Paxton and the Lone Star (8 page)

True started to speak, but Adriana pressed her fingers to his lips and shook her head no. “Loneliness for the mother who bore him, loneliness for Adriana,” she said in a wistful singsong. “I love you, my son, so I won't lie to you. You won't be back. None of you will return. I have seen it in the flame of the candle and in the lay of the cards. Trouble lies ahead, flesh of my flesh. Great deeds, death for some, life for others. And for you?” The faintest of smiles played fleetingly across her face. “As the tree rises from the brambles, so shall you overcome adversity.”

“I don't have to go, Mother,” True said, faltering.

Adriana stood and cupped True's face in her hands. “Yes you do, my first-born. More than any of the others, perhaps. I do not know this Texas that Hogjaw speaks of, but I can see in your eyes that it calls you. And it is written, somewhere, that you must go. As I love you, I would not hold you back.”

True rose, leaned forward to accept her kiss on his cheek and feel her arms around him for the last time. “Part of me will always be here with you, Mother,” he said, his eyes misting.

“I know, my son. And my love will be with you all your days.” She pushed away from him, held him at arm's length. Her smile was forced, a smile to belie the pain in her heart. She patted his arm. “Your brothers will be anxious.…”

True tucked the amulet inside his shirt. The metal was cold against his skin, but it warmed quickly. He leaned down and kissed his mother's cheek. She tasted of tears.

The heat outside was oppressive though the hour was still early. Joseph and Andrew, already mounted, waited patiently. Their father stood between their horses, holding Firetail's reins. Hogjaw did not like departures, and was waiting down by the gate at the end of the meadow. Thomas and the mountain man had parted with no more than a perfunctory wave of the hand. At first, True had not understood such a casual farewell between close friends, but in that moment when he faced his father, he did. There really was nothing to say. Any attempt to express the bond between them would have been banal. Adequate words simply didn't exist. True's and Thomas's hands met, and through that grip flowed twenty-two years of love, of a little boy's tears and of his laughter, of a father's hopes and dreams, of quick anger and chastisement and forgiving, of lessons small and large, of gifts and sharings, of the quiet moments when, hand in hand, they had walked across meadows, and through forests, and down shaded and bright lanes that brought them to the moment of parting, but from which they would never be parted. It was that way, and it was enough. When their hands fell apart, True mounted and, with his brothers leading the way, turned his horse down the path.

Hogjaw watched them approach. When they drew even with him, he lifted a battered bugle to his lips and blew a blast that drove the herons from the marsh into the air and echoed over the meadows, causing the field hands to stare around in terror and the animals in the forest to turn and listen. “Come along, you Paxtons,” he said. “And don't look back, mind you, for him that does begins a habit that's hard to break.”

Joseph gave a derisive snort. Andrew chuckled and urged his horse into the lead. True pressed his hand against the amulet beneath his shirt. Together, they rode from Solitary.

And none of them turned back for a last look.

PART TWO

Chapter V

October 10, 1834

“You ought not to go,” Elizabeth Michaelson cautioned soberly. “You know what Mr. Jones said.”

Lottie raised her eyes to the cloud-filled heavens, which rumbled a warning of their own. “Mr. Jones is as staid and stuffy as Pa,” she replied peevishly. “If we must go to Texas, where I'll probaby never see pretty lights or hear music or go to dances again, I intend to have some fun while the opportunity presents itself. Honestly, Elizabeth! How can you be such a stick-in-the-mud?”

Elizabeth's back stiffened. Thaddeus Jones, the wagon master they had met the day before, had spent a half hour warning his new charges that Natchez must be the limit of their excursions, and that the thin line of bordellos and taverns clinging to the banks of the Mississippi at the base of the Natchez Bluffs was to be avoided at all costs. In the first place, it was physically dangerous, for when the Mississippi uncoiled and flexed its muscles in awesome muddy majesty and roared above the banks like the Apocalypse itself, it carried off the pineboard buildings and bullied the patrons inside them into watery graves. More importantly, the short strip called Natchez Under the Hill was a den of gamblers, shady women, and thieves, where no decent person could or would be found. It existed, and was barely condoned by Natchez's more proper elders, because it provided an outlet for the roisterers and carousers who passed through on their way west, and in the process kept them from the streets of Natchez itself. That Elizabeth had taken the warning seriously while Lottie had not was a fair indication of the difference in temperament between the two sisters. “Papa wouldn't like to hear you talk like way,” Elizabeth said. “He asked around. It's a place of sin and damnation.”

