THE THREE infantrymen came from the dim interior of the Cantina el Pescador. They halted on the street and stood blinking in the bright sunlight.
The fat man, Seplow, belched loudly. “A gallon of beer sure makes a man feel good,” he said.
“It doesn’t help much against this damn Mexican sun,” said Sickels, raising his hand to shade his eyes. “Let’s cross over and walk on the shady side of the street.”
The third soldier wiped the back of a hand across his coarse lips. His head was long and horselike, and set on thick shoulders. His bleached blue eyes were sullen and bored as they ranged up and down the street.
“I need me a woman or a good fight,” growled the man.
“There’s a sight of difference between fighting and loving,” Sickels said.
Seplow laughed deep in his fat chest. “Sickels, you haven’t seen how Langrell treats his women.” He looked at Langrell. “What kind of woman will it be? White or brown?”
Langrell reached into a pocket and brought out some silver and copper coins. He counted them on the palm of his hand and shoved it all back into his pants pocket. “Looks like it’ll have to be a brown skinned gal this time,” he said.
“Then away we go up to the hilltop, where the cheap whorehouses are,” said the fat man.
The three soldiers stepped into the street and wound a course through the columns of wagons. Langrell stopped abruptly as they drew near the opposite sidewalk.
“Damn it all to hell,” cursed Langrell. “I stepped in horse shit. I can’t make love with stinking horse dung on my boots.” He raised his boot to show his comrades.
“Well, now, I expect you could if you wanted to pay an extra two bits.” Seplow chuckled.
Langrell glowered at Seplow. “Don’t laugh at me or I’ll mess up your mug.”
Seplow’s smile faded. “Hell, don’t be so testy,” he said in a mollifying tone.
Sickels pointed at a wheelwright and his helper, working on an army wagon. “There’s a kid with some rags in his pocket. Get him to clean your boots.”
A short, square built man and a youth in badly soiled clothing with grease smudges on his face labored at the rear of a loaded wagon. A corner of the vehicle was jacked up, the axle supported on a square of timber. The man held a heavy, iron rimmed wheel ready as his young apprentice smeared grease from a tin can on the axle. A wad of cotton cloth hung from one of his back pockets.
As the three soldiers watched, the wheelwright hoisted the six foot wheel and impaled the hub on the axle. The locking burr was made fast to hold the wheel in place. The man moved to throw his weight on the end of a long pry pole and raised the bed of the wagon slightly. The boy kicked the block of wood aside. The wagon was lowered to the ground.
Langrell stalked forward. He called out, “Hey, kid, bring some of those rags and wipe my boots. I’ll give you two pennies.”
The youth glanced quickly at the wheelwright. The man shook his head in the negative and motioned for the boy to gather up the tools.
“Fellow, tell your boy to wipe my boots,” Langrell called again, his tone turning surly. He continued to advance, his feet tramping hard on the ground. “I’ll raise my price to three cents. That’s a fair price.”
“I’m teaching him to handle iron and wood and be a wheelwright, not a bootblack,” replied the wheelwright, facing the soldiers more directly. He looked at Langrell’s boots and continued speaking in a mild voice. “You can use a piece of rag to clean your boots if you want. Les, give the man a strip.”
“The hell with that,” barked Langrell, his eyes narrowing like those of a sniper with a target in view. “You civilian contractors think you are better than us soldiers. You follow the army around and get paid ten times what we do. We do the fighting and you get rich.”
The short man cast a calculating look at the soldiers. “Well, maybe you fellows have done some fighting,” he said with a doubtful expression, “but I’ve got work to do and must be going.” He gestured at the boy to gather the tools.
Langrell’s face reddened as he understood the implied slur in the wheelwright’s words. His voice stabbed out. “I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. Tell the boy to clean my boots or I’ll kick the hell out of you and then wipe my boots all over him.”
A fearful expression washed over the face of the slightly built youth, and he backed away nervously.
The wheelwright’s jaw was ridged beneath sun browned skin. His calloused, work hardened hands folded into bony hammers. “That might take some hard doing, soldier boy,” he said.
Langrell stepped forward and reached out for the boy. The wheelwright moved swiftly to intercept the man.
