Paxton Pride (46 page)

The house was quiet, the men gone, riding north to locate the remnants of the herd and drive the scattered beeves back down into the valley, for the storm had played havoc with them. Ted was in the rear patio, grudgingly handling the cooking chores, for the wounds he had received prevented him from working with the others. Seeing him, Karen felt guilty. The hearth in the kitchen had remained cold and unproductive, for she had not been able to bring herself to enter what had been so obviously Maruja's domain. She stopped, looking at Ted's back.
The truth is I was being silly. I was afraid of the memory of Jaco and my own.…
Ted, sensing her presence, turned and stared at her, looked back immediately to the campfire to stir the kettle of beans. Sharing Vance's estimation of her more than the others, he found it difficult to look at her and not let the anger show. In addition—and almost as much as the men who had to eat his fare—he resented her for not doing the cooking. Because she wouldn't, he was stuck with a woman's work. The Comanche and white in him agreed. The task was onerous. He stayed only through loyalty to True and the absent Vance.

She walked to him, stood by his side and looked into the pot. “Let the fire die down, Ted. I'll be back in a while and get supper ready in the kitchen,” she said, smiling at him before heading for the front gate. Ted stared after her in amazement. There was simply no way to figure out white women. Men's clothes, now. He didn't know what was happening, but if she was going to cook it was fine with him. He dropped the ladle and strode away from the fire.

The sorrel was waiting, saddled with a regular saddle, a man's saddle. Harley, already shocked by the idea of a real lady riding astride a horse, was blatantly surprised at Karen's apparel, for always before she had deigned to wear nothing but finery. Without a word he helped her into the saddle and watched her ride off. A moment later Ted Morning Sky was at his side, watching with him. “That woman,” Harley said in a strangled voice, “has to be full of more surprises than any other three I ever seen.”

Well away from the ranch proper, Karen noticed a definite change come over her. For the first time since the attack she was away from the confinement of her room and the
hacienda
where, infected by Vance's punishing recriminations and her own overwhelming sense of guilt, she had fallen into a moody, dreamlike rhythm of listless malaise. Life had gone on, but without direction. The PAX existed, as did she, but little more. Vance was gone, where, no one knew. But one could punish oneself for only so long. One could accept punishment for only so long. Sooner or later a person of strength must either succumb or accept the crime, accept the punishment and climb out from under both. Clear-headed, able to think and attack problems, she sat straight in the saddle, let the terrible burdens slough off her and drop behind with the dead grass. She breathed deeply and the air was fresher than ever she remembered. She looked up and the sky was bright and clean, an infinite sea of blue. She looked around, and through the brown grass she could see hints of green, fresh and sweet, the sure promise of a spring to come, of the annual resurgence of life.

Past the third hill she stopped and glanced down, following unconsciously the route True had taken. Some yards farther along the trail she reined in suddenly. Looking back, then down, she realized with proud amazement she had been following the tracks, reading, with no more thought than a book, the sign left by True's horse. Ted and Billy's training had indeed taken effect, and by his tracks she could plainly see he was heading for the family cemetery where now lay three generations. She knew a shorter way. Urging the sorrel into a gallop, she rode hard, exulting in her newfound sense of ability, of responsibility, of capability.

She followed the all too familiar trail up one hill and down into the draw which lay like a moat around the hill of the graves. The sorrel lunged up the final slope and stopped by True's ground-tethered roan gelding. True himself was standing just inside the wrought iron fence, a thin, bowed, weary figure among the graves. Karen tied the sorrel to the post and walked quietly across the grassy field as the gate creaked shut on rusty hinges. The north wind, a zephyr, she thought, rolling the sound of the word through her mind, was chillier than expected and she buttoned the flannel shirt high up her neck before stepping over the fence and to True's side.

He glanced around as she drew close, peered at her garments as if seeing them for the first time. “It's still winter. Should have worn a coat.”

“I thought the shirt would be enough.”

He was standing before the two freshly dug mounds of earth. Two? Of course there would be two. Maruja's and … her pulse throbbed heavily as she read the words burned so recently into the cross thrust into the ground at the head of the pitifully small mound of earth.

