Teresa

by Les Savage, Jr.

  A man ran through the crowd toward them, shouting wildly that Lieutenant Perea had escaped. This caused a new turmoil in the group. Amado and Villapando entered into a violent argument and then Amado called orders to a dozen of the fire-fighters and they followed him at a run toward the stables. The blaze caught a new bundle of faggots and flared up for a moment, illuminating Teresa by the building. Villapando saw her and came over.

  Primitive and savage as he was, Teresa had begun to see a certain nobility in this man. He had led the revolt in a sincere belief that he was breaking the chains that had bound the Pueblos for centuries. Now—confused, disillusioned, completely unequipped to cope with the complexities and intrigues of government—he was battling with his back to the wall to keep from failing his people. For a moment she regretted her own part in the intrigues against him. Yet she could see no other way out.

  He stopped a foot from her, a powerful, deep-chested man emanating the smells of soot and of the earth. Ignorant, illiterate, he still possessed a native shrewdness that lay in the deep crevices at the tips of his eyes, in the searching way he looked at her face. He spoke a crude cow-pen variety of Spanish.

  “Perhaps this fire was convenient for Perea.”

  “Do you think he set it, Governor?”

  “Do not mock me, Teresa. I know what you are. Already you have pitted Amado against me. Without you he was nothing. Together you become more dangerous every day. I will not have it.”

  She smiled, enigmatically. “What will you do?”

  “I will separate you,” he said. “I will remove your reason to help Amado. You want protection from Biscara. I offer it to you.”

  It surprised her. “On what terms?”

  He moved closer. The fierce expression of his eyes softened. “You will become my wife,” he said. “The cacique of my pueblo will join us in the ceremony of my people.”

  Her whole body grew stiff. “I thought you hated me.”

  “I do.” His voice was husky, trembling a little. “But I want you too. I can’t understand that. Only with a woman like you could hate and love go together.” He had his hands on her arms now, the hot and callused palms gripping her tightly. This was no Amado with his sly innuendo, no Don Biscara with his suave lechery. This was a man close to the animals, shaken by a primitive passion. “You must give me your answer now,” he said.

  His body was pressing against her and his face was so close the hot breath seemed to envelop her. And suddenly it was not the face of Villapando, but the face of that Navajo headman back in the desert, bending over her where she lay behind the thicket of mesquite—a contorted face, a gloating face, a face that haunted her nightmares. Her right hand closed, as if about the handle of a Toledo dagger.

  She twisted free and her dress tore in his hand as she slid down the wall. She stopped two feet away.

  “I will tell you nothing,” she said. “Nothing.” She saw anger blaze up in his eyes and he started toward her. She said, “There are a hundred men in the courtyard.”

  It stopped him. He glanced aside. The mouth of the narrow alley was three feet from his back, with the shouting soldiers still running back and forth across it. His husky breathing abated.

  “Very well,” he said. “You have made your choice. I am still hunting Biscara. When I find him, he will be exiled. And you will be exiled with him.”

  11

  Lieutenant Perea’s escape set off a chain reaction, bringing to a head the tension, the seething caldron of intrigue, of plot and counterplot that had been boiling in the palace. The morning after Perea left, thirty-one men were missing from roll call in the barracks. And the next mowing thirteen more were gone.

  Everyone felt that they were joining Perea around Albuquerque, where he was reported to be gathering an army to retake Santa Fe. Then the rumor arose that the Esquadron de Vera Cruz was coming from Chihuahua to join Perea. This spread consternation through the insurgents. The Vera Cruz Squadron was a crack outfit, famed and feared throughout Mexico. The poorly equipped rebels would have little chance against a force of such men combined with the disaffected dragoons flocking to Perea’s standard.

  The Pueblo Indians began drifting back toward their villages. Villapando ordered Amado and a troop of the dragoons remaining to keep his army from disintegrating. Amado tried to round up the deserters, but it was like trying to plug a hundred holes in a dam with but one thumb. The rebels camped on the outskirts had numbered in the thousands before Perea’s escape; within a few days they were counted in the hundreds.

