Teresa

by Les Savage, Jr.

  He shook his head, face troubled. “Not good. I can’t understand it. The Texans surrendered without battle. Would they do that if they were invaders? Yet the governor showed them no mercy. He is sending them on foot all the way to Mexico City. It’s unthinkable in their condition. Hundreds of miles through the desert, without shoes, sick. It will be the worst of winter before they reach the capital. Half of them will die.”

  Teresa glanced at Gomez. The man raised his brows. She spoke to Perea. “Don’t misjudge the governor. If they’re invaders, he has no authority to hold them here—”

  “Surely he has the authority to treat them like human beings,” Perea said. He paced across the room, helmet under one arm. “I don’t understand it. He seems to be getting worse and worse.”

  “When we get word from Mexico City, you’ll find he’s done right.”

  Perea shook his sleek black head. “Nothing can make this right. Tyranny is tyranny, under any circumstances, and that’s what I saw at Las Vegas—”

  She took his arm. “Let’s go into the sala and talk it over while these two have their game. You’ve just been looking at the surface of things again, without trying to understand what goes on underneath….”

  She led him out, closing the door behind her. Gomez shook his head, smiling cynically. He started walking toward the spindled cupboard. Kelly put his hands behind his head.

  “Why doesn’t she want Perea to see what Amado really is?”

  Gomez took out the pack of cards, tilting his head to one side quizzically. “Perhaps to avert a catastrophe, my friend. To have Perea’s loyalty now is to have the loyalty of the regular army.”

  “She plays a dirty game.”

  Gomez slid a low coffee table beside the bed, putting the cards on it. “Who is to say that we would not play the same way, under the same circumstances?”

  Gomez moved a chair by the table and settled himself into it with a comfortable sigh. Kelly studied the man’s dissipated face from between slitted lids. Gomez had been a faithful companion, coming in every day or so for a game of cards, a drink of wine. Despite their disparity in background, in culture, they had enough in common to establish a sort of casual bond between them. Gomez was a wit, an intellect, a charming companion, with enough common clay in him to find a meeting ground with Kelly’s native shrewdness and wry sense of humor. But in Gomez’s relations with Teresa, Perea, and the others, Kelly had caught vagrant glimpses of another side to the man.

  “You know what toadyin’ is, Gomez?” he asked.

  The man frowned. “My English is not that good.”

  “It means lickin’ somebody’s boots,” Kelly said. Gomez began to shuffle. Kelly murmured, “You ain’t a bootlicker.”

  Gomez inclined his head, ironically. “Thank you.”

  “Then why do you do it?”

  Gomez stopped shuffling. He looked at Kelly. Then he stacked the cards and pushed them across the table. The latticework of veins seemed to grow darker in his gray jowls.

  Kelly cut the cards. “Toadyin’ up to Teresa. Lickin’ the governor’s boots. Spreadin’ the honey on for Captain Perea. That ain’t you at all.” Kelly lay back, looking carefully at the man. “What are you, really, Gomez?”

  The man smiled, picking up the cards to deal. “Someday, my friend, perhaps you will find out.”

  21

  Teresa did not have dinner with Kelly that evening. After eating, he lay in the dim light, listening to the distant and muffled sounds of the gambling hall as it filled with customers. He was thinking again. During these long weeks of his recuperation he’d probably done more thinking than at any other time in his life. And most of it about Teresa.

  Despite his wildness, his earthiness, Kelly had a native wisdom and a shrewd judgment of people that gave him a deep insight into Teresa.

  He knew it was not merely his possession of her body she feared. It was not simply the threat he constituted as a man. The thing she feared most was her own attraction for him. If she once gave way to love for him she would be subjecting herself completely. Her very need of him was a weakness that would defeat her more than anything he could do. And it was that subjection she had fought all her life.

