The Deliverance

by Richard S. Wheeler

  He tried to pet Shine, but the monkey seemed a blur of motion, and Skye saw the shadow up on the sill once again.

  “Well, thanks anyway,” he muttered.

  “You can have mine,” Childress said.

  Skye refused to reply, even if the offer was kind.

  He ate slowly, savoring the moist and textured bread, the humblest but greatest of blessings. He could have eaten two loaves, but this would do. A spider monkey with an uncanny way of being helpful had rescued him, at least for the moment.

  A few merchant seamen had monkeys, kept as mementos of some tropical port. Some merchant ships had monkeys aboard, mostly for amusement. But they were the rarest of domestic animals and served no useful purpose. He wondered where Childress had found this one, and how Childress had trained him to be so useful.

  Skye settled himself against a cold wall, and tried to think: How would he escape both the Mexicans, and the flamboyant Childress, alleged privateer and trader, and rescue the women?

  But no answer came to him.

  twenty-five

  The prefect, Archuleta, entered, flanked by two soldiers. Jean Lafitte Childress eyed them from the floor, where he had curled in his monk’s habit, staving off the sharp chill. Skye sat against an earthen wall watching, his gaze sharp in the soft dawn light. The monkey leaped for the high window and sat there studying the intruders.

  The prefect pointed at Childress, and then beckoned him.

  Slowly, his bones aching from cold, Childress stood and walked through the door, followed by the soldiers and the man who would decide his fate.

  “Buenos dias, amigos,” Childress said expansively. “I respect your persons, but your hospitality leaves something to be desired.”

  They marched him into the plaza, hushed now as the villagers of Taos slumbered into the dawn. The sweet smoke of piñon pine drifted from chimneys. Where were they taking him?

  They left the plaza, turned up an alley, scattered two cats, and the prefect opened a door of a substantial building. Childress could see that its interior was better furnished than most in this rude town; massive mission-style chairs and a settee filled a room. A small fire wavered in a beehive fireplace.

  The prefect waved Childress to a chair. “Sit yourself,” he said in Spanish.

  A hefty woman with her hair in a tight black bun immediately brought a steaming cup of coffee.

  “Ah! Nurture for the body! Perhaps I will soon enjoy the famous hospitality of the Mexicans,” he said, hopefully.

  But the prefect said nothing, drew up a straight-backed dining chair directly opposite Childress, and sat in it.

  “Who are you?” he asked abruptly.

  “You have my name, sir.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I am engaged in the pursuit of empire, Sah.”

  “What the Americanos call a filibuster?”

  Childress stared, scornfully. “They lack imagination. My purpose is much more noble, Senor Archuleta. I am going to sever the northern reaches of Mexico from the mother country and found my own nation, the Republic of Childress.”

  Archuleta smiled slightly. “Yesterday you were a monk. The day before, you were a trader operating as Childress and McIntyre. The day before that, so to speak, you were a Texas privateer preying on Mejico!”

  “I am all that and more, Sah.”

  “Now let me see, señor. A monk in a Franciscan habit with a monkey, a red cart, a draft horse, and the ensigns of piracy on the side of your cart. Two beautiful savages accompanied you, indecently attired. You entertained us with a fine story: the Apaches took everything, except of course your horse and cart and harness. So you drove to Arroyo Hondo stark naked, baking in the sun, where you wished to be succored. And an elderly woman came to your assistance, si?”

  “Ah, señor, it is all true, as true as the gospel.”

  Archuleta laughed softly. “Tejas, you are from Tejas,” he said.

  “Indeed, sir, sired in the bosom of piracy, Galveston, the home of the most black-hearted of all mariners.”

  “And what are you going to do next?”

  The question surprised Childress. “Why, Sah, outfit myself on credit, recruit an army of peons and mestizos and indios to overthrow Mexico, and establish my capital up on the Rio Arkansas.”

  Archuleta smiled. “A noble enterprise, señor. A large task for a man of great girth. What else have you done?”

