Authors: Shirl Henke
She had vowed not to cry. But it was impossible once she saw him, standing so straight and tall, her splendid love, penned in this squalid little cell until they would take him out of it one final time to slaughter him for crimes he did not commit.
“Nicholas, oh, Nicholas.” She set down the basket she was carrying and threw herself into his arms, holding on with all of her strength as he crooned soft love words in English and Spanish. Finally, getting her emotions under control, she raised her eyes to his beloved face, letting her fingertips trace across the fine white line of the scar on his cheek.
“I knew it would do no good to tell the truth,
querida
” he said in English. Somehow speaking his native language with her his last night on earth seemed fitting. He took her hand in his and kissed her fingers softly.
“I had to try. I'd sell Gran Sangre or deed it over to the commandant if he would let you go...but he refused,” she said in misery.
Nicholas chuckled softly. “There is a limit even to Commandant Morales' venality. You may bribe him to gain entry to the prison, but not to let me escape.”
“How can you joke at a time like this?”
He sighed, then asked tenderly, “What else is there to do?”
“I would do anything to save you, give anything.”
“
Querida
, Gran Sangre is our child's birthright. We've worked so hard this past year to secure it. Always remember that.”
“I shall try,” she said raggedly, seeing the years without him stretch endlessly ahead of her. “For tonight, I brought us dinner. The food in this place must be ghastly.”
“I've had better, but I'm used to as bad.” His appetite was not all that great but rather than disappoint her, he would share this last bit of time they had together. There was one request he had to make of her with which she must comply.
Mercedes knelt beside the crude pallet, ignoring the stale smell of it as she spread a clean blanket over it, then opened the hamper to reveal a bottle of wine, a loaf of crusty bread, assorted fruits, a wedge of sharp yellow cheese, even a whole roasted chicken. “It's simple fare, but fresh and good. I spent the afternoon at the market in the square.”
She did not tell him that was where she wandered about aimlessly in despair after her attempts to bribe Commandant Morales proved futile.
Nicholas sat down beside her and began to pour the wine into clay mugs as she set out the food on plates. “We'll have to break the chicken apart with our hands. The guard wouldn't let me bring in a carving knife.”
“Imagine that,” he said owlishly.
In spite of herself, she laughed softly at the comment, watching as his long strong fingers quickly ripped the plump golden fowl into various parts. They ate slowly, savoring each moment. Their last time together was far more precious than any food. She described all that had occurred since he rode off to join Juarez—Doña Sofia's death, how Angelina and Baltazar and the other people on Gran Sangre fared, and particularly she told him anecdotes about Rosario and how well she was doing in her schoolwork.
“She knew that Lucero wasn't her ‘real papa’ immediately,” she said, explaining the child's intuition. “You are truly her father in every way that matters.”
As her eyes filled with tears, Nicholas raised his mug for a toast. “To Rosario, and to my wife in every way that matters, as well.”
With trembling hands she raised her cup to his and they both swallowed the bittersweet taste of tears. After she finished drinking, Mercedes put her mug down, saying, “I need a cloth. My fingers are all greasy from the chicken.”
He reached for one small hand and raised it to his mouth. “I'll wash them,” he said in a husky voice.
She felt a small shiver of pleasure when the heat of his breath caressed her hand, followed by the soft velvety rasping of his tongue and lips as he licked the stickiness from her palm, then took each finger and sucked on it.
Mercedes closed her eyes, storing up the memory to last her a lifetime. When he took her other hand to lave it tenderly, she reached for his, reciprocating. His large dark hand was rough against her mouth, yet it was always so gentle whenever he touched her. She kissed his callused palm and thought of all the hours he had spent working stock, letting the rough leather reata pull through his hands.
Gran Sangre is our child's birthright. And you won't live to see our child born!
She leaned forward, shoving the hamper to the side and took his face between her hands, pulling him to her for a kiss, leaning into his body, embracing him.
One last time, love me one last time, my beloved.
Nicholas knew what she wanted, what he wanted so desperately himself, but he could not do it. Gently he held her shoulders and withdrew from the impassioned kiss with soft nips and brushes to her cheeks, nose and brow. “No,
querida
. Not here in this filthy place. There are rats and the guard could walk in on us. I have no way to protect you here. It's best if you go now before he or one of the other soldiers gets any ideas.”
She felt the firm pressure of his hands holding her and intuited what it was costing him to break away from her as he had. “After you were gone, all I thought about was that you might die for your President Juarez, and I had let us part in anger. I realized then that I didn't give a damn for politics—or religion—for anything but having you come back to me. How can I lose you now?”
“You have this,” he said softly, placing his hand on the swell of her belly. “Tell our child about me when the time is right, and tell Rosario that her ‘real papa’ loved her very much.”
She nodded through her tears. “Of course.”
“There is one more thing you must promise me, my love.”
There was a warning in his voice. Her eyes flashed warily to his. “What is it?”
“I don't want you at the execution tomorrow. Ride for Gran Sangre at first light.”
