Chasing the Texas Wind Page 15

  “Maeve, it’s so simple. ‘All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.’ ‘Unless you repent, ye shall all likewise perish.’ ‘The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.’ ‘For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.’ That’s straight from the Scriptures. I’ve read those verses every day, praying I’d get a chance to say them back to you.”

  Maeve’s eyes filled with tears. “Ham, if that’s what made this transformation in you, and what made Daniel Costain and Zachary Duvall what they are, and it’s that simple, I don’t have to think about it. I believe.”

  “Now, concerning Angelita, there’s good news,” Ham said. “I’ve already been talking to her about the Lord, between sessions trying to translate your diary. She should be pretty well up on it, but I’ll have another go at it.”

  Angelita listened to every word Ham said very closely, with Zachary throwing in a weak word here and there. She looked at the two men, Zachary’s face especially, so earnest and intent on hers. Finally she nodded her head. “Oui,” she said in a whisper.

  “There, Zachary,” Maeve said softly. “Rest now, if you can. I sent for our town doctor. Maybe he can do something for you.”

  “Sounds ... like a lot of bustle ... outside,” Zachary said. “Chaco back?”

  “Yes, and he’s filling up the town with bad guys with guns to guard his ammo and hunt down some crazy American hopping around on one leg who can lift a great big Texan spy and spirit him away from under his nose,” Ham replied, jiggling Timmy Timbertoe’s knee joint where Zachary could see it. “My plan failed. Apparently you thought of a plan while I was nursing my headache which, now that Maeve has put it into action, may get rid of Chaco for at least a couple of days. I still don’t see how anybody will be able to rescue us with scores of Chaco’s men all over the place. John and the cavalry will never get through even with Chaco gone.”

  “God’ll ... help us,” Zachary said firmly. “Have a ... little faith, Captain.”

  “Mrs. Jessup kept asking what I did for a living, and I suppose now I might as well tell her. I still work for army intelligence, and I was supposed to be figuring out this whole thing we’re in the middle of now, Ampudia’s endgame strategy. But I didn’t know I was living in the house of the key to the whole puzzle. There was that word, Vienta. It just meant wind. Somebody told me that. It was a wind that blew between Parmenos and Avecita and made all the connections once I figured out it was a person’s name. And I didn’t figure that out until we were almost at the Duvall ranch. If I’d only known ...”

  “Vienta was a nickname my father gave me,” Maeve said. “He called me the little Spanish wind that was always blowing in and out of the house, never stopping. You mean I was that puzzle you kept trying to solve?”

  “The papers on the den floor will prove it if we ever get back,” Ham replied. “Actually I have a room at the Duvall place littered up with most of it too, because I had to prove to Mr. Duvall that he shouldn’t throw me out. I discovered that somebody was getting bits of information out of Mexico about them stockpiling weapons. A few more bits and I understood that they were to supply a battle that might follow a retreat. Through the usual channels we learned that Santa Ana was ordering Ampudia to retreat to Saltillo, but this other intel was saying he was going to stop and make a stand sooner, closer. We just weren’t sure if one of those was disinformation, so we began to concentrate hard on this stuff we got about a movement and buildup of weapons and trying to find out exactly where they were going.

  “And there we discovered something strange. Chaco came up over and over as a supply officer, which usually means not an ordinance officer. But this odd intel insisted he was the main one moving these guns, cannons, whatever. Avecita came up, Parmenos came up, Vienta came up. I sorted out everything but the Vienta part, and decided Parmenos was the beginning of a spy network that tried to get that information out of Mexico. Vienta was the main source, but I assumed that meant some code for how information was passed.

  “See, none of this should have been a puzzle. The Duvalls and company were trying their hardest to get information and pass it on, but someone else is trying to stop it. Someone who knew about Vienta and was trying to make sure the spies who came to her got stopped, and eventually planned to stop the wind altogether. She was there, unknowingly, as a lure to catch these pesky maverick Americans who wanted people to know about the endgame, the last stand in Monterrey. Anyway, we know Chaco’s been moving guns toward Monterrey, and we know now that Ampudia’s endgame will take place on dia de San Mateo. What day is that, Spanish expert?”

