Night Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) Page 8

  Lee eyed the innocent-looking moonshine in his cup. Odorless and colorless, it seemed safe. Being used to wicked pulque and mescal, not to mention the rotgut corn liquor sold in more ‘civilized” barrooms, he braced himself for a deep throat-scorching burn as he swallowed. Nothing. He cocked one sculpted black brow at Obedience, who looked innocently over to Wash.

  “Youngun seems ta be able ta hold his likker. Whut do yew think?”

  “I think he needs a refill,” Wash said heartily, and the evening was launched.

  “You two going back to San Antonio? Why, after all these years of wandering and having such a good time?” Lee asked.

  Still askin’ questions ‘bout us, not willin' ta open up ‘bout hisself, Obedience thought as she said, “Done finished with my wanderin’. Been ever’ where from Tennessee ta th' Oregon Territory, crossed th' Rocky Mountains so many times I done named nigh onta ever one o' em. An’ I purely long ta see a real city agin. I got me roots in Texas.”

  “Like San Antonio?” Lee asked wistfully.

  “Yew miss it, too,” she answered.

  Lee's face lost some of its shuttered coldness as he gazed across the room and out the window at the brilliant starlit landscape. Taking another sip of the potent alcohol, he said, “While I was a student in Mexico City, I couldn't stop thinking about Texas. Even now, after five years on the run, I still can't. Guess it kind of gets in your blood.”

  “Why not go home with us, then?” Wash asked. “Niver thought I'd agree ta settle down, but it's lookin' better 'n' better.”

  “I can't,” Lee replied tightly, the mask once more slipped into place.

  “Word gits out, Lee,” Obedience said gently. “Deborah learned me readin’ ‘n writin’. We keep in touch ‘n she lets me know ‘bout whut goes on in Santone. I'm sorry ‘bout yore wife, but Jim Slade knows a few folks in real high places. I 'spect he could git yore problem with th' law smoothed over like beeswax on polished oak—if ‘n yew wuz ta write ‘n ask him.”

  Lee shrugged too carefully, then drained his cup. Wash unobtrusively refilled it as the younger man spoke. “Part of me wants to go back. Part of me can't face the memories.”

  “Memories of whut happened there—or whut you done here?” Obedience asked.

  “Some of each, I guess. I came here to escape the Americans. I never wanted to hear English spoken again.”

  He laughed bitterly. “I ran smack into the middle of the war. Less than three months after I arrived here, Kearney and Doniphan took the city without firing a shot! Everything from Texas to California was United States territory in a matter of months! I joined up with a man named McGordy, a Scots mercenary who worked for the Mexican Governor, General Manuel Armijo. It seemed the governor's regular troops couldn't handle the Apache and Comanche raiders who butchered civilians and burned trade caravans as far south as Chihuahua City.”

  “I heerd standard bounty's a hunert dollars fer a buck, fifty fer a squaw, ‘n twenty-five fer a kid,” Wash said matter-of-factly, “paid by Mexicans er American.” He had seen some of what the Apache had done up by Taos, and passed no judgment on Lee.

  “I figured you knew who Fouqué was, even recognized Bristol,” Lee said softly. “After a couple of years working with McGordy, the group split up. Gold fever in ‘forty-nine. He went to California with a couple of Kanakas and Fouqué's brother. I headed south to Mexico City. I guess I knew sooner or later I'd have to face my uncle and tell him what happened to the little girl he cherished—how she died.” He stopped and put the heels of his hands in his eyes, then shook his head and continued. “He was always so gentle, so loving. He never blamed me for taking her to Texas; but I knew he could sense the change in me, in what I'd become.

  “I—I couldn't stay there, so I drifted north, back to Chihuahua City and hired out to a rich Mexican merchant whose caravans traveled all the way to St. Louis and back. By then, I had a reputation like McGordy's. Men flocked to join me. We got scalp bounties and kept all the livestock we recovered from the Indians. We must have freed a couple of hundred white captives from the Apache and Comanche, mostly Mexican, some Anglos.”

  “But it warn't enough ta make up ferth' killin’, ” Obedience said, her voice reflecting the sorrow of her young friend's tale.