ETHAN PAXTON

A son

Born February 8, 1874
—
Died February 8, 1874.

In Darkness and Fire

Her son … and her husband's.
Ethan
. It was a good name. He would have been a bright, happy child. The attack came on a Tuesday.
Tuesday's child is full of grace … Ethan
…
Ethan
… a ragged sob welled in her throat and she tried unsuccessfully to stifle it. True laid a tentative hand on her shoulder and, almost on reflex, she turned and buried her face against the old man's chest.

“There, there.…” True said uncomfortably, patting her shoulder. “It's all right, daughter.… It's all right.”
Daughter
… he wondered at the word he'd so long avoided. Looking over her shoulder, he read the faded words. SARAH ANN PAXTON …
Well, why shouldn't I? A man needs a daughter, same as he needs a son
.

The racking sobs finally ceased and True led her to a granite outcropping that formed a perfect view of the vast, distance-devouring plains stretching forever to the south. “Did you see him, True?”

“Delivered him,” came the brusque reply.

Karen looked at him sharply inquisitive. “You mean, you.…” She blushed deeply.

“Shouldn't let it fret you. I done four a' my own, plus how many calves an' foals I can't remember. It ain't somethin' a man dwells on.” He paused, the memory still strong in him. “Nor forgets, once he's done it.”

“What did he look like? I mean …” she faltered, groping for words. “… was he … all right?”

True's face was rock hard, all emotion held carefully in check. “He looked fine,” he said at last.

“Was he …?”

“He's dead, Karen. You can ask an' ask, but he'll still be dead, an' all the askin'll bring you is more pain.” He gestured with tired eloquence toward the row of simple graves. “I know.”

The tension eased slowly, soaked by the beauty and quietude of the unbroken vista before them. When Karen spoke again, her voice was stronger, matter-of-fact. “Where has he gone, True?”

“Vance?”

“Yes.”

The old man's eyes squinted in thought. “Hard to tell. The boy's ridin' the devil. Got a hurt eatin' away at him. Hard to tell where he'll end up, but when he gets there I only hope he's got the sense to realize he can't ever escape, 'cause what he's runnin' from is inside. The only way to face that sort of trouble is to come back to where it all begun an' face it down.”

“Will he come back?”

“You want him to? Knowin' the way he feels about … about what happened back there?”

“Yes.”

True smiled into the distance and nodded. “I knew you had grit. From that first day you come here. I could tell.”

The wind sighed down the long hills. Karen glanced back at the graves. “Perhaps he's right, you know. Perhaps it is … was … my fault.”

“Nonsense,” True grumbled. “We start handin' out guilt, ain't one of us but is gonna get his share. If anyone is to blame, it's me.” Karen waited, puzzled by his remark. True tossed a chip of granite, watched the white speck tumble and careen down the long slope, disappear from sight. He rose and walked back to the graves. Karen sensed his need to talk, followed a few paces behind him. They stood together for several silent moments, letting the drifting hawk overhead the shadows playing across the far valleys seal the new covenant between father and daughter. “Jaco is my son.”

No pronouncement could have stunned her more. “Jaco …!”

“It happened during the war of '36. One of those things you don't mean to happen. I'd been at the Alamo, but had rode out for help.” True's voice faded and a faraway look came into his eyes as he recalled that wild ride and the impossible odds he'd faced. “Shpuld've been killed that night, I reckon, but Firetail—the best damned horse I ever owned or rode—saved my life.”

Karen remembered the painting of the hammerheaded roan stallion that hung in a place of honor over the mantel in the living room. “He must have been some horse.”

“Yup,” True agreed. “At any rate, Elizabeth was gone, for all I knew dead, like lots of others was. Weren't a day went by when a man couldn't a got hisself killed, an' that afore noon.

“Anyway, I hooked up with a bunch of folks lookin' for Sam Houston's army after the Alamo fell, an' among 'em was a little Mex beauty with black hair an' eyes like fire. Danced for us, one night, she did, an' made us forget the Mex army breathin' down our backs an' that, chances were, none of us would live long enough to put down roots. Me an' her … I followed her from the campfire 'cause I could see she had her eye on me. There was no family, no tomorrow. Only me an' her an' the wind in the cedars an' the moon overhead.

