Paxton Pride (42 page)

“A sick man needs soup, so I kill a chicken and make soup.” True glanced at the mug, up to Maruja's unwavering expression, back to the mug. Maruja sighed, shrugged her shoulders. “You have sixty-two years. I tell you don't go out without your coat in the sleet, but you go. Now you drink soup.”

“Waste of a good goddam chicken,” he muttered, defeated, and shuffled back to the chair before the fire, sipping the broth as he went.

“Oh,
Señora
. You must be tired and we must take care of
el machito
. I have Marcelina heat water for your bath,” Maruja said, leading Karen toward the rear of the house.

“That would be nice, Maruja. Thank you.”

Vance came in the front door as Karen started down the hall. “I'm going to ride on up the valley with What's About,” he said. “Be back around supper time.”

“Might not be a bad idea,” True answered from the chair. “You'd best check on Willow Creek too. Had us a gully-washer while you was off playin' border guard. Might of made some rough goin' up that way an' trapped some cattle in the bend.” True sneezed again.

Vance grinned. “You take care of yourself, now.”

“Don't need to,” True grumbled. “That Mex woman is doin' it for me. Soup!”

The front door opened again and a gust of cool air blew through the hall to billow Karen's skirt. “Oh, son?”

“Yes, Pa?”

“'Bout time you brung her back home.”

Karen paused on the stairs, astonished by what she'd just heard. “Why didn't you tell her that yourself?” Vance asked.

“'Cause she's too damn good at checkers, is why,” came the answering growl, broken off by a sneeze and fit of coughing. The door slammed and the house was quiet.

Snow. For the first time in years there would be a white Christmas at the PAX unless the wind shifted capriciously and melted the thin cover during the night. The possibility seemed remote. Karen thrust another stick of cinnamon into the cider bubbling cheerfully in the iron pot hung over the flames. The ranch hands were drifting out of the sunset into the hacienda to strip off their heavy fleece-lined coats, stack them in a corner and head for the steaming pot and a cup of the cheerful Christmas brew. Ted Morning Sky had ridden in that morning with half a dozen wild turkeys hung across the pommel of his saddle. Now the birds were dressed and basted, all crispy orange-brown from the flames. Maruja had been cooking all day long and the house was filled with a mouthwatering variety of odors, each sufficient to rouse a stomach-grumbling hunger from the men of the PAX who, in spite of threat, cajolery or flattery, would have to wait until Maruja the implacable took pity and rang the bell calling them to the dining room.

Two hours later the table was nearly bare and the men retired to the living room with full stomachs and glazed eyes. Karen slipped away to the kitchen where, after struggling to remember Retta's recipe from long ago, she had managed to prepare and hide two heaping platters of hot doughnuts. Full, warm and relaxed, the hands had fallen into a near stupor by the time Karen and Maruja carried the platters into the front room. Harley Guinn saw them first. Sitting by the door, he rose slowly and stared at the incredible sight “By God!” he exclaimed. “Bear sign!” Fourteen pair of eyes focused as one and a groan of disbelief rose from the men. Doughnuts—bear sign to them—and not a hand in the room who wouldn't ride a full fifty miles to get some, as full as they were. Karen was the instant hit of the evening. She passed among the crowd and not a man, from youngest to oldest, from talkative to taciturn, but failed to rise and fill a fist then sit back and dream as he slowly munched away, careful not to drop so much as a crumb.

By ten o'clock it was time for the tree. Billy had cut and carried in a fresh evergreen a week earlier and Karen, determined to have as merry a Christmas as the PAX had ever seen, lavished special attention on the young sapling, transforming it into a sparkling, festive creation. She made the men close their eyes while she and Billy carried the baby cedar into the room and set it in a corner. Feeling sheepish and more than a little silly, the men obeyed, obdurately grumbling over all the fuss on their behalf. Moments later Karen told them they could open their eyes, and rough, tough, hard-bitten crew though they were, not a one but didn't have to blink back the quick watering, swallow the sudden nostalgic lump in the throat.

