by James Blake
A few years after Claudio acquired La Sombra Verde, his health went into a swift and mystifying decline and he died of an undiagnosed illness. The hacienda then transferred to his son—and its current patrón—Hernán José Montenegro Velasquez. Like his father before him, Hernán had been an officer in the army, intending to make it his career, but upon inheritance of La Sombra Verde he resigned his commission in order to live the life of a hacendado. Also like his father, he had the temper of a red dog. It was said he had killed seven or eight or nine men in duels, some with sword, some with pistol. Hernán’s only living son, Enrique, now 17, was reputed to be no less of a hothead but something of a dolt.
“It don’t surprise me a bit Hernán would partner with the broker fella in hoodwinking your outfit,” Patterson said. “He’s always in bad need of money, and the way I heard it he aint too particular how he gets it. They say he cheats at cards something awful, same as his old daddy did. Mendoza played cards with Hernán once and said it was one time too many.”
The next afternoon Patterson stopped by the Trade Wind office with the information that Guillermo Demarco, prior to going into business as a broker, had been employed as secretary to Hernán Montenegro.
John Roger deliberated for two days. Then wrote a letter to Montenegro, informing him that due to financial improprieties perpetrated against the Trade Wind Company by La Sombra Verde in concert with the brokerage service of Guillermo Demarco, the company was severing its contract with the hacienda.
He then went to Demarco’s office on the third floor of a commercial building near the harbor. He introduced himself and told Demarco he was there to collect reimbursement for the substantial overpayments he had received from the company through fraudulent means over a period of six years. He handed him their disparate invoices and theft reports and an estimated bill for the total overpayment.
Guillermo Demarco, sitting behind a spacious desk with his back to a large window framing a view of the harbor, smiled as he scanned the papers. He was a small and tidy man, well seasoned in business dispute. He dropped the papers on the desk and pushed them away with a fingertip. Then leaned back in his chair and said John Roger’s so-called evidence of fraud was worthless. Try to make a case in a Mexican court with this and you will be laughed out of the room, he said. Unless you make the judge so angry for wasting his time that he locks you in San Juan de Ulúa.
I might not have much of a legal case, John Roger said, but you and I both know it’s true you cheated the company.
Demarco said truth was a beautiful thing but of little significance in commerce or the law. It pained him that the Trade Wind Company was displeased with his former services, but, be that as it may, there was really nothing they could do about it.
I could pass the word around town of what a cheat you are.
Demarco grinned. Oh dear, he said.
John Roger had not expected to collect on the bill, only to let Demarco know that his fraud had not gone undiscovered and to shame him if he could. But as he now understood, the man was immune to shame. And his smugness was galling.
I guess you’re right, John Roger said. There isn’t much I can do about it legally. But what I most assuredly can do, Mr Demarco, is throw you out that window.
He surprised himself no less than he did Demarco. He’d made the threat with an easy confidence that he could make good on it—and with the unmistakable implication that he was leaning toward doing so.
The broker straightened in his chair and cleared his throat. But Mr Wolfe, he said, even if you were not joking, what could you gain from such a barbarity except many years in prison?
Maybe some personal satisfaction, John Roger said. And stood up. Demarco shoved back from the desk and sprang to his feet, eyes wide. Then realized he had put himself even closer to the window, and he sidled hurriedly over to the wall.
“Don’t soil your pants, you low son of a bitch. You’re not worth the trouble of killing.”
“Como?” said Demarco, who did not speak English.
“Chinga tu madre, pendejo,” John Roger said. His ready ear had familiarized him with the profanities of the street, and while he had always shied from such coarseness in English, in Spanish it came without qualm. He gathered up the papers and plucked out the bill and laid it back on Demarco’s desk. Then left.
He was awed by the discovery he’d made about himself—his readiness to throw a man from a window—and yet also felt uneasy about it. It was disquieting to think there might be even other facets of himself with which he was unfamiliar.