  “September twenty-first,” Maeve responded. “That’s too soon. We have to get out of here. What do we do now?”

  “We pray ... long and hard,” Zachary said.

  “I think I hear the doctor,” Maeve said.

  “This is the American Chaco is looking for,” Doctor Hernandez blurted out in English as soon as Maeve ushered him into the bedroom and turned up the lamp. “What is he doing here? Mia said I was to come and see your papa.”

  “Doctor, please try to help him,” Maeve begged. “My father died a long time ago. This is your patient. Chaco’s men were beating him with clubs and rifles and he’s very badly hurt.”

  The stout little Mexican man looked once, sharply, at Maeve. Then he lifted Zachary’s covers. Zachary hissed as the doctor prodded, went rigid, slumped. Ham stumped over to the window and peeked out. The doctor looked up.

  “And you are the crippled American rescuer,” he said in English. “I feel like I’m back in New York at the theater. You must tell me later how you accomplished this rescue.”

  “New York?” Ham echoed.

  “I studied medicine in the States,” Dr. Hernandez explained. “And I love Americans. I’ve been wishing I could do something to take a stand against Chaco. But this boy is injured internally. I’d have to perform surgery on him. We can’t move him. I’ll bring the things from my office.”

  “You can operate on him?” Ham gasped.

  “Of course,” Dr. Hernandez replied, adjusting his glasses. “I’m a qualified surgeon in the United States. But my parents wanted me to help the people here. So I came back. There was nobody to speak English to, and I haven’t tried in years. And I didn’t associate with Miss Vienta, since I assumed, apparently wrongly, that she was on Chaco’s side. Let me get what I need. I’ll have to bring an assistant, but I’m sure I can trust him. And I believe I have a little better artificial leg to offer you, sir, than that broomstick you seem to be using. It won’t be a perfect fit, but shall I bring it?”

  “I’d be most grateful,” Ham said, trying not to show his eagerness.

  “I’ll give you some laudanum to get him to sleep,” the doctor said to Maeve. He examined Zachary more carefully. “We have got to get this done quickly. How have you stood this? You must be in agony,” the doctor said to Zachary.

  “The Lord is with me,” Zachary replied simply. The doctor described a series of doses to Maeve and gave her a bottle, then departed.

  “I shall have two legs again! It’s paradise!” Ham whispered as soon as the doctor left. Maeve sat down to give Zachary the drug.

  “Ham, you still haven’t told me how you knew to come for me when you did,” Maeve said as Zachary drifted off to sleep. “I mean, just when you did, when I was running away, after Zachary was caught.”

  “Oh, that,” Ham shrugged. “ From your diary I’d worked out a sort of timeline for when the Parmenos people came to Avecita. Jude Morrow arrived in September. There were visits recorded in June, September, December, and March again. Dan Costain came through in June, and so somebody was due about September. That was Zachary. The truth is it took me till September to get all this together, and figure out that wind, that Vienta thing, was a pattern of movement related to the Duvall operation. Vienta showed up in Avecit
a at certain times, Duvall members showed up at certain times, Vienta moved north shortly afterward, usually only as far as Chollo.”

  “I used to be able to get out by saying I was going to Chollo,” Maeve said. “I’d go there because that was where my pretend sister lived. I’d say I was visiting her, and disappear back home to Rio Grande City.”

  “But why didn’t you come back after you left in April?” Ham asked. “I was going out of my mind.”

  “Chaco got angry about my leaving the next time I tried it,” Maeve responded. “He followed me when I left for Chollo and brought me back. He said if I tried to leave again he’d go to Chollo and burn down my sister’s house. I didn’t dare to try that way again. There is a woman there who pretends to be my sister. She lives at my mother’s place. I would never want any harm to come to her. I tried to escape two or three different ways. The men from the Duvalls who came had offered to help me, but I swore I’d never put those men in danger for myself. They always asked me to leave Chaco, and Dan Costain did too, but if I had gone with him, or Zachary ... I guess God wanted you to rescue me, Ham.”

