by Martha Hix
“Sí. My treat. Call it a Christmas present. All right?”
“You drive a hard bargain, amigo.”
“Pssssst!” She might as well have saved her breath. Were both of them deaf? Alejandra fumed.
“Say, Pepe, maybe we ought to find us a game of monte tonight. What do you think?”
“Oooh, sounds good, Señor. We can ride to my village, we can find many players there. And my cousin Rosario, oh she is lovely! And—”
Alejandra heard nothing of the grand description’s finish, so jealous was she. But she did hear Reece ask, “You say she’s a widow? Reckon she’ll invite me to keep her warm tonight?”
¡Maldición! Here he was, not twenty-four hours after leaving Alejandra, scouting for a replacement.
Pepe spoke. “But first we must feast on Lupita’s chicken molé and rice and beans and tamales. Mmm, mmm! Fueled like that, we could win us some big money at the cards, that is for sure. And maybe enough for a present for Rosario.”
“Absolutely.”
“Pssssst!”
“Hey, cantinero, you got a fly swatter?” Reece’s voice. “I think you’ve got a few buzzing around the door.”
“That’s no fly,” replied a voice, no doubt the bartender’s. “That is a lady.”
Chapter Twenty
From the first “psst” Reece had known Alejandra stood at the entrance to Cantina del Hombre Gordo, which was a cozy place if he were to use the word loosely. The saloon sported a dirt floor, a couple of tables, and an obese proprietor who sold the world’s sorriest rum.
But Reece wasn’t mulling his surroundings. He wondered what Alejandra thought about all that Rosario talk. His part had been spoken for her benefit.
He didn’t have to wonder long about her reaction.
When he half turned toward the door, he read aggravation in her stance. A bit of fuming ought to do her good.
Even though he was bent on emotional revenge, he couldn’t help admiring the way she looked. Black leather boots encased her narrow feet and slim calves. Her lovely shape was garbed in a trim-cut gray riding outfit embellished with black piping. A flat-crowned, wide-brimmed, black hat, sitting at an angle and tied under her chin, framed her slender face. Her hair was fashioned in a single braid that hung down her back. Gorgeous.
All sorts of places started warming in Reece. Except for his bruised pride. She had, after all, showed him how little he meant to her. And as much as he adored her, she had him aggravated, too. He didn’t like playing second fiddle to her dead husband.
“Well, fancy meeting you here,” Reece drawled, puffing on the cigar poised in his mouth. “Come on in, honey, and I’ll stand you to a drink.”
She didn’t budge from the doorway. “Could I speak with you? Outside.”
Reece hitched a thumb at Pepe, who grinned. “Now, Jandra, it wouldn’t be gentlemanly to leave my old pal here just sitting, twiddling his thumbs.”
“Well, feliz navidad to you, too, Señor Montgomery!” She started to turn around. Mid-pirouette, she faced him once more. “I . . . I’m sorry I hurt your feelings last night, Reece.”
It took a lot of guts for her to say that in this public place, even though the cantina was empty save for Pepe, the cantinero, and himself, plus a box of flop-eared pups. Her apology worked against Reece’s aggravation.
He rose from the chair. “I’d be pleased and honored, Doña Alejandra,” he said, no trace of facetiousness in his tone, “if you’ll share a drink with me and my friend Pepe Zecatl.”
She neither moved nor replied, neither did Reece. He had done a lot of running after the luscious Alejandra, but this time she’d have to take a few steps toward him.
He beamed as she placed one foot in front of the other, and said, “I suppose I could have a ron poco.”
Pepe clapped. The bartender went for a bottle of rum while Reece pulled out a rope-back chair. Helping her into it, he got a whiff of her flowery perfume. It definitely made the place smell better. Made him feel better.
“You’ve met my mozo,” he said, “but you haven’t been formally introduced.” Reece did the honors. “Pepe and I decided to celebrate Christmas together,” he added at the end.
She glanced from one man to the other, then back again. “I couldn’t help but hear, well, you two were mentioning a, um, game of cards tonight. I mean neither to keep you from . . . an evening of entertainment” —she watched Reece’s reaction—“nor do I want to intrude on a private celebration.”
