Moon Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (47 page)

      
A withering fight ensued with the outnumbered Texians exacting fierce casualties from the Mexican cavalry, who possessed poorer arms and decidedly poorer marksmanship.

      
“We got them pinned down, Capt'n,” Jinx said as he crawled up to where Hays and Fleming had taken cover.

      
‘‘Don't be too sure who's got who pinned down,” Hays said.

      
Grunting in agreement, Rafe swore. “Why the hell weren't those men ready by the ford? This is a piss poor place to fight. If Woll brings up his infantry and cannon, we're sitting ducks.”

      
Jinx replied, “I palavered with one o' Ole Paint's men a minit ago. Seems a couple o' fellers wanted ta wait 'n th' volunteers had ta take a vote on backin' ya.”

      
Rafe swore. “We took a vote on this plan last night, for Christ's sake!”

      
Hays only shrugged, used to the splintered loyalties and uncertain temperaments of Texian militia. “What we need to know now is just where the general is and what he's doing. Still got that Comanche instinct for slipping in and out of tight spots, Fleming?”

      
“Find Woll and check his strength,” Rafe replied, anticipating Hays's orders. With panther like grace, he vanished into the willows. He retrieved Bostonian from the shelter where he was hidden and led him silently away from the shooting. Within an hour he had returned, reporting to Hays that Woll had just left the city with over two hundred infantry and two cannons.

      
“They should be here in a couple of hours,” he finished.

      
Hays grunted, picking up a stick Rafe had used to draw a crude map in the dirt. ‘‘Never count on Woll taking that long. He marched with no roads and made it to San Antonio weeks sooner than we thought he could.” He looked over to Matt Caldwell, who was present at the quick strategy session held during desultory firing.

      
Caldwell, thickset and stiff from multiple wounds accumulated in his years as an Indian fighter on the Texas frontier, sat back and rubbed his bristly mustache. “I expect he'll be along right soon. If the guns these boys got are any sample, we can take out a lot of them.”

      
“Trick is avoiding the cannons while we're doing it,” Hays added sourly.

      
“They know they outnumber us. Maybe if we fall back just as the general gets here, we can make him charge down that hill into a little crossfire,” Rafe said. “Before he gets his artillery pieces sighted in.”

      
“No, we'd have to move before that,” Hays replied, turning an idea over in his mind.

      
By the time they heard the infantry rounding the curve of the ravine, the Texians' plans were in place. At the first sight of the Mexican column, the Texian officers began to yell in confusion, urging their men to retreat, leaving a handful of Hays's rangers in the willow thickets around the stream.

      
Holding his men in good order, Woll sounded the bugle and ordered a charge after firing several quick rounds from one of the cannons. The grapeshot missed its mark; but when the Mexican soldiers charged, the Texian long rifles did not miss theirs. The ground was quickly littered with Mexican dead and wounded as the Texian militia circled back and opened a killing fire.

      
Rafe had used his Hawken rifle several times but preferred his wicked Bowie knife in hand-to-hand fighting. At the right flank of the Texian lines, a small group of Mexicans had made an incursion. Rafe and a small number of other seasoned frontiersmen drove them back. All the while he fought, Rafe searched for Flores.
Only let me kill that murdering bastard so Deborah is safe.

      
Just when he despaired of finding his prey, Rafe caught sight of him, mounted on a superb black stallion. He crawled onto a rocky ledge above the unsuspecting officer who was temporarily separated from his men in the rough, brushy terrain.

      
With a feral growl, Rafe jumped on Flores, dragging him from his horse in one wrenching movement. They crashed to the ground as the stallion reared up in terror and then raced away. Rafe's deadly blade slashed out, slicing the sleeve of Flores's heavy tunic as they rolled. The comanchero's double-barreled Windsor pistol was empty. Furiously, he used it as a crude cudgel, swiping at Rafe's knife while he freed a stiletto from his belt. The two antagonists came to their feet, facing one another.

