The men played for two hours, and Luke won much more often than the others. The man with the dark, piercing eyes kept looking from Lynda to Luke, and Lynda felt alarmed by the intensity of his gaze.
Suddenly the man threw down his cards and drew a pistol, accusing Luke of cheating.
Lynda’s heart raced and her eyes widened with fear. “Luke,” she whispered. There had been accusations before, but never a gun.
“You’d better go back to the cabin, Lynda,” Luke told her.
“Sure,” the man with the dark eyes sneered. “So she can pretend she ain’t a part of this.”
“A part of what?” Luke asked boldly. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Haven’t you?” Luke’s accuser growled. “Take off that fancy jacket and roll up your shirtsleeves.”
Luke didn’t make a move at first. Lynda stared at him. Why didn’t he do it? Why didn’t he prove he wasn’t cheating?
“Roll ’em up,” the man ordered louder, cocking his pistol.
People around them whispered and backed away. Luke removed his jacket and threw it on the table. He glanced at Lynda then with a sorrowful look on this face. Then he turned and bolted away. The pistol went off as he reached the door and Luke fell forward, a bloody hole in his back.
Lynda screamed and stumbled to his side, collapsing beside him to cradle his head in her lap. She bent over him, sobbing with grief and horror. Luke was her life, her support, her refuge from the world that frightened her so. Now he was gone. It had all happened so quickly, and on her birthday of all days.
Suddenly someone jerked her away. She screamed and fought, but a man held her arms while another man yanked up Luke’s sleeves. Several cards fell from each sleeve, mostly aces. The room was silent for a moment as everyone stared at the cards. Lynda was as surprised as the rest, and her heart ached with the disappointment of realizing Luke really did cheat. Yet it did nothing to ease her grief or lessen the love she felt for him.
She was distracted from her misery when she realized that all eyes had suddenly turned to her. The man who had shot Luke stepped closer.
“You’d best get off this boat at the next stop, missy,” he warned. “Run and keep goin’, else you’ll find yourself sittin’ in the poke.” His eyes fell to her generous bosom. “Lots of things ken happen to a purty little thing like you with the law after her.”
“But I didn’t know! I didn’t!”
“Come now, you little hussy,” the man holding her said. “Why else would you bat them pretty eyes and bare your bosom for the other men, huh?” He moved a hand up over her shoulder and she jerked away, suddenly feeling cheap. She had never meant it to be that way, had never thought of it that way until now. But she would do it again. She would do it again for Luke.
She took a last look at his dead body. She could not go to him now; these men meant business. What if they made her go to jail? What would happen to her there? McKenzie Webster had often told her things that happen to girls in the streets or in prison, trying to discourage her from ever leaving the orphanage or the factory. As she faced the leering, threatening men, she realized Webster’s stories might be true.
She turned and ran when more men crowded around her. She hurried to their cabin, the lovely room she had shared with Luke. They had made love only hours before. Now he would never hold her again. He was gone, and with him had gone all her security.
She packed everything she could into a carpetbag, including the precious blue quill necklace and a money pouch Luke had hidden in the room. She knew he had more money on his body in a money belt, but she would never get to that now.
She ran back to the door and bolted it, then moved back to sit on the bed and wait for the boat to dock at Saint Louis. She wanted nothing more than to get off the steamboat, although she had no idea-what she would do when she did. At the moment she was too frightened to even cry over Luke, but inside she screamed in sorrow, and shook in the terror of being alone again.
The rain poured down in torrents and Lynda shivered under her cape, which was soaked through. The girl struggled against tears of sorrow and terror. It had been a long time since she felt this loneliness, this abandonment. Not since McKenzie Webster’s threats had she felt this way. Luke had saved her then, but he could no longer protect her. The men on the boat had been threatening, and she was worried that they might follow her.
Suddenly Saint Louis had become a frightful place, where people refused to answer knocks in he middle of the night and everyone was a stranger. She trudged through a muddy street, looking up at a sign and reading it quickly as lightning lit it. It was a boarding house.
She hurried to the door and pounded on it. When no one answered she pounded again. Finally she saw the movement of a lamp inside and a woman opened the door a crack. “Yes?”
“I—I need a room. I have money.”
“Got no rooms.”
“Please. I’ll sleep in the kitchen, anywhere. I just have to get out of the rain.”
The woman opened the door farther, holding up the lamp. “You look a might young to be roamin’ the streets this time of night. You a whore?”
Lynda’s eyes widened and at first she couldn’t find her voice. Was that what this woman would call her for living with a gambler? She shook her head, stuttering. “N—no! I—my husband was killed… on a steamboat. They shot him. I was afraid. I had to get off.”
“They? They who? Why was he shot?”
Lynda just blinked, unsure what to say.
“I don’t like this business, young lady. The law after you?”
Lynda shook her head and the woman held the lantern even closer. “You’re dark. You look Indian.”
Lynda put a hand to her face, struggling not to cry. “I am. At least I think I am.”
“You think? You don’t know?”
“I—.”
“Go on with you. I’ll have no whoring Indians staying here.”
