by Lyn Cote
Alandra stared at the uniformed Mexican Army courier and then took the letter from him. She read the Spanish words twice. The black ink in the extravagant script danced in front of her eyes. Then she looked up. “Am I to send an answer?”
The man shrugged.
She called to Ramirez, who came out with her leather purse. She gave the man two pesos. He smiled and bowed, climbed back on his horse and was off.
Feeling mortally wounded, she walked inside, where Dorritt waited for her in the courtyard. “Who was it, Alandra?”
“A courier sent by Santa Anna with this.” She handed Dorritt the document.
After reading it, Dorritt looked up. “Your relatives didn’t waste any time in putting that will before a magistrate.”
Alandra gave a brittle chuckle. “I didn’t expect them to delay.” She finally let herself sit down. “What am I to do? It says that I’m to appear in court tomorrow if I want to challenge the will.”
Dorritt frowned. “The more that I see of what that Fernando and Benito do, the more I think that the will must be false. If it were valid, then why the hurry? And this ploy of Fernando’s to marry you so quickly.” She shook her head. “That tells me they wanted to make sure they’d get and keep the land whether they were entitled to it or not. No doubt they anticipated, hoped that a young impressionable girl would be overawed by Fernando’s elegance.”
Alandra laughed without humor. “Well, they thought wrong then, didn’t they?” She passed a hand over her creased brow. “None of what has happened feels real,” she whispered, recalling Scully riding away with Quinn just two days ago.
“I know. The kidnapping, the arrival of your relatives, and then Santa Anna—of all people—and now Quinn and Scully having to leave us. The war. Everything.”
“And now this,” Alandra said, taking the letter back from Dorritt. “I must go.”
“I’ll send Carson with you,” Dorritt said.
“No.” Alandra rose, shaking her head. She didn’t want anyone she loved along with her. This trip to San Antonio would not go well, and she would face it alone. “I will not take Carson.”
I do not want to hear comforting words or look into a face I love and see worry and pity.
Alandra continued, “I want him here with Ramirez protecting you and the ranch. I’ll take three of the best fighters of all my vaqueros. Santa Anna and his army are concentrating on battling the Anglos. I am important to Fernando and Benito, but not to Santa Anna. I won’t be bothered.”
Dorritt rose and took Alandra’s free hand. “Be careful. There are always Comanches and stray Apaches and Mexican deserters. We can’t forget that you were kidnapped just weeks ago. Maybe you should take more than three men.”
“I think having an army march through here on the way to the Alamo will have scared off any bandidos or renegades. Rats hide when the cat prowls.” She thought about Quinn and Scully again, heading toward a war. It left her feeling empty, as if her shoulders were floating in midair, unconnected to the rest of her.
Dorritt must have guessed what she was thinking because she put a comforting arm around her shoulders. “They’ll be all right. Maybe you should stay here and ignore the summons to court. The war will decide who will win not only Texas, but also Rancho Sandoval.”
“I will go.” Alandra leaned her cheek briefly against Dorritt’s cheek. “I must defend my land.” They didn’t know how the war would go, after all.
Scully, please be careful. Stay safe. Lord, help me to believe your promises to foil the wicked. I know men die in wars. And many mothers and wives here and in Mexico are praying for the…ones they love.
Walking beside the lawyer who always handled legal matters for her and the Quinns, Alandra entered the court in San Antonio. It was a small room, with the red, white, and green flag of Mexico at the front. The magistrate, all in black, sat behind an imposing desk. A secretary with ink, quill, and paper sat at a smaller desk in the corner. Two benches faced the magistrate. Her relatives sat stiffly in a row on the front bench.
She had been relieved to find her lawyer in town. But some Tejanos residents had never left San Antonio, and others had already returned to town, no doubt thinking that the war was won for the government in Mexico City.
Still feeling very much alone, Alandra sat behind her relatives with her lawyer. Isabella turned and gave her a scathing look. Alandra forced herself to give a brave and gracious smile in return, hoping her low spirits didn’t give her away. God is with me here.
