by Diana Palmer
John laughed. “I have a former slave family working with me,” he explained. His face tautened. “If you could see the scars they carry, even the children, you might understand my position even better.”
The deputy nodded. “I do understand. If you have any further trouble,” he told Ellen, “I am at your service.” He tipped his hat and went back to his horse.
“You are a man of parts, Mr. Jacobs,” Ellen told John, her blue eyes soft and approving. “Thank you for your help.”
He shrugged. “I was thinking of Isaac’s oldest boy who died in Georgia,” he confessed, moving closer as the crowd melted away. “Isaac is my wrangler,” he added. “His first son was beaten to death by an overseer just before the end of the war.”
She stood staring up into his lean, hard face with utter curiosity. “I understood that all Southerners hated colored people.”
“Most of us common Southerners were in the fields working right beside them,” John said coldly. “We were little more than slaves ourselves, while the rich lived in luxury and turned a blind eye to the abuse.”
“I had no idea,” she said hesitantly.
“Very few northern people do,” he said flatly. “Yet there was a county in Georgia that flew the Union flag all through the war, and every attempt by the confederacy to press-gang them into the army was met with open resistance. They ran away and the army got tired of going back to get them again and again.” He chuckled at her surprise. “I will tell you all about it over tea, if you like.”
She blushed. “I would like that very much, Mr. Jacobs.”
He offered his arm. She placed her small hand in the crook of his elbow and let him escort her into the hotel’s immaculate dining room. He wondered if he should have told Graham about the Comanche tracks he’d found on his place. He made a note to mention it to the man when he next saw him.
* * *
ELLEN LIKED THE LITHE, rawboned man who sat across from her sipping tea and eating tea cakes as if he were born to high society. But she knew that he wasn’t. He still had rough edges, but even those were endearing. She couldn’t forget the image she had of him, standing in front of the frightened boy, daring the attacker to try again. He was brave. She admired courage.
“Did you really come to see my father to inquire about my welfare?” she asked after they’d discussed the war.
He looked up at her, surprised by her boldness. He put his teacup down. “No,” he said honestly.
She laughed self-consciously. “Forgive me, but I knew that wasn’t the real reason. I appreciate your honesty.”
He leaned back in his chair and studied her without pretense. His green gaze slid over her plain face, down to the faint thrust of her breasts under the green and white striped bodice of her dress and up to the wealth of dark hair piled atop her head. “Lies come hard to me,” he told her. “Shall I be completely honest about my motives and risk alienating you?”
She smiled. “Please do. I have lost count of the men who pretended to admire me only as a means to my father’s wealth. I much prefer an open approach.”
“I inherited a very small holding from my uncle, who died some time ago.” He toyed with the teacup. “I have worked for wages in the past, to buy more land and cattle. But just recently I’ve started to experiment with crossing breeds. I am raising a new sort of beef steer with which I hope to tempt the eastern population’s hunger for range-fed beef.” His eyes lifted to hers. “It’s a long, slow process to drive cattle to a railhead up in Kansas, fraught with danger and risk, more now than ever since the fear of Texas fever in cattle has caused so much resistance to be placed in the path of the cattle drives. My finances are so tight now that the loss of a single calf is a major setback to me.”
She was interested. “You have a plan.”
He smiled. “I have a plan. I want to bring a railroad to this area of south Texas. More precisely, I want a spur to run to my ranch, so that I can ship cattle to Chicago without having to drive them to Kansas first.”
Her eyes brightened. “Then you had no real purpose of inviting my father to hunt quail on your ranch.”
“Miss Colby,” he said heavily, “my two foremen and their families live with me in a one-room cabin. It looks all right at a distance, but close up, it’s very primitive. It is a pretend mansion. As I am a pretend aristocrat.” He gestured at his suit coat. “I used the last of my ready cash to disguise myself and I came into town because I had heard that your father was here, and that he had a marriageable daughter.” His expression became self-mocking when she blinked. “But I’m not enough of a scoundrel to pretend an affection I do not feel.” He studied her quietly, toying with a spoon beside his cup and saucer. “So let me make you a business proposition. Marry me and let your father give us a railroad spur as a wedding present.”
She gulped, swallowed a mouthful of hot tea, sat back and expelled a shocked breath. “Sir, you are blunt!”
“Ma’am, I am honest,” he replied. He leaned forward quickly and fixed her with his green eyes. “Listen to me. I have little more than land and prospects. But I have a good head for business, and I know cattle. Given the opportunity, I will build an empire such as Texas has never seen. I have good help, and I’ve learned much about raising cattle from them. Marry me.”
“And…what would I obtain from such a liaison?” she stammered.
“Freedom.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your father cares for you, I think, but he treats you as a liability. That gentleman,” he spat the word, “who was escorting you stood idly by when you fell in a mud puddle and didn’t even offer a hand. You are undervalued.”
She laughed nervously. “And I would not be, if I married a poor stranger and went to live in the wilds where rustlers raid?”
He grinned. “You could wear pants and learn to ride a horse and herd cattle,” he said, tempting her. “I would even teach you to brand cattle and shoot a gun.”
