Paxton and the Lone Star (27 page)

“I was wrong,” Lucita whimpered into a pillow. “Ramez is not the Devil. You are.”

Chapter XIX

Impatient, True had decided to ride ahead, and now waited on the bluffs south of town where the road forked, the right hand disappearing to the southwest as it stretched toward Laredo, the left to a narrower, less worn trail leading directly south toward O'Shannon's. There was little wind and the air was crackling cold in the bright sunlight that rapidly melted the frost from the boulders strewn about him. True breathed deeply and drank in the land. It would take over six weeks to travel from the Sabine River crossing to San Antonio; as much, Jones had said, to El Paso. From verdant, almost tropical forest to arid, empty desert. Rolling hills, plains as flat as the palm of his hand, and even, out of sight to the west, untamed mountains. Breathtakingly vast, it was a land that inspired superlatives and wild flights of imagination that transcended hardship and danger. As ominous as yesterday's news had been, True refused to believe the men and women he had come to know so well over the past weeks would be denied their stake in that land. There was so much of it available, and all that space was so empty, compared to the East, that they could surely work out a compromise. What the settlers ended up with might not be the paradise they had expected, but it would be a start.

The cold bored through his coat. True dug his hands deeper into his pockets and glanced back toward town where he could distinguish three horsemen and a carriage proceeding along the
Camino Real a Laredo,
the Royal Road to Laredo. Plumes of coffee-colored dust drifted away from the horses' hooves and the churning wheels of the carriage. Firetail whinnied and pawed the ground. “Easy,” True said, his voice soft and calming. “Easy, boy. They'll be here soon enough.”

He could feel the tension already. The settlers had ridden too far and had gone through too much to have their dream destroyed. Campbell with his wife and sons and daughters, all ready to build. Kemper driven by his unspoken desires. Elizabeth, fighting every inch of the way, burying her father and mother, and still indomitable. Elizabeth with the golden hair and soft lips, whose sweet spirit filled the hours of his days and nights with fantasies both desirable and frightening. If anything happened to her …

Was that what being in love was like? It was certainly not what he had expected. But then, he had not foreseen heading West either, hadn't pictured himself as one apt to act precipitately. He rocked forward slightly, and leaned back to feel the gold amulet touch his chest. More than he knew, perhaps, he was his mother's son and acted, like her, according to dictates that defied rational thought. Adriana was a creature of the elements. She listened when they whispered to her of what must be. She had tried to teach her sons to listen, too. Listen to the murmur of the earth. Listen to the secrets of the wind. Listen to the merry music of streams and the solemn, ponderous musings of frozen rivers and ice-hung branches. Adriana was a God-fearing woman but did not seek the divine beneath lofty spires or in the shadows of hand-wrought artifacts that man, throughout history, had pummeled and shaped and fired in the vain hope of achieving perfection. She found God in the unhindered progress of the seasons, in the whispered poetry of the stars. She found God in the act of growing older and sensing the grace of wisdom, and in their opposites, eternal youth and unabashed passion. All his knowing days True had wanted to be like her, for to be like her was to be free, truly free and blessed with life. Now, watching Elizabeth approach, he was suddenly aware that the years had not been wasted, that the lessons taught him by his mother and complemented by his father and Hogjaw, were not in vain. Everything he needed was inside him. All he had lacked was love, and that he had found. Elizabeth Michaelson completed him. With her at his side, nothing was impossible.

True had dismounted and was stomping his feet to start the circulation in them when he heard the horses. Moments later, they appeared around a bend and drew up beside him. “It's a lonely land,” Jones said, looking around at the wilderness that made San Antonio appear to be an island set down in an uncharted sea.

“Makes a man want to run to his mother,” Scott added, agreeing with the black man.

“That it does, bucko. In this land, an extry powder horn and sack of balls is worth all the mothers in creation, though. The Comanch' has little respect for motherhood.”

“I still don't see what the fuss is about,” Kemper said scornfully. “You've gone on and on about Comanches, and I've yet to see a single one of them.”

