Forward
My horse and I are both half-breeds: half savage, half civilized, belonging to neither tribe nor nation. Lost to our people, we wander lonely trails under endless skies, seeking a name, a place, a home, a family. We have found none of these things.
I do not know my name, but I know the name of my horse. Perhaps my horse knows what I should be called. I like to think he does —that he learned it in a dream as I learned his, and just as his name must never cross my lips, so likewise he would not speak mine even if he could.
His name is only spoken in the place of dreams between the worlds. Were I even to whisper it into the deep hollow of his ear, I believe he should nevermore bear me beyond the waking daylight, and if that were to happen, how would I ever find my way home?
Chapter 1
Santa Fe Trail, 1844
The rendezvous was at the abandoned mission, deep in the Kansas territory. The ragged band of children were prodded into a line by their liberators. Captain Faraday of the dragoons chewed his lip, looking them over. A dozen this time. He had not expected so many, and was glad he brought the wagon. The children appeared half-starved, but he knew life on the frontier took its toll, even for civilized folk. The savages’ own brood would look no better.
These were the hapless children of white settlers, stolen from their families by the red man for ransom, or for vengeance, or to be raised as their own. It was hard to know the mind of the Indian.
The four men who delivered the children to the dragoons were little more than mercenaries. ‘Liberators’ was too generous a word; They made their living spying out white children in Indian camps, and getting them back. Captain Faraday knew such men who negotiated with the Indians, driving bargains that amounted to barter to win back the children. Captives could be bought for horses or precious metals and sometimes words that brought honor to bear. These men though, had not negotiated. They had blood on their hands. They were hard, lean and hungry, lead by a bear-like mountain man. They stood scowling, waiting silently as the childrens’ worth was assayed.
Captain Faraday found them repellant. They were all that was wrong with the West.
“Twelve gold pieces. One for each,” he said.
“Thirteen.”
The mountain man shoved the tallest boy aside and behind him a small dark girl was revealed, clinging to the back of his breeches. Finding herself the center of attention, she began to cry. The boy’s face contorted under his long unkempt hair. He was dirty, his skin tanned to a deep bronze, but there was no mistaking his light hair. This was a white boy, even though he let loose a volley of curses in a native tongue.
“I don’t need that translated.” Captain Faraday told Green Drake.
“That is good, for to do so would disgrace your uniform.” The Indian guide replied.
Faraday sniffed and nodded. Under different circumstances, he might have laughed.
By the boy’s enraged reaction, it was clear he still understood English. Though his hands were bound behind him, he charged forward, lowering his head to butt the Captain. Green Drake swept the feet out from under the boy and he sprawled on the ground, where he kicked up a cloud of dust in anger and frustration. The girl cried louder while the other children only stared. They had seen worse and recently. Much worse.
“What’s your name, son?” The Captain asked.
The boy raised his head and answered in his Indian tongue with fierce pride.
“He says he is...”
“It doesn’t matter,” Faraday cut off his translator. “Eleven gold pieces,” he told the mountain man. “The girl is but a tot, and an Indian besides. The boy is feral, and nearly grown. We’d have to keep him as a prisoner, and if we ever found his people, he’d likely slit their throats and return to the wild. Cut him free now and save us the trouble.”
“Here now! That boy cost us dear! Nearly put a knife in me!”
“Exactly,” Captain Faraday said.
The mountain man and his three partners exchanged dark looks. “Told you, didn’t I? They don’t want them what’s gone Injun. Should have done him like the rest.” He spat on the sandy ground.
At Faraday’s nod, Lieutenant Carleton stepped forward and undid the strap around the boy’s wrists.
Green Drake barked a command at the boy and gestured away, across the barren land. The boy hesitated, looked at the other children, looked especially long at the little Indian girl, who was sobbing now.
“Let the tot go, too. Let her people keep her,” the Captain said.
“Ain’t no people,” the Mountain man grumbled. “These captives were hard won. Hard won, and now I ‘spect recompense for our service.”
Captain Faraday’s eyes flashed and he drew a long breath. “You have provided no service here today. I dare say you have slaughtered an entire village in order to more easily abduct their captives in return for gold. While we dragoons struggle to keep the peace along the frontier borders, men like you ensure there shall be no peace. For your actions this day, there will be hell to pay.”
“I ain’t no dragoon, and these here children were stolen from their kin. You know what them savages do to white children? Do you?”
Faraday pointed to the boy. “It would appear they endow them with courage! In the future, you will report the whereabouts of captive children and leave it to us to negotiate their release.”
“Pah! An let the Injuns have the ransom? Where’s the sense in that? They’ll just take more sons and daughters and use your gold for buttons.”
Captain Faraday had no answer to that. No one did. He eyed the crying girl. Her hair had been carefully braided at one time, but she had been through a lot since then. But in spite of her disheveled appearance, she looked healthy enough. Her crying had the strength of will and a certain vigor behind it. At last he said, “I am not authorized redeem an Indian child. The United Stated Government will not...”
