A Long And Distant Scream

(From the Petomele Historical Association)

If it can be posited that cities are living organisms, then towns almost certainly are- while cities are predators, however, long dark towering monsters with steel claws and dark souls, towns are unassuming herbivores who graze on the meadows and ask for little in return. As such, they are seldom recorded- they inexplicably vanish, begin, die, and on in the life cycle of inorganic human cohabitation.

Petomele was one such place, and it was designed for a very specific purpose over the course of human evolution. One corner among so many, one right angle birthed on a grid of firm land, a location assigned meaning by those who knew it, few though they were.

Imagine this: You are at a crossroads, four long snakes of asphalt wind their way inexorably out in the directions of the compass, and suddenly the buildings appear, as if viewed through a frosted pane of glass they conjure themselves out of the earth, humming and pulsing as they do so. The hot prairie sun beats overhead, and the hawks cry as they ascend. This cry can be heard for miles, and the ground beneath your feet pulses with each flap of their wings against the bitter air. They rise.

To the West by a couple hundred feet lies the Espadana, the fountain of eastern life on this dry pocked terrain, and on its borders there is a high wall of foliage. The prominent barricade of cottonwood trees drink deep from within the earth, roots unfold themselves, time stands still, and nobody is waiting in the houses. They remain frozen in their temporal amber. They are of no one particular era, because Petomele has no such concept. Here, it is three centuries in equal measure.

It has long been said that nobody knows where the name “Petomele” came from. “Espadana” is Spanish for “bulrush,” and this makes sense because the Espadana is indeed flanked by long rows of cattails and ferns which stand tall and proud in the spring and then become resilient and hardy stalks come the autumn.

But nobody is quite sure what Petomele means. And perhaps this is for the best.

Because the Espadana, after all, affects that which is outside, it arises from its spring in Southwestern Nebraska, bursting inexplicably forth from the cool depths of the Ogallala Aquifer. It meanders slowly downhill towards the Southwest, cutting a mild channel for itself, until it reaches a confluence point with the Arkansas River a few miles east of Pueblo, and so the waters of the high plains and the waters of the mountains are merged. Such is the story, it could be said, of Colorado itself.

The Espadana, in its own way, affects Petomele and the neighboring grasslands. Petomele affects virtually nothing beyond itself. It is forever unable to.

It is posited by social scientists that human settlements are always found near water, and never away from it, yet Petomele bears the unique distinction of being the only town which prospers from the presence of the 377-mile-long Espadana, as nobody else affords it much thought- it could not sustain more than a few thousand people at most without running dry. It is not imposing.

Why Petomele grew as it did remains unknown. There is very little reason for it to exist precisely where it does, officially at the intersection of Boone Road and State Highway 423, at coordinates 38.464039, -104.184986. Across its long history, it could have been located slightly east or slightly west along the creek’s length, or it simply could never have been built at all. But it was constructed, all the same, because people will exist in many spaces and times, regardless of the sense it makes.

One day, long ago, there may as well have been no Petomele, and then it merely appeared, like the spindles of an old red-and-yellow circus tent, erected and dismantled before moving onto greener pastures. No explanation, no warning. Petomele cannot justify itself. Petomele simply is, and was.

So you stand there, enraptured, at the precise coordinates I have afforded you- you stand in awe, or perhaps you are driving through the inexplicable maze of back alleys and dead ends, of rusted garbage cans and soft blowing leaves, always green lawns and blue skies, and little homes occupied by faceless residents with virtually no ambition.

Petomele burns in your memory as it does in mine, even if the homes and streets were conjured from nothing, because you have seen it or a place similar a hundred times over the course of your life, and you will in the future. These innocuous grazing herbivores are the beneficiaries of human exploration without purpose, or at least without purpose beyond the pragmatic. They cannot rip at you with their teeth, gnaw your flesh from its cavities. They cannot atomize the psyche. They are too inactive for that. One breath could atomize them.

Yet they have aspirations, because they were created by men and they follow the rules of men, and if the Espadana could sustain more life, if through some dark magic the wells of the aquifer could be increased to unnatural levels, saturated into a writhing sea, and the creek burst forth with unnatural ferocity, an overpowering rush of existence, then Petomele would take what it could get. It would leave nothing untouched.

In that case, Petomele would be very different from the Petomele you or I know, the Petomele with which we concern ourselves today. If circumstances were altered slightly, if some key factor were altered, it would be Petomele in name only. There would be no Duffy’s Tavern, no Cottonwood Park, almost certainly no Carl The Cowboy at the town limits with his splintered facade peeling away, paint chipping off into the sprigs of grass below.

There are two Petomeles, or three, or perhaps an infinite number, as all man-made places are at the whim of the spectator and can be arranged and molded into any image through observation and patience. How much patience is required?

You walk forward three steps, then four, and the day only becomes warmer, so you apply a little sunscreen and increase your gait along the charred road. You are alone and at the mercy of the rotating bodies, subject to the will of nature in a world that has left itself behind and so does not care much whether you live or die, because it will continue turning regardless.

So we turn our attention to Petomele, the town that exists somewhere inside ourselves, the town which you can reach out and touch if you so choose, you can rub your face along the floorboards and revel in the noise of the old freighters each night, listen to the gurgling of the canal or the casual rustling of the meadowlarks.

There is no rational explanation for the origin of the town’s name, as there is no rational explanation for the existence of the town itself. However, to comprehend it to the best possible degree we must retrace our steps, and they begin somewhere cold, desolate, and foreboding.

Carlos Herrera was for all intents and purposes an unassuming man, and in many cases, when such unassuming men are born into the world, their lives slip by unnoticed and they vanish into the grave thanklessly- however, Herrera was indignant, and this was for the most part due to his short stature.

Being a simple and dumpy-looking resident of Nuevo Mexico, then the territory of New Spain, born to middle-class parents in 1785, he was squat and peered out from beneath his sweat-beaded brow with two deeply set eyes. His chin was constantly on fire with thick, coarse stubble, and he always carried with him a broad straw hat which served to shade him from the relentless sun of the enclave upon which he was raised- while not as decorated as the garish, high-rimmed sombreros of his aristocratic peers, it was his one constant throughout life, and defined him as modest to anyone who bothered to look.

