Moon Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (33 page)

      
“What is that supposed to mean?” Claude asked guardedly.

      
“My cousin, Jean Pierre, met me at the dock with some juicy gossip. The family tried to hush it up, of course; but I was so aghast I did some checking and verified it. It seems that Georges Beaurivage's university companion, Paul Ravat, killed himself in St. Louis. He was prostrate over the death of his lover.”

      
“I refuse to listen to such cesspool talk!” Claude's face was white. He had heard rumors before Georges was sent to Paris but had dismissed them. “Your cousin had an impeccable reputation and wanted to marry Lenore.”

      
“You mean he was a Beaurivage, from such an illustrious family that his parents threatened him if he didn't marry! My sister could have been tied to that brutal fraud, used as a cover, while he paraded men—even boys—in front of her!” Rafael turned from his father with a sickened look on his face. “And all of us, Jean Pierre, you, Mama, and me—we were all going to see Lenore married to a man who despised her, simply because he was a Creole gentleman, a Beaurivage. Thank God my wife saved her. If it were possible to love Deborah more than I do, I would, just for that!

      
“Maybe you can live with what we've done, Papa, but I can't.” He stopped, too weary to go on, as he looked at the set, frozen lines of the older man's face. “You don't believe me, do you? Or, at least you'll pretend not to.” He shrugged, knowing it was useless, yet feeling a profound sense of regret.

      
Taking a deep, steadying breath, he felt something else—freedom from the rigid life he had lived in this closed society.
I'm free from all the old hates and hurts so long festering here. Texas can offer me a second chance. But Deborah gave me my first one.

* * * *

      
“Rafael, I can hardly believe it's you!” Lenore hugged her brother in amazement, taking in his rough, homespun clothing, shaggy hair, and sun-darkened face.

      
“I leave for Texas with the morning tide, Lenore. I wanted to say good-bye first.”

      
Her face creased in a puzzled frown. “You sound as if you're going to move there.”

      
“I am. Remember the old land grant Grandfather left me as part of my inheritance? Well, it's in northern Texas, in the general area where I lost Deborah's trail. I'm going to use it as a base, build it up as a working ranch while I search for her. I can't stay here.”

      
Lenore could see the pain and regret etched deeply in his face and imagined well the reaction of their parents. “So now you've been disowned, too,” she said sadly.

      
“Let's just say I've learned to make some hard choices, just as you did,” he replied softly.

      
“You're sure she's still there? She might have gone to Boston when the war began.”

      
“I have agents in Boston, but even without their report, I'm sure she's still in Texas. She and another woman were headed north to Nacogdoches. The chaos and dislocation during the Mexican invasion would have made it almost impossible to get out.”

      
“Oh, Rafael, I feel so guilty, so stupid for sending her into danger, especially when she was pregnant,” Lenore sobbed, her hands clutching at her own distended abdomen in unconscious empathy.

      
He patted her arm affectionately. ' ‘Don't blame yourself. Deborah would have gone with or without your help. Anyway, my wife is an amazingly strong and resourceful woman. She'll survive. And I will find her.”

      
“I'll pray for you every day.” Her china blue eyes were crystalline with tears.

      
“Don't cry, little sister. I have a feeling about all this, about Texas, I guess. Deborah chose it;, but after I spent those months searching for her, well, I chose it, too. It's hard to put into words, the feeling of newness, of beginning again. When I find her, we'll stay there and make a new start. If she made a poor Creole, I'd make a dreadful Bostonian; but I think we'll make two fine Texians.” He gave his sister a lopsided smile that started her tears anew.

      
She hugged him awkwardly, her belly getting in the way. “Oh, Rafael, I feel as if we're children again! You're the best big brother any girl could have. Take care of yourself.”

      
“Hardly a girl anymore,” he teased, eyeing her belly, “but I am so glad we've discovered each other again, even if we've lost our parents.”

      
“I don't think Deborah will chance writing to us; but if she does, we'll tell you as soon as we can reach you. My word on it,” Caleb said as he stood in the door, taking in the tender scene between his wife and her brother.