The secretary rose and announced that the document, the will of the late Esteban Carlos Juan Sandoval, had been registered for probate. The magistrate finally looked up and addressed them. “I have the will in hand and am prepared to begin the probate proceedings. Are there any other petitions?”
Alandra’s lawyer rose, and presented her petition to the secretary. It asserted that the alleged will was false or that her father had written the will under duress. The secretary took it to the magistrate, who read the petition and frowned. “This petition will be sent along with the will to the state court as soon as I have made my ruling. I will send both parties a reply through their attorneys.”
The secretary finished noting what had been said, and then the magistrate left the room. Exiting, Alandra’s relatives walked past her without looking in her direction. Since she didn’t think she could be civil to them, she was glad to let them pass. Bitter but indistinct words swarmed in her mind, and if spoken, might have scalded her throat.
When she and her lawyer were alone in the small room, he told her, “I don’t hold any hope for your case, Señora Falconer. I suggest that you send most of your cattle to another property and remove all your personal effects from the house. You will lose this case.” With that, he bowed over her hand with obvious regret and left her.
She wandered out into the gloomy March day and thought of the bright summer sun. Her whole life had become as bleak as this day. Her lawyer’s only advice was to take whatever valuables and cattle she could send and carry away from Rancho Sandoval. She wished she’d let Carson come with her. Maybe having some family here with her would have made her feel better.
She shook her head at this thought. No, it would have made it worse. Carson would have been outraged by the way the Spanish courts worked. More than once she’d heard Anglos complain about not being permitted to speak in court in their own behalf. And Anglos also deplored the lack of juries.
Today, she could not bear angry words even in defense of her. I am so tired. I want to go home—while it is still my home.
Scully, where are you? Are you safe?
She went to the inn where her three vaqueros waited inside. “I want to leave now. Will you get the horses saddled and ready?”
She paid the innkeeper and walked out to her horse, feeling stiff, like a wooden doll.
The cold wind sanded her cheeks until they felt raw. The gray sky wrapped around them like unbleached wool. The vaqueros rode around her, ready to protect her. But the miles stretched on. What should I do? What can I do? Is there a way to keep my land? My inheritance?
Numb with defeat, she missed the first warning that something bad was happening. Then rifleshot. The vaquero next to her fell from his horse. Terrified, she called out his name. The vaquero on her other side slapped his reins on the rump of her mount. More gunshots sounded as the vaqueros on each side of her kept pace with her horse as it raced ahead. She turned around but couldn’t see the faces of the men chasing them.
Another gun shot. The vaquero beside her was blown off his saddle. He screamed, and she pulled up on her reins to go back to him.
“No, señorita! No!” the remaining vaquero shouted. “Ride! Escape!”
Another shot, and he fell too. She was surrounded, her mount danced on its hind feet, rearing and trumpeting, echoing her own panic. She was knocked from her saddle then, and lay winded. She looked up and couldn’t believe her eyes.
Nine
Scully and Quinn headed farther northeas
t, trying to find Sam Houston and the Texas Army. The mass of settlers fleeing before the Mexican Army clogged the muddy roads, slowing them. When the two talkative women who had traveled with them for the past two days met up with relatives also on the run, Scully and Quinn found themselves on their own again. How good to enjoy some peace. Alandra never chattered on as these two women had, barely taking a breath.
Coming around a bend in the timber, Scully and Quinn pulled up their horses. Ahead of them was a vast stirred-up sea of people, moving, talking, waving, shouting. The river had halted the exodus. Scully had heard the commotion but the timber blocked the view. He didn’t think he’d seen this many people in one place since a fiesta day in San Antonio. His horse fidgeted beneath him, and the same restlessness vibrated through his flesh. He didn’t like crowds.
And he didn’t like the thought of going in the same direction all these strangers were headed. He was used to and liked living in the open, away from people. This swarm of humans pressed against him, making him feel as if he were being surrounded, corralled, trapped. Was everybody in Texas leaving?
He leaned toward Quinn and said, “What do you think? Around a thousand?”
