“We will not succeed without you. I’m convinced of it. All my other generals—Herron, Stant—they all failed. But it wasn’t really their fault. They didn’t know the land, and more to the point, they didn’t know those people. But you do. You are the only man who ever made any progress out there; you know the Cheyenne.”
Meriwether’s gaze came back to Custer. “I thought we were talking about the Spanish.”
Custer acquiesced the point with a nod. “We were, but the Spanish are merely the catalyst. The Cheyenne are the key. I know you see that.”
Meriwether’s brow furrowed as he saw the map Custer knew was still fresh in his mind. The Gulf of Narváez, the Kansa Plains, the rivers reaching northward, westward, thirsty for their mountain headwaters. And with each place, each river, each hill: a memory. It was Meriwether’s turn now to relive his years on the prairie, and to drink again the intoxicating alienness of the place and its people. He shook his head to clear away the flood of recollection.
“But back in the field? I can’t make any more difference now than I did before.”
“Yes you can,” Custer argued. “You still see it. You still know the land. And you know how best to use it, especially against the Spanish.” He put his cane before him and leaned on it with both hands. “It’s a critical time, John. Augusta will understand.”
Meriwether jerked as if stung. He looked at Custer and then over his shoulder toward the house. Custer heard a sudden clatter of tableware and knew that their conversation had been overheard.
Meriwether’s gaze drifted back to Custer’s face. “That,” he said, “was dirty pool.”
Custer did not flinch. He spoke in a low, quiet voice that only his old friend could hear. “I need you, John. I know you retired during that ugliness with Morton, and I can’t press you into service. I can only ask. You can refuse me. That’s your prerogative, and I know you want to. But if having to explain your refusal to Augusta makes it harder for you to say no, I’ll take it. Dirty pool or not.”
Meriwether stood there, the sun beating on the back of his neck, his eyes locked on Custer’s face, the muscles of his jaw knotting, teeth grinding as he chewed on the matter. Custer let him ruminate. The decision—no matter how lopsided the argument had been—had to be Meriwether’s. He would have to wait as Meriwether tested all the feints and stratagems, playing the game out in his mind.
The supper that followed was hearty and unprepossessing. A thick barley and onion soup, corn bread, and pork chops with apple sauce provided sufficient food to surround their idle chatter and fill any awkward pauses. Throughout the meal, Custer watched Meriwether and Augusta exchange glances, and several times they excused themselves to “see to something” in the kitchen. Each time they returned, Augusta’s eyes were more red and the line of Meriwether’s mouth was drawn more taut.
When the meal was done, Libbie said, “Mrs. Meriwether, have you read the latest from Mr. Wilde?”
“Oh, yes, in Lippincott’s. The story about the young man in the picture frame.”
“Yes, that’s the one. He read it to us when he visited us last spring.”
“Visited!”
“Yes; let me tell you all about it.” And with that, Libbie and Augusta retired to the sitting room where they would wait until the men had completed the day’s business.
The three men glanced at one another across the table. Tarbox, as their titular host, laughed uncomfortably and rose from his chair.
“If you would rather I—”
“No,” Meriwether said forcefully, surprising both Tarbox and Custer himself. The general smiled and motioned with his hand. “Please, Charles. Sit. Stay.” He took the brandy bottle by the neck and poured a splash for Tarbox and then one for himself, knowing well enough not to bother with one for his president. He stared at the glass.
“If I do this,” he said, “I do it properly.”
Custer frowned. “What are you trying to say?”
Meriwether looked up. “I won’t be hamstrung. We fight this my way. Cheyenne or Spaniard, red or white. You set the goal, but I make the field decisions.”
Custer nodded. “All right,” he said.
“And this time, if your son gets in my way, I’ll crush him. Just like any other combatant. No special treatment for the President’s wayward boy. Agreed?”
Custer was acutely aware that Tarbox was witness to the negotiation, and that the answer he was about to give would be recalled and corroborated, should it become an issue. If he refused, he’d lose the most capable and experienced Indian fighter he had, but if he agreed, he’d put his own son in peril for, if there was to be a war in the territory, young George was sure to be in the thick of it, fighting for his misguided principles. Meriwether’s repugnance for George’s treason would grant no quarter.
