Kevin processed the possibilities — had he and Curt stumbled upon a movie scene? If so, where were the cameras? Kevin saw no cameras. Maybe it was some Civil War or western history buffs from Albuquerque or Santa Fe that got their kicks from Civil War reenactments?
But Kevin knew that it wasn't any of those possibilities because the officer on the horse, Kevin was sure, was not play-acting; he was deadly serious. In addition, Kevin noted that the horses were lathered, the men's uniforms were covered in trail dust and grime, and the sweaty men and the sweaty horses looked tired as if they had traveled overnight without stopping.
Neither re-enactors nor movie actors would look like what he was seeing, Kevin concluded.
Then the thought hit Kevin like a bolt of lightning: He and Curt could be caught in some kind of a time warp! Or could it be that everything that was happening was some kind of a strange illusion or hallucination?
Kevin's head hurt as he struggled with the possibilities for their predicament.
Kevin then heard Curt say in a tight voice, an octave higher than usual, "Curt! Curt! I'm Curt and he's, he's Kevin. Kevin!"
Kevin, with his back to Curt, visualized Curt pointing at him when he said Kevin's name.
The lieutenant seemed to ignore Curt's offering of names and instead looked at the first sergeant and said, "Can't say ah've ever seen such a small bore on a rifle. And y'all, First Sergeant?"
The first sergeant set the butt of Kevin's rifle on the ground so he could see the barrel end, and said, "'T'is indeed a small bore, sir. 'Bout same as some single-shot pistols, I seen. But, rifles be not having such small bore, not that I seen, sir."
"Ah agree, First Sergeant," replied the lieutenant.
The lieutenant, looking back and forth at Kevin and Curt, and then demanded, "Y'all have any other weapons on y'all's persons?"
Kevin spoke for the first time, "No, sir — only our knives," pointing to what little of his sheathed knife that could be seen under his wide army surplus utility belt.
The lieutenant looked where Kevin was pointing but then seemed to look even harder at Kevin's utility belt, followed by an overall scan of Kevin from his unfamiliar style cap to his cargo shorts to his strange boots.
After a couple of seconds, the lieutenant locked onto Kevin's eyes, "Y'all look mighty strange to me, but ah'll deal with that later. Rot now, y'all plannin' on stickin' anyone with them there knives?"
The lieutenant had asked the question, feigning a stern countenance, but was showing a glimmer of amusement with a faint smile mostly hidden by his unruly handlebar mustache; the lieutenant apparently had made the decision that, although Kevin and Curt's appearance looked strange, they did not represent a threat.
"No, sir!"
"Y'all can keep y'all's knives, then," said the lieutenant. Then he leaned forward in the saddle, fixed a long, hard stare at Kevin, and said, "Y'all plannin' anytime betwixt now and sundown to answer mah question?"
"Sir?" questioned Kevin.
"Ah swan, y'all's skulls must be thicker'n them 'dobe walls back at the Mission! Listen up! The question was…," and the lieutenant dragged out the 'was,' and his voice increased in volume "…what're y'all doin' on this here trail?"
"We — me and my friend — were just doing some hiking. We're from Albuquerque. We've got a campsite down by the stream — the stream you must have crossed a while ago," replied Kevin.
"Sir," said the lieutenant.
"Sir?"
"When y'all address me, y'all say, 'sir.'"
"I apologize," replied Kevin, pausing almost a beat too long but then hurriedly adding, "sir!" with emphasis.
"First Sergeant, pass the word to have McGinnis' and O'Donnell's horses brought up from the rear. These here lads will be joinin' us on our trek over this here mountain."
"McGinnis and O'Donnell's horses," repeated the first sergeant as he swung back into saddle, turned his horse, and began to maneuver down the trail past the other riders.
Curt stepped forward, ready to protest the lieutenant's decision, and then thought better of it in the heat of a you-don't-want-to-do-that stare down from the lieutenant.
Any protest at that time from either Kevin or Curt would have gone unnoticed anyhow because the scout that Kevin surmised they had just missed at the fork suddenly came around the rock formation and reined in his brown and white-spotted pinto.
The scout betrayed a flash of surprise to see Kevin and Curt, but then his face became expressionless when a man on a pinto of his own — a handsome black and white-spotted pinto — disengaged from his position behind the lieutenant and maneuvered easily around the lieutenant and alongside the scout.