“Old folks always say that fun is dangerous and sinful,” Lottie sniffed. She pulled her cleanest dress over her head and patted the bodice smooth against her swelling bosom before turning to the mirror.

Elizabeth compared Lottie's abundant figure to her own trimmer, firm physique, and quickly donned a clean workshirt. “You still ought not to go,” she repeated, tucking the shirt-tail into her trousers. “There's so much to do here.”

“Oh, certainly!” Lottie pinched her cheeks to bring out the color and set to work on her hair. “Like being ogled by Dennis and Mackenzie Campbell, as if we were a pair of brood mares trotted out for them to play stud to. Well, no thank you.”

“Not so loud,” Elizabeth shushed.

Lottie's hair hung in a cascade over her shoulders. She pinned it up over her ears to keep it away from her face and once again regarded herself in the mirror. “Really, Elizabeth,” she said with a tinkling laugh. “No one can hear. They're all out by the fire.” She adjusted a pin, arranged a curl just so. “Anyway, you carry on too much. Natchez Under the Hill! Why, the very name is exciting. And I intend to be a part of it, even if it is only for a little while.”

“But it will be dark in a while. And it looks like rain. What will I tell Papa? He'll expect you at table.”

“Well, I won't be there is all.” Lottie pulled aside the rear flap and checked to see if anyone was watching. “You can tell him I'm sick or something. That it's my time,” she said, gathering her skirts and stepping over the rear gate. “Unless—” She leaned back into the dimness. “—you want to go with me.”

“You know I can't do that,” Elizabeth whispered, shocked.

“Why not?” Lottie asked. “You'd be real pretty if you gave yourself half a chance. Why not get out of that men's homespun and put on a dress and come along? It's time you had a man, and don't tell me you haven't thought about it.”

“Of course I haven't.”

“Oh, pooh. You're lying.” She pulled her cape from the top of the trunk and threw it over her arm. “It only hurts for a minute, and that's little enough to pay for all the fun you'll have afterwards.”

Elizabeth's face burned with anger. “You can't be satisfied, can you?” she snapped. “We left behind trouble in Pennsylvania, with those Rueben boys fighting over you. Now you want to disobey Papa and see what new strays you can bed with here. By the time we reach Texas you'll no doubt have the Campbell boys at each other's throats as well. And you'll keep on until you get pregnant or someone gets hurt, and all because you have to have your fun.”

“That's right!” Lottie retorted angrily. “You sound just like Papa. Well, all I have to say, Miss Prissy, is that you'd better not tell.” She jumped down from the wagon, then poked her head over the gate for a final, parting shot. “Maybe time will make you understand and trim your high and holier-than-thou ways, Elizabeth Michaelson. I certainly hope so!”

The flap dropped in Elizabeth's face. Not sure of what to do, she leaned back against the cedar-lined trunk where the clothes were kept. The wagon was neatly arranged with household necessities packed inside and farming implements, sacks of seed, and water barrels rigged to the exterior. The niceties of life, chairs and tables, beds, wardrobes, tubs, and the like would have to be purchased in San Antonio or built from what trees they found on their land, for the mules could pull only so much weight. The most important item of all was the parchment signed by Cirilio Medina and cosigned by an official of the Bustamente regime in Mexico City. Elizabeth crawled forward, removed a heavily waxed leather pouch from the special compartment under the driver's seat, and opened it. The document inside was penned in Spanish and bore the seal of the government of Mexico. Similar to others secreted in each settler's wagon, it stated that for a sum of money already received, the government recognized the transfer of title of one thousand hectares or, in more familiar terms, two thousand, four hundred and seventy-one acres, from Medina to one Carl Michaelson and his heirs, forever in perpetuity.

