CHAPTER TWELVE
IN THE DAYS that immediately followed his desertion from the Confederate Army, the most difficult thing for him was to remember that his new name was Will Darby, no longer Cal Breckenridge. As he rode through the Mexico desert, stopping only to visit one dingy cantina after another, he constantly repeated the name, hoping to burn it into his consciousness. Will Darby . . . Will Darby . . . Will Darby . . .
When he’d had enough tequila, he’d even put it to song.
My name’s Will Darby
And I ain’t real smart.
My name’s Will Darby
And I need a head start. . . .
If he wasn’t memorizing, he was trying to consider a future for himself, one that didn’t include returning to Aberdene and the family farm. His father, he knew, would never welcome a deserter home and most likely he would forever be judged an embarrassment by his older brother.
He would have to make his own way. Maybe there was some cattle ranch up the way that needed an able-bodied hand. Or a newly established town that could use help with building a schoolhouse or a church.
Even in his drunken state, he was already doubting the wisdom of his hasty decision. He knew the army pay he’d managed to save wasn’t going to last long. And while hiding out in Mexico for a time was possible, making it his home wasn’t an option worthy of consideration.
Once again, he’d made himself a fine mess. He’d done it often enough as Cal Breckenridge, and now was about to do the same as Will Darby.
He rode on until dark, swaying in the saddle. His empty tequila bottle had been tossed into the Rio Grande some miles back.
Making camp on the sandy bank of the river, he managed to remove the saddle from his horse and tether him to a scrub mesquite. Without even bothering to remove his boots, Will stretched out on the saddle blanket and was immediately lost in a drunken sleep, his restless dreams mixed with bloody war battles and boyhood memories of happy times spent with his brother, Clay. They were still young, chasing fireflies near the house, laughing as they ran.
Then the dreams turned into a real nightmare. Someone was kicking at him and cursing. When he opened his eyes, he saw the huge form of a man dressed in buckskins pointing a pistol at his face. Two others stood nearby, toothless grins on their tobacco-stained faces.
“Get to your feet,” the man with the pistol said, “and show us where your money is. I’d advise you do it quick.”
Highwaymen. Will had heard about them: outlaws who roamed the open country looking for people to rob.
He felt the sharp point of a boot slam against his rib cage even before he could get to his knees. The other two men grabbed his arms and pulled him into a standing position. One slapped him hard across the face. The other held a Bowie knife, its blade glinting in the moonlight.
“The choice is yours to make,” the leader said. “You can tell us where your money is, and we’ll be on our way, leaving you no worse than you are. Or we can cut your throat and search it out ourselves.”
Will was suddenly wide-awake and sober. “I ain’t got much,” he said. “Some is in my saddlebag, and there’s a little in my boot.”
The thieves rummaged through Darby’s meager belongings, taking his money, his pistol, a half box of ammunition, and his binoculars.
“Wasn’t hardly worth it,” the leader said as he delivered a series of hard punches to the side of Darby’s head.
MISTER . . . MISTER . . . YOU dead?”
Will had a foggy awareness of dirt in his mouth and sun in his eyes. He could hear a young girl’s voice somewhere far in the distance. Shielding his face, he looked up at a child who could have been no more than nine or ten. The bottom of her gingham dress was wet from her wading in the river. “My pa wants to know if you’re dead or still alive,” she said.
“Can’t say for certain,” Will said, wincing at the pain as he tried to stand. “Who might you be?”
“My name’s Darla, and I’m near ten,” she said. “My mama’s teaching me how to read. That’s my pa over there on the other side of the river.”
Though his vision was blurry, Will could see that the child’s father was making his way through the shallow water toward them.
“Lordy mercy,” the man said. “If there were any railroad tracks nearby, I’d guess you got yourself run over by a train. More likely, though, you got acquainted with the same fellas we did.”
Will could see bruises and cuts on the man’s face.
“After they finished looting our wagon and turning it on its side, they gave our mules a scare, sending them running. Didn’t catch up to one of them until just now. That’s how we come to see you.”
He sat on a tree stump and poured water from his boots. “Name’s Cawthorn Bradley,” he said. “You already met my girl, Darla. The wife and the other young’uns are back with the wagon, which I fear is badly broke. I see them thieves did you the courtesy of leaving your horse, so if you’re up to riding, you can come back with us. If they didn’t steal the coffeepot, my wife can cook some up. She might do some bandaging to your wounds as well.”
