Authors: Nan Ryan
S
UNDOWN, TEXAS, WAS BUILT
around a main plaza, in the Spanish style of cities south of the border. The plaza was actually nothing more than a dusty square with a few backless benches and a smattering of sparse shade from spindly cottonwoods planted a quarter of a century ago.
On the south side of the plaza, the tall white spires of St. Mary’s Cathedral rose to meet a generally cloudless blue Texas sky. Next door to the mission, the Sundown jail was—for the moment—empty of occupants, a situation that would likely change come nightfall.
On the square’s west side, adjacent to St. Mary’s, a low, flat, sand-color adobe building took up the entire block. Large square pilasters supported the building’s slanting porch roof and from one of the porch’s high beams hung a large white sign that said Mac’s.
Mac’s cavernous hall housed a combination dry goods store, apothecary, grocer’s, saddlery and tack, furniture emporium, and post office. Mac, a big-fisted, big-bellied Irishman, always wore a large white cloth apron tied around his middle and a brace of loaded Colt .44’s in a low-riding holster atop it. He smiled more than he frowned and his blue eyes twinkled often with merriment. He feared no man, but his tiny Mexican wife, Lena, and their four small dark-haired, dark-eyed boys easily bullied the stocky, good-natured Irishman.
A string of noisy cantinas, louvered-doored saloons, and round-the-clock gambling dens kept the genteel ladies of Sundown away from the plaza’s north side. There were, however, women who did not avoid that lively part of Sundown. They made their living there.
Above the most boisterous saloons were the brothels where it was whispered a gentleman could “conduct himself in a most wicked and licentious manner so long as he had the money.” The women who supplied the pleasure were voluptuous, scantily clad, and eager to show the boys a good time.
On the plaza’s east side were a dentist, the undertaking parlor, the telegraph office, a barber shop, a ladies’ millinery, and Sundown’s only hostelry, La Posada.
Several modest adobe dwellings, a couple of big-frame boardinghouses, and a handful of imposing haciendas lined the narrow, dusty streets leading into town.
One such hacienda, a big, impressive home surrounded by a high, elaborate wall of pink adobe blocks and intricate ironworks, sat alone and apart on the road leading into town from the south.
Passing it now, Amy glanced up at the red-tiled roof of the big mansion and frowned. She couldn’t leave town without seeing Diana.
Diana Clayton, a strikingly pretty twenty-two-year-old brunette, had been educated in the East and had returned to Sundown only when her father, the wealthy owner of several productive Mexican gold mines, had passed away in the winter of ’64.
Diana was cheerful, intelligent, and always good fun, if somewhat spoiled and self-centered. Amy and Diana had been drawn to each other from the first time they’d met. Which had been in Mac’s.
Amy, on her weekly trip into Sundown, had been filling a list of essentials when Diana Clayton had called to her from across the room. The outgoing brunette had come rushing over, holding up a green-and-yellow flowered calico dress she had taken off a rack from Mac’s ladies’ finery section.
“What do you think?” she demanded of Amy.
“Do you want the truth?” Amy smiled and lifted her perfectly arched eyebrows. Diana nodded. Amy shook her head. “Absolutely dreadful,” Amy said decisively.
“I fully agree,” Diana replied, pressing the garment to her curvaceous body and laughing gaily. “I can see I won’t be able to find anything decent to wear in Sundown.” She tossed the dress aside, stuck out her hand, and said, “Diana Clayton. And you’re Amy Parnell. Have you time to stop by for a cup of tea or coffee before you leave town? I’m dying of boredom and feel I shall go quite mad if I don’t spend an hour with someone my own age. Here, let me take that basket. My carriage is just outside. We can drink wine if you prefer, or even iced tequila. Will you come?”
“Lead the way,” Amy said, eager to hear about Diana’s exciting life in distant, glamorous New York City.
From that morning, the two women had been friends. They had seen each other at least once a week, usually at Diana’s mansion. They had sipped Madeira and gossiped and laughed together like two young girls. Diana had spoken openly of the torrid four-year love affair she had conducted while living in New York. The gentleman was, she assured Amy, quite handsome and quite wealthy. And quite married. Amy had neither judged or censured.
Now, as Amy passed by the walled Clayton hacienda, she realized she was in no frame of mind to see Diana. In fact, she was in no frame of mind to see anyone. But she had no choice. Unless she wanted the gentry guessing her guilty secret, she would be obliged to conduct her life routinely.
