The Fallon Legacy, page 46
He had no idea how long it was since Albert and Hill had gone. How much time did he have? He lurched into a stumbling run for the stable. By God, he’d take the best horse there. The best horse. Robert had a bastard son who’d done well—gotten rich, by all accounts—beginning with nothing but a horse somewhere in Mexico. What he could do, Edward surely could. Let them think him dead somewhere; then, when he’d made his fortune … He croaked a laugh, and looking over his shoulder, hurried on to the stable.
Briarwood was a large brick farmhouse set among oaks near the Ashley River, a broad porch across its front. As the party of men turned into the drive, a scream drifted from the house. Heedless of the others, Robert spurred ahead and leaped from the saddle at the foot of the wide brick stairs.
Before he set foot on them, King appeared around the corner of the building. The huge man advanced with a warily outstretched hand. The shoulders of his livery seemed ready to burst. “My master don’t want no visitors,” he said in a guttural voice. Another scream echoed from inside, and King grinned broadly. “He entertaining.”
“Damn you!” Robert pulled one of his pistols, and the big man tensed; but before either could move, Kemal jumped down from his horse, facing King. He motioned Robert to go on. King was an inch the taller, and fully twice as massive.
“You ain’t too little,” King laughed, “but you look too old. Get out my way, granddaddy.” He swung a fist that staggered Kemal, but when he started past the Turk clutched at him, pulled him to the ground.
“Forgive me, old friend,” Robert whispered, and hurried by into the house. He heard Lafitte, Miller, and Graham arriving, but there was no time to waste. Yet another scream rang down the halls, and another, till they filled his heart.
Snarling he went up the stairs, following the screams, blanking from his mind what had to be behind them. A door loomed in front of him. He kicked it open, and there they were. Hammond, naked, rolling off the bed, rolling off Elizabeth. She lay naked and weeping, her wrists tied to the head of the bed, bruises covering her breasts and thighs.
Through his horrified state and the keening scream he knew was his own, he caught a glimpse of movement and dodged as Hammond fired. He felt a solid blow low on the left side, but his answering shot was almost an echo. A blue hole appeared in the center of Hammond’s naked chest. For a moment the man stared incredulously at the blood that began to fan across his stomach, then sank to his knees.
“My blood,” Hammond said. Trickles of it appeared at the corners of his mouth. “I never thought … Damn you, Fallon!” He said the name like a curse. “How do you like your daughter being a whore? You can’t kill all of us. Sooner or later—”
The muzzle of Robert’s second pistol slammed his words back into his mouth along with broken teeth. Robert pulled the trigger caressingly. Hammond’s eyes had a second to bulge before his lifeless body was thrown sprawling on its back.
Graham had already cut Elizabeth free when Robert turned back—Miller had his eyes discreetly averted—and was wrapping a blanket around her. She pushed away from him, shuddering and sobbing. “Get away from me! Don’t touch me! Don’t look at me! Leave me alone!”
Robert started toward her, but Miller grabbed his arm. “No, Captain,” he whispered.
Graham’s face worked furiously as he stared at Elizabeth, huddled in the blanket with her back to him. “Lass,” he said quietly. “Elizabeth, I love you.”
“You don’t know what he … what he …” She broke down in sobs.
“I dinna’ care, lass. You’re the same woman now you were a week ago, and I loved you then. How can I na’ love you now?” He put a hand on her shoulder, but removed it hastily when she shuddered.
“Give her time,” Robert said softly. He wanted to cry. The time he had wasted with fools in Washington for fools in South Carolina. They could all go to hell. He should have been there to protect her.
“That Kemal,” Lafitte said, bustling in, “he break that big black’s neck. I never see no fight like—” He caught sight of Elizabeth, and his face twisted in pain. “Oh, by God damn, Robert, I am sorry. God damn it to hell!”
“You killed him,” Marie said from the door. The men all leaped as if the dead man had spoken. “I knew you would.”
Robert heaved a sigh of relief. Another woman was just what Elizabeth needed. “Thank God you’re here, Marie. Did Moira send you?”
