The Obedient Servant [Going for the Gold 6] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Karen Mercury

  “Si,” said another vaquero. “Spaniards see this, they’ll think they are dealing with robbers.”

  “There’s Milo!” someone out on the avenue shouted.

  Luckily, Tallulah was at the door end of the bar, and she was already prepared to sprint. Leaving behind the flag and the bowl of red paint, she was the second or third to dash out the door. Even here in the street, there were already so many men that she had to shove farmers and caballeros aside in order to catch a glimpse of Dr. Semple. He was overseeing the loading of baggage into carts, and citizens onto horseback, readying them for transport to Sutter’s Fort so they’d be out of harm’s way.

  She cared about the plight of poor Comandante Vallejo, his brother Salvador, Jacob Leese, and Prudhon. All of them she’d known for a year since arriving as a bedraggled “widow.” They’d opened up their hacienda doors to her. They’d paid her, given her jobs, loaned her men to labor and materials to build with. She knew they’d be back once the danger was past.

  The crowd surged toward the plaza. She was lifted up on tiptoes, gripping the greasy leather sleeves of a few mountain men. The butt of a rifle nudged into her hip, and the handle of a bowie knife pressed against the other as the men flowed toward the enormous double gates in the center of the barracks adobe. The rabble that enveloped her bellowed various oaths, such as, “Long live Americans!”

  “The Republic of California forever!”

  “Live by the sword, die by the sword!”

  “I never said that! I don’t want to die by the sword!”

  “Only Spaniards use swords, because they never have any ammunition!”

  “Down with Spaniards!”

  And then, there they were. Her lover, Milo Stephens—Captain Milo Stephens—emerged from between the two fortress doors. He had replaced his buckskin shirt with a gold-buttoned frock coat of red material—not a Mexican army uniform obviously but something that looked to have been stolen from a British soldier. Frontier men had to scrounge for clothing that looked even halfway military, so Milo could very well have done that, and he looked incredibly dashing. His gold buttons glinted in the sun and his knee-high black boots that replaced the scruffy moccasins flashed with authority as he strode masterfully toward the crowd.

  Corporal Vargas was at his side, looking equally grim and superior. Vargas had obtained the battalion’s naval supplies from Frémont and was outfitted in the blue flannel sailor’s shirt with the stars on the collar. It struck Tallulah how similar, really, the two men were. Not just that they were both tall, dark-haired, handsome brutes. But they almost looked like brothers as they strode purposefully toward the boisterous crowd—two brothers of the same mind, same heart. They were truly partners in the most intimate and highest sense, although Reynaldo had tried to encourage Milo to walk the official path and wait for direct orders from President Polk. Reynaldo had eventually capitulated to the will of the masses and they were now two sides of one coin, balancing each other out.

  A new thrill Tallulah had never felt swept through her chest as her men came forward. This was not the time for romantic nonsense, but she had to actively fight the urge to fling herself into Milo’s arms. He was the least romantic man she’d ever known—a good thing that he didn’t even make the effort to pretend—and he would have abhorred that.

  “It is done!” Milo bellowed, not missing one step in his stride.

  A cheer rolled over the entire central plaza at this proclamation, and the tide turned back toward the Blue Wing. Tallulah stumbled a bit, now hanging onto men’s sleeves only by her fingertips, but a strong hand against her bum soon buoyed her up. Milo. They were crushed and jostled together—on her other side she was smashed against a bear hunter who still radiated the odor of his prey—and Milo’s eyes definitely twinkled with merriment when he finally looked directly at her.

  “I have your flag!” Tallulah had to shout. “Now that secession is assured, men have been pouring in from the countryside. Some seek protection, some to join you.” Tallulah was thrilled that of all the men clamoring for Milo’s attention, literally grabbing at his elbow, he was talking to her, an innkeeper.

  “Good!” Milo shouted back. “We need every hand we can get. There is some dissention still.”

  Indeed, by the time they were carried to the Blue Wing, Tallulah had to corral a red-faced, enthusiastic Origin to help in pulling the bungs on some casks of liquor. She could not very well deny the men their due now that their initial rebellion had gone swimmingly. They were allowed to celebrate—for now, anyway.