  The days were filled with frantic meetings in the council chamber. Villapando rarely slept—Gomez got drunker and drunker—Amado filled the palace with the clank of his restless spurs.

  Against Gomez’s orders, Teresa had been attending Doña Beatriz. The woman understood little of politics, but Gomez needed someone to tell his troubles to. Through Doña Beatriz, Teresa learned much of what was transpiring in the secret meetings. On the third evening after Perea’s escape, Gomez was closeted with the assembly, and Teresa took Doña Beatriz her supper. Crossing the patio, she was still in the shadows of the willows when she saw the door to the Gomez quarters open a crack. She halted, wondering what it was. In a moment it was pulled wider and Captain Uvalde slipped out. He glanced quickly around the open compound. Teresa was hidden in the blackness under the trees. He shut the door behind him and walked down the wall toward the barracks, holding his saber against his leg so it would not rattle. There was a crooked smile on his lean face.

  When he was out of sight, Teresa crossed the patio and knocked on the door. Doña Beatriz admitted her. The woman’s face was flushed, her soft eyes unnaturally bright. Teresa set the tray down.

  “You should be more discreet,” she said. “Captain Uvalde will do little to protect your reputation.”

  She heard the woman’s soft gasp. She turned to see that her face was dead white. The glitter was gone from her eyes and they shone with a wild fear. Teresa smiled sympathetically.

  “Do not fear. It is between us.”

  “Gracios a Dios,” breathed Beatriz. She walked to Teresa, taking her hand. “I do not know what Don Augustín would do if he found out.” She released Teresa’s hand and turned to walk agitatedly around the room. For a moment the soft docility was gone from her face; a sullen restlessness made her lips petulant and brought a resentful glow to her eyes. “It’s not that my husband is bad, or cruel. He tries to be good. But what does he know? Crops, cattle, politics. What is that to a woman? He might as well be my grandfather.”

  She straightened quickly at a knock on the door. Both women were silent for a moment, faces pale. Then Beatriz shook her head.

  “It cannot be Don Augustín. He never knocks.”

  Teresa opened the door. John Ryker stood there, a broad and heavy shadow in the outer darkness. He wore his cinnamon bear coat winter and summer, and its pungent scent crept against her like a tainted perfume.

  “Gomez asked us to meet him here,” he said.

  Doña Beatriz’s lips were parted in surprise. She looked foolish as a schoolgirl. Then she made a nervous flutter of her soft hands.

  “Of course. Our house is yours. Undoubtedly my husband will be here soon.”

  Two others followed Ryker in. Teresa knew the first one, Danny O’Brien, a trader on the Santa Fe Trail, an institution in town. He was a short, heavy-girthed man in kerseymere trousers and a broadcloth coat with black velvet lapels. His black stock and white collar flared like the ruff of a startled bird beneath a round face with cherubic eyes and a deacon’s smile. But Teresa knew the mind that lay so deceptively behind that smile—shrewd, keen, sharp as a blade. He already knew both women and gave them a courtly bow.

  “And this is Vic Jares,” Ryker said.

  Jares was obviously a trapper, six feet tall, cat-lean through the shanks, hands latticed with fresh trap scars. His
eyes were bright as beads, never still, darting from spot to spot like a hopping bird. He looked at Doña Beatriz, then at Teresa. He licked his lips and leered.

  “Looks like we’ll be entertained, anyways.”

  Teresa flushed and did not answer. Doña Beatriz made a confused motion with her hands. Ryker crossed the room, watching Teresa from the corner of his eyes. She saw that he still wore his pair of Ketland-McCormicks stuck naked through a broad black belt.

  “Perhaps a drink,” she said.

  Before they could answer, the door was thrust open and Gomez entered, followed by Amado. They both looked surprised at the sight of Teresa. Gomez must have been drinking steadily through the meeting, for his eyes were heavy-lidded as a sleepy child’s, his lips slack and moist.