      
Poised cat-taut, Rafe waited for Enrique to move. With a muffled oath, the comanchero lunged, toppling them both back into the dust. His thin deadly stiletto arced up and came down, but Rafe's heavier knife blocked it, then snapped it at the handle. With a swift twist of his wrist, Rafe wrenched the broken weapon from Flores’s hand, rolling Enrique over. He swept his gleaming steel toward Enrique's throat, but a split second before he could finish the kill a shot rang out, striking him in the head. Rafe was flung backward with thudding impact, hitting a rock behind him. Everything went black.

* * * *

      
“Thet Frenchy general put a reward on his head, Miz Fleming. Some horse feathers ‘bout him bein' a spy fer th' Texians. Price's nigh as high as th' one he put on Jack Hays for devilin' him. Thet Flores snake's behind it, I know it in my bones.” Racine Schwartz gestured in frustration as he finished his report to Deborah.

      
When Rafael did not return the night after escorting Charlee back to Bluebonnet, Deborah had become frantic with worry. General Woll had been unavailable to see her, so she had sent Racine out to do some eavesdropping early the following morning. Her pale face was drawn with anxiety as she asked, “And you're sure he escaped the sentries who shot at him?”

      
Racine snorted dismissively. “He got clean away, but one o' them Mex soldiers’ll never draw a bead on a Texian agin!”

      
The next two days were hellish for Deborah as she waited, a prisoner in her own house. Her second visit to General Woll had been disastrous. He had coldly informed her that his men had witnessed a Texian agent enter their house and Rafe escort “him” out of the occupied city with his own safe conduct papers. Her husband was a wanted man. She was under house arrest.

      
Dropping the curtain, Deborah turned from watching the Mexican soldier stationed in front of her boardinghouse. Just then Sadie came hobbling in the front parlor. “Miz Deborah, come quick. Chester done found out what be goin' on.” Deborah flew to the kitchen where the hired man waited nervously.

      
Doffing his hat, he launched into a swift account of the preceding night's turmoil. “We whupped ‘em, Miz Deborah! Thet feller Hays 'n his rangers got thet Frenchy ta chase 'em into a ambush! Ole Paint 'n th' militia cut 'em up real bad on Salado Creek.” His face was as flushed with triumph as if he had been a participant.

      
Thinking only that Rafael was out there, probably involved in the battle, Deborah was not consoled. “Then that was all the noise we heard last night—the church bells ringing in the plaza and all the shouting?”

      
“You shoulda seen all th' wounded 'n dead they brung in with ‘em. Th' general give marchin' orders! They's packin' up ta pull out, headed fer th' border like a pack o' scalded dogs!”

      
“How soon, Chester?”
If only Rafael is all right. I have to know!

      
“Some say today, some tomorra. It's a real crazy house down ‘round th' Plaza. Lots o'
Tejanos
er fîxin ta go with em. Afeared o' whut th' militia'll do ta 'em when they git here.”

      
“But that's ridiculous,” Deborah replied. “Why should the
Tejanos
fear the men who drove the Mexican Army out? They had nothing to do with the occupation—in fact many of them have helped feed and care for the prisoners.”

      
Chester shrugged. Mistrust and bigotry still marred the co-existence of Hispanic and Anglo settlers.

      
By that afternoon it was official. General Woll's army was leaving at daybreak. By evening on the twentieth, the Texian militia would be back in the city.

      
If Deborah was frantic over Rafael's absence, Adam was brimming with impatience to see his beloved father return in glory after almost single-handedly defeating the entire Mexican army.

      
The next morning, needing to distract her son from his endless questions about the fighting, Deborah took him with her to the garden to pick vegetables. Since dawn that morning the army had been withdrawing. Only a few heavily laden baggage carts and their escorts remained. Captain Flores was in charge of the prisoners, all fifty-three of whom were being taken to dreaded incarceration in Santa Anna's special hellhole, Perote. Deborah shivered in revulsion.

      
Suddenly a shadow loomed over the two kneeling figures. Adam sensed the presence first. “What are you doin' here?” he questioned insolently. “My pa's comin' back ta run you off himself!”

      
Enrique Flores's cold obsidian eyes pierced the boy with some unreadable emotion hidden in them. “A fierce cub. But with Rafael Flamenco for a father and so spirited a lady for a mother, how could it be otherwise?”