  “No, I guess it wasn't.” He sighed and took another drink. By now the smooth alcohol was having an effect on Lee, as the Oakleys had expected it would.

  “Yew need ta spit it all out, son, ‘n then git on with yer life. Put th' past behind yew,” Obedience said, reaching her big work-reddened hand out to cover Lee's fine-boned, elegant one.

  “I've killed so many times it's become part of me. I don't know if I can ever put it behind me,” he said, withdrawing his hand from hers.

  “Last March, after we brought back seventy-five captive Mexicans, mostly women and children, along with nearly a thousand stolen horses and mules—and over two hundred scalps,” he added grimly, “I delivered the news to the governor. The mine owners and merchants had set up a private subscription to pay us for the scalps and buy the livestock we'd recovered from Apache raids. Well, the bill came to over forty thousand dollars. But it seemed the governor had appropriated the funds for his personal uses—buying new dress uniforms for his army. An army that couldn't protect their own civilian population!” he added scornfully.

  “The upshot of it was he refused to pay us. Fouqué and a few of his Shawnee friends stampeded the livestock out of town, drove it over the border, and sold what survived for over ten thousand. The governor tried to arrest me for the ‘theft,’ as he called it. I escaped and took the rest of my men to see the largest trader in town—the fellow who originally raised the subscription money. I, er, convinced him to pay us what was owed and send Governor Trias the bill to recover his loss.”

  Wash let out a snort of laughter. “Let me guess. Thet rich galoot couldn't git his money from th' Mexican govey’ment, so he ‘n thet Trias feller put a price on yore scalp!”

  “I got out of Chihuahua with my scalp intact and the money. Met Fouqué in Santa Fe and we divided what we had with our men. Then, we took a job clearing out Comanche raiders around Bristol's mines.”

  “So it ‘pears ta me yew got yew a pretty considerable o' a nest egg ta go back ta honest ranchin' with—thet is, if ‘n ya want ta quit this here life,” Obedience said. Seeing the desolation in Lee's eyes, she knew he did.

  “What I want and what I'm able to do might not be the same thing.” He rubbed his temples as if trying to squeeze back the memories—dark, tormented nightmares with blood running in rivers and grisly scalp poles carried like banners before the victorious army on its homecomings to Chihuahua City. He could still see those women in the desert south of Santa Fe—Mexican slaves they'd freed in a Mescalero camp they had overrun. Women so dehumanized, burned and beaten that the soul's light had been snuffed from their eyes. Do my eyes look like that?

  “Let me think about it, Obedience.” He stood up slowly and gave her a lopsided grin. “Hell, you got me so drunk I can scarcely walk, much less make a decision affecting the rest of my life—what there may be of it.”

  He walked unsteadily toward the door. Wash caught up with him just as his knees began to buckle. Scooping him up and throwing him over his shoulder, the giant smiled at his wife. “Now yew git thet extry bed made up. I 'spect this youngun's gonna need it, ‘n he ain't gettin' no lighter whilst I stand here holdin' him.”

  Chapter Six

  Renacimiento, 1852

  Even after six months back home, Melanie Fleming was finding her adjustment more difficult than she'd ever imagined. The coming of spring, with its eruptions of wildflowers rioting across the hillsides in rust, orange, and yellow, could only lift her spirits for a few hours' riding time. Then she would return to the big stone ranch house, so full of the love and laughter of her parents, brothers and sister, as well as the Flemings' partner, Joe De Villiers, and his family. Melanie loved Cherokee Joe, as much for his quiet, tolerant attitude when she tal
ked to him as for the Indian blood she and the half-breed shared.

  Joe had been the first one to sense her restlessness when she had returned after four years in Boston. When they took long rides, he had listened to her talk about her feelings of uselessness and frustration in the wilds of north central Texas. As a young person growing up on an immense ranch, she had loved the freedom to ride for hours, watch the men as they captured and broke mustangs and branded longhorn cattle. Small but plucky, she had even joined in with her brothers, learning how to handle a hot iron, growing familiar with the pungent smell of singed fur and hide, the swearing and clatter that were all part of ranch life.

