“Mr. Walker isn’t a doctor, exactly,” Arthur said quickly, before the young man could speak. “He specializes in physical culture; exercise, special diet, things of that sort. Mr. Jessup swears by his treatment.”
“Quack,” muttered Dr. Evans, and departed. Mr. Walker doffed his hat to Maeve and followed Arthur into the den. The door closed and locked behind them.
An hour later Maeve sat at her desk writing when she heard a knock at the door of her study.
“Enter,” she called out. The door opened and Ham sauntered in, looking perfectly well, if somewhat pale, and walking as well as he ever did.
“I wanted to lay your concerns to rest, ma’am, regarding my infirmity,” He drawled. “And reassure you that I am quite well again. It was kind of you to call Doctor Evans, and I apologize for trying to throw him out and being generally impossible to live with.”
“You are ... not injured?” Maeve asked, looking at him in astonishment. “Doctor Evans said you were feverish, and you seemed to be in pain. Hamilton, what happened last night?”
“Last night, ma’am?” Ham seemed to be thinking hard. “Would you believe me if I told you Nat Grover drugged our punch and hired someone to try to kill us?”
“What?” Maeve stood up. “How can you stand there and speak such a lot of nonsense? Why do you hate Mr. Grover so much? What has he done to you?”
Ham took a deep breath. “Well then,” he said in a low voice, “Since that’s how you respond, here’s what happened last night. You got a bit faint and I got a bit thirsty and I sent you home and went out and wet my whistle. Arthur got me safely home but I unfortunately experienced the lingering effects of my overindulgence. Mr. Walker is a gentleman I have consulted from time to time in such situations. He performs some magical manipulations of joints and muscles and I am whole again.”
Maeve appeared to be studying him. “You were drunk, and suffered from a hangover,” Maeve summarized finally.
“In essence, that is what must have occurred,” Ham replied. “Since Mr. Grover is sacrosanct from my unprovable accusations.”
“Very well, then,” Maeve said. “Incidentally, the maids have complained about your papers littering the den. You won’t let them clean?”
“There’s a problem I was trying to work out,” Ham said. “I still haven’t worked it out completely, and I need the papers to remain as they are until I get it clear. I apologize, but I must leave them so.”
“Perhaps now that your mind is clear you will be able to solve your problem and clear up the mess,” Maeve suggested.
“I shall endeavor to do so as speedily as possible,” Ham said, turning to go.
“Hamilton?” Maeve said suddenly.
“Yes, ma’am?” Ham asked.
“The story you told about Goliad,” Maeve said, looking pained, “Was it some sort of alcoholic raving or did you tell a true tale?”
Ham looked away. “A true tale, ma’am,” he said. “I could never be intoxicated enough to show so much disrespect to the memory of that event as to fabricate a tale about it.”
“Thank you,” Maeve said.
“Off again?” Ham came to the door of his bedroom carrying a glass of brown liquid as Maeve brushed past, wearing a drab black cloak that concealed everything but a pair of very odd-looking boots and some cheap silver combs carelessly binding up her hair. She let the hood slip a little farther back and Ham saw that she wore startlingly garish makeup.
“So you’re pining to be an actress – your enormous success as a singer isn’t good enough,” he guessed, leaning on the door post to steady himself. “Dressing room at the theater too crowded? Such a small part you’re playing you have to share with twelve other girls?”
“We had an agreement,” Maeve gritted.
“Right, right, no questions,” Ham muttered. “But I’ve been to every playhouse in the surrounding towns and I’ve never seen you on stage. So I have to wonder. And can’t you find better parts than a Tejano woman of ill repute?”
Maeve marched up to him and slapped him hard across the face. Ham hardly flinched, and he didn’t spill a drop of his drink. “I love it when you part from me with a tender caress, my dear,” he drawled, and retreated back into the bedroom, where he discarded a little pile of tea resting in a saucer on his nightstand and dumped the contents of the glass into the chamber pot with a grimace.
