Paxton Pride (32 page)

CHAPTER VI

Dinner was a quiet affair on Karen's part. True held his son's attention with a recounting of ranch business and a thorough if complicated explanation of the current political atmosphere. This was a trying time for Texas, a time of rapid change, of plotting and political maneuvering. The corrupt Radical Republican reconstruction government, though fighting every inch of the way against the more traditional-minded Democrats, was crumbling and near dissolution. The state was in transition, with fortunes, reputations and destinies at stake. Governor Davis' hated State Police had been disbanded, but the men who had worn the badges gave them up grudgingly and, filled with rancor, could be counted on to resort to violence at the slightest provocation. Rights stripped from the men whose sympathies lay with the butternut and gray during the War Between the States were speedily being returned after a long, hard penance, but there was still far to go. The politicians were talking of a new Ranger outfit, but it had yet to be formed, and with the army in a state of disarray, Edward's Plateau—hill country as the Paxtons and their neighbors called it—and all points west lay open to the depredations of the Indians and Mexican renegades.

Karen understood only little of what she heard and soon excused herself from the table, having only dabbled at the strange and unpalatable food before her, an assortment of Mexican dishes prepared by Maruja and, as far as she was concerned, totally unworth the praise Vance had been so ready to reiterate at the drop of a hat. She ascended the stairs and was almost to her door when Elizabeth called to her.

“I recognized the sound of your footsteps on the stairs.” The old woman smiled at her and patted the side of the bed, Gesturing for Karen to sit. “It's late and you're tired, I know,” she continued, “but I won't keep you long.”

“Nonsense, Mrs. Paxton … Elizabeth,” Karen protested. “I would have come directly to your room had I not been afraid of disturbing you.”

Elizabeth studied the girl's face, raised a frail hand to touch her cheek. “You are a lovely girl, Karen. Odd how these Paxton men choose women with golden har. Were you born in Washington?”

“No. New Hampshire. But Papa's business took him to New York so often we eventually moved there, and then to Washington when it became apparent he needed to be closer to the center of politics.”

“Washington,” Elizabeth sighed. “I've always wanted to see Washington. My father was from near Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. A strong, willful farmer defeated by the drought and blight, and forced to sell out. A lot of people were heading west, then, and Father, Mother, my sister Lottie, and I, joined them. Everything we couldn't take in one wagon was left behind. Everything.

“There was, we thought, land waiting for us. Virgin land, rich and fertile, wanting only strong and willing backs and shoulders to make it spring to life. Mother didn't want to go, neither did Lottie. Father was going because he needed to prove something to himself. I was the only one excited by the whole venture, I think.

“The trip started well enough. We went west to the Ohio and traveled on a flatboat to the Mississippi where Father had bought passage down to Natchez. And then tragedy struck when Father was killed in a fight and we were informed that no single women were wanted on the wagon train. They weren't going to let us go to Texas after all.”

“But you did,” Karen prompted, anxious to hear more.

“Yes.” Elizabeth's frown changed to a soft and dreamy smile. “Because of True and his brothers, and one of the ugliest, most wonderful men I've ever known.” She nodded, patted Karen's hand. “Hogjaw Leakey. I haven't the strength to tell you about him right now, but True will one day, if you ask him.

“We arrived in Texas in early winter. Day in and day out in that wagon, and Mother dying near where Austin is now. True tried to help and court me at the same time, but I was too stubborn to let him do either. My, but that trip was hard. Not like now, with cities and towns and the land all full of ranches.”

Karen smiled. “Full of ranches? I've never seen anything so desolate in my life.”

“You should have seen it then. Nevertheless, I finally came to my senses, and True and I were married in San Antonio. On the second day of January, 1835. I was just ten days shy of eighteen.”

“Eighteen? Then that would make you … Excuse me,” Karen stammered, embarrassed by her impropriety.

Elizabeth's laugh was soft and motherly. “Yes, I am fifty-six. ‘But no!' you're thinking. ‘She looks so old!'”

