Then, as though he had revealed too much, he said,
smiling, "I thought you said you were hungry."
His smile never failed to amaze Anne―and
please her―because he smiled so rarely, and when he did it was usually a
cynical or bitter smile. "I'd almost forgotten!" She jumped to her feet,
brushing the grass and loose dirt from her bare bottom. "Lead on, My Great
Provider."
Brant drew his gaze away from the rose-tipped
breasts that moved so seductively with her childlike antics. "You can make
a man forget his good intentions, Anne Maren," he said huskily.
Anne stuck out her tongue at him. "I didn't
know you had any!" Then she grinned. "Now show me your forbidden
fruit."
Brant cocked one brow wickedly, and Anne began to
giggle, then made her expression stern. "You know what I mean, Brant
Powers."
They were like two children, searching among the
tangled bushes and vines that cloaked the various trees until they found their
persimmon tree. Beads of perspiration dotted Anne's upper lip and coursed down
the matted hair of Brant's chest as they labored under the sun collecting the
ripe fruit from where it had fallen on the ground. They deposited the
persimmons in two baskets that Anne quickly wove from grass and twigs.
"Not all my Kwahadi training was wasted,"
she told Brant with an impish grin, proudly displaying her basketry.
"Every woman who hopes to marry should take the
Kwahadi Wife Course," he said with a straight face, and Anne groaned with
laughter.
When their baskets were full, they once more sought
out the cool shelter of their liveoak. Sinking to the grassy carpet, they
sorted out their spoils. "Open your mouth," she said and fed him
several persimmons before he could pull away, mouth full. The black juice overflowed
his lips and stained his chin as he sought to swallow the fruit.
"Laugh, will you?" Brant caught Anne's
fingers between his teeth with a playful nip.
"Let go!" she squealed in mock pain.
"Now it's your turn." And he shoved her
backwards on the grass, forcing the fruit between her clamped lips.
Then, with his body half covering hers, a sudden
silence overtook the two. Their laughter faded. Their eyes searched each
other's faces, recording the naked desire to be found there. Anne's lips opened
to receive Brant's kiss, and the tart juices in their mouths mingled on their
tongues.
For the first time her passion matched his, and she
could hardly stand the seconds of waiting until he took her. There were no
preliminaries, no whispered words of passion. None were needed as their
lovemaking mounted to a frenzied act of violence ...Brant sinking his teeth
into the soft hollow of her neck―and Anne responding by raking crimson
trenches down his muscled, sweat-slippery back with her fingernails.
But when she begged for release, Brant's tempo
changed. There, beneath the spreading oak tree, he made love to her, slowly, leisurely.
And he taught her. Showed her. There was more to what she had experienced than
the simple act of copulation. There was the act of giving pleasure, of giving
oneself, and lastly of giving love.
"Brant...I didn't know," she whispered
thickly into the depression of his good shoulder.
"There's more, Annie. That's the beauty of it.
Your pleasure grows with your ..."
"With what?" she asked dreamily.
"Nothing, sweet." He touched her eyelids
with his fingertips. "Sleep, Annie. Rest."
And as she snuggled against him like a satisfied
kitten, he lay there, thinking he must be crazy. He had almost said something
foolish. He'd have thought he would have learned the first time. If he wasn't
careful ...
Still, he lay quietly, not disturbing the exquisite
creature that nestled in his arms asleep as the afternoon drifted into evening.
There was the smell of their lovemaking about them, the smell of the fecund
earth and the luxuriant foliage. As Anne had said, it was enchanted. It was a
time of enchantment that would end with the sun's setting.
XXII
Her forehead resting on her forearm, Anne leaned
weakly against the cabin's rough logs. The evening breeze refreshed her
somewhat―until the next bout with the churning of her stomach. Then the
vomiting would begin again, ending the dry heaving that would leave her limp.
