Cactus Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (8 page)

      
“She's a widder right 'nough. Ole Jake's been daid nigh onta three months now, I reckon. Hoss throw'd him 'n busted his neck. Right sad, specially considerin' how good a rider he usually was. Anyways, Miz Sina 'n Mr. Jim wuz engaged afore she up 'n married ole Jake. Jim never did git hisself hitched after thet, despite a passel o' females from here ta Houston tryin' their damblastedest ta trap him.”

      
Charlee said sullenly, “You mean he's still in love with her, even after she jilted him for an older man?”

      
“Somethin’ like thet, 'cept now him 'n th' widder lady is fíxin' ta get hitched soon as her year o' mournin' is over. It's not supposed ta be fer everbody ta know yet, but I figger yew kin keep yer mouth shut, caintcha?”

      
Glumly, she nodded. Things were increasingly disturbing at Bluebonnet. The beautiful Tomasina had her boss in thrall and they planned to marry. Charlee was shocked at the pang she felt when she envisioned Jim Slade married. Pushing that aside, she had another disquieting thought: Richard Lee wasn't the only man to die an unlikely accidental death recently. If her handsome employer's possible motives for killing her brother were uncertain, they were clear as glass where Jake Carver was concerned.

* * * *

I hate being gone from the ranch for this long,
Slade thought in agitation as he paced in President Houston's outer office. The capital was once more in Houston City, but the public clamored for it to be moved back to the northern outpost of Austin.
At least Austin is closer to Bluebonnet than Houston,
he considered ruefully, thinking over the past six years and all the traveling he had done for Sam Houston.

      
Just then, the man himself came through the door with his usual flourish, motioning Slade into his office. “Felicitations, Jim-boy. I do appreciate your promptness. Even my loyal Miller is late from his midday repast this afternoon.”

      
“I wondered where your shadow was,” Jim said, referring to Sam's indispensable secretary, Washington Miller. “I trust Mrs. Houston is well, sir?”

      
“Indeed, splendidly so. One of the best things about having the seat of government in this city is having her nearby. Austin as the Republic’s capital is merely a pipe dream!”

      
He walked briskly to his large, cluttered desk and sat down behind it, while Slade cleared a chair across from it and did likewise. Jim glanced over the strewn correspondence, overflowing wastebasket, and randomly piled books. The president's office had long been the bane of poor Miller, who filed, stacked, indexed, and ordered official business with almost as much dispatch as his chief exerted in creating clerical havoc.

      
“How are all the good folks at Bluebonnet?” Houston let a shaggy eyebrow droop as he made the overly casual inquiry.

      
His young protégé quickly picked up on what was left unsaid. “If by ‘all the folks’ you mean Dick McAllister, he's dead, Sam. He drowned a few months ago. Seems to have been an accident. You must be wrong about him. He was just a Missouri farm boy with dreams of getting rich. Hell, he even had a kid sister who just showed up from St. Genevieve. I guarantee you she's the genuine article, a dirty, illiterate urchin, no Lucretia Borgia for sure! Her brother wasn't our Mexican agent, even if he was known to have a few drinks with that Englishman Kennedy.”

      
“William Kennedy was personally dispatched here last year by Lord Aberdeen himself for the express purpose of spying on the Republic! I'd bet my last gold button on it.” The fact that he was dressed in a homespun shirt and buckskin breeches didn't stop the president from making the forceful assertion.

      
Slade's eyes narrowed. “Oh, I'm sure you're right about Mr. Kennedy. He understands the value of our position between the United States and Mexico and wants us unencumbered by alliances to either one.”

      
“He, like all British interests, wants Texas weak and dependent on Britain—as a republic, certainly not as the twenty-seventh star in the American flag,” Houston stormed.

      
“Well, at least we've received diplomatic recognition from the Americans and the French, even de facto recognition from Great Britain herself,” Jim said placatingly.

