“I have been poor, Hannes, and I do not wish to be poor again. I work, I plan, I save.”
We sat for a long time watching the people passing, and then she said, “We were so young, Hannes, and so very naive! We wished to change everything! I was too young to take part, but I listened to my brothers and their friends. They were excited. They were filled with enthusiasm. They wanted to reform their government. They wished it to be more liberal, and to follow the path of England and France.
“My mother was English, you see, and we had spent vacations in England. We pitied our serfs and we thought our government too rigid, but we were naive, and we had no idea how deeply embedded in Russian nature were the ideas we wished to change!
“My brothers belonged to a secret society called the Union of Welfare, which had been organized among the Semonovsky Guards officers, but it came to nothing and disbanded in 1821. My oldest brother had belonged. He was transferred to Tulchin in the Ukraine, and Colonel Paul Pestel was also located there. They organized what was called the Southern Society.
“When Alexander I died, they planned a revolt, but they were idealistic dreamers, they had no contact with the troops who they believed would join them. “It was called the Decembrist Revolt and it was put down quickly and harshly. Five men were hung, including Pestel, and of the 121 men tried for treason, 109 were under thirty-five. Some were sentenced to hard labor, some sent to Siberia.”
“But you were a young girl!”
“It made no difference. In Russia if someone in your family was involved, it was taken for granted you all were. We were sent to Siberia and we learned through sources friendly to us that we were to be eliminated. It was then we chose to escape.”
“And now?”
“I could not go back. We are still considered enemies, and the fact that some of us escaped has compounded the evil.”
“Would they come here? Would they try to get you back?”
She hesitated, biting her lip. “I do not think so. I was not that important. Still, I do not know. It would depend on the situation there. If by bringing one of us back to trial they could embarrass someone politically, it might be. “You see, there were others of our family, very distant relatives but of the same name, who were very active. Count Nesselrode was at the Congress of Vienna. He was very active in the government.”
“You must be careful.”
She studied me for a moment. “Do you think of Don Isidro?” “He is never far from my mind, but … there are other things.” I stood up suddenly. “I am restless for the desert.”
“But what is out there for you, Hannes? Beauty, of course, but what else?” “I don’t know.” I frowned. “Maybe that’s the trouble, I just don’t know.” I walked across to the window, then turned to face her. “There’s something out there for me, something unfinished, something I must do. “All of this”-I waved a hand-“I can feel it happening, it’s in the air. A man could become rich and successful here, but is that what I want? Or is there something else? Something my father and mother found?” “Are you sure? Did they find anything? Or were they simply escaping from here? They had happiness with each other … we know that, but was there anything else?”
I remembered that time in the desert when Peg-Leg had found me, so long ago now. I tried to remember if I had been frightened, but could not remember fear. I had been in trouble, but I had known what I had to do, and was trying. I might even have made it.
No … no, I could not have made it. Peg-Leg had saved my life. I would have died out there, for there were too many miles and I had too little knowledge of the desert.
What was drawing me back? The house by the springs? The desert itself?
“Someone is coming,” Miss Nesselrode said suddenly. “Be careful!” Stepping away from the window, I turned to face the door. It opened tentatively and a small boy peered in, a small boy with very large dark eyes and a very large straw hat. He glanced quickly from Miss Nesselrode to me, then thrust a folded paper at me and ducked out the door before I could speak.
The handwriting was familiar, the note brief:
Can you come? I need you now, desperately!
· Meghan
Passing the note to Miss Nesselrode for explanation, I went out the door.
Her home was but a short distance. I could be there in minutes.
Forty-one
An obviously frightened maid opened the door for me. “Oh, senor! Come quickly!
But be careful!”
She pointed the way, and I crossed the patio to the galeria, pausing in the doorway.
Meghan was facing me, and also facing a man whose back was toward me. There was no need for him to turn for me to know him. It was Rad Huber. “Good morning, Meghan. I am sorry to be late.” I moved on into the room, and as he turned toward me, I said, “It has been a long time, Rad.” He would outweigh me by forty pounds and was at least an inch taller. There was brutal power in his physique and in his features as well, but there was something else … A faint shadow of weakness, perhaps? A sense of something incomplete, unfinished?
“Get out.” He did not speak loudly, and he jerked his head toward the door. “Get out while you’re able.”
“I’m sorry, Rad, but Meghan and I have business to discuss. Captain Laurel asked me to stop by and arrange matters. Do you mind?” He faced squarely toward me, his feet a little apart. He had always been rather obvious, and he had not changed. He was expecting a shooting, and welcomed it. The trouble was that Meghan was there, and bullets do not always go to their intended mark.
“Go ahead. State your business, then get out.”
I smiled at him. “Our business is confidential, Rad, and has nothing to do with you. I am here by invitation, Rad. Are you?
“If you will recall, there have been several hangings this past year, and at least three of them were of men who tried to force their attention on ladies. You could be next.”
“I’m courtin’ her!”
“He was asked to leave,” Meghan said. “He has only come because he knows my father is away.”
“That was one of the matters we had to discuss. Your father,” I was inventing as I went along, “wished me to find a couple of the El Monte men to be around in the event of trouble.”
Turning to Rad, I added, “A couple of the Texas boys from El Monte are coming by. It would not be wise to be around when they arrive.” He stared at me. “Someday,” he said, “we’ll meet somewhere. It’ll be just you an’ me.”
“Of course, Rad. We’ve both known that, haven’t we? And when it is over, I shall be able to get on with so many of the important things.” “You will get on? You will be dead.”
I smiled tolerantly. “You’re really not very good with a gun, Rad. There’s a little way you have, an odd way you use your hands. You lose time, Rad, and time is the essence of it all.”
As a matter of fact, I’d never seen Rad Huber in action, but he didn’t know that, and it was in my mind to get him worrying about himself. If he became self-conscious, he would be hesitant, slow. He might try to dismiss the idea from his mind, but it would still be there, haunting him. He might review his method of drawing a gun, trying to discover what I indicated was a bad move. I had no idea whether it would have any effect, but it was worth a chance. “You ain’t nothin’,” he said. “You never was.”
“Ask the men who tried to steal my horses out by Coldwater,” I suggested.
He walked to the door, turned as if to speak, then walked away, spurs jingling.
I waited until the outer gate closed behind him. Meghan came over to me. “Oh, Johannes! I am so sorry! I’ve gotten you into trouble again, but I just didn’t know what to do or whom to call upon!” “Who else but me?” I took her hands. “I’d have been disappointed had you called anyone else. I hope whenever anything is wrong you will call me.” “But because of me you’re in trouble with Rad. I was the cause of that other trouble, too.”
“We would have clashed anyway. He had started making trouble even before I sat down in your seat. You just gave him one more reason.” “Will you have some coffee?”