The woman started to slam the door, but Lynda caught it. “Please! Can you at least tell me where I can try to find a room? Or where I might find work?”
The woman scowled. “What kind of work?”
“Sewing. I can do seamstress work. I worked at a clothing factory back East.”
The woman looked her over as though summing her up. “Not sure. There’s a woman lives two streets over. Sarah Sax is her name. You’ll see it on a sign hangin’ outside her house, Sarah’s Stitchery. She makes clothes for people. Maybe she could use some help.”
“Thank you,” Lynda answered gratefully.
“Look young lady, if any harm comes to that nice lady I’ll know who to send the law after, won’t I?”
Lynda’s eyes hardened. “No harm will come to her. I just hope she’s kinder than you.” She whirled and ran into the darkness.
Thunder rolled outside, making the house shake. Sarah turned up the oil lamps. She had never liked storms, especially at night. She remembered how Caleb used to tease her about screaming at thunder and lightning as a little girl, telling her it was only the spirits talking and showing their power.
Caleb. She had resigned herself to the fact that she would most likely never find him. She had exhausted all her options. He had vanished just as surely as if he really was dead, and for all she knew he was by now. Anything could happen to a man living in the wilds, and that was surely where Caleb had gone. It would be like him. Her only consolation was that at least he had lived through the ordeal Terrence and the others had put him through.
That thought made her think of Byron. She had not seen him since he returned to Saint Louis, in spite of the fact that it was not such a big city. She had simply avoided him, and Byron, apparently not wanting to be linked to her and what he had done, had avoided her in return. That was fine with Sarah Sax, who refused to even use his last name. She had gone back to her maiden name when she came out of her coma, and she wanted no more link to Byron than he wanted to her, even though it was tempting to consider how she could ruin him if she wanted. But wh
at would be the use now? It was all over. She would never tell him Caleb had lived. Perhaps it was best he didn’t know. She was tired of bitterness and hatred.
Thunder boomed again, and she jumped, sure she had heard a knock at the door at the same time. The knock came again, and as always she quickly took her pistol from the stand beside her before going to the door.
“Yes?” she called out.
“Miss Sax?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Lynda, Lynda Webster. I’m looking for work. I—I’m good a sewing. I worked in a clothing factory in Philadelphia. A woman who runs a boarding house told me to ask at your place. Do you need help, Miss Sax?”
The voice was very young, and then Sarah heard a cough. She unlatched the door, staring out at a drenched young girl. She couldn’t see her well but realized she was alone.
“I don’t really need help, but come in, Lynda,” she told the girl. “You’re soaking wet. What on earth are you doing out on a night like this?”
The girl ducked inside and Sarah closed the door, turning to look at her in the full light as Lynda pulled off the hood of her cape. Sarah’s eyes widened at the girl’s soaked condition and the circles under her blue eyes.
“I don’t understand—”
“Please. I need shelter for awhile. I can work. Really I can. You make clothes, don’t you? I can sew,” Lynda repeated. “The woman told me you have a clothing shop here.”
Sarah studied her a moment, confused and unsure what to do about this sudden intrustion. “Come over by the fire,” she told the girl, leading her to the hearth where a brighter lamp was lit.
Lynda set down her carpetbag and followed Sarah. She removed her cape and sat down in a rocking chair, shivering as she pushed back her long, tangled hair and looked up at Sarah. What a beautiful, kind looking lady she was, Lynda thought.
“I’ll get you some—” Sarah stopped to take a good look at the girl.
Lynda reddened. “I know I look a mess, but—”
“No. It isn’t that,” Sarah assured her. “You just… your eyes. They remind me of someone.” It was startling. The girl was so dark she looked Indian, yet had such blue eyes … just like Caleb. There was an unnerving likeness. Sarah blinked, gathering her thoughts. “Please tell me what’s happened to you.”
The girl suddenly broke down, begging for help and shelter, begging for a job, blubbering something about being alone, that the man she depended on to take care of her had been killed and his murderers had forced her off the steamboat.
Sarah’s heart went out to her. “Dear God,” she whispered, smoothing the girl’s hair. “How old are you, Lynda?”
“Sixteen,” she sniffed. “I don’t know my real birthday. I don’t even know my parents. We—Luke and I were on the Suzanna. Luke got shot. I had to leave the boat, and I’ve been asking around town for a place to stay. It’s so dark, and I was afraid in the streets. The woman at the boarding house said to come and see you about a job.”
Sarah sighed. “You’re confusing me. I don’t know who this Luke is and I think you need some rest before you go any further. I can’t say I’ll give you a job, but I will at least put you up for the night.” Sixteen. Her child would have been sixteen this month, had she lived. How could she turn this poor girl away? “I’ll get you the tea,” she told her. “You rest tonight and we’ll talk in the morning.”
“Oh, thank you. Thank you,” Lynda said, breaking into more tears. Sarah took a lap robe from the davenport and draped it around the girl’s shoulders, then walked over and picked up Lynda’s carpetbag, carrying it to the guest room and setting it on the floor, unaware that a blue quill necklace was packed inside.
