The Alamo Bride Page 5

  “Did you hear that?” came the whispered Spanish words that signaled the men had not gone far.

  Clay froze, his fingers still curled around the pirogue. The black snake slithered past again, this time closer than before. He closed his eyes and ignored it. Ignored the need to flee.

  “He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust.”

  “You’re imagining things, jefe,” the other said. “I will show you.”

  Footsteps moved swiftly toward him. Clay took a deep breath and ducked under the water. The snake once again found him, this time swirling so close that the scales of its tail brushed Clay’s cheek as it swam past.

  When his lungs burned with the need for air, he slowly resurfaced. Apparently the man’s point had been made, for neither of them was in sight.

  Going back to his work, Clay tugged the pirogue free of the mud on the second try, and then gave it a shove that sent it toward the center of the river. Without their means of escape, the duo would be landlocked. There would be no returning to whatever location they set off from, at least not by means of the river.

  Rather than risk meeting the Mexicans or the old man on the path, Clay swam as far as he could downstream and then cautiously climbed onto the bank. Teeth chattering and soaked to the bone, he hauled himself up to a standing position and listened for any signs of life. The surf roared to the south, and all along the banks frogs croaked softly.

  A cracking noise split the night, echoing as white-hot fire slammed Clay’s shoulder and sent him reeling back into the river. Icy water covered him as another shot sizzled into the river just shy of him.

  Breath failed him as he struggled to find air. An image appeared of a hand that reached toward him, but was this friend or foe?

  Clay shoved away the hand and kicked against the current. The action caused him to bob to the surface, but he did not dare remain there. Instead he gasped in a deep breath of air and tried to think.

  The best he could determine, the shot had come from downriver. Whether it came from a person on the riverbank or a vessel headed his way, he could not say. In either case, the only way to escape was to swim against the tide.

  And so he did. Or tried, anyway, for only one of his arms seemed to be of any use.

  Another shot rang out, once again landing too close. He was moving slower now, having to lift his head above water more often. Thoughts were becoming more scattered. Difficult.

  “He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust.”

  That much he could recall, though he heard it now in his mother’s voice and not his own. In this moment, the God of feathers did not seem so silly. Did not seem so far-fetched, even if escape from this impossible situation did.

  Clay tried to pray. Tried to form a thought that would give the Lord glory while also asking Him for help, but the words wouldn’t come.

  A solid object slammed into him. Out of instinct, Clay reached for it with his good hand and felt wood.

  The pirogue. Climb in.

  The first clear thought in what seemed like an eternity. Somehow he managed to slump over the edge of the pirogue and fall in. The landing was hard and painful, but he was no longer fighting the muddy river water for each breath.

  Clay lay on his back and closed his eyes. His shoulder throbbed and his mind still refused to rest on more than the simplest of thoughts.

  Breathe in. Breathe out. Stay very still. Ignore the pain.

  These things he did as the craft jarred to a halt. He opened his eyes to stare up at the clusters of stars overhead. Though the water swirled past, the vessel remained as if rooted in place.

  The shouts of men drifted over him, but his brain refused to determine what language they spoke. He tried to turn in their direction but saw only wood.

  The sides of the crude vessel were low enough to offer very little protection, this much he could determine. Something zinged past.

  Wood splintered. A searing pain scratched across him, though he was too numb to determine where.

  Clay remained perfectly still for what seemed like an eternity. Finally the shouting and the shooting ceased.

  “Unless you wish to swim out to the sandbar where it is lodged, the boat is lost,” someone said, and this time he recognized the language as Spanish. “Though you can continue to waste your time shooting at it if you wish. I’m sure the soldiers at the fort would thank you for leading them directly to us.”

  “I do not, jefe,” the other said. “And I had not thought of the noise bringing the soldiers.”

  “Then we go afoot and do not tell anyone how the canoe was lost, yes?”

