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

Showing no sign of realizing what he had
done, Mannen came forward to where his cousin and the Pierre-Quint
brothers were sprawled. From the way he was behaving he was so
aroused by the indignities heaped upon him by Ole Devil that he did
not intend to let the matter rest. Apparently he was more concerned
with continuing to vent his injured feelings than in watching what
he was doing. Going past the table, still moving at speed, he
stepped on Henri’s right hand as he bent to hoist Ole Devil
erect.

‘
I
warned you-all not to keep a-riling me!’ the redhead yelped,
pivoting to swing and push his cousin towards the bar. In doing so,
he ground Henri’s fingers between the sole of his boot and the
floor. Ignoring the screech of torment his action elicited, he went
on, ‘Now I’m going to whomp you good!’

Behind the two Texians, the
discomfit
ed
Creoles
started to recover from their initial shock. Andre Jaloux
sat nursing his right wrist and moaning softly. In falling, his
brother’s head had hit the floor hard enough to stun him. From the
condition of Gerard’s face, he would have difficulty in aiming a
pistol for a few days unless he was able to do so with his left
eye.

Hoisting himself painfully into a sitting
position, Henri Pierre-Quint stared at the blood which was running
from three cracked fingernails. He realized that his injuries would
prevent him from holding a pistol, or a sword, until they healed.
Gasping to replenish his lungs, Mondor levered himself up with the
aid of a chair’s seat. Flopping on to it, he felt gingerly his
right eye. It was already discolored and starting to close.

Unharmed, apart from his dignity, Bardeche
rose hurriedly. Without waiting for Marcel Pierre-Quint, who was
also standing up and uninjured, he strode to where Ole Devil and
Mannen had come to a halt near the bar. Face dark with anger,
Pierre-Quint followed his captain. Each of them had the same idea
in mind. Fist fighting was not their intention. They meant to issue
challenges for formal duels.

Things did not work out the way
desired by the
Creoles
.

As Bardeche approached, Ole
Devil wrenched himself free from his cousin’s grasp. Having done
so, he aimed a blow at the burly
redhead. There was nothing somnolent about
the way Mannen stepped aside, causing Ole Devil to miss him. The
evasion proved to be unfortunate for Bardeche. Although he saw the
Texian’s right fist rushing at him, he failed to duplicate the
redhead’s avoidance. Struck with considerable violence on the right
cheekbone, he reeled backwards. Blood oozed from the gash opened by
the hard knuckles as he tripped and collapsed on to his rump once
more.

Reaching into his jacket for the glove he
carried, meaning to employ it for the traditional challenge,
Pierre-Quint was startled by Bardeche’s mishap. He came to a halt,
but failed to remove the concealed hand. If he had been longer in
Texas, he would have appreciated that his behavior might be
misconstrued.

‘
Don’t you-all go pulling
no pistol on me!’ Mannen bellowed, having seen the
Creole’s
action reflected in
the mirror behind the bar.

Allowing Pierre-Quint no
opportunity to correct his erroneous conclusion, the burly
redhead swiveled
around. Still displaying the kind of alacrity which had
characterized
all his responses once he was aroused from his state of
sloth, he caught the
Creole’s
right wrist with both his hands. To the
recipient of his attentions, it
felt as if the limb was enfolded between the steel jaws of a
bear-trap. Although no weapon emerged as Mannen snatched
Pierre-Quint’s hand into view, he seemed unable to halt the line of
action upon which he had embarked. Instead, pivoting to his left,
he swung his captive in a half circle.

Almost matching Ole Devil in
height and build, the young
Creole
was no better able than he had been to resist the
burly Texian’s enormous strength. So Pierre-Quint found himself
being hauled to his right like the weight at the end of a pendulum.
Then, abruptly, his direction was reversed with a wrench which
caused such severe pain that he wondered if his arm had been torn
from its socket. A shrill howl burst from his lips. Instantly, he
was released. Twirling away almost gracefully, he struck an
unoccupied table and collapsed, very close to fainting, across the
top of it.

