“What’s that?”
“A spy, son, a spy workin’ for a booshway like Ryker.”
Kelly regarded him a moment. “All right,” he said. “Let’s ride.”
They skirted the Indian town and left it behind them in the shimmering of late afternoon. They headed north with the red mountains pressing in all about them. Only once, with the dying sun staining the sky like blood, did Kelly look behind him.
“You thinkin’ about that gal?” Turkey asked.
Kelly’s grin squinted his eyes almost shut in his face. “Ain’t that a sack o’ hell?” he said.
7
The morning after Mayor Melgares was freed, the insurgents marched southward. From their villages along the Rio Grande—from Taos and San Juan and Cuyamangue and Nambe and a dozen others—came the Pueblo Indians. And from the ranches in the mountains and the towns in the valleys came the Mexicans.
And Teresa was with them. At Taos she had met her cousin, Lupe Tovar. Lupe’s husband, Santos, was a shopkeeper in the Mexican town of Taos, separated by three miles from the Indian pueblo of the same name. Though Santos Tovar was a pobre, born in New Mexico, he was of pure Spanish blood, as were most of the Mexican peasants in the Upper River.
Lupe and Teresa rode in a creaking carreta behind the rabble, two of dozens of women who made the journey. At Santa Cruz, twenty-five miles north of Santa Fe, the army made their headquarters. Along with the other women Teresa cooked and carried water and collected equipment and melted lead and molded it into half ounce balls for the flintlocks of the men.
The Indians were camped in the fields outside of town but the plaza had been designated as headquarters. The sleepy little village had never beheld such frantic activity. Its ancient mission cast the shadows of huge buttressed corner towers over a mob that filled the square and the streets twenty-four hours a day.
On the evening of the first day they had arrived, Teresa stood in that square with hundreds of others and heard Don Gomez read the declaration he had helped prepare. The sententious phrases rolled from him in a deep, resonant voice:
* * * *
“Viva God and the nation, and the faith of Jesus Christ; for the principal points which we defend are the following:
“1st. To be with God and the nation….
“2nd. To defend our country until we spill every drop of blood in order to obtain the victory we have in view.
“3rd. Not to admit the departmental plan.
“4th. Not to admit any tax.
“5th. Not to admit the disorder desired by those who are attempting to procure it. God and the nation.
Encampment:
“Santa Cruz de la Canada, August 3, 1837.”
* * * *
After the ceremony Teresa and Lupe went outside the town to see the war dances. The campfires were a thousand falling stars blooming on the dark fields and in each camp the Pueblos from the various villages were dancing. The firelight flickered on their shining, sweaty, painted bodies and their weird chanting ran out into the night like the ululation of animals in pain.
The two women stood for a while on the fringe of the crowd. Lupe was a fat, moon-faced woman harried with the burden of eight children and a lazy husband. She pulled her shawl about her shoulders, shivering in the warm August night.
“It makes me have fear, Teresa. These are things we should not see. I have lived in Taos all my life and never have I seen them bring their war dances out of the kivas. Let’s go back to town.”
Teresa followed her cousin back to the square. She was beginning to see more clearly what she had become involved with, and knew a reflection of Lupe’s dark apprehension.
Though these Indians had been defending their villages for hundreds of years against the nomad Apaches and Comanches, they were not essentially a warlike people. While the nomads had fought the Spaniards through the centuries, the Pueblos had for the most part submitted. But through those centuries the enmities, the bitterness, the hatred of a foreign conqueror had simmered and boiled. In using those enmities Gomez had started something that might prove more dangerous than he had dreamed. Already the character of the insurgent army was changing. The Pueblos vastly outnumbered the Mexican peasants. What had started as a political reaction might well turn into an uncontrolled Indian uprising.
