“My wife’s Crow,” he said. “It’s her home.”
“From the sound you just gave it, Crow country may not be your home.”
Titus thought a moment before he replied, “Just about anywhere there ain’t a village or settlement or town is my home, Sheriff.”
“Please call me Stephen.”
“All right,” he agreed. “Ain’t you used to folks calling you sheriff by now?”
“Haven’t been county sheriff but a few months really,” Lee confessed. “Kearny came through late last summer—and turned everything on its head around here. Jesus, can you believe this is American territory now, Josiah? No American fur hunter is gonna have to swear allegiance to Mexico, not ever again.”
“Damn good thing too, Sheriff Lee!” Tom Tobin cried as he stepped up to the group, hoisting his clay cup over his head.
“A toast to America’s newest territory!” John Albert cheered as he joined them.
All round the room, guests stopped in the middle of their conversations to hold up their cups and glasses, some calling out “here, here,” while others huzzahed lustily and the cups clinked, good wishes being shared.
“There’s my daughter an’ her husband,” Lee said as a young couple came out of the kitchen. “I’ll speak at you boys a li’l later.”
Paddock bent to whisper at Bass’s ear. “Stephen’s daughter there—Maria—she’s named after her mother: Maria Luz Tafoya, a prominent Taos family. Li’l Maria got married herself couple of years ago.”
For a moment Scratch studied the pretty girl across the room as her father approached and they hugged. Bass said, “Two years ago? Jehoshaphat! She don’t look much older’n Magpie is right now, Josiah!”
“She was old enough by Mexican custom,” Paddock disclosed. “She’s sixteen now.”
“You’re telling me her father an’ mother give her away when she was
With a nod, Josiah said, “The Mexicans marry ’em off awful young down here. But she married a good American boy. Came out here from Missouri with his folks not long before they married. Name’s Joseph Pley.”
“I can see I better keep an eye on my daughter till it comes time to get outta here an’ back to Crow country!” Scratch commented as Paddock drained his cup.
“Simeon!” Josiah shouted across the room, holding up the empty clay cup. “You’d better open up that next case of your lightning before all these tongues dry out and won’t wag anymore!”
“Turley’s here?” Tom Tobin asked.
“Hell, yes! I asked all the foreigners our Mexican friends hate so badly to come tonight!” Paddock replied.
Albert pointed out two men at the middle of the room. “An’ we all ain’t ’Mericans here—there’s two Frenchies the Mex boys seem to hate just as much as they hate us.”
“Antoine LeBlanc works for Turley,” Paddock explained. “And the other’s Jean-Baptiste Charlefoux. He’s the one there with his Mexican wife and their daughter. She’s a pretty girl, just turned seven.”
A loud pounding thundered on the plank door. Josiah tore it open and immediately backed inside as a pair of men stepped into the house. Suspended between them was a huge brass kettle. Both called out to the crowd, asking the guests to step aside and clear a path as they slowly made their way to the kitchen.
“What you have there, Asa?” asked Charles Town when he came up to raise the kettle’s brass lid.
“What the hell you think it is?” the older man growled.
Bending at the waist, Town sniffed beneath the lid, drinking in the fragrance. “Your famous New Mexican eggnog!”
Another cheer went up in the room.
“You didn’t shut down your cantina for the rest of the night, did you, Asa?” Tom Tobin inquired.
“Got some help minding the bar for me till I get back,” replied the tavern keeper as they pushed on for the kitchen with their eggnog. “Already got sign of being a busy hurraw.”
“That’s Asa Estes,” Josiah explained as he slipped up to Bass’s elbow once more. “Owns a watering hole not far from here. A good man—Missouri bred. Been out here for several years now, and does he make a nog that’ll pin your ears back to your ass if’n you aren’t careful!”
“Just look at you, Josiah Paddock,” Bass said proudly, beaming once more at his old friend.
The younger man grinned. “What you mean by that, ol’ man?”
“Why, here you got Simeon Turley who makes some damned fine lightning, I must say. And you got this fella Asa Estes comes by your shindig with his famous eggnog,” Scratch explained. “It’s plain to see that you’re a man who has some fine friends. Friends who sure as hell hold you in high regard, son.”
Laying his long, muscular arm over the shorter man’s shoulder, Josiah spoke close to Bass’s ear. “If there’s one man—one
He looked up at Paddock, his own eyes clouding with sentiment. “Damn, if you don’t know how to make a man proud.”
“Cornelio, c’mon over here and meet a friend of mine from way, way up north,” Josiah called out.
A thin-boned, dark-skinned Mexican stepped over, and Scratch recognized him for the man who had helped Asa Estes carry the kettle into the house.
“This here’s a good friend of mine, Cornelio Vigil,” Josiah announced. “And this is Titus Bass.”
Scratch held out his hand and said, “Good to meet any friend of Josiah’s, Senor Vigil.”
“Please to call me Cornelio,” the man replied. “We are friends now too.”
They shook as Paddock went on to explain, “Cornelio was appointed as our district attorney by General Kearny.”
“Sounds like you got handed a tough job,” Bass commented. “Bet it keeps you busy nowadays, bringing justice down on all them folks gonna cause trouble for the new American officials?”
Vigil grinned slightly. “Some of my people still haven’t made the adjustment, Senor Bass. To their way of thinking, if they can stir up enough trouble, they can throw the Americans out.”
“Throw Americans out?” Titus echoed. “Josiah, how can any of these Mexicans down here think they got ’em a better life under Armijo and his government than they got under the Americans?”
“Truth is,” Paddock began, his voice growing quiet and confidential, “Governor Bent’s folks heard tell of a plot to stir up some big trouble—a well-planned revolt of Indians and Mexicans too.”
Vigil nodded. “Earlier in the month, Senor Bass.”
Titus asked, “What come of it?”
The new district attorney answered, “Soon as word leaked out that Bent was coming to arrest them, the two ringleaders vamoosed. Rumor says both of them scampered south into Mexico for safer territory, fast as their horses could carry them.”
“So news has it the governor’s relieved he was able to cut the head off that rebellious snake before it had the chance to bite anyone and hurt some innocent folks,” Josiah declared.
“From all that Stephen and I hear from our informers around town, everything has settled down in the last two weeks,” Vigil explained. “With both of those revolt ringleaders long gone from these parts, life here in Taos has gone back to being just the way it always has been: peaceful and sleepy.”
“Did Charles Beaubien come up from Santa Fe for New Year’s?” Josiah asked Vigil.
“No, he stayed down at the capital,” Cornelio answered. “I think he really savors playing judge more than he should.”
“Beaubien’s an old Frenchie trapper,” Paddock explained to Titus. “Appointed by Kearny to serve as one of the three judges on the Santa Fe court. His teenage son is right over there—”
Bass let Josiah turn him slightly as Paddock pointed out the handsome young man. His eyes immediately widened and his nostrils flared. Angrily he asked, “You mean that parley-voo spooning my Magpie over there in the corner?”
“That’s him. Narciso Beaubien,” Josiah replied. “He’s a good lad. Seems to have a fine eye for a pretty girl too.”
Titus could feel the heat climbing from his neck into his beard. “I figger that good lad needs to know he better damn well stay away from my li’l girl—”
“Hol’ on, Scratch,” Paddock warned as he snagged hold of Titus’s arm, stopping the trapper in place. “Lemme