“He was my favorite, you know.” She moved past him to the body as if she didn’t see anything else. “After my daughters, of course.”
“What are you talking about?” Robert said. “Marie, are you all right?”
“You were the one who killed him, weren’t you? It doesn’t matter. It was you, no matter who pulled the trigger.” Carefully she closed the dead man’s eyes. “He was just supposed to keep an eye on me, be my protection, but he always had an eye for pretty women, and he always wanted to do things his own way.”
Robert’s voice was a whisper. “What are you saying, Marie?”
“Don’t you know him?” she cried. “I was sure you would when he was fool enough to go right up to you. Don’t you recognize your own nephew? Not Edward Hammond, Robert. Edouard Fourrier. Lucien’s son. You remember your baby brother, Lucien, don’t you?”
“Oh, my God! Why, Marie? There was no hatred between us.”
She smoothed the dead man’s hair into place. Her voice was preternaturally calm. “He liked to listen to stories of the wars against Napoleon, as boys will. From his father. From Gerard. Gerard was his hero. He would have done anything for Gerard.”
“I didn’t mean him, Marie. You. Never by any stretch of the imagination have I ever done you any harm.”
“Harm, Robert? You killed my father. Or your wife did; I never did get the straight of that. But I can’t count that, can I? Given time enough I might well have killed Papa myself, what with the way he insisted on gratitude for every little favor. Just like Gerard. When he came home he insisted my girls fetch and carry for him, clean and make his bed. He wouldn’t allow anyone else to do it. I think he just wanted to show me my proper place, put me in the right frame of mind to accept what he told me to do.” Her voice had taken on a dreamy quality. “Poor Edouard. Poor Marie.”
“So it was all lies,” he said. “Everything you told me. But why? It doesn’t make sense. Not for this.” His gesture took in the entire room, Elizabeth shuddering in her blanket, the body.
“Oh, no, Robert,” she said. “It was the truth. Or most of it was. I do live on Gerard’s charity, and he makes me crawl for every penny. When Melissa married, and Amanda, I had to beg, literally on my knees, for their dowries. Poor Lucien’s no use. He really has lived in a world of his own since his wife died. And then Gerard told me if I wanted dowries for Jocelyn and Beatrice I must do exactly what he told me. It’s not as if we were close, you know. I don’t … hate you, exactly—or I didn’t—but I certainly don’t love you either. What would you have done?”
She took Edouard’s head on her lap, careless of the blood.
“The ships, Marie.”
“Oh, yes. The ships. He was such a handsome young man, wasn’t he?” He thought he’d need to prompt her, but when he opened his mouth, she said, “Everything about the ships is exactly as I said. Truth. Exactly. It’s just that when the ownerships were recorded, you would have been the sole owner. My name would appear nowhere. Women shouldn’t be allowed property, after all. Gerard is a firm believer in that, except for that wife of his. I think he’s a little afraid of her. What was I talking about? Oh, yes. The ships. You would be the owner, and when they were found trying to smuggle slaves into the United States, slaves in very poor condition, you would have been destroyed.”
Destroyed indeed, Robert thought with a shiver. Social and financial ostracism, stiff fines, a jail sentence. He’d have been lucky if his family hadn’t had to change its name.
“Why doesn’t he open his eyes?” Marie asked plaintively. Robert felt his hackles rise. “He’s badly hurt, isn’t he?”
“She’s gone mad,” Miller whispered, and Elizabeth looked up fearfully.
This was what it came to, Robert thought, he and Gerard playing out an enmity formed before either of them was born. Edouard dead. Marie mad. Elizabeth … Fuel enough there for the next generation on both sides. Cause enough for his sons to hunt Gerard’s, for Gerard’s grandsons to hunt his.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said. “Ben, will you remain with Mr. Lafflin until I can send someone for …” He gestured to Marie, crooning a lullaby now to Edouard’s body. Miller nodded.
“Sure, by damn,” Lafitte said. “And when we get back, you tell us what happened up there in Washington, eh?”
