Teresa

by Les Savage, Jr.

  Kelly swung the dragoon in a great arc and released him when he was pointed at Ryker. Arms flailing, legs kicking helplessly, the trooper plunged across the room, crashed through a fringe of the crowd, and went into Ryker like a thrown sack of meal.

  It knocked Ryker back against the bar with stunning force. Before he could recover, Kelly charged after the dragoon. Ryker pulled himself up, trying to swing the pistol to fire. But Kelly’s charge carried him into the man too soon and the shock of it made the gun go off at the floor.

  Snarling, Ryker tried to twist free and swing the empty weapon up to strike the trapper. Kelly saw more dragoons rushing him from the crowd and knew he didn’t have time to fight Ryker. He caught the upraised arm under the elbow, hooked his other hand in Ryker’s belt, and heaved the man over the bar.

  Ryker fell head first into the great mirror. It shivered into a hundred pieces and then toppled forward across the bar with a deafening crash, scattering glass everywhere.

  Before the dragoons could reach him, Kelly jumped on top of the bar. The leader pawed at him and Kelly kicked him in the face, knocking him back into the others. Then the trapper ran the length of the bar, with the upturned faces of the mob gazing at him in astonishment. One of the dragoons took this chance to fire above the heads of the crowd.

  The crack of the gun was deafening; the ball missed Kelly and smashed into one of the wall brackets holding an oil lamp. He dropped off the end of the bar into a covey of panicky ladies. They squealed shrilly and ran from him like startled hens.

  There was ten feet between him and the door, wide open. Halfway across was the Bowie he’d dropped. He scooped it up as he plunged for freedom. The noise of the fight had brought the Navajos and the doorman. They stood in the open portal as if to block the way. He brought the knife across the front of him in a vicious sweep. They shouted in fear and melted out of his way like wheat before a scythe. In the next second he was outside, ducking between a pair of coaches, crossing the street, plunging into the darkness of an alley. He put a hand to his waist to make sure the bills were still there.

  Then the comical side of it struck him and he let out a shouting laugh of sheer exuberance. It echoed down the alley and bounced against blank walls and came back to him like the crazy howl of a curly wolf.

  15

  It was early the next morning that Teresa woke and dressed and wandered into the wreckage of her sala. The smell of tobacco still hung rancidly in the room and she grimaced at it, stopping within the doorway to survey the ruin of the mirror lying in a thousand glittering shards over floor and tables. She knew a return of her seething anger at Kelly Morgan.

  He had made a dismal mess of her grand opening. After such violence most of the women had left in panic and half the men had gone out hunting Morgan. She pulled her shawl about her shoulders, shivering in the early chill, cursing the man under her breath. She heard scurrying footsteps in the rooms behind her and in a moment her maid appeared. Pepita was a tubby woman from Acoma, chronic perspiration making her round cheeks glow.

  “Señorita, a man, at the alley door, the tall one with the yellow hair—”

  “What broke your mirror last night,” finished Kelly Morgan, as he strode into the room.

  Teresa whirled, unable to conceal her anger. But somehow there was more involved; she could not help feeling astonishment at his recklessness.

  “Are you mad?” she said. “They’ll throw you in La Garita the minute they find you.”

  “Exactly why I came in by Burro Alley,” he said. He walked over to the bar, looking down at the scattered pieces of the giant mirror. “How much was it worth?”

  Her voice became venomous. “Five hundred American dollars. I had it shipped all the way from St. Louis.”

  From his waist he pulled the fifty dollar bills he had taken from Ryker last night. He counted out ten of them and placed them on the bar. She tried to sustain her anger. She should be raging at him now, should have him thrown out, should call the troops. But somehow the anger would not remain. There was something too wryly ironic about the whole situation. She shook her head helplessly.

  “What good would stolen money do me?” she asked.

  “It ain’t stolen. You don’t find Ryker pressing charges, do you?”

