Billy Harrington’s entrails glistened in the water. He lay sprawled on the rocky bank, head lolled to one side like he were taking an afternoon nap, blissfully unaware of the foot-long belly slash spilling his insides out.
Tom’s lantern jittered in his grasp. He had seen a lot of injuries in his seventeen years—life on the farm was full of it—and he had expected to see worse after packing up his bag to go fight Yankees.
But this? Poor Billy gutted like a hog in the torrent of Wallace Creek?
He swallowed a hot wave of nausea, averted his eyes from Billy’s ropey insides glistening in the moonlit water. He pointed his lantern down the small, wooden bridge. It only lit up the first few beams. Beyond that, darkness all the way to the silhouetted hills standing vigil over the valley like ancient gods.
Tom caught his breath, a quick glance at Billy’s prostrate body.
“Indians,” Tom said, his breath steaming in the frigid air.
It happened before, or so he heard. A band of Mescalero Apaches attacked Willard Parson’s cattle ranch, killing old man Parson and carrying off his wife and two daughters along with all the cattle. The fort had sent out a thirteen-man patrol to find them. No one came back.
A shadow of movement just beyond the bridge. Tom jumped.
“W-Who’s there?”
He squinted into the darkness, ears strained as he tried not to breathe, but all he heard was water lapping on rocks. With one arm still holding the lantern, Tom slung his Springfield around, gripping the barrel tight.
There it was again. A tall shadow just on the other side of the bridge. He steeled himself enough to take a step forward, then stopped short when the shadow moved toward him. Tom brought the rifle to his hip, hands trembling.
“Stop right there. Ain’t no Indian coming inna this fort, ya hear?”
But it was no Indian that crossed the bridge. Instead, a woman in a bright colored dress stepped into the lantern light. Tom held his breath. She was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. No more than twenty-five, tall and elegant, her flowing dress hugging at her hips and emphasizing her breasts. Despite the cold, she wore no shawl or even shoes.
“Buenas noches,” the woman said. Her voice was birdsong in Tom’s ears. Where had she been hiding? Tom had been down to Limpia. Drank and whored with the locals same as the rest, but never saw a beauty like her. No, sir.
“Buenas noches,” Tom replied with a yellow-stained smile of his own, his accent thick and bungling in his ears. He shook his head, forced himself to focus. “What’d you do to Billy?”
“Billy?” the woman said, confusion in her eyes.
“Yeah, Billy. He’s down there, opened up like a sack of sour potatoes.”
“Dead?”
“He ain’t got the trots.”
The woman turned toward the creek, her face was as blank as a board. Maybe she didn’t understand English so good.
“What’re you doing here?” Tom said.
“Looking for a companion.” Her accent rolled along the words in soothing waves.
The Springfield loosened in his sweating palms.
“Wha, what sorta companion?”
“A handsome young soldier. Someone I could really enjoy.”
The woman traced her finger along Tom’s jaw.
Tom’s eyes rolled to the back of his head as the world went white, like fog in a full moon—or steam hissing off the entrails of a body laying in a stream. Tom found himself standing before the door to his step-father’s bedroom, soft pale moonlight leaking through the door left ajar. Breathing on the other side. Rhythmic, heavy. Soft grunts that may have been pain, may have been pleasure. Frightened but unable to turn away, Tom placed a hand on the door, pushed it open an inch.
Movement under the covers. Tom knew what they were doing—conceptually at least—but never understood. The grunts rose to a crescendo. Tom stepped into the room, the smell of damp earth and worms filling his nostrils, but he was too far gone. He had to know.
He clutched a handful of the itchy quilt and threw it back. There was Jed, pale and naked, eyes wide with fury. Beneath him, mouth open and tongue lolling out, Billy’s gutted body stared up at him.
Billy’s face contorted into righteous indignation.
“Fuck you looking at?”
Tom jumped back like he was stuck with a poker, but all that was there was the Mexican woman, her hand outstretched toward him. He blinked, put a finger to where she had touched. It burned like frost. He brought up his gun, tried to call back the images he had seen but it was like trying to catch dust motes in fading light.