“That ain’t no Injun. Look-a-here at her blue eyes.” The mountain man gripped her beneath the chin and pulled her head up, nearly lifting her from her feet.
“Sired by one of you, perhaps, but clearly an Indian child. Let her go with the boy.”
“Go where, Cap’n sir?” The question came from behind them where a slave woman stood up on the wagon-bed. She had the soft contours of a house-slave, but there was nothing soft about her demeanor now. She was taut and shaking with audacity and anger. “Just look at her! That chile ain’t but a babe, and she be needin’ a mammy. That boy cain’t drag her ‘crost the desert. He ain’t Moses and they ain’t the chillen’ of Israel!”
Lieutenant Carleton opened his mouth to object to the interruption, but a glance at his Captain made him close it again without comment.
“Won’t get more’n five dollars for a squaw-baby in Santa Fe.” The mountain man complained.
“How you gonna git that chile all the way to Santa Fe?” the woman demanded.
“Got her this far, didn’t we?”
Captain Faraday stroked his mustache to suppress a smile. He turned to look admiringly at his wife’s slave standing on wagon. Next to her the chinese laundry woman shrank back, wanting no part of the reprimand that was sure to follow. Both women were brought along to attend to the ransomed children, not to take part in the negotiations. But there she stands and here we are, Faraday thought.
He met the slaves dark eyes and she didn’t look down.
Lieutenant Carleton cleared his throat, his ears burning red.
“Armistice,” Captain Faraday addressed the slave in a warning tone. He raised his hand and lowered it slowly, his gesture clearly indicating that she should sit down and shut up. His expression said more.
She sat. She did not look away.
Faraday continued the negotiation. “The United States is prepared to pay a single twenty-dollar gold piece for the ransom of each captive white child. Excluding that one...” He pointed at the boy, “... and not a penny for the Indian girl.”
The boy on the ground looked distressed and called to the crying girl. His tone was urgent and imploring. The girl hiccuped through her tears and obediently stepped forward, looking from him to the Captain. The boy encouraged her, gesturing to the Captain. The little girl broke into a run, but not to the boy. She wrapped her arms around the Captain’s leg and clung to it.
Green Drake and the Lieutenant laughed.
“That boy is still a little white, I reckon,” Lieutenant Carleton said.
The Captain tried to extract himself from the clinging girl but she held on tight and squalled louder and squirmed harder as he tried to pry her off.
“Three dollars!” The mountain man pressed his advantage.
Captain looked askance at the girl and said, “Two.”
“Sold!”
In the shadow of the crumbling mission, they shook on it.
“Boy, you had best get while the gettin’s good,” Lieutenant Carleton advised. The feral boy sprang up and pelted away at full speed.
As the money was counted into the bloodstained hands of the liberators, the children were loaded onto the wagon where the women fussed over them and gave them corn cakes and water.
Armistice held out her arms for the little girl, and with some difficulty the tot was transferred into her embrace. Armistice pressed a canteen to the girls lips and she drank until she choked. “Laws, you be parched! But you’s safe now. Yes you is.” The slave gently chuffed the Indian child on the back until she stopped coughing. “What name you got, baby-chile? Can you talk yet?”
The little girl just looked at her with wide blue eyes.
“I’s callin’ you Abbey, then, after that there church.”
“Not Abbey,” the laundress said scornfully. “You call her mission. That is mission.”
“‘Mission’ ain’t no fittin’ name. Leastways, they’s both the dwelling place of the Lord, just like this here chile.”
She stole another look at Captain Faraday.
The mountain man pocketed the gold and his gang mounted their mexican plugs. They headed away at a jaunty clip, clearly satisfied with their take.
“That was blood money.” Green Drake complained.
“It shall be blood money indeed when it comes to dividing eleven gold coins among four men.” Captain Faraday speculated. He mounted his horse while Green Drake held his reins.
His Lieutenant pulled his horse up next to his. “What are you going to do with the little one, Captain? It is unauthorized.”
“I paid with my own money.”
“Well, now that you have bought her, what are you going to do with her?”
Captain Faraday let his gaze rest on Armistice, his wife’s personal maid, where she sat cradling and crooning to the little girl who was now as silent and bereft as the other children.
“It appears to be decided. It seems providence has delivered the daughter we have prayed for. We shall raise her as our own.”
“You and Mrs. Faraday, you mean.” Lieutenant Carleton said carefully.
“Of course, Mrs. Faraday! Who else would I mean?”
His Lieutenant frowned and shook his head. Captain Faraday chose to ignore it. He pulled around, spurring his mount, not waiting for the others. On the wagon, the lines were taken up and snapped along the backs of the mules by a regular army teamster. The mules threw up their heads and leaned into their collars. As the wagon lurched forward, the children toppled and held on to one another, all except for Abbey, who clung to Armistice and gazed out across the barren landscape, but the boy who had saved her was gone.
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Thank you for reading. I'm seeking feedback on the begining of my book. I welcome all comments. It is the story of a girl and her horse and her mystical journey into adulthood through the lens of the west.