When the Splendor Falls Read online

  WHEN THE SPLENDOR FALLS

  Laurie McBain

  Copyright © 1985 by Laurie McBain

  Cover and internal design © 2016 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover art by Aleta Rafton

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious and are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover art by Aleta Rafton

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious and are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Characters

  Prelude

  A Land of Legend

  Part One

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Part Two

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Part Three

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  An Excerpt from Wild Bells to the Wild Sky

  One

  About the Author

  With love for Elizabeth, Leigh, and Will McBain, who, when very young, believed in fairy-tale castles and happily-ever-afters, may all your dreams come true

  Characters

  TRAVERS FAMILY OF VIRGINIA

  Stuart Russell Travers, master of Travers Hill; gentleman farmer and breeder of Thoroughbreds.

  Beatrice Amelia, mistress of Travers Hill; wife and mother, and one of the Leighs of South Carolina.

  Stuart James, firstborn son; attended Virginia Military Institute. Married. Grows tobacco at Willow Creek Landing, a plantation on the James River south of Richmond. House and lands inherited from paternal grandmother, the former Althea Alexandra Palmer, only daughter of a Tidewater planter family.

  Althea Louise, firstborn daughter; attended finishing school in Charleston. Married Nathan Braedon and lives in Richmond. One daughter, Noelle.

  Guy Patrick, second son; graduated from University of Virginia. Reads law in a great-uncle’s law practice in Charlottesville.

  Russell Eamon, died in infancy.

  Palmer William, youngest son; attending VMI.

  Coralie Elizabeth, died in infancy.

  Leigh Alexandra, third daughter; attended finishing school in Charleston.

  Blythe Lucinda (Lucy), youngest daughter; attending finishing school in Richmond.

  Thisbe Anne, mistress of Willow Creek Landing; wife and mother, and formerly Thisbe Anne Sinclair of Philadelphia.

  Stuart Leslie, only son of Stuart James and Thisbe Anne.

  Cynthia Amelia, only daughter of Stuart James and Thisbe Anne.

  Stephen, majordomo at Travers Hill; arrived from Charleston with his young mistress, Beatrice Amelia, when she wed Stuart Travers.

  Jolie, maid, cook, and confidante to everyone at Travers Hill; married to Stephen.

  Sweet John, head groom at Travers Hill and son of Stephen and Jolie.

  BRAEDON FAMILY OF VIRGINIA

  Noble Steward Braedon, master of Royal Bay Manor; gentleman farmer and breeder of Thoroughbreds.

  Euphemia (Effie) Margaret, née Merton, mistress of Royal Bay Manor; wife and mother, formerly of River Oaks Farm.

  Nathan Douglas, firstborn son; graduate of Princeton. Lives in Richmond, where he practices law and represents his home district in the state legislature. Married Althea Louise, née Travers. One daughter, Noelle.

  Adam Merton, second son; expelled from VMI. Lived with relatives in South Carolina and managed to graduate from South Carolina College before leaving on an extended European tour. Part owner in a coastal shipping firm.

  Julia Elayne, only daughter; attended finishing school in Charleston with best friend, Leigh Travers.

  BRAEDON FAMILY OF NEW MEXICO TERRITORY

  Nathaniel Reynolds Braedon, younger brother of Noble; left Virginia to make his fortune in the West. Settled in the New Mexico Territory. Married, widowed, remarried. Raises horses, cattle, and sheep at Royal Rivers, ranch where he lives with second family.

  Fionnuala Elissa, née Darcy, first wife of Nathaniel Braedon.

  Shannon Malveen, firstborn daughter of Nathaniel and Fionnuala. Kidnapped by Comanches when she was twelve years old. Shannon’s Comanche name: She-With-Eyes-Of-The-Captured-Sky.

  Neil Darcy, firstborn son of Nathaniel and Fionnuala; kidnapped by Comanches when eight years of age. When fourteen, rescued by father. Sent East for schooling. Graduated from Yale, traveled in Europe. Owns land, and the original homestead of Braedon family, Riovado, northwest of Royal Rivers. Neil’s Comanche name: Sun Dagger.

  Camilla Elizabeth, née St. Amand, second wife of Nathaniel. St. Amand family fled slave uprising on Santo Domingo and settled in Charleston.

  Justin St. Amand, firstborn son of Camilla and Nathaniel; attending VMI and staying with aunt and uncle at Royal Bay.

  Lys Helene, only daughter born to Camilla and Nathaniel; attended finishing school in Charleston for a year before returning to New Mexico.

  Gilbert Rene, youngest son of Camilla and Nathaniel.

  Serena Ofelia, wife of Neil Braedon; eldest daughter of Alfonso and Mercedes Jacobs, nearest neighbors to Royal Rivers.

  Prelude

  Territory of New Mexico—

  Early Autumn 1859

  O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,

  Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead

  Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing…

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  A Land of Legend

  Close to the sun in lonely lands.