Karen had bought a number of little gifts for the men during her stay in San Antonio. Things a man might enjoy: tobacco and paper, a pair of warm socks for each, bandannas and a stack of books and magazines—they would be read and re-read a hundred times before spring came—to be placed in the bunkhouse. One handsomely wrapped package sported TRUE spelled out in bits of bark on the silver wrapping. Inside, much to the amusement of all, was a playing board and box of checkers, the playing pieces painted blue and yellow. “Now you have two
new
colors,” Karen told True, as seriously as possible.

True glared in mock sternness at his daughter-in-law. Successful for about ten seconds, his face finally gave up and split into a smile. He looked at the grinning faces around him. “I'll win with 'em, too,” he exclaimed defensively. Later, he brought his face closer to Karen's and whispered, “Woman, you sure got a lot of salt.”

The festivities continued into the night. The ever present squeezebox and harmonica were brought to the fore and a raucous semblance of yuletide carols filled the room. Karen brought Vance a cup of steaming cider. Their eyes locked for a moment, each trying to plumb the unfathomable depths of the other but to no avail. Aware of the distance between them even as she leaned up to him, she whispered “Merry Christmas” and kissed him on the cheek, handed him a long, narrow package.

Vance glanced at the box, secretly touched her swollen stomach. “This was the only present I needed. My son.”

“Open it.”

He undid the red ribbon, carefully rolled it up and handed it back before opening the box and discovering a new bowie knife, the blade reflecting his face back to him. Lifting the gleaming weapon out, he checked the balance. “Feels good.”

The door from the outside flew open and Ted Morning Sky entered, shaking new flakes of snow from his hair. He carried something bulky and covered with a piece of canvas, handed it to Vance who placed it on the back of a chair. “Open it,” he commanded. Karen looked at him inquisitively. “Go on. It's yours.”

Her fingers tugged at the knot but couldn't get it open. Vance used his new knife to slit the leather thong and the canvas fell aside to reveal a new side saddle, the leather a deep brunt orange immaculately and intricately inlaid with a seat of tapestry cloth woven with a design of flowers in gold and green and light blue. “Oh, Vance, it's lovely.”

“Figured you been riding Elizabeth's long enough. Time you should have one of your own.” Impulsively, Karen reached up and threw her arms around his neck and held him close, much to the delight of the rest of the company. But over Vance's shoulder, Karen noticed Marcelina staring vehemently at her from the dining room.

Vance, grinning self-consciously, pried her from him. “I have a request. The boys got together earlier and asked me to ask you to sing a song for them.”

Karen blushed. “Me? I can't.…” She looked around in the silence. Each man in the room stared at her with the unspoken request. “I'll try.”

“Sing ‘Silent Night,' Hogan said from his place in front of the crowd. Karen had never heard him speak before and his voice was a deep and rumbling bass, belying a skin-and-bones frame.

“All right.”

The squeezebox and harmonica combined behind her with the haunting melody and the room stilled to the words. “Silent night …” listening to the words and going far beyond them into the past, the men retreated from themselves and the world. Memories of hard men at home in a harsh, unrelenting environment which tested them daily, each of whom had been at one time a child … a boy. Each remembered a home far away and a time—however short—when there was softness. Mothers, sisters, fathers paraded along the dim trails of memory as each reconstructed the moments somehow flown, somehow lost. Life on the PAX was good but it was hard. Hours in the saddle, hours in the sun, hours in the rain and cold. Bad trail food cooked by themselves, many times no food for two or three days at a time. Danger, pain, always the unknown facing them around the next bend in the trail. And what beyond? A woman and family of their own? The odds were against it. A life at thirty dollars a month until a man was thirty or thirty-five and too old to keep it up, too old and too crippled to take the hard work? That was the future most of them faced, yet such was the life they freely chose to live. No man would hear a one of them complain, for none of them would trade for any other way of life. Cider swirled in mugs, gazed on by eyes narrowed by resolute yesterdays and uncertain tomorrows. “Silent night, holy night …”

The tune lingered in the chinks between the stones, caught in the small blue flames and spiraled upward into the night to spread over the sleeping land. No one spoke. Hogan set the squeezebox down with a single sighing note, a final punctuation of nostalgic relief.

