Paxton and the Lone Star (42 page)

Someone screamed. The sound echoed dully through the corridors, seeped into the soul, and left it trembling. Crouching, True shivered and wrapped his arms around his knees for warmth.
Bastards! Bastards! Swine! Got to get …

A door creaked open, slammed shut. Another scream, this one truncated at its height, and then footsteps, the abrupt click of boots smartly striking the stone floor. When they stopped, True looked up and saw Luther O'Shannon standing outside his cell. “What do you want?” he asked dully, his words slurred and thick.

O'Shannon stared at him as one would stare at an animal caught in a trap. Stared and said nothing.

“Damn you!” True coughed, heaving himself to his feet and standing propped against the back wall. He stank of his own ordure. His temper was brittle. Vermin crawled beneath his clothes. His gut rumbled painfully. “Answer me,” he demanded. “What do you want?”

O'Shannon watched.

True wiped the perspiration from his forehead. The Irishman was toying with him, but he did not have the strength to remain calm. A scream tearing his throat, he lunged across the cubicle and stretched his arms through the bars. His face slammed into iron, his hands clawed the air inches from O'Shannon's face.

O'Shannon watched. A glimmer of amusement flickered over his face.

“Someday,” True gasped, his arms dropping to dangle limply between the bars. “Someday, you sonofabitch!”

Luther O'Shannon watched.

True's knees collapsed, and he slid down the bars to the stone floor.

He was taken back to the large cell, thrown in with everyone else. The fever persisted. So did the diarrhea. Secretly, always in the night when everyone else was asleep, someone he thought he knew brought him warm gruel thickened with little chunks of unspoiled meat. Once he tried to ask who, but was answered with a finger touching his lips to demand silence. He did not ask again. Gradually, the fever subsided and his stool cleared and his gut stopped rumbling so fearfully. Why, he did not know, for he had been closer to death than ever before.

His father had the answer. True saw him once, just after they came at him, the one called Tarantula and three friends.

The prisoners had been allowed into the courtyard for a wash in the rain followed by their daily ration of
tortillas
and beans. After half an hour, they had been herded back into the stygian confines of the inner walls. True's eyes had not yet adjusted to the darkness when he heard the first whisper.

Tarantula and his three cronies had remained inside and could see quite well. Swiftly, before anyone knew what was happening, they closed in on him from four sides. True sensed them coming and swung blindly just before a fist slammed into his jaw. Even while he fell, others hammered his stomach, ribs, and groin. The punishment did not last long. Just long enough. They left him curled in a corner, his breathing ragged, blood streaming from his nose and mouth.

It was then that True saw his father. Thomas Gunn Paxton was sitting on a log. Behind him, patchy through the vine-covered trees, Solitary showed bright and gleaming in a blood red sun. Thomas was sharpening the blade of his cutlass. He looked much younger than True remembered, and quite fierce, too. “I'm dying, Father,” True whispered.

Thomas Gunn Paxton glanced up. “No you're not.”

“I'm not?”

“Not unless you want to. Why else do you think you survived this long? You didn't want to die. We Paxtons are a stubborn lot.”

True was staring at a wall, a stone wall smeared with his own blood. He moved his hands. He placed them under his shoulders and pushed himself to his knees. Pain ripped through his chest and he choked back a scream.

“If you think that hurts,” Thomas Gunn Paxton said, “wait until you stand.”

“I can't!” True said, his voice an almost meaningless croak.

“You want me to tell your mother that?”

His father faded before his eyes. Only the blood on the wall was left. Slowly, True got one knee off the ground and, using his hands on the wall, clawed his way up until he was standing.

Now that is pain!
He braced himself, leaned back against the wall.
Oh, Christ!

The world finally ceased its spinning. Objects and people solidified, held still long enough to be seen. True shuffled through the prisoners, all of whom made way for him as if physical contact with him might bring retaliation down upon their heads. He ran into one man, angled off as if the contact had bruised him. He peered into blank, carefully neutral faces, went from one to another like a sleepwalker. He tripped over a loose brick and, sucking in his breath and gritting his teeth, willed himself to reach down and pick it up.

