“Where are you headed to, Alberto?”
“Phoenix. My uncle has a big restaurant there and we go each year to help him. He’s expanding so he needs the help.”
“Wait! Victor is your uncle?”
“How do you know Victor? Yes, he’s probably everybody’s uncle!” Everyone laughed. Stolter told them about coming through Phoenix, and left out a few details.
Eddie, Juan and Chita waved as cousins passed cousins in horseback. After Stolter’s horses were moving in behind Icksy the horseman had time to reflect on the big family he had been meeting. If he had gone up and over the pass, he never would have met Alberto and Antonia and their children. He never would have met the four big mustangs who, as he remembered, were individuals because of their beautiful markings.
The trail took them lower and lower down the hill. Stolter had glimpses of a flat, dull land through the trees and realized that they had come down out of an alpine lake area. They had stopped at another small water hole and then moved on.
The horizon was brilliant red and gold. The sun hung like a molten ball in the sky resisting the tug into the earth. Purples and grays crawled up the hillsides behind them.
Fifty feet into the turn off to Berry Glen they were stopped by a snarl of downed trees and flood debris.
###
“Eddie, can you see if there is a way around on that side? I’ll go this way.” The kids threaded their way back through the herd and back onto the main road. Stolter tried to get around the jam but there was no way the horses could clamber over the tangled mess. Back on the road, the horses milled around.
The big mustang came trotting around the bend and up to Stolter. “We found another abandoned camp on the other side of the hill. You can go take a look and see if anyone is around.” Stolter nodded.
It was an abandoned farm. A long curving driveway led up to the old home. Most of the house had fallen in and was covered with vines and weeds. Old pickets had fallen over and were tangled in the grass. The stone fireplace and wall were the last fixtures standing that told a house once stood there.
“Hello! Anybody here?” Stolter called out. Eddie called out the same in Spanish. They sat up on the horses and waited for an answer. A movement off to the south caught Stolter’s eye. He reined his horse around. The mustang nickered.
“Hello! Is anybody home?”
A voice came out of the barn area. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“I’m Nick Stolter. The trail into the waterhole is blocked by trees. I can’t get through. Is there a way to get to the water through here? I got horses that need to drink.”
A young boy of maybe fifteen carrying a shotgun came out of the brush. “I saw you try to get through, but the trees are blocking it. If you want to follow me, there is another trail through the orchard.”
Stolter nodded. “Thank you kindly.”
Stolter dismounted and followed the boy. Tall and lanky, his clothes were patches sewn over patches and his boots showed holes in the soles. A meandering trail went through sixty yards of tall grass and came on a sloping river bank. Stolter let his horse drink off to the side and the rest of the horses came in to drink.
Stolter held out his hand to the boy. “Nick Stolter. Thanks for letting us come in.”
“Sam Bellingham.” It was a thin, moist hand with a strong grip. “This is my dad’s old place. He and ma died a few years back.” Stolter nodded.
“We had planned to camp at Berry Glen but we can’t get through. Do you know of any place we can build a fire and get some sleep?” Eddie, Juan and Chita walked over and stood next to Stolter.
“This is Eddie, Juan and this is Chita. They are on their way to stay with their aunt who is sick.” They nodded to each other.
“On the other side of the orchard is an old barn I’ve been using. There’s an outdoor fireplace I use sometimes for cooking. You can stay over there. Just don’t burn down the barn. It’s the only one I have that is livable.” Bellingham gestured to the west.
“Thank you, Sam. That should be all we need. Is there anything we can do to repay your generosity for letting us stay here?” Bellingham looked down at the ground and dug in his heel for a minute.
“Well, tomorrow before you leave, if you’d give me a hand tearing out those logs, I’d appreciate it. I’ve got a couple of big harnesses pa used on the draft horses. If those could be adjusted to fit a couple of your horses, we could drag that mess out of the waterhole path.” Bellingham looked hopeful. Stolter nodded.
“Do you have any saws or axes? Maybe a couple of good placed cuts would free up those trees and the horses could drag them out.” Stolter rubbed the back of his neck. He turned to hear Eddie talking with Juan in Spanish.
