Night Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (3 page)

      
Dulcia kept her eyes closed tightly, a small part of her dying with each whisper-soft caress of his strong fingers on the most intimate parts of her body. With a silent prayer to the Virgin, she willed herself to be still, relaxing her limbs to let him have his way. It was her duty as his wife. Hadn't Sister Faith told her so?

      
Feeling her acquiesce, Lee took her limp resignation for acceptance of his lovemaking. He positioned himself over her and spread her legs, then slowly worked his aching, hardened staff into her soft, unresisting flesh. Dulcia was not wet and gyrating like the
putas
back in San Antonio or the more sophisticated women of the evening he'd known in Mexico City; but she was his love, his bride, pure, innocent, still virginally tender. He held back, stroking her flesh with his own, trying to override her convent-bred inhibitions. Finally, he felt himself cresting.

      
Dulcia's arms, loosely held around his neck, tightened as she knew he neared the end. When he shuddered in release and collapsed on her with labored breath, he whispered hoarsely, “I love you, Dulcia, my wife.”

      
She made no response but continued to hold his sweat-soaked body to her, stroking his back as her eyes opened at last to stare past him at the moonlight reflecting on the ceiling.

* * * *

      
“Uncle Alfonso, I am so afraid. Texas is a wild, terrible place with no refinements. There are probably no dressmakers, no theaters, no balls or symphonies. Only savage red Indians and crude Yankees!” Dulcia paced in the study the following morning, hoping to enlist her guardian in dissuading Lee from his plan to go home.

      
Taking her by the shoulders, the old man sat her down in a chair by the big window. “Child, my princess, I understand how you feel; and I know it seems an alien and frightening world, but consider this.” His blue eyes twinkled as he tapped his temple. “Lee has been living here in the midst of all the amenities you mentioned, moving in the best intellectual circles, speaking Spanish. But he's had this dream—a legacy if you will, from my wild young brother—Texas. He will not relinquish it until he's had the opportunity to return. Only then will he find where his true home is. Texas will be but an American land full of people he will no longer have anything in common with. Still, he must go and be convinced of this himself. If we could persuade him to stay here, we would gain an empty victory. He would be forever dreaming of Texas.”

      
“But if I go with him to Texas and he sees for himself how it is now, he will not want to stay?” Dulcia's eyes lit with dawning comprehension.

      
“Bring him home, Dulcia. Home to me, home to Mexico.”

Chapter Two

Galveston Harbor, January 1846

      
“The bay was named after a Spanish viceroy, Don Bernardo de Gálvez, over sixty years ago,” Lee explained to Dulcia as they stood on the deck of
The Red Lion
, a British steamship they had taken from Veracruz the previous week. The weather had been raw and turbulent, and Dulcia suffered from terrible mal de mer. Fortunately, as they docked, the day had cleared and warmed. Lee hoped to cheer his despondent bride and distract her with a brief history lesson as he showed her the leading port city in Texas.

      
“The port has grown so much. Look at all the ships along the wharves, Dulcia.”

      
Dulcia implored, “Please, Leandro, don't even mention ships.” The forest of bobbing masts ringing the harbor made her weakened stomach rebel once more. “I will be so glad to set foot on solid ground.”

      
Lee put his arm protectively around her shoulders. “You'll be fine, but I'm afraid the solid ground is just loose sand. I'll carry you up the beach so you don't get any in your slippers,” he said gallantly, eliciting her first smile of the morning as he gazed into her blue eyes.

      
Suddenly, he recalled vivid gold-coin eyes, a pouting child with sand in her slippers—Rafe Fleming's daughter, whom he had met so disastrously in Galveston four years ago.
I would never have carried that spitting hellion, that's for sure,
he thought ruefully to himself.

      
As if reading his thoughts, Dulcia broke in on his reverie. “You've been here before, haven't you, Leandro?”

      
With a guilty flush he replied, “Just twice—when I left Texas for Mexico over three years ago, and once earlier when Jim Slade sent me to Galveston for some brood mares. It's a booming port town, but we'll only be spending one night here. I'll book steamer passage upriver to Houston tomorrow.”

