Texas Lily (12 page)

They inundated her with questions. Thinking wryly that these men didn't know the meaning of the term "order," Lily waited for them to grow quiet again. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Cade approaching from the barn, a lariat in his hand, but she didn't acknowledge him with so much as a look.

"I've had the information for several days. I just wasn't ready to believe..." She still wasn't. She hesitated, trying to hold back her grief until she could speak clearly again. The moment was effective. The men grew solemn and Jack stepped forward.

"Tell us where to look, ma'am, and we'll do our best."

As Lily described the place Cade had told her about the night before, Cade and Abraham began saddling horses. Several of the protesters did the same. Unsmiling, Ollie waited until she finished, then he too saddled his mount and joined the others. Lily had expected at least some word of comfort from him, but his mind seemed to be otherwise occupied.

She didn't want to go with them, and nobody suggested that she should. A man dead and buried for three months was not a pretty sight. For once, male gallantry had its use. Lily watched with an aching heart as they rode off, then turned to find her father right behind her.

"Why didn't you tell us sooner?" There was concern in Ephraim's voice, but also a hint of suspicion.

"And give you and Ollie one more ax to hang over my head? I seriously contemplated never telling anyone. At least this way I've kept Ollie from going out and chasing an innocent band of Indians."

Ephraim looked at the dark circles under his daughter's eyes and shook his head. "You can't carry the weight of the whole world on your shoulders, little mite. If your foreman is as good as you say he is, he can run this place through the winter. Come home with me and rest a spell. You'll look at things much clearer after you've been away for a while."

For once, his advice seemed almost sensible. She needed to get away, to rest her weary head, to avoid responsibility for a time. Only her memory of what waited for her back in Mississippi kept her from acquiescing. The snickers behind her back, her sisters' nagging, the empty days would just be another battle. At least here she was battling for something that made sense.

Lily hugged a solemn Roy and pulled him down into the rocking chair with her. For once, he didn't wiggle away but rested his head on her shoulder, desperately trying to hide his sniffling. They had both known this day was coming, but there had been no way to prepare for it.

Juanita brought hot coffee and cake, and Serena and her kitten toddled along beside her. Roy jumped down and crumbled a piece of cake on a plate, but the adults simply sat sipping the coffee, waiting.

It was some hours later before the clatter of hooves outside warned that the riders had returned. The late September day was warm, and Lily continued sitting in the cool darkness of her front room. She hadn't given any specific orders as to what the men should do when they found Jim. She had left that up to them. All she wanted to know for certain was whether it was Jim buried in that shallow grave.

Ollie and Jack knocked on the front door and Ephraim let them in. Jack had been with Lily and Jim the longest of all their hired hands, and it seemed appropriate that he be the one to break the news. Holding his hat in his hands, he swallowed nervously before speaking.

"I'm pretty certain it were him, ma'am. The clothes were right, and the size. And he had that bad tooth on one side. I'd guess it were Jim. Can't rightly say what happened to him, though. We buried him up good and proper and put up a cross and said a few words, if that's all right with you, ma'am."

Lily had never played the part of Southern belle even when she had first arrived in long skirts and petticoats. She looked the part even less now in her men's trousers and long-sleeved shirt. But as she sat in the rocking chair, she held her chin bravely tilted like the lady that she had been raised to be.

"Thank you, Jack. I knew I could trust you to do the right thing. Someday... You'll have to show me where the grave is so I can put flowers on it."

Ollie wasn't quite so reticent. "You know damn good and well it was those Indians that killed him, Lily. I'm going to get me a bunch of the men together and go after them."

"Shut up, Ollie." Lily rose from the chair, losing any resemblance to frail Southern womanhood. "If those Indians are on my land, I'll have my men shoot you for trespassing. This is a house of grief. I don't want anymore bloodshed. Now get out of my sight."

Making it easy for him, she walked out in the direction of her bedroom.

Furious, Ollie looked to Lily's father for support, but Ephraim merely looked old and tired. He shrugged his shoulders. "You'll not bring Jim back by shooting someone else. And you've got no proof it was Indians. Leave it be, Ollie. Go home and sleep it off."

Ollie left, and word of Jim's death spread. The Langtons were the first to arrive, bringing several of their kitchen slaves and a side of beef for barbecuing. As the meat cooked, others rode up in groups of two or four, and before long, the dusty yard was filled with wagons and horses and people standing in small groups, gossiping.

Lily hadn't realized that she and Jim were so well known. There were people out there that she hadn't seen in years, ones they had arrived here with as new settlers and hadn't seen since. There were people from the town, people she had only met at the dance, and people she could swear she had never seen in her life. It was an incredible turnout, and she would have cried in gratitude had she not realized that death was as good an excuse for a social gathering as anything else.

One of the men carried her rocker out to the front porch, and all she had to do was sit there and accept the condolences of her neighbors. Everything else seemed to be taken care of. Lily caught a glimpse of Juanita's cousin ordering the black servants around in the kitchen yard, and Jack and the men were busily handling the multitude of animals and hauling out some of Jim's barrels of home brew. This was obviously going to be an all-day affair.

Her eyes unconsciously sought Cade. She caught only one glimpse of him as he helped the servants carry out the side of beef for slicing. He evidently meant to make himself as scarce as possible with this crowd. Perhaps that was the best thing. On top of Ollie's loud complaining about the Indians, there were ugly rumors circulating about General Cos and an army of Mexican soldiers landing in Copano Bay.

Lily couldn't believe any ship could carry enough soldiers to carry out the number of atrocities rumored, but just the arrival of a Mexican army was sufficient to be worrisome. She didn't like the mood of the crowd as the day wore on. With his mixed blood, it was probably best for Cade to stay out of sight.