March, 1845
“May I ask if I must pose as your husband in any specific way two weeks from this evening, ma’am?” Ham inquired of Maeve as they sat at the midday meal together one day.
“I have no plans for that night,” Maeve said after consulting her daybook. “Why?”
“I am compelled to attend a ceremony related to my work,” Ham replied. “In fact, it is in honor of my promotion.”
“Your promotion?” Maeve repeated. “I thought you were already a head clerk. Do you become a partner now?”
“No, I merely become head clerk over a larger room full of more clerks,” Ham answered.
“Is this something I should attend?” Maeve persisted. “I mean, something they would expect your wife to come to?”
“I hardly think you should trouble yourself, my dear,” Ham shrugged. “I only mentioned it in case you had any need for my services. I can easily go alone, and I think you would find it very dull.”
“What exactly do you do?” Maeve asked. “I mean, I understand that you work for the government, and that you are a clerk, but what does your office do?”
“Research,” Ham told her. “Sifting through mountains of paperwork to produce more mountains of paperwork. What does any government office do? Produce much paper, perform little actual service, and waste many people’s time and money.”
“You regard your service to Texas very lightly,” Maeve said softly.
“I regard government very lightly,” Ham smiled, “unless it helps and protects us only as much as it must, and leaves us alone the rest of the time. Back to the office for me. I shall see you late this evening, then.”
“I’ll probably be asleep,” Maeve said. “I have had two meetings this morning, and will have three this afternoon. I’ll be too tired to wait up.”
“Nor would I expect you to,” Ham said, rising and bowing slightly.
After the ceremony, Ham accepted a plate of cookies and stood listening to the people around him congratulate him until he’d had enough and went toward the one man who wasn’t hovering like a bug around a light, who was in fact about to depart.
“Dan. It’s good to see you.”
Dan nodded. “Congratulations. I mean that. You’ve deserved it for a long time.”
“One can’t deserve something like this for a long time at thirty-five, Dan. It’s barely supposed to happen this soon. I have no idea why it happened to me.”
“Like I said, just reward. There’s no one doing more in the field than you are behind your desk. Or, rather, all over the floor, because I know how you work your puzzles. Fighting the good fight, just not often getting the recognition you deserve.”
“And yet?”
“Obviously you went through with it. I see the ring.”
“I did. And it seems to be working out. Sometimes we even like each other a little bit. Fortunately not often.”
“Dan!” Tad exclaimed, bumping into him. “You must have met the wife. Tell us about her. Ham’s a complete oyster.”
Dan looked hard at Ham. “She’s very beautiful, and very accomplished,” he responded. “Her dinners are memorable, and conversation never flags because she’s interested in everything and can talk about anything.”
“That’s nice, but vague,” Greg put in. “Anything specific?”
“If I’m a guest in someone’s house, I don’t blab to his coworkers what he doesn’t think he can trust them with himself,” Dan said.
“Ouch!” Tad groaned. “He’s saying we’re gossips, Greg.”
“That’s because we are,” Greg shrugged. “Part of what makes us good at our j
obs is we know a lot of stuff and aren’t afraid to talk about it. Part of what makes old Ham so much better at his job and as a person than we are is that he thinks about the stuff he knows and doesn’t just run off at the mouth to everybody about it.” The two moved away, trolling for news worth repeating.
“Thanks, Dan,” Ham breathed.
“I understand the importance of confidentiality,” Dan replied. “I owe you that much for all the years we were friends.”
“Were friends?” Ham repeated. “I’m getting your letters. I’m just not good at carrying on a friendship by mail.”
“Well, I’m making an effort. You could show you want it to continue by answering now and then.” Dan looked around and lowered his voice. “Ham, you look wasted somehow, as if you were using yourself up and not finding a way to recuperate. Is this sham marriage doing that to you? Is that woman making the brightest candle I ever knew burn out?”
“I had no idea what this thing would be like, Dan,” Ham murmured. “She wants me to ignore what she does, where she goes, just sit up, roll over, play dead on command, but how can anyone ignore a snowflake, the most beautiful, delicate, perfect thing you ever saw, dangling in front of your eyes, just before it throws itself into a raging fire?”
