Bonds, Parris Afton (6 page)

The warm, invigorating May sunlight streamed through
the elm and oak leaves to fall in dappled patterns on the people assembled
below for Sunday services. Behind the altar table stood Otto. His eyes were as
fiery as the everlasting brimstone he promised. His voice―and he
purposely spoke in English―held the people of Adelsolms spellbound. He
was a forceful speaker, his words drawing the attention in soft-spoken tones at
one time, then compelling, urging, motivating his congregation, his sheep, with
gripping, reverberant oration the next.

However, at least one among the flock remained
unmoved. Anne sat on one of the benches reserved for the minister's family and
town officials, wishing she were among those forced to stand. If she were, she
mused, she would keep to the back of the congregation and while all attention
was diverted to Otto, she would slip away, stealing down the now worn path to
the river bank. And with no eyes to watch, she would take off her shoes and
stockings and, like a little girl again, wade in the water. She would no longer
have to be the proper, dutiful wife of Adelsolm's pastor.

Wistfully, she forced her thoughts back to them an
before her, her husband. If she could not control her mind, and her heart, she
could at least control her body; could make herself perform as the wife of the
Reverend Maren should...

The altar cloth on the rustic table decorated with
vases of Indian paintbrush and bluebonnets attested to her wifely efforts.
Anne's nose wrinkled in a rueful grimace as her glance fell unerringly on one
of the many knotted stitches in the black cross she had embroidered on the
tablecloth's white background. Well, at least she was trying. Delila had often tried
to help her, but she always insisted on doing things herself. She would prove
she was as capable as the next woman on the Texas frontier.

Had she not already learned how to dress a turkey
and mold candles? And though the candlewicks sputtered and died and the
foul-smelling bird still retained some feathers by the time it reached the
dinner-table, Otto did not complain.

Only Delila complained. "Baby, yo' doing too
much! Just look at yo'self. Yo' mama'd have my hide, if'n she could see the
fine young lady she raised right now!"

Anne did not have to see herself to know what she
must look like. Though the Maren cabin did not have a mirror, she knew her skin
was no longer the color of magnolia blossoms as one suit or had once told her.
In spite of the poke bonnet she donned whenever she went outside, her face and
hands had tanned.  Worse, though, she had grown thinner so that when she lay in
bed her concave stomach emphasized her protruding pelvic bones. Disgusting, she
thought.  Brant Powers had been right. She was going to age out here in the
wilderness.

Beside Anne, Elise shifted impatiently. "Sssh,
dear," Anne whispered, laying a calming hand on the girl's leg.
"Worship is almost over."

"But Auguste wants to play," Elise
whispered back. She cradled the corncob doll tightly against her chest, and
Anne returned the girl's pleading smile.  "Auguste will just have to wait
to play until Mr. Maren finishes."

But Otto's sermon came to an end quicker than he had
planned. For far in the back of the crowd came the cry, "Visitors coming!
Visitors!" And then even Otto's vocal hypnosis did not hold his flock.

Like stampeding buffalo, the people headed for the
rutted road that paralleled the river. They were hungry as buzzards for news of
the outside world. And the pastor's wife was in the lead. Her blue serge skirts
flew behind her as she cut through Mr. Meusebach's field of sweet potatoes.
Coming toward her on horseback were two men in buckskins. Anne slowed to a
halt. Disappointment clouded her fine features as she recognized the visitors.
The others flowed past her, and she turned back toward her cabin.

Otto blocked her way. His skin was suffused with
anger. But when he spoke, it was in composed tones. "Why are you not with
the rest? Are you not interested in what news these gentlemen may bring?"

"Their news will spread about soon
enough."

Ironically, Otto was in some way very much like the
South's riverboat gamblers. His eyes were sharp, his senses finely attuned to
the inner tensions of others. Anne had learned not to underestimate her
husband's perception. So with the disappointment of learning that Colin was not
one of the visitors, she forced an indifference in her expression, even in her
heart. After all, what had she expected? It had been three months since she had
put Colin from her. And in spite of his protestations, did she really expect him
to try and see her again? She had been a pleasant diversion for him in a
provincial country. She must harden her heart to those facts of life.

Otto's pale eyes searched her face with speculation,
but Anne resumed her pace and he was forced to fall in beside her, her long legs
covering the ground to the cabin as quickly as his. Inside the darkened room,
he put a tentative hand on her shoulder. "Something has upset you,
Anne."

