Two days later, the prisoners were ordered to the Plaza de los Urangos, where a large crowd had already gathered. Ellis caught his breath as he saw the newly built gallows, with the hangman’s noose swaying in the light breeze. His face was sweating, but he suddenly felt cold when he saw Blackburn calmly mount the scaffold and stand under the noose. A soldier blindfolded him, then placed the halter over his head and tightened it around his neck. Ellis felt his skin crawl when he heard the roll of drums and Blackburn shot through the trap. A knot settled in Ellis’ stomach, while he brushed away tears that streamed down his cheeks.
Three days later, Fero, Cooley, Ellis, and Danlin, the ones who’d been implicated in the plot to escape, were brought to the plaza. Tom House was too sick to move from his bed. Duncan saw a crowd gathering, and went to see what was happening. As he arrived, merchant Manuel Moreno was talking to Ellis.
“I have influential friends in Mexico City, my friend,” he said. “I’m certain they can secure your release once you get there. I will write them immediately.”
“Mexico City?” Duncan exclaimed. “Who’s goin’ there?”
Ellis nodded his head toward the other three prisoners. “The bad boys,” he said. “The troublemakers.”
The four prisoners were shackled and ordered to mount horses, then twenty-five cavalrymen surrounded them and they trotted away on the road to far-off Mexico City. Ellis glanced back at Duncan, wondering if they’d ever meet again.
Chapter Three
At every town or village along the way, the cavalry stopped for a time in the plaza and allowed the prisoners to walk about in irons. Curious men, women, and children crowded around them, for they’d never seen Americans. Women with shawls over their heads brought them bread and fruit, frowning and exclaiming over their shackles. “Pobrecitos,” they lamented.
After weeks of steady riding, the travelers stopped for the night at the village of Salamanca. As usual, the prisoners were allowed to stretch their legs, and chattering people thronged around them. A well-dressed, attractive young woman watched Ellis for a time, then shyly approached him. “Is it your wish to escape, señor?' she whispered in Spanish.
Surprised, Ellis looked at her, then shrugged. “It is,” he replied, “but that’s impossible. They’ll find me again, and if they don’t shoot me, they’ll make me pay one way or another. I’ll just have to take what comes.”
“No señor,” she said softly, her dark eyes flashing, “it is possible. I will return soon, and you will see.” She hurried away.
“Who is that lady?” Ellis asked a portly villager, pointing at her. The man glanced at the retreating figure.
“That’s María Baldonado,” he replied. “Because of her beauty a rich old hacendado married her not long ago. I don’t know how many haciendas he owns, but more than enough.”
Ellis stretched out on his mat, thinking about what she’d said, ignoring the curious people who came to stare at him. Maria returned shortly before sundown, followed by a tall dark-skinned man in a long blue cloak. She pushed her way through the crowd and knelt by Ellis. The tall man stood behind her, arms folded across his chest, staring off in the distance.
“He has files for cutting your shackles,” she whispered. “You must go to the stables, where he will remove them. Then a man on the wall will lower a rope to pull you up and bring you to me. With me you’ll be safe.”
Ellis thought about it some more, recalling Manuel Moreno’s assurance that his influential friends would secure his release. If I try to escape I may fail, and they won’t be able to help me after that. Then he remembered the men who’d escaped at Nacogodoches, and the calamity that it had meant for the others.
“I can’t do it,” he told her solemnly. “It wouldn’t be fair to my friends, for they’d surely suffer for it.”
“Your first duty is to yourself,” María said firmly. “God will take care of your friends. I have money and horses; you will have whatever you want without risk of recapture. I have haciendas—you can stay at any of them, and no one will ever know.”
Ellis was rising on his elbows, ready to accept her offer, when a soldier called the prisoners to their evening meal. “Come to me early in the morning,” Maria said, and told him where to find her.
Ellis thought of nothing else that night, and slept fitfully. One moment he was ready to go; the next he was sure it would be a mistake. If they recaptured him, or if her husband found out, no telling what would happen. In Mexico City, Moreno’s friends would free him without such risks.
