Celia Hayes – The Accidental Texan

(All righty then – another in the serial adventure of Lone Star Sons – a reworking of a certain classic Western serial, wherein our heroes go adventuring, searching for the lost silver treasure of the old presidio of San Saba. Previous chapters are here and , here and previous adventures are linked or are on this page.)

At the door of the mansion where the Biddles were hosted, Jim was received with all courtesy and directed to a suite of small rooms adjoining the garden. Windowless on the outer walls, the parlor and sleeping chambers opened into a covered arcade overgrown with sweet-smelling jasmine – an arcade which almost constituted a room in itself, set about with bright-painted pots of flowering geraniums, and a number of chairs made of roughly carpentered wood and upholstered with rawhide in the local fashion. There was also a small table, pressed into service as a desk, which was piled with much paper, an inkwell and an ordinary schoolchild’s slate, much scribbled over with chalk markings. Here Albert Biddle had been at work … and a scattering of dolls and children’s toys testified that Albert had combined duty with domesticity. Out in the garden, in the paved area by a mossy and trickling fountain, Dona Graciela’s two daughters rolled a ball back and forth for the amusement of the small child who had become his and Toby’s god-son, and Albert’s son. Little James Toby Albert was now a small boy just able to toddle in his plain baby-dress, who gurgled with delight whenever he managed to capture the ball. Usually this came at the cost of sitting down heavily on his diapered behind.
“He’s still in small-clothes, I see,” Jim observed. “At least that makes me feel that not so much time has passed.”
“They do grow up fast,” agreed Albert Biddle, with an air of superior knowledge which Jim found faintly annoying – especially as every time that he visited Rebecca in Bastrop it seemed like hers and Dan’l’s daughter had grown another six inches. It wouldn’t have surprised him in the least to see on his next visit that the girl had put up her hair and let out the hems of her skirts to the length appropriate to a young lady. That was a slightly uncomfortable thought, and Jim put it aside with an effort.
“How goes the deciphering?” he asked, and Albert Biddle grinned.
“Very well, actually. I’ve pretty well deduced the area where the treasure was buried – in the north-east corner. The old boy wasn’t that much of a hand in coming up with a cipher … but the thing that worries me is that others might have knowledge of the treasure at San Saba. It was a military garrison, after all – and he was not the only officer. If he knew of it, then others knew as well. Gracie says that the old boy had some mighty strange visitors in his last days. From what she says of one of them, I’m wondering if it is our old friend of the Casa Wilkinson…”
“Don Esteban Saldivar?” Jim ventured. “Logical, I suppose – since it was a matter for Spain…”
“No – the Englishman; the actor.” Albert Biddle’s pleasant and anonymous features bore an expression of distaste. “Gracie said he had a voice that sounded like he was speaking to a multitude, so I thought of him at once. Does he have friends in Mexico, I wonder?”
“I saw a man by San Fernando,” Jim answered, with a feeling of foreboding. Yes, the man playing mumbley-peg against himself was the age and build of the English actor and paid agent. And had not Jack said something about a fellow he thought looked familiar, when he saw Dona Graciela and Albert Biddle and their family and train? “This very day, as I was coming to call; I thought he looked like someone I knew, but he looked down, as if hiding his face, so I cannot be entirely certain it was Vibart-Jones … But he had the color and bearing, although he was dressed as a Mexican grandee. Jack said something about seeing someone following you, the thought – the day that you returned to Bexar. Why do you ask if Vibart-Jones has friends in Mexico?”
“There were English bankers and investors left bankrupt by Texian independence,” Albert Biddle explained. This matter was meat and drink to his clerkly soul. “They had made loans to Mexico secured by vast tracts of lands in Texas. Once Mexico lost the war, they lost control of the lands and couldn’t repay the loans … and the English bankers and their investors went bust. I’ve heard tell of English bankers and pamphleteers who wouldn’t mind in the least if Mexico had a chance to win over Texas, throw us all out and retrieve their fortunes.”
“Reclaiming the San Saba treasure would comfort them mightily,” Jim finished the thought. “Yes, it would make sense, especially if they could extract it from under our very noses. Albert – I think it advisable that we leave soon, and unobserved. You or I – perhaps both of us, I cannot say for certain – we are being watched. Old Bexar has a thousand eyes. Cap’n Hays used to have a camp out on the Salado north of town – for his Rangers patrolling the hills, so that they might come and go unobserved.”
“I agree about leaving immediately.” Albert Biddle nodded. “What stratagem do you propose regarding keeping our departure a secret?”
“Make no change from your routine,” Jim was already thinking, planning an unnoticed departure. “But come to visit us tonight when you return from Compline. I’ll have a horse for you, and all that is necessary for the journey – the stable is behind the house, with high walls on every side. No one can observe preparations for a journey unless they are within the house and yard. Act as if everything is utterly normal – but Cap’n Hays will assume your overcoat, and accompany Dona Graciela to this house, while you and I wait until the wee hours. Say nothing to anyone – not even to your lady until the moment of departure.”
“My wife’s honor is my own,” Albert Biddle’s voice was frosty with displeasure. “Sir, I will not abide any hint of doubts regarding her loyalty, from you or anyone else.”
“I think of her safety, and that of the children,” Jim answered. “I did not mean to insult her – only that I consider that if she does not know of our departure beforehand, she will not be put to the burden of lying – or to the effort of guarding herself among her friends and kin. You may attest to the trust that you have of your wife, which I am certain is not misplaced, as she is a noble and virtuous lady. But consider this – do you assign the same trust in your your hosts, and most particularly their servants … their friends, and those hangers-on who are quick to bear any rumor that someone might pay a peso or two for? Do you trust them, in equal measure?”
“Likely not,” Albert Biddle’s expression relaxed, and he cast a fond look out into the garden, where his stepdaughters and little god-son continued to play. Happy and handsome children, without a care in the world, not burdened with knowledge of the efforts of their elders and men like Captain Hays, which labors kept them safe, secure and happy, laughing as they romped beside a garden fountain in the old quarter of Bexar.
“I will make it square with you and your lady,” Jim suggested. “When you visit tonight, I will say that we have only just received a message of the most urgent nature. We may then depart at once, without giving her any cause for unhappiness with you.”
“A very fair suggestion,” Albert Biddle looked relieved. “Then, I will work thru the afternoon on this puzzle, and perhaps by the time we arrive at the old fortress I will have pin-pointed the exact location.”
“Good,” Jim answered. “I do not relish the thought of searching and digging through old stone-work for any longer than we must. Old Mopechucope might have promised friendship and hospitality to Toby and me, but I don’t want to lean on that reed for any longer than we have to.”