She shivered and turned away only to find his arms
about her. .

"Why are you so tense when I'm around?" he
demanded hoarsely, his arms tightening. "At first, I was delighted you
were shy and modest. It proved you were the maiden the Lord had picked for me.
But now―Anne, do you not understand the Almighty wants us to have
children, to procreate?" He buried his head in the hollow of her neck.

Anne's fingers curled into the palm of her hand,
concealing their desire to leap out, to claw like some wild thing. "I'm
sorry, Otto," she whispered at last, staring straight ahead. "I know
you want children. It's just that―that I'm tired all the time. I haven't
been used to this type of life. And then there's always someone ar―"

He shut her mouth with his moist, hungry kisses.
Anne felt herself propelled to the bed; felt Otto fumble beneath her skirts.
Listlessly she lay and watched thin fingers of sunlight probe through the
chinks in the yellow daubs of clay in the roof. Once, a gasp escaped her at the
pain inflicted by Otto's furious thrusting at her dry vaginal cavity.

Hopeless. Futile. The words repeated themselves in
her numbed brain with each of Otto's spasms.
Colin. Colin
.

Finally Otto rose from atop her and meticulously
cleaned himself with his handkerchief before donning his coarse linsey-woolsey
work pants and leaving the cabin. Silence claimed the room. Then the door
opened again. A bright shaft of sunlight shot across the cabin's floor. Anne
cringed inside.
Not again
.

"
Tante
?" Elise's small voice called
from the doorway.

Quickly Anne sat up and swung her legs over the edge
of the bed. "Yes, dear?" she said, smoothing down her skirts.

"Those two men that came―the big one with
the curly beard. He said to give you a message―from a Sir―oh, I
can't remember."

Anne reached out for the girl's hands. "The
message, Elise?"

The girl stood up straight, parroting the words she
had been told. "Great Britain still has an interest in the Texas
Republic." She looked at the woman. "Did I say it right, you
think?"

"Oh, yes, Elise! Yes!" A spring of laughter
bubbled up in Anne's throat as tears of relief trickled from the corners of her
eyes. "Your English has vastly improved!"

Just to know Colin still cared―that thought would
be enough to get her through the most difficult of times.

Otto burst through the doorway. "He's coming!
Sam Houston's coming here, Anne!"

Anne put aside the cotton she had been rolling for
the wicks. The candle-making would have to wait. It was rare when Otto became
this excited.

"Who is Sam Houston, dear?" She wiped her
hands on her apron and moved to accept Otto's perfunctory kiss on her cheek. The
sweat stood out on Otto's sun-pink forehead and plastered his thinning hair to
his skull. He's working too hard, Anne thought. And his cough doesn't seem that
much improved.

"Anne! He's our President!" Otto rested
the axe he carried with him into the fields just inside the doorway. "He's
the President of the Republic of Texas―and he's coming here―to
Adelsolms!"

"Oh, of course." She remembered now
hearing Colin telling her of the man―but how long ago it seemed. With the
work that seemed to never end―from sunup to long after the sun had
deserted the sky―there seemed no time to give thought to politics. The
coastal capitol of Houston was far removed from that desolate outpost on the
edge of civilization.

"Would you like lye hominy with hickory nut
kernels for lunch, Otto? And there's half a middling of bacon in―"

"Anne!" Otto cried impatiently. "Do
you not realize the importance of Sam Houston's coming here? It means Adelsolms
will be recognized as an important town of the Texas frontier. That my work as
organizer for Adelsolms will be recognized by Prince Carl Zu Solms-Braunfels as
successful. It will pave the way for immigration of other persecuted
Germans."

"I hardly think the passing of Sam Houston
through Adelsolms, Otto, is any kind of recognition of Adelsolms'
importance."

"Indeed! It isn't? Just look at this."
Otto fumbled at his pants pocket and produced a wrinkled, folded envelope.
"The mail carrier just brought this. Listen."

