Paxton and the Lone Star (47 page)

Elizabeth's smile faded and she could feel her shoulders tense. “I don't think—”

“It's plain to see that things haven't been right between you and True since you came back from Mexico.” Elizabeth started to protest, but Joan ignored her and plunged on. “Let me say only this. Love isn't enough. No matter how sweet and airy things are at first, you find out that love isn't enough. Like with me and Scott, and the business of the boys and this stupid war. If all we had was love, we'd've gone our own ways a long time ago. But there's such things as understanding and patience—to help you over the rough spots, so to speak. It's like a three-legged stool. Without patience and understanding, love can't hold you up. It takes all three.…”

Joan sighed, put her hand over Elizabeth's. “Well now, here I am in my cups and running all over your feelings like I had the right to.” She touched Elizabeth's chin, turned her head so they were looking into each other's eyes. “I'm sorry, Elizabeth, but it's the truth.” A gentle smile warmed her face. “And sometimes the truth is worth a hurt feeling or two.”

“I—”

“No,” Joan said, shaking her head. She stood, helped Elizabeth to her feet, and kept a firm grip on her wrists. “You don't have to say anything. Just give me a little hug so I'll know I'm forgiven for speaking out of turn, and then, off with you. I want to revel in my glory, because sure as the sun rises, this man of mine will deny everything in the morning. A Scotsman hates to be bested by his wife even if it is good for him every once in a while.”

Elizabeth's throat felt uncommonly warm. There was something wrong with her eyes, too, and she was forced to blink away the tears. Suddenly, she was holding onto Joan and crying as she had cried in her mother's arms when she was a little girl.

“There, there,” Joan whispered, remembering the difficult years that she, Scott, and everyone else she knew had gone through. “There, there. You'll be fine. He'll be fine. You'll work it out some way.”

“The world needs a few more like you,” Elizabeth whispered in Joan's ear, and giving her a peck on the cheek, ran from the
cantina.

The lobby was as empty as before. Elizabeth's shoes were the only sound on the stairway. The upstairs hall lanterns had not been lit, but she knew the way and found their door by touch. Inside the room, the wan glow of a half-moon gave enough light to see by. True was there where she had left him, in bed.

Maybe tonight. Maybe at last after nine months. Nine long months.

The fire had died down to coals. Elizabeth undressed quickly and, forgoing her nightgown, slipped into bed next to True. “I'm cold,” she said, her breath in his ear.

He didn't move, didn't answer her, but she felt him tense as she touched him. She moved closer, felt her nipples tighten when they brushed against his arm and chest. She slid her leg across his groin. Her hand stroked his chest and her lips traced a line of delicate kisses in the hollow of his neck. “True?” she whispered. “Darling?”

He tried. He squeezed his eyes so tightly shut that the lids ached. He concentrated on her hand, on the pressure of her thigh against him, on the touch of her breasts.

O'Shannon kneeling over her. Her legs spread, opening to him. O'Shannon plunging into her. Elizabeth lying there, not fighting while he took her and took her and took her.

He threw back the covers and stood, naked. Elizabeth sat up. True spun, forced her down on the bed, his mouth covering hers in a savage kiss that hurt her, then shoved himself away and began to dress.

“True?…”

“Leave me alone.”

“True …”

“No one asked you to come to Mexico. I could have escaped. Would have.”

“You would have died.”

“No.” His voice was choked, as if the words poisoned him. “Maybe. What do you think
this
is? What am I now?”

“You're my husband and I love you. Nothing else matters.”

True's laugh was strained, a hoarse parody. “To be … like this … like I am … doesn't matter?”

“No,” she said, meaning it, wondering how she would feel if she had seen him in bed with another woman. “It won't last forever. We are safe, True. Free.”

“I am
not
free, goddamn it! I never will be. He's here in this room, taunting me, taking his revenge.”

“He is not in this room,” Elizabeth said. “If he is, it's because you invited him in.”

“Bullshit!” The poison spilling from him, uncontrollably spilling. “You're the one who gave him the revenge he wanted. You, goddamn it! You!”

