The Red Ripper (11 page)

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Authors: Kerry Newcomb

BOOK: The Red Ripper
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Wallace emerged from the ranch house and stepped out into the sunlit yard; his towering physique cast a long shadow upon the hard-packed earth. A large, shaggy
hound bestirred himself from the shade beneath the porch and wandered over toward the knife fighter, who ignored the dog and headed for the horse he had tethered by a trough. A number of wasps hovered above the glassy surface of the water. Wallace steadied the hammerhead gray with a gentling hand. He began to tighten the cinch on his saddled mount.
The hound waited patiently for an acknowledging scratch on his shaggy brown head. The animal, part blue heeler and part sheepdog, had arrived at Briarwood during Wallace's second winter in San Felipe and had remained on the place ever since. To William's thinking, there was no poorer canine specimen in all of Mexico. He was minus half of his left ear. A patch of fur had been singed from his shoulder. Scar tissue ridged the dog's muzzle and curled his lip in an unnatural grin.
William checked the loads on his saddle pistols and replaced a flint. Before placing a foot in the stirrup he turned around and gazed upon the land, his land, forty-five hundred acres of prime pasture and fertile ground that stretched from the banks of the Brazos to the San Felipe Road. In five years he had built a small but substantial herd. The smokehouse was nearly full. Corn ripened in the field, row upon golden row. Half a dozen foals romped in the meadow.
You've done well,
Samuel's ghost whispered in his brother's ear. Or was it the rustling of the tall grass, the whisper of a hawk's wing on the heated wind, the creak of a garden gate?
But … Juan Diego Guadiz still lives.
William closed his eyes and traded the incriminating observations of his murdered brother for the guilty pleasure of a woman's face, her smiling eyes, sultry mouth, and raven black hair.
Esperanza can never be more than a friend,
he reminded himself. The bride of Don Murillo had been the knife fighter's weakness from the first day he had set eyes on her down in Veracruz.
He conjured an image of Esperanza on the balcony of her hacienda, alone in the gathering dusk, watching and thinking and wondering, till her husband called her to bed. Ah, can a man help the ramblings of his restless heart? Where is the harm in a dream?
Roberto Zavala hailed him from across the meadow. The nineteen-year-old, astride a skittish gelding, chased a headstrong calf up from the tall stands of cane that edged the riverbank. Behind the horseman, the sun-dappled surface of the river beckoned between thickets of cottonwood and willow. Cattle sampled the pasture grasses and continued on their daylong trek across the bottomland. William had chosen a building site well back from the floodplain and just a hail and holler from the San Felipe Road. Turn east and San Felipe was a half hour's ride. Ford the Brazos and the land belonged to Don Murillo Saldevar.
“You fixing to leave, señor Wallace?” Roberto asked, riding up into the yard. William's own hammerhead gray stallion began to crop the bluestem shoots growing in the shade of the steps.
“Bradburn's supposed to have come up from Anahuac. I reckon it is high time I met the man and heard him try to justify all these blasted taxes and explain why our goods haven't been released from the warehouses on the coast.” William slapped the saddle pommel in disgust. The more he thought of the alcalde's tactics, the angrier he became. “I bought those goods in New Orleans and intended to sell them in town. Damned if I'll ransom my profits for taxes just because Santa Anna needs money to run his government.”
“No doubt señor Austin will counsel patience. Don Murillo will probably side with him,” Zavala said.
William caught the reins and swung up into the saddle. “Bless my soul, but I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to patience.”
Roberto nodded sympathetically. “Whatever you decide, me and the boys will look after the place.” At nineteen years, Zavala was a top hand and well respected by the other vaqueros, who called him Segundo and knew he spoke for Wallace in the man's absence.
“I wouldn't leave Briarwood in the hands of any other man,” William said, glancing in the direction of the bunkhouse where the other two caballeros were hammering cedar shingles in place on the roof. He waved to the men. “Keep Angus and Ramon busy.”
“With pleasure. And pass along my regards to my sister.” Roberto grinned. “Isabel has her eyes on you, señor, now that she has passed her fourteenth birthday. Be warned.”
“I'll ride clear of her, much as I admire your mama's cooking.”