“I’d be grateful,” Will said.
BRADLEY’S WIFE HAD built a fire and buried a covered pot in the coals, cooking biscuits. There was a welcome aroma of coffee. The children were gathering the items scattered by the robbers and piling them next to the overturned wagon.
“A terrible mess, ain’t it?” Bradley said as his wife handed him a cup.
The coffee stung Darby’s mouth but warmed his throat. He limped toward the wagon to survey the damage. One wheel had been broken loose, and the canopy had collapsed. The tongue was buried in the sandy soil. “Only worse thing they could have done,” he said, “was set it afire. I’d say our first order of business is to see if we can set it upright.”
“Mister, in your condition I have my doubts about you being able to do much more than stand up straight.”
Darby ignored his concern. “You got a hatchet or an ax they might have left behind?” As Bradley went in search of his ax, Darby walked in the direction of a stand of mesquites. “We’ll need a straight and strong tree trunk,” he said. As a young farm boy, he’d often helped lift the family wagon from ditches and mud holes, using a handmade fulcrum to do the lifting. “We’ll also need ropes if you have them.”
The plan worked. With the men lifting on the tree trunk that had been pushed beneath the wreckage and Mrs. Bradley and the children pulling on ropes from the other side, the wagon groaned and creaked and finally settled in an upright position.
Exhausted, Will examined the damage, shaking his head. “Fixing it ain’t gonna be easy,” he finally said, “but I think it can be done. But it’ll need proper repair with proper tools before you go much farther. If you can find a settlement somewhere nearby, I’d make that my destination with hope it has a capable blacksmith.”
Mrs. Bradley gently hugged the child sleeping in her lap. “Praise the Lord,” she said.
They rested in the shade of the wagon, eating warm biscuits and strips of jerky. The younger children slept while Darla sat with a Bible in her lap, mouthing each word she was able to read.
“Where you folks headed?” Will asked.
“A place called Albuquerque, over in northern New Mexico Territory,” Bradley said. “To be more specific, the San Augustín de la Isleta Mission.” He pulled an envelope from the pocket of his britches. “I got this letter a while back, offering me the opportunity to watch over their flock. My wife will be teaching in their school. I’m told their priest is elderly and in failing health and that I was to arrive as quickly as possible.”
“And where is it you’re coming from?”
“San Antonio. I had a small church there, located near the Alamo, which you’ve no doubt heard of. Once all that ugly business was finally ended, we was ready to go somewhere else, some new place where the memories weren’t so painful. God answered, offering a new start for us and our young’uns.”
Will shook his head. “So I should be addressing you as Father?”
“Cawthorn will do fine. And don’t worry none. I’ll not be trying to convert you from your evil ways.”
REPAIRING THE BRADLEYS’ wagon was no easy task. The men used rocks to pound the damaged wheel back into shape. The shattered tongue was replaced by a sturdy tree limb while Mrs. Bradley did her best to patch the tattered canopy. Their belongings were loaded.
“It’s fixed as best we can manage,” Will said. “I think you can be on your way tomorrow morning. You’ll just want to take it slow.”
“And which way will you be headed?”
Will shrugged. “I got no urgent business in any direction,” he said. “If you like, I’d be happy to ride along with you for a ways. Not that I’ll be much protection, seeing as how my sidearm was taken.”
Bradley turned and briefly disappeared into the wagon, emerging with an old shotgun and a leather pouch that contained shells. “As I suppose you’ve figured, I’m not a man enamored of firearms. Truth is, I’ve never fired this gun myself. We brought it along, thinking we might occasionally shoot us a rabbit or some squirrels for supper.” He handed it to Darby. “Might be better protection than none at all.”
Will pressed it against his shoulder and looked down the barrel. “My preference would be a Colt that’s well sighted,” he said, “but this’ll beat throwing rocks at an attacker.”
AFTER TWO DAYS’ travel, it was Darla who first recognized they were approaching a settlement. She’d heard a rooster crow, then a dog barking. As the wagon slowly creaked up a rise, Bradley pulled the mules to a halt and looked down at the small scattering of buildings and tents in the distance.
“Doesn’t look like much,” he said.
“Better than anything else we’ve seen of late,” Will replied.
