by Henke, Shirl
“I'm a man whose own mother despised him. You'll forgive me if I don't count much on anyone else's,” Alvarado replied.
“No man is beyond God's help...unless he wishes to be,” the old priest remonstrated gently.
“Take his blessings, Luce. Perhaps they'll help you,” Nick said, thinking of the writings of Blaise Pascal that he had borrowed from a French compatriot in Algiers.
Luce shrugged fatalistically. “By the time I confess all my sins, the powder in the soldiers' rifles will have lost its effectiveness.”
“I doubt buying us time will do either of us any good.”
“Who knows?” Luce replied, turning to the priest, who motioned for the guard to take them to a private cell.
A quarter of an hour later, the guard brought Alvarado back. “The good father promised to pray for both of us,” he announced to Nick.
“That didn't take you long. You must've omitted quite a bit,” Fortune said dryly.
“Actually, once I began, Father Alberto was wise enough to realize that a general confession was required, else the commandant would come and drag me off to the firing squad before he'd shriven me.”
“Commandant Morales is going to take us one at a time, the guard just told me,” Fortune said. “He's afraid of the crowd getting stirred up if they see there really are two of us. Once the first execution is over, they'll disperse. Then he can take care of his second prisoner without any civilian witnesses. He has no authority to execute you without reconvening the tribunal and they left yesterday to hold their next session in Aguas Calientes.”
“But since I killed some of his men breaking in here last night, he's going to shoot me anyway. Now the question is, who goes first?” An odd gleam came into Alvarado's eyes as he regarded his brother.
“Me, obviously. I am the firstborn, even if it was on the wrong side of the blanket. And, I'm the one they convicted.”
* * * *
Mercedes watched from the edge of the crowd. The mood was ugly. Many who had experienced the depredations of El Diablo had come to watch him die. Nicholas had been right to fear for her safety. She had covered her hair and swathed her face with a long gray rebozo. With the full cloak she wore, no one could discern that she was with child. If she was careful and remained in the shadows of the portico, none would recognize her as the wife of the convicted man, who had pleaded so desperately for his life.
Then she heard the drum roll. A loud growl of excitement spread through the crowd as the prisoner was led out into the big compound. Oh, Nicholas, my love, my only love! In the distance she watched his tall, slim body move with arrogant grace as he took his place against the stone wall, refusing the blindfold. He tossed several coins to the soldiers in the firing squad. It was an old Spanish tradition to bribe them so they would not aim for the face, but for the heart instead.
Without realizing it, her arms were clenched around her body as if she, too, were to feel the ripping agony of the bullets.
She closed her eyes and prayed as the command to fire was given. When the simultaneous explosion from six .58 caliber rifles died away, she opened them to see her beloved lying in the dust with a wide red stain blossoming across his chest.
Sinking to her knees, she huddled on the stone step of the portico, unaware of the chaos around her.
* * * *
The compound was deserted now. The crowd of curious onlookers had been herded out and the gates once again barred. When they escorted him to the wall, he looked down at his brother's body lying sprawled and bloody in the dust. The bastards left him there deliberately for me to see. He cursed Morales again as he was told to stand by the corpse. Stroking his cheek, he looked bleakly at the dead man's face—his face. If not for the scar, no one could tell them apart.
No one but Mercedes. He shrugged away the blindfold. “An Alvarado has no need of it,” he said after paying the bribe to avoid facial mutilation. They had kept their word with his brother. Maybe they would with him, too.
Upstairs on the balcony overlooking the courtyard the commandant stood poised, ready to give the signal. His sergeant awaited the order to fire. Just as Morales raised his hand, the door to his office flew open and a gringo with sandy hair and colorless eyes stormed in.
“Morales, you'd better pray the man lying down there doesn't have a scar across his left cheekbone or else you'll be joining him by special orders from President Juarez.” Bart McQueen's voice was deceptively calm, but his eyes cut through the commandant like ice-cold steel.
