The Night of the Mexican Revenge

Chapter 3

A Dream Come True

"And I fell violently on my face."

(Edgar Allan Poe,Great Tales and Poems)

It was down to Artie to say a few words at the burial, which Dolores Diaz had reluctantly agreed could take place in the family plot. Once again Jim had to admire his partner for his way with words. No-one would have guessed they were saying good-bye to a traitor and escaped prisoner.

Afterwards, Jim, Artie and the Sheriff took their leave of Dolores and Carlos.

"We'll be on our way now," Jim told them. "Good luck with renovating this place."

"Don't worry, we'll do fine," Carlos said.

Jim had the feeling that Carlos wasn't acting like a man who had just lost his father but, he supposed that might be because he'd never actually met him until yesterday. Still, he might have shown a little more interest in the man who had so notoriously been wrenched from his family. He hadn't approached Day once, during the time that they'd been in the house together.

Without wasting any more time, the three men packed up their gear, saddled their horses and set out for Beaumont. They would make much better time now they didn't have to escort a sick man.

ooooooooooo0ooooooooooo

That night it was Jim's turn to take first watch over their camp site. He could see that Artie was having a disturbed sleep because he kept mumbling to himself but, as the sheriff had second watch, it wasn't until the morning that Artie told them about his latest dream. They were sitting around the fire drinking coffee.

"I think I've found the solution to why I had that dream about the house," he said. "It's to do with an incident from my childhood that I'd forgotten, maybe because I was too young, at the time, to realise the significance of what I'd seen and heard. It came to me in the night."

"That makes sense. You nearly drove me mad with your incessant muttering and mumbling."

"Do you want me to tell you or not?"

"Carry on, I'm all ears," Jim said.

"Yeah, I want to hear this," the sheriff said.

"I was at the Day's house back in '36," Artie, continued.

"You were at the house?" Jim said in amazement. "You must have been what...twelve or thirteen years old. What were you doing there?"

"I was camped near there with my father. The revolution was over by then and Day must have already been arrested and taken away. I was tracking an animal through the woods, hoping to bag him for our dinner, and wandered onto the Day's land. I saw the house in the distance and was curious. I snuck up to the kitchen door, hoping for something to eat. There was no-one around so I went further into the house, as far as the drawing room. I remember that the house seemed sad, as of its owner had died. Then I heard a noise and sneaked into the hall way, to hide. Two people entered the house from the garden, an old man, must have been Charles Day, and a young, Mexican woman. I heard her say that it was wonderful that Liston had taken the blame for his father and he had no idea they were lovers. Charles Day laughed at that."

"So, you're telling me that Carlos Diaz is Liston's father's son. That would explain his name. It's the one Day had until he settled in Texas."

"Yes, and then they started kissing, which didn't interest me."

"Oh how times have changed."

"Anyway, I quietly let myself out of the front door and went into the garden, where I found a garden seat with a book on it, which had been left open. I couldn't resist reading some of it and then I realised it was a woman's private journal.

"I can't believe you read a lady's personal diary," Jim said, pretending to be shocked.

"I was twelve, alright? Anyway, it's only now I realise it must have belonged to Liston's mother. In it she was writing that her son had confessed to being a traitor in order to save his father. From what she wrote about Dolores, she definitely didn't like her daughter-in-law. She was sure that it was Dolores to whom her husband had given the secret information."

"So Dolores lied to us when she said she hadn't been at the house and about her being uninterested in the revolution," the sheriff realised.

"That's about the size of it. I knew that dream I had the other night was caused by something. It must have been the fact that we had Liston Day with us that prompted my memory to dredge up the past. As a boy, I didn't realise what I was seeing. On the way back to the camp I managed to trip over and dislocate my thumb. The pain of my father relocating it and strapping it up tightly put all thoughts of anything else right out of my head. My father wasn't very happy with me either because, aside from the fact I had trouble handling my horse one-handed, I hadn't brought anything back for the pot."

"What's this about a dream?" the sheriff said.

"It's a long story," Jim said. "The short version is that Artie dreamt about the Day house a couple of nights back and in it he saw the house exactly how it was."

