Rose (33 page)

In the meantime, however, the McClendons were about, and she had a lot to do before nightfall. As much as she didn’t want to let go of this moment, she would never forget the look on old man McClendon’s face when he’d charged the house over a few cows. She didn’t even want to think what he might be willing to do for half a million dollars.

George handed her his empty plate.

She got to her feet. “You won’t stay out here too long, will you?”

“Just until Salty gets back. Once I know how many are coming, I’ll know what to do.”

A few minutes after Rose left, Salty returned through the brush.

“McClendon’s bringing the whole tribe,” he said. “They’re probably half an hour away.”

George looked at the sinking sun.

“We’ve got another two hours before it’s really dark. Do you think they’ll wait?”

“I wouldn’t depend on it. There’re so many of them they might think they can attack anytime they want.”

“That’s what I was thinking. Was Silas with them?”

“Yes.”

“So they’re still convinced I’ve got the gold?”

“Seems like it.”

George cursed. “Then they mean to kill us in the end.”

“We’ll stay here as long as we can, but I doubt we’ll be able to hold the house for long.”

George and Salty had returned to the house. Having made his preparations for the attack, George was now going over his plans for their escape.

“I packed as much food as I could,” Rose said.

“And I’ve hidden our horses,” Salty added. “We ought to be able to get to Austin under cover of dark.”

The minute Salty mentioned Austin, George knew he wasn’t going to run away. It might be crazy to attempt to fight off so many, but a man had to make a stand somewhere. He couldn’t just keep moving on if he ever wanted to amount to anything. And George knew he wanted to do more than just amount to something. He wanted to create something, he wanted to leave something behind.

He wanted children.

Just the thought gave him an unexpectedly comfortable feeling. It was like another gear in his life clicking into place. Another piece of a puzzle which, when complete, would tell
him who George Randolph was. He knew it was the right piece because it felt good.

He wanted to tell Rose. He wanted to share this moment of discovery with her, but there wasn’t time. If they were to have any future, with or without children, he had to concentrate on the McClendons.

“We have to have someplace to go, somewhere they won’t find us.”

“We could go into the brush,” Salty said.

“That won’t stop them for long. They’re more at home there than we are.”

“I know where we can hide,” Zac said. “In the cave.”

“What cave?” George asked.

“The cave in the creek. Under the pecan trees.” They stared at Zac. “It’s big enough for all of us. I go there all the time.”

“So that’s why I can never find you,” Rose said.

“Can we get there without being seen?” George asked.

“Sure. I do it all the time.”

“Then you and Rose take the food and ammunition there right now,” George said.

“I don’t want to go without you,” Rose objected.

“It’ll be best for Salty and me to stay. If they do attack while you’re at the creek, don’t fire on them. I don’t want them to know where we’ve gone.”

Rose realized that if they abandoned the house, the McClendons might destroy everything in it. She hated to think of losing the beautiful bedroom furniture, but there wasn’t anything else in the house that was really important to them.

Except the picture of Tom Bland.

She hurried into the boys’ bedroom. She opened the drawer and quickly retrieved the picture. She was about to turn away when she noticed the protruding corner of a second picture frame. Rose pushed aside the shirts covering it.

Surprise stilled her breath. It was a picture of George’s family taken in front of their Virginia home, probably just before they came to Texas. Zac was still a baby in his mother’s arms.

Her gaze was immediately drawn to the tallest boy standing behind his mother. A tender smile softened her features. George. He looked so young and so serious. Not as handsome as now, but it was easy to see in him the man he was to become.

Inexorably her gaze was drawn to the man standing at the right of the group. She was stunned. William Henry Randolph didn’t look a thing like she’d expected. He was the best-looking man she’d ever seen. The only one in the picture who was smiling; his charm transcended the limits of the tintype. It was almost impossible for her to believe that the father George feared and the twins despised could live inside that gorgeous man. There was no weakness, no dissipation, no viciousness written in his face. He looked like the answer to any woman’s prayer.

