Chasing the Texas Wind Page 20

  “They were customers,” Juan scoffed. “You know what kind.” He leered at her.

  “You don’t know Vienta if you think that,” Mia sniffed. “My mother said she was a whore but she wasn’t. Chaco forced her and he had to beat her black and blue to make her submit, and she ran off to Chollo and he had to beg her to forgive him because he was crazy thinking she wouldn’t come back. She let him call her his woman but he was always afraid she would leave him. He bragged about her but most of it wasn’t true. He would do anything to keep her, and for some reason she had to stay here. She wasn’t here to get men or run a cantina. I finally decided she must be a spy. But Chaco wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Why didn’t he believe you?” Juan asked. “You’ve always told him about gringos when you thought they were spies.”

  “Vienta told me that story about the old man selling silver coming into town,” Mia said. “She said he was crippled -- walked with a stick and rode a donkey. She told me she thought he might be the one-legged spy and I believed her. But Chaco got so angry at me, especially when he came back and Vienta was gone. So I think she lied because she was a spy and she was protecting those others. Chaco won’t listen to me anymore, though.”

  “I believe you,” Juan said. “So you know what these men look like, the American spies?”

  “Some of them,” Mia shrugged. “Why are you so interested, Juan?”

  “There’s a man who was paying me to keep an eye on Vienta,” the man replied. “He wanted to know about strangers who came to the cantina, but I never saw any. He’ll want to hear what you know, especially if one of those men has gotten Chaco to go away with him. That could be bad trouble. I have to go report right away. Come with me.”

  “No!” Mia cried. “I’m not going anywhere with you!”

  Chaco was glad to get moving, to get away from town. Just being near the cantina infuriated him. It represented everything he had lost: Vienta, the American spies, the ability to move the arms as he had planned. Chaco had managed to convince everyone else in town and under his command that the disappearance of his woman and the spies was of no consequence, but he had yet to convince himself. No woman had affected him like Vienta. He could not get her scent out of his nostrils, her face out of his dreams. When she had first disappeared he had almost gone berserk, not knowing where she was, suspecting her of infidelity. Apparently his suspicions had been completely justified. Perhaps she had even helped the handsome young gringo escape. Chaco ground his teeth. His one consolation was that both his men and this newcomer had assured him the gringo was dying.

  Chaco had tried to trace her, of course. As soon as word had come to him from Jorges that Vienta’s father had died and she was leaving town for his funeral Chaco had left off the search in the mountains and killed a horse getting back to town. He found no trace of Vienta, the wagon, or the mourners who had supposedly come from Chollo. People in Chollo nodded when he talked about the dead sister, half-idiot brother and ailing father. He had been shown an empty house and a hastily-made grave with the name Estrelita Sandovar and dates. But no one had seen Vienta return to bury her father. The ten men sent as her escort had utterly disappeared. Wagon tracks had been wiped out beyond about three miles past town.

  Had Vienta been a spy? Impossible, Chaco told himself. She had come to Avecita before Chaco had even been named to Ampudia’s supply network. People in various towns knew of her as a widow looking for property, knew her as beautiful and not interested in politics or matters military. Chaco could not stop turning these things over in his head, even though they led nowhere and only tortured him. The cabin in the mountains had been a dead end. The old man was there, making his silver, and swore he had not been in Avecita in a year. No signs indicated anyone had come or gone.

  The very idea of a cripple being a spy was incomprehensible to Chaco. He had seen men with peg-legs, useless beggars, drunks, never anyone who was good for anything. Chaco shuddered at the very thought of losing a leg. Then he remembered that Santa Ana wore a wooden leg, a trophy of his victory over the French at Veracruz. Well, that was different. Santa Ana was unstoppable, larger than life. No one would ever call him a useless cripple.

  Before long scores of men in various kinds of dress, some in uniforms, some in peasant garb, some in buckskins and boots, appeared out of a cloud of dust, marching in from a side road. Chaco thrilled at the sight, the banners of Mexico waving, the guns glinting in the sun. He felt part of the action again, a soldado for Ampudia. His own hundred men would come later with the wagons.

