Paxton and the Lone Star (37 page)

Her fists beat a tattoo on his back. “I said I take it back!” she screamed, laughing and then suddenly gasping as he entered her. “I said … Oh, True …” She wrapped her arms around his neck and returned his kiss. Half-dressed, wishing she could feel her breasts against his naked chest, she kissed him again and moved with him, against him, around him, to and away from him, but never far away. “True True True,” she whispered against his cheek, into his ear. “Dearest dearest dear …” Her wide eyes stared into his as they fused and stiffened and shared the sweet agony.

Slowly, slowly her eyes closed as his head sank to rest by hers. She could feel the tug on her hair, his weight pleasant on her, pressing her into the mattress. Her arms around him, she held him as she held the memories. The night he had first kissed her. The terrifying leap into her carriage. His face, bleeding, in the plaza when he fell into her arms. The almost childlike solemnity of his “I do,” to Reverend Kania's posed question.

It had been the second of January. What better time to begin a new life? The ceremony had been quiet, with only five people present, True and herself, Reverend Kania, Joseph, and Hogjaw to give the bride away. Lottie was not there, but Elizabeth did not let the coolness between them spoil the happiness of her day. Afterward, with evening closing around them like a blanket, they had walked openly to her—to their, she reminded herself—wagon. And found that someone had brought them flowers and turned down the pallet. They had needed nothing else. Not that night.

And not now, she thought dreamily. Now with his hard strength melting in her. Not now, with their house and their furniture and their land …

Dearest dearest dearest. My own True love …

The wood was a warm color in the spring afternoon. “I was making a pie,” she said, her voice sleepy as she studied a patch of sunlight on the wall by the bed.

“Is that what you call it?” True asked, his voice muffled by the pillow. “Never heard of it referred to as making a pie. Lots of other things.”

“Silly,” Elizabeth said. She took his hand and diverted it from further explorations along the inside of her thigh. “The day is half over and there's so much to do.”

“Like baking pies?”

“And more. It's a special day,” she added, her eyes drifting to the dresser. Cursing his nearly useless left arm, True had built the dresser by lantern light over the past two weeks. And if the drawers weren't completely finished, the top was, and held a single clay pot from which jutted a half dozen budding rose stems. Yellow roses, flower of memory. The weather was cool but mild, the sun bright, the soil moist. Elizabeth didn't know much about planting roses in the Texas climate, but she felt in her bones that the time was right. She sat up, her golden hair draping across her shoulders. “I want to plant Grandfather Michaelson's roses.”

True reached up and entangled his fingers in the thick curling strands of gold. “Yellow rose,” he whispered, and pulled her down to him. He stroked her face and her hair, soft as the breezes that bent the prairie grass. “You are my yellow rose, Elizabeth. I love you.”

Elizabeth nestled against him. “I love you, True.”

Pies and roses could wait.

She set the roses on the east side of the house so the sun could kiss the budding leaves and coax to life the yellow petals that would soon unfold. Her fingers kneaded and turned the sandy soil, spread the roots just so in the earth, and patted the ground around the stems with as much care as a woman with her child.

A child.
Her time had come a week earlier, and when she had started right on schedule she felt a vague bitterness spread through her. Now she stared at her flat stomach and wondered when. Joan and Eustacia had their children. Mildred positively glowed with the joy of motherhood. Even Lottie was pregnant.

But not Elizabeth. Maybe it was just something else she didn't do well. As she couldn't be her father's son, now she couldn't be a mother to a babe of her own.

She stared at the roses, the yellow roses waiting patiently to burst forth with hew life—as she must wait. And self-pity certainly didn't help, she thought, patting the earth once again. There would be time. She smiled a little naughtily to herself. “Pies,” she whispered. “we'll just have to bake lots of—”

A shadow crept over her. Curious, because she hadn't heard True come out of the house, she turned and looked up and, her heart leaping to her throat, she screamed.

Inside the cabin, True heard the scream, heard it cut short even as his hands closed around the rifle over the mantle. Three leaping steps brought him barreling through the door, rifle ready and finding its target, a short, wiry-looking half-robed savage on horseback. The Indian carried a rifle across his lap, but held his hands in the air to show he meant no harm.

