Crack in the Sky

mourners, the uneasy snuffles of the weary, hungry horses.

In a loud voice that rocked from the sides of the tiny square, Governor Mirabal spoke.

“Welcome back, my family!” Kinkead translated as the governor moved off the steps and hurried to his wife’s side.

Holding up his arms, Mirabal pulled his wife down from the horse, kissing both her cheeks, her forehead, enthusiastically before he embraced her savagely and wheeled about to do the same in helping his daughter from her mount.

With his wife, Manuela, beneath one arm, Jacova under the other, the governor climbed back to stand atop the steps of the small cathedral, where he spoke to the murmuring crowd.

In a whisper Matthew repeated, “He says he wants everyone to be quiet while the padre gives a prayer.”

For long minutes the brown-robed priest droned on, his eyes closed and his face turned heavenward as he gestured first with one arm, then the other, and eventually made the sign of the cross, bowed his head, and kissed the crucifix around his neck—at which point all the crowd raised their heads.

Again the governor spoke in his loud, stentorian voice.

“He says he wants to do something important to show his gratitude to the soldiers who returned his family to him—”

But Kinkead interrupted his translation as Bass and the others watched Manuela turn to her husband, raise her face to his ear, and whisper to him as he bent toward her.

The moment she began speaking to him, the governor’s gaze shifted to stare at the party of gloating soldiers; then he straightened, and his eyes darted farther back in the square to find the small party of Americans. Mirabal bent slightly and spoke in hushed tones to his wife. Both she and Jacova whispered something to him before he pulled them against him all the more fiercely and began to speak to the throng.

Matthew said, “Now he says he wants to do something very, very special for the men who his wife and daughter say put up their lives to save his family. He wants to … to …”

“To what, Kinkead?” Hatcher demanded as Matthew fell silent.

With his chin quivering, his eyes moistening, and a big smile splitting his bearlike beard, Matthew answered, “The governor wants to give the Americanos a very special baile!”

Solomon Fish asked, “A baile?”

“A dance!” Kinkead roared, then went to laughing lustily, sweeping up his Rosa and swinging her around and around while she giggled like a young girl.

“A dance?” Rufus asked.

Matthew joyously cried, “The governor his own self is gonna thank us niggers for saving his family! By holding a dance in our honor!”

10

Jehoshaphat, if that liquor didn’t taste good!

Despite the remembrance of how this evil brew had lopped off the top of his head the last time he had settled down to put on nothing more than a nice, rosy glow. It had been that first night at Workman’s, when he’d ended up waking the next morning feeling as if his head were clamped in the jaws of a huge trap, his mouth tasting as if Ramirez’s soldados had marched across his tongue in muddy boots.

“Best you go at it slow this time, Scratch,” Kinkead warned. He stood before Titus like a jolly monolith, his arm wrapped securely around Rosa’s shoulder.

“This here stuff is pure-dee magic, Matthew!” Bass replied, licking his lips as he refilled his clay cup with the ladle. “I’ll be go to hell if it don’t beat that Monangahela rum I was broke in on back to the Ohio country.”

“Bet this here wheat brew of Workman’s does pack a bigger wallop too!” Hatcher declared as he stepped up to get himself a refill at the table placed a’straddle the corner of the long sala, the parlor where valley folks had begun to arrive and all was gaiety beneath the huge fluttering candles and smaller mirrored lanterns.

Besides that fermented grain beverage manufactured by William Workman at his new distillery west of the village, Governor Mirabal and his wife, Manuela, were serving what was variously known among the American trappers as “Pass brandy” or “Pass wine”—given that name from the fact that this grape product was routinely brought up from Chihuahua through the “pass” in the mountains, those fine spirits transported as far north as Santa Fe and Taos in oaken kegs and earthen jars.

“Scratch—just you be careful that Taos lightning don’t whack you in the back of the head when you ain’t looking!” Caleb cried as he held out his cup for another ladle of the heady concoction.

“Aguardiente I hear it’s called,” Bass declared with an expert roll of his r.

“Ah-wharr-dee-en-tee! Listen to this here nigger spit that out so smooth!” Hatcher snorted. “Picking up on the Mex talk, he is.”

“Only a little,” Scratch admitted.

“Maybeso just enough to get yourself hunkered atween the legs of some purty senorita,” said Solomon Fish as his eyes studied those comely maids moving about the room.

Quickly gazing over the small knots of dark-eyed, rosy-cheeked young women, Scratch wagged his head and replied, “Maybeso this child’s gonna learn enough of their Mex talk to dig hisself down into one helluva lot of trouble!”

Slipping his knife from its scabbard hung at the back of his belt, Titus plunged the narrow tip of it into the open clay crock sitting on the table among stacks of clay cups, huge basket-wrapped jugs, and crystal bowls. Spearing some clumps of coarse brown sugar on the flat of his blade, Scratch dumped the grains into his cup, stirring a bit before he licked both sides of the knife and returned it to the scabbard—then took himself a long drink he let lay on his tongue, savoring the hearty burn.

Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat! If that Mex way to drink this here liquor didn’t make his sweet tooth shine!

Back at Workman’s place that first night in the valley more than two weeks before, Rufus Graham had introduced him to the way many Taosenos sweetened and softened the locals’ favorite potion. As strong black Mississippi River coffee became a dessert with heapings of cane sugar, this Mexican aguardiente went down all the smoother after a man sweetened it with a coarse brown sugar transported all the way north from Mexico’s southernmost provinces.

As new as these villages in northern Mexico might be to gringo traders from the States, the Taos valley had been settled well before the arrival of the first English to the eastern shores of North America. From the time the Spanish first ventured north to the Rio Grande country, the simple people of this valley had celebrated the annual tradition of the Taos Fair in late July or early August. Drawn by the prospect of riches, traders of many colors flocked to this high land locked beneath the dark snowcapped peaks of the Sangre de Cristos.

To Taos came merchants from the Spanish provinces far to the south, their poor carretas piled high with the treasures of Chihuahua and beyond. Other traders laid out wares brought on tall-masted schooners to the coastal cities of Mexico all the way from Spain: cutlery of the finest Toledo steel, butter-soft leather goods, perhaps bright tin objects to dazzle the eye, or those large silver coins so valued as ornaments by visiting Indians who be-jeweled themselves in grand fashion. From all those remote provinces of New Spain came hundreds of traders who sought the riches to be bartered at these fairs. While some might bring Spanish barb horses to trade, others brought the handiwork of faraway native craftsmen—everything from earthenware and furniture to saddles, harness, and tack. Upon their trade blankets many displayed the shiniest of finger rings, bracelets, and objects to enhance the slender throat of any woman.

And when those traders came to this land of the Pueblo dweller every summer, so came the more nomadic tribes from the surrounding region: Arapaho, Kiowa and Navajo, Pawnee and Ute, even the more warlike Apache and Comanche bands. Perhaps it was the presence of the other tribes, perhaps even the desire not to be counted out in this annual fair, that kept a secure lid on the powder keg—suspicion and hostilities suspended for a few days of merriment and bartering. Instead of raising scalps and seizing captives, the warriors had to content themselves