Texas Angel, 2-in-1 (73 page)

“You see it, too, don’t you?” he said dismally.

“Yes, but I don’t have to like it.”

“I hope then we can part on good terms—that is, with you not thinking I would betray you.”

She sighed with the hopelessness of it all. “Even if you had betrayed me, Micah, I don’t think I would have stayed mad at you long.”

“And I would not have cared about you being Mexican—” he broke off with an apologetic bent to his mouth. “I don’t mean that in any demeaning way. I guess I just mean that there are some things that can be accepted and others than can’t.”

“We have too many that can’t.”

“That’s the problem.”

Sighing, she replaced the book in the crate and turned toward the front counter. “I wonder what’s keeping the shopkeeper?”

“I’ll be on my way, Lucie.”

“What about your supplies?”

“I’ll come back later. Ruiz is busy now anyway.” He turned to go, opened the door, then paused.

The light again glinted in his hair, and the sight caused a lump in Lucie’s throat.

“Like I said before, the army will be departing soon. Can’t say how long we’ll be gone or what will come of it—” he stopped, a rueful, humorless twist to his lips. “Guess that don’t matter, though. I mean, you and I . . . we won’t be seeing each other again anyway.”

“Maybe occasionally, in the store like this,” she said, unable to mask the longing in her tone.

“Maybe. But . . . well, Good-bye, Lucie.”

“Good-bye, Micah.”

When he left, closing the door behind him, it was truly as if light, glorious, sweet light, had been cut off. Lucie wondered about what fools they both were. Fools for loving the unattainable. Fools for succumbing so easily to barriers. Fools for setting themselves up in the first place for what had been destined to fail.

But how could she be a fool if she had done the right thing, the only thing possible in ending this relationship with Micah?

Why did she feel such loss now, not only for what they’d had but also for what she had once been so certain they could have had? She had loved the man Micah was, but perhaps even more, she had loved the man she had believed him destined to become. Maybe that had been wrong, as her father warned her. And for that reason, she had said that “Good-bye”h a few moments ago. Yet it did not wipe out the love she still felt, and it did not make her believe in Micah any less.

“Dear God, I just don’t know what is right or wrong anymore. I only know I still love him. I am willing to let him go—” she snorted a dry laugh—“well, I hardly had a choice.” But even as she murmured the words, she realized she indeed had very much of a choice. She knew Micah felt something for her, and thus it would have been quite easy to use her feminine wiles to bend him to her will.

But it wasn’t her will she wanted.

“God, I can’t turn off my feelings for Micah. I’m not completely sure if some of them, at least, aren’t from you. But I am willing to place those feelings into your hands. Take them away from me, Lord, if it is your will. But if you would have us together, then change the situation between us—his prejudices about my blood, my fears about his life-style, his fears about losing his freedom, but most especially, his bitterness toward you. Bridge the gaps between us, Lord. If you can do that, then I will know it is a match made in heaven.”

CHAPTER

23

R
AIN DRIPPED DOWN
M
ICAH’S NECK
. His hat sat like a pathetic, wilted flower on his head. Even his buckskin coat was soaked, weighing down on his shoulders like the burden of a failed life.

“This can’t go on much longer,” he muttered to no one in particular.

“I seen bogs like this go on for miles,” Tom said. “We could be mucking through here for days.”

“Days!” groaned Jed. He was afoot, leading his lame mount.

“We got Somervell to thank for this,” Tom said.

“I heard he decided to abandon the Laredo Road and go cross-country in order to flank Laredo,” Micah said, wiping fresh drips of rain from his eyes.

“Hogwash! He says that now to cover up the fact that he don’t know squat ’bout what he’s doing.” Tom hocked and spit his disdain into the wet air.

He was not the only disgruntled member of the hapless Texan army. It was now nearly the end of November. The army had sat idle for weeks, waiting for orders to begin an invasion of Mexico. In that time, the army that had swelled to a thousand was now down to less than eight hundred. Men had simply grown tired of waiting. Most were not soldiers and had left farms and families to join the army. But even this might not have stood in the way had there been better leadership. Somervell, commander of the militia, was perhaps the essence of incompetence. He wasted time with frivolous training and never indicated if he had a plan in mind for an invasion of Mexico. No wonder few believed it when he said this stumbling into a bog had not been entirely by accident.

