The night deepened. They drifted onward in the stream of music.
Governor de Leyba and his wife swept past the young couple and turned their heads to watch them go by.
“Maria,” he hissed excitedly in her ear. “Look at them! Who could have foreseen this?”
She searched his face with her wise, cloudy, pain-darkened eyes, and he loved her keenly.
“Anyone,” she said.
SEñOR FRANCISCO VIGO SWUNG BY, GRINNING, EXUBERANTLY steering a dark lady who stood a head taller than he. The lady glanced enviously at Teresa.
Vigo winked at Teresa.
And Teresa flushed again at the sight of that sly, devilish wink, and felt perspiration trickle down the bare skin under her arm inside her gown.
He’ll smell me! she thought, almost in a panic. I must go up and wash!
George stood near a table, waiting, drinking sherry. The musicians had stopped to rest. Teresa had curtseyed, ducked away from him with widened eyes, and disappeared up the stairs, followed soon by her sister-in-law. George was anxious, unable to imagine how he might have offended her.
Fernando de Leyba approached, filled a glass with the sherry, and touched it to George’s glass. “Why, you seem upset, my dear colonel. What is it?”
“I—I don’t know,” George replied, glancing toward the stairs. “Is she all right, d’you suppose?”
“Who?” the governor asked, his lips pursed in a smile around his own joke.
It struck George then, and he coughed up an unexpected laugh, almost a hiccough. He raised his hand toward the staircase, then dropped it; his mouth opened and then closed and he said nothing.
“She’ll be down in a moment,” de Leyba laughed, giving George a reassuring squeeze on the elbow. “Womanly things, you understand.” He shook his head. “Nay, on the other hand, don’t try.” He, too, seemed a little drunk. “Listen,” he went on then, conspiratorially, “I told Maria to ask her to play the guitarra for us after the dancing. Just a little recitation. Would you like that? She’s quite accomplished.”
George was enchanted at the thought that one so beautiful to see might actually be capable of bringing beauty in other ways. “I’d love it,” he breathed. He was unbelievably stirred inside.
“Of course she’ll be reluctant,” said de Leyba. “But she will do whatever I suggest.” Suddenly his eyes brimmed. “My dear Don Jorge!” he exclaimed, his voice suddenly thick. “Somehow—somehow—I do believe this is one of the finest moments I’ve ever enjoyed. In a lifetime of fine moments!” He swallowed. “I’m so glad you—you and your Americans—are here! I’m so pleased that Teresa likes you …” He paused, as if he should not have said such a thing.
“She does, you think?”
De Leyba laughed. “She does, I think!”
“Then, Governor, I do believe this is one of the finest moments in my life!”
IT WAS SHORTLY BEFORE MIDNIGHT. TERESA SAT ON A LOW CHAIR, her head tilted in concentration over the instrument. She had played a gavotta, several minuets, a slow fandango, and now was performing a passacaglia. She had named each piece in a small voice before bending again over the guitarra. George understood none of the words, and vaguely wished he did. The violinist stood behind her, playing accompaniment on some of the pieces. Her nails plucked clear, sharp notes out of the higher strings, melodies of marvelous complexity, and her thumb stroked deep, soft-edged counterpoints from the lower strings. It seemed impossible that so much music could come from one small instrument and only two hands. The guests stood or sat in a semicircle about her, rapt. Candles on the walls bathed the room in a soft light, reflecting sometimes off the polished soundboard of the instrument. George had never in his life, even in the most enthralling moments of forest silence, felt so transported. The music, the light, the presence of these people, the vision of this girl playing—nay, caressing—the instrument, flooded over all his senses, and her agile, graceful fingers seemed to be lifting the melodies directly from his heart.
She finished the passacaglia; palms patterned approval; voices cooed and uttered constrained bravas.
“In a moment, a prelude of de Murcia,” she murmured, looking once at George and then bending to tune the strings. George sensed someone beside him, then felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Bowman, who had just come forward and knelt beside him.
George reached up and patted the hand. Bowman squeezed his shoulder.
