Ole Devil at San Jacinto (Old Devil Hardin Western Book 4) Read online

  Chairs went flying and crockery or glasses were discarded, regardless of their value, as the occupants of the marquee rose hurriedly and in alarm.

  None of the party were sure of what had happened, but all sensed that it presaged some kind of danger. Every man’s concern was to find a safe place, rather than trying to discover who—or what—was threatening him. So each adopted his own method of trying to evade whatever further peril might be forthcoming. The erstwhile relaxed and jovial group disintegrated into individual bodies flinging themselves away from the no longer attractive open flaps in the wall.

  Displaying the kind of rapid thought and action which had helped bring him to his position of power and authority, Santa Anna wasted neither a second nor a motion when the guests who had been between himself and the unseen menace sprang in opposite directions and left him exposed. Without worrying about the damage he would inflict upon his highly prized property, he overturned the table and flung himself flat on the ground behind it. While the wood was thin and would offer only minimal protection, he was at least hidden from the mysterious assailant’s view.

  El Presidente had not taken his evasive action any too soon!

  Allowing the second arrow to slip forward through his grasp as soon as the first one was in flight, Tommy nocked it to the string. He was trained to shoot almost as rapidly as the legendary Wasa Daichera, and, although he was under the stresses of being in combat, the conditions were not so exacting as when the great Samurai kyudoka had performed the famous feat at the Sanju-San-Gen Do temple in the city of Kyoto.

  In spite of hearing startled shouts rising from the tents occupied by Santa Anna’s bodyguard, and the sounds of sentries raising the alarm from their posts on the other three sides of the marquee, Tommy refused to be flustered. He drew and, changing his point of aim to attain a flat trajectory, loosed the shaft. This time there was only a savage hiss which seemed almost muted when compared with the ear-piercing screech of the hiki-ya. Flying almost parallel to the ground, the arrow struck just above the center of the table which was sheltering el Presidente. It punched through the wood and flew on, but its momentum was so reduced that it was stopped as the three hawk feathers of the fletching struck the canvas of the wall at the back of the marquee.

  Pandemonium reigned both outside and within Santa Anna’s quarters, but none of his guests offered to leave and investigate. The protection offered by the striped walls of the tent might be inadequate, but at least it served to keep those inside concealed from the archer in the darkness.

  As he saw the first of the sentries run around the end of the marquee, Tommy reached for another arrow. Pure chance rather than deliberate intent made him select another wata-kusi. Clearly a man of quick thought and discernment, the Dragoon started to make for the wagons instead of going to the open flaps to ask for instructions from his superiors.

  Once more, without needing to look down, Tommy went through the process of fitting the nock to the string and supporting the shaft of the arrow against the bow’s handle by resting it on the base of his left thumb. By the time he had completed his draw and aim, the sentry was close enough to be able to see him. Skidding to a halt and giving a startled exclamation, the soldier started to raise his carbine.

  Forward darted the little Oriental’s arrow. It took the Dragoon in the right breast before he could raise his weapon high enough for use. A scream of agony burst from him as he twirled helplessly round. The arrow had impaled him so thoroughly that only the fletching protruded from the front of his torso and the wata-kusi point extended far behind his back. The carbine slipped from his hands and they clutched spasmodically at the feathered remnant of the missile which was all he could reach. Sprawling to the ground, he lay shrieking and writhing in torment for a few seconds before becoming limp and motionless.

  Turning as he was nocking yet a fourth arrow, this time tipped by a yanagi-ha point, Tommy ran back to where Ole Devil was waiting. Unlike the guard whom he had replaced, the Texian was watching his front and holding the Browning in a position of readiness. As his companion approached, he turned his head for the first time and allowed himself a brief, inquiring glance.

  ‘It worked,’ the little Oriental said, but did not offer any further explanation. Nor did Ole Devil waste time by requesting one. Instead, he set off with Tommy in the direction of the creek. They went so swiftly and silently that nobody noticed them taking their departure. Behind them, all was confusion.