“Washington can go to hell!” Robert snapped, and ignored the hurt on Lafitte’s face. He knew the former pirate was only trying to take his mind, if only for a moment, off the horror of the room, but he didn’t care about any of it anymore. He crossed the room and put his arm around Elizabeth, wincing when she stiffened. “Come home with me, Bets,” he said, and after a moment she let him lead her out. Tears streaming down his face, he wept unashamedly.
53
Texas, 1833
The San Felipe town hall, a long box of rough, unpainted planks, was so crowded that April felt more like August. The lone door was closed, and the oiled-paper windows held in the heat. The buckskin-clad men crowding the chairs and split-log benches stirred the heavy air with palmetto fans as a frock-coated man orated from the council platform.
“ … And I say,” stern-faced William Wharton declaimed, “the history of Texas is one of oppression by Mexico City. You all know the entire region of Texas has but one representative in the Coahuila-Texas legislature. You all know …”
“If he’s going to tell us what we all know,” James whispered to Erasmo Sequin, “I’m stepping out for a breath of air.”
Sequin grinned and stilled his fan for a moment. “I fear my gray hairs compel me to show more respect, even to such a recital.”
James grinned back and made his way down the side aisle. He nodded to a bedraggled-looking Bowie, surrounded by three gesticulating men, and jerked his head toward the door. Bowie shrugged resignedly and turned back with a show of listening. Ben Milam got up, though, and followed James outside. Horses deepened the pawing holes at the hitch-rails.
“Fallon,” the lean, leather-skinned ranchero said, “you’re on Houston’s committee, aren’t you? Drawing up a constitution?” Ten years older than James, Milam had been one of those who had gotten an empresario grant just in time to have it canceled by Bustamente’s Law.
“I think they put me there because they couldn’t think of anyplace else.”
“Maybe. But you know this Houston. Leastways, you seem to be siding with him against Austin.”
“I voted for Wharton,” James said carefully, “and so did Houston, but I’m not turning against Austin.”
“Didn’t mean to say you were. Houston, though. He’s pretty well set up for a man who’s only been in Texas a few months. Bought a league of land down on Karankawa Bay and got himself elected to this convention in short order. What’s a man like him doing in Texas in the first place?”
“Ben, Houston is the only man in Texas well enough known in the United States that he won’t be branded another Haden Edwards or James Long. And you better believe we’re going to need men, money, and supplies from the States before this is done.”
Milam eyed him shrewdly. “You don’t think Santa Anna’ll make any difference?” Early in January Santa Anna had marched into Mexico City, placed Pedraza back in the presidency for the few remaining months of his term, and promptly been hailed as the savior of democracy and elected Pedraza’s successor.
“I’d sooner trust a rattlesnake,” James said. “This petition won’t get any further than any of the others.” The convention’s purpose had been to draw a petition for redress of grievances; and if the supporters of Wharton and Houston had managed to gain a measure of control, that purpose hadn’t been entirely forgotten. David Burnet had chaired a committee to frame the petition, and Austin, Sequin, and James Miller had been chosen to carry it south. “You tell me, Ben,” he went on, “from your experience, what do you think the Mexicans will do?”
“I think I’d better go on back inside.” At the door, though, he hesitated, finally looking back over his shoulder. “Keep your powder dry, Fallon. Maybe we will need it, after all.” He disappeared inside.
James decided to take his air strolling through the town. San Felipe still straggled along a single street rutted by carts and horses, but the log cabins had been replaced by buildings of sawn pine, though unpainted and weathered. Only thirty families lived in the town proper, but Groce’s was no longer the only store, nor Smithwick’s the only blacksmith shop. The town was the center of commerce and social life for a thirty-mile radius.
He spotted Houston on the porch of the single-story Virginia House hotel and started toward him, slowing when he realized who Houston was talking to. Elena Velasquez, in a russet silk traveling dress, an ivory lace shawl draped around her head, looked in his direction, and it was too late for him to turn around. The sign promising guests CLEAN BEDS—NO RATS OR FLEAS creaked in the breeze as he stepped up on the porch. Elena’s black-clad dueña adjusted her charge’s shawl.