“What on earth are you talking about?” Dan asked softly. “You’re saying she’s doing something dangerous and asking you to ignore it? What could a singer, a society butterfly, be doing that’s dangerous?”
“She’s more like a moth, oh, such a beautiful moth,” Ham said. “I just go into a room where she is and I hear – no, I swear I can feel – this weak flutter, the beating of a moth’s wings against a lamp chimney, trapped inside, wanting to escape but irresistibly drawn to the flame. I want to yank off the chimney and set the moth free, but she just can’t stay away from the flame, and she curses me for trying to save her, says it’s important work, this flitting into the fire and trying to get out again whole, doesn’t believe the flame will eat her alive. So I’m trying to learn to stand by and watch her singe her wings.”
“You love her,” Dan said. “Of all the punishments I figured God might put on you for this thing that was one I never thought of. But, come to think of it, what could be worse than loving a woman who uses and despises you and who’s killing herself and dragging you over the edge with her?”
“I guess you speak from experience,” Ham ventured.
“That’s over now,” Dan said. “And I had God to bring me through it. Ham, I’m looking at you, and it tears a hole in my soul to see what you’re going through. Won’t you at least accept the Lord, let Him give you some peace and maybe even some wisdom to get through this thing?”
“You said I was cursed, or something like that, didn’t you, for doing this?” Ham shrugged. “Would God even want to help me now? Besides, I couldn’t extricate myself from it if wanted to. I’m just another moth, only she’s the flame.”
Dan gazed at him in great sadness for a long time. Finally he asked, “Anything more about your hunch?”
Ham looked around the room. Everyone was engaged in conversation and paying the two friends no attention whatsoever. “Just stray words, mostly Spanish of course, so they mean almost nothing to me. Avecita keeps coming up. A town, maybe? And there’s this Chaco. I think it’s a person’s name. Chaco moves a lot of wagons around. Don’t know why yet. Maybe he’s a merchant. Another name came up and I can’t even say why it’s related. Parmenos. I just, you know, I lay everything out and it seems to go somewhere, around the border, there with the flowery bushes, near the old millhouse wheel. A puzzle. I don’t have enough pieces yet.”
“Hmm. You sure that Parmenos thing is part of it?” Dan asked.
“Why do you ask?” Ham looked at him. Dan seemed strangely uneasy.
“It’s the name of a town,” Dan replied. “I know some people there. How do you connect it with your puzzle?”
“The pieces in between are still missing,” Ham said, frowning. “Vienta. Vienta is there between Avecita and Parmenos.”
“That’s just the word for wind,” Dan said.
“Yes, that’s what people tell me,” Ham nodded. “But it’s there. And there’s a name. Jude Morrow. I don’t know who he is, but he’s the only thing about this that isn’t Spanish so far, and I was grateful for that.”
“You don’t know who Jude Morrow is?” Dan exclaimed. “Ham, he’s my uncle. He was Colonel Morrow, our commanding officer.”
“I – I never knew his first name, did I?” Ham queried. “Colonel Morrow? Of course I know Colonel Morrow. Brigadier General, when he mustered out, wasn’t he? Dan, what am I piecing together here? Do you know something you’re not telling me?”
“I’m – I’m not sure I can tell you,” Dan hesitated. “Let me talk to some people, and I’ll write if I can. But I don’t know anything about this Chaco or Avecita business, I can tell you that.”
“Okay,” Ham said cautiously. “We all have secrets, or so they tell me. But I really think you know all of mine, even the very unpleasant ones, so I wonder why I don’t know all of yours. I mean, I would think you should know you can trust me, in spite of some differences we seem to be having lately.”
“Not only do I trust you, Ham,” Dan said earnestly, “I want very much to have you work hard on this puzzle and find out why you connect Parmenos and Uncle Jude and these other things. I just – there are other people involved, and not all of them know you like I do, and --”
“But they do know me?” Ham caught up the implication. “And they don’t like me or trust me. Morrow used to, but I guess I can understand why he wouldn’t now. And there are others. Well, all right, I’ll keep puzzling over my pieces, but if you can add anything, it might help me solve it faster.”