  “Sah, I have sent Mexican women and children off the plank and into the sea; I have plundered Mexican galleons and barques. I have run the Jolly Roger up my masts and flown it from the pinnacle. I have financed wars and excursions against Mexico, widowed Mexican women, orphaned children, stolen casks of gold doubloons, driven men mad, schemed against Santa Anna …”

  Archuleta yawned. “The missioner up at Arroyo Hondo wants his cassocks back. I’ve gone to great expense, from the public purse, to put raiment on you. I shall have to levy a tax to pay for all the cloth. I regret that it’s rather like a tent; at least it covers your vast white belly. There. Shirt, pantalones, sandals, and you already have a Panama.”

  He gestured toward some clothing hanging on a peg.

  “I will shed this disguise, Sah, and encase myself in your rags. They look to be utterly beneath my standards. Clothing makes the man. You have dressed an emperor like a peon.”

  Archuleta lifted a blue-veined hand. “Not yet. Not until you tell me about Skye, if that is his name. Everything. Leave out nothing. Your life depends on it.”

  “Skye? Why, amigo, there’s the meat you want. I never beheld the man until a few weeks ago, when he rode in with his concubines. I questioned him closely, of course. Amigo, I can tell you, in all privacy, that he is a Protestant revolutionary, intending to overthrow all that is sacred in Mexico and turn it over to Puritans.”

  “Ah! It is so?”

  “He is such Calvinist that he does not touch his savage women; they are servants, there to comfort him only, and help him in his designs to transform Mexico.”

  “Why should I believe this, señor?”

  “Have you seen him laugh?”

  Archuleta nodded. “He is a serious man.”

  “Beware Skye. He confessed things to me, as we came along the trail. He is a burning man. He is a man brimming with wild ideas. He is a man to ignite gunpowder. He is a man to hand out pamphlets, recruit armies, sow discontent. Sah, beware the smoldering revolutionary, who outwardly seems calm, but inwardly is a raving wolf.”

  Archuleta nodded. “A likely story. Why should I believe you, when everything you have told me is absurd?”

  “Ask him. He never lies, which is most unfortunate. He could go far if he knew how to invent.”

  “I have. He says he is looking for the children of one of his savage women. That is his story. How do you make that to be a crime against Mejico?”

  “Ah! Wake up, amigo. He will enter each estancia, each hacienda, looking for the children, or so he says. And he will be actually collecting information: how many hombres, how well is the place fortified? Dios! His story is perfect for his purposes … . Ah, what are you going to do with him?”

  Archuleta exhaled slowly. “Send him away.”

  “And his women?”

  Archuleta smiled. “They have already been taken care of.”

  “How?”

  “Labor is scarce; they will be valuable.”

  “They are slaves, then?”

  “No, we have no slaves in Mejico. They will be taught the faith, and employed in the province.”

  “By whom?”

  “Padre Martinez is looking into it. Perhaps he will keep one, give one to his brothers.”

  “Will they be free to return to their people?”

  “Basta. Put on those clothes. Leave the habit. I will return it to the church, as a favor.”

  Archuleta slipped outside, and Childress found himself alone. He cast his glance about, looking for useful items such as a knife or spoon or bit of food or flint and steel, but h
e found little of immediate value in the room.

  He lifted the heavy brown robe over his head, and sorted out the clothing left for him: a pair of cotton drawers, a great shirt of unbleached muslin, and some baggy pantalones of heavy material that he thought might be duckcloth or canvas.

  There were two pairs of leather sandals, large and smaller. The large ones were too large, but were the only choice. He settled his Panama on his majestic locks, and looked once again rather like himself.

  When at last Archuleta reappeared, he motioned Childress out the door and into the sunny alley. And there was his shining red cart, hitched to the Clydesdale, and Shine perched upon the Clydesdale’s back, licking his fingers.

  “You are free. I have no reason to hold you, señor.”

  “But I have given you a dozen.”

  “Indeed. They were entertaining.”

  “How shall I make my way? I haven’t a peso.”

  “You have a monkey.”

  “Ah, yes, Shine. But he is a thief. You would set a thief loose among your people?”

  “It is an entertainment, señor. They give him whatever he wants. And so you will fill your belly.”

