The two women who worked in the Freedmen’s Bureau came at eight. The reverend told them what had happened and sent them home. Sheriff Bubba Boyce did not come until after nine. L.D. had taken a chair from the office and was sitting on the porch.
“Who you, boy?” the sheriff asked, scowling down at him and his bluejacket.
“I am Sergeant L.D. Lewis, 29th Connecticut. I work now with the Freedmen’s Bureau.”
“I hear that you’all had some shooting here last night. Where’s Lomax at?” He puffed as he climbed off his horse. His large belly bulged over his gun belt.
Lomax heard the voices and came out of the church.
“Where at is the body?” the sheriff asked.
“Inside. I did not want to leave it in the street.”
“Fair enough. Do you know who it is?”
Before the reverend could answer, L.D. broke in.
“Hard to know who it was, sheriff, seeing he was wearing a hood.”
The sheriff looked baffled. “Nigger in a hood—” His eyes narrowed as realization hit. He stamped into the church and bent over the body, reached down and pulled the hood off.
“Well I’ll be double God-damned!”
He was back an instant later, loosening his gun in its holster as he shouted.
“Do you know who is dead in there on the floor? That is no other than Mr. Jefferson Davis himself, that’s who it is! Now what in hell happened here last night?”
“I heard shooting—” Lomax said, but L.D. stopped him with a raised hand.
“I’ll tell the sheriff, reverend, since I was here in the church at the time. It was after midnight when I heard the horses. Six mounted men stopped outside, all of them wearing hoods just like the other one in there. They were leading another horse with a Negro in the saddle. He was tied up. They said they were going to hang him and burn the church. They started to, and that’s when I called out for them to stop. That’s when they began shooting at me. I fired back in self-defense. That one fell off his horse. Another rider was injured, but he left with the others. The Negro ran away. I had never seen him before. That’s the way it happened, sheriff.”
Sheriff Boyce’s hand was still on his revolver, his voice was empty of any warmth. “Where’s the gun at, boy?”
“Inside. Shall I get it?”
“No. Just point it out to me.”
He let L.D. go first. Followed him inside to the back room. L.D. pointed and Boyce grabbed up the rifle. Checked that there was a cartridge in the breech, then pointed it at L.D. “You’re coming with me. To jail.”
L.D. turned to Lomax and said, “Would you mind coming with us, reverend? After we get to jail I would appreciate it if you would send a telegram to the Freedmen’s Bureau, telling them what happened here.”
They walked side by side down the dusty street. The sheriff followed on his horse, the rifle pointed down at them.
THE SECRET REVEALED
The seaport was ringed with defenses. Don Ambrosio O’Higgins knew that because in the past weeks he had laboriously worked his way completely around Salina Cruz. When he, and his Indian guide, Ignacio, had probed the gun positions and rifle pits to the north of the fishing village they had found no chink in the armor, no weak spot that might be attacked. In desperation they had gone to an Indian fishing village on the Pacific shore and had paid Yankee silver for one of the dugouts. Then, on a dark night, they had rowed out to sea to clear the harbor mouth, risking disaster as they rode the big Pacific rollers. They had made a successful landing on the shore south of the port, and a nocturnal investigation of the defenses proved them to be equal — if not superior — to the defenses north of the seaport. Exhausted and depressed O’Higgins made his way back to their starting point. They were pulling the dugout ashore when Ignacio touched his finger to O’Higgins’s lips and pulled him down quietly into the shelter of the jungle undergrowth. His whispered voice was barely audible.
“Enemy under the trees. I smell them.”
The British were getting bolder now that they were secure behind their impregnable positions, and were beginning to send out patrols at night.
“Gurkhas?” O’Higgins breathed the question. He and his Indians had great respect for the little men from Nepal who were as good as — or even better than — they were in the jungle.
“No. The others. Not the blancos.”
They must be Sepoys, or from another native Indian regiment.
“What should we do?”