What was it? Something about Billy? Did something happen to him?
The woman placed a single, elegant finger against the Springfield’s barrel, pushed past it. Tom, shivered with the encroaching cold, conceded without a word.
Feeling like he was in a dream, Tom set down the lantern and unslung his rifle. With an awkward smile, he undid the buttons of his winter coat, his fingers fumbling as if dipped in butter. Finally, he managed to strip it off. He swallowed, folded it neatly, and presented it to her draped over both arms.
The woman did not glance at the proffered coat.
“You’re cold,” Tom said.
“I am not cold.”
“Your hands are freezing.”
Rather than answer, the woman pointed a finger behind him.
“Do you live there?”
Tom followed her extended index finger across the drill grounds and barracks, up the small hill to the hacienda. Lights twinkled in the upper floors where Mathers would be playing poker with the quartermaster or passed out in a chair.
“Not me,” Tom said. “That there’s where the Lieutenant Colonel sleeps.”
Tom shook his head.
What was he doing, talking to this stranger in the middle of the night while on patrol? And where was Billy? Shouldn’t he be on patrol with him?
“Take me to him,” the woman said.
Tom blinked hard and turned back to the woman. She was so beautiful. “To the L.C.? No way, José. He won’t see no one from the town, not even a beauty like you.”
“Has he seen a beauty like me?”
“I…I doubt it.”
The woman took a step forward, her dark brown eyes dancing in the light of Tom’s lantern. So close, he could smell her. Sage, he thought. Lavender. Some mix of the two. The kinds of bushes his mother kept just outside the front door. Simple ingredients to liven up a boring old stew.
Tom felt his mouth water.
“Then how would you know?”
Tom felt his jaw go slack, his lip trembling. She took another step forward, leaned in close, her lips mere inches from his own.
“How would you know?”
Tom swallowed, unable to wrench his eyes away. It was like looking into the face of God, infinitely alluring and yet terrible.
Tom closed his eyes, pursed his lips.
“What’s going on, Mason?”
The fire in the woman’s eyes died, her seductive smile turned to a sneer as the owner of the brash voice approached. Tom shook his head feeling like he had just been clubbed in with a rock. His head felt like a wet sponge, nothing got absorbed.
Something about Billy. Something about Billy.
Down in the creek, the evening mist had rolled in. Obscuring all but the sound of racing water.
A soldier with a double chevrons emerged from the shadows near the old storehouse—an extra ration of salted pork dusted his stubbled chin.
Tome cleared his throat.
“Got a woman here, Corporal.”
“I can see that.” Corporal Waters said as he stepped into the lantern light. “What about her?”
“Wants to see L.C. Mathers.”
The corporal, his own rifle still slung casually at his side, ran his eyes along the woman.
“She’s just here for a buck or two,” Waters said as he smoothed out his mustache. “Mathers is busy anyway—tight on whisky, drooling on his duds—but I’ve got some time on my hands. What’d’ya say, darling?”
The woman said nothing, did not even seem to recognize the corporal was talking to her. She just looked at Tom, her beautiful round eyes latching onto his, making him blush.
“Geez, Nate, I just don’t know. Shouldn’t we report her? I mean, she might be a spy for the Federals.” And there was something else. Something about Billy?
“Federals? Shit, Tom. Ain’t no Yanks interested in this no account outfit. Too busy chasing Uncle Robert and his war horse to bother with us. Ain’t that right, darling?”
“We don’t even know her name,” Tom said.
“Did you ask? What’s your name then?”
“María,” she said. “María Guadalupe Rodríguez Sánchez.”
“There you go, Tom. All hunky-dory.”
“María,” Tom replied, trying his best at the accent, rolling the name around like a cordial in his mouth.
“Si.” Maria pointed an elegant finger toward the hacienda. “And that is my home.”
“No shit?” Waters snorted up a headful of phlegm then hocked it into the unseen creek. “Thought all the Mexicans that lived here were killed. No offense.”