A breeze sprang up and stirred the leaf-heavy limbs of a knobby old sycamore, regal as a royal galleon adrift on a rippling sea of pink and white primroses and yellow buttercups. Home was a fair and lovely place that Wallace always seemed to be leaving. Roberto understood, but then he knew firsthand the kind of man he rode for. Texas had a habit of needing “Big Foot” Wallace: when the Comanche raided, when bandits struck, when a child was lost or a barn needed raising, or when the local military authority in the port of Anahuac confiscated shipments that were rightly the colonists' and all but dared someone to come and take them back.
Wallace said his farewell, tugged on the. reins, and pointed the hammerhead gray in the direction of the road. “Stay put,” the big man ordered, glancing down at the hound nearby. The dog lingered in the yard for a few seconds, whining, hesitant, its eyes on the man in the distance. Then, unable to resist its own wild urges, the hound took off after Wallace and followed him around the first bend in the road, barking and carrying
on until both were out of earshot, the baying hound and the horseman, riding at a canter into the shimmering haze.
“Vaya con Dios,” Roberto softly said, watching the silhouette of his friend shrink in the vernal distance and vanish like a legend in the dust.
“ … THE WILD WEST WIND …”
It was a rowdy collection of Texicans who came to the Flying Jib and gathered around the great oaken tables Mad Jack Flambeau had placed beneath a canopy of pine trees and cottonwoods on a bluff overlooking the banks of the Brazos. For the better part of the afternoon rum flowed like dark courage, fueling one brave speech after another. When the rum played out, tequila and Mad Jack's own concoction, a home brew referred to by the locals as “Slaughter of the Innocents,” served to further loosen the bonds of civility. Before long, friends were verbally clashing with one another as handily as strangers. Tempers flared hot as the coals in the cook pit where cornmeal-breaded catfish fried in a cauldron of boiling grease. The fire pit was surrounded on all sides by quarrelsome men and a few long-suffering wives who braved the raucous cantina in a desperate attempt to lead their flush and flustered husbands into moderation.
John Bradburn was easy to recognize. The alcalde held court on a long, wide bench flanked by a half-dozen dragoons whose presence only served to rouse the ire of the colonists. The soldiers stood propped on their rifles, languishing in the shade as they watched the rum flow and licked their dry lips, eyes lit with envy, scowling, forbidden to imbibe by the alcalde, who set a double
standard by swilling as much tequila as his round belly could hold.
Ah, but these Texicans were a boisterous lot whose tempers could only be diffused by the quick wits and tall tales of their irascible one-eyed host. But Mad Jack Flambeau would have to try a different tactic this afternoon. When men argued matters of justice and honor and taxes it was best to stand aside, pour the drinks, and keep the masses fed. Men with full bellies weren't as likely to riot and break up the place.
Blinking against the sweat that trickled down his naked skull and stung his eyes, Mad Jack maneuvered his way among the tables as he delivered a stoneware bowl of cornmeal to the cook, Hanneke Van Wey. This buxom widow had been unable to refuse the freebooter's charm or his purse of Spanish gold during the bleak days following her first husband's death. Years ago, shortly after arriving in the settlement with William Wallace, Flambeau had stopped in at the cantina for a “flagon of rum” to ward off the chill of a February night. The old buccaneer had stayed to warm Hanneke's bed. With the winds of a blue norther howling like banshees through the streets, the couple had romped with abandonment, oblivious to the cold and the dark. Come morning, Mad Jack found himself owning a half-interest in the Flying Jib.
It had been the freebooter's idea, with the advent of spring, to throw open the doors and windows and bring the tables and benches outside so his customers could appreciate the scent of hyacinths, honeysuckle, and wild strawberries and breathe pine-scented air while they drank themselves into a stupor. The Brazos wasn't the ocean and never would be, but the sweet flowing river had a song all its own as constant as the rolling tides.
Mad Jack estimated the size of the crowd and quietly appraised the heaping platter of dressed catfish fillets
Hanneke balanced on the lip of a shallow cast-iron pot filled with hot grease. “You reckon we've enough fish?”
“Do we have any more?” she asked. The Dutch woman was short and soft and ripely curved, with her blond hair tucked beneath a lace cap and her plump red cheeks dabbed with cornmeal. Her fingers were dusted gold from breading the fillets.
“Nope.”
“Then it will have to be enough,” she nonchalantly replied.