  “Where are the spies?” he demanded of his companion.

  “I beg your pardon, Teniente,” de Rivera said. “They are not with these men. We are meeting the others farther on, and they have the spies. We will be there soon.” He left Chaco for a few moments to speak to someone in the column and some men with a wagon left the column to return to Avecita.

  The day wore on with voices singing Mexican folk songs, marching cadences, and an occasional shout of excitement. Chaco rode impatiently. He had lost track of de Rivera but many men greeted him and shouted encouragement. Just before sunset they stopped to make camp in a grassy mountain pass.

  Chaco washed his face at the stream amid the crowd of strangers. He walked back toward the camp and looked around for his own men and the wagons that were supposed to have come from Avecita. He saw the wagons, and men leading fresh horses into the traces, but no sign of any of his men.

  Chaco was startled to be grabbed from behind by what seemed to be a giant. Chaco twisted and ducked and managed to get hold of the knife he had stolen from Daniel Costain. More hands grasped at him and he slashed and swore. A huge hand pried the knife from his fingers. Chaco fell to the earth. A face loomed before him, a face strangely like the young gringo he had tortured, but older, more weatherbeaten.

  “My name is Matthew Duvall,” the man said. “Zachary Duvall, the boy you tried to beat to death a week ago, is my brother. I’d like to just kill you, slow and painful, but we have to find out if you know anything else besides where and when Ampudia’s going to make his next attack.”

  Chaco spat in his face. Matthew Duvall dealt him a playful cuff on the cheek. It was like being struck by a tree limb. Chaco’s cheek split open and blood spattered into his eyes.

  “It’s not sanctified, I know, but I’m going to enjoy this,” Matthew grinned.

  Nathaniel Grover sat back before his tiny fireplace and smiled. He had enjoyed his little encounters with Hamilton Jessup, watching his frustration, his anger mounting. The bruises had long faded, and he had convinced himself there was little danger of Jessup actually harming him. Jessup was a straight arrow, somebody who respected the law, fool that he was. He’d keep struggling all by himself, knowing that the law could actually get in the way of what he was trying to do. They’d be suspicious of his puzzles and his theories about what Nathaniel Grover had or hadn’t done.

  “And I don’t believe he ever will really figure it out,” Grover said comfortably, taking a bite of his supper on the little tray in front of him. “He knows I’m a bad guy, and that plans go awry and people die because of me, and yet he has no idea what I’m really doing. And he’s so close to it. I was worried when he hitched up with Maeve Collinswood, very worried, I admit it. I thought he might actually break through her ice and get her to trust him, God forbid, to like him. But she trusted me right down to the end.”

  Nathaniel Grover had concluded that Vienta, as the Collinswood woman called herself, had worn out her usefulness to that mysterious spy network Grover had been trying to root out and was just trapped, sullied, stuck in Avecita with Chaco until the man beat her to death. Maeve Collinswood was clever, frighteningly clever, but she had gotten herself in too deep when she excited the notice of Jose Iscarius de Charico.

  That man didn’t stop at anything to get what he wanted. It was what Grover had enjoyed about working with him. Grover had contented himself with neutralizing Maeve Collinswood and had decided the other spies were be
yond his reach. It was too late for them to stop him anyway. Their scattered intel had done no good. He had heard it surface now and then, even things he knew must have come directly from Maeve, but no one had enough information to act on it. No one had touched any of his weapons caches. All of them would be delivered to Ampudia on schedule.

  Someone knocked loudly on his front door. He had sent the housekeeper/cook home an hour ago and had no other servants. His house was in a lonely place. Part of his character as an innocent, low-level government servant was his simple life. It wouldn’t always be this way, in fact, he hoped very soon to make a dramatic lifestyle change. At any rate, for now, at his time of the evening, he had to answer the door himself.

  “Jefe, I think we got trouble,” Juan Olivera growled, shouldering his way into the small front room of Grover’s house. Olivera was a man he had hired to play the part of a Mexican drifter to escort Maeve Collinswood back to Avecita and watch her there, and to look out for the mysterious maverick spies who might interfere with his plans. “Ven conmigo.”