“I gotta admit I had my doubts,” Micah said, “when we waited for that cannon to arrive—”

“Two weeks! Two whole weeks we waited for that cursed cannon,”

Tom erupted. “And then the blaggard decided not to take it!”

“We ever gonna fight, Tom?” Jed asked.

“There’s been plenty of fighting among ourselves,” Micah answered.

“And Somervell could prevent that, too, if he’d take a stand one way or another.”

Tom was no doubt referring to a confusion of command between Captain Hays’ ranger unit and Captain Bogart and his sixty Washington County men. The two small units had been combined to form a company, but there was no agreement as to who should be in command.

Somervell had come up with a cockeyed plan for splitting the duties.

“Any stupid idiot knows you can’t have two chiefs,” Tom declared.

“What if it’s Bogart that leads instead of Hays?”

“Why, that would be pure nonsense. Hays is the best man!”

And so the friction within the company continued, but that was only a small picture of what was plaguing the entire army.

For three days the men slogged through the bog, rain, and cold, chilled to the bone. Tom’s horse broke his leg and had to be shot. Micah, seeking to spare his buckskin, took to walking ankle-deep and Some times knee-deep in mud.

By December snow and sleet dogged the army, but they had finally come within sight of Laredo. Desperately needed supplies were requisitioned from the town, which, though Mexican, was not overly hostile toward the Texans. Then about sixty Texans decided the supplies received weren’t enough, and on their own volition, they raided the Mexican town, plundering and looting what supplies were left. Though these men were severely reprimanded by Somervell, their actions turned the heretofore cooperative Mexicans against the invaders. And it gave more proof than ever that the commander had little control over his army.

When an order was issued by the adjutant general, on December 19, for the army to return to Gonzales and disband, it was enough to further split the disintegrating army. Half the army was ready to go home, while the remaining force wanted to ignore the order and continue with the invasion of Mexico.

Several of the rangers discussed the matter as they sat around a campfire, barely flickering a small flame because only damp wood could be found with which to build a fire. Even the rangers were divided over the issue raised by the general’s order.

“We came to fight,” Big Foot Wallace said. “So far all we’ve done is scare the dickens out of a couple of Mexican villages.”

“What’s the point anymore?” Tom mused. “We ran Woll’s army out of San Antonio and out of Texas. And it’s pretty clear they had no intention of really taking Texas in the first place. They were just gauging our forces. What tactical purpose would there be in invading Mexico?”

“A show of force,” said Bill McBroome. “If we don’t hit back hard, they will just make further attempts until they succeed.”

“Well, we don’t have enough of an army to hit anything hard,” argued Tom. “Why, if the political situation weren’t so shaky and dis-organized in Mexico City, I doubt we’d have gotten this far.”

“Ain’t like you, Tom, to give up like this,” observed Micah.

“I’m cold and wet. My shoes got holes in ’em big enough to drive a wagon through. I ain’t giving up. I’m just being practical. We can’t fight with an army that’s half dead already.”

“Does that mean you ain’t gonna stay?” Jed asked.

Instead of answering directly, Tom turned to his captain. “What’re you gonna do, Jack?” he asked Hays. “I’ll go along with whatever you decide.”

Hays held his hands over the paltry flame and gave them a thoughtful rub before responding. “First off, I give you men leave to decide for yourself. But let me tell you what I told Fisher, who plans to lead the new invasion enterprise. I was scouting down Mier way, and I heard the Mexican army was gathering a large force to oppose us. I recommended to Fisher that he abandon his plan because we do not have the resources to meet such a force. I don’t like turning back, but I believe it is the prudent thing to do.”

“Even if it means following Somervell?” asked Wallace.

“I don’t like following that man,” Tom said, “but I don’t like a lost cause either.”

“Some would have said Texas back in ’36 was a lost cause.”

The debate continued for some time. But in the end the majority of rangers, including Tom, decided to follow Hays and return to Texas. Wallace, McBroome, and a handful of others would remain with Fisher.