Tarantula was facing his cohorts, allowing them each a sip from the bottle of
pulque
he had purchased from one of the guards for double what it should have cost even on the inside. His back was to True, and he was so busy bragging about his new source of wealth that he did not hear True coming. True did not ask him to turn around, only lurched out of the crowd and swung with all his might. Brick met bone and bone gave. Tarantula stumbled forward. True hit him again and he fell to his knees. When he tried to stand, True hit him a third time.

The dull crunch of tissue and bone. A sickening, hollow sound. Tarantula hit the floor face first, his left leg kicking out once. The bully's companions melted into the gathering men. Incredulous that the dreaded Tarantula had been crushed, they stared at True and the nearly dead man at his feet.

“We Paxtons are a stubborn lot,” True said in English, and aimed his body toward the corner he always occupied.

The corner wouldn't stay in one place. Vision dimmed, cleared, exploded into pinpricks of light. The walls melted, coalesced again, shifted crazily. Suddenly, a supporting arm encircled his waist. Blinking, he could see it belonged to Juan Torres, and for some reason he remembered the gruel and knew who had brought it to him. “You … you …” He tried, but his tongue wouldn't work.

“There is no need of thanks, friend,” Juan said, snapping at the other prisoners to clear a path. He helped True to his corner, eased him into a sitting position.” You see—” His teeth flashed as he smiled. “—Juan is a man to be trusted despite what others may say. And the one called Tarantula, I do not think he will bother any of us again.”

One eye in the wily brown face winked. True thought it took a long, long time.
“Sopa,”
he mumbled, remembering the Spanish word for soup.
“Sopa.”

“Yes. It was me. Any other man in here would have killed me if he had caught me the way you did. You did not. Now, lie quietly. I will bring you more soup later.” The teeth, all True could distinguish of his face in the gloom, flashed again as Juan held up a crudely fashioned dagger, a length of hammered, jagged iron set in a wooden handle. “And when it is dark,” he hissed in a hate-filled voice, “the spider will learn, if he is still alive, that the fly does have fangs.”

Juan had disappeared. True stared uncomprehendingly around the room, at the shadowed shapes, the ghostly images of the nightmare world. The pain in his side was almost intolerable, but the victory he had scored, however minor, tasted good. Only then did it dawn on him that there would be other cutthroats willing to take O'Shannon's money. As many others as there were prisoners. And just before he passed out, he wondered how many more victories he had left in him.

Chapter XXIX

Veracruz. Elizabeth liked the sound of the name, but she would have liked it more under different circumstances. The last ten days had been packed with tension, worry, and fatigue, all stemming from the note from Don Raphael. Her first step had been to ride to Joseph and Lottie's house, where she had spent the night. All three of them had agreed that her only course was to go to Mexico City with Hogjaw and try to get True released. Joseph had dug the money out from under the hearth and given it to her the next morning. Five thousand American dollars in gold was a frightening sum, but there was no way to tell how much would be needed. Some of it she packed in her valises, some in Hogjaw's warkit, and some in his thick, leather money belt. At least it wouldn't all be stolen or lost at once.

They left for Corpus Christi on horseback Saturday morning. By the time they got there Monday, Elizabeth was so sore she could hardly walk. A day was spent locating passage to Veracruz, a difficult job because no one wanted to sail south. Luck was with them, though. By Monday evening they had found a captain, and on Wednesday morning they embarked for the run down the Mexican coast. Their luggage was lighter by one hundred twenty-dollar gold pieces and Elizabeth was so tired they had to rig a sling to lift her into the schooner, but at least they were on their way. Hogjaw helped her into a bunk in the captain's cabin, assured her that they were moving at a remarkable pace, all things considered, and fussed around until she had dropped off to sleep.

The next four days were frustrating beyond compare because it was difficult to see that they were making any progress whatsoever while all the time True was languishing in prison. They were also a blessing in disguise. The weather was balmy and the breezes, except for a brief squall, moderate. Elizabeth, forced to fill the time somehow, alternated between sleeping and working the stiffness out of her legs and back. On Monday, the eighth of June, they sighted Veracruz. Elizabeth was on deck with the first hail of the lookout. Already the swirling, screeching gulls had come out to meet them. Before too many minutes had passed, a dark blue ridge of land that rose out of the water resolved itself into a shoreline of gently rising tree-covered hills. And by the time Elizabeth had come back on deck after going below to pack, she could hear the surf white as new snow and, beyond, white sand, whitewashed buildings, and red-tiled roofs. They were still more than two hundred miles from Mexico City, but at least the distance had become reasonable. Before too many more days passed, she would be reunited with True.

