Lorenzo's Secret Mission Read online

  “My name is Eugenie Dubreton,” she said in a Spanish heavy with a French accent.

  I swallowed hard and shifted from foot to foot. Not too long ago, I thought of girls as silly creatures that played with dolls and gave pretend tea parties, but recently my feelings toward them had started to shift. To make matters worse, here stood a beautiful girl, and I was less than presentable.

  “I’m Lorenzo,” I finally managed to squeak out in Spanish. “Lorenzo Bannister.”

  “Enchantée, Lorenzo,” she said with a small smile. She eyed me a moment, then lowered her voice. “Are you one of Gibson’s Lambs?”

  “Who are Gibson’s Lambs?”

  “Fur traders from Pennsylvania.” She turned toward the harbor master’s board. “Are you going somewhere?”

  “Virginia.”

  “That is a long way off.”

  “My grandfather lives there. I promised my father I’d deliver a letter to him.” A dull ache came to my chest whenever I thought about Papá.

  “And so you go to Virginia?”

  “If I can find a ship.”

  “There is one leaving for Pennsylvania on October 2.”

  I looked back at the board. “It isn’t listed.”

  She gave me a sly look. “Not yet. It will be. Pennsylvania is not far from Virginia, n’estce pas?”

  If Eugenie was right about the ship, I had a month to kill. With not a Spanish pillar dollar to my name, I needed work and a place to stay.

  Rain-swollen clouds darkened the southern horizon. Bits of trash skittered by, driven by a hot wind that stung my eyes. The rising gulf breeze threatened to blow away Eugenie’s straw hat. She held it firmly on her head and clutched a cloth-covered basket a little tighter. “A storm is coming. I must hurry.”

  “Where are you headed?”

  “Over there.” She pointed to a bakery that faced the wharf.

  I watched her walk off and scolded myself for not offering to escort her.

  She took three steps, half turned, and waved for me to catch up. My heart pounded like a wild mustang’s hooves over the plain. I didn’t need a second invitation.

  About twenty feet away, a tavern sign creaked and groaned in the wind.

  “My mistress has invited Colonel De Gálvez to dinner,” she said, breaking the silence between us. “He simply adores French pastries.”

  “De Gálvez? Papá once doctored a man named Captain De Gálvez. He had two Apache spears in his chest and an arrow in his left arm. I wonder if he’s related to Colonel De Gálvez.”

  Before Eugenie could respond, a loud, drunken song drew our attention to the tavern on our left. Three soldiers, reeling drunk, burst through the door. Two wore the blue of British marines. Their companion was a redcoat. The first one was short and plump; the second hunched over as if he were carrying a heavy burden; and the third, the tallest of the lot, bore a saber scar on his cheek that made him look dangerous. They sang, “Yankee Doodle went to London, riding on a pony, stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni!”

  “Gawd!” the hunchback exclaimed. “Wish I was going to fight the Yankees.”

  “Wish I was going to Virginia with you,” the short, fat one said. “Least they speak English there.”

  British marines! A chill went through me. Logic told me to run before they seized me and pressed me into service in the British navy. My sense of honor said to stay put and protect Eugenie. I hoped they were too drunk to notice us.

  A gust of wind blew the taller soldier’s hat into a mud puddle at my feet.

  Saber-Scar looked at me and bellowed, “Hey, you! Diego! Fetch my hat!”

  “Are you addressing me?” The words popped out in a flash of anger. How many times had Papá warned me to control my temper? More than I could remember.

  “Look lively now,” the hunchback said, “and he’ll give you half-a-pence.”

  I glared defiance at him.

  “I say,” the third soldier said. “The bugger’s not going to do it.”

  Saber-Scar staggered toward me. “Fetch my hat, boy!”

  Now, only a distance of a few feet separated us.

  “Fetch it yourself.”

  Surprise and anger turned his cheeks red. “Little monkey’s barking mad. Thinks he’s our equal.”

  “And got himself a regular lady!” the hunchbacked soldier exclaimed. “Come here, milady.” He pulled Eugenie tight to him and laughed when she struggled to break free.

  “Let her go!” I lunged at the man, but my attack was thwarted by the tall soldier, who seized me and pinned my arms behind me.

