Jodi Thomas (2 page)

As she neared them, the drovers stood up. They were a dirty, drab lot with few social graces, but they recalled enough from their upbringing to know when they were in the presence of a lady. The pungent odor of cattle and dust clung to them, and their thin, wiry frames made them appear more like shadows of men than the rugged frontiersmen they were. Anna knew little of Americans and even less of these few who called themselves Texans. She knew only that her husband had been promised land in Texas, and she aimed to see that her child inherited that birthright.

Anna walked as close to the fire as her long skirts would allow. Then she pulled her hood back so the men could see her face. Her auburn hair was pulled into a tight widow’s bun at the base of her neck, but a few strands had pulled free to brush across her pale, high cheekbones. Her husband had told her once that she was a fine-looking woman, and she hoped he hadn’t lied about that, as he had about so many other things. From the reactions on the men’s faces, she knew William had spoken the truth.

“I am Anna Marie Meyer.” She squeezed her hands into fists inside her coat. The blisters along her palms throbbed, but the pain made her voice steadier. She’d practiced English for years and knew she spoke with little accent. “I’ve come to see if there is one among you who will marry me this night.”

A rumble went through the crowd of men. She could hear a few crude whispered comments, but no one answered her. Anna forced herself to turn in a circle. In the twenty years of her life she had never felt so frightened, so alone. She held her head high. She would not beg, not even for the sake of her unborn child.

An old man, with whiskers covering his grizzled chin, stood. Several men pushed him forward as the unlucky spokesman for the group. He raked his slouch hat off his bald head and nodded at Anna. “Miss, beggin’ your pardon, but are you tetched in the head?”

Anna suppressed a nervous laugh, for she was as close to letting her mind slip from reality as she’d ever been in her life. Insanity might have been her mother’s way of coping, but it wasn’t Anna’s. “I must have a husband before the sun rises. I will pay one hundred American dollars if he will stay with me for a year and help me homestead a farm north of the Guadalupe River.”

A laugh went up from the men, and Anna felt her face redden.

“Sorry, miss.” The old man chuckled. “There ain’t a man here who’s cut out to be a farmer or he’d already be workin’ his own homestead. Besides, we can make twice that much doin’ what we’re doin’ without havin’ to fight Comanches.” He gestured at the sorry examples of manhood behind him. “These men ain’t the settlin’-down kind.”

Laughter sparked in small groups around the campsite. Several commented about already being married and how that was the reason they chose to roam. A few made offers to fill the job of husband for the night.

Anna pulled her hood back around her face to hide her shame. She’d humbled herself more than her breeding and standards ever should have allowed. Now their laughter was more than she could endure. Holding her head high, she walked from the campfire without showing a single hint of despair or a breath of weakness.

The cold evening wind assaulted Anna’s face, and tears stung her eyes as she moved down the darkened ruts of the road back to the German encampment. As she approached, she noticed the tiny flickers of firelight that indicated each family’s space. She saw no movement from this circle of temporary shelters and knew that the immigrants would be crowded beneath the central meeting tent for worship.

This was a savage land, this Texas, full of cruel, barbarian men. Anna would have given everything she owned to be a child again in her parents’ home during those years before her father left. She thought of the sunny, endless days of listening to her mother play the piano and the long walks with her father after dinner. But now she had no home. Her father had been gone for more years than Anna could remember, and her mother’s death was fresh and raw in Anna’s mind. Anna blinked back her tears. She had nowhere to go.

Thoughts of her plight so consumed her that Anna didn’t realize someone was coming up behind her until a hand grabbed her shoulder. She whirled around in the darkness, pulling away in terror. Was she to lose her life this night? After surviving a voyage ridden with storms and shortages of supplies, would she die on land without a soul to mourn her passing? She shoved hard against the shadowy attacker and bolted from his reach, but her feet became tangled in her thick skirts and Anna tumbled toward the ground.

Powerful arms encircled her, catching her before she slammed against the hard earth. Strong, muscled hands pulled her against a broad chest and set her on her feet. “Wait, miss.” His words came fast, a blending of shyness and worry in his tone. The smell of cattle and sweat assailed her nose.