Morales blanched and signaled for the soldiers to lower their Springfields. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded, noting the two men with the Americano who held his staff officers at gunpoint.
“You'll forgive me for not taking the time for diplomatic niceties, but if I'd let your secretary read the documents, the man I came to save would certainly be dead.” He looked out the window to the two prisoners, one standing almost nonchalantly against the wall, the other lying beside him. “Who did you execute first—Alvarado or Fortune?”
The commandant did not doubt for a moment that he could be in significant trouble. “They decided it between them. I don't know.” His voice was brittle and it cracked with nervousness as he spoke. When he began to read the executive order signed by Benito Juarez, Morales' hand shook and sweat beaded his face.
“Bring me the man who's left alive,” he croaked at the guards, sinking onto the chair behind his desk. His legs would no longer support him.
McQueen gestured for his men, who wore the insignia of presidential bodyguards, to let the garrison soldiers obey their commandant's orders.
* * * *
Mercedes followed the guard into the dimly lit room where Nicholas’ body lay in its shroud of cheap canvas. When they returned to Gran Sangre, she would have him buried in fine linen. Her vaqueros walked to the bare table and started to pick up the body. Abruptly she commanded, “Wait. I want to be alone with him, for just a moment.”
The guards and her men filed respectfully from the room. This was her last chance to say good-bye. After the long journey to Gran Sangre in the heat, the body would have decomposed. “At least they didn't hit your face, my beloved,” she whispered as she pulled back the stiff cloth with trembling fingers and bent to place a kiss on his cold lips.
Chapter Twenty Seven
“Commandant, that woman is outside—his wife. She's hysterical. What should I—?”
“I will see Commandant Morales this instant,” Mercedes cried as she barged through the door into his office. “The man you shot is Lucero Alvarado! What have you done with Nicholas Fortune?” she demanded.
“You're supposed to be on your way home to Gran Sangre.”
Mercedes whirled around with a gasp of disbelief. Nicholas stood behind the door, his face haggard and exhausted, yet he was whole, unharmed. She ran into his arms. The tears began pouring from her in torrents, all the tears she had forced herself to hold inside these past hellish weeks.
“Oh, my darling, my darling, I thought...I...” She reached up and caressed his scarred cheek, feeling the prickle of whiskers on the soft pads of her fingers. He was warm and alive, here in her arms!
Nicholas crooned soft love words, soothing her as he enfolded her in an embrace. She clung to him tightly, trembling like a frail palm frond in a hurricane. “I'm all right. They took Luce. He insisted on flipping a coin to see who went first. He lost the toss. Hilario got word to McQueen and he arrived in time to stop them from killing me, too.”
She could barely hear him or make sense of what he was saying. All that mattered was that he was alive. “Then—then you're free? They'll let you go?” Her fingers dug into his arms as she searched his face for an answer.
“Mr. Fortune has received a presidential pardon for any and all misdeeds he may have committed during the past conflict. Benito Juarez will always remember the Americano who risked his life to save his adopted republic and its president,” McQueen replied.
“You are free to go,”
Morales added stiffly, eager to have this whole fiasco ended and these two dangerous gringos out of his jurisdiction. Thank the merciful saints that he had executed the right man! The commandant did not doubt the foreign agent's threats, no matter how mild-looking his appearance.
Nicholas could see Mercedes was on the brink of collapse and feared for her and their child. “I'm going to take you home,” he said softly, holding her close against his side. Then he turned to Morales. “There is one thing...my brother. I want to take his body back with us for burial on Gran Sangre.”
McQueen nodded to Morales.
The commandant scrawled an order and handed it to the guard. “The body will be released to you at once.”
* * * *
The smoke from the campfire rose into the clear, cool night air. They had made good time that day in spite of Nicholas’ concern for Mercedes’ condition, then camped that evening near the Chihuahua border. While the men stood sentry, the patrón and patrona sat in front of the fire. She reclined in his arms, leaning against his broad chest, feeling the steady thrum of his heartbeat.
