Her. Laura. Anne wondered if Brant had used her as
one of his adventures. To keep away the thought of Laura.
XXIII
Anne blinked several times. But there was indeed a
light burning in the cabin that had been hers and Otto's. Whoever lived there
now had installed in her absence windows and shutters through which the
candlelight now seeped.
"
Qué quieres hacer
, Anita?" Rafael
asked at her side.
"I'm not sure what to do," she said, not
fully realizing she little by little was mastering the Spanish language.
She did know she had to remain in Adelsolms until
Colin came for her. From the shadow of the trees her eyes searched out the
other cabins, finding Matilda's. But like the rest of Adelsolms, the old woman's
cabin was dark. Only the one light, the one in her own cabin, burned at that
midnight hour. "Perhaps the occupants of my cabin will allow me to stay
the night," she ventured.
Rafael's hand touched her shoulder. "Anita. I
do not know what is between you and Brant. And,
por Dios
, he is my best
friend, a brother
casi
. But this―" his head nodded toward the
dismal stand of cabins―"this is not for you. If you do not want
Brant, at least let me help you. I offer you my protection."
Anne's hand went to her shoulder to clasp Rafael's.
Dear Rafael, he did not understand. His romantic soul believed it was some
lover's spat between her and Brant. He could not know of the adoration she had
carried for Colin since she was but a young girl. "Thank you, Rafael. But it
is here I want to stay. I'll be all right here. I've friends here."
Only Matilda, she thought. But what matter when in
less than six months she would have Colin―and he would be everything to
her ...friend, lover, husband. He would take her back to England with him―or
whatever post he was assigned ... but at least away from Texas. Unconsciously,
she removed her hand from Rafael's and ran her fingers over the back of her
other hand, feeling the penciled scar that bound her in marriage to Brant. She must
get it out of her mind that she was married to Brant.
Resolutely she looked at Rafael through the
darkness. "I'm sure there would be enough room for you in my cabin. Won't
you change your mind and stay the night?"
Rafael shook his head. "No, Anita. I must return
to San Antonio, and give Ezra Brant's message. And then there is Celia―"
he made the sign of the cross and smiled. "There is no telling what
trouble my sister will have gotten into in my absence."
Anne raised on tiptoe and kissed Rafael's cheek.
"
Vaya con Dios
," she whispered. Tugging at the roan's bridle,
she stepped out of the shelter of the cottonwoods―and out of the shelter
of Rafael's deep friendship.
There was no answer to her light knock on the door.
She knocked once more; then, realizing the occupants must be asleep, she tried
the door. It gave beneath the pressure of her hand. The draft from the open
door caused the candle's flame to waver, throwing an eerie light on the room. A
man sat slumped over a table asleep, his head cradled in his arms. Before him
was an open book. At the same moment Anne recognized the worn book as a Bible,
she recognized the thinning, straw-colored hair that fell across the man's
forehead. She recognized Otto.
With a shock that shot through her veins like ice
water, she stumbled backwards against the door. It slammed shut with a thud,
and the man at the table slowly raised his head.
Anne screamed then. And screamed and screamed.
He was a monster. A fiend out of hell. A puckered
seam of purple flesh slashed across his face, beginning at the center of his
left eye, pulling it downward at the lower lid so that the white of the entire
eye was visible in its socket, and stretching to the outer corner of his lips.
The gash that was his mouth was jerked upward in a permanently hideous grin
that revealed his pink gums. Slowly he rose from the table, and the thatched
chair fell backwards.
"So―you're alive," he said. The
words came out in a lisp from the thin lips that could not close properly.
"The Indians did not kill you."
"I―I had heard you were dead," Anne
said.
The mouth screwed up in a smile that was not.
"They tried to kill me." His thin fingers touched the scar. "I
ran―and saw them, with you, fording the river. I followed, shouting. At
the river's bank a flying tomahawk did this."
Anne nodded, afraid to speak, afraid her words would
reveal her horror.
"I remember falling forward―and the water
closing in over me." He stopped to cough, then said, "The next thing I
knew I was tangled in brush miles downstream. And it was dawn the next morning.
I lay there for three days before anyone found me."
"I'm sorry, Otto ...I mean it must have been
horrible ..."
"You seemed to have fared better than I,"
he sneered.
