Prologue

Dragoon Mountains, Arizona Territory, 1867

The young ranger had been riding since sunup. The Dragoon Mountains stood tall and jagged against the eastern horizon, their shadows sprawled across the desert floor. It was lonely country, the kind where a man could ride all day and never see another soul. He was following a trail that had carried him nearly four days past the line where his Ranger commission meant anything at all. The man he tracked was wanted for robbery and murder. The outlaw was legendary in most parts, going by different names in his lifetime. Men like that usually did. Elias wasn’t interested in names, though. His only concern was capturing him.

Reining his horse atop a rocky rise, he looked down into the wash below. What he saw shook him to his core. Even from that distance, he could make it out. Dead horses. Dead men. Elias pulled out his Winchester from the saddle scabbard and rode down carefully.

The smell reached him first. Blood. Then he saw the bodies. Apache. Ten of them, maybe more. Mostly young and old. And among them lay the man he’d ridden three hundred miles to find.

Elias dismounted and made his way through the carnage, crouching beside the body of the outlaw who had killed and stolen his way across Texas. He pressed two fingers against the man’s neck. Nothing. Elias stood up. The hunt was finished. The reward was his to collect, if he ever rode back to collect it.

He exhaled once through his nose, trying to get the smell out, then turned away. That was when he heard it. A sound too faint to belong to the wind. Not a voice. Not quite a breath. Something between the two. Near the edge of the wash, half-hidden in the brittle grass, an old Apache lay on his side. Arrows jutted from his body at uneven angles. Blood had already begun to darken into the earth beneath him. He was still alive. Barely. Elias knelt beside him without speaking. He uncorked his canteen and lifted the man’s head, letting water touch his cracked lips. The Apache sipped what little water he could and coughed hard, blood appearing at the corner of his mouth. His eyes opened for a moment, trying to focus on Elias, but they wandered as if he were already looking beyond him.

When the Apache finally spoke, it was one word. “Ishkiin.” His hand lifted with effort and pointed east, past Elias, toward the badlands of the New Mexico Territory. His arm dropped to his side. His chest rose once, then settled. Elias waited, but there was no second breath. The old man was gone. He remained where he was for a long moment, staring at the dead warrior and wondering what had happened there.

Finally, he rose. He looked toward Texas out of habit more than intent. The work he had come to do was finished. There was no reason to stay. Every reason he could name told him to go back—back to a commission that ended at a line he’d already crossed, back to a captain who would want to know why a Ranger had ridden three hundred miles outside his authority to finish another man’s warrant. He did not move.

The air shifted. Not with wind. With presence. The smell came sudden and strange. Incense. Not sage. Not mesquite smoke. Incense. As if a priest had just finished saying Mass in the middle of the Arizona desert. He looked around, then stopped. The air had gone cold around him and left as quickly as it appeared. He turned slowly toward the east. Nothing had changed. And yet, nothing was the same.

He mounted his horse. The horse shifted beneath him, it too sensing what was there. Elias rested a hand on the saddle horn while the other stroked its mane.. Behind him lay the body of the outlaw, and behind that, a badge that had never once asked him to look past his own jurisdiction. Ahead lay Texas and the return to order. Between them stretched nothing but open country and unanswered direction. He looked east for a long time.

“Ishkiin,” he said aloud quietly. “Alright. Let’s see what that means.”

He nudged his horse forward. As they rode, the scent of incense lingered behind him—fading slowly, as though something unseen had paused just long enough to make sure he was following.

He did not go back to Texas that season, or the next.

Chapter One

I - I

“Santa Maria! Is that you, Elias?”

Elias reined in his horse at the edge of the plaza and looked for the voice. It took him a moment to place the face under the gray beard, mustache, and wrinkles—Tomás Baca. He worked cattle alongside him and his father back on Richard King’s ranch. He’d also ridden west with Elias’s parents when they took a small herd of King’s cattle to Chamberino, New Mexico Territory. It was the same day that Elias rode south to Brownsville to join the Texas Rangers.

“Hello, Tomás.”

“Elias Robichaux,” Tomás said slowly, as if he still wasn’t sure if that was truly him or not. He came off the boardwalk in front of the mercantile, a wide grin that made the years on his face fade for a moment. “Sixteen years. And here you sit in the saddle as if it were last spring. I never thought that I’d see you again, muchacho, not after you headed to Brownsville.”