  When Eugenie’s captor tried to kiss her, she drew her head back and spat in his face. Livid, the man wiped away spittle, then slapped Eugenie hard. Her cry of pain made me fly into a blind rage. I stomped on Saber-Scar’s foot. He cursed and twisted my arms upward until I thought they would snap.

  At that instant, footsteps pounded toward us. I jerked my head toward the sound, surprised and glad to see a giant in buckskin, moccasins, and coonskin cap race forward. He stood at least six-feet-six. Dark-haired, fairskinned, he was somewhere between twenty and thirty. At his side trotted a second man.

  “I despise an uneven fight,” the giant said, his face tight with anger.

  “‘Specially when it’s with the Brits,” his companion added. Tall, at least six feet, the second man appeared no more than seventeen or eighteen years old. He wore a puffy-sleeved white shirt and homespun trousers held up by suspenders.

  “Bloody hell!” the hunchback exclaimed. “Yankee Doodles!”

  At that, the giant struck the hunchback in the nose while his friend clobbered the third soldier.

  Using the element of surprise, I bent forward and flipped my captor over my back. Together we fell headlong into the puddle. Covered with mud, I scrambled up a second before Saber-Scar did and lunged at him again.

  It became a free-for-all. We jabbed, punched, kicked. I took one on the side of my head. Blood trickled into my eyes. I managed to hit Saber-Scar in the stomach with my right fist. His body jerked at the impact and doubled over. Before he could unfold himself, I gave him a twofisted blow to the back of the neck. He sailed into the street, slid on the mud, and landed next to his hat.

  Victory felt good until my hands began to hurt. I tried to shake it out. Just then, a squad of blue-jacketed Spanish soldiers rushed toward us.

  “You are all under arrest for disturbing the peace!” the officer-in-charge announced as his soldiers leveled their muskets. “Put your hands up!”

  We all raised our hands at the same time.

  The Spanish officer retrieved Eugenie’s basket and handed it to her. “Are you all right, dear?”

  “I’m fine, thank you.”

  His expression changed from tender concern to anger as his eyes moved toward us. “Take them to jail!”

  Saber-Scar uttered a terrible oath and shot me a murderous look. Under his breath, he said, “This is all your fault, Diego. I’ll get you for this if it’s the last thing I do.”

  Chapter Four

  The Spanish officer-in-charge grabbed my collar and tightened his grip. “So we meet again.”

  My heart sank. I recognized his voice. Last night on the wharf, he had put a pistol to my head.

  “Lieutenant Calderón!” Eugenie said, tugging on his jacket sleeve. “The British started it.”

  Ignoring her, he propelled me forward, across the green, toward jail, leaving the rest of his squad to deal with the others.

  No doubt Lieutenant Calderón had singled me out because he remembered the elbow jab in the stomach. He shoved me through a wrought-iron gate, down a dark, twisting staircase, and into a dungeon cell that stank like an unemptied chamber pot.

  Jail! I was in jail! I had never been in trouble with the law before. And my crime? Defending Eugenie from a band of bullies. Angry at the world for the unfairness of my arrest, I sank to the moldy straw on the dirt floor and buried my hands in my hair. I could imagine Papá looking down from heave
n and shaking his head in disappointment. How was I going to get to Virginia now?

  “Howdy, son!” The voice boomed from an enormous bulk in the corner. “Whatcha name?”

  “Lorenzo.”

  “They call me Red. ‘Cause of this.”

  In the thin light filtering through a narrow window, I could barely see the man gesture to his hair.

  Fear darted up my spine when the man unfolded himself. At fivefoot-six, I was big for my age. Even so, my cellmate towered over me. His beard, dirty and uncombed, reached to his waist. He smelled like bear grease. Like the giant who had come to my rescue, he wore buckskin and moccasins.

  The heavy wooden door opened and two men, pushed from behind, stumbled inside. My new cellmates turned out to be the men who had helped me fight Saber-Scar and his gang. The door clanged shut again.

  “Cap’n Gibson!” Red exclaimed. “Whatcha doing here?”

  The tallest man grinned at him. “Bit of a misunderstanding with the local authorities.” He turned toward me and thrust out his hand. “I’m Captain Gibson.”

