout, “brought this man in a little time ago, said he was collapsed along the road to the fort. Protruding fracture to the left leg has left him in a bad way. Dehydration and sunstroke are his main problems, and the gangrene has set in. The man is dying at this point. Hoff says he wants to confess, so I had him come and fetch you.”

“You sure he’s dying?” Thomas asked. He eyed the stranger warily. The man was red in the face and his lips were parched and swollen, but for all Thomas knew he had just been a little too long in the sun.

“He’s delirious and not making much sense. I do not know his name, as he won’t answer questions. I don’t see him lasting much longer,” Price replied.

“He speak English?” Thomas asked. It had become habit to ask, as most of the soldiers he had encountered from the New Mexico commands didn’t unless they were involved in some form of trade. The territory had been American since the end of the War with Mexico, but English was not widespread.

“Some,” replied Hoffsteadter.

“Ask him why he wants to confess,” Thomas directed Hoffsteadter. “Tell him I’m not a priest.”

Hoffsteadter rattled off a string of Spanish that Thomas recognized half of.

With wild and feverish eyes, the man looked from face to face until he lit upon Thomas’s. He raised his head a little and extended a quivering arm in a beckoning motion. He was a thin man, dark in complexion with black hair, lips that were chapped and blistered, and a flattened nose. His face was reddened by exposure, and he had blotches on his cheeks. The man said something in Spanish, but the words were garbled and unclear.

“He’s saying something about killing someone or something,” Hoffsteadter said with a bewildered expression and a shrug of his shoulders.

“Or something?” Thomas replied sarcastically.

Hoffsteadter shook his head and repeated the same questions over and over again for a few more minutes, getting only the same incoherent mumblings in reply. “Sorry, he’s not making much sense in what I can make out. He expects you to hear his confession, and that’s all I can get out of him.”

The man moaned and rolled his eyes and then his head from side to side before saying in Spanish, “Forgive me, Father, I have sinned . . . I have sinned. We killed him.”

The first part especially Thomas understood. Shaking his head, Thomas stepped closer to the man and knelt down. “Tell him no, I’m not a priest,” he said to Hoffsteadter. “I’m not a priest,” he repeated to the man.

Hoffsteadter repeated the refrain.

After more babbling in Spanish, Thomas looked up at Hoffsteadter for explanation.

“He says ‘we killed him,’ and he needs to confess it.”

“Who . . . who did you kill? Who?” Thomas asked the man. He waited for Hoffsteadter to repeat the question. “Ask him who ‘we’ is; he said ‘we killed someone.’ Who’s we?”

Hoffsteadter repeated the question, but the man merely shook his head no and repeated his request, beckoning for Thomas to come closer.

“Sir, I think he wants to whisper his confession. It’s only supposed to be heard by the priest,” Hoffsteadter said.

“Well, send for the priest!” Thomas pleaded, throwing his hands out.

“He won’t make it that long,” the surgeon replied. Price folded his arms and waited.

Slowly, Thomas drew close to the man’s side. For several minutes the crowd around the bed leaned inward impatiently while the man spoke into Thomas’s ear hot, hurried words that were too loud for comfort.

Thomas stood abruptly, chagrined.

“You need to absolve him,” Hoffsteadter prodded.

“Of what?” Thomas replied. “It doesn’t work like that!”

“For him it does,” Morgan said.

Thomas opened his mouth to utter another protest and then stopped and sighed.

“Dominus noster Jesus . . .” prompted Hoffsteadter.

Thomas nodded reluctantly. He bent back down over the man and took his hand. “Dominus noster Jesus Christus te absolvat; et ego auctoritate ipsius te absolvo ab omni vinculo excommunicationis et interdicti in quantum possum et tu indiges. Deinde, amen.”

He dropped the hand and turned sharply on Hoffsteadter. “You did tell him I’m not a priest, right?”

“Yes sir, numerous times.”

“Sunstroke and blood poisoning?” Thomas asked the surgeon.

“He’s not in his right mind, so yes, I’d say the fever and dehydration have muddled his thinking.”

Standing and moving away from the bed, Thomas said to the surgeon, “You sure he’s not going to make it through the night?”

“No, but by the way he’s looking I’d doubt it.”

“We should send for Father Bernardo in Socorro anyway. Maybe he’ll make here in time.”

Surgeon Price only shook his head doubtfully. It was late in the afternoon, Socorro was a good day’s ride away, and Fray Bernardo would be preparing for Saturday mass. “You’d never get him here in time.”

“Tafoya, where did you . . .” Thomas started then halted as he looked in vain for the scout who had vanished from his spot in the corner.”

Thomas took one last look at the man before unceremoniously turning on his heels and heading out of the ward. Standing on the low wooden porch of the hospital, he beheld the dying westward sunset as Morgan and Hoffsteadter crowded behind in the doorway.

“Could you make out what he was saying?” Hoffsteadter asked.

“Some,” Thomas replied.

“Well, what about the murder?” Morgan asked.

“If there was a murder,” Thomas replied, “I can’t say. I’m no Catholic, but I do not think I could say even if I did understand what he was saying. Which I didn’t.”

“Sunstroke for sure,” Morgan said, stepping off the porch, “delirium from fever. The man wasn’t in his right mind, so whatever you did catch is probably all bunk anyhow.”

Thomas followed in silence as Hoffsteadter gave a cursory good night and peeled off for the enlisted barracks, leaving the two officers alone. Morgan, with his coat still undone and his hands in his pockets, looked more like a prisoner than an officer as the two walked abreast down the street to their quarters. He looked about for Tafoya, too, but the interpreter and scout was nowhere to be seen.

The fevered whisperings of a dying man might be the last ebb of a waking dream for the stricken body, Thomas told himself; nothing the man had said was reliable. The words had been plain enough. The whispered words “death,” “sorry,” “killed,” and “we” stood out in their Spanish forms, echoing about the sound chamber that were Thomas’s disturbed thoughts. The distasteful chore was done, but he was not mollified. Who had the man murdered? Why? Where? Was anyone missing? Whose command was he from?

A murder with no body. A confession with no priest. A chaplain with no closure.

Thomas retired to his room and sat for a time at his desk. The evening had fallen, and he lit his gas lamp, which hung from a hook in a far corner. Sitting at his desk, facing the open shutters of his window looking out at the darkened guardhouse and brig set by the west ramparts, Thomas fingered the quill pen absently as he hovered over a blank page in his journal. Like in his early attempts to write scholarly treatises on faith and the Methodist means of transforming one’s spirit, his mind churned, but not on the topic of daily prayer. A story was bounding about his skull, annoyingly so. It lacked a villain, a hero, and a cast of characters save for this suffering, pleading, dying man.

Full of thoughts but unable to start a sentence, he replayed the encounter in the hospital. Of all the ways to exert one’s last stores of energy, why waste them in an act of delirium?

CHAPTER 2

ABSENT WITHOUT LEAVE

Thomas woke—or more precisely, he finally opened his eyes to the blackness that was the early morning. As with any summer morning there was a distinct chill in the air, but he found that his blankets had been kicked off, and he was a little cold in his undershirt and bare legs. It wasn’t the chill that woke him but the realization that a dream had descended, a dream he could swear was from memory. Still, it had been a dream. When he opened his eyes he was met with the darkness of his unlit room, with just the barest of blueish hue creeping under his door and under his shuttered windows.

Swinging his legs off his cot and wrapping himself in his blanket, Thomas walked the three steps to his crude camp desk and fumbled for his matches. In a few seconds his room was lit with a dancing yellow flame that he transferred to his oil lamp, and he huddled himself for a moment in his chair, staring at his tidy desk.

It had been at his desk that the images he saw in his mind’s eye before he woke, the images that were troubling him now, had played out. Almost a déjà vu moment struck him—but this did not seem a memory. He could not recall ever sitting here in the dark with an oil lamp staring at his desk, so how could it be something he remembered doing?

Grabbing his journal, he closed his eyes and concentrated on the fading memory.

Right before he woke, he had been sitting at his desk with the same oil lamp burning, but he’d been unable to find his quill pen. It was always on his desk, but this time it wasn’t. No pencil, no charcoal instrument, no charred end of a stick was to be had anywhere. He was in his bedclothes, and yet he’d had the urge to go hunting about the quiet post for his quill, and in the dream he had. He hoped to God he hadn’t in some waking dream been moving about the fort in his state of undress.

He remembered being frustrated in his dream. The four things he needed in order to write in his journal were light, his quill, his ink, and his journal, and he had light, he had his ink, and he had his journal, but the quill wasn’t where it was supposed to be, and no matter how much he rifled his desk, his washbasin, his shelves, and under his cot, he could not find it.

Now, awake, his pen was where it always was—right in front of him. He’d never lost it or had reason to be concerned for its placement. He’d never just absently taken it somewhere else where he could lose sight of it.

It was just an ordinary quill pen of cheap manufacture, nothing of any value other than that he’d have to go to the sutler to buy a new one if he lost or it broke.

There seemed little rhyme or reason for such a simple thing to cause so much anxiety, but that was the feeling he’d had after he woke—that he had to go and find his quill.

And here it was.

Shaking off the feelings of anxiety and the strange sense of reliving a moment, Thomas recorded his nocturnal huntings for his quill in the journal and sat some moments afterward dissatisfied. Sunup wouldn’t be for a few more hours, and he was wide awake.

By the time the sun did come up and it was time for breakfast, Thomas washed and exited his rooms only to feel like he’d not slept a wink. The brightness of the morning bore down upon his tired eyes with unwelcome intensity.

At officers’ mess, Thomas sat silently and ate in conversational isolation while those more awake than he carried on a lively banter. The coffee was good, the meat was poor, the bread was stale, and the company was boorish. Talk hovered about the usual smattering of news from the eastern and western theaters of the war and from the latest deliveries of months’-old newspapers from San Francisco and Monterrey. General Ulysses S. Grant’s forces were still investing Vicksburg, Mississippi, and had been for months; General Thomas Hooker’s Army of the Potomac was still facing Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia across the Rappahannock River and Fredricksburg after the drubbing Hooker had gotten at Chancellorsville. General William Rosecrans was still in fortified Murfreesboro waiting to complete the task of driving Confederate General Braxton Bragg out of Eastern Tennessee. The war was happening everywhere else but in the far west.

A cachet of newspapers that had arrived by mail last week were still making the rounds of the post. Even the most recent arrivals were now roughly handled, and unruly stacks of folded leaves cluttered the supping table.

One man was reading down the columns while several others ate and listened in rapt attention.

“No word on the whereabouts of the murderous Apothecary suspected in aiding the Lawyer Blankman in the death of Fanny White Blankman,” the man read. “Heirs to the White estate have been cut out by the husband and a will that was signed and witnessed under suspicious status.”

“Died in San Francisco but of New York? That the Fanny White or Blankman, the manager of the Church Street Brothel?”

“That the one. Well, used to manage it. Caused a stir a few years ago carrying on with Danial Sickles while he was ambassador to England, from what I can recall,” the man replied, laying down the paper momentarily and recalling the tidbit from memory.

“The same Sickles that commands a brigade in the Army of the Potomac? I thought he was denied his commission,” another man interjected.

“Thought I seen that he had a brigade under Hooker.”

“Not a brigade, a corps. The 3rd Corps.”

“Well, someone gave the rascal a commission, all right.” The man with the paper picked it back up and cleared his throat to continue skimming and summarizing.

“Squabble between her siblings and husband, with the will giving everything to him. Says she had a small fortune from the brothels she run.”

“Ill-gotten money. They can fight it out over the scraps from the china plates and silver,” one of the officers commented between bites.

The reader scanned ahead. “Says husband attests that these siblings had little to do with the sister while alive, though she put rent and other money to the ne’er-do-wells of the brood until her death when they come calling for their share of her stuff.”

“Better not to have money,” one man said with a sniff. “No one to sully the name after you gone when they come to shake your pockets.”

“Family suspects Fanny was poisoned, and by the husband, when they was in San Francisco last July. She took ill there, and the husband sought the aid of a apothecary who has since vanished, leaving his practice untended.”

There were nods as the other officers ate and waited for him to scan for something else of interest.

“Oh, here’s a good one. Arrest by Dogs. The San Francisco Mirror of August 5th has the following in reference to a rather questionable practice of officers in San Francisco: ‘Yesterday afternoon, two men, named respectively Franklin and Phillips, met on Merchant Street and engaged in a quarrel about certain business transactions between them. The lie and other hard words were finally passed, and Phillips knocked Franklin down. The last named then rushed to Judge Culver’s office and procured a warrant for the arrest of his adversary. An officer, accompanied by the two dogs, “Bummer” and “Lazarus,” attempted to make the arrest, but was resisted. The dogs then pitched in, and after tearing the man’s clothes and biting his legs somewhat, they forced him to knock under. He was taken to the station house.’”

“Good ol’ Bummer and Lazarus,” commented one with a chuckle.

“Heard they the best ratters in the town, good for tens of dead rats a day if you set ‘em loose on a nest of ‘em,” stated another.

“Anything else?” asked a man eagerly.

“Two men arrested on suspicion of being Confederate spies and saboteurs, and the Indians on the frontiers are in an uprising again, men of the 2nd California being out to quell the uprising in the hills. Louis Napoleon and the king of Spain have landed troops in Mexico. Rumors are rife that the French are mobilizing troops to march on San Diego from Baja, and citizens clamoring for more regiments to be raised to protect the southern border.”

“And the Spanish Armada, let’s not leave them out,” someone commented to a round of laughter.

Even with the long delay, the news was always the same. There was always a rumor about an invasion from Mexico, always some sought-after villain in some heinous crime, always some problem with the Indian tribes, and always some gossip that needed to be hyped up. This morning, Thomas wasn’t paying much attention to chatter.

“You look preoccupied,” Captain Morgan stated. Morgan had arrived late and taken a seat across from Thomas without the latter’s even noticing.

“Hmm?” Thomas grunted.

“I said you look preoccupied,” Morgan repeated.

Thomas shook his head in reply and noted that his food was congealing rapidly into a cold mush. Boiled oats and hoecake were the fare for the morning, and the oats were now a thick, pasty blob that could hold a knife upright. His cake had turned to a greasy mush.

“Didn’t sleep.”

“Hospital report says our mystery man died last night.”

“Oh?” Thomas looked up. “I guess it wasn’t unexpected.” Inwardly he felt chagrined: another soul gone to an unknown eternal reward. He shivered from his reluctance to hear the man’s confession.

“Detail taking him down to the cemetery this morning.”

The post cemetery lay due south along the escarpment below the river valley some six hundred yards away. It was a lonely place set off in a lonely part of the Jornada del Muerta. To die out here was to die anonymous.

“No funerals for men with no names,” Thomas said and sighed.

“Suppose someone will track his kin down,” Morgan said. He nodded to himself. “Will probably have to start in Socorro, that and find his company.”

“You find it odd that he was all the way out here?” Thomas asked.

“No, don’t find much odd other than we marched through a dry desert for two months only to get here and find the enemy gone and us sittin’ in some out-of-the-way fort waiting for the next Apache raid.”

“The man was too far this way to have gotten lost if he was from Socorro. Why would he make his way out here? If he was lost or in a bad way, he’d have made his way back to there, not here—assuming he’s from the 1st New Mexico.”

“Seems a good bet. No other companies from the 5th California are near here, an’ no one in the fort knows the man,” Morgan replied.

“I think he was injured somewhere between here and Socorro and left for dead,” Thomas said. He cupped his hands about his lukewarm coffee and stared off into the distance. He had no basis for this, but it sounded right, like it was part of the story.

“You mean on purpose?” Morgan looked surprised.

“There’d be no other reason for the man to be out this way if he wasn’t already close. Those companies from the 1st all left months ago, and of the two that were here one was moved to Socorro and the other is out on a scout. No reason for a patrol to come out from them unless that company coming back here for a spell.”

“So . . .” Morgan looked at Thomas askance. “You think this man didn’t die of exposure but on purpose?”

“Don’t know, just bothered by some questions,” Thomas replied. Murder and now the man’s own death, Thomas thought as he savored another sip of coffee. Had he reaped what he’d sown?

“Bothered how? Seemed pretty clear to me why he died. Sun and that damn broken leg.”

“It’s not the how he came to die but the why he died, like there’s something missing from the story.” Thomas looked troubled, opened his mouth, and then shut it again quickly. Everything had a story to tell. When the story wasn’t complete it felt empty, save for dreams. Sometimes they just ended or took off in a tangent.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Thomas shook his head. “Well, I umm.”

Might as well tell Morgan—it wouldn’t hurt anything.

“Well, I had a dream last night that kept me awake and got me to thinking is all. Something is missing from this.”

Morgan shook his head. “Too bad the man didn’t recover his senses, or you might have been able to find out.”

“Right,” Thomas said absently.

Thomas rose and emptied his full plate into the slop bucket, then dropped it into a pan filled with muddy-looking water. The post was fully into its routine of early-morning police detail and the morning’s guard detail was gathering together. The morning was already becoming warm, and soon the streets would be cleared again as anyone not needing to be outside would seek the shelter of a roof.

Fort Craig predated the start of the War of the Rebellion by a few years. It was originally intended to be a supply and forage post along the deadly and dry Jornada del Muerta. The fort was established for protection against the Jicarilla and Mescalero Apache, whose claimed territory overlapped that of the Spanish and Mexican trade routes from Santa Fe to El Paso del Norte and thence into Mexico, a path known as the Camino Real. Established on a bluff overlooking the Rio Grande, the fort was intended to be a bulwark against the Apache getting too close to the trade route and harassing columns of travelers headed toward Messilla and El Paso.

Thomas often tried to imagine what Fort Craig looked like stuffed to the gills with soldiers, as it had been for a short time while beset by Confederates marching north from Texas. Now the fort was peaceful and quiet, and everyone moved about with a lack of urgency.

With his own lack of urgency but resolute steps, Thomas entered the hospital.

Seated in a corner of the rooms to the right of the doorway was one of the regimental hospital stewards. The position was granted to those with training in the mixing and dispensing of minerals and spirits in the combatting of whatever was understood to be ailing the body. Every regiment had one steward at least, along with a surgeon and one or more assistant surgeons. Steward Jonathan Blackwell was concentrating on mixing several powders together from bottles lined up just in front of a wood pallet, where a ball of wax stood and several strings of wax had been rolled out.

“Steward,” Thomas said as he approached.

Blackwell jerked upright, startled. “Oh, sir,” he said as he relaxed slightly.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt. I wanted to ask about the man brought in yesterday.”

“Yes?” Blackwell asked as Thomas waited in front of his desk.

“Did he say anything more about who he was or why he was out there?”

Blackwell sat back from the desk, straightened on the stool, and screwed his lips slightly. “Hmmm . . . no, not that I recall.”

“Did he say he was with the 1st New Mexico?”

Blackwell shook his head slightly. “Don’t think he said anything that made sense,” he replied stiffly.

“So you never saw him before with the 1st New Mexico companies that were here?”

Blackwell shook his head again, tightening his lips into a thin line.

Jonathan Blackwell was one of the more curious figures to be found in a regiment. Not an ambitious officer with a desire to be in higher command, nor an uneducated laborer or former gold digger volunteering for adventure or just to keep food in the belly, he had been educated and trained in the art of medicines but was locked into a role that brought neither acclaim nor advancement in rank. Nominally he had no rank, nor did he have any command responsibilities, but just like Thomas, he was paid as if he did.

Of short stature, with a long, hawklike nose and eyes so close together that from a distance he looked cross-eyed, Blackwell did not appear to be a man who would seek a life in an infantry regiment in wartime, or any time for that matter. And yet here he was. He had delicate hands and a stooped appearance from long hours spent over a wood pallet rolling pills.

Blackwell kept his quarters in the hospital, and but for daily roll call by the various company commands in the mornings and evenings, he rarely mixed with the other soldiers on duty.

“When did he die?” Thomas asked as he absently picked up a glass bottle labeled Quininae Sulphatis. The vial was small and sealed with a rotted piece of cork that looked liable to fall apart at the next removal.

“Hmmm, sometime early this morning. He was dead when rounds were performed at 3 a.m., I think,” Blackwell replied, eyeing Thomas closely.

“I know Surgeon thought he didn’t have long, but was it expected that he’d die so soon?”

“Don’t know,” Blackwell said as he turned to resume what he had been doing before Thomas approached. His voice belied some irritation at the disturbing of his task.

“You think he should have lived longer?”

Blackwell shrugged. “Don’t know. He was in a bad way.” Blackwell turned in his chair stiffly and regarded Thomas with a look that said, “Is that going to be all?”

“Did Tafoya say anything when he brought the man in?” Thomas put the bottle back where it belonged and looked about the room absently. He didn’t normally pry, but something had piqued his interest, and his dream had helped to increase his curiosity.

“No, that man doesn’t say much at all-least that I can understand. Why?”

“Just curious. We don’t have many strangers stumble into the post and then up and die after. Must have been a change of pace for you, something other than loose bowels or a broken leg to see to.” Thomas was always a little drawn to get the soldiers he was responsible for to open up about themselves, even if it meant prying a bit more than was conventional. Blackwell was just a little bit harder to pry than most.

Blackwell nodded but didn’t reply.

The post cemetery was populated with a handful of men who had been killed in the fight a few miles upriver when the Confederates drove Canby’s forces back into the fort. The rest had expired from diseases of the bowels or infected wounds after careless accidents. Despite the heat of the summer no one had died yet of exposure, thanks in part to the river so close by.

“Was he on foot?” Thomas asked expectantly.

Blackwell nearly dropped his wax in irritation. “I don’t know; the half-breed brung him in. Ask him.”

“You like those?” Thomas said, nodding to a brightly dyed woolen blanket folded up at the foot of a bed next to the far wall of the room. “Seems like they’d be pretty itchy. Where’d you pick it up?”

Blackwell’s voice evened back out. “El Paso . . . had to go with Companies D and H last month, visited the Ysleta Pueblo while there and bought it. Not too itchy.”

“Been thinking about getting one. Been seeing trade blankets all about when we run across an Apache party, but none of the Mexicans around here seem to have one. Not been down to Messilla or El Paso to pick one up.”

Blackwell nodded absently.

As chaplain, it bothered Thomas that there were still some few who would not open up. Blackwell had always rebuffed Thomas’s attempts at conversation, and he’d chalked it up to the man’s being someone who just didn’t want to be known.

But this time Thomas had something he wanted to know.

“What are these?” Thomas picked up a small bundle of drying leaves and gave them a quick whiff and a critical look.

“Jimsonweed; locals use it for coughs and flu.”

“Really? See this stuff all the time along the river way.”

“I visit with one o’ them curanderos in Paraje; he uses this stuff and other plants for his cures,” Blackwell replied dryly, watching Thomas examine the bundle.

“You just munch on the leaves?”

A smile spread across Blackwell’s face as he considered this. “No, you dry it and crush it with the seeds and dilute it into a serum. You eat that, you’re likely to die or something.”

Thomas jerked the bundle away from his face. He quickly put it back and rubbed his nose vigorously.

“I get these from the curandero also.” Blackwell motioned to several bundles of dried and pressed leaves and stems. “Find all kinds of stuff out here an’ trade for the stuff I can’t. You might want to find some stuff called peyote. Locals learn about it from the pueblos. Weird stuff; puts you in a trance an’ you see visions, so I hear.”

“You’re not giving away army medicines, are you?”

“Giving, no. Trading, sometimes. Some of the local stuff better than this official stuff.” Blackwell motioned toward a bottle of Emetic of Tartar.

“So, is this what you did before the army? Before the war?”

“Yes, had my own shop until I lost it all after some legal trouble.” Blackwell replied grimly.

“I see, sorry to hear that. Is that why you volunteered?”

“Yes, couldn’t practice where I was at the time.” Blackwell grimaced a little as if remembering something distasteful.

“You didn’t see him alive again?” Thomas asked, changing the subject abruptly, still screwing his nose this way and that.

Blackwell, it seemed, had given up trying to get rid of the chaplain. “Hum . . . no, he must have died during the late watch.”

“Did he have anything on him? I think we’re assuming he was from one of the 1st New Mexico companies in Socorro, but did he have anything personal on him?”

“He had this hunting knife on him.”

“No water bottle? No haversack?”

“No, just this knife. Oh, and this cylinder for a pistol.” Blackwell pointed to a five-inch blade with a bone handle sitting at the edge of his desk and rummaged through a pile of papers for the cylinder.

“That it? No pistol or holster?”

Blackwell pulled out the cylinder and held it up a moment before setting it back down. It was for a metallic cartridge, six-shot pistol. The cylinders were empty, but they might have held six rounds that could be slipped onto the pistol quickly for a reload. Whatever had beset the man, he might have gotten off five rounds before he was overcome.

“Nothing aside from the clothes he had on. Found that,” Blackwell motioned to the cylinder, “in his pants pocket.”

“Mind?” Thomas reached for the knife. It was a sharp knife with initials engraved on the blade: RHM. Thomas lightly scraped his thumb across the edge. “Pretty expensive-looking knife.” Thomas held the knife close and noted a reddish stain along the hilt and the top part of the handle, the bone still being a little porous. “Blood?”

“Sure,” Blackwell replied.

“Might be able to use this to identify the man.”

“I’m sure it will help,” Blackwell said. He watched Thomas for a moment and then turned back to his pill rolling.

“Well, thank you for your help, Steward,” Thomas said and turned on his heel.

As he reentered the yard, Captain Morgan’s company was on line for morning instruction, and Morgan was in full authorized dress. His regulation frock coat buttoned all the way, sword and sash and Hardee hat. He actually looked like an officer!

Thomas took his time walking down the street as Morgan finalized his instructions for the day’s duties and turned the company over to the first sergeant with a crisp salute.

As the company was dismissed, Morgan caught sight of his friend.

“Coming from the hospital?”

“Yes, talked with the steward a spell.”

“And?”

“Nothing much. He didn’t have much to give on the man or when he died exactly. He did have this.” He showed Morgan the knife.

“Nice knife. Do a good spot of game cleaning with that,” Morgan commented as he examined the blade and looked closely at the bone handle.

“I suppose. The handle is probably the unique thing about it.” The handle was made from a bone joint with the large part at the base and carved with a smooth finish to the hilt. Small triangle designs were carved along the base at the hilt and painted black, with stylized curving indentions along the palm. “Might help if I want to go to Socorro to see if anyone from the 1st New Mexico recognizes it.”

“I drew mail detail. You can come along with the detail to Socorro if you want,” Morgan said with a shrug, handing the knife back.

“Although it is Saturday, and I’ve a sermon to prepare.” Thomas looked about and bit his lower lip.

“There’s your tell again. Just tell Captain Hinds you want to join the detail.”

“Well, that certainly is more convenient than trying to convince Hinds that I need an escort again. I was running out of excuses to get off post.” Thomas nodded. Morgan was right about this one; mail detail was the perfect way to get into Socorro.

“Hinds should be glad to get you out for a spell. You won’t be around to make him feel guilty about . . .” Morgan motioned quickly with a jerk of his head at a woman standing in the doorway of the commander’s residence at the far end of the street. The woman wasn’t Hinds’s wife—she was still in Placerville, California.

Thomas shot Morgan a sideways glare and turned his attention to the post commander’s house. “Probably,” Thomas replied dryly. “Visiting sister-in-law indeed.”

“Hinds has more sisters-in-law than any man I’ve ever run across!” Morgan said with a chuckle.

“Yes, well, a man’s sins follow behind him like a shadow and are never far removed,” Thomas replied.

“Just tell Hinds that your next sermon will be on Saint Paul’s epistle to the Corinthians: neither fornicators nor adulterers, liars, or whatnot getting into the kingdom of heaven. He’ll be more than glad to give you leave,” Morgan said with a devilish grin.

“Yes, that will put me back in his good graces,” Thomas replied and shook his head.

The conflict between him and Hinds had been causing him grief lately. Thomas liked to shake up his routine, and he was chaplain to all of the 5th California. Those companies were scattered about other forts and towns along the Jornada del Muerta from Franklin in Texas to Messilla, Fort Fillmore, Fort Stanton, and Fort Goodwin in Arizona territory, and all the way to Las Cruces, New Mexico. But actually serving the 5th wasn’t so simple. Traveling to the other posts involved weeks to make the circuit, and he needed soldiers to go along, as no one traveled alone if he could help it. That meant that Hinds had to give leave, and that leave seemed to get harder to come by after Thomas confronted the captain about his “sister-in-law.” His last circuit of the companies was a month ago. The itch to get out was suddenly needing a scratch.

The “sister-in-law” was no longer standing in the doorway when Thomas took the two steps to the front door of the only real house on post and gently rapped on the sill. The door stood open, as did most doors in the summertime. Inside, to the left was a receiving room and office, and to the right a parlor with couches and chairs. The room itself was rarely used, as there was little society on post to entertain with such refinements, and a thin layer of dust covered the window tables and chairs.

“Chaplain?” Lieutenant Peacock said as he looked up from a desk in the receiving room.

“Here to see the captain,” Thomas said as he took a step into the house. In front of the door was a narrow hall and a staircase with two more rooms off the hall, which ended abruptly with a closed door leading into the kitchen.

“He’s just reviewing today’s reports,” Peacock said. I’ll tell him you’re here to speak to him.”

Peacock brushed past Thomas and headed for the first door to the left of the stair. He knocked.

“Chaplain Smith to speak with you, sir.”

Thomas didn’t catch what was said from the other side, but as Peacock made his way back, he could assume it easily enough.

“He’ll see you in a bit,” the lieutenant said and went back to his desk.

The Officer of the Day, Peacock was busily leafing through an assortment of papers before him, noting details from each on another paper. The OD, or “odd,” as the other officers referred to the detail, had responsibility to see to the guard details and anything happening that day on the post. He was responsible for collating the returns of the companies and their roll call and sick call, as well the returns of the quartermaster stores, stables, hospital, and armory.

As Thomas took a seat on a rough-looking chair beside the odd’s desk, Peackock said, “You hear we’ve two privates missing?”

Thomas sat up a little straighter. “No, when?”

“Didn’t answer roll today.”

“Not too many places to go off post. Either Paraje or Socorro. Who was . . .” Thomas began as sounds of footfalls from down the hall drew his attention to the door.

“Chaplain Smith, this way,” Hinds said. He motioned with a jerk of his head in the direction of his office and then left the doorway.

Thomas quickly followed behind and found Hinds taking a seat at his own desk. The rooms were small with low windows and a rough wooden floor. Hinds’s office was a little more finely accoutered, with a couch on one wall, a silver decanter and tray on an end table, and a fine Indian rug in the center of the room.

“Yes?” Hinds looked at Thomas expectantly as he offered him a seat next to his desk. The chair was upholstered, though fading under the light of the window it stood near.

“I’d like leave to accompany the mail to Socorro,” Thomas stated.

“Oh? For . . . ?

“You heard of the man brought in yesterday, the mystery soldier who died last night sometime?”

Hinds sat back. “Yes, saw that in the hospital report. He was buried this morning, no?”

“Yes, but there’s some question as to what command he belonged to. Best bet is Socorro.”

Hinds’s tone was sharp. “Yes, and why does that concern you?”

“If he was from Socorro, his pards and commander need to know. Might need some ministering to. Morgan is leading the detail, so I thought I’d go along-with your leave of course.” Thomas kept his tone even. He hated asking as if he needed a favor.

“So you want to go and find out who this man was. You have to do that now? I’ve already two men absent without leave; I don’t need another gaggle of my command wandering off on some fool errand.” Hinds turned his attention to a stack of papers on his desk.

“We already have a detail going out, won’t mean a special detail just to accompany me,” Thomas insisted. This game had become annoying. He knew Hinds didn’t care one way or the other what he did, and if Thomas was not going to be taking up other resources, there was really no excuse not to let him go. It was just that Hinds wanted to hear Thomas beg.

“Very well,” Hinds replied, as expected. “Three days?”

“Should cover it,” Thomas replied.

“Tell Peacock to draw you up a leave. The detail are also are to be on the lookout for those two missing enlisted men. Dismissed.” Hinds finished with a curt nod of his head and turned his attention to his papers.

Thomas stood and closed the door behind him, letting loose a pent-up sigh.

With pass in hand, he gladly exited the residence and headed for the enlisted quarters. If someone knew more about the two missing soldiers, it would be there.

It wasn’t really his problem. But something was off around here. Curiosity, and maybe something more, drove him. The missing quill pen from his dream flashed before his mind’s eye, and he stopped. Had he known something was off last night? Thomas shook his head and frowned. Coincidence surely, he concluded, and he continued on toward the enlisted barracks.

CHAPTER 3

ENLISTED MESS

At this time of the morning, the enlisted men were to be found crowding the inner courtyards of each barracks, as it was too nice out still to be indoors. Thomas entered through the first barracks entrance.

Fort Craig was originally constructed to accommodate two companies of regular infantry, about eighty men per company. Its two sets of one-story enlisted quarters were made out of the same thick-walled adobe that was to be found just about everywhere in the region. Adobe mud is just that—mud. Mud mixed with straw and baked into hard blocks that is then constructed into walls covered over and cemented with more mud. Infrequent rain meant the walls could withstand the brief season of afternoon showers that would last no more than a few hours, and when the sun reappeared, the walls would rebake. Being thick and earthen, even in the hottest of days the indoors could remain cool and in winter remain warm, given a healthy fire. During the Confederate invasion, a third barracks made of wood had been constructed in between the two adobe ones.

With a few steps remaining, Thomas spied Tafoya riding his horse toward him down the street between the officers’ quarters and the enlisted barracks. Diverting a few steps, Thomas held up his hand to catch the Piro’s attention.

Tafoya was clad in the same fashion as when he had brought in the mystery man, and his mount looked stocked for a long ride. The ubiquitous Bowie knife hung easily on his hip. Its sheath of thick cowhide was worn smooth and stained around the top of the hilt, and a thin, leather thong dangled from the sheath’s tip.

Tafoya stopped and looked neither annoyed or enthused at the disruption. A pistol protruded into the man’s belly, thrust haphazardly into his waist belt. A shotgun that hung over his shoulder and a musket riding easily upon the flank of his mount, tied with several leather straps to his saddlebags, made his armaments complete.

“Out for a hunt?” Thomas asked.

“Si.” Tafoya nodded.

“If you don’t mind, can I ask you about the man you brought in yesterday?”

Tafoya regarded Thomas coolly. With a nod in reply, he waited.

“Did you find that man on foot?” Thomas asked. No one left anywhere on foot if they were to travel any distance. If the man had a mount, that might fill in a missing piece of the story.

Tafoya nodded his head slowly.

“Where about did you find him?”

“Ten mile from post.” came the slow reply followed by an impassive stare.

“Did he tell you anything, like why he was out this way? Did he tell you his name? Did you know him?”

Tafoya shook his head again and looked down on Thomas with eyes that seemed to size him up and down.

“Thanks,” Thomas said and took a step backward. Tafoya started his mount once again and rode on as if nothing had just transpired, leaving Thomas alone in the street.

Shaking his head slightly, Thomas retraced his steps to the first barracks.

The charge of quarters desk was occupied, as was usual, by a bored private who straightened quickly and stood.

“Sir, what may I ask is your business?”

It was nearly a rebuke. Unless you were a company officer of the company occupying the barracks, you were not at liberty to just wander around in any building you wished.

