by Ryan, Nan
Aloud, Angie said to the draped form, “Why, Papa? Why did you wait so long? Why did you never tell me you loved me? You were wrong, Papa! You should have told me. You should have let me know long ago.”
Her anger grew and Angie didn’t try to fight it. It was a healthy anger and she realized it. Not the harmful, useless anger that destroys the soul, but a helpful, cleansing anger that made her feel that she was not the only one that made mistakes, that she was not a bad girl and that she had every right to be disappointed in her dead father.
Angie rose tiredly from her chair and addressed him. “I think I shall go topside, Papa, and get a breath of fresh air. I shall return shortly. When we reach port, I shall see to your burial, Papa. Galveston will be your resting place because I cannot take you across Texas to Barrett McClain’s home.” Angie paused at the door and her hand trembled on the knob. She looked at her departed father’s body and whispered meekly, “I promised you I’d marry Barrett McClain and I will.”
ANGIE TOOK THE OFFERED FAN from the rotund, bearded, rum-soaked man seated opposite her. Feeling as though her entire eighteen years had been spent upon this chugging, crowded train snaking westward across an unending land called Texas, Angie fanned the hot, sultry air in front of her warm face and smiled at the perspiring, aged man whose belly was so big he could button only the top button of his gaudy waistcoat.
“You’re so kind,” she said, smiling at him. “I had no idea it would be so warm at this time of year.” Emerald eyes went back to the train’s open window. Marveling aloud at the immense size of the state, Angie said, “Can it truly be that we are still in Texas, sir?” It had been days since she’d boarded the train in Galveston, and moving from that lowland, humid place, much like her home in New Orleans, she’d seen the landscape gradually change from the green, coastal shoreline to the timbered, verdant woodlands of Houston. On through the beautiful hill country they had trekked, slowly gaining elevation. With each passing hour the vegetation grew sparser, the air thinner, the train warmer.
“I assure you, ma’am, we’re still in Texas. It’s a long way yet to the westernmost tip of the Lone Star State!” He hiccuped loudly.
Angie shifted her gaze to the smiling, red-faced man who had boarded the train at its last stop, a tiny quiet town called Comstock. “Hopefully I’m not going that far. Perhaps you can tell me. Marfa, Texas, is my destination. Will we soon be there?”
“Well, ma’am, it’s not more than another two hundred miles to Marfa, you’ll be there before you know it!”
Despair threatening to overcome her, Angie sighed. “Two hundred miles! I feel as if I’ve already traveled a thousand.”
The fat man chuckled. “Why, I doubt it’s more than six hundred miles from Galveston to Marfa.” His blue eyes sparkled with merriment; he was obviously proud of the enormous size of his adopted state. Seeing her dismay, he softened and added, “I know you must be real weary and uncomfortable. Tomorrow will be better for you. You’ll gain elevation then and it should be cooler.”
Angie tried to smile. “Forgive my complaining, sir.” She couldn’t help but notice the rivulets of perspiration running down his ruddy, creased cheeks. “Would you like your fan back?”
“No, you can keep it, miss. I haven’t far to go.”
“Oh? Then you’re not traveling as far as Marfa?”
“I’ll be leaving you at the next stop, my dear. I don’t like to get too far from home anymore.” His big belly shook with laughter as though he’d said something amusing.
“Hmm,” was Angie’s tired reply as her eyelids began to droop in the noonday heat. Soon she was dozing, her blond head back against the wooden seat, the fan still clutched in her fragile fingers. She slept until the abrupt lurching of the train jarred her awake. The man who’d been seated across from her was gone. He stood outside now on the wooden platform, shaking hands with two cowboys beneath a boldly painted sign declaring the railroad stop to be Langtry, Texas.
Yawning, Angie pushed unruly hair from her face and leaned up to the window. “Sir,” she called to the chubby man laughing in the sun, “do you wish your fan back?”
Shuffling to the idling train, the short, red-faced man stuck a beefy hand through the window to her. “No, miss,” he said and shook her small hand. “You keep it. And you have a fine life in Marfa. You ever get back down here to Langtry, you come to visit me, you hear?”
“I will,” she answered smiling at the friendly, grinning man. “Who shall I ask for?” The train’s wheels began to rotate slowly.