Her gaze shifted to Aurelia Randolph. She was a pale woman, fragile, shy, and tired. She was easily outshone by her husband—she had none of the energy, the vitality that practically jumped out of the picture—but she was still very beautiful. Rose felt a twinge of jealousy that any woman could look that lovely after bearing so many children.

It was easy to identify the rest. Tyler off to one side, a loner even then; the twins on either side of their mother. She assumed it was Hen who rested a protective hand on her shoulder. Jeff completely overshadowed between George and his father. And the smaller version of George must be Madison.

She rummaged through the drawer to see if there might be more pictures, but she found none. She wrapped both pictures very carefully. It was possible they would be the only mementos of George’s life before the war. He would need them to keep the memories fresh.

The attack came five minutes after Zac and Rose left the house. It wasn’t a frontal assault. They came from all sides, through the brush, from the corrals, across the yard.

“We can’t hold them very long like this,” Salty called from across the breezeway.

“Just keep firing as fast as you can,” George replied. “If we can break this first attack, we’ll have a chance.”

Ordinarily two men wouldn’t have been able to stand off so many, but the builders of the house had cleared the ground for at least fifty yards in all directions. George and Salty had a clear shot at each McClendon the moment he broke cover. Within fifteen minutes the attacking force had been reduced by a quarter.

The McClendons drew back.

“Now what?” Salty called from the kitchen.

“We wait,” George called back from the bedroom. “And we load as many rifles as possible before they come at us again.”

But they didn’t come. Dusk came and then darkness. Still they didn’t come.

“What are they planning?” Salty called.

“They’re going to burn us out.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s the only way. They’ve already lighted the torches.”

Salty could see an ominous glow through the brush.

“What can we do?”

“Get out before we become sitting ducks.”

Gathering up his rifles and stuffing all the ammunition into his pockets, George dashed out the door, through the breezeway, and straight for the creek. Salty followed.

“They’re getting away,” one of the McClendons called. Shots peppered the night around them.

“Forget them,” another voice called. “It’s the gold we’re after.”

“But we don’t know where it is.”

“Silas says he knows.”

George and Salty reached the creek, crawled through the brush, and slipped over the bank. “Now where’s Zac’s cave?” George muttered.

“Down here,” Zac’s voice called to them out of the night.

The dry summer had reduced the creek to a thin ribbon. But the violence of the periodic floods was evidenced by a creek bed up to twenty feet wide and six feet deep. A thick
grove of towering pecans bordered the creek on both sides where it took a sharp turn. Swollen currents had carved out a network of tunnels between the deep, thick roots. The air was thick and dank, but it was blessedly cool.

“It’s quite a cave. A dozen people could hide here.”

“They’ll never find us,” Zac said proudly.

“Maybe not, but I don’t mean to give them a chance. We’ll stand watch.”

“I’ll help,” Zac offered.

“Not yet. Salty and I will take turns. You and Rose need your sleep. We don’t know what they’ll do tomorrow.”

“Are you sure we can’t help?” Rose asked. “Hiding while you take all the risks makes me feel like a coward.”

“We don’t have any choice,” George said. “They outnumber us. The only way we can hope to win is by attrition. If they catch even one of us, it’ll be over. If we have to run, we’ll need all our strength.”

“Do you plan to run?”

“No, but I’m not going to risk our lives foolishly. Now get some sleep. I’ll call you when it’s morning.”

“Do you think they’ll come looking for us?” Salty asked. It was about three o’clock, time for him to take over the watch. He had joined George in the brush along the far bank of the creek.

“Yes. When they don’t find any gold, they’re going to be sure we took it with us. At the least they’ll think I know where it’s buried.”

“I shouldn’t have hired Silas. I never liked him much.”

“You can’t tell what’s in a person’s mind. It could have been any one of the others.” George was silent for a few minutes. “He was a fool to tell McClendon. He would have done better to come to me himself. That old man won’t share anything with anybody, including his own sons. He means to kill Silas once he gets his hands on the gold.”

