Chasing the Texas Wind

by Mary C. Findley

  He crept up the stairs and passed Maeve’s bedroom. The door was open. Cassius, the old butler who was known for being the neighborhood herbalist, hovered anxiously over the white face peeking out of a sea of ruffled eyelet and pillows. The face swung restlessly back and forth. Angelita applied a cold cloth to the forehead and Ham heard a feeble moan. Cassius glanced up as Ham stumbled past and the anxious look went flat, stony.

  Ham drifted into his room and picked up the little box on his bedside table which contained a set of cufflinks, white gold, set with diamonds, and a tiepin to match. In another life he would have been delighted with them, but he was deadly tired of beautiful, frozen things. He looked across the way toward the woman who had given them to him. Angelita stole over to his doorway and held something out to him. Ham advanced and took a little clay figure from her, a dog that looked a lot like Hermes, with a smaller dog he took to be Esperance. They were painted shiny black, and the piece was graceful and quite beautiful.

  “Joyeaux Anniversaire,” Angelita whispered, and fled back to Maeve’s rooms.

  “Yes, indeed, happy birthday to me,” Ham muttered.

  “You’re going to be late for work,” Maeve said brightly as she breezed into the breakfast room. Ham sat there with the newspaper and an untouched cup of coffee. “My goodness, you look worse than I do, and I was the one whose indisposition canceled our dinner party,” she teased.

  Ham looked up at her. “A sleepless night will do that to you,” he said in a low voice. “Look here, I didn’t sign on for this. I actually read that contract once while you were gone. It doesn’t say anywhere, ‘Whereas fake husband shall put up with fake wife getting herself half-beat to death and like it when people blame him.’

  “I’m sorry about that,” Maeve said, a touch of real regret marring her perfect face. “Truly I am, Ham. I thought I could pull off the dinner party. People talk, you know, when you cancel things.”

  “Do they?” Ham said. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “I said I was sorry,” Maeve repeated. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Tell me what really happened to you,” Ham said suddenly, rising up as Maeve angled past him to get some food from the sideboard, and blocking her path. “What is all this? Where do you go? What do you do? Who beat you like this?”

  “I had an accident,” Maeve said, casting her eyes down.

  “Bet it was a real smash-up,” Ham snorted. “I’d like to see that accident’s fists. He must have at least scraped his knuckles against your cheek there.”

  Maeve touched her heavily-made-up face. “Does it show?” she asked uneasily. “I thought I covered it ...” She pulled a little mirror out of her reticule and applied some more powder.

  “Maeve, listen,” Ham reached out as if to touch her, didn’t know where to do so without fear of hurting her, flailed his arms for a moment, sat down. “If you’ve got a lover that’s your business, I suppose, since I signed a contract and I’m not supposed to ask. But couldn’t you pick another one, one who might actually love you?”

  “I – I thought I was doing something that had to be done,” Maeve replied. “But it’s gone much farther than I intended. I’m – I’m going to put a stop to it. Go to work, and don’t look so worried. I’ll – I’m all right.”

  “Where are you going?” Ham demanded.

  “I have to see Mr. Grover,” Maeve responded.

  “You have an appointment with Grover at this hour? Maeve, you’re still in pain. Get some rest. See him later. It can’t be that important.”

  “It is, though,” Maeve said in a small voice. “I have to see him.”

  “Nonsense. I’ll get Titus and have him carry you back upstairs.”

  “I’m going now,” Maeve said sharply. “Go to work, Ham. I promise I’ll see you later.”

  Ham came home for lunch just in time to see Maeve climbing up into the dogcart she usually took when she left. A man Ham had never seen before, a nondescript Mexican, helped her up, and she was obviously still hurting.

  “Maeve, what are you doing?” Ham cried. “Who’s this fellow? Where’s he taking you?”

  Maeve looked as if she had been crying. “I’m sorry, Ham, truly sorry, but the truth is I need you exactly the way you were when we first got into this, my decayed, drunken, uncaring husband from whom I occasionally have to escape. Can’t you just be that? A white knight I don’t need. You can’t rescue me from this, though it’s sweet that you actually want to.” Maeve leaned out of the cart and planted a little kiss on Ham’s cheek. The man jumped up on the other side of her, whipped up the horse, and sped off.

