Paxton and the Lone Star (19 page)

Andrew shook his hand, turned to True, and grasped his.

“Be thinking—” A frog was in True's throat. He coughed to clear it. “See you.”

“Yeah,” Andrew said, confused at finding his former excitement suddenly tinged with regret. Tom Gunn Paxton always said that everything had its price. There was never joy without sorrow appearing somewhere down the line. Andrew understood his father's words more keenly now than ever before. On the brink of adventure, he was about to be separated completely from his family. He was exhilarated, he was frightened. Quite suddenly, he felt very grown up. “In San Antone,” he said, and turned his mare away from them.

“In San Antone,” True called to Andrew's back. “We'll be there.”

Runs the Deer waited patiently at the edge of the clearing. Reaching him, Andrew did as he had been taught, and did not look back.

Another week had passed. Tired, yet perked up by the open sky above them and the prospect of a day of rest, everyone set to work with a will. Jack Kemper, Buckland Kania, Scott, Dennis, and Mackenzie Campbell built a temporary corral for the stock, rubbed them down, and saw to their water. Nels Matlan cleared a place a little way downcreek for the women to bathe the next morning. True butchered the pair of small, tender doe he and Hogjaw had killed earlier. Joan Campbell made a bread pudding. The children, Tommy, Ruthie, and Dianne, collected enough firewood to last the morrow. Joseph and Lottie, with Hogjaw to guide them, collected a huge bowl full of edible greens and roots. Kevin and Mildred Thatche went hunting for nuts and returned with a whole peck of chinquapins, from whose burred shells they extracted two quarts of delicate nut meats which they set aside to roast. Mila, Helen, Eustacia, and Elizabeth, after she had seen to Hester, set up for dinner around a common fire. Best of all, Thaddeus Jones backtracked along their trail to a bee tree he had noticed and, daring the angry insects, robbed them of their dark winter's store. The dark man's cheeks were lumpy and swollen, but he did not complain. Later, their stomachs already full, the settlers poured the thick molasses-like honey over Joan's bread pudding. Even the Kempers were in the best of humor.

The night was balmy. The sight of stars worked a miracle on their spirits. Nels and Eustacia Matlan entertained with a series of dramatic readings from Shakespeare, the rhyme and meter of which lulled the children to early sleep but thrilled the amusement-starved adults. Buckland and Mila Kania followed with jew's harp and accordian and, while the children were carried to bed in their wagons, struck up a tune. Nels and Eustacia were the first to dance, but only because Mildred protested when Kevin took her hand and led her into the firelight. By the first chorus, Scott and Joan Campbell, Jack and Helen Kemper, and Dennis Campbell and Lottie had joined them.

Elizabeth left the group and walked to the wagon to check on Hester. There she found the plate she had left on the seat, untouched except by ants and moths who had claimed squatters' rights to the bread pudding and honey. Discouraged, Elizabeth dumped the food under a nearby bush before returning to the wagon and looking in on the huddled form beneath a blanket. “Mother? You haven't eaten in two days.”

Hester stirred, rolled onto her side, and stared at the quilt folded next to her on the bedding.

“Mother, please. You can't just lie there day after …” Elizabeth gave up, leaned against the backboard, and let the canvas fall into place. The journey since crossing the Mississippi could be measured in the ever descending stages of her mother's depression, against which Elizabeth felt totally helpless. Whatever was happening in Hester's mind was privy only to herself, and Elizabeth, the outsider, was incapable of reaching in and touching and helping. Only Hester could cure Hester. To recover, she had to will her own recovery.

“There's dancing going on,” a voice said from behind her.

Elizabeth spun about to see True standing in the shadows. “I know,” she said. “Everyone sounds so merry.”

“Except you.”

“Yes,” Elizabeth snapped, immediately wishing she could take it back. “I'm sorry,” she apologized. “You're right. Except me.”

True wanted to hold her, almost did but then, unsure how she would react, he gestured toward the main campfire. “Will you dance with me? I'd like you to.”

Elizabeth felt herself blushing. “I'm … I'm not dressed for dancing.”

“Clothes don't matter,” True said softly. “Never did, never will.” Suddenly she was in his arms and weeping silently against his chest. True held her, let his cheek touch the top of her head. “On the other hand,” he said, “we could just sit.”

