Warriors of the Night (10 page)

“Anabel, please excuse Señor Abbot,” Ben said. “He often speaks without thinking.” The lieutenant was grateful for the darkness that hid his flustered expression.

“There are times when such talk makes the most sense.” Anabel was amused at his discomfort, and touched by his earlier admission of loss. Those feelings startled her and caught her off guard. This Ben McQueen was a big, good-natured, handsome and likeable man. The kind of man Anabel might have opened up to, but she had secrets better kept locked away. Anabel focused herself on the plans she had set in motion. The ring on her hand fractured the moon’s reflection and transformed the image into a pale and ghostly eye that seemed to peer from the center of the stone’s glossy depths.

“The general, at dinner, spoke of a medal you carry…”

Ben nodded. Matthew Abbot had regaled Father Esteban with a capsule history of the United States in hopes of impressing on the padre how beneficial it would be for the Texas Republic to become part of the Union. Abbot had bragged about the quality of men and women who had carved a nation out of the wilderness and won freedom from England. Ben’s own grandfather, Daniel McQueen, had played a significant role in that heroic struggle.

“Yes,” Ben said. “It’s really just a coin. But it’s been passed from my grandfather to my father and now to me.”

“The general said it bore the mark of the great man, Washington? May I see this medal?”

Ben shrugged, opened his shirt at the throat, and pulled out a shiny silver coin affixed to a chain. It was an English crown, and scrawled across the features on one side of the coin were the initials “G.W.” Anabel held the coin in her fingertips. It was indeed only a coin, like the ring on her hand was but a rock set in a band of metal, yet both carried responsibilities and duties that shaped the life of their bearers.

“You keep it with you always?”

“Yes,” Ben said, tucking it back inside his shirt.

His memory conjured a moment from the past, a leave-taking. It was January. On a brisk winter’s morning. A gleaming frost had settled on the buffalo grass that surrounded the farmhouse like an amber sea. Jesse and Daniel had already hugged him goodbye. His departure was easier for them to accept because they were so young. And Raven had made pancakes this morning and left a jug of sorghum syrup on the table for the boys to have as much as they wanted. No, leaving was harder for their father. But he was a soldier. And he had a job to do.

Kit McQueen waited alongside his son’s horse. At fifty-nine, Ben’s father looked to be in his forties. His hair was white and hung to his shoulders. A small, compact, solidly built man, Kit McQueen cast a long shadow. His features were dark from the sun and chiseled by the passage of time. His eyes could be hard and cold as death at times, but today they mirrored the love he felt for his only son.

He shielded his gaze and glanced up at a lone formation of geese, winging southward across the harsh blue sky.

“Glad to see you aren’t leaving alone,” he said. It had been a relatively mild winter, but a norther must have been on the way. Ben heard the cries and watched for a moment, taking time to enjoy a spectacle that never failed to fill his soul with happiness. The flight of geese was a reassuring constant in an all-too-changing world.

Kit exhaled slowly and nodded, as if nature had whispered a secret in his ear. “Nothing lives long except the sky,” he said.

“And the mountains,” Ben replied.

“And the mystery between,” Kit added, finishing the Choctaw prayer his wife Raven had taught him. Then Kit reached under his buckskin shirt and removed the medal he had worn for more than thirty years. It was time. Ben realized what was happening and, speechless, lowered his head to allow his father to drape the chain around his throat. He straightened and looked down at the gleaming coin.

“It doesn’t weigh much,” Kit said, “But it can get awful heavy sometimes.” Then he embraced his son and whispered, “Be well.”

“Ben…?”

Anabel’s voice brought him back, and the lieutenant stammered his apology.

“I’m sorry… uh… I… guess that glass of wine was one too many.” A warm May breeze tugged at his wavy red hair and caressed his cheek. His mind was clear now, as was the reason he had suggested Anabel accompany him outside, away from the dining room and the older woman who had brought them food from the padre’s kitchen.

“Señorita Obregon…”

“You may call me Anabel.”

“Gracias,” Ben said. “How long have you known Carmelita?”

The question caught Anabel off guard. Her pulse quickened and she became instantly wary of the man at her side.

“All my life. Why do you ask?”

“I met her in the plaza. There were two men… she seemed to know them,” Ben said. “In fact, I thought she was even… frightened.”