Houston, in buckskins like James, but with a curly brimmed white beaver hat in his hand, broke the silence. “James, Doña Elena tells me she’s going to Monclova.”
“Si,” Elena said. “Señor Bowie has sent Ursula and the children to the mountains there for fear of the cholera, and she wrote asking me to come also. It is good to see you again, James.”
Her big, melting brown eyes tugged at him, but he hardened himself. He hadn’t even been back to San Antonio since December for fear she might be there. “This is a long way out of the way for Monclova.” The words came out harsher than he’d intended, but if it made her go away …
I have not seen you since before Navidad,” she said softly. She seemed barely aware of the others. ”Papá is much disappointed that you have not visited.”
He stifled a pang. “I’ve been busy.”
“Too busy to see Papá? Or José? Or Senor Cameron? Or me?”
“Busy. Sam, for Christ’s sake, would you tell her I’ve been busy?” Houston grinned and held up his hands; James made an exasperated sound.
Elena’s smile included Houston in a conspiratorial way. “You are like a wild horse, mi Jaime, frightened of the touch of a hand. Do not be frightened of me.”
“Frightened! What are you talking about?”
“Once, as a little girl, I told you how I felt. Perhaps you do not remember.”
“I remember,” he said, and saw by the light in her eyes the admission was a mistake.
“I said the words as a child, but I believe them as a woman.”
“You …” He was suddenly very much aware of Houston’s scrutiny. The dueña didn’t speak English, but her eyes were suspicious. “Excuse me, Sam,” he said, and grabbed Elena’s arm, pulling her a few paces down the porch. The dueña clutched at him, muttering, but he shook her loose. Under Elena’s soothing she subsided to angry murmurings under her breath, but she remained a single pace away, looking at James as if she would go for his throat.
“Yes, James?” Elena said when she turned to him. “You wish to say something to me in private?”
“Da … girl, this isn’t right. It isn’t seemly!”
“If I were seemly, mi Jaime, you would continue to escape me. I have no wiles to ensnare you in. And you are too much hombre to waste your life with drinking …”
“Elena—”
“ … and gambling …”
“Girl—”
“ … and chasing loose women. I will not let you waste it so.”
Vaguely he realized their voices had risen until they might as well not have moved away from Houston. “Damn it, girl, I won’t be pitied!”
“I do not pity you, mi Jaime, I love you.”
“But I don’t love you,” he said brutally, and saw her flinch. “You’re Drusilla’s baby sister, and that’s how I see you. A little girl playing with dolls, a little girl who won’t let go of a childish infatuation.”
“I do not believe you.” Her voice shook.
He felt as if he were drowning in her eyes. “Believe me,” he said hoarsely. “Go away. Don’t you know all you do is remind me of things I want to forget? Leave me alone!”
She stumbled back, the back of her hand pressed to her mouth, then turned and fled. The dueña glared at him and darted after her. He gritted his teeth against desire, pounded his fist on the porch rail.
Houston put on his white beaver and pushed it back on his head. “You were hard on the young lady, James.”
“For her own good,” James said.
“Her own good?” Houston echoed softly. “You know about such things, do you? Hell, James, it’s plain as a picture you’re in love with her.”
“You talk too much, Houston.”
“Why don’t you marry the girl, James?”
“In case it’s missed your notice, there’s a war coming. Hell, Sam, you and I are helping start it.”
“Seems to me a lot of people get married during wars. Have children, too. A sort of instinct toward leaving something behind. Seems a good instinct to me.”
For a moment both men were silent, then Houston said, “How about a bite of dinner?” and James nodded.
They made their way across the street, dodging carts and horses, to the New England Retreat. A few minutes later they were seated at a table with a red-checked tablecloth, plates of baked beans and fried fish, and a big pot of coffee before them. After they had eaten awhile in silence, Houston spoke.
“Travis is ready to work with us, if he can find time out from dancing with the ladies.”