The trunk was large enough for both of them. Side by side, his arm around her, they listened to the music and the laughter, and together watched the stars. Elizabeth could hear his heart beat, feel him breathing evenly and slowly. She had wanted this, yet had fought it with every ounce of her strength. Somehow it was dangerous to let a man touch her. It was wrong to follow in Lottie's coquettish footsteps. Her father had laid his hands on her and in so doing made frightening and revolting that which should have been joyful, yet she had known all along that not all windows opened onto bleak vistas, not all doors led to degradation. It was wrong to let the memory of his touch sully her whole life.

The stars wheeled. His voice soft and deep, True told her of Solitary, of his mother and father, of his youth. He told her of his dreams, his hopes, those fantasies he had shared with no one else. As he talked, the roiling maelstrom in Elizabeth's mind slowed, and the pain and anxiety that had plagued her for the past weeks faded. She wasn't yet sure if she wanted anything of True Paxton, only that for the first time in months she felt needed, and warm, and safe.

“Well, you should have seen his face,” True said. “Looked just like … Well, you ever see a squirrel misjudge a leap and fall from a tree?”

No answer.

He craned his neck, tried to see her face without disturbing her. “Elizabeth?” he asked, oh so softly. “Elizabeth?”

No answer. Only her breath, soft as a feather on his hand.

“Well, I'll be durned.” He smiled, leaned back against the wagon, and fit her head more snugly against his shoulder and chin. “She's asleep.”

Chapter XIV

They were well into November. On Monday, the tenth, a day and a half after Andrew's departure with Runs the Deer and refreshed from their Sunday rest, the wagon train set out early in the morning. The only rest for the next two weeks would be a half day the following Sunday. The nights turned chilly, the days remained warm. Each morning the valleys were filled with fog. They ate well. The woods, unlike those of Pennsylvania which had been hunted off years ago, were full of squirrel and deer and turkey and bear. Human beings were few and far between. An occasional settlement or isolated cabin lay across their path, but there was little time to stop. A half hour at the most might be spared for trading news of the trail ahead and the civilized world behind. Their lives inextricably intertwined for the duration of the journey, the settlers had become a small but compact community that handled the daily routines with increasing efficiency.

Still, under pressure, tempers flared and personalities grated. Jack and Helen Kemper, the former storekeepers, became even more withdrawn. Kevin Thatche became obsessively protective of his pregnant wife, and took great pains to protect her from Hogjaw. Hogjaw, though he proclaimed their fears to be a lot of hooey, cooperated and stayed out of Mildred's sight. Buckland Kania learned to shorten the blessing he spoke over the evening meal. Tommy Matlan hid his primer and refused to do his lessons. Nels took his belt to his son and then made him walk for two days before relenting and letting him ride one of the extra horses on the third day.

Only one wheel broke. They made up the lost time Thursday evening, not camping until deep into dusk. When a harness broke, it was replaced and put aside to be patched later. Mama took lame on Tuesday. Hogjaw tried to ride the jenny he and the Paxtons had brought with them, but soon gave up and walked for the next three days. Jones was everywhere up and down the line, pushing and prodding, cursing recalcitrant mules, dishing out encouragement by the eyedropper or ladleful as need be. Everyone looked forward to Saturday night. With luck, they had been told, they would camp at the Trinity River, the more or less halfway point between Gain's Ferry and San Antonio. Their spirits rose when they arrived early, around noon on Friday, crossed without incident, and found their campground would be a large meadow. There, hung head down from a cottonwood, was a yearling black bear Hogjaw and True had shot that morning on their forward scout.

Jones proclaimed a holiday. Everyone was tired and needed the rest. They would camp in that same spot through Saturday and Sunday, and not move until Monday morning. The announcement was greeted with cheers, and everyone turned to with a will. The wagons were drawn up, stock watered and put to the first real grass it had seen in over a week, and supper was well on its way, before dusk. Three hours later, a full meal under everyone's belts, the camp lay in slumber. Only True, Hogjaw, and Jones were awake. True on watch and slowly riding circles around the camp, and the two older hands quietly smoking and talking in front of a miniscule fire.

