In June of 1839 the wagon trains arrived from the Santa Fe Trail. It was a big event in the capital, for a great part of Santa Fe’s prosperity depended upon this trade. As soon as the wagons appeared outside of town it seemed that everyone in town began running for the plaza, shouting excitedly.
“Los Carros…le entrade de la caravana—”
The first to reach the customhouse would get the choice goods brought in by the traders, and Teresa always had a hundred things she needed. She hurried down San Francisco Street, dressed in a fresh camisa and a bright yellow mantón de Manila with red roses splashed over it and a fringe that swished saucily at her bare ankles. Behind her came her bodyguards and a Navajo slave stooped under the burden of an almuere, the standard measure for a thousand doubloons.
The Conestogas were parked in a double line before the customhouse. They were huge wagons with wheels as high as her shoulders, yellow-spoked, iron-tired, with bright red beds that were sway-backed as a ship. The gringos stood awkwardly around in new suits, hands in their pockets, gawking at the unfamiliar chatter of Spanish all about them.
There was the usual crowd of inspectors and interpreters and traders before the customhouse. Experienced traders had already paid the diligencia and had started selling. The men new to the trail were arguing heatedly with the sweating officials, protesting the graft and the opening of their bales and crates for inspection.
As Teresa approached the first wagons she heard John Ryker’s voice raised above the babble. “I had fifteen wagons. Valdez was cross-eyed if he counted any more.”
She saw him standing in a knot of men a hundred feet beyond. Beside him was Cimarron Saunders, towering above Ryker, scratching irritably at his louse-ridden red beard. Captain Perea faced them, and beside him Captain Uvalde, of the militia. Perea’s handsome sharp-featured face was flushed. He spoke in a snapping voice, making nervous gestures with his sinewy hands.
“Twenty-three wagons were counted in your train at San Miguel. And Valdez said that four of them were loaded with crated Yager rifles.”
Captain Uvalde smiled crookedly, trying to placate Perea. “There must be a mistake. Maybe Valdez was drunk.”
Perea spoke to Uvalde without looking at him. “Keep out of this. The militia has no jurisdiction here.” Teresa saw an ugly light leap into Uvalde’s Indian eyes. But Perea went on, speaking to Ryker. “Either you produce those guns or I’m going to search every wagon you’ve got.”
Teresa was but ten feet from them now, yet they were all so intent on the argument they didn’t see her. Ryker’s elbows nudged aside the edges of his cinnamon bear coat. The butt caps of his Ketland-McCormicks winked like brass eyes in a hot sun.
“Lay a hand on those wagons and you’ll lose a commission, Perea.”
Perea’s face went taut; he turned to call to a corporal by the customhouse door. “Cabo, gather a squad—”
Ryker lunged forward and grabbed his arm, trying to whirl him back. Eyes bright with anger, Perea shoved him away and tore free. It pushed Ryker stumbling against the wagon bed. He recovered and started to pull a gun. Perea saw his hand dip down and whipped out his saber. Cimarron Saunders lunged at Perea.
The captain made a half-turn away from Cimarron and thrust out his boot. The red-bearded man couldn’t stop himself in time, tripped over the boot, and sprawled on his face. Perea was already whirling back toward Ryker.
He had his saber out and he didn’t even have to move toward Ryker. It had all happened in an instant and the tip of his extended sword punched Ryker in the stomach a split-second before Ryker got his guns free. Ryker stopped all movement, gripping the butts of his useless pistols with their muzzles still thrust through his belt. Cimarron Saunders picked himself off the ground, eyes tiny as a pig’s with humiliation.
Perea,” Captain Uvalde said, “you are acting like a fool.”
Perea ignored him. The corporal had already gathered half a dozen dragoons and was converging on the scene. “Cabo,” Perea said, “put a guard on this man. Then I want these wagons searched. We’re looking for crated Yager rifles. If you don’t find any in the cargo, look for false bottoms in the beds. Find those guns if you have to rip every wagon to pieces!”
A pair of dragoons loaded their carbines and took their places by Ryker and the others. Perea let his saber drop and trotted with the other dragoons to the first wagon. They clambered into the dusky beds and began throwing out bolts of calico, ripping into crated hardware, prying open boxes of nails and barrels of dried fruit. Teresa saw that Ryker’s face was dead white with rage.
Ryker saw Teresa and started walking toward her. “What about the wagons?” she asked.
“So I had twenty-three,” he said. “I emptied eight and put the cargo in the other wagons. Every trader’s doing it. This new tax of five hundred dollars a wagon will break us.”
“And the guns? I want the truth, Ryker.”
He moved closer, speaking in a low, vicious tone. “All right. I’ll tell you the truth. Perea’s been nosing around too much. That’s the truth. If you don’t stop him, he’s liable to uncover something that turns this whole town upside down, and you with it.”
“You aren’t that big,” she said.
“It isn’t what I’d do. It’s just what will happen. The only way you can stop it is to stop Perea—now!”