That Rosario talk had gotten to her. Good. No use in letting Alejandra think she had free rein over his heart.
“You add the crowning touch to our festivities,” Pepe allowed, courtly as if he were born to it, and lifted his glass. His grin was as deep as the Gulf of Mexico. “Here’s to you, Doña Alejandra. Feliz navidad.”
“Thank you,” she murmured. Her big eyes settled on Reece’s face. “Merry Christmas to you both.”
Thinking this just might turn out to be the best Christmas of his life, Reece edged his thigh against hers. She didn’t move. Yes, this was definitely a good day.
Trouble was, he had nothing to give her to celebrate the day. Nothing but himself.
Embarrassed, he fell to small talk. “So how is everything at Campos de Palmas?”
“Fine, I suppose. My sister has, well, she’s gone home, and Mercie was smiling when she departed. As for Don Valentin, he still begs for Tampico.”
“Careful what you say about such things,” Reece said in English. Federalism was the last subject he wished to discuss. In any language. But prudence had everything to do with his caution. Pepe didn’t know his leanings, much less Alejandra’s, and the bartender was basically a stranger. Continuing with the anonymity of a tongue foreign to those around them, Reece asked her, “What about you, Jandra? How are you?”
She took a swallow of the drink Gordo placed in front of her before she answered likewise, “Not so fine. Josie has taken Chico away.”
Reece clasped her hand. Her soft, small, warm hand. Right then he wished he had gone outside with her. Then they would be in some private place where he could hold her in his arms and hug away her loss. “It was to be expected, Jandra, but I know that doesn’t make it any easier for you.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Reece got an idea, a two-fold one. He motioned toward the yawning proprietor. “Say, Gordo, rouse those sleeping hounds you’ve got in that crate and bring them over here. We’ve got a lonely lady who just might take one of them off your hands.”
“Oh no. I’m not interested in a dog.”
“You don’t like them?” Reece asked, incredulous. He couldn’t imagine anyone not taking to pups. And besides, there went his idea for a Christmas gift.
“I like perros but they’re no substitute for a—Oh my goodness!”
Dwarfed in his huge clutch, Gordo held two squirming, yelping bundles of white fur. “They are weaned and everything, señorita. And I’ve been feeding them chiles, so not a one of them has worms.”
“What a comfort to know,” Alejandra murmured dryly, a grin edging the corners of her mouth.
Good, Reece thought, she’s sidetracked from her loss.
He collected the balls of fur from the bartender. Reece held one to his chest; the pup reached to impart an odorous slurp to his chin. The other whelp bit his thumb. “Ouch.” Pepe was laughing. Alejandra smiled. Tapping his foot, Gordo looked away as if trying to ignore the pups’ forwardness. Reece offered the kisser to Alejandra. “Take a look at those eyes, querida.” The suspended dog blinked big brown orbs, then lolled his pink tongue out. “He needs a home. And it’s Christmas. What do you say?”
She fidgeted in her chair. “I say . . . on closer inspection these dogs look like poodles. And nothing French is allowed at Campos de Palmas.”
There it was, the difference standing between them that was even greater than the ghost of Miguel Sierra. No matter that her confederates to the north were aligned with Louis Philippe’s subjects, Alejandra had a
blind eye where her enemy was concerned, even though her own father was French. And her innuendo pegged Reece as Francophile, through and through.
Politics was a subject for another time.
Reece twisted his wrist, displaying the puppy as if he were a prize to behold. “This boy is not French. He was born right here on Mexican soil, isn’t that so, Gordo?”
“I can’t guarantee it, señor. The mama and her whelps strayed from the French at Fort Santiago, so I, um, took them as the spoils of war.”
“Please take the dogs away,” Alejandra said to Gordo.
A huge sigh hefted his round, apron-covered belly, and he went for his charges. Reece, meanwhile, frowned. Scratch his big idea for a Christmas gift.
Trying to fill the gaping silence, Pepe asked, “Who is Chico?”
An uneasy feeling got to Reece, Pepe’s question sinking in. When Alejandra had mentioned the baby, she had been speaking English. A language Pepe Zecatl neither spoke nor understood.