  She had helped Deborah and Joe's wife, Lucia, with their huge vegetable gardens and fruit orchards, learning to cook and preserve foods, tend sick and injured men and animals, to be a contributor in the vast and varied work of the immense kingdom of Renacimiento.

  But when she returned last fall, it seemed everyone had gone on without her. They welcomed her, but the ranch ran just as smoothly and the men and women handled their tasks just as efficiently with no help from her.

  Her father's young foreman, Micah Torrance, was especially glad she had returned. When she'd left at age eighteen, he was just a line rider who looked in awe at the boss' beautiful daughter. But after four years, Micah had worked himself into the foreman's cabin and was looking for a wife. Who better than Melanie? She was pretty, hardworking and should be able to give him a passel of fine, strapping sons.

  That was the real burr under her blanket, as Joe sagely pointed out to her. It wasn't that Renacimiento or its people didn't want her to be a part of the ranch. It was she who thought remaining here was burying herself far from the exhilarating noble causes that had given direction to her life back in Boston.

  Deborah was in complete agreement with her about women's suffrage and abolition, if not overly enthusiastic about the absolute temperance vow Melanie had taken; but Deborah was a busy, happy wife and mother with a big household to run.

  Melanie was certain she did not want that kind of life, at least not yet, not before she'd seen her causes win out over the benighted forces of male supremacy, African slavery, and drunken debauchery. And, as Joe had intuited, she did not favor young Micah as a suitor, even at some future time when she was ready to consider settling down.

  On a bright, cool morning in April, Melanie arose from a restless night, squinted at the sun already high on the horizon, and dragged her body from the bed. “Once I would’ve been the first to go down to the kitchen, awake even before Papa, eager for the day to begin. Now look at me,” she muttered as she inspected the dark smudges beneath her eyes.

  Sighing, she padded over to the basin of cool water sitting on a massive dark-stained pine bureau. Like most of the furniture at Renacimiento, it was hewn from cleanly cut and crafted white pine and was stained a rich chocolate hue—very Hispanic and sturdy. She had always preferred it to the polished precision of the New England hard maple pieces her father had brought to Renacimiento for Deborah. But now, after four years in Boston, the maple furniture seemed a link with civilization.

  As Melanie washed, dressed, and braided her waist-length black hair, she little imagined that she was the subject of an argument going on downstairs in the kitchen.

  “We have to do something!” Rafe declared in frustration. “As her parents we can't just stand by and let her throw away her life.”

  “Just because she doesn't fancy Micah doesn't mean she'll ‘throw away her life,’ darling,” Deborah replied, striving to keep her voice even as she arranged a stack of biscuits on a platter.

  “She doesn't fancy any man, as far as I've been able to gather. Look at how she dresses! If she wasn't so strikingly beautiful, even Micah wouldn't have noticed her. She looks like a crow, for God's sake!” Rafe took a gulp of his scalding coffee and grimaced in pain.

  Deborah sighed. “I admit her wardrobe is sadly deficient; but if we arrange a shopping trip to San Antonio this summer, maybe between us, Charlee and I can remedy that.”

  “You don't seem to want to face the point, Deborah. Melanie wants to be as unattractive as possible. She left here with a whole closet of pretty clothes and came back from Boston with a collection of gray and brown gunny-sacks and ‘sensible shoes'!”

  “Don't blame my father for the way she's changed, Rafe. Lord knows, he tried to get her into society and offered her every advantage,” Deborah retorted.

  Rafe shifted defensively in his chair. “I'm not blaming Adam, but I do blame Boston and William Lloyd Garrison! All that crusade rubbish has made a beautiful girl into a professional spinster!”

  “Ah, so now we have it.” Deborah's violet eyes glowed as she poured a cup of coffee for herself and sat down facing her husband. “A ‘professional spinster’—rather like her frightful bluestocking mother, Boston-bred and all. Listen to yourself, Rafael. You're defining your daughter's whole life in terms of marriage. If she chooses to fight for such strange things as a woman's right to vote or control her own property, or for the end of slavery, she might scare away the timid souls who could rescue her from a fate worse than death—being an old maid! Would you rather she marry someone like Oliver Haversham?”

