It was the night of August 17th. The plaza was empty, a yellow lake bordered by the broken black shadows of the surrounding buildings. The streets were empty, spreading out from the square like the crooked spokes of a wheel, losing identity as they twisted and turned into the blank mud walls of the houses.
For the people had been told that the Army of the West had passed Las Vegas and was marching on the capital. The people had been told that the Americans would brand them on the cheek like cattle, rape their women, kill their babies, turn their men into slavery. And those who had not fled to the mountains huddled in their darkened hovels, shivering and saying their Ave Marias and waiting to hear whether they were conquerors or the conquered.
Kelly Morgan moved like a shadow through the willows of the river. Only his long years in the wilderness had enabled him to get past the countless Mexican patrols in the mountains rimming Santa Fe.
Kearny had known what was involved. He’d made it plain that the choice was completely up to Kelly. He’d said a man had maybe a fifty-fifty chance of getting through. That was stretching it. But it didn’t matter. Kelly knew what was involved too. A hundred to one chance—he’d still have come. After what O’Brien said about Teresa they couldn’t have stopped him.
Kelly had hoped she would see the light on this one, had hoped she would realize she wasn’t big enough to stop the whole damn U.S.A. But apparently she was still trying to juggle everything on her head. Only this time it was too big for her. The thing was going to blow up in her face. And it wouldn’t come when the Army of the West marched into Santa Fe. It would come a long time before that, according to O’Brien, and Teresa would be caught right in the middle of the whole explosion.
Kelly thought of Biscara and Ryker and Gomez and Amado and Uvalde and a dozen others she had used and twisted and dangled on a string all these years—any one of them capable of killing her if she made a single false step in this last big tightrope walk. And he prayed to a God he’d never known that he wasn’t too late.
Moving like a rat against the walls, he made his way to San Francisco Street. At the corner of the Arballo house he stopped, looking down toward the plaza. It was empty, save for the shadowy movement of sentries under the portal of the Palace.
At last he took the chance and crossed San Francisco, ducking into the blackness of Burro Alley. He ran down to the familiar door, knocking on it. Anticipation was an ache in him now. He wanted the sight of her so bad it hurt.
The door was opened a crack; there was a gasp, and it was pulled wider, to reveal Pepita, one fat hand to her gaping mouth in shock.
“I want to see Teresa.”
Pepita gulped, blinked, shook her head wildly. “Señor Kelly, we think you’re dead—”
“Teresa!”
“Señor—she is at the Palace.” Fear contorted her face. She clutched his arm. “Something bad is happening. Get her out of it, señor, please!”
He couldn’t move for a moment. Then he turned and started to run. It had begun already. He knew it as sure as he knew his name. This was her last big gate card and she’d started to turn it already and God damn him to an eternal hell if he was too late.
* * * *
The guards at the Palace door were expecting Teresa and they passed her through without comment. The Assembly chamber was ominously dark and quiet but she saw that there was a light in the governor’s quarters.
Innocent admitted her, fawning and grinning like a jackanapes.
“The crows fly before the wind, señorita. The short man and the fool are seen from afar.”
She did not answer him tonight. Her mind was too filled with the bitter thought of Perea. Innocent frowned, rubbed a thumb over his bulbous nose, and led her to Amado. The governor had already sent his wife to Albuquerque and was alone in the bedchamber. Here was the bed Santa Anna had sent him, a thing of glittering brass whorls and embossed brass posts upholding a complicated canopy crowned with an elaborate brass floral piece. It was a thing of blinding elegance in the mud-walled room, almost overwhelming the governor himself. He had been pacing agitatedly, but he stopped when he saw her look at the bed. He made a feeble attempt at a chuckle.
“What blood pressure it would give my wife to know you were in this room tonight.”
She made no attempt to answer. Her eyes swung across the ornate walnut wardrobe, the claw-legged table, the red plush sofa—all trying so pompously to be regal and splendid, and achieving nothing but tawdriness. She looked at Amado. An oily sweat gleamed in the folds of his multiple chins and dampened his shirt till it clung like paste to the gross bulge of his belly. His lips were slack now, petulant as a child’s; his little eyes were barely visible behind the veined dissolution of their pouched lids. It was as if she saw him for the first time. Why hadn’t she seen him like this before, as a man, instead of a mere tool to gain her ends? She had used his selfishness, his ego, his cruelty, his greed all for her own purposes, without really knowing what they were, what they meant, beyond what they could do for her.
“What is it?”
He was staring at her. She shook her head. “Nothing.”
