Heart Of Texas (Historical Romance) (3 page)

"He was my mother's brother. Papa said Uncle
Bob never married and had no family of his own.
I guess that's why he left everything to us. The
will said the property is located on a river. Do you
know anything about that?"

Grimshaw grinned. "I'll say it's located on a
river-the Brazos!" He scratched his head and
then shook it. "I don't know what you're going to
do with all that land."

Casey flinched at his hard tone, but never took
her gaze from his. "We'll do just fine. It belongs
to us, and we are going to settle there."

"Lord help you." Grimshaw felt grudging respect for the young woman's temerity-she just
wouldn't let go. "I don't guess it would do any
good to ask you to think about what's best for
your brother and sister?"

"What's best for them is to have a home," Casey
said stubbornly.

"As I said, we'll talk more on this in the morning." Grimshaw put his hat back on his head and
nodded as he courteously touched the brim.
"Good evening to you, Miss Hamilton."

Only when Casey watched him walk away did
she allow her shoulders to droop and uncertainty
to settle over her. She might have sounded confident when she had been talking to Mr. Gricnshaw, but she wasn't confident at all. She was
more frightened than she had ever been in her
life. But she had to hold the family together-she
just had to. Casey summoned her courage, refusing to give in to the tears that burned behind her
eyes. She had to be strong for Sam and Jenny.

Sam was hobbling the team horses when she
reached their campsite. Instinctively, she moved
forward to help him. She lifted a bucket of water
for the horses to drink. "You do that just like Papa
did," she said encouragingly.

"No, I don't," he answered, knowing his sister
was trying to bolster his courage. "Not yet, any way." His shoulders straightened, and he met her
gaze. "But I'll learn, because I helped Papa plenty
of times."

Sam was so much like their father, with the
same soft brown eyes, and the same smile that
made a person want to smile back. His dark hair
fell in an unruly manner across his forehead, and
he needed a haircut. At thirteen, Sam came only
to her chin, but her father had claimed that Sam
would do most of his growing in his sixteenth
year, just as he had.

Sam watched Casey closely as he asked, "Did
Mr. Grimshaw agree to let us stay with the wagon
train?"

"Not yet. But I think... I hope he'll change his
mind. He's a reasonable man."

Casey moved on to the next horse with the water bucket while her brother tightened the tether
rope.

"What if he refuses?"

She wanted to cry, she wanted to scream, she
wanted to sit down and quit, but she couldn't. She
turned and faced Sam squarely. "Then we'll go
on to Texas on our own. I want you to start practicing with the rifle tomorrow. I know Papa taught
you to fire it, but you need to be good enough to
hit what you're shooting at."

"Are you scared, Casey?"

"Yes, I am," she admitted, because she thought
Sam deserved complete honesty from her. She set
the bucket on the ground and ruffled his hair.

"But I'm a Hamilton, and we Hamiltons don't
give in to fear, and we don't give up-ever!"

He nodded and looked at her hopefully. "Then
we go on regardless."

"Regardless," she answered solemnly, wrapping
her arms around him.

When Sam moved away, Casey dropped her
head in her hands, feeling as if the world were
crushing down on her.

It was quiet throughout the camp, except for an
occasional whinny from restless horses. The storm
that had hung over them all day had moved on,
allowing soft moonlight to filter in through the
canvas flap and fall on her little sister's face as she
lay curled up next to Casey. Casey felt her heart
swell with love for the tiny girl who had never
known the mother who died the night of her
birth. Now her father was dead as well.

The child was too young to understand the
tragedies that had touched her life. Jenny had
asked several times today why their father wasn't
with them, but so far, Casey had managed to
guide her questions in a different direction, because she just didn't know what to tell the child.

Casey had been only fourteen at the time of her
mother's death; since then, she had tried to teach
her brother and sister some of the things her
mother would have wanted them to know. In
truth, she could not imagine loving her own children any more than she loved Sam and jenny.

And she was the only mother jenny had ever
known. She had to be strong for all of them.

Just the night before Sam had started sleeping
under the wagon, with their father's rifle by his
side. Casey had tried to comfort him since their
father died, but Sam would have none of it. She
realized that he was trying, in his own way, to assume responsibility as the man of the family.

With troubles weighing heavily on her mind,
Casey was still awake when the first light of dawn
filtered through the wagon flap. As quietly as possible, she dressed and crept out of the wagon in
search of Mr. Grimshaw. As she approached his
campsite, she found him shaving. He smiled at
her reflection in the mirror he'd hung from a
tree branch.

"I'd have bet money that yours would be the
first face I saw this morning, Miss Hamilton. You
have the look of someone who is ready to dig her
heels in and do battle."

She stared back at him. "Do I have to do battle
with you?" she asked crisply.

He snapped his razor shut and slowly turned
toward her. "If I let you stay with the wagon train,
you'll have to keep up. If you lag behind, I will
leave you. The rest of these people are going on
to California, and they don't want anyone holding
them up."

Casey saw the fixed expression on his face, and
she knew he meant what he said. "You won't have
to worry about us."

"Miss Hamilton, I have to get these people
safely through, and to do that, I've got to beat the
winter storms in the Sierra Nevadas-if that
means leaving you behind, I'll do it."

Casey could hardly contain her excitement, but
she managed to speak past the lump that had
formed in her throat. "You needn't worry about
us, Mr. Grimshaw-we'll keep up with the rest of
you. You'll see."

"You know, I just bet you will." His grudging
smile turned into a boisterous laugh. "In fact, I'd
be willing to bet my last two bits on it."

