by Shirl Henke
“You say you did this kind of work before?” Amos could tell the determined young woman obviously knew something about newspapers.
“Yes, in Boston for nearly four years,” she replied. “Tell your Mr. Pemberton I'll be back at two p.m. sharp!”
* * * *
Clarence Vivian Pemberton was a tall, stoop-shouldered man with a slightly thickening middle and thinning head of white hair. Born in northern Maine, the second son of a prosperous farmer, he had moved to Philadelphia at the rebellious age of twenty-one. Facile of mind and capable of writing with acerbic wit, he quickly found his way into the printing trade. After an apprenticeship with a Philadelphia press, he had worked as a journalist for newspapers from Vermont to Virginia, and finally started his own small daily in Concord, Massachusetts.
As Pemberton dismounted at the livery that afternoon, he castigated himself for the thousandth time for his stupidity in coming to this godforsaken wilderness. “San Antonio, where the chapeau vies with the sombrero, the Paris of the Southwest,” he muttered to himself as he rubbed his aching posterior.
“Somethin' wrong, Mr. Pemberton?” Whalen Simpson, the livery owner, inquired solicitously.
“Only that I rue the day man ever considered taming the equine species, my dear fellow. If only this accursed place had roads so one could use a rig.”
“Depends on where ya wanna go,” Whalen replied reasonably. Damn fool Yankee. Lucky he warn’t scalped!
“I needed to go a good distance outside town to a burned-out ranch house. Unfortunately, my quarry eluded me,” Pemberton said peevishly.
“Didn't know ya wuz a hunter,” Simpson said, looking in vain for signs of a firearm on the slumping body of the newspaperman.
Rolling his eyes heavenward, the older man stomped off, cursing the wasted morning.
When Pemberton opened the door to the Star and found a young woman in wrinkled, oversized clothes primly perched on a chair chatting with Amos, his mood did not improve.
Cocking one shaggy white brow, he skewered her with piercing pale blue eyes. His New England accent had evolved through fifty years into an intimidating twang. “And precisely who might you be, young woman?” he inquired.
She jumped up from the seat as if scorched by a hot stone and faced his considerable height. “I’m Melanie Fleming, Mr. Pemberton, and I've come to apply for a job as a reporter. The Slades told me you were looking for someone.”
“I am looking for a man to handle news gathering and writing for me, yes. You scarcely qualify,” he replied, looking down at her dainty face and figure.
“I've worked on newspapers before—gotten the stories, written them, even helped set type and deliver papers,” she replied gamely.
“She knows a case box upper from lower, I can tell you, Mr. Pemberton. And she's worked with a Washington like ours,” Amos put in before Clarence quelled him with a fierce scowl.
“Your ‘bank president’ look doesn't scare me,” Melanie said boldly, taking a gamble.
“Bank president look?” Pemberton echoed, a faint hint of puzzlement in his voice.
“My grandfather is Adam Manchester, president of the Union National Bank of Boston. He stands and glares at people just like you do. Mostly they cave in.”
“But you, I assume, do not,” he observed waspishly.
“No. I do not. Nor do I ask for favors. I'm qualified to work for you. Here are my references,” she said, pulling a sheaf of papers from her reticule and handing them to Pemberton. “Since you're from Concord, you might be interested to know I was there several times on Mr. Garrison's business when you were publishing the Register. I covered the passage of freed slaves on the Underground Railroad. One of the stopping houses was just outside Concord.”
“You wrote for Garrison's Liberator?” Pemberton's voice betrayed just a smidgen of his surprise.
“Indeed I did—and for the Sentinel and the Challenger,” she answered proudly.
“Still, that was New England. All well and good when you're surrounded with intellectuals and bluestockings. This is the Texas wilderness, a horse of quite a different color.” He grimaced at his own bad joke.
“Mr. Pemberton, I was raised in Texas, up north on a big ranch that my father carved out of the wilderness. I'm no tenderfoot and I've scarcely led a safe and comfortable life while living the past four years with my grandfather in Boston. I was in the thick of the Fugitive Slave Act riots on the Common in the fall of 1850. When the mob almost burned Mr. Garrison's office, I was with him. I've hidden with runaways in rat-infested basements and been attacked by drunken mobs, even shot at. Nothing here in San Antonio can scare me,” she finished with bravado.
