Cactus Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (38 page)

      
Gripped with rage, Markham felt Tomasina's betrayal wash over him. The bitch! There was no way Slade could have known about this parlay without her telling him. Markham had been scrupulously careful. His rendezvous with the Comancheros and the long, grueling course they had ridden for the better part of two weeks, all his precautions were in vain because of Tomasina' s treachery. And she was safe in San Antonio—with Kennedy's gold! The gold...of course! He knew as certainly, as he was under attack, that Tomasina had contacted Kennedy and gotten the gold from him.

      
Using the boxes and bales for cover, Markham inched his way across the space between him and a riderless mount trapped between two boulders by the stream's edge. A dead ranger's foot was caught in a stirrup and his body lodged in the rocks, rendering the horse immobile. When a stray Comanche saw the same opportunity present itself, Markham waited until he cut the corpse free and grabbed the horse's reins. Then, he flung himself full force on the savage's back with a large rock in his hand. With all his strength he brought the sharp stone down on the back of the thick brown neck. A soft, crunching sound coupled with the inert collapse of his victim convinced Markham that his aim had been true. He was saving all five bullets in his Colt for Tomasina Carver!

      
He grabbed the Comanche’s gun and knife and the ranger's hat, then swung into the saddle. His only hope of escape lay to the north, back through the narrows from the direction the rangers came. Now that the bulk of them were in the camp, finishing off the dazed remnants of Iron Hand's men, he might be able to slip by. No chance of escaping the withering fire from the bluff if he headed into the open country to the southwest.

      
The Indians realized they were being cut to pieces from the bluff, but were unable to return fire because of the rising sun's blinding rays behind the snipers. As best they could, they retreated west with heavy casualties. Two of the treacherous white men lay dead, and the third had vanished.

      
Slade searched the melee around him again as he shot and clubbed his way to the center of the campsite. The two whites in greasy buckskins lay dead, but where the hell was Markham? Swearing, he continued yelling orders and dodging bullets.

      
Finally, the resistance ended. A small group of bloody Comanche were being herded together by those rangers who were still mounted. Slade signaled for Laber to bring his men from the bluff for cleanup.

      
“Look's like yer English falcon's done flew th' coop,” Laber said, spitting in disgust.

      
Slade's face was a granite mask of restrained fury. Looking over to the Cherokee scout, he said, “Any chance of picking up his sign in this muck?”

      
“Anyone seen th' fancy-dressed dude hightail it outta here?” The cry went up amidst the ranks as the men came in, some limping, others helping wounded comrades.

      
“He got through the narrows to the north.” Lee's calm voice cut through the babel of noise. “I saw him from the bluff but he was out of range...looked to be on Chauncey Durham's horse.”

      
“Yeah, Chauncey's daid right 'nough,” a sad voice chimed in. ” 'N his horse's gone.”

      
“You know what to do,” Slade barked to Laber, who nodded briskly and began to give orders.

      
“I'll stay to help with the cleanup.” Lee's comment was casual, but his voice was tight.

      
Slade turned to his young friend, shaken by the blood lust he saw in Lee's eyes. “No,
mano
, I'll need both you and Solomon if we're going to catch that bastard Markham.”

      
Lee's eyes glittered like cold obsidian. Then suddenly he laughed, breaking the terrible tension between himself and Slade. “You're right, Jim. I promised Charlee I'd keep your hide in one piece. I can't go back on my word!”

Chapter Sixteen

      
“Almost two weeks and no word yet from Jim and Lee. I don't like it, Lena,” Charlee said as she gave the rug a smart thump, then dodged a thick dust cloud that the wind whipped in her direction.

      
Lena smiled as she took a whack at the rug. It was cleaning day, and if beating rugs took Charlee's mind off the absent men, then Lena would beat rugs until sundown. “Do not worry about Don Diego. He can take care of himself. So can that young rascal who rides with him.”

      
“I still don't like it. Markham's a sneaky snake, and I've seen what those Comancheros are like firsthand.” She shivered as she recalled Brady.

