by Judith Pella
Startled gasps from the group of still-mounted riders interrupted Reid. Lucie noted an ugly look of triumph on Carlton’s face. She was a little gratified to see that Grant Carlton, mounted next to his father, wore an expression of supreme discomfort. Maybe he had a redeeming quality after all, but she would still have a hard time forgiving him for even being present at this obvious witch-hunt.
“So you have been lying,” Axel said.
“When my son went off to fight with the Mexican army in ’36, I wasn’t proud, to be sure. I disowned him.” Reid’s lips trembled slightly over the words, and Lucie knew he was barely keeping his emotions in check. For six years he’d swallowed his pain over his son’s actions, and he was not about to reveal any of it now, especially not in front of the hostile men who used to be his friends. “When folks got the idea he’d returned instead to my relatives in the States, I let them think it. None of you people had accepted him much anyway, and you sure didn’t miss him. Soon he was forgotten. I let it happen. But I never forgot him. When I heard what he was doing and who he was . . . what was I supposed to do? What would any of you do?” Lucie felt her father lean more heavily upon her. Now she placed a supportive arm around him.
“Papa, let me take you in.”
“Not yet, Lucie. It’s time these things were said.” He took a labored breath. “I am a dying man,” he said, and no one could deny that at the moment, “and God help me, but I want to see my son once before I die. I don’t care what he’s done or who he is. I haven’t seen him in six years, but if he should come, I will see him.”
“What about your daughter?” Lloyd Samson asked.
“No one will say anything against my daughter!” Reid growled, momentarily gaining some of his old vigor. “You try that and there will be trouble here.”
“You need some help, boss?” called Pete Barnes.
Lucie glanced beyond the riders and now saw all the Maccallum ranch hands had taken defensive positions, encircling the riders. They were on foot, but each man carried a rifle. She wanted to cheer but only let a small smirk tilt her lips.
“Thanks, Pete, but I got it under control,” Reid said. “These gents were about to leave.”
The riders, too, had noted their precarious position.
Carlton still refused to act defeated. “Because you are a gringo, Maccallum, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt. But I don’t know about . . . anybody else. If Viegas comes here, it is your duty to report it.”
“Don’t you dare tell me my duty, Carlton. Now get off my land!”
There followed a tense moment when it was unclear if the riders would obey. The Maccallum ranch hands raised their rifles as if to add emphasis to Reid’s words. Then Carlton turned his horse and rode away.
The other riders followed suit. Grant was the last to leave. Just before he caught up with the others, he threw a look back at Lucie. She didn’t know what to make of it. Maybe it was regret, but she didn’t care.
She turned her attention to her father. He was practically hanging onto her, barely keeping to his feet.
“Pete!” she called.
The foreman hurried forward to give a hand. It showed the extent of Reid’s fatigue in that he did not protest such assistance, especially within sight of his men. He let them help him to his room and to a seat on the edge of his bed. Even then, however, he refused to lie down like an invalid in the presence of his foreman.
“Thanks, Pete,” Reid said, “I mean for what you did out there. Tell the men, too. I just thank God it didn’t erupt into something ugly.”
“They had no right saying the things they did,” Pete said.
“Even if they were true? At least about Viegas being my . . . son.”
“They had no call to question your loyalty.”
“I appreciate your loyalty. To me.” Reid clasped his foreman’s hand. “You’re a good man. Now I think I want some rest.”
“All right, boss. I’ll go talk to the men.”
When Pete left, Reid lifted his feet onto the bed. As he lay back on it, he said to his daughter, “We’re alone now, Lucie. . . . You got something to tell me?”
“Don’t you think you should rest, Papa?”
“Ain’t no way I’ll rest proper until you tell me. Did you see my son?”
Lucie tried to stall by fussing over her father. She drew a blanket up over him and straightened his pillows. She poured him a glass of water from the pitcher at his bedside.
“Lucie . . . ?”
