Chapter 17: Taos

I took the train the following Monday to Santa Fe with the four pieces of physical evidence -- the paper knife, both shoes, and the revolver -- as well as two affidavits. The Reverend Eldon Fletcher had attested to the collection and specific identification of the items. In addition, I carried a sworn, notarized statement from Edward Stillwell to the effect that he could no longer be certain as to the identity of the man he had seen on the night of March nineteenth leaving the offices of Stillwell Brothers Home & Farm Supply and that, upon reflection, he felt confident that it had not been Hector Guerrero. I left everything with Mister Dahl. He assured mt it would remain locked in his safe.

I returned to Taos on Wednesday carrying a warrant for Julio Navarra, who had killed a licensed sutler, an Anglo, on the new Mescalero Apache Reservation near Tularosa, in southern New Mexico. Navarra was thought to be with his father in the mining camp of Red River, near Elizabethtown, in the mountains northeast of Taos. Their home was reportedly in Jaroso, a village a few miles north of the Colorado state line.

“I have heard they are both up there,” Mannie said, “both Julio and his father, Fernan.” He was shuffling through the reward notices and he pulled out two sheets, which he placed on the corner of his desk, giving them a satisfied pat. “They are each worth one hundred dollar rewards from the Northern New Mexico Livestock Breeders Association.” He smiled at me.

I frowned. “I’m onto your game, Mannie. I know that you are pleased with yourself when you look at my empty desk chair and know that the marshal’s service is paying a full month’s rent even though I’m hardly ever here.”

“And too often at that,” Mannie said.

“Don’t you believe him, Judah.” Alberto Carnicero, the jail warden, was sitting at the desk next to the jail door. “Just yesterday he said he was looking forward to you being back in town.”

Mannie said to him, “I believe you misheard me, Alberto. What I said was that I had been glad to see the back of him.”

I laughed and turned my small desk around, then sat down with my back to him. “Now you can see the back of me all the time.”

The trails were dry and there were only a few patches of snow visible on the north side of the higher peaks. The Red River, which the trail followed, looked unusually muddy to my fisherman’s eyes. I realized it was probably the result of the mining. I wanted to get the lay of the land in Red River before I sought my quarry.

I’d never been in a mining camp before. Mannie had warned me that it could be pretty wild. He even suggested that I put my marshal’s star in my pocket until I had a feel for what’s what, or, as he said it, “until I had an appreciation of the situation.” The man was talking fancier and fancier English all the time. Even so, I took his advice.

Indeed, Red River reminded me of a battlefield the day after the battle. Where the trail had been dry, the “streets” in Red River were veritable stream beds. Apparently many miners diverted river water to their purposes of placer mining and gave no care to where it was channeled after they used it. There was really only one street, but it twisted and curved through the canyon and was lined with tents and shacks, wagons of every variety, tarpaulin-shaded platforms, and hand carts, all offering one kind of business or another, from hardware to soft women, butchers to barbers, gambling halls to opium dens. It was like a sideshow bought piecemeal at a rummage sale.

And the prices! A dollar for a haircut. Sixty cents for a loaf of bread. Twenty cents for a can of beans, never mind that a can of peaches was fifty-five cents. Incredible. I’d seen price gouging before. It had happened in Atlanta when we occupied it, but never to this degree.

Inside one tent I thought I spied a blackjack game. I was carrying nearly forty dollars and I decided to give it a whirl. Besides, I had to start my search somewhere.

The blackjack game was in a large wall tent. Except for the gaming tables, which were on low, rough-cut lumber platforms, the rest of the covered area was rock and mud, including in front of the bar, which consisted of lumber planks on top of beer barrels. There was a low wood platform for the barkeeps to stand on.

The blackjack dealer had seven players crowded together at his half-round table. The chairs were full and another man was waiting. The smell in the air was wet wool, sweat, vomit, and beer. There was the noisy hubbub of men, many of them drunk, talking and calling to one another in loud voices.

I watched the card play, until I was relatively confident the playing deck contained all fifty-two cards. And I watched the dealer shuffle and deal the cards. Nothing irregular caught my eye.

One of the players pushed his chair back, saying, “‘Nuff for me. I need to save s’ money fer to buy some vittles.”

The man next to him looked at him and said, “Yeah, I’ve had my fill at this table. Reckon I’ll go with you.”

“Good thing, Tobias, ‘cause it’s your turn to cook.” The two stumbled off, supporting one another with one arm over the other’s shoulder.

The dealer said, “Siddown if you’re playin’ gents. Nothin’ fancy, straight hands, play one hand at a time. Minimum bet’s two bits, max is five bucks. D’you need any change?”

The minimum was pretty stiff, but I traded an eagle gold piece for three silver dollars, six halves, and sixteen quarters.

Most of an hour later I asked the table, “Any of you men know where I can find Fernan Navarra? They told me he was up here.”

The man on the end said, “Him an’ his boy are down at the end a’ town, butcherin’ an’ sellin’ the beef cows they drove up here, chargin’ a buck an’ a quarter a pound, if you can believe it.”

I remembered passing the sign, except it said a dollar fifty. I said, “Yeah. That’s a deal I want to get in on.”

The dealer growled at me, “Are you playin’ cards or sewin’ quilts?”

I pushed back. “Reckon’ I’ve got business. Thanks for the game, fellas.”

As I stood, the dealer said, “Don’t come back, mister, I don’t like the way you play.”

One of the other players, a man who’d been betting poorly, said, “S’matter? Don’t like the taste a’ your own medicine?” He pushed back, too, and stood up, then turned and walked off.

I pocketed my winnings, fifty-three dollars and twenty five cents, but flipped the quarter to the dealer. “Thanks for an honest game,” I called, then turned and left.

Back when I was with the Forty-fourth, Digger had noticed that I was pretty quick with figuring numbers in my head. He taught me a method of keeping track of the cards played during blackjack, and he and I would join some of the games that followed the camps. We’d take turns winning, signaling one another by how we asked for the next card. The trick was less noticeable with two than when playing on your own.

While I was more than happy for the money, I’d mostly needed that game so that the others would get used to me before I asked about Fernan. I had also purposely asked about the father, rather than the man for whom I had an official warrant, just to disguise my purpose a bit more.

I walked back down the street, to the butcher’s pen that was right across from where I’d left Pasa, at a corral maintained by two armed men. It was costing two bits an hour, but they gave me a numbered chit that matched a tag they tied to Pasa’s bridle.

There was no one at the butcher stall and nothing in the pen but bones and offal.

I walked over to the corral and asked one of the guards, “What happened to the butchers?”

“They went for more cows. Said they’d be back in the morning.”

“When’d they leave?”

“Maybe a half hour ago.”

“Both of ‘em?”

“Yeah. They’re a coupl’a Mexes, a kid and an’ his ol’ man.”

“Well, guess I’ll take my horse.” I handed him the chit. I pointed. “It’s that chestnut mare over there.”

“Be fifty cents,” he said.