In his coal-black eyes she saw the man’s adamant refusal to explain further about the guns. She knew he was a man who did not throw his weight about idly. There must be some truth in the danger he hinted at. If it went as deep as he implied, it went to the Palace. The truth would be easier to get from Amado. If he didn’t have it, she could always come back to Ryker. In the meantime—she had woven too careful a fabric to have it ripped wide by Perea’s hotheadedness.
She gave Ryker a last glance, then walked down the line of wagons to Perea. She called him aside. “You must stop this, Hilario. Ryker’s too important a man to antagonize over a few hundred dollars.”
“But the guns—”
“I have them.”
His face turned blank with surprise. She smiled, wisely.
“Do you think something so big would be hidden to me? Pablo reported it yesterday. Ryker wanted to smuggle the guns down the Chihuahua Trail without duty. We overtook them north of Albuquerque. He’ll pay his duty.”
“It goes deeper than a few smuggled guns, Teresa. Something is going on. You can feel it at the Palace. Something is wrong.”
“Why don’t you come to my sala and tell me what you know? Captain Uvalde can take over.”
She finally convinced him. Leaving Uvalde in charge, he accompanied her home. They went to the familiar private room behind the sala, with its black and white tile floor, its red hangings. She let the mantón slip from her shoulders onto the table, poured him a drink. She asked him what he had found out. He said that in a skirmish with Apaches the week before he had killed three and found that they were using American Hall breechloaders. If somebody was selling guns in any quantity to the Indians it could prove lethal.
“It’s the sort of thing that fits Ryker,” Perea said. “We know he made his fortune smuggling furs.”
“You have proof?”
“You told me what happened to Kelly Morgan. How else could Ryker have gotten so big? None of the other traders are half as rich. And Amado let him get away with it.”
“Amado had nothing to do with it,” Teresa said angrily.
“He must,” Perea said. His face grew red and he spoke sharply. “The customs inspector at Taos claims Ryker doesn’t pay duty on half the furs he ships out. Everybody knows how close he’s become to Amado—”
She turned her back on him, pacing spitefully across the room. She hated these clashes. No matter how much surface sophistication he acquired, this part of him would always remain untouched—naïve, romantic, idealistic—making him seem forever like a little boy to her.
It was his weakness, and she had used it. Had used his romanticism, his rigid ideas of honor, his intense patriotism, his worship of her—all to blind him to the true state of things. Had used it in self-defense, knowing that he was one of the keystones in the fortress wall she was building. His military duties kept him out of the capital much of the time, scouting the frontiers, doing duty in the outpost garrisons. But even there he could not fail to hear the rumors of discontent, of bribery and graft in Santa Fe. She had known that sooner or later the wool she pulled over his eyes would grow thin.
And now she had lied to him again, about the guns, and would have to perpetuate the lie. Suddenly it gagged her; suddenly she could not do it. Her lips drooped as she turned to him, and the light went out of her eyes.
“Hilario, why do we have to quarrel? You’ve been gone weeks. We can’t fight the minute you get back.”
“It’s the whole thing, Teresa. Something’s changed. I used to think Amado was the right man for our country. I thought you were right to support him. Now I don’t know.” He shook his head helplessly. “If only you didn’t have to be mixed up in it.”
“You know why I do it, Hilario.”
“You wouldn’t have to if—” He stopped, lips parted.
“If what?”
He looked at her a moment, the flesh shining on his sharp cheekbones. He was breathing heavier and it came from him abruptly, blurted out. “If you had a husband.”
She smiled. She didn’t know whether to make it facetious, or to treat it seriously. For the first time, with him, she didn’t know what to say. He saw it, and leaned toward her, face taut with excitement and tension. The words came from him in a rush, breathless and barely coherent.
“Been offered a transfer, Teresa…Mexico City. You’d never have to be afraid again. Most beautiful city in the world. Never have to play politics. A baile every night. My family place. A castle. Live like a queen, Teresa. You have no conception.”
He broke off, breathing heavily, something almost startled in his face, as if just realizing what he’d said. Her eyes were shadowed, sober.
“I always wondered about you, Hilario.”
He came to her, took her hands in his. She could feel the tremor run through him. “It wouldn’t be different as my wife. You’d have the same devotion. Only it would be a million times greater. Believe me, Teresa.”
She wanted to cry. She freed her hands, turning from him, pacing to the table. She wanted to cry and she wanted to laugh. It was so ironic, so bitterly ironic. What he was offering was beautiful and sincere and honest. Yet all of it was like ashes in her mouth.
“I would be betraying you, Hilario. I’ve done that in a hundred little ways, before. But I couldn’t do it this way.”
His steps sounded dragging as they came up behind her. His voice trembled a little. “You couldn’t learn to love me?”
She looked around the room. She had created a world of her own here—no matter what the price—had found a fierce sort of individuality. She could not sacrifice that. She could not gamble with her emotions again. She remembered the last time she had married without love—the pain it had brought, the misery. And this time the pain would be Hilario’s too. She could not do it to him.