As the sun threw its dying light over a populace stuffed with beef and beer and too drunk to do more than seek their horses, Lily noticed a plume of dust rising on the road from town. Several others saw it at the same time, and they came to a halt to watch.

Standing by the well, Lily sensed Cade behind her. Whoever was creating that dust was traveling at a high rate of speed. Good news never came fast. As Cade dipped water from the bucket and drank, Lily crossed her hands and prayed. For some reason, free food and drink had not increased the festivity of this gathering, and she felt the crowd’s tension.

In sweat-soaked shirt and stained leather vest and hat, the rider swung down from his horse and spoke to the first men crowding around him. Lily watched as Bert Dixon in his black brocade waistcoat pounded the back of a hatless man in buckskin.

The crowd forming around the newcomer had a familiar nuance. None of them were the settlers and their families, who formed the bulk of the people here today. These were the land speculators, the lawyers, the traders, the men without any permanent job or home who had arrived these last few years looking for the promise of wealth that Texas offered. Lily didn't like the sounds of their excitement at all.

Eventually, the reason for it filtered back to her. Giving Cade a nod of acknowledgment, Jack informed them both, "Austin's declared war on them bastards in Mexico. There's fighting in Gonzales. He's calling for an army to drive that damned General Cos back to Mexico. We're all going to have to go. We damned well can't be dictated to by the likes of that bastard Santa Anna."

He didn't say "by any damned Mexican," but the look was on his face as he glanced to Cade. Lily stiffened, but Cade merely took another sip from the dipper.

"You're not a soldier, Jack. Let soldiers do the fighting. If everyone joins the army, who will be left to protect those that are left behind?"

The voice of reason could do little to compete with the drunken excitement of war. Already men were saddling up and making war whoops. It was insane. These men had no professional training. Half of them carried only knives as weapons, and most of the rest barely had anything better than a rusted musket. There wasn't enough money in all of Texas to buy them uniforms or guns. What on earth did they think they were doing?

Lily watched as, one by one, her men came up to pay their respects and ride off to war. The harvest wasn't in or sold. She couldn't give them any money. The ranch had no weapons to speak of. She could only wish them well and urge them to take whatever dried beef and corn they could find in the storehouse. She didn't even know why she was doing that.

Turning away from the sight of grown men eagerly going to their deaths, Lily glimpsed Serena lying blissfully asleep on a hay bale. Without a word to Cade, she walked over to the child and picked her up, carrying her into the house and out of the madness.

Cade watched her go with rising disquietude. This land he had grown up in had known the skirmishes of Indian battles, but it had never known a white man's war. The few Mexican inhabitants had always been content to live off the plenty of the land, to watch the sun rise and set in its own time, and to die peacefully with the church bells ringing overhead. Although his father's tribe had gone to war in the past, the numbers of the white men had driven them into the wilderness and a peaceful existence with the land. But Cade was all too well acquainted with hate and greed and knew the devastation they could wreak.

Cade looked up to find Abraham in the barn doorway, watching the excited exodus. At least there would be one man left to do the work of half a dozen. Perhaps he knew where to find a few more. Catching Juanita's buxom cousin staring boldly at him, Cade thought it might be a good idea to avail himself of her services. The knowledge of the frightened woman alone inside the house clawed at him otherwise.

But even as he took a step toward the saucy wench, and she twitched her hips in anticipation, something held him back. Looking up, Cade found Roy standing lost and bewildered by the paddock gate, watching his father's funeral guests roar off into the sunset. Without a flicker of emotion, Cade turned and walked in his direction.

Juanita hissed at her cousin as the woman uttered an imprecation in Spanish. "You do not want that one, you fool.
Esta un monstruo.
You have heard Maria speak. He is not normal, that one."

"I want to see for myself," was the hungry reply.

Clicking her tongue at her cousin's foolishness, Juanita drew her back into the safety of the kitchen.

Ephraim Porter ran his hands through his faded curls and watched the visitors depart with sorrow and uncertainty. He was beginning to understand why his daughter had chosen this place to live. She was accepted here as she had not been at home. These people were more generous, more open, more everything than the polite, civilized world they had left behind. In a country like this, perhaps they had to be.

That still didn't solve his dilemma. There was going to be a war, and Lily had no man to protect her. Ephraim would be the first to admit that he wasn't the man to do it. He knew about wheelin' and dealin', he knew a great deal about liquor, but he knew nothing about running a ranch.

Turning, he saw Lily's Indian foreman lifting Roy into the saddle of an awfully darned big horse. The man was going to get the boy killed. Ephraim started to go down the stairs and protest, but the two of them seemed too much in harmony for interference. They rode away before he could have traversed the yard.

Shaking his head, Ephraim sat down on the front step and pondered the situation. His mind kept traveling back to the sight of Roy riding that horse. The boy sure as hell didn't resemble Jim none. Jim hated horses. There wasn't any physical resemblance either. Heck, Roy didn't look like anyone Ephraim knew of at all. That dark, curly hair of his didn't take after Lily or Jim. His own hair had been light before it went gray. The boy's eyes were gray. He couldn't remember gray running in either of their families.

It didn't matter none. Roy was eight years old and fatherless. Something had to be done.

Watching the large figure of the Mexican-Indian riding off over the horizon, Ephraim shook his head and cursed. He was going to have to straighten Lily out about this situation real soon. The next thing they would know, she'd be marrying the half-breed just to give the boy a father.

Remembering the golden-haired child even now being rocked in the front room, Ephraim groaned. It would be a darned sight harder to keep Lily from marrying Cade just to give the girl a mother.

Chapter 10