Amado felt the veins in his neck swell and begin to pound. He half turned to see Teresa in the doorway, staring at the proclamation with a shocked expression. Amado spoke in a trembling voice.
“I have always admired your histrionics, Teresa. But nothing can explain the possession of this. You were harboring a spy, and I think you knew it.”
He hesitated a moment; not wanting to say it. Then he cursed himself for a sentimental fool. She had betrayed him, as much as their country. He gave the order to Lieutenant Valdez in a husky wheeze: “Take them to La Garita.”
23
It was a bleak little cell. Many men had waited their death here. The name of Granillo was carved into the windowsill, and the date of 1694. Other names were carved into the wood, or the crumbling walls, and other dates.
It made Teresa shiver and draw her cloak more tightly about her. She walked to the barred window, looking out upon the flat roofs of the city below. It had been three days since her arrest and she was in a torture of anxiety. Kelly Morgan had been taken from the prison that first morning while she was still asleep. The guards told her that he had been sent south to join Uvalde and the Texans on their way to Mexico City. It had sickened her with fear. He was too weak for such a terrible march; he would surely die.
From the guards she had heard the other news. Governor Amado had taken her sala in the name of the government, had confiscated all her money he could put his hands on, had arrested all the known members of her spy ring. He was now in the process of weeding out the members she had planted in the Assembly and the other government posts. Captain Perea had resigned his commission, declaring he would not serve Amado while Teresa was imprisoned. And Amado had put him under arrest. The sense of helpless frustration she felt over that was mingled constantly with her fears for Kelly. Yet, paradoxically, she knew a trenchant anger with herself for feeling those fears. It was a reflection of the bitter conflict that had raged within her ever since the night of the arrest. In a way, what had happened justified everything she had believed in. One moment of weakness for a man, one moment of giving in, of subjecting herself to him—and her world was smashed. In an instant she had been stripped of all the wealth, the power, the influence she had so carefully garnered through the years. In an instant she had placed herself at the mercy of all the men she had fought so long.
She was sure that Amado’s jealousy was behind this revenge on her. Her presence in Kelly’s room had been a blow his pride could not stand. If she had not been there she was certain he would not have imprisoned her. They would have taken Kelly, but she knew she could have convinced Amado of her innocence.
How many times had she said she was through being used by men? And yet, after all her bitter struggle for freedom, one had come along—crude, primitive, animal—and touched something within her, and she had fallen. A woman so foolish deserved to be enslaved.
Because she still couldn’t get Kelly out of her mind. Would she still go with him, if she could? She was in love with him. She was certain of that. The passion they had known could be nothing else. And to an ordinary woman, love would mean going with your man, wherever he went, whatever he did. But maybe she wasn’t an ordinary woman any more. Maybe what had happened throughout her life had warped her, twisted her, embittered her to the point where she couldn’t accept love so simply and easily. Otherwise why this confusion—why this bitter mingling of fear and love for Kelly and anger and disgust with herself?
She paced the cell agitatedly, face pale, hands locked together. Holy Mother, why had she been born a woman? She heard chains rattling, the door was opened. The yellow light of the keeper’s candle crawled up the wall outside, illuminating the rank of blue uniforms. The officer in charge was the lieutenant who had arrested her.
“Lieutenant Valdez,” she said ironically. “The executioner now?”
“Captain Valdez,” he said.
“For valor, undoubtedly.”
Valdez did not answer. He looked at the keeper and the man snuffed his candle. In utter darkness she was taken out of the infamous old Spanish prison and down the winding road to town. Like a band of ghosts they marched through the empty back streets. An uncontrollable shivering ran through her body and she pulled the cloak tight.
Finally they reached the mouth of Burro Alley and took her up it to the side door of her sala. They entered and went down the hall to the familiar door of the familiar room and stopped. Captain Valdez opened the door and waved her in.