When he told Patterson of his meeting with Demarco, the little man laughed and said, “Hellfire, I’da paid money to see his face when you threatened to pitch him. Bedamn, son, if you aint got a proper share of grit. You sure your people aint from Texas?”
A week later, a lawyer representing La Sombra Verde showed up at the office to warn him that Don Hernán Montenegro would sue for violation of contract unless the Trade Wind Company continued to buy his coffee. John Roger dared him to do it. If Montenegro should sue him, he said, he would in turn sue Montenegro for defrauding the Trade Wind in collusion with the brokerage of Guillermo Demarco. The lawyer, whose name was Herrera, scoffed that such a charge could never be legally proven.
John Roger said maybe not, but the accusation would anyway be of great interest to the newspapers and the printers of broadsides. As everyone knew, even an accusation unsustained in court could do public injury to a reputation.
Herrera’s face was stiff with contempt. Only a man without honor would do such a thing, he said.
Nevertheless, John Roger said.
You disappoint me, sir.
How sad, John Roger said. Listen, Mr Herrera, I suggest it would be in the best interest of everyone concerned to forgo the unpleasantness of public allegations and courtroom procedures and simply agree to the termination of the contract.
Herrera said he would have to discuss it with Don Hernán, though it might be some time before he could meet with him, as the don had left for Mexico City just two days prior on urgent business that could detain him for some time.
John Roger said he understood perfectly. And that he hoped it was understood equally well that he would under no condition, including legal threat, do further business with La Sombra Verde.
He wrote to Richard to tell him of his rescission of the Montenegro contract and the reason for it and said he hoped Richard was not offended that he had done it without first consulting with him. Richard responded that he was glad John Roger had figured out the swindle, even though it had come to an end four years ago, and he agreed with the decision to cut ties with Montenegro. “And don’t fret about making a decision on your own,” Richard wrote. “I told you when I hired you Johnny, in Mexico you’re the Trade Wind.”
Nearly two months after Herrera’s visit, John Roger had not heard from the man again but had learned that La Sombra Verde had begun selling its coffee to another export firm. He therefore concluded that there would be no legal action against the Trade Wind and that the entire matter was done with.
The following month, on the Day of the Dead, they hosted a lively party celebrating John Samuel’s fourth birthday. After the festivities were done and the guests had gone home and Elizabeth Anne had sung the boy to sleep, as John Roger was discussing with her whether they should buy the house they had been renting for almost five years or look for one with a view of the sea, there was a pounding of the street door’s iron knocker.
John Roger went to an open window and in the light of the patio lanterns saw lame Beto the handyman come out of his carriage-house quarters in his nightshirt and hobble toward the gate. It was a rarity for anyone to call uninvited at such a late hour for any reason other than an emergency. Beto opened the little peep window on the door and was loud about asking who was there. John Roger felt Elizabeth Anne come up beside him. The voice outside the gate was indistinct, and then Beto said, Yes, of course, of course, one moment. Then turned and saw John Roger at the
window and called out that Don Hernán Montenegro Velásquez wished to speak with the master of the house.
John Roger felt a feathery stir in his stomach, gone before he could identify it. He reproached himself for the erroneous assumption that Montenegro had let the issue drop. Still, the cheek of the man! To come knocking at this hour. He was about to have Beto send him away with instruction to call at the office, but then thought no, if the business could be settled for good and all right now, so much the better.
“Déjalo pasar,” he said.
Beto lifted the wooden crossbar and drew back the iron bolt latch and pulled open the door. Elizabeth Anne asked John Roger who it was. Her voice composed but her eyes intense. “Someone I must talk with,” he said. He told her to stay inside while he met with the visitor in the patio. As he went out the door in his shirtsleeves he heard her hurrying up the stairs.
There were two of them. Of similar height and leanness, wearing expensive dark suits and cavalier hats. One carried a bundle shaped like a bedroll. They watched his approach as Beto shouldered the door closed behind them. “Bienvenidos, caballeros,” John Roger said. “Yo soy el dueño, Juan Wolfe, a su servicio.”
