Heaven Is a Long Way Off Read Free

forward.
    Francisco tagged along. It was like Sam had two pets, Coy and the Mojave interpreter.
    â€œWhat you want, Sam?” she said with a gleam in her eyes.
    So she was turning it into a flirtation. Spark was no one’s idea of a romantic figure. She looked a bride’s well-used older sister. Her face was a little mashed, her bare breasts were narrow and pointy, and she now sported the Mojave look—a tattooed chin. Five parallel lines curved from her mouth to under her jawbone, with some sideways squiggles. The Shoshone woman had declared herself Mojave.
    â€œJust to say hello.” He squatted. So did Francisco and Coy, and after a moment Spark. She had decent English from her three months with the brigade last summer and fall.
    He broke a slab of dried meat into three pieces length-wise, gave one each to Spark and Francisco, and ate. Meat of any kind was a treat for the Mojaves.
    â€œThought you might want news of Gideon.”
    She gave a flirty wiggle of her eyebrows.
    He was tickled, thinking, It’s not going to work, lady.
    They looked at each other, munching, waiting. He decided to change the subject to her new man.
    â€œHow is Red Shirt?”
    â€œHe is good man. Big man.” Sam wondered how many wives he had. With the Mojaves’ fields of crops, at least Spark wouldn’t go hungry.
    Sam nodded to himself. Out with it. “You broke Gideon’s heart.”
    â€œI am woman. Put man’s moccasins outside lodge when I want.”
    Sam stared at her, thinking, You barely let his moccasins inside.
    She’d been a slave in the Ute camp at Utah Lake when they found her. Jedediah bought her, and as the brigade journeyed south, she and Gideon fell in love. Or so everyone thought, and Gideon thought. They’d shared a lodge for a couple of weeks—married, in the fashion of the country.
    Then, when the brigade started west across the Mojave Desert, she slipped off and joined Red Shirt’s family.
    First Gideon had nearly lost his life. Did lose his leg. And then the one-legged man lost his new wife. He dived into despair.
    â€œHe’s doing well now,” Sam said.
    She concentrated on the meat, which took a lot of chewing.
    â€œHe became an artist in California.” He realized she wouldn’t know what “artist” meant, and probably didn’t care either. “He makes very beautiful earrings and necklaces from gold and silver and turquoise and shells.” That should impress her.
    She looked at him proudly. “I make baby.”
    She didn’t have a child on a blanket or a cradle on her back. Then Sam realized. The stiff bark of Mojave women’s skirts always stuck out behind, a little comically. Spark’s also stuck out in front. Her belly was bulging.
    The name came like a pang. Esperanza …
    Sam tried to remember. Was Spark with Gideon’s child, or Red Shirt’s? Did it matter?
    She looked at him with huge satisfaction.
    â€œYou broke his heart,” he said.
    She waited a moment and said, “Thank you for the meat. Now I weed the pumpkins.” She got up and walked away.
    Sam and Francisco ambled back toward the trapper campground.
    Francisco said in Spanish, “See Captain Smith?”
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    S AM THOUGHT F RANCISCO just wanted to cadge a present of some kind, but he had something else in mind. He sipped his hot coffee, grimaced, and said, “¿No dulce?”
    Sam answered that the party had no sugar.
    Between small sips of hot coffee Francisco slowly informed them that this past winter a band of Mexicans (Spaniards, he called them) and Americans had come from Nuevo Mexico down the Gila River and up the Colorado to these very villages.
    Sam and Jedediah looked at each other. They had been first into this country, but not by much. Trapping brigades were heading west out of Taos and Santa Fe, they knew that, but they didn’t know any had come this far.
    â€œFind out if they crossed to