Paxton Pride (21 page)

Vance grinned. “Hope I don't need it, but thanks. You too.”

“Aye. When I need a good man I'll know where to look. Even if he be a lubber.” He turned to Karen. “Miss Hampton …” he cleared his throat before continuing. “Your charming presence has lent a certain grace to this poor vessel. We will miss you.” He wanted to warn her again but thought better. She was in good hands, and more words now would be a waste of time.

Karen offered him her hand. “Thank you, Captain,” she said. “Thank you very much.” Vance took her arm and the couple gingerly traversed the gangplank to the pier. Behind them Captain Beeman doffed his cap in silent farewell.

They crossed the splintered planks of the dock and passed between the storage sheds where men toiled in the already terrible heat. Corpus Christi lay before them. Karen glanced along the beach. “But where is the carriage?” she asked.

“What carriage?”

“The carriage to take us wherever we're to go? To town.…”

Vance continued walking. “We're in town and it's only a couple of minutes to walk to the depot.” He chuckled softly. “I doubt there's a carriage anywhere in the whole place.”

Karen stopped abruptly. “This is … this …” she gestured dramatically, “… is Corpus Christi? All of it?”

“I know it isn't much,” Vance began apologetically.

“I thought it was just the waterfront. Good Lord, this …
slum
… is the whole town? I can't believe it.”

Vance coaxed her into the street separating a handful of clapboard buildings to either side. “Texas is still frontier. You can't expect the finery …”

“I'm not talking of finery. Just some visible aspects of civilization.”

“Wait. Wait until we reach San Antonio. You'll love it, I promise. With luck we'll be there by the Fourth. It will be
fiesta
time, in spite of the bad feelings. Everyone will come to town for a big party—any party. The Rebs'll be there too, even if they aren't so sympathetic. A party is a party. You'll see.” He guided her along the street and to the depot A weather-beaten clapboard sign hung from rusted chains, “Matherson Stage Line” scrawled across the planks in large black letters. Karen recognized her trunks stacked on the porchway as she accompanied Vance inside.

The interior was more bleak than the exterior, if that were possible. A single counter ran the length of the back wall. A huge iron stove, black with age and smoke, stood to one side and the walls were hung with old sheets of newspaper, the faded headlines screaming worn tales of battles won and lost, death, mayhem and tragedy. Crates and parcels, most covered with a heavy layer of sandy dust, cluttered every corner and stood in tall haphazard stacks. Behind the counter, a grizzled character of indeterminate age sat, laboriously writing in a ledger. “I want to purchase fares for two to San Antonio,” Vance said.

The man behind the desk spoke without looking up from the ledger. “No point in payin' now. Y'all can if yah want, but no point to it.”

Karen's apprehension grew. She desperately wanted to get out and away from the dingy room, from the whole town. She started as Vance dropped her arm and reached across the counter and closed the ledger, sending up a small cloud of dust. The old man looked up angrily. “Say, what the … oh. Pardon me, ma'am.” He adjusted his glasses and squinted at Vance. “Now look here, mister …”

“I'll need two fares to San Antonio. When will the stage be leaving?”

“That's what I'm tellin' yah, if y'all weren't in such a consarned rush. She ain't leavin' 'cause she ain't got here yet. Ain't due for another three days. Only had two coaches an' one a' them got busted up runnin' from a bunch a' outlaw Mescans. Mr. Matherson ain't put another'n on the line yet. They's a hotel jes' across the street. I reckin y'all can put up there.”

Karen went pale.
Three days. No. Not here. Not in this Godforsaken …

As if reading her thoughts, Vance headed for the door. “Wait here,” he instructed briefly, and was gone. Karen started to protest but there was no one to whom she might. She felt the stageman's eyes on her and drew herself up to her full height. She looked about for a place to sit, but found naught but trunks. Choosing the cleanest looking, she slapped at the grimy surface with her handkerchief and sat down, haughtily returning the old man's gaze. He immediately averted his eyes and returned to the ledger.

Beads of perspiration began to form on her forehead and she dabbed at the moisture with the silk handkerchief, then gave up when she felt the first drop run down her neck and chest, another run down her side. She glanced ruefully at the stove, wondered whatever it might be used for in such a climate. A large dusty clock on the wall ticked heavily, each interminable minute passing more slowly than the one before, each adding to her sense of despondency.

