Armstrong Rides Again! by H. W. Crocker

Author:H. W. Crocker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Regnery Fiction
Published: 2021-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT In Which I Take Command

We were standing around a dining table set in the courtyard when Father Ricardo Gonçalves entered and bade us sit down. The Colonel sat at the head of the table and beckoned me to sit at his righthand side. Father Gonçalves took a seat across from me. He walked stiff-legged, but otherwise exuded a surprising air of youth; his fair hair had something to do with that, though it was greying at the sides, and his blue eyes sparkled. Like El Claudio, he must have had Dutch blood. And he still had that peculiar look—as if trying to stifle a smile.

“I am glad to see you well, Generalissimo Armstrong.”

“Apparently you’re glad to see me alive.”

“Oh, indeed—but you are perfectly safe here. My brother-in-law takes precautions.” Father Gonçalves directed my attention to an earthen bank that rose about forty yards distant and about twenty feet high, a natural parapet. Silhouetted on top were riflemen wearing sombreros.

“Yes, I appreciate that. Neustraguano seems to have plenty of guards.” I turned to the Colonel and said, “I assume those men are yours—not men from the Army.”

“As Father Gonçalves says, I take precautions. My vaqueros protect my ranch; my Cavalry have other duties.”

“We live in dangerous times,” said Father Gonçalves, “and the greatest danger is to the unsuspecting.”

“You mean me.”

“You are new here.”

“I know there’s a war—that’s why I came.”

“There are other treacheries.”

“I’m getting a sense of that.”

“Then you are wiser than many people in Neustraguano. They are willfully blind. They cannot believe our pleasant life is under attack.”

“But the war…”

“Oh, they will acknowledge the war. They have eyes and ears enough for that. But they do not appreciate the nature and extent of the enemy. Not even El Caudillo himself fully comprehends the depth of the treachery around him.”

“And Bierce?”

“Generalissimo Bierce? He is your countryman, yes—your friend?”

“You trust him?”

“Why should I not?”

“Matteo Rodríguez brought him here. Do you trust him?”

Victoria said, “Matteo Rodríguez told me El Caudillo himself called for Bierce. That is why I went.”

“Apparently that was a lie. It is Matteo Rodríguez who wanted Bierce here—and he used you as his unwitting emissary.”

“Minister Rodríguez prefers intermediaries,” said Father Gonçalves. “It is his way.”

“He’s no ally of yours,” I said.

“We have our differences, but we serve the king together.”

“I rode with Rodríguez through San José. He blamed El Claudio for every rebel outrage.”

“And in your country, does no one blame your President Grant when Indians have their massacres? Did no one blame your President Lincoln when Confederados defeated your armies? There are similarities and there are differences. Our rebels are not gentlemen like your Confederados. Would your Confederados—your Generals Lee and Stuart and Jackson—have done what you saw at San José?”

“They were not my Generals. I fought for the Union, as did Bierce. But I take your point; Bierce made it too. This war is different.”

“The enemy is different—and what the rebels did at San José, they would do here, at this hacienda, if they could.”

Boom! boom! boom! The earth shook to the sound of thunder—only it wasn’t thunder.

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