      
“I am only glad
los diablos
are gone and their dictator-loving friends with them, those plunderers,” Lena said as she beat the rug more vigorously.

      
The army of General Woll had departed the preceding day in slow stages, escorting around a hundred
Tejano
families who had chosen to flee from San Antonio under the protection of the army rather than stay and risk reprisals. They felt that angry Texians would see them as sympathetic to the central government of Mexico, whether they were or not. Others like Lena, staunch allies of President Houston's government, were furious with their fellow
Tejanos
for running, rendering everyone of Mexican ancestry suspect.

      
“You should have seen the confusion,” Lena went on. “Carts loaded with all sorts of things, mostly stolen,” she sniffed. “And cattle. Where did all those cattle they drove with them come from, eh?”

      
Charlee shrugged. The oddities of Texas politics still confused her, with English-speaking and Spanish-speaking people aligned on both sides of the sovereignty question. “I’m glad Rafe didn't have to hide Deborah and Adam. I only hope that dreadful Flores person went home with the rest.”

      
Despite the heartening news about Woll's retreat, Charlee was still worried about everyone's safety. Tomorrow she vowed she'd go to San Antonio and see if the Flemings were safe. As to Jim and Lee—she forced herself not to dwell on morbid thoughts.

      
One thing to rejoice over was the end of this wretched subterfuge between Jim and Tomasina Carver. If Markham was caught, then the ring of spies who had been supplying the Indians would be uncovered. Slade would have no more reason to pretend being affianced to Tomasina. That was, if it was just a ruse, Charlee considered uneasily.

      
He asked me to marry him
, she reminded herself. But that had been during a tender interlude between bouts of lovemaking. Maybe he was just carried away with the moment. Knowing full well the wild swings from good humor to black anger that characterized Slade's moody behavior, Charlee was hesitant to count on his constancy, especially where the beautiful Mexicana was concerned.

      
Lena's voice interrupted her uneasy reverie. “I will finish this rug, Charlee. It is time for you to start dinner. Weevils will make the biscuits if you do not hurry.”
      
Grimacing as she remembered the dense slabs of dough the fat old cook called biscuits, Lena took Charlee's rug beater from her hands.

      
As Charlee headed toward the kitchen door, she moved with unconscious grace, her long plait of hair swinging in rhythm with her steps. The maid noted approvingly how pretty the young woman looked in the full cotton skirt and low-cut white blouse, sensuously molded to her lithe body. It was a warm day, and Charlee had chosen the cool and comfortable peasant's garb. Her day dresses were long sleeved and required several cumbersome petticoats, while this outfit needed only one underskirt. Remembering how she used to look in ragged, baggy boys' clothes, Lena was delighted with her friend's transformation. So, she had heard, was Don Diego. If only Charlee would be the new mistress of Bluebonnet, not that haughty Doña Tomasina!

      
When she had beaten a batch of biscuits, larded and seasoned a venison roast, and pared a nice selection of fresh garden potatoes, carrots, and onions, Charlee looked around the big kitchen and nodded to herself in satisfaction. Removing her apron, she headed upstairs, but before she had walked halfway down the long hall, Asa's voice stopped her.

      
“Charlee, Billy Crea found this under his bunk when he went to clean it. I thought you'd want to have it.” His voice was kind but hesitant as he handed her a battered old leather volume.

      
Touching it, she let out a small gasp of recognition. “Oh, Asa, it's Richard Lee's diary, the one he began the year before he left for Texas. I assumed he'd stopped writing it when he moved here, since it wasn't with his other things.” Lovingly her hands stroked the worn leather cover. Poor Richard Lee, dead so young, killed in a senseless accident. She had been so caught up in her own trouble, with her fascination for Jim Slade, she had seldom given her only brother a thought in months!

      
With tear-shiny eyes, she thanked Asa and returned to the privacy of the study to think. Should she read it? To read another person's diary was an unthinkable breach if he were alive, but Richard Lee was dead.
 