The moment her feet were firm upon the ground, he dropped his arms. “I’ve come to take you up on your offer of marriage.”

Anna tried to see his features, but brooding clouds hid even the quarter moon’s faint light. He was several inches taller than she, although at five feet eight inches she towered above most men. She longed to see his face before she spoke, yet she knew it didn’t matter. If she didn’t have a husband tonight, all would be lost. “You agree?” The words slipped past her lips in a whisper.

“One year, one hundred dollars. I’ll help you start a farm along the Guadalupe River.” His voice was lightly flavored with a southern drawl. He rubbed his gloved hands together nervously, and she could sense the hard power of his body, which seemed caged by restraint, like a wild animal forced into civilization. As he continued to speak, his warm breath fanned her face. “I have to have the hundred dollars now.”

Anna didn’t want to ask why. Be it gambling debts or his own guarantee of her half of the bargain, she didn’t care. “If I agree, you must know the rules of this marriage.”

“What?” His tone was matter-of-fact rather than questioning.

“I am three months pregnant. At the end of the year you will lay no claim to the farm. It is to be mine and my child’s. You will leave without a word one year from today, January third, eighteen forty-seven.”

“Agreed.” He moved impatiently, kicking at the muddy road as though he disliked talking.

“And,” Anna made her voice steady, “during the marriage you will lay no claim to me.”

There was a long silence and she wondered if he might yet back out. Should she pray he did . . . or didn’t? Suddenly the idea of talking of marriage to a man whom she’d never seen seemed insane.

The shadowy figure shoved his hat lower on his head. “Agreed,” he said lightly, as though her last statement mattered little to him. “I’ll meet you at the mission in an hour.”

“No.” Anna touched his arm, then pulled her fingers away, surprised at her forwardness. “Come to the tent in the center of the first German campsite. We will be married by my minister. He speaks English.”

“The money first.”

She pulled the money from her pocket. It was the last she had, her inheritance. “One hundred dollars.”

“One hour.” He took the money from her hand.

Her quick tongue lashed out before she thought. “And clean up.”

A mumbled word she didn’t understand reached her in the darkness as she listened to his footsteps fade away with only the jingle of his spurs for an answer. Had she offended him with her penchant for cleanliness? She stood in the darkness and whispered, “Dear Lord, help me. I’m about to marry a man whose face I’ve never seen, and I forgot to ask his name.”

Y
ou can’t be serious, Anna!” The Reverend Mr. Muller roared so none of his followers would miss a word he said. “How could you have found someone willing to marry you? You know no one in this land. We’ve only been in Texas for two days. All the men from the ship have returned to it, and the men in our group are either married or they’ve joined up to go to Mexico and fight.”

From the other side of the tent, Anna felt Walter Schmitz’s lecherous yellow-brown eyes watching her. He was puffed up like a toad who’d swallowed the bug of benevolence. “She’s only stalling, Reverend. My offer still stands. Anna may come live with me and mine and I’ll treat her as one of the family.” One eyelid winked slightly, betraying the lust in his heart.

His plump wife nodded her head in agreement. “She’s welcome as long as she keeps that sassy tongue of hers in place and does her full share of the work. That is, if she doesn’t think she’s too highborn to dirty her pretty hands. We all know them that are well born sometimes forget their place when they fall to the status of us common folks.”

Anna knew the Schmitzes wanted a servant, and if she ended up with them she’d be doing all the work until Walter Schmitz forced himself on her. Then she’d be kicked out and blamed for trying to destroy their marriage. She lifted her chin and looked down at him and his wife. “I plan to marry this night. Tomorrow when we load the wagons to go establish our settlement, I will have a husband who can sign for my late husband’s land. You did offer me that option, Reverend.”

The minister nodded. “But who . . .”

The man of the cloth seemed at a loss for words, but Walter Schmitz’s wife had no such ailment. She pushed her way through the others to stand beside the minister. “We’ve all had to endure your unsettled stomach for several weeks, Anna Meyer, so there’s no need to tell us about you being in a family way. So tell me now, what kind of man would want a wife who carries another man’s child?”

