by Lila Guzmán
LORENZO’S
REVOLUTIONARY QUEST
Lila Guzmán
and
Rick Guzmán
This volume is made possible through grants from the City of Houston through The Cultural Arts Council of Houston, Harris County.
Piñata Books are full of surprises!
Piñata Books
An imprint of
Arte Público Press
University of Houston
452 Cullen Performance Hall
Houston, Texas 77204-2004
Cover art courtesy of Giovanni Mora
Cover design by James F. Brisson
Guzmán, Lila, 1952–
Lorenzo’s Revolutionary Quest / Lila and Rick Guzmán.
p. cm.
Sequel to: Lorenzo’s Secret Mission
Summary: In 1777, under orders from George Washington, sixteen-year-old Captain Lorenzo Bannister drives 500 head of cattle east from San Antonio, Texas, to feed the Continental Army while enemies, old and new, plot against him.
ISBN 1-55885-392-8 (alk. paper)
1. Cattle drives—Fiction. 2. United States—History—Revolution, 1775–1783—Fiction. 3. Spies—Fiction. 4. Orphans—Fiction. 5. West (U.S.)—History—To 1848—Fiction I. Guzmán, Rick and Lila. II. Title.
PZ7.G9885Lm 2003
[Fic]—dc21
2003045995
CIP
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
© 2003 by Lila and Rick Guzmán
Printed in the United States of America
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments
Historical Note
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Resources for Teachers
About Lila and Rick Guzmán
Acknowledgments
Our thanks go Susan Rockhold, Helen Ginger, and Ross Sams for reading the manuscript and making invaluable suggestions. Without their insights, perpetual good humor, and multicolor pens, this book would not have been possible.
We owe a debt of gratitude to a nameless girl at Strake Middle School in Houston, Texas. She asked if Eugenie was in this book and changed the direction of Lorenzo’s Revolutionary Quest.
Special thanks to:
Jamie Slaughter, an expert on swords and dueling, for his technical help.
Virginia Sánchez, historical researcher of Hispanic genealogy, and Ronaldo Miera, president of the Hispanic Geneological Research Center of New Mexico, for answering questions about courtship and marriage in the 1700s.
Steve Parrett, of the Cowboyhat Cattle Company in Claremore, Oklahoma, for answering questions about the origins of the Texas longhorn breed.
Phyllis Helpenstine, an antiques dealer in Washington, Kentucky (www.washingtonky.com).
The historical interpreters of www.soldados.org. Their love of Spanish Colonial and Mexican history is inspirational.
Many, many thanks to Brother Edward Loch, S.M., of the San Antonio Dioceses for his expertise on San Antonio in the 1700s.
Historical Note
Colonel Bernardo De Gálvez, General George Washington, the Marquis de La Fayette, and Captain William Linn are historical figures. The rest are fictional.
The Spanish brought the first cattle to the New World in 1493. Texas Longhorns are their descendants.
The flatboats with barrels of beef for the Continental Army never arrived. They vanished without a trace. To this day, no one knows what became of them. It remains one of history’s mysteries.
By the end of the American Revolution, the Spanish had given the patriots $5,000,000 and had loaned them 219 cannons, 30,000 muskets, 4,000 tents, and 30,000 uniforms. In 1779 Britain asked Spain to halt her aid. Spain refused.
In memory of the Lipan Apaches,
A vanished tribe,
And the vaqueros,
Mestizo forerunners of the American cowboy.
Chapter One
Sweat seeped down Lorenzo’s back. August 1, 1777, was stifling hot. He reached for the canteen dangling from his saddle, uncorked it, and drank while his horse nibbled at wild flowers. Hand cupped over his eyes, Lorenzo scoured the plain for familiar landmarks.
The Province of Texas was an exciting place, and he was glad to be back. Here, he had learned how to track, fire a musket, and fight with a sword. Texas held sad memories, too. Here, he had lost his father, a physician for the Spanish army.
Red, a bear of a man with fire-red hair and a scraggly beard, reined in beside him and sleeved his forehead dry. He uncorked his canteen. “How much longer, Captain?”
It took Lorenzo a moment to react to the title. He still wasn’t used to it. “We’ll be in San Antonio by late afternoon.”
This was Lorenzo’s first command. He had been surprised and delighted when George Washington commissioned him a captain in the Continental Army a month earlier on his sixteenth birthday. But then, a major on General Washington’s staff was only nineteen, and so was the Marquis de Lafayette, a French nobleman who had left his wife and come to America to offer his services.
General Washington had placed an important mission square on Lorenzo’s shoulders. If it didn’t succeed, the Continental Army would starve when it went into winter encampment. Finding enough food for an army of ten thousand was difficult, but five hundred head of cattle would definitely help.
