Tessa smiled to herself as she walked toward the Church, thinking, I will give Marta some of her own medicine and interrupt the two of them if I can.

Tessa walked into the silence of the Church. Padre Quintera was giving a blessing on everyone. She waited until he finished then found a place near the back corner where she could see everything. She watched Colonel Montoya step forward and begin speaking immediately. "Thank you all for coming so quickly. Here is our problem. . ." Tessa heard him give a short account of the pirates and the need to prepare defenses. Several of the Dons spoke up one after the other, offering their men, arms and horses to help with the defense.

Colonel Montoya thanked them, then asked support for who would prepare food for all the volunteers. He said the men would remain in town or between the town and the shore beginning this afternoon. He, Captain Grisham, M. d'Retenu, and the Santa Helena garrison would begin to train the men for the defense of the town.

Several voices called out against D'Retenu's name. Tessa heard Colonel Montoya answer quickly that the Frenchman was the one who had warned them and that as a former Colonel in Napoleon's Cavalry he was far more capable than most to help in their defense.

Tessa was distracted from Colonel Montoya when her hand was squeezed. She turned, finding, "Robert! Have you heard what is happening?" she asked and gave is hand a brief squeeze back.

"Yes I have. The hacienda I was at this morning was warned. I came back in as soon as I finished. It looks like the Colonel is enjoying himself up there," nodding to where the Don's had crowded around Montoya.

"We should try to get closer to them, Robert. I want to hear what he plans to do."

Robert reached around her shoulder and gave her a little hug. Then he held her arm and began to thread his way through the crowd toward the Dons. The crowd let him by once they saw who it was. Robert stopped and allowed Tessa to slip in front of him. She saw Montoya was writing on a piece of paper. She watched him look up and look at the crowd, then write some more. He looked up again. Tessa saw him glance around, stop and fix on her. His lips gave her a grin. She saw him momentarily fix upon Robert before writing some more on the paper.

Tessa waited while Montoya finished. When he held the paper up he began to speak again,"I have written most of your names down. Please sign by your name and indicate, if you can, how many men, horses, and weapons your hacienda can provide. As it says at the top, Martial Law will be effective for the duration of this emergency."

Tessa watched Don Gaspar stepped forward and take the paper. He read it, then turned and spoke to the assembled,"I agree that the pirates are cause to support Martial Law, however the wording is too vague on how long the 'duration' of the emergency will be."

"Thank you for pointing that out, Don Gaspar," Tessa heard Montoya answer smoothly. "I will change it to read 'effective for three days.' Hopefully the pirates will have bypassed us by then. If not, we will gather again and extend it for another three days. How does that sound?"

Tessa thought it was a much better agreement and by the sound of it so did the others. Don Gaspar, though, wanted to add something more. "Colonel, I would like to put in that if two or more of the signatories agree, then Martial Law could be terminated before the three days is up. Can you agree to that?"

Tessa smiled to herself, thinking Montoya had only himself to blame for the amount of 'trust' the Dons were willing to give him.

Montoya surprised her though, agreeing to Don Gaspar's suggestion and writing in the addition. Montoya spoke up while he was writing, "Please note that this means you will have to take orders from me, Captain Grisham and D'Retenu. Can you all agree to that without me having to put it in writing?" He finished and looked around at each Don. Tessa found him staring at her. "And you Seņorita Alvarado, do you have any problem with taking orders that will put your workers in grave danger?"

Tessa felt the stare of the Dons as Montoya's question put all the attention on her. In the press of the crowd she felt Robert's supportive presence at her back inch a little closer. Tessa kept her eyes on Montoya and waited a moment before answering in a lighthearted manner, "Why Colonel, of course not. As you mentioned, we will outnumber the pirates, and with your guidance and our support I know our combined forces are in good hands. What do you need us to do?"

Several of the Don's echoed her question of what do you need us to do to Montoya. He held the paper up, "Read this over and sign it. Remember that I need your estimate of men, horses and weapons."

Tessa watched him hand it to Don Gaspar first. The Dons crowded around Gaspar while he looked it over. A movement by Robert behind her made her twist around. She found Robert and M. d'Retenu shaking hands. As they exchanged greetings, Marta moved up beside her. "Tessa, we heard most of what was said from in the back."

"Good," said Tessa. When she looked back at Gaspar, he was finishing signing the paper. The other Dons had lined up, more or less, for their chance to do so. She moved to the line and waited.

The Dons who signed had moved off a bit and were beginning to talk loudly among themselves. Montoya stopped their talking for a moment, asking for their attention. When he had it, he asked them to send some of their people back to their haciendas for food for three days. He asked them to have their men that were in town already to go to the clearing just west of the pueblo and wait.