With these dark premonitions stirring through her, Teresa made her way through the crowd. A young mother passed, soothing a crying baby in her arms. For a moment everything else was blotted from Teresa’s mind by the poignant memory of her own loss. It had never left, really. Even when it was not in her conscious mind it lay deep within her, a hopeless misery, underlying everything she did or thought. That was what men had done too.
Pine-knot torches blazed in the plaza, casting an eery light over the mob of Mexicans and Indians milling back and forth. Some of the women had set up puestos near the church where they sold coffee and tortillas and other food. Lupe stopped to talk with friends at one of the coffee stands. Teresa grew bored with the chatter. She drifted around the plaza toward the headquarters building, housed in a store across from the church. Though Villapando was still the nominal head of the rabble, Nicolas Amado was rapidly assuming the mantle of leadership. His act in facing Lieutenant Perea’s presumably loaded gun had elevated him to the position of a hero. The mob had elected him military commander and he was given Perea’s saber and coat and a pair of tawdry epaulets from some ex-soldier’s war chest.
The store was crowded with newly appointed officers and couriers and givers of unwanted advice. Amado was ensconced behind a makeshift desk piled with official-looking papers and documents which Teresa knew had little to do with the operation of his army. His swarthy primitive face glowed and a feverish shine lay like lacquer on the surface of his vivid black eyes. With a ragged goose quill he was signing papers. Teresa stood against the wall, watching him, until he noticed her. He threw back his head and laughed excitedly.
“Did you ever see so much to do, mi Teresa? Being a general is like going crazy.”
She moved to the desk. “They say you are going to execute Lieutenant Perea.”
Amado put his hand on a paper. “This is the order. It is the will of the Pueblos.”
“You have enough power now to countermand it. Perea is popular with the regulars. They would hate you for killing him.”
“I don’t need the regulars. I have an army of my own.”
“You’ll need them if you get in power. You’ll need every friend you can get.”
Amado struck the table. “Perea is a chief representative of the tyranny and corruption. An example must be made of him.”
“Why? He was only doing his duty.”
“Enough. Can’t you see how much I’ve got to do?”
He began shouting orders at a new courier and the crowd closed around her, shoving her away from the desk. She moved moodily out of the store. In her mind again was the picture of Lieutenant Perea, so proud, so vividly handsome, standing with his back against the jail door and facing the mob with an empty gun. They couldn’t just kill a man like that in cold blood. It was so brutal, so uselessly cruel. Then she shook her head angrily. Was it because he was so handsome, reminding her so poignantly of Juan? Was she really still clinging to her romantic dreams about the man who had left her with the baby, despite her surface attempt to hate him?
The plaza was full of men indulging in the national pastime of gambling. She saw a monte game and stopped to watch. The thrower was a hawk-faced young man, his glazed sombrero dripping silver pendants, his blue velvet trousers buttoned down the seam with big silver bosses. He looked like a town idler, the kind of a man who lived off his wits, and perhaps off his skill with cards.
Monte was an ancient Spanish game played with a deck that contained no eights, nines, or tens. Before playing, the money staked by the bank was placed on the
ground by the dealer. After the shuffle and cut, the dealer held the pack face down, drew off the two bottom cards, and placed them on the ground face up. That was the bottom layout. Then from the top of the deck he drew two more cards, putting them down face up. When all bets were made the pack was turned over. The card exposed was the gate. If it matched in denomination a card in either bottom or top layout, the dealer paid all bets that had been made on that layout.
The hawk-faced young man had just finished one deal and was beginning over again. He squatted on his hams, surrounded by a dozen players and onlookers, keeping up a running line of chatter.
“Queen and a four on the bottom, any more bets on the bottom. I see a peso coming up. Is that all you have, my friend? Surely such a handsome caballero has more courage—”
The grinning farmer added another silver piece to the heap of jewelry and money lying before the queen of the bottom layout. Then the dealer slid the pair of cards off the top of the deck in his hand, laying them face up. The bets were made on them. By the small number of players, Teresa guessed the game had just started. This would be the come-on, then. As the smooth young man started to turn the deck over in his hands, to expose the gate, she took a guess.