Sighing, she plopped down with defeat into the chair at his bedside. “Papa, I didn’t tell you because I thought it would only cause you more anguish . . . knowing he was so close but had not tried to see you. He had his reasons.”
“Does he still believe I want nothing to do with him?”
“No, I am sure he doesn’t. He understands. He only stays away because he wanted to prevent just what happened today.”
“Bah!” Reid shifted in his bed, which creaked with his weight. “I don’t give a hang what those people think any longer. That they would turn on us so quickly at the word of—I wonder who it was anyway, informing on us like that.”
Lucie played with the lace on her shawl. “I think I know.” She didn’t let her eyes meet her father’s for fear he’d see the anguish this caused in her.
“Who is the rascal?”
“It doesn’t matter, Papa.” Then she hurried on to shift the direction of the conversation. “Papa, Joaquin told me he is married now and has a child on the way.”
“A child . . .” Reid smiled for the first time that day. “I’ll be a grand father . . . though I’ll never see the child.”
“Who knows, Papa? They live near Saltillo. It is not a horribly long journey.”
“Even if I live that long, he is still an outlaw, and he would be taking too much of a risk to come see me. And I could never make such a trip. With the trouble now between our two countries, I couldn’t make it even if I were healthy.” He reached out a hand, and Lucie took it. “Ah, Lucie, it is a lost cause. But I am happy you saw him. Tell me some more about him. What does he look like? What does he sound like . . . ?”
Lucie spent the next hour, until her father drifted off into sleep, telling him every detail she could about Joaquin . . . Maccallum.
She left his room and ate a quiet supper with Juana, neither having the heart to wake Reid for the meal. Juana was more silent than usual. She was the only one outside of family who had known about Joaquin, so all that had transpired came as no surprise to her. She made it clear that her silence had more to do with grief over the family’s plight than with disapproval. She may as well have been a member of the family, for all her deep bond with them.
Lucie went to her room right after supper. It was dark by then, and there seemed nothing else to do but get some sleep. However, sleep eluded her. All she could think about was how Micah had broken his promise. She tried to defend him, thinking that it was too much to ask, especially of a lawman, to keep such a secret about an outlaw. Yet she had believed him. She had trusted him. She had wanted to trust him.
And he had betrayed her.
It always came back to that. And she could not prevent her rising anger and hurt. It wouldn’t have killed him to keep silent. He knew she could not have had anything to do with the invasion. But even if he had believed her to be a spy, why not face her himself rather than take such a cowardly way out?
She had thought better of him, and perhaps that’s what hurt the most.
But wasn’t it best she discover all this now before she did something really stupid? It was bad enough she had declared her love. How much more foolish could she be!
Lucie squeezed her eyes shut. She wanted sleep. She wanted to force all thoughts of Micah Sinclair from her mind. She wanted the impossible.
CHAPTER
21
THE RANGERS HAD BEEN KEEPING busy since Woll’s invasion, making frequent sweeps around San Antonio, watching the Mexicans’ movements to ensure the
y did not go farther east. There was no time to hunt, and they had little other food supplies, so the men were all but starving. When it was decided to make a more determined strike against the Mexicans, Micah was the first to volunteer. Hays only wanted the men with the best horses, and Micah’s buckskin, even on low rations, was just that.
Micah tried not to think about whether Hays’ plan was a good one. It might be foolhardy, but at least it was doing something. Thirty-eight of the best mounted men of the two hundred now gathered near San Antonio were to approach the Alamo fortress near the town where the main force of Mexicans was encamped. There Hays and his men would act as a decoy to draw out the Mexican army. For the most part they hoped to use the enemy for a bit of target practice. If they could get some away from the fort, they’d lead them into an ambush Hays set up near the banks of the Salado. If they could get at least part of the enemy there, they might well knock down the formidable odds of eight to one against the Texans.
Gesturing and taunting loudly, the Texans challenged the Mexicans to come out and fight. The ploy worked. But instead of a mere forty or fifty soldiers emerging from the fort as they had expected, six hundred mounted Mexicans poured from the gates of the Alamo.