“Pedrico, first I’ll be going to Mac’s to pick up a few items.”
“
Sí
,
señora.
I will stop in and say hello to Mac.”
Amy smiled at Pedrico. “Fine. Then if you’d like to have a drink or play a game of poker in one of the saloons, it will be okay with me.”
The one-eyed man shook his head vigorously. “No. I must wait for you,
señora.
Right in front of Mac’s.”
Amy tried to keep the irritation from her voice. “I don’t think you quite understand, Pedrico. For years I have been coming alone into Sundown to shop and to visit my friends. I may stay in town for several hours. There is simply no need for you to—”
“
Por favor
,
Señora
Amy. Is no trouble. I do not mind the wait.”
“It’s his idea, isn’t it?”
“His? Pardon?”
“El Capitán,” Amy said flatly. “He told you to watch me. Didn’t he?” Pedrico lifted his shoulders in an apologetic shrug. Amy ground her teeth and sighed. But then she quickly smiled, patted his shoulder, and said, “I’ll make no trouble, Pedrico. I’ve grown up since the old days.”
The Mexican laughed and nodded his silver head, fondly recalling the young willful girl from the past. “
Sí
,” he said. “It is hard to me to believe that little Amy is now a grown woman with a child of her own.”
“Yes, well … After I’ve done my shopping at Mac’s, I will walk over to La Posada and visit with one of the ladies who happen to be in Sundown.”
“Ah,
sí. Sí.
”
“Then, on our way home, I will want to stop at the Clayton hacienda on the—”
“I remember the old Clayton home. The pretty
Señorita
Diana has returned home from the East.”
“Oh? And who told you that? El Capitán?” Amy snapped, feeling inexplicably annoyed. An unpleasant thought flitted through her brain. Had the pretty and sophisticated Diana Clayton already caught the eye of the darkly sensuous El Capitán?
“No.” Pedrico shook his head forcefully. “It was not El Capitán. I do not think he would remember the Clayton girl. She was only a child of twelve when he was … when he left Orilla.”
Her head beginning to ache slightly, Amy nodded. “Well, it really doesn’t matter. Unless I run into Diana at Mac’s or La Posada, I’ll want to go by and see her.”
The sidewalks and shops and saloons of Sundown were filled with the blue-uniformed soldiers of El Capitán’s command. In Mac’s, the big Irishman’s grin was wider than ever and his wife, Lena, speaking rapid-fire Spanish, cheerfully bustled about, waiting on the restless young men who had plenty of time and money.
“Ain’t this something, Miz Amy?” said Mac, adjusting his worn gunbelt beneath his girth. “I’ve taken in more money in a week than I usually make in a month.” He lifted his round, balding head joyfully. “Yes sirree, we’re mighty happy to have Quintano and his men in Sundown.”
Amy had no choice but to smile with the happy Irishman. “And we’re quite pleased to have the captain and his men at Orilla.”
“I reckon you are. How long’s it been since Luiz left here? Eight, ten years? He was just a kid then. Why, I bet you was sure surprised to see him again after all this time.”
Amy’s smile remained firmly in place. “You have no idea.”
And so it went.
The town was abuzz. While people living farther north might have wondered at the warm reception extended the Mexican soldiers, here, close to the border, it was commonplace. The young, spirited soldiers of Benito Juarez’s army of liberation couldn’t have been more welcome had they worn the uniform of the United States Cavalry.
The merchants of Sundown, their businesses suffering from years of drought in southwest Texas, looked on the influx of the free-spending Mexican soldiers as a godsend. The highly visible presence of the troopers in and around Sundown was equally embraced by the families living in that remote, dangerous region where the threat from renegade Apaches was as constant as the dust storms that rolled across the barren plain. Then, too, more than one fanciful young girl and lonely war widow were all aflutter over the invasion of the handsome young soldiers.
Several females came into Mac’s as Amy shopped. All were full of questions, from Miss Minnie McDaniel, a seventy-six-year-old hard-of-hearing spinster, to Katie Sue Longley, a freckle-faced, red-haired fourteen-year-old barber’s daughter.
With good grace and an easy smile, Amy answered all their questions. When Judy Bradford and Glenda Thurston and Sally Byers came hurrying in, out of breath, saying they had just heard Amy was in town, she knew the serious questioning was about to begin.
