His name was Otto Fitzpatrick and he sat before the fireplace in a rocking chair, a spittoon at his feet, his silver hair in strings around his cavernous face. Had they not known who he was, they would have assumed he was a wild man who lived off the land and ate mostly crows and squirrels. But Otto Fitzpatrick, a trader, had recently come by rail from New York City and brought with him trunks of the latest Parisian men’s fashions, electric lamps, anthropology books on the Native peoples of the American West, good liquor, and trading cards. The cabin was an emporium open only by invite. Pidre hadn’t encountered a trader like him before. Mickey had told him that Otto Fitzpatrick came from a family of Wall Street investors and vast landowners of the American South. “It’s a game to him,” Mickey had said on the wagon ride over. “He’s a competitive son of a gun.”
“Mr. Fitzpatrick, I’ve got a buddy of mine here for you.” Mickey spoke loudly and kneeled on his left leg.
Otto stared into the fire. He spat tobacco at his feet. The sound was like a bullet in rain. “Repeat yourself. I didn’t catch a thing.”
Mickey went to speak again, but Pidre interrupted him. He said in Tiwa, “I hear you have something to show me.”
Otto’s face was unshaven, and as he heard the sounds of Pidre’s mother tongue, he rolled his stubbled cheeks into a type of smile that was portentous yet welcoming. He answered in Tiwa with nearly impeccable pronunciation. “Northern pueblos? A resilient people if I ever encountered some. Who exactly is your clan, son?”
“Pardona,” said Pidre. “I come from the Sleepy Prophet. She raised me up, but before that, they don’t know. I am Winter People.”
Mickey walked toward the fireplace. He swiped his hands across the mantel and knocked over a coyote skull that made a shattering sound against the floor. “You don’t hear me talking Gaelic just cos I can.”
Otto worked his jaw with slow fingers and got to his feet. A smell like leather and cedar filled the room. “Ah, the mick has linguistic talents, too. Well, come with me. I’ll take you out back.”
It was hard to believe such a thing existed. Some twenty yards behind Otto’s cabin was a low trail that disappeared into juniper bushes and came out at a meadow surrounded by red cliffs. In the center of the cliffs, some fifty feet high, a massive alcove gaped in the stone wall like an open, toothless mouth. A cedar tree grew in the center, dressed in sunlight, a blazing luminous cloak. In the span of several minutes the colors of the alcove shifted from scarlet to violet with a burned section of cedar the only indication of neutral color.
“Follow me up,” Otto said, heading toward a wooden ladder at the alcove’s left side. It looked as though it’d snap in a wind gust.
Mickey and Pidre shivered inside the alcove, some twenty degrees cooler. Otto pulled a kerosene lantern from his satchel, illuminating the stone surface with warm light. The sun set as the men walked in deafening echoes throughout the cold space. Moss flourished along the rear wall where water dripped from the mesa above. The cedar tree, the only vegetation apart from the moss, twisted its trunk toward the ceiling light. Pidre smiled at the sight of Venus. The violent planet blinked through a crack in the stone ceiling. The walls were blackened by three-hundred-year-old smoke.
“The ancient ones,” said Pidre, “they lived here and abandoned it.”
“Sometimes it’s best to move on,” said Otto, running his hands along the cool rocks. “Maybe something better was waiting for them elsewhere.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps,” said Pidre.
He watched as more stars appeared, a dazzling quilt of sky. He kicked the base of the cedar. Tiptoed between worn footpaths. Ran his hands over the smoke-stained walls. The air smelled sharp of greenery and dirt, a rich earthen soil, a windy calm. Across the stone ceiling Pidre made out the sight of an ancient one’s handprint, permanent in black smoke. “What do you reckon this space is good for in today’s world, Otto?”
Otto pushed his silver hair away from his face. He raised a bedraggled left hand. He told the men to listen. He gathered air in his lungs and sang out a long and soulful note. Home, home on the range. The notes slipped between rock and cedar and wind for a dozen or more echoes, repeating and playing against the four directions, across the earth, the stars, traveling inside the men’s hearts. “It’s a theater,” said Otto. “And a fine one at that.”
Pidre gripped Mickey’s shoulders, as if to say, Good work, brother. “How much you want?”
Otto kneeled. He picked up a few pebbles, spattering them out of his hand and over the alcove’s edge. “I’d like a good business in here. A place to put Animas on the map. A man who knows how to bring people. My cabin included.”
“Now how much is that in U.S. currency?” Pidre mirrored Otto’s hand movements, plucking pebbles from the earth, tossing them over the ledge.
“One thousand dollars. And I want ten percent of the monthly revenue for the first three years. If those terms are suitable for you,” said Otto, “then I’ll have papers drafted, make it official.”
Pidre didn’t admit to Otto that he couldn’t read any papers, but he was glad to have found a friend, someone who could decipher the written language of white men.
Mickey nodded and spoke up. “And I can help with any fine details.”
Pidre looked to the night sky, where the ancient and cracked face of the Sleepy Prophet appeared in a starry cloud. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was held in a tight sneer. Reaching into his trouser pockets, Pidre found his pipe and tin filled with moist tobacco. He offered a pinch each to Mickey and Otto. All three men stood in the giant and empty alcove smoking under starlight, the sounds of their lighters flickering against the rocks, the echoes of their breath heavy in the sand.
That night, in cold sweats, Pidre saw his theater blooming before him, and he felt the presence of a woman traveling by wagon, somehow, faster than the iron horse.
MEXICAN SHARPSHOOTER’S HUSBAND MET HORRIBLE DEATH
——
Santa Fe, N.M., September 12, 1887. Mexican Sharpshooter Simodecea Salazar-Smith fatally shot husband Wiley Smith in face during Wild West circus, killing him instantly. A caged black bear had gotten loose and charged Mrs. Salazar-Smith during her performance in which she shoots a deck of cards from atop her husband’s head. Mrs. Salazar-Smith is recovering with broken bones in both legs where the black bear mauled her. The animal weighed 250 pounds.
——
Jack Wesley’s Wild West Show came to Animas in late summer. The show bills lined the street poles and horse stables, white banners with red and blue lettering, advertising bear wrestlers, vaqueros, trick riders, sharpshooters, and more. The townspeople didn’t know what to expect from the infamous Jack Wesley show. There were murmurs in the saloons and storefronts—talk of an opening day parade, mentions of historical battle reenactments, the great and embellished drama of how the West was won, or, as Pidre looked at it, lost. He had spent several months anticipating the show’s arrival. The performers had finished a European tour, several stops on the East Coast, rolling inward to those industrial towns like Indianapolis, Detroit, and Kansas City. Mickey first told Pidre about the Wild West shows. There, he explained, Pidre could find performers to fill his amphitheater with their nearly divine talents.