Moon Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (31 page)

      
“Yore overdoin', mark me,” Obedience scolded, kneeling alongside Deborah with a grunt.

      
“Zeb turned the ground for me and prepared it. All I'm doing is patting seeds into it. No heavy lifting. Anyway, I've heard you say you plowed and milked cows when you were pregnant,” Deborah rejoined, ignoring the ache in her back.

      
“Jehoshaphat! Look at yew 'n me. I'm jist a tech bigger 'n sturdier. Kinda like thet little bitty fig tree over there standin' up ta th' cypress trees by San Fernando Church!”

      
Even Deborah had to giggle at the comparison. The cypress trees around the cathedral towered over all the surrounding buildings while her fig tree was small and delicate. “I guess I am like the fig tree after all—ready to bear fruit this fall.”

      
As the big Fourth of July celebration neared, Obedience had to credit Deborah's grit. The thin, harried young woman she had met in the cold rains of spring had blossomed under the summer sun. Her porcelain white skin was now tinged a delicate incandescent gold and her hair was even more silvery white. Still slender but for her growing belly, Deborah was no longer hollow-eyed and gaunt but firmly fleshed from exercise in the open air and a good, hearty appetite. Above all, she was gaining a sense of accomplishment in her work.

      
The boardinghouse now had ten boarders, three of the four new additions being women, two widow ladies and one spinster. The fine table set by Obedience and Deborah won praise from everyone.

      
Deborah's Boston refinement seemed to impart respect for her rules to all the boarders, even the tough old mountain man, Racine Schwartz. He loved to frighten the women with grisly tales of scalpings, horse stealing, and knife fights; but now he watched his language as he did so. She allowed no chewing or spitting of tobacco in Jones' Boardinghouse, an incredible injunction in Texas where six year old boys often indulged in the vice. Gentlemen wore shirts and jackets to the dinner table and everyone followed Deborah's lead in using appropriate utensils and observing table manners.

      
“We got us three more men waitin' ta move in, Deborah. Seems word o' yore clean sheets 'n fancy menus been gettin' ‘round,” Obedience said as they prepared to leave for the July Fourth dance and celebration in the Main Plaza.

      
“You can't give me the credit for your splendid cooking, Obedience,” her friend rejoined.

      
“Jehoshaphat! I'd a been feedin' them sweet taters 'n meat 'n biscuits. Yew was th' one growin' all them fancy greens. I learned me ta cook stuff I never heerd o' afore I met yew. Cain't believe how good them broccoli things taste.”

      
“You, Chester and Sadie have all helped,” Deborah replied.

      
“Who got the crazy idea o' dealin' with them Tonks, huh?”

      
Deborah had made an exceptional arrangement. When several friendly Tonkawa Indians had come to their kitchen door with a brace of quail to barter, Sadie had run screaming she was about to be scalped by Comanche. Deborah reasoned that hostile raiders would scarcely knock and bring foodstuffs, after riding openly through the center of town. Chester, who had lived in central Texas all his life, assured her these were remnants of a small, decimated tribe who subsisted on the periphery of white society.

      
Wanting fresh game for their table to supplement the endlessly boring pork and beef menus, Deborah had enlisted Chester as an interpreter. She bartered salt and cornmeal for the quail, then reached an agreement with them for more fresh meat. Turkey, rabbit, and venison now varied their main courses, as did the chickens she was raising for eggs and for the cook pot.

      
“I suppose we have much to celebrate this July Fourth, don't we?” she said with a warm smile for Obedience. Things were prospering.

      
“Yup, thet we do. Let's go tie one on. Seems almost like bein' back in the good ole United States whut with th' way folks hereabouts carry on.”

      
Texians always took advantage of any excuse to celebrate—American holidays, Mexican saints' fiestas—any day they could stage horse races, set off fireworks, hold a dance, drink, and feast. People who worked hard played hard as well—nowhere more so than in Texas.

      
“Yew expect ta see Jim Slade at th' fandango?” Obedience asked as the two women strolled toward the Main Plaza.

