In the Rogue Blood (41 page)

Edward had several times gone to the Alameda park and stared across the street at the Acordada and pondered his brother’s plight but he had not yet been to see him. He felt at fault for John’s present circumstance. He was certain his brother had not voluntarily enlisted in the army and so must have been pressganged in New Orleans. If they had been at each other’s side that wouldn’t have happened—or at least they would have been forced into the army together. But he had abandoned his brother in Dixie City and John had been dragooned. And then had deserted. And then for some damn reason joined the Mexicans and had narrowly missed being hanged for it. But he had been whipped and branded and locked up in prison, and Edward had felt he could not face him without some ready offer of atonement.

On the morning after he’d gone with Dominguez and Spooner to the house of Señora del Castro he went to the Acordada in his Spy Company uniform and presented himself to the officer of the guard as Sergeant
Edward Boggs of General Scott’s Life Guards and said he wished to see John Little, a former comrade in the Fifth Infantry who might know what became of some old friends they once had in common. He was granted admission and labored up the stairway on his stiff knee to the second floor and was allowed to pass through the barred door at the landing and then permitted to go to the wall of iron bars that sealed off the prisoners’ common cell. The heavy wooden floor was swept clean and was bright with soft yellow sunlight falling through the tall windows. Visiting hours began early and already a dozen people were at the bars—wives and sweethearts, reporters, Mexican lawyers. The room hummed with low conversations. The prisoners would not be let out to the courtyard for another hour yet and from various braziers within the neatly ordered cell came the aromas of coffee and grilled chorizo and fried eggs. He scanned the cell as he approached the bars but didn’t see John. Men were playing cards or reading newspapers or talking in small clusters or simply standing mute at the sunlit windows and staring out at the world beyond.

He took a place at the bars that gave him the widest berth on either side. A few feet to his left a Mexican woman whispered low to a San Patricio who listened glumly. To his right a lawyer in an expensive suit and bearing sheaves of legal documents was murmuring with a prisoner whose raw cheeks were flayed from cheekbone to jaw. Edward recognized him as John Riley. He had picked the flesh off his face to rid himself of the brands.

“Used to be he was called
Handsome
Jack.”

The first words Edward had heard from his brother except in dreams since a rainy night in New Orleans a lifetime ago. John stood at the bars and looked at him, studied his uniform, smiled. The
D
brand on his face was crusted darkly red and his other cheek bore a deep cresent scar. His eyes were shadowed hollows. He regarded the cane in Edward’s hand, the disfigured cheekbone, the bandanna showing under his black hat. “Had you some near times, looks like.”

“Bout near as yours, I guess.”

They gazed upon one another.

“Listen,” Edward said. “Maggie’s dead.” He’d meant to tell him later, under better circumstances, but he’d suddenly felt the need to say something of import and it was the thing that came to mind.

John’s face seemed to go hollow. He stepped back from the bars. “Dead?” He ran a hand through his hair and looked about as if searching
for the word’s meaning. Then he looked back at Edward. “Dead how? Where?”

“Some bad sickness,” Edward said. “I buried her. Five, six months ago. Up near Linares.”

John clutched the bars and then released them. He turned in a circle, looked up at the ceiling, heaved a huge breath and rubbed his eyes hard with both hands like someone trying hard to wake fully from a bad dream. Edward thought he would reserve the fact of their sister’s whoredom for another time. “She ought not of come to Mexico,” he said. The words sounded lame in his own ears.

John looked off to the sunbright window for a long moment and then turned back to Edward. “Aint nobody ought come to Mexico. Place aint all that kind even to the Mexicans.”

They stood in awkward silence for a time and then Edward took off his hat and put his face close to the bars and whispered, “You’re coming out.”

John looked at him without expression.

“Tomorrow night,” Edward said. He glanced to either side of him to ensure that no one was paying them mind. “The Castro woman’ll be here. Do like she says. I’ll be waiting with a ready mount for you. Come sunup we’ll be sixty miles gone.”

John looked at him and said nothing. His aspect was indifferent, the cast of his eyes somehow alien. Edward had the sudden sensation of facing a stranger.

“You understand me?” he asked.

John stared at him. “Understand?” He echoed the word as though it were of some foreign language. He looked off to the window again and there was another period of strained silence. Then he said: “You know something? I had that noose coming. Not for deserting. For what we done to Daddyjack.” He looked at Riley on his left and continued in a lower voice. “What
I
done, I mean, since it’s me the reason he’s dead. If I hadn’t tried to kill him he wouldn’t of tried to kill me and you wouldn’t of had cause to shoot him. So it aint really your doing he’s dead, you see, it’s mine. It aint been much to do here but think about things and I been thinking plenty and that’s the way it works out, no matter how much I think on it. Our
daddy
, Ward. He was a son of a bitch sure enough but he was our
daddy
”

John’s eyes seemed at once strange and familiar. And then Edward realized they reminded him of the eyes of their mother.