It went as planned, that evening: Albert Biddle and Dona Graciela attended Compline, and as soon as Jack answered the knock on his door, saying,
“There’s been an urgent message – you and Jim must leave tonight. There is danger – we are all being watched.”
“Any notion of whom?” Albert Biddle answered, as briskly as a well-rehearsed actor, as Jack closed the door on the evening clamor in the Plaza outside, with the swifts dipping in and out of the gardens on either side – dark shadows in the pale twilight.
“No – but the safety of your mission depends on absolute secrecy respecting your movements. Fifteen minutes – and then I shall put on your coat and accompany your wife to the casa.”
“It is sudden, querida,” Albert Biddle answered. “I know – but I have expected such a message for some days…”
“If you wish some few private moments for a farewell…” Jack said, already taking his topcoat from the peg where it hung. “Jim and I will step out to the stables…”
“There is no need, “Dona Graciela replied, her voice firm, the expression of her face resolute. “Go with God, Alberto. He will protect you … until you return.” She kissed Albert Biddle once. “I trust that it will not be many weeks on this errand of yours?” She let the question hang in the air, until Jim assured her.
“He will return before many weeks have passed, Dona – my word as a gentleman and a Ranger upon it.”
“Mine also, Mrs. Biddle,” Jack added.
“Very good.” Dona Graciela answered, stalwart as if she were a soldier herself. “I will hold you to that promise, Senors.”
“She will, too,” Albert Biddle whispered to Jim as he and Jack exchanged coats and hats – Jack’s hunting coat for Albert Biddle’s old-fashioned coachman’s overcoat. “She’s that kind of woman.”
In a moment, they were gone, Jim having turned down the lamp-wick to a bare golden glow, so that no one might see Dona Graciela and the disguised Jack clear in the doorway.
“And now?” Albert Biddle whispered, as Jim barred the door behind them.
“We wait until the moon sets,” Jim answered. “May as well sleep until then. Jack will come back by the stable – he has a key to let himself in.”
“Nothing happens at that hour, I always used to say,” Albert Biddle mused. “The good folk are still asleep in bed, and those otherwise inclined are the worse for drink – whatever devilment they wish to do, they have already done.”
“That and it will be as dark as the inside of a bull with the tail clamped down,” Jim pointed out … with a fair degree of accuracy, as it turned out.
Jack returned, well after midnight, with Albert’s coat rolled up in a bundle underneath his arm. “All in order,” he added, somewhat reproachfully at Jim, who had unshipped one of his patent Colt revolvers, when he had heard something scratching at the door that led into the stable. “There was no need for you to stand guard, Jim.”
“There is, always,” Jim returned evenly. “Even in your own quarters … Cap’n.”
“Perhaps you are right to do so,” Jack acknowledged. “Right then – your saddlebags an’ traps an’ all are ready to go?”
“We’ve been ready to go for hours,” Albert Biddle yawned – and they had. All that was required was to saddle their horse, and the pack-mule with the tools and supplies they had chosen – and leave, as stealthily as Jack had returned.
“See you by mid-summer,” Jack said, then. “Or before … and if I don’t, then I guess Mopechucope wasn’t as good a friend as all that.”