      
“Only if he's squiring about his fiancée, Señorita Aguilar,” Deborah replied.

      
Jim Slade had returned to his ranch just in time to see his father die of a heart condition. Although Obedience fostered the friendship between the youthful owner of Bluebonnet Ranch and her friend, nothing came of it. Within a couple of months Jim was engaged to Tomasina Aguilar, whose father Don Simon was an old friend of the Slades. The best
Tejano
and Texian families in San Antonio clucked their approval of the impending marriage.

      
“Speakin’ o' them two, here they come,” Obedience said as she scanned the crowd thronging the plaza. Jim Slade, dressed in an elegant suit of brown homespun, looked adoringly down at the tiny, black-haired girl on his arm.

      
Seeing Obedience bearing down on them with Deborah in tow, he smiled warmly. “Hello, Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Kensington.”

      
“Howdy, Jimmy. Figgered yew'd be out ta take in th' sights. Afternoon, Miz Aguilar.” Obedience nodded at his beautiful companion.

      
Although Tomasina smiled at the big woman, when her jet eyes caught Deborah's lavender gaze, her expression suddenly cooled. She nodded to the “boardinghouse widows” as many San Antonians called them.

      
Forcing a smile at Tomasina, Deborah said, “We haven't seen you in town in a while, Mr. Slade. I hope things are going well at Bluebonnet.”

      
They chatted a bit about the cattle business and how Jim was faring as he took over the big operation.

      
After a few minutes Tomasina said in her precisely accented English, “If you will be so kind as to excuse us, señoras, I see some old friends we must greet across the plaza.”

      
Watching them depart, Obedience said shrewdly, “He fair follers her like a pup now, but I got me a feelin' it cain't last, even if’n she is purty as one o' them Madonnas in San Fernando Church.”

      
Deborah gave a snort of derision. “Some Madonna! She heartily disapproves of me showing myself in this disgraceful condition. Couldn't you see how she stared?”

      
Obedience laughed out loud. “Might cud be yew fancy havin' her man fer yerself. Yew'd suit him much better 'n her. She's a snooty one, thet'n.”

      
Deborah's cheeks flamed. “Honestly, Obedience, how often must I remind you Jim Slade is only a friend—and one who is two years younger than I to boot!”

      
“Yep,” Obedience replied, having heard it all before. “Yore purely witherin' on the vine o' old age! But a great-lookin' stud bull like thet yeller-haired young devil'd fix yew up jist fine.”

      
Now, it was Deborah's turn to laugh, holding her distended abdomen. “I can scarcely summon up any base physical cravings at the moment, Obedience. Look at me, waddling along, seven months pregnant.”

      
“Harrumph! Thet's only temporary. Believe me, I oughta know,” the undaunted Amazon replied.

      
Deborah silently prayed it would not be, wanting no return of tortuous, bittersweet dreams of her Creole lover. To Obedience she said only, “I’m still a married woman and that's the end of it.”

* * * *

      
Summer spent itself into a long, golden fall, full of the rich promise of a bountiful harvest. Deborah worked alongside Obedience and Sadie in the boardinghouse backyard, stirring the steaming cauldrons of apple butter. The spicy sweet perfume wafted on the warm September air.

      
“We're going to have the best table ever set in San Antonio this winter, mark me,” Deborah said proudly to Obedience as they stood on the boardinghouse porch, looking out on their domain. She had just commissioned the digging of a real ice cellar on the back of the property, deep beneath a rocky hill. Once sealed off and filled with ice during the winter, the storage cave would guarantee cool drinks for everyone the following summer.

      
“Sinful luxury, that's whut a Baptist preacher back in Tennessee would call all this here high livin',” Obedience said with a glow of unrepentant pride.

      
Deborah laughed. “Well, this is Texas and I'm Episcopalian, not Baptist. We don't fret over sin. We just enjoy luxury.”

      
“Yew worked ta earn it, I reckon. In fact, I think yore plumb peaked today,” Obedience said, inspecting Deborah's face.

