Ole Devil at San Jacinto (Old Devil Hardin Western Book 4) (10 page)

None of the party in the hollow moved or
spoke for several seconds!

In fact, Jaloux and Pierre-Quint were
incapable of speech or movement!

Even as Hallistead was about to make a
comment, the silence was broken from another direction.

Footsteps sounded, drawing the group’s
attention to two people who were coming in some haste down the
slope. In the lead, his face even more florid than it usually was,
strode the commanding officer of the New Orleans’ Wildcats. Colonel
Jules Dumoulin was followed by a small, dainty, very shapely and
beautiful blonde haired woman. Her poise and carriage lent a
somewhat seductive grace to what, on a person less well favored,
would have been a plain and serviceable black riding habit. Her
expressive features were registering a mixture of concern and
alarm.

‘
I heard a shot!’ the
colonel bellowed, coming to a smart
military halt a few feet from the
other men and went on to ask a purely rhetorical question. ‘What’s
been happening here?’

‘
It
commenced
as an affair of
honor,’ Hallistead replied, showing neither surprise at the
newcomers’ arrival nor concern over Dumoulin’s obvious disapproval.
He threw a pointed look at the still rigid and pallid faced Jaloux
and Pierre-Quint, each of whom was now very ill at ease. Then he
continued, ‘Unfortunately, colonel, there are those who appear to
have a strange conception of what such an affair entails, or when
it should be considered at an end.’

‘
An affair of honor?’ Dumoulin
repeated, as if such an idea had never entered his head. Then he
glared at each of his subordinates in succession and with a scowl
which his nephew, for one, sensed boded no good for them. However,
instead of addressing any of the trio, he swung his gaze elsewhere
and demanded harshly, ‘Is it usual in Texas to engage a man who is
partially incapacitated, Captain Hardin?’

Despite the question, Dumoulin did not
really believe the young Texan would have agreed to fight a duel
with either of the injured pair. In fact, from what he had seen of
Ole Devil during the interview in Major General Samuel Houston’s
tent, he was surprised that such an affair had happened. However,
he had asked in the hope that his own men would do the honorable
thing by correcting his apparently erroneous and unjustified
conclusion.

‘
It was against your
nephew, who is totally capacitated, that Captain Hardin was
engaged, colonel,’ Hallistead put in, before the young man in
question could do as his uncle desired. ‘These
gentlemen
were his
seconds.’

Although annoyed by the
interruption, as he had sensed that his nephew was going to make
the explanation, Dumoulin decided to restrain his inclination to
turn his wrath upon the speaker. Nobody could say exactly what
rank, if any, Hallistead held in the Republic of Texas’s
Army
,
^xxiii
but it was common knowledge that he
stood very high in the commanding general’s favor.

It was an awareness of
Hallistead’s standing with Houston that had made the colonel
accompany his wife, Corrinne, to the site of the duel. She had told
him that some of his young officers were at the Grand Hotel and, in
spite of his orders,
were expressing their intention of seeking out Ole Devil
Hardin and delivering a challenge to a duel. Arriving at the hotel,
they had learned that the confrontation had already taken place and
that the participants had set out for the confrontation. So they
had followed in the hope that Dumoulin would be in time to
intervene.

Hearing the shot, the colonel had known he
was too late to prevent the duel. However, on reaching the top of
the hollow, he had discovered with relief that nobody was hurt. He
still wanted to get to the bottom of the matter and find out why
his orders had been disobeyed. In addition, there were other
puzzling aspects that he wished to solve.

‘
Did you exchange shots with my
nephew, Captain Hardin?’ Dumoulin inquired, but in a considerably
more polite tone.

‘
Only
I
fired, sir,’ Alphonse Dumoulin declared, giving the Texian
no chance or need to speak for himself. ‘Captain Hardin
said,
“J’ai
oublie”.’

‘
Very well!’ the colonel
barked, eyeing the three now clearly worried young men
malevolently. ‘Return to our lines immediately and without speaking
to
anybody.
Consider yourselves under arrest. I’ll attend to you when I
come back.’

‘
May I say that Captain
Hardin isn’t at fault, sir?’ young Dumoulin requested, standing
fast while Jaloux and Pierre-Quint, the latter supporting his
injured limb with his other hand, were almost scuttling from the
hollow. On reaching the top, they stared ahead, then swung off at
an acute angle. ‘The challenge was on my part and he behaved in a
gentlemanly fashion throughout.
’

‘
I never thought it was otherwise,’
the colonel replied, with just a hint of softening in his stern
attitude. ‘Now get going, damn you!’

‘
Further to what the young
man said, colonel,’ Hallistead remarked, as Alphonse Dumoulin
followed his departing companions. ‘He’s lucky to be alive. Not
every man in Captain Hardin’s position would have shown a similar
restraint.
’

‘
Your
officer’s
behavior was
misguided, but exemplary, sir,
⁵
Ole Devil
elaborated. ‘I didn’t consider that the matter called for the
shedding of blood.
⁵

‘
My thanks for your
forbearance, sir,
’ Dumoulin answered, noticing how the Texian had
not alluded to his relationship with the youngster. ‘Alphonse owes
you his life.
^xxiv
The hotheaded and prideful young
fool—‘ He paused and stared up the slope in the direction taken by
the errant trio and shook his head in puzzlement. ‘Yet he would
have been the last I’d have expected to become involved in
something like this. It’s not as if he’s like most of them, brought
up to believe that the “code duello” is man’s primary reason for
existing. Just the opposite, in fact. What’s more, now I come to
think of it, he’s never been close friends, or even mixed much with
any of that crowd.’

