Teresa

by Les Savage, Jr.

  “But you—”

  “Someone has to stay behind to make explanations. If they find out you’re gone there are some who might follow. You know Gomez is still alive.”

  He held her by the arms, frowning. But lust blotted out suspicion. He wanted to believe, for ten years he had wanted to believe. And now, at last, he had broken her resistance. She had come to him. His ego would support no other answer. She could see it all in his face. He had read passion for him in her hysteria. He accepted it as naïvely as a schoolboy, flushed and trembling with the victory of first conquest.

  “I’ll tell the dragoons you’ve gone ahead to Apache Pass,” she said. “You’ll have a whole night’s head start. I’ll meet you at Lemitar tomorrow.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “Always right. What would I do without you? Innocent!”

  His call brought the half-wit scurrying from the other room. Together they threw clothes into a bag, took the satchel with the money. Teresa followed to a rear door. Here Amado took her in his arms again. She began to cry. The shock of Perea’s death and the intense strain of this grotesque sham had left her little control over her emotions. He covered her wet face with kisses.

  “It’s all right, querida. We won’t be parted for long. A few hours, a day, and then the world.”

  “Go on, Nicolas. Please. You haven’t a moment to lose.”

  She sagged against the door frame, watching them scurry through the empty courtyard. A coach had been waiting at the stables and all Amado had to do was climb in. The sentry at the zaguán did not challenge. He undoubtedly thought the governor was going to Apache Pass.

  She stood emptily in the open door, the storm of emotion gone. It was all over now. They were all gone. Perea, Biscara, Amado—all the men who could have held the town together. There was no one left strong enough to meet the Americans. They would have Santa Fe tomorrow.

  She knew what she had lost. The whole intricate structure she had built would topple, and she with it. But perhaps, in her loss, the town gained. Perhaps all the greed and the misrule and the corruption that had fed on her conspiracies would be gone too. On their wreckage the Americans could build something better for the people.

  Then something new crept through her. A sort of giddiness. And she knew what it was. Whatever lay ahead, she had cut her last bonds. There was no fear in her. She was surprised at that. No fear of the future, of men, of anything. Maybe later it would be different. Maybe the fear would come again, the bitterness, the regret. But now she knew Kelly had been right, right about everything. That’s what he had meant, when you were really free. Like flying with the eagles.

  * * * *

  Kelly Morgan stood in the black shadows under the portal of the Arballo house, on the corner of the plaza. He had stood here for precious moments, waiting for the break that would allow him to cross the square to the wall surrounding the Palace. But he was stalemated by the sentries pacing in front of the Palace. He knew what it would mean, an American, to be seen by them, in this town tonight. He had thought of circling back through the streets to the Arroyo Mascaras and coming on the Palace from behind. But that would take too long. The pattern of things was like a pressure against him, building up till he thought it would burst.

  There was a creak of the zaguán gate in the wall surrounding the compound at the rear of the Palace. The gate swung open and a black coach clattered out, pulled by four snorting bays. The horses broke into a gallop toward the square, the coach rocking and tilting. Kelly saw his chance. The coach would hide him momentarily from the Palace. As it entered the plaza, drawing the attention of the sentries, he darted down the wall on the west side of the square. Rattling, roaring, pitching, the coach passed in front of him, hiding him from the sentries.

  Then it was gone, leaving a silvery cloud of dust that didn’t settle between Kelly and the sentries till he had reached the corner of the Palace. He flattened himself against the wall, around the corner from the soldiers, panting.

  As the coach disappeared southward, down Galisteo, a line of wagons rolled slowly into the square from Palace Avenue. There were a dozen of them, with barefooted Indian drivers pacing beside the mules. Two mounted men were in the lead. Kelly recognized John Ryker and Cimarron Saunders. Ryker halted his horse by the Palace portal, dismounted, and said something to the sentries.

  Kelly didn’t have time to wait, to piece it together. Still driven by the fear he had seen in Pepita’s face, he moved like a rat down the wall, passing the zaguán. He knew the place where woodsheds backed up against the wall, at the rear. He found it and clawed his way onto the roof; from here he reached the top of the wall, bellying over, dropping down inside.