“Do you believe what they said, about your father, I mean?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing.”

“I don’t know. He was daring enough to do anything. He would have taken the gold if he wanted, but I don’t think he would have done it for his family.”

George laughed harshly. “He never did anything for his family.”

They sat in silence for some time.

“Why didn’t you tell me you knew Pa?” George asked.

“He said I wasn’t to say anything until you asked,” Salty said. “He said you might be so angry you wouldn’t want to know anything about him.”

“I was, but I guess I keep hoping I’ll learn something that will explain him to me. I doubt Pa himself knew why he did things. He probably just turned any way the wind blew him. Still, I keep hoping there was something more to him than that.”

“There was,” Salty said. “He knew he’d made a mess of his life, and he hated it. He just couldn’t do anything about it. That’s what killed him in the end. Or caused him to get himself killed.”

George gave a snort of contempt. “Pa wouldn’t kill himself. He liked himself too much for that.”

“He hated himself,” Salty contradicted. “He knew he was a failure, knew he’d disappointed you and your brothers, and he couldn’t live with that.”

A few choice expletives cleaved the night air. “You expect me to believe that, after the way he treated us? What about my mother?”

“I’m afraid he didn’t think much of women. Maybe they came too easy. I don’t know.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I was under your father’s command. I was in his last patrol.”

“So you’re one of the ones he treated like a son.”

“That hurt, didn’t it?” Salty said.

“More than anything else that son-of-a-bitch ever did. I would have given my right arm for him to be a father to me.”

“He knew that.”

“Then why the hell didn’t he do something about it?”

“Because he couldn’t.”

“Because it was more fun to keep on drinking and chasing women than it was to take a kid riding.”

“Your father never talked to any of us,” Salty said. “He just listened. But he couldn’t sleep that night before he rode into Sherman’s lines. I think he’d already made up his mind what he was going to do. I sat up with him, just listening. He talked all night.”

“I bet he had a lot to tell. I’m not surprised you weren’t strong enough to ride into battle next day. Or couldn’t you stand to be anywhere near him?”

“He just talked about two people. Tom Bland and you.”

George had expected many things, but never that.

“And what did he say?”

“That you two were the greatest mistakes of his life. Nothing else mattered.”

“Not even my mother.”

“He said he told her, but she wouldn’t believe him.”

“Told her what?”

“Not to marry him, that he was rotten, that he would break her heart.”

“That’s one prophecy he certainly lived up to. What excuse did he have for Tom Bland?”

“None. He hated Tom as much as he loved him.”

“That makes no sense.”

“He saw in Tom all the things he should have been. He hated it even more when you boys turned to Tom. Each failure made him hate Tom even more.”

“Either you’re crazy or Pa was. I never heard such nonsense.”

“It was as though the better Tom was, the more your father wanted to destroy him. Anyway, he seduced Tom’s sister just to goad Tom into calling him out.”

“And killed him because he was so good he couldn’t stand to let him go on living?”

“I don’t think he meant to go that far. The drink muddled him a bit.”

“Nothing muddled him. He was evil to the core.”

“He wasn’t so evil he couldn’t feel remorse. He used to mumble things about Tom. I didn’t understand them. I don’t suppose they made sense to anyone but him.”

“I don’t think he felt any remorse about killing Tom,” George said angrily, “but I’m glad something bothered him. I only wish he’d suffered half as much as the rest of us.”

“He did, mostly over you.”

George didn’t want to hear any more. He had finally come to accept the fact that his father had no redeeming qualities. He couldn’t afford to hope again.

“You’re not going to tell me he gave me a single thought after ignoring me all those years. I won’t believe you.”

“I don’t know how often he thought about you, but he was proud of you.”

The curses George spat out would have shocked even Monty.

“He talked about you a lot, mostly a sentence here and there, but we all knew he was proud of you. That’s one of the reasons the boys were so willing to confide in him. They figured if he could have such an interest in you, he might be willing to listen to them.”