  Reynaldo leaned far across the bar and grabbed Tallulah’s sleeve as she stooped to swipe up a bottle of good and rare French wine she’d been saving. “I’m assigning these three men to guard your liquor and collect money. Each man must pay for what he drinks.”

  “Oh, certainly,” Tallulah agreed. “That’s so very thoughtful of you.”

  In fact, it was not only thoughtful but necessary of Reynaldo, as the Blue Wing bodega had never been so packed as a sardine tin as it was now at nine in the morning. Perhaps a hundred men were chockablock in the adobe room, those who could standing on the swaying tables and clinging to the rafters to remain on their feet. Reynaldo had to urge Milo to stand on the sturdier bar Tallulah had imported from St. Louis, Cowie and Fowler holding his ankles to prevent his being knocked off.

  The crowd quieted a bit when Milo roared, “This day we proclaim California a republic, and our pledge is that private property shall be protected. We have strengthened our position and continue to hold it under the authority of thirty well-armed men and the rule of the people!”

  Most of the roughnecks roared their approval, but Milo was right—a few voices of dissention were heard. One fellow Tallulah knew as an original settler, Captain Richardson from Sausalito, screamed, “We’re not supported by the United States or Captain Frémont! We’ll be completely unable to withstand General Castro when he marches upon us!”

  “Yeah!” shouted a cattle rancher from the coast. “I move to abandon this whole action. I’m going home and I’ll join up with Castro if he comes knocking on my door!”

  There was a general hubbub of discussion then. The very foot-thick clay walls vibrated with the buzz of the men’s talk. Tallulah was kept busy whisking and filling glasses across the bar. Reynaldo’s bodyguards, true to his word, literally rattled customers by their shirtfronts for money before they’d allow her to serve them.

  At this juncture, just as Tallulah was pausing to sip whiskey from a caballero’s mug herself—the tension was so great, she could not resist a few gulps!—Milo looked down at her. He stood on the bar like a glorious Roman statue, one of those victorious European men with feet spread wide with the vigor of conquest. With his Hawken rifle slung across his back and his gun belt bristling with armament, he was the perfect conquering hero. The tails of the red British coat enhanced the shapely slope of his ass, and the fringed buckskins were stuffed into the black leather boots. Only, strife among his troops was tarnishing his statuesque patina. And yet the corners of his mouth turned up into a smile when he caught her gulping someone else’s whiskey.

  She knew she had never gazed upon such a glorious man before.

  Inhaling deeply, Milo hollered over the babble of the crowd. “Saddle no horse for me! I will lay my bones here before I will take upon myself the ignominy of starting an honorable task such as revolution, then fleeing like a coward, like a thief, when the enemy is in sight. In vain you will then say you had honorable motives.”

  “Yeah!” shouted many men in agreement. But the babble of argument had silenced.

  Gathering strength, Milo continued, “Who will believe you then? Flee today, and your long life won’t wear off your disgrace! Choose now! Choose today what you will be.”

  There was an eerie, short pause during which the final tones of Milo’s last words chimed, rattling the glassware and metal in the room. It was a stimulating, thrilling moment, looking up at Milo with his nostrils flaring. The men didn’t have to h
old his ankles anymore, as people had fallen away from him, as if to better gaze up at him in awe.

  Reynaldo was the first to move, hoisting his own mug on high. “Hear, hear! President Stephens of the California Republic!”

  Immediately a sea of upraised mugs was offered, along with a hail of toasts.

  “Here’s to you!”

  “To the republic!”

  “Here’s another nail in your coffin.”

  “Here’s all the hair off your head.”

  Tallulah even toasted with her customer’s whiskey mug. “To President Stefanski!” She had heard Vallejo address Milo that way, and she preferred it to the bland “Stephens.”

  However, once the toasts petered out, men good-naturedly knocked Milo from the bar and carried him out the door on a bed made of their palms. His arms and legs flailed and he was laughing from ear to ear, but Tallulah knew how an exuberant crowd could easily get out of hand. Whisking the flag from where it was draped over an ale keg, she pressed on after him after instructing the bodyguards to mind the bar.

  Origin, of course, was hot on her heels. “This is the most exciting moment in the history of California!”