Chapter
Thirty-One
“WE must be careful in our loyalties,” Stephen Austin warned. “When we settled here we pledged allegiance to Mexico. We gave our word. If we can just win our rights, trial by jury and religious freedom, there is no reason to talk of independence. Such talk will bring more problems than we are ready to handle.”
Caleb watched the man, who appeared hardly older than himself. He still trusted him, and most of the settlers still looked to him for leadership. But the number of Americans in Texas had increased dramatically, and there were many more settlements similar to their own, all left unprotected, all without the full freedom they enjoyed in America, all without solid laws and the proper delegation of justice. They were twenty thousand or so Anglos practically forgotten by Mexico’s eight million occupants further south.
“Something has to be done,” Tom said. “Our family has suffered much loss. There will be more raids, more injustices. The American government needs to know what is happening here.”
“That’s right,” someone else went on. “Some kind of decision has to be made. We can’t go on like this, with one foot in Mexico and the other in the United States, not knowing anymore where our loyalties lie. And we must have religious freedom.”
“Perhaps something will be worked out between the United States and Mexico,” Austin said. “A messenger has told me that General Sam Houston is coming to Texas to make some surveys of his own, even to buy land. He will get word to President Jackson of the situation here. He is very close to the president.”
“Houston,” Lee whispered, looking at Caleb. “He is a great friend of the Cherokee. He even lived with them for a while and I have heard he now has a Cherokee wife.”
“Then his friendship with Jackson is very odd,” Caleb replied. “I fought with Jackson at New Orleans. He was a great man, but he is no friend to the Indians. It is Jackson who is helping send all the southern tribes to Indian Territory, including your Cherokee.”
“It is difficult these days to say who is friend and who is not. Jackson is no friend to the Indians, yet he might help us as Texans,” Tom said.
“Be careful how you use that word, Tom,” Caleb answered. “You make Texans sound like a separate people.”
“Aren’t we?”
Their eyes held and Caleb gave him a chiding look.
“I need some volunteers,” Austin said. “Someone who will go to the States on our behalf, urge even more people to come here and settle. There is strength in numbers. If we remain loyal to Mexico, but have a strong voice in insisting we get get better laws and protection, perhaps we will get some action and avert any further problems.”
“Like a war with Mexico?” The question was voiced farther back in the crowd, and everyone quieted.
“I prefer that word not be used,” Austin answered. “We didn’t come here for that.”
“You can’t keep Americans down forever,” another man put in. “You step on an American too hard and he’ll bite off your toe.”
Laughter filled, the room, but it was nervous laughter.
“That’s true,” Austin answered. “But in this case if you bite off the toe, a big foot will kick you back and kick hard. There are perhaps twenty thousand of us, and eight million Mexicans. Let’s be rational. Who would like to go to some of the bigger cities in the States and do some politicking for us, get more people to come and make people aware of the situation here?”
A few raised their hands. Lee and Tom both looked excitedly at Caleb. “Let us go, Father,” Tom said. “I have never seen a city.”
Stinging memories washed over Caleb, memories of a young man going into the civilized world, curious, naive. “I don’t know. I need your help.”
“We have hired hands. And you could get more—just for a while.”
“Maybe they don’t want Indians as representatives.”
“Sam Houston himself is a great friend of the Cherokee,” Lee put in. He raised his hand without waiting for a reply.
“Good,” Austin said. “A couple of our Indians will help show them we are a people who accept everyone, as long as each man pulls his own weight and abides by Mexican law.” He turned to the crowd. “Our purpose is simply strength in numbers and a bigger say in governing ourselves. Remember: No one speaks of independence. Tha
t’s very important. When you speak of independence, you speak of war, and if it comes to that you stand to lose everything you’ve worked hard for over the years. All those loved ones who have died helping settle this land will have died in vain and this territory will go back to Mexico. This is simply a place where a man can come, pick out his land and settle, and get rich off trade with the States. We don’t want to look like land hungry mongers taking advantage of the new Mexican government.”
“We won’t take advantage of them if they don’t take advantage of us,” someone shouted.
There was general shouting then, and some raised fists.
“Where will we go, Mr. Austin?” someone shouted above the din.
Austin waved his arms for silence. “If we can get enough volunteers, you’ll take a ship to New Orleans, then head north, perhaps split up and hit most major cities along the Mississippi, maybe all the way up to Saint Louis. Make the newspapers, if you can.”
An odd pain moved through Caleb at the mention of Saint Louis. He looked at Lee and Tom, who were both excited, young men eager to see new places, eager to do what they could for their homeland. He could not blame them for wanting to go. But New Orleans—St. Louis. He wondered if Emily Stoner was even still alive, and if she was, if she was still in New Orleans. And Saint Louis. Would it be dangerous for Tom, bearing the name Sax? Surely not after all these years. Who would bother to come all the way to Texas to find him? And let them try if they wanted to. Caleb was a wealthy, powerful landowner now, harder, more determined. Surely Terrence Sax knew Caleb could in turn tarnish the Sax name if he chose to do so, could reveal what he and Byron Clawson had done. Did they both still live? Perhaps they were not even around Saint Louis any longer.
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