Chapter Eleven.

Alejandro cleaned the utensils while Kathleen fetched water from the river. Taking a larger pot, he hung it over the second fire and set it to boil, sterilizing the water before transferring to water skins.

Alejandro motioned for her to sit. He looked at her for a few moments, then asked, “You mentioned trade. What do you offer?”

She considered. She was wary of giving him a complete list of the goods she was carrying. That seemed unwise. The gunpowder, lead, and cannabis were all precious. She would hold those goods close and mention them last. When she listed the rest of her trade goods, he shook his head. He had no need of those sorts of things.

“Those things might good to trading if you find someone who survived the raiders’ attacks. I am thinking we will keep finding nothing but ruins following these bastardos.”

Unsure of how to continue, she glanced around the camp and finally got a look at his saddle. A nice saddle, not ornate, but functional and well cared for. The rifle which had taken the deer they were eating leaned up against it. She saw a hard leather ammunition case on a shoulder strap hanging on the saddle horn. “What kind of rifle is that?”

“It’s named a Sharp. Breech loading .52 miné paper cartridge. Our family worked an entire season just to pay for it. I can kill a steer or bison from three hundred yards away.” He paused and cleared his throat. A moment later, he continued, “It was to provide us food as we headed north to finding a new home.”

Kathleen weighed her options. “I have some high-quality gunpowder, as well as some lead.”

That got his attention. “I have to ask, señorita. You’re having valuable goods, but you are seem to more like running away than chasing. Did you steal those things? You have a pistol. Did you killing somebody to getting these things?”

Damn, he was smart. He was watching her differently now. Tense. Suddenly, she realized she had seen no weapons other than the rifle. He had draped his right arm over his saddlebags, his hand hidden by the flap of the right-hand bag. Did he have a pistol? Shit! This was stupid. She was not about to get her ass shot over stupidity. Her father had many opinions about how someone might end up dead, and stupidity was at the top of his list of dumb ways to die.

“I know there are men following me who will try to take me home. My name is Kathleen Maria-Camilla Renata Maclusky. My father is the head of the Maclusky family. We live in a large walled fort on the east side of the Rio Grande north of Los Gatos. We have sixteen families who live there. There are twenty-seven unmarried men and women in the bunkhouses. They work the land and tend the flocks for us.’

“We have four smaller forts guarding our land and the canals that bring water to the farmers in the area. These people all swore that in return for protection from the night and the weather, they would do what my father tells them to do. He isn't a cruel man. Our people are loyal because we treat them well. My family raises cattle, sheep, and goats. Our farmlands grow flax, hemp, maize, squash, and beans. We keep bee hives. We have a blacksmith.”

She shook her head. “I did not steal these things. They belong to my family. I’m in charge of the family storehouses, this shit is mine too. My papa thinks Michael and Pattie are dead. I don’t. I’m going to find them. It’ll break my heart, but if I gotta shoot someone following me because of my father,” she stopped and swallowed. “I’ll do it before I let them take me back home without Michael.” Shit. Her hands were shaking.

Alejandro gave her a speculative look. “Five names is a lot for a señorita your size.”

She gave him her best stink eye. “My name is Kathleen, my middle names are the names of my abuelas, and Maclusky is my family name.”

He smiled, “Your Michael, you must love him very much.”

“The first time I ever saw him, I knew was going to marry him. I told my papa that. That was four years ago. His parents died two years ago, while he and Pattie joined my family in Los Gatos for the harvest festival.”

“The hay barn had caught fire. We found the bodies of his parents and the horses when we got back. He and Pattie worked their land by themselves, but lots of our people helped them get back on their feet.”

“Six months ago, he crossed the river and came to our home and asked my father for permission to marry me. He gave me these golden earrings.”

She turned her head and pointed to her ear. Her pierced ear had a small, simple, gold wire hoop dangling from her earlobe. She turned her head and pointed to the other ear. They were slight, but they were pure gold. Michael had never told her how much he had paid for them.