  May, 1846

  Ham awoke and stared around the den where he had fallen asleep. He squinted. His papers lay as he had arranged them the last time.

  “Candida,” Ham said to the maid who entered the room at that moment, struggling to get on his feet, “Don’t – don’t touch any of those papers, please. What month is this?”

  “May, sir,” the girl replied stiffly, obviously very disturbed at once more having to leave what she considered a mess, and started to pass out again.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Ham stuttered. “What day?”

  “The thirteenth, sir,” Candida responded.

  “No word from your mistress?” Ham asked.

  “No, sir,” Candida replied. “If you don’t wish me to tidy here, I need to get started on the morning room. Will you breakfast?”

  “No, I have to get to the office.” Ham groaned and staggered off to his bedroom. As he passed the door of Maeve’s suite he looked in. He had looked in so many times over the last two years, but except for the time he had gotten acquainted with Angelita he had never even entered those rooms. He had listened to Maeve dress and undress, watched her sweep by his room, followed her around the house, watching, wishing he dared to speak, but always retreating into his work instead. They attended lectures, went to fundraisers, entertained guests, and she chatted brilliantly, smiled dazzlingly, rested her hand on his arm quite naturally, sang with that maddening beauty that made him want to pull her into his arms and never let her get loose, but outside those functions she never willingly spoke to him, hardly looked at him, and if she did it was always just when he was most tongue-tied, absent-minded, or clumsy. The one time they had actually talked he had thought something was going to change, but apparently people who felt they had to keep secrets from each other could never hope to be anything but distrustful strangers sharing a house.

  “What do you want, Jessup?” Nathaniel Grover demanded as Ham pushed open the door of his tiny office in Rio Grande City. He had allowed Ham to stand there a full minute while he pretended to write something. He still didn’t look up as he spoke.

  “Where’s Maeve?” Ham asked, coming very close to the desk and tipping Grover’s chin up with the ram’s head. Grover started backward and Ham dove at him, pinning him against the wall and pressing the cane against his windpipe.

  “How should I know?” Grover wheezed. “Were you so drunk when she left that you didn’t pay attention to where she went?”

  “I think,” Ham said, pushing a little harder, “That she came back from someplace you sent her, beaten, in pain, terrified, and she came to you for help, for protection, because you’ve been hammering it into her head that she couldn’t trust me, but instead of helping her, you convinced her she had to go back. Did you see her? Did you look at the bruises, the fact that she was having trouble walking, that dizziness?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Grover gagged. “Maeve was in a carriage accident. That’s what she told me. I said she looked terrible and she should go home to bed. She said she had this appointment to keep, that it was something that couldn’t be put off, something we’d talked about months ago. I tried to persuade her again that she shouldn’t go, but she was determined. So she left. I assume she went to Laredo, to a fundraiser, a series of concerts and speeches.”

  “And yet, there is no engagement in Laredo, is there?” Ham said
. “I already checked her appointment books, and contacted people she was supposed to see in Laredo, and they heard she canceled. Grover, I assume you’re fond of all your teeth and your fingers. If you don’t want me to start breaking them one by one tell me where Maeve is.”

  “Just get off me, Jessup,” Grover snarled. “Maeve could tell everyone her husband gets drunk and beats her up. For some reason society puts up with that. But you put a mark on me and you’ll be in a military prison before you can let that stick fall a second time. Then you’ll wish all that was wrong with you was a game leg. And that won’t be any help to the lovely Mrs. Jessup, will it? Don’t be stupid. Use that brilliant mind everybody tells me you have, figure out where she is yourself, and go after her. That’s if you think ten years behind a desk hasn’t made you too soft to work in the field.”

  Ham let Grover up. He turned completely away from him. Grover got up, straightened his clothes and started to sit down at his desk. Suddenly Ham spun around and knocked Grover’s legs out from under him with his cane.

