Bad Apple

John had not talked for very long, and he seemed to be okay telling his story while he worked among the vegetables. And then, like a sudden fever had come over him, he entered again that dark cloud place, the one that drained him of color, sunk his eyes into his skull, and stole his voice.

None of that had anything to do with Hulbert coming round the corner of the log compound. I’m not even sure John spotted him. The reporter saw at once the hair in the butter, that something was happening with John: the man was kneeling amidst lettuce, his shoulders drooping, his eyes on the horizon ahead.

“Damn them all,” John said quietly.

“Who, John?” I asked.

He did not respond.

Hulbert, moving like an overweight cat, was doing his best to be unobtrusive but still wanting to get himself near the mouse. I was doing my best to ignore him.

“John—the lettuce,” I said, trying to ease him back. I squatted at the edge of the garden, near where he was working. “Work the soil. It’s what we’re here for.”

His eyes dropped to the dark soil. He breathed deeply. I marveled that any man could find the smell of compost and horse manure soul-satisfying, but apparently he did.

He slowly began to move those sharp nails through the big leaves, looking for pests. Whenever he found one, he used the nail to scoop it away. I couldn’t stop Hulbert from approaching but I turned and made a sign that he should not speak. The reporter nodded. It was strange, but in that quick look I had at him Hulbert looked almost as sullen as John.

The barkeep cannot avoid his fate, thought I, which is to be dropped amid the inebriated and those who should be.

“He did not have her with him,” John said quietly. He forgot the leaves again.

“Are you speaking of Crockett? Betsy?”

“It was another rifle he picked up,” John continued, apparently watching it like a play. “Out in the street, on the final day of battle. It was one of ours. One from here, from this fort, one that had fallen with its Mexican owner.” John looked back down at the leaves. “The saints had left the Alamo but not the martyrs.”

John’s hand dropped limp at his sides and he stayed where he was, on his knees.

“Christ in His Heaven,” I heard softly in my ear.

Hulbert had knelt beside and a little behind me. As if in prayer.

“You think this is fakery, Hulbert?” I asked.

“I do not, sir, and I apologize for ever having suggested such.” Hulbert was silent for a moment then blurt, still in a whisper, “I—I have come to help this tortured soul, if I might.”

I stood, picking him up by the elbow as I rose. I ushered him away from John. Whatever his dream, or nightmare, it seemed best to leave him in it for the moment. We walked a few steps from the garden where I faced the reporter. He was the same sorry-looking fellow I had left in the mess, more so now that there was sunlight upon him. His cheeks were an uncharacteristic white while his forehead had all the flush. Years at my post told me that such a man was either sick with grippe . . . or burdened with blame for something. In a territory where men covered their faces with kerchiefs to keep out wind-whipped sand, one learned to catalog frailty and sins as expressed on the nose, which was inebriation; the cheeks, which was shame or love; and the forehead.

“What can you do to help him?” I asked, starting our previous conversation over but on a more amiable footing.

Hulbert had his pad flat in one hand, tapped the cover with the back of his pencil. He was like an Indian sending drum signals.

“Well?” I pressed.

“There’s a reason I didn’t tell you anything,” he said. “And it’s not that I don’t trust you. You’re a good and honest man.” He glanced at the vegetable garden. “John’s the one I’m not sure of.”

“Why? What do you know about him?”

“Nothing,” Hulbert said, leaving me fully at sea now. “Let me tell you what I do know. It’s not the fort,” the man went on, his voice cracking. He swallowed. “The guns are coming from smugglers on the coast.”

“How do you know?”

“There’s an operation out of New Orleans, goes right to the Rio Grande.”

“The crates are taken from the port?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “All I know is that Colonel Gearhart sent a unit south to find out about it. No uniforms, forged papers indicating them to be licensed agents of the Army Apothecary Department. As much as guns, medical supplies are needed by the Mexican army.”

As an apothecary myself, I could certainly appreciate the truth in that. Substances such as laudanum and nitrous oxide, items like stethoscopes and bandages, all were in great demand.

“They hoped to draw the smugglers out,” I said.

“Did they?”

“Must’ve,” Hulbert said. “The men sent by the fort were never heard from.”

“When was this?” I asked.

“Last time I was down this way, late February,” Hulbert said. “Came down to do a crop report, wintertime and all—”

“So the smugglers are still out there?” I interrupted.

“As far as anyone knows,” Hulbert said. “I . . . I’m not supposed to know this, but, you know, I listen. Soldiers talk.” He looked around, leaned in. “Right now, Meggie thinks John here may be a part of that ring, sent here to find out what the army knows.”

I felt a little sick hearing that. I glanced sideways at the man who was limp, there, like one of those heads of lettuce. An act? Lord God—had I been the one taken in? Maybe that Mexican he killed was working for the U.S. government. Maybe his entire story was a lie. Those fingernails—they could be real useful prying open bales to get at goods hidden in cotton, or scratching secret codes in wooden crates.

“Thank you for your trust, brother Hulbert,” I said. I shook my head once. “By God, that woman was brave!”

“Meggie? Yes. The lieutenant had the same suspicion about John—he was fearful the man would cut her throat and shoot his way out the back.”