“By Heaven,” Bowman said in a hushed voice. “I never thought I’d see it, but I do believe the Long Knife is reduced to helplessness.”
George nodded, and blinked. The candlelight blurred and glinted through tears. His heart filled the room. He could say nothing.
Teresa again started to play.
TERESA QUIT PLAYING AFTER AN HOUR, THEN CURTSEYED, MURMURED her thanks for the applause, and made another of her disappearances up the stairs, carrying the beautiful little guitarra by its neck. George was still entranced. He went to the table, decanted another bottle of sherry, looked toward the stairwell, and wished she would hurry back down. He had been trying to bring himself to the point of conversing with her, and now was at a loss for something to do with himself. He did not want to talk to anybody else; it was no time for words.
It was extremely hot in the room; he felt the humidity of his own body in his clothes, and so was drawn toward the wide doors which opened off the ballroom onto the terrace. Carrying his glass, he slipped swiftly toward that door and out into the cool, damp air, under the stars, in the cacophony of cricket song. For a moment he took deep breaths and let the fresh air carry off the fog of his muddled thoughts.
Suddenly, though he had not really heard a sound, he felt that he was not alone. He turned to his right. There, dimly visible in the light from the door, stood Tenente de Cartabona, wild-eyed, his face contorted in a pitiful mask of drunken rage. He said something harsh in Spanish, words which George did not understand but interpreted nonetheless as the invitation to a duel. He had been observing the lieutenant’s behavior out of the corner of his eye during the evening.
But even before George could react, there was a breath of movement in the darkness, and de Cartabona found himself standing between two tall, smelly men in buckskins, his arms pinioned behind him, a knife-point pricking his throat.
George shook his head and grinned. He stepped closer to de Cartabona then, and spoke softly. “Can you understand me, Lieutenant?” The Spaniard nodded. His eyes were bulging in terror. “Now, hear me,” George said, keeping his voice low so that the guests inside would not be attracted to this awkward scene. “I reckon I know what’s vexin’ you. But at this time we can’t permit ourselves the indulgence of personal conflicts. There are things going on that are beyond our individual feelings. Quite plainly, man, we can’t be spared. Neither of us. None of us. Are you hearing me?” The lieutenant nodded again. “If there comes a time,” George continued, “when the two of us are expendable, then I shall be honored to give you satisfaction, and by any means you may choose. Until then, I most strongly recommend that you keep the interests of your governor and your most Catholic Majesty at heart. That means, sir, staying out of my way.”
The lieutenant apparently was not stupid. He nodded again. George tilted his head and the guards released the Spaniard. They vanished, leaving only the sour smell of old sweat, and de Cartabona smoothed his clothes.
“Do I have it on your honor?” George asked, extending his hand. After a pause, the lieutenant took it. His chin was quivering, his eyes were wet with mortification and fury.
“Until we are no longer obligated, señor. As for Teresa …”
“Not a word on her, by God!” George withdrew his hand and raised it as a thick fist under the lieutenant’s nose, and de Cartabona felt the proximity of the bodyguards again. He bowed abruptly, and ambled with bruised dignity back toward the door, wiping his face with a handkerchief and composing his features as he went. His shoulder bumped the doorpost; he staggered, then recovered his balance and steered hims
elf into the candleglow. George watched him go in, then waved his woodsmen back into the darkness. He took a deep breath, jaw muscles working, then discovered the sherry glass he still held in his left hand. He drained if off and eased himself into a chair, not seeing, in the window above him, the silhouette of Teresa.
She stood, drawn close to the edge of the casement, steadying herself with one hand braced on it, the other in a fist over her mouth, and looked down at the top of the Virginian’s head. Her brain was throbbing; her breast felt hollow; her mouth was dry. Prickling sensations raced all over the skin of her body.