“'Lizabeth?” Hogjaw joined her at the rail. His deerskin garments looked out of place on board ship, but he didn't care. Neither did anyone else. In fact, the Mexican sailors went out of their way to neither complain nor deride. Except for wondering, very privately, how one so ugly came to be traveling with one so beautiful, they made a point of ignoring the hulking mountain man. “You got all your stuff together? Captain Hernandez has a boat ready to take us to shore as soon as we drop anchor.”

“The sooner the better,” Elizabeth said, pointing to the pair of valises by the door leading to the captain's cabin.

Sooner turned out to be another excruciating half hour. At last, though, the anchor chair rumbled through the hawse hole, and the schooner snubbed against the line and came to a dead stop. Aloft, men crawled through the rigging making everything secure. Below, a crew of six swung the captain's gig over the side and lowered it into the water. Within another minute, the gig with Hernandez himself at the tiller was dancing across the water.

The ride was an unsettling fifteen minutes of climbing swells and digging into troughs that the sailors considered inconsequential. Elizabeth's knuckles were white as she clutched the board seat on either side of her. Hogjaw put on a good show, but kept a tight hold on the gunwale and was heard to sigh with relief as they slid onto the sand and came to a jarring halt. He would rather have ridden an old bull buffalo across Texas, he announced later, than take that short ride again. And if it hadn't been for Elizabeth and True …

Hernandez accompanied them to town where the haggling and spending began again. In the end, a messenger was dispatched to Sanchez in Mexico City with the news that Elizabeth was on her way, and a request to be met by someone in Puebla, a little over halfway there. The messenger was gone before they had been in town for an hour, but it took the better part of the day to arrange transportation for themselves. Not until two mornings later did they climb into a dilapidated ruin of a coach drawn by a mismatched pair of ancient geldings that looked more fit to be rendered for glue than to take them on a trip through the mountains further inland. “I know this man,” Hernandez assured them. “He will stop at decent inns, and you will be in Puebla in four days' time.”

“Four days?” Hogjaw asked. “Hell, I could do it in less than two.”

“Alone and with two or three good horses, yes. But with the lady?” Hernandez shrugged, a gesture that suggested the impossibility of such a preposterous idea. “The roads twist much, Señor Leakey, and climb far higher than you think. Be happy with four days. If it rains, it could take many more.”

“You will be waiting when we return?” Elizabeth broke in, anxious to leave.

“I will wait for the agreed-upon time,” Hernandez said. “Meanwhile—” He slammed shut the door and signaled for the driver to start. “—you are wasting time.
Adiós!”

The coach started with a jerk that threw Elizabeth against the back of the seat. “A month,” she said. “What day is it?”

“The third,” Hogjaw growled. “Gives us until the third of July.”

“Do you think he'll wait?”

“We paid him enough.” An evil smile played among the creases and folds of Hogjaw's face. “If he doesn't, he'd better find him another ocean to sail in. And hope to hell I never heard of it.”

Puebla was cool, at least, so the dust that rose around them in choking clouds didn't stick and cling and itch as it had in the more humid Veracruz. It wasn't hard to find the center of town, or the single decent hotel where they were to meet Sanchez's man. By that time Elizabeth had come to expect delays. A broken wheel that took a half day to fix, and another half day spent waiting for a bridge to be repaired, had taught her better than she cared to know. She was not at all surprised to learn that no one was waiting for them at the hotel. Nor was she surprised when she came down, the next morning, with an embarrassing case of diarrhea, and was forced to spend the better part of the next two days in a most indelicate position on a chamber pot in her room. By that time, exhausted, disillusioned, dehydrated, and bloated with the home remedy given her by the hotel owner's wife, she was not even surprised when the most magnificent coach and four she had ever seen drove up to the hotel and let out a rather fierce-looking young man who strode through the door as if he owned the place and asked for her by name.