How could she tell him she had scars also? Scars
that did not show but were there just the same? "I suppose so," she
murmured. She was suddenly tired, utterly tired. Her hopes, her dreams of Colin―of
a new life somewhere, anywhere but Texas―were shattered. Like Otto's
face. The bones of her legs turned to jelly, and she crumpled on the floor.
"And Zephaniah said, 'Woe to her who is
rebellious and defiled.''' Otto's sonorous intonation reached Anne's ears like
the thunderous roaring of the Gulf surf. But the arms that carried her to the
bed held her gently.
"Pay them no heed,
Liebe
," Matilda
said. She stopped at the gate of the short picket fence that surrounded the
tiny cemetery and thrust out her cane, blocking Anne's way. "For all our education,
ve can sometimes be narrow-minded volks. Ve do not mingle vit the other
settlers but keep to our German clans. So ve do not understand. The vomen―and
some of the men―they think you should be dead. As dead as Delila and
Elise und the others in those , graves there."
"What you're saying, Matilda, is that they
think I should have killed myself―rather than let the Indians take
me."
Anne did not try to keep the bitterness from her
voice. For the past three months it had been all she could do to leave the
cabin, to face the cold politeness of the neighbors. And now that she had begun
to show her pregnancy, she saw the open dislike in their faces ...heard the
whispers muttered when she went to the river for water, or attended the sermons
at the Vereins-Kirche.
It gave Anne little satisfaction to see that they had
not fared much better than she, to see that the fear of starvation still stared
out from their eyes.
The icy December morning wind whipped about her
unbleached cotton cloak, emphasizing her gently rounded stomach, and she
frowned, visualizing the hatred that contorted Otto's face each time he
glimpsed her protruding belly. It had gotten so she waited until the candle was
extinguished before she dressed for bed, removing her clothing in the protection
of the darkness. And then she would lie there in silence as heavy as granite,
waiting, dreading what would come and so far had not.
"Vhat I am saying,
Liebe
, is that you
have had all these months to adjust to the changes made in you. Both in your
body und your mind. You must give us time to do the same."
Time, Anne thought, resuming her walk back to the
Vereins-Kirche with Matilda, was something she had little of. In less than
three months Colin would come for her. Otto did not yet know of her love for Colin,
but in three months ...In three months she would have to put an end forever to
their love, would have to send Colin away.
Could she?
People were beginning to file inside the
VereinsKirche for the Sunday services. Anne and Matilda quickened their pace,
though walking was awkward for both of them. Professor Bern and Lina were near
the front and beckoned to the two women to join them. Anne slid in next to
Lina, accepting the old woman's affectionate squeeze of her hand. There
were
some friends in Adelsolms.
However, Anne had only to look to her left at the
pew in front of hers to find Johanna's furtive, embarrassed glance in her
direction before she turned back to Carl. The couple had married the month
before Anne had returned to Adelsolms, and now Johanna was also pregnant.
Anne had never mentioned to anyone, not even
Matilda, that Johanna had known that Anne was still alive, still fighting off the
Comanches, and had still closed the fort's door on her, denying her safety.
Anne had hoped that when Johanna realized she would not reveal her deed, there
might be peace between them. But even that small hope went unfulfilled, for at
that moment Johanna saw Carl's polite nod to Anne and hissed at him, causing
him to flush and fidget with the felt hat he held between his hands.
A silence fell over the gathering as Otto took his
place before the pulpit. In the dimness of the large room his face was an awful
sight to gaze upon, but there was still a majesty about his bearing. And Anne
overheard the woman behind her tell her small daughter, "Sit still or the
Evil One will visit the same on you!"
"But Mutter, vhat did Reverend Maren do to
..."
"It vaz his vife―" and the mother
broke off, realizing Anne could overhear.
Otto's sermon picked up where the mother left off,
and it was all Anne could do to remain on the bench, stiff-backed, when she
wanted to run from the building, to hide her shame. For Otto's words, she knew,
were directed at her.
"Our text today is from the
Book
of
Proverbs
, Chapter Five―'For the lips of an adulteress drip honey,
and smoother than oil is her speech .But in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, Her steps lay hold of
Sheol .. .'"
At last it ended. Anne did not wait for Otto but left
the fortress with Matilda. She did not fail to notice that the others moved
back as she passed by, as though she were a leper. Even the ancient, toothless
Indian wrapped in his gray woolen blanket, who often hung around the settlement
waiting for handouts, eyed her suspiciously―or so it seemed to Anne, but
she knew she was imagining enemies everywhere.
