“Did I ever advise you wrong, Nicolas?”
He considered it a moment. Some of the ugliness left his face. Finally he shook his head from side to side.
“You could test it easily enough,” she said. “When the Pueblos ask you to come north to discuss the treaty, you could send an empty coach. Only you and I and the troops escorting it would know. If the Indians attack, the troops could withdraw.” She moistened her lips. “And you would still have your head.”
Amado settled his chin against his broad chest, eyes veiled. All the suspicion was gone from him now. He began to chuckle sibilantly. She had seen that expression on his face before, and she murmured his favorite axiom.
“It is better to be thought brave, Nicolas, than really to be so.”
He nodded, still chuckling. “Exactly my thought, little one. Very well. Let’s consider it a test. And if it proves out, perhaps there will be a new gambling sala on Burro Alley next week.”
14
The black coach went north, escorted by a dozen dragoons. As Pablo had predicted, in the badlands near Black Mesa the coach was attacked by a horde of Pueblos. The dragoons abandoned the coach: it was drowned in a sea of vengeful Indians and when they found it empty they literally tore it apart in their rage.
Kelly Morgan heard about it. He heard about it from where he lay feverish and pain-racked on his dirty straw pallet in the two-room adobe hovel somewhere east of Taos. He had been there, hovering between life and death, ever since the Mexican hunter, Tico Velez, had found him, delirious and dying in the mountains north of Raton Pass.
Kelly had no way of knowing how long he had wandered after he had escaped Vic Jares and his men. Only his towering rage and his awesome animal vitality had kept him going, had kept him alive till Velez stumbled across him. The Mexican made a litter out of willow saplings and his serape, hitched it to his horse like an Indian travois, and carried Kelly home in it. Velez got the curandera from Taos, a toothless old hag smelling of wild cherry bark and romero tea and juniper juice. She made a poultice of prickly pear that sucked the putrefaction out of his wound till he thought it would take his guts too.
When his fever finally broke and his wound began to heal, Velez’s fat wife took over, treating him with as much clucking solicitude as she did one of her dozen owl-eyed children.
From her he learned of the happenings in Santa Fe. The Esquadron de Vera Cruz had arrived early in 1838, and with the combined force Amado had marched north to do battle with the Pueblos at La Canada. Here the Pueblo Indians met their final crushing defeat, putting an end to their uprising.
With spring coming to the mountains, Kelly was up and around. Though most of his strength was back, he still had not regained all his weight. His eyes were sunk deep in their sockets and there was so little flesh on his face that his cheekbones pressed against the skin in silvery ridges. Tico offered his horse but Kelly knew it was the only one he had, and declined.
So he started to walk south. It was a spring country he walked through. White-stemmed aspen and green grama carpeting the fields and new silver tips on the spruces.
Kelly Morgan was a man of violent moods—shouted laughter and wild drunken sprees and soaring passions and anger so deep it could shake him to his toes. But the very violence of all his emotions excluded hate. For hate took a sustained meanness that was foreign to such a mercurial nature. Now, with the sweet perfume of the earth’s rebirth swimming around him and the pure simple goodness of walking across the face of a new world uplifting him, he could not even feel much anger at Ryker. He just knew his share of those pelts amounted to about seven hundred dollars and he was goddamn well going to get what was coming to him and if Ryker still wanted it rough Kelly would just as soon return old favors by leaving a knife in his ribs.
He slept two nights at hovels of the poor, and on the third evening arrived at Santa Fe. His first sight of the town came to him under a high moon—a row of flat roofs and gleaming mud walls on both sides of the river, crooked streets heading out from the plaza like spokes from a wheel, ending jam up against the shoulders of the mountains or petering out in bare fields. Before he reached the plaza he came to a building that had once been a Spanish colonial house, a two-story building with a railed balcony supported by slender posts. In the diffused light from the windows and partly open door, Kelly saw the sign hung on the balcony: JOHN RYKER, FURS, HARDWARE, DRY GOODS.