      
Deborah gripped her small shears tightly, willing her breathing to return to normal. She felt none of her son's bravado. She nodded tersely to Flores as she stood up, hiding the shears in the folds of her skirt. “Adam, take this basket of potatoes in to Sadie.”

      
Mulishly the boy dug in his heels, sensing the danger of leaving his mother alone with the captain. “I ain't—I'm not finished filling it yet, Mama.”

      
Forcing patience, Deborah fixed Adam with her sternest gaze, willing him to understand the urgency of her command. “Sadie needs to know how much we've done now, son, so she can send Chester for more food if we need it.”

      
Realizing her intent was to send him for help, Adam reconsidered reluctantly. Then, with a defiant call over his shoulder he took off, leaving the potato basket behind. “My pa'll slit yer gizzard! Just see if he won't!”

      
Deborah quickly put herself between Flores and the retreating boy, prepared to strike with the shears if need be, but the comanchero only threw back his head and laughed. “I applaud his confidence—and your courage, my silver-haired beauty.”

      
Deborah took a step back as he reached out to stroke a coil of her hair. “I thought your general gave you marching orders, Captain. Shouldn't you be halfway to the Rio Grande by now?”

      
“Oh, we're leaving, all right, but first I had some unfinished business to attend,” Flores replied nastily. “The wolf cub's father won't be coming back, alas.” At her sharp intake of breath, he continued relentlessly. “One of my men killed him as he was about to dispatch me. A fortunate matter since we had to retreat in a cross fire. But I could scarcely leave you a grieving widow, all alone, with no man to console you

      
Deborah came out of her grief-frozen trance when his last words penetrated. “You despicable cur!” She raised the shears to stab at him as he reached for her.

      
Flores deflected the blow, but not before she left a wicked slash across his cheek. He grabbed her slim wrist with bone-breaking force. Refusing to drop her only weapon, she kicked at him as he dodged and attempted to subdue her. When she made a quick snatch for the pistol at his side he intercepted her left-handed reach and had both hands imprisoned. He gave her a brutal, tooth-jarring shake and then released her left hand long enough to deliver a sharp, fast blow to her jaw. She collapsed into oblivion.

* * * *

      
Armed citizens of San Antonio patrolled the deserted streets. Everyone was on edge since the Mexican army retreated and Caldwell's men arrived in the early afternoon. Rafe headed for the boardinghouse as quickly as he dared with his aching skull still pounding. Caldwell's surgeon had sewn up the crease furrowed deeply in the side of Rafe's thick hair. It didn't show, but it throbbed wickedly. He'd been unconscious all day yesterday and had lost a lot of blood. He still felt weak and double vision intermittently plagued him.
If only I can stay on Bostonian until I know they're safe.
He had disobeyed orders to remain in camp with the other wounded and struck out for the city as soon as he heard it was free.

      
Reining in at the front of the boardinghouse, Rafe swung down just as Adam came racing out the front door.

      
“Papa! I knew you'd come! I knew it!” Adam catapulted into his father's arms.

      
Rafe enveloped the boy, relief flooding over him. Then his son's next words froze him.

      
“He's got Mama! He took her off. We couldn't find her anywhere. But he was here this morning in the garden 'n I know he did it!”

      
Rafe tried to calm the frantic boy. “Slow down,
niño
. Who took her?” A hard knot of fear formed in the pit of his stomach. He knew who.

      
“That bastard captain, Flores. I wanted to stay with her, but Mama made me go for Chester. When we got back to the garden, they were gone. I should never of left her,” he finished as tears made his big brown eyes lustrous.

      
Rafael soothed Adam. “You did right, following your mother's orders, son. Flores could have shot you both and then I'd never get either one of you back. I'll bring her home, Adam. I promise.”

      
Rafael left Adam in Racine's charge and hurried to catch up with Jack Hays and the other militia who were in pursuit of Woll's retreating army and its prisoners. His driving headache was augmented by the chill late September air. It had been raining for a couple of days intermittently and the dry Texas dust had already turned to thick mud. Wet, aching, and crazed by fear for his wife, Rafe pushed himself and Bostonian to their limits and beyond.