Pulling his hand from hers, the jolly fellow said, “Bean, ma’am. Judge Roy Bean.” He gave a hearty laugh and winked at her. The tipsy, sweat-drenched old man didn’t know that his illustrious name meant absolutely nothing to the sheltered girl from New Orleans, Louisiana.
When the train finally puffed into the small, sleepy settlement of Marfa, Texas, Angie felt her spirits sag. The entire town consisted of a huge, imposing courthouse built in the Victorian manner and a few scattered wooden buildings housing saloons, a livery stable, a dry goods store and a blacksmith shop. The newly built courthouse was the only permanent-looking part of Marfa. Everything else about the community looked as though it had been hurriedly thrown up the day before and would be disassembled at nightfall.
For a girl from a tree-shaded old street in the glorious crescent city on the Mississippi River, Marfa, Texas was a bitter pill to swallow. Her heart sinking to her knees, Angie stepped down onto the wooden platform and squinted in the blinding sun. In a flat, high basin of mesquite and cactus, Marfa was set in the middle of nowhere. Angie Webster wondered silently why the city was built here in the vast nothingness when, in every direction she looked, tall, cool-looking mountains shimmered in the dazzling sun.
“Señorita Webster?” A tall, smiling youth was bowing to her.
“Yes,” Angie replied. She looked at him, then all around, wondering who he was and where Barrett McClain was waiting.
“I am Jose Rodriguez, Miss Webster, and this is my father, Pedro.” He indicated a slim, smiling brown man with a huge sombrero clasped to his white shirtfront, standing beside him. “We are here to take you and Señor Webster to Tierra del Sol, the rancho of Señor Barrett McClain.”
Realizing finally that Barrett McClain hadn’t come to Marfa to meet her because he did not yet know of her father’s death, Angie explained. “Mr. Webster, my father, passed away in Galveston. Thank you both for coming to meet me.”
Jose, much stronger than he looked, easily loaded her valises into a waiting buckboard and reached for her, grinning shyly, his face flushing beneath his dark complexion. Angie’s face flushed also as she put her hands on his slim shoulders and let him lift her up into the leather-padded seat. Within minutes the three of them were leaving the scattered buildings of Marfa behind and Angie looked around eagerly for the ranch that was to be her new home.
“Pedro,” she inquired, “is the ranch … is Tierra del Sol near here?”
“Oh, sí,” he assured her, “is twelve miles north.”
“Twelve miles?” She couldn’t hide her exasperation. “But that’s … that isn’t very close.”
Undaunted, Pedro grinned happily, “Is near. Is very near.”
Young Jose Rodriguez smiled at her. “I’m afraid my father’s English is not the best, nor his judgment of what is near. To you twelve miles must seem a great distance. Here in Texas we do not consider it far.”
Angie adjusted the crown of her bonnet. “I guess I have a lot to learn about Texas, Jose. I will need your help.” She spoke with childlike honesty.
With a boyish bluntness, Jose nodded his dark head. “Señorita, I think you will have all the help you need. It is not often we see a girl of such fair beauty.” Again his dark face flushed.
Shocked by such brash behavior, Angie was nevertheless delighted with his flattering words. Blushing prettily, she said, “Why, thank you, Jose,” and thought to herself that Barrett McClain would probably be upset if he knew the yo
ung man he’d sent to fetch her was seated beside her passing compliments on her visage. That thought took the smile from her face as the purpose for her journey swept in to overwhelm her. She, Angie Webster, had left her home in New Orleans to marry a man she’d never seen! She was to spend the rest of her days out here in this barren, remote land with a stranger older than her dead father. Suddenly overcome with painful homesickness, Angie clutched her hands together and looked straight ahead.
Straight ahead at the bleak landscape and brilliant blue sky with no hint of a cloud anywhere in sight. Straight ahead to the majestic mountains on the horizon, their jagged slopes a cool bluish hue under the west Texas sun. Straight ahead to the unseen destination where her future waited—a future as uncharted and frightening as this wild, untamed land whose vast scope held the essence of abandoned freedom at the same time as a cloying closeness of choking, never-ending confinement.