“And just what made you desert all that glamour in Boston for this wide place on the Camino Real?” he asked, with heavy irony lacing his voice.
“My family—my parents, that is, wanted me to return to Texas. It's my home,” she replied evasively.
“Let me guess. You found ranch life too tame—merely escaping scalping by Comanche and fighting off Mexican banditti proved not enough of a challenge, so you rode into the sunset toward San Antonio to seek your fortune.”
“The only reason you won't consider my references is because I'm a woman, not because of any lack of qualifications,” she said with as much equanimity as she could manage.
“A woman in San Antonio is still subject to the mercies, or lack thereof, to be found amidst a populous of singular barbarity. Women can't fend for themselves on the frontier,” he pronounced.
“Poor defenseless things like Obedience Oakley?” she shot back.
Pemberton cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps the formidable Mrs. Oakley is an exception, but she is not the one applying for a job.”
“She and my mother went through the Texas Revolution together, and I'm living at her boardinghouse now. She thinks I can handle any assignment you give me. So do Charlee and Jim Slade,” Melanie said, growing more frustrated with each obdurate exchange.
At the mention of Jim Slade's name, Pemberton's ears pricked up. ‘‘You know the Slades, do you?”
“Yes. I already told you that. In fact, I've even met Senator Houston at their house. Bet I could get you some great stories on Washington politics,” she ventured, with hope once more rising.
Pemberton appeared to reconsider, glancing again at her references. That she had worked for several radical women's rights journals was hardly a surprise, nor the temperance crusade paper; but the recommendation from Garrison was highly unusual. Putting the papers down on his cluttered desk, he said, “I went out this morning to interview a remarkable fellow. If he'd agreed to talk with me, I could have gotten quite a story. He's an outlaw of sorts, although he has been cleared of the crimes that led him to flee Texas. His criminal escapades in New Mexico and Chihuahua are out of Texian jurisdiction.
“You mean that scalp hunter? Amos told me that's where you went this morning.” She hoped her voice hadn't squeaked.
“One and the same,” Pemberton replied dryly. “His life has been fascinating; and he's linked to our illustrious Senator Houston and Jim Slade, who incidentally secured his exoneration by state authorities. It seems the young cutthroat was only acting in retaliation for the deaths of his wife and several of the employees at his ranch when he killed the two rangers.”
Melanie's heart suddenly froze in her chest and her face went chalky as Pemberton continued.
“Yes, he's had quite a career—born here in Texas, university educated in Mexico City, a man with a price on his head for over six years in Texas—friend of Sam Houston, the infamous Indian lover, while at the same time a butcher who amassed a fortune in the Apachería by collecting bounty on savages' scalps. Yes, Leandro Angel Velasquez has quite a tale to tell—if he could be persuaded by feminine wiles to tell it.” He paused and looked at her dowdy clothes and frozen face. “Of course, you scarcely look the part of a femme fatale who could get him to divulge his innermost secrets,” he said scornfully.
“If I get him to talk to me and write the story, do I have a job?” Melanie forced her breathing under control and waited until Pemberton turned to face her with frank surprise written on his face.
* * * *
He was holding her, feeling her fragile, broken body fall lifelessly against his shoulder, her life's blood soak his shirt. He laid her back on the bed, staring down into her eyes, once so softly adoring, now dulled with horror and death. Then, her face began to change, its chalky pallor darkening to a sun-burnished bronze, the delicate features coarsening. She was a Mexican peasant woman, some farmer's wife with her nose burned away from repeated torture, her eyes hopeless yet oddly pleading for understanding as she lay on the sere earth in front of Red Coyote's lodge. Flames leaped everywhere around her and an Apache lance pierced her side. Unprotesting, she lay dying, staring up at her tardy deliverer.