“You no shoot-um little brother,” the savage said, as if reading his lines from a Thespian's prompter.

Blond hair! The Indian had blond hair! “Andrew!” True whispered, setting the rifle down. “Andrew!” he whooped joyously. “By heaven, it's Andrew!”

Andrew Paxton slipped from the back of his horse and wrapped his arms around True. “Who else? How many blond Indians do you know, anyway?”

True laughed, held Andrew at arms' length, and gazed fondly at him. “Just you, little brother.”

“Well, goddamn!”

“If you're just going to stand around and cuss …” Andrew turned to Elizabeth and bowed comically. “Didn't mean to give you a start, Elizabeth. These are everyday clothes among the Coushattas.” He grinned down in the direction of his beaded vest, buckskin breeches, and moccasins.

The two brothers stared at each other, studying the changes. It was obvious Andrew still had his wild streak, equally obvious that True fit easily into the mold of husband and builder.

“Joseph told me you were married,” Andrew said. “I found it difficult to believe him. Now that I see you two, though, I can hardly recall a time when you weren't married. You spent a long time looking for the right one, brother. Glad to see you didn't wait around when you found her. Last time I saw you, the two of you were at loggerheads. You still got a temper, Elizabeth?”

Elizabeth put her fists on her hips and stood her ground. “You'll find out soon enough, Andrew Paxton, if you keep dredging up the past.”

“Yes, ma'am!” Andrew laughed, holding his hands in front of him as if to protect himself.

“And if you don't take dinner with us,” Elizabeth added with mock ferocity.

“Whatever you say, ma'am. I will be forever in your debt.” He looked at True, raised his eyebrows and jerked his head toward Elizabeth. “You think it's safe for me to take care of my horse first?”

Elizabeth went inside to put on coffee. True and Andrew led the horse to the corral True had finished only two days earlier. It was like old times, in a way. Neither of them spoke while Andrew unsaddled his mount and True filled the water trough. Firetail eyed Andrew suspiciously, but finally let his nose be rubbed for a moment before retreating skittishly to the far set of rails. “So this is it,” Andrew finally said, leaning on the corral and looking out over the land.

“Well …” True began, a little hesitantly.

“I heard all about it,” Andrew interrupted.

True glanced sideways at him.

“Ran into Hogjaw in San Antonio. He made it sound pretty exciting. Sorry I missed the race.”

“Don't be,” True said. “We came
that
close to losing everything.” He cleared his throat. “Your money, too.”

“Hogjaw left that part out.” Andrew grinned and clapped True on the shoulder. “Joseph didn't, though. Hell, True, it was just money. And besides, you won.”

True's face was red. “We did set aside a share of land for you. I didn't want you to think—”

“I won't if you quit talking about it.” An exaggerated scowl replaced Andrew's grin. “Us Injuns don't go much for the white man's money, anyway. Beads are more our style. You think she's got that coffee hot?”

The matter was closed for good. Easy in each other's company, happy to be reunited, the two brothers ambled across the wide yard. “I trust you haven't turned Indian so completely you've lost your taste for beef stew and apple pie,” True said, ushering Andrew into the house.

Andrew took a deep, appreciative sniff, and shook his head. “Hope you eat early, and made plenty.”

“Will and did,” Elizabeth said. “We never know when Hogjaw might stop by.”

“He won't today. He and the Campbell boys were on their way to a buffalo hunt when I saw him. Mmm. Coffee's good. I always end up burning mine.” Andrew sipped his coffee and took his time. “Joseph and Scott will be along about suppertime, though. Them and a friend I've been traveling with.”

“Not another Indian I hope,” Elizabeth said.

“Nope,” Andrew chuckled. “A white man I met when I was living with the Indians. But just about as dangerous as any redskin you'll ever meet. A fellow by the name of Travis. Colonel William Barrett Travis.