But it didn’t begin in earnest until Judy, Glenda, Sally, and Amy met Diana Clayton in the sunny cedar-beamed lobby of the big white stucco hotel, La Posada. While Judy, Glenda, and Sally listened intently, the brash Diana asked the very questions they—young wives and mothers all—had been dying to ask.
“Tell us everything, Amy Sullivan Parnell!” Diana wasted no time in urging Amy and the others to the hotel’s spacious dining hall where she pointed to a large linen-draped pine table against the far wall. Shoving Amy down into a chair and eagerly taking the one beside her, Diana said, “We’ve all seen him and we want to know the truth. So far, from what I’ve been able to learn, he sounds fascinating.”
“He’s dangerous,” Amy said thoughtlessly, “if that’s what you mean.”
Diana’s eyes shone with excitement. “Really? Is he as savage and as sexy as he looks? Has he tried to make love to you? Doug will be terribly jealous when he hears! Is El Capitán staying right there in the hacienda with you? Do you think he would come to dinner at my home?”
Determined to maintain her fragile self-control, Amy smiled, tilting her blond head, and said, “Let me see. I believe the answers, in order, would be, ‘I’ve no idea. No. No. Not really. And why don’t you ask him?’”
They all laughed. Amy laughed with them. And prided herself on giving nothing away, even when Diana and the others refused to speak of anything but the soldiers and their darkly handsome commander throughout a long, leisurely lunch.
She was more than a little relieved when the meal finally ended and the time came to leave. Outside on the stone porch the ladies said their good-byes, promising to meet again in a week, and Amy and Diana watched the others hurry away.
Blinking in the strong afternoon sunlight, Diana took Amy’s arm and said, “Come home with me so we can really talk.”
“I’d love to, Diana, but I must get back to the ranch.”
“No! Why, it’s just past three o’clock. You never leave this early.”
“I know, but …” Amy looked across the street, across the plaza. The buckboard was still parked in front of Mac’s. “One of the soldiers drove me into town and I—”
“Who? El Capitán?” Diana’s eyes were round. “Is he waiting over there in the buckboard? Oh, my lord, I’ll walk over with you and—”
“Diana,” Amy interrupted. “No. It isn’t he. For heavens sake, you’re behaving rather irrationally.”
Taking no offense at her friend’s remark, Diana laughed. “I’d like the opportunity to really behave irrationally.” She shook Amy’s arm. “As I said earlier, I was in the millinery shop when El Capitán and his troops rode into Sundown that first day. Attracted by the noise, I hurried to the door and saw, at the head of the command, the most handsome, the most dangerous-looking man I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
“Yes, yes, so you told us.”
“That long white scar down his cheek. Mmmmm, mercy. I wonder where he got it? And who gave it to him.”
“I’ve no idea.”
“He was astride a magnificent black stallion and he held himself ramrod straight.” Diana shivered, remembering. She quickly continued. “There was alkali dust on his brown face and in his black hair. And the back of his blue tunic was soaked with sweat.”
“That’s all very interesting, Diana, but I—”
“His white trousers were so tight I could see the muscles of his thighs pulling and bunching and I—”
“Diana, I have to go!” Amy’s head was pounding now.
“Darn, I do wish you could … well, all right, but do me a favor. Tell El Capitán that the dark-haired woman who waved to him from the door of the millinery shop would be honored if he would join her at her home for dinner alone some evening soon. Any evening. Will you do that?”
“Yes. Yes, I’ll tell him.”
“Good! Oh, there’s William now with my carriage. Can we drive you around to the other side of the plaza?”
“No, I’ll walk.”
“Suit yourself.” Diana hugged Amy. “I enjoyed lunch, see you next week.” She laughed and added, “And give my regards to El Capitán. Until I can personally give him my
best.
” She was still laughing when her driver helped her up into the gleaming black victoria.
When at last the carriage rolled away, Amy released a deep sigh of relief. She was completely wrung out. Her head throbbed. Her lunch had not agreed with her. She wanted nothing more than to get back to Orilla for a bath and a nap before dinner.
Amy lifted the skirts of her simple cotton dress and stepped forward to cross the dusty street. She hurried across the plaza where soldiers were buying hot tamales and roasting ears and sugary pralines from a stooped old Mexican vendor. Feeling the heat of the sun beat down on her aching head, Amy finally reached the far side of the square.
Waiting for a trio of mounted men to ride past, she looked toward her waiting carriage and saw Pedrico’s black-booted foot resting atop the brake.