“Didn’t figure I ever would either,” Elias said, knowing that much was true. Elias had never ridden this road, never seen this valley, in all the years since his parents drove that herd out of Texas without him. He’d come close during the time he tracked the outlaw into Arizona in 67, but he purposely avoided the area, avoided his parents. He kept in contact with them, mostly through letters. He heard about Chamberino and the Mesilla Valley, but never saw them until today. The day he was searching for his latest bounty.

“Do your parents know you are here?”

“Not yet.”

“Not yet? Sixteen years and not yet! Muchaco, your mama is going to tan your hide, and your papa is going to let her. Not yet, carrajo.”

Elias almost smiled at that. He forgot what it was like being known simply as Elias Robichaux, Etienne and Rosa’s boy, and not some stranger with a badge, or now, a bounty hunter. Sixteen years of being the second thing and none of the first.

“You’re here for something,” Tomás said. It was more statement than question. Most men didn’t turn up after sixteen years just to visit. “Or, somebody.” He finished.

“Somebody,” Elias said. Not offering any more information than that.

“The valley is a big place. Many places to hide.” Tomás said. “Not that it’s any of my business.”

“I’m looking for a man wanted for murder,” Elias said as he shifted in his saddle.

“Well, whoever he is, I’m sure that he will be here tomorrow as well. Like I said. The valley is a big place. You should go see your parents first.”

Elias meant to agree with him, when the wind blew off the plaza, carrying woodsmoke, roasting chiles, horse sweat, and underneath it all, so faint he nearly mistook it for a memory, a trace of incense, followed by a sudden chill. He went still.

Tomás was still talking—something about how long the ride down to Chamberino took—but Elias had stopped listening. The scent, the chill, the feeling had been the same as it was in the Dragoon Mountains eight years before, the same as it had been a dozen times since, on trails that led nowhere good. It had followed him into this valley the same way it followed him everywhere else. Or had it been waiting here all along, patiently, he thought to himself.

“Elias?”

“I’m listening,” he said, even though he wasn’t, not entirely. He looked over at Tomás again and made his voice come out even. “I’ll head over to Chamberino as soon as I can.”

“Bueno, muchacho. This is my tienda,” he said, pointing behind him. “If there is anything I can help you with, let me know.”

Elias extended his hand to Tomás. “It was good to see you again, Tomás.”

With that, he began to ride south, slowly, still catching traces of incense here and there as he rode away.

I - II

Elias could tell he was getting close. Off in the distance, he could hear his father’s voice spouting choice expletives in French to somebody or something. He rode up from the rear of the house where he heard his father and saw him yelling at a mule. “Couyon! Get moving!”

“Je peux-tu t'aider, Pa?"

“Elias?” Etienne asked, crossing himself as he turned and saw him. He ran over towards the horse and pulled Elias off, giving him a huge embrace. “Elias, my boy.” He said with a smile and tears of joy rolling down his face. “Mama. Come and see who’s here!” he continued, overfilled with excitement.

Rosa came out of the house. “Mijo! Is it really you?”

“Hola, Mama,” he said, with tears rolling down his face as he embraced her.

They smelled the same. They always had. Etienne of pipe tobacco, sweat, and dirt. Rosa of woodsmoke, yerba buena, and something underneath both he’d never had a name for, only ever as Mama. He held onto his mother longer than he meant to, long enough that she noticed, long enough that some part of him was doing arithmetic he didn't want to do — how many men who looked like her, Mexicans, he had ridden down in the name of a badge, how many mothers just like her had stood in doorways just like this one and never gotten the chance to ask if it was really their son coming home. He pushed the thought down before it could reach his face, the way he'd learned to push down worse things than that, and when he finally pulled back, he made himself smile instead.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were coming? We could’ve got things prepared for you to stay. Let me get…”

“Tranquilo, Mama. No need to worry or fuss over me.”

She looked at him a moment too long, the way mothers do when they’ve decided not to say the thing they were thinking. Whatever she saw in his face, she let go of it for now.

“We need to celebrate!” Etienne said. “Javier! Javier!” he called out to one of his ranch hands. “Go kill one of the young steers. Our hijo is back.” He said proudly as he gave the order.