“Well, two days later, we found Sam Houston, an' durned if the next day Elizabeth an' the folks she was with didn't show up in time to help us whip the Mexes once an' for all at San Jacinto. Found Elizabeth again after peace was declared an' we took up where we left off, tryin' to build a life.

“It was twenty years later I run across Maruja again.” Karen gasped in surprise but True ignored her reaction and went on. “I was on a scout to look for some horses been stolen from me an' run across a band of Comanches attack in a sheep herder's spread. I helped run off the war party, an' then found out the people I rescued was her an' her family. Ever'thing they had was wiped out by the Comanches an' Maruja was married an' pregnant again so I brought 'em back to the PAX an' took 'em on, with neither of us lettin' on we'd ever seen each other before. Three months later Marcelina was born, an' two month after that Alfredo, her daddy, taken off. Disappeared one day an' never was seen since. Injuns, probably. Maruja stayed. She would have left, but Elizabeth insisted.” He paused, glancing down at his wife's grave. “To this day I think Elizabeth knew about what happened long ago. Knew … an' must of understood, for she never said a word.

“It wasn't until after news of the renegade, Jaco, first come to us I found out he was my son. Maruja had born him that winter after we'd first met, an' when he was eighteen, told him he was my son. Poor all his life an' already hatin' whites, the boy was furious. Took to walkin' around in a state, fussin' an' fillin' hisself with more an' more hate. The name Paxton was pretty wide known in this part of the country an' it didn't take too much ta set him afire. Figured he shoulda had his share in the PAX, an' knowin' he wouldn't, swore he'd find time someday to kill me. Wasn't long before he'd killed a man, lit a shuck for Old Mexico an' hit the renegade trail. Within a year he had hisself the name of a bad man an' started raidin' for real. I tried to get word to him, but the messenger I sent never returned. Instead, we found his boots an'…” he hesitated briefly, “… part of him … nailed to a cedar down at the brake. I knew the boy had a hate in him, but to kill his own mother.…” He looked at Karen, his eyes moist with emotion.

“So you see, I am the cause of this Jaco. I am responsible for Maruja's death. And for your Ethan's, the Lord rest his little soul. We answer for our actions, daughter. Oh, how we answer for them. No man escapes.”

How tired he looks, thought Karen. I have never seen him this way. A strong man, yet frail as well.

True knelt beside Maruja's grave. “
Vaya con Dios, amiga. Vaya con Dios.
” He straightened, turned to face Karen, his face set sternly. “Vance knows none of this, about Jaco.” He paused meaningfully. “Or Maruja.”

“Nor will he ever,” Karen assured him. “Unless you wish it so.”

“A lot can happen in a lifetime. I'll leave it to your judgement,” True said. Without looking back, he walked stiffly toward the horse. “We best head on back. It ain't gonna get any warmer, an you with nothin' more'n that shirt.” He started to take off his coat but Karen wouldn't let him.

“I don't need it. True. I feel warmer than I have in a long time.”

He glanced at her speculatively. “I don't need it neither, you know.”

“I know,” she agreed gently.

They kept their horses to a walk, following a northern trail Karen had never seen before, crossing the backbone of the hills on the western edge of the valley until they topped the crown of the hill directly opposite the ranch. Karen started to guide the sorrel into the descent but True restrained her, his hand on her arm. “Karen. I been thinkin' on it an figure there's no way to get around it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I'm gonna have Harley take you back to San Antone.”

Karen flushed, her heart quickening its pace. He wanted to send her away again. “Why …?”

True pulled off his hat and brushed his fingers through his silver-grayhair. “Short-handed as we are. Harley tells me some of the boys are quittin'. Come tomorrow, there'll be only me an' Ted, neither of us fit to scare a steer out of a barn, much less the brush, Harley. What's About an' Shorty. Can't blame the others for leavin'. We've had a bad year and' don't no way does it look like things are gonna get better. Why, look down there.” He gestured to the panorama spreading below them. “The place looks like when I come upon it thirty-eight years ago. Burnt ground, ruined buildings … an empty house. The spirit's gone from the place. Maybe they're doin' the smart thing. Anyway, this here's no place for a woman.”