The woman’s eyes hardened in the lantern light. A chill ran up Tom’s spine, sending gooseflesh down his arms. He glanced away and, in that instant, caught a reflection in the lantern glass. A creature, impossibly tall, black as the night towered among them. Eyes  burning holes into the night. It opened its lipless mouth as if to scream.
Tom gasped, but all that was there was María Guadalupe Rodríguez Sánchez looking out toward the hacienda, her expression as empty as the moon wreathed in night fog.
“Not all,” María said.
“Well, what’s the business, darling?” Waters dug into his jacket pocket. “I’ve got two bits to spare.”
Ignoring the corporal, María extended a hand and caressed Tom’s face.
“I think you’ll do.”
At her touch, November melted into spring. The smell of dew on summer grass filled his lungs, the soft pressure of a woman’s hand on his arm. María was there—beautiful, lovely María—combing her fingers through his tangled hair. She placed delicate hands on his chest, giving herself to him. In that moment, he was alive. Alive.  So very—
The cold night rushed in to fill the void left when María removed her hand. Tom brought a pair of fingers to his numb cheek. Without a word, he dropped the coat, lantern, and rifle on the ground and took María’s frigid hand in his own.
“Jesus, Tom!” Waters shouted as he gathered up the rifle.
But Tom didn’t hear. His mind was miles away, working feverishly to recapture the ecstasy that was lost when her hand left his face.
He rushed María into the fort. Past the sour stink of the stables, skirting the parade ground, into the heart of the westernmost confederate stronghold. A part of him shouted, screamed for him to stop. Go back. Find out what happened to Billy. But the rest pressed him forward, sticking to the shadows the whole way.
He stopped in front of the commissary’s dry goods storage. He opened the door, poked his head inside. The familiar smell of salt, stale coffee beans, and rat turds reminded him of home. Moonlight poured onto wooden crates and barrels, making them look alive. Watching. Judging.
“In here,” Tom said, motioning her inside.
He closed the door—only moonlight filtered in through the cracks in the wood. He clicked his tongue.
Should’ve brought the lantern.
“This is not the hacienda,” Maria said from somewhere in the dark.
“I’ll take you there, don’t you worry. After we…you know…”
He fumbled at the drawstring of his trousers. Maria’s, cloaked in darkness, said nothing.
The silence between them was a thunderhead rolling over fields.
“Where does that go?” María asked.
Tom exhaled as the tension in the room slacked. He squinted in the darkness. Couldn’t see shit.
“Where’s what go?”
“This. This escotilla. It was not here before.”
Tom edged around her, felt the wooden planks of the root cellar entrance under his boot. She had sharp eyes, that was for sure.
“Root cellar.”
“Show me.”
“Show you—Look, I think we’ve got plenty of room up—”
Tom felt a cold touch on his lips. There was a flash, a single image of her hovering above him. Long, flowing hair dangling in his face.
He nodded stupidly and pulled open the cellar door.
A musty reek of earth and straw greeted him like a slap in the face. It smelled like his grandmother’s root cellar near Cibolo Creek. The one with the monsters. He had been sent to get a handful of potatoes when a gust slammed the door shut. He pounded on the door, screamed, but no one came for hours. Alone with all the monsters his young mind could conjure.
“Ain’t nothing down there.”
María did not answer. She brushed past Tom, her bare feet slapping along the cold stones leading down to the cellar.
She vanished, her footfalls retreating further into the darkness. Tom swallowed, caught his breath. He could close the cellar. Close the cellar and go get Waters, report to the L.C. Yeah, he got suckered in, but he pulled himself back, hadn’t he? Bagged her up and everything.
He lowered the cellar door when she called to him, summoning him by name. Down in the cellar, her singsong voice echoed off the narrow walls.
Tom whimpered, alone in the dark.
Hands guiding him along the earthen walls, Tom Mason followed María Guadalupe Rodríguez Sánchez, down in the frigid darkness.