“I can't believe the nightmare is over at last,” she said, exhausted yet utterly content.
“It could’ve ended differently. If Luce hadn't tried to rescue me or if I'd lost that toss with his silver dollar...” He shrugged. “Odd, I wonder where he got an American lucky piece like that. It sure didn't bring him luck at the end.”
Mercedes glanced over at the canvas-shrouded body lying in the dim light at the edge of camp. “Maybe he intended it to end the way it did.”
Nicholas looked down at her, puzzled. “I was going to go first. As firstborn, it was my right. Something made him resist. He offered to flip me ‘for the honor,’ as he called it.”
“He called heads you went first, tails he did.”
A small frown creased his forehead. “How did you know?”
“The silver dollar was Anselmo's lucky piece. It was a gamester's trick coin he'd acquired in the United States. He gave it to Lucero years ago. Both sides were the same.”
“Tails,” Nicholas said with a bittersweet oath. “Damn, it was almost as if he knew that he could save me by going first.”
“But there was no way he could’ve known that,” she replied.
Nicholas shrugged. “It's strange...in war men get superstitious. After surviving for years, watching others die all around, a man can develop a sort of sixth sense...maybe he did know.”
“Then he gave you the most precious gift anyone ever could,” she said in a choked voice.
“We talked all night before the execution...we told each other things we never had in all those months we rode together. I may have been the only person he ever really cared about...as much as Luce could care about anyone.”
“I never loved him, but I shall always be grateful to him. And I'll light candles for his soul.”
“I have a feeling he'll need them,” Nicholas said fondly, remembering Luce's rather irreverent manner of receiving the last rites.
“Of course, the state of my own soul may invalidate my prayers, at least in Father Salvador's eyes,” Mercedes said with a sigh.
“You're a widow. If he won't marry us, we can travel across the border and be married in American territory. I know it isn't the blessing of your Church, but—”
She silenced him with a soft sweet kiss. “We've pledged our vows to each other. I need no other sanction.”
But you would like the blessing of your Church, he thought to himself, troubled as he held her against his chest.
* * * *
The wind blew, soughing softly through the willow trees and the air was fragrant with heady musk from angel's trumpet vines. It was spring in Sonora as the people of Gran Sangre gathered to lay one of their own to rest. The soil, still damp from winter rains, was fecund with the promise of a fine fertile planting season. Among those gathered to pay their last respects were half a dozen women great with child, including the patrona herself.
Father Salvador read the words that consigned Lucero Alvarado to eternal rest. Nicholas held Mercedes’ hand as they watched her husband's body being lowered into the earth.
After the graveside rites were complete, the silent assembly began to disperse, to resume their daily chores. Nicholas and Mercedes walked toward their carriage, his arm protectively around her shoulders.
“It will be all right, querida” he whispered soothingly in English.
“Father Salvador called you Don Nicholas. We've buried Don Lucero. Soon everyone will know.”
“Everyone on Gran Sangre had already guessed, some time ago.” His tone was gentle, but the pain in her voice cut him deeply.
“But then it was different. They didn't know—they could keep to the fiction of addressing you by his name.”
He had feared she would feel this way. “And so could you.”
His words dropped quietly on the still morning air as he helped her into the carriage. Feeling his hurt she said, “Oh, Nicholas, you know it isn't that I love you any less. I could not love you more...but I am not as honest as Rosario.”
“Hush, now. I never doubted your love,” he murmured, holding her as he took his seat in the carriage beside her.
Upon their return the little girl had greeted the simple explanation about her “uncle” Lucero's death and the return of her “real” papa with the easy acceptance only a child can give.
“Perhaps we should have brought her today,” Nicholas murmured thoughtfully, troubled at leaving the child at the house with Lupe.