Langrell’s long arms, which had been stretching to catch the boy, suddenly shifted direction. A hard fist lashed out to slam the wheelwright on the side of the head. The smaller man staggered and fell to his knees.
The soldier drew back his leg and kicked at the dazed man. The wheelwright, speedily recovering, rolled to the side, avoiding the blow. He sprang instantly erect.
The wheelwright shook his head once, then, with astounding swiftness and strength, bore in from the side. His arms pumped as his fist pummeled the big soldier. Two blows thudded into the man’s ribs, then a flurry smacked against the long horse face.
Langrell reeled away from the punishing blows. Blood gushed from his broken nose and cut lips. “Help me!” he bellowed at his cohorts.
Seplow and Sickels leaped to aid Langrell. The wheelwright pivoted and sprang to meet them. He crashed into Sickels, caught him over a shoulder, heaved mightily upward, and flipped him behind to land on the ground with a bone jarring thump.
Before the wheelwright could turn, Seplow lunged in and clasped him around the chest in a powerful embrace. The wheelwright began to struggle to break free, his muscles straining and bulging.
“Hurry and help me, you bastards,” yelled Seplow. “He’s strong as an ox.”
Sickels scrambled to his feet, rushed in, and struck the wheelwright a brutal lick over the heart. Then immediately another savage wallop in the same spot.
Langrell bounded forward. “You son of a bitch, I’ll gouge out your eyes,” he roared at the wheelwright.
The slender youth dashed in front of Langrell. His hands were thrust out as if he could ward off the big soldier. “No, don’t,” he cried in a scared, high pitched voice. “Leave him alone. I’ll wipe your boots clean.”
“Too late,” snapped Langrell. He slapped the youth left and right on the face, then, with a harder blow, boxed him aside, and he fell on the hard earth.
With a pleased, grim gleam in his eyes, Langrell marched upon the struggling wheelwright, now held pinioned between Seplow and Sickels.
* * *
Cavillin walked down the gentle slope of the street past the lines of wagons. His heart was pounding pleasantly in remembrance of the beautiful blonde woman. A man should see such a pleasurable sight every day. It was doubly satisfying in a land so far from home.
Ahead of Tom, some soldiers and a few civilians left the shade near the buildings and began to congregate around men fighting near the wagons. Tom heard curses and shouts from the combatants, and dust puffed up from under their stomping boots.
He drew closer and saw that three men were in soldier’s uniforms. The other two fellows were dressed as civilians. One was small, not yet a man.
As Cavillin watched, the boy sprang in to halt the attack of one of the soldiers upon the older civilian, held tightly and powerless to defend himself. The youth shouted out something about cleaning boots. The soldier hit him several times.
The fight was damn uneven. Tom wondered why none of the surrounding circle of men were trying to stop it.
Tom did not consciously decide to enter the lopsided brawl. His blood began to cascade through his veins, hot and swift. He found himself moving in long strides. A soldier was shoved out of the way. Tom heard him cursing behind. Then Tom was grabbing for the man who had hit the boy.
He clamped hold of a handful of long hair and yanked backward. The soldier whirled partway around as he was propelled to the rear. His fist began to swing a haymaker at his new opponent.
Cavillin punched the man in the face, a vicious blow. He felt a wonderfully satisfying vibration run up his arm as the blow landed. Maintaining his hold on the hair, Tom again bashed the man solidly with his fist.
The soldier’s eyes closed. Cavillin released the hair, stepped back a short distance, and knocked the soldier flat on the ground. Quicker than Seplow and Sickles could release the wheelwright and defend themselves, Cavillin was upon them. Seplow was closer, and Tom battered him ruthlessly, first the face, then his body, and back to his face when Seplow dropped his guard. The soldier collapsed.
Tom spun around to meet the attack he expected from the third soldier. The man was retreating, backing away from the civilian, who was pounding him unmercifully with hard, rapid blows.
Cavillin went to kneel beside the boy. “Are you all right?” he asked as he caught the boy by the shoulders and sat him up.
The youth wiped at the blood trickling from his lips and mixing with the grease smears on his chin. “Yes,” he replied in a husky voice.
Tom released the youth and reared back on his haunches. Beneath the grease smudges, the tanned face of the young person was extremely smooth and without a sign of a beard.