  “This is disappointing. I thought I would at least have the honor of facing the firing squad before the wall. Mexico has shed the blood of thousands, si?”

  “I cannot give you that great honor, Senor Childress, even if you should find it fitting and glorious.”

  “And what of Skye?”

  Archuleta shook his head. “Do not pity him, señor.”

  “Ah, the wall, then?”

  “He will have a chance to confess, first. But that is a trifle. Maybe I will send him down to Santa Fe, so that his fate will be well known and a lesson to the army of Tejas.”

  “Ah! Most fitting, señor. He has no country and is alone.”

  Archuleta smiled.

  twenty-six

  The helplessness that engulfed Skye that morning was familiar. He had spent a large part of his life unable to shape his own destiny or choose his fate or seek his own happiness. He spent a bad night, famished, his only sustenance the bread he had miraculously received, his body aching from being propped against an earthen wall through the endless dark, and his senses offended by the foul odor rising from a pit in a corner where many before him had relieved themselves.

  But there was a certain solace in familiarity. Through all the terrible years as a slave boy on a frigate, he had waited for his chance and eventually fashioned it at Fort Vancouver. The odds here were even worse. He possessed nothing, not even the monk’s cowl that clothed his body. His feet were naked in a land of cactus. He didn’t know the tongue, had no weapons, could not even ask directions. He could not explain himself, seek help, seek comfort, seek to free Victoria and Standing Alone. And yet he would watch and wait and look for his opportunity. Someone, somewhere, would help him. These were a cheerful and generous people; someone would help.

  When Childress returned, accompanied by the prefect, Archuleta, and two soldiers, the Texan had startling news: the Galveston privateer was being freed.

  “They’re letting me go, soon as I translate for them.”

  “You free? No charges?”

  “Free as a lark, and they’re giving me my horse and rig, too.”

  “And me?”

  “Sorry, Skye.”

  Skye stared first at Archuleta, and then at Childress, waiting for reasons. Why not himself? What had he done?

  Archuleta began whispering in sibilant Spanish, and Childress translated.

  “You’re a Texas spy, he says, and they’re keeping you, sending you down to Santa Fe. Your fate will be decided by the governor, Armijo.”

  “Fate?”

  “They shot a couple of Texans poking around there, collecting information for Lamar, pretending to be traders. There’s a Texas army crawling west, Skye. Over three hundred armed men, determined to expand Texas at least to the Rio Grande, if not more. Naturally, the Mexicans are a little jumpy.”

  Skye absorbed that bleakly. “Why are you free?”

  Childress didn’t reply, shrugged, smiled blandly. Archuleta started in again, this time in harsh tones.

  “He says you’re spying for Texas, and he has a witness to prove it, and if you confess it might go easier for you. You know the fate of spies in time of war.”

  “Witness?”

  “Archuleta says he wants the entire story; what Lamar is paying you, what your purposes are, who you report to, how many Texans are coming, where they will come, who leads them, how they are equipped, and how long you have been snooping in Mexico.”

  Skye stared warily at Childress, suspicion mounting up like lava in a volcano.

  “He says you are a self-confessed man without a country, so there is no help for you, no international rules to observe. You are alone. You do not claim Texas. You do not claim the United States. So you are without hope. You will be entitled to a priest before the end. But if you talk, and give them intelligence, you might be kept alive … They are not opposed to mercy, for the truly repentant.”

  “Mercy?”

  “A quick death rather than a slow one; firing squad rather than noose.”

  Skye stared at Childress, suddenly knowing where Archuleta got all this. The fat man had betrayed him to save his own miserable hide. There was no sense in talking further; not one word, that could be twisted or ignored. He doubted that one word he might say would be accurately conveyed to the prefect.

  Archuleta continued to cajole him: talk, and there would be a good meal, beans and some brandy. Talk and he would have sandals, and see some daylight.

  But Skye had nothing to say. He would not lie, would not invent stories, would not alter the story he had already given Archuleta and Father Martinez. Archuleta badgered him, but Skye’s mouth was sealed. He stared at Childress, the fat man who had called himself a friend, who was now dressed in pantalones and a shirt and sandals, and whose Panama covered his head. The fat man who had betrayed him for a few rags and some food and a chance to save his hide.

