Authors: Shirl Henke
“Vargas is in on the assassination plot?” Nicholas was moderately surprised. He knew old Don Encarnación had been a friend of his wastrel father, but little more about him. He would have expected the don to be too provincial and self-absorbed for this sort of dangerous intrigue.
“Encarnación Vargas is their leader, but the old man has someone else behind him—someone who's canny enough to recognize Juarez as the linchpin of republican success.”
“And you want me to find out who this is,” Nicholas replied.
Getting down to business as nonchalantly as if they were negotiating a livestock deal, McQueen said, “The Vargas conspirators will be discussing what their spies have gleaned about Juarez's movements. Then they'll decide when to make another assassination attempt. Isolated in the mountains outside of El Paso, the president could be protected, but on the road south headed to the capital it's going to be considerably more difficult.”
“You think Vargas will confide his plans to me?” Fortune asked dubiously.
“No, probably not, but as Don Lucero you'll gain entry to places none of my other operatives could. Keep your eyes and ears open. We need to know when and where they'll strike. You'll be instructed about how to pass along whatever you learn to appropriate authority. Porfirio Escondidas is my agent in Sonora. If something should happen to him, Gregorio and old Hilario know how to contact local Juaristas.”
Nicholas’ eyebrows raised. “I knew that Hilario had figured out I wasn't Luce, but I wouldn't have taken him for a Juarista.”
“Appearances can be deceiving,” McQueen replied mildly. “I believe you'll make an excellent agent, Don Lucero.”
Nicholas’ eyes narrowed, their silver irises glowing like lightning. “By the way, Mr. Jones. I don't much like being blackmailed. Once this assassination plot is foiled, I'm done with you. I won't work for you or your government.”
“Just work for Juarez. I don't think you'll find it unrewarding. He's going to win this war.”
“Then that means you and your government will butt out of Mexico,” Fortune replied, turning to stride across the yard toward the opposite end of the corral.
“You play the role of
hacendado
well for a
gringo
,” McQueen said to himself. He retraced his steps back to the house, being careful that no one observed him reentering the courtyard.
But someone did. Innocencia picked at the bits of straw caught in her tangled mane of hair and brushed the wrinkles from her skirts. After a pleasant tumble in the loft with one of the new vaqueros, she had fallen asleep when he had left, only to be awakened by voices speaking in English. One of them was Don Lucero's. She had quickly climbed to the open bay of the loft, where she could make out what the men were saying.
Innocencia's grasp of the language was tenuous at best; but she had lived a few years with an aunt and uncle in the busy seaport of Guaymas, which North American and English argonauts used as a stopping-off point in their rush to the California gold fields. She was quick and clever enough to understand the gist of the conversation.
No wonder her old lover had not welcomed her back into his bed! This man was a penniless bastard, a
gringo
, who had taken Lucero's place and fooled them all, and he was working for the Juaristas!
Watching to see that both Hilario and Gregorio had gone to their quarters first, she made her way out of the stable and back to the kitchen, all the while considering how she could best use this damning information.
* * * *
With a myriad of things preying on his mind, the last thing Nicholas wanted was to run into Father Salvador. He had been avoiding the old man's request through Mercedes to make peace with Doña Sofia. As the priest walked down the long hallway with his ice-blue eyes fixed on his target, Fortune laughed wryly to himself. He was reacting like a schoolboy caught in some infraction.
Just as if I really was Lucero Alvarado.
“Good morning, Father. I trust you enjoyed your visit with our guests last night, instructing them regarding their duty to become members of the Church.” Few of the Confederate immigrants were of the Roman faith. In spite of a widespread outcry from the Church and other conservative elements in Mexico, the emperor had not reinstated the laws making conversion a condition of citizenship. The priest had attempted to cajole Fletcher's group into realizing that they would find no other religious solace in their adopted home and should seek instruction when they arrived at their destination. They had been polite for the most part, except for the McCloskys, but Nicholas was certain that spiritual matters were low on the immigrants' list of priorities.
Father Salvador made a dismissive gesture. ”I did not come to discuss the North Americans. Your wife has spoken with you regarding your mother?”
“My mother's health has improved remarkably since you gave her the last rites. She's not ready to shuffle off this mortal coil.”
“No, she is not. There are matters that weigh heavily on her soul—and yours—that the two of you must confront before it is too late.”
“Her soul is your concern,” Nicholas replied coldly. “As to my soul, you yourself pronounced it beyond salvation when I was a boy.”
“With God, nothing is beyond redemption, and I have never ceased praying for you, my son. As to what I said in anger...I, too, have much to answer for.”
Startled, Nicholas looked at the old priest's face, now grown pale and weathered by age. Deep seams around his mouth and across his forehead made his expression infinitely weary. The crystal blue eyes that Luce had described so accurately had lost their accusatory glare. Was there actually a shred of compassion, even regret in them? He sighed, weary himself. “She doesn't want to see me.”
“I know. But she must before she can die.”
“Is that an enticement to get me to visit her?” he asked with a sardonic lift of one eyebrow.
“Do it, I beg of you,” was all the priest replied.
“Rosario really likes you,” Nicholas said, surprising himself. “I'll do it for her granddaughter's sake.”
The priest smiled faintly. “Do it for your own sake.”