Her whole demeanor changed. She just stared at him for a minute. “I have spent my entire life under the care of my mother’s mother, having lost my own mother when I was only a child. My grandmother Greene believes that a lady should never soil her hands in any way. She insists on absolute decorum in all situations. She would not hear of my learning to ride a horse or shoot a gun because such things are only for men. I have lived in a cage all my life.” Her blue eyes began to gleam. “I should love to be a tomboy!”
He laughed. “Then marry me.”
She hesitated once again. “Sir, I know very little of men. Having been sheltered in all ways, I am uneasy with the thought of…with having a stranger…with being…”
He held up a hand. “I offer you a marriage of friends. In truth, anything more would require a miracle, as there is no privacy where I live. We are all under the single roof. And,” he added, “my foremen and their families are black and Mexican, not white.” He watched for her reactions. “So, as you can see, there is a further difficulty in regard to public opinion hereabouts.”
She clasped her hands before her on the table. “I would like to think about it a little. Not because of any prejudice,” she added quickly, and smiled. “But because I would like to know you a little better. I have a friend who married in haste at the age of fifteen. She is now twenty-four, as I am. She has seven living children and her husband treats her like property. It is not a condition which I envy her.”
“I understand,” he said.
The oddest thing, was that she thought he really did understand. He was a complex man. She had a sudden vision of him years down the road, in an elegant suit, in an elegant setting. He had potential. She’d never met anyone like him.
She sighed. “But my father must not know the entire truth,” she cautioned. “He has prejudices, and he would not willingly let me go to a man he considered a social inferior.”
His thin lips pursed amusedly. “Then I’ll do my utmost to convince him that I am actually the illegitimate grandson of an Irish earl.”
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br /> She leaned forward. “Are there Irish earls?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea. But, then, he probably has no idea, either.” His eyes twinkled.
She laughed delightedly. It changed her face, her eyes, her whole look. She was pretty when she laughed.
“There is one more complication,” he said in a half-serious tone.
“Which is?”
His smile was outrageous. “We have lots of mud puddles at the ranch.”
“Oh, you!” she exclaimed, reaching for the teapot.
“If you throw it, the morning papers will have a more interesting front page.”
“Will it? And what would you do?” she challenged brightly.
“I am uncivilized,” he informed her. “I would put you across my knee and paddle your backside, after which I would toss you over my shoulder and carry you home with me.”
“How very exciting!” she exclaimed. “I have never done anything especially outrageous. I think I might like being the object of a scandal!”
He beamed. “Tempting,” he proclaimed. “But I have great plans and no desire to start tongues wagging. Yet.”
“Very well. I’ll restrain my less civilized impulses for the time being.”
He lifted his teacup and toasted her. “To unholy alliances,” he teased.
She lifted hers as well. “And madcap plots!”
They clicked teacups together and drank deeply.
* * *
IT WAS UNSEEMLY FOR THEM to be seen going out of town alone, so Ellen was prevented from visiting John’s ranch. But he took her to church on Sunday—a new habit that he felt obliged to acquire—and promenading along the sidewalk after a leisurely lunch in the hotel.
The following week, John was a frequent visitor. He and Ellen became friends with an elegant Scottish gentleman and his wife who were staying at the hotel and taking the waters, while they toured the American West.
“It is a grand country,” the Scotsman, Robert Maxwell, told Ellen and John. “Edith and I have been longing to ride out into the country, but we are told that it is dangerous.”
“It is,” John assured him grimly. “My partners and I have been tracking rustlers all week,” he added, to Ellen’s surprise, because he hadn’t told her. “There are dangerous men in these parts, and we have rustlers from across the border, also.”
“Do you have Red Indians?” Maxwell exclaimed. His eyes twinkled. “I would like to meet one.”
“They’re all in the Indian Territory now, and no, you wouldn’t like to meet one,” John said. “The Comanches who used to live hereabouts didn’t encourage foreign visitors, and they had a well-deserved reputation for opposing any people who tried to invade their land.”
“Their land?” the Scotsman queried, curiously.
“Their land,” John said firmly. “They roamed this country long before the first white man set foot here. They intermarried with the Mexican population….”
Maxwell seemed very confused, as he interrupted, “Surely there were no people here at all when you arrived,” he said.
“Perhaps they don’t know it back East, but Texas was part of Mexico just a few decades back,” John informed him. “That’s why we went to war with Mexico, because Texas wanted independence from it. Our brave boys died in the Alamo in San Antonio, and at Goliad and San Jacinto, to bring Texas into the union. But the Mexican boys fought to keep from losing their territory, is how they saw it. They considered us invaders.”
Ellen was watching John covertly, with quiet admiration.
“Ah, now I understand,” the Scot chuckled. “It’s like us and England. We’ve been fighting centuries to govern ourselves, like the Irish. But the British are stubborn folk.”
“So are Texans,” John chuckled.
“I don’t suppose you’d go riding with us, young man?” Maxwell asked him wistfully. “We should love to see a little of the area, and I see that you wear a great pistol at your hip. I assume you can shoot any two-legged threats to our safety.”
John glanced at Ellen and saw such appreciation in her blue eyes that he lost his train of thought for a few seconds.