It was unchanged. The tile floor, the red drapes covering the walls, the marble-topped table. At the table, in one of the plush chairs, was Governor Amado. She heard the door close behind her and stood alone before him. Neither of them spoke. He lounged back in the chair, looking at her from beneath the pouched lids of his blood-shot eyes. He had grown heavy and soft with the dissipation of these last years. Beneath his ruffled white shirt a gross belly bulged out over his belt. The primitive heaviness of his jaw had become jowls arid when his chin sank against his neck it made deep creases in the unhealthy flesh.
“You do not choose to speak?” he said at last.
She studied his face, already falling into the old habits of assessing his mood, of trying to sense what he was thinking. “What do you want me to say?” she asked.
He stirred, wheezing faintly with the effort, and leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table. His brows rose and his eyes gazed beyond her. It gave him a pained look.
“A man spends his life following but one star, hoping for but one reward. All the other honors and riches and accolades that are heaped upon him mean nothing. Money is but cold metal, medals do not warm the heart, high offices are fraught with the barbs of a fickle populace. But all through his trials he can retire to this secret shrine in his heart, this little hope that someday he will be rewarded for his faithful vigil, his undying loyalty, his—”
“Oh, stop it, Nicolas! The role of the betrayed lover doesn’t become you. You have no more right to feel wounded over the one time I strayed than I have to take revenge each time you add another mistress to your harem.”
The blood rushed into his face; his neck and jowls seemed to swell. With a louder wheeze, he shoved the chair back and rose. His red cheeks and his distended belly made him pompous as a turkey cock.
“Perhaps the role of the righteous governor becomes me more, then,” he said. “Would you like a priest, first?”
“I don’t think you brought me here merely to tell me I was to be executed, either.” she said. “Why don’t we be frank with each other? If you want to be jealous, all right. But you’re too shrewd a man to let jealousy wreck you. We’ve risen together. If one falls, the other falls. You’re seeing the truth in that now.”
His pose slid off like oil. He pouted, digging his chin into his neck, turning to pace across the room with an elephantine stride. “Damn you, Teresa,” he said. “Why do I put up with such a witch?”
She had used the shock of truth to shake him. But she knew she could not go too far. She had him on the defensive now and she had to palliate. She had used his vanity before.
“Because you need me,” she said. “I’m the only one who sees the greatness in you, Nicolas. You let these others smother it. You’re a lion in a bunch of jackals. And they’re trying to pull you down now.”
He began to puff up like a pouter pigeon. “It’s true. A lion. Jackals. The army has deserted me. The Assembly has turned on me.”
“Why did you dismiss so many Assemblymen?”
“I knew you’d planted them there. I thought—”
“You didn’t think at all. And Biscara had men waiting to fill every vacancy. It was his plot from the beginning. He knew he couldn’t pull you down without getting rid of me. Gomez planted Lamar’s Proclamation in Kelly’s room.”
He paced agitatedly, shaking his head. “They’ve passed this inconceivable tax. The people bla
me me.”
“And they’ll keep putting the pressure on the people till they revolt. Then Biscara will pronounce and he’ll be the new governor. Don’t you see?”
“How can I see? I’m like a man in a dark room. It used to be I knew every move that was made in Santa Fe.”
“You had my spies then.”
He shook his head like an angry bull. “One must pay spies. The treasury is empty.”
“What did you do with my money?”
He glanced at her, then looked away guiltily. “I paid the government’s debts to Ryker and the other Americans. I thought it would give me their support.”
“They’re realists. They’ll support the strongest man. But you can be the strongest man again. Start by reinstating Captain Perea. It’ll give you the army back.”
“That pup, that traitor—”
“He’s not a traitor. He’s maintained his loyalty when a dozen others betrayed you.”
He made a grumbling sound. Petulantly he pulled at his lower lip. “Very well. But that is only the army.”
“Biscara can be brought to heel. There is still the Expulsion Law.”
“I invoked it. He laughed in my face. Who would enforce it for me?”
“You’ll have the army again.”
“There’s still the Assembly. Even without Biscara, it’s full of his men.”