“Retreat!” Hays screamed, and it almost seemed as if he were truly in a panic and not merely feigning as the plan required.
The Texans took off at a full gallop. Micah’s buckskin performed admirably. Under a barrage of Mexican fire, the Texans led a merry four-mile chase. But the Mexicans were too well trained to be lured into the ambush. Still, Hays’ scouts were able to hold off the enemy until Caldwell’s two hundred arrived to reinforce them.
The Texans had good cover and knew the terrain. The enemy sustained heavy casualties, while the Texans had one dead and several wounded. The skirmish forced Woll to send four hundred more of his men from the town to aid the army in the field.
The next morning Micah was sent to scout out the town. He returned with good news.
“The Mexicans are definitely leaving town,” he said.
“What about prisoners?” Hays asked.
“I’m pretty sure I saw some gringo captives.”
“Then we’ll maintain pursuit.”
Micah knew for a fact there were a handful of rangers among the captives in town, those who had been left to aid in the defense of San Antonio when Hays had made that first scout just before the invasion. He was now determined to get his men back.
An opportunity arose at the Hondo River. Hays encouraged the other commanders to strike the Mexicans before they crossed the river, but they were reluctant to face Woll’s cannons. Hays responded that if he had a hundred men on good horses, he’d capture the artillery first. By then the ranks of the Texans had swelled by a few more hundred, and the commanders were then emboldened to commit two hundred to reinforce Hays once the cannon was taken.
At sunrise the next day, Hays, his rangers, and almost a hundred Texans charged Woll’s front line. The Mexican artillery fired wildly, overshooting Hays’ men and giving them the chance to draw close enough to make lethal use of their rifles and pistols. McBroome’s horse was killed and several men were wounded, but they broke through the Mexican artillery. However, when Hays looked about for the promised reinforcements, he saw nothing.
“Micah,” Hays yelled, “ride back and see what’s keeping those reinforcements. Tell ’em to get their sorry behinds up here pronto!” Hays’ eyes flashed darkly. He was a mild-mannered type until riled, then he well earned the name the Indians had for him, Devil Jack.
Micah wheeled around and, flanking the artillery that was quickly regrouping, made it down the hill to the camp. Caldwell’s men were nowhere near to being ready for an attack. Micah set upon the first man he saw.
“Where’s Caldwell?” he barked. Micah had escaped the charge unscathed, but his buckskin had been grazed in the neck and, though not hurt mortally, was suffering more than Micah cared to see. He was furious to find that no one was even making an attempt to aid Hays.
The man whirled around. “How am I supposed—” But he stopped abruptly as both men locked eyes and recognized each other.
The man whose gaze was now just as sharp as it had been on the dance floor back in San Antonio was Lucie’s escort that evening. Grant . . . someone. Micah had seen him before during the last weeks with the army but had managed to avoid him. He thought it odd that there should be such antagonism between them, but there was no denying it. It had been there the night of the dance, and it was no less present now.
But there was no time to consider personal affairs. His comrades would not be able to stand for long against Woll’s army if help did not soon arrive.
“Why aren’t you men preparing to advance?” Micah demanded. “Captain Hays is gonna be slaughtered up there.”
“We have received no orders,” Grant said.
“Well, I’m ordering you to mount up and move it.”
A sardonic grin slipped across Grant’s finely chiseled face. “You and who else?”
Micah knew he had little authority, but he put as much bluff and bravado as he could behind that little he had. “I’m authorized by Captain Hays, and his orders are for you to move.”
By now many of the men had gathered around. Grant’s eyes swept the group. “Anyone here see Hays?” Of course no one did, and none of them were going to take orders from anyone lesser. “We ain’t taking orders from you, Sinclair.”
Micah wanted to leap from his horse and strangle the man, not only for his personal agenda but because Grant’s blatant unconcern for his endangered comrades inflamed him beyond reason. Then he made the mistake of glancing again at Grant’s sneering, superior face, and reason left him completely.