The thick brown hair was cut quite short and lay close to the scalp, like a fine, luxurious pelt of a prime high mountain otter.
He recalled the feel of the youth’s shoulders in his hands. Though firmly muscled from work on the wagons, those shoulders had been slenderly built and without the bone mass and muscle hardness a young man would have under similar labor.
Deep within his male being, Tom felt his instinct telling him without a doubt, that a girl—more, a young woman— sat before him.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said softly. The smears of grease were deliberate. So, too, was the short haircut and stained, baggy clothing that camouflaged the femaleness of her in this dangerous, war-torn land.
She climbed to her feet, backed away from Cavillin’s intense examination, and looked past him.
Tom twisted to glance in the same direction. The wheelwright stood close on his side. He studied Tom as if trying to read his thoughts.
“The boy does not appear to be hurt much,” Cavillin said.
The worry lines lessened in the wheelwright’s face. Apparently the man had not recognized Les’s true sex. “Thank you for helping me. They had me a little outnumbered.”
“So I noticed.” Tom held out his hand. “I am Lieutenant Thomas Cavillin of the Texas Rangers.” He knew he would never have introduced himself with so much detail if it had not been for the girl standing wide-eyed and watching so interestedly. Tom laughed silently at himself for his behavior.
“Carl Hampton.” The man shook his hand with a viselike grip. “This is my son, Les.”
“Hello,” said Tom, and extended his hand.
The girl hesitated and then gave her own.
Cavillin pressed the small, firm hand. “I’m pleased to know you,” he said.
“Thank you for your help,” she replied. “Those mean men would have hurt my father.” She withdrew her fingers from Tom’s grasp.
“Glad to be of assistance.” Tom smiled at her.
Les stepped back, her hand rose, and the ends of her fingers touched the short hair on the side of her head. Such a natural feminine gesture, thought Tom. How could anyone misinterpret the lightly chiseled features of the young woman, even under the dark stains of grease, as that of a male? Looking closely, he could see where the mounds of her young breasts pressed against the shirtfront.
Tom swung his sight to Hampton. “You are a contractor for the army?” he asked.
“Yes. I signed a one year contract to keep the wagons rolling. The army shipped my wagon, forge, tools, and me and Les from New Orleans. My contract ends in January. The war has taken longer than I thought it would. I may extend for two or three more months.”
“The Mexican army is beaten, but there are still considerable guerrilla forces to whip,” Cavillin said. “There are many thousands of pounds of supplies to transport to Mexico City, and then all the armaments and injured soldiers to bring back to Vera Cruz to return to the States. Hundreds of wagons will be needed.”
“We’ll go inland with the wagon train,” said Hampton. He stared along the columns of vehicles on the street. “That’s where I’ll be needed. And also, I don’t want to leave Mexico without seeing Mexico City.”
“Where do you plan to go after the war?” questioned Cavillin.
“We’ll probably go back to New Orleans. However, since I’ve been here I’ve heard a lot about Texas. You being from there, tell me about it. Is the country as rich and growing as fast as people say?”
“It’s truly filling up with people coming from the East. There must be a quarter of a million there now. Once the Mexicans are beaten and the threat of them marching back north is ended, Texas will grow even more rapidly. A skilled wheelwright would find plenty of work. Any of the larger towns should be a good place to start a business.”
Seplow groaned, mumbled a few curses, and sat up. Half conscious, he stared around.
“Hampton, it may be best if you and Les leave now,” Cavillin said. “I’ll stay here a little while, and when these fellows come all the way to their senses, I’ll have a little talk with them. After that I believe they’ll leave you alone if they run into you again.”
“I greatly appreciate that,” replied Hampton. “Les, let’s be on our way.” He spoke to Cavillin. “Are you going inland with the wagon train?”
“Yes.”
“Then we might see you again.”
“Perhaps so.” Cavillin watched after them as they loaded their tools into a light wagon, clucked the team of horses into motion, and went off on one of the side streets.
Tom saw the girl look back at him as the wagon turned the corner. He felt again the pleasant increase in tempo of his heart from a woman’s direct, interested gaze. A grease smudged face crowded the blond woman’s memory for space in his mind.