Kelly stopped in the shadows at the corner of the building. But there was no Indian sign that he could see. He stepped boldly into the store. A main wall had been knocked out to combine the reception room and parlor of the old house. Oil lamps cast a soft yellow light over the seemingly endless stores of goods. Ryker had done himself right proud on another man’s pelts. Kelly walked to the counter, speaking to a Mexican clerk drowsing on a stool.
“I want Ryker.”
“Señor Ryker es en la sala de Teresa Cavan,” the man said.
“Where’s that?” Kelly asked, in his cowpen Spanish.
The man pointed vaguely. “On San Francisco Street and the Alley of the Burro.”
On the counter were a dozen glittering knives, Bowies and Green Rivers and machetes. Kelly picked up a Bowie, hefted it.
“How much?”
“Ten pesos.”
“Take it off what Ryker owes me.”
“Señor—”
But Kelly was already going out the door in long strides, sticking the Bowie in his waistband. He heard the clerk scurrying around the counter and squealing. He was halfway across the square by the time the man reached the door, calling impotently after him.
Lined for a block down San Francisco Street and spreading out into the plaza were dozens of fine coaches; footmen and outriders and drivers stood in shadowy groups by the slender wheels or squatted between the vehicles playing cards and smoking. A curious group of pobres stood around the door of the big house on Burro Alley, craning for a look inside whenever a new arrival entered.
Kelly walked to the portal, rapped his knuckles against the hand-carved oak. It was opened and an astonished manservant stared up at his towering figure. He recovered himself, sputtering, “Your invitation, señor.”
“I ain’t got no invitation. I want to see Ryker.”
“None is admitted without invitation, señor—”
As the man started to shut the door, Kelly thrust a hand against it, with all his weight behind. It shoved the door open, the manservant with it, and Kelly was inside. He found himself in a reception hall with a floor of black and white tile and walls turned white as virgin snow by countless coats of yeso. There were two more servants in here, Navajo slaves dressed in creamy doeskin. With the doorman, they gathered around Kelly, babbling and trying to push him out. But from beyond a door at the end of the hall he heard the sound of the celebration. Contemptuously he swung the Indians away from him and strode down the hall. With one pull he opened the door.
A burst of sound swept against him. The squeak of fiddles in a bouncing jarabe, the high-pitched laughter of women, the nasal spiel of dealers. For an instant all his eyes would register was a confusing sea of black taffeta skirts, white bosoms swelling into low-cut bodices, glittering earrings, dragoons in dress blues, gentlemen in sober frock coats or gaudy jackets.
All this perfumed, twittering, bejeweled crowd seethed back and forth across a broad room divided by a heavy ceiling beam in the center and its supporting posts. On one side was the biggest, shiniest bar Kelly had ever seen, flanked by a bandstand, backed by a mirror of incredible size. Reflected in this glass was the opposite wall—more mirrors, narrow and regal, rising from white marble shelves to smoke-blackened rafters; windows draped with lush red velvet; monte tables before the windows; the faro games behind them, with their German silver dealing boxes; and the chuza layout—such a favorite with the ladies—with its three little balls that clattered and chuckled in
cessantly.
The Navajos were still pulling on Kelly and the doorman squeezed past him and disappeared into the crowd, going toward the bandstand. A dragoon captain in dress blues confronted Kelly, eyes glowing with anger. Kelly recognized him as Hilario Perea.
“Evenin’, Captain,” he grinned. “Looks like they kicked you upstairs.”
“Señor,” Perea said stiffly. “You have no right here. Leave at once, or I’ll call my dragoons.”
“I’m lookin’ for Ryker. You get us together and I’ll leave your shindig.”
“John Ryker is a guest here. We won’t have him disturbed.”
Kelly put his arm across Perea’s bemedaled chest and shoved him aside. “Then I’ll find him myself.”
With a curse, Perea started to draw his saber.
“Captain,” a woman said. “That won’t be necessary.”
