by P. J. Keogh
Scanlon and the girl rode in silence, at first. Then their conversation came.
Belen talked of the convento and its confines, of adobe walls and religious rules, then asked him questions about himself. Of things that he had done, of places he had been.
He had kept his responses minimal, saying nothing of the harshness of his past, of the men of several races he had been forced to kill, of San Alberto, his court-martial, or of his sojourn in Queretara. She had wished to know how he had met Don Leopoldo, and he told her of their fathers’ mutual friendship, in years past. Of Armandez, Julio, Lorca and the comanchero venture, he did not speak.
However, what he outlined had been sufficient to arouse her interest. This was a travelled man, she could tell. One far-removed from the street-boys and callow students from the monasterio, who loitered at the convento’s gates.
Belen was a woman now, in years as well as feelings. In her headstrong way, she was drawn to this tall one with the look of danger to him, and could see that his eyes were reading the message hers were making clear.
For Scanlon’s part, he was struck—if not yet stricken—by her beauty. Her attraction to him would have caused his heart to lift, had circumstances not been what they were. But the situation was what it was. And nothing he could do would change that.
Yesterday this knowledge had lingered like a weight upon his spirit, as they rode the buggy to her home.
Today it weighed still heavier.
Knowing now what her father truly planned, Scanlon faced the fact that these schemes must at all costs be frustrated. He was her father’s adversary—a truth that, one day soon, would be clear to her and to everyone. His duty wrestled with his senses, as they rode their mounts across the patio, and out of the hacienda’s gate.
Fisher, like Scanlon, had risen early. They had broken fast together. Now the Negro sat upon the veranda, watching his old commander and the senorita leave. Lije shook his head. He knew that nothing but hurt would come of all of this, and knew that no power on earth could impede that hurt or assuage it when it came.
Federico was standing close by, and the buffalo-soldier turned toward him. “Another lesson in Yankee, hey?”
The youngster nodded eagerly, and Fisher consoled himself with the notion that the teaching task would, for a while at least, offer protection from his thoughts.
* * * *
Scanlon and the girl pulled their horses up, to rest, on the skyline facing Truchas Peak. Estancia Sanchez was even larger than legend had it to be, and they had ridden far since starting out. The roan would have cantered on for hours more, but the white mare, confirming Scanlon’s judgement, was blowing by the time they paused to dismount.
Belen gazed across the valley. “Este campo es magnifico.”
He could not disagree. This country was magnificent. “Usted debe ha echado menos del campo,” he said.
“Si.” She nodded. She had missed her land while she had been away.
They stood in silence. Far across the valley a flock of Sanchez’s sheep moved, a white-clad pastor de carnero herding them.
“Hay Emiliano,” Belen said. “Ha trabajado aqui por todo su vida.”
Scanlon gave an inward nod. It was plain that working for Don Leopoldo was a cradle-to-grave matter, and not just for Emiliano, the shepherd. He recalled Fisher’s words about slavery and its abolition. Proclamations by Lincoln, or anyone else, had had no effect here at estancia Sanchez. It was clear, too, that the girl saw nothing strange in this servitude.
Then, nor had his own mother’s people. Many had been born to live, work and die on the Castro estates, in Scanlon’s grandfather’s time and before. Likely, they still were being born, still living, still working, still dying down there in Baja, now that his uncle had the place.
Some folks would think that fact an evil. He harbored doubts of his own about it. Yet, on the other hand, there was nothing to prevent any peon’s leaving. No law anyway. Nothing but custom and the fear of what lay beyond the estancia’s boundaries, the great unknown.
These thoughts brought to Scanlon’s mind Don Leopoldo’s dismissal, the evening before, of Juarez and the masses. If the don succeeded in his scheme, ties more tangible than those of form and apprehension would bind the peasants to the land.
Belen was standing close to him, and her voice broke into his musings. “?No excita a usted la vista?” Her question had a double meaning, and her husky tones were even lower-pitched than was normal as she spoke.