The boy said, “Yeah, I’ve got three axes and one saw. What are they saying?”
Eddie smiled. “Icksy can pull those logs. Tomorrow we’ll look at that harness and see if we can get it to fit him.”
“That would be very good. I want to stop people from walking across my pa’s place trying to get to the water.” Bellingham scratched his head. “If you want to come with me, I’ll take you over to the barn.”
Stolter walked along behind the younger boy.
“What do you do for a living, Mr. Stolter?”
“I raise and train cutting horses in California. This is my new stock I’m taking home to train.” Stolter looked at the clearing around the barn. Old fruit crates had been stacked up alongside the barn. Shutters had been nailed across most of the windows. There was a narrow wooden door open in the front.
“You got far to go?” Bellingham gestured to the well-used fireplace.
Stolter then realized that the children had stopped at the edge of the orchard and were talking amongst themselves. Juan and Chita were pointing at the house and arguing.
“Excuse me, Sam. I better go find out what is going on. I’ll be right back.” Stolter smiled and then touched the brim of his hat. He trotted back over to the children.
“What’s wrong?”
Juan said in a near whisper, “I’ll tell you but come down to the river where nobody will hear us.”
“What? What for?” Stolter was surprised to see the kids walk back towards the horses near the water. On the riverbank, Eddie looked at Juan.
“No, he didn’t follow us. He stayed up at the barn.” Eddie nodded and looked at Stolter.
“I don’t expect you to understand, but we can’t stay here. I don’t know how else to say this but, people who stay in that barn don’t come out.” Chita took hold of Eddie’s hand.
Stolter looked at the kids. “What?”
“There are ghosts here, Mr. Nick. Ghosts that don’t want us here. We wouldn’t be able to sleep or rest. Look at the horses. They aren’t grazing in all this tall grass.” Stolter turned and looked around at the herd. None of them were chewing the grass and the mustang pawed the ground.
“Icksy is getting mean. He’s upset. Something is not right.” Eddie put his arm around Chita and hugged her.
Stolter rubbed his face. In this big world the children had earned to distrust something out of place.
“You can tell him that Chita has come down sick and we had better keep riding. We can’t stay. We need to go before it gets dark and we can’t find out way.” Eddie signaled to Icksy and the horse started to move.
“Where are we going to go? Do you know of another place?”
“Yes, but it is another five miles. Any place is better than this.” Eddie lifted Chita up onto the back of the mustang. Juan climbed up behind and put his arms around her.
Stolter said in a hurry, “Call the herd to follow you, Eddie. I’ll follow them out. I’m going to tell Sam we are leaving.”
Stolter mounted up and walked the roan over and spoke to Sam. The last horse out was one of the chestnut colts whose eyes were showing the whites. The wind had come up bending the taller trees along the road and pushing bits of brush across the dusty track. When Stolter twisted around the saddle to look
back. There were four other men standing next to Sam in the road, all holding shotguns. Stolter frowned, confused as to where those others had come from.
###
He remembered putting the spurs to his dun and trying to catch up to the herd. After that, everything seemed like a dull haze. Stolter went over and over what had happened in his mind. Only when the herd turned into a road to the left did the horseman pay attention to his surroundings. The water was shining like a thousand floating crystals and he stared at its beauty.
“Mr. Nick! Mr. Nick! Get off your horse!” Someone was yelling at him and all he could do was look at the bright lights.
He was jolted hard to the left and felt himself falling. He put his arms out to catch himself as he plunked down into the soft grass. He looked up and saw Eddie, Juan and Chita leaning over him. With a groan he sat up and rubbed his face.
“Juan, it’s going to rain tonight. Get Mr. Nick’s tarp strung up so we can all get underneath it. Chita, go get twice as much firewood and kindling. We’re gonna need it. We can’t let him get cold.” Stolter looked at Eddie and heard him barking out orders. His head swam making him confused.