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson

  There was a time when only The People roamed the enchanted lands of the setting sun. High atop mesas that rose in majestic solitude out of the dust of canyon and desert below, these children of the sun prayed to the gods. Corn ripened golden in the sun. Clouds rained shimmering silver upon the earth.

  A dagger of sun striking the earth through stone slabs marked the changing of the seasons, celebrating the coming of the spring equinox and forewarning of the winter solstice. When darkness fell across the land there was no fear, for the myriad fires glowing softly in the night sky watched over the children until the morning star beckoned the sun to spread its enveloping cloak of light and warmth. The children prospered and their cities became great. They were the Makers of Magic. Their magic brought the clouds
and the rains and turned the earth green.

  One day the Sun Father and his sister, the Moon, frowned down upon them, and the painted maiden’s chants to the god of rain went unanswered. The golden-edged clouds were a reflection of the Sun Father’s pleasure, but now when the children cast their eyes upward, the towering clouds grew dark with the thundering wrath of the angry gods.

  Ceremonial dances and sacrificial rites to the gods were held in the sacred caves. But the chanting kachinas, the masked spirits, could not protect them from ill fortune. The Plumed Serpent and the Corn Father, the spirits of mountain, water, and wind, and all the lesser deities remained unappeased. Soon the despairing children felt the displeasure of the Great Earth Mother. Drought and famine and death followed, and the prayers and drumbeats, the rattles and bells of the frightened shamans stilled.

  There was only the lonely echoing of the wind.

  Where once the favored ones grew strong and mighty, the wolf now stalked the canyons and the coyote scavenged through the abandoned villages. The eagle and the hawk soared high above the forsaken cliff dwellings.

  Despoblado. The desolate land. Unpeopled and treeless.

  From the High Plains the nomadic tribes—Navajo, Apache, Ute, Comanche—raided the children of the Ancient Ones, who had scattered across the desolate lands. But the children survived. With the coming of each season they grew stronger, and gathered together along the banks of the great river that flowed from the heart of the snowcapped peaks of the north and disappeared into the wastelands to the south. The valleys were fertile and their corn grew tall and green under the warmth of the sun. They prayed to the gods and their villages prospered. The weavers and potters, the masters of silver and turquoise, the farmers and hunters, and the kachinas, who kept the old myths alive deep within the kivas, knew again the almightiness of the wise, life-giving spirit that had guided them on so long a journey.

  But it was prophesied that one day bearded warriors in gilded armor and riding strange beasts that caused the earth to tremble beneath them would appear magically out of the desert to the south. The People would once again know despair, and conquered, their gods would be lost to them. But the legend of the conquerors, as well as the myth of the fair-haired who would come from the east with the rising of the sun, had almost been forgotten when the conquistadores crossed the Sierra Madre and the deserts of Chihuahua and Sonora.

  The unexplored lands of the north beckoned them to greater conquest. The gold-rich kingdoms of the Incas, Mayas, and Aztecs had been conquered. Moctezuma was dead and his great island-city, Tenochtitlan, looted of its fabulous riches and heritage, was destroyed. There was a fire in the blood of these conquistadores—a flame kept burning bright by the ancient legends.

  Quivira, a land where golden ships with silken sails were rowed upon a great river of gold. The people ate off plates of gold and silver and were serenaded by golden bells singing in the wind.

  The Seven Cities of Gold, a kingdom where the streets were paved in gold and emeralds sparkled above every golden door. Surely this was where the “gilded man” of fable, who had thus far eluded capture, ruled as king.

  El Dorado, an Indian chieftain so wealthy that when crowned before his people, his loyal subjects anointed his skin with perfumed oils and covered him in a coat of gold dust that he washed away in a sacred lake.

  With the gold and silver, emeralds and pearls of earlier legends bringing them wealth and fame, these adventurers continued to believe in lost cities and hidden treasures just out of reach. Their lust grew feverish after a party of shipwrecked explorers, who had wandered for years through the wilderness of the great northern lands, spoke of having seen seven great cities that glowed golden beneath the sun. Among those survivors was an ebony-skinned Moorish slave. His name was Estevanico. Estéban and the others told wondrous stories of golden-hued, many-storied houses with greenish-blue stones bordering each door. Their vivid descriptions of all they had seen on their fateful journey across the unknown lands were intoxicating and conjured up fantastic imaginings in the minds of their listeners who hungered for the glory of Cortés and Pizarro, the greatest of the conquistadores.