He had been told by the residents of his small villa that he could not succeed in anything for as long as he could remember, and for that reason alone he was determined to prove them wrong. He was conceived of a uniquely American sentiment on the Dark Continent, spent most of his days up in his loft reading Cervantes when there was not water to carry or chickens to feed. He was possessed of a lethally active imagination, envisioning strange nonexistent lands out beyond the pale ridge which occupied his field of vision from the window of the loft.

And pale it was- a land on fire, a sandy and bitter desert which encircled the world for as far as he could make out. Save that solitary amber rim to the north, the one which demarcated the boundary of Spanish territory and the beginning of a wild land populated by strange and hardy people. He was thankful to be on the outer recesses of civilization, but knew that one day the call of the world would become too pronounced and he would slip into the fervor of desire.

In 1805, a mere few years before that inevitable slip took place, Herrera had been enlisted into the Spanish Army, separated from his parents, and was required to travel 50 miles northeast to a makeshift military academy. As he left, he saw for the first time his little corner of the world at a distance, the fortified adobe walls of the villa peeling back underneath the blood-red sunset, located at a vital crossroads for trade and commerce. A precise right angle.

The instructors at the academy were harsh and cruel, and Herrera was singled out as a result of his modest upbringing and inability to cooperate with the orders he was given. He could not, for instance, load the barrel of a musket in less than five minutes, his fingers were imprecise and when the weapon did fire it bore a pathetic and weak impact. Many times, he was threatened with a court martial, but Herrera knew this was unlikely considering that he was unimportant cannon fodder, and would likely soon be exported to the Caribbean or Texan front to die. This, of course, was never in the cards.

He had met a beautiful senorita during his time at the Academy- the daughter of the second instructor, she was for the most part relegated to cleaning pans and preparing food, and lived a ways off the barracks in her family’s small cabin. Herrera was one of her father’s least favorite pupils, and due to this animosity she was seen infrequently by the men. She did not seem happy, and Herrera’s second instructor likely had plans to marry her away further south. Her name was then unknown to him, but he called her Ines, as he had overheard this name used to reference her once, and she did not object.

During his time in the barracks, Herrera managed to make one close friend- Juan Florez. Florez was, like Herrera, unequipped and unprepared for the broad scope of the world. Juan had been raised as the bastard son of a Catholic missionary who had disappeared somewhere in the mountain wilderness when Juan was only an infant, and he had been brought up in a villa much like Herrera’s- although Juan’s was much further south.

Juan had a heated temper and often talked back to authority, which earned him a regimen of constant discipline. Carlos admired him for this- while he himself would never pull many of the outlandish stunts Juan was known for, he had that aforementioned adventurous tendency, and looked up to Juan as a sort of role model who lived on the edge. A night seldom passed when Juan was not made an example by the headmaster, who publicly flogged him in the center of the camp. Juan did not scream.

So it was that Herrera was singled out for his incompetence, and Ines occasionally happened to cross paths with either him or Florez at any given time during her trips to and from the mess hall, and Florez was singled out for his defiance. And all the while, Herrera kept dreaming, and he kept his old dirty straw hat completely unseen beneath his bunk where it gathered dust in the corner.

What happened next, nobody can truly explain. The exact circumstances leading up to it will remain murky, but you know what they say about idle hands, and it cannot be doubted that the trio of Carlos, Juan, and Ines worked with remarkable agility to realize their ends.

The instructors of the academy woke on the morning of June 18, 1808 to find the western portion of the barracks entirely burned to the ground. The food stores were ransacked and halfway depleted, ten horses had been stolen, several hundred Reales were unaccounted for, and seven other male pupils besides the main trio were missing completely. Ines’ father, along with the other administrators, put out a swift public bounty on Herrera’s head.

Herrera should not for all intents and purposes have been able to gather the support and confidence of several cadets. He was not especially popular and it made no sense that he would be able to convince them to commit bold treason against the Spanish Empire. All the same, the remaining pupils confirmed that they had no knowledge of the incident, that they had slept soundly through Herrara’s escape, and that they were not complicit.

Herrera was only seen once more by Spaniards, and it was while he was in the act of riding through his former home with his band of guerrilla ruffians. They came storming in through the gate like a pack of wild banshees, took several coats, munitions, and other various provisions, and left three hours later on the northern road. It was impossible to stop them, as most inhabitants of the villa were too tired to fight back and the settlement had no real central authority to speak of. It had never dealt with such a brazen attempt before.

When interrogated several days later by the army, Herrera’s parents told them that he had come in, kissed both of them gently, ruminated that he had some sort of exciting plan, and then immediately departed. They were horrified, as he seemed to be in the grip of the same wild madness which had originated during his childhood- an intense and irrepressible exploratory drive, untapped potential which had laid completely dormant until now.

He was wearing the hat again.

The Empire would increase the bounty and call for Herrera to be strung from the gallows and made an example to any would-be defectors, but as the years passed, interest in Herrera’s small band gradually waned, the Empire dealt with the Mexican revolution in many cities, and the public in general could not be bothered to remember or worry about a small, insignificant group of banditos who had likely starved to death out on the northern frontier.

And so Carlos Herrera, unassuming, was lost to the years, and like most history of that strange period of the American Southwest, he became an obscure footnote.

“He’s gone,” Esposito said. “I can no longer feel his breath on my hand. It’s over.”

They stood around the cadaver which lay five feet in length. A day ago, it had been a man, one of Herrera’s party. Now, it had been rendered a cold slab of flesh by the tides of nature, which with passing day appeared less and less favorable to the expedition.

“The ground is too firmly packed to bury him,” noted Florez, peering down solemnly. “We’ll have to tie him to his horse and drag him along. He put up a fight, this one.” Florez looked up, then, and his stoic beaklike nose protruded above the folds of his scarf. Esposito, who had assumed the position of medic among the company, owing to his limited knowledge of the subject, rolled the body of the dead one up in a thin canvas. Surely, there would come a point when they could conduct a proper burial- or the seasons would change.

Though they did not know it, they stood exactly ten miles north of the present-day border between Colorado and New Mexico. Two days prior, they had crossed with some hesitancy through what is now known as Raton pass. Now they stood a few hundred miles south of the Twin Spanish Peaks, which stood like foreboding twins over the encampment. The makeshift shelter Herrera had constructed was falling apart, and the winds were bitter. Though bred for adventure, Herrera felt lost and uncertain here on the windswept high plains, which were markedly different from the sandy terrain of his youth.