A half league back, Lorenzo’s soldiers, two Pennsylvania woodsmen and a Frenchman, plodded along in a cloud of hoof-churned dust. Wranglers trailed behind them with the extra horses, called the remuda. Lorenzo had used a portion of the letter of credit issued by Congress to buy extra mounts to make the trip faster. In San Antonio, he would exchange them for range horses trained to drive cattle.
Lorenzo felt a twinge of guilt. Anxious to reach San Antonio, capital of Spain’s northernmost province, he’d been driving the men hard, making them rise before first light and ride until dusk, with stops every two hours. By nightfall they would be stuffing themselves with fresh tortillas and cooling off in the San Antonio River. The trip would be little more than a bad memory.
One night, shortly after leaving New Orleans, Lorenzo had overheard a conversation between an old horse wrangler and Red.
“Captain Bannister looks wet behind the ears,” the man had remarked. “Do you think he’s up to the task?”
“I sure do,” Red had replied. “Captain Bannister’s got more common sense and gumption than mos
t men twice his age. I’ve known him for about a year, and there ain’t nobody I’d rather serve with.”
Lorenzo appreciated the sentiment and felt the same way about Red.
Side by side, they rode through knee-high grass.
“The Spanish king owns all this, huh?” Red said.
“Every mesquite tree, armadillo, and mockingbird.”
“I’d keep that under my hat if I was king. So far, I ain’t seen nothing to brag about.”
“Hey! Watch what you say about Texas,” Lorenzo exclaimed in mock outrage. “This is home.”
“I figured you called New Orleans home.”
“It has definite charms,” Lorenzo said, thinking of his fiancée, Eugenie, “but Texas will always be special to me.”
“Don’t see why. It’s hotter than Hades.”
Lorenzo laughed. “It could be worse. We could be in uniform.”
The mission to San Antonio required them to travel in disguise, so he and his men wore buckskin and moccasins. They had to keep secret from the British, that General Washington had sent him to buy cattle from the Spanish.
Lorenzo and Red stopped on a knoll and took shade beneath an oak tree.
Fifty or so head of cattle topped the ridge opposite them. Bawling and lowing, they surged over the hill in a cloud of dust.
“You asked what longhorned cattle look like.” Lorenzo gestured toward them. “See for yourself.”
“Good Lord!” Red exclaimed.
Lorenzo couldn’t help but smile. He had grown up around them, and even he found them awe-inspiring. Full-grown bulls easily weighed two thousand pounds. Their horns curved out and twisted up.
“Look at that one.” Red pointed toward a huge rust-colored bull with a jagged blaze on its forehead. “Must be five feet from one horn tip to the other.”
“Sharp as bayonets, too.” A sudden thought struck Lorenzo. He drew a spyglass from his saddlebag and trained it on the brand burned into a cow’s rump. It showed a circle topped by a cross.
“Those are mission cattle,” Lorenzo said. “What are they doing this far from the ranch?”
“Sure are moving fast.”
“Too fast. I have a bad feeling about this.” Lorenzo swung the telescope to the men driving them. He knew the vaqueros who worked the mission ranch, but none of these men looked familiar.
Lorenzo collapsed his telescope. He frowned. “Last year cattle rustlers stole seven hundred head from the mission.”
“You think these are rustlers?”
Lorenzo nodded.
“Maybe they have a bill of sale for the cattle,” Red suggested.
“I doubt it.”
One of the men stopped, stared straight at him and Red, and pointed them out to his companions.
Lorenzo’s bad feeling grew when the men split up, four driving the cattle in one direction, three loping toward them.
Red straightened. He and Lorenzo exchanged a quick look. They drew their muskets. Like all good frontiersmen, they kept them loaded and ready to fire.
Three men charged toward them. One had flowing blond hair, another dressed all in white, and yet another was short and stocky. They wore shirts, trousers, and boots. In one fluid motion, they drew arrows from their quivers, readied their bows, and shot.
“Duck!” Lorenzo yelled.
Chapter Two
The first arrow hissed by, slicing the air where Red’s chest had been a moment earlier. The second thudded into Lorenzo’s horse making it squeal in pain and fall from under him. The third arrow went wide.
Musket in hand, Lorenzo jumped off, looked around for cover, and dashed to a clump of bushes.
Red, apparently realizing he was an inviting target on horseback, flung himself off and joined Lorenzo.
“Left, right, or center?” Lorenzo asked, giving Red the option of which target he wanted.
“Right,” Red said, his face grim. “Save the man on the left for last. He can’t shoot straight.”
The cattle rustlers reached over their shoulders for more arrows and continued the charge.
In unison, Lorenzo and Red aimed and fired. Flame burst from their musket barrels, followed by puffs of smoke.
Two men fell from their horses. The third pulled hard on his reins, whipped his horse around, and lashed its rump furiously.