‘
But he does have the
advantage of being
your
nephew, colonel,’ Hallistead pointed
out.

‘
And what
does
that
mean?’ Dumoulin demanded.

‘
I’m afraid that this whole affair
cuts deeper than your nephew’s hot-headed pride and misguided
loyalty to the honor of your regiment,’ the entertainer warned. ‘In
fact, at the risk of appending my nasal extremity where it has no
right of entrance, I would suggest that you avail yourself of some
reason to be rid of those two young fools before they cause some
catastrophe in the regiment.’

‘
T
wo
young fools?’ Dumoulin queried.

‘
You may also have to send
your nephew home, to avoid any suggestion of favoritism,’
Hallistead admitted. ‘But his companions should go. They were
willing to throw away his life as a means of extracting a spiteful
vengeance upon Captain Hardin
—’

‘
I thought they’d got him into it!’
Dumoulin growled.

‘
They did,’ Hallistead
confirmed. ‘Nor, even if they had given a thought to the
consequences, which is doubtful, did they care how the success of
their nefarious
—nay, infamous—scheme could cause grave
dissension, perhaps worse, in the rest of the Republic of Texas’s
Army.’

‘
I’d like an
explanation
—!’ Dumoulin stated, eyeing the entertainer
grimly.

‘
Manny dear,’ Corrinne
remarked, her voice suggesting that it too had been trained to
reach the back row of a large theatre in the days when there were
no acoustical aids to make this possible. She threw a pointed
glance out of the hollow. ‘All this is
very
interesting and, obviously, the
colonel is eager to hear more, but wouldn’t it be advisable for us
to find somewhere less—open—to continue the discussion?’

66

‘
As ever, my dove, you are
showing inestimable wisdom,’ Hallistead replied with a bow,
employing the flamboyantly gallant manner in which he always
addressed his wife. Having heard certain significant sounds beyond
the rim, he guessed what had prompted her comment. ‘While I realize
that you have many duties demanding your attention, colonel, may I
suggest that you accompany us at least as far as the Grand Hotel
and I will give you an explanation on the
way.
⁵

T will,
⁵
Dumoulin assented.
‘From what you’ve said so far, the sooner I get to the bottom of
this affair, the better for all concerned.
⁵

‘
Tommy,’ Ole Devil
drawled, as the party were walking towards the slope. ‘Go and tell
Colonel Fog, with my compliments, what’s happened, and ask him if
he’ll place the town off limits to all members of the Texas Light
Cavalry until noon tomorrow.
⁵

‘
Smart thinking,
captain,
⁵
Dumoulin praised, as the little Oriental
hurried away. ‘I’ll make sure that none of my men come into San
Felipe before we march for Harrisburg in the morning. Let’s hope
this business is all forgotten and we can get along with each other
better when the rest of the Army joins us there.
⁵

‘
Yes,
sir,
⁵
Ole Devil replied, although he knew that
if the assignment he was being sent on was a success everybody was
likely to have too much to occupy them to worry about petty
differences.

‘
And now,
sir,
⁵
the colonel said, with an air of
impatience, looking at Hallistead. ‘What have you to tell
me?
⁵

‘
Reprehensible as the
practice is,
⁵
the entertainer commenced grandiloquently.
‘There are times when eavesdropping upon a private conversation is
not only excusable, but mandatory. Such an occasion was presented
to me earlier this afternoon when, driven by the irresistible
urgings of my bodily functions, I was compelled to hide myself to
the hotel’s toilet. Whilst sitting within I heard the two young
men—‘

At that moment, having ascended from the
hollow as he was speaking, Hallistead’s explanation was brought to
an end. Ahead of his party, some distance away, stood a good sized
group of men. They had been gathering in much the same place when
Corrinne had brought Dumoulin, and their excited chatter had caused
her to make her suggestion about departing. Much to his relief, Ole
Devil noticed that they

67

all appeared to be Texians and there were no
obvious members of the New Orleans’ Volunteers present. His
misgivings and sentiments on the latter point were soon proved to
be justified.

‘
What’s been coming off
down there,
Cap’n Hardin?’ called one of the crowd, as the Texian and
his companions approached them. ‘Did you-all have to hand one of
them high-faluting dudes from New Orleans his needings?’

‘
Way they’ve been taking
on airs since they got here,
⁵
another of the
assembly continued, ‘it’s sure enough time somebody
did.’

From the rumble of concurrence that arose,
the speaker had expressed the feelings of all those around him.

A surge of anger rose within Ole Devil as he
listened to the comments and a low snort of indignation burst from
Dumoulin. Having just endangered his life by taking a calculated
risk to avert further dissension in the ranks of the Republic of
Texas’s Army, he was in no mood to see his efforts brought to
nothing by the behavior of men who had little to keep them occupied
and so were ripe for mischief.

Despite having been all too
aware of the hostility which already existed between the Texians
and the
Creoles,
Ole Devil had realized that there was no way he could avoid
fighting the duel. Alphonse Dumoulin’s pride had been so aroused by
his companions that no kind of refusal would have ended the matter.
In fact, the Texian had sensed that the youngster would have gone
as far as striking him as an added inducement if all else had
failed.

Studying Dumoulin’s nervous attitude and
attempts to delay the proceedings, Ole Devil had been confident
that he could terminate the affair without bloodshed provided it
was not aggravated. However, if he had been struck, such leniency
would have been out of the question. So he had agreed to the duel,
gambling that the youngster’s perturbation was detrimental to
accuracy. Nor, even after Hallistead had told him about the scheme
hatched by Jaloux and Pierre-Quint, had he changed his mind about
his line of action.