“Name them.”
“Escudero, Archuleta, Echevarri, that traitor Gomez—”
She pursed her lips. “Escudero owes my monte tables a hundred thousand pesos. It would break him if I claimed it. Don’t you think he’d resign the Assembly to escape facing financial ruin?”
Amado stood against the wall, breathing softly, the petulance beginning to recede from his face. He saw her looking at the silver box on the table. He nodded at it and she opened the lid, fingering out a cornhusk hoja, swiftly tapping tobacco into it from the copper flask. The tenazitas de oro lay on the table and she slid the rolled cigarrito into them, lifting it to a candle. She sucked in a deep lungful of smoke, eyes closed. She exhaled it on a husky breath.
“Dios,” she said. “How can a little thing mean so much?”
“It was cruel of me,” he said. “I should have had some sent up.” He moistened his lips, watching her closely. “Archuleta?”
She opened her eyes. Then she smiled. “Two years ago a letter fell into my hands, from Archuleta to Mirabeau Lamar. Archuleta agreed to help the Texans in return for a high post in the government they set up here.” She took another long drag. “Do you think the Assembly would let such a traitor remain in their midst?”
He tried to hold it back. But he couldn’t. His eyes receded in their pouches of fat and his jaw sank against his neck till he had three chins and his great belly began to quiver.
“Teresa, you are incredible.”
There was one thing left. It had been in her mind from the beginning. The need to ask it now was like a pain. Yet she knew Amado too well. She knew his tempers and his moods, his strength and his weakness. She knew just how much she could get from him and just how far she could drive him. And she had gotten all she could possibly hope for now.
She had him half-convinced that it had been but a thing of passion with Kelly, an affair of the moment. Amado could understand that. He had taken a thousand women without love. She could not flaunt it in his face now. His pride, his ego, his monstrous vanity would not take it. If she goaded him she would be back in jail, helpless to aid Kelly. The only way she would be any good to the trapper was to gain back her own power.
To ask for Kelly Morgan’s pardon now would be to lose everything she had won.
24
She was in her sala again on Burro Alley, spinning her webs, weaving her plots. Perea was released and brought to Teresa before he saw Amado. At first the captain was reluctant to support the governor further. But Teresa convinced him it was better than the chaos that would result if Amado was deposed. That same night she sent a rider south to catch up with Uvalde and the Texans and to see what could be done for Kelly.
With the army behind him, Amado again threatened to invoke the Expulsion Law. It was stalemate and Biscara knew it. Once more he retired sullenly to his hacienda south of Santa Fe. The Archuleta letters were presented at the Palace, proving without a doubt that Archuleta had been ready to betray New Mexico. The Assembly itself voted to send him to the capital for trial. It started the stampede. Seeing how thoroughly Teresa had regained her power, the rest of the Biscara faction capitulated. Gomez resigned as Secretary and left for Taos.
Within the week the rider returned from the column of prisoners. Kelly was still alive but so feeble and sick they had to carry him in a carreta. To arrange his escape would be dangerous, next to impossible. He was unable to sit a horse, and couldn’t walk six paces. Uvalde knew what a touchy subject Kelly was to Amado and would take no bribe, fearing reprisal from the governor. He had ordered his troops to shoot any prisoner attempting to escape.
Teresa’s first impulse was to go to Kelly. Yet she knew how foolish that would be. Things were at the crucial stage. Her very survival here depended upon a constant manipulation of a million interlocking details. A week away and the whole precarious network would crumble. And Kelly’s survival depended upon her survival.
She knew the next man she sent south would have to be more than a courier. It was going to be a long process and would take someone with daring and resourcefulness. Felipe Vargas had worked for her ever since he’d gotten the Archuleta letter. The excitement and danger appealed to the rogue in him, she paid him handsomely, and he had become as devoted as Perea. She gave him a petition to General Santa Anna for Kelly’s pardon, a message to the United States Minister in Mexico City, and money to bribe Kelly’s way out if all else failed.