“You low-down snake!” Micah growled as he vaulted from his mount.
He smashed into Grant with enough force to practically knock the air from both of them. He backed up the force of his body with a well-aimed fist, and Micah could not remember anything feeling so good as the sound of the crunching cartilage of that smug face.
Blood spurted from Grant’s patrician nose. He touched his face, then looked with horror at his bloodied hand. Grant was about to make a counterattack when a gruff voice stopped him short.
“What’s going on here?” It was Caldwell himself.
Micah pulled his attention from Grant, for though his hands itched to do more damage, he knew he had larger things to consider.
“Where’s the reinforcements?” Micah asked, his voice shaking. He didn’t care if this was the commander of the Texan army. He’d pound him, too, if he tried to wheedle out of his responsibility.
“You’re one of Hays’ rangers, aren’t you?”
“That’s right. We broke through the artillery, but it was no use because there was no one to back us up. We’re getting torn to pieces!” Micah didn’t even try to curb his accusing tone.
“The ground is too boggy, and our mounts are simply too exhausted to make a go of it,” Caldwell replied, somewhat defensively. “It’ll be in my report.”
“Hang your report!” railed Micah. “What about Captain Hays?”
But Caldwell was spared, for the moment at least, as Big Foot Wallace on his stout mule galloped into camp with the news that Hays was in retreat.
“Anyone killed?” Micah asked.
“None that I know of.”
Micah shot a glance at Grant as if he would have been held personally responsible had any of Micah’s comrades been dead.
“You want to finish what you started,” dared Grant, “I’m ready.”
Micah advanced, but Wallace, who had dismounted, sized up the situation and stepped between the two.
“Hold on there,” he said. “We have too many problems without adding fighting among ourselves to ’em.”
Micah swallowed his rage. He knew it was unfounded. This man was nothing to him, certainly not a rival for the affections of a girl he could never have. And as far as Hays’ failed attack, Grant could not even be fairly blamed
for that. He was just following orders.
“I guess I overreacted,” Micah admitted, though through gritted teeth.
Grant touched his nose again. Blood was beginning to congeal and crust, and the skin was turning an ugly shade of black. “Wallace is right. There’s more important things to see to right now. But I owe you, Sinclair—for a lot.”
“What’d you mean by that?”
“No one takes what’s mine. That’s what I mean. Not that you could take what belongs to me, but I’m not forgiving you for trying.”
Micah snorted derisively. “That’s ridiculous. If you’re talking about Lucie Maccallum, I don’t believe she belongs to anyone—me or you. She’s her own woman. But aside from that, unless you’ve a mind to marry her, I got just as much right to pay her attention as you.”
“I’m merely protecting her from scum—”
Micah made another menacing move, but Big Foot intervened again. “Carlton, this is the last time I’m gonna stop my friend. Next unsavory remark from your mouth, and I’m gonna let him at you—and believe me, you don’t want that. I’ve seen Comanches fall before his fists, and I don’t reckon you’re anywhere near as tough as a Comanche.”
Grant’s inner debate was obvious on his face. Finally he took a breath and spoke. “You can’t blame a man for desiring to protect a woman’s honor.”
“Well, go do it someplace else,” Wallace said.
Grant stalked away, very obviously not in defeat but mollified for the time being. There were other battles to be fought. They both knew that.
When they were alone, Micah turned to Wallace. “Big Foot, I ain’t never fought a Comanche with my fists.”
“Never?”
Micah shook his head.
“Well,” Wallace said, an easy grin bending his lips, “I reckon you’d be pretty fierce if you ever did.”
“Thanks, Big Foot.”
“Now let’s go see to our men.”
Hays’ company had by now ridden into camp. Thankfully, they had but one horse killed and five men wounded. But they were as ready as Micah had been to vent their fury upon Caldwell’s army. Hays barely held them in check. Tensions, however, rode high in camp that night and weren’t helped when they woke in the morning to find that Woll’s army had slipped away during the night.