Ellis took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I am devoted only as a healer is to her patient. Any of those other things can be sorted out when he is well enough to defend himself against the charges.”
“I saw him walk away from the fort,” he told her, his voice rising. “I followed. I heard conversations in Spanish with at least two men.”
“Who could have been the men who shot him,” she snapped.
He let out a long breath. “Yes,” he said slowly. “They could have been. But there is no proof that this man wasn’t in league with the enemy. I told you before, we must be always on our guard. The war that seems so far away is not that far away at all. What steps are you and your mother taking to protect my family from this man?”
“Look around,” she told him as she gave her best attempt at tamping down her temper once more. “The door locks from the outside. When Mama and I are not with him, the door remains locked. The boys are not allowed inside the barn at all. There are no windows that can be reached without a ladder. And as you can see, there is no ladder to be found in here.”
He made a show of looking around the small barn and then shrugged. “All right, I see how you have secured this building, but what will you do when he awakens and threatens you?”
Ellis rose from the chair she had placed next to the bed and set aside the Psalms she had been reading to the soldier before she fell asleep. “I have a weapon, and he does not. Between the sleeping remedies, his fevers, and the fact he has but one useful arm even if he were to overcome the other two hindrances, I doubt the man could successfully threaten anyone.”
“I am doubtful,” he said, though the expression on Grandfather Valmont’s face told her he had much more he wished to say.
“Then we shall have to see, won’t we?” She glanced down at the sleeping man and then back up at her grandfather. “I take it you have not been successful in identifying him?”
“Not yet,” he said. “If he’s indeed a Grey, then his name would be on the roster. Since the Greys decamped almost a week ago for Columbia, there’s no one here at the fort who can say which men got on the steamship and which did not. If he is missing, his absence was not discovered before the Greys boarded to go upriver, or a search party would have been organized.”
“And that did not happen?” she asked.
“It did not.”
“Well, I know he is a Grey,” she told him. “I saw him sign the roster down on the beach at Velasco the day the men arrived. Remember? I was with you and we watched them arrive, then you told me to go and welcome the soldiers.” She paused. “As proof, he was carrying the certificate showing he is a citizen of Texas. I saw him sign it along with the roster.” Grandfather Valmont sighed. “So you’ve said. And yes, I do recall it was my idea you go down to the beach to welcome the soldiers. However, there were so many. How do you know this is one of them?”
“I know what I saw,” she snapped again, though this time she was instantly sorry. Ellis certainly did not want to explain to her grandfather that the moment that had passed between her and the soldier on that beach had been imprinted on her mind well before he was found in the river. “Please forgive me. I am overtired.”
“As is your mother. I’ve come to see what I can do to help here, but unfortunately I’ve got to be back at the shipyard soon. With so many going off to join the cause, I am left with fewer and fewer men willing to stay in Velasco with me and sadly none I can send here to assist.” His expression brightened. “However, I do have good news. Your mother just received word that Jim will be returning soon. Apparently he is sufficiently healed to travel.”
“That is good news.” She leaned against the chair. “Is it awful that I hope he is well enough to work when he returns?”
Grandfather Valmont wrapped his arm around her and smiled. “Not so awful that I disagree. If only your father and brother would return. I pray every day that they will. I know in my heart they are alive and making their way back here.”
Ellis leaned her head against her grandfather’s chest. “As do I. Do you think …” She dared not say it. Instead she kept her silence.
“Oh child,” her grandfather said, holding her at arm’s length. “Every day we continue to expect that they will walk over the hill and surprise us all. We cannot stop expecting that, nor can we stop praying for it. The Lord, He hears us. He has them in His care, and He will return them to us in His own perfect time. Do not forget that.”
“Yes,” she said as she blinked back tears. “He does.”
The door opened and Mama stepped inside. She wore a tired expression but quickly put on a smile when she spied Grandfather Valmont. “Jean Paul,” she said with genuine affection. “The boys told me you had come to till the garden. Thank you so very much.”
He released Ellis to offer Mama a shrug. “It is nothing. You needed the soil tilled up before winter, and I needed to see my family. We both are happy. Might I speak to you alone?”
Mama gave Ellis a questioning look and then nodded to Grandfather Valmont. “Of course. I’ve just made coffee. Come and join me.”
Grandfather Valmont kissed Ellis’s forehead and bid her goodbye, then followed Mama out into the sunshine. When the door closed behind him, she returned to her chair and the Psalms.
Hard as she tried, she found that her mind refused to stay on the words written on the page. Instead exhaustion took over and she allowed herself to close her eyes for just a moment. When she opened them again, the room was bathed in moonlight.
The darkness served to further disorient her, though the familiar soreness in her back reminded her that she had once again slept sitting up. Had she been called out to aid Mama and then been sent to rest in someone’s darkened parlor?
As her wits gradually returned, Ellis realized someone was holding her hand. The soldier.