Elizabeth had never seen or held such an important piece of paper. It represented sacrifice and a dream of independence and wealth—and more, perhaps, Elizabeth thought, wishing she understood better what drove her father so. He had talked to her often when she was younger, divulged to her his secrets as he carried her about on his shoulders. That had been a long time ago, though, and she could remember little of what he had said. In those days, he had been a laughing, light-hearted man, solicitous of his wife and considerate of his children. But the changes in him over the past three or four years had tinged her devotion for him with fear. Nor was she the only one affected. Lottie hadn't always been insolent and rebellious. Their mother had not always been so wan and pinched of face. “I used to love him so,” she had told Elizabeth in an unguarded moment one night no more than a year before they left Pennsylvania. If there were only some way, Elizabeth thought, that she could help. If she could exorcise the devils that plagued her father, restore her mother's love for him, dissuade Lottie from her licentious ways, perhaps they could be a happy family again.

“Lottie! Elizabeth! Dinner time!”

Elizabeth shuddered, returned the document to its pouch and hiding place, and began to pull on her shoes.

“Lottie! Elizabeth!” Her mother's voice, frail and high-pitched, trembled with exhaustion despite an uneventful voyage by steamboat down the Mississippi to the rendezvous at Natchez with Mr. Jones. Each day it had become more evident that she had no desire to lead a pioneer existence, and that she accompanied her husband only because her religious convictions were stronger than the temptation to desert him and remain behind.

Elizabeth hurriedly finished with her shoes. “Coming, Mother,” she called, reaching for a bit of ribbon to tie back her tumbling, golden hair. Thunder rumbled in the distance and rolled over the waiting landscape. Elizabeth snatched one of her father's broad-brimmed floppy hats and then reconsidered. Next to returning to the East, Hester's most ardent desire was that her daughters marry well, and though she despaired of their ever doing so in Texas, she was resolved to see that they did nothing to minimize the chances should an eligible gentleman come along. There was no sense in forcing a confrontation. Sighing, Elizabeth put down the hat and decided to go bareheaded. Hester would no doubt find fault with her appearance anyway, but there was nothing to be done.

They were all gathered about a makeshift table constructed of a wood plank salvaged from the river and stretched across two tree stumps. Reverend Kania cleared his throat, smiled at his wife, Mila, and held his arms outstretched in blessing over his flock as he looked from one to another of them and named them in his mind. Resolute Carl Michaelson, middle-aged, desperate for a new beginning, and his wife, Hester, head bowed, her hands fluttering at her apron strings. Nels Matlan, a thin, wiry young man of thirty and his pretty wife, Eustacia, like her husband a teacher, and their son, eight-year-old Tommy. Stocky, stalwart Scott Campbell, another farmer, his dutiful spouse Joan, a handsome, robust woman, and their four children, two older boys molded in their father's image and two younger girls in their mother's. Kevin Thatche, a lad of sixteen and Mildred, his fifteen-year-old bride, pregnant, hopeful, and not a little worried. Childless, middle-aged Jack Kemper and his wife, Helen, storekeepers with illusions of a sprawling empire, and strangely secretive as to the origin of the money they had used to buy their land, even though no questions had been asked. And himself, the Reverend Buckland Kania, graying in his fifty-second year on earth, with a wife twenty years his junior who loved him and inspired him to lead one more flock to the Lord's pastures. Only the Michaelson girls were missing, and they would be along soon, for he could see Elizabeth coming down the path from where the wagons were parked.

And one other, too, the Reverend added, noticing Thaddeus Jones standing at the edge of the clearing and staring hungrily at the communal stewpot. “Will you join us, Mr. Jones?” he called, delaying the blessing. “After all, you will be our shepherd in the wilderness, so to speak.”

Jones, a black man of indeterminate age and narrow build, dressed in homespun britches and a shirt that appeared too small for him, doffed his slouch hat and stepped into the circle. “The vittles do smell good. Never quite thought of myself as a shepherd, but I'd be proud to join you. It's a long road ahead we'll share. “He nodded to each of the ladies and muttered, “Ma'am … ma'am,” as he passed them and took a place at the end of the table.

“Almighty Father …” Kenia paused to wait for Elizabeth to take her place between her mother and father.