“Do you know anything about two privates absent without leave today?” Thomas asked. The charge of quarters was responsible for all company activities and reports for the day.

“Sir, not in B Company.”

“No one reported not answering roll?”

“No, sir.”

“Know anything about G Company?” Thomas asked.

“No, sir. I don’t know if anyone from the other companies is reported as missing.”

“Thank you, Private,” Thomas said.

“Good day, Chaplain.” The man resumed his seat as Thomas turned and left.

The performance was repeated once more as Thomas entered the wooden barracks, and the CQ reported no one from G Company missing and no idea about anyone from L Company.

L Company’s barracks was emptying out of enlisted men as morning details were sorted out, and the platoons were dispersing. A contingent of Company L was trooping to the stables to draw mounts for a scout to last several days, and another platoon was being relieved from watch at the north wall. The rest of the company were seeing to their kit and breakfast. This was neatly rattled off by the private sitting CQ at the barracks entrance.

And yes, they had two privates reported missing and without leave. Privates Dunn and Horne.

“Did they have leave? Originally, I mean?” Thomas asked.

“Yes, sir. Leave to go on a hunt. They were supposed to report back by this morning.”

“So they would have passes logged?” Thomas pressed.

“Yes, sir.”

“Is their platoon off-duty today?”

“Yes, sir. I think Fourth Platoon is in the kitchen.”

“Thank you, Private,” Thomas said and started to walk past the CQ desk. He paused, remembering. “Oh, permission to enter?”

The CQ waved his hand. It was his job to ensure anyone present had a good reason to be present, as the personal items of any of the company’s men were easily within reach by anyone wandering about. He didn’t ask Thomas for a reason.

The barracks front rooms were crowded with iron beds and personal knickknacks, with many of the beds in a state of disarray. Morning barracks inspection either had not been conducted or was off the agenda for the day. A few privates occupied some of the beds, seeing to sewing or letter writing as Thomas passed by. He was headed for the long and narrow passageway that led to the rear of the large square, where the laundress room and kitchen were to be found.

Thomas found twenty of the company either lounging at several elongated wooden tables or fussing over cook fires along the far wall. Each barracks was responsible for providing its own meals, and unless the company hired a cook to come and prepare, every man or mess was responsible for preparing his own daily rations into edible portions. A vent in the ceiling allowed smoke to filter out through the iron grates across the fire pit. Covering the grates were coffee boilers, skillets, and tin pans. A cacophony of odors assaulted Thomas’s nostrils upon entering the room.

No one particularly reacted. Normally when an officer enters the presence of enlisted men, the senior enlisted man calls the room to attention. As Thomas was a frequent visitor to all of the barracks, the practice had been suspended, more out of familiarity than out of permission. Put shoulder straps upon a man’s uniform and suddenly he becomes a deified being that demands recognition. Instead, as Thomas strode into the kitchen the myriad of conversations didn’t skip a beat.

The barracks, save for inspections, was the enlisted man’s refuge from the prying eyes of officers and civilians alike. The kitchen even more so, and as Thomas made his way to the first table, the privates who occupied it paid him no mind. Dressed to a man only in their kersey blue trousers and undershirts, they would have looked like uncouth laborers had they been witnessed by tender civilian eyes. They were soldiers doing what soldiers do when not standing to: they were being slovenly.

“Anyone know what happened with Dunn and Horne?” Thomas asked, interrupting the soldiers gathered at the table. Tin cups cluttered the eating space, as did dirty tin plates and dirty eating utensils. The morning’s repast looked to have been greasy salt beef and bread. A liberal scattering of bread crumbs littered both table and plates. Several privates were enjoying a morning pipe, and they looked up at Thomas between puffs of exhaled smoke. In all attitudes of relaxing, no one moved a muscle to straighten up.

“Damn queer it is,” a man spoke up. “My cousin not comin’ back like that.” Private Albert Dunn pushed his empty plate away and gave Thomas a curt nod.

Thomas took an empty seat across from him and waited for Dunn to elaborate.

“You think he went over the wall?” another soldier asked.

“Unh-unh. Not like him to go an’ do that,” Dunn replied.

“What was your cousin doing then? He got a pass for liberty for a few days?” Thomas asked.

“Something like that. They was supposed to go for a hunt, he an’ Horne.”

“Yeah, didn’t you usually go with him?” another man asked of Dunn.

“Yes. Fer some reason he din’t want me to go this time. Wanted it to be just them two.”

Thomas watched as Dunn’s expression changed from one of irritation to sudden alarm as he turned quickly away from Thomas’s stare. His cousin, Charles Dunn, was a little older than Albert and a little more loose with a lie if it suited his purposes. Thomas tried to get to know every soldier in the command at least a little, and he’d witnessed Charles on several occasions outright lie to Albert just to shake him away. The men referred to them as Dunn One and Dunn Two, but Dunn One didn’t always relish the close association.

Fort Craig was small and out in the middle of nowhere. You could go out and fish the Rio Grande, you could go out and hunt, you could get leave to ride to Socorro, or you could spend your off hours around the post. That was it. The trip to Socorro took a good portion of a day, and those passes were limited to groups of men who managed to remain on good behavior. With a wink, Charles had more than once told Thomas all he needed to know—that Charles was just telling a lie to get some space from Albert, who insisted on doing everything with his cousin. For Albert’s part, he was a little obtuse when it came to subtle hints of “leave me be.”

“Your platoon was on duty a few days ago, right?” Thomas asked.

Nods of affirmation answered Thomas’s question.

“Anyone see them leave? If they had passes they must have left by the gate sometime, or the sally port.”

Head shakes or shrugs were the answer.

“Would they have gone to Socorro?” Thomas asked.

“Cousin said they was going to head south where they thought the game was best. Least that’s what he talked about before,” Dunn Two replied.

“You men hear about the soldier brought in by Tafoya last night?” Thomas asked.

A few nods and other blank stares answered. The men were not very talkative this morning, but Thomas always found it was hard to get the private soldiers to talk.

“We think he was from the 1st New Mexico. The Piro found him ten miles from the fort. He died last night of sunstroke.” Thomas looked from man to man as he talked, watching for any signs of recognition or reaction. Soldiers had an innate distrust for authority and were usually the ones who knew what was what. Officers were left to ferret the “what” out. Tafoya had brought the man in for all to view; perhaps someone had recognized the man.

“Were’nt your cousin taking up with someone from the 1st?” a man asked Dunn.

“Maybe,” Dunn replied with a shrug. “I don’t know. We’d go huntin’ sometimes, but he an’ Horne usually done stuff by they’selves more than not.”

“But no reason they’d go over the wall together?” Thomas asked again.

“Not that he ever let on,” Dunn replied.

Thomas nodded. If Charles was going over the wall, Thomas doubted he’d want Albert with him.

“And none of you saw them leave the fort?” Thomas practiced his easygoing expression, hoping to disarm any reluctance to spill the beans. Someone must have seen the two privates leaving and was reluctant to get his fellows into trouble.

“No,” Dunn Two answered, and added quickly, “not on my watch.” The rest of the men at the table all shook their heads.

“What was your cousin doing with someone from the 1st New Mexico? Could this man have helped he and Horne desert?”

“No, don’t think so. They not friends, just casual acquaintance. He met this man in Socorro, asked him where to hunt. The man knew the area, that’s all,” Dunn replied.

“Do you know this man’s name?”

“No, cousin never talk much about him. Only knew it were someone from the 1st New Mexico he’d meet up with on liberty. He never with him when we’d go huntin’.”

“So . . . ,” Thomas paused to summarize in his head first. “Dunn One could have gone to Socorro instead of on a hunt and met up with this other soldier from the 1st New Mexico?”

“Sure, I think I knowed he was requesting a pass an’ hadn’t seen him about,” Dunn Two replied evasively.

“Any of you see the man Tafoya brought in?” Thomas repeated, keeping his patient demeanor and expression as encouraging as possible. “Was he the one from the 1st Dunn was seen with before?”

Silent shrugs were his answer.

“Could have run into Apaches,” one man speculated. “Bosque area had signs Apaches was hunting ‘round there before; maybe they run into trouble.”

“Cousin might be in jail in Socorro is more likely,” Dunn said. “He a mean drunk with a temper if he been drinkin’, an’ the only reason to go to Socorro is to drink.”

Thomas nodded then asked, “Did your cousin get into many conflicts?”

“Some, if he didn’t get what he wanted he’d try to get it some other way. Nothing that he’d be reported for.” Dunn Two replied.

“Dunn One got into lots of fights; we just keep it among privates, you know.” Someone at the table stated.

Thomas looked at Dunn for confirmation, Dunn nodded.

“How about that half-breed? Didn’t he an’ Horne have a little fuss a while back?” a man at the table asked.

“Tafoya?” Thomas asked. There had always been a question in his mind as to Tafoya’s inscrutable nature. Much of what Thomas relied upon as a chaplain was what a man said and how he said it, how he looked while saying it, and how he carried himself. Tafoya was a hard man to read.

“Yeah, that half-breed scout. Thought Horne was payin’ him short about a hunt they was wantin’ to do. Dunn One stepped in before Tafoya could use that Bowie knife o’ his an’ cut Horne in two with it. That’s when Captain Hinds cut the half-breed’s pay for doin’ scouts an’ hunts an’ such.”

Now this was interesting. “Was Tafoya on post when your cousin and Horne left?” Thomas asked. Tafoya was the cold, silent, brooding type, and but for an easy way of talking had never shown a smidgen of emotion that Thomas had ever witnessed. If he was mixed up in the disappearance of these two soldiers, Thomas could imagine a none-too-palatable end to them.

But there was no sense letting imagination run away with him. What was more likely, the two soldiers were late in getting back to post.

“Don’t think so. Don’t remember.”

“Did your cousin and Horne engage Tafoya often on hunts? Their pass said they were going on a hunt.”

“Sometimes,” answered Dunn Two. “Don’t remember about this time.”

“Thank you.” Thomas nodded. The men were looking at him; he figured he owed them something of an explanation for all his questions. Not that he had much of one. “I’d wanted to know who was missing and who might have known why. If Dunn and Horne are in Socorro we’ll know soon enough. I’m going with the mail tomorrow.”

He stood.

“Sir,” Dunn Two asked and stood as well.

“Yes?” Thomas asked as Dunn came around the table.

“Can I come along? If Charles is in the jail I’d like to be there to fetch him. If not, I’d like to find out what has happened.”

“Not up to me; you’d have to ask Captain Morgan,” Thomas replied. “I don’t see the harm in it.” The request seemed a fair one, and Thomas thought it might prove helpful to have Dunn Two along to query now and again about his cousin. The army took desertion seriously. If the two men were mixed up in something innocent, finding it out might keep both of them out of serious trouble. And besides, there was something Dunn Two was keeping back. It was better to get a man to own up to the truth than to force it out of him.

“Yes, sir,” Dunn said.

Thomas considered again whether the privates might have gone over the wall. There was little sense in it if they had. There was nowhere to go over the wall to. Home was a thousand miles to the west across deserts with little in between for sustenance.

As Thomas exited the barracks by the back door to the kitchen, he came out facing Black Mesa, a tabletop on the east side of the Rio Grande. It looked benign from this distance, but if the Confederates had brought heavy caliber canon with them they might have easily made Fort Craig untenable. The mesa towered over the opposite bank of the river by several hundred feet. When the enemy went around Black Mesa to cut off the fort’s communications north with Socorro and Albuquerque, the defenders had sallied forth to give battle. The sharp and bloody fight sent the defenders back behind the walls and the enemy marching north, wary of the menace he had left astride his line of retreat. Thomas often tried to picture what those days might have looked like. Today, his view of the mesa was picturesque.

The rows of buildings that made up the rear or river side of the fort were sutlers’ rooms, the stables, the armory, and the hospital. Circling around, Thomas headed back to the commander’s quarters.

Back in the office of the OD, Thomas flipped the pages of the diary to find who had been given passes to exit the post three days before. Five names appeared. Horne and Dunn were among them. Reason for the pass: hunting down south in the Bosque del Apache. The other reasons were all the same: liberty in Socorro. But on the daily reports submitted by the OD for anything of note that had transpired, three names appeared as having left by the sally port and been checked by the guard. Dunn and Horne weren’t among them. Blackwell’s name showed up several times coming and going for a two-day liberty, one day to the village of Paraje for herbs.

“The report doesn’t show these other men leaving,” Thomas pointed out.

“Might never have left,” Lieutenant Peacock said with a shrug. “Or it just didn’t get reported. This is what Lieutenant Peters reported of daily incidents. He may have left something out, or his guards didn’t report it.”

Thomas nodded. Probably just a mistake. Fort Craig wasn’t a big post. Soldiers didn’t just vanish, and they didn’t just go over the wall. Thomas took a moment to think through the possibilities. To go anywhere, one needed a horse, water if one were to stray from the north/south path of the river, and food. Messilla was to the south, four days’ ride away, and Socorro to the north. East was desert and west was desert. It seemed to Thomas that Socorro was the most likely destination. No one took a liberty to Messilla. If they’d gone hunting as they said, they might just get back before the mail detail returned to the fort.

But something told Thomas they hadn’t gone hunting.

CHAPTER 4

MAIL RUN

Thomas woke early and prepared his toilet. The water in his washbasin was cool but not refreshingly so, a notch above lukewarm that did not enliven muscles or shake the sleep from his eyes. The sun was just coming up, but his room was on the west side of the first officers’ quarters building, and he did not see it.

The officers’ quarters possessed a kitchen, situated in the rear of the oblong structure with a hallway connecting it that ran the length toward the east. Each room had a doorway to the porch and a doorway into the hall, and it was here in the hall that Thomas met Captain Morgan looking bleary-eyed and sleepy, stretching and staring blankly at the opposite wall.

“Coffee?” Thomas asked as he approached.

“Hmm,” came the reply.

The smell of it was hard to ignore as the two men trooped the length of the hall. Two enlisted men were busily preparing the officers’ breakfast, and the coffee boiler was steaming invitingly upon the spit, suspended by its iron handle over the flames. Several other officers were present, seated at several tables. As Thomas and Morgan and the others in this building were without families, the rooms were small and more like apartments. The other building, just across a ten-yard space, held those officers who had their families with them. There weren’t many, but when the Confederates were deemed unlikely to take another foray into New Mexico territory, officers had felt more secure having wives and children along.

“Fry bread for breakfast,” Thomas commented. A local favorite of the post, fry bread was acquired from the Navajo. It was a flat but somewhat greasy piece of bread that could be folded over and used to make a sandwich or to sop up a stew or a morning’s helping of army beans. The bread had a distinct odor that made the stomach rumble. There was a pile of fry bread sitting on the tables.

Morgan went straight to the coffee boiler and poured a helping of black liquid into his cup, then proceeded to pick apart one of the fry breads. Thomas, used to the lack of manners from his friend, got his own coffee before sitting down to savor his first, ginger sip.

“No evidence of those two men leaving the post,” Thomas started up. “OD report doesn’t show them leaving. None of their company saw them leave. Dunn Two knows something but he’s not saying.”

“Unh,” Morgan grunted. With hands greasy from the bread and little flecks of crumbs clinging to his beard, Morgan still looked half-asleep as he chewed. A bowl of sugar granules sat next to the pile of cooling bread, and he grabbed another piece from the top of the pile and sprinkled sugar on top.

“A troop from the 1st New Mexico went out the other day for a three-day scout south, so there wasn’t anyone around to confirm the dead man’s identity. If our two tardy soldiers are just on a hunt and got into trouble, the scout might run across them.” Thomas reached for a fry bread and began to pick pieces from it.

“If the dead man from the 1st in Socorro, we’ll find his captain,” Morgan said.

“If they have someone missing that should make it pretty certain. If they don’t . . .”

“Find out soon enough,” Morgan replied and drank a gulp of his coffee.

“Dunn Two asked to come along. Hope you won’t mind.” Thomas said.

“Dunn Two, huh? He your responsibility then. He’ll follow my orders, but you have to keep an eye on ‘im.” Morgan looked sourly at his coffee.

“Fair enough,” Thomas replied and savored a bite of bread. Fry bread might be one of the most useful of all breads to a soldier, though it was not quite as practical in the field. You could roll it, you could fold it, you could put anything on it. It was light and fluffy and with sugar made a good end to a meal. With meat it made the meal. Eaten while still warm, it satisfied the need for something hot to eat; and saved for later it hardened a little, making for a quick, satisfying bite.

“Grab some of those,” Morgan said as he stood and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Make for a good nooner.” Following his own advice, he grabbed four off the top of the pile and licked his greasy fingers.

Thomas complied, knowing that Morgan would consume his own and some of what Thomas took too. If left to sit too long in a cover or cloth, the bread left a greasy stain on everything it came into contact with. If crammed into a haversack, it would become a solid mush.

Thomas finished his coffee and grabbed a few breads from the bottom of the pile, stuff that had had some time to cool and perhaps lose some of its grease. He made his way back to his room, feeling more awake as the coffee kicked in. Packing for a two-day trip would be simple: one change of undershirt and drawers that would easily roll into his blanket. He’d check out a horse, a saddle, and a bag or two for himself. A wagon with the mail and forage and rations for a platoon of men for a two-day journey would be along, plenty to provide food for the field. He only need worry about his own personal items.

The mail was run to Socorro every week, and an escort of mounted men was always provided for the quartermaster, whose responsibility it was to procure anything of need from merchants in Socorro and take the post’s mail and communications to be sent to Santa Fe via Albuquerque. The quartermaster also carted the weekly journals to headquarters for archiving. Pay would also be gathered when it came from Albuquerque, to be disbursed by the paymaster, who accompanied each leg of the monthly trip to each outpost.

This time pay would not be part of the mail, but the letters and correspondence by the post’s soldiers needed an escort regardless, to prevent depredation by Apaches. It wasn’t a coveted job: for the soldiers who were escorting the weekly mail, there would be no liberty while in Socorro, and though it was a change of pace from post detail, the trip was anything but easy.

As Thomas stepped out into the midmorning summer sun, he already felt hot. The mail wagon had stopped in the street between the first officers’ quarters and the first enlisted barracks, and Quartermaster Hirsch was fussing over the contents of the wagon.

Thomas took the short walk down the street toward the hospital, then a right turn along the third enlisted barracks to the post’s stables. The stables were immense: three rectangular buildings of adobe walls and wood ceilings to house two hundred mounts or more.

On a hot summer’s day like today, the odor of hay and straw, urine, feces, and horse hair was strong and pungent. The two companies of the 5th California Mounted Infantry and one of the 1st New Mexico Cavalry made feeding, housing, and care for the horses a task for a company-sized contingent from both regiments. The stable master and his company spent their days feeding, grooming, watering, and tending to sick animals all day, every day.

Today the stables seemed half-empty. Several scouts were in progress, and half of the 1st New Mexico were in Messilla for a month. Even so, as Thomas entered the stuffy first stable he was greeted with a bustle of activity.

Seven mounts were tied to a post along the outer wall, being set with saddles by two enlisted men. Off to the side of the stable on the wall next to the opening was a desk mounted to the wall at an angle, holding an open ledger. The ledger held the name, rank, and reason why a mount had been requested and by whose order. A corporal was tending the list.

“Reason?” the corporal asked without ceremony or greeting.

“Mail run,” Thomas replied. “I’ll need two bags and a blanket also.”

The corporal wrote on the ledger and then consulted another book. The second ledger kept track of each horse assigned to that stable. In this case the mounts for the mail run had already been set aside, but he needed to mark which horse he was going to assign to whom.

“Take the brown and white, second to the left,” the man said without looking up.

“Mind if I take a look at the ledger?” Thomas asked.

“Why?” the corporal asked sharply, looking at Thomas as if he had asked for all of the corporal’s personal possessions.

“Want to see who is out or has been out and back in the last several days.” A story could be read from the army’s penchant for recording everything if one chose to look and think. And for Thomas, a story was starting to form about two soldiers missing who shouldn’t be and another, a stranger, who was dead. To Captain Hinds the two were blotches on his daily report, an annoyance. Thomas could let the story end with the notation that one life ended painfully, with the two missing soldiers nothing but an odd footnote to the regimental history. Why shouldn’t he? Sleeping on the ground was uncomfortable. Riding all day was a chore. His bed and his room were here. But what if the stranger had murdered someone? What if he’d murdered either Dunn or Horne? What if someone had intended to murder him?

Thomas needed to know. He needed to write the end of each story satisfactorily.

The corporal looked at Thomas a good minute.

“I’m not inspecting the stables, just want to know who has been out and signed out a mount,” Thomas said, trying to allay the man’s fears but add some force behind the request.

The corporal finally stepped away from the ledger and motioned Thomas over. He stayed two steps to the side so he could watch what Thomas was doing, a look of suspicion growing on his brow.

Thomas glanced over at the corporal for a moment to see if he was really going to stand and watch over his shoulder. When the corporal didn’t budge, Thomas shook his head slightly and bent close to the book. Though the light of day was flowing through the open stable doors, the corner was dark and ill-lit.

The page was covered in neat, penciled handwriting, denoting names and ranks and numbers of horses and dates. Some had been returned, and others were still outstanding. Thomas had to page back on two leafs to find the dates he was looking for, three days ago. Three names were in a row with the times the soldiers had arrived to sign out a mount. Dunn and Horne and the last one—Hospital Steward Blackwell. Two horses had not been returned yet, though the time requested had passed. No surprise there.

“Did you sign out to Horne, Dunn, and Blackwell?” Thomas asked. Not hearing anything in reply, he had to turn slightly to look at the corporal, who was merely shaking his head no and still glaring as if Thomas was about to alter his carefully tended ledger.

“Thank you, Corporal,” Thomas said as cheerfully as he could muster through his growing impatience at the man’s lack of decorum for an officer.

The corporal whipped each page back to where the last one was for new entries, all the while keeping his glare closely fixed on Thomas.

Thomas turned quickly and strode back out into the sun, suddenly remembering he needed the bags and blankets. Turning once more, he stood in the doorway.

“Bags?” Thomas asked.

Other equipment was kept in a room padlocked behind where the corporal stood. The man let out an exasperated huff and dropped his pencil hard on the desk before turning to unlock the door.

Thomas shook his head. There was little use in upbraiding him. He turned his thoughts back to Horne and Dunn. They had indeed signed out mounts. The reason given was liberty to hunt. All squared up so far—yet according to the daily OD reports, they hadn’t left the post. A man could hide for a time, but not a horse. The two men had left the post, with horses, so why was there no record of it?

The corporal exited the room and interrupted Thomas’s thoughts, striding up to him and thrusting the two bags and blanket at him like they were detestable items he wished to get away from him as fast as possible.

“Thank you, Corporal,” Thomas said in his best humor and exited the building. Captain Morgan was marching his contingent toward the stables as Thomas found the horse he’d been assigned and set about fixing the saddlebags on his mount and rolling the blanket.

“Corporal Tenninger is in a mood,” Thomas called out to Morgan.

“I’ll see to that,” Morgan replied crisply. “Go sign out your mounts,” he ordered the men with him, and they dutifully formed a line into the stables, their captain striding past the lineup and into the building.

Thomas heard Morgan bark, “Tenninger! See to these men! Mounts for the mail.”

“Yes, sir,” Tenninger said with muted discomfort.

Thomas shook his head again and chuckled to himself. The corporal would respond to a captain of infantry all right, or he’d find himself doing sink duty.

Morgan stepped back out of the stables and smiled. “Gotta know how to deal with enlisted men, Thomas.”

“Hmmhmmm,” Thomas replied with an incredulous shake of his head and an eye roll.

Thomas walked his horse back up the street to the officers’ quarters and tied the animal to a post set five feet from the open porch and his room. The quartermaster had completed his fussing over the load in the wagon and was fidgeting on the seat waiting for Morgan and the escort to appear. Thomas greeted the man affably and walked over to the front of the wagon. The QM’s position held great responsibility and called for a personality that was not easily swayed by officer or enlisted man. Keeper of the whiskey ration, clothing, weapons, replacement gear, and leathers that had to be inventoried and accounted for, he had to know how to stand his ground.

“Morning, Parson,” the QM replied.

Thomas knew the QM’s name was Archibald Hirsch, but no one called him either. His name was QM, Quartermaster to those of inferior rank. Today, on top of his normal responsibilities, he had the mail, a duty close to a soldier’s heart.

The QM was a man of medium height, a pugnacious chin, and a stubby nose with narrow eyes to fit out the picture. He had a bellow that could be heard from one end of the post to the other, and he bellowed only when he was set off by some miscarriage of supply justice or a mistake by one of his assigned helpers. He had become a little portly since arriving, as the QM’s duties did not lean toward physical labor or deprived diet. The wagon was loaded with foodstuffs in burlap sacks.

“Going to do a little horse trading?” Thomas asked.

“Yes, Parson. Gonna try an’ git some Indian beans fer this supply o’ army beans. Boys is tired o’ the white beans. They also a good supply o’ last year’s blue corn set up that might get some fer this corn meal we been sittin’ on since them ‘federates done pillaged Soc’cro of.” The QM regarded the neatly packed wagon critically as he spoke.

“And the barrels of molasses?” Thomas asked, peering into the back.

The QM grinned. “Ever had you some rum? The alcaldee take a shine to our supply an’ likes him some rum now an’ agin, so I aim to get us some o’ his tequila what he bring up from Mexico fer the stores an’ rations.”

“I’m sure I’ll see some of that find its way onto the officers’ tables,” Thomas replied dryly.

“Officer is worse than the ‘listed man when it come to the spirits,” the QM said flatly. “We get us some other stuff an’ trade some stuff what gettin’ old in our pantry.”

“Kinda backwards, no?” Thomas replied.

“Kinda.”

As Thomas was looking over the contents of the wagon, the Piro Tafoya came riding down the street in his usual slow, disdainful canter. He rode his mount easily but regarded everything and everyone hard. Thomas watched him ride from the direction of the front gate with a brace of quail hanging at his feet from the rear of his saddle. Looks like he had a good hunt. Something else I could have stayed here to eat, if that quail destined for the officers’ mess, Thomas thought ruefully. Looking again at the passing interpreter and noting his Bowie knife, Thomas thought again about tangling with the likes of Tafoya if he ever got the wind up enough to do someone harm. He was short and wiry, but so were most of the Indians he’d seen. Somehow Thomas didn’t see Tafoya having any problem overpowering a pasty and fat white man if the fancy struck him.

“You think you can get me a blanket like that?” Thomas said and nodded in the Piro’s direction.

The QM turned and regarded the man keenly for a moment. “Don’t none of them show up in Soc’cro that I ever seed, but I can ask ‘round.”

“Or how about getting a guitar? Mine didn’t make the march from California intact.”

“You mean one o’ them bulgin’ Mariacher getups?” the QM asked, puzzled. “You aimin’ to start one o’ them guitar ensembles?”

“No, not one of those specialty Spanish guitars, just a regular six-string.”

“That prolly even harder to come by than one o’ them trade blankets.”

The reds and blues of the blanket on the back of Tafoya’s mount stood in stark relief to the drab surroundings. The Navajo blankets had become scarce since the war erupted, and the Apache and Navajo had taken to doing more stealing than dealing.

“Whatchoo got fer trade?” the QM asked.

“How about a crucifix? Hand-carved in California by the Costaloan Indians. Might have some aesthetic appeal to someone.”

“Might. Go fetch it an’ I’ll see,” the QM said with a hint of doubt.

Thomas returned holding a six-inch by three-inch cross with a stylized Christ figure nailed to it. The carving of the Messiah was a little crude and rough, but the cross itself was inlaid with lapis lazuli up and down the cross beam and gilt silver along the edges and beam ends.

The QM wrinkled his nose as he took the object and examined it closely.

“I don’t have much use for it,” Thomas explained. “We Methodists do not focus on Christ on the cross but out of the tomb. Was given to me by a parishioner in California, and for some reason I carried the thing across a desert and a half. But if I can parlay it for a guitar, then it will have served its purpose for me.”

“Hmmph,” the QM grunted. “I’ll see. No promises on findin’ someone willin’ to take a crucifix fer a blanket or guitar.”

“Fair enough.”

“Oh Lord, you still going on about that?” Morgan exclaimed as he caught the last of the conversation.

“As a matter of fact, yes!” Thomas replied. “If you find a guitar QM, don’t let the good Captain Morgan near it!”

“Much trade in ugly crucifixes in Socorro?” Morgan asked the QM with a devilish grin at Thomas. “Well, at least you’re finally getting rid of that.”

“We’ll see,” Thomas replied sharply. Morgan had needled him incessantly about the object once he learned that Thomas had packed it in his baggage for the trip across the desert. The officers had more leeway in their baggage than an enlisted man, but when water was scarce and room in a wagon was for the utmost necessities, the room that the crucifix took up in Thomas’s belongings meant something else wouldn’t fit. That, and it really was ugly.

“Now if you want one o’ them Death figurines, they got plenty o’ them,” the QM put in.

“You done?” Thomas glared at his friend.

“For now,” Morgan replied.

“Sir, is your detachment ready? I’d like to get on,” the QM asked Morgan. The heat of the day was beginning to tell, and the trip would be entirely devoid of shade once they set out. The QM was already sweating a stream down his temples and neck.

“Detachment, mount!” Morgan ordered. The twelve men plus Thomas and Private Dunn mounted in unison, the enlisted men in two columns and Thomas at the wagon’s left side. Morgan was the last to mount. Nothing was done in the military that wasn’t coordinated and synchronized.

“Forward, march!” Morgan commanded, and the soldiers spurred their mounts forward, followed by the wagon. Morgan led the detachment toward the north sally port, an opening in the walls designed to allow a company-sized battle line to march out in two ranks without having to form march column—to “sally forth,” in other words, in case of a direct confrontation outside the fort walls. The fort did have a front gate of sorts, a narrow, guarded opening just wide enough to admit a wagon where traffic was officially granted entrance to the post, but all traffic that headed out of the post went by sally port. There were actually two sally ports, one leading straight past the hospital buildings and the second officers’ quarters and the first straight to the right, past the first officers’ quarters, the post entrance, the guardhouse, and the adjutant’s office. The mail run left by the latter.

The guardhouse was empty this morning of inmates but occupied by the gate detail, with those off relaxing inside in the cool. The detachment rode past the mute walls and cannon that stood solitary sentinel facing north and northwest. The sally port as originally devised was now protected by additional walls constructed at the start of the war. They extended an additional frontage with quadrangle battery positions. But the walls of the additional defensive positions were already crumbling, little more than piles of dirt and sand dug from the surrounding ground into berms that were swept away by wind and eroded by the summer afternoon rains.

A well-traveled track led northward toward the flow of the Rio Grande and paralleled the trace of the river to Socorro. Perhaps they might meet a contingent coming back from Socorro. Perhaps not.

* * *

Two hours and fifteen miles later, the detachment stopped by a bend in the river to rest and water the mounts. It was free time: free to sleep, chat, eat, or horse around in the shallow flow of the river. Thomas seated himself on the high bank, trying to squeeze under the shade of a mesquite bush. Mesquite grew low to the ground and threw out hundreds of branches that could be a great place for a rabbit warren or other critter nest but offered little in the way of shade from the late afternoon sun. The stop would be for twenty minutes, and the detachment scattered quickly.

The heat was already intense, sweat evaporating in moments. Thomas could hear three or four of the men shouting and splashing in the water, and for a moment the thought of a cool splash appealed. Decorum said otherwise, and he tried to settle back into the bush as the sun moved the shadow cast by the bush to his left, exposing a knee.

Morgan was laid out in similar fashion under a better mesquite bush with his hat shading his eyes, arms folded and legs crossed. How Thomas had missed that bush he could only speculate. The QM had the best spot of all, underneath his wagon.

The flow of the river was gentle and noiseless from the bank. Only the splashing of the men in frolic made any sound.

His noontime meal consumed hurriedly, Thomas’s only hope for the afternoon was a few more moments of shade. He started suddenly at a loud call, sitting bolt upright to see a private running full-tilt toward Captain Morgan.

“Captain Morgan!”

Morgan stirred and slowly stood.

“Sir, I think you should come an’ look at this,” the man said, breathless.

“Well, out with it, Private,” Morgan said tersely.

“Sir, found a body,” was all the man could get out between breaths.

Several others of the detachment appeared from different directions at once, all in various states of undress.

The man beckoned Morgan to follow him, and Thomas, with those others near enough to hear the cry, took up the parade. Private Dunn appeared by Thomas’s side as he followed in Morgan’s wake.

The private in the lead wended his way in and out of mesquite bushes and tumbleweed to a spot marked by a disturbance of the soil and the half-covered portions of what used to be a man, now exposed and smelling rank.

Only partially buried, the body had been feasted upon by coyotes and fowl so that the uncovered head and face were missing eyes and lips, exposing a hideous grin of teeth and muscle tissue torn from his thighs and toeless feet.

“Found ‘im like this, sir,” the private stated quietly.

Private Dunn uttered an oath. “Cousin!”

Despite the scene and the decaying odor, the group gathered close around the shallow grave. The corpse was stripped naked. His scalp had been shaved off to the skull, and a deep gash was visible on the side of the body’s left leg, cut to the bone.

Despite the depredations to the man’s face, his whiskers and cheeks identified him as Private Charles Dunn.

“That your cousin, Dunn Two?” Morgan asked Albert Dunn.

“It is, sir,” Dunn replied.

“Apache?” another private asked.

“Who else?” Dunn snapped. “Mexicans don’t strip a man an’ scalp ‘im.”

“Road’s just a few yards away,” Thomas said to no one in particular. “Easy drag away from the road.”

“Wow, what that stench?” the voice of the QM exclaimed as he rounded a mesquite bush. He stopped cold.

“Well, Dunn Two, we found your cousin,” Morgan stated flatly. “You got tools?” he asked the QM.

“Uh, tools? Yeah, yes, sir. I’ve several shovels,” the QM sputtered, still fixated on the lipless grin on the eyeless face.

“Bastards! Gouging out his eyes!” Dunn said angrily.

“Birds. Apache don’t do that,” Morgan said evenly. The captain turned to the others. “Keep a wary eye out rest of the way.”

“What do you think?” Thomas asked Morgan as the QM returned with an arm full of shovels.

“Bury him proper to keep the carrion beasts from doing more desecration, an’ then retrieve the body on the way back. Dig him in deep, mark the spot by the road.”

“You really think Apache?” Thomas asked, drawing Morgan aside. “Just one?” Where’s Private Horne?” Everything Thomas had heard about what happened when the Apache got the drop on unsuspecting interlopers, he was recalling now. Dunn One showed all the signs of an Apache scalping and ceremonious crippling for the afterlife, but the burial part was a new one. The story had just had another page added. Dunn and Horne caught unawares by a raiding party and killed, their possessions confiscated and horses run off, bodies left where they fell.

“Do a sweep of the area, see if you find another body,” Morgan ordered over his shoulder to the crowd still hovering over the corpse.

“You ever see the Apache bury anyone?” Thomas said.

“No, don’t seem regular, but I’ve not seen too many Apache kills either,” Morgan admitted.

“Wrap him up in one of those blankets from the wagon and cover him up good,” Morgan added to the QM, who was still standing with a blank expression.

“Find any of his traps? His weapons? His horse?” Thomas asked as several men came back from looking about.

“Apache would have taken those for sure, especially the horse.”