She had been drawn to the window by the vicious rasp of Tenente de Cartabona’s challenge. She had stood there watching the deadly minute, the knife of one of the Americans appearing at Francisco’s throat. She had been certain that she would see his blood spilled. Then the instant of threat had simply ended, had dissipated into the night as if it had not really happened. Teresa felt her blood draining out of her head and shoulders now, and knelt by the windowsill to keep from swooning. She stayed there till the dizziness receded and was followed by a great weariness. She remembered the dancing, during which she had become so strongly and strangely aroused, aroused in the way she suspected a woman becomes aroused, not a girl; it was the first time she had felt anything quite like it. Not even during the summer’s various dances and outings with the suave de Cartabona had it been quite this thing.
But even the excitement of dancing with the Virginian had not dispelled her fear that there was something lethal, something dreadfully hard and keen-edged about him, and so long as she had felt that fear, she had imagined herself still free of him—still able to resist his magnetic pull.
Only when she had looked up from her serenade and seen his face softened, transformed, only then had her heart melted into his; only then had she realized that she was fatefully and inexorably for him. She had rushed up the stairs after the recital, her heart going wild. She had put the guitarra away in its velvet-lined case, had soaked a cloth in cool water and pressed it to her burning neck, her cheeks, her brow, her shoulders. And then she had heard the voices below the window. And she had looked down on that scene which, once again, had seemed to confirm her fear of his killing edge.
Thus, now, she was doubly terrified. She was certain that there would be love, a binding, permanent love, between her and the American. And she knew, too, that she would always be in fear, somehow, of its consequences.
It’s not that he would hurt me, she thought, trying to explain to herself this baffling ambivalence of her emotions. But he will be killed. Or lost from me somehow. With a man like that, fate is in charge.
I need to rest, she thought, putting both hands on the windowsill to rise. All this is fantasy because I’m tired.
She had worn herself out for days, dreading his arrival. She had lost sleep. She had been in his presence for all these tense hours this evening; she had been enervated by his vibrant attention to her, as if he had been drawing off her energies by the power of his senses. And then the terror of that minute’s confrontation on the terrace below.
Francisco, she thought. Dear little Francisco. Such a fool you are.
“Ah, Colonel Clark! There you are! We’ve been looking for our honored guest. Eh, Vigo?” Teresa peered down over the windowsill. Her brother and Señor Vigo had strolled out onto the terrace, the American captain Bowman with them. They all carried full glasses. A servant followed them out, bearing a tray with clay pipes and a tobacco humidor, which he put on the table as they all drew chairs close to Colonel Clark.
“Getting some air,” said the colonel’s resonant voice. “This has been a night to remember. But thirty people do steam up a room.”
“You were, ahem, were you conversing with Tenente de Cartabona?” inquired de Leyba. “I, ah, saw him come in. Then he excused himself and left. A bit too much drink and excitement, I suspect.”
“We chatted. About little matters. Yes. A pleasant laddie.”
How lightly he can speak of it, thought Teresa. Why, he isn’t going to tell on Francisco!
“Well, my dear friend,” de Leyba went on. He was being his most expansive, his most cheerful and charming self. Despite the warning of her conscience, Teresa remained stooped by the window, eavesdropping, rationalizing that she still felt too dizzy to get up.
“Señor Vigo tells me,” de Leyba continued, “such marvelous reports of your dealings with the Indians. I nearly wept at the tale of the two young braves you spared.”
“That!” the American laughed. “Aye! Oh, of course I had no intention of killing them. But they set the stage for a real dramatic show, didn’t they? Ha! There’s nothing like ’em for theatrics. And those two are strutting on the stage now, let me tell ye that! Pair o’ nabobs they are. One of ’em came to me just yesterday, clothed in all the dignity of some old sagamore. He told me he had changed his name to Two Lives, to commemorate the occasion when I gave him a second life to live. Such a people!”
Vigo laughed. A whiff of tobacco smoke came in the window to the kneeling Teresa.
“They got a habit,” came the slurring voice of Captain Bowman, “of naming themselves after occasions. Take that fellow Big Gate. Shot a soldier at the gate of Fort Detroit, and that’s been his monicker ever since. Big Gate. Ha, ha! I ain’t had so much fun since Logan’s gran’ma …”
“Ahem! Right you are, Joseph. So much for that, eh?”