“Just like any other combatant,” Custer said. “No special treatment, but neither will you single him out. You won’t go gunning for him.”
Meriwether chewed on the counter-proposal for several moments before he nodded and stuck out his hand.
“I’m your man,” he said.
As Custer shook on the deal, he tried to convince himself that he hadn’t just consigned his son to death.
Chapter 4
Tuesday, September 9th, AD 1890
Muelle de Caballeria
La Ciudad de la Habana, Cuba
“Hurry!”
Alejandro held the small lantern to guide his wife and daughter down the dark gangway to the pier. The rustle of the women’s skirts echoed the sound of the nighttime waves lapping against the sea wall. Behind them came Roberto and Olivia. D’Avignon brought up the rear.
“Come along, now,” Alejandro urged them. “No time to waste. The tide has already turned.”
The cool air was thick with the scents of kelp and harbor mud. They made their way past net-draped barrels and shadowed stacks of crates, heading toward the lights of the tall triple-masted steamer at the pier’s end. Alejandro noted its name with approval—Emperatriz del Océano. Men at fore and aft were readying the lines and the stack was belching smoke. Alejandro reached the boarding ramp and beckoned to his family.
“Pardon, sir,” D’Avignon said, coming forward. “Not that one.” He pointed to the other side of the pier. “That one.”
Alejandro peered through the gloom toward the darkened ship across the broad dock and stepped closer, lantern held high, to get a better look.
The Reina Caribeña was a small, two-masted steamer with stains of rust discoloring her hull’s cracked and peeling paint. The deck, where it wasn’t cluttered by cargo and unkempt lines, looked slick and slippery. Most troubling to Alejandro’s eye were the crew, standing idle, uninterested in making any preparations for departure, but who paid great attention to the newcomers, especially Alejandro’s wife and daughter.
“No,” Alejandro muttered to himself, then turned and said the same to D’Avignon. “No! I forbid it.”
Roberto came up to his side. “Forbid what?”
“Forbid—” He gestured toward the crew, the disorder, the rust and peeling paint. “—that,” he said.
“His Excellency,” D’Avignon said with the barest of sneers, “is too fine for such a vessel.”
“Don’t you start that game with me,” Alejandro warned, and the wily prospector raised his hands and stepped back.
“It’s not a concern for me, Roberto,” Alejandro continued. “It’s the women. We can’t subject them to such...conditions.”
Roberto put a hand on his brother-in-law’s shoulder. “We must. It’s necessary. D’Avignon says—”
“‘D’Avignon says,’” Alejandro mimicked, exasperated.
“Yes, D’Avignon says,” Roberto went on. “He says that a ship of no apparent value has the best chance of running the blockade, and I agree. You would, too, if you would listen to reason.” He pointed to the larger, finer Emperatriz del Océano. “She is our decoy.”
“And this scow?” Alejandro said with a nod to the othe
r ship.
“She’s ugly, but she’s fast. And D’Avignon made sure the crew made her presentable below decks. Look at her! Would you expect to find a Governor and Special Ambassador on that?”
Alejandro didn’t like it, and he liked even less the fact that it made sense. And the fact that it was D’Avignon’s plan. D’Avignon smiled and nodded when Alejandro looked his way. The man was becoming insolent. He would have to be watched in the coming days. Alejandro needed to remind him who was in charge.
“Hmph,” he said, and left that as his final verdict on the entire subject.
The accommodations below had indeed been made suitable for female passengers. Floors were scrubbed to gleaming, linens were fresh, and the stale tobacco smoke that permeated the rest of the ship was only a vestigial scent among the perfumes of soap and rose water in the staterooms. Alejandro gave up his sleeping berth to Isabella; he would be spending the entire voyage at the rail, anyway, so it was no inconvenience to him. Isabella would be more comfortable with her mother in this strange place than on her own.