  But she was weakening. He saw it every time she came into the room. In the little attentions she gave him, the way she watched him when she thought he was not looking. His feebleness and his pain had brought out a tenderness, a compassion he never would have been able to touch in their previous clashes. Hers was a spirit that would not yield to force or violence alone. As long as the conquest had been all his, she had resisted. But now he was no longer the attacker. Perhaps that was the chink in her armor. Or perhaps it was the essence and the paradox of love. To conquer, one had to be conquered.

  He slept, and then woke again. There was no sound from outside. That meant it was after midnight. The sala rarely closed until two in the morning. He lay slack, moveless, wondering what had awakened him. Then he heard the scuffle of footsteps in the hall, the faint creak of the door. Senses born in the wilderness made him grow stiff as a dog with its hackles up.

  The door opened, permitting the faintest illumination to creep in. It came from a candle in one of the wall niches outside, too far down the hall to give any real light. Against its dim glow he saw the silhouette of a woman. A woman in a clinging gown that gave distinct outline to the flare of mature hips, the outer curve of her thighs.

  He knew who it was now. She had looked in on him before like this when he was really sick, when he was delirious or sweating out a night of pain on the low bed. She seemed to stand there a long while. Then there was the hiss of taffeta as she moved in, shutting the door part way so the light would not wake him. She was barely visible now, a sense of smoky movement in the textured darkness.

  Then she was beside him, above him, looking down upon him. The scent of her perfume and the barely perceptible heat of her body crept over him. He should have been able to relax, now that he knew what it was. But his body was still tense beneath the cotton cover.

  He could hear her breathing, like the faint rustle of silk through the fingers. What was she looking at so long? She couldn’t see his face. He wanted to speak. But there was a strange spell about the moment, a sense of special import that kept him silent.

  Soon she would go. When she turned, he would speak. He would ask her to stay and talk to him.

  Then he realized that her breathing was louder. Its warmth, its perfume was right in his face. She was bending over him. He could sense the heated softness of her body somewhere above his face. Then her lips brushed his forehead—moist, satiny—and were gone.

  But she was not gone. She was still bent over him. For a moment he lay there, held by the spell. Then he heard a little sobbing catch in the breathing, so close above him.

  He raised his hands and found her. His fingers closed on hot bare shoulders and he pulled her down to him and sought her lips. After the first passionate kiss she began crying.

  “Kelly,” she said, “Kelly, Kelly, Kelly….”

  The tears covered her cheeks and her lips and gave a wild salt taste to the kisses. His feverish hands worked at her gown, pulling it off, pulling it down. Then his fingers dug into the pulsing velvet of her hips and the nakedness of her breast flattened against him.

  In passion he found strength. The pain of his wound and the weakness faded away. She cried all the way through it. His memory of that night would always be mingled with the sound of her sobbing and the taste of her tears on his lips. Even after it was over and she lay beside him, no longer making the sound of crying, he could put his face against hers and feel the tears damp on her cheeks.

  There was something utterly hopeless about it and it made him feel like a traitor. He had taken the core out of her, had smashed the very thing that had sustained her against the world. In her mind she was stripped of her arm
or now; she had joined the other women of this land in their slavery.

  “Honey,” he said. “It couldn’t be any other way. Can’t you see that?” She did not answer. “It ain’t as bad as all that,” he said. “I ain’t taken all that from you. Maybe you got to lose somethin’ to git somethin’. Maybe what you git is better, honey.”

  Still she did not answer. She lay limp and sodden against him. When he reached over to kiss her again he felt a soundless shudder run through her body like a sob that passed out into the night and went on without end.

  22

  That same night Governor Amado arrived in the capital. He came in on the Santa Fe Trail from Las Vegas, riding his big dun mule at the head of a troop of lancers. His great weight was settled tiredly in the saddle, his cloak flapped about him like a banner, and his face was dust-grayed and haggard from the long ride.

  He had left Captain Uvalde in command of the Texans, with orders to start the march to Mexico City the following day. He was still seething over the Lamar proclamation. What kind of war was this that a handful of men could make an armed march into a land and expect it to fall at their feet? It was not only a traitorous attempt to steal a country; it was an insult to the courage and the intelligence of the New Mexicans. It was unfortunate that there had been no glorious battles to communicate to the capital, but in his dispatches to Santa Anna he had made the capture of the Texans sound as dangerous and difficult as possible.