Thomas shook his head, still thinking aloud. “We a good pace from the post. That man from the 1st New Mexico was probably found somewhere hereabouts by Tafoya. He didn’t look like he’d been set upon.” The whispered confession and the parts of Spanish and broken English that Thomas understood were “we killed him,” “I killed him.” Had something gone terribly wrong with Horne and Dunn One and their companion? Had the stranger and Horne killed Dunn One? Had he killed both but been so injured himself that he succumbed eventually to his wounds? Another chapter to the story?

“You want answers, or you just content to yammer on to no one?” Morgan asked.

“Just thinking,” Thomas shot back.

“You thinking too much. The two don’t seem related to me. Can’t be,” Morgan said with a wave of his hand as if brushing away a fly.

“Don’t see nothin’ more, sir,” another man returned to report.

“Get Dunn One set, and let’s get back to the road,” Morgan said. His tone was irritated. “Hopefully someone was watching the horses.”

“Hey, got somethin’,” shouted one of the soldiers. “Kicked this up from the sand.” At the man’s foot was a silver object gleaming in the harsh sunlight.

Thomas knelt down to get a closer look. “A silver flask.” Thomas dug around it with his fingers, thinking he might also turn something else up. Not finding anything more, he picked up the object. The flask was not a common soldier’s spirit convenience made out of tin, but an expensive silver with an inlay design on the front of Liberty with a sword in her hand held aloft and a motto below. “Proditores, ad Mortem,” Thomas read aloud. “Death to Traitors.” On the reverse side were the initials RLH.

“That Private Horne’s flask,” Dunn Two exclaimed.

“Maybe he escaped,” Morgan postulated.

“Dropped it in the fight perhaps,” Thomas added. “Indians must have missed it or didn’t care about it.”

“Cousin always liked that flask,” Dunn Two stated with an envious stare at the shiny object. “Horne were proud of it. Gift from his wife before we marched.”

“If they anyone else out here, they buried purty good,” announced one of the party with a shake of his head.

Thomas put the flask in his pocket. Horne will want to get this back, he thought to himself as the detail covered over Dunn’s body and dug a deep hole to lay him in. As they were finishing, Morgan walked up to Thomas.

“Found this under the body.” Morgan held out a stained leather holster. “Empty of course. Apaches would have taken the pistol.”

“Dunn Two,” Thomas called. “Your cousin carry a pistol?”

Dunn Two shook his head.

“Did Horne?”

“Yes, had a nice Smith and Wesson Army,” Dunn Two replied. “Cost him a pretty penny.”

“Prefer the Colt Police, myself,” Morgan said and patted his holster. An officer had to provide for most of his kit out of an allowance, and sidearms were no exception. Enlisted men were issued a musket, but if one wanted to haul around the extra weight, a pistol could be purchased and worn without infraction.

“Seems to have the same taste as our Piro. He has a Smith and Wesson Army too,” Thomas noted. The pistol hanging out of Tafoya’s belt had its hair trigger without guard, and that was what had caught his eye.

The only thing to say for the diversion was that it made the remaining journey more tolerable, as the sun had already set when the detachment came upon the town.

Like the falling of darkness, the detachment’s mood had also become darkened. The condition of the body and the Indian sign were the topics of conversation, when there was any, and the words and mood belied an anger at the affront to dignity displayed toward the man by his assailants.

Had they set upon a war party or scouting party of Apache, it would have been a bloody affair. Not even Thomas could have prevented it. As it was, the rest of the journey was quiet. The column marched down the main street of the town, past the alcalde’s home, and toward the mission church.

The church, the Mission of San Miguel, was situated a hundred yards from the center of the town proper, and its high adobe walls protected an inner courtyard. Due to the lateness of the hour and the possibility of a renewal of Apache raiding, Morgan insisted that they sue for use of the inner walled court for a camp.

Thomas was elected, or more to the point cajoled, to speak to Father Bernardo about accommodating the detail. As the contingent waited outside the walls in the roadway, he entered by the gated entrance and strode about the inner courtyard toward the entrance to the church.

The courtyard was sparse, and but for a single cross set in the center and several alcoves of saintly reverence set in the inner walls, the yard was a dusty and lackluster place to call home for a night. If the priests would even allow it.

The massive doors to the mission were of thick oak and looked to be more than thirty pounds each, stretching the five-foot width of the entrance and delicately carved with a scene. The scene showed a figure in robes and halo wielding a sword and hovering over the entrance to what could only be this very mission church. Far from good friends with the priests, he’d always made it a point to stop by whenever he was in town just to pay his respects.

Thomas pounded hard on the doors several times and waited. Besides the priests, he knew there would be several acolytes and other clerical helpers who lived on the grounds and kept watch over the sanctuario. The church had been rebuilt since the 1690s, when it was abandoned after the Pueblo Revolt. Socorro had been resettled in 1840, and the rebuilt church came along with that as the Franciscans returned to the place their predecessors had founded. The church still operated as a mission, though the Indians it was built to serve and protect were now gone from the scene, fled with the Spanish or wiped out by the Apache. There were a convento, stables, storehouses, and gardens all within the high adobe walls. Standing there now in gathering darkness, Thomas felt the grandeur of days long past.

The large doors opened a crack, and a young face appeared in the middle of the opening: a young boy dressed in a habit of coarse wool who looked inquiringly at Thomas.

“Quiero hablar con Fray Bernardo,” Thomas said in halting Spanish.

The boy nodded in return and closed the doors, leaving Thomas to wonder if the nod meant “yes, go away” or “yes, wait a moment.”

Thomas was trying to learn Spanish, but with few opportunities to practice it, he was not getting any better. He didn’t come to Socorro often enough to make progress.

The door opened a crack once more, and the familiar face of Fray Bernardo appeared. “Si?”

“Forgive the late intrusion, Fray Bernardo,” Thomas started, but Bernardo held up his hand to stop him.

“En Espanol.”

“Gracias,” Thomas said, shaking his head. He’d forgotten that he’d asked Bernardo to force him to use his Spanish whenever they met. “Por favor, Fray Barnardo, uhm . . . mis compadres and me . . . ah dormir, ci, dormir en el sanctuario?”

Bernardo stood impassive, waiting for Thomas to finish. “No, no dormir en el sanctuario, sus compañeros duermen en el patio.” Bernardo smiled and nodded.

“Oh, ci, ci, en el patio; gracias,” Thomas replied, flushing as he realized he’d asked to sleep in the church itself.

“You have long trip?” Fray Bernardo asked.

“Ci, umm, no es muy mal viaje, ahhh um, we ahh . . . encontramos un soldero muerto la quinta California; killed por el Apache,” Thomas replied.

“Una soldero California?” Bernardo exclaimed.

“Ci, un soldero primero Nuevo Mexico hmm . . . died en la Fort Craig yesterday, no ayer; no sabemos su . . . name, no, nombre, no sabemos su nombre.”

“Another soldero?” Bernardo asked, surprised. He smiled and nodded as he said, “Bien, su español es mejor,” giving Thomas leave to end his tortured exertions.

“Yes, another soldier. We’ve brought the post mail, and I’m going to look for the first man’s commander to tell him he is buried in the post cemetery,” Thomas said, relieved that he could at least speak intelligently once again.

“You make sleep in courtyard, ci? Behind walls.” Fray Bernardo motioned as he stepped out of the church and onto the steps. He was a short man, five foot four inches, and had the look of one who had spent his whole life in the sun. His dark skin was leathery and his face drawn by wrinkles and crow’s feet about his eyes. He wore his monk’s habit, and a simple rope-like belt secured his middle. A slight paunch hung over the knot.

Bernardo didn’t wait for Thomas to lead but proceeded down the two short steps and onto a worn pathway toward the front gate. Several sheepish boys poked their heads out of the doorway the father had left open to stare at Thomas and watch him turn and hurry to catch up to the priest.

Bernardo opened the gate to the yard and motioned to the soldiers waiting to come on in. In a string of hurried Spanish, he called to the boys now slowly venturing out of the church to come and take the horses to the stables.

There were a few moments of reluctance from the troopers to surrender the mounts, with them not understanding that they were being taken care of and the boys not taking no for an answer. Quizzical looks all around were exchanged as the boys looked to Bernardo in confusion and the soldiers to Captain Morgan in consternation.

“Let ‘em take ‘em to the stables!” Morgan said. “They aren’t gonna sell ‘em. Go with ‘em if you like.”

A slight chill was settling over the courtyard as Thomas unpacked his blanket and bedroll. Fray Bernardo and his acolytes had retreated back to the solitude of their convento and left the Americans to find a spot to call home for the night. The sky was clear and the starry host glittery. The ground in the courtyard was sandy and soft, and a fire pit soon blazed with a crackling fire where a man was detailed to keep an eye on the small camp throughout the night. The night’s sleep would not be wholly uncomfortable.

Thomas lay back on the toes of his boots, an easy pillow, and drew his wool blanket as far as it would reach without exposing his stocking feet. The night was quiet, and but for the fire, there was little in the way of noise to distract the mind from finding slumber.

Unfortunately for Thomas, the image that kept creeping back into his mind was the hideous, eyeless grin of Charles Dunn lying there in the sandy earth. It bothered him, and not merely because it was horrible. Finding Dunn One wasn’t so much what was wrong—finding him in the wrong place was what was wrong. Wrong and no sign of Private Horne. Both men should have been south of the fort, not north of it. The man from the 1st New Mexico could have killed Horne and made it look like Apaches did it, but why would he? Did Horne escape the Apaches? Were they attacked leaving the post or coming back? Was it Apaches that attacked the mystery man from the 1st? Was this the harbinger of another row with the Indians—a bloody one?

Thomas opened his eyes and regarded the stars. But for the snores of those in sound slumber and the faint noise of crickets, the night was as it had been when he’d first tried to fall asleep. Dunn Two was tending the fire on his watch, and Thomas decided sleep wasn’t going to come. With everyone else in their bedrolls, this looked like a good time to clear up something about Dunn Two’s night on watch, the day Horne and Dunn One were to have left on their hunt. He’d read something from Albert Dunn’s behavior that morning in the enlisted mess. Might as well get the true story now.

Joining Dunn by the fire, Thomas said, “Albert, you have my sympathy for the loss of your cousin. Charles was a good soldier, and I know you two were close. But it is an oddity, no? That we find your cousin along the road to Socorro and not south of the post where he and Horne were to be hunting?” Albert might have thought himself closer to Charles than he really was, but it was always safest to assume the latter.

Dunn Two looked a little startled at the question. “Thank you, sir. Charles was sometimes a little ornery ‘bout my knocking about with him, but he were one of my oldest friends. And yes, yes it is odd, sir. Whoever did this to my cousin will pay.” Dunn dropped his eyes to the fire once more and looked intensely at the flames.

“Just been working all of this out and couldn’t sleep. Saw you on watch and thought I’d come and clear something up,” Thomas said with a disarming smile. “You was on watch where two days ago?”

“Humm, at the hospital northeast sally port,” Dunn replied.

“What watch?”

“Third watch, 12 to 2 a.m.”

“And you reported nothing to the Odd?”

“Uhm, no sir.” Dunn looked from the fire to Thomas and back to the fire quickly.

“Did you know that the Odd and the stables have your cousin and Horne getting passes and horses and listing where they were going hunting?” Thomas asked.

“Hhmmm, I suppose so, sir.”

“See, Dunn, I’ve been wrestling with this for some time now. I’ve thought to myself that two privates who went to the trouble to request passes and to sign out mounts would certainly have used both to leave the post. Yet no one reported that they had. Very odd, that,” Thomas stated, staring Dunn straight in the eyes.

Dunn tried to hold the stare but quickly averted his eyes back to the fire.

“So I thought I’d come and clear up what you did see that night as you did your watch. The odd’s report should have shown Horne and your cousin being passed through either the gate facing northwest or one of the northeast sally ports, but no one reported anyone leaving on their watch. So what do you think might have happened?”

“Humm, well, someone might have been mistaken. I mean, someone might have missed them going.”

Thomas nodded. “Very probable, if no one reported it. But wouldn’t that also be a dereliction?” he asked with a raise of a brow.

“Hmm, yes sir. Though letting someone leave who had a pass wouldn’t be such a problem,” Dunn replied quickly.

“True. They wouldn’t have been stopped if they showed their passes. Though the guard is supposed to keep people out who aren’t supposed to be entering and keep people in who aren’t supposed to be leaving.” Thomas smiled.

“Hmmm, yes sir,” Dunn replied with a curt nod. He was still staring into the fire, conspicuously not looking Thomas in the face.

“Now, if a man had been written up previously for infractions, he might be in a position to not want to be compromised a further time, right?” Thomas asked gently.

“Yes, that would be the case . . . probably.”

“Probably,” Thomas repeated with another nod of his head.

Dunn looked about him nervously, and in a whisper he said, “I seen ‘em pass.”

“You did? You passed them through the hospital sally port?”

“Yes, I passed them through,” Dunn replied evenly.

“Dunn and Horne. You saw their passes and let them go through . . . at 12 or 1 in the morning? Was that usual?”

“Not unusual fer a huntin’ party,” Dunn replied.

“Why didn’t you report the activity to the odd?”

Dunn shrugged his shoulders.

“Just those two, with mounts?”

Dunn nodded in agreement.

“So, were you surprised to find your cousin’s body out this way?” Thomas remembered that when Dunn came running up with the other soldiers, he’d looked surprised

Dunn nodded vigorously. “Yes, don’t know why he’d have been out this way at all. If he were huntin’ he’d have been south of here where the huntin’ was better. We’d done hunted out this area of the river.”

“But you knew that from looking at his pass.”

“Ummm, yes. Their passes said hunting, south of post in Bosque.”

“Horne and your cousin.” There was still something that didn’t sit right. The hospital sally port led to a goat track that headed north to Socorro, but the way to leave the fort for a hunting party south would have been the main gate . . . unless of course there was another reason to leave by the sally port.

“Yes, Horne and my cousin.”

Thomas didn’t make a habit of questioning his men or of taking a suspicion upon a reported action. He rarely became involved with disciplinary actions or issues. When men came to him or confided in him, it was usually just the raw truth of a matter dealt with. He could quickly ferret out an issue even when the man was reluctant to speak to it directly. But he was getting a lot of that from Dunn.

Leaving the question of which port and Dunn Two’s surprise at finding his cousin’s body for a moment, Thomas took a different tack.

“If someone were to have been asleep or tight while on duty, what might have happened to them if caught?” Thomas asked.

“They would have ended up in the guardhouse or bucked and gagged,” Dunn replied quickly.

“I see. And if they was already reported once for being asleep, it might have been worse?”

Thomas looked closely at Dunn. The fire, nice and warm when Thomas first approached, had become too hot—or perhaps it was just that Thomas was feeling hot from the interview. Thomas turned and stared into the fire while he let the question hang, giving Dunn Two time to formulate his reply.

Finally the reply came. “Yes, sir. Somethin’ bad might have happened to whoever was not on watch when they supposed to be.”

“Good enough. At least we know now that your cousin and his friend didn’t desert but were on leave. Now we just have to figure out why Dunn One was found where he was and where Horne might be.”

“Yes sir, that we do. Look, sir,” Dunn said again in a low voice, “I fell asleep a few times while on watch an’ was caught once an’ lost liberty privileges an’ had to sit in the guardhouse. I didn’t want to repeat that again. I think I was dozing when I heard the officer of the guard come along. So I just said no activity.” He let out a deep breath.

“So, you didn’t actually see their passes. You were expecting to pass them through but you never actually saw them. Were you waiting for them to pass through?” Thomas asked.

“Yes, sir.” Dunn Two looked grave and embarrassed. “Well, sort of, sir. But Blackie come by with a flask to make some small talk a bit before that, an’ I took too much.”

“Blackie?”

“Hmmm, yes, Hospital Steward Blackwell. He said he was on his rounds and was takin’ a little walk outside,” Dunn replied.

“So you weren’t just sleeping, you were tight while on watch,” Thomas said in a low voice.

Dunn nodded.

“That’s a pretty serious offense, Dunn. Not just sleeping but drunk while on watch will get you more than just a stint in the guardhouse again.”

“Yes, sir. But I was expectin’ to pass my cousin through an’ didn’t see him. How else could I report?”

“So you thought your cousin was going to . . . desert, then? You must have known that going through the hospital sally port wasn’t the best way to leave the post for a hunt south.”

“When I didn’t see him again I jus’ thought he might have gone through the other port. When no one else reported that he had, I jus’ thought he might have, you know, gone over the wall.”

“And you weren’t going to say anything about it to the Odd, thinking you’d give your cousin time to either get away or get back and not get yourself into more trouble. All right, Dunn. We’ll keep it between us then. I see no harm in that right now.” Thomas nodded to the man and stood.

Walking away from the fire, he felt the coolness of the night air finally bathe his face with unwelcome cold. He’d been sweltering by the fire, and his face was moist with sweat.

Crawling under the blanket again, Thomas shivered. Instead of clearing his mind, he’d only managed to clutter it more.

CHAPTER 5

SOCORRO

Thomas and Morgan took the short walk in the early morning sunlight from the churchyard to the center of Socorro. The quartermaster sergeant had already pulled his wagon to the town square to deliver the post’s mail to the mercantile owned by Juan Garcia, which now operated as the post office for the area. Both the military and civilian posts would be held by the mercantile and transported in the same method by rider to Albuquerque. The QM was now in the mercantile bartering with Señor Garcia for anything he could lay hands on that wouldn’t be forthcoming from the next supply delivery by army wagon.

The 1st New Mexico Cavalry troop holed up in the town occupied a camp not far from the church, but their officers had taken residence in the Baca house off the plaza. Having nothing better to do for an hour, Morgan decided to come along with Thomas to track down the dead man’s commander.

Every town had a plaza, a central park, a place to gather for commerce or for gossip. The plaza this morning was empty as Thomas and Morgan found Juan José Baca’s house. It was a single-story adobe house built in the ranchera style, with thick walls, narrow windows, and an enclosed courtyard in the center protected by high walls and a narrow wooden gate. Built like a U, the hacienda had been constructed with defense in mind and not grandeur.

Inside the gate, however, the inner courtyard was alive with flowers and soldiers. Tables and chairs were set out to enjoy the early morning sun, and several officers were seated drinking coffee and eating. Several enlisted men were also enjoying a breakfast while the matron of the house oversaw the provisioning of the tables.

On Thomas’s and Morgan’s approach, Señora Baca came forward. “Padre Smith; come to convert us again?” she said with a devilish grin. She was in her fifties, far too old to have such a saucy greeting, but she had avoided the too-soft of life that tends to add pounds to any physique. She gave a slight curtsy and let the question hang in the air.

A few of the officers, overhearing the query, let out muffled snickers.

“No, Señora Baca, not today.” Thomas smiled as warmly as he could muster. The Catholics had some odd ideas about Methodism. Of course, he supposed he had some odd ideas about Catholicism.

“This is Captain Morgan,” Thomas said with a wave of his hand. His friend gave a slight bow. “We’ve come to track down the captain of L Troop.”

“El Capitan esta dentro,” Señora Baca replied and turned to lead the way.

Thomas and Morgan nodded to the officers at the tables. The 1st New Mexico was almost entirely made up of former Mexican citizens, now citizens of the territory of New Mexico, with just a few Anglo officers and enlisted men. Spanish was the primary language of the regiment, though the officers had to know English to be commissioned.

They found Captain Martinez seated by an open window and sopping up the remainder of his eggs and beans with a tortilla. He was young, Thomas guessed about twenty-five years old, and clean-shaven.

“Capitan Martinez, dos Americanos to see you.” She gave a slight curtsy once more and left the room.

“Morgan, right?” Martinez said as he stood and took Morgan’s hand. “And you’re the chaplain of the 5th California, right?”

“Chaplain Smith,” Thomas said.

“Right, Smith. What can I do for you?” Martinez asked.

“We think we have found one of your men,” Thomas said.

“A deserter?” Martinez said with a frown.

“I don’t know; he’s dead. We found him near the fort, and he was brought in by Tafoya, the interpreter. He died the next day of sunstroke,” Thomas replied. “He had this on him.” He handed the knife to Martinez. “I assume his initials are RHM.”

“Oh, well, I think everyone has been accounted for.” Martinez walked past Thomas and out of the room. Thomas shrugged and followed. The captain had turned and gone back out into the courtyard.

“We have anyone not report for roll call?” Martinez asked one of the officers seated at the tables. “I thought I saw Private Muñoz earlier today.”

“Hmmm, one sir. Private Abeyta,” a lieutenant replied.

“Just today?” Martinez asked, looking a little embarrassed.

“Yes sir. Didn’t return from a trip out of the town proper. I don’t recall the reason. And yes, sir. Private Roberto Muñoz is accounted for.”

Thomas looked at Morgan and felt his cheeks flush and sweat forming on his forehead, but the latter just shrugged.

“Anything else you’d like to report to me?” Martinez asked with irritation.

The other officers shook their heads in silence.

“What’s going on?” Martinez rounded on Thomas.

“Tafoya brought in this Abeyta—possibly, at least that’s who I’m assuming he was for the moment. Tall and thin, flat nose?” Thomas looked at the captain for a moment for confirmation. “He was dying of exposure and had an infected leg wound. He died early next morning. He was delirious, so he didn’t tell us much.” He refrained from mentioning what the man didtell him. It hadn’t been half-coherent anyway. Perhaps this man had been confessing to killing the owner of the knife? It was a nice hunting knife, but hardly worth murder.

“How do we know the half-breed didn’t do that to our man?” Martinez asked angrily.

“We don’t, but I doubt Tafoya would have injured the man and then brought him into the fort’s walls to spill the story. He’s buried in the post’s cemetery,” Thomas stated. “We wanted to let you know of the incident and find out who he was.”

“You see any signs of Apache activity around here?” Morgan cut in.

“Apache, no. Not seen anything but trading parties come through here to barter with the locals. Not seen any war parties or signs of them in months, though don’t tell Colonel Carson that!” Martinez winked and touched his nose. “Hate to give up this hospitality.” Colonel “Kit” Carson had been given command of the regiment after the 1st, 3rd, and 4th New Mexico volunteer infantry regiments were mustered out and the 1st New Mexico Cavalry created.

The other officers nodded in agreement.

“Why do you ask about Apaches?” Martinez asked.

“We found one of our own men fifteen miles north of the fort, dead. Scalped and his tendons cut and left out naked. Had all the hallmarks of an Apache war party,” Thomas replied.

“Two men?” Martinez exclaimed.

“Our man was on liberty, or so we think. Don’t know about yours,” Thomas said. He glanced around at the other officers, but no one seemed to have any reaction at all to the news.

“Was Private Abeyta on a pass?” Martinez asked his men.

There were blank stares all around until one of the lieutenants cleared his throat. “He was on a pass out of town for some prospecting, out in the old Spanish silver mines in the hills west of town.”

Martinez shook his head. “Need to start denying that; men wastin’ their time digging around those old mines. No one’s found anything but a few flakes of silver in all the time we’ve let ‘em go out.” He turned back to the lieutenant. “Was he out by himself . . . Abeyta?”

“Don’t know, sir. No one else applied for a liberty.”

“You say your man was found south of here?” Martinez asked Thomas. “And our man was found near the fort?”

“Yes, off the road. He’d been out for a few days. Don’t know exactly where Tafoya found your man.”

“You should go and find some of his compadres,” Martinez stated to the lieutenant who seemed to have all of the information, “and find out if he was out by himself and why he lied to us about why he wanted liberty. He wasn’t digging in the hills west if he was found south of here.” He addressed Thomas for a moment. “So you found out who he was. We will find if he has family with the means to bury the body.” He turned to his subaltern again and demanded, “Have you given any other passes lately?”

“No, sir.”

The young captain turned back to his guests. “Thank you for bringing the news of our man. Is there anything else you need?” He held out his hand to take a parting shake.

“If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to talk to Abeyta’s pards. Might confirm if this was him we found.”

“Oh?” Martinez started. “Anything in particular you’re looking for?”

“Just curious about the inconsistencies with our man and yours. We are missing one other man, a Private Horne, who was out with the one whose body we came across on the way here.” Thomas rubbed his chin stubble, his voice even.

“You’ve one dead man, one missing man now?” Martinez asked incredulously.

“Yes, so that’s why I’m curious. Seems a story needs telling. Our Private Horne might still be around somewhere, and I’m wondering if any of your men knew him and Dunn. I know our men come here often on liberty.”

“Take these two along with you,” Martinez ordered one of the lieutenants. He turned back to Thomas. “He’ll take you around to the troop’s company, and you can talk to the men. I think you’ll find Private Muñoz at the public house about now. His initials match that knife.”

“Sir,” another one of Martinez’s lieutenants spoke up. “It looks like we had a horse come back early this morning; QM says it was signed out by Private Abeyta.”

“And it wandered in riderless?” Martinez asked sharply.

“Yes sir, didn’t see it earlier in this report.” The man replied sheepishly.

Martinez made a sound of disgust. Without further niceties, he vanished through the doorway to the house.

“Sirs, if you’ll follow me,” the lieutenant said and stood.

Thomas and Morgan fell in behind the man. Safely out of earshot of the other officers, Morgan said, “Once the QM is done the detachment needs to head out.” To make his point a little sharper, he added, “He’s probably done now.”

Thomas shook his head. He couldn’t leave now. There was a trail here; he needed to follow it. “I think I’m going to remain behind a little while longer to see what I can learn about what might have happened to our men and about this Abeyta.”

Morgan looked displeased but hardly surprised. “Hmmm, you aren’t going to go back alone. I’d need to detail someone else to stay behind. This is your errand, but I’m in charge of security for this little romp.”

The lieutenant led Thomas and Morgan back out of the courtyard and around the corner of the Baca house. Across the street, the quartermaster’s wagon was being unloaded of molasses and bags of flour.

“I’ll be fine,” Thomas protested.

“The QM is finishing up. We’ve done our errand, so I’ll need to get the detachment going, and no, you’re not traveling back to the fort alone,” Morgan answered.

“You don’t—” Thomas said in protest once more before being cut off.

“I’m going to go back to the detachment and put the quartermaster in charge, and I’ll be back presently. I’ll send them along back to the fort with a note that I’m taking a few days’ liberty myself. It’ll be another day at least before we can start out again.”

“Hmmm, all right,” Thomas muttered. “Probably won’t . . .”

Morgan turned slightly. “You aren’t going to let this go, I know you.”

Thomas shrugged. “Probably pull Dunn Two off as well. Part of our escort back, since I invited him along and he’s not part of your company. Oh, and see if QM found me a guitar or that Navajo blanket I wanted.”

“Sure, and what am I supposed to do with it if he does? Walk around with a blanket on my shoulder and a guitar on my knee?”

“Tell him to pack it gently and take it back to the post and keep it as far away from you as possible,” Thomas replied with a smirk.

Morgan stepped out of the line and followed the street to the left back toward the church, leaving Thomas trooping behind the lieutenant from the 1st New Mexico. A wide street separated the alcalde’s house from the houses opposite, wide enough for several companies of infantry to form battle front. It was across this that he was led toward another row of single-story buildings of the same adobe construction.

The odor of grease and bread wafted toward the two as they reached the other side, and the lieutenant entered through a low doorway. Tortillas were being cooked on the griddle, and Thomas’s stomach rumbled as he stood in the doorway and drew in a deep draught through his nose.

CHAPTER 6

APACHES!

Private Elias Hoffsteadter was denied his hoped-for extra hour of sleep by the shouting of Sergeant Bruce to prepare to fall in outside of the barracks. It was early, not quite even light as the cry went from room to room to get up and fall in. Oil lamps were lit, and sleepy-headed men scrambled to locate shoes, coats, and head coverings and stumble out toward the exit to the street.

With Chaplain Smith gone, Hoffsteadter had counted on a further day off, but something was up. Other men looked about them with confusion as Hoffsteadter took his place in the lineup. The other companies were also being rousted from their barracks, and soon the company streets were filled with drowsy soldiers teetering on feet barely able to maintain balance.

Several officers were conferring a few feet away, and oil lamps had been lit along the outside wall of the enlisted barracks. Across the street, there were lights on in the officers’ quarters. The whole post was awake much earlier than normal.

Everyone was being turned out. The hospital company was standing in front of their rooms off to the side of the hospital; the quartermaster’s company and those who maintained the stables were lining up outside of their rooms.

Roll was taken in the dark, the first sergeants calling out the names and noting on small, pocket-sized notebooks who was present.

Hoffsteadter stood by, waiting for the boom to fall—to hear who would be called out to go mount some fool expedition in the dark. Being the chaplain’s assistant meant he managed to miss most of these calls. He’d gotten a little fat on the softer post life of eating meals and waiting on the good chaplain, and he liked it that way. He’d been glad Smith hadn’t forced him to go along with the mail. Now, not so much.

The whispered questions were going unanswered. What was going on?

“Second, 3rd, and 4th platoons;” the first sergeant called out. “Fall out and draw mounts. The rest, dismissed.”

The muttered swears became uttered swears as those who got to climb back under the covers for a few more hours’ sleep took their leave while those unlucky enough to be in the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th platoons—Hoffsteadter the unluckiest—were left to stand and scratch their heads.

“What’s going on?” Hoffsteadter asked of First Sergeant Mapes.

“Apache party,” came the reply. “Go on, go an’ draw your mounts!”

“Heard that the mail came back with Private Dunn One; he’d been attacked an’ scalped by Apaches,” one man informed the group as a pack of six men headed for the stables.

“Heard it from who?” another man asked.

“Which Dunn? We got two.”

“The one that’s always with Horne, Charles or something.”

“The one what was missin’?”

“Mail found ‘im stripped an’ scalped, brung ‘im back. Thinks we’s gonna mount an expedition to hunt them savages down.”

“Oh, the mail’s back?” Hoffsteadter said. “Maybe I should see if Chaplain Smith need me for something.” The group fell into the lineup at the stable entrance.

“Chaplain didn’t come back, Hoff,” First Sergeant Mapes said with a hint of glee in his voice. “You’ll have to play soldier instead of playin’ churchy.”

“Oh,” Hoffsteadter said, crestfallen. “Is it true? About Dunn?”

“Left fer dead, animals feastin’ upon the body; yup, it’s true, Hoff. Captain gonna lead an expedition out, so be prepared to cook a few days’ rations before you go.”

More groans. This meant being called upon to mount weeklong or longer expeditions or to march to a post several hundred miles away—trips that would take weeks to execute, and all the while living out of a tent. Life on post had allowed all of the soldiers to get comfortable, so the occasional call to go out for days on end was met with grumbling and complaining.

The platoons from each company that were assigned to the expedition numbered thirty-five men. It was dawn before Hoffsteadter’s turn to sign on the ledger and draw his saddle and blankets and then ammunition and rations.

By then, word had it that Dunn had been found in a shallow grave and had been dead several days. Those on the mail detail related having to bury the man and then on the way back unbury him. The odor was by then powerful, and all had kept a good distance from the wagon.

The Apaches had come across Dunn and relieved him of his clothes, weapons, and horse and left him to rot in the sun. Private Horne had not been found. The man who had staggered into the post the day before had been identified as well. The talk was of hostages and revenge upon the Apaches for daring to come and kill one of the post’s soldiers.

It was midmorning by the time the expedition had gathered along the street that ran toward the west sally port. Soldiers were fussing with saddlebags and their own blanket rolls as the troops lined up in five-man columns.

Hoffsteadter noted that there were two hangers-on to the group. Tafoya the interpreter was atop his horse, looking on with an air of disdain at the demonstration of raw power that was the cavalry contingent; and Hospital Steward Blackwell, who was looking a little uncomfortable atop his mount, was positioned off to the side of the formation.

“We expectin’ a rough time?” Hoffsteadter asked the man next to him, one of his platoon mates.

“Hear he volunteered.”

“Must be bored,” Hoffsteadter replied.

Blackwell’s pasty white skin shone in contrast to the tanned appearance of the other soldiers, men who spent most of their time out of doors instead of in. They all paled in comparison to Tafoya’s deep and dark brown.

* * *

Captain John Manning was pleased with the progress so far. He’d been given the singular distinction of leading the first Apache punitive expedition to be mounted by the 5th California. He wasn’t going to mess it up.

“We’ll follow the road to Socorro and then head into the area along the river where they say the Apache have been hunting lately,” Manning was saying to the three lieutenants and Tafoya.

“If it were a raiding party, they got two days’ head start on us,” one of the lieutenants stated.

“You know where they hunt, right?” Manning asked Tafoya.

“Si, Mimbres Apache hunt in de Bosque by river. If a party kill that man, we find,” Tafoya replied.

“You’ll show us where you picked up that man from the 1st New Mexico?” Manning asked.

Tafoya nodded.

“You’ll lead the way,” Manning said to Tafoya. “We’ll camp about two days’ ride out and then establish a base camp and send out small patrols from there to cover the area.”

He turned toward his men. “First Sergeant, form battalion,” Manning called out to Mapes.

Leading the way, Manning and Tafoya headed down the street and out through the sally port. The morning shadows drew long across their path as the dirt track led the party past the guardhouse and the adjutant’s office and ran behind the north-facing embrasure. The track was absent of vegetation but for some low-lying mesquite and tumbleweed that had been allowed to grow. The single cannon mounted at the apex of the hexagonal embrasure was duly saluted by each enlisted man as he passed by, a certain joke amongst the men that the cannon felt lonely with nothing and no one to shoot at.

Coming out of the fort proper, the road was shaded in parts by the large mesquite that lined the track. Rabbit and jackrabbit were scared up occasionally as the column moved by, skittering off into the deep brush. The column moved through a sandy path that raised the dust level. A constant fluttering of small birds kept up a lively chirping and alighting on the branches of mesquite further ahead, only to be scared off once again when the head of the column reached their landing. That and the soft clopping of hooves made the morning’s jaunt a chorus of desert song.

If there weren’t any Confederates to fight, the Apache were the next best thing, and Manning was proud to be the one to do it.

“Hear you was here when Sibley took Socorro,” Manning said to Tafoya after the two had ridden in silence for thirty minutes, leaving the fort but a shimmering speck on the southern horizon.

“Si, el general make me scout up north,” Tafoya replied.

“He make you go all the way up to Santa Fe?” Manning asked.

“Si.”

“Were you there for the fighting at Pigeon’s Ranch?”

“No, left with baggage, but help it burn,” Tafoya said with a smile.

“Oh, so you were there when Chivington found Sibley’s supplies and put them to the torch! Must have been fun.”

Tafoya nodded his head in agreement.

“And your people used to occupy this area?” Manning asked. The track they were traveling now was open and exposed. Not much to observe or claim. The Rio Grande flowed nearby, but it was invisible through the mesquite growth. Pueblo ruins lay scattered about cliff walls in old arroyos and small canyons, wherever a mud brick or stone edifice could be constructed to give shelter and enough water lay nearby for growing squash and beans and attracting game for hunting. The pueblo buildings in the area had been abandoned for over two hundred years and were little more than curiosities now. The land, to Manning’s eye, was inhospitable.

“Si, here before Spanish. Here in river houses for miles, near Socorro mission that Spanish establish. Apache always a problem for my people. Flee with Spanish at time of revolt, and others forced to flee by Apache once Spanish gone. Father came back from El Paso del Norte and Ysleta Pueblo with Spanish back here. He tracker, hunter, and interpreter for Spanish. Now I am.”