  “I ordered you not to come here,” he said.

  “I was merely serving Doña Beatriz her supper,” Teresa said.

  “We have no time to bicker,” Amado said. He looked sycophantic, trying to placate Gomez. “Why don’t we just send them into the other room? If Villapando finds Ryker here the whole thing will be of no use.”

  “All right.” Gomez swung his hand loosely toward the adjoining room. “Get in there. Close the door. If I find you listening, I’ll have you flogged.”

  Like a frightened rabbit Doña Beatriz scurried through the door. But Teresa sensed that this was a crisis and did not want to be left out of it.

  “Perhaps I can help you choose the new governor,” she said. They all looked at her in surprise. She smiled wisely. “The throne is toppling. Lieutenant Perea will take Santa Fe by force and execute the rebel leaders. You are trying to force Villapando to abdicate before that happens. You want to elect a governor and a new assembly and declare for the central government again. Then you’ll welcome Perea with open arms and save your heads.”

  “You’ve been spying,” Gomez said thickly.

  Ryker scowled at Teresa. “Let her finish. She seems to know more than we do.”

  “But Villapando is balking,” Teresa said. “He won’t abdicate. He has prepared a declaration which he intends to send to Texas, offering them their old boundary claims to the Rio Grande if they will send a force here to aid us.”

  “True,” Amado said. He began pacing, face shining with sweat. “Villapando is a fool. If he allows a Texan army in here they will take us over completely.”

  “And if he doesn’t, Perea will have your heads,” Teresa said.

  Gomez walked soddenly to a spindled cabinet and withdrew a bottle of wine, pouring himself a full glass. He took a drink, then spoke thickly, slurring the words.

  “Villapando may be stubborn, but he’s afraid. He knows what a spot he’s in. It’s those accursed caciques and Pueblo governors. They sit around him like a flock of vultures and won’t let him listen to a word we say. If we could get him alone we could convince him. One ride outside the city would convince anybody. We haven’t got enough men left in camp to fight a troop of women.”

  Amado began pacing again. His lips looked fat and effeminate, pouting. “It is no use. We will never find Villapando without those bodyguards.”

  Gomez lowered himself precariously to a rolled colchOn. His head began to sink; then it stopped, slowly raised again, till his eyes were on Teresa.

  “What if we could get Villapando alone?” he asked. One by one, the others looked at her. Gomez murmured, “We know how he feels about Teresa. Like a bird with a snake. He hates her, yet he can’t take his eyes from her. True, Teresa?”

  She answered reluctantly. “Yes.”

  Gomez sat straight. “Will you do it?”

  At first she was revolted by the suggestion. Amado saw it and approached her, a sly light in his eyes. “They have found Don Biscara,” he said.

  She turned sharply toward Amado. For a moment all she could think of was Villapando’s threat to turn her over to Biscara. It brought a flash of panic. Then that passed. It had been but a momentary thing, a physical reaction to immediate threat. When it was gone there was no sense of fear in her. Whatever feeling remained was bitter and deliberate, bound up with her resolve never again to become subject to any man. She saw the sly light leave Amado’s face, saw it replaced with a disappointment at what little fear he had drawn from her.

  But what he’d said had its desired effect. She realized that this was her fight too. She had made her decision on that basis before. If they fell, she fell. Her chin rose; light from the fire made her eyes look vividly green.

  “And if I get Villapando alone?”

  Gomez stood, forgetting his wine. “We’ll give him the true picture. We have a count on Perea’s forces, definite proof that the Vera Cruz Squadron is marching north with the presidial companies from Chihuahua. Even a man as stubborn as Villapando could not fail to break under such devastating evidence. We have his declaration of abdication all made out.”

  “And if he still will not sign?”

  “Then we will take him away by force,” Amado said. “It is what we were meeting with Ryker about. Once Villapando is out of the Palace, the Pueblos will go to pieces. We can hold him at Albuquerque till we have command again. Then he will be released.”