She had laid spring bluebonnets and primroses on his grave, wept disconsolately as she sorted through his clothing. But so much had happened to turn her young life upside down since she had arrived in Texas that the resiliency of youth made his memory fade. Until now.

      
With trembling hands she opened the familiar-looking volume. Since childhood, her brother had always been an erratic chronicler, going for months without making an entry, then spending hours writing, depending on his moods. Quickly, she scanned some of the earlier entries, written before he had left St. Genevieve.

Feb. 4, 1835. Papa died last night. It seems strange to write the words and look at them. I still don't believe he is gone. Mama is white as chalk, I fear she will not survive him long. What will I do—just Charlee and she only a babe?

      
So, he did worry about her. But, she recalled sadly, even then she had been more practical about their survival than her brother.

Aug. 10, 1835. More news in the papers about Texas today. Mr. Devlin has a whole pile of broadsides written by a fellow named Burnet. If ever the call of destiny reached out to me, it does today. What riches, what paradise, but only for the boldest takers...

      
More entries about Texas, all idyllic, boyish dreams spun by an incurable romantic who would rather skip chores and slip off to the swimming hole than do an honest day's work. After their father had died, Lillian McAllister had faded like a summer rose caught in October frost. At least, he had been perceptive about that, Charlee thought sadly. But he had always been a schemer, caught up in fantasies about getting rich or becoming a hero. How ironic that he had arrived after San Jacinto. Then, she was struck by the thought that Jim Slade had fought at San Jacinto and in countless other dangerous and decidedly unglamorous battles long before he was Richard Lee's age. Shaking her head, she turned to August 17, 1836, and read his account of how he had planned to leave Missouri behind that fateful next morning.

      
Richard Lee's entries during the journey to Texas were sporadic, but still imbued with the boundless optimism of youth. He had spent over a year drifting from job to job, going hungry, never able to get a stake together for the tools and livestock it took to homestead any of that marvelous “free land” he had boasted he would own. Finally, a much chastened Richard Lee McAllister had arrived in San Antonio just shy of his twenty-first birthday, in time to be hired by a prominent young rancher named Jim Slade, or as her brother described him in the diary: “Of oddly mixed parentage, half Mexican, half Virginian, he seems on good terms with the very Mexicans he fought at San Jacinto, a man in his late twenties, very hard-looking...”

      
Charlee realized fate had played tricks. Richard Lee, for all his immaturity, was twenty-one. Jim Slade at the date of this entry could have been no more than nineteen or twenty!

      
The further she read, the more Charlee was struck with a subtle change in her brother's personality, revealed between the lines, shifting from naive buoyancy to charming cynicism. He watched others around him prosper through unremitting toil, something he had ever been averse to trying. He had chosen to work as a ranch hand, living a day-to-day existence, dreaming of the time that he would be rich and able to shake the dust of Texas from his boots for good. The Republic had lost its romance when he had learned only those who sweated long and hard achieved what Will and Jim Slade had. He wrote amusing accounts of how he had fobbed off work on other men and played hooky in town, but Charlee could well imagine how Asa and Jim must have viewed his actions.

      
Suddenly, as she was wistfully smiling and flipping through the diary, a name leaped from a page: Tomasina!

Jan. 10, 1842. Saw Tomasina Carver again today in town, coming from the Rojas Mansion. She is really something to look at...

      
Charlee's cheeks flamed as she read her brother's rather explicit fantasy about the beauteous young matron. It would have been embarrassing enough to read such private thoughts about any woman her brother might have taken a fancy to, but Tomasina Carver! What was it about that calculating bitch that set men afire—even her poor, love struck brother?

      
She skipped the rest of his sexual ruminations and read about his days off, which he mostly spent in town. He frequented several saloons, even mentioned being introduced to Ashley Markham and several other gentlemen at the Red Heart. At Markham's name, Charlee felt a tingle of premonition. Apprehensively she read further.