  “I have to say,” Tallulah admitted, “that I agree with you. This is very invigorating!”

  “The flag, the flag!” Origin insisted.

  Tallulah handed him the folded cloth and he shook it out. The crowd had stood Milo atop a wooden crate so he could loom head and shoulders above them, and Cowie and Grigsby took the other corners of the flag to attach it to a reata while Milo orated.

  “There is now no alternative but to die under protest together at the hands of our enemies, or fly to meet the foe!”

  “Wait!” shrieked Origin, just as Cowie and Grigsby had attached the flag with halyards. “There’s something wrong. There’s an I missing.”

  Indeed, Todd had painted CALIFORNIA REPUBLC on the flag. So Tallulah told Origin where to find the bowl of Venetian Red paint under the bar, and he tore back down the block. Milo squatted on his crate and she was able to put a hand on his knee and say in his ear, “I am very proud of you. You are the most powerful, virile man I’ve ever known.”

  Milo looked straight ahead, because to gaze into her eyes would have displayed their intimacy to everyone. But he could not keep the smile from his face. “This is a glorious day indeed for Californians. But I frankly can’t wait for it to be over. I need to have you in my mouth.”

  Tallulah wasn’t sure exactly what this meant, but it had her all aquiver. Men shoved her aside to make political exhortations to Milo, Origin returned with the paint, and in the hubbub she was again jostled to the back of the crowd. The mission bells were rung, guns were fired, and many, many liquor barrels were tapped.

  But she thought about Milo’s comment all throughout that long, exhausting day. And found out what he meant that night.

  Chapter Ten

  Milo sat at General Vallejo’s piano, tinkling away at a composition by the Polish composer Oginski. It was a lovely little piece with sweet high notes yet a thunderous passage and a very showy cadenza toward the end. Of course he hadn’t played any piano in years, a decade maybe, but it was true what they said. Once a composition is learned, you really never forgot how to play.

  Some lovely Californio señoritas in their embroidered rebozos were admiring his playing, and even some ranchers’ wives dared come over and drape themselves on Vallejo’s piano. Ten years ago, before marrying Elizabeth, he would have welcomed this attention. Milosz Stefanski was the big gun of Sonoma today, the President of the Republic, the leader of the Osos—or, as some were laughing, the leader of the Pigs.

  Tonight he was proud to acknowledge that the female attention meant nothing to him. He only craved the attention of one female, the bountiful innkeeper, Señorita Crabtree.

  She had not been hanging over him all day, as some of these belles had been. In fact, she seemed to have barely glanced his way. Once he had secured the roostered men in the calabozo guarded over by nine cannon, seen Vallejo and his family off to Sutter’s Fort, and dispatched his proclamation to Commodore Stockton, of course he had confabbed with his “cabinet.” Tallulah and the women, both Yankee and Californio, cooked a repast fit for a fandango, which they all ate in the courtyard at long tables. Afterward they had repaired to Casa Grande, Milo only allowing his cabinet and their women to attend for fear of damage to the comandante’s furniture.

  It must be nearing midnight by now, yet the exuberance of the day hadn’t worn off for most people. Even the half-caste daughters of Captain Richardson with their demure mantillas over their heads were fluttering their eyelashes at Milo—and their father had protested the rebellion. Yes, Milo was the big frog of the moment, cutting quite the figure in the British military coat with the tails, pounding away on Vallejo’s ivories. He was some pumpkins, all right, but he kept a close eye on Tallulah. Many cabinet members of the new republic were making hot eyes at her, especially that Thomas Cowie with his floppy hair falling over his brow. Cowie kept flipping his hair back arrogantly and seemed to be making jokes that Tallulah laughed at. Milo was planning to assign Cowie to some really heinous task.

  Angelica Richardson had sat down next to Milo on the piano bench, rubbing the shelf of her bosom against his bicep. True, his prick expanded against his thigh when Angelica did that. What reasonable man’s wouldn’t? But he was boring holes into Cowie’s idiotic blue turban with the menace of his gaze when Reynaldo sat down on the piano bench, too, flanking him, pressing his thigh against Milo’s.