  “It won’t be necessary now,” Gomez said. “If we can but get him alone, he’ll abdicate.”

  They all looked at Teresa again. Her oblique cheeks flushed with an excitement of her own. Firelight danced in her curling mass of hair as she dipped her head.

  “I’ll do it.”

  * * * *

  The assembly was still in session but they had ordered wine brought in. Teresa intercepted the servant in the kitchen and took the tray with bottles and glasses herself. Villapando was seated at a cumbersome oak table at the far end of the large room, surrounded by what was probably the most exotic governing body on the continent. There were half a dozen aged caciques—the medicine men from the various Indian Pueblos, the real power in the tribe—dressed in their handsome Navajo serapes and Chimayo blankets, calves wrapped knee-high with the bandage-like Pueblo bota. Among them were alcaldes of the Mexican villages in shiny blue serge suits, the Pueblo governors in blue wool shirts and rawhide leggings, and the remaining officers of the presidio glittering and resplendent in their gold braid and towering shakos. They were all haggling with each other in a confusing hubbub of Spanish and Tewa and other Pueblo dialects. As Teresa approached the table she saw Villapando through a break in the crowd. He looked desperately tired, his face drawn and haggard, his eyes squinted shut. He was shaking his massive head.

  “I see no point in arguing further. The document is made. We send it to Texas at once.”

  Teresa circled the table and pressed through from behind, putting the tray beside Villapando. “Perhaps you would like to have your wine in private,” she murmured.

  He looked up in surprise. He frowned at her, red-rimmed eyes narrowing. She smiled back, a slow, lazy smile that showed her little animal teeth and the succulent ripeness of her red lower lip. The promise of it was unmistakable. Blood surged up his corded neck and into his blunt-boned cheeks, making them even darker. When he spoke, his voice sounded thick.

  “Perhaps you are right.” He shoved the chair back, taking a bottle and a glass, announcing to his assembly, “I declare an hour recess. We must all have a little rest.”

  He stood and looked at her, waiting. She set the tray down. He started toward the door leading to the executive chambers. She followed.

  Most of the assembly remained behind, still arguing heatedly. But a pair of the caciques moved to follow Villapando, and four broad-shouldered Pueblos, dressed in the ragged tilma of the peasant. Each of them was hung with a saber and a pair of pistols and two of them carried smoothbore escopetas. The governor’s rooms were as meagerly furnished as the rest of the Palace; the only distinguishing feature was the half-dozen high-back chairs of intricately carved oak.
<
br />   The caciques took their seats in these chairs, like kings upon their thrones, and the four stolid-faced bodyguards ranged themselves about the wall. Villapando poured himself a drink, watching Teresa suspiciously.

  “I suppose you heard we caught Don Biscara.”

  “I don’t deny it.”

  “And now you are afraid,” he said. “And come seeking my protection.”

  She walked to him, past the frowning, toothless caciques. She stopped a few inches from Villapando. Inside she was trembling, for she knew what was at stake. But her voice held a honey of seduction.

  “You offered it to me once.”

  His turning motion brought his chest against the soft swell of her breasts for just an instant. She saw the pulse in his temple begin to throb. She settled back and they were three inches apart. He could not pretend indifference now. Excitement rendered the earthy smell of him stronger.

  “I do not trust you,” he said.

  “There is only one way I can prove myself.”

  His eyes flickered as he understood her implication. He moistened his lips. Then, with startling abruptness, he threw the glass from him, shattering it against the wall, and took her in his arms. It was a savage kiss, filled with the bruising cruelty of an animal that knew no niceties, no tenderness.

  Finally it was over. Without releasing her body, he pulled his face away. Her lips felt bruised and swollen and she thought she would gag with nausea. His body was trembling and a primitive excitement varnished his black eyes and his lips were peeled back in a macabre smile of triumph. She managed to swing around till she was looking past him toward the others. He saw the direction of her gaze, and said thickly:

  “They are my bodyguards.”