It stopped Perea, and Kelly too. It was Teresa Cavan, coming toward them through the crowd. She was a stunning change from the ragged, sullen girl he had taken out of Biscara’s house less than a year before. Her red hair was massed high into a Spanish comb and half-hidden beneath the delicate lace of a black mantilla. The bodice of a silk dress was a shimmering black sheath for her supple body. The skirt was a thing of countless ruffles, flaring out from her slender waist like a peacock’s train. There was something predatory about the red-nailed hand that held the ivory fan. From above it, her green eyes looked at him, heavy-lidded, provocative. “We will welcome Señor Morgan as our guest,” she murmured, to Captain Perea. “He saved my life once, Hilario.”
Kelly Morgan suddenly felt like a fool. It struck him for the first time how ludicrous he must look—amid all this glitter and finery—in his worn pale buckskins and his dirty moccasins and his matted yellow hair. He felt a slow flush creep up his corded neck and into his gaunt cheeks. It made him mad.
“I’m lookin’ for Ryker,” he said.
She put a hand on his arm. “Perhaps we can find him at one of the tables. And on the way you must toast my new sala.”
With an astonished and confused Captain Perea following in their wake, Teresa led Kelly through the crowd. All but her eyes hidden behind the fan, she nodded this way and that. The women stared and twittered and the men frowned in confusion, not knowing whether to acknowledge Kelly or ignore him.
Near the rear of the room he saw Governor Amado, regally dressed in a pale blue, red-collared uniform laden with immense gold epaulets and yards of braid. But they got to the bar before they reached him. Men immediately made a place for Teresa. She lowered her fan and, from a silver box on the bar, she picked a pair of tenazitas de oro. Half a dozen men immediately offered cigarritos and she allowed one to be placed in the tiny gold tongs. One of the bartenders already had a glowing coal waiting. She lit the cigarrito, closed her eyes as she inhaled, and let the gray smoke flow from her delicate nostrils. There was something deeply sensual about it. She opened her eyes, smiling predatorily at Kelly.
She ordered champagne and the two drinks were brought in fancy cut glasses. They drank together.
She was looking intently at him. “You seem different. You look so pale.”
“Ran into some trouble,” he said. “Wouldn’t be alive now if it hadn’t been for a man named Tico Velez. They took care o’ me like I was one o’ their own. I guess I never really knew you people till now. I’ll never call a Mexican a greaser again.”
“Not many Americans can say that,” she murmured.
There was an electric impact to the woman that went right through a man, something deeper than her vibrant physical beauty. She had a nervous way of moving her hands—smoking, opening and closing her fan, turning her wrists so that the heavy silver bracelets seemed constantly to be clashing and jingling—and her uptilted green eyes had an almost greedy shine, as if drinking everything within their vision. He had caught a hint of this drive, this hunger in her during their last meeting. But now it was clearer. He saw her, in that moment, as a vivid, beautiful animal, driven by appetites and needs that could never quite be assuaged, no matter how much they took unto themselves.
She put the drink down and picked up her fan. “Now, perhaps, you would like to buck the tiger.”
Before he could answer her, something in the back-bar mirror broke the spell. The crowd had shifted at the monte table, revealing the broad, stooped shoulders of John Ryker reflected in the glass. Kelly put his drink down and started walking.
Only a portion of the people in the front part of the room had seen Kelly’s entrance. There were more surprised stares now, more flustered women, as he pushed his way past the faro layout, across the open dance floor where a half-dozen couples were swinging to the paso doble, into the dense pack of men about the monte table. It brought him in behind John Ryker.
For once the man did not wear his cinnamon bear coat. He had on fawn-colored broadcloth, expensive and tailored, imported kerseymere trousers, a new flat-topped hat pulled squarely on his coal-black hair. A pile of fifty-dollar bills, American, lay on the green-topped table underneath one of his hairy, blunt-fingered hands.
“How much under your hand, Ryker?”
Kelly’s soft voice in his ear made Ryker stiffen, as though in a spasm. He started to wheel; then he stopped. The point of Kelly’s Bowie was pressed into his ribs. The trader Danny O’Brien stood to Ryker’s left. He saw the stiffening of Ryker’s body and looked at Kelly. But Kelly was so close to Ryker that the knife was not visible to O’Brien. The other players on either side were still watching the game.
