Читать книгу San Antone - V. J. Banis - Страница 11

Chapter Five

They had been there six weeks when Lieutenant Price came to tell them their wagons were nearly ready.

“The whole train’ll be ready soon,” he said. “I thought maybe you’d like to take a ride and come see them. And Mrs. Montgomery, too, of course.”

He did not even mention Lewis, who was not in the house at the time anyway. By now it was understood that any decisions that had to made would of necessity be made by Joanna. It was she who had decided they must have two wagons—one for the family and one for the slaves. She had been adamant in the face of one of Lewis’s increasingly rare objections.

“They’re not animals,” she had insisted. “I won’t have them walking behind the wagons like dogs.”

In the end, the quarrel had simply died away; Lewis had had another drink and forgotten it apparently, and Joanna had asked the lieutenant to see to the extra wagon for her.

Watching her husband sink lower and lower into his drunken abyss, and unable to do anything to reverse his course, Joanna had found herself dreaming of her husband as she had first known him, before they were married. Dashing, reckless, riding pell-mell across the fields at Eaton Hall; waltzing with her at a cotillion, his hand firm on the small of her back, his eyes gazing lovingly down into hers; or, eyes closed, listening to her read the verses she’d written (but perhaps he’d fallen asleep and she simply hadn’t known).

He’d seemed to promise so much. Or had she written the promises onto the blank pages of his character? That was the tragedy of being young and idealistic: You saw things as ideal, things that never could be.

She’d forced herself to set those thoughts aside. Like a carriage that you’d driven till the wheels were worn and the seats sprung, Lewis would never be new to her again, or wonderful and shiny. The best you could do was keep it going and hope the wheels stayed on over the rougher stretches.

* * * *

The ride with the lieutenant turned into a regular outing. All three of the children were delighted to go. Alice Montgomery sat beside Joanna, her voice rising and falling to the bobbing and swaying of the brougham.

Joanna had had few opportunities to venture out of the house since they’d arrived, and she savored the salt tang of the air, the noisy commotion of traffic, the potpourri of voices and accents common to a busy port town.

The wagons they’d come to inspect looked huge from the outside, and cramped when she peered within and saw all that they had been fashioned to accommodate. Most of the cooking and storage facilities had been crowded into the slaves’ wagon. Even so, the one intended for the family had little room to spare, and no promise, it was clear, of privacy or solitude.

Well, Joanna consoled herself, she’d have solitude aplenty when they reached San Antonio, from all she’d heard.

They had just returned to the brougham, were about to step into it, when Jay Jay cried, “There’s Mr. Horse!”

“The Nasoni,” Gregory said in the way of explanation, and followed Jay Jay’s erratic path around the assemblage of finished and half-finished wagons. They slowed their pace as they neared a young man standing some distance away.

Joanna did not know, really, what she had expected—someone in feathers, perhaps, with bright paint on his face, and little of anything on his body. What she saw was an austerely handsome young man, dressed as most of the men around him were dressed— Lieutenant Price was right, the new dungarees were certainly popular. His skin, to her genuine surprise, was anything but red. Umber, perhaps; actually no darker than many of the “white men” working on the wagons. That and the glossy blackness, like obsidian, of his hair were all that indicated his heritage, so far as she could see.

“Really, Miz Harte,” Alice Montgomery intruded upon her thoughts, “you oughtn’t to let your boys mix with savages.”

“There’s only one,” Joanna said, annoyed, “and I can’t say he looks particularly savage. At any rate, I’ve always taught my children to treat everyone with courtesy and respect.”

“Well, of course, with people. But, my stars, an Indian’s no more human than a nigra is. Why, there’s no telling what your children might get just standing talking to him that way.”

“Then I suppose it’s better if we all get it; I’d hate to lose just half my family,” Joanna said coolly. “Come along, Melissa, you wouldn’t want to be an orphan anyway.”

Melissa, who’d been envying the boys, jumped down from the brougham and followed in her mother’s wake, actually rather enjoying Mrs. Montgomery’s horrified expression.

“You’re Mr. Horse, my sons tell me,” Joanna greeted the young man as she approached. “I’m Joanna Harte. I understand we’ll be traveling together.”

William Horse stared stunned at the hand she had extended toward him. When it became inescapable that she meant him to shake it, he reached out tentatively and touched the tips of his fingers to hers before snatching them away again.