  “Well, I didn’t know exactly when to come,” Ham said. “But I was sure you’d had a visit since you left home, and nobody else had been able to rescue you, if they’d tried, and I couldn’t bear it anymore. So I just grabbed Hermes and a cart and headed for Avecita. God worked out the timing, for certain.”

  “Why did you bring Angelita?” Maeve asked. “You must have known it would be dangerous.”

  “She stowed away in the cart, to tell you the truth,” Ham admitted. “I took Hermes and gave him a shoe of yours to sniff in case we had to track you. We left in the middle of the night, when I thought Angelita was asleep, and when I was halfway to Avecita she popped up out of the blankets I had in the back and I had no choice but to let her stay. Now I’m glad she came, but I didn’t plan on putting her in this danger. She planned that all by herself.”

  “Mia,” Chaco snarled, grabbing the girl as she left the doctor’s office. “You who always know what the gringos are doing around this town. I want to talk to you.”

  Mia bleated in terror but Chaco gripped her tightly and pushed her ahead of him.

  “There haven’t been any gringos around since that one you caught,” Mia said. “I told you how to find him, you know.”

  “Yes you did, little one,” Chaco conceded. He made his tone gentler. “But he wasn’t alone.”

  “He wasn’t?’ Mia asked, wide-eyed. “Oh, you mean the old man. But I didn’t think he was anything important.” Mia had decided Vienta didn’t deserve any credit for seeing the old man. Chaco gave her enough attention and favor. Mia wanted all of whatever Chaco might consider an appropriate reward.

  “What old man?” Chaco demanded.

  “Just an old man,” Mia shrugged. She improvised, remembering wooden-legged men she had seen. “He used a stick, could hardly walk. I saw him after we closed the cantina, talking to the gringo before he went to Vienta’s house. The old man got on a donkey and rode away.”

  “My men never told me they saw an old man, a stranger,” Chaco said.

  “No, not a stranger,” Mia said. “You know that old man up in the mountains who sells Indian silver? It was him. Nobody would notice him. Vienta said the gringo wanted to buy some Indian silver. So he would talk to him, wouldn’t he?”

  “That old man?” Chaco raged. “What was he doing here in town? He never comes down off the mountain.”

  “Why do you want to know about him, Chaco?” Mia asked innocently.

  “Didn’t Vienta tell you? That American escaped, the gringo we caught. Somebody with a wooden leg was there. He wouldn’t be able to walk right, I’m sure. Maybe he’d ride a donkey. When we captured the young one, the one with the wooden leg got others to come. I don’t know how they did it, but they got the gringo out.”

  “Then maybe they took the gringo to the old man’s shack in the mountains,” Mia suggested. “They would hide him there until you stopped looking. Don’t you think so?”

  “Yes,” Chaco agreed. “Yes, you’re right. Good girl, Mia. You have helped your country. I will take men and go there at once.”

  Mia smiled broadly as Chaco took off. No fist in the face for her this time. She couldn’t wait to see how Chaco would reward her, especially if he caught all those gringo spies, who had become perfectly real in Mia’s mind.

  “Hey, Captain,” Zachary said to Ham when he opened his eyes to find him sitting by the bed. “Sir, if you’ve got any changes in my orders I’ll have to respectfully disobey. I can’t hardly move. Otherwise I reckon I’m better. Anyway I don’t feel so sick.”

  “Of course you’re better,” the doctor said briskly. “It was the spleen,” he said with a smile. “You were correct. I suppose you’ve seen a great deal in your career.”

  “What I’ve seen was mostly on paper,” Ham said with a wan smile. “Will he be able to move in a day or two?”

  “A day or two?” The doctor exclaimed. “A week or two, sir. This was abdominal surgery. The spleen was ruptured. There’s serious danger of infection -- No doubt this young man has the constitution of an ox but he should not do more than slowly move in and out of that bed for a week. Two would be far better. I’ll be back later to check on you. Stay in that bed, young man.”

  “We haven’t got that kind of time,” Zachary said when they were alone. “Chaco could be back here any minute. You and Mrs. Jessup are in danger because of me. That sticks in my craw.”