      
“Oh, it's just this backache I woke up with this morning, that's all. I'll be fine. In fact, I wish I could walk to town and vote. It's the Texas Republic's first election day and women are just as excluded here as they were in Boston or New Orleans.”

      
“I think General Sam'll get hisself elected president without our votes,” Obedience said dryly, knowing another of Deborah's soapbox speeches was imminent.

      
Just then her friend winced and emitted a small, surprised gasp. “Oh, you rascal, what a kick,” she exclaimed as she leaned against the porch banister.

      
“How long yew been havin' them ‘kicks'?” Obedience asked casually.

      
“One every fifteen minutes or so since lunch. They're nothing compared to this accursed backache, though...” Deborah's words faded as she looked up at Obedience with dawning comprehension. Spluttering, she stood up. “You mean I've been having a baby and I didn't even know it!”

      
“Jehoshaphat! ” Obedience laughed. “It shore ‘pears that way, but if 'n yew never done it afore, how kin yew know what it's supposed ta feel like?”

      
Recalling Celine's horror stories of travail, Deborah gave a hearty chuckle and said, “I think you might send Chester to fetch Dr. Weidermann. Tell him I'll be out back checking the progress on the icehouse!”

      
By the time the young physician had been located outside of town where he was collecting medicinal herbs, Deborah had begun to experience hard labor pains and had finally agreed to go upstairs to her room and rest.

      
Smiling, the doctor reassured Deborah in his precisely accented English, “Your contractions are only four minutes apart now. It should not take much longer.”

      
“I'm glad to hear it, since it's been getting rather uncomfortable the past hour or so,” Deborah replied.

      
Obedience came in with a pitcher of spring water and began to bathe Deborah's brow. “A woman works up a bigger sweat birthin' a youngun than a man does bustin' a mustang!”

      
“All the men in this world who never worked this hard get to vote and we don't,” Deborah gritted as she felt a particularly hard contraction begin. “I'm entitled to cast my vote for Sam Houston, too!”

      
“Yew got yew more important bizness ta take keer of,” Obedience replied.

      
And she did. At seven fifteen that evening, September 5, 1836, Adam Samuel Kensington was born, a lusty, squalling seven pounds of black-haired, black-eyed boy. He was the image of the father whose name he could never bear.

      
Within the month Adam Manchester received another letter from his daughter, which both gladdened and saddened him.

Dear Father,

You are a grandpa. His name is Adam Samuel, named for you and for the first president of the Republic of Texas, who was elected on the day of his birth. We are fine and flourishing. Your namesake weighs seven pounds, has a voracious appetite, and a set of lungs to do any New England whaler proud.

      
As he continued reading her description of his grandson, Adam could picture the boy with his jet hair and eyes, chiseled features, and proud Flamenco jaw. He could also read between the lines how much his daughter ached for her absent husband and longed to show him his son. But she was independent and successful, running a business with another widow, making a comfortable living. If only her lonely proud spirit could triumph as well.

Chapter Eighteen

      
When Rafael Flamenco stepped off the small boat at San Felipe, the Brazos River air was sunny and warm with the spring smells of May. It was a welcome relief after the bitterly cold rains of April.

      
Amazing. I'm in a foreign country. The Republic of Texas
. Worriedly he speculated about the legal ramifications of reclaiming a runaway wife in this wild land. “First, I'd better find her,” he muttered aloud as he scanned the bleak-looking settlement, or what remained of it after Santa Anna's armies burned their way through the abandoned village.

      
So much had changed in less than a month. While he had lost precious time on a false trail to Boston, Texas had thrown off the yoke of Santa Anna's dictatorship. But the cost had been dear. The countryside was in chaos. The runaway scrape had left thousands of homeless wanderers on the roads, many returning to find what the Austin Colony settlers had—cabins burned, crops trampled, and livestock run off or confiscated.

      
It'll be a miracle if I can find her in all this wreckage.
He had tracked the Pettyjohn settlers this far. Now, if only he could find his wife among them.