  From various points in the encampment, regimental buglers were blowing the call to arms and drummers were helping to sound the alarm.

  Men bellowed questions which nobody troubled to answer, or shouted orders that were ignored.

  On the picket lines, particularly those of the Popocatapetl Dragoons—who were closest to the disturbance—the startled horses were demanding attention.

  Neither of the remaining Dragoons on sentry duty, nor such of the kitchen staff who arrived to investigate, showed the grasp of the situation and the initiative of the man whose diligence had been rewarded by impalement with an arrow, Instead of attempting to seek out the intruders, they did nothing more constructive than congregate at the entrance to the marquee and goggle at the occupants, waiting to be told what to do. No instructions would be given until it was far too late for them to be of any use.

  So it was no wonder that Ole Devil and Tommy made good their escape without encountering the slightest difficulty or the need to use their weapons again that night.

  But had the mission achieved its purpose?

  Chapter Twelve – Get Whoever Tried to Kill Me

  Apparently, despite the forethought and skill with which Tommy Okasi had caused Presidente Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna to be exposed before his bow and arrow, the plan had failed.

  Raising his head after several seconds had passed without any further missiles bursting through his inadequate shelter, el Presidente found himself looking at the hole about an inch in diameter which had not been in the center of the table when he had overturned it. A shudder ran through him as he realized how close he had been to death. The thought put motion into his limbs.

  Attaining a kneeling posture, Santa Anna peered with great caution around the edge of the table. He did not care for the sights which met his eyes. Passing over the broken china and shattered wine glasses on the ground, his cold stare took in the retainers and sentries who were talking and gesticulating at the entrance to the marquee. Then he glared from side to side, noticing the inactivity of his guests. Without leaving his place of concealment, he began to give vent to the wrath aroused by the discovery that nothing was being done to avenge his narrow escape from death.

  ‘Get outside, all of you!’ el Presidente thundered, but he did not offer to rise and set an example. ‘Move lively, damn you, or I’ll make you wish you had. Go and get whoever tried to kill me!’

  All the assembled staff officers exchanged alarmed glances. Their military duties were so exalted of late that it was only rarely any of them were called upon to face physical danger. In fact, with a few exceptions, they had even avoided taking more than a long range supervisory participation throughout the siege at the Alamo Mission. So not one of the party was eager to go forth and brave the dangers of the night.

  For several seconds, the guests’ fear of the unknown menace outside—induced in part by the psychological effect of the hiki-ya point’s eerie passage through the marquee—warred against their knowledge of how virulent their superior’s wrath could be when something happened to arouse his ire.

  The latter won!

  El Presidente’s subordinates decided, without consultation between them, that it would be more politic to take their chances by obeying him, than face the consequences of a refusal. They also realized that, even if the mysterious assailant had not been frightened away now the alarm had been raised, he would be confused by the multiplicity of targets that a mass exodus would present. So, with one exception, they made for the open flaps. On passing through, each tried to keep as
much of his own person as possible concealed behind some other member of the group.

  Laudable as such motives might be, they were unnecessary. The intruders against whom the precautions were being taken were already some distance away and had no intention of returning.

  ‘Are you all right, Your Excellency?’ asked the guest who had not joined in the departure, hurrying towards the table with an air of solicitude. ‘You weren’t hit, were you, patron?’

  Plump to the point of obesity, bespectacled and perspiring freely, for all the speaker’s military raiment, he did not have the look of a hardened fighting soldier. Nor did his grimy hands and slovenly appearance give any clue to his exact status as a member of el Presidente’s staff. However, his bearing as he approached his irate superior, was that of a man who was solely concerned with carrying out his primary duty and so had no time to waste on less important tasks. Although he was also motivated by a reluctance to go outside where danger might still be lurking, he was in fact performing his main function by inquiring after Santa Anna’s state of health.

  Since the march to crush the rebellion of the ‘foreign land thieves’ had been halted in January for two weeks, due to el Presidente—who reserved the right to make all decisions, major or minor xliii —being bedridden with dysentery, he had come to appreciate the importance, where his own welfare was concerned at any rate, of skilled medical attendance. So he had appointed Doctor Nabarro Reyes, who had finally cured his illness, as his personal physician.