“Me?” Her face was white with fury. “How dare you? You act as if I liked what was happening. As if—”

“You weren't fighting him, were you?”

“What!”

“Fighting, goddamn it. Biting, scratching, kicking, hitting. Fighting! You were just lying there! Just … goddamn … lying there!”

“Stop it!” Elizabeth shrieked. “Just stop it!” Wild, she found herself on her knees, pounding the mattress with clenched fists. “Just stop it!”

“It's a little late for stopping, isn't it? You should've thought of that—”

“No!” She was too stunned, too shocked to cry. She could barely breathe. “You think … you think … My God, True, how could you think I wanted … I let …” And at last tears scalded her eyes and face as great sobs wracked her body. “It was your life, True. Your
life!
My body for your life. It was all I had to give!”

True hadn't moved. He stood on one foot, the other foot halfway into his boot. How long he stood that way he didn't know, but at last he shuddered as if awakening. “You should've stayed in Texas,” he finally said, his voice emptied of emotion. “Where you belonged.”

Elizabeth lay back with her head on the pillow and stared at the ceiling. “You should never have left Texas in the first place,” she countered, as bitter as she was sad. “Your place was with me, True. I should have been more important to you than everybody else in all Texas.”

True jammed his feet into his boots. Elizabeth drew up her knees, wrapped her arms around them and lowered her face into the blanketed peak. “Oh, True,” she sighed wearily. “Listen to us. Just listen to us. I don't think I can stand this. I love you, True. I need you. We need each other.” Tears streaming down her face, she pleaded with him. “He took one hour of my life, True. One hour I couldn't stop him from taking and that he didn't deserve. Don't let him take the rest of our life. Don't let this destroy us, True. Hold on to me, please?”

Creak of leather belt, click of bootheel on wooden flooring. True walked to the window and leaned on the sill. The moonlight, hardened by the frost on the glass, made his face look bone white. “Questions … are all I have left, Elizabeth. Questions.” He turned from the window, paused by the coatrack, and headed for the door. “No answers. None at all.”

“Where are you going?” she asked faintly.

“Out.” The door creaked open. “Out to look. For answers.”

“Don't leave me, True. Please?”

“I have to look. I have to.”

“Plea—”

The door closed and she was alone in the darkness. She lay back on the bed and imagined a three-legged stool. Its legs were splintered and spiders had cast webs around and through the ruined wood. “Love, patience, understanding,” she whispered to herself. And closed her eyes to shut out the image.

True left by the rear exit and, burrowing into his coat, walked quickly to the stable. Firetail's distinctive whinny directed him to the rear stall. The stallion nuzzled his hand, butted him in the chest with his head. True scratched behind Firetail's ears in return, then moved to saddle him.

“True?”

Lantern light spilled over him as he turned around to see Andrew entering from a side tack room. “Thought you'd be at the party,” True said.

“Was and will be,” Andrew said with a grin. “Found out that Kemper received a load of gunpowder the other day and hasn't moved it to Agradecido yet. He was going to blow stumps with it, but Travis and Bowie figure we can put it to better use in rifles.” He laughed shortly. “That's one thing they agree on, at least.”

“What's Kemper think about it?” True asked.

Andrew pulled one of the draught horses out of a stall and began hooking it up to a wagon. “Doesn't know, yet.

“He will,” True drawled. He tightened the cinch, dropped the stirrup, and led Firetail out of his stall. “So will Helen.”

“No problem at all,” Andrew explained. “We're giving him a receipt. Here. Hold this idiot animal. 'Sides, they're patriots, aren't they?”

“Sure. But storekeepers first. Helen will tell you that—and a few other things the minute she learns what you're up to.”

“Which I'll let Travis take care of, thank you.” Andrew disappeared in the darkness, then came back with the other draught horse. “Won't matter, anyway. It'll all be in the Alamo by the time they find out, and it'll be too late to do anything.”

True held the second horse while Andrew harnessed him. “I still think the Alamo's a bad idea. Hell, you can walk into it through two of the damn walls, such as they are. You better hope Santa Anna can't find it—if he comes this way.”