Many hours later, one other awoke and lay with open eyes that stared blankly at the canvas over her head. Hester had dreamed of the box, and couldn't put it out of her mind. Her mother had given it to her when, as a child, she had been ill. The box was made of gum wood and its lid was held closed with a little brass latch her father had fashioned. Her mother had carved tulips in the wood, and painted them crimson and butter yellow and indigo. Hester's favorite color was indigo. Tulips in a row and coiling one about the other on the lid. More tulips laboriously etched into the brass by her father.

Oh, how she had loved that box! Filled it with the collected treasures of childhood, mementos of happy, sunlit days, of laughter, of beauty. Now, in the prairie night and in her mind, she reopened the box and peeked beneath the lid. Everything was there just as she had remembered it. Beads. A shell from some distant sea. Bits of colored glass, red, blue, and the amber of autumn leaves. A tiny chair her father had carved for her doll house. A horse chestnut—how sad that its rich chocolate brown had faded. And best of all, three miniature dolls she had found beneath her pillow one birthday morning. They had names, Hester remembered. They were …

What? What? She couldn't remember the names, she thought, panicking. If she could hold the box again, touch the dolls, she'd remember, though. She was sure. All she had to do was take it in her hands and open it and touch them. The names would come back.

But where was it? Her head moved, her eyes swiveled about in their sockets, but all she could see was a blank sky of canvas. She wanted it. Wanted it. Where was it? Where? Lost in the fire? No, not in the fire. Surely not in the fire and turned to ashes along with Mommy and Daddy the night the house burned. At her Auntie's Em's house, where she went to live next? No, not there, either. Auntie Em didn't believe in dolls.

Poor Hester. Couldn't find her keep-pretty. Mommy and Daddy gone. That wasn't nice of them, even if they couldn't help it. Shouldn't have gone and left her all alone. So frightened. Was that why she had married so young? No. Better not think about that. Alone again was bad enough without thinking. Poor Hester. Foolish Hester. Sad Hester. If only she could find the box, though. One day soon she'd had to look more thoroughly. Look everywhere. One day soon.

Saturday was one of those glorious Texas fall days when the sun was warm and the air just cool enough to feel good on the skin. They had all slept well, and woke really rested for the first time in days. There was work to be done, but no one minded. Laughter and chatter filled the meadow. The women sewed and cooked and aired bedding and washed clothes in the river. The men greased all the wagon wheels. Harness was mended, horses actually curried. Off to one side, Jones, Leakey, True, and Joseph rigged a makeshift farriery. Two trimming and two shoeing—Tommy Matlan was kept proudly busy helping—they worked their way through every animal there by the middle of the afternoon. By five, the vast majority of the work was done and all the men hiked a hundred yards downriver to bathe and swim and generally act as though they were Tommy Matlan's age again.

Dinner was a feast. Great sizzling steaks of juicy dark black bear meat were laid out on a plank. Onions and carrots, traded two settlements back for a half tub of axle grease, had been roasted in a pit. The ever present beans were seasoned with bear fat and tiny green peppers so hot that even Thaddeus Jones had to blink and blow and wipe the perspiration from the back of his neck. Last but not least, Mila Kania and Eustacia Matlan brought out the monumental surprise of the journey, four apple pies. The men groaned and rolled their eyes and said they couldn't eat another bite. But the pies were gone before the coffee had cooled enough to drink. Hogjaw, after an appreciative belch, proclaimed Mila and Eustacia the heroes of the feast and, bowing gallantly, kissed their hands. Jack Kemper was taken with a fit of generosity and, ignoring his wife's scowl, broke out one of the jugs of whiskey he'd been saving to trade in San Antonio.

The party—Jones called it a fiesta—announced by a blast from Hogjaw's bugle, started at sundown with a square dance. Thaddeus Jones did the honors for the first, calling the old standard, “Turkey in the Straw.” Hogjaw followed with one he'd made up, “Go See the Varmint, and Step on the Elephant's Trunk.” By the time they finished, everyone was laughing so hard they had to take a break and pass around Jack Kemper's jug again. When they resumed, it was to dance to some of Mila's favorites, polkas that her father and mother had remembered from the old country and taught her as a child.

“May I have this dance, mam'selle?” True asked, with a sweeping, comical bow to Elizabeth.