Anabel shrugged and tried to appear nonchalant. She reached out and took Ben’s hand in hers.

“Carmelita is much like a farmer—always afraid. It will not rain enough, the crops will dry up. It will rain too much, the crops will drown. Every shadow hides a Comanche, beneath every sombrero waits a murdering bandit,” the señorita lightheartedly explained.

She was impossible to resist. Ben saw no reason to doubt her. Carmelita certainly struck him as a fussy, overprotective old woman. She probably found menace in Ben’s own blue uniform.

“But enough of mamacita and your wandering thoughts and sad memories. I will give you something else to think about.” Anabel stepped forward, pressed against him, and found his lips with hers. A rush of fire swept through his veins and stole his breath away.

The bell in the tower of San Fernando Cathedral began to clang, startling the couple on the roof. Anabel skipped back and spun around, eyes wide with alarm. The ringing ceased as quickly as it had begun. But it had done its damage. The moment was lost. The young woman turned and lowered her gaze.

“Perhaps we had better rejoin the general and my brother,
sí?”

My God, was he dreaming… had she kissed him? Yes—the taste of her lingered on his lips like sweet nectar.

“I—suppose—so,” Ben grudgingly conceded and followed her to the stairs. He paused and glowered at the tower.
Damn bell,
he thought.
Funny thing, it ringing like that.

Hector crouched below the wall and waited for his hearing to return. His brother, Miguel, lay unconscious on the wooden decking. The kiss had enraged him. Mad with jealousy, he had snapped up the rifle, determined to avenge himself on the lieutenant. Only Hector’s fast reflexes had salvaged the moment and the life of the
norteamericano
.

A hand thrust between the hammer and percussion cap had kept the rifle from firing. With his other hand, Hector had swung the brass bell against Miguel’s skull, knocking him senseless.

“Ah, Miguel, it is for the best,” Hector said as he wrapped a piece of cloth torn from his shirt around his bleeding knuckles. “One shot and we all die. For what?” He leaned against the wall. “Another day, Miguel.
Por nada
. There will come another day. You kill him then.”

In the plaza below, after being startled by the church bell, a singer in the shadows began to play his guitar again and resumed his melancholy song of love.

I
T WAS NEAR MIDNIGHT,
but Ben felt alive and too damned aroused to try and sleep. What kind of place was this San Antonio, with its dry, clear nights and soft breezes, distant music and utterly perplexing señoritas?

He stood in the courtyard behind the governor’s palace and allowed his vision to readjust to the darkness. He glanced over his shoulder and noticed Matt Abbot through the window. Abbot leaned over the kitchen table, a clay mug of coffee in one hand. He found a cold biscuit with the other. Steam rose past the rim of his cup as the former officer chanced a taste of the bitter brew. Rangers liked their coffee black as sin, thick as mud, and strong enough to float a horseshoe, Captain Pepper had boasted.

Ben grinned. These Texicans were almighty sure of themselves, especially Snake Eye Gandy and the other Rangers in town. With Pepper’s men stationed in San Antonio, the town marshal was seldom called upon to settle disputes. Folks just naturally showed up at the captain’s door. This night, Clay Poole had been sent to make the rounds and let the rowdies of Main Plaza see the presence of law. Ben had no doubt but that the bearded, gruff-looking Ranger with his six-gun and well-honed tomahawk would have a taming effect on San Antonio’s more notorious populace.

Ben knew that Matt wanted him to sit a spell and listen to the worried old man’s fears for his son’s well-being. But it was a conversation they had had before. Peter Abbot, like every man, would find his own way. He just thought too much; like a grocer, he weighed everything. That was his problem. Ben chuckled and chided himself, Who’s thinking too much now?

He turned his back to the light and headed off down the walk, across the courtyard, past the fountain, dry and empty as last year’s dreams, and on through the rear gate to the path that led toward the calaboose and the barn. He glanced toward the tree where he had confronted Snake Eye Gandy. Nothing stirred by the cottonwood but the tree’s own pattern of shadows as the pale moonlight filtered through the twisted branches overhead.