      
“Is all of Texas so flat and open?” she asked timidly, shading her eyes against the surprising brilliance of sunlight reflected up from the water. This land looked primitive and menacing to her; but she held her peace, recalling Uncle Alfonso's admonitions.

      
Lee laughed. “First time I saw the gulf plains, I couldn't believe anyplace was this flat. The nearer we get to home, the more the landscape will change. San Antonio's nothing like this, believe me.”

      
“Is it very far? I've journeyed more in the past two weeks than I ever did in my whole life,” she said wearily.

      
“When we get to Houston, you can rest a few days while I make arrangements for our trip overland. I'm afraid it's almost two hundred miles, but the weather inland is drier during the winter. Once you're off the ocean, you'll be fine, my little sweet.” He kissed the tip of her nose.

      
Why do I fear for her fragility and feel guilty for bringing her here? Mexican women colonized Texas over a hundred years ago. They thrive in San Antonio.

      
“You are right about the ocean. I will never be a sailor, but I will try to become a good
Tejana
, darling,” Dulcia said with a tremulous smile that only increased his uneasiness.

      
Once disembarked, Lee arranged for their baggage and then began to escort his wife from the pier. He recalled the hotel where he and Melanie Fleming had stayed. It was near the waterfront, but clean, with a very good dining room. The city had grown a great deal and offered many more accommodations now, but he opted for the familiar and convenient.

      
As they walked across the creaking wooden planks, Dulcia began to wrinkle her nose. Placing a frothy lace kerchief to it, she coughed delicately. “Whatever is that stench?”

      
Lee, too, caught wind of the familiar smell. “Pouldoodies,” he replied with a grimace and a laugh. “Oysters. A favorite Texian delicacy and a sizable refuse problem. The smell is much worse in warmer weather!”

      
A few men had gathered near the end of the long pier just as Lee and Dulcia passed by a small sailing craft moored up close to shore. “I pernounce 'm daid. Neck broke clean when he wuz knocked of ‘n th' wharf in th' leetle set-to last ev'nin',” a loud voice proclaimed to the group of men standing on the deck of the boat.

      
“We gonna be here all day, Curley?” someone else chimed in. “We dunno who done fer Watkins ‘n me, ‘n Allen here's th' onliest ones whut come forward ta testify.”

      
The tall fellow with black curly hair and a long beard of matching texture replied, “Yep. Hank Watkins's daid by th' hand—er fist more likely—o' party or parties unbeknownst. Hearin' dismissed! Abel, yew git a couple o' them niggers ta help ya bury ‘em.” With that, he reached down and casually flipped a filthy piece of gray canvas over the corpse lying in the bottom of the boat.

      
There was no way for Lee to escort Dulcia from the pier without passing the grisly drama taking place on the deck of the large flat-bottomed boat. As much as he could, he, shielded her horrified eyes from the grotesque body and rushed her past the gaping onlookers at the “coroner's inquest.”

      
“Is this how justice is done in Texas? Is there no law, no court?” Dulcia looked about ready to faint.

      
“I'm afraid the judicial system is rather primitive in many ways, especially when it comes to waterfront brawls between sailors. From what I've read, I suspect this kind of thing goes on in seaports from Liverpool to Veracruz,” he answered gently. Eager to take her mind off her unsavory introduction to Texas, Lee scooped Dulcia up in his arms when they reached the beach, just as he had promised he would, and she responded with a delighted laugh.

      
That evening Dulcia ate little of the excellent dinner they ordered in the hotel dining room, sliding the rice and freshly caught whitefish around on her plate. Texas was every bit as ghastly as she had feared, filled with unbathed Anglos who were vulgar and loud and chewed tobacco incessantly. The streets were awash with the evil brown stains of their disgusting habit. Why, she had even seen a man engaged in a conversation with a woman whom she would not design to call her a lady—and he was picking his teeth with a penknife as he talked!

      
“Are you still ill, little sweet?” Lee noted her lack of appetite and pallor with alarm.