Confinement or freedom. This strange, new land held the promise of one or the other, and Angie wondered which it was to be for her. Would she be a prisoner in this desolate, unending country, held by the legal constraint of an ordered marriage to a jealous, incarcerating old man? Or would she find, at long last, the glorious freedom of a new, unrestrained, adventurous life in a land as young and liberated as any on earth?
Within her young breast beat a hopeful heart. She inhaled deeply of the thin air and sat a bit straighten. This is to be my home, she said silently, eyes sweeping the horizon. And I shall be happy here. I shall never look back; I’ll look ahead. It will be freedom, not confinement, I’m certain of it!
Chapter Six
THE HORSE-DRAWN BUCKBOARD bumped along, the turning of its wheels transporting Angie Webster ever closer to her destiny. Angie, exhausted from her long journey and lulled by the monotony of the barren landscape, felt her eyelids drooping and thought how very pleasant it would be if, when she reached Tierra del Sol, she were allowed to lie down and spend the remainder of the afternoon napping.
Angie blinked, then closed her left eye. Rubbing it gingerly, she felt an intruding grain of sand painfully scraping her iris. From his trouser pocket, young Jose hurriedly yanked a clean white handkerchief, handing it to Angie. “SeñOrita, please, accept my handkerchief.”
“Thank you, Jose.” She dabbed at her itching eye, but before she could free the orb of the foreign object, abrasive bits of sand were stinging her cheeks. With one eye covered, she looked around in confusion. Air that had been crystal clear only moments before was now a golden curtain of sand obscuring the northern hojizon. The still, thin air had changed to an ever-increasing blustery wind, blowing forcefully to the south, straight into the bewildered face of the young woman.
“Jose … Mr. Rodriguez … what is it? What is happening?” She felt her heart lurching. She lowered Jose’s handkerchief, her small hands clutching it tightly while she squinted at the dancing whirlwinds skipping across the desert floor in front of them.
Jose and Pedro Rodriguez simultaneously pulled their broad-brimmed sombreros lower, but Jose’s young voice was calm as he explained, “Señorita Webster, I am sorry. It is only a sandstorm, but it can be most unpleasant to be caught out in one.”
Through narrowed red eyes, she looked at the lad. “Sandstorm? Jose, have you seen this sort of thing before?”
Brilliant white teeth showed briefly, then Jose hurriedly closed his mouth as gritty sand crunched between them. Nodding his head, he grinned.
The winds rapidly increased in velocity, pulling more and more of the loose sand up into spinning vortices. The sand clogged the nose and throat, made eyes water and burn, bit at delicate skin, whipped loose hair around in tangles and filtered inside outer garments. Eyes closed, hands over her face, Angie shouted her distress. “Jose, this is terrible! We shall all surely perish. Isn’t there something we can do, someplace we can go to wait out the storm?”
Head bent against the punishing dirt-filled winds, Jose hated to disappoint her. “So sorry, Señorita Webster. Tierra del Sol is the nearest shelter from here. We will not perish. I have been in many storms much worse than this.”
From around his throat, Jose slid a blue silk bandanna, gallantly offering it to the frightened girl. Close to her ear, he said, “I will tie my bandanna around the lower part of your face. It will keep the sand out of your mouth.” Angie nodded gratefully and held the slippery, soft material in place while Jose tied a tight knot behind her head. “Better, no?” he asked hopefully.
“Yes,” she mumbled through the silk, “better.”
Pedro Rodriguez said not one word. Through the worsening reddish-yellow clouds of thick, choking dust, his dark eyes remained open, his wrinkled hands held firmly to the reins as he coaxed the frightened horses forward into the melee. Barrett McClain had trusted him to escort safely this beautiful young gringa to the huge McClain range, and he intended to do it. His concern was only for her; should one golden hair of her head be harmed, it would forever be upon his head.
Into the spinning whirlwinds they rode, each with his own thoughts, mutely moving through the drama of one of Mother Nature’s most disagreeable performances. Pedro Rodriguez thought no further than getting the young woman through the raging sandstorm to her destination. Young Jose Rodriguez’s thoughts swirled with the sand. How, he asked himself, could this girl, not much older than he, have agreed to marry Barrett McClain? Surely as fair as she was, there were many sweethearts courting her back in Louisiana. Why then would she travel all this way to become the wife of the stern and aging cattle baron?