Finally he blinked and darted his green gaze back to the foreigners, hoping his heartbeat wasn’t audible.
“I think I’d like that,” John replied, “as long as Ellen comes with us.”
“Your young lady,” the Scotswoman, Nell Maxwell, added with a gentle, indulgent smile.
“Yes,” John said, his eyes going back to Ellen’s involuntarily. “My young lady.”
Ellen blushed red and lowered her eyes, which caused the foreign couple to laugh charmingly. She was so excited that she forgot her father’s admonition that she was not to leave the hotel and go out of town. In fact, when she recalled it, she simply ignored it.
* * *
THEY RENTED A SURREY and John helped Ellen into the back seat before he climbed up nimbly beside her. He noted that it was the best surrey the stable had, with fringe hanging all the way around, and the horses’ livery was silver and black leather.
“I suppose this is nothing special for you,” John murmured to her, looking keenly at the horses’ adornments, “but it’s something of a treat for me.”
Ellen smoothed the skirt of her nice blue suit with its black piping. “It’s a treat for me, too,” she confessed. “I had very much wanted to drive out in the country, but my father only thinks of hunting, not sightseeing, and he dislikes my company.”
“I like your company very much,” John said in a deep, soft tone.
She looked up at him, surprised by the warmth in his deep voice. She was lost in the sudden intensity of his green eyes under the wide brim of his dress hat. She felt her whole world shift in the slow delight it provoked.
He smiled, feeling as if he could fly all of a sudden. Impulsively his big, lean hand caught hers on the seat between them and curled her small fingers into it.
She caught her breath, entranced.
“Are you two young people comfortable?” Maxwell asked.
“Quite comfortable, thank you, sir,” John replied, and he looked at Ellen with possession.
“So am I, thank you,” Ellen managed through her tight throat.
“We’ll away, then,” Maxwell said with a grin at his wife, and he flicked the reins.
The surrey bounded forward, the horses obviously well chosen for their task, because the ride was as smooth as silk.
“Which way shall we go?” Maxwell asked.
“Just follow the road you’re on,” John told him. “I know this way best. It runs past my own land up to Quail Run, the next little town along the road. I can show you the ruins of a log cabin where a white woman and her Comanche husband held off a company of soldiers a few years back. He was a renegade. She was a widow with a young son, and expecting another when her husband was killed by a robber. Soon after, the Comanche was part of a war party that encountered a company of soldiers trailing them. He was wounded and she found him and nursed him back to health. It was winter. She couldn’t hunt or fish, or chop wood, and she had no family at all. He undertook her support. They both ran from the soldiers, up into the Indian Territory. She’s there now, people say. Nobody knows where he is.”
“What a fascinating story!” Maxwell exclaimed. “Is it true?”
“From what I hear, it is,” John replied.
“What a courageous young woman,” Ellen murmured.
“To have contact with a Red Indian, she would have to be,” Mrs. Maxwell replied. “I have heard many people speak of Indians. None of what they say is good.”
“I think all people are good and bad,” Ellen ventured. “I have never thought heritage should decide which is which.”
John chuckled and squeezed her hand. “We think alike.”
The Maxwells exchanged a complicated look and laughed, too.
* * *
THE LOG CABIN was pointed out. It was nothing much to look at. There was a well tucked into high grass and briar bushes, and a single
tree in what must once have been the front yard.
“What sort of tree is that?” Mrs. Maxwell asked. “What an odd shape.”
“It’s a chinaberry tree,” John recalled. “We have them in Georgia, where I’m from. My sisters and I used to throw the green berries that grow on them back and forth, playing.” He became somber.
“You have family back in Georgia?” Ellen asked pointedly, softly.
He sighed. “I have a married sister in North Carolina. No one else.”
Ellen knew there was more to it than just that, and she had a feeling the war had cost him more than his home. She stroked the back of his callused hand gently. “Mama died of typhoid when I was just five. So except for Papa and Grandmother, I have no one, either.”
He caught his breath. He hadn’t thought about her circumstances, her family, her background. All he’d known was that she was rich. He began to see her with different eyes.
“I’m sorry, about your family,” she said quietly.
He sighed. He didn’t look at her. Memories tore at his heart. He looked out beyond the horses drawing the surrey at the yellow sand of the dirt road, leading to the slightly rolling land ahead. The familiar clop-clop of the horses’ hooves and the faint creak of leather and wood and the swishing sound of the rolling wheels seemed very loud in the silence that followed. The dust came up into the carriage, but they were all used to it, since dirt roads were somewhat universal. The boards that made the seats of the surrey were hard on the backside during a long trip, but not less comfortable than the saddle of a horse, John supposed.
“Do you ride at all?” he asked Ellen.
“I was never allowed to,” she confessed. “My grandmother thought it wasn’t ladylike.”
“I ride to the hounds,” Mrs. Maxwell said, eavesdropping, and turned to face them with a grin. “My father himself put me on my first horse when I was no more than a girl. I rode sidesaddle, of course, but I could outdistance any man I met on a horse. Well, except for Robert,” she conceded, with an affectionate look at her husband. “We raced and I lost. Then and there, I determined that I needed to marry him.”