“Hear you’ve got a problem with the Apaches, not just from your people’s history but closer to home,” Manning said. He had been riding for just under an hour, and already he was bored. The countryside offered little in the way of different scenery, and there wasn’t a soul to be seen, save for the cloud of dust behind him, for miles in any direction. If he was going to rely upon this man, he needed to know more about him. And anyway, it helped with the boredom.

“Apaches kill mother, take sister. They take advantage of time when blue soldiers go away,” Tafoya replied in a matter-of-fact manner. “Apaches kill your man.”

“That’s what we suspect,” Manning replied.

The road to Socorro carried along the path of the Rio Grande and continued on into the Bosque, a lush green belt that followed the course of the river. As the path to Socorro diverged to the west, the path into the Bosque became one suited best for a goat cart, used by Pueblo and Apache Indians, Spaniards, Mexicans, and now Americans alike. This was where the game was. Deer, mule deer, and antelope grazed and watered here, and the Apache frequented the area for their hunting.

Cedar and oak trees, mesquite, tall grasses, and waterfowl made the belt an oasis through a rough terrain. Since the start of the war and the pulling back of the regular army units who had staffed key forts, the Apache had become emboldened in their raiding, from taking on individual haciendas and stealing horses to murdering any individual they could find helpless and alone. Mining camps, often isolated and deep in rugged territory, were especially vulnerable. Often warned not to venture out into isolated areas, civilians had nonetheless established silver and gold mines along steep canyon walls or in the foothills of the mountains that the Apache called home, and they took the risk of reprisal for trespassing. Apaches had quite often surrounded and butchered those who were caught unawares.

“You aware of any activity this close to Socorro?” Manning asked.

“No, but Apache get desperate and game become scarce in Bosque. Hunting party might come this far.”

The expedition had left the road to Socorro an hour or more ago, and the path led them into an area of tall mesquite and trees. The part of the Bosque they were interested in was a lowland at the river’s edge. Heavily treed, the Bosque was a perfect place to slip in and hunt and slip back out again with no one the wiser. Problem was, everyone hunted there.

Tall marsh grasses grew in pools where the groundwater table was close to the surface. Across the river on the east side was much the same terrain. If the Apache had come down to the Bosque, they could be anywhere.

“You believe the Apache are holding up in here?” Manning asked. “Where you found that man and where they found Private Dunn is miles from here and along the road to the post.”

“Apache like hide in Bosque, cover. If they in area, they in here hiding,” Tafoya replied.

“Would they stick around this long? If, say, they ran across Dunn and Horne along the road, why would they still be around? They’d know we’d find the bodies sometime.”

“Apache warriors, they look for fight. Your men targets. Apache two hundred years ago raid all along the Bosque and kill my people, hunt them, chase them, chase Spanish settlers, destroy pueblos. This is what they do,” Tafoya replied without emotion.

Captain Manning had seen Apache trading parties come to the post and into Socorro. Pitiful-looking bands of old men, women, and children, perhaps a warrior or two. They came riding wild-looking horses and bringing animal pelts, jerked meat, tanned hides, and turquoise for trade. They always struck Manning as hardly being dangerous people.

“Piro traded with Apache when they not come to destroy. Apache would raid and then trade. When Spanish come and mission establish in what now Socorro, we had peace. Spanish soldiers lived in mission and priests protect the Piro from Apaches. Apaches afraid of Spanish soldiers and would only come to trade. Then the northern pueblos revolt and Spanish run, taking mission and soldiers from Socorro. My people run with them. When Oñate return from El Paso del Norte, Piro who stayed behind gone—hunted down or chased away by Apache. No more Spanish mission and soldiers, no more Piro.”

Tafoya said this again without much emotion, as if he were merely relating cold facts. Manning marveled at him.

“So your father came back with the Spanish? With Oñate?” Manning asked.

“No, that two hundred years ago. Father came back when governor allow settlement of Socorro once more. Father come back with Spanish soldiers thirty years ago.”

“Oh,” Manning replied sheepishly.

Though the sun was up at its zenith, the full-leafed trees gave the men relief from the heat, and the presence of the river added to a sense of oasis from the dry, parched road they had been traveling all day.

Captain Manning raised his right arm to order a halt. “First Sergeant, thirty-minute rest. Get the horses to water and the men to eating supper.”

* * *

At the command of “rest,” Private Hoffsteadter gave a thankful sigh. His legs were killing him, and the McClellan saddle was killing his backside. He could feel the beginnings of several saddle sores forming in areas too delicate to mention, and it was with relief that he dismounted and felt terra firma beneath his feet. The trees were cool, and there was no problem finding a comfortable spot to enjoy cold cracker and cold pork.

The command to rest may have come, but rest for the weary posterior would not until the horses had been seen to. It was every individual’s responsibility to lead his own beast to the river for water and feeding. As Hoffsteadter led his mount along, he fell in with Private Smith of his own company. Smith was tall with a gangly appearance when standing upright, his long arms seeming to stretch far below his waistline and hips.

“Well, Hoff, you handlin’ the heat this time around?”

“Faring,” Hoffsteadter replied. “Not so bad.”

“What you think we really out here for?” Smith asked as the two slipped down a slight embankment to the river’s edge. The sandy soil was now muddied with troopers jostling for a spot near the water for their horses and spreading out along the edge for thirty feet in either direction.

“Apaches?” Hoffsteadter asked, unsure of what Smith was getting at.

“You seen any sign yet?”

“No, not been lookin’ either.”

“Right, you ain’t seen any sign ‘cause they ain’t any sign to see. We ain’t out here to find any particular Apaches but to hunt us some Apaches to find. Dunn One was killed by someone, but I’ve my doubts as to by Apaches.”

“What makes you think that?” Hoffsteadter asked. He didn’t mix often with his own company due to his duties with Chaplain Smith, which had caused him some discomfort among his fellow privates. They disdained him for easy duty.

“That half-breed is up to somethin’. Mail detail say they didn’t find Horne’s body, but some of his stuff was there. That don’t track with what I hear Apache do when they come across fellows out by theyselves. Don’t trust no Indians, and that goes fer that half-breed ‘specially.”

Smith wiped sweat from his forehead. “Horne an’ Dunn was up to somethin’. Been that way fer months, bein’ all secretive an’ the like. You know they have gold in this territory? Spanish find it here an’ there. Maybe Horne an’ Dunn find them some gold near Socorro in the Magdalenas and was minin’ it. Maybe they fell in with a bad lot; I don’t know. I’m just doubtin’ the Apache thing.”

Hoffsteadter nodded. The Apache had been a terror prior to the 5th California’s arrival to the territory, but they hadn’t been heard from much since. Horne and Dunn Hoffsteadter didn’t know very well. They could have been innocently set upon while on liberty, as was supposed, or maybe something else. As far as the Piro Tafoya, he was just another indigenous personage. Together with the Mexicans, they all seemed inscrutable to Hoff.

Tafoya was watering his own mount several yards away from the crowd of soldiers and looking out into the distance across the lazily flowing water.

“You know his own mother were murdered by them savages?” Smith stated.

“No,” Hoffsteadter replied.

“Murdered an’ left fer dead an’ his sister taken an’ sold as a slave down in Mexico is one story I heard. They do that, you know, ‘round here. Mexicans capture Navajo an’ Apache or Comanche children or women an’ sell ‘em; Navajo an’ Apache or Comanche capture Mexican children or women an’ sell ‘em. Both sides capture an’ sell them Pueblo Indians’ women. Spoils of war, eh?” Smith said it with neither disgust nor approval.

“So you think we out here for spoils?” Hoffsteadter asked. The army would kill whoever resisted if they found a war party, but they could do little more unless they came across a full camp.

“I think we here for that half-breed’s own jollies. Cap’n Manning jus’ along fer the ride. I’ll believe we out after Apaches when I see them Apaches out here.”

Hoffsteadter wondered. With his mount having finished his thirst quenching, he led the animal back to the horse picket and tied him off. He was not a student of the local cultures, despite having spent so much time following the chaplain around when he mixed it up with Pueblo Indians, Mexicans, and fellow soldiers from New Mexico regiments. This territory had a long history, and the peoples in it a long history of conflict. It was Pueblo against nomadic Indians such as the Apache and Comanche, both Pueblo and nomadic against Spanish settlers, and then Mexicans and Anglos and Pueblos against the nomadic Indians. Now the army was pitted against the Apaches. Retrieving his rations from a bag, Hoffsteadter retreated to prepare his repast.

Coffee was quickly being brewed around several small fires, and Hoffsteadter was about to pitch in with his when he noted Hospital Steward Blackwell leaning against a tree by himself. One quickly formed the bonds of comradeship with those who formed one’s platoon of soldiers, men who lined up with one another under the command of a corporal and usually formed a mess together for mealtime. With so many men, you knew them all but only really knew a few. Blackwell was part of that vast cohort that Hoffsteadter knew but didn’t really.

“Mind if I join you?” Hoffsteadter asked.

“Humm, no. Go ahead,” Blackwell replied evenly. The steward was cradling a half-eaten cracker in his lap and seemed to have been lost in thought before Hoffsteadter interrupted him.

“What were you thinking about?” Hoffsteadter asked.

Blackwell regarded Hoffsteadter suspiciously for several moments before replying, “Nothing, just about home.” He shifted uneasily and blew a heavy exhalation out of his nostrils.

“Sorry,” Hoffsteadter apologized. “I usually speak my mind or ask impertinent questions without preamble.” He tried to grin a little to disarm the faux pas.

Blackwell nodded his head but remained silent.

“How’d you get roped into this?” Hoffsteadter asked as he fished about in his haversack for his rations.

“Volunteered before I could get roped. They always send someone from the hospital on one of these expeditions. It was my turn, I suppose,” Blackwell replied.

“Yeah, me too; well, sort of. With Chaplain Smith gone I’d no duty to attend to, so I had to come.” Hoffsteadter said it with a hint of “I know what you mean, brother” in his voice. He thought Blackwell might be warming to him.

“You feeling better?” Blackwell asked. “You was pretty ill during our march out from California, as I recall.”

“Feel fine. Heat and lack of water got to me, but I suppose if it weren’t for that I’d not have been assigned lighter duty.” Hoffsteadter smiled. It had all worked out pretty well in his view.

“You like bein’ the chaplain’s assistant?” Blackwell asked. “Chaplain Smith seems to be an okay preacher, but he’s got some odd ideas all the same.”

“I like it, though it has kept me fat. What ideas are you talking about?” Hoffsteadter asked, dropping his cracker in his lap.

“He’s got some odd ideas about what a chaplain is supposed to do with his free time. Like coming around and prying into people’s private lives uninvited.”

The sharpness of the steward’s voice was unexpected, and Hoffsteadter felt suddenly put on the spot. “Hmmm, no, didn’t know that, an’ haven’t seen him do that to anyone else,” he replied uneasily.

“How’d you learn Spanish?” Blackwell asked.

“Mother was a Mexican, and father came out before the war with Mexico; she taught all her children Spanish. We learned English in school.”

“That private Tafoya brought in, you understood what he was saying, right?” Blackwell asked.

“Yes, caught most of what he was saying,” Hoffsteadter replied. He started to relax again—Blackwell just wanted to make conversation after all.

“Did he say anything about Apaches? Did he say who he was out with?” Blackwell pressed. He began eating mechanically, biting off an end of cracker and slowly chewing it while staring off into the distance.

“No, assumed it was all delirium. He didn’t say anything about Apaches or about anyone else. Odd that Tafoya found him out by himself. Any soldier knows it ain’t safe to be out alone along the roads. I wouldn’t much trust even the locals,” Hoffsteadter replied. He looked over at Blackwell with curiosity. Blackwell was still chewing slowly and with deliberation. With equal nonchalance he reached into his sack coat’s inner pocket and produced a tin flask. He took a drag from it and put it back in his pocket.

“You understand anything he told the preacher?” Blackwell asked after swallowing.

“No, not much anyhow.” Hoffsteadter wondered if Blackwell would offer him a tug at whatever it was he was carrying in the flask. But the man continued to stare out into the distance and mechanically chew on the cracker.

“What did you hear?”

“Somethin’ about confessin’ a murder or somethin’ like that. Didn’t make sense, but he was determined to confess to somethin’. I caught it was his fault or his doin’ and that he wanted absolution for the sin.”

Blackwell nodded his head slightly.

“I think the man was confused an’ dyin’ an’ didn’t know what he was sayin’,” Hoffsteadter added. “Don’t think Chaplain put much stock in it neither.”

“The man was out of it. His leg wound was gangrenous and filled with pus pretty bad,” Blackwell said. “Surgeon didn’t think he would last long even if he took the leg off.”

Hoffsteadter shook his head and eyed the pocket where he knew the flask was longingly. “Findin’ Private Dunn out here, that was another shocker. Cut up an’ eaten on like that! And Apaches no less. Didn’t think the Apaches would have been botherin’ to get this close if they was on a warpath or somethin’.” He shook his head again. “And where’s Horne? Why weren’t they seen leavin’? Why was Dunn found way up north when he shoulda been down south? Somethin’ really strange happening.”

“So you don’t think he and Horne went over the wall?” Blackwell asked.

“Heard Chaplain say that Dunn and Horne had been given a pass to leave for a hunt but that no one reported them leavin’, which don’t make no sense at all. No one be given a pass an’ not leave.”

“Perhaps that was just a ruse to slip away if they did intend to go over the wall,” Blackwell stated and turned his head slightly to regard Hoffsteadter intently. “Lots of reasons why a man might do something odd if he had other intentions. Who else was given a pass to leave?”

“Chaplain didn’t say, just that Horne and Dunn had been given passes and should have been reported leavin’.”

Blackwell nodded his head and took another bite of cracker. He reached into his coat for the flask once more, pulled it out and held it for a moment before returning it to the pocket.

“So, you don’t remember what that man said to the chaplain?” Blackwell asked again.

“No, not other than something about a confession to make about what sounded like he killed a man. He must have been really feverish. Most of the 1st New Mexico are English speakers.”

“I don’t think I heard him speak a lick of English, when they brought him in, that is. Didn’t know him if he was ever here with the other 1st New Mexico troops.”

Hoffsteadter shuddered a little at the memory of the man’s suffering. “I suppose once you get gangrene like that you’ve got a very slim chance of livin’?”

“Mostly. If your body can recover normally you might live through it and lose a limb. He were too sick to operate on, least what the surgeon said, so he didn’t bother taking the leg off. Fever already spread to his blood.”

“You think he was on his way to the post?”

“Don’t know. Don’t know much about the man,” Blackwell said.

Hoffsteadter sat back and thought over it all. “You think we gonna catch up to the Apache that did it? I think we all know that these seem related. The Apache come across Dunn and Horne, kill Dunn and Horne an’ we just not find Horne’s body, an’ this other fella happens to be with them for some reason an’ he barely escapes. Least that’s what the popular theory happen to be. Makes sense to me.”

“Don’t think they would’ve rousted all us out if they didn’t think the Apache had done it,” Blackwell said matter-of-factly.

“Chaplain figures his troop might be in Socorro,” Hoffsteadter asked. He leaned forward, his mind zeroing in on what had been troubling him. “That’s the part that don’t make no sense. No one seen the man at the post before, an’ the theory is that he was with the troop in Socorro instead. So why he come that far south at all don’t make no sense. Dunn and Horne woulda gone his way instead.”

He’d finished his repast and was absently picking at the sandy ground, digging for small pebbles to toss.

“Don’t know; suppose that what we here to find out. Maybe the Apache captured Horne an’ have him as a prisoner,” Blackwell replied.

Hoffsteadter nodded.

“Mount up! Get your traps together an’ prepare to mount!” shouted First Sergeant Mapes.

“See you on the trail,” Hoffsteadter said as he stood up and then silently shook his head as if shaking off both the delivery and the whole conversation. Collecting his traps was easy; he hadn’t taken any off, and he was ready to mount at the command almost immediately.

As the column sorted itself out and started in two-by-two formation, Hoffsteadter wondered how Chaplain Smith was making out. Must be nice to just decide to go and do something on one’s own like that, he thought.

CHAPTER 7

THICK AS THIEVES

Before the mail detail left Socorro and returned to Fort Craig, Thomas had found several 1st New Mexico enlisted men wolfing down breakfast in a low-ceilinged home whose front room had been converted into an eating and drinking establishment. Stepping inside and spying a table occupied by three soldiers, he unceremoniously pulled up a chair and sat. The men took a few moments to regard the interloper, noted who he’d come in with, and resumed their silent eating. The tortillas were fresh, the red chili sauce copious, and the beans and tamales soon mopped up with corners of tortilla.

“I asked your captain for permission to talk to some of his command about one of your fellows. We found him some miles from Fort Craig the other day in a sad state, and he soon died. I wanted to know if any of you knew why he would have been out that way and if any of you recognize this?” Thomas asked, his face expectant as he drew out the hunting knife and laid it on the table.

“We think this belonged to him, but your captain said no one by these initials is missing. Who goes by RHM that you know?”

“How about that, Roberto? You a dead man,” one of the men chided with a chewy grin, glancing over at his compadre with his lips still glistening from the greasy bread he was using for a dish rag.

“Hey, how’d you get that?” Roberto exclaimed as he reached for the knife. “Abeyta won that from me.” Roberto was the taller of the men crowding the small table. He had thin lips and a square jaw that gave his face a pressed appearance, as if it had been formed in a mold. He gazed now at the knife as if it were his only prized possession and had been lost.

“We found this on someone who might have been Private Abeyta, whom your captain said did not answer roll this morning. He was kind of thinnish and had a flat nose.”

“That Manuel Abeyta, all right,” the man eating said between licking his fingers one by one.

“I’m curious if you know why he was out south by the post?”

There was a long pause as Roberto examined his knife from tip to toe and the other two watched.

“He’s dead now, and I’m curious . . . so if you don’t mind helping to fill in anything . . .” Thomas paused, giving his best “you can trust me, I’m a chaplain” look.

“Manny’s dead?” asked Roberto. “How?”

“Broken leg, sunstroke, fever; all of the above,” Thomas replied with a slight shrug.

“Between here an’ Fort Craig?” came the next question.

Another said, “No reason for him to be out that way; he were on liberty far as we knew.”

“Would he have been on a hunt?” Thomas asked. The officers of the 1st New Mexico had said prospecting, but Horne and Dunn had gone on leave to hunt—supposedly.

“Where’d you say he found?” came the puzzled question from a man about Thomas’s height and built with a rounded jaw and a unibrow.

“North of the post. Don’t know exactly how far out, but half a day’s ride from here,” Thomas replied.

“No, no reason for him to be out that way. Captain been keeping low, hoping the post forget about us.”

“We’re missing one other soldier too,” Thomas said. “Found one dead of apparent Apache attack, but not the other one. They had a three-day liberty. You seen anyone from the post up this way six days ago?”

The four men looked at one another then shook their heads in unison.

“Don’t worry, they aren’t in trouble,” Thomas added in case the men were thinking of protecting one or two of their own on something of a bender.

The proprietor of the house spoke up from the corner of the room. “We have men from the California companies up here all the time, drinkin’ our booze, musclin’ in on our women, eatin’ our food. They general make a mess an’ leave.”

Thomas looked about the room and took stock of the soldiers who were there. His was the only white face in the establishment. This was not the first time he’d run into latent hostility from the locals.

“Did they pay money?” Thomas asked, feeling a little like putting his own backbone up.

“Si, they pay money,” the man replied with a huff. He looked to the other soldiers as if pleading for support. The others ignored him.

“Then you got an even return,” Thomas replied evenly. He turned his attention back to the table of soldiers hopefully. “Anything you can relate about Abeyta might help shed light on why he was out that far or what he’d planned on doing on liberty.”

“He’d been spendin’ time out lookin’ fer silver in the hills west of here. Spend a lot of his free time doin’ that in the old Spanish mines,” the man with the unibrow replied.

“Think we see him days ago before he got a pass,” another man said. He had slim cheeks and big ears that stuck out jauntily from bushy black hair. “He sign out a mount this time too.”

“Captain said his mount returned yesterday riderless,” Thomas replied.

The men exchanged looks. “Seen him around some soldiers from your regiment sometimes. They’d go out together, sometimes hunting down in the Bosque,” a third man spoke up. Thomas raised his brows. None of the 5th California’s companies had recognized Abeyta, and Dunn Two swore he’d never set eyes upon the man. Dunn and Horne had been carrying on some clandestine activities with this man and had kept that secret from the cousin and their fellow pards in the 5th.

“Did he often go out with others? No one from your own regiment?” Thomas asked.

“Sometimes. Seemed to have struck up with these other two soldiers recent. Started doing the digging in the hills for silver recent, too. Think these other two, or was it three?” The man paused and concentrated a moment before continuing. “He were with these others a month or two ago, an’ I’d see him with these other soldiers ride off to the north of the mission.”

“Looking for silver?” Thomas asked.

The man shrugged. “Don’t know about other times, just seen him ride off with several others last I seen him. They was on horseback an’ had shovels and picks tied to they mounts.”

Thomas sat back. Silver prospecting made more sense than a hunt where no game would be found. It seemed it was Horne and Dunn who had lied about their reason for wanting leave. “So there was a silver mine here at one time?” Thomas asked.

“Spanish priests found silver in the Magdalena mountains an’ had them Indians mine it; not much there to begin with an’ not much left either,” Unibrow replied. “They coulda been lookin’ for more source in different places. Not much reason to be diggin’ around here.”

“Much silver show up here anymore? I mean, people coming into town with ore?” Thomas asked. If there was any possibility of silver this close, the town didn’t show it. Not to mention that not even a hint of the possibility of there being a large deposit of silver ore had reached Thomas before now.

“No,” Roberto declared, “no one come into town with bags of rock, an’ no one in town trade on it. No one to smelt it, ‘less you do it yourself, an’ no one has an oven for that. Don’t think a man can make even his own pay in ore around these parts.”

“If Abeyta had found another deposit, do you think he could have kept that a secret?” Thomas asked. He watched the men’s expressions for any hint of knowledge or sign that they were keeping something back. If the three soldiers, Abeyta and Horne and Dunn, had found another vein of silver, it might explain a lot.

The soldiers’ faces had remained mostly impassive until now. Now, they exchanged mirthful glances at one another and suppressed hearty laughs.

“Abeyta?” Unibrow exclaimed. “He couldn’t keep a secret to save his life, ‘specially if he’d found some ore of silver. He’d have come into town like he the new alcalde an’ begun actin’ like he some new man of wealth. No, if he’d found a new ore deposit, he’d not have been able to keep it a secret.”

The other men all nodded their heads in agreement. “He’d have been in here buying drinks all around and boasting about his find but not tellin’ anyone where the mine were. But he’d not have been able to even keep that a secret. Abeyta liked to one-up you if he could.”

“Besides, it don’t take a platoon to mine a mine if it’s silver you after. He’d not have taken up with anyone else, ‘specially outsiders,” Unibrow added.

“Was he from here?” Thomas asked. He was getting plenty of information, but none of it explained anything.

“Yes, he live around here. Family come when Governor Chacon open the area for resettlement thirty years ago,” Roberto replied.

“So he would have known all about the old silver mines.” Thomas turned to the third man at the table. He was a smallish man, about five foot five with delicate hands, swarthy and dark brown—indicating a healthy tan or an extraction closer to the Pueblo Indians than the Spanish. “Anything you can tell me about the men you saw him with the last time?”

“Seen him with two white soldiers here. They was huddled in that corner table over there.” The man jerked a thumb behind him. “They was thick as thieves for several hours, an’ then they get up an’ leave. It were early in the mornin’, and I seen them ride out toward the mission with a third fellow. Didn’t see his face. He had black hair is all I remember.”

“A third? One of yours?” Thomas asked, his eyes widening. It was enough to take in that Dunn and Horne had taken up with Abeyta for purposes that seemed to him out of character with how most soldiers spent their liberty, but now another fellow? This story was becoming more fantastic with each new person he talked to.

“Didn’t recognize him from the back an’ hadn’t seen him around at all before. Assumed he was from your regiment too. He was short, black hair, civilian dress. Had one o’ them red trade blankets,” Roberto added, still examining his knife.

“And they had digging tools with them?” Thomas asked.

“Yes, tied to they horses. They didn’t look they was out for a hunt, not with the tools.”

“You say they was huddled together, like they were planning something? Were these other two men here with him often?” Thomas asked. He could almost see the three men huddled in the corner, talking about what they were going to do on the morrow. Perhaps the fourth man with the red blanket was with them? The story was taking shape. Perhaps Abeyta had managed to find another vein and keep it quiet, and between the other three they were going to exploit it in secret. Perhaps it was enough to prompt Abeyta to kill Dunn and Horne, maybe even this other man. Yet, something went wrong.

“Past few months, about two or three times I think.”

Unibrow nodded. “Think two of them had been around here on they liberty for a few days an’ then would leave.”

“Sometimes they’d just get a room an’ hang about, an’ once they all went out for a hunt I think, so they going out with tools was something different,” the mousy man stated.

“Can you describe each man to me?” Thomas asked. He was sure it was Dunn and Horne, but best to make sure.

“One man, he got this big nose, and the other got bucked teeth,” Unibrow replied, stroking his chin and looking up at the ceiling.

Good enough. “Horne had a big nose, and Dunn I think had an overbite. Both men were about five foot ten inches, and Horne was a bit heavier set than Dunn,” Thomas said.

“The two from your regiment got into a loud argument, the one with the overbite,” Unibrow added.

“Yeah, that right, kick up a big fuss.” Mousy man said with a vigorous nod.

“Dunn, Private Dunn,” Thomas said.

“Si, Dunn, he get into argument with the other one an’ it sort of broke up their evenin’. Didn’t see neither of them after that.”

“What were they arguing over?” Thomas asked, intrigued.

“Somethin’ about money, Abeyta try to calm him down, but he looked to get to blows with the other one.”

“Horne.”

“Si, Horne. That when Dunn storm out of room an’ other two follow.”

“I seen them all next morning leavin’ by north road.” Roberto added with a nod. “They an’ that third man.”

“A third man,” Thomas said more to himself than to the table. Looking up suddenly he stated, “We aren’t missing anyone else. Was this a soldier, this third man?”

“Don’t know. He weren’t in uniform if he was.”

Thomas nodded. Might it have been Tafoya?

“You know Miguel Tafoya, the tracker and interpreter? Could it have been him you saw?” Thomas asked hopefully.

Mousy man shrugged. “Not sure. It were early in the morning, an’ I only glanced up to seen ‘em ride north of the mission.”

“Did Abeyta own a pistol? Something privately purchased and not issued?” Thomas asked as he brought out the cylinder.

“No, he wouldn’t have afforded anything privately purchased, an’ we only issued old carbines for weapons,” Unibrow stated positively.

“So, he didn’t win one from anyone gambling?” Thomas asked, looking at Roberto, who blushed slightly.

“No, not many in the troop have what weren’t issued save some shoulder straps on them what had money before the war,” Unibrow replied.

“He got my knife was all he got from me, other than several month’s pay,” Roberto said sullenly.

“Thank you for your candor,” Thomas said as he stood from the table. “We have Abeyta buried at the post cemetery, but I suppose his family will want to remove the remains and have them sent home. Now we just have our other man to find. And this third person.”

Thomas gave the group a nod and exited the house. Standing once more in the bright morning light, he paused a few moments to let his eyes adjust. The cylinder wasn’t Abeyta’s. He’d won a pistol from someone gambling or else he’d taken it, and the surest way to take a weapon off a man was to render him hors de combat. Unlike the 1st New Mexico, there were plenty of men in the 5th who sported privately purchased pistols. Abeyta could have won it from any number of them on a poorly played hand of cards or dice roll. Abeyta was either a good gambler or the owner of the pistol a very poor one.

The mail detail was gathered in the street around the wagon, Captain Morgan and Private Dunn Two seeing them off. Thomas had learned what he needed to know from the men here. He could tell Morgan it was all right, they could leave Socorro if Morgan insisted on it.

But Morgan had been right. Thomas wasn’t going to let this go. The story, instead of reaching its climax, had introduced new chapters. The plot wasn’t resolving; it was growing more convoluted.

Seeing Thomas exit the house, both Morgan and Dunn Two proceeded across the street.

“Got us a place to board. Save some cricks in the neck from sleeping on the ground for a night at least,” Morgan said.

Must have read my mind, Thomas thought. “Just talked with three 1st New Mexico troopers. Their missing man, Abeyta, is the one we buried, that seems pretty certain. They say they seen him with Dunn and Horne here a few days ago, plus a third man no one seems to have seen before. Couldn’t describe his face. We aren’t missing anyone else, are we?”

Morgan shook his head. “Better not be.”

“They seen my cousin?” asked Private Dunn.

“Say he was with Horne here and Abeyta. And there’s something else. They say they was probably out looking for silver, not hunting.”

“Silver!” Dunn exclaimed loudly, running his hand through a greasy-looking mop of black hair slicked back by sweat. He replaced his black felt slouch hat.

“That’s just from some of them that I could find. Maybe some others also saw the three or four men doing something else.”

“Only one way to find out,” Morgan said. “Their camp is on the east side of the town by the river, so I suppose we go there next to talk with some more.”

“You think . . . you think my cousin was killed by Apaches fer lookin’ fer silver?” Dunn asked.

Thomas considered a moment before answering. Apaches or double dealing by any one of the three men and possibly a fourth could explain it. But he didn’t know enough yet to make such a proposition.

“He was killed by someone,” Thomas replied. “This silver thing puts another angle on what’s going on. But how Abeyta escaped horseless, only to be found by Tafoya a few miles shy of the fort, is another question. And now this fourth man . . .”

Thomas paused.

“They say anything else about him?” Morgan asked.

“Black hair, shorter than Dunn or Horne, and a red blanket. Lots of people around here have a red blanket. Tafoya has a red blanket,” Thomas said. “It’s possible Tafoya had something to do with it. Maybe he brung this Abeyta in half-dead and delirious and hope he not able to say who did him in.”

“But didn’t you say that Abeyta confessed to murdering someone else?” Morgan asked.

“There’s that, yes. Why bring Abeyta in at all if you had something to do with his death? Description seems to fit Tafoya, though. And he did have something up with Horne before he disappeared. Maybe he hoped to absolve himself by bringing in Abeyta, throw suspicion off.”

Morgan turned and looked hard southward along the street. The mail wagon and soldiers were no longer even a dot on the horizon.

“Well, the mail just left. Should we let them know that Tafoya might have had something to do with this?” Morgan asked.

Thomas thought about it but dismissed the thought quickly. “No, just me thinking out loud. No real reason yet to think it was him. Perhaps tomorrow we find where these old Spanish silver mines are.”

Morgan rolled his eyes as if to say “I told you so.” “Let’s go and find the 1st New Mexico camp and see who else we can find who knew Abeyta.” He started down the street. “Maybe somebody else know something useful.”

“Do Apaches horde silver?” Dunn asked as he brought up the rear.

CHAPTER 8

GLEANINGS

The next morning was bright and still a little cool when Thomas, Morgan, and Private Dunn rode the ten miles from the center of Socorro to the Magdalena hills. They had talked with fifteen troopers from the 1st New Mexico’s camp. All had known Abeyta and had seen him often with the 5th California’s Dunn and sometimes Horne, and all had related some project Abeyta had been working on in the hills. Searching for another silver ore deposit, they believed. No one had seen a fourth man with Abeyta, nor had any seen him leaving the town in the company of the other two.

Captain Martinez invited Morgan and Thomas to dine with him that evening at the Baca house. Mrs. Martinez had made a mess of tamales, and the house smelled of cornmeal and pork. They related what they had found out to Martinez about his man and theirs, and about the silver.

Martinez shook his head in disbelief. “Curse that Spanish silver mine! Can’t keep some of my men from wandering off for no good reason. The thought that there once was silver in the hills is enough to keep the whole troop out with shovels and picks.”

“But I’ve heard the mines were played out,” Thomas put in.

“They were. Nothing left. That hasn’t kept my men from getting ideas about finding something up there worth the effort all the same,” Martinez replied, disgusted.

The Magdalena hills towered over Socorro and ringed it in on the northwest side. The river ran to the southeast, and another set of hills ran further to the south. The Piro pueblos had existed all along the river and hills to the south of the town, which was established by the Spanish after a thirsty and hungry Juan de Oñate and his band of explorers had been given sustenance. They named the place Socorro, or “help.” Two of the priests traveling with Oñate had decided to stay and establish the mission of Nuestra Señora Perpetuo de Socorro, Our Lady of Perpetual Help.

The hills had taken the name of Magdalena years later after a Spanish soldier described a formation of rock and shading upon the hills as a popular conception of Saint Mary Magdalene. The hills looked simple enough from the town square, but the ride across the scrub and arroyos left the three men hot and thirsty by the time they reached the first box canyon an hour later. Leaving their mounts tied to a mesquite bush, the three hiked into the first canyon.

Guided by the track of a well-cut arroyo, the three men had come to a spur that spread out at seventy-five yards in width from spur to spur and then narrowed considerably as they walked deeper into the canyon. The walls were not that tall, the spurs rising above the floor to thirty feet before joining the foot of the mountain. Scrub and mesquite, tumbleweed and brush covered the sandy floor, which was grooved by the last flash of rainwater to flood down between the spurs and wash eastward. Sickly-looking trees jutted out from the walls of the canyon, clinging to the barest of soil in between crevices.

Following Martinez’s descriptions, they searched for what was supposed to be the old Spanish silver mine, the place where the Piro had led the priests. To the Piro the silver was just something they unearthed when they wanted something for decoration, then refined into ceremonial trinkets. But to the Spanish missionaries, the silver was something to be exploited.

Everyone knew of the mine’s presence, but the silver had been played out for a long time, and no one had found a new deposit.

Unless, of course, Abeyta and the missing privates had.

It was hot and getting hotter when they finally found what they were looking for. An uneven hole in a canyon wall with crude footholds chiseled into it brought them face-to-face with . . . a hole. It was just a hole.

As Thomas stood and regarded it, he felt a little let down. “Imagined something more grand,” he said.

He looked about. The sandy ground surrounding the mine was undisturbed, and a tree had grown up and partially covered the mine’s entrance as it jutted out from the canyon wall.

Morgan shrugged and said, “Well, let’s go.” Taking the footholds that allowed them to climb up into the mine, they crawled in one by one. The mine’s entrance was little more than ten feet wide, the hole chiseled out of the rock and a faint tracing of the old vein still visible in the wall five feet from the entrance.

Evidence of chiseling and hacking at the rock face made the far reaches of the cave wall uneven and rough, and ancient foot impressions in the dusty floor told Thomas it had been a long time since anyone had ventured into the mine. Little wonder. One look told all that there was very little left of the silver vein.

“You imagine workin’ this?” Dunn asked as the three men deftly climbed back out of the opening and down the cliff face.

“Them Pueblo Indians is shorter,” Morgan replied. “Them priests too.”

The cave had been just tall enough to move around in if one stooped or crawled around on his knees. It was a relief to get back out into the open air.

“They’s supposed to be sev’ral more mines, if this were the main one,” Morgan said as the three looked about. “Another canyon over. Sure this wasn’t where Abeyta was.”

Thomas regarded the territory as they crossed over. They were called canyons, but they were more like sharp spurs cut into the mountain side, with drops of no more than fifteen to twenty feet between one spur and another.