A yellow-toothed smile spread across Jones's face, as if he knew something Jack Kemper didn't know, or that he might find out too late. “You'd best keep an eye peeled nonetheless. Most folks around here count heavy on seein' 'em—seein' 'em
first,
that is. Man has a tendency to live a little longer that way.”

“Mr. Jones,” Elizabeth broke in, “are you leading us to O'Shannon's, or do you intend for us to split up and whoever finds it first signal the others?”

“Gettin' a mite touchy, Miss Michaelson?”

“It's a woman's prerogative, Mr. Jones.”

“Seems like I've heard of them.” Jones chuckled. “Prerogatives, that is. Well, there's our trail,” he added, pointing south. “You can lead the way if you want.”

“Mind if I ride with you?” True asked.

Elizabeth's smile was both honey-sweet and tinged with daring. “If you can catch me,” she said, tapping the mare with the tip of her whip.

The animal bounded forward. “Hey!” True yelped, leaping away barely in time to save his toes.

“She's got the temperament of a MacGregor I once knew,” Scott said.

“Women,” Jones concurred, the tone of his voice summing up his opinion of the fairer sex.

True swung aboard Firetail and started off after the carriage. “Catch Firetail for me in a minute, will you?” he asked Jones as the hammerhead stallion raced past the wagon train master's gray.

Outrunning a carriage was an easy task for the roan. Elizabeth looked back, saw him closing the gap, and vigorously applied the whip to the mare, who tried her best but was quickly overtaken. “What are you doing?” Elizabeth screamed as True guided Firetail alongside her.

Instead of answering, True swung his right leg over the horse as if dismounting, held his weight with his hands on the saddle, and placed his right foot in the left stirrup.

“You're crazy!” Elizabeth yelled. Her knuckles were bloodless as she clutched the reins, and her head jerked back and forth as she looked from True to the trail ahead and back. “Don't do it! I'll stop!”

The carriage rocked as it hit a stone. Firetail's pace didn't vary. As calmly as if he were stepping off a porch, True pulled his right foot out of the stirrup, pushed away from Firetail, and landed beside Elizabeth, jolting her to one side.

The carriage rocked precariously. Elizabeth's face was as white as a sheet. True clasped his hands behind his head and propped his legs on the edge of the footrest. “You're crazy!” Elizabeth shouted angrily.

“A man's prerogative,” True replied. “Besides, there's something I wanted to tell you.”

“You're totally mad!”

“Nope. Not that. Slow down and I'll tell you.”

Elizabeth pulled gently on the reins and gradually slowed the mare to a trot. “What then?” she asked, still angry.

True leaned toward her to speak directly into her ear. “You sure are pretty this morning.”

“What?” Elizabeth asked, astounded. “You … you risked … You mean you … Oh!”

“It seemed important at the time. Here.” He reached over and put his hands over hers on the reins. “Let me drive.”

Meekly, Elizabeth let go and took his arm in hers. “True?” she said.

“Mmm?”

“Don't do things like that again. Please?”

True smiled, braced his thigh against hers, and clucked to the mare. “Wouldn't want you to think I didn't care.”

“I don't think that, True.” Her voice was low and rich and she held tightly onto his arm. “I haven't thought that for a long, long time.”

Sometime around noon, nine men came riding up the gentle slope overlooking what formerly had been the Medina ranch. Stables, outbuildings for storage and cooking, and housing for the
vaqueros
formed orderly extensions radiating from the central
hacienda,
the two-story brick and adobe edifice that looked more like a fortress than a home. The closer the riders came, the more they looked like soldiers. Disconcerted, True noted their leader wore a flowing black cape over a black suit trimmed with silver, and rode a white stallion. The column of eight men who followed him were dressed identically in blue greatcoats trimmed with scarlet stitchery and carried twelve-foot-long lances with slim, lethal-looking iron points. True glanced down at his own homemade linsey woolsey shirt and pants, his bulky coat sewn from a green plaid wool blanket. He had given little thought to fine clothes while westering, and though he had brought a suit with him, it was tightly rolled and packed in a saddlebag back at the inn.