“I wonder if I might get a dog?” Ham ventured at breakfast one morning. Maeve had been gone two weeks and returned distracted and exhausted. She seemed hardly to have slept and glanced in irritation at Ham.
“A dog? You want a dog? Then get one. Why ask me?” She snapped.
“Because we share this house,” Ham reminded her. “I was thinking of a hunting dog, something a little on the large size, I am afraid, and I wanted your opinion on how it would fit in with the decor and bric a brac. There was some trouble about my chinning bar.”
“Please don’t worry about the bric a brac,” Maeve responded. “If it will keep you company, by all means get one.”
“Right,” Ham nodded. “By the way, I remember hearing you mention a little while ago that you knew for a fact that supplies and ammunition are moving north in Mexico. May I ask how you know that?”
“There is a town called Avecita about fifty miles south of here,” Maeve told him. “A man named Jose Iscarius de Charico, popularly known as Chaco, a lieutenant in Ampudia’s supply network, lives there. He has been moving wagonloads of supplies and weapons, guns, cannon and ammunition, nothing traced farther south than Monterrey. Mexico seems to be preparing a final scenario for its war against us.”
“All right.” Ham tried to sound only mildly interested. “But how did you get this information?”
Maeve rose from the table. “When a person loves Texas and wishes it well, it becomes necessary to take personally the subject of its protection from its enemies. I have made this my mission, and I do what is necessary toward that end. I believe you are in danger of being late, Hamilton. Perhaps you should go to work.”
“I should,” Ham said.
“We need a bigger office,” Ham muttered as he arranged his papers on the hardwood floor. Tad climbed atop his desk and swung himself across to the doorway.
Greg tiptoed around the sea of pages to a bare spot near the wall.
“We could move our desks out into the hall,” Greg suggested.
“Movement from Avecita to here,” Ham continued to mutter. “Chaco and wagons observed here, and here, more wagons here, on this date. Road repairs here. Route changed. This one took off from here, passed through Avecita on this date, went – Whe
re?”
“Ham, are you ending the war before it starts?” Greg asked, squinting at the layout. “How did you get this stuff?”
“And what’s this Parmenos thing? Where does it fit in?” Tad bent down to pick up a paper that seemed an orphan. Ham lashed out with his walking stick and Tad jerked away.
“It stays there,” Ham snapped. “Don’t touch it. You see that one over there, and this one? They fit. That’s where they go. But there’s still a piece missing. Well, more than a piece.”
“Ham, Jude Morrow retired from the service a couple of years ago,” Greg said from the wall, being careful not to even look like he was going to touch anything. “He’s in Kentucky, in Congress. He doesn’t come to Texas much anymore at all. And Parmenos – It’s a cotton farm.”
“Cotton? Slaves?” Ham straightened up and his gaze bored into Greg.
“I – used to be,” Greg scrambled. “But – uhh – fairly good number of Negroes, but they work for pay, freed, um – years ago. The town’s grown up around the plantation. Lots of the Negroes started their own farms and businesses, Tejanos, other people collected around it. Supposed to be extremely successful, economically, been a thorn in Mexico’s side because they never went along with that convert to Catholicism thing. Got their own exclusive religious club going, though, because they don’t want unbelievers in the fold, whatever it is they believe. Duvall – Duvall name is big around there. Came from Louisiana. Some kind of family owns the town thing.”
Ham was taking down Greg’s words on a pad. He tore off the sheet and stuck it in one of the holes. He stood still and looked. “But what do you have to do with Avecita, anyway, you Duvalls?” He asked the paper.
“Oh. I thought you were only going to get one dog,” Maeve said vaguely as Ham led her out to the carriage house and showed her the pair of slender, shiny black dogs who nuzzled Maeve interestedly and accepted her tentative pats on the head. “How pretty they are.”
Chasing the Texas Wind Page 4