(Herewith a new adventure in my proposed YA series, Lone Star Sons – where the young Texas Ranger Jim Reade, and his stalwart friend, guide and translator, Toby Shaw of the Delaware have many interesting missions on behalf of the Republic of Texas. Yes, I haven’t had time to work on a new adventure for them in some time. My apologies, seriously – but I have been busy.)

            “Your friend is back in town,” Jack Hays remarked, as Jim walked into the parlor of the little old-fashioned adobe house on Main Plaza, where he kept a bachelor household whenever he was between surveying trips into the Hills, or those other and rather secretive missions ventured upon in the cause of an independent Texas nation.

            “Which friend?” Jim dropped his saddle bags and hung his coat and gun-belt on the pegs affixed to the wall conveniently close to the door which led out to the Plaza. Even with the door closed, the evening sound of music, of voices and the hubble-bubble of town life floated distantly – but in a manner altogether pleasing – into the cozy parlor. Life of an evening in San Antonio was usually a lively matter, no matter what the season. A tiny fire of aromatic cedar burned on the clay hearth, and Jack knocked dottle of burned tobacco into it, rapping his pipe against the side of the fireplace.

            “Your friend, Albert Biddle,” Jack smiled. “Or, I should say – Don Alberto. I must agree that marriage agrees with him splendidly.”

            “Dona Graciela is a most admirable woman,” Jim agreed, a little heatedly, since he had no notion of where this conversation was leading. “Poor Albert was wounded most grievously in the course of our mission to Laredo last year. Dona Graciela took us into her home, treated us as kin – well, seeing that we had sworn an oath to be god-fathers to her sister’s infant – I felt that we had done nothing much to deserve such generous regard. But she was kindness herself…”

            “And Don Alberto is a very lucky man,” Jack added, with a smile. “A widow of good family – would that one such as she takes you into such deep affection, Jim; you would be blessed indeed. There are many among us – mostly of the older generation here in Texas who have married ladies of the old established Mexican families. Men and women are made for marriage, and he is lucky beyond most, in having a family ready-made. Don Alberto carried your little god-son on his saddle-bow, when they rode in today, with a train of mules, and Dona Graciela and her daughters following in a mule-litter in the old-fashioned way.”

            “He is a lucky man,” Jim agreed, even though Dona Graciela was a woman as far from his taste in courting as a woman could get and still be recognizably female. Dona Graciela was a tall and regal-appearing woman, with fine eyes and an ink-dark spill of hair, piled high in the old Spanish fashion, with a tall comb at the back of her head. Jim was more often drawn to pretty, fair-haired girls, who looked up at him with soft brown eyes, as if they hoped to be rescued from a dragon or an unwelcome suitor. Dona Graciela had likely never looked to be rescued in her life. He sank into the empty chair across from Jack, fixed his commanding officer with a searching expression, and demanded, “So – your purpose in making mention of this is?”

            “It was a pleasing sight,” Jack protested mildly. “Most picturesque – like a medieval procession of a nobleman and all of his household and train. They are coming to visit us at half-past the hour, after Compline at San Fernando.”

            “I’m tired, Jack,” Jim groaned, somewhat theatrically. “I’ve had a long day on horseback, and all I want is my supper and my bedroll, in that order. I don’t want to receive social calls – even from such as good a friend as Albert Biddle and his lady.”

            “Go get something from the chili-women,” Jack ordered, with a distinct lack of sympathy. “If you go now, you may bring it back here and be done before the bells ring for the nightly silence. They’ve traveled long themselves – and wouldn’t be stirring themselves over something of no moment.”

            Seeing that Jack was adamant, and that the bells of San Fernando were already chiming the call to services, Jim had little choice but to take himself to the nearest of the stalls, where the peppery meat and bean stew so popular with everyone – Anglo and Mexican alike – was being sold from a vast kettle, presided over by one of the black-garbed women. The tables were crowded, even though the hour was late, and he carried his bowl and a sheaf of the thin Mexican flat-breads back to Jack’s house. By the time that he had put himself on the outside of it, Jim was in a rather better frame of mind, belly-full-content and slightly sleepy. And yes, he admitted to himself, he was rather looking forward to seeing Albert Biddle again; from what Jack had said in passing, it sounded as if the gentlemanly Yankee clerk now had a different standing in the world.