  She frowned. It was true. Ryker had acted strangely about the whole affair last night, had declined Governor Amado’s offer to prefer official charges. She questioned Kelly and he told her of Vic Jares, the poached furs, Turkey Thompson’s murder.

  “But you have no proof,” Teresa said. “It would be only your word against Ryker’s.”

  “There’s enough truth in it to hurt him,” Kelly said. “Cimarron and Jares thought I was dead. They made the mistake of letting a lot of people see them bring the pelts in. Add that to what I’d tell, and Ryker’d have a helluva lot of explainin’ to do. Seven hundred and fifty dollars is a cheap price for my silence.”

  “How can Ryker be sure of it?”

  “If I’d meant to blab would I take the money off him that way?” He grinned maliciously. “Ryker and me understand each other, honey. We made a deal last night and he knows it.”

  “You mean to let the whole thing go for a few hundred dollars?” she said. “Trying to kill you, murdering your friend?”

  His lips were still pulled back in the smile, but the humor was suddenly gone out of it. “I ain’t lettin’ nothin’ go. What good would it do me to talk now? When I git Ryker, it won’t be jist a story that’ll make a stink for him. When I git Ryker, it’ll be for good.”

  The primitive emotion behind his words crept through Teresa like a frightening excitement. She looked at the money. An enigmatic smile formed on her coral-red lips. She picked up the bills.

  “In that case,” she said, “I’ll let you pay for the damage.” She glanced obliquely up at him. So tall, so awesomely tall. “What will you do now?” she asked. “You can’t stay in town.”

  “I got enough money left for traps and an outfit. Maybe I’ll summer at Bent’s Fort. Then I’ll be ready for the beaver come fall.”

  She was always on the lookout for new sources of information. As yet she had no contact with any of the free trappers. This man, ranging through the vast and dangerous country north of Taos, would obtain knowledge no Mexican could bring her.

  “Last night,” she said, “I was ready to have you drawn and quartered. Now I’ll invite you to breakfast.”

  The humor returned to his face; his grin made creased leather of his cheeks and took the icy chill from his blue eyes. He followed her down the hall to one of the private rooms at the rear. Its walls were whitewashed with yeso, covered chest-high with calico print. In the dozen niches around the room were the inevitable bultos—the hand-carved statuettes of the saints.

  They sat down at the heavy pine table, rubbed to a satiny finish with sand and left to gray with age. Pepita had come in behind them, carrying the silver box and the golden tongs. Teresa fingered a cornhusk hoja from the box and tapped the pale brown punche into it.

  She placed the smoke in the golden tongs and Pepita lit it with a candle. She closed her eyes, drawing in a lungful, and let it flow from her nostrils. Pepita left to get the breakfast. Teresa opened her eyes part way, nodding at the box. Kelly shook his head.

  “I like somethin’ with bite,” he said.

  He was grinning wisely. It made her wonder if she had lied to herself. Had she really invited him in here because she thought he might provide her with information?

  He had none of the striking, male beauty possessed by Captain Perea. Yet there was a magnetism to him that she could not deny, the indolent, smoldering magnetism of a wild animal. It disturbed her, as it had before. She rose restlessly and walked to the narrow, barred window.

  “Will you be trapping in Arapaho country?” she asked.

  “Likely.”


  “Perhaps you can find out something. The Pueblos have never forgotten Villapando’s murder. There’s talk that they’re seeking an alliance with the Arapahos and the Cheyenne. If that happens we’ll have a worse uprising than before.”

  He did not answer for so long that she turned to look at him. There was a cynical light to his chill blue eyes and he was grinning. It became a husky chuckle.

  “I don’t like to be laughed at, señor.”

  “And I don’t like to be included in your dirty little politics,” he said. He rose from his chair and advanced toward her. She backed toward the wall, watching him narrowly, ready to call Pepita. When she had reached the wall, he stopped six inches from her, thumbs in his belt, the wide grin still on his face.