Kevin and Curt had to move out of way of the man's pinto, but even then, they were effectively pinned by the pinto's flank and hindquarters against the large boulder. The strong odor of sweaty horse and the close up view of coarse horsehair was uncomfortable and claustrophobic.
The sudden appearance of the man now engaged in conversation with the scout was almost an apparition, made even more so by the unexpected clothing of the man — he was dressed completely in sweat-stained, fringed buckskin, the original golden color of the deerskin now a mottled brown. His only concession to a uniform was the incongruent — compared to the buckskin — black felt hat as worn by the rest of the contingent. Even then, the man's apparent independence from military dress was evident by the fact that unlike the rest of the troops who maintained the peaked crown of their hats, buckskin-clad man squashed his hat's peak so it was flat as it covered his shaggy, shoulder-length light brown hair.
The scout, wearing grey trousers tucked into knee-high moccasins, an apron cloth over the trousers, and an open vest over his bare chest engaged the buckskin-clad man in brief conversation punctuated with frequent Indian sign language gestures.
When the conversation ended, buckskin-clad man backed up his horse so he and his horse were side-by-side with the lieutenant.
"Lieutenant, Red Hawk says he knew these two were on the trail and he was returning to tell us. You can believe him or not. Red Hawk also says the best camping spot for the night is just ahead. Maybe quarter mile. There's a fork in the trail, and he says we should bear left at the fork. Says there's a stand of pines with a decent camping area a mite down the fork."
"Very well. Thank you, Mr. Carson. Thank y'all's scout, too. First Sergeant O'Malley, pass the word that we'll be headin' out shortly. Quarter mile or so. Order no fires, no tabacky smokin'. We'll be dinin' on hardtack and jerky, and then beddin' down for the night."
The lieutenant then added less an afterthought and more an expression of irritation, "Where's them horses for these boys?"
"Coming, sir… right away, sir," as a horsehandler led a handsome chestnut Morgan of fifteen hands height followed by another horsehandler leading a half-hand taller and rangy, chocolate-colored Morgan.
"Y'all know how to ride, don't y'all?" the lieutenant asked, the hint of a smile returning and an edge of sarcasm in his voice.
Kevin turned and glanced at Curt and rolled his eyes out of view of the lieutenant. "Yes, sir. Learned at Paradise Valley ranch, up in Tijeras Canyon."
Indeed, Kevin and Curt had both rented horses for pleasure riding at Paradise Valley ranch in Tijeras Canyon in the Sandia Mountains east of Albuquerque on several occasions over the past couple of years. They each had maybe four hours of riding experience.
The lieutenant looked at Kevin quizzically at Kevin's answer. Obviously, Paradise Valley ranch and the name Tijeras Canyon meant nothing to him.
The lieutenant, now puzzled even more by Kevin and Curt, said, "Well, sounds like y'all got some explainin' to do — never heard of them places, but, for now, y'all mount up then."
Kevin turned back to Curt and noted he looked dazed. Kevin placed his hand on Curt's shoulder, and said softly so that no one else could hear, "Be cool. I don't know what's happening, but we best go with the flow, whatever that is. This guy is as serious as a he
art attack."
Kevin's plea worked. Curt seemed to snap out of a trance and a get a grip on himself. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right." To Kevin's relief, Curt gave him a crooked grin that Kevin interpreted as less one of reassurance than of nervousness — but, either way, a good sign that Curt's initial shock was lessening.
The horse handlers had secured the lead ropes. Grinning, they stood with the horses' reins in hand, ready to do the hand off to Kevin and Curt.
"Y'all gonna mount up or just jaw and grin all day?"
The lieutenant's long suit obviously was not patience.
"Yes, sir!" chorused Kevin and Curt.
With that exchange and with less skill and less graceful movement coupled with more embarrassingly flushed faces and burning ears than either would have liked to display, Kevin mounted the smaller chestnut Morgan after two tries, and Curt, also taking two tries, mounted the taller Morgan.
At the lieutenant's command and with sabers-clinking, hooves clumping, and horses snorting, the thirty some mounted dragoons began to move out. Kevin and Curt's horses practically self-guided themselves to a gap and a position behind the lieutenant and the first sergeant on their horses.