They found three old mines, one by one, but only one of them—the last one—showed any sign of recent activity. Dried mule or horse dung, shoe and boot prints, and old fire pits lay about. This one was easier to get to and still had a little bit of ore showing in the wall. Even so, it wasn’t the spot.

“Don’t think anyone been here for at least a couple years,” Morgan said as he kicked at a piece of dung.

“No, not for what we’re looking for,” Thomas agreed. Soldiers did funny things with their free time. Not just soldiers—people did funny things for means of getting ahead. Thomas had seen what greed did to ordinary people in California when the prospect of quick riches got in the way of otherwise rational behavior. The thought of precious metal nearby would cause people to do anything to keep it to themselves or exploit it to their own advantage only.

As they scouted along, Thomas kept up a running dialogue. He needed it to sort out the puzzle in his head.

“Abeyta, someone all say was well liked, suddenly gets an itch for digging out more silver, or perhaps finding a fresh vein.”

“He born out this way, so this isn’t new to him,” Morgan added.

“Supposedly everyone knows there’s no silver left here,” Thomas said. “So . . . what? It’s something to do, to stave off boredom. But by all accounts the 1st New Mexico would rather things stay boring. They not in a hurry to let on that the Apaches haven’t been nosing about, just like the 5th California back at the fort. Everybody know there’s no threat here, they can keep their comfortable place. At least the officers are comfortable.”

“That always be the case,” Dunn remarked.

“Don’t like it, you can always complain to your captain,” Morgan said tersely.

“Then he found himself two interested parties from the 5th.”

“They go hunting sometimes, so perhaps it comes up on a trip out,” Morgan surmised as he ducked under a low-hanging mesquite limb.

“Yes, so then these three become thick as thieves and are often noted together in town,” Thomas continued as he followed Morgan down a narrow path. He could picture Dunn One being particularly interested in gain, square or ill-gotten. The man had always struck Thomas as having a brutal side. He didn’t seem to have any qualms about cheating or lying, and if anyone else was responsible for the slight given to Tafoya by Horne, it was probably Dunn One who had egged it on. Dunn One was adept at shedding his cousin and lying to him about it, a natural charmer. So Dunn One could probably ease his way into anything Abeyta was up to.

“I never seen Cousin pal around with this Mexican feller,” Dunn protested. “He an’ Horne go out a lot huntin’, but they never say nuthin’ about meetin’ no Mexican.”

“Dunn Two,” Thomas said gravely, deciding it was time to introduce Albert to who his cousin really was, “your cousin did a lot of things that he never included you in, this being one of them. He lied to you quite a bit.”

Thomas stopped and turned slightly to face Dunn.

“But . . . no. He tol’ me they was goin’ fer a hunt an’ just wanted it to be he an’ Horne,” Dunn exclaimed, a look of intense concentration on his face.

“Dunn One lied to quite a few people on post about why he went out, especially his commanding officer. So Dunn and Horne meet up with Abeyta at some point, here in Socorro.”

“And they do what? Come out here an’ strike it rich?” Morgan asked. The paths around the spurs were rocky and slippery with pebbles and sand.

“Well, and they leave with someone else . . . let’s say someone like Tafoya. So whatever might have been between Tafoya and Horne, is it laid aside? Is it inconsequential to what they were all up to?” Thomas stumbled slightly upon a loose rock the size of a fist.

“Tafoya don’t seem like the riches type, and besides he from around here too and likely to be recognized,” Morgan added.

“Yes, but he’s good at laying low, and if he were only seen from behind, he looks like a lot of others around here. I could see him laying out Dunn One in a manner that might look like the Apache did it. Something else drives that Indian, more than wealth. He’s got an intensity to those eyes of his; I’d think him capable of doing this if he needed to.”

Thomas’s interactions with the scout and interpreter had been brief. Tafoya wandered in and wandered out at his leisure. But there was always something about him that told Thomas he might mean business if ever put to the test.

“So you think Tafoya might have killed Dunn One? Then he drag Abeyta in half-dead just for sport, risking that Abeyta will tell? You don’t buy that he might have been killed by Apaches?”

“A possibility is all,” Thomas muttered. Sometimes he needed to say things aloud just to think them through, but with Morgan that always meant having someone parrot back a lot of annoying questions or pesky realities.

“What did your cousin do before the war?” Thomas asked Dunn Two.

Dunn Two had been looking sad since Thomas pointed out his cousin’s lying behavior. He answered forlornly, “He worked a hydraulicking operation at Shasta on the Sacramento River. He sorta learned how to engineer water flow, as they was usin’ high-pressure water to strip down the river and canyon walls into sluices. He got paid a cut of each day’s work. Since you had to share it with the other workmen it never amounted to much. By the time of the war he were tired of it.”

“Your cousin do any panning?” Thomas asked.

“Early on, but by then you either had a good claim or you didn’t, an’ he didn’t.”

The ups and downs of the spurs rose in a gradient from an easy climb to a steep haul, one leg in front of the other on sandy ground, between brush and mesquite, and through small cuts in the sandy ground where water had one time carved a groove. After climbing four such obstacles and the occasional catching of a toe or heel in a narrow snake hole, they came upon another old mine.

Slightly out of breath as the three beheld the latest find, Thomas blew out a sharp breath and asked, “Charles know anything about other methods of ore extraction or smelting?” He was standing in front of the mine’s entrance trying to picture how the priests and the Indians mined and how much ore they might have processed. This mine was a little smaller than the first one they had found. Barely a cut in the canyon wall, the hole was filled with sand after several hundred years of wash from the top of the hills down to its base. The cut was perhaps ten feet in depth and now barely three feet in height. It might have been deeper once.

“Think so. I know’d he done some work with dynamite and with processing ore.”

Thomas nodded. It made sense that these old mines would attract someone like Dunn to find that one hidden jackpot vein that would make him rich especially if he’d tried to make a go of his own claim and couldn’t in California, but the hills had probably been scoured thrice over once Socorro was reestablished. Nothing had ever been found. “Why share it now, with two and perhaps three strangers?” Thomas said aloud.

“What?” Morgan asked.

“Just piecing it all together,” Thomas replied, a look of concentration on his face. “We know Abeyta was out here often. We know he was seen with Horne and Dunn on several occasions in town. We know they were all last seen with tools. But they didn’t come out here. Not that we’ve seen. So they went somewhere else. Maybe found a new vein somewhere. But why team up at all? Why share what might be your family’s means to make it rich if you live here?”

“Maybe it wasn’t these mines they was out digging for,” Morgan replied.

Thomas shook his head in frustration. “The Spanish found gold and silver several places out here; can’t blame a man for thinking there’s still more to be found. But no one has been poking around these hills for some time. So unless we find something at this last mine, we’re not looking in the right place. Abeyta might have had some other angle that no one knew about.”

“Maybe it not about silver or gold,” Dunn Two stated.

“No reason to go off and dig unless you trying to find something hidden, and why waste your liberty unless you think you’re going to find something valuable?” Thomas asked.

“Hidden treasure?” Dunn asked, his face brightening.

“Whose?” Morgan scoffed. “The Spanish crown got a tenth of all finds in the New World, and they collected. Everything else went into family coffers or the church. No need to find and then bury the find . . .”

“. . . unless it was to hide it from the crown and the church,” Thomas interrupted with a flourish of his hand. The three men looked at each other. One local, two outsiders, one unknown, looking for riches in burnt-out hills. Had they known something?

“If they strayed too far from town looking for some buried mine or other treasure, perhaps they strayed into Apache territory and someone didn’t take a good liking to them snooping around,” Morgan postulated.

“But then what was Dunn doing most of the way back to the post when he died? And Abeyta? Where was Horne? And the fourth man?” Thomas replied, vigorously rubbing his chin and pursing his lips. “If they all were fallen upon by Apaches, they hid the other two bodies well. We didn’t find any sign of graves.”

It was afternoon, and the sun was bearing down upon the three men as they stood out in the open. The only shade was inside the mine or underneath a mesquite bush. There was one more place to look at, and after a brief retreat into the mine to cool off, they set out to find one more canyon.

This last location was like the first: a hole cut into the canyon face up a steep, treacherous climb using hand- and footholds cut into the rock now well worn by the passage of time down to bare indentions. The drop down to the canyon floor was only twenty feet, and below the hole lay the remnants of rock chips and little pieces of ore too small to bother with. None of that was unusual.

But someone had been here.

Signs of recent activity were everywhere—a fire pit with ash and logs that had been burned recently and fresh rock cuttings at the foot. A level place by the fire pit was smoothed out for a blanket roll, and nearby a busted water bottle lay in the dirt. Fresh dung, human and animal, lay in piles behind some bushes, and there were fresh horse tracks in the sandy runoff that funneled out of the canyon floor.

Exchanging hopeful glances, the three men took the twenty-foot climb to the mine and crawled inside. Tools and boot prints lay on the dusty floor. Two chisels and one pick, all marked “1 NM Cav,” lay by the far wall. Several bedrolls and blankets were askew in the dirt.

“Bet this was Abeyta’s,” Morgan said as he knelt down by a bedroll.

“This must be where he was coming. And the others. They left their bedrolls thinking they’d come back soon. These tools too. Why carry them back and forth?” Thomas speculated.

The tools and prints weren’t the only proof the men had been here. There was silver too.

The far wall of the mine showed a usable vein of ore, and a few piles of already chipped-away rock heavy with ore lay in a pile on the floor.

“Your cousin ever speak about this?” Morgan asked Dunn.

Dunn looked a little pale. “Not to me. They usually come back with game. But he usually want me along when he go huntin’, so lately it were strange that he an’ Horne was goin’ out by theyselves on a hunt without me.” He kicked over a blanket.

“He never come back with any silver?” Thomas asked. Everything had been left in a state of carelessness about the small room. Blankets lay covered in dust and dirt, candle wax lay pooled on an upended tin cup, and an old haversack lay flap open. Thomas lifted the opening of the old bag and found bricks of hard cracker inside.

“No, not that he ever showed me!” Dunn cried and looked about him in frustration.

Morgan was standing by the wall, scrutinizing the vein. “There’s not enough vein left even here to amount to much but some extra pay, if you had someplace to take it to. Socorro don’t have an assay office or any place to smelt. Ore’s no good ‘less you can convert it to cash.”

“They might think they could do that later. Just pile it up for now. But you would want to keep it to yourself, I’d imagine,” Thomas answered. “Don’t want the whole regiment crawling around here looking to take more ore out of the rock.”

The ceiling of the little man-made cave was stained with soot, both ancient and recent, and a little fire pit rimmed with small rocks lay near the entrance. Within this tiny enclosure both priest and Piro had chipped away at the canyon wall and gathered up the pieces of ore. Some of the deeper footprints in the hole, near the wall, were of bare feet, a moment in time captured in soft sand.

“Abeyta’s pards didn’t seem too concerned with it. Everyone seems to know about the mines here,” Morgan replied. “It’s not a big secret with the Mexicans.”

“No, but the Californians . . .” Thomas pondered and stood up. “Would want to keep it a secret from the 5th California. How many men in the regiment come from a mining background or had a father out panning in the big rush? The locals may not care much, but our men might. Horne and Dunn obviously did.”

“Well, it’s clear they was here lookin’ to pry something more from the rock. What they did pry off don’t look like much more than a month’s pay, an’ split between three. This don’t look like no secret worth keepin’.”

Morgan poked the toe of his boot at a little pile of greenish rock set off against the cave wall. “Hell, this could be several months’ worth of work just for this little take.”

“You . . . you think someone might’ve done them wrong?” Dunn asked.

“Not fer this!” Morgan exclaimed. “They ain’t enough here to gamble with. Thomas said it right: this don’t look much more than somethin’ to do when one is bored.”

“I don’t know, Dunn,” Thomas replied. “Men do funny things if they think they can gain materially. But unless there is some other location with more ore, it wasn’t for this old mine.”

Again Thomas pictured Dunn One husbanding away a little pile of ore somewhere out of sight of his cousin. They might have been blood, but Dunn Two certainly didn’t know his cousin very well.

“You seen enough?” Morgan asked Thomas.

“Think we know something of what they were up to at least,” Thomas said, shaking his head. “Still don’t know the why, but I suppose we may never know that.”

He sighed. “Maybe Horne has found his way back to the post by now. Let’s head back.”

Thomas edged to the lip of the cave as he talked and began gingerly feeling with his toe for the first toehold. Now the story had a theme: greed, the human condition that was doomed to be written in death and that likely by violence.

The summer sun was well into its westward arc by the time the three hot and sweaty soldiers rode up to the mission church. There had been little talk on the way back, each man lost in his own thoughts.

“I’m going to call on Fray Bernardo, tell him about Abeyta and just pay my respects,” Thomas said as the three neared the courtyard gate of the mission.

The rebuilt church and convent were no longer surrounded by a high adobe wall enclosure, the time when protection for the Spanish and the Piro Indian acolytes was needed having passed. The recent Apache activity might have caused more concern if not for the presence of the 1st New Mexico Cavalry.

The gates to the courtyard were open, and Thomas made his way to the front doors of the church. The convento, where the priests and friars had their abodes, was in the rear of the church, but the church proper was always attended by an acolyte.

The mission church still occupied the same land and facing the original mission had two hundred and fifty years ago. The town of Socorro had grown up around it, the church being the last stop north along the main street.

“Deseo hablar con fray Bernardo,” Thomas stated to the young boy in a monk’s acolyte habit who appeared from the sanctuario on the left of the entrance.

“Su nombre?” the boy asked.

“Chaplain Thomas Smith,” Thomas replied.

“Wait here,” the boy replied in heavily accented English, adding a “th” to wait and rolling his r’s, a characteristic of a denizen of Mexico City.

Thomas let his eyes wander about the large doorway and its heavy doors. There were few old Methodist churches, and those were to be found in the east where the Wesleyan movement had first made landfall in the new world. These mission churches were old, hundreds of years old. The missions in California were about as old as this church was. Thomas was always fascinated by their longevity and history.

Thomas’s thoughts were interrupted by the pattering of bare feet upon the floor as the acolyte appeared and beckoned to him to follow.

The mission church had been rebuilt with sturdy, heavy-looking wood beams and wood flooring. Though covered on the outside with heavy adobe mud, the inner walls were paneled, and rough benches lined the inner room in even rows. Saint Michael held prominence in a niche set off to the side of the entrance, a wood-carved icon that looked benevolently upon all who entered.

The front led up to two steps and the communion table of finely carved oak, finished with a sheen of polish. The table held the communion cup and offering plates of polished brass. Behind it all, upon the wall was a five-foot crucifix and Christ in a position of sacrifice.

As was typical for the mission churches Thomas had seen, wood-paneled icons of the other saints dedicated to this particular mission church stood along a narrow table lining the rear wall. Everything was symbol, something that Protestantism had eschewed in its early days. The santos lining the cubby holes in wooden relief, the candles, even the ornate carvings on the vigas. The Jewish temple had been ornate in its symbol and its grandeur, the house of God on earth. Methodism was not as harsh in its removal of symbol and liturgy as some sects had been. At times Thomas missed some of the ascetic beauty of a Catholic Church. There was room in his soul for acknowledging that sometimes symbols were expressions of God’s spiritual beauty on earth.

The church was unusual. Few of the abandoned mission churches had been revitalized, and Thomas had seen more than one pueblo mission near Albuquerque that had not survived the dispersals of the Indians it had been built to serve. The Las Salinas pueblos had been abandoned even before the northern Pueblo Indians revolted. Some of those churches had been built of stone and wooden support beams of thick oak. All that was left now were tall walls and the rubble of collapsed stones. They must have been magnificent when in full use.

The sounds of his own booted footsteps upon the wood floor sounded loudly in Thomas’s ears in the otherwise peaceful quiet. He tried to lighten his tread, the echoes along the wooden walls making each step an accusation that he was disturbing the peace of the sanctuary. The acolyte noted Thomas’s tiptoeing and smiled as he paused by the priest’s entrance, a small doorway that led to the front of the church and had an another door leading to the back courtyard and convento, then led Thomas through.

The convento was now just a single-story rectangular set of rooms, each with an ornately carved wood support beam above the doorway and a covered portico. In front of one of these rooms sat Fray Bernardo, enjoying the cooling of the fall of evening.

The courtyard was being tended by two other acolytes, who were fussing over a garden of flowers in the far corner of the courtyard and working to pump water from a well.

Fray Bernardo stood and greeted Thomas warmly.

“Buenos noches, Chaplain Smith,” Bernardo said and grasped Thomas’s outstretched hand loosely. It was not so customary for the Spanish to shake hands, and Bernardo’s loose grip showed he was still getting used to it.

“Fray Bernardo,” Thomas replied. “I’ve come to pay my respects and to bring some news to you.”

The priest seemed to know Thomas didn’t want to struggle through Spanish this time. “Sit, sit.” Bernardo waved to an open chair next to his and turned slightly toward his own. “You look thirsty. Juan, bring water.”

Thomas settled into the wooden chair and was about to speak when an acolyte ran up with a ceramic cup full of water from the pump at the well.

“Gracias,” Thomas replied, and the youth bowed his head quickly before trotting back across the yard to the pump. He had been filling up tin buckets with water, which the other acolyte then took to the flower garden to distribute.

Thomas was momentarily distracted by the pumping of water before he noticed Fray Bernardo looking at him expectantly. His mind came back with a jolt to the topic of interest.

“Father, we found that the man from the 1st New Mexico who was brought in and died there was Manuel Abeyta,” Thomas said. He watched Bernardo for a reaction.

The priest’s eyes and mouth showed distress. “It is good you give him a name. Now I can comfort his widow and children.”

“He was found suffering from a broken leg and sunstroke. Our Piro interpreter found and brought him in.”

“Ah, Miguel?” Bernardo asked.

“Yes . . . yes, I think that is his first name; sorry, we all just call him Tafoya.” Thomas said and blushed slightly. “I assume the man was of your parish.”

“The family Abeyta, si, yo no he visto Manuel many months for mass. The family knows?” Bernardo asked.

“I don’t know. I informed his captain last evening, so I’m assuming he has informed the family or will do so.” Thomas paused. “There is something else.”

“Si?”

“Some of the 1st New Mexico say Abeyta had been seen with our two men on other occasions. Do you know anything about the old Spanish mines in the Magdalena mountains?”

Bernardo’s eyes lit up in recognition, and he smiled. “Refieres a la vieja leyenda . . . legend?”

“I don’t know what I mean, really,” Thomas admitted. “Just what we’ve heard and seen. Someone said they had seen Abeyta, Horne, and Dunn—our two missing soldiers—leaving Socorro the other day before all went missing, and that he’d seen them often leaving town by the north trail. There was talk that Abeyta had been poking around the old Spanish mines in the hills. So today we went out that way and found that he or someone had been chipping away at one of them.”

“Si, si.” Bernardo nodded his head quickly. “La plata mines . . . silver, they part of historia of this mission.”

Bernardo leaned back in his chair and took a breath. “I tell you.”

CHAPTER 9

THE LOST MISSION SILVER

Fray Bernardo looked wistful and contented as he began to tell the story of the San Miguel mission.

“You sabe historia the land?” Bernardo asked.

“I know a little of its history,” Thomas admitted.

“You sabe por que name de Socorro?”

Thomas shook his head. “A little, but tell me the story.”

“Fifteen ninety-eight, Juan de Oñate lead expedicion notre up Rio Grande Valley with dos sacerdotes . . . priests, order of Saint Frances. They come upon Piro Pueblo de Pilaba half-dead with hunger. Oñate is low on food, el viaje had but dos rutas . . . routes, una through mountains a oeste . . . west . . . and otro up river valley norte, the Journada del Muerto, through desert and Apache.” Fray Bernardo spoke as if he himself had been there with Oñate, recounting the story as if by memory. He looked wistful as the tale rolled off his tongue.

Thomas listened intently. He was familiar with some of this story: that Oñate’s explorations had followed that of Francisco de Coronado, up the same valley, and had been but one of several forays by other Spaniards into the southwestern territories. They were the first Europeans to travel the lands, before even the first English settlements along the east coast of North America. He still knew little of the local history, however.

“Father Alfonso Benavides remain en Socorro pero Oñate continue norte. Benavides establish mission and puso village Nuestra Señora Perpetuo Soccoro, our Lady Of Perpetual Succor, por que generosity of de Piro. Benavides find what written en Mateo chapter Dies, trese verse.

“Jesus sends the disciples out two by two to the surrounding villages to bring the news of the gospel and Christ’s eventual coming to each. ‘And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it: but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you,’” Thomas recited and nodded in appreciation.

“Benavides find peaceful house with Piro de Pilaba.” Fray Bernardo stopped a moment to watch the descendants of the Piro pueblo scurry about the courtyard, boys whose ancestry was mingled closely with that of the Spanish, boys who had taken the oath to remain pure for the service of the church and traveled up the Rio Grande from the Ysleta Pueblo.

Seeing Fray Bernardo’s attention drawn to the boys, Thomas asked, “Are these Piro?”

“Si, what is left of the Piro. In años that pass, the Piro and Mano pueblos combine. They live at Ysleta near El Paso del Norte.”

“We’ve had men visit there from the 5th California; there are a few companies near there in Messilla. So there were pueblos that did not participate in the revolt?” Thomas asked.

“The Piro were consider untrustworthy by del Norte pueblos. Many años living and working with the sacerdotes and Spanish make the Piro untrusted by the otro pueblos. At time of revolt, the Piro considered as much the enemy of the pueblos as the Spanish. The Pueblo of Pilaba, muy expuesto to Apache ataque.”

Bernardo slapped his right fist into his left palm several times to demonstrate. “The mission need strong contingent of soldados to protect Piro and sacerdotes and Spaniards who settle aqui. The Piro suffer many años under the Apache all along the valley.” Fray Bernardo nodded his head.

“So when the revolt happened, the mission fled?” Thomas asked.

“Si, all del Norte missions and settlements atacar y la superviviente . . . how you say to live after ataque?”

Thomas thought a moment. “You mean survive? Like to survive an attack?”

Benavides face brightened, and he nodded vigorously. “Si, survivors. El survivors viajan aqui,” Bernardo pointed down to the ground, “with noticias of revolt and viajan sur . . . hmm south . . . with company of sacerdotes and settlers and Piro, abandoning mission and Pilaba Pueblo. Pilaba no reconstruidos,” Benavides said with a sad shake of his head.

“So what is this you mentioned about the silver?” Thomas asked.

Bernardo nodded. “Father Benavides wanted church be wondrous as any in España or Mexico and took muchos años to construido. The Piro taught woodworking and carve the vigas and corbils on ceiling, carvings of santos, and construido of adobe walls.” With a smile and a slight wave of his hand, Bernardo said, “All made by the Piro para Dios.

“In Magdalena mountains, oeste mission, a donde vayas today, la plata found. The Piro knew about la plata, but to Piro it just another metal. They use for, you say, trinkets. Benavides wanted King Philip be proud of his mission y muchos la plata minapara España. La plata fashioned into una communion rail, una plata tabernacle, y la plata communion instrumentos. La plata lined the sanctuario, a most holy offering a Dios.”

“But the silver has been lost. Was it taken in the revolt?” Thomas asked. He’d been inside the mission church many times, and the items of silver were not to be seen, at least not in the grandeur that Fray Bernardo spoke of.

“When mission abandoned, sacerdotes take la plata instrumentos, the rail y tabernacle y entrarlo cerca . . . hmm, bury?” Bernardo waited for Thomas to nod. “Revolt would be put down y sacerdotes return. Del Norte Pueblos burn the churches, and sacerdotes no want jewel del Nuestra Señora Perpetuo Soccoro destroyed. It rival any sanctuario in Cuidad de Mexico.”

“I see, but from what I understand the Spaniards came back ten years later. Why wasn’t the mission reestablished then?” Thomas asked. The events of the revolt had happened one hundred and seventy-five years ago. The church building itself was one hundred and thirty-six years old and stood much as it had when it was completed in 1626.

A smile crept over Bernardo’s face. “Ah, lo vi, the Socorro mission no habitada. The reconquista o Don Diego de Vargas found del sur pueblos abandoned, mission church in Socorro burned, y el valle threatened by Apache y Navajo. De Vargas forbid resettlement of mission. It abandon para one hundred twenty-five años when Governor Chacon allow settlers para El Paso del Norte y Albuquerque, Los Lunas, Belen to reestablish the mission and villa de Socorro. Church mission reconstruido finalmente, y the convento in 1825.”

Bernardo smiled happily as he waved a calloused hand about.

Thomas nodded his head. “So in the interim the silver was forgotten?”

Another smile beamed at Thomas from the smallish man. “No, del leyende—the legend. La plata exist. Los sacerdotes make a map where plata enterrada.”

He shrugged. “Pero map, it is lost. Many años go by, and los sacerdotes go to otro missions and nadie recuerda map. Tres expediciones from El Paso del Norte up the Journada del Muerto a recuperar la plata, pero nadie succeed. La plata still out here or has been stolen. No one knows, mi amigo.” Bernardo spread his hands out wide.

Thomas’s thoughts were flying ahead of him. “So, no map, but just a story of what was here and it being buried somewhere.” Thomas paused. “Could it have been that someone got hold of the map or a map?”

“Por dollars de Americano, I sell you one!” Bernardo laughed. “Gullible traders or soldados taken in la leyenda de la plata de la misión and part with dinero for scrap of vieja papel with scribbles. It a way of late to convince gullible gringos. So, si, es posible.”

Thomas leaned forward, all serious. “You think Abeyta could have gotten hold of the real deal? The real map or something close to it?”

“No, no se,” Bernardo said with a shrug. “If map existed, it long lost. If there had been map, Church move heaven and earth to reclaim lost glory of misión. No, yo no lo creo, pero es posible. Dios wills and works. Yo soy humilde servador.”

“Aren’t we all?” Thomas replied with a nod. “You say legend has it that the silver was buried somewhere nearby the mission?”

“Si.”

“So it is possible that Abeyta and the others were digging around somewhere near here. Would anyone have noticed that?”

“La leyenda say la plata entrarlo near misión, pero how near? A mille, dos milles, one hundred feet? No one knows ahora. You rode across desert from mountains today. Mountains near de misión just as Rio Grande es near de misión. Pero el rio es several milles distant, so . . .” Bernardo smiled once more and leaned back in his chair.

Thomas nodded. The evening had set, and the acolytes had completed their chores and vacated the courtyard, leaving Thomas and Bernardo alone.

Bernardo folded his hands. “Yo no think Abeyta find map. The people of Socorro know about la leyenda pero—it is just una leyenda. Story one tells to grandchildren about la villa y its misión church. To them, it is una story. Feeling for them is to the majesty of the Church. If someone find la plata, it would be not for gain pero San Miguel’s glory. People who reconstruido Socorro not treasure seekers, mi amigo; they wanted to have land of own and work it. Abeyta only interested in what he get out of remaining la plata in mountains.”

“Yes, and he brought two of our soldiers, perhaps three, along with him for that purpose, or so it seems. That they were often out seems to be well known among the other men of the 1st New Mexico. But I don’t understand it. Don’t understand why they would take it seriously. Those mines are what a soldier does just to pass the time on his liberty, not a real wealth-producing endeavor.”

Fray Bernardo nodded in agreement.

Thomas sat back a moment and contemplated Fray Bernardo’s story and what he’d learned earlier in the day. “What do you know of Miguel Tafoya? A fourth man was said to have been with Abeyta, Horne, and Dunn leaving Socorro a few days ago. Tafoya might have been the fourth man.”

“Tafoya? Yo no se. Tafoya no come to mass, no take holy communion. Tafoya hate Apache. Like most Piro he no trust el gringos, pero hombre has to eat. Piro good hunters and trackers and know the Apache. Revenge burn in the heart of every Piro for what was lost.”

“Think Tafoya could have killed our soldier? Could have something to do with Horne missing as well as Abeyta?” Thomas asked.

“Can Satanás move in the heart of an hombre? Es posible. Piro have a home now in Ysleta. Piro worship Dios and farm and live free from Apache, pero Tafoya has own tragedias in la familia. Apache kill mother and take sister after his father bring familia a Socorro when village reconstruido. Tafoya but bebe when happen. Disculpas, mi amigo. Yo no se.” Bernardo ended with a sad shake of his head.

Thomas pushed his chair back and stood. “Well, Father, I’ve taken enough of your time. You have given me some other things to ponder about what has happened to our soldiers, and I thank you for the hospitality.”

“If you find anything more about pobre Abeyta, send me word. Nunca es bueno to see a soul lost to this life with nunca explicación why,” Fray Bernardo said with a slight bow.

“I’ll do that,” Thomas assured the man, and with a bow himself, he took his leave.

Making his way through the church once more Thomas stopped just in the doorway and gazed out into the darkening courtyard. He’d once heard the story of how the mission came to be called San Miguel once Socorro was opened for settlement again. An Apache raiding party had been driven off by the vision of a tall figure with sword in hand hovering over the entrance of the yet to be rebuilt church. Saint Michael was credited with saving the settlement. Did Saint Michael, an archangel, really descend from heaven to protect the Mexican settlers? Was this place blessed or cursed? The hunt for treasure and glory certainly was a curse upon Abeyta and possibly Horne and Dunn.

Either way, thirty years later, there seemed hardly any danger at all to the environs. No longer did the mission church need to stand as a bulwark of Christianity in a hostile land, but as a peaceful place for worship and instruction.

Fray Bernardo had given him intriguing information indeed. The mess left behind in the mine—had Abeyta and the others suddenly abandoned chipping away at the rock for something else more tangible? Was it this other silver that had already been smelted and fashioned into something of more prized worth? And if so, had they turned upon one another? Why?

Thomas walked the short distance from the doorway to the outer courtyard and let himself out. The street was quiet as he kicked his way through the dusty trail and back toward the center of town. Lights shone brightly in the Baca house. Across the plaza, some noise emanated from the public house, and a few soldiers seated upon its porch stood smoking and conversing quietly. Private Dunn, who had taken his lodging in a room of the public house, was one of them. Upon seeing Thomas, he bade his companions a good night and followed the chaplain to a house further down the street where Thomas and Morgan had taken their rooms.

“You were quite some time at the church, Chaplain,” Dunn said after a moment’s silence.

“Indeed, and learned some very interesting legends hereabouts from the good priest,” Thomas replied. “Some possible fate of your cousin in it.”

“You have news?” Dunn asked and stopped.

“No, no news, but inklings of his possible fate. Or at least a clearing up of what mystery has befallen him,” Thomas replied cryptically.

Entering the house, they were greeted by the smell of a dinner repast already enjoyed and the odor of cigar smoke coming from a small parlor. The house was a two-story wood affair that stood along the main street but away from the commercial buildings, where noise and connection with vice might not disturb its denizens. Its matron, a Señora Magdalena Mondragon, was just seeing to several house servants when Thomas entered. She gave a slight bow and approached just as Thomas was about to join Captain Morgan in the study.

“I apologize, but you have missed your supper,” she effused. Magdalena Mondragon was short of stature, a youngish woman with the typical New Mexican black hair and dark brown eyes. Her husband was Captain Juan Mondragon of the 1st New Mexico Cavalry.

“I am fine this evening, gracias, Señora,” Thomas said with mangled pronunciation. “I took some refreshment with Fray Bernardo just a while hence. Where is Captain Baca this evening?” Thomas asked.

“The good captain is on grand rounds, he calls it,” Magdalena said suspiciously. “I do not know what that is or entails, but it keeps him out all night long.”

“Ahh, the duties of a captain,” came the voice of Captain Morgan from the parlor, “always having to see to his men when he wishes to be in drink or in bed.”

Thomas turned and gave Morgan a stare, and the latter grinned wickedly.

Magdalena blushed a little before begging pardon to take leave.

“That was quite uncharitable,” Thomas commented as he entered the room.

“These 1st New Mexico officers never had it so good. A house, their womenfolk about, public houses and the like. I’d call it grand rounds every night and spend it in drink or in horizontal refreshments if I could,” Morgan said with a wink.

Private Dunn grinned and nodded, his cheeks flushed from his own imbibing at the public house himself.

“Be that as it may, it is not for polite company to carry on so even in whisper,” Thomas scolded. “Not to say in the presence of a woman.”

Morgan ignored the rebuke and returned the cigar to his lips for another drag. Blowing a series of smoke rings, he inquired, “You an’ the good priest break words?”

“That we did, and I’ve come back with some interesting news for our quest,” Thomas replied and took a seat. The small room was becoming dark, palpably lit by two dirty oil lamps that left most the room in shadow. It was perfect for an evening smoke and taking of brandy, if there had been any brandy to be taken. A slow contemplation by the yellow glow of a lamp and a good book was what it made him think of.

“About our two wayward soldiers?” Morgan asked.

“Abeyta, Horne, and Dunn might have been interested in more than just gleanings from the old mines. They might have been put onto another treasure to be had,” Thomas replied and then recounted the story of the mission silver.

“Real Spanish treasure right under our noses the whole time,” Morgan said with a whistle.

“Did your cousin ever say anything about finding a map or coming across something about this buried silver?” Thomas asked Dunn.

“No, never. I didn’t even know he’d been prospecting.” Dunn shrugged.

“He’d never been down to El Paso del Norte?”

“No, our company’s never been that far south.”

“Not been on any detail even?”

“No, just out on hunts is all, an’ fer a few days at a time.”

“Anything about this fourth man?” Morgan asked.

“No, nothing. I asked Bernardo what he knew of Tafoya. Bernardo says the Piro have a long history in this area and dislike of the Apache, maybe Tafoya especially. His people made the silver communion rail and implements themselves. Bernardo couldn’t say if Tafoya would be mixed up with this whole business, just that he hates the Apaches.” Thomas stroked his chin, thinking.

“I told you we should have chased after the mail; could have had Tafoya in the brig by now,” Morgan replied.

“Who was stopping you?” Thomas shot back. “We have no proof besides.”

“Anyway, what did he think of it being Apaches?”

“Didn’t ask. We just talked about Abeyta and then about the mission silver and the revolt. He thinks the silver is long gone from here, as do the rest of the townspeople.”

“Well, if you think they was after the mission silver, why all the sudden?” Morgan asked.

“Someone put them on to the treasure. Fray Bernardo said the whole community knows about the hidden cachet of silver, but they all have given up that it is still here. Certainly Abeyta wouldn’t have been lookin’ unless something new came up, like this supposed map.”

It seemed to him more and more that finding the mission silver must have been what the men were up to. What else could it possibly have been? And what else would have been worth killing for around here?

“Sounds like you think this is the probable reason these men were seen leavin’ town, to go an’ find this silver,” Morgan replied after a satisfying puff.

“Would make sense. Think we should go and see if we can find where they might have been looking. Legend says the communion rail and implements should be buried near the church, so within a mile or less I’d think.”

“And what if Horne and whoever this fourth person was found the silver—where would they take it? Not like they was findin’ Spanish gold or anything. You think this mission silver was enough to make a man desert?” Morgan put in.

“Would your cousin have deserted if he got hold of a load of silver?” Thomas asked Dunn.

“Sir, if it were enough I suppose,” Dunn replied sullenly. “He din’t make much from placer mining in California. If he found something out here, he might have. I thought I knew my cousin, sir, but I can’t say if he would or wouldn’t right now.”

“Desertion and findin’ some hidden treasure is one thing, but it don’t look like Dunn One deserted.” Morgan said with a wave of his cigar.

“No, least he didn’t make it that far if they found the silver. What if this was a treasure hunt gone bad? What if one of these men turned on the others, or two turned on one?” Thomas pursed his lips slightly.