  “Well, Chaco won’t be barging in just yet,” Ham grinned. “Your plan is working for the moment. Little Mia talked Chaco into believing she saw that crippled spy with you in town the night they grabbed you so she could get full credit. Chaco’s off to the mountains after me and my henchmen and won’t be back for three days, by his own admission.” Ham stood up and peeked out the window. “But a goodly number of his men are still here, there and everywhere.”

  “We’ll lick ‘em yet, Captain,” Zachary grinned.

  “By the way, I was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel recently, Private Duvall,” Ham said with a smile. “Haven’t been a captain for a while.”

  “Sorry, sir,” Zachary said. “I remembered that picture with Dan, where you were wearing a captain’s uniform.”

  “Picture with Dan?” Ham echoed.

  “James Morrow painted a picture of the two of you, a long time ago, I guess,” Zachary replied. “They said he did it real quick, when you two were horsing around in camp, but it looks almost real. Jesse still has it. She keeps it in their bedroom.”

  “James Morrow had a great gift,” Ham murmured. “You knew who I was from that picture?”

  “Everything was mixed up and fuzzy when I had all that spleen stuff goin’ on. I got that your name was Jessup, but it didn’t ring a bell at first. But I see it clear now, even with you wearin’ that big ol’ moustache. First of all, I was the ring bearer at Dan’s wedding. I’ll never forget that. Dan talked about you at times, Ham this an’ Ham that, how he wanted you to be saved and how he knew you could help with the work. Dad wouldn’t hear a word about it. We had a rule about the unsaved not being a part of the organization, no matter what else they had to offer. I’m just glad that isn’t a problem anymore. Really, really glad. Say,” Zachary said. “You got a new leg. That doc’s really a miracle worker.”

  “God brought him here, no doubt about that,” Ham agreed. “This model’s heavy as lead and a little short. It’s no Timmy Timbertoes, but a definite improvement over Tommy Tripmeup.”

  “How do you joke about having no leg?” Zachary asked. “Colonel, I just went through a little thumping that about drove me out of my mind, except for God’s mercy. And I guess I’ll be right as rain soon. You must have gone through so much more, but you joke about it, and go right on, and you’ll never be right again.”

  “I felt like that, Zach,” Ham responded. “How I loved the intelligence work in the army. And I was so good at it. I wanted to die a hero on the battle
field, not live as a cripple at a desk. After I lost the leg I was angry, decided I had no hope, no future. And I put a bottle to my lips and found out that if I stumbled around on my wooden leg everybody understood, and laughed, and I was funny, and I didn’t care quite so much.

  “I got over being drunk, with the help of Dan Costain, but I kept on pretending to be drunk, even when I met Maeve. But I swear, God is my witness, I worshiped that woman very early on. She just wanted a figurehead husband who wouldn’t get in her way. I didn’t know where she went when she disappeared but I always missed her. I hardly dared to talk to her when she was home but I loved her. We were strangers sharing a house and I ached to make her care about me as much as I cared about her.

  “You know, I tried so hard to hide it from her but I never believed that she really didn’t know about the leg. But she didn’t know anything about me except that I was this presumed drunk she had to keep in her house to be respectable. She despised me and I deserved it. People pitied her for her miserable marriage. She was brilliant, exotic, beloved of all. There is no physical torture like the torture we put ourselves through, young Zachary. And I tortured myself for two years over that woman, before God gave me peace. Now, I am happy, I am content, I am so thankful that Maeve has become a believer, and as for the sense of humor, well, God said ‘a merry heart doeth good like a medicine.’ And add to all this I get to be a spy in the field again. Hallelujah!”

  “Mrs. Jessup is some kind of woman,” Zachary said. “She’s all you said. I can see why you’d get to where you’d want to change everything you were for her. And now that she’s in Christ you’re sure a lucky man, Colonel.”

  “If she were really Mrs. Jessup, I’d feel better about you calling her that,” Ham murmured. “She’s still that brilliant, faraway star I can’t quite grasp and hold in my hand. Standing on my one real tiptoe I haven’t reached her yet.”

  “Colonel, she loves you,” Zachary said firmly. “I can tell she does, and I’m just a big bull calf whose nose hasn’t dried out yet. I’m glad I don’t have anybody like her hanging on for me, or I’d never be able to keep my mind on the work.”