Paxton and the Lone Star (45 page)

Elizabeth shuddered, made herself sit still.

“Young and beautiful. And frightened. It is as it should be, as I knew it would be.” O'Shannon's voice was understanding, but implacable. “A simple act. Degrading to contemplate, but pleasurable in the end, I sincerely hope. I am not unknowledgeable in these matters, after all.” His hands kneaded her shoulders, his fingers crept down to touch the swell of her breasts. “His life, your decision, Elizabeth. A coach to the coast, or a corpse wagon to Hell.”

What must I do? Save? Destroy? Honor? Dishonor? This is his revenge, True. You would say resist, even if it meant
death, I know. But can I? Can I live without you? I would rather die than hurt you, and I would rather endure the horrors of this night than see you die.

“One, night with me or a lifetime without him,” O'Shannon said, evidently reading her mind. He took her left hand from her lap, raised it to his lips and kissed her fingertips. “Is the choice that difficult, Elizabeth?”

“He'll be set free? In the morning?”

“You have my word.”

“The word of a pirate and a brigand. That isn't good enough.”

“I swear it on my son's life, then. Is that good enough? Emilio!”

A thin, ferret-faced little man entered the room. O'Shannon spoke to him in rapid Spanish, then waited until he left before translating for Elizabeth. “I told him to go to the Ciudadela and bring Señor Paxton here, to see that a coach and fresh horses are waiting in the morning, and to be ready to leave for Veracruz at any moment after sunrise. Is that better?”

Elizabeth had recognized some of the words, was reasonably confident he had told her the truth. It was all she could do not to snatch her hand out of his, but she didn't. She was less successful in controlling the tears that welled in her eyes and ran down her cheeks. Somehow, she willed her tongue and lips to form the words she prayed True might never learn she said. “The coach,” she whispered, barely audible. “I choose … his life.”

An iron door banged open and a lantern blinded the inmates. A murmur of suspicion greeted the guards who entered. Eyes squinting against the unaccustomed light, wide pupils narrowing, the prisoners woke and shuffled rapidly out of the way of the tramping boots and the prodding bayonets. There had been no executions for almost a month. No one wanted to be stood against the pocked, bullet-riddled wall at the north end of the compound just for calling attention to himself.

One of the guards grabbed a ragged man with a withered arm dangling at his side before the prisoner could scuttle out of harm's way. “The North American. Where is he?”

“In the corner,” the prisoner bleated, terrified. He pointed. “In that corner. He is very sick, I think.”

True heard the commotion without comprehending what it was all about. He pressed the palms of his hands against the floor, but the tremors would not go away. The sickness was on him again. He had been unable to eat for three days and had taken only a few sips of water, and that at Juan's insistence. He was suffering the heat of the desert, the chill of a blue norther. Only when he was grabbed and savagely hauled to his feet did he realize that they had come for him. He tried to struggle, but was too weak to do more than twist about and mumble in delirium. A musket stock to his barely healed ribs wrapped him in ribbons of fiery agony and he collapsed, dead weight in the arms of his captors. What was left of his boots made a rasping sound on the stone floor as the guards dragged him from the cell.

The room was quiet and warm, the bed turned down. The flames above the candles danced like living jewels. Elizabeth had eaten very little, only a bite here and there when she told herself she had to keep up her strength. Now, as she stood in the doorway, she could feel each breath searing her lungs with a cold she had not believed existed. It was, she thought, the icy breath of the grave that waited for that part of her that was doomed, that she would sacrifice in order that the man she loved might be saved. Only two things kept her going. First, that True's life was worth the sacrifice. And second, that if Luther O'Shannon did not keep his word, she would kill him. Somehow, some way, he would die.

“Close the door. I am waiting.”

She did as ordered, walked across the room to the balcony doors, heavy oak panels inlaid with glass, and started to draw the curtains.

“Leave them open.”

Her hand fluttered from the cord.

“Sit next to me.”