Still undecided, at daybreak he asked the officer in command of the cavalry for a soldier to accompany him to a shop, then hurried to the house where María waited by an open window, a gray shawl framing her oval face. Ellis gave the soldier a coin and told him to buy some spirits. “I’ll wait for you here,” he said.
“It’s now or never,” Maria told him. “There’s no time to lose. I can hide you so you’ll never be found.”
“Are you absolutely sure?” he asked. “If they find me, they’ll probably shoot me.”
“Yes, yes,” she said impatiently. “Trust me and have no fear. Soon we will be able to ride away together. Though I’m part Indian, I know you’re too honorable to abandon me. But we must hurry!”
Ellis gazed at her lovely face, his thoughts racing. It just might work out, and if he wasn’t discovered, they could make it to the States one day. He’d be proud to have her for his wife. While she fidgeted nervously, he thought again about Moreno’s assurance. But supposing his friends failed? What then?
“Hurry!” María exclaimed.
“All right,” he said, “I’ll chance it.” Just then, the soldier shouted, and Ellis turned to see him running toward them.
“The captain says to come pronto,” he said, breathing hard. “They’re ready to leave and are waiting for you. Don’t make him angry at both of us.”
Ellis turned to María, holding his hands out with palms upward in a gesture of resignation. “Adios, my lady,” he said. “I’ll never forget you.” Then, as best he could in his shackles, he hurried after the soldier.
“Go with God, señor," Maria called after him, tears streaming down her face.
Another week of travel through the mountains brought-them to the Valley of Mexico, and Ellis gazed down in awe at the splendid city. As soon as they free me, he thought, I’ll go back and find María. The prisoners were immediately confined with several hundred other culprits. Ellis watched for Moreno’s friends, wondering how long it would take them to obtain his release. The third day, a well-dressed young man came to see him.
“Señor Bean,” he said, “Don Ramóon Iglesias sent me to tell you he is working to free you, but it may take a month, maybe many months. He asks if you need money, and advises you to be patient.” Ellis thanked him and shook his head. I have money, and being patient is what I do best, he thought, feeling elated. At least it won’t be much longer.
A few days later, a guard ordered the four prisoners to follow him to the prison yard, where a troop of cavalry waited. A sergeant beckoned toward four saddled horses, and the prisoners mounted and accompanied the cavalry out of the city on a road leading southwest. Shocked at this unexpected development, Ellis spoke to the sergeant, who appeared friendly. “Where are you taking us?” he asked, his fears rising.
“To the Castle of San Diego at Acapulco,” the sergeant replied, looking from one to another of the prisoners. “But you don’t look like dangerous men to me.”
I wonder what that means, Ellis thought. For one thing, he knew, it meant that Moreno’s friends couldn’t help him now. Damn. I should have gone with María when I had the chance.
In ten days, they reached the city of Chilpancingo, and several days later came out of the mountains and saw the white-washed houses of Acapulco gleaming below them on a narrow strip of land between the mountains and the white sand of the curving bay. Beyond was the Pacific Ocean, deep blue broken by white-caps rolling toward the beach. Ellis gazed at the magnific
ent sight, holding his breath in awe.
“I’m afraid this is your home now,” the sergeant said, inclining his head toward the huge, star-shaped fortress of San Diego, at the apex of a hill near the bay. It was bristling with cannons. “I hope it won’t be forever. Good luck, señor.” Ellis saw that he was sincere, and felt his blood turn to ice.
As they rode down from the heights, Ellis felt like he had crawled under a heavy blanket, for the air grew hot and humid, and beads of sweat rolled down his face. Under the lush growth of many kinds of trees were countless varieties of ferns and plants with brilliant red or yellow flowers. Along the shore in the distance, tall coconut palms, their tops ringed with graceful fronds, stood like sentinels. Ellis gazed around him in amazement—he’d never seen anything like it before.
The troops and prisoners followed the trail winding down to the beach across the bay from the sleepy village of Acapulco. Ellis shaded his face with a shackled hand, for the reflection of the sun off the white houses hurt his eyes. The few people they met moved slowly, blinking in the bright sunlight as they stared at the prisoners. They looked up at the castle, then at the prisoners, and shook their heads, as if they knew they’d never see those bearded men again.