“We agreed it would be best. He...he was not kind to her and she has no reason to mourn him. No one outside Gran Sangre knows for certain whose child she is and she will always believe that she is yours. The young have such strong convictions, such faith...but I...I'm not that way...I'm just a weak and foolish woman.”
“Rot! You are the strongest and bravest woman I have ever known,” he said, taking her chin in his hand and lifting it so she met his eyes.
Her hand touched his cheek softly as she gazed into those fathomless wolf's eyes. “Everything will be all right. It's only the babe, making me weepy and foolish. Angelina assures me it will pass.” She raised his hand to her lips and pressed a kiss against his palm. He returned her troubled yet loving gaze.
The sound of Father Salvador clearing his throat as he approached the carriage broke the spell. The priest studied them with his pale blue eyes, uncertain of how to broach the delicate subject.
Nicholas could feel Mercedes tense, and knew the priest's silent censure had cost her dearly since they had returned yesterday and arranged for Lucero's burial. “Thank you for what you said about my brother,” Fortune said simply. Thank you for what you did not say about me, his eyes communicated to the priest.
Father Salvador nodded. “Don Lucero did a noble deed at the last, better than any of us expected of him, the Lord's work, no doubt. There is a matter of some pressing urgency about which we must speak. If I might meet you in the library after the noon meal?”
Mercedes could eat nothing, pushing the juicy slices of beef across her plate with a tortilla, dreading the confrontation to come with Father Salvador. She listened to Nicholas tease Rosario, drank in the musical peals of the child's laughter and watched as her love surreptitiously slipped bits of meat from his plate to Bufón, who lay beside his chair, waiting patiently. What a perfect picture of domestic contentment they made.
If only they could remain a family. But what would she do if Father Salvador demanded she stop living with Nicholas? Their relationship was a mortal sin, for he was her brother-in-law. Yet she knew with a fierce, sweet inner certainty that the love she and Nicholas Fortune shared was right and good. She would refuse to give him up. After coming so close to losing him in Durango, Mercedes knew that she could not live without him.
Sending Rosario off to play with the dog under Angelina's watchful eye, her parents walked silently down the long hall to the library. “Whatever you want to do, Mercedes, I'll do it,”
he said in a husky low voice.
She squeezed his hand. “You are the husband of my heart. I won't lose you, no matter what he or anyone else says.”
The intensity of her voice stopped him. He studied her face and read the love in the depths of her golden eyes. A sudden surge of gladness infused his soul. “Trust me. I don't plan to be lost.”
When they entered the library, the priest was waiting for them. Did he seem a bit nervous, uncertain? Nicholas again wondered at Father Salvador's request to meet them on their ground, not in his quarters, surrounded by all the trappings of his holy office.
“I don't know of any way to broach this delicately,” he began without preamble, pacing across the carpet onto the polished hardwood floor.
Nicholas seated Mercedes in a high-backed easy chair, then stood protectively behind her. “I impersonated my half brother and took his wife. She is innocent in all of it, but it's my child she carries and I won't give the baby or her up, no matter what your canon law says.”
“It is a troublesome matter. I have been praying about it and giving it thought for many weeks. I even wrote a letter to the archbishop who forwarded it to the Holy See. Now that Lucero Alvarado is dead, the issue is somewhat simplified.”
“But my widowhood cannot loosen the blood tie between Nicholas and Lucero. Nicholas is still my brother-in-law,” Mercedes said, confused yet daring to hope.
“Read these. Perhaps they will clarify the issue as I see it.” The priest handed the documents to them. “These, of course, are copies in Spanish. The originals in Latin have gone to Rome. If you agree in your own good conscience that what I have petitioned is the truth, then you may sign such a declaration and I will forward it with all dispatch.”
Nicholas scanned the papers quickly, his eyes skimming over the description of Lucero and Mercedes’ arranged marriage, a union neither of them wished. She had earnestly tried to fulfill her duty but Lucero had shirked his, utterly disregarding the seriousness of the sacrament into which they had entered.