He frowned, breathing in shallow puffs: “I suppose it’s this afternoon. Perea’s death hit us both hard, Teresa. He was the finest. Pues”—he shrugged—”he died with a gun in his hand. What soldier asks more? And you.” He turned to her. “I owe a million thanks. Running across the plaza under their very guns. Risking your life for me.”
“For you?”
He locked his hands behind him, pacing ponderously across the room. The movement made him wheeze softly.
“We have to decide tonight, Teresa. The Americans will be at Apache Pass tomorrow.” He stopped beside the bed, toeing a heavy black satchel. “I suppose you know how much O’Brien offered me to capitulate. I don’t know whether it came from the traders here in town or the American government. Either way, it is a tempting offer.”
What kind o’ freedom’s this?
Kelly’s voice, out of the past, almost as if he were in this room, beside Teresa, speaking.
Men got you under their thumbs just the same…. Got to lie and cheat and steal and hurt somebody no matter which way you turn.
She looked at her hands. An hour ago they had been dark with Perea’s blood. He had represented everything that was fine and loyal and honorable in her people. And her hands had been dark with his blood.
“Fifty thousand dollars would give a man a fine start somewhere else,” Amado said. “Chihuahua, Vera Cruz, any of the departments could use a governor with my talents—and that kind of fortune.”
Amado’s your own monster. He wouldn’t o’ been nothin’ without you. I don’t know nothin’ about politics, but I kin see what you done to this town.
“On the other hand,” Amado said, “I could cut the Americans to pieces in the pass if my militia was armed.” He glanced at the case again, chuckling slyly. “It would be even better to be governor here, with fifty thousand dollars.”
All because you’re afraid. This whole twisted goddamn thing you’ve built—all because you’re afraid. You could own the whole town. You’d still be trapped.
“Were you able to get any guns?”
Kelly had been right. She had struggled to escape one subjection only to become enslaved by another—the subjection of lies and cheating, conspiracy and plot. And fear. Her fear had perpetuated Amado. And to perpetuate him she had killed Villapando, and Perea.
If only she had gone with Kelly when he first asked, if she had refused to lure Villapando for them, if she hadn’t asked Perea to save Amado from Biscara….
“Teresa.”
“What?”
“I said could you find any guns?”
In that moment all the last years seemed to sweep against her, gagging her with the knowledge of what would happen if she stopped fighting now. Then she looked at her hands again. What a travesty that it should take Perea’s death to make her see the truth. It was like a debt that she had to pay, to him, to Villapando, to Kelly, to all those who had ever suffered by her fear.
“No,” she said. “There are no guns.”
Amado’s sensual lips compressed and his chin sank against his neck, creating half a dozen fat furrows. He was but a foot from her now, watching her closely.
“And if I capitulate,” he said. “What of you?”
In his face she could see some of the sly lechery that had always seemed to characterize their relationship. But now there was something more, a shine to his eyes, a beaded moisture on his upper lip, hinting at the real needs he had always hidden behind that mask. She had sensed those needs before, had felt that the lechery and the buffoonery were merely a defense mechanism. As long as he made a sly joke of it her rejection couldn’t hurt him. But underneath it wasn’t a joke.
And now she had to use it.
She lowered her eyes. “I suppose I’ll be finished, Nicolas.”
“You don’t have to be.” He moved closer. He reeked of pomade and cigar smoke and sweat. “Instead of the end, Teresa, it could be the beginning. You always said it. We rose together. We could do it again. The governor of Chihuahua is in disfavor with Mexico City. The army is disaffected. A grito, a pronunciamiento, and we could be in again.”
She bit her lip. This would be the hardest part. This last act, this last lie.
He clutched her arms, breathing heavily. “More than just partners, Teresa. You know how little my wife and I have left. You know how I’ve always wanted it, with you. If I thought you would go with me, that way, I would abdicate tonight.”
Her lower lip began to tremble. She didn’t try to stop it. She looked up into his face and she felt a feverish flush run into her cheek. It made a convincing picture.
“Nicolas,” she breathed. “Why did I fight you so long?”
“Alma de mi vida!”
With a gusty sound he came to her, took her in his arms. She permitted it. He smelled of sweat and perfume and sour chile and punche, and being held against the perspiring blubber of his belly was like being pressed into the softness of a hog, a eunuch. She let him kiss her and she cursed him and began to cry because this was the last role she had to play, this thing of disgust and revulsion and strange pity for a man who was at once ridiculous and frightening, a buffoon and a tyrant, a giant and a little boy, a man she had sometimes admired, sometimes feared, and often hated. He thought the curse was passion and the crying for him.