True coughed. “Boys,” he looked around the room, waited until they were all out of their past and with him again. “This here's the first Christmas since 1836 that Elizabeth ain't been here. The house feels empty.” He paused, a slow smile creasing his worn face. “Did I ever tell you about the time me and her was …”

Vance slipped outside to escape the painful memory. The night was near day-bright with a full moon that peered through a rent in the clouds and shone on crystalline snow, its rays bounding from hill to hill and gathering in the valley below. He crossed the courtyard as new flakes of snow fluttered and choked the stillness. Once outside the gate he hunched his soulders and crossed to the barn, the iced mud crunching beneath his boots and causing him to grit his teeth from the sound. Inside the barn it was warm, snug against the wintry evening. The gentle animals chomped the grain in feed troughs or slept, waking as the man walked in to disturb their rest. All the gear was in place and the leather, having been newly-oiled against the stiffening cold, added its aroma to the earthy smell of animals, grain and hay and weathered walls. He stooped to grasp a strand of yellow straw and placed the stalk in his mouth, savoring the faint sweet taste of summer. Why had he run from the warmth of the house? What thoughts darkened what should have been a happy occasion?
Karen … Karen
. He wanted her, but enough to wear the brand of a politician? What kind of life was that for a man? He couldn't envision himself trapped inside a frock coat and listening to the ceaseless boring reiterations of self-important men.

The door opened behind him and he spun about, caught off guard. Marcelina walked softly toward him, a coal oil lamp turned low to illuminate her way. She hung the lamp on a nearby hook and stood before him, proud and terribly pretty, her eyes flashing with elemental promise and desire. “I see you leave. And follow.” She dropped the shawl from her shoulders, thrusting proud young breasts against the light cotton blouse. Vance felt his blood quicken and the first faint stirring of desire in his loins. “Why you not send her away?”

“She is my wife.”

“That is no excuse,” she spat.

“Then, I want her to stay,” Vance replied, trying to keep his voice as free of emotion as possible. “How's that?”

“Why?” Marcelina asked. “A woman knows things. A woman can see there is little between you and her. She is not fit to be your woman.”

“She carries my child.”

“Bah!” Marcelina gave a haughty flip to her head, sent her long dark hair spilling across her shoulders. “Any woman can do that. The woman of
Señor
Vance should do more. Send her away.”

“Are you so old and wise to talk of what a woman should and shouldn't do?” Vance asked, partly amused, partly afraid to be serious.

“I am sixteen, and I would show you how much woman I am. We … you kiss me before. Then I was your woman. But you leave and go to this Washington and forget Marcelina.”

“I kissed you once.
Only
once. You were never my woman, Marcelina. You were and still are a sweet, pretty girl. And one I kissed. But only that and nothing more. I suppose I shouldn't have, but I was doing the work of three men and out every day. Seeing you like you were—like I was—I needed the softness of you and the pretty thought of you.”

“Let me be your woman again.”

The haunting melody of a guitar drifted out of the house and to the barn. A haunting Spanish melody only Emilio could play. Marcelina began to sway and gently match the notes with rhythmic, evocative movements of her own. She danced in the stillness of the stable, her feet on the scattered straw. She danced and the graceful motions of her lithe body conjured heady notions of lust and made the very air thick with an aura of passion. “
Mi caballo,
” she purred, her voice ripe with passion. “
Mi caballo
” this time more of an entreaty. Skirts swirled and slender coppery thighs gleamed in the lamplight “
Mi caballo
” an incessant chant, a challenge. She shrugged brown shoulders free of the blouse and thrust barely covered swollen nipples against the fabric. Her movements wantonly provoking, she clutched the full skirt, raising it as she danced, revealing perfect calves, knees, thighs. “
Mi caballo, mi caballo, mi caba.…
”

Vance grabbed her by the shoulders. Her lips parted to receive his feverish kiss as she arched her body to him. Suddenly he shoved her back into an empty stall. Marcelina lost her footing and fell backward into the cushioning hay. Vance quietly, firmly, and not without effort, said, “No.”

She rose, furious and shaking with rage, but he was already gone. “
Mi caballo!
” she taunted, the words acid and dripping with venom. “
Mi cholo!
” She spat at the closing door and grabbed her shawl. “Go then,” she whispered scornfully, her voice choking with malice and humiliation. “Return to your
gringa
. I offer myself and you refuse. You have shamed Marcelina and she will not forget. Never will she forget.” The girl slowly rose to her feet, the love within her like a candle extinguished. “I hate you both. From this moment, I hate you both.”