It was January 17, 1809, and he felt the call of adventure. The call north.

It was difficult to place, but as the sailors of old could raise their fingertips to the wind and make out the general direction, Herrera had been drawn to one specific area like the magnet of a compass. He told the party that it would yield a tremendous reward, and they listened- these were men, Herrera realized early on, who unlike himself had some blood of the Conquistadores in them, and even if the legends of that time had dwindled, he could appeal to their lust for power and their jingoistic fervor. And by this point, they had nothing to lose, they would follow him to the grave if it came to that.

“We should not be here,” Florez muttered. “The nation does not want us here. The people here, the Ute and Comanche, they do not want us. If nothing else, we go back and find some route westward, through that range.” He pointed one spindly finger out towards the Rockies, which shone a deep blue beneath the dismal gray sky. He kicked at a tuft of frost-bitten grass and then mounted his horse, as if signaling Herrera to ride alongside him a pace.

“That is not the answer, Juan,” he countered. “There are more passes, more impenetrable snowbanks, even less traction. And certainly, a home could not be built there. Juan, our fortune lies directly ahead.”

Far away on the horizon, a dark herd of buffalo was grazing. They were a common enough sight- they had been spotted initially the day prior, and Herrera admired their hardy attitude even in the face of winter. Florez had suggested killing at least one for sustenance, but Herrera told him to stand down- that killing even one could draw the attention of the Ute. They wanted to pass through these lands unnoticed, if at all possible.

Once the body had been properly stored, he gestured for all the men to tie their horses to stakes, and went into his tent to console his wife. By now she was feeling the temperament of the elevation and spent most of every day bundled up as warm as possible. She was no longer swayed by her husband’s rhetoric. In the center of the tent, she had started a modest fire to keep warm, but it was low and sputtering and all she really wanted was to be among the hot fiery sands again. Outside, the temperature was easily ten degrees, and in here it was only perhaps thirty.

“My dear,” he chuckled, taking special care not to allow the rising flames to lick the brim of his hat. “How do you fare? You need chocolate.” He opened one of the silver tins they had brought, and removed a generous portion of unrefined cacao. He dipped his finger into the viscous mixture, raised it to her lips. She shook her head and retreated further into the mass of blankets which surrounded her, making her appear more like wooly beast than woman.

“Listen to me, Ines,” he said, removing his coat and joining her beneath the covers for warmth. “We leave at daybreak, disassemble the tent- I will need you to do as you’ve done, carefully place the sticks and tarp on the rear of our horse. That is all. And I am sure, within the month- I tell you, the month, dearest- we will find what I have been looking for.”

“You can look forever,” she said. “You can search endlessly for a given thing, but never precisely locate it.”

“It’s not like that,” he retorted. “I have conviction that by Providence we will find something of value in this region. I have already found what it is, really, that gives value to me. It is life itself, it is that I am here and you are here, and that is enough, for better or ill.”

“The fire is dying,” she whispered in a sweat-choked delirium. “The fire...” Herrera looked down to their feet, and sure enough the flames were already ceasing to crackle, as a thin trickle of snowflakes began to fall from a hole in the roof. The embers waned, and then at last the sticks choked and the inside of the tent became cold. Herrera raised Ines’ lips to his own, pressed them deeply upon his, and felt like far more than the product of a lowly farmer in that moment. So long as she was by his side, he felt powerful and bold.

While they slept, the snow outside rose to an unprecedented level of five feet, meaning that it was virtually impossible to traverse most areas safely- Herrera had brought many winter clothes, knowing full well that this climate would be fierce, but he had not thought ahead to bring snowshoes. To add onto their growing list of concerns, the pack horse, a small brown mare, had died in her sleep, and so Herrera volunteered his own stallion to take its place. He would then ride on Ines’ horse.

It was also decided, of course, that they could leave both their fallen comrade and the dead horse side-by-side, piling a thick layer of slush onto both with shovels. They would be preserved for a time, and then picked clean by the carrion fowl which soared overhead and provided the company with a gnawing fear of their own vulnerability amid the hostile winter.

All the while, riding alongside Carlos and Ines in the front, Florez adopted a sort of role as second-in-command, a lieutenant. This provided a great deal of structure to their daily routine.

Each night, the encampment would be set up, and each morning it would be dismantled, and their resources would dwindle at a constant and alarming rate. The dynamic between the men was alarmingly tranquil- there was no liquor to be had and so their attitudes were precise and calculated. They were all sober, and all convinced that they would either find Herrera’s paradise or die in the attempt- but no matter the consequences, they would live while they had the opportunity.

The winds changed and the snow melted, though scarcely, by the distant sun above, which in those abysmal clouds was little more than a faint angelic halo. The horses continued to graze alongside the buffalo where grass was plentiful, and strict rations were administered to the men such that only their basic nutritional needs would be met. Esposito calculated that they had enough to last until spring at the absolute latest- he carefully preserved the seeds from his chiles and peas, assuming that there would also be native crops of some kind to nourish them wherever they were going.

Florez remained the least optimistic of the group, sullen and weary-eyed, but he rode along all the same, determined to see whatever it was Herrera spoke about with such passion around the campfire each night.

They had not intended to get such a late start into the world beyond the borders of the Empire, and in fact had planned to reach the northern lands by fall of 1808, but they had taken longer routes and avoided shortcuts, deliberately evading the authorities. Herrera would not have preferred this, but he knew that his vision could not come to fruition or long endure in a world overseen by those of an official stature. The tall ones.

So January passed into February, though they no longer kept any sort of real calendar, feeling that such an effort would be a waste of energy. The two peaks gradually faded into the southern distance, becoming little more than an abstract memory. They were far beyond anything documented now, well into uncharted wilderness. Herrera, being ever cautious, opted to take a general northeast route which brought them further out into the unremarkable plains and beyond the cover of the foothills. This was agreed to be an intelligent move on his part, one with which Florez actually agreed- as they heard less strange noises the further they went, and the climate gradually diminished in ferocity. Three weeks into February, it seemed that they would be able to breathe easy.

