named Stephen Lee.”
“Trading house—here?”
“Yep,” the mulatto answered. “We aim to have us a trade room in this here Pueblo. But, hell—I wanna hear what all you been up to in Absaroka. When I found Mathew was bringing out two jugs to have some talk with you fellas ’round a fire, I just natural’ invited myself along! Let’s sit and wet our tooters.”
Kinkead plopped himself down on a smooth-barked cottonwood, setting before him two half-gallon clay jugs of Simeon Turley’s pale
Bass turned to Beckwith. “Some news from Taos?”
“Might say,” Mathew explained. “He got married down to Taos!”
Titus inquired, “That where you come from—Taos?”
“Me and my partner, Lee, yep,” Beckwith said. “Brung my new wife up here with us.”
“Sure thought you had your fill of wives up there in Absorkee country,” Bass snorted with laughter.
“Them was some shinin’ times, they was,” Beckwith replied while some of the others laughed with him. “But Jim Beckwith’s not in the blanket now, so’ I took me on just one gal in the proper Mex way—Louisa Sandoval. Come from a fine Taos family.”
“You married for serious, eh?” Kinkead asked. “Gone and hitched in the church an’ all?”
Beckwith wiped his mouth after a long gulp of liquor, then said, “She’s full Mex, Mathew—so you know you gotta marry ’em up right.”
Scratch turned to face Kinkead. “What with your new wife, Mathew—how you come to wanna skeedaddle out of Taos?”
“Year ago spring, soon as the snow was melting off the road north, I brung my family up to the Arkansas,” the big man declared. “It was time to find me a place didn’t have so many Mexicans.”
“Winters ago, back when you split the blankets with Jack Hatcher’s bunch and give up on the mountains for Rosa an’ a feather tick, I never would’ve wagered you for the sort to
“True that was—back then. Was a time I figgered I had me a home in Taos for the rest of my days,” Kinkead sighed. “But, the last two years or so, the air ain’t smelled near as sweet in the San Fernando Valley.”
Scratch accepted the jug back from Beckwith. “That ain’t nothing new, Mathew. Them Mex was allays squeezing down on us
“This was something differ’nt,” Kinkead warned stiffly, swiping the back of a hand across his mouth glistening with drops of the potent, opaque liquor.
“Dust it off,” Bass demanded as he passed the clay jug on to George Simpson.
Mathew’s eyes grew cold. “First off, word drifted in to Taos and Santa Fe that the Texians were coming to invade us.”
Elias Kersey rocked forward, his eyes gleaming with intense interest. “Texicans?”
“Texians—used to be Americans. Folks what got their own country east of here,” Mathew began. “They call it a republic. Won it away from the Mexican Army a half dozen or so years back. A bunch of Tennessee boys, Kentuckians too—just like me an’ you, Titus Bass.”
Reuben Purcell waved a bony hand with impatience, asking, “So why the hell was these Texians coming to invade Taos and Santa Fe?”
“We had one report comin’ in after ’nother, said they had ’em a big army coming our way,” Kinkead explained.
“Why they want Taos when they had ’em their own brand-new republic?” Scratch asked.
Mathew turned sideways and took the jug offered him before saying, “Talk was, them Texians got the high head ever since they throwed the Mexican Army out of their new country, so they got to figgering
Scratch stared at the leaping flames a moment as he grappled in his mind for the location of the Rio Grande del Norte, then realized it flowed west of Taos on its way south.
Jim Beckwith jumped in now, saying, “All the news we heard had it them Texians was setting a army loose to throw all the Mexicans out of Mexico.”
Mathew added, “They was coming to take over the northern part of Mexico for themselves, make it part of their republic.”
“But Taos—that’s way up in the north of Mexico,” Titus offered, his eyes flicking back and forth between Beckwith and Kinkead with growing concern. “What them Texians want with Taos?”
Jim replied, “Take more land from the Mexicans they throwed out, I s’pose.”
Nodding, Mathew confirmed, “Ever since that autumn of eighteen and forty, ever’ last greaser in northern Mexico had a differ’nt eye when they looked at gringos like me.”
“You mean how they treated Americans?” Scratch inquired.
Kinkead said, “Don’t you ’member how years ago I become a Mexican my own self so I could marry my Rosa in her church?”
Bass’s eyes narrowed. “But Josiah didn’t need to—he had him a Flathead woman.”
“Josiah Paddock?” Beckwith perked up with sudden interest.
Scratch turned to gaze at the mulatto. “You know Josiah?”
“Me and Stephen Lee—my partner—we bought some of our goods off Paddock,” Jim admitted. “He’s a fair- handed man.”
Scratch took pride in that, saying, “Josiah an’ me—we rode together for a time.”
Then Mathew continued, “Even though Paddock had a Injun wife, he still become a Mexican citizen so to make things run smoother on his trading business.”
“Much as I’d never do such a thing my own self,” Titus began, “if a fella lives in Mexico and works with Mexicans, I savvy it makes good sense for Josiah to raise his hand and swear he’s gonna be a Mexican too.”
“Hold on there, fellas,” Jake Corn sputtered through a gulp of whiskey, shaking his head in argument as he glared at Mathew. “Wasn’t Kinkead here just saying it didn’t make no difference if any American swore to be a Mexican citizen, because every American was still gonna be treated bad the same way by them bean-bellies?”
Mathew nodded emphatically, his eyes gazing into the fire. “Didn’t make no differ’nce to the greasers even if we swore to be a Mexican like they wanted us to do. The way the Mexicans was starting to look at us Americans —we knowed they figgered us
“S-spies?” Silas Adair snorted.
“That news of an army coming to the Rio Grande sure did stir up them Mexicans,” Kinkead explained. “You know it ain’t been that long since them Texians whipped the great Mexican Army—so now when them
“You tellin’ me greasers black their faces against you?” Scratch bristled.
“Meaning to hurt me?” Kinkead asked. “Lookit me, coon! I’m twice’t as big as most any bean-belly in all of Mexico!” Then that merry grin drained from his face, “But …”
“But what?” Titus demanded, sensing his own uneasiness stirring.
Mathew sighed, “I do know myself of a fella here or there what had the piss beat out of ’em purty bad.”
“Beat on by greasers?” Corn demanded gruffly.
“Yep,” Kinkead admitted reluctantly. “An’ most of them what’s had some trouble like that has already cleared out of the valley.”
Titus leaned sideways to lay a hand on Kinkead’s shoulder. “You was right to mosey north to the Arkansas. Figgered to find your family a more sleepy stretch of country?”
“Look around, fellas. Beaver’s dead,” Kinkead complained. “The big companies got their hands around the buffler trade; gonna strangle it to death too. And now the Mexicans don’t want Americans comin’ anywhere near their country no more. All you gotta do is look around and you’ll see this here’s the land where a man can make a brand-new start.”
Scratch took a long drink. But the whiskey didn’t help: he kept growing more fretful. “Afore you pulled up your picket pins and left San Fernando, Mathew—you know of any greasers ever make things hard on Josiah?”
