After Crossing the River, Three Hundred Horsemen Surrounded Me, but Their Leader’s Face Turned Strangely Pale

When I carried Elena Valdés out of the swollen river, three hundred horsemen were already silently waiting for me on the opposite bank. At that moment I thought for the first time that perhaps both of us might not survive.

It was 1878, northern Sonora. All day the sky had resembled heavy iron, while the Bavispe Valley was saturated with the smell of rain. I, Tomás Salgado, was a thirty-two-year-old shepherd, and I valued my word more than any payment. That was precisely why Don Eusebio Valdés entrusted me with his only daughter.

“You must return her home unharmed, Tomás,” he told me in the morning, nervously closing the lid of his silver watch. “Whatever happens.”

“I will return her, Don Eusebio.”

Elena sat on a sorrel foal and looked at her father as though an old battle between them had not yet ended.

“Father, blaming the entire tribe for the lost livestock is madness.”

“You do not know what is happening on the border.”

“I know that fear is a very convenient weapon.”

Don Eusebio did not answer. He only looked at me. His fingers were gripping the gold watch chain so tightly that the skin had turned white.

On the way Elena talked almost without stopping. She asked me where the old trail ran, which tribes had camps in the mountains, and why people feared everyone whose name or skin was like theirs.

“Not every stranger is an enemy,” I told her.

“Do you say that because you yourself trust no one?”

“On the contrary. Whoever trusts everyone does not last long.”

In the evening the wind suddenly changed direction. Mesquite branches struck against one another, and then the rain began—so strong that water flowed along the horses’ backs like a river. We found the Bavispe bridge destroyed. Below, brown water dragged trees and stones along.

“Let us turn back,” Elena said when her foal frightenedly stepped backward.

I looked at the road. The trail had already disappeared into mud, and darkness was approaching quickly.

“We can no longer turn back.”

“Then what do we do?”

“I will carry you across.”

Elena seized the saddle.

“In this water? In your arms?”

“If the horse falls, I will not be able to get both of us out.”

She looked at me. Raindrops on her hair shone like silver beads. Then she silently wrapped her arms around my neck. I, meanwhile, straightened the small copper medal hanging around my neck beneath my shirt—a thing left by my mother, which I had never taken off for years.

I entered the water. At first it was up to my knees, then to my waist, and finally it reached my chest. In the middle, the current swept my foot away. Elena screamed.

“Tomás!”

“Don’t look at me! Hold my neck tighter!”

My boot caught between two stones. I leaned forward with my whole body and regained my balance. A few seconds later I reached the bank, laid Elena down on the mud, and dropped to my knees.

“We survived,” she exhaled.

But I was listening to the silence.

First one horse appeared among the mesquites. Then ten. Then a squadron. Soon the entire field was filled with horsemen. Steam rose from their horses’ nostrils, but not one of them made a sound.

Elena stood behind me. And I shielded her in front of me.

An old leader slowly came forward. He had silver streaks in his hair, and held an old spear in his hand. A young warrior walked beside him. The old man first looked at my face, then at the copper medal showing from my shirt.

Something changed in his eyes.

The young warrior turned pale, jumped down from his horse, and walked toward me. Elena asked me in a whisper:

“Tomás, why have they seen this medal?”

I could not answer. The young man was already standing before me. He reached his hand toward the medal, but the old man said to him in a stern voice:

“Do not touch it yet. I have been searching for this sign for years.”

Then the leader looked at Elena, pointed toward the river with his finger, and quietly spoke words whose meaning I could not understand. The young man leaned toward me like an interpreter.

“Are you truly Tomás Salgado?”

“Who told you my name?”

The old man urged his horse forward and all three hundred horsemen moved at once. The sound of their hooves shook the earth. I seized Elena by the wrist, but it was already too late to flee. The leader raised his hand and everyone stopped. Then his gaze froze on my medal, while the young warrior took a leather folder from his belt and began to open it…

The folder’s leather had been blackened by the rain. The young warrior looked first at me, then at the old leader.

“Five years ago you found a child in a mountain ravine,” he told me. “Do you remember?”

My stomach clenched. I remembered a snowy morning, a wounded boy, and a copper medal taken from his neck. Then I gave the child water, put him on a horse, and took him away from the enemy. I knew nothing more.

“Were you that child?” I asked.

The young man nodded.

“I am Naya. And this is my father, Leader Arona.”

Elena held her breath.

“If you came to say thank you, why are we surrounded?”

Arona spoke for the first time. Naya translated what he said.

“I thanked you years ago. Today we were waiting for you for another reason.”

“For what reason?”

The leader pointed to the folder.

“There is a trail of the livestock stolen from your hacienda. But the thieves are not those whom your uncle is gathering people against.”

Elena’s face tensed.

“Leandro?”

Naya did not answer. He opened the folder, but the wind snatched the papers inside from his hand. One sheet fell into the mud. Our family’s mark was visible on it.

At that same moment, a gunshot rang out from the other side of the valley. The horsemen grabbed their weapons. Arona moved in front of me.

“Now you must decide whom you will protect, Tomás,” Naya said. “Your father’s daughter or the truth that intends to kill you both…”

After the shot the entire field came alive in an instant. The horses began snorting, bows rose, and Elena clung to my arm so tightly that her fingernails dug into my skin.

“Are the bullets coming toward us?” she asked.

“Not yet. But they may come soon.”

Arona raised his hand and ordered his people to stop. Naya picked up the sheet from the mud. Its corner was torn, but the seal was clearly visible—the Valdés livestock mark.

“Where did you get this?” I asked.

“From the cave where your lost livestock was kept,” Naya answered. “We found one more thing there.”

He took a small wooden board from the leather folder. Signs that livestock herders used had been carved into it with an iron hammer. I recognized them immediately. I had seen these signs in Leandro’s personal records.

Elena stepped forward.

“Does my father’s brother want to blame the Apaches?”

Arona said something to Naya. The young warrior turned the board over in his hands.

“Not only blame them. He wants war. In the chaos your father will lose everything, and Leandro will seize the warehouses and the lands.”

“Is this the evidence?” I asked.

“No. This is only the beginning.”

Naya took a folded letter from the folder. The Valdés seal was on the paper, but the handwriting was not Leandro’s. The letter said that the stolen livestock was to be moved to the old riverside warehouse, and that people were to be prepared for this precisely that night.

Elena read the letter and her lips trembled.

“Does Father know?”

“No,” I said. “If he knew, he would not have sent us here alone.”

The old leader Arona stopped before me. He placed a finger on my copper medal. Naya slowly conveyed his words.

“This medal was on my son’s neck when you first found him. Then you gave him life. Today I trust your word.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Come with us. We will show you the warehouse. And you tell your own people who started all this.”

“If I return to the hacienda now, Leandro will realize that we know everything.”

“That is precisely why you will not return alone,” Naya said.

At that moment three horsemen appeared on the valley trail. Leandro’s man was coming in front of them. From a distance he shouted:

“Tomás! Don Eusebio orders you to return the woman immediately!”

Elena looked toward me.

“That is not Father’s order.”

For the first time I heard not fear in her voice, but certainty.

The old leader took the folder from Naya. He very carefully unfolded the last paper remaining inside. It was a map on which the hacienda warehouse and an underground passage were marked.

“We will enter there tonight,” Naya said. “But before that we must find one man.”

“Who?”

Naya looked at the name written in the corner of the map, and his face changed.

“Your father, Don Eusebio, is already a prisoner. And Leandro knows that you will find this out…”