  “I heard about what was goin’ on down here, while I was up on the traplines. I heard about you.” He waved his hand at the room. “You couldn’t git all that so quick jist by sleepin’ in a few beds. I guess they don’t really understand it yet, but you’re probably the biggest politician in the whole province. And nobody can play politics as dirty as a woman.”

  “Very well,” she said. “If we’re being frank with each other. You’ve pitted yourself against Ryker. The only one who can give you protection from him is Governor Amado. And I have the governor’s ear. If you’ll agree to bring me all the information you can gather up north, I will—”

  “I don’t want any part of it,” he said.

  There was something in his expression that should have warned her. His lips parted and went slack; little lights sparkled up in his eyes, half-hidden by the lids that crept slowly together.

  His hands reached out and pulled her roughly, almost cruelly to him. Her body went rigid with it and both her hands started to rise to fend him off. Her hands were forced down by the embrace and she was lifted up till she stood on her toes against him.

  The kiss and the hard, bruising pressure of his chest against her breasts should have hurt. But instead a wild flood of excitement swept through her. She had no control over it. Like a flower it blossomed within her, hot, shuddering, enveloping her. It was something she had thought she could never feel again. It was like that first time with Juan. The wanting, the not wanting, one part of her struggling bitterly against it, the other greedily accepting, the world contracting and expanding and tilting on edge.

  She heard herself moan, felt her body writhe spasmodically against him, seeking to get even closer. He made a hungry sound deep in his throat. One hand slid up the curve of her back to cup her head. The red hair came loose from its comb and spilled through his fingers in a fiery cascade. He kissed her on the brow, the eyes, the cheeks, the neck. He was trembling against her and she felt his palms grow damp with sweat. He reached for her camisa.

  Perhaps that was what brought back reality—the rough feel of his fingers in the neck of her blouse, pulling it down. With one of his hands cupping her head and the other pulling at her camisa, he had released her arms.

  She made a strangled sound and put her hands against his chest, twisting away. It took him by surprise and she tore free before he could stop her. Pulling her camisa back over her shoulder, breasts heaving as she panted, she wheeled across the room from him, putting her back to the edge of the table. Her eyes were green as a cat’s in the dark.

  “Get out,” she said.

  He started toward her. His great chest rose and fell with his labored breathing and his face was diffused with blood.

  He was but a foot away, and she started to swing free once more. The appearance of Pepita in the doorway stopped them both. The maid had a tray containing the breakfast. She stared at them pop-eyed and then started to retire discreetly.

  “Pepita,” Teresa said. “If this man isn’t out of the house in one minute, get the dragoons.”

  It held Kelly in check. He glanced at the maid, as if gauging his chances of stopping her. But she wheeled and ran before he could move. They could hear her voice calling the other servants, arousing the household. Slowly the ruddy hue of passion seeped out of Kelly’s face. The humor of the situation reached him and he grinned again, the broad infectious grin that spread up into his eyes and made them twinkle like diamonds in a bright sun.

  “Ain’t that a sack o’ hell,” he said.

  16

  By winter of 1838 the traditional power of the Lower River had been smashed and Gomez and his Upper River ruled in the capital. The leaders of the Lower River had promised their support, but they could not stand to see the gradual spread of Gomez’s power. They could not fight it openly for fear Amado would invoke the Expulsion Law against Biscara. Thus the only course left was passive resistance.

  They withdrew from the capital completely. They kept up a pretense of support, yet managed to withhold it in a dozen insidious ways. There was nothing Amado could pin down as evidence that Biscara was acting in bad faith. But by the spring of 1839 there were signs that the strategy was succeeding. Mexico City had become aware that the aristocrats in Santa Fe were not in support of Amado’s regime. Amado began to squirm under the pressure that brought from the capital. His treasury was empty. But when he came to the Lower River for loans all the rich ones seemed to have no liquid assets.