Travis was everything True and Elizabeth had heard. He was a handsome, courteous southerner with the blood of South Carolina aristocracy pounding in his veins. Buck Travis, as some called him, was a man driven by pride, well-educated, a good speaker, and an excellent conversationalist. He was a rebel who had found a cause in which he could believe. Mexico's hold on this far-off position of the state of Coahuila was tenuous, and the whites outnumbered the Mexicans by more than three to one. Stephen Austin had petitioned the central government of Mexico for separate statehood, but Travis had a far grander dream: nothing less than the birth of a new nation. For True, who wanted only to live and build in peace, a more dangerous guest could not have sat at his table.

“A most excellent repast, Mrs. Paxton,” Travis said as the last of the plates were cleared. “Yours is the type of hospitality of which legends are made.”

Joseph grunted his assent. Scott Campbell slapped the table in frustration. “There it goes again,” he said. “Always somebody beating me to praising the food.”

Elizabeth laughed. “Though I thank him, I'm afraid Mr. Travis overstates his case.”

“Quick-witted and witty, too,” Travis said, enjoying the banter. “A quality rarely seen in women of these parts.”

“Not really,” Elizabeth protested. “It is just that men seldom take the opportunity to listen, so busy are they with the clamor of their own conversation.”

“You'd better stop while you're even,” True broke in, with a wink to Elizabeth. He slid a bottle of whiskey across the table. “Let her get ahead and you'll never catch up.”

Don Raphael Sanchez, an unexpected companion of Travis, helped himself to a drink. “Ah, Señora Paxton. When my friend Buck Travis asked me to accompany him to your home, I all but harnessed the carriage myself, so anxious was I to see you. Know that if Señor True ever fails to appreciate you to the fullest, you have but to send word and I shall whisk you away to my
hacienda,
where you shall be installed as no less than a queen.”

True opened his mouth to say something, but clamped it shut again as he recalled Don Raphael's words and attitude that afternoon when his horse had lost the race with Firetail. Then he had spoken of political neutrality: now he was in the company of Travis. Had he broken completely with Santa Anna and Mexico? Was he consorting openly with Travis, or merely protecting himself in case the revolutionaries carried the day?

Elizabeth's face had reddened and her mind was racing. All this to-do over a beef stew was disconcerting. Something significant was happening tonight, and she didn't think she liked it, whatever it was. “A gallant proposal, Señor Sanchez,” she replied, wondering what came next.

“I fear the next will not be so gallant,” Andrew said.

The tone of his voice changed the whole atmosphere in the room. Joseph put down his drink untouched. Travis slouched back in his chair and took in everyone with hooded eyes. Sanchez stared at Andrew, wondering how far the young man had been taken into Travis's confidence.

“I did not think this was a completely innocent visit,” True remarked neutrally. “Not with our most noteworthy firebrand here for company.”

Andrew stiffened.

“True …” Elizabeth warned.

“Sorry, Mr. Travis,” True said. “You are welcome here. But you will forgive me if I don't extend the same cordiality to your sympathies.”

Travis appeared unperturbed. “Perhaps I may change your mind,” he suggested.

“I doubt it. I first heard your name a week after we crossed the Sabine into Mexico. That was—” He paused. “—around four months ago. Since then I've heard it often, and always linked with talk of insurrection, rebellion, and revolution. And I don't like that kind of talk.”

“Not just talk,” Travis said. “Action, which is sure to come. Our cause is worthy and someone has to lead. Since that task seems to have fallen to me, I'm duty bound to perform it as well as I can.”

“I appreciate that. But you must appreciate, too, that I have no wish to become a pawn in your game.”

Pawn and game were not words that Travis took lightly. His face hardened. “Not mine,” he said, leaning forward. “Santa Anna's.”

True shrugged. “The Mexican government has been quiet lately, and will probably remain so if we don't provoke them further.”

“Quiet?” Travis asked indignantly. “They've closed the borders, tried to stop immigration from the States, which means our families and friends can't join us. They've occupied our towns and imposed import tariffs on the goods and tools we need. They threaten to take our land and harass us in a thousand ways. When King George did that, the whole country rose—”

“I don't want what's mine taken from me,” True interrupted, “but at the same time, I can't fault Mexico for wanting to keep something it's had for a long time.”