  If the other fellow responded, Clay did not hear it. There was no sound of footsteps retreating, only the rush of water on all sides and the distant sound of night creatures.

  He might have closed his eyes, could have even slept, but when he awoke, the stars were still scattered overhead, only now they were not in the same location.

  It did not take someone skilled in navigating by the stars to know the pirogue had moved during the night. Still, what he saw overhead made no sense. Rather than drifting southward downstream with the swift current, he had somehow gone north upstream.

  The sky began to spin. Clay closed his eyes and then opened them again, though it felt like hours in between the two.

  A slight lift of his head confirmed the vessel was no longer stuck on a sandbar in the river. Instead he was completely surrounded by the thick reeds that grew at the edge of the river.

  Movement of any kind cost him with a pain that took his breath. Clay ignored it to look down at his right hand and saw his fingers wrapped around an oar.

  Blood stained his left arm and pooled beneath his closed fist. When he opened the fingers of his right hand, a tiny feather rested there.

  Tucking the feather into his pocket, Clay dropped the oar, sucked in a deep breath, and forced himself to attempt to rise into a sitting position. On the third try, he managed it. A look down sent the world spinning again.

  So much blood.

  Clay took in a shuddering breath and forced himself to assess the damage. Two direct hits. Something lodged in his left shoulder. The second had gone clean through his left arm. Blood trailing a line on his abdomen meant a third had come far too close to doing more damage.

  But he was alive. Clay held on to that thought until it too disappeared into the fog that surrounded him. He swayed but caught himself.

  Sleeping could come later. For now, he had to keep his wits.

  It was impossible to see where the river ended and the riverbank began. A reach with his good hand touched only water reeds. And yet he must find land.

  “I will not die here,” he said under his breath as he tried to make sense of his options.

  The oar. He swiped at it only to fall forward and land on his face. The pain pinned him in place, but his fingers found what he was reaching for.

  Now he could use the oar to move the boat. But first he had to find his way into a sitting position again.

  Using the oar as a crutch beneath his good arm, Clay shifted position. He was almost upright again when a cracking sound split the silence of the night.

  The oar crumbled beneath him, and Clay jolted backward. With his gaze focused upward, one by one the stars went out.

  Then there was only darkness.

  “Is he dead?” asked Lucas, the older of Ellis’s two little brothers.

  Mack, the baby of the family, kneeled nearby. At barely six years old, he did not need to see such a gruesome sight. Thankfully, he was too enamored of a frog to notice.

  Ellis Valmont looked down at the tattered sleeve of a uniform that might once have been a shade of grey. Crimson stained the cloth and the fingers that curled beneath it.

  Still, she could see enough of the fabric to know this man was with those who arrived at Velasco just yesterday. What was he doing here?

  The dark-haired soldier lay in the pirogue as if he was sleepin
g, though his face was pale and his lips nearly blue. Had Ellis not seen the uneven movement of his chest as the stranger struggled to breathe, she would have thought him dead.

  “Who’s dead?” Mack called as he forgot about the frog to hurry over in their direction.

  “No one is dead. Lucas, go and get Mama and Mr. Jim.”

  “What if they’re busy?” he asked.

  “Tell them I need their help and that it is more important than anything they’re doing. Can you do that?”

  “Sure,” eight-year-old Lucas said with a lisp caused by his missing two front teeth.

  “All right, then. Get on with you, and hurry.” As Lucas trotted off, Ellis moved to shield the youngest Valmont from the gruesome sight. “And take Mack with you.”

  “I don’t want to go,” Mack whined. “I want to see who is dead.”

  “No one is dead,” Ellis said in a tone she hoped would indicate she no longer wished to argue the point.

  She turned the little boy around by his shoulders and gave him a gentle push. Of all the Valmonts, she might have the reputation as the stubborn one, but little Mack would likely soon surpass her.

