truth.
“We been in worse fixes, Josiah,” he whispered in the dark as they lay stretched out on their bellies, watching that long strip of horizon where the pale, icy-blue horizon met the black underbelly of the night sky.
Paddock’s teeth chattered. They’d been moving and stopping for most of the night. Every time they heard a suspicious sound, or spotted something out of place, or even when some hunch Scratch felt made him wary—they had gone into hiding while the two fathers lay flat on the high prairie and scanned the country in all directions for enemies.
Earlier that afternoon, Titus had hurried Waits-by-the-Water back to the house, where they warned Looks Far and began making preparations to leave the village after dark. Young Joshua stayed behind at the store with his father to make everything appear as normal as they could. They planned to show up after the shop was closed at sunset. In the meantime, Looks Far kept her children busy by bringing in wood for the three fires and readying food they would need for the coming ordeal.
Waits helped all the children prepare some extra clothing for their journey into the snowy countryside once night had fallen. About the time Stephen Lee’s wife, Maria, and their son, John, showed up, Scratch went out to see to the animals. Back in the small pasture behind the house, Scratch began to drive the Cheyenne horses toward the corral. Josiah’s mules and horses followed the obedient and steady Indian ponies into the pole corral. Titus quickly counted noses—and riders. There would be twelve of them needing a mount when they slipped out of Taos. Twelve horses, what with Flea riding with either his mother or father, and young John Lee riding double too. That meant that he needed to find the best three Paddock owned. No, four—three for riding, and a fourth for packing what they would need in the way of blankets, extra clothing, and food for what could be days in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristos at Turley’s Arroyo Hondo.
It would be days, and long nights too, holing up at Turley’s mill before any force strong enough arrived to put down the rebellion and bring peace to this sleepy Mexican town. There he went again—thinking of Taos as a Mexican town. It was American now … and that heartless, cowardly mob out to kill American women and children were little more than outlaws deserving of nothing so good as a quick death.
The sky still had a faint glow to it when Josiah brought his eldest home from the square. Everyone found a place in the parlor where the women served their supper of beans mixed with peppers, some boiled mutton, and large chunks of rich, black bread.
“Eat your fill, children,” Josiah reminded them, one and all. “Gonna be some time before we have our next hot meal.”
Time and again the two men stepped outside together, walking to the corral where Titus had put a bridle or halter on every one of the horses and that mule he chose to carry their supplies. When the moment to escape arrived, all he, Josiah, and young Joshua had to do was to throw the thick
“Good chance it’ll never make a difference,” Titus had explained there in the darkness while the horses grew restless in their pole corral. “But you’re American—we’re American. Maybeso some of the bastards are keeping an eye on this place, laying plans to jump us. So I didn’t want them niggers to see we had our horses saddled and ready to ride.”
Josiah had squeezed Bass’s arm in a sign of appreciation from long ago. “That’s just the sort of thinking has kept the rest of your hair locked on your thick skull, ol’ man. All these years I been down here … they made me less than watchful. I ain’t near so careful as I used to be when I was riding with you.”
When slap-dark finally arrived and the sky turned utterly black but for a dusting of stars, they decided the time had come.
“We gotta be miles from here afore moonrise,” Bass reminded them as he stepped inside the warm kitchen. “Magpie, you help your mother,” he instructed her in English. “Bank all the fires good and hot. Lots of smoke from all three. Now scoot.”
Then he stood at the rear door with Josiah as Paddock buckled the wide belt around his wool coat and stuffed the two pistols at his waist.
“I’m going to point ’em off due north,” Titus reminded his old partner. He pointed up high at the bright stars in the Seven Sisters. “I’ll have every one ride for the North Star, Josiah. You’ll be waiting under that North Star for ’em.”
Paddock nodded grimly as Looks Far came up with his old Henry mountain rifle and shooting pouch. Josiah looped the strap over his shoulder, then took the long, fullstock flintlock in his mittens. After running his hand down the dark, curly-maple wood, Josiah looked up at Bass.
“I remember when we got this for me.”
“Pierre’s Hole,” Bass replied.
“It’s been so damn long,” Paddock sighed. “I hope I remember how to shoot it.”
“I’m praying you won’t have to, Josiah,” Bass declared. “But if you do—I ain’t got a doubt that it’ll all come back to you real quick.”
Josiah bent to kiss and embrace his wife. Then he was out the door and into the darkness. Scratch listened to the quiet of that winter night as the horse’s hooves faded on the hard, icy snow blanket. Then saddling another horse, he returned to the house and walked the first of the children into the corral, to see them mounted and on their way. Josiah’s oldest girl would be the first to follow her father.
“Naomi,” he whispered after he had hoisted the eleven-year-old into the saddle. “You ride good?”
“Yes, Mr. Bass.”
“That’s a good girl,” he said quietly. Then pointed into the sky. “You see them seven stars?”
“The Big Dipper?”
“Yes. You see that bright one?”
“The North Star—yes. It’s so dark tonight, I see it real good.”
“Ride for it, Naomi. Don’t stop for nothing. Your father’s out there underneath that star, waiting to gather you all up again.”
“Yes, sir.” And she tightened hear wool mittens around the reins.
“And Naomi—if’n you spot more’n one rider comin’ in your direction, it ain’t your father.”
“Sir?”
“You see two or more horsemen comin’ at you, I want you to kick the devil out of this Injun pony, you understand?”
“K-kick him?”
“You damn betcha. You just holler at him an’ keep kicking him till he’s running with you for that North Star.”
“Y-y-yes, sir.”
“And, girl”—he felt his throat clogging—“if you.gotta run away from some of those folks mean to harm you— don’t you dare let this horse slow down for nothing till you reach your father.”
She swallowed hard and bobbed her head in the starlit darkness. He blinked back some tears while he squeezed her wrist and said, “Now’s the time, Naomi. Go find your father under the North Star.”
One by one by one, he had seen them away. And one at a time Josiah had found them out there in the darkness lit by nothing but those stars and hope’s faint light. The three women rode out near the end, each mother holding her youngest behind her like a fat tick clinging to a cow in the season of the rut. Then Joshua followed them.
As Bass waited, counting out the minutes, he stoked the three fireplaces one last time, banking the wood to assure a long burn. He lit candles and two more lamps. All the more reason the cowardly niggers would think the house was still occupied. Then it was time to bring the pack mule out of the low shed, saddle up his horse, and head into the night.
That trip to the end of the Seven Sisters felt as if it took forever. Longer than any night’s ride he could remember.
“They all get here?” he asked as Josiah and Joshua appeared out of the dark more than an hour later.
“Yes. All come in fine,” Paddock said with relief. “I was getting worried about you. Figured when you took so long getting here, that they’d awready come to the house. So, me and Joshua—we was fixing to come back and help.”
“Damn you, Josiah Paddock!” he growled as they reached the other horses and the people on foot among the