“I been wondering something,” John whispered. “If it’s proper to hang a man for deserting a bunch a strangers, what ought be done with one kills his own daddy? A hanging rope don’t hardly seem sufficient. I anyhow had it coming for other reasons, reasons I can’t even—”

“Quit it!” Edward said so sharply that Riley and his lawyer looked over at them, then turned back to each other. His grip was tight on the iron bars and he pressed his face against them and hissed lowly, “It’s
done
, goddamnit. It’s
done
. It aint no bringing it back and making it something other than what it was and it aint no making up for it. A hanging rope don’t make up for a damn thing, it only makes a live man into a dead one.”

“I dream about him, Ward.”

“So do I! But I aint letting it eat on me.” He abruptly drew back, abashed by his own intensity. He eased his hold on the bars and blew out a breath and glanced about. Then leaned in close again. “Look, Johnny. It’s like the Mexicans say—what you can’t make no different ye got to just stand it. It aint but the simple truth.”

John regarded him closely. “You telling me true? You really dream him or you just saying?”

“Hell yes, I dream him! Ever goddamn night. And he don’t never quit trying to make me feel like I aint fit to live. But he’s dead goddamnit and to hell with him.”

They stood there with the iron bars between them, searching each other’s eyes for something neither of them could have given name.

“Listen Johnny,” Edward whispered. “I wanted to … I mean … I shouldnt of lit out like I did….”

“Lit out?” John said. “Where from?”

“Where
from?
From
Dixie
, goddamnit. If I’da stayed they might not of got you.”

“Who? You mean the constables?” John now recalled how Maggie had disabled the boniface of the Mermaid Hotel as she fled through the door and the memory made him smile. And then he remembered what he’d done the night before the constables came crashing through the door and he ceased smiling. “Hell, you couldn’t of done nothing. You didn’t know where we were.”

Edward squinted at him. “Who’s
we?
” he said. “
What
constables?”

But a throng of visitors had just then arrived on the floor and his questions were lost in the clamor as they pressed up hard by him on either
side and more prisoners were crowding John’s flanks and what small bit of privacy they’d had was lost.

He stepped back from the bars and put on his hat. “Listen. I got things to tend. I’ll see you, Johnny. Soon.”

John nodded.

And in that moment they each one saw himself in the eyes of the other as in the closing fist of some destiny long determined.

At a few minutes after ten o’clock of the following evening Señora del Castro’s carriage arrived unexpectedly at Acordada where she debarked into the misted amber light of the streetlamps in the company of three men wearing broadbrimmed hats and black cloaks and carrying briefcases. Two of the men wore black beards. At the door beside the main gate she informed the officer of the guard, a young lieutenant in charge of the prison detail, that the men were Veracruz attorneys from a firm of long standing with her family and she had engaged them to assist several San Patricios who had petitioned for their release from prison. Because the gentlemen would be departing the capital in the morning it was imperative that they consult with their clients this evening. The matter was important but could be concluded rather quickly.

The lieutenant was hesitant to permit them entry, for the hour was late and long past the close of the daily visiting period. One of the attorneys sighed audibly and consulted his pocketwatch. Señora del Castro wondered aloud if perhaps they ought to intrude on General Scott’s repose to see if he might persuade the prisonkeepers to be more cooperative. Thus reminded of the latitude General Scott permitted Señora del Castro regarding visitation to the San Patricios, the lieutenant suddenly envisioned himself reassigned to some remote desert outpost.

“Well now, ma’m,” he said, “I don’t guess there’s any real need of disturbing the general at his ease.”

The señora and her trio were admitted and then escorted up the stairs. At the landing the three men were searched to ensure that they carried no weapons on their person or in their briefcases. When the sergeant of the guard stood before the señora as if considering whether to search her as well, she fixed him with a defiant stare. He looked at the lieutenant who pursed his lips and looked away. The sergeant shrugged and stepped
aside and the señora and her attorneys were let into the dim recess of the cell. A guard was posted just outside the bars to keep an eye on the proceedings within.

Most of the prisoners had bedded down for the night and were snoring soundly. The room’s weak light came from the two small candles by which a pair of men were playing dominoes at the table and from the streetlamps glowing through the windows and throwing striped shadows on the wall. The place smelled of charcoal and flatulence and the muskiness of men in close habitation.

The two men at the table stood up at her approach. One of them was a Patricio named George Killian, the other John Little. She smiled at John and whispered to George Killian to sit with them and do nothing but look serious and nod when spoken to and sign his name to every paper placed in front of him. Killian grinned and nodded excitedly, happy to be included in the game. She fixed him with a look and he assumed a serious mien. She directed John to sit across from her, with his back to the door and next to one of the bearded associates, a man of similar size and build to his own and of the same sunbrowned hue of face and hands. The associates all removed their hats but only the two on her side of the table took off their cloaks. As these two extracted sheaves of papers from their briefcases and began addressing John and Killian on such matters as rights of petition and precedent law, the bearded man beside John removed the false beard from his face and surreptitiously passed it to him. John leaned forward on his elbows in the manner of a man listening closely to the advice of the attorneys across the table and applied the beard to his own face. It reached high on his cheekbone and covered the brand but the adhesive had been diluted by the other man’s nervous sweat and the beard felt loose on his skin. He looked at the señora across the table and she smiled and nodded once.