He was near enough now to see their similarity of features behind the pointed Spanish beards and to know them for father and son. The elder’s aspect evinced a mix of curiosity and resolve, the younger’s was bright and excited as a pup’s.
Hernán Montenegro introduced himself and then Enrique, and then got directly to the point. Mr Wolfe had offended Montenegro honor. First in the letter terminating the contract between the Trade Wind and La Sombra Verde, and then twice more in direct assertions—to Guillermo Demarco and to Stephano Herrera, the attorney representing the Montenegro interests. I have been detained in Mexico City these past months, Montenegro said, else I would have answered these insults before now. His tone was of cool indignation and his bearing assured, but his Spanish lacked the Castilian inflections pervasive among the hacendados of John Roger’s acquaintance.
I beg to differ, sir, John Roger said. I committed no offense against your name. You slighted yourself when you conspired with Demarco to cheat my employer.
Montenegro’s face tightened. “Y otra insulta más,” he said. Then looked at Beto and said, “Quítate.” The handyman gave John Roger an apologetic look, then turned and hurried off to shut himself in the carriage house.
The hacendado nodded at his son. The young man squatted and lay the bundle on the cobbles and unrolled it to reveal two caplock pistols and a pair of unsheathed cavalry sabers. Then stood up and grinned at John Roger.
I demand satisfaction, Hernán Montenegro said, removing his jacket and handing it to his son. Pistols or blades. The choice is yours. He handed the boy his hat.
John Roger’s eyes went from the man to the weapons and back up to the man. He smiled and felt inane for it. And then again felt the flutter in his belly. And this time knew it for fear. This is absurd, he said.
Pistols or blades, sir, Montenegro said.
No, John Roger said. No, of course not. I’m not going to fight a . . . a duel with you. Especially not in—
Montenegro’s backhand slap knocked him rearward in a half turn. Its stinging surprise gave immediate way to fury and he whirled back around with his fists raised but the man had already snatched up both sabers and held one with its point only inches from John Roger’s throat. He had to be fifty years old but was quick as a cat.
As you have declined the prerogative to choose, Montenegro said, I pick the sword. It allows for a more personal engagement, don’t you agree?
He stepped back and lobbed the other saber at John Roger, who fumbled the catch and had to grab the sword blade with both hands, cutting his left palm.
The son sniggered. Montenegro smiled and said, Even before we begin I have drawn first blood. He told John Roger not to be concerned about Enrique, whose only warrant was to serve as his second. Or to bear away my body, should I not prevail, he said with a smile. Enrique grinned.
Listen, John Roger said, listen. This is ridiculous. Let’s be reasonable. There are courtrooms, for God’s sake. There are laws for—
“En garde!”
John Roger instinctively brought up his sword and the hacendado touched his own blade to it—and then attacked with a clear intention of making short work of him. But John Roger nimbly skipped rearward, parrying the thrusts, and Montenegro paused to stare at him in smiling surprise. And went at him again.
And now John Roger knew the fearsome difference between a college sporting contest and a mortal combat. He retreated around and around the fountain, keeping close to it in order to deny Montenegro a wider latitude of attack, fending against the man’s furious onslaught. Their wavering shadows moved along the walls and over the cobbles to no sound save the ringing of blades and shufflings of feet, the heaves of their breath. After ten minutes that John Roger would have guessed at an hour, they were gasping and soaked in sweat. Both of them now gripping their saber with two hands, John Roger’s bloody palm still the only wound in evidence.
Then he stumbled on a cobble and went sprawling—and received a grazing slash to the head as he rolled away from Montenegro and rose onto one knee. He caught a burning blow high on his shielding arm in the same instant that he swung his own blade sidearm and he felt its edge slice into Montenegro’s leg, and the man let a yelping curse. Then was again on his feet and again giving ground as he warded Montenegro’s resumed offensive. Both men now trailing blood as they circled the fountain. John Roger’s left arm dangling useless. Montenegro limping after him, disposed of all finesse and hacking two-handed with the saber as if pursuing him through jungle. John Roger was only dimly aware of the pain of his wounds, his sword now heavy as stone and one eye blurred with blood from his gashed scalp. Yet he sensed Montenegro’s desperation to end the fight before the failing leg quit him, and he readied himself for the rash move he knew was coming.