  “You tell me, Grover,” he drawled. “Am I too soft? Go ahead and tell someone you tripped over a cripple’s walking stick. After I find Maeve and undo whatever trouble you’re trying to make, I’ll come back and settle up scores with you.’

  “I’d like to see you try,” Grover snarled from the floor.

  “No, you wouldn’t,” Ham said. And he left.

  Ham was called to the door that evening to find a lieutenant and his MPs waiting.

  “Mr. Jessup, I must ask you to come with us,” the lieutenant said. He was young and nervous.

  “When you address a superior officer you ought to use his proper rank, lieutenant,” Ham said. The young man looked even more nervous.

  “R-rank, sir?” he stammered.

  “Never mind. Why are you here?” Ham asked.

  “Sir, Mr. Nathaniel Grover has preferred a charge of assault against you. He claims protection under military jurisdiction in time of war. I’m here to take you into custody.”

  “That’s ridiculous and even you should know it, you little wet behind the ears pup,” Ham snorted. “I’m an American citizen, not a foreign national, and Mr. Grover tripped over my cane as I hobbled out of his office. Go away.” He started to close the door.

  “Sir, my c-captain ordered me to t-take you into custody,” the lieutenant squeaked.

  “Who’s your captain?” Ham demanded.

  “Captain Lawrence Greene, sir,” came the answer.

  “I might have known. Nate Grover’s best buddy.” Ham turned to leave the doorway. “Tell Captain Greene he can come and get me himself when he has a real charge to prefer against me. Good night.” He closed the door.

  “Try to get me locked up for the night, will you, Nate?” Ham growled. “Now why would you do that? My guess is there’s something of Maeve’s here in the house that might incriminate you, and now that you know I’m on the warpath you’re afraid I’ll find it. So you’d like a chance to search. Don’t think you’re going to get that chance.”

  Ham stood at the doorway of Maeve’s rooms once more, but there was a barrier he couldn’t seem to cross. He didn’t feel badly about searching her study, and had already done so without finding anything helpful. But these rooms he could not bring himself to enter.

  Angelita stood by his side a moment later, clad in a dressing gown. She slipped her hand into Ham’s.

  “Madame’s in trouble, little one,” he said in French. “But I can’t find her to help her. I think I might know where she is, but I can’t just barge in without knowing anything. I need to prepare for what she’s got herself into or I can’t help her. What can I do?”

  Angelita appeared to be thinking. Then she flitted into Maeve’s room and brought back an ivory leather-bound book and gave it to Ham.

  “Carnet de rendez-vous,” Ham said, leafing through a few pages. “Luncheons, concerts, dinners, fundraisers. Yes, she had some daybooks like this down in the study. Very organized, very unhelpful.”

  Angelita shook her head. “Un journal,” she said. “Madame’s.”

  “Madame had a diary?” Ham asked.

  “Oui, en Espagnole,” Angelita replied.

  “A diary in Spanish?” Ham repeated. “I’ll bet that’s what I’m looking for. But she probably took it with her.”

  Angelita shook her head with considerable emphasis. She pantomimed writing, then an elaborate dumb show Ham had trouble following. “Wait,” he said. “She wrote in it right before she left, then hid it somewhere in there?”

  Angelita nodded vigorously. “Of course you don’t know where,” Ham sighed. “Could you find it, Mon Petit?” Angelita shrugged her shoulders. “Aller a la recherches de journal Espagnole de Madame,” Ham said. “We have to find it.”

  July, 1846

  Maeve had never been gone this long before. Ham stumbled into his room and pulled out a drawer in the little bedside table. In it were letters, all in the same firm but untidy hand, all with a return address of Laredo, Texas. Ham riffled through them and selected one, holding it in a trembling hand. He had to set it down and sit on the bed before he could steady himself enough to read it.

