"Liebe, Otto suffered more than you. On hiz shoulders he carried hiz own idea of hell. In every pair of eyes he looked into, there vaz no forgiveness. That killed him, I think, more than the consumption. After you fled, he lost all reasoning, vandering out into the cold of night to search for you, calling your name like a lost child. Professor Bern und Peter und the other men vould take turns looking for him, and they vould bring him back und feed him, then put him to bed."
"His soul is at rest at last," Anne said softly. She had not yet brought herself to visit the cemetery to view the two new graves placed side by side.
When Matilda and Anne returned to the cabin, Una was at Anne's front door holding a pumpkin cake in her frail hands. "Hungry and tired we thought you would be," she shouted. "Johanna is making a venison stew. And the other women are mixing together a casserole for you later."
"Danke schön," Anne shouted back after the departing woman.
"Vhat vill you do now?" Matilda asked as she took her leave following Lina's departure.
Anne sighed. "I don't know, Matilda. I know I won't go back to Barbados. My life is here now. I suppose I'll begin directing all my energy to making the tobacco field succeed..."She paused ,then half to herself said, "At one time I had hoped love would be ..." Her voice trailed off, as the pain clutched at her heart again. It was becoming a familiar companion.
Matilda snorted. "Verliebt! Romantic Love! Never did believe in it―und I vas happier vith Jacob than most vomen I knew―than those that had rebelled against their parents' choices und married out of sheer fascination. That's all Verliebt iz." Matilda shook her cane at Anne. "Do not be a fool, Liebe."
The first year's crop of tobacco was taken by Peter to Galveston to be auctioned off, and on his return to Adelsolms Anne realized a healthy profit, though she by no means yet lived the life she had known as a child growing up on her father's sugar plantation.
The people of Adelsolms could not be kind enough to her, and she realized that her own initial aloofness was partly responsible for the mistrust that had been kindled between her and some of the German settlers. She was finally accepted as one of them. And she in turn was aiding the settlers indirectly by stimulating the town's trade. For with the spread of the news of her tobacco farm, people came from San Felipe, Washington-on-the-Brazos, and even as far as Brazoria to purchase the leaves for their pipes and cigars. It was from a farmer of Brazoria that she learned Dorothy and her steadfast Willie had married.
When another year had passed, and the harvest of her tobacco had made her even more profit than the year before, Anne still knew no contentment. The memory of Colin no longer hurt her as deeply as it once had, which surprised her. But there was an emptiness to her life that made each day a monotonous continuation of the one before.
The monotony was broken, however, one morning in August by the unexpected appearance of Ezra at her door. The giant swept her up in his arms, laughing. "It's true," he said. "You really did stay in Texas!"
"How did you know?" Anne asked, as her own laughter subsided.
"In Galveston they talk of a Scottish woman who lives inland and is making a fortune growing tobacco. It had to be you."
"And what brings you here besides my tobacco?" she asked, smiling fondly at the big man, as she made him sit in the rocker while she prepared coffee.
"You know Lamar has been elected to succeed General Sam. And I've been commissioned to help layout the town site for the new capital―it'll be called Austin. You know, miss, it'll be built near the old settlement of Waterloo."
Anne heard a deliberate pause in Ezra's speech and turned to look at him. "And?"
"And―well, it's not too many hours' ride from Brant's ranch."
There―Ezra had brought Brant's name out into the open. Anne set the coffee canister down. For more than a year she had put off thinking about Brant. "Brant made all too clear his opinion of me. He always thought the worst of me."
"And you him." Ezra leaned forward in the rocker. "Tell me, did you ever ask your Irishman where he got the money to have you abducted?"
Anne's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"
"The Kwahadi Comanches were paid to abduct you―and, if possible, kill your husband. No one else was to be harmed. And you were to be released a day or so later. To return to Donovan's open arms―or so our informant, a Kwahadi renegade, told us. Of course, Donovan didn't know that the Comanches would kill others here in their enthusiasm―or that Pa-ha-yu-quosh would decide to keep you."
Anne's knees grew weak, and she took a seat at the table. "But this―this renegade―he could be―"
"Lying? Possibly. But General Sam has suspected for sometime now that Donovan was behind the Indian uprisings―not just at Adelsolms, but in several scattered settlements. You see, there's a party in England, the Abolitionists, who were against recognizing Texas because we still practice slavery here. They were paying Donovan under the table to stir up Indian unrest about the country―enough unrest to make us look bad in the reports that got back to London. Fortunately, some of the other British politicians―General Hamilton of the British Navy and the British Minister at Mexico, Sir Pickenham or Packenham, whatever―they brought back better opinions about our Republic."