  Under a dying moon the Santa Fe plaza was a dim lake of silvered earth. A black finger of shadow pointed westward from the sundial and the shadows were even blacker beneath the portal fronting the Palace. Like yellow eyes peering from those shadows the narrow windows of the Assembly chamber cast out dim channels of light. The only movement in the square came from the shuttling figures of the sentries as they passed back and forth beneath the portal.

  Crossing toward them, Amado glanced toward San Francisco Street, and Teresa’s house. It brought back the jealousy, the stupid, nagging jealousy that had been with him for weeks now.

  How could a man be so foolish? How could he be jealous of a woman he had never possessed? It only proved what a weakness he had for her. His lecherous buffoonery had become a ritual between them, a cloak he adopted in her presence, hiding the depths of his real desire. At the back of his mind had always lain the conviction, the hope, the need that Teresa would come to him. It was inevitable. They were simpatico. It was more than the beauty of her, curling a man’s fingers with the want of ripeness. It was her spirit, her fire, going right through a man.

  And that yellow-headed trapper, that bribón, lying in her room, in her very bed, with her tending him as though she were his slave. A taste like bile came into Amado’s mouth and he spat disgustedly. If he thought for a moment, if he had the slightest suspicion—

  But no. He shook his head. He knew her adamant refusal to take any man as a lover. That was the very core of her. Why else had she shot Morgan? It was a joke around the capital. Even Amado could afford to be amused by it. He certainly had no real cause for jealousy.

  He pulled to a pompous halt before the sentries, receiving their salutes with a perfunctory nod. The other dragoons halted behind him, the dust of their passage settling against the night like a silver fog.

  “The word you sent led us to believe you would be back early this evening, Governor,” one of the sentries told him. “Don Gomez and several others still wait up for you.”

  Amado wheezed, lowering his oleaginous bulk off the mule. “What is the time?”

  “Well after three o’clock.”

  He nodded absently, handing his reins to one of the mounted lancers, ordering them to proceed around to the zaguán gate. Innocent slid off his burro and accompanied Amado through the main door and into the Assembly hall. At the table a group of men had been passing the time with a game of cards—Don Gomez, Biscara, Captain Perea, and a pair of lieutenants. They all rose as Amado entered. Perea and the lieutenants hastily slipped on coats over their rumpled, sweat-stained shirts.

  “Para siempre bendito sea Dios y la siempre, pase adelante, gobernador,” Gomez said.

  Amado grinned tiredly. “It is too late for such formality, my friend, even with the governor. Let us merely say buenos tardes.”

  Gomez helped him off with his cloak and Biscara poured a drink, bringing it to him. He drained it at one gulp, squinted his eyes, smacked his lips.

  “A pity you were delayed,” Gomez said. “A celebration had been planned in your honor.”

  “It can be held tomorrow,” Amado said. “Last minute duty with the Texan invaders. It is over now, at any rate.”

  Gomez glanced at Biscara, locked his hands behind him, frowned at the floor. “Not quite over, I’m afraid, Governor. There is still one of them in our midst.”

  The weary affability left Amado’s face. His frown dug twin vertical furrows between his brows. Gomez looked at the windows, cleared his throat.

  “As you know, Teresa is harboring this Kelly Morgan—”

  “But he’s been among us for years,” Captain Perea said. He looked surprised.

  Gomez looked at him, shrugged. “Which would enable him to spy on us with that much less possibility of suspicion.”

  “Spy?” Amado said. It was a trigger word for him, a lighted fuse to anger, fear, mistrust.

  Gomez got something from a pocket. “I have visited his room now and then. Tonight I found this.”

  It was a brass button. On its face was engraved TEXAS. Amado felt a tremor of anger run through his body. The same buttons had been found on the other invaders.