Esperanza, seated on the fringe of the crowd, excused herself from her husband's table, and made her way to the fire pit. Ladies seldom visited the cantina, and her presence did not pass unnoticed. But then, she had a reputation of being just a little “different.” Those who knew her well were quick to add “compassionate” and “kind” when describing the wife of the
haciendado.
“Señor Flambeau. Every time I try to help, Hanneke shoos me away. This is too much for one person to worry with.”
“My little one, what would people think? You're a fine lady and shouldn't even be amongst all these blowhards, much less serving them,” the widow replied in a loud, brassy voice. The woman glared at the townsmen and settlers, many of whom had broken up into smaller, contentious groups. “Talk, talk, talk, that's what men do best,” Hanneke observed with the wisdom of one who had seen men at their worst and loved them despite their imperfections. She lowered a handful of coated catfish into the pot. The grease sizzled and splattered the widow's apron as the cool pink-white fillets entered their hot bath of melted lard.
“I labored alongside my mother long before Don Murillo Saldevar took me out of the kitchen and gave me his name,” Esperanza explained. “As for what people
think, I no longer care. You have an extra apron. Let me help,
por favor
.”
A tall, powerfully muscled man in his early forties broke off from a heated debate over the merits of disobeying Mexican law. Because of the warm afternoon, Sam Houston had discarded his broadcloth coat. A watch on a beaded leather fob dangled from a pocket in his black cotton vest. He kept the long sleeves of his loose-fitting shirt rolled up past his thick forearms. “Good afternoon, ladies. That fish smells fitting, Hanneke.” He lifted his clay mug in Mad Jack's direction. “But I say, Cap'n Flambeau, has the well dried up?”
“You and Travis and these other bucks have clean drunk up the last of the rum, Sam. But I've tapped a barrel of my home brew that ought to light a fire to your tail.” Mad Jack gestured toward the interior of the cantina. “I'm just about to bring out a keg or two … or ten.”
Sam Houston clapped Flambeau on the shoulder, nearly knocking the Frenchman off his feet. “Bring it on. Since talking won't do, maybe we can drink some sense into the alcalde here and Austin, too.”
Stephen Austin was standing within hailing distance and heard his name mentioned. He frowned and glanced over at his rival. The founder of the colony regarded Sam Houston as a troublesome latecomer to Texas and resented the influence the man had begun to wield.
“Best you douse your own fire before it burns us all, Mr. Houston,” Austin offhandedly remarked, approaching the fire pit. He trusted Mad Jack's home brew to quiet the Tennessean down. “No man can accuse me of being afraid of a scrape. But you and your friends are too blasted inclined to take matters into your own hands. Times are hard enough without picking a fight with the local authorities.” Austin nodded toward the alcalde, who noticed the two influential colonists standing together.
Bradburn rose from his table and circled the cookfire. Austin added in a low voice, “Remember, Santa Anna runs him.”
“What plots are you hatching, my friends?” Bradburn glibly exclaimed. “Mr. Houston, you would be wise to seek Stephen's counsel. He knows the value of obeying the laws.”
“And changing them,” Austin said, angered at the way the alcalde was portraying him, almost as a lackey of the Mexican authorities.
Bradburn shrugged and gazed eagerly at the frying fish, his stomach rumbling. “The laws are there for all of us. If you find them unpleasant or onerous, by all means, take the matter up with President Santa Anna.”
“I intend to do just that,” Austin retorted, much to everyone's surprise.
“You cannot be serious,” Esperanza blurted out.
“Indeed I am, señora,” Austin told her, patting her hand. “Diplomacy got me this far. Years ago, I pleaded my cause before the government in Mexico City and received permission to colonize Texas. I can be successful again.”
“But General Santa Anna wasn't in power then,” Esperanza countered. She glanced around for her husband, but Don Murillo was deep in conversation with his
segundo
. Chuy Montoya had accompanied the ranchero to San Felipe. The two men tended to talk horse breeding and the condition of the stock and the range whenever opportunity permitted. “Weigh your decision carefully. Discuss it with my husband. Have you forgotten Santa Anna's hospitality?”
“He gave us both a taste of the Mexican dungeons,” Mad Jack added.
“I don't know if that was all his doing,” Austin said. “But the general is president now. It has been five years. Time changes men. I think he can be made to listen. I
have already discussed the matter with Don Murillo, and he has expressed his own doubts. But I must make the attempt.”