"Dang, that's enough to spook a person. Expect you're glad you found an explanation."

"Very glad, I was starting to think I had second sight or something."

"Not as glad as I am," Jim said. "What Artie remembered does explain most of the elements in his dream. Anything else we can probably put down to his vivid imagination, like mentally adding the cobwebs that weren't there on his previous visit."

"What do we do now?" The sheriff asked. "Should we go back to the house, I mean it was a long time ago and Mrs Diaz is a Mexican?"

"And Liston Day is dead," Artie added.

"In the light of what you just told us, hasn't it occurred to you that his wife might have killed him?" Jim asked. "He was the only one left who knew what really happened back then, and her feeding him oatmeal was out of character."

"Yeah, and she did protest a bit too much about his guilt and how she hated him," Artie agreed.

"I intend to go back to the Day house and arrest Mrs Day," Jim said, anglicising her name, now he believed her to be a common murderer. "She married an American and now we know she lived for several months in Texas, I think we have the right to hold her on a charge of treason. I'm going to try anyway."

"I'm with you, Mr West," the sheriff said.

"No, Sheriff, you carry on to Beaumont. You've been away long enough, and someone has to make a report to the prison authority about Day's death. Artie and I will go back to get Mrs Day. This is a federal matter."

"Alright, Mr West, but I sure wish I was going with you."

"We'll be fine. Let's break camp, Artie."

As Jim was kicking dirt over the last glowing ember from the fire, Artie couldn't help pointing something out. "Jim, we don't have any proof of what Dolores Diaz did back then, only my recollections and an old journal, which has gone missing. I bet that woman destroyed it."

"Probably, but we can't do anything about that now. What I do hope to prove is that she murdered Liston Day."

"How do you intend to do that?"

"I'll find someone to perform an autopsy on the body."

"Great, just great, I just hope we don't end up getting shot in the process. Those two are pretty nifty with a gun."

"That's another thing," Jim pondered, "just what are they doing in Texas, after all these years? It might be worth finding out."

"Oh no, here we go again, looking for trouble."

Jim grinned as he threw himself up into the saddle. "You know me," he said.

ooooooooooo0ooooooooooo

When they were in sight of the house, the two men dismounted and made their way stealthily to the back of the property. The lawns were overgrown in some places and threadbare in others. Most of the shrubs had either bolted or died. There didn't seem to be anyone around so they entered through the kitchen door, just as Artie had, some thirty-five years before, into the melancholy interior of the house.

There was total silence for a while, until their ears became attuned to the almost non-existent noise of a conversation being carried on.

"Do you hear that, Jim?" Artie whispered.

"Yes, it seems a long way away but it must be somewhere in the house," Jim responded equally quietly. "Maybe they're in the cellar, if there is one."

A prowl through the door, to the right of the front entrance, brought them to, what looked like, a closet, but, beyond, lay a flight of steps going down into a basement room. It must have had some sort of window above ground because it was flooded with bright, afternoon light and only the landing at the top of the stairs was in shadow. Jim moved slowly forward, gun drawn, with Artie following cautiously behind him. Before Artie could place a foot on the landing, the door was suddenly banged shut in his face, knocking him off his feet. Before Jim could turn fully, to see what had happened, he felt hands push him forcefully in the back, and he went hurtling head-first down the flight of stairs. He tried to turn his body into a sideways roll, which looked like it was going to work, but in fact caused him to lose control of his bearings and forced his head violently against the wall. He came to a final stop by landing flat on his face on the hard floor below, blood trickling across the sun-drenched stone. His hat, having been dislodged during his somersault, rolled past him to end up about two feet from his head.

Carlos, having set Jim on his downwards journey, wasted no time in watching the outcome but opened the door to confront a disoriented Artemus Gordon, holding a hand to his nose, that was bleeding copiously, and searching for his gun, which had been knocked from his grip.

Carlos retrieved the gun and used it to force Artie to follow his partner, though in a more organised fashion, down into the basement. When he saw Jim lying unconscious he tried to descend more quickly and ended up staggering down to where his friend lay.

"Jim!" he said. "Jim!" Then he turned to the woman standing, looking at him. "You've killed him!" he accused.