Each step was agony. Each move required its own command. The moment she came within his reach, O'Shannon grabbed her wrist and forced her down onto the covers; Elizabeth fought the urge, the impulse, the
need
to scream, to fight back, to scratch his eyes, and instead permitted him to kiss her. Suddenly, he swept her skirts to her waist and, with a single jerk of his hand, freed himself and was atop her and brutally entering her. She could not help screaming. At each raw thrust, she cried out. And when his seed spilled from him, she thought she would choke with revulsion.

O'Shannon moaned, let his weight rest upon her for a moment, then stood. Quickly, he shed his trousers, coat, and shirt. “An excellent appetizer,” he said, his voice thick and languid. “Now for the main course.” He reached down and helped her to stand. “Out of the dress, there's a fine girl. And be quick. We've only one night, you know.”

Elizabeth cursed her tears, hated the sound of her sobs. Her knees almost buckled. Her fingers fumbled at the gown. What she couldn't unfasten neatly, she tore.

“You've a need of manners, my dove. That was an expensive gown.” He flopped down on the bed, rolled over onto his back. “Now, let me look at you.”

Her head held high, she stood naked before him. The tears had stopped and she was filled with the same ice cold loathing she had felt when her father had touched her. O'Shannon, she swore, might take her, but he would never have her. Never. She looked past him to the candle. The flame seemed to spread, to envelop her until all she saw was a heart of fire and all she felt was the purgative flame. There was no other world, no pain, no shame, no awful bruising thrusts, no sickening carnal grunts, no humiliation, no submission to the even more obscene demands. Her soul was flying free across the open prairie, alone in the happy solitude of the forest, atuned to the delicate, gracious music of the stream. Even as she permitted the domination of her body, she remained unblemished and inviolate, and survived untouched.

At last, how much later she didn't know, O'Shannon rolled off her and lay spent and panting. “My son …” he said, his voice trembling with grief even as it surged with triumph. “He was headstrong, too wild perhaps, too much like me. But he was all that I had. And now I have all …
all
of what his murderer held dear and treasured. No mere slash of a saber could give me that.”

He began to laugh. Elizabeth covered herself and, unable to look at him any longer, turned aside. Only then did the full measure of Luther O'Shannon's revenge strike home, filling her with horror. For framed in one of the window panels of the balcony door was the fevered, tortured face of her husband.

True had seen.

He had watched … everything.

Chapter XXXI

The creak of wood and hemp line. The sharp double ring of the bell from the quarterdeck. Ding-ding. Ding-ding. Ding-ding. Six bells. Three o'clock. The afternoon sun in the Gulf of Mexico was hot in spite of the breeze that slid over the deck, caught the sails, and sent the schooner northward, back toward Texas.

True lay in his bunk below and stared at the wood and past the wood to an empty realm devoid of answers. “Remember me,” O'Shannon had said, leaning into the coach. Unwillingly huddled in Elizabeth's arms, burning with fever and tormented by the nightmare he had been forced to watch, True had heard the Irishman's final, mocking words: “Remember me.” He would have given all he had to forget.

The sound of Elizabeth's knock, soft on the door, mingled with the other ship sounds. When there was no answer, she pushed the door open, tiptoed into the cabin and, trying to judge if True was awake, stood quietly against the bulkhead. “True?” There was no answer, and fearfully—for his fever had not yet broken and he was still terribly ill—she hurried to his side. But then she saw the blanket covering him rise gently with each breath, and her brief panic, felt too often the last few days, faded. Sighing with relief, she stood and looked down at him.

The ship rose and fell over the long swells, rocked easily against the slow force of the wind. The cabin smelled of sea spray and old maps and worn pewter and damp hemp and tarred wood. They were good smells. “Are you asleep?” she asked him.

He did not open his eyes or acknowledge her presence.

“The captain expects to reach Corpus Christi in three days. After that, we'll be home before long.”

He might as well have been deaf for all the response she received.

“Hogjaw can't wait,” she went on, trying to sound cheerful. “He says that little squall we had last night reminded him why he quit the sea in the first place.”

The grain of the wood in the bulkhead, seen from only inches away, reminded True of a plowed field. The crops had barely been planted when he had left. He wondered how they were doing. Had insects eaten them? Had there been enough rain? There would be a great deal of work to do when he got home.

Home. Returning home as if nothing had happened. Home. Would it ever be home again?