“Si la vista me excita,” he replied. The view excited him all right, of her and of the landscape. He felt aroused. She sensed this, and they came closer still. Defying all reason he took her in his arms, held her and kissed her. Her lips were full—and cool for all her passion.
And passion was not too strong a word.
They came apart for breath. He was flushed and, despite the mutuality of their embrace, ashamed. He was aware that she was young, of strict raising, and had been sheltered until then. Half-Mexican, himself, and of grandee-stock, he knew how highly-prized was virtue by such as those from whom she came.
“Lo siento mucho, Senorita” he apologised.
“No lo sientas, Jose,” she said. She used the familiar form and his given name.
There was no need for contrition, her words assured him, and the fire burning in her blue eyes told him that the words were truly meant.
He knew that his eyes were returning her message, and that made this ground doubly dangerous. “Nos obligamos para volver a la hacienda,” he said. “Su padre echara de menos a usted.”
“No importa,” she said.
Not caring, at that moment, whether her father would miss her presence or would not, she came into his arms, once more.
They bore each other to the ground, their lips fused together, their clinging bodies molded as one.
Coming free for an instant, she took a deep breath of the mountain air, and commanded him, “Quite mis botas.”
* * * *
He had removed her boots, as ordered—and the riding-skirt, then all beneath.
She had reciprocated in style, stripping his belt, lowering his britches, fumbling with the buttons of his undergarment, freeing him so as to draw him into her. Matching every ounce of his heat with her own, releasing all the pent-up frustration of her convento years, she had screamed in pain, as he stripped her of her virginal state.
Afterwards, they had lain, their bodies cooling, on the grass. Turning her eyes toward him, she had said, “Te amo, Jose.”
“Y te amo,” he had replied.
Later, as they rode back to the hacienda, he was consumed by fears as to where the amor they both had declared would lead.
To sadness, that was sure.
Chapter 17
Fisher watched from the veranda, as Scanlon and the girl, Belen, rode in through the hacienda’s gate. He and Scanlon went back a long way, and he read the expression on the major’s face as a tracker would read sign.
This hole gets deeper, the Blackman thought.
* * * *
He found Scanlon later, in the stable, putting up the roan. “You look like a man with worries eatin’ at him,” Lije said.
The major did not reply at first. He knew that Fisher was aware of what was going on in his mind, and saw no purpose in confirming it. In silence, he finished tending to the mare.
As they turned toward the door, Scanlon said, “I know two things, Lije. I’ve got to get the Hell out of here, and quick. And I’ve got to talk to Juarez before these scheming bastards bring him down.”
“Seems to me that both those come down to the same,” the Black opined, “and the sooner they get done, the happier I’m gonna be.”
* * * *
The chance to get them done, or start about the getting, came that evening. Scanlon and Fisher had joined Sanchez and Belen for dinner. At the meal’s end, Belen, with a kiss for Don Leopoldo, a handshake for Lije, and a look of fiery tenderness for Scanlon, had withdrawn for the night. The three men sat w
ith their brandy and cigars.
“The French rifles, Don Leopoldo,” the major asked, “who is handling their assembly?”
Sanchez drew upon his cigar. “A man called Armandez. Why do you ask, Major?”
“Hernan Armandez?” Scanlon leaned forward in his chair at mention of the name.
“That is correct,” Sanchez told him. “Why?”
“Then we have a problem, Senor,” Scanlon said. “Armandez fought in Juarez’s army. Yet he betrayed Juarista troops. How can you be sure that he will not betray you?”
Don Leopoldo was himself leaning forward now. “Why do you say this of Armandez?”
Scanlon’s eyes took on a look of somber recollection. “You will recall that, when we met in Albuquerque, I told you that I had served with Juarista forces.”
Don Leopoldo made a hand gesture, tantamount to a shrug. “I recollect this, yes. You were a paroled prisoner-of-war, you said.”