Walter stepped next to his wife as if they were bookends of decency. “My dear friend William has not been dead a month and you disgrace his memory by throwing off your mourning gown for a bridal gown. I had to watch him grow weaker each day at sea and finally die from the bad water and rancid food, but I’ll not stand by and let you dishonor his name.”

The minister held up his hand. “Now, Walter, she’s not dishonoring William just because she wishes to marry another. A woman in her place can do little else but marry again.”

“What decent man would take on a wife he knew not?” Walter snorted and his wife nodded her head in agreement.

Anna froze, unable to answer. She didn’t know the stranger’s name.

Then, from the back of the tent she heard a mumbling. Feet shuffled as the crowd parted, but she didn’t turn around. The muffled jingle of spurs reached her ears, and a strong voice with a southern accent said, “I plan to marry her.”

Everyone, including Anna, turned to watch as the stranger moved closer. A cream-colored broadcloth shirt and dark pants covered his tall, lean form. His slouch hat shadowed his face, but Anna’s eyes were fixed upon the gun strapped low on his thigh. She’d heard stories of this wild land, but seeing the weapon riding on his muscled leg like an essential part of his being made her wonder again what she’d agreed to in the darkness halfway between the German campsite and the wranglers’ fire.

He was standing beside her before she looked up. “I’m Chance Wyatt,” he informed them in a cold, factual voice. He removed his hat, revealing a mass of black hair that fell over his collar. “Will you marry us, Reverend, or do I go down to the mission and fetch a priest?”

Whispers filled the tent, but speechless, Anna could only look into the clean-shaven face of the man beside her. Man? Her mind screamed at the lie. He was tall and self-assured, but his face told the truth. He was little more than a boy. In fact, she would bet her life that he hadn’t seen his twentieth birthday. And yet she had staked her future on him, a boy who wore a gun like an extension of his body.

The minister startled her into responding. “Anna, you wish to marry this man?”

Anna managed a nod.

“And Chance Wyatt, you wish to marry Anna?”

“Yes, if she’ll have me.”

The obliqueness of his statement sent stifled giggles through the crowd. His words were quickly translated to German so all could understand and share in the humor. Anna looked up into Chance’s dark indigo eyes and, seeing only sincerity, raised her chin higher.

Claudia Schmitz mumbled louder than the others. “I think he does not know of her sharp tongue and that she already carries a child in her stomach.”

“Or of her mother,” another buzzed.

Walter Schmitz added to the heckling. “Perhaps he is too young to know of such things.”

Chance’s swift turn startled Anna. Like an animal alert to the first sound of danger, he faced Walter Schmitz. “I know all I need to know of Anna.” He slid his fingers along his gun belt to the handle of his weapon without taking his eyes off Schmitz. “And I know that from this night forward I’ll tolerate no man speaking ill of my wife. I suggest, sir, you mark my warning well. I assure you I’m man enough to stand behind my word.”

The tension in the tent was so thick a tidal wave couldn’t have stirred it. Walter Schmitz pressed his lips together in anger but didn’t speak. He could be quite brave when he knew he had the upper hand, but never when he was unsure.

“I’ll go get my Bible,” the minister blurted, suddenly in a hurry. “Everyone else move out by the campfire. It’s only fitting we perform our first marriage under the stars for heaven to witness.”

As the others shuffled out, a tiny woman appeared at Anna’s side. She had the face of a child, but her ample bosom proved otherwise. “Are you sure, Anna?” Her words were thick with her heavy accent.

Anna smiled at Selma, her only friend among the group. “Yes. I have no other path.”

Selma pulled her ivory lace scarf from her head. “Then you must wear this. It was my bridal veil.”

Anna accepted the finely woven lace with tears in her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered. At least now her head would not be hooded in mourning color when she said the words with Chance.

The tiny woman/child was swept away on the arm of her husband, Carl, who nodded at Anna, too shy, as always, to speak to her.

As the young couple left, Carl’s broad workman’s frame and Selma’s tiny body seemed an odd contrast in spite of their closeness. Anna wondered how she would appear to others on the arm of her new husband.