After seeing his family settled into their stateroom, Alejandro went above deck to get some air. The Emperatriz and the Reina set sail under a starry sky, the larger ship taking the lead. Alejandro’s stomach was already queasy by the time they passed the fortifications at Castillo el Morro, and as they headed out to sea, he stared up at the immensity of the heavens. The pale swathe of the Milky Way was like a silver shawl draped across the sky. He picked out a few constellations—the square of Pegasus, the cross of the Swan—and noted the blue eye of Vega hanging in the northwest, but the distraction was only momentary; he was unable to ignore the relentless, unemotional power of the black ocean that surrounded him.
The Reina began to pitch and rock as she rode through crest and trough, and her smaller size only added to Alejandro’s anxiety. When you set out to sea, he thought to himself, you roll the die and neither prayer nor riches can save you. On a larger ship like the Emperatriz, he might have been able to fool himself through some of the voyage, as her oaken sides and disciplined crew extended the illusion of safety. They might even have sighted the Tejano coast before he had to admit that they were little more than a bobbing cork on the restless water. But in a rusty bucket like the Reina, the truth was inescapable. Wind, storm, or a simple leak could spell their doom. At least the clear, moonless night meant calm weather, for a while, anyway.
Crewmen appeared and doused the lights along the bulkheads and rails. Alejandro looked around in alarm. From fore to aft, lights were going out; the Emperatriz, too, was going dark, leaving only a single lamp off her stern for them to follow. He heard a footfall beside him and smelled smoke from a cigar.
“Excellency,” D’Avignon said in greeting.
“What is it? Why are they doing that?”
“Oh, the running lights? Nothing to worry about, sir.” The glowing tip of his cigar wove a gesture toward the Emperatriz. “We’ll be sailing in her shadow until we pass the quarantine line. Hopefully, we’ll slip past without an encounter.”
Alejandro didn’t want to know the other side of that wish. “How long until we pass the blockade?”
“Not long,” D’Avignon said. “We want to get through before dawn.” He put the cigar between his teeth and even in the dim light Alejandro could see his rakish smile. “Easier that way.”
“Undoubtedly,” Alejandro said and then felt his stomach begin its rebellion. “I wonder if you might do me the favor of taking that cigar downwind.”
Alejandro was at the rail, suffering his second episode of nausea, when they heard whistles from the Emperatriz. The Reina’s crew appeared from the shadows, starlight gleaming from rifle barrels.
“Warship. Starboard bow,” came the call from a speaking-trumpet off the Emperatriz’s stern. Crewmen relayed the information to the wheelhouse.
Alejandro crept forward, staring wide-eyed into the night, but he could only see the dark bulk of the Emperatriz’s sails against the shimmering starlight. The two ships ran in tandem, forequarters into the easterly wind, sails drawn taut as they plowed the waves. He felt a shudder in the rail as the captain ordered the engine room to build up steam. The crew were quiet, as intent on their study of the darkness as was he.
Then a bang, a pop, and a new star exploded to the north, bathing the Emperatriz and the Reina alike in its harsh, white light.
“Flare,” one man cried, and bo’suns’ whistles pierced the sounds of wind and wave with piped orders.
Crewmen slung riflery over shoulders and put calloused hands to sheet and line. Alejandro could see no other ship, but in the swinging light of the falling flare, he saw a crewman aboard the Emperatriz signaling cryptic instructions. The Reina responded and came forward along the larger ship’s port side to hide behind her bulk. Another flare burst in the sky, doubling the sharp shadows and deepening the night around them. Then Alejandro heard a distant siren, a mechanical wail that the wind could not produce. The signalman from the Emperatriz returned to the rail and drew his thumb across his throat and pointed north in a gesture that even Alejandro could comprehend.
Cut. Run.
The crew of the Emperatriz set about lighting her lamps as she turned her bow into the wind. Alejandro felt the deck tremble as the Reina’s captain commanded the engineers to engage the drive and bring her to ahead full. The ship veered to port, and while the crew moved smartly to reef the sails, the ship began to put distance between herself and her sacrificial lamb.
D’Avignon appeared at Alejandro’s side.
“Quel dommage,” he said. “But that’s why they are here.”
Alejandro nodded toward the Emperatriz, her crew now shouting with mock surprise and outrage. “What will happen to them?” he asked.