Reece told himself not to create problems. Surely Pepe had picked up on the Spanish word for small boy, which was chico, and had been trying to make no more than conversation.
He cut his eyes to his male companion, who repeated the question. Alejandra appeared pained. Reece could have thumped Pepe’s ear for bringing up the subject. Instead, he covered Alejandra’s hand with his palm and said, “I’m sorry, querida.”
The fingers of Alejandra’s free hand tightened around her glass. “Peculiar, isn’t it?” she said in Spanish. “How one grows attached to someone in a short span of time.”
If that someone were only me, I’d be the happiest man in Veracruz, Reece thought and pushed aside doubts about Pepe. “Maybe you can visit Chico from time to time.”
She shook her head. “No. Josie’s taken him to her village. She told me it’s far from here. In the mountains. It’s called Coatlpoala.”
Pepe’s eyes rounded. “Why, that is my village. And it isn’t so far away. Only a couple of hours by horseback. I will be happy to guide you there anytime, Doña Alejandra.”
“Would you? Oh, that would be marvelous!”
Reece had visions of Christmas dampened by Alejandra and Pepe charging off in pursuit of her brother-in-law’s child. “Don’t get too hasty. Josie needs to settle in with her boy. So why don’t you . . . ? There’s a feast being prepared as we speak. Will you do me and Pepe the honor of joining us for dinner?”
Alejandra touched a finger to her lips as she glanced at the ceiling. Leveling her eyes, she smiled. “I’d be delighted.”
This was going to be the best Christmas of his life. Leaving a generous tip for Gordo, Reece raked up money from the table. His eye caught on a dixie. Garth had found it, had given it to him “for good luck.” Garth!
What the hell am I doing, Reece asked himself, even considering a wonderful Christmas? Where was Garth? Reece had grown tired of stalling here in Vera Cruz. Last night, after he left Campos de Palmas, Reece had checked on Antonio. What with his disability, the general had no set plans to leave the succor of home. Which kept Reece becalmed in Veracruz. Torn between loyalty to Texas, obligations to Antonio, and love for Alejandra, Reece wished he had never made any promises except for the one made to himself: Find Garth . . . forthwith.
If his brother languished in some prison, what kind of holiday would he have? What kind of life was that? Maybe Garth wasn’t alive at all. In the past Reece had refused to consider such an event, but here lately he had had no luck with the rumor mill, thanks to sitting at Antonio’s bedside, and he feared what he would not find once he inspected the prisons of Mexico.
Christmas day at Perote Prison was no different from any other day for Garth Colby. He did not leave his cell. The fare consisted of a bowl of black beans and a hard roll, both small and almost inedible. Four tiny holes above the heavy iron door provided the only light to dine by. Cold water dripped from the stone ceiling to the equally cold floor here in Purgatory, the quarters allotted to prisoners without hope of release but shy of a death sentence. Garth was the sole occupant. There was no one to talk with in Purgatory.
Flanking his cell was both Heaven and Hell. Prisoners were taken to Hell before they either died from privation or were sent to the firing squad. In Heaven, captives enjoyed conjugal visits, provided they had wives, sweethearts, or the money to pay for a puta. Even if Garth had been incarcerated there, he was bereft of woman or money. He had been three years without money, longer without sex.
Voices filtered from Heaven. The grunts of passion and carnal satisfaction. “Oh, Xavier, oh! Yes, yes. Yes!”
Garth lifted his bony, chained wrists to cover his ears. Despair clawed at his limbs, his heart, his soul. He would languish here all the days of his life, without hope or spirit. Would that he could enter the gate to Hell, and be done with it.
The iron door creaked open; a shaft of blinding light spilled into the cell. Garth covered his eyes.
“Amigo,” intoned the guard in the sing-song way that all Mexicans spoke, “I have brought you a cell mate for Christmas.”
Garth removed his forearm from his eyes. Squinting against the light, he saw a figure being pushed into the cell. He could hear the air leaving the man’s lungs when he fell to the stone floor.
The guard laughed. “We will see how arrogant you are after a few days in Purgatory.”
“Besa mi culo,” spat the new arrival.
The door slammed closed, leaving the cell in near darkness. Protest roared from Garth’s cell mate.