  Mack hated to be told what to do and despised the fact that the honor to do things first generally fell to older siblings. As much as he hated these things, however, there was one thing he hated more: He hated to lose. At anything.

  Ellis knelt down beside him and looked into the little boy’s eyes. With his flame-colored hair and green eyes, he was her carbon copy. “Mack,” she said gently. “What if you were to beat Lucas back to the house? Then you would be the one to fetch Mama, not Lucas.”

  His eyes widened. “I would, wouldn’t I?”

  “See how slow Lucas is walking? I bet if you hurry you can beat him.”

  Those wide eyes narrowed and his smile returned. “I am gonna beat him. You just watch me.”

  “You run fast now,” she said as she stood. “I’ll watch.”

  Off he went, easily catching up with Lucas. A moment later, he headed into the thicket with Lucas trailing behind.

  Ellis waited until both boys disappeared down the path. The house wasn’t far from here. Still, she ought to wait for Mama and Mr. Jim.

  “I can’t just stand around doing nothing,” she said under her breath as she turned back to the river.

  The pirogue where the man was lying looked very much like the Cajun-style dugout pirogue that had been stolen from a neighbor a few weeks ago. She made a note to check and see if that vessel had been found. If it hadn’t, this man might be the culprit.

  Perhaps the Grey changed his mind about his service to the cause of Texas. That would certainly explain why a man who was assigned to a regiment quartered at the fort would be wandering the river during the night.

  Whether or not he was a thief, the man was in need of medical care. She took a step to the left to see if she could determine a way to pull the flat dugout vessel onto dry land. The pirogue had been lodged on a sandbar in the reeds for what appeared to be a few hours, for the sand was already collecting on the downstream side.

  Worse, the thing was wedged right into the place where Papa swore the black snakes nested. Ellis looked around for a stick but found nothing she could use to move the pirogue.

  Praying Papa was wrong, Ellis knelt down and reached across the distance to give the pirogue a tug. The soldier inside made a soft groan.

  “I’m sorry,” she told him, “but you cannot stay out here in the water. Whoever you are, we’ve got to get you out before the snakes come out at dusk.”

  The black snakes that hid in the reeds and slithered along the river’s edge after sunset where Ellis’s worst nightmare and greatest fear. She’d been bitten once, but once was quite enough. As the story went, Mama’s cure was the only reason she survived.

  Another tug and Ellis decided she would never be able to budge the pirogue from the bank. Ignoring her fears, she lifted her skirts just enough to edge out beyond the bank to where the muddy brown water swirled around her legs and ruffled the reeds.

  From her vantage point she could see the soldier’s face. And, though splashed with streaks of blood and marred by a nose that appeared to be broken, it was a handsome face. A memorable face.

  Ellis gasped. She had seen this man before.

  Of course. Down at the docks just yesterday.

  He had been among the soldiers to whom she had offered a welcome and a word of thanks. There had been something different about this one. Something that did not quite fit with the others who sailed with him.

  She hadn’t quite been able to identify what it was then, and she certainly could not now. He hadn’t said a word. Just stared like he’d lost his powers of speech, then moved along.

  Perhaps he was mute.

  The man in question moaned, his eyelashes fluttering just long enough to give promise that he might open his eyes. “You again,” he whispered, completely ruining her theory that the soldier was mute. “You’re welcome.”

  An odd response. At least he was able to talk. Ellis leaned closer. “Who did this to you?” she asked, but his eyes had drifted shut and he seemed once again beyond the ability to respond.

  With a watchful eye toward the reeds where snakes could be hiding, Ellis cupped river water in her hand and poured it over his forehead in the hope that the chill might awaken him. When that failed, she used the hem of her skirt to dry his face and then allowed the bloody fabric to fall into the water.

  There appeared to be no injury to his face, but the spread of blood on his cap and the wood behind his head indicated some sort of head wound. Though she would not do any further examination without Mama here, it did not take a trained healer to know that this New Orleans Grey had been shot at. Repeatedly.