  “It does not prove he is a spy,” Perea said.

  “What more do you want?” Biscara asked slyly. “I wager we would find other proof if we searched his room.”

  It seemed to be a culmination of Amado’s jealousy over Teresa, his outrage with the Texans. With his temper at the boiling point, he nodded savagely.

  “You’re right. We’ll conduct a search. If we find nothing more, this button alone would condemn him.” He spoke sharply to one of the lieutenants. “Summon a squad. Follow me to the sala on the double.”

  He saw the stricken look on Perea’s face as he wheeled, followed by the others, and stalked out of the Assembly. They marched across the plaza and into San Francisco Street. By the time they had reached Burro Alley, Lieutenant Valdez and eight sleepy, grumbling dragoons had arrived. Amado went to the door on Burro Alley, pounding loudly. It took some time before a muttering, puffy-eyed Pepita unbarred and opened it. Amado let Innocent enter first, shoving the surprised Indian woman aside. They filled the hall in the next moment. Innocent snatched the candle in its tin sconce from Pepita and scurried ahead to the door of Kelly’s room.

  Before he reached it, the door was opened and Teresa stepped out, blinking her eyes. “Pepita, she called testily. “What is all this—?”

  She broke off as she saw them. The surprise of seeing her had stopped them all, ten feet from the door. She had nothing but a blanket pulled around her. Amado saw that she was barefooted, her legs bare—and knew that she must be naked beneath that single cover. It was like a blow to the pit of his stomach; his face turned pasty with shock, then with rage. If he had been alone he thought he would have beaten her. Yet he could not let the others see what this did to him. It was an immense effort to keep his voice sardonic.

  “Not only does our Teresa harbor traitors and spies. She amuses them in bed.”

  A flush ran up Teresa’s satiny neck, staining her cheeks scarlet. Candlelight flickered eerily against the jade-green rage in her eyes, and the shame. She pulled the blanket tighter about her, speaking in a brittle voice.

  “What right have you in here at this hour?”

  “Punta en boca,” Amado said. His eyes were cruel now; he waved his arm viciously toward the room. “Search it.”

  The lieut
enant and his men swarmed around Amado. Teresa backed into the door, blocking it. There was something intensely savage about her. She was drawn up to her full height, her eyes flashing, her coral lips compressed. Her face was taut and bleak with defiance, its pale oval half buried against the burning frame of her cascading red hair. The lieutenant halted a foot from her, his face reflecting the fear and the awe with which the people had come to regard this woman.

  “Lieutenant,” Amado said. “Would you like to be a private tomorrow?”

  “Governor,” Perea said. “I protest this invasion—”

  “Lieutenant!”

  Valdez reacted to Amado’s shout, waving his arm at the dragoons. A pair of them caught Teresa by the arms. She fought, but they pulled her roughly out of the door.

  “Your pardon, señorita,” Valdez said. Saber drawn, he stepped into the room. A pair of dragoons followed him. Amado stalked past Teresa with a savage glance, Gomez and Biscara and the other troops crowding in behind.

  Kelly Morgan had swung his feet off the bed and was dragging himself up by one of the niches in the wall. “What the hell is all this?” he asked. A pair of dragoons blocked him off, carbines across their chests. He swayed heavily against the wall and would have fallen without its support. The lieutenant and the other dragoons were already beginning the search. They ripped the covers off the bed, tore off the mattress, broke open the leather-bound chest in the corner, spilling out laces and taffeta gowns and jewelry. The lieutenant found Kelly’s effects in the cupboard. He dumped the shoulder belt with its trapper’s tools onto the floor. Then he ripped open the possible sack. He pulled out an extra pair of beaded moccasins, a bone needle wrapped in rawhide thread.

  “Damn you,” Kelly said feebly. “What’re you lookin’ for?”

  The lieutenant pulled out a rolled document, opening it. He scanned a few lines, then turned wide eyes to Amado.

  “It is the proclamation of President Lamar,” he said.