“Damn it, True! Say
some
thing!” Elizabeth hissed, the tension and accumulated guilt threatening to destroy her self-control. “Do you think I
wanted
to?
Say
something!”

His head felt weighted. The muscles in his neck didn't want to work, but he willed them to. Only slowly did his head turn away from the wall and drop in her direction. “I don't have anything
to
say,” he whispered, and closed his eyes again.

Elizabeth glared helplessly at him, at last whirled around and ran from the cabin. Her footsteps faded and became indistinguishable from the ship sounds. Behind her, the door to the cabin swung back and forth with the motion of the schooner. True clamped his hands to the side of his head but the ache remained no matter how forcefully he pressed. And always, no matter what, the voice of Luther O'Shannon rang in his ears.

“Remember me. Remember me. Remember me.…”

True slammed his fist against the bulkhead. “I will,” he whispered between clenched teeth. “I will. I will. I swear I will!”

Chapter XXXII

There had been little difference between night and day at sea. True's fever was raging the day they sailed across Corpus Christi Bay and tied up at the docks in the Nueces River. He had a vague recollection of being carried onto land, of a cool room and the weight of blankets. He thought he recalled being placed in a wagon he later learned had been rented. He seemed to remember hearing interminable discussions held over the cold towels placed on his forehead, and wondering why they bothered when he only wanted them to leave him alone. The jolting had started sometime later. There had been heat and dust to torture him. His thirst had been unquenchable. And then one day he had opened his eyes and realized he was back in the cabin they had built. The first thing he remembered seeing was Elizabeth's eyes. They were wet with tears, but he was strangely unmoved.

If he had not been beaten so badly, if he had been more used to the food, he would never have wasted away so terribly in prison. Nor would his recovery have been so difficult. The process was slow and painful. His stomach would not hold solid food for the first month. His teeth hurt. Just when he thought he was recovering, diarrhea would sap his strength again. The length of time between the ravaging bouts gradually increased, though. He spent many hours in bed, almost as many more sitting in a small bower Hogjaw had built for him down by the river or, on cooler days, in the sun by the front door. He climbed on a horse for the first time in the middle of August, and by October, after starting slowly a month earlier, was splitting wood for the winter. One morning in December, he woke to the realization that he had become virtually a hermit. Vast changes were in the offing, but he had neither listened nor watched nor cared. One thing, though, had not changed: “Remember me,” dwelled within him and ate at his soul.

Elizabeth would certainly have gone mad had it not been for Lottie and Joan and the others. The first two months were easy enough for she told herself that True was simply sick. It was easy to lose herself in nursing him and caring for the house and farm. As the days went by, though, and as he recovered his strength but still didn't respond to her, she began to worry. She made little treats for him. She sent to San Antonio for expensive white flour so she could make the white bread, hot and crusty, that she knew he loved so much. She stayed up late at night to make extra batches of crab apple jelly that he had once said he liked as a child. One afternoon she tore three fingernails building a ladder that was ugly but serviceable, carted it down to the riverbank, and propped it by an old cottonwood tree. She knew he used it because she spied him sitting in the tree one day, but he never thanked her for it. When he got well enough to do some work, she fashioned a special girdle for his ribs, which had not healed properly and which became very tender if he tried to do too much. He wore it for three days, and then left it off and put up with the pain. And always, no matter how he filled out, how he healed, how he tanned and ate and strengthened, his eyes remained empty. Worst of all, she knew that he watched her when she got ready for bed at night, and remembered.

The world had been going about its business. Stephen Austin had been released from his Mexican prison as a rare conciliatory gesture and he, Travis, Sam Houston, and a host of other self-ordained patriots had been busy fomenting revolution. The settlers and colonists had become impatient, and momentum toward creating an independent republic had gathered. The Revolution for Independence began in the waning months of 1835 in Gonzales, when the colonists rose and drove the Mexican soldiers from their midst. By the end of the year, the whole territory south of the Rio Grande had been emptied of Mexican troops. There was great rejoicing tempered with a calm fatalism: no one believed that Mexico would give up that easily. Santa Anna's soldiers would be back, and one day the Texians would have the war—and freedom—they had sought for so long.