  It came to a head in April. Teresa had just finished breakfast one morning when Pepita came to her chambers and told her that Don Biscara sought an audience. It was a complete surprise, since Biscara had made a point of never visiting her sala nor recognizing her in any way. However, she received him in the private room behind the main salon. The place had changed remarkably. Teresa had put down a floor of black and white tile. In place of the grayed pine table that had once stood in the center was a huge, marble-topped table with clawed legs of black walnut, shipped in from St. Louis. The windows were paned with opaque glass now and there were a dozen handsome chairs, their upholstered red plush matching the heavy velvet hangings that completely covered the wall.

  Teresa too had changed in these last months. From a ragged peona with a gypsy beauty, she had become a stunning woman, poised and confident. Perhaps the clothes were part of it. She had been responsible for introducing the gown into Santa Fe. Rarely now was she seen in the traditional camisa and black skirts of her people. Today she wore a rich cream taffeta with a pattern of rosebuds on the bodice. It left her shoulders bare and clung tightly to the ripe curves of her hips; her red hair was worn high in an ivory comb and diamond earrings sparkled against the golden flesh of her neck. She was sitting at the table, the inevitable cigarrito held in tiny golden tongs, as Pepita ushered Don Biscara in. The maid closed the door softly and Teresa was alone with him.

  Neither spoke for a moment. This was the first time they had met alone since that day so long ago when she had escaped from him. She knew the power he still wielded, had an accurate gauge of the threat he constituted to her. Yet there was no trace of fear in her. She faced him across the table with a calm confidence in her own strength.

  He did not try to hide the hatred smoldering in his black eyes. He stood in the center of the room, lean and haughty, typical of the Santa Fe aristocrat—contemptuous of the peasants who served him, wallowing in class privileges that approached the divine right of kings. It was his misfortune that at the time of his birth his family had been traveling in Spain. Though they had returned to their home in Santa Fe when Biscara was four, it had left the stigma upon him. He was a gachupín, a native-born Spaniard, and had been suffering for it ever since.

  At last Teresa smiled enigmatically. “Something desperate must have happened, Don Tomas, to bring you here.”

  “Something stupid!” His tone was vicious. He was controlling wrath with obvious effort. Cords fluttered in his lean hands as they closed into fists, and he said, “Amado has asked me for a loan of thirty thousand pesos.”

  “And didn’t get it—as usual.”

  “He said this was the last time. He threatened the Expulsion L
aw if I refused. You know none of us have that much hard cash since the revolution. What could I do? He’s already ordered my arrest. The dragoons may be at my house now.”

  She tried to hide how it shook her. She and Gomez had jockeyed from the beginning to prevent just such a thing. She looked at the tip of her cigarette, fighting to keep her voice calm.

  “I find it ironic that you should come to me for help.”

  “I come to you as a last resort, but not for help.” Biscara’s agitation would not allow him to remain still. He paced the room, goatee bobbing spitefully as he spoke. “If he goes through with this you’ll be ruined along with him. If you have the influence over Amado that Gomez claims, you’d better do something quick.”

  “It’s this passive resistance of yours that has driven him to such extremes. If you’d give us the support you promised—”

  “I’ll make no deals!”

  “I’m not asking something for nothing,” she said. “Let’s begin with the refusal of your people to provide officer material for the dragoons. It’s lowered the morale of the army dangerously. If you’ll send six of your finest young men to the Colegio Militar this winter, Amado might consider giving you back a seat or two in the Assembly—”

  “I’ll bargain no more with that pig. I’ve humiliated myself for the last time, Teresa.”

  He had halted by the window, a lean, dark-suited figure with flaming eyes. Whatever else he was, Biscara had a courage as fine and tempered as a Toledo blade. He was a man with his back to the wall and she saw that she could push him no farther. If this situation was to be saved it had to be done through Amado. She was about to answer when there was a loud hubbub of voices in the outer hall. The door was thrust open and Governor Amado marched pompously in, shoving the protesting Pepita aside with one thick arm. He glared at Biscara, then Teresa.

  “I’ve hunted all over town for this man. Are you dealing with traitors now?”