Hooves thundered behind Lorenzo. He glanced around as he reloaded. Two wranglers remained in the valley with the horses, but the rest of his soldiers dashed uphill. They pulled alongside him and Red. Upon seeing the longhorned cattle, they wore expressions that reflected the awe Lorenzo had seen on Red’s face.
“Mon dieu!” exclaimed Private Dujardin, a twenty-year-old Frenchman with corn-color hair.
All was confusion in the valley. Cattle, apparently spooked by the commotion, scattered.
The remaining rustlers wheeled their horses and gathered under a distant oak, joined by the rustler who had survived the charge. After a short discussion, they took off at a gallop, abandoning the cattle.
Lorenzo snorted in disgust. “They were big and brave when they thought they had me and Red outnumbered. Look at them now, running with their tails tucked between their legs.” He turned to Dujardin. “Go back to the remuda and get me a new horse. The rest of you round up those cattle. We’re going to drive them back to San Antonio. Keep a sharp eye out for the rustlers.”
His men spread out to collect strays.
In the meantime, Lorenzo uncinched his saddle. Dujardin returned with a gray mare named Piñata. With the private’s help, Lorenzo retrieved as much as he could from the dead horse and saddled the new one. He pondered what to do with the two dead rustlers and decided to leave them. Their fellow cattle rustlers would probably come back for their bodies.
Lorenzo’s soldiers drove the cattle toward a central point. Once they were bunched into a small herd, they lowered their heads and grazed on tall grass.
Lorenzo counted them. Fifty. He hoped he wouldn’t have to go to as much trouble to get the five hundred cattle General Washington expected him to deliver.
Molly Linn glanced back at the long line of men standing behind her. It looked like the whole Continental Army was being inoculated for smallpox. So many soldiers! How would General Washington ever find enough food to feed them all?
She had heard a rumor that the British planned to send people infected with smallpox into camp to spread the disease. General Washington had taken the threat seriously and had ordered everyone to get inoculated, even civilians like Mrs. Washington. Was there enough medicine to go around?
Molly was ten years old and had never caught smallpox, but she had heard a lot about it. People said it started as a rash and turned into pus-filled sores. If it didn’t kill you, it usually left ugly pockmarks. Her brother said inoculations were safe, and physicians had been giving them for as long as he could remember. Last year, he had been inoculated, and nothing bad had happened to him.
The soldier in front of her disappeared into the doctor’s tent.
She swallowed hard. She was next.
“Ain’t afeerd, are ya, little girl?” the man behind her whispered.
“I’m not afraid of man nor beast!”
“Uh-huh.” He sounded unconvinced.
A man came out of the tent rolling down his sleeve.
Molly stepped inside. Her eyes bulged to see a man covered with smallpox lying on a cot. Dr. MacGregor sat beside him on a stool.
“Hello, Boots,” the doctor said brightly. He had called her “Boots” ever since she gave a barefoot soldier a pair of riding boots.
Molly remained by the tent door.
He motioned her forward.
She took a reluctant step and watched him pick up a toothpick from the table to his right, turn toward the pox-covered man, and open a sore. He pressed it firmly, making it ooze, and scooped clear liquid onto a quill.
It headed toward her arm. There was smallpox on that quill. Molly felt lightheaded.
“Hold still, Boots,” Dr. MacGregor
cajoled. “Twill hurt but a moment.”
“They say the cure is worse than the illness.”
“Who says?”
“My brother’s soldiers.”
“They’re a wild lot, Boots,” the doctor warned. “You best stay away from the likes of them.”
“My brother is a soldier,” Molly said, indignant.
“He’s an officer,” the doctor countered. “That’s different.”
“The soldiers in my brother’s company are real nice, especially Captain Bannister. I met him when he visited General Washington. He was with the flatboat flotilla bringing us Spanish gunpowder. They say they’re heading back down river soon to meet Captain Bannister—OUCH!” She looked at the scratch mark made by the quill.
The doctor rubbed her arm with cotton. “Done! Now off with you. And stay out of trouble!”
“Me? Get into trouble?”
The doctor roared with laughter. “Off with you!”
“Yes sir!”
Molly trudged back to the scullery where she worked as the assistant cook. How she wanted to be part of the war. Not the battle she waged with field mice always getting into the grain or ants raiding the honey jar. Real war.
Chapter Three
Leaning on an ax handle, Dunstan Andrews surveyed the Virginia landscape. He hated everything about this place. He hated the hills, woolly with trees. He hated the piney scent from the forest. He hated the way the king’s rebellious subjects dropped their Rs.
“You!” a musket-toting guard yelled. “You with the scar! Get to work.”
Dunstan ignored the order.
Sweat rolled down his back and face. He reached for his scarlet coat draped over a boulder and fished out a handkerchief to tie around his forehead.