There was a thoughtful pause, filled with contented hms, sighs, and the screeching of night creatures. More tobacco smoke wafted into the humid night air. “Been a-puffin’ a lot of this stuff lately, ain’t we, George?” said Bowman’s voice.
“Aye. And better get used to it, too. There’s still a mighty passel of Indians we haven’t parleyed with yet.”
“As I’ve heard it, you’ve accomplished all this,” said de Leyba, “without shedding a drop of blood!”
“Yes!” exclaimed Vigo’s voice. “Isn’t that the most remarkable thing!”
“It’s real good fortune,” said the American. “It makes me feel,” he added with a pause, “that God’s on our side.”
There was more stillness, then de Leyba asked a question that Teresa knew was much on his mind; she had heard him discuss it often with military men. “Have you ever killed a man, Colonel?”
There was a long pause. Teresa prayed that he would say “No.”
“I have. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be among you now.”
There was more silence. Teresa shuddered. She had danced with a man who had killed men! Then her brother pursued it further:
“By bullet?”
“Aye.”
“By, um, ever by sword?”
“That, too, Governor. Once.” The Virginian’s voice was growing tight and unpleasant. De Leyba’s voice persisted now, in a rather breathy tone:
“That must be an experience. What is it like? I mean to say, how did you f—”
“I felt bloody awful! Now … Excellency, with due respect, sir,” his voice dropped, “… could we direct ourselves at more pleasant matters? I should hate to see the spell of the night smirched by morbid …”
“Yes, yes. Forgive me, my dear colonel. It’s just that as a commanding officer, I have never actually … you know …” He gave an embarrassed little laugh. “Even Father Gibault has killed an Indian, I hear. But I …”
“In these times, I’m afraid you’ll get your opportunity,” said the Virginian.
“I imagine so,” de Leyba said, his voice coming up to the window dispirited, as if he were now ashamed of his questions. Teresa, as she had never once been before, was embarrassed for her brother. There were several sighs in the darkness below, a throat was cleared, the clink of glasses. Finally the cheerful voice of Vigo broke the pause:
“Believe us, George, what we all admire most is the humanity of your conduct. Bloody victories may make better history, but in men’s hearts …”
“Eh, well! I’m only adhering to the language of my orders. Governor He
nry wrote that it should all be performed ’under the direction of the humanity that has hitherly distinguished Americans.’ I quote the order. I take my orders to the heart, gentlemen. I’m here to stop the flow of blood, not to shed more.”
“And that’s just amazin’, George,” came Bowman’s voice, full of awe and drunkenness, “when you think that just ’bout every man in yer-whole wall-eyed army joined up t’ git bloody revenge …”
“Maybe so, but they’ll get it in my way. I don’t hear ’em clamoring for blood any, now.”
“No, I don’t either. They’re happy as pigs in sh—” Bowman checked himself this time. “They feel pretty good,” he mumbled.
“Of course,” said de Leyba, “I’m sure most military orders advise humanity. It’s what happens once the blood-letting begins, as I understand it. I hope you can control them then, sir.”
“I do too, Excellency. Discipline will tell. I figure I’m not fit to lead ’em unless I can make them go, or make them stop, whichever the occasion demands.”
“Wonderful!” exclaimed Vigo in his oversize voice. “Most honorable!”
“Most honorable,” George reiterated, his own words now slurring some from the drink, “because I have this feeling about it, y’see, that th’ kind of a nation we raise out of this war will depend largely on how we do it. Gentlemen, if I may change the topic,” he said, abruptly rising, swaying. “D’you know what’s the inmost desire of my bosom?”
“Only ask,” said de Leyba, his voice cheerful again.
“To hear more of that music! God, I never heard anything like that music! Where could … she be?” His voice broke. And Teresa, huddled beside the window of her room above, heard it.
She crossed her closed fists over her breast, squeezed her eyelids shut, and shivered, and rejoiced at that small, piteous catch in that beloved voice. It meant that she had not been out of his thoughts even in all this talk about war and duty.
Long Knife Page 26