Up to that point, none of the
room’s other occupants had offered to intervene and help quell the
disturbance. Watching some of the
Creoles
begin to rise, old ‘Deaf’ Smith made a
gesture to one of the bartenders. Even though no word passed
between them, the man clearly appreciated what was expected of him.
Reaching under the counter, he produced a short blunderbuss which
he passed to the white-haired chief of scouts. As Smith was taking
it, his two companions began to draw the pistols that were thrust
through their waist belts.

‘
Hold hard there, blast
ye!’ Smith commanded, swinging the blunderbuss towards
the
center of the room and hauling back its hammer to fully
cocked. ‘This here ain’t no seemly bee-hav-ior for officers ’n’
gentlemen.’

Strangely, considering the
prevailing conditions, Smith and his men appeared to be aligning
their weapons at the
Creoles
rather than in the direction of the actual instigators of
the disturbance. To Andre Jaloux, Bardeche, Mondor and Henri
Pierre-Quint, it seemed that each personally was being menaced by
the heavy caliber pistols, or the bell-mouthed muzzle of something
far more effective at close quarters.

Equally peculiar was the behavior of the two
Texians who had been responsible for the fracas. Although they were
apparently being ignored by the trio of scouts, neither of them
appeared to want to continue hostilities against the other.

‘
My apologies, Colonel
Smith,
’ Ole Devil said, striding smartly across the room to pick
up his hat. ‘With your permission, Mr. Blaze and I will
leave.’

‘
It’d likely be’s well,’ the old scout
declared.

‘
Just a moment!’ Bardeche
put in, taking his hand from the already badly swollen area where
he had been struck
and trying to focus through an eye which resembled
a Blue Point oyster peeping out of its partially open shell. He
made as if to advance, but changed his mind as Smith’s borrowed
blunderbuss singled him out with disconcerting accuracy. ‘My
friends and I have been assaulted—’

‘
It wasn’t except by
accident
,’ Mannen Blaze protested, relapsing into his earlier
attitude of somnolence and ambling over to retrieve his head
gear.

‘
That doesn’t make any difference!’
Bardeche spat out indignantly and his companions muttered their
concurrence. ‘We’ve been assaulted and we demand
satisfaction.’

‘
Well now,’
‘Deaf’ Smith
drawled, looking from one to another of the offended party. ‘That’s
right truthful. ‘’Cepting, way you’ve all been hurt, there’s none
of you’ll be able to go fighting no duels for a spell.’

‘
Well,
Captain Hardin,’ greeted Major General Samuel Houston, studying the
ramrod straight young figure standing on the other side of the
rickety table which served as a desk in the big wall tent he was
using as his quarters and office. Unlike the members of the
Provisional Government, he cared little for his personal comfort.
‘I don’t suppose I need to tell you why I’ve sent for you, do
I?’

‘
No, sir,’ Ole Devil Hardin
admitted.

Just over an hour had elapsed
since the disturbance at the Grand Hotel. Exerting his authority,
backed by the solid argument of his borrowed blunderbuss,
‘Deaf’ Smith had
insisted that the two parties concerned should not remain in each
other’s presence. So Ole Devil and Lieutenant Mannen Blaze had
taken their departure while the injuries of the six
Creoles
were receiving
treatment.

Once outside the building, instead of
continuing their quarrel, the two cousins appeared to have
forgotten their differences. They were on the best of terms by the
time they had reached the Texas Light Cavalry’s tent lines and the
subject of the mounted drill was not mentioned. Nor, when the
captain had given instructions which would involve his
lethargic-looking lieutenant in some strenuous activity, did Mannen
repeat his earlier complaints or show any sign of shirking the
duty. Rather he had set about it with a lively cheerfulness which
seemed at odds with his general behavior. It was noticeable that
the men to whom he began to issue orders showed no surprise over
the way he was acting.