  Most of the troops were at Apache Pass, but a few dragoons still guarded the Palace. He slipped through the dark maze of servants’ quarters, officers’ houses, stables and barracks. He huddled against the wall as a woman crossed the patio, carrying washing; he dodged from there to an alley between two adobes as an officer stepped from his door to light a pipe, look at the moon, and move back inside. There was only twenty feet of open compound between Kelly and the Palace. Heart thudding, he started across it.

  * * * *

  Teresa had remained at Amado’s bedroom door long enough to make sure he left the compound. She had heard the call of the sentry at the zaguán gate, the rattle of the coach as it passed out. Now she seemed drained of emotion, of will. She walked listlessly through the room with its brazen bed, through the outer chamber, to the Assembly hall door. It was completely dark in the hall, save for the feeble stripes of moonlight that came through the narrow windows. She was one step into the long room when the door at the opposite end opened. Candlelight bloomed across the floor. She saw that it was a sentry carrying a tin sconce in one hand, a carbine in the other. Behind him came John Ryker and Cimarron Saunders.

  The dragoon crossed the room, peering at her. “Señor Ryker seeks audience with the governor.”

  Ryker came toward her. She tried to block his way. The strained look in her face made him suspicious and he caught her arms, swinging her out of the way, stepping into the open door of the executive chamber. He crossed that to look into the bedroom. Teresa glanced after him, then started toward the entrance of the Assembly room. Saunders blocked her way.

  “I’ve got to get back to my sala,” she said.

  He pulled a pistol. “You’ll wait here.”

  Ryker came back, frowning. “Where is he?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. I came here. He was gone.”

  His swarthy cheeks glowed with rising anger. “You’re lying. You’d know if he was in. You wouldn’t come over unless he was here. Where is Amado, Teresa?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He grabbed her by the shoulders. “You do know!”

  The pain of his grip made her cry out. The dragoon started to lower his rifle, stepping toward Ryker.

  “Señor—”

  He passed in front of Saunders and the red-bearded man whipped his pistol up and brought it viciously against the back of the dragoon’s head. The man fell forward on his face, unconscious. Ryker was shouting in his rage, shaking her.

  “Tell me the truth, Teresa. I told you what would happen if you crossed me. I did it to Villapando right here in this room and by God I can do it to you—”

  Villapando? Face pale with pain, she stared blankly at him. “You?”

  “Don’t play dumb,” he snarled. “You knew who fired that shot.”

  “I didn’t, I didn’t—”

  “Well, now you do, damn you! You’ll tell me where Amado is, you bitch, you’ll tell me where he is!”

  There was the sound of running feet in a corridor outside. Someone called her name. Saunders whirled, then ran for the door. Ryker was too enraged to notice. He was still shaking her and shouting at her.

  “All
right!” she panted. The pain brought a rage of her own. She didn’t care any longer; she wasn’t afraid and she didn’t care. “Amado’s gone.” She was through lying, through cheating, through compromising with cutthroats and traitors. “He’s abdicating.” Shouting it at him. Talking to him the way she’d wanted to talk to Biscara and Gomez and Uvalde and a hundred others through the years. “You can’t have anything, Ryker. You’ve made your last deal. The Americans are coming and they’ll find out and they’ll hang you for it—”

  With an inarticulate curse he flung her from him. She stumbled backward, tripped, fell in a heap against the wall. She saw his face contorted with rage, saw him pull one of his Ketland-McCormicks.

  I think I’d kill you myself if you crossed me.

  * * * *

  Kelly Morgan ran down the corridor outside the Assembly chamber, Walker Colt in one hand, the echo of Teresa’s husky cries still running hollowly through the darkened rooms of the old Palace. He called her name again, wildly, and at the same instant Cimarron Saunders lunged from the door of the Assembly room.

  Moonlight in the room behind Saunders silhouetted him. Kelly was in complete blackness. It was the only thing that saved him. They were three feet apart as Saunders lunged into the hall, and they both fired together.

  Saunders’s ball passed Kelly so close it took a piece out of his buckskin shirt. Kelly’s slug caught Saunders square in the belly. The huge man coughed and doubled over. Kelly was running too hard to stop himself and went right into Saunders as the man fell. The heavy body tore the gun from Kelly’s hand and spun him around, throwing him heavily against the wall.