Out front of the column, the scout and buckskin-clad "Mr. Carson" led the column up the trail to the rest area.
Minutes later at the stand of magnificent ponderosa pines that Kevin and Curt had hiked through a half-hour earlier on their way from the rock face to the fork, the lieutenant ordered the dragoons to dismount and informed the first sergeant, "First Sergeant, take charge of them there boys — don't let them be a wanderin' off and getting' themselves kilt."
With that order, the lieutenant trotted his horse to where an apparently omniscient orderly skilled in selecting the choicest area for his lieutenant in a given rest area was setting up a small table and stool.
In the meantime, the first sergeant froze Kevin and Curt with a look, and said, "I be in-charge of ya, I be, and don't ya be givin' me no grief," and stalked off to look after his dragoons and their horses.
Chapter Eight
Time Warp?
Sitting next to each other, cross-legged, as dusk settled in, Curt whispered to Kevin, "There was dried blood all over my saddle and the horse's neck!"
"Really?" Kevin's heart skipped a beat as he contemplated what might have happened. "Could be — I'm just guessing — could be the lieutenant lost a couple of men."
"What do you mean, 'lost'?"
" 'Lost' as in killed, Curt. From everything that's been happening, I don't think this is a game."
"Man, I didn't need to hear that. This is like a nightmare! When are we going to wake up?" pleaded Curt. "Oh-oh, here comes that sergeant."
First Sergeant O'Malley carried two bedrolls slung over one massive shoulder. In his hands he carried a tin of hardtack and jerky.
Although a huge man of gruff appearance, he had apparently taken a liking to Kevin and Curt because when he spoke his Irish brogue now seemed to carry an element of warmth.
"Me lads, you be forgetting the bedrolls behind your saddles. These be poor McGinnis and poor O'Donnell's bedrolls — God bless them dear departed souls."
He dropped the bedrolls on the pine needle covered forest floor in front of Kevin and Curt, and said, "Here be some grub. Eat hardy me boys. 'Taint much, but it'll have to do."
Curt, suddenly having gained back much of his usual bravado, reached for the tin, and, not having missed the implication of the first sergeant's "dear departed souls" euphemism asked, despite fearing the answer, "Where's McGinnis and the other guy, O'Donnell? How come we got their horses?"
"Ambush, it be, me lads. T'weren't but five or six mile from the garrison, route-stepping along the Rio Gran-dee, headed this way, and the devils — Apaches — jumped us. Maybe two. Maybe three. McGinnis and O'Donnell made up the rearguard. Cowardly devils be hitting us there — the rearguard — real quiet like, too; none of them usual war whoops, you know. Before the rest of us knew what happened, Mac took an arrow clean through his neck — bled out mighty quick like a stuck pig — right there in the saddle, it be.
But O'Donnell, now, he was a tough ole bird — been with me since '51, well, he took two arrows, one in his left side and one, low in his back, he did. He died in me arms, lads, but took near an hour.
"Lieutenant decided not to be chase'n them devils, a'fearin' it be a trap to get the whole platoon in a bigger ambush, he did.
"God bless that man there, the lieutenant, or we'd maybe met poor ole Mac and O'Donnell's fate. 'Tis mighty true we'd a'not stood much chance in catching them devils anyways about in the thick bosque… and probably ambushed to boot, we'd a'been."
Kevin and Curt sat wide-eyed as First Sergeant O'Malley narrated the fate of McGinnis and O'Donnell.
After a long pause, Curt tentatively asked, "But… but, who are you? I mean, you look like cavalry. Where are you going?"
First Sergeant O'Malley squatted down in front of Kevin and Curt and said, "We'd be dragoons. Dragoons be infantry a'usin' the horse for getting us where we be a'wantin' to fight. Part of Company H, First Dragoons, we be. Me boys and the lieutenant — that's Lieutenant Beauregard Knox Wheeler — from down 'round Austin way, Texi-can, he be.
"Rest o' Company a'comin' a half day behind through these same mountains. Second Artillery is a'followin' the Rio Gran-dee and be a'comin' as riflemen a-foot 'cause them artillery pieces be a mite difficult in the mountains where we be a'figurin' we be doin' most of the fighting.