      
Houston snorted. ”De facto is right. It took over two years to get these three damn treaties signed, straightening out trade and naval rights. Now the British finally recognize us, but the sneaky bastards will stoop to any perfidy to keep us from joining the United States. I do not think Great Britain is above inciting another war between Texas and Mexico,” Houston pronounced gravely.

      
“I read the latest reports in the New Orleans newspapers about a six-million-dollar loan from Britain to Mexico,” Slade said, watching Houston's face. “The British ambassador to Mexico is always trying to impress them with Her Majesty's goodwill.”

      
“Yes. Well, he's one smart son of a bitch. I devoutly wish Aberdeen would replace him with someone possessing less guile. I know he's indirectly financing those renegades whipping up the Comanche to butcher settlers on the frontier. But even that's not as serious as the latest news I have.”

      
Slade leaned forward. “Worse than General Vasquez invading San Antonio in March? You nearly had a war over that.”

      
“Yes, God save us! A war we have no money to fight. At least Vasquez withdrew and the whole thing blew over when I vetoed the war declaration, but I don't know if I can sit on this, Jim-boy. Two fully armed Mexican warships have been built by British shipyards and one just set sail for the Gulf.”

      
Slade let out a long, low whistle. “After all their games as disinterested mediators between us and the Mexicans, this really ends the British charade. A modern battleship in Mexican hands could wreak havoc on all our shipping, blockade us, even mount an invasion of reconquest by sea!”

      
“You have the picture,” Houston said grimly. “And a second ship will sail by early fall. Of course, the British government claims they can't control private shipyard contractors.” His tone of voice indicated what he thought of the veracity of that assertion.

      
“What do you want me to do, Sam?” Slade's voice was calm, belying the agitation he felt. He had been an unofficial agent for the president since Houston's first term of office back in 1837.

      
“Things are tense all over, Jim, especially since Vasquez's raid in March. Between that and the Indian troubles stirred up by Mexican agents, we're sitting on a powder keg. We can't afford another war with Mexico. I need to know who my friends are and who my enemies are in your neck of the woods. I know Kennedy has a contact feeding him information from San Antonio. I thought it was your young McAllister. Whether or not he was involved is immaterial now, but someone must be passing along information from there to the British and their Mexican friends. If, mind you,
if
Santa Anna gets brave, he may decide it's time to attempt another serious invasion. The key to land invasion is San Antonio.”

      
“In other words, you'll worry about the sea and I'll worry about the land,” Slade supplied dryly. “Just one thing, Sam. I know there are some dissident
Tejanos
, but the majority of my friends around San Antonio are as loyal to the Republic as Navarro or Zavala or me, despite that renegade raider Antonio Perez and his cohorts.”

      
Houston's bluntly chiseled features split into a broad grin. “Hell, Diego, I know that. Perez's off south of Laredo last I heard. Let him do his worst. It's San Antonio's defenses I want you to watch.” He stood up and walked around the desk, now grinning broadly.

      
“On a more pleasant note, I understand you're smitten with a certain lovely señora from a fine old San Antonio family. And I know she's reputed to be the most beautiful female in south Texas. I am most anxious to meet the lady.”

      
“Not until I've got her safely married to me. If it weren't for your lovely bride, I'd be jealous, Sam.” Jim joined Houston's jovial banter.

      
The older man laughed heartily now. “You flatter me, sir! But I am a very fortunate man, who at the ripe age of forty-seven could induce a twenty-one-year-old woman of wit and beauty to marry me.” He sobered, then said, “Have no fear that I harbor mistrust of all
Tejanos
. Lord knows, Jim, ever since I assumed command of the army back in thirty-five, I've been stabbed in the back far too often by Anglos.”

      
Slade's face creased in a frown. “I heard rumors last night in the saloon when I arrived, talk about plots to assassinate you after you vetoed Congress's war declaration.”

      
“Perhaps involving my predecessors in this august office?” Houston queried sarcastically. “Many of my erstwhile supporters in Congress now nostalgically recall their splendid administrations. What sober, visionary leaders they were!”