“He bought them in town during a festival. We are going to get married this year, at the harvest festival. When he brings in the full harvest from the land that he has proven. Nothing is gonna stop that.”

The feeling had returned. She’d kill anyone that tried to stop her.

Alejandro seemed to relax. He studied her for a short time. His hand re-appeared from inside his saddlebag. Finally, he said “If we were to travel together, we could moving much faster and safer than we can by ourselves. When was the last time you had a full sleep?”

“A week ago.”

“It’s been fifteen days for me. Three nights ago, a group of Ghouls, the Terrores Nocturnos, almost caught me.”

She shuddered. “Me too.”

“What say you? I swear I won’t do nothing to hurt you. I will do anything to find and kill the monsters that killed my family.”

He raised his left hand, palm toward her, “I’ll share my food and guard while you sleep, if you will do the same for me. I know a way we can move faster, the two of us together.”

She stared at him for a few moments. “How? How much faster?”

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“This is a long story. One reason my family was moving north was because of news from the south of Mexico and the Texas territories. There was stories of a powerful nation invading from the south. My father was concerned. He had lived under a powerful man with men who did his bidding. The man was cruel, and it took my parents a long time to escape.”

He stared at the fire, silent.

“There was news of armies fighting in the east. People with new weapons and strange ways. One man in our group had encountered some of these people a long, long way south. He said she was a scout for an army, and she scared him badly.”

“The woman told Ignacio said she was hunting a man and would not rest until she’s finding him. She questioned him harshly. He was innocent of any crimes, but she showed him a portrait like he had never seen before. The man on the paper could have been him, she thought it was him, until she noticed his lack of a single scar on his neck.”

Alejandro shook his head. “Ignacio was a man who wouldn’t flinch if you pointed a gun at him. When the woman finished questioning him, another one appeared like a ghost right out of the ground. That one had a rifle that was pointed at his head the entire time. The two women talked, then they left him where he was, without saying a word.”

“Ignacio swore he thought he was going to die that day. He saw them as they passed by him and got a look at their gear. It was nothing like he had ever seen before. Observing them, he learned how to transport supplies without burdening the horses too much. You find some long poles and attach them to the horse's saddle. Then you putting your stuff in a hide or blanket stretched between the two poles that have a point on the end. Instead of carrying the weight, the horse drags it and is much easier. Your animal can moving much farther with less work.”

“How does that help us move faster, Alejandro?”

“We can making two, so one of us can sleep while the other leads the horses. And we put our supplies on the thing called a travois, instead of making your mule carrying them on his back. We could move almost without stopping unless for hunting food or grazing the animals.”

“Why haven’t you done this already?”

“I have not stopped for two weeks. I was out of food.” He shook his head. “I have barely slept, señorita. If I keep going this way, I’ll die before I can save my sister. I can barely thinking straight. This is the first time I have even thought of the travois.”

He pointed at his horse, Manchado. “Even if I find poles and making them attach to my saddlebags, who will guide him while I sleep?”

Kathleen considered. This seemed like a wonderful idea. She studied Alejandro. His clothes were well made, but hung loose. Sturdy. She examined him and saw the exhaustion in his eyes. The sorrow and desperation that likely mirrored her own. Could she trust him? He’d fed her without asking questions. He’d had her dead to rights sneaking up on his camp and could have easily killed her from ambush.

Kathleen blurted out, “We need to move as soon as the meat is done. I don’t know how many men are chasing me, but I know who is in charge. His name is Josiaha Menendez. He is a hunter and tracker. He was a lawman long ago in west Texas. The man is loyal to my father, and he is tougher than iron nails. He’s also my friend. He taught me how to shoot and track, and I hate the thought of hurting him if he tries to stop me.”

Alejandro gave a weak laugh and lowered his head into his hands, and began massaging his face.