Their doings attracted the attention of several others of the Patricios yet awake and they started toward the table but the señora gestured for them to keep their distance and they shrugged at each other and did as she asked. Still speaking loudly enough to be heard by the guard at the cell door, the associates were showing John and Killian where to append their signature on a half-dozen different forms.

Now John Riley emerged from the shadows with his ruined face. He sat beside the señora and smiled tightly at John across the table. “Why
him
?” Riley said in a low voice. “Why not me?”

“Because,” the señora said, “he’s the explosives expert.”

Riley looked from her to John and back again, smiling uncertainly, as if he thought they might be playing a joke on him. “Who says so? I know more about explosives than this pup ever will.”

“Captain Amado told me so.”

“Captain
who?
”

“Keep your voice down!” she hissed, glancing toward the door. “He is an officer of the San Patricios, as you very well know. He escaped capture at Churubusco, he and Lieutenant Walker and Corporal Meese.”

“The
hell
you say. I never heard of any of them.”

The señora’s look was scornful. “Really, captain, I am very disappointed that you should affect such pretense simply to indulge your own pique.”

Riley looked narrowly at John. “What the fucking hell is this? You aint no powderman and it aint no Saint Patricks springing you. Why aint I in on it?”

John looked at him but said nothing. He felt oddly detached from the proceedings. His heart beat steady as a clock. His only sense was one of curiosity. He wondered if they were going to get away with it.

Now the associates were returning the paperwork to their briefcases, checking their watches by the candlelight, reminding the señora that they had an early coach to board in the morning.

Riley said, “I’m of a mind to whistle on ye if I aint let in.”

The señora’s face went fierce. “If you interfere in any way, captain, I promise that life in this prison will become very uncomfortable for all of you. I promise you that not another woman will set foot in this cage for the remainder of the time you and your men are here—and I promise you I will tell your men why the women do not come.”

Riley smiled but his eyes were raging.

She looked toward the guard at the door and saw that he was engaged in watching a cockroach skitter across the floor. She nodded at the man who had given John the beard and he stood and shrugged out of his cloak to reveal the Mexican uniform he wore and he slipped the cloak over John’s shoulders and quickly moved off into the shadows. The señora gestured for Killian to leave the table as well. The two associates put on their hats and cloaks and John folded his cloak about him and tugged down the brim of his hat. Señora del Castro came around the table and drew close to John and so deftly did she withdraw a five-shooter from her purse and hand it to him and so adroitly did he slip it under his cloak that not even Riley saw that something had passed between them.

“What’s to become of your man here?” Riley asked the señora, nodding toward the rear of the shadowy cell.

“Luis will answer to the name of John Little until all of you are discharged,” she whispered.

Riley sneered hugely. “Pardon me bluntness, lady, but that’s plain cuckoo. You can’t pass that Mexie for a Mick. He’ll be found out just as soon as they get a look at him in the daylight.”

“If he should be found out he will confess nothing,” the señora said.

“They’ll give him some goodly pain to persuade him otherwise.”

“No matter. He will not talk. Unless some one of you here tells them who he is, the gringos will never know how the switch was made. They might suspect me of it, but they will never know for certain. Tell the others that if they wish continuation of their comforts and pleasures they had best keep the secret.”

Riley snorted and spat on the floor.

The visitor party went to the cell door and the guard worked the lock and let them out and gave but a cursory glance to the three attorneys, looking closely only at the woman who bedazzled him with her wide warm smile and told him he reminded her of a painting she’d once seen of Sir Gawain of the Round Table.

Then they were down the stairs and past the rest of the guards and out in the misty amber air and on the broad sidewalk of the Calle Patoni dappled with tree shadows under the light of the streetlamps. They were within feet of her waiting carriage when someone just inside the prison door shouted, “Stop them!
Stop
them!”

Guards ran out with rifles in hand and the two associates lunged for the carriage and their weapons within and the carriage driver sprang down from his seat and grabbed the señora and shielded her with his body as he pulled her away from the coach and John whirled around with the Colt in hand and fired three quick shots and two guards fell and another threw himself to the sidewalk and the rest turned and scampered back through the door as he fired twice more and the trailing soldier cried out and fell headlong through the door.

He turned and raced westward down the street as a staccato of gunfire burst behind him. He glanced over his shoulder as he ran and he saw the associates exchanging fire from a distance of six feet with two of the guards lying on the walkway. The associates fell and the other guards ran back out to shoot them several times more and none among them was looking his way as he rounded the corner of the Avenida Dolores and vanished into the shadows.