  ‘I’m all right,’ Santa Anna said gruffly, standing up. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Somebody shot this at you,’ Reyes explained, having looked around to find some further excuse for remaining in the marquee. Scuttling across to the rear wall, he pulled Tommy Okasi’s missile from it. Paying no attention to the way in which the point had slit a far wider gash than might have been expected from the size of the hole in the top of the table, he returned to his employer. ‘It’s an arrow!’

  ‘I can see that, damn you!’ el Presidente spat out, his temper far from improved as he surveyed the damage done to the embellishments which had been on the table. Reaching to take the proffered weapon, he glanced at it, started to look away, then stared with greater intensity. ‘Madre de Dios!’

  There was, Santa Anna considered, good cause for the startled exclamation and the even more profane comments with which he was about to follow it up. While he could not claim to have any extensive knowledge of archery, he was able to appreciate the implication of what he was seeing and he did not care for it. Clearly whoever had tried to kill him was a person of diabolical ingenuity.

  ‘Doctor!’ yelled the voice of Ramon Caro, el Presidente’s ferret-faced and much disliked little private secretary, before the profanity could commence, ‘One of the sentries has an arrow through him.’

  ‘Get out here quick, man!’ came the harder tones of the dandified commanding officer of the Popocatapetl Dragoons’ bodyguard, Colonel Juan Almonte. xliv ‘He’s still alive and needs you.’

  ‘Come on!’ Santa Anna ordered, relying too much upon the loyalty of his bodyguard to let it appear that he had delayed the doctor from attending to one of their number who was wounded. Striding towards the entrance, still carrying the arrow, he went on thunderously, ‘Hurry up, blast you. I want his life saved.’

  Which was true enough, although not altogether from purely humanitarian motives. El Presidente was very interested in finding out the identity of his would-be assassin and the injured sentry might be able to provide the requisite information.

  Even in the faint glow of light from the marquee which extended as far as the stricken sentry, Reyes needed only a single glance to tell him that he would be exceedingly fortunate if he could do as his superior ordered. Despite his medical capability being somewhat limited, considering the high position he was holding, the doctor had been involved in Indian attacks on two occasions. So he knew enough about dealing with wounds inflicted by arrows and he doubted whether there was any hope for the soldier.

  The arrival of the Dragoons’ guard commander carrying a lantern produced extra illumination by which Reyes was able to confirm his summation. Studying the head of the shaft which had impaled the sentry, the doctor’s far from active mind noticed that it was not a kind he had previously seen. For all that, he was sufficiently intelligent to deduce its diabolical purpose. He could now also understand why Santa Anna had displayed such agitation and consternation on being handed the identical arrow he had taken from the wall of the marquee.

  Although Reyes would never learn the true facts, he was examining an exceptionally lethal variety of a Japanese kyudoka’s arsenal. xlv The wata-kusi point fully justified its name, ‘tear flesh’, being equipped with barbs of a remarkably effective kind. They were movable, laying close to the shaft during the discharge and flight. This allowed them to produce a wide gape, but cut down wind resistance to a minimum. Once inside the victim’s body, they opened when there was any attempt made to draw out the arrow. It was impossible to remove them in such a manner without increasing the severity of the injury.

  ‘Get on with it, damn you!’ Santa Anna growled, conscions of the growing circle of onlookers and wanting to impress at least some of them by his concern for the stricken sentry. ‘Do something to help the poor man.’

  ‘I—I’ll have to cut the head off and pull the shaft out the way it went in, Your Excellency,’ the doctor announced, with the anxious deference of one who was anticipating his failure to carry out the wishes of a ruthless dictator. ‘But I’m afraid doing it won’t save him. In fact, I doubt whether he’ll even recover consciousness for long enough to receive the last rites no matter what I do.’

  ‘All right, doctor,’ Santa Anna answered in a milder tone, although he had plans other than those of allowing a priest to attend the sentry if the soldier should regain consciousness. He gestured with the arrow he was holding. ‘Do what you can.’