“There’s no need for all the fuss, Papa,” Elias said.

“No need? Bleh. You go inside with your mama and help her. I’ll put your horse away and bring in your bags and rifle in a few. Go on now,” he said as he walked Elias’s horse over to the stables.

Elias followed his mother into the house. Once inside, Elias could smell the smells of his childhood. Familiar foods cooking, familiar herbs and ointments his mother created.

“Siéntate, mijo. Here. Have some coffee,” she said as she poured him a cup.

He looked around the kitchen. And even though it wasn’t Texas and he was no longer a boy, there was a part of it that felt familiar.

He took a drink of his coffee. Even the taste of the coffee took him back. He smacked his lips and asked, “Is that piloncillo?”

“Of course. It isn’t Mama’s coffee without it,” she said.

Etienne came in and set Elias’s belongings next to a chair in the living area. He came and sat next to Elias in the kitchen.

“It sure is good to see you, boy,” he said, staring at him in amazement at how much of a man he looked like and not the boy he last saw. “How long has it been? Five, Ten, years?”

Elias dropped his head in shame. “Sixteen,” he said in a low voice, barely audible.

“Sixteen, huh? I didn’t realize we’d been here that long. Did you, Mama?”

Rosa came over and poured Etienne a cup of coffee and topped off Elias’s cup.

“Yes. I do know how long we’ve been here,” she said in a calm manner so as not to further offend Elias.

But the guilt was already there, festering away like an old wound that wouldn’t heal.

“Mama, I…I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, mijo,” she said, interrupting him before he could finish explaining himself. “There will be plenty of time to talk later.”

Etienne, never being at a loss for words and slow to take Rosa’s hint, proceeded, “So what brought you here after all this time?”

Rosa shot him a stare that was like daggers being thrown at him. “Cabron,” she said under her breath.

Elias looked at her. “That’s okay, Mama. I was just about to tell you all. About a month ago I received a telegram from the sheriff in Corpus Christi.”

“That far away, huh?” said Etienne.

Rosa glared at him again. “Shh! Let him finish talking.”

“The telegram asked for me specifically. The sheriff said I knew the outlaw. He said that the man rode with the King Ranch when we lived there. If he did, the name didn’t sound familiar.”

“What’s his name?” asked Etienne, Rosa looking over at him sternly again. “What? I want to know.” He said.

“Elisio Chanez. They say he killed a couple of Mexican ranchers from Cruillas.” He paused, seeing a look on his parents’ faces that affirmed they recognized the name.

“Chato,” Etienne said coldly. A strong look of anger came across his face.

“Sounds like someone you remember pretty well,” Elias said.

“Yes,” Rosa answered with a long pause in between. “We know who he is.” She continued. She too had a look of disgust on her face as she said it.

“Does that sound like him? I mean, a killer?” Elias asked.

“I wouldn’t put it past him, son. That man was evil. I always told Mr. King he should fire that man. He was trouble. I hope you do find him…and kill him!” he said, slamming his fist on the table.

“Et!” Rosa said, surprised by Etienne’s outburst.

“He’s no good, Rose!” Etienne protested as he stood up in frustration.

“I know, but vengeance is not ours,” she said calmly, but still with hesitation.

“Sounds like there’s a story behind him,” Elias said.

“Yes, there is, but we have a dinner to get ready, and you look tired, mijo. Why don’t you go into our room and take a nap?” she said, pointing toward the direction of the room. “We’ll wake you when dinner is ready.”

“That’s a good idea, mama. You do look tired, son. Go sleep a bit, and we will come get you later.”

The thought of a nap in a real bed sounded good to Elias. He’d been sleeping out in the brush over the past few weeks looking for the outlaw.

“Maybe I will. I could use some rest.” He said.

Elias went to the room, removed his clothes, and carefully placed them on the ground so as not to get the bed dirty. As he lay down on the bed, he glanced over and saw a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe on his parents’ chest of drawers. A small candle was burning beside it. A thought crossed his mind. He remembered how his mother would tell him, as a boy, that whenever he smelled incense, it was the Virgen letting him know she was watching over him. That worked as a boy, but not as the man he was now. Still, he smiled, then drifted off to sleep.

I - III

Elias woke up to the smells of roasted corn, chiles, and beef. He pushed himself out of bed and got dressed. He headed into the kitchen, where he saw his parents preparing dinner.