On up the hill by a winding road they went, until the castle loomed directly over them, much more forbidding than it seemed when they were looking down on it from the mountains. As they rode through the gate and across the drawbridge, Ellis gazed up at the awesome towers and felt fear. I’m glad I won’t be alone, he thought.
The prisoners dismounted and stood stiffly while an officer read their names. When his name was called, Ellis stepped forward and a lieutenant beckoned him to follow. He looked back and saw the others weren’t coming. At the side of the castle, the lieutenant stopped at a narrow door with a small opening in it. The hinges creaked as he opened the door and gestured for Ellis to enter. They creaked again as he closed and locked it.
Ellis stared at the cell in the dim light, a cubicle only three feet wide and seven feet long. At one end was a small grated window that let in a little air and light. He leaned down to peer through the opening in the door and saw a soldier standing guard. “Where are my friends?” Ellis asked him.
“Together in a big room.” Ellis swore.
Before dark, the lieutenant returned, accompanied by a soldier carrying Ellis’ blanket, old clothes, and a straw mat for a bed. The lieutenant handed Ellis a bowl with a piece of bread and a chunk of tough beef in it, and a pot of water. “Why can’t I be with my friends?” Ellis asked.
The lieutenant hesitated before answering. “Colonel Carreño received a letter from a friend of his, an officer in Chihuahua,” he replied. “I don’t know what it said, but the colonel ordered us to take every precaution to see that you don’t escape.” Ellis scowled. The officer whose daughter he’d spurned must be gloating. He thought of María Baldonado, cursing himself for hesitating too long.
The next morning when the soldier came with food and water, and opened the door to inspect Ellis’ shackles, he said nervously, “Colonel Carreño wants to see you.” Ellis stood and faced the door, where a heavy-set man scowled at him. His mouth turned down at the corners, and his bushy mustache drooped around his mouth. His small, black eyes glittered like the eyes of a coiled rattlesnake. His lips curled and his nostrils wrinkled at the stench from the cell. Ellis shivered.
“So you’re our Señor Bean,” Carreño said, in a tone of contempt. “Make yourself comfortable. You won’t be leaving as long as I’m governor of this castle.” He turned and left. The soldier, who had been standing nervously to one side looked relieved.
“He looks like one mean son-of-a-bitch,” Ellis said in Spanish. The soldier peered out the door to be sure Carreño was gone, then nodded his head vigorously and left, closing the door behind him.
Every day, the soldier who brought Ellis food and water also checked his shackles to see that they were in place. Ellis still had the money he’d brought from Chihuahua. He took a peso from his pocket. “Will you buy me a knife?” he asked the soldier, handing him the coin.
“I’ll bring it tonight,” the soldier replied.
When he had the knife, Ellis tried to pick out the mortar between the huge stones of the outer wall, but soon realized it was hopeless. The days dragged by; Ellis thought only of being free again. It appeared that he’d never be released and would have to escape. But how?
One day, he noticed a white lizard that had crawled through the little window and was trying to catch flies. Out of curiosity, Ellis caught a fly, impaled it on a straw from his mat, and slowly held it up to the lizard’s head. It eyed him suspiciously, but accepted the fly, and as many others as Ellis could catch. Every morning when the lizard crawled through the window, it sang like a frog to announce its arrival. From the time it turned light each day, Ellis listened eagerly for its song. He named the lizard Bill.
After some days, Bill became so tame Ellis could hold him in his hand and feed him scraps of beef. When he held Bill up to the light, the lizard was so transparent he could make out its bones. “You’re just about the only friend I’ve got left in the world,” he told it, and it cocked its head, staring at Ellis with shiny eyes. Bill became so tame that he even stayed with Ellis nights, but when the soldier came each day to inspect Ellis’ shackles, the lizard hid under his blanket. He came out as soon as he heard the door close, and Ellis always picked him up. “Don’t you worry about any of those soldiers,” he said, stroking Bill’s back. “If one ever tried to harm you, I’d strangle him.”