  I shook his hand and introduced myself. Was this the Gibson Eugenie had referred to and was Red one of his “Lambs”? If so, a lamb was the last thing Red resembled.

  “What are you a captain of?” I asked, hoping Gibson commanded a ship bound for Virginia.

  “A militia company. This gentleman,” he said, “is my second-in-command, Lieutenant William Linn.”

  Gibson’s lieutenant offered his hand. “A pleasure to meet you.” His sandy-colored hair and pale gray-green eyes reminded me of Papá’s.

  Gibson slid down beside me and leaned his head against the rough stone wall while William Linn lowered himself to the ground and sat cross-legged across from us.

  “You lead a charmed life, son,” Gibson said.

  “I’m in jail, Captain,” I pointed out.

  “Not for long. As soon as Colonel De Gálvez hears what you did, he’ll let you go.”

  I offered him a doubtful look.

  “I bet you a Spanish pillar dollar he’ll turn you loose before nightfall.”

  “I’ll take that bet,” I said, even though I didn’t have a Spanish pillar dollar to my name.

  “That girl you rescued,” Gibson said with a victorious grin, “is Eugenie Dubreton, the Widow De Saint Maxent’s personal maid. And since Colonel De Gálvez is courting the widow …” He swirled his hand as if to say, “You figure it out.”

  “Oh.”

  Gibson laughed. “‘Oh,’ indeed. I’ll bet you could fall in an outhouse and come up smelling like roses.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “If it’s any consolation,” Gibson said, raising his voice so the people in the next cell could hear, “the Lobsterbacks are in jail, too.”

  “Lobsterbacks!” an English voice cried out. He hurled vicious insults at us.

  Gibson banged his fist on the wall. “Curb your tongue. There are gentlemen in this cell.”

  I assumed Gibson called them Lobsterbacks because most British soldiers wore scarlet coats. “Why do they call you Yankee Doodles?”

  Gibson’s mouth pulled into a tight line. “It’s a scornful song the British sing to make fun of us. It’s about an ignorant American who goes to town and makes a fool of himself. We are nothing to the British. A source of tax revenue. Stupid peasants they treat like stepchildren. When the British regulars fired on our minutemen at Lexington-Concord, they fired on British citizens.”

  I had never thought of it quite that way.

  Saber-Scar’s words echoed in my ears. “Thinks he’s our equal.” I had spoken to them in English. By my accent, they knew I was a British subject, a fellow citizen. And it hadn’t mattered at all.

  “Show Lorenzo your back,” Gibson said to Red.

  Without question, Red pulled the shirt over his head. He twisted toward the light.

  Nausea gripped me when I saw his back, seamed and ridged with scars from his neck to his waistline. Scarcely any of his original skin remained.

  “Red deserted from the British navy after they flogged him.” Gibson’s expression held a deep sadness. “The British will hang him if they ever catch him.”

  “I’m an American,” Red said. “Ain’t gonna be no man’s slave.”

  My mouth went dry. I didn’t blame him for deserting. Nor did I care what Red might or might not have done. No one deserved to be beaten so viciously.

  Gibson smiled thinly. “You fought like a gator out there. Next time I’m in a fight, I want you on my side.”

  The key scraped in the lock and the door swung open. In one bound, the four of us—Red, Gibson, Linn, and I— leaped to our feet.

  Lieutenant Calderón, the man that arrested us, stepped inside. He was tall and slender, not nearly as muscular as I, about nineteen or twenty years old. Square-jawed, with large brown eyes, he was pale, like most Spanish bluebloods. A long, straight nose dominated his face.

  Behind him stood a round-faced man who looked important in a blue jacket heavy with gold braiding. He wore a white waistcoat and white knee breeches tucked into black knee boots. His sharp, black eyes slid from Red, to Gibson, to Linn, but remained the longest on me. His scowl deepened. “You. Step forward.”

  Chapter Five

  Feeling like a criminal, I did as ordered. I ran a nervous hand through my mud-caked hair. “Yes, sir?”

  Lieutenant Calderón took a menacing step toward me. “This gentleman is Colonel De Gálvez, captain general of Louisiana, you dolt! You will bow and address him as ‘Your Excellency.’”

