Virtue’s Reward (A Poor Man at the Gate Series, Book 11)

by Andrew Wareham

  They spotted four sentries up on the ramparts – no more than a wooden walkway just below the top of the twenty feet tall log wall. They seemed to be more interested in looking down into the small parade ground inside than in watching the surrounding country.

  “Nearly ten of the clock, Luke. I bet they came on at dawn, at six or thereabouts, and their relief’s due any time now.”

  The speaker seemed at a casual glance to be more like a shaggy bear than a human being, but Luke had learned to listen to these men, even if he could not always tell them apart and identify them by name.

  “I seen them in other forts, Luke. They has a parade first, the new guards gets inspected before they goes on duty.”

  Luke thought that one's name was Jim - he spoke good English when he forgot himself.

  Very military - they had discovered that the Mexican army was good at parades and placed a value on looking pretty.

  “Then we wait till they’re lined up for us, then take out the old sentries and the new all at once, and pick up an officer or two, with a bit of luck.”

  It was hard, and they had no liking for killing from ambush, and some distaste for Luke's predilection for so doing, but it made sense. They told their men what was to happen.

  A few minutes and all went to plan.

  Six men under a sergeant strolled out and stood to attention while an officer, a lieutenant they thought, made a cursory show of an inspection before ordering them to shoulder arms. Before he could give the march Luke whistled.

  Two men fired at each visible target. At a hundred yards and with long rifles, none of them missed.

  The Mexicans were unprepared, were not expecting ever to fight, to be attacked. Several ran out to see what was happening… The gates remained shut and no attempt was made to man the loopholes and return fire.

  “Do you reckon that lieutenant was the ranking officer in the place, Luke? Maybe we taken out the only man givin’ any orders.”

  “Shout them to give up, Sam. See what happens.”

  Sam stood and took a deep breath, bellowed a few words in Spanish.

  Silence for a couple of minutes and then a white flag on a stick poked out of a barracks window.

  Sam shouted in English to hold fire, then called again in Spanish.

  “I told ‘em to come out the gate and wait in the open.”

  Twenty or so soldiers, half of a company perhaps, came running out, stood with their hands high. None of them was fully uniformed, they had obviously been lying about in the shade, idling the day away till they came on duty.

  “Is that about how many you expect, Sam?”

  “Thirty or so counting the stiffs… probably, it’s a backwoods fort, distant from Indian country. Not goin’ to be many here. Only the one sergeant, though, that one we shot out on the parade ground. Could be right, but I'd look for more sergeants.”

  “Tell half the men to stay put, Sam.”

  They walked downhill to the front of the fort, lighting cigars and pipes as they went. There was a double gate, as was normal for such constructions, opening inwards, both flaps pulled back;. They started inside and a score of infantrymen ran out and formed a double rank, muskets rising to their shoulders, a sergeant calling them to present and fire.

  Stavros had a hand resting on a pistol butt, his invariable habit when in Luke’s company – one never knew when a chance might arise. He drew and fired immediately, followed by the other Americans, snapping off shot after shot. The Mexicans fired back, but they had lost the initiative, their first killing volley had been broken into individual shots. Two minutes and the flurry was over, every Mexican down and a dozen of the Americans.

  Sam was dead and Luke was swearing over a flesh wound across his belly, little more than a graze through the soft flesh. The men on the hill came running and into the fort, found no more than peons there, unarmed servants with their eyes closed and hands up in most cases.

  Luke wound a bandage round his belly and swore some more before walking stiffly across to the gate. The Mexicans were mostly dead, but the sergeant was sat down with a broken leg and no other injury.

  “Dishonourable little bastard! Anyone got any Spanish?”

  A dozen men said they had.

  “Tell him he shot at us after the white flag was shown.”

  “He says, ‘so what’, Luke”

  “So this!”

  Luke pulled a pistol and shot the man through the head.

  “That’s for Sam and the others!”

  There were pursed lips and a few mutters - he killed unarmed men too easily for their taste.

  “What about the ones outside, Luke?”

  “They surrendered and stayed clear of the fight. Tell ‘em to get inside their barracks and behave themselves. Check the barracks, first, in case they’ve got their armoury in there.”

  They dragged the bodies out of sight and closed the gates. Thirty of the Americans stayed inside the fort; the rest took their horses back over the hill, out of sight, and placed themselves for a long wait. The peons had said that the convoy was expected, but they did not know when. The captain who commanded the fort had ridden south with a company of forty of so to escort the wagons on the track leading east from the Camino Reale del Norte.

  Several of the original settlers who had come along on the raid had ridden the royal road south in a previous year and said that it was no more than a wagon track; rough and rocky and nowhere a true, surfaced road.

  "They ain't never tried to settle the Texas, Luke - too far from any big towns for them to bother with, and too poor. All you can do up here is raise cattle, and there ain't nothing to do with cattle when you've got 'em. There's wild horses by the thousand, but the folks to ride 'em is all hundreds of miles down south. There's a bit of cotton land down along the coast to the east, but there ain't no way of getting it to market - the Spanish wasn't interested in cotton. Maybe now that there's steamships you could run the bales into New Orleans and sell in the markets there - but the Mexicans don't want their people trading with the States. Thing is, the Mexicans want haciendas and lords ruling the peons, but Texas ain't much good for that. Free settlers with their own ranches and farms, they can maybe make a living, but it ain't no place for lords and ladies."