  Soon a party of adventurers, guided by the Moor, went in search of this fabled kingdom of gold. They returned to the seven legendary cities accompanied by a gray-robed Franciscan monk, Fray Marcos, who went in search of lost souls. But they were met with hostility by the wild tribes of the north. The Moor met his death in Hawikuh, one of the seven cities, but the friar escaped, returning to Mexico to tell of the greatness of the golden cities he had seen from afar. Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, governor of Nueva Galicia, a northern province in Mexico, listened to this tale and dreamed of greater glory in the unconquered land now known as Cibola, and where he would find the Seven Cities of Gold. With great expectations, Coronado led an expedition of over two hundred horsemen glinting with armor, and followed on foot by soldiers armed with crossbows, pikes, and harquebuses. Indians, friendly to their Spanish conquerors, and teams of mules carrying the provisions and cannon into this promising land of riches trailed close behind.

  Coronado never found the fabled golden cities or the fabulous treasure of the gilded man.

  He discovered a new land for Spanish conquest and dominion. From the sunbaked adobe pueblos along the fertile valleys of the Rio Grande to the snowcapped sierras and great cañons of the northwest, to the grassy plateaus of the High Plains rising far into the northeast, across the burning white sands to the west and the vast sweep of prairie and rolling hills to the east this despoblado was claimed in the name of the Spanish crown.

  The sound of mission bells replaced the shamans’ chanting, and church spires rose beneath the sun in holy challenge to the heathen gods. The cities, Taos high in the mountains to the north, Santa Cruz de la Canada, Santa Fe de San Francisco, Albuquerque, and El Paso del Norte bordering the southern wilderness, were peopled by the children of God and grew prosperous. The soldiers stationed in the presidios protected the children of God from the wild tribes that roamed the wastelands, and the ranchos knew no boundaries as sheep and cattle grazed the fertile grasslands and valleys.

  The seasons changed and the ancient myth of the fair-haired, long forgotten by most, came to pass as Spain’s empire in the New World crumbled and a fledgling nation along a distant eastern shore began to spread its wings westward toward the wealth and promise of unexplored lands.

  Surrounded by desert, prairie, and mountain, the Territory of New Mexico had remained isolated. Mexico now claimed sovereignty over the territories north of the Rio Grande. Separated by endless desert and impenetrable jungle, the trading caravans made the long, arduous trek only twice a year between the annual fairs in Chihuahua and Taos. Imported from the Old World via Veracruz, a port city on the Gulf of Mexico, goods from Mexico were exorbitant. The New Mexican traders were left with little profit and the colonists with even less satisfaction by the time the caravan left Taos on its return journey.

  But to the east, beyond the Pecos and across the Staked Plain that Coronado had seen darkened by herds of buffalo, from the wide waters of the Mississippi came the French traders, eager to barter. In the mountains where the Rio Grande and her sister rivers began as crystalline streams the waters were full of beaver. In exchange, the French brought guns and powder and liquor to trade with the Indians for the right to trap and hunt on the slopes without fear of attack.

  Following in their footsteps came the Americans, exploring the lands newly purchased from France. News of this wondrous territory west of the Red River traveled fast. It was rich in furs and hides, and in Santa Fe there was a profitable market for textiles and dry goods. An enterprising Yankee trader could make a fortune. From Ohio and Missouri and farther east they came. Across the grassy plains of Kansas to Fort Dodge, they crossed the big bend in the river and followed the Arkansas’s course toward the mountains rising starkly in the distance, and from that rocky terrain into the Territory of New Mexico. The heavily laden packhorses bringing manufac
tured goods for trade were replaced by wagons groaning under loads of towering freight and drawn by teams of well-muscled oxen and sturdy mules.

  Soon the great wagon trains were leaving from all along the Missouri River. Franklin, Arrow Rock, Fort Osage, Independence, Westport, and other small towns that had basked lazily in the sun were now crowded with strangers. The adventurers, traders, and trappers, hunters, mule-skinners, and merchants were eager to travel the trail that crossed the plains despite the dangers. Beyond might lie death, or great wealth to be found in the lands of the western wilderness. Disease, hunger, thirst, violent storms, flash floods, prairie fires, and the misfortune of accident awaited. They would be preyed upon by marauding tribes of savages that roamed the wilds, with only the soldiers back at Fort Leavenworth for protection until, if they were fortunate enough, they reached western Kansas and came under the protection of the guns of the newly built Fort Larned.

  Council Grove, with its shady groves of oak, hickory, walnut, and other valuable timber, was the last outpost of civilization. It was here that the wagons began the westward trek that might take over four months to cross the inhospitable plains. By the time they reached Cottonwood Creek, many would have wished to return as they gazed at the treeless plains that seemed to stretch beyond the horizon.

  Upon reaching the Arkansas, they followed the river westward, moving ever closer to Fort Larned. Before they reached that safe haven, they had to pass Pawnee Rock, where many a train had been ambushed.

  Miles of endless prairie stretched ahead before they even sighted the hazy outline of the distant mountain range barring their path, but at the foot of the mountains was Bent’s Fort, sanctuary for those who’d made it safely across the plains. Yet, for those grown weary of the trail, a cutoff that would shorten the journey beckoned to the south across the Cimarron. But the route also crossed perilous desert where lack of water and threat of Indian attack was an ever-present danger.