  Eventually, Childress stopped translating altogether. Skye’s silence rebuffed them. Archuleta shrugged, glared at Skye, and herded Childress out the door. Skye was suddenly alone, never so alone, and suddenly without much hope. He raised himself on his toes and could just see out the high window to the enameled red cart, hitched to the Clydesdale, awaiting the Judas from Galveston Bay.

  Archuleta and Childress shook hands; the prefect bowed slightly. Skye’s erstwhile partner clambered up and drove away in the bright sun, beneath the bold blue of the heavens, heading for the plaza. The monkey would no doubt feed him there, entertaining the Taos people, stealing whatever Childress needed to keep body and soul together.

  Skye exhaled slowly, feeling that foreboding and sinister knowledge that his life was swiftly draining away. He had felt it before, this special loneliness. But this time he was not alone; he had Victoria to think of, and Standing Alone.

  He had no idea what had happened to his women, but he knew they were not free, that they had been forcibly baptized into a faith they didn’t understand, and that the padre, Martinez, had commandeered them. He hoped desperately that they might be free; that Victoria would somehow learn of his whereabouts, slip along this narrow alley, letting him know she was there and seeking means to free him. But the alley was silent.

  He had to do something. He might not be able to save himself, but perhaps he could save her. Did they want information about Texas? He had none, but maybe he could conjure up some, if it would save his beloved woman and their Cheyenne friend. The thought stabbed him; he never lied. He had always been a man of honor, whose word was true. But now he was tempted. If the prefect would free those two and start them back to Bent’s Fort, he could conjure up whole armies of Texans, enough Texans to satisfy every civil and military officer of the Republic of Mexico. And die for it.

  But he loathed that very idea. He would sacrifice himself to save her; that was the nature of love. Ther
e had to be a way. Yet he could think of none. He scarcely even knew how to begin. There was no option except to wait, look for chances, and strike hard and fast if he could.

  He cased the plain room, which made do for a jail, with its high windows with iron bars planted in them. Given time, he could escape, even if he had to claw apart the adobe with his fingernails. There was nothing. An empty box. A bench of clay to sit or lie upon. An earthen olla and earthen cup. He could crack that over the head of a soldier, maybe.

  They still had not fed him.

  A while later the door creaked open again, and this time the merchant, Larrimer, entered, with the prefect and two soldiers. One soldier brought a bowl of stew to Skye, who wolfed it down. It was not enough.

  “Mr. Skye, there are rules to this engagement,” Larrimer said. “Any question you ask, I must translate exactly and wait until Senor Archuleta decides whether I should answer.”

  Skye nodded. Larrimer looked worried.

  “I myself am suspect, Mr. Skye. Every foreigner is, especially those who speak English.”

  Skye nodded. “Why am I held?”

  Larrimer translated and Archuleta answered: “You are a spy for Texas.”

  “Who says?”

  “Childress the trader has told everything.”

  “Childress! Is that how he freed himself?”

  “Archuleta believes the information given him is accurate.”

  “It’s a pack of lies!”

  “Careful, Mr. Skye.”

  “Where is my wife?”

  “You have no wife.”

  “Where?”

  “She is under the loving care of Padre Martinez. And the other squaw.”

  “Is she a prisoner?”

  “She is being succored, so that she might become a woman of the faith.”

  “What will come of me?”

  This time, Archuleta spoke at length, while Larrimer nodded.

  “The prefect says that soon you will be paraded naked three times around the plaza, so all who see you can revile you and spit upon you, who invade our homeland. Then you will be put in chains, and will walk with a squad of soldiers to Santa Fe, where you will be subject to a trial. Governor Armijo has taken to holding trials for Texans and provocateurs just like General Santa Anna’s trials. You will reach into an earthen jar where there are many beans, half white and half black. If you draw out a black bean, you, ah, stand at the wall while the snare drums rattle. If you draw a white bean, your life is spared, but not your liberty. You will be in Mexico all the rest of your days.”