“Fóllame. Of course. That would be the man your father would set to bring you home. Meirda. I think we might could throw off the men hunting you. There is a ford north of here. I found it while hunting. The raiders stopped there for a short time to water their horses. There are tramples on the ground that go all the way to the water. We can hiding our tracks and crossing over the river undetectable if we are smart.”

Alejandro raised his head. "I don’t know where these bastardos are going, but they are following the river. On the eastern side, we might find peoples that maybe know what happened over here. And we can still seeing any burned homes from across the river.”

He looked at her. “What do you thinking?”

“Let’s do it.”

***

On the western side of the river, at the ford, they studied the eastern bank. The water had a roiling pattern across its surface, but didn’t look too swift. The far bank had a steep soil incline. If they came out there, their tracks would show. But upriver, there was a slight bend that had shallow banks and grass.

With careful planning, they could leave the water without leaving a trace. They had repacked their belongings, securing valuables to their bodies. They tied their hats to their heads, all manner of things that seemed necessary to cross the river. And which also delayed the actual crossing of the river.

Alejandro was dithering, and he knew it. Meirda. Sitting in the saddle, he bounced up and down several times, causing Manchado to start forward. Reigning him in, he turned to look at Kathleen. He winced when he saw the look on her face. She was very pretty, so the angry scowl on her face looked more intimidating than it should have. The look was the same as when she’d told him she would sooner kill a man than return home without hers.

Meirda. She didn’t have her hand on her pistol. But he could imagine what she might do if she got angry. He had just met her. Maybe her grief had driven her mad. Even worse, maybe she was pregnant.

He nodded at her, then turned Manchado into the river and started across. The water rose to his feet. Then his boots filled with water. He started swearing to himself. Manchado was moving downriver from the current, but most of his movement was across. He gave a giant sigh of relief as he came out of the water. Alejandro smiled. He was only twenty yards away from where he had been aiming for. He turned and saw that Kathleen and her animals were already almost a quarter of the way across. There came a heart stopping moment when the girl’s horse lost its footing for a second, but then she recovered. They scrambled the last bit until they were both next to him.

He smiled wide, “See? I told you not to worries.”

Giving him a flat look, she said, "You were scared." Her shoulders started shaking with muted laughter while she shook her head.

He rolled his eyes. Then said haughtily, “I have crossing many a rivers in my time, I was not scared. I was concerned. There is being a difference.”

Then he laughed as well. Still mounted, he took his boots off and emptied them into the river’s brownish water. Then he turned his horse upriver. Staying in the shallows, they headed to the spot where they could leave the river without leaving tracks. They were both laughing. It felt good.

***

They departed from the river and placed several miles between their exit point and arrived in a lightly wooded area. They stopped and changed into some dry pants and tried to dry out their boots and equipment. There had been no discussion. But the small fire used to dry their footwear was rather sad without a frying pan in the coals. So they made a small meal, and they talked. With the sun headed toward the horizon, they broke camp. The two re-saddled and loaded the animals, then rode to a hilltop to inspect the landscape.

No signs of people, either in front or behind. The land close to the river looked easier to travel over. Kathleen noticed some sparse pine trees up the valley. Maybe they would find the poles they needed. They saw a rocky area that looked like it might provide some protection from the night. Kathleen was delighted to discover that Alejandro’s vision matched her own. He impressed her when he pulled out a telescope. He explained that when a hunting party went out; they took the telescope and the rifle, as well supplies to make bullets. If they made a kill and enough daylight remained, they would smoke the kill.

On the day of the attack, his hunting partner had killed a small deer early in the morning. Alejandro made him take it back to the wagons while he crossed the river.

He stopped talking. He was silent for a minute, staring out at the landscape. Kathleen sat motionless, understanding he wasn’t viewing the land in front of them. He grunted and shook his head. He met her gaze for a moment. His eyebrows rose, his head cocked to the right. She nodded. Without saying a word, they both headed for the rock formation. A possible defensible position to spend the night. They should be able to reach the rocks around sundown. He bounced up and down three times in his saddle. They set off.

The wind began to pick up.