“You mean did Abeyta turn on Dunn and Horne?” Morgan asked.

“That Mexican murder my cousin?” Dunn Two sat straight in his chair with a flash of anger in his eyes.

“Abeyta did try to confess, remember,” Thomas replied evenly.

“Or they were all set upon by Apaches somewhere near the fort and we just didn’t find Horne’s body,” Morgan said. “Abeyta was a man swallowed in nightmares by the time he confessed. Delirious and dying of fever.”

“So, let’s say it was something that diverted their mining activities to a more lucrative score. They locate it and are bringing it back to the fort?” Thomas said as he drew his finger absently upon the table top next to his chair.

“Going to stash it nearby for later,” Morgan stated with a nod.

“Then, before or after they do, they are attacked. Dunn One is killed, but Horne and Abeyta escape. Maybe Abeyta kills Horne to keep the silver to himself but is injured doing so, or is injured in the fight with the Apache and that’s how he’s found by Tafoya later, near death.”

“How about our mystery fourth man? What’s his role in all of this?” Morgan countered.

“Maybe he and Horne escape along with Abeyta, and he turns on Abeyta after Horne is done in. Or the two of them turn on Abeyta and injure him and leave him to die in the desert and make off with the silver?” Thomas said with a shrug.

“If they were even looking for this buried silver.” Morgan said, poking his cigar toward Thomas. “Maybe they was just headed back to the post when they was attacked.”

“Then why was Abeyta out that way? His command was the other direction. He had some reason for being out our direction, and I’d wager they found the silver and were carrying it back to hide once more.”

“Then they was set upon by Apaches and Dunn was killed and Abeyta was mortally injured, and Horne and this other man deserted,” Morgan replied.

“Or Horne was killed too, and this other man took the silver and went back to wherever.”

“Or brought Abeyta into the fort near death to absolve himself.”

“Or blended back in with his command,” Thomas replied.

“Or they was all just comin’ back and was all killed by Apaches, an’ we just not find ‘em all yet.”

“Anyway, if we find they were digging near here, that will at least show we’re right about what they were up to.”

“And what if we do not find anything?” Morgan asked. “How long you plan on nosing around?”

“We don’t find anything, we return to the fort,” Thomas replied, annoyed at the suggestion. “We’ve carried out what I set out to do.”

Morgan stretched. “Okay, we start in the morning and fan out, search about the mission area and beyond, an’ look for any sign of what your cousin and Horne were doing.” Morgan looked right at Private Dunn and then at Thomas. “Then we hopefully put this little thing to rest an’ return.”

Thomas nodded absently. A treasure hunt, an Apache attack, a missing soldier, and two dead men. The other possibilities were more disturbing. One or more of the group turning on the others over the find.

It didn’t all add up, not yet.

CHAPTER 10

APACHE SIGN

Captain Manning’s base camp had been established that morning in a spot that offered proximity to the Rio Grande and a wide area to fan patrols out both on the east and west sides of the river to scout for Apaches.

Six-to seven-man patrols were assigned cardinal directions to move out and head for ten miles, covering a wide arc to look for signs of recent activity and presence and then return with news or be assigned another route. Hoffsteadter’s platoon was sent out with seven men. The additional man was their own local Hospital Steward, Blackwell.

“Why’d you come along again?” Hoffsteadter asked as he found himself riding abreast of the quiet Blackwell.

“Didn’t want to sit around base camp not doing anything,” came the disinterested reply.

While the belt of green that followed the flow of the Rio Grande was inviting and pleasant, any movement more than two miles to either the east or west brought the patrol into the same scrub desert they had been seeing since leaving Fort Craig’s environs. Tallish mesquite growth that spread its thin branches out from a central trunk hanging close to the ground sometimes obscured the plain and caused the riders to meander around the thick branches. Their view of the ground was reasonably unobscured atop horseback. Tumbleweed grew thickly upon the ground but failed to hide anything at six or seven feet height. But the monotony of the view, with its consistent color and multiplication of shapes and sizes, made it plain that this countryside had gone undisturbed by human presence save themselves.

The deep-cut arroyos disappeared as the patrol moved further from the river valley, and there was little to disrupt the eye. Just flat and slightly rolling plain that occasionally scared up a rabbit as a horse trod too near its hide. This would have been time to nap if one were’t supposed to be looking for any sign of killers in the region.

“You study much on plants and such? You know, like what some of them locals do to cure illnesses?” Hoffsteadter asked.

“Some. They’s lots of local plants here that we don’t have in California. Some is used for some of the weird ceremonies,” Blackwell replied.

“Like some witch stuff?”

“Call themselves curanderos; some use plants and ritual for they cures. But they use local plants and roots for they potions.”

“Is that what you go out for now an’ again? See you come in with weeds an’ such sometimes,” Hoffsteadter said.

“Yes, go out now an’ again to find stuff by the river or up in the mountain areas Sometimes I like to experiment with what the locals use. See what it does an’ maybe supplement my own stores with stuff that might work better.”

“Find any of it useful?” Hoffsteadter wondered if any of that experimentation had gone into what he’d gotten from Blackwell when he got sick on the march to New Mexico territory.

“No, but some of these locals swear by them curanderos. They must be doing somethin’ right.”

With nothing more forthcoming, Hoffsteadter allowed the silence to continue. Blackwell’s work interested him. One got to know many men with many trades, but an druggist was not usually in the mix. Drugs and potions were not things one without means had opportunity to go and purchase. You got sick with something and you concocted something from your own family’s lore to ease the discomfort.

“I figure we been about ten mile out, hain’t seed nuthin’ from nuthin’,” Private Smith said in a tired voice as he pulled his mount up next to Hoffsteadter’s.

“You want to head back to the river, make camp there?”

“Yeah. Purty dry out here; horses could use some waterin’ closer to the river,” another man chimed in.

“How about we swing north a bit an’ come back up to the trees closer an’ then make camp? We can cover some more ground an’ see if we find anythin’,” Smith said.

There were nods all around, and the little group started off in the direction indicated. The sun was beginning its slow westward arc, and though it was still wickedly hot, the direct sunlight was more bearable on the skin. The shadows grew long as the patrol added an additional five more miles to gain the shade of the Bosque and its greenery.

Private Billy Smith rotated from point to the rear, and Hoffsteadter joined him as the group drew near to the green belt snaking its way northward on the horizon.

“What you think of our resident magician?” Smith asked.

“Odd bird,” Hoffsteadter replied.

“A man’s gotta get out an’ do somethin’ now and again’. He do seem a little out of place in the company,” Smith replied.

Blackwell was two riders ahead of them. His uniforms and equipment lacked a certain patina, immediately setting the man apart from the other soldiers whose daily activities brought wear and tear. Even after several days in the field he looked as if he’d just come from the quartermaster’s with new everything.

“Not exactly what I’d call a dandy or a carpet knight, but he’s somethin’ of a sight amidst the other men,” Smith continued.

Hoffsteadter snickered. Amidst the dirty and dusty blues and drabs, Blackwell’s blanket and his crisply kept sack coat stood out like a beacon, along with his almost immaculate saddle, harness, and carbine stock, which bobbed lazily on his left side, dangling from the thick leather back strap and hook.

Smith sounded a little disturbed when he said, “Hell, any Apache see that man comin’ from a mile away.”

“Certain if any was about, they seen us from further out,” Hoffsteadter replied.

“If any was about at all.” Smith lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Someone did our men in, but I tol’ you before, I doubt if it were Apaches. They don’t leave stuff layin’ about like that. We on a fool’s errand.”

“You don’t think we find any sign?” Hoffsteadter asked.

“No. They territory further east of the river, an’ we’ve not seen any sign of them at all fer months. No tradin’, no tales of ambush or raidin’, nuthin’. So now, all the sudden we find signs up on the fort’s doorstep? No, don’t think it were Apache.”

Smith looked around. They were a small party and not raising much in the way of dust, but the plain was level, and they stood out amidst even the tallest mesquite. He continued, “If the Apache out huntin’ in the Bosque, we’d find ‘em near the river. So far we’ve not even found droppin’s or sign of fires. We the only fools what been out this way in a long while.”

“With no trail to follow an’ no word from witnesses, we just out here nosing around with little to show for it,” Hoffsteadter admitted. “Seems more wishful thinkin’ than actual target.”

“I think it more that half-breed’s wishful thinkin’ than anythin’ else. He got the wind up an’ thought he could act some revenge, is my way o’ thinkin’. He leadin’ Manning on a chase.”

“But someone killed those men, and if not Apaches then who?” Hoffsteadter asked and wiped the back of his neck with his sweat rag. “Little reason to go an’ kill those men off if not for some other vendetta, like what we seen with the Apaches when they run across anyone.”

Smith shook his head and wiped his forehead with his forearm. “Not been my experience. They come by the fort to trade or into Socorro. Next time they might butcher you if they catch you alone, or just ignore you altogether. More tit for tat or opportunity to raid them some livestock. Not sayin’ they didn’t do it for sure, just looks a little suspicious to me is all.”

“Well, we out here in the brush all the same.” Hoffsteadter replied.

The sun was just nearing the western horizon as the patrol entered the belt of trees and some welcomed shade. Entering the Bosque after hours in the open plain was like entering a different world. Oaks and cedars gave the belt a comforting shade, while the ground level was populated with green shrubs and bushes. There would be plenty of ground cover and dead leaves for a nice bed and wood for cook fires. There was a comfort, too, in bedding down in the trees over doing it the open where one always felt more exposed and defenseless. But then, with shade and a sense of being covered there also came the danger of hidden approach.

The man on point, Private Shackleford, suddenly halted as the belt of trees increased into the Bosque proper. Leaning over, he was seen to be studying the ground closely.

“What’s up?” the man behind him queried.

Motioning excitedly, Shackleford waved the others forward and pointed at the ground. Hoofprints—and lots of them. The ground was becoming softer as they neared the river, and the ground for several yards was marked by the passage of several horses.

“Ours?” one man asked as the group took in the well-marked passage.

“Not ‘less someone got turned about an’ headed in our direction,” Private Smith replied.

“Apaches?” Blackwell asked.

“They didn’t seem to mind makin’ such a mark; didn’t hide they numbers like usual,” Smith replied. He turned a little white as he mentally went through the possibilities.

“Should we head back then?” Private Shackleford asked.

“How old it look?” Smith asked. The ground, though soft, was not soft enough to leave the impression that the ground had completely dried some time ago, leaving the now-encrusted prints.

“Don’t know, could have been s’veral days.” Shackleford replied.

“Huntin’ party perhaps,” Blackwell stated.

“We need to go an’ report back to Manning,” Hoffsteadter said nervously. They had gone out to find a sign. How they had found it.

“If it been several days, we be all right to camp for the night,” Smith declared and sat up straight. “Besides, we should see if we can find they camp if they camped an’ see how long ago that were. Easier to read than the ground.”

“I don’t know,” Shackleford stated, shaking his head. “Not sure I want to stick around here to find they hav’n’t gone far.”

“We don’t even know if it was Apaches; could’ve been a party from the 1st New Mexico come through here. See, some of those prints show shoes. Think this was just a cavalry party.” The prints weren’t clear enough to show detail, but some did show the telltale impression of shoed horses.

Shackleford nodded, and the others in the group seemed to reluctantly accept Smith’s logic.

Following the trail led to a path that never ceased. No camp was in evidence, and the daylight faded to the point that the trail became impossible to follow. A halt was decided upon, but rest was not going to be had by anyone, as all were pondering the presence within the trees of some unseen group of Apaches. Even Smith, who had been arguing for anything other than Indians, seemed ill at ease.

A fire was dispensed with. Too visible. As they bedded down to sleep, they all knew it would be a restless one. With seven men, they would all need to stand watch for two hours each and rotate. No one was bound to get much rest at all.

Not that sleep was likely to come for most of them anyhow.

Hoffsteadter had drawn the second watch, from ten to twelve. Not quite the worst watch to have, but one that prevented sleep from laying heavy the eyes beforehand. The silence was unnerving too. One was used to the constant noise of a post. It eventually became background rhythm. But here, aside from the insect sounds and the sniffles of Smith on his watch, there were moments of deathly silence.

Hoffsteadter found that sleep wasn’t going to come. Every sound was the stealthy approach of someone, and his imagination ran wild. Smith was on watch so he didn’t have to be awake, but sleep stayed away. What if they had found a war party? Even if it had been several days past since they came through, if this party was responsible for Dunn’s death, they should have gone straight back. But he was tired and glad to be out of the saddle, and they could easily march right into a trap should they return through the darkness.

Finally, somewhere in that silence, blacked out against closed eyelids, came a most unwelcome voice.

“Hoff, get up. Your turn on watch,” Billy Smith said as he nudged Hoffsteadter with his toe. He stood above Hoffsteadter with his hands on his hips. “No noise or movement about. C’mon, you know the drill.”

Hoffsteadter reluctantly rolled out of his blanket. The chill had descended fast, and he shivered slightly. He quickly donned his sack coat as he got to his feet.

“Blackwell’s yor relief,” Smith put in as he turned and wandered to his own bedroll and shed his traps.

“Where is he?” Hoffsteadter asked. He hadn’t paid attention to who had wandered where, and they all looked alike in the darkness, uneven lumps upon the ground covered in blankets.

“Over there.” Smith pointed to a lump removed from the gathering by several feet and away from the others.

“Awright,” Hoffsteadter said with a wide yawn.

Now that he had been rudely awakened from a deep sleep—one that had come despite it all—sleep was not so easily dissuaded. Hoffsteadter alternately stood still then wandered about the little opening in the Bosque they had decided to call home for the night for what felt like hours, his mind still clouded with drowsy thoughts until he realized with a start that he’d fallen asleep leaning against a tree, his chin resting upon his chest. Wandering about the encampment on the pretext of keeping an eye out was also futile, as even doing so he caught himself standing still and dozing off or seeing things that were not really there.

It was a lonely vigil, and not helped by the sounds of blissful slumber that emanated from his compatriots’ loud snores or heavy snuffled breathing. The horse picket was some feet further, and the horses’ occasional snuffles told him they too were enjoying rest. Cruel fate to be amidst happy sleep when it is denied one’s own eyes.

Finally, with constant roams about the darkness, the appointed hour came when he too could reclaim the sleep he’d been denied.

“Blackwell, you up. Your turn on watch.” Hoffsteadter nudged the slumbering man.

“Huh?” came the reply.

“You up on watch. Your turn,” Hoffsteadter repeated with another nudge of his boot into the man’s thigh.

“Sure, sure,” Blackwell replied and sat up.

“You wake Powell. I think he over there. Walk around a bit to keep awake if you have to. You got two hours.” Hoffsteadter scratched his stomach and waited for Blackwell to get out of his bedding.

Seeing the man finally up and out, Hoffsteadter walked back to his own now-cold bedding and got situated with shoes off, blanket up to his nose, and a wriggle around to get comfortable once more, depositing his traps in a pile and his musket by his side. Now that he could sleep, sleep stayed away. He’d have to get up once more to cover the early morning hours at sunup, and he cursed his lack of ability to doze off. He could hear Blackwell rustling through the dried leaves in his walking about, his feet heavy upon the dead leaves and twigs. It was always this way: sleep came when you didn’t want it and didn’t when you did. He was just wondering if Blackwell didn’t have some means of concocting something that would bring sleep when a noise startled him. Listening intently with nothing further to attract his attention, he closed his eyes again.

* * *

Private Shackleford woke with a start. All was quiet; even the snoring of his fellows was diminished. A pressure on his bladder coupled with the hard ground was becoming too much to ignore, but his blanket was warm, and outside it was chill. Reluctantly rolling out of his blanket, he stood. The dead leaves and twigs felt slightly uncomfortable on his stocking feet, but it was too much to get his brogans on just to wander a little bit into the trees to relieve himself.

Carelessly making his way through a stand of trees, the rustling loud in his ears, he stumbled slightly as he made for his chosen cover.

Still groggy, Shackleford gingerly made his way back until stopped. A face appeared out of the murk. It seemed to him to have come directly out of the tree he was trying to walk around. A smell of sweat and an odor of unwashed bodies, not just his own, assaulted his nostrils. The face, attached to a lightly built figure with night-black hair, held out his hand palm out and, it seemed to Shackleford, smiled slightly.

Eyes wide and mouth open, Shackleford swayed a moment before he felt the sharp strike against his skull.

* * *

A noise startled Hoffsteadter. The noise was the enraged cursing of Smith. The light of morning came next to his eyelids, brightness unexpected. He’d been asleep. And he should have been awake before the light dawned.

“Who was on last watch?” Smith hollered. He was looking cross.

Hoffsteadter sat bolt upright, still confused at the turn of events. Something was missing, but he didn’t know what. “I had last watch, but you was supposed to wake me.”

“An’ Powell supposed to wake me,” Smith replied, fixing Powell with an accusing stare.

“No one woke me,” Powell retorted defensively. “Blackwell supposed to wake me.”

At that, Hoffsteadter looked over where Blackwell had his bedding. The bedding was still there, but the man was not. Beyond where Blackwell had his bed was the rope that was the horse picket, strung across two tree trunks. That was the missing element that suddenly dawned upon Hoffsteadter’s mind—he’d been missing the sounds of the horses. The picket line was devoid of the beasts.

“The horses!” Hoffsteadter cried and scrambled to his feet. “The horses is missin’!”

“Where Shackleford?” Smith bawled out. “He supposed to be guarding ‘em!”

Shackleford’s bedroll was empty as well. The group had frozen in their tracks, and they darted furtive glances all about as if waiting for themselves to be swooped upon.

Hoffsteadter lifted a hand to scratch an itch upon his skull when instead of hair he found a gap on the left side of his head, all the way from the temple to the back of his neck. Blanching, he pulled his hand away as if he’d touched something vile crawling about his scalp.

“What the hell!” Powell exclaimed as he studied his stockinged feet. His toes were sticking out a good inch on both feet, the ends cut away cleanly.

“Dammit!” Smith muttered. The legs of his trousers were cut short by several inches. “Where the hell is Blackwell! He was on watch after you, right?” Smith pointed a stubby finger at Hoffsteadter.

“Yeah, I woke him,” Hoffsteadter said defensively.

“What else we got missin’?”

A search of bedrolls revealed other items also gone. Each man had something cut from his person, and an eerie feeling of disquiet settled upon them after their initial anger turned to fear.

Daylight, missing men, missing weapons, and missing horses. The facts crept into muddled minds slowly, but one by one the light of the situation dawned upon each, and each in turn looked upon the other with crestfallen expression.

“Apaches!” Smith said aloud.

“No, can’t be. Why din’t they just slit our throats in the night?” Powell replied.

“They took the horses an’ our weapons, what they always take when they can,” another man added as he scratched his scraggly head. “Apaches for sure. Looks like they had a game of counting coup on us all right.”

“Then they took Blackwell and Shackleford too?” Hoffsteadter asked.

“Why take jus’ two o’ us?” Smith questioned.

“They came during Blackwell’s watch?” Powell said.

“Maybe they surprised him an’ Shackleford, an’ since we was all asleep they jus’ counted coup an’ creeped off with our mounts,” Smith said. “Don’t make much sense, though. Why not take all o’ us or count coup on all?”

“What now?” Hoffsteadter asked.

“We get movin’, that what. We got twenty mile to cover to get back to base camp afoot,” Smith said sourly.

“Pack up yer traps, or what left of ‘em! Come on, we lost the cool of the mornin’, so it gonna be a hot one,” Smith added as he made for his bedding to organize his stuff. Without their saddles and bags, they would have to strap everything to their backs.

“What about Blackwell’s an’ Shackleford’s kits?” Powell asked, perturbed.

“Leave ‘em. If Blackwell gone, he gone. His fault we up this way without our mounts. Prolly fell asleep an’ got hisself jumped by them Apaches,” Smith said with a growl. “Shackleford too.”

Hoffsteadter looked at the blankets left in a tussle. His own kit now consisted of two blankets, his gum blanket, his sack coat, his hat, his sweat rag, and his brogans, minus his musket, his belt with cap box and bayonet frog, his cartridge box, his rations . . . the latter would be missed the most if they had a full day of travel ahead. Gathering up his remainders he rolled up everything in his blanket and wrapped it over his shoulder.

Carrying their loads would have been easier had they packed knapsacks, but since the horse could carry most everything if packed right, no one had brought his along. Now they were dangling anything they could from leather straps upon their belts or making crude blanket packs to sling over a shoulder and tie at the end.

“Poor bastards,” Powell said as he took one last look at Blackwell’s and Shackleford’s blankets as the group started to head back to the river.

“Serves Blackwell right fer comin’ along an’ puttin’ us at th’ mercy o’ them Apaches. I hope they did slit his throat,” Smith retorted angrily.

There was no road to take to, and the ground along the Bosque was sandy and littered with low-lying growth of bushes and weeds. Not only would it be a walk of twenty or so miles, but it would be through ground that was not exactly solid.

An hour later, or was it three, Hoffsteadter had lost track of time as the heat and the miles told upon his head and his feet. The foot patrol halted, but not because they wished to.

Lying in front of them was Shackleford. He had been stripped of all clothing and scalped. A pile of his unwanted clothing lay next to the corpse. There were cuts and scratches all over his legs and arms, and his feet were still bound by a rope.

The weary group regarded the corpse sadly.

“What do we . . .” Hoffsteadter started.

“We leave ‘im,” Smith said bitterly. “We got no way to take his corpse with us.”

“Bury ‘im is what we do, an’ go on,” Powell said. He dropped his kit wearily and headed to the corpse. One by one the others did the same.

Hoffsteadter leaned into the job of scooping out dirt with his hands, as no one had anything harder than a fingernail to dig into the sandy earth. Blackwell must have suffered the same fate. Despite the mutual feeling of ill will toward the steward for leaving them all defenseless, he still felt a little sorry for the man if this was also his fate.

CHAPTER 11

GIVING UP THE DEAD

Thomas woke with a start as the shuffling of Morgan’s feet across the hardwood floor suddenly became annoying. Morgan was in his shirttails, wandering to and fro beyond the bed where Thomas had been reposing. He would be glad to get back to his own quarters where Morgan’s idiosyncrasies would not be so bothersome.

The light of early morning was just lighting through the window to their room, and it was early.

“Morning,” Thomas mumbled.

“Hmmm,” came the grunted reply from his roommate.

From under the door to their room the smells of coffee and tortillas wafted in. They would at least have a good breakfast before setting out.

The plan was simple enough. They would fan out from the mission church property and just look for signs of disturbance in the ground. Thomas hoped they had a good chance of finding out what the missing men had been looking for. If not, they would return to the fort and leave the questions unanswered. There weren’t any answers left among the living.

Morgan tugged on his trousers as Thomas rubbed the matter out of his eyes and stared blankly about the room. It was a simple room, with bed, chair, table with oil lamp, and window. An old and heavily used dresser stood at the far wall with an even older and blotched mirror hanging just above it. It was in front of this that Morgan now stood, smoothing out his mustache and admiring the three-day growth of beard upon his neck.

Without a word, Morgan ceased his inspection and exited the room, leaving the door ajar. Thomas let rational thought reclaim his consciousness and slowly rolled out of his bedding. The flooring was crisply cold against his bare feet, and his socks and shoes were at the other end of the room. Morgan had finished his toilet at the dresser, leaving the soapy water standing in the tin bowl and his soaking hand towel draped over the edge of the dresser. A small puddle of water was collecting at the foot.

Yes, will be glad to get back to my quarters, Thomas thought as he looked at the mess that he would have to use for his own toilet with an air of disgust.

Down the hall and past the kitchen was the common room for meals, and at table sat Morgan and Captain Mondragon of the house. Mondragon was himself still in his shirtsleeves and sipping coffee when Thomas entered.

“Captain Mondragon,” Thomas said with a nod, “I pray your sleep was pleasant.”

“Si, I slept well,” Mondragon said as he leaned back in his chair. “Y tu?”

“Fine, no complaints,” Thomas replied.

“You find what you were after?” Mondragon asked.

“No, not yet. We are going to take a look around the mission and then probably head back to the post,” Thomas replied.

“Morgan tell me you suspect the lost mission silver involved with your missing soldados.”

“Si, it’s a possibility.”

“Not too many people concerned with the legends, amigos. Most accept the silver was taken back to El Paso del Norte long, long ago. Silver not very much in demand here.”

“For the locals, possibly. For bored soldiers from California, another matter. Lots of men come to California to find wealth who didn’t find anything. A legend like this, quite the powerful draw,” Thomas replied as he tucked into his plate of beans and tortillas.

“And you say one of our men also involved? Abeyta? I don’t see it, amigo. Abeyta good soldado, attentive to his duties and not one for hunting for lost treasure. I think you mistaken if he involved.”

Thomas shrugged. “Things seem to point to his being involved on some level, if not the one who was leading our men along. He was definitely the one scraping the gleanings from the old mines.”

Mondragon looked unconvinced but nodded.

“And the legend?” Morgan asked as he wiped his hands on his shirt. “Has anyone gone out to look for themselves recently?”

“No, not really. People just accept that it a story and not the truth in saying the silver still buried. Even if it out there, it belong to the church.”

Thomas shook his head. Fray Bernardo had said the same, but it still made him incredulous. “So no one has gone to dig around?”

“Where, amigo? Start digging where? Story say it buried near the mission. That is it, amigo. Somewhere near the mission. Story say nothing else. If those who bury it not find it when they come back before reconquista, it not going to be found.”

“And a map?” Thomas asked.

Mondragon grinned. “Which one? The map one of the locals make to sell to gullible soldados from California, or the map they make to sell to gullible soldados from Colorado? I seen a few. They always send the person far out into desert. Always to different place. No, amigo, if there was a map it is lost to memory.”

Thomas dug in his heels. “All the same, if Horne, Dunn, Abeyta, and our fourth mystery man did have some map or inclination as to where the silver was buried, that’s what we are going to go looking for—evidence of digging.”

“I wish you luck, amigos. I do not think you will find anything. With no reference point you have a lot of ground to cover, and as you know, one mesquite bush looks like another once you are out in the desert. Just don’t get too far out and lost.” Mondragon smiled and stood, giving Morgan and Thomas a slight bow as he left the small dining area. His voice could be heard calling to the back of the house in Spanish, a string of flowing words that neither Thomas nor Morgan could follow.

“I don’t expect us to find nuthin’ either,” Morgan said as he wiggled a pinky into his ear.

“Last option. Maybe we get lucky.”

“Maybe we get lost.”

“Maybe you have a little faith,” Thomas said frowning.

With a snort, Morgan shook his head, then yawned. “Let’s go collect Dunn Two and get going,” Morgan stated and shoved back from the table.

Thomas nodded and finished eating the dishrag, wiping his plate clean with his last scrap of tortilla. Chewing slowly, he wondered. So far, they had few answers and many questions.

* * *

Morning warmth had given way to noon heat, and just as Captain Mondragon had promised, every mesquite bush looked quite like the others as Thomas, Morgan, and Dunn split up and rode their mounts in fits and starts. Take a few steps and halt, observe, repeat. Anything that might have been a landmark two hundred and seventy years ago was long eroded away now. Around the mission there were no arroyos, no spurs of land, no mesas, nothing to draw the eye as a marker if one were to hide something and then come back later to get it. It was all flat and shrub covered.

Taking a ride out from the mission church, the three had split up to negotiate an arc separated by fifty yards or more so they could cover more ground as they looked for any disturbance. They were too far away from the river for farming, and there was nothing that even appeared to be a disturbance. All the arable land was at the river, and they made sure to avoid any obvious areas of cultivation where the earth would have already been disturbed.

They had already circled the mission once up to the first buildings and then rode further out to circle back around, moving more than a mile away.

The heat and the brightness of a clear sky was beginning to tell upon Thomas. Everything had begun looking the same: bright, sandy colors broken by the dark gray and browns of mesquite and the sickly green of weeds. The weeds grew every foot or so, followed sometimes by prickly pear cactus. There was little but the growth on the ground to attract the eye. No footsteps, no dung, no horse prints, not even any cast-off rubbish. No one came out here to knock about. Just monotonous sandy bottom and indifferent growth. He was beginning to get tunnel vision.

Shaking his head, Thomas was fighting falling asleep in the saddle when Dunn called out.

“Here, got somethin’!”

Thomas shook himself and looked for the source of the call. Dunn was out seventy yards from Thomas’s left and getting out of his saddle. Several coyotes scampered away from Dunn as he slid to the ground.

“What is it?” Morgan called out, halted in his own tracks and straining to see what Dunn was looking at.

“Sirs, c’mere,” Dunn waved.

Thomas, now enlivened, moved his mount in Dunn’s direction.

Dunn was kneeling by a slight but noticeable mound of earth where several dog holes had been dug by the coyotes. The holes were a foot or so in depth but at their bottoms something was revealed.

Thomas slid from his mount and crouched down by the lip of the mound. Something had been buried here, recently. There was a faint odor of putrescence as well. Off to the side of the hole, partially hidden by tumble weed was a shovel. A dark stain upon the flat bottom of the shovel, encrusted with sand and dirt, looked a little like dried blood.

“What’s this?” Morgan asked as he surveyed the disturbance from atop his mount.

“Look, sir”, Dunn pointed out one of the holes the coyotes had been burrowing out, “that look like a hand to you?” He said to Thomas.

Dirt and sand covered the outline of the back of a hand, the flesh torn back in places exposing ligament and bone.

“Someone bury someone out here and didn’t want anyone to know.” Thomas said. The disturbance was four foot in diameter and the mound barren of any growth of grass or tumbleweed.

“Here, give me a hand,” Thomas said as he began to dig out the coyote hole a little wider with his hands.

Morgan dismounted and stood for a moment watching Thomas and Dunn dig about. He went for the shovel.

“Hold on, look at the bottom of that and tell me that doesn’t look like blood to you?” Thomas sat up quickly and threw out his hand to wave Morgan off. I don’t think that was used to do any digging.”

“What, you’d rather dig out a hole with your fingernails than use a shovel?” Morgan asked incredulously.

“No, but I’d rather not use that for the moment until we see who this is.”

The soil and sand was loose, easily excavated with their hands and slowly head, feet, and legs were revealed. The body was doubled up in a fetal position upon its back. The depth wasn’t great, the excess dirt from the hole being scattered a further foot from the hole and piled up alongside the tumbleweed surrounding it.

It wasn’t long before they were able to extricate the corpse dressed in federal kit. The face, devoid of expression and bloated,was recognizable enough.

“Horne,” Dunn Two exclaimed.

“Huh,” Morgan grunted. “Not so much a legend anymore.”

“If this was dug looking for the mission silver, then yes, I’d say it wasn’t a legend but real.”

“Don’t look like no Apache done this,” Dunn said in a mournful overtone. “This look like plain murder.” Even though its head was matted with dirt and sand, a nasty and bloodied wound shown on the back of the head, caving in the skull visibly and staining the clumps of hair and dirt dark crimson.

“Something go wrong? Greed? Would your cousin have turned on Horne?” Thomas asked. He had long learned that the most violent of emotions lay close to home and with the people one knew the best. A man was more likely to strike his child or his wife than to do the same to a stranger. Dunn and Horne were close friends, but it did not seem to him out of the question that Dunn might have killed Horne if it meant gain.

“Wait, you sayin’ my cousin did this, sir?” Dunn Two blanched.

Thomas stood over the body. Its flesh was bloated, distending the face and cheeks and its tongue was swollen and slightly protruding between the curled lips. The chest and stomach were also bloated and the full force of the putrescence was revealed once they had liberated the corpse from the ground.

“Hold on, hold on. Let me think.” Thomas held a hand up to still Dunn. “You know Abeyta was trying to confess to something before he died. It didn’t make much sense at the time, but Hoffsteadter told me he was certain the man said he had killed someone and that was what he wanted absolution for. Maybe it wasn’t your cousin but Abeyta who did this.” Thomas thought the theory might mollify Dunn Two some, and it was a good possibility. It was on Abeyta that the extra pistol cylinder had been found.

Morgan looked about the hole. “So where’s the silver now? If Abeyta was with Horne and Dunn and Horne was killed here, Abeyta and Dunn must have continued on with the silver.

“Could be,” Thomas replied, though he felt unconvinced. The story still didn’t feel right. Their last missing man no longer missing brought an end to the speculations as to his whereabouts, but it didn’t end the tale satisfactorily.

Thomas thought a moment. “Or maybe we were right before, and Tafoya is the fourth man.”

“Or maybe that bastard Abeyta did this in the first place and did Horne in, an’ my cousin too, an’ then got what was comin’ to him in the end anyway,” Dunn replied bitterly. “Don’t that seem a justice to you, Chaplain?”

“You mean a ‘vengeance is mine’ sort of thing? Maybe. Seems this more human agency than spiritual. Probably a simpler explanation, or the Apache waylay the group headed back to the post and break up their plans to hide the silver away for later.” Thomas sighed. “We had two missing soldiers, and we’ve accounted for each. If this were the hiding place of the mission silver, it has been taken and spirited away somewhere. There’s still a good bit of mystery, but at least we can safely say we’ve resolved the whereabouts of our men.”

But Dunn’s outburst had triggered the whispered and confused confession in Thomas’s memory. No, not an avenging angel, but a guilty conscience grasping for one last chance at redemption. The character of the two friends, one a follower and the other a leader came into contrast. Dunn One hadn’t done well in gold mining and had had to share each day’s take from hydraulicking mining. And there was a ready made find he might not have to share. Abeyta hadn’t killed Horne, but he gave his consent to Horne’s murder. He didn’t stop it, guilty by inaction and guilty by action with Dunn. For whatever reason, that story made sense. He could see Dunn striking down his partner because he valued his share more than his friendship. There was another agency at work, a whispering agency in the ear, and it might as well be the devil himself. The trickster and the liar, the prince of liars.

“Well, come along, Dunn. Let’s put together a litter to take Horne back to the post for proper burial.” Morgan motioned to Dunn and stood up. There were plenty of mesquite branches to be had, and soon a makeshift litter with two long poles had been lashed together and tied to Dunn’s mount to be dragged along with the corpse fastened upon it. It wasn’t very dignified, but it was better than dumping the corpse into the hole.

The noonday sun was bearing down upon them as they started south. Thomas was distracted yet. A dream the night before, just bare fragments in his mind now, came back to his mind’s eye. Two birds had perched upon the sill of Thomas’s room. It was his room at the post, not the room he and Morgan shared in town. He remembered a momentary confusion as he knew he wasn’t seeing the birds in the flesh, since he wasn’t in his room. But the room, the smells, the birds seemed real enough at the time. They just stood on the sill, two sparrows, and they turned their heads in unison as if taking in the room. They first looked to the left, then the right, then the left, then the center, and then at one another before they chirped in unison. Thomas was seated at his desk, and the birds were within easy reach, but he’d been so fascinated by their presence that he gave little thought to reaching out.

A third bird lit upon the sill, a warbler, and joined the other two, but he didn’t move in unison as the other two continued to do. He’d turn his head or cock it ever so slightly, and he’d hop about the sill. But he seemed to be accepted by the other two birds nevertheless. As he hopped about, he would peck lightly at the rough wood and then hop again and repeat. As he did so, the two sparrows would follow. Then the birds flew off.