Even with that expectation, Jim would hardly have known Albert Biddle, when Jack answered a quiet knock at the parlor door, and showed Don Alberto and his lady wife into the room. During the brief interlude, Jack had hastily scooped such evidence of careless bachelor housekeeping into the inner room, but still, Jim thought Dona Graciela looked upon the tiny parlor with the severe eye of an exacting housekeeper. Her husband had no such reserve – but even so, Jim would not have recognized him at first; so different in manner and garb was he now.

“I have a position to keep up,” Albert Biddle explained, with a look of affection towards his formidable wife. “Gracie insists, of course – but I am not adverse.”  Indeed, the black trousers and short jacket, elegantly trimmed with braid and silver buttons in the manner favored by the wealthy Mexicans of Bexar, suited him very well. “But,” he added, upon settling Dona Graciela into the most comfortable chair in the room – the only cushioned one, as it happened, “We did not come from Laredo merely to exchange remarks on the latest trends in haberdashery.”

Jim noticed that Dona Graciela sat with her hands on a small coffer in her lap, a thing of dark wood trimmed in silver. He thought it might be a jewel-case, although why the lady should bring her gems and ear-bobs to Compline was beyond him.

“And here I was thinking it was because you had a hankering to go traveling with Toby and I,” Jim observed, and Albert Biddle laughed.

“It may come to that, James.” Then his face went sober again. “This is a matter in earnest – and Gracie insisted that we maintain the utmost discretion. It may be the means by which we save your – our Republic.”

“So you are a Texian now,” Jim observed, and Albert Biddle grinned.

“Gracie insisted,” he said, fondly, and Dona Graciela spoke for nearly the first time.

“What concerns my husband is of my concern as well,” she said. “And when I told him what I had found in the rooms of my grandfather’s younger brother … Tio Maximiliano is gone to his reward these many months ago. He was married to the daughter of a soldier in his youth, an officer of the presidio of San Saba, in the time that the Spanish tried to hold the Llano.”

“San Saba…” Jim ventured; a small light began to dawn on him, cutting through the bone-weariness of his last journey. “Wasn’t there supposed to be rich silver mines around there? The old missionaries had a mission there for the Lipan Apache, but the Comanches massacred them all in a day and a night, and the presidio garrison was withdrawn … about a hundred years ago, wasn’t it?”

Dona Graciela nodded, graciously, and Jack observed, “There’s always been talk about silver mines and treasure hidden in the walls of the old fort. I never put much credence in those stories, myself. Folks hear about an abandoned castle or a fortress in ruins, and it just naturally comes to them to want to make up stories of treasures and ghosts and all. Now it seems there might be a basis for them … according to Dona Graciela.” He inclined his head towards the lady, who opened the casket in her lap.

“Tio Maximiliano preserved this coffer most carefully – he had it from the father of his wife.”

“What are these papers?” Jim asked, and this time Albert Biddle answered,

“A guide to a real treasure-trove – one which might save Texas, as far as financial matters are concerned – for I have reviewed them with care. My written understanding of Spanish exceeds that of the spoken language by the power of three to one. These papers and map were things of immense value, according to Tio Maximiliano’s father-in-law, who was an aide-de-camp to one Governor Yorba. An important man at the time, for all that he is recalled now; these were supposed to be sent to the Spanish archives for the province in Monclava, but for some reason, he did not follow the orders given to him.”

“He fell ill of the yellow fever,” Dona Graciela put in. “And died within days. On his death-bed, he gave this little coffer to his daughter and her affianced, Tio Maximiliano, saying that it would dower her, if she were ever in need. It was locked, when he gave it to them, and no one could provide a key. His daughter thought he was delirious and it was a paltry matter, so she put it away in her grief, thinking it no more than a memento of her father. It was a long-forgotten thing until I found it…”

“It is open now,” Jim remarked, dryly and Albert Biddle looked at the ceiling-beams overhead. “One of my unheralded talents is that I am adept at picking locks, without leaving any damage or trace. The archives at Monclava would have liked to have known of this matter, doubtless – but it is now a matter for Texas, and well-worth the candle, if I am any judge of these matters.”

Jim looked between the three; Biddle, his wife, and Jack Hays, whose’ sober face held the expression of a man quickly doing sums in his head.

“What did you find, among these papers?” Jack asked, with careful diplomacy. “That would provide a dowry to a soldier’s daughter – and the salvation of Texas?”

“A map to the location of a treasure – and an inventory of what we may expect to find in it,” Alfred Biddle answered firmly.

(To be continued – naturally.)