“I’m sorry, jefitos. I must’ve been more tired than I thought.”

“You were, mijo,” said Rosa. “We could see it in the way you carried yourself.”

“Yes. And now you look refreshed,” said Etienne. “You can help us now by making some salsa. You do remember how to make it, right?”

“Of course, Papa. I remember,” he said with a smile on his face.

Elias felt more at ease, more relaxed suddenly, and was happy to be there with his parents. Even though it was a new house, he knew that home was where they were.

He cut up the chiles and tomatoes, and then added some salt and spices. Then he helped his parents set the table and bring the food out. The three of them sat down, and it brought back memories of Texas to Elias.

Etienne led the family in grace. “Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ Our Lord. Amen.”

“Amen,” they replied, crossing themselves afterward.

They enjoyed the bountiful meal before them. There was small talk here and there, mostly between Etienne and Rosa, but for the most part, they were eating and enjoying the moment that had taken sixteen years to get there.

When they finished their meals, Rosa brought out a couple of extra plates and set them on the table for the ranch hands to have their dinner.

“Et, go fetch Javier and Ramon. Let them know their food is on the table.”

“Ok, Mama,” Etienne said as he grabbed his smoking pipe and headed out the door.

“Is there anything that I can help with, Mama?” Elias asked.

“You can clean the platos,” she said, pointing at the dishes and smiling.

“Yes, Mama,” he said reluctantly, then laughed.

Etienne came back with the men and led them to the table. They sat to eat, and Etienne went to help in the kitchen. “They sure are hungry. They tore into that beef right away.” He said.

“Mijo, take them these tortillas, will you?

Elias finished the last plate he was cleaning and set it down. He grabbed the plate of tortillas wrapped in a cloth and took them to the men at the table.

“Here’s some tortillas for you all.”

“Gracias,” said Javier.

But as Ramon looked at Elias, a look of dread came across his face, as if he saw a ghost. “You! You’re El Cobrador de las Nueces!” he said, stuttering with fear.

“What’s he talking about?” asked Javier.

“Estas loco. ¡Lárgate de aquí! Cabron!” Elias said angrily, looking at Ramon.

Ramon stumbled out of his seat as he made a rush toward the door. Javier stared at him as he left. He stood up to go after him, looking at Elias first, then exiting the house, leaving Elias standing alone by the dining table.

“What did he mean by El Cobrador de las Nueces?” his mother asked.

“He’s crazy. I don’t know who he is or what he’s talking about,” Elias said resolutely.

His mother looked at him, knowing that he was not telling her the truth. But she didn’t let on.

As he walked back into the kitchen, his emotions seemed to get the better of him. He sat down and broke down crying.

“I had orders. I told myself I had orders.” He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “I was so sure. God help me, I was so sure.”

His parents could tell he was moving through something from his past, some place they couldn't follow him into, and didn't interrupt him as he spoke.

“There wasn't supposed to be a question about it. Not then. Not for years." He shook his head, like he was arguing with somebody who wasn't there. "I don't know anymore. I don't know if I was right." He stopped. He sobbed profusely and inconsolably. “I was following orders,” he said again, quieter now, as if saying it enough times might finally make it true.

Etienne walked over to him and placed his hand on Elias’s shoulder. “You came home—that’s something, boy.” And then he left to check the kitchen, then the house to check on the men.

Rosa pulled a chair in front of Elias, sat, and grabbed his hands, which were trembling.

“Mijo. You have been carrying this alone before God for a long time, whether you meant it or not.” She wiped the tears from his face with her hands and straightened his hair. “Look at me. It is time for you to stop carrying this alone.”

She continued, patting his hand with hers. She got up and walked over to her room to grab something. She placed it in his hands. “Take this. It is the rosary your abuela gave me. She used to tell me, ‘Go cry to your mother in heaven, and she will help you.’ It sounded mean, but I know what she meant. You pray it tonight and ask Nuestra Señora to help you. Mañana, I want you to go pay a visit to Padre Ignacio in Mesilla. Let him know who you are and that you need confession.”

Elias looked up at his mother. “I’m sorry, Mama.”

“I’ve known Padre Ignacio for a long time now. He will hear your sins, and he will help you through this so you don’t have to carry it alone anymore.”