Was the dreaming telling him something? That Horne and Dunn had gone through a lot of trouble to get passes only just to slip out in the dead of night on a treasure hunt with someone they didn’t really know. And if not Abeyta, who?

Thomas still felt troubled, but perhaps it was coming face-to-face with the evil that had done Horne and Dunn in that had him rattled.

It was some hours later, as Thomas was trying not to nod off to sleep over the gentle canter of his mount, that another fragment of his dream came. It was the same dream with the birds, only this time a large crow lit upon the sill with the three. The birds regarded one another closely for some moments before the crow let out a “caw” and took a loud peck out of the wood of the sill next to the warbler. He then hopped over to the nearest of the sparrows and gave it a wicked peck with its beak, sending the sparrows and warbler off the sill in a wild flight, leaving the crow to regard Thomas keenly.

On its leg of grayish and black skin, a red blotch of color caught Thomas’s eye before the crow himself lit off and took flight.

Thomas shook his head vigorously to wake himself and shake away the vision of the crow and the other birds. Desert crows were ugly and large, and they had thick beaks that could do some real damage if they decided to. They were nothing like the crows he’d seen in drawings and pictures or that populated the streets of Sacramento. They hung about the post looking for scraps of food, and though they generally left you alone, they were the kind of thing you didn’t want to see in your nightmares.

Private Horne had been brained but good, a heavy blow landed with the shovel, and then left to rot. Greed, mistrust, jealousy, what?

Thomas had seen much of what a man could do in this world when motivated by some passion that might inflame his breast. Men who would pilfer and steal if they told themselves they had to, who would covet another man’s wife if they thought they could, women who would do the same if they thought they could hide it. But all came to ruin. If anything, there was truth to the word that no one was innocent, that all were guilty of some failing. But murder, that was a new one to him.

CHAPTER 12

WARPATH

The late afternoon sun might be causing them to see things, though that was not very plausible since the sun was lowering to the west and the smoke was rising from the east along the river way. Besides that, there was the smell—a campfire out here where no one should be.

The smell of campfire and smoke were sufficient to rouse Morgan’s interest enough that he convinced the others to deviate from the road to investigate, and soon the party of Thomas, Morgan, and Dunn Two, with Horne’s corpse in tow, were accosted by a picket post.

“Captain Morgan, sir, you sent by the post commander?” came the question after the private called upon them to halt.

“No, but what are you doing out here, Private Hudson?” Morgan asked.

“Apaches, sir; we out lookin’ fer them Apaches what killed Private Dunn.”

“With who? Who’s in command?” Morgan asked. Hudson was of his own company. Why Hudson or anyone else would be out here was a mystery and a surprise.

“Captain Manning, sir. We sent out to track down them Apaches what . . .”

“Yes, I heard you, Private, track down some wayward Indians. We wish to enter camp, Private.” Morgan waved a hand to silence Hudson and hurry along the interview.

“Sir, permission granted,” Hudson said and rendered honors.

“A punitive expedition?” Morgan asked as the group was escorted toward the center of camp. “And to take my company along?” He groused. “That damned Manning. I should’ve gone back with the mail and left you to sort this business out yourself. Someone needed to have some sense about them.”

“If Apaches killed Dunn One, I can see Captain Hinds dispatching an expedition to punish them.” Thomas replied. But he no longer thought it likely that they had.

There were twenty soldiers about the encampment, and by the looks of things, there were probably more about the perimeter. The count of tents was for twice that many. A large wall tent had been erected near the center of the camp, with company dog tents in platoon clusters surrounding the central edifice. Seated in front of a fire was Tafoya, leaning upon one knee and bending over something that was frying in a little skillet. A horse picket thirty feet from the camp held thirty mounts strung out along a rope tied at intervals between trees. Morgan nudged Thomas and pointed to Tafoya as the three made their way toward the center of the camp.

All was organized activity. Several soldiers were seeing to their mounts and doing detail with brushes while others were cleaning muskets. The pickets were collected a further fifty yards out and away, some barely visible as they stood or wandered back and forth along a chosen patrol area, giving the scene one of martial importance. The army had come to hunt.

“Captain Morgan, message from the post?” Manning called as Thomas and the others dismounted. Seeing what Dunn was trailing behind his horse, soldiers began to gather around the litter and its gruesome cargo with curiosity, bombarding Dunn with questions.

“What are you doing out here, Manning?” Morgan queried. “What are you doing with my company?”

“What? Apaches. Captain Hinds decided that Dunn was killed by Apaches and we needed to track them down, so he sent me with my company and yours to go and do that. You weren’t there to command it yourself,” Manning replied defensively.

Tafoya looked up long enough from his dinner to regard Thomas and Morgan suspiciously, then returned to his task. He sat upon his rolled-up Navajo blanket, which was now dirty with sand and dust.

“Apaches? Who says Dunn and Horne was killed by Apaches?” Morgan asked.

“What, you found Horne too?” Manning asked, ignoring Morgan’s question.

“No. Well, I mean yes, we did find Private Horne’s body, but he wasn’t killed by Apaches,” Thomas answered.

By now anyone not on guard detail had dropped what he was doing and come to gather around the litter to look at the corpse. Exclamations, whispers, and sounds of disgust formed the background to their conversation.

“Have you found any Apache sign?” Thomas asked.

“No, not yet. We’ve got patrols coming back in, and once they are all back we’ll set off further north and look more that way. No, we’ve not seen any sign yet . . . strange though it is,” Manning replied, looking at Tafoya.

“So you’ve come out here with my company and haven’t seen any sign. Don’t that tell you something?” Morgan put in.

“No, it just means we’ve not picked up their trail yet,” Manning snapped back. “Where did you find Horne?”

“About a mile and a half northeast of Socorro. He’d been murdered and the corpse hidden in a shallow grave,” Thomas replied.

“Murdered? By Apaches. See, that’s why we out here,” Manning added and glared at Morgan.

“No, not by Apaches. He’d been murdered by someone he was out with. I don’t think the Apache would bother to brain someone with a shovel and then leave the shovel and bury the body afterward,” Thomas replied. He didn’t even bother to mention the army markings on the makeshift weapon.

“Wait, what? A civilian from Socorro did this?” Manning blanched.

“No. I know who killed Horne,” Thomas stated flatly, regarding Dunn Two gravely. He’d been thinking on it all this way, and as he rode, this part of the story had come together in his mind. Dunn One’s disregard for his cousin, his thirst for wealth and his failure to get it in the California gold fields, his coveting of Horne’s silver flask and the holster found under Dunn’s body, the two pards arguing over something at the public house, and, Thomas had to admit, the dream. Dunn One didn’t want to share the spoils with his friend.

“Oh you do?” Morgan asked sarcastically.

“I say I know, as in I’m almost certain,” Thomas replied.

“Well, who?” Morgan asked.

“Private Dunn did it,” Thomas stated.

“Sir, no!” Dunn Two protested. “My cousin and Horne were thick as thieves. No, Cousin wouldn’t have done that.”

“That’s why it was your cousin.” Thomas said to Dunn Two, then to Manning, “You see, Captain Manning, you’ve stumbled on to more than just Apache depredations. You’ve stumbled onto a treasure hunt and a murder out of greed. Dunn One killed his friend for his share of the spoils. The man Tafoya brought in, Private Abeyta from the 1st New Mexico, may have killed Dunn, but I believe it was Dunn that killed Horne.”

Dunn Two, scandalized and looking about wide-eyed, just shook his head over and over again.

“And I imagine you saw this in some dream?” Morgan put in. “I believe what I can see, an’ I don’t see it, Thomas.”

“So you don’t think Apaches had anything to do with the deaths?” Captain Manning asked, perplexed. He cast another glance at Tafoya.

“Apache out here,” Tafoya responded and slowly stood. “Apache done your man in.”

“You say Horne was struck with a shovel? Not stripped and mutilated like Dunn One?” Manning asked.

“He wasn’t stripped, and yes, we found a bloodied shovel near the body. Captain, this wasn’t more than a treasure hunt gone bad for at least three of them.” Thomas turned again to Dunn. “Remember the holster we found with Dunn’s body? I found this,” Thomas drew the cylinder out of his pocket and held it in front of him, “with Abeyta’s possessions. Dunn took Horne’s Smith and Wesson Army off him after he killed him by the find. I think Abeyta took it from your cousin when he killed Dunn One near the post.”

Dunn Two looked at Thomas with a frown and slowly shook his head.

Manning waved a hand and asked, “At least? You mean there were more of our men involved?”

“Someone was. Some saw a fourth man riding out with the others from Socorro,” Thomas replied, watching Tafoya keenly.

Tafoya stayed still, looking from officer to officer but without showing much in the way of expression.

“How did you say you ran across this man Abeyta?” Morgan turned suddenly to Tafoya.

“Find him along road to fort,” Tafoya replied evenly.

“Just like that? You found him along the road? Why were you out there?”

“Come from home, summoned by Hinds,” Tafoya stated. He stiffened in his stance but otherwise continued his stony expression.

“A fourth man was seen. Everyone who went out is now dead, and Tafoya here was the one who brought Abeyta into the post. That don’t seem at least suspicious now to anyone?” Morgan asked.

“You did this to my cousin!” Dunn Two cried and lunged out at Tafoya.

Tafoya deftly jumped several feet back and had his Bowie knife out in a flash, causing Dunn Two to stop in his tracks, wide-eyed. In the process of drawing the knife, a revolver dropped from Tafoya’s belt to the ground, and the skillet he was tending tipped into the fire.

Thomas tried to reach for Dunn Two, but he was too late in reacting. Dunn tried to step back but nearly tumbled into the fire as Tafoya, crouched low and waiting for someone to make another move, menacingly jabbed his knife at him.

“Hold on,” Manning cried. “What is this business with my scout? Private, you’d better have a good reason for your accusation.”

Dunn was still staring intently at Tafoya and ignoring Manning. The long blade of the Bowie knife waving in his direction was all he cared to pay attention to.

Thomas, for his part, was caught up in a conflict of his own. Was Tafoya the whispering agent of death that had managed to coerce Dunn into murdering Horne and Abeyta into murdering Dunn? Here he was, waving his pig sticker about with intent to skewer anyone who drew near enough to him. But then, how did Tafoya manage to not murder Abeyta but leave him to die in the desert? By the looks of how Tafoya handled that Bowie knife he could hardly not manage to kill with it. And then he’d brought Abeyta in. It was too convoluted.

“That true, Tafoya? Were you with these others?” Manning asked.

By now a small crowd of soldiers had been diverted away from the corpse to the confrontation in the middle of the camp. There were murmurs and whispers as they began to circle the captain’s tent. Tafoya, still crouched and ready to slice and dice if Dunn should charge, was beginning to look nervous now—caged.

“Well, were you?” Manning asked again. He was beginning to look a little nervous himself. He’d put a lot of stock in Tafoya, and if the man had led him on, he was not going to look good after this.

Tafoya, his lips pressed tight, began to shift a little, glancing over his shoulders at the gathering men who now hemmed him in. Some had grabbed arms and pistols, waiting to see what would happen next.

“You men, back away,” Thomas called out. “Tafoya isn’t going to go anywhere. Dunn, back off.”

“If the half-breed had a hand in Cousin’s death, then he should be strung up right here!” Dunn said angrily, turning slightly toward Thomas. As he said this, those men surrounding Tafoya nodded in assent, as if it were the only logical thing to do now.

“We don’t know that yet,” Thomas stated evenly. “Now, everyone, stand down!”

As Dunn began to back away, the pistol on the ground caught his eye and he cautiously bent down to reach for it, keeping an eye on Tafoya and the knife. Tafoya was already more than covered with weapons now. Grabbing the pistol and standing, Dunn quickly drew a bead on Tafoya, cocking the hammer back. With his lips set firmly, he let out a shaky breath.

“Dunn!” Thomas shouted. “Put it down! We don’t know he killed your cousin!”

Reluctantly, slowly, Dunn complied. “Hey!” he suddenly exclaimed as he examined the weapon. “This is Horne’s! I know’d it’s Horne’s; he used to baby this thing.” Dunn went red and turned again on Tafoya, pistol raised once more.

Thomas, now fully watching Dunn Two, grabbed the pistol and forcefully lowered it, shaking his head.

Captain Manning, still looking a little shocked, nodded and gave a wave of his hand. “Okay, back to what you men were doing.”

As the soldiers dispersed slightly, not really following the command but widening the circle somewhat, most kept an eye on the officers and Tafoya.

“You don’t even know if Tafoya was involved,” Manning stated to Morgan.

“Who else would it have been? He comes and goes. Nobody else was missing from the post. Tafoya was out there when it happened and just happens to bring in Abeyta where he suddenly dies? He’s got Horne’s pistol on him. That don’t seem suspicious to anyone? Then he leads you out here on an Apache hunt, and you ain’t seen any yet.”

Morgan made his statement flatly, keeping his eye on Tafoya, who had relaxed a little with the dispersal of the soldiers.

Captain Manning was looking pale and confused. “No, well not yet . . . I . . . I don’t know what to think. What do you think, Chaplain?”

Thomas stroked his chin. Morgan’s conviction notwithstanding, the story of Tafoya as the instigator of all the troubles fell flat. The quiet and unassuming Piro interpreter, though deft with a knife and with Horne’s Smith and Wesson Army on him, failed to excite his imagination. He’d quarreled with Horne, yet he’d brought in a dying Abeyta. The Piro did not sit well as the villain. But the evidence that he had been involved was also compelling.

“If you had found the mission silver, what would you have done with it?” Thomas asked Tafoya.

“Give it to Father Bernardo,” was the quick reply.

“You think all of this is about some legend?” Manning asked incredulously.

“That’s what it is about,” Thomas replied. “That’s what it’s always been about.”

“And I think Tafoya here is the one who killed all three men,” Morgan stated.

Thomas stood for a moment then shook his head.

Morgan watched Thomas for a moment and then made a sound of frustration. “Hold on a minute,” Morgan stated, wagging a finger into the air and looking down at the fire pit. “Didn’t someone say in Socorro that the fourth man with Horne, Dunn, and Abeyta had a Navajo blanket on the back of his horse?”

“Something like that,” broke in Dunn Two.

Tafoya’s eyes widened. He looked down where he’d been seated only a few minutes before upon his rolled-up blanket. He started to back away, keeping his eyes upon Morgan and Dunn.

“Yes, but plenty . . .” Thomas began. He was interrupted as Morgan lunged for Tafoya, who’d let his Bowie knife drop slightly. In a flash Tafoya was surrounded, hemmed in by soldiers and grabbed from behind, his arms pinned tightly to his sides.

Glaring fiercely at Morgan, Tafoya struggled a little against the man holding him from behind before dropping his knife.

“What’s this about a blanket?” Manning asked, now totally mystified.

“Our fourth man seen in Socorro the last time anyone saw Horne or Dunn alive was riding a mount with a Navajo blanket on the back. He had black hair and was about Tafoya’s height,” Morgan replied in a satisfied manner.

For his part, Tafoya wasn’t denying any of it . . . nor was he protesting his innocence. He was just glaring at everyone.

Conflict seized Thomas. All that was left was for Tafoya to own up to what he’d done, but his quick reply to the question about finding the silver didn’t seem right. It was too free, too fast and sincere, and it didn’t sit with someone who would kill for personal gain. Had he killed to protect the silver? Would Tafoya have dispatched the treasure seekers one by one to make sure that the Church regained what it had lost? Was the silver communion rail so holy, so precious that it should be dipped in blood to preserve it? Was this story about the preservation of something holy instead of a tale of greed? Thomas could see Tafoya as the avenging angel in that regard, if he had the mind to play the role. But Tafoya did not seem to be the faithful type, not according to Fray Bernardo.

“Well, I guess we need to take him back to the post,” Manning said without conviction. “Get a detail together and take him back.”

“We’ll take him, since we on our way back with Horne’s body. I think we can handle that,” Morgan replied. He waved his hand. “You wait for your patrols to come tell you there’s no Apaches about.”

Manning looked at Tafoya, who was still giving off an air of brutal defiance, and shook his head. “I don’t understand it. How could I have missed the signs?”

“He’s an Indian, they like that,” Morgan replied.

But Morgan paused and turned to Thomas. “You don’t think so?”

Thomas was slow to reply. “Not sure. If he did it, he’s not taking credit for it.” With little to go on but his gut, Thomas was hesitant to pronounce one way or the other. The story was still working its way through his imagination with Tafoya as the villain, as the avenging angel, as the innocent Good Samaritan.

“We caught him dead to rights. What’s there to do now but take his punishment?” Morgan replied. “Bind him an’ get him on his mount so we can get going.”

“Tafoya’s a civilian. Shouldn’t he go back to Socorro?” Thomas asked.

“He killed two of our soldiers an’ probably had a hand in Abeyta’s death; he should fall under army jurisdiction. We hold him in the brig at Craig, let Santa Fe decide. The provost will want to have a say, or General Canby. Once we water our mounts and get some chow, we’ll head out for Craig with him.” Morgan waved the men on.

Tafoya, still looking defiant, relaxed slightly and gave signs that he’d stop trying to resist. The other soldiers began to disperse back to their other duties as the drama came to a close, leaving Manning, Thomas, and Morgan standing by the fire with all but Morgan looking dazed. A guard tent had been erected when camp was made for officer-of-the-day activities, and Tafoya was led bound into it and put under guard.

“Well, I think that about settles it, no?” Morgan said finally, looking smug.

“I suppose so,” Thomas muttered. “Let me see the pistol.” Thomas held his hand out to Dunn Two.

“You . . . you think he’s the one?” Manning asked of no one in particular.

“Has to be. He came in last, he was seen with the others in town, he must have had motive to take the silver for himself. I don’t see how he couldn’t have done it,” Morgan replied.

Thomas nodded halfheartedly while he examined Horne’s pistol and the cylinder from his pocket. Thomas removed the catch on the pistol to release the cylinder, placed the one found on Abeyta into the pin, and locked the barrel again. The fit was perfect. The cylinder was from a Smith and Wesson.

Dunn Two’s eyes widened as Thomas spun the cylinder in the pistol and carefully replaced the hammer to the forward position.

“And I suppose he convinced you it was Apaches,” Morgan said to Manning.

“Yes, I suppose he did. Though it was more Captain Hinds that got it into his head to send us out to find out,” Manning stated. “We only been out a few days an’ have rations enough for a week.”

“You said you still have patrols out?” Thomas asked.

“Most have come back in, one still out. Once they come back we break camp and move to the east side of the river and keep looking. We only waiting on that last patrol.”

“If we leave soon, we get back to post before too dark,” Morgan stated. “Sure like to sleep in my own bed tonight.”

“Hmmm,” Thomas mumbled and shook his head.

“So that pistol cylinder proves Tafoya did what?” Dunn asked, a look of confusion on his brow.

“It proves that Abeyta was with Horne and Dunn when Horne was killed and then when Dunn was killed,” Thomas replied.

A sudden ruckus from the north side of the camp drew their attention to a group of soldiers slowly making their way in single file.

“Ahhh, the last patrol,” Manning said tartly, but he drew up short as the ragtag group came in.

“What the devil . . .” Manning said as he quickly strode toward the lead man.

“Sir, been trouble,” Private Billy Smith said, looking weary.

“Well?” Manning stopped and beheld each man in turn. Private Smith was in the lead with his stockings showing above his brogans and his pant legs in ragged vagabond shape. Private Powell was the only one mounted, but his bloodied feet and toes were sticking out of the stirrups, and he looked more miserable than the others afoot. All were sunburned.

“Sir, Apaches,” Smith rasped. “Stole our horses an’ weapons an’ killed Blackwell an’ Shackleford.”

“Stole?” Manning asked, a frown creasing his eyebrows. “Then whose is this one?” motioning to Powell.

“This one we found later by the river. It’s one of ours, army,” Smith replied with a shrug.

“Apaches!” Manning said triumphantly and turned toward Morgan smugly. “You found Shackleford and Blackwell dead?”

“No sir, found Shackleford stripped an’ scalped an’ left out. Didn’t find Blackwell’s body. We buried Shackleford where we found ‘im,” Smith replied.

“C’mon, make your report,” Manning said, waving Smith forward to follow him. “The rest of you,” Manning pointed at the other members of the late patrol, “get some chow and some rest; we’ll camp here one more night.” The crowd of soldiers now surrounded the remaining members of the patrol and peppered them with questions. The mumblings and comments filled with indignant pronouncements of visiting the same outrages on the next Apache they came across.

Thomas’s eyes brightened as he spied Hoffsteadter wearily trudging toward his tent.

“I suppose we wait a bit an’ find out what happened to these men,” Thomas stated.

Morgan heaved a sigh. “Was really lookin’ forward to a good night’s rest, but if Apaches are out again we might want to stick around with the expedition.”

“We can still leave today if you want,” Thomas added hurriedly. “Give me some time to go and talk with Tafoya and hear what Hoff has to say about what Smith’s reporting.”

“You still think somethin’ else done this. I thought you said it weren’t Apaches.”

Thomas gave a shrug and pursed his lips. “I said I didn’t think it was Apaches, but I’d like to talk with Hoff before we go to straighten a few things out in my mind. And I’d like to have a chat with Tafoya, if he’ll talk at all.”

* * *

Inside the guard tent, Tafoya was bound with his hands in his lap and seated cross-legged on the ground. The tent was empty but for its sole occupant. That they had a guard tent in the field at all seemed to Thomas to be more ostentation than military requirement. Tafoya didn’t stir nor look up when Thomas and Morgan entered but stared stonily at the ground.

“Something I’d like to clear up, Tafoya,” began Thomas. “You were pressed into service for the Confederates with Sibley when he came through Socorro, correct?”

Tafoya nodded slowly. “Made me scout.”

“But you stayed behind when Sibley retreated and have been scouting and hunting for us since. You were pressed into service for them, but not us.” It was a statement more than a question.

“Si. Sibley made several people from Socorro go along with him.”

“So you harbor us no ill will? The Federal Government, that is?”

“No.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Morgan asked, shaking his head.

“Seems a valid question to ask,” Thomas protested. Morgan didn’t need to know why he was asking just now. “You know of the lost mission silver, right?”

Tafoya nodded.

“Did you ever know where it was buried?”

Tafoya shook his head.

“But you did know it was still out there?”

Tafoya shook his head no. “La plata took long ago, took back to El Paso del Norte.”

“And a map . . . did you ever know there was a map?” Thomas asked.

“No, priests make map of where la plata buried, but la plata found after revolt and taken back to El Paso del Norte.”

“Do you know where the silver is now? Have you seen it?” Thomas asked, his face brightening. Tafoya as the avenging angel protecting some holy relic was being stricken from his mental narrative.

“No, la plata taken back to Mexico City long ago.”

It was Morgan’s turn to look confused.

“But if the silver was found and returned to the church, then what the hell were those men digging up in the desert?”

“What men?” Tafoya asked.

“Horne, Dunn, and Abeyta from the 1st New Mexico,” Thomas replied. “They were seen riding with you in Socorro.”

Tafoya shook his head. “Yo no vi Abeyta, Horne, or Dunn.”

“Where were you coming from when you came upon Abeyta the other day?” Thomas asked.

“Mi casa.”

“In Socorro, correct?”

“Si.”

“Why?” Morgan asked.

“Captain Hinds sent.”

“Did the message find you at home?”

“Si.”

Thomas looked at Morgan, a smile spreading across his face.

“What?” Morgan asked.

“Nothing. Well, it’s something, but I’m beginning to see what’s going on here.”

“And?” Morgan asked, irritated.

“When did the message reach you?” Thomas asked, ignoring Morgan’s question and stern expression.

“La mañana.”

“What for? What was the message about?”

“Hinds wanted a hunt, pay me to lead hunt,” Tafoya replied. He’d barely moved a muscle since Thomas and Morgan had entered and hadn’t taken his eyes off of the ground.

“Did the message find you at home, or was it already at home when you arrived?”

“Met me en mi casa.”

Thomas addressed Morgan. “We don’t know who the captain sent, but he sent someone from Craig all the way to Socorro to tell Miguel here to come to the post.”

“So?” Morgan asked. “What’s that supposed to mean? He was at home and not on the road already back to Craig?”

“Precisely, or at least that is what he’s saying.”

“Again, so?” Morgan pressed.

“Just seems significant. Might be something in it. There’s something that doesn’t fit now, but I can’t quite recall what that is at the moment.” There was something nagging at him about this sudden shift in the timeline, something that he’d heard casually dropped the other day in conversing with the privates at their mess.

“But he was seen with the other men. He lives close to town; he could easily have been at home before he was summoned,” Morgan stated.

“He says he wasn’t with them,” Thomas replied evenly.

“So he says. Why would he tell the truth?”

“Why would he lie?” Thomas countered.

Morgan snorted and threw out his hands. “Because he has somethin’ to hide! And don’t forget, he accused Horne of cheating him.”

Thomas nodded. Although there was something to the Piro’s searching and often sour stare, something that gave the impression of a secretive and inscrutable character, Thomas had never found the scout to be anything but honest. If he said Horne had cheated him of wages owed for hunts, he was probably telling the truth.

“How well did you know Abeyta?” Thomas asked.

“Know family.”

“Did you know he was looking for the lost mission silver?”

“Si.”

“Well, if you knew the silver wasn’t there, why’d you let the man go lookin’ for it?” Morgan said angrily. He rounded on Thomas. “What do you expect to get out of him? He’s leadin’ us in circles.”

“La plata just story. Mi grandfather say la plata taken back to Mexico City. People believe what they want,” Tafoya said in a low voice.

“Did you know Abeyta was with Horne and Dunn in town a few days ago? They were with someone else. Did you see them at all?” Thomas asked.

“No, yo no los vi.”

“Or the other person they were with? Anyone in town you didn’t see that often come in? Someone from Fort Craig who rarely went to town?” Thomas asked.

“What are you driving at?” Morgan asked, surprised.

Thomas spread out his hands. “A hunch. If Miguel wasn’t with them, if what he says is true, then someone else from the post must have been with the three—someone who rarely if ever went into Socorro, since no one recognized who it was.”

“No, yo no vi.”

“You sure?”

“Si.” Tafoya nodded his head slightly.

“I don’t see what this tells us,” Morgan stated. “He’s lying.”

“But what if he’s not? It is suggestive, no, that someone else could have been involved? Someone who might resemble Tafoya from a distance?”

“Suggestive but pretty improbable. Not sure why you think otherwise.” Morgan stood, giving the still downcast Tafoya one more look before exiting the tent.

“How about this,” Thomas said to the Piro and held out Horne’s pistol. “How did you come by this?”

“Took it from Abeyta,” was the frank answer.

“Took it. Took it from him though he was dying,” came Morgan’s muffled voice through the tent flap.

“No need it where he going,” Tafoya replied.

“So you found Abeyta and decided you wanted a pistol?” Thomas asked.

“Si, he not going need it long.”

Thomas sighed and stood up. Murder was a serious charge to level upon anyone, but especially when the victims were three soldiers and the accused was a civilian who had ties to the Confederates. But there was little in the way of proof, and no one in town had stated that Tafoya was the fourth man—Thomas and Morgan had just assumed it for lack of identifying anyone else. Men had been hanged for less. This wasn’t going to be mob justice, but the army wasn’t going to spend much time on trying to prove a half-Indian and half-Mexican wasn’t culpable in the deaths if it looked like he might have been.

Thomas stepped out of the tent and shook his head quickly to clear it. On the whole, Tafoya looked like the guilty party in the murders, but his actions and responses told Thomas that he wasn’t.

Confessing a sin turns the ear and the heart to soften, but reveling in a sin turns the eyes away and hardens the heart, Thomas thought as he slowly made his way back to the center of the camp.

“Cold bastard,” Morgan quipped.

“You’d take my pistol if it were me,” Thomas said.

“I’d wait for you to be dead first!” Morgan replied with a look of seriousness.

“Chaplain,” a voice called out. It was Hoffsteadter coming from the horse picket.

“Hoff, it is a wonder to see you out here,” Thomas said with a wan smile.

“Since you were gone I had no excuse to give when the company was drawn out,” Hoffsteadter said.

“So what’s this about Apaches and Blackwell and Shackleford?” Thomas asked.

“Well, we thought they had been carried off when we woke this morning. All the mounts was gone; they disappeared during Blackwell’s watch. We thought they might be hostages or something. See this?” Hoffsteadter took off his hat. “Shaved me pretty good on this side, near the scalp. You saw Powell’s feet an’ Smith’s trouser legs. Apaches counting coup an’ taking all our stuff is what we thought, an’ not too happy about having to walk back. That is until we found poor Shackleford all laid out an’ scalped. We didn’t run across Blackwell’s body.”

“Bad time for the man to volunteer,” Thomas stated.

“Said he wanted to get out into the field. We might have need of a steward if someone was shot.”

“And you found another horse, right?”

Hoffsteadter nodded. “Army brand. Had someone’s gear still strapped to the back of the saddle.”

“It were my cousin’s,” Dunn said as he approached Thomas and Hoffsteadter.

“Your cousin’s horse,” Thomas repeated.

“Certain. It had his journal in the saddlebag. He’d been keepin’ track of somethin’, an’ it looked like he’d drawn a map. Rough map that resembled where we found Horne’s body an’ the hole they dug,” Dunn replied.

“They let his horse get away? Don’t sound like Apaches to me, sir,” said Hoffsteadter.

“No, no it doesn’t. The journal say anything else?” Thomas asked. Like why did he so easily kill his friend, Horne, or who else they were out with?

“They been out lookin’ fer the silver some time in them mines. Mentioned findin’ some map, an’ they was plannin’ to go an’ look, an’ some other things.” Dunn Two looked away, troubled.

“What things?” Thomas asked.

“Like he was finally going to get something out of the ground an’ find some way to ah . . . uh get the other’s shares. He wanted it all.”

“I see,” Thomas said with a slight nod of the head and his best look of compassion. “And the map? Found a map where? It say who found it?”

Dunn shrugged. “That all it say.”

“You think it was Tafoya then that killed Dunn?” Hoffsteadter asked.

“No,” Thomas replied in a low voice, “but don’t know who else might have. Whoever joined them in Socorro is the one we’re thinking probably did, but who that was is another matter.”

“Well, we saw Tafoya come in a few days earlier. He been out huntin’ before that down south. Come in with a brace of rabbit an’ quail. We had a mess with it,” Hoffsteadter stated.

“A few days before he came in with Abeyta?” Thomas asked, glancing toward the guard tent.

“Yeah, remember that. Was some good eatin’,” Dunn remarked wistfully.

“Hmmm. Don’t remember the officers’ mess having any fresh game,” Thomas replied.

“He brung it fer our company mess,” Dunn replied smugly.

Thomas rubbed his stomach as he realized he’d not eaten all day. “Have to talk to him about doing that for the officers’ mess, too.

Thomas’s mind worked it over. The timing didn’t fit. “He couldn’t have been out with Abeyta and the others digging if he’d just been out hunting and gone back to Socorro when Hinds’ message arrived for him,” he said, biting his lip thoughtfully.

“Maybe,” Hoffsteadter replied. “Did he say anything about his movements?”

“No, was quite reticent to say anything at all in his defense.”

“Captain Morgan seems pretty sure it were him,” Hoffsteadter replied.

“Morgan doesn’t know what you just told me. I didn’t know it either, though it seems the whole company knew, or will know once they put it together,” Thomas replied. “Morgan will change his mind once he understands it too.”

Thomas felt something like hope rising in him. The story was still missing a villain, but it felt more satisfying without Tafoya in the role. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he felt relieved that what he’d once suspected about Tafoya’s possible actions didn’t fit with the man. The villain in this story was someone cunning and manipulative, not savagely brutal and vengeful. The man who could take a pistol from you while you were dying cared little for cunning, and yet Tafoya was enough of a man to bring in the dying Abeyta to end his final hours in some comfort.

“Do we say somethin’ now?” Hoffsteadter remarked, looking around.

“No, we go back to post and establish what you said from the OD’s report. Should have Tafoya noted for the date and time he returned. That will clear it up beyond dispute. We’ll tell Morgan on the way out.” He knew his friend was well set on his course, and it would take something strong to amend it. Morgan could be a good ally but also a fierce foe once he’d set his mind.

“What about Shackleford?” Thomas asked after a moment’s hesitation. “What’s your opinion on what happened to him and Blackwell?”

Hoffsteadter shook his head slightly, a look of disquiet upon his brow. “It just queer. Apache got the drop on Blackwell on watch.” he shrugged. “When we left the camp we didn’t bring Shackleford’s or Blackwell’s stuff, just left it there.

“And no one heard anything?” Thomas asked.

Hoffsteadter shook his head. “No, nothing.”

“Anything the man might have said give you an idea he might light out on his own?” Thomas asked.

“What, you mean like he just left us instead of fallin’ asleep?” Hoffsteadter replied with surprise.

Thomas thought a moment.

“Maybe the Apache counting coup a different way? But why take just one man? Did Blackwell seem pensive or anything?”

“No, just his normal self,” Hoffsteadter replied.

“Anyone else see anything that might have given them the idea Blackwell might desert?” Thomas asked. On the face of it, Blackwell was the victim of what might be the start of another bloody affair with the Apache, but Hoffsteadter had been with him the whole time and might remember something else that might point to his whereabouts.

“You think he’s a leg case?” Hoffsteadter asked.

“We’ve a missing man again, and I’d like to think we could fix that if possible. You remember anything else about the patrol?” Thomas asked.

“No, nothing else that I can recall. If he did desert us he probably got caught by the Apaches all the same an’ left out there somewhere.” Hoffsteadter replied with a shrug.

“You ready?” Captain Morgan said as he walked up to Thomas.

“Yes, I’m ready,” Thomas said without enthusiasm.

“What?” Morgan asked, noting Thomas’s look of disquiet.

“Nothing.”

“Hmmmph,” Morgan grunted. “What you holdin’ back?”

Thomas shook his head and headed toward the picket line and his mount. Now wasn’t the time to argue with his friend.

CHAPTER 13

DISCOVERY

“What?” Morgan cried. “When were you plannin’ on tellin’ me this?”

Thomas had waited a full hour before opening the conversation about Tafoya. For his part, Tafoya had ridden in silence. His hands were still bound, and his countenance was one of stony defiance. Morgan had taken several looks over his shoulder at the man.

Thomas, for his part, had spent the hour working the problems out. He was convinced Tafoya wasn’t responsible for the deaths. The timeline almost guaranteed it. But if not Tafoya, then who? The companies of the 5th California were full of possibilities: anyone might have been taken in by the legend, enough to make a move to secure his own take in the discovery. Men will kill for many reasons. When faced by an armed enemy. When their sense of moral law is weak and greed or jealousy take over. When defending their own lives. The mining camps in California had been a collection of all the evil that can entice a man. The love of money was at the root of a lot of the conflicts that arose between otherwise peaceful beings. It was to these camps that he himself had first come to see if his bringing the gospel might stop some of that evil from taking root.

The war hadn’t really changed any of that. The rush had ended, and those who had struck it rich had consolidated their holdings, built empires, and hired those who were muscled out to work their own claims. Those fortune-seekers either persisted where they were allowed to or drifted north.

So yes, the company was full of possibilities. But Thomas didn’t have one actual suspect.

Thomas had known that Morgan was going to be slightly discombobulated by the revelation that Tafoya wasn’t their culprit, but now was better than later to ease Morgan into the intelligence.

