Chapter 14
Lupita came to the rectory just after nightfall.
Morales brought her in through the back.
She was young, no more than twenty-four, with her sister's dark eyes and a quickness about her.
Lupita Hidalgo had gotten out of the hacienda the same way she had managed everything else at Hacienda Vega these past weeks, by being the kind of person no one thought to watch closely enough.
She sat down at the rectory table across from Will and Isum and did not waste any time.
"You were at the hacienda today," she said in Spanish.
"I was," Will said.
"Elena saw you at the well. She told me your name."
Will shook his head slightly. "Yes, I'm Asa Smith, a good friend of Del."
"That's what she told me," Lupita said.
Will smiled to let her know she'd caught on. Lupita said, "She said you would come. She said you always come."
"For my friends, yes," Will said. "Now tell me about the hacienda."
Lupita told them everything in the clear, organized fashion of someone who has been gathering information for weeks and knew she would eventually need to deliver it to someone who could use it.
"The east wing is a separate residential quarter, three rooms on the ground floor and two above," she said as she pulled out a rough map she'd made. "Elena and Carlos have the two upper rooms here, pointing at the map. Carlos now sleeps with his mother in the larger room, and I use the other room.
"A man named Ortega guards the staircase at the bottom from ten at night until six in the morning. He is not a man who sleeps on the job. He is also not a man loyal to Vega because he needs the work."
"How many vaqueros on the grounds at night?" Isum asked.
"The gate is closed at dark," she said. "Two men stand watch throughout the night.
The same two walk the outside wall together, one circuit every hour.
Inside the courtyard there is no regular patrol after nine.
Vega does not expect trouble inside his own walls.
" She pointed to the map and traced the north wall.
"This is the stretch the patrol passes. Between their rounds you would have most of an hour. "
"How far is the east wing door from the gate?"
"Forty varas. On the right side of the courtyard when you come through the gate, close to the east wall."
"Ortega," Will said. "You said he's not loyal to Vega. Does he know why Elena is there?"
Lupita thought about this. "He knows. Everyone on the hacienda knows. Ortega has a wife and daughters in Jiménez. He does not enjoy guarding a woman and her child against their will. But he needs the wages."
"Could he be persuaded to look the other way for twenty minutes?"
Lupita considered that carefully. "If he believed there would be no consequences for him and his family, yes. He is not a bad man, just a careful one."
"What about Carlos?" Isum asked.
A small change came into Lupita's face. "Carlos is six years old and he already knows more than most grown men about keeping a secret. He has not cried in front of Vega once. Not once." She paused. "Elena told him his father was coming. He said he already knew that."
Isum looked at the table.
"Vega," Will said. "Where does he sleep?"
She pointed to the map. "Second floor, north wing, above the sala.
He has a man outside his door. He does not come to the east wing at night.
" She said this without changing her expression but it was clear she had thought about what it meant that he needed to know it.
"He dines with Elena every evening. He is formal about it.
Correct. He believes his patience will win her. "
"And Elena?"
"Elena listens to him talk through dinner, says very little and when she comes back upstairs her face tells me nothing. She has always been like that." Lupita smiled. "It drives Vega to distraction. He cannot read her. He thinks patience will open her. It won't."
"When can you get word to Ortega?"
"Tomorrow morning. He takes breakfast before the others, near the kitchen garden. I can speak to him there."
"How much will it take to persuade him?" Will asked.
"Maybe two hundred American dollars," she said.
Will took out the money and handed it to Lupita. "Give him the money at breakfast if you're sure he'll cooperate."
"He may want to know who is making this offer."
"Tell him two Texans, friends of Elena and Carlos."
Lupita nodded slowly. "And when?"
"Tomorrow night. After the jail."
She accepted this without asking about the jail. She understood the sequence well enough.
"There is one more thing," she said. She reached inside her shawl and produced a small folded piece of paper and set it on the table. "Elena wrote this two days ago. She did not know if there would be anyone to give it to. She thought there might be."
Will unfolded it. The handwriting was small and precise. It said, in Spanish, "We are well. Carlos is strong. I have told him his father is coming and he said he already knew. Tell Del the door to the east wing faces the courtyard, right side, blue paint on the frame. I will be listening for him."
Will folded the note and put it in his coat.
"Tell her we'll be there," he said. "Asa Smith and Isaac Jones. Can you remember that?"
"Of course." Lupita stood up and pulled her shawl around her shoulders. "She already knows you're coming."
Morales showed her back out through the dark the way she had come.