“That is true.” Scanlon spoke with the intensity that the remembered treachery instilled. “What I did not say was how I came to have been a prisoner. My regiment was led into an ambush. My brother officers were shot down like dogs. I would have been shot with them had my last name been a Spanish one. Instead I was locked away in Queretara Prision, while Maximilian’s officers plucked up the courage to kill me. The man who led us into the ambush was Armandez.”
Sanchez’s gaze was on the major’s face. He had felt the conviction that resonated in Scanlon’s tone. Yet he searched for signs of uncertainty. “You know, for a truth, that this was a betrayal, not simply a matter of misjudgement?”
“I do. The officer with whom Armandez dealt could not resist the temptation to gloat.”
“!Nuestra Senora y to-dos los Santos!” the grandee, convinced at last, exploded. “Armandez took money from that puerco Austriaco, Maximilian?”
“I don’t know that he took the Austrian pig’s money. All I know is, he betrayed us, whatever his motive.”
“So he is a traitor, then.”
“To Juarez, certainly.”
“If he sold out to Maximilian, he is a traitor to Mejico. And, once a man has engaged in treason, the habit is formed.”
Sanchez was shaken by the news. Clearly, he had put faith in Armandez.
It occurred to the listening Fisher that here was a fanatic’s weakness. Obsession found it hard to recognise dissent, or that other people may have other plans.
“Armandez?” Sanchez asked of Scanlon. “Does he know that you know of his treachery?”
“Lorca and Julio were Armandez’s men. They believed me to have been shot with all the rest. Armandez will believe as they did.”
“So you could deal with Armandez? And do what must be done?”
“I could.”
“Then, I leave him to your mercy, Major.”
“I will show him little of that.” The look in Scanlon’s eyes made it clear that Armandez’s days were running short. “When will all the rifles be in place?”
“They will be in San Luis Potosi, a month from now.”
“In which case, we had better start out tomorrow.” Scanlon’s expression was alive, and Fisher saw the light of promised vengeance in it.
Chapter 18
At dawn, next day, they saddled up—Scanlon the roan, Fisher the Fort Worth gelding. Both men would be double-mounted for speed and for the horses’ sake. Scanlon’s second mount was to be the army bay, Fisher’s, the Sanchez gray he had ridden on the Trinidad drive. They walked the horses from the stable-yard to the patio, where Sanchez and Belen awaited them.
Don Leopoldo shook their hands. “Make all speed,” he enjoined.
“We will ride fast,” the major assured him.
Belen stood by her father’s side. Though Don Leopoldo had made clear the fact that Scanlon’s mission was a vital one, she wished with every fiber to embrace her new-found lover, to hold him and to bid him not to leave. Only her father’s presence deterred her from both those things.
“?Volveras pronto?” she said as she took the major’s hand.
“Volvere pronto,” he promised her. He would be back soon.
“Ven con Dios.” She meant this for Lije too. It was more prayer than farewell.
The riders mounted. Old Miguel opened the gate to let them pass. He hoped that this tall aventurero would return—for the sake of the estancia and the futures of all those who lived upon its land.
Young Federico, standing with the old man, looked up, as Fisher drew his horse alongside.
“Keep up the Yankee, Chico,” Fisher said.
“You Goddamn bet,” the boy replied.
Lije grinned and touched his hand to hat-brim in goodbye. Serious-faced now, Federico said, “Vayan con Dios, Senores.”
The men rode from the patio, their horses’ hooves clattering until they reached the softer ground outside.
“Well, Major,” Fisher’s voice held relief, now the action was under way, “it looks like we got our wish.”
“It does.” Already Sanlon’s mind was on the trail ahead.
“And a chance for you to get even, on the side.” Fisher was looking at the major closely, as he spoke.
“Armandez will get what’s coming.” Scanlon appeared to be certain sure of that.
“Just so’s you don’t forget the main reason we’re ridin’ south.”
Scanlon returned the Negro’s evaluating gaze. “Don’t worry. I won’t forget.”