Then, on the morning of February 28, they rode out in formation as they always did, and the worst came to pass. The silhouette of a lone Ute ranger appeared over the crest of a particular hill. This silhouette, framed by the early morning sky, remained strangely motionless. It did not advance, but it did not retreat.

“He wants to talk to us, I think,” Juan gathered. “He will have many questions of what we are doing so far out. Official treaties, signed by our people and his, likely prohibit our being here. Do we run and evade him?”

“No,” Herrera said. “We stand our ground. He is alone, and that means we could kill him if it comes to that. Let us go forward.”

So the party advanced towards the lone figure, who grew in detail with each plodding step. He was young, younger even than Herrera, perhaps 21, clad in traditional Ute garb, with a long woolen coat. His long black hair was greased back and held together by a wooden ring, and his eyes seemed to carry good intentions. He raised his arm in simple greeting, and Herrera- who knew that, to this young man, he must appear quite a sight- attempted to diffuse the situation by dismounting and walking up to the ranger on foot.

“Hello,” the ranger said. “I am Wilamet.”

“You speak our language,” Herrera noted. “Do you know it from books? Have you studied?”

“I have seen your kind before,” Wilamet responded. “When I was very young. Three missionaries passed through my village, and left us a Bible among some other resources. I was amazed to learn of your tongue, and became fluent before my tenth year.”

“Was one of their names Florez?” Juan asked. “That would have been my father. A Domingo Florez-”

“No,” Wilamet answered quickly. “No such man. But then, there have been several missionaries here at various points in time. We are aware of your kind as you are aware of ours. That said, may I ask what you are doing here? On our territory?”

“Forgive our ragged appearance,” Herrera said, clutching his straw hat to his chest with mock sincerity. “For we are lost and running low on food. We took a wrong turn somewhere, a fatal turn, for it deprived us of one of our own, as well as a horse-”

“Yes, I can see that,” Wilamet shot back. “One wrong turn indeed. For you are hundreds of miles further into my people’s land than any before you. Do you not follow the rising sun? The stars? Have you no means of reliable navigation at your disposal?”

“We are-” Herrera realized that no further excuses could be made in this vein. “We are lost, as I said. Lost. confused, a people without a home. A people without a purpose. If you would take us in, such that we could gather our bearings and make plans.”

“I am sorry,” said Wilamet. “But I am hundreds of miles from my people, as well, on a lone hunting trip. I cannot help you, at least not to deliver you to the tribe. I would like to, as they could likely determine what you are doing here and deal with you accordingly. Perhaps make some arrangement with the proper authorities in your country-”

“No!” Herrera stammered. “N-not that. Please, if you cannot take us to your people- well- we have guns, we have knives. We have the means to make your expedition a rewarding one. Please. Take us with you. Wherever you are going.”

“Well, that is north,” Wilamet answered. “To the river.”

“Why are there so few settlements here?” Juan asked. Herrera returned to his steed alongside Ines, who was sleeping towards the rear of the saddle as usual. Her forehead was pale and she seemed to be carrying some sort of fever, but was weathering it remarkably well. The entire group began moving forward at a snail’s pace, with Wilamet on foot in front of them.

“Legend holds that this area is cursed,” Wilamet responded, “By a group of phantom warriors who died on the battlefield. They are Comanche. They fought my people, the Ute, at a certain juncture which we will come to. Ever since, we have been reluctant to return to this place. It is an ill portent. Only the brave, like myself, are willing to go this far. You, clearly, are out of your depth and unwise to come here.”

“Cursed land, eh?” Esposito repeated.

“Yes, stranger,” Wilamet confirmed with the utmost sincerity in his voice. “Cursed and dangerous to pass through. If you follow me- if you do exactly as I say- you will not be harmed. You must respect the dead, do you understand that? And you will share your resources with me. We will all share equally. Is that understood?”

A general clamor of agreement swept through the members of Herrera’s band, most of whom were in no shape to make such an agreement. They were groggy and despondent, thoroughly tired of the whole affair, yet the hooves of their stallions pondered forth and they remained upright in their saddles, and as they all fell in behind Wilamet like obedient pets, they detected a slight warmth for the first time in months.

The following day, the climate did indeed become more favorable, with most of the snow melting by noon. Wilamet was up before the rest of the camp, choosing to sleep a ways off from the rest in the open air. He was in strangely good shape, Herrera thought, for someone who carried so little and weathered such cold.

“Today,” he said, rallying the riders behind him. “Today, you see the river.”

And indeed they did- come evening, when the sun hung low casting shadows over the distant peaks, and the horses whinnied in quiet contentment, the company caught sight of the Arkansas, bounding forth from the West. It was, to Herrera at least, a good omen. He looked over at Florez, who remained quiet in awe of the formation. It was beyond stunning- crystal clear and vibrant, with occasional ice floes which bounced effortlessly off the rocks, tumbling ever downstream. This was a far cry removed from the humble dry springs of their homeland- it was proof positive that water was abundant in this new paradise.

“Do you wish to stop here?” Wilamet asked. “The water can be diverted through ditches, at least enough to sustain a modest garden. Not that you could survive, of course, unless you knew which seeds to pick. Which happens to be something I know.” He shifted awkwardly from foot to foot as he looked up at the strange looming men with their muskets and poles.

“Let me ask you this, Wilamet,” Herrera posited. “You seem strangely eager to help us. Yet your people- they do not want us here. Is there any reason why you should be of such great assistance? You want gold? We have none. We have only a modest portion of our own currency, which is of no concern to you.”

“You said this land was cursed,” Florez pointed out. “Yet you would have us settle here for a year or more? Do you take us for fools? Come, man- stay consistent with your tales.”

“It is true, north of the river,” Wilamet insisted, pointing beyond the sandy islands with legitimate and marked fear. “That is where the battle was fought. South, however-right here, on this shore. This land remains safe. The waters keep it good.”

“This makes little sense,” Herrera barked. “I do not trust you, any more than I would trust a rusted compass whose needle is inoperable. He does take us for fools, I think, Juan. And he misjudged our temperament, for we are not to be trifled with. If that land is indeed spoiled, then the power of God will cleanse it. We will cleanse it.”

“Well, safe travels,” Wilamet resigned. “I, however, cannot go with you. I cannot stand on the bones of my ancestors, or the bones of their enemies.”