  Rafe flinched. “That was a low blow, madam. Micah Torrance is scarcely like that rotten Haversham!” Oliver Haversham had been a fortune-hunting cad who had almost deceived Deborah into marriage before she met Rafe.

  “Micah is a fine young man, but Melanie isn't in love with him. Unlikely as some girls' choices are, their parents have to allow them leeway,” she said firmly.

  He looked over at her speculatively, his black eyes taking on an unholy glow. “Is that your subtle way of reminding me about how unlikely a choice your father thought I was for you?”

  “Well, how many New Orleans Creoles marry Boston abolitionists?”

  “You are sidestepping the issue, my clever bluestocking. My very real fear is that Melanie will never give herself a chance to love anyone because of her crusading zeal.”

  Deborah put down her cup and studied the grounds in its bottom. Choosing her words very carefully, she said, “Rafael, Melanie's childhood was not the easiest one; but she's learned over the years that despite Lily's neglect, many others found her lovable and cherished her—her grandmother and aunt, you and I, her grandpa in Boston, even her little brothers. But she's also learned to be proud of her heritage. The blood of Africa and the Cherokee Nation flows in her veins along with yours. It's natural for her to want to end slavery. Considering what the institution of ‘second families’ did to the women in her family, it's also understandable that she champions women's rights. If many men can't accept that, maybe it's better that she keep on crusading rather than forsake her ideals in order to marry and have children.”

  Rafe sat very still for a moment; then he asked quietly, “And do you feel as if you've given up your ideals? Would you rather be back in Boston standing up for women's rights than buried here at Renacimiento with me?”

  Deborah fairly flew from her chair, half knelt, and threw her arms around his waist, burying her head against his chest. “Oh, beloved, no, no, never. I can't imagine my life without you, without our children and our home. My life is here with you, bearing our children and raising them, not crusading in Boston, no matter how worthy the cause. I love you, Rafael, more than anyone or anything on earth!” She raised her tear-filled eyes to his.

  Rafe pulled her up onto his lap and held her tightly, his fingers tangled in the long silver hair that spilled down her back. “Oh, Moon Flower, sometimes when I think of all you've been through, all you had to give up—and now, being pregnant again—are you certain—”

  She silenced him with a swift, fierce kiss. “Nothing could make me happier than this new baby. After all, Norrie's six. It's about time we had another one. I love my life and it is fulfilling—after all, I'm raising all our children to believe in the same ideals I do.”

  He smiled crookedly. “Whether or not their hapless father
does.”

  “You can't deceive me, for all your airs of Creole male dominance. You only want your children to be happy. All I suggested to you was that Melanie has to find her own way. We can't make her into a conventional woman who'll choose marriage over her ideals. But who knows, maybe someday she'll meet a man like her father, who will be capable of learning to accept her radical ideas.” She took his face between her hands and kissed him lightly.

  “Well, at least some of those radical ideals,” he echoed dubiously, returning the playful kiss.

  Several loud childish squeals punctuated by a shouted command from an adult female interrupted them. Charlee Slade's voice carried from the front sala to the kitchen. “Sarah, hold on to Lee before he grabs that vase. Will, mind your manners and wipe your feet.”

  Deborah flew through the dining room and across the hall into the front sala where the young woman was fussing with her six-year-old daughter's dress with one hand while slicking down a recalcitrant cowlick on her nine-year-old son's head with the other. The girl, a reedy little blonde, caught her wiggling three-year-old brother just as he reached up to topple a vase of wildflowers from a low bookshelf.

  Charlee broke into a broad smile and turned to rush into her much taller friend's welcoming hug, children forgotten.

  “Deborah, it's been too long! Jim's so busy with spring roundup that he couldn't get away, and he figured Rafe couldn't, either. He also couldn't abide my harping to go see you for one more day, so I offered him an alternative—that several of his best hands escort us here for a visit.” Charlee's cat-green eyes sparkled with devilment.

  “Still leading poor Jim a dog's life, are you? Where's that moldy hunk of orange fur with the evil disposition?” Rafe took his turn hugging Charlee.

  As the children took turns greeting Deborah and Rafe, Charlee replied, “Hellfire took off the minute the wagon stopped out front. An engagement with a mole—or are any of your female cats in heat about now?” she asked saucily.