The clatter of harness and the sound of a wagon drawing up before the depot jerked her from her reverie. The door swung open and Vance entered hurriedly, closing the door behind him and pulling a tiny blue parasol from under his coat. “This is for you. I had to hide it, else the boys in town would have given me a time.” Vance crossed to the old man behind the counter, who looked up from his ledger without any assistance from the lanky Texan. “The hosteler told me you had a rifle for sale.”

“I got one. Don't know as it's fer sale. A Henry .44. Shoots sweet an' straight.” He glanced pointedly at the weapon on Vance's thigh and knew he could make a good trade, for with the Henry, Vance would need to carry but one kind of ammunition.

Vance nodded at Karen and she left the room and the men to their haggling. She walked outside and looked at the buildings around her. A slight breeze kicked up little eddies of dust along the street but did little to dissipate the mid-morning heat. She opened the parasol to take advantage of the shade it offered. The wagon Vance had driven up was a simple outfit, a wooden seat over a long rickety-looking flat bed half filled with an odd assortment of boxes and sacks. Two melancholy mules were hitched to the tongue, the reins draped loosely over the rail in front of them. Karen thought of Hermann and the carriages at home, the care he gave to each polished piece of wood, leather and brass. She imagined herself standing once again in the cool dark stables, surrounded by the smell of leather and hay, by her father's magnificent horses, sorrels and bays alike animals for the coach of a king. With a handful of carrots stolen from the kitchen she would draw close. Oh, they knew her. Each would whinny for attention, hooves stomping impatiently on the straw-covered planks, ears pricked forward and eyes rolling. Each received a carrot, a soft pat on the neck and a gently, playful tug on his luxuriant, combed and ribboned mane.

The door opened behind her. Vance and the stageman stepped out, each carrying a pair of carpetbags which they dropped on the porch and left while they loaded the trunks. The old man packed the carpetbags into the wagon bed, wedging them between the trunks and the seat, while Vance returned briefly to the door, reached inside and came back out with a rifle and spare cartridge belt. The stageman stepped back onto the porch, wiping his face with a soiled red kerchief. “That Crawford's buckboard?”

“Was,” Vance nodded as he stashed the rifle under the seat and shucked his coat.

“It'd make more sense to wait fer that stage. Three days ain't so long when it comes to keepin' yer hair. Them Mescans an' Apaches causin' all kinda hell, beggin' your pardon, ma'am. They come up from Mexico at Eagle Pass an' disappear into the countryside. A band a' one of 'em between here an' San Antone, fer sure. I wouldn't be chancin' gettin' there on my lonesome, especially escortin' a finelookin' lady.”

Vance offered Karen his hand and helped her onto the seat. “We won't be alone,” he replied as he took up the reins and climbed into the seat. “And you can tell that to anyone you want.”

“If yer thinkin' a' the train, better think again. A bunch a' renegades hit the last two, tore 'em to pieces.”

“We'll take our chances,” Vance answered coldly, angered at the talk he knew would upset Karen.

“Well, don't say I didn't tell you.”

Vance clucked and snapped the reins sharply on the mules' backs and they ambled away from the depot. Karen was more than glad to be away and for the time being rode silently, reflecting Vance's mood and trying fruitlessly to fully comprehend the vast space around.
It's like the ocean, only solid … hot
.… Some half a mile ahead a small grove of trees poked out of the emptiness and it was for these they headed and there sought respite amid the dappled shade. Vance applied the brake, jumped down and circled the wagon to assist her. She leapt to the ground, supported by his strong arms. Neither had spoken for the last hour and she was full of questions, forgotten when his arms enfolded her and held her close. Her lips eagerly went to his and the plaguing fears left her, driven from mind and heart by the feverish embrace. Their bodies felt right, matched by love's own cunning, each made to fulfill the desire of the other. A bee buzzed low, its hum underscoring the serenity of the moment.

“Sit here,” he said gently. He looked around them, out onto the fiery plain surrounding the tiny grove of mesquite and live oak. “Don't talk. Just sit and let it all soak in. You'll need a while. I'll rustle us up some food.” He pulled down one of his carpetbags and set it on the blanket for her to lean against.

“Vance?” she asked, suddenly afraid.

“Yes?”