Ben continued on to the barn. Chanting, faintly heard, caused him to detour and follow the song to its source, the thick-walled
jacales
that served as a jail. Within the dim interior of the calaboose, the singer sensed Ben’s approach and ceased his chanting. Ben stood outside the door. A barred window set in the middle of the door provided the only avenue for fresh air and daylight, except for another slit cut high in the back wall and covered with iron bars. The meager windows permitted a cross breeze but offered no chance for escape. Whatever Spotted Calf’s transgressions, Ben couldn’t help but feel a tinge of sympathy for the Comanche. As for all riders of the wild, free places, imprisonment was a living hell for the warrior.

Ben heard a rustling sound and sensed movement. Half a second later Spotted Calf’s broad, ugly face filled the window in the door. He’d sweated most of the war paint from his battered features. His shoulder was wrapped with a fresh bandage, evidence that Captain Pepper had been true to his word and sent San Antonio’s only doctor to tend the brave’s wound.

“The white eyes want to kill me,” the brave said. “It is good to have enemies.” He seemed to take pride in the fact that his life was in danger. “But this slow death is not good.” Spotted Calf’s fingers curled around the iron bars in the window. There was desperation in his voice. He was no longer impassive. “I am Quahadi, not an animal to be caged. I have killed this many men”—he held up the fingers of both hands—“all of them in battle.” His breath smelled of chili and beans as it fanned Ben’s face. The warrior’s eyes were like two dull coins. The life in him was being throttled as surely as if the hangman’s noose still circled his throat. He shook the bolted door. “What kind of men are these?”

“Civilized,” Ben said.

“Then it is a bad thing,” Spotted Calf said. The brave studied the soldier a moment. “Why do you come here?”

“I heard your death song.”

Spotted Calf appeared surprised. He also had assumed Ben McQueen was a mere tenderfoot and nothing more.

“You speak the language of my people?”

“No,” Ben replied, his voice low. “But my mother is a medicine woman. And she has taught me the ways. Among her people I am called Bitter Creek. As for the chant, the songs for dying are always the same.”

Spotted Calf nodded. “You have spoken truth. Your uniform is blue, but you have a red heart.”

“Maybe a divided heart,” Ben corrected. Fireflies illuminated the patches of shadows, burning for brief seconds, self-extinguishing, flaring again elsewhere in the darkness. “Who are the Warriors of the Night?”

Spotted Calf’s expression changed. He retreated from the door and vanished into the confines of the jail. “Children of the blood-eating god. Some say they are dead. Some say they never will be.”

The hairs rose on the back of Ben’s neck at Spotted Calf’s explanation. With perfect timing, beyond the cottonwoods in the Arroyo de San Pedro, a great horned owl made its kill and rose into the air carrying its struggling prey in ironlike talons. A prairie dog had been caught outside its burrow. The hapless creature loosed a high-pitched shriek as the horned owl crushed its spine and bore the animal away on wings of darkness.

Ben nearly leaped out of his boots at the sudden noise. He retreated a step and turned toward the arroyo, his hand reaching to his side. Then he remembered he had left his pistols in his room rather than carry them to Father Esteban’s dinner table. He proceeded along the path until he reached the barn. He eased the door open and stepped inside. A lantern glowed where it hung from a wooden peg in one of the support beams. Virge Washburn reclined in a mound of hay piled between two stalls. The Texas Ranger was studiously whittling a chunk of oak into the bust of a Comanche chief, war bonnet and all. Slowly, features were taking shape. Virge’s outstretched legs and the front of his serape were sprinkled with curled wood chips. He squinted through the slatted sides of the stall as Ben made his way down the center aisle toward the circle of light.

“Evening, Lieutenant. Ya’ll finished over at the padre’s?”

“Yes. His sister sets a fine table.”

“I’ll just bet she does, though with a looker like Señorita Obregon, I wouldn’t care if she couldn’t carry a plate.” The Ranger grinned.

“My sentiments exactly,” Ben conceded. He glanced around the barn and spied half a dozen saddles draped across the gates of various stalls. One of the saddles was his. It looked out of place among the high-pommeled Mexican saddles favored by the Rangers.

“Mind if I borrow a horse?”

Virge interrupted his whittling. He gestured toward the bridle and Mexican saddle closest to him, his short-bladed knife gleaming in the firelight.

“Better take Poole’s gear. Our horses are kinda particular. I’ll drop a rope over the roan; she’ll carry your weight.” He set the carving aside, scrambled to his feet, and dusted off his faded serape, front and back. Ben noticed carvings of a horse and a mountain lion among Washburn’s gear. The Texan could work miracles with a pocketknife.