It was not until March of 1842 that he returned. She was having her morning chocolate and buñuelos when Pepita ushered Vargas into her chamber, sun-blackened, caked with the dust of the long journey, hollow-cheeked with exhaustion. He knew how eager she was for news and spoke without preamble.
“I did all that was humanly possible, señorita. Mexico is still bitter over the war with Texas. Santa Anna refused a pardon. Morgan had been out of the United States so long his citizenship was cloudy. The American minister’s hands are tied. I used up all the money, trying to bribe Morgan’s way out. It wasn’t any good.”
Her face grew pale; she locked her hands together and paced agitatedly across the room. “Is there nothing we can do?”
“We need more time,” Vargas said. “Morgan’s been transferred to Perote, at Vera Cruz. Uvalde damned Morgan at the trials with a pack of lies and half-truths. We’re lucky he wasn’t executed.”
Uvalde! She almost cursed. She knew he had done it under orders from Amado. This was Amado’s jealousy of Kelly, his revenge on her.
“Can’t we plan an escape?”
“It would be too risky. If he was caught he’d surely be executed. I wouldn’t try it till everything else fails.”
She shook her head helplessly, still pacing. “I’ve got to go to him now, I’ve got to—”
“It would do no good,” Vargas said. “Mexico City isn’t Santa Fe. You can serve him better by staying here where you have power and influence.”
She knew he was right. It was the same barricade she had met before. Her whole position here, financially and politically, depended on her constant presence in Santa Fe. A few weeks away and she’d be ruined. How could she help Kelly then?
The months that followed were an anguished, unreal time. General Sam Houston, now president of the Republic of Texas, was working unceasingly for the release of the Texas-Santa Fe Expedition. Through Texas traders on the Santa Fe Trail, Teresa got into correspondence with Houston. He promised to do all he could, but since Kelly was not a citizen of the Republic, Houston had no official c
laim on him. In June of 1842 Santa Anna released most of the Expedition. The only exceptions were those classed as spies. And when the list of freed prisoners reached Santa Fe, late in the year, Kelly’s name was not on it.
Grimly, Teresa took up the fight again. But the troubles between Texas and Mexico were growing. There was a strong movement in the United States to annex Texas. To Mexico, who had never recognized the independence of Texas, this would be tantamount to annexing a slice of Mexican territory. In 1843 the Mexican president, Santa Anna, warned that “the Mexican government will consider equivalent to a declaration of war…the passage of an act for the incorporation of Texas into the Territory of the United States.”
A thousand times, during those years, Teresa must have stood in the little room where Kelly had finally possessed her remembering his hands on her body, remembering her hopeless sobbing, trying to resurrect the picture of his face. And a thousand times she wondered how that face looked now, in the castle at Perote….
* * * *
The Viceroys of old Spain had built the prison fortress a century before. Its gray rock walls stood on a shelf in the mountains behind Vera Cruz, seven thousand feet above the sea, and the peak of Cofre de Perote towered a mile higher above it. Within its twenty-six acres was a honeycomb of cells and dungeons where countless political prisoners had languished and died. In one of these cells, deep in the earth, they had put Kelly Morgan.
He was not the same man who had left Santa Fe so long ago. An eternity spent in this dank gloom, near death from dysentery and malaria, had left marks he would never lose. The meat and muscle had been bled from his great frame till he was barely more than a skeleton. His face was a ravaged, hollow-cheeked skull from which burning eyes stared, close to insanity. Behind him was an endless time of which he had only foggy memory—a time of delirium and semi-consciousness and utterly blank spaces when he must have been hovering near death.
But these last months he seemed more lucid; the malaria was gone and the dysentery had lessened and he had enough strength to move about. Felipe Vargas had been to see him several times, bringing him gifts of food, telling him of Teresa’s efforts to free him, trying to encourage him. On his last visit a month ago Kelly had asked the date, and had begun marking off the days with scratches on the wall. As near as he could tell, today was February 10, 1846.
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