  A glint of something moving through the reeds made Ellis jump. Her heart pounding, she willed herself to calm down as she watched for whatever it was. Seeing nothing else, Ellis returned her attention to the soldier.

  The blood on his left shoulder came from a wound that appeared to be the worst of them all. A few inches lower and his heart would have been the target.

  “Ellie, Ellie?” Lucas called. “Where are you?”

  She stepped away from the reeds and onto the bank in time to see her little brother racing toward the river. “Ellie, Mama and Mr. Jim …,” he called.

  Ellis hurried to meet the little boy. “Where are they?”

  “I went to fetch them, I truly did,” he said, breathless. “But Mama is up at Miz Lyla’s place and can’t leave her until the baby comes.”

  “What about Mr. Jim?”

  “I couldn’t find him, so I sent Mack to hunt for him some more. I thought you ought to know though.”

  She ruffled the little boy’s hair and smiled. “Thank you,” she said as her mind reeled with the possibility that she would have to care for this wounded soldier alone.

  “I can help,” he said. “I’ve watched you and Mama and know what to do.”

  Ellis considered the thought of an extra pair of hands and then shook her head. There would be plenty of time for the boy to see wounded soldiers, especially if this war continued. Until that day when it could not be avoided, Ellis intended to keep those things from her innocent brothers.

  “I do appreciate your offer, and I know you would be a huge help,” she told him. “But for now I think it is more important to find Mr. Jim since he is big and strong and can help us get this man out of the river. Don’t you think so?”

  Lucas appeared to consider the question and then nodded. “I do think we might need help with that part of it. Plus Papa says there are snakes and we should stay out.”

  “Yes, he does, so perhaps you could go and see if Mack is truly looking for Mr. Jim. He does tend to forget sometimes and wander off.” She paused to offer a broad smile. “If you were to find Mr. Jim, you would be my hero.”

  That did it for certain. If there was one goal in this child’s life, it was to be a hero. This time he hurried off without bothering
to respond. With Lucas the hero on the job, Mr. Jim would be here soon.

  Ellis sighed as she straightened to watch the little boy disappear down the path. He so wanted to be like his father and older brother, and yet she couldn’t help but ask God to slow down time and keep him just a little boy. To keep both of her younger brothers little boys.

  For once they grew into men, she might lose them just as … Ellis shook her head. No, she wouldn’t think of it. Wouldn’t give heed to the rumor that Papa and Thomas were not coming home.

  Men!

  The sound of distinctly male shouting drew Ellis back to the riverbank where a vessel of some sort was churning upriver toward her. Soldiers dressed in the same grey uniforms as the wounded soldier populated the deck of the flat-bottom steamboat making its way upriver.

  “Stop!” she called as she stood on the bank and frantically tried to signal to anyone who might see her. “One of your men is here, and he is wounded!”

  As the paddle wheel slapped against the water and the engines churned, a bell rang out. Several of the men saw her and she waved, but none seemed to understand what she was trying to tell them.

  “Help me,” she called, gesturing to the reeds. “A Grey has been shot.”

  Those who had seen her continued to wave, but the steamboat never slowed as it approached. Apparently they hadn’t understood a word she said.

  If only they could see the pirogue and the man it contained. Though she hadn’t managed to move the pirogue before, Ellis knew she had to give it another try.

  This time she would wade into the reeds. It was the only way.

  Saying a prayer for safety from the snakes, Ellis moved toward the pirogue as quickly as she could. The soldier lay so still and pale that she jolted toward him to press her palm against his chest to see if he still breathed.

  He did. Ellis breathed a sigh of relief.

  Then something under the water brushed against her leg and she screamed. Her heart racing, she stood stock-still and looked all around but saw nothing.

  “I need to move this out into the open right now,” she said, in part to herself and in part to the Lord, who could manage such things if He chose. “Those men need to know one of their own is here dying for lack of help.”