“What about you, Micah?” Tom asked after most of the men had abandoned the sickly fire for their damp bedrolls, leaving only Tom, Micah, and Jed to siphon off the last bit of heat from the dying flames.

“I came to fight Mexicans,” Micah replied.

“Yeah. That still a burning desire of yours?”

“Of course it is.” But Micah sensed that his friend had probably guessed before even he realized it that his vendetta against his old enemies had dulled in the last weeks. Maybe Tom had also guessed that the reason for this was a certain half-Mexican gal, a gal Micah could not get out from under his skin even after such a firm Good-bye.

But the Mexicans were still the enemy, even if Micah was coming to see for the first time in years that the enmity he held did not have to extend to an entire people. Maybe he could actually accept that there were good Mexicans and bad Mexicans. Yet what good was such a conclusion now, now that he’d lost the whole reason for coming to it in the first place? It seemed all he had left were his old enmities. At least continuing with the invasion would give him some purpose and would keep his mind from plaguing thoughts of what he’d lost.

“I reckon I’ll go on with Fisher,” he said finally. “I been wanting to fight Mexicans for years, and it would be pure stupidity to give up the chance just for . . . for something that don’t exist anyway.”

“Then I guess we’ll be parting company in the morning,” Tom said.

“What about our probation?”

“Aw, that ain’t necessary no more. You proved yourself many times over. I’m sure Hays would agree.”

Micah grabbed a twig and tossed it on the last ember of the fire. Avoiding the sudden discomfort he felt at the prospect of parting from his friend, Micah turned to Jed, “What about you? You gonna stay or leave?”

“I’m doing whatever you do, Micah. We always stick together, don’t we?”

Micah scowled, not liking the sudden burden this seemed to place upon him. He didn’t like the uneasiness he felt even more. Maybe he should follow Jed’s lead and stick with his friend and mentor, Tom. Yet it was hard to let go of a passion that had driven him for so long, even if that passion seemed not to fit very well anymore.

Micah did not let himself nurse regrets in the disastrous days that followed. He’d made his decision, chosen his path. But it was a path paved with blood.

The first and only engagement of the Texan invasion force occurred near the Mexican town of Mier. Numbering only three hundred, the Texans managed to prevail, causing the blood of their enemies to practically flow in the streets of the town. The rampaging Texans looked too much like images from Micah’s nightmares. Yet this was what he wanted. This was what he’d sought. Wasn’t it?

When the fortunes of war turned against the Texans, Micah refused to philosophize about it. It began when Fisher was wounded, leaving a serious gap in command. Sick and unsure of himself, Fisher listened to rumors that Mexican reinforcements were on the way. Short on supplies, as usual, and barely maintaining order, he believed his army would not withstand another battle. He surrendered to the Mexicans after receiving a guarantee that his men would be treated as prisoners of war and kept near the northern border.

Instead they were marched inland to Monterrey. Micah and his comrades were tossed into a Mexican prison, where Micah would come to entertain new nightmares.

CHAPTER

24

T
OM
F
IFE LOOKED AS OUT
of place in the Maccallum parlor as another younger ranger had so many months ago. Tom twisted his battered hat in his hands as he sat on the edge of the upholstered divan. At least he’d bathed for this visit, his hair was slicked back, and his clothes were clean. He hadn’t groomed his beard, and the tangled mass, streaked with gray—salt and pepper, Lucie’s father would have called it—was bristly and made his face appear grimy despite his scrubbing.

But Lucie was less concerned with his appearance than she was with the news he bore. Micah had been captured in battle.

“But he is alive?” she asked hopefully.

“I believe so, miss. But—” he stopped, scraped a hand against his chin, then continued with resolve. “He is! I know it. I feel it here.”

He thumped himself, and Lucie could not tell if he’d intended to indicate his heart or his gut, maybe both.

“But it is not certain?”

“Miss, nothing’s ever certain in battle. Reports are confused and such. We just gotta hope.”

She nodded but could say no more.

“President Houston is trying to get to the bottom of the matter,” Tom added. “We’ll soon have a list of all the prisoners.”