Tessa was handed the paper to sign. She read it carefully and saw it did say: Martial Law for only three days at a time and that the Dons could terminate the Martial Law status earlier if it was no longer needed. She signed her name. As she was the last one, she took the paper up to Montoya.

"Thank you Seņorita," he said, not looking at the paper. He spoke up loudly asking for the signers to come to his office for a quick council. He asked M. d'Retenu, Padre Quintera, Seņor Paredes and the Doctor to join him, too.

As they walked toward Montoya's office, Marta came up to Tessa. "Tessa, I will be over at the Cantina, unless you want me to go back to the hacienda to start preparing food for our men."

"No Marta, I saw Pedro was here already. Give him instructions to bring the food and have him get some canvas and bedding too," Tessa told Marta.

Tessa watched Marta go to look for Pedro, while she followed the others up the stairs to Montoya's office.

Tessa looked around at the group crowded into Colonel Montoya's office. Montoya just finished unrolling a map of the general area that he pinned to the wall. Everyone was watching him. Gaspar offered her a chair, which she sat in quickly seeing her activity had stopped Montoya momentarily. As she settled in the chair, Montoya pointed to the map and started speaking.

"Here is our pueblo, several miles from the shore. This saved us in 1818 when the pirates bypassed our town. It may happen again, but we must be prepared if it does not. If they do come after us, we will have many advantages. First of which, being warned they are coming. Second is that they will not be able to use all their ship's cannon on us at all like they did up in Monterey. They will have to take the time to bring a cannon ashore if they want to and that will take time. Captain Grisham has men watching the coast so we will not be surprised."

He continued, "They are formidable fighters so we must be careful. If you look at the map, from our normal ship landing the route to the pueblo is by this trail. The next closest landing would be the one the Doctor's ship captain cousin used a few months ago. The route from there follows this path. You can see the routes meet up here just west of the pueblo. We must be ready to cover both routes and we must keep our force together. We will wait here," Colonel Montoya said, pointing to a spot in between the two routes but closer to the normal ship-landing route. "The pirates will be coming from the north," Colonel Montoya continued. "And this is their most likely route. We will be warned if they land to the south and will have time to move our men accordingly. Now, here is where we will ambush them," he said, pointing to the map again. Tessa's view was blocked as several of the Dons stepped closer to look.

"If you remember this area, you know it is open, with just a few trees. Coming from the shore, there are several rolling hills, each one just a bit higher than the last as you come toward the pueblo. My plan, based on the number and experience of the men we have, will be to fight them here. Several of you, Gaspar is a good example, did some military service when you were younger. Some of you fought against Napoleon's men. I will need you to teach your men what you can in the little time we have."

"How do you plan to actually fight them, Colonel?" asked Gaspar.

"I plan on a very simple fight for our people. We will have three groups and each group should only have to fight once before another group takes over. The first two groups will be in advance of our main line, which is where we will have our cannon. The first group will fire on the pirates and then run back through our second line to take position on our main line. The second line will do the same, fire and then run back to the main line. Everyone should be reloaded again by the time the pirates get to our main line. Our cannon will be loaded with grape shot. After our main line fires, it is now the turn of M. d'Retenu and the men he will have as cavalry to ride down upon whatever pirates are left."

Tessa smiled to herself as the men began talking about the plan. It sounded so simple but she knew that once you started a fight your plan usually went the way of the wind.

"Gentlemen, Gentlemen," she heard Montoya say to quiet the men down. "Those of you with experience know how long a plan lasts in battle. We may have to adjust ours, but we will not change it too much. Not with the amount of training our men will have. Now, I know I must break some of your hearts but you all cannot ride with M. d'Retenu's cavalry."

Tessa heard the Dons laugh at this. "And I do not intend to allow your young sons to ride there either. M. d'Retenu will choose who will be part of our mounted force," Montoya said to a chorus of groans.

"Gentlemen," M.d'Retenu spoke up, stepping forward to get their attention. "I believe Colonel Montoya's plan will protect the pueblo. I heard your laughter at his comment of not being able to ride. Those of you who spent time in the last war, I ask you to remember how little it took for you to lose a friend and how quickly it can happen. I may ask you or your sons to ride with me. I feel that we should have no real trouble defeating what essentially will be an armed mob walking into a trap. I do not insult you when I say you, or your son could be killed by the last bullet fired, so let me know privately if you want to risk this tragedy on your wife. It will go no further than me."

Continue to Part Three

If you have missed any episodes, you will find them in the Archives section .