“Teresa, I never guessed, you always seemed against me, how could you hide so much feeling for me?”
A hysterical little laugh ran through her sobbing. “Because it’s over now, Nicolas. I can show you what I really feel, no more hiding, no more being afraid, no more acting, just what I really feel. I’m thinking of a man I hated and loved all at once, a man I never really understood, a man who told me many things that I didn’t believe, but now I know, now I know—”
“Of course you do. We’ll go south together. You and I—”
He tried to kiss her again but she pushed him away, her face all twisted and wet with tears. “You’ve got to go now, while there is still time.”
“But you—”
“Someone has to stay behind to make explanations. If they find out you’re gone there are some who might follow. You know Gomez is still alive.”
He held her by the arms, frowning. But lust blotted out suspicion. He wanted to believe, for ten years he had wanted to believe. And now, at last, he had broken her resistance. She had come to him. His ego would support no other answer. She could see it all in his face. He had read passion for him in her hysteria. He accepted it as naïvely as a schoolboy, flushed and trembling with the victory of first conquest.
“I’ll tell the dragoons you’ve gone ahead to Apache Pass,” she said. “You’ll have a whole night’s head start. I’ll meet you at Lemitar tomorrow.”
“You’re right,” he said. “Always right. What would I do without you? Innocent!”
His call brought the half-wit scurrying from the other room. Together they threw clothes into a bag, took the satchel with the money. Teresa followed to a rear door. Here Amado took her in his arms again. She began to cry. The shock of Perea’s death and the intense strain of this grotesque sham had left her little control over her emotions. He covered her wet face with kisses.
“It’s all right, querida. We won’t be parted for long. A few hours, a day, and then the world.”
“Go on, Nicolas. Please. You haven’t a moment to lose.”
She sagged against the door frame, watching them scurry through the empty courtyard. A coach had been waiting at the stables and all Amado had to do was climb in. The sentry at the zaguán did not challenge. He undoubtedly thought the governor was going to Apache Pass.
She stood emptily in the open door, the storm of emotion gone. It was all over now. They were all gone. Perea, Biscara, Amado—all the men who could have held the town together. There was no one left strong enough to meet the Americans. They would have Santa Fe tomorrow.
She knew what she had lost. The whole intricate structure she had built would topple, and she with it. But perhaps, in her loss, the town gained. Perhaps all the greed and the misrule and the corruption that had fed on her conspiracies would be gone too. On their wreckage the Americans could build something better for the people.
Then something new crept through her. A sort of giddiness. And she knew what it was. Whatever lay ahead, she had cut her last bonds. There was no fear in her. She was surprised at that. No fear of the future, of men, of anything. Maybe later it would be different. Maybe the fear would come again, the bitterness, the regret. But now she knew Kelly had been right, right about everything. That’s what he had meant, when you were really free. Like flying with the eagles.
* * * *
Kelly Morgan stood in the black shadows under the portal of the Arballo house, on the corner of the plaza. He had stood here for precious moments, waiting for the break that would allow him to cross the square to the wall surrounding the Palace. But he was stalemated by the sentries pacing in front of the Palace. He knew what it would mean, an American, to be seen by them, in this town tonight. He had thought of circling back through the streets to the Arroyo Mascaras and coming on the Palace from behind. But that would take too long. The pattern of things was like a pressure against him, building up till he thought it would burst.
There was a creak of the zaguán gate in the wall surrounding the compound at the rear of the Palace. The gate swung open and a black coach clattered out, pulled by four snorting bays. The horses broke into a gallop toward the square, the coach rocking and tilting. Kelly saw his chance. The coach would hide him momentarily from the Palace. As it entered the plaza, drawing the attention of the sentries, he darted down the wall on the west side of the square. Rattling, roaring, pitching, the coach passed in front of him, hiding him from the sentries.
Then it was gone, leaving a silvery cloud of dust that didn’t settle between Kelly and the sentries till he had reached the corner of the Palace. He flattened himself against the wall, around the corner from the soldiers, panting.
As the coach disappeared southward, down Galisteo, a line of wagons rolled slowly into the square from Palace Avenue. There were a dozen of them, with barefooted Indian drivers pacing beside the mules. Two mounted men were in the lead. Kelly recognized John Ryker and Cimarron Saunders. Ryker halted his horse by the Palace portal, dismounted, and said something to the sentries.