"I can't stand it, Matilda, I can't!" she
cried, when they were safely away from the others.
Matilda laid a gnarled hand on Anne's arm. "You
vill, you must―for the sake of the baby. If you vill but try to become
more involved here―you vill eventually be accepted. There are the
quilting bees, the
Kaffee
Klatsch
, the―"
"And I would be the subject for the day's
gossip," Anne broke in. "No Matilda, I would be as much accepted here
as that old Indian."
"It is not like you to give up so easily,
Liebe
.
Think of what I have said."
In her apathetic state, Anne shrugged off Matilda's
advice. But that afternoon, as she prepared the Sunday dinner, silently
bemoaning the little food available, her mind drifted back to the settlement's
resident Indian―and her own sojourn with the Comanches. Even in those
months of drought the Kwahadis had always managed to find something to eat.
And that was when the idea occurred to her―only
a glimmer at first that worked itself into a full-fledged plan by the time Otto
returned for dinner.
"Why not?" she asked Otto, who stared
indifferently at the sweet potatoes and cornbread she set before him. "If
we grew tobacco―and I do think it would grow here―we could trade
with the Indians for hides and freshly killed game."
Her mouth watered, thinking of deer, wild turkey,
and ducks. She knew the Indians, who were much better hunters than the educated
people of Adelsolms, would be willing to trade almost anything for the precious
tobacco.
"It would work, I'm sure," she persisted.
"Can we give it a try, Otto?"
Otto began to eat. Anne controlled a shudder as
salivary juices trickled out of the comer where his mouth did not close
properly. "Do as you wish," he said listlessly.
XXIV
In late January Anne took the first step toward her
venture in tobacco planting. The step inched her closer toward independence―and
farther from her hopeless dreams of Colin. Otto made it no easier for her,
refusing to help, and she was forced to seek out Peter Giles.
The dead of winter had settled in, and a good two
inches of snow powdered the ground. Still, Peter went out every day with his
flintlock rifle to hunt the wild game that had drifted farther south to escape
the harsh winter. The small game Peter did bring back barely supplemented his
own household's need. But that Tuesday Adelsolms celebrated, for Peter had
found a black bear in hibernation ...a bear so large he had to return to Adelsolms
to get several of the men to help him bring the carcass back.
That same afternoon Anne had four women visit her.
With heads lowered they shuffled uneasily, and it took Lina, who pushed her way
through the women, to make it clear to Anne what was wanted. "I told them
to come for you, Anne," she shouted. ''That you vould know how to skin the
bear hide and prepare the meat."
For a moment Anne was tempted to tell the other
women to get out of her cabin. It could have been her moment to gloat. But she found
she really did not care anymore. Everything seemed so pointless. Even her
enthusiasm for growing the tobacco had abated when she realized how difficult
it was even to get started.
She dried her hands on her apron. "I'll be over
to help in a few minutes," she told the women. Lina gave her a wink and
herded the women outdoors, clucking after them like they were a flock of geese.
Anne pinned up the stray ends of hair and put on her
cloak before trudging through the snow to the Giles cabin. Inside, the cabin was
warm with the press of bodies. The men drank Lina's lagern beer, matching
stories, while the women worked about the long table set before the roaring
flames of the fireplace.
Johanna turned her back on Anne, busying herself
elsewhere, but the other women listened patiently as Anne explained to them
what needed to be done. The rendered fat from the bear was to be stored in
jars, and the meat was to be sliced thinly, and dried on racks over a low fire.
Toward the end of the afternoon Anne took a break
from the work. Johanna was busy preparing the bear's hide and chattering with
one of the women, and Peter was, for once, alone. As he emptied the last of the
beer from his stein, Anne approached him. "Peter, do you think you could
buy something for me on your next trip to Velasco?"
Peter looked at her curiously. In these hard times
people rarely asked him to make purchases. "What is it you be a'wanting,
ma'am?"
Anne pulled the necklace from her pocket. The dainty
ruby gleamed in the palm of her hand. "It was a gift from my parents on my
thirteenth birthday," she said. "Do you think you could find a buyer for
it?"
Peter nodded. "Most likely."
Relieved, Anne hurried on, wanting to end the
conversation before Johanna could notice. "If so, with the money you receive
for the necklace, I want you to purchase tobacco seeds for me. Will you?"