“Well, if you are determined to try,” Bradburn said, “there is a schooner, the
San Gabriel,
leaving for Veracruz at the end of the week. You can catch a coach to Mexico City right from the port.” The alcalde cleared his throat, adjusted his coat and flat-crowned hat, then offered his arm to Esperanza. “Señora Saldevar, perhaps you will walk with me for a few moments down by the river. My ears are ringing from all the confrontations I have had to endure today. Just a brief respite in the company of such a lovely lady as yourself would place me in a decidedly better humor.”
“As you wish,” Esperanza grudgingly agreed. The colonists needed the official as cooperative as possible. A brief stroll along the river with the alcalde was a small price to pay.
“Good. You can tell me about this fellow Big Foot Wallace. Our paths have yet to cross; still I feel as if I know him after listening to the local gossip.” Bradburn's voice turned silken smooth as they walked. “I am holding a shipment of his for taxes. There are barrels of nails, apples, salt pork, even a load of pig iron for the forge. I am sure a reasonable man will want to reach an agreement.”
Esperanza bit her tongue. Reasonable? She could recite a litany of words describing the Texican: bullheaded, stubborn, and brave to a fault, but reasonable? Hardly.
Mad Jack Flambeau watched the alcalde and Don Murillo's wife disappear along the path that wound down through the trees and brush toward the banks of the Brazos. Austin and Houston continued to verbally spar with each other, each man convinced as to the merits of his arguments and unwilling to budge from his
position. Mad Jack sighed and shook his head and went about his business. The freebooter didn't care two hoots in hell for politics, as long as he turned a profit. Men like Austin would try to keep the Texicans in line, while Houston seemed bent on pushing the colonists into a rebellion. Flambeau wondered where a man like William Wallace would stand. Flambeau returned to the cantina. Enough of this tame whiskey. It was time for a little Slaughter of the Innocents.
 
William Wallace entered San Felipe by the river road, skirted the Calle Guadalupe de Victoria, a stone's throw from market square. There were few vendors these days, for Santa Anna's policies held the colonies in a stranglehold. William recognized Don Murillo's carriage in front of the Whiteside Hotel and was tempted to investigate whether or not Esperanza had accompanied her husband into town but resisted the urge for now. He had business elsewhere. He'd only gone another block when a woman called out his name. Wallace turned in the direction of the voice and saw three comely young señoritas crowding the upstairs window of Zavala's Stable and Blacksmith, just a block off the Calle Tercera. The dog found a patch of shade to curl up in while William walked his mount over toward the smithy.
Isabel Zavala waved to him. What a difference the years had made from when he had rescued her from the Comanche. At fourteen she was filled out in all the right places and had a wide, sweet smile a man would die for. Her two friends looked a little older, but not by much. They giggled and chided the blacksmith's daughter for calling out, although they had dared her to do it.
Wallace rode up to the front corral where Jesus Zavala often kept the horses he was preparing to shoe. The girls were in the hay loft, up to mischief no doubt, but they were as pretty as peaches and carelessly flirtatious,
and the brawny redheaded Texican decided there were worse ways to spend a few minutes.
“Good morning, Big Foot!” Isabel called down.
William bowed and swept his sombrero across his chest in a grand salute. His long white scarf trailed across his shoulder. The girls noted how the muscles rippled beneath his shirt. “I believe you three are the fairest flowers in all of Texas.”
The girls blushed. Isabel found her voice. “This is Consuela. And here is Elizabeth.”
“I am pleased to make your acquaintance,” Wallace said. “And I hope this day finds you well.”
Isabel pouted and shook her head. “Everyone has gone over to meet with the alcalde. I suppose you have come to do the same.” She leaned forward, revealing her bare shoulders and the frilled low-cut bodice of her blouse. Strands of straw and dust fluttered down from the window.
“Directly,” William said. “But seeing three such lovelies has made my day.”
“Father is over at the Flying Jib. He won't be back for hours. You could climb up here and visit awhile.” Isabel folded her slender fingers beneath her chin and smiled.
William coughed and cleared his throat. “Well now, I don't think that old ladder to the loft would bear my weight.”
“Don't worry,” Elizabeth said. “If Consuela could climb it, anyone can.”

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