Of course. She was in the barn attending to the man who’d been found in the river almost a week ago. Ellis shook her head as if to dislodge the cobwebs that were slowing her thoughts.
All around her the barn was bathed in silver moonlight. Ellis swiveled in the chair and looked down at the hand still covering hers, the hand that rested atop the old borrowed quilt.
For days the soldier had suffered fevers that caused him to thrash about and speak without opening his eyes. His words made little sense, and his language was that of the old Acadians, leaving her to surmise that he, like her, was of Louisiana heritage.
The man’s fevered talk had been almost indiscernible at first, and then he had begun to speak about the most outlandish things. Through the long nights when Ellis sat at his side bathing his fevered brow with cloths dipped in cold water from the spring, the Grey spoke to someone yet unnamed about treasure and the cause of Texas freedom.
Or at least those were the words she managed to discern among all the rest.
With eyes that were open but appeared unseeing, he spoke of secretive meetings and muttered names that made no sense. So insistent was he on repeating these things over and over that she had taken to writing them down in the back of her book of psalms.
Was he recalling things that were true, or as Mama suggested, had he forgotten due to the head injury and was conjuring up things that were merely dreams? Given the current condition of his health, it was impossible to know the answer.
Ellis gently removed her hand from beneath the soldier’s fingers and then leaned down to reach for her book. He stirred, his lashes fluttering, but otherwise the stranger remained asleep.
She rose, leaving the book of psalms behind on her chair to cross the barn and light the lamp on the old oak table where Mama used to dry her herbs. Lingering there, she noticed that the two items from the Grey’s pocket were still where Mama had put them on the beam of wood that ran the length of the barn’s north wall.
Bypassing the feather, she picked up the certificate of citizenship that she had seen the soldier sign just a week ago. If only she had thought to look down at the name he was signing rather than up at
his handsome face.
And he was handsome, even now in his weakened health. Every day that he lived, Mama gave greater odds for his survival. Still, his condition was grave. Ellis prayed that whoever waited for him back in New Orleans—and a man who looked like this one certainly had someone—would not be waiting in vain.
Placing the certificate back on the beam, Ellis stretched her arms and then her neck, allowing the tension to release. After a roll of her shoulders, she returned her attention to the certificate that proclaimed the Grey a citizen of Texas.
“I cannot continue to call you the Grey,” she said to him, although she knew he likely couldn’t hear. “You need a name.”
She picked up the certificate and held it up to the lamplight. Blood had dried to near-black smears that obliterated all but a few letters of his signature. The first three were c-l-a. Ellis shifted position and turned the document around, all to no avail. There was only one letter left that she could see accurately, and that was a y. Though there were obviously other letters in between what appeared to be a rather long signature, she could only go with what she saw: c-l-a-y.
Clay.
Ellis smiled. Yes, until the soldier told her otherwise, she would call him Clay.
Returning to her place beside him, she retrieved her book and then looked down at the sleeping soldier. “Hello, Clay.”
He stirred, causing the quilt to fall away from his shoulder. The bandage that held the poultice in place needed changing, but she’d hoped to wait until Mama arrived to supervise. Though she had argued with Grandfather Valmont about there being no impropriety between patient and healer, she felt the odd sting of something akin to it while looking down at the man’s bare shoulder.
She reached down to carefully return the quilt to its place. Out of nowhere his hand clamped her wrist. Eyes only half-open looked up at her.
“Are you friend or foe, woman?” he asked in the language of the Acadians, the only language he’d spoken.
“Friend,” she managed, her heart now beating in her throat. “Who are you?”
“Cannot be late,” he said, obviously ignoring her question. “The funds must arrive at the meeting point or …”
Ellis leaned in. “Or what?”
His eyes locked on hers. “Or we fail.”
“Fail at what?” she said as she eased her wrist out of his grip.
Clay’s eyes were closed now, but his body was tense and his jaw clenched. “The mission. Houston needs me and … I must be there … I …”
Houston again. Ellis turned to the back of the book where she had taken notes on the soldier’s ramblings. He had said something about a meeting with Houston just two nights ago and then again yesterday morning. The recollection of it also reminded her how agitated he’d been yesterday as he insisted he must go see Houston.
“General Houston?” she asked him, just as she had yesterday morning.
Again his lashes fluttered, but he said nothing further.
Frustration set in.
“Who are you,” she said softly, “to have known these men? If indeed you do know these men.”
Though Ellis had little experience with the fevered talk of a patient, Mama had admitted that often a man or woman would speak the truth under these conditions when that same truth could be deeply hidden when the individual was in good health.
Ellis rose and pushed the chair away and then settled on the edge of the mattress facing him. “How did you come to be here?” she asked gently. “And what is your name?”
When she got no response, Ellis tried again. “All right, soldier, what is it you need to do? Tell me and I may be able to help you.”
No response.
She gave one more attempt, this time asking the same questions in the Acadian language of her grandparents. The soldier’s eyes jolted open, and he looked at her as if he had only just realized she was there.
“You understand, don’t you?” he said.