She heard Brant behind her and did not know whether she
was grateful or not for the support of his arm around her waist. What had happened
between them―only hours earlier―was a tenuous thing...as shifting
and unsubstantial as the pale light of the new moon. It was something she did
not understand, did not wish to understand. She straightened. "It must
have been the persimmons," she said faintly.
"Rafael's fixing some vegetable broth," he
said, as he bathed her face with the damp cloth he had wet in the pond.
"That should settle your stomach."
"Uunuh!" The thought of food made her want
to gag again, but Brant carried her back inside the cabin, making her lie on
the bed with the cloth across her forehead.
She saw Rafael's olive-complexioned face shadow with
concern as he looked up at her from where he squatted before the fire. The
meticulous, wellgroomed Spanish aristocrat was disheveled, his clothing
rumpled, his face beard-stubbled. She propped herself on one elbow, saying,
"You must be tired, Rafael, after riding straight through from Houston.
Why don't you rest? The broth can wait."
"It's nearly ready now," he told her
lightly. But a frown drew the raven brows low over his black eyes, as his gaze
flickered from Anne's drawn face to Brant's impassive one.
Carramba
! One
could never tell what Brant had on his mind. Sometime she would swear Brant was
a full-blooded Indian.
And yet, watching his friend, Rafael could sense a
tenseness in the lean body as Brant sat on the stool with the long legs
stretched out before him, casually rolling the tobacco-packed paper, as if
Brant were already aware of the news he brought from Houston. Or did the bowstring
tautness of Brant's body have to do with something that had happened before his
own arrival an hour earlier?
Rafael could still visualize the scene he had
witnessed from the cabin's doorway. The surprise he had felt―and
something else―at seeing Brant and Anne returning from the pond hand in
hand. Something had happened that afternoon, something has passed between them
...a coalescence; a new solidarity to their relationship. Rafael thought he
knew, but was afraid to venture.
"Well, Rafael?" Brant asked, holding the
phosphorus match to his cigarette. His eyes squinted through the haze of
expelled smoke at his friend. "What of Sam?"
Rafael looked briefly at Anne, then, at Brant's
reassuring nod, said, "Houston wants Ezra to ride to Nacogdoches pronto―to
deal with the Cherokees about their alliance with Santa Anna , and..."
Rafael hesitated again, casting a glance at Anne.
"And?" Brant prompted.
"Mexico's declared a blockade of the Texas
coast. And―" here Rafael scowled, "our Navy Secretary, Rhoads
Fisher―he wants to reissue your Letter of Marque and Reprisal,
Brant."
Brant stood up, a frown darkening his face, and went
to the door, throwing it open to the evening's brisk coolness. As he leaned
there looking out, Anne could hear the serenade of the crickets, and from the
pond came the croak of a bullfrog. "So it's to be fighting still,"
Brant said, half to himself.
"Perhaps net,
amigo
," Rafael said.
"There is talk in Houston that France will soon recognize Texas's
independence. If so, will not Great Britain soon follow? And if―"
Brant, his hands jammed in his pockets, continued to
stare at the blackness outside ,but even so his voice broke in bitterly on
Rafael. "There are a lot of if's, Rafael. If France recognizes us, if Great
Britain does, if the United States does ...then maybe―and only then―we
might be free from Mexico's claim. Free to be admitted to the Union as a state.
But that's a long time away, I'm afraid."
Anne could wait no longer. She had been too ill when
Rafael first arrived to ask. But now, with the talk of Great Britain, her heart
soared like an eagle in the sky. She had regained her bearings on life. Her
priorities were again in focus. "Did you see―did you see Sir
Donovan, Rafael?"
Rafael glanced uneasily at Brant's stiff back.
Rising he drew forth a wrinkled, folded sheet of paper and crossed to the bed.
Wordlessly he handed Anne the letter.
My Dearest Colleen
, Anne read silently, her gaze
lingering over the neat, rounded strokes of Colin's quill pen.