“What happened? Where are we?” Stolter’s head was spinning and his legs felt loose and without strength. He didn’t like the way he felt. This was a dozen times worse than a drunken stupor. This was like a very, very slow dream.
“You’re okay now, Mr. Nick. We are all safe. The horses are safe. We have food and shelter and water.” Eddie had knelt down in front of him and put a hand on his shoulder. Stolter then remembered what he had seen.
“There were four more of them there, Eddie. Four more men waiting inside that barn.” Stolter could feel his throat tighten up. He felt a shiver run down his back.
Eddie got Stolter’s attention and patted his shoulder. “We’re okay now, Mr. Nick. We are far away from that place. We’re safe now.”
Stolter rubbed his face hard with his gloves. He felt drained and weak. Night had fallen and he could not make out any of the surroundings. A bottle was put into his trembling hands and he recognized the whiskey from the small town. He pulled down three swallows and then coughed a number of times. He could feel the burn in his chest and belly.
Juan gripped his shoulder. “I need you to come over to the shelter with me. You need to build fire for us so we can get warm. Can you do that, Mr. Nick? Please?” Stolter saw the bleak look in the pleading eyes of the boy and some of the fog lifted from his mind. He got up on one knee and pushed himself up to standing.
Chita had pushed a group of rocks around in a circle and piled in kindling. She handed the flint to him and he smiled at her. She was a good little girl, like Lola. It took over a dozen strikes to get a spark to jump into the dry moss. He was focused on the getting the fire going and Chita gave him handfuls of leaves and twigs. He felt a small hand on his shoulder.
“Thank you, Mr. Nick.” Her voice was small and shaking. Just then he reached and hugged her to him as if she were Lola. He felt the small girl shaking as she sobbed with her arms around his neck.
Juan and Eddie tied off the tarp between the trees and then put a pole to help the water runoff. After the meal was done, Stolter searched through his saddlebags and brought out the heavier jacket. He buttoned it around Chita who sat on a log near the fire.
It was Juan that spoke. “Mr. Nick, you have to remember that feeling from now on. It will save your life. When you start getting that cloud in your head, you have to run. You can’t stand there and wonder what it is or what it means. It means something bad and you have to run.”
Stolter was quiet for several minutes as he stared at the fire. “How did you know?”
Eddie sat down on the other side of Stolter and poked at the fire with a long stick. “It was Chita that felt it. She is the littlest and she feels fear the fastest. Once she got close enough to the barn, she said we had to run.”
Stolter rubbed both hands over his face. “Did we get all the horses out?” Eddie nodded.
“You kids are okay? Nobody got hurt?” Again, Eddie nodded.
Juan said, “It’s always people. Bad people. People that mean to hurt us. You have never felt that way before, Mr. Nick? Not ever?” Stolter took in a deep, ragged breath and let it out.
“Once, many years ago, maybe I felt it. But I pushed it aside as being afraid of something.” Juan handed Stolter a cup of hot coffee and then sat down under the shelter.
“I knew two men, good men. Vic Mozelle and Larry Powers had gone up to Quail Canyon looking for deer. They were good men, simple men. They were out of meat and there were always plenty of deer up in that canyon. The little stream that ran through it could become a raging torrent after rain up in the mountains. You had to be careful of the sound of rushing water and watch for rain clouds over the mountains in the north.” Stolter drank down some of the hot liquid.
After Eddie filled the cup, Stolter continued. “Vic and Larry had been gone a week and Vic’s wife rode over to our place one day and asked if we’d seen them. We hadn’t. They were good friends and they had gone out deer hunting twenty, thirty times. Sometimes a week or ten days gone. After Vic’s wife went home, I got to talking it over with Marianna about going out to the canyon to look for them. That’s when I got that suspicion that something bad had happened to them.”
Juan asked, “Did you go to look for them?”
Stolter shook his head. “A couple of days had gone by and I told Marianna that both those boys would’ve come looking for me if I’d gone past due like that. After thinking it over, she agreed and said that she’d go with me to look. She was a pretty fair tracker so we packed up enough things for overnight.” Stolter pulled off his boots and socks.