* * * *
The room was not as dark and cloying as usual when Lupe opened the door for him. Nicholas dismissed her and looked over to where the old woman sat in an enormous chair, propped up in a sea of fluffy pillows facing the window. Doña Sofia's skin was whiter than the linens surrounding her.
“I see you've renewed your interest in this world rather than abandoning it for the next.”
She did not turn her head but continued staring out into the courtyard. “Come closer. I am not strong enough to bite you.”
He chuckled mirthlessly. “Your bite was never physical,
Mamacita
.” Then, reminding himself of why he was here, he said, “We need to put all that behind us. Be kinder to each other.”
Her answering laughter was dry as kindling. Once she recovered her breath she said, “Lucero Alvarado did not know the meaning of the word kindness”
“Maybe that was because no one ever taught me.”
“Perhaps no one did.” She looked up into his face now, studying it with narrowed, watery eyes that seemed startlingly alert, perceptive. “Your resemblance is truly amazing. The scar helps, I think.”
A surge of apprehension rippled down his spine. “My father remained unmarked. I was not so fortunate,” he said, shrugging casually.
Oh, you resemble your sire, right enough,” she rasped bitterly, “but you are not Lucero.”
His blood chilled to ice. “Have you taken feverish again, Mother? I'll summon Lupe.”
“My mind is clear. Summon no one, for I do not think you will wish them to hear what I have to say.”
“And that is?” he prompted, taking a seat on a hard wooden chair beside her.
“I have watched you since your return, watched how everyone accepted you, listened as they rejoiced in what a fine and dutiful
patrón
you had become. Even Mercedes has been pleased with how hard you work, toiling as she does to reclaim the
hacienda
from ruin.” Her dry chuckle eerily broke the silence. “That was your biggest mistake. Lucero, like your father, cared nothing for responsibility. He would not have brought his bastard here and ensconced her in our family home, or forsaken his whores in favor of his wife, a wife whom you allow to demean herself laboring beside peons. You are far too soft.”
“The war gave me a new outlook on life. It can do that for some men—make them appreciate what they've left behind, make them want to return and rebuild.”
She shook her head. “Lucero is not such a man, is he?” Her gaze riveted on him, unblinking.
Nicholas sighed. “No. You're taking quite a chance confronting me, you know? What if I simply smothered you with one of these pillows? No one would question your death.”
“But you will not, will you? That is part of the reason I know you are not my son. For you see, he would kill me or anyone else who got in his way.”
Nicholas cocked his head, studying her. “True. Ruthlessness he inherited from you, perhaps?”
She scoffed. “Certainly not from your weakling father. Anselmo was too indolent to be ruthless, too mired in his own debauched pleasures.”
“But you admit I am my father's son.” He was puzzled, waiting to see what she would do, all the while turning over in his mind ways to counter her accusations. “What are you going to do?”
“Why nothing, nothing at all,” she replied serenely.
“I don't understand.”
“Think of it, bastard son of Anselmo Alvarado!”
In spite of himself, he flinched at her insult, but remained silent, impassive.
“Your father despoiled a magnificent
hacienda
and dishonored his marriage vows, but he always took great pride in the Alvarado name, in our pure undiluted bloodlines. The very thought of a child born nameless, the son of one of his light skirts, inheriting Gran Sangre, getting more illegitimate heirs on Lucero's wife, passing on the Alvarado heritage through them—this will make him writhe in hell such as no other punishment on this or the other side of eternity could ever do.” Her voice was cool and calm, as considered as if she were explaining household duties to a servant.
Nicholas Fortune thought he had seen all the faces of hate after growing up destitute and surviving the carnage of war on three continents. But he had been wrong. This was a more terrible visage than any he could ever have imagined. Twisted. Malevolent. Ice-cold. Without a word he stood up, but before he could quit the room, her voice called out after him.
“Did you kill Lucero?”
“No. I regret to inform you I didn't perform that service for you.”
After the door slammed, she closed her eyes wearily. The silence in the room was broken only by her raspy uneven breathing. This unexpected interview had taken a great deal out of her. She would pay, in the next world as well as this one, but then, had she not always been the one to do so? She looked down at the rosary lying unused in her lap.
Suddenly the sun's rays caught the diamond beads, which blazed like fire, accusing her of sacrilege. She picked them up but could not pray. Father Salvador would have to do that for her from now on.
* * * *
Nicholas sat staring at the brandy bottle, which he had nearly emptied that night after everyone else retired. Tomorrow Bart McQueen and Fletcher's band of immigrants would be leaving. Yet the troublesome and expensive hospitality, even the federal agent's blackmail, did not trouble him half so much as the ugly scene with that old woman this morning.
What a nest of vipers his brother had grown up in! He raised his glass in salute, then tossed down the contents. No wonder Luce had turned out the way he was. With parents like Anselmo and Sofia, what child stood a chance!
Of course his own haphazard upbringing shunted between Lottie and her father hadn't exactly made him into a paragon. Fortune had always blamed his bitter and violent life on them. Perhaps his Alvarado blood was more significant than he could ever have imagined. By comparison to Doña Sofia, Lottie Fortune no longer seemed so bad. Pitiable and weak, yes, but his mother could never have been capable of the awful vengeance old Sofia believed she was wreaking on the House of Alvarado. Using him and her daughter-in-law.