Salomon (Part One) by David Xavier

Author:David Xavier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: adventure, literary, historical, western, revenge and redemption, western california, adventure 1860s, adventure action historical, western action adventure

He spent a full week mending fence and hinge, and he rode in sunrise and sunset across his land, studying ground and horizon for sign of rider. There was none. He skirted the creekbanks and found the remains of an old fire, kicked and scattered, the coal powdered white and papered under the huge prairie moon. He squatted over the water and looked through to the sand below, swept clean and bare. Flecks of white peered back at him from the blackness. The view from the top of the nearest hogback showed a land without visitors on all sides.

He shoved his pistola in his waistband, and left Juana with his rifle and the promise of a quick return. In men’s thoughts wars are uncomplicated. And women believe them. There are no screens, or none that work, that a man can hide behind. He told her he would return shortly and she could see in his eyes it was true. In women’s minds men are the decent or vile pictures that men set before them.

Juana watched her husband grow small in the saddle. Several times Salomon looked back, and each time Juana was there with hands clasped at her chin, until he looked one last time and he could see only the outline of the little hacienda low to the ground, sinking beneath the rising curve of his land.

Day and night he rode, retracing the cattle drive to the Mission San Fernando. When he arrived, the cattle had been halved and driven elsewhere, but the remaining herd idled about the wallshade or dragged their hooves toward it. Indian children still stood with their arms dangling through the fence. The mission was empty of soldiers apart from posted guards who picked at the mission walls in boredom or tossed their legs in front of them in slow, aimless steps. A priest stood in the yard, reading to a small group of neophytes. They sat expressionless under colored quilts and serapes, some of them looking with black eyes across the yard to Salomon.

One of the guards asked him, “You are his brother?”

“Cousin.”

“I remember you here.” The guard set his rifle butt on the ground, lifted his hat and ran a hand over his head, then set his hat back. He touched it around the edges, fitting it just so. “He led his regiment south. The Lancers Los Galgos. Are you a horseman?”

Salomon looked at him. “I ride a horse.”

“The capitán’s lancers are some of the finest horsemen in the country. In the world. He has made them so.” He looked Salomon down and up. He sucked his teeth.

“I am not joining his lancers. I am to be his scout.”

The guard smiled.

“He wants me to scout ahead for him,” Salomon said. “When the war comes.”

“The war is already here,” the guard said.

Salomon looked at the guard, then looked out into the dust and sun. “I know.”

“You are not a soldier. You are not a soldier, and you are not a lancer.”

“I told you, I’m a scout.

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