Ellis nodded. “I do understand. Tell me how I can help you.”
“Need boots. Must have …”
She shook her head. “Why? Is there something in your boots?”
Eyes once again closed, he had already returned to that place where her questions did not reach him. She rose and went to the corner of the barn where the soldier’s bloodstained boots awaited a cleaning.
Mama had already taken the soldier’s uniform away to wash it, but removing the stains had proven difficult. At present, the man’s jacket was soaking and his trousers were laid out to dry on the porch.
She picked up the soldier’s footwear and returned to where the lamplight was strongest. Once again she could see nothing extraordinary about the Wellington-style knee-high boots. The dark leather was of good quality and the boots obviously well made. Inside was a maker’s stamp that indicated them to be the work of a boot maker on Royal Street in New Orleans.
The soles showed no wear, so they must be relatively new. And they were definitely not the footwear of a poor man.
She ran her hand over the soft but sturdy bloodstained leather that made up the shaft of the boot, pausing at the matching indentions she and Mama had discovered when the blood was wiped away. Based on the size and location, the indentions were the mark of a snake aiming at the soldier’s leg. The mark caused no harm because the leather did not allow the snake’s fangs to reach skin, this much Mama confirmed during her original examination.
These boots had likely saved the Grey’s life. Even so, what could be so important about the footwear that Clay would call out for these?
Ellis picked one up, held it up to the lamplight, and examined it closely, then returned it to its resting spot. She repeated the process with the other and then took a step backward.
Something was different. Off. What it was, she couldn’t quite say.
Moving forward, she turned the boots around so that the toes were facing the wall and then took a step back again. Yes, there. She saw it now.
Ellis grasped the right boot. The curve of the leather that was supposed to be a close fit to the man in the bed did not match the left boot.
It might be argued that the soldier’s legs were not perfectly symmetrical. And yet, she felt they were close if not exactly the same. But these boots were not.
She turned the right boot upside down and shook it. When nothing happened, she turned it right-side up again and brought it closer to the light.
Odd.
Viewed down into the boot, this one appeared to be exactly the same size as the other. She grabbed the left boot and held it against the right. Yes. They were the same.
“Which means you’ve got something hiding in this one, Clay, or whoever you are,” she said as she returned the left boot to its place. “The question is, what is it and how do I get to it?”
Ellis ran her hand across the top of the boot where the seam was perfectly done. There had to be some hidden way of …
She gasped. There it was.
As she reached the inside of the top of the boot, her finger slid into what appeared to be a pocket. With a little more pressure, she managed to open the pocket enough to see that there was indeed something hidden inside.
“Well now, what do we have here?”
Her finger touched something crisp. It appeared to be documents of some sort, maybe, or perhaps a map.
“You clever man,” she said as she glanced over at the sleeping soldier. “Now let’s see what you’ve got hidden in your boot.”
With a tug, Ellis managed to pull out the folded papers. The barn door opened and Mama stepped inside. She dropped the documents inside the boot and put it back next to the other one.
“What were you doing?” Mama asked as she made her way over to the patient.
“Just looking for clues about our patient.”
Ellis joined her mother at the soldier’s bedside. There would be plenty of time to tell her of her find, but for now there were dressings to be changed. She helped with that chore and then moved out of Mama’s way unti
l she was finished with her examination.
“He is healing.” Her mother stood. “But the fever is troublesome.”
“It comes and goes,” Ellis said.
“Anything else?”
“He seems restless.” She paused, reluctant to elaborate then deciding to speak the truth. “Sometimes he speaks, though he doesn’t make sense.”
“It’s the fever.” Mama walked over to the light and doused it, leaving the barn in darkness. “Or it could be the head wound. It is impossible to know at this point. Come, Ellis. He will be fine until morning. You will sleep in the house with the family tonight. It is time.”
“But, Mama, I think perhaps given the fact he still—”
“You will sleep in the house,” she said in that tone Mama used when she would brook no argument.
“Yes, Mama.” Ellis followed her mother out and watched her bar the door.
“Given that he’s healing,” Mama said, “I want you to be on your guard. If he seems combative, we will increase the sleeping remedy and tie him to the bed if we must.”
“Do you think he’s dangerous?”
Her mother linked arms with her as they followed the familiar path to the house. “I don’t know, and that is why we must assume he is.”
This time the darkness was different. Not like the deep ebony nothingness he’d grown used to. The sizzling heat and depths of cold did not come as often, or at least it seemed that way.
But where was the green-eyed woman?
He might have lifted his head to see if he could find her, but it refused to move. All he could do was use his eyes to look around as best he could, allowing his focus—blurry as it was—to fall on the shadowy things around him.
Nearby was a chair with a book on it; that much he could see because the silver light fell stronger there. Behind it were only shadows of things that might be. Or things that weren’t there. He couldn’t tell which.
A sound echoed in the space, a soft drumming noise that he couldn’t place. Was it rain?
The Alamo Bride Page 7