“You said we wouldn't be traveling alone.”

He gestured back toward town in answer. Coming over the small bluff, barely visible, she saw a cloud of dust. “What is it?”

“A wagon train with supplies for San Antonio,” he answered. “They were to be unloaded in Galveston, but couldn't because of the fever. It's a shorter trip this way but the trail isn't as good and they have to go through wilder country and the danger of surprise is greater. With luck, though, there'll be no problems. Seven wagons and three outriders, we shouldn't have too much trouble.” He paused. “It's not the way I wanted to introduce you to Texas, to bring you to San Antonio. Not at all. But we will get there. They'll be here in another fifteen minutes, half an hour.” He stood and took her hand, pulled her to her feet and placed his hands on her shoulders. “Karen, I don't believe you really believe all the stories you heard. Not yet, no matter how earnestly I told you. I'm sure you think them too fantastic to be true. But they are, and you will believe, before too many more days have passed. Perhaps even hours, for one never knows.”

He paused, frowning. “You were at home in Washington. Here you are what we call a tenderfoot. You'll have to learn a great many things. I only ask you do learn, not reject what you see simply because it differs from what you have known. The men who will ride with us are rough—they have been through a great deal.”

His voice went on but Karen paid no attention to the words, only looked up at the man she had loved enough to leave a world behind. His clear blue eyes, the long brown hair beneath the broad-brimmed hat, the purposeful line of jaw. She could not help herself and drew close to him, her arms circling around his waist, her mouth seeking his. She could feel the hardness of his flesh beneath his shirt. His wide, strong hands slipped down her back, one continuing on until it rested deliciously near her hip. Enough to leave a world behind?
Yes
…
yes! A world and more
.…

CHAPTER II

Around them stretched the vast table of the coastal plain, emptier, wider and more vast than anything she had ever seen save the ocean. At wide intervals a dry creekbed running to the Nueces broke the land and along these a few mesquite and cottonwoods grew. The land rolled gently, barely enough to make a difference, and from the tops of the small rises one could see for miles. At the bottoms, only the sky. The image of the ocean kept returning to her, burned in further by the barely waving sun-yellowed bunch grass, brown and parched in most spots and miraculously green in others.

Karen looked wistfully to the west. There, some hundreds of yards away, lay the flowing waters of the meandering Nueces, whose winding course they followed. “And I thought it was warm on the ship,” she sighed aloud, dabbing at her face with the soaked kerchief. “Thank God for the parasol. I would simply perish without it.”

Vance tried his most reassuring look. “We might pick up a little breeze before too long, from the look of those clouds. Be thankful we're at the front of this freight line instead of the rear.”

Karen glanced at the seven wagons in line behind them, the farthermost hidden in a choking cloud of dust raised by the ones before. They had been traveling for the greater part of the day.
Oh, for a breeze. For anything to alleviate this heat
.

The sun finally completed its brassy passage across the sky, and as it lay partially over the horizon, one of the horsemen she had seen rode up to the wagon and touched his hat in deference to her. “We'll be puflin' in to Sandy Bend fer the night. I done scouted it out. Looks good.”

Vance nodded as the man rode off, and a few hundred yards farther turned the team from the tracks they followed and headed toward the line of green to the west. Each yard they went the air grew cooler.

“Why didn't we travel closer to the trees?” Karen asked “It seems cooler.”

“Too dangerous. Out here, there's time to see someone coming at you.” He stopped the wagon a couple of hundred yards away from the trees and spent a long five minutes studying them. Finally, satisfied with what he saw—or didn't see—he clucked to the team and headed toward a large cottonwood.

Vance pulled the buckboard up close to the river and within a half hour the other wagons were moving into position, forming a loose protective half circle around the buckboard. Karen stood to one side and watched as the men leaped from the wagons and stretched. The drivers unhitched their teams and led them to water, then strung ropes between four trees and left the animals to roll and eat. She felt helpless in the quiet bustle. Vance unhitched their team, watered them and put them in with the others, took some of the trunks from the buckboard and made, using the wagon for one side, a small three-sided partition around her own private campfire. Within moments the smell of food filled the air, and when she looked around she saw a larger fire had been built, over which hung a huge iron pot. To one side of the fire a coffee pot, squat and black, sent out a tiny plume of steam.