“Hilario…I’ll always think of you as the best friend I ever had. Someone so wonderful happens to a woman only once in her life.”
It was a long time before he answered. His voice sounded heavy, tired. “Perhaps I knew it would be that way. Perhaps it’s why I never spoke before.”
His saber tinkled softly as he turned and went to the door. Without turning, she said, “I’ll miss you.”
He opened the door. “I’m not going to Mexico City.”
* * * *
She followed him out in a few moments. She reached the main sala in time to see his slim swordsman’s figure go out the door. She walked through the gathering evening crowd. The Navajo doorman held the portal open for her and she watched Perea go down San Francisco Street toward the plaza. He passed Burro Alley. In a moment a man stepped from the dark shadows of the alley. Teresa recognized the tall, lean figure of Vic Jares. He followed Perea toward the crowded plaza, idly cutting a chaw from his plug tobacco.
A dark apprehension ran through Teresa. She realized she had not gotten Perea’s promise to stop snooping. And she remembered Ryker’s warning.
Teresa walked moodily back into the gambling hall. She had come out here mainly to check things, as was her habit at the beginning of an evening. But she was too worried about Perea to concentrate on the tables. As she walked through the thin crowd, acknowledging greetings with a nod, one of her lookouts moved in beside her.
“Escudero asks for credit again,” he said.
“Give it to him.”
“But he can sign nothing for it. You have the deed to his house.”
“He’s Biscara’s man in the Assembly, isn’t he?” she asked. Her green eyes turned smoky. “The deeper in debt he gets the more power we have over him. Remember that, Pio.”
He shook his head and went back to his high stool. As she passed through the room, she saw Kelly Morgan standing at the bar. He had been hidden by the crowd when she followed Perea out.
It was the first time she’d seen him since the spring of 1838—over a year ago—when he’d come to her sala to take the money from Ryker at the point of a knife. She knew Kelly had spent the winter in Taos, waiting to see if Ryker would press the charges in Santa Fe. This spring he’d probably been up in the mountains, working the traplines till the beaver began to molt. Most of the trappers returned to Taos or Santa Fe during the summer, waiting till fall when the furs would become prime again. Kelly leaned with his back against the bar, elbows hooked over it, an indolent grin etching a million fine lines in his mahogany-burnt face.
“Maybe I can buy you a drink,” he said.
For a moment she was reluctant. On the surface he seemed to be a crude and elemental man. Yet behind that grin she sensed a shrewd mind, a self-containment, an earthy wisdom that went to the very roots of life. Then her reluctance made her angry. Was she afraid of him? Taffeta hissed across her hips as she moved to the bar. His grin broadened.
“Brandy?”
“Tequila.”
“Lemon?”
“Salt.”
Fencing. Always fencing. A sense of walking along a very narrow wall with a dizzying drop on either side and God knows what at the bottom.
“Hitched up with a Crow squaw this spring,” he said.
“Your seventh?”
He chuckled. There was a heat to him, a wild animal smell of pinesmoke and sage and pungent dust blown across vast distances.
“Mighty prime Yankee gals with the wagon train.”
“Buy them a drink.”
“Ain’t mean enough. I like my women ornery.”
“Thank you, señor.”
“Green-eyed too.” He leaned toward her, till their faces almost touched. “Green as hell.”
Others were watching, puzzled, smiling. They had seen this duel before. It was becoming almost a tradition in Santa Fe. In a husky voice, Kelly said:
“Table’s privater.”
She thought of Perea. She smiled indolently. “And more intimate.”
He raised his yellow brows. Then he took up both drinks and walked across the room to the small round table in the most distant corner. She followed. He hitched a chair around beside her and sprawled into it. He put his elbows on the table and leaned forward till he was looking into her eyes again. His grin was devilish.
“Back room’s even privater.”
“This will do.”
“I thought my time had come.”
“In a hundred years, Kelly.”
He leaned back, looking at her from slitted eyes. “You can’t wait that long.”
She picked up her glass. He picked up his. They clinked them together.
“To my impatience,” she said. He laughed, emptied the tequila at a single gulp, squinted, made a sound like steam escaping. She took a sip, murmured, “What do you think of Captain Perea?”
“One o’ the true girt.”
“If he was in trouble, would you help him?”
“Quick as I’d help Tico Velez.”
“He’s in trouble.”
His eyes opened wide, gazing at her. “What kind?”
“Ryker.”
“What’s Ryker got against Perea?”
“I don’t know. But Perea needs help, Kelly.”
“He can take care of himself.”
“Not against men like Vic Jares, Cimarron Saunders. He doesn’t know how they work. He doesn’t know how to fight dirty.”
Kelly made a disgusted sound. He shoved his chair back and stood up. He seemed to scrape the ceiling, he looked so tall.
“Damn you, Teresa. I told you I wouldn’t git mixed up in your dirty politics. I mean it.”