“All bets down, ladies and gentlemen, no more play on the table.”
“Turkey Thompson figgered we had about three thousand dollars worth of pelts,” Kelly said softly. “My share would be seven hundred and fifty.”
Without turning his body, Ryker twisted his head to see over his shoulder. His black eyes were smoldering with frustrated rage and muscles bunched into little knots along his heavy jaw.
“Damn you,” he said. “What pelts? There’s twenty dragoons in this room, Morgan. If you don’t take that knife out of my back I’ll call ‘em down on you.”
“One squeak and I’ll slip this through your ribs,” Kelly said.
O’Brien finally got an idea of what was happening. A foolish look came to his round face. He tried to grab Kelly’s arm.
“Morgan, are you crazy—?”
“Let go,” Kelly said, “’less you want Ryker’s blood on you.”
O’Brien let his hand slide off, blue eyes dropping to Kelly’s waist. Only part of the knife was visible between the two close bodies. Others on either side began to sense what was going on. The women spread fans before frightened faces, backing away; the men frowned threateningly at Kelly, began jabbering at him in Spanish. The cry of a winning bettor rang out of the crowd: “Dios de mi vida, the king of cups rides toward me.”
“Count out fifteen o’ them fifty dollar bills,” Kelly said.
“The hell with you,” Ryker said. “O’Brien, get the soldiers.”
Mouth popping like a fish, O’Brien eased away from the table. Kelly saw Captain Perea pushing his way through the crowd from the bar, with Teresa Cavan behind him. They were both looking at Kelly and he knew they’d followed him.
“Ryker,” he murmured. “You have ten seconds. Turkey Thompson was my friend. I’d just as soon empty your sack right here as not.”
Ryker’s head was still twisted over one shoulder to look at Kelly. He saw the bleak savagery in Kelly’s face, and knew Kelly well enough to realize he was capable of doing just what he threatened. The breath went out of Ryker in a long gust. He began counting out the bills.
Captain Perea was three feet away when Ryker finished. With the point of the knife, Kelly moved Ryker aside till the place in front of the bills was free. He scooped them up. Then he jabbed the knife into Ryker’s ribs.
; “Walk in front of me. Anybody tries to stop us, you’ll get it first.”
Face stiff and white with helpless rage, Ryker complied. The gamblers about the monte table gave way before his broad, tramping figure.
Perea stared at the knife in Ryker’s back, gave way before the marching men. Kelly stuffed the bills in his belt to leave his left hand free. Perea was aghast.
“Morgan, are you insane? You cannot rob a man in front of two hundred people.”
Kelly did not answer. He heard a hubbub on his flanks and caught sight of blue-coated figures converging from several quarters. But he was almost to the door, with Ryker. Then there was a violent eddy in the crowd; they parted on his left to reveal O’Brien and three dragoons rushing from the faro table. One was a lieutenant. Before he saw the knife at Ryker’s back, he plunged at Kelly, drawing his saber. Kelly couldn’t help turning part way toward the man. Ryker knew his chance had come and threw himself bodily to one side, away from the knife.
With the man out of range, all Kelly could do was save himself from the saber. He bent violently aside as the lieutenant hacked and the blade whipped past his hip and buried itself in the pine floor.
Before Kelly could recover, Captain Perea lunged against him, caught his arm, twisted violently. The pain made Kelly drop his knife. Face contorted, he lashed a foot out to tangle in Perea’s legs, tripping him.
As the captain fell, the other dragoons were on Kelly, kicking, pummeling, trying to snare his arms and bear him to the floor with their weight. For a moment he was a whirling tower of violence among them, like a mastiff beset by yapping curs. His flailing arm smashed one across the face, knocking the man into the crowd; his lashing foot caught another in the stomach and the man doubled up and fell at Kelly’s feet. Catching the third by his hair and his belt, Kelly saw Ryker by the bar. The man had lunged that far in his dive to escape the knife. Now he was wheeling, pulling a brass-bound Ketland-McCormick from his belt.
Teresa Page 14