Quinn shrugged and continued to stare at the frantic people, mobbing the lone ferryman. Fear of Santa Anna must be rousing them, Scully thought. “They all act as if they can’t wait their turn to cross the Guadalupe River to the town of Gonzales,” Quinn said. “They look like they might rush the ferry when it gets back on this side to load up again. Somebody could get killed.”
Then the gray sky overhead opened and more rain sluiced down. Scully had made the mistake of looking skyward at just the wrong moment. And now he found himself gasping as if he were drowning. He sputtered, spitting rainwater from his mouth. Then he reached down and opened his canteen, letting the water from his hat brim pour into it.
The crowd around the ferryman screeched, shouted, and ran for cover. Did it have to rain like this on top of every of other misery? Even his wool poncho, though still shedding water, couldn’t keep out the penetrating dampness. Why did this March have to be so unusually wet?
Quinn glanced over and shook his head. “Let’s see if we can find somebody who looks like they know something.”
Scully followed Quinn as he rode slowly around the edges of the crowd. Finally, Quinn halted, swung down from his horse and tossed his reins to Scully to hold, before striding away. Within minutes Quinn had detached an older man from the roiling crowd and hauled him back. Then Quinn led the man and Scully to stand under the shelter of a post oak surrounded by mud.
“You’re Washburn from east of Bexar, aren’t you?” Quinn asked when they were beneath the tree. Before the man could answer, he went on, “What’s the news from east of here? Know anything? Where’s the Texas Army? Who’s in charge?”
Rain poured off the man’s hat. “There’s troops under Fannin at the La Bahia fort at Goliad, to the southeast. And Sam Houston is heading northeast of here gathering volunteers for the Texas Army. I heard somebody say he burned Gonzales to keep it from the Mexicans.” The man sounded as if he had been waiting a long time for someone to ask his opinion of matters. “We were hoping to buy provisions when we crossed today. It’s hard to know what is happening. I don’t think anybody knows exactly. I mean, where’s the Mexican Army? Where’s Sam Houston going?”
Scully looked across the river. But because of the usually dry weather before this recent onslaught of rain, timber and canebrakes grew where there had once been water, crowding both sides of the riverbank. So he couldn’t see ahead, to where Gonzales was said to be.
Quinn looked at the man, nodding his understanding. “Why are you here?”
“Santa Anna has ordered everything—every house, cabin, plantation—burned. He’s driving us Anglos out of Texas. That’s why everyone’s running. I mean, after the slaughter at the Alamo…” The man shook his head. “I thought I could be happy living in Texas as a part of Mexico, but after that, I can’t. That isn’t the way things are done.”
Scully understood. He couldn’t live in a Texas squashed under the heel of Santa Anna either. If the dictator succeeded in driving the Anglos out of Texas, how could he stay with Alandra? Then he remembered, his marriage to her was a sham. But how could Alandra stay in Texas if she lost her land?
“Where are you headed?” Quinn asked Washburn.
“I got family in Natchitoches. I guess I’ll head there with my daughter-in-law. I’m an old man. I can’t rebuild my place here. When we came to Texas, I had a son to help me…” The man swallowed and looked away.
“I’m sorry you must leave the graves of your family,” Quinn said. “But do not give up hope. I have not. I intend that Santa Anna will be defeated. We will run him out of Texas.”
Washburn clapped a hand on Quinn’s shoulder. “Good man. Now I got to go and help my daughter-in-law with my grandsons. Godspeed and I hope you bring down that butcher Santa Anna.”
Scully and Quinn wished the man well and then looked at one another as he walked off. “Which way should we go?” Quinn asked. “Should we cross over and see if Gonzales is indeed burned?”
Scully stood, watching the throng of people surging and cresting just like the river they wanted to cross, a river swollen and rolling fast with the spring rain. Miserable inside and out, he was restless. He looked to Quinn. “If I were Houston, I’d burn anything I thought the advancing enemy could use, and the old man said as much—that he burned Gonzales to keep it from the Mexicans. So I don’t think we need cross this river just to see a burned-out town.”