Peter's lips puckered in a soft whistle of surprise .A
necklace for material or a farm implement or food staples he could understand.
But a woman's trading a necklace for tobacco seeds, it was beyond his
comprehension. "I'll do my best, ma'am."
After that, the days went more quickly. As Matilda
had advised her, Anne had become involved in something. And even Matilda found
the idea of tobacco farming intriguing. They waited anxiously for Peter's
return from Velasco. And finally, with the first stirrings of the babe in her womb,
Peter returned with the tobacco seed, which looked like finely ground pepper.
However, Anne's jubilation was cut short by the
dreaded disease cholera, which made its presence known the second week in
February, when Zelda Jurgens became sick with severe, watery diarrhea and
constant, intense vomiting. Two days later, Gustav Jurgens fell ill with the
same symptoms. Now a panic took hold of the settlement. Few ventured outside
their cabin except for emergencies.
It was at that time that Anne made the decision to
care for the Jurgenses, for she was worried about the boy, Fritz. As she
crossed the empty plaza toward the Jurgens' cabin, Matilda called after her. Anne
turned and watched the old woman hobble toward her. "Vhere are you
going?" Matilda asked, panting from her exertion.
"Someone needs to help the Jurgenses."
Matilda frowned, her face squinting into a multitude
of wrinkles. "Und you think you should be the one to take the
chance?"
Why not? Anne thought. Did she really care what
would happen? In two months Colin would return for her, and she knew this time
she could not run away with him―not now that there was the child.
Instead, she would have to send Colin away. A vision of life there in the
lonely frontier settlement with only the glowering Otto for a companion
confronted her, and she said, "I've nothing to lose, Matilda."
After a moment, the old woman seemed to accept
Anne's decision. "Then ve are vasting time standing here in the cold.
Let's see vhat ve can do."
"No―I won't have your help. Go back to
your cabin."
"Vhy? I am an old voman,
Liebe
. I have
nothing to lose either."
The stench that enveloped them when they opened the
Jurgens' door caused Anne quickly to pull her cloak up across the lower half of
her face. Still she gagged. Across the room Gustav and Zelda lay stretched nude
on a bed covered with sheets stained by diarrhea and vomit. Zelda moaned and
threw out a wasted hand, but Gustav was silent. In the far corner the small boy
tossed on a makeshift bed of cornhusks.
"Get some vater boiling," Matilda ordered.
"I vill see vhat can be done for them."
The two women worked into the night, but on the
afternoon of the next day Gustav died, followed toward midnight by Zelda.
"There is no need for the two of us, now," Matilda told Anne when
morning crone. "I vant you to get some rest―no, no," she said
at Anne's attempted interruption. "In your condition you need rest more
than I. But first, go to the Giles' home. Get Peter and some of the other men
to bury them." She nodded toward the two bodies sprawled on the bed.
Anne stooped and touched Fritz's forehead. The skin
was clammy cold. The boy had lost a great deal of weight in those few days and
looked almost like a skeleton. Anne watched with despair as watery waste poured
from his bowels out onto the fresh sheet she had just put on his bed.
Matilda laid a hand on her shoulder. "There iz
nothing more ve can do,
Liebe
. Go on home."
Despite her fatigue, Anne stopped first at the Giles'
cabin. Peter answered the door, but did not give her a chance to talk.
"Thank God, it's you, Mrs. Maren. Johanna came down sick several hours
ago and has been spewing up ever since. At first I thought it was the babe , but―"
Anne pushed the young man aside. "Let me see
her."
The cabin was dark, but Anne could perceive Johanna
curled up on the bed, her arms wrapped about her protruding belly. She laid a
hand on the girl's arm, finding the skin cold like Fritz's. She turned back to
Peter. "I've been exposed to cholera and maybe exposing you...but I think
Johanna has it also."
"Just help her, Mrs. Maren."
"We'll have to sterilize the water, food, milk,
clothing―everything. And a quarantine must be put on these two
cabins." She saw the worried look that added ten years to his youthful face.
"We're getting to her early―she may make it."
After Peter left to bury the Jurgens couple, Anne
rolled up her sleeves and began to wash Johanna. The girl recognized Anne.
"Vhat are you doing here?" she asked between parched lips.
"You're very sick, Johanna, and you are going to
have―" Anne broke off as the girl threw up on her skirts. She
thought she would be sick herself, but realized she must be growing inured to
cholera's revolting symptoms.