He began to read hurriedly. '''...and in order for
the Republic of Texas to secure a treaty of commerce and navigation with Great
Britain, it is important that Lord Palmerston know how well the Texas towns are
prospering under the newly formed Republic.' "

"I can't imagine calling Adelsolms a prospering
town. Nine-some-odd cabins that are little more than lean-toe doesn't―"

"Anne, let me finish. 'With this in mind, I
will be' bringing with me Sir Colin Donovan of the British Diplomatic Service.
It is his task to make an informative report to the British Parliament on
conditions in the Texas Republic. We hope to arrive―'"

The sheer joy of knowing she would see Colin again
'was as intense as pain, shooting through her mind, blasting away the cobwebs
of apathy, glowing in the region of her heart like unextinguishable bright red
coals. "When did you say they are expected?" she asked, not quite
trusting the steadiness of her voice.

"Well―" Otto glanced through the
letter again. "It does not give a specific date. Just within the next
month."

"May I see the letter? When is it dated?"
Oh, just to see Colin's name! "May twenty-fourth, 1838," she read.
"Why, that was two weeks ago! They could be here any time now. We must
hurry. The VereinsKirche will have to be finished inside so they'll have a
place to stay. And there's the dinner to plan―and a hundred things to see
to!"

Surprised at his wife's outburst, Otto looked at her
flushed face, noticing for the first time in a long while how beautiful she
was. The first thing he had noticed about her was the wide, smoke-tinted eyes.
They had sparkled with vitality and gaiety in Barbados but now seemed restless,
haunted.

His gaze roamed to the copper-colored hair pinned
loosely atop her head, hair that was neither red nor golden but shined with a
life of its own. How his fingers longed to take out the pins that bound those
titian tresses. He jammed his hands into his pockets. If he did not keep
himself in tight control, he would find himself putting his wife first before the
Lord and His work.

"Better get back to work," he murmured. "Ernst
will need help in raising his barn."

Anne scarcely heard him leave.

If only she could see what she looked like! If only
there were a mirror. Anne held the white silk gown to her shoulders and whirled
about the room as if dancing. With the pink grosgrain ribbon at her waist and
the white lace sleeves removed from the bodice, she doubted if anyone would
recognize the dress as her wedding gown, not even Otto.

"Oh,
Tante
, it's beautiful you
are!" Elise breathed. She sat on the hearth, hugging her bony knees
against her chest in delight. It was like one of
Grimm's
Fairy
Tales
,
she thought, living with the Maren family. Not so much Herr Maren. He was
always so dour. But at least he never beat her like Herr Jurgens did Fritz.  It
was
Tante
that made life special. The way she hummed little tunes to
herself during the day. And the way she smiled, the dimples forming in her
cheeks when she would ask the Scottish woman some silly question.

And now
Tante
seemed to hum to herself more
often. As if she knew some wonderful secret.

"Sit yo'self down, Miz Anne!" Delila said,
brandishing the hairbrush. "Yo' hair looks like a chicken nest!"

"Vill you brush my hair, too, Delila?"
Elise asked.

If only her hair wasn't yellow―like everyone
else's hair in Adelsolms. If only she could look like
Tante
some day.

"Chile, you needs to git yo'self to
sleep!"

''I'll tell you everything that happened tomorrow morning,"
Anne promised. "Oh, hurry; Delila. Otto's already at the
Vereins-Kirche."

"If'n you hadn't been so long in bathing―"

"I know, I know. But this is special. It's not
every day Sam Houston―"

Delila paused in the stroking of the young woman's
long hair, burnished by the brush until it seemed to leap like a bright flame.'
"Are yo' sure, baby, it's Sam Houston that makes dis party special?"

Anne turned from where she sat and looked up at the
frowning woman. "Of course, I'm―" Then, in a pathetic whisper,
"Does it matter, Delila, what the reason is? Are a few moments of
happiness too much to ask in exchange for a lifetime spent out here―on
the edge of the earth?"

The two Tonkawas stood to either side of the
Vereins-Kirche's great wooden door. Their opaque eyes regarded Anne as
impassively as Brant Powers often had. Yet Anne lingered there between Houston's
personal scouts, fierce warriors who served with the Texas militia, for what
seemed an eternal moment. Now that it was here, the moment she had been waiting
for, she wanted to postpone it.  The meeting with Colin seemed to have come all
too soon―and would all too soon be over.

At last she went inside, and Otto hurried to her side
before her eyes could search the crowded room. "You are late," he
whispered frantically. "It may be impossible now to find a moment alone
with the President."

Anne could think of no reply. Indeed she was like a
rag doll, letting Otto propel her through the people surrounding the President.