  “What’s going on?” Grover demanded. Olivera motioned him to follow and Grover went with him to a deserted shack at the back of Grover’s small property. Grover saw a frightened young Mexican girl huddled on the floor, protesting loudly in Spanish. Olivera had scratches on his face and the girl looked like she had been cuffed around. Her hands were tied to the iron bedframe.

  “What are you doing here with this girl?” Grover snarled, rounding on Olivera. “You’re supposed to be in Avecita making sure the last shipment gets off right and keeping an eye on that Collinswood woman.”

  “Jefe, Collinswood’s gone,” Ross said. “Some loco things been happening and I think maybe there’s trouble with your plan.”

  “Explain,” Grover said.

  “First Chaco catches this big, young gringo and claims the gringo want to run off with his woman,” Olivera answered, aiming a kick at the girl, which made her subside, crying.

  “Excellent!” Grover beamed, rubbing his hands together. “So he’s killed one of those pesky spies and Maeve as well?”

  “No, Jefe,” Olivera shook his head violently. “At the same time Chaco caught the gringo, Collinswood disappear.”

  “Disappeared? Why didn’t you get your worthless backside up here and tell me as soon as that happened? Where is she?”

  “Hear me out, Jefe. Chaco goes loco when he finds out she’s gone and gets everybody, including me, looking for her. We’re all ordered to report to him five times an hour and I can’t do nothing but what he says. But her little cart never left town -- Madre del Dios, her shoes were still in her house. Turns out she tell this girl here --” he pointed at the crying Mexican girl --” a story about a dead sister in Chollo. As far as anybody in town knew that was why she left.”

  “She has no sister in Chollo,” Grover snapped. “There was a woman who played the part there, but it was a cover for coming back here. She hasn’t come back. I’d have heard.”

  “When I first take her back to Avecita five months ago she try to get away, say she have to go to Chollo. I just let Chaco know. I tell him he better prove his macho and make her mind. So he threaten to burn her sister’s house down. She no try to go again.”

  “I knew he had it in him,” smiled Grover.

  “This girl here tell me she see the gringo sneaking around Vienta’s house, and so I tell Chaco. Six of us catch the gringo. We all fight to keep hold of him. Chaco discover Vienta gone. Guess she see us grab the gringo and take her chance and take off.”

  “Took off for where?” screamed Grover. “How long ago was this?” Grover demanded. “Why wasn’t I told?”

  “Five days ago Jefe. She not come here?” Ross replied. “I hear somebody pick up a woman in a cart ‘bout twenty miles south of Rio Grande City early next morning after she disappear. I figure you get a message to her somehow and want her to come to you. So I say nada to Chaco about it.”

  “Why would I send for her when my whole purpose was to get rid of her?” screamed Grover. “We need to find out where she’s gone immediately!”

  “Jefe, she come back to Avecita about sunset the same day,” Olivera interrupted his volley of profanity. “She got two men and a girl with her. I think you send them with her for some reason. You tell me never talk to her directly, so I don’t.”

  “I didn’t send anybody!”

  “She say her sister die. She have this idiot brother an’ sick father an’ a chiquita she say no hear, no talk. I couldn’t make no sense of it. She never brought any people with her. The old guy just lay there like he muerto, an’ I dunno what good an idiot like that other be to nobody. You shoulda see him. He havin’ fits an’ wrappin’ this crazy bandage ‘round his head. She bring him to the cantina an’ he’s jugglin’ bottles an’ mixin’ drinks with that loco bandage, giving Chaco the eye and droolin.’“

  “All right, all right, so she came back,” Grover said impatiently, “she came back and everything was all right.”