Kelly didn’t have time to wait, to piece it together. Still driven by the fear he had seen in Pepita’s face, he moved like a rat down the wall, passing the zaguán. He knew the place where woodsheds backed up against the wall, at the rear. He found it and clawed his way onto the roof; from here he reached the top of the wall, bellying over, dropping down inside.
Most of the troops were at Apache Pass, but a few dragoons still guarded the Palace. He slipped through the dark maze of servants’ quarters, officers’ houses, stables and barracks. He huddled against the wall as a woman crossed the patio, carrying washing; he dodged from there to an alley between two adobes as an officer stepped from his door to light a pipe, look at the moon, and move back inside. There was only twenty feet of open compound between Kelly and the Palace. Heart thudding, he started across it.
* * * *
Teresa had remained at Amado’s bedroom door long enough to make sure he left the compound. She had heard the call of the sentry at the zaguán gate, the rattle of the coach as it passed out. Now she seemed drained of emotion, of will. She walked listlessly through the room with its brazen bed, through the outer chamber, to the Assembly hall door. It was completely dark in the hall, save for the feeble stripes of moonlight that came through the narrow windows. She was one step into the long room when the door at the opposite end opened. Candlelight bloomed across the floor. She saw that it was a sentry carrying a tin sconce in one hand, a carbine in the other. Behind him came John Ryker and Cimarron Saunders.
The dragoon crossed the room, peering at her. “Señor Ryker seeks audience with the governor.”
Ryker came toward her. She tried to block his way. The strained look in her face made him suspicious and he caught her arms, swinging her out of the way, stepping into the open door of the executive chamber. He crossed that to look into the bedroom. Teresa glanced after him, then started toward the entrance of the Assembly room. Saunders blocked her way.
“I’ve got to get back to my sala,” she said.
He pulled a pistol. “You’ll wait here.”
Ryker came back, frowning. “Where is he?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I came here. He was gone.”
His swarthy cheeks glowed with rising anger. “You’re lying. You’d know if he was in. You wouldn’t come over unless he was here. Where is Amado, Teresa?”
“I don’t know.”
He grabbed her by the shoulders. “You do know!”
The pain of his grip made her cry out. The dragoon started to lower his rifle, stepping toward Ryker.
“Señor—”
He passed in front of Saunders and the red-bearded man whipped his pistol up and brought it viciously against the back of the dragoon’s head. The man fell forward on his face, unconscious. Ryker was shouting in his rage, shaking her.
“Tell me the truth, Teresa. I told you what would happen if you crossed me. I did it to Villapando right here in this room and by God I can do it to you—”
Villapando? Face pale with pain, she stared blankly at him. “You?”
“Don’t play dumb,” he snarled. “You knew who fired that shot.”
“I didn’t, I didn’t—”
“Well, now you do, damn you! You’ll tell me where Amado is, you bitch, you’ll tell me where he is!”
There was the sound of running feet in a corridor outside. Someone called her name. Saunders whirled, then ran for the door. Ryker was too enraged to notice. He was still shaking her and shouting at her.
“All right!” she panted. The pain brought a rage of her own. She didn’t care any longer; she wasn’t afraid and she didn’t care. “Amado’s gone.” She was through lying, through cheating, through compromising with cutthroats and traitors. “He’s abdicating.” Shouting it at him. Talking to him the way she’d wanted to talk to Biscara and Gomez and Uvalde and a hundred others through the years. “You can’t have anything, Ryker. You’ve made your last deal. The Americans are coming and they’ll find out and they’ll hang you for it—”
With an inarticulate curse he flung her from him. She stumbled backward, tripped, fell in a heap against the wall. She saw his face contorted with rage, saw him pull one of his Ketland-McCormicks.
I think I’d kill you myself if you crossed me.
* * * *
Kelly Morgan ran down the corridor outside the Assembly chamber, Walker Colt in one hand, the echo of Teresa’s husky cries still running hollowly through the darkened rooms of the old Palace. He called her name again, wildly, and at the same instant Cimarron Saunders lunged from the door of the Assembly room.
Moonlight in the room behind Saunders silhouetted him. Kelly was in complete blackness. It was the only thing that saved him. They were three feet apart as Saunders lunged into the hall, and they both fired together.
Saunders’s ball passed Kelly so close it took a piece out of his buckskin shirt. Kelly’s slug caught Saunders square in the belly. The huge man coughed and doubled over. Kelly was running too hard to stop himself and went right into Saunders as the man fell. The heavy body tore the gun from Kelly’s hand and spun him around, throwing him heavily against the wall.