“Save your energies, amigo,” Garth said in a monotone. “No one hears you here.”
His suggestion ignored, the man, dragging his chains, found the door and began to beat on it. “Let me out! I have done nothing wrong but follow my convictions. Nothing! God will not allow you to do this to me!”
Remembering his first days in Perote Prison, when he had had faith in God, Garth shook his head. Greasy strands of overlong hair brushed the shoulders of his ragged and dirty shirt. He had been so long without a bath that he didn’t remember what it felt like to be clean. Or to have a full stomach. Or to breathe open air.
Soon it would be the same for the new arrival. Soon he’d forget freedom.
“Who are you?” Garth asked the shadowy figure.
Several moments passed before an answer was forthcoming. “Felix Fuentes of Vera Cruz.”
Garth listened to the voice and figured it belonged to a young man. “And what, Felix Fuentes of Vera Cruz, was the charge against you?”
Chains rattled as Felix moved to the wall and settled against it. “General Santa Anna’s minion accused me of cowardice.”
“Santa Anna? Is he back in power?”
“Yes.”
After all this time in prison, Garth didn’t care much who was running Mexico, but he regretted hearing that succinct reply. He yearned to talk, to drown out the sounds of Heaven. For lack of anything better to do, Garth asked, “So tell me, Felix Fuentes of Vera Cruz, how come you were accused of cowardice? You got something personal against him?”
“I am a Federalist, Señor. And I am accused because I would not carry his litter to Pozitos when he had been injured fighting the French.”
Refusing to honor a countryman just because he wasn’t of one’s political party . . . “Sounds pretty craven to me. And I’m surprised they didn’t take you immediately to Hell. Or straight to a firing squad.”
Felix snorted. “Why waste bullets on a lowly waiter?”
“You’re not a soldier?”
“No, but I was willing to fight for my country. But not for General Santa Anna.”
Garth was amazed at Felix’s attitude. No wonder the Mexican people couldn’t get a workable government together; all they did was fight among themselves. Oh well. What did it matter? No matter what happened with the Mexicans, things stayed the same in Perote.
Felix Fuentes gave a mirthless chuckle. “We all thought General Santa Anna was dead. I cried with joy. I was ready to run to the malecón and shout my h
urrahs to the Frenchmen. They were rowing back to their ships, you see. Anyway, the Anglo colonel yelled for me to help with the general. But I did not want to help. The blond-haired colonel was furious, said we must keep General Santa Anna alive.”
Half interested, Garth said, “Seems the dutiful thing to do, I suppose.”
“Oh, that colonel is more than dutiful. He is the right-hand man of the general.” Bitterness filled each of Felix’s words. “It was he who ordered me arrested.”
“Do I detect vengeance in your tone?”
“Let’s just say I hope I never meet Colonel Montgomery again.”
The name Montgomery sent off a bell in Garth’s head. All of a sudden he thought of his brother. Could it be possible . . . ? Of course not. Reece would never become a member of the Mexican military. Montgomery was a common enough name, and foreign mercenaries could be found in the army. What a crazed thought, even to consider a parallel.
Perote had addled him.
One thing was crystal clear, though. Something didn’t ring true in Felix’s story. “If all that happened in Vera Cruz,” Garth said, “why didn’t they throw you in the dungeon at San Juan de Ulúa?”
“It is in French hands now.”
Would that Perote Prison could fall into those hands . . . For the first time in years, Garth Colby felt a glimmer of hope.
“I’m hungry,” Felix announced.
“You’ll get fed tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Felix’s voice was hoarse. “But I’ve had nothing to eat for days.”
That wasn’t Garth’s problem. He lay back on the floor and closed his eyes. Tiny feet skittered across his leg. Rat feet. So used to rodents was he that Garth paid no mind. Matter of fact, he almost considered them pets. Lord knows, they had sometimes stolen, sometimes shared the meager bits of food he had squirreled away as opportunity had arisen.
He heard sharp teeth tearing into the large crust of bread he was saving for later. “Go away!”
“What was that?” asked Felix.
“I don’t know. Old Hickory’s army?” Facetiousness and innuendo lost on the Mexican, Garth said, “Rats.”