He could smell the stench of burning flesh and greasy hair, hear the screams of the Mescalero warriors as they roused to battle and the equally fearsome yells of his own companions as they rode through the encampment, shooting, stabbing, clubbing. Once more the vision shifted, blood to more blood, this time congealed on scalp poles creaking and rustling softly with their gory burdens as the men rode toward Chihuahua City.
Suddenly, the noise and stench of death evaporated into still silvery moonlight. Crying out on the warm night air, Lee sat up sweat-soaked in his bedroll. He sank down and rolled over on his stomach, fighting the churning waves of nausea that threatened to overtake him. The nightmares, those damned nightmares from the pit of hell, were back.
Struggling to stand on shaky legs, he drew several deep breaths of clean, fresh air into his lungs and started to walk in no particular direction, just away from the jacal and his bedroll, away from the nightmares that pursued him like demons.
“Damn nosy newspaper reporter digging through my past,” he muttered to himself. “He dredged this up again.” Lee swore, then smiled grimly as he recalled leveling the sights of a Sharps breech loader at the stoop-shouldered old dragon's midsection and watching him bounce away on the back of that swaybacked old nag he'd rented from Whalen Simpson's livery. Lee rubbed his eyes and let his thoughts wander back to the man he used to be, before the nightmares, before the events that caused them. Uncle Alfonso, no wonder you recoiled from me in Mexico City three years ago. Lee could still see the shock and sorrow etched on the gentle old man's face. You only imagined what I’d become. Thank God you never learned the whole truth!
Forcing the past from his mind, Lee considered the future. Should he stay here? Begin again? His eyes were drawn toward the harsh outline of blackened ruins. His burned-out ranch house stood silhouetted against the starry night sky, the stone chimney of the big fireplace and the charred heavy timbers of the sala the only remains of his cherished dream. He had rebuilt the house burned by Comanche over twenty years ago and six years ago it had been destroyed again, this time by Anglos. Was it worth the pain to try again, when he had been twice vanquished?
What do I want from life? he ruminated. Certainly an end to the bloody carnage. But to rebuild his life, become a rancher, perhaps even reclaim his family's dream and marry again entailed a lot of risks and made him vulnerable to even more pain.
He walked down to where Sangre Azul stood, patiently watching as his master approached. The big blue stallion had become almost an extension of his own body, his companion on the headlong flight from Texas, his salvation on the tracking expeditions through New Mexico and Chihuahua, where a man's life often depended on the speed and endurance of his horse. Sangre had never failed him. Now the stallion knew his master wanted to ride. Swinging up bareback, the man kneed the big horse into an easy canter.
Feeling the coolness of the breeze hit his face, Lee rode, letting the soothing rhythm of Sangre’s stride calm his confusion. He knew every part of this range, had since he was a very small boy riding with his father. Without knowing why, he headed south toward an open, shallow canyon, a favorite hideaway for him and his elder brother Tomás. The valley floor was divided by a meandering stream, part of the San Antonio river system that ran underground for hundreds of miles around the city, surfacing in enchanting creeks and pools such as this one.
Lee dismounted and looked at the June grasses and flowering shrubs surrounding him. A stand of willows beckoned him from the end of the canyon where the creek vanished belowground once more. Jagged spikes of Spanish dagger stood scattered across the more arid sections of the sloping hillside like sentinels for sleeping conquistadores.
The scene was silvery and surrealistic, bathed in brilliant moonlight. He walked to the stream's edge and knelt on the sandy bank to dip his hand in the cold rushing water and drink. Just then, a flash of color caught his eye, a bright, buttery glow in the light from the night sky. He stood up and began to walk slowly, silently, almost as if stalking a wild creature. Wild it was and incredibly lovely, an evening primrose. Its soft petals stretched outward to embrace the moon, a flower of the night, never destined to exist in the scorching sunlight that brought all the rest of the desert to riotous life each day.
“Night flower,” he breathed aloud, whisper soft as he reached out his hand, but stopped inches short of touching its beckoning beauty. “I wonder whether you'll be here next year to greet the summer moonlight? Will I?”