He was a tall man, this Sam Houston. Well over six
feet and weighing maybe two hundred pounds .Anne estimated. And in a way he was
strikingly handsome with wavy, gray black hair that swept back from his
forehead like a lion's mane. The graceful carriage that indicated his splendid
physical condition and his galvanic manner seemed to draw a crowd of admirers
wherever he went, mostly women. And Anne had heard Otto say that the man was
one of the greatest orators of the times.

The President was saying something to Brant Powers
on his left. In some ways the two men resembled each other, and it was more than
just their stature.  Perhaps it was the way they both carried themselves, as
though they were more at home in the outdoors than closed in some room. Anne
had heard the President had lived among the Indians―the Cherokees. He had
even been given an Indian name―the Raven. And she wondered fleetingly if Brant
had Indian blood or if, like Houston, he had lived among the Indians.

But it was not Brant Powers who claimed her
attention nor Sam Houston, as magnetic a personality as he had, but Colin.
Surrounded by almost as many people as Houston, still it was as if Colin sensed
her presence in the large crowded room. At once his devilish green gaze fixed
on her face with such an ardor that Anne shivered with the lightning flood of
desire. The loud voices suddenly muted, and the milling figures blurred until
there was only that one face that Anne knew would be delineated on her brain
for the rest of her life.

At the same time that Otto introduced Anne to Sam
Houston, Johanna Meusebach laid a demanding hand on Colin's arm, saying
something to the Irishman that made him smile.

Houston bowed over Anne's hand, taking in the
breathtaking loveliness of the minister's wife―a loveliness unexpected on
the frontier. "It's not often I have the opportunity to converse with the
brave men and women who have settled Texas―who will one day make it a
great nation. More often than not, Mrs. Maren, I'm holed up with some fat,
fast-talking politician who has no idea what it's like to live off the bounty
of this land―or to fight Mother Nature and the Indians at the same
time."

"Then it is true about the Indian
problem?" Colin asked, suddenly there at Anne's side. Anne clutched her fan
so the trembling of her hands would not show.  How handsome he was in the elegant
velvetcoat and trousers decorated with broad gold lace. The settlers in their
worn homespuns and dingy buckskins paled beside the Irishman.

Otto at once introduced Anne to Great Britain's
unofficial representative to Texas, saying, "We really have very little
trouble here at Adelsolms, Sir Donovan. This is a very peaceful colony."

Only Anne was aware of Colin's kiss that burned her
fingertips.

"
Ja
," Professor Bern added.
"Theze scouts the President haz patrolling the settlements―they seem
to have calmed the Indians―all but theze Comanches ve are told."

The talk of the Indian problem continued, and Anne
was forced to leave the group of men and help the other women set the long
tables that had been placed along the walls. Still she would stop in the midst
of helping to search out among the men for Colin's fine figure.

Once Anne's reverie was interrupted by the tugging
at her skirts. "What is it, Fritz?" she asked, stooping so that her
face was on level with the boy's own thin one.

"Elise―she is coming?"

The large brown eyes looked so old in his young face
that her heart ached for the hard life he led with the Jurgens. "No, Frau Schilleris
telling Elise stories at our place. But if you like, I'll take you over―"

Zelda Jurgens' pudgy fingers grabbed hold of Fritz's
left ear, yanking on it so that the boy's head bobbed like a puppet's.
"For vhat do you doddle,
dummkopf
? Vhere is the vater I told you to
bring?"

"The snakes," Fritz began. "I am
afraid―"

"Fritz," Lina Bern intervened, "I
have made for you and the other children my special punch and molasses cookies.
Run help yourself before everything is gone."

Zelda, who would have made three of the little
woman, rounded on Lina. "Frau Bern, it is not your place to―"

The frail woman cupped her hand to her ear.
"Eh? Vhat iz it you say?" she shouted, and all the women's eyes were
turned on the two.

Zelda could only mutter something and waddle away.
Anne managed to keep from smiling as she set out the fine silverware some of
the women had brought with them from the old country. She only wished she could
put Colin's place near her own, but etiquette decreed he sit at another table.
But later when the dancing began ...

Dinner went quickly with Sam Houston at her left
amusing her with his stories of his life in Tennessee. In one anecdote he
related how he had visited the White House clothed only in an Indian blanket to
protest the United States' treatment of the Cherokees, leaving Anne choking
with laughter.

The time for dancing finally came, and the dishes
were cleared away. The German people enjoyed festivals and merrymaking perhaps
more than any other nationality, so when Professor Bern brought out his violin
the room was filled with even greater excitement.