“I don’t think you will leave us,” Herrera growled. “Tell us, you dog- what sits past this river? A lake which feeds it? Some natural source? A grove of beautiful trees, perhaps? Something you want to hide from us for its splendor? Away up there- why, I can almost see it- beautiful land, promising and vibrant- what lies beyond?”

“A small creek, if the records of my people are accurate,” Wilamet responded, breathing heavily. “It is three days’ ride on horseback. It is not beautiful, nor is it abundant, nor does it entirely feed this river. It is a mere tributary, completely unremarkable in every way, and it is not to be settled near.”

“Swine,” Herrera grinned from beneath the brim of his hat. “I say, that is where we will find our Eden. There, at that very spot. To the absolute north of this juncture.”

“Carlos,” Ines protested weakly from the back of his horse. “He is trying to help. Do not speak to him in that tone of voice. Please.”

“Woman!” Herrera yelled, nearly throwing her off in one swift jerk. “I do not care for your tone of voice! You are naught but an inconvenience to me! You, and this savage, and Juan here, dear Juan, who espouses vacant platitudes like some idiot king- you all have made this venture unpleasant! You most of all, dear Ines. You are dead weight to me.”

“Dearest,” she whispered. “Do you not realize what you are doing? I am with child- the baby can hear you, saints preserve us, it can hear you-”

“Shut UP, woman!” he snapped.

“Is this true?” Florez was puzzled. “Ines- how long has it been? You should not give birth out here. Oh no- Carlos- what have you done? Did you not consider the danger of raising a child in this place? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You wouldn’t have approved,” he replied. “Of course you wouldn’t have approved. You have no woman, Juan, you dirty mongrel.”

The other men remained in shock and awe at the newfound confidence in the voice of their leader, who now appeared twice as large and every bit as sure of himself and of their inevitable destination.

“You have not been true to your word,” Herrera ordered, returning his focus to the figure trembling beneath the breast of his stallion. “You are not on some hunting trip, this far out. Who are you, Wilamet of the Ute? Why do you trespass on this land and not that, why do your words ring so hollow? Will you dignify us with the truth?”

“I told you the truth,” Wilamet pleaded. “I guided you this far, I did not want to be here. I am shunned by my tribe, generally. They regard me as reckless and foolhardy. I did not tell you that. I am not welcome among them, anymore, for something I did. But this land is cursed. It only becomes moreso the further north you travel. There is nothing to gain by doing so. I hoped, like yourself, to find trust and meaning and good standing in your company. That is all. That is the truth.” He stood in complete disbelief.

“This is the truth,” Herrera muttered, fishing a bullet from his coat. “This is the world today. This is the purifier of the world.” He loaded the barrel of his musket- faster than he ever had in his academy days- and Wilamet, realizing suddenly what was happening, turned to run, but it was too late. Even amid the gathering dark of the evening, and the various low shrubs along the banks of the Arkansas, Herrera’s sights were set.

The body of Wilamet, torn in half by a whistling projectile, crumpled in a shoddy heap roughly seventy-five feet from the position of the militia. At the moment his cheek made contact with the dry earth, the sun vanished completely from sight.

“We ride tomorrow,” Herrera insisted. “We stay here tonight, but no longer by this river. We will see this creek our friend told us of, and it is there we will stop.”

And so the tents were raised and the fires were lit, and the cold was warded off as always by thick jackets and furs. But there was a greater cold now in the minds and hearts of the entire group, a cold that could not be vanquished by the changing of the seasons.

On March 5, 1809, Herrera’s party, having traversed the waters of the Arkansas and following Florez’s compass in a true northern bent, caught sight of the thin green line of cottonwoods which flank the Espadana. It was pure coincidence that they happened upon the Arkansas at the exact point Wilamet guided them to, and greater coincidence still that Herrera would insist upon riding exactly north.

Still, today, if you begin at the intersection of Boone Road and the Espadana Creek, follow Boone Road south until the point where it branches off to the west towards Boone itself, and from there walk directly south until you reach the southern shores of the Arkansas River, you will find yourself at the exact spot where Carlos Herrera fired his musket, and if you then walk a mere seventy-five feet to the east, you will find yourself at the point where Wilamet lay.

His body is gone now, of course. The sands of time have covered it, the layers of sediment have washed his skeleton far away. No memorial stands there, for few historians even know of Herrera’s party, let alone the role Wilamet played in their survival through the final days of winter. And certainly, nobody would connect the incident to Petomele itself.

Wilamet was gone, too, in Herrera’s mind the morning he saw those swaying trees. Where there were trees, he realized, there must be water. Roots tapping into the rich sustenance deep in the Earth, mineral deposits- an entire ecosystem at work. He tapped Ines on the shoulder to draw her attention, but she was asleep and nauseous. So he called out to Esposito and the rest of the men instead:

“There! You see it!”

And then, like a banshee, he grabbed the reins and shouted an abrupt command at his horse to spur it on, and they made the final small distance in a matter of minutes, kicking up a fine stream of dust in their wake. Florez, who at this point was rather detached from the whole endeavor, and planned to leave as soon as he could, stayed behind in last place at a moderate speed, listening to the weird noises of the prairie which seemed entirely too quiet for his liking.

“I claim this land!” Herrera cackled, climbing down from the stirrup and poking a little flag of Spain into the sand and kissing the pole’s base. He then spit on the flag and knocked it over, prompting a gush of laughter from the men.

“WE claim this land!” he then announced, “All of us,

mis hermanos

Florez, who was still about a hundred yards off from the rest of the group, and could not hear Herrera’s proud speech, was deeply uncomfortable. He caught sight of a lone heron, darting off the top of a branch into the skies. It did not make any sound as it did so, but it circled above him, casting a long and dark shadow across the grass. Then it was gone, and the day shone blue and clear again.

He happened upon the group in a low clearing near an islet. The Creek at this point was perhaps one half the width of the Arkansas, and did not appear remotely threatening. It did seem, for all intents and purposes, to be a tranquil and lush environment.

“What of women?” asked one of the men, a scruffy ex-lieutenant who still wore his cap and insignia, tarnished though they were by the dirt of the trail. “How should we have children, Carlos? There are no women here, save that bitch of yours- shall we all have a go at her?”

