Stallion Gate by Martin Cruz Smith

ladders looked balanced on their own shadows. The pueblo was a maze of dirt road and alleys, outside ovens, corrals and ramadas, homes distinguished one from another by a blue frame on these windows, a green frame on those. The Peña and Reyes houses were at the edge of the pueblo, but an alley ran directly to the plaza and he could see the cottonwood with its tire swings. He watched two boys run across the plaza, climb onto a roof, gather their courage in a breath and jump to a lower roof. He remembered making the same heady leap, and the stirring of husks and chili dust when he landed.
    Santiago. Never mind that he’d spent his adult life in New York and toured the entire country, East Coast, West Coast, Mexico and France. Before the war he’d gone to Paris with Big Chief Russell Moore, a trombone player, a 410-pound Pima from Komatke, Arizona. In the Palais de Sport, Joe knocked the French heavyweight champion three times through the ropes and still lost the decision because the French kept throwing their man back in like an undersized fish. Big Chief had his trombone at the Palais, and every time the crowd threw their fighter back, he played a slow, rising slide. Thatnight Joe and Big Chief drank absinthe from brandy snifters in a cafe—unworried about war because the French had a bigger army than the Germans.
    That was six years ago. Now he’d rolled like a stone back to where he’d started. The funny thing was that the war had freed most of the men in Santiago, drafting them out of their bean fields, and sent back the one man who’d gotten away. The mills of the gods were slow and all fucked up.
    Jazz was liberation. Joe had always been a counterpuncher, and that’s what bebop was all about: hooking off the jab. Charlie Parker claimed to be part Cherokee or Cree. Any dressing room of black musicians was full of would-be Indians. Those were Joe’s Indians.
    As Ben and his friend approached, he sat up to preserve a modicum of respect. Ben’s companion was in dirty coveralls, braids and the white cotton blanket of a Taos elder, but he wasn’t old, just blind, his eyes sunken and shut. Trachoma, Joe thought. Until sulfa, trachoma had been common in the pueblos. No one caught it now except the sort of traditionalist who wouldn’t deign to use Anglo medicine.
    “Spring’s coming, Uncle,” Joe said.
    “Spring’s coming very nicely now.” Ben scowled and did an introduction. His friend’s name was Roberto.
    The three men spoke Tewa. It was the language of a number of the Rio Grande pueblos and was expressive in describing the beauty of the clouds, rain, water, corn. Tewa was also the language of a people who had wandered through the wilderness arguing. No pueblo existedfor long without splitting into two parts that despised or at least suspected each other. Hence, Tewa was a tongue that was rich in phrases and intonations of derision and scorn.
    “Still cold in Taos?”
    “A little cooler.” Roberto’s voice was quizzical, as if he were picking up a new object with it. “You come up to Taos much?”
    Taos thought it was the top of the world, maybe one step below the Hopi, but very close to heaven. It occurred to Joe that what he needed at the start of the day was not a religious fanatic, but a coffee or a cold beer.
    “Haven’t seen you for a long time, Uncle.”
    “Saw you in December. You were hunting.”
    “Ben said the other hunter was hunting you,” Roberto said.
    Joe remembered the escapade with Augustino and the two trappers connected by a rope who had stumbled out of the woods and into the light of the dawn. Ben and a blind man.
    “Thanks, Uncle, I didn’t know who you were. You came through at just the right time.”
    “Thank Roberto, not me. Wasn’t my idea.”
    “He was hunting you?” Roberto asked. “He was crazy?”
    “He was an officer. Smoke?” Joe felt for a pack, but his pocket was still empty.
    “Have one of mine.” Roberto took a thick handrolled cigarette and stuck it