brush. “Don’t you ever come back for me.”
“But, I figured—”
“You get yourself and this fine boy both killed … what happens to our women, to their young’uns?” he demanded sharply. “What the hell then, Josiah?”
Only by nudging his horse up close could he see the shame written on Paddock’s face. Scratch sensed a sudden stab of regret. He squeezed down on Josiah’s wrist. “Ol’ friend, didn’t mean to bite down so hard on you. I should’ve remembered it’s been a long time since you’ve had to reckon on looking after such things as this.”
Paddock’s eyes glistened. “I’m glad you’re here to do the thinking for both of us.”
“C’mon, Joshua,” Titus said as he turned to the youngster, “the three of us gotta hide these women and young’uns while your father an’ me go have us a look at our back trail.”
“How many of ’em are there?” Paddock whispered.
Bass squinted, not sure. What with the darkness, the way those hissing torches flickered in the cold wind, spewing and spitting with each rising gust, their dancing light reflecting off the wind-crusted snow to create those weaving, bobbing shadows as the mob marched across the frozen prairie on foot … he could only guess how many were in that brazen, gutless mob.
“More’n a hundred,” he sighed with futility. “Hundred twenty. Maybe even more.”
He heard the air go out of Josiah beside him on the prairie. Scratch rolled onto his hip and gazed at the sky there above the mountaintops to gauge how long they had before sunup.
Paddock whispered, “I was counting on us reaching Turley’s.”
Titus nodded without taking his eyes off the distant flicker of torchlight as the mob neared the far reaches of Arroyo Hondo where Simeon Turley operated his mill and made a powerful whiskey. “I know. We could’ve held up there till help come.”
“Simeon’s always got folks there who could’ve helped,” Josiah explained, desperation creeping into his voice. “Hired men, sometimes fellas pushing through.”
Even in the dark it was plain to see a few dark figures emerge from Turley’s tall two-story stone building to hurriedly pull their horses and mules inside the structure.
Titus whispered, “Likely whoever’s down there heard the niggers comin’ too.”
“How we gonna get our people in there before that mob starts their attack?”
Bass looked at Paddock a moment, then confessed, “We ain’t, Josiah. Those fellas down there with Turley right now, no matter how many there are of ’em—they ain’t got a chance again’ all them Injuns and Mex
“You figger those men are doomed?”
“Good as,” Scratch answered, watching the front rank of torches start off the prairie, slithering like a many- scaled snake down the narrow, slanting road that took a horseman into the arroyo. But these weren’t horsemen. They were rabble, a mob come on foot. Which meant Bass maintained a small advantage in moving his people all the faster on horseback. Especially over the next hour or two while the murdering niggers were consumed with destroying Turley’s mill and butchering the men inside. Now was the time to flee.
“North, Josiah.”
“You know how hard it is to walk away from fellas who are my friends?” Paddock asked.
“We don’t go now, find us a place to hide out up in the foothills at the north end of the valley … then you won’t be doing what’s right by your family.”
“All right,” Josiah relented with a heavy sound to it as he shoved himself back from the icy edge of the arroyo.
The first gunfire reverberated off the rocks on the far side of the ravine. Screams and oaths immediately erupted from the mob as they scattered and took cover. Some of the Pueblos and Mexicans returned fire on the stone house, lead balls splatting against the rocks.
“Those boys’ll keep them niggers busy some,” Bass grumbled as he rocked onto his knees, then stood. “Teach that bunch of
“Thought you said Turley and the rest didn’t stand a chance. You change your mind?”
Titus said glumly, “No. Only a matter of time afore more’n a hundred of the brownskins overrun ’em.”
It had been eight days of hiding, more than a week filled with constant fear that they would be discovered. One thing for a man to be on the run himself; something entirely different when that man had women and little ones to protect.
In the dark of that first night they had struck north along the east bank of the Rio Grande del Norte. At the third small stream cutting its way out of the Sangre de Cristo range, he and Titus turned them east, into the foothills where they could find more vegetation, which meant more cover come sunup, and maybe the chance of game when their food ran out.
Back then Josiah Paddock didn’t know how long they were going to have to hold on. At least the weather moderated. No snow since that night before the rebellion. By the afternoon of their first day in hiding, Scratch was clearly growing about as tight as a rawhide bowstring while the hours dragged by.
“I ain’t gonna make it hiding out like this,” Bass said in a whisper when he and Josiah had moved off from the families.
“You got a better idea where we can go?”
“No,” Titus said. “So I was thinking: I’ll go for help alone.”
He asked the old trapper, “You figure me to watch over the rest?”
“The women need you, sure as hell the children need you too,” Scratch explained. “No sense in two of us getting ourselves killed if the bastards are out there.”
If the years they spent together had taught Josiah anything, it was that he wasn’t going to talk Titus Bass out of something once the man put his mind to it. Resolved to staying behind, Paddock said, “Where you heading?”
“North,” Bass replied. “Ride for the Arkansas.”
“Settlements there?”
“See how many men I can bring back.” Then he sighed. “Won’t be anywhere near enough to fight them niggers. But maybe we can figger out a way to get back at ’em for the killing they’ve done till the army comes up from Santy Fee.”
“We’ll make sure you got food for the trip.”
“No,” and Bass shook his head. “Leave the food for the young’uns. I’ll make do on my own.” Then he gazed into Josiah’s eyes steadily. “Let’s use what light we got left to make our people comfortable as can be back in those rocks, Josiah. I’ll be off come dark.”
For the next seven days Josiah took his son Joshua out to search for game trails, keeping their eyes open for the movement of men. Second morning into their ordeal, they spotted two columns of black smoke far, far to the south along the endless white horizon. But they heard nothing, saw nothing up at this end of the valley, so could only believe that the rebels were mopping up ranchos south of Taos instead of marching north toward the Arkansas—that longtime boundary with the United States.
Time to time, Josiah brooded on how long they were going to have to endure the wilderness like this. Moving camp a mile or more each day, collecting wood, bringing water in, seeing to everyone’s needs in addition to hunting while their town food slowly gave out.
You’ve done this before, he reminded himself. Time was, Titus Bass taught you to be pretty damned good at it too.
Still, he wished the old trapper hadn’t gone. It was one thing to have Scratch there to lean on out here with the waiting and the wilderness. It was something altogether different to have no one but himself to rely upon.
“This the way you used to live, Pa?” Joshua asked one afternoon as they sat watching a band of two dozen horsemen riding north up the valley past the rocks where the two of them hid themselves.
“For a time, yes.”
“When I was young?”
He gazed at his son. “When you were a baby, Joshua.” Then Paddock stared at those disappearing horsemen