The statement was likely made in jest, as the lieutenant nor any of the company carried the strength at this point to attempt such a thing- they had practically been rendered impotent by their long quest- but Herrera did not take such threats lightly. He got to his feet from the gnarled root upon which he had been resting, dashed over to the lieutenant, and struck him across the cheek.

“No, Cucaracha,” Herrera insisted. “She is for me. Get your own damn woman. Find a native. Fuck a stick. I do not care.”

The others looked at him in disbelief. Surely he had thought ahead, had some sort of plan for them to raise families or otherwise discover some kind of purpose in this barren wilderness.

A thin stream of vomit erupted from Ines’ lips then, and she convulsed, doubling over with the symptoms of expectant pregnancy. She hadn’t been fed a diet of steady nutrients, and it had been several months. Any day now, Herrera recognized, she would need to lie down and relieve herself of her burden.

“Carlos,” another of the men asked. “What should we do? First, I mean? Build cabins, ditches, find those seeds which were mentioned? Surely, there is a course of action. I put forward that we at least construct our tents, then go about chopping some of the wood around and finding some fowl to eat.” This request was met with general acceptance, a low murmur of modest enthusiasm. The party broke, two or three of them went into the brush with knives, Esposito and another man retreated out towards the grass. Florez got off his horse and put his hand on Herrera’s shoulder.

“You are like a brother to me,” he said. “You know that. You have always been. And I have shown you nothing but support. Now, however, you disappoint me. You sit here and lay about while your men do all the work. Do you believe this is how empires are built? Without viable action? Carlos, man, you are no better than the King in the old country.”

“Perhaps I am not,” Herrera shrugged, and lowered his hat over his face to afford himself some shade from the afternoon sun.

“I hesitate to tell you this,” Florez responded, “But if you do not act, I will be forced to, for the men’s survival. I know the ways of the forest better than any of them. If we stay here, we will likely die. There are not enough resources here to sustain us for a long period of time, Carlos. Surely, you know this. It is wonderful, it is fantastic, even. But there is no food.”

“The birds,” Herrera pointed at a heron across the creek, which dipped its slender proboscis in and out of the glistening pool. Its feathers were a brilliant ivory hue.

“We need foliage,” Florez insisted. “Roughage, and sustenance besides that. And, as the men say, we cannot build families. We will die alone here. Ines- she is sick. What I ask, Carlos, is that I am permitted to travel into the mountains, to find some members of the Ute, as my father likely did. And I will bring back help. A few months, perhaps- but I know basic words in their language. They will not harm me.”

“And when they find out what we did to their friend back there? I think not, dear Juan.”

“He was an outcast,” Florez said. “A strange one even by their standards. They would not care about him if we did not tell them. So long as you treat them with respect, they will at least take our predicament into consideration. Send back a small scouting party. It would only take a few months, Carlos- and your new child, it will need food to live-”

“You are a fool, Juan.”

“Well,” Florez conceded, “I was born the son of a great fool, and took the direction of an even greater fool. So I am, perhaps, a fool. Now, however, I am a hungry and tired fool, and I need to live. So I will do what I must.”

“Which is what, perchance?”

“If there is not at least one communal structure built here within the week, dear brother, with food and a hearth to cook it on, I will take the men with me, into the mountains. And they will follow, for I possess the leadership skill you do not. I will afford you the dignity of presiding over them until then. May the best of us succeed.” He extended his hand in a gesture of friendship, but Herrera slapped it away as if Florez were a pestilent horsefly.

“Leave me be, Juan,” he yawned. “I am tired.”

“You are drunk.”

The second day was as uneventful as the first. On the first night, the men were able to catch one wild rabbit- the herons were quick and eluded even their muskets (and, of course, they hesitated to waste good ammunition hunting), but the rabbit was much easier to catch and roast over a modest fire pit. Esposito told the men how to properly prepare meat to avoid sickness, and the men followed suit. A modest portion of meat was divided between all of them, save Ines, who remained swaddled in her blankets and rejected it when it was offered.

Even Florez, who had witnessed their makeshift camps fall apart during the trek, was impressed by the general sense of optimism among the men now that the journey was over and they had a new place to call home, albeit for a short time. He sat back opposite the pit from Herrera, each of them gazing across the lapping flames at the enemy they had once considered an indispensable friend.

And so, on the second day, under Herrera’s lackluster supervision and Florez’s careful watch, they were able to lay a few branches into bundles, and pile these in a loose rectangular formation. A team of three was then sent across the Creek to gather more wood, and they in turn sent back the initial reports of a small fertile pond covered in water lilies, and a greater expanse of cottonwood trees to the west. It was suggested, much to Herrera’s dismay, that they should move their base of operations across the Creek towards the more abundant foliage.

Florez, of course, agreed, and himself carried several of the bundles which had already been assembled through the creek’s knee-deep water. They subsequently gathered their horses and led them through. Ines was carried on the back of Florez’s horse.

And so the camp was rearranged on a small beach next to the pond, and the men were pleased to see the frogs, the dragonflies and the milkweed pods which sprang up effortlessly from the soil. Herrera, however, was bitter, because they were now one step closer to the mountains, and the first building would not be erected according to his design.

The day passed in relative harmony- Ines, even, appeared less fraught when she dipped her hand into the depths of the pond to feel the soft mud beneath, she lay back on a thin carpet of grass and tried to block out the sporadic dialogue between the men with their axes, who made quick work of an entire tree to fashion a modest hut.

By the end of the second day, come nightfall, the hut was one-quarter assembled, and the men were yet again gathered around a small pit, once again constructing a makeshift spit to hold a rabbit on. The company also collected several herbs Esposito assured them it would be safe to consume, although he insisted that, like the vegetation on the eastern bank, there was little proper nutrition in them.

The company seemed strangely willing to comply with any demand, because they were men removed from their proper context, men beyond time and space, and people in such a scenario are generally open to new ideas and to strange possibilities. However, as they settled back into their blankets and the fire gradually petered out, they could not have anticipated the onset of the strange noises from the darkness.

Esposito, being generally observant, was the first to hear them.

“There is something,” he said, jostling Herrera out of slumber. “Over in that thicket. Listen.” Esposito gestured at the vast expanse of trees which meandered aimlessly to the southwest, now covered in impenetrable twilight shadow. Herrera smacked his lips, rubbed his beard and turned over.