Just as we started up the twisting trail into the canyon, a couple riders came out with two bodies roped onto horses. Vic and Larry had been caught in a flash flood and swept away into a log jam like the one back at that ranch. Took these other two fellas close to a day to hack their way through with axes and saws to get Vic and Larry out.” Stolter stopped and almost spilled his coffee as he jerked upright.
“That’s it. That’s what was wrong with Berry Glen. There was no mud in between the brush and logs that blocked off the waterhole!” Eddie and Juan looked at each other.
“Don’t you see? A flash flood sweeps along dirt and mud and rocks and anything in its way. Everything gets drowned in the mud. That brush pile, trees, and limbs back at that ranch. It was all clean. They had dragged all that and piled it up to force folks to go over to the barn. That’s what I couldn’t figure out.” Stolter ran his fingers back through his hair.
Eddie put a hand on his shoulder. “We figured it out in time, Mr. Nick. Just try to think about getting home now. Don’t think about that ranch anymore. Just think about getting all these horses back to your home.”
It made anger boil up inside him. His jaw clenched as he spoke with stunned and ragged breath, “You’re sure all the horses are alright? You kids are alright?” They nodded.
After the children had washed up, they climbed into their bedrolls under the tarp, Stolter built up the fire and then laid awake watching the flames dance against the dark sky. Now, he could realize just how close to death he had come. Feet, inches, the length of a shotgun. He shivered again.
Once in the night, he woke to find Chita and Eddie cuddled up to his right side and Juan cuddled up on his left. The fire had burned down to embers. A shadow on the far left of the camp stirred and then Stolter heard the deep nicker of the mustang who had bedded down there. He closed his eyes and relaxed back to sleep.
###
When Stolter woke the next morning, Chita offered a mashed up green and yellow cactus for the wounds. Every muscle ached and his left arm had stiffened up in the night. It felt like he was ripping away his skin when he took off the bandage. The sore knife cut in his leg was red and inflamed. The squishy cactus was cool and soothing as the young girl slathered it on the wound. Juan used the sharp knife to cut off a piece of
the white cotton sheeting inside the saddle pad and Eddie helped Stolter fasten it.
After an hour of riding, they arrived to the first waterhole, about fifty yards off the road. At the campsite on the far side of the waterhole, a smoky fire flared. As the horses waded into the water, a figure came from under an old black canvas between two trees.
Eddie jumped off the mustang and stepped to the side, catching Chita and Juan off the gray mare. “Do you know that man, Mr. Nick?” Hesitant brown eyes looked at the horseman. Stolter was coated in sweat and wiped his face as he dismounted. He let his roan go to the water.
“No, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen him before.” Stolter shook his head as he shook out the bandanna.
Separated by twenty feet of water, the man raised a hand in greeting. “Greetings, travelers! Fine horses you’re moving.”
Stolter called out, “Howdy, mister. Water looks pretty good.” Juan said something in Spanish to Eddie and Stolter turned to look at them.
“What is it? You hurt?” The boys shook their head and gestured towards the water.
“It’s like he is not there. I can smell the fire and see the old tent. But it’s like he isn’t there, Mr. Nick.” Stolter frowned and then turned to man on the other side of the water.
“You been here long, mister? I’m Nick Stolter. I’m headed home from a long trip.” Stolter took off his hat and knelt to wash his face.
“Good morning to you and yours, Nick Stolter. I’m Jess McLaren. I’m headed home, too, to the gulf. I’ve been gone many years and it will be good to see home again.” Stolter ran the dripping bandanna over his eyes and nodded.
Even though his eyes were clear and bright, the tall man with a black stubble beard carried a drawn look about him. His complexion was like soft tanned leather, worn lines and smooth from the sun and wind. He was a lean dark man, about forty five with black hair and mustache.
Stolter grinned. “I got kin in Hattiesburg. I moved away and married years ago. But I’ve been back to see them all a couple of times.”
McLaren nodded with a small laugh and gestured to the sky. “I may get up that way. My kin are in the bayou so I’ll be setting there a spell. You got good skies for riding today.”