It had been a week since they had split off from
the wagon train at Cimarron Crossing. There had
been many tearful good-byes with people they
would never see again, people who had become
almost like family to them.

Casey knew she would miss Mr. Grimshaw. He
was a man she had grown to like and respect. It
was frightening to go out on their own, but so far,
they had met with no mishaps. The only person
they had come across had been a grizzly old buffalo hunter who lingered with them long enough
to have five cups of coffee before he rode off into
the night. Jenny looked upon their situation as a
new adventure, while Sam, who was ever vigilant,
kept his rifle beside him at all times.

It was late afternoon when they came to the
edge of a canyon that looked down upon the
snaking, mud-colored Brazos River. If the map
Mr. Grimshaw had drawn for them was accurate, and if they hadn't somehow miscalculated, the
Spanish Spur was just on the other side.

Sam was ensconced in the driver's seat as they
approached what appeared to be a shallow place
to cross the river. Casey saw that he was tense
when his hands tightened nervously on the reins.
She realized he was probably remembering that
their father had been killed in a river crossing
very much like this one. She patted his hand.

"It's all right-you can do it."

Deciding he would be less distracted if she left
him alone, she climbed inside the wagon and set
tled jenny on her lap so she could brush the tangles out of the child's hair. Pulling the red-gold
curls away from her sister's face, she tied it with
a blue ribbon. Little jenny was weary from their
long months of traveling. Casey would be glad
when they were settled in their new home so she
could attempt to make a normal life for the family.

"My hair is like yours, Casey," the child said,
looking up at her with pride in that fact.

"Indeed it is. And our mother's hair was the
same color. Sam has Papa's dark hair."

The child's forehead furrowed. "Will Papa be
waiting for us at our new home?"

"No, he won't." A lump tightened in her throat,
and it took her a few moments to be able to speak.
"Remember when I explained to you that Papa is
with Mama now?"

Jenny's frown deepened. "Why can't they live
with us? Didn't they like us?"

Casey was saved from answering when a sudden
jolt tilted the wagon, propelling her and jenny
forward. In a frantic attempt to keep jenny from
being slammed against the back of the wagon
seat, Casey clutched the child to her chest, then
somehow managed to land Jenny on top of a stack
of folded quilts, but Casey herself was slammed
against the seat's iron support.

Everything shifted from the impact, pinning
her between the seat and a heavy trunk. Pain shot
through her shoulder, and she was unable to
move.

Sam scrambled inside and quickly assessed the
situation. He shoved the trunk aside so that Casey
could free herself. She ignored her bleeding arm
and the bump that was already rising on her head
and gathered her frightened sister to her. With
Sam's help, she managed to climb down into the
river, carrying jenny in her arms.

"What happened, Sam?"

"I'm not quite sure. The river is so muddy, I
can't see whatever it is that bogged us down."

Casey held jenny close and waded through
knee- deep water, ignoring the fact that her gown
was sopping wet and her shoes were probably ruined. When she reached the back of the wagon,
she handed jenny to Sam and bent down to examine the damage.

"It's listing pretty badly, Sam." She felt along the bottom of the wheel. "It appears to be wedged
between two rocks."

Sam bent down beside her and nodded. "It's all
my fault. I should've seen the drop-off, but I
didn't."

"It's not your fault," Casey assured him. "You
probably kept the wagon from tipping over." She
felt around the wagon spokes and was relieved to
find that none of them were broken. "We are fortunate the wheel didn't come off."

"That's something, anyway," Sam said in a
pained voice. "I feel real bad about this, Casey."

"Don't." She tried to sound cheerful. "Let's see
if the horses can pull us free of the rocks."

Sam looked crestfallen. "They can't do it tonight-they're too tired." He sounded defeated.
"Maybe in the morning we can lighten the wagon
and pull it free."

Casey judged the position of the sun and nodded. "We'll have to spend the night here."

Sam looked so dejected that she placed her arm
around his shoulders. "I told you not to worry.
You have nothing to feel bad about. I'm so proud
of you. Just look at what you have done-you
brought us safely home, Sam."

He gave her a weak smile. "Almost home."

She took jenny from him and climbed up the
bank, where she sat Jenny on the grass while their
brother unhitched the team. Her shoulder was
throbbing with a pain that was becoming difficult
to ignore.

She bent down and spoke to her sister. "Jenny,
you must stay right here while I help Sam. Don't
go near the river."

The child, unaware of the gravity of their situation and looking at it only as a new adventure,
curled up on the grass and yawned. Her eyes
drifted shut almost immediately.

For two hours they unloaded the wagon and
carried everything onto the riverbank.

As Casey and Sam carefully lowered the wooden
crate that held their mother's china, their gazes
met, communicating the unspoken worry that the
dishes might have been broken in the mishap.
Their mother had valued her Spode china above
all her other possessions; therefore, the delicate
dishes were important to her family. The trunk
that Casey's mother had brought with her when
she married her father had fallen into the river
when she and Sam tried to carry it to shore. The
fine linens inside were soaked and had to be hung
across branches to dry.

Daylight was fading fast, and it was after dark
when they finally rescued everything from the
wagon. Casey carefully unpacked and examined
every piece of her mother's china. Fortunately,
none of it was broken, so with the same care she
packed the dishes back in the crate.

It was a bedraggled brother and sister who
stood amid their few possessions as afternoon
turned into evening.

They had been so busy they hadn't even had
time to observe their surroundings.

Casey stretched her cramped muscles and
winced in pain. Her shoulder ached, but she tried
to sound cheerful. "We are on our land now,
Sam."