“And this is my daughter, Melissa. You’ve already met my sons. I’m sorry my husband isn’t with us. I know he’d be delighted to meet you as well.”

He recovered his poise than, and bowed formally from the waist. “It is an honor,” he said.

“I understand that you are from the Na—Na—”

“Nasoni,” Gregory supplied.

“Nasoni tribe? And Lieutenant Price tells me you’ve been back east, to school.”

“In Boston, yes.” He kept his eyes on the ground when he spoke to her.

“His mother was a princess,” Jay Jay said happily. It was plain he did not share Mrs. Montgomery’s fear of contamination.

As if to apologize for Jay Jay’s pronouncement, William Horse said, “My father was a white man. I am what your people call a ‘half-breed.’“

“Well, half royalty is certainly better than none at all, I should think,” Joanna said. “Is San Antonio your home?”

His answer was a hesitant “Yes.” After a pause, he added, “My father was there. At the Alamo.”

“Oh. The battle. Was he...?”

“He died. It was your General Houston who arranged for me to go to school in Boston. But now I wish to see my mother. I am grateful to be permitted to travel with your company.”

“And we’re very proud to travel with the son of an Indian princess and an American hero,” Joanna said.

He looked up then, surprised, and wary, as if he suspected her of mocking him. Though he looked fierce and his manners were rigidly formal, Joanna was surprised to find his gaze timid and gentle. A child’s glance, she thought, but a child who has suffered.

His eyes moved past her, their expression growing wary again. Joanna looked over her shoulder and saw the lieutenant approaching. He was scowling as though angry, and he barely nodded at the young Indian man.

“It’s time we were going,” he said.

“It was nice meeting you, Mr. Horse,” Joanna said. “I’m looking forward to getting better acquainted on the trail.”

He nodded, and bowed again, but made no reply.

When they were on their way back to the brougham, Lieutenant Price said, “That wasn’t very wise.”

Joanna turned her head to look at him, surprised. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“Talking to the Indian that way. Didn’t you see people staring?”

Glancing about, Joanna saw that several people were indeed looking in their direction, and not with pleasure. “Actually, I hadn’t noticed,” she said. “But I can’t see what difference it makes. Surely I have a right to speak to whomever I wish, even in Texas.”

“In Texas”—he emphasized the word strongly—“there are a great many people who don’t take socially to red men.”

“Not even your better breed of Texans?” she asked, and saw his lips tighten and his face grow dark with anger. “I didn’t come all this way, lieutenant, to suffer the same stupid conventions I left behind.”

That, at least, she’d made her mind up to; she’d decided that in those weeks on their cramped ship; and lying in bed nights at the Montgomerys, wondering if this was the night her husband wouldn’t make it home, her resolution on that point had grown stronger. That was the price it was going to cost the world for bringing her here, for asking this of her: If she was going to start a new life, it wasn’t going to be on the old terms. She didn’t know yet what the new terms would be, but they would be better than the old ones, about that she was determined.

“And,” she added spitefully, “his skin is no redder than your own at this moment.”

The lieutenant handed them wordlessly into the brougham beside a frostily silent Alice Montgomery; he got in after Joanna and slammed the carved door violently, making the little gilt cherubs tremble. In the distant sky, the thunder grumbled its disapproval.

William Horse remained where they had left him, staring after the carriage even when it had long since disappeared into the distance.

He was thinking of hair, red and gold—the color of a sunset sky over the great wide plains of Texas.

* * * *

It had begun to rain by the time they reached the house, and the wind that managed to find its way into the brougham was wet and cool.

Joanna would have followed the others into the house without speaking—she and the lieutenant had not exchanged a word on the ride home—but he stopped her on the front walk.

“Mrs. Harte....”

“Yes?”

“If the weather should get nasty, it would be best to keep your family inside.”

Joanna glanced skyward. It seemed surprisingly dark for mid-afternoon. “Will this be one of those bad storms?” she asked. They’d had hurricanes in South Carolina, but Eaton Hall was too far inland to have suffered any real damage beyond some occasional flooding from the river and a few shutters or shingles blown loose in the wind.

“I doubt it. The really bad ones don’t come all that often. But you can never be certain. Mrs. Montgomery will know what to do, of course. I’d promise to look in on you, but if things get really bad, I’ll have plenty on my hands. And if there’s flooding, just getting across town can be difficult. I don’t mean to frighten you—just a word to the wise.”