And across the room's expanse the expectant. gazes
of Colin and Anne met, waiting for the music to begin, when the two could at
last be in each other's arms. But Colin was forced to drag his gaze from Anne,
as the little flirt to his left, the Meusebach girl, claimed his attention
again.

Yet his thoughts remained with Anne. A vision of her
had plagued him since the night they parted at Velasco. It had been a difficult
job for him, persuading Sam Houston that he should see the remote interior of
Texas, the German colony, as well as the Spanish one of San Antonio de Bexar
and the Irish San Patricio.

Just now, the way those full apricot-colored lips
flattened out in a dazzling smile meant for him alone, the way she tilted that
perfectly rounded chin up, almost daring him to claim those willful lips as his
own, he bloody well had better get a hold on himself before he kissed her in
front of that sanctimonious husband of hers and everyone else. But how to rid
himself of the eager colleen at his side?

His problem was solved when Peter presented himself before
Johanna. The youth nervously pushed the hair out of his eyes. "Care to
take a turn on the floor, Miss Meusebach?" he asked Johanna.

Johanna looked with disappointment to Colin who was
chagrinned to find Houston turning to Anne as the Professor struck his first
notes on the violin.  Quickly but courteously Colin asked the old woman on his
other side, Lina Bern, to dance. Lina giggled like a schoolgirl but accepted,
thereby saving Colin.

As it turned out, Otto had cut off the President's
request of Anne, telling Houston of the new mill Adelsolms hoped to build, and
Anne was forced to wait impatiently for the promenade to end and the next dance
to begin.

At last Colin stood before her, requesting her to
dance The
Silver Waltz
with him. Her heart soared, and she laid her hand
over his proffered one. But as she moved to rise, Otto said, "I am afraid,
Sir Donovan, my wife will have to decline."

Anne gasped, and Colin's hands clenched at his
sides, but the minister tried to placate him ,saying, "I "have been
brought up to regard dancing as sinful and therefore can not condone my wife's
participation in such entertainment."

The remainder of the evening was like a nightmare.
With the rest of the matrons, Anne watched the young people dance. Watched
Johanna whirl by in Colin's arms. And thought she would personally strangle the
girl the first chance she got. She bit her lips in frustration. When Colin
danced a second dance with Johanna, Anne's lace fan snapped in half. She looked
up to find Brant at the next table watching her with amusement dancing in his
brown eyes. .

Yet total disaster was averted that evening. For
when Otto cornered Sam Houston to talk about moving the capitol from the city
of Houston inland, Colin was at Anne's side. "You must tell me more about
colonial life," he said, placing her arm in his and leading her toward a
table where a large crystal bowl of pineapple punch had been set out.

Anne talked inanely, of what she could not remember
later, until they were alone near the fortress door with only the two Tonkawas
to hear them.

"Anne, come away with me! Now!" His
feverish gaze embraced her as his arms could not do, and she had to keep
herself from swaying toward him.

"You know it is impossible, Colin!"

"Do you think I'd let you stay after seeing the
conditions under which you live?" With a bang he set the porcelain cup on
the nearest table.

"I'm taking you with me, Anne. We'll leave at
daylight."

"But my husband―and Houston. They'd never
let us―"

"Houston will not gainsay me. Great Britain's
good will, and thus my own, is tantamount in importance to the Texas Republic.
And by the time your husband realizes you're gone, we'll be miles away."

Anne bit her lip in indecision, but Colin took her
hand, kissing the inside of her wrist as if they were alone in the room. ''The
details will be taken care of,  Anne. I'll speak with Houston later this
evening. Be ready for me."

Anne withdrew her hand from Colin's, fearing her
desire for him was written on her face. He had removed all obstacles to her
leaving, and his almost intimate kiss on her wrist had wiped away any
reservations she had.

She was not actually aware of when the evening
finally ended, of when she and Otto finally left and went home to their cabin.
She was only grateful that Otto was too tired to make his customary sexual
demands. And grateful that she herself was too tired to think, to reason.

She did not want to argue with the turmoil of
thoughts that besieged her now that she was away from Colin's electric
presence. She did not want to argue over what was right or wrong. She only knew
she loved Colin, had loved him since she was ten years old, and would not give
up this chance at happiness. The only chance she might ever have ...