  “I wonder if you even read my letters, Ham,” it said. “I wonder if I’m just throwing chaff in the air for the wind to drive away. But it isn’t chaff, of course. I’m trying to tell you the truth of God, and it’ll have its effect some way, somehow. And then you’ll see what you kept saying you couldn’t understand. You say God dealt you a bad hand, but God doesn’t play cards, He plans lives, Ham, lives that He can mold and make into faithful servants and joyous children of His. ‘The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.’ That’s talking about Jesus Christ, Ham, Who became a man so He could die for our sins. A perfect man, a perfect sacrifice. Ham, I’ve quoted most every verse in the Bible to you in these letters, and I know the Word doesn’t return void. If God gets hold of you and you get saved, come to Parmenos and ask anyone you see for Milk and Honey and Living Water. I’ll be waiting. Dan.”

  Ham went to the window and looked out across the Texas plain. He wondered how far away this Parmenos was. He wondered if his old friend Dan could help him find out where Maeve was, what she had been doing disappearing, reappearing. He had assumed she had a lover somewhere, but there was something so edgy, so downright guilty and fearful about her in her unguarded moments now and then, something in a glance or two she had stolen at him in times. She had come back worried, fearful, that last time as well as hurt. She was into something her icy brilliance wasn’t quite equal to. It might involve a man but it wasn’t a simple tryst. It was dangerous, and Ham needed to know how he could protect the woman he had fallen in love with, even if she didn’t want a white knight.

  His eyes went back to the letters on the bed. Dan had written faithfully, once a week, since the sham marriage. But there had been nothing from him since June, just after war had been declared by the United States. Ham had tried to write to the Laredo address recently but the letter had come back “No such person.” Now Mexico had made it official too. What had happened to Dan? He had never explained the Parmenos connection, just said that Ham could contact people there for spiritual help.

  From all Dan had told him in his letters, God was good about protecting people, or at least good at comforting them and giving peace in trouble. But He wasn’t sure that extended to faithless folk like himself and his make-believe wife, who worshiped nothing and nobody. Ham looked around at the cabinets that held nothing but clothes and liquor. No peace there. But there was peace in that pack of letters, almost two years’ worth of unanswered cries from the heart of a friend who cared for Hamilton Jessup’s soul. And, Ham reasoned, maybe if he made his own peace with God, God would listen to his prayers for the woman he could only wish was his wife. Ham went down on his knees awkwardly beside the bed.

  “God help me, and help Maeve,” he whispered. He heard a s
ound outside the door and looked up. Angelita stood there, tears in her eyes.

  “Mon petite cheri,” he said, “Au secours!” Angelita nodded. She came close to the bed and handed Ham a small book bound in brown leather. Ham stared at it in disbelief. It appeared to be a diary of some kind, written in Spanish. Ham got slowly to his feet.

  “This is going to take some work,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll be going to the office today. The war can wait.”

  Part Two

  Maeve’s Spanish Diary Entries

  January 15, 1844

  I hope I can take this down exactly as it happened, so that if anyone finds this after my death, they will know why this is a cause worth dying for.

  My mother died the day before yesterday in Chollo. I received word of this at Palacio Del Oro and I went down to Chollo immediately to take care of her. I saw to the funeral arrangements and the casket with her body stood ready in the house for the funeral the next day. I kept watch myself alone, sending home the people who had cared for her so they could rest. I went outside to see about the condition of the grounds and the small shed in preparation for selling the property. But when I went to the shed I found blood on the door. Inside lay a young man close to my own age, dying, horribly mutilated. No doubt he had once been strong and handsome. He was slender, with dark auburn hair and green-gray eyes. Someone had tortured him, and had among other terrible things cut off most of his fingers.

  Obviously he had escaped his torturers and sought refuge in my mother’s shed. I gave him water and tried to give him some food but he could eat nothing. He could not tell me how long he had lain there, but his sole care was that I find a bird, some kind of hawk, which he had brought with him, but which was now hiding somewhere nearby, but still hooded, blind and helpless. I scarcely cared about the bird and wanted to tend him and try to save his life, but even with my limited experience I had to admit it was hopeless. He assured me that he would not have troubled me about the bird itself, but that it was vital that I find the creature and send it on its way back to where he came from.