Johanna seemed to sleep after that, and Anne took
the opportunity to put a large kettle of water on the fire. After she cleaned
her skirts, she sat in a rocker Peter had built, intending only to rest a few
minutes. But an hour later she was awakened by Johanna's moaning.
"The baby," Johanna said, as Anne leaned
over her. "I vill lose it."
"You may not―but you must try and keep
food down." All anger for what the girl had done to her when the Comanches
attacked evaporated, to be replaced by pity for the suffering she now
underwent. Her golden hair was now a dull garish yellow, and there was a waxen
cast to the complexion that had once been rosy with health.
"No―I must tell you―ask you―your
forgiveness."
"I'm still alive―so there is nothing to
forgive, Johanna."
The girl's hand moved feebly. "
Ja
...I
was so jealous. It vas not just that Peter vas interested in you―it vas
every man. The Irishman―and the scout, Brant Powers. I―I flirted
vith Brant―in Velasco ...and I thought he might like me."
"Shhh," said Anne. "You need to
rest."
"I vas there," Johanna continued
stubbornly. "The night Brant brought you into our camp. I saw the vay he
vatched you."
Anne wanted to laugh, but she knew she herself was
near hysteria from lack of rest. If Brant had watched her, it was not because
he cared about her―but because he did not trust her. But she only said,
"You were mistaken, Johanna."
"
Ja
, I have been very foolish ...and
very lucky. To have Peter for my husband."
"Aye, 'tis true," Anne agreed, thinking of
her own loveless marriage.
Toward evening Peter returned, his face grim. "Fritz
died," he said, turning from her and hanging his hat on a wall peg.
Anne covered her face with her hands. "Dear
God," she whispered. Another stone marker to fill the growing number
already in the small cemetery.
It took two days before Anne felt Johanna was well
enough for her to go back to her own cabin. She was somewhat surprised that
neither herself nor Peter or Matilda had succumbed to the cholera, and could
only attribute the limited speed of the disease to the cold weather.
Otto's manner was equally cold, and Anne suspected
him of drinking, though she was never sure. She could only hope that the baby might
ease the gulf between her and Otto. Its gurgling laughter would fill the silent
cabin. There would be someone to love and love her back.
She supposed this new maternal feeling was common
among expectant mothers, and she could not help but smile in memory of the
unglad feelings she had experienced when she first realized she was with child.
Anne laid aside the potato she pared and crossed to
the small, wooden cradle Peter had carved, in gratitude for her help when
Johanna was ill. Gingerly, she knelt beside it, her hands lovingly stroking its
smooth surface, lingering to finger the tiny quilt Matilda had made to line the
cradle's bottom.
The door swung open, and Otto came in. He did not
look at Anne, but hung his hat on the peg next to the door and stood his axe under
it. His arms were empty.
"We need some wood," Anne said softly.
"The fire's almost out."
Otto ignored her. He took his Bible down from its
shelf and, laying it on the table, sat down to read.
Anne crossed to him, placing her hands on the table.
"Otto."
He did not look up.
"Otto. We can't go on like this. You're making
life unbearable for both of us." Her fingers curled around the table's
edge. "I didn't want to be captured by the
Comanches any more than you wanted to have your face
disfigured. But it happened. And we've got to make the best of it!"
His blue eyes were like icebergs. The only live
element in the dead face. "Filthy whore of Babylon!"
Anne stepped back as if she had been slapped. Otto
continued, his voice rising to a shrill pitch. "You fornicated with the
heathens! You bear the fruit of your sins!"
He shoved the table to the side, and the Bible slid
off, falling near the fire. The pages began to curl from the heat of the
flames. But Otto did not notice. He advanced on Anne, his face purpling with
the outrage that had festered inside him since the day of her return.
"And the Word says, 'O daughter of Babylon, you
devastated one, how blessed will be the one who repays you with the recompense
with which you have repaid us.'''
Anne turned and grabbed at the door, but Otto seized
her by the shoulders. He hurled her from the door, and she crumpled against the
wall. "No, Otto!" she begged. "No!"
But her pleas fell on deaf ears. With eyes that
glowed fiendishly, Otto walked purposefully toward her. " 'How blessed
will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones against the rock.' ''
Standing directly before her, he kicked her once, then again in the stomach.
The breath went out of Anne. A sharp pain scissored
through her womb. She doubled up, wanting to scream, but the pain consumed the
effort.