So he’d said, “I don’t think Tafoya murdered Horne or Dunn. He was out on a hunt while Horne and Dunn were slipping out of the post and had been at the post the day before he brought Abeyta in. So I don’t think he can be our man.”

Thomas had stated it as easily as he could manage. Morgan was a decent fellow to get along with as long as you didn’t surprise him too often with an alternative to what he felt was the truth about something.

Morgan’s response was a flash of anger. “How long were you gonna let me go on thinkin’ that we’d got our man?”

Thomas shrugged. “Not long. Needed to work it all out myself, and you were pretty set on the path.”

“Hmmmph.” Morgan grunted disgustedly. “You could at least have spoken up.”

“I did, but we was all ready to get moving when it came together,” Thomas said, his cheeks flushing slightly.

“All right, so Tafoya didn’t do it. Who did?” Morgan asked sharply.

Morgan didn’t like to be contradicted nor proven wrong, ever—and he’d insisted that Tafoya was guilty in front of half the company. Thomas hoped he’d get over it quickly. He needed Morgan’s help figuring this thing out.

The small caravan plodded along in the dust of a track that followed the course of the river. The way enjoyed some shade from cottonwood trees, and the path was well hardened. Moving out of it, though, was a necessity to get back to the road leading to Socorro from the fort. The body of Private Horne was still being dragged slowly along on the litter, creating a dragging noise in the softer sand of the road and slowing down the gait of their mounts. It was already late afternoon, and the group had several more hours of travel to get back to the post.

“So you were just gonna let us take Tafoya back in chains?” Morgan griped.

“He was coming willingly and not under any other restraint, so yes,” Thomas admitted.

Morgan shook his head and halted his mount. “Well, go untie the man!”

Thomas considered a moment, then turned his mount about to pull up to Tafoya’s. Morgan was a good man, temper notwithstanding.

“I know you had nothing to do with Dunn’s or Horne’s or Abeyta’s deaths, and now Morgan knows that too,” Thomas said as he untied Tafoya’s hands.

Tafoya merely looked at Thomas. His expression showed neither gratitude nor scorn nor anger. He simply nodded, and once his hands were free, he rubbed and flexed his wrists appreciatively.

“What?” Dunn Two asked as he also came to a halt. Forgetting his rank and position, his tone grew belligerent. “You say he didn’t do it?”

“You said yourself: Tafoya brought in game for your company. How could he have been out with Horne and your cousin at the same time?” Thomas asked.

“But everything else fit!” Dunn protested.

“A man can’t be in two places at once. That is too much of a misfit,” Thomas said.

“So we just let Tafoya go back home?” Morgan asked.

“I guess I didn’t think of that,” Thomas admitted. “I just assumed he’d go back with us to the post.”

“I guess not.” Morgan glared. “Well?” he asked Tafoya.

“I go back to the fort. Get paid,” Tafoya stated flatly.

“And I wasted liberty on this!” Morgan exclaimed.

“We now know the truth!” Thomas protested. “Isn’t that enough?” Though it was only a half-truth, it was something. He’d at least prevented Tafoya from being lynched or accused of something he’d not done.

“Truth! What do we know that we didn’t know a few days ago?” Morgan said and let out a sharp breath.

“We know where our men are,” Thomas replied with a shrug. “We know Tafoya isn’t guilty.” He wasn’t entirely dissatisfied with the results. After all, they could lay Horne to rest to join Dunn in the post cemetery. That was better than being left to the scavengers to be picked apart in the desert.

“Well, dammit, let’s get going an’ put this all behind us,” Morgan growled as he turned his mount to take the lead once more.

Thomas could sympathize. What had they really found out? The missing silver was still missing. Someone had bloody hands, but they didn’t know who. A soldier might kill another soldier over a fight or a debt, but it took a special kind of man to coldheartedly murder his fellow soldiers for pure gain.

In Thomas’s experience, men were born of the same cloth as Cain or Abel. Some, for reasons of an unstable mind or a weak moral center, found they could kill when it suited them and have no remorse for it after. There was a little bit of Cain in everyone, the part of the mind or the spirit that coveted things beyond all reason and saw murder as the only way to get it. Even those who were more like Abel might be pushed to avenge some slight or a theft or a deal gone wrong when they were pushed to the precipice. Thomas had seen men about to hang who did not express remorse but a grim satisfaction that the burning in their own breast was finally quelled, even at the price of their own lives. The human heart was entirely wicked, as the prophet Jeremiah wrote. It was just that most men kept the violence in check. Most.

The crow from his dreams suddenly popped into Thomas’s mind. The desert around the post had its fair share of large ones that fed upon the scraps they could steal or scrounge from the refuse. They were patient scroungers, fearless in approach when a morsel was to be had and territorial when they decided to ward off interlopers. Worse, they possessed an evil countenance. They waited and observed in groups, and one could swear that if they could, they would prefer to pick one’s bones clean of fresh meat than bother with anything that fell from the table. Perhaps that was why a group of them was called a murder. They certainly looked at one as if they were contemplating something sinister with every cocked head and every cawing cry.

The crow in his dreams had flown in and disrupted the other birds. At the time Thomas had thought little of it, though the subject matter and the birds themselves were curious—why dream of birds at all? His dreams hitherto had been flights of fancy he rarely remembered. But the crow that had swooped in and pecked at the warbler and then at the nearest of the two sparrows before all took to wing—that he remembered. He could still see it looking at him with a cock of its head and a sort of joyous glint in its eye.

Thomas felt his gut churn as a fragment of that dream came back, something he’d not remembered after waking as vividly as the sudden appearance of the crow and the taking of flight of the other birds.

He had been seated at his desk writing, his pen poised above the page, and had reached for his inkwell when the crow arrived and disturbed the activities of the other three birds. Thomas had frozen his quill over the mouth of the well when the crow pecked at the warbler. Once the others had flown off and the crow had turned his attention to Thomas, he had begun to lower his pen into the ink when the crow had given its wicked caw and taken flight itself, startling Thomas and causing him to tip the inkwell, spilling the ink out over the wood table. The black ink had spilled and crept toward his paper in an inexorable march across the desk’s sloping top.

Black ink, red splotch on the crow’s leg, the pestering or torturing of those other birds. The images were disturbing.

The late afternoon sun was casting long shadows when something was seen ahead of them on the road. A solitary horse.

“Apaches gettin’ bold,” Morgan said in a low voice.

Thomas looked about nervously. They weren’t a group so easily taken advantage of, but if the Apache were causing trouble once more anyone could be a target.

The horse was equipped with a US-issue McClellan saddle, saddle blanket, and bags. The only uncustomary bit was a red blanket tied behind the saddle.

“He’s one of ours, that looks for certain,” Thomas stated.

The mesquite bushes were growing tall along the roadway, some to six and seven feet high with wide-spreading stalks that even on horseback obscured the landscape to either side of the trail. As the group was pondering this latest development, a figure stepped onto the road a few feet in front of the horse and the group of riders and froze.

The man was in federal kit, wide-brimmed hat, kersey blue pants and dark blue sack coat, and he looked for the world like he’d just stepped into the path of a charging bull. Wide-eyed and slack-jawed, he gaped at them.

Morgan and Dunn gaped in return. Tafoya’s eyes widened, but he was not as taken with abject surprise at the apparition as the others were. Thomas nodded to himself as an “Ah-ha” escaped his lips.

“Blackwell?” Morgan finally asked. “You . . . you were supposed to be . . . what?”

Thomas leaned into his saddle, resting his palms on the top ridge of the front, and cocked his head.

“You’re the crow,” Thomas said in a low voice, more to himself.

“What?” Morgan turned slightly to Thomas, a look of confusion on his face.

“You were the one with Horne and Dunn when they left the post,” Thomas stated, looking Blackwell square in the eyes.

“What are you talking about?” Morgan blanched. “And you,” Morgan nodded toward Blackwell, “did you skulk off an’ leave your patrol in the lurch? You caused a man’s death an’ we thought you too were dead, or leastwise captured.”

“No, no, he’s not supposed to be dead or a captive, and no, he’s not supposed to be skulking about in the bush either. What he’s doing is trying to find where he hid the silver,” Thomas replied evenly.

Blackwell’s eyes moved from man to man as they were arrayed in front of him, all in a single line and each towering above him by several feet. He was too far from his mount to make it before he might be run down, but he was not close enough to the interlopers to be reached easily before he could disappear into the zigzag of mesquite growth.

“It was your red Navajo blanket everyone in town saw, wasn’t it? You slipped out with Horne and Dunn and met up with Abeyta in Socorro with that map you found in El Paso del Norte a month ago.” Thomas addressed Blackwell and then turned slightly to Morgan, whose face betrayed anger and disbelief.

“Blackwell was on that expedition with Companies C and D and brought back some Mexican herbs and curios. He bought that red blanket that I was admiring a few days ago, and I imagine he somehow or other got hold of an old map.”

“La plata was taken back to Mexico,” Tafoya stated.

“No, not really, unless there was other silver not retrieved back then. What he had was the spot where the priests had hidden the silver communion rail and the implements for the sacrament when they fled the Pueblo Revolt and never returned. That’s why the legend persisted—no one really knew if those attempts to retrieve the cachet had actually succeeded.”

Thomas turned to Dunn, who was on the far right of the line. “You said so yourself. You said you hadn’t seen anyone leave the post, but then you said you were lying to keep yourself from going on report once more for not spying your cousin, Horne, and Blackwell leave post. Instead you were dozing off drunk.”

“Well, is that correct?” Morgan demanded of Blackwell.

Blackwell didn’t answer. His sidearm was still secured in its holster, and the thick leather flap was secured by the strap. But none of his confronters had theirs out either. This was just a friendly conversation between soldiers.

“You knew this?” Morgan turned and demanded of Thomas.

“No. An informed guess.” Thomas leaned over slightly to look at Dunn past Morgan’s right shoulder.

“Uh, yeah . . . yeah, I think that’s right,” Dunn replied sheepishly.

“Anything else you conveniently forgot, Private?” Morgan snapped. “Like anyone else you might have let sneak off post or gotten tight with?”

“No, no sir,” Dunn replied in a low voice.

“You managed to ingratiate yourself with Dunn and Horne, and with this map and Abeyta’s help located where the silver lay. You then systematically narrowed the shares to just yours. Then snuck back into the post with none the wiser.”

“You sayin’ Blackwell behind all this his self?” Morgan asked.

“Yes. I don’t think getting his hands dirty is Blackwell’s style. That’s why Abeyta was found barely alive, Blackwell had run out of people to do his dirty work. I think he had Abeyta kill Dunn and they both dressed it up like it was Apaches, and then he got the drop on Abeyta.”

Thomas turned to stare Blackwell down. “You found it wasn’t so easy to kill a man. Abeyta managed to either feign death or get away. I think you finally got your hands dirty that night in the hospital after Abeyta had confessed to killing someone—that someone being your cousin,” Thomas said, nodding at Dunn Two for the last bit. “Abeyta was certainly feeling guilty enough about something. That’s why he said what he did: ‘We killed him.’ He was trying to implicate Blackwell, but we didn’t hear it properly. Didn’t know he was talking about someone in the same room. Something you hadn’t counted on, Blackwell?”

“No,” came the sardonic reply from Blackwell, whose eyes had yet to leave Thomas’s.

“No, don’t suspect you did. It must have been quite the surprise to find him brought in by Tafoya, but you figured you could easily kill him in the night and no one would suspect anything, since he was pretty near death when he came in. Then all you had to do was somehow get back here and retrieve the silver and desert, but you didn’t really know what he had said to me, nor how much we might find out in Socorro, so you volunteered to go out with Captain Manning’s expedition to hunt what you figured was not there. You had to get the silver quickly, so you went out with Manning’s group and then staged your own abduction in the middle of the night. Only there were Apaches near, and when you left your post, Shackleford was killed and the rest of the troop left open to depredation.”

Thomas shook his head. “You got lucky there, or it might have been you both laid out and scalped. The war party wanted to strike fear into the bluecoats and take what they wanted, which they did. And if we hadn’t found you here, we’d have figured Apaches did you in too—Manning would have searched for you for a spell and then given up. Not finding a corpse out in this trackless, scrub-covered desert would have not been unusual.”

Blackwell stood where he had first stopped and furtively looked from one man to the next and from side to side as if judging his chances to make one final break and escape.

“All right,” Morgan said crisply. “Where’d you hide the silver?”

Blackwell pursed his lips and looked away.

“You had better come clean with what you did, Blackwell,” Thomas said. The man was looking more and more sheepish by the second as the futility of his position dawned on him. “You will face judgement in this life for what you have done, but you needn’t face judgement in the next if you also make the good confession. I can’t save you from the ultimate judgement for murder, but I can save you . . .”

Thomas’s speech was interrupted by a flash of movement from Private Dunn’s drawing of his pistol.

Blackwell made a quick motion to turn and started to dart back into the mesquite bushes.

“Bastard!” Dunn shouted and fired a shot from his revolver that clipped Blackwell in the back and sent him sprawling to the ground. “And that’s for my cousin!” He fired another round into Blackwell’s supine body.

“Dunn, dammit, gimme that!” Morgan cursed and grabbed for the revolver, knocking it to the ground and giving Dunn a hard glare.

Thomas jumped at the report. He could only watch numbly as Dunn gave Blackwell the coup de gras before Morgan could interfere.

Private Dunn sat his horse and glared at Blackwell’s now motionless body a few feet in front of them. The private was breathing heavily and tightening his lips to a thin line.

“Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.” Thomas muttered and sighed. “It was not for you to act, Dunn.”

“Go check him out!” Morgan snapped to Dunn.

For a moment Dunn didn’t budge or seem to have heard Morgan’s command. He just continued to stare at Blackwell’s form.

“Go, dammit!” Morgan repeated angrily.

Dunn slipped from his mount, and like a reluctant student, slowly approached the body and turned him over. Shaking his head, he looked to Morgan and Thomas. Blackwell’s face was covered in sand and dust, but his chest revealed two bloodied holes and no movement.

“Secure him to the litter, and let’s get back to the post,” Morgan declared and looked at Thomas.

Thomas returned the stare with a slight shake of his head. It was disturbing, somehow, to know a murderer had been in their midst—but in the end, did they really know any soldier?

“Vengeance is mine?” Morgan asked askance and screwed his lips.

Thomas shrugged, “It was all I could think of at the moment.”

CHAPTER 14

AFTERMATHS

Sundown was nearing as Thomas rested his hands upon his knees and studied the chessboard. He was losing again. Captain Morgan looked bored and impatient as he watched Thomas contemplate move after move, picking up his queen’s bishop and moving it back and forth in indecision.

It had been a long day. Blackwell and Private Horne had been interred in the post cemetery alongside Private Dunn One. Dunn Two was in the brig awaiting a court-martial to be convened to decide what to do with him. The army did not look kindly on its privates dispensing summary justice of their own.

Thomas had wasted little time that morning, after a fitful and short sleep, in getting the chief surgeon’s approval to look through Blackwell’s effects—both those found on his person and those things he had left behind him in the hospital. He’d left little behind, but what Thomas found in the man’s saddlebags was enough to shed light upon his actions. A quick look through the post’s OD reports also confirmed everything.

The man had been in the regiment for seven months and had not developed any pards or become part of any mess. An odd bird who kept to himself for reasons of his own, they’d all thought. The reasons were clearer now.

Tafoya was free to go as he pleased, though Thomas would not have been surprised to have seen the last of him after he marched straight to the commander’s quarters late the night the group trudged wearily back through the gate to demand his payment. He was still there the following morning when Thomas stumbled out of his room, seeing to his mount.

Rubbing his eyes and still in his stocking feet, Thomas had gingerly approached the man.

“Did you square with Captain Hinds?” Thomas asked.

“Si, he pay me what owed,” Tafoya said in his usual curt manner.

“What did you think when you found out that the silver had not been discovered and removed years ago after all?”

Tafoya stood a moment and pondered. “Yo no creo; but problem with legends, they could be lies, they could be truth. One never know.”

Thomas leaned forward a little. “From who do you think he got that map?”

“Hombres sell anything. He got it from a poor relation to the Piro people who come to El Paso del Norte from original mission, probably. They only ones who would have it.”

“Odd they never came themselves to dig the treasure up then,” Thomas pondered.

Something flashed in Tafoya’s eyes—a resentment, maybe even a sorrow. “To Piro, it just silver dug from ground and fashioned into things of use. It a long way to travel for hope of finding.” He turned away and shrugged. “Piro now mostly gone; few have ties to here any longer.”

“Did you know that Dunn wasn’t killed by Apaches? You must have known that.”

Of all of the people mixed up in the goings-on the last week, Tafoya shouldn’t have been taken in by the ruse of Dunn’s body being mutilated in the fashion of the Western Indians. Yet he’d led the pack in trying to go after them.

“Si, lo sabia. Chance to go and hunt some Apaches,” Tafoya replied unapologetically. “Apache may not have killed Dunn, but Apache make payment for killing Piro for long years gone by, killing my mother and taking sister and now pay for killing of your man.”

“So you would have led Captain Manning on a wild hunt just for any Apache?” Thomas asked incredulously.

“Si,” was the only reply as Tafoya mounted his horse and sat staring down on Thomas. “Pero there was Apache out, an’ now we go an’ hunt all same.” Tafoya ended with a slight grin and a nod and spurred his horse forward.

All Thomas could bring himself to do was nod. Perhaps it was the same need for cold revenge that had Private Dunn Two pull his sidearm and shoot Blackwell twice. Thomas had learned that the enmity between the Spanish and the Pueblos, Navajos, Apache, and Comanche was long and sordid, and all sides harbored long-unfulfilled blood grudges against any of the others. Now add the Anglos, and there was enough enmity to go around twice over.

“Adios.” Thomas waved at Tafoya’s back. The soldiers had come perilously close to lynching the man a day ago. Had Hoff’s story not revealed the truth about his whereabouts and so pointed to another’s guilt . . .

“You up early,” a voice behind Thomas called out. Captain Morgan stood in the doorway of his room and scratched at his belly absently.

“Early bird,” Thomas replied blandly.

“Speaking of worms,” Morgan said with a mischievous grin, “what of our blackguard Blackwell?”

“Laid to rest,” Thomas replied solemnly.

“You look through his stuff already?”

“Started to,” Thomas replied and motioned for Morgan to follow into his room. “I haven’t gone through the stuff he had with him when we found him. What he left behind in his room in the hospital wasn’t much. But what I found in his saddlebags you’ll find interesting.” He waved at a collection of things upon his desk.

Instead of heading to the desk, Morgan moved toward the corner of the room where Thomas’s bartered guitar sat. It was a rather beat-up looking instrument with its edges well worn, frets with a dark patina, and bare wood exposed below the acoustic well, the doing of thousands of downstrokes and fingernail scrapes.

“So QM did find you something for that awful crucifix.”

“Back away and don’t even think of picking that up.” Thomas said sternly. “Now, do you want to see these or not?”

Morgan stood over the desk with his hands behind his back, as if unwilling to touch anything Blackwell had ever handled. With an air of distaste, he hovered critically over the collection of odds and ends.

“This all he left in his rooms?”

“That’s it. He cleared out everything he had of value when the expedition left the post,” Thomas replied.

An inkwell, half-full. A strip of paper labels and a small bottle of resin. A collection of supplies needed for rolling pills: the board, the knife to cut the wax, and a ball of wax. A mortar and pestle and several small spoons for measuring. That made up the whole of what he did not deign worthy of space in his baggage.

“So the man wasn’t a packrat,” Morgan proclaimed as he straightened up and turned to Thomas.

“Well, but let’s see what he did pack.” Thomas lifted a bag up from the corner of his room and opened the flap. Blackwell’s mount had been loaded down with several leather bags as well as his blanket rolls and a change of clothing. Kneeling down by his bed, Thomas began removing papers. There were a lot of press clippings from California papers. Yellowed from age and crumpled, the newspaper clippings were all of rectangular shape and in various states of decay.

“Odd . . . don’t see why he’d have all this and choose to take it with him,” Morgan said impatiently. “What else is in there?”

“Uh?” Thomas asked. He held in his hand a story from the San Francisco Chronicle dated eight months ago, detailing the death of a Mrs. Fanny Blankman and an obituary.

Morgan glared at Thomas. “Get to the good stuff. What’s so interesting about some . . .” he paused to read over Thomas’s shoulder, “some old hag leaving her money to ingrates? Let’s see if he’s got a diary.”

Thomas laid the clippings down, and ignoring Morgan’s demand, fished out another assortment of papers. These were on loose sheets, but they noted in ledger style the names of several people, what looked like measurements in ounces, words in Latin, and in the last column, dollar amounts.

An annoyed huff sounded over Thomas’s shoulder, and an ill wind brushed his ear. “Who cares about his . . . whatever that is. If he’s got a diary or something, the juicy stuff will be in there!” Morgan said irritably.

“Sorry, no diary in this one,” Thomas said as he held open the flap of the bag to reveal nothing but papers.

“Then let’s get to the other bags, shall we?”

Thomas dropped the papers, but not before he read down the lines of entries, stopping on one marked Blankman. On the same line was the Ar3 symbol.

“You’re a ghoul, you know that?” Thomas said. He reached over for the other bag. Opening the flap revealed only clothing, but nothing looking like a journal or a diary. Disappointed, Morgan gave a humpf and wandered out of the room.

“Thanks for the help,” Thomas replied after him. He knew what story this assortment of papers was telling, even if Morgan was too thick to see it.

“Hello,” Thomas said as he spied something wedged between a roll of socks and the edge of the bag. This, he had not seen before. It was a dirty-looking piece of paper, more like parchment in feel and weight, and folded several times over itself.

Spreading it out upon the bed, Thomas beheld the map.

The map showed the boundaries of Socorro at the time, Thomas assumed, of the first mission church and settlement of the area by the Spanish. The mission was outlined, as well as several buildings forming what was now the main street of Socorro. Leading out from the mission proper was an area marked with the river, spots in the mountains where the silver mines were found, and a nebulous spot some distance away from the mission with Latin notation. The mountains were west of the town, and the mission formed the northern boundary, so there were at least two cardinal directions to orient the map from, but the Latin notation gave little away as to what the map was for.

Thomas pursed his lips and glared at the old parchment. With the map in hand, there was little need for anyone else to know about the true location of the silver communion rail. A greedy man like Blackwell would have wanted to keep it a secret. So why involve the others?

But then, maybe it hadn’t been so simple. Much had changed in the intervening two hundred years or more since this map was drawn. Socorro was no longer a mission church with a few buildings on the outside of the mission walls, but a small village with a street and the spreading out of several farms. What little Spanish was noted on the map were words he recognized as denoting common mission structures. Within the walls were noted the convento, the rectangular domiciles of the priests and friars who managed the mission church, and the storehouses for their living. The mission walls on the map spread out further than they did today, encompassing a larger area and longer courtyard. There were workshops and stables that no longer existed, now covered over by houses. The church remained in the same spot, but the outer gate and its walls lined with other buildings were now gone.

The whole location was hardly recognizable as the same place today. Everything to the west of the church was about in the same place where the cloisters and the convento still stood, but to the east, change had not been so kind. The east, where the silver was hidden. The east, some unknown distance from the outer walls where the Latin notations were made.

“Can’t find a place unless you know where to start looking,” Thomas said to himself. The story was complete in his head now, the villain revealed and the reasons clear for all that had transpired. Now he just needed to tell it.

He leaned back upon his rump and rested his hands upon his knees, taking an extended view of the remnants of a man’s life, the few objects that made up what Blackwell had thought important enough to carry along. The ledger sheets written in an exacting hand with neat and clean script, tallying Blackwell’s remorseless accumulation of others’ wealth in dribs and drabs. How many were there? Tens? How many people before Fanny Blankman had he helped become inheritors of family wealth before their time? The ledger told a clear story, if a sordid one. Blackwell wasn’t just a treasure hunter and killer of compatriot soldiers. He was a practiced, coldblooded murderer by trade. Thomas shook his head and wondered at how Blackwell had carried on all this time as just another soldier. How many other stories were written in tragedy from this man’s precise and careful hand?

“The map must have driven you mad,” Thomas said toward the disorderly looking map with its inexact lines and no legend to show direction or distance.

Here before Thomas were both reason and unreason, order and disorder. A meticulous mind and a haphazard attempt to get away.

A shadow darkened his doorway, and turning from the collection upon his bunk, he spied Private Hoffsteadter.

“Well, Hoff, when did the expedition return?”

“We just rode in, sir,” Hoffsteadter said wearily. “Captain Manning got lost trying to find where we buried Shackleford and then got worried that we couldn’t track down the Apache without Tafoya after we did find the grave. We come back to resupply an’ take out a larger force. We saw more Apache sign. Large groups, we figure from the tracks.”

“I see; well, at least you got back in one piece.” Thomas replied.

“If I may, sir, what is all this?” Hoff asked, motioning to the array upon the bunk.

“This, Hoff, is the totality of what we leave behind us,” Thomas replied cryptically. Noting Hoff’s look of confusion he added, “This is what Blackwell left behind him.”

“Blackwell? You mean the stuff he left here?”

“No, the stuff we found on him.”

Hoffsteadter’s look of surprise served the intended effect.

“Blackwell,” Thomas repeated with a satisfied air. “We come across him on the way back to post.” Thomas gave Hoffsteadter the story of the confrontation and the gunning down of the apothecary.

“What’s that?”

“The map to the lost mission silver, what Blackwell, Horne, and Dunn were after. I think he buried the silver out along the road before he attacked Abeyta.”

“Did he have it on him?” Hoffsteadter asked.

“No, he probably hadn’t retrieved it when we came on him. Dunn didn’t give any time for us to find out either before he shot Blackwell dead,” Thomas replied sadly. “So this is all we have. Tells a confused tale.”

“So that’s why he left us all in the desert!” Hoffsteadter exclaimed. “To try to come back and get the . . . what mission silver? You mean that legend?”.

“That legend, yes. No longer a legend, I suppose. He was trying to desert after retrieving the silver communion rail. I don’t know how he thought he was going to make it to wherever across this wilderness, but we caught him before he could realize that.”

Hoffsteadter eyed the other papers on the bed. “He was collectin’ newspaper clippings?”

“Indeed, all about the Blankman case in San Fran. It would appear it was of great interest to the man.” Thomas nodded. “You ever see Blackwell in Socorro?”

“On liberty?” Hoffsteadter asked after a moment’s pause to consider.

“Yes. He came and went a lot.”

“Few weeks back, maybe. Seen him comin’ out of the post office an’ head back south out of town. Never really seen him in town otherwise. Didn’t think much of it at the time,” Hoffsteadter confessed.

“Might explain these then.” Thomas fished through the papers to find a letter with the header of the Santa Fe Assayer’s Office at the top. “See here, Blackwell was checking up on the going rate for silver ore and refined silver. He must have sent them a line.”

Thomas straightened up and cocked his head to one side, furrowing his eyebrows. The price per ounce of silver ore was $10. For refined silver it was $17.93. “Split four ways, he’d have enough for two months’ pay—though who knows how many ounces were tied up just in the communion rail alone.”

“A lot of effort for two months’ pay,” Hoffsteadter said, shaking his head.

“Would you risk killing three people for half a year’s pay?” Thomas asked, more to himself than to Hoffsteadter.

“Hmmm, no sir. I wouldn’t kill anyone for one year’s pay.” Hoffsteadter looked scandalized.

“Sorry, Hoff, just thinking out loud. Anything else to relate about your trip?”

“Hmmm, no sir. Just thought I’d let you know I’d returned.”

* * *

With the errands over, Thomas found himself pouring over the chessboard once more and irritating Morgan with his long pauses.

“You tellin’ me it was Blackwell who the authorities been after in San Francisco? For the Blankman murder?” Morgan said as he folded his arms and rested his chin upon his chest. “Clever hiding with the army, especially when the army marched us hundreds of miles away.”

Thomas looked up from the pieces briefly. “When I asked him about what he did before the war he said he had inherited a practice but suddenly lost it all before volunteering. He was the one helping antsy relations collect inheritances from ill patients.”

Morgan humpfed and blew a loud exhalation from his nostrils. “You makin’ this up? You can’t possibly know that.”

“That’s what the Blankman murder is all about. If he did it once he’d done it more.” Thomas nodded and finally moved his king. “Wrote it all down in that ledger of his. He never made his fortune, but he found someone who would train him in something, and one day after he’d ingratiated himself with his master he suddenly owns the practice on his master’s death. How better else to earn a fortune than by helping others collect theirs? Doesn’t arouse suspicion; most people are already old or sick or dying. He just helped ‘em along. From the ledger, he collected small sums from several people. But he was found out when Mrs. Blankman’s death was discovered to be from poisoning and her husband guilty of it—along with the apothecary who supplied the poison with the medication.”

“So we’d been protecting the man all this time?” Morgan asked.

“I imagine if we sent a message to California with a description of our Blackwell, we’d find he matches the description of the apothecary they are looking for.”

“And then our men. It’s damned hard to believe.”

“You might not have risked all of that for a little bit of coin in your pocket, but men have killed their brothers for less,” Thomas scolded.

“But why risk it at all?” Morgan exclaimed and moved his knight’s pawn forward.

This was Thomas’s moment. The jumble of facts had come into order and formed a story of greed and murder and adventure in his fertile imagination, but it needed an audience. He found himself oddly taken in by his own surmising. His friend was going to be drawn in whether he liked it or not.

“Why’d you go to California?” Thomas asked.

“The army. You forget, I was in the 4th Infantry before the war. I didn’t have a choice.”

“Okay, bad example.” Thomas shook his head. “Say you’ve spent your life trying to measure up, you go to California but you miss the rush. You’re smart and find you have a certain way with people, and you apprentice yourself to an old apothecary and learn the ways of the druggist. Then you find that he plans to leave you the business when he quits the shop, so you use your newfound skills to mask his death, and you now own the business a little early.”

Morgan smirked. “If someone left me enough money I’d sell the practice and leave.”

“Not you, you in particular.” Thomas sighed and fingered his bishop indecisively.

“You’re going to lose anyway. Just move it,” Morgan goaded him.

“Then you think to yourself, if you can do this and get away with it, why not again for other people and profit off of that?” Thomas said and moved his queen’s bishop.

“Self, you can make more money running away with the army than you can poisoning old lace.” Morgan snickered.

“That comes later,” Thomas replied. “You do it a few times, and it makes you a tidy sum. You think you are clever enough that no one will discover your complicity, and you’re not the one administering the poisons. Then one of your customers fails to administer the poison correctly and he’s discovered, and before the old lace dies, they find out that he had help—your help.”

“Now do I run to the army?” Morgan asked.

“Yes, now you run to the army and change your name.” Thomas grimaced.

“But I like my name!”

“You finished?” Thomas asked sourly. “Then you come across a map, a map drawn by the priests who fled the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, but you have a problem: the original mission church and walls are gone, built over by the resettlement of Socorro in 1823, and none of the Mexicans or former Mexicans will talk to you because they don’t trust shifty-eyed interlopers.”

“What if I keep my eyes straight ahead?” Morgan said. He stared straight at Thomas and tried not to blink.

“But you find that two of our own have already been prospecting on the sly with a local from the 1st New Mexico Cavalry, and you see your chance to put the map to use—because one of the 1st New Mexico is from Socorro and knows where the old foundations of the outer wall of the mission once stood. He already trusts our men, so you’ll use them to win his help. Now you just wait for Horne and Dunn to apply for liberty to go ‘hunting,’ and you convince them to leave late at night and get cousin Dunn Two drunk enough to sleep off his duty at the west gate, and you three leave the post.”

Morgan’s brow darkened. “Blackwell did that?”

Thomas nodded, pleased that he’d finally gotten Morgan to cut the act. The story was falling into place well. He could see it on the pages of his imagination, the pages turning slowly, the narrative savored.

“Huh.” Morgan nodded slightly.

“All that remained was to have Abeyta point out where the old walls were and then work out on the map where the priests had marked the hiding spot. Remember what Fray Bernardo said: two attempts were made to retrieve the silver in 1681, and neither had succeeded or at least left a record that they had. So finding something on a map that was of an area 150 years earlier was going to be difficult, especially if the one who drew the map in the first place couldn’t find what he’d buried a year earlier. But you find what you’re looking for and convince Dunn to kill Horne so you three can get a better cut and bury the evidence, but do it poorly. Maybe they only had one shovel, or didn’t want to dig a wider hole for the body, or no one wanted to touch the shovel Dunn used to brain Horne with. Either way the survivors think the murder is hidden well enough and the three head back toward the fort. Then you and Abeyta kill Dunn on the way to reburying the cachet, and you hit on the idea of making it look like an Apache ambush. You have Abeyta do that too.”

“Wait, why? Why not do it myself?” Morgan waved his hand in front of Thomas.

“Because you’ve not the stomach for it. You’ve done your dirty work through intermediaries before, so you do it that way again this time. But in the end you don’t want to split the finding two ways, so you have to do it at least once. And we know how that turned out.” Thomas sat back and folded his arms.

“Hmmm, we do?” Morgan looked at Thomas askance.

“Abeyta survives, remember?” Thomas said, shaking his head. “You tussle, you deprive Abeyta of his horse, brain him, break his leg—or he does that when he’s unhorsed—and he’s crippled or he feigns death finally, or he manages to scramble away. Either way, you think you’ve done him enough harm that the desert will finish the job, and you’ve already buried the silver. So you come back to post because your own pass to leave is about to expire. No sense getting anybody looking for you at this juncture.”

“All right,” Morgan said slowly.

“Well, the rest we know. Tafoya brings Abeyta into the post, and you’ve got a problem now. He’s near death and is delirious, and you can’t chance that he might say something. And indeed he has said something.”

“He didn’t say who did it to him,” Morgan protested.

“No, but he did say he’d done something. He confessed to murder, to me and to Hoff. Fact, he confessed to there being two murders, and one in the room with him: ‘We killed him’ rememberSo now you’ve got a problem. You counted on Dunn’s body being found, but you didn’t count on Abeyta being found. So you now kill Abeyta and learn that an expedition is headed out to punish the Apache and decide it is time to light out, retrieve your treasure, and somehow desert before someone realizes you’ve deserted.”

“So that’s why you think he faked his own abduction?”

Thomas nodded. “Blackwell probably planned on getting the silver at some point, possibly when the term of service was over or some such. Finding Abeyta forced him to do something right then. I think he planned on simply slipping away, and he must have managed to leave before the Apache did come. I saw his eyes when I told him that the Apache had killed Shackleford. He hadn’t realized how close he’d come to almost dying then.”

“Almost,” Morgan repeated. “So what was Tafoya’s role in all of this? The man I near strung up?”

“None, other than providing Blackwell with an opportunity to volunteer for the punitive expedition and go retrieve his cachet of silver. Tafoya just saw it as an opportunity for blood revenge on some Apache, any Apache. Otherwise he was innocent. For a Navajo blanket, he would have been summarily hung.”

“Well, you convinced us to leave him be. We might have missed Blackwell entirely had we not left when we did.”

“God’s grace, I suppose, on both counts.”

“At least for Tafoya. Blackwell got the poor end of that grace,” Morgan replied and moved his queen. He grinned suddenly. “Checkmate.”

Thomas looked over the bloodied battlefield at his umpteenth Waterloo. Heaving a heavy sigh, he flicked over his king. “You enjoy this too much,” he said darkly.

“Indeed,” Morgan said with a wide smile.

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