"We'd be headed for some Jicarilla Apaches up north, 'round Ojo Caliente — White Wolf and his bunch. We'd be aimin' to get revenge — White Wolf and his bunch done butchered a white family a tad east of Fort Union couple weeks ago. So it be revenge, that it be, me lads, and afters we be a'makin' example of ole White Wolf and his'n band of butchers, we be a'makin' the Territory a score safer from them thieving, murdering savages."
Kevin, having difficulty comprehending the surreal happenings of the past couple of hours, decided to ask the key question in a roundabout way: "First Sergeant, when did you join up with the Dragoons?"
The first sergeant's shocking answer was, "Well, lad, it be back in '42 when we be in Florida a'chasin' Seminoles, they be. I be a private back then."
Kevin looked at Curt and Curt looked at Kevin. They both immediately realized that the first sergeant was not talking about 1942. He meant 1842!
The first sergeant continued, "Came out here last year. March, it be. Colder than… well, lads, it be so cold the Irish whiskey froze, if ya be believin' that. T'was at garrison in Albuquerque for no more 'an three days and what folks be a'callin' the Big Blizzard of '53 come a'rollin' in outta the east through that canyon — Cañon de Carnué.
"The winds be fierce for three days, for sure. Bit a'snow, but the winds be the thing. Body a'couldn't stand agin it and if'n ya could, body'd froze in no time."
~~~
1842? 1853? 1854? Kevin was stunned. Were he and Curt caught in a time warp? How could that be?
Curt was having similar thoughts. As the implications of their situation sunk in, Kevin and Curt were staggered.
The first sergeant noticed and asked, "Ya lads be sick?" He frowned, cocked his head, and drilled first Kevin and then Curt with steely blue eyes, and said, "Ya be not looking well."
Curt gave a nervous cough, his mouth and throat suddenly dry. He started to speak but his dry tongue was momentarily stuck to his palate. Kevin came to his rescue and said, "No. No. We're fine. Just tired. That's all."
First Sergeant O'Malley's warm demeanor suddenly changed as he stood up and said, sounding unconvinced about Kevin and Curt's fatigue, "Aye, ya be knackered, right," then he added in a tone of warning, the warmth gone, "Lads, don't be a'wanderin' 'round tonight. Guards be posted."
And, with that, the first sergeant turned and walked over to a clique of nearby dragoons sitting in a circle chatting.
~~~
Kevin and Curt, totally confused
by the situation, spoke softly to each other.
Curt said, "Been noticing how they're dressed: They all have those short black boots and them funny cowboy hats. Those dark blue — what do you call 'em — waistcoats? Man, those things look like they're made of wool. I'd be sweating bullets wearing one of those! The light blue trousers are kind of cool, though, especially the ones with the yellow stripe down the side like the lieutenant's and the first sergeant's."
Kevin said, "Yeah. I noticed. What's odd is that the first sergeant's uniform's got more trim and stuff than the lieutenant's. And the first sergeant's huge epaulets and gold-trimmed collar compared to the lieutenant's rank patch on each shoulder and plain collar, well, there's no comparison — you'd think the officer's uniform would be fancier, although he does have that waist sash with the gold tassels that the first sergeant doesn't have — and, of course, the fancy feather — but from what I've seen of the lieutenant's personality, I'll bet he's jealous of the first sergeant's fancier uniform. What do you think?"
"You're probably right," replied Curt. After a long pause, he added, "Man, I'm tired, but I'm so wound up, I don't think I can sleep tonight. Everything is just too weird!"
"You got that right, but we do need to get some rest. Who knows what's in store for us tomorrow?"
"Yeah. I guess so."
~~~
As darkness settled in and the camp quieted down, Kevin and Curt removed their day-hiking backpacks, utility belts, and footwear, and spread their inherited bedrolls next to each other, pulling the lightweight blankets over their physically and emotionally spent bodies.
A few minutes later, sensing the oncoming chill of the nighttime mountain air, Kevin said, "It's going to be cold tonight, and this bedroll's no sleeping bag like we had down at camp. I'm going to put on my windbreaker for some added warmth. Suggest you do the same."
Both retrieved their windbreakers from their backpacks and in the darkness put them on.