©2025 Robert Lee Murphy
“Riders coming, Mr. Carson!” I shouted.
I had come around to the front of the cabin to fetch a pail of water from the well when I noticed a cloud of dust approaching from the north. I could not see any riders because they were obscured behind a low ridge. Kit Carson would know instinctively how many there were beneath that dust cloud. My sixteen years had not produced such expertise.
Carson and Dick Owens came around from where they had been building a corral and joined me in what they facetiously called the front yard. Carson and his friend had erected adjoining adobe huts where they were attempting to start ranching on property they had recently purchased from Lucien Maxwell in Rayado, New Mexico, on the Little Cimarron River.
Although I wasn’t fluent in Spanish, I had learned that rayado meant “streaked.” Maxwell had apparently scratched lines in the soil to mark out lots he planned to sell on the Beaubien-Miranda Land Grant he’d inherited when he married Luz Beaubien. Maxwell had dreams of turning what was now a wide spot in the trail into a thriving community fifty miles east of Taos at the intersection of the Santa Fe Trail and the Cimarron Cut-off.
“One rider,” Carson said in his typically soft voice.
Owens nodded agreement.
Sure enough, one rider trotted his horse over the ridge and headed straight for us.
“Davy,” Carson said in his usual soft voice, “tell Chipeta to stay inside ‘til we learn who’s coming. Fetch me my rifle.”
“Yes, sir.”
His wife’s name was Josefa, but Kit often called her Chipeta, which meant “singing bird.” I entered the adobe hut through the single front door.
“Josepha,” I said.
She was stirring something in a pot suspended from andirons above the corner fireplace. “Si, Señor David?” Her tall, slender form straightened as she faced me and smiled. For some reason, she delighted in calling me “señor” even though I was a year younger than her. My breathing faltered every time her lustrous black eyes flashed at me. She brushed waves of raven-black hair off her shoulder. Her tresses tumbled to her waist behind her.
“There’s a rider coming. Mr. Carson says to stay inside until he identifies who it is.”
Josepha wiped her hands on her apron and went to the single un-shuttered window so she could observe the front yard.
I lifted Kit’s Hawken rifle, his powder horn, and his bullet pouch from wall pegs near the fireplace and took them outside.
Carson slung the horn and the pouch over his head and shoulder and commenced to load the rifle. He could measure powder, seat a ball, and cut a patch faster than anyone I’d ever seen. He rammed the load down the barrel then cradled the weapon in the crook of his left arm.
I stood on one side of Mr. Carson while Mr. Owens stood on the other. I could look over the top of Mr. Carson’s head directly into Mr. Owens’s eyes. Kit Carson only stood five feet, six inches, but he exuded the bearing of a larger individual.
A few minutes later, the rider reined in before us.
“Afternoon, gents,” the rider said. “I’m looking for Kit Carson, and I believe from the description I was given, I have found him. True?”
“True,” Carson said.
The rider reached behind him and withdrew a packet from his saddlebags. “Dispatch from Captain John Frémont at Bent’s Fort.” He handed the item to Carson.
“Cap’n Frémont now, is it?” Carson asked.
“He is,” the rider answered.
Carson ran his thumb beneath a wax seal and unfolded the sheet of paper. Without looking aside, he handed the page to me. “What’s it say?”
Dick Owens may have been able to read the letter. I wasn’t sure. Kit Carson could neither read nor write. I read the short message.
Bent’s Fort, Aug. 3, 1845
My dear Sir,
When last we parted you agreed to serve as guide on any future expedition I might undertake. I am now assembling such at this location on the Arkansas River. If you are available, please come at once.
I am, very truly yours,
J. C. Frémont
Bvt. Capt. Topographical Engineers
I refolded the sheet and handed it back to Mr. Carson.
Carson looked up at the rider who had remained mounted. “Tell the cap’n I’ll come. I must first see to my wife and this property.”
“The captain will be pleased,” the rider replied.
“Before you go,” Carson continued, “come inside for a cup of coffee and a tortilla. Davy will feed and water your horse.”
The rider stepped down. “That’s mighty kind of you.”
“While you eat, you can tell us what the cap’n’s plans are.”
“I have to say,” the rider said, “I don’t know. I’ve just been told it’s a third expedition he’s leading someplace.”
“Sounds like Frémont, for sure,” Carson said. “Always kept the real mission to himself.”
* * * * *
Carson and Owens sold their properties back to Maxwell for less than half what they had paid for them. I learned that when I overheard Josepha accuse her husband of being a poor negotiator.
When the two mountain men rode north at daybreak two days after the messenger had arrived, their faces bore broader grins than I’d seen any time during my one-month residence in Rayado. Returning to the wilderness held more attraction for them than ranching on semi-arid land.
Kit Carson had known me only a short time, but he entrusted me to escort his wife back to her family in Taos. She and I headed west soon after her husband departed. I rode one of my family’s two horses, a gelding, and she rode the other, a mare. We’d packed her few belongings on a mule, which I led. I carried my father’s old Pennsylvania rifle which he had converted from flintlock to percussion, and Josepha tucked a single-shot pistol into her waist belt.
After a tiring day winding our way across the high Sangre de Cristo Mountains on a narrow trail, we descended into Taos as the sun set. Josepha guided me to the adobe house Kit Carson had purchased for them at the time of their wedding. A resident housekeeper was surprised at our unannounced arrival, but she quickly helped Josepha get settled. While I attended to the animals, the housekeeper prepared a late supper which Josepha and I devoured with little conversation. Afterward, she retired to a bedroom, and I promptly fell asleep fully clothed on the floor in front of the main room’s fireplace.