I've just
received word you're alive! You cannot imagine my joy! Yet even this is tempered
by the sorrow that this wonderful news comes on the eve of my departure for
London. Lord Palmerston has requested I return at once with my report on the
affairs of this new Republic.
I beg you to wait for me, darling. I shan't be more
than five or six months in London-enough time for you properly to mourn your
husband's death. Then, if all goes well, my dearest Anne, you shall be the wife
of Great Britain's future Prime Minister. With you at my side, my future in
politics will shine as brightly as the stars in your Texas sky. 'Til Adelsolms
... Your Colin.
Quietly, Anne folded the letter. She should have
been happy. Ecstatic. She was to be Colin's wife. As she had always dreamed and
hoped, he had formally proposed. Yet to wait another six months, six
interminable months, seemed too much to bear. Then there was also Brant. Her
eyes searched him out across the room where he carefully cleaned his pistol,
ignoring her.
Had she betrayed her pure love for Colin when she
had lain with Brant? Yet Brant was here, his desert-colored eyes hot in her
mind, when it was hard for her at that moment to remember the exact color of
green Colin's eyes were. Even his handsome, boyish face was a blur in contrast
to Brant's strong, harsh features. Perhaps Brant's tree was an enchanted tree.
Perhaps it had cast a spell over her.
She shook her head as if to clear her thoughts.
"I'm going back to Adelsolms," she told the two men. She forced
herself to meet Brant's gaze. "Colin will join me there when he returns
from London," she told him defiantly.
Brant tested the trigger action, letting the hammer
fall with a deadly click. There was a hard set to his face. A muscle flicked in
his jaw. But his voice was lazy, mocking. "You're still married to me,
sweet. And I don't take adultery as lightly as your husband Otto seemed
to."
Anne sprang from the bed in fury. The room whirled
about her. She closed her eyes, then opened them to Brant's sardonic face.
"That Comanche marriage was a mockery," she told Brant, spacing each
word like the fall of an axe. "There's no court in the land that will hold
me to a―a marriage with a disgusting savage!"
Brant laid the pistol aside and came to stand in
front of Anne. "And no court in the land would keep you from me―if I
so wanted it." His eyes raked over her. "But I'm finding that I don't
think you're worth keeping."
He swung from her to Rafael, who had tactfully kept
his back to them as he ladled the simmering vegetable broth into a bowl.
"Rafael―take our fine lady to Adelsolms," he sneered.
"Then hightail it back to San Antonio and tell Ezra he has two weeks to
get to Galveston before the
Seawasp
sails."
Anne shoved the broad-brimmed hat back from her head
so that it hung by the cord around her neck. The dust-filled wind out of the
northwest whipped her sweat-dampened hair from the pinned knot at the nape of
her neck.
Below her, below the bluff on which she stood,
twisted the Colorado River. She watched the current rushing by on its
southeasterly course. Twenty-three miles down that river and fifteen miles due
east waited Adelsolms. Her lips formed into a thin line at the cold reception
she would find there. She knew all too well what the people would think of her,
living as she had with the Comanches.
And what would they think if they were to know she
carried a child in her womb?
Unconsciously her hands slid down over her flat
stomach. How long could she conceal her pregnancy? She should have suspected it
the evening of the battle at San Gabriel when she fainted. But even those first
bouts of nausea had failed to warn her. Not until yesterday, after two hard
days of riding with Rafael, had she been sure. Then, as her stomach again
rebelled against food at the campfire last night, she had counted the days―and
had known.
She carried Brant's child.
Her hands clenched into fists. Dear God, Brant must
never know! If so, he'd never let her escape, never let her go with Colin. And
Colin? Would he accept another man's child? She would know in six months time.
Anne closed her eyes, willing away the nausea that
rose in her stomach, choking at her throat. If only she could will away the
child as easily. And yet, she knew she would not, if she could. The child was
as much a part of her as it was of Brant. It had been conceived on the wild
Texas plains. It would be a Texian―at least that much Brant had accomplished.