      
Rafael turned and faced his brother-in-law. “Caleb, I've said and done some things I regret—”

      
Armstrong stretched out his hand. “I didn't exactly play by the rules, courting Lenore, either. That's over and best forgotten.”

      
Rafael shook the big American's hand, saying, “I expect to hear if I have a niece or nephew shortly. I'll send an address for you to post to in Nacogdoches.”

      
“This calls for a drink,” Caleb said.

      
When he had poured Lenore a thin-stemmed glass of sherry and each of them a generous snifter of brandy, they all three raised their drinks in salute.

      
“To Deborah and Texas,” Caleb said. “May you find her there.”

* * * *

      
Swatting at the incessant torture of mosquitoes, Rafael squatted before the campfire. He poured himself a cup of coffee, took a swallow of the bitter brew and poured the rest of it out with an oath. When he rose, he winced in pain.
I hope my companions don't notice how sore the “dude” is.
Even Micah Brandish, a tough old smith well past sixty, rode from dawn to dark without any seeming discomfort.

      
Rafael had thought a lifetime of fencing and riding had toned his muscles superbly; but after a week of traveling overland with this emigrant party from Louisiana, he was ready to drop. Reluctantly, he admitted that he was not prepared to keep up with a group of lower class men who were used to the backbreaking labor his field slaves did.

      
Remembering his father's admonition about groveling in the dirt and growing calluses on his hands, he grimaced thinking about the irony of it. His smooth elegantly sculpted fingers were indeed blistered and filthy. God, he stank of sweat and horse and greasy pork! Fingering a two-week growth of black beard, he promised himself a bath and a barber as soon as they reached a town.

      
By the time they arrived in Nacogdoches, Rafael was too saddle sore and tired to care about the poor accommodations and crude populace. The town was an odd mixture, an early eighteenth-century Spanish settlement, overrun in the nineteenth century by Anglo colonists. Mexican and Yankee populations did not mix overmuch and the place was filled with crude, dog-trot cabins scattered around a central core of older Spanish-style adobes.

      
Rafael bid farewell to his traveling companions with little regret. Always aloof with Americans, his Creole pride and their lower-class manners made him even more reserved, especially considering how poorly he compared with them in frontier survival skills. But he reminded himself grimly that he had learned to build fires, clean, and cook game, feed and care for his own mount, and stay in the saddle for twelve hours at a crack without complaint. If they saw nothing to admire in his fortitude, he congratulated himself on it.

      
It was wonderful to soak the filth from his body. The tavern he was lodged in was scarcely more than a shanty by New Orleans standards, but in Texas it was a haven of luxury.

      
“More hot water, señor?” A buxom young maid stood poised in the door with a steaming bucket in her hands. Her large brown eyes assessed him openly as she swished in and poured more water into the large wooden tub.

      
“Would there by any chance be a barber available?” he asked in Spanish.

      
“Yes, but his shop is closed for the night,” she replied, surprised to find he spoke her language fluently.

      
He sighed. The idea that a barber might come to attend a gentleman in his lodgings was, of course, absurd in Texas. Giving the maid a dazzling smile, he requested a shaving mug and some soap, thinking,
I’ll probably learn to braid my hair like an Indian before I find someone to give me a decent haircut!

      
After a simple meal in the tavern, Rafael decided to stretch his legs and see the burgeoning town. As he wandered down a small lane, the raucous laughter of a tavern beckoned him. Looking inside, he could see several tables of men playing cards and dice. A long bar of crude planking stretched along one wall and a motley assortment of border ruffians clad in buckskins and homespun stood drinking corn whiskey.

      
Rafael sauntered in and headed to the bar. Brandy or even rum were doubtless unheard of. He ordered a whiskey. As he grimaced at its fiery trail burning down his throat, he noticed several customers staring at him. Dressed as he was in a clean white linen shirt, cord breeches, and polished riding boots, he realized he did look out of place. But he had been so damn sick of the scratchy, coarse homespun he'd worn on the trail that he had eagerly donned these simple but expensive eastern clothes.