“The blond queen.”
Everyone looked at the exposed gate card, then glanced at Teresa in surprise. She saw that it was the blond queen, matching the queen already showing in the bottom layout. The farmer who had bet began raking in his winnings, laughing excitedly.
“The redheaded one she brings me luck, Miguel.”
Miguel, the monte thrower, smiled lubricously at Teresa. “We’ll see,” he said.
He began to deal again. All the things Johnny Cavan had taught her began to return to Teresa now. She knew this would be another come-on. If the deck was marked, it was usually the face cards. The layouts were down, top and bottom, and the only face card showing was a jack of swords. With the bets down, the dealer was ready to expose the gate.
“Jack of cups,” Teresa said.
The men in the group exclaimed in surprise. She had called it right. The same farmer pulled in his winnings, chortling and calling to the thrower.
“You should get a redhead yourself, Miguel.”
Still holding the deck, Miguel looked obliquely at Teresa. He was smiling but there was malice in his shrewd black eyes. “Perhaps the clever señorita would like to play.”
“I have no money,” she said.
The rancher pulled at her arm. “You bet for me. You bring me luck. I split with you.” He pulled his blanket roll up beside him and she sat on it. “I am named Pablo,” he told her. “From Chimayo I come. If I keep winning like this, who cares about the war?”
Sweating, eyes shining in the torchlight, the men watched Miguel deal again. The bottom layout was a seven and a four. Teresa sensed Miguel’s intent now and told Pablo not to bet. Poker-faced, the dealer put down the top layout. One of the cards was the blond king. Teresa realized he had pulled a switch. This was still the come-on. She told Pablo to put everything on the king. She saw Miguel’s face tighten.
But he could do nothing. They were all watching too closely. He had to deal as he had planned. He turned the deck up. The gate was another king.
Pablo jumped to his feet, laughing and shouting in excitement. Sullenly, looking with smoldering eyes at Teresa, Miguel paid off. The noise of the farmer’s shouting was drawing more men now. They crowded around, babbling and asking questions. Teresa saw Miguel start to sweat. He was on the spot now. He probably didn’t have enough money to bank for another loss. He had to deal to win.
And he did. When both layouts were down, there wasn’t a face card in the bunch. She kept Pablo from betting. The others followed suit. When Miguel turned the deck up, there wasn’t a peso on the ground. And the gate card was a seven of swords, matching none of the cards in the layout.
The men looked at Teresa in amazement, and one of them asked, “Are you a bruja?”
Pablo laughed like a hyena. “If she is a witch, I would like to know them all.”
It was a grim contest now. Miguel had to play to lose sooner or later. If he kept the gate card from matching the layout too long, the crowd would grow suspicious and turn against him. Three times he played to win, keeping all the face cards off the ground; and three times Teresa advised Pablo not to bet, and the crowd followed suit. A sullen murmur began to run through them and some of the men made ugly insinuations. A dull red flush crept into Miguel’s face. He had to give them the bait again or quit. And if he quit the village would not forget.
Teresa watched his eyes and saw him glance briefly at the pack as he shuffled, looking for the pin pricks marking the backs of the face cards. He was giving them the bait, banking on the hope that Teresa had been merely working on lucky guesses and did not really know how the cards were marked. It was all he could do. And when the top layout came up, it held a queen of swords.
“Bet everything,” Teresa said.
Pablo looked wide-eyed at her. Then he shoved his whole pile of silver and jewelry to the edge of the queen. A dozen others did likewise. Miguel’s face went white with rage. One of the men standing beside him bent down and turned his hand over. The card it exposed was a blond queen.
With a waspish curse, Miguel got to his feet. He was too enraged to speak. His eyes blazed at Teresa. He yanked a buckskin bag of silver from under his shirt, emptying it onto the ground. He pulled his sombrero off, silver pendants tinkling, and threw it beside the bag. One by one he tore off the silver bosses on his velvet pants and dropped them into the pot.