  “It’s time to wind this fandango down,” Reynaldo suggested. “Plenty to do tomorrow. I don’t want to risk the smallest thing in Casa Grande being disturbed, so I’m going to boot everyone then retire to the barracks myself.”

  Milo’s fingers moved into an adagio on the keys. “All right. Only you’re not going to any barracks. You’re staying here with me.” The rubbing of Angelica’s bosom stopped abruptly, and Milo felt her hold her breath. “Say, what task can we give to Cowie tomorrow? We need more gunpowder, don’t we? I heard that a Mose Carson out at Fitch Ranch has a keg or two of powder.”

  Reynaldo grinned wearily. “Mose is Kit’s brother. That’d be a good task to send him out on. He’s certainly useless here in Sonoma. On the way to Fitch Ranch he could at least keep his eyes skinned for any Spaniard playing monte or dancing a fandango. Take Fowler with him. Fowler asked Tallulah to dance the el jarabe dance three times.”

  “Three times?” Milo nearly shouted, and his fingers stilled on the keys. Quieter, he repeated, “Three times?”

  Reynaldo was quick to add, “She only acquiesced once. But that’s enough to send him to Fitch Ranch, don’t you agree?”

  “Completely,” Milo said fiercely. “Yes, let us get rid of these guests.” Swiftly he turned to Angelica and kissed her hand apathetically. “Me tengo que ir.” I must be going.

  He pushed back from the bench, following Reynaldo to the front of the parlor where Cowie was helping Tallulah on with her rebozo—as if a woman needed help to drape a lacey two-ounce shawl about her shoulders. Grasping the tomfool dough-head by the shoulder with an eagle’s talon, Milo spun Cowie aside as though he were an inconsequential chicken in the road and addressed Tallulah only.

  “I need your assistance. Don’t go.”

  She smiled pleasantly. “Anything you need. Captain,” she added devilishly.

  Cowie started to say, “I was just going to walk Miss Crabtree back to her—”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” Milo snapped, finally addressing the volunteer rebel. “Go to the barracks and get some sleep, for I need you and Fowler on an important mission tomorrow.”

  The word “mission” did it, for Cowie grabbed Fowler and a couple of other republicans and headed out the door. Milo steered Tallulah down the long parlor and into the hallway that let off onto several bedrooms.

  “Ah, I see.” Tallulah’s eyes sparkled. “You need my ‘assistance.’ Are you sure you aren’t too tired for my �
��assistance’? You’ve had a long day, Mr. President.”

  Milo chuckled. “No, not that. I honestly need—I’ve asked one of your Diggers to boil and carry water for this bathtub. Look. Vallejo has this absolutely fantastic tub.” He pressed back a door, which swung to reveal the white enameled tub standing in the middle of a large, tiled room. Even Milo’s bathtub at Virgin Groves upriver was only a silver tin tub, brought painstakingly up the Sacramento in a sloop.

  Milo was pleased with the wide smile that appeared on her face. “Oh, my! Francisca certainly could’ve told me about this after that time I was knocked into the mud by some brawlers.” She swiftly corrected herself. “But then we have the creek to bathe in, so I can see why she didn’t offer her tub. Would you like me to keep after the Diggers to continue filling it while you bathe?”

  “Yes, that’s the idea. And tell Corporal Vargas to enter when he’s done shooing all the guests away.”

  As they spoke, the Digger squaw arrived with another bucket full of steaming water. The still night was imbued with the daytime’s sunrays that had heated the ground, but one of the beauties of adobe buildings was that they stayed cool in summer and warm in winter. Milo lit another oil lamp while the squaw poured the steaming water into the tub. He caught Tallulah by the wrist as she was leaving.

  “You come back, too,” he insisted.

  She nodded and vanished, and Milo at last luxuriated in the pleasure of peeling the redcoat’s jacket, which after all was a tad snug, from his aching shoulders. He had stored his mountaineer rig and other kit in his room at the Blue Wing, figuring he could take over one of the bedrooms in the guest quarters here. Now he sat before a dressing table and yanked off the tall, heeled boots someone had probably stolen off a dead Spanish soldier. By the time he got down to the red pantaloons he was practically flinging the clothing about, he was so eager to step into the tub. The red scarf that made his head cloth was tossed so hurriedly it draped over an Oriental room screen.