“Yeah, that is a problem,” Andrew admitted. “Actually, I'd rather be with Sam Houston. He'll probably be the one who sees all the action. Back up, damn your hide! C'mon. Back, back! You ever see such a dadblamed obstreperous animal?”

“Sure have,” True said, mounting Firetail. “I just helped one harness a team, and there's a whole bunch more all ready to trail along behind your friend, Travis. Not to speak of Houston and Bowie. See you. Have fun with your gunpowder.”

Andrew stepped out from between the horses. “It's not too late to join us. True. You won't be sorry, once we're a Republic.”

“That's just what you don't understand,” True said, looking down at Andrew. “I've already given everything I care to for the cause.” He nudged Firetail's flanks with his heels. “And I'm already sorry.”

“Where you going?”

“For a ride.”

“In this cold? Hardly makes sense.”

“Neither do a lot of other things, little brother. If you'll get the door for me?”

The wind was fiercer, if anything. Wetter, too. True decided as he cut down an alley and headed south. The stallion's breath was a ghostly wisp that lasted but a second. When he came out from between the buildings, the wind grabbed at him. True rose in the saddle and pushed his coat tails underneath him, pulled up his collar, and settled in for the ride.

Ten minutes later, he was quit of town. Overhead, translucent clouds skimmed the scimitar curve of the moon. Andrew had told him that the Coushattas called the wind the breath of the Great Spirit, and as that breath altered the cloud pictures in the sky, so too did it change the fortunes of men. The path they were taking had not changed, though. The trail steepened, turned left to follow the looping arc south of the city. Higher up, and broadside to the wind, True felt the temperature drop even lower.

Boulders loomed ahead but horse and rider did not slow. They had come this way before, a little over a year earlier. The path was etched clearly in their minds, as was the twisting, flat place ahead, where Firetail shied back from the edge of the cliff. True dismounted, led the stallion into a cul de sac out of the wind, and walked to the edge. Far below and in the distance, San Antonio was a collection of twinkling, amber jewels set in a shadowed valley.

Lean forward. Lean. Perhaps the answer lies below.

There Ramez swerved the white stallion, there a little farther along the two animals collided, and there …

Lean forward. Is that dark spot on the boulder blood?

So easy to end the torment. No one knows how easy. Just one more step. An end to revenge.

The wind seemed to suck him into its arms. The shadows below danced like demons at play among the jutting rocks.

Cannot undo what has been done. The past is written. How simple to compose a future free of trouble, to think no more. Dead anyway, so what is the loss?

His body wavered, wavered like a reed caught in a spring flood.

Just one more step.

The ghostly glow of moonshine on rocks made them look like bones, like bars.

Iron bars, Pain. Hands stretching through bars, cheekbones slamming into metal.

The rocks were crumbly underfoot. One slipped over the edge. He heard it tumble and start a small slide.

O'shannon watching from the rocks, waiting for the final act. Is that him? No, a cactus. There? No, a boulder. Or shadow play or dust stirred from a crevice by the wind.

Her body for his life. Oh, but Christ, he hurt!

“Aaaaaahhhhh!”

A cry in the hills, snatched away by the north wind, spread over the land like a distillation of pain. A man kneeling on the edge of a precipice, a broken man in a broken land.

But a man, nonetheless, and like a man, struggling to rise. There were no answers, at least no easy or quick ones.

True stumbled toward Firetail, climbed the boulders behind him and stood at the top of the heights to look toward the south. The wind pressed against his back now, but he no longer felt the cold. Let Santa Anna come, he thought. And let the others fight for Texas, if that's what they wanted. He'd be waiting for the man who came with Santa Anna, for Luther O'Shannon.

And he would remember.

Chapter XXXIII

“Enough,” Elizabeth said, dropping the tamping tool and wiping the sweat from her forehead.

True looked at the sun, decided it was close enough to noon to call it a morning. He counted silently. Since sunup they had set the four corner posts and the two gates posts for the garden fence, plus eight of the regular posts. “Only eighteen to go,” he said. “You ready for some lunch?”