“That is all,” he said, in a strangled voice. “The bank is broken.”
In his anger, he left the cards on the ground and turned to stalk out through the crowd. The men began to shout for another banker and one called to Pablo.
“How about you, ugly one? You won the most.”
Pablo turned to Teresa, face shimmering with sweat. “I never had such luck. You must be San Augustín himself, the patron saint of all gamblers. You deal for me. Fifty-fifty, all the way.”
Someone handed her the cards Miguel had left. She shuffled them automatically, sensitive fingers feeling for the pin pricks on their backs that marked the face cards. Her knowledge of this game was the only heritage Johnny Cavan had left her. And he had taught her that under ordinary circumstances a monte thrower didn’t need a stacked deck. The percentage was always with the house.
She threw a few hands straight and it proved out. She won more than she lost but the crowd was satisfied because they were winning too. It gave her a sense of power over these men to see the heap of coins growing before her, to see their eyes fixed on her face, her hands—to know that for once their interest in her was not merely the beauty of her body and what it could give them.
There was a movement in the crowd and Amado pushed his way into view, trailed by his shadow, Innocent, surrounded by his retinue of officers and sycophants. He looked tired, harried. When he saw Teresa the irritation left his face and he began to chuckle.
“They told me of the fabulous tahura impoverishing my army.”
“Do you have time for such frivolities?”
“Even a general must relax.”
She knew it was more than relaxation that had drawn him. He was as much addicted to gambling as any of his countrymen and rumors of a woman dealing the biggest game in the plaza had goaded him till he could bear it no longer. He nodded at the heap of silver and jewelry before her.
“Is that the limit?”
She nodded. Then a thought struck her, a possibility. It was a gamble, but it was really the only way she had of getting to Amado. And she still could not bear the thought of the lieutenant dying.
“It is only a few pesos,” she said. “A general should gamble for higher stakes.”
“What stakes?”
Her green
eyes grew veiled. “The life of Lieutenant Perea?”
A surprised murmur ran through the crowd. Amado’s humor fled. “Are you declaring for the Centralists?”
“What does a woman know of politics!” scoffed Pablo. A sly smile touched his thick lips. “Her field is love.”
“What would you gain by killing him?” Teresa asked. “What kind of a general rewards courage with death? Have you no courage yourself that you let the Pueblos enact a useless revenge on one of your own people?”
It made an impression on the Mexicans in the crowd. Some of them were from Taos, and had seen Perea’s audacious stand there. They began to call to Amado that she was right, that Perea should be given at least a sporting chance. Teresa’s coral lips grew petulant.
“Perhaps the general fears not only the Pueblos—but a woman too,” she said.
She saw the blood creep into his face. He was sensitive enough to feel the mood of the crowd, and he knew the favor he would lose by refusing her challenge now. Teresa saw that he was weakening. While the attention of the crowd was still upon Amado, she began shuffling. Eyes almost closed, she prayed that her fingers would still be agile enough. It was Johnny Cavan’s trick. He had called it the slick throw. She used the marks pricked into the backs to place her cards. When she was finished there was an ace of swords on the top and an ace of cups third from the bottom.
“It takes a brave man to face a loaded gun,” she said. “But it takes a great man to forgive an enemy.”
It appealed to the Latin romanticism of the crowd and their shouts for Amado to accept the challenge filled the air. Grumbling, reluctant, he lowered himself onto a saddle. “Very well, Teresa. But have care. A cheat is worse than a spy.”
Her only fear now was that he would call for a cut. It would defeat her. She held the cards out to him. “Then you deal.”
It was a move of desperation. She hoped the dramatic gesture would throw him off-guard, make him neglect to cut. Surprised, he took the cards. And—prodded by their clamorous insistence—he began to deal without cutting.
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