      
“Oh, no. Not the seasickness, thank the Blessed Virgin,” she replied. “I am just excited and overtired. I only need a good night's sleep in a real bed on solid land.”
Pray the Virgin I will be allowed to sleep without any wifely duties tonight,
she implored silently. She had high hopes that she was with child, which would explain part of her violent mal de mer It would also free her of all marital duties shortly. Smiling bravely at Lee, she clutched his hand and felt reassured by its strength.
I do love you, Leandro, and I will try. But now I'm so weary, so weary....

* * * *

Bluebonnet Ranch

      
“They should arrive any day now, Charlee. I can hardly wait to meet Lee's bride,” Jim Slade said as he strode across the kitchen from the washstand to the table where he embraced his wife. Tall and lean, golden-haired and hard-looking, he towered over the petite woman.

      
Charlee Slade snorted, “Bride! A seventeen-year-old child from a convent. Honestly, Jim, I couldn't believe he'd go and do something so crazy; but, of course, he's only twenty-two himself.” She gave the large glob of bread dough she had been kneading a final swat and rocked back with her hands on her hips.

      
When she arched her back wearily, Jim reached over and began to rub it. “You having backaches again, Cat Eyes?” he asked. “You shouldn't be doing this. Lena can bake the bread for you until this little rascal is born.” He reached over and gave her well-rounded abdomen a soft caress.

      
Charlee shook her head, and her long tan hair shimmered in the late afternoon sunlight. “I have too much energy to be sitting around doing nothing.”

      
Jim said indulgently, “Nothing but fretting about Lee. Ever since we received his letter saying he was coming home with his new wife, you've been as excited as Will was when I gave him his pony. Anyway, why is Lee too young to marry at twenty-two? You were only eighteen when you married me.”

      
She turned in his arms and said argumentatively, “I was almost nineteen, and besides, women are more mature than men. You were twenty-six. If you had married at twenty-two, you'd have ended up with someone like your old ladylove Tomasina Carver!”

      
Jim made a grimace of mock horror. “Well, I waited for you, so be grateful, woman. Anyway, you're not upset he's married at twenty-two; you're just upset that you weren't there to play cupid.”

      
“But she's from an old, proper Mexican family. Lee is a
Tejano
. ”

      
“Who should have a
Tejana
for a wife,” he added with a smile. “Well, it was his choice, Charlee, not ours.”

      
“I know.” She sighed. “I only hope she's able to fit in here. I do so want him to stay and do what he's always dreamed of.”

      
“Rebuild his parents' ranch?” Jim replied. “Yes, I guess he did always want that, but you must realize, Cat Eyes, he's just spent nearly four years at the university in Mexico City, living with his uncle. The eighteen-year-old Texas boy who left here may just be a tad different and more mature when he returns. Maybe a little more Hispanic.”

      
With a worried look clouding her bright green eyes, Charlee nodded. “That's what I'm afraid of.”

      
When a messenger arrived the following morning to advise them that Lee and Dulcia would be arriving in San Antonio that afternoon, Jim could not discourage Charlee from heading straight to town. “I've started dinner and Lena is here to oversee it, so Weevils can't do too much damage,” she insisted.

      
“You could give that young lady”—Jim pointed at her belly—“and your own backside a rest and let me escort them to the ranch.”

      
“Who says this is a girl? Anyway, I have to set Dulcia a good example and show her the stuff we Texas women are made of.”

      
“That's what I’m afraid of,” Jim replied dryly.

* * * *

      
As he stepped off the coach, Lee looked around the Main Plaza with the sweeping glance of a plainsman, taking in much quickly. Then, he carefully helped his dusty, exhausted wife from the crude wooden conveyance. The sun shone brilliantly and the air was dry and crisp, a typical late January day, the perfect welcome for them. Thank heaven no blue northers had struck yet. He must get Dulcia safely to Bluebonnet before anything else befell!

      
Looking from San Fernando Cathedral to the old cabildo clock, hearing the rustling of the tall cypress trees and the twangy oaths of a Yankee teamster as he lashed his mules, Lee knew he was home. He watched Dulcia survey the wide expanse of the city's center with its unique mixture of Spanish adobe and Anglo frame buildings. Around the plaza, the larger limestone buildings dating from Spanish times still predominated. “Isn't it beautiful? Smell the air, Dulcia. No rotten oysters or wharf stench here.”