In the Territory: At Rest With the Dead (Patreon)

A fog of exhalation and a breath inhaling bitter cold. A wince in moonlight that glared pitiless from snow. Catalina walked the frozen grass, soft boots crunching. She bore a heavy shovel, had left the cart and its balking mule a quarter-mile down the trail. Scorched timbers jutted where a fine house had stood.

It had been three years and she had come home in a frost that would torment the dead. Years alone in the mountains that rose around the valley like arms embracing. Years hunting and pistol-shooting, gunshots in low rumbles echoing. Learning the tools of death. Drowning tormented screams and shouted laughter in the spark and eruption of smoke. Trading with trappers and wanderers. Once she had given meat and shelter to a sullen old Navajo far from home and he returned with his emaciated and wild-eyed white partner to make her their wife. Their knives glittered in firelight and she shot them both.

Trading in Taos in the spring, furs and skins for lead and powder and vegetables. Catalina Díaz Medina, they would say, have you gone home? Will we trade there again? Even the soldiers came, even the Comanches came in the spring with their slaves, making brothers of strangers and trading useful gifts. No, not home, she would say. There is no home there, only ashes.

At its black heart the ruin lay tumbled and broken over bones. The rovers had thrown all on the same fire. No wolves or coyotes had disturbed them. No animals came of their own instincts to the ranch. Its living spirit of streams and flowers had turned evil.

The rovers were no more, pursued and slain by cavalrymen but too late, always too late. Catalina had come to retrieve the dead and take them to the Taos church. To lay them to rest at last. Terror and misery rose in her heart to greet the cold but she swallowed and told them to go back, told them they could not have her yet, told them it was not time. They could return in her dreams.

The bones were a jumble. She could only guess which belonged to whom. Melchor Díaz Guzmán, her father. Owner of the ranch since his own father had died young, loud in anger, louder in joy, melancholy, proud, the first to die. Martina, her mother. The fastest rider the valley had ever seen, larger in spirit than the mountains all around. Soccorro, her sister, firstborn, a comfort to every creature in need. Victor, her brother, partner to their father even at 15. Timoteo at his prayers. Fortino. Leandro. Tiny Petra. Catalina sang their names softly as she dug and she wept.

Her grandmother had died apart. Luisa Medina Vera. Catalina smiled, wiped sweat from her cold face, left black tracks of mud. Her grandmother had the Sight, everyone agreed. She knew what people were thinking. She knew what was coming. Sometimes. She had fought with Melchor and Martina for days, warned them of disaster coming, wept and raged at them in the night when she thought the children could not hear. When they lost patience she took to her own little house and never came out again.

Catalina sighed and stepped into the ruins. She moved charcoal timbers and stepped back for dust and ash the settle in the dead snow. After a time she saw into the little cellar beneath the broken floor. No bones but a shape crouched on its side, a woman’s body burnt and mummified. Catalina’s heart sank and her eyes ached anew.

Her grandmother’s withering arm stirred.

Catalina held very still. She blinked away the cold.

A ragged voice from the pit hissed. “My girl.”

Catalina coughed out a sob. “Abuelita?”

“I need you. Please.”

Catalina sobbed again, took a sudden breath, coughed again as cold like ice shards tore at her lungs.

The arm dragged the twisted body into moonlight, the dried-up remains of Luisa’s face drawn back from brown teeth that seemed too large and blackened eyes that seemed too small.

“My girl. Please. So cold. Come to me.”

Catalina took a step nearer. She slowly sat on fragile burnt timbers drawn from the pit and gathered her coat. She watched in silence and she wept, remembering.

“You called me Prairie Fire.”

That once-beloved face looked up into hers from only a few feet away. “I did. My little Prairie Fire. The flower. The little red leaves were always your favorite.”

“No.” Catalina laughed. “Because I nearly burned down the house trying to cook when mother was asleep.”

Silence.

Catalina wiped tears, left mud. “You must have been hungry to come here. No one living comes anymore. Not even beasts. Only bugs and the dead to feed you.”

The hideous face stared.

Catalina smiled again through sadness deep as her soul. “It’s all right. I’m not angry. She’s not here anyway, not really, is she?”

“No.” The clawed hand dragged the body an inch further. “Forgive me. So weak. Hiding from the day’s fire. Starving. Nothing in this house of the dead. Only the last guttering spark. Please.”

The night had grown pale. Twilight threatened. No birds sang so near the haunt.

“Come to me.” The hand dragged the body another inch before it fell. “Save me. I fear to fade. To sink into the black. To never again know flesh and its life. Save me. Only a drop is enough. A taste.”

Catalina watched, no smile to ease her sorrow.

The hissing grew louder. “Come to me. I want only life. I offer friendship. My kind can make oaths that can never be broken. Loyalty. Service. Your abuelita living again.”

Catalina watched. The sky lightened.

The dead face twitched. “Come to me, evil one, staring as in triumph. When another comes seeking buried gold I shall feed and stand and come for thee, hunt for thee, feast on thee and all of thine while we two remember this night.”

Catalina watched.

“Come to me! Forgive my threats. My promises. My fear. I want only life and it fades, it fades. Mercy, my Prairie Fire. Mercy.”

Catalina smiled again, sad and tired, lean face aching in the cold. “I have given you mercy. So much more than you deserved.”

“What mercy?”

“I waited.” The sky seemed to brighten to all at once overhead, purest blue.

The voice hissed, weakening. “To watch me die? What mercy is that?”

“I sat with you in your final hour. I did not leave you to die alone. I wish I could have done so much for my own dead.”

A last surge of strength, a hissing of pure fury from brittle lips that had once been soft in kisses. “Loathly virago, may thy trickery sustain thee never. Nor the desires of thy grudging heart in the wastes and the wretched hovels of man.”

Sunlight fell between the low mountains of the east and lit them both, lit the ruins, the snow, the cart and impatient mule, the barren aspen and scrub oak, the juniper and snowy pines. Catalina closed her eyes to the warmth. When she opened them again the corpse of her grandmother was still.

She looked around and saw no home. Only ashes, only memories and the dead. And she prayed that the dead could rest.