  ‘Name of the Holy Mother!’ General Vincente Filisola croaked in his native Italian tongue, staring from the missile in the sentry’s body to the one in his superior’s hand. Then he continued in Spanish, as befitted his office as el Presidente’s stodgy and generally unimaginative second-in-command. ‘If that had hit you after going through the table—’

  ‘Yes!’ Santa Anna put in testily, having no desire to be reminded of unpleasant consequences which he had already envisaged.

  Flying from a greater distance than the arrow which had impaled the sentry, and with the table acting as a further impediment, the viciously barbed head of the missile would almost certainly have remained inside el Presidente’s body instead of emerging on the other side. In which case, if—taking the size of the hole it had made in the table as a guide—Reyes had tried to draw it out, the two inches long, needle-sharp prongs would have extended and reduced any slender chance Santa Anna might have had of surviving the wound.

  Not only Filisola had noticed the nature of the arrowheads. Those of the crowd who could not see were informed of the terrible devices by their more favorably positioned companions. There was some pushing and jostling as the less fortunate onlookers attempted to obtain a better view.

  ‘Don’t just stand there gaping and chattering, damn you!’ Santa Anna bellowed, glaring around him furiously and waving his arrow-filled fist towards the wounded Dragoon. ‘Go and catch the man who did this.’

  Goaded into activity by his superior’s wrathful demeanor and words, Almonte spat orders at the members of the bodyguard who had gathered. Told to start searching beyond the two wagons from between which the arrows must have been discharged, the guard commander reluctantly led several unenthusiastic men away. Having seen and deduced the purpose of the wata-kusi points, without being aware of such a device’s name, none of them relished the prospect of hunting in the darkness for a person carrying a weapon with so diabolical a potential.

  Equally eager to avoid incurring el Presidente’s opprobrium, the crowd scattered with rapidity. Ostensibly having the intenti
on of informing the rest of the encampment of what had happened, but really wishing to put themselves in a safer locale for the time being, the dinner guests hurried away. Even Ramon Caro, who usually stayed close to his employer on the pretext that his services as secretary would be available if required, left with the rest. Taking the hint from their betters’ behavior, the various minor members of Santa Anna’s retinue who had gathered returned to their interrupted occupations.

  Within a minute of el Presidente having made his displeasure and wish for action known, he had achieved his desire. Apart from himself, the only one who remained from the dinner party was Doctor Reyes kneeling by the critically wounded soldier and doing what little was possible to succor him.

  ‘He is coming round, Your Excellency,’ the physician announced with relief, although aware that the recovery was not the result of his own doing. ‘Perhaps he’ll soon be able to answer your questions.’

  Doctor Nabarro Reyes might not have been the world’s most competent medical practitioner but he possessed a reasonable amount of discernment. So he was aware of why his patron was concerned over the possibility of the sentry’s life being—if not saved—prolonged.

  ~*~

  ‘From the sound of things,’ Lieutenant Paul Dimmock remarked, looking at his commanding officer and no longer able to restrain his impatience to learn if the mission had been successful. ‘You-all stirred up a regular hornet’s nest back there.’

  ‘You might say that,’ Ole Devil Hardin replied, sitting on his opened out bedroll with the Browning Slide Repeating rifle by his side. ‘El Presidente’s alive and well, but not in the best of spirits or temper unless I miss my guess.’

  In spite of having crossed the creek in safety, the captain and Tommy Okasi had not been allowed to finish their journey without interruption. Nor had they expected to be able to do so. While they had been able to approach the encampment without arousing curiosity, they had realized that—under the prevailing conditions—the motives of anybody seen going in the opposite direction would be suspect. Before they had covered a hundred yards, they had been compelled to seek the shelter offered by a small clump of bushes. Their purpose in hiding was two-fold. Firstly they had wanted to avoid inviting the attentions of the sentries and the foragers who were returning to investigate the disturbance. Secondly and of equal importance, they had also hoped to learn the results achieved by their risky expedition.