And it came. Montenegro bellowed and rushed at him with a manic sidelong slash of his sword meant to wound some part of him, any part, and create an opening for a thrust. John Roger dropped to a crouch and the blade flicked his hair as it whisked over his head and he thrust his own sword blade up into the man’s lower belly and felt the point glance off the spine and pass through.
John Roger fell on his rump, still gripping the sword on which Montenegro, huge-eyed with disbelief, was impaled in an arrested stoop with six inches of blade jutting from his back. Then blood spouted from the man’s mouth to sop John Roger’s sleeve and his saber clattered onto the cobbles and his eyes lost their light like blown candles. He toppled sideways and the force of his weight twisted the sword from John Roger’s grasp.
Enrique screamed.
John Roger, braced on his elbow, turned and saw the boy raising a pistol at him. Saw him cock the hammer.
There was a gunblast—and Enrique’s head jerked sideways and his hat flew off together with fragments of bloody skull and his pistol discharged into the rim of the fountain and the ball ricocheted into the night as he collapsed in a lifeless heap.
John Roger looked up to the balcony to see Elizabeth Anne standing there, the smoking Dragoon gripped in both hands. And he keeled into unconsciousness.
He woke in his bed. The window ashen with imminent dawn. His head and arm ponderous with bandages and pulsing with pain.
Elizabeth Anne dozed in a chair at his side. He stared at her and she came awake. He smiled. “Hello, darling. It appears I’m still among the quick.”
Her eyes filled with tears and she leaned forward and placed her cheek on his chest with her face turned away from him and he felt the soft heaves of her weeping. He caressed her shoulder. “I’m all right, Lizzie.” And then believed he understood her true distress and said, “I know. I know how you must feel. It was an awful thing to have to do, but if you hadn’t shot—”
“No!” she cried, turning her head to look at him. “That’s not—oh, God, no, don’t you see? If I hadn’t been so d
amned afraid I—”
“Shush, darling, it’s all right, it’s—”
“No, no it’s not all right! What a worthless . . . ninny I was. I knew something wasn’t right, I knew it by your face and your voice. I’d never known you to look that way. I ran upstairs without even knowing why and then I just . . . stood there for the longest time, not knowing what to do or think or anything. And then I heard the swords—I heard them, Johnny, and I was terrified. And that’s when I thought to get the gun. But dear Jesus I couldn’t find it. I was crying and throwing everything out of the wardrobe and the trunk and I was furious that I couldn’t find it and that I had to keep wiping my eyes and. . . .” She paused for breath and better control of her voice. “And then there it was. And I grabbed it and ran to the balcony and I saw . . . oh God, I saw the blood on your face, all the dark blood, and then you ducked down and he was bending over you and I couldn’t see what was happening and you were so close together I was afraid of shooting you, but then he fell over and I knew he was dead, the way he fell, I knew it, but then that other one screamed and I saw his gun and I didn’t even think, I just . . . did it.”
“It was some shot, Lizzie.”
“But don’t you see! If I hadn’t been so afraid and crying like such a child I could have found the gun immediately and I could have shot them both before you were wounded. But I was so afraid and you’re hurt because of it and you might have been. . . .” She put her head on his chest, facing away so he couldn’t see her tears.
He stroked her hair. And couldn’t suppress his small laugh.
She turned to him in red-eyed confusion. “What?”
“You’re not at fault for my wounds, Lizzie. And they will heal.”
“I am at fault! As soon as. . . . why are you smiling?”
“Because of my extreme good fortune in a wife. Or maybe I’m delirious. A kiss might help to restore my wit.”
She gaped. Then smiled too, and being careful of his wounds, kissed him.