“Eh,” D’Avignon shrugged. “Nothing, peut-être. They have nothing of real value—just some light cargo of cloth and tobacco. Most likely they’ll be turned around. The Americans haven’t begun freebooting...at least not this close to Havana.”
But then another set of flares lit the sky and all of them—Emperatriz, Reina, and the approaching American warship—were all as plain as bugs on a tiled floor. Bells rang and the warship’s siren whooped. Smoke spewed from its stacks and it hove off from the Emperatriz and came before her bow in pursuit of the smaller quarry.
“Smarter than we expected,” D’Avignon said of the American commander. “Now we’ll see if our skipper was just bragging about this old girl’s speed.”
The Reina put her nose into the wind and lunged forward with all the rumbling power her engine could provide. The crew lashed every inch of sail tight against the spars, making her as sleek as possible.
Behind them, the American ship, broad of beam, bounced across the oncoming swells, her searchlight swaying up and down, side to side.
The captain of the Reina powered his ship across the troughs and split the crests with his narrow bow. He had not lied to D’Avignon; his “old girl” was fast, and within a quarter hour the warship was just a bright light stabbing into the darkness behind them.
The Emperatriz, far astern, had escaped as well. The American commander, having reached for what he guessed was the greater prize, had lost both.
“I wonder if he’s cursing his decision,” Alejandro asked aloud.
“Probably not,” D’Avignon said. “I think he’s savvy enough to see he made the right choice. Not his fault we were the fleeter vessel.”
“Best choice in a bad situation.”
“Mais oui.”
Alejandro stared into the night and actually felt a moment of calm. A false dawn glowed in the east and the Milky Way was studded with tiny rosettes of pink all along its length. In the west, where the dark was deepest, stars hung like gemstones—diamonds, rubies, sapphires, topaz. He relished the sight, smelled the salt air, felt the cool wind on his face and neck. After the hectic and unsettling events that followed his audience with the Queen Regent, he finally felt at ease. The pieces he had been juggling where falling
into place. He had a royal commission, he had been restored in society, his family and his name had been revived, and he now had the authority to regain his honor and his fortunes. And all for the glory of God and Spain as well. Everything was staged for success, and he was confident of achieving his goals.
When the nausea returned, he went to the rail with a happier mood.
At La Puerta De Luna, Alejandro entrusted his family to Roberto’s hands.
“I’ll see them safely home,” Roberto promised, and Alejandro knew he would.
“Be careful,” was all that Victoria said when they made their goodbyes. He kissed the fine, pale skin of her perfect hands and regretted the months that would soon separate them.
“I shall make you proud,” he said.
“You already do,” she assured him.
Roberto took the families westward, toward Albuquerque and eventually to the vice-regal court at San Francisco, while Alejandro headed north along the Tejano coast toward Cimmaron, Apishapa, and the staging grounds along the frontier.
Hours later, he was seated in a stifling hot carriage, rereading the telegraph messages that he had picked up at port.
D’Avignon peered over at them in interest. “Do you know this general?” he asked as whips cracked and the carriage swerved along the rough coastal road.
“Pereira?” Alejandro shook his head. “No. I’ve never met him. Roberto told me that he is one of the viceroy’s protégés; young, well-favored, but relatively inexperienced. I know the priest, though.” He pulled out another telegraph message. “Father Velasquez is an old warhorse himself. He and I campaigned together, during the Tejano conflicts.”
“Still a priest?” D’Avignon asked. “Not a bishop by now?
Alejandro smiled. “Some men are born soldiers, even if they choose the path of God.”
The carriage rattled along, and Alejandro enjoyed the ride as much as possible. It was infinitely better than being on the high seas, and it would also be his last bit of comfort before the miles of hard riding that were ahead of him once they reached the frontier. The future would be full of rough living and few amenities, but he reminded himself of all he would achieve. D’Avignon, in the seat across from him, posed a much greater challenge. He was critical to the success of Alejandro’s financial goals, but he had to be controlled. Alejandro eyed the telegrams and smiled. With Velasquez in the picture, reining in this “useful” man might be a much simpler task. Velasquez could put the fear of God into anyone, even a scoundrel like D’Avignon.
Beneath a Wounded Sky Page 5