Angie, her nose and mouth covered with the blue silk, kept her emerald eyes tightly shut and felt a familiar lump forming in her dry throat. She had left the verdant foliaged land of Louisiana to come to this dry wasteland a million miles from anything. Texas! She silently spat out the word. Already she hated this place called Texas. There was nothing here; nothing. Nothing but miles and miles of nothing. No trees. No wildflowers. No babbling brooks. No sweet-scented humid air. No stately homes on cobblestoned streets. There was only this choking, blinding wind and sand as far as the tortured eye could see.
It was too much for Angie. Tears welled up in her scratchy eyes and overflowed. They slid down her cheeks, mixing with the gritty sand and wetting the navy silk stretched across her lower face. The kindhearted male watched helplessly as the sad, frightened girl sobbed out her distress. Pedro’s eyes cut to her fleetingly, then returned to the horses. He could not even offer her words of comfort, because he knew too little English. He shook his graying head in desperation. Young Jose watched Angie intently and felt his heart swell with concern for this beautiful girl so alone, so far from home and so out of place in this desolate rugged land where sun and sand were ravaging her delicate white skin.
Without thought to his station in life, Jose impulsively put a long arm around Angie’s shaking shoulders and pulled her to him. When the crying girl gratefully buried her tear-stained, scarf-covered face in the curve of his neck and shoulder, Jose’s heart jumped and he boldly brought his other arm around her, pressing her close. Speaking in tones so low Angie could barely hear his words above the howling winds, Jose said sincerely, “Ah, señorita, it breaks Jose’s heart to see you weep. I curse this wretched wind and sand for making you so miserable.” His dark expressive eyes were on her face, and with a gentle touch he awkwardly wiped at her teary cheeks while his low, calming words continued. “It is not often this way, Angie. You will see, we have many beautiful days here in southwest Texas. You will see such sunsets as …”
Her tremulous voice muffled against his throat, Angie sobbed. “Oh, Jose, it is not only the sandstorm, it’s …”
A brown hand tightened on her shaking, slender shoulder and Jose watched, fascinated, as a long, shining lock of flaxen hair, loosed by the wind, blew around her oval face. “I know,” he said with wisdom beyond his sixteen years. “I understand, Angie. You do not want—”
Jose was interrupted by his father. Speaking in rapid Spanish, Pedro Rodriguez frantically
warned his sensitive son to say no more. Angie could understand little Spanish, so she had no idea that Pedro was telling Jose that he was behaving most unwisely, that it was improper for Jose to have his arms around the young lady who would soon be the wife of their employer. Angie knew that Pedro’s tone was stern, and she felt Jose’s slim body stiffen against her. It made her acutely aware of just how improperly she was behaving. Was that what Pedro Rodriguez was saying to his son? Was the kind old man shocked by her flinging herself into Jose’s comforting arms? Wordlessly, Angie raised her head. Jose’s long arms dropped from her and she sighed. She hated leaving the refuge of those arms, but she reminded herself what her papa would have said about such disgraceful conduct.
Through the spiraling sand still whirling about the buggy, Angie looked into Jose’s dark eyes. There she saw only honesty and kindness, and for the first time in her life, she defiantly said to her father’s spirit, “You are wrong, Papa. This boy is good and caring; he’s gentle and pure in heart, and I am also.” Her eyes crinkled with a grin, and to both Jose’s and Pedro’s great surprise, Angie flung her arms around the boy’s slim middle and laughed. Over her head, Jose looked helplessly at his father. Old Pedro read the meaning behind Angie’s innocent gesture and smiled. Jose nodded, happily wrapped his arm around Angie once again and laughed with her, though why she laughed, he wasn’t sure. But laugh she did, mindless of the punishing, biting sand turning the tracks of her tears to mud. Angie laughed with girlish abandon and found it felt very good. So good she brought up a hand to snatch away the blue bandanna from her face. Her laughter was infectious and the two Mexican men with her laughed, too.
Through the sandstorm the three laughing travelers drew within yards of the tall ranch gate leading into Tierra del Sol, though none realized it. Through the blinding sand they couldn’t see the towering white archway with the ranch’s name boldly displayed in hammered brass.