      
“Lookee thar, whut a pretty feller. Looks like a greaser, but he dresses like a dandyman.” A burly fellow with stringy reddish hair spoke as he ran his bleary gray eyes up and down Flamenco.

      
“Yer jist jealous, Lew,” a young female voice said in a coarse, jesting, border-state accent. She was tall like Deborah, but there the resemblance ended. Her brownish hair was lusterless and frizzy and her face was painted. Smoothing her cheap yellow satin dress, she edged toward Rafael. “Yew be new ta these here parts, I kin tell. Yew a planter er somethin'?”

      
“Or something,” he replied levelly.

      
“Where from?” She was not to be deterred.

      
“New Orleans, mademoiselle.” He was definitely not interested in her, but she seemed oblivious of that fact.

      
“One 'o them Creole fellers, all lace hankies 'n limp wrists,” the bellicose redhead rejoined in an ugly tone of voice.

      
Never possessing an even temper, Rafael turned slowly and faced his antagonist with black eyes slitted dangerously. “At home, I would never soil my honor dealing with a man of your crudity, monsieur. Even now, I find it distasteful,” he said as he touched the elaborate dueling pistol at his belt. “But if you would be so kind as to meet me outside and bring your pistol? I have no doubt you require no second. I shall do without one as well.”

      
Rafael got no farther than the door before he was hit from behind with a thudding tackle that brought him crashing to the earthen floor. Lew Grazer was on top of him, crushing the air from his lungs.

      
“Out here we don't fight us duels like fool dandymen, Frenchy. We fight with knives 'n fists.” One of Grazer's huge paws grabbed the white linen shirt and yanked its tall, slim owner up as he lurched to his own feet.

      
Fighting waves of blackness from the loss of breath, Rafael shook his head. Before he could do more than back free of Grazer's grasp, two other buckskin-clad figures grabbed him. One held his arms while the other pulled his gun free and tossed it to a third man across the room.

      
“Lookee th' handle—pearl er some sech! If'n Lew beats him daid, I git ta keep this,” the small, scraggly man said.

      
Just then Lew pulled a big, ugly-looking knife from his belt and stood, feet braced apart in front of Rafael. “Yew ever use one o' Mr. Bowie's knives, dandyman? Mebbe I cud teach ya.” He advanced a step while Rafael, eyes now clearly focused on the evil silvery gleam of the knife, backed away a step.

      
Cursing beneath his breath, Rafael searched the clearing circle of men for a weapon. Just as the brute lunged with his knife, the lightning-fast Creole kicked a chair in his path. The rough frontiersmen obviously disliked the foreigner and wanted him taught a lesson, perhaps a permanent one. He looked for no help from the crowd. He had never fought with knives or his hands. Now, he was fighting for his life. Once more cursing his stupidity for blundering into this den of cutthroats, Rafael dodged as Lew rolled up from his sprawl and lunged again.

      
“If n it wuz me, I'd o' knocked me cold whilst I wuz on the floor, dandyman. But yew bein' a gentleman 'n all, hah!” He guffawed at the stupidity of fighting by rules.

      
At the moment Rafael Flamenco agreed with him. He must get that knife away from the brute. But how? One rickety chair held together with hemp sat half-shoved beneath the planking of the bar. He dove for it and came up holding it in one hand. Several men vocalized their approval.

      
“Dude's quick.”

      
“Frenchy's got guts, Lew.”

      
“Lambast him, honey,” yelled the tart.

      
That cheer for the Frenchman seemed to galvanize Grazer who struck out in a slashing arc with his big knife. Rafael danced out of reach again. Instead of using the chair as a shield, he quickly swung it across the stout plank bar top with all his strength. It flew apart with a loud clatter, leaving a long sturdy leg clenched in his fist. Not losing the momentum from his surprise move, he brought the chair leg around and up toward Grazer's knife hand. It was crude compared to a fencing foil, but his aim and agility had always been good. The chair leg connected with Lew's hand, sending the blade flying. As it arced into the air, men scrambled to avoid its descent.