Karen shook her head in protest. “No. I wasn't really …”

Elizabeth hushed her with a wave. “There was war in '36, and we were separated, fleeing for our lives from Santa Anna's army. True's youngest brother, Andrew, died at the Alamo. I thought True had been killed there, too, but we were reunited a few weeks before the battle that finished it all at San Jacinto.

“After the war, San Antonio was a town filled with men grown used to killing, so we moved on to this land Hogjaw had given us, and started all over. Those were the Indian years. Lottie and her husband, True's brother Joseph, moved to California, leaving us by ourselves. Not a day went by when there wasn't some awful crisis. Indians or weather, sickness among the stock …” Her face brightened and she laughed softly to herself. “Or babies to be born. Three sons! Three fine sons and a daughter. Vance was the youngest, born in '45.”

“Vance never mentioned anyone else.”

Elizabeth's eyes shut for a moment. When she opened them again they saw far beyond the room. “They're sleeping up on the hill. Sarah Ann was the first. She was born the second winter we were here. It was so cold and she was so pretty. So delicate. Her tiny fingers would wrap around my little finger and squeeze and squeeze … Four days of life she had. I didn't think spring would ever come, didn't think I wanted to see it come. But it did.

“Two years later Lee came. And then Maurice and Vance. Maurice was drowned, caught in a flash flood while trying to save a colt. Lee was killed in Tennessee, or so we believe. A friend of his was with him and saw him fall. The body was lost among all those innumerable battlefield dead. True made a place for him anyway, next to his brother and sister. That's the kind of man True is. We believe Lee's spirit rests there no matter where his body lies.”

She reached out and took Karen's hand. “There I go. Telling the sad things. There have been rich rewards too, child. Oh, not in anything I can count or hide away in a gold box. My life has been full enough.” She paused, her eyes closed. When she spoke again her voice was distant, soft and dreamlike. “It's so difficult to explain. Thirty-eight years with one man! No woman I know could ask for more …”

She opened her eyes again and looked fondly at Karen. “These Paxtons … they run to men. A woman needs to be forceful … needs to make herself heard …” Her eyes closed.

For a brief second Karen panicked until she heard the older woman's deep breathing and realized she was only asleep. Karen sighed in relief, turned the lantern down and quietly left the room, silently closing the door behind her. Lights were still burning downstairs and she could hear Vance and True talking. “I'll send a rider for the preacher come morning.”

“So soon?” Vance asked.

“Why not? That's what you brought her out here for, isn't it?”

“Yes, but.…”

“Then it's settled. Your Ma will be wantin' to see you wed, so we won't be waitin' any longer than we have to.”

Karen waited to hear no more. Exhaustion and confusion had dimmed her anger with Vance but she bridled anew at the way he and his father made plans for her behind her back. She had categorically repudiated exactly that sort of cavalier treatment at the hands of Barrett and Alfred, only to find herself?…
Married …? Married!?
She gritted her teeth to keep from crying out and ran silently to her room, driven by images of an old woman who wasn't really old and yet lay dying in the other room.

Only fifty-six! That isn't old. Not old enough to look so tired. I don't want to be a Paxton!
Frightened, she inspected herself closely in the mirror, searching for non-existent lines and wrinkles. Thirty-five years? Would thirty-five years make so much difference in her—line her face, turn the sun-streaked luster of her hair to gray, callous her hands, weary her and wear her down? Could she stand the death of her children, think of them as merely sleeping?
Sleeping!? My God, to buy three of your own flesh.… I can't do it. I can't do it
.

Yet what else was there to do? Where was she to run? To whom? She was here and that was that, with an interminable prairie between her and civilization, with a man who most certainly had a past she had never given much consideration. She brooded on Marcelina's distinctly amorous welcome, the way her body had thrust eagerly against his, as if an all too familiar receptacle returning to his hard form. They must have been …
No! I won't let myself …
She would simply have to accept the fact he had a past.
I'll manage that … somehow …
But accept everything? This life Elizabeth could not describe? Her appearance was a full, concise and telling description, told Karen all she needed to know graphically enough to curl her on the bed and bury her face in a pillow, hopelessly attempting to stifle her sobs.