  "But you could have a hundred thousand families making a damned good living for themselves, Jim."

  Jim supposed they could, but it wouldn't be the same place then - full of damned people. He would wander off west if that day came.

  They waited four days, increasingly impatiently. They were good at hit and run attacks, but discipline and patience was not part of these men's nature. There was a limit to the time they could sleep and talk around camp fires. They became quarrelsome and Luke found himself trying to make peace between men who much preferred to fight for amusement's sake. Luckily, there had been very little of liquor in the fort - they had almost run out and were waiting for the convoy to resupply them.

  They kept two men up high on the hillside and they finally whistled down that they had spotted movement.

  Twenty men mounted up and rode out in a circle to cut the track behind the convoy; the remainder eased their way forward to a position commanding the entrance to the fort. The word had been to expect a score of wagons and a small escort. Adding the forty from the fort there should be no more than a hundred men, and they could probably be called to surrender after the first onslaught had unnerved them.

  The scouts from the hill came down at a stretched run, waving and calling.

  "They's a bloody army, mister! They got regiments of cavalry and got to be five bloody battalions of foot soldiers. And they got guns!"

  "Mount up and pull back! Out of sight, now! I'll make it to the fort and tell them."

  Luke and Stavros galloped the two hundred yards round to the gates of the fort, bellowing at the tops of their voices.

  "Mount up and get out! Move it!"

  The men in the fort had saddled up in readiness, expecting to join in the pursui
t of the convoy escort. Most took a very few seconds to learn the news and leave, quickly.

  There were three men who had been wounded outside the gate and they could not ride. They were lifted quickly and painfully into a buckboard and were trotted out, half a dozen acting as escort. They were barely out of sight when the first cavalry outriders appeared.

  "We need time to get them away. If we kill a couple the rest will back off, Stavros. It will give us a few minutes while they bring up the rest of their regiment."

  Luke slid off his horse and took up a firing position in cover just inside the treeline. Stavros looked hurriedly about, saw that there were no Americans left in sight. Luke shot a cavalryman out of his saddle and half a dozen others fired wildly in return and then turned and ran.

  Stavros pulled a pistol and shot Luke in the back of the neck from six feet away. He was probably dead, he thought, but leaned forward with a second barrel and put a bullet through his head, just to make certain.

  He rode off into the trees, taking a separate course, away from the trail they had used to come to the fort. He hoped his children would rest more easily now. He caught up with the rest of the raiding party, told Jim that Luke had caught a stray bullet in the head, was gone.

  "Bad luck, maybe. Too handy with a gun or knife, that one. Man got no discrimination, none at all! Not my sort of fellow!"

  Jim's accent varied from crude frontier to Mayfair; one of the others had said that he had been some sort of soldier in England, 'an officer in one of them fancy outfits' - but he seemed to fit in with the frontiersmen.

  "So, Mr Star, I am sorry to tell you that your brother Lukas was killed by the Mexican army, in a small battle down towards the south-west of Texas. He was leading a small party at the time and was concerned to rescue wounded men who would have been shot out of hand otherwise."

  Henry was a little upset, but not too much so - Luke had become a wild man, could have been a liability to a respectable man of business in his later years. As it was, he had died a hero's death, and there was much to be made of that in the New Orleans newspapers. He would make quite certain that Mr Stavros told his tale to the editors.

  "What are your plans, Mr Stavros? Are you to stay with us in New Orleans or will you seek your fortune elsewhere?"

  "I have a little of money, Ti Henry, and wish to settle down and make another life. I lost one family, butchered in Greece; perhaps I may start again, sir."

  Henry was genuinely, rarely sympathetic - to lose one's children was the worst that could happen to a man. He had come close to seeing his own boys die in the shipwreck and owed gratitude to Stavros as well.

  "What line of business are you considering, Mr Stavros?"

  "I had been a merchant in the spices trade, and some of medicinal goods as well."

  "No great call for that in New Orleans, I fear, Mr Stavros. The importation of saltpetre and brimstone for gunpowder making might be in some ways similar, I suspect. An importer who travelled the Caribbean and the Main seeking those materials could make a pretty fortune, I believe. And one can always add other interesting goods to one's shipments... I have a powder mill myself and am always in the market for my materials. I could assist in the lease of premises down on the waterfront as well."

  A few days in the company of Henry and his manager, Mitch, and Stavros was set up in his new business. As the close friend and last companion of Lukas Star he discovered himself to be a minor celebrity in his own right. He bought a small house in the proper part of town and settled into his new existence, life kind to him at long last.

  Henry was soon to leave New Orleans on one of his periodical business trips, mentioning to Mitch that he would be away for some little time on this occasion.