      
Slade let out a sharp Spanish epithet. “Drunk in a ditch you're worth more than all the men in the legislature combined—not to mention former presidents Lamar and Burnet, who aren’t worth shooting! You watch your back here in the city, Sam.”

      
Houston paced over to the window, then turned to Slade, his massive six-foot-six frame towering over the seated man. “I've got a bum shoulder and a busted-up ankle. I've been shot and cut, poisoned by sour whiskey and deceived by sweet women. If none of that has yet killed me, I think I am pretty goddamn tough, don't you agree, Jim-boy?”

      
In mock gravity, Jim Slade concurred. “I'll watch for any sign of Kennedy or his agent around San Antonio, sir. I don't think McAllister was our spy, but I'll find out who is.”

      
“What do you know about an English remittance man named Ashley Markham?” Houston suddenly asked.

      
Slade flashed him a surprised look, once more pitying any diplomat who crossed swords with Sam Houston. “Ashley Markham, as far as I've been able to find out, first appeared in San Antonio about six years ago, then wandered off to New Orleans and points east. He seems to be a foppish gambler who lives off a modest allowance sent by his English father, a peer of the realm who wants the black sheep far from hearth and home. He's drifted in and out of San Antonio over the years, but never been connected with Kennedy or, as far as I know, anyone in Mexico.”

      
Houston shook his head. “Jim-boy, you never cease to amaze me with my own skills as a teacher. I took a green boy and made him into a spy who can roll off the life history of every suspicious character between Washington-on-the-Brazos and Washington on the Potomac!”

      
Slade laughed. “Now who's flattering who? You obviously think there's more to this remittance man than I've seen.”

      
“What if I were to tell you someone saw Markham and Kennedy together with Dick McAllister last spring?”

Chapter Four

      
The ride from Houston was long and lonely. Despite several stops at outlying settlements along the way to glean information on Comanche movements, Slade had a good deal of time to think. His meeting with the president had been very unsettling indeed. There was hard evidence linking Dick McAllister to British meddling in the San Antonio area. He would never have credited the fellow with enough intelligence to be a spy, but then again the boy may have been killed for being in over his head with dangerous men like Kennedy and Markham.

      
Jim gave a mirthless chuckle, realizing “the boy” probably had been as old as himself. Richard Lee had been a perpetual boy, a spoiled, lazy dreamer who had charmed women and drawn sympathy even from the shrewd Asa Ketchum. Almost every hand on the ranch had covered his work for him at one time or another, especially Lee. There was every possibility that someone could have made the drowning look like an accident when it was something far more sinister.

      
To a man like Jim Slade, hardened by facing death from Comanche and enemy soldiers, even the fierce, unyielding land itself, McAllister's weakness was even more contemptible than his shiftlessness. Fool, to have died and left a young sister orphaned and penniless. The poor kid had probably earned her passage south on her backside, although Slade grudgingly had to admit she did not seem to share her brother's aversion to good hard work. Still, she had her own knack for getting into scrapes and creating havoc. For the time being, he supposed it was best to keep her on at the ranch. When she filled out a little, he'd find a respectable settler to marry her, though for some unaccountable reason Slade found the thought of Charlee's marriage to a farmer very disturbing.

      
He forced the disquieting suggestion from his mind and considered Ashley Markham. Someone, either another Englishman or a
Tejano
, must be helping him get information into Mexico. Markham traveled frequently to New Orleans, but not often enough to be passing on everything he had learned by that route. Jim hated to think that one of his friends or casual acquaintances of Mexican ancestry might be involved with the schemes of British troublemakers. Of course, many good Texians wanted Sam Houston dead. The
Tejanos
certainly could not corner the market in treachery.

      
Despite Houston's bluff scoffing at the assassination threats and his wife Margaret's brave front, keeping their home brightly lit and open to guests every night, Slade worried about the angry war hawks and power-crazy schemers who might harm his old friend. What a sorry pass things had come to, with Houston shadowed by assassins and himself saddled with a ninety-pound urchin and her tomcat.