The smell of frying bacon awakened me the next morning. During the night, someone had thrown a blanket over me. I folded it and left it on the low hearth before making my way in search of the source of the mouthwatering aroma.
Following breakfast, Josepha said she had to go to her parents’ house to let them know she had returned to Taos. While she was away, I tended to the horses and the mule which I had left the night before in a lean-to stable behind the house.
When Josepha returned later, a tall, swarthy, clean-shaven man accompanied her.
“Señor David Brennan,” she said, “I present mi padre, Don Francisco Estaban Jaramillo.”
“Señor,” I said, not knowing how else to greet her father.
His head tilted slightly to one side as he studied me with piercing black eyes. “What are your intentions?” he asked, speaking good but accented English.
“Ah . . . I don’t know.”
“My daughter tells me Señor Carson found you along the Cimarron Trail and brought you to Rayado.”
“Yes, sir . . . si, señor.”
“Tell mi padre about your ordeal, Señor David,” Josepha said.
I haltingly related how my father decided to move west from Pennsylvania after reading John Frémont’s first report which had been issued two years earlier in 1843. When we reached Westport, Missouri, my father changed his mind about going to Oregon and decided Santa Fe was a better place. We joined a small wagon train traveling the Santa Fe Trail. At Point of Rocks in mid-Kansas, father got into an argument with the wagon master. The wagon master said we were no longer welcome to travel with his train, so when we reached the Cimarron Cutoff a day later, we left the main trail and took the shorter one toward Santa Fe. We’d been warned it was a more dangerous route because of frequent Indian attacks, but my father thought it was worth the chance. After struggling along the waterless route for two weeks, we finally reached the crossing of the Cimarron River on July fourth. Father decided we would rest a day and allow the horses to graze on the first good grass we had encountered since taking the cutoff. The following morning, we discovered the gelding had escaped his hobble and disappeared. Father gave me his rifle, and I mounted the mare and went in search of the missing horse. About three hours later, as I returned to our campsite, our wagon was a smoldering ruin. My mother, father, and sister were dead, their bodies full of arrows.
At that point in my telling, I sniffled and rubbed my nose with my shirt sleeve.
“It is all right, Señor David,” Josepha said. “Por favor, please go on.”
“I didn’t know what to do at first, but I decided I could not leave my family lying there. I was in the process of digging a grave when Mr. Carson arrived. He’d been hunting in the area and had an antelope carcass on a pack horse. Mr. Carson identified the arrows as Comanche. He helped me with the burying, and we piled rocks over the grave to discourage the wolves from digging. Then he brought me to Rayado.”
“Padre,” she said, “Cristobal told me Señor David was very brave to have handled the death of his family so well.”
Don Jaramillo nodded. “Bueno. I am sorry for your loss, señor. But you cannot stay in the house with mi hija, my daughter. Until you decide what you will do, you will sleep in the stable. Comprende?”
“Si, señor.”
After her father departed, Josepha said, “You might find work in Taos, Señor David, but it is unlikely. Perhaps you should go to Santa Fe. Caravans come and go from there. You could find work with one of them.”
“I’m not qualified to do much.”
“Perhaps you do not know what you are capable of doing,” she replied. “Your name is David. Right?”
I nodded.
“You may be a Presbyterian,” she said, “and not a member of the true Church. But I believe your Bible tells the story of David slaying the giant. Correcto?” She grinned and her coal black eyes sparkled.
Again, I nodded.
“Then be true to your name. You can achieve things for which you have never dreamed.”
That night, I did dream—but not about David and Goliath. After struggling to get comfortable on a bed of dirty straw I’d scraped together in a corner of the stable, I drifted in and out of sleep. My mother appeared in my nightmare asking over and over where I had gone. Near daybreak, I finally managed to doze off, but I was rudely awakened when a foot poked me in the side.
“Wake up, sleepy head.”
I opened one eye and beheld the beatific smile of Josepha.
“Arise,” she said. “An opportunity for you has presented itself this morning.” She pointed to the courtyard between the stable and the house. A black stallion stood there prancing regally, its halter rope held by a small boy wearing a serape and sombrero.
I rose and brushed stray strands of straw from my clothing. I slapped my hat, which I had used as a pillow, back into shape and squared it on my head.
“Opportunity?” I asked.
“My father has decided that Cristobal should have a strong horse for his expedition. Someone must take this stallion to Bent’s Fort. You can do this. Before we were married, Cristobal served as a hunter for the Bents. If you shoot as well as you ride, you can work as a hunter for the Bents.”
After a breakfast of tortillas wrapped around left-over beans, I mounted the gelding and prepared to lead the prancing black stallion north up the Santa Fe Trail. I faced a three-day journey to reach Bent’s Fort.
“Señora Carson,” I said. “Take care of the mare.” I had decided to leave one of my horses behind.
“Si, I will. Thank you again, Señor David, for bringing me safely back to Taos.”
I grinned and nodded. It had been my pleasure.
“David,” she said. She did not precede my name with señor this time. “I want you to have this.”
She handed me a small bundle of beads.
“A necklace?” I asked.
“A rosary.”
“A rosary? But I’m not Catholic.”
“Cristobal was not Catholic before he married me. Who knows? Perhaps you will have a need for this rosary someday. In the meantime, carry it for luck, with my blessings. Vaya con Dios, mi amigo.”
I rode away from Taos.
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