Neither Ole Devil nor his cousin
had been particularly surprised when the former had received a
summons to report immediately to the General’s headquarters.
Leaving Mannen to carry out the preparations he had ordered,
the
captain
made his way to Houston. Having anticipated the summons, he had
tidied up his appearance and the Manton pistol now rode in its loop
on his belt.

If the young Texian had any
doubts over why he had been summoned, they ended upon his arrival.
As he had expected, on entering the big wall tent, he found that
General Houston was not alone.
‘Deaf’ Smith was standing alongside Ole Devil’s
uncle, Colonel Edward Fog. Although they had not met, the Texian
had no need to exercise his mental powers greatly to deduce the
identity of the fourth man at the General’s table-desk.

Something above medium height,
stoutish, in his early fifties, with the blue-jowled features of a
Provencal Frenchman, there was little of the
Creoles’
dandified elegance about him,
although he was dressed in the same
Creole
fashion. For all that, he was the
commanding officer of the New Orleans’ Wildcats; Colonel Jules
Dumoulin. He had a hard-bitten, disciplined appearance which told
of military experience and suggested he had been a professional
soldier for a number of years. There was nothing in his expression
or attitude to suggest what he might be thinking about the injuries
suffered by his subordinates.

However, Ole Devil’s main attention was
reserved for the person to whom he had come to report.

Big, powerfully built, with
longish and almost white hair, the commanding general of the
Republic of Texas’s Army made an imposing figure even when seated
in such simple and primitive surroundings. He was the kind of man
who had no need of pomp and splendor to enhance his authority, his
personality did all that was necessary in that respect. Although
his seamed, lined and Indian-dark face rarely showed emotion, his
surprisingly young-looking blue eyes suggested a deep inner
strength. There was something about him, the
indefinable
—yet instantly recognizable—aura of one who was born with
the gift of leadership.

Since the withdrawal to the east
had commenced, Houston had packed away his uniform’s formal dress
tunic and black bicorn chapeau. They had been replaced by a waist
long, fringed buckskin jacket, a tightly rolled scarlet silk
bandana, an open necked dark blue worsted shirt and a broad brimmed
white ‘planter’s’ hat, which were better suited to his needs. As
his tan colored riding breeches and
shining black Wellington boots
^xiii
were purely functional, he still
retained them.

One point had struck Ole Devil
as soon as he had entered the tent. Although he was aware of why he
had been summoned, the General was bare headed. The hat lay with a
brace of pistols and a saber on the bed in the rear portion of the
structure
.

‘
Is
that
all
you have to say?’ demanded the smallish, yet excellently
developed blond haired Colonel Fog, when his nephew relapsed into
silence after the brief answer.

‘
No excuse, sir,’ Ole Devil replied,
staring straight ahead.

‘
Blast it!’
Colonel Fog
ejaculated. ‘I’ll expect some better reason than that.’

‘
No
excuse, sir!’ Ole Devil repeated, conscious that Dumoulin was
watching him.

‘
Aw shucks, now, Ed,’ Smith protested
placatingly. ‘Like I told the Colonel here, all of those boys of
his’n got hurt accidental like. Mind you, I can’t say’s how I
blames young Mannen for getting riled, way Devil here was a-riding
him. Trouble being, he’s so all-fired big, he just don’t know his
own strength.’

‘
And, as I stated, I am
willing to accept that explanation,
’
the Frenchman went on, his tones harsh
without being in any way hostile. ‘The whole affair was lamentable
and should never have happened. However, as it did, we can do
nothing except try to ensure it goes no further.’

‘
I’m in complete agreement
with
that
Colonel,’ Ole Devil’s uncle stated grimly. ‘And I can
assure you it will not as far as the Texas Light Cavalry is
concerned.’ His gaze turned to his nephew and he continued,
‘Company “C” is to be detached on special duty, Captain Hardin.
They will leave tomorrow at dawn.’