He contemplated the flower. Delicate as a woman, yet it had tough roots set deep in the harsh Texas soil. His roots were here, as well, watered by the blood of his family. “I'm alive, even if my parents and Dulcia are gone.” He considered whether finding the flower was an omen. Each year, with the scant encouragement of a few nights of glory, it renewed itself. With so much more to gain, perhaps he could too.
Feeling hopeful, Lee mounted Sangre and rode back to his jacal to sleep the rest of the night, deep and dreamlessly.
Chapter Eight
After spending a restless night dreaming of a chiseled aristocratic face with a blinding white smile, Melanie arose at dawn feeling uneasy. How could she reconcile that image, graven on her heart since girlhood, with the man Clarence Pemberton had described to her? Lee Velasquez was a renegade scalper, a bloodthirsty pistolero who was home because of the political influence of his old friend and mentor, Jim Slade.
“Perhaps, I should begin my research with Jim,” she mused aloud as she performed her morning toilette. “He could tell me about Lee.” Odd that on the whole trip from Renacimiento to Bluebonnet, Charlee never mentioned her old friend; or, if half the bloody reports about him were true, perhaps not so odd. Sighing, Melanie looked at her reflection in the mirror. “No, I'm being cowardly. If I want to get this job, I have to face Lee Velasquez and ask him for myself.”
With a firm scolding, she reminded herself of all the past hardships and dangers she'd endured—angry mobs and slave catchers. But none of them were Lee Velasquez. Oh, damn!
After riding a few miles on the livery nag she had rented, she was inclined to agree with Mr. Pemberton’s dislike of Whalen's horses. She must write home and wheedle Liberator, her magnificent black stallion, from her father; although if he knew she was riding miles away from San Antonio, unescorted, in search of a dangerous gunman to interview, he'd drag her back to Renacimiento and bury her there!
She'd just have to think of a convincing reason to have her own horse, even though she was living in the largest city in Texas.
When she neared the burned-out ruins of the Velasquez ranch house, Melanie's uneasiness grew. There was no sign of Lee. She dismounted and began to investigate the site, recalling all she'd gleaned from several of the boarding-house's most gossipy old women. Miss Clemson remembered Lee quite well and even told her about his family, who were killed by Comanche back in 1830. On this very ground. She shivered as she recalled the rest of the story about the orphan raised by old Will Slade. Lee had gone off to Mexico City when he was eighteen and come home with a Mexican wife. Racine Schwartz said she was the prettiest young bride he'd ever seen. Melanie had felt a twinge of jealousy as the e
lderly roomer described Dulcia Velasquez's gleaming chestnut hair and wide blue eyes.
All anyone knew was that the girl and her friend, one of the Sandovals' daughters, were murdered; and after Lee killed two rangers in retaliation, he had fled into New Mexico Territory back in 1846. It must have been only a few months after she had left for Boston, after they had met so briefly at the statehood ceremony in Austin. How oddly their lives had been interwoven since she first met him in Galveston ten years ago. Both of us left Texas and then returned. Almost against our wills.
Her ruminations were suddenly interrupted by an angry male voice. “What are you doing here?” Melanie gasped and jerked around in fright. “You!” Lee's voice registered amazement as he recognized her arrestingly lovely, heart-shaped face and wide gold eyes. But her raven hair was drawn unbecomingly into a tight knot; and her voluptuous curves, so tantalizingly revealed six years ago in a silk shirt and split riding skirt, were now swathed in a shapeless hot-looking brown linen suit. “I repeat, Miss Fleming, what are you doing trespassing on my land?”
Melanie’s throat had collapsed around her vocal cords. As she struggled to speak, she stared at the man Lee had become. Still tall and gracefully slim, he had a rangy, corded leanness to his body now, like a panther poised to pounce. His face was frightening! Gone were the flashing smile and sunny innocence.
This man's black eyes were hard as obsidian, narrowed in insolent appraisal of her person. Melanie returned his inspection while she recovered her voice. She could see a thin scar on his forehead, though it was partially obscured by curling black hair that tumbled to meet his arched brows. His nose had been broken and another small scar nicked his left cheekbone. He needed a shave and a haircut, but despite the harsh new lines and scars on his face, it was still arrestingly handsome in a barbaric sort of way.