“No! How can you ask it? How can I leave you to die alone in this awful place? Perhaps they've found McQueen. He might—”
“No, Mercedes, he isn't coming. I suspect he's already left the country. It's too late for me, but I can bear it—if I know you and our children are safe. The soldiers and the others in court will be in that crowd. There's no telling what they might do to you—how they might turn on you—after I'm dead.”
“No!” She placed her hands over her face, trying to blot out the horrible images.
“I've seen it before. If anything were to happen to you...then my life has truly become meaningless. Live for me and remember me as I am now, not as a lifeless corpse lying in the dirt. Please, promise me, so that I can die like a man.” His voice shook slightly with desperation.
She lowered her head, shuddering, gasping for breath. “I...I will send Hilario to bring you home to Gran Sangre.”
“Thank you. I would like to rest there where my life truly began.”
Chapter Twenty Six
Nicholas was awakened by the sound of shots and yelling outside in the compound yard. “What the hell is going on?” He looked out the window, which revealed only a small slit of sky with bright moonlight streaming in. Too early for his execution. What was the shooting about? Thinking it was probably a drunken celebration among the garrison soldiers, he lay back down, awake now, staring at the thick sooty cobwebs clustered around the dim outline of the rafters.
Just what a man needed, time to contemplate his imminent death
, he thought wryly. Saying good-bye to Mercedes had been so taxing emotionally that he had fallen quickly into a fitful slumber at first dark, but now he knew he would not be able to return to sleep. Regrets for his life? There were many, but this past year with Mercedes and Rosario had made them pale. And he hoped in part that his work as
patrón
of Gran Sangre had made up somewhat for the sins of Nicholas Fortune.
He laughed at the irony of it. Nicholas Fortune, mercenary killer, had taken on respectability to redeem himself and claim a fine old family name. Now he was dying because he had become Don Lucero. And the real Luce had done things far beyond Nick's blackest sins.
“At least I'll be buried at Gran Sangre, near my family.” He had never given any thought to leaving children behind to carry on his name when he was gone, but then he had possessed no name to bequeath them. Now he did, and in Sonora, far from where
El Diablo
rode, the children of Lucero Alvarado would grow up to be respected
hacendados
. Rosario would make a fine marriage...and the babe? If it was a boy, he would be the next
patrón
. The Alvarado line would continue. He took solace in that thought.
The sound of the outer cell door clanking open interrupted his reverie. Something was going on. He rolled off the pallet and flattened himself against the wall as his instincts sent warning bells clamoring in his head.
His cell door swung open with a loud crash and a harsh voice yelled, “Nick, where the hell are you? I've been to every cell in this row and nearly broke my neck in the damnable dark!”
“Luce!” Nicholas glided out of the corner and looked at his brother, who did indeed look like Satan incarnate, silhouetted in the narrow shaft of moonlight, clad all in black with his Alvarado wolf’s eyes glowing like coals from the floor of Hell itself. “What in the name of God are you doing here?”
“What does it look like? Come quickly. I've wasted too much time already searching for you. Here—” He shoved a loaded Army Colt in Fortune's hand as he turned back to the cell door.
In moments they had threaded their way through the stygian darkness of the deserted cell block where Nicholas had been confined and raced up a flight of stairs. Dim torchlight now illuminated their path as they ran toward freedom.
Along the way they encountered several guards, disposed of in an inventive variety of ways. “Messy but effective,” Luce said as they stepped over one corpse whose skull had been fractured by an enormous water crock sitting near his chair. They crunched across the broken shards of pottery and out into the compound yard where a rotund Mexican vaquero waited.
“Jorge, over here,” Luce whispered as the two brothers hid in the shadows of a copse of yucca. From downstairs the sounds of an alarm being raised added to the confusion already rampant outside the gate where Alvarado's men had created the original diversion that had allowed Jorge and Luce to slip inside.
“How the hell are we going to get past the outer gate—or have you forgotten that little detail?” Nick asked tersely as the blood began to pound in his veins. He might yet live to see his child's birth!
A mocking smile twisted Luce's lips. “I have a small diversion planned. Jorge has gone to give the signal now that I have you free of that infernal rat's maze below.”
“Rat's maze is the right term,” Nick said, remembering the rodents he had fought off nightly since his incarceration.
“Schmidt and Lanfranc have planted enough dynamite to blow off the side of Chapultepec Hill. That should buy us time enough to slip past the front gate.”
They waited, crouched in the shadows as officers barked orders and soldiers responded. The crunch of gravel echoed as men ran double-time across the courtyard and into the bowels of the stone monolith. Two armed guards passed so close to their hiding place that they could smell the cigarette smoke clinging to their uniforms.
“Where the hell is that blast?” Luce snarled with an oath.
Several more moments passed with more pandemonium all around them. “It's only a matter of time until they find us here. We have to make a move. When they brought me in, I didn't get to see much of this sty. You know the layout any better?” Nick asked.
“There's a narrow gate near the back we thought of trying—used to let in vendors. But I thought it was too much of a bottleneck.”
“Schmidt and Lanfranc never did have much use for me,” Fortune said grimly. “I don't think that blast is going to go off, brother.”
Luce knew in his gut that his Nick was right. Just as he was about to agree, Jorge burst into the courtyard yelling, “Jefe! They have gone and taken the horses!”