“It is a wild animal,” Herrera droned. “A coyote or a hawk returning to its young. Go to sleep and leave me be.”

Florez’s attention was now drawn. Several of the men were roused and peered out from the low vantage point of the beach. Their muskets were kept at their sides on the sand, but all the same they gazed into the morass of curling branches with trepidation.

“Listen,” Esposito repeated.

They remained quiet for several minutes, and then, sure enough, the sound began- it started nearly inaudible, but then grew in intensity and timbre, until it drowned out the quiet rush of the Espadana. It resembled some kind of great wind, although none of the men could detect any disturbance in the air around them, and the skies above were coated in an array of stars with no clouds large enough to generate turbulence.

“You hear that?” Florez whispered. “It is like a brush being rubbed onto an easel.”

“Bristly,” one of the men replied.

“It is a wild animal or a pack anyway,” Herrera insisted. “Go to sleep.”

“I will stand watch tonight,” Florez offered. “It could a party of Comanche. While the Ute avoid this area, the Comanche may not carry the same stigma. I will remain awake, and will alert you at the first sign of trouble. Go on, now. Get to sleep.”

“It is a coyote,” Herrera mumbled before immediately passing out.

Florez kept his word, sitting steadfast at the border of the camp with his musket turned up, and did his best to discern any sign of human activity amid the foliage- a spark of fire, a trace of speech. But there was none, and the night passed without incident, although once, at around 4:45 A.M., Florez imagined that he may have heard some lingering vestige of the noise again. It did not sound like anything produced by an animal or a human.

“We need to relocate,” he said to Herrera come daybreak. “That sound from the trees, it has the men up in arms. Let’s go a few hundred yards past the woods-”

“Relocate? Again?” Herrera boomed. “This is stupidity, Juan. We stay here. We go into the woods, confront whatever it is. We remove the thing in our way.”

“But if it is cursed land- who knows what spirits dwell here-”

“Cursed land,” Herrera spat. “It is cursed land in that nothing grows here. But no curse can stop me. No spirit, no demon, in their sense or ours, will turn back the hands of time. You see that, Juan? It is a civilized world now, we are modern men. We cannot listen to the traditionally oriented or the fanatics. We must push, ever forward, ceaselessly-”

“You are mad,” Florez stammered.

“Hey there!” Herrera barked, shouting at one of the party who was busy carrying some dirt. “Take your gun, go into that brush. See if you can find anything. If you spot anything that moves, kill it.” He tossed some gunpowder in the general direction of the man, who disappeared into the vast stretch of cottonwoods.

“And you,” Herrera insisted, shoving Florez back. “You are a thorn in my side, Juan. You will not be commanding anyone. You stay out, stay back. Have our food or don’t, but do not poison their minds. They are obedient, they listen to me. They have a strict sense of discipline and of honor.”

“You exploit that sense,” Florez muttered.

“Perhaps,” he said. “That is why I am in charge here.”

So Florez gathered a few tins of food, a canteen of water, and his blanket, and moved off a few hundred yards to the West, expecting that, come the end of the week, the group would arrive at their senses and follow him.

They would not, however.

It is said among numerologists that the number three carries special properties, and if that is indeed true, the third night of Herrera’s extremely short-lived occupation was of particular import. He drank a few good swigs from his bottle of rum as the sun lowered- the bottle was nearly depleted but was still potent and able to carry him.

The man who had been sent into the woods to assess the threat had not returned, and this left only five in Herrera’s group. He assumed that the man was still going about and checking every clearing and grove possible, but when they called there was no answer, and when they lit yet another fire, there was no reply. The trees stayed dark, and silent, as if a great mouth had swallowed the lone straggler up.

“It is probably Comanche,” Esposito shook his head. “They got him, they don’t take captives. Especially if they found him trespassing. They know his presence and they’ll soon know ours.”

“Shut up,” was all Herrera could muster.

“He had his weapon, didn’t he?” another of the men asked. “I think, if it were an animal, he could have dispatched of it- but people, or something else altogether-”

“Look,” Herrera growled, very much still feeling the warmth of the rum. “I need your attention, now. We can confront whatever it is in there, if you want. I am more than willing to face it head-on. I am confident that, if we put ourselves into one mighty block, and charge at it with force, it should not withstand our efforts. However, I will need your cooperation. There are five of you. I am the sixth and should not vote, for the purposes of fairness. Should we stay here? Or should we prove ourselves and prove that we are the masters of this world?”

Two arms shot up within a second, and then, hesitantly, Esposito raised his hand. He didn’t really want to, but Herrera had such a magnetic capability, such an alluring presence, and Esposito could tell he was more than ready to face the mounting threat. So, if Herrera was, then he was. And all of them would have to be.

“Well, then,” Herrera smiled. “Pick up your artillery and follow my lead. Forward.”

They closed the few dozen feet to the border of the wilderness, and Herrera kept a diligent watch over everyone to ensure that they all stayed close together.

“We should have brought a torch,” one of the men suggested.

“Never mind that,” Herrera shot back. “Use your eyes.”

The moon was indeed full, glinting off the cool steel weapons they all held, and fully illuminating a sizable clearing before them. The packets were loaded and they remained terse and alert for anything- the drawing of a bow, the hiss of a snake. All possibilities were considered and thereafter raced through their consciousness at a dizzying speed. They were filled with adrenaline and nerves, but put one foot in front of the other all the same.

Beyond the clearing, the branches and vegetation grew exponentially, and the moonlight dwindled. One of them got caught on some stick, and nearly fell, but recovered his balance at the last instant. There were thistles, here, too, and though the company was wearing their full uniforms, and very thick coats, the undesirable plants got lodged on their feet, causing immense pain. Past this untraversed wall of vegetation, there was yet another obstacle- a thick bush, waist-height, with twisted extremities and chipped bark. And then, after around a dozen or so feet of bush, the Espadana murmured softly to itself.

Herrera exhaled. There was nothing moving on the other side.

They crouched low in the bush, assuming that it would serve as a sort of protective cover in case of an attack, and Herrera motioned for all six of them to crouch low, even if doing so meant a face full of stickers. From beneath furrowed brows, the group stared straight forward, unflinching, muskets at the ready.