True, on his way to bed and checking on Elizabeth before retiring, heard the soft sound of weeping. He paused at Karen's door then shook his head in despair. He had learned long ago there was just no understanding the whims and ways of northern women. A cantankerous lot, they were, and Vance had gone and brought one home with him. Elizabeth, now, wasn't one to carry on. She … he paused in his thought. She was right. He was so used to her he kept forgetting she was born a Yankee too. Well, perhaps the weeping girl would work out after all. She had been quick enough to stare back at him, salty enough to remind him of Gettysburg.

Morning slipped over the rolling line of hills to the east to the tune of bawling cattle, the crowing of three or four roosters and the sound of men and horses. With the new day off to a start and the house silent again, Karen rolled over and went back to sleep. Once Vance came by and knocked at her door, inquiring if she was awake then leaving when she did not reply. An hour later another knock, harder and more insistent, sounded at her door. Karen pulled herself from a deep sleep. “Yes?” she called.

The door opened and Marcelina stepped in, her deep brown eyes flashing with spirit and daring, “the
señorita
wishes a bath?”

Karen determinedly attempted to suppress her jealousy of the night before. “Why … why, that would be nice. Yes. I would.”

Marcelina led her across the hall to the bathroom. An ornate iron tub, a replica of the one she'd had in Georgetown, stood in the center of the room, a cloud of steam rising from the water. “It was sweet of you to prepare this for me,” Karen said, trying to be friendly.

Marcelina frowned. “
Señor
Vance told me to do this. I do anything he wish me to.” The Mexican girl stepped past Karen and with a flip of her head sent her long black braids whipping scarcely an inch in front of Karen's face. Karen suppressed the urge to put the girl in her place, instead yawned unconcernedly and waited silently while Marcelina left. Once alone she shed her gown and stepped into the warm luxury of the bath, sinking into the homey comfort and letting the water ease the jangling tension generated by her arrival and the confusion of too many new faces, names and personalities.

Gradually she relaxed. The new and unknown world outside the walls of the bathroom came into perspective and her strength of mind and purpose slowly returned. The brooding apprehension of the future was replaced by a sense of curiosity and a willingness to be up and about. She would never admit it, but hers was the same ever-returning resilience which had made her father a determined, stubborn figure known for his uncanny business ability under the most difficult conditions. The character trait which had torn asunder the bonds of father and daughter would now be the source of Karen's strength and allow her to face an uncertain future with detached calculation. The Hamptons had ever refused to be mere victims of the whims of capricious fortune, had rather molded and resolved situations as they saw fit, shaped fate to suit them. Since coming to Texas everything had gone awry, but solutions would present themselves and Karen was determined to work things out to her own satisfaction. Though deep within her love had cooled, she could no longer blame Vance entirely for the incident at the Menger. He had not taken her totally by force, for her own tempestuous nature—more than a match for his ardor—had risen to the fore, shamelessly meeting the thrusting strength of his body against her, within her, filling and fiery. Her only reservation lay in the destruction of the dream, the dream of heady romance, for her thoughts had not been of love, were not even now of love, but of animal fulfillment, the primeval urge, the exciting, abandoned ritual born of the mating act. Love …? Their bodies' hunger couldn't have cared less. To hold one's heart away and yet succumb to the heady desires of the flesh.… Vance would sleep downstairs until they were wed. And then what? She didn't know. One part of her wanted him again, hungered, even demanded to repeat their turbulent consummation. Another shrank from the thought, counseled her to deny him until she could be more certain within her own heart how she felt about the newly-discovered facets to her husband-to-be.

She fastened the ribbons on her dressing gown and stepped across the hall into her room. The door was slightly ajar and when she entered Marcelina spun around in surprise at being caught rummaging through an open trunk. The Mexican girl made a vain attempt to regain her composure and walk with Latin arrogance past the eastern woman but Karen, indignant over such discourteous treatment, reached out and grabbed her by the arm. Marcelina whirled like a tigress, her fingernails claws and her breath a feline hiss. Karen stepped back, surprised by the girl's sudden ferociousness.