  I blinked up at the colonel. Was this the man my father doctored five years ago? I saw no flicker of recognition in his eyes. I bowed low. “Your Excellency.”

  “Were you in a brawl with guards from the British embassy?” the colonel demanded.

  I grimaced. “Yes, Your Excellency.”

  “Forevermore!” Colonel De Gálvez’s eyes bored a hole in me. “You thought you could take on three soldiers all by yourself?”

  Gibson spoke up. “He was defending Eugenie’s honor.”

  “Yes. I know. She told me.”

  “Yes, sir.” Gibson continued on. “Fighting all three of them himself when we chanced upon him.”

  That wasn’t exactly how it happened. Saber-Scar had my arms pinned when Gibson and Linn came along, but I thought it best not to contradict Gibson.

  “I can’t thank you enough, gentlemen,” Colonel De Gálvez said in a suddenly choked voice. “You are free to go.”

  Gibson whispered over my shoulder, “You owe me a Spanish pillar dollar.”

  His remark brought a smile to my face. My smile widened to see Lieutenant Calderón slap his gloves against his thighs in exasperation over our release. He wheeled around and stalked away.

  Gibson and Linn made a motion to go, but Red didn’t move a muscle.

  “You, too, Red,” Colonel De Gálvez said.

  Red hurried out with William Linn.

  Colonel De Gálvez signaled for me and Gibson to remain. His gaze met mine. “Eugenie told me your name is Lorenzo Bannister. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, Your Excellency.”

  “What is your father’s name?”

  “Jack Bannister, Your Excellency.”

  The colonel hunched down to eye level with me. “Dr. Bannister?”

  “Yes, Your Excellency.”

  “Lorenzo,” Colonel De Gálvez said in a surprised voice. “I didn’t recognize you. You’ve grown. Eugenie said you were trying to get on a ship going to Virginia.” His expression grew stern. “Does your father know you’re running away to sea?”

  “No, sir, he doesn’t. I mean …” My gaze fell. “My father is dead.”

  Colonel De Gálvez drew a ragged breath. “I held Jack in high esteem. I am grieved to learn of his passing.”

  My throat tightened. I was proud to hear a man of Colonel De Gálvez’s stature praise my father.

  “How does a gentleman’s son come to be in … such a state?” He seemed at a
loss for words to describe my condition.

  “My father was taking me to my grandfather in Virginia, but we had to stop in San Antonio when he became too ill to travel on. He’s buried there.” At that point, my voice cracked. I swallowed hard and pressed my lips together.

  For months, Papá couldn’t work. With no money coming in and expenses for his medical care mounting, we soon spent our savings. Whenever I could, I worked on a friend’s cattle ranch to earn extra money.

  Colonel De Gálvez laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Lorenzo. When did Jack pass away?”

  “Two weeks ago. I set out for Virginia after his funeral.”

  “Through Indian territory?” Gibson asked in an awefilled tone. “Was anyone with you?”

  “No, sir.”

  Gibson’s face reflected a sudden, deep interest. “You were all alone? What did you eat?”

  “Squirrel, rabbit, dove. I shot whatever I could find and broiled it over the fire. Each night I slept beneath the stars, and each morning I started out before dawn. I made good time until my mare stepped in a hole and broke her leg about a hundred miles outside San Antonio. The rest of the trip was on foot.”

  “Forevermore.” Admiration tinged Colonel De Gálvez’s voice. “First Cabeza de Vaca walked across Texas, and now you.”

  Captain Gibson looked equally impressed. “In the summer, no less.”

  The colonel gently squeezed my shoulder. “If it weren’t for your father, I wouldn’t be alive today. I owe him a debt of gratitude I have never sufficiently repaid. Seeing you to Virginia gives me the chance to do that. However, I cannot in good conscience send you by ship. During wartime, travel on the high seas is dangerous. British warships are all along the Atlantic coast. I know of a better way to get you to Virginia.” In the long pause that followed, his gaze drifted to Gibson, who bobbed his head in slow, silent agreement.

  “Let’s retire to my office and discuss this,” the colonel suggested.

  We headed upstairs to the jail’s top floor.

  A few minutes later, Colonel De Gálvez settled into a plush armchair behind a giant mahogany desk and waved me into a slatted chair across from it. “He’s all yours, Captain.”