A Long and Winding Road: A Novel of the Mountain Men (Rendezvous, Band 5) - Softcover

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Chapter One

A wedding procession delighted Santa Fé as much as anything except, maybe, a fandango. Old men and women, young boys and girls, courting teenagers, couples with the responsibility of families, the sober, the drunk, people who were happy, or habitually unhappy-everyone turned out to see the bridal party parade toward the church. People lifted their flasks and cried "Hola!" The town was celebrating.

In that spirit Sam Morgan breathed in the clear autumn air, looked around at his fellow riders, hoisted his jug, and took another swig. He knew it was too early to get swoopy, but this was a great day. He reached from one jouncing horse to another and handed the Taos lightning back to Pegleg Smith.

Kit Carson grabbed the jug from Pegleg, gurgled deep and long, and passed it on. Smith, who seemed to be drunk every day, growled at him. Carson answered by glaring back comically. "Coy!" said Carson. "Bite that man's peg leg!"

Coy, Sam's pet coyote, gave Carson a disgusted look.

Pegleg had a reputation for fierce and wild. Once when he got wounded, the man cut off his own leg. Now he wrenched the whiskey away from someone and chugalugged. Then he .red his rifle into the air and roared, "I am a one-legged, whiskey-drinkin', woman-chasin', alligatin' son of a mountain lion and a grizzly b'ar!"

Coy barked. Sam often wondered what the coyote's commentary meant.

"Ye- e-e- ha- a-w!" whooped Hannibal MacKye. Hannibal liked to act drunk when he wasn't-a safer way to go, he said. For good mea sure he fired his rifle into the air. KA- BOOM!

All the boys .red their rifles and hollered. Carson pulled his pistol out of his belt and shot the handgun off too. Sam grinned-both weapons were now empty. "Kit," said Sam, "if the Comanch hit us now, you got no pecker in your pants pouch."

"Then piss on 'em," said Carson.

The boys laughed loudly and roughly. Coy yipped.

Sam looked back to make sure Paloma wasn't close enough to hear the rough talk. He wouldn't have talked like that if he wasn't a little light in the head.

There was no danger of Comanches hitting, not here on the narrow, twisty river road that ran between Santa Fé's adobe houses, and certainly not on this warm autumn midday when the mountain men were leading the bridal party in a fine procession to the Church of the Virgin of Guadalupe on the plaza.

Eight or ten mountain men headed the parade on their horses, colorful in their beaded buckskins and bright sashes, looking rough with their beards and wind-whipped faces. One of them had switched professions, and looked it. Sumner, a black man turned professional gambler, wore a tailored suit of lilac wool. In his opinion gambling was a much better job than standing in cold creeks and skinning stinky beaver.

Close behind walked the two brides and two grooms, dressed in the best clothes they could borrow. Paloma had improved the teenage brides' outfits with every piece of lace, embroidery, and fine fabric she could find. Lupe wore a full- skirted dress in broad bands of violet and white, with butter- colored lace on the bodice. Rosalita's bodice was emerald, above a flaring skirt of light green and gold, each broad stripe pointed at the bottom. The brides had also tied rosemary to their sleeves, a traditional herb used to spark love.

All four of the betrothed were former slaves, stolen in Chihuahua and brought to this far northern province of Mexico. All of them had been bought out of slavery by Paloma. So this was a special occasion for Señora Paloma Luna, owner of Rancho de las Palomas, who for a decade had conducted a quiet campaign against slavery.

Behind the nuptial couples strode their families, which were makeshift, and tiny. Paloma herself acted as adopted mother to the brides and grand dame to the whole affair. Tomás, another teenager bought out of slavery, stood in as the brides' brother. Sam Morgan, Tomás's adopted father, rode ahead with his fellow mountain men. Stolen by Apaches, none of the slaves had ever seen their blood families again.

At the rear came Manuel Armijo, one- time governor of the province of New Mexico, and several of his drinking partners. By no means part of the family, Armijo was former owner of both grooms. Somehow Paloma had twisted his arm until he agreed to lend the proceedings some social sanction. Sam turned on his horse and eyed Armijo. The former governor sat his ornate saddle with casual arrogance, and gazed with open lust at the women who lined the streets. Paloma kept her eyes on the two couples. She was proud, and not thinking of the cretin behind her.

As the wedding procession passed, people from the narrow calles and low adobe houses ran out to watch and then fell in behind. Boys called to Coy, "Hola, Señor Coyote!"

Suddenly one of the horses unloaded a pile from beneath its tail. Kids tittered. Middle- aged Joaquin, the betrothed of Lupe, was looking at the crowd, head high, beaming at all the attention.

"Cuidado!" called one of the boys to Joaquin. Watch out! The groom- to- be didn't pay any attention, and put the toe of his boot right into the pile.

Everyone laughed. The bridal party stopped, and Lupe said several choice words to Joaquin. The graying man stooped, whipped out a handkerchief (perhaps the only one he'd ever carried), and wiped off his boot. Then he walked over to the boy and presented him the handkerchief with a flourish.

The crowd roared.

"Amor y mierda," said Hannibal, ";una pareja rara." Love and dung, an odd couple. People laughed at this witticism, and the boy waved the handkerchief and grinned.

At the front, immediately ahead of Coy, walked Fiddlin' Red, along with Mexicans playing guitars and the bass guitarrónes. Red bowed out one dance after another, and the guitarists surrounded him with a cloud of sonorities. No one was dancing, but everyone in the pro cession felt as if they were.

Sam's attitude was, Why not? It was a beautiful afternoon, and his friends were getting married. Then he had to correct himself again-not friends, daughters. Lupe and Rosalita had asked him to act as their father and give them away. Sam was glad to do that, because his adopted son Tomás called the girls his sisters. Torn away from their homes to a faraway land, they had formed a bond, and that was plenty for Sam. More and more people thronged around or fell in with the parade. Santa Fé was in a festive mood.

Fiddlin' Red switched to a march. He arched his back, lifted the fiddle high, and bowed mightily. He was determined to be heard above the clopping of horses' hoofs, the shouts of children, and the hubbub of adult talk.

Watchers babbled and bobbed their heads. The town had buzzed about this wedding since the banns were posted. Most people said it was marvelous. Some of the rich called it an embarrassment. Sam wished he could hang these last folks up and quirt them.

The procession came into the plaza, the Palacio de los Gobernadores on one side and the church at the far end, its spires pointing to a gorgeous sky of the blue particular to New Mexico. People called it Franciscan blue, after the robes the priests wore. Many homes in Santa Fé and Taos featured doors and windowsills painted this hue.

Sam Morgan loved New Mexico. Now he looked hard at the spires. The priests said they pointed to heaven, but all he knew of heaven was the love of a man and a woman. As a very young man he had been married for one year. He and Paloma had spent five winters as lovers....