“Hello!” Herrera took a chance and yelled out, knowing full well that if it were Comanche, a volley of arrows would be flung their way. But no motion came, aside from the constant winding journey of the creek. No horses, no fire. No footsteps on leaves or even as much as a bird call.

They remained where they were for a little over three straight minutes, before gradually rising up- and as they did so, the noise began.

It started way off to the south, near where Herrera imagined the creek fed into the Arkansas, but moved gradually northward with an intensity and a vigor, in the general direction of the bush. As before, though the sound resembled a great disruptive wind, the air remained calm and still, and the leaves of the Cottonwoods stayed where they were.

“Almighty!” came a shout from behind Herrera’s left ear.

The thing was spotted drifting right on the middle of the creek, in its direct center. It was a vast, billowing plume of dark smoke, past which the stars were obscured, it was loud and roaring, and created a rippling wave in its wake. From the middle of this foul air, a molten orange mass began shimmering- and then, as two of the men retreated and the rest clung to Herrera’s arms for dear life, scared utterly beyond their wits, the inexplicable happened.

The orange mass gave way to a tall, slender entity- it was coated entirely in feathers, as Herrera imagined some native tribes were wont to do during various ceremonies- but it was not human. No, this being was at least nine feet tall, and its wings were entirely organic. They were white, like the heron’s, but the thing could not have been a heron because it had eyes that burned like horrible coals and a beak that nipped erratically at the air around it- and in the beak were sharp, erratically placed teeth.

Its wingspan was even greater, perhaps twelve feet extended, although Herrera could not very reliably take measurements while he stood in vacant awe of the monster and it levitated effortlessly over the waves.

It caught on fire then, the wisps of smoke trailing around it. It ignited entirely on its back, and the beak opened and rained down tiny sparks of ash which were extinguished in the creek below. The fire provided Herrera with a clear, unobstructed view of it, in all its horrible perversity- but he could not raise his musket due to abject paralysis, and his fingers would have been, as in his time at the Academy, too slow to load it regardless.

The fire spread and it bent forward, letting out a piercing shriek.

Carlos Herrera said nothing.

Florez was once again keeping watch, although he couldn’t see much from where he was at, far distant on a high knoll. All he could catch was a pale, luminous glow from the trees- and that was enough to draw his attention. He made his way down cautiously, taking special care to go unarmed and therefore appear like less of a threat.

By the time he reached the pond, the glow had vanished, and the trees were once again quiet. But there was a pungent aroma to the air, as if something had been cooked.

He walked into the same clearing Herrera’s group had crossed, and found the two men who had run- they were losing consciousness, and covered in extremely severe burns. One of them was Esposito, dear Esposito who had tried his best to bestow his medical knowledge upon them. Florez made the sign of the cross, still confused as to what could have charred their flesh and left without even leaving a trace of ash on any of the trees surrounding the clearing.

Proceeding, he found the bodies of three more in the bush, they were equally scarred and gave out their last anguished gasps as Florez approached. It was as if they had plunged headlong into some great, unknowable inferno, some kind of flame which did not touch anything except them. It was difficult for Florez to look at them. He dragged them from the bush by what remained of their legs, and though they were largely unrecognizable in their state, Florez knew that Herrera was still unaccounted for.

“Carlos!” he shouted. “Carlos! Where are you?”

No response came, and Juan Florez was left with the unpleasant task of carrying the bodies up out of the clearing, before going to look for Ines.

She was, as he expected, still swaddled up in a mass of furs by the pond- but she was not breathing, and did not seem responsive to anything. Florez pounded her on the chest and removed the blankets, but it was no use. Her circulation had ceased, her pulse was absent. She stared blankly up at the constellations overhead.

“No,” he muttered. “Not you, too. Oh, for all that is holy-”

It was then, though, that he felt something moving lower down. A hand. He grabbed it, and its fingers in turn curled themselves around his own, and he was beside himself as he realized what he was feeling- the newborn infant, the product of Carlos and Ines’ doomed connection. He brought it out, and it was bald and placenta-drenched, but seemingly healthy. Though Juan bawled profusely at the loss of his friends and the loss of the child’s mother, the baby stayed calm and quiet. And they remained like that until sunrise.

Come morning, not knowing exactly what to do, but certain that he did not want to leave the infant alone, Florez fashioned a makeshift sling and carried it around with him as he returned to the wilderness to search for the bodies of Herrera and the man who had first entered. He found the last man’s charred residue roughly half a mile downstream from the clearing, but Herrera’s remains stayed hidden. And perhaps, Florez thought, that was for the best.

Florez dismantled the unfinished hut, tearing the branches apart and returning them to the shores of the creek. He set the horses free from their posts, all save one, to roam as they pleased. Then, utilizing Herrera’s last drops of rum as fuel, he set fire to the ammunition, the muskets, and all the other miserable weapons of conquest. This was not entirely for moral reasons, he also did it because he wanted to destroy any evidence of their presence, if any hunting parties or scouts were present in the general area. The food and general provisions he took for himself and the child.

Finally, he went about the process of burial. The corpses of the men, burned as they were, would not take up much room, so they went into the large 12-foot hole first. Then on top, still covered in her mass of blankets, to be undisturbed by the ages, Ines was deposited. The others went warm, but she went cold and unloved.

Florez departed for the West, then, on the last remaining horse, towards the mountains in search of his father.

You would not know it, driving into Petomele today, but the unmarked grave of Ines, Esposito and the rest, located to the northwest of the pond, marks the exact intersection of Boone Road and Highway 423. They have been covered by the impenetrable asphalt of the Coloradan state highway system, but the location of their skeletons, through some remarkable property, came to designate the precise juncture upon which Petomele was built.

The majority of the town itself, however, did not form on the Western side of the Espadana, as Florez had suggested, near the fertile pond. It ended up forming on the Eastern side, the less fertile side, and therefore, although his name has not been recorded or mentioned until now in any historical text, because he was ultimately for all intents and purposes and unassuming man, Carlos Herrera should forever be recognized as the true founder of Petomele. It was in his spirit, the spirit of senseless brutality and tragedy, that Petomele formed. And the appearance of the strange birdlike apparition was the first time in millennia that the land had known such evil. It was not, however, the last time.

No- as long as men dwelled in this peculiar corner, evil would not rest.