  "I had a little chat with the Governor a few days since, Mitch. Was you to bump into him you might find yourself invited to take a seat in the State Legislature when the opportunity arises, and soon after that you might just take over some of my old tasks. We need a gentleman in the right place to talk to the wrong people, as one might say!"

  Mitch laughed and agreed that he would do so; he was the face of the business in New Orleans and was very happy to become a little more prominent.

  "I have, Ti Henry, been in conversation with Philippe Nemours of late weeks."

  "I know, Ti Mitch. He has mentioned to me that he had met you, wanted to know a little of you. I have assured him that you are a man to be increasingly respected in the whole state."

  "Thank you. You will know that he has a daughter, and I understand is seeking a husband for her."

  "You have met her, Mitch? A love match?"

  "Not as such, Ti Henry, but it is time I arranged my family life."

  "Then, a word to the wise, my friend. The second daughter, Josephine, is a better prospect by far for a man looking for a quiet life. I am told that she is a clever girl, certainly not unattractive, and, importantly, somewhat less in the habit of keeping unwise company; in fact, not at all in that habit."

  "I have not seen her other than in passing when I have called on Marie."

  "Make a point of speaking to her, Mitch. You are to attend the play later in the week?"

  Mitch was, not with any great enthusiasm, but society was in favour of theatre-going and Henry had made clear that he was to be seen in the company of the best.

  "I shall be there as well. We shall speak to the good Mr Nemours and I shall, if necessary, talk to Miss Marie while you discover the younger girl."

  Mitch was perfectly ready to fall in with the scheme - he wanted a wife and was little concerned with exactly who she should be.

  The evening fell out as planned, Mitch meeting Miss Josephine Nemours and finding her to be a pretty girl, one he was very willing to make the object of his affections. Her father would rather have got rid of his eldest daughter before she became too much of an embarrassment, but was too happy to make an alliance with the Star interests to quibble. The girl herself was less than enthralled with the prospect of wedding a man twice her age, but she wanted a good marriage and a house of her own sufficiently that the husband was not of overwhelming importance. The match was soon agreed, to the satisfaction of both.

  "Why, Ti Henry?"

  "He has interests on the Red River, Mitch, and he wants our river boats to favour him. We want his political connections - which are widespread, in Washington as well as here - and his people in Florida where we have the new lands starting up. He has a deal of influence there, and we can use his aid in a number of ways, I doubt not. He has relatives in manufacturing in the north as well."

  Mitch would bear that in mind.

  "You will be on your own this next while, Ti Mitch, for I am off to the north myself."

  Henry explained, at length, why he was unhappy about the future of the Southern States. The Institution of Slavery he said, though it might be sanctioned by God, was no longer favoured in the civilised countries of the world, of Europe especially. The climate of opinion was moving against the old ways and eventually the slaves must be freed, and what, he asked, would be the outcome of that.

  "You mean that the slaves would become free labourers, Ti Henry?"

  "Free men, Mitch."

  "Never! The people of the South could never countenance that!"

  "They will have no choice, one day."

  "Over our dead bodies, Ti Henry!"

  "Very likely, Mitch - that is why I am taking some of my money north, and probably the family home as well. It won't come to war in my days, I believe, and perhaps not in my sons', but my grandchildren may well thank me."

  Mitch was not convinced, but he was not displeased to take a larger part in the business, particularly at the salary and profits share Henry offered.

  "Canada, my dear, as you suggested so wisely. That is the place for our money. The wheat lands around the Great Lakes are being opened, I am told, and there is word of mining and of great tracts of forest opened to lumbering. We are not ourselves to be settlers, as goes without saying, I trust, but t
here will be many who will benefit from our loans and investments. It is the case of course that I am English born and no doubt can forget to mention that I am American now, so we shall be very welcome in the appropriate places in the colony."

  Grace was flattered that her words had been harkened to; she was sure that Marcus and Joseph would enjoy better lives in the more civilised North. Little Agnes would also benefit from a choice of husbands there.

  "Early to consider that, is it not, my dear?"

  "It is never too early for a Mama to look for a match for her daughters, sir! My little lamb shall expect the best, with my assistance!"

  Lord Frederick discovered that Virginia was a state that offered much to the gentleman; the leaders of society had brought much that was best of Old England with them and maintained a proper distance and deference while still being part of the New World.

  He had stayed a few days in New York, waiting his passage down the coast, and had found the town to be rather unpleasant, crowded and rushing, the people brash and raucous. Virginia, however, was slower and quieter, the pace of life more genteel, the common townsfolk themselves aware of courtesy. Out in the countryside, in the plantations, standards of some elegance prevailed.

  He had fallen instantly into love with his house, mellow brick and white painted board with verandas and lawns and flowering trees and shrubs, the whole giving an impression of gracious age. It could not be fifty years old, he knew, but the house spoke of generations, of great families, of permanence - and he was its master! The plantation had possessed no name except that of its family; a few hours of thought and Frederick announced it to be 'Grafhams'.

  There were inelegant slave cabins, to be sure, but properly out of sight, hidden behind tall trees together with the barns and outhouses of agricultural life. To the front, in easy view from the doors, were paddocks and a stableyard with a dozen young thoroughbreds in residence.