Bradley’s assessment of Las Lunas didn’t change as he guided the wagon into town. There were a general store, a saloon, and a dusty corral that housed a half dozen horses. Will pointed in the direction of a forge sitting in front of a ragged tent. “Maybe we can find some help there,” he said.
The children looked on silently until Darla spoke. “Papa, I don’t see that they have a church here.”
“I shouldn’t be making judgments,” her father said, “but if I had to guess, there are few folks here who feel need of one.”
The blacksmith was a short, pudgy Mexican with huge hands and bowed legs. His eyes sparkled, and he smiled broadly at the prospect of a customer. “You got some fixing needs doing?” he said, wiping his hands on his soiled apron. “You’ve come to the right place.”
Bradley climbed down from the wagon and shook the man’s hand. “We were attacked back on the trail,” he said, “and robbed. What money we had was taken. So what I was wondering is, would you consider taking one of my mules in exchange for your service?”
The blacksmith moved to the front of the wagon and examined the animals. He ran his hand along their flanks, opened their mouths to look at their teeth, and checked their hooves. He paced back and forth for several minutes, his eyes never leaving the mules.
“This one,” he finally said.
Bradley shook his hand again. “God bless you.”
As he unhooked the wagon, his wife gathered the children and a blanket and took them to the shade of a nearby tree to wait.
Will offered his help to the blacksmith but was quickly dismissed. With nothing else to do, he started walking down Las Lunas’ lone street. He hadn’t had a drink since tossing his empty bottle into the Rio Grande days earlier, and he wished he had money enough for a visit to the shabby-looking saloon up ahead. But he had no mule to trade. He had nothing.
His thoughts turned to the Bradleys. He marveled at their dogged determination to make such a long and dangerous spiritual journey. Despite their hardships, they seemed happy, content. And he envied them. Though his parents had seen to it that he attend church as a youngster, he’d never embraced the idea of a Supreme Being who was looking over those who believed. He’d never prayed. If there was a God, he clearly had no use for Cal Breckenridge. Or Will Darby. And the feeling was mutual.
As he continued down the street, nearing the saloon, he heard the sound of loud curses coming from inside. Then he saw an elderly man stumble from the doorway and fall into the dusty street. Two men, younger and much larger, followed. One had a blackjack and began pounding the helpless old man. The other was kicking him. Both were laughing.
People had gathered on the front steps of the saloon, watching, but none showed any interest in breaking up the melee.
For a split second, thoughts of his own beating at the hands of the highwaymen flashed through Darby’s mind, and he found himself running toward the one-sided fight. He grabbed the man with the blackjack by the arm, spun him around, and delivered a fist to his face. As the surprised attacker fell backward, landing on his backside, Darby began kicking him in the groin. The other man reached to grab Will’s arm but was slow in doing so. Will’s forearm crashed against his face, breaking his nose. He went to his knees, yelling in pain.
Darby then grabbed the blackjack, which had fallen from the other man’s hand, and began swinging it wildly. “You boys can thank your lucky stars that I ain’t armed,” he yelled. “Otherwise, you’d both be shot dead. We can continue this, or you can quietly take your leave and not allow me to see you again.”
As he spoke, one of the men struggled to his feet, his hands covering his injured crotch. He began slowly walking away, doubled over and moaning in pain. The other followed, blood covering his face.
Will went to the old man and lifted his frail and beaten body. He was barely conscious and bleeding from his face and arms. “Come with me, old-timer. I know a lady down the street who can see to your wounds.”
The old man tried to focus on Darby with little success. “All I done was ask if they’d buy me a drink of whiskey,” he whispered.
MRS. BRADLEY CLEANED the man’s cuts, rubbed salve on them, and applied bandages fashioned from strips torn from a sleeve of her blouse. Darby looked on silently, his heart no longer racing, and his anger replaced by concern for the beaten stranger.
“I think he’ll be fine,” Mrs. Bradley said as she put a cup of water to the old man’s mouth.
As she did so, Will felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see a man smiling at him.
“I’ve come to say how impressed I was with what you did back there and to ask if I might buy you a drink to demonstrate my admiration,” he said.
Will could already taste the whiskey and feel its warmth in his throat. “I expect you can,” he said.
“Good,” the man said as they began walking back toward the saloon. He extended his hand to Will. “Name’s Ben Baggett.”