  “No, wait,” Ross said. “See, Chaco got all crazy when she take off, and this girl here finally remember to tell him she just went t’ take care of that family thing, an’ she come back. Next day Chaco drag Vienta out to pick up the last weapons cache an’ bring it back to Avecita. She bring back this big buckboard, with her papa, an’ by usin’ it he figure he can move the guns sooner than he plan. So Vienta go with him to cook for the men, an’ she bring the old man an’ the crazy guy in a little cart, an’ Chaco take th’ big wagon plus th’ one he already has, an’ they spend the day down south gettin’ the guns. They come home that night, an’ it seem like everything’s okay.

  “Then everythin’ start to go crazy. Chaco go back to the old fort -- that where he keep that gringo. Guess he decide he really was a spy and was gonna try to beat some information outta him an’ then kill him. But the guy’s gone when he gets there. They find this piece of a wooden leg under some adobe that fell down while they was there. Chaco comes back like el diablo, searchin’ ev’r’body, tryin’ to fin’ some one-legged spy an’ a gang--”

  “Wait a minute, one-legged spy?” Grover gasped. “What one-legged spy? Did you see a man with a wooden leg down there? What did he look like?”

  “I never see nobody like that,” Olivera shouted. “There was jus’ that crazy guy an’ the old man who come back with Collinswood. This girl here say Collinswood tell her a story ‘bout an old crippled man up in the mountains who might be the one-legged spy. Chaco go off chasin’ him. He make me go with him. I can’t very well say no. You tell me to help him any way I can. We gone two days or more. We come back, we hear Collinswood got the doctor over coupl’a times. Word get around her papa died, Avecita give her a funeral sendoff, an’ she gone again.”

  “This crazy man, the idiot brother,” Grover said, “He juggled bottles and mixed drinks like a bartender?”

  “Yeah, he was somethin’ to watch,” Olivera grinned.

  “He use some kind of a walking stick?” Grover demanded.

  “Yeah, he have this big knotted stick he always carry,” Olivera shrugged.

  “When they came back from getting the guns, that’s when Chaco found the pieces of the wooden leg?” Grover pursued.

  “Later that night, I guess,” Olivera nodded.

  “And this crazy guy came back with the rest, nothing unusual?” Grover asked. “You saw him walking around normally after that?”

  “Nobody think about the crazy man,” Olivera admitted. “We come back, Chaco search for the spies, we hear they might be in the mountains, when we come back, Collinswood, she gone again. People in Avecita say some strangers come into town, claim they friends of the old man from Chollo, escort the coffin out with everybody else.”

  “Nobody knows whether the crazy man was seen walking around again before they left town? You have no idea? Nobody thought to question anybody about him?” Grover said intently.

  “No, I guess not,” Olivera shrugged. “What’re you getting at, Jefe?”


  “You’re right, we are in big trouble,” Grover spat. “You should have come to me as soon as these other people showed up. He was probably the one who picked up Collinswood in the first place. It does sound like he might have been injured as well as lost his leg.”

  “Jefe, Chaco make everybody look for his woman, look for the spies, I can’t just leave!” Olivera cried. “How am I supposed to know there was anything about the crazy man? I think you send them. You mean he the one-legged spy?”

  “I have no doubt of it,” Grover grated. “But why did you bring this girl here?”

  “Chaco try to move the guns today,” Ross replied, “but he only have one wagon. Collinswood, she take off with her papa in a coffin, or whoever was in it. Chaco break an axle trying to move all the guns in one wagon. Some hombre show up, say he from a battalion headed to join Ampudia, offer Chaco a wagon an’ escort, says they have spies, a woman, a one-legged man, an’ a dyin’ gringo. Chaco vamoose. The wagons take off a little later. I think maybe you catch Collinswood, send Chaco help.”

  “No, no, no!” Grover raged. He controlled himself with difficulty. “I keep telling you, I know nothing about any of this! What is it you’re supposed to be telling me about this girl?”

  “I get ready to leave town, since I figure my job done, but this girl, she try to stop Chaco. She say the man who come to town an’ talk about Ampudia an’ the wagon, he one of the spies who come to see Collinswood at the cantina,” Olivera answered. “She say she see Americanos come at siesta time and talk to the woman, an’ that she know what some of them look like. I figure you wanna know ‘bout that, since you been lookin’ for gringo spies.”