He caught himself, as Saunders slid down his legs, and wheeled so that he was looking through the door. He saw Teresa, pulling herself up against the wall. He saw Ryker, a brass-bound pistol in one hand, turned toward him. He saw the complete and terrified surprise in their faces, as moonlight revealed who he was. Then Ryker shouted:
“Kelly—”
And jerked his pistol up to fire.
With a crazed sound, Teresa threw herself at the man. Her whole body lunged against Ryker’s arm, knocking it aside. The gun went off at the floor and the detonation of the shot seemed to rock the Palace. Ryker cursed savagely and flung Teresa aside, pulling his other Ketland-McCormick.
But it had given Kelly time to get his Bowie out. He threw it with such savage force that it struck Ryker like a giant blow, sinking to its hilt in his chest and knocking him backward half a dozen paces till he came up against the wall. He slid down the wall, glassy eyes rolling upward in his face, dead before he reached the floor.
Kelly was already halfway to Teresa. She came into his arms, face taut, dazed. The words came from her in a hysterical, barely coherent stream.
“Kelly…what happened? How did you get here? Kelly…I didn’t know….”
He pulled her hard to him and she buried her face against his chest, still uncomprehending, yet content for that moment to be held in his arms. Her body was trembling in reaction now. He heard shouts outside, the running of other sentries who had heard the shots. He started to drag her toward the door. It was too late. A pair of dragoons burst in, guns leveled. They stopped, gaping at Ryker’s body, at Kelly.
“Ryker tried to kill me,” Teresa said. “This man saved my life.”
One of the troopers recognized Kelly. “But he’s the Texan.”
She nodded. “And in my custody.”
“The governor will have to confirm it, señorita.”
Kelly saw a little muscle twitch in her cheek. She was fighting for composure, still struggling against the shock of seeing him here. But she carried it off like a queen.
“Amado has left for Apache Canyon. In the meantime you’ll take my orders. There’s a wagon train outside. Bring the wagons into the courtyard. No one is to touch them till Amado returns.”
The men hesitated. But for years this woman’s word had been law in the town; they had been subject to her dictates, directly or indirectly, for almost a decade, and it hardly occurred to them to question now.
Teresa looked at Ryker. “Take care of his body, and the one in the hall. I’m taking Morgan to my sala.”
The soldiers stepped aside. Teresa took Kelly’s arm. Her hand squeezed tight and he could feel her still trembling. Chin high, lips compressed, she walked out of the room at his side.
* * * *
The Army of the West arrived in Santa Fe at six o’clock in the evening of August 18, 1846. They had met no resistance in Apache Pass. News of Amado’s capitulation had broken the morale of the dragoons. With no one to lead them they had deserted the fortifications of the Pass, a great portion of them following Amado south to Albuquerque. The militia, deserted and disorganized, had not even attempted to distribute the arms Ryker had brought.
Kearny and his staff were received in the Palace by the aging lieutenant governor. With sunset turning the clouds to ragged blood-red banners over the Jemez Mountains, the American flag was run up over the ancient building and Kearny’s cannon fired a salute of thirteen guns from the eminence above the town. The detonations shattered glass in the Palace windows and echoed like thunder into the canyons of the Sangre de Cristos.
Teresa and Kelly were a part of the crowd that watched the ceremony. They stood apart, at the edge of the plaza. Kelly had already made his report to Kearny, and the Americans knew how much was due Teresa for this peaceful occupation of Santa Fe. As Kelly and Teresa walked back to her sala he saw the brooding look on her face.
“It won’t be so bad,” he said. “We’re together now. We can leave any time you want.”
She turned sharply to him. “Leave?”
He was surprised. “It’s what you want, isn’t it? You said you were free now. You weren’t afraid any more.”
“Free for what?” Her eyes blazed. “To live like a trapper? An animal? Didn’t we go through this before—?”
“Who’s going to live like that?” he asked hotly. “Don’t you think I can do anything but trap beaver? Don’t you think I had enough time to figure it out down there at Perote? A man’s got to offer a woman more than a trapsack and a—”
He broke off because he could see that she was starting to laugh at him. “Kelly,” she said helplessly, “are we always going to fight?”
He couldn’t stay mad. He began to chuckle. “I guess we are,” he said. She came into his arms and he held her tight. “I wouldn’t want it any other way. Redheaded, green-eyed, soft as a cat…with claws to match.”
THE END
* * * *