“Thank you, lieutenant.” She smiled then and extended a gloved hand—the same hand she had extended to William Horse earlier, but if the lieutenant was afraid of “catching” anything, he gave no sign of it. He took her hand gladly and gave her one of his rare, slow smiles. “And forgive me,” she added, “for being so churlish earlier. I realize you were only thinking of my well-being.”

“I’m the one who should apologize. It’s not my place to tell you how to behave,” he said. He held her hand a fraction longer than was proper. “Well. Good day. And remember to be careful if it gets to storming.”

“Lieutenant.” He paused halfway down the walk and looked back. “You will be careful, too, won’t you? Please?”

“You needn’t worry,” he said, looking altogether happy. “I’m not a careless man.”

* * * *

By five o’clock the sky had turned black, punctuated by an occasional flash of lightning.

Inside the house, the lamps had been lit and the shutters closed, giving Joanna the uncomfortable feeling she always got being cooped up. The air was stifling, while outside the howling of the wind rose to a fever pitch and the rain sounded like pebbles flung against the windows.

The tension among the house’s occupants seemed to rise with the storm. They sat down to dinner as usual, but Alice Montgomery trembled visibly with every flash of lightning, and a loud thunderclap caused one of the slaves to squeal and drop a bowl of mashed potatoes on the floor, earning her a string of curses from Clifford.

Lewis had been drinking steadily from the time they had come in. He looked, Joanna thought, like an overwound clock about to explode.

When the slave girl had been sent from the room in tears, Lewis suddenly jumped up from the table. “Ah,” he said disdainfully, “all these nervous women! This is worse than the storm itself. I’m going out.”

“Do you think you should?” Alice ventured to ask, her own eyes fearful.

“Balls of fire, woman,” her husband said with a growl of a laugh, “you think a little thunder and lightning will scare the man? Go right ahead, Harte—take the carriage if you’ve a mind. This’ll all blow over in a couple of hours if I know anything about it. I’d go with you but I already got wet once seeing the house was closed up proper. Don’t fancy another bath.”

So far as Joanna had seen, his only contribution to the shutting up of the house had been swearing at the slaves, but she kept that observation to herself.

She followed Lewis into the hall, where he was tying a scarf about his throat. Here, the sound of the wind was ominously loud.

“Do you really think you should go?” Joanna said. “Lieutenant Price said—”

“Far too much, as usual,” Lewis interrupted her. “He’s not wet-nursing me, Joanna, though I fear he might be you. I’m beginning to think that young man pays you altogether too much attention.”

“You might better be grateful for all he’s done,” Joanna said sharply.

Lewis took a step closer, looking down at her with red-rimmed eyes as if he’d been crying. “Maybe you’d better tell me, what all has he done? Things I don’t know about?”

“Don’t be disgusting,” she said, turning away from his liquor-heavy breath.

He laughed. “Yes, I am disgusting—you’ve always thought that, haven’t you?”

Joanna lifted her eyes then. “Not always,” she said. “Lewis, I’m sorry, let’s not quarrel. It’s just—the storm does sound like it’s getting dangerous. Wouldn’t you be more comfortable—”

“I’ll decide for myself where I’m comfortable. It’s been a great many years, I might point out, since you’ve made any effort to make your company pleasant for me. It’s a little late to be concerning yourself with my comfort now, my dear. Or my safety. Truth be known, wouldn’t you just as leave a lightning bolt got me? You can’t say you wouldn’t be grateful, now, could you?”

“Is that what you want, Lewis? A lightning bolt to solve everything for you?”

He leaned down, his voice little more than an angry whisper. “If I thought they came in pairs, by God, I’d take you with me tonight, Joanna,” he said.

She was too startled by his vehemence to think of a reply, and before she could make one, he had gone out, letting the front door slam violently back against the wall.

Joanna ran to the door, but he had already disappeared into the darkness. In the few seconds she stood peering out, she was soaked from the driving rain.

She stepped back inside and struggled to close the door. The wind made it almost impossible. Then, startling her, Clifford Montgomery was there at her side, reaching over her shoulder to help push at the door. Between them, they forced it shut.

Joanna leaned against it for a moment, water dripping from her hair and clothes, trying to catch her breath. Montgomery’s hand was still over her shoulder, on the door. She became aware of the touch of his arm, resting lightly against her shoulder, and looked up, to find his eyes on her.

“If you’ll excuse us,” she said, brushing past him, “I think the children and I will go upstairs.”