The settlers reined in their horses and waited a few yards down the slope while the riders from the
hacienda
approached and, at a command from their leader, fanned out in a semicircle. “I am Ramez O'Shannon,” the leader announced, walking his horse closer. “General Cos informed us of your impending arrival and your wish to speak to my father, who awaits you at …”

Recognizing True and Elizabeth, he stopped in midsentence and stared at them. When he resumed, his voice was tight with anger, reflecting the hatred in his eyes. “You are on O'Shannon land. Our holdings are not generally open to strangers. However—” He flashed a smile at Elizabeth, who remained impassive. “—exceptions can always be made in the case of a beautiful señorita.” He glanced briefly at Campbell, Kemper, and Jones, returned to Elizabeth bowed with a flourish of his hat. “You are welcome, gentlemen. For a short while. And now, if you would be so kind as to …”

Firetail interrupted him with a scream of fury as he plunged and yanked at the rope tethering him to the carriage. The white stallion whinnied a return challenge and fought against his master's firm control. “What is that?” Ramez asked archly, pointing at Firetail.

“What?” True asked, feigning innocence and looking around. “Oh, that. A horse,” he said, as if explaining the obvious to a child. “His name is Firetail.”

Ramez laughed. “A horse, eh? Maybe,
gringo,
his mother was frightened by a burro and this is why he is so ugly.”

Jones edged his gray closer to the carriage and tried to signal True to shut up, but to no avail. “Where I come from,” True drawled, “looks aren't the first thing we value in an animal.”

“And what is,
Señor Gringo?”

“Speed, to begin with, and then control.” He smiled grimly. “We train them to obey so we can still handle them in case something happens to the reins.”

The merriment left Ramez's face. His mouth turned down in a scowl. “What is your name,
gringo?”

“Paxton. True Paxton.”

“Paxton,” Ramez repeated, as if skewering the name on the point of a lance. “There is that which we must settle one day, Señor Paxton. Perhaps soon.” He bowed once again to Elizabeth. “My padon, lady, for this unseemly behavior in your presence. Such matters are better considered in private. And now—” He raised his hand, turned, and spoke rapidly in Spanish to his men, who broke into two groups of four to let the settlers pass. “—if you will all follow me, please.”

The small procession, followed by the newly-formed semicircle of
vaqueros,
rode down the hill toward the
hacienda.
“What the hell was that all about?” a worried Jones asked.

True related the story of the confrontation the night before, finishing with, “If I'd known who he was, I wouldn't have come along today.”

“You didn't have to antagonize him all over again,” Elizabeth hissed, flashing a conciliatory smile at Ramez when he turned to see what they were talking about.

“I didn't try to,” True said glumly. “It just came out that way.”

Jones told Campbell and Kemper what had happened, and turned back to True. “Nobody's blamin' you, True boy. You done what you had to, but see if you can try to keep your mouth shut from now on. You're in a tight spot as it is, without makin' things worse.”

Seen up close, the
hacienda
was even more impressive. Newly whitewashed adobe walls reflected the sunlight. Fired tile in bright colors had been inlaid over the doors and windows. The roof was covered with alternating red and green tiles, a splash of color that dominated the countryside. A great iron gate set in the surrounding wall swung open magically at their approach, then closed behind them as they entered the enclosed compound.

“Place hasn't changed much,” Jones observed, rubbing the back of his neck. “That's what I like about Mexico. Nothing changes much. Not the land, not the people.”

“Would you mind telling me, then,” Kemper sniffed, “why we are going to see a man named O'Shannon instead of Medina?”

“Well,” Jones amended lamely, “it
looks
the same. You can come back to a place a year later or twenty years later and nothin's very different.”

“Sounds awful,” Kemper said.

“Comforting in a way,” Scott Campbell suggested.

“If I'd wanted permanence, I would have spent the rest of my life in Philadelphia.”

The younger O'Shannon had halted outside an intricately fashioned iron grill that protected the recessed main entry to the
hacienda.
“Your horses will be cared for,” he announced, dismounting and moving to Elizabeth's side of the carriage to offer her his hand.