When she turned back to Rafael, who fanned the
campfire with his sombrero, there was a new tranquility in her eyes that
softened the willful tilt of the chin. Even Rafael was aware of the difference
and frowned, thinking it was a trick of the twilight. But she surprised him
further with her next words. "Who is Laura?"
The man looked down, fixing his attention on the
wild turnips and sweet potatoes that he chopped up in the tin pan. "She
was Brant's wife."
Anne moved to squat beside him. "Tell me more
about Brant. Please."
The black eyes fixed on her. "
Porqué
?"
Why? Even she did not know herself why she wanted to
know. Perhaps it was the fact Brant was the father of her baby. Perhaps―she
shrugged. "Brant did rescue me―twice. And I know so little of
him."
Rafael stirred the stew with the flat of his knife.
"There's little to tell."
"Then start with how you two met," she
persisted.
"We were both eighteen that summer we first
met. Brant had filed for the land bordering my father's hacienda at the Land
Office in San Antonio ,and was working it when I first became aware we had a
vecino
―a
neighbor. Sometimes I would help Brant fell the trees or build his pens. But we
spoke little at first. Talking came hard for him―even in English.
Eventually I persuaded him to visit my family for fiestas―saint's days
and rodeos,"
"And?"
Rafael shrugged. "
Poco por poco
my
father pieced together bits of conversations. That Brant had run away from home
at fourteen and was adopted by a Tonkawa chieftain when his ship wrecked off
the· Texas coast. It seems he had even taken an Indian wife, but she was young
and died in childbirth. That was when he left the Tonkawas and returned to
civilization―if one can call starting a rancho in this wilderness a
civilization.
"It wasn't until word reached him that his
father―his real father―had died that we discovered he was the son
of a wealthy sea merchant. He came over to the hacienda one afternoon and told us
he was leaving―going back to a place called Boston to settle his father's
business―and asked that we watch his rancho while he was gone."
Rafael dished out the stew into the two rusted tin
cups handing Anne one. Like Rafael, she ate with a knife. "Go on,"
she said, after the first mouthful. "When did Brant come back?"
"Not until a year later. And with Laura. She
was from a―
familia eminente
―"Rafael spread one free hand,
trying to find the word he wanted in English.
Anne nodded, her mouth full. "Eminent,"
she supplied. "Probably a well-to-do New England family."
"
Sí
. And she was beautiful. Every
caballero
in San Antonio fell in love with her on first sight. Her hair―it was as
golden as spring sunshine. Eyes as blue as the Mexican Gulf at sundown. She was
as lovely as a madonna. Too lovely.
"Like a doll. And as―breakable. You had
only to look at her eyes to see the hate and contempt she had for this land. At
first she tried, for Brant's sake, to make a go of it. But it was difficult for
her. She never had the command of Spanish Brant did and so found little in
common with us. And the few neighbors―they were just mainly uneducated
poor people, looking for a better chance at life that Texas offered. For them
she had only
desprecio
―she would have nothing to do with them―and
her hate grew to include everything. Soon―like a flower―she began
to wilt."
"So she ran off," Anne said, "at the
first opportunity that presented itself."
"
Sí. Con un Methodista padre
. Brant
never said what happened. But in San Antonio it is said she was found dead
months later in
un prostibulo
."
Anne's eyes widened. "Murdered?"
Rafael's eyes lowered in embarrassment. "No,
un
aborte
she did not want the baby she carried."
"Oh and Brant―what did he do?"
"That was three years ago. He disappeared at first.
Then some weeks later he showed up at our hacienda. Unshaven, wild-looking. He
asked us to watch his rancho for him again. He was offering his services as a
scout to Sam Houston. I volunteered with him. Together we fought at San
Jacinto. And he fought like a madman. Taking
estúpido
chances. As if he did
not care if he died.
Algunas
veces
, I think he enjoys these
chances―adventures. They keep his mind from her."