They urged their mounts down valley.
Belen had climbed to the balcon of the hacienda. From there, she watched them ride away. Their images blurred as tears came to her eyes.
Don Leopoldo appeared at her side. “?Quieres al commandante?” His voice was softened by sympathy.
“Si,” she answered. “Lo creo.”
He could see that this was true. She did believe herself to be in love with Scanlon. He hoped that this belief would prove well-founded, and that her feelings would be reciprocated. In Scanlon’s hands, and in those of his sons to come, estancia Sanchez would prosper. The future would be assured, in the restored order that was planned. “Es un hombre bueno, un caballero,” he told her.
She nodded her assent. Scanlon was a good man, a gentleman. She needed no telling of these facts. “Un gran’ caballero,” she said.
“Ello volvere.” Her father’s tone held a reassurance that she did not need. She knew that Scanlon, if God permitted it, would return. Her tears had dried, but the riders now were out of sight.
Chapter 19
In those times when Congress was in session, Oberon Fairchild’s residence was a house he had carpet-bagged from a broke confederate widow, in the Summer of ’65. The house was set high above the Potomac on the Virginia side, and its study-window gave a fine view of the river and its traffic. But it was not the waterway that had Oberon’s attention, as he read the telegraph message in his hands.
He smiled at the words the wires had brought to him, innocuous words with meaning for the sender and himself and no-one else. Then, putting a taper to the oil-lamp that stood upon his desk, he set light to the paper he held, watching, satisfied, as it crumpled to ash that he let fall into the glass tray on the desk-top.
Still smiling, Oberon picked up a pen and scribbled a message of his own, before reaching for the bell-cord he used to summon members of his household.
* * * *
They headed out of Mora, skirted Santa Fe, and pounded south down the Rio Grande’s left-bank trail. There was a pattern to the way they rode. From dawn to the hour before mid-day, they travelled. Then they found shade, and took on water. As the Sun moved west, they rode again until the dark closed in. They switched mounts every hour, so as to keep their horses fresh and the pace relentless.
Better than a hundred-and-fifty-miles lay behind them, before the first signs of trouble came.
They were south of Las Lunas, the Manzanos rising to the east of them, when they saw the buzzards circling. Slowing their pace for caution, the two rode forward. Then they saw
the smoke. Not far further on, their nostrils caught the odour of cooked flesh. Experience told them that this was not beef, or pork, or mutton on the spit.
It had been a six wagon train. The mules were gone—to supply Apache cook-pots, a man could bet, since members of that tribe had an unaccountable taste for mule-meat. The wagons had been set afire, the teamsters roasted, tethered to the wagon-wheels, save for three lucky ones who, it seemed, had gone down fighting. Though their weapons were no longer in their hands.
“Well, if we needed any remindin’ o’ what this is all about…” Fisher did not need to say the rest.
Scanlon’s face had the blackness of a thunderhead. He had fought Apache since his mine-prospecting days, respected their right to battle for their land, yet had not grown hardened to their brand of barbarity, and never would.
He scanned the land to the horizon, and looked at the ground for tracks. “Mimbreno, you reckon?”
Lije nodded. “It’s somewhat east for Chikonen. Could be Mescalero, though, some o’ those who broke out of the Bosque. Though I heard most Mescalero were over in the Pecos country and beyond.”
“Either way the tracks head south.”
“I’d took note o’ that.” Fisher made a grunting noise. They had no choice but to ride hard, to get this job done, and hard-riding now was heading them to battle, sure.
“Do we bury ’em?” Lije made a gesture toward the wagoneers’ remains.
Scanlon looked up at the buzzards, scared off their feast by the riders’ coming, now circling once again. “I hate to encourage those carrion-eating bastards, but we’ve got living ones to think of.”
“Yeah.” It was time for a horse-switch, anyway, and the buffalo soldier climbed down from the gray, calming it and the Fort Worth mount, both of which were spooky at the stench of blood and scorched flesh.