I frowned. “What did he think when John called me?”

“That you are a part of the ring,” Hulbert said. “You do, don’t you, receive some shipments from New Orleans?”

“Bloody rum,” I said. “The stuff his boys drink.”

“I’m not justifying, only explaining,” Hulbert told me. “You could be a part of the operation. He thinks you’re in a damn enviable position to hear things from drunk solders. He wonders if that isn’t why you opened the Hick. The two problems started at about the same time.”

“You obviously don’t believe that,” I said.

“No,” Hulbert assured me. “No. Because Falconer suspects me, too. That giant Swede at the gate—he told me he’s to watch that I don’t pass messages to any of the civilians. I’m sure his courier reads every word I send to the newspaper.”

This was madness, either on the part of the army or on the part of John Apple. I tried to sift through all that I knew or had heard. That was too confusing, too pointless, so I went with my sense about John. Was he crazy or just acting the part? Could anyone be that consistent in his fakery?

What do the two different stories have in common, I asked myself. Knowledge of the guns. Knowledge of the Mexicans having those guns. That was all. The Bowie knife? He could have got that any number of places. Except for the Coles and their people, who were far from here, and the folks in Ohio and Pennsylvania, everyone who could have vouched for this man was dead.

I couldn’t decide if I really did believe him or now just really wanted to believe him. Hulbert seemed to come down on his side of the fence. I had the advantage, though, of being able to conduct another interview. The question was, should I report what the lieutenant and Meggie—if not suspected, at least feared?

I suggested to Hulbert that he leave us. The reporter duly parted, his step a little lighter for having unburdened his soul. I crouched beside John again, who was just as I left him.

“We don’t have to talk any more about the Alamo, John,” I said. “Do you mind if we talk a little about those rifles? Maybe some thoughts about how they got from American to Mexican hands?”

John blinked several times, inhaled, then regarded me. “I never got to see Sam Houston again,” he replied, exhaling. “But I did learn something at the Alamo. Something that pointed me directly to the fort.”

“To anyone in particular?” I asked.

He nodded. But that was all he did.

“John, I want to help you. And Mr. Hulbert—I know he has his own reasons, but he also wants to help you. If there’s anything you can—”

“I do not trust Mr. Hulbert,” John said. “His newspaper supported the territorial rights of Mexico.”

“A political view does not make a man himself untrustworthy,” I pointed out.

“A man who has the run of a garrison is,” John said. “I did not go to Mrs. Gearhart’s rooms to see her but to see where the ledgers were stored. They are there, in the open. So are the files of couriered dispatches. Any man can walk in there and see arms sent and received. Only a guest, one who is not bound by military protocol, would linger in a room where such information is out in the open.”

John’s point was well-taken. Now I was really confused. And he was getting agitated. I couldn’t leave him alone with his thoughts.

“What about Mexico’s allies in Washington, the anti-Jacksonians?” I asked, suddenly inspired. “They could have sent information to . . . to someone about the guns. Their route, their times of arrival.”

I was careful not to mention smugglers. Except for Hulbert, I would not have known such men might have been involved.

“Crockett said that to ascribe any intelligence or forethought to politicians is like calling a hog musical,” John replied. “From the way I saw Travis receive goods, I can add to that the old saying is true: ‘time and tide wait for no man.’ Crockett compared the late arrival of men, weapons, food, and letters to a funeral he attended back in Tennessee. The body got there three days after the ceremony was planned, and that was only coming by land from Virginia. So think of a message going from the capital of the United States to Mexico to get people to meet a shipment by land or sea—it wouldn’t be possible, or practical. The guns would already be in the fort, most likely, by the time word arrived to intercept them.”

“All right,” I said. “So leave Washington out of it. What are we left with?”

“Fort Gibson,” John said. “This is where the guns come to be distributed among the western outposts. Mr. Coles found out that much from Sam Houston. It is impossible that nobody here knew guns were being stolen. Or bought.”

John was on his feet again, reinvigorated by his mission. I reminded him, however, that he was my responsibility and had to behave appropriately.

“There’s a lot we don’t know, and we’ll need allies,” I said. “How we find things out is as important as what we find out. May I make a suggestion?”

“Of course,” he said. “I’m sorry, I keep forgetting just how much I owe you.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” I assured him, though it was good to hear. “What I would like to do, though, is for you to bring me up to date. I want to hear what you did, what you saw from the time you reached San Antonio. There may be clues you missed.”

“It’s possible,” he admitted. “So much happened.”

“Tell me about it,” I said.

He walked from the garden and sat on the ground. Once again, he looked at home there, like he was drawing nourishment from the ground . . . a human plant. It was another one of those feelings I had that made me trust him.

He looked at his fingernails, which he curled just below his face.

“I told you I was in San Antonio,” he said. “I was there ’cause of Bowie. Mostly, where he went, I went. It wasn’t just the fact of liking and admiring him, I felt he was someone I could learn from. He had a bigger view of things than I did. Like an eagle, he saw things from on high.” John smiled warmly. “That’s why Crockett made such a good companion for him. The Tennessean was big on the right-here and right-now, being the center of whatever was around him. . . .”