Quinn nodded. “Houston could be anywhere northeast of here. Fannin is at a fort. I say we go to Goliad and see if we can join up there.”
Scully swung up onto his horse. “Let’s go.”
Quinn followed suit and the two of them rode away from the commotion at the ferry. Witnessing the widespread panic and riding through the constant rain pulled at Scully. These things were trying to drag him down like a calf surrounded by a pack of baying wolves.
“It seems like both armies are moving east,” Quinn said. “I’m glad our women are west of Bexar. Out of this stampede.”
Scully was struck by Quinn using the words “our women.” Gritty determination fired him then, and he resolved to do whatever it took to keep Alandra safe. The image of her standing beside him, pale in the candlelit church, moved him, reminded him. When he went to Bexar to marry her, he’d taken a vow to protect her, and he’d do just that.
Still, he was only one man. Then the old memory, of being trapped in the dark and hearing screams, wrapped around his windpipe and nearly choked him. God, keep Alandra safe.
Just after dawn, Dorritt paced in the still dimly lit hallway off the courtyard at Rancho Sandoval. Her husband and Scully had been gone for days now. And Alandra had not returned from the court in Bexar, as expected yesterday. Dorritt knew she had to decide what to do.
As she paced, she whispered prayers. Prayer usually gave her confidence, peace. But today, in the dim morning light, after a sleepless night, she could not stop pacing and wringing her hands. Worry had dug in its poisoned talons and would not let her go.
Carson appeared behind her. “Ma, I know Pa left me here to guard you and Alandra’s rancho, but I can’t stay here. I have to go and find out what’s keeping her in Bexar. Something’s wrong. I feel it.”
Dorritt wanted to argue with him, but she couldn’t. And he sounded so grown-up and sure of what he should do. Her son, who was nearly a man, was prepared to do what she had not wanted him or asked him to do. This is hard, Father. She turned and wrapped her arms around him. He was already dressed and ready to leave. But he’s too young, an inner voice said, weakening her.
She closed her mind to it. His father had been orphaned at thirteen and explored Colorado with Pike. Carson was a year older than Quinn had been then. She drew in a deep breath. “I’m trying to have faith that Alandra has just been delayed, that your father and Scully are fine. I’m trying.”
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br /> Carson hugged her back. “I’m holding the faith too. But I have to go. Alandra might be in trouble. I’ll follow our usual route to Bexar. Maybe I’ll find her on the way home, or find that she’s been delayed in Bexar. Who knows what those relatives of hers have got going? She might have been forced to stay over. And may need help—family help.”
Dorritt nodded, pursing her lips against fear-filled words that might flow out of their own accord.
“Ma, you’ll be safe here with the vaqueros to guard you. Just don’t leave the rancho, all right?”
Two more figures came into the courtyard. “Carson,” Antonio called, Emilio at his side.
Carson drew his mother along by the hand as he moved toward the other young man. “Antonio and Emilio are going with me,” he told her. “You need to stay here, Ma, in case Pa or I send word,” he repeated.
Dorritt couldn’t speak, afraid that she might give in to tears. Tears that might drown all hope. So instead she mustered a smile and nodded, then spoke in Spanish, because it had just the phrase she wanted to use. “Vayas con Dios, mi hijo.” She turned to Reva’s son, Emilio. In turn, she stroked each of the darker, still boyishly smooth cheeks. “Vayas con Dios, mi hijo.”
When Carson told Ramirez where he was going, Ramirez had insisted that he would join them on their way to find Alandra. They’d left while the sun was still low over the eastern horizon. Now it was high near its zenith—if a body could have seen it through the low thick clouds. Fortunately, they hadn’t opened yet to pour more rain. When the four of them had left that morning, they’d been able to see their breath. But it was getting warmer in spite of the cloud cover.
But from back a long ways, they’d seen vultures circling ahead. A bad sign. One that made Carson’s stomach slip lower. It could just be what’s left from an animal kill. Don’t think that it might be Lonnie. Don’t think that. She’s probably in Bexar at the inn, drinking coffee and listening to gossip.
