Crack in the Sky

now they’re better off than most, but they’re the sort who understood she fell in love with me, so it weren’t gonna make no never-mind to Rosa that I was a gringo.”

“Bet it helped a hull bunch you getting yourself baptized in their church,” Bass commented.

Kinkead nodded that massive head of his, smiling. “You wanna marry a Mexican gal, you wanna live your life down here in Mexico—why, a man best figger on doing things the Taos way.”

“You’re happy, ain’cha, Matthew?” Titus asked.

“Damn right I am,” he answered, then went solemn as he whispered, “I thank God in heaven Rosa wasn’t took by them Comanche like Rowland’s woman.”

At that very moment Scratch was reminded that John Rowland had elected not to join them for the evening’s fandango.

Caleb Wood finally cleared his throat and turned to Matthew, asking, “How’s he doing these days?”

“Has him better times, and he has him some low times … when he’s down in his mind over losing her,” Kinkead replied. “Ever since we got back, Rosa and me had him stay over to our li’l house so he won’t have to lay up in no place gonna remind him of his Maria.”

“Damn fine of you, Matthew,” Scratch said. “Keep a friend under your wing till his heart heals up.”

Kinkead responded, “No more’n what ary man does for them he cares for.”

“When you figger a man gets over grievin’ for a woman?” Rufus asked quietly after a few moments of quiet and contemplation.

It was a question that struck the others dumb, many of them staring at the floor, or into their cups, reluctant to let their eyes meet another’s.

Finally Hatcher whispered, his voice clogged with sentiment, “I figger the only way a man gets better is with time. After all what his friends can do … and a lot of time.”

Bass had come to this celebration bent on having himself a good time: to drink until he was numb and to pound his moccasins on the floor until he could no longer stand. To hop and whirl and bounce wildly to the music the others explained was a major part of these gatherings.

But now the Comanche raid and the kidnapping and that final, bloody, all-too-quick fight of it came flooding back over him. Maybe it was Rowland’s own damned fault, he brooded as he turned from the others and moseyed toward the other side of the room, where a knot of young doe-eyed women had been watching him over their lace fans. No two ways of Sunday about that: it was a man’s own damned fault when he let a woman get down under his skin and something terrible …

Long as he didn’t let that happen to him, Scratch figured he’d never have to go through all what he knew John Rowland was suffering.

From time to time he stole a glance at one or the other of those five women who whispered to one another behind their fans, nodding their heads slightly as they spoke, the mantillas on top of their heads swaying gently, the long lace scarves brushing bare brown shoulders. He finally had to admit he wasn’t all that good at sneaking a look without being caught.

Reluctantly, Titus moved away a few feet, sipping from his cup and trying desperately not to turn around and gaze at the senoritas again. Better to study what was hung on every wall completely encircling the long sala: joining the many portraits of the governor’s family ancestors were those customary portraits of famous religious figures and dramatic biblical scenes. From a large central chandelier and just overhead on all the walls blazed a dizzying assortment of colorful candles, their light fluttering gently as the guests moved about the room, stirring currents of air that caused the soft light to dance.

Titus turned back, recrossing the room to his friends, doing his best to keep his eyes from climbing to the wall right over the table bearing the liquid refreshments. It was enough to give serious pause to any drinking man bent on having himself a real spree—for right there above the clay jugs and crystal bowls hung the biggest wooden crucifix Scratch had ever seen outside of a church. On it hung the naked Christ, His side and forehead vivid with the red paint of His final tortures, His head hung in the final release of death.

Indeed, the sacred holiday celebrating the birth of the baby Jesus was fast approaching, little more than a week away now. Festive decorations were already hung at the front of most shops and carts in the village square where traders sold their wares and vendors offered a warm tortilla made from blue Indian corn filled with a ladle of frijoles spiced with green chiles. More than anything else here in Mexico, it had been the food that Bass took an instant liking to—far different from anything he had ever known back east, even since reaching the Rocky Mountain west. Never was it dull to the palate. Scratch had yet to find anything handed him on a plate that he didn’t care for, all of it either spicy or sweet. Truth be, as the minutes rolled past and the room grew all the more crowded, Titus wondered if he might be wearing down a groove in the earthen floor between the table bearing the Taos lightning and another table weighed down with trays of sugar-coated treats.

“Here comes the music, boys!” Caleb suddenly yelled.

Hatcher slapped Scratch on the back of the shoulders as Bass whirled in surprise. Jack hollered, “Time coming to let the wolf howl!”

“You dance, Titus?” Elbridge Gray spoke up for the first time since they had arrived.

Jack snorted, wagging his head. “Hell, don’t ye remember this here nigger didn’t wanna dance with us for his last birthday?”

“Ain’t never felt like dancing when I got me a hangover,” Bass grumbled. “And you boys just wouldn’t leave a man alone to sleep off his case of the shakes.”

“You fixing to tie on a case of the shakes this night?” Solomon asked.

“I’m due, don’t you think?” Scratch replied. “Hell, I ain’t had me a good drunk since … since—”

“Since a few nights back when we first rode in to Workman’s place!” Caleb roared.

Jack turned to him and said, “There be yer dancing music, Scratch!”

Down at the center of the huge sala six musicians were taking their places on a low wooden bandstand the servants had set in place on the earthen floor just for the baile. Right in the center at the back of the plank platform the first player seated himself, cradling a huge Indian drum called a tombe between his legs. On either side of him sat a pair of chairs where two others settled in with their oversize guitars known as heacas. Beside each one of them sat a man who played a violin, while in the middle stood a musician holding a mandolin across his left arm as he wiped his entire face with a bright white kerchief he stuffed back into the left wrist of his jacket.

“Maybeso there’ll be trouble tonight, boys,” Hatcher warned a few moments later as the musicians were tuning their instruments.

“I see ’em,” Solomon grumbled. “Damned pelados!”

All eight of them and Rosa turned to look across the long room at the doorway where at least a dozen men had come in, stopping to stand at the elbow of Sergeant Jorge Ramirez. Seven of them wore uniforms freshly brushed for this evening. As many as a half dozen were clearly civilians. Young men all, talking among themselves as they first spied the Americans at the end of the sala. Dark eyes glowered below dark brows as tension instantly charged the room. Between the buckskinned gringos and the Mexican dandies stood the prize: those handsome young women who first looked in one direction, then in the other, their seductive glances bestowed upon all rivals.

“Don’t they look to be fancy niggers tonight!” Bass declared. “That head soldier got him a new uniform too.”

“That’s right,” Kinkead agreed. “He ain’t a sergeant no more. I heard Mirabal made him a lieutenant. Ramirez is gonna be head dog here till they send up a new ensign from Santa Fe to take over for Guerrero.”

Scratch watched how Ramirez and the men with him began to strut, puffing out their chests like prairie cocks. In a whisper he asked, “They gonna cause trouble, Matthew?”

Kinkead shook his head. “Nawww. But those greasers gonna be right there when we start the trouble.”

“We?”

Matthew smiled. “Hatcher and the rest ain’t about to let them pelados buffalo ’em and keep them senoritas all to themselves.”

“Trouble comes, we’ll be ready,” Jack declared confidently. “Because we’ll be the ones get in the first licks.”