She did not―could not―believe it. And yet she knew the brain behind Colin's boyish face operated more shrewdly than people realized. Still, she made a halfhearted attempt. "I suppose there is proof of this charge?"
Ezra shrugged his massive shoulders. "General Sam has it. But I wouldn't have said anything except it 'peared to me you'd already made up your mind about Donovan. While I'm still on the subject, I think you should know that Brant never took any reward money from Donovan. I don't think you ever understood Brant."
Ezra tugged at his beard with embarrassment. "Didn't mean to run off at the mouth so. Just sort of wanted to set the record straight."
xxx
At the top of the rise, Anne reined in her horse alongside Ezra's. Her steed had been a good one, a strong one that had carried her easily through forests filled with tangled undergrowth and rocky passes where few men had traveled. It had taken four days, and now that she was here, looking down on Brant's cabin, she cravenly temporized.
"Perhaps he isn't there," she told Ezra.
Ezra grinned knowingly. "You haven't learned much about the frontier if you can't read signs." He pointed to the thin, faint ribbon of smoke that curled upward from the chimney.
"Are you sure you won't stay, Ezra? At least for a day or so―until you've rested?"
"Nope. I don't like to horn in on reunions. Besides, before I go to Austin, I've got a reunion myself I want to make―with a little hellcat in San Antonio."
Anne's brows arched upward. "I had no idea you had a sweetheart, Ezra."
"I didn't. But on my last trip to San Antonio I was able to make Celia realize she needed a man my age to take her in hand."
"Celia?" Anne smiled, happy for the scout. "Then she's given up her adoration of Brant?"
"I sure hope so." He cocked his head at her. "And you?"
"My adoration's just beginning―if he'll have me."
"There's only one way to find out."
The horse danced nervously under Anne as Ezra wheeled his own mount around and headed back down the rise toward the south and San Antonio. Anne waited until he had topped the next hill and descended out of sight before she kneed her horse forward. The nearer she got to the cabin, the harder her heart pounded.
She dismounted and slowly approached the door. It squeaked on its hinges when she pushed it open. After her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she realized the cabin was empty. What if Brant had also ridden south to San Antonio? But no, he was not careless. He would have banked the fire. And there was a rabbit roasting on the spit.
She could look back now without the pain of the memory of Colin and see how Brant had always been there when she needed him. Her lips formed a smile when she recalled how Brant had arranged for Colin's baggage to be scattered by the In
dians when she had been about to run off with Colin ...and pride at Brant's courage when he had walked into Iron Eyes' camp alone to claim her ...and above all else she felt an overwhelming amazement that Brant had continued to love her despite the many times she had rejected that love out of blind infatuation for a man who never existed except in her own creation of her mind. She had endowed Colin with traits he had never possessed.
Fear caused her stomach to sink when she realized that Brant might not feel the same after all that had transpired between them. Would he―could he still want her?
Oh how she longed to feel those insistent lips against her once more, to feel the strength of his arms enfolding her in his love.
There was only one other place she knew to look.
She ran from the cabin and swung up on the horse, digging her heels into his flanks. Her hair streamed out behind her, tossed by the wind. Her blood pumped furiously, and her mind raced wildly with what she would say to him. Any number of things, and none seemed appropriate.
In less than five minutes she was within sight of the oak―and Brant. The horse reared on two legs as she jerked back sharply on the reins. For eternal seconds she watched Brant as he worked. The sunlight glanced off the axehead he swung, glistened off the sweat that coated his muscled shoulders and arms. He had started work on a house. For another woman―or had he expected her?
He did not pause from his work nor look up, but she knew he was aware of her presence. He was too much of an Indian not to have detected it.
All her life she had tried to behave bravely, had tried to follow the example set by her parents. And she would be no less brave now. She would find out now if she had forfeited her one chance for true happiness. Taking a deep breath to still the trembling in her limbs, she dismounted and walked the distance that separated her from Brant. Only then did he pause, leaning his hands on the axe's wooden shaft. His eyes, those fathomless Indian eyes, swept over her, then returned to the center of her face, especially her eyes, as if to read her thoughts. "You've decided what it is you want?" It was more a statement than a question.
"Aye."
"There is something you have to know, Annie. Twice I've kept you―against your will. But that isn't what I wanted to say. I wanted to tell you―"
She came into his arms. "I already know. I was foolish not to have known sooner. A man that keeps a woman with him―as you have me―must love her. And I know that where you are is where I want to be."
Bonds, Parris Afton Page 22