  He caught himself, as Saunders slid down his legs, and wheeled so that he was looking through the door. He saw Teresa, pulling herself up against the wall. He saw Ryker, a brass-bound pistol in one hand, turned toward him. He saw the complete and terrified surprise in their faces, as moonlight revealed who he was. Then Ryker shouted:

  “Kelly—”

  And jerked his pistol up to fire.

  With a crazed sound, Teresa threw herself at the man. Her whole body lunged against Ryker’s arm, knocking it aside. The gun went off at the floor and the detonation of the shot seemed to rock the Palace. Ryker cursed savagely and flung Teresa aside, pulling his other Ketland-McCormick.

  But it had given Kelly time to get his Bowie out. He threw it with such savage force that it struck Ryker like a giant blow, sinking to its hilt in his chest and knocking him backward half a dozen paces till he came up against the wall. He slid down the wall, glassy eyes rolling upward in his face, dead before he reached the floor.

  Kelly was already halfway to Teresa. She came into his arms, face taut, dazed. The words came from her in a hysterical, barely coherent stream.

  “Kelly…what happened? How did you get here? Kelly…I didn’t know….”

  He pulled her hard to him and she buried her face against his chest, still uncomprehending, yet content for that moment to be held in his arms. Her body was trembling in reaction now. He heard shouts outside, the running of other sentries who had heard the shots. He started to drag her toward the door. It was too late. A pair of dragoons burst in, guns leveled. They stopped, gaping at Ryker’s body, at Kelly.

  “Ryker tried to kill me,” Teresa said. “This man saved my life.”

  One of the troopers recognized Kelly. “But he’s the Texan.”

  She nodded. “And in my custody.”

  “The governor will have to confirm it, señorita.”

  Kelly saw a little muscle twitch in her cheek. She was fighting for composure, still struggling against the shock of seeing him here. But she carried it off like a queen.

  “Amado has left for Apache Canyon. In the meantime you’ll take my orders. There’s a wagon train outside. Bring the wagons into the courtyard. No one is to touch them till Amado returns.”

  The men hesitated. But for years this woman’s word had been law in the town; they had been subject to her dictates, directly or indirectly, for almost a decade, and it hardly occurred to them to question now.

  Teresa looked at Ryker. “Take care of his body, and the one in the hall. I’m taking Morgan to my sala.”

  The soldiers stepped aside. Teresa took Kelly’s arm. Her hand squeezed tight and he could feel her still trembling. Chin high, lips compressed, she walked out of the room at his side.

  * * * *

  The Army of the West arrived in Santa Fe at six o’clock in the evening of August 18, 1846. They had met no resistance in Apache Pass. News of Amado’s capitulation had broken the morale of the dragoons. With no one to lead them they had deserted the fortifications of the Pass, a great portion of them following Amado south to Albuquerque. The militia, deserted and disorganized, had not even attempted to distribute the arms Ryker had brought.

  Kearny and his staff were received in the Palace by the aging lieutenant governor. With sunset turning the clouds to ragged blood-red banners over the Jemez Mountains, the American flag was run up over the ancient building and Kearny’s cannon fired a salute of thirteen guns from the eminence above the town. The detonations shattered glass in the Palace windows and echoed like thunder into the canyons of the Sangre de Cristos.

  Teresa and Kelly were a part of the crowd that watched the ceremony. They stood apart, at the edge of the plaza. Kelly had already made his report to Kearny, and the Americans knew how much was due Teresa for this peaceful occupation of Santa Fe. As Kelly and Teresa walked back to her sala he saw the brooding look on her face.

  “It won’t be so bad,” he said. “We’re together now. We can leave any time you want.”

  She turned sharply to him. “Leave?”

  He was surprised. “It’s what you want, isn’t it? You said you were free now. You weren’t afraid any more.”

  “Free for what?” Her eyes blazed. “To live like a trapper? An animal? Didn’t we go through this before—?”

  “Who’s going to live like that?” he asked hotly. “Don’t you think I can do anything but trap beaver? Don’t you think I had enough time to figure it out down there at Perote? A man’s got to offer a woman more than a trapsack and a—”

  He broke off because he could see that she was starting to laugh at him. “Kelly,” she said helplessly, “are we always going to fight?”

  He couldn’t stay mad. He began to chuckle. “I guess we are,” he said. She came into his arms and he held her tight. “I wouldn’t want it any other way. Redheaded, green-eyed, soft as a cat…with claws to match.”

  THE END

  * * * *

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