When he’d been at Acapulco nearly a year, Ellis developed a fever, and the castle doctor ordered an Indian to carry him to the hospital. Now, he thought, if I ever get well, I’ll find a way to escape. But at the hospital he was put in stocks—two logs with semicircular cuts in them that fit over his legs. While he was in the stocks, small biting insects called chinces nearly drove him mad by biting his legs, for there was no way he could get at them.
Many in Acapulco had been struck by the same fever, and the hospital was crowded. When men on each side of him died one night, and two more died the next morning, Ellis was sure his time had come, but he slowly recovered. He was fed only a little bread and gruel mornings, and soup and a chicken’s head nights. As he recovered he was ravenously hungry, but the volume of his food wasn’t increased.
One evening a monk with a shaved head brought Ellis his usual fare. Famished and feeling desperate, Ellis, who happened to be out of the stocks, arose. “Why is it that the only part of the chicken you ever give me is the head?” he growled.
“Eat it or go to Hell for more,” the monk retorted. Enraged, Ellis flung his bowl, striking the monk’s shaved head. While the monk howled in pain, Ellis threw his water pot at him but missed. Weakened by the fever, he fell back on his mat. A sergeant entered the room and put Ellis’ neck in the stocks, where it remained for fifteen days. He regretted not killing the monk, for then they would have shot him and ended his troubles. While his neck was in the stocks the chinces bit the skin off it, leaving it raw.
When Ellis was released from the hospital, two soldiers armed only with sabers escorted him back to the castle. At the edge of town they came to a house where a woman sold beer. Ellis invited the soldiers to have some, and they gladly accepted. Determined to escape, Ellis asked one of the soldiers to accompany him to the garden behind the house. Catching him off guard, Ellis held his knife to the man’s throat and seized his saber.
“What are you going to do?” the frightened soldier asked.
“I’m leaving. Why don’t you come with me?”
“I will. If I don’t Colonel Carreño will put me in your place.” Seeing that the soldier really didn’t plan to accompany him, Ellis gave him a peso and told him to buy some bread for the journey. Then he fled to the woods before the soldier could return with others and arrest him. With the steel he used to strike fire, he removed the chains from his legs. He hid in the woods all day, listening to the birds and smel
ling the flowers. At night he slipped into town and bought bread, cheese, and a gourd of brandy. Two men in the shop were talking in English, so Ellis waited for them outside. They were Irishmen, and told him they were crewmen on a privateer that had just arrived from Peru.
“Will your captain talk to me?” Ellis asked.
“Come with us and we’ll ask him,” one of the men replied. They walked to the house where the captain was staying. He invited Ellis to his room.
“Are you Mexican?” he asked.
“No, American.” The captain looked surprised.
“But you speak Spanish so well,” he said.
“I’ve been a prisoner for years,” Ellis told him, “Eight or nine, maybe more. I’ve lost track of time.
The captain shook his head sympathetically.
“Will you take me with you when you sail?” Ellis asked. “I’ve got to get away before they find me. I don’t want to die in that hole.”
“I’ll take you, but I can’t talk any longer now. Meet my men at the wharf tomorrow night. They’ll take you out to the brig and hide you. We sail at noon.”
After hiding in the woods all day and reveling in his freedom, Ellis met the two Irishmen at night, and once on board the brig they hid him in an empty water barrel. At last I’m going to get away, he thought, and anxiously waited for the brig to weigh anchor. Cramped and uncomfortable, he remained there all night as the ship rose and fell with the tide. At mid-morning he heard voices, and soon knew that a patrol had come to see if he was on board. Ellis held his breath and tried to make himself smaller. When he heard the patrol leave, he exhaled. Only a couple of hours more before we sail, he thought. He relaxed and tried not to think.
But the patrol returned, and Ellis shivered as he heard the clanking of swords and heavy footsteps on the deck. A voice said, “I know you’re hiding a king’s prisoner. Turn him over to us or you’ll take his place.” Ellis cursed under his breath as he heard the footsteps approaching.
Gone to Texas (An Evans Novel of the West) Page 5
